Narcosis: Chapter 10

By Piper

See Chapter 1 for disclaimer and other story details. In addition, this chapter has some small spoilers for "Strange New World."

~*~

Captain Jonathan Archer could hear the struggle on the other side of the door, but he couldn't yet get to Trip and Malcolm. He looked to the crewman beside him, who felt his gaze and glanced back. "Almost got it, sir."

It was another agonizingly long moment before they managed to force the door open. Jonathan rushed in and turned on the lights—just in time to see Malcolm haul Trip upright. The engineer looked disoriented and dizzy. It was entirely too easy for Malcolm to maneuver him into position like a shield. In his right hand, the tactical officer held a phase pistol.

The crewman had followed the Captain in and now brought his pistol up to aim at Malcolm. "Drop the weapon, sir," he instructed.

Malcolm looked at the crewman for a moment, then brought his eyes to meet the Captain's Jonathan froze as he proceeded to pull the phase pistol up, pointing it directly at Trip's head. "Get out, sir," came the terse demand.

Archer found himself bringing his hands up, trying to appear non-threatening. "Take it easy, Malcolm. We don't want anyone to get hurt here."

"Leave, and no one will."

Trip opened pain-filled eyes to meet Jonathan's gaze. The Captain knew at that point that he wasn't going anywhere. He motioned for the crewman to leave and made as if he was following him out. At the last moment, as the crewman crossed the threshold in front of him, Jonathan gripped his arm and turned him around. "Go to the bridge. Tell Sub Commander T'Pol what's going on."

"Sir?" the confused crewman asked.

"Go," Jonathan said, then abruptly closed the door between them. He turned back to face his officers. Trip was looking at him with a combination of relief and admonishment. Relieved that he wasn't alone in this, but unhappy that Jonathan was once again risking his life for Trip. Jonathan returned a look that clearly told his friend to get over it; Trip should know him better than to think that he would ever hesitate to risk his life for him.

Malcolm, on the other hand, was seriously ticked off. "You too, sir. Get out!" he demanded again, voice rising with each word.

"Hey, Cap'n," Trip chimed in weakly, surprising them both and trying to offer a distraction. "Would you please explain to my buddy here that a man can only take so many blows to the head before somethin' gets knocked loose?"

"Shut up," Malcolm commanded, shoving the pistol barrel against his hostage's temple. Trip winced. Jonathan started to take a step closer, but Malcolm's attention abruptly swung back to him. "Leave!" he ordered again.

"Easy, take it easy Malcolm." Jonathan heard the desperation in his own voice and took a few calming breaths as he watched Malcolm's finger tense over the trigger. He inched a bit closer as he spoke again, "You and I both know that I'm not going anywhere as long as you're threatening Trip's life."

"Because he's your friend. Because you care about him."

The Captain wasn't sure where this was going, but as he took another step closer he responded honestly, "Yes."

"Well, isn't that just dandy for him. What about the rest of us?"

"Malcolm, I care about every member of this crew," he responded succinctly.

"But not like him. He's like family. The rest of us are interchangeable; you only 'care' because it would reflect badly on you if you lost one of us."

"What?! That's crazy!" Jonathan exclaimed before he could censor himself. It was crazy, and Malcolm in his right mind would have known that. But Malcolm under the influence of an alien substance obviously thought otherwise. He took a deep breath to calm himself before he spoke again. "Yes, Trip is important to me. I've known him for a long time and we've been through a lot together. But every person on this ship is now a part of my extended family, and that includes you. I care very much about what happens here."

Trip spoke up again. "I tried to tell him that this isn't his fault or even his real feelings." He glanced sideways at the pistol. "But I don't think he believed me."

"Malcolm, Trip's telling you the truth."

Malcolm narrowed his eyes and stared at his Captain, but said nothing.

Jonathan pressed forward, "Why would he lie to you? He's your friend. He wants to get you through this, just like I do."

This time Malcolm shook his head in denial. "No, I don't believe you."

"It's true," Trip insisted. "And you know it in your heart. You just gotta get past the stuff that's clouding your brain."

Malcolm looked between them, and for a moment they thought they might have actually gotten through. Then he said calmly, "No. No one here cares about me." He paused, then gave a sad smile. "But that's all right. I'm used to it. No one ever did."

With that, Malcolm finally turned the pistol away from Trip. He shoved the engineer away from him to the floor at the Captain's feet. Jonathan reached down to help Trip up and had to hold onto him as he swayed. Then he tried to pull Trip behind him where he could better protect him. But his friend was not cooperating, because he saw what Malcolm was doing now. He had aimed the pistol someplace new.

At his own head.

Both of them reacted. "Malcolm, don't," Trip cried as he and Jonathan both took a few involuntary steps closer to him.

"Don't come any closer!" Malcolm ordered, clicking the setting on the pistol. Both of them froze as they saw he had changed it to 'kill.' They had a few seconds to realize that he had only had it on stun this whole time—he had never intended to kill Trip. But that didn't mean as much now, since he was obviously ready to kill himself.

Jonathan was at a loss. Malcolm wasn't hearing them, and he didn't know what they could say to make him start listening.

