A/N: Wow! Look – an update barely a week after the last one! This is a rare occurrence, I know; so I hope my long-suffering readers enjoy this chapter! :)

To my wonderful reviewers:

Verity Kindle: I'm glad I made an impression! I do hope you enjoy the next two chapters of pure, unashamed fluffiness…

Alelou: I do like my cliffes! Hope you enjoy this chapter.

Maraena: Thanks for reviewing – and thanks for your review of chapter 13, which reminded me to finish this fic…

SpaceHead3: Here goes! Hope you enjoy.

mmmsoap2: Glad to have a new reader! Hope you enjoy the last few chapters… and maybe the sequel!

Fireflymaiden: Hurrah! I am glad you like it.

So – here goes, the penultimate chapter!

Disclaimer: I own all of the original characters but anyone is welcome to borrow them… however, I sadly do not own Malcolm or any of the other 'real' Enterprise characters or settings.

Chapter Fifteen

Malt Guilt

Two weeks after their rescue from the Clendavin freedom fighters, things were beginning to return to normal for Lieutenant Malcolm Reed and Crewman Henny Mackie. Although her injuries had been serious, Doctor Phlox had – after several hours of tense surgery – succeeded in saving Henny's life and she was well on her way to recovery, albeit a recovery which required little-relished daily sessions of 'therapy' with his slugs. Malcolm had, of course, returned to duty the very day after their return, in spite of his plethora of 'scratches' and half-mended broken ribs.

Henny was surprised to find on her return to the Quartermaster's Store that much, in fact, had changed during her brief absence. She was hardly surprised at Billy's "bombshell" as an excited – and emotional – Catherine Manning had termed it when she had come to share gossip at her friend's bedside, but she was a little dismayed at Annan's reaction to it. The icy crewman had promptly moved out of his and Billy's shared quarters, leaving the latter confused and alone. Ryan had also – apparently – almost mutinied on the bridge and had proposed to Miranda yet again in a rapture of relief when hearing that she, Henny, was out of the woods and this time, Miranda had agreed. Although when she had visited Sickbay with a crate of grapes large enough to feed an army the matronly older woman had insisted that she was simply so tired of being asked that she had given in, the faint glow and barely-suppressed smile of happiness hinted otherwise.

Two weeks after their return, Henny was permitted to return to her own quarters and to work the next day, but as she sat in the dark, cramped room, staring at the chronometer and watching it flick from one minute to onto midnight, she realised that sleep would not be forthcoming tonight. She wondered if Malcolm – Lieutenant Reed, she reminded herself sternly, for such he must be now, back onboard the Enterprise – was asleep yet. She suspected not.

He had visited her three times whilst she was in Sickbay, had in fact been sitting beside her bedside when she awoke from surgery, but each time she had been too tired or too drugged on painkillers to address everything that was between them, or to try to absolve the look of guilt in his eyes. Henny knew that he could barely forgive himself for being transported first whilst she, who was saved second, was shot and almost killed. Worse still was Commander Tucker, who had visited and apologised, his normally cheerful face drawn, for not being quicker on the controls. Henny blamed neither of them, but in the week immediately following her return to the ship she had been unable to put this into words persuasive enough.

They had not spoken of the words they had uttered before the Clendavin had ordered his men to shoot them. Henny had never heard Reed – Malcolm – sounds so intensely emotional. Nor had she ever heard in her own voice such tones of desperation and fear. There was danger in those words, and they had both shied from repeating them; they had been almost deadly to them on the planet, and Henny feared that the tenuous cover of normality with which she had endeavoured to shelter herself since returning to such a changed Enterprise would be torn from her completely should she attempt to acknowlege those words which hung between them. She wondered if Malcolm felt the same.

With a sigh, she swung her legs out of bed, wincing as her still-recent stitches panged in protest at the sudden movement. There was only one way to find out, and until she set those four foolish, impulsive words to rest then such grateful oblivion as sleep would always escape her.

