Chapter Text
...Come my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.—"Ulysses," Tennyson
1.
Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker the Third stood in front of the door of his best friend, Captain Jonathan Archer, and hedged. As much as he valued his long-standing friendship with the Captain, where he really wanted to be was in his quarters, playing his harmonica and thinking. Sometimes a guy just needed some time alone.
He opened the comm channel and announced himself, walking into the Captain's quarters when the doors slid open. "You wanted to see me." He said with in a formal tone that would better come from Lieutenant Malcolm Reed. Immediately he softened his tone. "Cap'n," he said in a warmer voice and added his most charming smile, the one that had the girls back home swarming to him over him like bees to honey.
Jon deftly caught the water polo ball he had been bouncing off the bulkhead. He smiled and motioned to his desk chair. "Have a seat, Trip." Seeing the smile for what it was, his friend's way of glossing over worries, he set the ball down and gave Trip a smile of his own. "Everything ok?"
Trip took the chair offered and sat down. "Sorry. I'm a little wound up today."
"I noticed. You sounded just like Malcolm for a second. Proper." Jon leaned back in his chair and regarded his best friend. "Beer?" he asked.
"Still on duty, at least for half an hour." Trip answered, comforted by the laid-back attitude he had come to expect from Jon.
Jon swiveled around and pulled two beers out of the mini fridge and popped the caps off. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about." He held a bottle out to Trip. "Here-Captain's orders." Taking a long pull form his bottle, he realized Trip wasn't the only one who needed to unwind.
"About only being on duty for another half hour'" The last thing he wanted was to pull Trip away from his plans, but the engineering crew needed a little morale booster and Trip would have to give up his night off to help.
Trip leaned over and took the bottle with a real smile. "Is the beer a bribe, so I don't get upset about what you're about to tell me?" He teased.
"Something like that," Jon said as he sipped from his beer. "Hess approached me earlier today about a having a party—"
"O'Neil's birthday is tomorrow," Trip said, interrupting the Captain.
"Yes and your staff wants to throw her a party in the mess hall. You know that night off you've been looking forward to?" Jon's smile turned apologetic.
"Let me guess, they want to throw the party tomorrow and someone needs to watch engineering." He drank deeply from his beer and looked up at the ceiling.
"If we were closer to home, I'd let the engine keep herself company, but we're so far out here, I'm just not comfortable with it." He didn't need to add about the run-in they'd had with the Romulan Star Empire, or with the Suliban, to have Trip's understanding.
"Neither am I." Trip looked at the bottle in his hand and picked at the edge of the label. "So the mice get to play without the cat?" He didn't understand the shock of hurt that hit him; after all, his crew was entitled to socialize without him. The mind understood, but the heart, the heart didn't.
Jon quickly read between the lines; his friend could never keep his heart off his sleeve. "It's not like that, Trip, they want you to come too. In fact, I've already spoken with Malcolm and he's going to relieve you so you can go to the party. They just need time to get the mess hall decorated."
Trip looked up. "How'd you talk him into that? Last I heard he had a hot date with his phase pistols." He had planned to offer his help as an excuse to spend some more time with Malcolm, but now it looked like it wasn't going to happen. He sighed; it looked like nothing was going to happen. Six months of sidestepping, catching Malcolm's eye on the bridge, and nothing had come of it, nothing except for a lot of lonely nights spent imagining things that wouldn't be. Maybe he was reading the signals wrong. Maybe he wanted to see signs where none were.
Jon picked the water polo ball up from the floor, held it up and spun it in his hands before placing in on the table in front of him. "He said he could check them over in engineering just as easily, so you could join your team." He watched the emotions race through Trip's eyes and shook his head. The poor guy had it bad for one uptight security officer if he didn't miss his guess. Trip lost his heart as often as Peter Pan lost his shadow.
Tucker finished peeling off the label and began to fold it into smaller and smaller squares. "Oh. Well, that's mighty nice of him." He bet Malcolm was doing this because he felt he needed to, because Jon had asked.
Leaning forward, Jon let his concern color his words, "Something on your mind, Trip?" He watched his friend start in on the label around the neck of the bottle. It was always this way: he had to get the ball rolling, but once it gained a little momentum, Trip was more than willing to talk.
"No." Trip replied automatically. The upper label of the beer bottle came off in his hands and joined its partner. "Yes. Is this conversation between officers or friends now?"
"Friends." Jon answered, holding up the half full beer bottle. "Anything you need to say stays here in this room." Again, another part of the routine, he thought with a smile.
A deep breath. "My interest in Malcolm goes a little beyond friendship. And it's driving me nuts." As Trip spoke he picked up speed. "Every time we have hours off together he's in the armory re-calibrating his recalibrations, or reading some tech manual and can't be disturbed. I'm about ready-"
"Whoa! Slow down, Trip," Jon said, chuckling. "Why don't you start from the beginning." Talk about getting the ball rolling—it was speeding downhill like an avalanche.
"The beginning? Like when I started liking him? Or when he started going all professional on me?" Trip asked, looking into his beer. The light reflected off the amber liquid and he watched the shadows play across the surface. Tension coiled tightly inside him every time he saw Malcolm, settling low in his belly, a burning that wouldn't stop. He had been trying to distract himself, purging the warp coils, checking and re-checking the power relays on the bridge, but nothing worked. Malcolm-watching was becoming a dangerous addiction.
Jon took the bottle from Trip's hands and set it out of his reach. "How 'bout you start from the 'professional' part."
Trip shook his head and picked the ball up off the table and began turning it in his hands, tracing the stitching. "Hell, I know he's just doing his job, but does he has to be so tight-assed about it? I thought we were getting to be friends. Maybe I'm just hoping for too much." He winced at the whining he heard in his voice. "He doesn't even try to piss me off anymore."
"You're upset because Malcolm isn't taking the engines off line without asking you anymore?" Jon asked, trying to hide his grin.
Trip caught the barely concealed grin and rounded on Jon. "Don't you dare laugh at me, I'm not too good at reading people. You know that." He had thought he and Natalie were going places, but then that "dear John" letter had come and caught him off guard. Yet another example of him seeing more than there was. Maybe it would be better just to let things be, not go running off after a pair of storm blue eyes. He was an idiot.
"I know Trip, and I'm sorry. But I haven't seen you this flustered over anyone since that bartender in San Francisco."
"It's okay, Cap'n, I'm just a little sensitive is all." Trip turned the ball over in his hands and began to worry the air valve. "I could be reading Malcolm wrong, or I could be right and he's interested too." Malcolm had offered to share lunch together and had followed him into the maintenance shaft of the repair station. He could be reading into things, but he noticed the way Malcolm's eyes followed him when the lieutenant thought he wasn't being observed. Or I could be going after phantoms, he thought, seeing things that I want to see.
"I can talk to him." Jon offered. He took the ball away from Tucker. "I'd like it to stay inflated." He explained and set the ball on the floor, out of Trip's reach.
"Sorry." Trip replied sheepishly. "And I don't want you to talk to him. Even thinking about it makes me feel like I'm in seventh grade again. Next thing I'll be leaving him a note that says: 'you want to go out with me?' No, I'll take my chances, if it's all the same to you."
"Your choice Trip," Jon smiled, "but the offer's still on the table."
"Did you get the new Stanford game yet?" Trip asked, hoping his friend would let him change the subject.
Jon stood and walked over to his desk. "I got it today. I still have a few cold ones. Are you up for watching Stanford drown the opposing team?" He let Trip off the hook and tossed him the data chip.
Trip smiled at the enthusiasm in his Captain's voice. "Anytime."