At his next session he told Phlox about the wine, as promised. Phlox just reminded him that recovery wasn't linear and that some setbacks were okay, and even expected. It didn't mean that he wasn't getting better. He asked if he wanted to talk about Sadie, or if he wanted to continue on with CBT for that session and leave Sadie until the next time when they had their talk therapy. Hayes said he wanted to leave it, and truth be told, he was going to avoid that conversation for as long as possible. He had never seen her body, but he remembered the white sheet they'd lain over her on the ground… and the blood on the pavement around the body that the sheet hadn't quite covered…

He finally felt himself settling on the medication and he found to his surprise that everything was a lot easier to deal with. He was still seeing Phlox twice a week, but they were discussing bringing that back to once a week after maybe another month and Phlox was insistent on organizing the therapy in a way that Hayes was comfortable with; the simple act of him doing that was doing wonders for Hayes's mood.

Hayes ended up confessing to Captain Archer what had happened with the wine – he just felt so guilty that he'd betrayed his trust like that, that he couldn't not tell him. He'd told him that he was prepared for whatever punishment the Captain had in mind but he'd just said that he'd rather not reprimand him seeing as he ended up coming clean and actually called on someone for support and assistance. Captain Archer actually said he was more inclined to reward him for asking for help. He told him not to worry about, and keep up the good work. Hayes's legs had nearly gave out from under him from the shock.

He was beginning to think that getting caught by Malcolm was the best thing to have ever happened to him.

T'Pol was a huge help as well; she started giving him meditation lessons once a week and he hadn't found it helpful so far, but he remembered what the Captain said about her being a good listener and thought he'd give it a shot. Turns out, she was a great listener and very patient. And she had this wonderful, sarcastic sense of humour that reminded him of Malcolm and he found himself wondering how in the name of God he'd ever thought she was aloof and didn't give a crap. She understood a lot of the addiction crap perfectly and she even confided to him that she's damaged the centre of her brain that represses her emotions thanks to the Trellium-D. He was shocked that she was actually having such a hard time of it, herself. He ended up resolving to just stop assuming that he was the only one going through any shit and to look after his crewmates a little bit better. He owed them that much. To his delight it also turned out that Hoshi had previously introduced her to My Little Pony – her favourite being Twilight Sparkle. Hayes's favourite was Applejack. The three of them had a few binge sessions and a very serious discussion about how to get Tucker to screen the movie for movie night.

Speaking of Tucker, he'd kept his promise to have Hayes join him and Malcolm in their little side project – optimizing the LR28s. It was pretty fun to gang up on Malcolm with him; he was so cute when he was pouting. He still hadn't told anyone else about the drinking and he doubted that he would ever have to courage to, really. But he was happy with how everything was going at the moment.

He was actually happy.

"Do we have to talk about it?"

Hayes was sitting opposite Phlox in the little room off sick bay, where he'd been seeing Phlox twice a week for the last two months. Every so often, Phlox brought up his injury and asked him if he wanted to talk about it, but so far Hayes had declined every time. The thought of talking about it made him want to scream, cry, or puke, or possibly a combination of all three.

"Of course not," Phlox replied breezily. "I just want to check in every now and again and see if that's changed."

Hayes bit his lower lip. "Do you think we should talk about it?" he asked eventually. But he knew the answer.

"I do as a matter of fact," Phlox told him softly. "It was a major life event; I don't imagine that it was easy to come to terms with."

They'd spent the last two months focusing on Hayes's self-esteem issues and a bit about how he felt let down by most of the people in his life. It had taken a while to get comfortable with Phlox, but he ended up telling him how abandoned he felt by his parents, and how controlling his grandparents and Quinn were. And how afraid he was of driving them away for good. Phlox had also warned him that it was going to be all too easy for him and Malcolm to develop a highly co-dependent relationship and that they would have to be careful when it came to that. He'd spoken to Malcolm about it; it was on their to do list.

"I don't know if I'm ready," Hayes admitted. He stared at his knees. He could feel his heart hammering against his chest. "It knocked me a lot more than I would have expected it to."

"We don't have to discuss anything that you're not comfortable with," Phlox said gently. He'd said that before. And Hayes could tell that he meant it. "After trauma what you feel can be hard to put into words; but in here you don't have to worry about being coherent or making any sense. That's what I'm here for – to help you make sense of things. Perhaps we can take small steps, hmm? What do you think?"

Hayes nodded, but then shrugged. "I don't even know what to start with it. It sucked; it really sucked. Apart from the pain, I half expected the Grim Reaper to appear around the corner and tell me that he'd made a mistake and needed to exchange me for the Captain." He looked up at Phlox from where he'd been talking to his knees. "That's crazy, right? That's not normal."

"Survivor's guilt is something very common," Phlox explained. "It's all a part of the grieving process. It's understandable, given your role in ship's security that you would feel it quite strongly."

Hayes thought about that for a moment. He could feel that annoying pressure building up behind his eyes again. "I've been having a lot of… nightmares about getting shot. And about the people we lost." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I just don't get why I'm still here, and they're not; it doesn't seem fair, like the wrong person was spared. Why do I get to live? Why do I deserve to live any more than they do?"

They talked about it for the rest of that session. Phlox patiently listened to him ramble, and as predicted he didn't make a lot of sense at times, just saying anything he felt like. He went on, and on, about how he didn't understand how he was still alive and that he almost felt like he shouldn't be. He confessed that he felt like such a waste of space for not even being able to enjoy being alive at times, when they'd already lost so many people. Twenty-seven lives; twenty-seven people had been lost while they were in the Expanse, after Hayes had been assigned to Enterprise to help keep them safe, and here he was, almost giving them the finger by not even acting as if he was alive. Instead he almost drank himself to death, again, and spent months avoiding people who cared about him. Hell, he probably could have started dating Malcolm while on Earth if he'd just gotten his head out of his ass. Phlox told him that it would take quite some time, and possibly a few more conversations before Hayes could really process what had happened. He just had to be patient with himself.

Hayes was okay with that.

Mac ambushed him when he returned to the armoury after his session with Phlox. He'd actually gone back to his quarters for half an hour to settle himself – he'd finally talked the Captain down to only taking thirty minutes after each session – and he was still reeling a little from the heavy stuff they'd ended up discussing. He'd actually ended up crying, and wishing he could just go running to Malcolm. He wanted to be invisible when he went on duty, to give himself a minute to breath, but as soon as he set foot in the armoury, Mac just strode straight up to him, and asked for a word.

"We drew straws, and I won; or lost, depends on how you react to this."

"Okaaay…" Hayes said, looking at her in confusion. "Spit it out sergeant."

She hesitated before asking softly "Are you doing okay?"

Concern was etched into her features; Hayes glanced to the side, and saw Cole, Hamboyan, Chang, Tillens, and Ed off to the side, watching the conversation. None of them looked away when they saw Hayes had noticed them. Cole actually raised a hand, nervously waving.

"Honestly?"

She nodded.

"I'm actually, uh, I'm kind of struggling, a little bit…"

She listened, and then told him to let her know if he needed anything from her; they were all there for him; they knew he'd do the same for them.

Talking felt good.