Author's note: I've been wrestling with this chapter for awhile, so apologies for the delay if anyone is still reading. As always, any snippets of dialogue is attributed to the writers of the script/teleplay for Terra Prime. Bond conversations are in italics.

Chapter 11

It was the longest, shortest trip he had ever experienced. With Captain Archer's connections, Commanders Tucker and T'Pol had secured passage aboard a commercial ship to make the brief journey to the moon's surface. It was a twisted bit of irony to use public transport to cover such a short distance when they had access to a starship that could relegate the trip to mere seconds. Yet, Malcolm had insisted that using Enterprise would only arouse suspicion and Trip begrudgingly agreed. Sometimes he wondered about Malcolm. The man seemed to have a keen knowledge of being a covert operative which seemed almost antithetical to his alter ego who was pining for unrequited love when they were trapped together in the Shuttlepod. He made a mental note to place the old 20th-century 007 movies in the movie night queue in honor of the Lieutenant once this was all over. But they were currently very far removed from that possibility aboard the grimy, crowded vessel they had booked passage on. Movie night seemed like a lifetime ago before this bond had complicated his life in unimaginable ways. Before he was a father.

They passed the time between them in a frosty silence for what felt like long, languid summer days in the hot, overstuffed cabin. Although their assigned seats were adjacent to one another, they had hardly spoken since they boarded. Instead, Tucker had locked his gaze in misery on the deck plating which had been incessantly groaning in a piercing, rhythmic syncopation for the better part of their journey. This wretched ship appeared to be little more than a garbage scow. It took all his restraint not to hightail it down to Engineering and offer to fix the damned thing himself just so he could have a moment's peace. He quickly thought the better of that idea. A rash move like that might have compromised the mission and he was not about to give himself away so recklessly–not when his daughter was in danger. His daughter. Their daughter. He could still scarcely believe it. The ever-present whine continued to grate on him as the time stretched onward. He clenched his teeth, most assuredly leaking his agitation through the bond despite his best effort, noting an almost imperceivable wince flash across T'Pol's face in his peripheral vision. He could barely restrain himself. He was a geyser ready to unleash. He cursed inwardly for being so helpless. He was certain that a Vulcan toddler would have better control over their faculties than he did, but this was yet another problem he was not able to solve, so for now, he focused on the deck plating and imagined tracing the issue to its source, mentally cataloging the circuit schematic he could envision within his engineer's mind. Hopefully, the mental effort of doing so would keep them both out of the white space. He was nowhere near ready for another bond conversation bombshell. The last one had nearly broken him.

After what felt like an eternity, the shuttle Captain's voice hissed through the intercom, fragmented and garbled to signal their arrival on the moon. Tucker wasted no time in disembarking, eager to begin the next part of their journey. They wordlessly collected their sparse belongings and headed for the underground tram to Orpheus Mining Facility within minutes.

The chill of their surroundings struck T'Pol as soon as they stepped from the shuttle. She shuddered slightly, her eyes searching for Trip. In the flurry of the departure, they had become separated momentarily. The crowd was thick. She methodically scanned the crowd and spotted him ahead of her. She would know those shoulders anywhere and she walked towards them, her mind drifting to memories of what those same shoulders felt like beneath her fingertips in their most intimate moments. Wistfully, she found herself longing for a different time. She noticed the tension in his shoulders and recalled their neuropressure sessions, a time when he would permit her to relieve his discomfort. Then, they had been friends and they had both trusted in their friendship well enough to be vulnerable with each other. She began to wonder if they would recover even to the point of friendship again or if the damage she had done was irreparable. She doubled her pace to catch up to him. Finally, walking side by side, she sought a way to break the wall between them, before it became a permanent fixture, but it was difficult knowing where to begin, so they continued in awkward silence, boarding the tram that would take them to Orpheus.

