Chapter 16 - Absit Omen

Private residence, City of Shi'Kar, Vulcan, Sep 10th 2155

Trip carefully approached the deck chair. Hoshi was dozing on it as she had done so often during the last few days since the trial. Bathing and dozing in the sun after it had dipped far enough below the zenith had quickly become a favorite pastime of hers. Feeling safe behind the high walls of T'Pol's estate, she had removed the top of her Bikini, which hung over the arm rest of her chair.

Trip cleared his throat loudly to wake her up.

Shooting up from her chair, Hoshi instinctively covered her bare chest with her hands, which prompted an amused chuckle from Trip. Somehow this instinctive reflex must be hard-wired into female brains across the universe, he decided. She had been dozing in the evening sun for almost a week without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, but then even T'Pol still crossed her hands over her chest sometimes during nightly neuro-pressure sessions.

"Not that I don't admire the view," Trip teased her. "But unless you want to give the crew something to look at, you might wanna jump into a uniform. We're leaving in an hour."

"Oh my god," Hoshi said, hurriedly rearranging the bikini top. "I haven't even packed. Why didn't anyone say something?"

"Don't worry, Hoshi. Malcolm has already packed your stuff. He didn't want to wake you up. Maybe you being in plain view for him from your room had anything to do with it."

Still grinning mischievously Trip went back into the house.

"You two are impossible!" Hoshi complained with a giggle and threw a cushion after him.

=/\=

As the airlock opened after docking their shuttle at the T'Kuth ship yards the four returning visitors were greeted by Lorian.

"Mother, Father, I hope you found time to rest after the ordeal at the trial?"

"Nothing a bit of extra meditation and a healthy sun tan can't cure, son," Trip replied, causing himself and Malcolm to chuckle. Both got a mock-menacing 'one more word, Mister'-look from Hoshi.

Seeing Lorian’s confused look, he added: "Everything's fine. How have things been up here?"

"I've taken the liberty of supervising repairs on both ships and I can report that Enterprise is in perfect condition.“

"Your boat?" Trip asked

"Hull reconstruction is nearly complete, but it will take at least a further 6 weeks until Endurance is in serviceable condition again."

"Gotta hand it to the Vulcans," Trip said with an admiring whistle. "120 years in the Expanse and they patch it up in less than 3 months."

"Indeed," Lorian agreed. "Using their lower need for rest, Vulcan crews have worked 24 hour shifts."

Continuing their way towards Enterprise's docking port, Trip continued to ask Lorian for details.

"How's your crew coming? Have they assigned the new people to complete the crew?"

"Yes. Several members of the returning ship Vahklas have decided to apply for service in Starfleet. We have been assigned 5 of those crew members. Another batch of young crewmen has been dispatched from Earth. They are expected to arrive within the week."

"Is Kov on your ship, too?"

"He is now my chief engineer. Unfortunately I was not allowed to retain that duty, when I was assigned command of the ship."

"He's a good man," Trip said as they reached the docking port. "You coming for dinner tonight?"

"I asked your Chef to prepare a meal for four. I didn't think it was appropriate to invite myself."

"You're our son, remember?" Trip said with a laugh. "I'll tell Chef to add two more. Please bring Kov, will ya."

"As you wish."

=/\=

Trip walked into Engineering on auto-pilot, reading a PADD with engineering reports. Looking up, he met a number of amused looking armory crewmen and let out a sigh.

"Dammit," he swore under his breath.

"Got lost Commander?" Malcolm asked with a smirk.

"Very funny," he answered slightly annoyed and turned to leave. "Guess it'll take a few more days to get used to it."

During the last two days he had walked into the former engineering chamber several times, only to meet the amused looking armory crewmen. What had been engineering was now part of Malcolm's realm and filled to the brim with new Mark-III torpedoes.

=/\=

"Still catching up, Trip?" Anna asked as she strolled into his office, once he had actually found it.

"Yeah; Bless the Vulcans, they're brilliant engineers, but I think they all have a bad case of OCD."

Anna laughed softly.

"Look at it," Trip continued and waved one of the PADDs. "They've taken stock and documented every single bolt and welding wire. It'll take me until retirement to read all this."

