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"The Forgotten Time II: Ashaya"
Rating: R (for occasional language) Author's Note: This story takes place between Kir’Shara and Daedalus. Chapter 5
Trip reactivated the small ship’s weapons array. Everything came up in sequence, and the system began a routine self diagnostic. After a moment, it pronounced itself to be in excellent working order. “That’s perfect,” Trip called back. Malcolm grunted in response as he extricated himself from the cramped space under the shuttle. His uniform was rumpled and stained, and his hair stood on end from the number of times he had run his hands through it in frustration over the last three hours. Trip, as his assistant within the shuttle itself, was still trim and tidy. Malcolm eyed him with vague annoyance as he took a swig from his water bottle and leaned against the open shuttle hatch to rest his aching back. Oblivious to his friend’s irritated state, Trip again went over the specs scrolling past on the tactical display. “You’re a genius, Mal. You’ve improved the hull plating strength a hundred and sixteen percent.” Malcolm sniffed, somewhat mollified by the praise. “Well, I wouldn’t want anything to happen to either of you on your little away mission,” he said innocently. Trip looked up. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Just then the bay doors swished open to admit the unspoken subject of Malcolm’s jibe. T’Pol strode over to the shuttle, leaned in past Trip, and deposited a couple of cases against the inside wall. She turned to assess the ship’s tactical officer, the slight flare to her nostrils her only acknowledgment of his grimy condition. “The captain would like to know how much longer the upgrades to the shuttle are going to take.” Malcolm handed her the PADD he had been given earlier with the requested improvements. “All done actually, Commander. We managed to upgrade the hull plating as well as the weapons. You should be able to take care of yourselves in the event that the Andorians or the Vulcans decide to take a shot at you.” T’Pol nodded, all business. “Thank you, Lieutenant…it would be unfortunate if anything happened to us on our little away mission.” She stepped up past Trip and into the shuttle. “No problem,” Malcolm replied, turning to leave. Then her choice of words hit him, and he stopped in his tracks. But T’Pol was already in her seat at the conn, busily mapping their route to the surface and performing last-minute system checks. Squatting, Trip reached up to close the hatch, but paused as Malcolm leaned in to speak close to his ear. “How could she possibly have…?” He trailed off, discomfited. “No idea what you’re talkin’ about, Malcolm,” Trip answered. “Watch your head,” he advised as he hauled the hatch down. Malcolm pulled back hastily, a bemused expression on his face. He heard the latching mechanism click home and entered the technicians’ booth to allow T’Pol to depressurise the bay, request leave from the bridge, and depart. He watched the shuttle lift off and speed away down through the doors toward the planet turning below. “Wait’ll Hoshi hears this one,” he muttered to himself as he closed the bay doors and repressurised the room. *** “I’m gettin’ to be a bad influence on you,” Trip remarked, amused, as he deftly manipulated the pilot’s controls. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” T’Pol deadpanned, still scanning the area for signs of interference from the Vulcans or Andorians. Trip shook his head, grinning. “’Course you don’t.” A few moments passed in silence, and then Trip picked up on a stray thought niggling in the back of T’Pol’s mind. He leaned back in his seat and regarded her analytically. She was sitting bolt upright as usual, eyes and hands focused on the task in front of her. But there was something to the set of her mouth…. “You’re worried about this meetin’ with Koss, aren’t you?” Trip asked quietly. T’Pol didn’t glance up. “I am fine. However, the meeting will not even occur if we crash the shuttle,” she replied pointedly. Trip took the hint and applied his attention to the controls and the rapidly rising landscape. They directed the shuttle to the field behind her mother’s home, gently landed, and powered down. T’Pol opened the hatch and jumped down onto the hot dusty earth of her homeworld. A faint breeze stirred her hair with its warm desiccated breath, and she closed her eyes and inhaled the familiar scent of the garden she had grown up in. Trip came up behind her, carrying one of the silver cases from the shuttle. He put his free arm around her shoulders. “Home sweet home,” he said aloud, a wry note pulling his words down. But silently, she could feel his sympathy for her. The first homecoming after a family