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From: susieqla@yahoo.com (Sue)
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative
Subject: New ENT -  Communion - (G)  (T/T)   (1/1)
Date: 3 Dec 2004 05:33:56 -0800
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Title :      Communion
Author:      Sue
E-Mail:      susieqla@yahoo.com
Website:     None.
Series:      ENTERPRISE
Characters:  Trip/T'Pol
Category:    Romance/Het.
Rating:      G
Summary:     Missing scenes.


Communion



He shook himself awake, bathed--no-- more like
basted in his own sweat.  It took Trip a good five
minutes to get some form of control over his
breathing.  He patted his unclothed torso all over
just to make sure this was he who had awakened from
the worst sensations he had ever experienced asleep.

It had not been a nightmare, well, not exactly; his
previous nightmares had never been anything like
this.  This, whatever he couldn't think to call it,
had been something far worse.  His being at a loss
for slapping a name on what his subconscious had
dragged him through made sense.  How did you tag the
unnameable?

He scrubbed a damp, jittery hand over his face,
trying for all he was worth to gather his wits.
Pain, far from any physical kind, emotional, for
sure, but like none he had ever known, seared his
conscious.  As if that was not bad enough, the pain
was mated with the acutest sense of loss; the wooden
feel of this loss had a lot in common with explosions
ravaging his brain.  It wasn't likely that relief
would be forthcoming in a foreseeable future.

When Trip had been a younger man, being in sole
command, the position he was currently in, what with
Jon missing in action, along with T'Pol, had been a
cherished fantasy.  But it was losing much of that
appeal from yesteryear.  The disjointed realities of
adulthood had a way of doing that.

Everyone looked to him, and he had better make the
right call, or else...there would be consequences
worse than hell to pay.  At least Soval was on hand
to lend one when his lack of experience and
credentials were showing.  The former ambassador had
lent a solid piece of good advice.  His inconsistent
brethren had no qualms about taking ENTERPRISE out
if Trip had not complied with the stipulation that
they leave orbit, and be quick about doing it.

The added intelligence concerning Andoria Soval
had thrown in as a bonus.

This whole thing with the captain and the First
Officer, the woman, the Married Woman, whom he
would surrender himself for in a heartbeat, was
beyond bizarre.  For all intents and purposes,
they were trapped on Vulcan, and for all Trip knew
perhaps they had been captured and were prisoners
even as he thought this while in the throes of
regaining his bearings.  Now this had all the makings
of a horrific nightmare, worse than the ones he used
to have as a kid.  Those days of boyhood seemed like
the distant past in light of all the willy-nilly
twists and turns his life had taken since.

With no chance of rescuing T'Pol and Jon as things
stood, they were hightailing it to Andoria to warn
its inhabitants that the Vulcans, this particularly
sneaky variety, were out to get them once and for
all.  T'Las was a certifiable megalomaniac of the
worse order in Trip's book, or log, as the case was
in these twenty-fifth century times.

But what the chief engineer was tackling now had
nothing to do with the weight of command, or their
thwarting the Andorians' impending doom.  This he
knew deep within himself.  There was an underside
to this creepy unsettledness and it unnerved him
like fingernails tracking across a relic of a
blackboard.  Seeing his 'dear old dad,' waiting
for him in his former room with 'the belt' ran
along the same lines.

Shivering, Trip dropped his head and not long
after, his hands lent themselves to supporting it
as, slowly, he rolled his spine back down, vertebra
by vertebra, to the supportive comfort of his bunk.
He covered himself with the welcomed blanket and
tried to remember just what would make him feel
so lost and alone, as though he had never had any
friends in his life.  When he was fully supine, he
let out a cathartic sigh, and closed his eyes.  Why
feel like this?  Like...like something that had
been so elusive was now gone forever?

He said her name as though it were a prayer..."T'Pol."
It wasn't as though he were thinking of her, it
was more like she was his guide, his barometer of
what his thoughts were, and it dawned on him.  He
was feeling what she was in that very instant.
The phasing of it happening thoroughly eluded him.
One moment, his thoughts felt to be his own, and
in the next...they were seamless hybrids, as it had
been that first time of melding.

T'Pol...he thought again.

Why would she be feeling this woebegone, this
hopeless?  Trip couldn't shake that feeling most
of all.  He gasped, and it flashed through his
mind:  'I should be with you!  You need me.  The
only person who loved you with everything she had
is gone...'

