Choices

Choices

By Lady Conqueror

Email: Lady_Conqueror@hotmail.com.au
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimers: I don’t own Enterprise or any of it’s characters, although if they want to give me Trip, I’ll take him). Not making any profit from this.
Feedback: That’d be nice
Summary: T’Pol has a choice to make regarding Trip

*********************

“......then she walked into her quarters,” Commander Tucker paused, trying to hold back a chuckle, “and it was filled with carrots!!!” His voice strained on the last word and he finally let go and began laughing.

Captain Archer chuckled along with him. “How did Travis convince Chef to give him the carrots? I’m the Captain and I can’t make him do anything.”

“That’s what you’re wonderin’ about? I wanna know how Travis is gonna survive the next few days. From what I heard, Hoshi was pissed.”

“Maybe I should arrange for Malcolm to post a security detail on him,” Archer suggested in mock seriousness.

“I don’t know if a security detail would be enough.”

“Your probably right. Hoshi can be pretty determined, but then so can Malcolm” The Captain turned his attention to T’Pol who had so far managed to avoid most of the evenings conversation. “What do you think T’Pol?"

“Is there a point to this conversation.”

“It’s a joke T’Pol. You don’t find it funny?” Trip asked.

“I fail to see what’s amusing about Mr. Mayweather misappropriating vegetable products in an attempt to anger Ensign Sato.”

“Well when you put like that...” Trip tried for a dramatic eye roll but at the last second he let out another burst of giggles. “Nope, still funny.”

T’Pol just raised her own eyebrow at him. “Then it must have gone over my head,” she deadpanned.

Captain Archer tried to cover another laugh with his hand. “That’s the spirit, T’Pol. I knew you’d start getting the hang of this humour thing one day.” But when she merely raised another eyebrow at him, his chuckle turned into a cough. “Well since we can’t seem to come to an agreement, I guess Travis will just have to fend for himself.”

The Commander shared an evil grin with the Captain, before glancing down at his empty plate. He sighed, somewhat over dramatically in T’Pol’s opinion. “Well as fun as this has been, there are a couple of things in Engineering I wanna take care of.” He rose, dropping his napkin onto the table.

“Nothing serious I hope?” Archer queried, his humour replaced with concern.

“Nah,” the Commander assured. “One of the relays is acting up. I was just gonna replace it and figure out what’s wrong with it in the mornin’. ‘Night.”

“’Night.” Archer replied.

“Goodnight,” T’Pol offered.

Once Commander Tucker had left the room, the Captain turned towards her. “So…is everything all right with you?”

“I’m fine,” T’Pol responded flatly.

“Are you sure about that? You’ve been pretty quiet tonight. Even more so than usual.”

“I’m a little preoccupied with a small matter,” T’Pol admitted reluctantly. “It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.” The Captain looked as if he was about to say something more but when he spoke it was only to say, “I suppose I should go and give Porthos his dinner. Do you mind?” He gestured towards the doorway.

“Not at all.” But as she watched the Captain rise from the table, her thought processes were working overtime. She’d spent many hours contemplating the situation with no solution presenting itself. Perhaps talking about it would help her sort out her position on the matter.

“Captain.” He paused halfway out of his seat and looked at her questioningly, “May I speak with you about this matter?”

The Captain slowly lowered himself back into his chair. “Sure.”

“It’s personal.”

“I got that part.” He raised a hand to placate her stare, “I’ll do what I can.”

“I overheard some of the Junior officers talking about Mr. Tucker at lunch today.”

“Trip?” Archer frowned. “What did they say?” He picked up his still half full wine glass and took a drink.

“They believe he may be attracted to me.” T’Pol leaned back in her seat as her statement caused the Captain to spit out his drink all over the table. He grabbed a napkin and hurriedly started wiping down the mess.

“Sorry,” he apologised.

“That’s all right.”

“Attracted to you!” He cleared his throat. “Wait a minute! Why would they be talking about that in front of you?”

