Chapter Seven

Resolution

Jonathan Archer sat on the edge of his bed; giving Porthos a 'good night' rub behind his long ears, and then reached for the light switch when the door annunciator sounded instead. Restraining a foul opinion of a crewman who would ring his Captain's bell at three minutes after one in the morning, he got up, pulled on his robe, and opened the door.

He was glad that he had remembered the robe when the late night visitors turned out to be Malcolm Reed and an out-of-uniform Patricia McCabe. "Malcolm," he began tiredly, leaning against the door frame, "it's late. You'd better be here to tell me you've solved the case!"

"Sir, we've solved the case." Reed replied accommodatingly.

Archer found he was no longer tired.

x

A half hour later, he also could think of nothing to say. Of all the answers he'd expected, this had not been among them. But he had to admit it was the only one that fit all of the facts. "This is horrible."

"Yes, sir."

He looked at McCabe, seated in the chair beside Malcolm. In her pale yellow dress she seemed so different. "I'm sorry. I wish I could know what to say. Did you …"

"Have any warning?" He nodded. "Sadly enough, I did. And I should have seen it; but this affair just shocked me so badly… In hindsight I could see it, and I'm truly sorry I couldn't see it ahead of time. On this voyage, he seemed so relaxed, so at ease, actually far more than usual. He was always personable, always easy and outgoing. This time, he was even more so, actually devoid of the usual minor stresses that I've seen in him. That should have tipped me off, but I didn't see it. I was absorbed in my own concerns, my own preparations for serving either here or aboard the Sevigny. And since arriving here, I've been … distracted."

Archer realized this admission was hard for her, considering the combinations of her training and knowledge of the man, but after the fact… He kept from saying anything. To ask if she could have prevented it would have been cruel. "I understand he made the decision, and likely changed out of his Clerical garb to preserve them, but …"

"Why?" He nodded. "In the past hour I think I've asked myself that a hundred times. And hard as it is to admit, there are times that we just have to accept the worst possible answer in situations like this. And that is that sometimes we just never know."

"Never?"

She shrugged. "We can extend the investigation back to Earth, interview friends and loved ones, get hold of his personal files and journal; we may learn something from all that. But I have the feeling, which I can't prove other than as a feeling, that this time we are not going to find easy answers."

For a long moment there was quiet as the three, deep in their own private thoughts, tried to come to terms with the past hour. "All right," Archer said finally, "Malcolm, make your report. In the morning I want to be able to conclude this."

"Yes, sir."

xxx

A very unrested Captain Archer entered the Mess Hall about six hours later. His uniform was the only thing about him that seemed refreshed. Across the room, at a pair of tables pushed together with space for eight, Reed and McCabe, now in their respective 'uniforms', sat with Trip Tucker, Travis Mayweather, Hoshi Sato and Liz Cutler. He approached the table, noticing that none of those present seemed any more interested in 'chatting' as he did. They were gathered for companionship, for mutual comforting, not for conversation. He sat down, exchanging quiet greetings.

It was obvious from the expressions on the faces of everyone at the table that the news had been spread. "Did anyone get much sleep last night?" If anyone among the 'investigating team' had, he or she was not going to be so gauche as to admit it.

"It's absolutely horrible." Liz Cutler summed up the feelings of all at the table. "We're just all trying to take it in. I think a lot of the evidence was leading this way, we just wouldn't see it."

"No." Reed confirmed. "We started with the assumption he was murdered; the door use became someone going in and coming out, and we kept researching from that angle."

"The DNA evidence clearly showed only one set of prints on the knife since it was last cleaned." Cutler concluded. "We just kept digging beyond the point where we should have reasonably stopped."

"You've confirmed everything?" Archer asked, feeling he did not even have to say it. If Reed had not been certain, the man would not have said anything at all.

"Yes, sir. Everything from the eyewitness testimony to the angle of the blade. It all fits."

"Yes." He turned to McCabe. "Again, I'd like to offer our condolences. And, frankly, our apologies."

