The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [59]
She felt sadness welling up inside her again like a towering wave, and stopped to concentrate, willing the emotion to be suppressed. She put the photograph down on top of an open suitcase on the bed. Many more of Trip’s small possessions were in the padded enclosure, including other photographs and the harmonica he’d played from time to time.
T’Pol turned and picked up one of Trip’s royal blue uniform jumpsuits. After the Vulcan High Command had cashiered her, Starfleet had granted her a commission. Yet she had never donned their uniform. Perhaps the Vulcan uniform she still wore- a garment that now bore Starfleet commander’s pips- represented an illogical attachment to the past.
And perhaps Trip’s death signified that the time had finally arrived to move past such impulses.
She started to fold Trip’s uniform, but found herself, without cause, pulling it close to her face. She inhaled deeply, directing the residual musky scent of her former lover on the garment.
Ever since she’d come on board Enterprise, she’d been tolerant of the assault of smells that swirled around her: the humans, Captain Archer’s dog, and even from the machinery that ran the vessel. But now, as she smelled the ghosts of Trip’s sweat, mixed with the slight ozone tang of the engine room, she found the odors comforting.
The door to Trip’s quarters slid open, but T’Pol didn’t turn to see who was entering.
“Need any help?” Captain Archer asked, leaning against the bulkhead beside the bed.
T’Pol began refolding the uniform, handling it as though it were a precision scientific instrument. “No, thank you.”
Archer gestured toward the case she had been preparing. “For his parents?”
Nodding listlessly, T’Pol asked, “Will they still be coming to the ceremony?”
“We didn’t talk long, but I’ll try to make sure that they do. I think they know that Trip wouldn’t want it any other way.”
He chuckled mirthlessly and reached forward, pulling a small Frankenstein monster figure from the shelf. “Don’t forget this,” he said, holding it out for her.
T’Pol took the figurine and studied it in silence, remembering the first time she and Trip had watched the original film version of Frankenstein. He had shown it to her as a thank-you for the Vulcan neural pressure therapy sessions she had been performing on him to help him get over his insomnia. It was during the viewing that they had first touched in a far less formal- and decidedly nontherapeutic- manner. Just Trip’s hand over hers, but she had not pulled away, nor questioned his intentions as she might have just days earlier.
Aware that the captain was watching her expectantly, she said, “I’d like to meet them.”
“His parents?” asked Archer.
“Yes, I’d like to meet them.” T’Pol stared down at the figurine in her hands, stroking it.
Archer moved past her, toward the head. T’Pol could sense that he seemed nervous, as if afraid of saying the wrong thing. “They’re a little eccentric. I think you’ll see where Trip got his sense of humor.”
“My mother was somewhat eccentric, as well,” T’Pol said.
Archer stared away from her. “I wasn’t around her for very long, but I could see that.”
T’Pol placed the Frankenstein monster figure into the case. “Trip told me that as time went by, I would miss her less.” She sat down on the bed, feeling her mind clouding with unwanted emotions again. “Though she hasn’t yet been gone for a year, I think he was wrong. Because I find myself missing her more with each passing month. Why would he tell me that?”
Archer spread his hands awkwardly. “’Time heals all wounds’… but ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ I guess it’s a little tricky.” He moved over toward her. “Emotions have a way of contradicting themselves.”
T’Pol could feel the pain rising again inside her, pushing against her eyes and her sinuses. “And you wonder why we suppress them?” She looked down, forcing herself not to give in to her feelings, pushing back against them as hard as they pushed to escape.
Archer sat on the bed and leaned toward