A/N: Many thanks for all the positive reviews, I really appreciate everyone's feedback. I'd like to especially thank Rinne for a wicked beta job. And I've got to apologize for the length of this chapter. It's pretty short, but it's also pretty heavy so I think it balances out. As usual, let me know what you think.
Hoshi and Travis come to visit me not long after Captain Archer took Malcolm away. I feel the bed dip slightly under Hoshi's weight, Travis' hand pressing down on my shoulder. I haven't spoken since Doctor Phlox left me to my own devices over an hour ago, and the company is a relief.
"How're you doing, Commander?"
I really do appreciate them coming to see me, even if they do bring stupid, pointless questions with them. I somehow manage to pull a smile out of the depths of my bad mood, and say, "I'm okay, Travis."
"There's practically a line forming in the corridor. Everyone wants to visit you, but Phlox says you have to take it easy."
I nod, but don't know quite what to say. I'm pretty sure that the one person I would benefit from speaking with is going to be the one who stays away. But at the same time I'm not positive I want her to see me this way. Lord knows I seem helpless enough in her eyes. I sigh softly, forcing my thoughts away from my inner monologue, and refocusing on my visitors.
"How's everything on the bridge?"
There's a moment of brief hesitation before Travis answers, "Pretty routine. T'Pol's taking some scans of a nearby star cluster, so it's pretty quiet. That's why she can't come see you yet." He says the last bit almost as an afterthought, as though what I might think of his words only occurred to him after he'd said them. I'm instantly on guard. Nobody ever excused T'Pol's behaviour to me, why would Travis start now? His explanation is lacking detail too. There was a time when he would've described every star that passed by the viewscreen; it seems as though he's trying to keep my mind off work. I wonder if he's doing this under his own perogative, or if there are greater forces at work.
I'm at a loss for what to say next. I'm painfully aware of the fact that the only reason they're visiting me at all is that the news of my blindness has made its way to them on the bridge. Otherwise, they would've waited until I was released to see me. If news travelled all the way to the bridge already, it was reasonable to assume most of the ship knew as well. I wonder idly who it was who leaked the information, and what exactly their intentions were when they did it.
"I brought you something, Commander." Luckily Hoshi speaks up into the silence, and I feel the cool plastic of a data PADD pushed into my hand. "I downloaded some music from the database that Travis and I thought you might like. I know it gets pretty dull in here when nothing's going on, I thought it might make the time go by faster."
I drudge up another grateful smile, though gratitude is hardly what I'm feeling. I know Hoshi is trying to be considerate, and that her intentions are good, but I can't help but feel an irrational rousing of anger at the gesture. If she understood anything about the way my mind works, than she would know that spending a week waiting for something as fundamental as my sight to return was going to be hell, with or without a data PADD of music at my disposal. It was going to be a week without work, with largely little contact with the rest of the ship, and certainly nothing more exciting than feeding time for Phlox's menagerie. I wonder how I'm going to survive it.
"Thanks, Hosh. That's real...thoughtful of you." I set the PADD down next to me on the bed, and our little trio once again falls into silence. Time seems to drag on as I can feel their worried gazes on me, but still nobody speaks. I don't know how long we spend sitting there before the doors to sickbay opens, and a pair of footsteps sound moving towards my bed.
"Hoshi. Travis. Good to see you in here, but could we steal the Commander for a few minutes?"
I recognize Captain Archer's voice immediately, but instead of feeling relief that he returned, I'm suddenly put on guard by the undertones of concern and frustration that I hear. My bed is restored to normal as Hoshi rises.
"We'll come see you later, Commander,"Travis says, and squeezes my shoulder again before there's a rustling of fabric that is presumably him getting to his feet.
"Get some rest,"Hoshi adds, then I hear them move away, sickbay doors opening, and closing, theoretically with them on the other side.
A weight settles next to me, and a loud scraping sound is heard as the Captain's companion drags a chair over.
"How're you feeling, Trip?" He's trying way too hard to appear casual, but I see through his disguise rather quickly. Well, I don't actually "see" through it. It's one of those figures of speech that I'm going to have to make an effort to stop using. I can just tell he's upset or concerned about something. I tell him so.
"Cap'n, I know you didn't come here to ask me how I'm doing." I pause, head tilting to the right for a moment. I sniff delicately; the scent of green tea winds its way into my nostrils. "Is that Malcolm with you?"
There's a brief hesitation, then the British officer speaks up with a hint of surprise in his voice. "It is. Can you see me, Trip?"
