Reed felt like he was waking up for the first time in days. Or perhaps months.
He was unutterably weak and exhausted, but also strangely felt almost… good. At first, he wasn't quite sure what was different, and he lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to suss it out. And then it finally hit him. The headache which had been his constant companion since before he'd ever tried that damned spice was gone, and a whole part of his mind that had been entirely occupied by that continual pain was suddenly available to devote itself to other things.
Things like wondering when and how he'd gotten back to his quarters. The last thing he distinctly recalled was being in the Brig, not long after Phlox injected his experimental cure. Everything after that got pretty hazy. He remembered it just well enough to be certain that some things had happened. He remembered being sick… several times. He remembered being pained by bright lights and sudden or loud noises. He remembered losing his train of thought and sometimes idly staring at the wall and wondering how much time had passed since he'd last possessed a coherent thought. He remembered talking to Phlox, and to Captain Archer, though for the life of him he couldn't recall what about. It had seemed important at the time, but in his feverish state (he was pretty sure he'd had a fever), he could have developed any number of delusions.
Vaguely, he recalled Phlox saying that his fever had finally broken, and that he might get some real rest now. Somehow, between that statement and now, Reed had been relocated to his quarters. He wondered if he was locked in. He also wondered what was going on beyond that closed door. But, even if the door proved to be unlocked, Reed didn't feel as if he wanted to venture beyond and find out.
In point of fact, he didn't feel as if he would ever want to move again. Maybe he would just lie here and hope for the best. On second thought… maybe he would just go back to sleep.
Reed had almost achieved this when he felt a sense of responsibility prodding him. He was alive. He was conscious. He was capable of moving. He thus had a responsibility to ensure that the ship and crew were alright. It was his job to at least be aware of whether or not Enterprise was safe. He couldn't shirk that duty now just because he was a little tired. For all he knew, everyone else might be much worse off. Hell, they could all be dead and he wouldn't be able to tell from in here would he?
Okay, first thing was first. How did using his legs work again? Was he even capable of sitting up? If he couldn't get those questions answered satisfactorily, then he could just quit right now.
After a bit of experimentation, Reed discovered he did have not only feeling, but also control of his limbs. After that, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of his bed was no problem. Then came the hard part, which was actually standing. He'd discovered in sitting up that he was light-headed and got dizzy at the slightest movement, both warning signs that maybe he should just lie down. But the warning signs were insufficient, and after sitting and breathing for several minutes to gather his nerve and strength, Reed gave a better than fair shot at standing up.
He actually succeeded… but not for long, as his legs shortly collapsed under him and he fell quite gracelessly onto the floor, where he floundered about like a beached jellyfish.
In a genuinely rational state of mind, that would have been all the proof Reed needed that he really wasn't up for this particular undertaking, which was going to require him to not only stand, but actually walk around some. But, though his head was clear of the ache, his mind was anything but fully functional. He'd only just woken up from a fever, hadn't had any decent sleep in weeks and, for that matter, hadn't eaten anything in several days… or stood up under his own power. His mind was confused and his body wasn't really sure what he wanted it to do.
But he decided that he would not go back to bed. He'd make it over to the chair at his desk. He wasn't sure what he'd do from there, but since he was facing the chair, it became the obtainable goal.
Fortunately for him, his quarters were only a very few meters across, and he managed to get up again and sort of fall his way into his desk chair. That accomplished, he turned on his monitor, before realizing he didn't actually know what he'd done that for. Exactly what information did he want to look at?
Now he'd gotten all the way across the room, the only thing Reed wanted was to go back to bed. But now his bed was so far away… he spent uncountable minutes pondering the problem before the chime and subsequent opening of the door to his quarters made him jump.
"Ah, you're awake," Phlox said, smiling benignly as he entered the room.
"So I am," Reed agreed, "What..." he faltered, looking for the rest of that question for a good few seconds while Phlox waited patiently, "What's the current situation?"
"Most of the crew is violently ill," Phlox replied, practically beaming with delight.
It took Reed quite a few moments before he could determine why that particular report should be so pleasing. Then it finally struck him. They were sick. That was great news… assuming it meant what Reed believed it did, and he had no reason to doubt it from Phlox's expression.
"Most of them?" Reed asked, for even his feebly struggling mind could recognize that 'most' and 'all' were different words and, in this case, the disparity might matter a very great deal.
"Well, after it was clear you were on the way to recovery, it was necessary to do further testing. As I predicted, your body has developed a means of recognizing and fending off the parasites far more effectively than any cure I could have designed in the same amount of time. Using that as the basis for a new version of the cure, I gave that to Captain Archer and Commander Tucker. The number of parasites in their systems proved overwhelming, necessitating a combination of the original cure, plus the newly developed one."
Reed just sort of stared. He wasn't following a word of this.
"When that proved effective," Phlox continued, "I immediately began synthesizing more. I neglected to tell Subcommander T'Pol that illness was an expected side effect. I didn't want her to spread out the medical appointments too greatly and risk having the crew divide itself in two. Captain Archer and Commander Tucker are doing quite well, by human standards. T'Pol and I recovered within seventy-two hours of our injections."
Of course they did.
