Disclaimer: I own neither Enterprise nor its characters. This is for entertainment purposes only.

Author's note: Sorry about the long wait, like I said, this one's a little harder for me… mostly because of the type of tale it is. And I've been getting a little busier lately. But thank you to everyone who's taken the time to read and review (especially all the repeats), it's really quite encouraging. And a huge round of thanks to my beta readers: gaianarchy, silvershadowfire and kate98. I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 6: Madness

Malcolm made his way back to the investigation team's headquarters, re-running his conversation with Hess as he walked. She brought up the fire, but he doubted it was a fishing expedition on her part. After all, if Hess was chasing down information, she could probably find better sources than him. So, she definitely was trying to tell him something. But what?

Perhaps it would help to look at what she didn't say, instead. After all, isn't that how she gets away with most things? Someone in Hess' position would never take a chance on false accusations, but maybe a lack of denial could be taken as confirmation. Like my opinion that Captain Archer has a problem. How had she put it? That Trip hadn't told her anything? Or maybe that he hadn't told her anything… maybe she had opinions of her own on the matter. And you followed that up with a question about the fire. A not-so-subtle linking of events? He thought back to Captain Archer's behaviour during the fire. He'd been agitated, almost angry. Or afraid. But of what? The idea of Captain Archer as an arsonist sat about as well as the idea of him as a murderer.

Then again, how well do you know him? Better than when they started out, but not by much. He'd rebuffed as many invitations to breakfast or dinner as he thought he could get away with – most of his information about Captain Archer's private life came from second and third hand sources. And hadn't Torey mentioned something about serial killers and their ability to blend in? 'Ted Bundy worked a suicide line?' He'd done some research himself – Bundy wasn't the only 'angel' on the list.

What were you just saying about false accusations? Not to mention the fact that he was hardly qualified to diagnose anybody of being anything. Anyway, from what he'd been able to find, Captain Archer displayed very few of the attributes of a psychopath. He remembered a warning from a psychology class he'd taken back at the academy. The professor cautioned his students against making any kind of judgements based on the materials they read.

"Any person," he advised them, "can show any number of traits indicating any number of mental illnesses at any time." Suddenly he rounded on Malcolm. "You, for example, Mr. Reed could be classified as overly paranoid."

The class laughed – already he had a reputation.

"Have you ever thought that somebody wanted to kill you?"

Malcolm nodded.

"Have you ever felt that you were being followed?"

Again, he couldn't deny it.

"Have you ever thought that people were lying to you or were saying things about you behind your back?"

"Of course." He finally spoke, irritated. Before he could elaborate, the instructor interrupted.

"Has someone ever tried to kill you?"

Malcolm coughed, suddenly uncertain. "I don't know if they were trying to kill me, but…"

"You've been attacked."

"Yes."

"Have you ever been followed? Stalked?"

"Yes." It happened back at school all the time. Generally ending in a beating in some out-of-the-way corner.

"Have you been lied to frequently?"

"Quite." 'I love you' was the best one, followed close behind by 'trust me,' and 'I'm on your side.' He'd learned early on not to believe any of those.

"I believe I myself can confirm that people have said things about you, while out of earshot." Suddenly the rest of the class looked very uncomfortable.

"Do you believe that anyone is trying to kill you now?"

"Right this minute? No."

"Your roommate isn't trying to poison your food? Put glass into your toothpaste? Strangle you in your sleep?"

"I certainly hope not." He spoke dryly, then regretted it – how many people recognised a joke when they heard it, especially among Americans?

"So do I, Mr. Reed, or we have a greater problem than your possible paranoia on our hands." The professor responded in kind, then turned to the rest of the class.

"Thus, the question becomes: though Mr. Reed shows many of the symptoms of a paranoid individual – he has episodes of believing he's been followed, that people have wanted to kill him, or that they're saying 'nasty things' behind his back – is he actually paranoid? Or is he merely exhibiting a level of caution commensurate with his past experience?"

Unfortunately, the lecture hadn't spread to anyone outside the classroom. They still call me paranoid. Even when circumstances proved him right – nobody wanted to believe that it was anything more than coincidence.

He froze in mid-step. What if that was it? What if the reason they couldn't find a link between events was because there was no logical link, at least not to a sane person. After all, didn't somebody say that Van Gogh's cutting off his own ear was a completely logical act once you took into account his mental illness and the fact that he wanted to stop hearing the voices? Well, assuming paranoia, why would you kill somebody? The easy answer: you thought that someone was going to kill you. A pre-emptive strike could be considered self defence if you were truly in fear for your life. It didn't matter whether or not the threat was real or imagined… if the killer believed it to be real…

"Except we do have a connection." Torey didn't seem to impressed when he laid out his theory to her. "George dies and Styles finds the body. Then Styles is the next to go. We start closing in on an organic connection with the poisons, so someone torches the botany bay. Simple."

"Botany lab," he corrected her. "Botany Bay was the penal colony."

"Yeah, funny how England shipped people off, and they formed better countries." Torey didn't look up as she spoke.

