Four Days
the sequel to Waking Up
by Setcheti
Disclaimer:
Author’s Note: This is a direct sequel to Waking Up and a pre-tag to the episode “Dead Stop”. You must read Waking Up for this story to make sense! Oh, did I mention this was a series? <innocent look>
Jon waited until he was sure his armory officer was fully back to sleep before he moved away from the biobed, nodding his goodbye to Phlox as he made his way out of Sickbay. The conversation he’d just had had shaken him deeply, coming as it did on top of yesterday’s horrendous experience in the minefield. He couldn’t believe, drugs or no drugs, that he’d made Malcolm Reed cry. Of course, Malcolm hadn’t known he was crying, but somehow that made Jon feel even worse about the whole thing.
A hand dropping on his shoulder made him start, and he looked up into the worried blue eyes of his best friend. “Cap’n, everything okay?”
Archer looked back over his shoulder; Tucker did the same and whistled softly, shaking his head. Reed looked frighteningly helpless at the moment, with every part of his relatively small, spare body bolstered by the protective cushioning. “Tryin’ to make sure he don’t move, huh?”
“Yes, and Phlox doesn’t want him jostled at all if he can help it,” was the soft answer. Being blown through space by the detonating mine and then dropped onto the docking bay floor hadn’t done Reed any favors. He had bone-deep bruises, wrenched joints and, thanks to the fall, a cracked femur caused by the impact of metal on metal on bone. After completing the surgery to remove the metal anchor strut from Reed’s leg and repair all the damage it had done, the doctor had shot him full of muscle relaxants and painkillers and then scrounged together every pillow, cushion and pad in Sickbay and used them to prop the armory officer up on his right side, not wanting to have to move him to check the mending hole through his leg. “Of course, he’s still so out of it I’m not even sure he’d feel it if you tipped him out of bed onto the floor.”
“Least he doesn’t have a bug attached to him this time,” the engineer observed.
The captain smiled in spite of himself. “No, not a bug – not yet, anyway,” he chuckled. “He wasn’t too happy about the other attachment Phlox has on him, though.”
Tucker cocked his head questioningly…and then he got it and grinned. “Well, at least that’s not a bug, right? Did he try to take it off?”
“No, he wanted me to – he’s got that puppy-dog look of yours down pat.”
“Oh hey now, I didn’t teach him that,” the engineer disclaimed immediately. “Porthos yes, but not Malcolm.” He looked into Sickbay again, then shrugged. “Well, I was gonna go in and see him but if he’s sleepin’ there’s not much point. I’ll come back when he’s awake and talk to him a bit.”
“Phlox said he’d start backing down the medication tomorrow,” Archer told him. “I told Malcolm I’d be back with ice cream.”
“Know when I’m comin’, then,” Tucker said with a wink. He pushed away from the wall. “You goin’ to bed? Look like you could use some rest, Cap’n.”
“Are you a mother hen or a chief engineer?” Tucker just raised his eyebrows in that singular – and irreproducible – way that he had, and the captain snorted. “Yes, Mother, I’m going to my quarters. Want to walk me there, make sure I get home okay?”
Tucker laughed and patted his shoulder. “You’ll have to make it on your own, that’s out of my way. I’ll see you t’morrah, though.”
“Tomorrow.” Archer watched him walking away and then a sudden thought made him frown. “Trip, where are you going?”
The engineer waved but didn’t turn around or stop. “Back to work – got holes in the hull and all kinds of mess in the engine room, remember? It ain’t gonna fix itself.”
Captain Archer, good as his word, came back the next afternoon bearing a container of ice cream he’d wheedled from Chef and found his armory officer sitting up in bed, his pile of cushions reduced to a few fluffed pillows behind his back and one of a more solid variety supporting his wounded leg. He looked more alert this time and had more color in his face, but the dilated pupils of his normally sharp gray eyes told Archer that Reed was still fairly heavily medicated. “Ah, Captain!” Phlox greeted him from across the room where he had been feeding…something that chittered angrily at the interruption from behind a screen of leaves. “Here to visit Mr. Reed, I take it? And bearing gifts, too.”
