Season Five

by EnlightenedSkye

Picking up six months after Terra Prime, the Enterprise attempts to hold the Coalition together while keeping an eye on the growing Romulan threat. Trip takes his own command and the war begins mid-season. [July 2155 to January 2157. 25 episodes. Fully episodic, so each chapter is a stand-alone story. ATP, Troshi, Malcolm/OC, P/C. Rated T throughout. Complete, S6 and S7 complete]

9. Episode 9: The Arena

A/N: Thank you everyone for your reviews and feedback! This is the longest episode so far, and some parts of it are quite silly.

This episode draws from VOY 2x16 Meld (briefly) but mostly TNG 6x11 Chain of Command Part II. Of course I don't have enough hubris to think my writing is that good; it just got me thinking about an appropriate Vulcan equivalent. It heavily references E3 of this story (Kindred), so just in case you've slept since then...

Previously on Enterprise...T'Pol discovered that Vulcan has a severe Romulan hybrid problem, caused by Tal Shiar agents replacing members of the Security Directorate, including her own father. Her half-brother gave her the option of joining them in their mission of unification. When she refused, he promised that she would know no peace.

This week's cold open is dedicated to the hilarious OOC mental image I have of Hoshi and Alira singing Garfunkel and Oates' classic You, Me, and Steve, because by this point, Trip and Malcolm have realized their bromance has an expiration date and are trying to make the most of it. If you've spent any amount of time around fandoms on the internet, you know the song. Call this a Disaster Twins mini.

Next chapter we'll be commissioning the Maelstrom, then E11 will be another funny episode but starring the main cast this time, and then the war kicks off in E12. E10 is technically a Christmas episode, so it's mostly fluff and exposition like E1 was. I'll give you a hint as to what's in store for our four couples, in no particular order: meeting the family, sight-seeing gone wrong, trapped in a turbolift, thrown in jail on Christmas Eve. I'll leave it up to you all to guess which one goes with which...

Season Five

Episode Nine: The Arena

Upon being relieved at the start of beta shift, Hoshi made a beeline straight to her quarters, determined to have a relaxing, quiet evening to herself. She honestly tried; she shoved her PADD and communicator to the back of her desk drawer, set her status on the shipwide intranet to Do Not Disturb, and had even picked up dinner to go from the mess hall before settling into bed.

This time, she'd gone all out with a face mask, a good novel, and soft music playing overhead. Really, after spending all week preparing for the negotiations with the Tellarites, she was wound up tighter than a clock and needed to take a moment to breathe.

A few hours had passed when she heard the door chime. At first she ignored it; if it was an emergency, people could contact her using the overhead comm, but at the moment, she wasn't answering the door unless they were actively engaged in a firefight and the ship was seconds away from exploding.

The chime sounded again, then again, spaced out over several minutes, before Hoshi cursed under her breath and got out of bed, determined to give her unwanted guest a piece of her mind.

On the other side of the door, she was greeted by none other than Ensign Taxa, who was holding a bottle of wine in each hand. Gesturing towards the interior of her quarters, she insisted, "We need to talk."

"Now you're speaking my language." Hoshi stepped aside and allowed her to enter, swiping one of the bottles from her and examining the label. "This is a good vintage, too. French."

"Is it?" Alira glanced over her shoulder as she reached into the cabinets above Hoshi's desk. This was a time honored tradition, and she knew exactly where the glasses were kept. "I just grabbed and ran. You'd be surprised how hard it is to sneak alcohol out of the kitchen when Chef's around."

She laughed and joined her on the bunk, where they sat across from one another, cross legged, slightly hunched over so as to avoid hitting their heads on the railing above them. Alira filled their glasses and leaned precariously over the side of the bed to set the bottle on the floor, then righted herself, declaring with false solemnity: "I suppose you're wondering why we're gathered here today."

"Just for a bit of girl talk, as usual." They clinked their glasses and drank; Hoshi watched as Alira polished off her glass in one gulp and reached for more. "This looks serious. What did he do this time?"

"It's not what he did. It's what your-" She waved her hands in the air, exhaling through pursed lips. "Male friend is doing."

Hoshi knew that the Denobulan language had four basic identifiers for adult relationships (colleague, platonic companion, lover, and spouse, with virtually nothing in between), so Alira sometimes struggled to find the right word. All the same, the message was received. "My boyfriend? What is Trip doing?"

"Well, he won't leave us alone!" Alira exclaimed, eyes wide. "The Captain's got us on opposite duty schedules right now, so the only time we have is meals in the mess hall. Your boyfriend shows up every single day, sometimes twice, and has to sit with us. What I wouldn't give to just have an hour alone with my…" She trailed off and furrowed her brows, looking thoroughly confused. "My…"

"Still haven't put a label on it?"

"I don't know what else I could do to get his attention! It's something about the fact that we work together, and he's technically my superior officer."

"Does he know there's less than a month before we ship off to the Maelstrom? That's not a lot of time."

"That's what I said! Or, something to that effect." She topped off and raised her glass, her pout unmistakeable. "To Malcolm Reed. Truly, the most enigmatic man I've ever met."

"To Malcolm," she said, reciprocating her toast. "Since you're complaining about mine, I think turnabout is fair play and I should let you know the other night when you had the conn, Trip tried to take me stargazing. We went to that one maintenance tube above the bridge on A Deck-"

"The one that's big enough for two people laying down, with the porthole in the ceiling?" She said plainly, but with a suggestive smile teasing the corners of her lips. "I know it well."

"Three people," Hoshi corrected, "Because Malcolm joined us about half an hour in."

She recoiled, laughing, covering her mouth with her hand. "He didn't!"

"He did! I know they've only just now realized that the days of their bromance are numbered, but this is ridiculous. We need our alone time. They both need to accept that."

"Bromance?" Alira repeated incredulously, taking another huge drink. "On Denobula, when two people are that close, they usually just get married, no matter their gender. Saves a lot of drama."

It was Hoshi's turn to laugh. "I'll leave it to you to bring that idea up to them."

Once the first bottle of wine was gone, Hoshi lost track of how the evening progressed, but distinctly remembered Alira sitting on the floor in front of her as she attempted to braid her hair, repeatedly messing up and having to start over again and again. Later on, they ranked the bridge staff by how likely they were to survive on a deserted planet using their wits alone, with the Captain coming out on top and Lieutenant Mayweather coming in dead last.

At some point, she'd complained that she could never clean her phase pistol to Sergeant Cole's standards after target practice, and Alira produced a weapon seemingly out of nowhere. Hoshi asked if she was always packing heat, and she'd replied with a very incredulous: What, and you aren't? Even though her friend protested, she'd drunkenly showed her how to do it the proper way, having to pause every couple of minutes to gather her thoughts.

Down the hall, Trip and Malcolm were enjoying their one of their biweekly guys' nights, as the former called them, sharing a bowl of popcorn and watching a movie. Trip, who was the kind of person that started celebrating the holidays at the stroke of midnight on November 30th, insisted on Die Hard on the premise that it was a Christmas movie. They'd argued about whether or not it was for far too long and missed the entire set up for the film; luckily enough, they'd both seen it a half dozen times each, and it wasn't that hard to follow.

Sometime during the evening, Malcolm heard his PADD chime go off and reached for it, only for Trip to snatch it out of his hands and throw it clean across the room. He meant for it to land softly in his armchair, but it smacked against the wall and slid to the floor with an audible crack.

Malcolm raised his eyebrows and pointed towards it. "If that's broken, you're going to fix it."

"What did I say, Mal? This is guys' night. Our better halves aren't allowed."

"It could be important."

Trip rolled his eyes and dramatically gestured to the chronometer on the wall. It was well past 2300 hours.

"It could be really important."

"Do you want to spend time with your best friend or not?"

"You're more needy than she is," Malcolm insisted, giving him the once over. "And a lot less attractive."

"I could say the same for you, pal. Have you even asked her yet?"

He shook his head and took another swig from his beer. "If I'd asked her, I probably wouldn't be sitting here right now."

"It's not that hard of a question. It's easy. Would you like to come home with me for Christmas? There, I just did it."

"Easy for you to say. You and Hoshi have known each other for years."

Trip supposed he had a point. In the past two weeks, he and Hoshi had seen each other every day, desperately trying to make up for lost time. After a few dates, they'd forgotten everything they initially said about taking things slow and she'd spent the night. He immediately knew he was in trouble; he thought about her constantly, and spent his days looking forward to when he could see her again. "Malcolm, please. Alira knows you better than anyone else on this ship, myself included. There's really not a difference."

"There is!" He exclaimed, looking away, avoiding eye contact with him altogether. "We haven't even..." He trailed off and downed his drink, realizing his error much too late, hoping Trip wouldn't follow that line of thought any further.

It hadn't been for lack of trying on Alira's part. Truthfully, she was driving him mad with her teasing, with the looks she gave him when she thought no one was looking in the armory, with the way she brushed past him in the corridors. A few times she'd pulled him into a storage compartment and kissed him until his head swam and he was sure he was going to drown in her. Sometimes they'd spend all night talking in his quarters, keeping a respectful distance until he insisted on saying goodnight, when she'd slip under the covers with him and cuddle up close, even though the best she could ever do was doze off. He'd wake up to find her still in his arms, and he was starting to realize it was all he wanted. He wanted to cross that line, but couldn't bring himself to do it.

Trip reached out and paused the movie, shifting his upper body into his line of sight. "I'm sorry, you…" He rubbed at his temples in frustration. "Malcolm, the entire ship thinks the two of you are-"

"That we're what?" He protested, raising his voice slightly.

"Listen, I can only tell you what I see. You bring her coffee in the mornings. You open doors for her. Yesterday, I saw her in the gym wearing one of your sweatshirts." Trip gestured broadly. "The two of you are constantly talking about one another. She looks at you like you're the only man in the universe, for God's sake. I don't know what you think that looks like, but to me it sounds like-"

"I know what it sounds like!" He crossed his arms defensively. "I've not wanted to get too close. She's fixing to leave for the Maelstrom, and things won't be the same when she's gone."

"That's exactly why you need to make your move now!" Trip cried, punctuating his remark by slapping his hand down on the table. "Ask! Her!"

"You're not getting it. I've never been good at relationships. Perhaps it's better that I cut things off now."

"That's a load of bull and you know it, Mal. People only say that for one of two reasons." He rose to his feet and put up his pointer finger. "One. They're afraid of opening up to others. With you, I'd say that's true."

He started to protest, but Trip cut him off. "Two. They're bad at talking about their feelings. Also true for you. Now, as an engineer, I'm good at diagnosing the problem, but I can't fix it one hundred percent of the time. This is one of those instances. I suggest you take my advice and get it together-" Vaguely, he gestured down the hallway. "-Or you're going to regret it for the rest of your life."

Malcolm knew he was right, but didn't want to give him the satisfaction of admitting it out loud. Duty and the no fraternization policy had been a convenient excuse for what was really going on. Truthfully, he'd been afraid of getting attached, of navigating the waters of an interspecies relationship, of getting involved with someone who fascinated him like no one else ever had. These feelings were terrifying, and new, but he had to do something about it.

Across the room, his PADD chimed again, and they both looked at it, then back at one another.

"Don't you dare-" Trip began, but he was already on his feet and moving towards it.

Trip was there in an instant, ripping it from his hands and dashing into the bathroom. There was a brief power struggle before the PADD slipped out of either of their grasps and flew across the room, landing in the one place it couldn't be recovered from.

There was a moment of silence, then Malcolm said, "That better not be stuck."

A couple of hours later, Trip and Malcolm were staggering through the corridors on E Deck, a heavy cargo container balanced between them. As it turned out, they'd nearly destroyed the toilet and all the associated plumbing trying to remove his PADD, and had decided to cut their losses and just replace the entire unit. So far, they hadn't run into anyone, and that was probably for the best. Their antics were notorious among the crew, and they didn't want to wind up the main conversation at breakfast.

As they passed the mess hall, the door opened, revealing Lieutenant Sato. She was dressed for exercise and carrying a massive bowl of ice cream with both hands. She gave them the kind of dopey smile they'd only seen a couple of times, and they were immediately suspicious.

"How's it going, Hoshi? What are you up to?"

"Just working out," she replied, her voice a little slurred.

"At 0100 hours?" Trip asked, noticing the bruising on her arms. "What happened to you?"

They could practically see the wheels turning in her head, but she eventually understood. "Oh, turns out that tipsy aikido practice isn't such a good idea."

They didn't have time to ask what that might mean, for in the next moment Ensign Taxa appeared beside her, also carrying ice cream, looking slightly more lucid. With her free hand, she snapped her fingers and pointed at them, mumbling, "Good evening, gentlemen."

Hoshi wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squinted at them. "I'd ask what the two of you were up to, but I have a feeling we don't want to know."

"You don't," they confirmed simultaneously, and that was good enough for the two of them.

They began to stumble down the corridor. The moment before they rounded the corner, Alira turned her head and winked rather ostentatiously. The cargo container began to shake and almost dropped to the ground.

"Malcolm, focus!" Trip cried, much louder than he had any right to be. Together they leveled the container and continued on their path towards his quarters, only dropping it a half dozen more times in the process.

---

Captain's log, December 5th, 2155: We have arrived at Tellar Prime to meet with Ambassador Gral and his staff. We're told that they are open to Coalition talks, provided they receive the same privileges as the Andorians. In the meantime, we'll be receiving our new first officer from Columbia.

---

"I'm telling you, when it comes to insults, she's even better than I am," Hoshi called out from her position at the window, where she was watching the Columbia dock with the ship at the port hatch. "I may have to tag her in during the reception with the Tellarite ambassadors. Dita, show them."

Ensign Singh smiled sheepishly and rose from her chair, turning to look at each of the senior officers that were assembled in the wardroom. They were dressed to the nines, prepared to meet Enterprise's next first officer. Considering the track record of their previous one, he certainly had big shoes to fill.

