Missing Scenes from Season Two: Future Tense

SPOILERS: "Future Tense"

DISCLAIMER: All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount.  "Future Tense" was written by Mike Sussman and Phyllis Strong.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you, reviewers, and thanks also, kind beta jT (especially on this one).

T'Pol returned from the Tal'Kir to Enterprise with a sensation of weight being lifted from her which could not be entirely accounted for by the lighter gravity on the Earth ship.  When required to participate in any encounter between Captain Archer and her people, she could always sense every Vulcan in the room assessing her and wondering how she could serve for so long on a ship of emotional, odorous Humans.  Indeed, she once would have done the same, in their position.

Fortunately, unlike many other Vulcans they had encountered over the last year and a half, Captain Simik treated her captain with respect and courtesy.  He also, however, refused their help with their warp engines.  She could tell this was annoying to Archer, although he did not, thankfully, say anything other than, "It's up to you."

It was perhaps just as well Commander Tucker hadn't come over as part of the initial party.  His frustration might have been a little more plainly spoken, if only because he had long expressed a keen interest in contemporary Vulcan warp technology.  Indeed, when she saw that he was already waiting in the captain's mess for dinner she braced herself for his likely opinion on the matter.

But all he said was, "Cap'n coming?"

"He did specify this time for dinner, so I would imagine so."

Tucker grimaced.  "I've got a lot to do.  I probably shouldn't even be here."

"How are repairs going?"

"We're making good progress; I would estimate all systems will be back to normal by tomorrow afternoon."

"Then sparing some time for a meal with the captain shouldn't be too difficult."

He scowled at her.  "I guess not, if the cap'n ever shows up."

She blinked and formed a hypothesis:  "You're hungry."

He grinned.  "Yeah, I'm ravenous."

Ravenous.  Raving with hunger.  Given that he was actually sitting there rather sedately, Tucker was clearly once again indulging in hyperbole.

"Hey, I have a question for you," he said abruptly.

She lifted her eyebrows, waiting.

"If you could travel into the future and find out how it all turns out, would you?"

She stared at him for a moment.  Her initial thought, to say that the Vulcan Science Directorate had declared time travel impossible, struck her as a particularly weak response in light of recent events.  "I've never thought about it," she said.

"Then think about it now.  Would you want to know?"

"Know what?"

"How our mission turns out ... how your life turns out ... who you marry, how many kids you have, how long you live ... whether Human scientists ever accept that micro-singularities are real and not just a Vulcan fairy tale ..."

She stared at him. 

"Malcolm says he'd love to know who he's going to marry," Tucker said, when she remained silent.  "Says it could save him from a lot of miserable first dates."

"Vulcans don't date," she said.  "Would you like to know these things ahead of time?"

"No, not at all," Tucker said.  "It would take all the fun out of it.  Might even be kind of creepy.  I sure wouldn't want to know when I'm going to die, or my loved ones, unless of course that would allow me to prevent it, which would require messing with the timeline, assuming it even could be changed.  Of course, judging from Daniels maybe it could be, and then who knows what you might be screwing up just out of a selfish desire to not kick off when you're meant to.  Really, it gives me a headache just thinking about it."

And yet he certainly did seem to want to think about it.  "Time travel, if it is even possible, does seem to entail significant risk," she said.

She expected him to attack her for even questioning the possibility of time travel after all they had seen and done, but his eyes narrowed and instead he said, "But would you want to know who you're going to marry, if you could?  Without screwing up the timeline?"

She frowned.  "Vulcans usually do know who they are going to marry."

"But you don't," he said.  He turned red.  "Unless, of course, you've got new arrangements I don't know about."

Her mother argued that she was still betrothed to Koss unless he formally released her, which he had failed to do.  However, given that she hadn't given in to his parents' ultimatum, and given her increasing notoriety among her people, T'Pol assumed it would surely be a matter of some shame to accept her as a daughter-in-law now.  "There are no new arrangements that I am aware of," she said.

"Then ...?"

"It's irrelevant," she said.

"What do you mean, it's irrelevant?"

"If I am going to marry, I will marry.  There is nothing I can do about it."

"That's ridiculous.  You turned down Koss, didn't you?" 

"I didn't turn down Koss.  I turned down his parents' timetable for marrying Koss.  Vulcans don't choose their own mates."  It was surely better not to even attempt to explain the barbaric custom of kali'fee to a Human.  It was virtually unheard of in modern times in any case.

"But don't you see that saying no implies that you could also say yes?"

The door slid open and Archer rushed in.  "Sorry I'm late," he said.  "The conversation with Forrest went longer than I had anticipated."

"Good thing you're here," Tucker said.  "I was about to chew my own arm off I'm so hungry."

More hyperbole, this time with a cannibalistic bent.  T'Pol imagined sitting at a table with her mother and Commander Tucker and watching her mother react to such brutal imagery at a meal. 

Strangely, the thought of shocking her mother in this way actually held some appeal.  How odd.  Perhaps the Humans really were having a deleterious effect on her.

"I'm glad you didn't," Archer said mildly, and summoned the steward. 

"Did Forrest have any news?" Tucker asked.  T'Pol was relieved that he was apparently not interested in continuing the discussion about marriage with the captain here.  Archer had struck her as just a touch too interested in the discovery of Vulcan DNA in a Human's corpse. 

The evidence did seem to indicate that the two species would find a way to intermingle someday.

However, she was sure that would be long after her time.