“Are you saying that you believe that there is something confidential that I wish to share with you?”

Phlox tilted his head, returning her curious stare with one of his own. “I didn’t say that, Commander, but if you wereburdened with such a secret, I’d be more than willing to hear it–and I’d be obliged to be discreet about it.” He folded his hands in front of his stomach, waiting. Beyond his genuine concern, he also hoped to gauge exactly how much T’Pol might really suspect about the truth behind Trip’s “death.”

T’Pol dipped her head, then spoke again in a much quieter voice than usual. “I have had difficulty controlling my emotions ever since Trip’s death.” She began twisting her hands together, evidently unconsciously. “I had a very difficult…breakdown of my emotional barriers last week, while I was packing up Trip’s personal effects.”

“That isn’t surprising,” Phlox said gently. “Losing a compatriot is difficult enough, and losing a…lover is wrenching, to say the very least. But when one factors in the extraordinary emotional strain you’ve been under lately, on Vulcan, and on Mars, this…event might be–as the humans put it–the proverbial ‘straw that broke the camel’s back.”’

She stiffened, as though offended. “I am a Vulcan.”

“T’Pol,” he continued, “Vulcans are most certainly not devoidof emotions, however adept you have become in the practice of suppressing them. Vulcans experience feelings as full and rich as those of any species. But suppressing emotions tends to put them under pressure. And when something is under too much pressure for too long, it can erupt unexpectedly, sometimes with rather alarming results.”

He turned and grabbed one of his handheld medical scanners, then approached T’Pol more closely. “Lift your head, please.” He began scanning her, holding the glowing, whirring device next to her temple. “Were there any physicalside effects to your…breakdown? Other than your eyes, I mean.” He had noticed that her nictitating inner eyelid had suffered multiple broken blood vessels, which gave their normally clear membranes a slightly lime‑colored tint.

“Ironically, I have been having difficulty getting to sleep,” T’Pol said.

Phlox understood that she was referring to more than a year earlier, when Trip had been unable to sleep after his sister had died in the Xindi attack on Earth. Phlox had referred Trip to T’Pol for Vulcan neuropressure; since that time, the two had become increasingly–if sometimes combatively–involved with one another romantically.

“I can prescribe a mild sedative for you,” he said, sidestepping the neuropressure issue. He backed away slightly to study the readings on his scanner, then set it down on a countertop and turned back to her.

“Beyond recent events in your life, I can think of another possible causal factor for your recent…emotional lapse,” he said. “The aftereffects of the trellium.” While Enterprisewas searching for the Xindi in the hazardous unknown region known as the Delphic Expanse, T’Pol had become addicted to a mineral known as trellium, a substance that had enabled her to escape the restraints of logic, at least temporarily. Phlox had helped T’Pol end her addiction, but the physical repercussions of her chemical dependency were still measurable.

“I havebeen able to control my emotions since that time,” T’Pol said, a hint of defensiveness in her voice. “Until now.”

Phlox nodded. “Have you? Or were you strugglingto control them on a deeper level?” He approached her again, staring into her eyes. “I’ve seen you fighting your emotions, T’Pol. More and more. Understand that Idon’t consider emotions to be a negative thing. Denobulans revel in them, as do humans. So I cannot compare my situation to yours. But if you are susceptible to emotional outbursts due to a residual chemical imbalance in your body, it may be more harmful to you notto give in to your emotions, at least from time to time.”

T’Pol nodded, but Phlox could see that she had discarded his advice the instant he had voiced it. He stepped away and pretended to tidy up his counter.

“There is something else,” T’Pol said, her voice clearer. “Something that I do not believe can be blamed on the trellium, or on my present lack of emotional restraint.”

Phlox stiffened slightly. This is where she tells me her suspicions,he thought. He turned back toward her.

T’Pol crossed her arms across her chest and shifted her weight from foot to foot. Despite these telltale signs of nervousness, her face remained an all but inscrutable mask.

“I believe that Commander Tucker is still alive.”

Phlox carefully masked his own responsive body language, glad that the first officer was only a touch telepath and couldn’t read his thoughts just now.

“That’s an interesting notion,” he said at length.

“I know that it’s a logical impossibility,” T’Pol said, gesturing with one hand. “If Trip isn’t dead, that would mean that you and the captain, and perhaps Lieutenant Reed as well, would have to have faked his death for some unknown reason. An alternative possibility is that I am becoming delusional.”

Phlox clasped his hands behind his back tightly. “Putting aside the absurd notion that there has been a conspiracy to make Commander Tucker only appearto have died, the second notion strikes me as equally absurd. At least until you exhibit other symptoms of having experienced a break with reality.

“I must also point out to you that denialis one of the stages of mourning that people commonly experience after the loss of a loved one.” He paused, and modulated his voice. “Why do you think he isn’tdead?”

“There are…things we shared, which have forever linked us,” T’Pol said.

He could tell that she was holding something back, and wondered if she was talking about a mind‑meld between Trip and herself. He stayed silent, though, and resolved not to pry into that deeply personal aspect of their relationship, even though he found the Vulcan practice of telepathic linkage and fusion a fascinating concept, one that he hoped to explore for a future medical paper now that mind‑melders were becoming more socially acceptable on Vulcan under Minister T’Pau’s new government.

“Beyond that, perhaps it is because I was not allowed to see the body–”

“At Commander Tucker’s request,” Phlox said, interrupting.

“And today, when I touched the torpedo casing that contained Trip’s remains, I felt nothing but…cold. Absence. Though I know it is not logical, all my instincts told me that he was notinside the torpedo.”

“He wasn’t,” Phlox said.

T’Pol looked at him inquisitively.

He stepped closer to her. “The body that was in that tube was notCommander Tucker. The essence of what Trip was still exists out in the universe. He isstill out there,” he said.

“More importantly, Trip is also here,” he said, touching a finger to T’Pol’s forehead. “And here.” He touched the right side of her ribcage, where he knew the Vulcan heart to be located. “And he willbe with us forever.”

T’Pol stared at him, the area between her eyebrows twitching and wrinkling as she struggled with the maelstrom of emotion that was clearly roiling within her. And then, abruptly, her forehead smoothed, and she nodded.

“Thank you, Doctor,” she said.

Half an hour later, alone in sickbay, Phlox looked up from feeding his Aldebaran mud leeches. He realized, in a flash, that although he had managed to talk to T’Pol without telling her any bald‑faced lies, she, too, might have pulled a canny maneuver on him.

Not only had she never said whether she actually believed that he, the captain, and Lieutenant Reed really had conspired to fake Trip’s death and conceal the truth from her, but she had also avoided revealing whether her discussion with him had allayed her fears, or confirmed her suspicions.