The shrill of the alarm clock brought Jon from a sleep that felt as though it had lasted hardly more than a couple of minutes.
He rolled out of his wreck of a bed and stumbled into the shower half-asleep, on the way sparing an absent-minded pat for Porthos, who came to greet him with a wagging tail. The astringent odor of his shower gel penetrated the fog of weariness as he slathered it onto his body, so that within a couple of moments his brain started to get a grip on the schedule for the day ahead.
His stomach clenched. For a moment his hands stopped, arrested in the act of scrubbing shampoo through his hair.
Today was a day he'd never believed he'd have to face.
Then habit took over. He somehow achieved a shrug, and got on with the business of getting ready.
=/\=
Breakfast was a silent affair, at least on his part.
Trip, as always in an emergency, took over the conversational duties. Fortunately he had plenty to say, mostly on the subject of the number of repairs that were still required and how he'd planned to organize the teams to carry them out. Mostly they wouldn't affect the ship's standard functions, but he mentioned that there might be times when Enterprise might have to come to a stop for a while.
"Won't hold us up longer'n I can help, Cap'n," he added with a valiant attempt at cheerfulness; of course, a man far less attuned to atmosphere than Trip would be well aware that something was wrong.
Jon balled his napkin and set it down on the table beside his half-eaten breakfast. "Get your teams organized first thing, Trip. I'll want to speak to you later. T'Pol, meet me in my ready room at oh-eight-hundred."
"Yes, Captain." She'd done her part in holding up the conversation, but she'd been watching him as intently as a cat.
"There's no problem with that, is there?" he added belatedly.
She shook her head. "I'm preparing reports on the Berengarius system. It's nothing that can't wait. We won't arrive for some days yet."
Normally this was the point at which Trip's curiosity would be rampant. Today, however, his forced cheer deflated visibly. He pushed away what remained of his meal and rose. "Well, I'd better get on with the organizin' then," he remarked flatly, and walked out.
Not so long ago, he'd have been included by right at some point in the debate to come; that was when he'd been Malcolm's immediate superior, and his input would have been required and valued. Right now, however, that alien patch was still effectively on his sleeve. He wasn't one of Enterprise's command structure. He was an officer on loan from another ship.
The pain and anger and bewilderment of that fact felt like salt in the still-open wound of his going.
T'Pol's gaze was steady; Jon fancied he could read sympathy in it. "This is not your fault, sir," she said at last.
Once upon a time he'd have agreed with her. Today, however, his once easy confidence in himself was no longer what it had been. He was no longer complacent, no longer convinced that he had all the answers. That his officers' failings were all their own fault, and nothing to do with him.
Maybe this too was yet another consequence of his lack of experience, of competence, of observation, of – heck, of something. Maybe there had been something that he'd done or failed to do, something that had been a key factor in one of his most trusted officers being unable to trust him.
Trust.
That was what held the whole thing together. You trusted your crew and they trusted you.
And when it breaks?
He heaved a sigh. "That's what we have to find out today."
He wasn't even sure which of the two he was answering.
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