Trip
He wakes abruptly, confounded by the disorientation that often results from sleep outside of normal rhythms. For a moment, he panics and thinks he's late for his duty shift, then he remembers he doesn't work on Enterprise anymore, then he can't remember where he is or what time of day it is or even if he was meant to be asleep. The confusion passes as quickly as it came and he looks at his watch to see how long he slept for, only forty-five minutes. He lies there for a few minutes, pretending that more sleep is possible, before he gives in to reality and pulls himself up. He definitely feels better after the rest but he sits on the edge of the bed for a minute while his head clears, then he takes himself of to the bathroom. It is at this point he discovers what passes for a shower on Vulcan.
He steps into the shower booth and activates the spray only to be surrounded by a kind of vibrating mist for lack of a better way to describe it. It's not the cold, soaking shower he was seeking but at least the mist is cool, even if the vibrations set his teeth on edge. The strange pulse he feels at the base of his skull ensures he doesn't spend too long in the shower and he is dry almost as soon as he he turns the unit off so he wanders, stark naked, through to his bedroom. He starts momentarily when he hears the front door close and wonders if it's his host, she who shall remain nameless. He smirks to himself, he'd stake his life that her name begins with a T.
He stands in front of the climate control unit for a few more minutes and lets the last of the moisture from his shower evaporate away. He doesn't want to admit it to himself but he's kind of reluctant to go out and engage his host in small talk, Vulcans do not have natural conversational abilities and unless they've got a specific goal for the conversation they will do nothing to help keep it going. After a couple of minutes of trying to feel cool at twenty-seven degrees he puts on some clothes and heads to the door. As he leaves the room he notices a pair of flip flop like, cloth slippers by the door and reasons that, given how fastidious Vulcans are about touching things, they would probably think he was some kind of cave dwelling savage if he let his bare feet touch their sacred floors. He dons the slippers, then accepts his fate and goes to make awkward conversation with T'Whatshername.
He sees her as soon as he steps into the living room. She's standing, bare foot, in the kitchen, lost in thought, staring blankly at a tea cup. His heart stops, his breath catches in his chest. For brief unmeasurable moment he wonders if he's dreaming again, but he is filled with the unfathomable certainty that he is not.
"T'Pol?"
She startles at the sound of his voice and drops the cup which shatters at her feet. She's changed he thinks somewhat sadly, nothing would have spooked her once.
They both stand and stare at each other for a minute. Each cataloging the other, noting what has changed and what they have forgotten. Eventually she breaks the silence.
"Why are you here?"
"On Vulcan or in this house?" He clarifies.
"Both."
"The company I work for has a partnership with the Vulcan Science Academy. My transport got here early, there were no hotel rooms, so T...," shit, he really wishes he could remember her name now. "uh, the woman whose house this is, agreed to host me until a room becomes available."
"T'Les."
"What?"
"The woman who owns this house, her name is T'Les."
"Oh." Cue the awkward pause in the awkward conversation. He can't remember a time when he found it so difficult to talk to her, and their history has been defined by some pretty awkward conversations.
She just keeps looking at him wide eyed, almost as if she's nervous. This makes him sad too, that she thinks she has to be afraid of him, afraid of anything for that matter. It suddenly occurs to him that she can't move safely or she'll cut her feet on the pottery shards.
"Um, can I get you a brush and shovel, or some shoes?"
For a minute she looks at him like he's grown another head, until he indicates floor, and her gaze follows his hand to look at the remains of the cup on the floor.
"There are a pair of house slippers by the door. If you could bring them to me I will go and get a brush and pan to clean this up."
When she returns with the utensils, he takes them her off automatically and bends down to sweep up the shards. She doesn't protest, another thing that's changed, in the past she was fiercely independent and his Southern manners often grated on her.
He looks up her from the floor. "So why are you here, in this house, I mean?"
"I live here." She tells him tonelessly. "T'Les is my mother."
