Mood Swing- Pt 4

Mood Swing

By Sue

E-MAIL: susieqla@yahoo.com
Part: 4/?
RATING: PG-13
CATEGORY: Friendship/Romance?
SPOILERS: Impulse
ARCHIVE: Yes.
DISCLAIMER: 'Enterprise' is the property of Paramount and its associates. No profit is being made.
SUMMARY: Missing scene...
A.N.: This is an on-going string of vignettes, tailored to this pair's developing relationship.

Part 4

Riding the Cusp

She screamed and screamed, over and over again, but, given the setting of these surreal parameters, it was as though she were entombed in a vacuum. She knew she was braying at the top of her lungs, but she made no sound in this place of impenetrable darkness. The pall and finality of death reigned here. She shivered, then quaked as the last semblance of any sanity reeled.

Savagely, T'Pol fought back, feeling as though many greedily grasping hands mauled her. Finally, after she managed to tear herself free, she awoke with a convulsive start, panting violently. It took her a moment or so to collect herself, long enough to realize a pair of steady, trusting eyes were staring
down at her. The owner of those unsettling, blue eyes was caressing her cheek with two fingers which he pulled back, somewhat startled himself.

"It's all right, you're all right. You're safe here." Trip wanted to hold her close to himself, convince her that whatever it was that had compelled her to cry out like that, trembling, could not harm her within these therapeutic confines of Sickbay, what with all that she'd been through aboard the Seleya. Malcolm had given him a lot to chew on. Something in her eyes, however, prevented him, something primal, supremely Vulcan. It made him unsure, question if he had any right to assume she needed his reassurance. What might have worked with a human woman was no gauge of how she would react. He felt sorely inadequate. Apologetic, he heard himself say, "I wasn't takin' advantage...I'd never do..."

T'Pol closed her eyes to him and the confusion mercilessly attacking her defenses, her very being. Feeling as helpless as she felt was revolting. Sounding compromised to her own ears, but unhesitantly, she said, "Stand near. Your presence is not limiting."

Not exactly a glowing vote of confidence, but he obeyed without thinking twice. "I can't stay too long. Phlox made me promise. Get ya anythin'? Some water?"

T'Pol's somewhat sunken eyes gave him the once over. Trip remained as he was, concerned and ready to comply with whatever she wanted, needed. If she told him to fling himself out the nearest airlock, he probably would, with possibly the proviso that he don an EV suit first. She hadn't finished nodding when he was back at her side with a stubby-looking plastic cup, filled to the brim.

"Easy, now. Yeah, that's right...take your time. Don't gulp it down. Sip it nice an' slow." He guided her hands, which both gripped the cup, away from her mouth. "More?"

T'Pol shook her head, Trip sighed and eased her head back down. The exhausted woman looked at him before offering any acknowledgment. "Thank you." The assisted effort seemed to tire her out even more.

"Anytime. You just rest," Trip replied as though verbal coddling was his favorite, though secret pastime. He set the cup down on the convenient ledge at the left side of her biobed. An awkward pause intervened. Clearing his throat, Tucker said, "Well, uh...guess I'll be goin', then." He took a mincing step or two back, until he felt the brush of the curtain against his hands.

"STAY," T'Pol, as though she had mustered the last of her strength, ordered. The look in her almost doll-like eyes riveted Tucker to the spot, and he
stopped retreating and stiffened as though shocked by electric current of some outrageous voltage. "Please," she entreated, and there was nothing anyone could have said or done that would have chased him off.

"Sure, T'uh...uh, Sub-commander..."

"M-my name is T'-T'Pol." Without another word, she willed him back to her
side.

Trip nodded, a sheepish sleeper of a smile doing its best to claim his face. His feeling a trifle squeamish instantly gave way to more confidence as a bit more animation suffused her subdued expression. "For as long as ya want, then, or at least till Phlox kicks me out, under protest."

"Promise me." Her eyes locked with his as she struggled to order her thoughts to make sense.

"Promise ya what?" Tucker said obligingly, noting how perspired her forehead became as she spoke. He frowned but tried not to overdo it so as not to alarm her.

"The captain will listen to you."

"Well, that depends whether he feels like listenin'. He *is* the cap'n ya know. What he says goes.."

