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“Tell me the story of the night I was born,” Elizabeth says. Demands, really, although if asked she would deny any such thing. Elizabeth is nearly seven years old — in Earth years, that is, which is how Trip insists on counting her birthdays — and she has been listening well to her mother.
Vulcans do not make demands. Particularly not impetuous ones.
“Sure thing, darlin’,” her father agrees easily, demand or no, nudging her over to sit next to her on the bed. It’s bedtime for Elizabeth, but still sound filters in from the open window. What sounds like the rest of the household is laughing and talking, and at least two different types of music are playing. This planet is never quiet, but Elizabeth has no problem sleeping through it — she’s never known anything different. Trip has gotten used to it too, by now, but Elizabeth’s mother still struggles. In a few years she will ask Elizabeth how she feels about moving to a brand new planet, but they aren’t quite ready yet, still cocooned here in a bubble of safety. “Where should I start?”
“At the normal part,” Elizabeth says, oblivious to anything but her father sitting next to her. Her eyebrows knit together, just slightly, as it becomes apparent she doesn’t actually know what ‘the normal part’ is. “You know. The part where it’s supposed to start,” she attempts to clarify. Her voice is still small, but she sounds very sure of herself.
Trip grins down at her.
“Well,” he says slowly, drawing it out. Figuring it out, actually, but Elizabeth doesn’t need to know that. She’s almost seven years old, but her faith in her father’s knowledge is still strong. “First, your mother and I had to go on a very special mission.”
Elizabeth nods eagerly — this is a good start.
“It was very dangerous, of course.” Trip lowers his voice, getting Elizabeth into the spirit of it. She stares at him, rapt. The perfect audience.
“Finding you was a surprise,” Trip continues. Elizabeth’s nose wrinkles again, confused — she isn’t old enough to know the details, but she has a vague idea of how babies are born. Trip smiles at her, reaching out to ruffle her hair in a soothing gesture. It’s curly, somehow — he’d been shocked when it started growing in. He would have thought her Vulcan genes would be strong, but the blond curls from his mother’s side turned out to be even stronger. “We weren’t expecting a baby. But your mother could hear you, right from the start.”
“She could hear me?”
“Of course,” Trip says, like it’s obvious. His hand reaches out to brush her nose, this time. Elizabeth wrinkles it and twists away before she remembers herself and straightens her expression, serious and composed. It makes Trip smile down at her, fond. “Your mother can always hear you, you know that. I bet she’s listening right now with those Vulcan ears of hers.”
“I couldn’t talk, though,” Elizabeth points out — very logically, she thinks. Her chest puffs out a little at having thought of it. “Babies don’t know how.”
Trip’s eyebrows raise, impressed.
“Ah, but she could feel you,” he explains. “She sensed where you were.”
“Feeling and hearing are two different things,” Elizabeth insists, and Trip throws his head back to laugh.
“You’re just like your mother,” he says, wiping at his eyes for dramatic effect. “Particular.”
Elizabeth’s face narrows into a suspicious frown.
“Is that bad?”
“Noooooo,” Trip draws out. A presence has appeared in the doorway, he notices. When he raises his eyebrows at her T’Pol steps in, coming just inside the room but no further. “Were your ears burnin’?” he asks her, smiling. T’Pol’s expression remains serene.
“My ears experienced no such sensation.”
Trip ignores her response, still smiling.
“She’s lyin’,” he whispers down to Elizabeth, loudly enough that his words would carry perfectly clearly even for a human’s inferior hearing. “She heard us talking about her and got curious, I’m sure of it.”
“I assure you, I did not,” T’Pol says firmly, but not impatiently. When Elizabeth giggles, hiding a smile behind her hand, T’Pol makes no moves to chastise her.
“It’s just like I told you,” Trip says to Elizabeth, a conspiratorial air between the two of them as he leans in. “She can always hear you.”
Elizabeth glances up to her mother, as if for confirmation. T’Pol offers her nothing more than a raised eyebrow. One almost might have thought she was smiling, though, just the slightest bit. If it were possible for a Vulcan to do such a thing.
