"We don't have the luxury of being safe or cautious anymore. And if the only lead we can find comes from a freighter captain of questionable character than that's good enough for me! Understood?"
The door slides close behind him. I feel her eyes on me and I turn to look at her. The expression on her face makes me swallow back the harsh response that I have already formed in my mind.
"Understood!" I mutter under my breath, even though the captain is not around to hear it anymore and I close my eyes.
Albeit I am lost in thought I can feel her catlike, graceful movements as she steps closer, placing a slender hand on my arm.
"Malcolm, he doesn't mean to ..."
I shake my head to interrupt her.
"Don't, T'Pol, I know what you want to say. It's just ..."
I turn around and she opens her arms to welcome me in a comforting embrace.
With a sigh I settle into it and for the millionth time I wonder why she is the only person aboard who can make me allow myself to feel vulnerable, to feel weak.
Her fingers soothingly caress the hair at the nape of my neck while she softly speaks to me, finishing what she wanted to say.
"He doesn't mean to undermine your authority as his tactical officer. He's getting restless, Malcolm. And that makes him forget that there may be consequences that he might oversee. He relies on you, no matter what."
I want to believe her and if we would be having this conversation before the attack on Earth I would be able to have faith in it. But since that dreadful incident and since we have entered the Delphic Expanse I feel like I'm not really needed anymore.
Captain Archer still turns to me when it concerns tactical issues but most of the time I feel like he just wants to ease his conscience because in the end we do it his way, no matter how dangerous or tactically unwise it might be.
I do my job, I try to do it with care and as devotedly as I have always done it but it gets harder and harder to get through to the captain. Working with him has never been easy but I curse this region of space we are investigating and the Xindi for making it even more challenging.
There is only one good thing the Expanse has given me ... T'Pol.
Our feelings for each other had never been a subject between us until she had told me about what I had done when the incorporeal being had occupied my body and until she had thrown herself at my neck when she had suffered from virus-induced pon far.
We probably would never have given into these feelings if she hadn't resigned her commission with the Vulcan High Command to stay aboard Enterprise when we went out on our new, desperate mission.
I adore the changes in her. She's still the serene woman I fell in love with but she has softened and it suits her, makes her even more endearing. And she still can be in total control of her feelings and I know that is why we are devoted to one another.
Concerning emotions I am more Vulcan than Human. I have never been allowed to open up to anybody, I have been taught that an open display of feelings was considered a weakness. And I had learned to keep them to myself.
Until she came and showed me that there is a way, that she knew what I had bottled up inside and that she felt the same.
And that is the reason why I can feel vulnerable and weak when she holds me, because in her eyes it's not vulnerability or weakness but just a part of me.
I lift my head off her shoulder and look at her. The brown hair which she wears longer now frames her beautiful face and even though it's not visible on her full lips I know that she smiles at me, just for me, and her hazel eyes are full of tenderness.
I run my fingers along her jaw and bend down to blow a single soft kiss onto her mouth.
"Thank you, love."
As we head for the door she wraps her arm around my waist and not for the first time do I realize that until she has stepped into my life I have never learned to love without restraints.