Unexpected Redux - Ch 6 & 7

Unexpected Redux

By Hoshi’s Sis

Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Paramount invented the characters and the original storyline, I just went and played with it a bit.
Genre: Friendship/Angst

Thanks to my wonderful beta Peter Simon

Chapter Six

Early the next morning, after constant sighs and pleading looks, Trip had managed to convince Phlox to release him from sickbay on the condition that he rest for the next 24 hours before returning to work. Trip had every intention of following these orders; he’d seen the wrath of Phlox too many times before, and he had no intention of rousing it again. First of all, he wanted to see T’Pol. She had looked really angry with him last night, and he wanted to set things straight. He knew they weren’t ‘a couple’ anymore, so he didn’t have to answer for his actions, but she still was a good friend after all. He cared for her. It felt important to him that she knew and believed his version of what had happened.

It was still early enough to catch her before her shift began, Trip thought as he stood outside her quarters, plucking up the courage to knock. It took him a while. “Come on, Trip, ya big wuss, anyone would think ya afraid!” After hesitating another moment he finally rang.

“Come.”

“Sorry,” exclaimed Trip after having entered her room to see her sitting cross legged on the floor, apparently meditating. “I’m not interrupting ya, am I?”

“No, I was just finishing.” T’Pol stood up but she wouldn’t look at him. “I thought you were still supposed to be in sickbay?”

“Ya should know by now how adapt I am at getting round Phlox,” smirked Trip as he sat down on her bunk, making himself at home.

“Was there something I can do for you, Commander, or did your condition cause you to lose your whereabouts and go to the wrong cabin?”

Trip cocked his head and threw her a ‘don’t be a smart ass’ look. Whoever had said Vulcans don’t have a sense of humour obviously had never met T’Pol. “I wanted to talk to you, to explain what happened.”

“I think you made yourself quite clear in your explanation last night, Commander,” replied T’Pol sitting down in the chair opposite of him.

“Obviously not, considering your annoyed reaction.”

“As I have told you numerous times before, Commander, Vulcans do not get annoyed.”

“Could have fooled me, 'cos you obviously didn’t believe me.”

T’Pol just glared.

“Look, I know you can still sense my thoughts through this bond we’ve still got. It might not be as strong as before, but you can tell when I’m telling the truth or not.”

“Is that important?”

“What?” asked Trip, unsure how to interpret her question?

“Is it important that I believe you?”

“Hell yes, it’s important to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I still care a great deal for you. Even if there had been women on that ship -- and there weren’t -- I’m not the sort of guy to just go off with the first person I see, especially after what we had together. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

T’Pol stared at him long and hard, searching his mind for answers. After a prolonged moment, she relaxed slightly in her chair. “I believe you, Trip.”

“So why do I still sense that your annoyed with me?” Trip smiled, giving her his little-boy look.

“You should have sought my help with the repairs on the ship.”

“Ya pissed because I didn’t want ya there,” exclaimed Trip.

“Vulcans do not get pis--”

“I know, I know, Vulcans don’t get pissed. Look I value your expertise, but do ya really think you would have been better than Trevella and Allion, who know the ship like the back of their hand? We had everything under control……”

“That much is obvious, Commander.”

“Wow, two retorts in less than one minute,” replied Trip, being snarky. “Quite the wise cracker, aren’t we?”

“I’ve learned from the best,” replied T’Pol, raising her usual eyebrow.

Trip looked at her, genuinely uncertain how to react for a moment. Then he shook his head and got up from the bed.

“Maybe this was a bad idea …”

“Wait, I apologise, Commander … I shouldn’t have said that. Please sit down again.”

“Sorry, T’Pol, I’m just a little wound up, ya know. It was bad enough going through this four years ago; I never dreamed I would do something stupid enough for it to happen again. I just don’t know if I can do this again without the support of… you and ma friends.”

T’Pol nodded to indicate that she understood. “If I recall correctly, you can’t remember what happened the last day on board the Daladian ship.”

“I can’t, but ya looking at Mr. Walking Disaster here, who can’t keep his fingers to himself,” smirked Trip, referring back to her remark four years ago in sick bay with Phlox and Archer.

“I believe you are being too hard on yourself, Commander.”

“Yeah, maybe, but no one else would be daft enough to get themselves knocked up twice. Hell, if I ever have to repair another ship, I wouldn’t be too surprised if the Capt’n sends me over with a packet of contraceptives, just to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Even though she didn’t show it, Trip could tell that T’Pol was amused by this thought.

“Trip, I believe I may be able to help you remember.”

“How?” asked Trip, a little curious.

“Through a mind meld.”

“Ya mean, that thing Soval did, back when we were trying to figure out the embassy bombing on Vulcan?”

“Yes.”

“Have ya done something like that before? Will it hurt? Is it dangerous?”

“I have performed a mind meld before on Ensign Sato, when we were trying to find the abductors of Doctor Phlox,” explained T’Pol. “It won’t hurt, although you may experience slight side effects afterwards.”

“Side effects?”

