Single-Minded

Disclaimer: No profit made or ownership of intellectual property implied

Summary: In which Trip and T'Pol find ways to work through their exhaustion. (Takes place in my "Tripling Point"/"Halves, Doubled" universe, but stands on its own.)

By the time hour sixty-seven of repairs to the ship passes, T'Pol finds herself beginning to agree with the people who remind her to sleep. Her need to sleep is still less important than the crew's right to safety, however, so she stays awake helping to rebuild what needs to be rebuilt.

This is her first shift in Engineering since the surprise Romulan attack. Perhaps her proximity to Trip is causing her to feel her exhaustion more acutely: Trip at least has taken a few short naps on the foldaway bench in his office, but he is still Human, still fragile, and his emotional and physical states influence hers. They always will; they are bonded, after all.

In hour eighty-two -- two hours left, she promises, until she will sleep -- she is in the quietest part of Engineering, trying to get the aft sensor array working around the modifications the crew has had to make in order to keep the ship from exploding.

The tension in her neck eases; the back of her head tingles. Her bondmate is approaching.

He is careful not to touch her where the cameras can see, and quietly, professionally asks her to double-check that what he's about to do to the impulse manifolds won't disrupt the work she is doing.

She follows him into the room housing the main impulse manifolds. Their bond is not yet strong enough for them to communicate in words without touch, the meaning his thoughts impart is clear enough: the cameras here have a blind spot. She remembers that, now. She had reported it to the captain three weeks into her posting on Enterprise, had thought of it as an example of shoddy Terran design.

They end up in the darkest corner of the room, protected by shadows and what she had until this point considered a design flaw, and he holds her tightly against him. When they touch, it is as if a door opens between them, allowing a clear flow of thoughts and sentiments, and each time the door opens, it becomes that much harder to close again. This close to each other, their thoughts are a mixture of needed this so badly - too long - exhaustion - adoration - cherish you, cherish this - always - mine, and they need not wonder which thoughts originate from whom, because in this space their thoughts are mutual. It is the closest thing to a meditative state that she has experienced since the morning of the Romulan attack, and it at once invigorates her and makes her further aware of her need for rest.

And then, suddenly, Trip takes her hand in his and moves it up, to a point in the machinery just over his eye level. He presses her hand to it, spreading his fingers out between hers, and she tenses as the vibrations of the impulse engines rumble through her.

The feeling is strange at first, but as their hearts begin to beat in tune with it, she relaxes. It pulses through her, around her, shakes her down to the smallest of the atoms that make up her body, and somehow it quiets everything else. It is as if she herself is being realigned somehow, as if the sensation has the power to heal her. The tension in her body dissolves, like a lyre string being loosened, and Trip smiles into her hair when she gasps at the power this simple touch is having on her.

He responds to her thought before it is even fully formed in her mind. Nobody else knows, just us. Found it by accident a while ago. Too good to share with just anyone.

They remain in that position, joined to each other and the ship, for exactly as long as they can be together in an enclosed space without arousing suspicion.

One hour and forty-two minutes remain until T'Pol can rest, and suddenly the time does not seem so long.