A/N: Sorry about that. I had a wedding (not mine), and the muse went on vacation. Also, things are kind of stressful for me right now, and I just didn't feel like writing.

The interaction between Kamea and Malcolm later in the chapter is stolen from "Affliction". I liked the idea and figured it would be kind of universal.

Ta'a: traditional Vulcan salute

Kaumaha: I'm sorry.

Kulikuli: Shut up.

Glantau: Watch.

Kālele ia'u: Trust me.

Kash-nohv: Mind-meld

Reviews are always appreciated. Feedback turns me into a better writer. :) Any criticism, any advice that you have for me may just help me shape this story better. So don't be afraid to comment. Just don't yell at me or tell me that I suck. Because I will sic my army of wiener dogs after you.

firebirdgirl: I agree. Koss is a total dipstick.

Blackn'blue: It was not my intention to make Trip a whiny crybaby. I hadn't even realized he was coming off that way. (I have a tendency to do that.) I hope this chapter, while not completely reinserting Trip's backbone, at least gets him on the operating table.

Chapter Ten: Basic Elementary School Logic

Trip didn't see what the big deal was. So there was blood on a rock. It was probably from one of those – he struggled to remember the name – sehlats. Or something. He just couldn't understand why he suddenly felt anxious, which he knew wasn't him – it was T'Pol. The waver in her voice was unexpected. Something was scaring her, and T'Pol never got scared. At least, he'd never seen her scared. He assumed that she would've gotten scared as a child. Maybe.

"Blood?" T'Pol said quietly. She took a step back, as though trying to steady herself, and Trip instinctively reached out to steady her in case she stumbled. He quickly withdrew his hands when Koss shot him a death glare. "Are you certain?"

Koss just gave her a look that plainly said, Of course I am.

Trip had absolutely no idea what was going on.

Besides, he couldn't see this supposed blood anyway. It could just be a discolored spot on the rock. Rocks sometimes had those.

He had half a mind to leave – this was ridiculous, why had he ever thought this was a good idea – but he saw how upset T'Pol was and decided to stay. T'Pol didn't sound scared. She didn't stumble or lose her footing. She never needed to steady herself. Something was seriously wrong; he just had no idea what it was.

"T'Pol?" he said, not even bothering to phrase the rest of the question. His hands twitched, moving to touch her arm of their own accord, but he refrained. Probably not a good idea in front of her husband. That Vulcan death glare could really do a number on a guy's self-esteem.

Koss cocked an eyebrow. "This does not concern you, Commander Tucker."

Trip opened his mouth to respond but thought better of it. Much as he hated to admit it, he was beginning to realize that Koss had a point. Ugh, he thought. Words that should never be uttered in the same sentence. T'Pol was Koss's wife, not Trip's, and anything going on between the two of them was best left between the two of them. Trip had no right to interfere with what went on among married couples, no matter how he felt about the obvious sham of a marriage. After all, a sham marriage was still a marriage. T'Pol was not Trip's property. He couldn't very well force her to do anything she did not want to do – that much had been obvious years ago. If she did not want him to know what was going on, then he wasn't going to know, and it wasn't going to help trying to muscle his way in. Koss would outmuscle him anyway. Hell, T'Pol would outmuscle him.

He really had to stop listening to Kamea. The girl had no idea what she was talking about half the time.

Trip gritted his teeth. While he could do nothing about Koss being T'Pol's husband, he could still hate the guy with every fiber of his being, which was what he intended to do until the day one of them died. "Fine. I just wanted to tell T'Pol goodbye anyway."

He ignored Koss's insistences that he had already said goodbye and turned to T'Pol. He studied her carefully. He could tell that something – the invisible blood on the rock, most likely – had upset her, but there were no outward signs that she was anything other than the stoic Vulcan that she always was.

Trip nearly rolled his eyes. And if he believed that…

He leaned forward and lowered his voice, hoping that he was quiet enough so that not even Koss's super-Vulcan senses could overhear him. "I'm sorry about what I said. I just – I don't like the idea of you leaving."

