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Memorias Mortuorum
Recollections of the Dead

Chapter One
The Persistence of Memory

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

It was late evening, a little after eleven p.m. ship's time, and Jonathan Archer was just finishing his captain's log when the door chimed. He added his signature and date, saved the log and closed the program, and was taking in a breath to call out Come in when the door chimed again. He smirked and shrugged. Whoever was out there was feeling impatient.

"Come in!" he said, and stood to greet his visitor.

When Commander Tucker came boiling into the room before the door was fully open, looking like a rotating thundercloud about to start pelting hailstones, Porthos yipped a greeting. Before he got a good look at his friend, Archer grinned and said in his most inviting tone, "Trip! I was hoping…"

When the commander grabbed him by the front of his uniform and propelled him across the room, past the foot of the bed, and into the bulkhead next to the bathroom door with bruising force, Archer wisely shut up. Porthos retreated to his bed and whined.

"Never again, Jon!" Trip growled, his face so close Archer couldn't make his eyes focus on his friend's blue ones. "You got that?" the engineer snarled, occasionally thumping him against the bulkhead to emphasize his words. "No one ever dies for me again! Not ever!"

Archer was perhaps more relieved and less shocked than he should have been by the manhandling. He'd been expecting this outburst since he'd told Trip about Sim, the clone whose creation he'd ordered to save his chief engineer's life. He'd been anticipating it after Sim's funeral, three days ago, and frankly, he was a little surprised it had taken this long. However, he had not, to his dismay, been remotely prepared for the intensity of his best friend's anger. When the last thump caused his head to snap back and slam against the bulkhead with a force that made lights dance across his vision, he realized that he couldn't let Tornado Trip blow himself out as he'd been planning.

As Porthos alternately growled and whined to see his second favorite human slamming his favorite human against the bulkhead, Jon said quietly, "You're hurting me."

He knew that was all it would take, and a moment later, he felt the change before he could see it. The dangerous storm abated slightly, and his friend, gentle, kind, compassionate Trip, relaxed a bit. Another second and he let go of the front of Archer's uniform as if it had burned him, smoothed the fabric, patted him gently on his chest, just over his heart, stepped back out of his personal space, hung his head, and apologized.

"Sorry 'bout that," he said tersely. He was still in a towering rage, though, and the minor injury was clearly the only thing for which he was apologizing.

Porthos gave a relieved little whimper, circled three times, and lay down on his bed, but continued to watch the two men vigilantly.

Archer nodded, waving the apology off and then gesturing to the foot of his own bed. "It's all right," he assured Trip. "Have a seat."

"Uh-uh," Trip said, shaking his head sharply, eyes still fixed on the floor. "I sit down, an' I'm liable to blow."

Archer frowned, but nodded. He knew his friend had a temper, and if Trip was agitated enough to recognize his potential for losing it, Archer wasn't about to argue. Still, he wanted to find a way to stabilize the atmosphere. "Do you mind if I sit?"

Trip scowled thoughtfully at the easy chair closest to him, and finally said. "I don't know. I might want to whump on you some more."

Any other time, Archer might have chuckled at the threat, but that thundercloud was still circulating, and he knew if he wasn't careful, Tornado Trip could lash out again and do some serious damage.

"Okay, then, I guess we'll both stand," he said, and let his hands hang loosely at his sides, keeping still and trying to look as non-confrontational as possible as Trip paced the few feet from the foot of the bed to the entryway, muttering under his breath. Jon waited what he thought might be a full three minutes before he said, "Trip, I…"

"No!" the agitated man interrupted, snapping around to glare at Archer. The crackling anger elicited a whimper from Porthos. "After the funeral, six people told me if I needed to talk about it, they were willin' to listen: You, Malcolm, T'Pol, Hoshi, Phlox, an' Cutler. Well, I'm ready to talk, that means you don't."

"All right," Archer nodded, sidling toward his desk, leaning on the edge, fairly confident he was safe for now. "I'm listening."

Trip paced for another minute or more before he stopped abruptly, hit Archer with a stricken look, and nearly sobbed, "He's in my head, Jon!"

