Malcolm and Hoshi: The Missing Scenes

E2

'Apparently the Reed line came to a rather unceremonious end.'

His own words echoed in Malcolm's mind as he trudged up the corridor.

Once upon a time he wouldn't have minded all that much. If truth be told, there'd been times when he'd positively have rejoiced at the news; the thought of passing on some of the genes he must be carrying to the next generation had been positively chilling. And he'd never thought of himself very much in terms of doting fatherhood. He certainly had the example before him of what NOT to do in order to inspire affection in any offspring he might have, but as for the positives, they'd been few and far between in his life. On the whole, he'd thought that any child would be considerably better off having someone else as its male parent.

But things had changed. He had changed. Enterprise had changed him. Hoshi had changed him. Being part of a family had changed him – the ship 'family' to which he had gradually come to feel he belonged. Now, he found to his horror how much it hurt to discover that his other self had died as he'd lived – alone, unwanted, rejected.

He knew that Hoshi had understood something of what he felt; she'd done her best to console him with the obvious fact that with men outnumbering women by something like two to one, the other Malcolm certainly wouldn't be the only one who'd ended up unmarried. In view of the fact that they were still keeping their relationship firmly under the radar, she could hardly have said more in Travis's presence. But nevertheless the sense of rejection was suddenly so strong and painful that he'd blurted out the invitation to that pretty blonde crewwoman to sit next to him just to convince himself that he wasn't some kind of social leper. It hadn't helped. He'd had to make his escape from the Mess as soon as possible, leaving his meal unfinished, because suddenly and appallingly he found tears pricking at his eyes.

The other Hoshi had borne children. Two. But their surnames weren't 'Reed'. They had both been registered as 'Sato'.

He could have looked. The basic premises of genetics suggested that the unmarried female members of the crew, breeding a viable gene pool, would have been encouraged to have their children fathered by different men. Emotionally that would have been difficult, but it was hard scientific sense. And in the Expanse, hard facts could not be ignored. The other Enterprise's database contained the details of whose DNA had been passed on; as security officer, he'd been able to access the files without difficulty. He'd have been able to open them if he'd had the courage.

He hadn't.

Hoshi hadn't married him.

Set next to that fact, whether his other-self's DNA had been thought worthwhile to be passed on to one of her children, or indeed anyone else's, was hardly important. In any case, what point would there be in finding out that E2's Malcolm had fathered a son or a daughter, or that any member of the present crew consequently carried genetic material that contained markers belonging to his own? The discovery of what had happened to their other selves was causing his superior officers enough of a problem. What, if he identified anyone, could he possibly say to them? God knew, he wasn't a conversationalist at the best of times. 'Hi, you don't know me but apparently I shagged your grandmother once'? Now there was a conversation-killer. Interesting to see how that could be responded to. Assuming his unfortunate descendant had inherited his non-existent flair for casual chit-chat, the two of them would sit staring dumbly at each other for five seconds and then rush in opposite directions. He could envisage them both creeping around the ship like stealthy terrorists, peering around junctions to make sure the coast was clear of one another before proceeding.

He tried to take what comfort he could from the fact that E2's Hoshi apparently hadn't married anybody. It didn't help much. She hadn't married him. No chance now to find out what had happened; no opportunity to take a glimpse into the future, to find out what might still be yet to come in this present time-line that perhaps could, with forethought and care, be avoided. The chances of anyone still living now having any knowledge of what must be old history in the E2 time line were laughably remote; the relationship hadn't lasted, and it was unlikely that either of the casualties would have been interested in making the failure and the reasons for it common knowledge. The cold, hard, inescapable fact fell across him like the shadow of damnation.

It hadn't worked out.

So where did that leave him? Holding on and hoping for the best, committing further and further to a relationship that was ultimately doomed – a relationship that carried within it the seeds of its ultimate demise? Flying a flag of defiance into the teeth of the gale, even though the ship was doomed to sink with all hands on some reef of whose existence he'd already received the clearest warning?

It took him back squarely into that metaphysical territory he'd briefly explored with Trip when they'd come across that weird craft whose inside was larger than its outside. Then, the question had been whether if you found out who you would marry at some time in the future you would go ahead and marry them – and if so, for what reason. Now, however, the question had been turned inside out. In E2's time-line – his and Hoshi's future – the relationship hadn't worked out. Was that a valid reason for giving up on it now?

Logic said yes. Cut and run, like he had for so long at the first sign of trouble. Ever since it had dawned on him that relationships were life's way of enabling him to make members of the opposite sex utterly miserable, he'd taken the physical pleasure as all he was ever likely to get. Even now he sometimes felt like an impostor masquerading as a man capable of making a beautiful woman happy – as though he was somehow carrying out some gigantic hoax which would be unmasked in the end, revealing his aspirations as the sham they were. Since when had he deserved what he had?

But his heart screamed no at the bare suggestion. Give up happiness now that he'd found it at last, and for no better reason than that the other Hoshi and Malcolm had – for whatever reason – not managed to make it? He could imagine what Hoshi would say to that. Life hadn't taught her the same terrible lessons as it had him; she still believed happiness was something that was there for the taking if you wanted it hard enough.

He knew differently. Knew that sometimes wishing wasn't enough. Because if it was, he'd wish away things that still lingered in the shadows of which he'd used to be a creature; things whose existence he could never allow her to suspect.

Slowly but surely the suspicion was growing in him that he did, after all, know on what reef E2 Malcolm's ship had foundered. The secrets he'd tried for so long to persuade himself were dead and buried...

No. He wouldn't give her up. He couldn't give her up. Just because on that other Enterprise, doomed to wander the Expanse for another century, fate – in whatever guise – had caught up with him, that didn't mean history was doomed to repeat itself.

He'd reached his quarters by this time and found that he'd stripped off his uniform while he was occupied with these dark deliberations. He was in the bathroom, and he raised his eyes slowly to the mirror opposite him as though almost afraid of what he'd see looking back at him out of it. Grey eyes, guarded, impenetrable, giving away nothing.

"I won't give her up." He didn't realise until he heard the low, soft growl that he'd spoken aloud.

If you want her, you'll have to come and take her.