"Excuse me?"

"England got rid of all its criminals, and they formed bigger, better countries. Australia… Canada…"

"What? No America?" He said it as nastily as he could.

"I said better."

An ellipse-shaped foam ball came flying across the room and hit Torey in the head. She caught it as it rebounded and placed it on the desk, but otherwise seemed to ignore it.

"Bigger and better than anything else." Trip leaned casually against the cargo container that held the cigarettes. "We were a superpower, and what were you?"

"A country that people actually wanted to live in? A country that didn't go to war every time it disagreed with something?" Now Torey did look up, challenging.

"A country that didn't have the backbone to do anything?" Trip met the stare head on.

"A country that actually cared about international law?"

"A country that couldn't even defend itself? By the early twenty-first century, your military was so decimated that you couldn't defend a small island, let alone…" Trip paused, his mouth leading him places his brain hadn't checked out yet.

"202,080 kilometres of coastline," Malcolm supplied. "Now knock it off, both of you. I'm supposed to be the military historian around here. I'm glad you two weren't on the negotiating committee, otherwise we wouldn't have a united world government. We'd still be waging a battle royal over Alaska." The two of them were acting like children. "Now either play nice, or you won't be able to play together at all."

Torey muttered something that Malcolm couldn't make out, and Trip stared at him with a hurt expression.

"Did you just give me an order? Tell me what to do?" Commander asked Lieutenant, disbelief in his voice.

"Yes."

"Oh," Trip blinked, hurt turning to confusion, then acceptance. "Okay, just checking." He glanced at Malcolm's insignia, then his own, and shook his head. "Just… checking." There was another pause, before he cocked his head and looked at Malcolm intently. "Are you sure you're still Malcolm Reed?"

"Get out of here." Malcolm snatched the ball from Torey's desk and threw it straight at Trip. "Before I arrest you for unauthorised possession of ballistic missiles." Trip left, laughing. At least he was easy to deal with.

"Well, it was you guys who screwed us out of Alaska," Torey muttered. She didn't sound as angry and defensive about it though.

"Yes, well unfortunately, a real-estate exchange from several centuries ago probably doesn't have much bearing on this case." He felt a little insulted, himself. She had, after all, just crushed what he'd thought was a brilliant idea.

Occam's Razor. He reminded himself. Her theory was the simpler one, which made it more likely to be the true one.

"Sir… do you want to do me a favour, and check that crate?" Torey looked up from her work and glanced over at the crate Trip had just been leaning on.

"What about it?" It didn't look disturbed – the lock indicated that it was untouched.

"Just…" she sounded frustrated at his question, clearly not ready to divulge her solution until she had more evidence.

"Fine." He punched in the code and opened it, throwing the lid back. "Oh, fuck."

"There's some missing, isn't there?"

"Yes." They hadn't even bothered to hide it, maybe thinking that if they bypassed the lock then nobody would check. Or maybe they'd been in a hurry, but still… one carton lay turned over, and a second pack was missing. It would have taken someone highly skilled to get past that lock – someone with an intimate knowledge of security systems and a lot of practice in going around them. "How did you know?"

"I've isolated our trigger." Torey answered. "Very old-school. Delay fuse, they stuck a cigarette in a matchbook, essentially. Well, a little more complicated than that, but it's simple, elegant and low tech – especially if some of the sensors weren't working properly and weren't able to pick up the change in heat until it was too late."

And how many people would think of that? How many people were that versed in the latest technology, but still had a grasp of the simplest of things? How many modern systems geniuses collected antiques, and knew how they worked? Hess' hints prodded at him, pointing him towards a single suspect.

He picked up a list of the plants destroyed. None of it made sense – most of them were harmless, so why would the killer do something like this? He – or she – would have to know that it would heighten security around an already suspiciously regarded botany lab, so…

One name leapt out at him, and he had to fight not to react. I need more evidence. If he was right, though, it explained everything. But if he was wrong… I can't go running around making accusations like that. Suspicion wasn't enough, he needed proof – and enough proof that it couldn't be shouted down and denied.

He glanced over at Torey. Had she seen this, yet? If so, had she made the connection? He doubted it – she'd be too eager to see this through. He looked down at the padd, loyalty warring with reason. So much damage could be done with this, but if they could catch a killer…

He saved the data directly to the padd, and slipped it into his pocket. Then he accessed the main computer and re-opened the file, eliminating a single line before downloading the altered information to a new padd, and slipping it into the stack on the desk. He prayed he'd made the right choice, if not ethically, then morally.

"Security!" A voice screamed through the comm, filled with panic. "We need you in C-60… hurry!" Other voices hollered in the background, but Malcolm didn't even wait to respond. He took off at a run, with Torey close behind. C-60, that was crew's-quarters.

By the time they got there, Phlox had already responded. He shook his head when he saw them, sadness all over his expressive face. A crowd of onlookers stared, muttering and shuffling nervously.

