Trip showed up to his duty shift in waste extraction a full hour and a half early. From the surprised look on the currently on-duty crewman, Trip surmised that the details of he and Malcolm's fight and subsequent punishment hadn't yet filtered down to the lower decks crew members. Despite that, the crewman seemed only to willing to let his Chief Engineer take over his post early. Waste extraction wasn't quite as bad as the name implied, the only time there was any need to get dirty was when something went seriously wrong, but it was a job not many people relished. The main problem was that the work was mind-numbingly boring. It also wasn't enough work for two men. Trip was sure the Captain had assigned them both this shift as punishment with the intent that they'd both become so bored the only recourse would be to talk out their problems. Since no one came down to waste extraction unless absolutely necessary, privacy would also be guaranteed.
Of course, he and Malcolm had already sorted out their differences, the night before. Unfortunately Trip had blown his chance to do the same with the Captain. His right hand, with which he had punched the wall in a fit of frustration, had settled into a dull ache as the night had gone on, but it hadn't proven quite the distraction to his own demons as he thought it would have. He had finally given up on sleep after tossing and turning for half the night, and spent most of the wee hours of the morning cleaning up the mess in his room. Working on some engineering reports had distracted him for the rest of the night, but eventually he had to admit that the reports where finished. That left only the decision to come on shift early.
He was running his third useless diagnostic when Lt. Malcolm Reed finally showed up, precisely on time.
"Good Morning."
"Mornin'," Trip replied, turning his head back to his work.
"What needs doing?"
"Nothin'."
"Nothing at all?"
"Nope."
"Oh."
The computer beeped to let Trip know that the diagnostic had finished. He looked at the readouts. All systems functioning within required parameters. Just great, Trip thought. Malcolm meanwhile had sidled up next to him and was reading the readout over his shoulder. His face fell as he saw the good news.
"I knew I should have brought a book." He muttered to himself.
"Good to know you consider me such boring company," Trip couldn't help but reply.
Trip almost laughed as Malcolm's eyes opened wide in innocence. Maybe this won't be such a bad shift after all. Before Malcolm could protest, Trip decided to let him off the hook.
"Relax Lieutenant. I was kidding."
Malcolm gave him a sheepish grin.
"Sorry, I've been having quite the morning. My humour sensors seem to be all tapped out."
"What happened?" Maybe listening to Malcolm's problems would distract him from his own.
"Well, I was up early so I went to the Armoury to see how everything went last night only to find out the bloody targeting scanners went off-line again - twice. I swear I have no idea what's wrong with the damn things." Malcolm blew out a frustrated breath. "And as if that wasn't bad enough, when I went to the Mess hall for breakfast, everyone was staring at me, and then I got the third degree from Hoshi and Travis. You know, someone should measure the speed of gossip. It would probably beat Warp Five any day."
Trip shrugged,
"Probably, but when I relieved Crewman McKensie, he didn't seem to have heard yet."
"Well that's an encouraging sign. Not even gossip makes it down to Waste extraction."
"I thought your sense of humour was all used up Lieutenant."
"It seems to be returning."
Trip frowned thoughtfully,
"When did the targeting scanners first go off-line?"
"About two days ago."
"Maybe it's the annular confinement stream." Trip mused. Nothing like an engineering problem to take his mind off things.
"That was the third thing I tried."
"Maybe I could take a look at it after shift," Trip offered. "I know you asked before but I guess I wasn't bein' too receptive then."
"Thanks, but this morning I thought I might try adjusting the particle convertor in case it was..."
"Causin' a feedback loop in the sensors." Trip jumped in to finish the sentence.
"Exactly. Anyway I spent the morning adjusting it so if it works you won't need to come down."
"You adjusted it this morning?" Trip was surprised, "You must have got to the armoury pretty early."
Malcolm nodded.
"Didn't get much sleep last night, I'm afraid."
"Join the club." Shut up Trip, the little voice in his head warned just a little to late. Out of the corner of his eye, Trip saw Malcolm throw a cautious glance in his direction.
"So you didn't talk to the Captain then?" He asked carefully.
"No." Trip hated to sound so blunt but he really didn't want to talk about this. He'd been avoiding the subject in his head all morning for a reason. It seemed Malcolm had other ideas though.
"Um. You know, I may not have made it clear yesterday, but if you want to talk about what happened with me, you can. I may not be Captain Archer, but maybe you'd find it easier to talk to him if you got some of your feelings sorted out first."
