MIDNIGHT CONFESSIONS: Missing Scene from Countdown

Disclaimer: Star Trek names, features and borrowed dialogues are property of CBS/Paramount, all rights reserved. No claims.

Comments: The story is my entrance to the June 2010 Word Prompt. It is related to "Missing Scene from E2" and precedes TnT arguing on the Command Center, where she calls him by "Trip" (a very intimate treatment).

Acknowledgments: To WarpGirl for beta-reading and suggestions to improve the text.

Her nightmare persisted.  She woke up in the middle of the night, her body shivering, covered by her evaporating sweat.  

In the last days, nobody had enough time to rest. The crew was working double and triple shifts in order to repair the ship, complete the mission and save not only Earth, but the entire quadrant from being encompassed by the Delphic Expanse anomalies. Sleep was a precious commodity for everyone.

She tried to meditate and rest in those short intervals, but usually she couldn't relax enough.  

Her mind barely focused her meditation space, but it was not the quiet, peaceful, void space necessary to her mental relaxation. In her conditions, with neural pathways damaged by the Pa'nar syndrome and the use of Trellium-D, lack of meditation meant insufficient body rest due to restless sleep.

And she had that persistent, uncomfortable nightmare. She came to bed with the dread of seeing the recurrent scene, where she was forced to watch Trip and Amanda make love, night after night, like a human voyeur.

In the dark, she braced herself over her bunk, considering to leave the room and direct her body and mind looking for another solution on how to disable Sphere 41.  However, she knew that a troubled, unrest, tired mind was of no help. Earth, Vulcan and other planets would now depend on finding a solution. And she was in command of completing it. Even if it required the destruction of Enterprise and the loss of the entire crew, she and Trip included. She needed to relax to cope with it.

"I need to relax, I need to meditate, I need sleep!" She recognized that she had been unable to rest without being close to him. She had tried to push him away, to regain her emotional control, to be able to suppress her feelings without depending on his emotional mind. She realized she had failed in trying to regain self-control on her own.

 The voice of the older counterpart of herself came to her mind -  "Trip can be an outlet for these feelings if you'll trust him. "

Logic implied she should take a different approach, again using Trip's presence to attain emotion suppression. The simplicity of the proof arose like a mental spark.  That simple thought was enough to relax part of her brain. Her anguish, caused by the nightmare, began to fade away.

"I have to admit, I must confess! I cannot regain my Vulcan mental control without Trip. I need him to help me!"

She weighted on how to tell him about. He was upset with her, since she had started to push him away with the replay of the 'exploration of human sexuality' argument. "I need to tell him that I cannot cope with my emotional inability alone. That I need him to help me."

She decided to ask him on their next working shift, "I need to look for a proper occasion to speak to him, it will not be easy."  -  he was also upset about her decision to destroy the sphere at any cost, including the ship. "I'll look for the appropriate moment, during our job."

Strangely, that simple reasoning was enough to relax her body and mind. She felt comfortable. In a few moments, she fell asleep. It was a short sleep before the next shift, but she woke up feeling she had rested on a little better.

And most important of all, her nightmare didn't come back.