The Final...- Pt. 5

The Final Mission

Part Five

by Aquila

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Paramount owns the Star Trek universe.

Summary: A sequel to Starfleet Engineering

Category: Alternate Universe

==

Trip and Archer, beers in hand, sat on the porch, watching the sun set.

“What are you going to do now, Jon?”

Jon tipped the bottle to drain the last of the liquid. He returned the bottle to the carton, where it rattled against the other empties. They had been sipping steadily all afternoon. He would be spending the night, as regulations prohibited him from flying after consuming alcohol.

“For a start I’m going to curse regulations.”

Trip noted the exasperation. “Admiral, you’ve always stretched the rules in the interest of justice.”

“What do you want me to do, Trip?” Archer disliked people who answered questions with questions. Using the tactic irked him more.

“T’Pol would’ve told us to look at the situation logically.”

Archer returned Trip’s grin, “Yes, she would have. And we would have given her a hard time about it.”

“You bet we would!” Trip stood. “Let’s go for a walk, Jon, while we think this thing through.”

==

“Shall we walk, Charles?”

T’Pol had held out her hand. She stood at the bottom of the porch stairs, silhouetted against the setting sun. The pair had completed the cabin an hour earlier. They had moved in the few pieces of furniture Trip had constructed. He had laid a fire in the hearth to ward off the chill that always settled when the sun set. There was finality in her voice that Trip did not like. Instead of taking her hand, he pulled her to him, one arm around her waist as they followed the course of the stream. He took comfort from the feel of her head tucked against his shoulder.

“We have demonstrated considerable compatibility, have we not?” She turned her head so that she delivered her question to his profile.

“We have always worked well together, T’Pol.” He looked down at her. “Even when we were spitting and snarling, we got the job done.”

“You spat and snarled. I was efficient and controlled.” The sparkle in her eyes contradicted her statement.

“Professionally, I’ll concede that much.” Trip stopped, taking her by the shoulders so that she stood facing him. “But personally, intimately, in bed, well Darlin’ there is nothing controlled about ya. It took us awhile. Thanks for the persistence, by the way. But we got there – we are damn compatible. You might say combustible.”

“So you agree? We have demonstrated great compatibility?” T’Pol repeated.

“Want me to show you some, right now, Honey?” He leaned in to kiss her, she drew away.

“Charles, it is important to me that you answer my question.”

Trip battened down the hatches on his libido to look at her anew. “Darlin’, if you have somethin’ to say to me, just say it, because, yes, ‘we have demonstrated great compatibility.’ There is room for truth between us, T’Pol.”

==

“The truth of the matter is, Trip, according to the letter of the law I am obliged to report our conversation.” Archer opened the dialogue.

Trip tossed into the landscape one of the pebbles he carried. “If we are goin’ to talk technicalities, Jon, the truth of the matter is that when I told you about T’Pol and me, I was no longer married to her. The law doesn’t cover widowers, does it?”

“Technically, no,” Archer admitted with a grin. “Weren’t you telling me what T’Pol was like as a wife?”

==

Trip, expecting a farewell, braced himself against the force of it.

“Would you consider continuing our intimate partnership for the duration of your lifespan?” Her question had the impact of a photon torpedo on a rowboat.

His knees buckled momentarily. She reached out to steady him.

“Charles, are you all right?” T’Pol had not anticipated the extent of his physical reaction to her offer.

“What about your lifespan?” He asked as a delaying tactic.

“I formulated the question based on known longevity statistics. I should out live you, but on the off chance that my life does not conform to actuarial expectations – Would you consider continuing our intimate partnership for the duration of our life spans?”

“Well, I was kinda expectin’ flowers, a ring and you on one knee, T’Pol.”

When she opened her mouth to ask for clarification, Trip stopped her with a lingering kiss. “Hell yes, Darlin’, I’ll marry ya.”

“Marry?” T’Pol, eyes glazed with desire, was confused.

“You don’t expect me to make a lifetime commitment without a license, do ya? I’m not that kind of boy, T’Pol.”

==

“She wasn’t the kind of wife our mothers would have chosen for us, Jon.” Trip was drained. “But she was all the wife I wanted – smart, sassy and sensuous. She made us a fortune and fooled the universe into thinking she was an emotionless, automaton.”

Trip absent mindedly dropped the pebbles as he looked toward the horizon. An image flashed through his mind of T’Pol reviewing their business accounts oblivious to his attempts to distract her. He failed. That was chased away by T’Pol intent on seducing him, as he worked on a new patent application. She succeeded.

Archer interrupted his reverie. “Did you consider having children?”

“We thought about it. For two minutes. Politics precluded kids. It was our one real regret. Sometimes I would wonder if we would have had room in our lives for children. We were intense, Jon.”

Archer collected the pebbles Trip had dropped. The time for truth telling had passed.

==

“Charles,” T’Pol felt her emotional control slipping. “You and I cannot marry. If the authorities found out, you would be exiled and I would be censured.”

In celebration of her marriage proposal Trip had swung T’Pol into his arms and carried her off to bed, with no intention of sleeping. Their interlude, having concluded to their mutual satisfaction, left him in an agreeable state that she had learned to use to her advantage.

Trip, employing the same strategy, chose his words carefully. “If there were no legal or social impediments to marriage, would you have formulated the question differently?”

“If there were no impediments I would asked you to marry me.”

“I’ve never responded well to somebody tellin’ me what I can and cannot do.”

T’Pol thought she had never heard him speak a truer word.

==

The moon, still full, hovered over the horizon. Having consumed every last drop of beer and whiskey, the pair decided to skinny dip in the moonlight. The stream, fed by glacier melt, sobered them faster than flashing lights in a rearview mirror.

“Son of a bitch!”

Trip danced from toe to toe, his arms flapping. Jon streaked to the cabin to grab some towels. He stopped long enough to throw a match on the fire Trip had laid in the hearth. Jon was thankful for his habit of a lifetime.

Tossing a towel to Trip, the admiral asked, “Haven’t you had enough of feeling sorry for yourself, Professor?”

The question brought Trip to attention, naked in the moonlight. His teeth chattered and his limbs trembled, but he managed to snap a salute.

“Aye, aye, Admiral. I got to fulfill T’Pol’s last request.”

End of Part Five.

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Two folks have made comments

Ooooooooooooo! I LOVE this!! I love the pacing, I love the story, even though it's sad as hell, and everyone's in character! YAY!

Oh this is such a painfully wonderous story... please do continue and soon!