Chapter 11 – One Day Old

A/N: Sorry this one took a little longer to write than expected. Hope you enjoy! One more chapter before the end of this story.

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At less than 24 hours old, Benjamin Archer was taking his very first shuttle ride. Erika had bundled him up in the blankets and hat that Phlox had hastily had the quartermaster from the spacedock ship over the night before and now her son was quietly resting in her arms.

Her son. Erika let the worlds roll around in her mind. Somehow she had always known that she would want a son. She understood boys. She had grown up with her brothers and spent most of her career wrangling the pilots of the NX program. She had actually been terrified when they learned that Adalie was going to be a girl. Boys she could handle, girls… she wasn't so sure about. But Addie hadn't seemed to mind her mother's lack of experience and by the time Frankie came around, Erika was excited to have a new little girl.

This time it was Jon's turn to be nervous. He had been absolutely natural with both of the girls, adapting to his role as a father almost instantaneously. He had always been so good with their nieces that it shouldn't have surprised her but she in those first few months she found herself envying his easy way with their infant daughter. Now it was his turn to watch as Erika easily slipped back into the role of parenting a newborn while he professed himself to feel wholly out of practice.

But now they had a boy. She hadn't believed the doctors when they told her that she was pregnant with a son. Somehow she was sure that they were going to turn around and tell her that it was actually a girl after all but they never did. Still she held her breath when Phlox placed a tiny bundle in her arms and said, "Admiral, you have a perfect baby…. boy." Only then did she really begin to relax.

Her labor with Ben had been fast. She went quickly with Frankie and even quicker with Ben as the rushes and waves of contractions grew in intensity. At first she had been worried; worried that Jon would be mad that she had insisted on journeying up to the spacedock in her condition, worried that it wouldn't be safe to give birth on Enterprise, and most of all worried at how fast things were going. She felt out of control and lost in a sea of pain until she felt Jon's strong hand in her trembling one. He held her tightly the entire time, whispering that everything was going to be okay and that she was doing just fine. She cried and buried her head in his shoulder but he didn't falter. He just gently stroked her hair and kissed her on the forehead. It was her husband's face that she kept her eye on when it grew time to push, her husband's calm voice and sweet smile that she held on to like a tracking signal when she felt herself begin to fade.

And then it was done. Then there was Ben. Unlike both girls, neither Jon nor Erika had known what his name was going to be until they saw him for themselves. They spent his first few moments of life just looking at him until finally Erika looked up at Jon and simply nodded. Jon's face had broken out into a grin.

"Okay then, Ben it is," he had said softly, reaching down to run a finger along the baby's cheek.

It was only later that she learned that she had been the first line officer to give birth on a starship. When the filled out Ben's birth certificate there wasn't a space to write "NX 01 Enterprise" as place of birth. For a moment, Jon had worried that there might be a technicality and their son might not actually be a United Earth citizen. But Phlox had assured them that their baby and his paperwork would be just fine, even if it took the administrative centers a little longer than usual to process it. Admiral Black, finally returning Jon's call, had called up a few hours later to say that Admiral Jonathan Archer was free to take family medical leave effective immediately. No one had bothered to give Erika official maternity leave orders. Starfleet offered them the use of one of the private VIP shuttles on reserve for the few people in the fleet who still out ranked both Jon and Erika and they had seized the opportunity. None of the news media knew about the baby yet and Erika wasn't exactly ready to get on one of the public transports with her newborn and announce to the entire planet that Admiral Hernandez had finally had that baby.

So they had quietly left Enterprise and headed for the spacedock's shuttlebay with Ben snuggled tightly in his father's arms. Erika had to stop herself from looking over at them every other moment just to make sure they were really there and this wasn't all a dream. Then she remembered the labor. Nope, this was real. Very very real.

"Shuttle Ersana requesting clearance for departure," Jon called from the pilot's chair. He turned around to give Erika a grin. He clicked off the microphone. "Been a long time since I've gotten to sit in this chair."

"Just take it nice and slow, okay?" Erika said, raising an eyebrow.

"Don't worry," he said, giving her a mock salute.

"Ersana, you are cleared for departure. Safe journey, Admirals." Apparently Admiral Black had told someone in flight control just who was in this shuttle.

Jon started his preflight checklist but stopped to come sit down next to Erika and the baby.

"He looks like you," she said, gazing down at her baby boy.

"He looks like Simon," Jon said, equally captivated by their youngest child. "He looks like Simon and I had a baby."

"Jon..."

"He's perfect."