Interface

TITLE: Interface - Part 2
AUTHOR: Sue
E-MAIL: sulangy@yahoo.com
SUMMARY: Ready or not, T'Pol and Trip break
ground.
RATING: PG-13
CATEGORY: Romance/T'Pol/Trip
SPOILERs: Desert Crossing, Carbon Creek, Two Days,
Two Nights...slight A Night In Sick Bay
ARCHIVE: Yep, that's fine.
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, Paramount and its
entities do. I'm making no profit
whatsoever.

Interface

Sighing noisily, Hoshi tried wrestling T'Pol's
attention back to her. Where was she? She and
the distracted Sub-Commander certainly weren't
on the same wavelength for this session of
meditation technique refinement. She could, for
all intents and purposes be sitting here by
herself.

"Sub-Commander? Uh..." Clearing her throat,
Hoshi frowned into the bemused Vulcan's face
as her tapered fingers impatiently rapped against
the formickle tabletop.

For the most part, they had this small common
room's limited space all to themselves. The only
other persons in the room were two troubleshooters
connected with IT&S systems. "T'Pol?"

T'Pol dragged her mind out of Commander Tucker's
arms and reintroduced it to the present. Sheepish
eyes adjusted their focus, bringing Ensign Sato
into starker clarity. "Yes. Concentrate, Ensign."

"Concentrate, Sub-Commander?" Hoshi sniffed.
T'Pol's raised her right eyebrow sharply. "Are
you with me, T'Pol?" She wondered if her lack of
concentration might have its roots in something
recent.

Remembering she was trying to be more flexible
with her crewmates, T'Pol said, "Why do you ask?"

"I thought maybe you might have something else
on your mind besides our exercise." Hoshi
paused. "Is there something? Something, oh,
I don't know...something I could help you out
with?" Forthrightly, Hoshi stated, "You don't
seem yourself."

T'Pol rolled up her mind like a scroll and
refocused. Inwardly, she berated herself for
doing Hoshi a disservice and for indulging
her burgeoning willful tendencies. "I apologize,
Ensign. My thoughts dwell on another concern.
A concern that has no relevance to what we're
trying to accomplish here." Seizing her resolve
by the reins and pulling hard, she said, "We will
start again...the bowl is filled with ice just
beginning to melt..."

Sato nitpicked. "Why the switch? Why ice melting
when you wanted me to focus my imaging on crushed,
dried cherry blossoms when we first started the
exercise?"

"This second imagery is more suitable," T'pol
dryly submitted, knowing she had hedged. Now
she rued the way she had nibbled on the Chief
Engineer's lower lip which had inevitably led to
his running his tongue over hers.

What a skilled tongue he had, T'Pol eagerly
revisited, and the faint appearance of a smile
played upon her mouth that longed for the press
of the magnetic man's against hers.

Sounding baffled, but determined to get to the
source of her abstracted mentor's evasiveness,
Hoshi quired, "What's that look about?"

"Look?" T'Pol countered, nimbly on the defensive.
What had she been thinking, her decision to keep
this appointment with Hoshi? The woman's mind,
with its powers of keen perception was nothing
to underestimate. The muscles of T'Pol's left
cheek had suddenly developed a slight tick. "I
wear no special look that would cause undue
concern."

"Oh, yeah. Right," Hoshi mildly ridiculed.
Conversationally she said, "This makes the third
time I've seen it. Ever since we began our
session, you haven't exactly been one hundred
percent in the being with me department." Then,
wringing more confidentiality from her voice the
canny linguist nudged T'Pols arm that was closest
to her. She finagled, "Who or what's got you this
out there?" Hoshi's inviting smile was sincere.

"'Out there?" T'Pol said, sounding puzzled, and
looking it too.

