He knows what's coming. He's got that look in his eyes - the one he wears right before we go into battle. It's a mask of calm, but a kind of calm that could turn enemies to stone. I could turn and leave, but I owe him the truth, if not a whole hell of a lot more. I move a chair across from where he's sitting on the bed. He draws his knees up to his chest, protecting his vital organs. He's a little late to protect his heart. If only I had gotten a hold of myself . . . No, Tucker, now is not the time for you to get lost in should-haves and if-onlys.

I reach out a tentative hand to pat his knee. I can tell by his stare that he just wants me to get it over with. Malcolm has always been one for the swift and severe, especially when it comes to self-castigation. I might as well do what he wants. It's the least I can do.

"I'm sorry, Malcolm. I know you're going to hate me for this. God, I already hate myself and I haven't even said it yet." I look at the ceiling, not expecting to find God there, but to try to push the tears that are getting ready to start flowing back into my eyes. Malcolm hasn't moved a muscle; I'm not sure he's even breathing. "I've . . . I love you Malcolm. You're the best friend a guy could ever have. You were there for me when even Jon wasn't - and he swore he would never abandon me."

"But?" Malcolm says in barely a whisper. He's so tense that my own muscles cringe in sympathy. If I were him I wouldn't even wait to hear the rest; I'd break down in tears and order him out of my quarters. But Malcolm wants to know -needs to know- because, even after all that passion he's finally let me see, he's a man of reason. Jon and I would be screaming at each other by now, but Malcolm's not Jon. That's the problem, I guess.

"But . . ." I sigh, ". . . I've been with Jon for nearly a decade. I don't think I even know how to be with anyone else anymore." It sounds like a lame excuse now that I've finally spoken it out loud, but Malcolm doesn't throw it back in my face, like I would. He knows as well as I that it's the awful truth. "I know, I'm leaving you for the lesser man, over something as stupid as nostalgia - safety. I know this makes me horrible and weak."

He looks like he's going to contradict me but I charge forward; the last thing I need to hear right now is Malcolm swallowing his own pain to sympathize with me. He's done enough as it is. I can accept my own guilt if nothing else. "I'm being selfish, because it hurts me to leave you and I know I'm hurting you, but it would hurt more to leave Jon, as mad as I am at him. I can't live without him, and he can't live without me. And both of us need to live. It's not healthy, and it's not the kind of love we imagined when we were young, but that's the way it is and I can't change it. I promised Jon, to love him to the end of eternity and, apparently, it's binding."

"You won't even try?" he asks weakly. It's the only protest he's made all night, and probably the only one he's going to. I can see by the flash of pain in his eyes that he's already given up hope. But he's quick to avert his eyes - to hide it.

"I know it's hard for you to understand, Mal. I know for a fact that I'm living in the past, but it's the only way I can go on living. You weren't there when Jonny first kissed me, warming the rain off our soaking bodies by the heat of the prototype warp reactor. You weren't there when Henry died and we spent an entire day sitting on the beach with a bottle of bourbon and a bonfire sharing stories of him, or when I comforted him afterwards. You weren't there when I got promoted to Commander and we celebrated by getting snowed in at a cabin in Tahoe, back when I liked the cold. You weren't there when he stopped me from killing myself from nitrogen narcosis, with the love in his voice alone. You weren't there when we sat for hours in the pet shop while he tried to pick a puppy. He said it was going to be like the child we might never have, so he wanted to make sure he chose correctly. You weren't there when we got drunk and streaked through Starfleet academy at two in the mourning. You weren't there when I lost my virginity on top of the schematics for the warp five engine."

"Do all you sexual encounters involve engines?" He tries to joke with a lonely half smile.

