After making calls to the families - it was a strange stroke of black luck that all three dead crew members had been from just two adjacent time zones- Archer was too wound up to sleep.

He rolled over fitfully, tipping a reproachful Porthos onto the floor.

Two of the three had been only children, as well. Archer especially hated calls like that.

There was no point calling the Reeds yet. For a start it was the middle of the night in Malaysia.

And he had nothing to tell them.

And he kind of hated them.

It was no good. Sleep wasn't happening. With a sigh, he sat up, and pulled his boots back on, and went back up to the bridge, almost crashing into T'Pol after rubbing his eyes at the wrong moment.

"T'Pol! Are you all right?!"

She tilted her head curiously. "Yes. We did not actually collide. "

Archer shook his head. "That's not what I...hey, should you be carrying that?"

"It is a standard maintenance case," T'Pol replied incredulously. "It weighs 4kg."

"Well, sure. But in your condition..."

T'Pol's lips thinned. "Captain, my 'condition' is none of your concern and will not affect my performance of my duties, INCLUDING the carriage of insignificant weights and... You are just messing with me, aren't you?"

Archer smiled brightly. "That's your punishment for not telling me earlier. Congratulations."

"Hmmm" T'Pol replied nonchalantly, but a small smile ghosted her lips.

"Jonathan is an excellent name, you know..." Archer continued.

T'Pol frowned. "On Vulcan, Jn'a'thaan means a 'steaming pile of Selat excrement', Captain."

Archer blinked. "Really?"

T'Pol raised her eyebrows and moved away without answering.

Archer then turned to the communications station, his amused smile freezing when he saw Baird was manning it. Steeling himself, he approached regardless.

"Crewman Baird, is there any news from her?"

Baird blinked. "From who?"

"From Dr Harper," Archer replied, lowering his voice.

Braid furrowed his brow in confusion. "ALICE Harper?"

"Yes," Archer replied, after inwardly counting to five. "Dr Alice Harper. Red-hair, Scottish, sewed your thumb back on that time? That Dr Harper."

"Oh! No sir! She's AWOL," Baird answered helpfully, turning his attention back to his console.

Archer pressed his lips together. "I know she's AWOL. But has she sent any news?"

Baird's puzzled expression returned. "Why would she send news if she's AWOL? We did detect another explosion near the edge of the Capital city...?"

"Near the Hospital?" Archer asked, alarmed.

"What hospital?"

"Baird! For the love of..." Archer praised for a deep breath, then continued. "Alice Harper, of the red hair of and the thumb surgery, went AWOL in order to give brain surgery to Lieutenant Reed. Our Lieutenant Reed. The English one who sits over there. Has Dr Harper sent any news about how that surgery went?"

Enlightenment dawned. "Oh! Right, I see, sir. No sir."

Archer's shoulders sagged. "That's probably not good, is it?"

"Why, sir?"

Blue Ocean, Archer thought to himself. Soft waves. "Because, Crewman, if it was good news we might have expected to have heard by now. That we haven't suggests the surgery might have gone badly, yes?"

"No, sir. It went fine, sir. We got a message saying that surgery went well."

Archer's eyes widened. Golden Cornfield, he thought. Cool rainforest. "Then, why didn't you tell me that?"

"Because you didn't ask, sir. You only asked about messages from Dr Harper. This message was from Crewman Cutler. But it says that that Dr Harper contacted her to say the surgery went well. So I don't think it's probably a bad sign we haven't heard from Dr Harper."

Archer massaged the bridge of his nose. "How old are you, Baird?"

"21, sir."

"So you were 17 when you joined Enterprise, were you?"

Baird beamed back at Archer, unsuspectingly "Yes, sir! I'm a prodigy, sir."

"That's nice," Archer replied, still smiling tightly. "You aren't, by any chance, related to someone high up at Star Fleet, are you, Baird?"

"No, sir. Well, except for Admiral Gardiner. He's my uncle sir."

Archer nodded. "Yep, that seems about right."

When Liz had found herself perturbed in the extreme by the communal sleeping units for Palayjah's building, her host had located a quiet storage room, and sufficient soft furnishings to fashion a passable bed.

