| previously No Wonder included © Xeen – March 2004 PG 13 (to be safe) Spoilers: (beginning of season 3) The Xindi, The Expanse Monica suggested a sequel to my fanfiction 'Not his day'. This is the second part. Thanks to Mr Carroll. Please note that this has not been beta'd and thus subject to revisions * T'Pol heard the door hiss shut and slowly regained some peace of mind. Commander Tucker lack of tact and huge cheek had worn her out. She decided against lighting her meditation candle. She was feeling exhaustion at an utmost level and even deep meditation techniques would not pull through. She needed to be at her best tomorrow to face Captain Archer. She nodded absently. If they were not stranded in the Delphic Expanse, she would have immediately changed her mind and considered asking for a lift back to Vulcan. She was ashamed of the act of intimacy she had to perform on Tucker and angry on her blatant acceptance of Phlox demented medical orders. The chief engineer could not sleep and was having bad dreams? Who was not? Probably half the crew, not to mention the MACO's; many had lost family or a friend in the attack. If she was to solve their sleeping problems, she won't find time to perform her daily duties. She should have resisted the physician. He had an impressive range of molecules to cure Tucker's psyche, not to mention the help of his extensive menagerie. Her submissiveness was new. Maybe she was affected by the expanse far more than she initially assumed. Maybe she had been far too long on this human ship… … maybe Soval was right. A shadow of a smile floated on her face: what happened between her and Soval that night in San Francisco seemed to belong to another lifetime. She nodded again absently and crumpled on her bed. She slapped her brocade pillow and nestled against it. She puckered her nose and tried to focus on her artery pulse. Far more effective than telling fairy tales and counting sheep. Tucker's odour was everywhere. She was hesitant about talking Hoshi into it. The ensign had put all her strength into building a fragile relationship with the temperamental engineer. It would be unlikely that the young woman would ever consider to forgive her… or Trip. "Computer, light 5%," she whispered. She closed her eyes. Images of her touching Tucker, the touch of his own hands on her back… The sensation seemed even more vivid in the semi-darkness of her quarters. She rose from the bed and stripped off of her silk pyjamas in one motion. In two strides she was into the shower, trying to get clean from the invasive episode. She raised her head under the gush of water and already felt a lot better. She knew she could not ever wash the shame away, no matter what she could do; at best she would have to deal with it; it would take time… more time than the time she had left. She stepped out and towelled with the energy of despair. Maybe she could ask Archer for his help even if he was the last one she wanted to learn about Trip experimenting Vulcan neuropressure from his science officer. He had to know and she had to be the one to tell him before he eventually hears it from someone. She sighed deeply and got dressed. The powder blue outfit seemed oddly out of place. If she was to confide to Archer, she needed the reassuring Vulcan uniform she was used to wearing. T'Pol reluctantly undressed and put on a Vulcan ceremony robe. She needed the harshness of the fabric on her skin to fight against the mixed impression she was still undergoing. She opened the door and made it in the direction of the captain's quarters, aware of an impalpable presence in the corridor. *He* had been there. She knew it almost instantly. She could sense that Archer knew something had occurred. Had Phlox told him? Had he witnessed Trip going back to his quarters? She shook her head to drive away those unsettling thoughts. Phlox should have requested the commander to receive the /treatment/ in sickbay, and she should have not accepted to perform this act in the privacy of her quarters. It was an insufferable breach in her intimacy. Her pace slowed until she finally reached to a halt. She was getting very tired of doing whatever she was told and to sustain the consequences of the actions she was inflicted upon but she could not confront the captain now, not in the middle of the ship artificial night. He had changed a lot during those last weeks, acting rude not only towards her but towards the entire crew. Now was not the time to bother him with her petty problems. She turned back to her quarters. The light was still dimmed. She grabbed a book Archer gave her just before the attack. It was one of his favourite book, he said. She lied down and closed her eyes, the book pressed on her chest. * She took the key from her scientific console and headed to the turbolift. "Sub-commander, if you do not want to implement it, simply say so," said Lieutenant Reed, "but we are running out of time!" The lieutenant was hurrying down the corridor to the armoury. He had a dozen PADDs in his hands and his hair was looking funny. He smiled shyly and his teeth seemed to have weirdly grown over night. Maybe her eyes were deceiving her for lack of sleep. "Very well, Lieutenant Reed, but I must insist on carrying on with the procedure myself." Reed tapped his foot and mumbled something to himself. "Be my guest!" he finally exclaimed, showing her to the door. "But we have to hurry!" She almost lost her temper when she found out that the key was not the right key. Reed overrode the code and she