"Let me help," Anna said and sorted through the PADDs on Trips desk. After some searching she had picked out three of them and handed them to Trip.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Lorian prepared a summary review of all those," she said, waving her hand over the stack of PADDs cluttering his desk.

"That's my boy," Trip said with a grin and started to read the summaries.

=/\=

Healer Gratev stumbled out of his laboratory. Only a few moments ago the loudest explosion he had ever heard had pierced one of his eardrums, leaving a small trickle of blood oozing out of his right ear. Expecting yet another unfortunate accident in the nearby Dilithium mines, he had grabbed his medical kit, ignoring the stabbing pain in his ear. Nothing had prepared him for what he saw out on the street.

The first thing he noticed was the heat. Even at the height of summer it had never been this hot and it seemed to get hotter and hotter. A group of soldiers ran towards him and as was Gratev's habit, he did not really pay any attention if they were government troops or rebels. As a healer he had patched up combatants from both side of the conflict. With the mind-numbing pain in his ear and his vision blurred by the growing heat he just waited. The soldiers did not look like being in need of medical assistance.

"Are you a healer?" one of the soldiers asked.

"Yes," Gratev answered.

"We must seek shelter, now!"

"Basement," Gratev managed to utter before one solder each grabbed one his arms and dragged him along.

"What happened?" the healer asked, once the group had reached the basement below his laboratory.

"We don't know," the leader answered. Gratev did not know much about the military, but the sheer number of symbols on his epaulettes made it clear that he was the most senior of the soldiers.

"You are injured," one of the soldiers noticed. "I'm a field medic, let me look at your ear."

=/\=

Phlox entered the bridge with a distinctly bad feeling. It was rare enough that he was included in a staff meeting and even more seldom had those meetings been summoned without prior notice. When he entered the ready room the other officers were already there.

"Coridan Prime has been attacked," T'Pol started without preamble. The room fell silent.

"Do we know who?" Trip asked.

"We have only limited information so far. Apparently most of the planet’s surface has been incinerated. The fire was fuelled by the extensive Dilithium deposits."

"Dilithium doesn't burn just like that," Trip said, shaking his head. "You'd need a whole shipload of antimatter to blow up a whole deposit."

"Speculation does not serve any purpose," T'Pol refused. "We have been ordered to rendezvous with Columbia, Challenger and Discovery at Wolf 359. We shall investigate and provide any help to the survivors on Coridan Prime. Doctor Phlox, assemble all personnel with medical training and coordinate with the medical officers on the other ships."

"Yes, Captain."

"Commander Tucker, Commander Reed, assemble all non-essential personnel and assign them to rescue teams. The ship will be manned by a skeleton crew while in orbit."

"With all due respect, Captain," Malcolm interrupted. "Isn't it too risky to leave the ship with minimum personnel? Whoever attacked the planet could still be out there or return to finish what they started."

"A detachment of Andorian battle cruisers will join us in orbit around Coridan. They are ill-equipped to mount a rescue mission, but they are more than adequate to provide defensive cover."

=/\=

Seeing Hoshi crouched down near one of the huge tents that engineering crews had erected to serve as a field hospital, Trip ran over and put his arms around her to keep her from falling over. With a pained gagging sound she emptied the measly contents of her stomach onto the ground.

"I can't," she whimpered. "I need to get a away..."

Trip tried not to sigh. He knew exactly what Hoshi was talking about. The tent was overflowing with Coridanites, who had fallen victim to the fire storm that had turned most of the planet's surface into a smoking pile of ashes. As far as his eyes could see there was nothing but burnt stumps where once a lush forest had been and any sort of settlement had been reduced to a collection of burnt-out hollow shells. While that was enough to rattle a person, the real horror was the horrid stench of charred flesh and decaying corpses that poisoned most of the planet’s atmosphere.

He slung Hoshi's arm over his shoulder as he helped the staggering girl to walk towards a smaller tent. Grabbing a cloth from a table near the entry, he gently wiped the remnants of vomit off Hoshi's face and helped her to get 'comfortable' on a make-shift biobed. Basically it was just a stretcher with 4 rods welded to it to serve as legs, but it was the best they could do with the limited resources. Vulcan had dispatched several freighters with emergency supplies, but even though Vulcan freighters were capable of speeds in excess of warp 4, it would still take them another 36 hours to reach Coridan.