T'Pol probably would have smiled at that, had she been human. He hoped the sincerity of his statement was evident in his tone. "I am not fond of it myself. But it is – "

"Necessary," Trip said, nodding. "Yeah. I got that." And he got it. And he got it. He didn't have to have it beaten into his head to get the point. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"No," T'Pol said. "It does not."

Trip gave her a half-hearted smile. His hands itched to take her in his arms; he once again refrained. "I'm gonna miss you, T'Pol. Enterprise won't be the same without you, you know."

"Good." Trip smiled at the barest hint of smug satisfaction in her voice. "I will…miss you as well."

He had stretched out his arm to shake her hand, and though she reached to grab it, he pulled it back at the last minute and split his fingers down the middle, giving her the ta'a. "Live long and prosper, T'Pol."

She returned the salute. "Peace and long life, Commander."

He groaned inwardly. God, were they back to "Commander" again? Damn. He had just gotten used to her calling him "Trip". He liked it when she called him "Trip". It meant a lot more coming out of her mouth than, say, the captain's. But he figured that calling him his nickname in front of her husband was not the best idea, given the way Vulcans viewed nicknames. And Koss already looked pretty peeved at how close Trip was standing to T'Pol. Trip considered moving, to put the other guy's mind at ease, but didn't, just to be a jackass.

Okay. So maybe he couldn't be T'Pol's lover, husband, mate, whatever. He could still be her friend. He'd rather have her as a friend than not have her in his life at all. Why in the hell had he listened to Kamea? All that crap she kept spouting about how he should talk to T'Pol, how he shouldn't let things end like this. Blah, blah, blah. He and T'Pol were well past the talking stage. If she didn't know by now how he felt about her, she damn well wasn't going to know.

T'Pol was a smart girl. She'd probably figured it out. And if she hadn't… Well, he didn't like to think about that.

He must've made a complete ass of himself, wandering around the ship like his life was over, snapping at people for the dumbest reasons, acting like no one should be happy because he was miserable. What was that old adage? Acceptance is the first step in the healing process? Or was it the last step? Well, it was one of the steps, that was for sure. And maybe he was finally beginning to accept something that had happened more than six months ago.

"Well," Trip said loudly, bringing Koss back into the conversation but still standing mere inches from T'Pol, "I best be getting back. I'm sure V'Las is pissed we haven't left yet."

"Indeed," said Koss, moving around Trip to stand beside T'Pol. "Farewell, Commander Tucker."

Trip nodded, licking his lips. "Yeah. Bye, Koss." He gave T'Pol a pathetic excuse for a wave and started back for the house.

His eyes burned with tears, but he forced them back. He'd already cried enough times over T'Pol. Crying wasn't going to change the situation. She wouldn't suddenly be divorced just because he shed a few tears. He needed to suck it up and be a man. He certainly couldn't imagine Archer or Travis bawling over a woman like this.

Malcolm maybe.

He had not gone ten feet when T'Pol called his name. "Trip!"

Surprised that she had used his nickname in Koss's presence, Trip turned around, his eyebrows raised. T'Pol quickly walked over to him; Koss followed behind like the dutiful dog that he was. Trip wondered if maybe T'Pol were going to kiss him again, as she had done at her wedding, but he didn't think so. He could still feel the anxiety that was radiating off her in waves, and when he looked into her eyes, he saw that they were a mass of confusion.

This time he gave into the impulse to touch her. He gently laid his hand on her elbow. At this point, he didn't give a damn what impression he was giving Koss. "T'Pol, what's wrong?"

She looked at him, her brown eyes shimmering in the desert heat, and said. "My mother has disappeared."

Trip wasn't sure that he'd heard her correctly. "Disappeared? You mean, like, she's missing?"

T'Pol nodded. "Yes. Koss sent me a message several days ago – "

So that was the reason he'd contacted her. Trip nearly did a dance, he was so happy.

" – to inform me that she had vanished."

The urge to dance faded as quickly as it had appeared. No wonder T'Pol was so upset about the discovery of blood on a rock – which Trip was still convinced was nonexistent. He had yet to see any blood. She must have been out of her mind with worry, which explained the massive waves of anxiety he was trying to fight off. She and her mother were not extremely close, but she was still family, and as T'Pol had put aside her own happiness for her mother's benefit, there had to be something there, at least.

