A Mystic Experience

Disclaimer: No filthy lucre changed hands
Genre: Trip and T’Pol’s most excellent vacation challenge, nostalgia, domestic fluff, humor.
Warning: No sex or violence in this story, just a quiet piece to read before bed. Boredom risk for readers needing a high speed action and mayhem fix.

Rating: G
Summary: In late pregnancy, Trip insists that T’Pol relax at the family’s lake cottage where his parents and various members of the Tucker clan gather to enjoy the summer.

Photos:

Tucker compound main cottage on Lake Mystic

Tucker dock and water toys and view across Lake Mystic

The lake was only fifty miles from Panama City. Miraculously, it had escaped the Xindi attack, as had Panama City, nestled here in the Florida panhandle. T’Pol had seen that deep, wide, blackened scar that marred the lush beauty of this land, that had burned away Trip’s childhood. He had shown her the school his cousins had attended where he did not dance with the girl in the red dress. Perhaps that was fortunate for T’Pol. If he had danced with that girl, he might have become more enamored with her, perhaps married her during his early years in Starfleet. Then it would not have been T’Pol who was enjoying this vacation right now.

T’Pol scanned the mid-afternoon surface of the one-hundred and eight acre spring fed lake. So clean and clear and unlike any of the few bodies of water on Vulcan. It was an intimate lake, overhung by moss-covered live oaks shading the cottages and docks. Small private beaches of white sand dominated the water’s edge, with a few remaining wild spots sporting tall reeds and some bushes with roots half in the water, half on land. Each boat that went roaring by sent waves against the shoreline. These power boats were almost too big for the lake; they disturbed what would otherwise be a perfect meditation environment.

T’Pol could see why this was the Tucker clan’s chosen seclusion location. ‘Seclusion’, the closest Vulcan equivalent to the Human word ‘vacation’, did not quite fit. Vacation to her meant a quiet rest, but vacation gave Humans leave to be loud and act in an outlandish manner. She would never completely understand Humans.

The Tuckers had had a cottage on this lake for over one-hundred and fifty years. To Trip, that was a long time, practically giving the family native status on this land. But to a Vulcan, that was less than a life time. Yet the Tucker clan’s essence did seem to be well settled in here. At least three generations of children had been running down to the lake on the day of their arrival each summer after being liberated from their various schools. They would pound barefoot down the wooden dock to jump into the air, bounce on the floating trampoline and launch themselves into the depths of the lake. T’Pol had witnessed the latest of these Tucker family seasonal migrations with clinical Vulcan amusement.

Just weeks ago, Trip and T’Pol had decided that an extended vacation at the lake would be relaxing and allow T’Pol some measure of comfort in her late pregnancy. They both had been working hard planet-side, on temporary teaching assignments at Starfleet Academy. There was a rumor that the new Federation Council was considering accrediting the academy as the source of officers for an interplanetary space fleet to be used for exploration and protection. It was most satisfying to teach these bright and eager young Humans and a smattering of Andorians and Tellarites. The Vulcans had not sent any of there own youngsters yet, but Vulcan observers and consultants were numerous in hallways, class rooms, and sitting on benches on the lawns – eyes taking everything in and making notes on padds.

T’Pol sat on a plastic lounge chair on the wooden dock which jutted further out over the lake than she was completely relaxed about. She wore her life jacket over her long sleeved cotton shirt for the protection of herself and her child. A paperback novel lay open, balanced on the amazing roundness of her belly. She kept a hand on the book so its worn, brittle, and dog-eared pages would not tear loose in the lake breeze. It was one of a couple of hundred books she found in a cupboard in the ‘game room’ of the smallest of the three cottages on the Tucker lakeside property. She was glad pregnancy gave her a logical excuse to sit here instead of bouncing over the lake on the family boat. She raised an amused eyebrow recalling the conversation she had with Trip concerning recreation activities on the water.

“Hey, T’Pol, now that you’ve learned to swim, ya gotta try water skiing and wake boarding after the baby is born. At the very least, ya gotta do some tubing. You’re gonna love it!” His face was all childish animation.

“Trip, to a Vulcan, being dragged behind a vehicle and bouncing over water on a tube or a board, would appear to be an ingenious new form of torture invented by the Klingon Prisoner of War Interrogation Office rather than a ‘fun’ activity developed by Vulcan’s friendly Terran allies.”