The only thing Archer could offer was, "Phlox said that wouldn't happen."

"Well, Phlox was wrong!" Trip insisted, and resumed his pacing. "I know what he thought, how he felt. I have his memories! Hell, Jon, I have memories of him as a kid, rememberin' my childhood memories, an' wonderin' how he could remember a life he hadn't lived in a place he'd never seen with people he'd never met! Sometimes, when I think about him, the things he did, his memories, there's this sort of echo in my mind. I'll be thinkin' him an' he, an' he's there in my head sayin' me an' I.

"An' he was scared, Jon! He was sooo scared all the time. At first, it was because he thought he was crazy. He couldn't understand how he could have memories for two different people's lives in his head an' both of 'em be his. An' he was confused! He couldn't understand how his parents, my parents, could send him out here all alone, or why they would. He was old enough to understand that he was just a kid an' had no business bein' here! Then, once you explained who an' what he was, an' why he was here, he was afraid of the operation, an' afraid of growin' old an' dyin' in a week's time. Now I have all those memories, of a life I never lived, an' I have memories of rememberin' a life I never lived on top of that, but they're really my memories that he was recallin'. It's confusin' as hell an' seriously weird, Jon! Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I'm not sure if I'm gonna see me, or him, an' I'm not sure how to handle that!"

Archer was pretty sure the waver in Trip's voice wasn't just breathlessness from the long rant, so he gave his friend a minute to compose himself. When Trip didn't say anything more for a long while, the storm seemed to have dissipated. Finally, Archer asked, "Are you saying you're worried about going crazy?"

Trip scoffed. "Goin'?" When Archer gave him an anxious look, he waved it off. "Relax, I have a feelin' it's just gonna take some gettin' used to, if he doesn't fade out completely after bit. I sure don't think I'm likely to forget who I am," he said, "an' even if I do, I doubt I'll forget how to handle the engines. He was a hell of an engineer."

Trip gave him a tentative smile, and Archer returned it. "I'd noticed." As Trip sank down on the foot of his bed, Archer turned his desk chair around and sat facing him. Trip looked down at his hands. "So, what is it you need, Trip?"

For a minute or two, Trip just sat quietly, looking at his hands, and Archer just sat with him. The commander wasn't the type to let a silence stretch any longer than necessary, so he was more than likely really thinking about what he needed and what his captain and his friend could do to help him. Finally, he sighed gustily.

"I need to get some things off my chest, Jon," he said seriously. "Both as an engineer to his cap'n, an' as me to you, friend to friend."

"Okay," Jon nodded agreeably, refraining from asking if that wasn't what he'd just done. "I'm listening."

"I'm warnin' ya, some of the things I gotta say to you are gonna sound insubordinate," Trip cautioned, still staring at his hands. "An' some of 'em are gonna be mean, an' just downright hurtful, but it's what I think an' it's how I feel an' I need you to hear me. 'Cause if I don't get it outta my system, one of these days I'm apt to just…bust you in the mouth or somethin'!"

"I knew you'd be upset with me," Archer encouraged him.

"Upset?" Trip snorted. "Jon, I'm so mad I can hardly stand to look at you," he growled, "an' I'm pretty sure that's comin' from me at least as much as it is from him."

Archer could hear the unshed tears choking his friend's voice. Trip could get agitated, irritated, annoyed, exasperated, cross, vexed, peeved, and pissed off, and he handled it all right, not necessarily tactfully, but acceptably. He'd bark a few loud words at the source of his displeasure, maybe growl at everyone for a day or two, then confront the problem, resolve it, apologize for any hurt feelings he may have caused, and be his normal sunny self again. But Trip didn't do anger very well, not the soul deep, burning anger that came from being hurt by someone who was supposed to look out for him. That kind of anger hurt Trip. Archer had once thought it was because Trip loved people too much, but after knowing him for more than a decade now and discovering the depths of the man's heart, he knew that wasn't possible.

Archer sighed, this was worse than he expected, but Trip had been quiet for a minute now, and Jon wasn't really sure if he was waiting for a response or what. "I didn't really see where I had much choice…" he tried.

