Forever My Love
by Setcheti
Disclaimer: Paramount owns them. They don’t deserve them, but they own them just the same, more’s the pity.
The planet was Earthlike, technologically advanced…and empty.
Trip Tucker, chief engineer of the Enterprise, thought it was like walking through a bright, shiny graveyard; it felt wrong, and creepy, and he didn’t like it. But they were out here to explore, and possibly to find things they could use to get out from under the technological thumb of the Vulcans…so Archer had ordered down a landing party and split everyone up to look around.
Malcolm had had a fit about that; the armory officer had wanted everyone sent out in pairs, at the very least, or preferably in small groups accompanied by a member of Security just in case their sensors were wrong and the planet wasn’t as empty as it seemed to be. Archer, of course, had overruled him. Trip sighed just thinking about it. Jon Archer had been his friend for years and was a really great guy, but the older man didn’t always make the best decisions from a safety point of view and it had bitten them in the butt more than once. Jon also never seemed to learn from his mistakes, and Trip knew – because his lover had told him, more than once – that the situation was driving Malcolm around the bend with worry and frustration. Mostly worry, since a lot of the captains security mistakes had resulted in Trip himself being put in dangerous, damaging, and even life-threatening situations that should have been easily avoidable.
Like this one, with him wandering around on his own in one of the city’s central power stations where his communicator wasn’t always able to get a signal and where he had to assume that the Enterprise wouldn’t be able to get a transporter lock on him if something went badly wrong. Which he knew it could, since nobody in any city on any planet just leaves their power stations wide open to anyone who wants to walk in; there had to be some sort of automated security system to prevent unauthorized tampering with the power generators he was currently looking at, and he’d been going about his search as cautiously as he possibly could to try to avoid setting anything off.
A yellow light lit up on one of the panels just over his head and an almost imperceptible hum vibrated through the air. Trip took a step back, prepared to run, knowing Malcolm would just kill him if he got hurt after he’d promised his lover he’d be careful…and then something hit him from behind and his world turned to fire.
Malcolm Reed heard the scream and was running before he’d even fully registered that his name had been part of the cry; in spite of the captain’s orders, he’d been trying to keep within shouting distance of both Archer and their chief engineer, just in case. He slammed into the generator room with phase pistol at the ready and stopped dead; the room was empty save for himself and…
He lowered the pistol and began to cross the room, cautiously, steeling himself for what he might be about to see. Commander Tucker’s uniform lay puddled on the cold gray floor in front of what they’d guessed was the main power generator, the pile of cloth too lumpy to be empty but not filled enough to be containing a six-foot warp engineer. He swallowed, tasting bile as his imagination betrayed him; part of one, maybe. Malcolm shook it off and forced himself to view the scene professionally. No blood, no scorch marks, no smell of burned flesh, and the coverall looked intact. He drew closer and saw a glimpse of blond hair and pink skin peeking out of the crumpled fabric. Hair, skin…parts. No blood, no smell, he reminded himself. Malcolm knew the smell of death, and it wasn’t here. Imagining the worst wasn’t doing him any favors right now.
He dropped to his knees and with shaking hands began tugging at the familiar uniform. It was still zipped, oddly enough, so he very cautiously opened it to reveal the filled black t-shirt underneath. It took a moment for what he was seeing to register, but once it did he ripped the shirt right up the middle and then just sat and stared.
Long lashes fluttered and blue eyes blinked open, filled with fear and a fading echo of pain. A tear fattened and rolled out of one of them, closely followed by another and another, and then a bare whisper broke from between parted pink lips. “Da?”
When Archer came running a few moments later, also responding to the scream which he’d been just barely in range to hear, he froze in his tracks at the sight of his tough as nails armory officer sitting in the corridor outside one of the generator rooms with tears pouring down his face…and a very small child in his arms. “Lieutenant Reed?!”
Reed shook his head. “Captain, there’s been…an accident.”
“What kind of…” The child turned its head to look at him at that point and Jonathan Archer felt his sense of reality slip a little. “Trip?”
“No,” Malcolm corrected, sniffing, and the child returned its attention to him, one small hand reaching up to pat at the tears on his cheek. “Trip is…gone, Captain.”
Archer slowly came closer. The child, all of two unless he missed his guess, was pink and healthily chubby with a head full of tow-blond hair and wide, oh-so-familiar blue eyes. The boy’s little face was troubled as he tried to pat away the tears of the man who held him. “Da?” he lisped.
“For the moment, I suppose,” Malcolm whispered. Gray eyes lifted to meet Archer’s shocked hazel ones, and the pain in them was so vivid and deep that the captain felt it like a physical blow. “Captain, I…I don’t know what to do next.”
Jon went down on one knee and reached out to touch the toddler’s blond hair. “I don’t either,” was his reply. “You found him in Trip’s uniform?”
“In the room behind me, in front of one of the generators,” the armory officer said. “I left the uniform, but I didn’t dare stay in there with him.”
“You made the right decision. We’ll investigate it later.” A nod, and the older man sighed, returning his attention to the boy. “Hey little guy, what’s your name?”
The toddler tucked his head under Malcolm’s chin, cuddling in closer to the armory officer’s chest before venturing to answer. “Charwie.” His little hand patted Malcolm’s chest. “Da.”
“All right, Charlie.” Archer smiled his best gentle smile. “Do you know who I am?”
Charlie glanced up at Malcolm and then back. “Cap’n?”
Malcolm actually flinched; so did Archer. “This is…Uncle Jon, Charlie,” the armory officer told the boy quickly. “Uncle Jon, can you say that?”
A very serious nod. “Un-Unca Jon.”
“Very good, Charlie,” Archer praised, and the boy wriggled like a happy puppy. “Do you know how you got here?”
The answer he got wasn’t what he’d expected – or what he wanted. The little face twisted up into a mask of fear and Charlie curled up in Malcolm’s arms with a whimper, tears filling his eyes. “Huwt.”
“On his back, Captain,” Malcolm explained. “It looks like…like he was hit with some sort of energy weapon.”
Charlie was still draped in Trip’s bright blue undershirt, and shifting so he could see the boy’s exposed back Archer sucked in a breath at the sight of the dark bruise centered right between his shoulder blades. He touched it gently but quickly withdrew his fingers when Charlie whimpered again. “Okay, I won’t touch, it’s okay.” He pulled out his communicator, and after a few tries and a little walking around was able to get a clear enough signal. “Dr. Phlox, I think I have…something here that you need to come see.”
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