Okay so this chapter took a really long time for me to write, I've been working on it nearly four hours solid now but it's done. A huge, massive thanks to MeredithBrody for helping me get the eulogy Archer gives right.

The quote that Archer uses in that eulogy is one from President Reagan's "Speech on the Challenger Disaster" which can be read at this link with the spaces removed and an actual dot in place of the word dot :

teaching american history dot org /library/document/speech-on-the-challenger-disaster/

I have had that quote in mind since i started writing this fic nearly six months ago and I'm so glad that with the help of MeredithBrody I was able to work it into the eulogy.

I hope you enjoy the chapter!

- Galia

Chapter 11

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."

- From "Speech on the Challenger Disaster" by Ronald Reagan, January 28, 1986

When Hoshi wakes the next morning Trip is already awake, laying on his cot and watching Elizabeth sleep quietly in hers. Her little chest rising and falling gently as she sleeps on. Hoshi sits up and pushes her hair back.

"Morning." She says quietly.

"Mornin'." Trip says still watching the baby girl sleep. His blue eyes are red and puffy from crying and the bags under his eyes lead her to believe he'd been crying quietly all night.

"Did she sleep through the night?" Hoshi asks, getting out of bed to go peer in at Elizabeth.

"Woke once, gave her the pacifier and she went right back to sleep." Trip mutters. "Thought one of us should sleep a little and she ain't your kid so…"

Hoshi frowns a little, Elizabeth has a pink pacifier in her mouth and is sleeping soundly. She remembers T'Pol being quiet adamant about not using a pacifier, but it wasn't her place to bring it up. Trip was Elizabeth's father.

"Why don't you get in the shower, I'll get little girl her breakfast." Hoshi offers, reaching over to turn the kettle on for a few seconds to heat the water.

"Nah I'll do it." Trip says, sitting up and dragging his leg over the edge of the bed so he can reach his crutches. "You go ahead."

Hoshi frowns a little, how Trip is supposed to prepare a bottle on crutches is beyond her but it's a good sign he seems to be interested in caring for Elizabeth. "Okay, just don't let the kettle get too hot."

She goes to her dresser and pulls her dress uniform from a drawer, glancing over her shoulder she spots Trip struggling to scoop formula into the bottle. She wants to offer to help but isn't sure it's the best thing right now, so she goes into the bathroom.

When she returns half an hour later there's powdered formula on the desk and some water spilled on the book case, but Trip is sitting on the bed with Elizabeth perched on his good knee and bottle in one hand. At least she's been fed. She picks her hairbrush up off the night stand and begins to brush out her wet hair.

"I'll pack Lizzie's bag while you're in the shower, we need to get moving we're supposed to be at the launch bay in half an hour." Hoshi says, pulling the laundry basket and bag she's been using to cart Lizzie around the last couple of days out from the cupboard.

"I know." Trip says quietly, not making any move to get up, still watching Elizabeth eat sleepily. "Miss Hoshi's gonna get you dressed okay?" He holds Elizabeth out carefully so as not to disturb her while eating and gets up carefully to hobble into the bathroom.

"Good morning sleepy girl." Hoshi smiles. "You didn't want to get up this morning did you? Your Momma told me you weren't a morning person. She said you get it from your Daddy." Chatting to Elizabeth in Japanese as she pulls one of her onsies out of a basket and laying her on the bed to change her.

They just barely make it to the launch bay in time, Captain Archer, Malcolm, and Travis are already in shuttle pod one. Hoshi hops in and Trip pulls the door closed behind her then shuffles to the back to sit quietly on his own.

"Who's watching the ship?" Hoshi asks, taking a seat across from Malcolm.

"Erika – Captain Hernandez," Captain Archer corrects himself. "Loaned us some of her people for the funeral."

"She's not coming?" Hoshi asks.

"She's already on the surface." Captain Archer says.

The ride down to Vulcan is the most somber shuttle pod ride she's ever been on. No one says anything, Malcolm and Trip both stare blankly ahead of them, Travis is busying himself with the manual flight controls. Captain Archer stares at the console in front of him, he's seated where T'Pol would usually be.

Koss meets them at the entrance to the graveyard, despite the heat he's wearing several layers of Vulcan robes, formal funeral attire. He greets them quietly and leads them to the small corner of the graveyard where T'Pol's grave marker is. There's one on either side of it, one marked with her mother's name the other with her fathers name. Most graves in the area have a ring of stones around them, the rings are varying sizes, some as long as six feet, others as small as 18 inches, but T'Pol's family's lack the stones.

"I've found someone to conduct the service in English, but there are traditional portions that must be done in Vulcan," Koss explains.

"I can translate them." Hoshi offers quietly.

"You can try," Koss says. "As far as I'm aware certain parts of them don't translate particularly well out of Vulcan."

The Vulcan priest says a few words and then Captain Archer moves to the front to address the crowd.

"I remember when I first met T'Pol threatened to knock her on her ass. None of us wanted a Vulcan on board our ship for our very first mission and she knew that, she and Trip fought like cats and dogs that first mission. As time went on we got closer, she came to dinner every night – even on night where we used chopsticks. For someone so disciplined she never could get chopsticks, I remember one night chef made Chinese and Trip and I sat there and watched every piece of tofu fall out of her chopsticks, but she was too stubborn to ask for a fork. We've all come a long way since then and I am proud to have been able to call her one of my best friends, one of the only people I would in trust with my life and the lives of my crew. She became a wonderful mother and wife, and an even better friend.

