it may take centuries

[The first few days, T'Pol refuses to leave the Barge. It's Earth, it's twenty-first century Earth and thus everything T'Pol never wanted to see. There is no scientific curiosity, she tells herself, that could convince her to go out among those monsters. This is the century of First Conquest. This is the century that the T'Plana-Hath will land in Bozeman, Montana in peace only to have its crew gunned down by the unpredictably violent Humans. She paces her room and grinds her teeth and wonders how far that date is, how many years until - or since - Vulcans attempted first contact. Have the crew's bodies been autopsied yet?

Eventually, that's what brings her off the Barge. She has to know how close this world is to April 5th, 2063.

She doesn't speak the languages: Earth Standard became English before its third World War, and T'Pol has never had occasion or reason to learn French. She knows pieces, mostly picked up as unexpected transference from the occasional mind-meld. That is what she does once her feet are on solid ground again: it would be easier to use her newfound abilities to connect her PADD to a news network, but it is more satisfying to corner a Human in a back alley, to leave sloppy traces in her thoughts, fingerprints on her brain that this century - this species - will never fully understand. What is one Human to her?

She gets the date: it will be more than half a century before the T'Plana-Hath lands. And that is when the idea begins to form.

T'Pol passes another day considering; in the end, she decides, there is no decision at all. The answer she arrives at is the only possible answer. The Admiral made the mistake of giving her his abilities. She will use them to protect her people from Humanity.

The Enterprise was constructed at Jupiter Station, but Jupiter isn't settled yet. Not even the moon is settled yet, and T'Pol cannot wait for technology to catch up. She doesn't have to. Somewhere above the Kármán line, well out of Earth's atmosphere, a fully functional starship suddenly exists. It seemed a simple act, a thought made real, but it takes its toll as all things must. She slumps against a space of empty wall, ignoring the buzz of an active Parisian street around her to get lost in the buzzing in her head. Her head still tilts up, looking in vain for something too far for even her eyes to see.

Later, much later, when she's recovered enough to move (to remember the point of all this, to save Vulcan), T'Pol takes herself to the ship and sets a course. She takes the captain's chair, revels in the silence of a ship empty of Humans, and promptly loses consciousness.]

[Spam for Steve]

[When she wakes....no. That is incorrect. She was never asleep. It all rushes in with consciousness, one fell swoop of being aware and remembering and the sudden surge makes her want to scream. Her outer eyelids peel back, and a moment later so do her inner ones. She clenches her jaw shut tight, and for a moment she wishes she were on Enterprise. At least waking up in this kind of agony would make sense in his sickbay.

But she knows everything. Captain Rogers' body. His shield. Its weight on her arm and his friend's knife finding her heart. How did he know? Her thoughts immediately head in that direction, he must have known, it was perfectly aimed to put down a Vulcan. She was wrong to think the Terran Empire had no sway here, it doesn't matter if they come from worlds with slavery or without, because in the end they're all Human and that is little better than monster.

She doesn't scream. She learned long ago not to give anyone the satisfaction of her pain. But she does start to push herself up to get a dizzying view of the infirmary, ignoring the way it spins and twists in her vision. She'll stumble out of here if she has to.]

[Spam for Dean, forward dated]

[By all rights, she should still be in the infirmary. She should, at the very least, continue resting in her quarters. But the idea of sitting in there for hours, staring at the steel of her ceiling, laying in her blue sheeted bed, surrounded by the largely undecorated, plain, Human Starfleet issue room makes her want to scream more than the pain ever did. So she reports for duty on the dinner shift more than a couple days early. Her skin prickles, her anger hovers in the air around her. It makes her feel less brittle. It makes her feel strong.

All thoughts of suppressing her emotion are slipping away. Around any corner may be another Sergeant Barnes. Around any corner may be whoever killed Captain Rogers. May be another Human. But why give way to fear or paranoia when she can slip into rage like a second skin?

(Fear is always the root. Surak said, Dakh pthak. Nam-tor ri ret na'fan-kitok fa tu dakh pthak. Cast out fear. There is no room for anything else until you cast out fear. But fear so easily turns to other things, and she follows those threads without a single thought for Surak's teachings. All they ever did was teach Vulcans to lay down and die.)

She cuts onions without her eyes reddening or tearing, inner eyelids safely shut. She slams the knife down too hard, clenches her fingers around it tight enough that green blood pools to her finger tips, leaves her knuckles white. It's so different from her usual state of being, and only so much of it can be attributed to the death toll's lingering effects.]

[When she turns on the feed, the misgivings aren't clear in her expression, but she most certainly feels them. Out of sight, her hands are clenched into fists, white knuckled as she concentrates on control. She keeps it simple.]

This is Lieutenant Commander T'Pol, formerly of the ISS Enterprise, SA-013-8294-VR.

[She's considering leaving at at that - well that and her really intense stare - but she only pauses for a moment before continuing.]

Who rules the Terran Empire?

[She needs to know if the plan worked. She needs to know if the Defiant was destroyed. Needs it in ways she can't describe, because if she died for nothing - if she is trapped here and Archer has taken command of an entire Empire--

No 'then' follows. She knows the logical end, and cannot stomach it.]

( ooc: fourth wall! yay! everyone is welcome, but I'll sell a kidney to anyone bringing mirror!Trek muses! )