7. The Bad News

Archer sat down in his captain's chair on the bridge and stared, unseeing, at the scrolling views of the space dock that it was currently displaying. A Vulcan mate-bond. Well. That explained why T'Pol could not look him in the eye after their interview with Marks and Souris, and it explained why Trip, against everybody's better judgment including his own, had turned down a promotion he should have accepted.

It wasn't the answer Archer could have hoped for. He couldn't simply tell them to knock it off and behave like proper Starfleet officers or face discipline. He couldn't simply have one of them reassigned — apparently, they had tried that solution themselves, when Trip transferred to Columbia, and that had clearly not worked out. There was no best-case scenario here that he could see, for either of them. Unless they wanted to leave Starfleet and go live together quietly somewhere, and neither of them had shown any indication of that, at any point.

He sifted through his brain for any information he might have about Vulcan mate-bonds. A Vulcan mate-bond, if he understood the shadows and outlines of information Surak had left in his mind correctly, was a psychic bond often — not always — formed by married Vulcan couples, generally after long intimacy and the birth of at least one child. The connection was typically powerful, generally permanent; bonded Vulcans never divorced, and seldom remarried after the death of their spouse.

Oh, Trip, what have you gotten yourself into this time? Do you understand that you may never get out of it? It worried him, now, that he had not seen any definitive indication of romantic involvement between them when he was eavesdropping. Maybe they were trying to behave like proper Starfleet officers. But if they were bonded…Surak seemed to indicate that this was a connection that required regular … maintenance … for the continued mental health of both parties.

Trip couldn't have even known this was a possibility. It was likely, in fact, that T'Pol had not known of the possibility until too late. She had, after all, made a good-faith effort to marry Koss — and been forced to acknowledge that it wouldn't work, just as Trip had later been compelled to return from Columbia. Modern Vulcans, if Archer understood matters correctly, considered the mate-bond as taboo a subject as mind-melds. And even if T'Pol had known of the possibility of forming a mate-bond, she might not have expected to form one with a human — or, she might not have expected to form one so quickly. Because this had certainly happened quickly, if it began six months into the Expanse and was firmly cemented by the time they returned. That was far more quickly than it typically happened for married Vulcans. Maybe the fact that Trip was human, with less-well-disciplined emotions, had contributed to that. Also, maybe the neuro-pressure had played a role in establishing the intimacy necessary for the bond. Which was something no one could have known at the time; the return of the katra of Surak and the demise of the High Command, which seemed to be facilitating more open communication about and acceptance of Vulcans' innate psychic abilities, was more recent than that. And even if the neuro-pressure had laid the groundwork, this bond had formed in less than a year. Maybe the pressures of the Expanse had also contributed?

Archer couldn't puzzle it out. The information Surak had left him was incomplete, but what he had suggested that this simply should not have happened.

But, as T'Pol had said, "Nevertheless…" They were definitely bonded. T'Pol's anger and jealousy, and perhaps fear — all strong emotions, apparently poorly controlled, despite her outward appearance of calm — had been debilitating for Trip, through the bond. Were her emotions poorly controlled because she was bonded to a human? Was that what was wrecking her emotional discipline? But Trip was an engineer — a brilliant engineer — so wouldn't his mind be more disciplined than an average human? What was going on here?

Archer stepped back mentally from the situation, trying to look at it with a birds-eye view. What had happened, from that perspective, was that a couple of people who were probably just taking comfort in one another during a difficult time had just gotten in way over their heads.

Well, that story was an old one in any culture. And it didn't mean that their initial decision to get involved with one another had been an excusable one. One bad decision had led to a raft of complications, like such things so often did.

The ready room was heavily soundproofed, in order to protect the sorts of confidential and high-security communications and conversations that could be expected to take place there. So Archer was surprised to hear raised voices coming from that direction. Or, rather, one raised voice — Trip's voice. Archer couldn't make out any individual words, just volume — but he did make a note of the fact that the room's soundproofing had a limit. Also, he wondered if he should intervene. He could not imagine that Trip might actually become violent, but he was also surprised by the shouting. T'Pol could take care of herself, though. Couldn't she? Or would Trip's strong emotions be just as debilitating for her as hers had been for him?