"Alright, who's first?"

"I've got something to say," Malcolm declared, standing and leaning over the table confrontationally. "This ship is the most boring vessel I've ever been on. There's no place for recreation. Just what do you expect me to do with my free time when I'm not listening to you blather on and on?"

Dita slammed her hands onto the table, mirroring his posture. When she spoke, her normal sweet disposition was gone, replaced with pure vitriol. "There's plenty to do around here if you just open your eyes. And while you're looking, I suggest you take that stick out of your ass before it perforates something."

Beside him, Alira couldn't help but laugh, ignoring the reproachful look she was dealt. Trip stepped into her line of sight. "There's not enough beautiful women on this ship. Who am I supposed to stare at so I can ignore the humans trying to get me to sign off on some garbage trade agreement?"

"If you're looking for beauty, I'd avoid the mirror for the rest of your natural born life," she sneered. "And check your manhood while you're at it, because you're clearly overcompensating for something."

Travis was having a harder time containing his amusement. Trip looked towards Hoshi for backup, but found none.

Lieutenant Cutler reached out and tugged on Dita's sleeve, attracting her attention. She furrowed her brows and exclaimed, "This ship smells rotten! I don't think I can stand to be around you humans or your pathetic excuse for cuisine for a second longer. You need to fire up that shuttlepod of yours and take me back to the capital city at once."

"Speaking of rotten-" She paused, then her expression shifted, and she leaned forward to embrace her. "Oh, come on. I could never roast you, hon."

"But you could roast the two of us?" Trip cried, somewhat insulted.

Hoshi quickly came to her defense. She was rubbing her temples and grimacing, more than likely a result of the night before. "She's gotta save some for Ambassador Gral, Commander. We'll be coming around to all of you at some point today and trying to catch you off guard. Remember, the Tellarites enjoy a good argument. They'll be offended if you don't engage with them."

"You're telling me we all have to be at this reception tomorrow?" Travis asked, a little intimidated at the prospect.

"I'm told they're bringing the entire senior staff of their flagship. They're going to be sizing us up. Prime targets are going to be the command trio and the security officers."

"You don't need to worry about us," Malcolm assured her, gesturing to his partner in crime. "We've got it well in hand."

Hoshi smiled, wanting to but not possessing the wherewithal to break the news to him that all she'd done over the past six months was watch him get verbally obliterated by Ensign Taxa at every turn. "It's not you I'm worried about, sir. This time we'll be contending with two different ambassadors."

She queued up two different headshots of delegates taken from the initial Coalition of Planets conference. Though the more seasoned officers immediately recognized Ambassador Gral, the second individual was unfamiliar.

"This is Natha Kell, a representative of their constitutional monarchy. She's the niece of their King Sajho, and we're told, one of the finest orators their world has ever seen," Ensign Singh advanced the screen, pulling up a second, close-up image. "She's there to temper Ambassador Gral's response to our proposals, more or less."

"A female Tellarite? How can you tell?" Trip crossed his arms and squinted at the display.

"Tusks and wide, pointed ears," Dita replied. "I'd watch comments like that if I were you. Columbia's here to pick up two new engineering specialists. Ensigns Beray and Nitav, both females, both from their warp six project. They'll likely be at the reception too."

"On the second day, the King and Queen will be welcoming the away team into their home. I'm told that Queen Leska requests that the women in the group join her for her morning soak in the mud bath."

"Does that mean-"

"Yes, Ensign. You, me, the Captain, and the monarch, naked as the day we were born in a tub full of wet dirt," Hoshi said perfectly impassively, because at that point, nothing that happened during their missions could surprise her. "I'm sure it'll be a great bonding experience."

"Interesting," Alira noted, his voice going up by about an octave.

"I'll remain with the male members of the away team, assuming the King doesn't request the same thing," Dita assured them with a touch of amusement in her voice. They knew she always maintained her modesty as a matter of principle. "I feel the need to warn you all that it rarely dips below thirty degrees Celsius down there, and it rains continuously for almost the entire year. The climate can best be described as jungle-like."

"Bet these dress uniforms are gonna be really comfortable then. I don't envy you guys," Travis said with a laugh.

"Already looking forward to it," Trip mumbled, glancing at his PADD the second it went off. "Incoming!"

The senior officers rose as one and formed a receiving line, starting at the door and stretching to the window. Not a second later, the door opened and issued T'Pol, followed shortly by Captain Erika Hernandez.

She took one look at the row of them and then glanced back into the hallway, calling out, "Commodore, I can't believe you made them dress up for me!"

They heard him protesting, but she had already turned back to them, a knowing smile on her lips. Erika was a tall, dark-haired woman with a friendly demeanor and a confident stride that could be recognized from a mile away. The first person she came across was Commander Tucker; immediately, her expression softened and she shook his hand, before drawing him into a companionable hug.

"I heard you fell up the ladder. Congratulations, Captain Tucker."

"Not for another three weeks, ma'am," he corrected her gently, returning her embrace.

She then moved on to Alira, offering her the traditional touchless Denobulan greeting. "You must be Ensign Taxa. Your reputation precedes you. You must make the time to beam over and meet my tactical officer. He's got a serious case of hero worship going on."

"Thank you, Captain. I certainly will."

"Your mother also sends her best."

Immediately, her eyes lit up. "You've seen her?"

"It was on the way," she replied cryptically. "She runs a tight station, I'll tell you that. You're what we humans would call a spitting image. Though, probably about a full head taller."

This time, she laughed. "I get that from my father."

"Captain, do you plan on having full on conversations with all of my senior officers?"

"Hey, what's the rush?" She protested, stepping aside to allow the Commodore to enter the room. "Are you that eager to speak to the Tellarites?"

"Don't put words into my mouth," Archer admonished, though they could all see he was fighting a smile. Gesturing broadly to one side, he announced, "I'd like to welcome our new first officer, Sub-Commander Tovin."

As they all expected, Tovin was a very serious-looking young man, with bright green eyes and a permanently disaffected expression. He stood before them, hands clasped behind his back, posture immaculate, wearing the same copper colored jacket and trousers they were used to seeing on other Vulcan officers. His gaze swept over the line of them, not seeming particularly interested by what he saw, and then turned to the Captain. "It is an honor to serve aboard the Enterprise."

"We are fortunate to have you," T'Pol assured him, gesturing towards the center of the room. "Please."

As they took their places at the far end of the table, Malcolm felt Alira seek out his hand under the table, squeezing slightly. They made eye contact, and her gaze flitted down the table towards the new Sub-Commander, shaking her head by a fraction of a centimeter.

Something was off.

Her instincts were usually correct.

Down the table, their fellow officers were making basic overtures of conversation. "I hear you were on Ambassador Soval's staff," Lieutenant Mayweather said, turning his chair towards him.

"That is correct."

"And you were a science officer before that. What was your specialty?" Cutler asked, treating him to one of her gentle smiles.

"Cosmology."

"We have several astrophysicists and stellar cartographers aboard. I'd be happy to introduce you this afternoon."

"I doubt there will be sufficient time," he stated, turning his attention to the view screen.

Across the table, Trip looked directly at Malcolm and rolled his eyes, completing the motion in a fraction of a second. He didn't even have to speak to know what he was thinking. Vulcans, am I right?

"We do have quite a bit to go through," Erika admitted apologetically as she synced her PADD to the computer. "I hope you all brought a snack."

"A spot of good news from Captain Al-Shahrani and the Phoenix. They've made first contact with a new humanoid race that call themselves the Bajorans. They're space faring, have been for thousands of years, with some beautiful religious and cultural traditions. Mustafa's comm officer sent along some pictures." She tapped through several photo collages displaying the skyline of a city overlooking a sparkling waterfall, a lush jungle surrounded by distant mountains, and a polar region replete with tall trees and a sprawling tundra. "They plan to return there in six weeks' time to pitch the Coalition to their-"

She glanced at her notes momentarily, then looked back up at the screen. "-Council of Ministers and Vedek Assembly. It's been suggested by Admiral Gardner that Enterprise takes this one." Erika paused and crossed her arms, feigning offense. "I won't even pretend to not be jealous about this one."

"We'll proceed to their system immediately after commissioning," T'Pol asserted, eliciting a surprised look from the Commodore. Though, he supposed he didn't blame her for seeking out a mission on the fringes of the quadrant with such a regal and mysterious new species. The farther away from Romulan territory, the better.

"Glad that's settled," Erika said, pulling up a starmap of a completely different system. "About a year and a half ago, my crew made first contact with a species called the Solnarans. They're recently warp-capable, about the equivalent to ten years after Cochrane's first flight. They're mostly an agrarian society, with heavy technological development around their cities."

The next photograph was one of Captain Hernandez and her first officer standing in a cluster of Solnarans, the tallest of whom was perhaps five feet tall. They were humanoid, all with dark, curly hair, pointed ears, and prominent smiles.

"It was your future first officer, Mr. Tucker, that discovered their world has a natural surplus of dilithium. The core density is even higher than that of Coridan. They've agreed to cooperate with United Earth to establish mining operations on their southern continent." The next image showed the future Commander Hammond sitting on a cargo crate in the gaping mouth of a cave, her arms spread wide. "She may have insisted I include this picture in the slideshow."

Hoshi looked up from where she'd been studying the communication logs between the Columbia and the Solnaran capital city. "Is this right, Captain? Is their system really only thirty light years from an inhabited Romulan outpost?"

"Yes, Lieutenant, based on the latest data from Kandar. It's vital that we establish a planetary defense system and the associated logistical procedures to protect the new settlement. That's where Dario and Martina Corsetti come in." The next images were standard STC headshots with the United Earth flag in the background. "They're dilithium experts from the warp seven project, the best in the business. They've got what they need to get started, but we'll be delivering a bunch of specialized equipment from Utopia Planitia out there after the new year."

"May I assume that we plan to take a cut of their profits?" Malcolm asked, leaning forward over the table to look at her.

"You certainly could, Lieutenant Commander. We'll be their first and only customer for a while. But the advantages afforded to them by a United Earth alliance will be invaluable," she replied.

Alira didn't like it. It seemed like Starfleet was having a bit of an imperialist attitude about the entire situation, and she privately wondered if the other allied worlds, Denobula included, would ever see a kilo of that dilithium.

"Captain, I'm wondering why we are being told this information," Lieutenant Cutler nodded towards the darkened screen. "No offense, ma'am."

She shook her head. "None taken. As I understand it, the Maelstrom's first assignment will be preliminary exploration in that region of space. See if they can pick up where we left off." She smiled at Commander Tucker, then forged on to the next section of the briefing. "Now on to our latest encounter with the Ferengi…"

---

That evening, Erika and Jonathan were the first to arrive to the Captain's mess. Taking their seats at opposite ends of the table, they quickly settled in and proceeded to avoid eye contact with one another for more than five minutes.

The steward soon entered the room and filled their wine glasses. The moment he was gone, Erika slapped her hands down onto the table, causing him to jump.

"Jon, can we just acknowledge the elephant in the room?"

He looked across the table to his former girlfriend, his sister in arms, his colleague, and decided to feign ignorance. "I'm not sure what you mean."

She rolled her eyes and took a sip of her red, turning her glass this way and that. "Don't play dumb with me. I'm sorry it took me so long to respond to your communiques. You know how it is, you get busy with first contact and dodging pirates and trying to make sure the ship doesn't fly apart, and then the next moment-"

"Six months without a reply, Erika?"

"So you do know what I'm talking about," she cut in with a smile, and he knew he'd been had. "Listen, I think we both knew this wasn't going to work. We've known each other for way too long. There's no mystery anymore. Remember what I said the night I found you in the 602 Club after the Xindi mission?"

"I'm married to Starfleet, just like you," he said, as if reciting from a memorized speech. "Listen, I do understand. And I don't blame you. I just wish we'd been able to work things out the first time."

"In another lifetime, Jon." She extended her glass towards him and drank again, sadness filling her eyes for a fraction of a second. "I'm glad to see you've moved on, though."

"Moved on? Who says I've moved on?"

"Anyone with eyes can tell," she replied, fidgeting with the utensils laid out before her on the tablecloth. At his confused expression, she continued: "The Captain?"

"Oh! Oh...no." He shook his head and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms. "You're imagining things. T'Pol and I are good friends and coworkers. I trust her with my life, and we've worked together for years, but-"

Erika was looking at him, her eyebrows raised, a smug smile gracing her lips. Archer realized he was playing directly into her hand.

"Listen, she and I have an agreement. There's certain lines that have to be drawn when you serve together. You know that."

"All too well. Are you sure there's not something there?"

"Positive."

"Whatever you say, Commodore," she said, her bemused expression conveying that she didn't believe him for a second. "You may be relieved to know I've moved on as well."

"Really? Who is it this time?"

"Captain Pritchard from the Cochrane."

"You and Laura?" Jonathan laughed. "I always knew you had a thing for Starfleet captains."

"We've been corresponding every day since they commissioned. Last month we had a rendezvous on Vulcan, one thing led to another, and well-"

"She's a lucky lady." Archer thought of the woman in question, who had been an Ensign when they'd met as Lieutenants. Laura had a mop of auburn hair that she wore on the top of her head in a haphazard bun, a distinct Irish accent, and a slightly frantic demeanor that endeared her to damn near everyone she met. He'd had no doubt when they'd met that she would be a great CO one day.

"Thank you, Jon. To finding love among the stars." She leaned towards him, making the overture of a toast. When he didn't react, she asked, "What, are you planning on staying alone for the rest of your career?"

"Not if I can help it," he replied, clinking his glass against hers.

"Then I'd get a move on if I were you," she said, shaking a chastising finger at him.

In the next moment, the doors opened, producing Tucker, the Captain, and Sub-Commander Tovin. As Erika rose to greet them, Archer choked rather ungracefully on his drink, and Trip had to thump on his back to get him to stop coughing.

