A/N: To anyone still reading this story: thanks so much for your patience! I know I was updating at a steady clip before and then petered off … and the only excuse that I really have to offer you is that my job is a tremendously energy-draining thing at which I have no Internet connection or word processor at my disposal. So once again, thank you for your patience, and I hope you enjoy this chapter and the ones to come!

Chapter Thirteen:  Late-Night Confessions

            Travis arrived at the entrance to Trip and Hoshi's shared quarters at exactly 00:59. It seemed that punctuality was considered a virtue around here; possibly keeping people waiting had served the young Mayweather badly in the past.

            "Come on in," Trip said softly. "Keep your voice down."

            Hoshi slept on their bunk, the deep sleep of the utterly exhausted. Travis glanced her way and then his eyes, dark with suspicion, landed on Trip's face. 

            "Well, Commander," he said, his voice quiet and dull, "I'm here. What do you want of me?"

            Trip sat backwards on the chair that faced the desk so that his folded arms rested on the back of the seat. "I want to talk to you," he said. "I have some questions to ask you and some things to tell you that you may have some difficulty believing."

            Travis just looked at him, unmoving.

            The young helmsman was making this difficult. But it wouldn't have been easy to explain even had Travis immediately opened his mind to a universe of new and strange possibilities, since Trip himself had no idea what had happened. He had ascertained that he wasn't dreaming. He thought that time travel was possible. Maybe he was going to go back in time, or had been going to go back in time, or had already gone back in time, and an event had been changed in history so that the progressive evolution of the universe had changed. They used to make a lot of films about that kind of thing, in the olden days. Trip was an old film buff, though, and he couldn't think why he could remember the way things used to be and nobody else could but he couldn't remember what had happened, or would happen; so he'd been operating under the assumption that somehow he'd been transported into a parallel universe, one where people were themselves but not themselves, where values were inverted or at least, placed beneath ambition … where might was right and mercy was only weakness.

            But how could the transporter do such a thing? He'd come to the conclusion that it had something to do with the ionic energy of the storm surrounding the planet he'd beamed up from, leaving Malcolm behind, if only because the full effect of such a storm was not catalogued and because that was when the world had turned inside-out and upside-down. But for all he knew, this was some grand delusion, some dream that would go away when he triggered its ending somehow; he'd discover that the ruby shoes he wore had the power to take him back to Kansas after all and that what he'd been looking for had never been further than his own back yard in the first place.

             Trip sighed.

            "I know it's hard, Travis," he said, his voice soft but full of passionate earnestness. "I know I haven't been exactly nice to you in the past …"

            The expression of sheer incredulity that Travis was fighting told Trip that he was probably barking up the wrong tree here, but he had to keep going; the most oppressed people, the ones that fit in the least here, were going to be his easiest and most likely allies against the established order and the only way he was going to get home.

            "And I know you've been through a lot, since being assigned to the Enterprise," Trip said. He fell silent, looking at the young man standing before him, waiting for some sign that Travis was willing to at least hear him out … that there was some hope buried there, some of the optimistic energy that so characterized his friend

            Travis blinked at him. "Assigned," he repeated, his voice very low. "I suppose that's what the euphemism must be."

            Trip hesitated. But even as he did so, he had to admit to himself that he was partly relieved; the bitterness that roughened the younger man's voice was a sign that his spirit had not yet given up. It might have been hiding, in remission even, but it was still there, even if only a shadow of its former glory. "I guess I don't know what really happened," he said. "How did you get assigned to the Enterprise?"
            Travis looked at him skeptically, but a shadow of doubt was in his eyes. "As if you really don't know," he said.

            "No, I don't," Trip said.

            "He's really kept it that much of a secret?" Travis said. "Even to you?"

            Trip guessed that the "he" in this case meant Captain Archer and nodded.

            "I thought … we all thought he told you things," Travis said. "That you were the closest thing he had to a … to a friend."

            Trip blinked, thinking of the contempt, cold sarcasm and barely-restrained anger with which this Enterprise's Captain Archer had interacted with him. "Hardly," he said. "He hasn't told me hardly anything about you."

            Travis rubbed his hands together nervously, glancing in Hoshi's direction where she still slept on the bed that Trip normally would have shared. Then he swallowed and said in a terribly small voice, "Well, I guess it can't hurt to tell you. I mean, I thought you knew anyway. I thought … I thought he'd brag about it. He just seems the type."

            Trip wondered with a sinking heart what Travis thought Jonathan Archer would be bragging about … and although he knew that he would probably find out shortly, he wasn't sure he wanted to know. He wasn't sure how much of what was true of these people that would hold true in his own universe; he didn't know how much of himself was in the other Trip, how much of Captain Archer was in this Captain Archer. But he said: "I know you won't believe me when I say this, Travis, but I want to help you … and I think I need to know, if I'm going to."

