A/N: hello! Thank you everyone for your help with the pips. I wouldn't have found that word by myself. You all get gold stars! This chapter is your prize, you will see why the word was important ;)

We are slowly but steadily entering phase 2 of this story. This last scene will be a turning point, and it is the very scene that made me write this story. Everything else was constructed around it! I hope you'll enjoy, let me know what you think! I'm having a bit of trouble getting a feeling for this fandom, so your reactions are really interesting for me :)

Disclaimer: this chapter contains violence.

STRINGS ATTACHED

CHAPTER FIVE

Cussing and growling at technology wasn't really Malcolm's style. He might have picked up one or two of Trip's quirks over the last months, since the Brit found himself lying on the ground, waist deep in the machinery of his working station in the Armoury, and threatening bloody murder at the computer.

It wasn't working.

Nothing was working, at least not reliably. Not the computer checking the arsenal, not the programme responsible for calculating the ballistics, not the sensors measuring the target, not the user interface that would normally help him figure out what the hell was wrong and how to fix it.

Malcolm was just one step away from going old school on the computer and blowing it all up with a few lovely grams of TNT.

For hours, he had tried to make the damn thing work. At first, he had blamed his failure at the fact that he wasn't able to concentrate on the task – his mind was going overdrive trying to find a different angle on the accusations against Trip and T'Pol, at the pattern between encoded messages and apparent sabotage. And while this was true, there were also, constantly, thoughts about secret messages between Trip and T'Pol lurking in the back of his head, sometimes sneaking their way into the spotlight of his attention. When he tried to shove them away, images of Trip injured in the brig without help or hope appeared, or Trip next to him in bed, lying straight to his face. At some point, Malcolm couldn't even decide what was worse.

Unfortunately, reality wasn't such a nice haven of sanity either.

The ship was a mess. Malcolm's head hurt when he thought about it. Long-range weapons were down completely, and only short range was working – which seldom helped when attacked in open space. Telemetry didn't have any power since the overhaul had rerouted the flow. When the scientists had ended the few running programmes that had analysed the nebula, they fused and since were unresponsive. Communications were unreliable, with static and weird noises making it through the channels and driving Hoshi mad. In order to keep the internal systems running, Archer and the remaining engineers had decided to curb the Warp Drive at 2.1. To help Engineering with powering the overhaul that kept draining the ship at the worst of time, Impulse had been cut from the power completely.

If they were attacked right now, Enterprise had no chance. They wouldn't be able to outrun another vessel nor fight it. Even though navigation was still somewhat working, thank God, they would hardly be able to scan for a hiding place without telemetry. It was a huge mess, and Engineering was working on double shifts, which meant that they had to cut them some slack soon otherwise accidents were bound to happen.

If this was a normal day for Command, he'd gladly stay a Lieutenant for the rest of his career.

Groaning, Malcolm gave the relays one last evil glare before he pushed himself away from the machinery to call Engineering – he had to pick his battles more wisely if he wanted to win the war.

He was about to head over to Müller and Johnson, who were frowning over the new readings, when the Captain hailed him.

'Captain Archer to Lieutenant Reed.'

Malcolm gritted his teeth. By now, being hailed personally by the Captain had only meant more work. More work meant even less chances to sneak his way to the brig and finally check on Trip.

"Go ahead," he said as he had reached the wall panel.

'Lieutenant, meet me at your quarters, please,' Archer's voice ordered, and Malcolm found himself staring confusedly at the panel before he remembered to answer.

"... my quarters, Sir?"

'You heard me. Archer out.'

He mumbled a quick "understood"and made his way to B deck without saying goodbye to his staff – lately, engaging in conversation with them only meant manoeuvring around curious questions he couldn't answer.

He arrived at B deck and saw Archer and Ensign Heston, who had been drafted as personal guard, already in front of his quarters' door. His stomach was twisting in uneasiness, but Archer smiled at him quite jovially, rubbing his hands in slight awkwardness.

