Elysium - Act 5

Star Trek: Enterprise, Episode 522 - Elysium

By Rigil Kent

Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: >We've established that (a) I'm not making any money; (b) the characters (mostly) belong to Paramount; (c) if I owned them, I'd be married to a long-haired T'Pol; (d) the Killer Bees should be stuck in an agonizer for a really long time (hmmmm, forever?); (e) Manny Coto should have been in charge from the beginning; (f) I'm not a professional writer but would like to be one; and (g) There's not a chance in hell that I'm going to watch anything Trek-related if the Beebs are even tangentially involved. Anything I miss?

Author's Note: Thanks to Ludjin for coming to my aid when I needed a beta. And thanks once more to Distracted for a few additional medical pointers.

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ACT FIVE:

Columbia wasn't moving fast enough.

Seated in her Command Chair, Erika Hernandez glared at the blank viewscreen as she silently urged her ship to go faster, to push the envelope a bit farther than they already were. For the briefest of moments, she contemplated giving the order to increase their current speed, to coax just a little more out of the already straining engines, but discarded the idea at once. They would be no help to Enterprise if she burned up their warp drive.

If there still was an Enterprise.

Nearly ten hours had passed since the sudden communique from Admiral Gardner, nine hours and fifty-three minutes since he had informed her that Enterprise may be walking into a Romulan ambush and that he could not regain communication with Archer, nine hours and fifty-two minutes since she ordered Hess to push the warp drive harder than it had been pushed before, harder than it was ever intended to be pushed. Official Starfleet specs stated Columbia could hold a maximum warp factor of 5.125 for just over an hour.

They'd been redlining at 5.5 for nine and a half.

"Six minutes," her XO announced from the TAC board and she felt the tension on the bridge spike. With a nod, she turned her attention to her communications officer.

"Anything, Pilar?" she asked, easily concealing her growing concern that they would arrive too late to help Enterprise, too late to help Jonathan. It was essential that she appeared calm, in control, rational.

Even if she was dying inside.

"No ma'am," Ensign Benitez responded and Erika frowned. At this range, they should be able to get something, some sort of outgoing signal, even if it was just a passive comm-link. Her eyes jumped to her XO once more.

"Tactical alert," she ordered and Commander Cross nodded in acknowledgement of the command. Around them, lights dimmed as the weapons systems and defensive suites sucked up energy. It might be overkill, going in loaded for bear when they didn't know what was going on, but she'd learned since launching from Spacedock just how cold, how hostile the universe could be.

"Dropping out of warp," Ensign du Bois announced from the Helm station exactly six minutes after Cross had last spoken.

"Tac-Ops," Erika demanded as Columbia slowed to impulse. It was one of the idiosyncrasies that marked her as different from so many other starship captains, that she preferred to have a tactical display of the immediate area surrounding her ship instead of a visual of the target zone. The last year had been a grim reality check, one that had transformed her from an explorer into a soldier. She hated that.

"I read...one displacement, ma'am," Lieutenant-Commander Jansen said from the science board, her voice smooth and clear. "Scanning...hull composition matches...it's Enterprise." Erika let loose a breath she had not known she was holding and, from the sound, she wasn't the only one. Jansen continued, her tone suddenly bleak. "I'm reading heavy damage on Enterprise, minimal power."

"Action stations," Hernandez barked, her eyes not leaving the Tac-Ops display on the main viewscreen; it was little more than a 2D representation of the immediate area - only about 25,000 kilometers total - but was better than going in blind. Already, she was formulating battle plans and possible escape routes. Alarms began sounding throughout Columbia as personnel not already on alert raced to their duty stations. "Life signs?" she asked the science officer.

"Indeterminate," Jansen replied, her eyes glued to the sensor feed. "We're not close enough, ma'am, and there's some serious interference."

"On screen," Erika ordered. The viewscreen flickered as the Tac-Ops display transformed to a distant shot of their sister vessel and someone gasped in shock; she wasn't entirely sure that it hadn't been her.

Enterprise was a wreck. It drifted without power in a massive debris field that could only have come from another starship. Nearly half of the saucer section was simply...gone, missing as if some great stellar beast had taken a huge bite out of the prow of the starship, a bite that extended through five decks. The port nacelle had been completely destroyed and the starboard one was dark, leaking warp plasma even now; less than a quarter of the starboard pylon remained intact, damaged, no doubt, by the exploding nacelle on the port side. Gaping holes in the outer hull revealed massive internal damage and jagged scars had been carved across her surface.

And yet, swarming around the ravaged starship were dozens of lifeboats. Hernandez felt a surge of hope well up within her, felt it struggle with the rage that simmered there.

"Someone's alive," she declared with a tight smile. "XO, have emergency teams standing by." Erika didn't even try to hide the giddy relief in her voice as she blinked away tears. "Helm, set an intercept course, maximum impulse. Science, maintain sensor sweeps; I don't want anyone sneaking up on us." She paused. "Comm, get me Starfleet Command."

There was still hope.

***

There was no hope. Hope had died with Malcolm.

Hoshi knelt on the deck plating, her eyes looking but not seeing, her heart fractured beyond repair, her mind numbed by grief. Around her, the sounds of repair crews hard at work echoed loudly but she did not hear them, was unaware of the sad looks she received as she caressed Malcolm's cold hand, didn't see the understanding on the faces of the Columbia crewmen assigned to the body collection detail. She wanted to cry...

But there were no tears left.

She wasn't even supposed to be here, in this temporary morgue, not with her injuries, but she couldn't find it in herself to actually care, couldn't dredge up any desire to be elsewhere. Her place was here. With Malcolm.

It wasn't really a morgue, just an empty cargo bay being used for that purpose, but she doubted that she would ever be able to look at a cargo bay in the same way. There had been no other choice in the matter; the medbay, damaged or not, had never been equipped to handle this many casualties.

And there had been so many casualties...

Hoshi knew that she was stronger than this, knew that she would survive and emerge stronger than before, but in this moment, she couldn't think of the future, couldn't imagine life without Malcolm. Unconsciously, she released his arm and splayed her hand across her stomach. Her child, their child would never know his or her father, would never see the glint of mischief in Malcolm's eyes when Trip convinced him to do something...improper, would never hear Malcolm's laughter or see his smile or...