            Travis gave him a measuring look. There was fear in his face, mostly, but a tiny spark of something else. Trip sensed that the boy – for he seemed suddenly like a child, being offered truce by an ordinarily cruel older brother – wanted to believe him, in the depths of his soul, but was terrified of what would happen if he decided to put his trust in such an unlikely place should Trip play him false.

            Trip wished he knew how to reassure him.

            "Help me," Travis said. "You want to help me?"

            "You," Trip said, nodding. "You, and Hoshi, and Phlox, and everyone that I can."

            Travis stared at him, warring with himself. "All right," he said finally. "I'll tell you the story. But I don't think it will do either of us much good."

            This was at best a stay of decision. But it gave Trip hope that there was a chance that he still might be able to reach this incarnation of Travis Mayweather, and he nodded. "I'm listening," he said.

            "It was before the Enterprise was ready to go," Travis said. "I don't know how he found out about me. I think it was partially my father's fault. He thought it would do some good, I guess, find me a career where my talents as a helmsman could really take me far." He chuckled bitterly. "Well, took me far all right. I'll probably never see him again, him or any of them. I was approached by a representative of the Imperial Fleet and told that I was expected to join the crew of the NX-01 before she left Earth when the Horizon was at a supply station on the outer edges of the solar system." He shook his head. "Well, Commander, I don't much care for being career-oriented," he said. But he didn't go on to say that he didn't much care for the Imperial Fleet. Trip didn't blame him; Travis still didn't know on what footing he was with Trip, and anyway it probably wasn't safe to say things like that out loud, even in private.

            "So you refused?" Trip asked.

            Travis nodded simply. "I told him that I was happy where I was, thanks just the same. The representative suggested that a meeting with my prospective commanding officer would change my mind. I said I didn't think so, and he called some guys in and they roughed me up a little and put me in irons. So they took me to see Archer."

            "So what happened?" Trip asked, resting his chin on his folded arms and tilting the chair towards Travis a little.

            Travis sat down backwards on the chair to the other desk – Hoshi's desk – and shook his head. "I don't really remember much, to tell you the truth. I think they knocked me out. Probably gave me a concussion, I've had plenty of those over the years," he said.

            Some things don't change, Trip thought wryly, and nodded. "So you were basically pressed into service," he said.

            "Basically," Travis answered, and snorted, a little louder than he meant to. Hoshi shifted in her sleep and he glanced nervously in her direction, not continuing for almost a minute. Then he said, "basically, Captain Archer had me taken forcefully from my ship and has my family and the Horizon hostage against my service. If I don't do expressly what I'm told, he'll take them out. One by one."

            Trip could think of nothing to say for a long moment. Finally, he said, "I'm sorry, Travis."

            Travis snorted derisively and shook his head. "Sorry?" he scoffed. "What do you know about 'sorry'? What do any of you Fleet types know about 'sorry'?"

            "It doesn't have to be this way," Trip said.

            Travis gave him a jaded look. "Sorry, Commander," he said, his words an embittered sneer. "But as long as men like Captain Archer and …" He swallowed, shuddered, but still managed to continue: "Admiral Forrest … head the Imperial Fleet, it does have to be this way."

            "But not here. Not on the Enterprise," Trip said. "We can fix it." He leaned towards the man who looked so like his young friend, gazing earnestly into his young face. He forgot to regulate his volume, and heard Hoshi sigh softly in her sleep as she shifted on the bunk.

            Travis looked shaken. "Is that what you called me in here for?" he asked, his voice very soft and full of broken hopes. "I have to admit I thought better of you, Commander Tucker."

            Trip was confused. "Huh?"

            "You had me going for a little while there," Travis said, "listening to my story. Pretending to feel sorry for me, even. What was next, Commander? Plans to assassinate Captain Archer and take the command of the Enterprise yourself, with me as your helmsman and second in command?"

            Trip stared at him. "You think I'm trying to set you up?"

            "Give me a break," Travis said, looking away. "I'm not completely stupid, you know. I know how the game is played. You can take your traps and your empty offers …" He did not finish the sentence, perhaps out of concern for his personal safety or perhaps not. Instead, he stood, clearly awaiting permission from his superior officer to leave.

            Trip did not give it. "I'm not playing games with you, Travis," he said. "And I've got a story of my own to tell, if you'll listen. You probably won't believe it. I wouldn't, if I were you. But I can tell that the only chance I have of getting you to trust me is to tell you the truth."

            Travis sighed and looked towards the ceiling. He looked tired and miserable. But he did sit down again, and spread his hands before him in a symbol of resignation. "I'm listening," he said.