Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount. No infringement intended.

OCs: Em Gomez borrowed by kind permission of Chrysa, Bernhard Muller by kind permission of Volley.

Beta'd by VesperRegina, to whom all due thanks!

Author's Note: This story doesn't fit in precisely with 'Expiation', though it would precede it. It's an exploration of an aspect of the aftermath that the episode unfortunately didn't have time to pursue.

"The Klingon shuttle's requesting permission to dock, Commander." Hoshi looked across at T'Pol.

"Permission granted. Please arrange for a security team to be present when they arrive. I shall await them at the port docking station." The Vulcan slipped gracefully from the Science station; even though she'd been nominally in charge of the ship, she rarely sat in the captain's chair except in moments of crisis. Seconds later she entered the turbo-lift and was lost to view.

The order regarding the security team would normally have been given to the officer seated at the Tactical station, but Malcolm sat mute, carefully giving no sign that he noticed the omission, although he was aware of several covert glances in his direction. He was now the senior officer on the Bridge, and although the command had not been formally turned over to him, the responsibility was in his hands.

He was, indeed, thankful not to have been included in the welcoming party for the returning lost sheep. He knew that a celebration would almost certainly be in order to mark Phlox's safe recovery, though it would probably have to wait for a day or two – apparently the doctor had been subjected to some rather rough treatment at his captors' hands, and would need a little time to rest and recover from his ordeal before he was once again his usual highly-sociable self. And celebrations of any sort would be quite inappropriate anyway until the ship was restored to full capacity and had put a very long distance between her and the limits of Klingon space.

The thought of what ill-usage the kindly Denobulan had been forced to endure among the Klingons sent twin waves of fury and remorse surging through the tactical officer. His own complicity in this was inescapable; if he hadn't delayed the ship, obeying the orders of his old superior in the Section, things might have been very different. Harris had assured him that Phlox would be safe, and that the stability of the Empire was important for Earth's safety; he hadn't been all that concerned about all the lives that Harris said were at risk (the ship's previous encounters with Klingons had never engendered any warmth of feeling towards them), but the old habit of obedience had been too strong. Foolishly, he'd allowed himself to be talked into trusting his old handler and deceiving his present captain, and into a series of actions that could fall under no lesser heading than treason.

Treason. For God's sake. He shut his eyes momentarily, reliving the agony yet again. He must have been stark, staring mad. The shades of generations of loyal Reeds rose up to accuse him. His reasons felt like excuses, and they were nowhere near good enough. The pardon – if not exactly forgiveness – that Captain Archer had finally offered him had only exacerbated his shame; how many men would overlook such a heinous betrayal by one of their most senior officers? He'd looked his commanding officer straight in the face and lied. Lied through his teeth, to a man he both liked and respected, fighting to justify his actions even to himself and knowing even then that nothing, nothing could possibly do so.

But facing Archer in the Brig afterwards, as excruciating as it had been, was nothing to what it was going to be like facing Phlox.

He watched the readings that told him the Klingon shuttle had docked. Three life-signs came on board: one Human, one Denobulan and one – he frowned – Klingon. The shuttle did not immediately disengage, as he'd expected. Presumably it was waiting for the unexpected visitor to discharge whatever business had necessitated accompanying the captain and the ship's doctor. Hopefully it would only be a brief visit, and the security team was in place; they'd know he'd be relying on them to keep an eye on the situation.

Uneasily he tracked the life-signs with the Klingon among them as far as Sickbay, where they were joined by others – presumably T'Pol, Trip and Captain Hernandez. Then he switched his attention to making a start on organising the Armoury staff's supporting presence on the repair teams.

Only the timely intervention of Columbia had saved Enterprise from being pulverised by the three attacking battle-cruisers, and the ship had sustained damage that it would take many days to repair fully. The harm to the ship and the injuries suffered by many of the crew were other heavy burdens on his soul; so terribly had he failed to carry out his first and foremost duty, to protect those he'd signed on to serve. The harm he'd done to his relationship with others aboard was of secondary importance, though he felt sorrow and guilt for whatever hurt they'd been caused by his betrayal. Whatever ostracism he might suffer as a result of it was well-earned, and he'd just have to endure it; hopefully their regard for him had never been high enough to give them any serious pain at its loss.

In less threatening circumstances he'd have been down there working on the repairs alongside his staff, but as things stood, he was going to stay at his post and keep an eye on those bloody battle-cruisers. Just having them watching the ship was sending shudders down his spine. Whatever Admiral Krell had told the captain, the tactical officer would remain at his post, vigilant and distrustful, until their business here was concluded and friendly stars streaked past the viewing ports again.

The sooner Enterprise was out of here, the better.

One week later

Life on board Enterprise had returned to normal, more or less.

