A.N
Yes, I am my worst critic. I abandon whole concepts and ideas for stories just because I think they're awful when I'm assured that whereas they're… unusual, they're also quite good. I'm being made to hold on to one WIP in specific by RJAG even though I can't see it going anywhere good. Reading back on this even I cringe at some of the things I've done, but I'm too knee-deep in this (as well as loving it) to let it go.
As for the angst thing. Things will get better. But before they can get better, they have to get worse… as this chapter will show you. Bare with me again, this chapter follows in to the category of writing known as 'when the shit hits the fan' I believe.
Anyway, I wont make them suffer for eternity, the Captain and the Vulcan. Something good will happen soon… I hope.
……………
The air is sweet, fresh, laced with salt and a sunny Northward breeze on which it brings delicate accents of pine and tender vegetation. The sand, of a rich silvery-rose hue, is gently cooling after a warm day's batch of hot, lively crimson rays. The twin suns that begin to tuck in to the shimmering horizon, cast forth the last of their paling splashes of yellow across a docile azure sea. The sky is soon becoming a liquidly purple mist as powdery blue clouds become a velvety grey.
It is one month ago from the present day and the memories of a far better time are being played once again.
"I do not understand why you have brought me here Captain."
As her voice is caught up in a playful whirlwind of sea breezes his smile to her becomes soft and amused.
"We're not on duty right now Sub Commander. It's perfectly alright for you to call me Jonathan for the moment."
"Then on the same token I must remind you that my name is T'Pol and not 'Sub Commander'."
His laughter is carried away on the same rogue winds her question had become a part of, and then he is reminded of her query.
"True, true. Anyway, you missed out on our last visit to Risa, and even Vulcans need their time off. I came here on my last trip with Porthos just. It's quite because most visitors go to the amusement beaches, but I like it here and I thought you might too."
The scepticism in her eyes, the uncertainty of being here just for 'pleasure' is more than evident in her plain brown gaze. Again he smiles in the soft light of the sinking suns as he watches the doubt in her slight expression.
"Besides, I'd feel bad not to make some deal of your birthday."
The eighteenth of August. Earlier he had tried to explain to her what it meant that she was a 'Leo', her 'Star Sign' apparently. The concept however had been beyond her capability of reasoning with human illogic, or a branch of it known as 'mythology'.
"It is not customary to celebrate the date in which one is born amongst my people."
"Well it's not exactly customary for humans to meditate at night, but I've done that with you before."
"You asked that I help you with a bout of insomnia, I did not ask that you take me to Risa to mark the… occasion."
He finds cause to smile at the argument, and she turns her gaze to him, her brown quipping.
There is a sudden commotion at her feet, one that makes her look down quickly. His pet is there, a monstrous part of a dead Risan pine tree clamped tightly in his small jaw. His stubby paws are scraping her ankle lightly, his eyes eager and wanting.
"He wants you to throw it for him."
Her gaze raises graciously upwards again, the brow down but her expression questioning.
"He wants you to throw it so he can fetch it for you. It's a game you play with dogs sometimes. One he doesn't often get the chance at on Enterprise."
A muffled whine is prompting her from below to act, and long with him.
"Go on. Just toss it along the beach. He'll love you for it, and the whole ship's being waiting for you two to hit it off for the past seven years now."
Their mission was finally coming to an end.
Tentatively she bends down and the pet begins to leap from paw to paw. Quickly she retracts her hand back.
"No, it's okay, here."
He bends down with her and gives the dog a rough pat on the head, which evidently from his whipping tail he loves. Then he wraps his hand around one mossy end of the stick and retrieves it from his jaw.
Growing further excited he begins to bound back and forth on all four paws and suddenly comes crashing into her jutting knees, quickly steeling the tender balance held on the balls of her feet. She promptly tips backwards and lands on the cotton-like sand.
"Porthos!"
But the dog is far too entwined in his glee to take heed of the chide and, his little chest panting keenly, he begins to climb across her torso, his rough hot tongue running over her cheeks and tattered ears.