After a brief time, the tram came to an abrupt stop, brakes screeching loudly in protest. By habit, Trip glanced over to T'Pol to see if she was affected by the noise given her sensitive ears. Their eyes meet for the first time since they had set off. Her chestnut brown eyes revealed a pained, far-off look. A solemnity he had seldom seen.

"You alright?" He narrowed his expression into concern.

T'Pol nodded. She was unharmed physically. She was certain he was not expressing concern about her emotionally right now, which was another matter altogether. Silently, she accessed the route Lieutenant Reed had outlined on their slipshod scanner that Travis had provided from an antiquated model he had from his days as a boomer. Reed felt certain it would aid them in camouflaging their identity. With the nearly defunct scanner in hand, they set off, attempting not to look too conspicuous as they searched for the correct juncture. They had several hours before they were to report to the foreman under the guise of being new employees in the mine. Given the vastness of the tunnel network, they had their work cut out for them.

They breathed shallowly, the air leaden with particulate dust that swirled up in a flame with every step they took. And they had taken many of them. T'Pol found herself missing the typical one-piece garment she usually wore. The colorless, shapeless garments Malcom had insisted they don to blend in had little insulation here in this cold, dusty wasteland. Each breath was a shallow gasp, the recycled air tasting of stale metal and gritty dust. The world was a muted gray, every surface coated in a fine, clinging powder. A detail occurred to her.

Silica dioxide was found on the backpack.

Perhaps they were searching the right area, although they certainly did not appear any closer to answering that question. In fact, she now registered the familiarity of their surroundings which was not a positive indicator. Ordinarily, she would use her superior Vulcan scanner, but that was not an option at the moment with the amount of miners surrounding them. Turning the corner of the passageway, they came to a juncture they had definitely seen before. Frustration and doubt were beginning to prey on them, their muscles aching from the effort. Perhaps they were not looking in the correct location after all.

The rhythmic clang of machinery echoed sonorously in the dusty tunnel as the pair trudged forward, their boots continuously kicking up puffs of gray rock dust. As they moved forward seemingly without end, Tucker's patience was wearing thin and he kicked a cloud of gravel up in the stagnant air against the rough tunnel wall. An indecipherable growl escaped his lips as they rounded yet another familiar bend while T'Pol's expression remained impassive. They had indeed circled the same loop twice. There was no point in denying it.

T'Pol reached for her scanner discreetly, its soft glow momentarily illuminating the passage. There was a small group of miners meters away from their position, but they appeared to be unaware of their presence as they were engrossed in their laborious tasks. The momentary privacy would allow them to consult the scanner, however, a cursory glance offered no solace, and the unmarked twists and turns on the screen seemed like an indecipherable maze. His brow furrowed as he snatched the scanner from T'Pol's grasp, his eyes regarding the display with suspicion. Lost. The display confirmed what he already knew. He pointed towards the only unexplored tunnel. "I think we're getting there."

Leaving the familiar clamor behind, they entered the passage. An unsettling silence pressed down on them, broken only by the crunch of their boots. Finally, T'Pol spoke, her voice a quiet, desperate challenge about Trip's lingering doubts. "I know you're not convinced I've told you the truth about the child." A tense silence followed, then a resigned sigh from Tucker. "What do you mean?"

Her eyes bored through him as if she could see straight into his soul, which in a way, was not far off from the truth.

"You think I might have gotten pregnant without your knowledge," she emphasized, not breaking eye contact.

He bit his lip. Why did she have to know his own mind before he did? He would be damned if she was going to tell him what he was thinking.

"I never said that!" He pointedly denied it.

"I know," she said, simply waiting for him to catch up.

"You've been talking to Phlox?" He accused.

Phlox? She had not seen that coming, but she knew that the Doctor shared a deep almost paternal bond with Trip. It was a reasonable inference.

"No. Have you?"

He winced, exasperated. "Look it's because you're Vulcan, isn't it, that you know all this."