"You must convince him that for the good of the many, the course of logic dictates that he leave me on the nearest hospitable planet. I am endangering your mission as an impediment. I am one person, wholly expendable. Captain Archer must be made to see that--"

Shocked, and his heart had lurched, Trip gaped at her. Jon had told him the truth, and she was still dead serious about leaving all due to a fanatical belief. In time, he got his mouth moving. "You're vital to this crew," Trip responded gently, just as before. "And last time I checked, you're with us come hell or high water. I agree a hundred and one percent with him. He'd never leave you behind, and what's more--I'd never sit still for it if he began droppin' hints, ya hear me? If you're plannin' ta ditch, say hello to your company." Way over the top, he thought, but he'd said it with conviction he'd never go back on, he the Chief Engineer, notwithstanding. With a stubborn air, Trip crossed his arms over his chest as though the matter was settled. In his mind, it was. "Phlox'll have ya as good as new. We'll find another way to use the Trellium-D without it hurtin' ya. We'll exhaust every avenue. You've got my word on it." She had more than that, allowing for the way he'd begun feeling about her more and more lately.

In rare form, T'Pol's emotions, exerting the upper hand, nearly forced her to sneer at Tucker, but at the last excruciating moment, she held back. She marshaled the remainder of her dwindling self-control. Wiser words, far more cogent, overriding, reasoned with her and won out. "The anomalies are presenting more frequently and with greater intensity. What if you and your tasking teams are unable to produce a workable resolution within an appreciable time? The entire contingency of Enterprise put at risk because of misplaced priority," she ended clinically. Yet, in spite of her tenacity, she cautiously admired him for his stubbornness betraying his loyalty despite its being misplaced.

Trip, rankling, struggled to keep his voice down for fear Phlox would overhear and come running. "I'm not debatin' this with ya in your present condition, T'Pol. We'll find a way without havin' ta sacrifice you. Not gonna happen, got that?"

Even in her depleted, unstable state, she knew it was futile trying to reason with the Chief Engineer along delicate strands of Vulcan principles and philosophy when he was like this, compulsively irrational. It was like trying to thread a needle with baling wire. "Yes, Commander," T'Pol circumvented, her intonation uncharacteristically submissive. Something Hoshi Sato once told her concerning the hardwired instincts of human men tweaked within her befuddled mind. Testing the premise Hoshi summed up in one definitive word...'Men,' was tempting. Vulcan men, human ones, when it came right down to it, what was the true difference? They were most content when things were seen their way.

"Good," Trip pronounced with unflinching finality. Maybe not the best time to get picky in her sensitive condition, but what the hell, he thought. It bugged him. Why keep silent? He wasn't in the mood. She had just made a point of telling him what her name was with the understanding that he use it. They had grown closer regardless of their glaring differences. "And, it's *Trip*. Just once I wish you'd call me that. It's not like it's a four-letter word or somethin'." Frustration was stamped on his face. "Just once?"

Inwardly, T'Pol balked to an infinitesimal degree. But before the second-in-command opened his mouth to repent for his making such a mountain out of a molehill at a time like this, she gave in, curious for learning what his reaction would be. Nevertheless, she would never use that trite nickname. She did not subscribe to the so-called 'catchiness' of human convention. "Yes, Charles."

Amazed, Trip said with glowing acceptance, "Close enough." Noticing there was room for him if he scooted down far enough, he sat on the edge of the narrow biobed, his back facing the curtains. T'Pol's slight frame barely filled the rehabilitative space. "If I'm crowdin' ya, I'll keep standin'. Wish I could do more than just hang around."

Tiredly, as though her breaths weighed metric tons in a compromised atmosphere, she requested, "Neuropressure..."

"Now?" he asked, already hearing himself tell her she wasn't in any shape to endure the intensity of pressure he normally brought to bear upon her when she was healthy. Putting her through what she routinely required of him was out of the question as far as he was concerned. "Wouldn't it be better to wait until you're feelin' better? Like a week or so from now? Maybe two to play it safe?"

T'Pol raised the hand closest to Trip and told him to hold it within his hands. He relaxed at the familiarity of her touch. She talked him through what she termed, the sui'tonau'ai, applying varying degrees of pressure to strategic sites of the hand and wrist. When he finished with the first hand, he went on to the other. By the time he was nearly done with the second hand, he saw a remarkably visible difference in her well-being, overall. She did not look nearly as haggard, and when she opened her eyes, they lacked the detachment they had taken on ever since she'd been brought back aboard Enterprise.

"You rest now," he advised, and watched her close her eyes. Yawning, Trip thought it amusing that being the 'resident insomniac' worked to his advantage in this situation. With his hands still joined with hers, he smiled, content to spend the night, their first night together, inseparable until Phlox came in to check on her and state in no uncertain terms that he leave. Until that time, here he would stay to watch over her, keep a vigil, or to sum it up...care.

-=-=-=-=-

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