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Chapter Text

Erika Hernandez’s brand new, unfinished and already damaged ship had already weathered too many hits in this fight, and she turned around, the bridge crew joined the few dozen ships fleeing the planet in having a front row seat to the destruction of their home world. As a silence she had never imagined filled the bridge Erika pushed down the sadness, the dread and the anxiety she felt growing and just focused on the moment at hand. The initial Xindi ships started to retreat, their job done for the moment, leaving the remaining humans to try and regroup. What a way to celebrate Valentine’s Day. “We gotta get out of here.” 

“Where am I going, Captain?” Commander Veronica Fletcher asked from her position at the conn, and Erika honestly didn’t have an answer to that question. Command was destroyed, and she wasn’t sure that there was anyone off world who she reported to anyway. So instead she thought about what had been going on and remember that, at least for now, the flagship was still around.

“Is Enterprise still in comms range?” She barked out. Veronica knew her history with Jonathan Archer and she spotted the lieutenant looking back over her shoulder, but Erika didn’t care. Right now, Jon was where the buck stopped in Starfleet, until there was an Admiral around for them all to answer to.

After checking their instruments, the ensign at tactical nodded, they looked up and met her eyes, clearly already anticipating what Erika was going to have been asking. “Yes ma’am.”

“Hail them.” Though when she looked up to the screen she saw that it was already flickering to life and the sight of the damaged bridge of the Enterprise filled her screen. She doubted her bridge looked any better. “Jonathan, you’re the flagship, where we going?” She asked, using his given name rather than his rank knowing that would be better for dragging his attention to her.

“I’m not sure.” He replied, and there was an undercurrent of concern and uncertainty that she was sure she only heard because she knew him so well. Nobody else seemed to register it either. There was another momentary pause and then a steely resolve fell over him and she smiled.  “I’ll send you over co-ordinates in a minute. Pass them out to surviving ships when you get them.”

She just shook her head though, knowing they both needed to be focusing on the job at hand, grief would be coming another day. “Good luck, Jonathan.” He mouthed a word of thanks back to her and dropped the link, probably to check on the other ships as well. A moment later she had a heading and she nodded again. “You heard the man, 606.7 mark 4, set a course at best possible speed, Veronica, but wait for my mark to leave.”

“Yes ma’am.” Veronica was all business, unusual for the huge Kiwi, but Erika supposed that watching what they had was going to be a trauma that none of them ever recovered from, probably like the writings in the history books of those who had watched the September 11th attacks in the very early Twenty First century. 

She just gathered herself again and then continued to do her job. But she also wanted to make sure that she saved as many as she could. “Transmit the co-ordinates on priority signal to any earth ship still in the area. We’ll be one of the last to go.” She wanted to make sure as many got away as she could, and since the main attack seemed to have ended she was happy to take the extra time 

“Enterprise just went to warp… on the same heading we were given.” Veronica called out and then nodded as she was continuing to set everything up ready for them to leave and join their fleet when they were ready to leave.

As she looked out the viewscreen at the view around her, she took a few breaths hearing that Enterprise was at least out of the way. “Good. Keep a track on the…” Her voice faltered as she realised what she had to say. It was their home but right now it posed an enormous risk to their safety. “On the debris. How many civilian ships still with warp power?” 

“Fifteen.” That was a good number, another fifteen ships of survivors that should be sent to join Enterprise and whoever they managed to save too. 

“Signal them to leave to the co-ordinates Enterprise left.” There were ships jumping to warp nearly constantly. She had no idea how many were there. She looked around though and was sure that there were still ships out there they needed to rescue people from if they could. “How many still with lifesigns?”

“Twenty seven.” Hundreds of lives. Hundreds. Right now that didn’t seem like many, but Erika realised quickly that that was now a significant percentage of the human population. A planet of billions, reduced to a few thousand. Her mind shut down trying to think of the numbers and she had to mentally shake herself out of it.

“Hail those with lifesigns but no warp, we’ll try and save as many as we can. Signal the same to Republic, Intrepid and Defiant. We’ll need them.” These ships couldn’t carry people long term, but they could get people on them, and then when they met up with whatever fleet they had they could share them out among the other ships. “Gods hope the Xindi leave us alone.” 

Veronica looked up as she said that and then nodded again. Her mind clearly going in the same direction that Erika’s was. “We can only hope.” She then dropped her voice so that only her Captain could hear it “These co-ordinates lead us in to Vulcan space.”

“Probably our best hope right now.” She looked around her uncompleted bridge and hoped that they had enough to finish building the ship around them. This was a shakedown. They were doing nothing more than testing out the engines. She’d had minimal weapons and after destroying two of the Xindi ships before Earth’s destruction she was down to only three torpedoes aboard. Within minutes she was arranging to get people aboard, seventy five each onto the intrepid class ships, and took on as many as they could. She stayed at the airlock, greeting people aboard. Secretly hoping that somehow her family had evacuated, but she knew they hadn’t. 

When they cleared the last ship she took a breath, heading back to the bridge and passed along plenty of people, reassuring children as best that she could as she passed through while having no answers to give anyone. Arriving there she took a breath and then looked to the officer on tactical. Kiona? Erika had barely had time to even meet most of these officer. She still didn’t have an engineer. Those were problems for another time. “How many do we have aboard?”

“A hundred and seventy two, it’s a tight squeeze everywhere but the bridge and engineering. We’re at capacity. Republic, Intrepid and Defiant have signalled they’re ready to go, all full as well.” Veronica took a long breath herself and she knew that both of their eyes were drawn to the debris field on their screen, knowing that the remains of almost everyone they loved had been on there.  “Erika we’ve saved all we can.”

“Alright. Take us to warp.” She ordered, her eyes remaining on the debris and in the moment before they warped away she took a second to remember this was it. “Goodbye, Simon.” Erika whispered mostly to herself. A private, near-silent remembrance and farewell to her brother and best friend. Of all the losses she had taken here, her brother was the biggest.

An alarm dragged her out of her thoughts, knowing they would just be waiting for the other three ships to depart before they went to warp. As the alarm sounded again there was a shout out, and Erika knew they had to go. “Xindi, just entering the system.”

“Defiant and Intrepid are gone, Republic is about to leave.” Erika focused her eyes this time on the last ship in the field in front of them, ignoring the callout of how close the Xindi were getting, she just waited to see Republic warping out of the system. The second they did Erika felt the familiar tug of the inertial dampners engaging and recognised being in warp herself a second later.

The journey to catch up with Enterprise took three days. They had sent a few messages, nothing with details in case they were intercepted. They didn’t know what and where was safe. She wouldn’t be able to learn everything until she got to speak to Jon in private, probably not even immediately. As they approached the co-ordinates selected for the re-organisation of the human race. “How many ships?”

“A little over a hundred. Sixteen Starfleet, not counting Enterprise. A hundred and nine transponders.”   Communications announced again. Their voice more confident after only three days in their position. Well. She supposed that was what they had to do. She was still focusing on the ships in front of her when there was another call. “Com-Captain there is a hail from Enterprise.” She caught the slip on her rank, it had only been two weeks. Two weeks since she’d been given her fourth pip by Admiral Forrest. Shaking herself a little she knew that she couldn’t think about that. “Captain Archer indicates you should take it privately.”

That was a surprise, but she just looked around and turned to her ready room. “I guess… to the ready room then.” That was not confident. She needed to be projecting confidence right now. That faded as soon as she was in private and she could look around her ready room and the pictures she’d put up there. The only things remaining of her parents, her brother, her nieces… She was looking over one of them when Jon’s face filled the screen, clearly in his ready room as well. “Jonathan.”

“Fancy seeing you here.” He tried to joke, though the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He looked drawn. Stressed. She couldn’t imagine how hard this was for him on top of everything else. He’d been meant to save them from this. “How many have you got aboard?”

“Nearly 200. Too many. We need to transfer at least a hundred to other ships.” The NX ships were by far the largest in Starfleet’s fleet, but they weren’t designed for two hundred people. They were designed for eighty-five at most. “We prioritised pregnant women and the elderly for rooms with beds. Most are sleeping on emergency cots… or the floor.”

“We’re going to be arranging shuttlepods if you can help with that, the Fortunate, the Horizon and a couple of other cargo ships are clearing space for refugees.” She was glad that there were the large cargo ships, they would be more comfortable for the larger number of refugees on the ship. They’d possibly even all be able to have private spaces. 

As for them helping… well she could add one shuttlepod at least. “We have one we can add, we never got our second.” For a moment she just let the planning for that go through her mind then she sighed and just looked to her one-time partner. “What do we do now Jonathan?” 
“I’ve already got T’Pol and Hoshi looking for some secluded M class worlds we could go to but that's a long-term concern. We’ve had ships come from all of Earth’s colony’s… most are gone. Proxima is still around, we might head there” That seemed like the best idea. They could at least let people stretch their legs at Proxima, they would be able to regroup somewhat. But she knew that was at least a week’s journey away at warp two, which was the best that most of the civilian ships could do.

She then voiced the one question that she was almost dreading asking. “How many of us are left?” 

“We haven’t done a complete head count, but my guess is… maybe ten thousand. And that’s a high estimate.” It was worse than she’d expected it would be, but at the same time it was technically enough to rebuild, more than enough. But it was going to be uncomfortable, and they were going to need to start on that soon. 

“That’s technically enough to rebuild… but it’s going to be tight.” She said, her eyes scanning his face for a moment. All of a sudden needing his comfort more than she could ever remember needing it before.

“Vulcan, Andor and Tellar have all declared emergencies. Denobula is sending out it’s medical response fleet. I’ll tell them to meet us at Proxima. We should be safe there for a few days.” Jon nodded then looked at her a little more softly, clearly turning from their professional conversation to a more personal one. “Did you get your family off-world?” 

She shook her head, trying to stop herself from bursting in to tears, the grief a sharp stab that she was going to have to bury again, just like she had for days at this point. “No. Your mother?” She asked, having never really gotten along with Sally Archer, though they hadn’t disliked each other either. Sally had just preferred other people be in Jon’s life.

“No.” He shook his head and then in a similar move her her seemed to shake everything off and looked at her again. “Are you free for dinner? Let’s talk before I call all the Captains together at 9pm.” 

“I’m barely even a captain.” She knew that, technically, she was 2nd in command of the fleet. Starfleet granted seniority based on the tactical superiority of the ships, not length of service. But that did mean that the imposter syndrome she was feeling was quite extreme.

“You are though, You’re now the second ship in the fleet.” Jon still knew her better than she knew herself, and she stared at him a moment then nodded as he spoke again, much more quietly.

“Come to dinner. Come to dinner alone.” It was a request, but it was also a plea and it was one she understood. She needed him too. She nodded in response, and they held another moment of silence between them before she just pressed her hand to the screen before dropping the call. She gave herself a moment to regain her composure before heading back out to the bridge, preparing to head over to Enteprise. “Veronica, we’re going to be having an all-Captains meeting on Enterprise this evening, you okay to hold the fort here while I’m gone.”

“Should be. I have the evacuation list from Enterprise.” Veronica looked more than a little drawn, she’d been awake for much of the last few days. Columbia barely had a crew. She was going to have to cannibalise a crew from what was left of Starfleet. Those were concerns for another day, though. Veronica clearly realised she was looking tired and just shook her head. “Families first?”

“Yeah, keep them together as much as we can.” She couldn’t imagine that the families that had managed to escape off world together would have wanted to be separated so soon after, especially not knowing how often the ships would be able to transfer between themselves either. Then just looking down to her friend she shook her head gently. “I’m sorry, about your mom.”

“We’ve all lost our families, Erika. We can grieve later. For now we have a job to do.” Veronica said very matter-of-factly, leaving Erika to try and figure out how to respond to that. She wasn’t sure how her friend was as detached as she was, but in this moment she was grateful for it.

“You’re right, of course I just…” Once again, the words to describe what was happening just weren’t coming to her. They weren’t making much sense as she tried to put words on what they had all experienced in the last few days. “It’s just… so much.”

“The scale is unfathomable.” Veronica just took one look back at her then stood up and looking around to make sure nobody was paying any attention to them pulled her into a very non-Stafleet hug. “Take it one step at a time.” Veronica squeezed her shoulder and took a long look at her. “I’ll oversee docking with Enterprise. Let me know when you’re ready to come back.” It all seemed so simple when Veronica put it like that, so she just nodded and headed down to the airlock. One part nervous about seeing Jon again, and the other just desperate to see him and know that he was really okay.

As soon as the airlock opened and Erika saw Jon’s face she raced forward, meeting him quicker than expected as he did the same thing, instantly the two of them wrapping their arms around each other and holding tightly. She hadn’t seen him in years, they’d been broken up she knew that but Earth was gone, and all they had left was each other, it seemed he felt the same as when they pulled back a little he just turned his head slightly and then kissed her hard, taking her breath away with it. They only stopped when there was a polite cough from behind, and Erika all but jumped back like she had when Commodore Forrest had caught them in a similar position 10 years ago. “Sorry to interrupt Captain, Captain.”

“It’s okay, T’Pol, meet Captain Hernandez of Columbia. T’Pol’s my XO, and science officer.” Jon turned to her a little and Erika felt the embarrassed smile on her face as she nodded, and there was a part of her that wanted to stab Jon in the face for the fact that he wasn’t embarrassed at all. 

“Hey there.” Erika said, and she felt Jon’s hand still resting on the small of her back as she stood probably just a little too close to him. There was no denying what they’d just been doing, and the longer they stood in silence the more she felt the blush rising in her cheeks. “Sorry about that I…”

“You do not need to explain, Captain. It is none of my business.” T’Pol’s quiet serenity in that moment helped reduce her embarrassment a little. “We have confirmed that there appears to be no Xindi activity in the vicinity of Proxima colony.” Well that was a miracle, she wondered what was so special about Proxima. “It appears they were missed.” 

“Can you send the information to my padd?” Jon’s hand had slowly inched it’s way down her back and was now quite firmly resting a little lower than her back, and she almost wanted to slap it away, but she knew that would draw more attention to it and, honestly, there was some comfort in knowing that he clearly still felt the same for her as he had all along. “Captain Hernandez and I can look it over while we eat.” 

“Yes captain.” T’Pol looked between the two captains as she sent the information over and then inclined her head. “Enjoy your… meal.” There was something about the pause and the way she said meal that made Erika narrow her eyes slightly as the Vulcan walked away.

“She’s judging you right now? After what we all just witnessed and she’s judging you?” She managed to fake the indignation for a moment before a giggle overtook her and she shook her head. Still mostly just embarrassed for having been seen in a compromising position with her fellow captain.

“T’Pol can be discreet,” Jon chuckled along with her, putting an arm around her as they started to walk away, and she momentarily thought that it was inappropriate but, if she was honest with herself, they both probably needed the physical contact. As they continued walking Jon just shook his head looking down at her. “Sorry for that I just…” 

“Jonathan… lets talk about that over dinner too.” She didn’t think they needed to talk about their first reaction to seeing each other was what they did, at least not in public. Especially after they had not seen each other for years, but she had already decided that she was going to need that.

As they stopped moving, she turned to look up at him and smiled softly, especially as she sw the look on his face before he started to speak. “Erika… I don’t want to eat right now.” He said seriously, and after a moment he leant down to kiss her again, the need she felt being mirrored back to her.

“Neither do I.” She admitted, knowing that the lack of appetite was probably shock, or stress, but she didn’t care. Especially not when it seemed that Jon was feeling the same way that she was. 

Jon pulled her through the ship, making sure they weren’t caught along the way, and once he pulled her through a finally door he then just stopped and turned to wrap his arms around her again. She got a brief glimpse of his quarters before he filled her vision again, kissing her deeply as they both came together to try and forget the moment they had both witnessed only a day earlier. She couldn’t pull herself away from him now even if she’d wanted too. Moving with him she knew that there would be nothing else to do, no more second chances. As they laid together afterward, her hand intertwined with his, and her idling stroking Porthos who had jumped up between them once they had settled, her mind went to the future. “I don’t think I can do this.” She said quietly, then at the gentle sound he maid she looked up and realised what that sounded like. “No, I mean. Us I will do forever I never wanted to break up. But this… Everything happening…” She started to explain but Jon silenced her with another kiss.

“Erika we don’t need to decide anything right now.” Jon’s soft smile and confidence made her settle again a little and then he just pressed closer. “We’ll get through all of this together, okay.”  

“We were broken up Jon… You led that.” Right now she was just trying to work out what they were to each other and honestly she didn’t really care that much about the history because she wanted and needed this kind of closeness after all that had gone on in the last few days.

The silence after she said that stretched a few minutes, and right before she got up, ready to apologise and leave, but just before Jon spoke quietly. “I told you the night before I left for the Expanse that when I came home… I was coming home for you. Remember that?” It was something that was going to be hard for her to forget. She’d only been in San Francisco for three days, and Jon came to her door, asking that if something happen she be the one to tell his mother, and she’d told him that he better come home. 

“I do…” She wondered where he was going with that.

“I meant it.” He said then kissed her again deeply, the love they both felt being passed between them as much as they could. “I came home for you, and to you. You were right all along.” She smiled as he said that and she was going to assume that he was then meaning they could work on themselves too.

“Okay.” That was all she could say in the end, really enjoying a few moments more with him then she sighed, finding it almost impossible to do what she knew they needed to, especially when she was cuddled up with Jon and getting to stroke Porthos. But they needed to. “We should get our uniforms back on, the other Captains will be calling soon and we shouldn’t take it in your quarters.”  She continued petting the dog a moment then moved foward, kissing the top of the dog’s head. “I’ll come back to fuss you more later, Porthos.”

Dressing in silence, she hared that this was what they needed to do, and they started heading up to his ready room, deciding that was the best place to do this, where they could stand and both be seen and that wasn’t too damaged. “You scared?” Jon asked and for a moment Erika was confused what he was meaning. “With all of this?” 

“The Captains, or the fact we’re jointly in command until we find an Admiral.” She joked, leaning on him a little as they stepped into the turbolift and as she looked up at him she realised that he was asking more as reassurance for himself than anything. 

“If we find an Admiral.” Jon countered and then shook his head, clarifying for sure and she now was certain that he was just needing to be told that things would work out somehow. “But no… I was meaning that we’re probably going to be having to deal with the Xindi for the rest of our lives.” 

She thought that over for a moment and then frowned, but she decided in that moment that she didn’t want to be afraid, so even though she was absolutely terrified and trying to hide it, she wasn’t going to allow herself to be. “I’m… trying not to be afraid because they don’t deserve the dignity of my fear.”

Chapter Text

Jon had never been in a room with quite so many hard headed people in his life, and in reality he wasn’t even in the room with them. He and Erika were stood in his ready room, deciding that a united front between the two of them was what was needed here. He was about to shoot back at Captain Ramirez when he felt a gentle hand on his arm, and saw Erika’s hand go up to the rest. “This is not, at all, conducive to a sensible conversation, gentlemen.” She kept an even and serious tone, though she tried to add some brevity. Jon appreciated it, and it did force him to take a long breath in. 

As her words faded the only other woman on the call, Captain Niko of the Augustine, echoed the call. “Captain Hernandez is right, we need to be calm about this.” Erika nodded to the other woman, whom had spent most of the meeting with her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose, clearly feeling as exasperated with their fellow captains as Erika had been. 

“What are we supposed to do?” Someone said, Jon didn’t catch who and he wasn’t as familiar with some captains as maybe he should have been, and as he was about to speak Erika once again beat him to it. 

“Right now, we need to get the fleet to somewhere where we can regroup.” There was no better way to phrase it, and he looked down at her for a moment, not at all understanding how she had thought she didn’t belong here. “We have cause to believe that Proxima Colony was spared the damage of most other Terran colonies.” 

That caused everyone to stop a moment, and they all thought about the youngest of Earth’s colonies. “What’s so special about Proxima?” Captain Jennings was the one to speak first this time, and Jon tried to remember anything he knew about Proxima. In truth, he was probably the Captain in this room with the least amount of actual space time. Even Erika had spent longer out in space than he had. He may have gone further, but that didn’t mean he’d gotten to visit all of Earth’s colonies.  

“It is our newest. And it is in a system rich in deuterium.” Captain Daly on the  Defiant was the first one to either remember or bring up the information on Proxima. “It could be more tactically advantageous for the Xindi to invade it at a later date.” That was not something that Jon was willing to think about.  

“We don’t know what the Xindi plan to do. That’s one of the problems with what is going on here.” Jon broke in to that thinking and shook his head. He didn’t get the feeling that the Reptilians and the Insectoids would really care about the resources enough to invade rather than eradicate. Of course, nobody but him in this room knew how close he had actually gotten to some of the Xindi. “There are so many unknowns.” 

“What if Proxima is a trap?” Erika was the one who voiced that, and out of the view of the other captains he took hold of her hand, threading his fingers between hers to try and keep her from going down the thoughts there. He was the one who knew the most here, but he wasn’t ready to share it all. He would have to, and soon, but he wanted to get the logs finished before he shared them all.  

He had almost dropped out of the conversation when he heard the response from Captain Ramirez and he squeezed Erika’s hand again, knowing she had a history with him. “And what if it isn’t. There are a thousand humans there. More than ten percent of what we have left.”  

“All the more reason to go and protect them as best we can.” Jon eventually broke in, if only to prevent another argument from breaking out. “The simple truth of it is we won’t be safe until there is some sort of peace, but we can’t even begin on that.” He believed that, while he trusted the Arboreal, Primate and Aquatic Xindi, he knew that the Insectoids and especially the Reptilian Xindi could not and should not be underestimated. “Have we found any government figures?” He brought the conversation back to the other part that he thought was extremely important for them.  

“No. Why are you looking for a politician, Jon?” There was a ripple of scoffs and snorts throughout the captains, he was grateful that Erika didn’t join in with them, nor did Captains Niko and Jennings, clearly both knowing what he was thinking. 

“Because more than three quarters of this fleet are made up of civilian ships - They need leadership, and it would be best if there was a civil leadership against us.” There was nothing he wanted more than another leader to bounce ideas off. Erika would work, and he would be proud to have her by his side, but someone civil would give them cover. “We’re essentially the military right now, there needs to be someone to keep us in balance.” 

The grins all became much more sombre as they realised that he was speaking the truth, and finally Ramirez looked sufficiently chastised he just nodded and answered. “We’ll keep looking.” 

“Then I think we’re all in agreement. We can run a meeting with all the civilian captains when we arrive at Proxima, get their ideas of what is next.” Erika was ever the peace-keeper, an excellent chairman when he needed one, just like she always had been. 

“That’s for the best. So ordered.” He agreed then thought through the next steps to hand that out now. “Enterprise will leave at warp 2 for Proxima at oh nine hundred, once every ship has left, Columbia will follow up as the caboose, is that understood.” That would allow for stragglers and any sudden issues to have help and protection while they were worked out. As there was a chorus of affirmative responses he just waved his hand and nodded, entirely composed. “Dismissed.” He said, and the minute that the screen went dark he sighed and leant back against his desk, pulling Erika by the hand to stand just in front of him. “That was not as productive as I was hoping.” 

“I’m glad Captain Niko was there to echo my calls to shut the fuck up.” She smiled and shook her head a little, a wry smile on her face at that. “Let’s try again at Proxima, where at least there is a docking port in orbit so we can meet in person. Or at least… well. Somewhere we could hold a duel if we needed to.”  

Jon just smiled at that and then groaned as he thought about this all. He knew they needed to get on with this, and no matter how much he wanted to pull her into his arms and never let go, they both had work to do, and he couldn’t let that fall to the side. Especially not now all of humanity rested on his shoulders in a much more literal way than it had a week ago. “You going to be alright tonight?” He asked, though he knew that she’d been alone for days now, she’d be fine. Maybe it wasn’t her that he was worried about. 

“Are you?” Erika clearly was thinking the same think that he’d been, at least about whether he was worried about her or himself, and really he didn’t know the answer to that. “When did you last sleep?” 

“I don’t know… two nights ago.” He hung his head and leant forward until his  forehead was resting on her shoulder, and no matter how much comfort he was taking from being so close to her he knew he should pull it back. “Rike. We need to keep a lid on this.” He sighed but even as he said that he looked forward and kissed her. 

“It’s our secret, Jonathan.” She chuckled and shook her head and then motioned for him to follow her as she started out of the ready room, clearly ready to return to her own ship. “I’m going to be spending the better part of a long boring week to Proxima working out how we’re going to encourage everyone to have babies.” 

She had said that as they were crossing the bridge and he didn’t even notice everyone else’s reactions as they got into the turbolift, his mind was momentarily too blank from exactly what she’d said, and it was probably a solid minute later that he finally stammered out a response. “What?” 

“We’re an endangered species now Jonathan… we gotta start reproducing.” She clearly realised that the modifier was left dangling and took him down a mental road that he hadn’t allowed himself to travel down in years, but one that had been a retreat for him for some time. “Not specifically us necessarily, but as a species.”  

“I wouldn’t mind if you’d meant specifically us.” He joked as they stepped out of the turbolift on C deck to allow her to easily traverse to the airlock. He just smiled the longer she went without answering, as it meant that it wasn’t an outright no.  

“Maybe with the world ending you could convince me that the procedures would be worth it.” He grinned at that, unable to stop the smile that spread. If that was something that came out of this he wouldn’t be angry about it. Not that part at least. There was still a lot that he would be angry about. 

“Go back to your ship.” He laughed as they pulled up alongside, doing everything he could to let go of the pit in his stomach. The one that had been there since the first Xindi attack. It was not going to be helpful. So he needed to let it go. He then just looked at her and smiled. “Do you need anything?” 

“An engineer. Preferably a high ranking one.” It seemed like an easy request, but Jon suddenly remembered that Columbia hadn’t even been meant to launch yet, she had basic systems completed, but he was sure now Erika was going to be trying to finish her ship without any kind of dry dock. 

“I’ll see who Trip recommends.” He wasn’t going to add anything to her load, so if Trip could spare one of his more senior engineers he was going to ask. “See you at Proxima. Where we are going to revisit the baby conversation.”  

“For us or for the human race.” She teased, and the slight pull of the smile made him realise that they were probably not the only couple in the fleet going to be having that conversation in the coming weeks. “See you at Proxima, Jonathan.” She stepped into the airlock and then turned and finished her thoughts. “And when we get there… you are going to have to give me a briefing about what happened in the Expanse.” There was absolutely no arguing with the smirk on her face at that, and he just tilted his head as the door slid closed in front of her. 

He barely had time to gather his thoughts when he felt a hand clap his shoulder and the very familiar sound of his chief engineer falling in to step beside him. “Damn, I haven’t seen her since the NX Programme.” Which actually just caused Jon to tilt his head even further. 

“I didn’t realise you knew each other?” He asked, knowing that Erika had never mentioned knowing Trip, fairly sure that if she had she would have asked more directly for his recommendation for some engineers to go take over on their sister ship. “You should have said hello.” 

Trip’s rather aggressive head shake continued adding to Jon’s confusion. “We don’t know each other.” He confirmed, so at least Jon hadn’t missed a memo on that, and Trip then had the decency to look a little bit embarrassed by whatever he was about to say. “I was scared of her back on the project.” Jon stared a moment and was about to ask a question when Trip continued speaking. “She was always just there… She had such a presence, I was intimidated.” 

That made him laugh a little. Trip and Erika would actually have been great friends. Jon was certain that Trip would have appreciated her roguish behaviour when she didn’t agree with a command decision. “You’d like her.”   

“You certainly seem to.” Trip smirked, and there was a moment where Jon wondered if T’Pol had told at least the engineer about the situation she’d come across in the corridor earlier, but he wasn’t going to inquire. As far as he was concerned, what he reached out for for comfort right now was none of anyone else’s business. 

So he just rolled his eyes instead and shook his head as they continued walking through the corridor, vaguely in the direction of engineering. “We dated. For a long time actually.” Another gentle smile as he thought about her, trying to focus on the future, not think about the past. “So yeah I do like her. Always have.”  

“You didn’t always like the people you dated Cap’n I think we all remember Rebecca.” Stopping in his tracks he glared for a moment, pretty sure his time with Rebecca had been before Trip had been part of the project. 

“Why does everyone hold her over my head?” He sighed, knowing that Erika would probably have said something similar. Though given the history between the two women he also probably wouldn’t think of her as being objective about it. Instead he shook his head and turned to the reason Trip would have been where he was heading anyway. “We’re heading off for Proxima in the morning. But do you have an engineer you’d recommend to go take over Columbia?”  

Now it was Trip’s turn to look confused, and Jon took a sick, perverse pleasure that he had managed to turn the tables, even if it was on a much more serious topic. “She doesn’t have an engineer?” Trip asked after a moment of clearly trying to figure out the maths in her head. 

“They were on a shakedown. Every engineer over there is from Jupiter Station. I get the feeling they aren’t the most spaceworthy bunch.” He also knew that at least three that she’d had on the trip were aliens who were probably not so happy at this point. “There were also a reasonable number of non-humans there, they almost certainly want to be returned to their homes.” 

“I’ll see who I can spare, but if she needs a chief I recommend Lieutenant Hess.” Kate Hess had been Trip’s number two ever since Enterprise launched, and they’d all come to rely on her, but if Trip was ready to let her go then that was who Jon would recommend. “She’s been with me for years, stellar engineer. It’s about time she moved up.”  

“I’ll get Erika to reach out to her.” Jon stopped then as they reached the hatch for engineering and reached out to hold his engineer by the shoulder a moment. Feeling like a second of contact was wanted by both of them. ”How you holding up?”  

“You mean after watching our entire planet obliterated?” The statement was delivered with no emotion and then there was a slow blink and a shrug to go along with it. Trip had been suffering for months, now, because of the Xindi. This was just a bonus. “Honestly I think I’m too numb to it all at the moment I haven’t really had time to process it. You?”  

“I don’t know. I swing between fury and despondency.” He admitted honestly, deciding of all the people he could trust right now, the ones he’d most trust with his emotions were Trip and Erika, so they were who he’d try and rely on. “Maybe that’s normal?” 

“Least you have some other captains around, should help you figure out what is normal.” That seemed like Trip expected the Captains to be far, far more united on anything than they were. Right now their training and loyalty to one another were keeping everything going, but he didn’t think it would continue that way if there wasn’t an obvious path to a solution soon. “Because I don’t think society is gonna ever be normal again.”  

“Erika made an interesting point just as we were leaving the meeting now.”  Jon said, as he thought about a new normal that would be created and that would definitely be something that was needed for any kind of normalcy to resume. “If we look to the future, the days after tomorrow… we’re all gonna have to start having babies.”  

“Starfleet rules don’t exactly allow for that.” Trip chuckled and then shook his head clearly not sure about any of that. “At least not for those of our ranks. I guess the lieutenants and ensigns would be fine…”  

“Maybe we’re going to need to think about suspending those rules… There’s only a few thousand of us left, Trip. We’re going to need to repopulate.” Jon hadn’t really had time to consider it, and he didn’t need to ask Erika. He already knew that she thought the frat rules were ridiculous. She’d made that very clear during their separation four years earlier and he doubted anything since would have changed her mind about it. 

“I don’t think that’ll be hard with the civilian population. There are always baby booms after tragedies and wars.” That wasn’t something that Jon had considered either, but it wouldn’t surprise him. Wasn’t that the first thing that he and Erika had done when they were together? Searched for some physical comfort, something to reconnect them with their humanity, and with another person. “But I don’t think the Starfleet crews would hate that being lifted either. Maybe one to talk about in a future captain’s briefing.” 

“Maybe.” He let himself think about it for a moment as Trip headed into the engine room, looking through to see clearly if Jon was going to follow him. “I’m going to check in with Phlox, tell Hess to expect a call from Captain Hernandez, and prepare her for the fact Columbia is… well unfinished.” 

“Will do…” Trip grinned then pulled the door shut after him, leaving Jon in the corridor, wandering slightly aimlessly and idly considering the damage throughout the ship. Between Columbia being unfinished and Enterprise being so terribly damaged he doubted that either ship would really be able to put up that much of a fight if the Xindi Reptilians or Insectoids were actually going to come knocking. 

Eventually though, he made his way down to his destination, stepping in to a still quite well occupied sickbay. Though it had only been five days since they had been in The Expanse. “Busy down here Doctor?” He asked, though it was not really a question that could be answered.  

“We still have a lot of crew recovering from our last few days in the Expanse.” Phlox admitted and then tried to put on a smile, though it was clear he was feeling every inch as tired as the rest of the crew was looking at this point. “Are you here for any particular reason?”  

“I’m just checking in, wanting to know about the health of the crew. Beyond the obvious.” He motioned around him, though he was glad that three had left to their quarters since the day before. Ensign Aquino and it looked like crewmen Mably and Whittle. 

Phlox took one of his long breaths that often made it clear that not everything was going the best it could, Jon just hoped that it wasn’t something that was immediately going to impact them all. “Physically the crew is doing quite well, Captain. Mentally… We may have problems in the future, but for now we don’t need to be worrying too much about it.”  

“Am I going to be arranging with one of the Denobulan ships to take you home when we get to Proxima?” Given what he knew about Phlox he doubted this was a question he really needed to ask, but he felt like after the experience in the Expanse and then literally watching Earth be destroyed he may feel differently. 

“Captain?” Phlox asked and Jon just nodded, hoping to reassure him that no matter the answer, Jon would respect it. “I know that, technically, the IME likely will collapse after this, at least with regards to humans… but I feel like my place is here, with your fleet.”  