She held his gaze. She couldn't explain it as much as she wanted to to ease his mind. She would do anything to bring him comfort. She had already brought him so much turmoil, which in turn, compromised the delicate balance of her emotional control. She wished she could convey the depths of her internal conflict without causing him anymore distress.When this was over, she would try, if he was willing. But for now, the priorities had shifted to bringing their child home. Instead, she settled on a simple. "I believe so."

He rolled his eyes, the frustration beginning to bubble again despite her efforts to shield him so as not to agitate him further. She hoped he would not notice, but of course it had registered. He narrowed his eyes. Maybe he could understand if he could feel what she felt, but she had blocked him again. He scoffed in disbelief. She was consistent. He had to give her that.

"I am sick and tired of this bond we've got."

"I don't particularly enjoy it either," she agreed, curtly, and she meant it. If hurting her bondmate repeatedly was what the bond meant, she most certainly was not enjoying it.

He wheeled on her emphatically. "Listen, for the last time and for the record, I do believe you. And if you get any more feelings…"

Just then a metal door marked "Quadrant 3" came into view. Relief washed over Tucker. They had finally reached their destination. They were one step closer to finding their daughter and this awkward conversation was over, a double bonus.

Once inside, they continued their investigation. A new landscape of tunnels lay before them. Tucker eyed the third-rate scanner. The screen was frozen. He smacked it on the side of the unit. In response, the scanner shut down in protest with a dying squeak, rendering it useless. He barely refrained from throwing the piece of junk.

He sighed. "Let's split up to save time. See what we can find out?" Trip suggested. They could cover twice as much ground that way searching and it would have the added benefit of reducing her proximity to him which might clear his head.

She nodded. "Meet back here in one hour."

As much as she did not relish letting the Commander out of her sight on an away mission with his track record for finding trouble, she could not argue with his logic. At the moment she was keenly aware that he would prefer to keep his distance from her.She turned and headed in the opposite direction.

It turned out, he didn't need the hour. Tucker was pleased with himself. Once inside it had been relatively easy to find the Terra Prime operatives. Hell, they had found him. He was meeting with them tonight. He couldn't believe it had been that easy. Maybe his luck was turning. They would find their daughter and get out of there. He felt a surge of hope for the first time in a long time. His expression brightened as he began returning to the rendezvous point to tell T'Pol. Finally, a lead.

His optimism was short-lived. The meeting with the Terra Prime operatives, so easily procured, turned out to be a cruel twist of fate. Instead of a beacon of hope, it became a brutal reminder of the precarious situation he and T'Pol found themselves in. His grandmother had a saying that the only thing certain about luck was that it would change. Now, locked in the detention cell, the throbbing pain in his ribcage and spine served as a stark contrast to the optimism he felt just moments ago. Grandma was right.

That bastard, Josiah had done a number on him, but Trip would have happily thrown the first punch again in that situation. Now that he had seen her–-their daughter, he'd have thrown a thousand punches at anyone who labeled their daughter a "thing." Plus it bought him the seconds he needed to adjust the array's trajectory. If Paxton fired on Starfleet HQ as he was threatening, then he was going to be a lousy shot. He had at least made certain of that. But now, he had other concerns. He had to get out of there. He had no idea what they might do to T'Pol or to their baby, but if the glimpse of their plans they garnered in the warehouse was any indication, she was in real danger. His thoughts began to race as to what they might be doing to her right at that moment and he began to spiral, before realizing that there was another recourse. He pressed his eyes shut and forced himself to cast out fear like she had shown him and focused only on her.

T'Pol.

