Tripling Point

He's - what there exists of him is - floating. The universe around him is dark and cold, but somehow comfortable. He doesn't want to move. There's nothing of him that can move. No need to move here, anyway. No need to remember. So he stays, and waits, but he doesn't know for what.

Another presence. Warm. Strong.

-Captain Archer?-

No. Yes. Who is that?

Right. He begins to remember. He stirs.

-Captain. Jonathan Archer. Respond to me... please.-

Words start to come back to him. T'Pol?

-Yes. Do you remember what happened?-

No. He doesn't think so. Thinking comes so slowly. Memory - not his own - takes but an instant. He sees a shuttlepod coasting over a thick forest, sees himself in the pilot seat, hears the explosion from behind. Feels the crash. Sees himself, unconscious and bleeding, being bandaged. The medkit is in the crumpled, inaccessible rear of the shuttle. He calls the ship in T'Pol's voice - they can't beam the two of them up, but keep him as stable as possible until the doctor arrives in the second shuttle. He watches his own vital signs drop precipitously and knows there's only one way to keep the man in front of him alive. A mind-meld?

-Yes. While we are joined, I can effectively maintain your heartbeat and rate of respiration.-

Thank you. And now his own memories come flowing back, more slowly. It's not a push of information as much as it is the knowledge that the information is there if he needs it.

/T'Pol, are you okay? I felt the crash. Phlox is on his way, and I'll be going too. Something caused that explosion and you'll need an engineer./

That's not T'Pol's voice. It's not her mind. Not his own. It's cooler, an ocean breeze wrapping itself around a fire as if it's always been there. Maybe it has. It's less intimate than T'Pol's voice - the difference between hearing someone in person and through a communicator - but perhaps more familiar. And as the thought forms:

/Jon? What are you doing here? Are you okay?/

And now he knows. Trip? Except it can't be Trip because Trip's not here and he's not telepathic.

-He is badly injured.-

/Shit. So you melded with him?/

A rush of affirmation flows from the two to Trip, though he can't say with any certainty whether it comes from himself or T'Pol or both of them.

/I thought you'd only read about healing melds? Of course you have. At least we know it works./

His sense of the others fades briefly and he sees T'Pol's scanner. He barely has time to note how ineffably different Vulcan and Human vision are before the link strengthens again. This time, the affirmation is all T'Pol's.

/Hi, Jon. Hell of a way for you to find out about us./

The idea settles in him, comes from a memory that didn't originally belong to any of them. Bonded. You're... and you didn't trust me enough to say something?

/We were going to do it over dinner sometime soon, but it was never a good time. And we worried about what you'd have to say to Starfleet, especially after the thing with the Romulans./

The regret he feels is not Trip's or T'Pol's, but a unique blend of them both. In this state, he can see that this was not a decision they made lightly, and it had torn them up inside.

And he can see - no, perceive - them more clearly now. They have nothing to hold back anymore. He feels her bolstering him, thoughts deliberate and methodical but so many and so fast he doesn't know how she catalogues them. He feels him, warm and cool at once around her, thoughts like a storm: lightning-fast and unpredictable, but brilliant.

And he knows with all the clarity he can muster that Trip and T'Pol complement each other. They are right for each other in a way few people of any species experience. And he is glad for them.

In the shuttlepod, Trip smiles, and they all feel it.

/That's nothin'. You should see our arguments./

If they're anything like the ones they have in Engineering or the Mess Hall, he's sorely tempted to take him up on the offer. But he knows he's treading dangerously close to things that aren't meant to be shared with him, so he takes a mental step back, and just rests in the feeling of two minds wrapped against his own. T'Pol tries to hide her relief, but there is no hiding here.

And suddenly he sees their crash site from above, a smoldering pile of wreckage on the ground.

/The good news is, it doesn't look like anything external caused the explosion. Means we can land safely./

T'Pol's thoughts follow Trip's quickly - almost too fast for words. It is a transfer of ideas before language. -Which means it was internal. A malfunction?-

/Probably,/ Trip thinks, and the thought is suffused with such hope that the other possibilities need not be brought to light. /You're the top priority right now. We can replace a shuttle, but we can't replace you./

He feels a strange sense of double vision; he sees the shuttlepod from outside as well as inside, and he wonders for the first time how Vulcans can bond with one another without losing all sense of reality. He looks around through T'Pol's eyes, hears Trip's voice telling Phlox what to expect at the crash site as they prepare to land, and he is very briefly three instead of one.

The visible, solid world around him begins to fade as his sense of Trip grows stronger. He knows that the link will be gone when he awakens, but he doesn't care. He is certain he will awaken, and his life will be infinitely richer for the time he has spent unconscious.