Chapter 1: Midnight Confessions

“Guess we proved it again,” Trip said casually, as they left sickbay.

“Proved what?”

“That you and I make a helluva team.”

“We seem to work well together.”

“Even more, now that we’re in each others head.”

There was one little detail about the bond that T’Pol had not disclosed to him earlier. While for him it was a series of sporadic daydreams that drew him into her white space, for her the bond was a much stronger connection. Since humans had latent, weak telepathic abilities at best and even that only in rare cases, the bond in its early stage was almost a one-way connection.

About a week before she had noticed sporadically erupting emotions, which seemingly came out of nowhere. She soon noticed that their occurrence matched exactly the pattern of Commander Tucker’s behavior. Whenever he had an emotional outburst or made his trademark jokes, T’Pol felt them herself if they were strong enough. This had led to the realization that there was a connection between them and their history left only one candidate – a mating bond. It was soon time to explain to him the full ramifications of this fact, preferably before he returned to Columbia. As she heard him talk about being in each others head – a typically human, crude metaphor – she also noticed that he experienced a mix of positive emotions at the time, calming her fears, that the human would be afraid of the unusual connection.

“You’re returning to Columbia?”

“I imagine Captain Hernandez is getting pretty antsy to have her Chief Engineer back.”

T’Pol saw right through the statement, but was also surprised that she did pick up no trace of emotional response. He was either completely indifferent or kept his emotions in check, which she had not witnessed too often so far when this particular human was involved.

“There are still numerous repairs to be carried out here.”

“I think Kelby can handle them. He’s been observing my work pretty carefully, when he wasn’t trying to blow up the ship.”

He still gave no indication of an emotional response and a suspicion formed in T’Pol’s mind. He seemed to do what he had done so often – engaging in an argument to trick her into admitting something or telling him something in a way he wanted to hear it. A long time ago Ensign Sato had explained that this process was called ‘teasing’ and generally a sign of affection. Only humans would come up with a sign of affection that could become a disruption to a Vulcan’s emotional equilibrium. Obviously he used his arguments for his return to Columbia as a ruse for her to ask him to stay.

When Lt. Sato had explained about the custom of teasing, she had also mentioned that the humans often expected the ‘favor to be returned’. That was why T’Pol had developed a certain competitiveness in their friendly banter. She was not willing to give him an easy win.

“Kelby is a fine engineer, but he lacks experience,” she said and a short wave of annoyance washed through the bond, indicating that his emotional nature got the better of him and also validated her suspicion.

He stopped. “Why don’t you just say it?”

“Say what?” she feigned ignorance and started to find this exchange quite agreeably invigorating when she saw his slight exasperation. Obviously, the Commander could not eat, what he dished out - as Ensign Sato used to say - at least not today.

“That you want me to come back.”

“I believe I did,” she answered with an innocently raised brow. “I believe that your presence here would be extremely beneficial to our operations.”

“No, that you want me back,” he pressed and his annoyance resonated in the bond now very clearly.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she lied and regretted it immediately. The mixture of hurt feelings, anger and sadness almost prompted a visible response and T’Pol knew instantly that she had gone too far. She had believed that she might have gotten better at bantering, but she was still clumsy in her interactions with humans whenever she tried her hand at purely human ways of socializing. Again she had failed to stop before he was seriously inconvenienced.

“My mistake. See you around,” he sighed in visual disappointment. And turned to go,

The only logical conclusion was to deliver, what he had wanted to hear to undo the damage she had inadvertently done. “Wait, Trip,” she called, knowing that the rarely used nickname would make him at least listen. “I want you to come back,” she admitted defeat.

“Then I’ll think about it,” he answered and turned to go again.

‘Thinking about it’ still left a fifty percent chance of the answer being ‘No’. Suddenly that thought caused panic and fear of losing him again and there was not much time to react, so she decided to convey the message in an unmistakable manner – she had to show him why she wanted him to come back.

“Trip!” she called with more urgency, caught up with him and kissed him hard.