member’s death was something he understood all too well: the emptiness was at its worst. T’Pol reached up and squeezed his hand gratefully before walking forward to unlock the gate. They entered the dim coolness of the house. Their footsteps seemed loud and foreign, and T’Pol shook off the unsettlingly illogical feeling of disturbing a tomb or shrine. Her mother was everywhere. T’Pol wandered aimlessly through the familiar surroundings of the main room of her family home, touching nothing, before stopping in the centre of the room and sitting gingerly on the edge of one of the low sofas. A book lay open on a side table as if T’Les had put it down just moments ago and would be returning from the other room any time to resume reading. T’Pol reached out, and stroked the open page distractedly with a finger. She looked up. Trip was watching her from the kitchen area, his elbows on the counter and an aching look of empathy in his eyes. I don’t understand why I should feel any differently about my mother’s death simply because I am in her house. Nothing has changed. There was a tone of perplexed self-reproach underlying her thought. Trip pushed his own sudden unbidden grief for Lizzie aside. But something has changed. You’ve never been here without your mother before. This is your house now. It’ll take gettin’ used to. T’Pol nodded vaguely, looking around the room, still stroking the crisp paper of the open book. Trip, searching for something to distract her, picked up the two cases they had brought from the shuttle. “Look, let’s unpack and have something to eat.” T’Pol stood and led the way down the hall. Trip stopped partway down and started to turn the doorhandle of the familiar guest room he had occupied during his last visit, but T’Pol turned. “Where are you going?” Trip let the handle spring back. “To my room. To unpack?” He held up the case in his hand as if to remind her. “As you said before, this is my house now. You don’t have to stay in the guest room.” T’Pol turned and continued to her door, which she opened and disappeared through, leaving Trip at somewhat of a loss and dangling a suitcase in midair. “Okay,” he answered to nobody in particular, and followed. T’Pol’s bedroom surprised him. He was used to her stark quarters aboard Enterprise, the only light sources dim candles and the stars of space. This room was filled with the brilliant sunlight of her world. The insulated glass kept the temperature cool, though pools of bright light lay over everything. There were many more personal effects and photos around. Trip reminded himself that this was the room of someone twice his age… no wonder she had accumulated so many personal keepsakes. T’Pol caught his surprise, and answered aloud, somewhat defensively. “Most Vulcans do not keep mementos, but…” she trailed off. “But you’re an unusual Vulcan,” Trip finished for her as he wandered to a shelf that held several photographs of various people, including shots of T’Pol over the years…graduating from the Science Academy, T’Les and her father by her side; as a child in the garden with the same man. The pictures were solemn, no one smiling. They reminded Trip in a way of the old sepia prints of ancestors in his family home. With a pang, he realised that those were likely gone now, blasted into smithereens by the Xindi along with everything else. T’Pol came up silently behind him. Trip tried to shake off the grief that was unexpectedly welling up again in his own mind in response to T‘Pol‘s pain. “This your dad?” He pointed to the picture of the man and girl in the garden. “Yes.” “Good lookin’ guy.” “I suppose he was,” T’Pol answered quietly. Another photo caught Trip’s eye. It was of T’Pol, but she was dressed in an unfamiliar style of Vulcan clothing and had a small girl on her lap. Trip picked up the image and examined it closely. It was T’Pol, and a fairly recent shot too, judging by her age, but something wasn’t quite right about the features. He glanced up at her, questioning silently. T’Pol took the picture from him and studied it for a moment. “Yes, the clothing is unusual for today. This photograph is 190 years old. This is my second foremother, T’Mir, and her daughter T’Sel. I am told we look a good deal alike.” She handed the photo back and turned to her bed where one of the cases lay open and began to unpack. Trip stared from the photo to T’Pol. “‘A good deal’? You’re like twins! This is your great-grandma?” T’Pol continued to remove items from her suitcase and organise them into piles on the bed. “Yes, I told you and the captain about her some time ago. She and two of her shipmates were stranded on Earth in Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania for several months in the 1950’s.” Trip easily recalled the evening