Best Man

Disclaimer: I own nothing
Rating: PG
Note: This is sort of a companion piece to another story I wrote called "Green". You don't have to read it to follow this story (I wouldn't mind if you did though). This is jealousy from Trip's perspective.

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The sunlight streamed through the windows of the reception hall and onto the dance floor where Mr. and Mrs. Jonathon Archer were dancing together as man and wife for the first time. Every person in the room stood back and smiled broadly at the sight of this pure act of love now before them. It was beautiful.

Not that Charles Tucker cared at this point.

All that mattered to him was finding out how much hard liquor he could force down his throat before the dance ended. He wanted to see just how close to oblivion he could get to before anyone noticed how drunk he was.

He wanted to see how dull he could make the pain.

In fact, he just wanted to forget the pain altogether. Forget the slow ache inside his heart.

He wanted to forget T'Pol.

He smiled wistfully as he stared at her with soft eyes and insides warmed by alcohol and love. He felt relieved that she had decided to wear the white gown with the long train instead of the red, bathrobe thing that her mother had wanted. She looked positively radiant in it. Of course the downside was that he human style dress wasn't nearly as low cut as the bathrobe thingy.

"Those Vulcan traditions 'er good fer sumthin' after all." He said in a drunken form of his native southern tongue.

Trip had never been able to figure out why he had fallen in love with the cold, rational machine of a woman that now danced with his friend, he just knew when.

One inconsequential dinner at the captain's table sitting across from her as she ate a salad with prim fingers wrapped around a small fork as the light hit her just right and a feeling just washed over him. A feeling of being hot and cool at the same time. Like someone reached into his chest and squeezed heart to make it stop beating. And then he knew he loved her.

He hated himself for never telling her, but something always came up. Some new species attacking them or planet to be explored. There was always some reason not to tell her how he felt.

It didn't help that he was a coward, either. The dying ache in his chest always keeping him one step behind what he really what wanted to say, making him slave to his own inner fears of rejection. He should have been honest with her from the start. He should have just walked right up to her one day and said, "T'Pol, I love you." No fighting, no quips, just truth.

But he stayed away. For nearly five years he stayed away, admiring from afar. Looking at her the way a hungry child peers at dinner through a snow frosted window. Always wanting, never having.

The wedding dance began to wrap up and Trip absently found himself remembering the closest he ever came to being with her.

They had been on leave and they somehow ended up spending the weekend together for no really good reason. He remembered that Malcolm had ditched him to be with those Andorian twins and how apprehensive he had felt about being alone on leave after what happened last time. So he sought out company in the only other person who didn't really know what to do with the sudden influx of down time in their lives, T'Pol.

It was hard at first, being so close to her and keeping his feelings hidden, but some how he managed and he got to stay by her side for forty- eight beautiful hours.

Every moment had been magical.

They went to local museums, toured the ruins of an ancient city, even stopped on the most beautiful beach Trip had ever seen in his life.

But he never let her know how he felt.

The music ended and the happy couple kissed lightly as Trip realized his bottle was empty. "Eh bartenda," he slurred in a low slurred voice, "Gimme anodda." He felt himself conceding to the fact that at least Jon knew how to stock a free bar.

Jon.

His FORMER friend's name was sore even when it wasn't said.

It hadn't been that long after Trip had realized his own feelings that he began notice his best friend was feeling something similar. Hell, Maybe Jon had felt them first, he wasn't sure.

But that didn't make the feelings of betrayal hurt any less.

Jon had started making any excuse he could to spend time with T'Pol. They started eating lunch together every day. They even worked together more often then before since Archer fixed the duty schedules so that they were always on the bridge at the same time. An unpleasant side effect being that Trip almost never got a chance to see her in his off time.

The bastard started abusing his command to get a girl.

Scratch that, to get Trip's girl.

Not that T'Pol even recognized him as anything other then a comrade at arms. She maybe thought of him as a good officer, maybe a friend.

But never what he wanted.

But Jon was a different story. She was always looking at him with those big dark eyes like he was some kind of powerful god of Starfleet making.

It was enough to make Trip want to puke.

Back then, he had felt like his whole world was slowly beginning to fall apart and he couldn't do anything about it. Every time he got close to her, he choked up. And every time Jon got close, he felt like he was less then dirt.

He thought he could tell Jon to back off, to make him realize that he saw her first and that what he was doing to get her was a disgrace to his command.

So one night he snuck down the hall right towards his 'old friend's' quarters and prepared for a confrontation to end all confrontations. His body tensed up as his finger reached over to press the call button next to the door.

Just as it slid open on its own to reveal a scantily clad T'Pol standing in Jon's doorway.

And he knew it was all over.

The rest had been a blur really. Three whole months of sadness, stolen alcohol, and broken memories.

Jon had, of course, tried to do that cute buddy thing he always did so well. He spent a great deal of effort explaining that no matter what happened between him and T'Pol, that Trip was still his best friend.

He even asked if Tucker was willing to be best man at the wedding.

Trip turned him down of course, claiming that he wasn't comfortable being in front of large crowds.

He showed up at the wedding though, wanting to see who got his job and wasn't surprised to see Malcolm filling his spot beside Jon.

And Jon filling his spot next to T'Pol.

Someone once told him that love was a game to be played with rules and regulations like just any sport. A fair game where the best man and the purest heart always one.

Trip took a deep gulp of whiskey as the wedding party started lining up for pictures.

He must have been a real bastard, ‘cause it looked like Jon was the best man this time around.

The End