A/N: More answers incoming! Also: beware of the science and technobabble in this chapter! Please don't take it too seriously. The concepts and terms you'll read below are real, but of course I've taken the liberty of applying them for my needs. I'm not an astrophysicist. Or an Engineer. I have no idea if the timing or the distances work out, or how spacetime works… It's just fiction! Let's have fun with it and don't look too closely

STRINGS ATTACHED

CHAPTER NINE

People burned, screamed and reached for him with scorched limbs, and at last Trip jerked awake.

Blinking confusedly, he needed a few seconds to recognize sickbay. Not burning. Phlox was sitting at his desk a few meters away, humming softly, not dying, and the Phyrithian bat had started to feast on its dinner (lunch? Breakfast?) by loudly chewing through the bones of a poor, screeching creature that sounded a lot like the screams that had woken up Trip.

He must have fallen asleep. Earlier, after anxiously watching Malcolm's shuttlepod leave the warp bubble, Trip had made his way to sickbay to meet with Travis. Just a precautionary measure, he had told the pilot and probably sounded just as unconvinced as he felt. Just another chance to second-guess you, but don't you worry. Think about the ship's safety.

Phlox had asked him to stay in order to discuss something but had to attend to another patient first. Trip remembered sitting down on one of the beds and allowing his eyes to rest for a few precious moments... which had turned into a full-fledged nap, apparently.

"Ah, right on time, Commander," Phlox spoke up happily without turning around, proving once again that nothing on the ship remained undetected by the Doctor, and most certainly not in sickbay.

Trip scrambled to his feet and absent-mindedly straightened his uniform, which was worn and wrinkled from spending hours beneath plasma tanks and intermix coils. "How long was I asleep?"

"Only about 40 minutes," Phlox turned around and smiled at him broadly. "I just finished my analysis."

Asking why Phlox hadn't woken him up was futile. Instead, Trip even suspected the Denobulan to have staged his disappearance on purpose. Though he had managed to catch a few hours of restless sleep here and there, he felt as if he had been awake for a week. He had tried to sleep in his quarters at first, but the walls had kept closing in on him, and he left quickly. He didn't need Phlox telling him that this was his subconsciousness telling him to deal with what had happened - the physical toll was getting to him, mixing nicely with the emotional and psychological strain that was building up.

Given the circumstances, thus, falling asleep in sickbay wasn't a reaction to worry about. But sending your boyfriend and kind-of-Second-in-Command away on a dangerous mission was… And falling back into a pattern of guilt, stress and terrifying nightmares certainly was worrisome.

His arguments remained valid: they didn't know what dangers lay between Enterprise and T'Pol's position, or whether T'Pol was specifically targeted by Vosk's device or Archer's actions. Malcolm was the best qualified person to ensure her safe passage back to the ship…. yet Trip still felt like crap, because of course he had given that order out of spite, hurt and indignation. He had needed to get away from all that distrust that was closing in on him, which meant getting Malcolm as far away as possible, and this mission had just been the perfect opportunity.

When the tiny shuttlepod with its tiny warp bubble had disappeared and the communication had been rocky for a few nanoseconds, Trip had felt his heartbeat in his throat. Luckily, everything had worked out just as on paper, except for the fact that the doubt and distrust that left with Malcolm had cleared the space for Trip's own guilty conscience. He shouldn't have reacted this way. Not while he was commanding a spaceship. No while they were still arguing about trust.

"I can arrange for another bed, if you like, Commander?" Phlox asked inquisitively and looked him over. "Maybe a mild sedative?"

Concentrating on the task at hand, Trip shook his head and stepped closer. "It's alright. What did you want to show me?"

Phlox moved over and gestured at the subatomic microscope he was handling. "See for yourself, Commander. I've looked at the device from Captain Archer's head closely, and I've come to believe that it has biomechanical qualities that have been calibrated to the Captain's biological signature."

"Its structure is biomechanical but it's functioning biochemically?"

"Electrochemically," Phlox corrected good-naturedly. "A marvelous piece of technology. My scans wouldn't have been able to pick it up since it's made from the same materials that are found in the human body. Without imaging techniques, we might have never found it."