She does perhaps the most unexpected thing next and instead of letting him take the dog off her, she runs one smooth olive palm over his velvety head. Her fingers move slowly, jerkily as she is unsure at first, wondering if she would hurt him if she stroked across other parts of his small body. But in running her hand down his neck and back his tail only crashes back and forth quicker with each gentle stroke.
"Wish I had my camera."
Jonathan comes to her side, sitting with the stick abandoned at their feet. T'Pol allows Porthos to settle his head on her lap, and the blissful beagle allows her to carry on stroking behind his ears.
"I never could figure it out, but he always did like you."
Her brow rises again. "Oh?"
"Well I doubt you'd have noticed but he was always more obedient when you were in the room. He's more willing to give up his spot on the chair for you to sit on. Suppose he does that with Hoshi too, but she feeds him cheese."
He nods knowingly but she simply blinks in silence.
"So, home in three weeks. Feels like we were only just leaving space dock yesterday."
She can see the pain in his expression, and the bitterness in his smile. He does not want to go 'home'. He is an explorer, a discoverer, a traveller. He wants to spend his nights watching alien sunsets such as this one, and his days amongst the stars and species of outer space. He wants his ship under his feet and his crew at his side. He wants to be Captain Jonathan Archer of the Enterprise NX-01, not Admiral Archer of Starfleet, San Francisco. He wants to be flying, not grounded, and he wants to die carrying out the job he loves in his second home, not on Earth.
She wants to console him, but she does not know how. She knows when she returns back she is doomed for punishment because of her renegade ways. She dares not tell him this.
"It does seem an untimely end. But perhaps there will be a place for you on Columbia?"
Although his smile is still unfortunately tainted with a heart pounding sadness he smiles upon her with a warm gratefulness, almost a love that could only be expressed between two old friends.
"T'Pol…" his head shakes and she looks upon his with curiosity, "You know what I'm going to miss?"
She cannot answer his question so she says a quiet 'No' and this seems to give him reason enough to laugh.
"That. You. I'm going to miss having you as my First Officer. I'm going to miss having you always there beside me with the rest of my senior crew, having you prove me wrong about your people on every turn. Your balance of optimism and realism, the way you put Trip in his place, his face when you do it even. Seeing the way you've changed, and how you've changed me, and the crew. I'll miss how I don't mind opening up like this to you because you assure me that it's okay to do so."
She does not ever remember assuring him of 'opening up', but she can only assume it is one of those accidental influences that she had not meant to execute again. She does not comment.
"Well, happy birthday T'Pol. And lets hope it's not the last one we celebrate together."
Half a mile down the opulent sanded beach stands those who they are being watched by, five gushing sets of orbs willing them to sit closer, go further. Their urges are not answered but their smiles remain.
It is the doctor who looks most fascinated.
"You humans and your Vulcan counterparts may have more in common than you will every realise and admit."
Four brows dipped down at him. The Southerner speaks up for them.
"Ya forget doc', very few Vulcans are like T'Pol over there."
Phlox continues to smile through the argument.
"Ah, but how many humans find it easy to express what you would consider the more, ah… tender of emotions?"
They frown again, only this time to themselves.
"I believe our Captain is as unwilling to admit even to himself that he feels anything for our Sub Commander other than a friendship, just as any Vulcan would in the same situation. And I believe he is not alone in experiencing this illogical awkwardness."
The Southerner shifted uncomfortably. The linguist and Helmsman dared not to look at each other. Their Tactical Officer sits back in the warm sand, guiltlessly looking to the sky.
"You've learnt a lot about humans then I presume over these last seven years Phlox."
Phlox nods eagerly to the Englishman.
"Indeed. But I believe also that your Vulcan crewmate has learnt a spectacular amount more, she just keeps her findings to herself."
The tide comes in fast on the Risa shoreline, where the suns begins drop faster from grace in the sky. Already the purple-blue sea starts to crawl up the silvery beach, lapping inches away from their toes.