She drew in a deep breath and tried to focus on the PADD that Captain Tucker had given her. He wasn't actually a captain - not yet, anyway - but most of the surviving Enterprise crew had taken to addressing him like one after Columbia had arrived. Word that Starfleet planned to frock him and give him command of the NX-06 when they got back to Earth had made the rounds at faster than warp speed; she'd heard him complaining about that, wondering if there was some way to bottle the rumor mill and use it instead of a warp drive. Hoshi wanted to smile, knowing that Trip would make an excellent Captain, knowing that T'Pol would go with him when she recovered, that together they would be stronger than apart, but she couldn't find any strength.

She felt empty.

Her attention finally centered back on the PADD and she spent long minutes staring at it without comprehending what it actually said. It was a marriage certificate, signed by Acting-Captain Charles Tucker, witnessed by Doctor Phlox, Lieutenant Burke, and Sergeant Cole. A marriage certificate that stated she and Malcolm were newlyweds, that, by Starfleet law, she was his next-of-kin and entitled to his belongings, to his name. Trip hadn't officially submitted it to Enterprise’s computers but a subroutine written into the PADD would backdate it if she clicked the Submit button.

If.

"It's your decision, Hoshi," Trip had said when he gave her the PADD hours ago. "I know Mal wanted you to be his wife and not just 'cause you're pregnant." That had shocked her momentarily out of her grief; she didn't know that Malcolm had told anyone and Phlox wouldn't have. She had started to protest, to point out that he hadn't proposed until after she revealed her pregnancy but Tucker had smiled an impossibly sad smile and told her something that shook her world: "Hosh, he bought that ring six months ago."

Submit or Delete. In the end, it came down to those two words. She wished she knew what to do. She wished she knew why it was so hard to decide. She wished...

Another memory came to her, this time of Phlox as he cautioned Commander Tucker against stopping the crew from calling him 'Captain.' She hadn't meant to eavesdrop but everyone always forgot that her hearing was nearly as acute as T'Pol's.

"Most sentients need to have hope, need to know that something good comes out of a tragedy," the Denobulan doctor had told Trip, giving him an annoyingly cheerful smile that looked - even to Hoshi's eyes - forced. "Let the crew see your impending promotion as one of those good things. Give them hope again."

Hope. She had none for herself anymore. Malcolm was gone. Forever.

Somehow, she had always known he would die in service, would be killed defending others, would come home on his shield instead of carrying it. His was a life of danger, the life of a soldier trained to kill with little more than his bare hands. Hands that had touched her and made her feel alive. She couldn't remember feeling anything anymore. She wanted to go home.

"Hosh, he bought that ring six months ago."

She stared at the screen for a very long time.

***

He had stared at the screen for far too long.

Phlox leaned back in the seat, relaxing for the first time in over twenty-three hours, and immediately felt a wave of fatigue wash over him. He was...nine? ten? hours into his scheduled sleep cycle and had been relying heavily on stimulants to keep himself awake and alert for much of that time. His hesitation about using another was grounded in more than simple dislike for them though; Phlox had no desire for his reliance on stims to turn into a full blown case of addiction and he was already treading dangerously close to overuse. Rubbing the bridge of his nose in a curiously human manner, he studied Columbia‘s medbay.

They had transferred the most critical patients here as soon as Columbia arrived in-system; even with the transfer of the recovering patients, such as Lieutenant Sato, to the temporary recovery ward that had been the Mess Hall, space was at a premium. Simply put, there were too few beds and far too many patients.

He almost sighed.

The ping of a biobed alarm drew his immediate attention and he hurried to Captain Archer's bed; Commander Tucker had momentarily abandoned his vigil at T'Pol's side and stood cautiously at his friend's side, anxiously watching. Phlox gave him a reassuring smile as he studied the biobed's readout carefully: the Captain was waking up again.

"Trip?" Archer's voice was slurred and his eyes unfocused, an unfortunate but entirely expected side effect of the powerful painkillers he was on. That he was even aware of his friend's presence was astounding.

"Right here, sir," Tucker quickly responded, dropping his hand onto his Captain's good shoulder. "How ya doin'?" he asked with a forced grin. "'Cause you look like crap." Archer gave him a weak smile.

"I feel okay..." The captain's words trailed off and Phlox double-checked the biobed's readouts; Archer's vitals remained strong. "Enterprise?" Tucker visibly winced before replying and Phlox thought it a good thing that the Captain was too out of it to notice.

"Don't worry about it, sir; I've got everything under control." He squeezed Archer's shoulder again, a gesture conveying his concern. "You just focus on gettin' better, okay?" The captain smiled again.

"Okay..." Unconsciousness rolled back over him and he slept once more. Tucker glanced up at Phlox, his face creased with concern.

"Is this normal? Him driftin' in and out like this?"

"Absolutely," Phlox nodded, noting the sheer exhaustion on Tucker's face. "When did you sleep last, Commander?" The engineer shrugged, his eyes drifting away from Archer and back to T'Pol's face. She was three beds away, silent and unmoving but still alive.

"Dunno," Tucker replied. "Too much to do." He frowned, his eyes locked on the Vulcan's sleeping form, and when he spoke, his words were soft, meant only for Phlox's ears. "And how can I sleep while she's hurt?" The pain in his voice cut like a laser.

"Please, Mister Tucker, you must remain calm."

"Calm?" He drew a ragged breath as tears sprang into his eyes and anger leaked into his voice. "How the hell am I supposed to be calm after you tell me she can't have kids?" Phlox opened his mouth to correct the engineer, to remind him that he had merely said he was uncertain if T'Pol could bear a child, that the fracture of her pelvic ring was extremely severe - not to mention the inherent difficulty in cross-species mating, but Tucker was oblivious, momentarily lost in his grief, grief that he had been keeping contained for far too long. "I've been sittin' in here for God knows how long, feelin' like absolute shit 'cause Malcolm...'cause some of my best damned friends just died and all I can think about is how much I wanted to see Lorian again and you want me to be calm?" A sudden whimper - a feminine whimper - snapped Tucker out of his growing tirade and he reacted even before Phlox had completely recognized the sound. Taking two long strides, Commander Tucker crossed the distance to T'Pol's biobed and reached out to touch her arm; she stilled almost immediately, soothed by more than just his mere physical presence. If he hadn't already known about their bond from careful observation, her reaction would have confirmed any suspicions.

