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Tuvok had one of the most guarded minds T’Pel had ever encountered. It was beautiful, in its own way. The shielded dome that shimmered in her mind, cool to the touch and so far from him that pressing her ‘ear’ to it only gave her echoes of her own thoughts.
“It is common for those from Gol to be further from the rest of us,” her mother told her, preparing their tea.
The first tidbit of truly personal information Tuvok gave to her (one that couldn’t be observed through careful study of his habits) was that he would have been trained to be a priestess were he born female.
He told her this as they walked home from a visit to his father, after T’Pel asked if his mother was alive. She hadn’t been at their wedding and was never home during visits but there were pictures of her in the halls; very few - a woman whose dark skin was so adorned in jewelry she resembled a night sky.
“She is a priestess,” Tuvok told her, watching as a storm crept towards them. “She resides at her temple and has reached a state of being that is best preserved on holy grounds.”
The sky had been a dark red, swirling black and orange in the distance. Gol was known for its storms and T’Pel had been surprised by the ways daily life continued around them; people walking down the streets with their faces completely covered, long stretches of barren landscape dotted with shelters, patterned fabric you could see from a mile away.
Tuvok had given her a pair of gloves to wear shortly after moving in together. Their house was new to him as well, a familial property.
“Certain storms will cut the skin,” he informed her, then continued moving boxes.
Gol was a land of mountains. For T’Pel, it was easy to forget how harsh Vulcan could be. Aliens often described it as such but she’d been raised softly, in a quiet yet vibrant town where trees provided ample shade and water ran aplenty underfoot as a consequence of modern technology. Vuhlkansu fnau Vuhlkansu, Vulcans tame Vulcan, was a common phrase back home.
Gol, however, was different. The desert dwarfed everything; land, people - at times it even overtook the sky, choking the air with sand. T’Pel would have nightmares about becoming lost and wandering further and further until she was no more. A hollowed out husk, lacerated by the air itself.
They reminded her of recurring dreams she’d have as a child. Though in those she’d be saved every time.
“You were a kolinahru up until our marriage. Did you plan on following your mother’s path?” T’Pel asked.
“I planned for nothing but the elimination of my emotions,” Tuvok responded.
It was a goal that suited what she knew of him and it occurred to T’Pel that perhaps his reticence was due to some turmoil which she’d prevented him from quelling.
“The storm will be here in approximately twenty three minutes. If we move quickly we will make it home in sixteen.”
The mountains soared overhead, the cliffs providing a shaded path towards home. And Tuvok’s back, a patterned blue, was easy to spot even in a storm.
T’Pel reached out and took his hand, knowing he wouldn’t.
Tuvok didn’t slow down but she could feel something through their bond for the first time, a question without words.
“If we are physically connected it will decrease the chances of me falling behind,” T’Pel explained.
Tuvok’s curiosity vanished and T’Pel closed her eyes for a moment, remembering with the storm at her back.
Once they were home, she told Tuvok that he’d have made a good priestess were he female.
Tuvok paused, then continued pouring her tea. “I find being your mate more than satisfactory.”
.
Years later
When T’Pel came home the house was empty. She and Tuvok had moved from their first home to one in Xen’tal, a small village in southeastern Gol, in order to be closer to Tuvok’s work. T’Pel’s job could be done well regardless of location, a fact she was especially grateful for now.
Through their bond, T’Pel located Tuvok’s position. He was in the back room, tending to his flowers.
There was one in particular he’d been paying attention to lately. An orchid he was planning to travel to ShiKahr with to enter into competition. A colleague had suggested it, saying their grandfather bred prizewinning roses.
“Why name your orchid?” T’Pel had asked a week ago, resting on the stairs.
Tuvok frowned slightly and she could read a slight displeasure coming from him. “They apparently require a name to be entered into competition.”
T’Pel had quietly watched him work. Through the years she and Tuvok had grown close to the point that others often commented on it - how they moved as one. In a small town it was easy to become the subject of gossip.
“I hope to have a marriage as peaceful as yours,” one of T’Pel’s companions had commented as they took their lunch. “Though you don’t look alike, there are times I could mistake you for your husband.”
T’Pel tilted her head, curious. This was a new observation.
“Your mannerisms appear at home on one another.”
Looking at Tuvok later that day, T’Pel couldn’t find anything in particular that reminded her of herself. Instead, she realized that Tuvok, who once seemed to be harshly separate from her, now appeared to her as natural in mind and body. Seeing him elicited the same feeling as seeing her own arm or her visage in a mirror.
When she told Tuvok about this observation later that night, he had thought about it for a few minutes before saying he enjoyed the fact that they’d become so intertwined. It was in fact, a facet of marriage he had always looked forward to.
“I was often alone as a child,” he told T’Pel, and through their bond, she understood. Though there were many people surrounding him he had always felt detached, unable to truly participate, to give himself over, to be unguarded. It was as if there were a pane of glass separating him from everyone else.
Now T’Pel was there, on the other side of the glass.
