Trip
He wakes in the morning after far less sleep than he needs but feeling energised and fulfilled. T'Pol's warm, naked form is pressed against him and he feels her soft breath on his chest. He wishes they could just lie here all day, forget Starfleet, forget the High Command, just be.
His alarm rings at that moment and he sighs, debriefing starts today it's probably going to be a long hard day for all of them, especially Jon. T'Pol starts to stir against him and he brings his hand up to sift his fingers through her hair. He doesn't like to think of her leaving today but he senses that her status amongst her people has already been compromised by her association with humans. He doesn't want to make it worse. He gets up and heads to the bathroom.
Later he stands in the bedroom door, leaning against the jamb, drinking his morning coffee, and watches her pack her bag. She wears one of her familiar catsuits, the blue one today, his personal favourite. He can't help but notice she seems thinner than usual. He was surprised to find most of the Vulcan food in the stasis unit had not been touched. He prepared oatmeal for her breakfast which she barely touched. She seems to sleep more and eat less than when they were on Enterprise. He wants to ask if everything is okay. She has never been good at exposing her weaknesses, he holds his tongue.
She carefully folds the Starfleet sweatshirt and places it almost reverently on the edge of the bed, smoothing out a non-existent crease. When she zips her bag closed without placing it inside he realises she doesn't intend to take it although she clearly wants to. He lifts himself off the door jamb, walks over to her, picks up the top and hands it her with a smile.
"It's yours. Take it, you know you want to. Just remember you get a free human with the shirt." She takes it without a word a placed it in her bag. Later he discovers he is also missing his MIT T-shirt. By that time he doesn't know if it really meant something to her or if she was just collecting souvenirs.
He grabs the bag off the bed and they head for the door. He knows that she can carry her own bag, that his southern manners often chafe against the independence that is bred into her species. He reasons that he can't be other than what he is any more than she can. He hopes they'll spend a lifetime negotiating their differences.
As reaches for the front door handle she grabs his hand to stop him. He looks down at her, confused. She steps in, close to him, looking into his eyes, her face as expressionless as ever. Her hand rises up and her fingers caresses along his jaw. He stands, stock still, she still holds one of his hands and her bag is in the other. She ascends on her toes and places a gentle kiss on his lips. Before he can respond she is gone, the front door opened, and she is heading to the car. He knows what it was, one last kiss until... until they don't know when, she won't be coming home with him tonight. He takes one last look around the apartment, there is still evidence of her stay everywhere. She will be gone tonight but will still be here in some sense. He shakes his head slightly and smiles, then shuts the door and follows her to the car.
The day goes very differently to what he expected. Rather than being de-briefed separately the senior officers are all directed to a single room to be interviewed together by a panel. He doesn't recognise any of officers on the panel. The Admiral Jackson, overseeing the process is an obscure one, Trip's never been fully able to figure out his role in the organisation, he's always assumed intelligence of some sort.
He looks around the room, he can see the confusion on the faces of his fellow officers including the Captain. His instincts tell him that none of this is good. He worries about what it means for Captain Archer. That someone in the higher-ups has an agenda and is pursuing it with impunity. Later he will realise he was half right. He just couldn't see what the agenda was until it had been carried out, until he has all the pieces of the puzzle. By then it is too late.
They cover the initial months of the mission quickly. There is a particular focus on the events on the Seleya and and then again the incident with the alien slave, Rajiin. Trip starts to get nervous, these are both occurrences when the Captain made decisions that could be construed as questionable. He wonders if the Vulcans have been getting on the case of Starfleet again about the Captain's suitability for his post. He steels himself, ready to go into battle for his liege. The necessity never arises. The panel doesn't seem to hone their attention on to any particular officer or decision of either event.
They question all the players equally. Ask for details about actions and perceived states of mind of all the crew involved in either action. Their gaze does not seem to fall on any particular person or situation. They seem to want all the details of each event in miniature. They are exhaustive in the questioning and probing. Until suddenly it's over and they are glancing over subsequent incidents. The telepathic alien that wanted to keep Hoshi as a life companion, the Xindi colony where they mined and refined Kemocite, and the human refugees seemingly trapped in the 19th century on the planet Northstar all seem barely worth a mention.
Suddenly their penetrating gaze is turned on his mimetic clone. Trip shifts uncomfortably in his seat and he's not the only one. Even T'Pol displays some signs of awkwardness at the mention of Sim. He realises he's never really resolved his feelings surrounding the clone. There was an initial briefing, after he recovered from the coma, when the full story was disclosed to him by Phlox and the Captain. Aside from that, the only other time he's discussed Sim with anyone on the crew was the night with T'Pol just after Christmas. He has rather vivid memories of how the conversation panned out and he's certainly not going to be talking about that incident today.
