If you are seeing this paragraph, the site is not displaying correctly. You can see the content, but your current browser does not support CSS which is necessary to view our site properly. For the best visual experience, you will need to upgrade your browser to Netscape 6.0 or higher, MSIE 5.5 or higher, or Opera 3.6 or higher. If, however, you don't wish to upgrade your browser, scroll down and read the content - everything is still visible, it just doesn't look as pretty.

Vulcan for Intimate - ch. 8

Author - John O.
Fan Fiction Main Page | Stories sorted by title, author, genre, and rating

Vulcan for ‘Intimate’

By John O.

Rating: PG-13
Genre: Adventure/AU/Romance
Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek characters/names/fans’ souls/etc. No copyright infringement is intended nor profit gained. Only literary immortality.

Author’s Notes: Sorry for the long delay, but we’re closing in on the home stretch! Hopefully it is understood why the time begins to travel more quickly with less detail. Can’t go day-by-day now can we ;)

Special thanks to Samantha Quinn for her masterful beta skills!


Chapter 8


Day 331


Trip stood over a tall cliff, watching the sun begin to rise over the distant horizon. The warbling image of the early morning sun rose over the trees from inland, casting a fiery light over the landscape. He stood on the precipice and quietly watched as the sun rimmed the tree line, sending a warm gust across his face. Inside him, there was a place that was once no larger than the tiny bundle they buried in tear-stained blankets. After losing a daughter he barely knew with a love he had somehow always known, an expansive void like the valley before him stretched for miles in that once-tiny place in his heart.

It’s amazing, he thought. That such emptiness could exist where once there was no room for anything, and now there was but painful nothingness; the crater of a father’s unending love plucked out of the ground and tossed away, leaving behind only barren ground. A quiet wind moved the clouds and Lovers, carrying a whisper of hope that after many bitter seasons, the salt-stung hole that T’Mir left behind could be replenished and bear a beloved offspring once again. T’Pol appeared silently behind him.

There was a flash of light and then an image of his own father standing over his mother many years ago, holding a blue-eyed baby girl as a jealous but awe-struck young boy hopped nearby to get a look at his new baby sister. Another tear fell.

Trip wanted to bury her somewhere beautiful. While returning to the pod’s skeletal remains for one last component, happened upon this beautiful place. The orange hue of the bathing light highlighted the streaks on his face as the morning breeze tossed his hair. He pushed the strands from his eyes as his wife approached from behind. She wore the altered uniform he had offered to make for her.

"It is unfortunate the proper robes and candles for a fitting ceremony were not available." Tucker closed his eyes when T'Pol's hand fell upon his shoulder.

"Don't matter... it was beautiful. I had no idea that Vulcans… It was beautiful," he told her as he nodded decidedly. His voice cracked as an invisible wound seized on the tender word. "She was beautiful."

"Yes. She was," T'Pol confessed as she stepped into her mate, her arms going around him to grasp his fingers in her grip softly. She buried her face into his back and relaxed into his body, letting him hold her up under the tremendous weight tugging on her. He turned to find how incredibly different this woman was to the one who walked the corridors of the Enterprise ten months earlier in much the same garb. A strong chemical imbalance of hormones still ravaged her system, keeping her expressions more human-like than was her custom, in the wake of the loss of T’Mir.

Her hair, long and sandy brown, was tied into a single tail. The mixture of colors in her eyes now shared their residence with many emotions, some of which she had only begun to cope with, to accept, to overcome and to embrace.

She wondered how long the confidence would last after her body regained its proper balance, and if she would retain the deeper understanding of these emotions she had gained in compensation for suffering their wrath.

Loss, pain… most potent were these as they pricked at her heart, as it was so unused to defending itself from the onslaught. She held steadfast to the hope that she might retain the ability to safely embrace emotions, just as confidently as she embraced Trip on the cliff. She wondered if they would be driven away by the powerful Vulcan need for order and logic. After all the experiences they had shared on the island, she now believed that if she failed to retain this ability; if she could not be the affectionate wife Trip needed - they would be lost from one another when her control returned. A gulf as vast as the one before them would open, with one on either side, never to share this closeness again.

