"I don't know what happened, I really thought I was getting better."

It was after lunch and Hayes had decided to pay a visit to Phlox. He actually had ended up eating with with Malcolm, but purely by chance – along with Hoshi, T'Pol, and Pfc. Hamboyan, meaning that he couldn't get a moment alone to speak to him and apologise for the radio silence over the last couple of days. And he was positive Malcolm was upset about it; he barely looked at him all through lunch, though Hayes did catch him glancing at him out of the corner of his eye once or twice.

Phlox was shining a light in Hayes's eyes, alternating from one to the other. "And how often in the last month have you found it difficult to get out of bed?" Phlox started taking Hayes's blood pressure with what he explained was an old fashioned automatic blood pressure cuff.

Hayes was just sitting up on the bed, letting Phlox examine him; Phlox had insisted on doing a full exam once he came in as he just said he wasn't feeling too great, and didn't give him much more to go on; Phlox had said that he wanted to make sure Hayes wasn't having any side effects from the antidepressants. He'd asked Hayes if he minded doing things the old fashioned way, as Phlox had wanted the chance to practice using some of his instruments; Hayes had already seen all of Phlox's older equipment, as in one of their earliest therapy sessions Phlox had made a point of showing him them all; he'd caught Hayes having a look at them while he was waiting for Phlox and gave him a quick run through of how they all worked. Hayes had been fascinated, and really didn't mind if Phlox wanted to practice on him. He had something on his index finger that was apparently measuring the amount of oxygen in his blood, and Phlox had already taken his temperature by sticking a glass tube full of mercury in his mouth. He'd started telling him about what had happened this morning once Phlox took it back, and checked the accuracy of the thing with another electronic thermometer that he'd stuck in Hayes's ear.

"It happens a lot, but never as bad as this morning," Hayes explained as Phlox took off the cuff. After his chat with Archer, he'd decided that it was okay if he took some time to come see Phlox when he needed to. If he needed to see his doctor, then he needed to see his doctor, he had every right to, and that was that. At least, that was what he'd been telling himself the entire way to sick bay. He had nothing to be ashamed of. Not a thing.

And if he kept telling himself that then he would believe it eventually.

"One twenty-three over eighty-seven, perfectly normal. Have you been late for your duty shifts in the last month? Now, follow my finger but don't move your head."

"No, but I might have skipped the gym a few times," Hayes admitted guiltily, tracking Phlox's finger with his eyes.

"And what do you think of Captain Archer's approach to the situation?" Phlox moved behind him and started feeling the lymph nodes in his neck and head. "Do you remember what I said this node was called."

"Submental, isn't it?" Whenever Hayes came in with some kind of bug, Phlox would feel his neck and head, naming the lymph nodes as he went. Hayes had been able to name all of them after listening to this about twice.

"Indeed it is; and it feels perfectly normal. But back to my question?" Phlox started looking in his ear.

"I feel a lot better about the whole situation, to be honest. I get he's not going to rush me and I really appreciate him going out of his way. Everyone's been great, honestly." He cocked his head to let Phlox look in the other ear. He kind of wondered what the hell the meds could possibly doing to his ear canal, or if Phlox just wanted to use his twentieth century Earth otoscope. He strongly suspected the latter. "But I still don't like how much extra work I am for Malcolm and Ed, and I'm still terrified of General Casey or Colonel Ives finding out though."

"And what do you think will happen if your superiors in MACO do find out? Surely you wouldn't be penalized? Can you touch your nose and then touch my finger? Good, and again."

Hayes obeyed. "What's this testing?"

"Cerebellar lesions; it would affect your coordination," Phlox said, moving his finger and having Hayes chase him with his own. "But what would happen if the general were to find out?"

Hayes let his hand flop down into his lap. "I'd be recalled to Earth; they can't have an officer potentially embarrass MACO like this – or worse, get someone killed."

"Are you quite sure?" Phlox frowned. "It did take quite a lot to convince you that the Captain and Lt. Reed were on your side."