"Everything alright in here?" His eyes were roaming from Erika to Jonathan, back and forth, his eyebrows creeping into his hairline.

Archer noticed that T'Pol was doing the same, her gaze lingering on him for a fraction of a second longer, gauging his expression and reaction to them entering the room. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and scream that it wasn't what it looked like, but kept his mouth shut.

"Everything's fine, Commander," Erika told him as they sat down. "Just catching up, talking about old friends and new opportunities."

The innuendo in her words didn't escape him. In an attempt to hide the red rising to his cheeks, Jonathan reached back and hit the comm, calling the stewards into the room.

---

That night, T'Pol sat at the computer console in her quarters, dressed for bed, a mug of hot chamomile tea in her hand.

She was a creature of habit, a fact that was well known by her friends and colleagues. Her evenings usually consisted of dinner in the Captain's mess, a brisk workout, reading, and meditation. Sometimes, Jonathan would call far past an acceptable hour and invite her to join him for a drink, and they would sit together in his quarters at a respectable distance, talking about anything and everything. The mission. Their childhoods. Philosophy and art.

At some point they began reading together-first his recommendation of Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince, which she found gave her a better understanding of the man himself more than an appreciation for French literature, then her choice of Abbott's Flatland, which Jonathan claimed had too many math-related metaphors to be appreciated. She'd insisted there were deeper analogies to be made to the social hierarchy on Vulcan, and he said there might be, but that didn't mean he understood it. Then he'd laughed, a sound she now realized she wanted to hear again and again.

Over the course of their diplomatic mission, she and the Commodore had only grown closer, something which was unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome. To T'Pol, their relationship was divided into a before and after, centered around the moment when she'd kissed him on the forehead in a moment of emotional weakness during their leave, and then she'd allowed the physical touch to continue, the briefest touch of an arm, the hand-holding, the gentle embraces in their quarters when they knew they were well and truly alone.

In these moments she could feel his emotions, his care and respect for her, and knew that he could feel hers as well. She'd told him what that meant, insofar as her people's inherent ability for touch telepathy was concerned. And even though she didn't get to the root of why she was so eager to connect with him, she knew he understood. She didn't say it. She didn't have to.

And so they'd undergone the past few months with a mutual understanding, a keen perception of one another, of the other's emotions and thoughts. To fall into his arms after a long day of running the ship was a comfort, a necessary evil that she had denied herself for far too long. To be within and around him, she was starting to realize more and more, was all she would ever need.

And she would know that feeling again, tonight, if she could only get through her senior officers' weekly reports.

Lieutenant Cutler's was always the longest, for it contained synopses of all the weekly reports from her scientists as well as her own research. T'Pol remembered the days when she'd been placed in charge of focusing the attention of two dozen crewmen, making sure they produced quality and comprehensible work. It was not an enviable task.

Lieutenant Sato and Ensign Singh tended to submit their reports together, an endeavor which was ultimately appreciated. Their descriptions of the transmissions they'd received during the week and the overall comm traffic were always concise, which appealed to her orderly sensibilities.

Lieutenant Mayweather tended to communicate best in diagrams and pictures, and Commander Tucker always wrote his reports as if he was speaking directly to her, colorful Southern metaphors intact.

Ensign Taxa wrote how she spoke; far too much, with a distinct stream of consciousness style that repeatedly meandered away and wandered back to the point. T'Pol noticed that the doctor also tended to correspond in this way, and she assumed it was a part of their species' excitable nature.

Still, she detected something in their security officer behind her usual genial exterior: a deep sadness, or perhaps a burning rage. She couldn't be sure which it was, but it was there, in a throwaway comment or an almost imperceptible shift in her facial expression. At this point, she had no reason to mistrust her, but after the incident on Betazed, she'd been sure to keep her at a metaphorical arm's length, even though at times she'd known that the woman's instincts were the only things that had kept them out of harm's way.

She digressed. She tended to save hers for last, right after Lieutenant Commander Reed's. She hit the button which would route his feedback directly to the gamma shift comm officer and reached for her mug of tea, bringing it to her lips in a moment of brief respite before returning to the task.

Behind her, the door chime sounded. She glanced at the chronometer and raised an eyebrow by a fraction of an inch. It was nearly midnight. Surely Jonathan would have called first.

T'Pol stood, wrapping her robe around her and tying it loosely. She called out for her guest to enter. There was a brief pause, then the door slid open, admitting none other than her new first officer.

She met his gaze from across the room. "Good evening, Sub-Commander. It's late."

"Is it?" He glanced around her quarters, taking in the sights in a gesture that felt incredibly invasive. "I must admit I am still used to the time on our homeworld. There, it's not yet midday."

She inhaled slowly as he stepped up to her, well into her personal space. It felt as if someone had turned up the lights in the room to two hundred percent. "How are you enjoying your first night aboard?"

"Enjoying?" He repeated with a slight lift to his tone, as if he was amused, but his expression didn't betray it. "My living arrangements are more than adequate. The man the crew calls Chef makes a passable plomeek broth. I cannot complain, Captain."

"I am sure you could if you put enough thought to it," she replied in a rare display of her sense of humor.

He thought about this for a moment. "I find our human companions to be irascible, temperamental, overly excitable. How long did it take you to get used to them? Their smell?"

"Almost a year," she admitted, though she'd legitimately started to appreciate their company after that.

Tovin sighed. He looked around the room once again, perhaps conveying his dissatisfaction with her answer, then pinned her back down under his gaze. "I understand we share similar ancestry."

She took a step back, affording some distance between them. "How long have you known?"

"Almost a year," he said, and something in that response alarmed her. "Like your father, my mother was an officer in the Security Directorate. At least, she was in the years before I was born."

"I understand that there will soon be a hybrid Vulcan-Romulan officer on every NX-class vessel."

"Administrator Kuvak's idea. You must admit that Starfleet's style of communicating mission reports leaves something to be desired." He closed the distance between them once again, and she could barely detect his fist opening and closing at his side. "It is important that you do not share this information with anyone. You are the only one who is aware of this besides the Commodore."

And their security officer. She looked away, then tilted her chin up towards him, steeling her expression. "I assume they will be tasked with hiding the evidence of Romulan neural telepresence units wherever they go."

"And disabling them, if they have the means. We must conceal all evidence of this from the humans until we have a plan."

"How far are we from developing this plan?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. The Betazoid affair complicates matters," he said, and her eyes narrowed slightly.

She'd relayed their mission report to Minister T'Pau and Doctor Yuris on a secure sub-space connection, not even leaving a metaphorical paper trail. Though Ambassador Soval would have been privy to such information, it was unlikely he would have told his staff.

How could he have known?

T'Pol took another step back and discovered she was backed up against the window with few options as to an escape route. The comm was much too far away. The body alarm that their security officer so often insisted she wore on away missions was in the desk drawer closest to her, but she would need to break eye contact with him in order to find it. She was sure he was clued into her anxiety now, her unease, and was planning to take advantage of it.

It was a long shot, but she had to take it.

In a flash, she turned her upper body and reached into the drawer. Tovin's other hand, which he'd kept clasped behind his back during their entire conversation, came into view. Somehow, he'd slipped her ceramic sculpture of Surak from her shelf and now held it aloft, ready to strike.

Forgetting about the body alarm, she surged forward and knocked him off his feet, meaning to rush past him and make a mad rush towards the door. At the last possible second, he seized her by the ankle and sent her crashing to the ground, nearly knocking her unconscious in the process.

A mad struggle for power ensued. T'Pol wanted to scream; Lieutenants Mayweather and Sato lived on either side of her, and she wondered if they could hear her if she made enough noise. But then Tovin's hands were on her shoulders and he pushed forward with Vulcan strength only slightly superior to hers, sending her head crashing into the deck plating once again.

It was as if all the air had been knocked out of her. She was only passively aware she was bleeding, but knew that he was, as a result of the punches and kicks she kept delivering to his abdomen. Finally, she was able to catch her breath enough to rasp out, "Who are you?"

"A friend of your brother's," he whispered, the very beginnings of a menacing grin spreading across his features. His eyes were flashing with poorly concealed rage. Tovin took advantage of her momentary shock to reach for the bust he'd abandoned on the floor.

There was a sudden moment of clarity, and then the world went dark.

---

At a few moments before the start of gamma shift, Malcolm found himself surrounded by empty rifle cases up to his knees.

Ahead of the commissioning of the Maelstrom, Enterprise's armory had been ordered to take inventory of all the weapons in their possession, for a great deal of them were due to change hands. Unsurprisingly, due to the sheer number of away missions and training exercises they engaged in, many sidearms tended to grow legs and walk away. Over the next few weeks, the armory staff would have to hunt down certain members of the crew like dogs in order to get their missing property back, a task which he knew no one in his brigade was looking forward to.

Due to the sheer enormity of the task, he'd elected to solicit a little extra help, and the choice had been obvious. Even now, he could hear Alira chattering excitedly to Crewman Bennett, their gamma shift lead, and he knew there was no one he'd rather spend all night counting phase rifles with.

"I'm telling you, for close quarters combat, there's nothing better than this," Alira insisted, tapping the device strapped to her forearm. She'd received it from Denobula via a Tellarite freighter they'd docked with earlier in the week, and hadn't stopped talking about it.

Shelby looked doubtful. "I don't know, ma'am. Looks like it could be pretty cumbersome."

"All the members of Infantry Special Ops carry a diverter shield. I'll show you." He heard the characteristic sound of metal against metal and turned his head, noticing with surprise that the communicator-sized device had expanded to cover the entire upper half of her body, black as night, with serrated edges that looked sharper than any tactical knife. She caught his eye and smiled. "Come on, sir. Shoot me."

"Shoot you?" He repeated, incredulous.

"Sure. You know you've wanted to do this since the moment we met." She crouched down so that the top of her head was only visible by a fraction of an inch.

She wasn't wrong, per se. "Are you sure about this?"

"Of course I am." He made eye contact with Bennett, who shrugged, seemingly unperturbed by her request. Quickly, he removed his phase pistol from its holster and aimed it where he thought her chest would be, stumbling back as the blast ricocheted off the shield and disappeared into the ceiling.

They were fortunate the only place they could fire a weapon on board without setting off the internal sensors was the armory. Satisfied, Alira drew herself up to her full height and pressed an unseen button, causing the shield to fold and disappear into her arm.

"We need about twenty of these for the MACOs," Crewman Bennett marveled.

"I can put you through to General Vesena, but after that, you're on your own for negotiations."

"An old friend of yours, Ensign?"

"My half-mother. Father's second wife."

Of course. Malcolm was beginning to suspect Alira was related to everyone on Denobula in one way or another.

The hatch opened and emitted Ensign Westminster, who was loaded down with PADDs for the evening's mail call. Seeing that he was pretty much barricaded in one place at his console, she crossed the room and nodded towards the PADD on top. "Feedback from weekly reports," she huffed, trying not to drop her bounty.

He thanked her and activated the screen, reading over the T'Pol's notes. Something wasn't right. Glancing over his shoulder, he called out, "Ensign, where do you get off telling the Captain that my plan for shield generator placement on the hull isn't tactically sound?"

"I didn't get off on it at all. Your recommendations weren't that great."

Crewman Bennett nearly burst out laughing, but caught herself just in time, hiding it behind her cough. She looked between her COs, clearly detecting that an argument was brewing, and excused herself, saying, "I'll be on the bridge."

The second she was gone, Alira stepped onto the console, determined not to let the issue go. "You've got to think about this like a military historian. This needs to be unique from any other species that uses generators like these. The seconds they take to locate them in combat could turn the tides of a war."

He scoffed. "Right, and where would we be without your expertise?"

"Dead," she replied plaintively, "If the Captain hadn't asked me for my feedback."

She was being ridiculous. Surely the firepower would be more significant than shields in a firefight. "Fine. I'll give them another look in the morning."

"Thank you." She seemed satisfied, and started to walk away, back to her work.

"You know, the least you could do is help me inventory the phase pistols."

Immediately, Alira turned on her heels and reached for his PADD. He knew that she enjoyed arguing just as much as he did, but at the end of the day, she would jump on every opportunity to spend more time with him. What that meant, he didn't care to think too hard about.

The compartment where they stored the phase pistols was more of a closet than a room, and barely had enough room for two people to stand back to back. Alira shuffled in sideways, pulling the box in behind her and asking, "Where are we starting?"

"The last three digits of the serial number should be in the 100s." He rummaged around on the shelf for the right pistol-the rest of the crew never seemed to be too concerned about putting things back where they found them-removed the power source, and tossed it in the box. "One-oh-one."

"One-oh-two," she said almost immediately. "So, what do you think of Sub-Commander Tovin?"

"You know, I'm not sure. He reminds me of the Captain when she first joined the crew. One-oh-three."

"You're just bitter because without him, you would have been first officer," she accused, and he turned to face her, noticing the smile teasing the corners of her lips.

She was teasing him. Naturally. "For the record, I'm at least a year away from that kind of promotion."

"I don't know, Malcolm. Stranger things have happened. One-oh-four."

That was another thing. His name always sounded so intimate when she said it. He wasn't sure if it was because he wanted it to be. "If anything, I'll be glad to have another Vulcan around. This crew's discipline has been awfully lax recently. One-oh-five."

"How recently?"

"I'd say the past six months or so."

"That's not fair. You know you've enjoyed my being here. Admit it, I keep things interesting." Her voice was slightly muffled as her upper body disappeared into the cabinet. A moment later, she reemerged, looking slightly frustrated. She stepped over the box and managed to slip between him and the shelf, reaching over his shoulder to retrieve the weapon she'd been looking for.

"Excuse me," she whispered, meeting his gaze and not looking away for a second. She made quick work of removing the power source and tossing the pistol away. Slowly, she reached for the panel next to the door.

The second it closed, she was all over him. Things quickly turned heated, and soon they were desperately embracing against the door of the weapons locker, kissing, touching, both trying to gain the upper hand wherever they could.