Jonathan rises stiffly and T'Pol finds his hand in front of her face. She accepts his chivalry and allows him to help her stand and together they take a few steps back from the coming water.
Immediately Porthos fetches up his stick again and throws them an insufferable look with his watery brown gaze.
"I think you better throw it for him."
The little beagle is practically on his back legs, his tail thundering away in the sand. T'Pol bends down again and carefully takes the rotting pine from his maw. She then cranks her arm back, the stump coming inches from Jonathan's nose before she wrenches it forward again and hurdles it into the crisp Risa evening.
Jonathan gawps at her tremendous effort. Porthos runs in utter glee. The three of them catch sight then of the five others crowded around a cluster of violet rocks. In perfect synch with them the five realise at the same time they have been spotted. Uselessly, T'Pol and Jonathan's brows already quipped accusingly, the group disappears guiltily behind the boulders. Porthos begins to hunt them out however.
Jonathan digs his hands into his trouser pockets, gazing upon T'Pol nervously all of a sudden. Donning a loose, and what Vulcans would consider 'casual' fuchsia robe with brown trousers underneath and trainer-shoes on her small feet, she looks very little like the Science Officer he is used to seeing aboard Enterprise. She looks almost… relaxed in a way that is foreign to her still rather stiff Vulcan nature. She is as herself, as is expressed through her informal attire, and Jonathan is unsure of how to look upon her now.
"So…"
There is a distant barking as Porthos finds Hoshi.
"There's this lovely boat cruise they have just after dusk here. They do a buffet aboard and there's even a vegetarian selection of food. I went on it last time I was here, alone. I think you'd enjoy it, if you'd like to join me."
He does not look hopeful. In the past she has never given him much reason to believe that now she will accept an invite to an event just for pleasure or amusement.
"Yes."
He does a sudden double take on her.
"Yes, I would like to join you," she reiterates, fearing he did not hear her first one-word answer.
He finds himself doing a triple take. She blinks confusedly at his astonished gaze.
"Did I say something wrong?"
He finally catches himself with a hash inner chide as he shakes his head to T'Pol.
"No, no not at all. I'm just, glad you want to come, that's all."
Finally he smiles as he relaxes somewhat. "So, shall we?"
He extends the crux of his elbow for her to take. She looks at it blankly. Slowly lowering it he knows it was asking for too much and smiles fondly instead.
As they walk off the five almost rise through the air in calibration. Porthos barks eagerly, sensing their excitement and believing it to be dinnertime. The Southerner stands triumphant and also, quiet sad.
"Ah knew it."
Travis shakes his head with his characteristically wide white smile.
"We know you knew it, we just needed to see it."
Trip spreads his palm out, signalling to the beach and the lone couple who walk together down it.
"Well, there ya go."
There was no denying it. Even if they could not see it, Jonathan and T'Pol were finally a new couple in love.
……………
There was no welcoming committee. No armed guards, no Andorians and certainly no Klingons. Just three resting shuttlepods, not including his own, himself and the walls and floor of the Cargo Bay around him.
The air was sweet and thick, too well recycled. He turned his nose up at it as he stepped out onto a warm grey floor. The heat in the bay was surprising, and grudgingly welcomed by the Captain.
Archer felt fear. He also felt rising anticipation and a dark eagerness to carry on out the one heavy steel door exit of the bay. He felt a reasonable nagging to have this over and done with as quickly and painlessly as possible. Reality mocked him.
In front of him the door opened suddenly, whirring mechanics spurring on the automated hinges as it moved inwards. No one was there though and he found he was more unnerved by the fact that this did not entirely bother him than by the fact that it appeared this ship was run by phantoms.
He carried on slowly, regardless. He had at least one rational line of thought to cling on to as he went, that kept him reasonable and level-headed to a degree – he was of no use to anyone if he ran in and got himself killed.
