Disclaimer: Enterprise and her crew belong to Paramount, not me. Unfortunately.
Spoilers: very minor one for 'Unexpected'.
Memory Lapse - Part 2
As the sickbay doors slid open, Archer steeled himself for the worst, although he couldn't even begin to imagine what the worst might be. Phlox had said that Trip was fine physically, so that meant…no, he didn't even want to think about it.
As he entered sickbay, Doctor Phlox accosted him. "Captain, if I might have a quiet word with you…" But Archer was already heading for the screened biobed where he knew Trip must be. Phlox hurried after him.
"Captain, I really must ask you to…" But he was interrupted by a raised voice coming from the other side of the screen.
"Get the hell away from me!" It was Trip's voice, and by the sound of it, he was extremely panicked. Archer flung back the screen, expecting to see a medical assistant attempting to 'cure' the engineer by using a member of Phlox's mysterious menagerie. Instead, he was confronted by the sight of an obviously very scared Trip Tucker huddling in a corner, while Crewman Cutler stood over him with a hypospray.
"Crewman!" barked Archer. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Cutler started, and then visibly quailed in the face of the Captain's anger. She seemed lost for words, but luckily Phlox came to her rescue. "She is simply trying to give Commander Tucker a sedative, Captain," he said. "But Mr. Tucker is not feeling very receptive to treatment at the moment, as you can see. If you would accompany me to my office, I can explain…"
But once again Archer ignored him. Crouching down in front of Trip, he adopted his most reasonable tone. "Come on now, Trip. It's just a sedative. What are you so scared of?" He held out his hand, intending to help the engineer up, but was surprised when, instead of accepting the offer of help, Trip attempted to scuttle even further back into his corner.
"Who are you?"
His surprise increasing, Archer replied: "It's me, Trip, your friend. Jonathan Archer."
"I don't know you."
Shocked, and now more than a little frightened, Archer at last turned to face Phlox. "What the hell is the matter with him, Doctor?" he asked. "Why doesn't he know me?"
"Commander Tucker is suffering from amnesia, Captain," replied Phlox.
"What?"
"If you'd care to come into my office, I can explain the situation a little more fully. The presence of so many people is obviously not helping the Commander's state of mind."
Once in Phlox's office, the Doctor offered Archer a seat, but Archer opted instead to pace backwards and forwards.
"How can he possibly have amnesia, Doctor? You said all he had was a mild concussion."
"Obviously the blow to his head was more severe than we first thought," replied Phlox. "Commander Tucker has no idea who he is, or even where he is. He does not know who you are, who I am, and he certainly does not remember anything about Enterprise or our mission. I should imagine he is feeling very frightened and disorientated right about now."
"I can see he's frightened, Doctor," said Archer exasperatedly. "The question is: what can we do about it?"
"Well, archaic Earth comedy often suggests that a second bump on the head will restore an amnesiac's memory," mused Phlox. But at the outraged look on Archer's face, he hurriedly added: "But of course I would never condone such barbaric behaviour. No, I'm afraid there is no medical procedure that will cure Commander Tucker. All we can do is wait, and hope his memory comes back on its own. The fact that he is in familiar surroundings, with all his friends around him, should help. In fact, Captain, you could be instrumental to his recovery. As his best friend you can inform him about his life, both past and present."
"See if I can jog his memory, is that what you're saying?" asked Archer.
"Exactly, Captain!"
"But isn't that going to be a little hard, Doctor? I mean, at the moment he won't let anyone near him – not even me."
"Well, of course, you're going to have to gain his trust first. But hopefully that won't be too difficult. It may be that some residual instinctive feeling would lead him to trust you above everyone else anyway."
A renewed burst of shouting suddenly echoed through sickbay.
"But first, Captain, I would appreciate it if you could try and calm him down enough so I can treat him."
"Trip?"
Archer had managed to persuade Crewman Cutler and Doctor Phlox to leave him alone with the engineer for a while. The last thing Trip needed was to associate Archer with a lot of scary people holding even more scary medical instruments. And he suspected that the fact that Doctor Phlox was Denobulan wasn't helping any, since Trip couldn't even remember first contact with the Vulcans.
"Trip, there's nothing to be afraid of. No one here is going to hurt you." The engineer had backed even further into his corner by this point, and was looking very much as if he was wishing he could go one step further, and back through the wall behind him.
"Trip, my name is Jonathan Archer. I'm your friend. Your best friend. Don't you remember me?" Archer had decided to keep things personal for the moment. There was no point in confusing Trip further by telling him that Archer was also the Captain of a spaceship that was currently a hundred light years from Earth.
"I don't know you." Trip repeated his previous conviction.