"Captain?" Malcolm greeted, nodding at Heston.

"Malcolm, I need to raid your quarters," Archer said cheerily, with an impish spark in his eyes that told the Lieutenant that he wasn't all that serious. "Would you be so kind...?"

Malcolm didn't move except for lifting one eyebrow. There was no malice coming off from the Captain, no barely conceived anger like he had seen so often in the past few days, which made it safe to fish for a little bit more information. "Are you looking for something in particular?"

Archer nodded enthusiastically. "Sure. I want to have a look at your comm panel. As far as I know, you hadn't converted it back to its original function?"

Ah, Malcolm understood where this was going: Archer was looking for the infamous third conspirator again.

Indeed, after the Suliban had taken over the ship and Trip had used his trick of rerouteing the comm signal through the EPS grid, he had instructed Malcolm to do the same. They had been able to call C deck with Hoshi and Travis and stage their escape. Afterwards, when the internal comm had been re-established and the system fed from its own power grid again, there hadn't really been any reason to convert the extra option, and he had simply reattached the wall panel, forgetting about it quickly.

Archer wanted to see how it was done – if Trip was plotting against him and had disrupted the internal comm as suspected, chances were high that he used the same technique. Malcolm guessed that the Captain had already looked at Trip's empty quarters but came up empty. Checking all other comm panels would take longer than returning to Earth.

"Be my guest," Malcolm said indifferently and punched in the code to his private quarters. Maybe keeping the Captain busy wasn't all that bad right now.

The doors slid open and Malcolm entered first, complying to Starfleet regulations. An inspection of a crew member's quarters without criminal charges warranted the presence of said crew member, as well as the next higher-ranking officer to conduct the inspection – usually a sensible rule since an invasion of privacy by a lower rank might lead to a lack of respect. When your next higher-ranking officer was your Captain, Malcolm found that the ordeal was still slightly embarrassing. They really had been spoilt with Trip as a Commander, he realised, since Trip somehow managed to keep the atmosphere light and get what he wanted without pulling rank too obviously.

Thankfully, Malcolm's room was up to par, and Archer only took a quick, curious glance at the small cabin before focussing on the wall panel. Ensign Heston, mindful of the procedures, stayed outside.

With a hypospanner, the Captain begun to unscrew the wall panel. Malcolm watched him wearily, then awkwardly sat on his bed in order to leave the desk's chair for the Captain in case he wanted to take a seat.

"How are the external sensors coming along, Malcolm?" Archer asked conversationally as he examined the panel design.

Malcolm sighed. The last few hours had been an incredible test of patience for anyone included – every time they managed to get a few systems back online, they suddenly crashed again and made all the work earlier redundant.

"Not good, honestly," he said thus, not in the mood to sugarcoat the situation. "I spent the last two hours trying to help Lieutenant Müller with the long-range targeting sensors, but so far we wouldn't even detect Jupiter if we flew straight into it."

The Captain had his back to him, but Malcolm could hear a chuckle in his voice. "Well, you have about two weeks until you can put that to the test. How is that list coming forth?"

Safely out of his Captain's sight, Malcolm rolled his eyes. Archer's list of possible suspects... he hadn't briefed Müller yet. Officially he had been too busy, but actually he had felt completely nauseated by the thought of sharing Archer's crazy theory about Trip's vicious plotting with anyone else.

He shook his head. "We scheduled a meeting for this evening."

Archer, standing up straight now and pushing his hands on his hips, shook his head slowly. "This is not really my area of expertise..." he directed at the communication panel.

Biting his own lip, Malcolm refrained from pointing out that they had a crew full of capable engineers who were happy to examine the panel... but Archer obviously hadn't managed to jump over his shadow to open up to the crew.

The Captain turned around and made his way to the chair, just as Malcolm had expected. "I thought of a few names for that list, just in case you -"

In the middle of the sentence, Archer fell silent.

Confusedly, Malcolm looked up, only to see the Captain, frozen in mid-movement as he was just about to sit down, staring at a spot next to Malcolm's bed with wide eyes.