"Thank you, Captain."

x

"Normally…" He began, feeling a bit uncomfortable, but pushed the discomfort aside. "Normally I'd wait for a more appropriate moment for this, but we're due to rendezvous with the Sevigny in a little more than a day. Situations have changed, I have to contact Starfleet and make particular arrangements, and there simply isn't going to be an appropriate moment." Even with that explanation, something felt deeply wrong about saying it now. But he was right; there would not be an 'appropriate moment'.

"So, if you are willing, I'd like to offer you a berth aboard Enterprise."

She looked at him with mild apprehension. "Captain, I would." She tried not to glance at Reed. "But I've come to understand there are some … reservations. I could not stay unless the decision is unanimous." Around the table, all nodded. All but one person.

All eyes went to that person, and Patricia McCabe realized she was holding her breath. Reed looked very uncomfortable. "Well, Malcolm?" Archer prompted.

Reed looked into McCabe's eyes, and slowly a smile came to his lips. "It's unanimous."

McCabe turned to Archer, trying to keep the vast relief she felt out of her voice. "Then I accept."

x

Over the pleased welcomes from all assembled, another crewmember arrived and took the last remaining seat between Trip and Hoshi. "Galyas!" Tia exclaimed. "Sorry to late I be." Rather than the uniform she never wore except when on 'Away' missions, she wore a long, flowing garment of floral colors and designs.

Liz Cutler spoke to McCabe: "I'd like to introduce one of my associates from Life Sciences. Tia Anlor, Reverend Patricia McCabe."

"I'm happy to meet you." McCabe said, reaching out to shake her hand.

"Forward looked have I you meet to." Tia responded in her characteristic fractured syntax. Patricia blinked, not being sure she'd heard the golden complexioned woman properly. She decided she hadn't, that she was just more tired than she'd thought.

"Reverend McCabe has just accepted posting as our new Chaplain." She turned to McCabe. "You said earlier that there is a Service this morning?"

"Yes, in memory of Father Pineda."

"Of your world am I nyasi. Permissible it be that I attend may is?" Liz tried to suppress a smile as McCabe struggled briefly to descramble the sentences. The woman still wasn't quite sure she had heard her correctly, or if she was indeed far more shaken by the past day than she'd thought.

"Yes. Yes, of course."

"Stick with Jim and I." Liz told Tia. "We'll guide you through it; tell you when to do what."

"Ealyiis. I to dresna like would."

McCabe looked at her even more curiously, certain she was missing something.

x

"With all due respect to the dead'," Reed said, "this entire incident is something my father used to call, in the Navy, a 'commfu'.

"What's that?" McCabe asked. She was very familiar, of course, with his family, but knew little of Naval terms.

"A complete, monumental fu –" he noticed the number of women in the small group and bit the word off. "-up."

Tia looked at him curiously. "What a 'fu-up' is?"

McCabe tried to restrain a smile as Reed looked uncomfortably at the Auran, having no idea how to answer.

"I'll explain later." Trip, seated next to her, promised. She looked at him, then turned away, disgusted.

Hoshi, on her other side, whispered very softly to give the young woman some privacy as the main conversation continued. "Suur kaar sei?" What wrong is? She whispered in Auran.

" All times of he will later explain says? " Tia whispered in her native language in turn. " Waiting I am still for 'later' ."

"Qi saf sei? Why that is? "

She shrugged. " Times we together get; distracted some of those by other things we become. " Hoshi had no doubts about the nature of their 'distractions'.

"Ka; saf ua buld tuvil pureq ua zin sei. Well; that as much your fault as his is. "

Tia smiled. "Dresnaquli. I know. " But then her eyes lightened in realization and she turned to the others, breaking into the on-going conversation, switching back to English. "Kaslier Reed, is 'fu-up' same you say as when of an 'up cock' you speak?" Reed looked about the group uncomfortably; but no one really seemed to want to help him. Archer rubbed his lips, struggling to keep from showing an incipient smile.

"A – a 'cock up'?" He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I guess so." He could especially not meet McCabe's eyes, something she was very much aware of and was enjoying immensely.

"Tia?" Hoshi spoke up aloud this time to save her human friend. "Do you remember our conversations about 'appropriate discretion'?"