Hayes shrugged, and glanced away, avoiding looking at Phlox. "I'm positive."

"Hmm…" Phlox just looked at him for a moment. "Could you run your heel up and down the opposite shin for me? With your eyes closed, please."

Hayes complied. He was beginning to think that Phlox was just messing with him. "What's this for?"

"Testing your coordination. How do you feel about coming to Captain Archer for help in the future?"

"I feel a lot better about it; I'm actually pretty sure he's got my back. Every time I've tried to get help from my CO in the past, I've ended up reassigned to somewhere 'less stressful' or put on forced leave." He stopped rubbing his shin with his heel and opened his eyes. "This is the first time I don't feel like I'm being punished for having a problem or asking for help." He narrowed his eyes at Phlox, the realisation dawning on him. "Are you just doing a full exam just to distract me enough to keep talking?"

"Yes, and it's working." Phlox stopped taking Hayes's pulse, clasping his hands in front of him.

Hayes rolled his eyes. "You do know I've already told you more than I've told any other therapist, ever, right?"

"And I am gratified by your trust." Phlox smiled at him, but then turned slightly more business-like. "And we have our next session tomorrow; I was wondering if you would like to discuss your injury, hmm? We've touched on it, but have yet to discuss it in any great detail."

Because Hayes didn't want to think about it. He wanted to think about getting shot and nearly dying even less than he wanted to talk or even think about Sadie.

"It happened, you patched me up, I don't see what there is to talk about," Hayes said calmly, but he could feel his palms starting to sweat. And he knew he wasn't fooling Phlox; very little did, he'd quickly found out.

"Because it was one of the more traumatic events to happen to you over the course of our mission," Phlox said gently. "And you did relapse almost immediately afterwards; you've mentioned before that you didn't want to have to think about anything when we returned to Earth, and I inferred that your injury is one of those things."

"And I've received the training to able to handle that," Hayes insisted. What he hadn't been trained for was how to deal with people he was responsible for dying left, right, and centre. Or how he had been convinced that he was going to die, pass out, only to wake up days later to be told that the Captain was dead. Hayes had started to think that he was invincible, and had the weird sense that they'd somehow traded places for a few days. Alright, it was a few weeks, but Captain Archer had survived, he was fine and he even ended something called the Temporal Cold War, which the crew took great delight in detailing to the MACOs – it was one of those times that they were convinced the Fleeters were messing with them; but in general he liked listening to the talk about some of the craziness that went on. But his injury? No, no he didn't want to talk about that, he didn't even want to think about –

Oh. Okay, Phlox may have had a point. "But I don't want to talk about it," Hayes insisted. "Plenty of other people were injured, not just me."

"But we're not talking about them are we?" Phlox said, kindly. "And comparing yourself to others, don't make me get the Nerf gun." He smiled widely. "But if it's not something you want to speak of, I will of course respect that boundary."

Respect his boundary. He'd that from past therapists plenty of times. Most of them did, but one had gone behind his back to complain to his CO at the time that he wasn't cooperating; he'd since seen others, and only one other had gone and repeated what he was speaking about to his CO, but he found it very hard to speak to any doctor affiliated with MACO after that. Phlox wasn't giving him those vibes though – he really did trust him at this point.

After asking him a few more questions Phlox ended up increasing his dose of antidepressants and told him they would review it at the end of the month. Great, he needed more; because his brain was that fucking broken. But then he remembered the damn horse tranquilisers that the Captain had told him he'd been put on when he'd fallen ill… maybe it wasn't so bad. If someone like Captain Archer had needed them and said that they'd worked miracles when he actually was sorted properly, Hayes guessed he could handle needing to take them. He was lucky so far – there'd been some pretty bad nausea at first, and he'd had a nearly constant headache but that had settled after two weeks, and he began to feel a little bit better. A little bit; it was still a struggle most days.

He really wanted this to work.

He needed it to.

Hey, I know I haven't been the most forthcom

Hey, sorry about the radio silenc

Hey, can I come by to talk?