Whirling around, half expecting an enemy to stand there, Malcolm tried to find what had taken his Captain by surprise. He needed a few seconds to understand, and then froze himself.

Because right next to the bed, on a small bed stand, was a perfectly folded, clean uniform beneath a pair of issued blue briefs, just as neatly folded and clean.

Malcolm's brain needed a split second to transition from a first bout of embarrassment – the Captain really didn't need to see his underwear, thank you very much – to utter horror. Because that uniform wasn't his uniform.

On the chest, right above the red stripe, were three silver pips distinctly visible.

There was only one person on board who wore a rank insignia with three pips, because there was only one Starfleet Commander on Enterprise.

The scene had been frozen, but then everything rushed back to normalcy when Archer jerked into motion and made a dash to the uniform, grabbing the piece of cloth.

"Paranoid, huh?" he hissed, eyes blazing when he turned around. "I'm paranoid?!"

Malcolm had lain out the uniform after one of his and Trip's arguments about how to keep a room (and everything else) clean. He had picked up that uniform and folded it neatly next to his idiot boyfriend's bedside to give him a little bit of inspiration – Trip, being the ignorant slob that he was, kept slipping back into his previously worn uniform (which he usually picked off the ground) after spending the night with Malcolm, who in turn had refused to stow it away since it was actually Trip's and he had promised not to clutter his place. Weeks later, between Trip's pig-headedness and his own pig-headedness, the uniform had become a part of his room. Malcolm had completely stopped perceiving it as misplaced any more.. which was ironic, really, since one of Trip's sloppily-folded uniforms wouldn't have managed that for sure, and wouldn't have blurted their relationship out to the Captain.

Shell-shocked, Malcolm opened his mouth, but his mind blanked. What was there to say, really? It was hardly possible to argue that this uniform wasn't Trip's with the obvious rank insignia and 'C. Tucker' sown neatly onto the hem of the commissioned briefs. Trip's quarters were only a couple of corridors away, there was absolutely no reason why he should stow his briefs at Malcolm's place, especially not next to Malcolm's bed.

Seeing how this obviously wasn't a misunderstanding they would laugh about later, the Captain basically exploded.

"It's you! It's been you all along!" He screeched with a voice Malcolm had never heard before, "And here you've been telling me about your 'duty to the ship'!"

Heston, alarmed by the shouting, barged in and looked from Malcolm to the Captain in confusion, one hand uncertainly hovering above his pistol holster.

"Sir, what's -"

"Captain, I -"

Archer tossed the uniform onto Malcolm's bed with rage. "You stood in my office and told me I was being paranoid!"

"Sir, this has nothing to do with the sabotage claim-"

Archer whirled around to Heston and pointed at Malcolm angrily, not listening to a word he was trying to say.

"Confine him to the brig!" He yelled. When he realised what that would mean, he gritted his teeth at Malcolm and clenched his fists. "No."

Ensign Heston, who had already taken a step towards him and who Malcolm was ready to kick straight to D deck if he dared to touch him, stopped and looked at the Captain in obvious distress.

Hateful eyes focussed on Malcolm with so much spite that he knew no matter what words he managed to utter before he was cut off wouldn't be enough. Archer wouldn't hear him, wouldn't listen to him in this state of mind. Malcolm had seem him like this before – when he had accused Trip in Sickbay and the anger had rolled off his shoulders.

"Keep them apart," he hissed finally, and Malcolm flinched. "Confine him to quarters. Indefinitely. No communications, I want guards posted 24/7."

Heston nodded curtly, quickly moved to the communication panel that had caused all this mess, and murmured some orders into it with a low voice. The guards would be here in a few seconds, Malcolm had trained them to respond fast.

"Captain," he tried a last time, "I never took action against you or this ship."

Archer looked at him, and beneath the fury, Malcolm could see betrayal. "I've trusted you, Malcolm..." He stared at the uniform on the bed. "You... Both of you betrayed me."

