Captain Archer finally felt as though he could draw breath.
With movements that were as slow and stealthy as he could make them, he rose to his feet. The movement did not disturb the officer who was curled up fast asleep on the deck-plating in front of him, his face almost gaunt with exhaustion.
He'd come out into space prepared, even hoping, to see things beyond the imagination. He'd never dreamed of seeing them at such close quarters, or in such appalling detail. He'd never expected to hate another human being with such visceral hatred as he now did Harris, who had brought a decent man down to this.
T'Pol was sitting in front of the sleeping lieutenant. Her head was bowed into her hands, but as he rose she lifted it. Her face too was haggard.
"Did it work?" he whispered. He was almost afraid to break the silence.
"I don't know." Her tone was flat and dull with weariness. "We shall have to wait. I would not dare to wake him now, even if it were possible. He needs to sleep until he wakes of his own accord."
"No – no, of course not." He looked down. It seemed the final indignity to have the man spend the night on the comfortless floor, after all he'd suffered. "Wait here a minute."
It was the work of only a few minutes to slip along to the gymnasium. The mats that were used during physical exercise periods were rolled up tidily in a corner; he selected the thickest and dragged it out of the door and down the corridor. Fortunately nobody passed him, but if they had he'd just have stared them down; god damn it, he was the captain, and if he wanted to take one of the gym mats for a walk, nobody could forbid him.
T'Pol had not moved when he returned. She was looking down at Malcolm, and for a moment Jon wondered at the strange pietà. But when he deposited the mat carefully on the floor, she lifted the unconscious officer with no more than dutiful care, wrapped once more in the blanket, and laid him down again without visible reluctance.
"T'Pol – I hadn't thought – do you mind him staying here?" A belated question, perhaps, but one that had to be asked. After all, she wasn't in the habit of sharing her quarters, as far as he knew, and should it become common knowledge that Malcolm had stayed overnight in her cabin then only one conclusion would be drawn.
"His presence will be a minor inconvenience while I meditate." From somewhere she dredged up a ghost of the old ironic humor. "But I believe I will be able to cope."
"I'll come down first thing in the morning. And I'll bring him a change of clothes. I'll guess he'll need some time off duty, even if…." He trailed off, realizing guiltily that he hadn't even asked whether she was okay. If it had been any other member of his crew he'd have reached out, offering tactile comfort and reassurance as well as the gratitude she was owed; he was shy of touching her, however, for several reasons. "Did all this … How about you? It didn't…?"
"I will need to spend considerable time in meditation," she admitted. "As a matter of fact, it may be beneficial for me to spend the night meditating rather than sleeping."
"Then take tomorrow morning off, take whatever you need." He managed a smile that was sincere, if brief. "I appreciate what you did here, I really do."
"The time for thanks will be when we find out whether I have succeeded."
"That's not true." His tactile instincts winning out after all, Jon rested a hand briefly and gently on her shoulder, wondering as he had so often at the strength and resilience in that petite frame. "Even if it doesn't work out, you tried your best."
"I had no idea." How tired – no, exhausted – she must be, to let this vulnerability show as she looked up at him. The only time he'd seen it before was when they were in pursuit of Menos, the renegade Vulcan agent whom it was her duty to apprehend. Then, it had spilled out as guilt for her killing of his accomplice, Jossen, some years earlier. "If I had known, I would never have tried this. If he spends the rest of his life insane, it will be my fault."
"Did he know how dangerous it might be?" he asked carefully.
For a moment he thought she wasn't going to answer. She turned away and sat – or rather slumped – down on her bunk. Finally, in a low voice, "He probably knew it better than I did."
"So I'm sure he wouldn't blame you that it hadn't worked out. He's a grown man, T'Pol. He took the chance of his own free will." The cold weight of his own guilt in the matter settled around his shoulders. It had been his orders that had driven Malcolm to try this dangerous gamble; his decision that unless the lieutenant succeeded in breaking his conditioning, he was no longer welcome on the ship.
