Chapter 17: Life As A Parent

It didn't happen too often, but Hoshi was lost for words. She wondered if it had been that clever a decision to offer counseling to the ship's chief engineer. Not that she didn't think she was up to the task – people had always said she was a good listener. But there was little doubt that the last few days had been everything but easy for the man, and she wasn't quite sure that she could keep up the necessary emotional detachment.

Seeing the normally so cheery commander close to tears was not an experience she particularly cared for, but she willed herself to remain strong despite the fact that her heart ached at seeing him this distressed. There was some big issue hidden there, and she was convinced she knew what it was – the aftermath of a massive bout of denial and misplaced guilt-by-proxy.

"You saw them when they were brought on board, didn't you?" she asked, and immediately knew she had hit the bulls-eye when he buried his face in his palms. His body was rocked by heavy sobs that threatened to make her cry as well.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This would hurt him, but he needed to work through it.

"Trip, I'm the comms officer. I know the captain was talking to Admiral Forest, T'Pol was on the away team – you were at the airlock."

"For fuck's sake, yes I was!" he cried out amid sobs.

"Those dresses they had been put into, if you can call them that ... They were practically naked. It's not too hard to tell if a woman is grown up or not when she's not wearing much. You knew immediately that she's still a child."

A tear ran down her face; Trip was practically inconsolable by now. She hated twisting the proverbial knife, but somehow she had to force him to get past this stupid self-flagellation.

"You had it worked out right away," she stated the obvious. "You knew why she was put in that dress and now you blame yourself, because the first thing she encountered aboard was another human male seeing her like that."

He only nodded wordlessly, still crying.

"What did you do?"

"Blanket," Trip said, visibly trying to compose himself. "Threw it over her. T'Pol asked me to bring one for both of them."

Counseling be hanged. This wasn't what he needed right now. Instead, Hoshi gathered him in her arms, gripping hard as he tried to resist.

"Trip you did nothing wrong. It doesn't need Dr. Freud to see that T'Lara thinks the world of you. Why are you torturing yourself?"

There was no immediate answer as he continued crying, although thankfully not as hard as before. She felt the moisture of his tears on the shoulder of her uniform. He would probably have succeeded in composing himself had he not been influenced by being hugged, but she thought it was better if he had a good weep right now. She knew him well enough to suspect that he had most likely suppressed the urge often enough by now.

"Have you any idea how weird it is with the little thing clingin' to me every night?" he asked weakly. "How goddamn wrong it feels?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm male and human!" he spat, and removed himself from her embrace. "It was human men who did that to her!"

She shook her head slightly. "Trip, you are the human male who got that diabolical device out of her neck. You are not the same as those people who abused her. She doesn't even acknowledge them as humans. She calls them 'Sehlats without fur.'"

He looked blankly at her. Obviously T'Pol hadn't gotten around to explaining Vulcan wildlife to him yet.

"Sehlats are predatory animals on Vulcan. A bit like their equivalent of the big bad wolf. You aren't the only one who's been reading good night stories to her. For her they were animals, not humans."

"You've visited her, too?"

"'Course I did," Hoshi said. "Ambassador Soval dropped by and asked me to take care of her schooling."

For the first time something resembling a smile returned to his face, although on his tear-stained features it looked more like a grimace. She stood up and went to the bathroom to fetch a wet cloth.

"I'll take care of teaching her Maths and English. T'Pol will do the scientific subjects," she explained as she started to dab at his face to make him a little more presentable. "And you'll have to plan a few take-your-daughter-to-work days. Your adopted daughter is quite interested in things that can be taken apart and re-assembled, as my poor UT prototype will gladly confirm."

"Had a few parts left when done..." he said with another half-smile.

"Many," Hoshi confirmed with a chuckle as she sat back to examine her work. He looked almost normal again if one ignored the reddened eyes. Still, even that might too easily be noticed, and provide gossip – something best avoided.

"I'm not letting you go back like that. Come on, we grab something to eat in the mess hall until your eyes look half-way normal again."

The wisdom of creating footwear in a fashion that made it look like the heads of Earth lagomorphs eluded her understanding, even more so since she doubted that Oryctolagus cuniculus existed in a bright pink-colored variant.

The gift from Lieutenant Hess and her mate, ensign McIlway, was obviously much appreciated by T'Lara though, who had insisted on wearing the creation that Trip's second in command had called 'fluffy bunny shoes'.

Her working theory was that the synthetic fur helped to keep the child's feet warm in the quarters' air whose temperature was not entirely ideal, thus explaining the instant attachment the child had developed to the gift.

