"Um... Commander?"

Hoshi hated disturbing her, but pressed on anyway, although she did take care not to look at whatever T'Pol was looking through. Whatever it was definitely did not look official.

"How may I assist you, Lieutenant Sato?" T'Pol replied calmly, although, Hoshi couldn't help but notice how T'Pol discretely slid the PADD she had been using out of sight.

"I need your help with something," Hoshi began cautiously.

"I had assumed..."

"It's about this so-called mining barge. I'm certain there is something fishy about it. But I'm having a hard time convincing the captain."

"In that case, convince me."

Mentally crossing her fingers, Hoshi carefully walked T'Pol through the evidence she had called. Registry papers, death certificates, and multiple instances of that bouncing signal.

"I think I see your problem, Lieutenant," T'Pol said thoughtfully after Hoshi had finished. "Any one piece of evidence taken on its own is small and disputable, but taken together, they are something more. Very well. I shall recommend to the captain that we investigate further."

Hoshi exhaled in relief. "Thank you Commander."

"One more thing, Lieutenant Sato. Have you had any luck deciphering what your 'bouncing beeps' might mean?"

Hoshi squirmed slightly. "Not exactly. Some of it looks like planetary coordinates, but the rest of it looks like text."

"And there was no match in the linguistics database?" T'Pol prompted.

"Well there was," Hoshi answered, reluctant to sow doubt in her new ally. "But the match was a nonsense."

"Presumably it was in code?"

Hoshi shook her head. "No Commander, that's not what I mean. It's not that the words were a nonsense, it's that the language match made no sense."

"Why not?"

"Well...it was Valakian."

Waking up this time felt like an ever-so-slightly better idea.

Then again, Malcolm considered himself a man who could learn from experience.

Still, it was undeniable that the nausea and headache were very much improved, and he had a light and giddy feeling that suggested a marked improvement in his analgesia regimen.

In a fit of foolish bravery, he opened his eyes in search of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, or whatever their blasted names were.

Instead he saw... "Oh, ALROX!", he rasped, finally grasping what those simpering, idiot med-students had been on about.

Alice smiled. "I appreciate you are probably making fun of my new minions, but it might be best to refrain from making jokes like that until I figure out how squooshed your brain is."

"How squooshed is it?" Malcolm asked, unwisely before considering that she might actually answer him.

"Well, you seem to remember your conversation with Vax and Messop," Alice replied. "So that's a good sign."

"Hard to forget those numpties," Malcolm grumbled in reply. "It wasn't much of a conversation on my end. Just vomit."

"I suspect that got your point across."

"Some of it anyway," Malcolm agreed lightheadedly. "Where WERE you, anyway?"

Alice smiled. "Big hospital, Malcolm. Big planet. It can't be all about you, all the time. I am sorry, though. I did tell them to come and find me..."

"... But they are incredibly full of themselves, impossibly chipper, and have bedside manners which make yours look good." Malcolm snapped, still not quite willing to forgive Alice for his mildly terrifying first awakening.

"Well, look at you," Alice replied mildly. "Snarking with the best of them! We can tick off the old 'sarcasm intact' box, then. I really am a good surgeon, if I do say so myself."

"You do know I can't move my right arm?"

"I haven't quite got around to that yet," Alice admitted sheepishly. "It's just... well, it's chaos out there, Malcolm. Everything - everyone - is completely overwhelmed. Anything that doesn't need to happen right now, isn't happening."

Malcolm chuckled bleakly. "And I don't suppose I can drag you back to Enterprise, away from all the dying new mothers and tiny babies just to fix my arm, right?"

"We can't go back to Enterprise, right now, Malcolm," Alice responded, her face clouding. "I mean CAN'T. Charismatic, dying babies notwithstanding."

Malcolm tried to focus through the mist of exhaustion gathering already in his brain. "Why not?"

Her answering smile was unconvincing in the extreme. "Let me worry about that, okay?"

Despite the exhaustion, Malcolm might have argued, but before he could, Messop and Vax bounded into the room like a pair of overexcited puppies.

"Oh he's awake again!"

"YAY!"

"Can we do another brain scan? Can we do it ourselves?"

"Because, you've got a patient coming in, Alrox,"

Annoyance crept across Alice's face. "It's ALICE, she enunciated carefully.

"Oh, that's what I said," Vax enunciated equally carefully, causing an intoxicated giggle to very nearly escape Malcolm's throat. "Anyway, Alrox, there's been another explosion. Outside the city limits this time..."

"Scary!" put in Messop.

"...And, they are bringing them here, because the quarantine zoning got broken by that OTHER explosion last night..."

"That HAD to be on purpose," added Messop.

"...And they think you'd be the best doctor for one of the patients, I think?" Vax finished. "And isn't my Earthianese getting great?"

"English," Alice corrected vaguely. "So, I'm not quite following. They want me because it's a neuro case?"

"No," Vax responded casually. "Because it's a human."

A jolt of adrenaline cleared Malcolm's fogging brain, as Alice's face drained of colour.

"Who would that be?" he asked her.

"Liz. It has to be Liz."

Archer nodded slowly.