Nothing had prepared her for the onslaught of emotions that she picked up, now that they were in intense contact. Getting faint transmissions through the bond was one thing, but now, due to her inherent touch telepathy, it was a torrent of conflicting emotions that hit her unprepared.

Love, desire, longing warred with sadness, hurt and anger in a most frightening intensity. But before she broke the kiss and struggled to regain her composure, she also noticed an undercurrent of mischief and satisfaction. Something was afoot.

He gently wiped along his lips and smiled in a manner that she immediately recognized as mischief. “Three days ago, I told Captain Hernandez that I wanted a transfer back to Enterprise.”

“Three days ago,” she answered in barely suppressed indignation.

“I realized this is where I was meant to be, and this thing between us isn’t that big a deal.”

“Agreed.” she answered, despite his obvious underestimation of the true ramifications of being bonded with a Vulcan.

“Guess we gotta lot of work to do,” he quipped before disappearing around the corner.

T’Pol walked to her quarters with a still very elevated eye-brow. Finally she had admitted the existence of the bond to the ship’s Chief Engineer and although the latest round of banter had resulted in a crushing defeat and almost with bad consequences, she was relieved that she had Trip back. The thought of his permanent departure had unsettled her for the last two weeks already and she was almost gratified for the Klingon sabotage that had caused his return. Quickly she pushed that thought down – it was illogical.

With just minutes to go until midnight, Trip came home after a long day in engineering. Grimy, the uniform covered in scorch marks from exploding EPS conduits, he dragged his exhausted body into his cabin, making a bee line for the shower to get rid of the muck.

I cannot believe she did that. Admitting that she wants me back was big enough a surprise, but planting a wet one on me – in a wide open corridor of all places ... Dear god let it be serious this time, I can’t take another push and I can’t even transfer away this time. Not after the stunt with Columbia.

He had not had the time to process today’s events due to the carnage in engineering, but now the thoughts kept coming despite his fatigue. After cleaning himself, he wrapped a towel around his waist and went back in search of his sweatpants, but he was interrupted by the door chime. At this late an hour it could only be Jon with an invitation to one of the rare late-night live broadcasts of water polo. But – unexpectedly – it was not his friend who made a house call in the middle of the night.

“Good evening. I may have come at an inconvenient time...” T’Pol stopped when she saw his wardrobe situation.

“Don’t worry, it’s not like you haven’t seen everything anyways,” he answered and waved her to come in.

“Indeed,” she returned and noticed that he had put on considerable muscle mass since their first - and so far last - disrobed encounter.

“What brings you here and what’s in that bag?” Trip asked casually and without any sign of shyness dropped the towel to put on his pants.

T’Pol distracted herself from the urge to intensify her visual scan by picking up his uniform and other pieces of clothing that he had dropped where they fell on his way to the shower.

“Resulting from recent events and findings, I believe it to be necessary to discuss something with you. The purpose of the bag will be explained in the process,” she explained, once Trip had put on his pants.

“I’m dead tired,” he said. “But I think you’re right, best we talk some things out.”

Indicating her to do so as well, he sat down on the bunk and waited for what she had to say.

“Based on my actions of today you most likely have come to the conclusion, that my interest in your return to Enterprise is not exclusively motivated by professional reasons.”

“Sure looked and felt like it,” he said with a smile.

“There is a number of events that caused my actions and I wish to confess my motives. This takes a considerable amount of time, therefore I shall not be offended if you ask me to defer it until you had sufficient rest.”

“Don’t worry about my rest, T’Pol. I’ve waited for almost two years for you to tell me, what the hell is going on between us - or not for that matter. I’ll stay awake even if it takes a week.”

“Very well,” T’Pol nodded and continued her narration. “Do you remember what happened when I was exposed to Trellium-D on the Seleya?”

“Sure as hell do. You completely lost it and ever since then you had that occasional emotional outburst. In fact for quite a while I was afraid it had left some permanent damage.”

“You are most perceptive. In fact it has left damage, but not like you expect.”

