The BLTS Archive - Renewing
Second in the Reconnecting Series
by HopefulRomantic (Hopeful_Romanantic@prodigy.net)

---

Archive: Please ask me first.

Disclaimer: Star Trek: Enterprise is the property of
CBS/Paramount. All original material herein is the property
of its author.

Spoilers: Through "Home."

A/N: Following the original posting of "Reconnecting" in
September 2004, several reader comments indicated an
assumption that there would be a follow-up...which had never
occurred to me. But after a week or so, the muse put another
idea into my head, so off I went.

Thanks to my betas for this story, Jenna and slj91.

---
NX-01 Enterprise
Spacedock, Orbiting Earth
---

Archer entered his ready room, routinely scanned down the
day's crew manifest for the dry-docked //Enterprise//--and
did a double-take. He'd read it right--Tucker, Charles III,
Cmdr., had reported in last night. But he wasn't due back
from Vulcan for weeks. And T'Pol had not returned with him;
she was still listed as "on leave."

//Did I miss something? Again?//

Archer had only recently figured out that Trip and T'Pol
were growing closer. His enlightenment had begun with the
arrival of Lorian's //Enterprise.// Archer remembered
T'Pol's reaction when Phlox told her Lorian's genetic
profile confirmed that she and Trip were his parents.
Instead of dismissing the news as an impossibility, she
became acutely uncomfortable, which told Archer how very
possible the scenario could be. Watching her, he was
suddenly, achingly aware of just how disconnected he had
become, even from his two closest friends.

After that, Archer had paid more attention. He saw that Trip
and T'Pol were bickering playfully, rather than fighting.
Trip tended to stand beside her during strategy sessions,
and sit with her in the mess hall. And the way his gaze
lingered on her, when he thought no one was watching...it
was so obvious to Archer now that he felt like the village
idiot. Trip had fallen in love with her.

T'Pol had said nothing, of course, but she was noticeably
less aloof around Trip. Her working relationship with him
was more companionable, her sly sense of humor more evident.
Then, after they'd repaired the screwed-up
timeline--again--and returned safely to 2154, T'Pol had
invited Trip to spend his leave with her on Vulcan. The
gesture spoke volumes about the depth of her regard for him.

Archer had seen the two of them the day they had boarded the
shuttle for Vulcan. Trip tried to act casual, but he was
practically walking on air. T'Pol, evidently over the wild
mood-swing roller-coaster-ride she'd been on lately, looked
quite content to be in Trip's company.

So what the hell happened?

---

Archer found Trip in engineering, up to his elbows in
circuitry for //Enterprise's// new starboard warp nacelle
matrix. He'd been back only twelve hours, but he already
looked as if he hadn't slept for days. A tactical alert
alarm went off in Archer's head: Trip hadn't been like this
since he'd lost Elizabeth.

Archer studied his friend through the tangle. "I know you're
not a big fan of the desert."

Trip looked up, startled. Archer smiled a greeting. "But
that's not why you went to Vulcan, as I recall."

Trip avoided Archer's gaze. "Plans changed." And he dove
back into the circuitry.

"Where's T'Pol?"

"Something came up--uh, someone showed up--aw, hell." Trip
stopped fiddling and sat back with a sigh. "She got
married."

Archer sank down, stunned. Luckily there was a railing
behind him to sit on, or he would simply have kept going,
right to the deck. "Married?"

Trip, his voice flat, filled Archer in--Koss, the aborted
wedding three years ago, the fallout from P'Jem, T'Les's
forced retirement, and finally T'Pol's sacrifice to restore
her mother's honor and career. For a moment during Trip's
account, Archer was gripped by panic when he thought T'Pol
wasn't coming back at all, but Trip explained that one of
her conditions for marrying Koss was to be able to return
immediately to //Enterprise//.

Archer thought the whole thing stunk. "How magnanimous of
Koss's parents to offer to help out T'Pol's mother," he
observed dryly. "Wouldn't surprise me if they were the ones
who framed her in the first place."

"Anything to make their precious boy happy," Trip glowered.
"Or not dishonored, anyway. This whole honor thing is way
overrated, if you ask me."

"But it //is// very Vulcan."

Trip managed a wry half-smile. "At least T'Pol's as pissed
off about this as I am."

Archer couldn't help but grin. Somehow, the idea of T'Pol
being outraged at idiotic Vulcan propriety made him feel
better. "She said that?"

Trip hesitated. "Not in so many words."

"What did she say?"

Trip fidgeted some more. Archer waited...until it dawned on
him. "You haven't talked to her?"

"I left her a note," Trip retorted defensively.

"Trip--!"

Trip winced guiltily. "Okay, I packed up and snuck outta
there while she was still meetin' and greetin' the
folks-in-law." He met Archer's disapproving frown with
pleading eyes. "Clemency, Cap'n! We couldn't've said
anything anyway, not with Koss draggin' behind her like a
box o' rocks." He sagged, looking morose. "I watched her
//marry// the guy. The idea of hangin' around one minute
longer, seeing 'em together--I just couldn't." He picked at
the grime under his fingernails. "So I wrote her a note
saying I'd see her back on //Enterprise//, and then I
grabbed the first transport offplanet I could find."

"I'm sorry," Archer said softly.

"I really thought the two of us were heading somewhere..."
Trip shook his head. "Doesn't matter now." He got to his
feet. "So things'll be different. But I'm not gonna lose
her, just because //he's// in the picture now. I just have
to...make the shift, is all."