"Save it," Trip cut him off, sounding deceptively calm. "I read your report, how you deliberated about creatin' him, how you justified it. I can't judge you on that, Jon. I don't know what I'd have done if our positions had been reversed. All I'm sure about is that…Well, I must believe in God 'cause I thank him a hundred times a day that it wasn't me makin' those decisions."

"Thank you for understanding that it wasn't easy for me," Archer said.

"None of this is about you, Jon," Trip rumbled softly, still not looking at him. "This is about the…abominable thing you did to me, to him for me. You need to understand, the only reason I'm here now, talkin' to you 'stead of waitin' my chance to jump you an' pound the stuffin' outta you in some vacant compartment or the dark end of some empty corridor, is that, as long as I've known you, you've always tried to do the right thing. I don't know if you were just selfish for once in your life, or if you made the wrong choice, or if maybe there was no good choice, but what you did to me, Jon…I feel…dirty! Like I've been violated, an' I feel like I did somethin'…criminal, somethin' heinous, somethin'…somethin' unforgiveable, an' all I did was survive! Jon, I wish I could somehow crawl outta my own skin an' just walk away from myself!"

Trip stopped a moment to steady his breathing and wipe his eyes with the backs of his hands. Then he said, "We were friends for a long time, Jon."

Archer's eyebrows shot up. "Were?" Past tense.

Trip shrugged. "I always trusted you, Jon. Now, I don't. Least not the way I used to. I don't know if that's me or him talkin', an' I don't know what it means for our friendship. Right now, I'm angry with you, an' I'm hurt, an' I don't know if I'm ever gonna get past that."

The two men sat in silence for a long while. Archer hadn't expected this. He'd been prepared for Trip to be upset, confused, freaked out, maybe even feeling a little guilty that he was living and Sim was not. But never had he considered that his friend, his best friend, would be so angry he might lose him. He felt himself going hot and then cold all over. His eyes would start to burn and he'd close them until the sensation went away. Then his chest would get tight and his throat would hurt and he'd force himself to take long, deep breaths until that went away. Then his eyes would start to burn again. It didn't help any that Trip, who always had worn his heart on his sleeve, made no bones about wiping his eyes, getting up to grab a tissue from the box on the shelf above Jon's bed to blow his nose, and pounding his fist on his thigh with bruising force when some thought or memory made him particularly angry.

"You know," Trip said quietly after a while, "when he was little, he looked up to you. He remembered my mom an' dad as his parents, which confused an' hurt him 'cause he had no idea why they'd sent him away, an' he loved Phlox 'cause he was the one raisin' him here. So, you might not have been a father figure to him, exactly, maybe a role model, almost a hero. You were what he aspired to be."

Trip grabbed another tissue, wiped his eyes, and blew his nose. "Then, when he got older, biologically a teen ager, I guess, he loved you like a big brother, Jon. He loved you like I do."

Archer looked up sharply at that. He loved you like I do. Present tense.

Trip shrugged again, tapped his temple and said, "Everything's a jumble up here, Jon. Part of me doesn't even want to have to ever look at you again, an' part of me misses you already. An' the hell of it is, I don't know which part is me an' which part is him, 'cause it feels like we're all mixed together.

"That day when you took him to the cargo bay to fly your model, when you told him about the operation an'…introduced him to me, he was scared, but he trusted you. An' when I say he trusted you, I mean that was all him. He didn't have my memories of you yet. He didn't know how much I believed in you."

Believed past tense.

"Then, when you told him he wouldn't survive the operation…" Suddenly overcome, Trip choked on a sob. "God, Jon! He felt so betrayed." Just as quickly, he swung from despair to rage. "What gave you the right?" he thundered, and Porthos stood up on his cushion and barked at him, just the once. "You killed him, Jon! You an' Phlox created him an' then killed him, an' for what? For me? I read that part of your report, too. The little T-chart you made of pros an' cons. An' y'know, that's when I realized, you're not the man I thought you were anymore. The Jonathan Archer I called my friend would have needed only one entry in the cons list to make his decision. Two words: It's murder! What the hell were you thinkin'?"