"For your mate's sake," Phlox whispered to him. "You must remain calm! Your emotional state affects hers as well!" The engineer gave him a wide-eyed stare, obviously surprised at the extent of his knowledge and perhaps a bit worried as well; Phlox smiled comfortingly at him. "Give me some credit, Mister Tucker; I do know a few things about Vulcan...mating habits." Tucker flushed, glanced away, and the doctor chuckled slightly. "Frankly, I'm surprised the two of you have discussed children already." This time, it was Trip who chuckled.

"Hell, doc," he replied, reaching out to stroke T'Pol's face; he caught himself before doing so, no doubt remembering that they were in public, and merely brushed some hair from her closed eyes. "We've been talkin' about kids since..." His words trailed off and another infinitely sad look flashed across his face. Phlox knew at once who he was thinking of.

"Elizabeth." Tucker nodded, lowering himself into the uncomfortable visiting chair.

"Yeah." He did stroke her face this time. "Guess it's just not meant to be," Trip muttered softly, sadly, and Phlox felt his heart break.

In that moment, he made a pact with himself, swearing to whatever higher powers there existed in this universe that he would dedicate the rest of his life if need be to see that this couple - his friends - could be parents. Whatever it takes, he promised as he patted Trip on the shoulder and moved away; there were other patients to check on.

Minutes - or perhaps it was hours; he had lost track of time once more - later, the door to the sickbay slid open, allowing Captain Hernandez entry, and Phlox forced a wan smile onto his face. She gave him a slight nod, taking in the vaguely funereal silence without comment; her eyes automatically sought out the unconscious Captain Archer and Phlox saw the unmistakable concern of a woman for her lover. How interesting, he thought to himself as she frowned.

"Hello, Captain," Phlox greeted her, not moving from where he monitored Petty Officer Fuller's erratic vital signs. He hoped that surgery would not again be necessary.

"Doctor," she said in response. Another frown came to her and Phlox couldn't help but note how...militaristic her bearing had become since he last interacted with her. The last year must have been hard on Columbia. "Doctor Hayes isn't here?" Her tone was tinged with annoyance; apparently, she expected Columbia's chief medical officer to be more than human.

"I sent her to her quarters," he replied with forced cheerfulness. "An exhausted doctor is a useless doctor," Phlox said, a rueful grin on his face. Hernandez gave him an appraising look. "Christine will relieve me in..." He glanced at the wall chronometer. "Three hours." She nodded.

"I'm looking for Commander Tucker," she said and Phlox gestured toward the engineer as he spoke, his eyes still riveted on Fuller's vitals.

"Can it wait, Captain? Mister Tucker has been awake for over forty hours and needs to rest." She started to reply but hesitated, blinked, before she gave a slight smile that softened her features. Phlox glanced at Tucker and fought his own grin. It's about time! he thought to himself.

Still seated in the visitor's chair, the engineer had finally dozed off, the accumulated stress and grief having taken its toll at long last. Instead of reclining in his seat, however, Tucker had leaned forward to rest his head on T'Pol's biobed; using his left forearm as a pillow, he breathed deeply and evenly, in perfect unison with the Vulcan, the doctor realized. Even though she was heavily sedated, T'Pol abruptly shifted closer to him, her left hand seeking his right, and her entire body seemed to soften toward him. Staring at their intertwined fingers, Phlox realized that, for the first time in far too long, both appeared to be completely at peace. A remarkable image, he thought to himself with a smile.

"Well," Hernandez muttered under her in breath, her comments not intended to be heard by Phlox. "That explains why he wanted to get back to Enterprise." She didn't sound annoyed or even particularly surprised and for that, Phlox was relieved. Glancing back at him, her expression became serious once more. "What's the butcher's bill, doctor?" she asked and he nearly frowned; he'd heard that expression before and had hated it at once. In this one instance, however, it seemed absolutely appropriate.

"Thirty-nine." Hernandez almost winced, glanced away, no doubt thinking about the crew on her own ship and putting faces to that number. "There are still seventeen criticals and nearly everyone else is injured."

"How's Jon?" she asked softly.

"Captain Archer has suffered serious injuries that will take a considerable amount of time to recover from." He gave her a smile to counterbalance this information. "But he will recover."

"And Commander Tucker?" The relief in her voice that Archer would make it was telling.

"Ah, Mister Tucker." Phlox smiled again, amused despite himself. "It appears that the commander has somehow miraculously escaped injury." He paused, then smiled again as he recalled the engineer's explanation. "I believe he referred to it as the law of averages working in his benefit for once." Hernandez shook her head in amusement.

"What about Commander T'Pol?" she asked curiously, her eyes drifting back to the unexpected scene of a Vulcan deriving comfort from the presence of a human. It was fortunate, Phlox mused, that she looked away when she did; it prevented her from noticing the brief expression of sadness that flashed over his face.

"Her injuries are not life threatening," he answered cryptically. Hernandez gave him a look. From her expression, she expected him to elaborate but he said nothing more, merely gave her a blank look that gave away nothing.

"Will she recover?" Hernandez pressed and he studied her for a moment.

"Time will tell, Captain." he told her, smiling his inhuman smile.

***

Romulan War Memorial, San Francisco, Earth.

22 Years Later.

Lightning cracked the sky, spearing its vast expanse with jagged forks of azure brilliance that crawled over the horizon like living spiderwebs. Booming out of the dark clouds, thunder rolled over San Francisco Bay, echoing ominously as the sun fled the coming storm. Rain came, slowly at first, as if the heavens themselves were hesitant, but with rapidly increasing force until it fell in heavy sheets that pounded the earth mercilessly, blotting out visibility and slowing traffic - both air and land - to a virtual crawl. Wind howled from the north, cold and sharp and bearing with it the last remnants of a winter that refused to die.

