Time Will Tell - Pt 7

Time Will Tell

by Evalyn A.

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.
Rating: T POV, G. May be archived, just let me know.
A/N: This is part of a continuing series of personal log entries made by T’Pol during her time on Enterprise, starting with season one.

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Part 7

Today is the first year anniversary of my posting to Enterprise. This will make more than three years that I have spent amongst humans, an extensive period by any Vulcan’s standards. Why do I have such an interest in the human species? Most Vulcans would have either left at the earliest opportunity, or suffered in isolation, attempting to avoid all contact wherever possible. But like T’Mir, ethnology and sociological studies would appear to be in my blood as much as is science.

I often find that interaction with humans strains my equanimity. They are aggravating, self-destructive, ethnocentric, and interfering. And perhaps that is the real reason I stay – I am as close to humans as to my own species, recognizing the similarities between our peoples, so much stronger in reality than the differences.

Vulcans see humans as young adults, straining against the tutelage of their elders, needing to explore and make their own errors. We are the older generation, having seen all of the errors they can make and wishing to spare them the agonies they will surely endure. And yet humans must see for themselves, so we Vulcans must satisfy ourselves with being there when they stop to question, to ask for advice, and occasionally, to share the lessons of their growth with us.

Of course, my opinion of the value of Vulcans as elder advisors to the humans has changed as I have recognized the hypocrisy of the High Command over the last year. Nevertheless, I believe we can help each other as fellow travellers, perhaps even friends, with a different viewpoint but on much the same journey.

Perhaps that would also explain why I revealed the story of my second foremother, a story that had been classified for years. The stories of T’Mir and Mestral in their time on Earth show the connection that can exist between our peoples on that journey, when we take the time to truly know one another.

And this evening I felt that same connection with the two men with whom I shared that story, a connection that had been growing for some time without my truly being aware of it – different with each of them, in a way I am unable to exactly define, and yet so clearly there. They themselves are so very different, and yet they have both begun to accept me as more, I think, than the unwanted Vulcan advisor foisted upon them by the High Command and Starfleet.

With them I have friendship, companionship, shared duty, loyalty; these are “feelings” that every Vulcan would be improved by experiencing, whether with a member of their own species or, more rarely, another.

I can only hope that I, too, will come away from this voyage with something that will symbolize as much for me, as this purse did for my second foremother. And perhaps, in a way, I already have.

Part 8

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Three people have made comments

As always Evalyn, you work you magic! Good work! What else can I say... when it's good... it's good! :)

Concise and thoughtful as always.

Lovely job! This little piece of insight from T'Pol's perspective is beautifully drawn. Thank you, Ali D :~)