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"Reflecting to You"
By MissAnnThropic
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: None of its mine. I’m just a sad little fangirl that spends her days writing fanfic and watching taped episodes of my favorite shows. :(
Description: A different ending to In a Mirror Darkly, Part I, results in the Mirror Universe T'Pol ending up on our universe's Enterprise when the relationship between Trip and T'Pol is at a breaking point. (later becomes a cross-over with ST:TOS, Spoilers: The Tholian Web)
Chapter 2
Trip Tucker lay on his back on his bunk aboard Enterprise, staring vacantly up at the darkened ceiling of his quarters and ruminating on how the whole of his life seemed to have been reduced to a series of numbers.
Forty. Forty days since he discovered he had a daughter. Not one of a natural birth, not a child he had seen come into the world or had held wet and squalling in his arms after the intake of her first breath, she hadn't been a child conceived in bed while tangled in naked ecstasy with his lover, but she was nevertheless his daughter.
Thirty-nine-and-a-half days for Trip to completely fall in love with the idea of having a daughter with T'Pol, even to believe that they might wrest from anarchy a fantasy handed to him on a silver platter. Trip had been taken with the notion so easily. He'd dreamed up a lifetime over a cup of coffee after Phlox told them the news. He imagined a life a thousand light years from Enterprise and Xindi weapons and alien diplomats where he and T'Pol raised their daughter in safety and happiness, however illogical that dream might have been.
Thirty-seven days since Trip set eyes upon his daughter for the first time. He stood with T'Pol watching their baby sleep and had been overwhelmed by feelings Trip never knew he had the capacity to experience in such crippling magnitude. He understood this was his child, the daughter he and T'Pol created however the means, and he felt a fierce wave of devotion rise in him. He knew he would do anything to protect her.
Thirty-five days since Phlox crushed every dream Trip had built with the diagnosis that nothing could save his little girl. His daughter was dying and there was nothing he could do to stop it. For all the measures he was willing to take and the lengths he was willing to go to in order to keep her safe, he was helpless to undo the careless negligence of the men who had created her. He was an engineer, but he couldn't correct a fault in her basic engineering. To know that he would trade his life for hers, but that such conviction and willingness amounted to nothing, Trip was relegated to watching his daughter's life dwindle with every passing minute, racing to an end only hours away when it should have been several decades, maybe centuries with her Vulcan ancestry.
Thirty-five days since Trip sat in sickbay holding his ailing child and silently weeping for the loss that hurtled so near and fast, racing at warp five to his daughter's final hour.
Thirty-five days since Trip had vowed to do everything humanly possible to cram a lifetime's worth of love for his daughter into the precious hours given him.
Thirty-four days since Elizabeth T'Les Tucker died.
Trip closed his eyes at the sorrow that gripped him at the mere thought. He breathed in raggedly and relived the moment their little Elizabeth gave up breathing, when her heart gave up beating… they hadn't even been able to touch her to comfort her. By then her lungs had stopped processing oxygen properly; she'd had to be placed in a medical incubator where Phlox could flood the sealed area with oxygen-rich, anesthetic-laced air. It only delayed the inevitable, and Trip may have forgone those priceless few minutes if only he could have held Elizabeth at the very end, but by then her muscles and bones were breaking down, too, and handling her would only have caused her excruciating pain.
Thirty-two days since little Elizabeth was buried on Vulcan. Trip had not even considered burying her on Earth. The ringleaders of Terra Prime were only recently killed or captured and their cells were still very much a danger. The idea that his daughter's remains could be unearthed by xenophobes who bought into Paxton's delusions had sickened and enraged Trip beyond words. He wouldn't chance his baby's grave being disturbed by terrorists. And the Vulcans… outside of T'Pol, Trip had always been wary of Vulcans in general. T'Pol (and Trip's trust and faith in her) was the exception, not the rule. But when they took Elizabeth's tiny body to T'Pol's homeworld for interment, Trip found himself feeling affection for the entirety of the Vulcan race and culture that he never would have imagined himself capable of feeling. IDIC, infinite diversity in infinite combinations, the Vulcans' treasured edict, rose above all of Trip's old grudges against Vulcans. Elizabeth was a half-breed, not entirely Vulcan, but not once was that held against her. No one on Vulcan gave Trip or T'Pol any grief for their daughter's heritage as she was laid to rest in T'Pol's ancient family tomb, alongside T'Pol's mother and other members of her mother's family who had died long, long ago.
Ten days away from his duties aboard Enterprise while he took bereavement leave, which he spent on Vulcan but not in T'Pol's company. T'Pol had sojourned to a sacred place after the funeral, someplace called Mount Seleya, for the duration of their stay. Trip had asked to go with her, but T'Pol had refused to take him. He knew, intellectually, that humans and Vulcans grieved differently, but emotionally all he understood from her leaving him behind was rejection and abandonment. He could have returned to Earth, could have gone to be with his parents and shipmates, but oddly enough he found that, right then, he wanted to be around Vulcans. The unquestioning acceptance with which they had received Elizabeth's body touched Trip, and he dreaded to think he might go back to his own people and chance meeting a Terra Prime sympathizer. On Vulcan he might not have compassion from those around him, but nor would he be around anyone who was disgusted or repulsed by his late daughter's very existence. Trip spent ten lonely days, mostly sitting outside a café that served tea palatable to human tastes, watching undisturbed while Vulcans went about their daily business. There, no one pried or asked 'what's wrong' when an illogical human got tears in his eyes every time a Vulcan child walked by the café.