The black weather matched Jonathan Archer's mood perfectly.

He stood in solitude before the war memorial, ignoring the rivulets of ice-cold rain that soaked through layers of clothing ostensibly designed to combat that very thing. It had been here for nearly fifteen years, this memorial, constructed in the years immediately following the Romulan War, and it had become a tradition for Jon to visit it on this exact day. Even in the years when he was Ambassador to Andoria, he had never missed this day, this tradition, this...penance.

In years past, his annual sojourn to the memorial would have warranted press attention, would have been a media spectacle, but now, ironically enough at the pinnacle of his career, it was barely worth mentioning. Everyone - even his political enemies - knew where he would be today, knew what he would be doing, and yet no one seemed to care. Now, he was simply another old soldier paying respects to comrades who had fallen in a war no one wanted to remember. Had he been a different man, a better man, he would not have even thought about that; politics had been too long in his blood for him to not be concerned. It was a matter for later consideration, though, and, pulling his attention back to the memorial, he looked upon its familiar planes once more.

Life-sized and cast in unbreakable inertron, the five figures stood tall with their backs to one another, casting defiant yet resolute gazes at the unknown. At the center of their circle was a glassed-up hologram of the Federation seal and, from the way the five were situated, it almost appeared as if they were defending the seal and thus, by default, the Federation itself. They had become synonomous with the Romulan War, these five, and even now, twenty odd years after the battle over New Elysium, Jon could not think of the years of pointless slaughter without thoughts of these men and women, these...heroes. He had known - and worked - with all but one of them and that made this all the more difficult.

It was to the features of the young woman he had never met that Archer looked to first. Allison Li's actions at the now-infamous battle of Pacifica Prime had become legend; assuming command of the NX-04 - Challenger - when a Romulan attack claimed the lives of her senior officers, the young crewman had impossibly led the Starfleet vessel in a counter-attack that forced a Romulan withdrawal. Given a battlefield promotion to Ensign following Pacifica, her rising career had been cut tragically short at Thor's Cradle.

He barely glanced at the next statue and in fact looked away so that he would not have to look upon her face. Erika haunted his dreams far too often as it was, coming to him each time he closed his eyes, and her death had nearly destroyed him. Not a day passed that he did not think of her, did not miss her. So many regrets...

Blinking back tears, Jon moved on to the remaining three sculptures that were collectively referred to as the Enterprise Three. He paused briefly before each of them: Lieutenant-Commander David Kelby; Lieutenant-Commander Malcolm Reed; Lieutenant Travis Mayweather. Kelby and Mayweather had become patron saints for engineers and helmsmen respectively, and the twelve award-winning documentaries produced by Mayweather's longtime girlfriend (and rumored fiancée) Gannet Brooks, each dedicated to the memory of Travis, only served to cement their place in Starfleet's growing pantheon of fallen heroes.

But it was to Malcolm Reed that the lion's share of accolades went.

Archer wasn't sure what it was about Reed that the public so adored, so flocked to, but whatever it was, he had become the poster boy for tragic loss. No less than seven unofficial biographies had been produced, each one ultimately ending with Malcolm's heroic self-sacrifice. Sometimes, Reed was quoting Shakespeare as he died, sometimes he was already halfway dead, sometimes it was his new bride Hoshi Sato he was trying to save instead of Trip Tucker. Truth had become consumed by myth and Malcolm the man had been replaced by Malcolm the Legend, a fearlessly perfect British officer who laughed at danger, who scoffed at the impossible, who had no faults and never lied.

If he were alive, Malcolm would have laughed at such nonsense.

Jon had spent countless hours trying to set the record straight, attempting to make sure the public had an accurate image of Malcolm Reed, but too often it was like pounding his head against a brick wall of indifference. He had no desire to see Reed's memory or name tarnished but felt it his duty to see that Reed the Man was remembered. In the end, he had followed Hoshi's advice. Now when asked about him, Jon would nod and smile; yes, he would say, Malcolm Reed was exactly like that. It was one of thousands of compromises that Jon had been forced to make in his political career.

At least he didn't lose sleep over this one.

A throat cleared behind Archer and he glanced back, noting that the security detail had his official vehicle waiting. Scott Reynolds - his senior-most agent and commander of the detail - gave him a glance that conveyed more information than an entire hour of conversation with Councilor Shran could; if the agent was uncomfortable in the pouring rain and dipping temperatures, he gave no indication. Unlike so many others, he understood what today meant.

"Five minutes, Mister President," he told Jon, reminding him of the tight schedule they were on. With a brief nod, Archer turned back to the statue and closed his eyes. For a single moment, all of the sadness, all of the despair that he had carried for the two decades since the war rose back to the surface and he felt hot tears sting his eyes. Touching his fingertips to Erika's metal lips, he once more grieved for lost hopes, for the regrets of a life that would never be, for the man he wished he could have been.

He felt old.

"LONGBOW is moving," Reynolds said into his comm as Archer turned away from the memorial. Jon had never understood the point of the codename - anyone with half a brain could figure out who it referred to - but Reynolds had been adamant, insisting that it was a time-honored tradition among American security details for Presidents. And since Scott still thought of himself more as an American than an Earther, the practice was put into play. It made him happy and, as Jon had long ago discovered, happy bodyguards were effective bodyguards.

"How are Amanda and Polly doing?" Jon asked as they walked toward the waiting vehicle, his mind already mulling over tomorrow's speech for the Academy. It was already memorized but he wanted it to be perfect, wanted it to be the best speech he'd ever given. Hoshi's son, Malcolm's son deserved that. A rueful amusement broke through his bleak mood; there was no mention of gazelles in it at all.

