A/N: Thanks for all the reviews! I'm surprised that so many people are interested in this little idea I came up with when I was supposed to be writing a history paper. TLI, you're right. It should've read that she endeavours to keep her personal life separate from her professional life. Good catch!

Day Two

Malcolm came out of the aft compartment to find T'Pol working at one of the consoles. "Good morning, Commander." He often had a hard time addressing T'Pol by anything other than her rank, and idly wondered if that bothered her.

"Lieutenant. I trust you had a restful sleep?"

"Yes, thanks."

"It's just to becoming light outside. I have calculated the orbit of the moon around the planet, as well as the orbit of the planet around the sun and the rotation of each around its axis."

"So you know when it's day and night, then."

"Yes. The rotation of the moon allows it to receive sunlight for nearly sixteen hours."

"We'll have plenty of time to look around. You fixed the science station?"

That particular console hadn't taken much damage, but it hadn't been a priority the previous day. Its functions were limited mainly to recording data and processing it with various algorithms.

"There are several more complex algorithms that will have to be reprogrammed, but otherwise I have repaired the damage."

"Have you eaten breakfast yet?"

"I ate a fruit salad after I awoke."

"You're probably not going to want the bacon and eggs, are you?"

"No."

That was good, because he did want them. Malcolm was quite pleased to discover that the jam provided for the toast was strawberry. Often it was grape, his least favorite variety. He wouldn't have minded a cup of tea, but the day was off to a good start nonetheless.

They emptied out both toolkits and went off to explore their surroundings. T'Pol had her tricorder, and Malcolm had his phase pistol. It was holstered, though, so he could hold the empty toolkits. That freed up both of T'Pol's hands for scanning with her tricorder.

"How about these?" Malcolm had found something that looked like fruit on one of the trees. It was slightly over their heads, but T'Pol was able to scan them nonetheless. They looked rather like bananas, although Malcolm had never seen pale blue bananas.

"They contain an acid that would adversely affect your muscle control," she concluded after a moment.

"Can you eat them?"

"A Vulcan has never consumed that acid before, and I would prefer not to experiment on myself."

"A wise precaution," he agreed, trying not to smile too widely.

T'Pol had found small black spheres dangling off vines. "These are suitable for consumption," she announced. Malcolm opened one of the toolkits and they plucked off several spheres. They were firm but definitely fleshy, somewhat like a grape.

"I wonder if they're ripe," he mused.

"Ripeness is a mental construct, determined by societies and individuals."

If it had been anyone but T'Pol, that would've been a scathing rebuke. From her, it was merely a statement of fact. Come to think of it, Malcolm could see her point. "I've never thought of it that way before, but it makes sense," he mused.

"Indeed. For instance, Ensign Sato considers Ensign Mayweather's choices in pears to be 'nowhere near ripe,' while he finds hers to be 'halfway to rotten.'"

Malcolm burst out laughing and nearly dropped the fruit in his hand. "I never knew that!"

"Their debate was quite audible last month."

"I bet it was while I was in Sickbay. I miss a lot of entertaining things that way," he sighed. "Well, I hope that these taste good, whatever they are." He popped one in his mouth. "A little sour, but not bad."

After one toolkit was full of the spherical berries, they continued walking around the edge of the woods. On the other side of the island, it looked pretty much like it did on the side the shuttlepod was on. The beach was a bit sandier, though.

They'd found a small stream running down to the ocean, and after scanning it T'Pol decided that they ought to boil the water to kill microbes before drinking it. Though they didn't have a pot, Malcolm figured that he could make one with a micro-welder and metal that had been blow off the bulkhead.

T'Pol had just discovered bushes that produced some sort of edible nut when Malcolm decided to survey the edge of the beach for more streams. The tide was receding, and he saw small holes in the wet sand.

Holes in the sand – shellfish! His childhood had been filled with information such as that, and for once Malcolm found it useful. He bent over and started digging in the wet sand. Sure enough, it didn't take long before he felt a shell.

Since his tricorder had been taken apart for repairs, he had to take the prize over to T'Pol for assessment. "Commander," he began, "could I borrow your tricorder?"

T'Pol took one look at his sand-coated hands and scanned the shellfish herself. "It is edible, although I recommend cooking it first."

