And it is completed!
This is the final chapter.
Enjoy, and, of course, review. Lalala…
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"So Crewman Cutler was tellin' Malcolm that Dr. Phlox had a couple of wives, and he got the funniest look on his face, and I swear, he disconnected the wrong circuit and was right about knocked unconscious by an overload! It was the funniest thing. You shoulda seen it!" Trip was seated with Hoshi, telling the story for the first time. This time though, she grinned because she thought the tale was funny, not because she had been missing the engineer.
"Anything else going on?" The ensign picked at her food, no missions on her mind, no futures to worry about.
The commander shook his head. "Not a damn thing. Wish we could find some planet, though."
"I would have thought Risa would have been all the fun you needed, Trip," The incident on the vacation planet had been well told around the ship, much to the two men's dismay, and she enjoyed rubbing it in.
He shoved another bite of food into his mouth before standing up with a chuckle, "Well, Hoshi, I gotta run down to engineering. We've been havin' problems with the anti-matter injectors."
"See you later."
"Let's do this again sometime, alright, Hoshi?" But this time, his reply didn't confuse her. Her answer was quick, made before he even got out the door,
"Five days from now, ah, Saturday night, think you can come over to my quarters? I can cook up a steak or something on my hotplate, if you want. Five o'clock?"
The engineer turned and grinned, nodding. "Sure thing, Hoshi. It's a date."
Hoshi smiled. Not only because of her dinner date with Trip, but because of something she couldn't quite explain. Like someone was so incredibly happy that things were turning out the way that they were supposed to, and they just couldn't hold it in. So even though she didn't fully know why, the ensign smiled.
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The moment Ensign Mayweather set the new course, history changed. A blue light engulfed the Enterprise, wiping Ysus Prime from its route for good. The timeline was saved…reverted back to before the elder Hoshi Sato or the Suliban chasing her interfered with Enterprise. The future was still uncertain, but everything was turning out for the better aboard the starship.