“Aw, come on, T’Pol. I know that Vulcans are not used to water sports, but since I taught you to swim, and you are no longer so timid about water…”

“Learning to swim is a useful skill, and a logical measure of precaution on your world. But Vulcans do not…”

“Have fun? T’Pol, maybe if you just try…” Then he noticed the look she was giving him and his voice tapered off into silence for a moment. “Okay, but as long as you are sitt’n here could you indulge us crazy Humans by wav’n at us as the boat goes by? Mary just adores you, and would love ya to notice her skills with the wake board.”

“If you wish. Human children seem to crave notice and approval. I must say that Humans do manage to irritate, amuse, mystify, exasperate, and at the same time, endear themselves to us Vulcans. Fun might not necessarily be a bad thing for Vulcans to experience, but should be experienced in digestible amounts.”

So T’Pol sat on her deck lounger and as Fiona flew by again, expertly crossing the boat’s wake on one ski, twenty yards out from the dock, T’Pol dutifully waved…as she had when Trip had executed the same maneuver, then Liam, then Tara, then Mary. They were now bringing the boat in to drop the skis and float out the giant tube with its multicolor polypro tow line. A few minutes break insured, T’Pol picked up the paperback to read about the blonde homewrecker’s murder in the mansion’s library. Then she put the book down again, hearing the whine of the boat engine and raised her eyes to see the fat yellow tube go by. Eight year old Martha and nine year old Tommy were screeching with delight as the tube crossed the wake, sending their skinny bodies airborne before slamming them back down on the air filled plastic. T’Pol rubbed her belly protectively when she flashed on a premonition of one of those skinny bodies sporting pointed ears.

Perhaps the boat would run low on fuel soon and they would moor up and come join her on the dock. She liked it best when they were all gathered round her, lying on chairs or flat on the deck absorbing vitamin D from the Terran star and quietly reading or staring out at the lake in an almost meditative fashion.

One day followed the next until they all lost track of the date and told time by the height of the sun. Some days at the lake were not too humid and then the weather seemed cool and invigorating to T’Pol. To Trip and his father, it was either warm or hot under the summer sun and sweat gleamed on their bare backs as they bent over the minor repairs they were always finding to do around the Tucker compound. The two of them had built the main cottage from plans Lizzie had drawn for one of her class projects in architectural school. These plans had been convenient, for the old cottage had been burned to the ground by Trip’s crazy Great Uncle Eddie, in whose unbalanced reasoning the blaze was ignited to save the family from the invading alien spider people. He had watched too many of those xenophobic low brow films, it seems. Uncle Eddie now resided in Talahoochee Mental Health Facility, commonly referred to by most of the Tucker clan as ‘The Hooch’. The old cottage had been an eyesore anyway. It had grown over the years, room by mismatched room, to accommodate all the new Tuckers who continued to be born between one five-year family reunion and the next. The new cottage had a practical esthetic and seemed to contain the family adequately at this point.

Over the summer T’Pol was treated to family anecdotes over dinner and during lounging sessions on the musty smelling overstuffed furniture in one or the other of the lake-facing cottage porches. Because of her condition, the family always offered her the most comfortable chair and the children would gather around it, jostling each other. They begged to be allowed to put their curious round ears to her belly and listen for the prenatal movements of the latest family addition.

“Auntie T’Pol, Liam got to listen first yesterday,” pouted Mary.

“No, that was Tommy. It IS my turn.”

“Buggers it is!”

“Liam, watch your language and let Mary be first.” Trip’s cousin Ann, the producer of four of these children would try to impose order.

T’Pol would patiently endure this invasion of her private space because the children were sincerely interested in her child. She wanted them to be welcoming and protective of her child rather than resentful if pushed away. They did not understand Vulcan reserve and the reluctance to be touched, so it was not logical to mention Vulcan social protocols. One little Tucker head after another pressed against her belly and exclaimed “I hear her!” or “I think she is asleep now.” T’Pol mentally dampened her telepathic reception, occasionally patting a child on the head. And she listened to the stories.

There was an interesting story about the building of the current cottage. The new cottage had been erected by the men of the family from the sandy Florida soil up to two and a half floors. As the Charles Tuckers number II and III hefted the retaining wall stones, bare-chested and sweating, Liz, with her long hair tucked up into a wide brimmed straw hat, had supervised the delivery of dry wall, glass panes, and support timbers. It was fortunate that the garage had not burned, so the materials could be stored there, kept dry from the frequent summer afternoon rains.