At the time, it had seemed no more than sensible. With the clarity of hindsight, he wondered now just how much the urge to make Reed suffer had been a factor in his decision-making process. He knew – he couldn't help but know, having seen proof after proof of it – that the Brit loved Enterprise almost as much as he did. Now he wondered whether he'd wanted him to fail, wanted him to be hurt as he himself had been hurt. Whether in his heart of hearts he'd wanted to get shot of him, and seized this as a chance to do so without any finger of blame pointing to himself: I gave him a chance and he just wasn't up to the job.
So now this was where his cleverness and spite had probably gotten them all: his XO carrying a burden she would never forgive herself for, Enterprise without the best tactical officer in the Fleet, and a good man in a lunatic asylum.
It was all he could do not to shudder as that realization hit him. And a second followed it: was he, in fact, fit to be captain of a starship at all?
T'Pol was speaking; he hadn't even heard her. "Captain," she said again. "You must not blame yourself for this. You were not responsible."
It was good of her to say so, but he knew better. On board ship, the buck stops here. And he'd known this was going on but had never even bothered to ask about the risks. Had never even thought about how dangerous it would be to mess around with the kind of conditioning that must have been used to make a traitor out of a man like Reed.
If Harris was to blame, then how much more blameworthy was he?
He'd promised secrecy, but no amount of secrecy would cover this up. Only collusion in endless lies between him and his First Officer could possibly conceal what had happened. Maybe he deserved the disgrace that would follow, but did she?
At some point while he stared blindly into some damned ugly facts, she must have moved. Her hand came to rest lightly on his arm, making him jump. "Captain. You could not have kept a suspect officer on board. It was Mister Reed's own decision to take this risk, and he took it knowingly and willingly. I do not believe for a moment that you deliberately wished him harm."
"He took a risk." The anguish spilled out of him. "When in hell did he ever ask anyone else to take a risk? Hell, he spent most of his life here trying to stop me taking risks, and most of the time I didn't even listen to him. The only person he ever wanted to put in danger was himself, to protect the rest of us, and now he … and all because I…." His breathing was getting ragged. He couldn't deal with this, couldn't handle the fact that he'd forced a member of his crew into something that had destroyed their sanity. The memories were branded on his brain of his tactical officer cowering away from him on all fours and then snatching food and bolting it like a starving animal. Malcolm had actually lived through that experience, had been put through it with deliberate and calculating cruelty, and now – thanks to the man who was supposed to protect him – he'd been hurled right back into it again. And if the gamble didn't pay off (and there had been no sign of that when he fell asleep curled up on the deck plating) that was where he would stay for the rest of his wretched existence.
"You gave him a chance and he took it," she said quietly. "He would not blame you. He did not blame you. He said so."
"No. I blame me, T'Pol. Because I know I shouldn't have let the two of you go into with this without asking a whole load more questions than I did. I just passed it to you and left you to get on with it. Malcolm wasn't your problem, T'Pol. He was mine. And I failed him even worse than he failed me." He caught the rising note in his voice, and made a conscious effort to get himself back under control. "I'm sorry. This is … is something I'm going to have to think about. Long and hard. And… And his parents … what am I supposed to say to them?"
"Jonathan." Her calling him by his given name startled him. "You are not a vindictive man. I said that I believed I could do this and you believed me. We still do not know if I was wrong. At least wait until the morning."
He nodded shakily, running a hand through his hair. He was disturbing her too, keeping her away from her meditation. Whether he'd get any sleep after all this was a different question, but he should at least try. If the worst came to the worst, he'd go to Sickbay to get something to help him … and then he thought of having to tell Phlox what had happened, and his soul cringed away from what the Denobulan would think of him.
Nothing you don't deserve, his conscience accused him.
Well. Phlox would have to know something of what had happened sooner or later, whatever the outcome; it might have a bearing on Reed's long-term mental well-being, and it was unthinkable that the doctor should not be informed at all. At a guess he'd be indignant, and he'd have every right to be, but in the last analysis this 'procedure' had been kept private at Malcolm's express insistence.
With a last glance at the still-sleeping officer on the gym mat, he bade T'Pol goodnight and left the cabin.
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