Gigi Sinclair

I didn't expect my family to meet me when I came back to Earth. I signed up for the temporary Starfleet accommodation when it was offered to us, and I was planning on heading to my assigned, personality-free San Francisco room as soon as possible after the ship docked. Instead, as we came into the annex where Starfleet was keeping the friends and loved ones of the "Enterprise" crew, I came face to face with Madeline, Mother and Father.

They were standing beside an elderly Asian couple, who I assumed were Hoshi's parents. My security instincts were proven right, for once, when the couple threw their arms around Hoshi and sobbed into her shoulders. My parents were more restrained. There was a tear in Mum's eye as she patted my arm and said: "It's so nice to have you home, dear." Madeline wiped her eyes and hugged me, while my father just said: "Malcolm." For him, that was the equivalent of hysterics.

"What are you doing here?"

"Starfleet told us you were coming in today," Madeline replied. "We had to be here."

I glanced around the room. Corporal McKenzie was standing beside a blond man who had to be some kind of relation of hers, while Trip was surrounded by loud, laughing people, slapping backs and shaking hands like there was no tomorrow. Dozens of people, Starfleet crew and MACOs alike, were doing the same around the room. I knew I should have felt some kind of happiness, or at least relief, but instead, all I could think was how many faces were missing. One in particular.

Trip glanced over to me, and, for a moment, I was sure he was going to invite me over to meet his family. And I was just as sure that wasn't something I wanted to do.

"Come on. Let's get out of here."

Madeline glanced at my parents. Mum looked fretful, but Dad said: "Come along, then," and led the way out.

They'd taken a hotel suite overlooking the Bay, which was one more surprise. My parents were never poor, but nor were they the most spendthrift of travellers. Sixteen summers spent in the same leaky rustic cottage in the Malaysian jungle could attest to that. The sun was setting as we arrived, and I stood at the large windows, looking at it sinking into the ocean for the first time in more than a year, until Madeline cleared her throat and said, in that same, mother-hen concerned voice: "Would you like to go for dinner, Malcolm? We were at a wonderful restaurant last night. Or if you feel like sushi, I've heard great things about a place around the corner..."

"I'm not hungry." I wasn't, even though the last thing I'd eaten had been an extraordinarily dry ham sandwich on Jupiter Station, nearly eighteen hours ago. I was, however, more exhausted than I'd been in years. "I'd really just like to go to bed." I could feel them glancing at each other, but I didn't turn around.

"Whatever you like, Malcolm," Mother finally said. "We have an extra bedroom here."

I laughed. "You mean we're not going to be crammed into three bunkbeds in the back of a tin shack?"

I was met by silence. Finally, Madeline said: "No. It's the second door on the right."

They were staring at me like I was a stranger. Well, I thought, they were the ones who had chosen to come here. What did they expect, that I'd entertain them with jolly tales from the Expanse?

"Good night, then." I smiled politely and opened the second door on the right.

The bed was huge, about half the size of my entire quarters on "Enterprise", with blue sheets and a big flowered bedspread. I lay down without even taking off my boots, certain I would just close my eyes for a few moments. Just long enough, I thought, to summon the energy to go back and make conversation with my family.

When I opened my eyes, thirteen hours had passed and I found Madeline and my parents having tea and toast in front of the window.

***

"So, in conclusion," Captain Archer said, after what had to be the most comprehensive, not to mention bizarre, mission report in history, "Despite the significant loss of life we occurred, it is my belief the mission can be judged a success."

"Thank you, Captain." Admiral Forrest said, graciously. I shifted in my uncomfortable briefing room chair and glanced at the other senior officers. Trip and T'Pol were on one side of the table. Hoshi was next to me, even though she wasn't technically a senior officer. I guess being kidnapped and very nearly killed by the enemy increases your status with the powers that be. Corporal McKenzie was next to her, representing the MACOs in the seat Major Hayes should have taken.

Actually being killed by the enemy doesn't do much for your career, apparently.

"Excuse me, Lieutenant?"

I looked up from my PADD to see all of them staring at me, Forrest even more intently than the rest.

"Nothing, sir." I blinked, wondering how I'd spoken out loud without, somehow, being aware of it. And if that was an early warning sign of madness, or one of the later characteristics.

