“As it was in the dawn of our days As it will be for all tomorrows To you, my husband, I consecrate all that I am. T’Pel, my wife. From you I receive all that I am. As it was in the beginning, so shall it be now. Two bodies, one mind.“                                                                   - Pon Farr Ritual Lines

Tuvok can have a little overwhelming guilt, sorrow and heartache as a treat. Also, people need to start talking about that fucking Pon Farr opener because it’s hardcore and so loving. Anyway so I was thinking about the fact that pon farr is a bonding ritual which helps to alleviate fever...how intimate that would be and how it’d feel to have to share that kind of thing with a facsimile of the person you care about.  It’s not just sex, it’s love. And Tuvok loves his wife - to the point that even having sex with a hologram that didn’t look like T’Pel was unacceptable to him. To the point that he noticed that her ears were 4 millimeters too long. It must be difficult knowing that your wife is there, waiting for you, still in love with you, but you can’t reach her.  It must be difficult holding a woman who looks almost exactly like your wife but where she had a mind as familiar to you as your own (a mind which was your own, as yours was hers) this woman has only a static buzz and a voice you half-remember. I think it’d be very complicated and painful! And so so interesting! And I was picturing Tuvok, still under the pon farr’s influence, feeling so bad about not being able to control himself and also missing T’Pel and his children and regretting being trapped in the delta quadrant and just like....crying. All of his emotions from the past few years are just bubbling to the surface. And Holo T’Pel doesn’t know. She can’t help him like the real T’Pel could. She can’t receive his telepathic apology or pain or love and he won’t say it out loud because her inability to respond/understand is painful and in his state he feels the pain is deserved. What use would talking to a hologram be? It would just be even more pathetic. But Holo T’Pel sees that he’s crying she asks what’s wrong and when he doesn’t answer she presses their heads together as if they actually could speak properly, telepathically, and know each other. But they can’t.  They are two bodies, two minds. They will never become one.