Authors' note: So, my co-writer, LoyaulteMeLie, mentioned in an email that she was missing our collaboration. Frankly so was I, so I sent her a story starter and we ended up with this little coda to the Dreams series.

Disclaimer: Star Trek and all its intellectual property belongs to Viacom/CBS/Paramount. No infringement intended, no money made.

Chapter One
Looking to the Future

"…And here are my notes on the phase two emancipation legislation," I tell Ian as I hand him the last of the PADDs to go out in the inter-office post. He'll copy the data from mine to individual PADDs for each of the committee members and they will be hand-delivered by Palace couriers in the morning. There are some things still too secret to risk transmitting electronically when they can instead be delivered via an air-gapped device with combined password and biometric access protection; and even though the objective of our little cabal has been made prematurely public, the heated negotiations and specific plans need to be protected until they're set in place or the whole scheme will wither and die like a seedling planted in full sun without sitting a few days in light shade to harden off first. "We're getting closer, but some people are just going to have to accept that nobody is getting everything they want out of this. Even the first wave of freed slaves is disappointed that we won't pay their way back to their homeworlds for at least twenty years if they weren't born there, but at least the subsidies will ensure they don't have to starve while they wait."

I observe his glance at me that says he's assessing whether or not it's safe to point out problems. That said, he's been with me long enough now to know that as long as his observations are valid, my grousing will usually be 'all sound and fury, signifying nothing', so he risks it. "Subsidies which the slaves worry won't be sufficient if they should fall ill or have an accident or other loss, and which the slave-holders see as a punitive tax."

I am aware of this, but given the enormity of the changes, there's no chance in hell I'm going to be able to please everybody on every point. "One percent of net profits is hardly punitive," I grumble. "Not when I could have made it fifty percent by imperial decree without negotiating with anyone. Besides, with the hiring quotas in place, the slaves can work to supplement their subsidies, maybe even save enough to pay their own ways home before the waiting period is over."

He peeps at me again. "And the human labour leaders think the quotas are discriminatory against humans."

I sigh in exasperation. "I've told them before, the quotas only apply to applicants of the same skill level applying for the same job. Nobody's losing work to a less qualified alien; in fact a less qualified human can get hired over a more qualified alien if the percentage of free aliens in the company already meets or exceeds the percentage of free aliens in the district."

Although always respectful, he hasn't been shy about interjecting his opinion since our earliest study sessions with Guns and Butter. Having deduced that I'm open to debate on the subject, he presses the point. "Which the alien representatives say, correctly, I think, is still discriminatory against aliens because the job should always go to the most qualified applicant, but our economists and our workforce consultants both argue that aliens have an unfair advantage in the application process in most industries simply by virtue of having worked in them as slaves for decades. If we don't hire a sufficient number of underqualified humans and train them, we could lose workforce viability and economic stability when the waiting period is over and the Earth-born free aliens leave for their homeworlds."

"And our sociologists and psychologists are telling us there's a very good chance a lot of them, and even the non-Earth-born free aliens are going to stay here anyway," I counter. "Which is why I'm not particularly worried about workforce viability and economic stability. Besides, we have twenty years for our colleges and universities to start training humans for the kinds of jobs that will exist then while the free aliens are doing the jobs we have now."

There's a perceptible hesitation before he answers, but the set of his jaw says he's got more to say on the subject. "Which is why the Earth-for-humans groups are already demanding anti-miscegenation laws, legislation to keep everything from schools and housing to hospitals and emergency services segregated, and disenfranchisement provisions to keep aliens out of local elections."

I swear under my breath. At times like this, I really do believe if I knew who leaked to the press that we were working on a second phase of emancipation legislation, I would tear their throat out with my teeth, but that would run counter to my promise of government transparency – not that secret meetings drafting a comprehensive set of emancipation laws aimed at eliminating slavery entirely over the next few decades doesn't, but once we made the law we're working on now public and it went into effect, we always intended to solicit public input for amendments and related legislation.