"He's right, Admiral," Archer put in, unexpectedly. "We did lose a lot of very good people." The captain furrowed his eyebrows, and I felt a pang of guilt. I knew he'd been genuinely upset by the deaths. Archer was that kind of captain, and the fact that I appreciated that showed more than anything how much I'd changed. "We need to commemorate them somehow."

Forrest nodded. "I'll get a committee on it."

And I could just imagine what they'd come up with, some memorial stone or abstract statue that would sit on the grounds of the Starfleet complex for years, gathering dust and seagull excrement and doing nothing for the people who died or those they left behind.

Fortunately, I didn't say that bit out loud. I kept my mouth shut until Forrest dismissed us all to: "Go spend some time with your families." Since that was the last thing I wanted to do, I strode purposefully out of the room, like I had somewhere to go, and ended up in the hangar.

"Enterprise" was being decommissioned. The ship had been through more than even the most pessimistic engineer could have possibly imagined, and there was no way it could fly again. I'd heard it was destined for some kind of museum, although I couldn't imagine who'd want to visit it. It was just a ship, metalwork and circuitry and cheap carpeting. The important part, the crew, was going to be scattered all over the galaxy.

I heard the door hiss open behind me, and a moment later, I felt a familiar presence by my side. "What's up, Malcolm?"

I turned to Trip. "Nothing."

Trip gave me one of his Looks, the raised eyebrows with the half-smile, and I remembered the good times we'd had, relatively speaking, when our only concerns had been the Suliban and the Klingons and Trip getting pregnant. "Come on. It's normal to be a little depressed. After what we've been through, I'd be more worried if you weren't."

"I'm not depressed." I wasn't. I'd been depressed before, and it was nothing like this.

"It's normal to miss him."

I felt a sudden flash of anger, a hot, squeezing pain in the middle of my forehead, and I glared at Trip. "We lost a lot of good people, Commander. The major was no more important than any of them." Even as I said it, I realized I should have pretended I didn't know to whom he was referring. But that wouldn't have fooled Trip.

"Malcolm," Trip said again, looking at me evenly. "He was important to you."

The words were familiar, of course. Trip's sister, the Xindi attack on Earth. All of that seemed so long ago now, it was like looking back on some distant, vaguely unhappy memory, like the death of an elderly family member when you were a child. "For some crazy screwed-up reason I can't begin to understand," Trip added.

"I told him I'd speak to his family if this happened," I said, although I didn't tell Trip Hayes had asked me to make that promise as we lay in bed one morning. Or that I'd been thinking of it nearly constantly since Phlox told me Hayes was gone.

"Then you should."

"But what the hell can I say?"

"What you said to me when I lost Lizzie."

I sniffed. "I don't recall you taking that particularly well."

Trip shrugged, staring at the massive hull in front of us. "I'm an ass."

"Maybe Hayes's partner is, too." Maybe he'd take one look at me and know what the major and I had gotten up to in eight months, our whole twisted, borderline sordid, ultimately tragic history together. Maybe he'd see how agonizing it was for me to know that Hayes died and I lived, when, really, it should have been the other way around. Maybe he'd blame me for Hayes not coming home, and I wouldn't be able to argue about that. If I'd gone to rescue Hoshi myself, the way I should have, this would never have happened, and Hayes's daughter would still have both her parents.

"Well, seeing how he lived with Hayes..." Trip smiled a little. "But you wouldn't be doing it for him."

No. I'd be doing it for Hayes. For Matthew. For once.

Trip put a hand on my shoulder, squeezed briefly, and left me alone, staring at the ship.

***

The MACOs were still in San Francisco, going through their own debriefing exercises before they disbanded and went back to their home bases. I found Corporal McKenzie in the outbuilding Starfleet had provided them, one of the small, old office buildings on the perimeter of the compound attached to the main buildings via a series of tunnels. It struck me as a slightly ungenerous placement, given what they'd done for us, but then a few months ago, I would have advocated letting them meet in a bathroom stall or behind the mass-transit shelter.

"Sir." McKenzie was sitting at a desk, looking at a PADD. Corporal Chang was there as well, along with Money, Kemper and a few of the others. "Can I help you?"