They looked at one another, met in a soft touch of lips, then cast their eyes below in unison at the fresh grave of their child. Without words, T’Pol allowed her hand to fall at his side and take hold of his. As he held her, he cupped her face in his hands amid the toil of several dark strands that danced across it in the music of the wind. Her face went limp into his hands, his hardened fingers somehow soft as velvet against her cheeks, her ear tips, and all along her neck as he held his wife. She met his lips in a practiced, well known connection. As his lips caressed hers, her thoughts returned the gentle touch.

They did not speak of how T’Pol ended up in the forest that night, or why she had not gone to him when she knew something was wrong. Since the loss, Trip’s ability to sense his wife’s emotions was much stronger. He knew she could not yet bear to speak of the tragedy or her loss of control and the wailing cries. He didn’t care that it seemed un-Vulcan, or that it was different from the T’Pol they both knew ten months ago. He knew only that she would need him more than ever for awhile, though how long, he couldn't be sure. Time was irrelevant. Escape was irrelevant. All things, it seemed, once relevant in the eyes of the Vulcan Sub Commander, drifted away with the last cool breeze as the air warmed and Trip pulled her tighter.


Day 336

It was near the middle of the night and light drops of rain were still dropping loudly but intermittently on the roof. Trip awoke slowly and deliberately, made aware of T'Pol's absence in a dream. He was able to pull himself out of the dreams now when T'Pol was involved, though the experience was still a bit disorienting. He blinked several times, lifted himself up and saw that the fire had been extinguished and the rain had begun to pass. He glanced aside briefly and indeed, T'Pol was missing. Throwing on his only pair of pants, he took off out the door into the dark-morning. Glaring at the stars above, he was sure it was no later than four or five by Earth standards. The stars were only partially masked by the dark violet coverlet of morning and he looked about several seconds before his eyes acclimated to the darkness.

The ocean rushed in the background as it always did, and the sound was so habitually expectant that he filtered out its slurping noises as he trotted down the beach. She was not visible anywhere near the shelter but he was not worried - not yet. It was the third or fourth time he had awakened with slight alarm to find her missing. At first it caused him a mild nightmare, but the second time he was distinctly aware that she had risen and left in some distress in the middle of the night.

When he didn't find her where she preferred to meditate, he became worried. Then he felt a twitch in the back of his mind and took a dozen more steps. Looming just inside the haze of a low-lying fog, T'Pol's form suddenly came into view as she sat on the sand near the edge of the slurping water. His shoulders relaxed slightly with relief and he went to her side as she faced the sea.

“Would you like some company?” Trip asked as sat opposite her. She did not respond for several moments as he watched her from across the sand. He chewed his lip and stood up, moving around her, seating himself behind her. He squirmed through the rough sand until his chest was against her back and her could reach around and lay his fingers atop hers. With her against his skin he could feel the heat beating through her as she relaxed into him and swallowed away a rising tide of emotion down her throat.

“It can’t be easy for ya’.”

“I do not know if these feelings will ever leave me,” she whispered, her eyes closed. His hands moved up to surround her body as he buried his face into her neck and kissed her in the crook of her shoulder. She shivered slightly as the wind blew into them while he squeezed her.

She pulled gently from his grasp and turned to him. “Will you meditate with me?” Tucker looked at her with slight confusion.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” She pursed her lips and fluttered her eyes away from his the way she did when she was unsure of his willingness to agree to something.

“What I have in mind is not ordinary meditation.”

“Like what?” Trip asked curiously.

T’Pol rose from the lotus position and moved beside Trip while he watched. She sat beside him, facing the opposite direction with their faces a few feet apart.

“Now, place your fingers like this,” she showed him on her own hand. She stretched out her index and thumb as far apart as possible and curled her little finger in slightly. As she moved his hand to her face and placed her fingers on his face, the two began to move closer as if on autopilot.