“Thanks. I needed to make sure. I will also be checking with T’Pol. I can’t imagine that the Vulcans would be very happy about her staying with us now. Not that they really were before.” Though he didn’t think that there was anything they could do to force her to go home.  

“I’m glad you thought to check Captain.” There was a moment where Phlox’s face was genuinely more cheerful, but then he brought it back, remembering what was now happening. Though truthfully, Jon would have preferred for the happiness to have stayed on his face longer. “When can we expect to be at Proxima?” 

“In about ten days.” He said, quietly making plans to start getting headcounts sent to him so he could get a firmer count on how many humans there were left. Send out word through all their contacts for humans who’d been off world so they knew that there were other survivors still around. 

Phlox, seemingly oblivious to Jon’s mental calculations that Erika had triggered, just cheerfully continued. “I will have my letter of request to remain with Enterprise ready for transmittal then.”  

At that Jon couldn’t help but smile and then nod. He was hoping that that was going to be all they needed.“It will be easy, we’re going to have a whole group of Denobulan medical vessels joining us at Proxima for at least a few days. Hopefully enough to deal with the civilian fleet, and maybe find one or two other physicians like yourself who might care to stay with us a little longer.” 

“I’m sure there would be no harm in asking. My daughter is coming, she sent me a letter. She may like to stay with our little fleet.” Phlox’s unwavering optimism was always something that Jon appreciated, and it was why he found it so easy to speak to the doctor. As Jon stood there awkwardly for a moment it was clear that Phlox picked up on his conflicted thoughts. “Is there anything else?”  

Should he ask the doctor his opinion about Erika’s though that they needed now, as a society, to start making babies? He wasn’t sure. Immediately he even thought that he might ask Phlox specifically about his and Erika’s problems six years earlier and what could be done now? That might be too much when they didn’t really know themselves if they wanted that yet. “Not right now, Doctor, thank you.” He said then sighed and shook his head. “I should go and try to get some sleep.” There were going to be a lot of decisions he’d need to make in the morning, and he thought that maybe talking some of this over with Porthos would make it all seem more straight forward. 

Chapter Text

After six days travelling at warp, there was nothing that Erika Hernandez wanted to do more than to not be the one in command right now. She was really not enjoying being stuck with fifty engineers who had no understanding of what actually managing a space-born ship was like. Sure, she barely knew herself from the captain’s side, but she was working it out. As she stepped onto the bridge first thing this morning, she was almost shocked that Veronica was already there. “Captain on the Bridge.” 

She stopped in her step for a moment and then just let out a momentary yelp of surprise. “Oh, I could get used to that. Ready room?” She indicated, hoping that Veronica would instantly follow her over to the opposite side of the bridge and in to her private office. When she dropped into the chair behind the desk she watched as Veronica dropped in behind her. “How’s everything coming along?” 

“We’ve had to drop down to one point five, the Ashoka is having some engine troubles.” Erika couldn’t resist the groan she let out at that idea, and she then shook her head at that, thinking over their options and she desperately hoped that they would be able to pick up the pace again. It was only point three of a factor, but it was enough to put them below their expectation. 

“Do we need to drop out of warp and help them?” She hoped not, but she was ready to offer it if it was very important for her to actually offer it, just in case that meant they’d be able to try and get them back up to speed quicker. 

“Tobin Dax is on the comm with them, he thinks he can talk them through it.”  Suddenly, Erika didn’t regret only having engineers on her ship right now. “Does mean we’ll be a couple days behind the rest of the fleet unless we can pick up some speed though.”  

“That’s why we’re the caboose after all.” Erika sighed and dropped the padd she held on to the desk, then looked up at Veronica and shook her head at the floor before she looked down at the form on her padd. “I’ve sent a general request through all the ships for able crew, Captain Archer is going to put the list together for us.” 

“You think you’ll be able to find some?” Veronica asked, clearly not holding out much hope for the crews of the ships in the fleet. And Erika understood most of them would probably need to keep hold of their own ships too. 

“I’m hoping so. We don’t need a full complement, and science officers can be retrained in command or engineering.” She just shrugged and shook her head softly. “I know Jon’s also sent something out to count the number of humans we have left.” 

Veronica smirked a little and then tilted her head a little, clearly doing some mental mathematics, and then she just smirked. “You can tell him there are 71 on this ship, three of them are under five though.”  

“They didn’t get evacuated?” Erika didn’t entirely like the fact that there were three very, very young children aboard her ship for, at this point, several days without her being at all aware of it.  

“They were without parents, I didn’t feel comfortable putting them on an overcrowded civilian ship.” There weren’t many occasions where Erika was genuinely surprised by her friend, but this was one. “Ensign Blaine has taken a real shine to them, they are apparently a great help in hydroponics.” 

“I’ll let you off, for now.” She replied, understanding that leaving three children alone in chaos wasn’t for the best, but right now it was going to be what needed to happen. “So yes, we have 71. We’ll probably need to supply names. Can I leave that to you?” 

“Yeah.” Veronica trailed off a moment and then dropped down into the armchair on the other side of her ready room and sighed quite dramatically. “Has it hit you yet? That… a week ago we watched Earth destroyed and now we’re just… here.” There was a moment’s pause before she finished the thought, but Erika wasn’t going to rush it. “On a slow ride into hell.” 

“I haven’t really let myself think about it honestly.” And if she had her way Erika wasn’t going to allow herself to think about that yet. That kind of processing was something she could do when they had a few minutes to rest. “I had some conversations with Jon while we were in Vulcan space though. Humans are going to have to start having babies, and we’re going to have to start soon.” 

“That’s going to be hard when we’re all on overcrowded ships… Most of these ships are carrying a couple of hundred people and they were designed for maybe 40.” That was something that Erika herself had considered, so she was glad that Veronica had echoed it back at her.  

“I know. Though if Captain Archer brings this up with you that’s not a concern right now.” She then shook her head a little, knowing that they would find somewhere eventually. “Enterprise is searching for a suitable planet, preferably one hidden away with some protections so we don’t have to… worry too much about the Xindi returning.” 

“I think for all of us that is always going to be a fear.” That admission was one Erika could understand, but she still wasn’t going to dignify this situation with fear. Just with grim determination and a hope that they could eventually get their engines up to full power. “Erika… We’ll make it through this, yeah?” Veronica asked after a few moments of silence, the first time she’d ever heard the kiwi actually afraid of anything. 

“Of course we will. We have to.” Was the only response that seemed to fit. “I should probably go and read through all the messages I have this morning. Jon has nominated that I’m the one the civilian Captains contact if they need anything and so far, that has been a lot of people demanding food.” As if they could magic that out of thin air. “Everyone should have enough to get to Proxima though, and they cancelled all food shipments so when we get there that should be more than enough, with rationing, to sustain the fleet.” She had been considering taking one of the container ships and turning it into a giant freezer where they could store produce long term. One of several suggestions she was thinking of mentioning to Jon when they arrived at Proxima. “There are also several other cargo ships going back to Proxima who were on their way to Earth, so they’ll be joining us there.” 

Veronica narrowed her eyes and instantly Erika had a feeling of where the woman’s mind was going. “I’m still suspicious that Proxima was left alone. They destroyed every outpost and colony… except for this one.” 

“You’re not the only one worried this is a trap.” She reasoned out, weighing the decision of saying that it was her that was against it at first. Maybe because if she knew that then Veronica would at least know that the two of them were aligned somewhat. “I also was against this idea initially but really it’s all we’ve got, and there are a thousand humans there.”  

“I know, and I can’t think of anything better. I just don’t like feeling like it’s a set up.” Veronica replied with a heavy sigh and she then shook her head a little. “Then again, it’s been a week, and we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of the Xindi, which also has me suspicious.” 

“Jon said they were quite splintered when he left them, they may have other things to think about.” That was definitely something she was quite anxious to hear more about and was glad that in their writing he’d agreed to have his debrief with the captains. “We’re going to convene a debrief panel when we get to Proxima.” 

“That’ll be hard without an Admiral, but I’ve always wondered what a panel without the black uniforms would be like.” Veronica’s chuckled and then shook her head. As she looked back up to Erika, there was just a gentle raise of her eyebrows and then Veronica went to a panicked and shocked look. “I don’t like how you’re looking at me, stop looking at me like that Erika.”  

“Wanna chair it?” She asked, knowing that it was pretty much already decided that Veronica was the first choice for chair, as nobody else’s XO had had any experience of chairing debriefs before. Sure, Veronica’s had been five years ago and for the Commanders, it was all essentially the same job.  

“Not really. I’m assuming I’m the only one with experience though?” The pout that Veronica pulled in reaction to that made Erika’s grin widen. 

“C’mon, you won’t have to hear it second hand from me then, you’ll hear what happened full on.” Veronica would have probably gotten the transcripts, eventually, due to her position in the fleet, and there was an additional reason that Erika was fond of. “And if you agree we have to have it on Columbia and that entertains me.” 

Giving a grumpy nod, Veronica then shook herself again and clearly tried to put that idea out of her mind. “Did you see that we finally got the partition up in the mess hall? You have your own space now.” 

“I think I might miss the camaraderie of us all eating in the same place though.” Erika had, initially, been looking forward to having her own dining space, but over the last few days there had been a certain spirit among them all while they shared their meal in the same place. “I don’t know. Maybe I just need a lot more connection right now.” Not that she didn’t have other avenues to search for that in, though it wasn’t something immediate that she had to worry about. 

“We’re all searching for things that make us feel human.” Veronica said sagely and Erika just nodded in complete agreement. “I know that’s how I’m going right now at least. You at least got to see Captain Archer for a while.” 

“That’s true.” She then chuckled to herself again as she thought about how bizarre it was that this was how they’d ended up. “There is a strange… poetry about the fact Jon and I were the leads on the NX Programme for so long, and now… we’re leading the only survivors of humanity.” 

“Hopefully you can keep him on a shorter leash.” There was a chuckled at that and Erika couldn’t help but roll her eyes at that. She felt like she’d managed to keep Jon on a good leash, it just so happened that AG Robinson had existed and that had complicated her job. 

“He doesn’t have AG to play off of this time I hopefully won’t have to break up too many fist fights.” A snort came from the other side of the room as Erika read her reports. 

“At least if that Andorian commander isn’t around.” The first evidence that Veronica had actually read any of Enterprise’s logs almost shocked Erika entirely into silence, which it seemed amused her friend for a second before she slapped a hand on her thigh. “Oh! Speaking of AG, I did get some good news.” 

“Oh?” There was so little good news around them right now Erika prayed that this was actually some good news and not what Veronica thought was good news, but was actually probably going to depress her a little further. 

“Ruby and little AG are with us.” Erika stared at her for a moment, her mouth opening and closing repeatedly as she tried to formulate a response. “They were on a transport to Jupiter Station at the time of the attack. They were evacuated on the Intrepid and are currently on the Horizon.”  

Erika thought another moment and smiled to herself that one of their civilian friends had made it out. “If we’re going to have children on the ship… maybe when we get to Proxima we move Ruby here, if she’s willing.” That seemed like a way to have someone on board they could both rely on for somewhere to vent too. 

“You’re one of the head honchos, call and ask to speak to her.” Veronica pointed out as she stood up. “I should get back out to the bridge, make sure your boyfriend is staying on course.” She felt like she wasn’t going to get away from Veronica’s teasing about that in private, but as long as she didn’t do it in front of the crew, Erika wasn’t going to complain. 

Taking Veronica’s advice in hand though, she started working out how to path her communication quickest to Horizon, mostly would of practice. She remembered somewhere in the back of her mind that the Captain on the Horizon was the brother of Ensign Mayweather on Jon’s bridge, so at least she could remember the name. “Captain Mayweather. I believe you have a refugee aboard called Ruby Robinson.”  

“Yes, ma’am we do.” He replied after a second, his face losing some of the seeming stress it had built up from the mere fact that one of the Starfleet ships had called him.  

To which she was glad that she could reduce his stress even further. “Would it be possible to speak to her?” She hoped that Veronica’s information was correct, but she probably wouldn’t relax until she actually saw her friend right there in front of her.  

“Hey, hey can you go back to E section and find Ruby. Tell her Captain Hernandez is asking for her.” There was a moment that Erika froze before the freighter captain turned back to the screen with a more gentle smile. “Ruby’s been great for morale here. For my crew as well as the refugees.”  

“I’m sure she is, she’s always been good at turning a bad situation on its head.” Erika smiled, knowing that that was one of the reason’s that Ruby’s bar had been a favourite of Starfleet for so long. Though she had to admit that before Ruby bought it, she’d been the best bartender in San Francisco.  

“You can say that again.” Paul Mayweather shook his head with a grin, then after another moment his smile fell and worrying crept back across his face and he spoke quietly, clearly hoping that his crew wouldn’t overhear what the two of them were talking about. “Captain… do you think we’ll be safe at Proxima?” 

“I’m going to be doing my damned hardest to make sure that we are.” Erika smiled trying to keep the conversation light but reassuring. She couldn’t promise, but she wanted to make it clear that she was going to do everything in her power to make sure everything was okay. She was about to say something else when Ruby and her daughter came into frame. “Ruby! I’m so glad that it was you.” 

“Erika! You made it, thank God. I couldn’t remember when Columbia’s shakedown was.” Ruby’s relief that Erika was there was almost as clear as Erika’s was on her own. “AG is not really enjoying being in space, I don’t think.” The ten-month-old certainly seemed to be mid-grumble, though had stopped when she heard Erika’s voice. 

“She’ll get used to it, won’t you pumpkin sauce?” Erika said quietly, mostly addressing the baby at first. Erika’s nieces may have died, but at least she still had her goddaughter. “We were just talking about moving people about at Proxima and when I heard you were around, I was hoping you’d come to Columbia.” Erika really wanted to have her friend aboard. “We have three orphaned kids who we need help caring for.” 

“If you need help with that I’ll come over. Maybe set up a little classroom.”  Ruby clearly enjoying that idea and nodded, speaking quietly to the baby and then smiling back to Erika. “We’ll talk about it more at Proxima?”  

“We will. Jon’ll be glad to know you’re here.” Though she didn’t think that Jon had actually met her yet. It was important to Ruby that AG meet all those who had known AG, and there weren’t that many of those people left. “She’s getting big, and it’s only been a month since I saw her. How did you…?” 

Ruby just shook her head a little. “I sold the 602, I had written a letter that was supposed to be delivered to you, Sam, Jon and Veronica… well two days ago now but after I shut up.” Ruby trailed off and shook her head a little and smiled “I’ll tell you everything when we see each other. Say bye to your aunt Erika.” Ruby said, causing Erika to smile again at the baby. This was already starting to look up at least a little bit for her. 

Chapter Text

Ten days of travel at warp had actually been more difficult for Jon than he’d been expecting. Especially commanding a group of this size. He’d quickly had to delegate - emergencies to him, requests to Erika, engineering problems to Captain Jennings. That was on top of ensuring that every ship had enough food and water for the people she was carrying. “Still no signs of Xindi at Proxima?” He asked again as they were approaching the system, anxiety causing more of the repetition rather than a real concern. 

T’Pol looked at him and shook her head gently. “No. There are 18 ships in the system. The majority of them are Denobulan, with three Earth cargo ships.” He took a breath, realising that that was more space to spread out, and more supplies to disseminate.  

“Great, then take us toward the colony ensign, lets start to regroup.” He had plotted out a position for each ship to take up when they dropped out of warp, allowing reasonable space around each for movements that could be needed here. They didn’t need anyone running in to each other.  

“Yes sir.” He gripped Travis’ shoulder gently as he passed the back of his chair on his gentle but continuous pacing around the bridge. The nervous energy he felt unable to be worked out by anything but this pacing and his thoughts, and neither had seemed to help all that much so far. 

“How far away is Columbia?” He asked, again looking back to T’Pol knowing that she’d be able to tell where their sister ship was and when she’d be arriving. He didn’t even look at her to know if she gave indication she thought it might be for another reason why he was asking after her.  

It didn’t seem that she did. At least if she did there was no indication of it in her voice and Jon was a little thankful for that. He was already certain that plenty of people were going to know about his relationship with his fellow captain before long. “They should arrive in about 8 hours, sir.”  

“Signal them, let them know we’ve arrived.” They had agreed to that a couple of days ago, just so they would always know the moves that each other was taking. Giving prior warning if needed. “I’ll take a shuttlepod down to the colony, speak to those in charge here.” He said, though sat back in his chair for a moment, pulling up his talking points. 

“They are the only elected government we have now.” Hoshi made the comment, and Jon decided not to reply. This kind of situation was when he liked to pretend to be absorbed in a task, allowing his officers to speak more freely. It gave him some valuable insight into what those not in charge thought. 

“But they weren’t elected for Earth though.” Malcolm countered after a moment, though it didn’t sound like he was particularly passionate about the situation, more just pointing out the facts. “So they may not want to take on the whole population.”  

Travis, who had also been preparing his station for him to leave then just responded, and it was almost the last thing Jon had expected out of his resident space boomer. Though there was about to be a whole generation who could claim that title. “It would be nice if we could find just one politician from Earth.”  

“Travis, you’re with me.” He said, trying to stop that particular conversation as it likely wasn’t going to be what he wanted them to be thinking about at this moment. As he stood up he stopped at tactical. “Malcolm, there is a list on the computer for Captain Hernandez, can you forward it on to her.” At Malcolm’s quizzical look he smiled a little. “It’s people in the fleet who could staff her ship. They were on a shakedown, she doesn’t have anyone.”  

“Oh. Nobody?” Was the response with Malcolm seemingly trying to work out that statement. “How have they kept going?” The last two weeks seem to have helped everyone forget that Columbia had been out on her initial shakedown. She’d technically still been weeks or months away from actually being ready to launch. 

“It’s the Captain, her XO, three other crew, two we’ve sent and about 50 civilian engineers from Jupiter station.” Jon had to admit, he couldn’t imagine being stuck with the engineers of Enterprise’s first shakedown, and he wasn’t envious of Erika’s experience over the last ten days 

Jon had almost forgotten that Trip had been on the bridge he’d been sat so quietly and the statement was enough to make everyone on the bridge pause and stare at him for a moment. “That’s the kinda party none of us want to be at.”  

“You’re an engineer!” Hoshi managed to splutter out before anyone else had regained their speech from the out-of-pocket observation from their chief engineer, and Jon just smirked a little as he continued to the turbolift. 

“Yeah but pilots throw better parties.” Now that was something that Jon couldn’t really deny, having been one of the pilots throwing the parties. Though he had to admit, he hadn’t really been present at most of them, or if he had he’d been too tangled up in Erika to have really been involved in the debauchery.  

“That explains so much about who you are as a person commander.” Hoshi shot back, shaking her head and laughing as Jon just waited for Travis to join him in the life. “I’m sure you were one of the least well behaved there.” Hoshi really knew their chief engineer too well.  

“Rude, I’m the perfect-“ Trip’s words were cut off by the closing off the door and both the Captain and the helmsman burst into a fit of giggles, clearly taking whatever brevity they could in this situation.  

“I don’t think I wanna know what Commander Tucker thinks he’s perfect at.” Travis chuckled as the lift whisked them away and they both had to be left in the dark of what it was that the bridge officers had continued talking about as they left. Jon wasn’t going to pretend that any of them had been completely innocent back then. 

“As the one at most of the parties he’s talking about, you really don’t, and I think Hoshi’s going to regret opening up that can of worms.” Trip was not one to stop talking about those memories when he started, though there may well be some new rumours about him in the morning. “But they were some good days, and I was normally one of the better behaved. Normally.”  

Travis continued chuckling at that and then smiled even more as he looked up, clearly sensing an opportunity to learn more about what had happened in the early days. “I can imagine. We’ve all heard rumours of the old Starfleet parties, some of you first gen junior officers could party, so they say.”  

“Most of them were not true.” Jon defended, though honestly not sure who he was most defending there. There weren’t that many people left that would remember most members of the NX programme. Inevitably even Erika would likely fade from history, a bit part in someone’s high school essays. “Some of them are though.” 

Travis lit up again and then smirked, clearly thinking of something quite specific. “You and Commander Robinson having a fist fight in the 602?” How was that always the story that everyone remembered rather than any of the others that had happened over the years.  

“That happened more than once.” He laughed, remembering how he and AG had wound each other up a lot until they got over it. “The first time, Captain Hernandez and Ruby broke us up after the first couple of punches. The second time, well Erika wasn’t there and Ruby couldn’t do it on her own. Commander Tucker was there for that one.” He laughed thinking about that, missing his friends at that moment, glad that Erika and Trip, at least, were close at hand. 

“You and he must have a hell of a lot of stories. Captain Hernandez too. I should ask her about them some time too.” Jon was almost afraid of the stories that Erika could or would tell about him, and he was almost certain that she would enjoy spreading them too.  

“We’ve got some good ones, that’s definitely true. A lot of them the same, just from different points of view.” Jon’s head shook softly as he thought of some of his own stories. The vast majority of them being things he probably should have been chased out of Starfleet.  

“One day maybe you should tell us all about them… Or write them out.” Travis said, and then at Jon’s clearly slightly puzzled look he continued his thoughts. “It’s the only way anyone’ll know about them now.” 

“Maybe you’re right.” He had to admit as they climbed into the shuttlepod, and Jon was grateful that Travis focused on his job and allowed Jon to think over what he had just had suggested. Between Travis’ suggestion here and Erika’s thoughts about babies he was realising how much humans had lost. Most of their history would be saved, on the data bank here at Proxima and what had been saved on Starfleet’s ships, but so much was going to be lost. Especially of these early years of Starfleet.  

He was midway through writing the first page on his padd when he realised that not only had they launched, but they were sliding through the airlock shuttle entrance to the colony and he needed to pull himself out of the reverie that he’d fallen into at Travis’ suggestion. “Captain Archer, welcome to Proxima Colony.” The Prime Provost said as she stepped up to him.  

“I wish it wasn’t under these circumstances.” Jon said as he held his hand out to the slight blonde and then nodded to her companions. He was guessing her assistant and one of her security detail. He then motioned back to Travis, feeling it would be rude not to introduce him. “Ensign Mayweather, my helmsman.”  

“I feel the same. Matilda Benton” Her thin smile betrayed the stress she was also probably feeling. She was the last elected leader that humanity had, guiding the last colony. He couldn’t imagine that things were easy for her right now. “You’re leading the fleet of survivors?”

“I am, we’re still getting numbers. We’re thinking there are around nine thousand of us left.” He was largely guessing, but that was what he was assuming were in the fleet. Hopefully by the time he got back up to the ship he was going to be able to know for sure, and then he could fill everyone in and start making plans. 

Benton’s face changed as she realised what Jon was saying. There were almost ten billion people living on Earth, and just over two million on her colonies and outposts. All wiped from existence in nothing more than moment.  “Nine thousand. That’s all?”  

He nodded gently and motioned to the area around him, still very clearly in the active stages of early terraforming, making this part of the planet exactly what they needed for human habitation. “And that’s including the what, fifteen hundred here?”  

“Closer to eleven hundred, honestly. We weren’t at full capacity yet.” Benton looked a little sad about that and then looked around as she walked then through toward their main administration building. It looked almost idyllic here if they weren’t here for the reason of their home planet having been destroyed. “The Rigelians are happy to share the planet with us, but there’s still only a certain amount of space.” 

“That drops the estimate somewhat. I understand that we couldn’t all come and settle here, we’re looking for another planet somewhat nearby where we could start anew.” The shortlist kept growing, he now had five good candidates, and he knew which ones Erika preferred, he didn’t know which one was going to be best for them though. “We’ve saved everyone we could.” He said, and after a second the Provost dropped her head, her shoulders shaking in silent tears.  

“Sorry about that, Captain.” She said, bringing herself back, and it was clear that she was being deeply affected by whatever was on her mind in that moment. She took another deep breath and then just shook her head. “My… my family hadn’t joined me yet, they were due to come on next month’s transports.”  

“I’m sorry.” He meant it genuinely, rubbing her shoulder supportively. He’d seen more than one person recently having similar moments about the people they’d missed, the people they hadn’t saved. Jon himself hadn’t had that, but he also hadn’t had a large family network. He needed to check on Erika again when Columbia arrived. He hadn’t had a large family, but she had. Right now though, he had more pressing problems. “Have you heard anything from anyone else in government.” 

“We’ve been hailing around but… Earth was keeping it’s leaders pretty close to home. We don’t think anyone is out there, so it might be down just to you.” He’d been hoping that an admiral or an ambassador had been travelling somewhere, but after two weeks he was sure that they’d have activated their beacons by now.  

So he had to admit that his disappointment and growing stress level probably showed on his face at that. He didn’t know what was going to come of it, he just wanted for there to be someone other than him in charge of all this. “That was the last thing I was hoping you’d say.”  

“I know.” Benton motioned to the two barely begun domes he could see on the outer perimeter of their build zones. “We can’t even take any refugees right now. It’s going to take us another two weeks, at least, to get our last two living domes set up, but we’re going as fast as we can to help you all out.”  

“Thanks.” Jon nodded, genuinely grateful that they were going to be doing everything they could to help. Especially as there wasn’t all that much anyone could offer right now. “Can we bring people down to stretch their legs?” 

“Fix up a rota, however you think is fair. We can take about two hundred at a time.” That was plenty for one of the cargo ships, or a few of the smaller ships, to all have some time away from their ships every few days. He would have to make sure that was kept fair. He didn’t know how he’d do that right now, but he’d work it out. 

“We can arrange that, I’ll share it with you when we have one, and you can veto it if it’s too much.” He thought about what the fleet needed most and right now he knew that it was the basics of humanity, things that would be hopefully easy to acquire on way or another. “They may need food and water.”  

“We’ll set up stations.” Benton said, a walk around the administration building complete and then he just smiled as they stopped at the door. “Everyone down here is doing everything we can to help you up there, Captain. Want to see what we have to offer?” 

For the next five hours he busied himself with the working of the colony, how ships could check in and out. How everyone that came down to visit would need a wristband with a tag for security purposes. He saw cargo manifolds and worked out who was going to need what, and what was going to stay stored on the planet until they’d worked out where else things were going to go. It wasn’t something he’d ever imagined he’d be doing, but he was the de facto administrator for their fleet. When he finally made it back to Enterprise he called an immediate senior staff briefing.

“Find anyone?” Trip asked as soon as he was in the room and Jon just shook his head. 

“Nothing that’ll help us.” Turning straight to Hoshi as he knew that she would be the best for the first thing he needed to get organised. “Work with the ship captains. We’re going to try and arrange some visits down to the planet. 200 people at a time. No more than that.”  

“I’ll start working it out.” Hoshi nodded, taking one of the two padds he had ready to be handed out. He had tried to do some basic work but he’d quickly realise he wasn’t good at this part, and he needed to be better at delegating anyway. 

“Thanks Hoshi.” He nodded, then turned to Malcolm, knowing that the armoury officer would be much happier knowing that Jon was starting to prepare for the security of the system. “Malcolm, we’re going to have to work on a defence plan for the security of the system.” He handed another padd to him with what work he’d already done. 

Malcolm nodded giving it a cursory glance over then smiled softly. “That will be easier once Columbia arrives.” That was true, though they would need to get working on building some more torpedoes for them both. But he wanted Malcolm to be making the plans now, working with people around, making sure that the remains of humanity were safe. 

“Make it on the assumption she’s here. Work with the Rigelians on the other side of the moon, they’re happy to help us, and they know if the Xindi come here they’ll be in as much trouble as we are.” He hadn’t even been aware that they shared the moon colony with the Rigelians until they were here, but that was definitely going to be a bonus in their protection efforts.  

“Yes sir.” Malcolm hovered just one more moment, then much like Hoshi took off with the padd, though he headed to the turbolift. No doubt to the armoury where he’d be able to put things out across several screens and really get to work on it all.  

Before he could even turn to him, Trip started to speak quickly, clearly having something on his mind and not wanting to lose track of it by letting the Captain speak first. “Captain, we have another problem.” That wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but he wasn’t really going to able to prevent problems.  

“Another one? What’s that Trip?” He took a breath and steeled himself for the worst. Enterprise was coming together he knew that. The damage was still severe, but they had closed almost all of their hull breaches.  

Trip winced, clearly not happy that he had to be bringing this up, and to Jon that meant that it was something he definitely needed to know. “There’s been some chatter among the engineers across the fleet… Some of these ships don’t have… don’t have the waste and recycling facilities for the amount of people on them.”  

“What do we need?” Hopefully there was something they could do immediately, but he doubted that. He seemed to remember that one of the more difficult innovations for Starfleet had been how to manage waste. It had been solved. 

“I think you know what I’m gonna say but we need waste reclaimators, mostly. Might be something we ask the Vulcans for.” Trip immediately suggesting they have to ask for them told him that the engineers had already tried to work out things on their own and hadn’t managed to work it out.  

“Let me guess, kinda hard to make our own?” He asked and Trip gave a grim and defeated nod, seeming more tired right now than even Jon felt. He then paced around the table a moment as he thought about having to ask for charity, hating it was coming to that. “I’m not sure… We can ask.”  

“We need at least a hundred.” That would fit as almost one for each ship, but it was probably just that some of the freighters needed multiple. “Right now… we have nine. We can’t be above begging.” Trip advocating them begging the Vulcans for something really did show just how desperate their situation had become.  

“And I think I’m going to have to.” He sighed then chuckled to himself, seeing the irony in this moment. “Maybe I should get Erika to do it, she was always better at that kind of thing than me.” That was something she’d always known how to sweet talk out of people, and a skill he’d always envied.  

“Bring it up with her when they get here?” Trip said and then shrugged. “But it is going to be a matter of health and safety in the next week or so. Unless we want to move more refugees back to Enterprise and Columbia and a few of the larger passenger ships… we’re the only ones with enough for the amount of people.” Trip then shrugged and turned on his heel, heading off the bridge and Jon momentarily had to hope that when Erika arrived she was feeling helpful. 

He was still in the process of drafting a request to the Vulcan high command about the reclaimators when he heard a beep from Hoshi’s direction and her voice followed it up a second. “Sir, Columbia has dropped out of warp.” 

“Thank god, that means we’re all here.” He let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, and looked down at the info window on the arm of his chair that showed the information from the slowest couple of ships started to come through. 

“I don’t think God has a lot to do with any of this.” Travis mumbled from in front of him and Jon just nodded silently, appreciating that that was probably going to be the thought process from a lot of the crew in the coming days, and he couldn’t entirely blame any of them for that.  

“You’re not wrong, ensign.” He agreed, making it clear that he heard and didn’t think it was out of line for Travis to be feeling that way either. He then turned to Hoshi and then thought about how much information to give Erika immediately, deciding that he was going to just get her to call them. “Tell Captain Hernandez that I need to talk to her as soon as she’s available.” 

“Yes sir.” Hoshi then spoke to whoever it was on Columbia manning the equivalent station, waiting to hear the reply and how fast he needed to get into his ready room. “She says give her twenty minutes.” There was a smirk on Hoshi’s face and he decided he didn’t want to know what the comm officers were actually saying to one another. 

“I’ll hold her to that. When she calls put it through to the ready room.” He then just got up, not rushing himself into his private office, taking a stretch and smiling as he sat down, Porthos only looking up momentarily as he came in, his head back between his paws once Jon sat down behind his desk. 

It was a little more than twenty minutes later that the screen burst to life and he smiled seeing Erika sat at her desk in a very similar way he was. “You wanted to talk to me?” At hearing Erika’s voice Porthos vaulted from his cushion and up into Jon’s lap, front paws on the table and licking the screen where Erika was. “Hi Porthos.” She chuckled at the dog and her smile became much more soft as she watched him.  

“I need your brain.” He said after a few moments, pulling Porthos away and settling him on the floor despite the whines showing that he didn’t really want to be left like that. “The one where you always managed to keep our time frames realistic, and probably also the one that could always get equipment when we needed it.”  

“I’d take whatever time frame you and AG gave me and add six weeks. It wasn’t a difficult conversion.” Erika explained her method, the smile immediately seeming to become more tired and drawn. “I feel like this will be considerably bigger, on both counts.”  

“I would bet on it.” He sighed and then decided to just lay it all out, wanting to get Erika’s thoughts on everything. “Right now I have Hoshi working on a visitation schedule to the surface… they can only take two hundred at a time.”  There had been no wiggle room in that. “And we should have a final headcount in the next few hours.” 

“Those are good steps. Tell Hoshi to send me what she makes up and I’ll look it over.” She didn’t address the final headcount, and didn’t seem to ask for what it would be. He was thankful for that.  

“I’m also going to make a defence plan for the system with Lieutenant Reed.”  That was even more needed, and he sighed softly knowing that there was going to be no real way to entirely protect all these lives. “That one you might want to be read in on.”  

“I would, but I think I’ll be considerably less useful at that.” She joked, clearly referencing her own inexperience. “But you can read me in on that when you’ve got it finished. I’m not going to push for it. As much as I hate him, Ramirez is a good tactician, ask for his advice on it.”  

“I will.” He then sighed and shook his head, knowing that of everyone he’d ever known, Erika was the person who most likely to understand what a personal pain it would be asking the Vulcans for help, even if he’d done it before. “Then I have to beg the Vulcans for about a hundred waste reclaimators or we’re going to have to be moving people about again.” He then sighed and watched as the lines on Erika’s face pulled in a way that always worried him. “You look stressed.”  

