Sleeping Arrangements

A/N: A little challenge for the shipping crowd: Find the hidden reference to Hopeful Romantic's fantastic 'Reconnecting' Series

She could barely believe her eyes and laughed. "You go girl! That's a 'fuck me silly' look if I ever saw one!" Hoshi cried out in triumph. On the screen before her was a picture of T'Pol, posed on her hands and knees on top of the bed, stark naked except for the suspender belt and the stockings, looking into the camera with a passion in her eyes that threatened to reduce the screen to a molten pile of plastic.

She was pretty sure that Trip had not meant to send one of the nude pictures he had apparently snapped of T'Pol the night before. The similar names of the image file and the recording he'd had sent looked like he had accidentally selected two files at once when adding the attachment to the message. Well, if T'Pol had looked at him like that not too long before, it was a minor miracle that he had been able to assemble a message at all without short-circuiting the keyboard by drooling all over it.

She deleted the picture and for good measure she tapped into the comms system and deleted any reference to the second attachment. The two of them seemed to have way too much fun to have it ruined by embarrassment over a picture that had not been meant to be distributed.

She opened the recording.

'Sorry, Hoshi. You'll have ta wait a day or two for another recordin'. T'night is a private affair between me 'n my WIFE! WOHOOOO!' *click*

She doubled over, laughing.

=/\=

"I hope you will be able to rein in your euphoria soon, husband. If anyone sees your facial expression, he or she might question your sanity."

"You mean I'm grinning like an imbecile?" he asked back as they navigated the corridor of the Vulcan science academy.

"Yes."

They arrived at the hall in which the plane was being assembled and true to his expectations the Vulcans had finished the second pair of wings. What was once Earth's biggest bi-plane was soon to become Vulcan's biggest and only bi-plane.

=/\=

They were standing on the upper floor watching the engineers down in the hall.

"He has realized the true implications of the tel, has he not?"

"Yes, Minister," T'Pol answered the question of Vulcan's new head of government. "I wish to ask your understanding for his unseemly display of emotions. He has wished for this moment a long time and seems unable to control his euphoria at the moment."

They continued to watch the engineer, who oversaw the final work on the airplane's hull, while simultaneously directing the start of the engine assembly, all the while featuring a perpetual smile and an energy that seemed out of place for a human in Vulcan's rather harsh conditions. With a pang of regret T'Pol realized that he would be too exhausted in the evening for another intimate encounter, which was singularly unhelpful as their two successful nights had 'seriously opened the floodgates' as Hoshi had described her condition.

"An apology is not needed," T'Pau replied. "We have spent too much time imposing our cultural beliefs on species who are not equipped to handle them. His behavior is fairly normal for a human in that situation."

"Is there anything we need to pay attention to during the maturing of our bond?"

"There is little advice I can offer, T'Pol. These things are rarely spoken of among ourselves, so we don't even have sufficient information about our own kind, let alone a bonding in which an off-worlder is involved. You will have to find your answers between the two of you."

"Apparently." T'Pol carefully measured her response to hide the disappointment at the other woman's inability to provide guidance.

If their two intimate encounters were any indication, they were on a good way to find necessary compromises; but it was still experimentation, and that, by default, included the option of occasional failure – and the scientist part of her katra did not like failure in any situation.

"I believe your mate is expecting you to join him," T'Pau said and put an end to her mental ruminations.

Looking down, T'Pol saw Trip stare up at her with that permanent smile etched on his features. Nodding towards T'Pau as a way of excusing herself, she climbed down the ladder to join her human husband.

=/\=

"Ow!" Hoshi cursed, clumsily getting up from the attempted split. So far her attempts at updating the choreography of the striptease routine she was about to perform had only brought the realization that six years of non-practice had left her a lot less flexible than she used to be.

She had tried – for reasons of 'modesty' – to move the split from the end of the performance to somewhere in between, when the panties were still where they were supposed to be, as opposed to somewhere in the audience, but the only thing that had resulted from it was the realization that she couldn't do one any more without spraining a muscle or twelve. She needed a plan B and for that she needed Trip's help.

=/\=

T'Pol had tried to protest. After all, Hoshi had asked him for a conversation; but her mate accepted no discussion. There would be no secrets between them, and considering Hoshi's current activities and her secret admirer lurking somewhere, there was a chance that the talk would involve intimate topics. That was why she was sitting next to him when Hoshi's face appeared on the screen.