He doesn't know what to say to that so he concentrates on cleaning up the broken cup with more focused intensity than he'd usually apply to programming a warp field matrix.
He finishes and carefully hands her the pan of shards and the brush. She stares at them blankly for a minute as if she's not sure what to do with them, then just puts them down on the kitchen bench. More awkward silence. She looks at the floor.
It suddenly occurs to him how much he wants to touch her, to fold her in his arms and just hold her. He fights the urge desperately, because she is obviously not his hold.
"So, does Koss live here as well?" He feels an irrational need to know all the details
She doesn't take her eyes off the floor. "He stays here on occasion, but he also keeps an apartment in the city."
"So I guess you're bonded?" He's not sure why he's torturing himself like this.
She looks up at him suddenly, eyes wide. "How do you know about that."
He feels tears sting the back of his eyes, he didn't even realise how much hope he had held on to.
"Soval told me all about it, before I left Earth."
She nods, clearly that's not unexpected which confirms his previous suspicions about Soval's motives for telling him. She swallows, then asks. "How do you feel about it?"
The question hurts, maybe she does care but he just couldn't be what she needed. "I don't like it." He tells her honestly. "But I guess it is what it is."
She takes a deep breath and looks down, then releases it and looks back up at him. "It is possible to have the bond severed by a priest. Is that what you would prefer?"
He feels overwhelmed with sadness and anger. "Of course it's what I would prefer." He snaps at her." She blinks rapidly while jerking her head back at his sudden burst of anger. "I guess that's not what you'd prefer though, under the circumstances." His anger dissipates and the sadness floods into all the spaces it occupied.
She looks away. "It is not."
Hope dies. He presses his lips together and looks at the floor, trying not to cry. "I suppose Koss will be happy though." He comments bitterly.
She looks away "I believe so." She replies quietly.
He's suddenly desperate to get away from her, from this. It feels like his heart is being ripped open. "I suppose it would be best if I found somewhere else to stay, under the circumstances?" He can't believe he got that sentence out without his voice cracking.
She doesn't say anything and continues to avoid catching his eye.
He's going to have to get himself out of this one. "Look, your Mom said there are no hotel rooms available right now. Perhaps I could stay at Koss' apartment and he could stay here. I'm sure he'd be happy to get his wife's ex out of the same house as her."
She looks back at him abruptly. "What do you mean?"
"I assume Koss knows all about me... about us. Surly he would prefer it if I was not in the same house as you."
She looks at him intently "You said 'wife'. Do you think I'm married to Koss?"
He narrows his eyes and cants his head, isn't that what they'd been talking about this whole time. "Soval said you were going to marry him and you said you were bonded to him."
She takes a step closer to him, just out of reach. "I am not married to anyone, and my bond is not with Koss." She tells him quietly.
A strange feeling of dislocation comes over him, his world seems to have shifted on its axis and he's lost all sense of himself. He thinks back over the conversation, she never mentioned marriage, neither of them did, but she definitely implied she was bonded. He lifts his hand and indicates her broadly. "Then who...?" He asks, pretty sure something momentous is about to occur.
She steps closer again, standing just in front of him. "It's you." She says softly. "There is only you."
He takes a deep breath and looks at the ceiling for a moment, and a tear rolls from the corner of his eye even as a smile works it's way over his face. It feels like the first genuine smile he's expressed in the last eight months. Grinning like an idiot he looks back at her, standing so close to him he could touch her. So he does.
She reaches up with one hand and wipes away the tear then places her had over his and he feels a small pulse under his palm. Then she closes her eyes and takes a breath.
He almost falls over with the intensity of it. She has dropped her shields and it feels like a dam has burst in his head. Memories and emotions come flooding into his mind and it takes him a minute to sort through it all and realise that it's coming from her. Her longing, her desire, her love, it's all directed at him and it's so intense he can hardly breathe.
