Just as there had been nothing to bury after Trip’s sister Lizzie had been at the wrong place at the wrong time when those damned Xindi had come calling, dealing death from a calm blue springtime sky….

Charles vainly forced himself to consider that much younger version of himself who so loved to laugh. But instead, all he could really focus on was how much that man had lost during the past couple of years. Thank goodness we still have Albert,he told himself, though the thought did little to assuage his grief. Albert had declined Archer’s invitation to meet with him today, explaining that he preferred to stay away from the day’s ceremonies. He’d said he preferred to grieve in his own way, with his husband, Miguel, and their own small nucleus of friends and loved ones. Charles looked forward to seeing their only surviving child again soon, but wished with all his heart that the circumstances could have been different.

He entered the narrow but brightly illuminated conference room alongside Elaine, who gripped her small handbag so hard that her knuckles whitened until they made a perfect contrast with her somber black dress. They both continued standing as they faced the man who had guided them through the auditorium’s vast backstage labyrinth, the sympathetic‑looking male Denobulan who had identified himself as Phlox, the chief medical officer on Enterprise–and as one of Trip’s closest friends. The Denobulan’s startlingly blue eyes gleamed with unshed tears, making him appear so distraught that Charles’s heart went out to him.

“I’m sure you did everything you could to save him, Doctor,” Elaine said, just as Charles was about to say something very similar. He hoped that the doctor would at least take whatever comfort he could from their absolution.

“Thank you, Mrs. Tucker,” said Phlox, though he suddenly looked even more distraught than he had before. “But when you’ve treated, saved, and lost as many patients as I have…” He interrupted himself briefly, as though trying to gather his thoughts, or perhaps reining himself in for fear of saying too much. After taking a deep breath that he let out almost as a sigh, he resumed: “Well, let’s just say that no physician can ever be completely above second‑guessing himself–particularly if the patient is someone to whom the doctor feels close.”

The room’s single door opened again, admitting a man and a woman, both of them displaying somber expressions. The latter was a tall, attractive Vulcan dressed unexpectedly in a Starfleet uniform; a neatly aligned trio of rectangular rank bars on her collar identified her as a commander. The Vulcan woman clutched a small suitcase at her side.

Commander T’Pol,Charles thought, recalling her image from numerous news vids, as well as the many times Trip had mentioned her during his correspondences home. Although there were many things, of course, that his son had left unsaid, Charles always had the impression that Trip had been rather sweet on T’Pol, or perhaps vice versa. When the news services reported that the terrorist John Frederick Paxton had created a human‑Vulcan hybrid infant using DNA from both Trip and T’Pol, Charles had found his dashed dreams of grandfatherhood suddenly rekindled, which surprised him after the terrible blow Lizzie’s death had dealt the whole family. Of course, fate had quashed those hopes with finality when it decided to take Trip from them as well as Lizzie.

Charles immediately recognized the grim‑faced, somewhat taller human standing beside T’Pol as Jonny Archer, to whom Trip had first introduced both him and Elaine some twenty years earlier, though neither Charles nor Elaine had seen him very much at all during most of the last decade or so. Though he was smartly turned out in a formal blue‑and‑white Starfleet dress uniform, the captain seemed to have aged quite a bit since he’d last seen his face on the compic, about two weeks ago. Charles supposed that between the Xindi crisis he had already endured, the recent Coridan tragedy, and the large role the media had credited him with in the formation of the Coalition of Planets, this man must almost literally be carrying the weight of entire worlds upon his wide shoulders.

Archer extended his right hand, and Charles shook it numbly as Phlox began making introductions all around. Then Charles tried to make the Vulcan hand sign for T’Pol in lieu of a handshake–he was proud that he understood at least that much about Vulcan culture–but gave up when he realized that the gesture was slightly beyond his ability.

“Thank you for your letter, Captain,” Elaine said, shaking the captain’s hand and offering an almost courtly nod to T’Pol. “I guess I really wasn’t expecting something so uplifting after you called us with…the news about Trip.”

A distraught expression very much like the one he’d seen Phlox display crossed Archer’s face like a bank of dark storm clouds. “I’m so sorry about this, Gracie. It’s not the kind of letter a captain ever wants to have to write. But I felt I owed it to you both, as Trip’s commanding officer. And as his friend. You both deserve to know how heroically your son died.”

A sudden upwelling of tears rose, poised on the edge of Charles’s lower lids, like a dam about to break. Archer’s face looked distorted, viewed through a prism of grief. Charles closed his eyes so that all he could see was Trip’s smile. Trip as an infant, an eight‑year‑old, a teen, a young man. All he could hear was Trip’s laugh. All he could think was that it was good to know that his son had made so many wonderful, loyal friends during his far too brief life.

Realizing that he was no longer in any condition to speak, Charles felt enormous gratitude toward both Archer and T’Pol when they seemed to wish to do the bulk of the talking.

“Within a few minutes, you both will be conducted to seats in the VIP section,” T’Pol said.

Archer nodded. “I wanted to be sure both of you got to see and hear as much of today’s ceremonies and speeches as you wanted. I know that Trip…” He paused for a moment to compose himself. “He would have wanted you to see the future that his sacrifice will help the rest of us build.”

The Vulcan woman raised the small suitcase she carried, then set it down almost reverently on a nearby conference table.

“I have gathered Commander Tucker’s personal effects,” she said.

Charles walked to the table. Like a man dreaming, and therefore not entirely in control of events, he laid the case flat and thumbed the simple latch mechanism, popping the lid open.

Atop a neat blue pile of folded Starfleet uniforms sat a small articulated toy replica of Doctor Frankenstein’s monster, patterned after Boris Karloff from the ancient flatscreen movies. Karloff had been a favorite of Trip’s from about the age of seven, even though those grainy old black‑and‑white movies sometimes gave him nightmares. Charles smiled as he picked up the figure and held it up to see it more closely. For nearly four years, this little prop had accompanied his son across countless light‑years. What had it represented to Trip? His ability to face without flinching the things that scared him the most? Charles looked to Elaine, saw the tears streaming down her face while his own remained poised at the brink.

Placing the action figure to one side of the case, he saw that directly atop the uniforms lay a framed photograph of a triumphantly grinning Trip. Trip was holding one of Charles’s own heavy‑duty, duranium‑reinforced fishing rods, along with a glistening marlin that had to have weighed nearly as much as a man. Elaine had taken that photo when they’d gone deep‑sea fishing off the Gulf Coast not long before Trip had accepted his assignment to Enterprise.That entire day came back to him in a flash: the smell of spray and sunblock as they’d fished, the taste of the hush puppies and fried catfish and beer they’d had for dinner that night.