“No more so than you are, Jonathan.” She tried to deflect and while that was almost certainly true, he wasn’t going to let her throw off the observation that  easily, not when he was worrying about her. He didn’t have that many people to worry about now. After a moment she sighed and just shook her head to him. “I’ve not slept so well.” 

“Me either.” He nodded, knowing that there was nothing he wanted more than to pull her into his bed and sleep for twenty four hours. It would make things so much more simple for them all, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do either of those things any time soon. “Everything is just bad news. Bad news and painful conversations I’d rather not have to have.” 

“Jonathan, I do have some good news…” Erika said to head him off and it was enough to get his attention, pausing his ramble before it really got going and forcing him to just turn his head. “Ruby made it off world with little AG. She’s on the Horizon.” 

That news was good, but it was also confusing for a moment. He’d assumed that everyone he’d known on Earth had likely been lost. Of everyone, how was it his late friends’ wife and daughter had made it off the planet in the minutes or hours before it was destroyed. “… How?”  

“Ruby was taking up a position running the mess on Jupiter Station. Needed to get away I suppose.” That made sense, Jon wasn’t sure he’d have been able to stay in San Francisco if he’d lost Erika at any point, let alone if they had managed to settle down. “I’m bringing her over to Columbia as soon as we can. I thought you might like to come and meet AG’s daughter.”  

Thinking of the baby, he had to admit that he was a little sad about the fact that AG had never actually gotten to meet his daughter, and how much he would have loved every minute of it. “He’d have been such a great dad, Rike.” He said quietly, knowing that she would miss their friend as much as he did. 

“He would, and we’ll make sure she knows that.” That reminded him of his conversation with Travis. About how they needed to tell their stories, and that little baby was an example of why. “I’ll let you know when that’s happening.”  Erika then smiled softly at him again and kissed her fingers before pressing them to the screen. “Get some sleep.” 

“Just as soon as you do.” He joked, just watching her face a moment and regretting the four years that he’d allowed to pass since they’d last been alone. “I love you.” He said, and she just nodded and smiled before ending the call, knowing that in her own way she’d returned his thought. Now he looked back at his padd and sighed heavily before looking to Porthos again. “You want to finish this request to the Vulcans, huh?”

Chapter Text

Confirmed Human Survivors: 9,652 

How, on a ship as badly damaged as Enterprise still was, was it so difficult to find her Captain. Erika felt like she’d been through every obvious place for him, so now she was going section to section and she was hoping that she’d see him. As she climbed over a piece of debris she could hear something, and as she continued climbing over she realised it was Hoshi Sato. “Ensign?” The question was asked and she stayed back as she heard the ensign trying to stifle her sniffles. “Oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean to intrude.” She said, but as soon as the ensign turned around it was clear she was distraught, and the protective part of her kicked in and she opened her arms, turning so that she could keep Hoshi protected and see down the corridor. “Hey, come here.” She encouraged, and the young woman raced into her arms and then gripped on to Erika as though she was holding on for her life. 

Allowing the embrace to continue, Erika kept her eyes down the corridor she could see, while gently stroking Hoshi’s hair and allowing her to get out whatever it was that she’d thought about that had brought her to that. When she saw Jonathan come back and look at her quizzically she just waved a hand and mouthed “I’ll explain later.” To him and turned her attention back to the ensign she held tight. Only when she felt the grip starting to lessen did she pull back slightly and smile. “Want to talk about it?” 

“I just… Oh my gosh this is going to sound so stupid.” Hoshi said, chuckling a little even as her tears continued to fall. Right now, Erika didn’t think anything was going to sound stupid. They had all gone through something unimaginable.  

“Ensign, I cried this morning because I found an odd sock and realised I’ll never be able to find it’s partner.” Erika spoke softly, trying to sound reassuring while also making it clear that she wasn’t going to judge for whatever Hoshi was feeling. It was nothing individual, they would all have moments like this. “Nothing is stupid right now. You’re grieving, and I’m here if you need to talk.” 

Hoshi nodded a moment but then a second later wrapped her arms back around Erika before she started speaking quietly, clearly not wanting anyone else to overhear her. “I know I should be crying for my family and I am but right now… when I was young I was in specialist classes and I didn’t really get to be a kid very often, but in the shuttleport where my mother would take me there was a man. Ian.” Hoshi pulled back again, a watery laugh escaping as she spoke. “He just danced. That’s all. He had music in his ears and he danced and I loved the five minutes every day I got to dance with him. I would run up to him and we never said anything. Just danced. All the kids in our town knew him.”  

“That sounds like those five minutes were your time to be a kid.” Erika could understand how Hoshi felt. She’d first met Hoshi when she was a 11 year old in the advanced cryptography class Erika had taken at UCSF as part of her ongoing Starfleet training. Hoshi was there just because cryptography was another language and she wanted to master it. That was why Erika had kept track of her, and recommended her for Jon’s crew when he’d been staffing Enterprise. 

“A few years ago, right before Enterprise launched, his sister wrote to me. Said that her brother had seen me on the news and wanted me to know that he was proud of me. He kept telling her that one of his kids was going to the stars.”  Hoshi’s smile was so completely genuine and that made it almost more heart wrenching for Erika. These were the stories that humanity needed to try and keep hold of. Maybe that would be a project she started. “He was just a genuinely kind, sensitive soul and I hate that he’s just gone.” 

“Thank you for sharing that, Hoshi.” Erika said, stroking a tear off of the young woman’s cheek and then offered her another tight embrace. “The Welsh have a word, had a word I suppose… Cwtch. There is no direct common translation, hug and cuddle are similar but… a cwtch is an embrace with a safe space, comfort…” Erika stopped herself before she went too deep on it and instead focused on Hoshi. “If you ever need a safe space, and you can’t go to anyone here… I’m just a quick hop away in a shuttlepod.” 

“Thanks, Captain.” Hoshi wiped her face and then nodded, coming to a stillness that Erika was familiar with, the feeling of regaining control and back into business mode. Saving the collapse for another day, another time when she had the time to actually process the emotions. After a second Hoshi, all business smiled and started walking away, but added one thing on. “Thanks for the cwtch. I’m going to recommend that for others.”  

Erika just chuckled as she watched the ensign head back to the turbolift and she just shook her head a little. Her own emotions dangerously close to breaking through again and she decided that instead of this ridiculous search through the ship she’d just find out where Jon was and tell him not to move, mostly because she wasn’t sure she could cope with another one of his crew having a breakdown on her immediately. “Captain Hernandez to Captain Archer.” 

“How can I help you, Captain.” Jon’s voice was heavy and she wondered what had happened to cause that. Erika wasn’t sure that she could necessarily help with everything that was on his mind she hoped that she might be able to lighten his load somewhat. But to do that she needed to be able to find him. 

“Tell me where the hell you are so I can stop climbing all over your ship.” It came out as more of a demand than she’d intended for it to, but she also wasn’t sorry about it. She’d been all over the ship for him and somehow missed him, and she wasn’t going to do that again. 

“My quarters.” There. Simple. Easy. Straightforward for her to find. She squared her shoulders and thought through for a moment then she knew exactly where she was going. “I’ll see you in a minute then.” He knew she’d go there. She also knew that he wouldn’t invite any of the other captains to his quarters, but she wasn’t going to complain.  

As soon as she signaled at the door she was invited through, and as she saw him leant back on the bed with a book she tried to stay professional, but as soon as he motioned to the space beside him she’d known she was going to climb into the bed and rest up with him. Needing him to reinforce her own walls. He didn’t need her to speak, he just knew when she needed him like that. 

They rested up together, both in full uniform but managing to tangle up in each other enough that even she wasn’t sure who was where, and she was okay with that. As they took in a few moments together she could see Jon’s mind playing through seeing her in the corridor and she just smiled as he opened his mouth, anticipating the question and already having an answer that wouldn’t ruin the privacy the ensign had entrusted with her. “What was going on back there with Hoshi.” 

“The same as is going on here, I suppose.” Erika smiled, leaning up to kiss him gently for the first time since they’d laid down together. She knew there was a different context, but she wasn’t going to say what happened with Hoshi was all that dissimilar. “A moment of true human connection. A second for her to grieve something she lost.” Erika took a breath in, trying to push out the vision of Simon that came to her mind as she did. “I didn’t come here for this though, as much as I need it right now.” She needed to think about something else. Talk about something else. So focusing on what she’d learnt and why she’d come to Enterprise in the first place was the better idea. 

“What did you come here for?” Jon asked, kissing her neck in just the way she liked. Making it momentarily a lot harder for her to focus. She had to move back a little to stop him and allow her mind to think about what she needed for it to be. Jon pouted at that and Erika decided she could live with it. Even if she desperately wanted that too right now. 

“The civilian captains have decided that Adelle Reynolds on the Inara will be their point of contact with us.” There was a lot riding on the civilian captains right now, and she had agreed with their choice of who it should be. “At least for now. They understand we can’t talk to all of them, and without an elected government the best they can do is pick a centre point.” 

“They aren’t wrong with that. I don’t know Adelle.” Jon clearly looked at little confused and Erika wasn’t surprised. He’d probably never had to deal with her before, so for once Erika was the one with the bonus knowledge.  

“I do. Funnily enough I just took two of her kids for Columbia.” Erika chuckled and then at Jon’s look she just waved a hand. “Her eldest son was already signed on with me, he was just still on leave with his family until we launched. But then apparently his sister is an absolute genius when it come to your father’s engine so I took her on too.” Erika had needed a warp field specialist and when Tobin Dax had turned her down, he had at least been able to recommend Emilia.  

“Speaking of my father’s engine… How is Lieutenant Hess settling in.” Jon’s smiled widened a little as he got to be proud of both the engine, and the people who were taking care of it over on Columbia. 

Erika smiled at that and then grinned at how she had come along with Lieutenant Rivers. The two of them very clearly a couple. Erika wasn’t sure how they were going to keep that going before all this happened, but right now she didn’t care. She was happy for them. “She’s good, she’s going to be a great chief, and thank you for releasing Rivers early.” 

“He was going to be yours for launch anyway… you just launched early.” Jon nudged her with his forehead again and then moved back and stood up, starting to strip down. “I should sleep though. I have some Vulcan representatives coming to talk to me in the morning.” Oh now didn’t that sound like an intriguing prospect. Not. Though she really didn’t think that letting Jon try and deal with that on his own was a good idea. Leaving Jon alone with the Vulcans was, in fact, rarely a good idea. 

“Want me to be here for it?” She made it a request rather than her wanting to be there to prevent him from committing a political nightmare, but she was sure that he would understand that. 

“Think Columbia could spare her captain for the night?” Jon made it clear what he was asking, and she just nodded. Being away from her still very new ship for more than a few hours was a little anxiety inducing but at the same time… she didn’t want to turn down a chance to actually spent the night with him ever again. Maybe they could work out what to actually call this? She didn’t know but she knew that she was going to stay unless Veronica said she was needed on Columbia. 

“I’ll call over to Veronica.” She muttered as Jon came closer and kissed her gently between every word. After a second she pulled away and reached up to hit the com panel on the wall. “Hoshi can you get me Commander Fletcher over on Columbia.”  

“Yes ma’am, where do you need it routing?” It was an innocent question, and made sense. Erika was a guest on the ship, she wouldn’t have a standard place she’d be where the comm could be routed, she just hated that she had to answer it. 

“Captain Archer’s quarters.” She wasn’t going to say anything, she wasn’t. Erika felt the red tinge sliding up her cheek and she had to bite it back. Really she shouldn’t have decided to renew her relationship with Jonathan Archer if she was going to be precious about people knowing she was there. “I’m going to be stopping on Enterprise tonight unless you need me.”  

Veronica’s face broke into a grin and Erika could already sense what was going to come, and of course Veronica didn’t disappoint. “You having a booty call?” There was a smirk in her voice and Erika just sighed quietly, glad that they had foreseen this and Jonathan was actually ducked well out of the way.  

“There is an early meeting with the Vulcans in the morning, he’s requested my presence. So it makes more sense I stay here then we do two costly docks.” They could have used the transporter, but in truth Erika hadn’t used it yet and she wasn’t sure that she was entirely ready to try that either.  

“But are you staying in guest quarters?” There was still a tease in her voice and Erika decided she wasn’t going to try to deny it, but she wasn’t going to say anything about it either. Just continuing to allow Veronica to think whatever she needed to.  

“I want to see the situation room installed and ship shape by the time I come back aboard.” She just decided to give the order and refuse to answer Veronica’s question.  

“Nice dodge. Oh, the new engineer, know if she’s straight?” That question just made Erika narrow her eyes, as she had no idea what would make Veronica think she’d know that. Other than checking that she was qualified and happy to work on a Starfleet ship Erika hadn’t really asked many questions, especially not things anywhere near that personal. 

“What?” Was all she could say in response. She then shook her head and sighed, already a little worried that Veronica was going to cause problems with the civilians she was going to have to deal with. “Funnily enough, Veronica, my interview process rarely includes asking their sexuality, it doesn’t exactly fit with learning if they are competent.” 

“She’s a civilian, figured there’s no harm in asking you.” Veronica chuckled and then looked pensive for a moment before shrugging. “I think I’m going to ask her out tomorrow.” There was a moment, just a singular moment, where Erika really regretted how close she and Veronica were. She wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to know everything about what Veronica was up to, but at least it showed they were able to get along as well as they did. 

“Go for it.” Erika shook her head and then chuckled to herself, remembering the whole reason she was actually glad that she was staying here, and that they probably all needed something like this, someone to go home to at the end of the day. “Gods know we all need that connection we can make.” 

“I’ll see you tomorrow after the Vulcans then?” Veronica asked, clearly deciding to leave that admission alone. Probably because she knew that it was the truth. She was already certain that most of the fleet were probably looking for ways to connect.  

“Yes, several captains will be aboard for the debrief. We should be on time the Vulcans are due at oh seven hundred.” She wasn’t looking forward to that, but she also knew that it was going to be more difficult for Jon to speak about it to them than it was just speaking to her. Suddenly, before she ended the comm, she remembered the on thing they needed to do tomorrow evening. “Oh. and tomorrow evening - Amizina Phlox will be coming in to talk about coming aboard as Columbia’s doctor. I’d like you to be at that.”  

“Any relation to Phlox on Enterprise?” The question was asked and Erika just smiled. Sometimes it was nice to see that Veronica had actually read the reports she’d been given.  

“His eldest daughter.” Erika nodded, then wrapped her arms around herself. Starting to feel a little cold, Jon kept his ship a couple of degrees cooler than she was comfortable in, it seemed. She turned her attention back to the topic at hand though and smiled. “Apparently she followed in his footsteps and is an accomplished surgeon.” 

“Alright, I’ll see you back for those then.” Veronica said then smiled herself as she reached forward to end the call, and as soon as it was done she dropped to the bed, only to be met with Porthos climbing all over her, and two arms snaking around her waist and kissing her shoulder. 

“You could have told her you were in guest quarters.” Jon teased, continuing to kiss along her shoulder to her neck then across the other side, momentarily distracting her from any thoughts she had had in her mind. She could have told Veronica that, but it wasn’t her style. 

“I don’t like lying to my XO.” She smiled and turned her head to catch his lips as he came back along her shoulder. Not caring there was no name on this, and that they may have just been reacting to their planet being destroyed. It felt good in the moment and that was what Erika needed. “Dodging the question is better for our dynamic.”  

“Sometimes you gotta lie.” Jon countered after a moment, motioning Porthos down and then pulling Erika against him, laid in the bed comfortably. Somewhere they would always feel the most comfortable to have the serious, sensible conversations throughout the time they’d known each other. 

She didn’t think that it was inevitable that she’d have to lie to Veronica though. Stretch the truth, maybe. Omit things, almost certainly. But she didn’t imagine a situation where she’d need to outright lie. “I reject that, Ron and I work best when we know the other isn’t lying about anything. It’s why I have a much more casual relationship than you do with T’Pol.” She did notice that most of Jon’s crew were still quite formal, and while Erika would need to maintain some of that, she liked a more relaxed atmosphere. Maybe that would change. There was a lot happening that would change the way she worked. “I don’t think I could work with it any other way at this point.”  

Lapsing in to silence together Erika couldn’t shake how familiar this felt. How many times in her life had she laid in bed with Jonathan Archer and contemplated life. The number was probably over a thousand at this point. She clearly wasn’t the only one laid thinking, as Jon took in a deep breath and spoke quietly. “I can’t stop thinking about seeing you stood there holding Hoshi earlier. She seemed so broken, and you were so compassionate.” He shook his head and leant down a little to kiss her before he continued speaking. “How many others throughout the fleet were feeling like that at that exact moment?” It was a question that she wasn’t entirely sure that she was qualified to answer, so she was glad that he chuckled a second later and finished his thought train. “I will say, I don’t know how I feel about my crew going to you for their emotional breakdowns.” 

“Hmm, I mean… it makes some sense.” Deciding to follow in his footsteps with lightening the mood between them again, she found an opening to tease him and she was going to take it. Tonight she wanted to not think about anything, and just give herself over to this feeling. 

“Why!?” Jon looked genuinely a little taken aback by the fact that she thought his officers going to her made any sort of sense, and she just smirked happily before continuing.  

“I give better hugs.” She tried to say it seriously, but her voice cracked on the last word and she started to laugh, mostly because of the look of betrayal he held on his face turning to a huge smile. 

“Oh yeah… I’ll give you a better hug.” He joked, rolling on top of her as he did, the comforting weigh pressing on her reminding her that they were alive, and they were here to run all of humanity between them, until they managed to get some civilian leadership. She pushed all those thoughts out of her mind as Jon’s lips came crashing down on hers. There was time to make plans, but tonight she was going with the flow.

Chapter Text

It had been years since he’d woken up in bed with Erika, and as she slept quietly beside him, he had considered the last few years and how they really had just picked up exactly where they left off. There were a couple more lines on her face than the last time they’d done this, but they just made her even prettier. When her eyes flickered open and met his, he just smiled softly and reached out to gently stroke her cheek. “It’s been a long time since this happened.”  

“What?” Erika asked as she stretched her body out, pressing against him all the more once she had, another feeling that he had missed over the last four years.  

“Us waking up together.” He smiled, kissing her forehead gently then moving down slightly so that he could kiss her then rest looking on her level. There was nothing more that he wanted to do now that experience this every day. It was impractical, but he wanted it nevertheless. “I’ve missed you.” 

“I’ve missed you.” She agreed, stifling a yawn then leant in to kiss him once more before settling back, pulling his arm down under her cheek in a way she had always used to do when she had wanted him to hold her closer. “Your mission was an important one though.” She said, the hint of bitterness that was always there still evident, though it seemed dulled now. 

He just nodded and continued laying there, in this moment realising that he did have some things that he’d do differently if he could go back. This being one of them. “I do regret some things though.” He said quietly, barely loud enough for him to hear himself, but he knew Erika would know exactly what he was saying. “Especially about how we ended things.” 

“Jon…” Erika admonished, barely above a whisper herself. “We’ve been over this a lot the last three weeks.” That was true, they had. But he hadn’t ever said exactly what he was thinking about it. He hadn’t told her exactly how he felt because until he’d been laid there this morning. 

“No, I need to say this. I think we need to talk about it.” He pressed, wanting to just get it out, put his whole heart out there for her. Telling her absolutely everything that she needed to know about his thoughts. “I know I broke your heart when I was so insistent on ending things, and that kills me to think about.”  

“A little, I admit.” Erika said quietly, something she’d never told him before either. After a second she lifted her head with a look of concern and then frowned at him. “I don’t want you thinking that this is only because of that. Yes, I didn’t want to break up, and I was so hurt. But that was four years ago.” The worry she had in her voice made him shake his head and settle her against him again. 

“I don’t think that, this is just… who we are.” He knew that if they were ever left alone for long enough, they would always gravitate to each other. “I feel like the destruction of Earth has changed my priorities.” That was an understatement, his priorities no longer existed. “Probably it’s changed all of our priorities?”  

“We don’t have the luxury of being explorers anymore. We’re out here fighting for the survival of our entire species.” Erika echoed his thought and he was glad that they were on the same page. Though of course they were, he didn’t remember a time that they weren’t. Not about something serious like this.  

“All across the fleet I’m sure people are searching out comfort. Is that all we’re doing? Being the only two appropriate for each other?” He had to ask because while he was sure that they were the people who would always be like this for each other, would they have fallen into their old pattern so quickly if Earth hadn’t been destroyed? Would they have fallen so quickly into bed with one another if he’d returned to Earth triumphant, but broken?   

“Jon..” She started and then shook her head a little. “I know you want to have this conversation, and I think we both need to have this conversation. But I’m not sure I’m ready.” She looked up at him and he knew while they both lost Earth, there were more names she could put to it, and more emotion she needed to work through before she could answer it truthfully. “I want to just enjoy what we have right this moment.”  

“Okay.” He agreed, though he was a little deflated. He didn’t think that they were going to be able to go undefined for long, but right now that was not the most important thing he needed to be focusing on right now. “You’re going to be at the debrief this week?” He hadn’t been told much about it, even thought it was his request they still go through with it.  

“I’m on the panel, and even if I wasn’t it’s on my ship, I’d be there every day.” She smiled, and at first he was going to ask if it was appropriate that she was on the panel before he realised that there was no way for them to find Captains he didn’t have some kind of personal relationship with, especially in a fleet so small now. 

“At least I know I’ll have one ally.” He quipped and shook his head a little. Knowing that at least Erika would let him know if she disagreed with him while still supporting him. Nothing could change what had already happened. “Even if you don’t necessarily agree with what I did.”   

“You will, and I know Captain Jennings well enough to know he’ll be in your corner too. We worked together for a long time, he’s not hard to read.” That was also good to know. He didn’t know Jennings well, but they’d shared dinner together a few times.  

“I’m worried about it, Rike.” It was as though the admission was ripped from him, he didn’t want to let on how scared he was for this, but he was. He shouldn’t have pushed for this, but it seemed like the right thing to do. “I question myself enough I don’t need other people questioning me too.” 

“You’re the one who said we needed to do this, Jonathan?” She asked in return. Clearly trying to remind him that his reasons were good ones. “I can call everyone right now and cancel it, no questions asked.” She offered and he knew that she would if he asked, but he knew he’d regret it if he let that voice in his head win. “Either way, I’ll be right there, and whatever happens I’ll be there afterwards.” She reassured him and there was that little voice in the back of his mind, telling him that she wouldn’t be there when she knew everything. 

“You promise?” It was possibly a juvenile response, a byproduct of the childish thinking he was indulging in with regards to this, but he didn’t walk it back, just watching Erika as she considered it for a moment. 

The look on her face was pensive for a moment and then she just smiled softly before stroking his cheek gently. “In the fifteen years since we met have I ever not been there for you?” That was a good response, and definitely not one that he could ever reciprocate. He’d been absent for almost as many of her things as he’d been there for. 

“You’re right.” He decided to just shake himself out of that thinking and accept the love she was extending in her own ways. She’d never been one for declarations and gifts, Erika showed her love through every quiet action she gave, through her presence. Through remembering that he liked pickles, but not on a burger. That was why her being there for him was one very clear example of how much she loved him. “I need that right now.”  

“We should get showered, the Vulcans will be here in half an hour.” Erika sighed and he nodded, watching her as she slid out of the bed and staying in place for a moment to enjoy this view of her, another thing he’d missed in the last few years. He broke into a smirk as he almost fell out after her, paying more attention to her body than to where his limbs were, then chuckled. 

“Okay, want to go together?” He asked, knowing doubting that she’d turn it down but still figuring it was more polite to ask than to just slide into her shower if she’d decided she’d have rather done it alone.  

This time, her face broke into a wider grin as she thought of an answer and he enjoyed that smile every time he saw it. “Well, it would be a waste of water if we didn’t, surely?” Was her reasoning, but he didn’t let her add any more to the thought, kissing her deeply and pulling her into the stall and smiled, lifting her into his arms, taking the time to enjoy the water running down them.  

And he had to admit, he had been quite into the action as he heard a shrill chirp and mentally cursed the universe for interrupting them at this moment. “Bridge to Captain Archer.” He knew that he couldn’t ignore it, though he desperately wanted too. Erika, luckily, could reach the panel from where he was holding her pinned to the glass.  

“Go ahead, Hoshi?” He said, trying not to move, knowing that almost any movement was going to bring sounds out of the two of them that neither of them really needed his bridge crew to be hearing, though given how breathless he was, he was fairly sure they would all know anyway.  

Erika’s silent giggles were not helping his whole attempt at not moving though, and he had to bite down on his lip a moment as the comm officer replied. “The Vulcans have arrived, sir.” There was a playfulness in her response that made him realise that maybe Hoshi had already figured out what was happening below decks, but he was relieved that she wasn’t bringing any attention to it. 

“We’ll be right there, have them escorted to the mess. Thank you” He ordered and was glad that Erika instantly closed the line, and he groaned and then shook his head. “Not before we’re finished in here, though. I don’t think you’re quite clean enough yet, Captain Hernandez.” He teased, before deciding that the Vulcans could wait a few moments. 

They had actually left the Vulcan party waiting for almost twenty minutes, and as they finally separated when they came in the room Jon was almost shocked to see Soval standing there. Somehow he had assumed that he would have been caught in the tragedy. “Ambassador.” He said, smiling genuinely that at least one old face was still around. “I’m glad to see you’re still around.”  

“Captain Archer.” They gave a quite stilted handshake, though then Soval turned to Erika and his countenance brightened considerably, which Jon hadn’t expected. “Erika.” Soval’s tone even had a warmth that Jon hadn’t known he could give, and the handshake was even too handed. 

“Hello, Soval. It’s been a while.” Erika smiled in return and Jon was fairly sure that his mouth had dropped open in genuine surprise at the familiarity between the two of them, and he had so many questions about how that was something that had both happened and that he’d somehow missed.  

“I am… quite relieved to see that Columbia was spared in the attack.” Watching Soval search for the least emotional way to say that he was glad that Columbia was saved gave Jon a small amount of entertainment, though he was still reeling from the closeness between these two. 

“We were on a shakedown. I’ll tell you all about it later.” Erika smiled and looked up to Jonathan after a moment and smirked, clearly seeing the confusion on his face as he watched the interaction, none of it lessening his reaction. “I’ll tell you all about it later, too.” Erika said much, much quieter. Clearly trying to keep it between them.  

“You will, I have questions.” He responded just as quietly, but kept it clear that that he wasn’t going to be letting her skirt this, even if it made him feel ridiculous for not knowing earlier. “How were you able to escape?” He turned back to the Ambassador.  

“Quite.” Soval made it clear that he had heard every word of their interpersonal moment but wasn’t going to comment on it. He then took a breath and brought his hands back together. “I was giving a technical briefing on the T’Hana when the Xindi weapon was detected. Vulcan ships had been given strict orders by the high command to leave if they appeared. Despite my extreme displeasure at that order being given, I was returned to Vulcan.”  

“As much as we have disagreed in the past, Ambassador, I’m glad we still have one Vulcan who is familiar with humans.” Jon had to admit, Soval’s familiarity and knowledge was going to be a benefit to them all, and as much as they’d disagreed in the past, and he was sure they would in the future, he was glad they had the opportunity to continue their disagreements.  

Soval nodded and then looked at those behind him. “I took it upon myself to request immediate aid on behalf of your survivors.” He then looked down at the padd Jon hadn’t even noticed he was carrying. Those sleeves really did hide a lot. “We got your request for reclaimators, we have brought several. We have also brought some further engineers to try and increase the efficiency of some of your cargo ships for passenger travel.” Soval motioned to one of them men behind him without introduction. “We also have a fabrication ship with us.” 

“That’s very kind of the High Command.” Jon’s eyes narrowed as he wasn’t used to such generosity from the Vulcan’s with no assumption or expectation of reciprocation, which he knew that his own fleet was in no shape to provide. There weren’t enough Humans left to really repay any kindness like this.  

“Earth has been an ally since you first developed warp flight.” Soval said as if it was self-explanatory, but there was still a part of Jon suspicious. He probably needed to learn to let go of those suspicions, they needed all the help they could get. “I do not think any on Vulcan wish to see her survivors suffer.”  

Erika was the one who spoke next, clearly already slightly ahead of Jon. “Perhaps we could discuss two possible planets for settlement that fall within Vulcan controlled space.” He knew that they would need to scope out both the Vulcan and Andorian governments about what they would accept if the Humans was to take a planet in their space, so this was going to be one of many conversations he’d be having soon. 

“Administrator T’Shiran has travelled with me for exactly those discussions if you’d like to speak to him?” Soval said, looking between the two Captains. “I would like to have that conversation now if you’re agreeable?” Soval directed to Erika, and Jon just nodded to her, turning his attention to the other Vulcans, even calling Trip down after a few minutes to speak to the engineer about what they needed.  

Almost two hours of actual progress was made, before Hoshi called down, warning them that Columbia was due in the next ten minutes. He then gathered the group back together and nodded to Trip. “Unfortunately, Captain Hernandez and I are needed elsewhere, I’ll leave you all with Commander Tucker, who can let you know what the fleet needs.”  

After a moment of stepping out into the hall, Erika jogged to catch up with his slow pace, her smile bright as she broke the silence between them. “That was actually a lot more productive than even I was expecting.” He had to admit that she was right on that. They had gotten a lot more than he’d expected.  

“You and Soval being on first name basis was more than I was expecting.” He couldn’t help but tease, matching her tone though, as he did at least find it amusing, while confusing, that he’d never pressed more about this.  

“He taught me in three classes, one at the STC and two while I was doing my advanced training at UCSF.” Her eyeroll at what as she responded was Olympic level and he was shot back instantly 12 years to the last time he’d asked her things like this and received a similar eye roll. “I continually challenged him during my interplanetary diplomacy class and he took an interest in my perspectives.”  

“Took an interest?” He probed, stepping up onto the transporter platform, he noticed Erika’s brief pause and just motioned her up before looking to Reed, who had been told to meet them here when they were ready to go aboard the ship, saving both the NX class ships the energy it took for them to dock. “Transport us to Columbia, Lieutenant.”   

“Yes sir.” Reed responded, just giving a nod to Erika beside him as well, and Jon was impressed that Erika managed not to flinch at her first time through the transporter. She reacted better than some crew he’d seen going through it, and almost as soon as they were materialised she continued the conversation.  

“He mentored me, and when I graduated and joined the NX programme we became friends.” She hadn’t expected to be on an Earth-side programme so quickly, or for so long. Jon had learnt that a decade ago, but he knew she didn’t regret being on the NX Programme. After a moment she then chuckled and shook her head. “We spoke every time he was observing how did you never pick up on it?”  

“I always assumed you were just briefing him on the tests!?” Jon admitted that response was a little defensive, and if he was truthful with himself he’d never actually even noticed that they spoke.  

“That was way above my pay grade then, that was always Admiral Forrest’s job.” Erika laughed and she then just shook her head and Jon looked at her as she continued chuckling for a moment. “You know for an accomplished starship captain you are really not very observant sometimes.” 

“I’m starting to see that.” He agreed with a smile on his face, then as they got to the corridor with the mess hall on it he took a breath and looked at the doors, slowing his pace to almost a stop and shook his head, looking down to Erika again. “Time to face the music I suppose?”  

“Jonathan.” Erika said, and after looking around to check nobody was there she lifted on her tiptoes and kissed him gently, pulling back when they heard a voice. “Just tell the truth. Stick to the facts and what lead your decisions. Don’t think about what anyone else may be thinking.”  

“You give good pep talks.” He said quietly, reaching out to take her hand a moment. Just needing to hold her for a second longer to gather himself for what was coming.  

“At least to you.” She said than returned his gently squeeze before dropping her hand and walking around him, heading toward the room before looking back at him once more. “See you in there, Jonathan.”  She nodded then left him alone with his thoughts for a moment. He took a long breath and knew that, no matter what, this was going to be for a good reason. 

Chapter Text

There had not been many debriefings that Erika had attended that were as strange as this one. The vast majority were not something anyone would pay attention, fewer required a panel. But that was all that they could do here, and suddenly being one of the most senior captains in the fleet meant she had to sit here and actually listen to Jon recount everything. Watching her lover as he prepared for this was quite disorienting. Erika was pulled from her thought by the bang of the gavel and Veronica’s voice booming over them all. She never needed a microphone, her voice was loud enough alone. “Debriefing initiated at zero nine zero, March second, twenty one fifty four. May the subject state his name, rank and station for the record?” 

“Jonathan Beckett Archer, Captain, Enterprise NX01.” Jonathan was projecting calm and confidence that Erika knew that he didn’t feel. They had spoken about it in depth this morning before climbing out of their bed for a meeting the Vulcans.  

Her thoughts were once again stopped by Veronica’s voice. “This debrief is held in relation to the most recent mission of the NX01 into Xindi held territory to attempt to prevent the Xindi weapon. May the panel please state their name, rank and station for the record?”  

That was her cue, and she just kept her eyes locked with Jon’s as she spoke, trying to give him the confidence she felt in him. “Erika Amaralis Hernandez, Captain, Columbia NX02” It was her first time actually addressing this as a captain and it was a very strange experience. 

“Enrique Jesus Ramirez, Captain, Intrepid.”  

“Robert Edward Duvall, Captain Shenandoah.”  

“Ethan Lucas John Jennings, Captain, Republic.” 

“Nardali Sun Niko, Captain, Augustine.” 

As each Captain gave their title she watched Jon’s eyes slide over them then flick back to her at the end and she gave a gentle smile of support. “May the witnesses state their name, rank and station.” Erika had forgotten that Veronica had already known they’d need to call two others today, she was very good at this.  