“They were on the other side of the room. I don’t believe they took my superior Vulcan hearing into account.”

“Oh. Okay. So, what do you think about that? Trip being attracted to you, I mean.” The Captain sounded quite flustered about the whole thing to T’Pol’s mind. Perhaps talking to him about this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Still, now that she’d started she had no choice but to answer the Captain’s question.

“I’m uncertain. I’m not familiar with human mating signals.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Archer chided. “Let's assume those crewmen are right for a moment. How do you feel about that?”

“Vulcans don’t feel anything.”

“The hell you don’t,” Captain Archer exploded angrily. T’Pol saw no need to get so emotional about this. The situation was troublesome enough as it was. Thankfully the Captain also seemed to realise his outburst was unreasonable. He took a calming breath before continuing. “Look, I can’t help you if you’re not going to be honest about this.”

T’Pol considered that statement carefully. She found the words of the Junior officers confusing. Perhaps it would help if she defined the current relationship between herself and the Commander for the Captain.

“My relationship with Commander Tucker is...” T’Pol searched her mind for the word to best describe it, “...erratic.” Archer nodded to indicate she should go on. “We can be antagonistic towards each other at times, but work efficiently together at others.”

“Uh huh.”

“Lately it seems we tend to lean more towards the latter.”

“So you’ve been getting along?”

T’Pol nodded agreement at Captain Archer’s question.

“You’ve become friends.”

Again T’Pol could only agree with this assessment.

“So the big question becomes, do you think you could be more than friends?” The Captain’s words got to the crux of the problem. She took a mouthful of her own drink to give herself time to formulate an answer. As she’d once told Doctor Phlox, in her experience, humans lacked the emotional maturity for an inter species relationship, and Commander Tucker seemed more emotional than most. However, in certain situations he had shown other sides to his personality.

“I don’t know,” she finally admitted.

“Why do you suppose this is bothering you so much. I mean it’s just the opinion of a couple of crewmen.”

“I suppose I hadn’t considered the possibility that the Commander could see me that way.”

“He could see you that way? Not the other way around.”

“What are you implying Captain?”

“You tell me,” he replied.

The Captain’s line of questioning was beginning to unsettle her. She didn’t consciously recall ever thinking of the Commander in that way before today, but her own reaction to the news that the Commander may find her attractive was puzzling in this regard. She had been quite taken with the idea, although she couldn’t fathom why. There would be many obstacles in the way of a relationship between the two and whether it was worth the turmoil that would no doubt ensue, was the biggest question of all. When she voiced those thought to the Captain, he acknowledged her points with a nod,

“Sounds like you have a decision to make.”

“Indeed?”

“I’m not sure I can really help you with this decision, T’Pol. You're not a member of Starfleet, so the fraternisation rules don’t apply. All I can tell you is that you’ll just have to consider all your options carefully.”

“I plan to,” T’Pol assured him.

“Be sure that you do. A word of advice though, while you're considering, don’t just take into account your side of the issue. Trip...” Captain Archers face briefly showed signs of a struggle, as if he wasn’t sure whether to divulge the rest of the information. “Trip tends to take relationships pretty seriously.”

T’Pol quickly dismissed Captain Archer’s claims on this note. She had already considered these facts. It had been Commander Tucker himself who had told her that he’d only been in three serious relationships in his life. However his actions since coming aboard Enterprise had seem to disagree with those sentiments. There seemed to be only one element that separated the two positions. One that she herself couldn’t ignore, and perhaps the biggest barrier to any relationship between herself and the engineer.

“Perhaps with human relationships. When it comes to alien species he seems to enjoy indulging his curiosity with little thought to the consequences.”

The Captain frowned, “I’m not following you.”

“Since we’ve been aboard Enterprise, Commander Tucker has had numerous dalliances with alien females.”

“I think your jumping to conclusions. Perhaps you should talk to Trip about these...dalliances, before you go judging him for them. You might be surprised by what you hear.”

