A/N: With apologies for all of you who were creeped out by that last chapter (blame the evil bunnies!), here's where Trip's recovery turns a crucial corner.

Enjoy!

Violations

Chapter Fourteen - The Fightback Begins

As Jon had expected, it took just a few minutes for Trip to make the connection that his still traumatized memory had tried to suppress. More of its defences had fallen in its wake, as he tried to come to terms with what had happened to him. Really happened. Not just flashbacks of things he'd struggled for so long to understand, but all of it.

The more he remembered, the more colour had drained from his face. The more strength from his legs. And as soon as he'd become so tellingly quiet, Jon had steered him, very gently, back to his bed.

Calmly and quietly, he'd put another call in to the mess hall. Ten minutes later, a chirp at the door had announced the arrival of another tray of piping hot coffee, and a plateful of sandwiches. For everything that he knew Trip was about to face and re-live, he had to try and make him as comfortable as possible.

There was a vital difference, though, between how Trip had reacted before, and the way he was reacting now. Then, he'd withdrawn into near catatonia. Refused any kind of contact. Now, with Jon sitting alongside him, he openly welcomed it. Found strength in his presence.

For every memory that he was letting himself remember, there was a gentle squeeze on his shoulder. Quiet reassurance, as what he'd first seen as Ah'Len's kindness now revealed its true, horrific reality.

Not just those cubes that she'd fed to him, but everything else that had followed. Working on those coils again, but without that sickly vapour, and flashing lights, that had thrown his senses into such painful chaos.

Instead, he'd felt the complete opposite. So good, so - unnaturally good. Enjoying himself too much to wonder why that vapour, supposedly used to metabolise their food, had suddenly disappeared. Loving every moment of an assignment which, just twenty four hours earlier, he'd have almost sold his soul to have escaped.

Instead, he'd stayed. He'd been pulled, helpless and unresisting, into the full cruelty of her deception. The holodeck. Her innocent, innocuous 'game.' Spoken so quietly, his next words cracked with bitterness. The shame he'd tried so hard to overcome.

"She – She told me to trust her."

So full of his own emotions now, Jon tried to force them under a veneer of soothing, reassuring calm. He placed both his hands on Trip's shoulders, and turned him very gently around to face him. After making such brave and determined progress, he couldn't let any of it slip away from them now.

"And she was the one, Trip, who abused that trust. She exploited it, and broke it, by lying to you."

Haunted blue eyes wanted so much to believe him. Silently asked him, implored him, to try again. To keep trying, until that crucial belief defeated the bitterness of his humiliation.

"You've got to remember that too, Trip. She lied to you. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she lied to you. And you've got to remember this the most of all, Trip. You were lied to, and deceived, and you did nothing wrong."

It seemed like hours, rather than seconds, for it to happen, but he finally saw a shaky nod of agreement. Trip's eyes had changed too, from bitter shame to the courage that would again help him to overcome it.

"You – You said I was drugged too. By - By that gas in that chamber."

Still savouring the sight of that vital determination, Jon felt his own make an equally welcome return. This was their friendship at its best. At its strongest. All the time he could keep Trip's faith and trust in him - no, nothing could break it. Nothing could break them.

"That's the most likely source, Trip, yes. Though that vapour you mentioned may have been too."

To his relief, the nod was stronger this time. The eyes clearer. The voice calm with its reasoning

"Yeah, that – that makes sense… I mean, workin' through it on those coils just felt so damn weird. An' - An' I couldn't figure out why it was there when I started workin' on those coils, but wasn't when - when I woke up."

Another thought made him frown now, as he brushed his fingers where she had touched him. Along his mouth, against his cheek, in seemingly innocent gestures of both comfort and curiosity. He'd been flattered then, of course. Flattered. Intrigued. Fascinated by this link between their minds.

But now that he knew the truth, for what that glow he'd seen and felt running up his arms signified – no. All that was gone. Instead, he just felt sick to the depths of his stomach, that he couldn't scrub its memory out of his mind.

There was another way, though, to get himself rid of it, and all the anguished shame that had it had caused him. And for Jon, there was an unsettling sense of déjà vu when he then rose to his feet, and strode into his bathroom. Even more so when he followed him, and watched more piles of clothes fly into the bag at his feet.

This time, though, there was a hint of a smile on Trip's face. A familiar, resolute, determined smile.

"Stuff for the next time Malcolm needs somethin' to shoot at," he explained, nodding towards it. But as he revealed what this bundle of clothes represented, so this brave attempt at humour inevitably faltered.

"Everythin' I wore, Jon, when I was on that ship… when I had that - that thing, growin' inside me. I – I want it gone… everythin' that could ever remind me."

To his surprise, Jon now found himself smiling, as he realized what this oddest of actions represented. Destroying everything that could remind him of this awful experience didn't seem like much. But whether he'd been aware of it or not, or even understood it, he'd just taken a massive leap forward.

This wasn't just part of his physical or mental recovery. No, he was now staging his own, personal fightback.

Jon knew it was still too soon, of course, to expect the rest of it to continue, and conclude, so quickly. He certainly wasn't ready yet, to face the moment that now quietly came through his comm unit.

"Reed to Captain Archer. Sir, we've got visual."

This was it. The moment they'd both waited for, with equal amounts of apprehension and eagerness. It was Trip, though, who quietly resolved Jon's familiar conflict of personal feelings and professional duty

"I'll – I'll be fine, Jon. It's okay, just… go do what you've gotta do. I'll be fine, just… just get them."

Doubting he'd ever be more proud of his friend as he was right now, Jon smiled back, and nodded – pulling him into a gentle hug, and making him the promise that would sustain it until he returned.

"Whatever it takes, Trip… yes, we will get them."

He'd meant it, too. Every word. God, he couldn't wait himself now, to get onto the Bridge, and get his hands on the sick bastards who'd put Trip through this unthinkable ordeal. But those thoughts were tempered by the unease that he'd seen, silently written through Trip's eyes.

After what he'd just remembered, there was no way that he could leave him to face its aftermath alone. More than ever now, Trip needed the support of someone who he also trusted completely. And if he couldn't be there to do it himself - well, Jon knew Phlox would make the perfect substitute. It made it just a little bit easier to leave his closest friend in his CMO's uniquely supportive care. And, he thought, it would give Phlox a chance to assess Trip's recovery, without making it too obvious.

When he stepped onto the Bridge, and took in the familiar scene around him, he felt even prouder. Everyone at their stations, ready to take each and every order that he gave them.

His eyes also fixed on the ship displayed ahead of them, Jon settled into his chair - giving them that first, longed for order through a buzz of satisfaction and anticipation.

"All right, people, good work. Now, let's go get 'em. Malcolm, go to Tactical Alert."