The corridor beyond the bay was blue, or more the beams of lights above his head were blue and cast an eerie reflection over the white walls and floor. It was meant, he guessed, to trick a façade of tranquillity and peace upon any passer-bys, but Archer felt nothing of it.
There was a deafening silence. Above all, this was what most caught his attention. He did not like it. His own breath hardly made a nervous whisper anymore as he exhaled slowly and his footsteps were mysteriously muffled along the steel floor.
The corridor before him was simple and straight. There were more steel doors on either side but no turn-offs or junctions until the end, which was quite a distance away. Here there was also a metallic tinge to the sweet air, and a sort of stale scent, one that smelled of cooked and then dried meat. It tasted no better in the nostrils than the heavy air did.
He had been standing at the beginning of the corridor for five minutes now and found it time he moved on. So he did.
Slow wary footsteps that hardly made a sound, silent bated breath; it was painfully obvious he was nervous.
Clenched fists and a heavy dark brow; it was also clear he was prepared for any fight that came his way.
Each steel door had a barred window. They offered snippets to the eye of the drab cells beyond. They were all empty as he walked by them cautiously, all but one.
He flinched slightly when he walked past the eighth door on his left. Sound was coming from within; a desperate whimper laden with tortured pain and sickening fear. Archer looked in, half expecting…
There was a Vulcan in the corner, but it was any Vulcan except T'Pol. In the shadows her filthy white skin glowed enigmatically and her limp blonde hair shimmered slightly. When Archer's silhouette fell upon her meek figure she looked up with blatantly terrified, yet stunning blue eyes. If not for her sharply tipped ears he would have thought she was human.
Seeing that he was she struggled to steady her shivering bloodied lips to talk. He stepped in before her with a soothing whisper to spare her the effort.
"I'll get you out of here, just hang on a little longer for me, okay?"
She nodded bravely and swallowed back a mouthful of warm blood. He smiled reassuringly but inside he was doubtful.
Reluctantly moving on he continued to silently trek down the putrid blue hallway. He figured the hapless Vulcan was the cause of the stale smell; she was caked with dry blood and scabs after all. But he was wrong.
He began to relate the smell to something. Strangely his mind was dragged back to the more light-hearted college years of his life. Dragged back to a time when he ran out his dorm bedroom sick after discovering three week old Chinese takeaway pork and noodles under his bed, left there after a particularly lazy night involving many takeout menus and beer. It was a time he'd rather have forgotten about but the smell in the air now was uncannily like the stench of that rotting pork, and Archer knew blood emitted from a still living body, no matter how weak, could ever smell that bad unless contaminated, so it could not be the pathetic Vulcan he had left behind.
He reached the T-junction of the corridor. The other cells had been quiet and empty. The structure of the corridor was not unlike the bridge corridor on Columbia. To his left was something akin to a turbo lift, only without the walls to structure a cylinder with. There was however a red platform on which to stand upon that could easily have taken five or six up and down the ship. Whether it went 'safely' was a question Archer did not want to contemplate.
To his right was another corridor with a grey dead-end and yet more neatly aligned cells. He opted, seeing as it seemed he was being left to do his own thing, to go right to investigate the other cells, only with little hope now of actually finding who he wanted. It was gut instinct alone that told him to take what appeared to be a wiser and more logical option, rather than test out the 'lift'.
As he moved again the smell grew. He could see the layers of carpet fluff on the dry college pork again, the sallow noodles around it already moulding. He could see his weak-stomached friend Tom gallop towards the nearest bathroom. He had hardly blamed him, felt tempted to follow him even. The real life smell of now would not let him go of this comic-horror memory. So he bared it.
It was unceasingly quiet down here too. The cells all had the same square barred windows which he continued to peer cautiously in to every couple of doors down. Again each appeared empty and dark, and again this was the case for all but one.
At the end of the branched-off corridor the eerie blue light became contaminated by the spilling glow of a lively orange hue from the window of the end cell. Archer tilted his head to the side very slightly and dipped his tall brow in a frown.