“T’Pol, Commander, Enterprise NX01.” Erika thought about the Vulcan as she spoke, wondering what it must be like to be in such an alien setting and know that whatever you were about to say was going to be studied and dissected, becoming part of history. Whatever history they had.  

“Francis Luke Holland, Lieutenant, Defiant.” Oh, she hadn’t realised the second witness had transferred off of Enterprise, though she knew that there had been a few transfers around as needed.  

“Chair is Veronica Helen Fletcher, Commander, Executive Officer, Columbia NX02. Recorder is Thalia Jones-Smith, Ensign, Proxima Colony. I call us now to session,” Another bang of the gavel rang in Erika’s ears, and she smiled a little at the control she had over all these in the room who outranked her. “I am anticipating this briefing last no more than 36 hours, running over 5 days and Captains I’m going to be keeping you all to that schedule.”   

“Yes ma’am.” They all echoed to varying amounts of agreement to Veronica’s timekeeping, and Erika was certain that she actually would keep them to that time frame. None of them could really afford to be away from their ships and from commanding for longer than that.  

“The scope of this debriefing is to discover what actions were taken by Enterprise NX01 in it’s mission to prevent the Xindi from making the weapon that ultimately destroyed Earth. This is a fact-finding debrief only, there will be no causation decision made on the grounds of evidence discovered during this debriefing.” Veronica glared at most of the people around and then picked her padd up from the desk. “I have a list of prepared questions that I would like to ask you, Captain Archer, to answer and talk about your decision making process as you can recall it.” 

“Yes ma’am.” Jon responded and Erika settled back to listen to a morning of hearing about how Enterprise had arrived in the Expanse, Jon spoke about the spatial anomalies they detected, the compound they found to stop them and then how they had discovered that it was not a good substance for the Vulcans, meaning that they had had to abandon their hopes of using it on the ship.  

They heard about the destruction of the Vulcan ship, after which Veronica called a lunch recess. After grabbing her tray of food she headed over to the seat Jon had settled himself on, T’Pol to his side. As she sat down she just nodded to the commander, and Erika felt a moment pass between Jon and his XO before T’Pol just stood up and left, letting Erika keep her voice down. “You’re doing well.” 

“Are you supposed to be talking to me right now?” He asked quietly, though it wasn’t him asking her to go and leave him, which she was glad about. He had become more and more sullen the closer they’d gotten to this moment and she wasn’t going to keep allowing him to run on like this.  

“We’re on a break, I can talk to whoever I’d like.” She smiled softly as she took a few bites of her rations. At least they were hot this afternoon, rather than their evening ration bars. “Besides, my questions are all later.” She added, trying to keep the mood light.  

“You don’t have any about the Vulcan ship?” Apparently that was the point that Jon couldn’t stay still, so he abandoned what was left of his food and stormed out of the mess hall where they’d all been gathered for the meeting. She took a breath and left hers too, following him out after a second and reaching out to grab his hand as he kept moving, knowing his legs were longer and if he got too far ahead she’d have to run to catch up to him.  

When she finally reached his hand she tugged him to a stop and stayed in a slightly secluded spot. “No. I trust your judgement on that.” She looked at him seriously. She would always trust him, and he’d never given her a reason not to. “I know you Jon, even if the Expanse changed you… at your heart you’re still the man I’ve known for fifteen years.”  

Completely changing his demeanour he just shook his head, their voices staying dropped so that they didn’t draw any additional attention. “Thank you, for last night.” That was definitely not something she was ready to put in anything but her personal log. “And for this morning you placated the Vulcans better than I could have.”  

“In some ways we were lucky that Soval was giving a briefing on the T’Hana when the attack happened.” She had been sure that her old friend had been killed alongside so many others, but no. He had returned to Vulcan and instantly appealed for aid on Earth’s behalf. 

Jon did smirk at that and then tilted his head. “What did you two talk about when you hid off in the corner?” Oh, he had noticed them, she wasn’t sure that he had. He was very involved in other negotiations at that point.  

“He was making a case to be here. I was refusing. I told him right now it’s an internal Starfleet matter.” She admitted, knowing that the Vulcans had questions, but that answering them right now weren’t the priority any of them had. “He pointed out Starfleet doesn’t really exist anymore.” 

“I hope you pointed out that we have seventeen ships.” That was all they had. They were all that Starfleet had as far as they were aware, and Erika hated to think of that. Seventeen Captains, roughly 400 people in Starfleet. She was working out those maths while she watched Jon deflate again. “I hate this bit, Rike.” 

“The negotiating with the Vulcans bit?” She asked, not entirely sure what he meant, though it was clearly him speaking to her privately. Wanting to talk to her as a partner, not a colleague and she could be that. She normally was his partner before anything, unless she had a reason not to be.  

“The feeling like I’m being judged. That people are going to dissect everything I did and every decision I made.” Jon paced around the small end of the corridor that they had found themselves in and she knew better than to try and stop him. “I know it’s part of the job, I know it’s about accountability. But I don’t like being the one in the crosshairs.” 

“Nobody is out to sabotage you Jonathan.” Erika tried to reassure him, though she knew that not everyone on the panel were as okay with what Jon had done. She was fairly sure they were blaming him for Earth’s destruction. There were a lot in the fleet who were. But that didn’t change the doctrine they had all sworn an oath to uphold. 

“You’re not. And I trust Veronica as chair, she was always good at this… but the others.” Jon nodded, clearly knowing that he could trust them and she was glad about that. Maybe he was right about the others, but she wouldn’t bet on it. She didn’t know how it was going to go though.  

“I promise you, it will be okay.” She attempted to reassure him again, this time stepping close and wrapping her arms around him, looking up only when his arms went around her in response.  

“We can’t stay tonight but I can come and wait until you’re asleep before I leave.” He was at least smiling at her again for a moment. Memorising his face again, the way she had so frequently before. “What are we doing Erika? What are we?” Looking up she realised that, quite literally, Jon was all the family she had left and she needed that. Needed him. 

“Right now I don’t know. But I do know that I’ve lost everyone I care about, I’ve lost my family, most of my friends.” She shook her head, refusing to let herself get upset, but she could feel the tears threatening to fall as she looked at Jon again. “But I’m still lucky… because my soulmate is still here, standing in front of me. I can’t lose you too.”  

Jon stared at her for a moment and then closed the distance that had opened between them and kissed her deeply, before pulling back and chuckling a little, speaking quietly. “Too bad we can’t go to Earth, run away and get married in Vegas, huh?”  

“I’d do that in a heartbeat, Jonathan.” She meant that. It was kind of funny that he was thinking of that now, when that was what she’d suggested four years earlier and he hadn’t wanted to ruin her career progression. Maybe they knew they’d be needed. 

“Five minutes, everyone.” Came a call along the corridor and it was enough to make Erika step back, smooth our her uniform and her hair. Dabbing at her eyes with a tissue she kept in a pocket for just this moment.  

“We should get back. Rain check on this conversation.” Jon asked and she just nodded. Realising that everything right now was to be talked about later. They needed to find a time that wasn’t later because things were going to start happening soon, and they were going to need to know what they were planning to do about it.  

She managed to push all those thoughts to the back of her mind, knowing she needed to focus on what Jonathan and the witnesses were saying. Just as they wrapped up the security lieutenant’s evidence Veronica looked around and just sighed. Realising that clearly everyone was exhausted right now. “Alright, I’m going to call it here for today. First up on tomorrow’s docket will be Degra, then the… procurement of a warp coil. We got a lot covered today. Sleep well everyone.” As everyone started to leave, heading back to the station for transport back to their own ships, while Veronica sidled up to her. “Don’t think I didn’t see you two at lunch.” 

Erika rolled her eyes at Veronica and shook her head at the insinuation, even if it was maybe correct. “We were talking about our meeting with the Vulcans this morning.” Not a lie, but definitely stretching the truth. Very definitely stretching the truth and she was okay with that right now.  

“How was old grumpy guts?” Veronica had never warmed to Soval, like most of Starfleet, but Erika respected him. She liked him, even. He had been such a great support to her through her career and he was genuinely being very helpful to them right now, which they had. 

“Soval was offering his continued presence with the fleet to allow us to continue getting assistance from the high command.” Erika hated that they were going to need it, but they didn’t have anything for offer in return. Soval, at least, was giving his help for free, whether the high command was was another matter entirely. “Jon and I pointed out that, right now, humans are just space refugees. We don’t have much to offer.”  

“What did he say to that?” Veronice asked, shaking her head a little. The only person Erika knew who was more paranoid than Jon about the motivations of the Vulcans was Veronica, and it felt like more of an uphill battle to convince her that they may wish to help than it was to convince Jon of it. 

“He said that the High Command had two planets in Vulcan held space that could be suitable, both M class, one very similar to Earth, though considerably smaller.” Erika had looked over some graphs of both of them, and while she wasn’t an expert in what was necessary to sustain human life both had seemed like strong candidates.  

“They on the shortlist?” Veronica asked, and Erika just nodded then took in another breath. At least they were two that Enterprise had already identified as being likely candidates for what they needed.  

“They already were, yeah, along with three others that Enterprise found. I’m most partial to one of two in the Briar patch. The nebula there would keep us largely protected from detection.” She liked the look of that planet. From surveys it had ample fauna, flora and non-sentient animal life. All they’d need to hopefully make a thriving planet. “It would take us months to get there, though it is along a shipping route. That’s my preference, it’s not Jon’s though. He wants us nearer allies.”  

“So at least we’d hopefully be able to get food.” Veronica saw the other up side that Erika had for a planet just off the main run between Rigel and Andor. It would be very beneficial for them she thought. “But I see Jon’s point too. We need protection. More protection than we ever have needed before.” Veronica sighed and Erika nodded, realising that now her XO understood the stress that Erika was feeling about this. 

“Yeah. I don’t know.” She admitted, sighing and shaking her head. Yes, she had her preference but it was a big decision. One that literally was going to change the course of history and it was sitting firmly on 18 shoulders. “I think it’s something that we’ll have to all talk about when we know more of where we’re going.” 

“There’s less than ten thousand of us Erika.” Veronica said quietly and reached a hand out, placing it on Erika’s shoulder in support. “I guess at least if we’re in Vulcan space we’ll have their benefits.” If they were to be in anyone’s space she did have to admit that right now the Vulcans were the most attractive option.  

But she almost didn’t want to be in anyone’s space. She didn’t want to be stuck answering to anyone else if they could help it, but she knew that that wasn’t something they really had the luxury to worry about right now. “That’s also something we’re going to have to talk about.”  

“Okay I have to go. I have a date with that cute engineer I was talking about the other day.” Veronica slapped her thighs and grinned as she went to turn down the corridor to engineering, while Erika was going to head to the bridge. She then suddenly remembered how Veronica’s dates ended and paused. 

“Commander. Please remember I live next door to you.” She cautioned, though it was very tongue in cheek. She didn’t really care that much about what Veronica did in her free time, she just knew that she was going to need to get a reasonable amount of sleep to go through another day of listening to Jon defend his every decision.  

Veronica, however, came back up closer to her Captain and grinned before whispering almost directly into her ear so that nobody else would be able to overhear her. “Did you and Jon ever remember that on missions?”  

“Alright fair point.” Erika said, her face flushing red as she realised what Veronica was alluding too and then just shook her head, looking down as she did. “I miss when you lived in a different building…”  

“I miss when Earth existed but we can’t have everything.” Now that was brutal and Erika felt her jaw drop as she just stared at Veronica, who just smiled then clicked her fingers. “Oh, I asked Phlox to come tomorrow morning instead. I could tell we were going to run late at lunch so I called over to her, that good?”  

“Yeah, I completely forgot. Thanks.” The meeting for medical had gone completely out of her mind, and she was just trying to think of anything else she might have forgotten about as she made her way up to the bridge, suddenly feeling just a little our of sorts. By the time she stepped out of the turbolift onto the bridge she was back in command and ready for anything.  

At least on the surface she was. When she eventually took herself off duty and climbed into bed she had to admit to herself that she was faltering again. She couldn’t stop thinking about the enormity of the decisions that they needed to make, and they needed to make them quickly. As she started to feel herself going down a spiral she didn’t need she sighed and just shook her head then reached up to the com panel, signaling to whoever was manning that station that she needed something. “Bridge?”  

“Can you put me through to Captain Archer.” She didn’t need to say his ship anymore. They spoke almost every night even when they weren’t stealing the time away, though most nights it had been about business. It just had the undercurrent of their personal lives. “Nothing important, if he’s sleeping leave a message I’ll see him in the morning.”  

Only a few moments later she heard his voice, clearly like she was he’d been laid in bed and hadn’t tried to get to a monitor. “Hey, are you okay?” The concern was immediate, and she knew how he felt. If he’d called her with absolutely no real reason she’d have been concerned too. 

“I was just getting all in my head about everything so I called to stop myself spiraling.” She said and then laid down again, in a position she’d still be able to end the call when she was ready, but that she could try and get comfortable where she was. 

“I was… honestly thinking of calling you for the same reason.” Jon’s voice sounded as wound up as she felt so she nodded to herself and as she was about to say something Jon spoke and it was the last thing she’d thought he’d suggest. “Maybe we should finish that conversation that got interrupted at lunch.”  

“Shouldn’t you be going over your testimony for tomorrow?” That was what she’d been about to offer. To be a sounding board for what he was going to say to everyone tomorrow when they made it back in. There had been zero thought that they’d go back to what they’d been interrupted talking about earlier. 

“I had Trip in here until an hour ago, I think I’m ready.” Jon said clearly and she heard him leaning back, picking up his polo ball. She was sure that Porthos had given him a look at that movement. “But no distractions. What are we? Exes? Lovers? Partners?” 

“All of the above?” Erika said, not sure what to name him other than her whole heart. She had lost everyone she cared about that wasn’t on these few ships, and it meant that when she looked at him, she knew that he was the important part. He was what was going to keep her sane and part of this journey. “Jonathan, I meant what I said earlier, I can’t lose you too.” 

“Okay… how about this then-” Jon started and she heard him sit up again and palm the ball, a moment later hearing it hit the door he liked to throw it at. “When we find a planet to settle on… I’m going to marry you.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. That was what was important, wasn’t it. Clearly he thought so. “You’re the only thing keeping me going right now Erika. I can’t do this. I can’t be responsible for all of humanity again. Not when I failed so spectacularly the first time.” 

“You didn’t fail, Jonathan.” She started to reassure him, knowing the truth of the matter. There was no blame on him. He had tried to prevent something that was already in motion.  

“Earth was destroyed, wasn’t it?” Jon shot out and then she heard the sigh, the deflation as he thought about what he was saying and why. In person this is when Erika would wrap her arms around him. Right now all she could do was try and buff him up as much as she could with her words. “Feels pretty much like I failed.” 

“We all knew there was a chance that you weren’t going to stop the weapon. It was going to happen one way or another.” Erika knew that. Everyone who had been involved knew that and she wasn’t going to let Jon take the blame for something that wasn’t his to take. “You didn’t make the choice, and you were minutes away from stopping it.”   

Jon swallowed hard enough she heard it over the line and her heart broke hearing him struggling so much when she couldn’t be there to help him through it. “I can’t… go in to tomorrow thinking that I didn’t fail, because when you’ve heard it all you’ll think that I did too.” 

“Jon I’ve read every report, nothing you say is going to change my opinion on it.” She knew everything about the mission, absolutely everything, and she knew that he wasn’t to blame. He’d been so damn close to preventing it. A matter of moments. “Yes, some people will blame you, I’m not denying that. Some people will think that you are the worst person because of it. But I’m not one of them, and you shouldn’t be either.”  

“We’ll see if you’re still saying that in twenty four hours.” Jon said and she just shook her head again, reaching out for the blanket she had that still smelled like Jon, something that had gotten her through nights she’d missed him for years now.  

“I can guarantee, I will be.” She confirmed and then took a breath, wondering how she could break the silence between them and then just nodded to herself, knowing this was the right time to say what she needed, and how she felt about him. “I love you.” 

“You never say that.” He joked and she just chuckled in response before thinking what else she wanted to say.  

“I know, but it felt appropriate here.” She said then shook her head thinking about the biggest thing she had learnt recently. “The last couple of weeks have shown me maybe I should embrace saying that.” It probably still wouldn’t happen often, it just wasn’t in her mind to think it much, but she could say it, and she could confirm something he’d said earlier. “And yes, I will marry you, as soon as we have a home.” There was a decision, and it meant that they were officially together again, and she felt like a part of her broken heart begin to mend itself. If only the rest of her hadn’t had to break for this to begin. 

Chapter Text

This debriefing had started well, Jon thought that they’d all been very fair to him, and he’d been very thankful that Erika had been there too. Her quiet reassurance had helped him stay focused, to the question asked. He kept reminding himself of Veronica’s words the day before. They weren’t here to apportion blame, they weren’t here to find a cause. They were just going through his decisions to understand why he made the choices he made. Today the topics had been tougher, and he had to work out how to convince five of his peers why he’d interrogated and manipulated Degra, and why he’d stranded a ship by stealing. That was before they even got to Azati Prime. He wasn’t sure he had any idea how to explain much of that.  

Still, today he could see lines being drawn - Erika and her former CO, Captain Jennings now probably now the most experienced man in the fleet - seemed to firmly have fallen on his side, they both nodded along as he explained things. Duvall and Ramirez on the other hand were more obvious in their anger and distaste for his decisions, though so far hadn’t openly said anything. Captain Niko was hard to read, she always had been. She was clearly going to be the deciding vote on anything here. Not that it really mattered, Starfleet as they knew it was gone.  

“I’ve heard enough about this, lets move on.” Ramirez suddenly exclaimed, jumping out of his seat and stopping everyone in their tracks and drawing all eyes to him. His hands were balled into fists and Jon could see how angry he was at his most recent response, though seemingly not because Jon had stranded innocents in a dangerous region of space. 

“There is still a question on the table, Enrique, sit the hell down.” Jennings was the first one to respond, reaching up to tug Ramirez back into his seat, and it was clear that the younger of those two captains was angry and unsettled. While he took his seat it was clear he wasn’t ready to let things go.  

“We can’t be seriously still listening to this and pretending like it’s any other day right?” Ramirez glanced over at Jon but more addressed the other captains and Veronica sat off to the side of their table in her position as chair. “I came here to find out why Earth was destroyed, not listen to Jon try and defend his failures.” 

“You think I don’t want to know that too?” Jon shot back to that, he wasn’t going to let someone act as though he was there for his own good. He was here so they all knew the facts. “I was the one there, trying to stop it. I was moments late with the allies we’d made along the way. Allies that drove them out of our system so this entire fleet had time to escape.”  

Veronica stood up and moved physically in between everyone and held her hands up on either side and shook her head. “Okay, okay. We’re going to have a break for ten minutes and we’re all going to calm down.” As soon as she said that Ramirez was up and pacing toward the Captain’s Mess at the back of the room. “Be back here in ten, I will wait no longer than fifteen.”  

As soon as Veronica dismissed them Jon was up and out of the mess hall. He knew that nobody but Erika would follow him, and as he made it around the corner he stopped and turned to see that he was, of course, correct. She probably shouldn’t have, but she did. “I told you, they’re out to blame me.”  He said as soon as he was reasonably sure nobody had followed them. 

“Who is, Jonathan?” Erika asked and then shook her head, stepping closer to him so that he would hopefully lower his voice, he knew her that well. But he wasn’t going to let that happen. He was too annoyed at the way he felt he was being treated right now.  

“Ramirez! Duvall! Dammit half the fleet probably blames me and they’ve never even met me.” Jon motioned out the viewport beside them and then moved toward it, looking out at all these people who were relying on them. “I blame me, and I’ve unfortunately been with me for forty two years, almost. I don’t understand how you don’t blame me?” Jon deflated with that and then shook his head because he genuinely didn’t understand how anyone wasn’t furious with him for everything. 

“Because I read your reports. All of them. Every word.” He didn’t entirely believe her about that, nobody ever really read all of the reports. Clearly his face  displayed his doubt as she continued her thought audibly, allowing him another glimpse into her and it was enough to deflate his rage and disappointment further. “For a time out there you weren’t writing back… so your reports were the only way I knew you were still alive and I needed that. Needed to know you were there.”  

He shook his head and sighed, looking down as he did. “Erika… I don’t think I’m the person you knew.” So much had changed since they’d last been together and he wasn’t certain that he would ever be who she thought he was again. 

“You’re not.” Erika said then lifted his chin a little and smiled, showing that clearly she wasn’t upset about that. “But I still love the person you are now. And I still know you were in the right. I can’t say I’ve have done much differently.”  

As they were speaking a little girl ran up and stood looking between the two of them before tugging gently on Jon’s sleeve. “Hey mister are you sad?” She asked so innocently, and Jon couldn’t stop the urge to crouch down so that he was more on her level.  

There was no way he could really answer her than with the truth, so as he was crouched down to her he just nodded, feeling her lifting his spirits a little already. “Yeah, I’m pretty sad right now.” He said and the little girl just look thoughtful for a moment. 

“Can I give you a hug?” She asked and when he opened her arms she raced into them and wrapped her little arms around his shoulders, Jon picked her up, standing tall as he saw another boy maybe a little younger than the girl came up to them and tugged on Erika’s sleeve, since Jon was already holding his friend. 

Erika also crouched down to pick the boy up and then smiled looking between the two of them, giving the boy a hug then tickling the little girl before they both squirmed to go down’. “Aren’t you two supposed to be with Miss Ruby?” She smiled as the two waved and ran off then Erika just looked back to him. “Simone and Lee. Two of the orphaned kids we have aboard. Ruby’s been taking care of them.”  

“Before I leave tonight I’ll have to go see her.” He’d been putting it off, not because he didn’t want to see her, but because facing Ruby meant facing AG’s death all over again. But he knew this time he really needed to do it. There was no better time to do it than right now.  

“I’ll come with you.” She smiled and nodded. The stress of the last few minute relieved by two children coming and interrupting them both. After a moment Erika motioned back toward the mess hall and sighed. “C’mon, back in we go.” As they got there, Erika just held his arm lightly then whispered in his ear, clearly wanting to keep it to just the two of them. “Try and keep a clear head.”  

As the questioning resumed, another three hours went by in a heartbeat. there was still an undercurrent of tension across the room. A tentative, frayed atmosphere that seemed ready to break at any second. They made it through most of the questions submitted for today but the last one was the hardest one to answer. Jon was steeling himself for it, but he still wasn’t sure how he was going to answer this. “Did you trust Degra when he said he was going to prevent the weapon from launching?” Veronica asked. Her tone completely even, Jon not knowing where she sat on this either.  

“I did. I was there when he and the leaders of the Arboreals and Aquatics said they were not in favour of the weapon’s launch. That was when Dolim, the leader for the reptilian faction, broke up the Xindi council and launched the weapon himself.” He tried to keep his voice level, stay dispassionate. It was the mantra that had gotten him through so many briefings in the past. 

Ramirez was, once again, the first to get his follow up question. The anger clearly not abated in the time that they had taken as a break, or the time they had taken to get back to this point. “And you just allowed it to continue?” The venom was genuinely shocking and it was hard not to react impulsively but he did as Erika had said and kept his head clear. 

“No, I relied on the allies we had made to take us and follow.” That was the truth of what happened, it also kept them largely hidden from Dolim’s ships when they had arrived too. “What else would you have had me do? Enterprise was critically damaged, our warp drive was barely functional. I lost a quarter of my crew.” 

“And we lost over ten billion people because of it.” Ramirez said, and Jon spotted Duvall nodding along. He would have hoped that his old friend would have had his back, but clearly that wasn’t on the cards for them right now, and Jon just mentally sighed at that loss of friendship. “Earth was destroyed, but you’re still here.”  

“Are you saying this is my fault?” He snapped, and as angry as he sounded he also wanted to say that they were right. He was to blame. But that wasn’t what they were looking for here. “Are you really blaming me when I was out there trying to prevent this. We were so close to stopping them. All for a matter of minutes. So yes I failed on that but I tried to stop it.” 

“And yet, your comm officer who gave them the last code.” Ramirez said and in response to that you could hear a pin drop in the room, there was no movement, nothing. Normally Jon would have been aggressive in his defence of Hoshi, and he wouldn’t have hesitated in it, but as Ramirez sat back, looking neither satisfied nor content with his statement, Jon thought of the most cutting response he could in the moment. 

“At least I had the guts to fire my weapons.” The reaction was instantaneous, Ramirez jumped up. In the motion he sent Erika, who had been sitting beside him, flying backwards and to the side. Jon tried to track where she landed, but his vision was quickly disrupted by a fist landing in his face. He didn’t even try to fight back, really. Just lifted his hands to block punches, making sure that the first one was the only punch that landed. 

Seconds later Ramirez was pulled back by Jennings and Duvall, while Veronica came to stand in front of Jon. “Whoa, whoa.” She said, a hand to Jon who was still calm and just taking a few breaths, feeling blood from where Ramirez had managed to split his eyebrow. “Hey, okay. Break it up, break it up.”  That was said much more to Ramirez and then she looked to an ensign by the door. “Get medical up here.” 

Jon looked around to where Erika had landed, glad to see that she had stayed laid in the position she’d landed in, clearly aware that she might have done some damage. “You okay?” He asked as he slid beside her, right at the same time as two corpsmen from Columbia burst in. 

“Winded. Remind me not to volunteer to sit on another one of these.” Erika said, but as soon as they started to move her she winced. She took Jon’s hand a moment so she had something to hold as they moved her. “Ow, nope. I take that back. Finish up here.” She told him, squeezing his hand again. He didn’t really want to leave her but he knew she was right.  

Ramirez looked at least a little concerned as his eyes landed on Erika while she was taken out of the room. He wasn’t who she was mad at, but it had happened now and he was going to have to deal with the aftermath of that later. Veronica ran through a few things for the record and then adjourned them until 1pm the following afternoon, making it clear that the adjournment could be extended if Captain Hernandez needed it. 

As soon as they were let out, Jon raced down to the medical bay. He saw the Denobulan doctor that Erika had seemingly hired on, or maybe was just helping out, and he did see the similarity between her and Phlox. Then his eyes fell to where Erika was sat up in a bed, clearly resting back to take pressure off whatever injuries she had. He could already see some pretty intense bruising on her left side where her tank top had ridden up a little. He stepped up beside her and then smiled softly. “Veronica adjourned the debrief until tomorrow afternoon. Can be longer if you need it.” He said then lifted her shirt a little more to get a look at the bruising. “What’s the verdict.” 

“Two cracked ribs, probably from how I fell against the chair. I’ll be fine in a couple of weeks.” She sighed, but at least the explained the extent of the bruising and the way that it wrapped around to her back as well. It had been an intense collision. “That’s going to look pretty in the morning, isn’t it?” 

“It’s not that bad.” He lied and took her hand, looking a little sheepish about what had happened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that Enrique was that close to going.” Not that he thought that Ramirez should have been able to get away with that he’d said. “I shouldn’t have poked that bear.” 

“You shouldn’t… but I wanted to slap him for that comment about Hoshi, so you were in good company.” She chuckled and then winced again. “You two both need to cool off though. Do we need to stage an intervention?” She asked, though he could see that she was trying to make a joke about the fact he’d never really been able to play well with someone like Ramirez. 

“He’s just angry. We all are.” Jon shook his head, knowing that there was nothing he could do about their anger to him, and anger he shared most of the time. “I don’t think I can…” He started and then stopped as the door opened and Ramirez stepped through. Jon felt himself stiffen a little, an instinct to step in front of Erika being one that he resisted, though he did feel her pulling the blanket a little higher up herself. 

“Jon, Erika.” He started, sounding a lot more contrite and apologetic than he had at the end of the briefing. Jon was wondering who had dressed him down. Probably Jennings, possibly Niko. Neither would have appreciated the violence. They had been in their positions too long to be dealing with that. “I was coming to check you were okay.”  

“Two broken ribs, but I’ll be back on duty in the morning.” She said and then looked between the two of them. “If you two are going to fight again just give me warning so I can get Amizina to help me leave the room, okay?” She joked, though Jon could tell that there was some worry in her voice too, and he knew that he could help to relieve that at least somewhat. 

“It’s okay, I’ll go. See you later, alright.” He lifted her hand up and kissed the back of it before he started heading to the door. Not really caring if Ramirez now knew how close they were. He was pretty sure that he knew already. There was a good chance everyone did. 

As he was walking to the door he heard the shout from behind him and just smirked to himself. “Go see Ruby.” Erika told him and she took a longer breath, allowing himself to debate that for a moment before he then turned to the left and headed to the quarters that Erika had already told him Ruby was staying in. 

Signaling at the door Jon just played in his mind what he’d say, but nothing came to mind. He’d never been awkward around Ruby before, but he hadn’t seen her since AG had died and he wasn’t sure he knew how to avoid that. “Jon!” Ruby exclaimed as the door opened and she jumped up with a smile, coming to give him a hug. “Erika said you were aboard. Sorry about the mess. There isn’t a lot of space for a baby in these cabins.” She said as she motioned for him to come in, and he did have to admit that it seemed the baby toys had spread all over. He sat on the edge of the bed and smiled again. 

“It’s good to see you.” He opened with, figuring that it was a safe start and focusing on what was happening now was definitely better than what was playing on his mind and he was sure that if he stuck to these things Ruby would bring up what she was thinking of when she needed to. “She said that you were taking up a position on Jupiter Station.”  

“It seemed like a good fit, I knew most of the Starfleet crowd anyway and I needed to get out of the city.” Her gentle shrug and the frown that came over her face made him realise that it had been a year for him, but it had also been a year for her, and he was certain that she missed him a lot more than he did. “It didn’t feel the same with him gone, Jon.”  

“I know what you mean, it didn’t feel right when I was last there. Something was missing.” Maybe that’s why he hadn’t searched out Erika for more than their one quick conversation outside her apartment. Seeing her would have meant facing her grief about AG, and he hadn’t been ready to face his own. 

“Erika still blames herself, I know she does. She was meant to be climbing with him, but Republic was slow getting docked so she said he could go ahead and she’d meet him there.” That was something he didn’t know. Erika had never mentioned it. Maybe she’d realised that he was struggling too much with that and she didn’t want to add any more. Ruby continued on, seemingly oblivious to Jon’s mild confusion. “She arrived there just as the medics arrived.” 

“He wasn’t stupid enough to go climbing on his own.” He shook his head, struggling to think that AG would have begun the climb without Erika if he’d been alone. And if he hadn’t been alone then Erika shouldn’t be blaming herself. But that kind of logic didn’t always matter to brains. 

“Of course not, there was a group with him and it was an equipment failure. Even if Erika had been there she wouldn’t have been able to change the outcome.” She shook her head, then at the sound of snuffling and shifting from the drawer that had been made into a crib she stood up. “Oh hey are you awake because there’s a new voice?”  

Jon smiled as the baby was lifted out, bigger and much more alert than Jon had been expecting. Somehow he’d expected that Andrea would be considerably smaller than she was, but he also hadn’t seen her before, so he had no idea about babies anyway. “How old is she now?”  

“Almost ten months.” Ruby smiled, settling the baby on her hip and smiling, tickling her front and then pointing to him. “Look, it’s uncle Jon. He’s finally come to see you.” As she did that the baby lunged forwards and Jon jumped forwards in time to catch her. 

“She looks so much like him.” He smiled as he shifted back on the bed, kicking his boots off then putting his legs up so that it was more comfortable to sit her on his lap and he didn’t have to worry about her dropping any further than the mattress. “I don’t remember either Andrea or Grace being on your names list.”  

“They weren’t, but Michaela didn’t seem right after losing her daddy. Naming her with him in mind felt more special. Veronica and Erika both already call her little AG.” Ruby chuckled at that as Andrea slowly climbed up him and laid across his chest, her head resting just below his collarbone. “You’re good with her, you ever wanted to be a dad?”  

That was quite the loaded question right now, and he didn’t actually know the answer. Had he ever wanted to? Of course. He still did. But it wasn’t the only thing he wanted, and if it wasn’t with Erika then he wouldn’t, and he had no idea where she actually sat on the topic. They both kept just saying later. “I’ve always thought I would be one day, but it doesn’t seem to be in the cards. We have far too much to do with saving the human race.” 

“Saving it means continuing it too… Erika not keen?” Ruby, of course, got to the real heart of the matter in the way that had always made a great bartender. She just knew what was bothering her regulars, and he wondered if Erika had spoken to their friend about it. 

“We haven’t seriously discussed it, we’re only barely back together.” They still weren’t really public with it, though the rules that prevented it hadn’t been officially lifted yet. That was going to have to come soon. He looked at Ruby a moment and from the look on her face he knew that he was right about her thoughts on that too.  “I know, I know. We should never have split up in the first place. The frat rules were stupid.” 

“You shouldn’t and they are.” Ruby really did sound just like her husband and his partner on that. Ruby had never even been subject to them, but she had probably heard hundreds of people complain about them over the years. 

“You sound like Erika there.” He laughed, she was the first one to tell him that and she always had stood on it. The other person who had known it all was AG, and he had also thought it was a stupid reason for them to break up. “And AG.”  

“He was so pissed you two ended things, you know?” Ruby said, and Jon was a little surprised at that given he’d been staying at AG’s place that night. “He came into the 602 the night you broke up and I swear he was more upset than Erika was.” She chuckled and then looked at him a moment before speaking seriously. “Did I ever tell you about the night you got Enterprise after you left?” She asked, then launched into the story of his friend that he’d never heard, and he felt comfortable for the first time in a while. Just rubbing little Andrea’s back as she fell asleep on him and listening to Ruby speak. It was peaceful, and he was happy. 

