Author's Note 1: Star Trek and all its intellectual property belongs to Paramount / CBS. No infringement intended, no money made.

Author's Note 2: Grateful thanks to Meraki S, for sound advice!

''Malcolm!"

This wasn't the best development the tactical officer could have hoped for. He shrank into his corner and appeared determined to concentrate on the wiring he was supposedly investigating.

'Supposedly' was the word. Actually, there wasn't a damn thing wrong with any of it. He'd hoped, vainly as it turned out, that having something to do with his hands would have allowed his mind some respite from the question that had been hammering through it ever since he'd turned away, stunned and sick at heart, from the empty transporter pad on Degra's ship.

"Commander?" He responded politely, because that's what you do when addressed by your senior officer.

What you don't do is go on working, forcing fingers that feel numb and unreal to carry out routine tasks. You don't try to make your mind concentrate on actions you could perform in your sleep, leaving only the smallest necessary percentage available for the demands of conversation in the desperate hope that whoever it is will get the bloody message and shove off.

Most of the people on board Enterprise would have got the message and buggered off smartish, sensing their danger. Unfortunately, Commander Tucker was clearly not one of those sensible souls who prefer their heads left attached to the rest of them.

"Loo-tenant Reed, report!"

That got through. His body responded without thought, pulling him to his feet, from which vantage point he selected a torpedo casing directly opposite him and became fixedly interested in it.

With his peripheral vision he was aware of his senior officer's searing stare. It might, in some other life, have bothered him.

Although they had become closer friends than he'd ever imagined possible, he still fully accepted the other man's right to discipline him to whatever extent appropriate when they were on duty. He even conceded that his small lack of the proper respect on this occasion deserved it. But right now he struggled to find it in him to even be interested.

"Your shift finished more'n two hours ago, Loo-tenant."

"Sir," he muttered. Had it? He didn't know, and, worse, he didn't care.

"So quit messin' with that wirin' and go get somethin' to eat."

"I'm not hungry, sir."

"I don't recall askin' you if you were. I said get somethin' to eat, an' that's an order."

"Sir."

"An' don't even think I won't check up on you."

"Sir." He turned around to replace the panel – after he'd made sure the wiring was properly secured, of course – when the at-that-moment-hated voice behind him snapped, "De la Haye, take over from the Loo-tenant. Run any checks you have to an' make sure that panel's fitted back."

"Sir."

With a distant corner of his mind, Malcolm had been aware of Ensign de la Haye's anxious glances, amongst others. Now he stood silent and powerless as she slipped past him with an apologetic look and settled down where he'd been working so diligently and so pointlessly, hand scanner at the ready.

There was nothing wrong with the wiring. She and all the others probably knew that already. They were his team, and he ran a tight ship in the Armoury. In another life he'd probably have cringed at the thought of what would be thought, what would be said; the pitying glances. Or worse still, the wondering, disdainful glances, aimed at the explosives expert whose captain had died setting charges on the Xindi weapon.

In the Armed Forces, discipline was everything. Even in the Reed household, Nelson's maxim was the overriding law: 'Firstly, you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own respecting their propriety…'

He'd learned that the hard way, experienced it to its fullest, bitterest extent the day he'd been made into an accessory to piracy and, quite possibly if indirectly, to murder. But the devil in Hell must have been laughing that night as he'd finally fallen asleep thinking wretchedly that life had no greater shame to offer him.

Tucker was pointing him to the door, sending a whipped puppy to its kennel.

With a brief, tight nod that would have to do duty for another 'Sir' that he couldn't bring himself to utter, Malcolm turned obediently. Nelson would have been proud: 'Firstly, you must always implicitly obey orders...'

Compared to the brightness of the Armoury, the corridor outside was relatively dim. For just a moment, the Englishman hesitated, as his exhausted mind refused to furbish him with the right directions.

"The turbo-lift's thataway."

He swallowed. A small seismic tremor went through the volcanic pain and resentment that were building inside him, but he fought it into obedience. 'Firstly, you must always implicitly obey orders...'