"Hello?"
He felt his voice almost drown in the heavy air. There was no answer from within the lit up cell. He would have been more surprised if he had gotten one.
"T'Pol?"
There was despair in his voice now, and a contradicting hopefulness that rose on a shaky pedestal. He knew he was being ridiculous, calling her name, but he wanted to say it anyway. He hadn't uttered that four letter word with the apostrophe in it since his outburst at Soval, (an irrational action that he still did not regret).
At only five doors down from the heavenly bask of orange Archer stopped walking for fear, namely, of what he would find, most likely the source for the putrid smell. It was continuing to grow uncomfortably stronger. He created utter silence around him as his footsteps came to a standstill. And then…
"Jonathan?"
He felt every muscle that helped him breathe seize up tight in his chest. His head spun and then, hopes rising fast, he lunged forward towards the orange cell.
He almost flattened himself on the steel lino for running so fast over so few yards, but grabbing on to the warm bars of the window he kept himself standing. The orange light brutally stung his eyes but he ignored the pain and forced the blindness away with rapid blinking lids.
Freezing cold fingers curled around the bars on top of his. A lithe and battered figure rose out from the burnt shadows and cast her silent gaze upon him. She bit back a smile and chocked back a sob.
"You sounded… worried when you called just there, as if you feared I might not still be alive. It surprises me that you are not able, after all these years, to gauge my determination to survive."
He rested his forehead between the bars in heart-pounding relief and closed over his eyes for a second, allowing her to continue in a sore voice.
"The Salan, the Pa'nar Syndrome, the Trillium, Tolaris, and many more I care not to recall. You, of all the crew aboard Enterprise who have gotten to know me well, should have known terrorist Andorians could not kill me."
Slowly his hazel gaze opened again and he could not help but break out into a smile as he looked upon her calm, bruised and bloodied face.
"Are you alright?"
A stupid question, he chides himself, but then he had thought he was being ridiculous calling out her name in the corridor just seconds ago.
"Yes."
It was exactly the lie he was expecting and she knew this, but they let it slide together.
Jonathan stepped back from the prison, surveying the door with an intense gaze. At his hip his phase pistol sat keenly, the setting already at kill. He eyed the panel on the wall beside the hinges.
"It requires a four-digit code."
She continued to gripped at the bars, obviously needing them for support, but she stood tall enough to avoid it looking as so. Keeping her breath tight and quiet through her nostrils he was very nearly fooled into thinking she was not as bad as she appeared, but it was understandable enough just from doing a double-take on her surface injuries that she had taken her fair share of negotiation beatings by now.
"This is too easy."
He reluctantly dropped his sights from the panel and loosened his hovering fingers on the handle of his pistol. T'Pol looked at him knowingly, fighting to keep rising disappointment and fright from her expression anyway, but failing miserably.
"No guards in the Cargo Bay, none here or anywhere in the corridor. Just me, you and that other poor Vulcan down there. They're waiting for us to make the first move, to give them something to work on, something to make an advantage out of."
T'Pol's brow quipped. "What other Vulcan?"
Looking back briefly at the junction Jonathan's face pained and he barely contained yet another churning sea of guilt and pity from inside the crux of his stomach.
"The one who it looks like they were more hopeful about getting something out of her rather than you, but didn't. Pale, blonde, strange looking actu—"
"T'Kai."
"What?"
"Her name is T'Kai. We will not be leaving here without her. There are no other logical choices here but to shoot open the panel. If you simply stand here and do nothing, then nothing will happen, good or bad. Bringing Yulae or Dulac up here however on our move may mean we can make good of a bad situation, something you seem to have the skills for doing anyway."
Twenty-four hours spent in a cell alone, he reasoned, would give anyone enough time to think of her escape route, fantasise of one even. Thus, he did not ask questions, except one.
"Yulae?"
A spill of colour drained from her already sallow cheeks. She found suddenly that eye contact was hard to keep and her throat turned viciously dry. He understood.
