The interfering trill-chiming of the door broke T'Pol's deep meditation. Her eyes remained closed. Murky, swirling mists of upheaval and tension which had assaulted her mind dissipated, andthe level of tranquility she desired, and had achieved, bathed her being. She opened her eyes, and sighed before responding, "Come..."
In her mind's eye, the image of the ancient Vulcan sloop glided serenely upon the still, mirroring waters of Lake La'iiua, not far from her family's summer home. She sat with her long,gangly pubescent legs, dangling over the starboard side; her head canted up to a blistering sun, her eyes shaded by sunglasses tinted aqua-mauve.
T'Pol took another lengthy, cleansing breath, and released it gradually.
"Uh...ummm. Am I interrupting?" Her hesitant visitor stalled near the door's entrance.
T'Pol's coolly-appraising eyes fastened upon her hemming and hawing intruder. (*Now* what does he want?) She softened her visage a fraction or so. "What is it?"
"I mean...we...could do this some other time."
"It is obvious by your manner another time would not be suitable." She rose from her seat and suggested he take one, eyeing the helping of pie he held in his right hand. "I already have asampling."
His tongue hollowed out his cheek. 'Sampling,' the Commander thought, sounds like she's runnin' one a her secret experiments. A 'snick' rumbled in his pharynx. Probably is, he decided.
Tripping over his tongue, just as he'd done with her, earlier the other day when his presence in her quarters had been at her request, Tucker said, "Didn't think you'd wanna eat that," he nodded towards the moist-looking piece of pecan pie on the squat table, "alone..." Before she could say anything, he stumbled on, "Thought maybe you'd like some company." A greased, tentative look slid off his face. "Huh? Wha'dya say?"
"I'm not eating."
In the meantime, the Commander had made himself comfortable on the floor the way he'd done the other time, to T'pol's left. Surprised, Tucker halted his fork's ascension, and the generous portion of pie he'd sliced off hung before his salivating mouth. "Yeah? How come? How d'ya know you won't like it unless ya try it first?" He was wide-eyed naivete incarnate, the ad hoc adjutant observed. "Why d'ya take it then?" Tucker pressed.
Deftly, she masked any tell-tale disdain when she answered, "I neglected to take a fork."
"Oh, yeah," Trip muttered softly, comprehending, "the not touchin' food with your hands thing." Shrugging, he offered, "Here, take mine." He dumped the chunk back on his plate, and extended thefork to T'Pol. "It's clean." Gesturing again, he insisted, "G'head. Take it."
He could see she wasn't going to. "What will you do?" she postured, raising her eyebrow decisively.
"The usual." Trip laughed, the deep-throated variety that really used to get under her skin, at one time, and when he was being his overbearing worst, still did. "Hey, you know me. A lack ofutensils don't slow me down none." So saying, after setting his fork upon her plate, he picked up the hefty piece he'd sliced off for himself with thumb and index fingers, tilted his head back anddropped the initiation of his favorite dessert in. With a needling smack of his lips he testified, "Damn, that's good. Never gets old. A little slice a heaven with a caloric value of, 'who the hell cares.'" His roguish eyes settled heavily upon her again. "So, what are ya waitin' for? Dig in."
(What *was* I thinking? He is inveterate.) T'Pol vowed she would stun-pinch herself if she failed to strangle the beginnings of a weak smile that was twitching the corners of her mouth,mutineering for release. (He is the ilk of human male my matriarchal mentors proscribed. And he defies their collective descriptions. What *is* there about him that draws me in a way I've never been? I allow it, knowingly. Why?)
"T'Pol?" Tucker frowned, wondering what was going through her mind.
(When he held my ears, flicking the lobes brazenly with his tactile sensuality in the Decon, gently teasing with his thumbs, touching them like no male of whichever species has ever touched them, if he had wanted...to...)
Wanted to *what*, the steely grating of logic hammered her brain, and she flinched. --You forget yourself, T'Pol--
"Are you all right, Sub-Commander?" Trip queried, coming forward, a study of concern.
Her involuntary shudder, playing tag with her nerve endings had not gone unnoticed, she lamented. Now, he was waiting for her to act upon his thoughtful gesture.
"As you persist," she acquiesced, recomposing herself while taking up the fork and absentmindedly balancing it betwixt thumb and forefinger. She made no move to ingest, though, making Trip chew on his bottom lip a little. The tip of her Classic feminine Vulcan nose twitched, her pouty, full lower lip jutted out more fully. Tucker watched in subdued fascination, forgetting how to breathe. When she was ready, she sheared off a portion, and simply introduced her taste buds to their first flirtation with pecan pie. Her chewing was slow and deliberate, and tightly close-lipped.
