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4. A Night to Remember, Unfortunately

She's still a little pale but she seems steady enough as she walks through the corridors. It takes me a few minutes but I finally figure out that she's not going to go lie down, that was an excuse for Worf's benefit. She's looking for something. Or someone. We slow as we approach a bend and hear voices coming from around it.

"No, I really am glad to see you again, sir," I recognize Riker's voice approaching. "I haven't thought about the Pegasus for a long time. Are you sure they've found it?" He sounds worried and none too happy, a far cry from the man I saw in the lift earlier.

"I'd prefer to talk about this a little more privately," another voice says primly. They round the corner and I see that it belongs to a man with thinning hair and a uniform decked out with lots of bells and whistles. Gotta be an admiral.

"Of course," says a third man. He's wearing a captain's uniform but unlike my disappearing friend I think he earned it. He's shorter than the other two but he carries himself like a man used to giving orders…and seeing them followed. Yep, the captain.

The three of them head straight past the corridor Deanna and I occupy with barely a glance…except for Riker. Just before we are out of his range of vision he turns and stares back at Deanna as though compelled by an unseen force. Deanna nods to him in understanding, as though some message has passed from one to the other. In another instant he's gone, his attention turned back to the captain and the admiral.

How did she know? It's obvious she did. She felt something go wrong with Will and came to find out what it was, there's no doubt in my mind.

It's eerie, but not because I can't explain it. It's eerie because I can explain it. I've seen it before—there is more than an old relationship here, more than a waxing and waning of friendship. These two share some emotional connection, a bond. I remember the daydreams, the sudden mental images and impulses I felt when T'Pol and I were connected. She was better at managing it than I was—she could really tell what I felt. I never mastered it. But then, I never really tried, either.

Without wanting to, I remember the day I started letting that bond go. I didn't know I was doing it at the time, but now when I look back I realize it was the day our relationship ended. A lot of things changed then.

It was three weeks after Elizabeth died. You have no idea how long it took to be able to even say those words: Elizabeth died. I know it meant a great deal to T'Pol to name her that and it did to me too, but it also meant that I went to Elizabeth Tucker's funeral all over again. Unlike my sister, though, this girl never got the chance to know what she meant to her family, to her father. To me. I don't know which funeral was worse, my sister's or my daughter's. They were both damn hard to get through.

Anyway, after the funeral, Captain Archer insisted that T'Pol and I take some time off. Any hope that we might try to work through it together disappeared when she made it clear that she wished to spend her time on Vulcan meditating. I didn't say anything because we both needed some time to think clearly. I went home to my parents' place and spent two weeks helping my father fix up an old junker of a shuttle he picked up and eating my Mom's fried catfish. Mostly I thought about T'Pol.

When I got back to the ship she was already there. We were awkward around each other—the emotions she sometimes let slip through her guard when she was alone with me were gone, all except for the pain she couldn't quite suppress. I wondered what answers her meditation brought her but couldn't bring myself to ask.

Instead I found myself in her quarters one evening, a place I used to look forward to visiting but that now held too many memories of both the living and the dead. I had only meant to bring her some data about a nebula we were assigned to study, but for some reason we started talking about our relationship. At least we weren't talking about it in engineering, for once.

I can still remember every word of that conversation…

"Trip, I…have been meaning to speak to you." Her meditation candles were still lit and she was wearing one of those shapeless Vulcan robes. It seemed like she spent every free moment either reading Surak or entranced in front of those candles.

I sighed. "Yeah, I know. Me too." Here it comes, I thought. The Big Goodbye. To be honest I was almost glad—I had been in pain for so long, the thought of numbness was a blessing. In time I would get used to it, learn to let go of her. It was for the best—for everyone. It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but I could see the hurt this was causing both of us. It was too much, especially for someone not equipped to deal with emotional onslaughts.

"I don't believe our romantic relationship will prove beneficial to either of us," she said frankly. She had rehearsed it, I was sure. I was almost touched—she was nervous.

"I know," I said again. "Do you want to…take a break?"

There was such sadness in her eyes. They glimmered in the light of her candles. "Is that what you believe we should do?"

I knew why she was leaving it to me. If I said no, she would put her best foot forward and try to make it work. If I said no, then she could accept it and move on with a clear conscience. In our relationship we had always gone at her pace because this was newer and more alien to her than me. This was her concession, her effort for me—she would let me choose our next move. I respected the gesture, though I hated being the one to have to say it. In my heart I was sure of what I had to do.

"Yes. I guess we should. We're not leaving each other," I reminded her. "Hard to get away from each other when you're on the same ship," I tried to smile and failed. "It's just not…" I stopped before my voice cracked.

"…the right time," she finished for me softly, nodding. She reached up a hand and touched my cheek, brushing her fingertips along my hairline. It was the last time she ever touched me as anything other than a colleague, and the last time I felt a shiver of feeling come from her and run through me—it was a wash of heartbreak, and I shared it with her.

Turns out there never was a right time for our relationship; after that, everything was different. For a long time it felt like all the color had leeched out of my life, but gradually it came back. T'Pol and I never spoke of our relationship again, not in that manner, anyway. As I saw her getting stronger and more in control of herself I knew it had been worth it.

Which was why her questions about my leaving the ship and keeping in touch had seemed so out of place…

I break out of my reverie and realize that I'm alone in the corridor.

Well, not quite.