Title: The Impossible Dream Author: Chocolatequeen Rating: PG Archiving: OK at Archer's and Endeavors, anywhere else please ask. Disclaimer: I own neither Enterprise nor Man of La Mancha, and I think the title of this chapter is a line of poetry that I don't own. Summary: After watching a recording of his high school play, Jon finds himself lost in another world. A/N: Like I said, I was listening to Scott sing and the plot bunnies just grabbed a hold of me. In some ways it's very silly, but the more I think about it the more it isn't.

Prologue: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Jonathan Archer sighed as he kicked his shoes off. Being captain of a starship certainly had its rewards, but some days they were few and far between. Today had been one of those days. Actually, there hadn't been very many rewarding moments since Enterprise had entered the Delphic Expanse six weeks ago and he was wearing thin.

"Hey Porthos," he said tiredly when the beagle came over to greet him. "Give me a moment to get changed and I'll feed you, okay?"

He opened his closet to pull out a t-shirt, but when he grabbed the shirt from the stack he had folded on the shelf, his fingers brushed against something hard. "What's this?" he muttered, retrieving the small metal box. He stared at it uncomprehendingly for a moment before he remembered what it was. "It's all the home movies dad took of my high school plays. Maybe I'll watch some tonight, that might cheer me up," he mused while he got changed.

Five minutes later Porthos had been fed and Jon was holding the box again, trying to decide which one to watch first. "Hm. Camelot? Not one of my finer performances," he grimaced, setting it aside. "What about Seven Brides for Seven Brothers? Well, I'd rather not have my dreams filled with "them Sabine women," so not that one. Wait, what's this one" He pulled out a card and gently blew off the dust that was obscuring the title. He stared at it a minute while deciding and then finally smiled. "Yes, I think I can sympathize with Don Quixote right now. There have certainly been times in the last six months when I've wished I could escape into a fantasy world of chivalry and gallantry."

Slipping the card in to play, he settled down on his bed and immersed himself once more in the adventures of the Man of La Mancha. By the end of the first song, he was smiling and singing along, his cares swept away by memories of happier days and the simple nobility borne by the title character.

When Cervantes began artfully weaving together the tales of how Don Quixote saw the world and how it really was, he wondered who of his crew would have been picked for various roles. "Trip would be Sancho of course, and I suppose Phlox would be the priest. Who do you think Malcolm would be, Porthos?" he asked the dog who simply wagged his tail in response. "Maybe Dr. Carasca. Yes, he'd be the one trying to force me to regain my sanity."

He watched, engrossed in the story, when the novel lord explained his quest to his lady love. "To fight for the right without question or pause, to be willing to march into Hell for a heavenly cause!' That's why we're out here. The Expanse may not be Hell but it's as close I want to get."

And when the story concluded with Dulcinea's reassurance that Don Quixote would never die as long as his ideals lived on, Jon found himself strangely heartened by her words. "I guess there's more of the crazy old knight in me than I thought, eh boy?" he commented as he rose to select another play from the box.

But when he stood up, he realized too late that Porthos had dragged his favorite chew toy next to the bed and abandoned it there. His last thought as he went down was that he really needed to learn to watch where he was going, and then everything went black.