“I said I’d be back with ice cream,” Archer replied, winking at Malcolm who blinked back at him incuriously. “I’m hoping you have at least a couple of spoons around here somewhere, I forgot to grab some from the mess.”
“I believe I can help you with that,” Phlox told him. He ducked into the next room and returned with two bowls and two spoons which he presented to the captain happily. “There you are, then. And Mr. Reed is up-to-date on his allergy treatments, so he should have no adverse reaction to the pineapple.”
Archer looked a little ashamed of himself. “I hadn’t even thought of that,” he admitted. He plopped the container down on the nearest table and pried off the lid. “I hope you like this, Malcolm,” he told the armory officer, who was still blinking at him. “It’s banana split ice cream, but it has pineapple in it.”
Malcolm blinked. “I like pineapple,” he said solemnly. “But is there a split banana inside the ice cream or did you split the ice cream with the banana?”
“A very good question, Mr. Reed,” Phlox said approvingly, looking immensely amused by the expression on Archer’s face. “I believe the banana is in the ice cream, along with your pineapple and many other good things like strawberries and chocolate and nuts.” He winked at the captain. “I had a banana split once while I was on Earth, they are absolutely decadent. Oh by the way, Mr. Reed isn’t quite himself at the moment.”
“So I noticed.” Archer’s sarcasm was mostly lost on the doctor, who went back to his menagerie humming under his breath. “How much do you want, Malcolm?”
The armory officer cocked his head at him, looking at the bowl he was holding, and raised an eyebrow. “I believe I could eat quite a lot more than that, sir.”
Jon had to smile. “I just bet you can,” he agreed. “Well, why don’t I give you this bowl full and then if you want more you can have it, all right?”
Malcolm nodded and took the proffered bowl. Ignoring the spoon, he licked the pile of ice cream and then smiled widely. “Oh very good, thank you. And I can have more, you say?”
“All you want,” Jon told him, fighting the urge to laugh. He knew he was going to be replaying this scene in his mind for a long time to come – every time his prim and proper armory officer was at his stiffest on the bridge. “This ice cream is all yours, I’m just having a little bit myself to keep you company.”
Malcolm eyed the bowl his captain was holding, obviously gauging the amount of ice cream it held, then examined the waiting container the same way before taking another lick off the top of his own bowl. He showed every sign of being prepared to eat the entire thing that way, and when Jon carefully pressed the spoon into his hand Malcolm looked at it a moment in puzzlement before shifting his licking to that.
Jon was still mesmerized by the show the younger man was unintentionally putting on when he heard the main doors to Sickbay whoosh open and his chief engineer’s voice called out a subdued greeting to Phlox. Malcolm looked up but didn’t put down his spoon. “Trip.”
“Malcolm, you’re lookin’ better than the last time I saw you.” Trip nodded to Jon and grinned. “Perfect timin’,” he said. “You all did save me some, right?”
“No,” Malcolm told him, licking ice cream off his spoon. He smiled smugly. “The captain told me this was all mine, so if you want any you’ll have to be very nice to me.”
The engineer stared at him a moment, openmouthed, and then he threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, I remember this medication,” he told Archer, who also looked surprised. “Doc had me on it after that mess with the shuttlepod, remember? He only uses it when he wants someone to stay put in bed and not fuss at him any about it.”
“And highly effective it is for the purpose,” Phlox agreed, chuckling. “Much better than putting a fractious patient in restraints, I’d say.”
“I’d say you’re right.” Archer stood up and stretched, his back popping. “You know, Trip, someday we need to do something about my chair on the bridge, it just isn’t comfortable. But right now I need to be getting back to it, so I’ll leave you two to finish up. You heading back to Engineering or to the damaged sections?”