It was as scary as it was impressive. Trip looked through the lens and saw structures and movement he couldn't place immediately. After a while, he recognized atomic particles and grids that indicated larger elements. "It's still active?"

"The biological components have begun to decompose. It will fall apart in a few hours, I fear."

And then only a small piece of nondescript metal would be left – they never would have reconstructed what had been going down here in the aftermath. Trip loathed Vosk with all his heart, but the Engineer in him was in awe at the cleverness of this technology. "Did you find out how it communicates with the disk?"

Now, Phlox sighed. "Unfortunately, no. I take it the disk is still active?"

Trip grunted in response. The disk was still very active and had begun to rewrite the codes Anna had painfully reconquered. They were literally able to watch how system after system dropped out of their control again. The disk was either stuck with the last order or package of information the device had given it, or able to continue on its own.

He was about to ask about documentation when the doors to sickbay opened and the Captain walked in. Trip froze, his question to Phlox forgotten over the whirlwind of feelings that swept through his chest. When their eyes locked, Jon looked just as surprised as he felt.

"Trip," he greeted and stepped into sickbay properly. "Doctor."

"I didn't know you were already up and about…" Trip looked at Phlox, who only shrugged amiably. He trusted the Denobulan's judgement whole-heartedly, but the thought of a mentally unstable Captain walking around made his insides squirm.

"The Captain was doing very well, and we thought that a little visit to Porthos couldn't do any harm." Phlox grabbed a medical scanner and held it in front of Archer's face. "Now did it, Captain?"

"I feel fine."

"Your readings are great," Phlox answered him but pointedly addressed Trip. "Now if you'll excuse me..."

He left the room quicker than Trip or Jon were able to protest. After he had disappeared through a door and they heard him humming and rummaging at the other side, they turned to each other awkwardly.

Jon's very physical presence felt different, Trip noticed, not as intimidating or angry as he had grown accustomed to over the past weeks, but also not as friendly and familiar as before. When they had started their voyages, it had felt natural to have Jon near – the other's presence had always felt comfortable. They had lost that naturalness a while ago, even before traveling back in time. The device, Trip realized with a sting in his heart, hadn't initiated this development either; like a catalyst it had simply enhanced what had already been there.

"Thank you for taking care of Porthos," Jon said, at last. He wasn't looking into Trip's eyes but at his own hands.

"You're welcome," Trip mumbled guardedly, wishing desperately that the Doctor would come back. He knew he had to face Jon sooner or later, but he hadn't had time yet to even think about how to go on from where they stood now. "Your stewards fed and walked him. I just reminded them."

The silence was palpable. Running away now would save him a few hours, maybe a day… Trip was just about wondering if it was worth it, when Jon suddenly spoke again.

"He's afraid of me," he blurted out. "Porthos, I mean. He hid under the bed when I came in."

"Oh," Trip grimaced. He had befriended Jon when the beagle had been but a puppy (cutest puppy ever) and had watched them grow closer and closer until Porthos was family to the man. He didn't want to get drawn into this conversation, but unfortunately Trip knew how it felt to lose family. "He'll come around. Give him some time."

"I'm so sorry, Trip," Jon said, finally, and swallowed hard. They had both been avoiding eye contact, but now he looked straight at him. "For everything. I don't even know where to start."

Shit. He was going for it. Trip felt his flight instincts taking over. He didn't want to talk about this now. Or ever. Mostly, he didn't want to talk to Jon.

Trip averted his gaze, but from his peripheral vision, he saw Jon wincing. It wasn't that he didn't believe what the Captain was saying… but it wasn't enough, and it needed a much, much longer talk to clear the air between them. "Let's talk about this later. There's so much to do…"

Just then, Phlox' voice called out and his head appeared in the door. "Just one more second Commander, there's something I want to give you for your head…."

He had disappeared again before ending the sentence, and this time, Trip was absolutely sure that the Doctor was being manipulative. Of course, Jon's attention immediately snapped to the faded, yellowish bruises at the side of his head, barely visible anymore.

"Does it still hurt?"

Trip shook his head, cursing Phlox for making an uncomfortable situation even more uncomfortable. "It's alright."