"Miles away; out to lunch. Gone. Absent. Not--"

"I understand," T'Pol remarked just in time to
see Malcolm and another helmsman, the one who
routinely relieved Travis from duty, enter the
common room. Reed gave her a nod of
acknowledgement, and she returned it, along with
Hoshi then. "What makes you think--"

"It's Trip. Commander Tucker, am I right?"
Folding her arms over her chest and leaning
back against the triangular-backed chair, the
savvy Communications Officer boldly insinuated,
"You two sure have your issues." Arching the
corner of her mouth, she instrumented, "Okay,
what's he done now?"

T'Pol did not want to answer right away. She
kept her thoughts quiet, still resisting the
idea of breathing a word of this latest turning
point in her life to Hoshi.

She took stock, thinking that perhaps she
could use a human female's point of view,
especially this one's. It was logical. The
ensign was a natural perceptor about most things
interpersonal. It was the foremost reason why
she had decided to school the ensign in Vulcan
meditative discipline in the first place.

"Sub-Commander... You're doing it again." It
was nice to know that even Vulcans could succumb
to flights of fancy. It was plain T'Pol had made
the trip again during these several minutes.

With a wooden-looking expression marring any
hope of openness with Hoshi, T'Pol quirked,
"Doing what, Ensign?" Divulgence tickled her
tongue.

"Slipping away to a place you don't want me
following." Hoshi adjusted and readjusted the
set of her brow. She pursed her lips, waiting.

"Ensign, could I?" T'Pol restarted, following a
deep breath. "I seek some advice concerning a
hypothetical situation."

"How hypothetical are we talking here, Sub-
Commander?" Hoshi steepled her fingers, busy
formulating her best guess. Her eyes brimmed
with curiosity.

Dropping every strand of pretense right there
and then, T'Pol related with a rigid face,
"Commander Tucker is in my quarters, awaiting
my imminent return. He desires mating with me
upon my arrival."

Hoshi's eyebrows nearly flew up into her dark,
glossy hairline in accompaniment with her mouth
forming a perfect oval and she uttered a fragile,
"Oh."

"You find this shocking," the Vulcan, whose
cheeere ere tinted a high-toned green now,
judged, gathering as much from the ensign's
unanticipated reaction.

"No--no. Not shocked. Just a little surprised."
She'd had a feeling about these two ever since
spying them in the mess, watching Trip pop a
marshmallow into T'Pol's mouth from his plate
of Rocky Road ice cream. "Tell me. Is this
sudden, straight out of the blue? Or not a
surprise. You saw this coming?"

She wondered if T'Pol was overstating matters.
Hoshi had heard from Trip about the twisted
yarn T'Pol had weaved for the Captain and him
about Vulcans visiting Earth years before first
contact and conferring their gift of Velcro to
humankind.

Was the Commander, the Southern flash in the pan,
really waiting in her quarters, champing at the
bit to get lucky? Or was this more of Vulcanic
leading one down the garden path?

T'Pol shifted her angular shoulders, answering
the raptly-attentive inquisitor with a slight
shrug. "Intimacy is something I wish to explore
with the Chief Engineer."

"Don't mind my asking this, but have you ever...
uh..." Sato paused for proper phrasing. "Uh,
done it with a human male before? I mean if I'm
not being too personal..."

"Done *it*, Ensign?" T'Pol pointedly accentuated.

Nodding, Sato continued, "Uh huh...done the deed."

"The deed..." Humans and their love affair with
dangling syntax. T'Pol cocked her head a little
to the left, looking pensive.

"You know..." Hoshi winked at her meaningfully.
"The horizonal rumba."

T'Pol thought for a moment, and what Hoshi was
cryptically referring to dawned on her, finally.
Looking her colleague and the woman she felt
closest to on Enterprise squarely in the eye,
T'Pol said, "No. I have never engaged in sexual
interaction with a human male."

"Intercourse," Hoshi helpfully supplied.

"Intercourse," the Vulcan slowly repeated,
acknowledging the correct term. "Never with a
human male." Arching an eyebrow, she added,
"I have had extensive exposure to data involving
human reproduction and diverse mating rituals
taking into account cultural differences within
human populations."

"I'm talking one-on-one Human-Vulcan interaction.
Very up close and very friendly."