In one fluid motion, his hand ghosted over her waist and down the back of her thighs, seizing one leg and hiking it up against his hip. "I'd say interesting is an appropriate word for it," he murmured, secretly relishing the sound of her sighing into his ear.

He studied the woman in front of him, the heavy rise and fall of her chest, her bruised lips, her beautiful eyes with their untold depths, burning with desire. And he knew it was time. He was going to ask her to spend the night with him. To hell with inventory.

In a flash, Alira was pulling away and pushing him back, trying to catch her breath. Her expression had changed, almost on a dime. "Something's not right here."

His heart felt like it just dropped through his stomach. There was no way he could have misinterpreted her intentions...was there?

"What do you mean?"

"No, no. Not here." She gestured between them, running her hands over her rumpled uniform. "It's just...have you ever known the Captain not to send her corrections on both our weekly reports at the same time, at the very start of gamma shift?"

That's what she was concerned about? "I'm sure it's nothing, Alira. It's probably-"

"In six months, Malcolm?" She reached for the door controls and burst into the armory, heading towards the main console. "You've known the Captain for much longer than I have. Tell me, just how consistent is she?"

"Extremely," he replied, the worry starting to settle in for him as well.

It took seconds to confirm that the Captain was no longer aboard. Alira cursed and reached for the comm, but he stopped her, entering the name of another officer into the search field.

When the results popped up, they stared at them for a moment in abject horror. They'd both had their initial suspicions, but hadn't dared to vocalize it, and now…

Grabbing the nearest weapons, they dashed into the corridor without a second thought.

---

Archer was returning from a midnight snack in the mess hall when his tactical officers flew past him, not even stopping to greet him. He was fatigued, and it took him a second to process what he'd seen. They'd both been carrying phase rifles, and he'd caught a glimpse of Ensign Taxa's expression, fraught, distressed, terrified.

He was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of fear that seemingly came out of nowhere. Without being told, he immediately knew what had happened, and turned to follow them.

He caught up with them just as they reached the Captain's quarters. Reed was entering his security override into the comm panel, and Taxa had flattened herself against the wall, trying to catch her breath, her eyes wild. It was a slightly different fear than what he saw in Reed, but distinct, with a foregoing knowledge of what this could all mean.

"Commodore," she gasped, "We think that-there's a-"

The door slid open and she whirled around the jamb, rifle held at the ready. Within a second, her expression fell, and she surged forward into the darkness.

T'Pol's quarters were empty, mostly orderly, with several notable exceptions. Her desk chair was in the middle of the room, as if someone had tried to grab onto it to steady themselves. The bust of Surak-which Jonathan knew from experience usually rested in front of her mirror-lay on the floor at an odd angle. Alira bent down and studied it, the flash of green on the blunt end. Their eyes met.

"Vulcan blood."

"Whose blood?"

Her tricorder came out, and they had the results within seconds. She stood slowly. He thought he could see her shaking, ever so slightly.

Archer stepped past her and hit the comm. "Get me the High Command. Immediately. Tell them it's a…" He paused, glancing back towards Malcolm standing by the door, slack jawed, horrified. "It's an emergency."

He turned on Ensign Taxa, getting well into her personal space, demanding, "Where is she?"

"I don't know, Commodore. I thought these new officers were well-screened. I didn't know-"

"You're in charge of security! How could you not have known?" He gestured towards the door, and Malcolm silently complied, closing it, sealing them in the room.

"How could you not have known?" She echoed, her tone entirely insubordinate.

He seized the rifle from her hands and threw it to the ground. He knew his anger was misplaced, but in the moment, he couldn't stop himself. "If she's hurt, I'm holding you personally responsible!"

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Malcolm take a step closer, and he realized what their entire encounter had looked like. He was shaking his head. It was all starting to make sense...their bare bones reports about the visit to the High Command, Alira's reluctance to discuss her midnight mission on Betazed. "We're going to figure out where he's taken the Captain. But first, you two are going to tell me everything."

"It's really not much of a-"

"The truth this time," he insisted, setting his weapon aside.

---

Darkness.

Darkness, thick smoke, the indecipherable chatter of passersby, the oppressive heat of the evening.

T'Pol's eyes fluttered open onto an unfamiliar street that she somehow knew was in San Francisco, just a few blocks from the Vulcan compound in Sausalito, a location that stirred some unrest within her, probing the far reaches of her mind where she kept memories that she'd prefer to forget. The one at hand hadn't been touched in months, years, but it was incredibly close to the surface.

She was walking in the middle of the street, eyes trained directly ahead, ignoring the half-drunken and joyful shouts of the humans around her. The buildings rose sharply into the sky on either side of her, the windows mostly dark, their inhabitants already turned in for the evening.

She should have been one of them. But in retrospect, she had been curious, even eager to study the recreational habits of humans. They were all around her every day during her diplomatic work, and she was endlessly fascinated by their optimism, their sense of humor, their inherent volatility that made them such mercurial allies. She wanted to see more of them, and irrationally, though she would never admit it, she wanted to slip into a crowd and remain unnoticed, letting herself become lost in the sea of disorder that was human society.

In the distance, she spotted two heavy wooden doors thrown open wide to the street, warm light streaming out from the interior of the building. She could hear musicians playing, experimenting, their tones dancing around one another and forming a chaotic, unpredictable melody. She found herself drawn to it, and she altered her path, picking up speed considerably.

The second she stepped up to the threshold, she realized something was amiss. The restaurant was quiet, all the tables were empty, but the music continued to play.

Our primal nature isn't as dangerous as you think.

She knew that voice. She'd spent the past four years trying to forget that voice.

A wave of panic swept over her and she turned, fully expecting to see him there, but she was alone. She began to walk back the way she came, which gradually progressed into a jog, and then a sprint, as she tried to evade the lingering memory of his presence in her mind.

You can feel that way again, T'Pol. I can show you how.

The voice was louder now, thunderous, seeming to come from every direction. Faces and buildings were passing by in a flash, and she was moving so fast that she wasn't sure if her feet were touching the ground. Her heart was racing, and in a moment of disorientation, she decided to cut through an alleyway as a shortcut to the compound.

The moment she was out of view of the street, she felt strong hands on her arms and shoulders, grabbing her, pulling her backward. Frantically, she tried to defend herself, but found no enemy to strike against. She was alone in the alleyway, and the moment she broke free, she seemingly lost all strength and fell forward, her head striking the ground.

T'Pol awoke with a start in her quarters, laying in bed with the blankets tucked around her. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if she had been dreaming, if Tovin's attack had been nothing but an illusion. It was unusual for her, but it could happen, especially if she was under a great deal of stress.

She took a deep breath, trying to steady her heart rate, and soon realized she wasn't alone. Her companion-whoever it was-must have felt her stir, because they rolled over and threw an arm around her waist, bringing their lips close to her ear.

"Are you okay?"

That voice, that tone, that inflection. It sounded so apprehensive, so intimate. There was no possibility of her forgetting where and when she'd heard it.

She couldn't quell her emotional response. Stumbling to her feet, she reached for her robe and wrapped it around herself to protect her modesty. Turning around, she beheld Commander Tucker in her bed, nude to the waist, his expression fraught with concern. Somehow, she'd been brought back to a moment that, if she was honest, she didn't regret, though she wished had happened in a better time and place.

"What's wrong, T'Pol?"

"I don't understand." She looked around, taking in the dimmed lights, the smoldering candle, the neuropressure mats laid out on the floor. When they'd had their encounter in the Expanse, she'd been pretty strung out, distressed, her emotions dangerously close to the surface. It had made their relationship needlessly complicated and caused them undue stress in a time where they certainly didn't need more of it. Still, she couldn't help but feel a surge of affection for this man, her friend, one of her closest confidantes, even as her thoughts were racing. "What's happening to me?"

He looked back at her, eyebrows raised with concern, and then his expression changed. He blinked repeatedly, trying to hold back the tears in his eyes, then he huffed, dropping his face into his hands.

The intensity with which his emotional response developed was terrifying. He was full-on weeping, his shoulders shaking, like he had when they'd met in the hallway following the first incident with the Xindi probe, when he'd confided in her his grief over his sister's death. She didn't know what to do. This certainly wasn't how the situation had progressed the first time.

"Trip?" She paused, then approached him. "Trip, look at me."

He whirled on her in an instant, reaching out to her, causing her to stumble backwards. Suddenly he was angry, on his feet, gesticulating wildly with his hands. "Is there any particular reason you led me on?"

"I wasn't aware that I-I'm not sure that we-"

"Couldn't you see that I was grieving? You putting all these thoughts in my head was the last thing I needed. You should have just let me be."

She was confused. They'd already discussed their situation at length. She thought they were in agreement. They hadn't discussed it in months.

He was rapidly becoming more and more emotional, seizing her by the shoulders. "Why couldn't you just have waited for the both of us to feel better? Why couldn't you just have dropped the whole thing with Amanda? Why couldn't you-" He looked down for a split second, then back up at her, his eyes filled with tears. "Why couldn't you have just loved me, T'Pol?"

A deep pang of regret seized her gut, but she ignored it, pushing him away. "You're not real. None of this is real." She began to pace around the room, looking for a tell, an inaccurate detail in this illusion, something out of place. When she could find none, she called out, "What is this place?"

Trip was on her in a second, pushing her up against the wall, grasping her wrists so tight she knew there was no hope of escape. When he spoke, it wasn't his own voice, but another's, the very same who had invaded her dreams while they were locked in negotiations with the High Command. The very same who had used their father's body as a vessel and let her know the truth of her ancestry.

The first born. Solan.

"I gave you the chance to join the hybrids and you rejected it. I promised you that you would know no peace."

"You didn't answer the question," she replied through gritted teeth, meeting his gaze.

"We're inside your memories. You have an interesting mind, sister. Very...conflicted." He smiled, wide and sinister. "I thought we might go about this the easy way, but you left me no choice. We're going to have to extract the information we need in this manner."

She shook her head. "I'll never tell you what you want."

"You don't have to. In this place, I can break you down piece by piece until you are nothing."

He released her suddenly, and she stumbled towards the door, meaning to burst into the corridor, but finding herself in sick bay. An incubator sat in the far corner of the room, seemingly the only source of light in the otherwise darkened room. T'Pol whipped around, expecting for Trip to have followed her, but found that she was alone. No doctor, no Jonathan. Alone, except for…

Their child, Elizabeth Tucker, lay in the cot, her eyes trained toward the IDIC swaying above her, secured to the top of the enclosure. She was blinking steadily, nearing sleep, a sleep that they both had known would be eternal. Carefully, she approached the incubator and laid her hand atop the glass, watching as her movements and breathing slowed. It was in that moment she noticed the latches securing the hatch were open; without thinking, she opened it and picked up the baby-her baby-and held her to her chest.

"Elizabeth, your mother is here," she whispered, knowing that she couldn't understand her, but hoping to provide some comfort. "You are safe now."

The baby made a small, contented noise, then stopped moving, settling into her. T'Pol gently stroked the back of her head, blinking back tears. It was something she hadn't let herself succumb to while they were in sickbay, only letting her emotions break through the surface when she'd been alone in her quarters with Trip later that night.

They'd been powerless to help her, and they'd both known that. There was something that had been bothering her since the moment Elizabeth Tucker had ceased to exist, and she was now overpowered by the overwhelming urge to speak it into existence.

"I am sorry I was not able to protect you."

Suddenly Elizabeth disappeared from her arms and she found herself in a dark room with no discernable windows or exits. T'Pol was reminded of her situation, the Romulan game that was almost certainly afoot, but it was becoming harder and harder to concentrate. Her head was pounding, every nerve in her body singing with pain.

A figure stepped out the shadows, and she had to do a double take. She recognized her, but it was from the far reaches of her memory, collateral damage from the monks' attempts to force her through the fullara following her hunt of Menos and Jossen on Risa.

"T'Sana." It was a name she hadn't spoken in decades, but once she'd said it aloud, it was difficult to ignore the emotions it stirred.

She was tall, with expressive eyes and the barest hint of a smile on her lips. When they'd worked together, it was in the early days of T'Pol's service, and she'd followed her across the quadrant for a matter of months as her apprentice, learning the ins and outs of covert operations. It was long, strenuous, dangerous work, but they'd bonded over their desire to see the galaxy and serve their people.

T'Sana was an unconventional Vulcan to say the least; she was a decade older but her emotions were always close to the surface, she occasionally indulged in whatever entertainment the species they encountered had to offer, and T'Pol suspected she secretly enjoyed the adventurous lifestyle they lived. She represented everything her years of training had warned against. As a young woman, she'd found her fascinating.

"You remember me." It was a statement more than a question. She approached and stepped up to her, pinning her down under her gaze. Immediately, she felt a familiar warmth rising to her face, and cleared her throat in a bid to get rid of it.

"We worked together for quite some time," she stated as plainly as she could given the circumstances. "Rather, T'Sana and I did. You are an illusion."

"An illusion?" She repeated, reaching out to her.

T'Pol pulled away quickly. "T'Sana died twenty years ago."

She nodded, experiencing a moment of clarity. "Where were we when it happened?"

"Sanexa," she replied, remembering the desert world with its sprawling dunes, intermittent oases, and towering cities. "We were chasing a team of smugglers through the capital."

"We tracked them to a warehouse south of the city center. They had reinforcements on the way. When they arrived, there was a firefight, and I was shot."

T'Pol remembered the sound of weapons fire, her crying out, the sight of her wound, festering and deep. "You knew the local law enforcement would not arrive in time."

"I did," she admitted, looking slightly satisfied that she was playing along. "And what did you do?"

She looked away. "I do not remember."

"Yes you do."

"I said, I don't-"

"I told you to leave me, to save yourself, to salvage the mission. Begged you." Her voice was growing louder, the emotion beginning to break through. "So tell me, what did you do?"