"She prefers Pauline now, sir." Reynolds' eyes never stopped moving but Archer had known him long enough to hear the smile in his voice. "They should be back from Vulcan tonight; Phlox called in Amanda to consult on something hush-hush with the Science Directorate." As he slid into the armored speeder, Jon couldn't help but to smile despite his mood; he had little doubt that Reynolds knew exactly what his wife was doing and why - the man wasn't the head of security for nothing. "Polly's talking about Starfleet again." The man's bemused expression could not conceal the pride he had in his teenaged daughter and Archer felt a momentary stab of envy. There had been no time for a family and after Erika died, even less desire...

"Let me know if I can help," he offered as he picked up a PADD; he'd left it here on the seat when they arrived at the memorial and really wasn't looking forward to resuming his duties. Not on this day. He barely heard Scott acknowledge his offer of help as his eyes drifted to the window and the driving rain. Melancholy began to set in once more and he decided that he'd had enough.

"Clear my schedule," he ordered, tossing the PADD back onto the seat. There would be plenty of time to deal with his official duties later. Today was tradition. "I want to see Enterprise."

***

Enterprise sat alone in the orbital museum, a shattered relic of a bygone era. Aside from the structural enhancements necessary for visitors, the venerable starship had never been repaired and still bore the grievous wounds inflicted upon her by the Romulans at New Elysium. Much effort had gone into getting her back to Sol intact and, like the U.S.S. Arizona from the Second World War or the Alexsandr Kerensky from the Third, she had become a symbol, a memorial to be visited and honored. President Archer made it a point to visit his old ship once or twice a month, to relive happier moments or grieve for lost friends.

Scott came only when duty required.

He hated this museum, hated the dark memories it dredged up, memories that he had spent years trying to forget or repress. A part of him understood the POTUF's need to visit Enterprise, recognized that Archer had never fully forgiven himself for the deaths that had occurred on his watch. Survivor's guilt and post-traumatic stress were a potent combination.

LONGBOW released a heavy sigh as he turned away from the viewport and Reynolds knew that his boss would next study the plaque that listed the names of those killed-in-action; it was almost a ritual for the POTUF, one that he repeated every single time he came here. It was also entirely unnecessary; Archer had long ago memorized the names and faces of the dead.

"ARWEN and ARAGORN on approach," agent Ross whispered over the secure comm and Reynolds fought a smile as Archer glanced at him, obviously not recognizing the new codenames. It had turned into a game between them: Scott would assign the codes and the POTUF would attempt to decipher them before he met the person the code represented. Usually, he was pretty good about it, knowing how Scott's minds worked, but in this case, Reynolds had cheated and changed the codes at the last minute. It seemed appropriate: Romeo and Juliet never had a happy ending.

"Trip!" the POTUF exclaimed as his old friend sauntered through the entryway, the black mood washed away almost instantly. He took three long strides and wrapped Tucker in a bear hug; both men were laughing as they exchanged hearty backslaps.

Moving with her distinctive feline grace, T'Pol had entered the observation deck so quietly, so unobtrusively, that Scott doubted the POTUF had even registered her arrival yet. He studied her for the briefest of moments, immediately noting the difference in her stance, in her posture; when she glanced at him, he smiled and, from the flicker in her eyes, he knew that she understood his unspoken congratulations. Returning his attention to his boss, Reynolds wondered how long it would take President Archer to notice the difference.

"Mister President," T'Pol said by way of greeting, her eyes alight with barely concealed amusement as she took in her husband and the President of the Federation acting like prepubescent boys. LONGBOW opened his mouth to reply but hesitated, blinked. Scott grinned: the Old Man saw the difference, the change, but didn't know what it meant. Yet.

"You two look great," the POTUF said instead of asking the obvious question, and indeed they did. T'Pol, being a Vulcan, was hardly any different; her hair was a little bit longer and she wore loose civilian clothes, not the form-fitting catsuits of her days on Enterprise. Oddly enough, Tucker had barely changed either, looking no older than he had twenty years ago. There were a few more gray hairs, a couple more wrinkles, but beyond that, he didn't look like a man nearing sixty, didn't even look older than forty; Scott felt a touch of envy when he realized that the man was nearly a decade his senior, yet looked that much younger.

"Good livin'," Tucker replied, gesturing at his wife with his thumb. "And the missus is somethin' of a Nazi when it comes to the diet." T'Pol merely inclined an eyebrow at him but did not dispute the point, a fact that caused the POTUF to grin once more. Trip shot his old friend another grin. "You didn't think we'd miss Mal Junior's graduation, didja?"

"I'd hoped not," LONGBOW replied honestly, his grin refusing to go away. It was good to see him smile again. "Hoshi will be glad to see you." He paused for a moment. "Where are you staying? I've got plenty of room at the Presidential mansion."

"Trip anticipated your invitation," T'Pol responded almost at once, her lips quirked in that Vulcan almost-smile as she gave her husband an amused look. "And thus failed to secure lodgings."

"Hey, you said anytime we were in town..." Tucker started to defend himself and Archer cut him off with a casual hand gesture.

"And I meant it. Scott?"

"Taken care of, Mister President,” Reynolds answered from his spot at the entrance to the observation deck. Tucker gave him an appraising glance and grinned.

"Good to see you again, Professor," he said, using that old and hated nickname. Two can play at that game, Scott thought to himself.

"And you, Captain." Tucker almost frowned as he replied.

"Hey, I thought I told you to call me Trip."

"You did, sir,” Scott returned with a small smile as Tucker gave him a sour look. "I just ignored you." He began issuing instructions into his comm regarding the two new arrivals to the detail.

"Come on," the POTUF said abruptly, flicking a glance over the wreck that had once been Enterprise. "Let's get out of here." The sadness that flashed across his face as he looked at the starship was gone nearly before it was there. He gave Scott a telling glance. "There's something I want to show you," he said with a grin, his expression taking in his two oldest friends.

It was good to see him smile.

***

He couldn't stop smiling.

Seated in the executive shuttle, Jon stared at his two friends with an expression on his face that he knew had to be somewhere between shell-shocked and giddy. He'd noticed the change in T'Pol - hell, he'd noticed the change in Trip - the moment they stepped onto the observation deck and he'd hoped, he'd prayed that this was their news. They were going to have a baby.

A baby.