Without a word a young crewman came over and put an oxygen mask over Hoshi's face. Freed from the horrible miasma and breathing clear air for the first time in over a day, Hoshi calmed visibly, but her empty stare, which had gained the infamous name "thousand yards stare" in Earth's more savage history, made it clear that Hoshi was in bad shape.

A hand on his shoulder brought him out of his reverie. He whipped his head around and looked straight at T'Pol's face.

"How's it going in here?" he asked, exhaustion clearly showing on his features.

"I am trying to counsel the crewmen to the best of my abilities."

"You're doing fine, darlin'," he said quietly enough to escape the hearing of any bystanders. He had noticed her insecurity about counseling distressed humans, but T'Pol had done a marvelous job so far. With Vulcans' inherent problems with physical contact, she wasn't well-suited to help Phlox's teams, but with her ability to absorb and suppress emotions at least for a time, she was surprisingly effective in caring for the crew members, who had succumbed to the distress of the horrid situation.

"Your confidence in my abilities honors me," T'Pol admitted when she picked up his surface thoughts. "But I do not know how much longer I can function."

Her outright admission, which was still a rather rare occurrence, set off the warning bells in his mind. Realizing that she hadn't meditated in almost two days, he acted quickly and opened his communicator.

"Tucker to Enterprise!"

"Enterprise here," came the reply of Lieutenant Rao.

"Lock on to Captain T'Pol and transport her up. She's to be left undisturbed for at least 3 hours."

"Acknowledged."

Trip noticed the strong wave of anger and irritation in the bond. Obviously she didn't care much for his decision to exert more authority than his rank allowed him to.

"Exactly that's why you're now going up and will meditate the hell outta yourself until you've gotten rid of the stress. You just went straight through my shields with your rampant emotions," he said in a tone that made sure she knew that he wasn't open to negotiation. "You may be the Captain, but you're also my wife. I'm not standing by to see you fall apart. We need you at your best."

Before she could deliver a reply, she dissolved in the glittering light of a matter transport and was gone.

"I'm taking over here," Trip said to the two crewmen, who had watched the scene.

=/\=

Captain Sopek disembarked from the shuttle and took a look at the scene. He had just escorted a convoy of freighters to Coridan. With grudging respect he looked at the provisional landing site the humans had constructed. Not only had they cleared a huge area, they had built a lot of landing pads for inbound and outbound shuttles and erected a structure overlooking the area, from which they coordinated the approaching and departing shuttles.

It had only been three years since his last visit to this planet. Only a selfless act of Subcommander T'Pol was responsible that he was still alive. At the time the humans had been a most disagreeable disruption. Their main achievements at the time consisted of a destroyed monastery and skirmishes with species like the Suliban, who until then had been a minor footnote in the quadrant.

Since then the humans had started to claim their place in the intergalactic diplomatic spectrum and even most conservative and skeptical Vulcans like himself had to admit that they could not be dismissed any longer. Whether it was the truce at Paan Mokar, the discovery of Surak's original writings, the successful defense against the Romulan drone ships or the rescue of Ambassador Soval from rogue Andorians, the humans had always been involved in a decisive fashion.

His thoughts were interrupted by an approaching human officer.

"Captain Sopek, if I'm not mistaken?" the human asked. Looking at the rank insignia, Sopek identified him as a Starfleet Commander.

"Indeed."

"I'm Commander Malcolm Reed. If you would please follow me. We're standing right in approach vector Three-Alpha."

Following the human, Sopek tried to get an overview of the frantic action. Shuttles of human, Andorian, Vulcan and Coridan origin were approaching and departing in a dangerously high frequency. Such a low separation between vessels would be considered an irrationally high risk, but somehow the humans had managed to devise a method of making such dangerous flying reasonably safe. Sopek wondered if that was the reason why the humans had asked all Vulcan shuttles to identify themselves by the prefix "Desert" followed by a unique ordinal number.

