Erm...I guess Paramount still own them. It's been a while since I wrote Trek. No infringment intended, yadda yadda.
A 'Similitude' episode addition, therefore contains spoilers for that episode. Trip/T'Pol UST.
For konstantine03, who rocketh muchly. You are an inspiration.
*
The button that requests entry into her quarters is smooth and familiar beneath his finger - he's pressed it at least fifty times by now.
She doesn't respond verbally. She rarely does.
Instead the door whooshes open efficiently and there she is; dark hair, dark eyes, blue robe. Looking as nearly immaculate as she always does (he thinks nearly immaculate because as hard as she tries, as much as she pretends, she's no more immaculate than the rest of them).
She steps back, gesturing for him to step in, and after he does he begins to speak.
He's not sure why he's there. He's really not sure why he's there, but he saw his own funeral today. Stared at his dead body.
Maybe he's hoping she'll make sense of it.
Maybe, for once, he wants to embrace that damn logic of hers.
Of course, one of the many frustrating things about her is that she never tells him what he wants to hear.
So she tells him the truth.
"He may have shared your DNA Commander, but that was all. He was not you."
It was his DNA. His memories. How was it not him?
"We are more than the sum of our memories. The moment he existed, the moment he created experiences for himself, he was no longer you."
That sounds almost romantic.
He wonders if Vulcan's blush. Then he wonders why he wonders that.
Still standing, he leans back against something and asks: what was he like?
She tells him the truth, because this is her, and if there's one thing she won't do, it's bullshit him. Not anymore.
But she does turn away. She does stare out the window (did she do that just to make her silhouette look so damn good?).
"He was...a great deal like you. At first." Obviously drawing herself together she stands straighter, her voice becoming crisper. "As I said, as he gained new experiences he became quite different to you. Responding to situations in a...different way."
That caught his attention. How much difference could there be in a couple of weeks? And how come T'Pol of all people couldn't think of another word for 'different'?
"I can recall no specific incidents," she says after he bugs her for an explanation, and despite his earlier thought he ponders the possibility of T'Pol having eaten a dictionary for breakfast, "it was simply a general assessment I made of his character. The smaller, less obvious characteristics struck me as not being characteristics that you possess."
Uh. Huh.
He knew a T'Pol Evasive Technique when he saw one.
But he didn't know what she was evading from. Or what she was just evading, period.
And getting into T'Pol's psychological issues right now? Way too much. He was steal dealing with the fact that he died yesterday.
He died, and he wasn't coming back.
"You didn't die," she told him, and he discovered he'd spoken out loud, "you were always here."
Why did that sound romantic too?
And suddenly he's making his excuses, heading for the door-
"Commander."
Her voice makes him turn back. Her voice always does that.
"I was against the procedure. I did not want you to die, but I could not approve of creating a life only to save you. It seemed...wrong."
He knew that. He knew all that before coming here.
Though he still didn't know why he was there.
"I am however...grateful...that you are well again."
Well?
He died yesterday.
And he's wondering if he's a little jealous of that.
~FINIS