Author Notes: This started off as my contribution to Drown Malcolm Month 2007, and then kina mutated into something more. It's quite depressive, sorry about that. I will try for something happy...one day :)! Hope you like it!

Drown into Yesterday

It all seemed so surreal. One minute it was fine, the next it was all wrong. But there was never enough time to absorb it all. It was so close to the speech and all the official crap that they all just kept going on in a daze. There was never enough time to crash and burn. No time to accept. It just wasn't right. But then, when had it ever been right?

He knew why it felt wrong. It wasn't just because it was someone who had always seemed so invincible, so untouchable - it was because they had all thought it was over. They had all thought that they were safe, that after all those years, they had made it through together. But they hadn't.

Malcolm closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and then released it slowly before reopening his eyes to gaze at the water below him. He watched the contents of the academy swimming pool sit still, like glass, the blue liquid reflecting the dim night lights that shone out from the dark corners of the clinical room. He blinked. The water seemed so surreal, just sitting there. It seemed so...dead. So unmoving that it could never be alive. Fitting, really.

Stand out on the edge of the Earth.

Malcolm raised his arms to make them level with his shoulders, closing his eyes once more. And then he just let himself fall.

Warm air was replaced by rushing water. But it was quiet, so quiet. A new world. No longer empty.

He dived to the bottom, and then kicked off from the tiles, which were now dancing with the rippling light of the disturbed water above. Alive once more.

Here there was no need to think. No need to put on a smile. No dignitaries. No superiors. No-one who didn't know what the hell it was actually like.

It was strange how the water had always used to seem so ominous. Back then. At the beginning.

But then, so had many things.

Malcolm broke through the surface, and began treading water, letting his fingers run through the surrounding body of water calmly, his mind blank.

"So much for aquaphobia." The voice was calm, slightly rough from overuse, breaking through the half-world of the water.

Malcolm turned in the water, to look for the owner of the voice, already knowing who it belonged to. Sure enough, the man who had formerly been his captain, and would likely be once again when they all got their new placements, was standing leaning against the tiles, fully clothed. Malcolm didn't reply, merely regarded the man with stormy eyes. Archer didn't look like the same man. Clad in worn, old jeans, and a faded t-shirt, with a five o'clock shadow gracing his face, he looked older than his years, "Travis told me you would be here. I thought he meant you'd be at the gym, not the pool."

Malcolm shrugged, as well as he could while still treading water, "He helped me." There was no need to say who, "He loved the water, and got really annoyed when I kept turning him down on shore leave. When I told him the truth, he helped me. In the end, he was right. The water is calming."

Jonathan nodded absently, "Yeah, he helped with a lot of things."

Malcolm nodded. "I haven't seen you since the auditorium." An unspoken question.

"I think we've all just been sorting ourselves out since we got back." Malcolm gave Archer a crooked smile. Nice phraseology. Jon continued, "Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you were coming tomorrow, for, you know, the ceremony."

Malcolm did know. He knew because none of them had actually been able to come right out and say it yet. Because they could never believe it was actually happening. Because every time they tried to accept it, the words just got stuck in their throats. He also knew that what Archer had said was a downright lie. It was 3am for god's sake. He didn't say anything though. "I am."

Jon nodded absently, "I'll leave you to your swimming then."

Malcolm tilted his head, "I think Hoshi is still awake." He knew she was. She'd had insomnia since they had got home. And not because of any time differences.

Archer nodded, "I might go and check she knows about it then. Night Malcolm."

"G'night sir." He watched Jon leave, still treading water long after the echoes of the footsteps had gone.

They weren't coping. That was a downright lie.

They were drowning, every damn one of them.

Jon had kept it together up to the official ceremony in the auditorium, but there was only so long he could hide himself to protect his crew.

T'Pol had fallen so far into her Vulcan ways that they were going to need to wrench her back to them.

Travis was the quietest Malcolm had ever seen him. Any jokes were forced.

Hoshi didn't sleep. She isolated herself.

And Phlox probably hurt so much from smiling in an attempt to keep them all in one piece.

Malcolm dived back under, allowing the water to mute the real world once more, drowning reality.

Everything that he built, that his smiles and optimism kept going, was falling apart at the seams.

They were falling, drowning, using any means possible to stay afloat.

It should have ended happily. They were meant to have made it through.

But it didn't. They didn't.

Trip didn't.

FIN

Author Notes: Please let me know what you think! It's quite short, and I wasn't really sure how to end it, but I hope it turned out okay. I've never tried writing the Malcolm from TATV before.