"Hi, Hoshi."

"Hi, Trip, Hi. T'Pol," she said with a beaming smile. "First of all, congratulations. I nearly fell over laughing when I heard your recording."

T'Pol could see that Trip didn't manage any more meaningful response than what he called an 'idiotic grin' in blissful euphoria at the memories this statement conjured up.

"It was indeed a most pleasurable experience," she agreed vaguely, not willing to provide more detail with her mate nearby. She had grown used to discussing intimate details with Hoshi, in a ritual the human called 'girl talk', but the name of it suggested that the presence of a male, even if he was the subject of the conversation, was not appropriate.

"Trip, I know you've probably got better things to do if that grin is anything to go by, but I need your help to prepare for next Tuesday."

The smile vanished from his face. "If you're thinkin' about a rehearsal – sorry, Hoshi. T'Pol's barely comfortable enough with us comin' to the official event."

She was moved by her mate's consideration. She would indeed have found a private performance, even if it was for practice reasons, a most disagreeable prospect. She had come to believe that, despite his colorful past, her mate would not seek intimacy outside their marriage, but that did not override the natural possessiveness Vulcan females felt towards their mates.

"Nothing of the sort," Hoshi said. "I need a prop. I tried to change my choreography to a less naughty one and had to discover that I can't quite do some routines anymore – not without additional training, and four days are not going to be enough."

"What do you have in mind?" she heard him ask.

The young woman let out a nervous giggle. "I need a cocktail glass big enough for me to sit in. Preferably, of course, made from something unbreakable like Plexiglas. It's enough that I have a comms code on my butt, I don't need to add glass splinters too."

"Trying your hand at Dita von Teese?" he asked back, and the mention of an obviously female name made his wife tense. Obviously he had noticed her apprehension, because next moment he took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

"Dita von Teese was a Burlesque performer about one hundred sixty, one hundred seventy years ago," he explained to her after Hoshi had answered his question with a nod. "One of her main acts was ending a striptease by taking a bubble bath in an oversized cocktail glass."

"To be honest, Hoshi," he said, turning back to the young linguist's face on the view screen, "I think that would fit you a hell of a lot more than those naughty splits or a wild lap dance. . And if you want to impress this guy, it might pay to do something a bit … stylish. You've changed since the days back at STC."

"That's what I found out the painful way," she agreed, and rubbed her thighs as though trying to ease an ache there. "Do you think you can build such a thing in the next two days? I'd need at least a day of practice."

T'Pol could see him considering. When he spoke again it was clear that it was not only the construction issues he had in mind.

"Hoshi, do you really think it's necessary to do a full strip in the first place? I understand you had a ball back then and I could build you that prop in a matter of hours, but these days a lot of people know you and if that secret admirer of yours only comes to see you naked, he's the wrong guy to begin with."

"If he only wanted to see me naked or get into my pants, he would have accepted my very obvious invitation last time." The answer held a note of defiance, and it seemed as if Hoshi was even a bit hurt by the implicit insinuation regarding her 'secret admirer'.

"You've fallen quite hard for him, haven't you?"

T'Pol did not need to be an expert on human behavior to hear the worry in her mate's voice. He might not have intimate designs on Hoshi, but he was obviously very concerned about her well-being. She wondered if he had transferred the protectiveness he always felt towards his deceased sister Elizabeth to Hoshi.

She remembered the scene when Lieutenant Reed and Hoshi had returned from the mission to destroy the Xindi weapon, still thinking that Captain Archer had not survived. Instead of seeking solace from the tactical officer, to whom she had long been attracted, she had sought the embrace of Trip – the protection of a surrogate older sibling instead of someone who might perceive the contact as an intimate invitation.

Meanwhile the young comms officer had overcome her embarrassment and answered his inquiry with a nod.

It seemed that it was her turn to speak up.

"We will help you any way we can with your preparations," she said. "Perhaps if I was to witness your preparations as a neutral observer after Trip has produced the 'prop' you need..."

Another nod, this time accompanied by a smile. Undoubtedly the young human would also use the opportunity to probe for more details about her 'wedding night', as Trip had called their first sexual encounter after he had learned of the true meaning of the tel.

=/\=

"It appears to be a rather complicated device considering Earth's technological level at the time," Trip heard the Vulcan professor say.

