Disclaimer: Enterprise and its characters are copyrighted by Paramount Studios and Viacom. This is a fictional story, no copyright infringement intended. All stories and original characters belong to their respective author.
Warning: This story is rated R. It is NOT for the faint of heart. Several chapters of this work will be extremely graphic in nature and may contain violence and adult language and themes. Thanks to Saturn's Orbit for the idea. This is a response to Challenge #7.
Author's Note: I've rewritten parts of this story, so it's better if you start over again at the beginning. Everything inside the lines is flashback.
The Lost
Chapter 5
Castles in the Air
"Looking for something we can rely on
There´s got to be something better out there
Love and compassion
That day is coming
All else are castles in the air."
- We Don't Need Another Hero, by Tina Turner -
Phlox looked around the room. There was one bag, already packed, sitting by the entrance of the captain's closet. The pictures that had once adorned the walls were neatly stacked there as well. Most of the knickknacks were boxed by the entrance to the bathroom. The captain's quarter's looked so bare without his things there. "Doing some redecorating, are you?"
"So, what did you and the Sub-commander talk about?"
"You, actually. She believes you have shown, 'serious lack of judgment' in the past two weeks, and wants me to examine you?"
"Examine me?"
"To make sure you are fit for duty?" Phlox uncharacteristically dragged is voice at the end of the sentence. He didn't believe the Sub-commander's accusations at all, but it was his job to make sure that she wasn't right, and he had to make sure.
"Are you serious? You and I are smart men, Phlox." Jonathan pointed to the packed luggage and boxes littering his quarters. "You can read the writing on the wall as well as I can. Do we really need to do this?"
Phlox just nodded."If you plan to remain in command of this ship until we dock, yes. Otherwise, you may once again be subject to a mutiny."
Jonathan Archer was backed into a corner. He didn't want to do this, but he had to now. For now, he had to keep the appearance that he was captain of this ship, for the sake of the crew. "Well, how long will this take?"
"Not long."
"Very well then," Jonathan gulped, and sat on his bed. The examination was mostly conversational, the doctor probing into his feelings and thoughts over the past week, especially in the realm of Tucker and Grace. He inquired whether the captain was feeling anxious or depressed lately, and asked how he was sleeping and eating. Phlox even asked about how much playtime Porthos has gotten over the past few days.
"Well, Captain, I'm pleased to inform you that you are in excellent health, and more than capable of commanding this vessel."
Archer slyly smiled. He had fooled the old sawbones into thinking he was alright. But Jonathan knew different. Phlox didn't probe his thoughts and deelings enough. If he had, Pholx would have found a world of pain, guilt, and resentment. He just smiled, and joked, "Did you really doubt me?"
"I'm just doing my job."
"I know, Phlox," Jonathan said, patting Phlox on the back, "I know. Come on, I'll walk to the turbo lift with you. Porthos, you want to go for a walk?" But the beagle lifted his for only a moment, before going back to sleep. "Lazy dog."
Jonathan reached the bridge, just as Alpha sift was leaving, and the senior staff was taking over. "What's the status on our stalker?"
"No change, sir. It's still there. Just following us."
"Scanners?"
"Still being deflected."
"Very well. Carry on. I'll be in my ready room."
As the doors closed behind him, a morbid curiosity took over. Jonathan was still intrigued by the insignia tattooed on Grace's shoulder. He thought he would take a chance, and look up her name in the Starfleet database.
"Romanowski, Grace. Middle initial? Well, Trip didn't say anything about a middle initial, but then again, he never did answer my question about her belonging to Starfleet, either."
His screen flashed. Access denied. "Access denied? Why?" He re-typed the information, but got the following message, 'the information you have requested is classified.' Pressing the com button, Archer summoned his Chief Armory officer for assistance.
"I tried to look Grace up in the Starfleet database, but this is the message I got," he said, as he turned the console towards Malcolm's view. "Anything you can do?"
"You mean, can I hack the Starfleet database to get the information you are seeking? Only if I want an instant court-martial followed by several years on a penal colony for treason."
"I see." Jonathan was so disappointed. He desperately wanted to help Grace and Trip, but without knowing more about her, everything about her, it was impossible.
Meanwhile, Trip was getting ready to leave his quarters for the first time in a week. He showered and put on civilian clothes. With a splash of colone, he was ready. He knocked on the door, and Malcome oped it. They rode in silence up three floors to sickbay. Trip walked through the halls hurriedly, as whispers came from the crew. Malcolm stopped at the door, preventing Trip from leaving unattended, while simultaneously pressing the door to open.
"Good morning, Commander. How are you feeling? Something I can help you with?" Phlox asked politely.