"Get these people the hell out of here," Torey growled, "but I don't want them going far. I want their clothes, I want everything they're carrying, and I want their DNA.

"We've…"

"I don't care if it's on file! I want it again." Rage cracked her public control.

Malcolm nodded, ignoring for now the dismissal of his authority. He knew how she felt, and why. This was becoming insane. "Who is it?" Out of the corner of his eye, he watched a couple of his men herd the watchers into a small area of the hallway and take up a guard.

"Crewman Zhou," Phlox supplied. "She worked under the quartermaster's authority…"

"Shit." Malcolm mumbled. What the hell was going on here? First, two engineers, and now a member of Supply. "If this keeps up, we won't have a crew."

"Well, it would narrow down our list of suspects considerably." Torey crouched, staring at Zhou's fingers. One of her fingernails had broken and something had snagged on the rough edge. "She fought back. And she's got us something." Torey reached in with a pair of tweezers and gently lifted a small piece of thread away, dropping it neatly into a plastic bag. "This is our best evidence, yet."

Malcolm nodded, looking away and hoping she'd take it as simple squeamishness. She worshiped evidence, and he'd tampered with her god, profaned the ritual. And he still didn't know if he was doing the right thing, or destroying any chance they had.

Whichever way that could be taken. If she found out, then any respect she might have for him would vanish instantly, he knew that. At the same time, what he'd seen was circumstantial at best, and could mean any number of things. I just wish I could trust you with it. But his own innate caution, and her stubbornness kept him silent. Mostly silent.

"So, do you still think there's a logical connection? Zhou wasn't an engineer, and wasn't anywhere near the scene with George. I don't see a connect with Botany either." He spoke softly, so only she would hear.

"That doesn't mean that there isn't one." She looked up, straight into his eyes. "It just means we have to look for one."

"Even if there is one, that doesn't mean that there's a motive in it. There are eighty-four… eighty-one people on this ship now. Everybody's got to be connected in some way." He was vaguely aware that, perhaps, he shouldn't be telling her how to think, but she seemed so intently focused in one direction. From everything he'd read, that wasn't a good thing when you didn't have a suspect, but he also knew that there was almost always a large gap between theory and practice. Or maybe she did have a suspect, but just wouldn't tell Malcolm about it, for… for what? Fear of what his reaction might be? From what he could tell, fear wasn't in her vocabulary, at least not fear of people's opinions.

No, that would be me. That fear ran his life. Water and drowning weren't the real reasons he'd avoided the Navy; it was the knowledge that he'd always be 'Stuart Reed's boy' and have so much, maybe too much, to live up to. Throw in the politics, and it's not something I was meant to tolerate. "Oh well, at least we know one thing."

"Oh?" She looked surprised. Clearly she hadn't spotted the obvious.

"We know you didn't do it, and I didn't do it. Unless, of course, you don't trust me as an alibi." Maybe there was something sick about cracking jokes over a corpse, but the black humour was the only thing between him and hysteria.

Surprisingly, she smiled. "We'll make a pro out of you, yet."

"Yes, but in favour of what?" It took her a moment to get that one, and when she did, she merely shook her head.

"Puns. You're worse than I thought."

Are we flirting over a dead body? If so, then he was worse than he thought. I'm getting used to this. That thought scared him. When you lost your awe of death, what was to separate you from the monsters? Only morality, and you've proved your willingness to bend that. How long before 'for the good of mankind' became 'for the good of Malcolm Reed?'

I wish I could say never. But he knew he couldn't. Maybe at one point in his life he'd been naïve enough to believe that, but not anymore. Maybe there is nothing between me and the monsters.

"Could you kill somebody?" Malcolm handed a cup of tea across the table, and sat down. It was an odd conversational opener, but he knew his companion wouldn't mind. And with her, he didn't need to be evasive.

Hess sipped at the tea, then set it down. "Yes." She looked at him, clearly expecting more.

"I mean in cold blood." In self defence, he could see her killing easily. Anyone could do that, they'd be fools not to admit it. But thinking, and killing… He could have asked Torey, but had been afraid to awaken more of her ghosts. Instead, he went to the next best source: most of Hess' family was in law enforcement.

"Define cold blood." She smiled as he rolled his eyes. "I mean that, seriously. Do you mean calm, premeditation? Planned out?"

"I mean, could you kill somebody who wasn't attacking you?"

"Yes." She shook her head at his shocked expression. "If you want it bluntly, Malcolm, I'm from a family of professional killers."

He rocked back in his chair. "I thought you said your family was all…"

"Emergency Response Team. One of my brothers is a sniper, and my mother was too, for a while. The whole purpose of their job is to kill people. People they don't know, people they've never met. If that's the job, you do it."

"But that's different. There's still a threat there." He was pretty sure they didn't just go around shooting random targets. He'd be positive, but this was Hess' family they were talking about.

"Not to them, at that particular moment. You can't just snap off a snipe shot, either; you've really got to think about it. And the target has no chance to fight back or save themselves. They don't even know it's coming." She reached over and tapped him on the hand. "You're worried about yourself, aren't you?"