"Well?" Tucker prodded, sounding somewhat impatient. He wasn't positively sure why it was so all fire important that she liked what he could inhale, even if one fine day he were laid up in Sickbay with both arms broken.
This time she sliced off a larger sliver which not only melted in her mouth, but warmed her soul as well. Barmecidal was a word of the highest praise. She rarely used it in a culinary context,but its use was surely appropriate in this case. Mentally, she chanted it over, and over. She'd never tasted anything the like of pecan pie in all her years.
Regarding her with hooded eyes, Tucker pricked, "I'm dyin' of suspense over here." She seemed light years removed from him in this, what felt to be, airtight room. Yeah, okay, she *is* pretty,he lapsed, deciding he'd let her return from wherever the hell she was when she was ready. Malcolm's got the eye for pickin' 'em all right. Too bad she's got ice for blood in those thin green veins of hers. If she gave me even half of half of a chance, I'd take it beyond her 'pointees.' Way beyond...yeah, boy...
He moved forward still, examining her unreadable face as if it were some new generation of convoluted road map.
T'Pol's grip on the fork solidified, and she helped herself to more pie; a healthier helping, along the lines of Trip's serving. She didn't have to say anything. It was obvious that what she was shoveling into her prim mouth was giving her a lot of pleasure.
"Vulcan or not, I'm thinkin' you're developin' a sweet tooth," he drawled, trying on the intonation of a diplomat for size.
With condescension as her guide she carved herself another portion of the rich dessert, the largest one so far, eyeing it suspiciously before depositing it into her mouth, and allowed the delicious flavor to overwhelm her palate with its sumptuous, sweet exquisiteness. (I must have no more...I must not let him see how much I'm enjoying this...)
Before she could stop herself, all systems were go, until there was no trace of the tempting pie left, which coaxed a sanguine grin from Tucker. "No need to say a word. Your expression says it all. I've been known to wolf it down in my time, too." She eyed him cagily, then the remainder of his dessert. Protectively, he held his pie close to his chest as though he had just gone on full red alert. "No--you can't have any a mine. Stand down."
T'Pol's blank, yet impossible to ignore expression never failed to unnerve him. Being seen through never sat well, and she just kept staring, it becoming uncomfortably apparent that this was a side of her he'd never been made privy to seeing before. She gave new meaning to the word lithe. She was deceptively fragile looking to be the big, bad wolf, but she was strong. This he knew. Why, just the other day he'd seen her heft at least triple her weight, lifting a cumbersome recycling containment for a bruly crewman who had misjudged the ponderous unit's considerable weight.
"Want the rest?"
Swift and to the point, she stipulated, "*Yes*."
Sighing, but careful so that T'Pol didn't hear his gust of grumble, Trip conceded, "Lemme get one last lick in," and he broke a little off the right crust. Handing off the rest of his surrendered pie, by shifting it unto her plate, he said, "Don't say I never gave you anything," and he watched her start in with finishing off his piece. She's somethin' else all right, he thought, relishing the way she attacked the little of his that remained on her plate with gusto. She may claim she's got her emotions on lockdown, but somethin' tells me there's a lot lyin' real close near the surface. "Your sweet tooth might be bigger than mine."
Around bites she began insisting, "Vulcans don't have--"
"Yeah, yeah. I know. You told me before. It's a shame though some of your solemn-faced friends on the High Command aren't here to see you eat those words."
T'Pol sniffed, but kept right on chawing, a satisfied look washing over her face once she was done.
She ever hints that I'm raw and untamed in the future, Tucker reflected, I'll just haveta remind her about our pastry tete-a-tete here in her quarters. His face lit up then, as though the ember of an idea forgotten glowed once more. "You never did get around ta tellin' me what Vanik's remark meant..." He looked at the crumbly morsel of pie between his fingers, feeling his mouth water, but he waited to hear if T'Pol was going to humor him.
"Some things are better left untranslated, Commander," she retorted stiffly.
"Just give it to me straight, T'Pol. I can take it. If you haven't noticed, I'm a pretty thick-skinned kinda guy." He noted she had the faint facial earmarks of recapitulation etching her deadpan expression.
"Why is it so important that you know?" Her impassive look had developed a chink.
"It just is, now c'mon. Spill it."
All the tension in her voice eased when she replied, "'They are foul barbarians. How can you tolerate living among them? Heed the rhyme and reason of logic. Leave with us. Remove insult to injury."
