Reed's Armory -- A Malcolm Reed Fanfiction Archive ..

Title: Sea Change

Author: Kylie Lee

Author's e-mail: [email protected]

Author's Web site: http://www.geocities.com/kylielee1000/

Fandom: Enterprise

Pairing: Archer/Reed

Rating: PG-13

Category: Slash

Series: Sea Change

Sequel to: More Than One Way to Drown

Summary: Reed confronts his fear of drowning.

Spoilers: Minefield

Comments: Thanks to the Maching Monkey herself for permission to write this sequel.

Beta reader(s): Sarah and Leah. Thanks!

Archived to Reed's Armory on 04/26/2003.

Fear death by water.

--T. S. Eliot

• 1

At night. Space--

It's always night in space. The black is velvet, and the stars are diamonds, pinpricks of beauty and light.

Malcolm Reed stares up into the dark, awed, as his hand moves of its own accord. It's a privilege, to die in space, to die for a man like Captain Jonathan Archer, for all that the man is putting Enterprise in danger by his foolish desire to save him. Malcolm stares at the stars and he prepares to let go. He doesn't know what it's like, dying. And in fact, he has no desire to die, arid as his life is. He knows only that he has to--it's his duty. It's honorable. He has no choice.

His hand tugs, and the air hose disengages.

"It's not because I'm afraid," he'd told his father, his voice full of conviction. "I'm not leaving because I'm afraid." Afraid of the water, afraid of drowning. Or just afraid. So he had removed himself from his father's field of interest by joining Starfleet.

Was that running away?

In the end, it doesn't matter.

He closes his eyes and sees the stars. He closes his eyes and sees the water.

• 2

"Maddy!" he screamed. He couldn't touch the bottom. He was thrashing. He went under again, gulping water. It was intensely salty, intensely unpleasant. And cold--very, very cold. He popped up again. "Maddy!" He swallowed water when he called her name. He could hear the desperation in his voice.

"Malcolm, I'm coming," he heard his little sister cry before he went under again, and he, just a boy, just nine years old, knew she would be too late, that he would drown.

He went under again, and his chest hurt. He opened his eyes, and he saw terrible wonders: fish swimming near the bottom, dark smudges of seaweed, the light slanting through the water. It was an alien world, right here on Earth. He stopped struggling. He didn't need to breathe anymore. He paused, suspended in the water, suspended between life and death, and the choice was taken from him.

Maddy, her long, girlishly blonde hair streaming behind her, pushed him up toward the light. His head broke the water and he drew in a shuddering breath before he exhaled into a jagged cough. A moment later, his father was there, pulling him against his chest and flipping onto his back. Malcolm coughed up water and fought. His father ignored his struggles and towed him to shore. He couldn't see Maddy any more, but he knew she was there.

• 3

Malcolm Reed stops struggling. He doesn't need to breathe anymore. He pauses, suspended between life and death, and the choice is taken from him.

Jonathan Archer replaces the hose, and he's on the hull of the Enterprise with the spike of a mine through his leg. He blinks, intensely glad to be alive. The captain shares his own air. He's glad, but he's failed. He has only succeeded in endangering his captain.

"If I were the kind of captain you think I should be, I'd bust your ass back to crewman," the captain tells him.

Malcolm gasps a breath. "Begging your pardon, sir, but if you were that kind of captain, we wouldn't be having this conversation. You'd have cut me loose by now."

And so.

The only thing harder than dying is living.

• 4

Malcolm and the captain lie in the launch bay, sucking in lungsful of air. They made it. They barely made it. Malcolm can't believe their luck. He can't believe the captain was willing to risk his own life to save a single crew member. The captain leans over and removes Malcolm's helmet. Their panting is loud.

"Are you all right?" the captain asks.

Malcolm gasps through a laugh. "All things considered. If I may say so, sir, your style of command does have its advantages."

The captain smiles. "So how long was it?"

Malcolm blinks, then gets it. The captain is referring to a conversation they had on the hull: how many seconds had gone by between the time the subdetonator was triggered and the time the captain had rearmed the mine? "I counted ten seconds," he says.

"Ten? It was more like twenty."

Malcolm holds his ground. "Respectfully, sir, it was ten."

The captain smiles, gently joking. "I'm not going to argue with you, Malcolm. It was twenty. That's an order."

Then Commander Tucker, Subcommander T'Pol, and Doctor Phlox are there. The doctor kneels by Malcolm and begins to treat his wounded leg, and the captain sits behind Malcolm and pulls him against his chest, supporting him. Malcolm, still a little dizzy, relaxes back against the captain. The doctor presses a hypospray against his leg, and after a moment, there is a wonderful rush as the pain recedes.

He looks up and his captain is there, holding him up, holding him against his chest, just as his father had held Malcolm when he swam back to the shore, towing him, pulling him to safety. But Malcolm isn't struggling this time. He smiles up at the captain as Phlox fusses, and the captain smiles back.