Something suddenly occurred to him. "Is that what you were doing at the house?"

"I wanted to examine her residence for any clues," T'Pol said. There was a distinct note of relief in her voice, which Trip suspected was because he knew the truth. "It does not make sense, Trip. One cannot simply vanish."

Trip shrugged and glanced at the horizon, squinting in the bright sunlight. "Maybe she didn't. Did it look like someone grabbed her?"

"You were in the house. Did it appear to be out of order in any way, as though a struggle had occurred there?"

Trip reluctantly shook his head. The place had looked immaculate, just as it had when he'd been there all those months ago. A few new decorations, but basically the same. "Maybe she wasn't nabbed at the house. Maybe someone took her from in town."

"No one has seen her in days," Koss said. "I took the liberty of questioning some of her neighbors."

Of course you did. Trip nodded, not really listening. "Right." He crossed his arms and stared at T'Pol. "What do you think happened?"

T'Pol lifted her shoulders slightly, shrugging without really shrugging. "I have no idea. There is no logical explanation for her disappearance, Trip."

"Maybe she – "

"My mother is not the type to suddenly go on a – a vacation, if that is what you were thinking."

It was, and the fact that she had figured that out really freaked him out. But he chose not to say anything about that. "Okay…"

Obviously something else was going on. Trip had met T'Les, and she wasn't the type to just take off without warning. Not unless she were threatened. This whole thing with the Syrannites, and suddenly T'Pol's mother disappeared? It was all a little too convenient. Maybe T'Les was somehow mixed up in this business with the Syrannites.

But how could he broach the topic to T'Pol without severely pissing her off? Implying that her mother was somehow involved, she would probably hate him into the next century. "When, um, when did the Syrannites start rebelling?"

He was speaking to T'Pol, but it was Koss who answered. T'Pol, of course, would have no idea, having been on Enterprise the entire time. "Seventeen days ago," said Koss. "Someone broke into the temple at Mount Seleya and stole several priceless artifacts."

Trip raised his eyebrows. Stealing priceless artifacts did not sound like something any Vulcans would do. Perhaps the race was not as infallible as they liked others to believe. Or perhaps there was more to this conflict than the High Command was willing to admit. Soval had told them some things, but he hadn't told them much. "And the High Command thinks it was the Syrannites?"

Koss nodded, his lips pressed into a thin line, looking about as upset as a Vulcan would allow himself to look. "The High Command received a communiqué from the Syrannites thirteen hours after the event, taking responsibility for the crime."

"What was stolen?"

"Commander Tucker," Koss said, "with all due respect, that information is classified."

Trip didn't feel that there was any respect in Koss's statement. He was also convinced that Vulcan infants learned how to say, "That information is classified," before they learned how to say anything else. His first word was "pie". Trip held up his hands in a gesture of concession. He really wasn't in the mood to get in an argument with Koss. "Just asking a question, Koss."

T'Pol seemed to have realized where his train of thought was headed. "Do you think that my mother is involved somehow?"

He paused, pursing his lips, and tried to think of the best way to answer that question without upsetting T'Pol. "If she's not involved, then she knows something that they don't want anyone else to know."

Koss heaved an overdramatic sigh, which was very un-Vulcan. "Commander Tucker, there was no sign of a struggle in T'Les's house."

Trip shrugged. "Maybe there was no struggle. Maybe they had weapons. Maybe they forced her. I don't know." He looked at Koss, then used his head to gesture towards the group of rocks. "So where did you see this blood?"

Koss crossed his arms behind his back. "Are you implying that I am fabricating evidence?"

Trip shook his head slowly. "I'm not implying anything. I just didn't see the blood."

"Well, it was there."

"If you say so."

T'Pol stepped in between them before a fight could break out. "Koss," she said, "do you have any idea where the Syrannites might go to hide from the High Command?"

Koss kept his eyes on Trip as he answered. "I can tell you where I would go, were I a Syrannite." He held Trip's gaze a moment longer, then turned slightly at the waist to face T'Pol. "The Forge."

T'Pol nodded shortly. "Then that is where I must go."

She started back towards the house. Trip and Koss glanced at each other, then at T'Pol's retreating back, and then they both trotted after her.

