He was no captain. He was only here because some aged admiral had too much faith in him. In the hour of the wolf, he couldn’t sleep. Instead, he found himself standing by the window, watching the stars whiz by at high warp. It was a familiar sight, but these were not familiar stars. They were the stars of a globular cluster never before visited by Starfleet, and they’d remain that way a while still. He had no intention of stopping to see the sights. They had only one purpose, and their purpose was to get home safe.

In the thirty four days that had passed since the Serenity and the Ingenuity found themselves marooned in the far reaches of the Beta Quadrant, Captain Lewis had plenty of time to think. He knew of the Voyager and its journey, but he wouldn’t use them as a guide. Captain Janeway’s approach had been flawed. She had taken too many risks. It had only been luck that saw them through. You couldn’t rely on luck. You could only rely on yourself. Out here, they were on their own. A torpedo used or a shuttle lost might never be replaced, and if they got into real trouble, there’d be no one to come to their aid. If they wanted to get home, all they could do was race the night, fast and silent, making no unnecessary stops and avoiding any contacts they didn’t have to make.

Lieutenant Commander Elander had counseled that it wasn’t healthy to run the crew like this, that Starfleet officers wouldn’t be content to spend years avoiding inhabited systems and skipping past stellar phenomena, but what did the ship’s counselor know? She wasn’t the one ultimately responsible for getting these sailors home safe. He was. When he looked around, they seemed alright to him. But if he was honest with himself, what did he know? He was nothing like them. He wasn’t bright eyed or bushy tailed, and he hadn’t gotten into this line of work to explore strange new worlds or seek out new life and new civilizations.

Behind him, he heard the sheets rustle, followed by the quiet footsteps of his lithe, willowy bedfellow.

“You really should be sleeping,” Ensign Elyssia Rel offered gently, her voice wisp and her touch soft as she slid up behind him. He felt her warm naked body press against his back as she nuzzled into him. “It’s almost four, and I know how you are. Up at five, and nothing any of us can do to stop you.” It had been that way every day. The captain would rise promptly at 0500, scarf down a bowl of yogurt and oats, and then head for the holodeck. He never missed his morning workout. He was getting older, and it took a lot, so he said, for him to maintain peak physical fitness. Not that she was even all that certain why he bothered. He was a captain now, not an operator.

“I’ll be fine,” Captain Lewis insisted as he continued to stare out the window, hoping if he didn’t turn, maybe she’d just go back to bed. He was in no mood to talk.

“Everyone needs their sleep, Jake. Even you.”

“I can function on far less,” Captain Lewis said as he turned to face her. “But you, don’t you need your beauty sleep?” And beautiful she was, the young Trill who’d spent nearly every night here since they’d been stranded, save for the occasional graveyard shift she got stuck with aboard Ingenuity.

“Not as much as I need to know you’re okay,” Ensign Rel replied genuinely as she stared at him, her piercing blue eyes cutting through his grizzled exterior. “I worry about you.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Captain Lewis chuckled dismissively. “My skin heals fast.” He knew better, though, than to think this was actually about the blood she’d drawn with her nails the night before as their bodies came together in lustful fervor.

“Who would notice with all the scars you already have?” Ensign Rel smiled. She liked those scars. Each of them told a story, and those stories made the man. A man she loved. But also a man who, while typically their rock, seemed more and more unsteady with each passing day. “We both know that’s not what I’m worried about.” She placed the palm of her hand on his chest, right above his heart. “I’m worried about what’s in here.”

It was a strange sensation to have someone care so much about him, and it was even stranger to admit he liked it. He never thought he’d open himself up to such weakness, nor set someone else up for the disappointment sure to come from caring for him. But here he was, six thousand light years from home, allowing it to happen.

“I’m no leader, Elyssia,” Captain Lewis frowned as he thought about their current situation. “Not in the way this crew needs.”

“I disagree,” Ensign Rel replied admiringly. “You’re exactly the leader we need.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you stop at nothing to see the mission through,” Ensign Rel offered. She’d seen it on Nasera when it was the twelve of them against a planet crawling with Jem’Hadar. She’d seen it too on Earth, fighting an impossible battle against their own. He never faltered, and he never stopped. Not until the mission was done. “This mission may look different than your typical, but I have no doubt that you’ll see it through and get us all home safe.”

“All?” Captain Lewis shook his head. “We’re down a hundred already.” Sixty five in the blink of an eye as they were ejected from the Underspace, and another thirty five in the days that followed, their injuries simply too severe to save.

“No, you’re right,” Ensign Rel nodded grimly. “Not all of us will make it home, but isn’t that always the case? You’re the one that told us that as we raced for Nasera aboard the Lucre.” And he’d been right. Half their team hadn’t made it off that hellhole.

