Disclaimer: Refer to Chapter 1

A/N: Well, here it finally is! Thesis is handed in, final talk done, now just have to wait for results and do corrections. Thanks for being so patient, and for reviewing my other short stories that have managed to write themselves in the last couple of months. Thanks also to G. Eliot for checking for season 3 consistency and non-Americanisms, and finally, thanks to Sailor Coruscant, my beta.

A/N 2: Thanks also to everyone who pointed out my slight slippage into British/Australian swearing, my thought was that Trip would probably have picked 'bloody' up of Mal, I know that I've picked up word usage of my closest friends.

Chapter 4

Trip sank down against the wall in his cabin, knees pulled up to his chest with his arms encircling them. He sat staring blankly at the opposite wall, while his mind tried to process the information.

"What the hell is he doing here?" he finally murmured, leaning his head back against the wall.

"Archer to Tucker."

Trip jumped and looked around in confusion. The voice came again, and Trip's foggy mind finally connected that it was the wall comm. It took him two attempts to lever himself off the floor, and he walked with an uneven gait to the comm., as his foot was asleep.

He activated the comm. "Tucker here," he croakily replied, rubbing a hand over his face.

"Commander, it's been forty-five minutes. How much longer are you going to be?"

Trip could hear the slight edge in the Captain's voice that was usually brought on by frustration. He blinked and tried to focus his mind. Forty-five minutes. He'd only been sitting down for a couple of minutes...or so he'd thought.

"Sorry, Captain. I must have dozed off," he lied, "I'll be fifteen minutes. Tucker out."

He limped into the bathroom and stopped in front of the mirror, staring at the stranger who stared back. He slowly put his hand on the mirror, spreading his fingers, shattering the image of the stranger's face into shards.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

'Come on, Trip, hurry up,' Jon thought for the fifteenth time. He didn't think that this could be any more awkward. But he also wasn't sure whether adding Trip to the mix would help. Particularly not after the look of shock and utter surprise on Trip's face when he saw his father. Like he hadn't expected him to come. And Jon definitely hadn't expected Trip to call Charles the second 'father'. Dad, yeah. But father sounded so distant, not what Trip had portrayed his family as being.

Jon had asked whether Trip's mother was alright and was a little unnerved to find none of Trip's speech patterns in the reply. A clean accent answered him, definitely not Southern, the words properly enunciated, and, unlike Trip, no embellishments. He answered the question asked, no correspondence entered into: Mrs. Tucker was feeling unwell, thankyou for your concern. Leaving Admiral Forrest and he standing there silently, both frantically looking for something - anything - to say, but both unsure as their expectations had been turned upside down.

'At least we're not the only awkward ones,' Jon thought, slightly pleased that their misery had company. Malcolm and his parents hadn't moved from their stiff postures in one corner of the room; the silence infrequently broken by military precision questions and answers.

The only two who looked like they were having a good time were Mike and Travis; Jon hadn't seen Travis so animated in a long time.

T'Pol had put in a brief appearance, excusing herself from the tour soon after to check some results she had gathered over the past few months. Jon, as much as he hated to admit it, felt relieved that T'Pol wouldn't be there. On first impression she usually managed to put people off. And second and third impression. Hell, for the first couple of months. At least that was one unknown out of the equation.

The other unknown chose that moment to walk in, looking a lot cleaner, if not a lot healthier. He immediately went to get a coffee, taking a large gulp, before walking towards them.

"Captain, Admiral." Trip nodded, before turning to his father. "Father, how are you?" His accent had thickened noticeably.

"I'm fine, Charles." Trip's jaw muscles clenched at the use of his given name, which rolled very naturally off Charles the Second's tongue.

"Well," Forrest said. "Why don't we let everyone have a chance to catch up, Jon?" He walked purposefully over to Travis. "Ensign Mayweather."

"Sir?" Travis queried.

"Why don't you take me on the unofficial tour?"

Travis smiled and responded, "Yes, Sir!" as they walked out the door. Jon thought he saw a slight hint of mischief in Travis' eyes.

