DISCLAIMER: No profit is intended in the writing of this story. Star Trek - Enterprise and its characters are the property of Paramount and Viacom.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I tried to inform me how a Vulcan woman experiences her pon farr. Unfortunately there are only a few informations about it. The book "Dwellers in the crucible" by Margaret Wander Bonanno was a great help. The author describes the pon far of a Vulcan female while she and a Human female were kidnapped by the Klingons and Romulans. The story of the book plays between TOS and TNG.
SERIES: This story continues the series Change, Heartbeat, Morningdawn, Cover, Dusk and Questions.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
BETA: Bev and GroovyGoddess.
Pain
By Olli
T'Pol sat up in her bed suddenly.
With wide eyes she stared into the darkness of her quarters aboard Enterprise. She pressed her hands to her temples and concentrated on a meditation technique to control her pain. Slowly the hammering in her head faded away. It had never been this unbearable! It had started a few days ago and it had increased every time it had happened. Sometimes the pain practically exploded in her head during her duty shift and then she was relieved that she could sit at her station. She was not sure if she would have been able to hide these attacks of pain if she had to stand at her station. Sometimes it happened during her time off duty and sometimes during the night like now. At first she had regarded it as stress and tried to control it with meditation, but now she knew it was something completely different. The symptoms were clear: headache, shaking hands and an increased libido, connected with more and more jealously if she saw someone with Hoshi.
Pon farr!
T'Pol put the sheets besides and swung her legs out of the bed. As her feet touched the cold floor a shiver ran through her body. For a moment she stared at her toes then she pushed herself up from the mattress with difficulty. She crossed the room and walked over to the bath room. At the washbasin she opened the tap for cold water and held her head under it. For a minute she endured the cold then she cut the water off and slowly straightened up. T'Pol supported herself with both hands on the edge of the washbasin and looked her reflection in the eyes. She didn't dry her hair and the water ran down her face and over her neck. That her pyjama top became wet didn't bother her.
The headache was gone – for now.
What should she do?
It was a taboo of her people to talk to outsiders about the pon farr! A Vulcan did not do something like that! Never!
What in the name of Surak should she do?
Lock herself away in her quarters and suffer a painful and tortuous death? Because this would happen if the chemical irregularity, which was building up in her body during pon farr, would not be put back into balance.
But dying was not an option!
First, she wouldn't die and second it wouldn't happen! Because they would force their way into her quarters! She would be seen in this disgraceful condition by everyone! The captain would be there, the doctor, maybe Commander Tucker and Lieutenant Reed, technicians, security officers and medics! They all would see her with openly shown emotions and in a state between agony and lust! They would restrain her with force and buckle her on a stretcher, they would take her to sick bay all across the ship and every crewmember could see her in this condition! Dr. Phlox would try everything to save her; he would talk about her condition to the Vulcans, maybe to the Medical Department of Starfleet and the Denobulonian Medical Council. Should she survive this, she had to live with the unbearable certainty that she had humiliated herself in front of dozens or hundreds of people because she was not able to let her will triumph over her body!
And if she could convince the captain to bring her back to Vulcan? Enterprise wouldn't be there in time! It was already too late! Should she ask the captain to call a Vulcan ship? One that would be faster than Enterprise? Even if she couldn't reach Vulcan in time, there would be a Vulcan healer aboard who could help her through pon farr with stabilisation of her mind and some strong sedatives. This would be a small chance to survive. But Captain Archer would demand an explanation and she couldn't explain this to him!
But should she make it back to Vulcan against all hopes, she would be together with her former fiancée Koss. His family would insist on this! And this thought was unbearable to her! She couldn't hurt her lover, leaving Enterprise without any explanation and it would be a betrayal to Hoshi if she was together with someone else, even if it was during her pon farr!
If she stayed aboard to… suffer through her pon farr then she had to inform Hoshi because with whom else could she do 'it'? And it would come to this! Hoshi didn't have the telepathic abilities of the Vulcans to go through this without physical 'interaction'. And T'Pol would remain for three days in this condition. That meant that she had to inform other people about it because she couldn't lock herself away for three days in her quarters with Hoshi without any explanation. Maybe the doctor? He had his duty of secrecy. He could put her on medical leave and no one would think anything about it. But Hoshi had to be on medical leave, too, and this would lead to questions!
The most important question was of course if Hoshi was willing to be her partner during pon farr? And if the young woman was willing to accept all consequences which could result out of it? Not only the physical but the mental too!
The loss of her self control would cause other reactions. T'Pol would be more… aggressive! Completely different from the way Hoshi knew her. Hoshi hadn't the physical strength of a Vulcan, she would be helpless! T'Pol could force her to do things the young human didn't want to do! And if Hoshi tried to defend herself, T'Pol could become angry! The loss of self control would lead to this emotion and what she could do to Hoshi in this condition… The Vulcan closed her eyes; she didn't even want to think about it!
And what would Hoshi say about the bond? If the bonding during pon farr would work! All she knew was that something like this has never been tried before between a Vulcan and a Human. But the fact was that T'Pol would bind to Hoshi and she wasn't averse to this! But would Hoshi willingly spend the rest of her life with T'Pol? Despite all of the demonstrations of affection and all wordless statements of love, they had never talked about this possibility! Talked about their life after their time on Enterprise, if they would go to another ship or if they would work as civilian experts? They had never talked about the possibility to live together at some place!
T'Pol forced herself to look at her image in the mirror. Her hair clung to her skull, her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks a little bit hollow. Those were clear signs of insomnia, stress and, yes… of fear too! She feared the death, she feared the emotional chaos and she feared to loose Hoshi because of her pon farr! She had tried to fight against these fears, she had used all of the meditation and calming techniques she knew and tried to banish these feelings in some dark corner of her mind.
She had failed!
Every attack of pain had cost her more efforts to hide her condition in front of the crew.
Slowly she turned away from her image. T'Pol went back to the living room. She sat down on her bed in the darkness, the same bed she and Hoshi had made love to each other! She ran her hand through her hair and again cold water ran down her neck.
If she told Hoshi about the pon farr she would break a taboo of her people! It was unthinkable! But then T'Pol realised that she had broken so many other rules and traditions of her people, this one would be nothing more than a new point on a long list! She had confided in Hoshi so many times now, how could she keep this a secret?
For eight months now she had a secret affair with a Human! Much more longer than the few weeks she and Hoshi had agreed to try if their relationship would work! Even if they could be together only secretly aboard Enterprise it had worked! And it still worked! And the shore leave on Risa had been a great experience and had shown her how it could be one day. No fear of being caught in an unregarded moment, no hiding behind corners to sneak into the other's quarters in the middle of the night if they could not sleep alone. T'Pol liked to be with Hoshi, still after eight months she liked Hoshi's odd little accent when she spoke Vulcan, she liked to share her bed with the human, not only for lovemaking but also for not being alone!
If T'Pol would ask for Hoshi's help then she would ask for her to be her companion! Even if Hoshi was not willing or able to establish such a complete, lifelong and inseparable bond, she would help T'Pol to survive pon farr and in which way their relationship would go then… they had to see…
The Vulcan lay down and pulled the sheets over her body. She folded her hands over her belly, staring at the ceiling of her quarters. She should try to get a few hours sleep.
T'Pol's last conscious thought was that she would speak to Hoshi. Right away tomorrow! She would confess all of this to her and she would let the Human decide if she was willing to take this step.
It would be a final step and T'Pol hoped that Hoshi would do it with her.
But what if not…?
The End