Chapter Text

Erika had been very, very thankful for that pain medication she’d gotten as soon as she arrived in sickbay, allowing for Amizina to actually inspect what had been done, damage wise. At least it hadn’t seemed immediately damaging, but there had been something she needed for setting that took the better part of an hour, and just after Amizina removed it and Erika looked down to see the beginning of a bruise she heard Jon’s voice, stepping in to sickbay and clearly looking around to see how appropriate he needed to be. “Veronica adjourned the debrief until tomorrow afternoon. Can be longer if you need it. What’s the verdict?” 

“Two cracked ribs, probably from how I fell against the chair. I’ll be fine in a couple of weeks.” A sigh escaped her lips as she finished that, knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to go easy for two weeks, so she hoped that whatever Amizina had done was going to shorten that time too. “That’s going to look pretty in the morning, isn’t it?” She asked, seeing Jon’s eyes slipping down to her bruise and she could imagine the very slight yellow and green would be much, much worse in the next couple of days. 

“It’s not that bad.” Jon was lying and she could tell, but she didn’t have the heart to say that, especially when he took her hand and looked genuinely remorseful. It wasn’t his fault, Enrique should have been able to hold his temper much better than he had. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that Enrique was that close to going. I shouldn’t have poked that bear.”  

“You shouldn’t… but I wanted to slap him for that comment about Hoshi, so you were in good company.” Laughing at her own comment had been a bad choice, she shouldn’t have done that, and she thought about what had caused this, not wanting to think about what she might need to do to prevent that happening again. “You two both need to cool off though. Do we need to stage an intervention?” Jon and Enrique had had very, very different paths to captaincy despite being a similar age, and she’d noticed they’d never really gotten along. 

“He’s just angry. We all are.” That was a very grown up response from Jon, and she hadn’t been sure he was capable of that right now. “I don’t think I can…” He started and then stopped as the door opened and Ramirez stepped through. Erika instinctively pulled up the blanket that was covering her. More comfortable with Jon seeing her like this than she was anyone else, even people she’d known a long time.  

“Jon, Erika.” He started, sounding a lot more contrite and apologetic than he had at the end of the briefing. Erika was sure someone had probably spoken to him, but she wasn’t going to ask him what it was. Honestly it wasn’t any of her business. “I was coming to check you were okay.”  

“Two broken ribs, but I’ll be back on duty in the morning.” She said and then looked between the two of them only a little bit concerned that they might return to throwing punches at one another. “If you two are going to fight again just give me warning so I can get Amizina to help me leave the room, okay?”  

Jon instead just lifted her hand and kissed it while he looked down at her with a little concern. “It’s okay, I’ll go. See you later, alright.” It was clear Jon was only saying the latter to her, and she just nodded, watching him as he retreated out of sickbay and away from his still-angry fellow captain. 

“Go see Ruby.” Erika shouted after him and watched as the doors closed behind him, then she looked to Ramirez and glowered a little because she didn’t really want to hear from him. She’d never told Jon, in so many words, why she herself had had a problem with him and she wasn’t going to tell him now, but Ramirez himself knew. “Enrique, I don’t really want to hear about your opinions right now.” 

“I know, and I’m sorry I knocked you the way I did.” He did at least look chastised, but Erika wasn’t finished yet. She was about to speak when more words just tumbled out of him and she shook her head a moment. “I just wasn’t thinking.”  

“I’m not who you should be apologising. Jon isn’t even who you should be apologising to.” She said, not caring why he said or did anything that he did. All she cared about was what he’d said about Hoshi. “You owe an apology to the twenty-three year old ensign who was tortured and forced to give the information to destroy her own planet.” She hoped that phrasing it that way would make him realise that he was blaming the wrong person in this. “Do you really think she doesn’t already blame herself?” She hadn’t spoken to Hoshi about any of this, but she could guess at it from the breakdown she’d witnessed a few days ago. 

There was a sadness in his face that made her realise what had probably happened, and she was more sympathetic to him after that, but she wasn’t going to let him off the hook. They were all grieving. “I know you’re right, and I know that was a low blow but…” 

“Carmen and the kids didn’t make it off world?” She asked, mostly to discover if she was right. When he nodded, barely holding on to his emotions she reached out and placed a hand on his arm as comfort. “I understand your anger. Hell like I said I can even support you being mad at Jon. But Ensign Sato didn’t deserve that. I want you to enter an apology to her into the record when we resume.” She wasn’t budging on that, but she did say it more gently this time.  

“I will. You’re right of course. She’s barely more than a kid herself.” That realisation seemed to bring him out more and she nodded at him again, letting him say whatever he needed to for his own piece of mind. “I just don’t know… how we get on from all this.”  

“The same way we always do. We lean on each other.” It was really that simple. “Enrique, rely on others, you’ll work through things. It’s hard right now, but you will.” She was giving as much encouragement as she could. It was hard enough for her to find it for herself, and for Jon. She couldn’t add another person to that. Especially one she wasn’t always comfortable with. “I can’t be that person for you, but someone will be, look to your crew. They’ll help. We’re all grieving.”   

“Thanks, Erika.” He took a breath, clearly gathering himself up after his near breakdown and she just patted his arm before trying to sit back and not hurt herself even more. It really wasn’t very comfortable. “I genuinely am sorry about your ribs.”  

“Don’t do it again.” There wasn’t really very much she could picture herself saying and then she shook her head as Amizina came over again with some interesting looking apparatus. “Go and rest, we reconvene the debrief tomorrow afternoon.”  

“Tell Jon… tell him I’m sorry too.” He walked out quickly enough that Erika couldn’t even think to answer, so she instead just blinked a couple of times as she tried to think more about this situation.  

So, she decided not to and looked to her doctor and the very interesting looking instrument, her glance almost certainly probably giving away how she felt about it being used on her. “More treatment?”  

“No, I just noticed you getting more and more uncomfortable, so I thought I’d come over and hasten his departure.” Amizina smiled as she put It down and then just stopped to explain its function to her. “It’s for traction when resetting legs, not something you need to worry about. You’re not so uncomfortable with Captain Archer?”  

That was definitely an astute observation and one that was both hard and easy to explain. Anyone else she would have left it at that, but this was her doctor, and she was going to have to rely on her a lot. “I… have very different relationships with them. Enrique took me on the most uncomfortable date of my life when I was twenty-one and at STC. We never spoke again after that date until three weeks ago.” If she’d managed to go her entire career it would have been worth it to not relive that night again.   

“Captain Archer?” It was clear that the difference puzzled the Denobulan and that just made Erika smile. She didn’t know how someone from a culture that didn’t really have any cultural understanding of monogamy would understand what she was thinking.  

“He is… are you familiar with the human superstition of soulmates?” It would be best that she got a baseline of how much Amizina had read about humans and their culture, because at least then she could tailor her answer to that. 

“I’ve read about them. It’s very different than anything in Denobulan culture, but it’s a fascinating demonstration of monogamy.” Erika had only met Jon’s doctor once before and she suddenly wondered if he was as fascinated by humanity as his daughter seemed to be. She guessed he’d have to be to have served on Jon’s ship this long.  

“Well, if they are a thing then Captain Archer is mine. I’ve been in love with that man since the day we first saw each other. Almost fifteen years ago.” She was careful not to say since they met, as that had actually been weeks later, and it had been weeks after that before she’d managed to speak to him. But they’d been near inseparable after that. At least at work. “There is no part of me he doesn’t know. There are some new parts of him I’m still learning about, but we’ll get there again.” She smiled, thinking about how he’d come back from the Expanse, but she was looking forward to getting to know the new facets of him too. 

“Fascinating.” Amizina just beamed at the explanation, apparently having no care about her captain being involved with another. “Well, I’m going to advise against strenuous physical activity for a few weeks, other than that just check in every couple of days.” 

“What about light physical activity?” She was mostly joking, but she realised that Amizina was taking it seriously and she didn’t change her thoughts. She did kind of now wonder whether anything she would want to do exercise-wise would count as light activity on her thoughts.  

“As long as you are properly supported and if there is any pain you stop the activity immediately.” That answer seemed to leave a lot of the things she wanted to do as being open, so she was glad about that. She’d make sure she was sticking to approved things. 

An hour later Amizina was finally satisfied that her ribs had settled, and she was released to quarters, though she needed to check in again in the morning to see if she was allowed back on duty. She hadn’t bothered to put her uniform back on, knowing that the halls would be abandoned this late, and sure enough she didn’t see anyone before she got to her quarters, but she stopped instead and pressed Ruby’s door, watching it open a second later and Ruby motion her in with a shushing motion. “Hey, did Jon…” She asked but Ruby insistently shushed her and motioned her closer, meaning that Erika came around to see where Jon was propped up in the bed sound asleep with AG asleep on his chest. “How long have they been like that?” She asked quietly, coming down to crouch beside where Ruby had been sat quietly and regretted it slightly when there was a ripple of gentle pain across her chest.  

“Almost an hour. Nia doesn’t normally sleep that long on anyone but me, you and Veronica.” Ruby looked genuinely surprised that her baby was as deeply asleep as she was. Erika was more surprised that Jon was just as deeply asleep, but she had a feeling he needed it. 

“Clearly she just knew her Uncle Jon was safe.” She smiled, babies were always a good judge of character and clearly AG had decided her uncle Jon was the most comfortable place. It was also an adorable sight, and she wanted to try and keep that for her memory book that she had managed to salvage. “Think he’d kill me if I got a photo of this?” 

“Please I have like fifteen already I’ll send you the best.” Ruby yawned softly and then grinned, clearly as tired as the baby and the man on the bed, but unable to let herself go to sleep while someone needed to keep any eye on them.  

Erika almost felt cruel for what she thought she probably needed to do, they looked so peaceful, but she knew that Enterprise was getting anxious to get back where they needed to be. “I don’t want to wake them up, but Enterprise needs to fall back to formation.” 

“Tell them Jon is taking the night off. I’m sure his XO can handle things for one night.” Ruby made it sound so simple and maybe it really was that simple. They all needed a break, and one night wouldn’t ruin any of them. And if anything were to happen Columbia had a working transporter. 

“You might be right, I’ll be back.” She then smiled and quietly headed out to the corridor, knowing while the two ships were docked she would be able to use any panel to call over to their sister ship. “Captain Hernandez to Enterprise.” 

“Go ahead, Captain.” Commander T’Pol sounded mildly concerned that Erika was the one calling and not her own captain, but it had become quite a common occurrence over the last few days.  

“Hate to be putting this on you, Commander, but your captain has fallen asleep on Columbia and given he has a baby sleeping on him I don’t want to wake him.” She could hear a couple of chortles over the open comm and she didn’t really think anyone would mind. “Think you can do without him tonight?”  

“I believe that Commander Tucker and I are capable of managing Enterprise for the night.” That explained one of the chortles. Erika was willing to bet the other was probably either Travis or Hoshi, she hadn’t heard it clearly enough to guess for certain. “Please get the Captain to contact us when he is awake.”  

“No problem, Commander.” She nodded and then thought about Jon for a moment, and how desperately he had needed to have a proper rest. She was grateful that they weren’t going to make her go in and wake him. “And thanks.” 

“Captain - I believe that Captain Archer needs the rest more than he would care to admit. If you could attempt to keep him at rest we would all be… grateful.” That sounded as though T’Pol had been fighting the same losing battle Veronica had in trying to make sure the Captains got enough sleep and down time. They were never really off. 

“Your wish is my command, Commander. Have a good evening, signal my bridge that you’re ready to depart.” She was sure that everything else would go like clockwork and she could just focus on what she needed to right now. “Ruby, you go to my quarters and get some sleep, I’ll stay here with these two. I’ll bring AG if she starts to fuss, you’re only across the hall.” Giving their friend a night off was another bonus she could have. 

“I could use a full night sleep.” Ruby smiled and then squeezed her shoulder, not even arguing. Erika smiled and sat down in the chair, dragging over her padd that she’d been working on and deciding she could plan out the memorial that she was going to send to Jon when she finished it. “Thanks Erika.” Ruby said, pausing in the doorway before heading out and letting herself get some rest too. 

Erika lost herself in her work, though looking up to check on Jon and AG every so often, neither one of them seemed to be moving so much as a muscle as they laid together and she smiled every time she looked up. Jon really looked good like this, and she thought she could get used to that. She was deep in the next part of her plan when she looked up catching movement, realising Jon had woken up and was suddenly a lot more conscious of the fact there was a sleeping infant on him. “Wow, how long was I asleep?”  

Smiling widely she got up and came to sit by him, being careful of her bruised right side. “I’ve been here for three hours, Ruby said you were asleep about an hour when I got here.” She smiled as he shifted awkwardly and she was careful reaching to take the baby from. “Let me take her, I’ve had a lot more practice than you.” 

“Where is Ruby?” That was a fair question, and as Erika settled the slightly fussy baby on her left side where she had a lot more control and was a lot more comfortable. Erika was just glad that their friend had gone to sleep, but she wasn’t surprised Jon was curious. 

“Sleeping in my room. I was the most appropriate to have awake.” She had had a decent night before and she had had work to do. “Both you and Ruby needed to rest. Shush little one, go back to sleep for your Tia Erika.” She whispered as she gently stroked AG’s earlobe like she liked to go to sleep.  

Jon nodded at her explanation then just watched her for a few moments. “You look amazing with her.” Jon’s voice sounded so wistful in that moment, and she looked back at him as she continued trying to settle AG. “Ruby was asking if I’d ever thought about being a dad. I was honest with her about it. Well to a point. I said we hadn’t had a serious conversation about it.”  

“Would you want to?” She asked, knowing that it was a conversation they’d had a long time ago, and while they’d both joked about it since this had happened, she hadn’t really thought to ask him what he wanted right now. She didn’t really know what she wanted. They were together, they’d made that decision. This was the next big one, so she needed to know how he thought. When his face was blank she decided to prompt again. “Be a dad?”  

“If it was with you… yes.” The pause and the specific wording made her narrow her eyes, not sure what he really meant. After a moment he stroked his hand down her leg and looked down to the bed. “I have been falling asleep recently imagining what our baby would look like, what it would be like to watch you walking around with our baby and hearing you speak to them like you did Carla when she was a baby.” That surprised her a little, she didn’t imagine that it had made such an imprint on him, but clearly all that time spent with her niece had stayed with Jon. “If it wasn’t with you, or you didn’t want to? Then no. You’re the only person I have ever imagined having a child with, and you’re the only one I’d want to bring up a whole new person with.”  

Erika just chuckled after a moment, AG finally starting to settle again, her tiny body becoming heavier on Erika’s shoulder. “That was a lot of words for yes.” There was no way she could pass up teasing. It made her quickly thing things through herself and she made a decision even she hadn’t been expecting. “Let’s at least figure out where we’re heading… and we’re going to have to tear up a lot of the books… Starfleet ships are going to have to become generational ships too. There are going to be a lot of new couples springing up over the next few weeks.” It was a lot, but they would do it and it would give them time to cool off of this moment. “But when we have that figured out… we’ll speak to our respective Phlox’s and figure out if we can do it. I am thirty seven now, if it was unlikely when I was thirty three I don’t think it’ll be any more likely now.” 

Jon seemed to ignore her mild concern at the end there and shook his head, gently stroking AG’s ear the way that Erika had been doing a few minutes earlier. “You hear that, AG. You’re going to have some cousins running around.”  

“Don’t use the baby!” She teased and shook her head then leant forward to kiss him gently. “She’s still soundly asleep, let me put her down then we can both try and sleep.” As Erika thought about that she suddenly remembered the one thing that she had promised. “Oh you should check in with T’Pol. AG’s out, you can use the console here. Maybe put a shirt on.”  

It hadn’t been hard to fall asleep once AG was in her crib, Erika’s side hurt and she had to be careful when she decided to roll over, but she did sleep well. Something about being in Jon’s arms while she slept had always made it so much easier for her to rest. That was until there was a persistent loud cry that took a moment for Erika to remember where she was. “Okay, that is not something I was prepared for.” Jon mumbled from next to her and Erika just sat up to see AG sitting up in her crib. 

“Hey, hey little one. What’s wrong?” She asked, picking the baby up and smiling a moment, wincing at her ribs as she moved a little too quickly. That was going to take a little bit of time. 

“She probably wants Ruby, I’ll go get her.” Jon kissed her cheek and then headed out and across the hall to where their friend had hopefully had a good night sleep. She deserved that.  

“Thanks, Jon.” Erika said and then spoke quietly to the baby in her arms. “You don’t even know this, AG, but you’re the whole reason I’m willing to try this having kids things. I’m excited for when that little cry in the morning is my own baby.” Even when they’d tried before she’d done it because she thought it was the next step. Now she was actually excited about the whole thing. “But this is our secret, okay. You can’t tell your uncle Jon.”  

“That was the best night sleep I’ve had in… months.” Ruby smiled as she came in looking bright and rested. Taking AG off of Erika instantly she then just looked between the two captains and smiled. “Thanks for babysitting, you two.”  

“She was a dream, we’ll leave you to get her ready for the day.” Jon said and then gently pulled Erika across the hall to her quarters, as soon as they were in the room he kissed her deeply and then smiled to her. “She definitely made a decision for us, didn’t she?” He asked, the widest smile she’d ever seen on him. It was as though he’d just found a reason to go on. 

“I still can’t believe we agreed to have a baby last night.” She chuckled a little and shook her head, but she was certain that she knew that it was the right thing. Maybe it was that that she’d needed all along. “It’s not even been three weeks.” Nineteen days, specifically, that was all. Though she had obviously known him so much longer. 

“Earth was destroyed, I think we can forget the four years we were apart and say it’s been fifteen years.” This time he was the one joking about that and he then nodded to her and kissed her deeply. “We have a planet to decide on though. Then we can think about the baby.” Already thinking about that, it sounded like Jonathan. Especially after his admissions last night.  

“How about we practice now before the briefing resumes.” She teased, mostly because she wasn’t ready to get dressed, and she needed to go to sickbay too, neither of which she wanted to do right now. So she was very glad when Jon pulled her closer and they settled down on her bed, being a lot more cautious than usual due to her ribs.  

After they finally had to get up, she sent Jon on to the briefing and she headed to sickbay, passed as fit for duty as long as she was cautious. That was enough for her to triumphantly return upstairs and listen to the last day of evidence, then watching as Veronica summed up and passed her judgement, at which point Erika had smiled to Jon and told him she’d call him later. Stepping over to Veronica as everyone started leaving their ship. “That was a lot more peaceful than yesterday.” 

Erika had to agree with that, and she wasn’t sad that this debrief was over. Jon didn’t need to be still thinking about the Expanse now. They could close the book on that. “I didn’t end up in Sickbay, it’s a success.” She said then dropped her voice with people still leaving. “I’m hoping it means Jon can move on and start looking to the future.”   

“Speaking of the future… I heard Jon slept here last night, but I didn’t hear you two.” Veronica asked and Erika had to chuckle at that and then shook her head a little. Of course her XO was wondering about that, but it was going to be so much more innocent than Veronica thought. 

“He fell asleep with a really cute blonde.” She laughed at the confusion on Veronica’s face and allowed her to stay like that for a few seconds before she followed it up with the explanation. “AG. I went down to see if he’d been to see Ruby and when I walked in they were sound asleep together. So we babysat and Ruby finally got a night off.”   

“That explains a lot.” Veronica nodded as the last couple of people left and they started to move everything to be in the right positions for their mess hall, certain that the crew would be glad to have their meal space back now. “I still need to write up my findings from this, but then we should be done.”  

“Great.” Erika said, moving things much more slowly. Her ribs definitely shouting at her if she moved too quickly. But Veronica was bigger, stronger and uninjured, so she was much quicker at moving things around.  

“I’m never doing this again.” Veronica grumbled and that just caused another stab of pain in Erika’s heart as she realised how much really had changed in the last almost three weeks. This wasn’t just Veronica’s last debrief, this was probably the last any of them would ever do. 

“Veronica… I doubt any of us are ever doing this again.” It was her only thought as they cleaned up the room and sighed softly. “This is likely the last debrief Starfleet is ever going to do. At least in our current form.” That was a sobering thought, but really all Erika could see right now was that Starfleet, as they currently were, would be absorbed into the space fleets of whatever power they ended up settling under. Though she hoped that wasn’t going to be the case. 

Chapter Text

21 days later: Confirmed Human Survivors: 9,655 

Jon wasn’t looking forward to this day. He knew it was needed, but he’d been resistant the first time someone said they needed a declared day of mourning or remembrance. Erika had been one of the strongest voices in favour of it and had eventually been the one to convince him that it was a good idea, especially of the news overnight of a set of twins being born on the Horizon. New life needed to be celebrated as much as their old lives needed to be mourned. However, the way Erika was fussing over him this morning you’d have been forgiven for thinking it wasn’t her idea. "You ready for this?” She asked for the fifth time, and this time instead of brushing her back he decided it was time to engage with the conversation that she clearly wanted to be having. 

“Honestly? No.” He said, readjusting the dress uniform she had just fussed with to make it more comfortable, earning a tut from his left where Erika was trying to straighten her own out. “How do you eulogise 10 billion people?” It was a rhetorical question, but he still wondered how she’d answer. 

“You don’t. You make it about the survivors.” Erika didn’t disappoint in giving an answer he hadn’t at all expected. He hadn’t been able to frame it like that in his mind. He’d been too busy thinking about what they’d lost, maybe he needed to be looking more forward to what they needed to do, rather than talking about a past that was no longer an indication of their future. 

“I wish you could be the one doing this.” He muttered honestly. Erika had a way with words, she always had. That was part of being a linguist. Hoshi had the same abilities. One he didn’t think he was even partly prepared for. “You’re the one who can talk to anyone and make everyone feel better about even the worst moments in life.”  

“Talk about your mother, talk about my nieces, talk about our friends. Make it personal. That’s what people want to hear right now.” She came back in front of him again and tried to make the cravat sit centred on him, and it didn’t seem to work. “You don’t need to tell the story of every person we lost.”  

“It’d be too many for that, anyway.” He grumbled and then as she once again shifted things around on his uniform he just looked down at her and grumbled. “That is really uncomfortable.” It didn’t seem to matter to her as she got it in to place and glowered up at him. 

“It’s a dress uniform it’s not meant to be comfortable.” Alright she had a point there. “Tell them we’re going to find a new home. That we’re going to rebuild. That we’re going to do it in honour of everyone who can’t enjoy it with us.” That all sounded good, but he wasn’t sure that he knew how he could do that in reality. He’d just see what fell out of his mouth when he was on the Bridge. “Tell them we’re going to survive.”  

“We should go.” He announced, mostly so that Erika didn’t start having a go at his uniform again, as they walked out of his quarters and through the ship he had to marvel at how well they had managed to repair the ship in just three weeks.  “Maybe we should have done this down on the colony.” He mumbled as they stepped into the turbolift, realising how much more relaxing a backdrop the square there would have been. 

“We all live on ships right now. Doing it on Enterprise’s bridge projects strength. And you’ll have all the other captains with you.” That was another good point. There would be others with him. He wasn’t going to be alone trying to convince people that he was right to be leading them. 

“Even Enrique?” Jon couldn’t help but ask that, even though he knew that Erika had smoothed things over, there was still a part of him angry. Mostly at the fact his partner had been injured than anything else. 

“He and I have had words.” She said and then kissed him gently. “Don’t worry Jonathan, he’ll follow your orders. He might not be happy about it, but he will.” That was better than the alternative. And if he’d come for this then that was all Jon could hope for. 

He watched the way Erika moved around him and spotted the occasional wince as she turned. She was trying to hide it, that was clear, but she was obviously still in pain. “You still look sore.” He pulled her to a stop in front of him, dropping his forehead to rest on hers for just a moment. Keeping her still for just a second. 

“It hurts when I move too much.” She admitted after a second, tilting her head up a little to kiss him gently. Knowing how good her pain tolerance could be, just getting her to admit to any pain at all was something. “You should see the bruise.” 

“Maybe tonight I’ll get the opportunity to.” He smiled, still staying close to her and knowing that he wanted to keep her there and not go on with what he needed to do today. “I think I’m down to the last two planets in my choices, I want to know which one you prefer.” There was something he wanted to run by her on them, and he knew she wouldn’t be happiest he ruled out her preference. “And I ruled out your favourite, it would take too long for us to get there.”  

“Alright, I can accept that…” Erika pulled her face but at least she accepted his explanation. “After the ceremony we’ll escape to your ready room and look them over.” That was definitely something he could do, get everything out and try and pick which one of these planets would be the best. 

“I should put them both to all the captains, see what everyone thinks?” He thought aloud. Knowing that it would ultimately be his decision, but that it should probably be democratic at least among the captains. They couldn’t let everyone vote, they’d never make a decision.  

“That’s also a possibility.” Erika said and nodded then sighed and leant against his desk. “Can you believe it’s only March 7th?” There was an incredulity to her stat “A month ago I was sat in Starfleet Command officially getting my promotion and now… Earth is gone and I’m second in command of the entire fleet.”  

“If Columbia had had her full arsenal you’d be in command.” Jon said trying to make Erika feel just a little bit better about their situation. He didn’t deny that under Starfleet’s rules, two of the least experienced captains were in charge, but it was the way it went. “Wanna trade?”  

“Not on your life.” She then laughed and kissed him again gently. Clearly deciding that this way around was plenty. “We’re a good team, Jonathan Archer.” He had already known that, but he was glad that she was finally admitting it to him. With one final kiss and a straightening of their uniforms they both took out and started heading up to the bridge where he was going to broadcast from. 

As he took his place in front of his seat he looked around his crew, largely being crowded out by the presence of most of the Starfleet captains stood around him. He took a breath and one last squeeze of Erika’s hand before they bother straightened up and he looked to Hoshi, giving her the sign to open the channel. “Survivors of Humanity, I’m Jonathan Archer, for those of you who don’t know me, I am the captain of Enterprise, currently leading the survival efforts for us all. And today I’m beginning this address, and this day, marking it as a day of remembrance for us all.” He paused for a moment, pulling his thoughts together as he did and then continued. “Three weeks ago, the unthinkable happened, and we survived the cataclysmic destruction of our planet. Over night we became embattled, traumatised survivors, refugees currently at our only port of call while we work out where we go next.”  

Jon felt himself falter a moment until Erika’s hand found it’s way onto his back. “This journey is going to be difficult, and we’re going to have to think about things most of us have never thought about before. But like our ancestors travelled the oceans and climbed the mountains to find themselves new homes, we will do the same.” He didn’t focus on the words, or on what anyone around him looked like. He focused purely on Erika’s thumb smoothing out creases on his back and giving him all the confidence he needed to keep speaking. “We have had help from our Denobulan and Vulcan friends, providing much needed engineering and medical assistance. It has meant that we can continue to survive. In the last week there have been three new babies born into our surviving population.”  

He smiled to himself at the thought of babies, hoping that one of the future ones was theirs, too. So he stayed on the topic of the future and made the announcement he was sure that the Starfleet crews would be happy about. “The future means looking forward and making plans for the future, and this is mostly going to apply to the Starfleet crews, but from this moment all fraternisation rules are lifted. Every ship in this fleet is going to have to prepare for that one goal we all share. Survival. That is what we are aiming for and that includes continuing our species.”  

Erika’s hand traced a letter on his back and he allowed another breath as he interpreted the letters m-o-m. He nodded and then swallowed, trying to keep talking through those emotions. "I think of our friends we lost, our families. In this moment I’m thinking of my mother, my father…” He then allowed himself a glance down to Erika and thought of two others he wanted mentioned right now. “Our nieces, only small children. Carla and Amelia had been such a bright spot in my life and I miss them more than almost anyone else. I know all of you have people you can say that about.” He felt Erika’s hand still on his back, and heard her gentle sniffle as she let her emotions boil over, and he could tell she wasn’t the only one. “Captain Hernandez of Columbia is going to be starting a project, she is going to be collecting memories that people send her. Creating a database of those we lost, any pictures, names, anything you wish to have recorded there she will be accepting. We’ll be arranging a set time for each ship to transmit these over the next several days, and this will be an ongoing project, so if you aren’t prepared to share those memories yet you don’t have to.”  

He took a breath again and hoped that would give Erika enough of a break to get herself back together too, not that he thought anyone would think any less of her. “Within the next week, the Starfleet captains will have decided on a new planet for us all to settle on, and we will be preparing to embark to it with whatever supplies we can get, keeping a direct connection to Proxima Colony as the last two outposts of humanity.” He nodded and stood up a little taller for a moment, bringing it all together and hoping he hadn’t completely made a fool of himself. “We will survive, and we will come back from this. In honour of all those we have lost, and all the new friends we will make along the way. Captain Archer, out.”   

Letting himself deflate a little he turned away from Erika, hopefully giving her another moment to gather herself, knowing he’d come back to her when people had started giving them more space. “Nicely done Jon.” Ramirez said, coming to shake his hand and then stepping back. 

“That was excellently done, did you prepare anything? It sounded too good to be you, I’ve read your reports.” Rob Duvall teased, and Jon just sarcastically rolled his eyes as he shook yet another hand. 

“I didn’t, it was all Erika’s pep talk before I got here.” He smiled, now turning to see where Erika had actually gotten away to while he’d been the centre of attention, seeing her stood beside the tactical console talking to Trip and Malcolm for a second, Trip giving her a hug as she wiped her eyes. 

“She’s definitely your better half, Jon.” He heard someone say and he wasn’t sure exactly who it was but he just nodded in agreement as he then disengaged and headed over to where she was stood. Grinning as he fell into place beside her he let her finish her conversation before saying anything. 

But as was her specialty she ran from that sentence into turning to him and praising him. “You did better even than I expected.” She teased and instead of saying anything he just pulled her against him and kissed her deeply, not pulling away until they needed to breathe again. “We’re on your bridge, Jonathan.”  

“I just suspended all the frat rules didn’t I? I did mean all.” He teased before kissing her again then finally pulling away for a moment and just smiling at her gently. Glad that they’d gotten through it, and that everyone had moved on to give them a moment.  

“You have just ensured that we are the topic of all gossip across Starfleet for the next twenty four hours.” She teased, knowing that what happened here was going to already be being gossiped about. He’d been a junior officer once upon a time and he knew that gossip about the seniors was the best way to pass time. But he also wanted his partner when he needed her, and that was had happened here. 

“I don’t care, after that I needed you.” Jon grinned, knowing that they still had actual business to do that wasn’t just personal, and he was going to take some gossip when it came to this. Especially as there wasn’t that much to gossip about. He hadn’t been ambiguous about what the kiss was. 

“Okay, we’re going to look at these planets then I can decide if you’ve lost your mind or if you made good choices.” Erika teased clearly thinking along the same lines as him, that they needed to work before they could continue to play. He’d never been good at separating the two. 

“Commander, you have the bridge.” He called out to T’Pol, heading into his ready room, expecting that Erika would follow him, and sure enough a moment later she came in. “To be fair to myself… Commander T’Pol selected them. She’s a little more objective than any of us.”  

“I mean you’re not wrong, but she could still be incorrect about what we need the most.” He doubted that T’Pol would have gotten it wrong, but it was possibility still and Erika would have been negligent to not mention it. She then leant over his shoulder as he pulled up the results before she winced and pulled back to answer. “Alright these actually aren’t bad choices. I think the small one in Vulcan space is best. The system also has natural deuterium deposits that the Vulcans already said that we could have, so we would be able to maintain and fuel our ships better.”  

Jon quietly got out of his chair and guided her to sitting on it without a word, just continuing his thoughts as they shuffled around. “Ceti Alpha V is more remote though. Further off shipping lanes.” 

“But without any protections and the deuterium in that system is further out from the core planets.” She pointed that out that on the scan. She didn’t like the idea of being so far from allies, he knew that. It didn’t surprise him that that was what she was focused on. “Either would be a viable choice, but I’m going to go with this one. What do the Vulcans call it?”  

“Ironically, Makar Terrian” Jon smiled softly, having found that quite funny at first which T’Pol had not entirely appreciated. “Could very easily be renamed Terra. New Terra maybe.” He theorised and just rested his chin on her shoulder, looking at the screen as he did. 

“I think that’s a sign from the universe, honestly, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else will agree with me though. Put it to the captains, majority vote wins.” Erika suggested, though the two of them agreed. He liked both, but she was right about this. The Vulcans potentially being able to help them protect their vulnerable population was important. 

“I’ll send it out to them tonight.” He agreed, kissing her jawline gently just teasing her softly with it and knowing that it would get some kind of response. “I’ll send it to you too… you can formalise your preference.” He whispered between kisses, the work now being done he was very ready to tease on it all. 

“Jon…” Erika said, in that way that told him she didn’t want to stop but she also didn’t think it was a good idea that they keep going through it all. He didn’t stop, instead turned the chair and started kissing along her jawline until he met her lips and she just smiled softly while still gently returning his kisses. 

“Do you want me to stop?” He asked, though not stopping for a moment, sliding his hand up to pull the zip down at the top of her uniform. Kissing her again he pulled it down enough that he could kiss down to her neck, knowing the easiest ways to build her up without even touching her. 

“Want is not the right word, but you should.” Erika said and he heard the groan then the grumble as she continued to think of how to put him off. “Besides, with my ribs I can’t easily do what you want here. Not enough space for me to be properly supported.”  