T’Pol’s lips began to form words in Vulcan but the ambient sound in Trip’s head dropped off to nothing as he focused on her eyes. He eased himself forward, sliding closer to her until their faces were almost touching. Her lips moved faster, repeating the same mantra. The sound of her voice traced along an interminable edge, coming closer as they fell closer together. When he expected to feel the velvet of her lips against his, he paused as if on the edge of a cliff and plummeted suddenly as he moved through her! He panicked but suddenly came to a halt and the falling sensation dissolved as he looked around and found nothing but white. Perplexed, he turned round and round like a child in an unfamiliar store before his mother could return to his side.

“Trip.” He turned to find T’Pol, but she was different. Superficially, the woman before him could easily have been the T’Pol he knew a year ago on the Enterprise, with the same uniform, haircut, and stern veneer. But she wore another anomalous, more shocking feature – the closest measure to a smile he could imagine on her. He marveled at how remarkably becoming the quirk of her beautiful lips was for T’Pol. Trip looked up. “What is…” he began, turning round once again with an overwhelmed grin. T’Pol moved forward, her lips enlivened by the child-like wonder he exuded and the warm glow it stirred in her, even here, in the non-physical.

“This is where I go in my mind.”

He turned around to meet her. “In your mind,” he echoed doubtfully. She pursed her lips expectantly and moved closer to him with a taunting eyebrow. He took the invitation and moved into her lips immediately, luxuriating in the vivid infusion of her affection for him. Her wishes came to him like whispers in distant corners of an empty room. The echoes of singular, disciplined thought were perfectly coherent, discernable as each individual desire and emotion crept through.

She held the back of his neck and broke the kiss reluctantly, her eyes trained on the flick of his tongue over the lips she so enjoyed as she drew away. Suddenly, a piercing cry rang out far louder, uncontrolled and desperate from somewhere indiscernible. Its nature was quite clear, however, that of a child; a frightened infant, alone and despondent. Trip looked round but T’Pol simply winced and held a finger to her temple and swayed as if fatigued.

“T’Pol?” Trip asked in concern as he caught her easily.

“I am all right,” she assured him. “But there is a reason I have brought you here,” she braved.

“I need your help,” she confessed as she looked to the floor. He forced her eyes to his with a gentle finger at the base of her chin and kissed her forehead. Without words, she cradled his neck and his hands were drawn like electricity to her cheeks, tracing the length of her jaw and her ears. After several moments she allowed his hand to claim hers and fall to her side.

“There is something I must show you.” And with that they disappeared into a memory, and began to heal.

Day 365


The nights grew cold again and the storm season began anew just as it had when they first arrived. Since T’Pol’s pregnancy was lost at nearly mid-term, they were now back in the peak of the climatic period of rapidly approaching sunsets and dropping temperatures. Heavy rains made the forest wet and boggy, even dangerous, as Tucker discovered one day when he slipped and was nearly pulled into a mud pit. The two relied now solely on food from the forest and journeying there for the vegetation and small game from which they fed became difficult and dangerous. T’Pol grew concerned when the plants she had been cultivating for safe consumption became scarcer with each passing storm. Trip still refused to eat only a vegetarian diet, and thus was forced to scavenge for what game he could find as the weather turned sour. He began to suspect the wildlife knew something he didn't. It was possible they were migrating inland.

It seemed that the particular species of plant they had found to be safe for consumption were as periodic as the storm season, and became more difficult to locate. It was a long and difficult season. T’Pol’s guilt and sorrow over the loss of their daughter never fully healed and she became increasingly distant once again. She could not help but awe at the unwavering diligence Trip gave her immediately after the loss, when she came to bed each night, quiet and dispassionate. She lived up to the charge of her race with perseverance despite the onslaught of emotions that were both pleasant and heart-breaking, and they assaulted her without arrest.