“I was just tellin’ Miss Elizabeth about the day she was born,” Trip explains, directing his words towards T’Pol. Her eyebrow raises again — curiosity, this time. Maybe worry. “The day we found her,” Trip clarifies blithely, not seeming at all concerned that those were, in fact, two totally different days. “You know. Underground.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widen.
“I was underground? Why?”
On a usual day, T’Pol would perhaps gently warn Elizabeth against interrupting a conversation between two adults. Tonight she moves closer smoothly, coming forward to perch on the edge of the bed, her hip resting against Trip’s knee. He moves his hand to set it in the crook of her elbow, offering a firm squeeze. Elizabeth squints suspiciously at his face, oblivious to the gesture.
“You were underground,” Trip confirms gravely. “Like a little mole rat.”
“What’s a mole rat?”
Trip smiles. He’d been hoping she would ask.
“Well, she’s about yeah big,” He pauses, holding his hands out to estimate. “And she lives underground all day long. All night, too. And she can’t see anything, because it’s so dark down there. So whenever she comes up she looks like this.”
Trip squints dramatically, turning his nose up into the air as though it’s leading him around. He turns first towards the sound of Elizabeth’s stifled laughter, and then towards T’Pol, who remains unmoved and, it must be noted, unimpressed.
“I do not believe your father has ever seen a … ‘mole rat,’” she says dryly.
Trip gasps, the picture of offence. Elizabeth giggles, knowing better than to take him seriously when he’s in story mode.
“Don’t listen to your mother,” Trip says immediately, leaning in to bump their noses together. “That’s how mole rats kiss, you know,” he says gravely, his face very serious as he pulls away.
Elizabeth’s eyes dart to her mother again, unsure. T’Pol only settles herself more comfortably on the bed, pressing in closer to Trip’s knee.
“You’ve seen it happen, then, I presume.” She directs the words at Trip, but her eyes meet Elizabeth’s as she speaks. She doesn’t make a funny face, like Trip would, but there’s a certain glimmer to her eye that makes Elizabeth smile.
“Of course I have,” Trip bluffs confidently. “Should I pull up a holovideo to prove it?”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” T’Pol says dryly. Trip’s hand is warm against her robed forearm, where it continues to rest comfortably. She makes no moves to shake him off. The opposite, in fact: she shifts her arm up the slightest bit, palm opening loosely. An invitation.
Trip takes it without hesitation, linking their fingers with a warm squeeze, tugging until their newly joined hands are resting in his lap. T’Pol looks at him for a long moment, her gaze steady.
“Mother,” Elizabeth interrupts, unaware of the silent conversation between them. “You were there, right? You know what happened?”
“I was there,” T’Pol confirms.
“Then what happened next? Tell me,” Elizabeth begs, reaching to tug at her mother’s sleeve. She’s too old for such behaviour, but T’Pol is gentle when she removes Elizabeth’s hand, thumb rubbing against the back of it as she sets it back on the bed.
T’Pol’s eyes flick up to meet Trip’s; he shrugs and nods, gesturing for her to speak.
“Where did your father leave off?”
Trip laughs at her, easy and free.
“You know! You were listenin’,” he accuses, but he’s still laughing, too fond to pull off consternation properly.
“It is rude to eavesdrop,” T’Pol tries, but the corner of her mouth is twitching, too. Only slightly, but it’s enough for Trip. He squeezes her hand again, his hand warm and broad around hers. Strong, if hers was to shake, but tonight it won’t. It hasn’t in a long time.
“I was tellin’ her about how you could feel her,” Trip says, his free hand squeezing Elizabeth’s shoulder, pulling him in to lean against her. T’Pol looks at the two of them and doesn’t smile, not quite, but something peaceful emanates from her anyway. The love that took Trip so long to understand, so obvious to him now. “When we went underground.”
