Chapter Text
As soon as Doctor Phlox gives him the all-clear, Trip trudges through the corridors, barely stopping to say hi to some of the equally-dazed-looking crewmembers who were also victims of the Wisps. He reaches his quarters and palms the door controls and falls flat on his bed before the door even slides shut again. Still in his filthy uniform, his shoes still on, he all but passes out. He sleeps so deeply he doesn’t think he even dreams.
He wakes up just before his alarm goes off, as usual. He recoils slightly at the thought of having to do work in a dirty uniform but he can’t really grab a spare from the quartermaster without good reason, and honestly this is on him. At least he has time for a shower.
Afterwards, he tugs on his boots and fixes his collar, and steps out into the hall.
The day starts as usual. And things continue as usual, everything feels normal.
At least at first.
For the second time that day, Trip blinks and discovers he’s been staring at the wall for the past… two minutes, or thereabouts. He startles upright and accidentally elbows a PADD off his desk. His hand darts out to catch it, fingers fumbling, but the PADD ends up on the floor anyway. Grumbling, he reaches down before setting it back on the desk.
What was he doing? He checks his computer monitor. Oh, right. Engineering reports. Almost finished, too. He glances at the chronometer as well, surprised to discover it’s already quite late. He planned to meet Malcolm for movie night once the reports were finished. The man is probably wondering where he is.
Right on cue, the door chimes.
“Uh, come in.” Trip scrambles to put the PADDs back in order as Malcolm steps through into his quarters. Trip stands up hastily to meet him. “Sorry, sorry, I got distracted.”
Malcolm raises an eyebrow. “Again?”
What do you mean, again? Trip wants to ask, then he remembers: the upgrades Malcolm wanted him to look over earlier that day. The first time he zoned out so bad. It was Almack who jerked him out of it, a mildly concerned look on his face that didn’t lift even at Trip’s insistence that he was fine. Maybe he sounded too much like their armoury officer.
The same armoury officer who is currently standing in front of him expectantly.
“Yeah,” Trip responds. “Again. Sorry.” The yawn he gives isn’t just for show. “Must just be tired.”
Malcolm gives him a disbelieving look but doesn’t press the issue. “Have you any idea what they’re showing tonight?”
“Oh, uh, I think it’s some superhero movie?” Trip tries to mentally bring up the movie night schedule to no avail. “I can’t remember. If that’s not interesting to you we can always skip out and do something else. I found where Chef keeps his secret stash.”
“Indeed?” Malcolm smirks. “And how on Earth did you discover that?”
“Shh.” Trip holds a finger to his lips and winks. Then he laughs. “Anyway, it’s up to you.”
“Well, your superhero movies often do include quite a few explosions, if I recall.”
“Is that all you care about?”
Malcolm only hums in response.
While the movie is over a century old, the effects gaudy compared to today’s technology, even Malcolm seems to get some enjoyment out of it. It does, after all, involve a lot of fanciful weapons technology.
Afterwards they head back to Malcolm’s quarters, and Trip makes good his promise of drink, though he takes from his own stash this time. They talk and drink and laugh, and maybe it’s the alcohol smoothing his tongue but suddenly in the midst of it all, Malcolm grows solemn.
“Are you sure you’re alright, Trip?”
The question comes out of the blue, catching Trip off-guard. “What?”
“This is the third time in as many days you’ve claimed to be ‘distracted’,” Malcolm says. “I meant to ask earlier, but I didn’t want to ruin the mood.” He pauses. “And I suppose now isn’t the most appropriate time either. I apologise.”
“No, I-” Trip coughs slightly as the bourbon burns his throat. “It’s okay. You’re right, I haven’t really felt… one hundred percent recently.”
“I suppose it has something to do with our most recent encounter with strange new worlds,” Malcolm guesses.
“Yeah.” Trip looks down at his glass. “It… kinda threw me off.”
“I don’t blame you. The situation was rather troubling.” Malcolm takes a sip of his own drink. “It was so out of our control. I fear what may happen if we run into something like that again.”
“It was great at first,” Trip says. “I felt like I was really in all those places. It was amazing, even if it was all just pretend…” He shakes his head. “Yet I can’t help but feel bad for them. They were just trying to survive. Obviously I don’t condone the way they went about it, but they just wanted to live.”
“They could have asked for help,” Malcolm says, “instead of taking us over one by one. Using our minds and bodies for their own gain.” He shudders at the memories.
“I guess it’s been on my mind more than I thought.” Trip shrugs.
“Indeed. Your crew’s concerned about you, you know.”