Archer bit the inside of his lip until he tasted blood. He'd been thinking that Enterprise couldn't survive the expanse without her chief engineer, but Trip had already told him, this wasn't about him. He knew it wasn't about Enterprise, either. It was about Trip, and the way he saw the world, how he threw kindness around like confetti and couldn't hold onto a grudge and a hyperspanner at the same time. It was about the Xyrillian infant that he carried inside him until he could return her to her people when he would have been perfectly within his rights to have terminated the pregnancy, removing her as if she were nothing more than a parasite. It was about trying to climb into the airlock on Shuttlepod One to give Malcolm a better chance to survive. It was about refusing to kill Zho'Kaan, and then staying with him, at great danger to himself, until the Arkonian shuttle could bring them both home. It was about teaching the cogenitor to read, and the risk he took helping Jon and A.G. steal the NX-Beta so they could save Henry Archer's dream from being squelched by the Vulcans. And maybe it was about saving some vestige of their friendship.

It was definitely not about Jon justifying his decision. To a man like Trip, who would carry an alien fetus, to term, if necessary, Jon was sure, or endanger his own life just to keep a dying alien who could not be beamed to safety company on a roasting planet, Jon's decision to trade one sentient life for another was unjustifiable.

It wasn't about an apology, either. Trip was too angry right now to hear how sorry Jon was. To apologize now would force Trip to either reject the apology, or accept it against his will. Either way, it would be the end of their friendship. Even when it came time for him to beg Trip's forgiveness, it wouldn't help that Jon could only sincerely say he was sorry Trip was hurting. If that wasn't enough, their friendship would be over anyway. He knew he couldn't say he hadn't known how Trip would feel, or that he wouldn't have done it if he had known, or that he would never do anything like it again. They'd both know he was lying on all counts, and Trip would despise him all the more for being a hypocrite.

This was about Jonathan Archer sitting quietly and taking whatever abuse his best friend chose to rain down on him, because the thing he had done was completely anathema to everything – kindness, compassion, love, humanity – everything that made Charles Tucker, III, the best friend he'd ever had and the best man he'd ever known.

"Jon?" Trip's voice was quiet, calm, and desolate. He did not continue until Archer met his gaze, and when Jon looked up, Trip's face was devoid of all expression and his eyes were dry. "I really did try to understand. I want you to know that. I read your reports. An' Phlox's. An' a log I found in my quarters that he…that Sim kept. I doubt I'll ever show it to you, but in the end…in the end, he understood, probably better'n me, that it was nothin' personal an' you never meant to hurt him. He wrote that it seemed to be the only way you could get what you thought you needed to complete this mission, an' that you'd do 'whatever it takes' to make it happen. An' he decided he didn't want to make you a murderer, 'cause he thought you were a good man."

Jon inhaled sharply. Trip gave the ghost of a smile that held no humor and said, "Yeah, he remembered that night we sat in the mess hall drinkin', right before Duras attacked, an' you an' I agreed we'd do whatever it takes to stop the Xindi. An' I remember the conversation y'all had in my quarters the night before…the surgery. Ultimately, I think he decided you didn't need his forgiveness because you didn't want to hurt him, you just felt you had no choice."

"Thank you for telling me that," Jon said.

Trip shrugged. "I figured you had a right to know."

"Wh-what about you?" Jon dared to ask, and regretted it the moment Trip looked at him.

"Way too soon to ask that, Jon," he said, and fixated him with that narrow-eyed glare that reminded him how very mean and malicious the engineer could be when he was hurt. "See, no matter how you slice it, how you try to dress it up in logic or argue that you had no other option, the fact remains that you made a one-to-one comparison an' decided my life was more valuable than his. Then you killed him so I could live. I am alive because my best friend made a conscious an' deliberate decision to kill an innocent, sentient bein'.

"I've gotta figure out how the hell I'm gonna live with that before I can even be bothered to think about how I'm gonna…live with you."

Without even a word of goodbye or goodnight, Trip got up and left.

In the emptiness of his leaving, Jon felt as if the storm had blown away everything that mattered.

To be continued…
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