The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [13]
Even now, as she looked over to him, kneeling on the stone floor, his head bowed in prayer, tears streaming down his dusty cheeks, T’Pol felt herself torn. She wanted to go to him. She wanted to comfort him and seek his comfort in turn, but she also wanted to reject him, to gird herself against weakness and vulnerability.
She knew that their love was undeniable. Just as she knew it was untenable.
Unbidden, she felt a sharp laugh escape her throat from deep within her. It was a laugh born not of mirth, but rather spawned by something very akin to despair. It seemed to echo inside the chamber for an uncomfortable eternity, though she supposed it had probably remained in the air only long enough to cause Trip to open his eyes and look at her.
In that moment, she was lost. T’Pol squeezed her eyes tightly, willing away the tears that welled up in them. She clenched her teeth as her lips trembled. She felt the IDIC symbol that hung from the chain around her neck- the centuries-old symbol, delivered to her by her ex-husband, but given to her by her mother. The metal and stone in the symbol were cold in her hand. Cold and dead. As was her mother. And her child.
No. Their child was dead.
In the short time she had known Elizabeth, she was astonished at the instinctual bond she’d shared with the tiny creature. The girl had laughed and cooed several times, but mostly she had just stared at T’Pol and Trip with those dark, round eyes, a sense of nearly complete serenity radiating from the core of her being. Even while in the throes of her terminal fever and sickness, if T’Pol and Trip were both present, Elizabeth had barely cried. It was as if she suppressed only the negative emotions, allowing only the positive ones to come through.
Was that happiness and calm related to the synthesis of her parents’ Vulcan and human DNA, or had it been a function of her individual personality? The answer to that question would never be known.
T’Pol felt herself trembling, could hear a keening sound she knew was coming from within her. The waves of loss rolled through her mind, washing over every emotional barrier she possessed.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, and opened her eyes. Through the blur of unshed tears, she saw Trip in front of her, tears streaming down his own face. This was a recently familiar sight; he had cried in her quarters last week, and then again several times during the Coridanite ship’s flight from Earth to Vulcan. But this time, she was crying with him.
Every part of her wanted him to enfold her in his arms, wanted him to protect her from her own feelings. But he was more emotional than she was. She knew that the more she was with him, the more she would lose control of herself, of the carefully constructed mental barriers she had erected, of the intense passions they kept at bay.
She was broken inside, and she knew that both now and in the future, Trip would only keep the fractures open.
Their child was dead.
And she knew that their feelings for each other must, by necessity, by logic, die as well.
And yet, through her tears, she saw her own arms reaching out for him, saw him moving toward her, felt the comfort of his embrace, the strength within him.
For a long time, they held each other and cried, for all the losses of their past, their present, and, perhaps, of their future.
Four
Day Eleven, Month Of Tasmeen
Dartha City, Romulus
THE HEAVY TIMBER DOOR suddenly banged open to admit a pair of hulking, ill-tempered Reman soldiers into the dank gloom of the cell. Valdore i’Kaleh tr’Irrhaimehn felt his stomach rumble in anticipation of yet another of the imperial dungeon’s meager and infrequent meals- until he noticed that the guards were carrying neither food nor drink.