Mood Swing- Pt 8

Mood Swing

By Sue

E-MAIL: susieqla@yahoo.com
RATING: PG-13
CATEGORY: Friendship/Romance?
SPOILERS: Similitude
ARCHIVE: Yes.
DISCLAIMER: 'Enterprise' is the property of Paramount and its associates. No profit is being made.
SUMMARY: Missing scene...

Notes: This is an on-going string of vignettes, tailored to this pair's developing relationship.

Part 8

Something's left behind...

He swallowed hard once again, only feeling dizzier...

Trip, looking visibly rocked swayed on his feet. The burial pod was about to be sealed, as though it was his fate; the engineer closed his eyes. The strong feeling of malaise, plaguing him ever since Phlox had yanked him out of his coma, gripped him what felt like ten times stronger.

THAT FACE...THAT FACE...*MY* FACE, he thought for the excessive number of times. Clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides, Trip tried to focus the way he had been taught by...T'POL.

He nearly gagged. A recurrent image of her during their last educible session
flashed through his insistent mind. He couldn't help it; her glorious breasts,
glimpsed by unsuspecting eyes that had happened to be positioned at the right place at the right time, had rendered him incapable of relaxing to the degree she required of him.

He had wanted to gather such perfection into his hands to bring his watering mouth to her ample bounty and shamelessly indulge himself whether T'Pol had been conscious of her innocent overexposure or not, the fact was, unwittingly, she had given him the eyeful he never thought he'd recover from. His stream of thought at that critical juncture had been literal, raw and wholly motivated by baser instincts. TAKE ME NOW, DARLIN'. THERE'S A WHOLE NOTHER SIDE OF PRESSURE WE'VE YET TO EXPLORE.

As the crew watched the burial at space draw to a loose-ended close, Trip winced, ashamed to recall. It was small relief that no one would ever find out. Funny, though . . . somehow, as though buried somewhere deep within, there was an awareness of the knowledge that someone knew...

Someone, and he hoped against hope that it wasn't she--the one person who would never accept, let alone understand his unrequited feelings even he was apprehensive to acknowledge.

FORGIVE ME, T'POL, LORD KNOWS I'M ONLY HUMAN...I'D NEVER SCARE YA LIKE THAT. HELL, IF I DID, YOU'D AVOID ME LIKE SOME UNHOLY TERROR IF YOU KNEW WHAT I'VE REALLY BEGUN FEELIN' FOR YA.

HOW EXACTLY DO I FEEL? IS IT LOVE...OR LUST? A PLACE IN-BETWEEN, SOMEWHERE, IN HERE?

Miserable was how he felt at the moment; the pressure in his head made it feel as though it might explode seconds from now. Painfully, he was reminded of the horrific blast that had battered him with all the savagery of Florida's worst hurricane nearly twenty-four years ago, Hurricane Gene. He and Lizzie had been at the movies when the sirens had gone off. Two days later, their parents finally located them in that theater's dank basement among the other terror-stricken survivors. His sister had never let go of his waist through the entire ordeal.

As though winded, Trip winced again; physical discomfort wasn't the only bane. He was among friends, but somehow it didn't feel like it. He felt strange, as though he had been away for a ridiculously long time, had returned and was a stranger among them. That was nearly true for everyone save Hoshi and Travis. They were who they were and no different towards him. Malcolm tried to act as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened, but couldn't always pull it off without facial muscles twitching at some point. Jonathan was indulgent, and that was the problem, lenient to a fault. Trip would have preferred hard looks to pitying ones. What had he driven his best friend to?

T'Pol, as ever, was unreadable, although there was something more than plausible indifference going on behind that glacial mask of hers. There was a subtle difference about her he was at a loss to identify. He'd leave her to her ambiguities.

Though Phlox had tried to explain what had happened while he was in coma, going to the extreme measures of medical practice that the captain had ordered him to take, none of it made the kind of nuts and bolts sense the chief engineer relied on in his hard-edged realm of the analytical relating to his fields of expertise.

As far as Trip could fathom, while he was comatose, the good doc, as near to playing God as it gets, to Trip's way of reckoning, cloned him using one of his kooky creatures. The clone progressed through each rapid cycle of human maturation until it reached relative maturity so its cerebral tissue could be harvested at the critical time in order to save him. It was a difficult concept to wrap his mind around. Maybe that was why he was subject to these frequent headaches...

