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"Want Of A Nail"
Rating: G Part 3 He opened the door and walked in to find the scene essentially unchanged. T’Pol and Trip stood close together in front of the incubator watching the doctors work over their baby. As he watched, T’Pol reached out and took Trip’s arm. He suddenly shuddered and and turned to her, seizing her in a fervent embrace. T’Pol made no objection to this blatant display of public affection. In fact, she put her arms around him and returned the hug firmly, holding him and rubbing his back gently as Trip fought to hold back his grief and fear. “It will be all right, ashayam.” T’Pol whispered gently, “They will heal her. This is routine for them. They knew what was wrong with her as soon as they saw her, remember? They saw what was wrong and they knew just what to do. She will be fine.” She continued to murmur reassurance and rub his back until his breathing steadied. Trip finally seemed to realize where they were and what he was doing. he pulled away looking flushed. “Sorry.” She seized his face between her hands. “Stop. Do not ever tell me that, ashayam.” T’Pol looked into his eyes. “Do not ever be sorry for loving our child. Do not ever be sorry for caring. Do not ever be sorry for grieving over her pain. And do not ever dare to be sorry for being who and what you are, Trip. My beloved.” She kissed him quickly. He stared at her in total shock. “What did you say?” “What I should have said a year ago but lacked the courage,” she told him. “But now I finally understand what I have and what I risk losing. I will speak the truth that I was afraid to say before. I love you Trip.” He gaped at her. The room started spinning in black circles and his legs folded under him. T’Pol caught him and eased him to a sitting position on the floor. This was the final hit. Facing Paxton, finding Elizabeth and then learning she was sick, encountering Daniels and the other T’Pol (where was she anyway?), and now this. One hammer blow right after another had finally been just too much. He felt himself drifting and clenched his fists. He wasn’t going to black out. He was NOT going to black out. Not an option. A hiss caught his attention and he felt a hypo against his neck. The Vulcan man straightened up and offered a smile (a smile?!). “That should help. There’s a bench against the wall over there. Maybe you two should sit down. Elizabeth is starting to stabilize but it will be several hours before she is out of the woods. You can’t stand here all night.” “Yes,” T’Pol agreed. She essentially picked Trip up by the shoulders and carried him to the bench. His feet only grazed the floor occasionally along the way. T’Pol placed him gently on the bench and manipulated the built-in foot rest to shift Trip into a reclining position. “I’m all right,” Trip protested and tried to sit up. T’Pol firmly put her hand on his chest and held him down. “Ashayam,” she told him softly, “in the last 24 hours you have been kidnapped, beaten and kicked, put to forced labor, fought for your life and for our freedom, and now you have been put through a nerve wracking ordeal. Rest while you can. I will be sitting here right beside you, I promise.” He slumped back in surrender. “All right, if you really will sit down too.” She rewarded him with a tiny quirk of her lips and settled next to him, taking his hand and sliding close. Trip sighed wearily and asked her, “What happened to the other T’Pol? Where did she go?” Just as the woman beside opened her mouth to answer, she stiffened. T’Pol’s fingers tightened convulsively on his hand and her eyes widened. For a fraction of a second Trip felt... something... very strange through their bond. Almost as if there were two people sitting next to him instead of one. T’Pol’s eyes fixed on his face. Trip looked into their depths and saw surprise, understanding, grief, despair, resignation, wistfulness and deep love. Then the moment passed and T’Pol shivered her way back to normal. “She-” T’Pol swallowed and looked away for a breath. She turned back to Trip and lifted her chin steadily. “She has gone to rest,” she told him with a note of finality. He nodded feeling somewhat mystified. Trip decided to roll the dice and put his arm around her shoulders, figuring that if she ripped it off he still had another one for backup. Or he would have another one once the sling came off. Besides there were two doctors in the room anyway. She not only let him get away with it, she actually snuggled a little bit closer. Trip was nonplussed to say the very least. “What the...” he wondered incredulously. Since his return from Columbia they had been cautiously exploring a clandestine romance of sorts. But it was strictly clandestine. T’Pol had been adamant about that. Even in private she made sure Trip understood and respected her boundaries with respect to casual touching. And the word love had never crossed either of their lips, although Trip had thought of it more than once. “Is this change in behavior because of Elizabeth?” Trip wondered. “Maybe it is. Vulcans are almost obsessed with family and that’s the truth for sure. Maybe now that we have a kid together she figures