[snip}

John Glen wandered the promenade of the space station looking for some kind of café to sit down at. His mind wandered but he found it was difficult to get work completely off his mind, despite what Joe had advised. The arrival of the new XO bothered him the most and those redacted mission logs. Glen had no idea what he was going to tell Joe Milligan about their missions to the Ancients and Elders and Harvesters, all officially still kept under wraps with an ‘S’ Notice courtesy of Starfleet Command, and the more shadowy Section 31. With Miriam Cross back on board the Merri that made keeping all their little secrets even harder. Miriam has a habit of letting her mouth off, and then there was her health too. If Joe begins asking questions, the truth would eventually come out. Let’s face it, this whole crew still suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome, not only those who had been tortured. It was going to be hard to keep secrets from Joe that most of the deckhands and redshirts already knew about. The question was really how he broke to Joe. Did Glen slowly slip some hints? Did he just hand him the mission logs and say, ‘here, read these!’

Glen found a café eventually. It was called Rue de Rivoli, and he sat down outside. When a human waiter came he first ordered a Raktajino, but they hadn’t heard of Klingon coffee yet, not out this far from Earth and so he settled for a Flat White instead. Yes, he needed to brief Joe fairly soon. Those missions were an important part of what the Merri was. The feelings and attitudes that resulted from those missions informed the way decisions by other senior officers had, and were still, made. It was like a glue that kept them all together; a mutual bond no matter what divisions they were struggling with. It was a part of their psyche.

It was quiet on the promenade. Glen had thought to sit and watch the passing visitors and stall holders plying their trades, but when the coffee eventually arrived he was almost the only person around. At the next shop but one, there was a Vulcan wood carver being watched by two Starfleet officers but otherwise nothing stirred. If Glen didn’t brief Joe soon, that could drive a wedge between them. Joe might think that Glen didn’t trust him. The problem was, did Glen really trust him yet with this secret and utterly mind-blowing information? They had been to the past. They had been to the future. They had seen the USS Merrimack become a 100-year-old museum and the daughter of a Romulan commander become a Starfleet Captain. How much did Glen know yet about Joe? For all Glen knew, Joe could himself be a Section 31 officer? He had a very detailed cover story if he did. No one would go to the trouble of creating a fake personnel file that large. Stupid idea!

Glen drank the coffee. It was as good as one ever got this far from home. The café reminded him of Paris… and of Andromeda du Astra. More years have passed. His son Iain would be even older. He would barely remember John now. Stop! Stop! Stop with all the negative thoughts! Iain will still remember me and there are no spies aboard the Merrimack! Okay! There was that one spy, but we dealt with Dr. Kim and we will deal with any more!

Further up Cross had came down just to clear her mind from the two previous days,she did not see the Captain for she was lost looking at the shops.Just like a little child would glance at the display behind a glass window .The doctor kept on going from shop to shop but was never seen entering to buy anything,having just started working she had no credit to her name.

Just then two females who worked at the station K-5 came out with shopping bags in their hands ,one pointed at Miriam while her friend pretended to throw up and they started laughing and making fun of her.
The female doctor didn’t move she tried her best to hold back tears.......yet something inside her was stirring,something she had not felt for a long time....

Glen had seen no one he recognised from the ship until now. Seeing Dr Cross, he shouted out, “Miriam, over here!” It was only then that he saw that she was in distress. He had felt that she had been holding something back when she had visited him two days ago, and now was probably the right time to find out exactly what that was. He also wanted to tell her about his concerns over exactly how much to tell the new XO about their experiences through time travel and into the Andromeda Galaxy. If they told him absolutely everything that had happened then he would probably think they had gone crazy. Glen knew that he had been too lenient with Miriam when she was last aboard the Merrimack, but it was natural, they both having shared that excruciating mind-probe. No one else who hadn’t experienced that kind of pain could understand what it was like to have a worm crawl through your brain like that. It was something that stayed with them every single day.

“MIRIAM!!!!” Glen shouted louder. “Over here! Come and sit down here and tell me what’s the matter.”

Glen called Cross just in time before the doctor went berserk ,she calmed down and went over to the Captain.

“Was it those two officers?” Glen asked. “They are out of uniform. What department are they?”

Sitting down ,Cross shook her head ‘’No they either work here, or another ship has docked ‘’ she replied.

Glen was relieved. Not only didn’t he want his crew behaving in that way, but he had pride in believing that he knew the name of every officer aboard.

‘’Captain what is wrong you look so worried, is it that Kord left or the classified material and all the package we have been carrying all this time?’’ the female doctor asked without mincing her words for she was there and knew.

“I look worried?” Glen asked. “Sorry! I was actually trying to forget work for a while and relax. it was on the suggestion of, Joe, the new XO… but I do wonder how much he needs to know about the Merrimack, and about the Ancients, Elders and Harvesters. I don’t want him to find out without it coming from me. He would think that I didn’t trust him, so yes it does bother me a little.”

‘’Captain I have not said a word about what we went through to anyone and do not intend too,’’ she barely whispered the words afraid that someone would hear.

“I know that you wouldn’t intentionally,” Glen replied, “but that’s a lot of pressure to place upon you. It’s unreasonable I think, though it isn’t my decision to make. Anyway, if you serve on the Merrimack these things will come out. The odd slip up in some innocent conversation. A file that was missed and didn’t get redacted. All kinds of unexplained things will crop up during other work. And then there is always the possibility that it might happen again. Commander Andone from the future, the Starfleet daughter of the Romulan Commander, she told me that the Merrimack was some kind of nexus for temporal anomalies. The artificial intelligence NX Memorial ship told me that too; about chroniton fields. It explains why we kept getting shifted around, though the last time was supposed to have cleared us of all the chroniton flux we had.” Glen saw Cross was in danger of her eyes glazing over, and added, “I don’t understand it all either!”

“Miriam, ” Glen said more carefully, “Tell me, what do you actually remember of those events? A Vulcan mind-meld took away the most traumatic memories that you had, because they were too awful for you to function properly with them. Do you remember saving my life once from an Ancient Worm? I will always be indebted to you for that, even though it was reckless and put your own life in danger. But there are other events that I won’t mention. Not because I am expressly forbidden from speaking about them, which I am, but because they are too terrible and you are better than you cannot remember them any longer.”

Cross bit on her lip and when she spoke there was a hint of sadness ‘’Captain I remember more then you can ever imagine about what we all went through,I even know the AI,the female doctor who no one trusted and the security who was the spy for our enemies and…and the baby’’ for a moment she stopped taking a deep breath before continuing ‘’I feel so bad about it because honestly I don’t care much, yes I’m ashamed of saying it’’ but it was the truth ‘’Captain there are other crew who were there and are still on the Merrimack,Faith will definitely remember every detail, Joe is now your first officer and sooner or later you have to trust and tell him’‘.

Cross Dr.

Glen sighed. No wonder she is hurting. She was meant to have forgotten all that, and being back here where it all happened once again… he thought. “Then the mind-meld didn’t work? Or was it only temporary? I have trouble thinking about those events myself, but I just can’t imagine how hard it must be for you. The ‘not being able to talk about it’ makes it even harder still, but I sometimes think it is what draws us together as a ship, because so many of us who experienced those times together are still here....” Glen paused then continued, “…You speak like you already know Joe. Have you served with him before? You see, my other problem with telling him anything is whether I trust him enough yet to tell him all of this, but if you can vouch for him, that would go a long way to help. Like he’s not another spy is he?” Glen laughed.

-Glen, CO