He winced slightly as the creak of a metal door caused discomfort to his sensible hearing. Too occupied with the scenery, he hadn't noticed that the human had led him to the provisional structure they had erected in the middle of the area. It was a most simplistic building with metal scaffolding serving as a skeleton, while the walls and roof were made of metal sheets. A long ladder led up to a sort of platform.

"It isn't very comfortable, I'm afraid," the human said apologetically. "But that was the best we could do in the short time."

"Do not concern yourself," Sopek answered, climbing up after his guide. "I am sure it serves its purpose adequately."

Once he reached and stepped onto the platform, he was momentarily disorientated by the many voices.

"Desert 42, cleared to land at pad 20, caution departing Snowflake 45 on pad 19... Blueball 15 cleared to depart, fly departure vector Gamma-5, climb to 2000 metres, contact Discovery control on frequency 117 mark 3... Snowflake 45, climb to 5000 metres, caution approaching Desert 42 at 9 o'clock..."

Twelve humans were sitting at makeshift tables, juggling little pieces of paper around. Each of them wore an earpiece with a microphone attached and they all spoke simultaneously making it hard to follow one’s own thoughts. He noticed how the human indicated him to follow into a small compartment, which was separated from the rest of the platform by a sliding door.

"I suppose that was a bit overwhelming for your hearing," the human apologized.

"Indeed," Sopek agreed. "Could you explain the purpose of the unusual communication?"

"It's shorthand, designed to convey as much information with as little words as possible."

"Fascinating," Sopek said. Obviously in time of need, the humans could indeed see the advantages of efficiency.

"The callsign Desert is used by Vulcan shuttles, Snowflake are the Andorians, Blueball are our shuttles and the few surviving Corridan shuttles use Miner as their callsign. That way we can immediately tell what sort of shuttle we're dealing with in terms of speed, size and maneuverability, enabling us to route them accordingly, even if we can't see them."

"A most efficient approach. Why did you ask for my presence here?"

"Vulcans are good with numbers," Malcolm explained. "We need to get shuttles in and out of here as quickly as possible. Once a shuttle has landed, the cargo has to be transferred to a different shuttle and that one has to be sent out on the double. Air traffic control is working just fine, but we're hitting our limit at keeping track of which cargo is coming in and which continent it has to be sent to. Nobody can process that much data better than a Vulcan."

Sopek felt as if his whole view on the galaxy was being inverted. Not only were the humans much more efficient than the now disbanded High Command had ever given them credit for, they appeared to be perfectly willing to concede Vulcan superiority in certain areas.

"You wish us to take over the logistic coordination?" Sopek asked.

"It would be a great help," Malcolm said with a nod.

"It is only logical to offer all help we can give. I shall assemble a task force immediately."

"Thank you," Malcolm said and pointed at a young human female in the neighboring room. This is Ensign Dahl, she will provide all pertinent information for your team.

"Acknowledged."

=/\=

T'Pol blew out the candle after a much needed meditation. Ever since Trip had ignored her authority and transported her back to the ship three days ago, she had made the return to the ship a daily routine. She knew that Trip had been right and she had used her acquiescence as a bargaining tool to get him to sleep at least every 24 hours. They had settled into a working routine. While she tried to counsel distressed members of the rescue parties, Trip was trying to coordinate all the efforts on the continent. Since Enterprise's crew had taken over the Tessen continent, which was by far the largest on Coridan, the Vulcans and Andorians had volunteered all non-essential personnel, which left her with the unique task to counsel specimens of four different species.

She had to fight an amused snort at the mental picture of someone like former administrator V'Las seeing a Vulcan female in a human uniform consoling a distressed Andorian. While the sheer dimension of suffering on Coridan was almost too much to bear, it showed once again that in times of extreme peril most humanoids cast aside all their animosities and worked together for a common good.

She materialized on the surface and walked straight into the tent that housed the make-shift counseling station. A familiar sight awaited her. Humans on their knees, hands folded in front of their chest, were engaged in silent pleas to a deity, Vulcans tried to calm themselves in deep meditation, but alarmingly, the number of people falling into helpless apathy was rising by the day. Two Vulcans had fallen into a healing trance and even one Andorian had been so overwhelmed that he was just lying on a stretcher, staring into the void – completely detached from reality.