T’Pol inclined her head in acquiescence of Archer’s advice. Talking to the Commander may yet be the best solution to resolve her dilemma.

“Thank you Captain.”

“Any time.” The Captain once again rose from the table and began heading for the doorway. As he reached it, he paused and turned back to face her,

“One more bit of advice before I go. Whatever you decide, be careful. Because if you hurt Trip, I’m gonna have to throw you out an airlock.”

“I assure you Captain, I have no intention of causing the Commander pain.”

“Glad to hear it.” Archer smiled briefly and was gone. T’Pol took a moment to order her thoughts before also taking her leave of the room.

********************************

Some days, Trip thought, it just didn’t pay to get up in the morning. He’d been woken up early by his engineering staff because parts of the ship were experiencing severe power fluctuations and they couldn’t seem to find the problem. Spending the next few hours meticulously running a diagnostic on every circuit on the ship, all the while fielding calls from irate senior officers, including the Captain, had put Trip on edge. Finally tracking the problem down to a junction on D deck, it didn’t surprise him to find the only way to reach the circuit was to put himself in the most uncomfortable position possible. So there he was, half crouching in the corridor with his upper body squashed inside an access panel and half twisted around to reach the offending circuit; he could barely move his arms and already had one elbow jammed painfully into a position he doubted was even possible before this moment. The small plasma torch he was using to fix the circuit was heating up the small space to uncomfortable levels and causing sweat to drip down his face but he didn’t have the room to wipe his brow. All in all, the signs were not pointing to a very good day.

He was about three quarters of the way through the work when he felt a presence out in the corridor. Being that there was no way in hell he was getting out of this position only to jam himself back in at a later date, he decided that whoever it was would just have to wait until he was finished. Still, the silence from the corridor while he worked at least gave him a likely indication about who was out there waiting for him. There was only one person on board who had that sort of patience. So when he’d finally finished and was busy trying to squeeze himself out of the opening he greeted the visitor.

“T’Pol. What can I do for ya?”

“Commander Tucker,” T’Pol greeted back. Trip was kind of disappointed that she didn’t seem fazed that he’d figured out it was her. As he bent down to pick up a scanner he had left on the corridor floor outside the hatch, one of his back muscles twinged in pain. I’m gonna feel that in a couple of hours. Stretching as he returned to his full height he glanced at T’Pol to show he was listening.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Just a little cramping from being in the same position so long. It’ll go away soon.” He fervently hoped his dismissal of T’Pol’s concerns were true, but knowing how this day was turning out so far… “What'd ya wanna see me about?”

“I was wondering if you were free for lunch? There is a matter I wish to discuss with you.”

“Sure thing.” His stomach growled at the thought of lunch. With all the fuss over the fluctuations he hadn’t had time to grab any breakfast this morning. “It’s a date.” He turned his attentions to the scanner in his hands. Thankfully the scanner seemed to be showing that the problem was solved.

“A date?” T’Pol’s questioning tone brought Trip’s attention away from the readings on the scanner. He cast his mind quickly over what he’d been saying. A date, his mind echoed. Damn. She probably took it the wrong way. He stood up to face her properly,

“Uh, I mean...not a date date. Just a lunch date,” he finished lamely. Way to sound like a moron Trip, his mind snarked.

“You don’t wish to date me?”

T’Pol’s question startled Trip and before he knew it he blurted out, “Of course not.” He winced, realising immediately that was bound to be taken the wrong way too. No doubt she was about to storm off angrily.

“Why not?” Instead of anger the question came out quite passively. Still, it wasn’t a question Trip had been expecting.

“What?”

“Why do you not wish to date me?” T’Pol reiterated her question.

Trip had no idea what to say to that, his brain was barely functioning as it was by this line of questioning from the normally sensible Vulcan. “I...I....”

“I believe I fit within the defined parameters of beauty in your culture. Is that not the case?”

