Transitional
State
DATE: October 21, 2001
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Thanks to Djinn for a quick lookover.
Note:
Written as a coda to the Enterprise episode “Unexpected” Contains spoilers.
v
v
v
“Where no man has
gone before,” someone whispered and snickered.
Trip spun around and clenched his fist to keep himself from pounding it
on the nearest bulkhead. He hadn’t recognized the voice and the acoustics in
the shuttle pod hanger made it hard to place.
Everybody was ostensibly working hard at their stations with their noses
so close to the panels they could polish the surface with it. He felt his face
go red and turned away to the wall.
This clenched it.
There was no way T’Pol wasn’t responsible for this. Word couldn’t have possibly
gotten around from that little scene on the bridge this quickly. He was
appalled to find himself close to tears. “Volatile” was he? Well, she hadn’t
seen nothing. When he got back from the Zirillian ship.… He felt a hand on his
shoulder and flinched like someone had run an electric shock through him.
“My word,
Commander, you’re jumpier than a bride,” said Reed.
“What’s that
supposed to mean? Shouldn’t that be bridegroom?” He would prefer Travis to take
him over; the dour Reed didn’t inspire confidence. Trip ran his hand through
hair damp with sweat. Ever since Phlox had made the diagnosis, there had been a
part of him inside screaming. Not safe to remove it because it was too
“integrated with his pericardium?” Then how could it be safe to “deliver it?”
He had looked the medical term up not sure Phlox would give him a straight
answer. The pericardium was the thin membrane surrounding the heart. This could
not be good. “Why does everyone think this is such a big joke? Or at least the
occasion for really lame humor?” Trip asked.
“Would you prefer
hearty congratulations and a baby shower?” Reed asked dryly.
“I would prefer not
having the news greeted with guffaws, snickers, hiding of laughter behind hands
and what passes for Vulcan humor. Can we get started here please?” Trip walked
into the shuttle pod and tried not to feel too much hope. Only a week into this
“gestation” with five supposedly to go the captain had told Phlox to start
checking him every eight hours. He felt a sharp, piercing pain in his chest if
he took a deep breath. And now a dull ache in his neck and shoulder had begun.
He hoped the
preflight check would keep Reed too busy to chat. On the other hand, maybe it
was for the best Travis was up on the bridge. Knowing him, the boomer would be
filled with questions Trip didn’t really want to answer.
“You know, sir,
sometimes people use humor to whistle in the dark and keep horror away.” In
Reed’s voice he heard something he hadn’t expected from the man and had gotten
precious little of—sympathy. “I can assure you that Subcommander T’Pol
and I have been taking this very seriously.”
“I knew it! She promised
she wouldn’t say a word to anyone. I should have known a Vulcan’s promise isn’t
worth the breath it’s spoken into.”
“You’re jumping to
conclusions, Commander. Something that in light of recent events I would think
you would refrain from.”
“Then how did you
know!” Trip demanded.
“Really, sir. I saw
that—growth—on your arm that you’re trying to hide with a bandage
and told you to go to the Doctor. Not long after I’m on the bridge when Phlox
calls to say you have a ‘delicate condition’ and asking the Captain and T’Pol
to come to sickbay. The captain comes back as white and stiff as marble and
tells me to work with T’Pol on finding the Zirillians. Meanwhile this week you
go around in civvies with your shirt untucked and acting broodier than a hen
with one chick. You’ll be relieved to know however that the rumor was that you
had alien clap. No one guessed you were pregnant, well, until recently.”
Trip felt more
irked than relieved to find out he was wrong. He had been so sure. “What gave
me away?”
“You were muttering
the most extraordinary things under your breath I understand. So how does it
feel to make history as the first human male to get pregnant?”
Trip gave Reed a
sharp look. “Pregnant? More like invaded. A host for who knows what.” His
research on male pregnancies in nature hadn’t been too reassuring. More than a
few ended with the host being eaten alive by the young. He guessed that in that
sense the appearance of nipples should be reassuring. Surely he was supposed to
be alive “post-natal” if he had to nurse the thing? But, after all, by
definition a male’s body wasn’t designed for this.
Given her hourglass
shape it looked like Ah’len was formed for just the thing. Hell, if she didn’t
carry the baby, or nurse it, and she did the impregnating—then what
exactly did that make her? Female? In what sense? What was he doing deposited
with the thing? Thinking along these lines was making him queasy. Hormones,
hell! He didn’t need raging hormones to be going out of his mind.
