Chapter 2: Wind of Change

Trip woke up feeling a light pressure on his chest. A short spike of alarm made his eyes fly open, but then he remembered that said pressure was caused by a rather beautiful naked Vulcan using him as a pillow. That was a sort of pressure he could definitely get used to.

When he looked down his glance was met by two hazel-colored orbs looking back at him and although he wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, he thought that she looked rather content, if not even happy – as much as that was possible for a Vulcan.

"Mornin' darling," he whispered and to his surprise she answered his greeting with a kiss. For someone who had stubbornly maintained for such a long time that he was foolish in his desire to have a relationship with her, this was quite a transformation. Last night had literally changed everything.

"You okay?" he asked, wondering if her surprising reaction might be one of those instances of her doing the most unexpected things to conceal a weakness or a problem. "Your eyes and ears have recovered?"

"I already explained to you after our first encounter that this reaction is an unfortunate aspect of my biology, but it does not leave any lasting damage."

He started chuckling softly and seeing her inquiringly raised eyebrow, he explained the reason for his amusement.

"We have a saying: 'Love makes you blind'," he remarked. "I'd say you Vulcans take that concept quite literally."

"The effects of sexual relief are very individual. Not everyone loses vision," she explained. "My mother did extensive studies on the subject before V'Las ascended to power. She found out that almost every Vulcan female shows a different reaction. While some do suffer almost no sensory impairments there are others who even experience temporary paralysis."

"Your mother did studies on the effect of orgasms on the Vulcan senses?" he asked with a lopsided grin. For a race that considered telling one's age an intimate act, such a topic of study appeared to be a rather outlandish idea.

"We would never make such intimate studies public," T'Pol continued with a touch of severity. "My mother's data are only accessible to a select few scientists. Even if she wasn't giving off the impression during our visit, my mother was intensely curious and much more liberal in her younger years. I believe my father was never deprived of intimate activity."

"So this whole 'once every seven years' thing is basically just a nice little fairy tale, I guess," he stated with amusement.

"Not entirely," the woman in his arms contradicted. "As you have witnessed, Vulcans are quite capable of engaging in sexual relations whenever they wish, but most choose not to do so, because they fear the debilitating effects of prolonged arousal even though they are of transitory nature."

"Talk about a show stopper," he said pensively. "Are you afraid in those few minutes before and after you ... you know... ?"

"Not when you hold me during that time," she admitted. "I actually find your protective embrace during my temporary helplessness a rather pleasurable experience."

Her head bounced slightly up and down on his chest as he chuckled softly at her admission.

"I did not know that you were so conservation-conscious," T'Pol stated, her eyebrow raised in amusement as he toweled her back dry after their first-ever joint morning shower. "Your method to conserve water is most logical."

"See, I'm a veritable fountain of logical ideas," she heard his humorous reply, letting him continue to towel areas of her physique that she could have easily reached herself. It didn't need a bond to notice that he found any reason to admire her appearance and to touch her, a most welcome experience. There was no logic in denying him that pleasure as long as he didn't cause too much arousal. To a degree she could avoid that by applying mental techniques.

"I would not go that far," she replied dryly, turning around and giving him access to rub the front of her body dry. "I notice a direct proportionality between the quality of your logic and the desirability of a potential outcome."

She relished the sound of his laughter.

"For someone who has to clean up that mess outside, you're in an awfully good mood." He heard a female voice from behind and knew immediately that it was Anna Hess. Nobody other than his spunky, red-haired second in command or perhaps Malcolm would ever have the audacity to walk into his office in engineering unannounced and invite herself to sit next to him.

He had known the red-haired she-devil since the academy. She had just joined STC while he was in his final year. The southerner had seen immediately that she was a brilliant engineer. The fact that her hover car was more powerful and maneuverable than the vehicle's manufacturer had ever intended it to be had made that pretty obvious at the time. On top of being a brilliant engineer, whom he would hand the keys to engineering any time and without a second thought, she was like no other woman he'd known before.

She had somehow managed something that every woman would dream of: she had assembled all her body fat in a place where the ladies would actually want it to be. Without knowing every female on board, he was quite sure that she was the only one even bustier than T'Pol and she was definitely not shy to flaunt it. Anna had absolutely no qualms of using the communal shower in engineering, even if men were using it too at the time, so just about everybody in engineering had at some time gotten a good look at her muscular body, as was evidenced by the fact that nobody dared to talk back to her. She could knock anyone on his ass.

