Title: Future Tense
Part: 2
Author: M
Feedback: Yes please but go easy on me. :-p
Fandom: Enterprise crossed with Titan.
Pairing/characters: Riker/Troi. Blink and you'll miss it implied T/T'P
Rating: eh...if you've hit puberty, you're good.
Disclaimer: Trip (either Sim or the original) isn't mine. Will Riker isn't mine. Deanna Troi isn't mine. The USS Titan isn't mine. Kitara, Soleta, Ren, Drew Tucker, Sara Reed...they are. Sort of. And no, Soleta isn't Peter David's Soleta. :-p I got to using the name when I created this character years ago never thinking the other Soleta would get ressurrected. So...Trek Fen, it's not that Soleta. K:-p
Summary: Well...they say no one ever really dies in Star Trek...they're not wrong.

See Chapter 1 for author notes.

"Future Tense"
by M.
------
Commander Tucker, the newly-arrived one that is, was still in stasis and thus not much good for answers which left the Titan's command staff with not much more to go on than before they'd opened the tube. The few questions they'd had before had now managed to snowball into a plethora which would not be answered until the Commander was awake and communicative. But, with the man free of his confinement, in need of treatment, and purely in her domain, Taija wasn't about to let any of them linger. Invoking doctor's privilege, she kicked the lot of them out of sickbay allowing only Soleta to remain. Intent on examining the jury-rigged stasis pod for any further answers it could provide, Soleta had pointed out that any information she could glean from it would be of assistance to Ren and, thus, the doctor had to agree.

The other officers, however, had no such arguments and instead scattered to their duties. Deanna, concerned for the stunned Drew, whisked him away to her office for an impromptu counseling session while her husband was left in the worst position possible. Waiting while his officers worked to find answers. Since neither he, nor Kitara, were any good at waiting, the duo retreated to his Ready Room.

"Raktajino, right?" Will inquired, going to the replicator.

Kitara nodded once, taking a seat on the couch. "You're the experienced time traveler, Will," she began, comfortable in dropping the titles within the privacy of the ready room, "just what do you think is going on here? My history book tells me the man lying in sickbay shouldn't be there. Charles Tucker lived a full life, had a family, and passed beyond nearly two centuries ago. Yet..."

"He shows up in a modified torpedo tube, two steps away from Sto'vo'kor, in the 24th century but very much still in the land of the living?" Will passed her the steaming mug and retreated to his desk, his own mug of coffee in hand. "I wish the hell I knew. Sara clearly expects me to do something with the Commander but...I'll be damned if I have the faintest clue what it is. I'm hoping either Soleta finds something in the tube or Ren can revive him and he can tell me himself...otherwise, I'm absolutely lost."

Sighing, Kitara brought the mug of raktajino to her lips, taking a long swallow. "Perhaps," she suggested after a moment, "we should at least attempt to track down the last known assignment of Commander Reed. Starfleet might not be able to tell us where she is now..."

"But they might at least be able to tell us something of where she's been and that might lead us to some answers..." Will nodded. "Let's try it. Riker to Lieutenant Conrad."

"Conrad here, Sir." The young man replied obediently over the comm.

"Come in here for a minute."

Almost before he'd completed the order, the doors slid open to reveal the young man. "Yes, Captain?"

"I need to try and track down the whereabouts of a Starfleet Intelligence agent by the name of Commander Sara Reed. Highest priority, understand?" Will asked briskly, hiding his amusement at the young man's nervous manner. Competent though he was, Conrad was still unaccustomed to being in such close quarters with his commanding officers, hadn't quite worked the nerves out yet. "Estimated turn around time of the message?"

"At this distance, sir, it's going to be the better part of the day." Conrad looked regretful as he answered. "That includes, of course, the estimated time it would take them to the request and respond."

"Understood. Get on it. Dismissed." Will waited until the lieutenant had retreated from the ready room to grin at Kitara. "Were we ever that young?"

"I wasn't." His exec responded with a serenity that would've made Soleta greener with envy. "You, however..." She grinned. "I have it on good authority that you were indeed younger."

"Deanna's been telling tales again, hasn't she?" Will complained good-naturedly, eyes warming at the very thought of her.

