Chapter 2
T'Pol was heading towards the sickbay along the E-deck corridor, her mind still examining the unexpected news her two officers had come back with from their brief earthbound mission.
Those, together with the transmissions Ensign Sato had picked from the surface, would indeed indicate that Enterprise had leaped back in time, to 1945.
No alternate explanation was forthcoming, but, even though her skepticism about the possibility of time travel had been tempered lately, she was still hesitant to assume that was what had actually happened. The idea needed careful consideration.
T'Pol was beginning to work on the chances and eventual possible causes of such an occurrence, when her eyes suddenly registered a change in the light's texture surrounding her, and she raised them to find herself floating among colourful interweaving fluxes of light.
In front of her stood the individual she knew as Daniels.
Her first, quickly suppressed reaction to seeing him was one of irritation. He always seemed to materialize out of thin air to disrupt their missions, relating to Captain Archer unlikely theories about time travel and getting them all involved in illogical schemes they knew nothing about.
She would have preferred to negate all the evidence she'd been presented with during the years that this man was indeed a time-traveller, and be able to remain within the safe borders of what the Vulcan Science Directorate deemed acceptable. But, right now, the man's presence was not totally unwelcome, as he probably was the only person in the entire universe who could somewhat explain their present circumstances.
In truth, he was probably the person responsible for their present circumstances.
"Mr. Daniels," she uttered clearly, clasping her hands behind her back, raising an eyebrow, and waited.
"Sub-Commander! I'm here to ask something of you, something crucial to our future. I implore you to try and keep an open mind!" Daniels' voice vibrated with contained emotion, as his eyes met hers with the directness of a man who has nothing left to lose.
She met his gaze with her own, letting herself express a small amount of all the conflicting emotions she was no longer totally able to control:
"You presume a lot coming to me! I don't know what you did, but I'm inclined to think it is your fault we find ourselves in this incomprehensible situation." She made a vague gesture with her right hand. "I thought, all the crew of this ship thought, we would finally be able to go back and rest," her lips imperceptibly twitched, "and we find ourselves in what appears to be another time!" Her voice raised as much as a Vulcan voice can be allowed to.
"I understand!" he said loudly, then hung his head in his hand. "I do!" he repeated almost in a whisper. "But this is all I could do… Things went terribly wrong! This was the only course to try and save what can be saved…." His voice died away.
"It seems, Mr. Daniels, that you once again intervened in our timeline. I was under the impression you told Captain Archer" -- her speech faltered for the shortest time here, and she blinked -- "your duty was to preserve the timeline, not alter it!" Disapproval echoed in her voice.
"That's why I brought you here, T'Pol" he said, his right hand pointing at the delicate colourful lines surrounding them. "It is not so simple."
He paused, rubbing his forehead with two fingers, his brow creased. "Let me show you…," he said, following a thread with his right index. The line was bright white. "You see, not all timelines have the same time signature. There are points in time that hold a special energy, that…," he paused again, searching for a word, finally finding it, "… resonate through time."
"You see this bright white light? This is a strong resonating moment, a moment which will deeply affect the future." He paused again, contemplating the luminous thread, its light fading and mingling with blue, purple and orange, as the timeline expanded. "I tried to make Jonathan understand, but he wouldn't listen. He thought it wouldn't matter if he sacrificed himself. He didn't see that he had to be here!"
He sighed, rubbing his brow again. "You see, the Xindi attack should not have happened, in fact it DIDN'T happen before, but then the timeline was altered. We could not prevent it. I am here now, it is possible for me to speak to you, because the time ripple hasn't fully reached us yet. When it does, the "other" past will be gone, forever. But the fact is, you should not have gone into the Expanse!" He bit his lip, his water-clear eyes searching hers. "You, all of you, made different choices. Jonathan, you, Tucker, all the crew. Yes, Earth is still there, but the price we will have to pay is unforeseeable." He paused again, sighing, his gaze lost.
"Mr. Daniels, while I find all this… fascinating, it is not clear to me what you expect of me, of us. I, the crew, all of us … are very tired." An un-Vulcan-like sigh escaped her lips and her head slightly bowed. "Maybe you do not understand, but it is very possible we could not help you, even if we wanted to. If the captain were here…"
Daniels interrupted her, urgency in his voice. "That's the crux of the problem, T'Pol! He is here! I thought if I could save his life, it would be enough, but the timeline is deteriorating! Look!" He was now pointing to another thread, glowingly bright in the beginning, but then starting to dissipate, as if the filaments composing it were untwisting and at the same time turning to dull blue and grey with some orange speckle.