I snort sarcastically. I don't want to make him feel bad, but it's such a ridiculous question I can't help it. If I could see, does he really expect me to be lying in this bed? I would be out of here so fast I'd be entering Engineering by the time the biobed registered that I was gone. "No, Mal. I used my powerful means of deduction. Now what's goin' on? The truth, if you'd be so kind."
I ordinarily wouldn't have spoken to either of them in such a manner, but this damn condition is shortening my fuse every second that I sit here, staring blindly into space. Though it goes largely without saying, ordinarily the Captain would've reprimanded me for such rudeness. But it seems he has more patience for me when he knows I couldn't find the lav with written directions and a map.
"Trip, we were just down in Engineering."
My previous sarcasm is forgotten and I sit up straighter in bed, suddenly terrified of what he is going to say next. "Is everything all right? What's going on? Jesus, I should be down there!"
A hand closes around my wrist. "You're not going anywhere, Commander." I immediately deflate into my pillow. The Captain feels it necessary to remind me of my rank every so often, whenever I seem to forget that he's the Captain and I'm not. It's like he's telling me that even though I can't see anything, I still have to follow his orders. It's a nasty trick he pulls on me sometimes, whenever he knows I'm beyond reasoning between friends. "There's nothing the matter. At least, nothing with the engines."
My eyes narrow of their own accord. I don't like what he's insinuating, but at this point, I know better than to be snarky. I say nothing, waiting with the pretense of patience for him to continue.
"We were speaking with Rostov." Malcolm picks up on the conversation thread, and I turn to face him, as fruitless as the exercise is. "He says he was working with you before the 'accident.'"
I can hear the air quotations around the word accident, but I know Malcolm too well to picture him miming the gesture. If at all possible, I grow even more suspicious. "Yeah, that's right. He asked for my help with the manifold assembly."
A sudden memory comes to the front of my mind unbidden, the image of Lizzie blowing a kiss at me through the camera lens, and I jerk with the force of it. It's a bizarre sort of flashback; I can almost feel the wetness of tears on my cheek, the tinniness of Rostov's voice coming from the comm panel next to my terminal.
"Commander? Are you all right?"
A different voice speaks up from my right, one that I recognize as Phlox's after a moment of thought. The memory of seeing and listening to Lizzie's message has shaken me up, and I clench my hand around the sheets pooled at my waist to hide their trembling. "Uh, fine. You were sayin', Cap'n?"
Somebody sighs, and I'm suddenly concerned by the fact that I don't hear Phlox move away. Whatever they were talking to Rostov about couldn't be good if the doc was still here. Captain Archer resumes.
"He says you were using a plasma torch..." He trails off, and I picture him pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers, a little tick he has whenever he's stressed. I frown, but before I can say anything, he bursts out, "He said you weren't wearing safety equipment, Trip. He said that you ignored him when he tried to remind you, and that he watched you deliberately increase the intensity of the torch. He said that you would have had to remove the safety protocols to make a flame large enough to overload the thing."
The silence that falls over sickbay is deafening. I sit there for a long minute, my mouth pressed into a thin bloodless line. He thinks I did this to myself? He thinks that I intentionally overloaded a plasma torch, knowing full well what it would do to me, and possibly the warp core? What the hell kind of officer does he think I am? I don't really know what to say. I feel intensely betrayed to learn that he would make such assumptions about me without hearing what I had to say, even after knowing me for so long. That he would belittle my dedication to this mission so thoroughly by implying I was putting it in danger by trying to commit suicide.
"You saying you believe I tried to off myself?" I'm being crude, and the iciness that has leaked into my voice makes it sound like someone else's. But I don't care on either count. It hurts that the Captain would think so little of me, that hurt overwhelms me, ignites a fire deep within my being. And suddenly nothing seems more important than transferring that hurt to others. "You think I would risk the whole fucking ship like that?"
"Trip, I-"
"No, you don't need to explain. You obviously don't think very much of me if you would take the word of an ensign over your best friend."
Malcolm obviously thinks of himself as the voice of reason, because he breaks in saying, "We didn't believe him, Trip. So I checked the security cameras. Everything Rostov said is backed by that data."
My mouth hangs open. Truth is I don't know what to say. It all seems so ridiculous, to think I would have such blatant disregard for my own well-being. But despite my anger and indignation about the whole thing, I can remember taking the torch from Rostov without putting on goggles, or a face shield, or a pair of gloves, any of which would've limited the damage I find myself dealing with now. I can't remember, however, erasing the safety protocols, and overloading the torch myself. Certainly I couldn't be that stupid. But Malcolm says they have the proof on tape. And he's never given me a reason to doubt him, or even suspect him of lying. I'm not even sure he's capable of it. So that leaves me with one question: What the hell was I doing?