entered another alleyway, only the ceiling was so low that she had to bend to get to the torpedoes. She noticed that there were flowers all around and she was suddenly afraid that Reed had organized the whole thing to seduce her. Moreover, he was handing her a yellowish beverage and was getting even more excited than when they had left the bridge. She took the glass grudgingly and sipped into it. That was not bad. No alcohol that she could detect. She took a quick look at the torpedoes. They were out of her reach and unexpectedly bigger than the torpedoes she was used to seeing on Enterprise, yet too big to be moved even with her Vulcan strength. Reed was nowhere in sight and she seemed unable to reach the control panels. She sat the glass on a projection on the wall she had never noticed before and proceeded to make her way out of the armoury through the flower jungle. First thing was to call for help. She soon enough found out that she was no longer in the armoury but in Chef's hydroponic kitchen gardens. She could not seem to find a door out though. She sacked down and felt so lonely she could have cried. She was freezing out from air conditioning and before getting drowned in the watering of the gardens, she decided to climb into the vent and escape. She put her foot on a stool and climbed up the wall. Still out of reach. The stool was moving though and she almost fell down. "Sub-commander, may I help you?" asked Chef. He was kneeling on the floor picking some herbs and she had obviously mistaken him for a stool. He did not seem upset or angry when she jumped from his back, back into the water and splashed him in the process. Something was wrong. Chef was a tall man but she barely was as tall as his knees. "Are you all right sub-commander?" asked a female voice, who turned out to be Hoshi's. "May I be of any assistance sub-commander?" said Reed. "Am I the only one to find this situation…. weird," T'Pol began, "or are we experiencing yet another anomaly?" "You're accusing me of something?" squeaked Hoshi, a head bent on her shoulder. She looked upset and different. "I was only watering the plants. You should not have come!" T'Pol felt the water climbing up her thighs and realised she was shrinking. She must be hallucinating and this was only a delusion caused by the Delphic Expanse, she thought, since no one seemed to register her changing. She took a deep breath and started agitating her legs and arms in order to stay above water. But it was cold and she was having more and more troubles to float. Her legs were going numb and she was unable to speak. She called for help in Vulcan and Hoshi turned to her. "Are you testing me again, sub-commander," she shrieked. "Please, speak in English. We are on a human ship. Follow me!" she ordered without looking back. T'Pol was on the verge of letting herself drown when her feet reached the bottom and she walk out of the water to find herself in the mess hall. Hoshi was standing on a table and half the crew was gathering around her. "Please listen!" she said. "You need to get dry and this is the driest story I know." There was some kind of a hustle and Hoshi squeaked them all deaf. "All right, it's up to you if you don't want to get dry!" she said, sitting on the table. "Please, please," begged the crew. "OK," squealed Hoshi. "Please be quiet. Zephram Cochrane who was once submitted to the Vulcans…" "The Vulcans…" whispered the crew. "I'm through!" yelped Hoshi. "You know what it means…" There was an awkward silence. "Vulcan neuro-pressure?" Ensign Cutler said out loud. "Hurrah!!" the crew yelled and everyone was pushing the tables and chairs against the walls. T'Pol was standing alone in the middle of the mess hall, wishing to get the chance to shrink even more. "They win sub-commander," said Archer, his mouth against her ear. Her heart fluttered. "Win?" she asked. "Yes, they all win the prize." "I am uncertain what prize you are talking of," T'Pol said. "May I see what you have in your pocket?" "But… I have no pocket." "Don't be so sure sub-commander," Archer said, his hand sliding on the small of her back. "Here you are!" said Archer, presenting a meditation candle. The crew crowded around them and rejoiced loudly. "You were right, sub-commander. Hoshi's tale was too dry." "Zephram Cochrane who was once submitted to the Vulcans, never struck me as a sad lad," said Hoshi to the crew. "He was a merry old fellow but eventually got lost in the course of his journeys and we will find him in the Delphic Expanse if we are lucky enough he will not be dead." "YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!!" said Hoshi, a stern look on her face. "I was," apologized T'Pol, "but I was too busy watching your pony tail." "You won't ever take me seriously, will you?" said Hoshi, rushing out of the mess hall in tears. "I did not mean to be rude," said T'Pol. But everybody was gone. * She proceeded with caution to the galley that seemed to have been deserted as well. Only thick smoke was coming from a place at the opposite side of the room. She held back a cough and closed the door behind her. Something was very wrong on the ship: protocols did not permit such security breaches. Whatever caused the smoke should have been prevented. Now that she was back to her normal height, maybe she could ask some advice from the doctor. The whole experience reminded her of her fighting a male le-matya which had accidentally entered the inner gardens of her home on Vulcan when she was a child. The huge predator had been