Looking back, I think my mistake was in enacting the first law by Imperial Decree without consulting anyone. I stupidly thought no one would really notice or care since it only affected a few hundred aliens who had distinguished themselves and provided invaluable services to the Empire – chief among them the Vulcan T'Pol, wherever she may be, and an Andorian named Shran whose courage, cunning and ruthlessness in quelling uprisings on Coridan and Weytahn nearly equalled the best of my Pack officers. Unfortunately, people did notice that I had freed a handful of slaves, all of whom were property of the Empire and did not belong to private individuals, and they cared very much more than they really needed to considering how little it impacted their everyday lives. Hence the decision to draft the first law freeing ordinary workforce slaves in secret, which I still maintain was not a mistake; the mistake was in trusting someone who could or perhaps would not keep the secret. "You know how much I hate giving those cretins anything," I snarl. "The government has no business deciding who sleeps with whom as long as they don't conceive some deranged and damaged creature who'll be forever dependent on government support or some fire-breathing monster that wrecks its community.

"It's like I said, Ian. Nobody is going to get everything they want. Everybody is going to walk away unhappy with something. It's the only way we're ever going to get this done. That's what compromise is!"

"I'll be sure to remind them, Your Majesty," he replies deferentially – he's clearly recognised the boundary of permissible disagreement is approaching fast.

I sit back in my chair, nipping thoughtfully at my bottom lip. "Perhaps a reminder from me at the next meeting will carry more weight."

Another, longer pause. "Respectfully, Your Majesty, you might want to be mindful of your tone if you do that," he says very carefully, only continuing after I've taken a deep breath or two and motioned him to go on. It took years for him to feel comfortable advising me on how to handle certain people, and even now he's very circumspect about it, always waiting until I've indicated his advice is welcome. "Apart from some of the Earth-for-humans nutters out there yelling in the streets, you have good, sincere people working on this. They genuinely want to do a good job and make this happen for you, but some of their constituencies have conflicting agendas. It can be very difficult to decide whose needs take precedence when you're genuinely trying to be fair and equitable."

The 'nutters.' Yes. They've been an ongoing annoyance with their hysteria about alien takeover conspiracies. I could silence them any number of ways. When I allow myself to entertain the idea, I vacillate between rounding up every soul at one of their rallies and packing them off to a labour camp on some distant moon with no means to communicate that they are still alive or surgical strikes against their leadership. In the former case, leaving the majority of them to wonder what happened to a few thousand of their brethren would certainly have a calming effect on the masses, in the latter, seeing the MACO death squads take out their leaders one by one would shatter their organizational structure and discourage others from stepping up to fill the vacant positions.

But that wouldn't be very sporting, would it? And more importantly, it would add fuel to the underlying suspicions that I'm shutting people up because I have something to hide.

If I'm letting labour and industry, human abolitionists and even aliens have a voice at the table on emancipation, then I can hardly silence the nutters. Especially since even I can't say with certainty that they are completely wrong.

Vulcans and Denobulans are objectively more intelligent than humans. Their brains simply function differently and that gives them an intellectual advantage that we can only overcome by limiting their access to knowledge. Andorians possess a cunning that rivals the best Pack officers, myself included, and I don't believe average humans would have any hope of outwitting them in the long run. By virtue of having evolved on a temperate planet with mild gravity, we humans are surprisingly fragile beings. Nearly every species we've encountered in space out classes us physically in one way or another. And while I know of no living human hybrids except perhaps my own children, if you consider the alterations that made me Pack to mean I am something other than human, historically, attempts at hybridizing our aliens to create a hardier stock provided consistently unreliable results. Most of the specimens produced had to be euthanized shortly after birth because they were either so mentally compromised as to leave their sentience in doubt, so physically disabled that they would never be able to care for themselves or both. Of the small percentage that were born both mentally and physically sound, by the time they reached adulthood more than half had to be put down after they developed degenerative mental or physical genetic disorders that would have made them dangerous to others or dependent on care.

So, while the nutters might be the loudest and most hysterical of the groups objecting to my proposed changes, I permit them to protest right alongside the labour unions, abolitionist societies, humanitarian organizations, industrial lobbies, and social and political committees I have allowed to form up. I still believe people are more willing to accept a change, even if they don't like it, when they feel they have had a voice in the decision to make it happen, and as long as the protests are limited to voices, signs and the occasional inconvenience of having to navigate around an unexpectedly large crowd, I will tolerate them all, even the nutters.

But the committee isn't protesting; they're negotiating, and I genuinely believe Ian is correct in saying that they are doing their best to write a law I will accept that does the most good for the greatest number of people. I consider his words for a moment, then paraphrase them. "So, you're saying I should be compassionate and authoritative, not authoritarian."

He smiles in relief and nods. "Yes, sir. They're just as frustrated as you are, Your Majesty, but nobody's giving up and nobody's being unnecessarily obstinate, either. They'll get there; they just need more time."

