1. The Beginning

When Darkness Falls  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek. I just like to have fun with the characters.  
  
Sorry about the recent changes. I thought it would be better to combine the two stories so it wouldn't be so confusing.  
  
Chapter 1: The Beginning  
  
'How could they be so cruel? Why weren't they helping her?' Trip thought. 'Why were they just gonna let her suffer?'  
He looked down at T'Pol, who was lying on her side, as her emerald green blood spilled on the floor. She looked up at him with a look of pain and weakness on her face.  
  
"You'll be okay, T'Pol," he told her. It was a lie though; she wouldn't be okay unless a doctor took care of her immediately. 'It's bad enough that those damn Xindi are holding us captive, but why did they have to go and shoot T'Pol?' he thought, in shock as he saw so much of her blood on the floor. Everything had happened so quickly; he hadn't realized that she had saved his life.  
  
Several hours earlier, Enterprise had found a planet with a small colony on the surface. When they were in orbit taking readings, they received a message from the friendly leader of the people in the colony. He invited some of the crew on Enterprise to come down for a visit. Captain Archer sent Trip and T'Pol down.  
T'Pol and Trip were immediately greeted by people's leader and a couple of his guards. Suddenly, out of nowhere, came three shots, killing the leader and his guards. T'Pol and Trip, with looks of horror on their faces, stared at the three Xindi that had shot the innocent men. One of them aimed his gun at Trip, and as he was pulling the trigger, T'Pol jumped in front of Trip, taking the shot.  
She immediately fell to the ground and started to go into shock as she held her horrible wound on her stomach, her green blood gushing out.  
"No!" Trip yelled, kneeling down on the ground next to her. "You bastards! You shot her!"  
  
The next thing he knew, he was here, in this tiny, damp cell with a dying T'Pol. As darkness began to wash over the room, he thought about what had happened. 'Maybe,' he thought, 'they didn't mean to shoot her. They might have wanted to shoot me because I played a big part in stopping them from destroying Earth. And now, my poor T'Pol is suffering because of me.'  
"Charles?" T'Pol struggled to say.  
"Yes, honey?" he said, looking into her eyes that were now expressing how much pain she was in.  
  
"I just wanted to tell you that I love you," she said slowly.  
  
"I love you, too," he said in a shaky voice.  
"I wanted to tell you once more before it was too late." She paused for a moment for a breath. "I am dying, Charles."  
"No, you're not! I won't let you!" he said, starting to cry.  
"Good-bye, my love."  
She slowly closed her eyes and let out her last breath.  
  
"No!" he screamed, snapping upward in his bed, beads of sweat running down his face.  
"What's wrong, Charles?" asked T'Pol by his side, gently placing her hand on his arm.  
  
"Terrible dream, that's all." he said with a smile, glad to see that his beautiful wife was lying by his side.  
  
"Are you okay?" she asked.  
"Yeah, I think so." he said, lying back down slowly. He ran his fingers through T'Pol's soft, brown hair and smiled. "Go back to sleep now, beautiful." He whispered in a sweet tone.  
"I love you," she whispered back.  
He leaned over towards her and kissed her. "I love you, too."  
She closed her eyes and went back to sleep.  
'Oh, how thankful I am that was just a dream.' he thought. 


	2. Dreams and Reality

When Darkness Falls  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek. I just like to have fun with the characters.  
  
Also, thanks to Admiral Carly Corinthos for the help with coming up with an idea for this chapter and the upcoming chapters.  
  
Chapter 2: Dreams and Reality  
  
Trip had been having trouble sleeping ever since he had that terrible nightmare, the nightmare where the Xindi had killed his sweet, innocent wife, T'Pol. After Captain Archer noticed that Trip was having trouble concentrating on his work, he suggested that Trip should take some time off to rest. He didn't want rest though. He needed to try to get his mind distracted, and working would help him do that.  
About a week after Trip's nightmare, Enterprise had found a new world. This seemed like a big de-ja-vu him. He had been in this place before, had seen the same things; he had experienced this in his nightmare.  
"Captain?" Trip said, still staring at the planet.  
  
"What is it, Trip?"  
"This is the planet that was in my dream!" Trip said, turning around and facing the Captain with a shocked look on his face.  
"Well, surely it can't be the same one-"  
"It is! Everything has been happening the same now as it had in my dream!"  
  