I glanced at the MACOs, who were looking at me curiously, like they'd never have expected to see me here. Which was rather worrying, when I considered it. I'd been their CO for months. Had they really expected I would abandon them as soon as we got home? And was that exactly what I'd done?

"How are you all doing?"

McKenzie looked at Chang, then back at me. "Fine, thank you, sir."

"We saw you with your family, sir," Kemper put in. "You must be pleased to see them again."

Yes. Pleased. That was it. "I'm here about Major Hayes." Even now, all these months later, their faces fell at the mention of him. "I told him I'd contact his family."

"We've already done that, Lieutenant," McKenzie said briskly. "I spoke with Major Ramirez myself."

Ramirez. I knew that was his name, Hayes had told me about him, but it was strange hearing it from someone else. "I'd still like to speak with him."

"It's really not necessary..."

"Corporal." I looked at her. Of course she still felt protective of Hayes. From what he'd told me, he and McKenzie had been through hell together several times before they even got to the Expanse. "I think it's important that I speak with the major myself." It was what I'd promised.

McKenzie looked like she was about to put up a fight, but Kemper said: "He's at Fort Harrison in Texas."

McKenzie frowned at him, but said: "Fine, sir. I'll let him know you want to speak to him."

"No rush." I needed a little time to think of what to say. Like three or four days. Or months.

As I left, I immediately ran into Captain Archer and my sister in the middle of one of the brightly lit tunnels.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I didn't feel like visiting the Museum of Naval Tradition with Mum and Dad," Madeline replied sharply. She was thinner than I remembered her being, and she looked sallow in the hallway lights.

"I thought you'd be out here," Archer said. "I offered to show her the way."

Well, thank you for sticking your nose in, Captain, I thought, then immediately felt guilty again. "Thank you, sir," I said instead, trying not to grind my teeth audibly.

He smiled at us for a moment that dragged on until it became awkward. Finally, Archer said: "I'll see you later then, Malcolm," and left.

"He's the one who called everyone to ask about your birthday cake," Madeline said, when the captain had gone.

"A long time ago." And the terrible lapse in protocol had mortified me beyond belief. Strange, when you considered just how far I let my standards slip a couple of years later.

Madeline looked at me with her serious expression, her eyebrows furrowed. Rather like the captain's, actually. "Are you going to be all right, Malcolm?"

"You came all the way over here to ask that?"

"I came all the way from London to ask. Mum and Dad came from Malaysia." She put her hand on my arm. "We love you."

I sighed and rubbed at my eyes. I couldn't possibly be tired again, but I was. "Listen, Madeline..."

"Excuse me, sir." I heard Corporal McKenzie behind me. Madeline looked up, and I glanced back at the corporal. "Major Ramirez is on currently on compassionate leave. He's available to see you this afternoon."

"So soon?"

"Yes, sir."

Well, McKenzie was nothing if not efficient. I sighed. "Thank you, Corporal."

"What's that..."

"Someone I worked with," I said, but that didn't begin to cover it. "Sort of a friend." That wasn't exactly it, either, but it was closer. "Somebody we both knew died during the mission. I told him I'd speak to his family."

"I see." She obviously didn't.

I sighed again. "I'll be back this evening. We can all go for dinner or something." Or perhaps I could just shoot myself in the foot with a phase pistol, which would be less painful. Then, I thought, they could all go home and I could attempt to somehow get on with my life.

***

Fort Harrison was located in southern Texas, about fifty kilometres from the Mexican border. It was blazingly hot when the transport dropped me off at the front gates and a man in a beige uniform, a large, faintly ridiculous hat, and sunglasses came out and met me.

"Can I help you, sir?" He looked at me impassively. I squinted in the bright sunlight---that was taking some getting used to after so many months shipboard---and said:

"I'm here to see Major Ramirez." He looked at a PADD. "Lieutenant Malcolm Reed," I added. "From Starfleet."

"Oh, yeah." That was all. The man didn't look particularly impressed, but he put the PADD to one side and pulled out a retinal scanner. I forced myself to hold still as, without any kind of preamble, he flashed the red light into my right eye. A second later, the machine beeped and the man shoved it back into its holster. "Get in the Jeep. I'll take you over."