The fog inside his mind was thick, but he had the sense it was not impenetrable. He felt the soft, warm glow that he associated with her in the distance as he mentally doubled his efforts to close the distance between them, but it was like navigating through a sandstorm. It was his fault this had happened, he reflected. Their shared space, once clear and illuminated, was a murky wasteland. How had he been this feckless? He kept pushing her away, blaming her for what had happened to her on Mount Seleya. Locked here in a cage, it began to occur to him that she had been locked in a cage of her own back then in a way. Trapped between a marriage she never wanted and her duty to her mother, she had been a victim then too. He thought back to that look that was still haunting him. When their eyes met on the tram hours ago, her eyes had a distant sense of melancholy in them, an expression he had seldom seen, and only reserved for the most solemn occasions; the death of her mother, the dark day when they thought the Captain did not survive in the Expanse, and when she essentially kissed him goodbye prior to marrying Koss. Then, too, her eyes had betrayed her undeniable feelings. The pain in them at their separation by her sense of duty to her mother had been unmistakable. He had lived her truth alongside her when they joined their minds on that fateful away mission a few weeks ago. He knew what she knew. Felt what she felt. Suddenly, he was T'Pol at that moment before her marriage and it was crystal clear. She loved him so deeply with all the ferocity her soul would allow. He was an idiot to ever think she wanted to be with Koss. He had been an idiot about a lot of things, he realized but he could not synthesize the implications of what that might mean for the future of their relationship at the moment. Not when their daughter's life might be at stake. But he understood now the pain she had been in and he forgave her. It was so simple. It had always been that simple all along. She loved him, but she thought they could never be together. And he loved her. Maybe it wasn't too late. He should tell her. He needed to tell her.

He began to feel sick at the thought of her alone in that state of vulnerability on Mount Seleya and how those bastards had exploited and manipulated her memories.

Well, she was not alone now. He was here and he would get to her and their daughter or he would damn well die trying in the attempt. Gritting his teeth, he focused with all his might and the cloud began to slowly dissipate. He moved toward it, surprised to feel the warmth of not one, but two. Mother and child were together. And they were alright at the moment. He breathed a sigh of relief and finally exhaled, beads of sweat falling from his forehead.

I'm coming.

He projected his solemn promise to both of them and looked around the cell frantically, trying to ferret out the means for escape. His hands reached instinctively for his tool holster. He never went anywhere without it. There it was, his screwdriver set. By some miracle, Paxton's henchmen had not confiscated it. What a brainless design to place the control panel inside the sign, he thought wryly, but no matter. Right now, he could kiss whoever the half-wit. He made quick work of prying the panel open and marveled at his luck. Yet another gift of a magnificently maladroit design.

"A Mark Three interlock." So easy to override, a child could do it. He smiled and began to work.

T'Pol continued to consider possible methods for escape, however the odds of success for each scenario she had concocted were very poor. Her line of sight shifted to the scanner. She had scanned Paxton earlier. His hand tremor had been unmistakable. She keyed in the commands to cross-reference his scan with known etiologies. She checked the results. Taggart's Syndrome. She raised an eyebrow. This information might prove useful. Scanner still in hand she turned toward the child and activated it again. It whirred to life.

The infant was healthy and unharmed by all appearances. Her fine silken hair and serene expression betrayed no ill effects of her captivity and yet Susan Khouri's warning and Paxton's own vague and ominous statements about the child had been troubling her. T'Pol could sense something was amiss. She just didn't know what it was. T'Pol held the infant closer, her heart pounding in her ears. The child's cooing was a lilting melody in the oppressive silence. She had never felt such a profound connection to another being. Yet, a nagging doubt persisted. The scanner results were anomalous. The child's metabolism was dangerously elevated and the white blood count was exceedingly high. But was that normal for such a child? A Human and Vulcan hybrid clone had never existed before, supposedly could not exist, yet here she was defying all expectations. Just then, the subject of her thoughts let out a soft gurgle and broke T'Pol out of her contemplations.