"I can't believe I did that," Jon's voice broke a little bit, and Trip froze. Oh God, please don't… in shock, he had looked up, but saw Jon smiling slightly. "I had been so mad when I found out…You and Malcolm, huh?"

Jon was sporting a small grin now, and there was this sparkle in his eyes like the one he always had in the old days, which made Trip madder than anything else. "I wouldn't have guessed that to be honest."

"I don't care what you guessed, Jon," he all but hissed, and Jon flinched a little bit. Hell, no. Don't you even dare.

"Trip…"

Sudden anger pushed away all feelings of discomfort. "You can't actually believe that I'll talk to you about– "

'Bridge to Commander Tucker,' Hoshi voice suddenly piped up, interrupting them.

Trip refrained from finishing his sentence and stomped over to the comm panel. It was probably for the better; the more he said about the matter to the Captain, the more he'd infer.

"Go ahead."

'Sir, the scientists deciphered the readings from the Shuttlepod and want to run it by you.'

Ah, yes. Trip had ordered Malcolm to get as much data about Enterprise's surroundings via the shuttlepod's external sensors and telemetry as possible before vanishing to get T'Pol. Mal had done so, but of course the transmission had been garbled by the ship's petulant computers.

The Engineer had cursed the universe at the thought of having to work through unreliable readings and weird data again – in the Expanse, he had spent hours working through performance reports, distorted readings and impossible formulas before being able to make sense of the quirky physical parameters.

Now, he'd take that over talking to Jon any second. In fact, brooding over meaningless data had never sounded so good.

"On my way."

Wordlessly he pushed past Jon, who had opened his mouth but remained silent.

The science lab was on the same deck, thankfully. As he crossed a corner, he caught a short glimpse of Ensign Heston, who was still hauling the 'coaglunitator' around – by now, though, the coaglunitator's side was adorned by a small magnet. Earlier, Trip had thought about reassigning the Ensign to paint Engineering's gray walls, but then he remembered that he had more important things to worry about than releasing Heston.

Too bad, really.

When he stepped into T'Pol's lab, two science officers were silently staring at a screen. They turned around and nodded at him, and Trip walked up to them. "Please tell me you found out where we are."

The scientists looked at each other meaningfully. At last, the ginger Ensign whose name Trip kept forgetting answered. "We think we do, but the readings don't match."

"That's why we asked for you, Commander. Maybe we overlooked a glitch or forgot to filter out a distortion caused by the warp bubble," Lieutenant Reena added.

"One thing at a time," Trip smiled hopefully. Maybe they were finally gaining some ground. "Where are we?"

"The shuttlepod's navigational response was clear," Reena answered. "We're just at the periphery of Canis Major Void. We must have left the Perseus-Pisces Supercluster about 26 hours ago, going by an average of Warp 3.5."

Canis Major Void? Trip raised an eyebrow. Somehow, he had expected something more dramatic. Cosmic voids had been a mysterious, uncanny observation back in the late 20st century, but when the Vulcans had landed and shared their maps and exploration logs, the voids had turned out to be just that: large regions of galaxy-poor space, little matter density, and thus slightly colder than the average universe's temperature.

They were fascinating in cosmological matters and their sheer sizes were mind-blowing for humans. They were also very boring to fly through. Canis Major Void wasn't even one of the really big ones.

"At least we won't crash into a planet," Trip muttered, trying to find some positive spin to this. The void was huge; if Vosk's device wanted them to cross it, they had some traveling ahead of them.

The ginger Ensign coughed slightly. "That's why the telemetry seems weird, Sir. Look at this."

He pulled up a table full of numbers and formulas. Trip squinted his eyes and tried to read as quickly as possible. "They don't look weird to me."

"They're not," Reena said. "It just doesn't make sense."

"Gravitational waves?" Finally, Trip had made it to the bottom of the table and started at the beginning, again. "How is that possible?"

The numbers spelled out very logically, and gravitational waves weren't that seldom… at any other place in the universe. Gravitation needed a source, especially with high, steady numbers as the ones he read right here. The voids didn't offer these sources, yet the waves weren't emitted by the Supercluster behind them, either.

"Is it possible that the computers messed up our output?" Reena handed him a PADD, and he anxiously reconstructed their data extraction process – it was flawless.