During the construction, Charles Tucker I would sit on a bentwood rocker in the gazebo, a glass of iced lemonade at his elbow on a plastic lawn table. When no one was looking, he would pull a flask out of his pocket and deftly add a few drops to the lemonade. If Mari, God rest her soul, had still been alive, he would not have gotten away with this. No twinge of guilt crossed his mind though, only the sad heavy feeling of having out lived his beloved life partner. As the elder of the Tucker clan, he reasoned he deserved a few privileges even if they would not be approved by the geriatric specialist his son bundled him off to periodically. The foibles of Charles the First were common fare in these family reminiscences. Family members in their early twenties and younger had never known this irascible old man. The stories kept the memories alive.

T’Pol’s family’s history had been tame by comparison except for the career of second foremother T’Mir. She kept that story to herself since Mestral’s descendants had requested that their existence remain a secret. But someday, she would take her child to visit them for the sake of the mixed heritage they had in common.

Stories trickled to a stop around ten pm signaled by yawns from the children who one by one drifted off to their beds, or were carried there, having fallen asleep in the chairs or on the floor. A large Human family had a comforting feeling even if the chaotic activity and complex emotional overtones tended to tire T’Pol when she did not shield enough. Yet, she was finding herself needing to shield less and less. The intense intimacy of a small and disciplined Vulcan family was comforting too, but different. She was beginning to feel that she did not favor one over the other, and that she must somehow give her child the experience of both.

Often, T’Pol would do the small chores around the cottage that her awkward form allowed. Caroline, Trip’s mother, pampered her, hovering over her like a hummingbird flitting from one flower to another. It was a human thing, this nervous energy and eagerness to please, vaguely annoying while at the same time endearing. Caroline sensed when T’Pol needed solitude, having been an expecting mother herself. The moodiness of expectant mothers seemed a characteristic common to both Vulcans and Humans.

So many times, Caroline would go shopping on a bright sunny day, herding the noisy pack of Tucker offspring into a van and they would disappear off down the narrow road that circled the lake. T’Pol was grateful for these expeditions that allowed her solitude in the cheerful cottage. First she would waddle off to the kitchen on the side of the cottage that faced the road, to wash whatever dishes were soaking in the sink. Although Vulcans preferred the complete sterilization that the dish washer would give these things, she was learning to accept the perfunctory cleaning that Humans performed. She gave the items a bit more of a scrub then Trip’s mother might have and placed them in the drainer to air dry instead of sealing them individually in plastic wrap as her own mother taught her to do. These practices, she realized, she would have to get used to if she was not to go crazy with worry over the exposure of her child to hap-hazard Human cleanliness standards. No Tucker that she had heard of had yet died of negligent health practices. And the new Vulcan family member had yet to get sick either.

In her condition, this chore would tire her, even here in the light gravity of the terran world. Setting the kettle on the gas range, T’Pol would heat water and brew a cup of Vulcan spiced tea. She was very close to her time. Trip must realize that they should return to the Vulcan compound in San Francisco very soon, for the closest hospital in this area was in Tallahassee. Though competent for Human births, and maybe even for a uncomplicated Vulcan birth, it might not be able to handle any of the things that could go wrong with the birth of a hybrid child.

This day, she drained her mug of tea and held the mug in her hands as if to capture the last of the warmth. It was an unaesthetic lumpy thing. Turning it upside-down, she read etched into the clay ‘Happy Mother’s Day from Trip, 2126’. A family heirloom for sure, she thought. Family. The misshapen products of children were treasures to Humans, even when those children had long since grown to adulthood. The presence of children grown old, and of departed family members in photos, homemade quilts, even in the structure of the very cottage she was sitting in, somehow was comforting. It was a Human thing. But wasn’t it a Vulcan thing too? Yes, but it was a more Spartan presence on Vulcan. The reminders of times past were contained in fewer physical things, being more a thing of the mind passed from person to person by touch impressions.

T’Pol wandered into the main sitting room. She contemplated the photo of Elizabeth, prominent among the collection of framed photos on a side table. She wished to communicate with this woman whose radiant smile permeated the very soul of her mate, well actually, the whole of the family.

I am weaving your spirit into this child, Elizabeth, as she grows within me. We will not name her after you as the loss of you and our first baby, your namesake, is too fresh. It will always be fresh, just under the surface, ready to break through as sharp as when we first realized you were gone. Despite Trip’s early insistence that you were no different than the seven million others, your loss was more that equal to all of them in the depths of his katra. It is a privilege for me to be part of such a loving family. To Vulcans, departed members are also very much a part of the family. Any aid from beyond the corporeal world will be welcome because much as I try to be the stoic Vulcan, I am disquieted with concern over this impending birth of your niece. You are the first one I have admitted this too except for the spirit of my own mother.

