Notes: The first chapter is the event, seen from different perspectives. The next chapter roughly takes place the next day, also different perspectives. The third chapter relates different events that roughly takes place within the next year. The fourth chapter looks at the next hundred years. In that hundred years, Trip dies of old age. T'Pol is still youngish in Vulcan terms and remarries. I thought of making her remarry Koss but that was pushing it. This final chapter brings two character lines from the first chapter back together.

I am re-posting the chapter as I forgot that new materials within the same 24-hour don't show the story as being updated.

Another Ten Years Later

Jenna

Jenna watched as the diminutive figure stepped out of the shuttle. The Starfleet company commander turned around, watching with all the cadets. Once the figure had stepped on land, he walked to her. Jenna watched him go. The guy was a hunk. Exactly the kind of guy she would never have imagined dating when she was growing up. Straight as an arrow, unimaginative, she thought at the time, boring. And now all she yearned for was someone like him, someone to settle with, stability. Boredom had never sounded so exciting. Plus with his blond hair and pointed ears he looked like a dream out of one of the children books Gramps had favored. Still, it was said he was all Vulcan beneath that uniform. She would have liked to check.

She side-glanced at the row of cadets standing straight next to her, allowing her chest to swell with pride. She'd never imagined she'd be one day part of Starfleet Academy, certainly never imagined graduating. It was such a far cry from where she'd been headed. She'd been a kid then, but a wild one, ready to throw it all out on her definition of fun. And she would have gone right back to her antics, except her grandfather died two weeks before her probation ended. She still shuddered when she thought of that day, standing in line with another set of graduates, except those were intent on staying on the wrong side of the law. It came back in her nightmares, the base commander coming to get her, she thought they'd found the contraband hidden in her bedposts, that she'd be going straight to the hole. Instead, he had brought her to his office, gently told her that gramps had died.

Gramps. Her life had changed that day. She'd wanted to die. Gramps who was always so patient with her, the sadness in his face every time he came to talk to the judge, get her out of some scrape or another. He had always looked at her with such love, and such sorrow. Never a mean word. He was always there at every arraignment, standing in silent support in spite of how angry and mean and awful she was. It still clemched her heart to think she hadn't been there when he'd died. And as she stood there sobbing in the base commander office, all she could think of was how sad he'd looked when she came out of the courthouse.

The base commander had let her go home, attend the funeral. Her posse was there, waiting for her. But everything had changed. All she could see was moronic teenagers without any understanding of the world. All she wanted was to get away from them, to reclaim a future that was hers, and hers alone. It was thanks to Gramps she was where she was, in a way. The guilt had propelled her clear across the finish line back onto the tracks. She guessed it could have gone the other way, grief might have pushed her over the line into a life of petty crime and loser friends. She didn't know what it was in her personality makeup that had oriented her to where she was now, but she was not sorry. Neither for the change nor for the wild years of partying before. The only thing she was sorry for was that Gramps was not there to see her graduate. And that she would never be able to show him a different her.

After the funeral she'd gone back home, the home she lived in with Gramps. He'd been mother and father and grandfather since the day she was born, her mother, his daughter, had died that day, and her father couldn't forgive her for it. A simple home, but he'd kept her safe.

She'd gone through his things, wanting to save some of them from the rapacious hands of her relatives. In the end, there were too many things, or they were too bulky. But then, in a corner of his desk, she'd found a small box, and inside that box a medallion on a chain. All that was left from him, and it never left her neck. Whenever people asked, she said it was a religious thing. That way they couldn't touch it, couldn't make her take it off. Even Starfleet. But nobody had ever debated her on it.

The company commander was back with the commencement speaker. And what speaker. One of Starfleet legends. She couldn't believe how lucky she was to be standing there at attention with the corps of cadets, her friends, her new posse. The commander was looking over the sea of cadets. "Company, attention!" The call rang loud and clear. Jenna's body went through the pose from muscle memory while her gaze stayed fixed on his face. He had blue eyes to die for. She wasn't really listening, thinking ahead of when the commencement speaker would be inspecting graduates. She was in the first row. Purely based on her performance. Her chest bombed a little more with pride. She ignored the fidgeting of the cadet next to her.

The commander was speaking. ""Cadets, we are here today to receive he attention of T'Pol of Vulcan, who honors us by her presence. She had yada yada..." Jenna stopped listening. The fidgeting next to her was drawing her attention. The cadet at her side discreetly brought her fingers to her throat. She was not a close friend, more like a respected competitor. Jenna looked at the motion of her fingers, discounted it, brought her attention back to the company commander.

He had taken his cap off as a sign of reverence and was escorting T'Pol to the field, holding her hand. Jenna stared open-mouthed, her eyes going from his pointed ear to the woman's. She thought she'd heard the word 'mother' when he was speaking but she hadn't been paying attention. She looked at the woman, quickly putting two and two together. The captain was her son. Perhaps her grandson? Jenna was in on Stafleet legends, knew that the Starfleet commander had married a Human. They'd had two or three children until Admiral Tucker passed away. The codicil said she'd married again on Vulcan and had another two or three children, unclear whether hers or stepkids.

