''No one knows what it's like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you"
Malcolm shivered as he walked down the mental ward of the hospital. He hated this part of the hospital more than he did the morgue. Maybe it was because he knew to many people who had gone insane. He really did not know, but he always hated coming here.
But he never missed a visit. He came every Sunday, exactly at twelve and left exactly at one. Most time, he would just watch as he kicked and screamed. Sometimes, though, they talked about before the event. Other times, he would cry, as he would just hold him for the hour. Only one visit, he had known that they were dead and he had known where he was. But the worse of all of his visits were the times when he thought that they were all still alive, that they were all still aboard the Enterprise.
All of those were far and in between, but he almost found himself hating him in those visits. Almost, but almost doesn't count. Travis almost made it, but he didn't. He died on the escape shuttle. He had had a big gash on his side cause by a shard of the view screening hitting him as he was evacuating. Hoshi and T'Pol had gotten into a different shuttle pod, but they didn't get out far enough before the ship finally exploded. And like Travis, they almost made it. But almost never counts.
Malcolm knew his way well, his room was down the second corridor on your right, and the fifth door on the left. If you are lucky, when you open the door, he'll be looking up at the ceiling and not restrained or drugged. If you're lucky. Most of the time he was restrained. Most of the time he thought he was still in the Enterprise during that attack...
Dr. Phlox never had a chance...The first impact hit the sick bay dead on, destroying all of sickbay and most the surrounding hall. The next to die were those in decks C-E...This is when T'Pol gave the order to evacuate. There was no chance they could win...Not only where they outnumbered, but they were also out powered. They had to drop out of Warp right after the first shot. It hadn't even been a year, and they had already lost.
Malcolm opened the door to see him not restrained, but just staring up at the ceiling, maybe even past it. Out into space maybe. He took his usual seat and wondered if the other man knew he was even here...
Malcolm often wondered how the man could have become like thing. The man he knew on the Enterprise was strong, brave, ignorant...yes, but not in a million years would he thought he would become like this. The doctors said it was a severe case of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, but in Malcolm's mind it didn't make sense. Or maybe he didn't want to believe it. Either way...something else had to happen to him that Malcolm didn't know about. Maybe he saw something, or maybe he had secrets that no one knew...and the Enterprise's end was just the last straw to make him snap. It didn't matter...there was something else along with what happened that caused this.
He hoped.
If not...if it was solely because of what happened to the Enterprise, then...then, Malcolm believed, one day he too would be in this ward. Thinking he was somewhere, anywhere but here and now. He would be along side him, worse than dead.
And Malcolm continued to sit and wait. Neither spoke a word...if a pin dropped, they would hear it, and Malcolm continued to sit and wait. He never said the first word, never. Maybe he was afraid too or maybe he knew what would happen if he did. Didn't matter, he never said the first word.
And time passed. Malcolm sighed before standing up and heading towards the door. His hour was up, it was time he went back to his life, and he opened the door...
"Do you wonder sometimes?" The man on the bed said without moving his eyes away from the ceiling. "Do you wonder what actually happened to the Cap'n?"
Malcolm froze. He blamed the Suliban. He blamed Starfleet. He blamed himself, too, for not thinking up a way to defend the ship. But out of all the people he blamed, he blamed Archer the most. He blamed him for disappearing off the ship, causing the attack. He knew his blame was probably unfounded...but he blamed Captain Archer more than anyone.
"You blame him don't you? You blame him for everything that happened. After all, had he actually been there to surrender himself, this would never have happened. But he wasn't...So you blame him!" And he turned and smiled one of his smiles he was famous for on the Enterprise at Malcolm. A smile Malcolm hadn't seen in a very long time.
"Coming here is doing you no good, you know. I might rub off on you or something." And he just turned his head back towards the ceiling.
"Don't come back, Mal."
~*~
Disclaimer: I don't own Enterprise, and the song excert at the beginning is from Behind Blue Eyes by The Who.