Lying in the darkness, cuddled against Jonathan, Charisma MacMillan rested her head on his shoulder and watched him sleep with a soft smile touching her lips as he shifted, resting a forearm across his forehead.

Asleep, Jon truly relaxed and left the responsibilities of command behind. It was one of the few times he did so and she loved watching him like this. Thanks to their jobs, they were rarely able to spend more than a few days together at a time. They both had ships to command, crews depending on them, even if hers was drastically smaller than his, and schedules to keep, so time together had the tendency to be fleeting at best. Thus, she craved the times when he forgot about duty, about being Captain Archer, and let himself be Jonathan. He needed that, he needed the opportunity to remember there was a man behind the captain. Just as she needed to be the one who helped him do that.

The crew seemed to think so too. She wasn't supposed to know, according to Hoshi, but they'd stopped calling her Captain MacMillan and now, rather affectionately, they referred to her as the Captain's lady.

Ordinarily such a reference would have offended her. She'd worked for years to earn a measure of respect from her peers, especially those in Starfleet, and it hadn't been easy. Even now it was a struggle to achieve half the respect automatically granted to other captains who happened to be male. Setbacks happened in her struggle more often than breakthroughs and it was hard on her. It still amazed her that being thought of as an extension of someone else, as ‘theirs', wasn't considered one of those setbacks. No, the strange thing in her mind was that the crew's opinion of her warmed her heart. The opinions of both her crew and Jon's mattered to her. For some reason unclear to her, they mattered more than they ever had. The crew of the Enterprise wasn't any ordinary crew and Jonathan Archer wasn't any ordinary captain. The mission they were carrying out wasn't any mission. She didn't need anyone to point that out.

What they were doing was something that was going to shape the fact of the galaxy. It would change everything and the last thing she wanted was to interfere in that. She was content to stick to mapping out the stars and ferrying the occasional bit of cargo to whatever colony hired her. It was something she'd accepted and enjoyed. As long as she was among the stars, she was happy. It was all she needed . . . but now, she'd discovered that being a part of Jonathan's life; being the Captain's lady . . . it was incredible. It felt better than she'd ever thought it would. She'd never thought she'd be happy in a romance again; especially not with the captain of the Enterprise. When she'd heard of Jonathan Archer and his ground-breaking command over subspace she definitely hadn't thought that within a year she'd meet him, be saved by him, and promptly fall in love with him. She hadn't thought it when she'd seen the reports and she certainly hadn't expected it when she'd woken up in the Enterprise's sickbay with Dr. Phlox and his leeches standing over her.

Charisma smiled and ran a hand over the sleeping man's t-shirt covered chest. In his sleep Jon smiled and his grip on her tightened reflexively. The more she was around this man, and his ship, the more convinced she was of their importance and the part they'd play in history. To be accepted by his crew, to have them approve of her relationship with their captain, it touched her in a way she'd never expected.

It mattered that they approved. If they didn't . . . things would be difficult. She loved Jonathan. She had no intentions of giving him up but, if they hadn't approved, she knew she would have. A captain's relationship with his crew came first. If they didn't like her then it would have eventually reflected on him. And that would have done major damage.

Oh she knew some probably didn't like her now, like T'Pol maybe . . . but who knew? T'Pol wasn't exactly Miss Mary Sunshine with anybody. But she knew some probably didn't like her but what mattered was they still respected her. Knowing that she was content to stay where she was without worrying about causing Jon troubles with his crew.

She'd worried about that in the beginning. She hadn't told Jon about that but she had. Worried that maybe they resented her for her relationship with him. Maybe thought she had no business in his bed, much less in his heart, and maybe resented the captain for taking her into both. It had weighed heavily on her at times.

She'd been able to keep it from Jonathan but she suspected Trip might have been another story. For all his good ole' boy charm, the Chief Engineer was an incredibly astute man. Not to mention protective. Of all the crew she knew he'd watched her the closest. Which is why his being the first to demonstrate his ‘approval' of her had meant so much.

Charisma smothered a giggle as she remembered just how Trip had done that. The man wasn't exactly subtle when he wanted to be. When she'd come aboard to visit Jonathan, he'd met her, taken her bag and told her it'd be waiting in the captain's quarters when she wanted to change.

At the time she'd wanted to die of embarrassment. Ever insufferable, he'd waited until they were in a very busy corridor before saying it and none too quietly. Now however, she knew it had been his way of showing his public approval . . .

His private one had been even more fun. Well, for her. For Jonathan he'd been a bit . . . well surprised. They'd stepped into his quarters to find his bed had been replaced by a slightly larger model. One that two people could comfortably sleep in . . .

She'd known instantly from the look on his face that he hadn't known about Trip's little surprise and, while laughing merrily, she'd also felt her worries abate. If they were this relaxed, teasing the captain inadvertently, then she too could relax.

Hoshi had later confided in her that it had been an idea cooked up by Travis and, surprise-surprise, Trip. Sort of a ‘‘welcome to the gang'' joke for them. Besides, Trip had reasoned, if she'd found it too uncomfortable to try and share that slab Starfleet called a bed with Archer then she might stop visiting and that'd put him in a foul mood. So, they could justify the joke as being a morale booster for the entire crew. After all, happy captain, happy crew. Personally, Charisma suspected it was Trip's way of living vicariously through his old friend. For all his talk, she'd only heard of that incident with the alien pregnancy thing but other than that . . . on a ship of less than a hundred, he really didn't have much luck. But then, on a ship of less than a hundred a romance wasn't exactly a good idea. If things went sour, there wasn't a lot of space to avoid them.

It was a fact that she enjoyed teasing him on mercilessly. In his typical fashion, Trip endured the teasing with a good-natured chuckle and gave back just as good as he got. It had become a habit for them. She enjoyed the spirit of camaraderie that the Enterprise crew had surrounded themselves with. It was, in some ways, more relaxed than the atmosphere of her own ship. She suspected that had largely to do with who captained each ship. She'd always maintained a certain degree of distance from her crew, a habit she'd learned from her father. It was the way he dealt with his crew and it was the way she dealt with hers. They respected and admired her and she them but there was a distance. She found it to be a help in command decisions but, the more she watched Jonathan interact with his crew and saw how they responded, she'd begun to question if it was the right kind of help.

Charisma knew her style of command differed from Jon's and always would. What worked for her might not necessarily work for him and vice versa but she also knew that a captain who didn't grow and change in their commands over time was a captain who didn't belong in space anymore. Space didn't remain constant in its environment thus a captain had to learn to be flexible as well.

She smiled and yawned. Loving Jonathan Archer had definitely taught her a few things . . . and that list only grew as time passed.

They hadn't been together long but she already knew that no matter how long they were together . . . it would never be dull to be the Captain's lady. Never.

 

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