Trip saw Reed’s
lack of expression and felt irritation rise. “It’s *not* my kid. Phlox says
there’s none of my genetic material in there. I don’t know why anyone expects
me to feel any parental instincts stirring here. The captain and doctor seem to
think I should be starting a nursery in engineering.” Or worse, which he didn’t
want to think about—leave the ship to raise this cuckoo chick. He hadn’t
asked for this. He didn’t want to think about it too much. Didn't want to think
about the sacrifices his own mother had made—sacrifices he'd taken for
granted.
“So,” Trip asked,
“I suppose everyone’s assuming I got knocked up the good old fashioned way?” He
gave Reed a sidelong look and wasn’t reassured by the way the lieutenant chose
that moment to fuss over the controls. Trip thought this was one question Reed
obviously didn’t want to answer. “Cause it wasn’t like that. Ah’len didn’t warn
me that putting my hands in a box full of pebbles was their version of making a
home run.”
“Ah...well rather
par for the course I think for these people. After all, the Zirillians make it
a practice to sneak up to ships and disrupt their systems while siphoning off
plasma exhaust without a by your leave. Pretty creepy if you ask me. I actually
have much more sympathy for the Klingon point of view on this matter then the
captain’s. I wouldn’t exactly call what they did to either of our ships—or
you—harmless.”
Trip felt surprised
to feel a smile spread over his face. Despite what had happened, he still
felt—well “awe” was the best word for what he had felt on that ship. “It
was just a ship of wonders you know. Grass growing on the decks, sweet fruit
growing from the bulkhead, ‘water’ that left a strange tingle going down, a
tank with these eel-like creatures. You can tell the Zirillian’s moods through
the changes in the color of their scales. Technology that can make you think
you’re on the ocean and a box of pebbles that for a while made me feel like a
telepath. Magical.”
Reed gave a
skeptical grunt. “That’s where a little paranoia can be helpful. I’m not a
trusting bloke. But you know I do trust T’Pol.”
“I don’t understand
why. Doesn’t the very fact that she’s still in a Vulcan uniform tell you
anything?”
Reed shook his
head. “What is it about Vulcans and Humans? Why do we forget when we’re around
them that logic and reason are human too? Why is it necessary to express our
emotions at a hysterical pitch around them? It reminds me of a teenager so
shrill in insisting he’s an adult that his parents are all the more impressed
he still belongs in the playroom.”
“I got precious
little understanding from her. She was determined to see me in the worse
possible light. She was so sure I couldn’t keep my pants zipped. Even before
what happened in that cavern, she’s too damn quick to dismiss any observation
by humans as all in our ‘imagination.’ Too damn quick to dismiss us period.”
“Did you know T’Pol
hasn’t slept or eaten in a week from what I can tell? She’s been working around
the clock searching for that ship. While you were enjoying the chef’s cooking,
she was up on the bridge searching. I come back after a sleeping period or
break or meal and she’s there with hours worth of new leads for me to follow
up. And in case you didn’t notice, it was she who talked the Klingons into
letting us visit that ship.” Reed jerked his head to indicate the Zirrilian
ship coming into view. “Thanks to her there’s hope Doctor Phlox won’t get to
run his little experiment in interspecies gestation to the bloody end. I’ll
take that kind of demonstration of caring over tea and sympathy any day. Why
are you so determined to see no good in her people?”
“They had Warp Five
technology. They had it ninety years ago and all they’d give us were enough
hints dropped every few years to keep our appetite whetted.” Reed, Trip thought
bitterly, hadn’t been there while Henry Archer struggled to find the solutions
to the last few intractable problems so he could see his engine fly before he
died.
“So they didn’t
give away their knowledge with an open hand. Why should they? What have we ever
done to earn their respect and trust? The courts of the post-atomic horror met
within Ambassador’s Soval’s lifetime. The Vulcans witnessed them first-hand.
They were still up and running over a decade after First Contact. I’d be wary
of putting that kind of power in the hands of people up to that kind of
brutality so very recently. Yet even you admit they dropped a trail of
breadcrumbs.”
“You make it sound
like they were doing us a favor. We don’t owe them a thing.”
“Granted. We owe
them very little. We are not much in their debt for warp technology. But in the
end did they really ever keep us from finding our own answers? Enterprise is
ours. We made her. The day will come when we can stand by their sides as
equals. And in any case ‘they’ are not T’Pol. I thought we Humans were leaving
that sort of rubbish behind when we decided we’d reach for the stars together.”
Trip moved
uncomfortably in his seat and thought about how fast he had slipped back to his
rooted way of thinking time and again. “I can’t change everything I’ve believed
and felt for years by pressing a button,” he finally answered. “It’s not that
easy or that quick.”
“Neither I dare say can she. It will take a while I think for that chick to hatch.” Trip scowled at Reed. “Er...Sorry, sir.” And Reed turned his attention to docking the pod while Trip found he had something else now to brood about.
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