XXX
T'Les
She directs the vehicle carefully through the the traffic and her outward countenance is one of emotionless calm. She keeps the vehicle at a speed that is appropriate for the conditions, does not follow too close or change lanes erratically. She keeps a loose grip on the controls and does not tap her fingers or make any movements other than those required to drive. Because she is Vulcan and she is not worried. Worry is illogical under the circumstances and she is resolutely Vulcan in her refusal to acknowledge the fine line between suppression and denial.
She has calculated that T'Pol would have arrived home at least three and a half hours ago and it seems very unlikely that Mr Tucker slept that long. There is a small possibility that T'Pol went to sleep herself, if she was not feeling well, which means they may not have encountered each other yet. But either way, it does not matter, whatever has or hasn't transpired, worry will not change it.
This was not how things had been planned. He was supposed to arrive next week and stay at the serviced apartment. Then, Soval, who is also scheduled to arrive next week, would have explained all the details to Mr Tucker. Then, based on the outcome of that conversation, T'Les would have spoken to T'Pol and then, only then, would they have arranged a meeting between the two.
But his transport arrived early, a week early and the Academy was only notified the night before and the department administrator had calmly informed the team that morning after she had failed to find accommodation. It is quite inconsiderate really, Vulcan transports, baring accidents, always arrive at the specified time.
He needed to be hosted privately, that much was obvious. When this logical solution had been tabled there was a yawning silence when nobody, quite pointedly, offered to host a human in their residence. So she had volunteered, because someone had to and the reality was, after the Kir'Shara incident with Captain Archer, she had more personal experience interacting with humans than the whole team put together.
There had not been much time to think about it after that. She'd had to collect him from the shuttle port and get back to the academy for classes. At least, she had reasoned, she would be able to speak with T'Pol on the drive home from the academy to forewarn her and together they could have formulated a plan for approaching Mr Tucker. But when she went to the Astrophysics department to collect T'Pol, the department administrator told her that T'Pol had been feeling unwell and had gone straight home after her appointment. That was the precise moment that T'Les had started not worrying.
The house is quiet when she enters, she can hear the soft hum of a condenser which suggests climate control has been activated somewhere in the house. She notices T'Pol's bag and shoes at the door, which is not a surprise. She looks about the room, there is a brush and pan on the kitchen bench, with the fractured remains of tea cup in the pan but no other sign of either the human or her daughter. She continues on through the house.
She passes T'Pol's room but the door is shut. She goes to the guest room and glances in through the open door. The bed is slightly rumpled from someone lying on the top of the covers. The clothes he was wearing on arrival have been thrown across the back of the chair and his open bag is on the floor. His shoes are sitting just by the door and the house slippers she left for his use are gone. It all suggests that he is still in the house. Surely even a human would not be foolish enough to walk outside in the heat of the day in a pair of cloth slippers.
She returns to the closed door of her daughter's bedroom and stands in front of it for a moment, hesitating, questioning the logic of her intention to invade her adult daughter's privacy. In the end she thrusts logic rudely aside, a mother's duties are above logic. She quietly opens the door to her daughter's room and sighs, not with relief, because she was not worried.
They are both there, sleeping together on the bed. Trip lies on his left side with his left arm stretched out in front of him. T'Pol lies, back pressed against his chest, head resting on his outstretched arm, her upturned left hand resting in the palm of his outstretched hand. His right arm is curled over body, holding her close against him and she has his hand clutched to her chest between her breasts. She does not need to speak to either of them to know that the worst is over for them both, that they have resolved things to their mutual benefit. Satisfied, she quietly shuts the door and returns to the kitchen to prepare the evening meal, no doubt they will be hungry when they wake.
An hour later, when they have still not stirred from their sleep, she eats dinner alone. After the meal she steps out into the back garden and sits on a stone bench and listens to the sounds of the night. This is the time when the desert truly comes to life, the soft whistle of the haul'rav insects, the distant mating call of a lanka-gar, the scuttle of a shkral and eventually, the muted voices of lovers reunited. And, if she smiles to herself in contentment, there is no one to see or to judge as she sits alone and listens to the night breathe.
XXX