There were not many people on the bridge — just a single crew of workers upgrading the communications and science consoles — but they began exchanging glances. Odd enough for one officer to be yelling at another — odder yet for the ship's second officer to be loudly berating the ship's first officer. "As you were," Archer growled at them, and they rededicated themselves to their task.

After a few minutes, the shouting died down. When it had been quiet for a few minutes longer, Archer went back to the ready room door and touched the annunciator. The door slid open.

Trip was sitting in the grease-smeared chair, with his elbows on the desk and his forehead resting on his fists.

T'Pol was curled against the far wall. Crying.

T'Pol was actually sobbing.

The rage that Archer had expected to feel, that he had spent three days carefully and consciously packing away, resurfaced suddenly. I hope the two of you realize you're putting on a clinic for why fraternization is a very bad idea, he thought, but he didn't say it. There are always unintended consequences. It would have felt cruel, to add that observation to whatever Trip had said to leave T'Pol in that condition.

He walked around his desk, fished through the drawers until he found a pack of tissues, and went to T'Pol.

She accepted the tissues.

"Do you need anything?" he asked.

She gulped. "I need…" she nodded at Trip, "for him to calm down."

"I am calm," he muttered.

"You are not," she accused, and he turned his head and gave her such a baleful look that Archer believed her instantly. Apparently the ability of very strong emotions to affect them through the bond went both ways.

"Trip," Archer said sternly.

Trip shook his head and went back to staring at the desk, his forehead resting on his clenched fists.

Archer turned back to T'Pol. "Can I get you something? Some tea?"

She nodded miserably.

Archer went back to his desk chair and sat down heavily. He steeled himself. Whatever had upset Trip to the point of yelling at his bonded mate loudly enough to be heard through soundproofed walls, angrily enough to reduce a Vulcan to tears, couldn't be good news. He touched the comm panel. "Phlox."

"Here, Captain."

"Come to the bridge. Bring a cup of chamomile tea…"

"All right…" Phlox sounded uncertain.

"…and some sedatives."

There was a brief silence at the other end of the comm. "Of course, Captain. I will be right there."

Archer looked from Trip to T'Pol. Dragging this out wasn't going to make it easier.

"Tell me," he said.

Neither of them spoke.

"Now," Archer said.

Still, neither of them spoke.

T'Pol sat hiccuping into a tissue.

Without lifting his head, Trip said, "You tell him, or I will." His voice was rough.

T'Pol gulped a sob. She uncurled enough to adopt her meditation posture, and made a visible effort to pull herself together.

Archer waited.

"Captain," she said, and hiccuped again. "Do you remember the Seleya?"

"Of course."

"The trellium exposure caused extensive neural damage."

"Phlox cleared you to return to duty," Archer observed.

"He did. Although he told me at the time that a full recovery could take several months."

Archer waited.

"I was at the time also suffering from pa'nar syndrome, and from the aftereffects of my encounter with Rajiin," T'Pol said.

So, Archer deduced, the damage may have been cumulative. But he simply waited for her to continue.

"All of those things combined to impair my judgment," T'Pol admitted. "Although I did not realize it at the time. Indeed, I did not realize it until much later."

"All right." Archer was not without sympathy; his own judgment had been impaired, after all, at the hatchery — and he himself had not realized it. His crew had been driven to mutiny to remedy that situation.

"As a result, I made a…" she gulped, and looked at Trip. "…terrible mistake."

Trip's breathing had grown ragged, although his pose had not changed. Archer supposed that being referred to as someone's terrible mistake while acting under impaired judgment would make any human angry, especially if the consequences were a lifelong and irreversible psychic bond with the person whose 'mistake' you'd turned out to be.

The comm beeped. "Captain, I am on the bridge," Phlox said.

"Wait," Archer said. He walked out to the bridge, where he found Phlox standing in the with a cup of hot tea, a set of hyposprays, and a concerned expression.

