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

Author's note: This depiction of Trip's brother and of his possible past are in no way related to my other works. However, I've always been intrigued by the fact that he gives away so little. The question is… why?

Deep Dark Secrets

Prologue: Reality

"You are such a shit."

"No, you are."

"I hate you."

"I'm better."

"Are not."

"Are so. And I'm not a bastard."

"Shut up! Don't say that, just shut up, shut up, shut up!"

… chaos, bright colours and cheap lights. Then yelling, and a loud noise, then more yelling. "…shut up, shut up, shut up!"

He sat up with a jerk, kicking until the blankets tangled around his feet and he could dislodge them. Why now? He thought he was done with nightmares. He got up padded into the bathroom, and switched on the light over the mirror. He stared at the stranger looking back at him, trying to figure out who that person was. There was a certain familiarity to the blond hair and the bright blue eyes, but it looked like someone else. Is that who I've become?

He reached out to touch the image, with its slender nose that gently curved up at the end and those eyelashes that women claimed to envy. He half-expected the cool glass to warp under his fingers and suck him into another world, or permit that person entry into this one.

He left the mirror and went to the closet, pulling the door open wide and then simply standing back to look. Most of it was uniforms, the bright pips indicating a commander and the red strip announcing that he worked in Engineering. He knew that if he put one on, that's who he would be: Charles 'Trip' Tucker the Third, chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise. He'd put on the character, go to work for the day, then come home and be what?

Still Charles Tucker, but who was he? Ask anyone out there, and they wouldn't have a clue. Oh, sure they knew some things. He had a brother and a sister, and presumably parents… he had mentioned them, hadn't he? Oh yeah, and a dog at one time, the dog was a nice touch. And he liked key-lime pie, and pecan pie, just like every good Southern boy should. And he was a lady-killer, don't forget that. But they were just pieces, and how long before someone put the pieces together and realised that the picture wasn't there? How long before they knocked on his door, identifying him for what he truly was? A fraud. A con man with a big bright smile and all that confidence charm. Trust me; you know you can. I'm a trustworthy guy. And they did, every one of them. Nobody called his bluff, not even Jon who had enough to go on to make a guess.

Best not to disappoint the marks. With a sigh, he pulled out one of the uniforms and got dressed.


"What's going on?" Trip slid into his seat and scanned his panel. A call to the bridge usually meant something big. It didn't seem to be anything wrong with the ship, though if it was, he probably wouldn't have been paged to come here.

"We're getting a distress call." Jon didn't even look up as he answered. "Apparently it's an Orion slave vessel."

Trip suppressed a growl. Jon's description of the market paired with T'Pol's accounts of the effects of the neural restraints flashed back into his mind. Orions were not his favourite people right now.

"… but the message is in English," Jon continued. He nodded at Hoshi who put it on the loudspeakers.

"Mayday, mayday. We have an emergency." The speaker didn't sound scared though. The words were masked under a slow, heavy drawl, and Trip felt his stomach freeze.

No, God, please, no. His fingers refused to work, and his mouth grew dry. Anything… anything… He heard Hoshi asking what the emergency was. No… it didn't matter what the emergency was. They had to get out of here, they had to go. He wanted to scream it, but the words wouldn't come. They wouldn't listen anyway. Nobody ever listened. Nobody ever listened until it was too late. Don't go into the basement with the monster.

"Trip?" That was Malcolm's voice now, and he sounded worried.

"Trip?" And now Jon. "Trip, what's wrong with you?"

I'm coming apart. The game is up. I'm busted. Things didn't sound right, didn't feel right, didn't look right. He tasted the voices, heard his skin and felt them all looking at him.

"Get Phlox!" Jon sounded scared, and Jon wasn't the scared type.

Round and round and round she goes. Where she is, nobody knows. Sometimes even the con-man had to lose.

"Travis, I want you to get a shuttlepod and go and get those people off! Malcolm, you go with him." Hands grabbed Trip's arms. They might have been Jon's but he couldn't tell.

No, Jonny. Don't do that. You don't want to do that. He wouldn't listen though. Nobody ever listened. Nobody ever listened until it was too late and the damage was done and irreversible. Then, thankfully, the world shut off.

He sat up screaming, and a pair of hands pushed him back down. "Take it easy, Commander. I still haven't finished my scans. Apparently, you fainted. Have you had any fainting episodes before?"

"I can't…" As soon as Phlox let him go, he rolled off the bed and scrambled to his feet. Jon wasn't here, which meant… Oh no.

He dodged the doctor and sprinted out into the hall. The shuttle bay. That's where Jon would go, to greet their new guests. He heard Phlox yelling after him, but fortunately the Denobulan wasn't built for speed, and passing crewmembers hesitated before thinking to grab a senior officer. He had to get there. He had to stop…

"Jon, no!" He darted up to his captain and friend, grabbing the man's uniform. "Jon, we need security down here right now." He glanced at T'Pol, but she looked at him like he wasn't making sense.

"Shouldn't you still be in sickbay?" Jon shook him off. The lights flicked on to indicate that the shuttlebay had repressurised. They were back.

Jon stepped through the doors, and Trip found himself with no recourse but to follow. He stood there mutely as the shuttle door lifted upwards. And watched himself step out of the shuttle.