making fun of her and playing with her until she had fought back, using intimidation techniques and her Vulcan expertise. The fight and the unexpected escape of the animal had left her stricken with confused feelings. She had concealed the event from her family and was bearing it a grudge for making her so naked when time had come to face her fears. Her pride had made her deny the life-threatening event. Only the shameful imprint of her expressing unwanted feelings had remained. She quickly made it to sickbay, figuring that Phlox should help her in her ordeal. Enterprise had turned into a ghost ship. She left the turbolift and entered sickbay. Phlox was not in. She sighed and almost let herself express discouragement when his voice startled her. She turned on her heels but could not spot the physician. He suddenly appeared from behind the shelves of his laboratory. "Sub-commander," he said with the most jovial voice, "what can I do for you?" She watched him with caution. There was something weird with his mouth and eyes. "Doctor," she asked in a subdued tone, "did you notice anything out of the ordinary on the ship… lately?" "That depends a good deal on what you call ordinary, sub-commander…" he trailed, "if you want to ask me, I think this ship had turned mad since we entered the Expanse." "I was not thinking that kind of ordinary, doctor…" "… and it all depends which people you're referring to as well." That stopped her from asking any further. Whatever infected the ship it definitely reached sickbay. That was not his way to be so straight forward and he would never have volunteered to discuss patient confidentiality with anyone, even a senior officer. "If you take Commander Tucker, for example, the poor lad had been experiencing quite a nightmarish journey since his sister… well, you know," he said, his smile spreading to unprecedented length even for a Denobulan. "I take it your using neuro-pressure techniques on Commander Tucker had gone further than you expected?" She clasped her hands in her back and stepped away from the doctor. He accentuated his smile even more, stretching his mouth up to the lobes of his ears. She blinked. The doctor was gone and his smile was the only thing left for her to see. She blinked again. He was right there facing her. She was delusional. Maybe the exposure to the Expanse had caused her to lose her sanity. She shivered, imagining herself turning into some primitive violent demented creature. "You see, Commander Tucker is quite predictable. Angry when he does not understand, ready to be more than happy if you give him the chance." "I suppose so…" she said, proceeding careful to exiting sickbay. "On the contrary, Captain Archer is a reasonable man, a good man, but if he's confronted with painful events, he will stay angry until the crisis is proven to be completely over. I picture him as a knight who would fence for his lady and would turn his back to her for ever if betrayed." "Fence?" "No offence!" he said, vanishing right in front of her eyes. She blinked again. The doctor was only half back and clearly affected by the Expanse. She had to turn to the Captain. She took a deep breath. "I have to go now." "Very well," he said, starting to disappear very slowly. His smile held up into thin air for a moment after the Vulcan had left. * She had to find the captain. Right away. He had proven to be quite resilient for a human in the past. She almost run to the turbolift and was on the verge to bite her nails when the door hissed open in front of the senior officer private mess. She wiped her hands on her hips, pressed the button and walked in. The captain, Commander Tucker and Ensign Mayweather were there, only Travis was fast asleep and the other were simply ignoring him as they were too busy feasting over a sucking-pig. She gasped and fought the urge to get the unpleasant sight from her eyes at once. She blinked instead and sat in front of them. "No!" they shouted. "You can't." "Why? There is plenty of room!" she replied, trying to withstand her rising indignation. "Want some meat?" asked Trip, grease dripping down his chin. "No thank you, commander. You know that Vulcans are known vegetarians," she reminded him. "It is not very civil of you to offer," she said. "You were not invited," stated Trip. "I was under the impression that it was the Captain's table and that I was always welcome to the Captain's table." She was having more and more trouble in keeping her cool. "You may want to change," finally said Archer. "You were never at my table in your pyjamas before…" To her utter horror, she found out she was naked with only her blue silky pyjamas bottom and a tiny tank top on. She gritted her teeth and stood up. She tried to control her rising panic. "T'Pol?" pushed the captain. She stepped back a few feet away from the table… "T'Pol!" … her eyes wandering from the captain to Trip, from Trip to Travis and back to her pyjamas… "T'Pol, this is Archer, please respond!" She woke up and pressed the com' on the side of her bed. "T'Pol here." "Something wrong, subcommander?" "I seem to have overslept, Captain. I apologize. I will be on my way shortly." "No need to apologize. I understand that you are of great help to my senior crew lately. I take it, it must be straining for you. Archer out." He knew. She quickly disrobed and walked up to the shower. The book fell opened. The Hatter on the left page kept mocking her from the floor of her cabin. (To be continued) |
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