"We always had a knack for gettin' ourselves in over our heads," he answered with a grin. "These things were a nightmare to maintain two hundred years ago and failed more often than not, but the turbofan engine revolutionized air travel. Suddenly we could cross distances in a fraction of the time it had taken before."

"I was always fascinated as well as perturbed by humanity's obsession with speed."

"Says someone of a species with warp seven engines," he shot back and turned to face the Vulcan, his expression earnest. "Professor, you guys live long enough that some of you were already born when this technology was new on our planet. To us two hundred years sounds like eternity. If we're lucky we live half that time and a human over eighty is not much cop for anything, so you can scratch another twenty years off. We simply don't have the time to waste any of it."

"An interesting thought," Solan agreed. "I had never considered that your shorter life-span would give you such a sense of urgency."

"It's a human thing. Take Henry Archer for instance. He was the greatest warp engineer since Zefram Cochrane, but he worked all his short life on something he never got to see finished. That's a kind of thought we humans can't cope very well with. That's why Jonathan Archer was hell-bent on seein' the thing fly. He wanted to finish his dad's work."

The Vulcan nodded understandingly.

"You should prepare your engineers to take protective measures for their hearin'," Trip continued. "These things are incredibly loud. We'll be runnin' the first engine test in two days, so you don't have much time."

"Why did you choose this ancient design over a fusion engine?" Solan asked.

"The second one will get a fusion engine. It's more effective, smaller, cleaner and doesn't pollute the atmosphere, but I wanted to build at least one original design. It's the one that goes back to Earth, by the way. Your people wanted to learn what we did, why and with which resources. So I thought at least a short demonstration would make sense. Most of the test flights will be with the fusion engine though."

"A logical proposal. Does the Earth embassy have protective devices to protect hearing?"

"The engineerin' detachment should have ear protectors. I'll have them sent here," Trip acknowledged. "We'll have to augment them with additional paddin' to make up for your more sensitive hearin'."

Solan, meanwhile, had been looking around, and his curiosity had obviously been caught.

"May I ask what this particular mold is for?"

Trip looked over to the mold he had prepared for Hoshi's oversized cocktail glass, and concealed a grin.

"That's an artistic prop," he answered, deliberately vague. "I'm currently havin' the Plexiglas surpluses from producin' the windows smelted."

He could see the confused look of the Vulcan.

"Look, Professor, you've been most understandin', but believe me, you wouldn't quite get your head around what this is for. It's a facet of human behavior that your people would hardly understand. So I'd like to ask you to believe me that it is not something that'll bring harm to Vulcan."

"I was not intending to insinuate anything like that," the Vulcan answered and if he didn't know better, Trip could have sworn the Professor was enjoying his momentary uneasiness.

=/\=

Jonathan Archer sat back in his armchair, reading the latest engineering reports. Anna Hess and the engineering teams had certainly not wasted much time on carrying out what must be the most unusual job they had ever been assigned to. On the way back to Earth a veritable game of musical chairs had been started by relocating T'Pol's second in command, Ensign Mayumi Rao, into Trip's quarters – with her own residence being given to Crewman Fuller and her room-mate. That freed Fuller's quarters to have the bulkhead knocked out and the two cabins had been combined into a big residence, able to house two more than comfortably.

As always, nothing was staying a secret for long on this ship and soon word had gotten around that the science officer had requested to be assigned to joint quarters with the ship's chief engineer. The very fact that the crew, despite the grim news from Vulcan, had thrown a party under the unmistakable motto 'Finally!' left little to guess what they thought about that particular development.

And every department had been jostling to get in on the project. Science, knowing that their head of department had a habit of getting caught up in her private research of micro-singularities, had installed a big desk and a terminal with direct access to the scientific database in a bid to enable her to conduct her research from the comfort of her own quarters; Engineering had followed suit by installing a desk with a full-blown engineering console. Anna Hess had gone so far as to predict that the ship would be screaming through the galaxy at warp six within the year, now that the two sharpest minds aboard could conduct research together without the restrictions on 'interacting' with each other as they were out of public view.

Hydroponics (not to be outdone) volunteered several pot plants and the soon-to-be residence of the ship's First Couple became the second-greenest place after hydroponics bay itself.

With a pang of slight envy Jon noticed that the quartermaster had pulled out all stops once they had arrived on Earth and the spacious bathroom in the new 'presidential suite', as Hess and her team had dubbed the place, featured a bathtub big enough to accommodate two and the bunk had made way for a king size bed.