Kitara smiled, as much as she ever did, and commented, "You look as my father does when he speaks of my mother." She sighed. "Perhaps, the next time you wish private time with your wife, we should not speak of it. Making audible comments seems to alert the universe to your plans in time for it to disrupt them."

"Deal." Will agreed. "I'm actually starting to believe that curse nonsense. Nothing like this ever happened to me before I took the assignment on the Enterprise."

Unable to resist, Kitara snorted then pointed out, "What about the transporter accident at Nervala IV? Having a transporter-created clone running around the galaxy is hardly normal." She grinned at the perplexed look on his face. "Now how exactly do you propose to explain that one, Captain?"

"Predestination." He declared after giving it some thought. "I was always meant to be the first officer of the Enterprise so the curse automatically came into effect the moment I was born." He laughed, seeing her skeptical expression. "I thought Klingons were a superstitious race."

"We are also very practical." She countered smartly. "Thus, we can recognize when we are being sold a line of Targ droppings. You do not believe a word of what you just said."

"No," Will admitted with a gleam of mischief in his eye. "But it was a good story."

Kitara rolled her eyes in aggravated amusement. "How Deanna puts up with you, I'll never know. A Klingon woman would have disemboweled you long ago." She couldn't resist jibing.

Her commanding officer chuckled, relaxing further. "My wife is a wonderfully tolerant woman from an exceptionally patient species." He grinned wryly. "And deserves better."

"A fact you'd do well to never forget." Kitara agreed swiftly, smiling. "Not for an instant."

"Never." Will cast an eye in the direction of an old-style photograph from their Terran wedding. Deanna radiant in her gown, smiling up at him. "Absolutely never."

"Rest assured that you are far smarter than you look, William Riker." The Klingon woman commended, nodding sagely, a twinkle in her dark eyes.

"Imagine my relief." He countered dryly. "I can now--"

"Ren to Captain Riker." The calm voice of the Chief Medical Officer very effectively cut off his reply and shattered the relaxed atmosphere all with four little words.

Snapping to attention, Will put down his coffee, his gaze meeting his XO's as he warily answered, "Yes Doctor?"

"You'd better get down here. I've found something you're going to want to see."

Both officers were on their feet before either of them realized it, starting toward the door. "We're on our way, Doctor." Will assured as Kitara cast a grimace down at her half-empty mug.

"Just once...I'd like to finish one of these," she said ruefully, backtracking to abandon the raktajino on the desk.

"I'll have Ren take it under advisement next time." Riker assured. "We can't deprive you of your coffee."

"It would not be advisable, sir."

Soleta and Ren were standing at Commander Tucker's bedside when Riker and Kitara returned to Sickbay. Both women were watching the readouts above the biobed, conversing quietly.

"Something to tell us, Doctor?" Will said briskly, interrupting them.

"A few somethings." The unflappable Trill agreed moving away from the biobed to the larger wall console. "A few very interesting somethings actually."

"Like?" Kitara prompted, watching the screen as the doctor assessed the records she would require.

"Our visiting Commander Tucker has had neural surgery recently." Ren answered, gesturing to a representation of the afflicted area. "Fatal surgery I might add. The work was exceptionally well done and the physician clearly was highly skilled and tried not to cause death...but that was the end result nonetheless." She turned back to the stunned command officers and continued, "By the look of it, I believe the surgery was performed by Dr. Phlox, the Chief Medical Officer of the time, using the equipment of the day. It also appears that very soon after death, emergency care seems to have been administered using more sophisticated equipment. I'd wager that was Commander Reed using an emergency medkit she brought with her. The neural stimulation would not have been possible with 22nd century equipment."

"In that vein, given my examination of the modifications to the torpedo tube, it is my belief that Commander Reed was behind that as well as the stasis equipment and other circuitry is the most modern we have available at this time." Soleta interjected smoothly, her ever-present PADD in hand. "In all likelihood, the work on the tube took the Commander several months working in secret to complete. There are signs of abrupt cessation and resumption of the work."

