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Author - Evalyn A. | B | Genre - Angst | Genre - Episode Addition | Main Story | Rating - G
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By Evalyn A

Rating: G. Angst.
May be archived, just let me know.
Disclaimer: Not making a dime off of this, they belong to Paramount, they don’t belong to me, although finally they’re starting to act as if they did.
Post-ep for “Home”.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Archer strode down the corridor, he saw ahead of him Trip Tucker, his bag slung over his shoulder, clearly just returned back on board from his leave. “Trip!” he called out, and jogged up to clap him on the shoulder as Trip turned around. The smile on the engineer’s face seemed somewhat forced, as he acknowledged his Captain’s greeting with a nod. “Cap’n,” he said, somewhat tersely.

Archer walked beside him for a moment, gauging his friend’s mood as somewhere between terrible and awful. “Care to talk about it?” he asked diffidently, as they entered the lift together.

“Nope. Maybe. Aah, yeah, I guess so. Just give me a minute, okay?” Trip replied, running his fingers through his hair.

“Okay,” Archer replied, and followed him off the lift to his quarters. He stood and watched as Trip unpacked his bag, throwing his things with force into what appeared to be random storage locations. About halfway through, Tucker stopped and with a violent movement, headed over to the viewport to watch the activity at Jupiter Station. Archer continued to wait patiently, watching his friend’s haggard expression in silence. Finally Tucker turned back towards him, and motioned him to sit down at the table. “Are you on duty?” Trip asked his friend.

“No, I was just going to pick up a bite to eat. I’m technically on leave myself, just like you. You’ve got at least another month,” Archer pointed out, for he’d ordered his chief engineer off Enterprise for the duration of his leave.

Trip walked over to his bag and pulled out a bottle of Scotch and two glasses. “I picked this up on Earth on my way back,” he commented, “Lagavulan’s your brand, isn’t it?”

“Eighteen year old,” Archer murmured, examining it appreciatively. “Nice of you to think of me,” he continued, as he poured a shot into each glass. Trip sat, examining the glass broodingly without drinking. “Well,” Archer prodded, “you’ve had your minute. Start talking. Where did you go on leave?”

“Vulcan,” Tucker replied. Archer looked confused – this had not been the response he was expecting.

“Vulcan?” he queried. “With T’Pol?”

Tucker nodded, still looking at his glass.

“I didn’t see T’Pol come back with you,” Archer prompted.

“No,” Trip replied. “That’s because she’s still there. On her r’tas po-kal’i’farr.”

“Her … what?” Archer queried, looking even more bemused at the sound of his engineer speaking Vulcan.

“It’s the Vulcan equivalent of a honeymoon,” Trip explained, tipping his head back and rubbing his eyes. “Or more like a honey-year, in this case,” he rambled on, as he took a good swig of his Scotch. “See, on Vulcan, when they get married, they’re supposed to spend a year living together before they head off and do … whatever they do … of course, in this case, it’ll just be as long as her leave lasts.”

“Hold on a minute, Trip, let me get caught up here. You went with T’Pol to Vulcan for her wedding?” Archer said incredulously.

“It wasn’t exactly planned,” Trip explained. “She thought she’d gotten out of it.”

“Out of it,” Archer repeated, blankly.

“Mmm. On Vulcan, pretty much all marriages are arranged. But she decided way back on her first year on Enterprise not to go through with it. You remember that letter of hers I read?” Tucker continued, morosely.

Archer frowned, and then the memory came back. “It was personal.”

“Yeah, we had a long chat about it in the end. She decided to stay on Enterprise rather than return to get married.”

“So what happened?” Archer asked, still dazed from the information.

“I was going to Vulcan to meet her mother,” Trip said, with a bitter laugh. Archer blinked, taken even further aback at the implication. “She didn’t put it that way, of course, but that’s what it was. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. It’s a beautiful place, Vulcan, have you ever had a chance to do some sightseeing?”

Archer tried to follow the random directions this story was taking. “I never really saw much.”

“It was gorgeous, I didn’t expect it to be so beautiful. Hot and dry, I thought. But somehow even though it’s hot, it’s somehow not so bad. Maybe I was just too distracted to notice it,” Tucker continued vaguely.

“So, you went to meet her mother,” Archer prompted, trying to get him back on track.

“Mmm, quite a lady,” Trip murmured. “She and T’Pol, they don’t exactly see eye to eye. She doesn’t approve of T’Pol spending her life away from Vulcan, or choosing to stay in Starfleet. Even so,” he pondered, “she turned out to be pretty nice, in a Vulcan sort of way. After the wedding, I fixed most every appliance in the house. She’d been pretty short on cash, I guess. We spent a fair bit of time talking, about Vulcan customs, and about T’Pol.”

“You’re losing me here, Trip,” Archer pointed out firmly. He rubbed his forehead in frustration. “Do you think you could tell this in chronological order, maybe?”

“Sorry, I guess I haven’t had much sleep lately,” Tucker apologized as he took another swig of Scotch. “So, we got to Vulcan, and everything seemed pretty good, at least with me and T’Pol – T’Les wasn’t any too happy to see me at first, of course. She gave T’Pol quite a lecture about spendin’ too much time with humans. But I guess she had her reasons, as it turned out,” he conceded. “She’d been railroaded out of her job because of T’Pol’s actions at P’Jem.”

