The Final...- Pt. 4

The Final Mission

Part Four

by Aquila

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Paramount owns the Star Trek universe.

Summary: A sequel to Starfleet Engineering

Category: Alternate Universe

**********************

==

“T’Pol stayed with you – eating with her hands, campfire cooking and no running water, – for a month?”

Jon wished the question had remained moot. He had lived in dread of the day that he would learn the identity of the man who had captured her affections. Her passing, as much as he had regretted it, had come as a relief. Had the truth been as close as his best friend?

“Seems Phlox didn’t agree with the psychiatrists in rehab, so when I got out he asked T’Pol to – how did he put it? – assist with my re-entry.”

Trip had often wondered if Phlox knew in advance the trajectory of that particular flight? He had never asked him. On the odd occasion when Phlox, T’Pol, Feezal and he dined together, he had noticed that Feezal wore a smile of smug satisfaction.

“Just how much assistance?”

Dang, Archer winced, why can’t I leave well enough alone?

“Are ya sure ya want me to answer that?” Trip’s question burst a dam of speculation and rumour that Archer had held in check for three decades.

==

A month after T’Pol’s arrival, Trip declared a holiday.

“We’ll go explorin’, T’Pol. Ya really haven’t seen the beauty of the place. I’ll pack a picnic. We’ll take your runabout to the top of the Mesa. The view is almost as endless as the one from the view port in the dinin’ hall on Enterprise.”

They were on the summit by the time the sun reached its zenith. The intensity of the sun bleached the red rock to a rich amber. The heat was relentless. T’Pol had stood on the edge of the plateau, her arms stretched wide. She had raised her face skyward. It was as if she were trying to absorb every gram of warmth that it radiated.

Trip, his back against a boulder, sheltered under a tarpaulin he had erected, because the mesa offered little shade.

“Do ya miss Vulcan, T’Pol?”

“You hate deserts, Charles. Why did you buy land in the middle of one?”

Trip did not answer immediately. Her use of his first name cast a net of unexpected intimacy about them. Intuitively he understood that his answer would forever affect the course of their lives.

==

“Are ya sure ya want me to answer that?”

Archer told Trip the truth, “Jon, your friend, wants you to answer the question. Admiral Archer, sworn to uphold interplanetary treaties and intergalactic laws, would prefer that you didn’t.”

Trip laughed bitterly. Everything and nothing had changed. “On this roof, right now, who are you - my friend or a Starfleet Admiral?”

==

Trip patted the blanket by his side. “Sit here, T’Pol, and I’ll tell you.”

For a moment T’Pol considered his request. Trip held his breath while he waited for her response. She acted rather than spoke, deliberately walking across the mesa to sit cross-legged at his side.

For a moment the past and present converged.

Archer made his choice. “At this moment, your friend wants an answer. I need an answer, Trip.”

“Ya see that mesa to the north east?” Trip pointed. “That’s where things changed. I took her up there to show her the view. It was mid-summer, noon time. Very hot. She loved it, Jon. The heat awakened something in her. She asked me why I had purchased a piece of desert. So I told her.”

Archer in his best imitation of Trip said, “At night, the stars are so close you can touch ‘em, up here.”

Trip tapped Archer’s bicep with a fist. “Damn straight.”

“Ya know what she said to me?” Now that he had begun Trip was eager to tell Archer everything. “For the first time I feel at home.”

Archer watched as his friend returned in his mind to that moment.

“So I asked her,” Trip’s voice caught, “Feelin’ like yer feelin’ now, T’Pol, what would ya be doin’ if you were home? She didn’t protest when I used the “f’ word. As a matter of fact, she said nothin’ at all. But she showed me. My goodness, Jon, as sure as the two moons of Vargon are blue, she showed me. We married a month later.”

The admiral spluttered, “You what?”

“We regretted that you never knew, but you know how it was. How it is with the Vulcans.” Trip pleaded with his eyes for his friend’s understanding. “T’Pol would never have been allowed to pursue her diplomatic career. And me? Well you know what they would have done to me!”

“With your level of security clearance, had you told me of the marriage I would have had to turn you in.” Archer admitted.

“We knew that, Jon.” Trip shook his head in disbelief. “You would have thought that having experienced three months of torture in the Expanse…”

Archer completed his thought for him, “During which the only information you divulged was disinformation.’

“That should have been proof enough of my loyalty.” Trip stood, preparing to descend from the roof to the ground.

“Was it fear of the Xin’di that made Earth pass that law banning interspecies fraternization, Jon?” Trip stopped to look Archer in the eye. “Or was it because the Vulcan’s refused to get involved in the Expanse debacle?”

“You said yourself that T’Pol would have lost all chance of promotion by acknowledging your relationship. We weren’t the only ones who did not want interspecies fraternization.”

“We were the only ones to exile anyone found guilty.” Trip was relieved to feel anger in the place of grief. “Exile, Jon, banished from our solar system!”

End of Part Four

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