"Only the really good ones." I respond with an equally forlorn smile, "But my point is that Jonny and I have so much history. No matter how hard I try I can't get over that. We've given so much of our lives to each other - been there for each other when it was just us against the world. He needs me Mal, now more than ever. I can't help it. I love him so goddamn much! Not answering his call for help would be like tearing my own heart out." I've given all pretense of composure by now, tears streaming down my face. "We came so close to losing him. Hell, we still might lose him to whatever demons he's wrestling with now. You saved me, now I've got to save him. It's my duty."

I reach down and unzip my shirt and pull out a long silver chain with a gold ring hanging from it. No one else has ever seen it except Jon and I, and Lizzie - but she's dead now. So Malcolm has just become the only other person in the universe that knows. Not even Phlox has caught either of us with it.

As I wipe the tears from my face, Malcolm just stares, his jaw dropping in the most endearing way. Under different circumstances I might have laughed, seeing that I can still surprise Malcolm the super sleuth. "I . . ." he stammers ". . . for how long have you been married?"

I sigh, not even angry at his mistake the way I would have been a few years ago when keeping our relationship secret was the only real conflict between us, "Not married, just a really long engagement."

"How long?"

"Seven years." I respond sheepishly, refusing to meet his eyes.

"Bloody hell. I take it the only reason the two of you haven't been married for that long is because of your careers?"

I nod solemnly. And I thought this particular wound had healed. Perhaps a new larger one has just ripped apart the scar tissue. "It started out so that I could stay on the project, when he got promoted to captain and I was still a lieutenant. Two ranks between us," I explain pointlessly, knowing that Malcolm knows the rulebook front to back. "We were going to get married when I got promoted to lieutenant commander. Then it started to become clear that, if he played his cards right, Jon would be commanding Enterprise. And one of those cards was not screwing up all the good PR earned as the son of the famous Henry Archer by naming his husband chief engineer. They had a hard enough time with the best friend thing, but, then again, Jon knew everyone on the program and they weren't going to send someone who had no experience with the engine."

"Starfleet forbade you?"

"Oh, no, they never even knew about us. You're the only person that knows." He looks shocked at this, but he fixes me with a bittersweet smile, some of it slipping into his eyes this time. "I mean, my parents have always had their suspicions, but, for all they know, I'm straight. You have no idea how hard it was keeping it from them. I would've loved to have a grand Tucker-style wedding."

"But I'm getting away from the point: Admiral Forrest just called Jon into his office one day and told him that if he had any skeletons in his closet he better bury them really goddamn deep or fess up, because Starfleet was going to be going over his entire life with a fine tooth comb. I guess I got buried." I say with a shrug.

"How do you know I'm not going to go into a jealous rage and tell on you?" Malcolm says, letting a hint of bitterness slip into his voice. I don't blame him. I might be tempted to be worried by his ruse, but I trust him far too much.

"You wouldn't, Mal. You're still my best friend."

He looks both touched and surprised, "Not the captain?"

"Jon stopped being anyone's friend the second we found out about the attack on Earth. I love him, but I can't help that. He wasn't there when I needed to see the blast site. He didn't pester me to try to get me to express my grief even when I was being a complete bastard about it. He wasn't the one who showed up in Engineering at the end of every shift to force me to come to dinner. Nope, Mal, you're it." I take a risk and sit down next to him on the bed, swinging my arm around him to give him a squeeze.

He seems at a loss for words for a moment but then he responds quietly, "You're still my best friend too, Trip, and I'll always be here for you. That's another promise that's binding." He says, offering me a hug. I take it like a starving man takes a scrap of bread.



Then, I realize that this is all I ever really wanted from him, but my distraught and confused mind just saw his passion and made it into something more. I wanted his comfort, his support, and, above all, his love. I couldn't see that I already had those; I didn't need to sleep with him to find them. I am such an idiot! But there'll be plenty of time for self-recrimination later; I just want to bask in the moment of being so close to him without the cloud of misplaced sexual frustration between us.

"God, Mal, you don't know how much that means to me," I say, pulling back to look into his sad gray eyes and knowing that he is aware of exactly how much it means to me, and that's why he's giving it to me, even if it hurts him. "Are you sure you're alright with this?"

