Champion
{ G | T’Pol/Trip }
AU episode tag for ‘Home’
*
Suddenly the lava field looked like a sea of heart-blood. His hands shook as he wiped anxiously at his disbelieving mouth.
“There has to be another way, T’Pol. You said yourself that you don’t love this guy - that you barely even know him!”
She avoided his gaze, but everything about her posture screamed her pain to him. Trip was so tempted to grab her by the shoulders and shake the whole story out of her, but force would never work, she’d just push him farther away. He’d have to be gentle.
“Why?” Or forthright…
A grimace twisted her delicate features. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Then help me figure out why you brought me all the way out here to watch you marry another man!”
His voice rang out louder than he’d intended and she flinched, though whether he’d hurt her sensitive Vulcan ears or elicited an emotionally painful response, he was unsure.
“Koss’s family is very influential. They can reinstate my mother at the academy.”
“He’s blackmailing you?”
“Of course not,” she replied, a little too quickly.
“Is he forcing you into this?”
“He is my fiancée -”
“EX-fiancée!” She didn’t respond. “Damn it, T’Pol! Just answer my question!!”
“You’ve already drawn your own conclusions!” she retorted.
Anger inflamed him and before he could stop himself he had pinned her to the wall of the cave with his body. T’Pol’s eyes widened considerably, her emotions bubbling dangerously close to the surface and her flawless logic was unable to gauge Trip’s next action.
“Tell me you love him. Tell me you broke off your engagement in a fit of insanity. Tell me what we have is nothing -” his voice faltered and he turned his face away. T’Pol’s heart was pounding at the emotional stress of the situation, and she just wanted Trip to help her end this whole mess, they could escape the planet, return to Enterprise - “Tell me all that,” he continued, “and I’ll leave on the next transport to Earth.”
Would he really leave? Would he give up that easily on her?
“You can’t leave. I need you here. You would really leave?”
“If you asked me to, I would do anything, even let you go.”
They stared at each other for a long moment.
Koss can’t let me go. Does this mean Trip’s feelings run deeper?
“Please stay,” she whispered.
“I need to know the truth,” he insisted.
But T’Pol’s pride and culture did not allow for blackmail, so she told him the only thing she could. “You know the truth, Trip.”
He nodded in relief and captured his hands in his own. She rested her forehead against his temple.
“Do you want me to help you?”
“I don’t think you can,” she replied. “This is something I must do to help my mother. She lost her job because of me - it is only appropriate that I help her get it back.”
“We’ll think of something,” Trip promised. He brushed a kiss across her jaw. “If I’ve learned anything from you it’s that there’s a logical solution to everything.”
Though he missed the soft smile that graced her lips, he did notice when those lips sought his own, and he kissed them gently back.