A/N: Opinions expressed in this chapter (and throughout the series, really) are mine and mine alone. Relationships that may be proposed in this story have no basis in fact (within the parameters of the show, of course – remember, science fiction) and no evidence to support them. I just thought they made for some good story telling.
As usual, dreams, character thoughts, and flashbacks are in italics.
Kane – men
P.S. Some time may pass between updates. Please bear with me and check back weekly for the latest chapters. I probably won't update more frequently than that. I apologize, but a girl's gotta earn her paycheck, unfortunately.
Thanks so much for the continued reviews! Hope you guys like this latest installment as much as you liked the sorry excuse for a third chapter I gave you last time.
Rigil Kent – Congratulations! You get a gold star.
West Dean – I agree with you about this being the best thought out plot point of season four, which is why I stuck with it. Hopefully you'll like my version of the story.
Scarletwitch0 – Oh, I'm burning myself out all right, but not because of this.
Chapter Four: The Distinguished Vulcan
The room was clean, unnaturally so, and whiter than anything Kamea had ever seen. How a room could possibly stay so clean and white was beyond her, though she guessed it had something to do with the pompous-looking Vulcan who sat in a swivel chair behind the large mahogany desk in the center of the room. The air was thick with condescension. Kamea could practically smell it as she entered, lagging slightly behind her father, who was in a rare rage.
Lorian walked directly up to the desk and stood in front of it, his body rigid. His outward appearance betrayed no hint of his inner turmoil, which Kamea could feel as though it were her own. He was pissed off, and he was pissed off at the man in front of him. "Why did you do it?" he asked.
"What am I supposed to have done?" the Vulcan asked, not even glancing up from the mound of paperwork behind which he was hidden.
As before, they spoke in Vulcan, but Kamea understood every word, automatically translating their dialogue into English, with which she was more comfortable. She did not bother to wonder how she had ended up where she was, or even where she was. She thought she might be finally beginning to understand what was going on inside her head.
"You know what," said Lorian. He walked around the desk and Kamea got her first good look at the subject of her father's rage.
He was distinguished looking (but still pompous), with gray flecks throughout his hair and wrinkles just beginning to form at the corners of his eyes. She knew him by sight but not by name. His forehead was creased with concern, though she could tell that it was fake. There was nothing sincere about this man. She could tell from his demeanor, from his non-expressions, from the way he carried himself, and by the hardness in his eyes as he stared at her father. "I'm sure that I have no idea to what you are referring."
Lorian licked his lips, an unconscious action she had often seen her mother do when she was irate that her father must have picked up. "My daughter was denied acceptance into Starfleet."
Kamea's breath caught in her throat. She remembered being destroyed when the rejection letter arrived in the mail. All she'd ever wanted to do was join Starfleet and become an engineer. She'd had no idea that her father had gone to someone on her behalf. He merely insisted she keep applying, said that if she bombarded them with applications then they'd have no choice but to accept her. So she had continued to apply, year after year, every time open enrollment came along, until it became almost habitual. They never accepted her.
"I am sorry to hear that," said the distinguished Vulcan, returning his attention to his paperwork, "but I am not responsible for Starfleet decisions. You should speak with the admiralty."
"I have," Lorian said. He put his foot on the edge of the chair and turned the Vulcan to face him. "They informed me that you personally requested that they deny her application. Something about her being a threat to the organization."
The Vulcan stared passively at Lorian for a few seconds, then shook his head and went back to his work. "Lorian, you have become paranoid after all your time on Earth. You are starting to develop the very human habit of jumping to erroneous conclusions. Perhaps you should look into that."
"Damnit, Soval, don't deny it. I know you were responsible for this. This whole situation reeks of your interference."
Soval? This was Soval? The man responsible for her rejection from Starfleet was the Vulcan ambassador to Earth? T'Pol spoke of this man with great affection and admiration, and he had personally asked the Starfleet admiralty to refuse Kamea's admission into the academy? It didn't make any sense. It was almost as if T'Pol were speaking about another, but how many people could there be with the name Soval?