"She knew she was going to be doing this sometime before any of it actually occurred." Will mused, staring at the screen as an idea began to form in the back of his mind. "What exactly was the intent of the surgery?"

"Neural tissue was harvested. For what purpose remains unclear but it was removed...I have repaired the damage. That was easy enough to do with our current level of technology but it would have been beyond Dr. Phlox. Medical technology at that point was advanced but not nearly to the level we have achieved..." Ren paused to clear her throat. "Which brings me to my next point." She returned to the biobed and rested a hand on her patient's shoulder. "This is not Commander Charles Tucker. At least...not the Charles Tucker history records as being the Chief Engineer of the Enterprise NX-01."

She might have lobbed a photon grenade into the center of the room and gotten less of a reaction. Soleta, already aware of that knowledge, didn't so much as blink but the captain and first officer gaped at the Trill in shock as if she'd just pulled off a mask and revealed herself to be the Grand Nagus himself.

"If he's not Commander Tucker," Riker observed finally, still stunned, "he's doing a damned good impersonation of him." He waited for his CMO to elaborate and when she didn't, he asked the question she'd been waiting for. "All right, Doctor, if he isn't Commander Tucker...then just who is he exactly?"

"A clone." Soleta answered instead. "A clone grown from species known as Lyssarrian Desert Larvae more commonly referred to as Lyssarrian symbionts."

Before either the captain or first officer could question it, the resident Trill smiled and shook her head, "No relation. Lyssarrian symbionts are not sentient and are used primarily in research and treatment settings. They can gain sentience if cloned however..." She patted her patient's shoulder to emphasize her point. "Like the good Commander here."

"So, this man's a clone." Will looked down at the comatose man with a thoughtful frown. "Might explain why there's no record of him in the Enterprise's logs. The last thing Starfleet would want would be historical record of their heroic captain being the first one to break the eugenics laws."

"It certainly would do much to damage the captain's reputation among humans." Soleta agreed stoically, consulting her PADD.

Ren passed the diagnostic wand of her tricorder over Tucker's unconscious body one more time, checking the readings on his vitals. "Hmm...meaning Archer's reputation among Vulcans couldn't get worse?" She stole a teasing glance at the science officer's impassive features. "If I remember my captains correctly, he was the one involved in the destruction of the sanctuary at P'Jem right?"

"He was." The petite Vulcan agreed, unruffled. "However, it would be highly illogical to bear ill will toward a man for an incident which occurred a generation ago." She consulted the readings Ren was taking, loading them onto her PADD for further contemplation. "In any case, Captain Archer was later instrumental in the recovery of an archive of Surak's teachings confirming the very sentiments my family had been espousing for generations...there was much political turmoil in that time. The recovery of the Kir'Shara gave the High Council and Vulcan itself a much needed injection of stability. In essence, we...owe him one." She finished with a lift of her brow which was akin to a grin among Vulcans.

"Really?" Riker looked impressed, turning to watch her with interest. "I don't remember hearing about that."

"You would not." Soleta assured. "We do not talk of it."

"I remember it though." Ren put in, reaching for a hypo. "I was on Vulcan at the time, a part of a Trill delegation involved in negotiations," she looked amused as she shrugged. "You know how the Vulcans are, Will. They hate discussing their internal politics and problems with outworlders. Which, I'm afraid, we both are."

"To say hate is to mis-speak, Doctor." The resident Vulcan corrected benignly. "We neither hate nor love it. We simply do not discuss it."

Her words had her crewmates sharing a grin. Vulcans.

"My apologies Commander." Taija sketched a bow. "I stand corrected."

An alarm sounding on the panel above the biobed cut short Soleta's reply as everyone looked down in surprise to find their 'guest' stirring.

"I thought as much...he's beginning to wake up." Ren observed matter-of-factly, moving to bring the hypospray to Tucker's throat.

Before she could make contact and administer the sedative, the captain's hand caught hers and halted the motion. "No. Let him come around. We've got some questions and the only way we're going to get the answers we want...is through the Commander here. Besides," at this he smiled, "aren't you the least bit curious?" Pointing a finger at Soleta, he let his smile become a teasing grin. "Don't try to convince me you're not, Soleta, I know you better than that."

