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Beta'd by MizJoely and BookQ36, to whom all due thanks as always!

OC Ensign Jean Olenick used by kind permission of BookQ36.

"…Ensign Sato is a friend…."

The hiss of a hypospray sounded in his ear, and the world came back to Major Hayes with a clarity it had lost since the fizzing sensation that told him Enterprise had finally managed to get a lock on his bio-sign with the transporter. Unfortunately, that hadn't been the only sensation he'd felt in those last seconds on board the Xindi Reptilian ship.

The other had been a white-hot agony that had exploded in the middle of his chest as he was hit by the last two shots in the fire-fight in the corridor. It vanished briefly during transport, but as he rematerialized on the pad it hit him again, driving him to his knees as his scorched and partly fused lungs fought to draw breath.

Fortunately the distance to Sickbay was short, though the pain that racked him as he was half helped and half carried there had made it feel like fifty kilometers. The double doors hissed open to show him an area already containing casualties, though he immediately looked for Ensign Sato and was comforted by the observation that she was among those being treated; at least that meant she was still alive. He hadn't had time for more than the most cursory inspection of her on board the Xindi ship, but he'd taken in her ghastly pallor and the ugly marks on her forehead, and she'd been a dead weight across his shoulder as he'd carried her back to the beam-in point.

They'd laid him gently on a spare biobed and run a scanner over him. It didn't tell them anything he didn't already know. The hypospray would contain powerful analgesics, nothing much else. He sighed gratitude as they flushed into his bloodstream and hit his brain; the pain didn't go away completely, but it became something he could deal with.

At a guess, he hadn't much time left. Considering he'd taken two hits, he was lucky to be alive at all – if 'lucky' was the word, he thought, glancing ruefully down at his scorched and blasted chest. Drawing breath was getting harder and harder; his pulse was laboring.

He wasn't going to live long enough to take farewells of his team. Besides, seeing him this way would be bad for morale. Best leave things as they were.

One of the Fleeter medics gave him a sip of water, just enough to wet his mouth. He accepted it gratefully and looked up at her. "Could you do me a favor, Ensign?"

She was pretty. A bit disheveled, but holding herself together well. "I thought you'd never ask, Major."

He produced a grin. "My wife'll never find out." He didn't have a wife, not even a steady girlfriend, but it made the repartee racier and it was a good way to go out. "Can you contact Lieutenant Reed for me?"

"Now that would be a night to remember." She patted his arm and stepped to the comm panel. The doctor paused in his toil on the patient in the next bed, glanced at the readout above the major's head and at the blast wounds, and resumed work, for once without a smile.

The familiar English voice answered the hail. "Reed."

"Lieutenant, it's Ensign Olenick. Would you have time to come down to sickbay?" A glance. "In the next couple of minutes?"

The slightest pause. The major was familiar enough by now with the sensations and noises of the ship around him to know that they'd been giving fire to something, so the head of Tactical would have his hands full. It had gone quiet a couple of minutes ago, though. Maybe the lieutenant might sense the urgency; maybe he might snatch the time.

He thought back through the days and weeks since he'd come on board, the head of a team of professionals brought in (as he saw it then) to put backbone into a bunch of amateurs. Reed had taken offense instantly, exactly as he'd have done himself if he'd been in his place. Almost from the word go they'd goaded each other unmercifully – right up to the point where the simmering animosity had finally exploded into a bloody brawl that had landed them both on the carpet in the captain's ready room, where they found out that the ordinarily tolerant Archer had a tongue on him that could tear strips off duranium plating.

But during the course of that brawl, something had come to light that had weighed on his conscience ever since. An injustice, perpetrated years ago on a stranger on the strength of an accusation he'd now discovered – to his genuine horror – to be unfounded.

Whatever problems he had with Reed, none of them were with his honesty. He still didn't know how the lieutenant had recognized him, but there was no possibility of denial.

Up till that point, he was absolutely certain that Reed hadn't known. He himself hadn't, had never connected the uptight Brit with the unknown, smug Starfleet officer who'd so badly needed a lesson in chivalric behavior back then.

As the situation had been presented to him, he could either control the delivery of the appropriate lesson or let it go on and get out of hand – because his fellows had got it into their heads that a lady's wrongs should not go unavenged. He was all too aware of how easily an ugly incident can escalate. So it had made sense on all fronts for him to go along.

He hadn't relished it, but he had a strong sense of justice. If he'd felt any sympathy for the slight figure taking a well-earned battering, he'd suffocated it with the hope that it would teach him better manners next time. He'd been on the verge of putting a stop to it anyway when the affair was so unexpectedly interrupted, and afterwards he'd felt nothing much except satisfaction that his team had carried out the assignment and got out without a hitch. The four other guys had derived enormous pleasure from the affair, though for some reason they became extraordinarily accident-prone after it and had each ended up in hospital for some injury or other. It seemed remarkably coincidental, but try as he might he couldn't establish any causal link between the accidents they fell into. He himself had walked on eggshells for a couple of months, but nothing out of the way had happened to him – a lack which had finally convinced him that what had happened to the others must, after all, have been sheer coincidence.

After all these years, to be recognized by the recipient of that 'lesson' had been staggering. But not nearly as staggering as the discovery that he'd presided over the punishment of an innocent man who didn't even know what he was being punished for.

It was evident that the incident had had far more serious consequences for Reed's life than a few days in the hospital. The bitterness that had exploded out of him was testament to that. It was also clear that the man had never got over what had been done to him, and that whatever had happened to him as a result of it had been past any forgiveness.