As he said it, his gaze hardened and the steel in his eyes returned. The wrath won and pressed his lips into a thin, white line as he suppressed whatever else he had to say. Then there were steps outside and they heard Heston whisper.

With a last deadly glare, Captain Archer turned on his heel and strode out of the door, which closed softly behind him and cut off Malcolm from the rest of the ship.

Trip sat on the gray bunk of his new gray cell and stared at the gray glass door. It wasn't such a fascinating view, given that the space behind the brig's gray door was nothing more than a few square meters of gray corridor, marking the transit area for prisoners from the rest of the ship to the gray cells.

There weren't even any screws visible within the brig, which was a big disappointment for the Engineer, who was seriously mad at the universe that it had let him decide against tearing down his shower. Now he wouldn't be able to use his showers for a while and still didn't know how many screws had been used in the construction of the crew quarters.

The glass on the brig's door was endorsed with a pattern of darker gray circles, and Trip counted them in hopes of falling asleep. It didn't work. Instead, Trip had sworn to himself that if he ever got out of this brig, he'd paint the ship in bright colors. All this gray was seriously bugging him.

Who even decided what color a spaceship was painted in? Wouldn't it have been nicer to paint the first human deep space vessel in another, more cheerful color? And it wasn't really that the gray walls were kept modest in order to make other colors pop – their uniforms were mostly dark blue, which wasn't all that far from gray when you thought about it, and the thin, colorful stripes on the uniforms really weren't that well visible, seriously what about visually impaired people, like people with daltonism, was that why they didn't have green stripes? It was kind of weird, after all they had so many different departments and colors, who had decided to use the same color for engineering and security, for example, and why was science blue and not green, which made so much more sense in Trip's under stimulated, tired brain right now.

…It was possible that he was going insane, but Trip had read somewhere that insane people didn't realize that they were insane, so that train of thoughts led him to nowhere as well. Unfortunately Trip didn't have that much else to do but look at the walls and think about random stuff, all alone in his cell. So he made a mental note to propose more obviously colorful uniforms to Starfleet Command once he got out of here. His to-do-list was quite long after 18 hours in the brig without proper sleep, but he had a clear order of priorities going for him: He'd notify Starfleet after painting the corridors. He'd paint the corridors after he tore down the shower booth in his (gray!) quarters and counted the screws, of course. He tore down the shower as soon as he rebuilt the torpedo launcher to shoot Jon from here to Alpha Centauri.

He was a people person. Being alone for too long wasn't good for him – there were dark thoughts in the back of his head that managed to crawl to the front of his mind when he was alone. Thinking about colors and screws, for example, was better than thinking about how the betrayal of his best friend stung. How it turned into blinding, hot anger when he dwelled on it, and how he was afraid of what would become of him once he lost to it.

So when the outer door opened, Trip felt a rush of exhilaration to hear people outside. He didn't recognize any of the voices, which quickly quelled the small hope in his chest that Malcolm or Hoshi had somehow managed to get him out of here, but at this point, he was glad for any entertainment.

Or so he thought.

Two guards came in, not looking him in the eyes. Trip knew Lieutenant Flores from the mess hall, and greeted her happily. "Maria! How's it going?"

She ignored him with a troubled frown, and typed in a code at the cell doors. Her fingers moved too quick for Trip to catch the numbers. As she moved inside, the guard behind her stepped closer, and Trip realized with dismay that it was Ensign Heston, who had brought him here.

"Mister Tucker," he greeted as unenthusiastically as Trip felt.

He had been thirsty for human interaction, but now that they both stood in front of him in full guard's gear while he was the only one of their little party without proper clothes or phase pistols, Trip felt a little bit self-conscious, to be honest.

"Ah, call me Trip," he said nonchalantly, trying not to sound too worried. He wouldn't count on developing a friendship with Heston any time soon, but maybe his natural charms worked better with Flores. He turned to her, therefore, and aimed straight for her sore spot. "How's your sister? Did she recover from her operation?"