The Jeep was a small hydro-cart, painted khaki and hovering on a cushion of air about six inches off the ground. It tipped unexpectedly as I tried to get in, and the soldier barely concealed his smirk. Scowling, I steadied myself against the Jeep's door and climbed into the passenger's seat, as he got into the pilot's chair on the other side.

"So," the soldier said, as we zipped past large, featureless buildings into what looked like a residential neighbourhood with identical, white-painted houses. "You were up in space, huh?"

"Yes," I replied.

"What was that like?"

I blinked, and went with the truth. "Not all it was cracked up to be, actually."

He stopped the car in front of one of the white houses and pressed a comm button on the Jeep's front console. I got out and stood beside the Jeep and, a moment later, the front door opened and a man came out of the house.

"Visitor for you, Major," the soldier said.

The other man said: "Thank you, Corporal," and smiled widely at me. "I'm Miguel Ramirez. You must be Malcolm Reed." He held out his hand. "Matt told me a lot about you."

He was a bit older than Hayes, I guessed mid-to late-forties, with streaks of grey in his black hair. He was in civilian clothes, dark-coloured slacks and a collared T-shirt. I shook his hand, wondering whether I should say, "I'm sorry" or something along those lines. He turned around and said: "Come on in, Lieutenant" and I followed him inside.

The house was minimally decorated, but the furniture looked new. Ramirez took me into a lounge---living room, I automatically corrected myself---with a dark wooden coffee table and a red sectional sofa, where a girl with a long, dark brown ponytail was setting up plastic soldier figures.

"This is Heather," Ramirez said. She looked up at me, then went back to her toys. "Lieutenant Reed worked with Dad."

"Dad's in heaven with Abuela Isabella," Heather said, placing a little bayonet-wielding man on the arm of the couch.

"Yes. And I'm sure they're both thrilled about that." Ramirez smiled at me. I didn't know what I was meant to do, so I shifted uncomfortably in place. "Can I offer you a drink, Lieutenant?"

"I'm fine, thank you."

"Sure?" Ramirez persisted. "Tea? Coffee? I think I have a bottle of scotch around somewhere..."

"Really, it's all right."

"Then please, have a seat."

I don't do well with children. Even when I was a child, I never knew how to speak to them. So I didn't say anything to Heather. Instead, I sat on the far end of the sofa, and she said:

"Don't sit there, please. That's the Xindi sphere."

"Oh. I'm terribly sorry." I stood up again and glanced at Ramirez, who looked pointedly at her.

"You can sit over there," Heather finally said, pointing at the other end of the sofa. "That's 'Enterprise.'"

Obediently, I sat where she indicated. There were six toy soldiers lined up on the armrest. "Those are the MACOs," Heather explained.

"Oh, yes?" They had the same uniform, clone-like look about them. "Where are the Starfleet personnel?"

Heather frowned and, impossible as it was, I could have sworn she looked just like Hayes. "I don't have any. But maybe these ones," she pointed out two of the little MACOs, "Could switch."

It had taken us more than a year before we reached that level of co-operation. "We should have had you on board 'Enterprise'," I said.

Heather nodded agreeably. "Then I could have saved Daddy."

It was Ramirez who finally broke the awkward silence with: "Could you go play in your room for a while, honey? I want to talk to Lieutenant Reed."

Heather picked up two of her soldiers, then pointed out the ones on my armrest. "Take care of them for me, please."

"All right." I agreed. Perhaps I could handle that assignment better than I had my actual one.

When she'd gone, there was a brief, awkward moment of silence. I glanced around the room and, for the first time, saw a photo cube on a bookshelf on the other side of the room. As I watched, it changed from a picture of Ramirez and Heather to one of Heather in a ballet costume to one of Hayes and Ramirez standing in knee-deep snow, Ramirez's arm around Hayes's shoulders.

I looked back to Ramirez. "You have a lovely home.”

"I only transferred here because I was pissed off at Matt," Ramirez replied, smiling. "That's the only reason anyone moves to Texas, actually. Spite." I blinked, and he added: "Just kidding."

I smiled politely and looked back up. The photo cube was now displaying a picture of Hayes in an army dress uniform.