"Did you practice that speech all night?" Trip tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice but it still came through. It's not Malcolms fault you're screwed up, he's just trying to be your friend, his brain tried to reason.
"Is it that obvious? I admit I'm not the best at this sort of thing, but I can try."
"Well I can't. I'm sorry Malcolm, but I really can't talk about this with you," Trip pleaded.
"Why not?"
"I don't know. Lots of reasons."
"Like?" Malcolm was being overly persistent. It was starting to annoy Trip immensely. He strained to keep his voice tempered.
"You wouldn't understand."
"How do you know?" Because you stopped me, Trip's mind wanted to yell, but he didn't. Instead he ventured his secondary reasons for not talking,
"You seemed to get over the whole thing so well, I didn't - I don't, want to drag you back down into it."
"I got over it easily!" Malcolm seemed a little taken aback by this statement. "I'd hardly say that. Did you know the first time we had to use a shuttlepod afterwards, I nearly suggested we should use the transporter instead." Malcolm shuddered at the thought.
"The transporter?"
"Anything seemed preferable to the shuttlepod at the time, even having my molecules scrambled."
"I didn't know that. It's just...when we were in Sickbay you seemed to be taking things so well. I had nightmares every night and you slept like a baby."
"Nightmares?"
"For a while. Dr Phlox said it was perfectly natural. That it was just my brain processing everything that happened. See I did talk to someone. Didn't help much." Of course he hadn't told the Doctor exactly what the dreams had been about, but he didn't see the need to admit that little fact to Malcolm. "And you know for a while there, I thought I had gotten over it. At least until that stupid creature linked me up to everyone. And now Jon knows everything and it's all gone to hell in a hand basket." Trip felt like hitting the wall again. Or maybe Malcolm. After all he'd brought the subject up. No. He couldn't, wouldn't, hit Malcolm. It wasn't fair to blame him for trying to help. It's your own stupid fault Trip. As usual. A slightly sick feeling began to well up in the pit of Trip's stomach.
"Perhaps the Captain.." Trip quickly held up his hand to stop Malcolm, before he could go any further.
"Malcolm, I'm sorry but could we not talk about this anymore. I'm not feeling so good."
"All right. I must admit you are starting to look a little pale. Perhaps you should go to Sickbay." Malcolm's tone was now tinged with concern.
Trip shook his head.
"I'll be okay, just change the subject. I can't handle this right now."
"Okay." Malcolm agreed. The next few hours passed in relative silence.
**************************
When the replacement crewman finally came to relieve them for their lunch break, Malcolm was getting decidedly worried about Trip. The Engineer had barely moved a muscle since the conversation had died, leaving Malcolm to do what little work was required. Not that he minded. In fact he was starting to think that it might be a good idea to reiterate his suggestion to visit Sickbay.
As he gave his position at the front console up to his replacement, he waved his hand in front of Trip's face.
"Coming to the Mess Hall?" He asked.
"Huh." Trip seemed startled that someone had talked to him.
"The Mess Hall. Lunch." Malcolm repeated.
"Oh. Um. Nah. I'm not really hungry."
Malcolm suddenly recalled a snippet of their earlier conversation. He'd brought up his own rather unpleasant experience that morning at breakfast, but Trip hadn't mentioned a similar experience, and even noted that the gossip hadn't worked it's way down here yet. Combined with the fact that he'd run out on dinner with him and Travis the night before, Trip may not have eaten for at least the last two meals, perhaps more.
"When was the last time you ate?" Trip confirmed Malcolm's suspicions when he just shrugged and replied,
"Dunno."
"Well then I think you need to eat something."
"I said I wasn't hungry. I'm not feeling well remember."
"Well then we're going to Sickbay."
"No we're not."
"Yes we are. That's an order."
"You can't order me around, I outrank you."
"Well I could always call the Captain. He could order you to Sickbay." It was a low blow and Malcolm knew it, but Trip needed to see the Doctor and if this was the only way.
"Fine." Trip didn't sound overly pleased, but at least he was finally agreeing. Malcolm released the breath he didn't realise he'd been holding, but almost caught it again as Trip swayed on his feet. Malcolm held out a steadying hand on Trip's arm, but the engineer shrugged it off.
"You don't have to hold me, I can walk on my own."