“Then how about I escort you back to Columbia and you show me how you can be properly supported.” He couldn’t help but tease, and at least if they were on Columbia and something went awry she would be able to see her own doctor, which was something that he would want in the same situation.  

“Okay.” She replied and then smiled, letting him pull her to standing. He stopped before they stepped out of the ready room to get her zipper all the way up. He told T’Pol he was going to Columbia to finish up some work, and that he could be contacted there if he was needed. 

They managed to keep their hands mostly to themselves until they got to her quarters, when they’d spent a good half an hour discovering the appropriate ways for Erika to be properly supported, then afterwards he held her close to him as they both took in the day that they had just been through. “You did really good today, Jon.” She praised then leant up a little to kiss him softly. “I was very proud of you.” 

He shook his head and moved so that he could lean over her a little. “Rike, you’re the only reason I’m making it through this.” There was no way he could pretend he would be able to do this without her. “You’re the one who made me realise that the only way any of us will get through this is by allowing everyone to start relationships without fear of repercussion.” 

“I always thought the frat rules were dumb.” She had been telling him that for years. Longer even than it had been a problem for the two of them. He remembered a particularly fiery argument she and Sam Gardner had once had about it. Erika had won, but that didn’t mean that any of her colleagues had actually changed their opinions. 

“You finally won.” He chuckled again and shook his head. The biggest bonus was now he wasn’t going to have to think up excuses for him to see her. Now he would just be able to say he was spending some time with his partner. “Now I can at least act like you’re my partner, not just a colleague.” 

“You weren’t really treating me like a colleague. All those late night calls, and our not infrequent sleep-overs.” Erika looked at him and Jon did not at all understand what she was saying. Other than in a few situations he had tried to keep things professional between them. 

“We’ve only had four!” He defended, and if he’d managed to have his way it would have been more, though he knew that wasn’t actually feasible or even a good idea when they were in the roles they currently were. It was a lot more fun for him to be pretending like they could have had as many as they wanted.  

“In three weeks?” She teased and then shook her head as she looked at him and then shook her head with a laugh. “It’s okay Jon. I’m glad we don’t have to hide it any longer too. But it really isn’t going to change all that much for us. There are other members of our crews for whom it’s going to make a huge difference.” 

“I just hope that we’re not making a huge mistake.” He said quietly laying back again, and he felt Erika look up at him for a moment, as he was sure it was the right thing but at the same time, he was worrying about them overwhelming themselves immediately. “Already suspending the rules.”  

Erika snorted and then smirked, leaning up and kissing his chest before moving up a little and then kissed his lips before speaking again. “Takes at least ten months to grow a baby Jonathan, it’ll be needed. It’s probably going to be at least a year before we really see any effects.”  

“You’re right, of course.” He admitted and went back to just stroking her arm as he thought about the amount of time they’d be able to do this. He couldn’t imagine a time where this wasn’t one of the more comfortable and comforting situations he’d ever been in.  

“Jonathan…” Erika said quietly, her hand moving in small circles over his stomach. He wasn’t sure what she was going to be thinking about, or what she might be about to say, and he almost forgotten she’d said anything when she did begin to speak again. “You called them ‘our’ nieces. In the address.” 

“We’re going to be getting married, we’re going to be having a family, and I loved your family like my own, Rike. They were our nieces.” Her elder niece, Carla, had been the first baby Jon had ever held. She’d been so excited to see him whenever they’d been around. He’d only met Amelia once, but she had looked just like Erika’s baby pictures and Jon loved getting to see that. 

Erika stayed quiet for a moment the shifted herself up a little and buried her face into his neck, her next words muffled thanks to that. “I miss them Jon. I miss them so much.” It was the first time she’d said it out loud to him, though it had become something that he knew was bubbling under her surface. She’d been so close to her family and that wasn’t something that he’d ever experienced, and she was coping better than he expected which meant she was probably going to build to a crash at some point and he was going to hope that it was something he could try and prevent, or at least be present for. 

He kept his arms wrapped around her, wanting to make sure that she knew he was there to keep her protected. Let her get this part of her breakdown for. Jon stroked her back until she fell asleep, and he was just about to start dozing off when the shrill of the communication went off and he heard an unfamiliar voice, reminding him he wasn’t on Enterprise right now. “Bridge to Captain Hernandez.”  

Erika very groggily sat up and started to grumble though she reached out for the companel and shook her head, looking at him for a moment before she answered it. “Go ahead, ensign.” She said, even more grumbling in her voice as she waited for a response, even though it was only a second. 

“Xindi signatures at the edge of the system.” Came the response, and their reaction together was instant. Both sliding to a side of the bed and then she just continued her thinking. 

“Signal tactical alert across the fleet on Captain Archer’s order.” Erika didn’t need to ask him about that and she also didn’t have to ask about the next part. “Please send Lieutenant Reynolds to the transporter to send the Captain back to Enterprise, and let Enterprise know he’s on the way. ”  

“Yes ma’am.” Was the only response and he was already halfway to pulling on his uniform, looking back to see that she was in the same state as he was. It was a little concerning right now and Jon had no idea what was going to happen here. Was this about to be the end of them all? He didn’t know but he was going to act like this was just a normal day. 

“Guess we’ll have to pick this up at a later date.” He told her and smiled, leaning in to kiss her quickly and then shook his head a little, knowing they needed to get on with this part. “I love you.” There was a chance that he didn’t get to say it again, so he made the decision that he was going to. Just in case. 

“Me too Jon. I’ll stay with the fleet with Republic and Defiant.” She said as they both headed out of her quarters, only being together to the end of the corridor. They had thought about this before, so they had a plan, and he trusted Erika to do what they had planned for. 

“See you soon.” He said as they separated, and he felt like he was mostly going through the motions as he went down to transport back to Enterprise, then raced up to his own bridge knowing that Columbia had already told them he was on the way. As soon as he stepped out he saw T’Pol stand up and he moved over to his chair. “Report.”  

“Three Xindi ships, along with one that we can’t identify at this distance.” She filled him in, and he nodded to her then looked around the bridge to see the rest of his crew were already starting to fill in on the things they had briefed and practiced over the last week.  

“Take us a hundred thousand kilometers from the fleet, signal Columbia, Republic and Defiant to stay back with the civilian ships, all other Starfleet ships with us.” He knew that they would all be waiting for his orders and he was glad that they had thought this part through before, mostly because Reed and Reynolds had prompted them too. 

“Done, sir. The rest of Starfleet are falling into formation.” Malcolm continued and kept focusing on what was going on with them. Jon trusted his tactician to keep a focus on that. 

He turned back to T’Pol again, getting more and more anxious about the fact there was that unidentified signature. He didn’t like that they couldn’t make it out, or why they couldn’t make it out. “Any idea on that fourth ship? Is it another weapon?”  

“Inconclusive. They need to come closer.” T’Pol said, looking as infuriated at her instruments as Jon was currently feeling. Jon didn’t like this, and seeing that they were all unhappy about it. He had a feeling that this was going to end badly. 

“Another fifty thousand kilometers, ensign, then hold.” Jon ordered, putting his hand on Travis’ shoulder. He didn’t want to move too far away from the fleet. He didn’t want to leave an opening where Erika and the civilians could be endangered. 

“Yes, sir.” Travis replied, his mind entirely focusing on the job at hand. It meant that Jon didn’t have to think about it. After all this time he just trusted his crew. “Holding.”  

“Captain, we’re being hailed by the unidentified ship.” Hoshi’s voice broke through the moment and he took a breath, he knew that all of the fleet Captains would need to hear this, whatever it was. 

“Put it on screen. Patch the fleet Captains in, they’ll want to hear this.” He said, watching as Hoshi nodded, confirming that the fleet Captains would be able to hear whatever was going on. “Well I’ll be damned.” There was nothing in the universe that could have prepared any of them for this. 

Chapter Text

Erika had been sound asleep when the call had come in, and unlike Jon she had at least been able to change in to her regular uniform before this, whereas she was pretty sure he’d just turned up to his bridge in his dress blues, though she didn’t think that anyone was going to care. As she arrived on her own bridge she didn’t wait for an acknowledgement she just stepped on. “Report?” 

“Three Xindi ships and one that we can’t identify this far out.” Veronica said as she stepped out of the centre chair and over to the engineering console where she tended to sit when they were all on the bridge. Jordan in the tactical position and another steal from Enterprise, now-Lieutenant Cutler, being sat at the sciences console to her left.  

Putting her hand on the shoulder of the young man at helm. A name she couldn’t pull up on hand right now. “Hold back, we’re staying with the civilian fleet.” She ordered him and then looked over to Jordan. “I want hull plating and weapons charged.” 

“We still don’t have aft cannons. They’ll be installed tomorrow.” He looked a little annoyed about that, though Erika knew that he and the engineers they now had were doing the best they could do with the limited supplies they had, though the Vulcans having spent the better part of a week here had meant that at least they were a complete ship. “But for now we only have the torpedoes back there.”  

“Then lets make sure we keep the Xindi in front of us.” She smiled and patted his console with a gentle smile, she then went to sit in her chair, watching the rest of Starfleet moving out away from them, suddenly feeling her three little ships were not enough to keep the civilians safe. 

“Signal from Enterprise. They want to patch us all in on their comms.” Was called out and that was not entirely normal, but given the situation Erika could understand what it was that Jon was thinking, because it would be what she would have done too. She’d have wanted her fellow Captains to know exactly what was happening. 

“Do it.” Erika turned to the screen as it flickered to life, and when she saw who was on the screen she couldn’t prevent her gasp, even if it would men absolutely nothing to anyone else on the ship. “Oh my god.” She whispered out and shook her head, at least now recognising what the fourth ship in the formation must have been. 

She wondered how many of her fellow captains had had a similar reaction to her, but as she missed Jon’s initial reaction to her own surprise it was hard not to see the smile that broke out across the Andorian commander’s face. “Did you miss me, Pinkskin? You’re very dressed up.” That confirmed that her suspicion it was Shran was confirmed, and it meant she was completely locked in to what was happening on the screen. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Jon’s suspicion was clearly raised, as was Erika’s. For the moment, though, she was also cautiously optimistic. It had seemed like Jon and this particular Andorian had a pretty good relationship, and as much as he doubted it in himself, Jon had always been quite a good judge of character. 

“Are you ever not going to be asking me that?” Shran’s arms were held open in a sign of honesty. It made her feel a little more on edge and she didn’t know why. “I know how we left things last time wasn’t the best, but I come with my allies to let you know what is happening outside of this… collection of ships containing your entire species.”  

“How am I to trust you on this, Shran?” Jon asked, Erika watching his body language more than she was Shran’s. She didn’t know him, but she was so completely familiar with Jonathan Archer that she was certain she’d be able to tell where he was landing based on the smallest movements he might make.  

“Because I bring allies, and information. Believe me pinkskin, I do not wish any harm upon any of you.” Shran’s tone turned a little more personal, a little less cocky and Erika watched as Jon’s body language loosened too. For whatever reason, her partner believed him, and she had to have faith that he knew what he was doing. “Invite us aboard, this conversation will be better face to face.”  

“Come back to the fleet with us, I’m not commanding alone right now, I need to bring a couple of other captains in.” That was her indication that at the very least she was going to be being summoned as soon as this call ended, but she wanted to see Shran’s reaction before she prepared herself.  

“Arrange for whoever you want, we have nothing to hide.” This time he sounded much more genuine, and much more tired, than his initial cocky responses and Erika wondered exactly what the Andorians could possibly be bringing in.   

“Follow us back toward the fleet, but the Xindi ships need to keep a distance. At least a thousand kilometres from the fleet.” Jon ordered and that was sensible. It would hopefully be enough to stop any dumbass freighter captain from trying to take a pot shot at them.  

A second later the screen went dark, and Erika took a breath as the ensign on comm spoke. “Enterprise ended the connection. They are signaling for you to transport aboard as soon as they are in range.” There was the summons she’d been expecting.  

Standing up she knew to start mentally preparing herself for what she was going to have to do, but she just shook her head to herself and stood up. “Lieutenant Reynolds, with me.” She motioned as she started heading toward the turbolift without waiting to see if he was following. 

“You’re getting used to going through this.”  Jordan joked as he stepped into the lift with her and she just shuddered a little. It was true, she was going through this thing regularly, but she still wasn’t sure about it, and it never made her feel particularly comfortable. 

“Don’t remind me.” She grumbled as they stepped out of the lift a few metres from the pad at which point she just nodded and took another breath before speaking. “Keep to a tactical state until you hear from me.” She wasn’t going to be relieved and let them stand down until she’d been convinced, and that would take more than just trusting Jonathan’s view of this.  

“Sure. Good luck.” Erika was informal with her crew, but even for her it was taking her a little time to get used to Jordan’s relationship with titles and his lack of use of them, but it was refreshing and definitely fit in much more with her style of command than it would most captains in the fleet.  

As she materialised on Enterprise she was met by a MACO who couldn’t have been older than twenty, and she wondered momentarily what he had lost on Earth. “Captain. I was ordered to escort you to the mess hall.” He said quietly then as she looked at him a little questioningly, he smiled a touch self-consciously and shrugged. “Captain Archer isn’t taking any chances with the Xindi so close, ma’am.”  

“Thank you, corporal.” She said as they walked along the deck to the aft section that held their mess hall. One day they would need a more specific room for things like this to happen. They couldn’t just keep clearing out the mess hall whenever they needed to have a meeting. “Are they here yet?”  

“No ma’am.” He answered, not giving away any hints about it. “The Captain insisted they go through extended docking procedures to give you and Captain Jennings time to arrive.” She would definitely have been here quicker than Ethan would have been. He was an interesting choice, though after the two of them he was the logical choice for third in command. 

“That’s good thinking.” Jon had thought of everything it seemed like, and she was quite thankful for that. She wasn’t sure she would have thought of all this, but she had the disadvantage of having been asleep when the call had come in, from what she’d been able to tell Jon had been awake, which gave him an unfair advantage. “Thank you.” She repeated as they reached the mess hall, even though it wasn’t a long distance, she had felt better about being escorted. 

“Any time, ma’am.” He smiled and then opened the door for her, peeling off and standing outside the door without another word. Seeing the almost empty room that was still clearly set up for lunch she assumed that they would be actually meeting in the Captains’ mess, but Jon was stood there looking out the window and she smiled coming up behind him before wrapping her arms around him. 

They both stood silently like that for a moment, and she was grateful to have that second before she pulled back a little and broke the silence between them with a smile to herself. “You have some very polite MACOs.” It was enough of a tease to pull his eyes away from the fleet out the window and to her. “Any idea why Shran’s here?”  

“None at all.” He said then smiled, reaching out to pat a gently tuft of her hair she clearly hadn’t managed to pull into the hastily dragged pony she’d done while getting ready when the call about the ships had come in. “Your hair is all messed up still.” 

“I did get dressed rather hastily, and I wasn’t exactly awake at the time.” She teased, knowing that he would know that but it seemed like it still needed stating. She was about to slap his hand off when he gently tugged at her hair tie and what she had managed to get up fell about her shoulders.  

“Wear it down for now.” He smiled and leant forward to kiss her forehead, pulling her gently against him for a moment. She let him hold her where he did for a second knowing that was more for him than it was for her. She wasn’t going to deny him comfort when they both needed it more than either would admit.  

“So it can bug me all day? Give me my hair tie back.” She teased and snatched it out of his hand, leaning up to kiss him gently before finding the most reflective bit of window she could use to pull it up into a more acceptable pony. Still a mess, but better than it had been. “This will do for now.”  

Jon just watched her for a few seconds then when she was done pulled her to him again, smiling in the way he always did when they were alone. The smile that told her he felt at peace there, when maybe he didn’t seem to be anywhere else. “Your bruise wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be at this point though.”  

“It’s a lot more yellow than I was expecting, I guess after 3 days it’s just dropped.” She had spent enough time looking at it in the mirror when she first got up this morning, and the constant dull ache in her chest definitely reminded her that things were healing. “You didn’t look at my hips so much.”  

“No, I was far more distracted by that point.” He grinned, his hands settling on her aforementioned hips as he stayed close to her, enjoying another few stolen moments. Knowing that they would have even less than they already had with this. She was about to speak when she heard the doors open and a gentle cough come. 

“You two need to put each other down for twenty minutes.” Ethan Jennings chuckled as he came around and gave Erika a hug before shaking Jon’s hand. Their time working together clearly giving her the same place in Ethan’s heart as with anyone else she’d ever worked with long-term. 

“Captain Archer and I were discussing my bruise from the other day.” She explained with a smile, stepping a little away but feeling one of Jon’s hands lingering on her side, a small touch enough to sustain them both a little more. He’d always been more physical than she had been, but right now she was appreciating their connection just as much as he had always seemed to. 

“How are you after that?” Jennings asked, his gruffness giving way to genuine care and affection that Erika knew was under there. It had taken her a year as his XO to break through that shell but now she knew that it was there, and she knew how to bring it out of him. 

“The ribs have settled, Amizina is sure they’ll heal just fine.” She smiled softly knowing that it was easier just to tell the truth on that point and leave the fact she was still in a reasonable amount of discomfort out of it. “Just have to be careful about what I do in the meantime. Aren’t the other captains going to feel slighted it’s just the three of us?” It likely wasn’t going to be a problem, but it was something she wanted to get Jon’s thoughts on for certain. 

“No, we’re the three most senior, you and I have the NX ships, and captain Jennings is the most experienced of the Intrepid-class captains.” Jon smiled between the two of them and Erika narrowed her eyes at how cheerful he seemed all of a sudden, though she wasn’t going to probe that right now. 

“That makes sense. Can’t have too many here. It could be seen as intimidating. Good choice Jon, I can call you Jon?” Jennings asked as the door was opened, making it clear that their guests had arrived when the MACO who had escorted her looked around the door for permission.  

“Of course you can, Ethan. Show them in.” Jon seemed to stand a little taller between the two other Captains, though Erika didn’t miss the small shake of his hand giving away his nerves, at least to her. This was his first time facing this kind of situation with the entire of Humanity literally answering to him, it was enough to make anyone nervous. She put her hand gently on his back as they watched the Andorian commander and his two companions come into the room. 

“Pinkskin. Oh you do have friends.” He came right over, hand extended to Jon. Shran clearly had picked up a few human formalities. Erika didn’t stop Jon’s movement but did keep her hand on his back for just a second, the same reminder he’d given while they spoke to Jennings. 

“Captain Ethan Jennings of the Republic. Our most experienced captain.” Jon introduced their companion to Shran, who turned his hand and attention to Jennings for a moment, clearly sizing the other man up as he did. The same as Jennings was doing, no doubt. 

“A pleasure, Captain.” It was fascinating to watch someone like Shran interacting with people she knew well. The Andorian commander was probably far more used to dealing with aliens than either she or Jennings were, but it didn’t seem like he lost an enthusiasm she hadn’t expected. 

Then Jon’s smile gained the hint of pride that she’d seen him give her before, but he realised that this was the first time he was really getting to introduce her by her rank and her own ship. “And Captain Erika Hernandez of Columbia.” She held her hand out to Shran in turn and tried not to roll her eyes at the change in demeanour. 

“Oh, and an extra pleasure to meet you, Captain. You have the same ship as Archer?” He asked, motioning out the window to where Columbia could be seen just on the far side of the fleet, just within transporter range for if she was needed back aboard urgently. 

“Similar. A little rickety right now but we’re finishing her up.” She smiled then tilted her head a second, hoping that she could phrase her sentiment correctly in Andorian, given she’d only been studying it for a year. She normally liked to have had more practice before using it in a situation like this. “Nice to meet you too, Commander.”  

“You have almost no accent, I’m impressed.” He practically beamed and then motioned to the two women either side of him, making Erika feel far less outnumbered than she normally was in these situations. “These are Arneta and Philomia, the heads of the Xindi Humanoid and Arboreal militaries. We have come to speak to you of events beyond this system you have retreated to.”  

“It is quite difficult at the moment, I won’t lie, but for the moment we believe we’ve kept the Reptilian and Insectoid militaries from finding this colony. Proxima was believed to only have Rigellian settlers, we didn’t know there was a human colony here so they weren’t part of the initial attack plan-” One of the two women began, but Jon held a hand up for a moment and looked around to ensure nobody else was in the room, not that anyone had come in since they’d started. 

“Shall we take this somewhere a little more private?” He suggested and motioned to his dining space at the back of the room, Jennings taking the initiative to begin speaking to Shran as he guided them off. The two Xindi women in the middle and the two other Captains in the back. “I’ll tell Shran to back off if you want me to?” Jon said quietly, reaching down to take her hand tightly for a moment as they walked in. 

“I think we have bigger things to worry about.” She whispered back, squeezing his hand tightly and not letting go as they walked in, and she kept it nearly silent as she finished her thought. “Besides I think he’s going to be more jealous he can’t flirt with you anymore.” 

“Shut up and sit down before I poke your bruise.” He lead her over to the last remaining seat, Jennings and the two other women having already sat in three of the four. Jon then stepped to the companel and pressed it to request two more chairs, then came to stand behind her again, placing his hand on her shoulder gently. “Alright so, for now the Xindi that are hostile to us don’t know where we are?”  

“We believe so.” The woman who had spoken before continued her clearly prepared and rehearsed list of things that she needed to remember say, “There is currently a civil war occurring, again, between the Xindi races. The Reptilian’s attacked an Andorian colony near Weytahn, and a Tellerite colony near Rigel in their search for humans.” Erika winced and shook her head at that, so much loss of life for no reason. “The Andorians have joined our cause.”  

Shran nodded as he listened and looked over to Jon, a significant look that Erika didn’t miss for a moment. “We felt it was only fair that you knew what you set in motion, Captain. We don’t know how long we can protect your fleet’s existence from them.” That was something worrying, and Erika wasn’t sure how to take it. “They have the ability to scan further than we can.”  

“So we need to be aware, be prepared.” Jon nodded, squeezing her shoulder to make it clear without saying anything that he understood. As the two chairs were brought into them Jon took his and brought it over beside her speaking quietly to her and Jennings though clearly not in a way to exclude the others in the room. “We’ll have to ramp up production, see if we can get the Jing Mei up to one-ten.” 

“I don’t know if Captain Gabriel will be happy with you about that.” Erika shook her head, knowing that the captain of the only fabrication ship that Earth’s survivors had with them was already a little upset at the demands the Starfleet schedules were putting him on. “I’ll press him tonight, but I’m not promising.” She just shook her head, then went back to listening to all the other bad news that was being given. 

Erika had been glad that they’d been seated, and that their guests had been able to back up everything that they had said. Though she knew that they were all going to be asking for some independent corroboration of some events, it meant that they had some idea what was going on. As they all finished the Xindi military advisers both decided to return to their ships, as did Ethan. Shran had escorted his guests to the docking port, and Erika was planning on just saying goodbye to Jon before heading back to work on Columbia when as they walked he looked at her a moment. “Stay for dinner tonight?”  

“I’m supposed to be arranging a few things, remember?” She pointed out, given that she now needed to arrange for their fabrication ship to go faster, and she needed to be checking on a few things on Columbia. Their port injector was showing the same instability that had plagued some of the NX prototypes and she wanted to keep on top of that. 

“You can do them after dinner, or before dinner on one of my computers. Please?” Jon was giving her the puppy look he used to give her that he knew would make her cave to almost anything. Then he continued quietly. “It’ll give you and Shran a chance to talk more.”  

“Why do I feel like this is a ‘come and meet my friends’ dinner?” She asked, her eyes narrowed a little as they slowly walked through his ship, his hand wrapped around hers, his thumb running the back of her hand. Damn he was trying everything. 

“Because it is.” He confirmed after a second and she just burst out laughing at the earnestness in his expression. “We’ve never got to do that where it’s me introducing a friend. You already knew all my friends because we worked with them.”  

“I didn’t know Trip. You could have introduced us.” She pointed out, not wanting to let that oversight be forgotten. Especially now that she did know the commander and found she quite liked him. 

“Yeah I found out he was afraid of you.” Jon admitted, stopping at the junction before the transporter clearly deciding to try and keep convincing her to stay here.  

“Why!?” She demanded and Jon just looked at her as if she hadn’t had a bit of a reputation for being commanding back on the project. Though that was largely because she’d been dealing with him, AG and the others, who were not the easiest people to be responsible for. “I’m going to tease him about that.” 

“He didn’t know that you’re really soft and squishy.” Jon teased, thankfully gently poking her non-injured side though she still squirmed away from it and went to grab his hand, causing a passing crewman to chuckle as she continued on with her work. 

“Oh shut up.” She said and shook her head then just took a breath making the decision, but deciding that she’d make him worry about what she was thinking as she did. “I’ll come to dinner on one condition.”  

“What’s that?” He asked and this time it was his turn to be a little suspicious of what she was thinking, which was exactly her desired effect. 

“You convince your chef to make enchiladas.” She had already seen Enterprise’s menu, so she knew that was what they were going to be having, but she did want those, and she knew that Enterprise’s chef was almost as good as her own. 

“Funnily enough, I think that was our menu for tonight anyway.” He tilted his head and chuckled, starting to move them along again, though she did notice it was back to the transporter and she didn’t really fancy that again if it wasn’t urgent. 

“Then I’m in.” She teased then just nudged him past the transporter in the direction of the turbolift. “Mind if I borrow your ready room to do some of my busy work.” She figured that was easier than explaining all that she had in her mind about the transporters. 

“Sure, come on up.” He didn’t ask and she was grateful for that. He just held her hand a little tighter a moment as they got in the lift with two junior officers, and she felt a little bad for the two of them. “Bridge. I’ll come get you for dinner.” He said, not even looking at the two crewmen along for the ride. 

“Sorry.” She at least felt it was polite to them to acknowledge that they were being inconvenienced, although it was just part of being on a working starship. It was going to happen. “I assure you I’ll be right there.” She smiled, heading right in there when they got to the bridge, leaving Jon to arrange his bridge without needing to babysit her. If she had needed anything she knew his access codes anyway, he hadn’t changed them in a decade. She’d never do that without good reason, though. 

She had managed to get as much organised as she could, she’d spent some time making up a new formation for when Enterprise and the other Starfleet ships needed to go be a force that she’d run by Jordan and Jon later, and she’d negotiated for a short burst of more production with the captain of the Jing-Mei. She was not his favourite person right now though. She had just sat back and closed her eyes as she tried to ignore her ribs when she heard the door open and Jon slide in. “Hey, you got what you needed too done?”  

“I think so, I finally told Columbia they could stand down from alert so I would assume half my crew is now asleep.” She only really had a skeleton crew at the best of times but they were finding a rhythm now and that was a relief.  

He pulled her out of the ready room and through the bridge, wrapping his arm around her shoulder as he did. She slid hers around his waist in return, very glad that they didn’t need to hide this anymore. “How are you staffed now?”  

“I have enough trainees who have suddenly gained their commission and civilians to make up two skeleton crews, so we’re on twelve-hour shifts but we’re managing.” They would be able to get more later on, but for now they were functional. “We’re all going to get good at managing with skeleton crews soon.”  

“You’re not wrong.” He smiled as they just walked, everything quieter now.  She almost wished that she kept some of her civilian clothes here so she could have changed to feel more like she was pretending to be off duty. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?” Jon said eventually as they walked through the mess hall to his dining room.  

“I don’t need anything right now, Jon. Anything more than a vacation with you. Preferably somewhere with a hot tub.” She grinned, imagining the holiday they could have with all that, though that was a very, very long time away. 

“For the warmth or for the nudity?” Jon asked as the doors opened and she hoped for his sake that none of his crew had been listening to that particular question, though really she doubted any of them would have thought of anything differently.  

“Yes.” She laughed, shaking her head a moment as she tried to think about what else she could say, but really now all she was thinking about was nudity and hot tubs and how much she would like both of those. “Especially the nudity.” 

“I thought you pinkskins were a little more shy about casual nudity.” Shran said looking between them as they became aware their guest was already here, causing them both to chuckle again. “Am I interrupting?” He asked, playing innocent in the same way she had often played in the past. 

“Not at all, we were just discussing Erika’s preference for our next vacation.” Erika rolled her eyes and chuckled again, going to sit at the chair in the middle, her back to the viewport. “I thought you two might enjoy some time to get to know each other.” 

“He really wants for us to get along so that I trust you the same way that he does and I’ll back him up to the rest of the fleet.” Erika leant forward and pretended she was talking quieter than she was, to hopefully make it clear to them both that she was teasing. 

“You talk plainly captain, I think I’m going to like you.” Shran laughed as he took the seat at the opposite end to Jon and looked at him with a mock look of indignation. “You should have just said that.”  

“Oh my god there’s two of you. I see it now.” Jon laughed as he looked between the two of them, coming around and placing a kiss to the top of her head before he sat down too.  

“If I’d known we were going to be introducing our mates, pinkskin, I’d have brought mine along too.” Shran started, beginning to talk about how he was also involved with someone he worked with, opening a whole new line of conversation about that. She had to admit, she liked the Andorian. Hopefully he really was as trustworthy as he appeared. 

Chapter Text

It had been three days of working with Shran and his Xindi friends, but they finally at least knew what was happening beyond this system and how hard if seemed to be for the others to be keeping the Earth fleet as protected as they could. He could tell that Shran, at least, had wanted to ask for more, but maybe seeing exactly how spread thin their survivors were made him think twice. “Has the Kumari left?” He asked as he appeared on the bridge, alone for the first time in days.  

“Alongside the Xindi ships.” T’Pol said with her usual even tone. Jon knew that even she had a secret appreciation for Shran, even if she liked to pretend that she didn’t. He thought that after all these years he could tell when she was only pretending to be as annoyed as she was whenever he was around.  

“I doubt that’ll be the last we see of them.” Malcolm was quite sage in that prediction, as it was one almost certainly true. Mostly because he and Erika had agreed that they could be a fall-back point for the fleet defending them if they really needed it.  

“No, probably not.” He agreed then shook his head a little as they all looked on him curiously. “Captain Hernandez and I spoke to Shran over the last few days and said that if they need aid and are out this way we’ll offer what we can.” It was really the least that they could do. 

“We barely have enough for the fleet.” Malcolm frowned a little, while both Travis and Hoshi were nodding along and Jon felt like his own crew were outnumbering him. This was the exact argument Erika had had at first, but he’d managed to talk her round about it too. 

“We know that, and they know that.” He sighed and then motioned out the viewscreen, knowing that they would all trust him no matter what, but even he could feel their professionalism already starting to slip. Though Erika’s command style was showing him that maybe they didn’t need to have quite such firm lines anymore. “But they’re keeping us covered, we owe them something for that.”  

It was clear that another point was about to be made but Hoshi held her hand up with a look of concern, stopping all conversation among the senior staff. “Captain, there is a call for you from Proxima, it’s Provost Benton, she’s asking that I loop Captain Hernandez in too.” That wasn’t something that had been requested before, but he didn’t see a reason they couldn’t. 

“Do it. I’ll take it in the ready room.” He jogged through to his office, making sure the door shut behind him. Porthos looked up from where he’d been sleeping on the chair in the cornerd but soon put his head back down. Jon was pretty sure his dog was also missing Erika. He shook himself out of that as his monitor flickered to life with Erika on half the screen and Matilda Benton on the other. “How can we help you, Provost.”  

“I just had a conversation with my Rigelian counterpart on the other side of the moon.” Jon shared a quick look with Erika at that and then nodded, knowing that the Rigelians hadn’t really interfered with anything they were doing, and had offered aid when needed. “They have arrested someone they found on the surface.”  

“Why does this… affect us?” He asked, not really sure what this was about and not entirely following yet, but he was sure that the other shoe was about to drop and when it did, he was sure he’d regret wanting to know. 

“They’re Xindi.” He was correct. He did, in fact, regret that he’d wanted to know who was captured. “The Rigelians don’t have long-term holding facilities, they’re asking if one of you could take them into custody.” That explained why she called them both and he looked back to Erika again, not sure that was something that her ship had prioritised finishing.  

He thought of a question to ask while he allowed Erika to work out what she needed to, as he could see her pulling up reports on one of her padds that were either side of her. “Do you know which species?”  

“Unclear, we didn’t want to transmit on open channels just in case someone was listening.” That made sense. They hadn’t really wanted to broadcast anything that could be sensitive information, if only because they didn’t know if they had been followed, or detected. “Commodore Bushul is in command over there. I’ve told him to expect your call.”  

“Thanks, Provost. We’ll let you know what we find out.” Jon said, knowing that she was uncomfortable with all of this, so he just nodded as she disconnected and looked at the image on his screen. He didn’t interrupt Erika as she searched through her padds, nibbling on her lip the way she always did when she was concentrating on making a plan.  

After a few seconds she looked up again, blinking a couple of times as she suddenly realised they were alone on the call then just looking at him and tapping her fingers on the table. All her nervous habits he’d seen her display over the years, but none of them this consistently recently. “I don’t have a working brig yet Jon he’ll have to go to you.” 

“I know.” He had had a feeling that was the case, but he had wanted to let her be the one to say it herself. He took a breath as he thought for a moment and sighed, realising that even if he wanted to do this alone, he was going to need her there… to hold him accountable to someone. “Rike, I need you to be there… I need you to stop me going too far.”  