"I know that, Ian, thank you for reminding me." Another deep breath or two relaxes me. "It's just that, when I took the throne twenty years ago, I never imagined how much we could accomplish. I never would have believed how many good, honest people there still were in positions of power who wanted to and were able to affect change, if given the chance. Now that this seems like a real possibility in my lifetime, I want to get it started and see how far it will go."

"So, you're saying you're…impatient." He uses a teasingly flirtatious tone that he never would have tried on me in this office (or anywhere else!) a decade ago. Hell, we'd been almost five years in the Palace before he dared offer himself to me.

"That, Major Trainor, had nothing to do with impatience, as you well know," I respond with mock indignation. The tone was all I needed to know he's no longer talking about the legislative process but about something that happened two nights ago in one of the guest bedrooms.

Even now that we have stopped growing our family, my Empress and I are still respectful of one another. Neither of us entertains lovers in our private suite, though Ian and any of the servants whom Hoshi has taken as lovers are allowed and expected to enter on urgent business as happens occasionally.

'That' was the result of an extended period of deprivation. Hoshi has been visiting her parents these past two weeks, and Ian had been running some off-world errands for me at the same time. I'd had to make due with a handful of lube until one of them got home, and he arrived first, two days ago, and copped the lot. "Like a man who had been abandoned in the desert finally finding an oasis, I drank too deeply and too fast and slaked my thirst before I had time to enjoy the taste of cool, clear water."

"And here's me, hoping it was hot and steamy," he pouts, puncturing my verbiage with one neat thrust. Then with a wicked smirk, adds, "But I thought stamina and endurance in that particular area developed as a result of the desensitization that comes with age?"

"Age?!" I can't help but laugh. In the grand scheme of things, I'm not all that much older than him. "I might not be the Adonis of my youth, but I'm no pederast! No more than you're a catamite. Your next birthday you're going to be, what? Forty…"

"–ish!" he interrupts hastily before I can calculate the last digit. He went from being sensitive about his youthful appearance to sensitive about his age overnight, and he still doesn't believe me when I tell him he's perfect for me and always has been, even back on Jupiter Station when I was SiC of the MACOs, regarded him as no more than my extraordinarily capable secretary, and hadn't yet considered the possibility of taking him as my lover.

However, duty affords us little time for such demonstrations of affection. With a regretful shake of the head, he puts a PADD down on my desk. "I'd have held this until morning, but Professor Zirkow himself dropped it off after the last inter-office post, and it was marked urgent."

I know what this is. Even if I didn't know the name, I'd recognize the Seal of the Department of Imperial Cartography, Stellar Cartography Division, and there could be only one thing they'd feel the need to have delivered personally by one of their staff.

Ian no longer tries to hide his curiosity about the things I don't share with him, but he knows better than to ask. When I don't answer for a few seconds, or touch the PADD, he continues as if nothing was left unsaid. "Well, if that doesn't keep you up all night, page me," he offers. We can work on restoring your stamina and endurance after that long dry spell."

I laugh aloud at that. After all these years together, he can sometimes identify my moods better than I can, and I'm always grateful for that, this time in particular because the contents of this PADD will either be disappointing again, as they have been every month for more than a decade, or they will demand some heavy decisions of me. Either way, going into the file with good humour will make it easier to face.

Nonetheless, I shake my head, apologise and explain that the Empress returns from Japan this evening, and I owe her some quality time.

Ever considerate of my marriage and my family, Ian inclines his head. "Then please do give her my very best regards, Your Majesty, and the children, as well."

And just like that we have gone from flirting back to business. As always, Ian is nothing if not the soul of discretion and the epitome of respect.

"Of course, I will," I nod. "If there's nothing else, I'll see you in the morning."

He nods again, backs up the required number of steps and says, "Yes, Your Majesty. Good evening, Your Majesty."

As the door closes behind him, I shake my head again and marvel at how fortunate I've been. Yes, I've worked bloody hard over the years, but some of the things I have now could never have been accomplished by hard work alone. Fate or fortune or luck or the rare benevolence of the universe or random bloody chance must have had a hand in them, and my marriage is one of those things.

