Author Notes: Sorry this took so long! My beta had been distracting me... Thank you for all the kind support.
Chapter 8
Jonathan Archer blinked against the bright white that surrounded him, "Good morning Captain."
Archer turned his head as the light ceased being a painful glare to reveal a woman in a blue uniform, smiling down on him. The world shot into focus. He was lying on a biobed in sickbay. Behind where the woman was sitting was another pale figure asleep; Trip. Archer sat up slightly, noting the lack of feeling in his leg – sometimes you had to love doctors and their drugs, "Hoshi?"
The tiny ensign smiled warmly, "How are you feeling Captain? I thought I'd drop by before my shift."
"How long...?"
"You were brought in yesterday. As soon as the energy field collapsed we contacted you and sent a rescue."
Archer nodded, memories flicking back and forth within his mind. The last thing he remembered was hearing a shuttlepod land.
"How's Trip?"
"Phlox says he should be fine. I didn't understand most of the technical stuff, but from what I could make out, he had hypothermia and a severe concussion. No complications though. And he also said your leg should heal fine."
"Good."
Hoshi gave him a strange look, "Don't you want to know about Lieutenant Reed, sir?"
Archer frowned. That man had almost cost them their lives. He was lucky the energy source failed, or they'd be dead by now. A severe error in judgment, and which ever way he looked at it, he would have to have a long chat with Malcolm, likely ending in some kind of disciplinary action, "I suppose he's already been released from sickbay?"
Hoshi's eyes widened slightly, "I'm so sorry Captain; we all presumed you would have known."
A horrible sick feeling reared in the pit of Jon's stomach, "Hoshi…"
Hoshi looked at her hands, small tears spiking in her eyes, "He's in surgery with Phlox now."
"Surgery! What the hell for?"
"It looks like he was attacked by something, Phlox said. His body was already under strain from exhaustion and blood loss from a wound on his side, but there were eight puncture marks on his back. Whatever attacked him had venom in its talons. When the rescue team found him, he wasn't breathing, we had to transport him straight to sickbay. They've been in surgery for four hours now, and the last time it was eight; there had to be a break in between. Phlox said that he didn't want to do another one, but Malcolm's organs started to fail, and they had to do something." Tears ran freely down Hoshi's cheeks, and her voice dropped to a whisper, "I overheard Phlox tell Commander T'Pol that he doesn't think Malcolm will survive."
Jon stared at her in shock. He couldn't speak; his throat was too constricted. How long had Malcolm been walking around injured? His mind flicked back to the morning after the river incident. Malcolm had been acting oddly, but he had put it down to the night before. Archer closed his eyes; that had been the morning Malcolm had started wearing the top half of his uniform again. How could he have been so blind? Oh, god, how could he have yelled so much? Malcolm was just as bad, hell, worse off than the rest of them, but being the pig-headed officer that he was, had pretended that he was fine.
His attention was drawn away by a small gasp from Hoshi, shortly followed by a weak southern accent of his friend, "What the hell is going on?"
Trip sat cross-legged on a biobed, watching Malcolm sleep. It had been four days since he had woken up and learnt what had transpired since his fall; his memories of the few last days were sketchy at best. Malcolm had yet to wake up at all, although Phlox had pumped him with so many drugs, Trip wasn't surprised. Trip had been released only an hour previous, but he wasn't to return to duty for another few days. Archer, meanwhile, had been oddly quiet, enduring the treatments for his broken bone.
Trip sighed. None of this should have happened; they should have been more careful when checking out the power source – you'd have thought experience would have taught them that much. Phlox entered, taking some readings and adjusting a few settings on Malcolm's bed, tutting, before moving on to Archer, "It's time to start your physio, Captain, my worms have done as much as they can for you bone, now we must work on the weakened muscle." Archer nodded with a grimace clear on his face. Phlox continued, "I will help you to the bars, and then we will try some walking."
Trip gave his friend an encouraging smile as Phlox guided Jon to around the corner to where there was some equipment set up. Trip went back to his thoughts, fiddling with the padd in his hands that detailed what remained of the power source from the planet, but not truly reading. Something moved in the corner of his eye, but when he looked up, Malcolm seemed still. Suddenly, the screen above the bed started to change in readings and colour, and Malcolm's eyes snapped open.
