Title: Stories of the Past
Author: Settiai
Disclaimer: "Star Trek" and other related characters are all properties of Gene Roddenberry, Paramount, and other related corporations. No infringement is intended. This story, such as it is, was written as a sign of respect and love for the characters, the show, and their creator. I claim no ownership of the aforementioned show and characters.
Rating: PG
Explanation: This is my story for the Enterprise Ficathon on LiveJournal, and it was written for illmantrim.
Summary: An older Jonathan Archer tells a story to a young boy… and sets the future in motion.
Feedback: Comments and helpful criticisms are always appreciated.
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The last thing Jonathan Archer had expected when he stepped out of his cabin was to be almost run over by a seven-year-old.
Archer smiled slightly as the young boy straightened up even more, an awed expression appearing in his eyes. "I'm sorry, sir," the child said breathlessly. "I didn't see you."
"That's what usually happens when you rush forward without taking the time to stop and think," Archer replied lightly. He slowly knelt down so that he was face to face with the boy, grimacing slightly as his joints protested. "What's your name?"
"Jimmy… I mean James," he said hurriedly. "My name's James, sir."
Archer bit back a laugh as he met the boy's gaze. "Are you sure it's James instead of Jimmy?" he asked with all the seriousness he could muster.
The boy nodded gravely. "Yes, sir. Jimmy's a baby name."
"I wouldn't say that," Archer replied with a smile. He studied the boy a moment before continuing. "But maybe you'd like to compromise?"
The boy cocked his head slightly. "Comp… omise?" he asked, stumbling over the "r" sound.
Archer nodded seriously. "That's right," he replied. "Has anyone ever called you Jim? It's not a baby name, but I think it fits you better than James."
"Jim," the boy repeated slowly. His mouth twisted into a smile. "Jim. I like that name."
"Well then, Jim," Archer asked with an authoritative tone in his voice, "why are you running around at 0500 hours? And do your parents know that you're not asleep in bed"
"Sam's supposed to be watching me," Jim said petulantly. "He wouldn't get up, so I left without him."
Archer shifted slightly, "Is Sam your brother?" he asked curiously.
Jim nodded, and Archer gave him a smile as he stood back up. "Well, we can't have you wandering around the ship all by yourself," he said with a smile. "I don't think her captain would like that."
The boy let out a sigh as Archer held out his hand. "Do I have to go back to my quarters?" he asked sullenly.
"If you want," the older man replied with a shrug. "I was going to take you to the mess hall to get some breakfast while I told you a story, but…"
Jim's sullenness faded in an instant and was quickly replaced by excitement. "A story about the Enterprise?" he asked eagerly.
Archer made a big show of thinking it over before nodding. "I think that I could manage that."
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We had called the Enterprise home for less than a year…
Trip and Malcolm both looked up as a shadow fell over their table in the mess hall.
"Porthos has more maturity than you," Hoshi said angrily. She turned to walk away, pausing just long enough to spit out "sir."
Trip turned toward Malcolm, a surprised look on his face. "What did you do?" he asked, not even noticing the curious stares coming their way.
"She was talking to you," Malcolm replied instantly. Then he cocked his head. "At least, I hope she was talking to you."
The two men exchanged looks before quickly pushing their chairs back and standing up. "Wait a second, Hoshi!" Trip called out as they hurried after her.
She didn't even glance back as she stormed out of the mess hall, and the two men both froze as the door shut behind her. They glanced at each other again, both wearing identical expressions of confusion. "Should we follow her?" Trip asked.
"It depends," Malcolm replied as he shot Trip a curious look. "Have you done anything to make her that mad? Anything at all?"
Trip shook his head. "Not a thing. You?"
"I don't think so," Malcolm replied.
They exchanged another look before turning their attention toward the closer door. "So," Trip said after a few seconds, "should we follow her?"
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Archer silently counted to ten as he watched Phlox finish assessing the damage done to Trip's face. "For the last time, what happened?"
