Missing Scenes from Season Four: Daedalus

DISCLAIMER: All things Star Trek belong to CBS/Paramount. "Daedalus" was written by Ken LaZebnik and Michael Bryant.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter just gives us some interior reflection for our heroes as they process the already quite sufficient number of painful TnT scenes in "Daedalus." Sorry about that, but given what I have to work with, it's just angst, angst, and angst … although you might be at least a little entertained by T'Pol's Vulcan perspective on Human relationships.

A great big thank you as always, dear reviewers.

She was fine. She was truly fine. Trip didn't seem to understand that as a Vulcan she should be able to soberly analyze all the factors involved the loss of her mother and put that unavoidable pain in its proper perspective – where it could no longer affect her.

And this she had done.

It had not been easy, of course. Among the factors in dealing with her mother's death was a certain degree of shame that she had chosen to go with the captain instead of her mother – and, worse, that she had told her mother she wanted nothing more to do with her.

But she knew T'Les forgave her. So it was pointless to become preoccupied with regret.

Of course, she was relieved they'd had that moment together at the end. She was also pleased that her mother had told her she was proud of her. T'Pol had never really believed that, at least not in recent years, but T'Les had said it with her dying breaths.

T'Pau had also shared her mother's thoughts with her, and so T'Pol knew that T'Les's pride was sincere. Knowing that was a fair trade, she supposed, for the many less pleasant aspects of that mind meld.

T'Pol was also fine about the end of her marriage. It was a bit ironic that it had occurred at the exact moment when she had begun to seriously consider the potential advantages of the match, but it was not as if she genuinely wanted Koss, so she could hardly grieve losing him.

Perhaps she simply wasn't fated to marry. Not doing so would obviously leave more time for exploration and reflection and the true mastery of emotion.

Given that she could now hope to live a normal Vulcan life span, and given the reality that Trip had already walked away from their relationship once, she saw little logic in renewing their intimacy now. Anything they shared would be transitory at best.

She could still 'feel' a connection to him, especially when he was having a strong emotional reaction to something. There had been that distinctive surge of fury at the captain recently. And then, of course, there had been his pain when she'd talked to him about her new priorities - even though he'd smiled and joked about his engines as if it didn't bother him at all.

The difference between Trip's inner and outer aspects could be startling. Sometimes it made her wonder how often she had totally misread his feelings in the past.

Struck by his inner reaction, she had actually experienced some doubts about her course; for a moment, she had even considered turning around and telling him that she … what? That she would come to movie night, because she wanted him to stop feeling bad, because it pained her to know that he was suffering?

But that would have been ridiculous.

Trip's pain would fade away. He was Human. He would move on. Indeed, this would most likely happen even if they were together. Someday he would get restless, and then he would either leave her, or wish that he could. It was what Humans did. Even if he didn't allow himself to indulge that impulse, how could she bear the knowledge that he felt confined? A Human partner could live in ignorance of such feelings, but she could not fail to notice them. And it seemed, based on what she had read, that most if not all Human males coped with such feelings eventually. The females, as well. Indeed, she had noticed that an entire genre of literature was devoted to suggesting various techniques couples could try to promote a sense of 'variety' and 'newness' in longstanding relationships, as if this was required if there was any hope of making them last. There was a general horror of the 'stale' and the 'routine.'

To T'Pol, this strategy sounded exhausting and essentially self-defeating. There were only so many ways any two people could relate to each other without getting into some rather strange behaviors (and, indeed, there was significant evidence of that in the Human databases).

Furthermore, routine was the basis of all Vulcan discipline.

So it was better to leave things as they were.

Unfortunately, despite all her efforts in meditation and reflection, she was still far less certain about the matter than she should be.

x x x

He was fine. He was really fine. He'd already realized he didn't have a shot with T'Pol anymore … all the signs had been there. At least she'd finally put it to him straight, instead of just avoiding the issue.

When he'd said to Emory, "I have lost someone close, and I'd do almost anything to get her back," he'd been talking about Lizzie. But then Emory had continued on about how much he missed arguing with his son, and that was when Trip realized that what he'd said to Emory could apply just as well to T'Pol.

And that he also missed arguing with her.

She was just too damned logical to even want to argue anymore, unless it truly was over a point of ship's business in which they held a genuine disagreement, and that didn't happen very often. He and she had worked together for years; they could predict each other's next steps; they hardly needed to interact at all unless there was some crisis involved. In recent months he and T'Pol had gotten in the habit of contacting each other through subordinates, or through dry, work-focused messages, and it had worked without a hitch.

He'd tried to let her know they didn't have to do it that way anymore, now that the marriage was ending. He'd thought it was a good sign that she'd brought the power conversion tables to him in person. But then she'd slammed that door in his face, just like she had during his attempt to discuss her loss of her mother. Ultimately she'd come and notified him, a little more gently, that the door was simply officially closed and would stay that way for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps he should be grateful she'd been so straightforward about it. That was fairly unlike her. Perhaps this was what her precious Kir'Shara had told her to do: be kind to the lesser beings. Or perhaps she'd simply gotten irritated by his awkward attempts and realized he required the direct approach.

So, fine. He was fine.

After all, all the reasons why they wouldn't make a successful couple still stood … all of them except her marriage, anyway.

But really, even that still stood. She had chosen that marriage over him, after all. Hadn't he called it the ultimate deal-breaker? Why should its pending dissolution make any difference now?

His big mistake was attempting to re-ignite something. All that had done was open him up to that lovely sound of doors slamming in the face all over again.

So, whatever. He was a grown man. He'd cope. He'd do his job. He'd think about his engines. He loved his engines. They never let him down.

Trip sighed. The hardest times for him were the quiet times, like now, when he was lying in bed at night trying to fall asleep, or when he woke from a bad dream. That was when her absence felt cruel.

Too bad he couldn't work on his engines 24 hours a day.

The END