Before Trip could register what was going on, Malcolm had scrambled up to a sitting position, only to cry out in pain from the wounds on his torso. His eyes were frantic and panicked, but unfocused, and his breathing had gone from deep and steady to huge gasping breathing, as if his mind was telling him he could not breathe. Quickly pressing a hand on Malcolm's shoulder, Trip tried to get him to focus, hoping that the now blaring machines would alert the doctor, "Malcolm! Malcolm, listen to me, you're on Enterprise, everything's okay; we're safe." Malcolm's silvery eyes flicked to his, trying to focus. Trip smiled, "Good, I need you to slow your breathing, calm down. Take shorter, deeper breaths."
Malcolm's breathing began to even out as Phlox appeared at Trip's shoulder to take over. Shakily, Trip moved back to allow the doctor to help his friend. He knew how Malcolm had felt – the horrible feeling when you wake up and think you're still lost in the forest; Trip still hadn't been able to escape it, even after four days of waking up in sickbay.
Realising Jon must still be over by the bars, Trip went to go and help his friend back to bed, figuring the Denobulan might be occupied for a while. Archer was staring at the floor gripping the bars when Trip came round the corner; he seemed to be oblivious. "Hey, Jon? You okay?"
Archer jerked his head up, "Sorry, Trip, did you say something?"
Trip quirked an eyebrow, "You're the captain of this ship, Jon, you'll get a full report from the doc when he's done."
"I know." The defensive tone had returned. Trip and Jon had been arguing about what had happened down on the planet as soon as Archer had explained what had happened.
"Oh, fer cryin' out loud, Cap'n, quit the guilt trip already! What happened down there was no one's fault! Unless you're a poisonous alien creature, of course." Trip sighed as he went over to help his friend walk towards the bed, "Just talk to him; don't let it hang over you."
It was a further week until Archer finally gathered the courage to approach Malcolm. He had kept making excuses, which to be fair, considering Malcolm's current state, hadn't been too hard to find – in addition to being quite weak in body, Malcolm himself always seemed to be avoiding eye contact or 'sleeping' when Archer was near, clearly guilty and dreading the consequences of his actions. However, Trip had returned to his duties, and Archer knew that he couldn't delay anymore; he was a Captain and should admit his mistakes. So, when Phlox went off to prep the decon chamber for a returning away team, Archer approached his armoury officer, who was sat up reading something from a padd.
Lieutenant Reed was still very pale, almost gaunt, although he was positively glowing on comparison to how he had looked but a few days previous. Jonathan sat down on the biobed to take the weight off his still bad leg, "Malcolm?"
Archer watched as the Lieutenant jumped out of his skin and then attempted to get off the bed, only to have a firm hand clasp his arm. Archer sighed, "Please stay put Malcolm, I doubt Phlox will be pleased if you do yourself harm."
Malcolm stopped trying to get up, instead warily regarding his Captain with a look that clearly expected an impending storm. Silence reined over two very fidgety officers, until Malcolm spoke first, "I'll accept any disciplinary action you think fit, Captain. I'll file for a transfer if you'd-"
"You're apologising?" Archer asked in wonder, "Malcolm, you got me and Trip across dangerous terrain with no supplies and kept us alive for ten days, even though you were injured yourself. You got us off that planet, you disabled the field. I lost my temper with you, and I shouldn't have. All I had was a broken leg – you had some alien poison running through your body. Malcolm, I'm sorry."
Malcolm stared at his Captain, "But-"
"No Malcolm. You were under the influence of an alien substance, in addition to being under circumstances that would make anyone fall apart. There is no way I could ever court martial you – we couldn't afford to lose you from the Enterprise, and Trip would probably kill me," This elicited a weak smile from Malcolm, but this soon turned into a worried frown.
"Sir, about my thing with water…"
"I won't say a word, I promise, although it would be great if I could find out things about you without us being in a situation of mortal peril."
Malcolm awarded him with a rare grin, but any further conversation was prevented by Trip bouncing into sickbay, whining loudly about Phlox's choice of movie, seemingly oblivious to any change for the better in the atmosphere.
FIN
Author Notes: It's done! Please give me your final thoughts:)