Trip whistled, with a playful roll of his light eyes, then remarked, "Some mouthful." He shook his hand sideways as if it had been a hankie.
"You are offended."
"Nah, maybe I would be if like I really cared a damn what his opinions are of us, and our mission. Thick-skinned, remember?" Following that up with a chuckle, he continued, "There's a lot to be said for us foul barbarians..." The Commander leveled his head back and let the last of the pie plop into his mouth. He thought of something along the lines of pithy to say, but just as he was about to, the dry morsel caught in his throat, lodged, and he started gagging. The coloring of his face burned to deep florid, as his head jerked up, and his hoarse coughing intensified with eachattempt made to clear his windpipe.
"Commander," T'Pol said sharply, abruptly rising to her feet, "are you all right?"
Tucker's tincture was closer to hemorrhaged purple now. Gasping, he croaked,
"Cho-choking!"T'Pol sprang into action, and wasting no time, buttressed her right hand flush against the center of his chest. Tucker was too busy trying to maintain himself conscious, though narrowly avoiding blacking out, to notice just how hard her hand was pressed into him, sandwiched in-between his pecs. She kept the compression strong, her fingers radiated outward like a starfish's arms, her concentration taut, until she heard his breathing regulate more evenly. With that accomplished, and still keeping the pressure firm with the heel of her hand, she gradually inched it upward along his chest. When her hand's heel was sitting on his Adam's apple, she advised him to relax, and he obeyed. She spoke to him gently, as though she were cooing to a tired child until the necessity for her hand's being where it was ended.
His breathing, having normalized, was accompanied by an unanticpated, heightened awareness of well-being. Muzzily, he looked at her for a long time in bemused wonder, as though she had given him a gift that was way too costly; one he could never hope to recompense in like measure."
T'--T'Pol--you saved my life!" He shook his head as though shaking the dazed feeling, filtering in and out of conscious thought, was incumbent. "You di-did somethin' else to me too. I swear. I feel like I've been on R&R for two solid weeks."
Again, the blank look she perpetrated so well, as though he didn't have a clue what he was talking about. "I did nothing more than merely apply the Vulcan version of, I believe humans call it the Heimlich maneuver."
"I call it savin' my life, and that's just what you did, lady. I was turnin' every shade of the rainbow, coughin' up a lung, chokin' ta death," Trip snorted, choosing to clear his throat a bit further. Leery then, he charged, "And you did somethin' else. I wanna know what. It was kinda like you touched my mind. Like you made me think calm, an' all. I saw myself calm." Wrinkling, his brow furrowed profoundly. "Or somethin' like that. Huh? Felt weird."
Well, he wasn't a stupid man. His wanting to know, and her decision about actually telling him, were worlds apart. Sagely, she decided, "I applied a simple, yet efficient external breathing technique which induced your muscles to relax more readily. That is all." By the settled look which had replaced the unsettled one in his eyes, she knew that explanation would suffice, and she wasn't lying; there was a duality involved in what she'd done. She saw no need to expound on the one he was hinting at. The implantation of her own placid thoughts into his mind, wasn't something he needed to know, now, nor any conceivable time in the future. It was hard for humans to grasp the vast complexity of anything relating to Vulcan mind manipulation methodology. Hoshi was extraordinary in so many respects that readily lended itself to schooling her in the exacting discipline. Their weekly sessions, sometimes twice a week, were respites T'Pol looked forward to.
No, the Commander wasn't a dunce, certainly, but he was no Hoshi Sato, either. Under the watchfulness of his eyes radiating renewed gratitude, and perhaps something a degree more sensual, T'Pol rose from his lap and retook her cushion.
"Thanks for bringin' yourself to touch me." And under his breath, he reiterated, "And savin' my life." Her raised eyebrow did not dissuade him. "So, sue me. I'm stubborn that way."
In many ways, she assessed, her mind poked with expediency.
"If you must exaggerate things, Commander, it is not within my perview to alter your perception." Expanding beyond the sentimentality of his focus, she had made the only logical decision. The severe impairment, or highly unlikely, but possible loss of the Chief Engineer would jeopardize their mission.
Fatigue was pulling on his pants leg, so Tucker decided to call it a night, although there was one other matter that needed a mention. Rising himself now, he said with uncharacteristic humility, "I liked how you handled Jon without makin' him lose face in front of your people."
T'Pol was intrigued by the reference. "Lose face?" It was her turn for her brow to furrow, which it did in feather-like fashion. "I've never seen his, nor any humans' faces detach from the front of your heads. Can you do this?" She was a fish on the line, her curiosity piqued with her inquisitive eyes all aglow. "Show me."