If anyone who had passed over cared about her other than her mother, she knew it would be Lizzie, the twin spirit of her Trip. Acknowledging this, T’Pol rose from the large, tall backed chair which no one dared sit in if Charles II was in the room, and went back through to the kitchen and out the screechy sounding screen door into Caroline’s herb garden. She decided it was not too soon to pick some dill weed for the cold beet soup the two of them were preparing for dinner. Caroline, having lost a daughter, had regained a piece of family continuity in selecting her daughter-in-law as a gardening partner. And T’Pol had regained a piece of her mother.

She and Trip would be leaving the lake tomorrow. Summer was not yet over, so there were long sad faces among the children who had latched onto fun loving Uncle Trip and exotic Aunt T’Pol. A bit subdued, each of them in their own way had told her how they would miss her. Mary shadowed her everywhere and brought her drinks just before T’Pol was about to ask for one. Had the child been tested for telepathic ability? T’Pol made a mental note to ask Trip.

Liam stuffed a wooden carving of a bird in her pocket as he passed her in the hall one evening. He had made it with his pocket knife. It was crude, like the clay mug, but touched with love.

And dear Caroline had left a neatly folded crocheted baby blanket on her bed. She knew it had been Caroline because of the lilac soap smell that was uniquely hers. Such a caring and humble way to give a gift. The Vulcan way of gift giving was just as quietly unassuming but more formal. Caroline had given her a slight nod and a tiny smile when T’Pol had thanked her.

T’Pol was surprised that leaving the lake was making her sad. She went off by herself to contemplate this, deciding to make a solitary journey in one of the kayaks. The dry hot sand felt good on her bare feet as she pulled the kayak down the beach and into the water. The water did not shock her, it was what Humans would say was bathtub warm. How to board this tiny boat? It rocked as she targeted the seat with her bum and plopped into it. Okay, that accomplished, she gripped the double-bladed paddle and experimented, turning the craft this way and that. It was easier than it looked. The craft was very responsive and more stable than those closed kayaks in which Humans turned themselves upside down and back up again. She sighed and pushed out past the dock, hugging the shoreline. Who said Vulcans were not explorers?

T’Pol fell into the rhythm of the double-ended paddle. Even in the bulky lifejacket that dug into her belly, she was becoming more comfortable, if not at ease, skimming over the shallow water along the lake’s edge. It was part of the basic species personality (if there was such a thing) for a Vulcan to seek out massive doses of solitude. She felt safe creeping along the edge of the lake alone, getting some exercise that her body was telling her it needed despite the awkwardness of a large belly containing her nearly formed offspring.

The stoneweed which grew here and could be seen through the clean, shallow water, was one of the most ancient plants on earth. It was not edible, or, at least it was not eaten by Humans. T’Pol intended to have a sample of it analyzed by a Vulcan lab. If it was not poisonous to either Humans or Vulcans, and contained some useful minerals or vitamins, she planned to develop a recipe using it, to surprise her family. She desired to add her own recipe card to the file kept by Caroline. That file had recipes from the Tucker women going back to the days in Ireland.

A dog startled her when it came bounding through the shallows behind her. She dug her paddle into the sandy bottom to stop the kayak. Tongue lolling, the dog’s rapid breathing was clearly audible.

“Are you uninjured?” She asked it, and then felt silly for speaking to an animal as if it could understand.

Encouraged by her soft voice, the dog leaped onto the kayak, almost unbalancing it. Since it was an open kayak, the dog landed on T’Pol’s legs and leaned across her belly to lick her face.

Quite unsanitary. Now what do I do?

She felt the pressure on her legs as the dog leaped out of the kayak, splashing her with cool lake water. It bounded off along the shore ahead of her, then ran up a concrete boat ramp to a cottage and flopped down on the porch. T’Pol would have laughed, had she been Human. Not an unpleasant experience after all, just a surprising and very un-Vulcan one. Pets were not allowed to roam free on her home world. She lifted her paddle and continued her circuit of the small lake.

It took her 45.56 minutes, even with stops to admire the various architecture of the cottages and the two places that had been left wild. Another mission successfully completed by an intrepid Starfleet officer, she mused. Who said Vulcans were not so tough?