"Hey there, chief?" she asked. "You zoned out on me. Care to tell me what that goofy grin is all about? Don't tell me that a certain bridge officer has finally gotten her stuff together and forked you to the plate."

His grin got even wider.

"You shouldn't talk like that about a superior officer," he replied with not entirely convincing sternness. "I let you get away with a lot of stunts, because you still get the job done and run a tight control over the team. But don't count on the Captain or Commander T'Pol being that laid back about things."

"That doesn't answer my question, chief. Did she or did she not?" She refused to let the topic go.

He just nodded.

"Well, finally," she said with a grin and gave him a congratulatory pat on the back.

"That means you can't walk in on me in the shower anymore," he warned her. "Trust me, you'd be in a hell of a lot of trouble."

"I know," she acknowledged, still grinning. "Amanda told me that Commander T'Pol can be quite unsubtle in letting you know that she wants you to keep your hands off a certain engineer."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" he asked, slightly irritated.

"Shouldn't you be on your way to the captain's mess?" she asked, evading the answer.

"Dammit," he swore and ran out of engineering.

Jon fought the urge to chuckle when he noticed Trip's obvious nervousness. The younger man had just bolted in after running all the way from engineering if his heavy breathing was anything to go by. Knowing what the topic of the conversation was bound to be, his once best friend began fidgeting almost as soon as he'd sat down at the table.

The captain didn't feel like taking Trip out of his misery yet. It was too funny seeing him squirm. He waited patiently until the steward had laid out the plates, cutlery and glasses and departed. He indicated that they should start the meal

"So, Trip," he opened the conversation eventually, taking pity on his hapless 'guest'. "Was that a one-time occurrence or do I need to call T'Pol's quarters whenever I need information from my chief engineer after duty?"

There wasn't an immediate answer and Jon could see that the younger officer tried to buy himself some time by chewing his bite of meat very thoroughly.

"That depends on who I'm talking to," the engineer answered after a while. "Am I talking to Jon or to Captain Jonathan Archer?"

"Both would be equally happy for you both of you, Trip," the captain said and raised his glass of beer.

"But I doubt Starfleet shares that particular sentiment," his companion replied and Jon could see a mixture of sadness and anger on the man's face.

"That's why I asked you to have this talk. Strictly speaking the no-fraternization regulations are still in place."

"And strictly speaking they're gonna court-martial the shit out of us," Trip spat angrily, throwing his fork down and spilling some of his beer. "But you know what? I don't give a damn. Bring on those fuddy-duddies. Let them try to take the woman I love away from me. They'll never know what hit 'em!"

"Trip!" Jon called out softly before the angered engineer could spill more of his beer. The engineer's sudden mood swing was slightly worrying. "I said strictly speaking. In reality, even the top brass have realized that you can't send out ships on missions that last years with those rules in place. I have the authority to exempt people from those restrictions if it doesn't influence their professional conduct. So unless I find you and T'Pol doing the nasty on top of the warp reactor, I have no reason to prevent you from living in a committed relationship, and we both know that T'Pol is the best at keeping you in line."

Jon saw the emotions play like a movie on his friend's face. Trip was trying not to whoop and cheer, so much was obvious. But his commanding officer could also see that the ship's resident miracle worker was extremely tired. His frequent and sudden mood changes were the tell-tale signs of him reaching the end of his rope as far as coping with his situation went. This was a man who desperately needed a time-out.

Considering that just a few months ago T'Pol had married another guy, it wasn't too hard to see that the ship's chief had never gotten any emotional quiet, even after the Xindi mission. T'Pol had not been too generous with details about what that Vucan shotgun wedding had been all about, but the fact that it was annulled a mere three months later made it clear that it wasn't exactly a 'dream wedding'.

He knew Trip all too well. He had called T'Pol 'the woman I love', which meant it wasn't a recent development. Trip could have any woman he wanted – at least the shallow ones, as he was provided for by nature like a gas pump. But his friend never fell in love easily. If he used the L-word things were definitely very serious.