He thought about the unrelated incident with the cogenitor, vaguely feeling that what had been described to him was a haunting repeat of that tragedy. A hearty clap on the back whacked him out of his upsetting reveries. Archer, saying nothing, wearing only a warm smile, looked into Trip's eyes. After a moment's deliberation, he considerately offered, "You need rest. Get some."

"Aye, Cap'n," Trip acknowledged, sounding despondent. REST...I'VE DONE NOTHING BUT THAT, AND I'VE NEVER FELT MORE TIRED. He felt as though he'd been to hell and the return trip had been close to suicidal. He looked about himself as though he had an audience. T'Pol, moving as unobtrusively as a rose petal upon a placid pond, joining them, was that audience of one. "Thanks, sir. I will."

"T'Pol," Archer said with an arbitrary arch of his eyebrow.

"Captain..."

Once Archer left them, Trip grappled with meeting her gaze which seemed a chore. When he finally did, the Vulcan regarded him with a sedateness he found himself envying her for.

"Commander, join me in my quarters." For once she hadn't made it sound like a formal order. It was as though she was asking permission.

He noticed, but in his distraught state of mind, it hadn't fully registered. "No, Sub-commander. I don't think bein' alone with ya is such a good idea...least not right now." If it had been anyone else, that could not be hurt flickering in her eyes. He was mistaken, and yet, something inside him berated him. The phantom within accused that he had caused her pain. "I, I'm sorry. I'd rather be by myself for the time bein'. I hope you can understand me needin' time alone. I need time to think."

"Perhaps having someone to talk to might be conducive to organizing your thoughts." Someone who would like to assist you anyway she can, T'Pol whispered to herself, no longer such a stranger to his desire for her companionship when he needed a 'listenin' ear,' as he would often say. She saw no reason for this time being any different. And she wanted something from him...his closeness. Why had she kissed Sim in the fervid manner that she had as though her intent was to brand the symbiote? There was no definitive answer at present, but maybe, being reunited with Tucker, the truest reason of all could surface.

"I appreciate the offer, Sub..." Breaking off, he wondered why he was being so formal with her when it was he who usually reminded her to drop the formality. "T'Pol. Sometimes a guy's gotta go it alone." It was then he realized that she hadn't mentioned neuro-pressure; she'd said talk. He wondered about that. "Talk. Just talk...that's all?"

"Yes, I would like that...but only if you are agreeable."

He leaned in closer, and without a hint of conviviality said, "I'll shower and be right along."

T'Pol watched him leave, watched and considered.

#/#/#/#/#/#/#

A moment before her door chime sounded, T'Pol, in the secrecy of her heart, revisited the setting in Sim's quarters where he and she had exchanged emotions. It seemed a lifetime ago...a short one, Sim's. So many things had raced through her insightful mind as the sublime pressure of his lips pressing against hers heightened her senses until she thought she'd coalesce with his giving nature. Trip's giving nature, T'Pol amended.

The symbiote, the fragile embodiment of her ideal, clothed with Tucker's physical attributes, possessing varying aspects of his vivacious personality, for the most part, was the copy. In a matter of moments, the real thing would stand outside her door waiting for her to let him in.

The symbiote loved her. Could that be said of its genetic reservoir, the man to whom she could surrender what had once been crucial to her never to abandon? T'Pol wanted it to be so, but she knew better of all that what she wanted was impossible. Unlike Sim, Commander Tucker had no such passion for her; they were friends, good friends, but nothing more, although nothing less.

The chime chimed. T'Pol ordered her wild notions back to their respective haunts and she straightened, correcting her careless posture. The chime again, and then...

"T'Pol?"

"Yes, Tri--" she caught herself, her gimlet eyes focused on the door she was about to answer. She did not like the use of 'Charles,' but she could not bring herself to call him 'Trip.' "I am here."

"Hello..." He stood stock still for several moments just taking her in. No pajamas for this meeting; the simple, yet elegant robe, a powdery blue, baring her right shoulder, suited her to a tee. "Wow..."

She heard much of Sim in his confession. T'Pol was similarly impressed with Trip's appearance. No synthcotton tee-shirt for him, he wore one of his black turtlenecks, the short sleeved variety, and coal-gray dress slacks. Her eyes spoke to him for her; he looked every inch the gentleman. She liked his cologne too; he smelled of pine with a light essence of sandlewood, dusky...enrichingly masculine. "Please, come in." She sensed his hesitation, and moving back a ways, said again, "Please..."