everything has changed. Heck, maybe she is right. Honest to Cochrane, I haven’t even had time to think all this through. But we are gonna have to figure out some way to take care of her. No way either of us can do it alone. Not with her mixed blood. I wouldn’t know where to start helping her with her Vulcan heritage, and T’Pol would bust a blood vessel trying to deal with a human style temper tantrum.” The thought brought out a brief chuckle. T’Pol gave him a curious look. Trip tried to explain, “I was just thinking about the future. Imagining some of the challenges we are going to run into.” He stopped with a thoughtful look. “The future. I guess I’m starting to believe that we’re gonna have one now.” “You are.” The blonde woman came walking over wearing a Vulcan lack of expression. “The difficulty that Elizabeth is having was once common during the early years of inter-species mating. The syndrome is well documented and the treatment is routine. She is responding well to the medications that we have administered and her vital signs are stabilizing near normal levels.” Resting be damned, Trip leaped from the bench and sprang for the incubator with T’Pol a half step behind him. For the first time since they found her Elizabeth seemed to be comfortable. Her plump little cheeks had more color than before. Trip thought they were starting to look like tiny green apples. Her breathing was steady and silent. “Thank you God,” he whispered. “Thank you.” “We will need to monitor her condition for the next several hours to make sure that no further complications arise,” The woman told them. “But by this time tomorrow,” the Vulcan man said, walking over to join the group, “you should be able to take her home.” “Is there any chance of a recurrence?” T’Pol asked tightly. She watched Daniels walked over and look down at the sleeping baby with a thoughtful expression, shaking his head. “None,” the Vulcan man told them both cheerfully with a broad grin that shocked Trip’s bowels into quivering. “We fixed the problem permanently.” “What was wrong with her?” Trip asked him. “In terms that an ignorant savage can understand.” The man thought for a moment. “Are you familiar with the concept of dominant and recessive genes?” “Sure,” Trip said. “I’m a savage, not an ape.” The Vulcan snorted in amusement and shot Trip a glance that glittered with humor. “Touché. OK then. When you mate, two people from the same species you can get away with matching genes from both parents being dominant because evolution has prepared those genes for getting along with each other. But you can’t get away with that when you mate two people from different species. When two dominant genes from different species ram into each other, they both try to fight it out for dominance and neither of them are willing to give a millimeter. Each set of genes regards the other as an invader and attacks.” “So what did you do?” Trip wanted to know. “The solution is to pick one set of genes and let them be the dominant set, and tell the other set of genes to settle down and allow themselves to become recessive,” the Vulcan man replied. “When dealing with Human/Vulcan mating the standard approach is to make the Vulcan genes dominant and the Human genes recessive. Why? Because it works better that way. It just does and we aren’t really sure why it does. Even in the thirty-first century the practice of medicine is as much an art as it is a science. All we know is that for some reason a first generation Vulcan/Human hybrid does better and lives healthier when they are selected to have Vulcan dominant genes. So that is the way we do it.” “Whatever. Good with me,” Trip declared. “As long as she is healthy I don’t give a rat’s ass.” “Perhaps that is why it works better,” the woman said dryly. “A Vulcan father would not have accepted such a statement without at least a trace of uneasiness. Humans generally exhibit a more flexible attitude toward such matters. Perhaps that flexibility goes all the way down to the molecular level.” The Vulcan threw back his head and laughed out loud, which was finally too much for Trip. “Say who are you people anyway? I mean, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you are doing for our daughter. I owe you a debt that I can’t ever repay, and if you ever need anything from me all you have to do is say the word. But who are you?” The Vulcan stopped laughing and looked at Trip with respectful affection. “You don’t owe us anything... grandfather.” ten minutes later Trip let his breath whoosh out. “Wow.” He sat back and thought hard. “This time travel shit is making my head spin.” “Tell me about it,” George said ruefully. “I am not a Temporal Agent either. This wasn’t what I trained for. I just got conscripted into this.” “As if a pack of wild sehlats could have held you back once you found out what we needed you for,” Daniels gibed. “It has indeed been a rare opportunity that I for one would not have missed,” T’Prell offered. “Speaking of opportunity,” George interjected, “now that we have an opportunity how about letting us look at that arm of yours, Grandfather?” “Oh.” Trip glanced down at the sling. “That’s all right. Phlox has already fixed me