The questioning on the rest of the mission is as intense as it was for the Seleya and Rajiin incidents. No stone is left unturned. Every officer is questioned on his or her impressions of decisions made and reactions by fellow officers. Once again he expects to be defending the Captain and once again it proves unnecessary. He feels like they are looking for particular information and hiding their intent in the breadth of their enquiries.
They are particularly exhaustive over the events at Azati Prime. It's not surprising, a lot of lives were lost that day. He notices a particular focus on the state of mind of T'Pol. This is also not unexpected, it was under her command that things were at their worst. She keeps her composure through it all. Her spine rigid, face passive. The only time he notices a reaction from her is when they ask Malcolm about her instruction to prioritise repairs to allow access to Cargo Bay two. He wonders in passing what that is about but soon lets the thought go as the cross examination proceeds.
Suddenly it's over as abruptly as it began. The four men on the panel stand and thank everyone for their cooperation and depart the room as a unit. The Enterprise officers are left reeling.
"What was that all about." A wide eyed Travis asks.
Hoshi looks thoughtful. "One of those officers was definitely a shrink." She says pensively.
"How can you tell." Travis asks
She shrugs, "Just the way he spoke, the language he used. It was... telling." Her ability with language has always had air of sorcery about it.
Malcolm presses his lips together. It's almost as if, for the Brit, multigenerational military man, a stiff upper lip is not committed enough and he must stiffen both. "I'll tell you what they all were, they were fishermen, and they were casting their net wide, but they were looking for something specific."
Trip sticks his tongue in his cheek and says nothing. He can't put down the sense of impending doom. But he can no longer predict whose head is in the guillotine. He instinctively looks for T'Pol she is across the room talking on her communicator. He wonders if it signifies anything.
Later when he drops T'Pol at the entrance to The Vulcan Compound he tries to shrug off the uncomfortable and seemingly unfounded feeling that he's losing her as he watches her cross the courtyard to the entrance. He wants to leap out of the car and run to claim her. Take her in his arms, press his mouth against hers, he wants to feel her body against him, her heartbeat under his hand. He wants to feel her breathe.
T'Pol
She has no illusions about humanity. She couldn't live among them for three years and come away with no understanding of them. She knows her opinions would be unpopular with the High Command and Vulcans in general. She knows humans will surpass Vulcans. She knows it will happen quickly, almost certainly within her lifetime.
Their emotions are not a weakness, they are a tool. She has witnessed them, facing their death, flooded with fear and still able to function. Their emotional liberation is seductive. They have such hunger for life. They are consumers. They consume resources, cultures, knowledge, take it into themselves, find those components that work best and spit out the desiccated remains of whatever does not suit them.
She should have served her people better. Remained impassive, remained Vulcan, in the face of their human excess. But she did not. Now she has no currency with her own people and they will not heed her warnings. They will not believe that the servant will surpass the master, with or with out Vulcan input. Vulcan will continue to believe in its superiority even against all logic as humanity laughs in its face then speeds away.
She has not completely lost herself. She is still dispassionate enough to see what her human compatriots could not see in the debriefing. She is a scientist. Data, patterns, analysis, these things are her bread a butter. She may not be able to make the instinctive leap that humans seem able to make that almost magically crosses the gaps in their knowledge and takes them to innovation. She may always seek consensus where they thrive in dissent. She may be unable to imagine success in the face of impossible odds. But she can take a data set, any data set and find patterns, groups, systems. She can extrapolate that data and determine outcomes and motivations. It was a natural to her as breathing
She had done that today. Like her colleagues, she had identified that the debriefing panel were working towards a specified goal. She had identified it even before they showed their hand when they asked about cargo bay two. It was then that she knew without doubt she was the target. It was then that she realised that, at the very least, they suspected something about the cause of her behaviour.
After the debriefing, while the officers talked amongst themselves, she calls Doctor Phlox. She wants to know if her medical records have been released. She wants to know how much Starfleet knows. Phlox's behaviour on the communicator is unusual. He will talk to her in person he tells her. Her fears are not allayed.
By the time she returns to her room she is exhausted. The day had been long and keeping a correct Vulcan demeanour had been taxing. She knows she should go to the commissary and get some sustenance but once again she cannot face food. She lies down, just for a moment and falls asleep.
She is on the dream Enterprise again. She floats in the giant organism and listens to its beating heart and feels it breathe.
XXX