"The data is conclusive. We need to find out what's causing the waves."

Strong gravitational waves explained why the ship shook from time to time, or why the disk wouldn't let them power down lower than Warp 1.1 – if the waves hit Enterprise without a warp bubble, it would take heavy damage. As the warp drive distorted spacetime, it dealt with the gravitational waves and wrapped them in a safe cocoon. Thank God Malcolm had had to power up his own warp bubble to leave Enterprise. Trip's mind immediately began to conjure up images of Malcolm, drifting lifelessly through space, and the temperature in the room dropped as well.

"A black hole?" the ginger Ensign speculated.

Lieutenant Reena shook her head desperately. "We know there's no black hole, Bert. Our star charts mapped thousands of data from different species. There is no black hole in any void."

"Well, what else could it be?" Bert –Trip made a note for the hundredth of time– argued agitatedly, and wasn't that just the question? "A brane? Cosmic strings? Come on."

Trip desperately wished T'Pol was here. This was her turf. He had had his fair share of science classes and expertise about astrophysics, but T'Pol's knowledge about theories and experiments—

Cosmic Strings.

Wait.

Bert and Reena had launched into an argument about the impossibility of 20th century cosmology theories, but they didn't know about Vosk. They didn't know about the time travel aspect.

He drew in a sharp breath, and the scientists turned to him and fell silent when they looked at him – Trip basically felt how the color drained from his face as he put two and two together.

They were flying straight into a vibrating cosmic string, and with everything that was going on, that even made sense.

"Sub-Commander," Malcolm greeted politely, if not a little bit stiffly, as T'Pol climbed on board of their tiny shuttlepod.

"Lieutenant Reed," T'Pol answered equally politely and definitely stiffly, but didn't bother to look at him longer than two seconds before proceeding.

Malcolm tried not to read too much arrogance into it. She had treated him with professional distance and calm courtesy from the very beginning, which he had experienced as a beacon of reason amidst Captain Archer and Trip's lax leadership styles. Only recent feelings had started to strain their (actually non-existing) relationship, and Malcolm couldn't help but read rejection and haughtiness into her behaviour, which was neither fair nor her fault.

The last 16 hours had been spent brooding about his last argument with Trip and Malcolm was thus in a terrible mood. As the shuttlepod had moved away further and further from Enterprise, he had finally recognised Trip's decision to send him away not only as a reaction out of anger, but also of self-protection: He had been doubting Trip ever since the Captain had first mentioned T'Pol, and now that Trip was in command of a dangerous situation, he was forced to take actions. With their resources spread thin, the pragmatically-thinking Engineer had cut off the element that drained most of his power in order to keep the system going – Malcolm himself.

He had been petty, and it had taken his boyfriend basically kicking him out into space to make him fully realise how far he had let things come. To think that he had pitied the Captain for being controlled by his emotions…. Malcolm had a lot of work ahead of him and maybe starting with T'Pol, who hadn't actually done anything to him, was a good start.

…And apart from that, Malcolm Reed, heir to a dynasty of proud naval men, abider of rules and expert of professional conduct, couldn't risk butting heads with her as well – two out of three superior officers were already angry or hurt because of him.

Still, when T'Pol wordlessly sat down at the piloting console – his former place – Malcolm's jaw tightened. Not personal. Maybe he was going crazy, but her movements were even more graceful and sublime than when she left Enterprise. Definitely not personal either.

Here and there, Malcolm decided that enough was enough. He needed to get a grip, for Enterprise's and Trip's sake, but most of all for his own sanity.

"Sub-Commander," he therefore tried again as he sat down on the co-pilot seat. "We were worried about possible threats the Captain organised against you under the influence of Vosk's device."

She looked at him briefly before severing the hatching clamps and taking over navigation. "I am well, Lieutenant. Although Ensign Sato's briefings haven't been as conclusive as I had hoped."

"The situation is very complicated." Malcolm leaned over and pulled up a few data packages. "I'll explain later. When I launched, I took some telemetry scans from Enterprise's environments. I think they're- "

"Gravitational waves from an unknown source," T'Pol interrupted him and steered the shuttle away from the small, alien science outpost that had hosted her. "I've analysed them with the Hajoran's technology while I waited for you. They are most peculiar."