"The lead rebel."
She nodded, appreciating that he understood.
"Alright, stand back then."
He seized the gun tight again in his right hand and held it at arms length. She looked up with a strange, desperately hopeful gleam across her face and stepped to the side, creating formidable armour for herself from the inside wall without a panel.
His arm trembled slightly, and he didn't know why. He was wracked with anxiety and felt a back-of-the-throat shiver rush through his legs hard. For her sake though he grabbed himself and kept his aim and fire steady. The red beam seared through the panel effortlessly and the door wailed in a whirring of mechanics. It only opened fractionally but T'Pol forced herself with grit determination to fit through and she found herself stumbling in to Jonathan's waiting arms.
Embarrassed, and she didn't know why, she pulled away from him as soon as some amount of balance found her again and he looked on with a half-smile and a tearful eye. She didn't have time enough to realise the approaching embrace, and found herself caught up in his powerful, compassionate hold once again before she could protest. She doubted she would have objected it if she'd know anyway.
"You sure as hell know how to make a scene about disappearing. I don't suppose you could call this the last time before it becomes a habit though?"
She understood the relief that was expressed through his trembling humour, and could only apologise by doing just the same as she had back at the Compound space dock; return the embrace. It surprised him no less to feel her hands slide over his back as she willingly rested her cheek in his chest, and he no less appreciated it as he held on as tightly as he dared could to her undeniably bad physical state.
She eventually pulled away, an expression of pain knotted through her guilty gaze at having to break the sentimentality of the reunion. The squeezing of her broken and bruised ribs against his solid chest however was just a little too much to pay with simply to be physically close to someone.
"Wait."
As quickly as she realised something, she had disappeared through the cell's doorway again, leaving Jonathan to frown and stand worried and impatient in her wake.
"What is it?"
He watched through the window as she grabbed something from off a bloodied bench and tucked it into the tight belt of her filthy and torn beige jumpsuit: the photographs, although he was oblivious to this.
She made to move out again when suddenly she felt a sharp loss of breath and clutched desperately to her chest whilst doubling over, as if holding it would save her from coughing violently, which was just what she did next.
Jonathan panicked, then tried to force himself through the slim gap in the doorframe, but to no avail.
The Klingon timed his moment perfectly to appear now on the brig
Jonathan was given a first hand example of how the lift to his left worked. Before him a brilliant array of what could only be described as divine red dust began to form an abstract cylinder shape. From there it became almost humanoid in appearance, and then it grew in height before it produced limbs, a torso and lastly actually physical matter in which to make a body with. He had seen this strange, compelling sight before, once almost five years ago when waging defensive war against a handful of bullying Klingon marauders. The sight no less chilled him now than it did then.
To Jonathan all Klingons looked very near a carbon copy of the next with the exception of varying heights and lengths of beards. This one was an acceptation to his rule. With an unusually high-ridged brow and a deep brown scar carved in to his left temple Jonathan knew exactly who he was. He was the Klingon who wanted revenge for his deceased brother via the torture and death of the veteran Captain that was Jonathan Archer. His filthy, battle-worn hammer seemed to agree with that idea.
T'Pol forced down the urge to finish coughing until her lungs were good and done doing so. She looked up at Jonathan, his sudden silence arousing worry in her. He was not even looking at her anymore. Ignoring the awful pain as she had been taught all her life to do she walked back to the door and began to squeeze herself through again, working her way to asking what was wrong. This was when Jonathan finally remembered her again.
"No, no get back in, in!"
Through natural instinct alone, her entire body on the defence since she had been boarded on to this ship, when Archer moved to push her back in she pushed back out, and with surprising strength in her ramming shoulder. He found himself up against the opposite wall of the corridor.
Her common sense lost for now she did not think to look at what had grabbed his attention so horrifically, instead throwing herself through the ajar door and then down to the floor were Jonathan sat stunned more by her remaining strength than by what she had actually done.