"Here," he said, pointing to the white beginning of the thread. "It's the beginning of Enterprise's mission, before the timeline was altered. It should continue this way. It did. One of those momentous times in history when the life of a few absorbs and then reflects back the changes happening in the human spirit. But now, after the Expanse…" He was following with his hand the decaying tendril.
"What do you mean…" T'Pol swallowed, her eyes suspiciously glassy. "What do you mean, 'the captain is here?'"
"Yes, I couldn't allow him to die. I pulled him out, while the weapon was already exploding, but the shockwave… I couldn't control it! I pulled him into the time continuum, but then I lost him. I don't know how it happened, but he is here. Well, to be more precise, he is now." An unwilling smile twisted his lips. "That's why I sent you here too, the Enterprise, I mean, to get him back. It all depends on this."
He hung his head, looking thoughtfully at his feet. "You know, when you travel through time, and with this equipment," he made a circular motion, "you see people in a different way. I always loved to watch Jon, before all this began. He had a quality about him, a halo, this same light," his hand was caressing the white thread. "A man who can summon the future" he said, half-heartedly smiling to a private joke. "But then, it started to change. Not when I pulled him out and lost him, it was before. His light began to dim, and turn to purple. Now, I don't know…" He shook his head in distress "I don't know if he will be able to accomplish his fate, or will be lost, and our future with him." He sighed deeply. "Please, you have to find him! You have to find him and take him back!"
---
"And Daniels told ya he still alive?" Tucker asked, his voice dangerously high, his arms tracing meaningless patterns on the air around him.
This was difficult. Jon had been lost to him many times already during this damn mission. He remembered the time he had to fire on him on the insectoid ship. He remembered when the captain had flown that suicide mission to Azati Prime. He remembered their last goodbye, before he left to try and destroy the damn weapon. Jonathan had been cracking a joke, and, already inside the airlock, turned to smile a last time at him and T'Pol standing in the corridor.
It hurt to remember that smile.
"You believe 'im?"
T'Pol stood in front of the porthole, her spine ramrod straight, her hands as usual clasped behind her back. It felt strange to be talking to her in Jonathan's Ready Room, before 'his porthole', between his books and under the gaze of the old Enterprises looking on from the bulkhead. It felt wrong.
"Do I believe him? There is no logical answer to that question. I have no way of knowing if he is right or wrong, but, as you humans would put it, we have nothing to lose."
Tucker sighed, his left hand on his hip, the other raking his hair. Nothing to lose. The problem was, he didn't know if he had it in him to believe Jonathan was alive. It seemed an act of faith beyond his power. He was too tired.
"This's crazy, I don' know… I think I'm too weary to think…" He felt T'Pol's hand on his shoulder, a strong warm grip.
"This is the captain. We must do all that is in our power," she said, looking him in the eye, then added, uncharacteristically softly, "Trip, he is your friend."
"Oh God!" groaned the engineer. "You think I don' know that? Look, all I'm sayin' is …what if it's not true? What if we don't find 'im? Then what?"
Would there ever be an end to all this? A time when they would be allowed to rest, when they wouldn't have to search inside themselves for yet another sparkle of energy, when they wouldn't have another mission to accomplish?
"Would you prefer not to try? And live with the doubt?"
"No!" he said aloud. If he didn't know anything else, he knew this was one doubt he could not live with. Slowly, deliberately, he repeated, "No! I know it's the only thing to do…." He sighed again, deeply, gazing at the floor.
T'Pol's hand was still on his shoulder. To give him strength, support. But, maybe, to ask for it too, though she didn't know it herself.
"Time to throw your heart beyond the obstacle, Trip!" He smiled at T'Pol. "An' after all, it's not like we have much choice, we're kind of stuck here!" he cracked, offering her one of his best grins.
"Precisely," answered T'Pol blinking. She took her hand away from his shoulder. "Now, about those schematics I talked with Daniels about…"
---
"So, this is the situation," concluded T'Pol. She looked around the central desk to find four pairs of equally doubtful eyes staring at her. "I know it is disconcerting, but I can assure you that, after some thinking and a calm analysis of the situation, you will find it less disturbing."
A shell-shocked silence fell on the command centre, while everyone struggled to take in all that had been said in the few minutes since the briefing had begun.
Hoshi felt slightly queasy. The neuro-parasites had left her weak, with frequent headaches accompanied by waves of nausea.