"Calm down. We're just going to take some readings and see what happens." Captain Archer said, sitting calmly in his Captain's Chair.  
"Yes," T'Pol said calmly, looking into her husband's eyes. "I assure you, everything will be fine."  
  
"Okay, honey." Trip said, smiling at her. "I won't worry so much." Something about the way T'Pol said it had calmed him down, at least for a moment.  
  
"Are there any life forms on the surface?" Captain Archer asked T'Pol.  
"There are-"  
"There are exactly 3,058 life forms on the surface," Trip interrupted T'Pol, repeating what she had said in his dream, in exactly the same manner. "They all appear to be humanoid."  
Captain Archer looked at him with a shocked face. T'Pol seemed shocked also, but only Trip could tell by the look in her eyes.  
"Come, on! This is exactly how it went in my dream so far!" Trip tried to convince them, and now they looked as if they were considering that what he was saying was true. "Any time now, Raquael, the friendly leader of those people, will be hailing us. He's a scaly, tan colored looking dude."  
"Dude?" T'Pol said with one raised eyebrow.  
"He might be right, sir." Hoshi said to Archer. "Someone's hailing us."  
  
"Put them through," he said from his Captain's Chair.  
  
"Greetings!" said the friendly, tan, scaled face that had just appeared. "I'm Raquael, the leader of the colony on this world."  
"Greetings!" Captain Archer said with a smile. "We were just taking some readings."  
"Feel free to take all the readings you want." He said. "You are welcome to come down and visit, if you like. Then, you'll be able to have a closer look at our people and culture, and maybe we'll be able to share some information."  
  
"Sounds great," Captain Archer said with a smile.  
"I don't mean to interrupt," Trip whispered, "but I don't think any of us should go down there."  
"I think it'll be fine, as long as we change the time and location that you go down and tell them about the three Xindi." Archer said. "Where and when did you meet Raquael in your dream?"  
"It was launch bay three, and about thirty minutes after he contacted us."  
"Okay." Archer said, turning back to Raquael. "Sorry about that interruption."  
"There's no need to apologize." Raquael said, smiling. "When would you like to come down?"  
"In about an hour, if that's okay."  
"Sure, come to launch bay three then-"  
"Well, there's something that makes me believe that launch bay three won't be good." Archer said, glancing back at Trip.  
"Why?" Raquael looked confused.  
"Well, we have a psychic aboard, and he predicts there will be danger there. Actually, three Xindi will be hiding there and they will be armed."  
"I'll have some of my best guards search for these Xindi. Is launch bay nine alright?" Raquael said with a smile.  
  
Archer glanced back at Trip again. Trip nodded, and Archer faced Raquael again.  
"That'll be fine."  
"See you then," he said as his face disappeared off the screen.  
Archer faced Trip again.  
"Do you think it'll be okay if you and T'Pol go down?"  
"I think we'll have to bring some weapons just in case, and would it be okay if Malcolm came with us to help us out if there's any trouble?" Trip asked. Archer nodded right away. "I think we'll be okay now though. They'll probably find the three Xindi that are hiding there."  
"I wonder how they would know that you and T'Pol would be meeting Raquael there." Archer said.  
"Maybe they were spying on Raquael and heard that he had contacted Enterprise." T'Pol said. "That would be a very good time to kill him and you, like you always say, they wanted to 'kill two birds with one stone'."  
  
"That's very likely." Trip said, looking over at his wife with a smile. "You're so smart, who couldn't love you?"  
After hearing that, T'Pol let a smile show on her face. Her husband had a way of getting her to express her happiness by flattering her and expressing how much he loved her.  
T'Pol's smile was all Trip needed to see to know how much she loved him.  
"Well," Hoshi said with a giggle, "she's more of a friend to me."  
Trip rolled his eyes.  
"So," Archer started, "we know why they want to kill Trip, but why would they want to kill Raquael."  
"I don't know." T'Pol said, as everyone else shook their heads. "Maybe we'll find out from Raquael."  
"Yeah, maybe so." Archer said to T'Pol. "Well, I think you, Trip, and Malcolm should start getting ready to go."  
"Sounds good to me." Malcolm said, getting up out of his seat.  
  
"Let's just hope that they'll catch those Xindi before we get there." Trip said in an uneasy tone to T'Pol, as they followed Malcolm off the bridge. 


End file.