"Of course I am, Trip. You gave me a couple of lovely nights - more than I ever could have hoped for." The previous confidence is gone from his voice, as though I was the one doing him a favor.

"They meant a lot to me too. Not just for sex or comfort, even. I wouldn't have wanted to do that with just anyone. I know I was using you, and being pretty damn ugly about it. But, as ironic as it may sound, you're the only person other than Jon that I'm willing to let see my ugliness."

"You know, that's oddly touching." He gives me that perplexed and playfully annoyed look, grumbling, "If you had wanted to be ugly, you could have just come down to the armory to argue about power allocation before your morning coffee."

"I said ugly, not grotesque! Besides, that's not nearly as enjoyable as sex, for all parties involved." I say with a smile, tapping him lightly on the nose. "And you, Mr. Reed, are pretty damn good in bed."

He picks up on the shift in mood immediately. Neither of us needs to dwell on the fact that this is a goodbye, of sorts. "Better than the captain?" he asks with a smirk.

"I'm going to have to plead the fifth on that one, I figure a seven year engagement qualifies me."

He gives me a playful nudge in the ribs. "Go ahead, spoil my fun."

"I believe you already had your fun, Mal." I waggle my eyebrows, "Besides you got ta sleep with a straight boy," I accentuate my accent.

Malcolm just huffs, rolling his eyes. "You mean a bisexual in denial."

"Hey, you're the only man besides Jon I've ever slept with! And from what I hear, you're hot enough to test most guy's sexuality."

Malcolm breaks down laughing and it's music to my ears. "Trip, it's been seven years since you've slept with a woman; how can you even bring yourself to say you're still straight?"

I laugh at our familiar banter. It seems like it's been eons since I last laughed this freely. I finally think I'm beginning to heal. "Hey, who said I haven't slept with women? What about Princess Kaitaama?"

Malcolm snorts, "As they say, 'Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.' Besides, you don't seem like the cheating type." The second the words are out of his mouth he blushes beet red, realizing that the whole reason why we're here is because I cheated. "Without good reason, that is."

"I never said I cheated, Mal." I wink at him.

His eyebrow rise and his mouth form the most adorable little 'o'. Surprising Malcolm is so damn fun. "No, I'm kidding. It never went beyond a few harmless kisses, which were mostly to get her to shut up. I don't think our species are even sexually compatible, anyway."

"Too bad. I suppose that'll be true about most species we meet." He looks dejected, as though I've doomed him to some horrible fate. I suppose I have, in a way.

"Hey, if we get back to Earth anytime soon, I'm sure people will be falling over themselves for a chance get to know the great Malcolm Reed, who's huge phase cannons are legend."

He gives me a dry chuckle, sobering almost immediately. "That's a pretty big if."

"Hey, someone I trust, that I'd follow to the end of the universe, once told me to believe we could get through this. Let's follow his advice, okay?"

Malcolm only smiles. It isn't going to be easy, but I know now that we can do this. His smile gives me what Jon still can't give me: hope.

I find him silhouetted by starlight in the port observation lounge. The floor's still covered in exposed wires and fallen support beams. In my defense, it's a non-essential repair. He's watching the stars again. We used to spend so many nights huddled together just watching them and wondering, or whispering about grand dreams of exploration. We never dreamt things would turn out the way they have. Even after Enterprise launched and we found that exploring the stars was a whole hell of a lot more than just curiosity and cross-cultural exchange, we used to come here and stand side-by-side, reminding ourselves why we decided to come out here.

He doesn't turn, but I can tell by the slight tensing in his shoulders that he knows I'm here. I move to stand beside him, looking at the stars and finding that there's still wonder to be found there, even when this innocent-looking space has torn our lives apart. I wish things didn't have to be this way, but I wouldn't trade being out here with him for warmth and stability of the earth. I reach out to take his hand and find that there's still wonder there too.