Two more days, she thought. That had been the latest information from Starfleet command. Ten human freighters were expected to reach Coridan within 48 hours, carrying hundreds of trained search and rescue personnel. Two more days before the unprepared Starfleet crews were released from the most horrifying mission they had ever faced.

"Where is Malcolm?" T'Pol asked a very tired looking Trip, who had 'run the shop' for the duration of her meditation break.

"He'll be here in about an hour," Trip reported and handed her a PADD with the latest information about the new cases.

"Who is that?" she asked, pointing at a Coridanite, who spoke to one of the native patients.

"A healer named Gratev. Shran's crew pulled him from a partially collapsed basement in Cordas. Phlox patched him up and he volunteered to help. He's a healer."

"I see. You..."

"I know," Trip interrupted with a sigh. "I'm off to bed."

He slumped down on a nearby stretcher and was asleep almost immediately. Ignoring protocol, T'Pol pushed a strand of hair aside and gently kissed his forehead.

"Sleep well, Ashayam"

=/\=

Trip waited at the airlock overseeing the return of the last crew members to the ship. They all looked ragged and tired. The six days on Coridan had taken their toll on the crews of Enterprise and other ships. Considering that many of the crew were battle-hardened survivors of the Xindi mission, he didn't really want to imagine the impact of the mission on fresh and unproven crews like those of Discovery and Challenger.

The temporary fleet commander, Captain Shran, had ordered the four ships back to Earth in accordance to Starfleet’s instructions.

Once all were on board, he closed the airlock and reported to the bridge that Enterprise was ready to go. T'Pol acknowledged his report and he made his way back to their quarters to wait for T'Pol's return.

=/\=

T'Pol let out a low moan, when Trip pushed his thumbs forcefully into her neural nodes. Never ever had she been so in knots, but considering the last few days it wasn't really surprising, so he silently continued his efforts to alleviate her discomfort.

"What did Gardner say?" he asked after a while.

"We will spend a week in Earth orbit. Crew members in need will be provided with counseling at Starfleet medical, while senior staff will be debriefed about the situation on Coridan. The option of a senior officer in need of counseling did obviously play no role in Starfleets plans."

Immediately the picture of a barely responsive Hoshi sprang to his mind. She was still sedated in sickbay.

"Except for Hoshi, most senior officers seemed to take it rather well," he tried to calm her.

"I am definitely not fine."

Trip was startled. This seemed to turn into a pattern. Usually she was loathe to admit to weaknesses, but lately T'Pol had been rather vocal in communicating her problems. Trip wasn't sure if that was a repeat of her straightforward approach she had adopted when talking to his parents or if the burden had become so heavy that she simply didn't bother any more to hide it.

"I'll talk to Gardner, when we're home. I think it would help if we spent two or three days with my folks. I'm sure they can give you much better counseling than some shrinks at Medical. Malcolm wants to take Hoshi to Japan. One of her brothers is a shinto priest."

"Do your parents have a professional background in counseling?"

"No, they're just really compassionate people. And they learned the hard way how to help people after the Xindi attack."

"This might not be possible. When my debriefings conclude, yours will only start."

"Where's the problem?" he asked and stopped the neuropressure in favor of a good old human massage. "You go to my folks and I join you when my meetings are over."

She turned her head back, looking at him in confusion. "I doubt that it would be appropriate to presume on their hospitality without your presence."

"What's that got to do with anything? You're family, T'Pol. My mom will kick my sorry butt to Jupiter, if we're on Earth and she doesn't get to see you."

"Your mother would wish to see me, even if you are absent? We are not yet legally married."

"That doesn't interest her the least bit. She knows that our marriage is only a formality. You're the daughter-in-law they've been waiting for since Dave, Lizzie and me left the house."

Wordlessly T'Pol nodded her understanding, while Trip silently kept up his gentle ministrations.

=/\=

"Hey Trip," Malcolm called out in the corridor of Starfleet headquarters.

"Hi, Mal. How's Hoshi?"

"She's a bit better, but still not talking much. I wanted to take her to Japan, but I'm tied up in meetings for at least three more days. I was sure Jijii could have gotten her out of her shell."

"Tell you what," Trip offered. "My meetings don't start before tomorrow. Why don't I take Hoshi to her folks?"