"When space travel in Earth was in its infancy there was a tragedy, and a president gave a speech with a line I feel is appropriate here. He said quote "Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, "give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy.'" Captain Archer looks sadly out at the small crowd. "I think these particular words perfectly sum up T'Pol, though I'm not sure she'd have described it as 'joy', I'll leave you with these words as we remember the friend, mother, and fellow officer we all loved. Thank you"

Hoshi sniffles and looks over to where Trip stands, tears are rolling silently down his face and he's leaning heavily on his crutches. He sniffles and shakes his head at the offer to get up and say something. As Captain Archer returns to his place she sees Captain Hernandez embrace him tightly, they're both crying too.

Hoshi does her best to hold it together for Trip but by the time the part of the ceremony conducted in Vulcan comes around she's in tears too. The rest of the ceremony passes in a blur and as she follows the crowd out she notices Trip isn't with them, neither is Koss, they both linger over T'Pol's grave. Trip's shoulders are shaking, he's sobbing.

She decides it's best to give them a moment and moves off to the side to call Liz Cutler.

"Hey Liz it's Hoshi." She says shakily.

"Oh," Liz's voice says over the comm.

"How's Elizabeth? Did she go down for her nap?" Hoshi asks.

"Um, well, not – not exactly." Liz says, in the background Hoshi can hear wailing. "She's not going down, I gave her a bottle, changed her, rocked her and have even tried her pacifier."

"Oh my, okay um," She looks over at Trip and bites her lip. "I'll come back, I'll be there in about an hour okay?"

"Oh thank you." Liz Cutler says sounding relieved. "H-how's Commander Tucker?"

"He's…" Hoshi bites her lip. "He's a mess, it's to be expected… Look I'll be back in an hour, I have to go." She closes her communicator and goes over to where Trip stands.

"She's dead Hoshi." He whimpers.

"I just spoke to Liz Cutler." Hoshi says quietly. "Elizabeth won't go down, will you be okay if I return to the ship?"

"Y-yeah, I'll be fine. Lizzie needs you more." He cries wiping his eyes

After the crowd dissipates it's just him and Koss left standing in the graveyard. Koss doesn't say anything. Maybe he doesn't know what to say, maybe he has nothing to say at all, Trip can't decide.

"Y-Ya know I don't believe I'm ever gonna come to Vulcan for somethin' good." Trip mutters. "Though a wedding is a hell of a lot better then a funeral."

Koss ignores the comment and says "We should get back to the city, it's a long journey on the bus."

"We have to leave now?"

"It's illogical to stay here any longer." Koss says.

"Well fuck logic. Sh-she's my wife and our daughter ain't even able to be here." Trip mutters.

"I'm sorry Commander." Koss says. "I know her death was senseless, and illogical, but staying here will not fix it."

Trip looks over at Koss, he hadn't expected him to say something almost emotional. "Where'd you pull that one from?"

"Death in one so young is rarely logical." Koss says quietly, for the first time it occurs to Trip that Koss might be mourning just as much he is, even in his own Vulcan way.

After another half an hour of standing next to her grave in silence Trip finally relents and they start back towards the city.

Koss lives in the center of the city, in a 10th floor apartment, unlike most apartments Trip has lived in this one is very quiet. None of the neighbors can be heard and the city below seems strangely still. Trip looks around the living room, everything is Earth tones – not unlike T'Pol's home, though this lacks the occasional splash of deep purple.

"Nice place." Trip mutters.

"T'Pol didn't care for it." Koss mentions.

Trip blinks, he never though about T'Pol spending time here during the short time she and Koss were married. "She wasn't really a city girl was she?"

Koss hesitates. "No, she was not." He agrees. "She preferred to live on the outskirts, it's quieter there."

"Pretty quiet here." Trip comments.

"Not if you're a Vulcan." Koss says. "It's crowded as well, Vulcans go to great lengths to find solitude."

"Yeah, she did like her privacy, though neither of us got that much with a baby." Trip mutters, looking around the living room's sliding door to the balcony.

"The guest room is down the hall across from the bathroom, you will stay there tonight." Koss says. "Do not bother waking early to prepare the morning meal."

"It's a Vulcan custom ain't it? I ain't really gonna sleep anyway." Trip mutters.

"It is a custom but given the circumstances and the fact that it is only you and I here I see no reason to follow it." Koss says. "A friend of mine, T'Rehu will be coming over to take us to T'Pol's home tomorrow morning. She's a lawyer, she looked over T'Pol's will."

"I should tell Hoshi. What time?" Trip asks.

"10 am, Ensign Sato can meet us at the house if she would like." Koss says.

"Yeah, I'll tell her." Trip mutters, shuffling back to the spare room and setting his duffel down. It's mostly empty, just a change of clothes inside, he'd really brought it so he'd be able to take some of T'Pol's things back to Enterprise tomorrow. He wants Elizabeth to have something more of her mother then her uniforms or pajamas.

He lays back on the bed, staring at the ceiling and is no longer able to contain the tears that have been threatening to come out since he and Koss arrived here. Koss seems to realize that calling him for dinner won't be worth it and he doesn't disturb Trip for the rest of the night.