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"Commander Tucker Proposes" Rating: R for sexual themes and bad language. Author’s Note: Thanks to JustTripn for beta and moral support. This is a bonus epilogue by popular demand. However, you may prefer to read the longer, NC-17 version, which has its own title: Commander Tucker Takes a Honeymoon. It doesn't really stand alone, but it seemed like the easiest solution to splitting off into adults-only territory. Epilogue “So when do I get to meet this so-called wife of yours?” Grandma asked, frowning. “Soon. She’s going to transport right into that spot there,” Trip said, and pointed. Grandma looked at him. “Transport?” “Her atoms are going to be scrambled, then beamed here and rematerialized in that exact spot.” “Rematerialized?” Grandma said skeptically. “Like a hologram?” “No, like a real person. Didn’t you see Hannah go?” “No,” Trip’s mother said. “She was asleep.” “I was not!” “Yes, you were. Right there in your chair. You were snoring.” “I never snore. And I only sleep in my own bed, thank you very much. It was your father who always fell asleep in his chair. I don’t think the man ever saw more than fifteen minutes of any TV show.” “Right,” Trip’s mother muttered. “You never snore. You never drool either.” “Eh?” Grandma said, but Trip’s mother just shook her head and walked off to the kitchen. “Where is she going to sleep?” Grandma demanded. “We only have one guest room.” “With me,” Trip said. “We’re married, remember?” “I thought that was only technically.” “Only technically will do just fine,” Trip said, with a grin. “So you are married.” “Yeah, Grandma. But you need to keep this to yourself, okay? No gossiping about it to your hairdresser or the old ladies at the senior center. We can’t afford to have it get out.” “God damn it, Trip,” Grandma said. “Why’d you have to go and marry a Vulcan if I can’t say anything about it? A lady needs a supply of interesting tidbits for her friends.” Trip grimaced. “Maybe you could just tell them about the Vulcan visitor you had. How she’s my colleague.” Grandma snorted. “Right. Your colleague. Got it.” Trip checked the clock. “She’ll be here any minute now.” He bounced on his toes. He was getting a little nervous. “Colleague with benefits,” Grandma said. “Grandma!” Trip said. “No blabbing. I mean it! And be nice.” “I’m always nice.” Trip’s communicator beeped. “Tucker here.” “Reed here. Are you ready over there?” “Ready as we’ll ever be.” T’Pol materialized. She looked at Trip, then at the old lady who was staring open-mouthed at her. “T’Pol,” Trip said, reaching out a hand, which she took. “I’d like to introduce you to my grandmother, Theodora Ledbetter. Grandma, T’Pol is our first officer and our science officer … and my wife.” “Mrs. Ledbetter,” T’Pol said, inclining her head in greeting. Grandma finally shut her mouth. “Oh, call me Tizzy, child,” she said. “Or Grandma. That’s what Trip calls me.” “It is agreeable to meet you…Tizzy,” T’Pol said, with an uncomfortable glance at Trip. “That’s right,” Trip said reassuringly, and turned his attention to his parents, who had walked in from the kitchen. “You’ve already met Mom and Dad.” “Mr. and Mrs. Tucker,” T’Pol said. “Thank you for having me as your guest.” “Oh no, honey, you’re not a guest,” Trip’s mother said. “You’re family now. I hope you’re hungry!”