Her gentle nod told him that Erika had, as usual, already known what he was going to ask. “I’ll be there, I would suggest we maybe have Ethan and Enrique be there too, maybe bring our tactical officers.” Now that he didn’t understand, and Erika clearly realised that he hadn’t made whatever logical jump she had to that.  “Ethan and Enrique have both done work with Starfleet security, a lot more than either of us has done.” That was… more fair than Jon wanted to admit. “I think for better or worse this is something we’re going to need back-up on.” 

There was still some visceral, internal reaction about the idea of Erika being anywhere near Enrique at the moment, especially in something likely as charged as this was going to be. He knew that it would work out better for him in the long run if he told her that, rather than just sitting silently on. “This may sound… I don’t know possessive or protective or something but I just… I don’t want Enrique in the same place as you any time soon.” He couldn’t remove that image of her being taken out of the debrief in pain from his mind whenever their fellow captain was brought up. “You’re still bruised from last time.” 

Erika just smiled and he could almost sense the sigh as she took that in, and then clearly decided to disregard it entirely. “Let’s get this prisoner aboard your ship, I’ll lend you my tactical officer to help with the transport.” Erika suggested and Jon just nodded accepting that his worries would have to come another time. “I’ve seen the size of them you’re going to need a few hands. Then we can put our minds to it and know what we need to know.”  

“Teleport aboard with him, he can go with Malcolm and a couple of MACOs.  They should be able to secure him.” Jon figured he could try again when they were together, but he wasn’t going to push it. He would eventually get over his feeling toward Ramirez. “Want to stay on while I contact the Rigelians?”  

“I probably should, if we’re in this together.” She nodded and then Jon just took another moment to study her as she went back to working on whatever she had in front of her. Given everything she was doing it could be a dozen things. 

“And we are.” He eventually agreed and smiled as he reached over to call to the bridge, just continuing to watch Erika as she did. “Hoshi, can you hail the Rigelian colony on the surface, keep Captain Hernandez on the line.”  

“Yes, Captain.” There were a few seconds pause while Hoshi did what she needed to do and that meant that Jon could enjoy the silence with his partner for another moment. “Putting the Commodore through now.”  

“Thanks, Hoshi.” He smiled then shook himself to looking more serious about this, knowing that he needed to get so much more done now and that Rigelians appreciated forthrightness. They didn’t care much for small talk. “Commodore, Provost Benton would like us to arrange to collect the Xindi you have collected.”  

“Yes, Captain. We have them in our cells at the moment, but we don’t have the ability to keep them long term.” The Commodore seemed entirely uninterested in what was going on, and clearly, he just wanted this Xindi out of his hair, and Jon didn’t blame him. “We are ready for you to come and collect whenever you can.”  

“Thank you, Captain Hernandez and I just have a few questions for you?” Jon continued, getting the impression that this man really wasn’t interested in getting to know them. He wondered how the colony actually got on with their neighbours based on this interaction. 

“I’m a busy man captain…” The Commodore started then sighed and waved his hand, clearly giving permission for them to speak. “Go ahead?”  

It wasn’t exactly the most confidence inspiring moment, but at least he was going to let them asak. Erika was looking increasingly annoyed on one half of the screen, and it was clear that she didn’t appreciate the dismissiveness when it came to important questions. “What did you find them doing?” 

“Walking along the surface.” There was an interesting smirk across the man’s face which Jon was going to guess was amusement of some sort. “Which was an interesting choice given the minimal pressure suit they were wearing.”  

This time Erika jumped in, and Jon could see on her face that she was thinking of what she’d have done in this situation. “Have they said anything about why they were there?” 

“Just that it was important to their mission.” That didn’t sound good. He held his expression while the Commodore continued speaking, knowing that theories on this would now be best spoken about when they were in person. “They haven’t spoken much and we’re not going to provoke them any further.”  

“We’ll be sending a team within the hour. I’ll have them contact you when they are on approach.” Jon could tell they’d gotten all they would out of the Rigelian, and it was now probably going to be easier to just… allow him to go about his day and take over the questioning of the Xindi they’d taken into custody for them. The communication was dropped without so much as a goodbye and he just sighed and looked to Erika. 

“I’ll transport aboard with Jordan in a few minutes.” Pushing aside the padds she’d been pouring over whenever they hadn’t been on with someone, it was a clear indication she was putting that out of her mind for now. “Want me to call the others?”  

“You take Ethan, I’ll call Enrique.” He suddenly chuckled and shook his head, realising that that was now how he’d have referred to either of them just a few weeks ago. Now it was the most natural thing in the world. “That’s funny.” 

“What?” Erika asked, though she had a smile on her face, probably just from hearing him laugh the way that he had. He’d noticed that she’d always smile from things like that, and it made him feel a warmth of affection and love that she seemed to just naturally draw out of him. 

“When did we start using everyone’s first names?” He asked, genuinely slightly curious. He’d always used hers, but they were the closest two people could be, and even though they’d been apart for so long, he had never lost that connection to her. “I guess we’ll all be doing that before long.”  

“There isn’t really a Starfleet anymore, and there aren’t many of us in command... We’re a small club.” That was also very true. Starfleet Captains were only a small collection. “We’re probably all going to relax things as time goes on, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There is still hierarchy on the cargo and civilian ships. We’ll probably become more like them.” Erika’s observation there was probably true, especially with the elimination of the fraternisation rules.  

“I guess you’re right.” He wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about it, though he did accept that it was almost certainly going to be what happened even if they tried to prevent it. He tried to shake those thoughts off and just smiled at the fact that she’d be over on Enterprise soon. “See you in a few.”  

“You will.” She confirmed and just smiled as she reached forward and ended their comms. He took a breath and tried to work through his thoughts about the captain he was about to call. From all accounts Enrique was a fine person, a good captain. He was struggling as much as anyone was with the situation and maybe was a little more angry about it than others. The only problems he currently had were that he’d hurt Erika in his anger, and the protective part of him where he needed to protect his spouse was definitely the main part of his problem.  

So, he needed to try and get over it, and maybe just talking to the man was the best way to work this out. “Hoshi, can you get me Captain Ramirez on Intrepid?” He waited and just rested and waited, trying not to focus too much on what he was really thinking, though in the end when the other captain. “Enrique. There has been a Xindi found on the planet’s surface, we’re bringing him to Enterprise. I’d like for you to join us for questioning him.” 

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea Jon…” Enrique’s face clearly showed that he may have some indication of how Jon was feeling, and then he shook his head again. “You know how close to the surface my temper is, better than almost anyone. Being face-to-face with a Xindi might not be the best plan.” That statement was clear that he was a little guilty about Erika too.  

“It was Erika’s idea; she clearly doesn’t hold it against you so I’m trying not to. Clearly, she believes in you too.” Jon decided to be truthful about that, because Erika was honestly probably the better judge of character than either of them were right now. “She’s a better person than me on that.”  

“She’s got her pit bull of a security chief to hold grudges for her, I suppose.” Jon suddenly had a new appreciation for Erika’s choice for tactical, smiling to himself about the fact two people were holding grudges on her behalf. “I have had it made clear that he would not appreciate me being on Columbia again.” 

“You injured his captain, can’t entirely blame him. I said I didn’t really want you near her either but, ultimately, it’s her choice.” Jon decided to be honest about that too, because he didn’t want anyone who hurt Erika anywhere near her again, but she was the one who ultimately got to make that choice and he wasn’t going to take that away from her. “Suppose it’s a good job you’ll be on Enterprise though. You did security interrogations when you were a junior, we need someone with experience for this. I never got very good at it.”  

“You’re too nice, Jon. That’s why. You have morals and they show on your face at times.” Ramirez took another breath and then nodded, clearly trying to push himself over his initial hesitation then just nodded. “I’ll come aboard, I’ll get my crew to liaise with yours.”  

“We’ll be waiting in the captains mess until he’s aboard.” Jon said, though he would make sure someone was there to guide him through the ship. He was learning that that was probably good for anyone visiting who hadn’t come from Columbia, as apparently the ship wasn’t as obviously laid out as he had thought. 

He then waited only another moment before he bounced up and carried on his work for a second before he got ready for this. Mostly though he was hoping that he’d be able to steal a few moments with Erika before Ethan and Enrique arrived aboard the ship. He got down to the transporter just as Lieutenants Reynolds and Reed were heading down towards the shuttlebay, leaving Erika stood alone for a second. As she turned to walk over to the closest companel he stepped out and smiled seeing her surprise. “Well hello there.” She said mostly out of surprise when she saw him. 

“Hey.” Jon smiled and stepped up beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and starting to walk back along the deck toward the mess. “Long time no see.” It hadn’t really, but they’d both been kept on their own ship for several days. Working through the Andorian/Xindi visit had kept them both very busy.  

“It’s been three days, Jonathan.” Erika rightly called out and he couldn’t deny that she was right, it had, but he still had wished she was with him every single night she hadn’t been there.  

“That’s a long time. I got used to us being on one another’s ships every day.” He was mostly teasing as they walked through to where his private dining space was, mostly enjoying the walk with her and how little it now seemed she cared about them staying appropriate in front of their crews. “I missed you.”  

“I missed you.” She replied with a smile looking up at him and he couldn’t stop himself just soaking that smile up for a second. It always had been one of his favourite things to see. She then chuckled and shook her head, looking down as they continued through the sparsely populated. “I don’t know what I’m going to add to all of this, but I’m here.” 

“Calm, Rike. You’re going to add calm.” He smiled to the various crewmen they passed, though making it clear their captain didn’t have time to stop and talk. “Enrique and I can both be hotheads; we need you to balance that out.” He was happy enough to admit to that now, he wouldn’t have been a few months ago, but he had learnt humility since. At least that was what he was going to tell himself. “I found a new movie for us to watch when we have time.” He said more quietly as they made it into his dining room. 

“Oh, I don’t know if I have the patience for old movies right now.” Erika smiled and walked around the table, stopping in front of the window and smiling at him before turning out to look out at the vastness beyond them. “Unless this is a ‘watch’ in italics with an asterisk?”  

“It definitely has italics, an asterisk and possibly even an exclamation point.” He came closer and pulled her into his arms, kissing her deeply for a few seconds and ignoring the pull in his mind that they were on duty and that really wasn’t appropriate. 

Erika kissed him again softly then chuckled. “Now that sounds like a promise that’ll be hard to keep.” He rolled his eyes in response and smiled as she turned around in his arms, pressing her back against his chest. He snuck his arms around her like this, one resting at her waist, the other gently around her neck as she relaxed back against him and they silently stood for a while. Just any other couple watching the stars together. “Is this what we are now Jon? Stolen, hidden moments of silence while we watch space pass us by? We were going to be explorers.”  

He almost didn’t know how to respond to all of that at once, so he just focused on the easiest thing he had to tell her about. “We were, and in some ways we still are. Just now our exploration has to focus on exploring the depth of human survival.”  

“Very philosophical of you, Jonathan.” Erika smiled a little, leaning back and kissing his chin before she went back to looking out the window. After a moment he was going to say something when he heard a sniff and felt her gentle shaking with sobs. “I keep thinking about Carla. It’d be her birthday tomorrow. She’d be eight. Eight.” She managed to get out and he just held her tighter, not planning on letting her go now until she made the move to. 

“We’ll mark her birthday, Erika. Same as every other important date we have.” He knew that the day was coming up, but he’d lost track, exactly, of what day they were up to. The last month everything had somewhat morphed into one another, and he was having to catch up to the fact that yes, tomorrow would be March sixteenth, Carla Hernandez’s birthday. 

Erika held onto his arm, and he could still feel the gentle shakes even as she spoke a little more clearly, though quietly. “I’m scared that one day I’m going to forget their birthdays. I’m going to forget their voices.” She then turned around and looked up at him, tears running down her cheeks as she did. “I’m so scared I’m going to forget how Simon treated me, how he would tease me forever but the minute I needed my big brother he was there in an instant.”  

Jon leant forward and kissed each cheek softly then pressed his forehead into hers, sharing in this very vulnerable moment and almost certain he was now the only person alive who had seen her cry like this. “You’re not going to forget him Rike, you couldn’t.” He knew that. Erika and Simon had been extraordinarily close, and he knew that she would never be able to forget him. “He’s a huge part of who you are, and that is going to be his greatest legacy.” He then closed his eyes and took a breath, feeling it was time for him to be vulnerable in return and say one of the thoughts that had been plaguing his mind in the last day or so. “I keep thinking about my mom. Was she scared? Was she alone? Did she know it was coming?”  

“She’ll be remembered too Jon, just like your father will be.” Erika’s voice was soft still, but he could hear the shake in it as they both took their first real moment to mourn together. The first time in the last month they’d been able to let their walls fall fully. “We’ll make sure they’re all remembered.” She said after a few more seconds, then wrapped her arms around him and placed her head against his chest. 

Jon had no idea how long they stood together, just breathing both lost in their own thoughts of grief. Luckily after a few minutes he felt Erika smooth out as she pulled herself back together, not that she loosened her grip around him, and he was glad she didn’t. He was needing this almost as much as she was. It was only when they heard the door open that either of them moved at all. “Is this a private party or can anyone join.” Ethan Jennings asked as he came in, thankfully alone for the moment, giving the couple another few seconds to pull themselves together before Trip followed him in. “Erika, Jon.”  

“They should be back in the next twenty minutes.” Trip said, clearly having decided to come down and tell them in person. Or maybe he’d just known. After a second of Jon looking confused Trip just grinned. “You didn’t answer the com. Malcolm and Jordan confirmed that they had gotten the prisoner. Thought I’d best come down and check.” He didn’t even remember hearing the com, had he and Erika been that caught up in their grief that they hadn’t noticed. It wouldn’t be the first time in their careers that that had happened.  

“We’re fine. Just lost in space for a few minutes there.” That seemed the best way to phrase what had happened, and he wasn’t going to go into any further detail. For the moment, he was just going to try and refocus on what was coming next. Meaning he had to let Erika go for now. “Guess now we wait.” He said, keeping his hand on Erika’s back, refusing to lose contact with her until he actually had to. 

Chapter Text

Even after an entire day of the four captains interrogating the Xindi female in various combinations and with various approaches and none of them had gotten her to break down. From Erika’s sympathetic friend to Ethan’s hard stare, they hadn’t been able to break her, and Erika could tell they were all getting frustrated. “We’ve got nothing out of her. Not one damn word about why she is here, how she got here or what she was doing.” As they left for the last time today and started heading toward the mess hall, they all needed to try and let go of the stress and frustration between now and the morning. 

“We did just have those Xindi ships here…?” Enrique was the first one to comment on that, though she knew that everyone who had been aware of the Xindi’s capture had had questions about it, though not even all the Starfleet captains had been briefed about it yet.  

Erika shook her head though, remembering most of Jon’s reports and the things they’d found out through Shran. “They never went near the planet, and that species of Xindi doesn’t yet have transporter technology, only the Reptilians and Aquatics do, if I remember right.” She looked to Jon for his nod of confirmation, meaning that she had remembered right.  

“Could they have been cover for another ship?” There was clearly not going to be any convincing Enrique that there may be some people on their side, and Erika honestly could understand how he was going down that line, but she wasn’t going to let him push that theory just because he was having trouble working through his feelings.  

“I don’t think it was them. Shran seemed genuine when he met with Jon and I, there is no reason for him to lie about it.” Jon said, pressing the call for the turbolift they all stopped in front of and sighed a little, as if reminding them that this wasn’t all about them, they were only a cog in this machine. “The Reptilians attacked the Andorians too, they have reasons to be in this fight.”  

“Did we get confirmation of that attack?” Ethan asked, though when Erika looked to him, he just looked curious. As much as he would tease her now, she and Ethan had worked so well together because in the end they were both very calm people, it just came out of them differently.  

They had reached out to what allies they could trust about the Andorian attack and she knew that they had been observed by at least the Vulcans, so they could be sure that the Andorians really had been brought in to all of this against their wills, but Jon got to voicing it first. “Yes, through Ambassador Soval.”  

“Then I don’t think we need to be questioning their motives.” Erika said, only making it sounds as though she’d only just thought about it because that would solve problems that weren’t even apparent yet. As she was thinking about what she would have done to be found in their guests’ position she had a sudden, horrible realisation of what could be happening, and she hoped to God she was wrong. “No this is something else. I think we need to stop allowing civilians down to the colony.”  

“Explain, Erika?” All three looked at her as they got in the lift and she reached around to press the contact to halt the lift, knowing that they were protected from being overheard her and not wanting to cause alarm or panic. 

“Think about it, the only human settlement left. We find a Reptilian skulking about on the surface where there is access to all manner of systems crucial to the colony functioning.” She left a moment for them all to realise that she was pointing out something completely normal. “For them to only found by chance because the Rigelian half of the colony was doing some maintenance? It’s too perfect.” She just didn’t trust it and as she looked at Jon, she realised he was the only one of the three of them who realised what she was getting at. “We need to keep people on the ships and bring as many civilians as we can up from the surface until there have been thorough inspections of everything on the surface that could have been tampered with.” 

Clearly not realising what Erika was saying, or not realising how serious it could be, Ethan just shook his head and motioned around them, probably hoping it was in the direction of the colony. “That’s hundreds of people and days' worth of work; we can’t just ask these people to abandon their homes?” 

“It’s that or potentially decimate the remaining human population, Ethan.” Erika wasn’t saying any of this as fact, but she knew it was what she would do if she was one of them and she was hell bent on not only destroying the human population, but by making it as terrifying as they could. “As horrible as it sounds, if I were them, it’s what I’d do.”  

Jon, however, did know exactly what she was saying and after a moment he shook his head. “The virus wasn’t ever finished Erika; I don’t think they’d release it unfinished. They wouldn’t want any survivors.” He reached around her and set the lift moving again, and as she caught his eye again it was clear he realised that she wasn’t happy. “You don’t agree.”  

Shaking her head vehemently as they got up to the next deck where Jordan was waiting by the door. “No. If they didn’t want survivors they’d have destroyed Proxima with the rest. They want some of us alive… to serve as a warning.” She trailed off, but she was fairly sure that everyone would get the idea. 

“I think we should probably leave them to duke this out, Enrique. Our part of this for today is done.” Ethan said diplomatically, clearly realising that it didn’t matter what anyone else said. Jon and Erika were the two who were going to have to work this one out. “We’ll be back tomorrow for more questions.” He smiled then headed down the corridor to where the two smaller ships were docked, one on each side of the ship.  

“Join me for dinner?” Jon asked her after a moment, and she looked up at him trying to decide if she really did want to spend time alone with him right now of if she was going to end up feeling like she was being ignored. “We’ll talk about this more there, but we’d be much more comfortable.”  

“Fine.” She agreed after a moment, not actually upset about staying, she was just annoyed with him right now and it was much easier to pretend that there was nothing wrong with his way of thinking either, she could be being paranoid. Only time, really, would tell. “Go take some R&R with Enterprise’s crew, I’ll call you when we’re going back to Columbia.”  

“Sure.” Jordan started moving away but then stopped and moved closer to them again for a second to keep whatever he needed to say quiet. “She’s right, by the way. It’s what a smart enemy would do.” He then shrugged, pointed to his ears. “I have good hearing and was listening out on the lift, heard the gist of the idea. You all are terrible at being quiet.” He then just shrugged and wandered off in the direction of the armoury.  

“See.” She took Jordan’s agreement as a reason to keep pressing Jon on this, though she wasn’t going to ruin dinner by talking about it constantly. “I’m not being paranoid Jonathan; that’s the smart play. Mostly because it would make us feel unsafe.” She hated that, and how it made her feel about all those that she now felt responsible for.  

Dinner had been quite nice until she’d brought up her thoughts again, and Jon had clearly decided that she was being slightly paranoid. Though she did get him to agree to insist on checks of all the systems that could be accessed on the exteriors of the habitat domes. That was something at least, and she just hoped to God that she was wrong. As they left and she called Jordan before heading toward the transporter. They walked together in silence as they both thought over their positions, then as Jordan arrived Jon nodded then looked at her, his seriousness softening as he took in a breath. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”  

“You will, just let me know when to come over.” She tried to smile though she was sure that it looked at stiff as it felt. Now it was more just being worked up about this situation than genuinely being mad at him. He just needed to think things through. “Think over everything I said, okay.”  

“I will.” He finally agreed and that was more than he had agreed to the entire way through dinner, so she was going to take that. He then held his hand out to Jordan and smiled again; this time it was almost as stiff as hers had felt before.  “Nice to see you again Lieutenant.”  

“You too Jon.” Jordan’s response made Jon blink a couple of times, but it was clear that he wasn’t actually going to say anything, just give Erika a slightly bemused look that she always loved seeing on his face. 

“I’ll explain another time. See you tomorrow.” She squeezed his hand then stepped up on to the transporter pad with Jordan and held her breath again as the beam took hold of her, depositing her on Columbia a moment later when she could let her breath out. 

“You didn’t manage to convince him, huh?” Jordan asked as soon as they got off the pad and she just sighed heavily and shook her head. Glad that he, at least, was on her side about this. It made her feel slightly less like she was losing her mind about it.  

“Nope, and I hope to god we’re wrong but how could we not be?” Erika asked. She didn’t see any other reason for this. Okay maybe not necessarily the virus, but there were also other environmental controls they could have tampered with. “He did at least agree that he’d arrange with the Provost to inspect the outside of the habitat domes.”  

“That’s something at least. You going to bed?” Jordan looked momentarily as aimless and hopeless as she felt but he quickly masked it again. She was getting better at reading her security chief, but it was still going to take a few weeks for her to full be able to read him, what parts he allowed anyone to read at least. 

“Yeah. Don’t stay up too late Jordan.” She joked, having seen in the last few weeks hoe he seemed to barely sleep, always the last of Alpha shift to leave the bridge and the first there in the morning. It reminded her of the way she’d been back on the NX programme and she knew that it wasn’t something that should be sustained long term. 

“No promises.” He chuckled and then shook his head, taking a breath and turning a little more serious for a moment. That kind of tone shift in anyone made her a little on edge, but she was going to try and wait to see what he actually decided to say. “I still don’t like Captain Ramirez, you know.”  

“You don’t need to like him… we just need to tolerate him.” That was the only way she could think of how they were mostly feeling toward Ramirez, and, knowing how Jordan didn’t use surname and rank when he respected someone, she thought he was being very reserved. She did then shake her head and decided to lighten the mood again. “But if he hurts any of those we care about again… well Geneva doesn’t exist anymore. Night.” She left him with that thought, ready to go pass out and hopefully feel less annoyed by Jonathan in the morning. 

She had only taken a few steps before he jogged up to catch up to her and then stopped her carrying on. “Oh Erika? I… my wife and kids are still on my family’s ship… do you think we’ll have any chance of bringing them over soon?” She was taken aback only for a moment at the idea that he was married, and with children. Columbia really was going to be a generational ship before long. 

“I didn’t realise you were married.” She said honestly then tilted her head as she thought about what they had left, realising that Veronica would know much more about it than she did at this point. “Let Veronica know what you need, and we’ll try and work it out.”  

“Thanks.” He gave her a genuine smile before turning on his heels and heading back in the direction of the fore turbolift that would take him straight to the bridge. Maybe that was all the sign she needed that bringing his wife here would be beneficial.  

Sleep came quickly, for once. She’d barely stripped down to her blues and laid in the bed before she was asleep. Meaning that when she heard the klaxon go off she was still groggily trying to remember what it meant before hearing Jordan’s voice over the comm system. “Tactical alert, bridge to Captain Hernandez.”  

“Go ahead.” She mumbled when she had finally reached the contact, already sitting up and pulling a uniform towards her so that she would be dressed in a moment, by the time that this conversation ended she’d be ready to leave for the bridge.  

“There’s been an explosion on Enterprise, they are asking for assistance.” That was not what she’d expected him to say and instantly she was completely awake and ready to do whatever she could to help their sister ship out.  

“Get us there, I’ll be right up.” There wasn’t that much that she could say other than that, so she ended the contact and dressed even faster, and for the first time in a long time she didn’t bother scraping around for a hair tie. She’d just deal with her hair. She was nervous as she headed up to the bridge and when she got there she saw the image of Jon’s ship with several fires burning on the hull. “What the…”  

“Fuck.” Veronica echoed, coming out of the lift a moment later, just as Erika finally caught up with what she was seeing and was able to actually think more on what she needed to do now. Arrange a team to go over and offer help. Start coordinating assistance from across the fleet. She should probably send Amizina over to help her father if there were a lot of injuries. That could be the second shuttle they sent over. 

“Veronica, I want you taking Rivers and a damage control team over there to help.” It was easier to start delegating than continue talking about it. “Jordan, I need you to make sure that there is no additional danger to the fleet. A single sensor ghost, a whisper, the tiniest flicker and you tell me about it.” 

“Absolutely.” He nodded, clearly understanding that she was worried that this was the beginning of an attack on their survivors. Take out the flagship and you cause panic, but she wasn’t going to let that happen. Not here, not now. 

Moving oved to the comm platform and the younger woman who was sitting there. “Minnie, I want you organising Starfleet response through us, okay. Tell Enterprise they tell you what they need, we’ll arrange getting it there. We’re going to take all pressure of them and we’re going to take on the bulk of the organising.” 

“Yes ma’am.” Minnie then thought a second and looked at her seriously, still clearly figuring out where the lines were with her CO. “You want me to run it by you or just do it? Because I can run it by you, but that seems stupid and a waste of time.”  

“You’re right that would be a waste of time.” She nodded and watched then realised that she needed to know what exact damage there was on the ship, and if they could do more than just try and help. “Get me a damage report from Enterprise as soon as you can.”  

“Ma’am, they’re actually asking you lead the repair team, they say they’ll explain why when you get there.” Minnie looked slightly confused and Erika didn’t blame her. If they were asking for the captain to come over there was only one option that she could see. Jon had been injured, and they needed a senior officer aboard. 

“Bridge to commander Fletcher.” She said instantly, already knowing that she would be going. “Looks like we’re trading places Ronnie, Jordan can fill you in.” She then ended that contact and looked to Jordan, knowing that he would be able to keep this all in check. “Keep at alert and my order stands. A speck of dust out of place you contact me on Enterprise.”  

The shuttle ride over to Enterprise was excruciatingly slow, seeing the occasional pop of something on the hull bursting and another small fire breaking out and she hoped to God that most of the damage was external and all of this was going to be something they could repair with some fire dampeners being shot over the hull.  

Thankfully, once they were in the shuttle bay and cleared to come aboard it seemed that her assumption was correct. Stepping out of the shuttlebay she let her engineers go find the people they would be best able to help, and she spotted Commander Tucker checking on a panel and stepped over to him. “Commander, this is less internal damage than I was expecting based on the exterior.”  

“The damn Xindi blew herself up. Somehow wedged open a wall panel in the brig and took out half the damn EPS system. Internally the damage was all contained to port side on B deck, but externally we have fires and bursts in the system popping up all over the ship.” He stood up and motioned her to a screen, showing her the current damage reports. Then he looked at her a little more seriously and winced. “The captain was injured, the EPS relay above his bed blew. Porthos is okay but the captain…” He trailed off and that concerned Erika more than she wanted to admit to. “He’s in sickbay. Haven’t had time to check on him.”  

“Okay… right…” Erika said, for the first time in a while letting her indecision show to someone other than Jon. Torn between duty and finding out about Jon. Really, she could only know what Enterprise needed from her if she knew how her Captain was, so that made her decision. “Get a damage report to Minnie Lathom on my bridge, she’s going to be running all assistance so everyone here can focus on what they need to. Get Lieutenant Reed to work with Lieutenant Reynolds over on Columbia to analyse all sensor logs and we’ll try and grab what we can from your internal logs.” It was always better to have more people look things over than miss something alone. “Any other casualties? I can bring Amizina over if needed?” 

“A few burns, and crewman Naylor broke his arm but no, the cap’n’s the worst last I heard.” Trip said quietly, clearly worried about his friend too. Erika regretted a little that she hadn’t known Trip back on the programme, but engineers and communications just didn’t cross over that much.  

“I’ll go check in with Phlox then. I’ll let you know how he’s doing.” She reached out and rubbed his arm gently, a little reassurance that she could give him when he was going to have his work cut out for him. “Everyone out there is doing everything they can to help you here Trip.”  

“Yes ma’am.” Trip nodded then took a breath. Taking a moment to collect himself too and there was a point where Erika had to just let him have that. When he nodded and finally seemed to be himself again, she just stepped back and let him move on with his work, stepping her way through the ship and dodging anyone who looked like they were on their way to deal with the damage.  

Sickbay was always so intimidating as she stopped in front of the doors and steeled herself for whatever she was about to learn. As soon as she was through the door, she saw him laid on one of the beds, but she could see his chest rising, so at least he was alive. “Doctor, how’s he doing?” She announced as she came up so as not to surprise the doctor as he worked. 

Stepping closer she could see the worst of the burns across his chest and abdomen, though there were less serious looking burns on the left side of his face too. “He’s sedated; second degree burns over most of his upper body but he’s already responding well to treatment.” Phlox told her, with the air of someone comforting a patient’s family. “I’ll be able to wake him up in a few hours, but I want the blisters to have begun to dry before then.” 

Erika nodded, reaching out to hold Jon’s hand just for a moment even if he’d have no idea that she was there, it was more for her. “Let me know when you do, I’d like to be here.” Even if she weren’t his partner, she’d have wanted that. “Commander Tucker said there were no other major injuries?”  

“The benefit to only the Captains’ quarters on the Port side of that deck being occupied.” Phlox nodded as he clearly was thankful that his skills hadn’t been needed. Erika was glad that the quick change to passenger ship hadn’t happened so quickly on Enterprise, on Columbia two families would have been affected by this too. “We only had minor injuries, nothing that won’t heal quickly.” 

Erika then heard a yip and bent down as Porthos bounded up to her, not only Jon’s beloved companion, but the last connection Erika had to her mother here too. “Porthos, hi buddy.” She smiled, picking him up and burying her face in his fur for a moment to just allow her emotions to settle. “I’ll take him with me, keep him from being underfoot.” She offered, knowing that the animal still loved being with Phlox, but she wanted the comfort of the pup for the moment.  

She carried Porthos up to the bridge, just speaking to him quietly as she did, letting herself get out her concern to the dog, and knowing that he was excellent for keeping secrets. Once she stepped out onto the bridge all eyes lifted to her, and she wondered who’d be first to speak, surprised when Reed was the first to say something. “How’s the captain?”  

“He’ll be okay, Phlox wants to keep him out until his first round of treatment is done.” She tried to smile reassuringly, knowing that his crew were particularly close and they deserved to be supported as much as anyone did in this situation. “He’s going to call me when it’s time to wake him so I’m here until then, report?”  

“With the help from everyone we’ve got the worst bits of the EPS system routed off, I’ve already got a couple damage control teams working on them and it should be back in working order by the end of alpha shift.” Trip said, clearly having only beat her up her by a few minutes.  

“Lieutenant Reynolds and I haven’t picked up anything unusual so far Captain, we’ll keep checking. We’re also reviewing our security logs, and as soon as the brig is decontaminated, we’ll go in and work out what the Reptilian did there.” Reed gave the next report, and she just nodded to T’Pol to stay in the centre seat. Erika was here if fleet command decisions needed to be taken, but T’Pol was in charge of this ship. 

“Very good.” She smiled and then took another breath, taking in everyone on this bridge. So familiar but still so very different than her own. “I know I don’t need to say it, you’ve all worked with Jonathan long enough to know what he’d want you to do. He’ll be okay, but if you need command decisions and you want to run it by me, I’ll be in the ready room.” It was easiest for her to go and sit in there and work while she waited. She didn’t need to hover over any of them.  

She’d been in Jon’s ready room a dozen or more times in the last four weeks. They’d spent countless amounts of time here, and while she’d been here alone before too, she’d never taken the time just to see what he had in here. The pictures of his parents, sat to one side of a picture of Erika and their nieces just before Jon went to the expanse, a picture she’d given him so he had something to remind him of why he was out there. She ran her fingers over them then just sat down in the chair and looked to Porthos. “I guess I really don’t want to be mad at him anymore, do I?” 

Chapter Text

The first thing that came back to him was feel. The gentle feel of a hand in his. Erika’s, he could tell that. Only she and Hoshi had hands that small, and Erika had a scar that left a bump at the base of her pinky. He’d know her hand anywhere. Then, within seconds of realising that, came pain. All over one side of his face, down his chest almost to his waist. It pulsed like flame, and he felt himself wince, which was when he became aware that it was bright, outside of his eyelids. He then took in a breath and managed to find some words. “What...? Where am...? What?” He tried to continue but just winced again. “The pain.”  

There was a hiss and an almost immediate relief, after which he heard the most musical, beautiful sound of his life, Erika’s quiet voice that she used when they were alone, when she didn’t need to be in command. “Careful, Jonathan. You’re still pretty hurt.”  

He didn’t remember being hurt. He clearly was, the pain told him that much, but he didn’t remember anything that could have possibly hurt him like this. “I think I’m going to need context.” He mumbled as he felt her lift the bed up slowly so at least now he felt like he was sat up and supported in that. 

“Soon, Captain, just come round yourself.” He heard Phlox say as Jon finally opened his eyes and then looked at him and nodded, showing that Jon was at least starting to come around, Phlox then smiled to Erika and nodded to her. “I’ll leave him with you, Captain.”  

The only thing really that Jon wanted to know was how he’d ended up here, especially has he had no idea how it had happened or what was causing it. He had never been a fan of being behind the situation, it always caused him to be far more disconcerted than he felt was probably appropriate. “What happened?” 

