Thanks for your reviews and comments. It's wonderful to know that people are reading this.

x-x

Trip dozed on the grass, head pillowed in his palms as he enjoyed the feel of the sunlight. It felt like years since he'd simply sat in the sun. And it had been, really, since he'd...

He almost had it - there was a ship, but not an ocean-type ship...he wasn't sure. Something...he'd forgotten, but he knew that his normal state of being did not entail lying on the grass, basking in the sun, ocean breezes, carnivals, or cricket games. He felt like it was just out of reach.

Maybe if he focused, forgetting about the sun, and the grass, and the ocean, it would come back to him. Someone had once tried to teach him meditation, and he slipped into some of those techniques, focusing on his breathing, trying to center his thoughts on what he was forgetting without actually focusing on it, just letting his mind gently trace the outline.

A star ship.

Right, right, Trip thought, trying not to think to hard and chance the memory away. There had been a starship. He knew Malcolm from the ship. He tried to focus on that memory, swirling it gently in his mind, and cautiously probed it further. The ship, Enterprise. Right, right.

The rest came back in a rush. There had been a planet, and a device, a ferris wheel, then the cricket, and the Gulf, and...

And his sister was dead.

x-x

Trip came to himself in a rush, his head pounding, nausea making his gut roil in protest. He heard people talking and he groaned, the noise making his headache worse. He heard Malcolm's voice, and Archer's, and - his eyes flashed open. His own. He'd heard his own voice and suddenly he was fully awake.

"What?" he spat, looking around the too-bright room through his squint. He was in sickbay, sitting upright on the biobed, and there was someone standing in front of him.

"Trip?" came Archer's voice, and Trip blinked hard, clearing his vision.

"Yeah, who else," he muttered grumpily. He took in Archer's worried expression, and he took a breath, trying to calm himself through his confusion. He could see Malcolm across the room, sitting on another bed with his back to him, but he directed his questions to Archer. "What's happening? Who were you talking to?"

"When?" Archer replied, obviously puzzled, nodding distractedly when Phlox moved in beside him.

"Just now," Trip said, watching Phlox warily as the doctor began taking readings of him. "Who were you talking to?"

"You, Trip," Archer replied carefully, with a meaningful glance to the doctor.

Trip blinked, filing that one away for later. He didn't remember talking. He'd heard himself, though, but he didn't -

Archer interrupted his thoughts, asking, "What do you remember?"

Trip remembered everything now: Enterprise, his sister, the planet. There had been an odd ferris wheely thing, and he remembered touching it, and, "Oh," he said aloud. "How long has it been since we came back from the planet?"

"Three days," Archer said.

"And the Xindi?"

Archer shook his head. "Hoshi mentioned you'd thought..."

"But the signature," Trip said, leaning forward on the bed, his hands clenching its edge.

"We analysed the data. There was no Xindi signature."

Trip's words tumbled out in a rush. "But we saw - What about the ferris wheel? And the cricket?"

Phlox lowered his scanner. "You saw insects?"

"Oh," Trip said, deflating. "No. Something else." His brow knit. "What happened?"

"You and Malcolm touched the device," Archer explained in the voice Trip normally liked to think of as his "calming the crazy aliens voice". "You stood there for a few seconds before Hoshi pulled you away. Then you both collapsed."

"We passed out?" Trip asked.

Phlox shook his head. "Ensign Sato said you were both conscious and responsive."

"You've been conscious the entire time," Archer added. "Just not quite yourself."

"Perhaps what you saw," Phlox added. "The ferris wheel, the crickets - were an effect of the device you touched? Hallucinations, or..."

But Trip was not listening. He'd been conscious this entire time, and talking? He didn't remember any of that. What he did remember didn't seem like an hallucination, or a dream. It seemed real.

That Xindi signature certainly had seemed real. Although his sister...God, how could he have forgotten that she'd died? Or Enterprise, he'd forgotten that entirely. How could he have forgotten things that were so central to his life?

Lost in thought, Trip lay down on the bed, on his side, curling in on himself. He barely heard Archer leave, didn't acknowledge Phlox when he said something, scarcely noticed the lights dim and the sounds of sickbay move from daytime rustle to the relative peace of night.

Trip woke sometime later, the dim light of sickbay filtering through his eyelids. Someone had draped a blanket across him in the night, and he pulled it in tighter.

Nothing about this made any sense.

Someone moved near him, and he opened his eyes to see Malcolm standing beside his bed, in scrubs, his hair in disarray, dark circles under his eyes.

"Sorry to wake you," Malcolm said quietly, sinking into the chair next to his bed.

"You didn't," Trip replied in an equally soft voice. "You look like shit."

"As do you," Malcolm said with half a smile.

"I suppose you have me to thank for that," Trip said sombrely, pushing himself to sitting, but keeping the blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

"Not your fault," Malcolm said, suddenly completely serious.

They stared at each other for a moment. Finally, Trip asked, "Do you remember?"

Malcolm shook his head. "Not as they tell me I should. Although I remember you making me touch the device." He hesitated a moment, then leaned forward in the chair, arms resting on his knees. "I remember the big wheel," he said, his face showing his confusion. "And candy floss."

"And cricket," Trip added.

Malcolm nodded. "And grass."

"The ocean." Trip smiled for a second, remembering. "So, not a dream."

"No, I'd think not."

"And the last three days?"

"It's as if I just woke up today," Malcolm said, leaning back in his chair. "Although, from what the captain and Phlox are saying, it seems we were 'awake' the entire time, and talking."

"Spooky."

"To say the least."

"Wonder what I said?" Trip asked, a smile ghosting across his face for a brief moment. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders, bunching it up in both hands as he held it closed in front of him. "I'm afraid I kind of freaked out all over the captain earlier," he said, wincing at the memory.

"I'm sure he understood,"

Trip pulled the blanket away, then lay back with it over him. "Phlox thought I saw crickets."

"Can't be worse than seeing a non-existent match, can it?"

"Suppose not."

"I'll explain the difference to him," Malcolm said, stepping to a nearby biobed.

As Malcolm pulled aside the covers and made to get in, Trip said, "Maybe you should wait a bit."

"Hmm?" Malcolm replied, hopping up onto the mattress.

"Probably make him think you're even more nuts."

"There is that."

"Ah-yup." Trip watched as Malcolm lay down and pulled up the blankets. As his friend closed his eyes, he shot across, "Night, John-Boy."

"Night, Bobby-Sue."

"Bobby-Sue?" Trip asked, chuckling. "Was that even a 'Waltons' character?"

"No idea."

"Obviously."

"Not as if I've seen the show," Malcolm added drowsily. "Didn't exactly play in England." He yawned hugely. "Or Malaysia."

"So, how do you even know about their whole end-of-show spiel? No. Wait. How do you even know that it's a show?" Trip cut himself off when Malcolm shrugged. Dryly, he added, "And yet you expect me to understand cricket."

Malcolm simply sighed and rolled away from Trip.

Trip smiled and closed his eyes.

x-x

Please review and let me know what you think so far! Thanks.