He kept his promise [Melantha Hastings - History Pt 6]

Posted on Wed Oct 21st, 2026 @ 12:56am by Ensign Melantha Hastings

1,418 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Younger Years
Location: Hastings Estate
Timeline: August 2393

The shuttle descended silently over Berkshire countryside bathed in late summer sunlight. Melantha hated it immediately. Not because of the shuttle itself. Though she still had not grown accustomed to the impossible reality of flight without engines, without vibration, without weight shifting beneath her body the way aircraft were supposed to behave.

No.

What unsettled her was the view. Everything below looked wrong. And yet—
Familiar enough to hurt. She sat rigidly near the viewport while Doctor Amelia Renwick occupied the opposite seat, wisely choosing silence over conversation.
For nearly six weeks the doctor had remained a near constant presence in her life.

Medical rehabilitation.

Psychological evaluation.

Historical orientation sessions.

Endless explanations.

Endless new information.

Endless reminders that everything she had ever known had ceased existing before anyone in this century had been born. And now—

This. The return home. Except home no longer existed either. Doctor Renwick glanced toward the viewport.

“The estate grounds survived better than most of southern England.”

Mel said nothing. Outside the shuttle window, green countryside stretched endlessly toward the horizon. Beautiful. Peaceful. Wrong. No military checkpoints. No burned vehicles abandoned beside country roads. No low-flying Royal Air Force patrol craft crossing cloud cover. No ration queues. No distant sound of civil defense sirens. The world looked… safe. For the first time since waking, Mel understood something unbearable. Humanity had won. Whatever horrors had followed the Eugenics Wars. Whatever came after. Whatever destroyed the world she knew. Humanity had survived long enough to build this. A peaceful Earth. A healed Earth. A world her father would never see. The thought struck harder than expected. She looked away from the viewport. The shuttle banked gently.

Doctor Renwick spoke quietly. “We are approaching now.”

Mel turned instinctively. And forgot how to breathe. The estate still stood. Not exactly. Not perfectly. But enough. Enough to shatter something deep inside her chest. Hastings Manor rose from the Berkshire countryside exactly where memory said it should. The same broad limestone facade. The same eastern gardens stretching toward old woodland.

The same curved carriage drive winding through front lawns. The same southern terrace overlooking fields that had belonged to the Hastings family for centuries. Except— Different. Solar collection arrays integrated seamlessly across portions of the western roofline. Sections of reconstruction visible where stone color no longer perfectly matched original architecture. Portions of the east wing redesigned entirely in modern architectural materials smooth enough to reflect sunlight like water. Time had touched everything. And yet— It was still home. Her throat tightened painfully. The shuttle settled silently upon the front drive. The doors opened. Warm August air flooded inward.

Real summer air. Earth summer. The scent struck immediately. Fresh-cut grass.
Lavender from the eastern gardens. Warm stone heating beneath afternoon sun. For one impossible moment— She was nine years old again.

Cornwall. Books. Sea wind. Her father laughing somewhere nearby. Then reality returned. She stepped down onto the estate drive. And her knees nearly buckled. our centuries. Four hundred years. She had come home. But home had moved on without her. The main entrance doors opened automatically. That startled her badly.

Doctor Renwick noticed. Said nothing. Inside— The entrance hall remained devastatingly familiar. The grand staircase still curved upward exactly as she remembered. Black and white marble flooring polished to impossible perfection.

The old chandelier gone now, replaced by a suspended lighting system somehow imitating candlelight despite no visible flame. Portraits still lined the walls. Hundreds of years of Hastings history. Generations watching silently from gilded frames. Marquesses. Marchionesses. Military officers. Parliamentarians. Women in impossibly elaborate eighteenth century gowns. Victorian children posed stiffly beside hunting dogs. Faces she had spent childhood memorizing.

And then— Faces she did not know. Dozens. Hundreds. Generations born after she had closed her eyes. Children who became adults. Adults who grew old.
Lives lived entirely while she slept beneath them. She moved slowly. One portrait caught her attention. A young man in Royal Navy dress uniform. Dark hair. Confident smile. Too familiar. She stepped closer. The inscription beneath the frame shimmered softly under integrated display lighting.