"T'Pol," said Trip, "where are you going?"

She responded without even turning around. "Back to Enterprise. I intend to transport to the edge of the Forge. I am going to find my mother."

"You cannot," Koss said. "You must report back to High Command to receive your assignment."

She still didn't turn. "The High Command does not need me, Koss. My mother does. She may very well be an unwilling participant in this, and I do not intend to leave her at the mercy of a group of individuals who have the audacity to break into a sacred temple and steal religious relics."

Trip exhaled slowly, but he couldn't help smiling. T'Pol was back. He glanced at Koss over his shoulder and saw that the Vulcan remained rooted in place. "You coming, or not?"

Malcolm had watched Trip leave the house, his shoulders sagged in what only could have been described as defeat, and felt an immediate stab of impatience toward Kamea. He knew that the girl was only trying to help – she liked Trip, and she liked T'Pol, and she knew (as the rest of them did) that they belonged together – but she simply did not know where to draw the line. She kept putting all this pressure on Trip to take things to the next level when there really was no next level to go to. Malcolm didn't want to get involved, but he felt as though he had to say something. T'Pol was married; that was probably not going to change any time soon. And as Trip was not the type to sleep with or even chase after married women, Malcolm thought it was in the commander's best interests to move on.

Malcolm gritted his teeth. Try telling Kamea that, he thought. That girl was impossible. While she obviously hadn't inherited that infinite Vulcan patience of T'Pol's, she had apparently gotten that infuriating Vulcan stubbornness and that damn Vulcan pride. She drove him crazy most of the time, parading around as though she was the end-all, be-all of existence, blathering on like an insufferable know-it-all. It was extremely annoying.

He sighed. Annoying or not, Kamea had wedged herself in his head and his heart. Goddamn her for that.

As the others couldn't leave for Enterprise until Trip returned, they were waiting in what Malcolm presumed to be the living room. Archer and Travis had sat down, obviously expecting a long wait. Soval remained standing, watching out the window, though Trip had disappeared out the gate long before. Malcolm and Kamea had retreated to a far side of the room. Well, Malcolm had done most of the retreating, mostly because he wanted to talk to Kamea without the others overhearing.

She was doing her best to not let that happen, it seemed. As soon as he'd led her away from the group, she had turned her back on him, carefully examining everything about the room, from the decorations to the furniture to the floor. She appeared to be taking everything in, and while Malcolm thought it might have something to do with the fact that this was the residence of the aunt that she never knew, he also thought it had more to do with the fact that she knew he wanted to talk to her and she didn't want to talk to him.

Did he mention that she was annoying?

After a while, when it became apparent that Commander Tucker wasn't coming back any time soon, Malcolm had finally had enough. "Kamea."

"Can't talk," she said, her eyes trained on a blanket draped over the arm of a chair in the corner. It looked almost exactly like the blanket she had in her quarters back on Enterprise. "Reminiscing."

He narrowed his eyes. "You've never been here before."

She still wouldn't look at him. Her eyes remained fixed on that blanket. She stretched out her hand and ran her fingers along the material almost reverently, the pads of her fingers barely skimming the surface. "What's your point?"

Malcolm rolled his eyes. He could see that reason wasn't going to get him very far. Kamea was one of the most unreasonable people he had ever met. For someone descended from a race that valued logic above everything else, she didn't seem to have too much faith in it. "I think you were a little hard on Commander Tucker."

That made her look at him. Her eyes were a dark, cobalt blue, quite unlike any color he had ever seen before – especially in her eyes. They were bright – never dark. "Excuse me?"

She sounded mad. Not good. When she was angry, she was even more unreasonable. It would be nearly impossible to have a civil conversation with her. At least he'd gotten her to look at him.

Malcolm cleared his throat and automatically tensed his muscles. If she were going to throw him across the room, he wanted to be prepared for it. "I think you're a little too involved in his 'relationship' with T'Pol." He put as much emphasis as possible on the word "relationship".

He expected her to deny it, or immediately launch into some drawn-out explanation as to how she knew everything and people would be better off if they listened to her from the start, as she was apt to do when it turned out that she was right. She succeeded in surprising him, however, when she said, "So what if I am?"