He followed her in with an obedience he didn't know what to make of; refusing her was not what he wanted to do. He wasn't sure whether that sat all that well with him. Yet when she offered to take the bottle of sparkling cider and the two glasses he'd brought from him, he smiled at her, feeling the smile lock into place. It was all so curious; he did not feel he should stay, yet he didn't want to go.

"Sit," T'Pol invited, handing him the cider. She watched him do so as she sipped what she'd poured for herself. The weight of her stare guided him to the cushion on the floor. "Thank you for bringing this beverage. I have developed quite a taste for it." She happened to glance up at him only to see that the chief engineer was distracting himself with the swirling of the liquid in his glass. "It's better when drunk instead of seeing how much can be spilled," T'Pol said gently, using subtlety like a weather vane, wishing to discern which way his mood was blowing.

"Oh..." Trip responded as though emerging from a trance. "Sorry...didn't mean to make a mess." He set the cider-spattered glass down on the little table where the candle lambently glowed. He got to his feet, feeling somewhat dazed, having determined that leaving was the best thing to do under the circumstances. Talking had sounded doable when she'd suggested it, but now all he wanted to do was to leave her in peace and retreat to the insecurity of his inner turmoil. He was hurting, but when all was said and done, maybe he deserved to. Through no choosing of his own, he'd become the center of controversy, controversy he felt ill-equipped to handle. He had the mission to thank for his still drawing breath. That end was achieved through the demise of another who had been his lab-grown twin...the dweller he could not help but sense within him. Unnerving didn't come close to describing the condition. "We'll talk another time." That was as far as he got. Scratching his head, he looked at her as though he'd forgotten something, on purpose. "Mind if I ask ya somethin'?"

"Whatever you think you must."

With his hand at the back of his neck, he posed, "Everybody really liked him, didn't they?" T'Pol, without a word, led him back. He lended himself to being led; her touch reassured him and his need for release urged him on. "You liked him..."

"Yes, I did," she replied, her candor reassuring him further. "He reminded me of you."

Despite her admission, he turned mysterious. "Then why can't I shake this spooky feeling that when I go to sleep, he takes over and I'm along for the ride?"

"That isn't possible. He no longer exists. You do."

"I'm not so sure." Trip stabbed at her with eyes ablaze. His heavy sigh filled her quarters. "You sure picked the right word. Existin' . . . Frankenstein, meet freak of the week."

She encouraged him to seat himself upon her bed and she sat down close to him.
"Nothing of the kind. The nearly fatally-injured man wholly restored to full health and productivity. You owe a large debt of gratitude to Denobulan medical research, innovative technique and skillful application."

"And that creature used as the guinea pig," Trip said with blatant edginess, morose, deeply troubled. He shook his head; he was in no mood for a debate over ethics. He'd lose. She was the diplomat, he just a guy who led with his heart, a very heavy one in the light of the bits and pieces filtering in of what had gone on while he had slept. "So, how did you two get on?"

"He was gifted," she said in admiration. Suddenly, she felt her heart skip a beat. By the look in his eyes, he needed her to keep talking, but in time her voice would betray her, eagerly in league with her emotions. "We worked well together."

"How well?"

As steady as a rock, she admitted, "As well as we do."

"And he liked you..."

Unconsciously, she took his hand, twining his fingers with hers. "Yes."

"Enough to ask you out for movie night." The starkness of the statement rendered them both silent for quite a while.

"He was a teenaged young man, at the time, clearly infatuated with an unattainable older woman, for such reason I turned him down, on both occasions." T'Pol felt him squeeze her hand, making her heart skip two beats in a row. Swiftly it dawned her that he knew, even if the knowledge was sketchy, incredible as the odds were that he remembered anything at all. To the inevitable was where this was leading.

The underlying shaking of his voice tolled in her ears. "An...and when...and when ya kissed the *man*?" He had no words to continue; he didn't shy away from her intense gaze, but he was aware that his hand was thoroughly moist, nesting in hers.

"It was my way of saying goodbye...or perhaps..." She squeezed his hand back, harder than he had hers. The explosive beats of her heart banged in her chest as well as in her ears. Both of them held their breaths. "...I was saying hello."

From that moment on, it was all slow motion, nearly mimicking the way it had played out in Engineering when things had gone critical in nanoseconds. "Hello," Trip whispered, brushing her lips with his, cementing the tender encounter and lingering long after.

"Hello," T'Pol murmured seeking his lips a second time, a third...a fourth.

After a while, both lost count.

Continue to Part 9

Return to Part 7

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