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Try as he might, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed could not sleep. He had tried reading – descending even to the pile of detective novels hidden at the back of one his drawers in the hope that their well-worn plots and comfortingly cliched characters might send him to sleep with rather more effect than Ulysses could – and listening to music (with his mother's taste for the classical "Pachelbel's Canon" had wooed him to sleep many times in his childhood), and had even resorted to endeavouring to count the number of rivets in the ceiling tiles above his bed, but it was no use. He was therefore not terribly annoyed when the doorbell rang at a time when most people should have been in bed, and he paused for a moment, relieved that his insomnia and boredom might receive some relief, wondering who it might be.

Not Trip – the engineer had already cornered him earlier in the day in the mess hall, determined to assess his emotional state, and anyway he would have simply buzzed and walked right in, regardless of the hour – and Malcolm prayed it was not the Captain. No; he had been acting normally enough whilst on duty to convince Archer that all was well, even if it was not, and the man was less likely to broach his privacy uninvited than Trip. Malcolm knew who he rather hoped it would be. He glanced down at his rumpled t-shirt with a grimace and ran a hand through his hair, and was on the verge of checking it in the mirror when he stopped himself with a shake of his head. What was he doing? Being foolish, that was what. Nevertheless, it was with a slight lurch of anticipation that he called "come in".

His anticipation was quite justified when the door swished open and Henny Mackie stepped in, looking pale and nervous.

"I couldn't sleep." She shrugged and smiled wanly, and Malcolm felt the guilt which had first surged through him when he saw her materialise on the transporter pad which blood blossoming across her front resurface at the sight of the dark circles beneath her eyes, and the careful manner in which she held herself which hinted at pain only just suppressed. He was well aware – tragically so, even – after over half a decade of serving the Enterprise and her crew that he could never hope to protect all of them from harm, but it seemed deeply unfair to him that the one crewmember who seemed to always suffer in his presence was so young and undeserving a girl. And she looked young, with her civilian clothes – tight jeans and a girlish t-shirt – and her hair hanging loose around her face.

"Me neither, actually." He smiled, and touched her elbow, steering her to a seat. "Sit down." As she did so he followed suit, perching a little awkwardly on the edge of the bed, unsure of what to say. "How are you feeling? I mean, I saw you in Sickbay, but -"

"I was a bit spaced out, I know." Henny interrupted him with a hint of her old look of humour, but then her expression became more serious. "How am I feeling? I ache everywhere, I'm being treated like a piece of glass by everyone I meet, and every time I shut my eyes I see all sorts of dreadful things. How are you feeling?"

Malcolm pursed his lips. Henny raised an eyebrow.

"If you say 'alright', Malcolm Reed, I swear to God I will finish the Clendavin's job for them."

He couldn't help it. He laughed. How could she make him laugh at a time like this? How could she make him laugh, full stop? He saw, however, that his laugh had made her smile.

"You're not glass, Henny, you're more precious than that. More a diamond."

He stopped, frowning. He hadn't recognised the voice or the man who had just spoke. Or rather he did, but he was a man of many years before – a younger self who had the time and the freedom for wooing. But he was an officer now, for God's sake. And how could he even think of wooing her? She probably hated him for all that had happened to her.

"My mother's ring was diamond." Henny spoke softly, interrupting his self-recriminatory reverie. "It's silly, isn't it, to worry so much about that when…" She shrugged, indicating her stomach – the bandages could just be discerned beneath her top – with a roll of the eyes.

"It's not silly." Malcolm sighed. "Crewman, you have no idea how terribly… sorry I feel that -"

"Lieutenant." Henny interrupted him again, her head cocked to one side. "See, do you like it?"

Malcolm was silent for a long moment.

"Henny." He said at last, feeling the old familiar guilt gnawing in his stomach. Had his familiarity with her got in the way of his doing his job properly? Had his ridiculous declaration been the near-death of her at the hands of that madman? He shook his head. There were only two words he could say, any more. "I'm sorry."

He couldn't bear to look her in the face, but she leant forward and put a hand on his knee. He looked up. There was no anger in her eyes, no blame. There were other emotions – confusion, pain, and others that he did not want to identify for that way lay madness – but none of the damning accusation which he expected and fully felt he deserved.