Twenty-two days since Trip returned to Enterprise from bereavement leave and resumed his duties as chief engineer as the Enterprise left the Sol system at high warp to resume its original mission of exploration and discovery.
Twenty-two days since Trip had to figure out how to pick up the mangled mess of his life and carry on like everything was fine, like it had been before the Terra Prime debacle. Before he was a father who would never hear his daughter call him 'Daddy'.
Trip glanced over at the glowing chronometer near his bunk. Three-and-a-half hours before he had to report for duty.
Languidly, Trip rolled up out of bed and shuffled to his small bathroom. He turned on the light and regarded himself in the mirror. All too soon, he had to look away. The problem with Elizabeth having his eyes was that he saw her every time he looked at himself.
***************
Trip entered the mess hall two-and-a-half hours before the alpha shift was to begin their workday, so it was understandably barren… save for T'Pol sitting alone at a table near the windows. By now, it was practically expected, a strange facsimile of normal that permeated every waking moment of Trip's life as of late.
Trip collected a plate and cup of coffee and crossed the room to join her, passing several empty tables on his way.
Without a word, Trip set his tray down and took the seat directly across from T'Pol. She didn't say anything in greeting and Trip didn't try to make small talk. Anyone who glanced in their direction might mistake each for not even realizing the other was there.
Trip poked at his scrambled eggs with his fork and glanced up at T'Pol. She was sitting with her hands flat on the table on either side of her tray as she stared absently at her breakfast. She had only a single piece of toast before her, which she'd cut into precise and neat squares. Her toast looked like a grid pattern, and Trip wondered how long ago she'd cut it into such exact pieces before neglecting to eat a single bite. She had a sense to her unwavering stillness that made it seem she'd been sitting there for a long time.
Trip watched her silently. They'd fallen into a strange pattern since they lost Elizabeth. They couldn't seem to bring themselves to talk about her, or anything, with each other, and yet… yet they seemed to invariably seek one another out. Trip felt painfully alone when he was with her, and yet he was drawn to be near her whenever they ended up in the same room together. He felt like a hapless asteroid that had fallen into the grip of T'Pol's event horizon and he was pulled inexorably toward her, unable to turn away even when crushing oblivion awaited. He wasn't the only one caught in the phenomenon. T'Pol would barely look at him, but when they were in anything resembling proximity to one another she stood so close to him, unaccountably close in Vulcan terms, and she went to his table in the mess hall if he didn't come to hers. They couldn't come together and they couldn't pull apart. It was confusing and nonsensical but Trip didn't have the strength to pick it apart and understand it. He was too weary to worry. He just accepted it because it was the path of least resistance. He wasn't fit to put up a fight anymore.
T'Pol quietly picked up her fork and proceeded to eat her toast. Trip picked at his breakfast in disinterest. A wretched, uncomfortable silence engulfed them, but Trip couldn't even consider getting up and leaving. He couldn't come up with a single right thing to say to her and yet he just couldn't get up and walk away. Sometimes, it felt a hell of a lot like the stilted, vacant nothing he had with T'Pol was all that was holding him together.
After ten minutes, T'Pol finished her meal and stood. Without a word in parting, she took her tray and left the table. Trip couldn't help glancing over his shoulder and watching her leave, feeling the pull of her as she went and part of his battered soul wanting to go along after her. In the end, he just sat alone and watched her disappear into the corridor.
Trip sighed and let his chin fall toward his chest. Some days he felt a welcome numbness everywhere, and others it felt like he was an antimatter explosion waiting to happen. Today, mostly he just felt so very, very tired.
"Good morning, Commander."
Trip lifted his head to see Phlox with a tray in hand standing before the table Trip had so recently shared with T'Pol. The typically cheerful Denobulan was only partly smiling at Trip, but at least it was an effort.
"Hey, Doc," Trip replied flatly.
"Mind if I join you?"
Trip gestured at one of the three empty chairs. "Be my guest."
Phlox sat down to Trip's left and set about eating his breakfast. After a protracted silence between the two men, Phlox cleared his throat. "I had hoped that you'd stop into sickbay to see me after…" the doctor trailed uncomfortably.
'After burying Elizabeth,' Trip mentally finished. Trip felt his chest twinge with sorrow and set down his fork, abandoning all pretense of having an appetite. "Nothing personal, but sickbay was just about the last place I wanted to be." It was where Elizabeth died.
Phlox, thankfully, seemed to understand. "No apology necessary. I just wanted to know how you were holding up."
Trip raked a tired hand over his face and through his hair. He didn't even know where to start and had all but resolved not to even try, but then he stopped short and glanced purposefully at the doctor. "Actually, since you ask… I was wondering..."
"Yes?" Phlox asked and leaned forward slightly, eager to help in any way he could.
"Could you give me anything to keep me from dreaming?"
Phlox regarded Trip with a gentle, empathetic gaze. He was diagnosing his patient that very moment, balancing between ship's medic and the de-facto ship's counselor, clearly trying to decide which was in greater demand. Trip implored the doctor with exhausted, plaintive eyes.
Phlox offered a faint smile. "Well, let's head down to sickbay and see what I can do."
Trip smiled thinly and readily abandoned his remaining breakfast to leave with the doctor.
Back to Chapter 1
Continue to Chapter 3
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