"Have you thought about a name yet?" Archer asked gleefully. He chuckled abruptly, a flight of whimsy suddenly overtaking him. "Jonathan's a good choice." Trip shook his head in mock disgust as T'Pol raised an eyebrow. Jon snickered, hoping that she hadn't taken him seriously.

"There have been some discussions..." T'Pol started cautiously. His snicker threatened to turn into a giggle at her attempt at diplomacy.

"We're still arguin' about it," Tucker interrupted, ignoring the look his wife gave him. "If it's a boy, T'Pol wants to name him Charles the Fourth."

"Tradition is important, husband."

"Yeah but Quad is a really dumb nickname and..." Trip glanced away, a tinge of sadness in his face. "And I'd really like to see Lorian again..." He gave his wife a smile when she dropped her hand on his shoulder and Jon nodded.

"And if it's a girl?"

"I'd like to name her T'Lessa," Tucker said before his wife could comment, grinning at T'Pol's brief moment of surprise. "It'd honor her grandma." Amusement danced in his eyes. "And I could call her Lizzy."

"T'Lessa," Archer smiled. "I like it. What about you, T'Pol?" She had recovered her poise but gave Trip a curious expression that Archer knew all too well; her husband had surprised her again.

"T'Lessa is an...agreeable name," she finally replied, her eyes twinkling as she spoke. Trip had not just surprised her, he'd pleased her as well. Their gazes locked and, for just a moment, they seemed to be aware of only each other. Jon glanced away, not wanting to intrude on the personal moment, even if it was taking place on his shuttle. He smiled again, wondered when he had last smiled this much.

"So," he asked in the momentary silence. "Will baby Tucker join Starfleet?" His tone was light and both knew him well enough to hear the teasing. "Maybe follow in Mom or Dad's footsteps?" Another snicker escaped him. "Or even better, in Uncle Jon's." Surprisingly, it was T'Pol who answered.

"I think it unlikely. Starfleet is...not ready for a half-human, half-Vulcan science officer."

"Engineer," Trip corrected, his grin still in place.

"Science officer," T'Pol repeated.

As the two bickered playfully, Archer leaned back in his seat and smiled. It was good to have them back. He had missed this, missed listening to them argue over the most trivial of things, missed simply having them around. It had to be - good God, was it actually that long? - six years since he'd last seen either of them and, aside from Hoshi and Scott, he'd been surrounded by no one but co-workers and employees in that time. My closest friends are a linguistics professor and my chief bodyguard, Jon thought to himself. Trip was right; he did need to get out more often.

In the wake of the battle of Elysium, he'd been worried about the couple, worried that the injuries T'Pol had sustained would sour their relationship especially since Trip had never concealed his desire for kids. If anything, however, those injuries only served to bring them even closer together and, when Starfleet did offer Tucker the Captaincy of the Endeavor, he accepted with one caveat: T'Pol would be his First Officer. At first, Starfleet Command balked; the situation with Vulcan was already tense. Minister T’Pau had been unable to offer military aid in the war with the Romulans, and far too many of the senior officers still saw T’Pol as a Vulcan first, a Starfleet Commander second. A Captaincy for her had never even been considered, despite her obvious qualifications; she was still too new to Starfleet and the old grudges against Vulcans died hard.

And then, there was the relationship between the two. No official proof existed - the surviving crew of Enterprise seemed to close ranks and develop a sudden case of selective amnesia involving the two and any rumored romance between them - but there was just too much circumstantial evidence to ignore: the report concerning Lorian, Tucker's visit to T'Pol's home on Vulcan following the Expanse mission, her short-lived marriage (especially for a Vulcan), even Terra Prime's choice of genetic material for their..."experiment."

In the end, Jon was forced to go to work himself. Still recovering from his own injuries, he pulled strings, burned bridges, and called in every available favor he could remember, plus a couple he made up on the spot. Erika and Hoshi had both been irreplaceable, alternately playing the roles of enforcer and diplomat. It didn't hurt that, aside from himself and Hoshi, every single survivor of Enterprise requested assignment under Tucker. Starfleet Command had to take notice of that and Endeavor finally shipped out under the command of Captain Charles Tucker the Third and his executive officer, Commander T'Pol of Vulcan.

Within the year, Starfleet Command was openly referring to the pair as "TnT" in official briefings, both as shorthand for their respective names and as a joking reference to their sometimes explosive confrontations, and their exploits during the war quickly assured the naysayers about the wisdom of pairing them. It was Endeavor that arrived first to augment Challenger at Pacifica, Endeavor that kept the defeat at Thor's Cradle from turning into a rout, Endeavor that first broke the warp 6 barrier, Endeavor that negotiated the official ceasefire. And yet, despite these accomplishments, in the weeks after the war ended, Starfleet Command began making noises about splitting up the duo. Without fanfare or warning, the pair resigned their commissions. Together.

And then they got married.

It had been a traditional Vulcan ceremony arranged by Ambassador Soval who had, somewhere along the line, turned into a good guy; Archer still didn't know what to think about that. Only a few attended - Trip's parents, his brother, Jon, Hoshi, Phlox and Soval himself - but word still got out. They weren't the first Human-Vulcan couple but were by far the most high profile and, as a result, the media couldn't seem to get enough of them. At first, it had been amusing as hell; some of the headlines had been quite catchy or just downright funny and he'd had a blast ribbing Trip about them: seeing the absolute...horror in his old friend's eyes when he showed him the headlines had been hilarious.

It stopped being funny with the first death threat.

Xenophobia had been on the decline by that time, aided no doubt by the strong coalition of Andorians, Tellarites and Vulcans who had aided Starfleet in the last years of the Romulan War, but there were still scattered pockets of zealots who wanted all non-humans dead or gone. Terra Prime had been the most vocal, the most radical, and even made a few attempts on Trip's life, attempts that had been foiled by luck or happenstance. They weren't a threat anymore though, couldn't harm Trip or T'Pol or anyone else ever again; Section-31 had seen to that, and all Jon had to do was to make sure that a certain paragraph would find its way into the Federation Charter.

He still lost sleep over that.