Malcolm's fears regarding the Klingons' bad faith had proven groundless, much to his relief. Enterprise had been permitted to leave Klingon space unharmed, though two of the battle-cruisers had accompanied her to the perimeter as though seeing her safely off the premises; and thanks to a great deal of very hard work from everyone on board, the worst of the damage had been set to rights. What remained was largely cosmetic, and would be dealt with over the course of time, run in with the scheduled maintenance work that was always part of life on board ship.

His life during the intervening time had been unusually quiet.

It was fortunate for him that he had long experience of coping with solitude. For most of his life he'd been alone most of the time, self-sufficient both by choice and necessity. A circumstance which was proving invaluable, because if he'd been less inured to loneliness he'd be climbing the walls by now.

Tonight, once again, he was alone. All around him other crewmembers talked and laughed over dinner, but he sat at a table in the corner, with only his PADD for company. For all that anyone made any attempt to interact with him, he might just as well have been invisible. His meal lay in front of him, barely touched. He had no appetite; conscious that he needed to keep his strength up, he'd dutifully forked in a couple of mouthfuls, but the taste of it made him ill. He choked down the last morsel of what he'd eaten and gave up. Then he sat silently looking at his PADD, not even seeing it.

The tenor of life during duty shifts meant that people had to speak to him when necessary, even if he was acutely conscious of their varying degrees of discomfort when they did. Only T'Pol seemed to treat him much as she always had; though maybe that was more due to that famous Vulcan self-discipline than any indication of what she actually felt. At a guess, even a Vulcan would have difficulty in coming to terms with such deceit; it was a fair bet that any officer aboard a Vulcan ship who behaved the way he had done would have been dismissed without further discussion.

Travis – bless him – had made efforts to try to act as though nothing had happened. He'd even come and sat beside the pariah in the Mess Hall one lunchtime, and talked about an idea he'd had to improve the targeting scanners' performance. His attempt to sound absolutely normal had been hideously forced, and probably they'd been equally grateful when they had to return to the Bridge for the second half of the shift, effectively putting an end to the discussion. The subject hadn't been reopened.

Hoshi. Malcolm's thoughts shied away from her, as from a wound too deep to be touched. She avoided looking at him, and when she had to speak to him her voice was all but expressionless. He knew that she'd been involved in the discovery of his treachery; it had been all but inevitable that she would be, since her expertise as the ship's linguist would be required in the examination of the Rigelian freighter's 'black box'. He could only hope that what she felt for him was unalloyed contempt, untainted by any guilt on her own account. Unlike himself, she'd done her plain and simple duty. She had nothing to be ashamed of. On the contrary, she'd unmasked a traitor.

He'd so far forgotten himself as to develop – and, worse, reveal – completely inappropriate feelings for the ship's communications officer. The lion's share of the guilt for what had followed was undoubtedly his; as her senior officer, he should have known better. He had known better, but that hadn't stopped him. She must have been absolutely sickened by the discovery of by what manner of scum she'd been duped. No wonder she couldn't bear to look at him. It must be almost more than she could bear to breathe the same air when they had to work opposite one another on the Bridge.

His periods of duty in the Armoury were almost comfortable by comparison. His staff had obviously heard some garbled version of what had happened; the rumour mill aboard Enterprise must almost have burst into flames the day the ship's head of security was thrown into his own brig. Bernhard, his beta shift deputy, took refuge in excessive efficiency, leading the rest of the team in trying to almost anticipate his every whim, almost as though they'd found out he was suffering from some terrible fatal disease and they were trying to make his final days as stress-free as possible. Gamma-shift leader Em had stalked into the Armoury when she should have been asleep, and finding him quite alone had yelled at him in Spanish for at least five minutes and then thrown her arms around him and hugged him, regardless of his rigid lack of response. "I do not believe a word of this foolishness, Patrón!" she'd said, glaring at him. "But whether or not, I am not one of those who believe the impossible. I do not swing como una veleta estúpido. And I will say as much to the capitán himself, if he asks me!"

He should have told her the truth himself, in terms not even she could have continued to dispute. But in his weakness, he just couldn't. The fierce flame of her misguided loyalty was warmth in a world that was freezing him to death, and he'd stood silent as she marched back out of the Armoury, unable to do more than hope she didn't actually encounter the captain in the corridors, because in her present mood Archer would be simply incinerated if he so much as looked at her.

He'd have to tell her sooner or later, of course; and preferably very much sooner, because the prospect of a fire-fight breaking out between Captain Archer and an insubordinate ensign was too awful to contemplate. For all his tolerance, the captain had borne just about as much as he could possibly be expected to from his armoury staff. If Em kicked off at him, he'd be all too likely to lash out – particularly after having extended such extraordinary clemency towards the lieutenant who'd injured him so deeply on a personal as well as a professional level. The chances of them coming into contact were fairly remote; Em invariably went down to the Armoury at the end of her shift, checking that all was in order there before handing over to her Alpha shift 'patrón', and thus she would not ordinarily be on the Bridge when the captain arrived there. Nevertheless, there was still a risk that some unlucky chance might bring them together, and Em, furious as a lioness with a wounded cub, would not mince her words if the captain made any reference to what had happened. She would have to be told exactly what the true situation was, for her own safety.

