A/N: Hello everybody! I'm back! Sorry for the ridiculously long delay! Hope you all enjoy chapter seven.

Disclaimer: What? Me? Own anything? Don't be silly.

A Reminder: We're still set just at the start of the Xindi arc... blimey, did I start writing this that long ago! Now get on and read!

Chapter Seven

The next day tensions on Enterprise at last reached breaking point, in more ways than one, and Archer for one was oddly relieved. It would not do for the tensions that had built up over the past few weeks to last forever, putting a constant strain on the ship and her crew. At least this way… they could not grieve forever. Now was the time for Malcolm to be put out of mind, remembered fondly by his friends in sparing moments, but nothing more. In a way, this death, this acceptance of his absence, was worse than the first. It was at this point that he would die in the hearts of his crewmates.

On the other side of the boundary of life, Malcolm Reed still haunted his old life, a part of it yet never truly belonging. And to make this existence worse for him, he had seen nor sensed no more of Cathy.

But Fate was not one to let things rest in such an unsatisfactory state of affairs.

So tensions broke – in a rather explosive manner. Let's just say that it involved a Klingon cruiser, a firefight, a security alert, and something of a lack of restraint on the part of a certain engineer. The MACO's were in heaven.

As soon as the alarm went, Malcolm Reed was on his feet and reaching for a phase pistol – but his hand passed straight through the storage locker. Cursing silently, he made his way for the bridge, slipping into a turbolift just as Commander Tucker and Hoshi Sato did the same. The two stood apart, looking slightly award, and Malcolm smiled sadly. He wished he could talk to them.

After a moment Hoshi broke the silence.

"It's been one month, today." Trip looked up, and for a moment Malcolm glimpsed the dark circles under his eyes, and winced.

"What?"

"One month. Since... since his death." There was silence, broken only by a brief exclamation from the third member of the turbolift which the other two did not hear. Trip shuffled uncomfortably, avoiding Hoshi's gaze. The ship shook slightly, giving Trip a convenient way out of a conversation which he certainly didn't want to have.

"This turbolift had better hurry up..." Trip looked away, and didn't see the expression on Hoshi's face, but Malcolm did – and as the doors to the turbolift swooshed open he leant forward, whispering in her ear words that not even the famous linguist would pick up.

"Courage, Hoshi." The woman looked up for a moment, frowning, as though she was trying desperately to remember something but failing miserably. She shook her head, and stepped out onto the bridge. It was just her imagination.

888

Major Hayes was seated at tactical, a thing which both Trip and Malcolm noted with bitter smiles. Damn him, they both thought, he looks smug.

And there, hanging in space on the viewscreen, was the ugliest, biggest Klingon war-bird Malcolm had ever set eyes on. And then, as Captain Archer rose from his chair, he looked up – and their gazes met just for a moment. Archer frowned at him, and Malcolm froze, so used to being invisible that to suddenly be seen seemed strange and wrong... but surely Archer was just looking at someone behind him –

The Klingon ship fired once more, and Archer tore his gaze away, instead turning to Hayes, and Malcolm found his hope turning to abject jealousy. It was hardly fair, was it, that he, who had always been so careful in honouring his rules, his duty, should die when a man like Hayes was still alive. He felt a welling up of hatred, of righteous anger, that he had never been able to feel whilst alive, when emotions were constricted to a physical body. He stepped towards Hayes, not thinking –

But then he remembered Cathy's oh-so-sad face, and stopped, shocked at the extent of his own feelings. The bridge shook around him, but he paid it no heed. It couldn't hurt him, anyway. Not anymore. A sudden explosion drew him from his thoughts and he looked up, horrified to see a ball of flame – all that remained of the Klingon bird-of-prey – blossoming on the viewscreen. Both he, Trip, and Archer whirled around to Hayes, sitting at the tactical post, his expression smugger than ever.

"I told you to knock out their weapons, Hayes, not destroy them!" Archer's anger was palpable, but not as much as Trip's when Hayes gave his careless response.

"It was an accident. I mis-calculated. No big worry, is there? Just means there's one less Klingon war-bird out there to attack us."