"Well, the alien disk we helped to implant during the overhaul forces the ship to fly closer to whatever is emitting the waves."

"I already calculated the fastest course back to Enterprise."

"The route has been programmed into the computer."

"I found a faster route thanks to the Hajoran's superior technology."

"Oh. Okay."

Slowly breathing out, Malcolm leaned back into his chair.

The next hours were going to be a blast.

Trip was staring at a set of data and willed the numbers to change by sheer strength of mind alone. Outrageously, they didn't subject to his will, which Trip thought to be incredibly selfish by the universe. Really, hadn't he enough to worry about? His boyfriend was out of communication in a small shuttlepod facing gravitational waves and possible attacks by future technology, his science officer was nowhere near, he still didn't know the number of screws behind his bathroom tiles, his Captain and former best friend hated him now, every time he fell asleep he had terrible nightmares, half of the systems were still not working and, oh yeah, they were flying straight at a vibrating cosmic string.

Trip had read a lot of Science Fiction novels as a kid, and he was pretty sure that this was enough material for an entire series. Perry Rhodan had had a least 60 pages to deal with one of these issues at a time.

At least he had a clear priority, now: Stop Enterprise from flying closer to the string. Preferably before the gravitational waves grew stronger, and before they reached the string's event horizon and were doomed to …. Yes, doomed to what? Get folded into one dimension? Stretch into a never-ending moment of time? If only he knew, but so far, no other vessel had had this pleasure.

Too bad that he didn't have any clue how to stop the disk, and time was running out fast. He had tried to think about it in the quietude of his quarters, but Trip had always functioned best in noisy places, with people around. As it was the middle of a simulated night, the closest thing he came to a public place was the mess – which wasn't that bad since there was also coffee.

Three cups later, unfortunately, he wasn't any wiser. If Malcolm were here, he'd look at him disapprovingly and would wonder how to talk him out of caffeine. He really wished Malcolm were here.

A cold, wet touch at the skin of his arm startled him. The second he looked up, a ball of fur exploded in his face and excitedly jumped up and down in his lap. Porthos tried to bark, lick his face, run in circles and get petted at the same time.

"Porthos, down!" he heard Jon's voice. Porthos calmed down but didn't comply entirely and stayed seated on his lap.

"Aw, it's okay," Trip laughed and petted the dog who smugly closed his eyes to savor the goodness.

He had missed the little fella that always managed to ease any tension by his level of cuteness and excitement alone. It was impossible not to react to Porthos, which in turn meant that it was impossible not to talk to his owner.

Jon stood at the coffee machine, a few meters of distance between them, and smiled gently. His posture screamed uneasiness, though, and Trip, with that fluffy and warm bundle of overflowing love on his lap, felt a twinge of traitorous sympathy in his chest.

"You're free to walk around?"

Jon pulled back his sleeve to show a medical device attached to his wrist. "The doc's monitoring my hormonal levels and I have to be back in sickbay in an hour."

Suddenly, Porthos made an excited leap and brushed half of Trip's papers and PADDs off the table with his tail. Half-heartedly, he attempted to catch some of them but found that he didn't mind not having all those papers in front of him at all.

"Sorry, sorry." Jon hurried to pick up the research as Porthos wisely jumped down from his lap to stand innocently a few inches away. "And here I thought I'd take Porthos for a walk at night to not disturb the crew…"

Trip watched wordlessly as Jon piled the papers back to the table in random stacks. Maybe now they made more sense – he hadn't come up with any good ideas since the second cup of coffee.

Jon eyed the research papers curiously. "Oh, you're still working on the cosmic string theory?"

Trip didn't bother asking how the Captain had heard from the newest developments. They must have spread through the ship like wildfire. "There isn't exactly a Starfleet protocol for this kind of thing."

…At least he thought there wasn't. Malcolm would have known.

"Are we in danger?" Jon looked at him, all serious. "Please tell me."

Trip gave himself a second to think about all that was going on. They were flying straight into a cosmic string under the control of a future alien time travel device, and he had no idea how to stop this. It really didn't matter if Jon was in the loop or not.

