"I'm feeling the need for a diagram or a flowchart or something," Trip said from somewhere.
Malcolm was confused, not sure if they were still there, or there again.
"Excuse me?" Hoshi replied from right beside his bed.
"I mean, neither of us are doctors," Trip said, his voice coming closer with each word. He stopped when he reached Hoshi's side. "We're getting nowhere with this from this angle. But I'm an engineer, and - you ever done any programming?" There was a pause, then he continued, "Maybe we should treat this like a bug in a computer program; you know, trace it backwards. Assume that there is a cause, that something happened way before the drowning."
"So..." Hoshi added, drawing out the word. "Pretend all this is related, and see where it takes us?"
"Yeah. We could start with today, and chart out everything that happened to the man, going backwards until we run out of connections. Think Phlox'd mind if we set up shop?"
"We're here all the time anyway," Hoshi said. "I don't think Phlox'd mind. He'd probably want to join in. Make it a threesome."
There was silence for a beat. Then Hoshi said, seeming a bit chagrined, "That's not quite what I meant."
Trip laughed.
Malcolm heard the sound of a smack, and Hoshi said, "You are such an asshole."
Malcolm drifted on the currents for a while after that, only coming back up when Trip's voice came from next to his ear. "So, drowning... let's take that out of the equation. Pretend it's unrelated to his condition now."
A brief thought flitted across Malcolm's consciousness: But the dreams...
He felt something nudge his arm, and realised that Trip must be using his bed as a prop for something, or maybe as a desk.
"Okay," Hoshi said. She was also quite close to him, probably sitting in a chair just beside Trip.
"So he'd had nightmares, freaked out on the bridge, saw Phlox..."
"Who gave him sleeping pills."
"Right," said Trip. "And the meds got the dreams under control."
"Or so Malcolm said," Hoshi added, doubt clear from her tone.
"Well he did look better, so they did something," Trip said. "At least let's assume he was sleeping better."
"So the meds worked in part. But you know Malcolm," Hoshi said wryly. "If they'd worked even kind of, he'd be good with that. Or if they worked for a while, and then stopped working, he wouldn't necessarily go to Phlox right away."
"Probably not," said Trip.
Malcolm felt something being shifted from the bed, and realised that Trip had probably picked something up.
"You'd said he was cold?" Trip asked, sounding like he was reading as he spoke.
"Even after the meds," said Hoshi. "And he was eating, but it wasn't like he was eating a lot. So let's assume he wasn't particularly hungry."
"Right," said Trip, and Malcolm could hear him entering something into a padd. "Cold, nightmares, lack of appetite. And all of this started... Let me..." There was silence. After a few moments, Trip added, "So, somewhere between June, when he obviously fine, and maybe end of August, when he obviously was not, something happened."
"Like what?" Hoshi asked. "Hey, do you have the monthly reports -?"
"Hold on," Trip broke in. There was the tap of a finger on a padd screen. "Malcolm and Travis went on a mining mission. That comet, remember?"
"Anything else?"
"Not in that time period, no," Trip answered. "That was pretty much -"
He cut himself off when Hoshi whispered, "Trip, his eyes are open."
Things were shifted aside, and Malcolm sensed Trip and Hoshi standing beside his bed. Something moved across his field of vision, but he couldn't quite track it.
"He did this once before, on one of my visits," Trip said, his voice low.
"But he's not...?"
"I don't think he's actually awake, no," Trip said solemnly.
"So he can't hear us?"
"I don't know," Trip answered, seeming unsure. "Phlox said he might. I suppose it's possible."
"Hey, Malcolm," Hoshi said softly. He felt her hand touch his arm briefly, a flutter of sensation and heat against bare skin.
"We're trying," Trip said gruffly.
There was silence for a while, disturbed only by a soft sniff. Eventually, Malcolm felt them move away, and heard them settle back into their seats again.
"The mining trip... What were they mining again?" Hoshi asked after a moment, her voice sounding forced.
Trip cleared his throat. "Eisilium," he said. "The Vulcans hadn't had enough to study in detail before, and we were kind of in the neighbourhood. It's rare, not something we have on Earth." He paused for a beat. "Do you suppose...? Nah, I mean..."
"What do we know about that stuff?" Hoshi asked.
In the silence, Malcolm could hear Trip working the padd, soft clicks coming in rapid succession. Finally, he said, "Not a hell of a lot."
Neither of them spoke until Hoshi said, "There was no exposure," not sounding particularly sure of what she was saying. "They were wearing environmental suits, and the samples were sealed. It's not like they actually handled the mineral."
"There could have been some on the surface of the container," Trip said. Hoshi must have given him a look of disbelief, because he added an awkward, "Or something."
"But they went through Decon, right?"
"Decon works on organics," Trip said. "And if there were small amounts of something on the container that we weren't familiar with, it wouldn't necessarily show up on scanners." He paused. "But wouldn't others be sick? At least Travis, who mined with him?"
"Not necessarily," Hoshi said. "Not if he - Just a sec,"
Malcolm heard footsteps moving away, then the click of the comm. being activated.
"Hey, Travis?" Hoshi asked.
"Yup," Travis answered, his voice only slightly distorted by the comm.
"After the mining mission to that comet, who handled the sample once you brought it back on board?"
Travis was silent for a moment. "No one, really. It was in a sealed sample tube. Malcolm brought it from the shuttle, then it was transported to the Vulcan ship, and that was it. We never even opened it."
"Thanks," said Hoshi. She spoke as she walked, her voice swiftly coming closer. "I think Malcolm was the only one who handled it." She hesitated. "I think... What if he's the only human who's ever come close to the stuff? What if...?" she let her voice drift away, and they stayed in silence for a while.
"No shit," Trip finally said, sounding surprised.
"Shit," Hoshi answered in the same tone.
"Better tell Phlox," Trip added. "It might be nothing, but..."
"Yeah," Hoshi replied.
Chairs were pushed back, and Hoshi huffed out a groaned, "I need chocolate." Footsteps moved away, then stopped. "If it was the Eisilium, do you think Phlox could...?"
"I don't know," Trip admitted. "But I think if anyone could, it'd be Phlox."
x-x
The rest wasn't exactly clear. Phlox was there. Then maybe he missed something, because he was inside a machine that enclosed him, head to toe, and there were lights and loud noises. Then Trip, voice an angry rumble, and Hoshi sounding upset, and later, feeling both his inner arms pierced by old fashioned needles, and something nearby clicking, and it took forever, but none of that made any sense.
x-x
The next time Malcolm opened his eyes, Trip and Hoshi were there. And not just there, beside him, as they'd been recently - working, talking, but all of that just out of focus - but truly there. Or maybe it was he who was, for the first time in a long while, truly there.
But this time, when Hoshi said, "Hey, Malcolm," he turned his head toward her and replied with a hoarse, "Hello." And when Trip broke into a wide smile, he couldn't help but respond with one of his own.
x-x
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