A/N: Sorry for how short this is! I had more in mind, but I'm going away this weekend, and it's already been over a week since I updated. I didn't want to leave you guys hanging for much longer without a new chapter.

Thanks for the continued reviews! Kudos and cookies to all y'all!

Rigil Kent – Yeah, I liked some of the things TPTB were doing in the fourth season, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce Kamea to the Vulcan people. Hope it works out like I want it to!

P.S. Apologies for any grammatical and/or spelling errors. I posted this in kind of a hurry.

Chapter Three: The Problem

Jonathan Archer's Person Log: October 2, 2154

We are currently en route to Vulcan to return T'Pol and offer our assistance in any way we can, though why we should is a mystery to me. The Vulcans didn't help us with the Xindi – the Andorians did – and I am not willing to risk the lives of my crew for something that I don't even know what's going on. Admiral Forrest was unable to tell me anything about this political upheaval, because Soval won't go into specific details, but according to T'Pol there have been several uprisings in various cities by a group called the Syrannites. The fact that T'Pol has told me anything is a surprise in itself, but she told me that she felt it was her duty to let me know what I was getting Enterprise into.

T'Pol says that the Syrannites are a radical faction that have a different interpretation of Surak's teachings. Apparently, they have been a source of conflict for decades, which surprises me, as I assumed all Vulcans had an aversion to violence. However, it would seem as though the Syrannites' version of Surak's sayings is a lot more liberal than the High Command's. I am reminded of the Crusades, a series of wars fought between Muslims and Christians in order to reclaim what Christians believed to be their holy ground. Battles raged for centuries, hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. I hope I'm not leading Enterprise into a Vulcan Crusade.

I don't want to lose my science officer, but T'Pol has told me that there is a very real possibility her husband will ask her to stay on Vulcan once this whole crisis has been resolved. I can't even begin to imagine what replacing T'Pol will be like, but I know one thing for certain: it just won't be Enterprise without her.

The ship was fraught with tension; Kamea could feel it. It practically emanated from the hull, from every piece of equipment on board. Crewmembers were walking around like ticking time bombs – the slightest misunderstanding or thoughtless joke could provoke them into exploding. Kamea was under constant stress from the effort of trying to stifle not only her own emotions but others' as well. She felt everything they felt, magnified times a thousand billion million, because she felt what everybody was feeling. It was beginning to wear her down, and it was all stemming from one person.

She watched Trip from across the mess hall as he picked at his dinner. It was his favorite – blackened catfish – and he hadn't taken one bite. He'd mashed it up with his fork until it was unrecognizable as fish, then until it was unrecognizable as food, and then until it was unrecognizable as biological matter. Then he stirred the mushy fish bits around his plate for a while, then he sculpted them into what she assumed was supposed to be some sort of pyramid, then he flattened said pyramid and started the entire process over again.

Kamea raised an eyebrow. Humans were so weird.

Malcolm, sitting next to her, noticed none of this, thoroughly engrossed as he was in the PADD he was reading. "I think if we upgrade the power converters it should help with the firing mechanism."

For the love of Surak, though Kamea, is he still harping on this? Malcolm had been trying to get the weapons systems upgraded for weeks now, ever since Trip and Kamea had finally finished with the warp drive. They had yet to test the modifications, but Trip was confident with the results and positive that they could hit warp six if they prayed hard enough. The only trouble was, now every department wanted upgrades – better, more efficient equipment and the like. The only one who hadn't complained was Phlox, and apparently Captain Archer had to put his foot down, saying that whoever wanted improvements to the ship would have to design the specs themselves. That shut a lot of people up.

But not Malcolm. Archer's ultimatum had made him work that much harder. The past few nights, he stayed up late into the night, which affected Kamea's sleeping schedule, making the stress on the ship all the more difficult for her to deal with. Try as she might, she couldn't get him to drop the issue, so she humored him when he began to drone on about it. Needless to say, her aimless meanderings about the ship had resumed.

Kamea kept her eyes on Trip but her ears were tuned to Malcolm. She had gotten quite good at multi-tasking at a young age, and Malcolm had yet to notice that she wasn't looking at him. "A distinct possibility," she said, taking a bite of her pasta salad. "Would you like to be the one who upgrades the power converters?"

He glanced up at her, saw that she wasn't paying attention, and snapped his fingers in front of her face. She hated when he did that, so naturally he did it a lot. "Of course not. That's engineering's job."

She just looked at him. "Malcolm, you're the one that wants this done. It's not a necessity, and frankly, I'm not even sure it's feasible." She grabbed the PADD from him and scrolled through it. "All right, so it's feasible."

"The captain said improvements would be made provided we came up with the plans ourselves," said Malcolm, sounding more than a little defensive.