Elaine had decided that the safest way to cope with the mysterious Vulcan diet was a Greek salad. So she put platters of romaine at each place and let people help themselves from bowls of dolmades, onions, olives, feta cheese, potato salad, boiled shrimp, sliced eggs, anchovies, and tomatoes. T’Pol avoided the shrimp and anchovies and eggs but tried the rest, though it was clear she was put off by the feta cheese and she also stared down at the stuffed grape leaf in surprise after trying it. Trip watched her try each item, and smiled happily at his mom each time his wife seemed to find an ingredient pleasing. Actually, he smiled even when she seemed to dislike something. Trip could hardly stop smiling. Elaine wasn’t sure what to make of T’Pol. At the memorial service she’d mostly just seen the back of her head. Here, she didn’t appear nervous. She didn’t appear to be anything in particular. She held herself a bit stiffly, but that was what Vulcans did. She was a very attractive woman, of course, if in a green-tinged kind of way that took a little getting used to. But Elaine didn’t think looks alone could have been enough to make her son fall so hard. Perhaps it was the lure of the exotic? “So how did you two get together?” Grandma asked. Elaine grimaced. She should have known her mother would ask out loud what she was only wondering about. T’Pol and Trip exchanged glances. “We served pretty closely together for a long time,” Trip said. “I guess it just kind of happened.” “Well, there had to be something that got you started,” Grandma said. She jutted her chin at T’Pol. “What did you like about him?” T’Pol regarded the old woman calmly for a few moments. “I eventually came to regard him as a very intelligent man and a very capable engineer.” “Very intelligent?” he said, sounding surprised. “Yes.” She turned back to Grandma. “I also saw that he had a generous nature. As well as an attractive musculature.” Trip started coughing. “You all right, Trip?” his dad asked, with a little smile. “I told you those weights would pay off someday.” “What about you?” Grandma demanded of Trip. “What got you started?” “I just loved arguing with her,” Trip said. T’Pol’s eyebrow went up. “Probably didn’t hurt that she was drop-dead gorgeous.” He exchanged smirks with his father. “I like your musculature too,” he added in an aside to T’Pol. She stared at him for a long moment and Elaine could swear she saw them both flush: one pink, one bronze. Then both of them dropped their heads and focused on their food, cutting it efficiently and chewing it with determination. Elaine coughed gently. “Your dad and I are going to be going out tonight,” she said. “So once I get Grandma settled into her room for the night you’ll have the place to yourself.” Trip’s blush intensified. “You don’t have to do that.” “We’ve been trapped in this house for a couple of days thanks to that mob of reporters you brought down on our heads. We need to get out.” “Oh. Yeah, okay. Sorry about that.” “Well, it was hardly your fault,” Elaine said, and smiled at her husband, who gave her a bland look back. Maybe it wasn’t much of a honeymoon as honeymoons went, but Elaine was determined to give them at least a shot at it.
T’Pol dried the last pot and gave it to Trip, who put it away. “That’s everything,” he said. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I’ll show you my musculature if you’ll show me yours.” T’Pol nearly shivered at the spark of desire his warm breath on her ear produced in her. “Your grandmother will not require us?” “No,” he said. “And her room is on the other side of the house. Come on, let me show you the guest room.” She followed him down the hall. The Tuckers’ home was not large and had an efficient layout, all on one floor. The décor was spare by the standards of what she had seen of human design and had a distinctly nautical theme: navigational charts decorated the walls and large shells or sponges and bowls of smaller shells sat on various tables. There were a great many photographs scattered about, just as in Trip’s quarters. “Here we are,” he said, walking into a cramped room that was dominated by a large bed. On a dresser squeezed in against the only free wall, a vase of Earth flowers perfumed the air. “I believe your mother has taken some pains to make this stay comfortable,” T’Pol observed. “She said she was sorry we didn’t get to have a proper honeymoon.” T’Pol cocked her head. “Vulcans don’t have honeymoons.” “Humans do.” His voice had turned husky. “For what purpose?” T’Pol asked. “This,” Trip said, and kissed her until her knees felt weak.
