A/N: Wow! Thanks so much for these latest reviews! Even if it was a bit mean of me, to leave you all on such a cliffhanger, I'm so pleased you enjoyed that chapter.

I'll get back to poor Trip in the next one. But for now, Jon has to practice what he preached, and weigh the repercussions of his actions. Yes, it's more angst for Archer!

Enjoy, and thank you all again, so much!

Aftermath

Chapter Five - Too Little, Too Late

Jon barely felt the gentle squeeze on his shoulder. Barely heard his CMO's quietly encouraging voice.

"You couldn't have done any more, Captain. The fact that you called me to him, so quickly…"

"…meant you could reverse the arrhythmia, before it stopped his heart completely," Jon finished for him, too overwhelmed by the scene in front of him to take any comfort that would ease his conscience.

A face so full of expression, now a mask of stillness. Bright eyes so full of life, now so firmly closed. Not the Trip Tucker he knew so well. Not the Trip Tucker he'd ever expected to see in this situation.

A heart attack… no, he sourly corrected himself, an arrhythmic seizure… at the age of thirty? No, he still couldn't believe it. But the proof was there, all too real, lying silently in front of him. Thanks to his insensitive stupidity, Trip was fighting for his life. And there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help him.

The only sign that he was still alive, still breathing, was the steady rise and fall of his chest. Everything else, including the monitors above his bed, confirmed the severity of his condition. Despite everything Phlox had done to bring him round, Trip had lapsed into this inexplicable coma – his increasingly erratic neural activity causing both his doctor and his closest friend the same concern.

It represented a silent battle for life. And the only person who could win that fight was Trip himself.

For someone who lived that life to its fullest, that question should only have ever had one answer. But now? As impossible as it was for him to accept it, Jon knew it had taken on a horrifying uncertainty. Why would Trip want to return to a life that had become too painful, too awful, for him to endure?

Taking a deep breath to regain his composure, he finally turned to meet his CMO's eyes – his voice betraying the fears for a friend's life, that now rested in this unthinkably precarious balance.

"But we both know that might not be enough. All the time Trip's in this coma…"

"…he's letting his body recover from what it's been through," Phlox cut in with a gentle smile, giving his shoulder another squeeze, and the calming reassurance that only the best doctors could offer. "Just keep talking to him, Captain. Let him know you're here. Trust me, he can still hear you."

'I don't doubt that, Doc. I'm just not so sure he'll want to listen.'

Keeping that bleak thought to himself, Jon forced himself to smile back. There was so much more to it than that, of course, but… well, little, if anything of that mattered now.

Only he and Malcolm knew how far Trip had spiralled towards that final act of desperation. Counting on his tactical officer's discretion, he'd already decided that wouldn't, couldn't, change. No one else, not Hoshi, or Travis, or even T'Pol and his CMO, needed to know the awful truth. If – no, when – Trip regained consciousness, and could face it himself… well, they'd deal with it then.

He'd bear the guilt, too, of keeping the truth from them. These people he'd trust with his life, because – well, as he bitterly reminded himself, it was the Captain's duty to protect his crew, by whatever means necessary. And until this crisis passed, he had to protect Trip the most of all.

As far as his CMO was concerned, Trip's collapse had come from its most obvious chain of causes. After the cogenitor's suicide, he'd thrown himself into his work, desperate to find some form of solace. Jon knew himself that his chief engineer had pushed himself far beyond the limits of his health. Pulling double, sometimes triple shifts, while a body starved of rest and nourishment struggled to keep functioning. Finally, inevitably, that body had succumbed to its exhaustion, and an emotionally broken heart.

The sight of that kind, loyal, generous heart, breaking in front of his horrified eyes, would haunt Jon for the rest of his life. The terror he'd seen in Trip's eyes now seared even more guilt into an already overloaded conscience. If he'd just gone to him sooner. Come off his moral high horse, and… God damn it, just turned around.

Oh yes, he thought bitterly, that was the best thing about hindsight. It saw everything in 20/20 vision. But to his cost, and even more tragically for the friend he'd turned his back on, it had all come too late.

And if Trip had held himself responsible for the cogenitor's suicide, surely he had to do the same now. He had to stare down into Trip's face and, just as he'd done, weigh the repercussions of his actions.

'Trip. Dear God, how could I let this happen?'

No closer to answering that question than he'd been six hours ago, Jon could only shake his head, his conscience forcing out an apology that was cruelly lost to the person who needed to hear it so badly.

"I'm sorry, Trip. God, I wish you knew how much I hate myself right now, for letting this happen."

'And for letting you down, when you most needed me to be there.'

Ah. Another reminder of that wonderful 'if only…' hindsight that he could do nothing about. All he could do, in this long and lonely here and now, was follow his chief medical officer's advice. Even if Trip couldn't hear him, or didn't want to hear him… no, he still had to know he was there.

"Trip, I know you're in a dark place right now. A place where I can't help you," he said at last, leaning forward in his chair, and taking Trip's hand into the only means of connection between them. "But I'm here, Trip. I'm here. And wherever you are, Trip, I need you to come back."