Kamea immediately switched tactics, sensing that the usual approach wasn't going to work. "Yes, I know. I was there. But in order for this to be done, you would have to run it by Trip, and he's not doing anyone any favors lately."

"Yes, I've noticed that," Malcolm said, gently taking back the PADD. Trip's fuse was practically nonexistent; one had to say very little to him for him to completely blow up. Most of his crew were afraid to approach him with any problems – they'd been coming to Kamea for days now. "Which is why I was rather hoping you'd broach the subject with him."

Kamea raised her eyebrows. "Me? Why me?"

"Well, you seem to be the only person he'll talk to without ripping your head off."

"Where have you been lately?" she asked, gesturing at Trip with her entire arm. "He spent most of the morning blaming me for problems that occurred before I even set foot on Enterprise. He has most assuredly lost it."

Malcolm gave her a wry smile and sipped his coffee. "He has his reasons."

She shook her head and reached across the table for her water. "I find it hard to believe he's just accepting this. He can't just sit idly by and let T'Pol leave Enterprise. He has to fight for her, otherwise she'll think he doesn't really care about her."

"That's bollocks," Malcolm said. "He's proved on more than one occasion how he feels about her."

Kamea rolled her eyes. "Spoken like a typical guy."

Malcolm narrowed his eyes. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Kamea said, turning in her chair to face Malcolm completely, "that you have no idea what you're talking about. And you couldn't possibly. You've never been involved in an interspecies relationship." She ignored Malcolm's sputters of protest – they weren't technically in a relationship, so this…thing…they had didn't count – and continued. "T'Pol would literally be risking everything if she were to date Trip. She's not about to do that if she's not entirely sure how he feels about her."

"How can she be uncertain?" Malcolm asked, and Kamea sincerely hoped she was imagining the hurt in his eyes. "Hasn't he made it completely obvious?"

Kamea cocked her head to the side, wondering if they were still talking about Trip and T'Pol. "The only way he could make it completely obvious would be if he were to tell her how he feels."

Malcolm groaned loudly, taking Kamea by surprise. "That's complete crap, Kamea. Words mean nothing. Words can be misconstrued, words can be manipulated, words can lie. Actions are the only way a person can interpret how someone feels about her."

"Actions lie, too," she said. She turned away from Malcolm, and her thigh brushed his as she moved. She shuddered involuntarily and did her best to clamp down her traitorous body's reaction. Actions lie, she thought, drinking greedily from her water glass in order to hide the flush creeping up her cheeks. But instincts don't.

A very heavy silence hung over the table. Then Kamea became conscious of the fact that Malcolm was sliding his chair closer to hers. She inhaled sharply through her nose as his leg came into direct and prolonged contact with her own. He leaned toward her, bracing his arm on the back of her chair and effectively trapping her between him and the table.

"So," he said, deliberately dragging out the word, his mouth very close to her ear, "what doesn't lie?"

She swallowed. She knew that Malcolm had been reading up on Vulcans ever since she'd started coming to his bedroom every night, so he had to know that their ears were extremely sensitive. Damn that man. He doesn't play fair. "Vulcans."

He guffawed heartily, and Kamea breathed easier as he slid his chair back to its original position. "I thought you said Vulcans lie all the time."

She forced a smile, but her insides were twisting themselves in knots. "Okay, you've got to be taping everything I say."

After dinner, Kamea went to sickbay, as per Phlox's request, and finally had the sling removed. Her shoulder had completely healed at last. Kamea was so happy about not having to wear the sling anymore that she did a series of acrobatics that almost got her injured again. She spent the rest of the evening helping Phlox track down the bat she let escape when she knocked over its cage.

Later that night, instead of going to Malcolm's room as usual – he would be up working on those damn power converters – she went to the gym, desperate to work off some of the nervous energy that had been plaguing her the past few days. And who should happen to be there but the source of all things tense and awkward. She exhaled through pursed lips and took the treadmill directly beside Trip, set the treadmill one of the slower settings, and started to walk.

"The sling's gone," he said, using his head to gesture at her unbound arm.

She nodded, resisting the urge to throw her arms up in celebration. "Yeah. Phlox just took it off a couple of hours ago. How's it look?"

He grinned maliciously at her. "I'm sure this will make things with Malcolm a lot easier."

Kamea narrowed her eyes, set her treadmill for the fastest setting, and started to run. She couldn't believe he had just said that. No, that wasn't true. She could totally believe it. After all, he made some sort of indecent remark about her relationship with Malcolm almost every time he saw her, even more so since he and T'Pol hadn't been speaking to each other, so she wasn't sure why she was so surprised. "Congratulations, Commander, you almost made it an entire minute without being a complete jackass."

Trip cast a sideways glance at her, then sped up his treadmill as well. After a while, he was panting heavily while she was breathing normally, not the least bit winded by the exercise. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. He was hopelessly out of shape.