"Yes," he sighed, therefore, "if we can't turn around soon, we'll be trapped in the string's event horizon. The gravitational waves will get stronger and at one point, they will overpower the warp bubble and play us like an accordion."

Slowly, deliberately, Jon took a seat at the other end of the table, and Trip found that he didn't have enough energy left to care.

"I'm not that familiar with cosmic strings," Jon said. "I thought the Vulcans had rejected them in the 21st century."

Trip shrugged. "For lack of evidence, yes. They haven't exactly been disproven."

"What makes you think we found one?"

"Something has to emit the waves. We know for a fact that there isn't a black hole in the void or another high mass structure. Cosmic strings may appear suddenly to our sensors."

"I don't understand."

"A cosmic string is like a really long, one-dimensional wrinkle in spacetime that formed in the early days of the universe," Jon's brow furrowed and Trip despaired a little bit – there was a reason why he had chosen applied science instead of theoretical astrophysics. "They might be anywhere, but as long as they don't vibrate, they have no effect on us. They don't have mass, but once a cosmic string vibrates, it bends spacetime and thus behaves as if it has mass… Mathematically, it checks out." He added the last part a little bit desperately.

"Math. Sure." Jon repeated and obviously didn't understand.

"They're under tension, and if they are energized and vibrate, they create gravitational waves and an event horizon." Trip stopped for a second and wondered if he should go on. Ah, to hell with it. "If the vibrations are strong enough, a cusp forms that can travel the length of the string."

Jon's brow winkled. "Which basically means… traveling through spacetime?"

Trip found that he pressed his lips together, suddenly. It was exactly what he thought – if Vosk was able to ride that cusp, he might be able to cross space and time. Given the assumption that he had the proper vessel in his compound, he only needed a way to orient himself… which, maybe, explained the importance and the longevity of the disk: it was able to communicate with other technology, was safely embedded within a warp bubble and forced them as close as possible to the string. It had turned his ship into a perfect beacon.

Or maybe he had simply snapped. Right now, Trip estimated both possibilities at about 50/50. He wasn't going to discuss this with Jon, though; his nerves were too frayed right now. Explaining cosmology was one thing, but Trip couldn't find it in his heart to share sensible information about the ship's future with him. The device was gone, but Trip found he didn't trust the peace yet.

Jon, on the other side of the table, looked at him during the pause and then swallowed. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"

Trip just shook his head, throat constricting painfully when Jon wasn't even surprised.

"To be honest, I had hoped to find you here," the elder man sighed, pulled up Porthos on his lap, and hugged the little dog. "I think I owe you an explanation… Can we talk?"

There wouldn't be a better time, Trip thought numbly, not if his crazy theory was correct. There also wasn't anywhere to run or a hail saving him. Anxiously, he nodded Jon to continue. Let's get this over with.

After a long moment of silence, Jon finally began. "I think this started a while ago… After the Xindi attacked Earth, the stress and the responsibilities had been piling up. The deeper we traveled into the Expanse, the harder it got for me to cope. You know all that."

Trip hummed disappointedly. So he was playing the stress card – as if that didn't apply to himself as well. As if that didn't apply to anyone on board. Somehow, Trip had really hoped for another explanation, something that would free both him and Jon from any blame, something they could both put behind them and just go back to being buddies. But stress in the Expanse? If that was the best Jon had to offer, Trip couldn't let it slide – between mourning the death of his sister and the annihilation of his hometown, being the only person on board able to keep their ship running, and having your heart shredded by a Vulcan, Trip still had never desired to beat his crewmembers to pulp. That had to count for something.

"The decisions I had to make changed me… to a point when I didn't know how to connect to the crew anymore." Jon's gaze drifted, slowly, through the mess, picturing crewmembers sitting and eating. "Things were rocky between you and me ever since the incident with the Vissians. I wanted to talk to you… but I couldn't."

Sighing, Trip shifted on his seat. He knew all that already. "You isolated yourself. I tried to talk to you. We all did."

Jon nodded, a picture of misery. "And meanwhile I watched you turn to the others. Suddenly you had breakfast dates with Phlox, neuro-pressure sessions with T'Pol, and hung out more and more with Malcolm."

