Fanfic / And All the Stars Burned Bright

Written by RoseAndHeather for the 2011 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Big Bang challenge, And All The Stars Burned Bright is a Star Trek Fusion Fic set during the Dominion War. The action centers around the adventures of the USS Providence, a Nebula-class starship, captained by Captain Thomas Lynley, with Commander Barbara Havers as his first officer.

In 2371, Commander Barbara Havers is assigned as First Officer to the USS Providence under the command of Captain Thomas Lynley. She is from London's still-poor East End, with a chip on her shoulder, a hair-trigger temper and a sarcastic streak to match. He was schooled at Eton and Oxford and born to one of Starfleet's most legendary families, and his sense of well-meaning superiority is long-standing and unshakable.

The assignment should have been a disaster.

But against the backdrop of the rising Dominion threat, the disappearance of one of Starfleet's own, and the bloodiest war the Federation had ever faced, the Captain and the Commander will discover a bond more powerful than they had ever expected - a bond that blossoms into the love of a lifetime. As they fight for the very survival of the Alpha Quadrant, that bond will be tested to its limit. In the heat of battle, at the edge of survival, they will forge a romance that crosses all boundaries of class, family background, and first impressions - and learn that, while some partnerships are written in the stars, in the end, the only force more powerful than destiny is love.

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Tropes:

• Author Appeal: Shamelessly written first and foremost for this. The author a) loves Star Trek with a passion, b) considers Lynley/Havers her OTP of OTPs, and c) has a thing for Unequal Pairings. The result was... well, this.
• Persona Non Grata: "Banned from Argo" is actually Banned from Starfleet Academy after an unspecified incident involving a Trill standing on top of a fountain bellowing the song. Apparently, the professors got so sick of it, they banned it from campus. All this happened while Barbara was a cadet.
• Battle Couple: Several, given that this is Starfleet, including the protagonists.
• Because Destiny Says So: Why Lynley and Barbara meet, but not why they fall in love. That one's on them. Which doesn't stop it from being inevitable.

• The Cavalry: Providence, like every ship in the sector, is getting beaten to hell by the Borg in the battle of Sector 001. Then the beautiful, shiny Enterprise-E comes swooping in to save the day, much to the relief of Providence's crew.

• Command Roster: The Providence senior staff.
  • The Captain: Captain Thomas Lynley
  • Number Two: Commander Barbara Havers
  • Wrench Wench: Lt. Carly Doherty
  • The Security Officer: Lt. Cmdr. Shannon Reed
  • Communications Officer: Lt. Cmdr. Winston Nkata
  • The Scientist: Lt. Cmdr. T'Maya
  • Ace Pilot: Lt. Stephen Woodrow
  • The Heart: Dr. Jackie Kelley (also The Shrink)
  • The Medic: Dr. Stuart Lafferty
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Admiral Jeri Taylor
• Cry into Chest: Barbara cries into Woodrow's chest after the What the Hell, Hero? speech he and Lafferty give her, and into Lynley's more than once.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Barbara's little brother's death from cancer, just like in Lynley canon.

• Distant Finale: The epilogue takes place fifteen years after the end of the story proper.
• Elsewhere Fic: The Providence participates in battles that were only mentioned in Trek canon, but canon characters from all three next-gen series make an appearance, most notably Kira Nerys of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Alynna Nechayev, Katherine Pulaski, and Beverly Crusher of TNG. Kathryn Janeway of Voyager is mentioned but doesn't appear herself.
• Expy: Sarah Jane Smith makes an appearance as the captain of the USS Cochrane.
• Famed In-Story: The crew of the Enterprise.
• Fictional Document: Jake Sisko's biography of Lynley and Havers, Beyond the Farthest Star.

• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The girls of the Providence senior staff.
  • Shannon Reed (Sanguine)
  • Barbara Havers (Choleric)
  • Carly Doherty (Melancholic)
  • Jackie Kelley (Phlegmatic)
• Fusion Fic: Takes the characters of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries and integrates them into the Star Trek universe.