This made Flores flinch, and her indifferent facade cracked. Jackpot. Trip knew very well how random comments about family members you missed or worried about sometimes took the wind right out of your sails and made you hide in a Jeffrey's tube to hyperventilate in peace – maybe he wasn't a martial arts wizard like Mal, but Trip still knew how to fight dirty. Flores obviously hadn't expected him to remember, when in fact the opposite was true: Trip had genuinely meant to catch up with her since their talk in the mess hall, but work had been, well, crazy.

Flores bit her lip and sighed, finally looking at him sympathetically. Personal connection established, Trip thought triumphantly, but his newly-found leverage quickly fell away when he saw what Heston was carrying in his hands.

Handcuffs.

"Oh, come on," he groaned.

"You will be interrogated now," the Ensign grunted and shrugged with a gesture that pretty much meant 'please cooperate'. "By the Captain."

He had a hot reply ready on the tip of his tongue, but swallowed it. The crew wasn't at fault for Jon's hostile behavior. Obviously, thinking about Hoshi, Flores and Vitrenko, most of them didn't approve what was going down either. And Heston, even though Trip really didn't like that guy, looked worried and stressed himself – who knew what fresh hell Malcolm had given him, or what else Jon had made him do.

They also had phase pistols, and he didn't.

With a sigh, Trip nodded and sat upright, allowing Flores and Heston to cuff his hands to the railing of the bunk bed behind his back. In a confined space like the brig, a bed was very easily turned into an interrogation chair. Now all they were missing was a desk lamp with a blinding light, like in the old detective movies Lizzie had loved to watch.

"You know that this is unnecessary, right?" he asked, and gingerly tested the restraints around his wrists. They were tight and he wouldn't be able to worm his way out of them, but they weren't tight enough to bruise. Trip was pretty sure that this was Maria's doing.

The officers didn't answer, but shuffled out of the cell after checking on his restraints one last time. Flores shot him a last, worried look, but just when she opened her mouth to say something, loud, hurried footsteps echoed through the corridor and the two guards quickly hurried out of Trip's sight.

Enter Jonathan Archer.

The first thing Trip noticed was that Jon was almost panting. Staring him down, he sucked in deep breaths and forced them out with visible effort. The seconds thing was that Jon looked tired and stressed. There were deep lines around his mouth, enhanced now by a pinched, frowning mouth, and dark circles framed his eyes. His uniform was wrinkled and there was a light stubble on his cheeks.

He looked utterly beat. Trip's natural compassion wanted to feel sorry for him, but at the first sight of Jon the bubble of anger he had somehow managed to contain deep within him so far, burst.

Enter Trip's wrath.

"Fucking finally," he greeted disdainfully, glaring right back at his former friend. He had been willing to forgive and forget for a long time, had even tried to excuse Jon when he had been thrown into confinement, but this? This shit going on here? Trip was done with being a nice fellow. He was done finding excuses for other people.

Jon's brow twitched, and he opened the door to the cell without entering. Leaning against the frame, he glowered down at Trip and slowly controlled his breathing. Jon's eyes left his face and quickly trailed over his body, at his restrained arms. "You're not all that, you know," he said finally, voice dangerously low.

"'scuse me?" Trip asked, startled. He had expected to be offended by whatever Jon thought he had done, but to be insulted? They had been in a few fights over their ten years of friendship, and insults were never Jon's style.

His confusion obviously made Jon more angry, for his left eye started to twitch. "Oh, don't give me that. I'm tired of your shit."

Suddenly, the Captain pushed himself away from the door, stepped into the cell, and bend over Trip, who instinctively tried to shuffle further away but was firmly held in place by the handcuffs.

"What the hell are you talking about, Jon?"

He felt Jon's breath hitch and then disaster broke loose. Roughly, Jon shoved Trip back against the wall of the cell and pushed himself up again with the momentum, using the small space of the cell to pace around with quick, long strides. In Trip's head, all alarms went off and pushed the anger to the side – this had just become physical.

