Chapter Text
“One,” T’Mir announced, pointing to herself. Trip nodded.
“Right…”
“Two.” She pointed at him.
“Uh-huh.”
She pointed at T’Pol. “Three!”
“Well, technically three and a half right now…”
“Let’s not confuse the issue,” T’Pol said mildly.
“Okay, yeah. Momma’s three. Now when your little brother gets here, how many is that gonna be?” Her face screwed up in intense calculation. He held up his hand, extending a finger with each number. “One...two...three...and…?”
“Four!”
“Yes! You’re so smart!” Trip kissed the top of her head, and looked at T’Pol, grinning. “Our kid’s a genius.”
“She does appear to have an affinity for numbers.” T’Pol said, looking quietly pleased, then tilted her head at him. “You have another subspace call this evening.”
“Yeah, I’m in high demand this week.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “And I swear I’m gonna be talkin’ to half the admiralty tonight.”
“That is unusual.”
“Guess what we’ll see what they want.” He smiled at her. “Supper first, though.”
It was a quiet evening – they ate together, and Trip helped her put T’Mir to bed. Before he went back to the workroom, he slipped his arms around her, cradling her swollen belly, smiling as their son stirred under his hands. He kissed her, and went in to take his call; she went out in the courtyard to meditate and enjoy the evening air.
But that enjoyment soon curdled. Tiny flashes of anger, like heated needles, stabbed at her mind, and she knew it was not her own. Something was going very wrong with that call from Starfleet Engineering, and very quickly. She gave up trying to meditate, and simply focused on shaping her breath, waiting.
Trip stormed out of the house, his expression hard and wrathful. T’Pol held out a hand to him, but he raised his, holding them palms up. “Not yet,” he said. “I gotta cool down, I can’t-” He tightened a fist, made to strike the railing, and stopped himself, breathing hard. He covered his face with his hands, and she could hear him counting.
“Trip...what happened?”
He laughed humorlessly behind his hands. “Those sons of bitches,” he hissed, swinging one arm to point vaguely in the direction of both the workroom and Earth, “wanna send me to Mars!”
“For what purpose?”
He sat heavily on the steps. “You know they moved the shipyards to above Utopia colony.”
“Yes.”
"And they’ve been working on taking the modifications we made on Endeavour for a new class of warp 7 ships.”
“Yes.”
“And they want me to build those ships.”
Which was, she thought, the only logical choice. “But you don’t want to.”
“That’s the thing – I do! It'll be amazing! A whole new class of starships? That’s…” He let out a breath, shaking his head. “But the assignment’s a minimum of fifty weeks. I’d have to leave you, because your work's here.” He gestured at her pregnant form. “And you're due in fourteen weeks – that’s assumin’ he doesn’t show up early like T'Mir did – and there is no way in hell I’m leavin' you with a two year old and a newborn, and -” His voice caught. “I can’t miss the first year of his life, T'Pol.”
He stood, and began to pace, shaking his head. “They gotta find somebody else,” he said. “I can't. I won't.”
T'Pol watched him, and realized that she was angry too, but not just at Starfleet. She drew herself up and prepared to deploy her most devastating weapon.
“Charles Anthony Tucker.”
He stopped short so hard he almost tripped over his own feet, staring at her with blank, stunned incomprehension. “Did you just-? Wait…are you mad at me?”
“Yes, I am.” She advanced on him, her skirt billowing like a sail. “You are the finest engineering mind in Starfleet. You are quite possibly the finest engineering mind Earth has ever produced.”
“Well, I’m no Zephram Cochrane-”
“Shut up.”
He did.
She reached for his hand, and this time, he didn’t withhold it. “Trip,” she said softly, “I don't want you to go either. But we here are not the only ones who need you.”
“When the war ended,” he whispered, “I promised myself I was never gonna be separated from you again. That I was gonna wake up next to you every day for the rest of my life.”
“That may not have been a promise within your power to fulfill.” T'Pol touched his face, brushing at his damp eyelashes. “Trip, our children can’t be your only legacy. You have a responsibility to Starfleet, and to the Federation, that other people's children will be able to take up what we started. A new generation of ships for a new generation. This is an obligation larger than our one, small family.”
She let his fingertips drift over his cheekbones, holding his gaze with her own. You and I are joined, remember? Parted from me and never parted.
“Never and always. I know.” He touched his forehead to hers, and dropped a hand to her belly. “Not until after he's born. And I’m takin' full paternity leave. If they really want me, they'll wait.” She nodded.
“It will not be like the war. We will make a plan. We will see each other. You will come to us, we will come to you.”
“We'll make it work.”
“Yes. We will.”
They stood together for a long, quiet moment, then he said, “Finest engineerin' mind Earth's ever produced? You don’t have to lay it on that thick, sweetheart.”
“I believe it to be true.”
“I think you’re biased.”
“Think what you like.”
“I will.” He smiled at her, a fragile half-smile, resting his forearms on her shoulders. “Sometimes I wonder where I’d be if you'd never come aboard Enterprise. I never like the answers. I like where I am, and who I am, with you.”
“I have had similar thoughts. I've found they do not bear considering.”
“Yeah.” He looked at her, dark eyes reflecting the soft light of the courtyard lamps, and suddenly had to swallow a lump in his throat.
“We should get some rest,” she said quietly. He nodded, and she took his hand, leading him to their bedroom, and once they were under the covers, she held him close. She had meant what she said – he had a duty to Starfleet, and the Federation, and he could not be hers alone. But for a little while in the dark, his head pillowed on her shoulder, she allowed herself to be selfish.