“Ah.” T’Pol nods, then pauses. She doesn’t have Trip’s talent for storytelling, nor his ability to soften the truth for a child’s ears. But when she meets his eyes he nods encouragingly, trusting her. She clears her throat delicately. “You were in someone else’s care, when I found you,” she tries, watching Elizabeth’s face carefully for her reaction. Elizabeth is a strong child, and she has listened to her mother well. But she is still a child, and T’Pol sometimes finds herself flinching back from telling her the full truth, illogical though it may be. It’s times like this when she wishes she could speak to her mother, ask her how she decided what to say, back when T’Pol was young. T’Pol would appreciate the advice now, in a way she never would have when she was younger. “I did not trust that person. But when he allowed me to hold you, I knew right away that you were my own child.”
She doesn’t have Trip’s way with words, she doesn’t think, but both father and child’s eyes are locked on her, rapt, waiting for what she’ll say next. Somehow it is both a pressure and a relief, all at once.
“You knew?” Elizabeth breathes, eyes shining. T’Pol nods, reaching her free hand to touch it one of the leg-shaped lumps under the blanket. Elizabeth will kick it off during sleep — she always does. When T’Pol comes in to check on her she’ll pull it back up, tuck it securely back around her shoulders. How illogical it is, to be a parent. How frustrating, how repetitive.
How rewarding.
“Of course I knew,” T’Pol says frankly. “It is as your father said. I could feel you. It was weak, but I recognized it immediately.”
“Why was it weak?”
“You were … sick,” T’Pol tries, casting her eyes again to Trip for confirmation. He nods again, gives her hand another squeeze. “When you were first born, there were many medical concerns. I became very worried.”
Elizabeth’s eyes are still wide, but she hardly looks scared at all. Why would she be? She already knows the ending, T’Pol supposes. And even if she didn’t, she still has the childlike trust that all stories will work out, in the end. Ridiculously, T’Pol finds herself mourning that inevitable loss. Elizabeth will learn as she grows, as she hears and reads the stories with sad endings, too. As she experiences the sad endings herself, someday. Hopefully later rather than sooner.
“But I was fine,” Elizabeth says, sounding very certain.
“Eventually,” T’Pol concedes. “But I did not know that, at the time.”
Maybe it’s time for Elizabeth to learn this lesson, or at least part of it. That in the middle of the story, the characters don’t know if the end will turn out to be happy or sad.
“At the time I did not know whether you would recover,” T’Pol said. “I wanted to search for your father, so that the three of us could be together. But I could not leave you in danger.”
Trip’s eyes are wide, now, too, his mouth dropped open as he stares at her. It isn’t something they speak of often: the fear, the tension. The way they still hadn’t trusted each other properly, back then. It doesn’t sting anymore. T’Pol has accepted it. They were too hurt to act any differently, at the time, but they both know better now.
It’s T’Pol’s turn to squeeze Trip’s hand, this time. Her hands are smaller, and cooler. Weaker. But she holds him as firm as she can as she keeps going.
“When you became ill I was very frightened,” T’Pol admits, eyes only on Elizabeth. If she looks at Trip it will be too much. “I knew it was illogical, but I could not bear it. The thought of losing you was too much.”
Perhaps too heavy to share with a child, but Elizabeth looks captivated, suddenly older than her years. It is hard to get a child her age to sit still for long, even a Vulcan child, but her leg is motionless under T’Pol’s free hand, none of her usual eager twitching movements.
“You didn’t lose me, though, right? You said I would be fine.” Elizabeth sounds less sure, this time. T’Pol hopes she hasn’t scared her for real, as illogical as it is to do so. Honesty is important, she reminds herself, even with children.
Particularly with children.
“We didn’t,” T’Pol confirms, offering Elizabeth’s knee another squeeze, the bone fitting neatly into the palm of her hand. “Our friends came to rescue us, at the last minute. They brought us to your father.”
Elizabeth breathes out, relieved.
“I sure was happy to see you,” Trip cuts in, grinning down at her. In reality it was more complicated than that, T’Pol knows, but she remembers the look on his face when he laid his eyes on them together. It hadn’t mattered then, how the baby had come to be. She’d been theirs. That was all that mattered. “We sat with you for a long time in sickbay.”
“In sickbay?”
“You were very ill,” T’Pol reminds her gently. “We did not know if you would survive. Doctor Phlox worked for a very long time.”