"How did it happen?" Ramirez asked, quietly. "I mean, I got the official version, but I want to hear the details."

Hayes had told me he would want that.

I swallowed and wished I'd agreed to that drink after all. Still, this was the reason I'd come, and compared to what I'd been through lately, it was nothing. "A member of our crew was kidnapped by enemy forces. Hay...Matthew led the rescue mission." I hadn't been able to stop him. "There were problems with the transporter. Matthew insisted that he be the last to transport up, and as he was, he was shot in the chest with a disruptor." I glanced down. Ramirez was expressionless, and I wondered if he knew what that meant. "A disruptor is a type of weapon that..."

"I'm a combat doctor, Lieutenant," Ramirez put in. "I know what it does."

"Oh. Yes. Of course." I cleared my throat. "Anyway, our doctor did everything he could, but he couldn't save him." It wasn't Phlox's fault, although I admit, in the days after it happened, I had wondered if a doctor who specialized in humans, rather than a generalist, might have been able to do more for Hayes. Ramirez had to have wondered it, too.

"Did Matt regain consciousness?" Ramirez's voice was calm, but not emotionless.

I nodded. "I was able to speak to him. He asked me to take care of his men."

Ramirez laughed. "Of course he did. He always puts his duty above everything. That's what makes him so damn hard to live with sometimes." I hesitated, unsure whether I should agree or not. "But it's what makes him such a good commander." Ramirez glanced up at me. "Made him a good commander, I guess I should say."

There was another pause. The photo cube cycled to a picture of Heather and some other children.

"He went into space because the Xindi killed my family," Ramirez went on. "That was his idea of comforting me."

I remembered, suddenly and inappropriately, the feeling of Hayes's cock against my hip as we huddled together in my bunk or his.

"I'm very sorry, Major Ramirez." About everything.

He shook his head. "I really want to thank you."

I frowned. "Major, I'm afraid..."

"I knew," Ramirez cut me off briskly, and I could see, for the first time, the career military in him. "That chances were Matt wouldn't come home. We both knew that. I'm just glad he didn't have to die alone." His smile returned. "Besides, McKenzie says you're a hell of a leader, and she's not easy to impress. Matt must have known what he was doing when he asked you to take the MACOs."

I had to say it. "You seem to be taking this very well." Better than I was.

"I don't have any choice, Lieutenant. Heather needs me." I looked at the lined-up toy soldiers beside me. "And Matt and I always made sure we'd have no regrets. In our line of work, you can't afford to take people for granted."

No, I thought, as the photo cube displayed a picture of a younger-looking Hayes in khaki fatigues, looking embarrassed as a dark-haired Ramirez kissed him on the cheek. You couldn't.

***

It was late afternoon when I got back to San Francisco. Heather and Ramirez---Miguel, as he insisted I call him---saw me off at the shuttleport, and Miguel invited me to come back for Hayes's military memorial, taking place in a couple of weeks. As I was about to board the shuttle, Heather pressed one of the plastic soldiers into my hand, then said: "That one can be Lieutenant Reed, OK?"

I nodded and took him with me.

My father was standing near the window in their hotel suite when I arrived. "Hello, Dad."

"Your mother and Madeline are dressing for dinner," he told me, which seemed like a non-sequitur, unless you knew him. And us. "I think they've got their sights set on some seafood place."

I smiled. "Sounds lovely."

He looked out the window. "They worried about you while you were gone."

I hesitated, then, remembering Ramirez, I put my hand on my father's shoulder. He stiffened and I removed it again before he had a stroke.

My father glanced at me, then back out the window. "No one will ever understand what you went through, Malcolm, and that means you did your job."

I remembered the look in Archer's eyes as he threatened to toss the Xindi informant out the airlock, and I believed he would do it. I remembered Trip's face when we went to Florida and saw the gaping hole where his hometown had been, and I remembered Matthew, trying to tell me he was ready for duty as he lay dying.

"Thank you for coming, Dad," I said and, surprisingly, I actually meant it.

I hadn't expected my family to come and see me, but now they were here, I realized how lucky I was they'd made the trip. And, as I felt the plastic Lieutenant Reed digging into my thigh, I realized just how lucky I was to be here to see them.