Ever so grateful to my beta readers, Gabi2305 and RoaringMice, who always manage to improve my storytelling.

1

"Are we dead?"

Trip turned to Malcolm, seeking answers on the man's face. Who better than he would know? Not only because of his profession, but for his pragmatic nature.

To exorcise the idea, Trip had made the words almost sound like a joke, but there was nothing funny about the situation. One moment he'd been… Trip frowned in confusion. Where had he been?... Well, never mind, the next he'd found himself here, wherever here was, the only comfort being that he was not alone. He and Malcolm were surrounded by a thick fog and, what was more disquieting, by total silence – as in zilch, not even background noise. It was as if they were floating in… A sudden thought struck him. Purgatory?

"Are we… dead?" he repeated, his face scrunched up in disbelief even though the concept was beginning to take root in his mind.

Malcolm did not seem to be paying him much attention. He was standing beside him, stock still, as if in another world. Trip checked himself for injuries, then visually did the same with the Lieutenant's body. There was no indication that they might have suffered a violent demise, still…

"Malcolm, for Pete's sake, say something!" Trip burst out. He did not dare to take a step, for he couldn't see his feet, and whatever he was standing on might give way, or he might be on the brink of… and plunge into… He forced his mind away from the picture that had formed in it. Purgatory, if this was it, was bad enough.

"Loo-tenant!"

That did it. The man finally shot him a glance. It came surmounted by a thick frown. "Dead?" Malcolm simply repeated, his tone unreadable like in the best Reed tradition.

"Yeah, dead, ya know, gone, stiff. Someone in your line of work oughtta be familiar with the concept!" That got him a different kind of look, which immediately made him regret the words. "Sorry, but… ya know… it's spooky," Trip muttered.

Malcolm made a low grunting sound that Trip interpreted as a sign of agreement. The man then inhaled deeply, held his breath for one long moment, then let it out.

"Lungs seem to work."

This wasn't the time for subtle British humour. "Malcolm…" Trip said through gritted teeth.

"What?" Malcolm calmly countered, "If we were dead, we wouldn't need to breathe."

"Says who? No one has ever come back from the other side to tell us what it's like."

"And we seem to be standing on something solid," Malcolm went on. He looked down at the clouds that clung to the ground, then he licked his lips and suddenly crouched down, disappearing into them.

"Hey!" Trip shouted. After a few moments, Reed reappeared. Trip watched the Lieutenant pull on his neck pensively. "So?..." Trip prompted.

"Solid, as we already know. Rough and cold to the touch, extends all around, from what I can tell," was Malcolm's curt assessment.

"What do you propose we do?"

Malcolm consulted his scanner. "Doesn't register a thing," he muttered. He lifted his eyebrows. "Page the ship?"

Slapping a hand on his forehead, Trip reached for his arm pocket and produced his communicator. "Tucker to Enterprise."

Nothing.

Malcolm grimaced. "Didn't really expect it to work."

"Hell!"

"Wouldn't mention the place, if I were you. Better be on the safe side."

"Awgawd!"

"Now, that's better."

Under Trip's sceptical gaze, Malcolm narrowed his eyes to a slit. "This is no ordinary situation," he reasoned, "I don't expect we'll solve it by ordinary means."

Trip's shoulders slumped. He closed the communicator and replaced it in his pocket. "Then how?"

"Reed to Enterprise."

Hoshi, who was idly looking at her nails – which urgently needed filing and a new coat of clear polish – while reviewing in her mind the conjugation of Klingon verbs, straightened her posture and opened a channel to Lieutenant Reed, who had gone with Commander Tucker on an away mission to investigate an abandoned starship on the uninhabited M-class planet they were idly orbiting.

"Sir."

"Emergency transport," Reed's voice came back tensely. "Commander Tucker has been injured."

"Understood, Lieutenant." Hoshi's heart had jumped into her throat. Was it ever possible for Trip and Malcolm to go off ship and come back without either of them, or both, getting into trouble?

"I think we are dead," Trip repeated, for the notion had now become a certainty in his mind.

"Weren't you the ship's inveterate optimist?" Malcolm threw over his shoulder, as he pierced a finger into their foggy surroundings.

Trip bit his lower lip. "But this is just too weird…"

"What's the last thing you remember?" Malcolm asked while he vainly waved a quick hand in front of him to clear some of the mist.

"I… I don't know…" Trip tried to focus. "I think I was… on the Bridge, only… it didn't look like our Bridge."