"What makes you say that?" This sensitive streak of hers was really beginning to worry him. It was one thing for her to be concerned about Trip, but this was something else entirely. He found himself waiting for the trap and the insult.

"I hear things." She waved a hand vaguely around her head. "You really freaked some people out today. Phlox, for one. And a couple of the guys in the hall heard you too."

He took a slow, deep breath. "You think it was inappropriate."

"I think you do. I'm a little different." She placed her elbows on the table in defiance of all etiquette and rested her chin in her hands. "It doesn't mean that you don't care. It's more… whistling past the graveyard. You're up close and personal with the big guy in the black cape, and you're trying not to think of how sharp that scythe is. We're all thinking the same thing: 'Thank God, it's not me.' The difference is, most of us aren't having to deal with it. Not on that level."

"So there's nothing wrong with me."

"Well, you dress funny and you look like some kid put you together out of spare parts. And that goofy face of yours doesn't do you any favours." She grinned. "Don't get me started on your choice of reading materials…"

He relaxed, and allowed himself a smile of his own. "This from someone whose appearance has led her best friend, her best friend mark you, to label her 'a psychotic little Tinkerbell,' not to mention those horrible sounds that you erroneously refer to as 'music.' And before you criticise my clothing, at least I've never paired a mini-skirt with engineering boots."

Hess started to laugh, falling forward onto the table as her arms collapsed. "I want to be there when you do. I want pictures. You would make the ugliest woman…"

"What? You don't think I have the legs for it?"

She laughed harder, pounding her hands on the table, and drawing people's attention. "Stop, please, stop. You're killing me. I can't breathe. No more. Stop." It took her a few more moments to regain control. "Oh, Malcolm, you are a sick, sick bastard. But you're okay." She stifled another giggle. "You're okay. At least if you don't put on a skirt."

"I do have a kilt," he challenged. "I could always decide to scare you."

She shook her head and put up her hands as though warding him away. "No… no. I've heard rumours about what goes underneath them…"

He grinned now. "Well…"

"No. I don't even want to think about it." Now she used her fingers to create a cross, definitely warding him away.

Why is this so easy with you, and so hard with any other woman in the universe? Maybe because so much of Hess' behaviour marked her as 'one of the guys.' She'd been practically raised by her five brothers, and could fight, swear and shoot with the best of them. When it came down to it, there was nothing really intimidating about her. Aside from the fact that she could kill you with her bare hands. And even that wasn't the same thing.

"Something else is bugging you though, isn't it?" She cocked her head to the side a bit, studying him.

He nearly said, but backed down. She had a responsibility to report something as serious as tampering with evidence. "No." The word came out too quick though.

"Malcolm." Her look turned serious. "Don't try and bullshit me, because I'm an expert. There's something bugging you, beyond just this 'sensitivity' thing."

"If… when we catch this person," he took a deep breath, "you're the only lawyer around here, right? I mean… you'd automatically be…"

"Any ranking officer can serve as counsel in a tribunal," she answered without him even having to frame the question, "but in a murder case, an attorney is required." She smiled, reassuringly. "But it's highly unlikely that the trial would be held aboard Enterprise. We don't have a qualified judge, for one thing. I mean, this isn't like a disciplinary hearing because someone mouthed off. We're talking murder here. It has to be handled carefully, and by the book." She took a sip of her tea. "Why? Are you worried about me?"

"A little," he admitted, realising that he was. After all, behind the spikes and the attitude was the kind of sweet, sensitive person who fished rabbits out of dumpsters and played nursemaid to broken-hearted drunks. He didn't want her having to get into something like this. He didn't want to see her get hurt.

"Now that is scary." She gave the impression of trying to hide behind her mug. "I think the Tin Man might be developing a heart."

"Maybe." That admission brought forth more laughter. That was another thing about her: it was hard to stay miserable while she was around. She took nothing seriously, or at least not too seriously. He didn't want to see her lose that. I don't want you becoming like me.

"Don't worry, I can probably find a way out of it. I usually do find a way out of things."

He laughed with her; that was true, too. Nobody quite understood just how intelligent and charming she was until they looked at the amount of stuff she got away with.

She reached across and picked up his right hand. He was a little shocked, but then realised she was holding on to his fingers and inspecting his fingernails. They'd already begun to stain, he noticed. "This is what's really scary."

"I'll be fine. As soon as this is over with, I promise." He couldn't cross his fingers, so he crossed his toes instead.

"Right, because you haven't got a problem, and can quit any time you want."

He dropped his head, and his smile became tight and humourless. "You know the song and dance."

"Right down to the four-four timing," she agreed. "At least you're not wasting your time with the denials."

"Who, me?" He snorted. Then he looked up at her, slyly. "Are you getting worried about me?"

"Quid pro quo. Anything you can do, I can do better." She crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, the perfect picture of an annoying little sister.