"I apologise," she fought to keep her voice level, "you… startled me when—"
He grabbed her by both upper arms and threw her behind him, just as she caught on to the sound of thundering footsteps walking up the corridor.
"Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvamHoD Archer!"
Archer looked briefly back at a further still stunned T'Pol. She had been thrown in to the corner, and so he dutifully stood before her.
"Sir, he says it is a 'good day for you to die'. I would encourage that you defend yourself prior to myself, as I do not seem the prime target here."
Archer stood to disagree with both of them.
He held his pistol out again as the infuriated Klingon walked forward with a sickly smile plastered across his scarred and dirtied face, his hammer twirling and dancing skilfully before him. He obviously stood by what he said.
"A good day to die for me, eh? I'd rather not Dulac, and I'd rather you didn't either T'Pol."
He could see the Klingon did not have eyes for her, but he was hardly going to move away and leave her stripped of any line of defence.
The pistol was at kill. He found no moral problem in committing murder tonight. He aimed, he tensed his finger to fire, and suddenly, anticipating his actions Dulac hurdled his own weapon forward.
She knew when Yulae caught her again he would kill her, if not now then in a matter of a few days time. She knew even if Yulae did not kill her, if he simply held her prisoner forevermore, she would suffer far worse than she already had, and then die of whatever injuries or mistreatment he pressed on her. She knew if she was not taken off this ship soon and treated by a doctor, which seemed unlikely to happen within the next hour, she could very well die within a matter of reasonable time from her existing wounds anyway.
She knew Jonathan had a better chance than she could ever hold now. And she knew that part of her job subscription as a Captain's First Officer was to make sure that his life always came before hers. She valued that order specifically.
Jonathan had often been told by those who had suffered near-death experiences that time had a cheeky tendency to slow down as the events you think are going to kill you happen. That hammer could not have sliced through the air any faster. He could not have been moving any slower.
He felt a set of chipped fingernails scratch his back slightly as two hands grabbed his shirt and began to throw him forward and down. The weight of the palms was too much for him and he felt his knees cave in as the hammer charged forward closer. Seconds later he was on the floor, his chest winded as he hit the warm steel surface hard.
Those palms never came down with him. The pressure of them left as he fell forward, feeling the rush of wind the hurdled weapon created as it flew just past the tips of his fine head of hair. There was a heavy, connecting thud and then a crash behind him as something else crumpled to the ground with the hammer.
His heart stopped.
"No!"
It was not he who screamed, or even the Klingon, but the Andorian who had just materialised on the deck with them in a blaze of red dust.
"Dulac you idiot! She was this close to telling me about the Federation! And you killed her! I said you could have the Captain, and the Captain only. You—"
He faded fast into the background as Jonathan's body began to tremble. With his palms pressed firmly into the floor he began to leaver himself up, but only got to his knees. His back sagged and he felt the last meal he had eaten trickle up through his throat. In front of him the Klingon and the Andorian continued to bawl.
Jonathan felt himself beginning to say 'no' very quietly, before he called out his Sub Commander's peculiar Vulcan name in a hoarse whisper. There was no answer, so he began to turn.
There was a quiet whimpering noise that he had missed, drowned out by the argument now behind him. Something continued to thump against the floor, and he felt a warm liquid begin to soak his trouser bottoms and stick to his ankle.
She was convulsing and bleeding out from a gaping tear across her stomach. He could see she hand not been hit in any of the important organs that would kill her immediately, but she had been hit where she would in a matter of minutes pass away and find herself joining the past decease of the world.
Jonathan scrambled clumsily towards her and quickly gathered her up in his arms. He knew what he had just told himself was the ultimate and unarguable truth, but he twisted it so badly in his mind that he convinced himself if he got her to Phlox soon enough she could be saved. She herself knew better.
"D—don't bother."
He shook his head furiously at her, pressing his palm into the wide, growing wound as he tried to catch and stop the oceans of blood that pulsed out every few seconds.
