Another Crashed Car

[Nick Ryder]

"For the love of..." Nick put the bottle down and looked at Merlin and then at Alice. "Okay what the hell were you thinking bringing us even CLOSE to Dominus and Bellatrix, we're trying to stay OFF their radar. Second... what the hell was that about?! We're trying to be covert here, hell I barely know what Alice planned, only that we're together and we're going to STAY together and keep our family safe."

[Merlin]

"Oh very well. You people are simply impossible. There, I have enhanced the hull of your pathetic little shuttle. You can fly it into a sun now." And with that he was gone.

[Nick Ryder]

"We're impossible..." Nick looked over at Alice and Gale. "Remind me never to tell you of the shit I used to get up to with my old Academy buddy Galen... you actually stood up to a Q. I told you that you're a tiny badass."

[Alice Ryder]

“I’m done with this shit.” Alice said bitterly.

“Oh no mommy said a bad word.” Gale said with big eyes.

“First cars dropping on ours heads and then a Q popping in. What next? No I don’t want to know!” Alice said as she sat Gale back in his seat. “I’m tired of it!”

[Nick Ryder]

“As am I.” Nick said as he sat behind the controls. “How married are you to the idea of Xenex?” He pulled up a star map “We can ditch this era. Go back in time wherever whenever you want. I just need to find the right chronoton particle field and we can go as far away from all this. What century? 20th? 21st? 22nd? We lay low raise our son. Let the universe kick itself out. I am so done with the 25th century.”

[Alice Ryder]

“And you’ll be to tempted to change the future.” Alice said as she sat down next to him. “And Merlin could find us even there. We continue to Xenex and hope for the best I suppose. Oh Nicholas I’m so tired.”

[Nick Ryder]

“We’d be in another reality if I made changes so we go to an era when we just don’t have an effect. You and I are brilliant engineers and scientists and artists. Honestly I am so... done. I don’t feel like I ever truly came back after Jackson took us. I thought opening Leo’s and starting Alpha Section would get the mojo flowing like it used to flow. But... all I want to do is just disappear with you and Gale and as horrible as it sounds. Let someone else save the universe. I saved it more than once. Even Xenex isn’t far enough really. Someone will find us. Recruit us or drag us in and make us feel like shit if we refuse.”

[Alice Ryder]

“It’s not just us we have to worry about. It’s not fair to Gale. He’ll have no life in the past. Every choice he makes effects the future.” Alice said as she glanced back at him. “He’ll never be able to have children Nicholas. It’s to much of a risk.”

[Nick Ryder]

"Not necessarily." Nick replied. "That's assuming we never come back to this era. Although to be brutally honest... I'm done with this timeline." he looked at Gale who was hugging his mom tightly. "If we could really disappear, but we know it's never... ever... going to happen. The most we get is a respite. We have a 'butter zone' of about 30-40 years in the 22nd and the 23rd Centuries were we can live, still contribute, still do something, but history won't be altered. You had this plan as your 'doomsday' plan, I had one where we entirely take ourselves off the board. We slide into a point in history where we are not us, but what we create can remain in... let's call it canon. I was a director in Section 31 for years. I also was the President and had pretty much all of Earth's hidden files accessible. When the Compound was attacked, when we lost so many people. I started looking for ways out. If it ever happened again, we'd go. Just... go. Like this. Why do you think I was so ready to go? No tech, not even the same pants I wore? I've been ready for you to say 'let's get the h.e. double hockey sticks out of town and never look back. And this Q... I'm even more ready. He can find me back then, but you managed to scare him off."

Sitting back in the chair he looked up at the stars through the window. "I'm the outlier. It feels like every other version of me is evil. Dozens of Dominus's at least... and so so very few like me. Universe is better off without me. Let them end him and forget my face for a while. My grown kids will get over it. Only ones that won't if I disappeared... are in this shuttle with me. You and Gale matter more to me than anything else. Nothing I've created comes close. When I told you I'm with you no matter what. I meant it." He ran his hands through his hair. "It's not cowardice it's doing what needs to be done. I can program something that'll let me know what's happening now 'real time' as it were. I just leave a message for Jack and Kinsey or Cece... come find us when this whole mess is over. Maybe every few years I'll set out a message that they could find, if they want to. Or maybe they'll be fine without us. History is already screwed up more than they taught us at the Academy. Do you know we had full holographic comms and fabrication decades before we 'really' had it? Tap comm badges, Section 31 had that crap almost a century before Starfleet."

[Alice Ryder]

Alice sighed heavily and wiped at her eye.

“I don’t care anymore I’m just afraid Nicholas.” Alice said. “I don’t want to lose our son and I don’t want to lose you.”