Archer looked shocked. “That’s not logical, why blame her mother?”

“I guess the sins of the daughter, in this case … they’re big on family honour and responsibility. Anyway, then Koss showed up.” He stared angrily into his glass. “And offered to get T’Les back her job if T’Pol married him like a good little Vulcan daughter.”

Archer looked even more horrified. His view of Vulcan society was taking a beating. “He blackmailed her into marrying him?”

Trip sighed, then admitted reluctantly, “Blackmail’s a bit too strong a word. He was just bound and determined to get her to marry him, and I guess that was the ace up his sleeve. If she hadn’t married him, he wouldn’t have been able to convince his family to intercede on T’Les’s behalf.”

“So she married him,” Archer said, still trying to get used to the idea.

“She married him. She looked as scared as I’ve ever seen her, and all I could do was watch,” Trip said roughly. “I felt like my insides were being ripped out and stomped over, but it was nothing compared to how she looked.” He took a couple of deep breaths, clearly trying to get his emotions under control. “I didn’t see her again after the ceremony. She left with him, and that was that. I spent the next couple of days with her mom, helpin’ around the house until I could catch a shuttle for Earth.”

Archer sat silently, wondering how he could have missed everything that obviously had been going on between his two senior officers, and wondering with dread how things on board Enterprise could ever be the same after what he had just heard. Finally he continued, “But she’s coming back.”

“Yeah, I guess you should notify her when she needs to be back. I don’t know whether she’d want that to be sooner or later. She’s got to spend some time getting to know him, I suppose it’s probably better that she does it now, instead of having it hangin’ over her,” he said, trying to approach T’Pol’s problem analytically.

“Forget T’Pol, what about you?” Archer asked, too irritated with his first officer’s behaviour to be diplomatic.

“I’m okay,” Tucker replied quietly. “We get over it. We lose people we love, and we just keep going, because that’s what we do.” He put his face in his hands, and Archer could hear his ragged breathing. “But I need a bit of time to get used to it, Jon, and this is the only place I could stand to be.” He looked pleadingly back up at his Captain.

Archer couldn’t begin to say no, under the circumstances. “You can stay to oversee the refit for a while, and we’ll see how it goes,” he agreed, his heart aching for his friend. “But you’re not working yourself into the ground,” he continued. “We’ll take some time, do a few things, maybe watch some games.”

“Yeah, that’d be good,” Tucker concurred wearily. “Now, if you don’t mind, Jon, I could really stand to get cleaned up and hit the sack, it’s been a long haul.”

“Sure,” Archer agreed guiltily, standing up and heading for the door. He turned back to look at Trip. “Are you sure you’re okay for tonight? Anything else you need?”

Trip shook his head and tried to smile at his friend as he motioned him to leave. As the door closed behind the Captain, he sank down onto his bed, and stared out the viewport at the darting lights.

“Nothing else I need,” he repeated, hoarsely, and then covered his face with his hands, and let the tears flow.


The End

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A whole mess of folks have made comments

Very good, I like it a lot, it is so sad, almost makes me cry too..! Please continue..

Oh I so hope we get a scene like this. It would so work given what we've seen. A great reconnect for Jon and Trip and a so necessary scene for the story.

Nicely shared. Thanks.

That was beautiful. Tragic and sad beyond words. but beautiful. great job. I also hope we could get a scene like that but don't really hold out much hope. i'm steeling myself for a 3 to 4 week TnT drought. But oh if they could ...

Really beautiful story. please do continue. How do they react to each other when she gets back?

That was so beautiful. I really hope we get to see something like this on the show. I would love to hear how Trip really feels about T'pol getting married. Its also a wonderful opportunity for him and Jon to spend some time together.

That was perfect. I agree, this is how the next episode should open!

That was great, really needed this, a kind of resolution to a few things - the wedding, Archer and Trips friendship....too bad we'll get nothing like this on the show. Thanks for the scene.

This was excellent, especially as Archer got to be the friend he has not been for a while. I liked that very much, harkened back to the bond they shared in the first season and Trip really could use a friend right now. Hope there will be a sequel, hint, hint... Ali D :~)

That was beutiful. And sad. But excellent. I really wanna see some other reaction from Trip about the wedding. Obviously he's upset, but we need something like this.

That was really nice. Really adds something special, and I loved the interaction between Jon and Trip.

Thanks for that.

I'm glad you showed these two getting closer... it's nice to see. Such a sad story, but it works!

*sniffles* Poor Trip. I feel so bad for him.

What a great "gap" story. Beautifully poignant.

The stark, facts-only way you wrote this was very true to Trip's feelings. Very raw, open, and emotional even in it's simplicity. I enjoyed it very much; I could feel his pain, too, just like I did at the end of "Home," only more so. Excellent work!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!! I hated the way Home ended and now this? Made me cry all over again!!

Now, back to planning creative ways to kill off our good buddy Koss! :) Mwaaaah Haaaa Haaaaa (evil laugh) :)

thats so beautifuli'm almost crying!
what a great improv!