#jon archer

Rogers’ face goes slack for a moment, uneasiness taking over, and Malcolm reaches for her again. 

“Come on, come on, that’s not me. You know me.”

“I’m just tired.” The thing in his body adds, as though it’s something it has just realised.

The uneasiness is replaced, just briefly, by a flash of relief, and then her face is back to normal. In the silence no one can hear, Malcolm screams.  It doesn't even echo. 

She prompts it gently, reminds it that he's supposed to be on the bridge. 

It tells her that it’s been slow. That there’s not much happening, so he came down to check on them. It’s his voice. His words. But they’re not coming from him. They’re being worn.

She smiles again, in response, tells him there’s not much happening there either. 

Malcolm watches the thing try his smile again. It’s still wrong. Off. 

“Maybe you should get some rest, sir.” Rogers offers, quietly. 

When he glances at her face, that slight unease is back. 

“It’s not me.” He begs, stands in front of her and watches her look straight through him. 

The thing glances around. “No, I don’t think so.” And walks off, leaving Malcolm with Rogers. 

He watches her face pinch up, confused, annoyed, and then he watches her shake her head, shake it off, and turn back to her pad. 

Sighing, he sits down on one of the boxes, watches the thing move around his team. Watches it pat them on the backs. He doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t cast a shadow. But he still feels: cold, distant, furious. That’s his team. His. 

And they don’t even know he’s gone. 

He watches the thing cross the armoury like it owns the place. Feels his teeth grind together as it stops beside Zhao. 

She glances up from the console when it approaches, and Malcolm watches her give it a small, distracted smile. Easy, calm, unbothered. Murmurs something, possibly a greeting. 

And then the thing leans in. 

Just a bit. Just enough. 

Sets a hand on her shoulder, just a little too close to her throat and the bare skin there. The contact isn’t overt – barely even notable. But Malcolm sees the way Zhao stiffens, how her smile falters like something in her brain just skipped a beat. How her eyes flick over in Rogers’ direction, just briefly. 

She laughs a little, awkwardly. Shrugs it off. Shifts away from it, just slightly. “Bit warm in here today, huh, sir?”

The thing chuckles, a laugh Malcolm has never heard from his own mouth, and he wants to scream again. 

Wants to rip that thing out of his skin.

It doesn’t move away immediately. It watches her for a second longer than it should. Not enough to be obvious, just long enough to make something cold twist in Malcolm’s gut.

Then it turns and walks on, heading back into the corridor, leaving Zhao blinking down at the console like she’s trying to reset herself. Desperately, he wants to stand beside her, apologise for overstepping, ask if she’s alright, but he’s pulled, helplessly, after it. 

It stops again next to Rogers. Smiles and tells her it’s heading back to the bridge. She frowns, only slightly, like she doesn’t understand why it’s telling her that – she doesn’t understand why Malcolm would tell her that. Because he wouldn’t. 

“Alright. See you later, sir.”

It echoes the sentiment back to her and leaves again. 

Behind him, Malcolm sees Zhao approach Rogers, her hand almost unconsciously rubbing at the spot the thing had touched. 

He wants to stay, wants to see how they react, how they talk about him, whether Zhao is uncomfortable or just confused, but he’s pulled in the same direction as his body. Unable to do anything else, Malcolm follows the thing, icy and vibrating with helpless rage.

It finds Trip, also wandering the corridors, which is odd behaviour for a man who prefers to be near the hum of the engines, and heads directly for him. 

“No.” Malcolm pleads, unwilling to let it impact on one of the first friendships he made on the ship. 

It doesn’t hear him, stops by Trip, who smiles widely and says something that throws him for a loop. Because… that’s not English. That’s not any Earth language and that’s not Trip. 

He stares at the two bodies for a moment, grasping at thoughts that seem to be floating away in the ether. 

And if that’s not Trip, then Trip must be in the same situation as him. So where is he? 

Fruitlessly, Malcolm turns around, looks around the entire area, as far away from the thing as he can get. There is no Trip, no other spirit following his body around. 

He turns back to watch them again and is hit with a horrible thought. 

Maybe there is another spirit following his body around, and the two of them just can’t see each other. 

Something like desperation settles in his chest. 

He continues to follow it around the ship. There aren’t really any other options. 

It sits in the mess for a while, tries various foods under the confused eye of a few passing crewmembers. None of them stop to ask what he’s doing: as far as they’re concerned, the security officer isn’t to be questioned. 

Malcolm continues to attempt to get its attention. 

He thinks, once, that it uses his mouth to smile – smirk – in response to his pleas for information, for his body back, for anything. 