Luckily, Trip still had a few cards to play. "Malcolm, I've been where you are right now. Remember? Only I was pointing the gun at T'Pol and accusing her of talking to rock people. But I was under the influence of something too." He paused, stepping closer until he was only a foot away from Reed. "This isn't you. You're not yourself! You said that you remember the station and what happened over there, right?"

Malcolm still wasn't buying it. "The doctor cleared us."

"Yeah, well, the doctor was wrong. Thomas and West went through the same thing you're going through now."

"Malcolm." The Captain waited until the younger man's eyes focused on him, then he said succinctly; "Chelsea is dead. She slit her wrists."

Malcolm seemed to be processing that. "Dead?" he asked softly.

Archer nodded. "And Eric is in a coma. This chemical you all were exposed to—it's making you feel this way and do these things. We went back to the station for chemical samples, and Dr. Phlox is going to have a cure for this soon. Meanwhile, Eric showed us that you do still have some amount of control."

Trip picked up the argument. "You can fight it, Mal. You have to fight it."

Malcolm was clearly torn. The pistol remained at his temple, but he looked at the floor, thinking things through. When he looked back up at them silent tears began to fall from his eyes. "She's really dead?" he asked weakly.

"Yes," Jonathan said softly, keeping Malcolm's attention as Trip edged a few inches closer. "She had so much of her life left and so much to offer to this world. It was a needless and horrible death. We're not going to lose you that way."

"You don't want to do this. We don't want you to do this." Trip was close enough now, and reached a slightly unsteady hand towards the pistol. The closer his fingers drew, the more the weapon shook in Malcolm's hand.

Jonathan didn't dare move. The tension and fear in the room were palpable. Trip's actions seemed as if they were in slow motion. He found himself holding his breath as Trip's fingers finally made contact with the pistol…

And he slowly pulled it away from Malcolm's head.

The Captain finally dared to breathe as Malcolm released the gun altogether and let Trip take its weight. Jonathan stepped closer, taking the gun when Trip held it out to him. He secured it before tucking it safely away.

Malcolm still had tears running uncontrolled down his cheeks. Suddenly it was as if his knees gave out, and both Trip and the Captain quickly grabbed an arm to lower him to the floor.

Trip knelt beside him as Malcolm began whispering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over again. He was still conscious, but he wasn't fully coherent.

Being cautious and deliberately slow with his movements, Trip reached to put gentle arms around his friend. He pulled him close, allowing Malcolm's tears to fall on his shoulder. "Shh, everything's gonna be fine now," he whispered, trying to comfort.

Jonathan knelt beside the two of them, placing a hand on Trip's shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked softly, catching Trip's eyes. One close look at the uneven pupils told him that the engineer had a concussion.

But Trip just shrugged slightly, still holding Malcolm. "My brains may be a little scrambled, but I'll live," he joked before growing serious. "Was all of that true, is Phlox really close to curing this thing?"

"I hope so. Do we need a med-team here?"

Trip considered it a moment before shaking his head. "I think we can get him to sickbay ourselves. The less people around him right now, the better."

The Captain nodded, then patted Malcolm's back gently and left him to Trip as he stood to head to the room's intercom. "Archer to the bridge."

"Go ahead, Captain," came T'Pol's voice.

"We're okay—all of us. We're going to take Lt. Reed to sickbay."

~*~

Meanwhile, Dr. Phlox and Ensign Cutler had taken up residence in a decontamination room with the samples she had obtained from the station.

Were the situation not so dire, Dr. Phlox would have been like a human child in a candy store with all his new chemicals to manipulate and explore. But the circumstances demanded that he figure out the cause of this reaction in the crew as quickly as possible. With that purpose in mind, he had focused his attention on what he perceived to be the most likely culprit—the chemical mixture in the sealed container.

Both he and the ensign were decked out in full environmental suits. They had latex gloves on underneath the gloves of the suits. He wasn't taking any chances, which was why he had moved lab equipment into the decon chamber. He didn't want to risk exposure to any other crewmembers.

Cutler had told him why she had left this container sealed, and he thought she really might be on to something. So they had put the container into the closed environment of a sterile glass incubator and sucked the oxygen out. Then they had transferred some of the mixture to another beaker before pulling the original container out.

Phlox handed the closed container to Cutler. "Ensign, take this out of the room please. Wait out there until I call you."

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" she asked teasingly, though she moved to do as she was told.

"If this does what I think it's going to do, I'd rather not have you at risk," he explained.

After she was safely outside, he introduced oxygen to the sample he had. The response was immediate. A hazy smoke formed in the box and soon engulfed it. When he noticed the gloves attached to the hand holes beginning to disintegrate, he too hastened out of the room before the chemical could escape its confines.

Outside, he sealed the chamber. He and Cutler both watched through the observation window as the haze filled the entire room. "I guess we found the substance they were exposed to," she mused.

"It would appear so."

A few minutes later, the smoke dissipated. "That's odd," she pointed out.

"Not really. The reaction could only last so long. If you recall, by the time Commander Tucker and Sub Commander T'Pol got to the others, the environment was safe again."

"At least that's something. So what's our next step?"

He reached to take the container from her. "We figure out what's in this and how to counteract it. We do it without exposing it to oxygen. And we do it in time to save Ensign West and Lieutenant Reed."

~*~

To Be Continued