up. But thanks anyway.” “With all due respect to Dr. Phlox,” T’Prell told him briskly, “I doubt that he has access to our equipment. Please allow us to examine your arm, Forefather.” The inexorable stubbornness in her voice reminded him that this human looking woman was actually descended from the Vulcan lady sitting beside him. Trip decided not to make an issue of it. T’Pol turned sideway and put a reassuring hand on Trip’s leg. He looked happily confused and she smiled at him with her eyes. “It is so simple ashayam,” she considered. “It takes so little to put that look on your face.” A touch, a look, and her presence. That was all he asked of her to remind him she cared. For this she had spent so much time in fear? T”Pol watched the medical pair ease the sling off their grandfather’s arm and unwrapped the dressings. Trip obediently stretched it out along the bench’s armrest, then George steadied Trip’s arm while T’Prell went to work. First she scanned the injury with some type of instrument. Then she walked over to the work bench and came back with a tool that strongly resembled an engineering grappler. The jaws of the tool opened widely enough engulf the damaged area. T’Prell pressed a control. The tool closed snugly to grip Trip’s arm and he winced. “Pain?” she asked him. He gave a quick nod. T’Prell adjusted a sliding switch and manipulated the control pad. Several lights flashed and Trip’s expression eased. “Better now?” Trip sighed. “I feel like a wimp. Your ancestor, my great-great-grandpappy Tucker, once dug a bullet out of his leg with nothing but a Barlow pocketknife and some rotgut whiskey to flush the wound. Then he tied a strip from his pants leg around the hole to keep the bleeding to a minimum and hobbled back into the fight. And here I am moaning about a little twinge.” T’Prell and George exchanged looks with T’Pol. “I believe it,” T’Pol told them in resignation. “I have seen humans, especially human males, do things equally as foolish more than once.” “I still have the knife,” Trip added. “Dad gave it to me just before we shipped out to remind me of who I was and where I came from.” T’Prell’s eyebrows drew together. “Klingons have a saying that keeping a human away from a good fight is like trying to keep a starving targ away from a fresh blood pie.” “Klingons regard humans as unusually devoted to fighting?” T’Pol murmured in a carefully restrained voice. George chuckled. “Klingons, as I am sure you know, regard themselves as the supreme warriors of the galaxy. There are only a few races that they consider good enough to be worthy enemies. Humans are one of them. Nowadays we are allies most of the time. Unless somebody gets into an argument over some minor squabble for awhile.” “It’s not like we go looking for trouble,” Daniels broke in. “In all fairness we get along well with most races.” “This is true,” T’Prell offered. “Humans do manage to maintain good relations with most races. Most members of the Federation honestly like humans, even if they are universally acknowledged as crazy.” Her expression never wavered as she spoke, and her gaze never left the controls of her instrument. “Crazy T’Prell? I know you are three quarters Vulcan but still...” Daniels protested. “Have you ever heard the ancient saying about pots and kettles? Besides what do you mean by crazy?” Trip wasn’t even trying to fight back his grin. T’Pol watched and listened with interest. She looked over at George and he winked at her. T’Prell answered Daniels, “I was speaking colloquially, but I meant that humans generally exhibit an extraordinary lack of common sense. A human will run into a burning building just to take a temperature reading. And the surest possible way to get a human to explore a new area is to swear solemnly to them that it is certain death to go in there. After that, you could chain them to a boulder and not keep them out.” Trip suddenly developed a coughing fit and tried to look away from the expression on T’Pol’s face. It was a night that Trip never forgot. His body was still exhausted almost to the point of collapse but euphoria kept him going in a kind of fatigue high. The grandkids, both of whom were older than T’Pol, took turns monitoring Elizabeth periodically. The rest of the time everyone spent just talking. T’Prell and George were fascinated by their ancestors and wanted to hear stories about the--to them--ancient days. Trip and T’Pol tried to oblige and answered every question as best they could. Daniels helped out as technical consultant and cultural interpreter whenever a concept proved to be too strange for them to grasp. Every few moments Trip walked over to look down in disbelief at his daughter. With each breath that passed through her tiny lungs she became more real to him. Something very old and very primitive and powerful beyond belief was coming awake inside Trip. A part of his mind that he had never suspected to exist was activating itself and taking over. Trip and T’Pol asked questions about their grandchildren, who themselves got clearance from Daniels to answer the personal details that wouldn’t reveal anything disruptive. They learned that George was married with five children and seven