Trip raises an eyebrow. “And how would you know that?”
“Considering the upgrade project, our departments have been overlapping quite a bit recently.” Malcolm smiles faintly. “People tend to chat. I just happened to overhear.”
“Well, next time you go eavesdropping, you can butt in and tell ‘em I’m fine. Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Trip says. “I’m not you. When I say I’m fine, I mean it.”
Malcolm chuckles. “Alright. I believe you.”
They finish their drinks but stay and chat for a little bit longer, mostly about how the upgrades are going or about a letter Trip got from his sister. It’s just past midnight when Malcolm stands up and announces he’ll be retiring to his own quarters. “Get some rest, Trip,” the lieutenant tells him, a flash of friendly concern crossing his face for a brief moment.
Trip smiles and gives a thumbs up. “Not a problem.” Sleep has been coming easier to him lately, even if he remains oddly tired, but he’s not about to admit that part of it to Malcolm right now.
Malcolm returns the smile, then leaves.
True to his word, Trip sleeps like the dead, coming out of it slowly and sluggishly. He heaves himself up onto his elbows and brings a hand to his throbbing head. When did the headache start? Commanding the lights on, he stumbles to the bathroom and gulps down some water. Must be a slight hangover, but he’s sure he and Malcolm didn’t drink that much. Combined with his lethargy, perhaps it warrants seeing Phlox, just to make sure he hasn’t caught some strange alien flu or something.
Then he catches sight of the chronometer. 0915. Fifteen minutes after his shift was supposed to start.
Phlox can wait. Stumbling out of the bathroom, Trip tugs on his uniform and hurries to engineering.
The headache bothers him throughout the day. The strange fogginess in his mind that usually dissipates after he’s fully awake doesn’t leave; he feels like someone’s stuffed his brain with cotton. Twice he forgets what orders he’s just given his crew, and once he even trails off mid-sentence as Crewman Cadrin stares at him expectantly. Eventually, Trip just shrugs and sends her on a different menial task he could easily do himself.
It looks like Malcolm was telling the truth about people being worried. He catches the glances they give him out of the corner of his eye, hears their whispers.
And it’s not just them.
“Are you sick, Trip?” Captain Archer asks over lunch that day.
Trip looks up. “Um, no?”
Archer doesn’t look convinced. “Are you sure? Maybe you should go see Phlox, just in case.”
“Actually, I have an appointment with him after my shift’s over,” Trip says. He picks at his food. “I’m sure it’s nothin’ though.”
He doesn’t want to worry his friend, doesn’t want to express his fears that maybe it’s not nothing. He doesn’t want to admit the strange detachedness he feels or that he keeps losing track of his own thoughts. After all, it could all just be in his own head after the experience they just had, and he could just be freaking out over nothing.
He sees the doctor later just as promised. Phlox buzzes around him with a scanner, asking him an assortment of questions about his sleep, appetite, general health, energy levels.
“Uh… that’s the thing,” Trip says in answer to that last one. “I’ve been sleeping well—almost too well, actually. I always wake up tired. And today it was really bad.”
“I see.” Phlox lowers his scanner. “And when did this start?”
“Um, about a week ago.”
“Ah, just after our encounter with the, erm, Wisps!” Phlox exclaims. “Yes, I remember that.”
“You think it has something to do with that?” Trip asks, thinking. “They did get inside my head. And I haven’t felt exactly myself lately,” he adds.
“It could very well be psychological in origin,” Phlox tells him. “You were, after all, quite literally not yourself for some time. However, I will take some scans just to be sure.”
Afterwards, Phlox sends him on his way with the promise to return tomorrow afternoon for the results.
Trip doesn’t wake up the next morning feeling much better. He takes even longer to get out of bed this time, but at least he isn’t late for his shift.
Today he and Malcolm are doing some more hands-on work with the upgrades to the torpedoes. Malcolm wants to implement some sort of proximity sensor that will hopefully aid in the targeting systems, so Trip is down in the tight squeeze that is the access tubes, fiddling with various relays when a wave of dizziness abruptly washes over him. He drops the hyperspanner he was using and his hand flies to his head, a small groan escaping his lips.
“Commander?” Down there with him is Ensign Almack, though the ensign is around the corner and out of sight. His voice echoes down the tube. “Are you alright?”
“Just dealin’ with a bit of a headache, Jake,” Trip not exactly lies. He’s getting a bit sick of the question, honestly, even if it seems to be warranted. “Do you mind if I head out and get some fresh air? I’ve got somethin’ I need to talk with Malcolm about anyway.”
“No problem, sir. I think I’ve got things handled here.”