It was as if the whole crew had used this project to celebrate this development as something good that had come out of the grueling time they had spent in the Expanse.

Of course, nothing that Enterprise did would have been perfect without the interference of a cantankerous, but (since recently), benevolent old Vulcan named Soval.

Jon had been prepared to be lectured about the malicious influence of the ship's chief engineer on the resident Vulcan, but instead, upon visiting the building site, the Ambassador had noted that the relationship between the two commanders would only be successful if T'Pol's need for meditation was met in an adequate manner and he volunteered several ornaments and decorations from the Vulcan Embassy's inventory. Under guidance of the venerable Vulcan diplomat, a small part of the new suite had been turned into a neat and small private meditation chamber. For two of its officers Enterprise had turned into a five-star cruising ship.

In all honesty, maybe they had gone a bit overboard, but Jon would not have it any other way. Now the only thing left to do was pitch the idea to Maxwell's successor, Admiral Gardner, without getting himself demoted to Crewman.

=/\=

T'Pol fought down the predictable disappointment over the fact that there would be no intimate encounter this evening. The fact that she was carrying her sleeping mate into the house made that abundantly clear.

He had exhausted all his energy by working the whole day, foregoing the mid-day sleep. On the other hand, she reasoned, it was a good thing that her Adun would be unable to engage in sexual relations. It had taken her a while to understand that 'making love', as he preferred the activity to be named, was more than just an intimate activity to elicit pleasure and it should not become trivialized by being conducted too often. The only problem was that she found herself wishing for more of the exhilarating activity, and waiting was not something she was particularly good at.

Despite her uneasiness, she had brought the katric arc with her mother's essence with her. Not only was she uncomfortable with the thought of the device being stored away like an old relic on Mount Seleya, at least for now she could use her mother's counsel, no matter how discomforting her bluntness would be.

Putting her exhausted mate down on the bed, she gently removed his uniform, which only emphasized the exhaustion he had suffered as not even her lifting his body to remove the garments was able to wake him. He just slept peacefully, the smile he'd worn all day still present on his face.

=/\=

"Child!" her mother's katra complained, and T'Pol grimaced before projecting clothes over the mental representation of her own body.

"How are you mother?" she asked. "I hope the residence in a katric arc is not too inconvenient?"

"I cannot know, child. The last thing I remember is leaving your mind. Obviously a katra in an arc is just... dormant until it is needed."

"I would wish to ask your counsel, perhaps with a little less graphic detail than last time, mother."

"From what I see in your memories, however incomplete they are, I would think you have outgrown the necessity for any counsel of mine."

"Was the loss of memory part of your experience as well?" T'Pol asked and was surprised to see a fleeting smile on the mental image of her mother.

"Our success in making it a fulfilling encounter was always easily measured by how little we remembered of the proceedings – at least in the early months of our marriage. The memory loss will diminish over the time as will the strong urge to repeat the experience."

"So my almost permanent wish for intimacy is normal as well?"

"You have only just begun to explore something that most Vulcans deny themselves out of irrational fear. I wore your father out frequently during the first year we lived together after our marriage. I believe he was quite relieved to return to his post after the year of seclusion."

"I hope I can reduce my urges a little faster than that," T'Pol noted drily.

"You will, with time, daughter. And I never had the opportunity to tell you this in my lifetime, but now I am convinced that you chose well."

"I wish his species was a title more long-lived," she admitted. "I fear the day when he is gone."

"You are speaking to someone, who has survived the severing of the tel. Your father went way too early. If Charles reaches his natural lifespan, you will have at least a decade more with him than I was afforded with my mate. If I was caught up in one of your time-travel phenomena and able to repeat my life, I would marry your father again as every day I could spend in his presence was worth it."

"Why could we never speak this openly in your lifetime, mother?" T'Pol could not prevent her tone from becoming not only plaintive but a little accusatory.

She heard a sigh emanating from the mental representation of her mother's katra.

"In reality my emotions were no less close to the surface as yours or your father's," T'Les admitted. "Unlike him, however, I was subject to strong censure and sought to spare you the same fate by insisting that you follow more traditional values than I did, which included a more pronounced distance between us. Of course your father would not quite follow my lead. Even before knowing your memories I was convinced that your frequent excursions into the desert had nothing to do with any knowledge deficits on your part. It was just a respite from my strong objection to your frequent displays of emotions. Over the time I came to accept that and merely kept up a façade."

