DISCLAIMER: I do not own Star Trek: Enterprise or any of its characters. I make no money off this story, only a tremendous sense of self worth.

AUTHORESS' NOTE: This story takes place during the forth season of Enterprise, after 'Observer Effect' but before 'Babel One'. Alright, I caved. This part officially drags the story into AU territory, but only in so much as Commander Tucker isn't meant to die in 'These Are the Voyages'. Other than that, I'm not going any further into AU.

Living Beyond

Part 9B

By Arianwen P.F. Everett

"No, no, Captain. It'll be fine, really. Mother's not ill, it's just that Aplacians don't tear when upset, they cough. She'd be extremely embarrassed if you went charging after her. Please, Captain, sit, have a horderve, relax," Maranda insisted, not wanting her mother further embarrassed.

Part of her wanted to kill Jomala, but another part of her knew it wasn't her sister's fault. She was trying. She could have just run out of their quarters, guests or no, but she didn't. She attempted to abruptly change everyone's focus, and remained, when Maranda knew, every instinct in the girl was telling her to run.

"Alright," Archer replied, a bit overwhelmed by the action. Slowly, he lowered himself onto the hardwood… pillow?

Suddenly disoriented by the wooden chair transforming into a very soft couch cushion, Archer looked around, noticing he was no longer on a space station, but an apartment on Earth, near San Francisco. "Daniels!"

"Ah, welcome to MY home, Jonathan," the mischievous Temporal Agent greeted, coming into his living room.

"I thought I told you never to bother me or my crew again. What do you want of me this time," Jonathan Archer asked wearily, knowing fighting a man from nearly a millennia ahead of you, was probably useless.

"I'm not here for you, Jonathan; I'm here about the girl, Jomala. It wasn't until I saw you entering her mother's quarters with T'Pol and Tucker, that I even knew you were on Kotook. This particular area of the timeline is somewhat… delicate, a bit unpredictable, even for me," Daniels explained, almost apologetically. But Archer knew he must be imagining it, as Daniels never apologized, no matter the hell he put Enterprise through.

"They're loose ends to you aren't they? Lorian and his crew weren't even supposed to exist. You made sure of that when my Enterprise made it through the corridor without getting shot back through time. Now, like some mythical grim reaper, you're here to collect his children, who escaped being erased from existence. Well I won't let you! Temporally alter one hair on any of their heads and I swear the next phaser I find will be set to kill and shoved down my own throat! From what you've told me over the years, that equates to bye, bye Federation!" Jonathan Archer railed. He wouldn't let Lorian's children be sacrificed to some temporal directive. They were his legacy and he, like all the fallen heroes of the Xindi war, deserved a legacy.

"Relax, Captain. I'm not here to harm Jomala or her sisters. Who do you think saw to it that they continued to exist after time reset itself and their father was… misplaced. If you must know, my mission is to protect Jomala, not harm her," Daniels explained defensively. Archer was a brilliant man, but a brilliant man who had been through a lot the past few years of his life. They all had. The old Earth axiom held true, even in the 31st century; war, even a temporal one, was hell.

"Protect her? Protect her from what? I thought you said the Temporal Cold War was over, that the good guys won? What's going on here?" Archer queried in frustration. He was sick of this man, and truly wanted him gone from his life. Maybe, if he helped him out here, this time it would stick.

"In the late 24th century, another Captain of the Enterprise will tell his first officer that his life was like a tapestry, filled with incorrect stitches and many mistakes in the weave, and yet, when he had briefly gone back in time and tried to pull on one, it unraveled the entire tapestry of his entire life. What he didn't realize was that his metaphor could easily be applied to Star Fleet's history as well. The reason I've visited you and not others within your time, has been because you and a handful of others like you, are like those unruly threads in Star Fleet's tapestry. Jomala is another," Daniels admitted, again hating his having to give Archer addition future knowledge. Still, Daniel's superiors had authorized it, so he reached into his pocket, pulled out a data pad, and handed it to Archer.

