Disclaimer: Enterprise and her crew belong to Paramount, not me. Unfortunately.
Spoilers: very, very minor ones for characters in 'Oasis', 'Precious Cargo', and 'Stigma'.
Memory Lapse - Part 3
Entering Trip's quarters, Archer stumbled over a pile of dirty clothes. However, before he could fall too far, a hand grabbed his arm.
"Guess I'm one of those 'messy' people, huh?" Trip asked sheepishly.
Archer looked around at the devastation that was Trip's living area. "Actually, this is pretty tidy for you," he replied. "Normally you can't see any of the floor." Smiling to show he was joking, Archer moved further into the room. "Well, this is where you live," he informed Trip, gesturing grandly to the rather small space.
"It's…uh…a little cramped, isn't it?" said Trip.
"You should count yourself lucky," said Archer. "Most people on this ship have to share." Trip's eyes widened. "And even my quarters aren't much bigger than this. Although I do have a double bed."
Trip's gaze followed Archer's to the bed. "Er, Jon, you said you were goin' to stay here tonight to keep an eye on me, right?"
"Yes?" replied Archer, wondering uneasily where this was leading.
"Well, where are you gonna sleep?" asked Trip. "I mean, I guess we could just about share the bed if you didn't mind bein' a little squashed." However, the expression on Trip's face clearly showed that, even though he had decided to trust Archer, he didn't relish the prospect of getting that close to someone who was, to all intents and purposes, now a stranger to him.
Archer hurried to reassure him. "Don't worry, Trip, the floor is fine for me."
Trip looked guilty. "Are you sure? I feel bad that I don't have anywhere more comfortable for you to sleep."
"It's fine. The floor of your quarters is a lot more comfortable than some of places I've had to sleep."
Looking relieved, Trip perched on the edge of his bed, bouncing a little to test its softness. He grimaced. "Actually, this bed doesn't feel a lot softer than the floor. Maybe I should let you have it, after all," he joked, with a wry smile.
"You'd be surprised what you get used to," replied Archer. Then, seeing Trip was trying desperately to hide a yawn, he continued: "I think it's time you got some rest. Give me a couple of minutes to locate some blankets in the depths of your closet, and then we can both get some shut-eye."
Trip began to protest, but Archer held up a hand. "You've had a very stressful time of it today," he said. "Not to mention all the new information you've had to process. And tomorrow's definitely not going to be a walk in the park. You need to get some sleep, and then we'll figure out how we're going to handle this situation."
His protests overruled, Trip began stripping off his dirty clothes, tossing them on the pile that Archer had already stumbled over. Archer smiled slightly to see that, even though Trip had lost his memory, his messy instincts were still in perfect working order. Turning away slightly to give his friend some privacy, Archer began rooting around in Trip's closet for some blankets. Eventually he found some under a heap of crumpled uniforms.
"Oh well," he joked. "At least they're clean." But there was no response. Turning around, Archer saw that Trip hadn't waited for him to finish his search. He had fallen asleep. Smiling fondly, Archer arranged his blankets on the floor, shoving several piles of Trip's belongings to one side in the process. Then he quickly stripped off his own clothes, folding them neatly over the back of a chair. Turning out the lights, he settled down on the blankets, and tried to compose himself for sleep.
But he couldn't. Now that he had nothing with which to occupy himself, he couldn't stop the thoughts that were whirling round and round inside his head. All day he had been worried about Trip – when he would wake up, whether he would be alright. He had tried to concentrate on the aftermath of the fight with the Anarian rebels as a way to take his mind off his worry, but his thoughts always came back to Trip.
And then he had found out about Trip's amnesia. And all his thoughts had been focused on trying to make Trip feel comfortable; trying to lessen his friend's fear; trying to help him. But now Trip was asleep, Archer didn't have to worry about that anymore – at least, not until tomorrow. And so his own feelings took the opportunity to come to the fore.
He was devastated. He couldn't deny it. He had lost his best friend. Except that he hadn't. It was so confusing. Trip was still here, except without everything that made him Trip. The man had no knowledge of who he was, and therefore he wasn't really Trip.
'He's got to still be in there somewhere,' Archer thought to himself. 'I refuse to believe that the Trip I know is gone forever. I will help him remember who he is, even if it takes the rest of our lives.'
However, deep inside there was one tiny part of Archer that felt relief. It so disgusted him that he had tried to deny it the second the feeling had made itself known. But he had been unable to, and the feeling had festered inside him, making him feel more reprehensible with every passing moment.
Archer had been harbouring a guilty secret for years now. One that he could never tell Trip, simply because Trip was the secret. The simple truth was that Jonathan Archer loved with his best friend. And he didn't just love him as he would any friend – he was in love with him. However, he knew Trip would never reciprocate, and so he had buried his feelings, hiding them from his friend as well as he was able.
But now that deception wouldn't be such a struggle. Sure, he would still have to keep his feelings hidden. There was no way that Trip's amnesia was going to alter his predilection for women – heterosexuality was so ingrained into Trip that he eyed up practically every woman that crossed his path. Hell, Archer had even noticed him checking out T'Pol once or twice, despite his very vocal disapproval of her. And there was no doubt that Trip had had his share of encounters with women during their mission – Liana, Kaitaama, and Feezal, to name but a few.
No, Archer wasn't about to tell Trip about his feelings, but at least this new Trip wouldn't be able to pick up on the oddities in Jon's character that came with trying to hide them. In fact, there were two instances from this very evening that proved his point. When Trip had offered, albeit reluctantly, to share his bed with Jon, Archer had been unable to repress the slight flush that had crept into his cheeks at the thought of sleeping in the same bed as Trip. Although sleeping wasn't exactly what he had in mind when he thought about 'sleeping' with Trip.
And when Trip had stripped off in order to get into bed, Archer had had to turn hurriedly away, suddenly becoming very much occupied with finding some blankets, simply so he wouldn't have to look a Trip's naked body.
There was a good chance that the old Trip would have picked up on these lapses – in fact, the old Trip had come perilously close to exposing Jon's secret once or twice, simply because Jon couldn't think fast enough to explain his occasional slips. This new Trip, however, hadn't appeared to notice anything out of the ordinary at all.
Still, Archer knew that, no matter how much Trip's amnesia might make his life easier, he wouldn't be able to rest until he had helped Trip remember. He wanted his friend back, and the thought that even a tiny part of him could be opposed to that made him feel sick.
Sighing, Archer resigned himself to a sleepless night. He knew he needed rest almost as much as Trip did, but apparently his brain wasn't going to switch off. So instead, he tried to think about what tomorrow might bring. He had to inform the senior staff, as well as the rest of the crew, about Tucker's situation. As of now, the only people who knew about Trip's amnesia were himself, Doctor Phlox, and Crewman Cutler. He didn't relish breaking the news to everyone that Enterprise had lost her Chief Engineer, perhaps permanently, but at least he knew they would all be supportive – even T'Pol, in her Vulcan way. Even more, he dreaded contacting Starfleet to apprise them of the situation. He had no idea what their reaction would be, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn't be good.
Heartache and worry knawing away at him, Jonathan Archer stared into the darkness, for once in his life not knowing what to do.