"I don't suppose you want any."

"The protein in these nuts will be sufficient for my physiology. There is no reason that you ought not to partake in the shellfish, however."

Malcolm didn't need to be told twice. He trotted back over to the sand. There was just one problem: he had nothing else to put the shellfish in. It was nice weather, though, and he didn't really need his uniform jacket. The breeze was warm, so his t-shirt would be enough. That decided, he started digging and piling his quarry on his jacket.

"Lieutenant?" T'Pol said. He looked up. "I believe that you have a sufficient number of shellfish."

He did. There had to be almost two dozen piled on his jacket. T'Pol held both toolkits, filled with nuts and berries. They obviously had enough food.

A return trip was taken after Malcolm finished making two bowls out of the bulkhead metal. They weren't going to win any prizes for beauty, but they were mostly rounded and, if nothing else, waterproof. Each held several liters of water.

Starting a fire wasn't a problem. T'Pol gathered sticks while Malcolm dug a pit, and the quickest flash of a phase pistol lit a nice fire. Malcolm then proceeded to boil his shellfish. Since they had quite a bit of drinking water left, the second bowl of water was used to wash their hands and faces as best they could.

T'Pol peeled the nuts. Malcolm associated cracking, not peeling, with nuts, and made a note to tell Trip about that when the returned. He would surely find it interesting. Since T'Pol wasn't having any shellfish, Malcolm ate only a few nuts. The berries they both ate.

T'Pol had found a microscope that had made it through the crash with little damage. Malcolm wondered when microscopes became standard in shuttlepods, but it must've been after Starfleet learned how often they managed to get marooned on planets. After recalibrating the microscope, she settled in to spend the afternoon studying various plant samples.

That left Malcolm with nothing to do. He spent the first hour or so pretending he could fix long-range communications, and T'Pol thoughtfully didn't remark on the futility of that effort. When he couldn't even fool himself anymore, Malcolm tried to think of an alternate pastime.

They should give us a novel or two in here, he thought to himself. From now on he was taking one on away missions.

He walked along the beach where the sand was damp but not extremely wet. A broken shell was lying on the sand, and that gave him an idea. It was not terribly productive, but it was something to do.

When he returned, he set several carefully-selected shells and rocks down and then sat next to T'Pol in the shuttlepod's shadow. She had her tricorder, a padd, and many plants off to the side, but his collection caused her to raise an eyebrow.

"I haven't done this since I was a kid," he commented.

"What activity are you referring to?"

"I'm making arrowheads." Chipping away from the shell with a rock, he began to create a point.

"I believe that a phase pistol would be a more effective weapon."

"It's more for something to do than a weapon."

"I see." He wasn't so sure that she did understand, but T'Pol went back to her microscope and he kept chipping.

They passed the time that way until it was time for dinner, which came from ration packs again. Malcolm took a pot roast and T'Pol had a baked stuffed potato. They still had a couple hours of daylight left after that, but Malcolm was tired of chipping his arrowhead.

"Perhaps we should examine the shoreline more carefully," she suggested.

The idea didn't thrill Malcolm, but he nodded and went along. "You don't swim, do you?" he asked.

"I have been instructed in the basics should the situation arise, but I find swimming to be less than pleasant. Do you want to swim?"

"Not particularly. I'm not that fond of swimming either."

T'Pol took scans with her tricorder, and Malcolm tried not to think about how much water there was off to his side. He discovered two varieties of snails, a large piece of driftwood, and a particularly flat rock which he managed to skip twice. If he'd gone closer to the waterline, it probably would've skipped three times.

Their side of the beach had more rocks than the other, but no streams and only a few holes that might signify shellfish. When the sun edged near the horizon, he suggested that they head back.

"The sun is still providing ample light," replied T'Pol. "I estimate that we can continue for ten minutes before turning around."

"Trip'll have my head if he finds out that I watched a sunset on the beach with you before he has."

"This is a romantic scenario?"

"Usually," he mumbled.

"If Trip were to decapitate you, Enterprise would suffer from lack of your expertise, and I would not enjoy visiting him in prison. Perhaps it is best to return to the shuttlepod."

Malcolm smiled at her tactful consideration of his discomfort. Who said Vulcans couldn't understand humor?