Since T’Mir’s death, T’Pol had not lost control to her emotions, but she largely credited the fact to the growing frequency of melding sessions with Trip. They were meditating together as well, but the potency of relief born to her on the wings of the melds was unmatched. After the first occasion, they began melding earlier in the evening immediately after mealtime, since it irrevocably led to passionate, longwinded love-making afterwards. It was a shot-in-the-arm to their sex life as well as an exceptionally effective therapy for T’Pol’s grief. Trip was hurting too, but the battered human heart finds ways to bear the burdens of bereavement and bide its time until the barren blinds break through to a bright future, with bitterness forgotten. But for a Vulcan, it was not so easy, so instinctive.

She lived the life no Vulcan ever dreamed, or for that matter, one none would ever want to. A life within the arms of a human, embracing emotion and logic was hardly part of her assignment briefing when she joined Enterprise. He listened and touched the memories of her past and the hopes and fears in the recesses of her mind. He made love to her when she needed to remember the shelter of love and devotion, and to forget suffering and dejection. Still, there was a remedy to the malady that plagued the Vulcan’s heart and its weight tugged at her stronger as each day passed and their chance of rescue or returning to Enterprise neared.

How she longed to hold another Tucker child.

Day 499

5 months later


For over a year now, he awoke and laid eyes on the same damn cold, gray walls and thick sand. The heart and soul of a beautiful woman by his side may have made the days challenging while fruitful, and the night delectable beyond dream. But a Starfleet engineer could only go native for so long. He lazily caressed T’Pol’s light chestnut strands between his fingers.

He could also feel her powerful heartbeat, warm and constant in its pattern; her naked body beating against his. She sighed in her sleep, breath tickling across Trip's hair-covered abdomen as he stroked her cheeks and explored the alien's intriguing ears. As the sun rose, he was unable to tear his eyes from the tiny piece of ocean-blue sky that peered through the shelter-door. He longed to lay eyes on the real one again, and it was almost time to sink his teeth into that challenge.

It had been over a year since they had a real mission, an objective, a path. He hadn’t realized how important the regimental life of an officer and explorer had become to him; how deeply within him the Starfleet life was woven.

‘Indeed’, T’Pol might say, he mused inwardly. He had been in Starfleet for almost 15 years and on the move every second of it.

The day they had waited for, the day they would set out to find a way home, had finally arrived.

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

During the last few months, the state of T’Pol’s ability to control while still accessing the emotions associated to T’Mir improved. Her guilt over the loss of their baby waned and due in no small part to access to Trip's mind. His disorderly and often obnoxious thought-patterns were frustrating at first. They often progressed from meditation and melding straight to the bedroom or, for lack of patience, just to the sand or even, in bouts of frolicsome experimentation, into the ocean. Trip even suggested the mud once, but after spending that evening on the sand – alone – it remained only once.

Over time, however, T'Pol was able to use his comparatively chaotic mental state as a touchstone for strength. She took the role of logic, and he of emotion and expression. In this very Vulcan-Human thematic role-play, she found solace and strength renewed as she had not known since the days of her self-assured youth, before she met a certain blonde engineer. But no such union would have stood had either invariably held to those two idyllic monoliths. On the contrary, the beauty of the trade hid in its gray-tones; where T'Pol ended and Trip began during the most successful of melds was often indeterminate. Where T'Pol indulged in him, Trip held her steady.

A bonded pair, perhaps more irrevocably than any two Vulcans had ever been or could ever be. She soon found trust that any time she wavered he would not let her deviate too far. She learned to treasure moments of affection, while never letting go of her spirit, nor losing her identity.

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

When she felt strong enough, though Trip objected, she insisted on sharing his burdens as well. T’Pol argued that it was the logical response to his constant assistance, and she yielded herself to him eagerly. Through shared meditation and telepathic contact, she shared his pain, heartache, and homesickness. They had a child, born of their bond as much as of their biology, and she was gone now. None could have suspected the impossible, that an unaided pregnancy would be born of her first Pon Farr - a rare event even for Vulcan couples, not to speak of a Vulcan-Human hybrid. It was no coincidence that thoughts began to surface in Trip’s dreams, new desires fostered in an equally powerful nest of his de facto wife. Motivated by the loss of their daughter and the approaching warm season, they both began to commit to the hope that they might one day create another gentle new life in a more appropriate and safe environment – on Enterprise.

