1. Chapter 1 (1/2)

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dedicated to rishooter, co-author of this story, the plot of which we arrived at only after bouncing ideas off each other at great length.

dedicated to mostdismalfeldsparkle, a generous contributor who helped me iron out some rough spots in the plot, and bailed me out with some elegant solutions when i stumbled in the process of said ironing.

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— chapter 01 —

a week had just passed since the enterprise's encounter with skalaar, the tellarite bounty hunter who had kidnapped captain archer in service to the klingons, and t'pol was back in sick bay now at phlox's insistence, for a last physical after her regrettable encounter with an unusual microbe which had caused the vulcan to enter an artificially induced pon'farr, a vulcan mating cycle.

"ah…" said doctor phlox, fumbling a bit with his handheld scanner. "yes. ah… excuse me."

phlox was still a bit nervous around t'pol since she'd offered herself to him sexually during her pon'farr, the vulcan's offer preceded by a lazy catlike stretch, just before she'd said in a voice just shy of a purr: "you have no idea what you are denying yourself, doctor."

well, that much was true, reckoned phlox, and frankly it was a topic he'd considered at length since the day he'd turned down t'pol's sexual advances out of a surfeit of medical ethics. still, he'd done the right thing in curing the vulcan using a more conventional treatment… doing the right thing was not always easy.

"well, all seems to be in order, subcommander," said phlox, "though my knowledge in the particulars of your condition is limited due your people's illogical reticence to discuss a normal biological fact that—"

"so i am cleared to return to duty?" said t'pol, purposely cutting off the doctor's polite rant.

"yes," said phlox, "but since this was your first pon'farr, and an artificially induced cycle at that, we should monitor you for another week or two, just to make certain that all is well with you, subcommander."