Malcolm was starting to doubt that, but he dropped his arm. He stayed as close to the Commander as possible as they slowly made their way out of Waste extraction. Malcolm nodded quietly to the replacement crewman. No doubt waste extraction was going to be the first with the latest bit of gossip to travel the ship. There's a first time for everything I suppose.
*********************
By the time they walked into Sickbay, Malcolm had had to start helping Trip walk after all. The Commander seemed to be muttering deprecations in his general direction. Malcolm was quite thankful it was mostly just a murmur to his ears. The little he could make out was quite the enlightening experience. And here he thought only old Navy seamen could swear quite so much.
Doctor Phlox was over by one of the side benches, no doubt feeding one of his assortment of bizarre creatures. Malcolm was glad that so far, despite receiving a few injuries, he'd been spared the healing nature of some of these creatures in his own treatments. They looked positively ghastly.
"I'll be with you in a moment gentlemen." Doctor Phlox called out. Malcolm's security mind noticed that the Doctor hadn't turned around or looked in their general direction, but had noted that the new patients were two males. Interesting.
He helped Trip over to one of the bio-beds, where the Engineer sat down gratefully. Looking at Trip, Malcolm thought they'd made it just in time. The engineers skin was pale and clammy, and his blonde hair was plastered to his skull by sweat. He also seemed to be having difficulty breathing.
"Doctor, I think you'd better hurry." Malcolm called out.
Doctor Phlox was at the bio-bed in an instant, and examining Trip. Taking his pulse the old fashioned way, he asked Malcolm to pass his Medical Tricorder over from the other side of the room. As Malcolm went to fetch it, Phlox started listing off Trip's symptoms.
"Accelerated heart rate; Shortness of breath; Dilated pupils; Clammy skin. Tell me Lieutenant what has Mr Tucker been doing?"
"Nothing," Trip replied before Malcolm could get a word in.
"Oh really, then how do you explain your symptoms."
"Just tired."
"And your hand? How did you injure that?" His hand? Malcolm looked towards Trip's hands. His right one did seem slightly swollen now that it was mentioned. How did I miss that? He wondered. And you call yourself a security chief.
"I fell over."
"Do you know Mr Reed.?" Phlox turned his attention to Malcolm.
"About the hand or the other symptoms?"
"Either."
"I don't know about the hand, but I do now he hasn't been eating or sleeping well. We just came from working our shifts in waste extraction." Malcolm hoped that was enough information for the Doctor.
"Shut up Malcolm." Trip warned in a low tone.
"Now, now, Commander. Mr Reed is being very helpful." Phlox pulled out a hypospray from one of his pockets and injected it into Trip. "This should help ease the symptoms, but I want you to concentrate on your breathing. In and Out. In and Out."
Trip glared at the Doctor, but did as he was told.
"What's wrong with him Doctor?" Malcolm couldn't help but ask.
"Mr Tucker appears to be suffering from a mild anxiety attack. Probably due to stress, combined with the lack of food and sleep you mentioned. Unfortunately I can't tell you any more than that due to Doctor/Patient confidentiality."
"Will he be all right?"
"I don't see why not. Perhaps you should inform the Captain that the Commander won't be able to complete the rest of his shift today."
"No!" Trip's shout of protest made Malcolm jump. The Doctor also seemed surprised by the outburst.
"Well you can't go back on duty. Someone needs to arrange a replacement for you."
Trip turned a pitiful gaze onto Malcolm,
"Can't you arrange it. Please."
"Well we are reassigned anyway, and I suppose only one of us really needs to work the rest of the shift," Malcolm conceded, ignoring the disapproving frown from the Doctor.
"Thanks." Trip seemed relieved. Or maybe that was just the effects of the hypospray beginning to work. Some of Trip's colour did seem to be returning.
"Well I'd better get back to it then." Malcolm turned and headed back to the door. Just as he was leaving he heard Doctor Phlox say,
"Now Mr Tucker, would you like to explain what brought this on?"
Malcolm hoped for Trip's sake that he would cooperate with the Doctor. He had admitted to talking to him before after all, and it could only help. Of course the person he really needed to talk to was the Captain. But how do I clue the Captain in on the situation without betraying Trip's confidences. It was a dilemma Malcolm had no immediate solution too. Of course he did have the rest of his shift in Waste Extraction to mull it over. With nothing to distract him from thinking, he was sure he could come up with a plan.