Though Madeline was never like this. No, Madeline had been the perfect daughter. He was the wayward son, but had no illusions that a homecoming would see him greeted as a prodigal returned. Madeline, if he thought of it rationally, was the kind of girl a boy brought home to impress his parents. Hess, in her normal mode, was the kind of girl you brought home to piss them off.

He looked up and saw Torey approaching across the room, and jerked his hand back. He could feel a flush creeping up the back of his neck. There were so many ways she could misinterpret this, and his vehement denials of a few days ago would do little in this light, but convince her that the rumours were true. Has it really been only a few days? It seemed like so much longer than that.

"Sir. Ma'am." He could hear the chill in her tone, more than the usual blunt matter-of-factness. Hess caught it too, with her keen ear for nuance and looked back and forth between the two.

"Well," she stood up. "If I were you, I'd talk to Phlox about that, Malcolm. There's nothing wrong with asking for a little help." Hess nodded at Torey, and left.

"We were discussing the smoking." Malcolm gestured at the now empty chair. "If you're keeping track, Hess and I are getting along right now. She doesn't think it's a good idea for me to keep trying to kill myself." He held up his hand, displaying the barely yellowed nails.

"I didn't say a thing, Sir." She stayed standing, though. "Phlox has finished his autopsy. He wants us to meet him in Sickbay."

Hopefully I won't get hypothermia on the way. Trust Hess to be able to destroy whatever small headway he'd made, and without even trying. That was the damning thing. The girl didn't even have to try and she could send chaos whipping through the lives of everyone she touched. She was a curse, an albatross that hanged itself around his neck.

That thought brought back thoughts of Jamie, and he stumbled over his own feet. Torey didn't seem inclined to notice, which didn't make him feel any better. Why do you do this to me? Things like this should only happen in bad American sitcoms. It wasn't even like we were doing anything. A couple of seconds either way… but no. Torey had to walk in right while Hess had hold of his hand. And Hess' reaction hadn't helped any. A quick cover statement before she disappeared… it wasn't only not her style, but it sounded like they had been up to something.

He thought of a million explanations on the way to sickbay, and discarded them all. They all simply sounded like excuses, and only made the innocence look like guilt.

As the sickbay doors opened, he had to suppress a groan. Phlox wasn't the only person waiting for them, and another reason for Torey's frostiness became apparent. "Sir."

"Malcolm." Archer didn't look well, and he didn't look happy. "What's going on here?"

"I wish I knew, Sir." Torey was right about one thing. They had been too heavily indoctrinated in the ways of movie and novel mysteries, where the clues presented themselves in neat order, and things could be resolved in two hours, or a couple of hundred pages. "I'm not any happier with this than you are." He almost couldn't believe he said it. A couple of years ago, he wouldn't have said it. A couple of years ago, Archer would have been captain, and that would have been that. But time and experience had changed both men. And I'm not sure that all of those changes have been for the better.

"Hm. Yes, well." Phlox seemed to sense the tension, and cleared his throat. "I have completed my autopsy of Crewman Zhou, and it appears that she is part of the pattern that you are investigating. Her death was caused by severe bidirectional ventricular tachycardia, essentially the ventricular chambers of the heart were contracting too rapidly to allow blood to fully enter. This struck me as odd, because it's a very rare form of tachycardia, and I found elevated levels of digoxin in her system…"

"Digitalis," Malcolm closed his eyes, as the words sunk in. "Foxglove. Native to the British Isles, no less. My mother used to warn me not to eat it." It had grown wild in Aunt Sherry's garden. She'd enjoyed the fact that one of her favourite literary murder weapons could be so close at hand. As a child, he'd been curious, and it was always a worry of his mother's that he'd ingest something deadly. The irony being that in my case it was usually common foods.

"I thought you might know of it, Lieutenant." Phlox sounded rather cheery at the thought. "He seems to have quite a large knowledge base for poisons," he clarified, for Archer. "I initially found this somewhat surprising, but given Lieutenant Reed's background I probably shouldn't have…"

"Poison is a common element of warfare." Malcolm explained, patiently. "And I've always been a military history buff. Do you know how it was administered?"

"I believe she ingested it," Phlox looked down at his notes. "In fact, if it weren't for the previous incidents, I would say that this was an accident, or suicide. But three people dying from organically available toxins makes it highly unlikely, does it not?"

"Everybody's a detective," Torey muttered. Malcolm hoped Archer didn't hear her, or would choose to ignore it.

"I'm sure you two realise how important it is that we deal with this problem. The crew is getting paranoid. This is out of control…"

Suddenly something Hess said came back. Thank you, girl. "Sir, this is a murder investigation. We need to proceed very carefully. We cannot rush the evidence or the procedure, or a good lawyer…"

Archer began to glare.

"… a good lawyer could have our case dismissed. Now, I'm as upset as you are, Sir. I'm a member of this crew, too. I do not want to see this person getting away with it because we got rushed and sloppy." He tried to ignore the queasiness in his stomach, as he thought again about his own actions. Even a not-so-good lawyer would have a field day with that, if they found out.