T'Pol inhaled slowly, fighting tears once again. It was difficult to think with the pounding in her head. She was starting to panic, and she was feeling unsteady on her feet. But she did remember, no matter how much she'd tried to hold it back. "I left you to die."

T'Sana stepped into her line of sight, looking somewhat distressed, holding her side. Her uniform was suddenly stained with blood, a great deal of it, dripping through her fingers and onto the floor. "Why did you do that, T'Pol?"

"I was following your direct order."

"You could have saved me!" She cried. "We both knew it, but you never came back for me. I fail to understand why. Your companionship meant so much to me."

It was true that T'Sana was the closest thing she'd ever had to a friend up until that point, but that was years ago, when she'd been unsure of herself, inexperienced. It had been a memory that she'd replayed over and over again even as she'd been reassigned as an independent agent, even as the years passed, even as she'd embarked on a mission to retrieve the seven fugitives from Agaron.

She wanted to tell her all of this, but when she looked up, T'Sana was gone. There was a moment of silence, then a light turned on at the far end of the room, just enough to illuminate a single person sitting on a platform.

Tovin regarded her with pure contempt, his arms crossed, a small device clutched in one hand. She took a single step towards him, and he pressed a button, bringing her to her knees with a wave of the most severe pain she'd ever experienced. It shouldn't have hurt as much as it did, but she could feel her control slipping away, and then the pain came afterwards, causing her to cry out and clutch the sides of her face.

On her temples, she felt the presence of some kind of metal band, bearing down on her head with incredible force. Looking up, she called out, "What have you done to me?"

"I wouldn't try anything rash, Captain. This device uses a neuro-synaptic field to lower your emotional threshold. Once that's been removed, our neural telepresence units can begin their work."

She was breathing heavily through her teeth, striving to regain control. She knew exactly who was behind this. "How long have you been a traitor?"

"For as long as I've known the truth about my ancestry." He looked disaffected, even amused by her pain. "One day, when our people are unified, you will understand. In the meantime, Captain-"

The lights in the chamber were suddenly turned all the way up, and she squinted, barely being able to make out rows of tiered seating surrounding her on all sides. They were filled with hundreds of past colleagues, acquaintances, and family members, including her entire crew, and they were all beholding her with the same perfectly impassive expression.

"Welcome to the arena."

---

"There are no Vulcan biosigns anywhere on the northern continents," Malcolm said, pointing up to the view screen, where they'd gone to great lengths to hack into the Tellarites' global satellite system. "Nor have there been in the past few days."

"On Betazed, they planted false biosigns near heavily shield areas to act as a lure. This time, they don't need to. It's possible they've been lying in wait for us to arrive for days, even weeks. I believe humans would call it playing the long game." Alira reached for the console and pulled up another window, her fingers dancing across the keys. "We should be scanning for transporter signatures. The one thing they won't be able to hide is the feedback from their pattern buffers."

"Vulcan or Romulan signatures?"

"At this point?" She initiated the scan and took a step back. "Both."

Alira retreated to the table in the wardroom and boosted herself onto it, covering her face with her hands. It had been two hours since they'd discovered the Captain was missing, and they were no closer to finding her now than when they started.

"I can't help but think this is partially my fault. If I'd acted the first time I was suspicious of him…" She shook her head. "I know they're going to try everything in their power to get information out of her."

"According to his file, he's one of the most trusted members of Ambassador Soval's staff, and has been for the past four years. If that's the case, he must have been pretty deep undercover." He had meant to reassure her but could see that it had the exact opposite effect.

"We're going to need to change the access codes to all critical areas of the ship," she forged on, fully ignoring what he'd said. "We're lucky he didn't go after Lieutenant Kov, or anyone else on board."

"Knowing what I do now, I'd be happy if we could just find the Captain and get the hell out of here. We need to regroup and make a plan. There's hundreds of telepresence units out there, and we've got to bring down the entire network without revealing the Captain's…" He paused, bringing his hand down onto the console. "...secret."

She slid off the table and approached him, gesturing at their map of the system. "The problem is we have no idea where they are. We've got to prevent them from gathering the information they need to strike first. We may have already lost our chance. Between us and the Vulcans, they probably know the locations of all of our critical bases and satellites."

In the muted blue glow of the screen, he could see that she was deep in thought, her expression fraught, most likely worrying about her mother, hunkered down on a moon mere light years from Romulan space. They both knew, but hadn't acknowledged it, that Kandar would be a primary target once the floodgates opened.

"We're going to find her. Even if it takes a few hours, the Captain is going to pull through. I have no doubt she's down there right now giving them hell."

She said nothing.

"Whatever the case may be, I'm glad you and the Commodore told me and that there's no more secrets between us." Something flashed across her expression, indecipherable, gone in a second. He took another step towards her, wanting to touch her, but not daring to do so. "There are no more secrets between us, right?"

It was as if something snapped in her mind. She met his gaze and her eyes lit up, giving him some facsimile of her usual dazzling smile. "None," she lied, not wanting to give him reason to doubt.

There was no way he could have known. She hoped he would never know.

At that moment, the door opened, and they both took a massive step back, turning to face the Commodore. He immediately informed them: "I've just spent the past hour speaking with the High Command."

"Did Ambassador Soval provide any more information on Tovin's background?"

Jonathan sighed. There was no hiding it. It was the middle of the night, and he was severely fatigued. "They had no idea. They seemed more embarrassed than concerned. They're conducting a security sweep of headquarters. A great deal of their Security Directorate operatives have been compromised. The rest of them will be required to prove their loyalty."

That didn't exactly answer his question. "Just how much did he know, sir?"

"A hell of a lot, Ensign. They think he's stolen data relating to the locations and postings of all known Vulcan-Romulan hybrids. This is the first time he's gone rogue to their knowledge. The man kept his cards close to his chest." He gestured towards the view screen, their incomplete scans, the maps of Tellar's largest cities, the subspace particulate analysis. "What do we know so far?"

"Very little, Commodore. No ships have left orbit in the past twelve hours, and there's no trace of residual chroniton radiation from Romulan cloaking devices anywhere in the system. It seems to suggest that the Captain and Tovin are on the surface. We've recorded no unauthorized transports or shuttle departures, so we suspect he's using a site-to-site mobile unit with a power output lower than our detection threshold," Alira explained, pulling up documentation to that effect. Suddenly, the display beeped, indicating their surface scan was complete. She studied it for a moment, then leaned forward, pointing out an illuminated point in a city on the southern continent. "There. These EM fluctuations look like feedback from a transporter pattern buffer."

Malcolm leaned into her, pressing a button on the far end of the console. The computer was able to isolate and amplify two distinct frequencies. "They seem to be two Vulcan biosigns. Or, in the very least, Vulcan-adjacent."

Archer cleared his throat and frowned. "Looks like a storage facility of some kind. Do you think we can break in?"

Alira glanced over her shoulder, somewhat taken aback by his tenacity. "Certainly not through the roof. It's heavily shielded with some kind of dentarium alloy, just as their compound on Betazed was. That caliber of metal can only be found a few places in the quadrant."

"One of the uninhabited planets in Vulcan's system, if I'm not mistaken. It appears they're keen on framing the High Command for their tactics, or in the very least raising suspicion." Malcolm zoomed in on the building in question and rotated the view screen down to street level. "Nor would I recommend entering through any of these alleyways. They don't look wide enough for two people to stand side-by-side."

"So that leaves one option," Alira said. "Through the front door."

"And just how do you plan to do that, Ensign?"

His tactical officers made eye contact, seeming to have a conversation without words, shrugging and gesturing towards the screen. If the situation hadn't been so dire, he might have found it amusing.

"Well, in this case, I believe the only viable option would be-"

"Stun grenades," Alira concluded, as if it had been obvious. "About a half dozen of them will do."

"We only have about three hours left of darkness, sir. We ought to get moving."

"If you're confident, Mr. Reed." Archer was secretly glad they were willing to head down there right now, guns blazing. It reminded him of the early days of their mission. "I'll let Commander Tucker know he'll need to head things off alone at the reception in a couple of hours. We'll have to tell him we've gotten sick."

"The five of us, sir?" Malcolm asked incredulously.

"They might believe that for you and the Captain. Tell him that Sub-Commander Tovin is accompanying the two of us down to the surface for a visit to the Ministry of Defense. I understand we've got a standing invitation," Alira paused, turning back towards the display. "If we want to go with the angle that Tovin returned to Vulcan of his own accord, I'd like to contact Captain Graseka of the Tellarite Star Battalion. He owes me a favor."

Ignoring the deliberately vague manner with which that statement was delivered, Archer insisted, "Just to be clear, your orders are to capture him alive. I'd like to question him."

And likely beat the hell out of him, but he thought that went without saying.

"Sir-"

"It's not up for discussion, Mr. Reed." He retreated towards the door, and just before he exited the room, he called out, "Fifteen minutes. Shuttlepod Two."

---

"We know you are operating a surveillance satellite. Where is it?"

T'Pol was seated on the floor of the great windowless room, her knees drawn close to her chest, eyes shut tightly as she fought to maintain her control over the waves of pain racking her body.

Multiple times, it felt like the temperature of the room was shifting up and down; she'd been abducted wearing her pajamas and one of her floor-sweeping Vulcan robes, but she found herself alternating between sweating profusely and shivering so hard her teeth chattered. All the while, she could feel hundreds of pairs of eyes on her, and Solan kept alternating between various hosts, trying and failing to get her to reveal any number of Starfleet secrets.

Presently, it was Lieutenant Sato. She could have recognized her voice from ten kilometers away. She didn't dare look at her, for fear that she would drown in this delusion and completely lose track of reality. But every time she opened her eyes by a fraction of a centimeter, she could see the young woman's boots pacing around her, and she recognized her purposeful stride. It was frightening how much their neural telepresence units could recreate just from her memories.

"I don't know," she asserted for perhaps the fiftieth time, and though she attempted to keep her voice steady, it wavered uncontrollably.

"You're lying," her comm officer insisted, "Tell me where it is and I'll spare the lives of your shipmates."

"You're a delusion. None of this is real, not a thing!" She called out, repeating one of her meditation mantras over and over in her head: You are sitting alone in a dark room. There are no interruptions, no incursions, just blessed, unobstructed peace. Nothing can reach you here. You are an island. You are safe in the arms of the…

Another kick found its mark on the small of her back, causing her to fall forward and cry out. It had been delivered with a strength she knew was not her own. Sato laughed, and she could feel her sinking down to her level, feel her hot breath on the side of her face. "You are a slave to your emotions and you don't even know it. This is your last chance to tell me before the Sub-Commander increases the level on this device. Do you want that?"

Just as she'd done with every previous level increase, T'Pol looked up into the cold, dispassionate eyes of Solan's host, determined to show her resolve. "I don't know why you insist on playing this game. I'll sooner die than tell you."

"That can be arranged." Lieutenant Sato gave the signal, and Sub-Commander Tovin turned the dial sharply to the right. This time, T'Pol screamed, rearing back and grasping at the device strapped to her head. As before, it didn't budge, even when she began to tear at it, desperate to avoid the inevitable loss of control she knew was fast approaching. "Although, if you are determined to sacrifice yourself, I could endeavor to speed up the process."

Sato walked towards the right and disappeared from her line of vision, and Ambassador Soval strode in from the left, taking her place in front of her. He looked down upon her, stern, fatherly, for a fraction of a second appearing to be perfectly normal. Then, when he opened his mouth, it wasn't his voice, and her hopes were dashed.

"Let's put it this way. We've intercepted communications between this surveillance satellite and your ship, routed through so many auxiliary sub-space beacons that its source was indeterminable. How would a member of your crew feel knowing you willingly sent a member of their family to a slow, agonizing death?"

"They all know the risks when they join the crew. I know there is only one way this can end. No matter if I tell you or not, you will still try to exterminate all life planet by planet until you find them, along with every United Earth allied colony along the border."

"Just a matter of time," the not-Soval confirmed. "I implore you again to tell us where this satellite is located. I can assure you that telling us now will decrease the amount of bloodshed significantly."

"I believe I told you before," she rasped out, barely being able to form a coherent thought. "I'm not telling you where it is, nor the location of any other Starfleet security outpost."

"A pity. This could have been over so easily," he mused, folding his hands inside his robe. He began a slow processional to the right. "Perhaps there really is no way to make you reconsider."

As he passed behind her, she was expecting to be on the receiving end of another kick, but one never came. Instead, she heard a familiar voice emerging from the left, one that stirred something deep within her.

"T'Pol?"

"Mother?" She opened her eyes once more and beheld her sitting across from her, just as she remembered as a child, formidable, yet gentle, and impossibly strong. Her control was starting to slip more and more, and before she could stop herself, she surged forward and wrapped her arms around her.

Suddenly she was a child again, laying in bed, shaking and shivering. She remembered the incident distinctly: she and the rest of her class had gone on a field trip to a remote science outpost and more than a few of them had come down with an unfamiliar flu strain, one that had left her bedridden for days on end.

Her back, her legs, her sides-everything hurt, and she'd never felt such pain before. Every so often her mother would enter the room to deliver her medication, and she would put on a brave face, but once she left, she couldn't help but weep. She was just a little girl after all, and her emotional barriers were not yet strong.

They never really were.

The last night of the fever, her mother came in to say goodnight only to discover that her daughter had been crying, tears running down great big rivulets on her cheeks. She fondly smoothed her hair back from her forehead, looking into her eyes.

T'Pol was ashamed to have been caught crying by the woman who had taught her to bear far worse things than this. She blinked rapidly, trying to steady her expression, but she hadn't needed to say anything.

"Oh, little one," her mother admonished, coming around her bed and pulling back the covers. To her surprise, she climbed in and pulled her to her chest, whispering calming words to her until she began to drift off.