"I...I'm not suicidal, Cap'n. I don't want to die." My words are wavering slightly, but I know I can't afford to take the minute it would take to calm myself. "I can't explain why I did what I did, but I wasn't trying to kill myself."
I sit up in the bed, rising to my knees, and reaching with both hands to grab what I hope is the front of his uniform. "You've gotta believe me."
I feel his hands settle on my shoulders. "Trip, I've never had any siblings. I can't even imagine how much losing one would hurt. But if you were having trouble, if you were struggling, you could've come to me. To any of us."
I fall back onto my heels, with my hands still clenched around the thick material of his uniform. He doesn't believe me. He thinks I meant it. Of course, he has no reason to believe what I'm saying, besides his own belief in my strength of character. And if he thinks I'm suicidal, how much stock is he going to put in that? But doesn't he see the contradiction in his words? He knows how close I was to Lizzie, how badly I wanted someone to answer for her death. How could he turn his back on all that, and assume that I would, too?
"Isn't it possible that somebody tampered with the torch? Erased the safety protocols with the intention that it would overload?" It's far out in left field, I know, to think that someone onboard would be capable of such an act, and my tone lacks the conviction it would take to sway their belief in my direction. But I'm getting desperate; nothing seems more important than making sure these three people are confident in my mental state.
"We're checking it out. And rest assured, Trip, if that's the case, then we'll find out who did it." Malcolm's attempt to comfort me has the opposite effect.
"You don't think that will happen though, do you, Mal? You've already decided I'm a headcase." His silence speaks louder than any words could. "Answer me this, Malcolm. If I really wanted to kill myself, why would I want to take out everybody else with me? You know as well as I do that we're damn lucky that explosion didn't ignite the plasma stream, and blow us all to kingdom come. Why would I risk all my friends like that? Why wouldn't I just step out an airlock? Or raid Phlox's med cabinet? Or take away Chef's knives? There are a million ways to commit suicide that wouldn't risk anyone else."
Apparently, my words also have the opposite effect of what they were intended for.
"Do you think about that often, Commander?"
I'd forgotten the doctor was still there, but his question reignites everything that had been cooling inside me. "Sure I do, doc. In between organizing duty shifts, solving the thousand and one engineering problems on board this ship, making sure my people don't get bored out of their minds, and what little sleep I've managed to get, it's all I can think about. Goddamit! Do you all really think so little of me?"
My hands fall away from the Captain's uniform, and clench into fists so tight my impossibly short fingernails bite painfully into the palms of my hands. This is getting really out of hand. Intellectually, I know that I'm blowing everything out of proportion, that they're all actually on my side. But I'm really upset, and none of that is managing to get through the hurt.
A subtle alarm goes off above my head, likely an indicator of my runaway heartbeat.
"Captain, we'll have to conclude this another time. He's getting far too stressed."
"Damn right I am. You don't want me to wander off and kill myself, do you?" I've just crossed the line, and I know it. If they were wavering in their belief of my state of mind before, I'm sure that comment just cemented their concerns. I allow my eyes to close, and fall back against my pillow of my own accord. I can feel tears burning in the backs of my eyes at the sheer frustration of the whole conversation, and I turn on to my side to face away from them. Someone pulls the sheet out from underneath me, and covers me with it gently.
"Get some sleep, Trip. We'll talk about it later." I don't doubt that we will. But it's not going to change anything. I feel the Captain squeeze my foot gently, then the two of them move away slowly.
After a few minutes, Phlox speaks up next to me. "I trust I can leave you, Mr. Tucker?"
I sigh, but don't open my eyes. The threat of tears is still close, and I don't want to open the floodgates. If I start, I'm not sure I could stop. "I'm not going anywhere. I didn't mean that. I was just..."
I trail off, because I'm not entirely sure he believes me anymore, and I've lost the energy to continue anyways. He pats my shoulder, pulls the sheet around me a little tighter. I listen to him walk away, begin to tend to his animals. I'm more scared now than I was when I first woke up after the accident. But I'm not entirely sure it was an accident anymore. I mean, security cameras are real hard to tamper with, and who would want to do that anyway? And if I do on some level want to kill myself, (though the idea seems so ridiculous I can hardly even think it) what's to stop me from trying again? If I had no knowledge of overloading the torch earlier, at what point would I lose awareness of what I was doing? I pull the sheet tightly under my chin, but I know that sleep is a long ways away, if it will come at all.
...tbc...
