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The ship was adorned with decorations, but even with those he wasn’t cheered. This Christmas seemed particularly empty for Jonathan Archer. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to celebrate, if he told the truth he did, but he didn’t deserve too. How could he even consider thinking about Christmas when he should be pushing more for the search for Columbia.
It had been six months since Starfleet had lost all contact with Enterprise’s sister ship. Nobody knew quite what had happened, and all he could think was that they had been captured. There was no sign of Columbia, anywhere, and that concerned Jon. A state-of-the-art ship didn’t just completely disappear from sensors. It wasn’t possible.
He had spent every night of the last six months imagining what might have been happening to Erika. Remembering the catalogue of her injuries after he’d rescued her from the Orions. Remember how painful it was then to see her injuries, most of which still hadn’t fully healed the last time they’d spoken. She couldn’t survive that again. Somehow every day he was talking himself out of believing he would ever see her again, while the irrational part of his mind, the part that needed her, told him that somehow she’d return one day.
But he did his duty to his crew. He was there at the Christmas dinner, only he was stood in a corner probably looking decidedly un-Christmassy. He just wasn’t ready to join in the celebrations when he was finding it too hard to be happy at all. Did he mind that he was the Enterprise equivalent of the Grinch right now? Not really. He had shown up. He’d eat when everyone had left then he would return to his quarters and say the Christmas prayer that Erika had taught him years earlier.
He was still thinking when he heard a voice call to him from the top table. The table that had been the loudest and rowdiest up until this point. They all fell silent, and he felt their eyes studying him. “Are you joining us Captain?” Hoshi asked, the only one of his senior officers who had even seemed to notice him since they’d arrived. That was probably for the best, otherwise he would have just spent the time being asked why he was in so much pain this Christmas.
He considered her offer for a minute, made a brief eye-contact with all of his senior officers, but that was it. He knew this wasn’t the day to join them, even if they invited him too. “Not today Hoshi.” He refused politely, and turned to the viewport. Able to feel their eyes on him still, but it meant he wouldn’t be spoken too again. At least not for a while.
He returned to his thoughts, reaching out with his mind to see if he could sense where Erika was and that he could find how to return her home. They all needed her back, none more so than him. He was just thinking when he realised that Hoshi had left the table and sidled beside him quietly, studying the stars right there alongside him. She was silent for a few moments, was just a presence beside him, letting him continue his business, until she took a breath. “You’ve not been yourself lately.” She commented, and he thought back over the last several months, he had changed, but it wasn’t that he wasn’t himself. He was falling back into the man he’d been before Erika had saved him from himself. Darkness was ruling his mind again, and he couldn’t seem to fight it alone.
That didn’t mean he was going to admit it to anyone. He didn’t need help, not from anyone in a position to give it. “I’m fine.” He lied, and he was certain that Hoshi knew he was lying. He had never been great at it, and Hoshi had always been good at seeing through it. But there were things he couldn’t say, that he needed to keep to himself. He couldn’t share them with his crew.
Hoshi just fell silent again, and they went back to studying the stars. He tried to shut his mind down, and not think about Erika or Columbia. It was harder than he’d expected. Every moment he hadn’t been working for the last 6 months he’d been thinking about that ship, and how to get her home. He was failing, and that was why he couldn’t celebrate. “You know it’s OK to celebrate, even though you miss her.” Hoshi muttered, almost silently, definitely quietly enough that only he had heard. He couldn’t think what to say to that. He knew it, logically. That didn’t mean he could celebrate. He just wanted to pretend that it hadn’t been months since Columbia went missing and that he needed to face that.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He argued the point. He just wanted to be left in peace, but somehow it didn’t look like Hoshi was going to let him. Maybe it was her compassion, or maybe she just didn’t like knowing that her Captain was in a bad way, but she didn’t even flinch at his harsh words. Instead continued looking out the viewport as if nothing had changed.
She did that until he had calmed down. How she knew that he didn’t know, but she let him take a few breaths and just stop. She clearly wasn’t going to give up on what she was saying. “We all had friends on Columbia sir, and we all know about your long relationship with Captain Hernandez.” That was news to him. He hadn’t thought anyone had known, at least not that they were romantically involved, but Hoshi’s sympathy made it clear she knew, and that she really felt for him. In some ways, the pity was worse than the guilt. “She wouldn’t want you to shut yourself away. I know her well enough to say that.” Hoshi pointed out, again making an excellent point. Erika wouldn’t want this. No matter what had happened.
“I know she wouldn’t, but I can’t help it.” He admitted, taking that leap. He showed her his vulnerability in that area. He couldn’t stop thinking about how it should be him, not her, who was missing. She had never harmed someone out of malice in her life. He couldn’t claim that. Erika deserved to be here, to be protecting her planet. Not wherever she was now.
“Well, the offer is open, come and join us for dinner when you’re ready. But look into your heart and think about what Captain Hernandez would want you to do. Then start over.” Hoshi smiled sympathetically and patted his arm as she went back to the table full of senior staff. He just stood and looked at them for a minute, doing exactly what Hoshi had suggested.
If Erika knew how withdrawn he’d become with her disappearance, she’d find a way to kick his ass. She had always told him that hiding wasn’t productive, and when he’d tried to do it before she’d always followed him, never allowing him to be alone. He took a deep breath and thought about what she’d say to him in that moment. How she’d convince him to join his crew. “They’re your crew Jon, they are closer than friends. Let them help you.” The part of his mind that spoke to him in her voice ordered, and he couldn’t ignore that voice. He never could.