Thank you to SpockLikesCats, my patient beta. And to all my wonderful readers and reviewers, thank you all for taking the time to look at this tale, and comment. More thanks at end.

Word of the day: Stone frigate; Royal Navy nickname for a land-based training ship.

Epilogue – The Wanderings of This Most Intricate Universe Teach Me the Nothingness of Things

One Week later – The Sentinel

A funeral service is held for a fine Starfleet lieutenant who is unknown to those aboard the ship, so the turnout is small, but heartfelt. Scotty plays "MacCrimmon's Lament" on his pipes, and Commander Spock reads words given to him by the only person in the universe who knew the deceased.

The captain himself reads Tennyson, and the closing paragraphs of A Tale of Two Cities, culminating in the final words of the ceremony:

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done;

it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."

Spock knows these last words are not in memoriam of Kyle. Within the casket, he is dressed in an Alpha uniform, the empty sleeve pinned across his chest with Nelsonian precision, but tucked beneath his good arm is a small body, its clandestine inclusion known only to a select few. She will be protected in death, as she was not in life.

In silence, an honour guard stands to attention and the coffin slides into an airlock, whereupon it is propelled to a nearby inhospitable planet. It burns up in the atmosphere, a magnificent, life-affirming firework.

Two weeks later – The Scientist

Hard boot-heels ring along the length of an endless, empty corridor. A hand presses against a door-plate, a retinal scan is performed and a slim, black-bearded Vulcan sweeps into a small laboratory. With his dark robes billowing behind, he is a hellish galleon in full sail.

Using spindly silver tongs, he lifts fragile tissue samples from tanks and drowns them in acid, before returning them to their bio-fluid.

To perform his final act of sabotage, he lounges at a hide-topped mahogany desk, tall boots crossed on the leather, and calls up an innocuous sub-routine on the computer, one usually reserved for bug-tracking. Files, like dominoes, cascade into the abyss.

His own erasure from Starfleet's history is no matter; he has saved his employer the trouble.

Five months later – The Sailor

Rear Admiral James Tiberius Kirk sits in his well-appointed office in San Francisco, witnessing the most extraordinary tape he has ever seen. It came to him wrapped in a scarred, five-inch-thick titanium tube, engraved with his name, and bearing a beautiful counterfeit of a Starfleet distress signal. A ship on patrol plucked it from the aftermath of an ion storm and, after deeming it safe, delivered it to the rightful recipient. Along with a tape addressed to him are tapes marked for the attention of others, a battered but authentic tricorder from the Enterprise, and an operations staff uniform patch which comes bundled with the tape, marked Lt. Kyle partner and family.

Laughing, and wiping tears, he flips his comm switch and gets through to his friends, who today are participating (he imagines) in a faux grudge-match whilst working together in one of the Starfleet medical labs.

"Jim?" It's McCoy.

"Bones, you and Spock had better get over here - I've had a delivery you won't believe."

On his screen, he watches a familiar, tall male figure extend two long fingers to his communications officer, in a Vulcan public kiss.

"And I can't wait to see your face when Spock sees it."

Three years later – The Surgeon

Up in the hills outside San Francisco, nestles a cosy house with a shady front porch and a lush garden full of buddleia. Today is an uncharacteristic seventy-four degrees. In an effort to escape being roped into making fiddly snacks (which his surgeon's hands are rather good at) Leonard McCoy sits on the porch swing in a linen suit, cradling a mint julep; the very cliché of a southern gent. With Alpha in dry dock for a partial re-fit, some of the crew who chose to go on the next five-year mission are coming around, along with those who now work here on dry land. McCoy himself has worked at Starfleet medical for the last two years (a somewhat lowered position in the cadet clinic – his choice – in avoidance of those responsible for the events of three years back).

He has to hand it to Spock - the hobgoblin made an immaculate job of erasing Orianna, and her tormentors' work, from the record. The Vulcan Neuroscientist even mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind tanks of dead tissue that were uncatalogued, and unidentifiable.

They have, all of them, ripped asunder the seams of their old lives and made a new coat. None more so than Uhura, who melted Spock's icy heart, and found a place despite being a stranger in a strange land. The Doctor is tickled by the thought that only a woman from another universe could move the Vulcan soul.

And what of the good doctor? The evidence of his new life can be heard drifting through the open door.

"Dad, are you hiding out there?" Joanna steps onto the porch, bearing a clinking jug full of mint, bourbon, sugar and lemonade.

"What are you and Christine jawing about in there?"

"Some cadet we had in yesterday, his hand was hanging by a thread." She has inherited her father's glee for gore.

"Oh, very nice."

Joanna squints about the garden, her eyebrows lowered. "Where's Annie?"

"She went down to the gate to look for Spock. I think she's gonna explode with excitement."

His daughter raises her eyebrow in a manner that reminds Bones so much of himself that he smiles, "Yup, not much change from normal then."

"Um, Dad, do you think she can get over the gate now?"

"No, it's taller than me. No way. She's not even three feet high." But he puts his glass under the swing and ambles up to look for the person who Scotty refers to as 'the wee mental'. As his eye level rises and he is able to see down the slope of the garden, Joanna asks, "Is that Spock?"

"If it is, he's wearing a damned funny hat. What is that on his head? It looks like a..."

"Two and a half-year old child?" offers Joanna. Father and daughter number one both burst out laughing.