“And then he saved me.” Elizabeth’s eyes flit between Trip and T’Pol again, looking for confirmation. They both nod at her: Trip smiling, T’Pol only leaving her hand on Elizabeth’s knee.
“He saved you,” Trip agrees. “And then you were ours.”
“And then what happened next?” Elizabeth doesn’t sound as sleepy as she’d like — T’Pol suspects this bedtime story had the opposite effect.
“You know what happens next,” Trip laughs, starting to pull away. When he stands he doesn’t let go of T’Pol’s hand, just uses his free one to tug the blanket straight over Elizabeth’s chest. “We took you home with us.” He gestures around her at the room, the little apartment it’s enclosed in.
“But how did you get me here? Weren’t you very far away?”
She’s bright, T’Pol notes, trying and failing to suppress the pride that rises inside her at the thought. Maybe she’ll grow up to be a problem-solver, like her father.
“Ah, ah,” Trip wags a finger at her, smiling. “One story only, you know the rules. I can tell you the rest tomorrow.”
“All the rest?”
Elizabeth sounds suspiciously eager. T’Pol casts a glance to Trip, amused at the trap he’s set for himself.
“The next part,” he amends. “It might take a long time to tell all of it.”
“You’ll have to come every night, then,” Elizabeth says confidently. Trip nods, laughing.
“We will endeavour to do so,” T’Pol says, before her husband makes a promise to which he can’t commit. It wouldn’t be the first time — children can be tricky. It’s surprising how much they remember, when it’s something they want. “If time permits.”
Their hands separate when Trip leans forward one more time, squinting his eyes shut and going in nose first. His mole rat kiss. Elizabeth laughs and copies him, her own eyes shut tight as their noses brush together.
“Your turn,” she says when Trip pulls back, gesturing for T’Pol to come closer. T’Pol does not feel embarrassment; it would be illogical to do so. But Trip’s gaze feels warm on the back of her neck, somehow, as she leans forward obediently to brush her nose to Elizabeth’s, letting her eyes close as she does so. She does not think she pulls it off the way Trip had, but Elizabeth looks satisfied when she draws back.
“You have to kiss each other, too,” Elizabeth says, then, as she nestles into her pillow, her eyelids finally starting to droop. Trip laughs, turning to T’Pol with his eyebrows raised.
T’Pol could refuse. She should, perhaps. It is good for children to learn that they cannot get everything they wish for; that they cannot expect the behaviour of others to bend to their whims.
T’Pol does not refuse. She closes her eyes obediently, tilts her nose up, but offers no more than that. Trip does the rest, obligingly, leaning down to stroke the tip of his nose against hers. She can always feel his presence but it’s stronger, somehow, in that split-second when their skin touches. He pulls back smiling. T’Pol stares up at him, finding it hard to look away.
“How was that?” Trip asks, turning back towards Elizabeth to get her approval. She nods sleepily into her pillow, and T’Pol lowers the lights in her room until only the small lamp on her dresser remains lit up.
“Good night, sweet girl,” Trip says. T’Pol has given up on the nicknames: baby doll, honey child, sugar pie. The list is endless, each more nonsensical than the last. Elizabeth loves them, though. From what T’Pol understands, Trip’s father did the same thing with his sister, and his grandfather before that. It’s important to him.
“Good night, daughter,” T’Pol says. Her words are stiffer, but no less full of love. She knows Elizabeth understands. Her mother and her father express their love differently, but Elizabeth can feel it from them both.
“She’s growing up fast,” Trip says, once Elizabeth’s door has closed behind him.
T’Pol quirks her eyebrow.
“You say that often,” she comments. “She is growing proportionately as time passes, as all children do.”
Trip laughs quietly, mindful of their daughter trying to sleep.
“I say it because it feels true,” is all he says, wrapping an arm around T’Pol’s shoulder to tug her in close, his body strong and warm against hers. The warmth is something she’s allowed to seek, now. There isn’t any reason not to sink into it. “It feels faster when it’s your own baby. That’s all.”
T’Pol opens her mouth to argue, and finds she cannot.
“I suppose it does,” she concedes.
She isn’t looking at Trip’s face, but she doesn’t need to. She knows he’s smiling; she can feel it.
She always can.