"I expect everyone on board to be making full recoveries in short order. But, for the moment, the majority of the ship is functioning as a hospital. It was simply impractical to do anything but send all of my patients to their rooms, and to bed. Speaking of which..." he gave a significant look in the direction of Reed's so recently vacated bed.
"No," Reed objected, "If most of the crew is down, then I should be at my post."
"I'd have to see you make it across the room unassisted first," Phlox replied dryly.
Reed sighed, "Point made, Doctor."
Phlox smiled in that particularly smug way of his, and helped Reed back to bed.
The next few days were marked by severe inefficiency and a quiet, all pervasive sense of embarrassment. Everyone felt just a little bit ashamed of themselves, but the fact that they'd all been willing participants made it difficult to figure out who they should be apologizing to.
All except for Reed. It seemed everyone on the ship wanted to find a time to say they were sorry to him. They were sorry for ill thoughts they'd had, rude suggestions they'd made, for ignoring and avoiding him, for abandoning him to run the Armory by himself, for taking apart the Armory… it was a never ending list, one Reed quickly felt he'd had enough of.
Nobody had been themselves, so they had nothing to apologize for as far as Reed was concerned. Besides, he'd been happier not even knowing what some of them had to be sorry for. It was entirely too much attention being paid to him for his comfort, and entirely too many apologies that weren't earned.
Even worse was the typical Star Fleet curiosity. Everyone wanted to know exactly what had happened. When Reed had realized something was amiss, what measures he'd taken to try to fix it, how he'd finally found the cure. Just talking about it made Reed feel pretty stupid, especially when he talked to people like Souci, who had a large base knowledge of biology. She and people like her would begin to talk about how they would have conducted their research and the assumptions they would have made. All well and good, if they'd been there to make them. But they hadn't. And Reed hadn't suddenly gotten a degree in any of the biological sciences in the last few weeks either.
At least Subcommander T'Pol had suffered a severe attack of no curiosity or apparent guilt. Reed wasn't sure if he could've taken her coldly and logically picking apart every decision he'd made. And he was quite certain he didn't want to hear sorry from her. Bad enough to have heard it from the Captain, who also hadn't owed Reed anything. But fortunately T'Pol's supremely Vulcan mindset seemed to keep her conscience clear and allowed her to realize that she had not be responsible for her own behavior. Such a realization was probably a little too intimidating for the humans among them.
It was easier to deal with the guilt and shame than it was to face the reality that their minds and bodies had been completely taken over and they hadn't even realized it. So Reed put up with the apologies, even though he didn't want them and they made him feel awkward, because they seemed to be making everyone else feel better. And the better they all felt, the sooner Enterprise would be back to normal.
Of course, in the meantime, life went on.
Because he had been the first to be cured, Reed was among the first to recover sufficiently to start putting the ship right. In fact, Phlox allowed him to go back to work sooner than would normally be the case simply because maintaining the ship was essential to not dying, something they were all fairly keen on. Still, Phlox warned him severely not to overexert himself. A warning Reed flagrantly ignored.
He began work in the Armory, which had been virtually gutted.
The control panels had been opened up and their innards ripped out. Engineer's tools littered the floor along with chips, wires and bits of conduit. Thank God they hadn't gotten to the torpedoes yet, though unfortunately they had taken the launchers apart. Even as things stood now, it would be weeks before the Armory was back in working order. Longer if Reed had to do most of it by himself. The Engineering and Armory crews had been quite busy down here.
Reed had no intention of leaving the Armory until he at least got one phase cannon put back together. Right now, Enterprise was helplessly floating above a planet full of technologically advanced people who might want to blow her out of the sky if at any point they realized that the crew on board was no longer part of the mushroom cult.
Slowly, as Reed worked, personnel began reporting in and doing all that apologizing. He saw little or nothing of Archer or T'Pol, but heard they were essentially back on duty on the Bridge. Neither of them bothered him. They knew where he was if they needed him, but otherwise he had nothing to say to them at the moment. Too much work to do.
At one point he looked up from screwing one of the torpedo launchers back together and was surprised to find Travis standing there, looking lost and uncomfortable. His heart sank. Not only didn't he want to hear another awkward, "I'm sorry," Reed remembered with sharp clarity the fact that Travis had been down on the Dolizet homeworld with him. Travis had seen him and Commander Tucker fight. At the time, Travis had been slipping, the parasites gaining more control over him. He might have been there the night Reed was attacked. It was something Reed had tried desperately not to speculate on.
The truth was, he didn't want to know who had assaulted him. He didn't want to deal with the possible repercussions. Didn't want the responsibility of having been the senior officer some ensigns and crewmen got their careers ended by when it wasn't really their doing.
"Um… Lieutenant… I…" Travis shifted nervously, looking everywhere but at Reed, "Sir, I just thought I… well… I feel like I should..."
"Don't just stand there stammering," Reed interrupted sharply, making Travis jump, "Grab a tool kit and help me put this Armory back in order. I have no interest in your feelings."
For a moment, Travis continued to look worried and uncertain. Reed just stared back at him levelly. Finally, it dawned on the young ensign what wasn't being said. If the apology was unspoken, the forgiveness could likewise be offered without a word, and neither of them had to face the potential ramifications of the incident. They could just put it behind them.
"Yes sir," Travis said finally.
They each breathed their own sigh of relief, and got to work.