"One minute, Mister President," Scott's voice announced over the comm and Jon felt his smile return. He gestured toward the large viewport.

The San Francisco Shipyards loomed before them and, through the viewport, they could see the half-constructed starship contained within. Though she was many years from launch - perhaps as much as ten or fifteen - she was already sleek and powerful-looking. The saucer section - mostly complete - gleamed brightly under the lights of Spacedock and the registry was easy to read: NCC-1701.

Enterprise.

"They wanted to name her Yorktown," Archer revealed with a proud smile. "But I won. Didn't seem right, Starfleet without an Enterprise."

"Damn, she's gonna be a beauty," Trip said with a touch of awe in his voice. T'Pol gave him an amused look.

"It will be an aesthetically pleasing starship," she finally agreed after a moment of consideration.

"You're looking at the future, Trip," Jon commented and Tucker nodded approvingly as he leaned up against his Vulcan wife.

"Future looks pretty good," he declared and Jonathan Archer smiled, his eyes not on the next Enterprise, but on the faces of his two best friends as they discretely touched fingers in a Vulcan kiss.

The future didn't look good, it looked great.

END

***

Author's Final Note:
This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

The End by The Doors.

I attended a writing seminar a long time back in which the author (whose name I don't remember) said that, for him, the end is the hardest thing to write and, judging from my experience with Elysium, I'll have to agree.

My original planned conclusion took place entirely in 2156 and ended on a pretty crappy note - we're talking Hong Kong, old school John Woo ending. Enterprise was completely FUBARed, Mal & Travis were dead, the Captain and Hoshi were pretty much incapacitated, T'Pol couldn't have kids, and the Romulan War had just started. There was no hope, everyone was angsty, and the happy ending, if there was one, was nowhere in sight. A lot of this (i.e. MOST) was written when I left for GenCon '05 and gradually began to realize how unhappy I was with it. And then, the world started going to crap and life started to suck and I realized we'd already had too many crappy endings. (cough*TATV*cough). So I rewired it!

Thanks to those reviewed and encouraged, thanks to those who just read, thanks to those who gave me free plugs all over the place (you know who you are and I can't thank you enough). I hope it was an enjoyable ride...

And yeah, I know the -1701 is waaaay early but, hey, who cares? Besides, using a real world analogy (the M-2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle), the 1701 could take the nearly 70 years until its launch just to get constructed.

Some miscellaneous notes I should have made earlier:

[ ] Ensign O'Connor originally created by Eratta and appeared in Of All the Times, Places, and People!

[ ] Hailey Burke created by Zane Gray and appeared in Differential

[ ] T'Run created by Ragua and appeared in Miscommunication

[ ] Trip's line in Act 4, Scene 2 ("I love you") originally by HopefulRomantic and appeared in The Land of Might-Have-Been - Part II

[ ] The Krazny Oktyabr originally created by Tom Clancy and appeared in The Hunt for the Red October. Man, I can't believe nobody called me on this...

[ ] Scott Reynolds (aka The Professor) created by Yours Truly. Feel free to use or abuse him as necessary although I do ask that you be gentle...

Return to Act Four

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Have a comment to make about this story? Do so in the Trip Fan Fiction forum at the HoTBBS!

A whole mess of folks have made comments

I'm glad you changed your original ending. It was great! I hope you continue writing fanfiction. You are a very talented writer.

Just wonderful,,,, I just loved the way things turned out for TnT,, may of taken 20 years but Im glad Phlox finaly came through for them, loved the lil story of what happened to them after Enterprise, not hard to believe that TnT an their ship would be there at all the important events of the war,,, Just wonderin what Hoshi decided to do??,,,,,,,,,,, Oh an if they were buildin the NCC 1701 in 2178 they would still have close to 60 some years untill the offical launch in the 2240s,,,, Ok that last part was my only nitpick,, other wise your story was perfect,,,,,,,,, In fact I wouldnt mind hearin about some of the adventures of the Endeavor ;) Hint hint. Thanks for writin this.

WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!! Malcolm's dead! I need Kleenex, badly! I liked the TnT bit, I'm sorry for Archer, and Hoshi, but great story nonetheless! :)

Wonderful conclusion to your great story - and all the little nods contained - you covered all the bases and then some. Poor Hoshi and Malcolm, the Doomed Pair (Jon and Erika, as well) - Love Scott: did ya pair him off with Cole? and don't tell us she agreed to name her girl 'Polly'!! [careful stretchin' things, ya mite pull somethin'] Loved the Arwen/Aragorn ref.

Would be nice to see you carry Scott forward - maybe feature his point of view in some of Jon's political 'adventures'

This is a great story and thanks for the happy tweak.

-j

Wow... where are the tissues?

Well done. This was heartbreaking and yet you left a note of hope here at the end. It was beautiful. I also love how Trip has managed to age very slowly. I thought of that possibility when in "Bound" he was immune to the Orion slave girls because of his bond with T'Pol.

Wow. As others have said, I hope that you will continue writing fanfiction.

Thank you for this story.

A perfect wrap-up to an phenomenal story, Rigel Kent! This is definitely one I'll come back to again and again. I hope to read more fanfiction from you -- Endeavor stories would be great! -- and I wish you well in the writing career I have no doubt lies ahead of you. (When you're published, please find a way of letting us know who you are. I'll want to read your work!)

I'm REALLY glad you reconsidered your ending and tied things up this way!!! (Big sigh of relief.) A really stunning debut on the site, Rigil Kent! Thank you for a great read!

Fantastic story. Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it and will definitely come back to this one. Loved the ending. Lots of luck with your writing career. Thank you.

Great story. I'm glad you went with the happy TnT ending. Real life can be crappy enough, we don't need that in our Trek.

Beautiful job, Rigil Kent, wrapping up the story. Heartbreaking and yet hopeful at the same time.

Very, very well done. Very exciting. You are really talented. This is better than Enterprise reruns. This is a virtual lost episode.

I'm just all choked up. What a marvelous story (even though you did kill off my favorite Brit!)

