Disclaimer: Refer to Chapter 1.

A/N: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, and to Sailor Coruscant and G. Eliot, my betas. Sorry this has taken so long, but unfortunately real life has a habit of getting in the way.

Chapter 5

"Commander Tucker would have gotten a reprimand if he was that late on a Navy ship," Stuart Reed said with the air of someone pronouncing sentence. "He'd never make it in the Navy."

Malcolm resisted the urge to sigh. "We're not in the navy, Father, and Trip's had it hard the past year. His sister was killed in the attack." He waited for the expected reaction.

"Trip? Isn't that what the Captain called him? Are you fraternising with your superiors, Malcolm?" His father pinned him with an intent look.

"Trip is the sort of person who makes it his mission in life to be everybody's friend. He probably regarded me as a challenge."

"I'm glad to see you've made some friends," his mother put in, "but is he alright? He doesn't look well."

Malcolm suppressed a flicker of jealousy. His mother had only briefly seen Trip and she was more worried about him than her own son. "He's just exhausted from the past year. It was a strain on all of us. We lost a lot of crew -- we even thought that we'd lost the Captain." He remembered the look of absolute shock on Trip's face, and that it should have been himself, not the Captain.

An awkward silence descended. But then again, silence was always awkward for the Reeds.

"Oh, for pity's sake," his mother finally said with exasperation. "Yes, this family might not be the closest, but surely we can at least have a polite conversation." She glared at both of them.

"So, how are you today, Malcolm?" his father asked.

"I'm fine, Father. How are you?" Malcolm replied with the same mock seriousness.

His mother rolled her eyes and shook her head.

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Jon and Mike sat in his quarters, savouring Jon's second-to-last bottle of bourbon. His small stock had been barely touched over the last year. He felt a twinge of guilt; he'd mostly drunk alone since the start of the mission. He'd never even thought of sharing the drink with Trip, as he would have before the Expanse.

"How are you doing, Jonny?" Mike asked.

Jon looked up from his glass, slightly uncomfortable at the question.

"I don't know," he admitted. There was a pause. "I've tried not to think about it. It was just putting one small step forward, one after another, trying not to look at the big picture. Trying not to care as much." He finished in a murmur, swirling the bourbon in his glass.

"A Captain needs to care about his crew," Mike said, "otherwise the ship won't function. I saw that when we were working on the engine, Jon. Your father cared about everyone working under him, took the time to be interested in them. I bet that Commander Tucker's team works harder than any other in Starfleet because he cares about them, and he shows it."

Jon smiled. "Trip's one of those people who can pretty much instantly engender loyalty. Virtually anyone on this ship would do anything he asked of them, would do whatever it took to save him."

His tone became sombre. "I shouldn't have brought him on Enterprise. How can I be an effective Captain when my best friend is one of the crew? I shouldn't care about any member of the crew more than the rest. I nearly lost him, and that hurt more than all the people we did lose. I couldn't even admit to myself that what I did to save him I did because I cared about him and not his engineering skills. We needed him for the mission and I pushed him away; I pushed all of them away. I tried to stay detached so it wouldn't hurt so much."

Jon looked at some far away point, filled with memories of the people they had lost. "But you're right: that's no way for a Captain to run a ship. Maybe I shouldn't be running it."

Mike let him finish without interrupting, sensing Jon's need to unburden the weight that had been pressing down on him for so long. "Jon, it is a reality of life that we need to have friends. The people we see the most are going to become the people we know the most, and of course it's going to hurt more losing someone you know well -- someone who is your friend.

"But I'm betting that over the past three years you've become friends with all the people I met today. Maybe you're not as close as you are with Trip, but friends nonetheless. And it would hurt you almost as much to lose one of them. You can't avoid that Jon, or else you're going to end up a lonely old man.

"Any Captain who tries to avoid having friends, or thinks they should avoid it, should never have the job. Loyalty goes both ways; they need to know that they can trust their Captain. That their Captain is someone they trust enough to be a friend. Who would you trust making the big decisions in your life, Jon? Trip, or one of the nameless, faceless people you went through the academy with and never got to know?"

He left Jon to his silence for several minutes, before judging that it was time to change the subject. "What was with the tension before? You'd think that none of them has a decent relationship with their parents."

Jon smiled sadly. "Malcolm I expected; they're not very close. Hoshi's been through a lot, but I think they'll be okay." He took another sip of his drink, his thoughts turning to his best friend. "Trip, on the other hand, I didn't expect him to be so cold and formal. You were talking about trust: he didn't trust me enough to tell me the truth. The way Trip talks about his parents, you'd do anything to have them as your own. But, I've known him for ten years, and I've never met his parents or even seen them. The way he talks about them, though, it always sounded real. I dunno. If Trip's lied to me about his parents, what else could he have lied about?"