"T'Pol," Trip whispered again, aloud in the dark.
"Honey, whatever you need.  We'll face it together.
Ya know that.  I'll help as best as I can.  Darlin'
are ya here?"

He thought back to Soval mind melding with the
victim who had survived the embassy bombing,
especially the Vulcan's unwillingess to let him
see how he did it, as though his comparing notes
would mean anything.  Sure, T'Pol and he had done
it, and it had been miraculous, like an out of body
experience in someone else's head.  Mindscapes of
mindblowing ecstasy; T'Pol as she had never been
before.  Yeah, sure, right...but what did he know
from nothing?

He, Charles 'Trip' Tucker, III wasn't even a babe in
the woods when it came to this mystical Vulcan mojo.
He wasn't even a zygote, much less than a twinkle
in anybody's eye who could have been remotely thought
of as a perspective donor of paternal chromosomes.

He was a human man, one of the most down-to-earth
ones a person could ever hope to meet, desperately in
love with a woman who gave him gifts beyond his
wildest imaginings.  This woman, *his* T'Pol, this
knockout of Vulcan, had become his life; that was
all he needed to know.  Currently, she was the wife
of another, but one day, bound and determined as he
was, she would be his, and his alone.

It might be an awfully long wait, but she was the
only woman he had ever known who was well worth
waiting for.  Waiting a lifetime, if need be.  T'Pol
was the one he wanted, and barring substitutions,
which he had already dismissed as weren't for him,
she was the one he would have.

The kick in the pants of it all was T'Pol wanting
him every bit as much as he wanting her, something
he knew he'd never quite get over.  It didn't get
more mindblowing than that, every time he thought
back to when they'd first met.  T'Pol had been easy
for him to read from the 'get:'  "Anywhere you are,
*Commander,* is definitely not where I want to be."

Trip relished the three hundred sixty degree
change in her attitude.  She belonged to Koss, but
she practically worshipped the ground yours truly
walked on, which blew the lid off of mindblowing
in and of itself.

He waited, reasoning why in his right mind should
he expect an answer?  She was ridiculously far,
far away now.  He prayed with all his might that
she was all right.  And when he murmured her name
several more times, an air of hope interlaced with
his sighs, his answer came in the form of her small
voice lapping at his ears, cloying in his mind,
melting his heart.

"...Th'y'la, beloved, I am lost without you..."

He felt his heart swell.  His face caught fire,
or something as close as close could be to it,
and it was as though the increased warmth of his
face heated the rush of tears that flooded his eyes.

More than anything, he wanted to be there with her,
and what was more, he knew she knew it to be true
without his having to even say the words in his
mind.  Their minds were merged, their minds were
one, but Trip reinforced it for himself that
though T'Pol was light years away, she felt as
if she were in this bunk with him.  That was why
he chose to speak out loud.  She really was with
him, no one needed to tell him that, not now.
Uncanny as all get-out, her presence transcended
all that was the space time continuum known to
whatever sentient familiar with rudimentary
astrophysics.

"When we're together, darlin', there's no loss,
ever.  Just us who need each other like power
couplin' needs entrosystemic energy.  I know you
know I don't haveta say it, but I know how ya
feel."  It was no exaggeration.  Her emotions
belonged to him, and she owned his.  "We'll get
through this together, honey, believe me we will.
You're just like her, ya know.  She was great, a
regal lady in every sense of the words, just like
you.  Those murderin' bastards!  Just wait, just
wait.  Those butchers will pay for what they did
to the Syrrannites!  To your beautiful mother!
Killin' them'll be too good for 'em."

'...I cannot believe she is...she is..."

Trip, who still had his eyes closed could actually
see T'Pol's mental anguish, saw it, tasted it,
touched it, as though it were tangible, a living,
breathing entity.  He calmed himself; his ire
tortured her, and that was the last thing he wanted
to do.  Her heartbreak was something to be borne
as far from them as could be.  He wanted to rip all
her sorrow and hurt away, and when he thought that,
T'Pol clung to him as never before.

His love for her deepened, bottoming to a profounder
depth, one he never imagined he could feel for
another.  He remembered to think that she needed
time, as much time, no more, as he had needed when
Lizzie had perished along with all those millions.