Mary was waiting, watching for T’Pol as she pumped the tree swing with her legs. When she saw T’Pol’s kayak skim around the edge of the neighbor’s dock, Mary jumped from the swing on its forward arc and ran down the sand and into the lake up to her waist. T’Pol practiced her smile, aiming it at Mary. Mary beamed back, grabbing and steadying the kayak so T’Pol could tip it and spill herself into the lake. The depth of the water startled her and she lost her balance, falling backward into the lake. The lifejacket popped her back up and she extinguished the moment of panic with Vulcan discipline. Then, as Mary reached for her hand in concern, T’Pol surprised herself by saying “Join me here for a little while. This water is like velvet, refreshing after my exercise. You know, Mary, a Vulcan really might be capable of relaxing in water.”

Mary joined T’Pol, falling backward beside her, arms out at her sides. “It never occurred to me that Vulcans couldn’t relax in water. Why wouldn’t they?” And beaming another huge Human smile at T’Pol, Mary sank to her neck – T-shirt, jeans, sox, shoes and all. The two of them sculled water with their arms in quiet companionship, because no further words were necessary.

It had rained sometime in the night, their last night at the lake. When T’Pol woke in the pre-dawn light. Silence surrounded her like a warm familiar cloak, as an almost telepathic tingle of a lover light years away pulled at the front of her mind. Only her mate was right here, snoring gently, obliviously, sprawled on top of the blanket that she had buried herself in for warmth. It was the lake in its mystic beauty that was calling to her. She had to move slowly to extract herself from the blanket without disturbing his sleep. Tiptoeing silently to the kitchen, she prepared herself a hot cup of tea and then carried it carefully out onto the enclosed porch, down the steps to the lawn, through the wet, dew-chilled grass to the soft, cold sand of the beach.

Out on the dock, the gritty sand stuck to T’Pol’s feet as she walked out along the damp wooden boards. The deck at the end of the dock was empty of Human forms. The deck chairs and umbrella table sat in a haphazard arrangement, now free of wet towels, straw hats, and tanning lotion. The solitude of the scene appealed to her in the early morning grey light which was gradually brightening.

The lake was like a round mirror that had gone fuzzy from the wearing away of part of its silver backing. It resembled the heavy ornate hand mirror that Caroline prized highly. Caroline had refused to re-silver her treasure, leaving it as it was given to her, bearing the patina of generations of use. It had come across the vast ocean with her great-great-great grandmother, one of the few possessions to immigrate with a family seeking a better life on a new continent halfway around the planet. It seemed to ‘mirror’ T’Pols own journey between planets. Caroline had promised the mirror to T’Pol’s unborn daughter on her graduation from college.

A chorus of bird song was greeting the new day. The placid lake surface was framed by the wisps of fog touching low to the water all around its edges, obscuring the docks and boat ramps and watercraft pulled up on the beaches. Shredded cottony layers of cloud tinged with an anemic pink were reflected in the center of the lake. The faint coloring heralded the rise of the Terran star over the dark tree line across the water from her. With each moment, it was growing perceptively brighter, cottages around the lake becoming subtly sharper in outline.

T’Pol breathed deeply, an act which made her slightly dizzy in the overly rich oxygen atmosphere of this world. Her mate’s world. Her child’s world…one of her child’s worlds. The child woke within her, flipped over in her private lake – the warm Vulcan womb. And in this moment, T’Pol felt almost native, as if the lake accepted her, adopted her, because of the Human DNA interwoven with the Vulcan DNA within her. So this was now home, as much as her mother’s house on Vulcan was home. T’Pol reached an arm out over the lake and poured a few drops of her spiced tea into the water in a universal ritual act of thank-you.

Note: I just returned from a family reunion at my sister’s cottage on Lake Mystic. Kayaking around the edges of the lake alone one morning, I found my self thinking about how close this was to Panama City mentioned in ENT episode “Fusion”. My mind went into writer mode and I found myself looking for the Tucker family cottage and soon found an elegant and simple structure that I just knew had been designed by Elizabeth Tucker. The story just flooded into me off the backwash from a passing jet ski wave. Stories just happen this way sometimes.

Unfortunately, I must report another canon error. Panama City is a couple hundred miles northwest of the Xindi attack path. I have to assume that dance Trip Tucker went to in Panama City was some distance from the town he actually grew up in that was eradicated in the attack. I don’t think they ever mentioned the name of his actual home town in canon.