Malcolm Reed, you are a weak-minded fool. He knew the meaning behind the saying now. Confession could be good for the soul – secrets were hard to bear alone. But there was no one to confess to, not without hurting too many others. No one to take away my doubts, and restore my faith. He had the name of kings and saints and none of the conviction that should go with it.

He glanced at Torey, and the stony look that inhabited her features. She could kill someone, of that he had no question. She could probably even kill him. But she hadn't killed Zhou, and he was pretty damn sure she wasn't involved in the other two, either.

Archer closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I want this stopped, do you understand? I can not have members of my crew dying because of other people's incompetence."

Ouch. The old Archer would never have phrased anything like that. No, not all the changes had been for the better. I'm glad Trip's not here to hear you say that. The reason Archer and Trip had become such good friends was that neither had been inclined to hurt other people. To see his friend acting like the kind of bully they both despised would break what little was left of the engineer's damaged heart.

"Understood, Sir." His own voice sounded hard to his ears. The last time he'd used that tone had been with his father, just before he left. Archer's eyes flew open and he looked shocked, but he said nothing.

There was a tense moment of silence, then Archer seemed to realise where things had gotten. "Dismissed." He sounded tired and defeated again.

Malcolm and Torey left, still not speaking to each other. Even in their makeshift office, the tension held. Finally, he gave up and pushed himself away from the desk.

"Let me know if you find out anything. I'm obviously not that much help to you, and have things to do elsewhere." He didn't, really, but he couldn't handle it anymore. He wanted an escape, and he wanted a smoke. He grabbed a stack of padds and stood up, tucking them under his arm. "Comm me."

She didn't look up or acknowledge, and he felt no desire to remind her who was the ranking officer. He just wanted to get out. On the way, he grabbed a carton out of the crate. I obviously can't impress you, so I might as well do something for myself. And it wasn't like the evidence meant anything any more. She still said nothing, and it served as further evidence of a growing rift.

He made his way quickly to his quarters, and had the cigarette lit before the door even closed. He tossed the padds on his bunk and found an old coffee mug among his things. It would do. He tapped the cigarette against the edge and watched the ash fall in. He then carried the mug back to his bed and shifted the padds over before lying down. At least here, he could concentrate. He set the mug on the floor and let his hand dangle over it, and began to read.

The doorbell sounded. "Come in." He didn't even bother to look up. Incompetent? Why not just say lazy? After all, he was lying down on the job. He lit another cigarette then extinguished the consumed one in the mug, allowing the butt to join the others. Five at last count, but was he really counting?

The door slid open and Torey stepped in. "I tried comming you, but you didn't answer."

"Sorry. I must have been distracted." He didn't take his eyes off the padd. It was in here, somewhere: that elusive thing that would point them in the right direction.

"The thread is the same type and dye used in our uniforms," she began.

"How surprising. Of course, that could match anybody's. That's why they call them 'uniforms.'" He didn't need to be this snarky, but it had been a bad day all round. "My guess would be Crewman Jeremiah's."

"Her roommate? Do you know something I don't, Sir?" Now Torey sounded suspicious, and back on edge.

"If your roommate was dying, wouldn't you try to help them? Our killer hasn't been caught at the scene of a crime yet, and digitalis takes time to have an effect. Phlox said she ingested it. I seriously doubt that our clever criminal waited around for her to realise what she'd eaten." The thought had occurred to him about an hour ago, but given the way she'd responded to his last suggestion, he'd decided to save it until one of them was in a better mood. Now that she was here, however, he figured it was as good a time as any.

"It's possible, Sir. I also didn't find anything else in the fingernail scrapings." She moved over to the foot of his bed and picked up one of the padds, saying nothing about the smoke that now dominated the small cabin.

It's possible? "Did you just admit that I might be right?" He sat up, pulling himself towards the head of the bed to give her room to sit down, then picked up the mug and put it in his lap where he could easily reach it.

She didn't say anything, but this time she did sit down. The silence continued as they worked, but this time it didn't have the same tension it had in the cargo bay. Torey was more subdued now, radiating less rage. And he was calmer, the nicotine numbing his nerves, slowly deadening him.

Four hours, and ten cigarettes later, he heard her sigh and set down another padd. He was tired himself, but he wasn't going to give up. He was going to solve this damn thing if it killed him.

"It's not here." She took the padd away from him, and added it to her stack of discards.

"Patience, Ensign. This isn't the movies, we aren't going to solve this in a couple of hours." He took a deep drag, and blew the smoke towards the ceiling.

"You're pushing too hard. You're letting this consume you."

"Me?" He raised his eyebrows with the question. "I'm fine. You seem to be the one who's obsessed."

"Maybe." Her eyes never left his. "But that doesn't mean that I can't recognise it in someone else." She took the cigarette out of his hand and crushed it in the mug. "There's more smoke in here than in an Industrial Age city. You're tense, you're tired…"

He was, but he wasn't going to admit it. He'd been more tense, and more tired before. He'd lived through that, and he'd make it through this. What he didn't expect was for her to kiss him.

