A/N: So, Trip now knows the truth about what's happened to him - and his friendship with Jon is about to face its toughest test.

Violations

Chapter Nine - The Darkest Hour

Rarely, if ever, had Jonathan Archer felt so utterly helpless. At a loss as to what to say. What to do. How to face his closest friend, or simply to communicate with him. The friend who still sat just inches from him, yet light years away.

Lost and trapped in his own, tortured world, Trip stared into space. It was his eyes, though, that still held Jon in his own personal nightmare. Confirmed every one of his worst fears. They held an anguish, the most cruelly inflicted shame, that had only come from one cause. One realization.

He'd made the connection. Realized what had been done to him. What they'd done to him.

Twenty minutes had passed, since it had hit him. Since he'd screamed, and collapsed into Jon's arms. In a near hysteria of tears, he'd clung to him like a terrified child, until he'd cried himself empty. Now, the anger had hit with the same, brutal force. Overwhelmed him. Swept him helplessly away. Everything in its path was gone too. Including, it seemed, the trust behind eight years of friendship.

Pushing himself out of that stricken friend's arms, he'd curled himself into this defensive huddle. Backed against the wall behind his bed, his arms still wrapped liked vices around his knees, Trip sat motionless. His eyes locked, unblinking, on a target somewhere beyond Jon's right shoulder, that only he could see.

Just as Jon had been himself, he couldn't move. Couldn't speak. All he could do, barely, was breathe. A human statue, frozen in a world where no one, not even his closest friend, could offer him comfort. Jon wasn't even sure now, if he still held that honour.

Twenty one minutes now Almost twenty two.

And still, within the space of less than two metres, they remained miles… worlds… galaxies apart. The only way he could plead for this crippling silence to end was through the silence of his own mind.

'Trip, please… even if it's to wish me in hell, for sending you over there… please, Trip, talk to me…'

Silence. Again, this awful, deafening silence. As he'd done all the previous times, Jon could only resign himself to it. Bowing his head, he closed his eyes, bitterly wondering what he, what Trip, had done, to deserve this.

Good people. They were both good people. Without question, they'd help anyone who needed it. And wasn't that the perfect kicker, to think all this had happened from an act of simple humanity?

God, if this didn't take the prize of all time, for bite-you-in-the-ass irony, and slap-you-in-the-face injustice –

"H-How many, Jon? These others… how many?"

– well, he'd think about that at a more appropriate time.

Right now, he had to scrape himself off the ceiling. The voice that had asked that question had barely made it past a whisper, but it had still startled him. But as he met Trip's eyes, and found he was allowed to keep their contact, he really didn't care. He'd better answer his question soon, though, or this vital breakthrough wouldn't last very long.

"Fi-Five, Trip. Five that… well, Starfleet knows about. That Admiral Forrest told me about, from Soval, and - and the High Command."

Against this rambling answer, Trip's response to it was strikingly short. A simple, silent nod. Jon could only imagine the questions that his friend would be struggling to process behind it. How could a simple mission to an alien ship have led to this? What had been done to him? This most reviled of violations?

But then Trip's head turned a little, so that Jon found himself square in the sights of his eyes. His next question was equally brief. And, to anyone who recognized its tone, deadly serious.

"And?"

No-one, not even Jonathan Archer, would dare to try and fudge his way through that tone of voice. Or those impossibly piercing eyes. After being so cruelly deceived, there was no way, in hell, that Trip was going to tolerate any more breaches of his trust. Any more lies, or fudged half truths - even if they were meant so genuinely to protect him.

No, even in his current state, he'd still sensed that Jon was holding something back from him. Now, all Jon had to do was figure out his reply. How to break this other, devastating news. It took several moments, and the prompt of a raised eyebrow, before he managed to do so.

"One of them, Trip, a – a Denizian trader, he… well, they – he died, Trip. He - He didn't survive."

A pause, then. More awkward silence, that Jon felt he had to fill, just to keep them talking. In his anxiety, though, or maybe just from the strain of what he'd had to face, he instantly regretted it. As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized he'd made a massive, possibly irrecoverable mistake.

"The pregnancy, Trip, he… he didn't survive the pregnancy."

Five seconds passed. Five more. And still Trip sat staring at him, out of those wide, disbelieving eyes. Then, for the second time within the same minute, his actions took Jon completely by surprise. Glancing down at himself, at the shirt he'd worn to hide the bulge of life inside him, he rose to his feet. Before Jon could react, or even think to stop him, he then strode towards his bathroom, his face a blank.

His voice, though, was as flat, and cold, and emotionless, as a robot's - merely hinting at the state of his mind.

"I need a shower."

Then he was gone. Through the door, and locking it behind him.

Standing helplessly beside it, Jon felt his entire world crash down around him. Everything that he wanted - needed - so much to say was lost now, against this new barrier between them. For a moment, he thought about calling Phlox, but then realized the doctor would be as unable to reach his friend as he was. No, all he could do was stare at that damn door, and try to accept that the friend he saw more as a brother was now farther away from him than ever.

What terrified him even more, though, was that he had no idea on how he could get Trip back. If he'd now ever get him back.