"Sounds good," Malcolm said and fished a small PADD from his pocket. "This is the address. I'll inform her parents to meet you at the airport at Osaka."

"You were there with her before the Orpheus raid, weren't you?" Trip asked.

"Yes, why?"

"I seem to have a bit of pull with Gardner. He granted T'Pol and me free use of shuttle pod two. Could I set down somewhere near their place? I don't think that Hoshi is up to public transport."

"You're the man, Trip," Malcolm said happily. "You can set down in their back yard. Just make sure you point the bow towards the house. The thrusters could do some damage to their stone garden and they spent 10 generations on cultivating it. "

"I'll keep it in mind. If you get hold of Mattes, please tell him that we need a new keg."

"I'll do, Trip. Hoshi is in room 204. Thanks mate."

"No problem, Mal. See you tomorrow."

=/\=

Charles Tucker jr. looked out of the window – no change. T'Pol was still sitting on the beach staring into the distance. Contrary to her last visit, the wooden gate in the large fence, which shielded the small beach from inquisitive views, was open.

Both he and his wife had been happy to see T'Pol again, but that joy soon turned sour, when they noticed that T'Pol was even more subdued than usual. Only through gentle probing had they gotten her to open up.

News agencies had delivered reports of a tragedy on a planet called Coridan Prime and that Earth ships were helping with search and rescue efforts. Although the Tuckers had more than ample experience with seeing such horror in the aftermath of the Xindi attack, nothing had prepared them for the sheer magnitude of the horror. Five hundred million dead, a whole planet incinerated. This made the Xindi attack look like a kids birthday party. And those poor young people had been thrown right into the aftermath of it. No wonder T'Pol was so devastated.

Cathryn had practically run off to the church in order to light candles and offer prayers for the victims as well as the rescuers and considering that this had been two hours ago, she seemed adamant to pray for each of them personally.

Seeing that T'Pol was sitting on the sand with bent knees, rather than her Indian style pose, he doubted that she was meditating. The way she slung her arms around herself could only mean that she was cold.

Grabbing one of his winter coats from a hook in the corridor, he went out to look after her and decided to do what he had done in a devastated Florida so many times – play it by the ear and see if he could lend a helping hand and a listening ear.

=/\=

T'Pol felt a thick jacket being draped over her shoulders. Looking up she saw Charles Jr, smiling at her.

"Thank you," she whispered and continued to stare out at sea.

"Difficult to forget, isn't it," he said and looked out at the sea, too.

"I doubt that these pictures will ever leave me," she admitted. "But that is not what concerns me."

"What is it?"

"When I started counseling distressed crew members, I was nearly... overwhelmed by the magnitude of their suffering. After several days I became almost indifferent to the fate of my charges. I performed my tasks with no more compassion than handling an engineering review. I became the dispassionate, cold being that humans have accused Vulcans of being for so long."

"So you're hatin' yourself for what you've become."

"Yes," she admitted tersely, fighting the instinct to reply that Vulcans were incapable of experiencing hate, because they were.

"Remember what you told us about your first days on Enterprise? How you were afraid of dealing with 80 humans and their pesky emotions?"

T'Pol nodded and kept her look straight out on the sea.

"That were 80 humans in a normal mood. Over there you had to deal with humans, who were close to bein' done in by their emotions. And you didn't only deal with them, you helped them. That's not only a very compassionate, that's a damn brave thing to do, T'Pol."

"I should not have allowed myself to become so detached from the personal fate of the charges I was dealing with," she maintained in stubborn self-reproach.

"Happened to me, too," Charles admitted and T'Pol looked at him in surprise. "After the Xindi hit us we did pretty much the same as you guys did on Coridan. Cath kept herself occupied by cooking day and night for the survivors and the rescue teams. For me as an engineer there wasn't much to do, so I became the world’s most unlikely counselor. It was hell for the first few days until I managed to distance myself from the people I was dealing with. Hell, I didn't even ask their names after a few more days – I was there for them, listened, cried with them and gave them a shoulder to lean on. To do the job I had to distance myself from their personal fate. I couldn't ask them if they had lost a child, like we did or if they lost their whole family. I wouldn't have lasted a week if I had taken on all that emotional baggage."