“The Xindi prisoner you had somehow got into a wall panel and blew out the EPS network on the port side, including your quarters. You’ve been unconscious since.” Erika spoke and Jon had to take a moment to let it all sink in even as she continued talking. “Your crew found you, sent out a distress call and got me to come over.”  

“Xindi prisoner? What…? How long have I been out?” It sounded like he’d missed days. Several very busy and intense days but he also knew how fast things moved on out in space. It could have been 6 hours. It just set him a little more on edge. 

“Eighteen hours.” Erika said quietly and he stared at her a little incredulously but nodded for her to continue. “Most of the damage has now been repaired and Lieutenant Reed has been investigating how it happened, he’ll give you a report in the morning.”  

Then he realised that she was actually here on Enterprise, when usually he would have thought, she’d have wanted to stay with her own ship if there was any kind of potential threat. “Why are you here?”  

“I’m in your file as your spouse, which I didn’t realise you’d updated but I appreciate that.” She smiled and then squeezed his hand tightly as she kept a hold of it then shrugged. “Your crew, understandably, wanted a captain aboard until they knew what had happened. Then I wanted to stay around until we woke you up.”  

“What about Columbia?” He asked, still confused and not completely following everything. He probably needed some more sleep, hoping that that was going to be enough for him to feel more in time and less slowed than he felt at this moment. Like he was wading through toffee while everyone else was sliding on ice 

“She’s nearby, I’ve been commanding both ships for the last few hours and I’d really like to give yours back, but it’s going to be up to Phlox whether you get that or not.” Erika smiled and looked over to the doctor who was clearly trying to both stay nearby but give the two captains some privacy at the same time. 

“Tomorrow morning at the earliest.” Phlox replied, making it clear that he was both listening and staying discrete. Jon himself didn’t care that much, he had decided days ago that he wasn’t going to keep hiding his relationship anymore, so he didn’t mind if his doctor, especially, overheard this particular conversation. 

“Well, that means I’m here until then, I guess.” He smiled, finally letting his body rest back knowing that even if he did go back to sleep that his ship and the fleet were in the very best of hands, but he wanted her near, at least for now. “Are you going to stay on Enterprise?”  

“Do you want me to?” She seemed a little surprised at that, but her hand didn’t move from his, which he took as a sign to give it a little squeeze. He found himself, once again, wishing that he’d had her support all through the last few years. “We weren’t exactly seeing eye to eye last night when I left.” She went on to explain and that made more sense. Normally they gave each other space when they had a disagreement. It allowed them both to review and reflect on what they’d been arguing about and come back to it later. Though that normally required him remembering what it was, which he was sadly lacking right now.  

Though, he was sure that whatever it was he was probably being shortsighted or something similar. “I was probably… I don’t remember why but I was probably being stupid about something wasn’t I?” He asked and he realised that Erika only just clicked that he really didn’t remember very much and she looked a lot more concerned, and even Phlox came over at this point to check on him again. 

“What is the last thing you remember captain?” Phlox asked, looking again to Erika knowing that she would probably have to help him work out the time scale. Jon was both comforted by that and concerned that he may have forgotten something 

“We got a call from the… from the colony about something.” He tried desperately to remember any more details than that. He was on the bridge; he was told there was a hail from the planet. Then it was mostly blank until here. Just flashes of moments that didn’t make sense. But the call must have been about the prisoner Erika had mentioned before. “That prisoner you mentioned I suppose.”  

“Is this normal?” Erika asked, clearly deeply concerned and Jon usually would have been, only he felt like he’d been on this train before, and he’d be fine. Though, if it was her, he would have been a lot more concerned. “We got the call from Proxima just before oh eight hundred yesterday.  

“He’s only missing about thirty hours of memory that’s quite normal, it will probably come back in the next few days.” Phlox seemed satisfied and after checking another reading just wandered back off to the other side of sickbay and whatever else it was that he was doing today.  

Erika shook her head and then spoke quietly, her body language tensing up a little just telling him about it, so he just smoothed his thumb over the back of her hand to hopefully help her loosen up again. “I had a theory about what might have happened, you and the others dismissed it out of hand. We had lunch together, but we didn’t really… make much headway and I left annoyed at you.”  

“Annoyed? Not angry.” He always liked to check, even when he knew the choice of words was normally very deliberate, especially from Erika.  

“No, I wasn’t angry. We made that deal that we’d never leave each other angry.” She then chuckled and shook her head. “I didn’t feel listened to, but we can go over that again in the morning.” It was clear that she didn’t want to talk about it, and he wasn’t in the  

“Probably a good idea, I’m tired.” Oh boy was he tired, and she was probably the only person that he would ever announce that too. He knew that Erika was clearly still annoyed about whatever had happened the day before, but he wanted her to stay. He wanted her to be there the next time he woke up. “I know we still need to talk when I remember everything but… Please stay?”  

“Okay, I’ll stay. I’ll go clean up your room; the repair teams made a mess.” She chuckled at that and squeezed his hand again, making it clear that she would be sleeping in his room tonight, and he was okay with that. “Phlox can wake me when you’re awake again.” She smiled then kissed his forehead and clearly went to leave, but he held her hand a little tighter and pulled her back to him. 

“Erika…” He said quietly, watching her lift her chin and let the walls fall so he could see all of her again, and he knew he needed to tell her when and why he changed her status in his file because this showed he might not have another chance. “I love you more than anything. I changed your status in my personnel file three weeks ago, on our way to Proxima.” They hadn’t even spoken about being together then and he had known at the time that it was presumptuous, but he did it anyway because that was how he’d felt. “I knew then and I know now that you’re my wife in every way that matters. The legality can come later.”  

Erika stopped and then leant forward to kiss him softly. “I’ll update mine when I go back to your quarters.” She smiled softly, resting her forehead to his carefully and then she spoke barely above a whisper, definitely only for his ears. “I love you… don’t scare me like this, okay?”  

“I’ll try...” He teased then kissed her gently again before reaching down to the controller and getting the bed into a more comfortable position. He didn’t even realise when Erika left as he fell back into a deep and fitful sleep, when he woke again that feeling of paddling in syrup had disappeared, and he remembered much more of what Erika had alluded to. He gave himself a moment to feel like an idiot because he realised that she was right. He wasn’t completely clear on the last time he’d been conscious, but he seemed to remember she’d been annoyed. “Doctor?” 

“Ah, Captain. You’re back with us.” Phlox smiled his usual jovial smile then walked over to the com-panel and pressed it. “Sickbay to Captain Hernandez, he’s awake.” So, she had stayed.  

“I’ll be right down.” Erika’s voice carried all the happiness of someone who had been asleep, he even heard Porthos’ growl at being disturbed. He smiled thinking of Erika curled up with Porthos and he knew that he needed to get out of here and figure everything out just so he could see that again. 

But it did raise the question in his mind how she felt about the last couple of days. He’d been out for most of it, but Erika would have had time to ruminate and getting an idea of how she was feeling would help him prepare. “How mad at me is she?”  

“She may be annoyed that you woke again at twenty-three hundred, I think she was sleeping. Otherwise, I would say she’s more concerned, Captain?” Phlox clearly hadn’t picked up any tension which meant she probably had let it go, though he’d still eventually apologise to her, even if he didn’t want to admit that “Why do you ask?”  

“Don’t worry about it. It’s probably all in my head.” He shook his head and then just tried to let go of that anxiety. “Why am I here? I remember something about a prisoner.” Okay maybe all of his memories weren’t back, but they were definitely more formed than they had been earlier. 

Phlox, however, then just smiled and shook his head. “I’ll leave that to Captain Hernandez to explain when she’s here.” He then continued with whatever work it was that he had to do and just let Jon sit and come round a little more. As he sat up more and looked over his body, he could see the clear evidence of the burns that had been all over his chest, and he had the feeling twenty-four hours earlier they’d have been considerably worse. He was still taking those in when Erika stepped in, Porthos hot on her heels as she did. 

“You’re looking better.” She smiled, stepping closer to him and then stooped down to pick Porthos up and set him on Jon’s legs, where the dog immediately just started to settle down. “He was asleep I think he’s annoyed I got out of bed.”  

“I’m feeling better too. The treatments Phlox was doing through the night seems to have worked.” He smiled and reached down to scratching Porthos’ ears, mostly just looking up to Erika, so thankful that she was right there with him and that there was still a part of him surprised. “You stayed?” 

Erika just looked at him for a moment and took his free hand in hers and nodded, clearly going through something in her mind before she spoke again. “You asked me to.” It seemed so simple when she put it that way and then he nodded, looking down at him for a moment. 

“I’m sorry about yesterday.” He said simply, though he wasn’t really even sure that it was the previous day anymore, it might have been the day before. He then decided that it was really only fair that he explain why he’d been so resistant. “It just… I don’t know if I can cope with you being right. I’ll be talking with Matilda as soon as I can to try and get those surveys arranged.”  

“I understand that - I don’t want to be right, I just am aware that that is what the smart play would be.” Erika smiled again and stroked the side of his cheek, clearly avoiding where there might be some burn on his face too. Then Erika turned around and smiled to Phlox. “You released him back to duty, doc?”  

“Only commander Tucker normally calls me that.” Phlox said, seemingly both amused and comfortable with being addressed that way. “Yes, but he needs to come back in the afternoon for another burns treatment to prevent scarring.” He nodded and then Jon moved his legs over and then smiled as Porthos jumped down too.  

He accepted the shirt that Erika offered, then the comfortable pants. She then chuckled realising she was only in her blues with her grandmother’s cardigan over it. “So, what to fill me in on what I’ve missed?” He asked once he was dressed and started heading out into the corridors beyond the sickbay doors. 

“We’ll go let your senior staff do that, then I should probably get back to Columbia. She needs her captain.” Erika smiled and he was a little sad that she was going to be leaving so soon, but to him it had been a couple of hours, for her it had been over a day and a half and she was probably a little anxious to get herself home. “Though I may not go back until the morning.” 

“I think I can cope with sharing her captain with her, especially if you stay til morning.” He smiled again happily and then slid his hand in to hers as she started guiding him back up toward his quarters, likely to grab something more to wear for herself. “Thanks for coming.”  

“I’ll always come, Jonathan. I don’t care what for, I’ll always come.” She smiled at that and squeezed his hand in response, her hand feeling exactly right in his hand and he knew he couldn’t keep waiting for this. He shouldn’t have prevented this from happening years ago. 

They reached his quarters and he just stood in the door, watching Erika just pull out a pair of his smaller sweatpants and pull them on, rolling the cuffs up so that they weren’t far too long for her considerably shorter frame. When she was done and came and stood in front of him, he leant down and kissed her deeply, hoping that that would stop her pulling away again for a moment. “We should go… see my crew now.” 

“If you say so. Let me go and at least put some pants on you keep this ship so cold.” She continued looking up at him and licked her lip softly, and as he continued looking down, he knew it wasn’t going to go away. Clearly, she was feeling some of that too. “I love you.” 

“I love you.” He looked down and he knew that he was going to do it. He was going to try and accelerate their timetable because he needed more. It shouldn’t matter but right now it did. “Look, I know we said we were going to wait until we settled… but this reminded me how fragile life is. I just wanted to…” 

“Yes.” Erika interrupted, not moving at all from where she was stood below him. The interruption shocking him into silence for more than a moment. When he didn’t recover Erika chuckled and placed her hand on his cheek.  “Yes. Let's get married. You said legalities could come later and we changed our statuses and all that but… let’s actually do it. Let’s get married. Let’s get married soon.” He leant down and kissed her again before smirking as she finished her thought line too. “That’s what you were going to say, right?”  

“You’ve always been too good at knowing what I’m thinking.” He laughed happily. Glad they were both on the same page about this after all. Would they be here if this hadn’t happened? Who knew. But it had happened and that was the important part. “Okay now we can go and see my crew.”  

Erika reached around him and hit the companel with a smile before she spoke again. “Captain Hernandez to senior staff. Report to the Captain’s mess. Informal clothing is acceptable.” She then chuckled at him and shook her head again. “You’re taking the blame for waking them all up.”  

He didn’t even respond to that, just pulled her into the corridor and made her go ahead of him, not worrying at all about the fact that he had woken his crew. He’s woken them for worse reasons before now. Even though they’d been the first to head out to the meeting, Jon was surprised that more than one person was already there. “Captain, good to see you up.” Travis was the first one to speak. Malcolm and T’Pol both already sat down, arriving just a second after Jon and Erika came Trip and Hoshi, both stifling yawns as they did. 

“You’re not rid of me yet.” He joked as he moved around the table, ignoring the chair left for him for the moment and stopping behind it. “Erika has been less than forthcoming about what happened though, so how about you all start filling me in.” He winced a little as he said that, and had to admit that he was still quite tired. 

“Be careful, Jon.” Erika said quietly, gently nudging him to sit down as she did, and he decided this time to let her push him in. He rarely let her, but he had to admit that, this time, he was the one who was in pain.  

Malcolm pushed a padd forward, the only one of them who had bothered to get into his uniform, and it was clear he was kind of judging the rest of them for all being in, mostly, their pyjamas. “The Xindi female used something in her clothing to prise off the panel covering the EPS manifold. She then reached in and ignited something.” Jon watched the video, Erika leaning over his shoulder as he did. 

“Cap’n I hate to say it, but we were lucky you were the only injury and that the cascade only travelled along the port side.” Trip said quietly, clearly thinking about the worries that would have happened if they had more people on this side of the ship. What Jon didn’t understand was why it had only affected the small portion of the ship that it had. 

“Why did it only go so far?” He asked, looking back to Trip as he felt Erika’s hand supportively on his shoulder. She probably knew all these answers, but she was letting him answer at his own pace. He saw why she didn’t want to just dump information on him without being able to give the answers as clearly.  

“We hadn’t replaced the crossover since the Expanse yet. So, once it reached the junction the reaction failed.” Trip shrugged and then motioned to the grid that had functioned exactly as it was meant to. “And going the other way it tripped the breaker, so it couldn’t travel any further.” 

“How did she have anything on her?” That time he turned to Malcolm, standing up again and pacing behind the group along the windows in his mess, looking out on the fleet, mostly blocked by Columbia only a few hundred meters from them as they waited for their captain back. 

Malcolm looked a little concerned and disappointed for a moment before his steeled himself and spoke, making it clear that he didn’t really know, but that he’d be learning from this situation. “We thought we’d removed everything from her. It’s possible she had subdermal implants, but scans didn’t pick up anything.”  

“So, we’re still running at 100%?” He didn’t like the idea of his ship being at all on the sidelines if something was to happen, and he didn’t think that it was going to be great if the fleet saw that Enterprise was out of action at all. 

“As close as we can be right now, yes sir.” Trip nodded to Erika stood beside him and smiled again. “Captain Hernandez said she wanted us ship shape by the time you were cleared for duty.”  

“Jonathan, take a seat.” Erika said quietly as he passed her again and then dropped her voice, clearly hoping his staff would pretend that they couldn’t hear her. “Nobody is going to think less of you for resting and I don’t want to have to stay another day because you put yourself back in sickbay.”  

“I’m okay, Rike. Thanks.” He replied equally quietly and then shook his head, but at her reproachful glare her sighed and moved around to sit back in the chair, mostly so that she would stop giving him that look that made him feel like he had disappointed her. “Have we discovered what she was doing on the surface yet?”  

“No there have been some issues with the environmental system down on the colony, they haven’t been able to send anyone out.” Hoshi was the one giving that report even as she stifled a yawn that made Jon feel a little bad for dragging them all out of bed. “She’s hoping they can tonight.”  

“If they haven’t by this time tomorrow, we’ll suit up a couple of people and send them down to clear them, you can pass that on when you’re on duty.” He smiled again then chuckled looking around them all. “Sorry for getting you all out of your beds. Fill me in on everything I missed.”  

“I’ll head back to my ship if everything is in order here?” Erika said, clearly catching a vibe of the room and smiling around them all as she did then spoke more specifically to him. “I know I said I’d wait til morning, but I think you need to rest, I’ll trust your crew to get you in to bed.”  

“I think we can manage without you for now. Thanks, Rike.” He smiled again and nodded to make it clear that he understood what she was saying and knew that she was implying that she’d be checking up on him later, which he was sure would lead to more disappointed staring, but he wasn’t going to focus on that.  

“I doubt you’ll ever be able to manage without me, Jonathan.” She teased and headed toward the door. Jon was about to ask Malcolm to go to transport her back to Columbia when he spotted Trip was already on his way to getting up and the engineer looked around a moment then spoke.  

“I’ll come run the transporter, Cap’n. I want to run something by you anyway. See you all later.” Jon nodded but couldn’t help but narrow his eyes wondering what on Earth Trip might have had to run by Erika that Jon didn’t already know about. He would have to make sure to ask later. 

“Alright, what’s next?” He asked his crew, aware that he’d pulled them out in the middle of the night, but they would have been having two days' worth of work to fill him in on, and he needed to know what else might be going on. He needed to be informed, and he didn’t think that it was unreasonable to keep them all up a little longer. 

Chapter Text

31 days later: Confirmed Human Survivors: 9,653 

Erika was becoming infuriated by being awoken by the chime of the comm system. It had been days at this point since she’d managed to actually sleep through the night, and she was going to threaten the next person that woke her up. “Bridge to Captain Hernandez.” Came the insistent voice on the com and Erika hissed momentarily. 

“She’s not here, she quits.” She mumbled to herself before rolling over and dropping her hand onto the contact on the bedside. She was glad she had that installed. “Go ahead.” It was all she could say for her grumble, already pushing herself up in the bed and running a hand over her face as she did. She could at least pretend to be awake in case this was actually something serious. 

“Incoming from Captain Archer. He said it was urgent.” She was cursing him instantly but she knew that after the last couple of days that if he was telling her it was urgent he almost certainly meant it. Being on the furthest edge of the fleet had meant that they hadn’t physically seen Enterprise since she’d beamed back a couple of hours earlier so she hoped that nothing had gone wrong there again. 

“Route it down here.” Her screen lit up to an image of Jon very hastily pulling his uniform on before looking to check if she’d picked up yet. She didn’t let him get much further without speaking. Able to tell from the speed with which he was dressing that it was truly an emergency. “What’s wrong Jon?”  

“We have received a distress call from Shran. He’s requesting any help possible. It’s right on the edge of our comm range it might not reach back to you.” That would explain why she hadn’t been woken by the distress call. She didn’t question what was going to happen, she just nodded and reached for her own uniform. Who needed sleep, anyway? It was overrated. 

She did need to ask who he planned to leave her with, so that she knew which of the deployments of her ships she would be using. Jordan had gone over them and thought they were the best ways with so few ships to keep everyone covered. “Who’re you taking?”  

“Everyone you can spare?” Jon turned the question back on her and she paused a moment, having not expected him to let her choose who she kept back. Mentally running through the ships, their captains and their statuses she knew who would be best for her and who would be most useful for Jon to take into a potential fight.  

“I’ll keep back Republic, Shenandoah, Augustine and the Avon, she was having some engine trouble anyway.” She wouldn’t have normally tried to keep Captain Billings from a fight, the woman was terrifying, but the Avon would be a liability right now. “Jon, I’ll send one of the Denobulan medical ships behind you in 6 hours.” If there were heavy casualties that was the best that they could do, and one of the things about battles in space is that they were over quickly. 

Jon wrote down which ships she was keeping and he then zipped his jumpsuit up just as she was struggling her left leg into hers.“Thanks. I’ll signal those ships to stay with you and set off with the rest.” He clearly was running through everything they both needed to do right now and running into mental blocks. “Keep your ear out, I’m sending Shran’s co-ordinates. If you don’t hear from us in forty-eight hours start making the contingencies.”  

“Of course. Let me know when you know anything.” She didn’t really need to say that, but just signing off normally didn’t seem appropriate after that statement. Maybe it was the part of her that wasn’t sure about how she was going to handle this without him that made her need to say something else beyond that statement, but she wasn’t going to probe her feelings right now or she was going to fall into a heap from not concentrating on dressing.  

“I think I can do that.” Jon clearly lingered a moment and then took a breath as she popped back into his frame and he nodded looking at her then pressed his fingers to the screen. “Love you.” 

“Me too. Good luck.” She nodded and as soon as she signed off she stopped fighting with her uniform for a moment and looked back toward her bed with longing and sadness. “Am I ever going to get to have a full night sleep?” She asked forlornly as she gave up on that dream and finished getting dressed. Knowing that she didn’t really need to rush, and taking a moment to check the time she decided not to wake her senior staff early, they were all due on duty in two hours anyway. 

She wouldn’t be able to sleep now even if she tried. It had never been something she was especially good at when she knew something major was happening, but this wasn’t just something major, this was something that could decide whether or not humanity shrank by another thousand people in the next few hours. So she made her way to the bridge, passing messages between the five remaining Starfleet ships and answering any questions from the civilian fleet to prevent a panic.  

It was at that point almost an hour later that Erika was startled by a voice coming on to the bridge as Jordan Reynolds headed his way around to his station and looked at her. “Erika.” He nodded and then just shrugged as he started setting up his console exactly how he liked it for his shift. “You’re not normally here before me, I wasn’t expecting you up so early.”  

“Enterprise picked up a distress call from Shran, they’re going to take most of the fleet to help them, we’re staying back with a handful to protect the civilians.” Of everyone on the ship Jordan was the person who probably needed that information the most, as it was he who was going to be having to work things out through the fleet when it came to their tactical positions until Enterprise return.  

“We really need to think of a better way to differentiate the ships.” Jordan commented and then waved his hand to the screen where the remains of their planet were all just hanging, not really knowing exactly where they were going yet. “Starfleet really isn’t entirely accurate anymore.”  

“It’s the best we have, for now.” She understood what he was meaning, and she didn’t necessarily disagree at this point but she also knew that there wasn’t anything else they could go by until they had all decided to settle somewhere. “You know I wish we had a level between full tactical alert and situation normal. Something that told people to go about their normal jobs but be aware things could change quickly.” She felt like giving Jordan a task was going to help them both as they made it through this day where they were going to be suffering again with being the rear guard. 

“Like an old yellow or amber weather warning back on Earth? Be aware and prepared, but no evacuation yet.” Jordan clearly immediately latched on to what she was thinking of and she smiled to herself, glad that it was clear that they really had been the right fit for this ship together if she had launched on time. 

“Exactly like that.” She nodded then tilted her head and smiled again clearly knowing how to motivate anyone when she needed to. “Maybe you should start working on that today. If we get the kinks worked out we can deploy it through the fleet before Enterprise is back then Jon can’t argue with us about it.”  

“Maybe I will, it sounds useful.” Jordan smirked back and in that moment Erika had a feeling that he already had it mostly planned out in his head. That does seem like something he would have had up his sleeve. 

But she needed to think of how she wanted that to be started and as it was she was happier to play on the slightly more conservative side than if they were actively going into trouble. “For now though, how about we start with this this, polarise the hull plating and charge weapons, but other than that we’re just hanging here waiting to see what happens.”  

Erika’s next thoughts were disrupted by Veronica Fletcher stepping onto the bridge and not giving anyone a second to acknowledge that she was there she just spoke directly to Erika and sighed. “You look like shit. When did you last sleep properly?”  

“We’re on what… Sunday?” She had to ask because she had genuinely lost track of the days this week. Everything seemed to have happened all at once, and she hadn’t had a single minute to catch her breath. No, she’d floated from crisis to crisis instead and apparently sleep was her biggest victim. 

“Yeah, the seventeenth. As my Irish ancestors would have said, St Paddy’s Day.” Veronica filled in and for some reason as Erika looked at the tall blue-eyed blonde she was utterly unsurprised to discover that she had Irish roots. She just so seemed to match the stereotype Erika had in her mind. 

“Then Tuesday night. It was the last full night sleep I got.” She confirmed and then realised that it was no wonder that she was feeling like shit. An hour or two here and there for almost a week had never been her style. Then she realised the day and sighed a little more, realising there wouldn’t be an excited video message from her niece later on, bragging that she was eight now and so she should be able to live on her own. “It’s Carla’s birthday, damn.”  

“Jon and your’s niece, right?” Veronica asked gently, clarifying probably more for Jordan who was staying quiet right now. Veronica had met Carla a couple of times over the years, whenever Simon had brought her down to the Programme in the last few years, and a couple of times over the last year.  

“Yeah. She’d be eight.” Erika sighed and then shook her head as she headed back to her centre seat and nodded out to the universe around them. “I don’t know if I can face anything going wrong today. Then again. Something has already gone wrong so I should probably prepare for that to be the way that the day is going to go.”  

“No positivity today? Normally I’m the pessimistic one.” Veronica teased gently, trying to raise her spirits after that realisation. But Veronica didn’t even realise how bad the job they had right now was, and that Erika was in absolutely no mood to be cheered. 

“My husband just woke me up in the middle of the night to figure out which ships he could take into a potential battle leaving me to defend the remainder of humanity. Not much to feel positive about.” That was a little more blunt than she’d meant for it to be, and she was glad that nobody but Veronica would have been close enough to hear that momentary diatribe. 

Though, exactly as Erika should have expected if she’d thought about what she’d said, Veronica’s mind slid stopped on the first thing that she’d said and Erika regretted the way she’d phrased what was happening. “I’ll get on to the rest of it in a second but ‘husband’ is a new descriptor.” 

“We’re going to make it official just as soon as we can but after his near death we both decided what the point in waiting. We’re going to do it, we changed our personnel files to have each other listed as spouse. We might as well go all in on it. There’s no time like the present.” She sighed, leaving it at that as she really didn’t want to think about how she was going to manage it if this was the most they ever got.  

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Veronica nodded then shook her head as she processed the rest of what happened this morning. “The rest of it… we don’t know what’s going to happen. It could be nothing and we don’t need to worry about it.”  

“Do you really think that’s at all likely?” She asked still clearly in her depressive rut, thought right now she was going to blame that on the growing exhaustion, both literally and metaphorically.  

“No, but it’s the most we can do.” Veronica shrugged then stepped back and spoke a little more professionally. “Why don’t you go and prepare an announcement for the civilian ships and I’ll start pulling together what we might need from Proxima and we take it from there?” This kind of ability Veronica had to know what needed to be done and when she needed to be the one taking the initiative and leading Erika on something was invaluable as an XO, and Erika was feeling pleased about the choices she’d made. “Go do it in your ready room where you can take a nap if you need one.”  

Really, Erika wasn’t in any position to argue with that. It was in fact a very good idea, though the idea of a nap wasn’t the most enticing, though if she did try and sleep she doubted she’d get more than an hour anyway. There was plenty for her to do, both with Enterprise gone and the rest of her job with the fleet being what it was, so it was easy to lose herself in her work for a few hours. 

She wasn’t even sure how long it had been since she had come in here, but she stretched as she heard the chime and then looked up at her XO as Veronica walked in. “Erika, you managed to get any sleep?”  

“Not really. Maybe ten minutes.” She sighed dropping her padd on to her desk and shook her head, starting to feel more tired than she’d felt earlier in the day. She had to admit that the ability to stay clear was definitely starting to fade. 

Veronica just chuckled and shook her head as Erika actually did stand up and walked around the table. “Lets go get dinner and then you can go to bed.” That did sound good, though she wasn’t really sure she’d be able to sleep so much if she hadn’t heard from the rest of the fleet, not knowing what might be coming for them. 

“Sure, let’s do that. I am a little hungry.” She admitted as they headed to the bridge, really it wasn’t that much of a surprise that she hadn’t eaten. She hadn’t done anything other than bury herself into her work for the last almost twelve hours. As she crossed the bridge she looked over to Minnie on the com and already knew the answer but she hoped she was wrong. “Any news from Enterprise?”

“No ma’am. I’ll call you as soon as we hear anything.” Minnie confirmed, making it clear that she was going to be staying at her post until she was relieved or they heard from Enterprise. Erika felt a little comforted by that.  

As Veronica was already walking to the lift Erika paused a moment and looked between tactical and science and decided that they could use this as a great opportunity to ask Cutler more about her time aboard Enterprise, knowing that exploration was not going to be in their futures for a long time and they may as well live vicariously through their colleagues’ stories. “Liz, Jordan… Dinner? Captains treat.”  

“It’s your treat every day isn’t it?” Veronica needled a little as she stepped up beside her and Erika just looked up to her friend and momentarily had to fight the urge to poke her eyes out just for being annoying.  

“Don’t push your luck I can uninvite you.” She mumbled as Liz and Jordan joined them in the lift and Erika could let even more of her captains air drop, knowing that her senior staff didn’t need her to be on at all time.  

“You wouldn’t do that you like me too much.” Veronica continued to tease, to Erika’s now growing annoyance and clearly to Jordan and Liz’s amusement. Erika didn’t really mind it either. After so long with both Veronica as a friend and being a junior officer on the NX Programme , she had a thick skin. 

“That can change very quickly too.”   

“You’ve kept me around for eight years, I think I’m safe.”  

“Four of those I had no control of.” She assured Liz and Jordan. Erika had had no idea what Veronica was also being assigned to the Republic when she accepted the XO position just to run away from Jonathan’s choices. It had been nice, as she’d had someone to bounce off of when she was still getting used to being shipboard again, but it did mean they knew far too much about each other. 

“Then you asked me to be your XO, aren’t I a treat?” Veronica’s sing-song teasing voice was just enough to make Erika seriously debate whether she should just quit and put Veronica in command of the ship.  

“I can just shoot her, Erika.” Jordan offered as they stepped out and walked toward the mess hall, Veronica’s face momentarily falling as she realised that the teasing could very easily be turned back on her, though it quickly recovered when she realised Jordan was not actually being serious. 

“That’d be far too much paperwork, besides, then your sister would be upset with both of us.” Erika said after a long enough pause it made it clear she was actually debating it. Though Veronica and Jordan’s sister was something that Erika didn’t want to get involved with, she was fairly sure that Jordan would take any opportunity.  

“I’m sure we could change Em’s mind about her too.” Jordan said and laughed as they made it through the mess hall, nobody bothering the senior officers as they walked through toward the back of the room, though Erika was sure a fair number of ears were going to be eavesdropping for the moment. “She’s dated some weirder characters though.”  

“I’m sure you dated some weird people too.” Veronica defended herself and then shook her head with a chuckle. “Though Em did show me a picture of your wife how in the universe did you get her to settle with you?” It was nice, for Erika, to listen to some normal banter. It also told her that her makeshift crew were finally starting to settle. 

Dinner was exactly what she’d needed. Erika felt much better after she’d managed to eat a whole entire meal and listen to her friends talking among each other. She didn’t put in much, her mind light years from here, and she was about to tell them she was calling it a night when all the lighting on the ship changed and she heard three groans near identical to hers. “Tactical alert.” Minnie’s voice boomed over the speakers only to be followed a second later by their call to arms. “Senior officers to the bridge.”  

“Dammit. Captain to the bridge, what’s going on?” Erika stepped over to the companel, wanting to have the basics so that she could think about them as she started up toward the bridge so that they could hit the bridge running when they got there.  

“Captain, the colony has just shut off the shuttleport and are demanding all ships disembark immediately.” That sounded serious, and it wasn’t an order the colony had given in the whole time since the Earth fleet had gotten here almost a month earlier.  

“We’ll be right there.” She ended the call and just nodded to her dinner companions, following them all out and heading up to the bridge. No words exchanged between them as they all ran over what was going to be their jobs in the coming minutes and hours. As soon as she stepped out Erika headed to her chair as Minnie stood up out of it. “Any changes?”  

“No ma’am. No response to hails.” Minnie said over her shoulder as she moved over to her station with a now-practised ease. Erika once again took a moment to be proud of her crew and how they were all managing to pull together despite the fact most of them had been civilians or STC trainees only a month earlier.  

“Keep hailing them until we get something. Scan the colony.” Erika then sighed knowing that this was some kind of emergency and she wasn’t going to take any chances. The timing of this happening right as most of the Starfleet ships were away was very much leading her to think that this was co-ordinated.  “Priority one distress call on all Starfleet frequencies, and we’re going to send the… Shenandoah out to recall the rest of our ships, this could be a precursor to an attack.” She had quickly run through which ships would be best, but she knew Rob Duvall and what he could do with NX engines and she believed that he’d have something in his back pocket. She then walked around to tactical and nodded knowing Jordan knew his job. “Keep scanning the system, let me know the second anything comes near, and signal to the fleet that all ships must be at alert.” She then circled the bridge again, landing next to the science console again and watching Cutler’s face as she picked up on what the sensors were telling her. “Anything, Lieutenant?”  

“There’s some evidence of…” She began then shook her head and seemed to read the readings again before shaking her head and blinking a couple of times before shaking her head. “No it’s not possible, it wasn’t completed.”  

“Lieutenant I’m going to need some context.” Erika knew that she was asking a lot of the younger woman, she’d been a crewman a month ago, but a battlefield commission and promotion was what she’d deserved. So Erika was going to be more gentle with her than she would otherwise have been.  

At the terror in Cutler’s eyes as she looked up to meet Erika’s, Erika knew that she’d been right. She’d prayed to God that her paranoia and suspicion was just that, but she knew. She didn’t need the next sentence that came out of Cutler’s mouth, it just served to prove her point. “It’s the virus. The one the Reptilian Xindi were trying to make in the past. The one that they never completed.” Erika looked over to Jordan who was the only other person on this ship who knew her suspicion about this and he just gave her a gentle nod to show that he understood. “It’s been released on the colony.” 

“They’re dying.” Erika finished quietly, looking at the colony on the screen in front of her and all she could think was that humanity couldn’t really afford this.