The last day, with the captain relentlessly spurring her almost beyond her limits, had been hard, but she remembered it the same way you remember a fevered nightmare when the fever subsides and your mind is clear again. Those hours on Degra's ship, Archer's eyes, his voice, his grip on her shoulders, his touch on her arm, prodding and cajoling till she gave him what he wanted, felt like something that happened to another person.
What had been haunting her since the moment they left the captain on the Xindi weapon was something else: the last words Jonathan Archer had told her, an encouraging expression on his face. "Don't worry, I'll be right behind you."
She had repeated those words like a mantra, over and over, needing something to hold on to, to keep her going while they walked along the corridors of the Xindi weapon, while they waited to be beamed away, back on Degra's ship, all the way to the sickbay.
"Don't worry, I'll be right behind you."
She had repeated them lying on that unfamiliar bunk, like she used to repeat her mother's reassuring words as a child, when she huddled in her bed afraid of the darkness. Until Malcolm had come to the little half-lit room and told her that the captain hadn't made it. But it was too late by then, the mantra had already taken possession of her inner space and the words kept echoing endlessly in her mind even after she discovered them to be a painful, stupid lie.
And now T'Pol came out and said that maybe the captain was still alive.
"Ma'am, do you believe him?" Travis finally ventured to ask, breaking a silence as heavy as lead, his wide black eyes gazing at T'Pol in wonder.
T'Pol looked as Vulcan as possible, her face perfectly expressionless, her hands folded on the table, a logical answer to everything. "As I said already, I would not have presented you with the situation if I did not believe there was a probability of it being accurate. Now it is up to us to find out how accurate," she stated calmly.
Hoshi looked around the table. Travis was still staring at T'Pol like she held some sacred knowledge. Malcolm was stubbornly looking at his own hands, refusing to meet anyone's eyes. She knew he was angry. He had been ever since the captain had given him the order to leave him on the weapon. He was probably angry at himself for obeying that order, too.
"Well, well, my friends! Why are you taking this so bad? It's wonderful news!" Phlox's chipper voice penetrated her thoughts. "I know you were just beginning to accept the captain's loss, and this must be somewhat… ehrr… difficult! But, come on! There's the possibility the captain is still alive. Let's do whatever we can to find out if it's true!" He ended on a positive note, his usual overlapping smile swallowing his entire face.
A timid answering smile began to form on Travis' face, and his eyes started dancing around, looking for other hopeful eyes to meet. Reed wouldn't bulge, and kept staring at his own hands, without ever raising his head. Phlox answered Travis with his Cheshire grin and Trip with an honest-to-God Trip smile.
"We find the captn' an' we go home!" nodded Trip. Good, old Trip.
She wished she could meet Travis' eyes and smile too, she wished there wasn't a voice in her head torturing her with that stupid phrase.
"Don't worry, I'll be right behind you."
"And how exactly do you propose we do that?" asked Malcolm in an almost resentful tone, finally raising his head and glaring at Tucker in defiance.
"You can always trust Malcolm to point out the bright side of things," she thought.
But, after all, they had not been with them when the captain decided he should play the hero yet another time, leaving them to carry the burden of guilt and what-ifs.
"Don't worry, I'll be right behind you."
"That's a good question, Mr. Reed, and one I asked Daniels myself," T'Pol answered evenly, carefully ignoring Reed's attitude. "Unfortunately, he cannot help us directly, but we discussed together the possibility of realizing a device to detect time discrepancy. The underlying theory is similar to the one behind quantum dating, and, with Commander Tucker's help, I feel confident we can assemble one. We will have to link it to the sensor array, so we'll be able to sweep the surface. We will need your help, Ensign Sato."
T'Pol was looking at her, waiting for an answer. She expected all of them to just jump aboard, like nothing had happened, and perform their duty.
Hoshi simply nodded, looking T'Pol in the eye: "I'll do my best." Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, someone else's. "That's all I can give you," she thought.
"Mr. Reed, I would be grateful if you could work on some tactical scenarios in the meanwhile, in the eventuality we find out where the captain is?"
"Yes, Ma'am." Malcolm's tone was even more clipped than usual, his posture more rigid, his face a mask. Hoshi knew he would do much more than his best. He would work with ferocious determination, throwing his frozen passion at the bloody scenarios.
"That's all. Commander, Ensign, you're with me."
"Yes, let's get to it!" The grin on Trip's face was full of hope.
Hoshi was too tired for hope. She only wished the voice in her head would stop repeating again and again the same phrase.
"Don't worry, I'll be right behind you."