“That will no longer be an issue,” she’d responded, brushing her fingers against his.
As usual, there was a spark that never occurred when she touched her own skin.
It was bright in the back room, having been modified to allow plants direct sunlight as much as possible.
When T’Pel entered, Tuvok was tending to his orchids.
“How was your appointment?” he asked after a few seconds.
The flowers he was working on obscured his face.
“I am pregnant,” T’Pel told him.
For a moment, Tuvok vanished from her completely. His body remained but his katra shielded itself so thoroughly so quickly that it was as if it’d blinked out of existence entirely.
Before T’Pel could react, it returned.
“I see,” Tuvok said, reaching for her hand.
T’Pel searched him for any sign of displeasure but could find none. There was in fact a trembling excitement she could sense being constrained at the very back of his mind, to be dispelled later. It matched her own. She relaxed.
“You are too considerate of me,” T’Pel said gently, though in truth she found her husband’s habit of composing himself for her sake to be quite gallant.
“If there was ever a time to be considerate of you, it is now.” Tuvok said. Then the two of them held hands, closed their eyes, and allowed more than their fingers to intertwine.
’We’ became one being comprised of ‘Tuvok’ and ‘T’Pel’. Their personalities, likes, dislikes, days and years, childhoods and projected futures, all merged together into what felt like one cohesive person. And for the first time there was something between them - a tiny thing which they would nurture until it became a life.
The experience of joining together in this way was one which Tuvok seemed to prefer equal to the act of sex. T’Pel came out of it first, tracing his ears with her fingertips until he blinked and moved to lead her back into the house proper.
.
A few months later, after T’Pel began to show, she noticed that Tuvok had nearly completely ceased initiating their merging, which had once been a daily ritual of affection between them.
When she asked Tuvok why he told her he’d read it was important for mother and child to form a strong bond. “I would only be intruding.”
T’Pel thought of their pregnancy books which spoke exclusively of mother and baby. She looked up and saw a storm on the horizon. She felt a pane of glass beginning to form between them. Quietly, quietly, as most things did.
“I want us to be together,” she said.
They were in the living room. Tuvok was rubbing her feet and the radio was tuned to the channel she enjoyed. She thought about being alone. She placed her hand on her stomach and felt the baby move.
“Though my body carries him, this child is both of ours.”
Tuvok paused before replying. “It is…difficult.”
There was another pause and Tuvok leaned against the back of the couch T’Pel was sitting on, staring at the wall. For a brief moment he looked pained, then it was gone.
“I am concerned I may negatively affect our son’s development,” he finally said.
T’Pel waited for more and when none came she said, “As am I.”
Tuvok turned towards her, raising an eyebrow. T’Pel tilted her head.
“Did you think I had no concerns about raising a child?” she asked.
“I thought my presence might be an intrusion,” Tuvok responded, the apparent non sequitur not lost on T’Pel.
Though she didn’t understand Tuvok’s thoughts exactly, it was clear that something was troubling him and though she didn’t know what it was, it seemed that distancing himself was out of concern not regret. T’Pel realized she felt relieved at that conclusion. Interesting. She hadn’t been consciously anxious about that possibility but it made sense. She had felt comfortable having a child with Tuvok because of their close bond. Because when she saw him she felt safe, even in the midst of a storm.
“When I was a child I would have dreams. A different scenario every time but the same girl appeared in all of them,” T’Pel began, adjusting her position on the couch to get more comfortable. “We would join our hands together and I would feel completely at ease.”
She had no memory of the first time she saw the girl. She had always been there - aging with her, right by her side. She was dark skinned with long hair in an elaborate updo that T’Pel’s bowl cut couldn’t mimic. She was beautiful, calm, kind. Then one day she was gone. T’Pel realized she hadn’t dreamed of her in weeks and the weeks became months, then years, then (she presumed) forever.
Had she mourned her? That product of her imagination? No. It would be illogical. But she’d read books on how to impact your dreams. She’d drawn her, spoken about her, dreamed of her while awake - allowing her mind to paint a picture of what she’d look like if she’d kept aging alongside her.
And sometimes, in the dark, when she held Tuvok’s hand…
“You remind me of her at times. So please,” T’Pel took Tuvok’s hand and moved it to her stomach, hoping he could feel the baby move. They both could. He could feel them both. “Do not separate yourself from us.”
Tuvok stared at T’Pel’s stomach for a moment before tensing, then meeting her eyes. “He’s moving,” he said, voice soft with awe.
Outside, the storm finally enveloped the house. But as T’Pel looked outside, she felt nothing but secure. She was inside, on the warm side of the glass.
.
That night, as they were lying in bed, Tuvok suddenly spoke.
“In the aftermath of our joining, is returning to yourself ever painful?”
T’Pel thought about it for a few moments.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I enjoy the sensation of our joining so losing it can be momentarily painful.” Though she wouldn’t describe it as ‘painful’ - more disorienting. The loss wasn’t felt enough to constitute pain.
