Disclaimer: I own neither Enterprise or it's characters. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes, and I make no money from these efforts.

Author's notes: Thank you very much for all the reviews. They are greatly appreciated, believe me. Sorry I didn't answer in previous notes penmom, but my memory isn't always the greatest thing. I once was trying to figure out where I put my car keys while driving through a parking-lot (yes, they were the same ones that were – by necessity – in the ignition). I appreciate your opinion, and I can but try… but explaining backstory without getting too explanatory (and losing the story itself)… that's a talent I've yet to master. And some of it… well, you guys find out about it shortly after I do. But thank-you, and of course thank you to my amazing beta readers, silvershadowfire and gaianarchy. A combination of editor, research assistant and backup memory (hey, I told you it could be bad), they rescue these things from the well of lost plots with the skill of highly trained specialists. Thanks for keeping me on my toes, guys. I need it.

Chapter 4: Despair and Deception

Lie to me
Tell me everything is all right
Lie to me
Tell me that you'll stay here tonight
Tell me that you'll never leave
I'll just try to make believe
That everything, everything you're telling me is true
Come on, baby, just lie to me…

– Jonny Lang

Jon tried to make sense of the mess in front of him – the tiny coloured flecks of paper that formed the most intricate jigsaw he'd ever seen. I could use Trip for this. He involuntarily smiled at the memory – Trip putting together a puzzle as a bar trick, the catch being that he assembled the entire thing with only the reverse sides showing.

Unfortunately, that's never been my talent. What made this worse than the average jigsaw was the lack of any picture to compare his construction to. He had no idea if he was doing this right or not. His mind kept drifting back to Sickbay. At least Trip knew what he was trying to reconstruct. And what was going on with him anyway? How could he get so sick, so fast? And what the hell was he throwing up? "Damnit, Trip, why can't you just tell people things?"

Frustrated, he stood up and began to pace, even though he knew it accomplished nothing except to drive him more insane. Didn't we leave stuff like this behind in the Expanse? A sudden chill invaded. What if he wasn't infected recently? What if it happened when he was inside that compound? From what we could tell, they were building bio-weapons, and wasn't there a time when measles was extremely virulent and deadly? It wouldn't be hard for someone for the future to create a 'time-bomb' version… Hadn't Trip scheduled a movie like that last week? Something about a virus that lay dormant and non-contagious for a while, until it suddenly mutated into an epidemic? I don't believe in omens… besides, something like that is too simple for Trip. And it didn't explain how he ingested human DNA, not to mention everything else in what he'd puked up.

An idea struck him, and he began searching the room for something flat and heavy. Trip had spread the pieces on a flocklined surface to prevent them from drifting away, so all Jon needed now was something to put on top. Under the bed he found a large box, covered in dust. Perfect. He placed it carefully on top of the scraps of picture, then picked up the whole thing. No sense sitting around here when the light in Sickbay was so much better. My God, I'm thinking like an engineer.

Phlox looked surprised when Jon re-entered Sickbay, balancing his project in one hand and dragging a table scavenged from the dining hall with the other. "I assume you have a chair I can borrow, Doctor."

"Certainly, Captain." Phlox rushed over to assist and Jon handed him the tray with the picture.

"Be careful with that."

"May I ask what you are doing, Captain?" Phlox waited until Jon had the table set up by Trip's bed before setting down the tray and hurrying to fetch a chair.

"The light's better in here." Jon sat down and uncovered the picture. Luckily it hadn't moved much during transport. He watched Trip for a moment, but the Southerner seemed to be sleeping peacefully for the moment.

"Ah." Phlox accepted the excuse and didn't push. "I have made some progress on my analysis of the substance that Commander Tucker vomited earlier. The DNA does not match with any record on file on this ship. I have asked Ensign Sato to contact Earth for me and see if I can get records from their databases. In the meantime I have conducted further tests. This is fascinating, Captain. Our subject was definitely female, and RNA development indicates that she was still in the maturation years, between the ages of eleven and nineteen, probably. There is also quite a mix of recessive genetics – the clearest being a tendency towards heterochromia iridis…"

"What?" Jon looked up at Phlox in irritated puzzlement. "Could you try and remember that I'm a layman here, Doctor?"

