Set between the events of Shockwave part II and Home

Trip

He palms the biometric pad and hears the click as the lock disengages and the door cracks ajar. Picking up his bags he pushes it open all the way with the bag and enters the small living room. The lights come on automatically as he enters. Home, well not really home. Enterprise is home, this is just a place to stay between missions.

He hasn't been here for over a year. He didn't come here before they left for the expanse. He was working on Enterprise, or with his parents, or crashing in a room at Starfleet after briefings. He wasn't completely coherent then, the grief for Lizzy had been coalescing into rage. It had felt like the weapon that cut through Florida had cleaved him in two at the same time. He had become two people, before the attack Trip, and after, this apartment was a before place. He realises it was T'Pol who put him back together, made him whole again.

He carries his bags through to the bedroom and drops them on the bed. The place looks clean and tidy. He pays a woman to come every couple of months, just to check on the place and wipe the dust off the surfaces. He let her know he was coming a couple of days ago she would have stocked the stasis unit with basics for him, she mother's him a little, he's always kind of liked that. Now that he's here, he's not quite sure what to do with himself. He wonders what T'Pol is doing.

He changes into sweats and a t-shirt and walks back out to the living area, the place is only three rooms really, kitchen/living room, bedroom, and a tiny bathroom, but it always suited him. He got it in his early days at Starfleet. He'd lived in Sausalito as a recruit and liked the atmosphere. He paid for the place with royalties from a plasma injector design he'd come up with for his PHD at MIT. Starfleet poached him before he got the qualification. Most people don't know that about him. He's always played up his uneducated, dropout, Southern hick persona. He doesn't tell people he left high-school at sixteen to to start a PHD at MIT. It's never been his intelligence that has won him friends in the past.

He goes to the stasis unit to see what's inside. Milk, butter, eggs, bacon, bread, apples... beer. Good on Mrs Mac, she really knows what the essentials are. He pulls out one of the beers, it's nice and cold. He pops the top, opens the doors out onto the balcony that stretches the length of the apartment and looks across Richardson Bay to the lights of Belvedere. He can't help himself, he thinks of T'Pol again and wonders if it's to soon to call her.

It feels strange missing her. He's seen her almost every day for the past three years but had never considered spending much time with her during shore leave before. Things have changed over the past year. Hell, things have changed in the past two weeks. Since that night, when they thought the Captain had died, he's spent every night with her since then, slipping out of her quarters in the small hours before the early shift change. He smiles at the memories.

He finishes his beer, walks back inside and places the empty bottle back on the kitchen counter. That's when he sees it, the note. He recognises the paper immediately. It's from a notebook, with black paper, that Lizzy always used to carry for sketching ideas. Her familiar looping handwriting in the chalky, pastel coloured pens she always used to favour, turquoise this time. There is an outline of what looks to be an alien skyline drawn across the bottom of the page with a tiny Enterprise flying above it. His heart slams into his chest. He picks up the note and reads it.

Hey big brother,

I hope you don't mind that I crashed at your pad for a couple of days. The Vulcan Embassy were holding some lectures on the history of their architecture. Fascinating! (As they say). Come and see me when you get back so I can return the hospitality.

Luv, Lizzy.

18/04/53

A wave of sadness washes over him. Tears fill his eyes and spill down his cheeks. The week before she died. If the Vulcan lectures had been one week later or the probe one week earlier, she would have been safe. It just seems too cruel, to know that she was that close to still being alive. He traces a finger over her words, it's hard to believe they were written nearly a year ago.

His communicator chimes. He palms the tears off his face and looks at the display, it's T'Pol. He takes a moment to compose himself before he answers, just a moment to breathe.

T'Pol

"I'm sorry Lady T'Pol, there is no space available in the public sector of the Compound. If it is your wish, your name can be added to the waiting list and you will be contacted if suitable accommodation becomes available."

She looks at the Vulcan on the front desk and hopes that anger is not showing in her face. His face is expressionless but she knows from his manner that he views her with disdain. That he derives a certain pleasure, which he doesn't bother to suppress, from what he has told her. When she was seconded to the Embassy, she had been his superior officer.

Once he would have called her by her rank. The fact that he has not, even though she has resigned, is telling. Once she would have automatically been ushered into the Compound, there would have been no need to approach the public desk. She knows that there will be rooms available for High Command staff. That these are not being made available to her, even as a courtesy, is an indication of her standing with her people. She is suddenly overcome with sadness. She has allowed herself to be brought so low.

She is uncertain of what to do. She can not return to Enterprise. She could contact the Captain, he would probably assist getting her rooms at Starfleet. There are some hotels in Sausalito but she has sensed a certain hostility in the streets of San Francisco since their return to Earth. She does not like to admit it, but she feels a little uncomfortable venturing into public places alone. Once the negative emotions of others would not have bothered her, the damage done by the trellium has made her vulnerable.

Trip. She does not lie to herself, he was her first thought as soon the that low level bureaucrat told her she could not stay at the compound. She takes out her communicator and places a call to him.

There is a strange tone to his voice when he finally answers. She wonders if she has misinterpreted their relationship, if he is not pleased to hear from her. He seems confused when she tells him she has nowhere to stay. She advises him that she as is no longer part of the High Command, that the public quarters are full and she will not be offered a room in the diplomatic quarters. She does not mention that as a courtesy, a former High Command Officer would usually be given priority accommodation, he does not need to know of her lack of status on Vulcan. He does not even hesitate, he invites her to stay with him.

She checks her tricorder, his apartment is not far from the Vulcan Compound and she has very little luggage, so she walks. Twenty minutes later she is standing in front of his door, her heart pounding in anticipation. She rings the bell and reminds herself to breathe.

Trip

He can't believe she's coming here, to his place. He experiences a moment of panic, and starts to walk around thinking he should tidy up before she gets there. It occurs to him that, given he's only been in the place for twenty minutes, it's not going to be that messy. He puts the empty bottle into the recycling, goes to the bedroom to get some spare bedding and takes it to the living room. He doesn't want to make assumptions.

He kind of wishes he did have something to tidy. He feels like a bit of an idiot, just sitting, perched on the edge of his sofa, waiting for her, so he goes into the bedroom and unpacks his bag, which takes five minutes. He wanders into the living room with a PADD and sits down on the sofa again. It occurs to him that this is probably what he would have been doing tonight anyway and starts looking at some specs for the upgrades to Enterprise. The time goes faster than he would have anticipated.

He opens the door to find her standing there with a single bag, still wearing her catsuit with Vulcan robes over top. He takes the bag off her and invites her inside. She seems hesitant, as if by coming to his private home she is crossing a line.

They both stand awkwardly, in the middle of the living room. He's not sure what to say. She spies the bedding on the sofa and asks him if that's where she should sleep. He blushes and stammers that he didn't want assume anything or make her feel pressured. He starts tells her she's welcome to the bed and if she doesn't feel comfortable sleeping with him, he'll take the couch. She's kissing him before he's even finished the sentence. That answers that question. He drops her bag on the living room floor and abandons it there.

Neither of them get very much sleep that night. He wakes in the morning to sunlight streaming through the open blinds, the sound of cars going up and down street and birds chirping, and the feeling of T'Pol sleeping against his side. He muses that he could get used this and just lies there, waiting for her to wake up, listening to her breathe.

XXX