Early the next morning, Malcolm Reed hurried into the Armoury, zipping up his uniform and straightening the cuffs of his sleeves as he went. He'd gotten a concerned call from a crewman in his department saying that Lieutenant Riley had started work and was trying to order people about so he'd jumped out of bed and rushed to get dressed. It was a matter that needed to be seen to quickly, before anyone did anything they would regret later, but he knew he'd have to be gentle. He stopped and looked around the large room, almost instantly spotting her up on the platform by the main console. From what he could see it looked like she was running some sort of simulation on the screens. Sighing he came up behind her. "Mallory? What are you doing?" He queried in a gentle voice so as not to spook her.
"Captain Archer asked me to…" She froze mid-sentence. "To…" That voice, a voice that she hadn't heard for a long time. She paused the simulation and turned around to look at her brother, confirming her fears. When she had woken up that morning she had hoped it was all just a bad dream again. At least that explained why she was in sickbay, and why her back was beginning to ache. "Damnit. Captain Archer didn't ask me to do anything. At least not on this Enterprise." The young woman rubbed her forehead with her right hand then sighed heavily and leaned against the hand rail, staring down at the floor below her. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant." She could feel another headache coming on.
Malcolm shook his head and climbed up onto the platform, standing next to her, watching her. "You have nothing to apologise for, Mallory. You have a big adjustment to make, we all do. It's going to take time, for all of us."
She just looked at him and then climbed down carefully, leaving the Armoury without saying anything else. Malcolm leant against the railings, just like she had been leaning. Yep, she was definitely his sister, no doubt about that. He was going to have to contact his parents about this at some point, but wasn't sure how Mallory would take to that idea, and for the moment she didn't seem to want to talk to him very much.
He watched her leave then after a moment or two he turned to the screens to see what she had been working on. Whatever it was it seemed interesting but he would need the whole story from Mallory to fully understand it all. Instead of deleting the parametres of the simulations she had been running he saved them onto the computer, but just as a precaution added a password and a second level of security to it. Just in case.
Sitting back on the bio-bed, Mallory held her head in her hands and waited. She was fairly certain that Malcolm would contact the Captain, it's what she would have done if she was concerned about someone in her department. Sure enough, a few minutes later and Archer entered, sitting down on the bed opposite her, his hands folded in his lap. "You all right?"
"No." She replied, shaking her head, her eyes remained staring at the floor in front of her. "This isn't my home, this isn't where I belong. So of course I'm not all right." Tears were almost running down her cheeks as she spoke.
"You don't have to go back to work right away. Take a few days off." He suggested.
"And what am I supposed to do? Sit in here doing nothing?" She wasn't exactly keen on spending much more time with the strange menagerie of animals that Phlox kept, a couple of them often creeped her out, especially the Pyrithian bat.
"T'Pol's got one of the guest quarters set up for you."
"So I sit in there doing nothing?" It was obvious the poor woman was frustrated with the situation, and Archer wasn't at all surprised. None of this was her fault, he could easily sympathise with her.
Archer sighed gently. "You could read mission reports." He finally suggested and watched as she looked at him. "You could find out what your brother has been up to." She was about to interrupt but he carried on speaking. "And don't say that he's not your brother… because he is. You are biologically related." She looked away and Archer sighed again. "Reading some of our mission reports may help you settle in." Slowly, Mallory nodded her head in agreement. "There are also plenty of movies in the database for you to watch. And hey, they might be completely different from the ones you know… maybe even better." He smiled softly at her and stood up, just to get her to see the lighter side of it all. "Have you had breakfast yet?"
"Not yet." She rubbed her temple and sighed.
"Grab something to eat, and I'll show you to your room." Slowly Mallory nodded her head and left sickbay, quietly. "You could also make an appointment to see Crewman Yates, our quartermaster. In your time."
Mallory nodded her head. "I'll do that, thank you, sir."
That afternoon Lieutenant Riley headed down to the quartermaster, needing to get out of her room and to just have a walk to think about things. As the likelihood of her returning to her own ship seemed highly unlikely she was going to need clothes; some uniforms and some for off duty wear. She remained fairly quiet as the man measured her so that her clothes would fit her snuggly. He got more of a conversation out of her as he went through the materials and colours that he had available amongst his supply. With styles and colours agreed upon for off duty clothing, he handed Mallory a spare uniform he had lying around that was her size and she returned to her room.
When she got back to her quarters she found, sitting on her bed, was a white box, roughly the size of Porthos, with a red ribbon tied around it, and a bow formed on top. It wasn't very neat wrapping, making her think it was a man that had done it. Someone had obviously tried to visit her during the couple of hours she had been out. Lifting off the lid she found a hand written note on a small piece of white card. It was a very simple note and all it said was "Welcome Aboard, Mallory. Trip." With a heavy sigh the young woman sat on the bed, placing the box on her lap. Inside were simple everyday items, including; toothbrush and toothpaste, hairbrush, soap, flannel.
Setting the box back on the bed next to her she began looking around the room. It was bare. Empty. A sudden pain ran through her as she thought of her personal possessions that she had lost; photographs, jewellery, and gifts. Everything was gone. Everything about her had now been lost. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks as she continued to stare at the bare walls and the empty shelves around her. She found it hard to imagine what the universe here must've been like without her. For her, to suddenly step into this reality, to begin a new life, it was certainly going to take time. It would be an enormous test for her, to see if she had the courage to begin again. To make friends with people she already knew, and to try and forget the life she had left behind.
She sat for several moments before getting up, grabbing the towel that was neatly folded at the foot of her bed and moved into the bathroom. She stripped, leaving her clothes in a messy heap on the floor for the time being before moving into the shower unit and turning on the water. The droplets fell from the head down onto her bare skin as she grabbed the bar of soap and began to wash, rubbing it through her hair.
It wasn't long before she lent against the glass and slid down to the floor, sobbing. Water mixed with her tears as she just sat in the cubicle with the water flowing over her. Bringing her knees up to her chest she wrapped her arms around them and cried in the safe knowledge that no one would see or hear her. But oh, how desperately she wanted someone right now to comfort her, to tell her everything was going to be all right.