Trip slowly crawls out of the access tube, fighting bouts of light-headedness and faint nausea along the way. Out in main engineering he doesn’t feel much better.
It takes him a few seconds to realise Malcolm is gone.
Frowning, Trip does a full circle, but the lieutenant is nowhere to be seen. He catches Rostov as the man walks by. “Hey, did you see where Malcolm went?”
“He went back down to the armoury, sir,” Rostov tells him. “Said he had to get some specs. Sir, you’re looking a bit pale there.”
Trip ignores the comment. He heads for the doors, stumbling slightly on the way. He feels like a drunk, or maybe it’s the ship that’s swaying so much, he can’t tell.
Every step is like a chore, a struggle. Fortunately no one passes by to witness him in this state, though he’s not really sure what this state even is. He wonders if he should just go to Phlox. This isn’t all in his head, he doesn’t believe that anymore.
He rounds a corner and bangs his shoulder against the wall. The pain barely registers. He’s too busy trying not to fall over, fighting the white spots that have begun to obscure his vision. Dammit, what is going on? He feels… he’s not sure how he feels. Drifted. Detached.
Hints of what could be panic begin to well up within him.
He falls to his knees.
There’s a comm. system nearby. He spots it from his position on the floor and weakly attempts to crawl towards it.
He only makes it a few more steps when the world abruptly tilts and fades away to clouds of white fog right before his eyes, and then nothing.
He drifts to the sounds of voices. As much as he strains he can’t make out their words, but he can decipher their tone.
Alarm. Concern.
Someone yells.
There are hands on him, but he can barely feel them, and the sensation is fading fast. He almost swears he’s floating.
Time must pass for the voices lull and rise, sometimes silencing completely. Sometimes, though, he can just make out bits and pieces of what they’re saying.
“Found him…”
“…not breathing…”
“…don’t know when…”
“…wait…”
There’s an urgency in them, an urgency Trip doesn’t feel himself. He’s content to just drift for the longest time.
Until the voices start to draw him back. Slowly at first, he feels himself getting tugged in an unknown direction, not entirely resistant to it. There’s faint alarm bells going off in his head now; the knowledge that something is wrong but he doesn’t know what.
Finally, the world rematerializes piece by piece in flashes of white and grey, and he finds himself in sickbay. There is an odd, ephemeral glow around the edges of things. The world around him seems to be moving at a speed slightly slower than he is as he turns around, barely registering that he is unable to hear his own footsteps clacking against the tiles.
The voices return, closer and more clear than before.
“What are you saying, doctor?”
Trip whirls around. Not a few feet away stand Archer and Malcolm. Absolute devastation mars the older man’s face, while the lieutenant only remains stoically solemn, but Trip can see the misery in his eyes too. In front of them is Phlox. He has his back to Trip.
“His life signs are at the absolute lowest,” the doctor tells the awaiting men grimly. “He is not breathing on his own. I am detecting minimal brain activity.”
“But you’re not giving up on him!” Malcolm exclaims, breaking character for just a moment. “After all, he… he was fine. There was nothing wrong with him, you said so yourself.”
“I said that I could find nothing wrong with him,” Doctor Phlox corrects. “There is a chance I missed or overlooked something. In which case I take full responsibility for the condition he is in now, if it is due to my negligence.”
“Let’s just back up a bit,” Archer says, holding up a placating hand. “We don’t know for sure what happened, but blaming others or ourselves is going to do nothing. What we should do now is determine what exactly happened to him, and if… how it can be fixed.”
“Yes, Captain.” Phlox turns around and Trip can finally see the fixed determination on the doctor’s face.
Malcolm steps back and folds his arms, head bowed slightly.
With a sigh, Archer places a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. “He’ll pull through, Malcolm. I’m sure of it.”
“Yes, sir,” is all Malcolm says, his voice small.
Trip drifts closer, wondering what is going on. Who are they talking about? And why has no one acknowledged him yet? Phlox even breezes by him without a second glance, like he isn’t even there. The doctor pulls back a privacy curtain that has been strung up around a bio-bed and steps inside. Trip glances back at Jon and Malcolm, then, curiosity getting the better of him, follows Phlox.
There is a crewman on the bio-bed. A breathing apparatus is strung up around his mouth and nose, his chest moving with even, artificial breaths. Other wires and tubes snake from places Trip doesn’t want to think about. The readouts on the screen above are dangerously low. As Phlox sets up a tray of medical items, Trip cautions closer.
His eyes widen. Shock slams down on him.
The crewman on the bio-bed is himself.