There was no hope. Hope had died with Malcolm.

Hoshi Sato knelt on the deck plating, her eyes looking but not seeing, her heart fractured beyond repair, her mind numbed by grief. Around her, the sounds of repair crews hard at work echoed loudly but she did not hear them, was unaware of the sad looks she received as she caressed Malcolm's cold hand, didn't see the understanding on the faces of the Columbia crewmen assigned to the body collection detail. She wanted to cry...

But there were no tears left.

She wasn't even supposed to be here, in this temporary morgue, not with her injuries, but she couldn't find it in herself to actually care, couldn't dredge up any desire to be elsewhere. Her place was here. With Malcolm.

It wasn't really a morgue, just an empty cargo bay being used for that purpose, but she doubted that she would ever be able to look at a cargo bay in the same way. There had been no other choice in the matter; the medbay, damaged or not, had never been equipped to handle this many casualties.

And there had been so many casualties...

Hoshi knew that she was stronger than this, knew that she would survive and emerge stronger than before, but in this moment, she couldn't think of the future, couldn't imagine life without Malcolm. Unconsciously, she released his arm and splayed her hand across her stomach. Her child, their child would never know his or her father, would never see the glint of mischief in Malcolm's eyes when Trip convinced him to do something ... improper, would never hear Malcolm's laughter or see his smile or...

She drew in a deep breath and tried to focus on the PADD that Captain Tucker had given her. He wasn't actually a captain - not yet, anyway - but most of the surviving Enterprise crew had taken to addressing him like one after Columbia had arrived. Word that Starfleet planned to frock him and give him command of the NX-06 when they got back to Earth had made the rounds at faster than warp speed; she'd heard him complaining about that, wondering if there was some way to bottle the rumor mill and use it instead of a warp drive. Hoshi wanted to smile, knowing that Trip would make an excellent captain, knowing that T'Pol would go with him when she recovered, that together they would be greater than apart, but she couldn't find any strength.

She felt empty.

Her attention finally centered back on the PADD and she spent long minutes staring at it without comprehending what it actually said. It was a marriage certificate, signed by Acting-Captain Charles Tucker, witnessed by Doctor Phlox, Lieutenant Burke, and Sergeant Cole. A marriage certificate that stated she and Malcolm were newlyweds, that, by Starfleet law, she was his next-of-kin and entitled to his belongings, to his name. Trip hadn't officially submitted it to Enterprise's computers but a subroutine written into the PADD would backdate it if she clicked the Submit button.

If.

"It's your decision, Hoshi," Trip had said when he gave her the PADD hours ago. "I know Mal wanted you to be his wife and not just 'cause you're pregnant." That had shocked her momentarily out of her grief; she didn't know that Malcolm had told anyone and Phlox wouldn't have. She had started to protest, to point out that Reed hadn't proposed until after she revealed her pregnancy but Tucker had smiled an impossibly sad smile and told her something that shook her world: "Hosh, he bought that ring six months ago."

Submit or Delete. In the end, it came down to those two words. She wished she knew what to do. She wished she knew why it was so hard to decide. She wished...

Another memory came to her, this time of Phlox as he cautioned Commander Tucker against stopping the crew from calling him 'captain.' Hoshi hadn't meant to eavesdrop but everyone always forgot that her hearing was nearly as acute as T'Pol's.

"Most sentients need to have hope, need to know that something good comes out of a tragedy," the Denobulan doctor had told Trip, giving him an annoyingly cheerful smile that looked - even to Hoshi's eyes - forced. "Let the crew see your impending promotion as one of those good things. Give them hope again."

Hope. She had none for herself anymore. Malcolm was gone. Forever.

Somehow, she had always known he would die in service, would be killed defending others, would come home on his shield instead of carrying it. His was a life of danger, the life of a soldier trained to kill with little more than his bare hands. Hands that had touched her and made her feel alive. She couldn't remember feeling anything anymore. She wanted to go home.

"Hosh, he bought that ring six months ago."

She stared at the screen for a very long time.