Lord Robert Hastings
1969 – 1995
Beloved Son of Hastings Manor
Lost During The Eugenics Conflict

Mel reached out instinctively. Her fingers brushed cold glass. Robert. Still twenty-six forever. The same age he had been when the letter arrived.

The hallway blurred. And there, beside him, a painting of a young woman, in a dark green gown. Herself at 18. Her mother had insisted.

She pulled her hand back sharply. Doctor Renwick moved slightly closer. Not touching. Just present.

Mel forced herself forward. Room after room. The library. Still there.
Larger somehow. Modernized. The west drawing room. Changed furniture.
Different art. Still recognizable. The dining room. Exactly where the argument happened. The final family dinner.

"You are not going."

"I was not asking permission."

She stopped abruptly. Breathing shallow now. “Where is the crypt?”

Doctor Renwick hesitated. Then nodded toward the rear corridor.

“This way.” The walk felt endless.

The old chapel still stood attached to the western side of the estate exactly as memory preserved it. Stone older than the manor itself. Generations buried beneath. The interior remained cool despite summer heat outside. Ancient stained glass filtered colored light across polished floor tiles.

At the far rear— Stone stairs descending underground. Mel recognized them immediately. Except— They had never mattered before. Now they mattered more than anything. She descended slowly. One hand trailing against cold stone walls.

Below— The family crypt opened into silence. Rows of carved memorial alcoves lined the walls. Centuries of Hastings history reduced to names.
Birth dates. Death dates. Nothing more.

She moved carefully. Reading. Generation after generation. Names she had never heard. Lives she never lived beside. And then—

She saw it.

Centered against the far wall. Simple white stone. Uncomplicated.

Elegant. His. She stepped closer. The inscription had been preserved exactly as twentieth century family tradition dictated.

Edward William Hastings
15th Marquess of Hastings
1942 – 2027

Nothing moved. Nothing existed. The world narrowed to carved stone beneath trembling fingers. Nineteen ninety-six.

He froze her. Twenty twenty-seven. Thirty-one years. Thirty-one years he had lived after promising—

"I will be here when you wake."

Thirty-one years trying to save her. Thirty-one years maintaining hope medicine would advance. Thirty-one years believing one day his daughter would return.

And then— He died never knowing if she survived.

A second plaque beside his. She turned. Read.

Sarah Elizabeth Hastings
Marchioness of Hastings
1945 – 2031

Mother. Gone. Then further along— James. Oliver. Robert -Just a plaque for him.

More names. Children. Grandchildren. Great-grandchildren. Entire bloodlines unfolding through history while she remained motionless beneath them all.

And behind the memorial wall— Barely visible now— The concealed preservation chamber entrance. The place where she had slept. Four hundred years. Protected by people she never met. Maintained by generations carrying responsibility for a woman who slowly stopped being family… And became obligation.

Her knees gave way. The sound echoed softly through the crypt. Doctor Renwick moved instinctively— Stopped when she saw the first tear.

Mel sat on the stone floor staring upward at her father’s memorial. Trying desperately to breathe. Trying desperately not to understand. And then—
The grief arrived. Not delicate. Not quiet. Four centuries of absence collapsing inward all at once.

The tears came violently now. Her hands shook uncontrollably. Her chest physically hurt. And for the first time since waking in London— Melantha Kara Hastings finally stopped pretending she could endure this. She leaned forward against cold stone and wept. For Robert. For Sarah. For James. For Oliver. For the generations who kept her alive. For the world she lost.

For history itself. And finally— For one man who had loved her enough to fight time itself for thirty-one years. Her father. Edward Hastings. The fifteenth Marquess. Who had promised—

I will be here when you wake.

And had spent the remainder of his life doing everything humanly possible to make that promise true. Even knowing he would never live long enough to see it. Above the crypt— Summer sunlight bathed Berkshire in warm golden light.
Birdsong drifted through open chapel windows. The estate lived on.

Earth lived on. Humanity had survived. Everything had moved forward. Everything except her. And kneeling alone among four centuries of dead family members— Mel finally understood the terrible truth. She had not merely lost her family. She had lost an entire existence. And no amount of future medicine could ever give that back.


==

Ensign Melantha Hastings
Counselor
USS Tokyo

 

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