"I would be careful, Jon, not to jump to any conclusions until you talk to him about it. There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation. Admittedly, I can't think of one, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. I don't know him, Jon, but you've trusted him for ten years, trust him until he tells you that you've got a reason not to."

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"And you run all this?" Trip's father asked as he and Trip stood looking down on Engineering. Trip was surprised to hear the emotion in his father's voice; he never thought that his father would be envious of him. He'd asked some surprisingly intelligent questions on their tour, seeming to know a lot about Enterprise's systems and the science behind some of it. The interest his father had shown had thawed a lot of Trip's initial animosity towards him.

"Yep," Trip said proudly, "they're the best team in the Fleet. I couldn't ask for better." He straightened up from where he was leaning and fought off a wave of dizziness, hoping his father wouldn't notice. 'You're just tired,' he told himself.

Trip looked at his father's face and saw a familiar expression. Several years ago Jon had taken a couple of photographs while Trip was totally engrossed with an engineering problem, to show him the rapt look he got on his face. Trip had been surprised to see how happy and intent he looked in the pictures and was more surprised now to spot the same look on his father's face. 'Well, I guess I must have gotten the abilities and the love for it from somewhere,' he thought.

"Come on," he said. "I'll show you the transporters. And before you ask, no, we can't transport something." Trip said the last as his father's mouth opened.

"Spoilsport," the word was muttered. "You know, I was thinking about doing some rearranging of how the business is structured."

Trip tensed at the mention of 'business' and tried to sound casual as he said, "Uh huh, and?"

"And I think I can step down as the CEO. The board is a good one, it's been the same people for the last ten years; I think they'll run the company well."

Trip stopped walking and looked at him. "You realise that Charles the First will have a heart attack?"

"Yes, but it'll only be slightly larger than the one he had when he realised that no one in the family would be taking over from me."

Trip bristled at the last statement. He'd always been made to feel like he'd let his father and grandfather down. "You know I wouldn't have been good at it," he started.

His father held up his hand. "I accepted that you wouldn't be taking over a long time ago. You wouldn't have loved it, but I think you'd have been good at it. You run a crew here, it's the same thing. Anyway, I never wanted to take over the company."

Trip interrupted. "You didn't? Then why the hell did you?"

"I had a family to support."

Trip was stunned into silence. "I always assumed that you loved the company."

"I didn't, to begin with, but I grew to love it. It was either that or be miserable for the rest of my life."

Trip resumed walking. "If you do resign, what are you going to do now?"

His father smiled excitedly. "What I wanted to do originally. I'm going to go to university and study physics."

If Trip hadn't seen the expression on his father's face earlier he might have been flabbergasted at the statement. As it was, he accepted the idea. "What does Mother say about your plans?" He looked at the slightly guilty expression on the older man's face and understood. "You haven't told her. You're going to leave her too, aren't you?"

"Do you blame me?" his father asked blandly.

Trip thought for a moment. "Well, no. I honestly don't know why you stayed with her this long. You realise she'll probably have a fainting fit when you tell her?" He sniggered slightly at the mental image; he'd never seen someone swoon as well as his mother, even in the movies.

His father nodded. "It's not like she's going to get a bad deal: she can keep the damn house, and she'll get half of our savings. And I get rid of her. Plus, she gets the added bonus of something new to moan about for the next ten years."

"More like fifteen," Trip said.

"So, have you found a special someone, Charles?"

Trip glanced at his father who was staring fixedly ahead. "I wish you'd stop calling me that, call me Trip," he said with exasperation.

"I am not going to call you by a ridiculous nickname that doesn't describe you at all."

Trip stopped. "You have no idea where it comes from, do you?"

"I assumed it's because you used to 'trip' over things a lot as a child, but I don't remember you being especially clumsy."

Trip shook his head in wonder. "No, it's because I'm Charles Tucker the Third... Triple... Trip."

"Well, I suppose that makes more sense. Who started calling you that?"

"Christina."

"Ah," his father said. "Well then, Trip it is. Now, are you going to avoid my question Ch...Trip?" He corrected himself consciously.

"I dunno, I might have," Trip said with a slightly dreamy smile. "Possibly. But I'm not sure whether she's really interested. It's complicated."

"It always is," his father said evenly, with a rigid look on his face.