"How is she doing?"
"Not much better." This was the part of doctoring Phlox loathed the most – giving the family the bad news. "One by one, her vital organs are shutting down. Every treatment I've tried has failled. There's nothing more that I can do. I'm sorry."
"May I see her?" Phlox pointed to the bio-bed that Grace laid on. As he entered the curtain, he saw something he didn't see in her before. To Trip, Grace had always been larger than life, accepting each new challenge by embracing it fully. She wasn't scared of anything. It was almost as if Grace knew she was invincible, and she lived her life that way. But now, she laid before him unconscious, pale, and bstruggling to breathe. Her skin was translucent, and the veins in her arms looked fat and swollen in against her delicate skin.
There were no bandages, there were no machines or tubes, only Grace, laying on a bed, cold and alone. "Grace," he whispered, as he stroked her forehead. "Grace, I want to tell you something. When I first met you, you know what I felt? Not love or envy, but awe. When I met you, you were… you were the daredevil. You knew exactly what you wanted to do with your life, and you took every chance to get it. God. Now lok at you. Well, you've gotta fight. You have tofight this. I've just got you back. I've just got yu back, and I don't want to lose you again. Not like this. Please…"
"Trip," she spoke softly. "Kill me."
Trip was stunned by her request. Grace was conscious for only a few seconds, before she entered a coma. There was no time for rebuttal, but she made her intentions very clear. She was obviously in a great deal of pain, and she needed it to end. She needed Trip to end it for her.
"I couldn't imagine how angry Trip was at me for what I did. For over a week, he wouldn't even look me in the eye. On several occasions, I went to visit him in his quarters, but he redufed the company. It went on that way for a while. We had crossed the expanse, and were on our way home. Several times, he begged me to let him take a shuttle pod back to the expanse, to find the aliens who did this, hoping that they could cure her. But as I told him, friends don't let friends make bad decisions. Grace was still in a coma, and her condition was deteriorating. There was no hope.It became obvious that no matter how many days Trip stood by her bedside, she wasn't going to get better, and we were too far from home to make it back in time.
Still, Trip visited every day. Security brought him down to sickback at 0700 house, and brought him back to his quarters at 2300 hours. He didn't eat or sleep, until the doctor persisted. I was sure then that I had lost my friend, until he came to my quarters, late one night, after visiting Grace.
"Commander, if you are to keep your vigil, you should really try and eat something."
Trip had been praying and meditating by Grace's bedside. He didn't hear the sick bay doors open, or T'Pol come in. He didn't hear her soft footsteps, or the curtain around Grace's bed open. He turned around to see his friend standing with a tray of food. She had Cook make all of his favorites, in an attempt to tantalize his tastebuds into eating the morishment. "Nice to see you."
But it wasn't just T'Pol who had made the journey. Hoshi, Malcolm, and Travis came as well, to lend their supprot. Only one of his true friends were missing – Jonathan.
"Is there anything we can do?" Malcolm asked.
"Well, if you don't want your liver anymore…" Trip joked, but he broke off, knowing tfull welll that the joke just wasn't funny.
"Maybe we can sit with her a while, while you get some rest, take a hot shower…" Hoshi suggested.
"Thanks, but I really want to stay."
"I could make it an order."
"Now, T'Pol, you're not even in Starfleet," Trip said smiling, "what makes you think you can give me an order?" Everyone laughed. Trip was always the comic relief of the group. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Thanks for comin'. If you'd like to sit a while, pull up a chair. But I'm not leavin'."
So they sat there, the four friends, telling stories about their chidhoods, anecdotes to cheer Trip us, remember funny situations they had been through with Enterprise and her crew. An unintentional pause came between jokes, and leaving everyone uncomfortable.
"So, if you don't mind, Trip, what did you and Grace talk about on that stranded ship? Malcolm had always been balsey, but never to this degree.
Trip didn't know what to say. Most of what they had talked about was classified, but he wasn't about to tell Malcolm that. "Castles in the air."
"Castles in the air? I don't understand. Is that a human fairytale?" T'Pol asked.
"You wouldn't understand." Before long, Phlox came around, announcing the closing of visiting hours, and requesting the dismissal of the four friends to the quarters, for a well deserved sleep.
"Walk you back.? Oh wait," Travis joked, "you already have an escort."
"Very funny Travis."
"Seriously, I'll say a prayer tonight for you and Grace."
"Thanks, Hoshi."
"If you would like to begin neuropressure sessions again, please let me know."
"Yeah, I'll have to think about that, but thanks."