Soval looked at Lorian. The hardness in his eyes was gone, almost instantaneously, and Kamea got the feeling that whatever he was about to say, it would be spoken sincerely. "I am sorry about that, Lorian, but it was not my decision. I was asked to speak to the admiralty on the administrator's behalf." Soval stood up, and Kamea was suddenly struck by his commanding presence. No wonder he was the Vulcan ambassador. "But you must know that this has little to do with your daughter and much to do with you."
Her father sighed imperceptibly and nodded his head. "The thought had crossed my mind. I hate to think it. I don't want to believe that I have caused my daughter pain."
The two men faced each other for what seemed like an eternity before Soval reached out and gently placed his hand on Lorian's shoulder. Kamea's eyes widened automatically. Vulcans abhorred touching – even she couldn't stand it most of the time – so what in Surak's name prompted Soval to engage in such intimate behavior?
"You knew the consequences of your decision when you made it, brother," said Soval, and he removed his hand from Lorian's shoulder.
Kamea's jaw hit the floor. Brother? Good god. Why the hell was she just finding this out now? Was it just her subconscious playing tricks on her? If so, it wasn't funny. But something inside her told her that this was the truth, that in addition to the aunt she had never met, she also had an uncle who had been in contact with her father and simply refused to see her. She was suddenly glad that her father had not informed her of this meeting; she did not think she could have stood it.
Lorian stepped away from Soval. He could not believe what he was hearing. "This should not be one of them. Do not punish my daughter for whatever mistakes I may have made."
Soval cocked an eyebrow. "Ah, so you admit that you made a mistake in marrying the human?"
Her father recoiled as if struck. "No." He said it so vehemently that there could be no doubt. "My marriage to Kalea was not a mistake; how I handled it was. If I were given the chance to do it over again, I would do it differently. But I would still do it."
"You have made your choice, then?" Soval asked. He sounded disappointed.
Lorian nodded, his jaw set. He was sure of it. "I made my choice a long time ago, brother. I have never regretted it. And you should know that my daughter will continue to apply to Starfleet."
Soval almost smiled. "And you should know that she will continue to be denied."
"We shall see," said Lorian, and with those words still hanging in the air, he left the office.
Malcolm was roused from a deep slumber by the sound of Kamea muttering in her sleep. It wasn't the first time this had happened, and it probably wouldn't be the last.
His eyes strained in the dim light to make out the blurred numbers on his chronometer, and all he could tell was that it was very, very early. Much too early to be awake, especially after he had stayed up late into the night working on the specifications for his projected phase cannon upgrades. Kamea had finally convinced him to come to bed around one, and he couldn't have been asleep much longer than an hour or two before she woke him up, mumbling in what he assumed was Vulcan, since it wasn't Hawaiian.
She must have been dreaming about her father. That's all she ever dreamed about, or so he imagined. He wasn't exactly certain, since she wasn't all that willing to discuss it with him. She did, however, seem to discuss it with others – namely Commander Tucker. The thought bothered him more than he cared to admit. He'd fancied T'Pol, way back in the early days of the mission, and Trip had gotten to her; he didn't think he could bear it if Trip somehow stole Kamea from him, too.
He's not going to steal her away, you bloody fool. He's mad for T'Pol. And anyway, whose room is she popping by in the middle of the night? Not bloody Tucker's, that's for damn sure.
Malcolm lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, wondering just when this five-foot nothing, impossibly arrogant, incredibly annoying Vulcan had wiggled her way into his heart. No woman in all his history of women had ever made him feel the way that Kamea made him feel. She made him sweat, made his heart race, made him think, put him on edge, pissed him off, challenged him, insulted him, and she ended every day by crawling into his bed. His bed smelled like her. His room smelled like her. It was almost too much.
It was her eyes, more than anything. The way she looked at him, with those eyes that were so impossibly blue, it was almost like she was looking directly into his soul. Her gaze, her stare, was so intense, so mesmerizing, that it sucked him in no matter what.
Man, you are gone.