“Why are you askin’ me this?” Trip finally managed to get out the question he wanted to ask.

“I’m merely attempting to understand this facet of your culture.”

“Oh.” That made sense, he supposed, kinda. Still with the morning he’d been having he wished she’d have picked someone else to have this conversation with. “Well in that case, it’s not really as simple as defined parameters. Different people find different things attractive.”

“I see,” T’Pol answered. Trip hoped that was the end of the matter. He should’ve known better.

“Do you find me attractive?”

Trip let out a huge groan, “I knew I shouldn’t have gotten up this mornin’.”

“That didn’t answer my question Commander.”

Of course it didn’t. “Yes. You're pretty, okay?”

“Pretty?” Trip wasn’t sure if T’Pol meant that as a statement or a question but his patience finally snapped.

“Yes, pretty. Beautiful. Sexy. Whatever. I’m going now, I gotta lot of work to do.” And with that he stormed off down the corridor.

A few hours later and he was regretting his outburst. She just had to pick a time when he wasn’t exactly at his best, and now he was left feeling guilty. She’d only been trying to figure out a...what did she say?...a facet of human culture. Now he was going to have to apologise. He laid down his tools and headed for the mess hall to meet T’Pol for lunch.

******************************

At the same time, T’Pol was also considering the conversation she had had with Commander Tucker that morning. She had just been planning on arranging the lunch meeting so she could follow up on Captain Archer’s advice. However, when he’d mentioned the word date she had decided it was a logical risk to follow up on the matter and try and appraise the Commander’s feelings on the matter. Unfortunately it hadn’t shed any light on the subject. The Commander had first stated that he didn’t wish to date her, but when she pressed the matter he had become flustered and finally angry. He had also expressed that he did indeed find her attractive but whether that meant he would wish to take the next step she couldn’t ascertain.

Commander Tucker entered the mess hall at that moment and T’Pol watched him as he searched the crowd. When his eyes finally met hers across the room, his face coloured in embarrassment. He quickly grabbed some food from the cabinets and made his way over to her. Placing his plate on the table, he stood beside the chair opposite her.

“Look T’Pol…I’m sorry about earlier. You caught me at a bad time and your questions kinda surprised me. I just...I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologize,” T’Pol assured him. The Commander smiled in relief and took his seat.

“So, ah, you said you wanted to discuss something with me.”

“Yes. I wished to ask you about your past relationships with the various female aliens we’ve encountered.”

“My what!?!” The Commander’s surprised exclamation caused the whole mess hall to descend into silence. Dozens of faces turned in their direction to see what had caused the outburst. T’Pol had no intentions of sharing this conversation with the rest of the crew so she lowered her voice,

“Your relationships with-”

But before she could repeat her statements properly the Commander cut her off angrily, making no attempts to lower his own voice. “I heard you the first time. Why the hell do you wanna know about that?”

“The Captain suggested that I ask you about these exploits. He believes there is more to these relationships than I had considered.”

“The Cap’n?” The Commander seemed stunned but at least his voice had returned to a more even level. His mouth opened a couple of times as if he was about to speak but nothing emerged. T’Pol was beginning to wonder if she should elaborate further, when the Commander finally spoke in a bewildered tone.

“What’d ya mean, more to these relationships than you’d considered? And why were you talking to the Captain about my relationships anyway?”

T’Pol decided to ignore the second question. She wasn’t ready to admit yet that she was considering a relationship with the Commander, certainly not to him.

“I mean I wished to find out more about the nature of those relationships. Ah’Lenn for example.”

“Ah’Lenn. I knew it! You’re just never gonna let that go, are ya? It was a box of pebbles!!! How was I supposed to know that was their version of...well, you know?”

“But you must have done something to give Ah’Lenn the impression that you would be interested,” T’Pol persisted.

“Well, we flirted a little, but that’s all. And then she said she wanted to play this game. I honestly had no idea there was anything more to it than that.”

“You flirted?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” the Commander defended. “She was nice. I liked her. A lot.”