Captain Archer stared down at the photo, his breath catching in his throat as he thoroughly examined it. There, looking older than Methuselah, stood Trip Tucker, hugging a thirty-something looking Jomala, champagne glasses in both their hands, one wearing a smile of accomplishment, the other of grandfatherly pride, both in what appeared to be Star Fleet dress uniforms. His eyes lowered to the caption and understanding dawned, forcing him to read aloud "Jomala Tucker, with grandfather and former Chief Engineer of Enterprise NX-01, Charles Tucker III, christen USS Enterprise NCC-1701 at the The San Francisco Navy Yards"

"The ship itself is an integral part of my history, Captain. However, Jomala's greater contribution is a sustainable, Warp 9.9, engine. For the next two centuries, it would be the standard for Star Fleet vessels of exploration. We've run multiple analyses. Without her, it just won't come to be. The crew of what you refer to as the Second Enterprise were a serious danger to the timeline; their progeny would have shifted history irrevocably. As a result, we were forced to allow time to naturally prune them. But Jomala Tucker must endure, and her sisters posed no threat, so we… immunized them from the effects of the temporal displacement. A consequence of the immunization was the retention of your memories, in addition to all others who knew of the Second Enterprise and her crew. That couldn't be helped, but in the long run, did no permanent damage to history," Daniels concluded. He knew this was hard for Archer to hear. It was hard for him to say. Empathy was a handicap in his line of work, but as far as he could see, that particular trait was unlikely to be bread out of the species anytime soon.

"So, what exactly is the danger to Jomala that you are so concerned about?" Archer asked, bile in his throat. Lorian and Karyn and their ship had touched him deeply. To realize that the descendents of Earth, among them Daniels, had forgotten their sacrificing and permitted the laws of physics to 'prune' them, made him want to heave. But he had no control over that. If he could protect Lorian's daughter, who remembered them all, perhaps, in some small way, he could pay the homage that neither the future Federation, or his own Star Fleet Command, who wanted to keep time travel under wraps from the general public, would give them.

"The danger is Jomala herself. She's on a path of self destruction. We've run several simulations on her, and they all predict her premature death, some setting her demise in as little as 2 years from when you left, some giving her 27 more years of life, but regardless, long before that picture is due to be taken and at least two centuries before her rightful time," Daniel's explained, trying to make Archer see what was at stake, to appeal to both the rational part of the man who cared about the Federation that was to be and the sentimental part that saw his two best friends' grandchild in turmoil and facing an early death.

"I barely know the girl, and she thinks I've come to Kotook to rob her of her new fangled engine technology. What makes you think I can save her?" Jonathan Archer asked, now very concerned. How exactly did one save a person intent on destroying themselves?

"Her pain over her father's death is currently pushing her to segregate herself from others as a way of protecting herself and them from any more suffering. When she takes that 'new fangled engine technology' and heads out into space, that lack of connection will be her undoing. In some potential timelines, she runs into the wrong aliens and without a crew to help her, is killed. In others, the Vulcan aspect of her biology catches up to her, and having made no significant interpersonal bonds since leaving Kotook, she has no mate, and…" Daniels explained cautiously, trying to stay away from a subject even 31st century Vulcans thought taboo.

"I understand," Archer replied quickly, letting Daniels off the hook on this. He knew how sensitive Vulcans could be on this subject.

"That is what makes this whole situation so difficult. There isn't a series of events I or my colleagues can alter or a physical situation that can be changed. It's Jomala's perspective that must be reshaped, and she's not exactly listening to reason right now," Daniels admitted, hating to show his frustration. He had always banked on his knowledge of the future to move those in the past to action. All sentient beings responded to reason in one form or another, dealing with a situation where the needed solution required a mental outlook and the person involved was in a highly agitated and irrational state, was the worst situation possible for those in his line of work. Like one of his professors once said 'Fatalism doesn't just kill individuals or even entire civilizations, at its heart it holds the power to destroy universes'.

Archer stood, ready to return to his own time with the knowledge he had learned, to dig into young Jomala's problems with renewed vigor. He was on a mission, a very personal mission, one he needed to return to as soon as possible.