during which T’Pol had held him and Jon spellbound for over an hour at dinner with her fantastic tale of three Vulcans stranded in small-town USA during the spacerace era. “But*you said that was just a story!” Trip exclaimed. T’Pol shook out the few clothes she had brought along and walked to the closet to hang them. “It was,” she agreed from within the depths of the cupboard. “A true story.” T’Pol emerged, somewhat dusty, and regarded Trip’s bemused expression matter-of-factly. “Are you ready for lunch?” Trip laughed and replaced the picture on the shelf. He took a step forward and kissed T’Pol quickly and unexpectedly on the mouth, before extending his hand to the door, palm up. “Ladies first.” T’Pol hesitated only a fraction of a second before leading the way, a faint emerald flush brightening the back of her neck. *** They shared some of the preserved food left in T’Les’ cupboards along with hot Vulcan tea. “So when are we meeting with Koss?” Trip asked as he helped T’Pol clean up the dishes. Uncharacteristically distracted, she didn’t answer right away. Trip bent his head to catch her eye. “T’Pol?” T’Pol looked up. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” “I asked when we’re meeting Koss.” T’Pol slowly rinsed her hands and dried them on a small towel near the sink. “I contacted him just before we left Enterprise. He and a priest will be here in two hours. After the priest performs the unbonding, we can speak with Koss about the Andorians.” Trip gently took the towel out of her hands and put it aside. Putting his arms around her, he looked down into her troubled brown eyes. I know this is hard for you, T’Pol. T’Pol met his gaze steadily. “I’m fine,” she replied in a quieter-than-usual voice. Trip sighed as he regarded the stubborn woman in his arms. “Look, didn’t that Kir’Shara say that emotions should be a tool for ‘furthering holistic growth’? Even your Vulcan bible thinks you need to be honest about your feelings. I mean, are you gonna argue with Surak?” T‘Pol looked down and sighed through her nose. They never should have translated that into English. Trip caught her peevish thought but also sensed the resigned amusement underlying it. She looked up into his eyes again. “You’re right. This is proving difficult for me. The p’pil’lay is hardly an honourable ceremony for any Vulcan to participate in. Vulcan marriages are supposed to be for life.” Trip tightened his grip around her waist and smiled. “You’re not sorry you’re going through with it are you?” he asked, though he already knew what her answer would be. “No,” T’Pol whispered. The smile dropped from Trip’s face as they stared into each other’s eyes. The greenish flush that had earlier tinged T’Pol’s neck now brightened her face. She reached up with both hands and lightly stroked Trip’s cheeks twice before standing up on her toes and pulling his mouth down to hers. Unlike the gentle kisses they had shared over the last day since grasping the strength of their mental bond, this one intensified quickly. They were beginning to discover how to use her control to balance his ability to fully surrender to feelings. Instead of bowling them over, their emotions resonated together with a captivating ferocity. After several moments, they broke apart just enough to look into one another’s eyes. A single thought was pounding across the space in between them, and T’Pol silently took Trip’s hand, turned and led him across the room and down the hall. The shades in her room were still open, but the privacy of the high-walled garden beyond ruled out any concerns over decorum, if either of them had even been in a state to notice such things. As if in a trance, both climbed up onto T’Pol’s neatly-made bed and sat facing one another. The blanket was soft ribbed brown material, warm from the golden sunlight that poured in the window over the tops of the trees outside. A small altar near the bed had unlit incense sticks on it that gave off a faint sweet smell, like caramels. They had finally thrown off their yoke of communal misunderstandings through an as-yet mysterious bond that neither dreamed had been forged during the final minutes of a forgotten time aboard Enterprise, as a last-ditch desperate attempt of two lovers to sabotage their own self-sabotaging ways in the face of imminent amnesia. Trip gently pushed her back onto the quilt and lightly traced the pointed tip of her left ear. Thoughts and feelings were occurring as if preordained, neither one noticing nor caring nor able to even discern who had them first. ……love you…… Emotions hung in the silence between them like the dust motes in the sunlight, and their hungry mouths found one another, and T’Pol forgot all about Koss. |
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