"Can you do that?" Archer had tried, a couple of times, to
be "just friends" with ex-girlfriends. Hadn't worked for him
worth shit.

Trip paused uncertainly. "I understand it, in my head. But I
don't know how I'm gonna //feel//, when I see her again."

"Sure you do," Archer snorted. "It'll hurt like hell."

Trip gave him a sour look. "Thanks, Cap'n."

"But then," Archer continued, "when the world doesn't come
to an end, you'll realize you're happy to see her. Things'll
sort themselves out from there." He rose and headed out. "My
quarters, 2200 hours."

"Aye, sir." Trip got back to work.

---

Trip forgot, of course. Apparently he was determined to work
himself until he dropped. So Archer dragged him bodily out
of engineering, first to the mess hall--he guessed correctly
that Trip hadn't eaten since he got back--and then to the
Captain's quarters, where a bottle of fine old Kentucky
bourbon was waiting.

Much later, Trip raised his glass and intoned solemnly,
"Number seventeen: Toss him into one o' those active
volcanoes they got all over Vulcan. What was the one T'Pol
was gonna show me?... Mount Tar'hana."

"Barbecued Koss," Archer mused, sipping his drink. "I like
that one."

"Number eighteen: Set him out in the smack middle of the
Vulcan Fire Plains for a week, buck naked."

Archer chuckled. "Just how many methods did you dream up of
doing away with this guy?"

"Sixty-eight," Trip announced, topping off his glass. Archer
blinked in surprise, and Trip shrugged. "It was a long
trip." He scowled. "'Sides, I had to do something to keep my
mind off what's goin' on back there."

"If T'Pol is as angry about this situation as you think, I'd
bet //nothing's// going on."

Trip stared into his drink. He didn't look convinced.

Archer tried again. "Look, she'd only be in trouble if Koss
was going through that pon farr thing Kov told you about.
Was he all wild-eyed and frothy at the wedding?"

Trip started sniggering despite himself. "Naw. He was your
typical Vulcan. Calm. Composed. Manipulative. Underhanded.
Insufferably arrogant."

"Then there's nothing to worry about!" Archer declared.
"T'Pol said herself that Vulcans mate only once every seven
years, so the chances of--"

"//That's// a crock," Trip muttered. Archer gaped at him,
and Trip looked mortified. He shoved his drink out of reach.
"Aw, hell."

Archer lowered his gaze to give Trip's blush of
embarrassment some privacy. "I'll be damned. Looks like the
Vulcans have put one over on the whole galaxy."

He ventured a glance at his friend. Trip had a faraway look
in his eyes now, and the ghost of a sad smile on his lips.
Softly, he murmured, "You thought //you// were surprised."
The smile faded, leaving only sadness.

Archer ached for him. "What are you going to do?"

Trip gave a little shrug. "I'll be her friend."

"You could move on, you know."

Trip shook his head, that wisp of a smile tugging at his
mouth again. "She's my forever, Cap'n. I couldn't change
that if I wanted to. Which I don't."

Archer swallowed hard around a sudden lump in his throat.
He'd had no idea of the depth of Trip's feelings for T'Pol.

A frown shadowed Trip's brow. He chewed at a corner of his
mouth. "D'you think she'll still...need me? Even as a
friend?"

"More than ever," Archer replied with quiet certainty.

Trip searched Archer's face...and finally nodded, reassured.
He sat back. "Y'know, I've missed this."

"What?"

"You and me. Just talkin'. You sorta cut yourself off a
while back."

Now it was Archer's turn to stare pensively into his drink.
"I didn't want to be around anyone. Hell, I didn't want to
be around //myself//. I was turning into a monster, trashing
every principle my father ever taught me--"

"Stop it, Cap'n!" Trip said sharply. Archer fell silent,
taken aback. Trip was glaring at him. "You're talkin' crap,"
the engineer said flatly. "They sent you into the Expanse to
save the world, and then the job changed to saving the whole
damn universe. You did what you had to do--because failure
wasn't one of the choices."

Trip's stern expression softened as he laid a hand on
Archer's arm. "Nobody comes out of a war looking pretty.
People die, morals die, everybody's soul dies a little
because of what they go through. Hell, the Xindi found out
the Sphere Builders'd been playing 'em for suckers for
decades." Trip leaned closer to his captain and friend. "The
idea is to come out the other side still breathing...still
hanging onto something. Still //having// a future to look
forward to."

Archer smiled. "Good advice. For //both// of us."

Trip returned his smile "Aye, Cap'n."

Archer brightened. "I've got one." He raised his glass.
"Number sixty-nine: Koss will unwisely try to make a move on
T'Pol--and quickly thereafter, he will suffer a horribly
disfiguring accident and seek an immediate annulment."

Trip cracked up. Archer paused a moment to enjoy the sight,
before taking a pull on his drink and plowing ahead. "Number
seventy: Lock him in sickbay with Phlox. I give him a week,
tops, before the doc's relentlessly cheerful optimism drives
him completely and permanently nuts."

Now they were both laughing. Catching his breath, Trip
raised his own glass. "I've got ya beat." Bourbon slopped
over the rim; he was still giggling. "Number seventy-one:
Stick 'im in a shuttlepod with Malcolm..."

---

to be continued in Reconnecting Three: Remembering