Vulcan parents were not known to be physically affectionate, and they never discussed it after that. The closest thing she had to affection from her mother after that was the day she accompanied her to the Vulcan Science Academy on her first day of instruction. She'd never been away from home for so long, her emotional walls were stronger but she still harbored some nerves, and she had some trepidation about leaving her mother alone in that great big house.

As their transport arrived in the city, they'd walked in silence. Her hair had just been cut in the severe style of a new cadet, and she kept unconsciously reaching up to touch it. This was her dream, this was the expectation, this was what both of her parents had done, but she was apprehensive.

Her mother could sense that. As they reached the separation of their paths, she headed towards the dormitory and her mother headed to her laboratory on the other side of the compound, her mother reached out and clandestinely squeezed her hand.

"I am proud of you," she whispered, scarcely loud enough for anyone to hear. And she knew that it was the truth.

The next time she'd heard something like it, she'd been…

She turned, finding herself among a dense outcropping of rocks, the only light source around being the stars far above. Sidestepping the crumpled bodies of other Syrranites, she found that she knew exactly where to go, falling to her knees and crawling the few remaining meters to her mother's side.

By that time, she was teething dangerously on the edge of losing control, shaking, breathing rapidly through her teeth, tears stinging the corner of her eyes. From the far reaches of her memory, the words began to tumble out.

"You have always struggled so with your emotions," her mother was telling her, clinging onto her for dear life. "I came here...I did all of this to help you."

"I don't understand."

"You will." Her hand came up and cupped her cheek, squeezing slightly, guiding her to look into her eyes.

After so many years, she finally did. "Mother, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me who my father was?"

A soft smile began to spread across her lips, and she suspected her question would go unanswered. "I have always been so proud of you, my T'Pol."

By this time, the tears were flowing freely, and for the first time in her life, she knew there was no hope of getting them to stop. Her mother's grip on her was starting to weaken and she began to list to one side. With her final breath, she whispered, "I am sorry I was not able to protect you."

The memories were coming faster and faster, repeating and melting into one another as they rushed past her field of vision. Baby Elizabeth, hopeless firefights, the piled up bodies of former colleagues.

She and Jonathan rushing through the hall, heads down, as she tried and failed to stop him from going on a suicide mission to destroy the Xindi weapon. She remembered his intensity, his determination, and how it frightened her to her core. She remembered stopping him as he stepped into the turbolift, saying, "I don't want you to die. It's not necessary."

He'd said he wished that were true. She'd wished she'd been able to say what was truly on her mind.

Then they were on the bridge and he was delivering his farewell address, and all she wanted to do was to fall to her knees and beg him not to go, to convince him with some infallible bit of logic, but she knew nothing would dissuade him. Then she'd been weeping in the Captain's ready room, turning away any overtures of comfort from her friends, then the ship had been falling apart around them, and she was sure they were all going to die.

Suddenly they were crashing into the shuttlebay, prepared to fire on an unarmed Aquatic vessel that they soon learned held their Captain. She'd accompanied him to sickbay, where they'd received the unfortunate news that they'd already lost fourteen crew members, with more to come. They discussed their next steps, all seemingly in fast forward, then she reached for a towel to give to him. Something, anything, so he could wipe the blood off his face and she could start to forget about the attack that had almost cost them everything.

Her hands were shaking, and he noticed, clasping her hand and forearm, meeting her gaze. When he asked if she was alright, it sounded muted, distant, almost as if it had been underwater.

She tried to pull away, but he held fast, and then all of her emotional dams burst at once.

Falling to her knees in the middle of the arena, she began to weep, wailing, clutching at her chest and pounding the ground. She had finally broken, and her designated watchman was satisfied.

With the press of the button, the holographic attendees of their delegation vanished, followed by their seats. He leaned forward and removed the device strapped to her forehead with a snap. Tovin exited quietly, leaving T'Pol alone in an empty room, screaming for mercy, crying inconsolably.

---

The rescue team touched down on the southern continent of Tellar Prime in the middle of the night in a clearing no larger than their shuttlepod.

It was raining steadily, a downpour that immediately soaked them to the skin. All around them, they could hear the wildlife of the jungle, whooping and chirping, even in the dead of night. They were only about a hundred meters from the building where they suspected the Captain was being held, but they couldn't see a trace of the city lights through the thick undergrowth.

Alira took a few steps into the darkness, ignoring the chill that had already cut through her track jacket and seeped into her bones. She'd turned down her tricorder to the lowest setting, but it still felt unbearably bright. She looked over her shoulder to where she thought Malcolm and the Commodore would be standing; the only evidence they were there at all was the muted green glow of their night vision goggles, secured over one eye.

"This way," she whispered, and they surged forward, forming a single file line as they approached the back of the building.

"Once we're inside, we should be able to locate her biosign fairly quickly."

The Commodore took the lead as they made their way around the side, looking for any discernible entrance. "Remember your orders. Keep your head down, capture the Sub-Commander alive, and-"

"Hold the line," they responded as one, and he momentarily paused to look back at his tactical officers, who both looked intensely focused, ready to react at a moment's notice. If there was one mission they decided to follow orders, he hoped it was this one.

They were nearing the street; far ahead, Jonathan could barely make out the streetlamps, casting an eerie glow on the pavement below. He was beginning to grow concerned they'd never find an entrance when Alira reached out and seized his arm.

As he watched, she ran her hand along the wall, until her fingers disappeared momentarily, seeming to phase through it. She released him and reached for her tricorder, holding up three fingers, then pinching her thumb and forefinger together to show they were close.

Malcolm nodded and fumbled around in his pocket for a stun grenade. The two of them flattened themselves on either side of the holographic doorway, clicking the safety off of their weapons.

Archer rushed through the door a few seconds after the grenade detonated. He almost immediately stumbled over the bodies of three hybrid soldiers, but quickly regained his footing, finding himself standing at one end of a long hallway with many doors on either side.

He heard three phaser blasts in rapid succession and turned just in time to see Ensign Taxa holster her weapon. He was sure her newfound shoot twice sensibilities came from her recent encounter with the hybrid soldiers on Betazed, but he couldn't be sure.

"She's not on this level, Commodore, though I'm reading her somewhere in this building."

"I'm going to need you to be a little more specific."

Somewhere in the distance, they heard the rapid approach of footsteps, coming from somewhere up ahead and to the left of them. Alira pointed up, directly towards the ceiling, then gestured to Lieutenant Commander Reed.

"Absolutely not. I'll go investigate. You two stay here."

"Sir-"

"That's an order, Ensign."

She nodded, not looking too particularly pleased about his determination to venture upstairs alone. The footsteps were growing louder. She watched him sneak down the hallway, right past the origin of the noise, and creep up the stairwell, taking them one step at a time.

"How many?"

"Six, on this level." Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the second stun grenade already in his hand. He knew he was mentally debating whether to stay right where they were or go kicking down doors.

She reached behind her and covered his hand with her own. "Hold the line," she whispered, squinting into the near darkness.

Suddenly, all hell broke loose. Doors opened from both sides of the hallway, issuing a half dozen hybrid soldiers.

Malcolm leaned towards the wall, dodging a green beam of light that missed his head by a fraction of a centimeter. In a flash, Alira stepped in front of him and crouched down, activating her diverter shield.

The weapons fire soon disappeared into the ceiling, though the sound of them striking the metal of the shield was near deafening, and she was having to lean forward to avoid losing her balance.

He didn't hesitate, reeling back and hurling the stun grenade in their direction as hard as he possibly could. This time, they were much too close to the blast, and it knocked both of them off their feet, the bright flash of light temporarily blinding them.

Alira quickly regained her bearings and retracted her shield, grimacing over the ringing in her ears. She extended her hand out to him, and he took it, following her further down the hall.

After stopping to make sure their charges were well and truly unconscious, he said, "Have I mentioned how much I love the Denobulan Infantry?"

"Not that I can remember."

"Mostly their weapons. Specifically that one."

Their pace slowed as they neared the top of the staircase. Alira aimed her tricorder around the corner, noting three biosigns in their vicinity. When she spoke, it was barely audible. "It's safe to say you owe me one."

"We'll figure something out." He leaned forward, studying the screen. One human and two Vulcan.

Or at least, Vulcan-adjacent.

She stepped onto the landing, phase pistol held aloft, only to find the hallway empty. The lights were flickering overhead. In the distance, she thought she could hear a woman screaming, a sound which set the hairs on the back of her neck on end.

The Commodore was nowhere to be seen.

Together they moved down the hallway past many closed hatches, on mental high alert, both listening for any hint of Archer's voice. Suddenly, a door a couple meters behind them opened, giving them only a fraction of a second to react.

Someone grabbed Alira from behind, wrapping an arm around her neck, the other holding her shoulders captive. Malcolm looked into the wild eyes of Sub-Commander Tovin, and saw nothing but rage.

"Come any closer and I'll kill her! I'll snap her neck!"

He leveled his phase pistol at him, looking for a clear shot where he could take down one but not the other, but finding none in the ensuing struggle. Suddenly Alira went limp and reached for the spot on her chest where his hands met.

He'd seen her do this move hundreds of times during their training sessions. The first time she'd done it on him, the wind had been knocked out of him and he'd almost lost his lunch. Malcolm took a giant step back.

She pulled her hands down to her sides, tearing his grip loose, then reached across and grabbed his elbow, throwing him over her shoulder with ease. At the last possible second, he reached for her, seizing her forearm and causing her to fall forward.

He had no way of knowing that the device strapped to her arm could be activated with a touch of a button.

The sound of the serrated edge of her diverter shield sinking into his chest was sickening. Alira immediately knew she'd had the misfortune of her blade landing between two ribs.

Without thinking, she rolled to one side and stumbled to her feet, discovering with horror that she and her companion were covered with a great deal of green blood. Tovin was gasping, clutching his stomach, desperately trying to seal his wound with his hands. The sight was horrific.

"Why did you do this?" She demanded, her voice sounding much louder than she intended.

Despite his imminent fate, Tovin did not appear afraid. He said something in an unfamiliar language, perhaps Romulan, then ceased to speak at all.

As she retracted her shield, Malcolm unloaded a round into their first officer, just to make sure he was dead. They locked eyes, and she clutched her chest, realizing her heart was racing.

Moments earlier, Archer had all but sprinted down the hall towards the source of the screaming. He had immediately recognized it, because he remembered carrying his Captain into sickbay as she thrashed about, having nearly lost her control onboard the Seleya during the Xindi crisis. It had been hard to forget.

He arrived at the end of the hall, noticing with dismay that the door was locked tight and required some kind of biometric access. He used his phase pistol to sever the latch, then burst into the room, which was completely bare, save for a single overhead light.

T'Pol sat on the floor facing away from him, her head in her hands, screaming with all of her might. He approached her, holstering his weapon, and fell to his knees beside her.

"T'Pol, it's me," he began, watching as she ceased her screams long enough to look up at him. There were tears streaming down her face, and her eyes were wild, so much so that he knew that the woman he so admired was no longer within.

She shook her head, gasping for air, scooting away from him. "You're not real! None of this is real!"

"It's Jonathan. Don't you recognize me?"

Her expression suddenly contorted into a grotesque smile. "You're not Jonathan. I would know. You're an illusion sent by my brother. Do not waste your time. You might as well take your seat right now."

"What?"

"Take a seat!" She shrieked, gesturing towards the walls. "Can't you see them?"

"There's no one here, T'Pol. You're hallucinating. I'm going to take you to see Dr. Phlox, and it's all going to be okay." He reached for her, and she moved away again, settling into the corner of the room.

"I'm not going to tell you! You're going to have to kill me!"

"I'll stun you if I have to. Don't make me do that." He began to move closer and closer until at last he was able to take her into his arms, holding her tightly against his chest until she stopped fighting and thrashing against him.

There was a moment of realization through the madness. She wrapped her hands around his neck, and he could feel how much she was trembling. "It is you. Jonathan, I need to-"

"Hold on to me," he commanded, rising to his feet and lifting her off to the floor. It was in that moment he heard a commotion and burst into the hall, only to find his tactical officers standing over the crumpled body of Sub-Commander Tovin, thoroughly covered in his blood. He wanted to reprimand them, to remind them about holding the line, but thought better.

"It's time to go," he announced somewhat rhetorically, and together they rushed down the corridor.

They arrived on the first floor to find more than a few of the hybrid soldiers they'd stunned were awake and nowhere to be found. Taxa led the way, cursing up a blue streak in Denobulan, bursting through the holographic doorway into a very crowded alley.

Malcolm was soon to follow, and Archer hung back, hearing the frantic surge of weapons fire for nearly a minute. Suddenly, Alira's hand phased through the door and she waved it around for a fraction of a second, which he interpreted to be the signal.

The scene on the other side of the door was even more bloody than the upstairs hallway. Reed was clutching his arm, breathing heavily, crouched down in a pile of unconscious hybrids.

"You're injured," Taxa said, a note of concern in her voice.

"It's just a graze," he promised, though neither of them believed him. Alira bent down to retrieve one of their weapons, then surged ahead, and they soon broke into the treeline.

T'Pol was shaking so violently Archer feared he was going to drop her. As they boarded their pod and the lights came on, he could see that Malcolm's wound was worse than he'd imagined. He was bleeding heavily all over the deck plating in his attempt to start the pre-ignition sequence.

"Sit down!" Alira demanded, pushing him away roughly and taking up her position in the pilot's chair. Her fingers danced over the keys, and they soon felt the gentle lift of the thrusters coming online.

"Have you ever flown one of these before, Ensign?"

"In simulations, sir," she replied, glancing back at them for a fraction of a second, not doing nearly enough to quell their fears.

---

"Really? Both of them?"

"Rigelian fever. Apparently it's a light case, no need to reinoculate the crew," Hoshi explained, having to jog to keep up with Commander Tucker as he moved through the corridors on their way to the mess hall. "The Commodore thinks it sneaked onboard with those cargo containers we got from the Tellarite freighter the other day."

"What about the Columbia? Could Captain Hernandez pay us a visit?"