grandchildren of his own. They learned that T’Prell was married and planning with her husband to have their first child within two years. Trip stirred when T’Pol touched his shoulder. “Trip. Wake up.” He jerked and sat up. “What is it? What’s wrong?” She put a finger across his lips. “Nothing is wrong. Relax. Elizabeth is well now. It is time for us to return.” She watched awareness flash into his eyes. Her ashayam stood up and gave one yawn. Then he shook off his fatigue like a dog shakes off water. (Idly she noted that the bond was having a serious effect on her mental imagery.) Trip walked over to Elizabeth’s bed and waited for her. The baby was kicking and rocking back and forth. She twisted her head back and forth, alternately watching one person after another. When Trip came over she turned to look at him with deep interest. Suddenly she reached up at him and started squealing. Trip’s face lit up like a sun and he started to pick her up, then stopped and looked at the doctors for permission. T’Prell nodded and Elizabeth found herself hugged up against her father’s chest. She gurgled happily and drooled all over his shirt while he made strange noises at her. “Daddy’s got you now honey,” Trip whispered to her from his heart. “The bad people won’t hurt you now. Nobody will ever hurt you while I’ve got you.” He bent his head and kissed her. T’Prell and George offered the traditional salute. “Peace and long life to you both Foremother, Forefather.” “Live long and prosper, George and T’Prell,” T’Pol returned with shining eyes. “You have brought honor to our line.” Both of them straightened proudly at these words. Trip looked up and started to speak. Then he muttered, “To hell with it.” He walked over and handed Elizabeth to her mother and then told George, “Come here son.” He wrapped his grandson in a bear hug and squeezed. George returned the embrace emphatically. T’Prell looked on with trepidation but submitted to a hug without objections. Trip took it easier on her but added a quick kiss on her forehead. He stepped back to T’Pol’s side and told them. “I am so proud of you both that I could bust.” Daniels was waiting by the door. Just as they stepped through George called out cheerfully, “Watch out for ducks grandfather!” The door closed before Trip had time to reply, but he could almost have sworn that he heard a slap. Daniels stood in the corridor struggling manfully to control his expression. “Ducks?” Trip wanted to know. “No idea,” Daniels said hurriedly and headed off down the corridor, forcing them to take long steps to catch up. T’Pol suggested, “Perhaps he meant those ludicrous house slippers. I am astonished that you haven’t tripped over those things long ago.” “Hey,” Trip protested, “they are warm and comfy.” “That may be the case,” T’Pol sniffed disdainfully, “But I doubt that having a huge plastic bird’s head mounted on the toe of each foot adds anything to their functionality.” Daniels cleared his throat. “We are here. Before you go back there is one more thing I need to tell you.” He sounded serious enough to grab their attention. “What is it?” Trip demanded. Daniels sighed. “You know that someone aboard Enterprise stole your DNA samples for Terra Prime don’t you?” They nodded. “It was Massaro in engineering.” “No.” Trip’s face turned crimson, then pale, then splotched. His breathing turned fast and ragged. The muscles in his scalp tightened and pulled back on the sides of his face. The blood vessels at his temple and throat began to stand out and pulse. His rage was cold and dark and feral. It poured through the bond in an endless surging river of blood lust. T’Pol’s eyes widened in surprise that was just short of shock. She hugged Elizabeth close with one arm and reached over to grab Trip’s hand. “Ashayam,” she said urgently. “Trip. Listen to me Trip. Hear me! Trip!” Trip’s nostrils flared wide and his pupils contracted to nothing. His eyes were blue chips of merciless ice. T’Pol started looking scared. “Killing him will not help you Commander,” Daniels pointed out soberly. “You need the information in his head.” He waited. Minutes passed while nobody moved. Finally Trip closed his eyes and shuddered. When he opened them again they were the eyes of a man once more. “I understand.” His voice was still a snarl. “I will stay away from him.” Daniels said, “In that case please step forward.” A breath later they were back in sickbay. T’Pol glanced at the chronometer. They had been gone precisely four seconds. Trip spun into motion and jumped for the door controls. He keyed in the security overrides and locked the doors. Then he entered in an engineering override and bypassed the security lock. A sheet of hull metal slid down from the ceiling to seal the doors completely. “Now,” he said in satisfaction, “nobody comes through those without a cutting torch. Since sickbay is designed to be the most heavily protected part of the ship, it will have to be a heavy torch. The standard electro-arc cutters won’t do the job. Even a phase pistol would take an hour to get through.” The noise of the door seal slamming into place brought Phlox out of his office at a run. “Commander Tucker! What do you think you are