The way I am.
By Kes.
Disclaimer: Enterprise and all general Star Trek goodies belong to Paramount and all the other big American companies out there. I'm just attempting (note the stressing of that word here people) to psycho-analyse that enigmatic Englishman, Lt Malcolm Reed. Also, the title 'The way I am' belongs to Eminem....
A/N: This is just to say it's my first Enterprise fan fiction, and that they may be some stuff about a R/S (Malcolm and Hoshi) relationship, but I haven't decided. Yey. Hopefully, this isn't OOC just yet.
Oh, and 'dark themes' warning. It's not anything as bad as 'A child called it' but it could still upset/annoy some people. You've been warned. I can't worn you in the actual story as it could effect the 'plot'....assuming that there is one....
~*~
My name is Lieutenant Malcolm Reed. I am Armoury Officer of the Enterprise, and, I'm probably the first Brit this far away from Earth - but I'm not sure. It doesn't matter anyway.
I'm not in the navy. That's what matters.
I'm the stereotypical Brit. I'm reserved, shy around women, and the perfect gentlemen.
The only thing is, no one knows why.
I do.
And there's a grand total of three other people on the entire planet - no, that's an old saying - I suppose I should say 'in the universe' - who know why. And to me, that's far too many.
I don't even know why I'm saying this. I just feel that I need to. Even the impenetrable Malcolm Reed needs to 'let off steam' once in a while.
A Freudian psychologist would probably say that I went on Enterprise - not for my love of blowing things up - but to get away from my Father as physically possible. And, you know what? I'd say that they were right....
I remember when I was only eleven years old. I had just entered Military school that year, and it was the holidays already. Time fly's when you're having fun, all those gruelling five-thirty morning starts where murder for some. But I hardly ever slept anyway, so it didn't matter.
I went home.
Father wasn't on leave until the last week of my fortnight holiday. An entire week of bliss. I made a couple of crude spaceships and placed them, precariously, from the ceiling of my room. I read about space, I learnt about space, but I never went there.
I spent an entire day with my Mother and younger sister Madeline. I hadn't done that in a long time. And it felt good.
But it went wrong.
So very very wrong....
We were in the kitchen, our Mother had gone shopping, she'd let us bake bread and needed to re-stock on the flour that she didn't think we'd chuck unceremoniously on the floor, and on each other.
So there we were. Just me and an eight year old Madeline. Normal siblings hate each other. But we had a bigger foe. We had to unite.
Our infantile truce grew into friendship as the long years stretched slowly along, never ending, just elongating.
So there we were. Faces pale with layers upon layers of encrusted flour. I remember wishing and hoping Maddy never looked as awful with white hair as she did at that moment. Of course, I had her pinned to the floor, laughing hysterically, shoving flour in any available crevice.
The door to the kitchen opened dramatically, and a roar was heard throughout the house. "Malcolm!"
We froze.
He was home early.
Shit.
Have you ever noticed how you're either too young to understand, or old enough to know better? That there's no leeway. Well, in the Reed household, there's no former.
Only the latter. You're only ever old enough to know better.
And this was it now. The Reed theory in action.
I was brutally dragged by my ear up two flights of stairs to my room, could hear someone yelling, was faintly aware that Maddy was crying, and that mum - when she arrived a few minutes later - was hysterical.
I never realised how hard the wall was in my room. It must be the Military school. It's softened me up. This must be the only house where the conditions are worse at home than at school. As I abruptly landed in a somewhat undignified heap on the floor of my room, I felt a boot connect rather sharply with my rib. Don't cry, don't wince, don't even breathe in too loudly. Don't give him the satisfaction.
My little mantra/pep-talk did nothing to improve my situation.
I was grabbed roughly around the collar, being hauled up the wall, hearing the belt being moved from around his waist with one hand, while the other held my neck in place by the wall.
At least this time he didn't see my spaceships. They were too high. I wondered why I'd done that. Obviously a subconscious desire to keep something of mine intact for more than a week.
He was muttering, or maybe yelling, I can't remember, about me being an undignified Reed - to this day, I still don't know what that means - me being pig ignorant, arrogant, a son of a bitch who would never amount to anything.
He may have said more, but this is all I heard through the brief moments after the belt was pulled abruptly away from my skin in preparation for another attack.
I've almost perfected the look of indifference combined with agreement and fear in order for me to endure my 'punishment' for as long as possible:
Agree too readily, and you're an arrogant bastard who thinks that he can get out of trouble easily.
If you don't look scared enough, he'll give you a reason too.
After all these years, I can still feel the blunt repeatable pain that scared me, physically and mentally. To this day, I can still see the marks on my back, arms and legs. Every time I'm....intimate....with a woman, they ask me about my 'battle scars', hoping for a heroic story of fighting single-handedly against someone at Military school, or a run-in with a big brainless oaf in the Academy.
But all they get is silence.
It's what I was trained for, after all.
And it scares them. That I can't 'open up' to them. It makes them worried.
They've no idea.
They don't know what real 'fear' or 'worry' is.
Wondering day after day on your own in a foreign continent about a sister that you can't see, and a mother whose panicked high-pitched voice will echo in your mind always.
And praying.
Praying that they will be alright.
Even now, every time I yell, I feel a part of me disappear, and a part of him materialise. Maybe that's why I don't like the transporter. Dematerialise as me, and return as him. It would be so easy to metamorphasize into him, so tempting, to find someone to blame. Like he did.
It's the Reed tradition. Must follow in the footsteps of your fore-fathers....
Don't want to follow in his footsteps.
I want to make my own. My own traditions. For my children. If I ever have any.
I thought I had no friends. He said I had no friends. Hoshi proved him wrong. Hell, Commander Tucker - Trip - proved him wrong. He is human. And they are my friends. Hoshi - a woman - proved him wrong. And I like her now more than ever.
Not a bad start if you think about it.
My feelings for her are getting out of control. I keep telling myself that it's just because she's letting me in and, in turn, she's trying to get in. But I can't. Not too much. Never too much. Not too far. Never too far.
Just in case.
I'd laugh at the audacity of it all. The 'fearless' Armoury Officer is scared of potential relationships of any sort. But no....
To this day, my biggest fear is that I turn into him. That somehow behaviour and personality are genetic. Although I know they're not.
It scares me though, that I'm so much like him.
I've even inherited his allergy to pineapple.