Ahem... Dr. Christine Hayes? Did I miss that while beta-ing that section? Nice name. I'm SO oblivious!(insert eye-roll here) - : ) D

Great job! Wow, what a satisfying conclusion. I want to go back and read the whole thing over again from the start!

Thanks so much for such a wonderful tale.

Congradulations! A Gold medal! *sniff* (it's over).

Beautiful! I have not seen a better finale yet. Thanks for the character guide (i was confuzed) Thanks for writing it!

Wow! Just... wow!!! This definitely gets a bookmark! A little sad for my liking, but it was still quite satisfying at the end. Thank you!

Thanks for all of the kind words and I'm glad that I was able to give you a satisfying story. I'm not "really" working on a sequel right now (actually trying to get my Muses to cooperate for a fantasy submission that I can get paid for) although I do have a kernel of an idea for an Endeavor story which I may come back to in the future.

Again, thanks for the kind words!

That's what an ENT finale should've been like, even if it would leave us with the untold story of the rest of the Romulan war. I have to wonder if having the Romulans strike at our next-door neighbour Alpha Centauri isn't a bit too close? I liked the small tidbits we got from the New Elysium colony though.

Although I'm not a big fan of character deaths, if they must be made then at least let them have meaning and generally ge GOOD deaths. And as much as I hated to see Reed go he died a good death. So did Travis and even Kelby. I really liked that you made Kelby (of all people) a self-sacrificing hero. But poor, poor Hoshi! :-( I really felt for her that she not only lost her man but now will have her kids grow up without their father!

And I laughed that (not-so-)Super Archer was knocked out and didn't take part in the bulk of the action! LOL

You conveyed the irony of Trip being the only one not getting injured nicely. Especially with his appalling track record.

The portrayal of the Trip/T'Pol relationship was believable and in character. That T'Pol would try and hide her injured condition was also something to be expected. As was Trip's concern.

The introduction of the character of Scott Reynolds was a good one. Nice to see a perspective from someone other than the regular officers.

I saw that some of the crew got their long overdue promotions. Better late than never!

I found your use of transistions between scenes imaginative ("He hoped he was wrong" /.../ "They were wrong.") and quite clever. How did you think of that? Has that style been used before?

Another WTF moment (after the character deaths) was the death of the NX-01. Who'd thought that the ship would be out of commission after the very first battle of the Romulan war? If this had been the actual show, any continuation would have to be renamed "Star Trek: Endeavour" or something!

I understood why you made the 22 years later addendum. It would've been too gloomy otherwise. Finally we learn that TnT can have kids (despite everything). And the use of codenames for them (Aragorn and Arwen) totally rocked! LOL

Introducing the construction of the TOS Enterprise was a bit much though! Too much fanwank!

All in all, a very good story that was hard to put down and that screamed for more (which there luckily enough is). :-D Keep it up, Rigil! :thumbsup:

Thank you, Kevin! Although I approached this from what I would have liked to have seen, I was also trying to think in television terms and it made perfect sense (to me) that the execs would want to leave the actual Romulan War open for something else (like a miniseries or movie).

[ ] Yeah, making the Romulan attack Alpha Centauri was a bit close but I wanted to work in Rigil Kentaurus. :-D You weren't supposed to actually note that it was Alpha Centauri, darn it!

[ ] I REALLY wanted to have Kelby go out like a man. As much as I like Trip, I didn't care for how Kelby was turned into an idiot on the show just so Trip could be Super!Engineer. Unfortunately, IMO, this has carried over into far too many fanfics in which Kelby is simply an idiot; there is no way someone would make that high a rank and not know his job extremely well. All they needed on the show was a couple of lines from Kelby lamenting that he was having trouble with so many of Tucker's jury-rigs & improvised repairs & wacky short-cuts and it would have actually made sense why Kelby needed Tucker's help. And although I've gotten flak for Reed's death (cough*Distracted*cough), he more than anyone else (except maybe Lead With His Chin Archer) seemed the most likely to die in the course of his duties.

[ ] The injury of Archer was something I wanted to do from the beginning although in the original outline, he was taken out much earlier than this; I was dissatisfied with that and altered it. If you notice, ENT is pretty much screwed up in that very scene the blame would actually fall on Mayweather's shoulders; the moment that he is (understandably) is distracted from his duties, the excrement hits the fan. No one seemed to notice that...

[ ] The promotion thing irked the crap out of me, not just in TATV but in the series itself. Reed should have been a LT-CDR from the beginning, and both of the Ensigns should have been bumped to LT (JG) in season 2. There is NO way all three of them would not have been promoted at the end of season 3 and lasting ten years as an Ensign? Please; they'd be QIFed after four. Idiots executives who have no idea about how the military works...

[ ] The transitions were actually asked about in a previous feedback that appears to have disappeared. It was a literary device I developed a while back when I was trying (and failing) to write a fantasy novel. They were just something I thought would be kind of neat but MAN! Sometimes coming up with those actual transitions is harder than the scene itself!

[ ] The death of the NX-01 was something I had difficulty with and eventually decided to go with. Although it's never mentioned, I'm actually envisioning Starfleet using the ravaged NX-01 (the ship that saved Earth from the Xindi!) as a rallying cry (ala the Alamo) for humans. They COULD have repaired her and gotten her back into the fight but it turned out she was more effective as a ravaged hulk...Propaganda is a powerful tool.

[ ] Yeah, both you and Mitchell have given me crap for the introduction of the NCC-1701. Remember, I was trying to think of this in TV terms and they clearly played fast and loose with the timeline (transporters weren't supposed to be around until the 2160s, I think) and I just thought it would be a nice way to end it, with the Big Three looking at the future Enterprise.

Thanks for the awesome feedback!

Re: Alpha Centauri

Bah, give me some credit, will ya! :p As someone interested in astronomy since I was a kid, how could I NOT KNOW that Rigil Kentaurus is the same star as Alpha Centauri A. You could've called it Toliman too! ;-)

I have to say that I have read several (well more than several) stories off this sight, and many of the ST:E books, but out of all them is was one the most enjoyable, and well thought out one that I have read. I only wish they could have made this the final episode of the series instead of "All Good Thing.."