• 5

Malcolm pulls himself awkwardly to his feet when his door chimes. He's off duty today--his wound will take a while to heal. It doesn't hurt, thanks to the doctor's drugs, but the numbness isn't an improvement. Padd in hand, he depresses the portal com. "Yes?"

"Malcolm, it's Captain Archer. Can I talk to you?"

Malcolm opens the door. "Of course, sir. Come in."

The captain steps in and looks around, curious. "Spartan," he offers as the door shuts behind him.

"I didn't have much time to pack, sir," Malcolm says. They are standing in the middle of the room. Malcolm doesn't ask him to sit down.

"What are you reading?" The captain gestures at the padd.

Malcolm tosses the padd on the bed. "Just some specs," he says. "Did you want to see me about something in particular, sir?"

The captain smiles. "Why do you always want to get down to business? I can't even have breakfast with you without your wanting to talk shop."

"Begging your pardon, sir, but we don't have that much in common."

"I think we do." The captain walks idly around the room, looking. He puts his hands on his legs and bends down, studying a picture of Madeleine. "Oh, this is your sister," he says. "What kind of flowers are those she's holding?"

"Hyacinths," Malcolm says.

The captain stood up. "We both put the ship, our crewmates, first. Just like your great-uncle did. The one who was afraid of drowning." He touches the picture of Malcolm's father, looking stiff in his Royal Navy uniform, then studies the one of Malcolm's mother and father together.

Malcolm nods. "I suppose that's true, sir." He hesitates. "Thank you, Captain."

Archer turns around to face him. "What for?"

"Well, for saving my life."

"Malcolm, your life is important to me."

Malcolm remembers screaming: "Maddy!" He remembers the streaming hair of his little sister as she pushed him up toward the surface. He remembers the feel of his father, hands like iron, stopping his struggles, as his father swam him back to shore. He remembers the salt of the water in his mouth. He remembers the look on Jonathan Archer's face when he realized Malcolm had pulled the air hose out. He remembers the fear running deep underneath, the fear of drowning. The fear of not being able to breathe.

The captain continues. "You can save your heroics for another time." He'd said that while they were defusing the mine together. "Whoa, Malcolm." The captain extends his hand and steadies Malcolm; Malcolm had taken a step, and his bad leg had refused to support him.

"Sorry, Captain," Malcolm says, gently pulling his arm back. "I've got my feet now, sir."

The captain puts his hand back on Malcolm's arm. "Malcolm, please don't," he says. "Call me Jon."

Malcolm looks up into the taller man's face, puzzled. The captain calls everyone by his or her first name. Malcolm thinks it's unprofessional. In fact, he thinks the captain's entire style of command is unprofessional. But it has its benefits. He's standing here, isn't he?

"Sir?" Malcolm asks hesitantly. The captain calls people by their first names, but it doesn't work both ways. Even Trip Tucker, the chief engineer, who is a personal friend of the captain's, calls him by his title.

"Call me Jon," the captain repeats.

"I don't think that's appropriate, sir," Malcolm says, looking down at the captain's hand on his arm. He looks up again, and suddenly he can't breathe.

"Oh, hell, Malcolm," Jon says, and he puts his hands on Malcolm's face and kisses him. "Don't," he says. "Don't say you don't understand." His fingers gently stroke Malcolm's cheeks. "Don't tell me it's inappropriate." He lowers his mouth again.

Malcolm's hand goes up, as if of its own accord, and gently clasps his captain's wrist. With the awful daring of a moment's surrender, his mouth opens under Jon's. Jon inhales when his tongue brushes Malcolm's, and Malcolm shuts his eyes at the pleasure. The kiss is warm and sweet. When Jon steps closer, pressing his body against Malcolm's, Malcolm makes a small noise, almost a moan. At the sound, Jon's arms go around him, and Malcolm's arms wind around Jon's neck as Jon pulls him close. Malcolm can feel desperation and longing in Jon's body. He feels it in his own.

Jon lets him go and takes a step back. He meets Malcolm's eyes directly. "You can't die," he says. Then: "Let me stay. Let me stay here with you tonight."

Time stops. Everything stops. He's not afraid. He was right all along, all these years: He left the Earth, he left the ocean; but it was never because he was afraid.

He meets his captain's eyes. "Yes," he says simply. "Yes," he repeats.

Jon kisses him again, and it says what Jon can't say. "Let go," Jon whispers, and in a moment of clarity, a moment of utter comprehension, Malcolm understands. He isn't afraid. He isn't alone. He was never alone. His sister. His father. His captain. Letting go of the self won't negate him; he will melt into the salt sea, still wholly himself, but, perhaps, changed. Malcolm stares into Jon's eyes, and when he kisses Jon again, he lets go, lets himself dissolve, and underneath it all is Jon, holding him up, and underneath it all is something he can only call joy.

In the end, he discovers, there's more than one way to drown.

~the end~