"I'm done with you, that's what's going on!" Jon yelled, really yelled, mad because of virtually nothing he had said or done so far, "I know everything and I'm fed up with it!"

Watching Jon pacing, yelling, gesticulating wildly, Trip's heart dropped to his knees with a feeling eerily close to fear. Mad, he thought, Jon's gone mad. His behavior was frantic, aggressive, and Trip was suddenly very aware that he was alone with him, handcuffed to the bed and had no idea if there even were guards outside listening in.

Did anyone know that Archer was here? Flores and Heston did, for sure, but what about the Senior Staff? He could really use some help right now.

Cautiously, with a lot of willpower, Trip remembered his training, concentrated on his breathing and imagined the ball of anger shrinking with every exhale. He needed to think his way out of here, and his temper wouldn't help. He came far, but then all his efforts collapsed like a house of cards with Jon's next words.

"You just don't care about the consequences, do you?!" Jon had whirled around, stopped his pacing, and pointed at Trip, accusatory. Rage distorted his features. "You never did, not with T'Pol and not with the Vissians!"

...and that was just one blow too low for Trip to take. Anger boiled his insides immediately, the heat burning away any chance he had of even noticing what Jon had said. The incident with Charles was still weighing down on his conscience heavily, still ate away at him on a regular basis, and listening to Jon reprimand him about it again was just too much. "You don't get to lecture me about that, you just stood there and -"

The first punch hit him completely unexpected.

Out of nowhere, a bright, red pain made his head snap to the side and against the metal rod of the bed frame. Trip blinked a few times in confusion, trying to make sense out of the throbbing pain in his jaw and his blurry vision, until he suddenly understood what just happened.

Jon had hit him.

A multitude of emotions exploded in his chest as reality swept back full force and the realization washed over him. Anger, indignation, hurt, humiliation, fear, confusion. It was too much to sort out, because Jon had just hit him.

"What the hell?!" he spat out, pouring all of these emotions into so few syllables, absentmindedly noticing that his lip hurt when he talked and that he felt warmth trickle down his chin. "Are you insane?!"

For the fraction of a second, Jon looked just as surprised as he did, but then a loopy grin appeared on his features. Hearing Trip's words, Jon barked out a mirthless laugh and grabbed Trip's undershirt to pull him up. "Funny you should ask. Malcolm thinks I'm paranoid."

The emphasis on Mal's name made him suck in a deep breath. Archer noticed and grinned, wrenching him up further by the fabric of his shirt. Trip hissed when the jolt made his jaw throb even worse and the handcuffs cut into his skin.

This man, he saw with sudden clarity, was enjoying himself. Jonathan Archer, Trip's former best friend and kind-of-but-not-really-mentor figure, didn't enjoy violence. Never had. Never on a personal level, and certainly not on a professional level. He was an inherently gentle person, not even able to deny his dog a slice of cheese for just one evening because he couldn't bear the sad puppy-eyes. Barging into the Expanse, hunting down an unknown people and knowing very well that the confrontation could lead to death and destruction had torn him apart, because Captain Archer was a diplomat through and through, always aiming for the peaceful way, the compromise.

Yet, the person in front of him obviously enjoyed what was happening right now. Enjoyed the flicker of fear he could certainly see in Trip's eyes because this situation had just taken a turn for the very, very worse.

"Who are you?" Trip asked breathlessly, glaring at this grotesque version of Jonathan.

There was a glimmer of madness in the other man's eyes as he leaned back and smirked contemptuously down at Trip."Not so bold anymore, are you?" He laughed quietly. "They'll see that you're not all that when I'm done with you."

He felt Jon's arm tense and the adrenaline surging through his own veins. "Jon, no--"

The next punch hit him right on the temple with enough force to throw him backwards.

The back of his head collided painfully with the wall, and Trip saw blinking lights in front of his clenched eyelids. He felt a terrible second of vertigo, a hand yanking at his hair, and then the darkness closed in on him.

-tbc-

R&R, pls!