Disclaimer: Enterprise and her crew belong to Paramount. I'm just borrowing them for a while.

Bottled Up – Part 7

Trip stood behind Malcolm's left shoulder, and watched as Captain Archer spoke to the governmental representative of Juran. Enterprise had run across a Juranan ship two days ago, and had been invited back to the Juran home world for a visit. Archer had leapt at the chance to meet yet another new culture, and had immediately set a course.

Trip wasn't sure why exactly he had been summoned to the Bridge for this meeting, however. There was plenty he could have been doing down in Engineering, but no matter how mad he was at Archer, he couldn't ignore a direct order from his Captain. So here he was, getting progressively more bored as the conversation between Archer and the Juranan representative lengthened. Suddenly, he was brought back to attention by the sound of his name.

"Trip, T'Pol, you're with me. Malcolm, you're in charge until we return from Juran."

An away mission! Finally, he was being allowed off the ship! Trip's heart leapt, and then just as quickly sank as he realised the mission was going to involve spending a lot of time in Archer's company. The two of them hadn't spoken, except in a professional context, since Trip had stormed out of Archer's quarters nearly a week earlier. Trip missed Jon desperately, especially since he had only recently discovered the true nature of his feelings for his best friend. But he was still far too hurt by Jon's actions to want to spend any time with him. He appreciated that Archer was trying to make it up to him by bringing him on this away mission, but at the moment it was far too little, too late.

Sitting in Shuttlepod One, Trip cursed his fate again at being dragged on this particular away mission. The atmosphere in the shuttle was pretty frosty, what with him and Jon not talking to each other, and T'Pol being…well, Vulcan. Luckily, the trip to the planet's surface was short, and it wasn't long before Archer was greeting the governmental representative, Tunar, in person. Archer and T'Pol were immediately led off to view the capital city, while an offer was made to Trip to examine some of Juranan ships, an offer he accepted with alacrity since it meant he could get away from Archer.

Several hours later, the away team met back at the shuttlepod. Archer was raving about the city and its architecture, having found representative Tunar very accommodating. Even T'Pol seemed impressed by the Juranan society. Trip, meanwhile, had seen numerous different kinds of ships, and had been in his element examining their warp technology. He had even managed to forget about Jon for a few hours. But now it was time to return to Enterprise, and Trip amused himself by looking around the plaza they were standing in while the Captain agreed to return tomorrow with more of his crew.

As he gazed around, however, he noticed something rather strange. A large crowd had gathered around the shuttle to say goodbye to the Captain and his crewmembers. That in itself wasn't the odd thing. It was the people slipping furtively through the crowd, trying to avoid being seen, that had captured his attention. Trip tensed.

"Cap'n," he muttered. But Archer didn't hear him, and Trip was forced to speak a little louder. "Cap'n," he said again.

Archer turned away from Tunar. "Yes, Trip, what is it?" he asked exasperatedly.

But Trip was no longer listening. One of the figures he had noticed previously had pushed his way to the front of the crowd, and was now raising his arm, pointing something in the direction of the Enterprise officers.

"Cap'n!" yelled Trip, reaching out to push Archer out of the way.

But he wasn't quite fast enough. There was a burst of weapons fire, and then Archer was crumbling to the floor.

"Oh shit!" gasped Trip. Throwing himself down next to Archer's prone body, he placed his fingers on the Captain's neck, trying to detect a pulse. Relief flooded through him when he felt a faint fluttering under his fingertips. But Archer wasn't moving, and fear quickly overtook the relief. "Jon, can you hear me? Oh god, please be alright."

Dimly, in the background, he could hear Tunar desperately apologising to T'Pol, explaining that there were certain members of the Juranan people who believed that Juran should be a closed society, and therefore didn't look kindly on visitors from other planets. But Trip barely heard any of this. His whole attention was taken up by Jon. Suddenly he understood why Jon had kept him on the ship all those months. It was to avoid feeling just like this. Okay, so Jon had had his fair share of injuries on away missions, and as his best friend Trip had been extremely worried about him. But that was nothing compared to what he felt now. His worry was a hundred times what it had been in the past, and all because he had realised he loved the man who could right now be dying in front of him.