Part of him screamed that this was all wrong, and against the rules besides. Torey was his direct subordinate. People were dying. But that part couldn't scream loud enough to overwhelm all the other parts telling it to shut up. His hand moved automatically, pulling her closer as her lips parted to let his tongue slip between them. She took the mug out of his lap and put it on the floor, out of the way.

"We shouldn't be doing this," he managed a token protest, not precisely a 'no' but a warning.

"Probably not," she agreed, running a hand over his chest. "This is probably bad."

"Probably." Her hand slipped lower, and he forgot about that. Maybe sometimes it was just better not to think.

Afterwards, she lay with her head on his chest and he found himself staring at the pack of cigarettes he'd tucked over his head. How romantic. Even now all he could think about was the taste of them, rather than remembering the taste of her.

"Why?" She followed his gaze, then dropped hers back to his face. "When you know it's killing you… why would you do something like that?"

"Because it…" He sighed. "Because it makes me feel good. And it's something I can count on to do that."

She didn't look like she completely believed him. "There have got to be a lot of things that make you feel good." She kissed the hollow between his shoulder and his neck. "And won't kill you."

"Hyperventilation, tachycardia, arrhythmia, hypertension…"

"Excuse me?" She looked up at him again, "What causes all that?"

"Sex." He smiled at her snort. "Seriously. People have died from it. But they keep doing it, because it does make them feel good. And some people do become addicted. It's the same with anything else. And then your body starts to rely on those chemicals, and reacts poorly when they're taken away. Give your body what it wants, and you feel good again. And drugs don't tell you 'no.'"

"That's it." She sounded like she expected more.

"Essentially. It becomes a habit, and a chemical addiction… but it comes down to feeling good. Feeling safe, like there's something to make everything okay. I hate what it does to me, but I hate not having it even worse." He sighed again. "I know it makes no sense. And scientists say that addiction is a disease, and that it's genetic…"

"But you have a choice. You don't have to do it. Quitting won't kill you."

"Not yet, and not with this," he agreed. "But depending on how much the body relies on the replacement chemicals, withdrawal can prove more deadly than the poison." He stared off into space, absently playing with her hair. He'd never really talked about it, before. Not the actual whys of it, stripped bare of all the excuses.

"It just doesn't make sense."

"No, it doesn't. But in case you haven't noticed, human beings don't always make sense." What they'd just done didn't make sense, either. Not in an abstract, logical kind of way. It reminded him, a little, about stories he'd heard from wars gone past – of people surrounded by death, and looking for a way to feel alive.

Very romantic, Malcolm. At least Torey couldn't read his mind.

The comm rang, and they both stiffened, pulling apart. "Yes?" He tried to keep his voice level. It still sounded panicky.

"I think I've got something on your software." Trip's soft drawl crackled through the speaker. "You weren't down here, so I took a guess…"

"… on my way." He swallowed the first word, an unintentional 'we.' Torey was ahead of him, anyway, pulling her clothes on quickly.

He caught up with her by the turbolift. Part of him didn't want to leave her, and part of him didn't want to leave her alone with Trip. "Remember, Commander Tucker is helping us."

"Your jacket's on crooked." She ignored his warning, and stared at the turbolift doors, as though willing it to hurry up.

"Your hair's a mess."

She ignored that, too, until they were safely inside the turbolift. Then all she did was run her fingers quickly through it, sorting it out. "Not that he can say anything," she murmured.

"Actually, I think he can." As far as Malcolm knew, the only woman on board that Trip had ever been involved with was T'Pol. The man has more definitions for 'off-limits' than I could imagine. And he stuck by them too, with occasionally amusing results. The tale Hoshi told of Trip and Phlox's wife, Feisal, served as case in point.

Torey gave him the standard look that clearly said she couldn't believe that.

"It's true. I have never heard of one case of 'inappropriate behaviour' involving Commander Tucker and a subordinate. Except maybe Lieutenant Hess, but they are most definitely only friends."

"That's what you said about you and Lieutenant Hess." So she wasn't going to let go that easy.

"And that's true, too. I told you, she was getting on my case about the smoking. We're just friends."

They paused the argument as they hurried through the corridors. When they reached the cargo bay, Torey stopped dead. "Why don't we just have a fucking convention, here?"

"I'm outta here." Hess turned to leave, and the only thing that stopped her was Trip's hand gripping her collar.

"Look, you said try to crack it myself." Trip looked at Malcolm, avoiding Torey altogether. "I couldn't, so I got some help. Hess is better with software than almost anyone I've ever met. Now we've got something…"

"Let's hear it." Malcolm crossed the floor to the desk, trying to ignore the crossfire of glares. Yes, God really did have a sick sense of humour.

Trip let go of his second-in-command, and she shrugged, straightening out her neck like a prize-fighter getting ready to go. "Well, it wasn't much really: just a couple of lines of sleeper code, not in the biobed itself, but in the mix-station for the intravenous. Rather than a saline solution, it put together a nice little dose of your chondrodendron tomentosum, which then made its way nicely into her veins. I asked Doctor Phlox, and he admitted that he changed the IV when he made that last check on her."

