AN: Thanks to Exploded Pen (never meant for you to read what I was saying! ;) – I've used that laziness-excuse often enough myself… :P), Gammaent and Triptacular for reviewing! Feel free to do it again any time ;).

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Part Two

It was quite late on Enterprise, and Trip Tucker was restlessly turning from one side to the other in his bed, asleep and dreaming of giant spiders invading the ship. The spiders didn't really look like spiders, more like bats, but that didn't exactly matter to Trip as he frantically tried to find a way to stop the invasion.

After leaving Malcolm with Phlox in sickbay, Trip had gone to inform the Captain that his Armory Officer wouldn't be on duty for the next couple of days. Jon had been surprised, of course, and a little worried, but stated that it shouldn't be a problem to reschedule the duty roster, since at the moment there wasn't that much work to do in the Armory anyway. The cleaning up and the phase pistol inventory that had been planned would have to wait. Since Jon had seemed busy and not in the mood for a chat, Trip had returned to his quarters and had cleaned up a bit, trying to kill the time until Malcolm came out of surgery. When his quarters looked cleaner than they had since Malcolm had first come here to spend the night, Trip sat down at his terminal and skimmed through his paperwork, reading a few reports and writing one or two of his own. Finally, at 0030, three hours after he had brought Malcolm down to sickbay, the comm beeped, and Phlox told Trip that the operation was over, that everything had gone according to plan, and that Malcolm was still sleeping off the anesthesia. When Trip had asked if he could stop by, Phlox had reassured him that Malcolm was alright and had suggested that he get some sleep and stop by first thing tomorrow, when Malcolm would probably be awake. After a moment's hesitation, Trip had agreed, and thus he was now asleep in bed and despairing as the bat-spiders took over one deck after the other. In a last attempt to save the ship, he was currently trying to override the command codes so he could get access to the environment controls - someone, he couldn't remember who, had told him that the spiders wouldn't survive a temperature under minus five degrees - when suddenly a persistent beeping broke through his concentration.

What the hell? he thought. Fire alarm? I don't need that now!

He was just about to call up a control program that would show him where the fire had broken out, when the beeping got louder, and a voice mingled with the sound.

"...to Commander Tucker. Phlox to Commander Tucker."

Trip opened his eyes, momentarily disoriented. Hadn't he been in engineering just a moment ago, trying to hack into those damn environment controls? He rolled onto his back, and slowly reality came into focus again. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, cursing his vivid dream and thinking that maybe watching "Angry Red Planet" with Malcolm hadn't been such a grand idea after all. Even though he would never admit it to Malcolm, that movie was certainly one of the crappier scifi-horrors from the nineteen-sixties. All that hysteria about spider-bat-monsters...

"Phlox to Commander Tucker!" came a loud voice next to his left ear, startling him. He groped for the comm button. "Tucker here," he said.

"Ah, Commander. Finally." Phlox sounded relieved. "I am sorry to wake you, but I have to ask you to come down here and help me calm down Mr. Reed."

At that, Trip became wide awake in a second. "Why, what's the matter with him?"

"I'll explain when you're here. Please come here as quickly as you can. Phlox out."

The comm uttered a clicking sound as the connection was cut. Trip only sat there, stunned for a moment. Then he scrambled out of bed and pulled on his uniform, already opening the door while he was hopping on one foot, slipping on his second boot. Less than three minutes later he stepped into sickbay, and a scene of complete chaos unfolded before him.

Bright lights were blazing despite the nightly hour. Everything looked as always, except the area where the bio beds stood. Around the one nearest to the scanning unit lay several pieces of medical equipment and a pillow and blanket on the floor, looking as if someone had thrown them there. Next to the bio bed stood Phlox, a deep frown on his face. On the bio bed, there was Malcolm, and he seemed to be in a unique state of distress, struggling against Phlox's hands that were gripping his shoulders and keeping him from getting up.

"Doctor, I need to go to the armory!" he said, his tone carrying a desperate undertone. "This is an emergency situation!"

"No, Lieutenant," Phlox said, eternal patience in his voice. "Everything is alright. There is no one on the ship who shouldn't be there. You need to rest."

"Doctor, this is ridiculous!" Malcolm exclaimed, and with a quick movement squirmed out of Phlox's grip and tried to escape by sliding over the edge of the bio bed. In a few strides, Trip came up next to the bed and caught his partner by the shoulders.

"Whoa there, Mal," he said. "Ya need to stay in bed."

"Trip," Malcolm said, relief in his tone. "How's our status? Were you able to stop the Suliban?"

Thrown off track for a second, Trip shot Phlox a questioning look, and saw the doctor nodding frantically behind Malcolm's back. "Er... yeah," he said, looking back at Malcolm who was watching him tensely. "We... yeah, we did. No Suliban on Enterprise, Mal."

"What about those spider-creatures? Did you catch all of them?"

"What?" Trip shook his head. "Mal, what's the matter with you?"

"The spider-creatures! Did you get them all?" Malcolm looked at him with frustration written all over his face. "Did you? No, you didn't, of course you didn't... Doctor!" He turned back to Phlox. "You have to let me go to the Armory! I'm the bloody Security Officer, for God's sake, I can't be in sickbay when the Suliban are invading Enterprise!" Again he tried to slip past Phlox, and again the doctor caught him by the shoulders, pushing him back down on the bed.

"Everything's alright, Lieutenant," he said. "There are no Suliban on Enterprise."

He gave Malcolm a stern look, and Trip seized the short moment of silence to ask in a low voice, "Doc? What's the matter with him?"

Phlox looked up. "It's called Sundown Syndrome. From time to time it occurs after - oh no, stop right there!" He grabbed Malcolm by the arm and pushed him back onto the bed. "Stay in bed, Lieutenant!"