She had had opportunities...many, in fact, but
she had never wanted to let it go that far with
anyone until the Chief Engineer. Tersely, T'Pol
answered, "No. The Commander is to be my first
experience."

Hoshi smiled warmly at her. "Good choice,
Sub--" She dropped the use of a title. "T'Pol."
The Vulcan didn't bat an eyelash. "Trip's such
a sweet, good old boy. Every bit the gentleman
he's always claiming he is. Granted, he's a little
on the outspoken side, not the type who finds it
easy holding back, but that genuine heart of his
is usually in the right place."

"So you think I should..." T'Pol threw very
soulful eyes at Hoshi, willing to coin a phrase.
Solemnly, she said, "'Do the deed' with Commander
Tucker."

"Whoa, whoa, hold the interplanetary phone," Sato
heatedly piped-up. "Who cares what I think?"

"I do, Ensign. I value your opinion."

"You flatter me, but bottom line, it's what you
judge to be right for you that counts. How do you
feel?"

Cautiously, sounding identifiably uncomfortable,
she voiced, "Torn. As though I'm caught between
two worlds. One where logic rules, one where
emotions rule. No middle ground."

Feeling sorry for her friend, Hoshi gently asked,
"Before you do anything, stop and ask yourself.
What are your feelings for Trip? Do you care about
him? Does he care about your feelings? Are you
going through with it to make him happy? What about
yourself? Will this be just an exercise in using,
for you both? I can't speak for anyone else, but
I'm of the opinion that the care and concern which
over time can evolve into love enhances the entire
sexual experience." The fling on Risa had been so
unlike her. She chalked it up to all the hype the
crew had given the planet and its free-styling
reputation.

"The Commander is waiting for me."

"Right. I got it. In your quarters." She
cocked her index finger at her like a revolver
straight out of the old West. Thoughtfully Hoshi
expressed, "Don't be pressured. If you're not
ready, holding off until you are has more going
for it." Watching T'Pol as she stood, Hoshi said,
"One last gasp of advice?"

Looking cooly receptive, T'Pol asked, "What is
it?"

"The dynamic is complex, but when it comes
right down to it..." The expressiveness of
her face was the window to her true feelings.
"It's more than inserting tab A into slot B.
Boom--game over. Critically more."

"I appreciate your input, Ensign."

"What are friends for, Sub-Commander?"

The Vulcan's processing mind leapt ahead. "He
is waiting for me to initiate."

"Why do I get the feeling," the Asian dark-
haired beauty ventured, "that you're about to
don a lab coat?" Sndednded by telling her
friend, "I know it's pretty difficult at a time
like this, but try to live beyond the heat of
the moment."

T'Pol balanced her negligible weight on the
outer bones of her petite feet. She kept
pressure off the insteps. Her posture was
always impeccable, as was her balance, in more
ways than merely correct spinal alignment. "Thank
you for everything you have outlined, Ensign.
You offer valuable insights. I will see you on
the Bridge at point zero-eight hundred hours."

Hoshi's smile was never brighter. "Night, T'Pol.
Sweet dreams." She nested her chin upon the
backs of her meshed fingers.

The Vulcan tipped her head at her. She walked
on. When she passed the table where Mayweather,
who had later joined Reed and Dirk Winters, the
other helmsman, were seated, they rose, and
wished her a good night's rest. She repeated
the same head movement she'd given Hoshi. Before
exiting the peacefully-humming common room, she
nodded at Hoshi again, and her speculative
friend waved, watching her go.

"Hey, Hosh," Travis called out to her. "Join
us. You look like you're cast adrift sitting
all alone over there."

Making a face at the handsome, Boomer, she got
up and joined the men who had been discussing
which of all the planets they had visited so far
was the favorite.

"That's easy," Hoshi charged when they asked
her. She pouted at Malcolm because it was his
contention that she didn't have one. Air-swatting
his shoulder, she proclaimed, "Risa--ta-da! I
wonder if we'll get to go back anytime soon..."

============================================

TBC