"Riiight," Malcolm drew out, as if he'd remembered too.

Trip watched his friend's eyes narrow and his jaw clench in silent reproach. "Oh yeah, now it's my fault!" Trip complained. Instinctively, he took a step forward.

"Stop!" Malcolm cried out, raising a quick hand. "That's just what I mean! You must learn to think before you do something, Commander!"

"But you said the ground extended all around!"

"… As far as I could tell, I said as far as I could tell." Malcolm blew out a frustrated breath. "For heaven's sake, Trip, it was an abandoned alien ship," he griped, "we didn't know what to expect. I. am. the. Security. Officer, I was to go in first…"

"But I didn't touch anything! What difference would've it made if you'd gone in first…"

Malcolm's eyebrows lifted. "We'll never know, now, will we? I might have spotted something your eyes are not trained to see."

Trip felt a blade go through his heart. He raked a nervous hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, Malcolm," he said in earnest, "it's bad enough I'm dead, but you…"

"We don't know that we're dead," Malcolm insisted.

Trip heaved a deep breath, to try and lift the heavy and painful something that had deposited itself in the middle of his chest at the idea that he might be responsible for his friend's death. "It's ironic," he croaked out, "on that Shuttlepod I was the one who thought we'd make it against all odds, while you recorded last messages for ex-girlfriends who'd probably never hear them. How did we end up wearing each other's shoes?"

"I'm just being pragmatic, while you follow your gut. That situation, admittedly, seemed desperate. Now, till I have proof that we are dead, I'll consider us alive."

Trip shrugged. "Well, I can live with that – no pun intended."

The decon-chamber door opened, and a pale Lieutenant Reed emerged. Archer watched him scan the Sickbay with troubled eyes. Phlox was still tending to Trip behind a drawn privacy curtain, and Jon saw Malcolm take stock of the situation and come towards him like a proper little soldier, straightening his posture to face whatever he thought he'd have to shoulder – which was pretty clear, in Archer's eyes. Jon heaved a deep silent breath.

"Captain."

The single word, as expected, was fraught with self-recrimination. "Are you all right, Lieutenant?" Jon asked. Concern about his wellbeing was probably the last thing Reed wanted, for failing to safeguard the wellbeing of his charge on an away mission; but tough, the man would have to accept his style of command, sooner or later.

"Me, Sir?" Reed, indeed, wondered, his brow furrowing. "I'm fine, Captain."

I'm fine, the biggest Lieutenant Reed lie…

Reed's gaze lifted from the deck plating, where it had briefly wandered, and searched his Captain's. "Any news of the Commander?"

Casting a quick but eloquent glance at the drawn curtain around one of the biobeds, Jon skipped the predictable reply and went on to enquire, "What happened down there?"

Malcolm stretched his neck uncomfortably. "Something unexpected, as the Commander crossed the threshold of that ship's Bridge. I really can't tell what… Suddenly, he began to wobble. I caught him and broke his fall and dragged him back out into the corridor." The corners of Reed's mouth turned downwards, and he added darkly, "I should have been the one to go in first, Captain, I-"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, Malcolm, I'm not interested in finding fault," Archer cut him off, for tension did that to you, made you jumpier than you liked. "What I am interested in, is to know why things happened, to avoid any future mistakes. Why didn't you go in first, anyway? It's not like you."

Malcolm's mouth must have been dry as bone, for he swallowed hard, but before he could say a word there was a screeching sound: the curtain opened, and Phlox emerged, reclosing it behind him around his patient. All attention turned to him and to his uncharacteristically gloomy face.

"I am afraid Commander Tucker is in a coma, Captain," the Doctor said out right. "For the moment he is stable, but something unknown in his bloodstream is causing his state of unconsciousness. I shall research the Interspecies Medical Exchange and Vulcan databases, in the hope of finding an answer."

Aware that Reed beside him was a block of stone, Jon nodded slowly. "You do that Doctor. Get T'Pol's help, if you need to, and keep me apprised of any changes in his condition."

"Of course." With a courteous tilt of the head, Phlox turned and hurried off to his computer desk.

Jon looked at Malcolm. "Go and take a shower, Lieutenant, and then write your report," he ordered. He had to know what had happened on that planet, but interrogating the tired and troubled man before him now would be hard on both.

"Aye, Sir," Reed croaked out, and with a nod he was gone.

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