Day 14

Perhaps I should avoid him.

Ridiculous. How could she avoid him? They were on a shuttle traveling at warp six – a shuttle on which he was the only human – and they were headed to T'Pol's home. No, she couldn't avoid him. It would be a fruitless endeavor. Yet she didn't know how to proceed, now that he knew how she felt. He'd caught her off guard the day before, when he touched her face; she hadn't been prepared and therefore didn't have the time to throw up her mental barriers. Or maybe she had wanted him to find out and so had willingly allowed him entrance to her mind.

Perhaps he doesn't realize what transpired between us.

That thought was foolish hope. He may not have understood the depth of the interaction, but she could read his facial expressions with some expertise, and she knew recognition when she saw it. No, he knew what had happened, at least to some degree. She also knew, through the connection he had initiated, that he had identified at least a few of the emotions cascading from her brain – emotions that she had been unable to control since her exposure, and subsequent addiction, to Trellium-D.

Perhaps his attraction for me has dissipated.

She knew that was untrue the moment she thought it. She suspected that he had been attracted to her for some time, and something like that didn't just disappear – or even fade slowly. She didn't know how it was with him, but she'd been attracted to him from the beginning. When she walked into the captain's ready room before Enterprise's maiden voyage, she'd detected an unusual scent – an odd combination of engine oil, sugar, and testosterone. Having already met the captain, she knew it wasn't him. No, it was coming from the man who would have been second-in-command if not for her.

"I took a shower this morning. How 'bout you, Cap'n?" The voice came from behind her. She turned around…

…and came face to face with easily the most attractive male she had ever seen – human, Vulcan, Denobulan, any species. He was clearly angry, but she didn't care. The anger made him more volatile. More masculine. More exotic. More arousing. She could deal with anger.

She knew this must be the chief engineer, the man whose position on Enterprise she had usurped. It wouldn't do any good to argue that she had not volunteered for the assignment or that she didn't want to be there any more than they wanted her to be there. She knew how most humans viewed the Vulcans, and judging from the reaction in the room, these two were no different.

She stared at him, pretended to size him up, and held her breath. She wanted to make them think it was because she was trying to deal with the barrage of different odors, when in reality it was because she simply couldn't find her breath.

"I'm sorry," Archer said. "This is Commander Charles Tucker the third. Subcommander T'Pol."

Commander Tucker stood and walked over to her, sticking his hand out. "Trip," he said. "I'm called Trip."

She looked at his hand and seriously contemplated shaking it, though her people were not tactile beings. It was illogical, but she wanted to know how it felt to touch him, how strong his grip was, how smooth his skin was. She clamped the urge down immediately. She could not let him know that she was attracted to him.

"I'll try to remember that," she said. She turned away from him.

She had known from that moment that her relationship with the commander was going to be awkward. How could she maintain a working relationship with him when she was so attracted? Sometimes her desire was so strong that she snapped at him to cover her feelings. But when they argued, her desire heightened. It was almost as if their bickering was their own kind of foreplay. It had just lasted two and a half years.

T'Pol couldn't fight it much longer. As long as she and Trip were on this vessel, with nothing to distract them from each other or interrupt them, it was only inevitable that they would find themselves in another intimate encounter. Given their level of attraction to each other, it was unavoidable.

But was it logical?

T'Pol grabbed her copy of The Teachings of Surak from the nightstand, where it sat on top of the football rule book Trip had lent her. She opened the book and flipped through it absentmindedly, not entirely sure what she was seeking. She hoped that perhaps the book would supply the answers she needed on its own. It was a very human expectation.

When the book didn't provide, she threw it on the floor. She took a deep, calming breath and retrieved it. She went to close it, but at the last second she skimmed down the page.

Ma etek natyan teretuhr lau etek shetau weh-lo'uk do tum t'on.

We have differences. May we, together, become greater than the sum of both of us.

A/N: The scene in italics is from "Broken Bow".

Again, Surak's sayings are thanks to the Vulcan Language Dictionary.