"So, it is a normal reaction?" T'Pol asked.

"Sounds pretty normal to me," Charles agreed. "Did you help them any worse when you didn't pay attention to who the person was?"

"My efficiency seemed not to decrease."

"That's what I thought. The compassion was still there, but your mind protected itself. You got nothing to blame yourself for, T'Pol."

"Thank you, Charles," she whispered. Somehow she felt great relief by being absolved from any blame by her Adun's parent.

=/\=

Trip did a double take and walked out on the beach. He could only see them from behind, but the two figures sitting in the sand were unmistakably T'Pol and his dad. She had his winter coat draped over her shoulders and was leaning heavily on him with her head resting on his dad's shoulder – definitely not a sight he had expected.

"Dad?" he asked to make his approach known.

"Shhh," his Dad hissed. "Not so loud, she's sleeping. I wasn't sure how she'd react to me carryin' her in, so if you have an idea? I feel every bone in my body."

"S'ok Dad. She sleeps like a rock. What happened?" Trip asked while hoisting T'Pol up in his arms.

"Tuck her in first," Charles suggested while trying to stand up without wincing too loudly.

"What was wrong," Trip asked after he had put T'Pol to bed.

"She was beatin' herself up over becoming 'too cold' after a few days of counseling," Charles answered and handed Trip a beer as they took a seat on the porch.

"So that's what she's been hiding," Trip muttered.

"Looks like she didn't sleep to well either," Charles mentioned. "Once I had her convinced that it was a perfectly normal thing, she passed out on me."

"Guess I didn't pay too much attention lately," Trip admitted morosely. "I was too busy buryin' myself in work."

"Wasn't like you were dealing with a mild head-ache. Hell, half a billion dead..."

"Sure," Trip grunted and took a frighteningly big swig of the beer.

"Son, if what you told us about that bond of yours is true, I think T'Pol could use your presence in that bed right now."

"Just let me wind down a bit and finish that beer, dad. Thanks for helping T'Pol."

"T'was nothing son."

=/\=

"Trip has left?" T'Pol asked when she entered the kitchen the next morning.

"Yeah, he had to return to San Francisco for more meetings. Good thing he managed to sneak out for the night or I'd still be your pillow on the beach," Charles said with a chuckle, while he offered her a chair at the breakfast table.

"I regret your discomfort," T'Pol said.

"Don't worry T'Pol. As long as it wasn't unbearable, I just didn't want to disturb you. With Vulcans bein' so sensitive to touch I was just worried to upset you if I tried to carry you to the house."

"Although I do not plan to allow such lapse to repeat itself, you may rest assured that it would not have upset me. You are part of my family, even if our marriage has not been formalized yet," she explained parroting Trip's words. Only the day before she had finally realized the truth of these words.

"We're honored," Cathryn chimed in, while shoveling salad to T'Pol's plate. "But how can that be? You only met us for the second time and unlike Trip we don't have any mental connection with you."

"Trip informed me that you would have been most displeased if you had been denied the opportunity to meet me while we are on Earth."

"He got that right," Cathryn answered with a smile.

"That means, your emotions towards me are mainly of a caring nature. Therefore it is logical that they would not upset me, even if I would sense them due to physical contact. And for a species with acute senses as ours, olfactory sensations play an important role. Your scent is very similar to that of Trip. That would allow me to identify you as family members even if I was partially incapacitated."

"We're glad you're feelin' at home here," Charles said and 'abused' the newly found permission to touch her by taking her hand, smiling warmly at her.

"Let's eat," Cathryn suggested and T'Pol waited patiently while her Adun's parents folded their hands and expressed silent gratification to their deity.

Halfway into their meal they were interrupted by an incessant beep from a communication terminal. Charles Jr. reached behind him and pushed a button to accept the call. The grim face of Commander Reed appeared on the screen.

"Mrs Tucker, Mr. Tucker, Captain," he greeted with a court nod. "Captain T'Pol, you must pack with all haste. Lieutenant Maywheather will come for you within the hour. All crew members have been recalled."

"What happened, Commander?" T'Pol asked.

"Space station Salem One has been attacked and seized."

 

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