“What are you thinking?” he said awhile later, as they lay side by side on their backs, perspiration cooling on their skin. “I am wondering if other Vulcan women ever experience anything like that,” she said. He got up on one elbow and looked down at her, amused. “Of course they do.” “You have personal experience of this?” she said tartly. “No. But come on. Vulcan men can’t be that clueless. Especially with the old mating bond to help them out. It’s kinda handy, I have to say.” “I doubt the madness of the pon farr would allow for the… strategic approach you just demonstrated.” He lay back down. “You still think other Vulcans only have sex every seven years.” She was silent. “You know,” he said, “I have a hard time believing you’re the only Vulcan in the universe with a healthy sexual appetite. It’s just not scientific. ” “My mother did say it could be pleasant to share intimacy with one’s husband outside of pon farr.” Her brow furrowed. He grinned. T’Pol’s lack of sexual knowledge always charmed him, perhaps because she usually knew so much more about everything else than he did. “It’s weird to think about your parents doing it, isn’t it?” “Actually, it’s more disquieting to think that she could have had that connection with my father and then lost it. I believe I may have failed to fully comprehend the impact his loss must have had on her.” “I know she missed him,” Trip said. T’Pol turned her head and stared at him. “Before your wedding, we talked. I was wearing your father’s robes. She patted the shoulders down so wistfully – I could tell she was thinking about him.” He licked his lips. “She told me I should tell you how I felt.” “She did?” T’Pol looked stunned. “I told her I didn’t want to put you under any more pressure,” he said. He rolled toward her and laid his hand on her bare hip. “Was I wrong? Should I have told you?” “No. It wouldn’t have made any difference. I knew how you felt. I was doing what was expected of me. I would have seen no logical alternative.” “Just like now,” Trip said, with a sigh. “Lucky that logic finally worked in my favor, huh?” He rolled back and looked up at the ceiling. As happy as he was, it still rankled a bit, knowing that if it hadn’t been for Vulcan tradition, T’Pol wouldn’t be here with him now. As if she sensed his darkening mood – which she probably did – she crawled into his arms and laid her head on his chest. “I can’t imagine what my life would be like without you,” she said softly. He caressed her back, touched by her words but a little disbelieving. Of course she could imagine it. She had been doggedly imagining it off and on for the last two years. She raised herself up and stared fiercely down at him. “I love you just as intensely as you love me, Trip, even if I can’t express it as easily. There is nothing more terrible to me than the thought of losing you.” Trip blinked, taken aback. T’Pol’s emotional outbursts were rare but they could be overwhelming in their intensity. Her anguish now felt just as strong as the grief they’d shared for Elizabeth and it struck him as a little strange that she was actually thinking about losing him while they were both lying safely in a bed in his parents’ house in Mississippi. “Well, hopefully it will be quite awhile before we have to worry about that,” he said. “You’ve come close to dying many times already.” She took a deep breath and held on to him tighter. Well, yeah, there was that. He sighed and ran his hand down her bare back. “You’ve come pretty damned close to it yourself. That just makes moments like this more precious.” “Shorter-lived species are prone to such rationalizations.” Rationalizations? Did Vulcans ever allow themselves to take comfort in anything? “I tried to talk to you once – about what I was thinking when I thought I was about to die. Do you remember?” “Yes,” she said softly. “I just kept thinking about you. Even as bad as things were between us then. Wondering if you’d miss me. Wishing I could tell you I still loved you.” She propped herself up again and looked down at him. “I would have missed you for the rest of my life.” She lowered her head to his and then they were kissing, first gently, then hungrily.
“Damn. This just keeps getting better and better,” Trip said, afterwards, as they lay spooned together under the covers. “Indeed,” T’Pol said. “Tell ya what. I’ll try to live forever. You do the same. How’s that sound?” “An appealing strategy, though I fear it may not prove effective,” T’Pol said. She turned around to face him. “How would you feel about attempting to have a child?” He stared back at her, surprised. “I would feel very good about it. You really want to do that?” He could feel the excitement of the idea begin to bounce back and forth between them. “It won’t be easy,” she warned him, and perhaps herself. “I think I’ve proven I can hang in there.” She nodded. “I will talk to Phlox when we return to Enterprise.” He smiled crookedly. “We haven’t talked about what we’d do, where we’d live.” “I believe the phrase you use is: let’s cross that bridge when we get to it?” He laughed. “Who the hell are you and what have you done with my wife?” “I’m still here,” T’Pol said. “I am feeling odd. Rather…” Her nose wrinkled up. “Giddy.” “You’re feeling giddy.” “Yes.” He grinned. “You know, so am I. Maybe we’re overdosing on sex hormones or something.” “Should I be concerned?” He kissed her forehead. “No, darlin’. I’d say it’s long overdue. Let’s just enjoy it while it lasts.” She snuggled into him. “Agreed.” THE END (really!) |
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