His jaw dropped, and he stood there, momentarily stunned – and openmouthed – for a good moment or two before he could manage to string two words together. "It really isn't any of your business."

She snorted. "I know that."

Malcolm clenched his jaw so tightly that it hurt. If she knew she was overstepping her bounds, then she should have known to keep her nose out of the commanders' business. Because she apparently didn't see what this whole situation was doing to either of them, and if she did, she didn't seem to care. "Then perhaps you should stay out of it."

The look that suddenly crossed Kamea's face made him wish he'd just kept his big mouth shut. He tensed again. "You," she said, in a voice that could only be construed as a snarl, "have no idea what you're talking about."

Malcolm took a deep breath and once again ignored good sense by continuing, despite the fact that Kamea looked as though she would like nothing better than to rip his head off. And she could do it, too. "Kamea, you're blaming Commander Tucker for a situation that isn't his fault."

Kamea looked positively insulted by the accusation. "I am doing no such thing."

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. She may just kill him for that. "Yes, you are."

She exhaled loudly through her nose and took a step towards him. He flinched automatically. "I have never placed the blame for this whole ridiculous situation on Trip. I would never do that."

"But you are. You keep pushing him to be the one to instigate the discussions – "

"Because," Kamea said sharply, "T'Pol isn't going to do it, and this needs to be resolved."

"Why do they need to have discussions at all? Isn't it completely obvious how they feel about each other?"

Kamea closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands, mumbling something in Hawaiian. Her words were muffled by her hands, so Malcolm couldn't understand what she was saying. When she looked up at him again, her eyes had returned to their normal bright, brilliant blue. "Are we seriously having this conversation again?"

Malcolm raised an eyebrow, belatedly remembering that they had already had this conversation just a few days ago. "Apparently."

Just what in the hell is her fascination with Commander Tucker? She just couldn't seem to let it go, and it was starting to piss Malcolm off. But he continued to humor her and talk about it, because talking with her about Commander Tucker and T'Pol was better than not being with her at all. And she certainly didn't want to talk about anything else.

She rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. "Trip is operating under basic elementary school logic. A guy teases a girl, it means he likes her. Stuff like that."

Malcolm pursed his lips. It made sense. Trip had spent the better part of three years purposely antagonizing T'Pol. Malcolm had always thought that the commander had a crush on the science officer; his behavior proved, which only further illustrated Malcolm's earlier point that actions spoke louder than words. But he was really sick of talking about this. "What's the problem with that?" he asked, more than a little frustrated.

The look Kamea gave him suggested that she thought the answer should have been obvious. "Vulcans don't go to elementary school."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Kamea rolled her eyes again. It was a wonder they didn't get stuck there. "Actions mean nothing if you don't understand the intent behind them. You keep saying that actions speak louder than words, but not if you don't know what the action is trying to say. And Trip doesn't seem to realize that T'Pol doesn't know. That's why I'm trying to get him to talk to her. Talking, T'Pol gets."

Malcolm fought the urge to go to her. She sounded as though she were on the edge of a nervous breakdown, but he was afraid to get too close. "Kamea, it isn't your responsibility to iron out Commander Tucker and T'Pol's differences."

She clenched her jaw so tightly that he could hear her teeth grinding from where he was standing. "I'm aware of that. I am trying to end this, because quite frankly, I'm going crazy."

Malcolm nodded knowingly. The entire ship was nearly fed up with the will-they-won't-they mentality of Trip and T'Pol's relationship. Months after T'Pol's marriage, rumors were still circulating as to the circumstances surround her sudden nuptials. There was apparently nothing else on Enterprise worth talking about. "I understand how you feel, but Kamea – "

Kamea groaned quite loudly. "You cannot possibly understand how I feel."

Malcolm's patience was wearing thin. He rubbed his temples in what he had hoped would be a soothing manner; it wasn't. "I'm not going to have to suffer through another speech about how no one understands you, am I?"

That was the wrong thing to say. Kamea advanced, lifted him up and shoved him against the wall before he even realized what was happening. He had never seen that fire in her eyes before, that manic glint. It scared him. He tore his eyes away from her and saw that Travis, Soval, and the captain were rushing towards him; they slammed into an invisible barrier a few feet away. Kamea wasn't about to let the two of them be disturbed.