"They left orbit about an hour ago, en route to Earth."

Trip shook his head. "And the rest of them?"

"Mr. Reed says they're visiting the Ministry of Defense. Apparently Sub-Commander Tovin expressed an interest in learning about Tellarite weaponry."

He threw his arms up in frustration. "Convenient, isn't it?"

"I thought you liked the Tellarite delegation, how honest they were, how they spoke their mind," Hoshi said, somewhat confused. She stepped to one side to allow a line of MACOs to pass, fresh from escorting their guests from the transporter pad.

As they stepped into the turbolift, Trip turned to her, saying, "That was when there was a buffer between them and I. This time, I'm their prime target. I have to have all the answers."

"Sounds like good preparation for taking the Captain's chair," she mumbled, pressing the button for E Deck.

She was right. Of course she was right. "I'm sure the Tellarites are going to be offended that our top ranking officers didn't consider them important enough to even show up."

Hoshi shrugged. "So what?"

"So what?"

"Trip, they're just a bunch of diplomats. Over the past few years you've been kidnapped, tortured, stranded, marooned, shot, and just about everything else. Trust me, you can handle it." The doors opened and they stepped into the corridor. "And if there's a moment you think you can't, just let me know. I can turn Ensign Singh on them."

This time, he laughed. "Lieutenant, I'm glad you're coming with me."

"Someone's gotta be on the Maelstrom to talk you down from the precipice." They reached the hatch leading into the mess hall and paused momentarily. Hoshi turned her head and whispered conspiratorially, "Are we still on for tonight?"

"Assuming one of the Tellarite ambassadors doesn't shoot me first. How about Coal Miner's Daughter?"

"I'd rather we watch Steel Magnolias."

"You and Liz have seen that one about a thousand times. I'm going to get you to appreciate country music if it's the last thing we do." He reached for the door controls, exposing them to the bustle of the reception within. "I promise you, you're going to love it."

Not five seconds after they crossed over the threshold, Ambassador Gral trundled up to them, stepping far into Trip's personal space.

"Where is the Captain and your Commodore? Does Archer not believe these negotiations are important enough to warrant his attendance?" His voice was hoarse, gravelly, but seemed to fill the entire room in volume.

"They're in quarantine with Rigelian fever and have been ordered by our doctor not to show up," he paused, taking another step towards him. "I gotta say I'm a little jealous."

Gral narrowed his eyes, gesturing around the room. "I fail to see why this reception couldn't be held on the surface. Anything would be better than eating your rotten food and having to look at your unattractive females."

"I understand it was under the request of your King." Out of the corner of his eye, he could see another Tellarite turn and start to approach them. "As a matter of fact, seeing that it's over thirty degrees in the capital city, I'd rather see you up here than have to smell you down there."

He growled, and Trip could tell another sharp disparage was incoming. A second later, the second Tellarite reached them, placing a hand on Gral's shoulder and pushing him away somewhat roughly.

He recoiled, and for a fraction of a second Trip was expecting a fist fight to break out in the mess hall, before Gral stepped away deferentially. Satisfied, the Tellarite extended her hand out for a shake. "Ambassador Kell. I'd say it's an honor to make your acquaintance, but that is yet to be seen."

The King's niece. Natha looked virtually identical to Gral, except for a pair of tusks underneath her nose. Her ears were pointed, Vulcan-like, though about twice as wide and nearly covering the entire side of her face. Her voice was gruff, but somewhat feminine, and there was some sort of inquisitive sparkle in her eyes. Trip seized her hand and was momentarily taken aback by her strength, but matched her grip, determined not to show weakness for even a second.

"Commander Charles Tucker."

"Soon to be the CO of the new United Earth warship, yes." She paused, glancing towards her companion. "You must excuse Ambassador Gral. He doesn't understand that you humans have delicate sensibilities. You require a lighter touch."

"I wouldn't say that's true. We've dealt with the likes of you before, and I can't say that we were intimidated at all."

She chuckled, gesturing towards the interior of the room. "Walk with me, Commander Tucker."

Trip glanced back towards Hoshi, and she nodded, indicating she would be fine. A second after he joined Ambassador Kell, he could hear the two of them arguing once again, their voices reaching a fever pitch.

"I understand that the primary focus of your first mission on the Maelstrom will be exploration. Sounds like a waste of resources, if you ask me."

"It's not a waste, Ambassador. We're trying to bring more worlds into the alliance. Considering we're about to break warp seven, I gotta say we're probably more qualified than you," he retorted, stepping aside to allow Ensign Singh to pass. She was deep in discussion with some Tellarite politicians, waving her arms about, sneering, anything to get her point across.

"In terms of speed, perhaps," she acquiesced. "In terms of acquiring things, you must admit the Tellarite Trade Directorate is superior in every way to the Earth Cargo Service."

They reached the window and Trip leaned against it. "I don't have to admit that at all."

"Commander, shut your mouth and open your ears," she demanded, jabbing a finger into his chest. "I'm simply recognizing that with a war with the Romulan imminent, we are more than willing to seek out any specialty materials Starfleet may need."

"Specialty materials?"

She nodded, downing her drink in a single gulp and tossing her glass aside. They both heard it shatter on the deck plating, but didn't glance at it. "We are willing to hold the Maelstrom as our first priority, for the correct price."

"What kind of price?"

"We can discuss that later." She pointed to one of their freighters in orbit, just off their bow. "I ask that you consider it. We've already done numerous favors for other allies. The Vulcans, the Rigelians, the Denobulans."

Something about this statement didn't sit right with Trip. It sounded like she was trying to get him to sign off on acts of piracy, but he didn't yet have enough information to bring his concerns to the Commodore. "Tell me more," he said, leaning into her.

---

Dr. Phlox met them in the shuttlebay, thundering down the steps the second the room pressurized. His expression was fraught, and he was moving with the quick, jerky motions that usually indicated the urgency of the situation. He pushed past them and immediately stooped down in front of the Captain, who was curled up in the far corner in the Commodore's arms, shaking so hard she looked like she might fly apart.

"Captain, can you tell me what day it is?"

Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly, then she shook her head.

"Do you know where you are right now? What's my name?"

She began to weep anew, something that shocked them all. They weren't sure if she knew but couldn't find the words, or didn't know and was terrified by the prospect. She looked so small, so panic-stricken, so terrified-even after their ordeal aboard the Seleya, Jonathan had never seen her like this.

The doctor glanced over his shoulder to Alira, who was watching the scene unfold from the pilot's seat, eyes wide, trembling slightly, and said something to her in Denobulan, which she quickly replied to. If he was going to treat his patient, he was going to need to know what was going on, and she was more than willing in the moment to tell him.

And so the net of the hybrid plot grew a little wider.

"Ms. Taxa, please arrange a site-to-site transport to sickbay. We can't-I won't-carry her through the corridors in this state." Tentatively, he took out his medical tricorder and extended it into her field of vision, causing her to recoil and retreat further within herself. Jonathan squeezed her tighter, and she clung to him, the only steady point in her crumbling world.

"Her synaptic pathways have been severely damaged, perhaps irreversibly. There's a neurochemical balance in her mesiofrontal cortex, and her norepinephrine levels..." He shook his head, looking up at the Commodore. "I'll need to operate immediately."

"I'll assist you," he said, and it came out more like a command, not a request.

He took one look at the three of them, all soaked to the skin, covered in mud and blood (most of it not their own), and delivered his verdict, one he knew that none of them were going to like. "I'm afraid it will arouse too much suspicion. The three of you will need to go through decon. We need to erect a level four security field around sickbay."

"I'm on it." Reed turned and dashed up the stairs, still holding onto his arm for dear life, followed shortly by Taxa.

Now they were alone in the shuttlepod, with the only discernible sound being the Captain's heavy and strained breathing. Reflexively, Archer reached up and cupped the side of her face, bringing it to her chest. "Doctor, is she going to be okay?"

He didn't need to say anything. His dire expression told him everything he needed to know.

---

An hour later, Archer paced the same three meters in the decon chamber over and over, wringing his hands, his brows furrowed together in concern.

Malcolm sat behind him on the bench in the middle of the room, his knees drawn up to his chest, seemingly deep in thought. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get the image of the Captain weeping and trembling out of his mind. The closest he'd ever seen her to such a state was during their visit to the Seleya back in the Expanse; even then, it had shaken him to his very core. This time was different; rather than a one-off obstacle on their course to defeat the Xindi, this Romulan threat represented a clear and present danger that they all knew wasn't going away anytime soon.

Behind him, Alira lay on the bench against the far wall, her feet propped up, her hands clasped over her stomach and her eyes closed. She hadn't so much as looked at either of them as she came in from the showers and settled onto her perch. He knew she was already thinking ten steps ahead, twenty steps, a hundred, to try and figure out how they were going to proceed from here.

As far as they knew, Commander Tucker had been able to keep the Tellarites at bay while they ventured down to the surface. As far as they knew, no one had been the wiser, not even Columbia. As far as they knew, they were the only people in Starfleet to know the full extent of the hybrid plot, and one thing was for sure: they had to make sure it stayed that way, at any cost.

The Commodore soon broke the silence. "We'll need to purge the sensor logs from this evening. We've got to say, with the cooperation of the High Command, that Sub-Commander Tovin voluntarily withdrew from the service and returned to Vulcan."

Over his shoulder, he could hear Alira take a deep breath and forcefully exhale. He knew she was replaying the moment he'd been stricken down by her hand over and over, the sound of the diverter shield slicing through his chest.

He knew exactly how she was feeling. Every single notch on his belt, every kill he'd racked up in his time in the service, still hung over his head like a black cloud. He didn't know if he'd ever get rid of it.

He thought about the extraordinary risk Archer had undergone to rescue the Captain. He thought about the fear in his eyes when he'd seen what state she was in, how he'd ran through the jungle to bring her back to the shuttle, how he'd held her until the moment they reached the ship, stroking her hair, whispering comforting words until she started to calm down, even if only slightly. He knew, at least passively, of the deep respect and admiration that existed between their COs. He didn't know if it was love or just a friendship forged through years of strife, but he wondered if he would ever risk his hide like that for the most important woman in his life right now.

He knew he would.

The comm sounded and the Commodore went to answer it, crossing into the next room and out of their line of sight. Immediately, Malcolm pivoted so that he was facing her, whispering her name. The sudden movement disturbed his bandages and he reached for them, grimacing.

She opened her eyes and looked directly at him, almost through him, with an expression that conveyed her distress, her despondency, her weariness. It made him want to wrap her in his arms and never let go. "Are you alright?"

"I will be," she assured him, and in the few centimeters between them, reached out and brushed his hand with the softest of touches.

"I wanted to ask you…" He trailed off, remembering what Commander Tucker had said, thinking of how he'd chastise him if he knew he was broaching the subject under such dire circumstances. "Let me take you back to England during our week of holiday leave. I'll introduce you to my sister. I'll show you where I grew up."

Slowly, she rolled onto her side to face him, but said nothing. Glancing over his shoulder to confirm they were still alone in the room, he added: "Let me take you far away from this place."

For a moment he was terrified she was going to refuse, but then her smile began to emerge, for the first time since they'd returned from the surface. "I'd like that."

Relief rushed over him in waves. His thoughts were racing, the rational part of his mind begging him to stop while he was ahead, while he still had a bit of dignity left. For one of the first times in his life, he willfully ignored it.

"I think you should know that I'm falling for you." The words came tumbling out in a fraction of a second, and he immediately knew he could never take them back.

"Are you now?" She raised her eyebrows and rolled onto her back to stare up at the ceiling, her expression betraying the storm of thoughts raging in her mind. "What am I supposed to say to that, Malcolm?"

It was poor timing, but he knew it had to be said before he could talk himself out of it, because it was true. He'd spent the past six months running from it.

"I don't know, Alira. I'm sorry."

There was a pause, then she laughed softly. She caught his curious expression out of the corner of his eye and turned her head. "I was just thinking that it's awfully convenient."

"Convenient?"

"Because I've already fallen for you."

When Archer returned to the decon chamber, he found his tactical officers resting quietly on opposite sides of the room, both grinning from ear to ear. He briefly wondered how they could be smiling at a time like this, but pushed that thought aside. "She's going to be okay."

Alira quickly sat up and turned to him. "That's good news, sir."

"The doctor's got her sedated. We need to get our stories straight. We'll go along with the idea that Sub-Commander Tovin accompanied the two of you to the surface. The Captain and I caught Rigelian fever. We'll be quarantined for seventy-two hours. Trip's going to cover from us, and he won't ask questions, at least for now."

"I'll try and figure out just what he was able to access in our computer system. He would have had the means and the opportunity to send a transmission to his other hybrid friends before he attacked the Captain," Alira said.

Malcolm nodded. "As far as we know, the Romulans know nothing of Kandar's location. We ought to contact them just in case so they can increase their security."

Alira stood suddenly, crossing the room in two strides. Her expression was suddenly incredibly serious, immeasurably concerned. "Sir, the Solnaran system."

"What about the-" He trailed off. Realization hit him like a lightning bolt. They'd been talking about the inhabited worlds during their briefing, their surplus of resources, their warp-incapable inhabitants.

And at just thirty light years from a Romulan outpost, it was rife for the taking.

"I'll contact Columbia. We'll pick up their next supply run. It'll be our first stop after commissioning. The Bajorans will have to wait," he said, looking towards Malcolm. "We can contact the Corsettis directly. No need to tell them where we got the information, just that they need to be on alert."

"And just what will you tell Columbia?"

"What do you mean, Ensign?"

"What reason do we have for going all the way out there without raising suspicion?"

"Exploration!" He huffed, throwing his hands up in frustration. "It's why we're out here, isn't it?"

It was, in theory. Except for when the enemy was hunting them down and attempting to murder them from one end of the quadrant to another.

---

For Jonathan, the next hour of waiting in decon was agonizing. When the doctor finally sprung them loose, he dressed quickly and followed him back into sickbay.

