A/N: Apologies, first of all, if you're expecting the big showdown between Jon and Trena'l in this chapter. That's coming in the next instalment! Instead, I'm bringing my angst and evil bunnies back out to play.

Enjoy!

Violations

Chapter Seventeen - The Weight Of The World

Just as he'd done when this nightmare had started, Jonathan Archer sat at the desk in his quarters. Absently rubbing Porthos' ears, while he reflected on that morning's harrowing events. What he'd seen on Trena'l's now safely secured ship had brought it all back. Every awful moment.

"Dear God, Trip… what those bastards put you through."

Everything they'd done to his closest friend had come crashing back through his conscience – so unforgivingly hard that, when he'd returned to Enterprise, he'd left Phlox and Malcolm in his wake. Yes, he knew they were as shocked, and horrified, as he was, but his rage had run far deeper. So had his guilt.

It had made it impossible for him to face them. And he sure as hell couldn't face Trip. Not yet.

Instead, he rested his head in his hands and closed his eyes, mulling over what he'd seen on that ship. Or, more specifically, the first thing he'd seen. What he'd give anything now, to scrub out of his mind. The chamber, that he'd been told, that he'd so foolishly believed, had been purely for 'decompression.'

Like hell. In silent horror, he'd realized that as soon as they'd docked with the Xyrillian cruiser. Puzzled by his request for acclimatization, its commanding officer had assured him it wasn't necessary.

'We've already adjusted our environment for you, Captain. You can board whenever you're ready.'

After the formalities of meeting their new allies, the inevitable exchange of questions and answers, the sinking feeling that Jon had felt from that first realization had crashed right through his boots. It hadn't been three hours of decompression. It had been three hours of physical and mental torture.

Three hours. One hundred and eighty agonizing, terrifying minutes.

Every one of their victims had suffered its terrors. And one of those victims had included his closest friend.

"…Christ, Trip… why the hell didn't I stop it?"

And when he'd finally seen it, that damn chamber, and thought of him, trapped helplessly inside it –

"God, if – if I'd just got you out of there… if only I'd sent Travis right around, and just… just got you back."

– no, just as he did now, Jon had closed his eyes, and fought down the rising tide of bile in his throat.

If only.

He could wonder those two little words for the rest of his life, but it wouldn't change anything. He couldn't turn back time. Could do nothing, now, to protect Trip from what those bastards had done to him.

Picking up on his mood, Porthos whined a little, scrabbling up his chest to offer him his own comfort. Licking his face, and snuffling his nose along the crook of his neck until, reluctantly, he started to smile.

"Yeah, you're just so good at that, aren't you? It's okay, boy, I've - I've just had one hell of a day."

Inevitably, though, thoughts of the other person who never failed to cheer him up brought this moment to a sobering close. Again, Jon closed his eyes. Breathed deeply. Tried to bite back his guilt.

"God, Trip… if I'd just got you out of there, when I had the chance."

Rising from his chair, he then lay back across his bed, so he could continue to think in greater comfort. Before he could settle, though, before Porthos even made it onto his stomach, he got to his feet again – furious that he'd even considered giving himself the comfort that Trip had been so cruelly denied inside that - that thing.

A true chamber of horrors. And Trip had been imprisoned inside it for three tortuous, torturing hours. Forced to submit to the drugs that had stripped away all hopes of resistance against his captors.

In the bitterest hindsight, he'd sent Malcolm and Phlox inside it with every possible precaution. Dressed in their EVA suits, they'd swarmed over it, running their scanners over it, inside and out. Their expressions alone had told Jon what he already knew, long before Phlox had turned to face him.

"Synol, Captain… in quantities and concentrations that… well, would have been impossible to resist."

He'd tactfully avoided using Trip's name to make his point, but his eyes had done that instead. The only comfort that he, or Malcolm, or Jon himself, had drawn from it had been the case in his hand. Filled with samples, it housed all the evidence they'd missed before, but, thank God, safely had now.

Not just from that damn chamber, either, but all the other places that Malcolm really had taken apart. The coils they'd asked Trip to repair. That Malcolm had bitterly reported had shown no signs of damage. What they had contained instead, that had left Trip's already weakened body and mind completely defenceless.

"…Synol here too, sir… and a light display that could have imposed hypnotic suggestion…"

Closing his eyes again, Jon rubbed his fingers against this memory, and a now worsening headache. In other words, brainwashing. The perfect way for Trip's captors to learn all they wanted to know. After raiding his mind, they'd have been free to invade it with their own suggestions.

Rest. Sleep.

Demands.

Submit.

Untraceable triggers. Questions, and insidiously programmed responses. His favourite food. Her favourite food. Events from his lifetime. Flattering, mutual attraction.

Seeds planted into a helplessly captive mind. That he should rest. Sleep.

Submit.

All of which brought Jon's thoughts back now, to… them.

It.

The most horrifying sight, and realization, of all.

Just as Trip had described them, he'd seen dozens of them, swimming through their separate tanks. As he'd stood watching them, as fascinated as he'd been disturbed, curiosity had turned to horror. He'd staggered backwards, physically and mentally reeling. Because one that had pressed its face against the screens between them, the only one amongst all the others, had had blue eyes.

Perfect blue eyes.

Phlox, too, had been utterly horrified. Standing beside his white-faced Captain, everything he'd believed, and told his mortified patient had come crashing down around him.

'The Xyrillians only utilize the genetic material of the mother. The males simply serve as hosts.'

Seeing that curious, inquisitive face had proven him sickeningly wrong. Brought fresh horror to what Trip had been through. To create those uniquely coloured eyes, his DNA must have been taken. Instead of serving as an unsuspecting host, he'd been the equally unsuspecting donor. And God alone knew what part of him they'd taken.

There was no way to tell now, how that DNA had been extracted. That was a question that could only be asked, and theoretically answered, through the privacy of their imaginations.

Surfacing out of those same, sickening thoughts, Jon felt a fresh tide of anger and disgust surge through him. This time, though, he managed to turn it to his advantage. Most of it vented through his comm link. The rest escaped through the call that it delivered to his tactical officer.

"Malcolm? How'd you like to go back to that ship, and join me in kicking that bastard's ass?"