Kamea whimpered softly, and Malcolm rolled over onto his side, curling around her. His arms wound their way around her stomach and pulled her flush against him, pressing her back against his chest. She began to mutter again. He didn't understand what she was saying, as she was speaking in Vulcan, but he whispered soothingly into her ear until the murmurs stopped. He wondered if he should start learning Vulcan as well. It would probably come in handy, as they would reach Vulcan later that morning.
He had only been to Vulcan once, years ago, and even then he had not left the Earth embassy. He knew that the political situation on the planet was dire, but he hoped he might be able to do a little sightseeing while they were there. It had been months since they'd had a decent shore leave, and he was so hoping to spend some time on a planet and not get assaulted in some manner.
Kamea, he knew, was worried about their arrival. She'd had very limited interactions with Vulcans before coming aboard Enterprise. Basically, the only Vulcan she'd spent any vast amount of time with was her father, and now T'Pol. But the majority of Vulcans were much different from her family members, and she knew that; hence why she was worried. She would never admit it, but he could tell. She was so tense that he could feel it in her body – which he was trying very hard not to do, after she'd kneed him that one time. It was incredibly difficult, to lie in the same bed with her and resist the temptation to let his hands wander, but he was proving to be the poster child for restraint. He'd allowed himself to indulge once, she'd kneed him, and he hadn't done anything appropriate since – although he still managed to wake up with bruises that hadn't been there the day before.
Quite suddenly, Kamea jerked awake, and the back of her head smacked into Malcolm's face.
"Son of a – " Malcolm said, removing his hands from Kamea's stomach and grabbing his nose. His eyes watered from the pain, and he wondered if this was the reason he woke up with unexplained bruises in the morning.
"God, I'm sorry," said Kamea, rolling over to face him. If he hadn't been in so much pain, he might have cared that her eyes were big and wide, and her cheeks were stained with tears. But all he could focus on was the fact that it felt like someone had just slammed a two-by-four into his face. That girl had a really hard head.
Like that was some almighty revelation.
"I think you broke my nose." Malcolm sat up, settling his back against the bulkhead and cupping his hands around his throbbing nose.
Kamea knelt in front of him. "I did not, you big baby. Now let me look at it."
Despite being insulted by the "big baby" remark, he dropped his arms as she leaned forward to examine the damage. And for all she claimed to have boundary issues, she was getting pretty close to him. Her face was inches from his, her breath was a warm rush against his lips, and if his nose didn't feel like it going to fall off, he might have done something about the problem in his nether regions, which he hoped to God that Kamea didn't notice.
"I bet it's the size of a pineapple," he said, trying to ignore just how close she was to him, and how amazingly sexy she looked in that tiny tank top and a pair of his old, worn-out athletic pants.
She tentatively reached out to touch his nose. He hissed his a sharp breath as her fingers came into contact with the tender skin, but he wasn't sure if it was from the pain or something else. "It's fine," she said. "It's an improvement."
He must have made some kind of face because she smiled and laughed a little, and he had to admit, it was good to hear her laugh. She so rarely laughed or even smiled when it was just the two of them anymore, when they were alone in the confines on Malcolm's room – when she had to face reality instead of dealing with the charade she insisted on putting on for the members of the crew. "That's not funny," he said.
Her smile faded from her face but lingered in her eyes, which he saw now were shining with tears. "I thought it was hysterical."
Malcolm cocked an eyebrow. "You certainly don't look like you're in hysterics." And she never would. She was Vulcan, whether she liked it or not.
Kamea's face was impassive, expressionless, as she said, "It's on the inside."
They sat in silence for a while, with her kneeling between his legs, her fingers massaging and kneading his nose, which no longer hurt as much, though a dull ache had set in. She was intent on her task, but he couldn't take his eyes off her face, where the tearstains were still visible. "You want to tell me about it?"
She shook her head. "No."
A sigh escaped his lips before he could stop it. "Why?"
"We've been over this, Malcolm," Kamea said, and there was a coldness creeping into her voice that he knew all too well.
He grabbed both her wrists, forcing her to stop her ministrations, lowered her hands, and pulled her forward until there was no more than a hair's breadth separating their bodies. He was hoping to intimidate her into talking, but the plan was backfiring rapidly. She was so warm, so soft, and so close, and if he didn't kiss her soon his head was going to explode. He swallowed in a vain effort to clamp down those urges and said, "Tell me. You can tell me, you know. You shouldn't have to do this alone."
