A/N: Beta'd by VesperRegina, to whom all due thanks!
The news took time to sink in, for them all.
They would never see Earth again.
From now on, the Expanse would be their home.
One hundred and seventeen years from now, another Enterprise – but, paradoxically, the same Enterprise – would make the same voyage; would come seeking the subspace corridor, and a shortcut to the Xindi Council in hopes of averting the final destruction of Earth. And, if they weren't warned, would cause the selfsame destabilization that had flung this one into a past that predated Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight.
The ramifications were clear. The second Enterprise must not make the same mistake as the first. Their captain must be warned, so that he would know what the consequences would be and avoid them – would find some other way of completing the mission. A way that, in the meantime, the crew of this ship could work to find.
They had one hundred and seventeen years to do it in. Hopefully that would be more than enough time to find some way to warn themselves.
Except that none of them – except, perhaps, one – would be alive by then to do so.
Their duty was clear.
The primary aim was to keep the ship viable for one hundred and seventeen years. To maintain the population on board, so that the ship – and the message – survived. All those years, to be lived through with just one aim: to be there when history repeated itself.
Malcolm was one of the senior officers on board. He had naturally been present during the debriefing. Almost before T'Pol had impassively outlined what their future course would be, his mind had gone leaping ahead, reaching the same conclusions – and others, at a rather more personal level.
Hoshi.
They had fallen in love. He'd tried to fight it, telling himself at first that it was no more than an attraction that it was his duty to resist. Even when he'd admitted to himself that it was more than just desire for a beautiful woman, he'd tried desperately for a while to maintain a professional distance. Then, eventually, he'd found out she returned his feelings, and resistance had no longer been possible or even thinkable. Sometimes he was ashamed of the fact that he'd given in, but it was hard to be ashamed of something that had been so – wonderful. That still was wonderful. He didn't have a self now apart from Hoshi. He wasn't a me. He was half of an us.
And now this.
Hoshi wasn't Hoshi any more.
Hoshi was like every other woman on board. A resource. Breeding stock.
T'Pol had explained the science dispassionately. The facts were indisputable. So was their duty.
The initial debriefing hadn't been for anyone below the rank of lieutenant. So Hoshi hadn't been present. Lieutenant Hess had been seated at the table opposite him. He'd seen the way the colour came and went in her face, and the way she braced herself infinitesimally to accept what could not be changed. Hoshi, too, would accept what could not be changed. She was strong enough to do that.
In horror he realised now that he wasn't.
He stood alone in the rear observation lounge and watched the stars streak and vanish in the ship's wake, taking his happiness with them.
Being half of an us had been possible – just – in the universe that would exist in one hundred and seventeen years. In the ship that this had been, and was no longer. Where he and Hoshi were Tactical Officer and Communications Officer, not just two elements of a gene pool.
Things might be different for Trip and T'Pol. Given the doubt that Human and Vulcan DNA were compatible, she probably wouldn't be regarded as one of those aforementioned elements. And it didn't seem probable that the bond between them would stretch far enough for Trip to be considered as one either, though events might have a bearing on that. But everyone else on board was fair game, from Captain Archer downwards.
And the duty of the Tactical Officer now took on a terrible significance. For the rest of his life he would have to bear the responsibility for protecting this breeding colony; for keeping it free from harm, for ensuring, as far as it lay in his power, that all the children engendered would live to take over the mission. All of the children. No matter who their mothers ... or fathers ... might be. All, equally. There would be no room for favouritism. Each infant brought into the world might be the key on whom the future depended, and he would never know it. The future not only of the ship itself, but of perhaps the whole of humanity.
Unless fate intervened to make it necessary – unlikely, given the balance between the sexes on board ship, where men outnumbered women by some two to one – he would not be among those who would be required to produce the next generation. The essential humanity of the ship's captain might allow some leeway as regards choices, but the mission would still be his overriding concern; in the drive to protect the future, they'd want strong, healthy stock. After all, it made small scientific sense in the circumstances to waste a productive womb and finite resources on the offspring of a 'runt with allergies', as his father had once described him. And if he should, by any chance, father a child on the woman he loved ... he knew himself too well. He could no more refrain from concentrating his protection on that child than he could have flown around the ship's hull without an EV suit.
As for Hoshi herself...
Thousands of years ago, Julius Caesar had been asked who, if he were not himself, he would choose to be. His response had been immediate and pithy. "Aut Caesar, aut nihil." 'Caesar or nothing.'
Short and to the point. A fitting epitaph for 'us'.
The door hissed open behind him.
There had been a second debriefing for lower ranks. According to his calculations, it should have ended ten minutes or so ago, though of course there would probably be questions asked afterwards.
There would be children for Hoshi, with luck. Not his children, but she'd love them anyway.
She'd known where he'd be. The way she bumped into chairs on her way across the lounge told him that she also knew what he would do. What he'd have no choice but to do.
"Malcolm, no–"
He caught her to him, burying his face in her hair. "I must, Hoshi."
"We could make it work somehow – we could –!" She was sobbing against his chest.
"No. We couldn't." With a superhuman effort, he kept his voice steady. "I have to protect everyone. Regardless. Not – anyone. Not someone I –" The tears started to run and he didn't try to stop them. "I'm going to need your help to do this, sweetheart. I can't do it on my own any more. You're going to have to help me."
"Malcolm, I can't – I –"
"You'll have children for Enterprise. For the future." But they won't be mine. He wanted to scream, to howl, to rail against fate, but he had to help her destroy us and walk away. "And I'll be there to protect them – and all the others."
"Don't make me do this! Malcolm, I can't – you can't!"
He drew a deep, shuddering breath. "No. I can't, Hoshi. And you can't either. But we can."
They cried then, holding on to each other as though one or both of them were dying. As indeed they were, except that afterwards they'd go on walking around the ship, breathing and animate, fulfilling their duties and holding polite conversations when necessary. Perhaps even being friends, if not particularly close ones. And at some point in the future a particular note would be made in the ship's log that the crew complement had been increased, and he'd make a note of it in the Security logs just as he did for everything that might possibly have any bearing on his responsibilities. And somehow, he'd try not to feel anything at all...
At last, shaking, he pulled his arms from around her, took hold of her upper arms and pushed her, so gently, away from him.
And after that everything would be possible, because nothing, nothing, could ever hurt worse...
The flickering starlight through the viewing port showed him her face, distorted with grief, swollen and tear-stained and beautiful beyond belief.
"I won't marry anyone, Malcolm."
He might have argued, but there was no point. He heard the note of steel to match his own. For Hoshi, too, it was aut Caesar, aut nihil.
And he was selfish, because that meant she would go on loving him too. And that, somehow, would keep him functioning, would be the food that kept him from utter starvation until he died.
Their lips touched once, briefly, a touch in which all of their dreams flared up and burned to ashes.
He stared into her eyes, drowning in them for the last time. He'd always been terrified of drowning, and now the lack of it would kill him gradually, moment by moment and day by day, until only the outside of him was left...
"I love you, Hoshi Sato. I will always love you. And I will never tell you this again."
"And I love you, Malcolm Reed. I will always love you. And we don't need to say it. Because it will always be true. Always."
And then she turned around and walked away, without looking back.
The door closed behind her.
And now duty had taken everything he had.
Everything.
The End.
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