She was a mother now and she hardly knew what to do with that information on a practical basis. On Vulcan, the maternal and infant dynamic was one characterized by restraint and formality. Something about that lens felt hollow and void and T'Pol could not reconcile Vulcan tradition with the being in front of her. The child was so unmistakably beautiful, that her heart felt as though it might explode when she looked at her. Did all Vulcan parents experience these emotions? Did her own mother feel this way about her? The thought of T'Les made her heart ache. If her mother did not feel this way about motherhood, then why would she long for her to this extent now that she was gone? T'Pol concluded she might have misjudged T'Les' devotion to logic and tendency to criticize her daughter as a mother's disapproval. She could plainly see the infant's resemblance to both herself and Trip and for just for a moment she could envision a glimpse of the future they could have together as a family. They might live in a modest, but comfortable house by the beach. Trip grew up in a coastal region and much of his childhood centered around the sea, a stark contrast to T'Pol whose planet was fire and heat incarnate. Her daughter would know the ocean and the fire plains. She would know water and sand. Blue skies and red ones. She would teach her the scientific names of the flora and fauna in their seaside abode and she would watch as father and daughter surfed or took apart some amalgamation of technology. Their child would smile easily and laugh heartily with abandon like her father and it would be the most glorious sound in the world. She could almost watch their lives play out as a family at breakneck speed. Her racing thoughts threatened to overwhelm her to the point she could almost not bear another second and she realized she understood her own mother's restraint and detachment for the first time in her life. T'Les would be unable to process the force of these emotions with her own devices. It was only because of T'Pol's experience with humans, mainly Trip, her Pa'nar syndrome and Trellium addiction that she had a fragile framework from which to reconcile her own emotions. She did not know what feelings motherhood would continue to spur in her, but she knew the future she had just imagined was precisely the one she would desire for them. Her shoulders heaving, she began to regulate her breathing. Having a vastly different experience growing up as a Vulcan left her somewhat at a loss of where to begin. She would do anything if there was a possibility that she could realize the future she envisioned. As if in assent, the child began to babble softly, a gentle, yet insistent tone. She looked up expectantly, her serene expression shifting as she whimpered softly at her mother.

T'Pol hesitated. Should she hold her again? Vulcans do not hold infants often, lest they fail to develop independence at a young age. But this child was half human and from what she recalled seeing of parenting on Earth, it was customary to hold infants. Apparently they enjoyed the excessive contact. The noises began to escalate as the child became increasingly restless. T'Pol leaned forward and made a decision. She firmly lifted the infant up awkwardly under her arms. Propping her up onto her unsteady feet, she regarded her diminutive form pensively.

"I am your mother," she introduced stiffly, as the child cooed, paying her no mind.

T'Pol pursed her lips determined, yet unsure. The feelings surging through her body were fierce and battered her already fragile reserves with fervor. But this child needed her and she would answer that need, no matter how alien these feelings might be.

"You are going to need a name," she mused softly at the baby who had calmed and been observing the woman before her with curiosity.

She pressed on, "We should discuss that with your father." At her mention of Trip, she felt the pull of trepidation. She was uncertain where Paxton had taken him and she was concerned for his well-being. Cautiously, she peeled back the barrier she had erected around their bond to ascertain his status. He appeared to be in a detention cell, grossly unharmed, although she could detect he was in some type of discomfort. Applying greater focus, she could see he was not placidly waiting in the cell. Even if she could not see him, she knew that would be unlikely. Trip was nothing if not resourceful. Her eyes began to shine hopefully as she realized Trip was about to escape, rather effortlessly it seemed. Even more encouraging was the realization she could sense his thoughts again. He had not only permitted the reconnection between them, he sought it out himself. And right now, his thoughts were as clear as day.

He was coming. For both of them.

Author's note: So how do you solve a problem like Baby Elizabeth? Realistically TT'P probably can't raise a baby on a Starship. Canon provides a tragic solution, but it also put Riker in a chef suit. Where we go from here in this story...I have some ideas. Remind me to write something fluffy next time around. I fear the canon police will hate me or the fluffy people will hate me either way. It's the writer's version of a Kobayashi Maru.