They end up back in the armoury, alone this time, and Malcolm watches with trepidation as it extracts a phase pistol from the cabinet and carefully turns it over and over in its hands. He sighs, wanders over to the beanbags – “they’re not beanbags, sir! They’re for training! – that sit in one corner and sinks down. 

It keeps turning the phase pistol over. 

The sound of someone clearing their throat cuts through the silence like a knife. 

It’s Rogers, standing just inside the doorway, watching the thing. It’s testament to how rattled Malcolm is that he hadn’t even noticed her come in. But there’s something in her posture, tense, and in her eyes, that relights the doused hope inside his chest. 

The thing turns. Slowly. Not startled – never startled – but calculated, like it had known she was there and simply chose not to acknowledge it.

Rogers frowns, just slightly, but she doesn't drop her composure. “What are you doing?”

There’s silence for a long moment. 

“Just thinking.” It says, and slides the phase pistol into the holster on its hip. 

“Just thinking.” Rogers echoes. 

From his position as a spectator, it’s clear that the two of them have reached an impasse: Rogers knows that the thing is not Malcolm, and the thing knows that she’s aware. 

“Who are you?” She asks, eventually. After the silence has stretched out for several eternities. 

The thing smiles. Malcolm’s smile this time. It steps closer.

Malcolm follows instinctively, dread crawling up his throat. He watches it circle the room, toward her, each step quiet, deliberate.

“We’re travellers.” The thing says, in Malcolm’s voice. “We want to experience the universe the way you do.” It keeps moving closer to her as it speaks, and Malcolm follows, desperate and useless. 

Rogers doesn’t move. She just watches, jaw set, hands loose at her sides. “Experience it how?” she asks, voice low and even.

“Through your senses. Your skin.” The thing lifts a hand like it’s fascinated by its own palm. “Your touch.”

There’s something in the way it moves that starts to scare Malcolm. The way it continues approaching her, calm and collected, until it has her backed into the wall. 

She doesn’t flinch, just tilts her chin up to meet its eyes, even as it crowds her closer. “I want to speak to him. Is he in there?”

“You can’t speak to him.” 

Malcolm surges forward, putting himself between them though it’s useless, futile, desperate . “Stop. Please. Stop.”

It doesn’t even glance at him.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” the thing murmurs, stepping into her space now, close enough that their uniforms nearly brush. “It’s just experience. That’s all we want.”

“I want to speak to him,” Rogers repeats. Her voice has sharpened.

It shrugs, almost echoes its words. “He can’t speak to you.”

Her brow creases again, picking up on the slight change, even as it reaches for the zipper on her uniform. 

And that’s when she moves.

The phase pistol is in her hand before the thing can blink. One stun blast to the chest, dead centre.

It drops like a puppet with its strings cut.

The thud of his own body on the deck rings louder than it should.

Malcolm gasps, or tries to. His knees go weak with relief that doesn’t quite reach the surface.

“Emma.” He breathes into the silence. “Please, you have to be able to see me now.”

She doesn’t react, just stands there, still holding the phase pistol, still pointed at Malcolm’s body, as if the thing might shake off the effects and stand back up. Her mouth is pinched as she moves, keeping her eyes on the body, towards the comms unit. 

“Security to the armoury.” 

*

Some of them lug his body down to sickbay. 

It’s not just him, Malcolm notes with some relief as he follows; other crew members, similarly stunned, are already in the secure medical unit. Familiar faces, unnervingly still. 

His body is dropped – not without care – on a bed, next to Hoshi. 

Seeing her there sends a cold chill down his spine. She’s so still. Lifeless, like he’s never seen her. Not in all their time on Enterprise. Not even during the worst missions. Her eyes are closed, her hands folded awkwardly, and something about the way she’s positioned – like she was caught mid-movement – makes it worse.

The security team retreat, and have vanished when Malcolm thinks to push the boundaries of his tether. He can just push through the wall. 

On the other side, Rogers and Travis stand shoulder to shoulder at the observation window, looking in.

Their eyes are on his body.

On Hoshi.

On the others.

They’re both silent. Rogers’ arms are crossed tightly over her chest, jaw clenched hard enough that he can see the muscle jump. Travis has his hands on his hips, shoulders tight, gaze flicking between crewmembers as if hoping someone will just sit up and tell them it’s all over.

Malcolm moves to stand next to them.

He looks at them.

Then through the glass, at himself.

And for the first time, the silence settles into something heavier than dread.

“You OK?” Travis asks, quiet in the tense silence that seems to have bubbled around them. In the background, Phlox is present, the other medical staff moving around, murmuring between themselves.

Rogers sighs, shrugs. “I just… how long has that thing been in there?”