"There is nothing to be sorry for. But I forgive you, if it will make you sleep."

He held her gaze for a long moment, before standing up abruptly. Her hand fell back into her lap and his knee felt oddly bereft.

"I have an idea." He said, reaching for the small kettle in the corner of his desk and two mugs (the second kept in case of late-night sessions with Commander Tucker requiring the aid of caffeine), flicking the kettle on and reaching for a small pot on a shelf beside his bed. "Malt again, although not whisky. But it might help sleep."

Still not looking at Henny, he heaped three large spoonfuls of sandy-coloured powder into each mug and stirred the hot water into them. A homely smell as old as his childhood slowly filled the room, and he glanced at Henny to see her smiling. He handed her a mug and sat down on the bed once more, sipping gingerly from his own.

"Keep it for special occassions, do you?" Henny asked, her eyes crinkling. He felt his own lips quirk in response.

"Absolutely."

They sat in silence for some minutes, Malcolm glancing at Henny as she stared into the distance and then – as her gaze shifted onto him – diverting his own attention to a speck of dust on the farther wall of his quarters. Eventually, he put his mug down and leant forward.

"I lost my communicator on an alien world once. Pre first-contact." He paused. "The Captain and I had to go back to recover it."

Henny nodded, her eyes wide and a little nervous.

"I remember. You were…" She stopped, and shrugged. Malcolm nodded awkwardly. They were, indeed. Condemned to be hanged by the neck until dead. Hanged, not hung. Grammatical correctness, it seemed, was even more important in matters of life and death.

"I felt… helpless. By my own damned carelessness I had forfeited both my own life and the life of my Captain. But -" he heard his voice thicken slightly and he stopped, taking a swig from his mug to disguise it. "But the fear I felt then was nothing compared to how I felt in that cell, with you." He looked at her, and this time she did not avoid his gaze. "But I don't know if it was myself for whom I was scared."

He watched, feeling as though time had tautened and lengthened, suddenly terribly aware of her every movement, the slight intake of breath, the tightening of her lips, her neck stretching as she glanced up towards the ceiling and then away from his gaze.

"Malcolm…"

He was also aware of his own hand, trembling ever so slightly.

"What I mean is," he added hastily, "is that – there's nothing wrong with being afraid. I was terrified down there. You -" he shrugged. "You were never prepared for anything like that."

When she turned back to look him in the face he saw that tears were glimmering on her lower lashes, but she swallowed and took a deep breath. She gave a shaky laugh.

"I promise to stop feeling scared if you promise to stop feeling guilty."

Once again, he smiled slightly despite himself, and without quite knowing what he was doing he reached out and took her hand, her left hand bereft of its heirloomed ring. She said nothing, but curled her fingers lightly around his. Then she reached out a hand and slowly, hesitantly, placed it on his jaw. He closed his eyes and leaned gently into her palm. They sat like that for a long moment, and he listened to her breathing, remembering how he had listened to her breathing as they slept face to face in the Clendavin cell, how it had comforted him, and how it had later damned him as he listened to the sound of the ventilator onto which Phlox had been forced to put her during and just after her surgery. Yet as he listened, he felt the guilt fall away, a little bit.

"Henny Mackie," he said at last, his voice low, "I haven't been able to sleep a damn wink all week. Will you do me the honour of staying here, tonight? It's… too bloody cold."

Henny laughed, and, as she had done in the cell after binding his wounds, stood up and kissed the top of his head.

"The honour would all be mine, Lieutenant."

Later, as he was drifting off to sleep, the smell of his mother's favourite drink mingling with her fresh scent, she spoke softly into the darkness.

"I meant it, you know."

Malcolm knew, somewhere in his half-conscious state, to what she was referring, and would have agreed that yes, he had meant it too, but the so oft-closed arms of sleep were too strong by far. But when he woke up the next morning to find her gone and a message on his – her – pillow stating "don't tell Cathy!", he felt the last dregs of guilt dissolve in the artificial light of shipboard day.

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A/N: Go on, guys… tell me what you think. Reviews are better than chocolate! Final chapter coming up soon!