Malcolm saw Torey's jaw tighten. Neither one of us thought to ask about that. "I checked that IV bag. It was a saline solution."

"Hey, well, you know… you keep such a secure crime-scene and all." Hess had that look in her eye, the one that said she was looking for, and finding the vulnerable spots to hit. Sniper. She also seemed to be keeping herself between Torey and Trip.

Protecting him. She always did, and he must have said something about the tension between him and Torey.

"The security cameras showed nothing." Torey stared back, refusing to be budged.

Uh, oh. Malcolm and Trip shared a look. This was showing all the signs of getting nasty.

"No, I suppose not. And everybody knows that the camera doesn't lie." Hess smiled, but there was none of her usual sparkle. "It's absolutely impossible to alter a recording, especially when you've got the time, because people are running around like the Keystone Kops."

"Are you saying that I don't know what I'm doing?" Torey's voice dropped in volume, and developed an edge.

"I wouldn't be the first."

"Okay." It was Trip who stepped in, taking Hess by the shoulders and easing her backwards. "Let's just all calm down for a moment." He seemed as surprised by Hess' revelation as anyone else. He also seemed concerned about his friend's behaviour.

Then again, so am I. That level of nastiness just wasn't like Hess. What the hell is going on here?

"What's with you?" Trip's words echoed Malcolm's thoughts.

"Nothing." Hess crossed her arms, defensively. "I just don't think that we should be trusting our safety to someone who left the police force on stress leave, and never went back."

"That's not…"

"Right. It was a sabbatical. Right after you were involved with a case that got thrown out because the chain of custody on the evidence wasn't protected, and there were charges of evidence tampering."

"I'm sure you've heard of the word 'slander,'" the threat was heavy in Torey's voice. "Experienced lawyer that you are."

Hess bristled even further at Torey's emphasis on experience. She sometimes made people forget how young she was for someone so highly educated. Her age was often a sore point with her; she'd confessed to Malcolm once that she'd often felt 'left out' by her peers because of it. "'Slander: noun. One: a defamatory speech expressed in transitory form, especially speech. Two: the act of making such a statement. Black's Law. But I never said a thing that isn't already public record."

"Things aren't always what they look like." Malcolm spoke up, silencing Hess. He turned to Torey. "What did happen?" He knew there had to be something, because Hess would never say anything like that without being able to back it up.

"Another officer was accused of tampering with evidence in a drug-trafficking case. He later resigned, but no charges were laid. My father died at that time, and I took some time off."

"And never went back." Malcolm finished for her. "You joined Starfleet instead."

"Yes. But I wasn't a bad…"

"Okay," he tried to sound soothing, and shot another look at Trip. This was insane. He never thought he'd find himself in the engineer's shoes, trying to mollify a dangerously mad subordinate. A couple of hours ago, I would have told her just to shut up. And a few hours before that, he'd been sharing a laugh with Hess, not trying to think of ways to avoid an angry glare.

What did I do? Then it hit him. She could probably smell it, and she knew that Trip was bothered by his smoking as well. He had a feeling that his cult membership was in serious danger of being revoked. I don't need this. No, what he needed was another cigarette. Like he'd said to Torey, at least he could count on them. There when I need them, and they don't get upset, and don't lie to me, either. They didn't: that first puff told you everything you needed to know as it seared its way into your lungs. They let you know from the beginning that they were going to kill you. You didn't have to worry about them being sensitive, or protective.

As for her animosity towards Torey, that was easily explained as well, if you knew Hess. Torey's animosity towards Trip would be enough, and if you connected the fact that Malcolm's smoking and Torey's move to the forefront came at relatively the same time, then it wouldn't be hard to see how Hess could shift to avenger mode. The trick would be getting her out of it.

Without upsetting her further. Because Trip could be just as sensitive and protective of Hess as Hess was of him. Upset Hess, and your best friend might not stay that way. And right now, Trip was the only person Malcolm thought he had a handle on. Everyone else had gone mad.

He did the only thing he could think of. He took charge. "Right. Now, Sir, I'd greatly appreciate it if you and Lieutenant Hess could look at the camera logs and see if you can tell if they have been tampered with, and if they have, if the original data can be recovered. We'll go back over what we've got, and see if we've missed anything else. Let's try to actually function as civilised people, okay?" He looked back and forth between Torey and Hess to make sure they understood. "Nobody's perfect here. We've all got our dark little secrets, but that doesn't mean that we can't do this." After all, it's not like we really have a choice. He watched as the engineers settled into the corner, Trip asking a question, and the normally chatterbox Hess shaking her head and pursing her lips shut. He got a sudden feeling that there was more going on here than he realised.

"Let's do ours, shall we?" He turned back to Torey, but her face was unreadable. She said nothing, but sat down stiffly at her side of the desk. He went to his, and sighed, then took out a cigarette and began to work.