Captain Lewis opened his eyes, and the memories began to flood back. Lieutenant Morgan was dead. The young man had shown so much promise, but he couldn’t overcome his demons. They’d eaten him alive, and then Commander Drake pushed him over the edge. The JAG had as good as killed him, and the captain had set out to avenge his man in the only way he knew how. He would have succeeded too if not for Admiral Reyes and Ensign Rel. 

He was sure the admiral had her own reasons, but he believed the ensign when she said she’d done it for him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that though. He was used to being the one who looked out for others, not the one others looked out for.

Captain Lewis rolled over in his bed, expecting to see the ensign there. In the aftermath of the showdown on the Polaris, he’d been so angry at her, but she was persistent. She’d followed him back to his quarters, and then she wore him down, bit by bit. Eventually, he gave in, and all that rage, all that grief, all that despair, a gigantic clusterfuck of emotions he didn’t truly understand, it all snowballed into a night of physical abandon. And then, when it was all over, he slept. 

But where was she now? All that was left was a light imprint in the foam of the mattress. 

Captain Lewis sat up and looked around. The bedroom was dark and perfectly still. The captain climbed out of bed, pulled on a pair of gray sweatpants, and walked out into the living room. That’s when he saw her, the young Trill flight controller who’d somehow pierced his cold exterior and made him feel something. She was curled up in a ball on the floor, her head between her legs, sobbing softly. 

“What’s wrong, Elyssia?” the captain asked as he crossed the room and sat down on the floor next to her. She’d been the one thinking logically when he was not. She was the one that had put him sort himself out after his desperate plan had fallen apart. What had happened now? Why was she crying? He reached out and rested a reassuring hand on her back.

“Everything, Jake,” she admitted, struggling to look up. “Just everything.” A tear ran down her cheek.  “The whole Nasera thing… the suicide run in the Ciatar Nebula… the shootout in Milan… going up against our own in Healdsberg… becoming… becoming Borg…” Her eyes darkened as she recalled her experience on Sol Station. Although she’d learned to live with the voices of her symbiont’s past lives, nothing had prepared her to become part of the Collective.

“It’s been a lot,” Captain Lewis nodded. “More than anyone should have to bear.” He didn’t know what to say, but he wanted to help. He needed to help. Before Lieutenant Morgan had taken his own life, he’d been perseverating on his trauma, and now Elyssia was too. Could this spread like a contagion? That thought terrified him.

“I mean, what the fuck are we all doing?” Ensign Rel cried. “It feels like everything is spinning out of control. Like Lieutenant Morgan, I mean, he was tortured on Earth, and rather than helping him heal after that, what did we do? We asked him to blow himself up.” That had been the order Admiral Reyes had given Lieutenant Morgan, Chief Shafir and Dr. Brooks as the fleet fell to the Borg.

“There wasn’t another choice,” Captain Lewis insisted. “If Picard hadn’t stopped the signal, blowing the Serenity would have at least given the survivors a chance.” Even that probably wouldn’t have stopped the Borg advance, but it would have created chaos and slowed them down enough that a few more might have escaped.

“Sure, I get that, but think about it, Jake… To do what he was about to do, he had to accept his death, so how can we be surprised he took his own life after?”

“We do what we do to preserve life,” Captain Lewis reminded her, but she’d raised a scary point. Lieutenant Morgan wasn’t the only one with demons. His mind drifted to Ayala Shafir, who’d been though as much as any of them. She too had been there on the Serenity in those desperate moments, and she’d been the one who found Jace Morgan in his quarters. She’d always managed to hold it together, just barely, but did he need to worry about her now too?

“Jake, I know you cling to that adage,” Ensign Rel sighed. “But lately, we seem to be doing a lot more dying than living.”

Her words stung. Captain Lewis felt the pain more than she, or anyone, knew. Rysshel was his best friend. Brock was his protege. Petty Officer Atwood, Lieutenant Kora, Crewman Nam, and Lieutenant Morgan, they had each put their faith in him, and now all of them were dead, dead in the span of less than six months. In the last six months, he’d buried more of his team than he had left alive.

“All I’m saying, Jake, is that we need to hold onto those we have left,” Ensign Rel offered as she reached out and took his hand in her’s. “What if there was something we could have done for Jace that could have stopped…”

A chime at the door pulled them from their thoughts.

“Yes, give me a second,” Captain Lewis said as he pulled himself away from Elyssia and rose from the floor. “Enter.”

Before the door even finished opening, security officers began pouring through, six in total. He knew instantly what was happening. These were not his men. They were not from the Serenity. They were from the Polaris. They were not men well known to him, and they all looked like they’d come ready for a fight.

“Good morning gentlemen. What can I do for you? Some breakfast maybe?” Captain Lewis asked sarcastically, trying to size up the situation. It was not lost on him that these were the six biggest, meanest looking security officers one could have found in the entire department.

“Sir, you need to come with us,” demanded the lead officer, his hand resting on the grip of his holstered sidearm. The captain’s reputation preceded him. They’d heard rumors of what he could do and what he was capable of. They’d also been warned he might not come willingly, and that he should be considered armed and dangerous. “Now.”

“Where are you intending to take me?” Captain Lewis asked, his gaze narrowing on them as he debated his options. “And what if I don’t want to come?”

The lead security officer had a half dozen inches and at least fifty pounds on the Captain, plus five armed men to back him up, but still he looked very uncomfortable. Was the Commanding Officer of the USS Serenity really refusing a lawful order? Were they really about to have to take him down?

Before anyone could speak, Ensign Rel rose from the floor. “Jake, do what they say,” she pleaded. “Please.” The team needed him. She needed him. All of this would pass, she told herself, as long as he didn’t do anything impulsive.

“You should listen to the Ensign,” the security officer cautioned as he eyed the young woman over. For a moment, he wondered what a junior officer was doing here in the quarters of her half-dressed captain, but he had bigger issues to deal with. He inched his sidearm out of its holster, just slightly, but the intimation was clear. “We have our orders.”

“Relax kid, relax,” Captain Lewis smiled, raising his hands in front of himself disarmingly as he relaxed his stance. “There’s no need for that.” He stared at the man’s sidearm. “I’m a Starfleet officer, not a two-bit criminal.” 

The captain snatched a lightly worn black tank top off the floor and pulled it over his head as he made his way towards the door, the security officers taking up flanking positions around him.

As he reached the door, Captain Lewis looked back for a moment. “It’s all going to be okay,” he assured Ensign Rel. “This will all blow over.” 

And then he was gone, leaving Elyssia alone. Completely alone.