"I miss him," T'Pol admitted sadly. "And I regret that you had to die for us to reconcile."

"Only my corporeal existence is gone, daughter. I too regret that your father's katra was lost, but mine is still intact. Feel free to call upon my help whenever you see fit, but now I think you should retire me back to the arc. Your mate surely does not wish to wake up with the other half of the bed empty."

T'Pol did something she had never done in her mother's lifetime.

She hugged her.

=/\=

He slowly opened his eyes after what felt like three weeks of dreamless sleep. Although it had only been four days since they had taken residence here he thought to himself that he would have been a bit disappointed if the view had differed from the one he had woken up to the previous days.

But it didn't differ. T'Pol was propped up on her side, gloriously naked from the waist up and observing him with those hazel-colored eyes she had once used to stare people into submission. Now, though, these eyes were filled with unbridled affection.

A short look at the clock told him that she had spent at least an hour like that, just enjoying watching him sleep. Well, it was only fair that he now spent a few minutes just enjoying her being topless.

"Mornin', darlin'," he said.

"My face is up here, Adun," she said with an unmistakable spark of amusement in her voice.

He shared a good morning kiss with her. For someone with a heightened sense of smell, she sure took his morning breath like a trooper.

"That's a new word," he noted in regard to her address. "What does it mean?"

"It means 'husband'."

"Hmm, there's another word I can definitely get used to hearin'," he said with a wide grin.

=/\=

Hoshi smiled as she inspected Trip's work. He had really thought of everything. Her oversized cocktail glass was exquisitely done and he had even thought of vacuum clamps that fastened the oversized piece of tableware to the floor. On the side that was supposed to face away from the audience, a small ladder led up to the rim of the contraption, allowing her to enter the oversized goblet without the necessity of advanced gymnastics.

That was why she liked the engineer so much. She knew that he thought she should have outgrown the juvenile habit of stripping by now, but nonetheless he had put his full expertise into producing the best possible prop for her. In a way, he had perhaps produced the prop for her final performance, as, if Goldie should turn out the Mr. Right he seemed to be, she would no longer afford the view on her body to anyone but him and close friends, who happened to visit when she wore her favorite 'at-home costume'.

=/\=

Trip stifled a yawn. It had only been seven hours since he had woken up after a full night of deep, dreamless sleep, but the thin air and the higher gravity drained the energy out of him.

He looked at the design documents of the Pratt & Whitney turbofan engine and compared it to the current build status of the device out in the engineering hall. The Vulcans were really good at metallurgy, so producing the right alloys for different parts usually went without a hitch. If nothing unforeseen happened, they would be able to fire up the device late the next day.

He reached for his cup of coffee, but found it empty. When he stood to get a refill from the re-sequencer, his approach was interrupted by the entry of his dear wife. He looked at her in slight confusion when she locked the door without as much as an explanation.

His expression of confusion intensified when she zipped open her uniform, shrugged it off and took off the gray top of her underwear.

"What are you doin', darlin'?" Not that he actually needed 'what' so much as 'why'. He hoped he knew the answer already, but he had a feeling that he was in for a disappointment. Her expression confirmed this; it certainly didn't convey any intention to rip his pants off and get down to business.

"I'm undressing, husband," she replied dryly, coming to stand in front of him wearing nothing but her gray underpants.

"Well, I've riddled that out myself, wife. Not that I'm complainin' about the view, but exactly what's the big idea?"

"I intend to make sure that you don't skip the midday sleep and you appear to rest better when I accompany you. Take off your uniform. I will prepare the divan."

Shaking his head with a smile, he shrugged off his uniform, watching T'Pol expand the divan so that two could rest on it comfortably. There was something spectacular about T'Pol doing house chores half-naked. Either Hoshi was rubbing off on her or she did it specifically to please him.

As much as he admired her unbelievably well-shaped frame, he made a mental note to let her know that he would not love her less if she didn't shed her clothing at the drop of a hat. Nor was having all that delectable naked flesh in view likely to make him feel inclined to sleep – quite the opposite, indeed. But that aspect of it evidently hadn't occurred to her, so he smiled inwardly at her cute naïveté and schooled his mind to take the gesture as it had been meant. It was time for a midday nap and it had just become a whole lot more attractive as an option. Even if he had to control a sudden almost overwhelming urge to do something a whole lot more exciting than sleeping.

He joined his wife on the divan, and with her head resting on his chest he fell asleep far sooner than he might have expected.