I reach out to find the depression in my bed long-cold. Disoriented, I wonder where Jon has gone. Then it all comes rushing back to me. Jon's gone, and he's never coming back. The person I was reaching out for was Malcolm. Strong, determined Malcolm, the only one still holding me together. Perhaps I wasn't reaching for him, but for my sanity.

Even after all that's happened to me -so many time's I've been burned and haunted by ghosts- there's a part of me that still wants -no needs- to be loved. Perhaps that's really all we ever want in life. Love and Duty, that's the universe. Duty is cohesion, the stuff that binds the universe together, and love is the chaos, the forces of entropy, sometimes binding and most of the time tearing things apart, but always increasing the complexity, and perhaps the significance of existence.

So, if I still reach for it, is there still love in my universe? Or has my last chance died with my lover? My soul mate? No, the universe has already taught me that painful lesson: there is no such thing.

Whoever came up with the idea of soul mates was full of shit. How many billions of people are out there? How many beings capable of love? It's insane to believe that you're only capable of loving one of them. A year ago I would have happily said Jon was my soul mate, but now I know the fallacy in that.

Sim proved that I could have loved someone else if circumstances were different. So if I am capable of loving someone other than Jon, am I capable of loving Malcolm? Jon's gone. Malcolm's all I have now. In all likelihood I'll never get a chance to find out if this deep caring, this platonic love, could transform into something else. But a part of me knows it would be so easy to fall head over heals in love with Malcolm. If only I could forget. Because there's one thing that will always hold me back. Malcolm isn't Jon, even if our easy friendship is so much like what Jon I and had so long ago. Malcolm will never be Jon. He will always live in Jon's shadow, and I could never make him do that.

Who am I kidding? I'm damaged goods. I've been shattered, even the best engineer couldn't fix me, though Malcolm might try. He loves me enough to break himself trying. There nothing more here for me. Once upon a time, in all those parallel universes those useless lumps of theoretical physicist speculate about, I might be able to fall in love with Malcolm. I sure wish I could. That might heal this gaping hole inside of me, but I can't.

Maybe, if we don't kill ourselves in this fight, I'll find a way around all the suicide protections on the golden gate, an engineer to the end. I remember when Jonny and I stood there, wrapped in each other's arms, watching the sun set on the bay. I told him how much I missed the Florida sunrise, creeping up over the tranquil clear teal of the Atlantic. And he took me out to the bay and told me to use my "considerable IQ" to play it backwards.

I guess that's what hurts the most. The emptiness I can deal with. There's no pain in the vast void of space, after all. It's the small things, the rift at the edge of things made up of a thousand small memories: some romantic, others as commonplace as going grocery shopping together and quarreling over whether to get chunky or smooth peanut butter or stealing kisses climbing through the maze of a half-built warp reactor or 'christening' the desk in Jon's ready room.

Some might wonder how we kept it a secret for so long on a ship so small. We'd been keeping it a secret from Starfleet for seven years already, so discretion was an old hat, and it wasn't as though we were giddy young lovers who couldn't keep our hands off to each other, though every once and while I would find myself in that mood. In fact, it was the ship's rumor mill that saved us. Kind of like that old Irish folktale about the leprechaun and the pot of gold hidden under the tree with the ribbon tied around it, who keeps it secret by tying ribbons around every tree. The rumor mill had me with a different person every week. With the neuropressure sessions T'Pol and I were easily at the top, with me and Malcolm a close second, because romantic interests aside, he's damn overprotective of me. Jonny and I just faded into the woodwork, the best friends guise slipping on almost too easily.

Sometimes even I believed it. In the end were we really just best friends that stumbled upon patches of romanticism every once and a while? Perhaps, in the end, that's all we could've ever hoped for. No, that's not true. I'm not sure if we are -no, were- best friends, anymore, but even after death I still love him. That's what this soul-deep pain is, right? Nothing other than love could strike so deep.

Then someone pushes the door open, the sliver of dimmed light widening on the floor like the first hints of dawn. Malcolm stands stock still before me, every muscle tense.

I open my mouth, not knowing what I'm going to say but knowing that I need to say something. All of those psychology courses I had to take as part of my command education are telling me that it's best to talk about these things rather than leave all of the doubts that form after the heat of the moment to fester. I need to say something, anything, though I'm not sure how much truth there will be any of my words. Malcolm beats me to it, his words emotionless but far from cold. "He's alive."

It's an implosion. The nothingness leaves me too quickly, letting the shell I have built around it collapse. I'm frantic, panicking, too confused to believe it could possibly be true. I'm frozen, but Malcolm must see how I'm falling apart, because his silhouetted form leaves the comforting light of the doorway to step into my darkness, laying a hand simply on my shoulder. I still can't see his features in shadow, but I can make out a slightly encouraging smile in the compassion of his words, if not in the numb timber of his voice, "He's in sickbay. You can see him."

I must be moving at a lightning pace because I can hear Malcolm's harsh breathing as he runs behind me, ducking under fallen support beams and jumping over derbies. In my own world, however, I can't run fast enough. I'm running through water - everything's underwater. I can't breath. Still, I keep running until I nearly knock T'Pol over as she exits sickbay.

I don't even stop to look at the eyebrow raise I know must be there. The seconds of doubt between the time I take the irrevocable plunge into the mayhem of sickbay and the time my eyes find him, faced bruised and eyes forlorn and confused, are some of the longest seconds of my life. They burn through me, the pain that it might not be true -that I might be reawakened for nothing- destroying my will, dropping all shields until it is all there for everyone to see. My love for him, in all its naked glory, rockets me into his arms, where I still fit perfectly.

There's something warm on my cheeks, perhaps tears. I burry myself in his uniform, greedily gulping in his familiar scent, relishing in the sharp edge of his chin as it digs into the top of my head and the rough fingers that rub comforting circles on my back.

A second is all I need. I've been so well schooled in secrecy that the shields are flung back up in a moment, the tears turned off and the trembling controlled. His fingers dig into my back as I pull away. I just catch the look of love in those wasted green eyes before he too puts his mask back on. "Miss me, Trip?" He says with a wry and distracted grin, a clever trivialization of the scene we so carelessly allowed.

"It's good to have you back, Sir," I say with a sigh, quick to cover the tear-stains on my face by rubbing them against my grease-covered palm. We both allow ourselves a paranoid glance around to see if anyone has caught us. Malcolm is staring, jaw set, eyes conflicted, but everyone else seems convincingly preoccupied.

He gives my shoulder a friendly squeeze, conveniently hiding a fleeting caress. "I suppose I should let you get back to your repairs, Commander." He says. I'm sure Malcolm and I are the only ones who catch the slight tremors that course through his voice.

"I could brief you . . ." I begin, desperate to just be near him - to know he's still alive. It doesn't matter what's happened, or that I still love him, even. It doesn't matter that I've slept with Malcolm or that we might never get back to the way things were, for a thousand reasons. All that matters is that he's alive beside me.

"T'Pol's given me a damage report." He sees the crestfallen look in my eyes and immediately amends, "I'm sure you can use all the engineers you can get your hands on."

"Are you offering to work under my command?" I ask with a smile, turning, and briefly wondering where Malcolm has gone. He nods as we make our way out of sickbay, and I notice how he favors one side, and take in the darkening bruises bellow his eyes and the blood flowing from his split lip. "They messed you up pretty good."

"It's nothing," he remarks, grabbing my hand momentarily, before we pass a crewman at one of the computer terminals in the corridor, when we both stiffen with our hands to our sides.

Only now do I remember to be angry. But I can't allow the anger without the guilt. I've betrayed him. He left me no choice. I had no choice. Right?