Hey, just wanted to let you know I've not been feeling great and that's why I've been incognito the last few d

Hayes deleted, yet again, the message he had composed to Malcolm. Or was trying to compose; nothing seemed good enough. What was he meant to say? Sorry I've been ignoring you for the last two days after we had sex even though it was your first time with a man and I know you were overwhelmed afterwards? Sorry I suck so bad? Would that be manipulating him? Of course that would be manipulating him, Malcolm would feel obligated to try and perk him up no matter how mad he was, because Malcolm was actually a softie. Hayes had figured that out pretty quick from how he treated Hoshi, Cutler, crewmembers that weren't too familiar with the armoury, and even those on Hayes's team who were obviously freaked out about space travel. It was the exact opposite reaction that Hayes had expected from him, thinking he'd be disdainful and snappish; but no, he'd made them tea, and told them that it took some getting used to, hell, he'd been sick to his stomach for a week when he went on his first training tour. He'd reassured them that they'd adjust. And this was after the Twinkie Incident.

So, yeah, Hayes was pretty sure that a sob story would have Malcolm running to him, and that was the last thing he wanted. Well, actually, yeah, he did kind of like the idea of Malcolm coming running to him, but he knew that wasn't fair, and he wasn't going to do that to him. Instead, he was going to rack his brain and try to think of something to say, some way to phrase it that didn't look like he was trying to get sympathy, because he was a grown ass man who'd fucked up and he wasn't going to cry about the consequences.

He sighed, and dropped the PADD onto his bed beside him before flopping onto his side and rolling over onto his back, dragging his hands through his hair. He stared at the ceiling, knees bent, tapping his fingers against his stomach. He didn't care that he had his boots on.

What was he meant to say? Ugh. He needed Piper. He needed Harper. He needed a closer friend on this ship other than he man he was trying to apologise to. And he didn't even know if he could classify them as friends! Though, Hayes did think he knew Malcolm pretty well by this point: he knew that Malcolm was probably blaming himself and thinking that he'd done something wrong; he knew that Malcolm tended to assume people didn't like him; he knew that he'd been afraid that the MACOs would think he was cold and aloof and he didn't care if they lived or died; he knew groups of people Malcolm didn't know freaked the hell out of him; he knew public speaking made him feel ill, but he did it anyway and knocked it out of the park; Hayes knew that the crew was the people he was closest to in the galaxy; and he knew that Malcolm's biggest fear was one of them getting hurt.

Yeah, Hayes knew him. And he knew that he deserved better than what he was currently getting. But Hayes needed help.

Screw it. Hayes sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and scooped up his PADD. He took a deep breath, before standing and striding straight out of the door, as though he was afraid that he would lose his nerve if he lost his momentum. He turned left, right into the turbolift and headed to B deck. But he wasn't going to Malcolm's; no, he was going to the quarters right next door.

"Hey, major." Hoshi opened the door after a moment, dressed in an oversized red shirt and grey pajama pants. She looked surprised to see Hayes there. "What can I do for you?"

Hayes awkwardly held up his PADD. "Sorry to bother you, but I was hoping I could ask your advice on a personal problem…"

That threw Hoshi; her eyebrows nearly shot past her hairline. "Sure," she said quickly, before Hayes could tell her to never mind, and stood back to let him in. "Of course, come on in."

Hayes did so, feeling his heart pounding and an odd sensation of heat flared across is face; he hoped he wasn't going red, but he probably was. That knowledge did not help.

"Would you like a coke?"

Hoshi went to her closet, and pulled out two cans of coke, holding out one to Hayes. He took it gratefully, realising his mouth had gone bone dry. He sat down on the bench by the door as Hoshi pulled her desk chair out and around to face him. This was a bad idea; he barely knew Hoshi, and here he was coming to her for relationship advice. He felt ridiculous, but he was pretty sure his options were either her, Tucker, or try to work it out on his own, and he was no good at that. He didn't think he'd ever sent an important message to a past boyfriend without running it by one of his sisters first – normally Piper, but then Quinn got annoyed if he didn't tell her he so much as had a dentist appointment, Avery didn't care, and honestly Harper gave the best advice out of all of them…

Hayes was pretty sure he barely qualified as an adult.