“Nothing to concern yourself about. You may feel some lingering effects from our minds touching – shared dreams, maybe taking on each others mannerisms, but it won’t last long.”

“Hmmmmm… sort of like our bond, but a bit more extreme?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think it will work?” asked Trip.

“There is a high possibility of success.”

“All right, we’ll give it a go. When should we start?”

“We should consult Doctor Phlox and Captain Archer. I believe they will insist on being present,” said T’Pol. Then as Trip’s stomach began to protest loudly, “Maybe we should take a detour first,” she said raising her eyebrow at the sound, much to Trip’s embarrassment.

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Chapter Seven

After having practically cleared the mess hall’s food cabinets -- much to the amusement of T’Pol, who couldn’t believe the amount of food Trip was packing away, and much to the dismay of the other crewman, who had wandered in with the hope of getting some dinner -- they both walked back to sickbay together. T’Pol had already notified Captain Archer of her intentions to initiate a mind meld, and the Captain had agreed to meet them there.

“Are you quite sure about this, Trip?” Archer asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” replied Trip. “I just need to know if Allion lied to me. You never know, they might have mentioned where they were headed or what they were planning next.”

Captain Archer nodding his head to indicate that he understood Trip’s reasoning.

“Lie back and relax, Commander,” Phlox said, as he monitored his bio signs overhead. “You’ve seen this procedure before, so you know it doesn’t hurt.”

“That was different Doc. The guard Soval melded with was unconscious and not expected to live anyway.”

“Commander, this won’t work unless you relax your emotional suppression,” T’Pol said.

“My what?”

“Just relax, Trip,” interrupted Captain Archer. “I’ve been through this, you’ll be fine.”

“Do you trust me, Commander?” T’Pol asked calmly as she looked tenderly into his eyes.

“You know I do, T’Pol.”

“Then you know I will never hurt you,” she replied, as he nodded his head and settled down. “Close your eyes and try to clear your mind.”

Positioning her fingers over the katra points, T’Pol closed her eyes and reached out for his mind. “My mind to your mind … Our minds are merging … Our minds are one. I feel what you feel … I know what you know.”

Trip drew in a sharp breath when he suddenly felt T’Pol’s presence. It was the strangest sensation. When she spoke her voice came from inside of his own head.

“Can you hear me, Trip?”

“Wow … I can. It feels really weird though …”

Aloud inside his head, guiding him, “Please concentrate, Trip, being inside your head is quite a taxing experience…”

“Sorry.”

“Being annoyed by a damn injector which wouldn’t cooperate and was determined to make my life miserable.” described Trip as T’Pol viewed the image in her mind.

“Good. What else can you remember?”

“Focus on this with me, and together we can break down the wall that is preventing you from remembering … Yes, this is it. Very good.”

For a moment, Doctor Phlox and Captain Archer exchanged a concerned look. Both Trip and T’Pol visibly flinched when they broke through the mental barrier.

“What is happening?” asked T’Pol as she felt panic and fear well up inside Trip.

“I’m in a medical bay… I can’t move or speak! Allion is there and …”

“We owe you a huge debt, Commander,” replied Trip and T’Pol spoke out loud together as she brought the meld to an end and removed her fingers from Trip’s face. They opened their eyes simultaneously, and then they both reflected on what they had seen and heard.

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After T’Pol had explained what she had viewed through the meld, Captain Archer was pacing up and down sickbay. He wasn’t happy with this situation at all. In fact he was furious how they were using Trip like a pawn in their bitter squabbles.

“How much luck are you having picking up their warp trail?”

“Lieutenant Reed has picked up a weak signal that he believes matches up to their warp signature,” T’Pol answered. “The trail is a few days old, and it’s already disintegrating. Following it, however, would mean proceeding in a direction opposite of the new coordinates that the meld brought up.”

“We’ll follow them. Inform Travis to change our heading.”

“But Capt’n?” interrupted Trip. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to go to the original coordinates and to signal these…Guardians? They can just remove her, place her in their own kind, and take her somewhere safe.”

“Trip, I know the idea of going through this again is not very appealing to you, but--”

“This is not just about me being pregnant and uncomfortable,” Trip argued back. “It just seems like we’re placing her in unnecessary danger just because you’re pissed.”

“Yes, I’m angry,” replied Archer, “but that’s hardly my reason for going after them. They’ve hardly been truthful with us from the start. How do we know this new information isn’t a lie? They manipulated us and used you as a tool for their own means. It seems to me that the best solution is to find them and return to their home planet so we can get the whole story, before deciding where to go from there.”

“Wow, that’s logical,” argued Trip, sarcastically. “Talk about jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. At least you’re consistent in your pitiful naïve way of thinking.”

“Commander…..I’m trying to take into account your predicament, but right now you’re bordering on insubordination.”

“The hell with that!” Trip shouted. “A child’s life is at stake here.”

“It’s hardly what I’d call a child at the moment, Trip.”

“Oh, that’s just the sort of reasoning I would expect from someone who had the gall to grown a human being solely for tissue harvesting,” replied Trip as his emotions raged out of control. “I’m not going to stand here while you callously kill another being or see another innocent child die because of me.”