"She had two different coloured eyes." Phlox translated. "Now there are some…"

Jon tuned him out for the moment, staring down at the picture. Two different… he'd been trying to fit three people into the picture, based on the wildly disparate eyes, but if Phlox's 'subject' belonged in this picture, then there would only be two. He moved part of his work into a new position, and a face began to emerge from the mess. Piece by piece, he focused on the faces until he had enough semblance to form an identity. A boy and a girl stared out at him from the mosaic, grinning like maniacs. The girl was a stranger, but the boy… I'll be damned if that's his nephew. He'd seen that face before, less than a year ago. Intelligent blue eyes sparkled beneath hair that would later lighten to blond. True, Sim had never sported a blackened eye or an ugly gash like this kid, but… Jon's eyes flicked up to Trip's forehead and the barely visible scar that decorated it.

So who's the girl? Trip reminisced quite often about Melissa Lyles, but he'd clearly described her as being blond, and this didn't look like the type of girl who'd feel at home in a dress, let alone get away with wearing a red one. Not with that hair, she couldn't. Still, this seemed to eliminate the jealousy angle, because this girl clearly wasn't a member of Enterprise's crew. And what kind of person would care about a long-ago girlfriend who probably couldn't even remember Trip's name?

"Fascinating, Captain." Phlox leaned over Jon's shoulder and stared at the picture. "According to my analysis of the DNA, many of the same recessive physical features are present in this child. It's quite odd to see such a combination. Do you know who she is?"

Jon shook his head. "Not a clue." He didn't recognise the picture; it was just a single tree out of the forest that Trip kept over his desk. Except… now that he thought about it, it was one of the ones that Sim had been obsessed with, too. Obviously, then, it held some meaning for Trip.

"Captain?" Hoshi stepped through the doors, clearly apprehensive about something. "I didn't want to bother you about this, but we're having trouble with Communications. According to Lieutenant Hess, it seems like some sort of virus or something, but we can't send any outgoing messages, and it appears that the protocols themselves have been scrambled."

"What?" Jon jumped up, knocking the table and dislodging the box, strewing its contents all over the floor. First Trip, and now the ship? "What the hell is going on here?"

!!!!!

Trip twisted around to see Jon coming down the aisle, and he didn't look happy. Uh, oh. Malcolm and T'Pol followed close behind – both of their faces were blank masks.

"Pardon me, but did you wish to address the court?" Lucifer smiled a greeting at Jon, who didn't return it.

"You're damn right I do. You call this a trial? You call that a defence?"

Lucifer's smile broadened, and Trip felt his heart freeze. "Would you care to testify? Such excellent character witnesses here, aren't they?"

Jon glared, but said nothing.

"After all, what do we have? A murderer, a thug, and a drug addicted Judas. Yes, my dear," Lucifer stared straight at T'Pol, who actually flinched. "I know that you knew how my client felt towards you, yet you still chose to give yourself to someone else. But as I have explained to him, we all must take responsibility for our decisions – and it was your decision to marry Koss. Made quite rationally and logically, I believe… so you can hardly say that you were unable to consider the ramifications. As for you, Captain Archer… I must say congratulations. It's rare that I get to personally meet a man so cold-blooded as yourself… someone so willing to torpedo all those innocent people, just so there wouldn't be any witnesses. And you, sir…" His brilliant eyes shifted over to Malcolm. "I know. You were 'just following orders,' right? Just like those lovely boys at Nuremburg, recounting their work in Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Belzec."

"We weren't out to commit genocide." Jon's voice took on that tight controlled quality it did when he was trying not to lose his temper.

"Really?" Lucifer turned back to Trip. "Didn't you say something about going into that hatching chamber with a plasma torch? Didn't you want to kill all of those unborn babies, simply because of their race?" He caressed Trip's cheek and temple comfortingly. "It's okay, you can tell me. I won't hate you because of it."

Trip dropped his head and squeezed his eyes shut. "Yes." He whispered. He'd wanted it so badly, to be able to burn and destroy. And all because those hatchlings would one day grow up to be Xindi. He hadn't wanted to give them that chance. Toby had yelled at him for days after that, asking what made him better than the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge or the Ottoman Turks when they massacred the Armenians in 1915. That had been another reason for his lack of sleep: incessant lectures from his best friend as she compared him to Stalin in Siberia, and the Hutus dealing with the Tutsis in Rwanda.