"Daai." She answered with a smile. But the she stopped, realizing the connection. "Something kaar, um, 'wrong' I said?"

"Oh, yeah!" Liz agreed emphatically, though still unable to repress a grin. Tia looked about the small group; then down, unable to meet any of their eyes.

"Oh." She said in a tiny voice.

x

McCabe, not wanting to be the cause of the young woman's distress, turned to Archer; making sure her voice carried through the table. "Captain, with your permission, I would like to set the time of the first Service for 11:00 this morning."

"No problem. Is there anything you need?" She looked about the room.

"May I set up a table over there?" She pointed to the middle of the wall directly opposite the doors. "It won't be a proper Altar; I'll have to see about arrangements for that, though I do have a 'traveling stone' which will go under the altar cloth. I have all my supplies, including plenty of wine and wafers. In fact, come to it I have two sets of everything." She said, for a moment distant, her tone regretful, but then she forcibly turned her attention away from that to the practical arrangements, her voice regaining its strength. "There should be chairs arranged in rows on either side of a central aisle, facing front. I'll need something that can be used as a Lectern for the Bible Readings. It should be set up on the left side of an isolated area about seven to ten feet deep facing the room, and I'll need a single chair against that side wall between the Lectern and the corner. Also, if at all possible, is there a room I can use as a 'Sacristy'; a room where I can dress for the Service?"

"No problem. You can use my Mess." He said, indicating the door to the side, near the main doors.

"Thank you. Now, as to participants…"

xxx

Three hours later, Patricia McCabe stood in the small Captain's Mess adjacent to the main room, just finishing buttoning the last of thirty fastenings on the lightweight black Cassock, which covered her from neck to ankle, the lowermost garment of her liturgical vestments. She let the garment fall to its full length. Folded on the table before her were the several other vestments she would put on in their turn. She was just about to reach for the next one when she stopped, again struck by the fact that, though she now served this ship, it might well not have been hers. It should most reasonably have been George Pineda's, and she felt as if she had 'inherited' it by default, but it did not seem like hers.

She was about to go into the outer room, which was even now being converted by her directions into a place wherein to celebrate the first Mass of the Lenten Season. But despite the welcome she had been given, and the certification that her posting was official, it still seemed just a 'borrowed' posting. It might well have been Pineda's; in which case she would now be preparing to leave on the Sevigny tomorrow morning, but by God's will she was on Enterprise. And despite her prayers, she still had to wonder if she would really belong.

She tried to cast off these doubts as the work of 'Old Nick', sent to undermine her, but she could not easily do so. Doubling the intensity of her vesting prayers, she reached for the Amice spread upon the table. But before she touched it, there was a short signal from the door on her right. "Who's there?" She called, surprised by the interruption. She remembered specifically mentioning to the Captain that once she was in the improvised Sacristy she was not to be disturbed. The door slid open, revealing Malcolm Reed on the other side. She could see, in the first second before he schooled his eyes, a restrained apprehension.

"May I come in?" He asked, uncertainly. She smiled.

"Of course." She said, as casually as if she were not breaking her own most obdurate rule. He stepped in, the door closing behind him. His eyes quickly passed over the various white and purple vestments spread across the table in their turns to her as she stood before him in the long garment of unrelieved black. "How are you?" She asked in her most friendly/casual manner.

"I'm fine." He answered, looking at her like he'd never really seen her before. She realized just then that he never had, at least not like this. He looked as uncomfortable as ever around her. "I just – I just wanted to say … good luck."

"Thank you. And, thank you for voting for me."

"Don't mention it." He looked like he wanted to say more, but after a few seconds he did not, and she reached for the Amice spread out on the table. The large square cotton cloth was attached to two very long ties on two corners, and this side she folded once over, then back, then picked it up and draped it over her head to cover her long chestnut hair, the long rectangle covering her completely from forehead back. The two ties crossed her chest, then behind her back to tie waist high in front. She looked at him; he was still looking at her as if this were a new sight – as indeed for him it was.