"I know you don't know me at the moment. But you did. Very well. We were best buddies, you and me. I would never do anything to hurt you. You have to trust me." But when Trip still didn't look particularly convinced, Archer had to resort to his next tactic. Pulling out a padd, he showed it to Trip. It contained a catalogue of pictures from Archer's own photo album that showed him and Trip together. "Look at these. Don't these prove that we know each other? That we're friends?"
Archer watched as Trip slowly scrolled through the pictures, hoping that Trip wouldn't think he had somehow faked the images in order to gain his trust. Finally, Trip handed the padd back, a thoughtful look on his face.
"Jonathan, right?"
"That's right. But you normally call me Jon." Again, Archer decided that Trip didn't need the added pressure that would come with informing him that for the past two years he had actually been calling Archer 'Cap'n'.
"Jon. I like that. It suits you." Trip thought for a minute. "Well, Jon, it seems I'd better decide to trust you. I sure don't have anyone else on my side at the moment."
"But Trip, everyone here is on your side," explained Archer, trying to ignore how nice it felt to be called by his name instead of his rank. "You're well liked here. Everyone only wants to help you."
Trip leaned forward slightly. "Even that funny lookin' doctor? What's his deal, anyway? He looks like an alien or somethin'."
Archer tried hard to keep his expression neutral, but something in his face must have clued Trip in. His eyes widened.
"You mean he is an alien? Shit, Jon, where exactly am I?"
Archer swallowed. He had been hoping to keep the revelation of Enterprise and her mission for a little later, but in retrospect that now seemed like a foolish hope. Of course Trip was going to notice the things that he definitely wouldn't find on Earth. Some of them were pretty hard to miss, after all. Like the void filled with stars that he would see every time he looked out of a window, for example.
"Uh, well, you're on a spaceship," Archer began tentatively.
"Wow, are we orbiting the Earth!" Trip interrupted him excitedly. "I'd sure love to see the continents from space!"
"Well, not exactly," said Archer. "We're a little further away from Earth than that."
Trip narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "How far?" he asked.
"About a hundred light years."
"What! A hundred light years! How the hell did we get way out here?"
And Archer had no choice but to fill him in on everything that had happened since Zephram Cochrane had successfully completed the first warp flight nearly a century ago. The telling of that story took quite some while, and by the time he was done Archer was thoroughly cramped from sitting on the floor. Trip, however, didn't seem to have noticed that he was still curled up in a corner. As the story had progressed, the expression on his face had shown a mixture of excitement and apprehension. And that was even though Archer had purposely edited the tale to miss out some of the more extreme elements, like their continuous run-ins with the Suliban, or the fact that Trip himself had been the first ever human male to get pregnant.
"So you're tellin' me that I'm the Chief Engineer aboard the…Enterprise?" Trip looked at Archer to check that he had got the name right. Archer nodded his confirmation. "And you're the Cap'n?" When Archer nodded again he uttered a muted "wow." Looking slightly overwhelmed (and Archer couldn't blame him), Trip suddenly scrambled to his feet. Archer stood too, his limbs protesting at the ill-treatment they had received over the past hour or so.
"Trip, are you okay?"
"It's a lot to take in, Jon. I need to think all this through. After all, you could be pullin' my leg. This could all be some elaborate ploy." Flashing Archer a grin to show he didn't really mean it, Trip pulled back the screen around the biobed. "Doc, you can come in here now."
Doctor Phlox appeared so quickly that Archer was sure he had been eavesdropping the whole time. "Ah, Commander, glad to see you're feeling a little better. Perhaps you would allow me to check your injuries now. I don't think we'll be requiring the sedative any more."
Trip submitted to the exam, but he was clearly still apprehensive about being treated by an alien doctor, as was indicated by the number of times Phlox had to tell him to relax. But eventually the examination was over.
"And now, Captain, I'm sure you've got other work to do. I'd like to keep Commander Tucker in overnight for observation, but he should be able to return to his quarters tomorrow if all goes well."
But at this pronouncement the panicked look came back on to Trip's face again. "You're not leavin', Jon?" he said desperately. "I don't want to stay here alone."
"But you won't be alone, Trip. Doctor Phlox will be here." But Trip's expression showed clearly what he thought of that situation, and Archer gave in, like he always did when it came to Trip. "Can't I take him back to his quarters, Doctor?" he asked. "Surely he'd be much more comfortable in more familiar surroundings. And I'll stay with him all night. If something goes wrong, I'll call you straight away."
"Well, I guess it couldn't hurt," mused Phlox. "He probably would be more at ease in his own quarters. Although he spends so much time in sickbay as it is that I'm surprised he doesn't see it as a second home. Yes, I don't see why not. Let me just give you some fresh dressings for his burns. They need to be changed every six hours."
