Unrequited (Trip x OC)

Three

Trip's Point of View

We arrived at the rendezvous spot (an asteroid field a lightyear away from our original destination) seven days earlier than expected, thanks to Emily's quick persuasion on the planet.

She sat in the corner with her nose in a book, as always. Her brow was furrowed in deep concentration and her legs stretched out in front of her as her eyes flitted back and forth across the black print. I smiled. I had always loved seeing her so lost in a world all her own.

When the Captain set it up so she could come with us on the Enterprise, the only things she had been worried about leaving behind on Earth were her books. She once told me that her mother gave most of them to her, and she felt more connected to her when she read them. After all, she inherited her love for books from her mom.

The captain had commissioned me to build a bookshelf for her quarters before we boarded, then had the books transferred there. It was a surprise to her the day we set out. It didn't seem like it had been almost seven years since then, but here we were.

She had grown into quite the young lady in that time. She was always smart, but now she had the experience of hanging out on the bridge while things went down to add to that. She tried to learn everything she could from T'Pol. She didn't follow her around the ship anymore, and to be honest, I think she had even made quite the impression on T'Pol with both her loyalty and seeking of knowledge. If I didn't know T'Pol, I'd say Emily had grown on her.

She looked up at me, then back down at her book before speaking, "Charles. You're staring. Do I have something on my face?"

I shook my head. "That's something I've been meaning to ask you about. For the first couple of years we knew each other, you called me Trip just like everyone else. Then you started calling me Charles out of the blue."

"That's not a question," she flipped a page in her book.

"Why?"

"Well, you see, that was a statement, as it didn't begin with who, what, when, or--"

"Emily," I looked at her seriously. "You know what I meant."

I got the impression she was dodging the question.

"It's because I want to be a special snowflake," she said in a high, mocking voice.

"Really? That's it?" I rose an eyebrow.

"Why does it matter so much to you that I don't call you an endearing nickname?"

"Your father calls me Trip."

"Yeah, you two are friends."

"Are you saying we're not?" I crossed my arms, leaning back in my seat.

"I didn't say that," she looked up quickly.

"No, but it was implied," I laughed. "If we weren't friends, why would I have known you were born with asthma but your dad had the cure given to you when you were nine?"

"Because you looked in my medical file?"

"Okay, number one: no, that's extremely illegal. Number two: you told me when you were fifteen years old."

"Either way, you could ask any one of the first officers and they would know that."

"Okay," I chewed on my cheek. "Well, what about this: why would I have known to get you a rare edition of The Odyssey for your eighteenth birthday if we weren't friends?"

"Uh, you're observant? You've seen my bookshelf, you built it; a large fraction of the books on them are Greek Mythology based."

"Fine, then we'll try a different approach. If we weren't friends, why would you get me an NES: Classic Edition with almost all of the games? I mean, how did you even manage to find one intact? They stopped making them in 2017! That was over two hundred years ago! I--"

She was looking thoroughly amused. She had even put her book down.

She rose an eyebrow. "You done yet?"

"Sorry. But you get the point. What have you got to say about that?"

"I gave gifts of the same calliber to Malcolm, Hoshi, Travis, and T'Pol. I mean, that was the most excited I'd ever seen her," she looked up to her left. There she went, slipping off into her own little world.

"Yeah, she looked thrilled," I scoffed, thinking back to her mellow reaction. "Anyway, those people were all your friends, so I win this argument."

"Don't think I'm giving up that easily, Tucker. You forget that I also got presents for the rest of the crew at Christmas," she stood up, walking over to me. "Your move."

"Yeah, but their gifts didn't have as much thought put into them. They didn't mean much to them," I shook my head.

"False, and false. I spent the entire year looking for information on each of them, so they better have meant just as much," she leaned forward to get in my face. "You're slipping, Charles."

"Well--" I was interrupted by a beeping from the monitor. I turned around to look at it, frowning.

"What's wrong? Can you fix it?" Emily grabbed my shoulder, her fingers digging into my skin.

"Is that fear I detect, Archer?" I smirked and looked up at her where she stood.

"Cut the games, Charles. What happened?"

"Relax, we just detected debris in the field. Come on, let's go check it out," I extracted her hand from my shoulder and dragged her towards the window.

We looked out at the debris.

"We can use the scanners to identify them," she walked back towards the helm.

"They're broken," I grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her back to the window. "We'll just have to look at them this way."

She looked up at me in dismay and pulled her wrist out of my grasp before looking back out the window.

"Hey, does that piece have writing on it?" she pointed at one to my left. I looked over.

When I saw it, I almost couldn't believe my eyes.

If she hadn't grabbed me by the hand and dug her fingernails in, I would've been convinced I was dreaming.

On the fragment was writing in black paint that read,

Enterprise

NX 01