And the captain himself?

There was too much damage there to be put right so easily. Captain Archer's attempts to act as if nothing had happened were almost as painful as Travis's had been. But where Travis had only been bewildered, Malcolm sensed with unerring accuracy that the captain was angry and bitter. God knows he wasn't to blame for that; he was no saint, and only a saint could have taken the blow that Archer had and not felt it. At a guess, the older man was taking refuge in the hope that time would mend the rift. Maybe it would, but his tactical officer was not sanguine that things were ever that simple. It might take rather more than that to put matters right. Nevertheless, for the present the only available solution was to resume his impassive, efficient mask, and become once again the unapproachable, irreproachable English iceberg at the Tactical Station.

That left only Trip.

Moodily, Malcolm stared into the depths of his half-finished tea – which, like his dinner, had gone cold.

Trip had returned from Columbia to carry out a rescue in mind-numbingly dangerous circumstances, and stayed – with Captain Hernandez's blessing – to oversee the repairs to his old ship. His presence here was only temporary, and so far he'd been so taken up with the volume of work needing his attention that he hadn't had time for less important matters like a junior officer who'd so spectacularly blotted an otherwise spotless copybook.

Maybe that was the only reason he hadn't stopped by.

Maybe, on the other hand, he'd heard all he needed to from the captain, and as a friend of Jonathan Archer from way back he'd come to his own decisions.

And who could blame him for that, if he had?

"Hey, Loo-tenant, you don't mind if I sit here?"

The voice – so apposite in the circumstances – almost made Malcolm jump out of his skin. He'd been so lost in his dark reflections that he hadn't heard Trip come in. Just as well he hadn't been eating at the time, or he'd surely have choked.

"Feel free." It wasn't as though there wasn't space. In a crowded Mess Hall, his table was conspicuous as the only one having only one person sitting at it.

Maybe that was why Trip was asking. Hobson's Choice, so to speak.

"I can't believe you had the meatloaf." The chief engineer pointed at the offending meal with his fork as he started on his pasta.

Malcolm shrugged. If a dinner had to be wasted, it had made sense to waste one that very few people were likely to want anyway.

"How are the repairs coming along?" he asked, before the silence could become uncomfortable. If nothing else, it would give Trip something to talk about.

"We're on the far side of the worst of it." Tucker glanced across at him, blue eyes very shrewd. "More'n I could say for some people I know."

"Leave it, Trip." He kept his voice low. There were far too many ears in here, and the scandal was far too recent for interest in it to have waned.

"Aw, you know me. Never could see trouble without wantin' to get in on the act." The American was obviously famished, to judge by the enthusiasm with which he shovelled down the first couple of mouthfuls of pasta, but once his initial hunger was slaked he returned to the subject at hand. Thankfully he kept his voice down too. "I've been hearin' the scuttlebutt around the ship ever since I got back. Want to tell me what really happened?"

"I'd imagine you already know most of it," Reed said shortly. He was growing increasingly concerned in case the captain walked in and found his Chief Engineer in conversation with the ship's renegade. Archer was unlikely to be pleased to find Trip in the role of sympathiser, even nominally.

"I know what's bein' said – by a load of folks who probably don't know half the story. I'd sorta like to get the facts straight before I start formin' an opinion." The shrewd blue glance flickered in his direction again. "I went to your cabin late last night, but you weren't there. You weren't in the gym either, so I figured you just didn't want anyone to find you, and I left it at that. But seein' as you're here now, I guess I'll snap a leash on your collar before you can do a runner again."

Malcolm shifted uncomfortably. He knew perfectly well that if Trip had been determined to find him the previous night, the engineer had the means and the authority to do so. The fact was that he'd been holed up in one of the more remote sections of the ship, carrying out a quite unnecessary inspection of one of the Jeffries tubes. It was as good a means as any to be invisible and incommunicado, though he'd had his communicator with him and switched on just in case of any emergency. He'd even actually done some inspecting, though it had been desultory at best. Mostly he'd just wanted to hide, Jaguar creeping away into the darkness to lick his wounds. At least there he was free of shocked stares, of curiosity and doubt and even sympathy.

"I was busy," he said at last.

"Yeah, I can guess. Busy bein' invisible."

"I don't have to hide to be that." Try as he might to keep it under control, the bitterness leached into his voice.

"Funny, I can see you just fine." Trip lowered his already quiet voice still further. "It's about time you an' I had a little heart-to-heart, Malcolm."

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