In the event, it is not Spock, but Eala; McCoy forgets how much the boy has filled out. He is casually dressed in an olive cotton shirt, open at the neck, black britches and boots. God, he's been living too long with women, if he's noticing men's clothes. Under one arm is a case of Guinness, which Joanna relieves him of.

"She climbed ya, huh?" McCoy regards his tiny daughter who is wrapped around Eala's head bonnet-fashion, her hands clasped below his chin. As his jaw is somewhat restricted, the boy merely nods.

"Yup, she does that. You're honoured. She won't do it to everyone. Scotty endures it too." Prising stocky limbs apart, he manages to release the clamp about his ex-colleague's head.

"I tried to pick her up." Eala's hair is down loose, curling at the ends, and now in comic disarray.

"Oh-ho, you didn't? She hates that, don't you sweetheart? Did she bite ya?"

"What? No!"

"Dad!" Joanna smacks her father on the arm. "He's joking."

Daughter number two rolls her navy eyes to the sky, McCoy fashion, then examines Eala. "You new!"

"Eh, what did I know?"

Annie regards the Irish lad with furrowed brow, appraising him as though he is a very dim bulb, a very dim bulb indeed. Thick dark curls bob side-to-side. "Not know, new. New here."

"Oh yes, I've not met you before. Annie, I'm Eala."

Extending a pudgy hand the little girl says with solemnity, "Pleasda meecha."

Eala shakes with serious reverence. "I'm honoured to be your guest Miss."

And with that, she's off running round the garden in a blur. "Jaysus, look at her go, it's like she's been stung by a wasp."

Joanna laughs, rather loudly, patting her hair in a primping gesture so at odds to her normal, independent demeanour that her father coughs to disguise his own laughter.

"Yeah, we don't know how Dad and Christine produced her, but she is theirs, improbable as it looks."

"She's tiny, isn't she, but she weighs a fecking ton."

Smiling, big sister explains; "She was six weeks early; Dad says she couldn't wait to get out and start talking. She's always been small, but she's as strong as a horse."

"I know, I've got a great lump above my ear where she used it as a toe-hold."

Folks drift into the garden carrying food and drinks, the usual suspects, including the close-knit group who spent long hours in the Alpha tank-room. To McCoy it seems a lifetime ago, but also like yesterday. As melodramatic as that sounds to him, it's the truth.

Spock is now an instructing captain on Ganges, a stone frigate, and Uhura works for Starfleet Intelligence. Eala is learning to be a navigator, and Kirk says he's a damned good one. It sure beats smashing windows in Cork. Kirk is with his only love, Alpha, and M'Benga is CMO now, with Sanchez deputising. McCoy hears there is a vacancy for a nurse; the way Joanna is simpering at Hawkins, he thinks she may apply. It's no life for a twenty-five year old, living with her old dad.

Warm arms slip around his waist. "Whatcha drinking? Rum or whiskey?"

Bones looks at his beautiful partner, her dark waves falling about bare shoulders and answers, "Won't y'have a double with me?"

"I will, and then let's go and talk to Uncle Jim, and David."

.

"Look at her, she's got Spock wrapped around her little finger. What do you think they're doing?" Jim Kirk points at Annie, who sits cross-legged in front of the Vulcan, wearing the confused expression Uhura calls accessing data banks. Nyota is relaxed, sitting back on her hands. The silvery glint of an intricate starfish sparkles on the skin of her arm, and purple flowers hide in her hair in haphazard style, probably placed there by the child.

"Advanced math?" her mother suggests.

"Annie can do advanced math?" David Kirk's brow furrows. His blonde curls are golden in the sunshine.

Christine laughs, throwing her head back with a snort. "No, she's two and a half! But she listens to anything Spock says, even if she hasn't a clue. It's the only time she stays still, haven't you noticed?"

"You should keep him as a house-guest." Kirk the elder winks at his son.

"I wish."

McCoy lifts his bourbon, smiling ruefully. "Well I don't."

When the sun sets over the bay, Joanna illuminates strings of starry lights, and McCoy lifts Annie, a tired dead-weight. Meaning to get her to say a sleepy goodnight to M'Benga and Sanchez, he accidentally blunders into an odd scene behind a screen of willow, slowing in the dusk when he hears the name of his crazy little girl. M'Benga kneels by a lounge chair, his voice concerned:

"What's wrong, Eduardo? You are like a ghost."

"Annie asked me about my guitar."

"So, you will bring it another time."

"How does she know? I have never played it for her."

"You've had too much beer my friend, her father or mother probably said you play."

"I thought that too but..."

"Come on, let's go and talk to the others."

"...she asked after Carmel, my sister."

"What sister? You never mention her."

"She died in a hover-scooter accident when I was thirteen years of age. I speak about her rarely. She was the cause of my sorrow, three years ago, when I had to... to go away."

With his nose buried in Annie's twig-entangled curls, McCoy steps back from the scene. His daughter is fast asleep, her breath a quiet snuffle into his neck. He smooths down her rumpled violet dress.

It's her favourite colour.

– The End –

The Herald

Limited Copyright, Spockchick 2011. Please do not reproduce or distribute without the author's permission.

The characters of The Herald/Orianna, Eala/Hawkins, and Annie Chapel-McCoy are copyright Spockchick.

Enduring thanks for help I can never repay, to the following (strictly alphabetical order). Hopefuladdict, Ladyfangs, Linstock, PrinceHamlette, SpockLikesCats, TeaOli. And all the folks at STCC and Writers Anonymous. And, most importantly, you who have patiently read this tale, and given your time, and kind comments.

Thank you

Spockchick