Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no profit made.

This story been beta-read by VesperRegina, to whom I offer my sincere thanks, as always.

Author's Note: There are references in this story to my earlier story 'The Waiting Game' and readers who are unfamiliar with this may find difficulty in understanding them.

The chime rang, startling her.

It would have been inappropriate for her to feel dismay, but certainly T'Pol felt a degree of apprehension suddenly descend on her. That, she felt, was allowable in the circumstances. After all, the previous encounter had not ended agreeably, and the ramifications elsewhere of what had happened to bring it to such an unexpected close were still to be seen.

Lieutenant Reed stepped inside as soon as she gave him permission to enter. At a guess, he was no more sanguine about the coming ordeal than she was; his expression was carefully controlled, but he appeared somewhat pale.

"I trust you are now recovered from your injury, Lieutenant," she said formally, rising from the meditation cushion on which she'd been kneeling.

"Sufficiently so, Sub-Commander," he replied, coming to parade-rest in front of her; an answer which told her nothing, precisely as he intended it to.

Since he was not on duty he was not in uniform, instead clad in a simple gray tracksuit. Nevertheless his posture was absolutely formal, and she could understand that he was taking refuge in that because the process to which he was submitting himself was most unsettling to him.

Well. Perhaps 'unsettling' was too mild a term. To judge by his reaction last time, he found it … terrifying.

She was unsure as yet precisely why this should be the case. Naturally he would have undergone intensive training from Section 31 to enable him to resist any form of interrogation, but although she had expected the appropriate degree of resistance on that front, this in itself would not have accounted for the sense of real anguish that she had felt from him as she probed deeper into his past. His allegiance to Starfleet's Secret Operations branch was like a tumor that needed to be excised, and to do so it was important that she reach right back to its origins. With his conscious will he was consenting, but she was beginning to believe that something he had buried very deep indeed was beyond the reach of his consent.

As yet, she had no idea what it might be. It was unlikely in the extreme that he would willingly divulge it in ordinary conversation, even if he actually remembered it. There was a strong possibility that it could be something buried in his subconscious, in which case forcing him to face it could have extremely serious consequences, possibly affecting him for the rest of his life. Not merely his tenure on Enterprise, but his career in Starfleet and even his entire mental health could be at stake. She resolved to proceed only with extreme care, and if he became as irrational as he had done on the previous occasion she would bring the session to a halt and consult with Phlox before scheduling another.

She placed the cushion carefully on her bunk, and sat down cross-legged on the floor. She indicated that he should sit opposite her, and after a brief hesitation he did so. Their knees were now almost touching.

"You are still willing to proceed with this," she stated. It was unlikely that he would be here if he was not, but still the fact needed to be plainly established; here, if at all, was the place at which he would indicate if he had any second thoughts. It was possible that the events of the first stage of his treatment had raised issues which he felt needed to be addressed before they went further – though he would probably choose not to allude to the less expected happenings of that night.

"I'm not sure I have any choice, Sub-Commander," the Englishman replied, with a wry glance in her direction. "Not if I want to stay aboard Enterprise, at any rate."

"You now feel the captain was unjust to impose that condition?" she asked carefully. This was a subject she had raised before; it was important to establish his mental situation at each stage of the treatment. Originally he'd seemed submissive enough to the order of his commanding officer, but the trauma of the procedure could already have caused much disruption in his emotional state.

He'd seemed genuinely surprised by the question when she'd posed it on the previous occasion, and now blinked in confusion at being asked it for a second time. "No, not at all. As I said last time, if he was willing to take the chance on me at all, it was the obvious precaution to take."

"And despite how … unpleasant the first session was to you, you still wish me to proceed."

"'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more'!" he quoted drily.

She recognized the quotation as being from Shakespeare's Henry V. "I hardly anticipate filling up any part of the ship with English dead," she replied, with a quirk of one eyebrow, capping the quotation. "Since the only English person on the ship is yourself, I suspect that the captain would not approve of such an outcome. It is not within the remit of our current activity."

From the fleeting, bitter smile that touched his mouth, he was probably recalling the time when Captain Archer had confronted him in the Brig. She had not been present during that interview, but from the way the captain had behaved before and after it she suspected that his tactical officer's betrayal had touched a very raw nerve indeed, and that he had not been sparing with his words. It was most unlikely that the captain would have actually expressed a wish to see Lieutenant Reed lying dead at his feet, but probably that was the way the lieutenant had received it.

She was about to instruct him that they should both kneel so that she could reach his psi points, but something made her hesitate.

To go onward without warning him that she knew something was wrong smacked strongly of dishonor.

To be sure, he must know that he was taking a risk; he must be aware that she would have to delve very deeply into his past. As a Section field operative, it was quite certain that he would have taken part in activities of questionable legality, of which he might well now be deeply ashamed. But he might not even be aware that there was something that was far from resolved, something that resisted discovery with all the brute violence of a sehlat coiled about its death wound.

Whether he realized it or not, he was hiding something.

He was watching her, a puzzled frown creasing his forehead. "Sub-Commander?"

She exhaled.