Hayes was a realist. He could recognize when there was no point in pursuit, and any attempt to bring up the subject again would be worse than futile, would be seen as insulting. Nevertheless, although he was far too disciplined to allow it to have any influence on their professional relationship and they certainly had no personal relationship – off duty, the lieutenant had always avoided him like the plague – the matter haunted him. Somehow he must make amends, or die with it still on his conscience.

Reed, too, was a professional. He never alluded to the subject again. Their interactions were no different to what they'd been before. It was just that now and again the major caught a glimpse of that smoldering, implacable hatred in the gray eyes, a glimpse that both chilled and reproached him.

Archer had his crew well drilled. They took their cue from him that the mission was everything. In the service of the mission, personal grudges took a back step and stayed there. Even when Reed and he clashed, it was because they simply saw the service of the mission differently.

So perhaps it was just the service of the mission that had driven the lieutenant to put him in charge of the rescue of Ensign Sato. And perhaps it was because – given the fact that as Head of Tactical he wasn't in a position to lead the rescue mission himself – he wanted to give it to someone who had the best of all reasons to succeed in it.

Nothing is stronger than love, but sometimes the chance to redeem lost honor comes damn close.

He'd been drifting; Ensign Taylor had closed the comm link and gone somewhere else. If there had been any reply, he hadn't heard it. Phlox was standing over him instead, passing a med-scanner over his chest.

"Ready for duty, Doc." He had to concentrate hard to produce a grin as he said it, that familiar dauntless MACO grin.

"Of course, Major." The Denobulan smiled gently. "You have always been an invaluable member of the crew."

"My pleasure, sir."

Then the doors hissed open. A blue uniform with two rank pips and maroon piping. A narrow, tired face under dark hair for once a little less than immaculate, as though his fingers had rumpled it in frustration as success slipped from his grasp.

Hayes watched the gray gaze fix and widen. The last time they'd stood face to face Reed had given him the command of the boarding party that was to be sent to the rescue of Ensign Sato. That sense of being finally on the brink of comradeship with the man had warred with an instinctive wariness, the memory of too many exchanges of fire in their own sorry little war, the uncertainty of what the lieutenant was thinking behind those slate-colored eyes. And as if that terrible injustice all those years ago hadn't been enough, the memory of Hawkins's death now stood between them too, the corporal who'd died on an away mission under Reed's command. Ugly as the thought was, it had been almost impossible not to wonder in the circumstances if the Starfleet officer had done everything – absolutely everything – possible to protect a man who hadn't after all been one of his own. Who owed allegiance to the man who'd presided over what had happened back there in the dark alley….

But somehow, and even now he wasn't sure how it had happened, they had connected. Even at this point the Englishman hadn't been able to unbend, couldn't admit to human frailty. "Ensign Sato is a friend." Yeah, and I'm the President of United Earth. But they'd understood one another, right enough. It was obvious that in entrusting this rescue to him the lieutenant was placing in his hands the fate of a woman for whom he cared very deeply, whether he could admit to it or not. In the same stiff and awkward manner, Reed had offered an apology for his part in the war that both of them had prosecuted with equal glee and malice – Starfleet against MACO, crew against outsider, amateur against professional; the latest round in the long rivalry between 'squids' and 'sharks.' At what point the chasm had finally closed and the war become unnecessary, neither of could have said; but the look of relief had been unmistakable when Hayes had finally put into words what he'd felt for a while, that now they were all part of the same crew, regardless of their uniform.

They hadn't mentioned the other thing. But it had been in both their minds.

"Doctor?" The lieutenant must be able to see the damage for himself, but he instinctively looked towards the expert.

"I told him I was ready for duty." It was better – it was essential – to keep things light.

The faint movement of a swallow. "I'm afraid he's a bit of a mother hen."

Hayes glanced up at Phlox. The room was beginning to fade out, and he needed to know. "How's Ensign Sato?"

"Her biosigns are stable," the doctor replied gravely.

"Thank you for bringing her home." The English voice was low.

Lieutenant and major shared a long look, in which much was said that could never be uttered. A burden rolled from Hayes's shoulders. He could leave with that off his soul, at least.

"All in a day's work." Now that was done, the major drew on the last of his failing strength. "Use McKenzie."

"What?" He understood, he had to understand, but he was fending off the knowledge. Under all that British reserve, even Malcolm Reed had had all the grief he could bear.

"She knows the team. Rely on her." Suddenly the pain was crashing back, worse than it had been, different, crushing.

"No more of that talk. That's an order!"

His last thought was that a MACO should never disobey a direct command from a superior officer.

The paddles fought their brief, savage, useless battle. Phlox already knew the effort was hopeless, but he made it anyway.

Reed stood beside the biobed, silent and stunned. Briefly his head turned and his gaze took in the damage the Reptilians had inflicted on Ensign Sato, the livid puncture marks at her temples and the way exhaustion and fear had left marks like bruises under her eyes.

The Denobulan watched him carefully, without making it too obvious.

For long moments the gray eyes were empty, analytical, considering. Then, slowly, they filled up with hell.

Phlox was not overly imaginative; few members of his species were. But just for a few seconds, he would not have been wholly surprised if Lieutenant Reed had lifted his head and snarled.

Without another word the Englishman turned and walked out of sickbay.

Someone was going to pay.

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