Although Trip had manipulated the environmental controls to provide higher temperatures than the default setting for human quarters allowed, raising it to full Vulcan comfort level would cause Trip to perspire heavily and constantly – with all the olfactory inconveniences this would cause.

The Vulcan-Human temperature conflict was not helped by the fact that Trip refused categorically to take off his shirt or any other piece of clothing in the child's presence, even if this was needed to offset higher temperatures. He was afraid that it would cause painful memories of her ordeal. Whenever he had to change clothing, he did so in the bathroom only, and he also refused to be present when T'Lara changed into her night clothing; any such activity would be solely her responsibility and also happen in the bathroom. She could see that this would eventually present problems.

The subject of her thoughts returned to their quarters just then, pushing a cart with various dishes for the evening meal. Although they had planned to start eating in the mess hall at some point soon, they had decided it was too early yet to introduce T'Lara to so many unknown humans. Especially the effect of so many males on the young one's composure was worrying them.

T'Lara walked up to the arriving Engineer and held out her arms in a wordless request to be embraced. Of course the most conspicuous addition to her attire did not escape his attention. This would hardly have been possible anyway, since they were proudly displayed for his admiration.

"I'd guess those were not exactly your idea?" he asked T'Pol with a smile while he held the child gently in his arms.

"No, her ... shoes are a gift from Lieutenant Hess and her mate. We have, in fact, been presented with several offerings from the crew – mainly concentrating on clothing that seems to have comfort as its main purpose. Others have donated educational material, including heavily illustrated books about herbal and animal life on Earth."

"I shall show you," the young one offered and grabbed his hand, but T'Pol was having none of that.

"You shall first eat," she decreed. She sent Trip a questioning look, seeing that the cart contained only food she would have selected herself, and none that catered for his taste in nourishment.

"I already had dinner with Hoshi, she insisted," he said apologetically, but such gesture was unnecessary. It did not take much of her telepathic ability to sense that a sizable portion of his more negative emotions had been purged, courtesy of the young linguist's counseling. She made a mental note to express her gratitude to Ensign Sato.

His presence at the table was still required though. T'Lara was fairly tall for a child of her age, so she could have easily reached the food on the surface, but she insisted on sitting in his lap. It would not be an easy task to wean her off this habit.

Although it was quite common for children below the age of twenty-five to require occasional physical contact with their parents, T'Lara's need for comfort was far exceeding the norm, even more so since they were not her immediate biological progenitors. By the age of sixteen Vulcan children were expected to be well accustomed to sleeping in their own rooms instead of the bed of either parent – and T'Lara was approaching nineteen years of age. Certainly by Human standards, her sharing sleeping quarters with an adult male was highly irregular, if not reprehensible as her outward appearance was – by human standards – that of a child approaching puberty. If that 'arrangement' became public knowledge it would be regarded as nothing short of scandalous. Regardless of the fact that Trip considered her a child and treated her as one, as was true by Vulcan development standards, few outsiders would believe that he was guiltless of some kind of misdemeanor. Her worries grew, but she was accustomed enough to his thought process that Charles was definitely suppressing a large uneasiness.

Of course the unique circumstances of her ordeal required the granting of certain liberties in that regard, but the fact remained that the child was one of the few remaining direct descendants of Surak. A 'humanization' of her would be a grave misinterpretation of their responsibilities. It would not be easy to comply with the necessity to give the child a proper upbringing without giving the wrong impression to Trip that he was an unfavorable influence.

Trip tore into his steak feeling refreshed. For the first time since they had taken her in, T'Lara had slept through the entire night. Granted, she had still been clinging to him like a baby monkey, but at least she had made it through the night without any nightmares that would make her wake up screaming.

T'Pol had made an effort to avoid stating the obvious, but he knew very well that part of this success was that he was much more composed himself after talking to Hoshi. As a Vulcan, the child was touch-telepathic and had probably picked up on the fact that his state of mind was less tumultuous than it had been previously.

He wouldn't have needed to look up to recognize the familiar footsteps of T'Pol approaching his table if it wasn't for the fact that he could hear that she wasn't alone. Looking up, he saw that the object of his love was accompanied by Pat McIlway, Anna's introverted better half. That had to be a first. He'd never seen Pat in the company of anyone but Anna, and even that had only become obvious after his XO had told him about their relationship.

"May I?" the young woman asked and Trip indicated the seat across from him with a smile. He knew that although this was T'Pol's customary place, in the presence of any outside party she would select the seat next to it. It was just her habit of not giving the appearance of too much familiarity with him to someone else.

"Thanks for the bunny shoes," he said. "T'Lara loves them to bits. If we hadn't said anything, she wouldn't even have taken them off for the night."