“Both,” Tucker told him. “And quite a bit in between, we’re tracin’ everything back from the damaged sections to make sure we got it all shut down. I’ll be goin’ out in my EV suit later too, need to take another look at some things on the other side of the seals.”
“I want you patched in to the bridge the whole time you’re out there,” Archer told him, a worried look crossing his face. “And at the first sign of trouble…”
“I’ll haul ass back inside, don’t worry.” Tucker patted Malcolm’s uninjured leg. “One of us on the doc’s happy juice at a time is enough. You need me gettin’ this ship runnin’ again, not layin’ in here eatin’ ice cream with Mal. I’ll comm you on the bridge when I’m ready to walk.”
Archer started to say something else, then seemed to think better of it and just nodded. Once he was gone Trip stood up and patted Malcolm’s leg again. “Wish I could stay longer to visit, but I’ve got a great big hole in the ship to fix. You mind the doc, now, okay Mal?”
The armory officer made a face at him, but he looked disappointed. “If I give you some of my ice cream will you stay a bit longer?” He held out a heaping spoonful. “Please?”
Trip’s smile softened the strained lines in his face and crinkled the corners of his tired blue eyes. He let his friend put the spoon in his mouth and ate the ice cream off of it, then guided the hand holding the spoon back to the bowl. “Wish I could, Mal – you eat the rest of it, I’ll be back tomorrah and I’ll bring you somethin’ else good, okay? I’ll be back at this same time, you got my word.”
Malcolm thought about it, then shrugged and tucked back into his treat, licking the spoon clean with single-minded determination. “All right, Trip. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yep, you will.” If the engineer sounded more tired than enthusiastic Malcolm didn’t notice, but Phlox did and arched an eyebrow. Tucker shrugged. “It’s got to be done, Doc, and I’m the man who has to do it.”
“Quite so,” Phlox agreed quietly. He pressed the hypo in his hand against Tucker’s arm and then checked the readings on his hand scanner, nodding. “Everything looks fine. You can go on about your business.”
“Thanks, Doc.” Tucker waved at Malcolm, who had shifted his attention from his spoon to stare at him, and then strode out through the double doors. “Bye Malcolm.”
“Goodbye.” Malcolm put the spoon down and thought for a minute, then picked it back up and scooped more ice cream into his mouth, swallowing it meditatively. “Doctor, what was that all about?”
“Nothing for you to be concerned with,” Phlox told him. “Are you finished, then?” Malcolm pulled the bowl close to his chest and scowled suspiciously. The doctor laughed. “I’ll take that as a no, carry on Mr. Reed.”
The next day Tucker appeared in Sickbay at the promised time, looking rumpled and wrung-out but wearing a smile and carrying a bowl of wiggling red jello for Malcolm. “Has pineapple in it,” he told the armory officer as he handed the bowl over. “Chef made it special for you.”
“I’ll have to remember to thank him,” Malcolm answered. He was feeling marginally more alert today, but at the cost of also having to feel some of the pain from his leg. He hadn’t decided yet if the tradeoff was a good one or not. “How is the ship faring?”
“Has a big hole in it,” Tucker chuckled, patting the smaller man’s uninjured leg. Malcolm thought he remembered him making the same gesture the day before, but he wasn’t sure. “I’ve pulled most of your guys over into Engineerin’ to help out, but we’ve got two of ‘em on Tactical at all times just in case. Don’t want no surprises in the state we’re in right now.”
Malcolm nodded. “At least the engines are running as smoothly as can be expected.”
Tucker’s smile became a wide grin. “You can feel that, huh? Yeah, she’s still runnin’ all right even with all the damage, we just can’t move fast enough to get away if someone shows up huntin’ trouble.” He patted Malcolm’s leg again. “Wish I could stay and keep you company for a bit, but I’ve gotta get back to it – T’Pol wants a report on the seal integrity and the damage tolerances, gonna take me an hour just to write it up and we’ve got to run plasma conduit maintenance this afternoon too. But I’ll see you again tomorrah for sure, okay?”
