Several thousand years ago...

They cower in a cave and watch Freyngha - the Immortal City, the City of Old Kindred and the Rubric Gate, of the Bridge of Epigraphs and Port of the Myriad - they watch Freyngha burn in the valley below. They watch the Grand Spire buckle to the flames and fall into the smoldering detritus at its feet. It had stood for five thousand years and it fell today.

There was no better place to watch the death of the Late Adhaferan Empire.

Her breath rattles and he knows what that means. Although he was a Scholar of the Parchment, he had begun his career, like many, as a Scholar of the Herb. And it was not all so long ago that he has forgotten that sound.

The 'wind of the final hours'.

Death is folding around her.

And she knows it.

She places her remaining hand on her abdomen. The fetus it contains is dead, but, as she swears she can still feel it moving, he feels no need to tell her that now.

"The baby and I, we get another chance, don't we?" she whispers, among hitching breaths.

He nods. He would have lied, but there is no need to. Although the Resknel decreed that loved ones of each incarnation would never meet in another, there was, from ancient times, a special exemption for those not born. An exemption that was never abandoned, however the city grew, however high the spires rose.

"Yes," he murmurs, placing his hand on hers. "When you wake in the past, in your next life, the two of you will be somehow joined. Siblings, perhaps, or great friends. Perhaps, once again mother and child. Only the Resknel know."

She nods, but her eyes brim with tears. "But not you and I?"

"No, my love," he shakes his head. "We have had our time, together."

"It's not fair!" There was little force to her voice, she had no breath for force now, and yet her eyes flash.

"It is scripture, my love."

Her face changes. "Maybe not. I... I stole this."

She is weak- and so injured- so it takes some time for her to extract the object of her larceny from her tattered pocket. No amount of time could have prepared him.

"The vault shattered when the wall fell," she explains. "And, it's not really stealing, is it? The others are dead, so YOU are Archscholar now. You can use it, can't you? To join our souls? We DESERVE it, suffering like this. Watching the end of our world. The Resknel will understand."

He finds his voice, takes the weight of the Dreadrod in his hand. "You know how this works?"

She nods furiously. "I die, bring our child with me, and it binds our souls to yours. I die, and we wake up in the past, all three of us together in a summer-life. We can be together."

They argue. And, at last, he agrees. But, he does not tell her that it cannot be the way she wants. That it must be HE that dies, and binds HIS soul to them. The price of her longed-for summer-life is ending this one alone, in a cave, with the corpse of her lover by her side.

It seems cruel to both tell her and make her suffer it.

So he does not.

Instead, he smiles as he places the lethal end of the Dreadrod over his heart. She closes her eyes, expecting her end, and he has time to hope he will recognise those eyes once more, before a bolt of pain tears into his chest and the Dreadrod fell to the floor of the cave...

..where, after millennia, Charles Tucker picked it up.

"I think that just, sort of, picking things up, is bad archaeology," Malcolm Reed chided, mildly.

Trip shrugged, although he did, almost unconsciously, glance around to ensure that Joyner, the team archaeologist was not around. One did not typically think of archaeologists as terrifying, but Trip would back Magnus Joyner in a cage match against any MACO on Enterprise. Especially if his precious archaeological record was in jeopardy.

The furtive glances did not go unnoticed, it seemed, because Malcolm raised his eyebrows and chuckled. "At least let me scan the thing before you lick it, or something..."

"Scan what? It's a metal stick," Trip replied casually, but held it out to be scanned anyway.

Malcolm frowned at the scanner. "It's not a metal stick. Well, I mean it IS a metal stick, but it's something else, as well. There's remnants of bio-circuitry of some kind, there's what might have been a battery, maybe? A conductor... It could be a..."

"You think EVERYTHING is a weapon," Trip interrupted, rolling his eyes.

Malcolm glowered back at him. "I was going to say cattle-prod."

"That's a weapon," Trip replied, amused. "And it's pretty frou-frou for a cattle prod."

"For sacred cows, possibly?" Malcolm offered with a smile of his own.

They both jumped guiltily at the sound of footsteps, but it was only Hoshi.

"Just me!" she reassured them, far too late. "There's a whole city down in the valley. Joyner is in raptures. Although, if he finds out that you moved that thing, without the proper in-situ documenting scans, I'm sure he'll find a spare moment to kill you. On principle."

"We took the proper scans," Trip lied baldly.

Hoshi eyed him sceptically. "Then put that thing down and let's go. T'Pol wants to get gone, and she's going to need both your help to manhandle Joyner back onto the shuttle. In fact, if he's found another catacomb, we might need to call for reinforcements."

Malcolm began walking towards the cave opening. "Well, I vote we leave him behind. Seems cruel to deprive a man of..."