"Slow down, will you?" he asked. His hands gripped the bar of the treadmill so tightly that his knuckles were white, and he looked very comical indeed as he tried to keep up with the treadmill's rapid pace. "I can't keep up with you."

"No one said you had to," she said, but she did lower the setting so that she was doing a brisk jog instead of a run. "It isn't a competition."

"The hell it isn't," Trip said, slowing his pace to match hers.

They jogged in silence for a while. Kamea kept her eyes forward, though she sensed Trip looking at her occasionally. When she could stand the furtive glances no more, she turned to face him. "You have a problem, Commander?"

He shook his head, and she returned her gaze to the wall. But a few seconds later, he asked, "Talked to T'Pol lately?"

Kamea smiled. Of course. He'd been unable to talk about anything but T'Pol for the past two days. He would bring her up in conversation, attempting to be casual, then steer the topic away from her if it got too intense. "Nope," she said. "She's barely been out of her quarters since we got the message from Admiral Forrest. Packing, supposedly."

"So…you don't know anything about Vulcan's political problems?"

She just looked at him. "Do I look like I know anything about Vulcan's political problems?"

He gave her a sheepish expression and slowed his pace to a walk. She followed suit. "I just thought maybe T'Pol had told you something."

Kamea rolled her eyes, shut off the treadmill, and allowed herself to slide off the machine and onto the floor. "I told you. If you want to talk, all you have to do is ask."

Trip sighed and shut off his treadmill. He braced his hands on his knees and hunched over, trying to get his breathing under control. "She can't stay on Vulcan."

Kamea shook her head slowly and stretched to the tips of her toes with her arms above her head. "Apparently, she can, and she intends to do so. T'Pol has already done a lot of things that Vulcans don't typically do. I think she feels that she has to prove to her people that she's willing to adhere to their cultural norms. Refusing her husband's request to remain on Vulcan could seriously affect her and her mother's status on the planet."

Trip glared at her. "I thought you'd be on my side in this."

She made a noise in the back of her throat and bent forward to touch her toes, keeping her eyes trained on Trip. "Commander Tucker, there aren't any sides to speak of. Do you know what T'Pol would be risking if she stayed on Enterprise?"

"Yes," Trip said, refusing to meet her gaze. "But…your dad did it."

Kamea shot him a half-hearted smile and stretched her left leg out behind her. "That he did. However, he was not married at the time – only betrothed. Perhaps if you hadn't waited until she was married to realize your feelings, things might have turned out differently."

He stood up so suddenly that Kamea was certain she heard his spine snap into place, and he put his hands on his hips in a posture eerily reminiscent of her mother. "That isn't what happened."

"Oh, really?" Kamea said with a grin. Months had passed and the crew was still gossiping about the commanders' joint trip to Vulcan. No one seemed to know what had happened, other than the obvious. "Then what did happen?"

Her grin faded at the look that he gave her. He could have melted the outer hull. "That is none of your business."

She held up her palms in a gesture of concession. "All right. None of my business. But if you want my advice, I think you should talk to her."

He made a noise that was somewhere between a groan and a grunt. "T'Pol and I have never been able to talk about this."

Kamea raised her eyebrows. "Maybe that's the problem. Good night." She turned to leave.

"Wait."

She stopped but did not turn, cocking her head to the side. "Yes?"

Trip walked over to her. "How did your mom do it?"

Kamea furrowed her brow in confusion, completely oblivious as to what Trip was trying to ask. "How did my mom do what?"

He sighed in exasperation and began gesturing futilely with both arms. "How did she convince him to leave behind everything he ever knew to marry her?"

Kamea could only stare at him. Did he think it was so easy? Did he think her father hadn't seriously considered the ramifications of his decision? Did he think her mother had somehow tricked her father into marrying her? What exactly was he thinking? Was he thinking at all? Obviously not. "He loved her and wanted to marry her. Very little convincing was necessary."

Trip's face fell. "But T'Pol married another man. So she must not – "

Kamea cut him off with a wave of her hand. "T'Pol put her mother's happiness ahead of her own. Her feelings are a non-issue where that is concerned. But I happen to know for a fact that – "

She stopped abruptly. This was none of her business. She should stop now before she said something she would regret, because when word got back to T'Pol, her cousin would most assuredly kill her, and Kamea didn't particularly want to be killed. "Never mind."

She started for the door again. Trip jogged to catch up to her. "No, you can't just stop like that. You know what for a fact?"

Kamea glanced sideways at him. "I know that you should talk to T'Pol."

He shook his head. "That isn't what you were going to say."

She groaned. "No, but it's what I should say. It's really not my place to say anything. You want to know what's going on with you and T'Pol? Ask T'Pol. I'm going to bed."

She was almost to the door when he finally spoke again. "Give Malcolm my best."

He was so unbelievably infuriating.