"All it takes is one, Trip. One person to think that it's okay, and a million more will follow suit. It's the threshold effect, Trip. You can fill a glass with water over the top and the surface tension will hold it, but as soon as one drop breaks free… You have a responsibility, Trip. Aren't you guys out here because you're supposed to be representative of how good humanity can be? Is that how good we are? Mass murderers because someone did it to us? Yeah, that worked miracles in Algiers, didn't it?"

Lucifer reached around and pulled Trip into a comforting hug, patting him on the back. "See? That wasn't so hard. Confession is good for the soul, Trip. You know what?" Lucifer pulled back and looked deep into Trip's eyes. "I'll bet that if Jon hadn't kept you away from him, that you would have killed Degra yourself, wouldn't you have? An eye for an eye?"

Trip nodded, and Lucifer hugged him again. "That's okay, Trip. I know what it feels like when someone takes away everything you've ever loved, and every thing you've ever cared about. When all you want to do is destroy and rend, because it's the only thing that will ease the hurt."

"And I hurt so much," Trip whispered.

"I know you did. She was your baby sister, wasn't she? And you couldn't save her. They simply slaughtered her."

"You promised." Elizabeth's quiet voice trickled into the conversation.

"Oh, God…"

"No, no, no, Trip. You gave up on that a long time ago, remember? Why prayers when it always comes down to you? You've never relied on him before. You've always done things for yourself. '…then I will profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.' But I never abandon anybody. I'm here for you, go on and tell me everything."

"I…"

"No!" The doors banged open this time, rebounding off the wall. "Don't listen to him." Hess stalked down the aisle, though she wasn't in uniform. Instead, she wore a neat tailored suit, and her hair was more subtle than normal – just pale coloured streaks in her neatly coiffed locks. "He's not working in your best interests, sweetie." Her voice took on the tone it did when she slipped into her 'caretaker mode;' when she spoke to him like a small child. "He doesn't care…"

"Yes, listen to a congenital mutant and professional liar." Lucifer's tone was pleasant, but his eyes caused Hess to stop dead. "Though, ask her yourself… you shouldn't keep things from your attorney."

Trip watched the struggle on Hess' face as she wavered between a lie, and the untenable truth. Either way, she'd fall victim to the trap – it was like something she'd weave herself.

"Trip, listen to me. We need you." Jon blinked, like he was trying to hold back tears. "We're your friends…"

"The one I kiss is the one you want." Lucifer said it so softly that it sounded like it hadn't even been spoken. Trip's mind immediately flashed to T'Pol's kiss before the wedding.

Just like Judas. You love me, but not enough. Trip could see it in her eyes now, that same look that said she wanted to say something or do something, but she wouldn't because she was too afraid of the cost.

"You know I will take one of them in exchange," Lucifer whispered. "If they're willing to sacri…"

"No." Trip twisted to face the front again, staring at a point past the far wall. "No more tradeoffs. No more guilt." The room suddenly felt cold – too cold for any kind of comfort. "No one else suffers because of me."

"Trip…" Concern overrode Jon's tone now.

"Don't rescue me, Jon. Stop stepping in to save me from myself. Maybe that's part of my problem… that everybody always protects me, always tries to make things easier for me. I've always said that I take responsibility, but maybe I don't, maybe everybody shields me from it." Trip's voice shook, but he wasn't going to back down. No more, no more, no more. No more all about me.

Lucifer laughed again, and this time there was nothing pleasant to it. "You should have been named 'Peter' instead of 'Charles.' You're no kind of man, but you've all the intelligence of a rock. 'I'll stand by you forever,' but when it comes down to it, you'll deny all knowledge. Oh, Peter is hailed as the founder of the church, the 'Rock' it was built on… but that cornerstone had such a tendency to crumble under stress. Nearly all the good he did, was purely out of guilt. And he had such a big mouth," Lucifer grinned and gave Trip a light smack to the back of the head. "Just like you. Jumping in with both feet, and never thinking before he said anything." Lucifer stood up and spread his arms wide. "Ladies and gentlemen, my client pleads 'Guilty.' In accordance with that, let him be sentenced." He leaned down and dropped a gentle kiss on Trip's head. "And now you are mine."