Chapter Text
If he tilts his head up towards the ceiling, Malcolm doesn’t have to look at the screen in front of him. It’s a nice ceiling, really, plain and painted white, very office-like; it’s a boring ceiling, nothing to hold his attention for more than a moment, nothing to prevent his eyes from sliding back to the screen. The form is still there, just waiting for him to make the final decision – do you want this? Are you coming with us?
In twelve hours, if he still hasn’t reached that decision, if he still hasn’t filled it out, the choice will be made for him; the position will be automatically rejected. And he might have been sat in front of that same screen for hours, painfully debating the pros and cons of each side, but the idea of the system choosing for him, the idea of everything moving on without him fills him with a sense of dread.
“I’ll think about it.”
His own words echo around his head, a mocking reminder of what he had told Archer. Something in him had faltered when faced with the enthusiasm of a man who had been waiting his entire life for this moment. But then, hadn’t everyone? This was what Starfleet had been made for, every moving part designed to help them realise the NX programme. What had Malcolm himself even joined for, if not to go to space?
Groaning, he dragged a hand over his face. The screen was still there, waiting patiently, when he took it away.
“I’ll think about it.”
It was the only thing he had been doing since Archer left. It was the only thing he had been doing after Archer had come, personally, to ask Malcolm of all people to be the security officer for Earth’s first ever starship. It was an honour, really, to have been chosen out of everyone available to fill that position. And it was certainly a position that would have been sought after, just like the rest of the senior crew positions, likely the reason they had allowed Archer to choose his crew was to prevent any fights from breaking out. He sighs, runs another hand through his hair and stares at the screen again.
As if the universe was sick of his deliberating, someone knocks at the door in the same moment.
Malcolm turns to blink at it. “Enter.”
The door swings inwards almost immediately, as if whoever was on the other side had been waiting impatiently for his response, and it reveals a young woman: blonde, short, unassuming. She eyes him, quickly.
“Lieutenant Reed?”
“Yes.” He stands, a little surprised and a little smug to realise that the woman was actually shorter than he was. “Can I help you with something?”
She looks thrown by the question. “Uh, I’m Ensign Emma Rogers, I’ve been assigned as your second.”
Malcolm stares at the hand she holds out. “Second?”
The hand drops, tucked neatly back into holding the pad at her chest. “Yes, for the armoury and security team?” her voice raises at the end, an obvious question: ‘don’t you know that? why don’t you know that?’
“Oh, I –”
He’s trying to come up with a response when her eyes flick to the screen behind him, still open to the acceptance form, and take in the information presented to her. Malcolm swallows: he should have locked it before he let her in.
“You haven’t accepted the position?” Her voice drops slightly, quieter, a little nervous.
“I’m still thinking about it.”
The nervous expression vanishes, cloaked under a deliberate mask of professionality. “I’m sorry, sir, I was under the impression that everything had already been sorted.”
There’s a slight lilt to her voice, he notices, an accent that suggests English is not her first language, but suppressed the same way she seems to know how to supress her facial expressions. Malcolm himself can remember his father’s lessons on keeping your emotions to yourself – when he had first learnt of the Vulcan way, he’d thought that his father would get on well with them.
“Have you met the Captain?” He asks instead of voicing any of those thoughts or answering in a way that might invite her to press him to open up.
Rogers’ eyes return to his face. “Archer?”
“Mmhm.”
She nods, briefly. “He seems… enthusiastic.”
Malcolm can’t stop the tiny smile from sliding onto his face. “That was exactly the word I was thinking, Ensign.” And then, because she’s still there. “Do you want to sit down?”
There are two chairs in his office but only one of them has been used so far, and he can’t help holding his breath as Rogers is the first person to sit on the other.
“Did you come here for a reason? Or just to introduce yourself?”
She gestures at the tablet she’s holding. “I collected all of the team’s files, I just thought you might like to read through them and get a sense of the group before meeting them.”
Malcolm isn’t stupid enough to try and take the tablet from her, he might outrank her, but that information is clearly only available to certain people, and he still hasn’t confirmed whether he wants to be one of them.
“I’m still working on the rest of the crew,” she continues when he doesn’t say anything, “uh, I think that Archer hasn’t confirmed some people still, we’re missing the communications team and probably around half of the expected science team.”
He watches her as she speaks, takes in her as a whole: she’s organised, he thinks, possibly more organised than Archer had seemed, but young. Wide-eyed when she isn’t focusing on keeping up the mask of professionalism, and almost brittle looking in a uniform shirt that comes down over her hands.