"Do you, um, do you remember the other night?" Hayes began hesitantly, rolling the can between his hands.

"You mean when you stayed over at Malcolm's?" She laughed at Hayes's surprised expression. "Yeah, I knew that was you; Malcolm doesn't light up when everyone comes into a room, and you have a tendency to hover near him like an awkward turtle."

The other night Hayes had quickly realised that he and Malcolm had run into a pretty significant problem: they had no condoms. Or lube. Hayes had been tested just before leaving Earth, and Malcolm was tested for every possible infection every time he returned to the ship, so he might have just said screw the condoms – but Malcolm was too wound up about it hurting for Hayes to risk not using lube.

Malcolm picked up his PADD from his desk and started typing on it, before throwing it back down and coming back to the bed. They continued making out for a few more minutes, Malcolm successfully getting Hayes's sweatpants off, until Malcolm's doorbell rang. Malcolm slowly extricated himself from Hayes's arms and went to get it.

"What are you doing?" Was he really going to get the door in nothing but his underwear, with a raging hard on? But when he opened the door there was nobody there. He bent down to retrieve something and quickly closed it. He turned around, triumphantly holding up a box of latex free condoms and a bottle of coconut flavoured lube.

Hayes stare at him in disbelief. "Did you message the Lube Fairy, or something?"

"I did, and I shan't tell you their name."

"It's Hoshi, isn't it?"

Her quarters where right next to Reed's. Besides, the last time they'd gotten shore leave, Phlox had put a reminder in the formal group chat that during intercourse with any aliens of any species of any gender a condom should be used, and that he had both latex and latex free in sick bay. Captain Archer had immediately typed into the chat Not a suggestion – A DIRECT ORDER. Tucker had then sent Yeah Hoshi, and frantically deleted it when he realised that he accidentally put it in the group and hadn't sent it to her privately. Hoshi just shot back that Tucker wasn't exactly one to talk and she didn't need any from Phlox, winky face, and Captain Archer had had to remind them that this was the formal group chat, and could they please do this in private. T'Pol just posted a link to Starfleet's policy on sexual harassment and propriety in the workplace. It had been a weird twenty minutes. It got weirder when the Fleeters started telling them about some of the crew's more intimate experiences with other species over the years and he found out that Tucker had actually been pregnant for about three weeks, three years ago. And no, the Fleeters weren't punking them. Tucker showed him pictures – he'd stayed in contact with the mother.

"Of course it was Hoshi, who else was it going to be?"

Hayes took a sip of coke. "I remember Malcolm telling me that the bulkheads have ears and that all of them are yours."

Hoshi laughed again. "What the hell else were you going to do with condoms and lube?"

"Why do you have coconut flavour?"

"Why not?"

Hayes shook his head and chuckled. "Do you really think I'm an awkward turtle?"

"Yeah, but I also know that Malcolm loves the nineteen ninety-five Pride and Prejudice mini-series, and you give me major Mr. Darcy vibes. He's also an awkward turtle," she continued when Hayes looked confused. "He's socially awkward to the extent that he convinced his crush he hates her; and you can see him just hovering near Elizabeth after he starts getting into her. In the show. You two should watch it sometime," she added suggestively.

"If he still wants to talk to me," Hayes confessed.

Hoshi nodded understandingly, the grin slipping from her face. "He is wondering if he did something wrong."

"He didn't," Hayes insisted. "I'm the problem, but I don't know how to say that without looking like I'm fishing for sympathy."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want him to feel sorry for me."

"No," Hoshi waved a hand. "I mean, what do you mean you're the problem? I know you've been put on a lighter schedule, I know something's up," she continued. "I'm always here if you want to talk, and you don't even need to come all this way; Travis is right next door to you. You've got a lot of support on this ship, I promise you."