It was all in vain, of course.

"How am I supposed to sleep?" she asked the darkness. "I'm stranded on a planet and probably infected with a genocidal virus."

"It could be a bacteria..."

It was Phlox, not the darkness who answered her. She hadn't heard him come in. Perhaps she had slept briefly after all.

"...or a Protozoa, a parasite, even a contagious cell line, I suppose," he continued. "Those are rare, but we already suspect this pathogen can affect the immune system so, who knows?"

Liz sat up and struggled to make out his form in the darkness. "Are you alright?"

"No, my dear. I do not think I could rightly say that I am. There is widespread panic out there, since the news waves announced the infertility aspects of this plague. People are fleeing their homes, others are taking to the streets and being met by armed militia. Street preachers are decrying this as the end of days. Pundits are blaming the Coalition, and aliens generally, and every scrap of social progress made in the last hundred years. I am home, but I do not recognise it, and that is worse than being away could ever be. And I'm so sorry, Elizabeth, for bringing you here."

Liz found him in the darkness. "Well, I'm NOT sorry."

She felt rather than really saw Phlox's head shake heavily. "You do not need to lie to spare me guilt."

"I'm not," Liz insisted. "I'm glad I can be here for you. That I can help, maybe. I'm sure things will seem brighter soon. Optimism, right? Isn't that what you always say?"

"Optimism," Phlox mused. "Perhaps I shall say that no longer."

Waking up had been a very bad idea.

It had been a very bad idea last time as well.

THAT time he had woken up in a ruined shuttle craft, absolutely EVERYTHING had hurt like hell, and, he had learned - after an incredibly difficult and incredibly painful crawl to the shuttle hatch - absolutely everyone else was dead.

THIS time, absolutely everything STILL hurt like hell, although in that strange numb way that suggested he was on some sort of pain-killer. And he was definitely going to vomit repeatedly in the next minute or two - which was sure to make absolutely everything hurt worse. And there were two very young Denobulans staring down at him.

Then things got worse. They started talking.

"Hello! I'm Vax and this is Messop. We're medical students! We did your brain surgery!"

Waking up. Bad idea.

"It was the first time we've ever done brain surgery! It was really exciting! This was HUGE for us. HUGE!"

Very bad idea.

"Oh, don't worry. We had help."

Slightly better?

"From Axis," one of the cheerful apparent teenagers chirped.

"I think it's Ellix," suggested the other. "Or Alrox? We don't know. She said it really, really, fast."

"She says a lot of things really, really fast," the first agreed. "But she's a pretty good teacher. She let me drill in your skull!"

"And I got to be in charge of your whole anesthesia! I'm not even out of med school! Oh I should probably ask... Are you in any pain right now? Only don't try to talk, because you probably can't."

Malcolm was really looking forward to vomiting on them in a few minutes time.

"Maybe the translator isn't working? I mean how would we know?"

"Probably best to assume it is," the other answered. "Anyway, I'm sure even if he can't understand us that our voices would be soothing. Right?"

"Good point! You're a great learning partner, by the way, Messop."

"Aww, you too, Vax. I can't wait to tell all my parents about this."

"Me too! Anyway, Malcolm is it? That's a weird name. Malcolm- so don't worry, we are watching you like a hawk, which is some sort of bird, apparently - learning about Earth is so fun..."

"So fun!"

"So we are watching you like a hawk bird, and Alrox left very specific instructions that we should get her immediately if there was any change, so you are in good hands."

"Actually," Messop interjected. "Do you think waking up counts as 'any change'?"

Vax frowned. "I got the sense that she meant any, you know, bad change."

"I'm not sure. Do you think we should? I don't want to make Alrox angry. She said we could help fix his brachial plexus - oh by the way Malcolm, you won't be able to move your right arm right now but we'll probably be able to fix it, so don't worry. I really don't want to miss that surgery. I am so sick of exploding uteruses."

"But if she did mean only bad changes then we might make her angrier and then..."

At this point, blessedly, Malcolm did manage to vomit on them.

There wasn't a great amount in his stomach, and it did hurt A LOT, but it was still worth it.