Travis bites his lip, turns back to the window. 

“How long…” she cuts herself off, sighs again. “I should have noticed immediately.”

“Yeah? Well, I should have noticed that wasn’t Hoshi faster as well, then.” 

He’s challenging her, Malcolm realises, pushing her to realise that if she’s going to say he had no way of knowing, then neither did she. 

“It’s my job to notice these things. I didn’t notice there was anything wrong with Hoshi either.”

Travis sighs, throws an arm around her shoulder and tugs her in to an almost-hug. “I mean, I don’t think anyone realised that possession was actually a possibility.” 

“Yeah…”

They lapse back into silence. 

Eventually they both leave, called away by duty, by the roles they need to fill while people are unavailable, and Malcolm is left alone to watch the medics check vitals, run hands through their hair, worry. 

Someone will come up with something, he tells himself. Archer wouldn’t leave just him to die, so he’s not going to give up on – he pauses to count – twenty two crewmembers. He tells himself that. Again. And again. Until the thought starts to sound less like truth and more like prayer.

Time moves oddly there, in his in-between place. 

People come and go, T’Pol, the Captain, friends of the other crewmembers, and – scattered between them all – his security team. They never stay for long, just enough time to step up to the window, cast their gazes over the bodies, and then leave again, but it loosens something in him, calms him to see them. 

And then people start leaving. 

Malcolm thinks he hears the Captain’s voice over the comms, telling everyone to go somewhere. 

He hopes it’s not to abandon ship. 

“Hey.” 

He turns, startled, to see Rogers, one hand pressed against the window, and Wolfe, behind her, glancing around the room like she’s keeping watch. 

“I don’t know if you can hear me.” She continues, slightly breathless. “But that thing said that you couldn’t talk to me, so I think you might be able to.”

“Emma,” Wolfe says, quiet, “there’s no one in here.”

“OK, OK. Look,” she turns back to the window, “the Captain has a plan. It…”

Malcolm watches the two women exchange a glance. 

“Yeah. He has a plan. So just hold tight, and we’ll see you soon.”

The comms crackle. “Rogers,” Archer’s voice says, “is sickbay cleared?”

She and Wolfe exchange another glance before she moves to respond. 

“Yes, sir. We’re heading back now.”

And then they’re gone again, leaving Malcolm alone, possibly with the ghosts of crewmembers that he can’t see. 

And the last thing he remembers is the beeping of medical equipment, signaling that the oxygen levels are too low. 

*

Malcolm wakes up slowly, everything heavy and muted around the edges. The exchange with the Captain blurs in his mind – fragments of Archer’s voice, serious and quiet, something about how close they came to losing control of the ship. Of losing people. There was fear in his eyes. And gratitude.

Mostly, Malcolm remembers that: overwhelming gratitude that they all came back.

He’s released from sickbay not long after, Hoshi walking beside him in the corridor with her arms tucked around herself like she’s not quite convinced her body is hers again.

“Is it just me,” she asks, “or is it really weird being in a physical body again?”

He presses a palm to the wall beside him. It’s solid. Real. Cold under his skin. “It’s a bit weird.”

She leans lightly against his side, and he lets her.

“I did like the walking through walls bit,” Malcolm says and is gratified when she laughs. 

When they reach her door, she nudges him gently with her elbow. “Go,” she says. “Your team’s gonna be hounding the medbay if you don’t show up soon.”

He draws her in, wraps his arms around her, presses a kiss to the top of her head. She breathes in like she’s grounding herself and he lets her. 

“Yeah. Okay.”

She disappears behind the door. For a second, the corridor is still.

Then Zhao rounds the corner.

She spots him instantly. Her face goes slack with relief. “Lieutenant!”

He stiffens instinctively. All he can think of is that moment, that wrongness, that hand on her shoulder that wasn’t his.

But she doesn’t hesitate. She closes the space between them and throws her arms around him, fierce and tight. His breath catches.

“God, I was so worried.”

“I… the thing,” he starts, guilt still crawling up his throat.

But she’s already shaking her head. “It wasn’t you. We all know. You would never.”

The ease with which she says it nearly knocks the wind out of him.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on it. She pulls back, grabs his wrist. “Come on. The others are losing their minds.”

She tugs him down the corridor, through the turn, into the security quarter.

They’re all there – Rogers, Di Dio, Kowalski, Castillo, the rest – clustered around like they’ve been holding their breath for hours. The moment he steps inside, the room erupts in relief: cheers, groans, someone yells “He lives!” and someone else swears they owe Bookie five credits.

And Malcolm, who just hours ago wasn’t sure if he’d ever feel the floor under his feet again, lets himself smile.