He had just about gotten used to her 'working attire', or so he told himself forcefully. But looking at her with her head covered in white over a long black cassock, only her face visible, he had to finally admit he was not used to it at all.

"Did you want to say something?" She asked, breaking his introspective thoughts.

"Yes. Er, the Captain wanted you to know he's called 'All Stop' and 'Shift Down'."

"Thank you." She reached for her Alb, a long white garment which she put on over the Cassock, buttoning it at her neck. Now she was covered in white from hair to ankles, and still he was silent. Finishing the appropriate vesting prayer, she looked up at him, having waited as long as she could for him to finish. "What does that mean?" She asked, breaking his stare.

"You look like an Ang-." He breathed; then stopped his careless thought with sharp effort, forcing himself back on track. "Oh. That means we've stopped moving. Our thrusters are keeping us at computer controlled 'Station', all motion stopped. It also means that, with the exception of absolutely essential systems, the crew is standing down; off duty. It should be … quite a crowd."

x

McCabe bit her lip, trying not to show her nervousness. She had not missed his almost praise, but in that moment it was nearly lost behind his concluding words. 'Quite a crowd'. But was she serving for Pineda instead of …? She was dedicating this Service in his memory, but should it have been…?

"Thank you." She reached for the Cincture, a white cotton rope about seven feet long, which was halved, crossed through and then bound about her waist in a complex arrangement that left only a foot of each end hanging at her left hip. When she finished her prayer, he was still staring at her. She restrained herself from pointing it out.

"Is there … anything you need?" He asked, seemingly to force himself to say something.

'You mean other than to know where we stand?' She thought, trying not to let the question show on her face, hard though it was. 'You mean if I'm your acknowledged ex-fiancé or if we are to pretend to the entire crew that there was never anything between us?' She refrained from asking this either. She never ever wanted to know the answer.

"Not really. Your Ensign Anderson tells me she has the music we'll need in the computer. Commander Tucker is doing the Old Testament, Captain Archer the Psalm, you're doing the Epistle – thank you."

"Don't mention it."

"I don't have a Server but I've managed. We learn to adjust." For a moment her mind flashed on the vision of Reed in black Cassock and white half-length Cotta; though more likely it would have to be one of her spare Albs because she did not have a Cotta in her supplies.

Malcolm did not know the reason for her sudden grin, and wasn't sure he wanted to know.

x

She reached for the large purple Chasuble, draping it over her head where it hung low before and behind her, covering her almost to her knees. The chasuble was purple, suitable to the first Sunday of Lent. At chest height it was embroidered with a golden crown within which, at an angle, was a red cross. That was the only ornamentation on it except for the orphreys, or upright and upward reaching bands of deeper purple, which went from neck to hem and seemed to reach upward like the two arms of a 'Y' from the cross and crown to her shoulders. The same ornamentation was duplicated in back.

She took the Stole, a long, folded purple band about seven feet long, kissed the folded middle and draped it over her shoulders to hang down before her almost to the hem of the Chasuble. It was embroidered at middle behind her neck, and then about a foot down either side, with smaller crosses and crowns.

Last, she pulled back the white amice from her head, letting it gather behind her neck, over the stole like a faux hood, and pulled free her long hair.

"Everything look all right?" She asked Malcolm. His mouth was open, but only his expression gave any answer.

He shook himself out of his paralysis. "Yes. Fine." She stepped up to him. "Nervous?" He asked. She shook her head.

"I've had four 'Long Postings' and scores of First Services. An advantage to wearing so many 'layers' is that you can't see I'm shaking so hard my toenails are about to vibrate off."

He laughed, the first real laugh she'd heard from him in years, and suddenly his arms were around her and he was hugging her.

For many moments he held her close, almost tightly until, suddenly, he remembered and pulled back, his self-consciousness making him draw away, but then reach out, guiltily brushing out the quasi-wrinkles in her purple Chasuble.

Patricia McCabe did not begrudge him this pulling back, because for those ten seconds she had been in the arms of the real Malki Reed. She knew now that he was in there, and that she would see him again.

She also realized her apprehensions were gone. In those ten seconds, she knew she was finally home.