"He walked into the wall," Malcolm said, shaking his head. "It was really quite odd. One minute he was walking down the corridor, and the next…"
"Trip, would you like to tell me what happened?" Archer said, cutting Malcolm off mid-sentence.
Trip reached up and tenderly touched his darkening eye. "Like Malcolm said, I walked into a wall."
"A wall," Archer repeated with a raised eyebrow. "So you're both sticking with that story."
Malcolm and Trip exchanged glances. "There's not much else we could say, sir," Trip replied after a moment's pause. "That's exactly what happened. I just walked right into the wall."
"According to several of your crewmates, this wall looked very much like Ensign Sato's fist," Archer said dryly.
"They must have been seeing things," Trip said with a shrug.
"Of course," Archer muttered as he gave both of them suspicious looks once again. "I'm sure that's all it was."
Both men gave him smiles that were much too innocent, and he muttered something about "idiots" under his breath before turning and stomping out of the room. Trip and Malcolm didn't move.
"You do realize that we have doctor-patient confidentiality, correct?" Phlox asked suddenly.
Trip turned and gave him a confused look. "What's your point?"
Phlox raised an eyebrow. "Was it really Hoshi?" he asked with more than a hint of amusement.
Malcolm let out a snort of laughter, and Trip shot them both exasperated glares. "It was a wall," he said pointedly before stomping out of the room.
Phlox gave Malcolm a questioning look. "If he says it was a wall, then it was a wall," he agreed.
He started toward the door, but he paused long enough to glance back at Phlox. "But that wall looked quite a bit like Hoshi to me," he added with a wink before turning and walking out of the room.
Phlox shook his head and turned to put up some of his medical equipment. Before he had a chance to get very far, however, the door opened again and a familiar form walked in.
"Is the captain gone?" Travis asked, glancing around the sick bay.
Phlox raised an eyebrow, but he merely nodded. Travis let out a sigh and glanced behind him. "Coast's clear."
After a second or two, Hoshi stepped into the room with a sheepish expression on her face. Her right hand was held out in front of her. "I think my hand might be broken," she said awkwardly.
Phlox chucked as he made his way toward her. "Might I ask what you hit your hand on?"
"Something very thick," she replied with a grimace.
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"What happened to your hand?" Archer asked as Hoshi slipped onto the bridge, her right hand covered in a white bandage.
"I cracked one of the bones in it," she replied with a sigh. Archer started to open his mouth, but she answered his question before it even left his mouth. "I accidentally hit it on a wall."
Archer shook his head. "A wall," he repeated. "Of course. This wall didn't happen to resemble Commander Tucker, did it?"
"I'm not sure what you mean, sir," Hoshi said with forced sweetness. "I lost my temper and slammed my hand into something thick yet apparently hollow."
"Hey!" Trip said instantly, his face reddening as soon as the word left his mouth. He quickly turned his attention back toward the panel he had been fixing.
Where he stood, Archer rolled his eyes. "I'm not certain that I understand what is happening," T'Pol said to him.
"Neither am I," he replied. "And it's really bothering me."
He suddenly clapped his hands together, drawing everyone's attention toward him. "Okay, that's it. Trip, Hoshi… one of you want to tell me what the hell's going on?"
Neither of them replied. "That wasn't a request," he said pointedly.
Trip let out a sigh. "I thought she would appreciate the gesture," he said helplessly.
Hoshi stared at him in disbelief.
"You broke into my quarters to set up an elaborate trap that would dump a pail of water on my head, and you thought I would appreciate the gesture?" she asked through clenched teeth.
Everyone on the bridge stared at Trip.
"Please tell me she's kidding," Archer said as he brought his hand up to massage his temple.
"I thought you said you hadn't done anything to make her mad?" Malcolm asked out of the corner of his mouth, earning himself a glare from both Hoshi and Trip. He quickly held his hands up in a sign of peace.