“I see.”

“What? I’m not allowed to like anyone now?”

“And Lianna? Did you like her as well? Were the Risans to your liking? Or Pr...”

“Risa! Whoa, hold up a minute there. First off, I thought you wanted us all to ‘ease our tensions’ on Risa. So we could be more efficient. And secondly, unless you count being stripped to my underwear and spending the night tied up with Malcolm in the basement as ‘getting some’ then nothin’ happened on Risa.”

“I see. And the others. Lianna? Princess Kaitaama?”

“They were... No! You know what. I don’t have to sit here and listen to you judge me about relationships you know nothing about.” And with that the Commander pushed himself out of his seat and began heading for exit. Before he was more than a few meters away however, he stopped in his tracks, whirled around and stalked angrily back to the table. “You wanna know something? If I’d have had more time, I coulda fallen in love with any one of those women. Any one.”

T’Pol blinked. Any one. The way the Commander had said that last line; so much sadness poured into two words and quite disparate from his earlier angry stance. He could have loved any one of those women. That thought seemed to cause much turmoil in her heart. She would need much meditation before she could sort out those feelings. Although one surfaced above the others as she tried vainly to suppress her whirling thoughts. If he could love those women, he could love you too. That thought sent a flood of realisation into T’Pol. She had been judging him without knowing any of the details, but perhaps there had been a reason. She had been jealous. Back when she had confided in the Commander about her engagement problems, over a year ago now, he had made a comment that humans let their subconscious rule their decisions all the time. She now admitted to herself that that must be true of Vulcans as well, or at least one Vulcan, despite her protestations against it at the time.

She rose to her feet and left the mess hall and a roomful of curious crew members. When she made it out into the corridor however, Commander Tucker had already disappeared from sight. She would have to track him down.

****************************************

Thump!! Trip's fist slammed into the punching bag in a most satisfying manner. As soon as he’d left the mess hall he’d felt the overwhelming need to punch something. Hard. He didn’t even waste time going to his quarters and changing into workout gear before heading straight for the gym. Just unzipped his uniform tied the arms in a knot around his waist, before stripping off the black under shirt. Left just in his blue tank top he began to hit the bag. Damn Vulcan! Thump!! Who gave her the right to start judging me? Thump!! And the Cap’n encouraging her! Thump!!

The sound of the gym doors opening barely registered in his brain but the sound of T’Pol’s voice, renewed his anger even more.

“Commander.”

“Leave me alone, T’Pol.”

“No.”

No! Just who the hell did she think she was? Before he could ask her that very question though, she spoke again.

“I wish to apologise.”

“No.” Two could play at that game, Trip thought pettily.

“I didn’t mean to make you angry with my questions.”

“I’m not angry.”

T’Pol raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief but now that he’d said it, he realised it was true. Or partly true, anyway. It was the memories that those questions brought up that was causing the pain. It brought up the loneliness inside him to think of what could’ve been. It was that pain, rather than anger that he was throwing onto the punching bag. He caught the bag in both hands and raised his head to look T’Pol in the eyes. “I’m not angry,” he repeated.

T’Pol tilted her head to consider his statement. “Perhaps we should start over.”

“Yeah. That sounds like a good idea.”

“I promise not to ask any more questions about your past relationships.”

“No. You can ask, it’s just that I’m not entirely sure what you wanna hear T’Pol. Lianna was sweet, nice, smart, pretty, curious and she liked me too.” Trip sighed at the memories. “But you know, we only kissed once and that was it. That one kiss, it’s all I have to remember her by.” He couldn’t help but chuckle a little, “at least she got ice-cream.”

“You don’t have to go on.”

“I think I do. I want you to understand, T’Pol. Kaitaama, she was nice too...” He smiled at the memory of their adventure. “In her own annoying kind of way. I guess you probably figured out we did a little more than just kissing. I’m not sure how to explain that. We were stuck on that planet, with barely any provisions. We didn’t know where we were or if anybody would find us. And I guess we just succumbed to temptation. But that’s not entirely the truth either. It would be easy to say that’s all it was, just hormones, but it wasn’t. I think...I think we connected because we were lonely, you know?”