A wave of indignation hit the Engineer. "I had breakfast with Phlox because I couldn't sleep for weeks and he was the only other person awake at night." His sister had died a senseless and violent death that kept haunting him in his nightmares – people had spent time with him to be nice... Not that Jon had ever cared about that.

Jon nodded, quickly. "I know, I know. But… seeing you mix with everyone when we didn't even had dinner anymore… and then you told me about T'Pol. I felt so betrayed." Finally, Jon looked at him. "When I realized that there was even more between you and Malcolm…" He shrugged helplessly. "I was so jealous. I snapped."

"Jealous?" Trip's brain blanked. "About Mal?"

"About T'Pol," Jon closed his eyes. "You already had everything, while I was alone. And then you had to start something with her, of all people."

Trip stared at him, dumbstruck. "T'Pol?" he asked numbly. "Oh…"

"I'm so sorry," Jon stared at the table, now, waiting for his verdict. Unfortunately, Trip's brain had decided to slow down considerably.

"You… love T'Pol?"

Jon nodded once, harshly, and months and months of conversations and shared moments flashed before Trip's eyes. Jon was in love with T'Pol. While the Vulcan had chosen Trip to ease at least some of her emotional turmoil… it had happened right in front of Jon, right under his nose.

"Since when?"

"I realized it after we met the Kreetassans," the Captain mused, "but I think it has been going on for a while."

Trip stared at him and didn't know what else to say. The Kreetassans? That had been a lifetime ago.

"You never said anything," he whispered, at last.

"I know. But I felt so silly about it. And it's against the rules."

"You still could have told me," he insisted, feeling guilty even though he knew this wasn't his fault.

"I know," Jon said again, contrite. "I just… I couldn't handle watching you."

"It was easier for you to resent me."

"No!" The elder man's voice rose, and the little beagle on his lap flinched. "I don't resent you. That was the device."

Trip felt the tiredness closing in. It was all so tedious. "You rather sacrificed our friendship than risk getting rejected. That wasn't the device's doing."

Nervously, Jon had begun to pet Porthos, who was sitting completely motionless as he felt the tension between the two of them. Trip's last sentence hung heavily between them, and for a second, Jon looked as if he wanted to cry. "I never wanted it to go that far."

Jon didn't apologize again, and Trip didn't need to hear it. He felt miserable – unbeknownst to him, he had not only hurt himself and Malcolm with his unrequired love for T'Pol, it had also been devastating for Jon. When the Vulcan made it clear that there wouldn't ever be anything between them, Trip and Jon had already been estranged from each other. He had never exactly told him… and when T'Pol returned from Vulcan as a married woman and the groom was nowhere near, Vosk's device must have latched onto the jealousy and coupled it with Jon's strong bias against him. Maybe Jon wasn't at fault for becoming violent, but the jealousy, the frustration and the dislike had still been real.

"It doesn't matter," he said finally, voice flat. Jon's head jerked up to stare at him. "We're flying towards doom. There's no way the bubble will be able to protect us much longer."

There really was no point in discussing lost battles. They couldn't beat Vosk's superior technology and time was running out. Sluggishly, Trip began to pile the papers and PADDs, ready to leave.

"Don't say that," Jon protested, but Trip wasn't sure what exactly he was referring to. "We always found a way."

He tilted his head slightly, indicating a 'we'll see,' and got up. He needed sleep. Now. Jon, much to Porthos dismay, jumped up. As Trip walked towards the automatic doors, he was ready to ignore anything Jon was going to say – he had had his share of traumatizing personal issues to discuss with him for the day, thank you very much.

Still, when Jon finally talked, his voice made Trip halt. There was fear in it, but another kind than the one he had shown when he had talked about T'Pol. It made him turn around without consciously thinking about it.

"If we don't make it…" he said, slowly. "What about T'Pol and Malcolm? Are they safe?"

"Their warp bubble is too weak to allow them to come too close to the string," he answered, and thought that this, indeed, was a reassuring thought. "They'll be fine."

Jon nodded, relieved, and smiled a little bit. "That's good."

"Yes."

-tbc-