Trip gave her a wayward blink and even made so bold as to jostle her left shoulder a little. Quickly, in the next moment, he was extending a faltering apology, keenly aware that he had crossed over the invisible line he was never quite sure where she'd drawn it each time they interacted. With each interaction, however, he found himself liking the formation patterns of the friendship they were forging. "It's just an expression, lose face, it ain't to be taken literally."
"Oh, I see."
"I bet you would," he nimbly parried, his easygoing congratulatory vein bounded onward. "You didn't embarrass him, but you made your point. Like I said, you handled the situation a-okay in my book." He saw, what he hoped was, her being pleased with what he'd said, put in a brief appearance in her pretty eyes. Could be, he thought while attentively holding her gaze, you're startin' to be all 'round a-okay in my book.
T'Pol brushed past him, signaling that it was time he should be leaving. As he returned the lightest of brushes past her, at the door, she reminded him, "He was free to choose." She spoke nothing further until his back was no longer to her, and once again, she squared off with him toe to toe. "I remembered what you told me about humans being free to choose."
"Yeah, so I heard." Tucker grinned, hoping his 1,000-watt one, splashed across his face, was infectious enough for her to want to return it too, but that could have been asking for more than she was capable of expressing at this stage. "Being more free... Maybe a little of that'll rub off on ya too, ya think?" His eyebrows wagged, challenging her to take the huge hint. "Maybe some day, huh?"
T'Pol studied him for what felt like endless installments of time. Sounding as though she were fishing, she asked, "Will you have pecan pie tomorrow, Commander?"
Trip gawked at her, having been thrown for a wide loop, but he reined his enthusiasm in fast, keeping it together. Nonchalantly, he replied, "I might..." Nothing got by him the way he was watching her. "How 'bout you?" he finagled his country mile best.
"Perhaps..."
Why the little dickens, he marveled, if I didn't know any better I'd swear she's flirtin' with me... "It's great," he began, sounding all expansive and greatly at ease, which wasn't one hundred percent true. The butterflies in his stomach had steel tips at the ends of their wings. "Doin' the pie all alone, but when it's eaten in the right company," Tucker dared a wink, akin to one a saucy sailor on a 3-day shore leave would chance, "it's in a class all its own." He counted to three in his head, then shot, "Is it a date?"
Her words revived to haunt her for the third visitation this day alone. '...Draws me in a way I've never been...I allow it, knowingly. Why?'
"So...what d'ya say? We make the havin' a bite together scene in the Mess? Like I wanted ya to, before?"
Cryptically, following a pause that she saw clearly had him on pins and needles, she followed up, "If you are there, and you wish to invite me to join you..." T'Pol pursed her lips a little, then finished, "I will."
Almost like pullin' teeth, Trip considered, almost, but not half as bad... The delighted look on his face, however, didn't betray the negligible irritation that had wended through him while she kept him waiting for her all important answer. "Sounds like a date to me, girl. Let's say at about the same time when I asked ya that first time. 'Kay?"
"Goodnight, Commander," T'Pol said with just the sufficient timbre of inflammation in her tone.
Tucker swung around just as he was over the threshold, and said, "Has anyone ever told you red's your color?"
"No." She looked down at her robe momentarily, evaluating how she should take his meaning.
"Well, it is..." His eyes skittered over her again. "You look amazin'."
She could sense he was sifting about for something more to say before she closed her door, weighing his words as he wondered if he should say what he wanted to.
"T'Pol..."
"Yes, Commander."
He nipped in close to her face. Too close for comfort, she judged, starting in annoyance. His sudden, unpredictable motion had thrown her off. Millimeters from her left cheek he said in a husky, whispery voice, "I'm grateful for what ya did." This close to him, it dawned on her, he was the woody fragrance of dusk in the O'phir'a forests. "I'll never forget it. I owe ya." With that, along with the splintering of surprise that had moored itself in her eyes, he pecked her cheek with his soft, but with a hint of dryness to them, lips. He knew that he was not only stepping way over the line, he was sticking his tongue out at it too. "'Night," he blurted, avoiding any prolonged eye contact, and bolted off.
T'Pol listened long after his footfalls had died away in the corridor. It was only after her door had closed that she realized she was standing with her hand to the cheek he'd kissed and had clumsily tried to fondle with his unsteady index finger before he'd fled.
There was only the echo of the one word which hung upon the air of her quarters; air, which now, was redolent with the pungency of his pheromones, and the cloying sweetness of the pecan pie.
She shut her eyes, suddenly feeling drained, and the one simple word that summed it all up undulated over her retentive mind...
'Why?'
End