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"The Forgotten Time"
Rating: PG-13 Chapter 5
He had placed his cold damp fingers on her temple and jaw. She stiffened as if an electric current had arced through her face. “It's all right.” Tolaris’ voice was calm, hypnotic. “Close your eyes. Try to focus on my voice.” T’Pol felt apprehension stuttering in the back of her skull, but she was overcome with the powerful mental snare he was weaving. His fingers were like an iron vice on her face. The insinuous voice washed over her again, coaxing: “My mind to your mind. Your thoughts…to my thoughts….” Her mind was tugged sharply. Tolaris’ voice gained power. “Our minds are merging…” T’Pol felt a panic rising in her body. She was drowning…. “Our minds are becoming…one…. It's not working.” Tolaris released her almost violently, his voice frustrated, emotional. “You're resisting. Relax.” Against her better judgment, T’Pol allowed him to begin again. T’Pol shuddered at the memory and momentarily felt unclean. She then buried it as best she could and focused simply on the steps she needed to remember. Albeit temporarily, the telepathic link with Trip had given her enough breathing space that she could again curtail most of her stronger emotions. Once she had it, she opened her eyes and lifted her chin to see Trip quietly watching her. Trying to ignore the quickening of her pulse, T’Pol looked away and quietly told him she was ready. Then she got slowly to her feet and stretched. She glanced down at Trip who still sat on the floor. “It would probably be best if we ate something before beginning.” Trip rolled his eyes and stood up. “Y’think so? I mean you’ve already had two whole bottles of water… sure you’re not still full?” T’Pol finally started on the vegetable stew Trip had offered her yesterday. “There is no need for sarcasm,” she said between bites, “Vulcans are capable of going without food or water for several days.” Trip shook his head, smiling, watched her finish the stew hungrily, and said nothing. They sat for a few minutes in the forward seats and simply gazed out at the stars sliding silently past. T’Pol was slightly overcome with their beauty. She had a memory… at least sixty years old… of sitting on a hot dark desert hilltop with her father, and watching the kahs'khiori, the meteor shower that lit up the Vulcan sky only once every seventy-three years. It would be returning again soon, she mused. Perhaps she could take her own child to see it. T’Pol startled at the strange unbidden thought and pushed an image of a little girl with glacier-blue eyes and sandy hair out of her mind. She wasn’t even mated yet. Avoiding Trip’s eye, she made her way to the back of the cabin again. Entering the rear compartment, she closed the door behind her. After a few minutes, she returned, wearing pyjamas and carrying two blankets folded square to make two thick floor pads. After placing them next to one another, T’Pol gracefully lowered herself onto one and, closing her eyes, began a simple meditative breathing exercise. Trip watched for a moment from his seat, and then steeling himself mentally, joined her. T’Pol opened her eyes as Trip pulled off his boots and got settled in a cross-legged position. He looked somewhat apprehensive but determined. T’Pol steadied her voice. “I believe we should begin with some neuropressure. The meld may be easier for me to establish if we are already linked telepathically. Please remove your shirt and turn around.” In deference to her agitated state, Trip simply bit his tongue and did what she said. Though they often bared a lot of skin during their practice sessions, he reflected that the gossip-mongers among their crewmates would probably be very disappointed if they knew how dispassionate their famed neuropressure sessions usually were. Usually. Shirt off now and facing away from T’Pol, Trip waited almost flinchingly for her first touch and the silent cacophony that would come with it. Normally he anticipated her warm hands, but tonight he was still jumpy from the remembered intensity of their linked state. He felt the barest tickle on his shoulder as she began to apply pressure as slowly as she could. A thread of whispered thought visited his mind… he tried to catch it, to focus on it, but she spirited it away before he could see it very clearly. A little girl with vivid blue eyes. Idly, he wondered who she was, but he forgot about her as the tickle on thought and skin increased. T’Pol began the session in earnest, manipulating the set of points along the shoulders and spine that they worked on the last time he visited her in her quarters. Trip relaxed and felt tension he didn’t know he was holding drain away in a rush. The sound of her feelings and uppermost thoughts was a muted roar in the back of his mind compared to what it had been the first time he had felt it. The break she had had earlier as well as the anticipated assistance from the meld were temporarily giving her renewed strength. But the façade was beginning to crack in places, and they knew she had little time. For a few minutes, the small ship was silent as T’Pol deftly continued with each successive pressure point along Trip’s spinal column. Each of them took