The Vulcan didn't attempt to argue. Instead, she inclined her head in acknowledgment then looked at Ren. "He is fit to regain consciousness."

"He is." The doctor agreed reluctantly. "But, this is going to be a shock for him. I was hoping to have some time to discuss it with Counselor Troi first, it's my understanding she has had experience in these matters."

"She has." Will affirmed, bringing a hand to his communicator. "Riker to Troi."

"Here." She responded over the comm a split second later.

"Commander Tucker's waking up."

"On my way."

With the news Commander Tucker was regaining consciousness, Deanna politely excused herself from her scheduled appointment and headed for sickbay. She had already taken the time to review all the pertinent information on the subject she could find, her own notes from a similar incident on the Enterprise among them. Her focus now was on trying to get a sense of the Commander. Hampered by the lack of data on the clone and his emotional state, she'd made do with the psychiatric evaluations of the original Commander Charles Tucker III. It gave her a basic background on the psychology of the man but she only hoped her empathic sense would be able to fill in the blanks. Even if genetic memory had played a factor, the clone would have had a different - albeit accelerated - upbringing than the one he remembered. It would create a certain disconnect from his originator. Which was, Deanna hoped, what her abilities would help her determine.

Finding his mind was relatively easy, given his close proximity to Will. Will was the steady grounding presence that existed as a constant in her mind. She would be aware of him, she thought, no matter where he went or what distance lay between them. There was no basis for this fact in science but Deanna knew it as surely as she knew the sun rose on Betazed every day. With a quick indrawn breath, she anchored her awareness in his sense then reached out and began the task of eliminating the others. The surging, fierce emotions which immediately chorused through her were easily identified as Kitara and put aside. The next to draw her attention was the perpetually confusing presence of the symbiont within Taija. She paused for a moment, picturing Ren's amusement at the confusion joined Trill caused in most telepathic races. The doctor had admitted long enjoying said reaction. In all of her hosts.

The memory of the gleeful look on the redhead's face made Deanna smile as she emerged from the turbolift, again beginning her mental exercise. Soleta's mind was the last to be identified, the conflicting layers of cool logical thought patterns superimposed over the fiery passionate nature were as unmistakably her as a fingerprint. Forever a fascinating contrast for her empathic friend.

With her shipmates carefully blocked from her awareness, Deanna was left with the slowly-awakening mind of the commander. Caught in the nebulous ground which lay between asleep and awake, he had yet to discover what had happened to him. The inevitable confusion that realization would bring had yet to cloud his emotions, leaving him untouched. In the stereotypical calm before the storm, Deanna took her time to get a proper sense of the man before turning her sense outward. Standing now at his bedside, she look at the waiting officers. "I think it will be somewhat overwhelming to wake up to so many people," She explained with a light smile. "I'd suggest minimizing the number of personnel he has contact with until he's been given enough time to adjust to his new surroundings."

Kitara and Soleta shared a knowing look then, together, they took a step backward. "I'll be on the bridge, making Lieutenant Conrad very, very nervous." The first officer said by way of her own explanation as she turned toward the doors. "Commander, care to come along and intimidate with me?"

"I cannot." Soleta responded regretfully. "There is a small matter of some research which I need to attend to. If you'll excuse me." At Riker's nod of approval, she inclined her head to the others before slipping out ahead of Kitara.

A muffled groan drew the remaining officers away from the others departure and they looked down to see Tucker's eyelashes fluttering. Ren and Troi moved almost as one to his side, each to their duty. The doctor kept a sharp eye on the commander's readings while the counselor leaned over. She rested a gentle hand on the Commander's shoulder as she spoke, "Commander Tucker? Can you hear me?"

Deanna's soft voice elicited a response, for which everyone breathed a sigh of relief, as the commander in question opened his eyes to stare blearily at her. Clearly not the face he was expecting, he frowned slightly in confusion and she smiled reassuringly. "It's all right, Commander, you're safe now."

"Where..." Reaching up slowly, he rubbed at his forehead as if surprised to be alive. Which, given Ren's earlier briefing and her own empathic sense, Deanna knew he was. Astonished really. "This isn't...where am I? What ship is this?"