"This is not some 'poor me, my life is so horrible' spiel that teenagers rattle off, thinking that they're misunderstood, Malcolm." She spat out his name like it had burned her tongue. "There is literally no one else like me in this entire universe. You don't know what it's like to be the only one. And it's more than just that, okay? Whatever people are feeling, I feel. So when someone is walking around the ship, miserable, it makes me miserable. I don't like feeling miserable. So forgive me for wanting to do something about it." She let go of his shirt, and he slid to the floor. "I didn't realize I was bothering you so much."

Malcolm didn't know what to say. He'd known, of course, that she could read minds, but he had no idea that her abilities were so strong. "Kaumaha, Kamea. I had no idea – "

She grunted and collapsed to the ground beside him. "Oh, kulikuli. Of course you had no idea. You couldn't possibly."

He was sick of her saying that. He didn't understand what it was like for her because she wouldn't tell him. She didn't tell him anything. She'd only just started telling him about her dreams, and she'd been having those for months. He wanted to understand. "Okay, so I have no idea. Help me, then. Make me understand."

Kamea looked at him – really looked at him, like that first fateful look in sickbay. She looked like she was sizing him up, trying to ascertain just how serious he was. She raised her eyebrows. "Do you mean that?"

He nodded emphatically. "You know I do."

She stared at him for a long minute, then stretched out her hand. Soval crossed the room in three quick strides and grabbed her wrist.

"Kamea," said Soval, "you cannot do that."

"Glantau,"Kamea said, and she barely spared Soval a glance before wrenching her arm free of his grip. In one swift movement, she had her hand on Malcolm's face – her thumb on his chin, her index and middle fingers on his temple and by his ear. His skin burned where she touched him; his heart rate automatically sped up.

"Malcolm," she said, "kālele ia'u."

For a moment, nothing happened, and though he loved the feeling of her fingers on his face, he was starting to feel awkward, considering that the captain, Travis, and the Vulcan ambassador were staring at them. He opened his mouth to say something when suddenly his spine went rigid. Pain shot through his limbs – pain quite unlike anything he'd ever experienced, and he'd been tortured. He may have cried out, he couldn't be certain, but after a minute his body went numb, as though he was becoming accustomed to the pain. As soon as the pain receded, he was bombarded with a barrage of emotions. He couldn't identify any of the emotions, and it was crippling him. He literally could not move. He was pretty sure he was trying to move his arms, but they just wouldn't obey. He couldn't focus on anything except the tidal wave of emotions crashing through him. He tried to take a deep breath, tried to clear his mind, but he couldn't. He wasn't used to doing this, he wasn't use to dealing with this; how could anyone deal with this on a regular basis?

Slowly, very slowly, the emotions separated, and he was able to identify them. There was confusion, frustration, resentment, apprehension, and about a dozen others, zipping through his head so fast that he was surprised he could recognize them at all. Eventually, they all disappeared, and he was infused with a sense of calm – but it was a forced calm, unnatural, someone trying to be calm but who couldn't quite get a handle on it.

There was a bright flash behind his eyelids, and he was standing in a large, white room. He glanced around and found Kamea sitting there.

"Kamea," he said, and he was surprised to discover that his voice echoed, "what's going on?"

She looked up at him from her place on what he assumed was the floor, almost demurely. "Kash-nohv." She must have sensed his confusion, because she smiled softly. "It's a mind-meld. You wanted to understand. This is me helping you understand." She gestured at the floor with her head. "Have a seat."

Malcolm did not have a seat. He remained where he was. "This is a mind-meld?" It wasn't how he imagined a mind-meld. Of course, he really had no idea what a mind-meld was supposed to be like.

He really did have no idea what it was like to be her.

"Is this what it's like for you every day?" he asked.

She continued to stare at him; her eyes bored into his soul. "Every minute I'm awake."

He swallowed hard. "And when you're asleep?"

She blinked dolefully at him. "I dream."

Malcolm struggled to get his breathing under control. "About what?"

The voice that answered did not belong to Kamea. "About me."