Everybody gradually drifted out of the room, leaving Trip and his father in their own Mexican stand off. Silence reigned for several minutes.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Trip finally exploded.

"I'm your father, Charles. I have a right to be here."

Trip paced around the room, before turning incredulously back. "You've never taken advantage of that right before. Why now? You didn't come to my graduation, not in school or Starfleet. None of the press functions for Enterprise. Nothing. Are you feeling guilty? Is that it? Your daughter's dead so you're finally going to notice your kids?" The words tumbled out of Trip's mouth, shards of glass shattering on the floor. "I don't even know why you bothered going to Lizzie's memorial service. You never went to anything for her in life, why should you now that she's dead?"

A slap rang around the room. Trip raised a hand to his reddening face, noticing his father's was white with anger. Tears sprang to Trip's eyes, as both stared in shock at the other. Trip finally looked away, cleared his throat and said huskily, "I'm sorry. I...I shouldn't have said that."

He took a shuddering breath, trying to will away the sobs that threatened to engulf him. He'd never meant to say that, to intentionally hurt his father like that. There were some things that you never say, no matter how angry you were. He turned away to look out the viewport, staring blankly at the stars, waiting until the threatening sobs receded.

"There's billions of stars out there, thousands of planets. So many different races. So many different cultures. And it seems like most of the ones we meet are gunning for us, or holding us back. But then, people do desperate things in desperate times, no matter who they are," Trip reflected. "And the people left behind have to figure out some way to move on." He hung his head.

"Was Elizabeth happy?"

A sad smile settled onto Trip's face. "Yeah. She was. She loved her job, she loved the freedom she had in not begin married. So many people find it hard being happy by themselves, being single; she knew that if she couldn't be happy by herself she wouldn't be happy with someone else. In her last couple of letters, she'd mentioned that she thought she might have met someone. The 'tall, dark and handsome' that she'd always wanted. I don't know whether they got together before..." He paused and finished quietly, "Before she was killed."

"Were you happy?" He looked at Trip's reflection. "Before she was killed?"

Trip stayed silent for a few moments, thinking. "Yeah, I guess so. I was doing what I loved. Exploring, fixing things, looking after my engines." A slightly sarcastic note entered his voice. "Getting pregnant..."

Trip looked up into the eyes of his father's reflection, challenging them.

"I'd hoped that was just a rumour."

"You'd hoped that your son wasn't stupid enough to get himself knocked up, you mean," Trip said, defensiveness creeping again into this tone. "Well, I'll tell you what, when you meet a Xyrillian, don't stick your hands in a box full of pebbles when they tell you it's just a game."

Trip was surprised at the bitterness he felt. He hadn't felt it then, but he realised now that he felt like she'd taken advantage of him. Everybody at the time had been looking at the ridiculous and funny aspects of it; he'd never taken the time to really consider what the circumstances exactly were. She had taken advantage of him. He pushed it to the back of his mind. He didn't have the time or inclination to deal with this at the moment.

"Charles," his father started, "she..."

Trip cut him off. "Just leave it okay? I don't want to talk about it."

His father's gaze shifted to the barely touched cup of coffee on the table. "You've lost weight," he said bluntly. "You look like crap, Charles. Do you need to go back to the clinic? I can get you in without any reporters knowing."

Trip laughed bitterly. "That's all you think about isn't it? How it would make you look, having a son who has something wrong with him? I'm fine. I made sure it was on my medical record when I went into Starfleet. It just means they keep a close eye on me: Phlox watches me and makes sure I'm fine. So don't worry, I'm not going to embarrass you anytime soon."

"I don't care about you embarrassing me. I don't want you to have to go through that sort of media scrutiny. Because believe me, they'll bring it up every time they mention your name," he said intensely. "You don't deserve that, Charles. The media can be vicious. I know, I've seen it. And I never wanted that happening to any of you. You know that your mother was pregnant with you when we got married. The company wasn't anywhere as big then as it is now and the media still tore into us. They've got nothing better to do. You don't want your private life being public news."

"Do you want me to show you the engine?" Trip changed the subject.

TBC.