Picard tossed a travel bag onto his bed and began to pack. The entire trip would only take a couple of days at best so he didn't need much. He still didn't know if Geordi would allow him to visit and walk through the Enterprise NX-01, but he was still hopeful. Surely he would do it even if it was simply to humor an old man and his former captain. It wouldn't be the same as actually seeing her and talking to her, of course, but it would have to do. None of it would ever answer the seemingly unanswerable question. Was she still angry with him?
There were a thousand things he regretted in his life, but lashing out that afternoon while visiting Danaë at the academy was at the top of the list. He had never raised a hand to her during her entire childhood, but the scars left by the Borg (both emotional and physical) ran much deeper than he ever liked to admit, even to himself. When Danaë had pointed her finger at him and brought up the destruction he had caused as Locutus, he had acted on impulse and slapped her. It wasn't really her he had been trying to strike at really, but the memory of his actions, the guilt and pain of it all. That look of shock on her face forever etched in his memory was the last image he carried of her.
Recalling that shocked look made him pause in his packing. Perhaps it was best that they never met face to face again. The disappointment he would feel if indeed she still held resentment towards him, might be too much to bear. Not that it wasn't already. He quickly pushed the thought aside as he tossed another shirt into his bag. How many was that? Three? He probably didn't need that many, after-all, Archer IV wasn't that far away. Archer IV... Archer... Jonathan Archer... his son-in-law... the very thought made him laugh. When he would sit and imagine what sort of future his only child would have, he never imagined that one. Given her... hard-headed nature, Picard wasn't sure if such a union warranted congratulations or deepest sympathies.
Of course it wasn't just Danaë he would be visiting, but Jonathan Archer as well. They were buried side by side. At least at one time they were. There were rumors that his body had been moved to a vault beneath Starfleet Headquarters and for those conspiracy theorists there were claims he had never actually died. Picard preferred to think the two were buried together. It was a much nicer picture. Q had shown him what would become of her and he had looked up her name and learned at least a few things. He knew she was married to Archer and had children. He knew she would live long enough to become First Lady of the Federation of Planets, but that was only because he knew what date Jonathan Archer had served and what year she had died. He had tried in vain to find more records but at every turn he found nothing. It was as if someone had deliberately erased nearly all traces of her. On his grandsons there seemed to be an endless record, but not her and it saddened him.
Picard had transmitted the few files he had on Danaë to William Riker when he asked him to take him on this trip. To his former First Officer the limited nature of the files read as fabrication and he firmly believed someone was taking advantage of a sick old man. He had never known exactly what had come between father and daughter, but had been aware of the pain it had caused his friend and former captain. On those rare occasions when her name came up he couldn't help but feel pity for Jean-Luc especially after becoming a father himself. While he didn't doubt her ability or intelligence, he couldn't help but believe that she had died somewhere in her wanderings or ran off to another planet. It would easily account for her disappearance. Time-traveling to the past? Married to THE Jonathan Archer? He might have believed the time travel idea, he himself had passed back and forth through time, but the rest was too fantastic. Still, he would take his old friend to Archer IV and when he saw the stone marker with someone else's name, he would do his best to help him pick up the shattered pieces of his delusion. What else could he do?
Flying through space on the Federation cruiser 'The Ueman', the two old friends talked endlessly for the whole of the trip. They reminisced about old times, old adventures and close calls. They discussed meeting Zefram Cochran and defeating the Borg. They touched on their regrets regarding what happened to the Romulans and the help they should have received. This topic left a shadow over the two men that prematurely ended their fourth, 3-dimensional chess game, Although Picard was winning, again. Hoping to lighten the mood they got a bite to eat and moved on to a less stressful game, five card stud. Before they knew it Riker had won all the chips, their glasses were empty and they were orbiting Archer IV.