“Lonely?”

“Yeah. She wasn’t allowed to even date anyone once she was chosen to become High Monarch and me, well, it’s not like I had anybody special.”

“You have your friends.”

“True. And that’s great, but it’s not the same, you know?”

“I suppose I do,” T’Pol conceded.

“Good.” Trip cleared his throat nervously. “That pretty much covers everything.” He felt kind of funny having laid out his soul like that. Not that he didn’t trust T’Pol. He did, but he wasn’t sure how she’d react all the same.

“Perhaps there is someone aboard Enterprise who could assuage your loneliness.” That wasn’t exactly what he was expecting to hear.

“Like who?”

“Me.” Trip was sure his eye’s must have been bugging out of his skull.

“You?”

“Yes.”

Trips mind was awash with thoughts. Could he really get involved with T’Pol? She was a great person; pretty, smart, curious. It was funny but now that he thought about it, she had a lot in common with Lianna, in a way. Still there were other factors to consider. Not that his mind could think of them right now, but he was sure there were. Well, they could take it slow and see how it went. He looked at T’Pol who appeared to be calmly awaiting his response,

“I’d like that,” he let a smile escape his lips.

“I must admit, I’m not familiar with human mating practices. I’m unsure of the next step,” T’Pol responded, her voice not even betraying whether she was happy he agreed or not. That could be a problem later on. The thought intruded on his mind but he pushed it to the side. He could learn to deal with that, he was sure. He already tended to have a handle on when she was feeling upset, it was surely only a matter of time before he started picking up her other moods.

“Well, generally you go on a date first. To get to know each other.”

“We already know each other.” T’Pol stated.

Trip couldn’t help but laugh. At T’Pol’s raised eyebrow, he pulled himself together.

“I’m sorry. We know each other, but it’s a way to get to know each other better. And if we do things this way, we won’t be rushing into anything without thinking it through first.”

“I see. Would you like to go on a date, Commander?”

“I’d love to T’Pol.”

“Good. What should we do on this date.”

“There’s a movie this Tuesday?” Trip suggested.

T’Pol appeared confused for a second.

“I thought talking during a movie was frowned upon?”

“Yeah.”

“How will we get to know each other better if we can’t speak to each other on the date?”

Trip let out another laugh and quickly stepped over to T’Pol. Grabbing her gently by the arm he started steering her towards the gym doors.

“Did anyone ever tell you, you think too much?” he asked as they stepped through. T’Pol’s answer was lost behind the closing gym door and after a few minutes the internal sensors recorded no presence in the gym and the lights went out plunging the room into darkness.

end

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Seven people have made comments

oh man, first of all, there had better be a sequel to this one!! also, i couldn't stop laughing through several parts of this!! it was great!!

I loved this. It opened up like a comedy of errors and then settled into this sweet little confection. What a box of delights! Here's hoping there's another layer at least in there. This feels addictive and you wrote it so beautifully. Thanks for a great story, Ali D :~)

YES!! first while enjoy on going stories nothing beats an nice complete story!

Second since I am a nag... a sequel please?! Why ask you always give us more stories... one will be here soon!

Funny, touching, and fitting. I liked this from beginning to end.

Nicely told. Thanks for writing and sharing.

I really enjoyed your story it was nice to see Archer giving advice to T'Pol about dating trip and the confusion both was feeling.Nice story all around .Ps. Please sometime will you add more to your other story about the missing vulcan ship I'd like to see how your story finds the missing ship please.

Simply wonderful. I thought you wrote the characters very true to their nature.

great story!! i liked the way you characterized Trip and T'Pol

PLESE, PLEASE, PLEASE more chapters or a sequel it was great and we have to know how the first date went.