For many months, an unspoken understanding existed between them whereby Trip knew T'Pol secretly dreaded the return journey as much as anticipated it. He felt it during meditation, and saw it through the dreams they shared. The revelation of the bond gave T'Pol a more subtle venue in which to show herself to him, to reveal her Vulcan heart, in both its pride and insecurity.

She was unsure how their relationship could be integrated into the world of their past, and frankly he too was at quite a loss. In the months since their daughter’s death, however, T’Pol’s anxiety to return home, to face her mother and her people with her new mate - was replaced by a stronger motive. The desire to mend old wounds, and look again upon the face of a miracle child born of unspoken bonds won out over fear.

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

Day 501

On the second day of their journey into the leafy inland, T’Pol climbed a hill crowned with several trees. The jungle canopy below the hill had significantly lessened further inland and was almost nonexistent save a few tall trees. The sun they were so unused to was warm on their backs and instilled a sense of nostalgia marred with uneasiness. The warmth was almost enough for T’Pol to picture the Vulcan sky once again...

She reached the top of the hill, looked out amongst the low-lying lands ahead of them and was about to turn to Trip when something caught her eye. She turned quickly to track its movement, but an errant lock of her long hair fell in front of her eyes, obscuring her vision.

“Trip!” she called behind her. He came running quickly up the slope, the gear slung behind him, clanging and chattering as he ran. He found her peering out over the ledge at what appeared to be nothing but an open clearing.

“What? It’s beautiful, but I don’t that’s why you called me up here,” he panted.

“I thought I saw someone across the field,” T’Pol declared. Trip looked on and she continued to comb the view with her eyes until resolved that whatever she saw eluded their sight. T’Pol resisted a frown as Trip tugged at her fingers, insisting they continue on the uncertain journey. She resisted, narrowing her eyes into the distance stubbornly. The sun was creeping towards the horizon and the air was noticeably warmer at the hill’s crest.

“We can camp here for the night,” Trip acceded. “You keep starin’ out there and I’ll just fix supper,” he muttered with a bit of irritation as he dropped the heavy pack and rummaged through its contents.

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


Near dusk, Trip was making his way back to the camp where he and T’Pol would rest for the night. Slung over his shoulder was a badge of pride, bobbing somewhat grotesquely through the air as he marched. Triumphantly goose-stepping towards T’Pol’s shocked and disgusted reaction to what he caught for dinner; Trip's smile could not have been more reminiscent of a teenager holding his very first catch. Impaled on a sharp wooden spear was a dead rodent, not unlike the one he tried to capture the first week on the planet when he became hysterical. T’Pol doubted he was of any clearer a mind if he had any delusions that she would put part of that carcass in her mouth.

He trudged through one final row of bushes to find T’Pol sitting by a low-burning fire under the open sky. The sun, distantly setting more slowly this time of year, lent only a dying glow of orange to the sky as it bid the contented pair below good-night.

T’Pol crinkled her nose.

“Unfortunately, the bond has precluded any such ‘shock’ or ‘disgust’ for which you may have been hoping,” T’Pol informed him coolly.

“Do me a favor and never lose that charm of yours, a’right, darlin’?” He responded with a smile.

She looked up thoughtfully to consider the request.

“I will endeavor to remain as charming as possible,” she replied.

Trip laughed aloud and slapped the animal on the dirt across the fire from T’Pol enthusiastically, drawing an irritated gaze as mud slung up from the point of the spear.

“Sorry,” he confessed shamefully, as she brushed a chunk of mud that landed on her leg.

“So, what you think that was that you saw,” Trip asked automatically, as if it had been on his mind before he returned.

“I am unsure. I can only be certain that what I saw moved on two legs and was very quickly out of sight.”

“Mueller, then?” Trip asked as he strained to pull the animal from the large pointed weapon. T’Pol winced and crinkled her nose as the flesh tore, spraying Tucker’s hands in blood.

“Highly unlikely. As you observed, it is very difficult to distinguish the safe vegetation from that which causes hysteria and delusion. He would very likely not have survived this long.”