He didn’t have a chance to finish, as Phlox crept up behind him and pressed a hypo spray with a sedative into his neck.

“Try not to take what he said personally, Captain.” Phlox assured Archer as he eased Trip back onto the bio bed. “It’s a very stressful time for him, like before, and his hormones are just a little out of control at the moment.”

Captain Archer nodded his understanding; he tried to put on a façade that he was okay, but Phlox and T’Pol could both see that he was deeply affected. The fact of the matter was that deep down he wondered if there wasn’t a slight hint of truth to what Trip had said. Trip had never spoken about Sim, nor had he spoken much to anyone about Elizabeth, but obviously from his reaction just now, both incidents had cut a deep slash in his heart and were still very much on his mind.

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Chapters 8 & 9

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A whole mess of folks have made comments

I have to agree with Trip,,, Archer is makin another stupid mistake,,,, Why Oh why cant he ever take the advice of his to top officer's,,, Oh well Loved the lil break through TnT had,, Hope to see more of it in the next chapie. :)

The plot thickens! I'm really regretting my upcoming 2 week vacation without computer access. The up side is that I'll probably have 2 chapters to read when I get back instead of one!

I've got a tiny nitpick, though. Someone from the southern United States would be very unlikely to use the word "daft". It's a particuliarly British expression. I'm from south Louisiana and I've never heard the word used in casual conversation in my entire life. We use "nuts", "crazy", even "outta my mind"... but not "daft". I know it's not that important, but you seem to be trying to re-create southern dialect, so I thought you'd like to know. If you want to make it really authentic, you could replace "going to" with "gonna" and have him drop his "g's" (somethin', nothin') to reproduce the accent without making him sound too ignorant. (Just a thought. Your story's great without it!)

watch enough cartoons and tv shows and one becomes suprised at what words bleed through into your normal vocabulary.
especially a state like florida which i suspect in the future will have even more people living there that originally came from elsewhere.

i live in the south also and very much have heard daft used.

as for the rest of the story iam really sorry that neither trip nor the rest of them know the extant of his brain washing.
that he has now been programmed to follow his instructions above all else.
that is the problem with what he said
it cant be trusted due to that.
trip in his right mind may have said something more in line with jon.
after all jon is right. look at what they have done to trip .. why can they be trusted/
doing what the aliens want could lead the ship into a trap that could get the crew killed.
the guardians for all jon know could decide they dont want a ship on the lose that knows those coordinates.

and while jon is unaware of how far trip's programming goes he does know thanks to the meld that trip has been programmed to act against his will.. ie send out that signal.

i did like the trip and tpol banter in her quaters even though i think tpol was being overly harsh on him.

great job, more, more, more, I need more, thank you very much. !!!!

Great chapter but Trip HAS been brainwashed to think only of the childs safety. I can understand Archer not wanting to trust them after what they did to Trip. How does he know that these Guardians will not pose a further threat to them. The Sim incident always seems to come back to bite Archer on the backside but I don't understand why Trip would imply that Archer was in any way to blame for Elizabeths death.!!

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Don't blame Archer for his worries and doubts, Trip has like Ocean and Pookha pointed out, been conditioned to think only about the child's safety. Ocean, he doesn't blame Archer for Elizabeths death, his 'conditioning/brainwashing' is playing on his insecurities and blame he feels regarding Elizabeth, so this is causing his stress and hormone levels to fly out of control.

Distracted, thanks for the comments. It is hard trying to write with a US dialect when you are a European. I will take note of your comments though in further chapters.

well i think a certain amount of bleed through in idiom is allowable.
for one thing is was how the american language was built and also we are talking about a 150 years in the future.

in certain parts of the south the english, scott -irish and irish culture had a great deal of impact as well as french , indian ect..

plus you got to remember trip has had malcolm as a very good friend for several years and that also has an affect on speech patterns.

As far as Trip's dialect is concerned, you're right pookha, anything goes. He doesn't speak anything like a real Floridian anyway. I've read some interviews where he said that the writers didn't specify exactly WHERE in the south he was supposed to be from until the third season, I think.(Or at least far enough into the series to where he'd already established his VERY southern accent.) Trip's speech sounds more like he's from Georgia or Mississippi than Florida. It just helps sometimes to set a character in your mind if you have them speak a certain way when you write them. Since we all know how Connor Trineer chose to interpret the character, I was just trying to suggest ways to keep the dialect consistent. Of course you'd expect American English to change somewhat in 150 years, especially the slang. "Daft" just sounded funny to me coming out of Trip's mouth. It wasn't meant as a criticism.

This is getting verrrrrrry interesting! I can't wait to see what happens with the child! :)

My worry about Trip blindly wanting to head to the co-ordinates that will lead him to the Guardians who can then remove the embryo is this: once they have the baby why would they let Trip live? He becomes a loose end and a liability. For that reason alone I agree with the Captain. Ali D :~)

I'm liking this story more and more! Keep it going please! Its great so far.