Chapter 1: Just another normal day

To say that Commander Tucker was surprised to see Sub-Commander T'Pol in Cargo Bay 2 would have been understating matters considerably. Not because it was unusual for her to be there, as First Officer any number of duties may have brought her there. But because she was crouched over an open container of Trellium-D, an open canister next to her and a piece of the ore in her hand. They had been in the expanse for 6 months now and he thought he'd come to accept that there was nothing predictable or constant within this space. It took seeing his logical Vulcan with a handful of a potent neurotoxin, apparently exposing herself willingly and deliberately, that made him realise three things: 1. he wasn't the only one who felt like he was fighting a losing battle to get out of this space with his sanity intact, 2. he had come to think of her as something constant and predictable when even physics was letting him down 3. and most worryingly, at some point he'd come to think of her as his. It was that final startling point of self revelation that rocked his already unstable world more than any anomaly had ever done.

He experienced a momentary flash of irritation with himself that rendered him speechless for several seconds. He had to acknowledge to himself that it was a rather inconvenient and unlikely direction for his feelings to go. Once he had recovered from his unwelcome epiphany he was able to formulate a coherent sentence to address the shear incongruity of was he was witnessing.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

While it was a coherent sentence, he would have been first to admit it was neither eloquent or insightful but it did cut to the heart of the matter. For her part, Sub-Commander T'Pol, who had just exposed herself to a substance that unravelled her ability to suppress her emotions, was awash in a maelstrom of feeling that she lacked even rudimentary experience to categorise. Because, for Trip, if being overwhelmed by emotion was akin to swimming in pounding surf, for the Vulcan First Officer it was more like being caught by Tsunami. So it was, completely over her head and unable to grasp at any of the tenants of her logical and ordered upbringing, that T'Pol of Vulcan did something that no Vulcan of her experience had ever done, and burst into tears.

"Well," thought Trip looking at the crying woman and wishing he hadn't gotten out of bed that morning, "just another shit day in the expanse." It simultaneously occurred to him that that: technically, he hadn't gotten out of bed that morning because he hadn't gone to bed the night before; and that pretty much every day in the expanse was shit which made it a normal one for this place. No, scratch that, it truly was a shit day when your Vulcan sobbed. How the hell did you even comfort a crying Vulcan. He'd stake his life there was nothing in the Vulcan Database about that!

In the end he just sat down next to her, took the chunk of ore out of her hand, put it in the retrieved canister, placed the canister in the crate and closed it. He didn't touch her, but sat as close as he could without coming into contact. After a short while she shifted slightly, leaned into him and placed her head on his shoulder. He, in turn, put his arm around her, pulled her close and let her cry whatever it was out.

It wasn't long before the crying subsided to a couple of shudders and then stillness. Trip expected her to suddenly go full Vulcan on him and act all rigid, and affronted, and logical; and he'd end up feeling illogically guilty. Instead she gave sigh, turned her face to his chest and, if anything, relaxed further into the half circle of his arm. He could feel the cool dampness of her tears through his uniform and the contrasting heat of her body against his side. A strange sense of peace settled over him, as if something he'd spent the past six months seeking, which had seemed even further away since waking from the coma, had suddenly come within touching distance. He manoeuvred them back slightly so he could lean against a crate behind him, dropped his head back and gave himself over to the surprising feeling of rightness that came from holding her in his arms. But there was no real hiding from the fact that this was definitely going to require action of some sort. He just didn't know what.