As they neared, Jenna mentally went over her posture, her uniform, checking that everything was where it should be. And a cold hand gripped her heart. The medallion. She'd put it after she'd donned the jacket. Thought she'd tucked it inside, had completely forgotten about it. That's what the cadet next to her was trying to tell her. Jenna could have cried. Here she was, graduating, standing at attention, finally reaching her goal of a clea life, and she'd ruined it. All she could think of was the medallion out of place on her uniform, shining in the sun. There was no opportunity to turn around and put it back in, the commander and the speaker were almost on top of her. She felt herself blush to the roots of her hair. Fine. She'd look like a fool, get demerits, whatever the company commander wanted. He was strict and unemotional, there's no way he would let her get away with it. She mentally prepared an excuse, she'd claim it was a religious thing, an amulet, let them believe she'd wanted the medallion outside on top of her uniform.

Except she couldn't. Not anymore. Not now that she was a Starfleet graduate. She deflated slightly, waiting in tense expectation. The commander was on her, his mother by his side. She stopped upon seeing Jenna, looked at her piercingly. Jenna felt the heat of her cheeks. Great. She had to blush like a damn school girl, it wasn't bad enough she was not in proper uniform.

"Where did you get this medallion?" the woman was asking.

"It was my grandfather's, mam!" Jenna felt a wave of calm. All of sudden, it didn't matter. What was, was, and what was was that she had her grandfather's medallion over her uniform, not underneath it.

"Do you know what it represents?"

Jenna felt herself blush again, aware of how often she had pretended it was a religious symbol when in fact she didn't have the beginning of a clue. She suddenly realized perhaps it meant something to Vulcans, perhaps something offensive. She found herself wishing very hard she had checked what the medallion was. But it had been her grandfather's, and that was enough for her. "No, m'am, I don't." There, she said it. She didn't have a clue what it was. She saw the company commander's eyebrow lift a little. He must remember she had been claiming all along that it was a religious symbol. She wondered if they would delay her graduation for that.

The Vulcan woman nodded slowly. "When this is over, please join me in Commander Tucker's office." She turned to the company commander. "You shall attend as well, Severin."

xxx

T'Pol

She rarely came to Earth these days, she was busy with her consort and their joined families and she had almost turned her son down when he asked. And then she had reflected that she had not been on Earth since Trip had died but time had passed like the flow of a river and thinking of him was no longer the agony it had been. Thoughts of Trip would always be commingled with memories about Starfleet and their years aboard Enterprise. Severin had kept in the family tradition, and he looked the most like his father, how could she deny him? And she knew better than to push off her coming another ten years, many changes could take place in ten years. Including another pon farr. The birth of S'apei had been entirely unexpected, the healers had devised a theory of the impact of space time distortion on her reproductive system. Which meant there could be another child in the future, however unlikely it seemed.

She had stopped at the top of the stairs coming out of the shuttle, tasting the moist air, feeling the sun, remembering other times, other sites, the shadow of Trip's particular delight in the ocean breeze or that place he called Florida. The cadets were neatly aligned under the sun, the metal in their uniform gleaming here and there. This was another life, another time, in the past. She was doing it for Severin.

The review had been as expected, she was surprised at how young the cadets had become since her time among the stars. She was paying attention to every detail, nodding here and there, appreciative of their neat appearance, their hopes.

Then she saw it.

She knew right away what it was. Her memory never failed her. But the Human who had helped her had been a man, and this was a woman. And the man would have been very old, much older than Trip when he died. The Human lifespan meant he was dead also. She enquired how the female cadet had come into possession of it, nodded when she heard it was her grandfather's. So this was Peter Kristofferson's granddaughter.

The rest of the inspection went smoothly and efficiently, and then she was in her son's office, waiting. Severin was at his desk, taking care of some administrative matter while they waited for Cadet Jenna Williams to appear. The young woman looked flushed when she presented herself, as if she'd been running - or crying. T'Pol still didn't fully know how to differentiate the various Human blushes. She bade the woman sit down, asked for her son to join them. Then she asked the woman to remove the medallion from her neck, held it in the palm of her hand as she started the story. "This is an IDIC, a symbol of infinite diversity in infinite combinations, and I am the one who gave it to your grandfather. I will now tell you its story." She paused. "It started on a December 7, the day your grandfather saved my life..."

xxx

Jenna

Jenna stepped outside, blinking in the sun. Blinking back tears. Her grandfather had been a hero. The medallion had turned out to be a religious symbol after all and now she was carrying it, and with it she was carrying the memory of Gramps. He would be so proud if he could see her now. She would never understand why he didn't tell her the story.

She stopped and looked back at the Starfleet building. All was as it should be. This was where she needed to be. Hopefully one day she would be a hero herself and intervene to save another. With the IDIC around her neck.

She took a step forward into her destiny.