Archer took the tea and the hypos, leaving Phlox with only his concerned expression. "Wait here."

"Captain, if there is a need to administer sedatives, I should —"

"Wait here," Archer repeated, and walked away.

In the ready room, he laid the hyposprays on the desk, and handed T'Pol the cup of tea. He took one of the hypos, and adjusted the dose to what he calculated would calm everybody down without knocking them out. He pressed it to Trip's neck and dosed the engineer, who gave him a vicious look.

"One more look like that, Commander, and I will confine you to quarters for insubordination."

Trip looked back down at the desk. His shoulders relaxed fractionally, and his clenched fists; the sedative was having some effect.

Archer carried the hypo to T'Pol, who shrank away from it. He tilted his head at her and set his jaw; he would not be brooked on this. She hiccuped, and relented. He dosed her, too.

Then he went back to his chair.

"There's more," he guessed. Could it get worse? Neither of them looked as if they had come to the end of this, yet. "Tell me."

T'Pol took a sip of the tea and tipped her head back, letting it run down her throat. The sedative seemed to be helping a little. She took a deep breath, and looked at him. Her eyes were anguished. "Captain. Please…" she glanced at Trip. "I cannot bear more anger."

Does she mean from Trip, Archer wondered, Or from me? "Tell me all of it," he said.

"The trellium…gave me access to feelings…to emotions…that my discipline had suppressed." She said. She sipped the tea again, and breathed slowly. "I liked them. The emotions. I didn't want to lose access to them."

Archer experienced a sudden, terrible foreboding.

"We had a supply of trellium-D on board, that you refused to use once its toxicity had been established." T'Pol paused again. Trip had tensed up all over again. Archer eyed the hypospray, and wondered whether he would have to dose everybody again. T'Pol continued, her voice shaky. "I devised a way of injecting it directly into my bloodstream. No one knew." Her eyes filled again. She blinked, and the tears rolled down her face.

Archer tamped down on the rage. Yes. Yes, it could get worse. Much worse. He felt himself shaking, and he began to understand why Trip had so completely lost his temper. He was rapidly sliding that direction himself. But that wouldn't do anybody any good. If there were ever a need for a cool head, surely it was now. He took a deep breath, and put his anger to one side. "So, from the point where we encountered…" he almost said Seleya, but then amended it to "Rajiin, your judgment was continually, probably increasingly, impaired."

She looked away from him; away from Trip. "Yes." She said.

"And it was during that time that you…propositioned…Trip."

She gasped. Archer looked at Trip, who had tensed up again.

He picked up the hypospray and gave Trip another dose. Trip flinched, but didn't look up. One more, Archer reflected, and he'd probably have to consult Phlox. He didn't want either of them unconscious, but he also wanted to retain control of the situation.

"Keep going," he said.

T'Pol had lost control again. She had set her tea on the floor next to her, and buried her face in a tissue. Archer picked up the hypo.

Trip raised his head. "I wasn't her only bad decision, Captain," he said viciously. Archer marveled at the potency of adrenaline-driven rage against Phlox's sedative. "I knew something was wrong with her at Azati Prime."

T'Pol curled around herself protectively, and buried her face in her knees.

Azati Prime. He had gone, hoping to destroy the Xindi weapon, and left T'Pol in command. The reptilians had attacked the ship. If the Xindi council hadn't called them off, Enterprise would have been destroyed. As it was, the ship had been severely damaged, and lost a lot of her crew. Including Crewman Taylor, whose death had hit Trip particularly hard.

Trip was still looking at him. "Cap'n," he said. "That was when we lost the warp coil."

The warp coil.

The Illyrians.

It sank in.

Archer stood up, unable to sit. He paced. The faces of the crew who had died in that attack rose to his mind unbidden, accusing.

And the face of the Illyrian captain, asking him "Why are you doing this?"

I have no choice.

He felt himself perilously close to losing it.

"Confine yourselves to quarters," he said. "While I decide what to do."