Façade
by Nel

Email: nel_ani@yahoo.se
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Enterprise
Pairing: Trip/T'Pol
Spoilers: Through Harbringer, although vague ones.
Requested by: anr
Summary: "Just...stay."
Author's Notes: Thanks to the ever-lovely, Suz (whoooo, our first bigass misunderstanding, I didn't know we had it in us). *smooch*

Hope you enjoy :)

To begin with, it seems as if your idea is successful. People appear to be more at ease around you, their greeting smiles seem less tense and you almost understand some of their reactions to illogical things.

Almost.

But sometimes you can feel your control slipping more than you’ve planned. You decrease your dosage but that seems to send your control spinning out of orbit, so you reluctantly raise it to its former level and can’t help but feel relieved.

Your dreams are getting more intense. Most of them are of the normal kind, your brain processing the experiences of your day, neatly sorting them out and organizing them.

Then there are the ones about him.

You have dreams that leave a heat in your body when you wake up, a heat that you shouldn’t be feeling.

Then there are worrying dreams, violent dreams, and they involve him as well. They leave you gasping for breath as you awaken with a jerk and more than a little disturbed.

The part of you that is still logical reasons that the dream doesn’t indicate that you wish to hurt him, that it’s some other issue your subconscious is trying to make sense of.

The part of you that’s starting to become overwhelming is sickened by the idea that you could ever – even in your dreams – hurt him.

He’s starting to notice that something isn’t quite right. You’ve managed to keep it from everyone else, even the Captain who you work so closely with.

But the Captain isn’t in your quarters when you recollect your energy in order to keep up your charade (when did it turn into that?). He is. Not constantly, but often enough.

He confronts you six weeks after your experiment.

“T’Pol, is everything alright?”

He’s looking over his shoulder at you from where he’s laying face-down on your bed, and your hands freeze momentarily before pressing down on the right pressure points. “Why shouldn’t everything be alright?”

As you press hard he lets out a small gasp that reminds you of your dreams (the more heated kind). “I don’t know. You just seem a bit…jumpy.”

You arch one eyebrow, knowing it’s what he would expect of you. The logical you. “I’ll do my best to try and avoid that, then.”

He rolls over to face you, eyes searching yours seriously. “But you *are* jumpy, aren’t you?” It feels like his eyes can see all your secrets. “And you look tired.”

You know he won’t be satisfied unless you tell him something. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

You weren’t completely aware that the something you planned telling him was the truth.

His brow furrows in concern. “Are you alright? Maybe you should see the doc-“

“I’m fine.” The words leaving your lips are sharper than you intend and he raises his eyebrows.

You're suddenly extremely aware that his torso is bare and you swallow, feeling flushed. He looks even more worried. “Seriously, you don’t look fine. Maybe-“

“I just need some sleep,” you interrupt, standing abruptly.

“Oh.” He doesn’t look quite convinced, but he stands and pulls his t-shirt back on. You ignore the prickle of disappointment as he covers up. “Well. I’ll let you sleep then.”

“Thank you.” All of a sudden your heart is hammering in your chest and, less than gracefully, you sit down on your bed, his heat still clinging to the cover. You close your eyes and swallow hard; the lack of sleep is complicating things and more emotions than desire make their presence known.

You realize he’s kneeling before you, grabbing your shoulders tightly (didn’t he leave?) and when you open your eyes you see his mouth moving.

“- just going over to the comm and I’ll have Phlox here in notime. Okay?”

“No,” you murmur, then repeat more strongly, “no. Please don’t.”

He’s confused, he’s worried; he’s afraid for you. All this you can read from his face and you wonder if your face is as easily read.

“I just need some sleep,” you say firmly, silently wishing that he’ll trust you, that he’ll respect your wishes.

“T’Pol, I…” He shakes his head. “I can’t just leave you like this, when you’re obviously not okay. I have to do something.”

“Just…stay.” You’re not sure who’s more surprised; him or you.

His eyes ask you so many questions, and you’d like to answer some of them, so badly.

So badly you know that if you don’t take back control now, you never will. “Stay and sleep with me. The bed is big enough for both of us.”

You expect him to misunderstand you, but he seems to take your words face value. “Alright,” he nods. “You have an extra cover?”

As your eyes seem to fall closed on their own accord with his warm body stretched out behind your back, you realize something.

No matter if you sleep through the entire night, your control will still continue to slip in the morning.

And as you hear him mumble something in his sleep and feel his arm slide around your waist and pull you closer to him, you realize that you’re looking forward to it.

T
H
END

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