Now the pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place. Trip's departure had never had anything to do with any 'failings' on the job. He had been desperate enough to abandon the engine he had taken care of for four years. He had run from T'Pol. And it would also explain why she started to quote him umpteen times each day once he was gone.

Jon fought down a flash of furious regret. He had only had two real friendships in his life – with A.G. and with Trip. A.G. was dead, but the loss of the once-close friendship with Trip was something he could only blame on himself. Even if he couldn't repair that, however, what he could do was try to prevent Trip from running himself ragged. The younger man must have gone through an emotional roller-coaster ever since the end of the Xindi mission and Jon decided that, rules be hanged, there was only one thing to do now – his third and second in command needed some time alone and very far from any work.

He remembered something.

Hoshi entered the ready room after having been summoned by her commanding officer. Considering that three bright green bitches had almost handed the ship to a bunch of equally green pirates the day before, his good mood appeared to her quite grossly misplaced. Only her strongest effort to restrain herself had prevented her from slapping the raw stuffing out of Malcolm for paying entirely too much attention to that green whore, she swore in her mind, realizing that the after-effects of the pheromones and the resulting bouts of seething jealousy were not yet completely out of her system.

"Captain," she saluted, trying not to betray the rather ripe mental conversation she was having with herself.

"Hoshi, I need you to do two of our officers a favor," he hinted nebulously. "As the ship's communication officer, I suppose you are also aware of body language?"

"Err, Y-yes sir," she replied hesitantly, not quite knowing where this was going.

"Specifically I'm talking about the body language of our science officer and the chief engineer," her commanding officer explained with an understanding smile.

"She did it!" Hoshi squealed, jumping up in joy, but then she remembered who she was talking to and clutched her mouth. "Oops..."

Her worries faded when she heard the captain's chuckle. "Rest assured that you didn't give away any secrets, Ensign," he said reassuringly. "I didn't exactly walk in on anything unprintable, but, let's say it was obvious they weren't reviewing duty rosters."

"I'm sorry, Sir," she said, when her eyes got slightly moist as the suspense fell away. She had known that if T'Pol would not take that last chance to get Trip back, both would probably soon be off the ship – Trip back to Columbia and T'Pol would have probably headed back to Vulcan. She would have lost two of her best friends in one fell swoop.

"You've been rooting for them for quite a while, haven't you?" he remarked.

"I think even Porthos knew," Hoshi replied with a giggle. "But the two of them were too dense to see the forest for all the trees. It was so obvious they were in love with each other. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be talking like that about superior officers."

Instead of agreeing with that statement, the captain laughed out loud.

"That's quite all right, Ensign," he said with a smile. "You can make up for that 'faux pas'. I want you to convince Crewman Fuller and her room-mate to give up their quarters and relocate into what until now was Commander Tucker's residence. That shouldn't be too hard, considering they'd gain an additional 20 square meters of living space."

"I suppose after that you want me to ask Lieutenant Hess to knock out a bulkhead?" she speculated with a bright smile as she got the idea of what the captain had in mind.

"Preferably without either Trip or T'Pol noticing anything," he added.

"How do you plan to get them off the ship?" the linguist asked. "I don't know if you realize just how sensitive Commander T'Pol's hearing is. Her quarters are not too far from the bridge. She'd be bound to hear it if we went to town in her quarters with heavy equipment."

"That will be your third task," the captain explained and she saw a mischievous smile cross his features. "Do you remember that M class planet we passed two days before we ran into the Orions?"

"The one with the long-legged rats," the linguist acknowledged slightly wistfully. In the early days of their mission they would never have passed by a planet that lush and beautiful without paying a visit. But that wide-eyed enthusiasm had long since been replaced by scientific pragmatism, and the world that would easily make a good holiday planet had just not provided anything of sufficient scientific interest to warrant the time and effort of sending down an away team.

"Make a stop at hydroponics and make sure that Larson, upon reviewing the data of our scans, realizes that we shouldn't have dismissed the flora of that planet as uninteresting quite so quickly and reports as much to me."

"Brilliant, sir," Hoshi beamed.

"Well, in a way it's not even that much of a lie," her superior officer reasoned. "Chef reported that a stasis unit has packed in and we lost quite a lot of our fresh vegetables and fruits. Perhaps we can find some edible plants there."