“Thank you for doing that.”
She blinks, clearly not expecting him to say that. “Oh. Uh, it’s no problem, sir, I assumed it was a part of my job.”
“What happens if I refuse this position?”
“Sir?” She’s stalling, struggling to keep up with what must seem like abrupt changes in the conversation.
Malcolm lets her. “Well, do you get it? Does it become your position?”
Rogers opens her mouth, shuts it again, pauses, a small crease appearing on her forehead. “I hope not.”
“Really?” He glances down at the pad in her hands. “You seem overqualified for it.”
“You haven’t even read my file.”
The deflection is obvious enough that Malcolm smiles slightly. He tilts his head and doesn’t say anything, watches as her mouth pinches up slightly, unimpressed.
“I know what you’re doing, Lieutenant, not saying anything to keep me talking. We all have to do the same interrogation training.”
“Why don’t you want the position?”
Rogers shrugs. “Why don’t you want the position?”
“I do.” Malcolm says and is a little surprised to find that he means it. He does want to be the security officer on Earth’s first starship, and he does want to serve under a man who is clearly eager to be exploring the unknown.
“Then why haven’t you accepted it yet?”
He looks back at the screen, the form still waiting for him. “Do you think this is a good idea?”
Rogers snorts softly, a cut off laugh before she clears her throat. “What in particular, sir?”
He smiles again, face still turned away so she can’t see it. “Going out there. Are we really ready to do it?”
There’s a pause and he can almost hear her thinking over the answer. “I don’t think we’d ever really be ready, sir. We could sit for years and try to be fully prepared and would still come across things we can’t even imagine.”
He turns back to her. “That’s a good answer, Ensign.”
“Thank you, sir.” She glances back at his screen. “I was surprised as well, when they told me I had been picked for this role. I have the rank, but I’m young and I don’t have the experience a lot of them do, even some of the members of the team. But, they were insistent.”
He can hear the underlying explanation, she doesn’t feel ready to take on the level of responsibility she’s been given, let alone the level that would be expected of him. He doesn't push on her age; if he accepts the position, he can find that information out himself and if he doesn’t, then she doesn't need to tell him, but still… she is young. Not as young as some of the incoming cadets he’s seen, but certainly much younger than he would have expected them to send out into space. Looking at her, she’s still just a child, really, left in a position of enormous responsibility. It might have been more surprising if he wasn’t aware of how small the pool of potential candidates for this mission really was, but…
He takes another look at her. Straight-backed, sat in the chair as if she’s standing at parade rest – military brat of some kind – a few scars on her hands, mostly faded, and blonde curls framing a face in a way that makes her look almost angelic. He was never a great older brother to Madeline, preferring to lock himself away and avoid anything from his parents, but the wave of protectiveness that seems to be slowly creeping up on him is what he imagines most brothers feel.
“How many on the security team?”
Rogers glances down at her tablet, doesn’t turn it on though, so she obviously knows the answer already. “Including you and me? Twenty-five.”
“Twenty-five.” He repeats. “And how many on the crew in total?”
“Well, like I said they haven’t confirmed everyone yet, but apparently it should be around eighty. The ship has room for eighty-five.”
He frowns, leans back in his seat. “That’s a pretty small percentage being security.”
Rogers makes a face that suggests she had also had that thought. “It’s an exploration mission, sir, not a battleship.”
“That’s the answer they gave you?”
“Yes sir.”
He glances at the clock on the screen. Eleven hours and twenty minutes before the decision is made for him. Eleven hours and twenty minutes before eighty people continue on, preparing to leave without him.
Rogers is still there when he turns back, watching him carefully.
“Have you met the security team yet?”
“Yes sir, I got the details confirmed on Monday, so we had a training session yesterday and this morning.”
“Do they work well together?”
A tiny smile creeps onto her face. “Yes sir. We’re still balancing out strengths, but they compliment each other well as a team.”
He nods, slowly.
“I’ve also organized room allocations with them,” she says, “since we’ll all be sharing rooms. Except y- our security officer.”
He bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself grinning at her. “Except me?”
“Officers’ privileges. If you accept the position, of course.”
“Of course.” He turns back to look at the screen again. It’s just a tick box and a signature required. Less than thirty seconds to complete, really.
Rogers holds out the tablet. He carefully takes it off her.
“I want to meet them all, tomorrow, oh-nine-hundred hours, in the training room.”
“Yessir. It’s good to have you onboard, sir.”
“Thank you, Ensign.”
It takes less than twenty to fill it out in the end.