"So you think there's something to this as well?" he asked T'Pol, in a tone which clearly suggested that made all the difference.

Hoshi narrowed her eyes in irritation, but held her tongue as T'Pol answered blandly in the affirmative.

"Okay," Archer continued. "So how do we investigate further? I don't need to tell either of you how absolutely crucial it is to be sure. The fate of the Coalition- the balance of power in the quadrant, no less - could very well depend upon what exactly is happening on Denobula."

T'Pol's raised eyebrow did not appear to think much of Archer's dramatics. "I think we transport somebody on board the ship. The data they transmit back will hopefully be sufficient to prove Lieutenant Sato's theory of Romulan involvement. Should, of course, that theory actually prove correct."

Archer nodded again, "That sounds promising..."

"There is of course, a caveat." T'Pol continued. "Whomever we did send, would become subject to Denobulan quarantine, and would not be able to return to Enterprise."

"And you don't want to order any of your people into an indeterminate exile," Archer replied understandingly.

A strange shadow crossed T'Pol's face. "I suppose if, pressed, I could bring myself to nominate a suitable candidate, but in this case it may be better to utilise the crew we already have on Denobula. It would require a modification to the transporter to allow us to complete a transport from the mining vessel to Denobula without fully materialising on Enterprise. A site-to-site transport, if you will. It is theoretically possible."

"Well, Malcolm, of course, would be the perfect person," Archer quipped.

T'Pol either missed, or deliberately ignored his tone. "Lieutenant Reed has just had brain surgery."

"Nobody cared about sending me to the Xindi weapon when I'D just had brain surgery," Hoshi muttered.

"We did care," T'Pol replied calmly. "We simply had no choice. And in this case, I believe the best choice is to send Crewman Cutler and Dr Harper."

Archer suddenly sat up straight. "Alice... T'Pol, is the T'Kenara in orbit yet?"

"They reached Denobula approximately forty minutes ago, Captain," T'Pol replied. "Is something wrong?"

"I forgot to do something..."

"Liz!"

It still sounded like she was underwater. Her conversational Denobulan was no match to the damage her hearing had sustained from the blast, and she did not fully understand what was happening, where she had been taken, what had happened to Phlox.

"Liz!"

And now, someone was calling her name. In English.

"Liz!"

Suddenly catching sight of a familiar face, Liz grabbed onto Alice for dear life.

"Alice, where's Phlox?" she stammered.

"Liz, follow the light for me? With your eyes?"

There was a light flashing somewhere in her vision, but Liz ignored it. "Where is he Alice? I can't find him."

"Liz, I don't know. But if you let me make sure you are okay, I can find out."

Liz couldn't understand why her friend was being so unhelpful. Didn't she understand? "The building exploded. No one will tell me what's going on. I couldn't understand them, anyway. I need Phlox, Alice. Where is he?"

Alice sighed. "Can you walk? Come with me..."

Alice led her by the wrist out of the chaotic, swirling hellscape of the emergency reception area, up several flights of stairs and into a relatively quiet ward.

As Alice pulled her towards a particular bed, Liz felt her heart rise in her chest.

Phlox?

...but it wasn't.

Between the swelling, bruising and burns it took Liz a moment to recognise Malcolm Reed.

"Liz," he rasped. "Are you alright?"

Malcolm looked terrible enough that the question made Liz giggle uneasily. "Have you seen Phlox?" she asked.

Alice lowered her into a chair. "You two, watch each other," she told Malcolm and Liz firmly. "And you, Messop, watch both of them."

Messop nodded agreeably. "Like one of your hawk-birds, Alrox?"

Alice rolled her eyes. "I'm going to find out what's happening. To find Phlox. Vax, I need you to..."

Alice got no further because four armed Denobulans walked into the ward.

"Which of you is Alice Harper?"

"She's Alrox," Vax responded helpfully, pointing.

"You are under arrest," intoned the guard.

"Why?" Malcolm asked, sitting up in alarm, flinching with the effort.

"Erm... I suspect it's because I'm a deserter. Or a fugitive? Traitor, possibly?" Alice said uncertainly, as she was unceremoniously handcuffed.

"Well, which is it, you demented harridan?" Malcolm demanded in a tone somewhere between confusion and worry.

Alice, however, was spirited away before she could meaningfully answer.

"Shame," observed Messop sadly. "I liked her."

"Indeed," agreed Vax. "Nobody else ever seemed to want to work with us."

They were dead.

Phlox sat on a crisp hospital bed, in a small space, which had been ineffectually partitioned from the emergency ward with some hung sheeting.

Chenteel, and her rare golden eyes. Resba, and her perfect memory. Palayjah, whose newborn smell he could still conjure perfectly in his mind. Mettus...

It was impossible.

It was true.

dead.

And he was alive.

He still lived because, seconds before the blast, Elizabeth Cutler had run towards him, grabbed his wrist and dragged him into the street.

Seconds.

It was impossible.

It was unthinkable.

But it was true. Must be true. What other explanation could there be?

Elizabeth Cutler had come running, like her life was in danger. Elizabeth Cutler had pulled him into the street, mere seconds before.

Elizabeth Cutler had murdered his family.