Much to his extreme pleasure, her breathing hitched. She shut her eyes tight and turned her head away from him, though she made no move to distance herself. "You won't believe me when I tell you what's wrong."
Malcolm furrowed his brow in confusion. What's so hard to believe about a couple of nightmares? Hell, even I have nightmares sometimes. It's perfectly natural. "You don't know that," he said. He couldn't help but be hurt that she continued to shut him out. "After everything that's happened to us these past few months, how can you say that to me?"
She looked so dejected that his heart broke at the sight of her. "I'm sorry, Malcolm. I don't mean to shut you out, I just…" Her voice trailed off and died away, seeming to echo in the darkness of his room.
The silence that hung in the air was deafening. Malcolm released his grip on Kamea's wrists and skimmed his fingers up her arms, watching in delight as goose bumps dotted her flesh and she shivered beneath his touch. She was close, so close, all he had to do was lift his chin and he'd be kissing her. All he'd dreamt about for months was kissing her, being with her – in the Biblical sense – and here was his chance. If he didn't take it, he would regret it for the rest of his life. The small part of him that felt incredibly slimy for taking advantage of Kamea's obvious vulnerability was drowned out by the much larger part of him that was reminding him just how long it had been since he had been with a woman in any kind of sense.
He surged forward, intent on pressing his lips to hers, but she pulled back at the last second. "It's my father," she said.
If she had hoped to kill the mood, mission accomplished. Deflated, he leaned back against the bulkhead, putting necessary distance between them. She wasn't telling him anything that he didn't already know. "I gathered."
Kamea looked at him; her eyes were bottomless – she was giving him the same kind of look that she had on that first fateful day in sickbay. "I think he did something to me."
Malcolm raised an eyebrow and cupped her face with one hand. He was really starting to worry about her. "Kamea, your father has been dead for nearly nine years."
She made a noise of disgust in the back of her throat and pulled completely away from him. He was hit with a rush of cold as her body warmth moved away. "I know that," she said, sounding affronted. She slid off the bed and walked over to the window. "I think he did something to me."
Malcolm buried his face in his hands. He obviously wasn't going to get any sleep tonight. He was pleased that she at least wanted to discuss what was wrong, but he couldn't quite mask the skepticism in his voice when he said, "All right. So what do you think he did to you?"
She leveled a wounded gaze in his direction. "I told you that you wouldn't believe me."
He laughed before he could stop himself. "Well, it is pretty unbelievable."
She rolled her eyes and turned back to the window. "Kane," she said through clenched teeth, and he smiled. "He's in my head, Malcolm. He's in my head, and he won't leave me alone."
Malcolm sighed in exaggerated patience and swung his legs around, so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed. "Kamea, you're just dealing with residual guilt from the attack. You consider yourself responsible for what happened to your parents, and this is your way of holding on. You need to let go."
He was impressed with his interpretation of the situation. Psychology wasn't his strong suit, but he had ample time to think about Kamea and her late-night problems, and short of discussing it with Phlox – which she had made him swear that he would not do, stating that it was her problem and she would deal with it – he couldn't come up with any more logical explanation.
"Then how do you explain my dreams?" she asked.
He shrugged. "I don't know anything about your dreams." It was the truth. Aside from her mentioning, maybe once, that they were more like memories than dreams, he didn't know all that much about them.
Kamea growled, low in her throat, and leaned against the wall, bracing both hands on it. "I'm seeing things in my sleep – things that I know happened but I never saw. It's like I'm seeing it through my father's eyes, like he wants me to see them."
Malcolm was intrigued. "For example?"
There was a moment of silence. Kamea, her hands still braced against the wall, had dropped her head down and was staring at the floor. So when she spoke, it was to the floor, and Malcolm almost didn't hear her. "Ambassador Soval asked Starfleet to deny my application to the academy."