advantage of the brief lull in the events of the last few days, their thoughts scudding quietly like clouds across the landscapes of their minds. Trip suddenly became aware of a memory T’Pol was having; it seemed to be of him and her speaking in her quarters. He tried not to focus on it too directly, lest he alert her. He simply watched quietly. He looked around. “You and Trip used to spend a lot of time here together.” Sim—for Sim it was—pointed at the mat on her floor. “I remember. We were lying right there, working on the neural nodes of each other's feet, talking about the warp engines; how I was hoping to modify them.” “How Commander Tucker was hoping to modify them,” T’Pol corrected gently but relentlessly. Sim looked down resignedly. “Right. Commander Tucker.” He glanced up. “You know, he was really starting to enjoy those sessions with you.” “They were helping him sleep,” T’Pol asserted. “What do you mean?” T’Pol was aware that Trip had been listening in, but she let him watch the memory unfold, knowing that he was going to see this sooner or later. She was buffeted by a surge of Trip’s jealousy as Sim described his feelings for her. T’Pol tried not to wonder to loudly in her own mind where Trip’s feelings lay in relation to Sim’s, but she unexpectedly got an answer as Trip watched his twin self—who he had never actually met—confess his attraction to her and his confusion as to its origin. Trip’s heart thudded for a moment, wondering how to address this, and then he turned on his blanket again to sit cross-legged facing her. T’Pol sat back on her heels and said nothing. Taking heart from his double’s direct approach, Trip said simply and openly, “T’Pol, I… can’t speak for Sim’s feelings, but he was tellin’ you the truth about my memories. Sleep definitely isn’t the only reason I enjoy our neuropressure sessions.” T’Pol’s gaze was level and intense. He continued in a softer voice, “And… well, he’s right… you are all I think about, if you know what I mean.” Through sheer effort of will, T’Pol betrayed no outer sign as she agreed quietly but powerfully, “I know exactly what you mean.” Neither stirred for a long second, and then T’Pol broke the spell briskly: “We should get started.” Trip nodded slowly, new ideas swirling in his mind. He pushed them away as T’Pol squared up to him. They were cross-legged, knee to knee. Trips hands rested lightly on his knees. T’Pol placed her left hand on Trip’s right and then fitted the fingers of her right hand carefully to the contours of his face as Tolaris had done. She tried to ignore the delicious sensation of his jawline stubble against her fingers, but not before Trip caught the thought. His own right hand tingled intensely in an echo of her feeling. The effect was bizarre and put both of them off guard. They paused as the tingle bounced faintly back and forth before dying away. Their link was becoming stronger and more unpredictable as T’Pol spent more time in the temporal field. She was glad of it for now as it would make the meld easier to achieve. Firmly reigning in her thoughts, T’Pol instructed Trip to close his eyes. She decisively banished thoughts of Tolaris and focused solely on Trip, on her friend who was sitting trustingly before her, ready to take a risk to help her. The positive strength of the thought buoyed her up, and she began quietly: “Concentrate on my voice.” He fingers felt fused to Trip’s face, she couldn’t budge them if she’d wanted to. She felt a buzzing at the back of both of their brains, and continued steadily. “My mind to your mind. Your thoughts…to my thoughts.” Trip gasped, stunned, and both their eyes flew open. Neither moved however, and they stared, riveted, at one another as T’Pol persisted, her voice becoming slightly ragged with strain. “…our minds are merging…” Trip tried not to panic as the weirdest sensation of his life poured through his brain. He felt like T’Pol was actually tugging at his mind: superimposing, meshing it with hers. He struggled to stay calm, to not fight it, knowing this was her only chance at making it through the next few days. And as he relaxed into the feeling, entrusting himself totally to her, something clicked and it instantly became so much easier. Almost a failsafe to ensure both parties were willing. “…our minds…are becoming one….” T’Pol completed the link and sat back with relief, astonished at how much simpler it was when both people trusted one another completely. This meld had a completely different feeling than the one she’d shared with Tolaris. She and Trip were equally invested in it, neither one holding back nor trying to take more than was being shared willingly. The tension ebbed away and both let go of a mental breath they hadn’t realized they’d been holding till now. The random disconnected thoughts of consciousness washed over their minds again, only this time they could hear both lines of thinking, intertwined, yet separate. {{{it worked. this is so weird. i can hear everything we’re thinking. i didn’t expect the connection to be this strong. before you were pulling away i’m not pulling away now. i could’ve helped you a lot sooner y’know. why didn’t you come to me when you were having trouble? why the trellium? i don’t know.
