Music Appreciation

Music Appreciation

Chapter 1

Music Appreciation

By 2Distracted

Genre: Humor

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: These characters aren't mine. Not even the reindeer.

Summary: A little something for the season inspired by a discussion on the House of Tucker boards. When I got the idea I was just gonna post it there... until it took on a life of its own. It's set somewhere between Bound and the following Christmas. Don't ask me about timelines. My brain's frazzled this time of year. Merry Christmas!

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Commander T'Pol sat at her usual corner table in the mess hall. There was an artificial conifer in the opposite corner of the room hung with what appeared to be a conglomeration of small objects made from bits and pieces of leftover engineering supplies, courtesy of Commander Tucker. He'd been at work for several days in his quarters assembling shiny fragments of metal into useless pieces of what he termed "abstract art". They were aesthetically pleasing, after a fashion, but in T'Pol's opinion he'd wasted an inordinate amount of time on them. As she watched, Ensign Sato approached the tree and began hanging small figures made from folded paper on it.

T'Pol sipped her tea and read status reports on a padd over the next quarter hour. Chef arrived with cookies strung on ribbons, and Dr. Phlox contributed a few mysteriously organic additions, a couple of which appeared to be moving. Even Lieutenant Reed stepped up, at Ensign Sato's urging, and hung precisely thirty glowing green cylinders at regular intervals on the branches. It was difficult to be certain from where she was sitting, but it certainly seemed to T'Pol that the objects greatly resembled the power cells from phase pistols. She wondered briefly about the radiation hazard before returning to her status reports. Mr. Reed was the Chief of Security, after all. If the cells posed any danger to the crew it was highly doubtful that he'd hang them on the tree that way.

Ensign Mayweather caused quite a stir when he walked in next with a data disc that Ensign Sato inserted into her padd with a smile. She then linked the padd to the mess hall comm system, and strains of music began over the loudspeakers in the room. Off-duty personnel had begun to congregate. T'Pol glanced at the wall chronometer. 2000 hours. He'd be arriving any moment now.

When Commander Tucker had requested that she accompany him to the crew's annual "Christmas Party", she'd initially declined. There were certainly more useful things she could be doing with her time. Then Captain Archer had discovered that her plans for the evening include only the review of status reports followed by meditation and sleep, and had insisted that she make an appearance for the purpose of bolstering crew morale. She had agreed. She was here. She saw no reason why she shouldn't make use of the time to review status reports as she'd originally planned, however. It was an efficient use of her time. The others began to sing along with a song about jingling bells as she paged down to the status reports for the astrophysics department.

Captain Archer arrived, and received a smattering of applause and laughter when he stepped up on a stool to place a star fashioned of silver food service foil on the top of the tree. He stepped down with a grin on his face and accepted a glass from a smiling Ensign Sato which contained a thick, creamy off-white beverage. From the way he gulped it so enthusiastically, T'Pol was fairly certain that it contained either alcohol or an inordinate amount of sugar, or perhaps both. Ensign Sato pulled the step stool to the entry door, then, and fastened a branch of plant material with small rounded leaves to the top of the entry way. She then proceeded to stand at the door and kiss every male crewmember who passed through it directly on the lips. T'Pol found the display somewhat distasteful, but of minimal concern until it occurred to her that Commander Tucker had not yet arrived.

Having decided that allowing Ensign Sato to commit what amounted to sexual assault on a superior officer might be construed as dereliction of duty, T'Pol rose from her solitary table to avert the coming disaster. She strode purposefully toward the door as the members of the crew sitting at tables all around her joined in a chorus which consisted of the syllables "fa" and "la" sung repetitively for no apparent reason. She arrived at the entry way just in time. Commander Tucker looked slightly taken aback at being met at the door by two women. Ensign Sato grinned cheekily at both of them and then stepped aside without a word, looking pointedly upward as she did so. T'Pol, who'd expected at least token resistance from the communications officer at being deprived of her new favorite pastime, was left standing face to face with the ship's chief engineer in the doorway. Commander Tucker, obviously taking his cue from Ensign Sato, looked directly overhead and then back down at T'Pol, smiling broadly.