Disclaimer: nope, still not.

Summary: his duty is to explore the great beyond.

**_**

gold streaks across the sky – a flying star shooting across the endless gap, extending past the reaches of a breath that was never taken. he stares at the glittering balls around him as he moves silkily through space, he hears thundering cries and halts movement for moments he has never known, but the cries are gone and the path to the next planet is resumed. but he feels something wrong echo within him.

(something is wrong, very wrong, there is no giggle to resound, no murmurings of men in love, there is too quiet within a quiet that wasn't there moments ago. there should be laughs, should be love, should be freedom that was never offered to another and taken brutally from the other. he should stop and solve this mystery but he can't, this is not for him, his duty is to move fasterfaster and explore the great beyond for those two men he loves dearly.)

then there are Klingons – his eternal foe – and he's mixed in the throes of battle, firing on the monsters (who aren't really monsters but the distinction makes it easier to murder them) that took Captain and made his Officer nearly kill himself, he moves easier in space than ever on Earth and kills with a heartless capacity for much worse when his Captain is threatened. he reaches out with lasers and rips back with the souls of men dead and gone, he is a killer, but to protect his cr—family he will murder.

(but they never use that word with him, to them he is protector not murderer and the distinction is becoming like the klingons that kill and leave nothing to mourn over blurred for him and sometimes the distortion makes it easier to kill but harder to forgive himself for, because he's all fire and will and control for a man – a Captain – who will go to the ends of the universe to save his family.)

they love him, mostly Captain loves him though, but he still loves all of them because they love him and care for him.

he will be a monster for them because they call him home.

so he sits back and watches the stars fly about him, watching the free bastards dance around each other and mock him, but he likes where he is, with this family.

(they call him—

—

the Enterprise.)

**_**

DIDN'T EXPECT THAT DID YOU?! haha, ambiguous? yes. but I think it was twenty times better when you had no clue who he was and ended up being the Enterprise I mean did you expect that? honestly?

oh I'm so proud of myself right now.

R&R please! tell me what you think!

~AU.