"Doctor, let me go!" Malcolm demanded, and tried to struggle against Phlox's grip. Trip reached out and put a hand on Malcolm's shoulder.

"It's okay, honey," he said. "Everything's alright. I told ya, we were able to stop the Suliban. There's no danger to Enterprise." Quietly, he added, "Please continue, doc."

"It can occur after general anesthesia. It's only temporary and does no harm to the patient - except that he might harm himself by trying to get up when he's not yet allowed to."

Trip looked down at his partner who had an almost panicky look on his face and was trying to get free of Phlox who still had Reed's shoulder's in a firm grip. He reached out and brushed a stray strand of hair out of Malcolm's forehead.

"It's okay, Mal. Everything's fine. Don't worry 'bout Enterprise."

His words, however, did not have the desired effect. Instead of calming down, Malcolm's face turned pale and his eyes widened. "You're one of them, aren't you?" he asked, and Trip frowned.

"One of who?"

"You too!" Malcolm exclaimed, looking over at Phlox. "You belong to them!" His gaze flew back and forth between Trip and Phlox, and Trip saw panic in Malcolm's grey eyes. Realizing what Malcolm was thinking, he winced inwardly.

"It's okay, Mal," he said, trying to sound convincing. "I'm no Suliban, and Phlox isn't, either. I'm as real as you can get. See?" And he pinched himself in the back of his hand, so Malcolm would see - even though a second later he realized that the gesture proved essentially nothing. Understandably, his partner paid the small but nonetheless quite painful gesture no attention, but broke away from Phlox's grip on his shoulders and in turn grabbed Trip's shoulders and shook him rather rudely.

"What have you done to Trip?" he yelled. "Tell me!"

Trip, who'd been taken by surprise by Malcolm's sudden movement, tried to retreat but stopped as he saw Malcolm almost lose his balance and fall off the bio bed.

"Now get a grip, Mal," he said, taking his partner by the wrists and trying to pry Reed's fingers loose from his shoulders. "I'm no Suliban, what gives you the idea?"

But Malcolm didn't seem to listen, he simply shook Trip so the engineer felt his teeth rattle inside his head. "What did you do to Trip, you bastard?"

Just as Trip decided that first of all, this was probably one of the strangest situations he'd ever been in and second, that Mal's fingers digging into his shoulders was really starting to hurt, Reed's grip was loosened and Malcolm was pulled back down on the bio bed.

"I am very sorry, Lieutenant," he heard Phlox say, "but I do not see any other option." With these words, the doctor quickly closed a padded cuff around Malcolm's right arm and fastened it to the bio bed. Bending over his patient, he did the same thing with the left arm. Malcolm didn't seem to like the confinement of his freedom and began to struggle, and Trip looked up at Phlox, glad that the doctor had freed him from Malcolm's death-grip, but on the other hand a little shocked by Phlox's actions.

"Doc, do you really think that's necessary?" he asked. "He'll calm down in a minute, I'm sure."

Phlox gave him a long look while he straightened his shirt. "I'm afraid not, Commander," he said. "This has been going on for over an hour now. I called you only when I had only two options left: either try and get someone who might be able to calm him down, or posey him."

"Posey him?" Trip asked.

"Well, do what I did now."

"Ah. And... you can't, ya know, give him somethin' to calm down?"

Phlox shook his head. "I do not want to sedate him so shortly after the anesthetic. It might have unwanted effects on his metabolism." Trip looked at the doctor rather unhappily, and Phlox continued, "You see, he's decided that we are Suliban. We can do whatever we want, he won't believe a word we say. And he absolutely must not get up at the moment. He's been moving around too much as it is."

Trip looked down at his partner, who had watched their exchange with a wary expression. As Malcolm noticed Trip looking at him, he gave him a spiteful look.

"You're not fooling me, you know," he said. Trip sighed.

"How temporary is this, doc?"

"As I said, it's Sundown Syndrome. It should be over in the morning."

"And you want to leave him tied up till then?" Trip asked, quite unhappy at the prospect. The doctor raised his eyebrows.

"Essentially yes. If he comes around before then, I will remove the restraints, of course. But I have to be absolutely sure that he's himself again. I can't have him sneaking out of sickbay in his current condition."

Trip nodded. Of course, he didn't like the sight of Malcolm tied to the bio bed and furtively pulling on the restraints, but on the other hand, he realized that Phlox knew what he was doing. You didn't have to be a doctor to see that right now, Malcolm getting up and chasing non-existent Suliban wouldn't be exactly conducive to his recovery. They would simply have to wait until this sundown-whatever-syndrome went away again. "Will he remember any of this?" he asked Phlox, and the doctor considered for a moment.

"Probably not. Most patients don't. And if, only traces of it."

Trip nodded. "I'll stay with him," he said, pulling up a chair.

"If you wish," Phlox said. "I'll be next door, continuing my opiate inventory. It seems like my Pyrithian bat stole some of the piritramide again. I have no idea how she gets into the locker, but it seems like she likes the color of the phials enough to get inventive. The phials are a fluorescing shade of pink, you know, and I have observed that Pyrithian bats seem to react to that color. I once found a whole of five phials in her cage, hidden underneath a leaf of salad I fed her the day before. It's most fascinating."

"Erm... it sure is," Trip said, deciding not to comment on this any further. He returned his attention to his partner instead, who was watching them with a suspicious expression. "Hey, Mal," he said. "Everything's just fine."

"Don't think you can fool me, Suliban" Malcolm spat, and Trip sighed, getting comfortable on the chair and preparing for a long night in sickbay.

TBC...

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