He found T'Pol tucked away in the far corner of the room hidden by a curtain, resting quietly, with a guise of serene calm across her features. It was completely at odds with how they'd found her: broken, frantic, with every shred of her control gone.

"When will she be back to normal?" He asked, absently taking her hand into his own.

Phlox frowned, a rare occurrence indeed, and looked down at his tricorder. He knew that he was trying anything and everything not to become too wrapped up in the situation at hand, to describe the seriousness of the Captain's condition while keeping his professional detachment from the people he'd grown close to over four extremely trying years. "The damage done to the emotional regulation centers in the mesiocortex was extensive. She will regain some control over the next few days, but complete recovery will take some time."

"How long, doc?"

"A matter of months," he said quietly, then his voice dropped to nearly a whisper. "Perhaps years."

Jonathan looked away, his thoughts racing as he attempted to comprehend what this would mean for their mission. "What kind of weapon could have done this?"

"I suspect it was similar to the neuro-synaptic field generator Commander Shran used to interrogate Ambassador Soval about a year ago. If you recall, they were using it to lower his emotional threshold in an attempt to get information out of him." He paused. "In this case, the damage to the Captain's synaptic pathways is far more extensive. I doubt she was coherent enough to tell them what they wanted by the time she lost control."

"What can I do to help?"

"I wish I could say, Commodore. Since we're determined to keep this a secret until we know the extent of the threat, extremely little. Suffice to say the crew may notice some subtle changes with the way the Captain conducts herself over the coming days."

"I mean, what can I do?"

Phlox took a moment to study him, the way he tenderly held his Captain's hand, the way he knelt at her bedside, the way he looked at her with such concern in his eyes.

Suddenly, he understood.

"Well, the entire crew believes you're under quarantine. Might as well make the most of it." He rummaged around in his drawer momentarily and returned with a cortical monitor, which he secured to the Captain's temple. "She'll be awake in a few hours. See to it that she meditates as much as possible. I'm sure it will provide some comfort for her if someone is there when she comes to. I'll be coming around to check on her."

"Thank you, doctor," Archer murmured. The second he disappeared behind the curtain, he brought T'Pol's hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles, saying a silent prayer for her recovery.

---

The next few hours passed by in a whirlwind. Once they transported back to the Captain's quarters, Jonathan settled into her desk chair, determined to catch up on his reading and correspondence. But the moment he would open a message, he'd find he couldn't focus, and he'd look over his shoulder to make sure T'Pol was resting. He knew that the doctor was monitoring her vital signs from sickbay, but he felt the compulsive need to check.

At first, she rested peacefully, but after awhile she began to cry in her sleep, thrashing her limbs and shaking violently. At one point he walked over and felt her forehead, noticing how her skin felt cool to the touch. This was not his Captain. In all things, she was fire and warmth, even with her stoic exterior.

All he wanted to do, not for the first time, was to crawl into bed with her and hold her until her shivers faded away. But Jonathan knew that it was neither the time nor place for those kinds of actions, so he retreated back to the desk and attempted for the twelfth time to read the armory's weekly status report.

Some time later, he heard her stir, and then a plaintive voice called out through the near darkness: "Jonathan?"

"T'Pol." He was on his feet immediately, kneeling by her bedside, taking her hand once more. "How do you feel?"

Her expression kept shifting and changing, from a slight smile to a grimace to pure fear. She was struggling to get the words out. "I...feel." Her hand reached out, tentatively, and cupped his cheek. He could feel her shivering, see her teeth chattering, sense the cold that cut right down to her bones. "What's happening to me?"

"Tovin was a hybrid sleeper agent. He kidnapped you and tried to force information out of you, breaking your emotional threshold in the process." It was such a simple and innocuous way to describe was horrific torture she'd been through. "You're going to be alright. The doctor says most of your control should be back in a few days."

"I didn't tell him anything," she insisted with fervor.

"I believe you, T'Pol. It's important that you rest. The crew thinks we're sick, so for the next few days all you need to do is sleep, eat, and meditate."

She didn't seem convinced. "Will you stay here with me?"

"As long as I can," he promised. The sight of tears rolling down her cheeks broke his heart anew.

"Jonathan, I'm freezing."

"Let me get you another blanket." He began to stand, but was brought back down to the ground by her tight grip on his hand.

"I want you to hold me." She was adamant, the emotion in her voice frightening.

It was a line they'd yet to cross. "I don't think that's a good idea, T'Pol. You're not yourself. I don't want you to regret this in a few days."

"I will not. I've been thinking about this for quite some time."

"Really? How long?"

"Since the incident at P'Jem."

He remembered offering her half of his blanket and moving closer to her, seizing an opportunity to talk about the mission, all the while avoiding the curious looks of the monks gathered around them. Her warmth had felt safe, companionable, familiar, even though in the direness of the situation he hadn't allowed his thoughts to wander farther than that. He had no idea that simple gesture had meant so much to her.

"Are you sure?"

"Jonathan." She chastised, pulling back from him momentarily, lifting up one corner of her blanket.

Tentatively, he slipped off his boots and crawled in beside her. Immediately, she snuggled up to him and laid her head on his chest. Her tremors seemed to dissipate slightly as he rubbed his hands up and down her back, desperately trying to warm her up.

When she looked up at him, the tears were gone, replaced with someone he never expected to see in his Captain. It was so unfamiliar that he couldn't place it. Was it admiration? Appreciation? Devotion?

"You are my strength, Jonathan. You always have been."

He scoffed and placed a hand on the back of her head, bringing it back down to his chest. "You've always been strong, T'Pol. You're one of the strongest people I know."

"Not at the moment," she mumbled, seeming to settle into him.

After a while, Archer felt her grow still, and thought she might have dozed off, but suddenly she pulled back from him, moving towards the end of the bunk and pressing herself up against the wall. The movement was so sudden that he reached out to her in an attempt to draw her in, but she dodged him, the look in her eyes unbearably intense.

"I must tell you something."

"It can wait. You need to sleep. Come here."

"No." She was shaking her head emphatically. "When I wake up, part of my control may have returned and I might convince myself not to do this."

"Do what, T'Pol?"

"I need to explain to you…" She sat up suddenly, and he mirrored her posture, sitting so close that their knees were touching. "That I enjoy your company and companionship. I need you...I need you to carry on with this mission."

"We make a good team," he agreed, not understanding where she was going with this.

"No, it's more than that." Her expression was shifting again, oscillating between a smile and a desperate scowl, as she fought to find the words to explain what she was experiencing. "When Solan invaded my memories, he was showing me events during my lifetime. I saw you leave for Azati Prime, felt my frustration, my anguish at your decision to sacrifice yourself. At the time, I didn't understand what it meant."

"In the moment, I felt like I needed to do it. I know how much that choice affected you."

She waved her hand dismissively, as if telling him not to interrupt her. Suddenly, she took his hands, and he was nearly overwhelmed with the emotions that were coming from her, her desperation, her sadness, her loneliness, and beneath all of that, her fondness for him, her respect for him, her affection for him.

"You must know that I cherish the time I have with you." She was growing frustrated, not able to adequately express what she was feeling. "You are essential to me. Without you, I couldn't-"

"I love you too, T'Pol," he said before he could stop himself, watching her eyes light up for a fraction of a second. "I have for years, and I always will."

Another line had been crossed. She moved quickly, pressing her forehead against his. In the space between them, she whispered, "Are you sure?"

"Are you trying to talk me out of it?" He paused, watching the confusion dance across her expression. "I promise you, that's not going to work. I've said it out loud now, and there's no taking it back."

To his utter shock, she leaned in and nuzzled him, giving him some facsimile of a proper smile. "I understand this will change how we work together."

"It won't," he promised, "We'll figure it out, step by step if we have to."

She returned nothing but a sigh, melting into him as if she'd done it a thousand times before. His hand came up and he stroked her hair, before turning ever so slightly and kissing the top of her head. "You and I can do anything, T'Pol."

By the next morning, some vestiges of her control had returned. She had regained her ability to keep her facial expressions perfectly neutral, but not her words, leaving her with the same biting sarcasm he'd grown to appreciate during the early days of their mission.

He gradually convinced her to meditate and at least eat something. By the time the doctor came around to check on them, he'd been satisfied with her progress, and had presented them with a stack of PADDs before taking his leave of them.

Jonathan dove headfirst into the morning report; the bulletin from Ambassador Soval announcing that Sub-Commander Tovin had been reassigned, Taxa's reassurance that he hadn't accessed their database before he left, Reed's report from having ransacked his quarters and not finding anything worth noting.

At some point, T'Pol disappeared into the bathroom to freshen up, and when she returned, she found him standing at the window, seemingly deep in thought.

"Do you think they will fall for it?" She asked, referring to their elaborate ruse meant to conceal their former first officer's disappearance.

"So far, it looks like they have." He handed her a PADD, which contained the transcript from an encrypted message sent to the headquarters of the Tellarite Star Battalion. "As far as anyone knows, Captain Graseka picked him up on the surface and is bringing him to the nearest transport bound to Vulcan. He owed Ensign Taxa a favor, and it was enough to buy his silence."

She narrowed her eyes by a fraction of a centimeter. "We should be concerned by how many people owe her favors."

"What are you trying to say, T'Pol? Her record is clean."

"The record her people provided to us." She turned back towards the window and crossed her arms. "You and I both know that even the most loyal of officers are capable of subterfuge."

"What exactly do you mean by that?"

"I only meant to note that for a member of a species that so often keeps to themselves, it's curious that she seems to have allies wherever we go."

"So what are you going to tell Trip? That he should keep an eye on his tactical officer because you've got a hunch that she's involved in some kind of-" He waved his hand around in the air, looking for the right word.

"I only ask that you consider the company she's been keeping. I need not remind you that Mr. Reed has betrayed you in the past." She paused. "The two of them are what you would call...two sides of the same coin."

"I think you're being paranoid," Jonathan declared, handing her a PADD. "We've gone ahead and warned Kandar and the Solnaran mining outpost about potential Romulan incursions. It seems that the Denobulans are already one step ahead of us. They've managed to come into possession of some prototype Klingon cloaking technology."

"Interesting," T'Pol said, her voice lilting. "Do you wonder how they managed to procure something like that?"

"It was marked as Infantry Special Ops. They claimed they found an abandoned ship. I don't ask questions."

"Perhaps you should."

"T'Pol, come on." He turned to her and seized her shoulders, as he'd done a handful of times before, if only to pull her attention. Phlox had mentioned that she'd be prone to a myriad of emotional outbursts over the next few weeks as her control returned, and he suspected this was one of them. "Her mother and half-father both work for United Earth causes. She spent all night in the armory taking apart some kind of Romulan phase weapon that we took from the surface so we can learn more about them. She's thrown herself onto the blade for us more than once, on Rigel V, on Betazed, even yesterday morning. The Denobulans are our allies. You have nothing to worry about."

She glanced at his hands bracing her shoulders, then looked into his eyes. For a fraction of a second he thought he saw a flash of something else there, but then she was nodding in agreement. "You are right. I apologize."

Jonathan sighed and released her, affording some space between them. They'd yet to speak about their conversation the day before, and he was starting to fear that they never would. Even if she hadn't meant what she said, they were still colleagues, and there was still work that had to be done.

"There's a report here from Commander Tucker about the reception with the Tellarites." He held up the aforementioned PADD then set it down again. "Apparently Ambassador Kell extended him quite the interesting offer. They're down on the surface now meeting the King and Queen. I'll let him know to break orbit as soon as they return. Until then…"

She stepped forward, curious, watching him take a cross-legged position on the floor. "I'd like you to teach me to meditate."

"You would be interested in learning?"

"Of course. I know what an important part of your life this is." He started to rummage around, fluffing the pillows and searching for the lighter she used to light the candle.

Irrationally, she felt a surge of affection for this man, his inherent awkwardness, his bravery, his good-natured attempts to bridge the distance between them. She searched for the part of herself that loved him, and knew it was there, even though it was partially buried underneath the emotional defenses that were rapidly rebuilding themselves. "I believe this is a trick to get me to meditate more frequently and accelerate my recovery."

"Guilty as charged," he admitted, finally lighting the candle. In the darkness, she could see his smile, the sparkle in his eyes, and though she couldn't reciprocate them, she reached for his hand, letting him know all that she felt for him and more.

The next morning, the two of them stepped into a turbolift bound for the bridge, preparing to take alpha shift for the first time since their alleged bout of Rigelian fever.

T'Pol's control had returned, at least partially, to where the vast majority of the crew likely wouldn't suspect a thing. Jonathan noticed a difference though, in the soft smile she'd given him when she'd woken up in his arms for the third morning in a row, in the way she looked at him, in the way she moved around him, carefully, as though she might melt into him at any second.

"It's time," she said absently as the doors closed in front of them.

"Someone's got to run this ship," he agreed. "Time to face the music."

He'd barely had the chance to get the words out when he felt her hand on his arm and heard her say his name. He turned to her, just in time to see her step up and tilt her face towards him.

In a flash, he placed a hand on the small of her back and drew her into him, kissing her exactly how he'd always hoped, slow, deliberate, insistent, with her arms wrapped tightly around him.

When the doors opened onto the bridge, they were once again standing at a professional distance apart, having shifted from T'Pol and Jonathan to just the Captain and the Commodore, taking their seats at the conn without any fanfare whatsoever.

The stars streamed past them on the viewscreen, bringing with them the promise of a new day, a new opportunity, a new adventure. Archer shifted in his seat and stared straight ahead, feeling the eyes of the bridge crew on them, awaiting their next command.

"Increase speed to warp five, Mr. Mayweather. We're going home."

End of Episode Nine

---

Next time on Enterprise...

Episode Ten: Commissioning

Enterprise returns to Earth for the commissioning of the Maelstrom, and just in time for the holidays. The crew experiences some joyful hellos and difficult goodbyes.