The first chapter of this story has not been beta'd, so any mistakes are mine. The second was beta'd by BookQ36, to whom all due thanks as always!

It wasn't working.

In hindsight, it had never been even remotely likely to work, and he'd been a fool for thinking it could be that simple.

Malcolm hung immobile over the sink in his bathroom for a moment before raising his face and staring bitterly into the mirror. The droplets ran down his face, falling back into the broken water.

Human relationships aren't like phase pistols. You can't disassemble one, identify the problem, replace the appropriate part and reassemble it in full working order.

If only it was that easy.

It had taken him a while to admit to himself that something needed to be done.

Superficially, of course, events had smoothed over what had happened. He'd co-operated, given explanations, apologised, and been accepted back into his old place. His co-operation had been as full as it could be, given how little he really knew; his explanations had been as open and honest as they could be, because the captain deserved that of him at the very least; his apologies had been sincere, because they came from the heart that had been wrung to its core by the necessity to betray the man to whom he owed so much. And in return – the readmission he so badly wanted.

Or at least, that was the theory. In practice, things weren't nearly that simple.

They were simple from his side. He knew that he'd been sincere; he knew that having made this one terrible mistake, he'd never make another. The second rendering of allegiance to Jonathan Archer had been absolute and for as long as he served aboard Enterprise. If Harris approached him again, ever, for any reason, every word of the conversation would be recorded and replayed immediately to the captain, for his judgement alone.

It wasn't that he believed that Archer had been deliberately dishonest in granting him absolution. On the contrary, it was one more tie of gratitude that the man he'd injured so badly would offer him forgiveness and reinstate him to a position of the greatest trust – the guardianship of the ship herself and everyone on board. The guardianship he had, for whatever reason, betrayed.

It was inevitable, of course, that it would take time for his transgressions to be forgotten. It would have gone around the ship like wildfire that the Head of Tactical had been thrown into the brig, and he knew of old that walls have ears. Doubtless there wasn't a member of the crew who didn't know every detail of his sins by now. It hurt, but did not surprise him, how conversations still muted when he entered the Mess Hall, and then started up again at a lower volume. The members of his own department had stared at him with shocked eyes when he reappeared, and he'd had to fight down the compulsion to assemble them all and explain himself in the bid to regain their confidence in him, or at least to make them understand why he'd acted in a manner so utterly foreign to his nature.

He sighed, and reached for a towel. He'd brought himself a flask of tea, which was all he needed. He should catch some supper, but he wasn't hungry. And he certainly didn't fancy wandering down to the Mess Hall in hope of finding something there that might stimulate his appetite. The effect of whatever food he might find to tempt him would be more than cancelled out by the reaction he was likely to get from anyone eating in there.

At meal times now (when he couldn't avoid the place altogether) he ate alone. He'd tried – just once, and purely out of habit – to sit with Hoshi and Travis, and the atmosphere had been so uncomfortable that he'd never made the mistake since. Travis, it was obvious, simply hadn't known what to say to him: 'Hi, Lieutenant, told any lies to the captain lately?' To give the young helmsman credit, he'd made a couple of valiant efforts at conversation, but they'd just withered and died, leaving all three of them lost in a wilderness of silence. Hoshi had sat with her eyes on her plate and said nothing at all. He knew she'd found out, with T'Pol, who had wiped the black box from the Rigelian freighter; equally, that it was her duty to report her findings to Captain Archer. He didn't know whether she thought he might blame her for either, or whether she was just too disgusted to speak to him. He suspected it was the latter, from the way she didn't even look at him after the first glance of incredulous distaste as he walked up, but it was hardly a question you could introduce into casual conversation. Needless to say, he'd made an excuse in fairly short order and left the Mess, leaving his meal unfinished; his already poor appetite was gone completely.

Walking back onto the Bridge after his reinstatement had been quite possibly one of the hardest things he'd ever done. Usually he'd stand back and allow the captain to precede him, out of politeness, but this time Archer had made him go first, to stand there and be pilloried for the stares of the officers and crew who were present on duty. The memory still made the colour rush to his face. It had taken all of his strength after that to walk to the Tactical Station and assume his customary professional demeanour; to speak out when he had to, in the usual level voice, as though nothing whatsoever had happened...