"I have something to say to you, Lieutenant," she said slowly. "It is a matter of – some delicacy. One that is perhaps something that it would be easier to discuss … between friends."

His eyebrows rose. He looked both intrigued and uneasy. "I'm not sure I understand."

He waited, nevertheless, while she rose and fetched them both peppermint tea from the flask she'd put ready. It was still a little hot, but he sipped it cautiously, looking at her over the top of the cup.

"As you already know, it is necessary for me delve back into your past," she went on, settling herself down again, knee to knee with him as before. "I understand that you may well have carried out orders that ran contrary to your conscience; this is an unpleasant duty that covert operatives often find themselves faced with. Whatever I discover, I will not hold you personally responsible for it. That responsibility lies with those who issued those orders."

His face was suddenly grim. "I'm not sure that I can be absolved quite that easily, Sub-Commander. Every man has the ultimate responsibility for his own actions. I may not have been responsible for the orders, but I was certainly responsible for obeying them."

"Indeed," she agreed. "But I would hazard a guess that however distasteful the orders were to you personally, you believed that they were – in the last analysis – given in the pursuit of some ultimate good."

"'The end justifies the means', in other words. I'm not sure I believed that even then. But sometimes – to be utterly frank – I'm not sure I cared very much."

The admission startled her. He looked back at her, and there was suddenly an odd, almost lazy grin lurking around his mouth; but it got nowhere near his eyes, and was eerily void of humor. "You go poking around in dark places, T'Pol, you're liable to find dark secrets. I'm quite sure you're already aware of some of mine."

"Your life as an operative would not be compatible with your current moral standards," she conceded. "Possibly you forget that as an ex-operative for the V'Shar, I am in the best position of all to understand the conflict."

He rose to his feet suddenly and walked to the viewing port. He always moved lightly and easily, though with the erect posture of the discipline he observed and demanded, but now there was something loose, almost too relaxed, about his attitude.

"You honestly think that working for the Section allows you to have a conscience?" A soft laugh. "It's a nice idea. But I'd have expected to hear it from the captain, not from you." He swung around again, and that strange alteration in his manner was now even more pronounced: he'd thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket top, and leaned against the wall. His eyes gleamed at her mockingly.

Without altering her position, she tilted her head to consider him. Although she was confident that her face betrayed nothing of her consternation, she was nevertheless considerably perturbed by this turn of events. All Starfleet personnel, particularly those chosen to serve on spacefaring vessels, were put through a rigorous series of psychological tests. The man by the viewing port was exhibiting the classic signs of a dual personality, and as such should have been debarred from holding any post of responsibility, let alone that of a Head of Security.

It seemed that he had been able to divine her thoughts. "No," he said, shaking his head with a rueful, twisted smile, "I'm not mad, T'Pol. I don't hear voices or see visions. But when I worked for the Section, I…" He turned back to the port and stared out at the darkness. "I had to be someone else."

"This was your deliberate choice."

"In part, I suppose so, yes. We all do what we have to in order to survive."

She stood up at that, and moved towards him. "It is the part of the process which was not your deliberate choice which concerns me. There, if anywhere, is where your compulsion to obey Harris's orders lies."

He exhaled. "Perhaps you should put me in restraints first."

"I do not believe that will be necessary."

"I think it may be the only way either of us will get through this."

She searched his face. He was not joking.

"Perhaps I should obtain advice from Doctor Phlox before proceeding, if you believe that the process will be so traumatic for you. It will be safest for you if a medical practitioner is involved."

"If you do that, you place him in very real danger," he said flatly. "I agreed to this on condition that only you were a participant. If that condition can't be met, I withdraw my consent."

T'Pol was startled by this blunt statement, and showed it. "He is bound by the laws of patient confidentiality. You surely do not harbor any doubt of his deserving your trust."

"I trust him with my life, T'Pol. The unfortunate fact is that it's not my trust that is in question. He already knows something of my inglorious past, and telling him that much was a risk. Exposing him any further would be downright dangerous. He doesn't deserve that and I won't do it. My duty is to protect the people aboard Enterprise, not needlessly endanger them."

"But you feel no concern on my behalf," she observed, raising an eyebrow.

Again the twisted smile. "You're a Vulcan and a member of the V'Shar. And don't give me 'ex-'; we both know there's no 'ex' for an operative, not really. You might be flattered to know in what respect the Section holds you. However concerned they may be about you delving among my dirty little secrets, they'll trust you to hold your tongue. If you don't, of course, they may be vexed."

"You believe that they would be able to obtain that much confidential information about what goes on here on board ship, millions of kilometers from Earth?"

"They have access to every one of the logs submitted to Starfleet," he said harshly. "The captain's is not an exception. Believe me, they'll already be aware that you and I will be having this conversation. At a guess, they'll also believe that I'm a tough nut to crack. That will leave you the option to get down and get very dirty with me."

There was a long silence.

At the end of it, he lifted his jacket. She watched as he unfastened four cords from around his waist and handed them to her. "You'll have to excuse me the laugh, T'Pol. If the circumstances were different, this would be the experience of my lifetime. As it is, it's going to be as much as I can do to let you do what you'll have to."

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