This started as a response to the CiaC Admiral-Vibrate-Mirror, and then I realized Hoshi is hardly in it at all. Oops.
Discalimer: I can only dream of being a scriptwriter. Nothing is mine except the plot.
THE LITTLE THINGS
Admiral Jonathan Archer entered his spacious quarters and sighed. In his sancutary he was free to act as he pleased, and if he wanted to mope he could. He had been waiting for this moment for several hours now. It had been a long, hard day. There were at least a dozen small emergencies that, he was told, only he could handle, so he really spent more time extinguishing Starfleet's little fires than getting work done. The work he was trying to do was extremely important; he was writing a proposal that would bring Earth and Andoria together as allies. Everyone agreed this was crucial, but it always came second to their problems.
While taking his stiff uniform coat off, he looked over at the picture that hung on the wall. It showed the senior staff of the Enterprise, plus Porthos. They all looked so happy, so ready to conquer the universe, that it made his heart ache. It had been nearly two decades since they first set out to explore the galaxy. Even young Travis Mayweather was now a captain, hard though it was for his old captain to picture.
Over time, Archer had grown accustomed to the changes in his lifestyle since the Enterprise was decommissioned. He spoke to most of his old crew only through subspace transmissions now, with two exceptions: Trip and Hoshi. Trip now headed Starfleet's Starship Design department, and every Thursday the two of them had lunch together. Last year they had gone to Australia to watch a water polo tournament. Hoshi he saw less frequently, but she was a professor at Starfleet Academy; when he was a guest lecturer they always met. The others, however, he heard from only occasionally. Of course, he had been to the launch of the Einstien, Travis's science ship, and the unveiling of Malcolm's pride and joy, powerful starship phasers, on the battleship Relentless. Dr. Pholx had found him once on a vacation to Risa, and the good doctor was seemingly unchanged. His uncontainable wonder for all things was as boundless as the day Archer met him. Archer and T'Pol had a scheduled time to contact each other, the Vulcan's idea. Every fourty-five days they talked from 21:30 to 22:00 San Fransico time, alternating who would initiate the contact. The rigid structure of the schedule hid the nature of the dicussions. They would, of course, talk about things such as new career developments or T'Pol's daughter. Often, however, they would talk about the days on Enterprise, or the changes that had taken place since then.
After time, it was not as empty to return to his larger quarters, and he grew used to being Admiral Archer. It did not seem so strange anymore that they were never under attack, never encountered ion storms. His eyes adjusted to the fact that the sun did rise every morning, and that when waking up, he now saw not stars but blue sky. He accepted the reality that the stars would not appear to be streaking by when he looked up, and that he would not see a radically different sky from one night to the next. Even using the transporter for humans did not seem as unusual as it once had.
He looked in the mirror. Time had treated him kindly, but age was making its stealty advance and Jonathan Archer knew it. Someday soon he would be expected to retire and make way for younger men and women. Then what would he do? Certainly not sit around, dreaming of yesteryear and waiting to die. Maybe he'd find a nice interstellar charity and devote the rest of his life to that. Maybe he'd buy a ship and drift from one distant star to another. He wasn't making any plans yet, because although it was not Enterprise, he really did enjoy parts of his job. It was admittedly more of a behind-the-scenes job, but he was still making history. Most of all, he enjoyed showing alien diplomats Earth.
What he missed most, though, was the little things. The way Malcolm gloated after he upgraded the weapons had, over time, grown to mean more than the upgrades themselves. The way the ship would vibrate when pushed to high warp factors. Hoshi's creative endevours to help the crew appriciate cultures they would have extended contact with. Chef's attempts to accommodate everyone's taste in food. Dear old Porthos, now running through eternal fields instead of the corridors, when he wanted cheese. The smooth hiss of the shuttlebay doors when they signified your safe return to Enterprise. The excitement that permeated the air when the next movie was announced. The betting pools that the crew had started, and how excited Trip was when he won by guessing that Dr. Phlox's next unique creature would be some sort of reptile. The way that he grew to recognize that the angle at which T'Pol raised her eyebrow was important. Over time, when everyone Archer met could tell him the important events of Enterprise's mission, these details, known only to the crew, grew to be more precious.
Trip had once remarked over lunch that those were the best days of his life. He liked his job, but it wasn't the same. Archer knew the feeling. It was a visceral knowledge that reached your brain last, because acknowledging that you are past your prime is never easy. When you had such a wonderful prime, it was that much harder. The crew of Enterprise could never attain the heights of glory again once their ship was decommissioned. Even as Travis went on to become a captain, he could never again capture the wonder that was Enterprise. At least he had other accomplishments, though. His old captain envied him those. Admiral Archer often mused that Starfleet kept him on for show, not because he did anything important. It was his name that still had power, not anything he did. This alliance would be his last great act. Then it would be time to fade gracefully into the past. Jonathan Archer did not want to be hanging around only because he was too stubborn to realize nobody needed him anymore. He would go.
Still, thinking back on those wonderous days, it was not what the history books recorded that he remembered most, but the little things.