"There were fifty people on that ship, dammit!" Trip stepped towards the man, his fists balled, but Archer – and Malcolm too, but no-one noticed him – stepped between the two, his face creased in concern. Trip stepped back, breathing deeply, and Malcolm knew that it wasn't the death of the Klingons that Trip was worried about – he didn't give a flying fig about anyone who threatened his precious engines – but rather the fact that it had been Hayes who had fired the deadly shot.

"Malcolm wouldn't have made that mistake." Trip spat, pulling his arm from Archer's grasp. Hayes made no response, but his smug expression did not fade. Archer nodded to Hayes, before turning to Trip.

"C'mon. Let's go to my ready room." Archer led Trip away, but for once Malcolm did not follow him. This was one conversation that should remain private even from ghosts. Instead, he moved over to the tactical station, and leant over Hayes. Malcolm swallowed as he observed the readout. There had been nothing wrong with the targeting scanners, and the Klingon war-bird had had a perfectly ordinary configuration. Its destruction had been no accident.

As Archer stepped off the bridge the rest of the crew let out a sigh of relief – a sigh it seemed they had been holding in since the moment of Malcolm's death. Hoshi glanced over at Travis, and smiled shakily. The young ensign smiled back. It was time to get on with life.

And that was alright. Malcolm wanted them to do exactly that. But Hayes – he smiled mischievously – Hayes would not get away so easily. He leant over, whispering into the Major's ear.

"Fine shooting, my dear Hayes..."

Major Hayes flinched, and looked around wildly for the source of the voice he thought he had just heard. Malcolm laughed.

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"Trip." Archer sat down behind his desk, looking up at his long-time friend and engineer. "Take a seat." The southerner complied, and when he did so it was more of a collapse onto the chair than anything else. Trip, more than any of them, was exhausted by grief.

"I'm sorry, Cap'n." He said quietly, but his head was bowed and Archer saw that he avoided meeting his gaze.

"Yes." Archer said quietly. "So am I." Trip looked up at this, and their eyes met – there was no accusation in his captain's eyes, only understanding and support. They sat in silence for a moment, Trip drinking in some of the strength offered in those eyes and Archer realising for the first time exactly what hell his friend had found himself in. After all, Malcolm's death had in part been caused by the problems with the Suliban cell ship – problems that Trip would have blamed himself for not finding a way to fix. He would have beaten himself up over it had it been any crewmember, but the fact that it was Reed, Trip's closest companion, who had died...

But has he? The thought, unbidden, pushed in on Archer's thoughts, elbowing out all reason or logic, and the memories of the strange white light and the voices, Malcolm's voice and that of the 'being', came flooding back to him. He leant forward, about to tell Trip everything – Trip would understand, he wouldn't scoff or laugh – when the comm panel by his hand bleeped.

"You're needed on the bridge, Captain. T'Pol's found something she thinks you should see." It was Hoshi. Archer leant back, the fever vanishing. He rose, nodding for Trip to precede him. As he stepped out onto the bridge he glanced back ruefully.

Trip would have thought him a madman anyway.

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Back on Earth, a family was finally picking up its pieces and putting itself back together after the worst blow possible. It had been Stuart's idea – to salve the pain of grief with the greatest joy possible. And so it was that, a month after losing his son, Stuart Reed led his daughter up the aisle and into the arms of her waiting groom and wedlock.

And, as she spoke the fateful 'I do', Stuart found his mind wandering back to another wedding, in a time that seemed so long ago. He had been against his son's marriage – he had been against anything to do with Starfleet altogether – but standing in the church that day he felt he would have given anything, even happily accepted his son's choice of beau and career, to have him standing with Madeline today. And, whilst it was his own right as the bride's father, he could not help but feel that it should have been Malcolm, not he, who gave Madeline away.

But then, as the congregation raised their hymnbooks for one last rendition of I Vow to Thee, My Country, he was sure he heard in his ear an all-too familiar, clipped baritone. And Stuart Reed, though he had never been a man of faith nor one for such childish fancies, believed with all his soul that his son was with him, and that he had forgiven him.

And so he was, and so he had.

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A/N: Please review, you know I love them so!