Disclaimer: I do not own the characters depicted in Star Trek: Enterprise, and I'm not making any money off this story.
Archive: Yes please, if you want to, but please contact me.
Spoilers: General season 3.
A/N: Italics is Archer, normal font is Trip.
Peace. It's all I've wanted for the past year. Peace from the demons that haunt my sleep, the demons that tore my world asunder, leaving a jagged gaping hole in its soul.
Peace from the madness about me, the madness in me, the desire to tear other people apart in the hope that they might understand.
Might know someway back out of the perpetual twilight I'm living in.
Everything in shadow, nothing distinct except for the harshness within.
Dreading nightfall.
Never seeing the beginning of a new day. The blackness all around, inside.
Life continuing, but a life without the innocence we once knew.
Life without life. A shadow of what we once were.
Life with only one reason for living, a reason that should never be the only one.
A life alone, isolated, lost, never known whether you'll be found.
Still trying to live the facade, knowing that you are cracked, shattered, naked to the world.
Keeping your anger close and your despair closer.
Trying to fool yourself that you're no different than anyone else, that she was no different than anyone else.
Not sure whether you'll ever crawl out of the pit you've dropped yourself in, whether you can go back.
To being innocent. To being what I was, what others want to see.
To being able to respect yourself, to trust yourself, to believe yourself human.
To not relying on others to piece me back together when I've fallen apart.
To let anyone close, to see what I've become.
A shadow.
A monster inhabiting my form.
Living in the hope that it was all a dream.
That someone will come and lift me from this place.
Help me surface from my despair.
Push against the undertow.
And reach for the light.
Of a new day.
The sun rising.
Light touching my face.
Melting the fear that rests in my heart.
The frost that rests on my soul.
Freeing me from the demon that was suffocating me.
Turning me to stone.
Able to laugh without feeling guilty.
To look at myself in the mirror without seeing a stranger.
To see the love and life around me.
To look at the people around me without seeing their deaths in their eyes.
I've begun to surface.
To know that I'm worthy to be here.
Able to see the light.
That they don't see me for what I am.
To feel again.
A man no longer a man.
To live again.
Waiting for someone to drag me up out of this lonely hole I've created for myself.
I just wish I had the strength.
For them to hear my silent cry for help.
To break the shackles that bind him.
To see that bit of humanity that lies lost within.
To drag him into the light, give him the peace he craves.
Buried.
Without being dragged back under myself.
Hidden under the horror of the last year.
Would we have twice the strength.
Screaming for release.
To find the peace.
Crying for life.
Will we ever have it.
Begging for peace.
If I don't try?