"It was a joke," Trip said helplessly. He quickly turned back toward Hoshi. "You thought it was funny in that film we watched the other night."
"It wasn't happening to me in the film!" she shot back angrily.
Trip paused for a moment. "True," he conceded. "But still…"
"It wasn't funny!" Hoshi said loudly.
He stared at her for a moment before sighing. "Fine," he reluctantly agreed, "it wasn't funny."
"Okay, now we're getting somewhere," she said softly, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath as she spoke. "What have you learned from all of this?"
"You have a mean right hook?" Trip suggested.
Hoshi clenched her jaw. "What else have you learned?"
"I'll bet you almost anything that Trip says something that will cause him to get another black eye," Archer muttered, earning a raised eyebrow from T'Pol. "Just watch."
Trip stood there for several more seconds, lost in thought, before his eyes lit up. He gave Hoshi a weak smile. "Next time set it up in Malcolm's quarters?" he suggested.
…and that's when I realized that we were becoming a family. I was the father, and they were a bunch of children.
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"James Tiberius Kirk!"
Both Archer and Jim turned toward the doorway to the mess hall, identical sheepish expressions on their faces. "Your mother?" Archer whispered, grimacing slightly as the boy nodded. "You're on your own then."
"Thanks a lot," Jim muttered.
"Respect your elders," Archer mock-whispered back.
Jim started to retort, but he was cut short as his mother made her way up to the table and grabbed his arm. She pulled the young boy to his feet and gave him an incredulous look. "What do you think you're doing, Jimmy? Do you know who this is?"
Shaking her head, she quickly turned her attention back to Archer.
"I'm sorry, ambassador," she said apologetically. "I had no idea that my son wasn't in his quarters."
Archer gave her a reassuring smile. "It's no problem," he said. "He's been a very good listener."
She stared at him for a moment. "Listener?" she repeated.
Archer chuckled and leaned back in his chair. "I've been telling him a story about my days back on the Enterprise," he explained. "It's nice to have someone new to listen to my rambling."
"Well, as long as he wasn't bothering you…"
"He wasn't," Archer said. Then he gave the boy a wink. "Were you, Jim?"
Jim shook his head vehemently before turning and giving his mother a wide-eyed, innocent look. She still didn't look convinced, but she merely shook her head. "If you insist that he wasn't bothering you…"
"I insist," Archer cut in.
The woman gave him a disbelieving look, but she didn't argue. Instead, she merely grabbed her son's arm and began leading him from the room. "Good day, ambassador," she said, turning around long enough to give him an apologetic smile.
Archer tipped his head in her direction, and she quickly turned back around and finished leading her son from the room. After the two of them had exited, Archer glanced at the door on the other side of the room. "You weren't in your quarters last night," he said with a raised eyebrow.
T'Pol merely stared at him, not moving from the spot inside the door that she had been standing in for the last five minutes or so. "And how would you know whether or not I was in my quarters?" she asked.
"Because I tried calling you," he said casually. "You didn't answer, so you weren't there. Which brings us back to my original question."
"You never asked me a question," T'Pol replied without hesitation.
Archer started to reply, but he suddenly stopped and blinked. "I guess I didn't," he admitted sheepishly. "So… where were you last night?"
If she had been human, T'Pol would have most likely rolled her eyes. Instead, she merely answered his question. "I was talking with the Vulcan ambassador on board."
"Sarek, right?" Archer asked as he stood up. "The one with the half-human son and the stick up his ass?"
T'Pol's face remained stoic, but Archer could see the practically invisible twitch at the corner of her mouth. He gave her a slight smile as he made his way toward the door. "That would be a 'yes' then," he said with a laugh.
He continued on for a few more steps before pausing. "That Kirk boy will be someone important when he gets a little older," he called over his shoulder. "I'll bet you almost anything." Laughing slightly, he continued out of the mess hall.
"Humans," T'Pol said softly, an almost imperceptible hint of fondness in her voice. "They never learn."