Hayes took a deep inhale. What had Tucker said? The Captain, and the entire Senior Staff, take our duty of care towards the crew very, very seriously – and that includes everyone dressed like a Shark. But Hayes had heard that before, believed it – and been burned by it.

"I think I'm beginning to figure that out," Hayes said. He looked around her quarters for inspiration; the layout was exactly like Hayes's, only she had pictures, books, a few knickknacks on her desk – and a Malcolm original pinned to her wall. It was just a landscape of what Hayes had to guess were East Asian looking flowers done in oil pastel. Hayes always knew when Malcolm was working in oil pastel – his fingers were always stained afterwards. Malcolm trusted Hoshi; enough to call on her for help in an incredibly intimate situation. And Hayes knew that Malcolm's trust was as rare as a laughing Vulcan.

Here goes nothing…

"I haven't felt up to talking to anyone in the last couple of days," Hayes explained, leaning on his knees and staring at the can he was clutching in his hands. "And that includes Malcolm." He looked up at Hoshi to see her regarding him sympathetically. He shrugged.

The truth was, he was worried about hurting Malcolm; every time Hayes had tried to reach out to him in the last couple of days, he'd stopped himself. Malcolm was busy, he had work, he was relaxing, he didn't need Hayes hounding him for attention; he needed to time to process what had happened the other night, not Hayes overwhelming him again and being the idiot that thought that he could kiss it all better. Hayes knew how much fucking work he was, his grandparents and Quinn weren't exactly shy in letting him know, and he couldn't put that on Malcolm. He didn't want to put that on Malcolm. And then his mood just plummeted and he found it difficult to even read Malcolm's messages without getting upset and wanting to throw his PADD against a wall.

But he didn't say any of that to Hoshi. "I don't know how to apologise."

She shrugged. "You just need to tell him the truth. He'll understand."

"I don't want to manipulate him, or make him feel like he has to forgive me because I'm such a sad-sack."

Hoshi looked at him, like he was simple. "The fact that you're worried about manipulating him, means that you're probably not manipulating him. Just tell him you've had a crappy few days, and you want to make it up to him."

Right; make it up to him. How the hell did he go about doing that? He could probably bribe him with food, Malcolm was a sucker for pineapple fritters and ice-cream… non-dairy, obviously, Hayes didn't want to send him into anaphylaxis. The time someone had mislabeled the regular milk as almond had been a very interesting breakfast – luckily the mess first aid kit had an epi pen. They never found out who swapped the labels, but they were sure that it was someone who thought that Malcolm only had a lactose intolerance and not an actual allergy. Hayes hoped.

Hayes held up his PADD. "So, I normally get one of my sisters to help me…" he trailed off hopefully.

Hoshi rolled her eyes. "You and Malcolm are the biggest disasters on this ship, I swear to whatever deity is listening. You're perfect for each other." But her tone wasn't unkind. She moved over to her bed and patted the space beside her. "Come on, lets make promises you don't intend to keep to your boyfriend."

Hayes grinned, and sat beside her. She ended up not really having much input in the message Hayes eventually wrote; but she was encouraging, even if she gently teased him at the same time. It was actually like talking to Piper a little bit, he just needed someone to tell him that he could do it, he was fully capable of doing it himself; Quinn would have just written it for him. His older sister being too heavy handed had caused more than one argument between her and Hayes's younger twin siblings, Piper and Parker. They often accused Quinn, their half-brothers Elliot and Miles, and their grandparents of being too controlling with him. Their maternal grandparents felt the same, but had often had to hold their tongues when Hayes had been growing up – Grandma Dolores and Grandpa Elliot had threatened more than once to not let them see them. But Hayes couldn't really blame his grandparents; he'd been a terror as a teenager, and they'd spent a lot of his twenties trying to get him to stop drinking. And then Sadie had happened…

But Hoshi was a lot more like Piper, and even Harper, in this regard. And she was easy to talk to, trying to make him laugh, and just buoying him up in general.

By the time he sent the message, he actually felt like he had a chance.

And not just with Malcolm.