doing? And Commander T’Pol! Really I must protest. Please believe me. I understand your distress. I am a parent also you know. But she will be better off if you leave her in-” “Scan her doctor,” T’Pol interrupted him rudely. “Don’t ask any questions right now. Just scan her. Closely.” She nailed him with a glare that stopped him in his tracks. Phlox shot another glance over at Trip, who was busy reconnecting something at the door panel, then he picked up a portable diagnostic tool. While Dr. Phlox ran the scanner over Elizabeth, Trip keyed the intercom. “Tucker to Captain Archer. Emergency. Secure channel.” A few seconds later the captain’s voice came through. “Archer here. What’s wrong Trip? What’s your situation?” Trip looked at T’Pol, who was watching Phlox stare blankly at his scanner and shake his head. He told the intercom, “We just had a visit from Daniels captain. Can you confirm that this channel is secure? I mean absolutely secure? Secure enough that not even Malcolm or I could crack it.” A pause, then, “Hoshi confirms it. I am in my ready room with the door locked and she tells me that nobody on the ship except her could possibly break the encryption. Are you worried about Hoshi? She is on the bridge being watched.” “Nah, Hoshi is safe.” Trip let out his breath in relief. T’Pol approached with the baby and Phlox followed with a befuddled expression. “Daniels told us that my guy Massaro is the Terra Prime mole. I sealed sickbay and figured we could stay here with Elizabeth until you scoop him up.” “This is Commander T’Pol,” she broke in. “Trip and I have just spent a night on Daniels’ ship. Elizabeth has been cured. Dr. Phlox will confirm this.” A pause. “Phlox?” The Denobulan scratched his brow ridges in puzzled frustration. “She’s absolutely correct Captain, and I haven’t the faintest idea how. But my initial readings indicate that the child’s fever is gone, her vital signs are stable and she seems completely healthy.” “Why? What was his purpose in this?” Archer asked. “She wasn’t supposed to die Cap’n,” Trip said roughly. “I dunno the details. Maybe he told T’Pol. They were out in the hall together for a while. All I know is that Elizabeth wasn’t supposed to die so he came back to fix her.” “T’Pol? Do you know any more about this?” Archer wanted to know. T’Pol considered the advisability of releasing some of the additional information that she had been given during the meld. “I can confirm that Ensign Massaro is indeed the Terra Prime operative aboard Enterprise. I can also tell you this. Before we left his ship Daniels informed us that we needed to know the identity of the mole. This is important captain. Because he had previously told me that his mission had two specific objectives. If he believes that we need to know about Ensign Massaro it can only mean that it will be needed in order to accomplish both of his objectives.” “And what were those objectives?” Archer demanded brusquely T’Pol looked over at Trip and tightened her shields to keep him from picking up any trace of her prevarication. She was going to have to confess this deception later, and wasn’t looking forward to it. But it would be worth it to keep her family away from the potential danger of the upcoming confrontation. “The first objective,” T’Pol informed them quietly, “was to save Elizabeth. This has been accomplished.” She looked at her bond mate. “The second objective according to Daniels... was to prevent Trip’s death.” “You mean Massaro is going to kill Trip.” Archer said in a lethal monotone. “I cannot tell you more than I have,” T’Pol responded. Trip’s jaw muscles tightened. “If I had known that I would have gone after him instead of sealing us up in here,” he growled. “Which is precisely the reason that I did not tell you,” T’Pol snapped. “I am not about to lose you now. I finally have everything I have ever wanted. You think I am going to risk losing it for the likes of him?” “Commander T’Pol, keep that wild man in sickbay. Sit on him if you have to. You have my authorization to use whatever force is necessary to accomplish this. We will take care of things out here. Archer out.” The Captain stabbed a button on his desk. “Lieutenant Reed, report to my ready room on the double.” He stood to unlock his door and barely made it in time before Malcolm stepped in. Three minutes of rapid explanation later, and a highly pissed off Malcolm Reed was headed for the armory to gather a security detail. Nine minutes from the time Archer hit the button on his desk Lieutenant Reed and his men marched into engineering. Massaro was working at a console on the far side of the warp core. Malcolm did not bother with formalities. “Massaro!” The ensign looked up and turned pale. “Yessir?” Malcolm’s stun beam caught him in the chest and dropped him like a tree. When the security officers went to gather their comatose prisoner the rest of the engineering team gathered around to demand an explanation. Once they got an explanation, Malcolm needed the team and all their training to keep Massaro from being shredded then and there. Only his loudly repeated assurances that the captain wanted Massaro alive for questioning, and that he would personally make sure