Maybe not as good as "Yesterday's Enterprise" or "Children of Time" but still pretty good. Candle. An elf visits agedT'Pol. (Hey, Future Guy! But naaah.) They talk probe this, vortex that, and bad happenings before. agedT'Pol tells him to find Jonathan Archer. Candles. A satyr visits T'Pol, still with a smudge on his face. She explains their sexual exploration as no prelude to romance but he's still ready. Reed suggests sensor tricks as NX-01 heads into the ominebulous and Degra's shortcut. Then another NX ship (not -02 Columbia) appears, blocking their path. The elf, Lorian, orders Archer to alter course.

Conferencing beneath his docked threadbare ship, Lorian explains NX-01 was attacked and hit the shortcut wrong, taking a one way trip back over a century. (Shown in shaky-vision flashback.) Flying around they traded for provisions, mated with aliens, and waited to intercept NX-01 with an alternate route and nitrous-pack. Phlox confirms the joking Vulcan's genetic ancestors as Trip and T'Pol; Trip makes honeymoon plans. In a funny but awkward mess scene Hoshi and Travis swap happy family stories only to crash into the unceremonious end of Malcolm's.

Archer tours NX-101 guided by his great granddaughter, Karen. agedT'Pol gives him a padd for T'Pol that details how the nitrous-pack won't work. Archer decides to return to the shortcut. Lorian stops him by assaulting NX-01 exactly like his father in "Damage" (with the priceless addition of Trip getting stunned). The ships undock and stupidly start shooting each other. Archer beams parts of Lorian's ship out (no, really! stop laughing) and NX-101 mutinies at the thought of destroying their ancestors. (You'd think that "sit down and think this out" would occur to them before a senseless fight.)

Archer throws Lorian in the brig then dramatically releases him. Lorian feels he let agedArcher down by not ramming NX-101 into the Death Xtar when he had the chance. T'Pol and agedT'Pol share some tea and an isomagnetic collector for residual particles to stabilize their trip. She delivers the same "never fully recover, embrace your emotions" line we've been fed at least three time now. (We've got it!) Archer and Lorian use foreknowledge to fool their attackers and mount a savage counter-attack. Then the stolen warp coil goes out and NX-01 has to catch an emergency tractor from NX-101 (that remains behind and is presumably destroyed). Once through the vortex Mayweather assures us the stars are all right (always trust Travis!) and T'Pol and Archer wonder how they remember the other Enterprise if it never existed.