"If T'Kai…" she frowned as if irritated at herself for having to stop and take a breath after every few syllables, and more irritated still that Jonathan tried to hush her, "If she is still… alive… take her to Phlox… and, help—help her find a permanent… place in Starfleet. She will… serve there well."
"No," he sounded like an infuriated child who had been refused his own way, "no, don't speak like that."
She might not have directly said she was all but ready to die, but she very much implied that rescuing and redeeming the poor, human-like Vulcan was her dying wish. She forced herself to carry on with her last words, ignoring the temptation to fade into the warm, welcoming darkness that crept up through the back of her mind.
"I think—" she coughed up a spill of sweet, salty blood as it crawled through and out the corner of her mouth, "I think… it might be too late, to say it… and I might be wrong…" his hand ran through her knotted hair and across her hot forehead as he whispered throughout the speech that she would be alright, "but I think… I might love you."
She frowned again, disorientated and light-headed, unsure of that really anymore, but knowing for whatever reason, she did have to say it. He made her look directly at him, locking their eyes just as hers began to glaze over. She wanted to hear what he had to say first though, so she kept the heavy lids opened a little.
"Well that's good, because I think I love you too. And when we get back to the ship together we can let Trip know he was right so he can rub it in, and then let Phlox—"
"No," she used very ebbing bit of strength to raise her soft hand to his flushed cheek, "no… You know Jonathan… that we will not be going back together. You know you have to leave… me and make sure this doesn't… happen to another. Get T'Kai out, and let my family know… I was sorry."
He didn't give her head time to loll back as he pulled her entire upper body into his heaving chest and buried his soaking cheeks into her coarse, warm hair, just as she took her last relieved breath.
She had gotten the reality across to him, and he hated her for it.
For hours he thought he sat and rocked back and forth with her slowly cooling body cradled in between his sprawled legs, her green blood dousing his shirt, his tears soaking her hair. He never wanted to uncurl himself from her. He never wanted to leave the last spot she had ever stood alive on. He never wanted to have to face his crew with this and he never wanted to have to pass that message on to her family.
A sympathetic hand fell upon his shoulder.
"It's alright Captain. This one I'll fix for you both."
When he looked up his world was green and blue, a shimmering azure sky and sweet tender grass flooding his waterlogged vision. The air was natural, the earth solid and the planet Earth. Before him lay the Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco, its magnificent red glory a blessed sight.
He was standing on earthly ground, dressed in a loose plain white t-shirt and navy blue jogging bottoms, the uniform he donned throughout most of his physical Starfleet training. He was on his own, except for the hand on his shoulder, and the person in which it belonged to.
"Daniels?"
He smiled, which was a funny expression for one who looked perpetually worried in a comic sort of way. He smiled with genuine sympathy though, and so the odd gleam in his eyes and twitch at the corners of his lips could be forgiven, or more overlooked.
"Don't worry about her Sir, she's safe."
Jonathan looked quickly down at his chest, then at the palms of his hands and his trouser bottoms. He was clean. No green Vulcan blood, no tear stains, no slight scratches on his back or small bruise on his elbow from when she had unwittingly hurdled him into the wall. No T'Pol.
"What the hell's happened now? Why are we in San Francisco and tell me T'Pol's not dead."
Daniels grimaced slightly and Jonathan's face grew dark and demanding.
"Well… yes. But that can be fixed, because it wasn't meant to happen, and well, someone made a big mistake making sure it did."
Shuttlecrafts and cars flew by them, heading for the bridge, all seeming to flock towards Starfleet's grand headquarters. Jonathan realised he was right next to a high street and just off the grassy knoll that they stood on was a walkway of shops and flats.
"I think, to explain to you a few things, we're going to have to take a walk."
Jonathan was heading towards a LCD newsstand on the curb of a pavement. He already had that idea firmly in his mind.
"Daniels," the time traveller followed behind rather meekly in the presence of the none-amused Captain, "you sure as hell better explain yourself, and you better do it fast."
A.N - Dun dun dun!!!!!