Malcolm wasn't sure whether to be surprised or not. Soval had never been fond of the human race, but Malcolm couldn't quite picture of him making a request like that. It seemed, somehow, beneath the Vulcan. "Are you sure?"
Kamea snorted. "No. How can I trust anything that goes on inside my head? But I think it's true. I mean, the medical database lists me as human, so what other reason could there be?"
Truth be told, Malcolm couldn't think of one. Kamea was more than qualified to be in Starfleet, and if her application had been sent through normal channels and given the same consideration as everyone else's – and it should have been, if the admiralty didn't realize that she was a hybrid – then she should have been accepted. But still, Malcolm couldn't see the ambassador making a request like that. "I don't know," he said honestly.
She turned around and collapsed against the wall, sliding to the floor. "I'm going crazy."
His chest clenched painfully. He hated to see her like this. He got off the bed and walked over to her, kneeling beside her. "You're not crazy," he said, and even though his brain was screaming for him not to, he stroked the top of her head. "We'll be arriving on Vulcan within a few hours. Their doctors can examine you, and maybe they'll find out what's wrong."
Kamea jerked her head around to stare at him, her eyes wide and fearful. "No doctors."
Malcolm pulled his head back, confused. "But if they can – "
She shook her head. "No doctors," she said again, more forcefully this time. "Don't let them touch me. Promise me, Malcolm."
He gulped. He knew he couldn't make a promise like that. Once the High Command learned of the existence of a Vulcan/human hybrid, they would of course what the Science Directorate to examine Kamea to see if it was true; they certainly wouldn't believe Phlox's findings, simply because he was the physician on an Earth vessel, and because Vulcans were stubborn arses.
But she was looking at him with those big, bright, impossibly blue eyes, and he heard himself saying, "I promise."
She fell into his arms and buried her face in the crook of his neck, and he knew he would seriously pay for that lapse in judgment.
Vulcan.
It loomed just outside Trip's window, taunting him with its red color and its Fire Plains and its bizarre customs and rituals that had pretty much ruined any chance he'd had of ever having a future with T'Pol. He had hoped that the next time he saw Vulcan would be because T'Pol was getting a quickie divorce from that bastard Koss, not because T'Pol was being forced to return to the planet permanently.
He wondered idly if he could soup up Enterprise's weapons so that they were powerful enough to destroy an entire planet, like in that movie Star Wars. Sure, T'Pol would be momentarily devastated at the loss of her home world, but then she would get over it and they could live happily ever after, frolicking across the field of flowers and riding off into the sunset and such.
God, how he hated that planet. It was just sitting there, mocking him with its very existence, and its stupid political problems.
He was so wrapped up in his hatred of the planet that he didn't notice someone had entered his room. "I'm thinking of making a break for it."
Trip turned and saw Kamea hovering in the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb with her arms folded protectively across her chest. The look on her face resembled something that one might find on a caged animal. Her whole body was tensed, as though preparing to flee. She walked over to him, plastered a big fake smile on her face, and asked, "Care to join me?"
The smile he gave her was just as fake. "It really isn't so bad."
She lifted one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug and used her head to gesture at the planet. "If it wasn't going to kill billions of innocent people, I'd give serious consideration to blowing the whole thing to bits."
He raised an eyebrow, turning back to the window. "Could you do it?"
She shrugged with both shoulders this time. "It'd probably kill me in the process. Of course, I'm not convinced that's such a bad thing, at this point in time."
Trip winked at her. "Malcolm would miss you."
She looked at her nonexistent watch, apparently trying to judge just how long it had been before Trip had mentioned Malcolm. The two of them couldn't seem to have a conversation without the armory officer's name coming up. "So close that time, Commander."
Trip allowed himself a hearty laugh and immediately felt guilty for momentarily forgetting that he was supposed to be miserable, not laughing. For a good minute or two, he and Kamea stood in silence. Then he thought of something. "What are you doing here?"
Kamea kept her eyes trained on the planet looming in the window before her. "I figured you were the one person on this ship looking forward to this as much as I was." The sarcasm was evident in her voice. She ran her fingers through her hair and looked down at her feet. "I'm afraid of what they'll do to me."