"You're aboard a Starfleet vessel." Ren interjected, passing the tricorder's diagnostic wand over his head and watching the readings on the tricorder itself. The action didn't go unnoticed by her patient who gave her a confused look. Before Deanna could send a warning look in the doctor's direction, the Trill seemed to catch on as well and lowered it. "You're safe." She repeated, reiterating her shipmate's words.

"You're aboard the USS Titan, Commander," Will put in, speaking to him for the first time. "I'm Captain William Riker..." He smiled slightly. "Will."

More fully awake, Tucker didn't resist as the Doctor helped him sit up. "The Titan? There's no ships in the 'fleet by that name. Definitely not any that'd be out this far. Enterprise's the only Warp 5 capable ship Earth's got right now."

The officers surrounding him each had a moment wherein they struggled to suppress their amusement at the naivete of the comment. Now was relative and now...the Enterprise that they knew could handle Warp 5 without so much as a hesitation. Warp 5 on a faster, more accurate, warp scale no less.

"Well, Commander," Deanna began, by default the one who would speak on such matters, only to be cut off by their guest.

Trip, as the files had referred to him as, held up a hand and politely began, "Sorry to interrupt but you don't understand. I'm not Commander Tucker...not...like that. I'm..."

"A clone." Ren finished perfunctorily for him. Gaining another bewildered look from her patient, she smiled pertly then explained. "You'd be surprised what a microcellular scan will turn up these days." She patted his arm. "I'm Dr. Ren, by the way, I don't stand for titles though so Ren's fine. And, so, might I add, are you."

"What about the surgery?" Trip frowned, his confusion deepening. "Did Phlox do the surgery? Did it work?" Deanna felt a sudden surge of wild hope and excitement as he began to put things together, trying to understand what had happened. "Is he all right?" The other - the first - Commander Tucker. The conflicting emotions thinking of him generated left Deanna trying to hide a frown of her own. So much confusion and beneath the surface...

She sighed and rested her hands on the edge of the biobed. "Commander," she'd decided to address him by such an honorific for the simple fact that in his own thoughts and mind, he still regarded himself as Trip Tucker. The sense she'd gained of him had no confusion on that point. The confusion lay, she felt, within the fact he regarded the other as the same. Nothing was easy in this situation but she was determined to grant him as much security in his belief as she could. In a way, he wasn't wrong. "It is our understanding that the surgery was performed and was successful. By the information we have consulted, the other Commander Tucker recovered and went on to lead a full life."

"And I'm ok?" He worried. "The surgery didn't...Phlox said..." He hesitated, not wanting to actually say the words but, with a sudden surge of determination, managed to anyway, "Phlox said the surgery would kill me."

The three officers shared a look of dismay and here, Deanna turned to the doctor. Ren's word, she felt, would carry more weight than her own and the other woman clearly recognized that as well.

"Commander," The Trill paused, tucking a strand of her hair away from her face, inadvertently drawing his eye to the spots running down her temples, "you did die. The medical science of the day simply wasn't advanced enough to prevent that." Before he could ask the obvious question, she held up a hand to forestall it. "I said the medical science of the day did. Fortunately for you, there was someone aboard with access to far more advanced medical care. You were placed in stasis, unbeknownst to the Enterprise crew, from my understanding, and remained so until today. We recovered the pod you were being held in and I repaired the damage done to both your neural tissue and the inherent flaws which turned up in your DNA."

"My..." Despite clearly struggling with the implications of the doctor's wording, Deanna could feel Trip force his concentration toward something far more important. At least, far more important to him. "DNA? The..."

"Rapid aging?" Ren finished for him, nodding once. "Yes. That required a little resequencing of your genetic structure but..." She smiled slightly. "You'll age at a far more appropriate rate than you previously were."

"Thanks Doc but...no offense...What the hell do you mean by 'medical science of the day'?" Trip looked to Will, expecting the Captain to have the answer to that question.

Will smiled faintly. "Well, Commander, what she means is you are no longer in the 22nd Century." He watched astonishment dawn on the younger man's face as he added, "Welcome to the 24th Century, Commander Tucker."

TBC