For all the media claims that the Empress made me straight, or I discovered after I 'fell in love' with her that I was really bisexual rather than gay, the truth is I am still homosexual. No female form, not even that of my wife, stimulates me to any meaningful degree. Nevertheless, Hoshi and I have developed the kind of deep affection for one another that comes with working together toward the same goals for years. It took some time, but eventually she adopted my vision for the future, and once she did, she was all in. And hasn't it been said (as I quoted in the interview before our marriage) that true love isn't found in seeing one's self reflected in another's eyes, but rather in looking out in the same direction and seeing the same future? So, yes, despite all expectations, despite deposing my wife and claiming her crown, despite seeing her body as not attractive to me so much as beautiful like some inanimate work of art, I suppose you could say I do love my wife. And despite throwing a dagger at me the day I staked my claim, despite losing her throne to me, despite our marriage starting as a business arrangement she agreed to only to avoid being imprisoned in one of the towers or executed, my wife seems, for all intents and purposes, to love me, too. We might not have the same kind of passion that either of us would have found in a classical love match, and haven't expected that kind of exclusivity for years, but we certainly have a hell of a lot of fun when we have sex. I suppose the closest any ordinary person could come to what my Empress and I share would be very good friends with very good benefits.

Would she depose and supplant me if she had the opportunity? I'm not sure. I suspect she would, but I believe she'd have to think hard about whether wearing the crown would actually give her greater benefits than the life she already enjoys. And I'd like to think that if she took that course, she'd at least have some regrets.

I sigh and pick up the PADD, debating whether I want to read what's on it tonight. It can go only one of two ways: disappointment again, or a monumental decision that will have far-reaching, potentially devastating, potentially triumphant consequences for my family and my Empire.

I check my chronometer. The Empress will be home within the hour, along with our three youngest children. I never knew my own grandparents, and my mother sadly passed before any of my children were old enough to remember her, so I'm glad that Hoshi's parents dote on them; within the necessary restrictions of their rank, it's probably the nearest they'll ever get to experiencing anything like an ordinary family life. We'll all dine together tonight, even our eldest, Alfred, who has completed his basic training with the MACOs and will work in the Office of Imperial Security here in the Palace for another two years until his younger brother, Richard, comes of age. Then, as soon as Richard completes his MACO training, Alfred will take his first post in space aboard a starship, possibly under Admiral Georgiou, but more likely under someone who would be less able to turn his untimely demise into an advantage with a grieving Emperor and an inexperienced second son left behind. Richard will have longer to wait. His sister, Victoria, will become a MACO, too, and serve at least one six-year tour of duty, but as she will not be in line for the throne unless all of her brothers predecease her without an heir, he will not go into space until his younger brother George reaches the age of majority.

It's now the law that every able-bodied and mentally competent subject of the Empire must serve at least six years in either the military (MACOs, Starfleet, or the British Navy) or government services such as police, firefighting, EMS, or the construction of public works like hospitals, government buildings, and roads and bridges. It has always been my plan to hold my family accountable to the same laws as the lowliest undocumented human lurking in the underground. I had considered putting Victoria into the Navy, partly to keep her closer to home and partly because it's a proud and ancient British tradition and the only institution that has been allowed to keep its national heritage since the formation of the Empire. Had I done that, I would have sent one of the boys to Starfleet and another into government service, and I might still do it, once they've each served their initial tour with the MACOs; however, I discovered some time ago that my old friend Major Jignesh Vaja out on Jupiter Station has some friends in the Navy. Not knowing how far his and Admiral Georgiou's influences reach, I prefer to start my children out in the service that I know is most loyal to me. Once they know how to handle themselves and have developed a network of allies of their own, I might discuss transfers with them. When they're experienced enough to negotiate a potentially risky environment with reasonable safety, I think their presence there would provide a useful counterweight in support of my authority, and I'll make sure they're more than adequately protected even so.

Thinking about my children, the future and the order of succession has made up my mind about the PADD. I'll never be able to relax and enjoy dinner with my family not knowing what's on it. If the report is negative, I can put it out of my mind for now; I'll get another PADD from Stellar Cartography in a month or so. But the fact that it was hand-delivered by Professor Zirkow after the last inter-office post leads me to believe that the report is not negative. Yes, I'm supposed to get a report on this day every month, but I've never been a stickler for that deadline on this. He knows it's fine to put it in after hours as long as I get it in the first post the following morning. It's happened before and he actually called Ian to ask whether he should fetch it over personally. So, the only reason he would have done that this time…

Realising I'm just procrastinating, I snatch the PADD off my desk, enter my password and apply my palm print to the screen when required.

If you're enjoying this story, please leave a review.