What Sub-Commander T'Pol was feeling, was a lot more complicated. Mostly because she was feeling it. No longer completely overwhelmed with emotion she tried to identify and address each emotion she was experiencing. She wondered how humans could function at all, let alone competently, with all this manifesting in their heads and bodies. Emotions were so physical. She immediately recognised the bitter taste of shame. It seem to pull inward on her as if she was collapsing in on herself and would disappear. She had experienced it before - somewhat after P'Jem, then Tolaris had fully acquainted her with the feeling. Of course there was also Sim, but she didn't want to think about him so she pushed the thought away. Fear, burned at the base of her lungs like a fire she couldn't run from. Sadness griped at the back of her throat. There were others, some she could recognise but most an enigma. The strongest, she realised, was relief. Which felt like letting go as though she was becoming liquid and flowing away. Relief, strangely, that she had been discovered and whatever it was that she was doing would be stopped. Relief that he was alive. Relief that he was close to her again. Relief that he he was touching her again. Because she hadn't felt his hands on her since the night before the accident and, if she was honest with herself, it was him, the lack of him, the loss of him, the separation from him, that had brought her to Cargo Bay 2 in the first place.

For all the emotions she was experiencing she suddenly noticed that none of them were coming from him. Usually, when she was touching him she was able to sense a cacophony of emotion, that she was always careful not to open herself to, so she was surprised to find him in such a quiet, almost meditative, state. But there was something - unidentifiable, a faint, tapping away at his consciousness. She opened herself and allowed her telepathic senses free reign. She touched it, caught it, pulled it into her. Intrigued, she pushed her her own emotions aside to analyse what he was feeling. She turned it over in her mind, became the scientist she was and pulled it apart until she identified it. Uncertainty - he was trying to decide what he was going to do about her. The full import of her situation occurred to her, she stiffened.

He felt it as soon as she tensed, dropped his arm immediately and pulled away. Fully expecting a devastatingly blunt comment and raised eyebrow, he was somewhat surprised by her question.

"What action are you planning to take?"

The million dollar question. Once the answer would have once been obvious to him. His loyalty unquestionable, his trust absolute. Doubt had slipped in like a thief in the night and it occurred to him it may have taken his closest friend.

She took his silence to represent his indecision; "The logical course of action would be to inform the Captain."

"Yeah," he responded with sigh, "there was a time I would have agreed with that, and done it without hesitation. But..." he looked down to hands dangling over the edge over his bent knees where his forearms rested and started playing with a pilled thread in his jumpsuit. "I don't know… recently, I've started to question his judgement. You know," he kept flicking the the nodule of thread back and forth under his thumb "it's like he's totally focussed on the mission and maybe not so focused on the interests of his crew." He abandoned the thread and put his hands up to his face and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know what you were doing here, but I'm not sure he's the right person to go to about it. Part of me is looking at the ship, and the chain of command and saying 'he's the only person' but, at the same time, shit..." he shook his head and resumed worrying the thread, as if giving voice to his doubts constituted some kind of mutiny. "Part of me is thinking that going to him is not what's best for you and it have wouldn't any real impact on the functioning of the ship if I didn't."

T'Pol felt ill equipped to confront his emotional assessment of the Captain, even with her recent exposure to Trellium, so she fell back on old adages. "Your species is under grave threat, it is logical for the Captain to focus on the needs of the many. The needs of the few are secondary."

"Considering I just found you snuggling up to a neurotoxin, I don't think you're in any position to lecture me about logic!" Trip's anger flared. Didn't anyone think it was wrong. It was like he fell asleep one day and woke up in another universe. A universe where he had to attend what seemed like his own funeral and no one wanted to look him in the eye anymore. "Surely there's got to be some moral and ethical boundary that shouldn't be crossed. Even for the good of the many!"

Sim, of course he was talking about Sim. Nobody mentioned Sim now, especially not to the Commander. The worst thing was, she knew he was right. She hadn't even really objected to the procedure, just suggested to the Captain that it was not considered ethical. She had known it was wrong, that cold logic might be able to justify it, but even logic should be tempered with moral and ethical considerations. She could have pressed harder, truly attempted to persuade the Captain that the clone was not justifiable. She had been swayed by her own self interests, she had wanted Trip to live.

He suddenly stood up, decision made, and indicated that she follow him.

"Are we going to inform the Captain?"

"Nope, we're going to talk to Phlox. I'm calling this a medical matter. Phlox can decide what the hell to tell the Captain."