"I love you with everythin' I've got, always will.
Bein' together is all that matters, now.  Nothin'
in the universe's gonna stop us.  I pity the loser
who tries standin' in our way."  He had to rescue
T'Pol from the misery that saturated her, he was
desperate in his commiseration.  "Give it all to me,
sweetheart, all the pain, the sorrow, the hurt, the
regret, the guilt, yeah, even that, 'cause I know
you've got a load of it churnin' in ya, beatin' you
up everywhere ya think.  I'm in with ya on all of
it, and I'll NEVER let go."

Haltingly, it came, but come it did...'Never let
me go, Trip...I'll never survive without you.
Not now...this I know as surely as knowing that
the blood which flows in my veins is green.'

She internalized the guilt he felt in that instant.
The crew was warping as fast as they could to
Andoria to warn its inhabitants of these renegades,'
masquerading as Vulcans, diabolical plot.  T'Pol
knew Trip could not have decided to do anything
less than averting such cataclysm.

'...What you do is the only logically ethical
decision you could have made.  T'Las..."  Trip felt
T'Pol cringe mentally.  Through their bond, he
reached out to her, steadying her, and T'Pol centered.
"Left you no alternative, other than being blown from
space.  Trip...the captain and I will prevail.  We
await your return, confident that you will succeed.
We must help the survivors here.  Logic will
ultimately triumph.  'Th'y'la...you must warn the
Andorians.  You must assist them in any way you can
to at least give them a, 'fighting chance,' as you
would say.'

"With you by my side, how can I miss?"  He squeezed
his eyes tighter shut.  "T'Pol, please, please.
Please, darlin', be safe.  Be safe for me--no for
us.  Take care of Jon till we get back.  Know that
when we're together again--"

Of course she knew.  '...Please forgive my mild
critique, but we are together now, and will remain
this way throughout our lives.  We are bond mates,
Trip.  Never separated though never touching...'

"Together as one, though far apart," Trip expounded,
repeating the words, their conjoined emotions rife
with the fervor they reciprocated.  It was tremendous
that he knew it was meant to be spoken as one
mind...shared by two hearts that were solidly one.
"Oh, God, how I love you, darlin'."

Trip saw T'Pol's face, light up and display
her being at peace with him like a kaleidoscope.
In his own heart, the hotbed, of all desires
characteristically unquenchable for her, Trip
rejoiced.  He groaned when she knelt before him.
He didn't like seeing her that way, as though she
were groveling; he should be the one doing it,
not T'Pol, never T'Pol.  Yet, despite her knowing
how he felt, she kissed the tops of his feet and
after pressing her hands upon them, rose.

Before he questioned her, she told him, '...The
most intimate outward sign of respect a bond mate
can pay her beloved.  Yes, my one and only truest
reason for being...'

"You took the words right outta my mouth."

The dazzling panorama of their molten mindscape
flooded with intenser reds...like crimson, the
fire of blood roses.
 
'...The love you have for me, and I for you, fuels
us.  Never doubt ours is a love truly shared.
When you need me, all you need do is think it and
I'll be with you, Trip...always with you...'

"You asked that I never leave you.  So, I ask the
same of you, sweetheart.  Don't even think it.
Don't leave me, 'cause if you ever did, it'll
surely be the day I die..."

'...We will never be apart, beloved.  That is an
impossibility...'

T'Pol allowed his idea its merit.  It was necessary
she suppress what preyed upon her mind.  It all came
down to a matter of survival.  The oneness of the
bond that would weld them to each other forever,
gaining vitality and verve, unique unto itself, was
a powerful entity in its own right.  She could not
help but wonder about the possibility of repercussions,
while jealously guarding such thoughts to prevent Trip
from knowing the true nature of her thoughts.  Could
he survive without her...if she died?

"T'Pol, where are you?"

'...I am here, as I will always be...with you...'

"Just checkin'."

'...Rest now, 'th'y'la...'

"Don't go," Trip murmured, feeling his eyes grow
heavier.  He yawned.

T'Pol whispered comforting thoughts, wholly acceptive
of all that came with what she truly wanted.  Living
without this enriching, though headstrong and forgivably
intense human would be pointless.  Trip was the force
in her life that made embracing these unpredictable
emotions bearable...and as she never tired of telling
him...he was all that mattered.

"No--you--" he insisted, allowing her better peace
of mind and heart to envelop him.  "Y-you're gonna be
fine..."

'...Indeed...we will...'

She stayed with him, bound up in their bond, through
the rest of the ship's night.  She made good and sure
that her treasure, her 'ashayam' for all eternity,
cried tears of comfort and joy for them both.

Sharing intimacies was becoming as natural as breathing...


... ... ...

End


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