Tuvok seemed dissatisfied with her answer but didn’t say anything about it. In fact, he didn’t say anything for so long T’Pel nearly fell asleep.
“It has become more difficult to justify inflicting that pain onto myself in recent months. You are so…far from me.”
Through their bond, T’Pel understood something that felt as if it were bits and pieces torn from a whole. In the beginning, the satisfaction their joining elicited was worth the pain of separation. However, once she became pregnant the differences between them became extreme once separated. It was as if Tuvok, who had for a brief moment in time shared T’Pel’s life, her mind, her body, her swollen stomach - would lose not only that experience but the child as well, who could only reside within one half of their pair.
It was a delicate topic, close to the taboo heart. For someone like Tuvok, it might be something he could only bring up to her. Just her.
T’Pel closed her eyes, willing herself not to fall asleep.
“When I first moved to Gol I thought it a harsh and desolate place. Now it is my home. A place to raise a child. For you, it has always been home. We were able to converge on this point.” She paused, parsing out what she wanted to express. The darkness surrounding them was warm and T’Pel was being pulled inexorably towards sleep.
“I believe we will always find one another. Arguments can be resolved. Unfamiliar land becomes home. When I am no longer pregnant we will be parents. Both of us, equally…”
Tuvok waited for T’Pel to continue but all that came was the gentle sound of sleep.
After a time, Tuvok closed his eyes and slowly drifted down into a meditative trance. He was in a tightly contained darkness, a box within the depths of his subconscious.
However, as much as he would like to be, he was not alone.
She was always present.
A dark skinned woman lying with her hands folded over her stomach, flowers adorning her as she floated, suspended in midair. Though Tuvok knew she had a version of his face, he always tried not to look at her. And though her stillness suggested some sort of sleep or death - she spoke to him.
She remembered me.
“You are merely a recalcitrant figment of my imagination,” Tuvok replied. If there was a way to prevent the woman from speaking or appearing again, he hadn’t found it. He had tried. Desperately, he had searched for a way to be rid of her - to no avail.
Then why do I remain? If I am mere imagination, dispel me.
“I do not know how.”
Because I am more real than you are.
Tuvok frowned. The notion was absurd. “What are you?” he asked, an old routine.
You.
The same answer every time, yet it could not be. He was him. He was not…She was not…
What will you do if your son turns out like you?
Tuvok remembered going to bed praying to wake up with a female body, dancing like the priestesses he’d seen in a televised festival. He remembered the satisfaction at being labeled ‘T’Vok’ and the pain of that mistake being corrected - happening less and less as he aged. The little pains all the time. They’d once been shattering but now they were banal. Tiring.
When he’d shared a body with T’Pel, he had felt him - their son. He had been in Tuvok’s womb as well as T’Pel’s. He had been there; small, alive, and unbearably precious.
Tuvok resisted the urge to strike the sleeping woman for her threat. It was a passing, illogical impulse. Besides, it would not work. He could make contact but nothing could move nor mark her. He’d tried that during his adolescence; pushing her, beating her, even attempting with trembling hands to kill her. To no avail. She did not live and so she could not die.
She did not live. He did. He was real.
“Do not threaten my son.”
Will you tell him to suppress it?
“I will apologize,” Tuvok said softly, his nails digging into the flesh of his own palm. His stomach churned at the thought of being responsible for his son’s unhappiness, of ruining a life already so precious to him. “I will do all I can to allow him to live as he desires.”
He briefly imagined his child coming to him with such a desire. Young and wide eyed. He would tell them it was alright. He would speak to T’Pel about it, convince her of how dire the situation was if she was reluctant to allow transition. She would understand.
But you keep me here.
A child just barely starting their life, nothing set in stone, nothing to be destroyed by even the most momentous of changes…it was important. The earlier the better. The less time wasted being affixed to a life that…
“I do not want you here.”
Though the woman’s mouth was closed, her voice seemed to intensify, pressing in against him.
Allow me to live. Allow me to see T’Pel again. Let-
Tuvok felt a scream tear around the small mental box, though he hadn’t made such a sound. It was raw, despairing, frustrated. The woman fell silent.
She spoke nonsense. She spoke in fairytales.
“It is too late,” Tuvok said, in the same even tone as before. He felt far away from himself. He felt traces of his consciousness in both avatars: trapped. “I have chosen to live as a man.”
He remembered T’Pel. The two of them as children in the dreamscape, holding hands. It’d been a surprise when she’d held his again. His hand had morphed to become large and unsightly while hers had grown beautiful. She’d grown more than beautiful in the years since he’d seen her. Disciplined, inquisitive, his partner in all things.
She deserved a husband worthy of her. He could not deviate now. It was too late. It was far too late.
As he began to leave the meditative trance, the dark landscape rippling around him, Tuvok heard a bone chilling reply from the woman - her face still perfectly serene in the mask of sleep.
You live a false life. You live no life at all. I am real. I am more real than you will ever be.