Incredulous, Trip stared at her with wide eyes. "What they'll do to you? You're Vulcan."
"Half-Vulcan," she said, trying and failing to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "Half-human. Might as well be fully human. They'll never consider me Vulcan. They'll probably have me executed just for suggesting the idea."
Trip licked his lips. "They're not like that."
Kamea shook her head, as though in disbelief. "I don't know," she said. "My father told me some stories. I mean, you can't really trust his opinion, because of what they did to him, but those were some dark stories."
"Attention, everyone," the captain's voice echoed in Trip's room, "we are currently in orbit around Vulcan. Senior staff report to the bridge."
Trip looked at Kamea with raised eyebrows. "Ready?"
She exhaled through pursed lips. "Not entirely. But I supposed I had better become so."
They made their way to the bridge, where the rest of the primary bridge crew had already assembled. Captain Archer acknowledged the both of them with a nod, and Trip took his post, while Kamea lingered in the back, near the turbo lift. Trip could feel T'Pol's eyes on him, but he determinedly avoided her gaze. He hated to leave things like this – she meant too much to him for him to send her off while they were fighting without so much as a goodbye – but maybe it was better this way. Maybe it would help with the healing process.
And maybe monkeys would fly out of his ass.
Once everyone was settled, Archer nodded at Hoshi. "Hoshi," he said, "contact the High Command."
In a matter of seconds, the familiar face of Ambassador Soval was staring down at them. Trip had never cared for the guy, but he felt kind of sorry for him as he saw the state the Vulcan was in. He still looked as distinguished as ever, but the stress of the situation must have been getting to him, because there wasn't as much starch in his spine as usual, and there was no condescension in his eyes or his voice when he said, "Captain Archer, it's good to see you."
Trip was amazed. He almost sounded like he meant it.
Archer nodded. "It's good to see you, too, Ambassador. I'm sorry it couldn't be under more pleasant circumstances."
Had Soval been human, he probably would have sighed. But he was Vulcan, and therefore gave no such emotional response. "I apologize that we are taking away your science officer, but we need everyone that we can get."
"No trouble, Ambassador," said Archer, which Trip knew was a flat-out lie. The captain had spent much of the past three days holed up with Trip in his quarters, drinking bad Scotch and complaining about how the Vulcans were still managing to run the ship, even with them so far out in space. "We understand that T'Pol's presence on Vulcan is necessary. Would you like us to send a shuttle down, or – "
Soval almost looked panicked. "No, that won't be necessary. I don't wish to inconvenience you any further. We shall send a shuttle to retrieve T'Pol."
Trip and Archer exchanged a glance. The normally stoic Vulcan was acting jittery – or as jittery as a Vulcan could get. Something was definitely up. Archer turned back to the view screen. "Admiral Forrest has given us leave to offer our assistance, if you – "
"That's all right, Captain," said Soval, and Trip couldn't help but notice that that was the second time the ambassador had interrupted the captain. "We appreciate the offer, but we won't be needing Enterprise's help."
Of course the Vulcans would refuse Archer's offer of assistance, but Soval would never have said that he appreciated the offer. He also wouldn't have apologized for taking T'Pol away from her duties, since he didn't think she should be on Enterprise in the first place. He also, Trip noticed suddenly, wouldn't be fidgeting in his chair. And was that sweat forming on the Vulcan's brow?
Archer cleared his throat. "If you don't require our assistance, would it be possible for us to – "
"I'm sorry, Captain," Soval said, "but I don't believe that it's safe for any of your crew down on the surface. We shall send a shuttle for T'Pol within the hour." And then the view screen went dead.
For a moment, no one spoke. Trip wondered if they were all thinking the same thing that he was. He chanced a glance at T'Pol and saw that she looked completely perplexed. Her brow was furrowed, and her eyes darted back and forth, as though trying to come to terms with what she had just witnessed. He turned to look at Kamea and saw that she was staring at the now blank view screen with a look of utmost resentment on her face. She exhaled loudly through her nose and turned abruptly away, suddenly becoming fascinated with the door to the turbo lift.
Trip coughed. "That went well."