Trip was still preoccupied with the repair of the engines, and was liable to grab rushed meals at odd hours. He owed Trip an explanation – he'd promised him one, when they were both 'less busy' – but so far that magical opportunity had never presented itself. He wasn't naïve enough to think that Tucker would gloss over what he'd done, but he thought that the engineer would find it easier to understand why he'd done it. At least there he thought he could count – if not with wholehearted confidence – on some measure of acceptance, even perhaps a degree of forgiveness.

He sat down on his bunk, unscrewed the top of the flask, and poured himself a cup of tea. It wasn't as good as what you got at home in England, but he'd got used to it. Just the way he'd got used to being accepted, to belonging. And it was being borne in upon him forcefully that although the sense of distrust that his crewmates couldn't conceal hurt him, that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was one he should have foreseen.

He took a sip of the tea, and stared into the grey blankness of the wall opposite him, miserably contemplating where that real problem actually lay.

The captain. Or rather, not the captain. To be precise – Jonathan Archer. The man behind the captain's rank pips.

The Captain could take the logical view, the long view. Could weigh the evidence, and come to the conclusions that Archer evidently had done – that although his tactical officer's behaviour had appeared heinous, and his judgement been found flawed, his motives had been pure and the pressure exerted on him almost unbearable. The years of faithful service could not be simply dismissed, and the ship needed a weapons expert of his calibre; skill and experience in his fields were not something that were found on every street corner, and without being unduly conceited Malcolm knew his value in that respect. So the captain would have reasoned, and in acting on that reasoning he'd done no more than safeguard the welfare of the ship.

If he were Vulcan, he'd have got away with it.

Unfortunately, if there was a diametric opposite of 'Vulcan', it was 'Jonathan Archer'. It wasn't that he was 'illogical' – though on more than one occasion he could hardly have escaped prosecution in a court of law if the lack of logic had been a crime; it was far more that he experienced his captaincy at a deeply visceral level, as well as an intellectual one. The Captain could regard the incident with an erring Tactical Officer as closed. Jonathan Archer, however, was having far greater difficulty in coming to terms with the fact that Malcolm Reed, whom he'd regarded and treated as a friend, had betrayed him.

The tea was finished. Malcolm sat staring into the bottom of his empty cup as though hoping to find the solution in it.

It hadn't been like that. It hadn't been personal at all, except in the desperation to believe he could save Phlox by following the instructions Harris gave him. By comparison, the thought of the thousands of Klingons his actions would supposedly save had been quite unimportant. His chief concern had been the safety of the doctor who had saved his life, and those of other members of the crew, on numerous occasions. Quite simply, if Harris had told him that Phlox's survival had depended on hurling himself out of the nearest airlock, he'd have done it without a second thought. That, after all, was a Tactical Officer's job: to defend the ship's crew, if necessary with his life.

The exit from the airlock, however, would have been quick, however painful. The loss of his captain's regard was proving a slower and more lingering torment by far. It might not be terminal – at least not on a physical level – but it was being borne in upon him that it was making his continued career on board Enterprise look less and less likely. And, given the efficiency of the Starfleet grapevine, he could be quite sure that the story would follow him if he tried in desperation to transfer elsewhere. His qualifications and experience might get him a post, but as for earning back the trust he'd forfeited – that would be far more difficult. A man who'd betrayed one captain might as easily betray another. Even if accepted, he would always remain suspect.

He had only so much appetite for being a pariah.

If the worst came to the worst, I could always go back to the Section. The thought twisted in him, and he shook his head, his mouth contorting as unwanted tears pricked at his eyes. He didn't want to go back. Not at any price. He wanted, with a ferocity that shocked him, to have his life aboard Enterprise back.

Surveying the situation as dispassionately as he could, he thought that time would go at least some way towards mending fences with the rest of the crew. Trip would almost certainly stick by him, and that would make life bearable; as long as he could feel he had one friend on board, he could endure the loss of the rest if he must. But the situation with the captain needed to be resolved. And as he sat there, staring through the bottom of the teacup in despair into a future that he wanted so much to be more like the past, a glimmer of an idea came to him of what he could do to achieve it.

All comments and reviews received with gratitude!