“Yeah, but you all signed up for that,” Captain Lewis reminded her. “These folks here, they just came for what they thought would be a typical day at the office.” One moment, everyone had been frolicking on Kyban. The next, they were racing for Vespara. And now this, a multi-year journey ahead of them through the unknown reaches of the Beta Quadrant with no promise any of them would make it home.

“You don’t always get to choose the time and place of your passing,” Ensign Rel offered as she thought back to the cold deck of that lifepod where she – or rather, where Jaxon, one of Rel’s prior hosts – had breathed his last breaths. It had been a normal day up until it wasn’t, up until he’d responded to the distress call from the system for any and all ships to assist against the Dominion advance.

“I know that as well as any,” Captain Lewis nodded. And he did. He’d buried far more friends than still he had living.

“Then straighten that upper lip, soldier,” Ensign Rel replied with a smile as she patted him firmly on the shoulder. “You got this.” She paused for a second. It wasn’t just him, alone in this. She’d be there with him, every step of the way. “We got this. We will get through this, together.”

It sounded good, but the captain knew it was nothing more than a platitude. “We don’t have even the slightest idea what awaits us out here. We can’t know that.” Even a minor regional power could make quick work of their partially-crewed Duderstadt and Pathfinder.

“Now you know the challenge faced by every explorer venturing out into the unknown,” Ensign Rel smiled meekly.

“But I’m no explorer.”

“No, but you can’t say you’ve never deployed without a full picture of the battlespace,” Ensign Rel countered, putting it in terms he could understand better.

“I suppose you’re right.”

“And what do you do when that’s the case?”

“I develop one. HUMINT, SIGINT, a conflation of sources drawn together to build a cohesive picture that informs the next move.”

“So why aren’t you doing that now?” Ensign Rel asked with a twinkle in her eye. “Both for us, so maybe we’re not blind out here, and for later, as Starfleet will certainly venture back to these parts someday.”

Fuck. She was right. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He’d been so busy running, he hadn’t even stopped to consider that maybe Captain Janeway had been onto something. Through their contacts, Voyager had built networks, forged alliances, and developed a picture of an unknown battlespace. That was what they needed to do. “You’re wise beyond your years.”

“I’ve only got a couple centuries on you, young man,” the Trill winked. “Now how about you bring that spry young body of yours back to bed so I can teach you a few more things before breakfast?”

“I thought you said I needed sleep?”

“You’ll be fine,” Ensign Rel laughed as she took his calloused hand within her own, parroting his words back to him as she pulled him towards the bed. “As you said, you’ve functioned on far less.”

And it was a good thing too because no more sleep was had. Just a fervent rodeo of lust and passion beneath the sheets.

When at last their bodies separated once more, the two were panting heavily, trying to catch their breathes as they lay next to each other on the disheveled sheets.

Captain Lewis glanced over at the clock:

0515

He should have been on his way to the holodeck by now, but suddenly he found himself in no rush to leave. Maybe it was time for a change. And besides, hadn’t he just gotten his morning cardio anyways?

He looked over at Elyssia, with her brilliant blue eyes, and her delicate flowing hair. “I’m not sure I’ve ever said this before, but thank you for being here for me.” It was the first time he’d ever said such a thing to anyone.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said as she stared back at him. And she meant it too.

“Even after Drake exposed you to the whole crew during the trial?”

“Especially after that,” Ensign Rel chuckled. Once the JAG had let the cat out of the bag at the trial, what’d she have left to hide? They didn’t have to sneak around anymore.

“Does it ever cause you any problems?”

“None that I would notice,” Ensign Rel replied. “I mean, we don’t even do shifts on the same ship.” That had been at Admiral Reyes’ direction. She’d transferred Ensign Rel to the Ingenuity as its new Chief Flight Control Officer so she and Captain Lewis wouldn’t be in the same chain of command. “I will say I’m damn happy our ships got marooned out here together though.” If the Serenity had vanished without the Ingenuity in tow, it would have left a hole in her heart. But then her mind drifted to the others on their team, the ones that had been l with them through so much. “Do you think the others still think of us?”

“The others?” Captain Lewis asked. He hadn’t followed that leap in her train of thought.

“Polaris.”

“Yeah, Drake probably broke out his finest scotch to celebrate that the universe had finally smited me across the galaxy,” Captain Lewis laughed. There was no love lost between him and the squadron JAG officer.

“No, I mean our team,” Ensign Rel shook her head. “Ayala, Lisa, Tom… Admiral Reyes even. Do you think they still think of us?”

“Without a doubt.”