“Yeah,” Tucker agreed as he pulled out a sharp hunk of metal and grasped the home-made rubber grip he made from the pod’s materials and began skinning the animal.

"But, are you gonna' tell me it's indigenous and the Vulcan survey team just missed a local population?" Trip asked, shaking his head. T'Pol did not respond but Trip sensed a flinch of defeated logic, if only for an instant. He smiled in triumph before he tore back into the beast.

“I suppose it could be a rescue party,” he added light-heartedly.

“They would have signaled sooner, and would have no need to mask their presence from us,” T’Pol countered.

“But Gary always was a pretty thorough officer. I wouldn’t be surprised if he read that report a’ yours and learned what not to eat,” Tucker mused to himself, carefully preparing his meal. Just then, a sudden crack such as a snapping twig broke the silence and drew panicked glances between Trip and T’Pol. However, before even her Vulcan reflexes could react, he was among them.

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


Continue to Chapter 9

Return to Chapter 7

Back to Fan Fiction Main Menu

Have a comment to make about this story? Do so in the Trip Fan Fiction forum at the HoTBBS!


A whole mess of folks have made comments

Aaarglglgl, you evil person ;). That's one mean cliffhanger ^^. This story gets better and better and I am really looking forward to the next installment. Keep up the very good work.

Such a sad and tender beginning. Then you leave us hanging like that??? How evil. However, I believe you have achieved your objective. I can't wait to see what happens next. thanks.

I'm enjoying the emotional healing. You do a wonderful job with it. That IS one seriously EVIL cliffie, though. I'm waiting.... ; )

NO, no, no ,no, no!! You can't do that, who's he, what's gunna happen? You can not let them die, after all that emotional bonding they went through, and getting to know each other, oh I am so hooked!

Evil! Eeeeeeeeviiiiiiiiiiil!!! *long-suffering sigh* Still, awesome stuff, and I can't wait for more! :)

See, John? I told you that cliffhanger would be a big hit. ;)

Anyway, you already know I love this.

That was a naughty cliffhanger. I'm just loving this story. I enjoy how you paint the TnT dynamic in a trying environment.

Don't make us wait as long for the next chapter!

So it was you Mrs. Samantha Quinn who told him to do the cliffhanger. Well I want to thank you, because it was just great, though I hate that I have to wait. It was still great. Keep them coming.

This was a great chapter! But what's with that cliffhanger!!! Ahh. Well I'm sure it's going to be worth the wait. This story is one of my favorites and keeps me wanting more! Can't wait for more.

Keep up the good work. I have only one criticism. Didn't Trip and T'Poll learn their lesson?: Sex leads to babies. I expected them to be more careful after their tramatic experience. I would like to see that lesson included as a plot line. I am encouraged by hints that the pair may soon be getting off the Island. I'd love to see what would happen if they were reunited with their counterparts.

You'll excuse me if I point out that, in this particular universe, sex DURING PONFARR leads to babies, since that's the only time that T'Pol ovulates. Sex at any other time just leads to lots of sweaty fun. Also, it sounds like they WANT another child. Am I right, John O., or did I misread your reference to Ponfarr in this story?

No, you're right D, I would have mentioned it following tripn's comment if you hadn't beat me to it heh. I think it's decently reasonable "fanon" to say that Vulcans only get pregnant during pon farr... it may or may not have been said anywhere explicitly in actual canon though, I'm not sure b/c it would probably be in TOS and that's my weak point.

And yes, they do want another -- we have particularly seen T'Pol's feelings for this, but that's b/c she feels a bit of shame for how strongly she wants another one, on one hand b/c of the danger of losing another, and on another b/c she knows somewhere deep down that desiring a child must be an emotional indulgence on some level.

OK.

John, sorry for the tone of my comment. You're writing's great and I'm jelous--suffering a little bit of writer's block over here. Again keep up the good work. I wait anxiously for each new chapter.

oh I took no offense, it was just a simple misunderstanding =)

Chappy 9's comin... =)