N E B U L O U S V E X Chapter 5 Revelation


The engine hummed. Gases swirled. Pink.

Archer shifted, as he read:

"Kelly, I- It's just that it's been so long."

"Chris, just stop it, ok?"

He knew it. He knew right then and there that he'd crossed the line. And he knew that
nothing, absolutely nothing, would ever be the same again.

Tell me about it...

"I just wish... I just wish... Oh, God. Is it always this hard?"

You don't know the half of it!

Kelly reached out for Chris and in about a second, there they were: holding on to each
other for dear life.

"You know how much I...I care about you..."

He knows alright. Believe you me. Dammit.

With that, Captain Archer dog-eared page 324 and tossed the book on the table. Wearily,
he stood and stretched, then he walked to the window and peered out upon the pearly pink puffs.

"Look at 'em," he scoffed. "Not a care in the world!"

Stifling a yawn, Archer checked the clock - 10 PM GMT.

Get it over with, he told himself. Just...get it over with.

Resolved, he retired from his ready room then took an indirect route to his quarters. When
he reached his door he paused, looking left and right.

No welcoming party? I figured they'd all be here with balloons and funny hats.

The promised visits apparently forgotten, he opened the door and entered the darkened room.
Immediately, however, he froze, his face losing what little color the last long week had left him.

"No," Jonathan said. "No. Not now. Not like this. It's not right."

(The shadowy specter. The object...)

"You shouldn't even be here," he continued. "And you sure as hell shouldn't be on my bed,
looking like that."

(The subject. Verbally predicating nothing, and thus speaking volumes.)

Archer paced.

(Volumes that he would not...)

"I think- I know we need to talk about this," he said. "I can't go on for much longer."

(...could not...)

"It's more than any man should have to endure," he said, choking back his emotions.

(...hear.)

"Don't you have anything to say??"

"The folly of human love," Foltrane Nixhedge once wrote. "None are spared it's blessing; few
are spared it's curse. When accepted, when returned, a million avine sing; when rejected, wholly
spurned, a million apine sting. The faithful hearing wings approach, so close to where he was, not
the beat of flapping's rush, no, just a beastly buzz."

In the darkness accented only by Sh'Lash's dim rosé, the captain buckled. Beneath the weight
of love - the kind that dare not speak its name - he fell to his knees.

"Don't just sit there," Jonathan cried. "Say something... Anything!"

"Woof," he said. "Woof-woof."

Agony, both plain and pure.

"Oh Porthos, why do you vex me so?"