"You're welcome," Pat said, shyly looking down on her plate. "How is she? It must have been horrible..."

Trip gulped slightly, feeling a bit uncomfortable.

"It certainly was," he said. "But I hope she's healing. Slept through the whole night for the first time last night."

To his surprise the young woman took his hand and squeezed it gently. "You are a very good man, Commander."

With that she released it again, and Trip knew that the sentiment did not only refer to his taking care of the child. After all, this was the 'better half' of the woman with whom he'd had a ferocious sexual encounter just half a week ago. It was ridiculous, how trivial all the brouhaha about that day felt right now.

'Feeling a bit weird' seemed to have become a theme lately. Spending all night cradling a step-daughter he hadn't known about three days ago – and now he was talking to someone who knew that he'd had sex with her partner not too long ago. Who needed a rollercoaster if life was such a tumultuous ride?

He soon realized, though, that talking to Anna's 'significant other' was not only possible, but also quite pleasant. She spoke in soft tones, and it was not difficult to make out that she was also very intelligent. The best proof for that was that T'Pol evidently felt inclined to join the smalltalk over dinner. She did that only with people she felt very comfortable with, and a good intellect was a pre-requisite to getting on the Vulcan's good side.

If he were to give his verdict, he'd say that T'Pol and the shy botanist hit off quite well. That wasn't much of a bold guess, though, as the fact that T'Pol had invited her to their table was more than just a vague hint. It was good to see that she'd started making friends among the crew.

"En'ga'neering," T'Lara said in a strangely accented attempt at Human standard.

"Correct," the commanding officer of said department replied in her native language.

It had been quite a task to convince the young Vulcan that her beloved 'bunny shoes' were not suitable attire for visiting her en'ahr'at's work place, but in the end she had accepted that she had to wear more substantial footwear.

A week had now passed since he and T'Pol had become step-parents of a Vulcan orphan. It was a cruelly ironic twist of fate that while having the responsibility of a pair of mates, they couldn't live like one, because of that damn betrothal of hers.

The only thing remotely resembling 'married' life was the fact that his quarters now featured a queen-sized bed to hold all three of them. T'Lara had started to become a little less clingy, but usually they still woke up in the morning with the child snuggled up very closely to him or T'Pol.

That she'd begun to accept T'Pol as an equally suitable source of comfort was the best news in all of this. The ship's science officer had never expressed as much in words, but the status of T'Lara as one of the few survivors of Surak's bloodline would cause problems down the line if she became too closely entangled with humans.

T'Pol had truly surprised him when he'd witnessed with how much gentleness and care she handled the young one's need for physical comfort whenever the girl edged closer to her during the night

Since the daily hours in bed were much more than what a grown up Vulcan would need, T'Pol's sleep was often not very deep and she would easily be roused to wakefulness whenever T'Lara snuggled up to her. In those cases it would not take long for her to gather the small bundle in her arms, and both of them would return to a peaceful slumber in a close embrace.

T'Pol's rising up to the challenge was a great relief.

"Wait here, I return," he said in Vulcan, hoping she would get the point despite the fact that he had forgotten what the word for 'until' was. Her nod told him that she had understood. To keep her occupied, he called up an education program on his screen that she'd seen before and was quite fascinated with.

Well, what basically was an educational film about cutesy animal babies would mesmerize most humans as well, but T'Pol had produced an audio overlay that helped her linguistic education in the process by explaining the animals on show in a mix of Vulcan and English, so it wasn't just a thing to keep her occupied per se.

Seeing that T'Lara was glued to the screen, he walked out of his office to meet with Anna for a status upgrade. It was really time to get back to work.

"Anna, I thought we talked about this," he said with a hint of sadness when his second in command had grabbed him to place a kiss on his cheek and her zipper was half-way down as well.

She just laughed. "Don't worry," she said. "That one was from me, for what you've done for Pat. And as for my zipper – have you already forgotten how hot it is in Jeffrey's tube five? I can't just take my shirt off like you, Einstein."

"Since when has that been a hindrance for you, Anna?" he asked with a chuckle, relieved that she hadn't suddenly started to expect any 'private attention' from him.

"Ha-ha," she responded in a mock-sarcastic tone, pointing at her breasts. "First of all, the guys around here would drown us all in drool if I did that, and secondly, these bloody things are a right pain if allowed to bounce freely. Pictures are one thing – I'm not going to give live performances."

"Anyway," he said. "What's the status around here? Cap'n wants to depart tomorrow."

"You didn't read my reports, did you?" she demanded, planting her hands on her hips.

"If you mean that tower of Babel you built out of PADDs in my office, no I didn't. Gimme the short version."