"Actually, we're taking this thing with us," Trip found himself interrupting suddenly.

Hoshi blinked. "What, why?"

"To study it. It's got sophisticated bio-circuitry and battery technology. When you came in, Malcolm was just saying he thought it might be sophisticated weaponry." Trip replied, rather doggedly avoiding Malcolm's expression.

"I thought I heard him say 'Cattle Prod'," Hoshi replied, narrowing her eyes.

Malcolm nodded. "I rather thought I said 'Cattle Prod' myself."

Trip strode past them regardless. "And can I say, once again, how delighted I am that I outrank both of you? Either of you care enough about this hill to die on it?"

"Good lord, no," Malcolm replied, with a shrug. "If Joyner kills you, I've got a promotion in the bag."

"How bout you, Hoshi?"

"Nope, I found runes! New runes! I get to translate runes. I want to be translating runes right now. I may pause translating runes for your funeral and Joyner's court-martial but probably not, because..."

"...runes?"

"Runes!"

"Good," Trip replied, holding the rod firmly in his fist. "All settled."

The scans, several hundred of them by now, were spread out before him. Meditatively, he shuffled them around. He'd made little ostensible progress and yet was not even slightly frustrated. He turned the rod over in his hand, again and again, familiarising himself with every scratch, each burnish, the texture of the patina, the way it caught the light.

"Anything?" a voice asked behind him.

The question grated in a way that the unenlightening scans did not. On this occasion, however, it was the Captain Archer who was asking, so Trip forced himself to answer.

"Not yet. I'm still waiting on that biochemical reconstruction from Phlox."

"Phlox does have other things to do," Jon replied gently. "More important things."

"More important?" Trip scoffed. "A few scrapes and scalds, a broken finger or two? This thing is..."

"It's important to you," Jon interrupted concernedly. "Trip, I get it, I do. It's a really nifty, old thing, and you found it yourself. One time, at the beach with my dad, I found this ammonite fossil, if you can believe it! And, for weeks, all I cared about was..."

Trip scoffed then, without really meaning to, causing Jon to break off his story suddenly. Trip watched as emotions played across his friends face. Luckily, it was the emotion Trip was hoping for that stuck.

"All right," Jon said. "You think this thing is important, well, I've known you long enough to trust your instincts. More than long enough, in fact. Whatever you need, just ask."

"Thanks, Jon," Trip replied, honestly grateful. He might have said more, but then a previously unnoticed chromatography peak caught his eye, and he only just registered the sound of the door closing.

"Sometimes, I think it sings," Trip mused.

Malcolm's fork clattered against his plate. "WHAT sings? That rod thing? You think it's a musical instrument now? What happened to the 'multi-meter' theory? Or the 'divining rod' theory for that matter? Now it's a bloody flute?"

"No, that's not what I mean. I mean it SINGS. I can hear it sometimes."

Malcolm pursed his lips. "You know I've covered four shifts in Engineering this week. And I don't mean my people have. I mean I have. Personally. For you."

Trip shrugged, annoyed at the non sequitor. "So what? When have YOU ever been afraid of hard work? And you're always going on about how you'd run Engineering. I'd have thought you'd be jumping at the chance."

"I don't mind covering shifts, Trip. I don't even mind that it's for a passion project. Lord knows I've had plenty of them myself. Just this PARTICULAR project... don't you think your time is... well, more VALUABLE that this?"

Trip didn't answer, instead focusing on champing down on his irritation. Malcolm had never been a believer in this project, had NEVER seen the value, but Trip had no desire to start a fight about it. He'd have to convince someone else to cover his shifts if he did.

Trip would have walked away without answering it all, but Malcolm surprised him by catching his shoulder. "Trip, EXPLAIN this to me," Malcolm said, as he did. "Please? Because I don't understand this, and frankly, I'm getting worried."

Trip noted the unaccountable desperation on his friend's face, but decided it wasn't important. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me!"

Trip gently, but firmly removed Malcolm's hand from his shoulder, then shrugged. "It's alive, Malcolm. The Dreadrod is alive."

"Oh, it's you." Trip had thought he'd get a few more rounds of Malcolm, or maybe Jon, before it came to this. "Did Malcolm convince you to come down here and try to talk sense into me?"

The tilt of T'Pol's head shifted, left to right. "I believe Lieutenant Reed spoke to Ensign Sato and convinced her to come and talk to me. A pointless inefficiency. No doubt originating in some arcane code of behaviour to which the Lieutenant holds himself."

"Malcolm always was a strange one," Trip agreed. "But it's good that you are here - no, more than that - it's FATED that you are here. Because I think I understand now. I made contact, and it turns out, it can help us."

"Help Enterprise?" T'Pol frowned.