Malcolm was last. He wanted to talk to Trip, really talk to him, but without the company of the others. While Malcolm waited, he silently and inconspicuously exaimed his friend. The bruises were almost gone. The damage done by his captain was practally inoticeable. But there were other scars, ones which would take longer to appear, and longer yet, to go away. "You know, Trip, what the captain did was for the good of the ship, and all her crew."
"So?"
"So, you've been friends for a long time, longer than Enterprise. Talk to him. Don't give up on him. After all, he's never given up on you."
"I'll think about it, Malcolm." Malcolm nodded before leaving sick bay.
"I'll leave you to say your goodbyes, but no more than five minutes, commander."
"Understood." Trip took offense to Phlox's comments. "Don't listen to him, darlin'" he said to Grace. "He meant goodnights, not goodbyes." He kissed her softly on the forehead, "ill see you tomorrow, Gracie."
"The answer came to me in the middle of the night. Sound asleep, I think I was dreaming, or perhaps remembering the time Trip and I went into the desert for survival training. He kept saying to me in the dream, 'You've got the answer. You've got the answer', but I didn't understand until the next morning, whenI went back to my ready rom. Several PADD's sat on my desk, one of which was the list of items missing from Grace's consealment in the Jeffery's tubes. The PADD listed quite a few items, but whe I read it again the next day, two items stuck out at me. Kenomide and Malawase, two medications that had been taken from the first aid box in the shuttle pod. I looked at the PADD, Intrigued, and then took it to Phlox. Grace had left me the answer toboth questions: how to get my friend back, and how to save Grace."
Trip emerged from his quarters squinting at the bright lights. "If it's alright with you," he said to the security officer in front of his door, "I'd like to go to sickbay. Just for a minute." The young man nodded and escourted Trip, stopping, as always, at sick bay's doors.
Trip walked in. There was no sign of Phlox, which was a good thing. He had made up his mind, and he didn't want to be talked out of it. Trip approached the cabinet containing vital medications. Locked, he had no choice but to break the glass and rob the cabinet of its contents. Loading a hyposray as he walked, he approached Grace's bed. Pulling back the sheet surrounding her, Trip took one last look at Grace, bit his lip, and readied the medication, a massive dose with which her heart would stop beating, and Grace's request would be fulfilled. Finally she would be resting, finally, she would be at peace. It was the best he could ever hope to do for her.
Phlox hearing the noise rushed towards the biobed, "Commander, what are you doing?"
"She asked me to do this. She asked me, and I couldn't. I wasn't ready," he sobbed. Forcing back the tears, he pressed the hyposrapy to her neck, but removed ift if only temorarily. "Good night Gracie. I'll never forget you." He kissed her gentally on the forehead, and pressed the hyposray to her neck once more.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"I have to. I have to do this… for Gracie."
"No, wait…" the captain rushed up. He panted in fear, realief, and exhaustion. "Don't do it.. Not yet." It took Jonathan several minutes to catch his breath enough to speak, but when he did, it spoke volumes. "Grace gave us the answer. The medications missing from the first aid box in the shuttlecraft. She was trying to treat herself, but there wasn't enough in the hyposprays to medicate her. They didn't last long enough."
"Of course, Kenomide and Malawase. That may just work." Phlox went into the back room to mix the medications.
"Don't think that this changes anything between us." The anger in his voice was apparent enough. There was nothing Jonathan could say or do, not even save grace's life, to get his friendship back.
"Trip, please. I did what I had to do."
"What you had to do Jonathan, was beating the living daylights out of me, to give up information about my sister."
"About… what does your sister have to do with this?"
"Grace is my sister, and like any of my family, I'd do anything to protect her, unlike some captains I know, who would beat their best friend for some miscilaneous facts, which did nothing to improve a bad situation.Yeah, I admit, I've been keepin' things from you. That's still doesn't give you the right.You had not right to do what you do. NO RIGHT."
"You're absolutely correct was the only thing I could say. He was my friend, and friends don't let friends make bad decisions, and that was the worst one I've ever made. I don't even know why I did it. Was it that important to find out that she was tortured? We knew that already. The information he gave, albeit gross and disturbing, didn't help Grace in the end. In the end, Grace helped Grace. The medical miracle Phlox worked up did the trick, but it no more helped my friendship with trip than a bandaid would for a bleeding artery.
"trip was abosultely correct. There is no excuse for what I've done. I sold my soul to the devil, and for what. What does it matter now? Soon, this will be done. We'll be back onEarth, and all of this will be done.
"Computer. Stop recording." Archer looked at his dog, cuddled up on the cusion in the corner of the room. "Goodnight friend," he said, before laying down to sleep.
To Be Continued….