"All repaired," Anna replied with a broad grin of justifiable pride.

"You're the best." He gave her a pat on the shoulder. "That's great, Anna, really it is."

"How's the short stuff?"

"Oh, she's lovin' the bunny shoes. It took me half an hour to talk her out of wearing them here," he said with another chuckle.

"I'm asking about the big issue," she answered, with a serious expression. That brought his fake cheeriness back down again. Dammit, there was no fooling Anna.

"She's gettin' better. She's sleepin' through the nights now and she's started acceptin' T'Pol. I'm no longer the only dedicated pillow."

"Sad about it?" She cocked an enquiring eyebrow.

"Not really," Trip said, shaking his head. "Never felt very comfortable with her clingin' to me all night. She needs to grow up as a Vulcan, not as a pet of humans."

"Do you even listen to yourself?" He could see she was slightly upset by his words. "Trip Tucker, I'm only going to tell this to you once. You are a wonderful stepfather to that girl, according to anyone I ask. Will you please come off this self-deprecating streak you have?"

He sat down with a sigh on one of the toolboxes. "I'm just fuckin' confused Anna."

"What about?" she asked. Now there was a rhetorical question if he ever heard one.

"Everything! Y'see, the woman I love arranges for me to have sex with you, and in return your own better half thinks I'm the greatest guy around, and a day later it's all fuckin' meaningless anyway as I find out we rescued a little girl who'd gone through more than most of us would ever survive, and suddenly Soval drops by and makes me a parent, BOOM, just like that. And you know what? I love the little'un as if she were my own, even though I've only known her for less than two weeks. I'm feelin' like I'm on a bloody rollercoaster with no idea how to get off the damn thing."

Anna chuckled softly, and he looked at her in confusion. He didn't really have an idea where the funny part in all this was.

"You should be a diver," she said, still visibly amused. "I've never heard someone pump out such a long rant without running out of air. Have you thought about just living normally again?

"I'm not trying to sound disrespectful, but you can't undo what happened to the girl. No matter how much you falsely try taking the blame on yourself, it won't make a difference. You aren't Jesus Christ who died for all our sins. You just said yourself that she is healing. Accept that, and return to your own life."

He snorted sarcastically. As if she didn't know that the last bit of his 'old life' was banging her and the awkward aftermath of it. In fact, the very last thought had been about T'Pol's bat-shit-crazy idea of him becoming the photographer for Anna's monthly 'naked busty engineer' gig. After that he'd fallen asleep and then ... well all hell had broken loose.

"The last decision for me in my 'old life' was which photo equipment to use for your next series of pictures, because T'Pol has gotten it into her head that I should be your photographer. That was four hours before I was woken up by an emergency call from Phlox," he told her, his voice dripping with grim sarcasm. In contrast to his thoughts, this version was actually printable.

He knew he'd done a bad job of controlling his sarcasm, but if Anna wanted to poach in Hoshi's area of expertise and play counselor, he might just as well call a spade a bloody spade.

"And what's wrong with that?" his XO asked, and to his surprise there was no teasing in her voice. She was serious. "It may not be very lady-like, but I'm gonna tell you like it is. You fucked my brains out and for the first time in a long while I didn't feel like a convenient sperm receptacle, because you actually cared about my pleasure as well.

"Even if it wasn't exactly planned, you also established first contact between T'Pol and Pat. They're becoming fast friends. Pat never had friends because she's too shy. On top of that you're a great stepdad for a young child. You've done nothing but good. So stop blasting yourself, for Chrissake. I understand that the last two weeks shocked you, but that doesn't make your thoughts before you learned what you know now wrong all of a sudden. Get back to that point and continue."

"So in your logic I should get back to thinkin' about what camera to use to take pictures of you?" he snorted, mocking her plea of his 'greatness'. "Don't quit your day job, Anna. I don't think you're much of a counselor."

"Yes, I do think you should," Anna said flatly. "Not necessarily the camera thing. The guys aboard won't die if they miss out on a new series of Anna's boobs for a month or two. But you need to get back to life. You haven't talked to Malcolm for two weeks flat, Mattes and Kriegel say you haven't ordered a single bottle of beer. You are abandoning who you are. The only thing you are going to achieve is becoming someone else than the man T'Pol fell in love with. You need to become Trip Tucker again."

He didn't know what to answer to that. He merely nodded, and Anna plainly saw that she'd said enough for the time being, because she finished pulling down the top half of her uniform, tying the empty arms of her flightsuit around her waist. With the guys they would meet on the way being denied a great view by no more than her gray top she led the way to the Jeffries tube they were scheduled to work in today.

Clearly, he had a great deal to think about.