"No! Help you and me."

"Us specifically?"

Trip smiled. "Yes. It turns out that's what the Dreadrod is FOR. I mean, no wonder I couldn't figure it out! Who could have guessed that? But he explained it to me, and it turns out there's a reason why I was the one that found it. It can help US."

"You found it, because it was you who searched the cave where it was found," T'pol answered perplexed. "But WHO explained what this artifact is for, Commander? I am not following your conversational gambits."

"The last Archscholar of Adhafera."

T'Pol shifted backwards slightly. "You have made contact with such an entity?"

"Yes," Trip explained carefully. He needed to get this right. He needed to make her see. "The Archscholar. He lives in the Dreadrod, and he explained what it is for, how to use it."

"He lives IN the rod?"

"Yes. Well, no. Not exactly. An echo of him does. An echo which stayed behind to guide us. You and I. It can help us reach our summer-life. Give us another chance. Without all this ugliness, the Expanse, Terra Prime. A real chance." Trip looked deeply into her eyes. At first, there was only confusion, and he all but despaired. But then, he saw an understanding growing and knew then that his path was right. "I've just got to finish fixing this, then I can fix EVERYTHING. I can make everything better for us."

T'Pol looked back at him. "I would very much like all to be well with both of us," she said, her words sounding carefully chosen.

"And they will be," Trip replied. "There's not much to it, really. I needed to substitute some parts, but I'm almost done. Just give me an hour, okay?"

T'Pol took a long time to answer. "I will be back, very soon. I will come back."

T'Pol did come back, not long after Trip finished repairing the Dreadrod, but she did not come alone. She brought Jon with her, and Phlox and Malcolm. They lined up against the wall, all facing him, as if waiting for a presentation.

"I wasnt expecting an audience," Trip laughed. He saw Malcolm startle slightly at the sound of his voice, saw he was wearing a sidearm.

Eventually, Jon broke the baffling silence. "T'Pol mentioned that you needed to use some new parts for your project there, Trip. And... well, Malcolm found some of the components of the deflector array have, well... gone astray..."

"That's right," Trip replied, relieved that was all this was. "Malcolm, you can use the components from the auxiliary sensor assembly to repair it. I'm sorry you had to come all the way down here. It didn't occur to me you'd need my help to think of that. But trust me, the components are all compatible and you'll have the deflector up and running in a few hours."

Malcolm smiled apprehensively. "That's a great idea, Trip. Actually, maybe you could help me fix the deflector? We'll be able to get it done even faster with the both of us."

Trip blinked in surprise. "You don't need my help. What's with the crisis of confidence? That's not like you. What are you going to do when I'm not here to help you?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? Trip, what are you..."

"Lieutenant, please!" Phlox hissed, breaking his silence for the first time, before turning calmly to Trip. "Commander, your colleagues and I are a little confused about your current plans. There seems to have been a miscommunication or two, along the way. I was wondering if you would be so kind to explain it all to me, from the beginning, as if I know nothing."

Trip demurred, but found his eyes drawn unaccountably, again and again, towards Malcolm's undrawn sidearm. Eventually, he began, telling the story of the Dreadrod, as the Archscholar has whispered it to him, how the ancient artifact had been treasured and secreted through the middle and late Adhaferan Empire, how it had come into the hands of the Last Archscholar and his doomed love, and how it had saved them from their fate.

Sadly, they did not understand. Trip saw only confusion and horror grow on their faces. Without much warning, Malcolm shot forward, only to pull up short when Trip, unthinkingly leveled the Dreadrod at him.

Phlox began to speak, his voice unusually dry, but T'Pol interrupted him, no more than a few words in.

"I understand," she declared loudly, shooting a meaningful glance at each of the others. "I see now what I must do." She took a few careful steps towards Trip, carefully sliding her body between Malcolm and the end of the Dreadrod, and locked her eyes on Trips.

"A new life," she said softly. "A new life together? A happy one, in a time of plenty and good harvests?"

He nodded. "Yes. You go, and I follow right behind."

She smiled, then. A wide bright smile he'd never seen on her before. A somehow human smile, and yet, not alien on her lips. She reached gently for his hair with her finger tips and he leaned into the caress.

Then, he felt a jolt. Not from the Dreadrod, but from T'Pol's fingertips at his neck. As the world faded and he fell, her iron grip pulled the Dreadrod from his hands.

Some grey moments later, the world returned a little. Enough to hear Jon and Malcolm talking loudly, the fear in their voices barely concealed.

"...flush the bloody thing out the airlock, and empty the entire damn arsenal at it!"

"I'd swear that I can hear the damn thing humming now..."

Then he heard T'Pol's voice. Calm, pure, and clear. "It IS humming. The artifact has been humming this whole time."