Why Now? - Ch 2

Why now?

by Evalyn A

Rating: T/T, T’Pol POV. PG. 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.
Spoilers: “The Forgotten.”

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Part 2

The day has been stressful – if I were human I might describe it as frantic. Every system on Enterprise is on the verge of failing, requiring constant attention in order to assure that some significant fraction of ship’s functions were operational at any given moment. Within the last two hours alone, I have performed diagnostics on virtually every sensor system and purged the memory subsystems, while attempting to determine which of the long-range scans were reliable. In background, my mind has been updating our estimated odds of survival at regular intervals based on ship’s status. They are still not favourable.

As I modify the scanning routines to filter the noise from the long-range zeta scans, I glance at the chronometer. It is 1845. I feel an uncomfortable sensation in my throat, one with which I have become overly familiar over recent days.

I recall a conversation I once had with Commander Tucker while searching the corridors of an apparently abandoned vessel. “Vulcans do not feel fear,” I had said. It was a prevarication, of course. Vulcans feel many things to which we do not admit. It is true that Vulcans generally do not fear ghosts, or arachnids, or high places. Nor do we fear grand acts of nature, or even statistical incidents of random mischance over which we have no control.

But that does not mean we have no fears. No, above all, we fear ourselves, and those dear to us, for nothing is more dangerous to our ordered world than we are ourselves.

And over the last few weeks, I have felt fear more times than I can count. I feel it again now, fear of what he will say when I tell him, if I tell him. No, perhaps I should continue down the path of least resistance, keeping my feelings and my fears to myself – allowing more time for the evolution of this relationship (I can no longer deny it to myself, although I continue to deny it to him).

But what if there was no more time? Should I die never having been truly honest with him, or, for that matter, with myself?

In only a few minutes he will be at my quarters. It would be ill-mannered to keep him waiting. However, I could contact him and plead an excess of work. I suspect that he might be relieved, judging from his comments at breakfast this morning. I am sure he is as uncomfortable as I with the twists and turns that we have been navigating, as well as being more than slightly perplexed by my unpredictable behaviour of late – and I could hardly blame him.

I have completed the modifications while attempting to rationalize that which is entirely irrational, and now have no excuse. I walk in a purposeful manner down the corridor. I almost convince myself that I am simply proceeding in a logical manner towards an appointment with a close colleague, one that will conclude a satisfactory neuropressure session with a sound night’s sleep.

He is standing at my door, dressed in the tight white shirt and loose grey pants that I have grown to associate, to my discomfort, with a great deal of intimate contact with him. “I thought maybe you’d decided you were too busy,” he said neutrally. I infer that he too is uncertain whether he is disappointed or relieved that I have, in fact, kept our appointment. I enter the room and turn to face him.

“Please prepare yourself, I will need to change my clothes,” I say to him. I turn to my locker and remove the light sleepwear that I normally wear for our sessions, and start to change. I am still entirely undecided how I wish to proceed this evening, and I turn over in my mind the many ways in which I could broach the subject about which I wish to speak. When I have completed changing, I turn to find him ostentatiously faced in the other direction, and I feel a fleeting moment of exasperation.

“It is not necessary for you to turn away, Mr. Tucker, you have seen me unclothed before,” I point out.

He turns back, and then replies dryly as he kneels down, “And that’s why it’s better if I don’t see it again without being officially invited.”

I cannot help but feel a little further exasperation that he is capable of such restraint, atypical as I understand it to be for a human male. “As you wish,” I reply. “The ka’vorta posture first, I think.”

We continue for a few minutes without any extraneous conversation, following through a series of postures. My exasperation and a considerable amount of my tension begin to drain away as his fingers knead below my third vertebra. Then they slide lower, and I become aware that this is definitely not the next position in the sequence. “Mr. Tucker?” I murmur, unable to summon up any significant resistance to this deviation from form.

“Cool your jets,” he replies gently, “I’m just givin’ you an old-fashioned back rub without the neurobabble thrown in.” I cannot deny that it feels exquisite, both because of the way my muscles are responding, and because of the gentle, intimate way that his hands are moving over me, so much less predictable than neuropressure. They move further towards my lower back and I try to keep my breathing slow and even, but it is becoming more difficult by the moment.

The intercom beside my door chimes. “Archer to T’Pol.”

Mr. Tucker drops his hands instantly, and I savagely wonder to myself – why now? as I pull my top up quickly and climb up to answer it. “T’Pol here,” I say, conscious that my voice is not entirely normal.

“T’Pol, I need you to go over the data with Malcolm on the subspace corridor that we collected during the attack a few weeks ago; he’s concerned about the effect on weapons function and needs your input. We’re in the armoury.” I take a steadying breath and reply.

“I will be there shortly.” I turn to see Trip pulling on his shirt and heading for the door. “This may not take long,” I say, knowing that it is in fact unlikely that I will be back any time soon. He stops and looks at me thoughtfully.

“I think this just wasn’t a good idea tonight, T’Pol,” he replies. “Too many distractions, and we need to be focussed right now.” He pauses, and then gently, briefly, touches my cheek. “See ya later,” he says as he slips out the door.

I put my hand up to my cheek where his fingers had brushed. My anger at the situation we find ourselves in threatens to escape, and I punch it down mercilessly as I proceed towards the armoury. Yet again the chance has slipped away from me. Will there be another?

Part 3

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A handful of people have made comments

WOW SUCH A TEASE... PLEASE CONTINUE...........

Lovely story, Evalyn, very beautifully told, as always. I like this slow progression as Trip and T'Pol try to define their relationship. I'm glad Trip said they needed to be focussed (while the hand-on-cheek gesture said he wasn't too focussed!). I'm looking forward to the continuation.

WOW too! That was breathtaking! Please continue sooooooooon!

OOOOooh, I wanted to yell in frustration at Archer's terrible timing. He does seem to think he can interrupt his crew's off-duty time whenever he wishes and while that's fine when the need arises it isn't really fair when it gets to those good bits between our favourite couple. Sigh. Can't wait for more! Ali D :~)

NOOOOOO!!! Can't believe Archer's sucky timing.
I missed this update the first time around. Glad to see you're continuing the story.