that the interrogation was as miserable as possible allowed them to get their prize back to the brig alive. It took more than two hours to unseal sickbay, even with Trip working from the inside and an entire engineering team working from the outside. But they finally got out. By which time both Trip and T’Pol were at the point of collapse from total exhaustion. Elizabeth however was just hitting her stride and getting ready to play. The two new parents sat side by side on a diagnostic bed huddled over their baby. Elizabeth couldn’t make up her mind which fascinated her more, T’Pol’s nose or Trip’s lower lip. So she decided to remove both for further study. “Right now I would let her keep it if it would buy me a couple hours of solid sleep,” Trip yawned weakly. “She would merely try to put it in her ear,” T’Pol pointed out. “That is what she did with the chewing toy Phlox gave her, and the fuzzy animal Ensign Sato brought down, and her foot. “I still don’t see how she does that without dislocating her hip,” Trip said admiringly. “Babies are notoriously limber,” T’Pol told him. “There they are, Captain,” Phlox’s voice distracted them. The doctor stood next to Archer beside the curtains that gave the bed a modicum of privacy. Both men were smiling broadly. “I think Phlox is right you two,” Archer told them. “Take him up on that baby sitting offer and get some sleep.” “We’re not leaving her,” Trip said stubbornly. “Not gonna happen.” Phlox looked upward in defeat. “In that case will you at least rest on a bed here in sickbay? Take turns napping if nothing else. Neither of you can keep going much longer in your current condition. You won’t be any good to Elizabeth, yourselves, the ship or each other like this.” “He has a point,” Trip trembled to another gargantuan yawn. T’Pol nodded. “But first there is one final piece of business to take care of.” She stood up shakily. “Would you mind holding Elizabeth for a moment Doctor?” “Certainly not,” Phlox said heartily. “I would be delighted.” His broad smile and brow ridges were just what the doctor ordered as far as Elizabeth was concerned. She instantly started an in-depth investigation of Denobulan gross anatomy. T’Pol turned to Trip. “I love you Trip.” He sat and looked at her. He was too numb with fatigue to show any reaction, but his internal alarms were blowing their stacks. It was amazing enough that she would say it in front of strangers or Daniels. But here? In front of the captain and the doctor? So much for the non-fraternization policy. T’Pol let a tiny smile show. “I am not concerned about the non-fraternization policy Trip. I cannot raise Elizabeth on a starship. You know that. I will have to resign my commission and make a home for her. I am her mother. This is my task.” “Not necessarily,” Captain Archer broke in. “Starfleet has ground based positions--teaching positions at the academy, for example. They would certainly be overjoyed to have you there.” “Wherever I ultimately go, I do not want to go alone Trip,” T’Pol said softly. “I know that it is traditional among your people for the male to be the one to ask this. But I need you. You are my ashayam, my bonded mate and the father of my child. I want to marry you by the laws and customs of your people Trip. Will you agree to this? Will you at least consider it?” Trip looked at her for a long moment. “You going anywhere in the next few minutes, Cap’n?” Archer wrinkled his brow. “You mean right now? No preparation? No music or ceremony?” Trip never looked away from T’Pol. “Right here and right now. I have waited too long for this. I wanna do it now before she comes to her senses.” Malcolm got dragged out of bed and called to sickbay under the initial impression that there was another emergency. When he found out what was going on his jaw almost hit the floor. “You can’t be serious!” “Look, Malcolm, are you gonna be my best man or not?” Trip was in no mood to put up with naysayers. Malcolm nodded dumbly. “Good. In that case go to my quarters. In my desk drawer, second drawer down on the left side there is a small leather box. Get it and bring it here, please.” Malcolm returned with the box and Trip showed T’Pol the twin platinum bands inside. “I made ‘em. Wasn’t sure I would ever get the chance to use ‘em.” Her fingers shook as she picked up the ring intended for her. It looked like a perfect fit. “I snuck the glove from your pressure suit and took some measurements. Then one time when you were helping me in engineering I was scanning a joint to size a fitting properly while you held it. So I just went ahead and scanned your finger too. I hope it works.” “... do you T’Pol, daughter of T’Les, take this man...” “... do you Charles Tucker III, take this woman...” “Then by the authority vested in me as a starship captain, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” They spent their wedding night huddled together in each other’s arms on a bed in sickbay that was intended for only one person, dead to the universe. Meanwhile their daughter had a wonderful time watching Phlox’s animals eat their live food and practicing her skills at kicking and squealing. |
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