All at once, T’Pol made a leap of faith. If she didn’t trust Trip here, now, she never would. So she laid her soul bare. She let him see everything. “…because of me?” Thunderstruck, Trip finished her thought aloud. Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t that. “But… but why? Why didn’t you just tell me you had… feelings for me?” T’Pol answered him, her voice echoing her thoughts in his mind. “Without the Trellium, there would have been nothing to tell. Despite my best efforts, I found I was unable… to permit myself to have feelings for you. The Trellium allowed emotions to surface for the first time since I learned to suppress them in early childhood.” “Yeah, but Trellium? Y’knew how poisonous it was for you. We all did.” A brief recollection of her homicidal rage aboard the Seleya emerged from one of their memories and drifted past. “How could it have been that important that you’d risk your life?” Trip felt T’Pol’s intense shame and frustration pricking in his own eyes. Her mouth trembled as she tried to reconcile her thoughts into coherent form. “I had no other choice. My subconscious feelings for you were increasing…” Her voice broke. She continued silently, her tears running unchecked down both of their cheeks. {{{over the past three years, i have come to…deeply respect… many members of this crew. but after my experience aboard the seleya, i realized that some of those feelings were far stronger than i had ever expected…especially those connected with you. vulcans aren’t usually in a position to form these types of potent attachments. i didn’t know what to do with the feelings. …………..you never said anything. i don’t have experience discussing these things. i have difficulty interpreting the sensations. my emotions are highly erratic, illogical; …perhaps there is something wrong with me.}}} Touched by her vulnerability, Trip gripped one of her hands and wiped the tears from both of their faces. “Nope,” he reassured her gently, “that’s just what it’s like. You don’t have feelings… feelings have you.” He smiled at T’Pol and then stared in wonder as she smiled back, albeit faintly. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you smile,” Trip said with a touch of awe in his voice. “You should do it more often. You’re beautiful when you smile.” At his words, a hiccup of emotional current shook T’Pol, and they were suddenly flooded with a deluge of memories. Bits and pieces of remembered conversations up to and including earlier that day flew past at light speed:
i don’t know if these feelings are mine… or his. i just want to say how much your absence will affect the crew…how much it will affect me. why would a few neuropressure sessions between me and a maco be such a big deal? he said he had feelings for me. …if you wanna talk, i’m all ears… ….well, he’s right… you are all i think about, if you know what i mean…… …..i know exactly what you mean…..
A rush of gratitude at Trip’s comprehending empathy warmed T’Pol’s face. She realized all at once that he condemned her for none of it, and suddenly all the dark and guilty feelings about emotions and Trellium and mind melds lifted from her shoulders…he didn’t care a fig about any of it. Everything was washed clean away under the benevolent acceptance of her best friend. Trip shared in T’Pol’s excruciating relief from a burden held for far longer than she could remember. Nothing passed between them now but a shining glad sort of feeling that got brighter and more blinding by the second as Trip carefully put one hand on either side of T’Pol’s naïve, wise, wondering face and kissed her gently on the lips. Hardly able to breathe, T’Pol looked searchingly into Trip’s joyful eyes, tears running unnoticed down her cheeks. She put a hand uncertainly to her hammering chest. “Trip,” she whispered, “I don’t know what to call this.” Trip laughed quietly, delightedly, and wrapping his arms around her, pulled her close and kissed her soundly. Powerless to hold herself back, she finally gave in to her vigorous desire and kissed back hungrily. And his answer shone into her mind as simply as a star shooting across the black desert sky: It’s called love. |
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