• Ivy League for Everyone: Except Barbara, which contributes quite heavily to her inferiority complex.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Shannon, Carly, and Barbara come over all star-struck when they meet Beverly Crusher of the USS Enterprise, with the ship and its crew generally being treated like Starfleet's best by all the story's main characters.
• Like Brother and Sister: Thomas Lynley and Kathryn Janeway. Lynley explicitly calls Kathryn "as much his sister as Judith", Judith being his full blood sibling.
• Love at First Sight: Shannon and Carly, in their backstory. Lynley and Barbara zig-zag it; what they feel the minute they lay eyes on each other is not love at first sight, but the potential for love, plus the Red String of Fate. Barbara's reaction is approximately, "Oh dear God, anyone but him." They make a point to reassure each other later on that, yes, they'd still love each other if Destiny had kept its meddling nose out of the whole business.

• Mythology Gag:
  • Dr. Jackie Kelley's name is a reference to the original Dr. McCoy, Jackson DeForest Kelley.
  • Barbara's mother is mentioned to have been of Clan Murray. Barbara Havers was first played onscreen by Sharon Small — and "Small" is a sub-family of Clan Murray. Incidentally, the author picked Clan Murray because its tartan went well with Command red, and only discovered the connection upon further research. She said of the incident, "Somebody really wanted me to write this fic."
• Narrative Profanity Filter: "...Barbara rather graphically suggested several places Starfleet Command could shove their lack of a rescue mission, most of which were not only anatomically impossible but also absolutely disgusting.... [and] followed this up by giving the admiral a lurid and inventive account of said admiral’s probable ancestors, not a one of which seemed to belong to any sentient or even remotely attractive species in the known reaches of the galaxy."
• Noodle Incident: We never do find out what Barbara did to get herself transferred to a cargo transport. This is deliberate.
• No Seatbelts: Lampshaded by Barbara, who twists her ankle when she's sent flying mid-battle and grumpily thinks that she's going to demand to have them installed.

• Put on a Bus: Barbara's cat Shadow is mentioned as having been sent to stay with Barbara's mentor, Alynna Nechayev, at the beginning of the war, and doesn't reappear onscreen again (though her eventual fate is detailed in the epilogue — she lived long enough to see the end of the War and reunite with Barbara before dying of old age).
• Red String of Fate: Lampshaded by Barbara, who points out that while Destiny can bring them together time after time, it can't make them fall in love with each other - that one has to be all them.
• Reincarnation Romance: Played with. As they have in every life they've ever lived, Barbara Havers and Thomas Lynley just can't help falling in love with each other. In this story, however, they're specifically stated to have met (and loved) in other universes, not other lifetimes in the same universe.

• She Cleans Up Nicely: There's a Starfleet event. Barbara wears Highland dress. This trope ensues - as does hilarity, courtesy of Stephen Woodrow.

• "Shut Up" Kiss: Lynley's response to Barbara's Anguished Declaration of Love is to snog the living daylights out of her. While she's still talking.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: The main plot of the story ends with the crew of the Providence going their separate ways - Shannon and Carly take posts at Research&Development, Woodrow and Jackie are promoted to a different ship, and T'Maya and Sonak return to the Vulcan Science Academy. This is driven largely by Nkata's death. Word of God, however, states that they do keep in touch.
• Third-Act Misunderstanding: Despite the genre, deliberately averted by the author, with the climax instead being tied to the ongoing Dominion War. While Barbara and Lynley's relationship has its ups and downs, once they commit, they commit, and nothing ever shakes this.
• True Companions: Lynley explicitly calls the Dominion War-era crew of Providence his family.
• Tsundere: Barbara, summed up quite neatly by the first sentence of her Anguished Declaration.
  Barbara: ...I'm in love with you, you bloody idiot!
• Unequal Pairing: Rank-wise, as Lynley is a captain and Barbara his first officer.

• What the Hell, Hero?: Characters pull this on each other from time to time. Probably the most notable is Woodrow and Lafferty's to Barbara when love makes her temporarily insane.

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