Trip’s eyes went wide. “Is it bad?”

“Please hear the complete explanation,” she continued and Trip nodded. “When the aftereffects of my Trellium-D exposure started to subside and only a mild influence was still left, I noticed that I could experience certain emotions, which are usually instinctively suppressed. Those were fascination, amusement, but also fear and anger.”

Trip got a bad feeling but refrained from interrupting. He knew T’Pol good enough to see that she was talking about some things that weighed heavily on her.

“I wanted more of those emotions. I noticed that I fared better in my interactions with the crew – especially with you – and I hoped to become able to reciprocate the outward signs of affection that you displayed. So I began injecting micro doses of Trellium-D into my blood stream and that allowed me to access emotions at any time. Unfortunately I had not considered the possibility of becoming addicted.”

Trip buried his face in his palms and sighed heavily. When he looked back up, he saw that T’Pol gave him what had to be the Vulcan equivalent of the deer-in-head-lights look. Her shame and the fear of him sending her away was palpable.

“Do you still do it?” he asked as calm as he could in his shocked state.

“No. After I was almost killed during an attempt to reach the Trellium-D storage in the cargo bay on the damaged ship, I went to Dr. Phlox and sought medical help to overcome the addiction. The therapy was successful, however my ill-advised actions have caused permanent damage to my neuro-pathways.

“You messed up your own body to get close to me? Hell, we were closer than any other two people on the ship. Way before the Seleya, you had taken over from Jon as my best friend.”

“I think we both know that it wasn’t a best friend we were hoping to be.”

“We?” Trips eyes went wide. “T’Pol you kept pushing me away again and again. Hell you even married another guy. I know it was for your mother, but you never thought it necessary to tell me that he released you – I learned about that from Jon. I don’t get it, why did you shut me out?”

Trip regretted his little outburst almost immediately as he was presented a sight that was new to him – tears. She wasn’t all-out bawling, but two silent tears running down the face of a Vulcan were unsettling enough a picture.

“Sorry,” Trip whispered.

“You have every right to be displeased,” T’Pol started in a small voice. “As I explained earlier, I did not only experience favorable emotions. Due to the damage that I had inflicted, I was no longer able to suppress all emotions. I was unable to deal with them. I was confused and scared. Those unsettling emotions and my inability to make sense of them was the driving force behind the many wrong decisions I made in connection with you.”

“What changed? Looks to me that you finally smelled the cordite and decided to ‘fess up.”

T’Pol, momentarily confused by his strange metaphor, after all cordite was known to have no smell, continued. “The first important event was, when I spoke to my counterpart on the Enterprise from the other time line.”

“Wait-a-minute, you talked to ... to yourself? Why didn’t you or Lorian tell me that you ... she ... the other you was still alive?”

“She asked the Captain not to tell you. She was afraid of seeing you again and then losing you a second time.”

Trip gulped and – a very rare event – was speechless.

“She explained to me that you were the key to mastering those emotions. When I was prepared to make the final step, we were on Vulcan, but I spare you the pain of reminding you in detail of the events. You were there.”

“Roger that,” Trip sighed.

“The grief about the death of my mother and the shame of having caused so much pain and suffering for you by marrying Koss prevented me from getting closer to you after he released me. Once you left for Challenger, I realized, that the pain of losing your constant presence and losing the chance to be with you was exceedingly less bearable than any shame, fear or confusion.”

“So you finally decided, that it is better to talk to me rather than watching me jump ship again.”

“This conclusion is warranted. Until now I tried to deny my affection and my wish to be close to you for mostly wrong reasons. I decided that it is not practicable to continue that self-deception, as it is completely without logic.”

“Did you just say what I think you did?”

She looked him into the eyes. “Trip..., I know human customs would now demand the sentence ‘I love you’ to be spoken, but I cannot speak about something that I do not yet entirely understand. What I do understand is that I have a deep affection for you, an affection I have never had for anyone else. Imagining my life without you is beyond my mental capabil...”