At least he wasn't followed into the lift. As the door closed behind him, he released a tiny sigh of relief; finally, if only for a few seconds, he was unobserved.

But now he had to enter the Mess Hall. Had to be pilloried there. The announcement had already been made. The ship was hushed, grieving for its captain.

And the news would already have gone around. That the ship's Armoury Officer had gone onto the Weapon and come back without a scratch on him, leaving his captain to set the explosives and die in the resulting blast.

They could only speculate what had happened in those last few moments. What had caused that fatal delay?

He'd made his report to the ship's new Acting CO. He'd even been grateful for her impassivity, allowing him to speak coolly and objectively, describing the scene as he'd left it. But ever since, he'd been tormented by questions that were never going to be answered.

There were still live, extremely dangerous Xindi on the loose when he'd been transported back to Enterprise. Dolim, for one, and they'd all seen the evidence of what he'd done to the captain when he was first taken prisoner. There was no doubt whatsoever that the Reptilian would take his first opportunity to kill the puny Human who'd come to thwart the Sphere-Builders' plans for the extinction of Earth.

Malcolm was in charge of the senior officers' self-defence training, and had been since they first set out aboard Enterprise (including, at least technically, the sessions instigated by Major Hayes). He had a realistic assessment of each officer's abilities, and although Captain Archer applied himself diligently during sparring bouts and had improved lately – probably channelling his frustration and anger through the violent physical exercise – his essential good nature had always meant that he had difficulty regarding his partner as 'the enemy'. Doubtless if he had encountered Dolim he'd have had no difficulty at all, but would that have been enough?

Had it been enough?

Or not enough?

Had that been the fatal difference?

Archer was already physically battered, his body barely starting to repair itself after the beating he'd been given. He was in no condition to start a fight for his life, even if he'd been more than adequate in self-defence skills.

So what did that say for his trust in his own explosives officer? His own self-defence expert?

And if he couldn't find it in him to hand over the task of setting explosives to the man most suited to carry it out, what did his lack of preparedness for physical battle say about his teacher, the man who'd sent him out to face mortal danger inadequately taught?

Theoretically speaking, a mere lieutenant couldn't 'force' his commanding officer to attend more sparring sessions, however much he might need additional training. Having on several occasions received the backlash of Archer's fraying temper during the long, weary search, Malcolm had been very leery of risking more doses of it. Now, however, that caution felt like cowardice, self-preservation before everything. If only he'd been braver, if only he'd insisted; if only he'd used his rank privilege of forcing the less-able (including the captain) to have extra training ... as the officially designated Head of his Department he had that power, if he chose to exercise it.

But he hadn't. When Hayes – wiser than he – had pushed the issue of extra training, he'd taken instant offence and pushed back. The MACO had wanted the officers to do three additional sessions a week, but he'd used his seniority on board ship to force it down to two.

And now the captain was dead.

With a dull sense of surprise, Malcolm found that he was seated in the Mess Hall. In front of him there was a plate of food.

Recycled meatloaf, boiled potatoes and parsnips.

He hated parsnips.

He hated parsnips with an absolute, fucking passion.

He slowly forked a couple of pieces of potato into his mouth, swallowing them half-chewed so that they went down his gullet in a series of painful spasms. Patiently he waited till the engineer who'd followed him in after a discreet interval had taken himself out again, presumably to report to Kommandant Tucker that the prisoner was eating his food as ordered. Then, knowing that if he touched his plate just one more time he'd send it sailing through the air, splattering the nearest wall and anyone unlucky enough to be in the way with meatloaf, parsnips and the odd remaining lump of boiled potato, he pushed back his chair and rose.

When he'd walked in, he'd made a conscious decision to ignore the long training to assess every room he entered. Apart from observing the arrival and departure of the young engineer who'd been detailed to report on him, he couldn't have said who else had been in the Mess. So as he walked up the corridor, rather desperately trying to decide which of the maintenance and repair teams he could safely join without being grassed up to his senior officer, he didn't at first realise that someone was calling him from behind.

