A/N: Thanks for all the lovely comments! Forgive me if I don't address some of your questions, but I don't want to give anything away. (Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.) Everything will become clear (pardon the pun) in the next couple of chapters.

CHAPTER 3

Malcolm could deal with the pain of his physical injuries. He was also accustomed to working through his bouts of guilt and depression after things went wrong. But all that paled in comparison to the difficulty of coping with not being able to see.

Some of the simplest things were now beyond his ability. He'd never realized how much he'd taken his sight for granted. As the week in sickbay dragged on, he begrudged the time it took for his eyes to heal, and he kept telling himself it was only a temporary condition.

Each morning he experienced a panicky confusion when he woke to find himself in darkness. It would take a moment or two for him to remember where he was, although he thought part of that was the result of the painkillers clouding his thinking. Then he had to make a conscious effort to be aware of which direction he was facing -- was he lying on his left side on the biobed, or on his right? -- because only then could he be reasonably certain of where things were around him.

Eating was especially frustrating. As a matter of pride, he had refused being fed by anyone else. He could eat a sandwich or pick up a mug of soup to drink its contents without too much fuss. But anything that required utensils, such as using a knife to cut a piece of meat, was an exercise in precision as well as a test of his patience. He'd lost count of how many times he'd raised a fork to his mouth only to find there was nothing on it. And more than once he'd accidentally tipped over his drinking glass.

That wasn't half as embarrassing, however, as the first time Phlox had helped him to the bathroom. Needing someone to assist him with basic bodily functions made him realize how helpless he was without sight.

The second time he needed to use the bathroom, he counted the number of steps from the biobed to the door as Phlox guided him. After persuading the doctor to wait outside, Malcolm familiarized himself with the location of the sink, stool, and shower. Later the same day, after some practice walking back and forth, he found that if he wasn't distracted en route, he could make it to the bathroom and back by himself.

Dressing was no easy task, either. Malcolm was wearing sickbay pajamas, but Phlox insisted he change to a fresh pair every day. The pants weren't difficult to put on, as they were of the simple drawstring variety, but the shirt was another matter. It had five buttons down the front. If he didn't get the sides lined up properly, the shirt wound up with either an unused button or buttonhole at the bottom. After some experimentation, he learned that it was more efficient to start at the bottom, lining up the two sides and buttoning his way up, instead of the other way around.

But the data padd presented the greatest challenge. He would, depending on his mood, bless Hoshi or curse her as he worked at accessing the information. When he finally managed to open some of the novels she'd downloaded onto it, his sense of accomplishment was as great as if he'd scaled a difficult mountain.

At the back of his mind, however, he knew that if he didn't have the padd to keep him occupied, he'd be brooding. Despite Phlox's assurances that his vision would be restored, there was a niggling worry that wouldn't go away. There was a chance he would be blind for the rest of his life.

Visitors were a welcome distraction from his gloomy brooding. There was Trip, of course, who came to see him every day. Hoshi and Travis were frequent visitors as well. The captain even stopped by a time or two. Malcolm wouldn't have put it past Phlox to have set up a rotating schedule, because his visitors always seemed to arrive with one of his meals.

"...and then T'Pol gave Trip one of those looks. ... Malcolm? Did you hear what I said?"

Malcolm turned his head toward where Travis was seated in a chair next to the bed. "Sorry. I was thinking about something. You were saying?"

"I was talking about T'Pol's reaction to Trip wearing one of his Hawaiian shirts when he was off duty and he came to the bridge to check on something."

Malcolm remained mute, his thoughts drifting again. The last time Trip had been to sickbay, the engineer had told him the repair work to the port phase cannon compartment had been completed. Unfortunately, they didn't have the components to construct another cannon. That would have to wait until they returned to Jupiter Station, but he didn't know when that would be. He should have asked the captain when he was here earlier. In the meantime, they'd have to get by with the torpedoes and the starboard and aft cannons--

He jumped when something touched his arm.

"You okay, Malcolm?"

Malcolm nodded. "I'm sorry, Travis. I did it again. I guess I'm not very good company tonight."

"I didn't mean to scare you," Travis said. "But I said your name several times and you didn't respond. It's kinda hard to tell if you heard me with the..."

When Travis didn't continue, Malcolm asked, "With the what?"

"Oh!" Travis said. He added awkwardly, "Sorry. I pointed toward your bandages. I forgot you couldn't see me do that."

"Don't worry about it," Malcolm said. "Besides, you didn't scare me. You merely startled me."

A low chuckle came from Travis. "If you say so."

"I do."

"Are you two practicing marriage vows?" came Hoshi's voice from the other side of his bed.

Malcolm jumped again. When had Hoshi come in? He felt his face begin to flush, not so much from her teasing, but that she'd entered sickbay without him being aware of it. Then again, he had been so lost in his thoughts that he'd blocked out Travis talking, and the helmsman was sitting right next to his biobed. The thought crossed his mind that he ought to be careful what he said about people -- he might not know who had skulked in and was listening.

Trying to cover his chagrin, Malcolm said in mock horror, "Travis and I exchange wedding vows? Heaven forbid! I think I can do better than him."

A snort came from Travis' direction.

"How are you doing on accessing the data padd?" Hoshi asked.

"Rather well, actually," Malcolm replied smugly. "I've gotten into almost everything except the James Bond novelization."

"Really?" Her one-word reply spoke volumes.

"Give me that thing," he said, gesturing in the direction of the bedside table where he'd put the padd when Travis had come in.

A moment later, the data padd was placed in his outstretched left hand. With the fingers of his right hand, he traced the edge of the padd. She'd handed it to him upside down, he realized. Turning it around, he found the power switch and turned it on. Then with uncanny accuracy, his fingers found the proper keys to activate the selection playback. He pressed the keys and pulled out the earphone plug, allowing the padd's external speaker to work.

"... Rupert had just left when the telephone rang. The shrill jingle grated on his already raw nerves, almost causing him to drop his whiskey..."

Malcolm turned off the device, and Hoshi said, "Very good."

"I'm impressed," said Travis. "I don't think I could have figured out how to work that in just a few days like you did."

"It's just a matter of remembering where the keys are, instead of looking to see where they are," Malcolm explained. "And it helped that I've used padds before. It wasn't like I was starting from scratch."

"In any case, you did very well," Hoshi said. "I bet you're looking forward to getting the bandages off tomorrow."

"You have no idea," Malcolm muttered. "Phlox has been very restrictive about what he will allow me to do."

"He probably just doesn't want you running into anything again," said Travis.

Malcolm was beginning to feel like he was a spectator at a tennis match, swinging his head back and forth from Hoshi on one side of his biobed to Travis on the other. But instead of watching, he was listening.

"Heard about that, did you?" Malcolm asked, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks again.

His run-in with the Pyrithian bat hadn't been his fault. If Phlox hadn't moved the bat's cage from its usual location to the countertop along which he trailed his fingers to help lead him toward the bathroom, he wouldn't have knocked into it. The ear-splitting shriek the bat had made when its cage had hit the deck had made him wonder if his hearing was going to be permanently impaired.

"It was an accident," Hoshi said soothingly.

"Yeah," Travis put in. "Phlox of all people should know better than to rearrange things around a blind person."

There was an awkward silence. Malcolm could imagine Hoshi giving Travis a reproving look for his choice of words. And truthfully, Malcolm couldn't be upset with Travis. For all intents and purposes, right now he was blind.

"We'll know tomorrow whether I'll be able to see," Malcolm said quietly. "Hopefully, I will be back among the sighted. Then I won't have to worry about where Phlox puts anything."