"Lieutenant!"

'Fuck. Maybe they're calling some other lieutenant.' Though he was the only one on the Bridge, there were a couple of others around the ship. Maybe Hess was late arriving for dinner too; even though Enterprise was currently being transported in an Aquatic ship ('in the belly of the Beast' as Em had quaintly put it), Engineering was still pulling extra shifts in the effort to repair some of the damage inflicted at Azati Prime. They needed all the help they could get.

But as it penetrated the fog in his mind that the caller was Travis, it became depressingly clear that it was unlikely the helmsman was urgently attempting to attract the attention of Trip's rather formidable SiC.

"Hey, Malcolm! Wait up!"

The call elicited two powerful and conflicting urges. One was to spin in his tracks and rip a strip off a junior officer for shouting after a senior in the corridor (even if, since they were both off duty, Travis was within his rights to use his first name rather than his rank); the second was to take to his heels, regardless of rank or even dignity, and hope that hint would be strong enough.

With an effort that felt as if it produced an actual physical shudder throughout his body, Malcolm simply came to a halt. He told himself that it was beneath the dignity of a British officer to run away, but wasn't sure if he believed it.

Travis caught up with him within a few strides. Sardonically Malcolm noted that having gained his attention, the ensign now didn't have the faintest idea what to do with it.

"Ensign?" He used the rank deliberately, in his remotest voice.

Mayweather flushed slightly, clearly recognising that he was being warned off.

"Er, sir ... I was just wondering if Captain – if Captain T'Pol intends to hold a senior officers' briefing before we get back to Earth?"

Once again Reed recognised and controlled the impulse to lash out. "I haven't been informed of any such plan. Not yet, at least," he responded with cool politeness. "Did you have any issues you'd like me to raise if one's convened?"

"Uh... no sir, not really," mumbled Travis. "I guess she already knows people are wondering if there's going to be a... a..."

"A memorial service for Captain Archer?" The Section's training stood him in good stead. He knew that nothing would be visible on his face, for all he felt as though someone had just thrown a bucket of salt across his back laid open by a flogging.

The flogging, of course, was all his own work. But that didn't make the lashes any easier to bear; it just meant that there was no hope of respite, no plea to be made for pity. Besides, what pity did he deserve? His task was to defend his ship and its crew, and he had failed in it. Because of insufficient faith in his tactical officer's competence, the captain had not trusted him to do his job. Because of his cowardice, unprofessionalism and negligence, the captain had been insufficiently prepared for the fighting to come.

And the captain was dead.

"I'm sure Captain T'Pol will be aware of the crew's concern." His voice sounded stiff and stilted in his own ears. "She may possibly feel it more appropriate to wait until we return to Earth, when I'm sure Starfleet will wish to hold one as part of the thanksgiving celebrations."

As he uttered the word 'celebrations' he feared for a moment he was going to be physically sick. Enterprise would be returning in triumph, to a heroes' welcome for the survivors.

'Heroes'...

...At least until the aftermath began, the slow, careful, clinical dissection of what had been said and done at every step. And then...

'The truth will out'.

He knew, of course, that in the real world that wasn't always the case. He was in the best position of all to know that it wasn't. He'd worked long enough and deep enough to know that even Starfleet had its dirty secrets, very deeply buried away from the light of exposure; his own past history was one of them. But this time – with their shining hero Jonathan Archer cruelly snatched out of life in the very moment of his success – there would be an official enquiry. People would demand to know why Archer had died, and who was to blame.

It was possible, of course, that Starfleet would cover up his responsibility. They wouldn't want the lustre of the successful mission tarnished by the fact that the captain had died because of his own officer's incompetence. But that wouldn't mean that retribution would not come.

Not that he wanted to avoid it. Far from it; he would welcome any punishment for his failings, however inadequate it might be – keel-hauling was probably not a recognised option in Starfleet, for all its naval origins. What he really did want to avoid was being included in the 'welcome for heroes', being lionised right up till the point that the facts emerged – the facts that were utterly inescapable.

Archer's death was his fault.