Malcolm nodded again. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere with a blood-sucking insect making itself at home in my leg.” The engineer made a show of backing away from the bed, and the armory officer made a face at him. “Coward. But thank you for the jello, Trip.”
“Any time, Mal.” Tucker turned away and all but ran into Phlox, who put out a concerned hand to help him maintain his balance. “Blood-suckin’ insects, Doc?”
“They do their job,” the Denobulan replied, looking hard up into his
face and then running the scanner over him and scrutinizing the readings with a
frown. He injected Tucker with the hypo
and then ran the scanner over him again before stating flatly, “Tomorrow, Commander. No later than
“I understand, Doc.” The answer
wasn’t flip like Malcolm might have expected, but very matter of fact. “T’morrah at
Phlox snorted. “Don’t dress up on my account. Now go on, you’ve got a ship to fix.”
“That I do. Thanks, Doc. Catch ya t’morrah, Mal.”
“Tomorrow, Trip.” Malcolm frowned after him, though, forgetting the jello. “He looks tired, Doctor.”
“He is tired,” Phlox agreed. “There is a very large chunk of the ship missing, Lieutenant; Commander Tucker is a very busy man right now.” He looked unhappy and abruptly changed the subject, waving his hand at the bowl of glistening red jello. “You should eat that before it disintegrates, you know. I find it interesting that your well-wishers keep bringing you food.”
“So do I, although I’m definitely not complaining.” Malcolm almost chuckled. “But the captain does have a bit of a fixation that way, you have to admit.”
“Yes, I am aware of that – making sure he remains at his optimum weight is part of my job, and nowhere near the simplest.” Phlox smiled at him, but it looked slightly forced. “If you need anything call for me, Lieutenant, I’ll be in the lab. And no sneaking out, understand? You need to stay off that leg another day at least.”
“You’ll get no argument from me, Doctor,” Malcolm answered, flexing his thigh muscle against the supporting cushion and wincing. “As much as I’d like to be out of here, I’m not masochist enough to try it again after this morning’s…experiment.” Falling to the ground and having Phlox carry him back to bed wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat any time soon.
“A wise man learns from his mistakes,” Phlox told him, and then he left. Malcolm frowned after him, wondering who the Denobulan had been thinking of when he’d said those words, since he hadn’t been looking at the only other person in the room.
Tucker dragged in somewhat before his appointed time on the fourth day after their encounter with the minefield, looking even more wrung out. “Doc!” he called, staggering over to the biobed beside Malcolm’s and flopping down on it with a sigh. “Think you were a little off on the timin’, here.”
Phlox bustled in, frowning, and checked the readouts. “Haven’t been eating, have you? I’m amazed you made it down here at all, Commander.” He held a hypo up to the light and adjusted it fussily. “Next time you’ll follow my instructions more exactly, won’t you? I’ll have to compensate…”
The engineer pushed himself up on his elbows, looking worried. “Compensate by how long?”
“Only about an hour, I think,” the doctor reassured him, pushing him back down. “Relax, Commander, you’ll be back on duty in five hours, no longer.”
Tucker sighed and shut his eyes. “Damn.”
“The ship will survive, I’m sure,” Phlox said dryly, and then pushed the hypo against the side of Tucker’s neck. The engineer immediately went limp, and the readouts dropped low. The doctor sighed and shook his head. “Sleep well, Commander.”
Malcolm was wide-eyed. “Doctor…”
“Stimulants, Lieutenant,” Phlox explained. “Critical command staff are cleared to use them under my direct supervision in an emergency.” He cocked an eyebrow at the armory officer. “What, you thought Commander Tucker capable of going day and night without rest during a crisis? I assure you, he can’t.”
“I never thought he could,” Malcolm replied. He was still staring at Tucker. “So with your help he can be up and working ‘round the clock for three or four days before he finally has to rest, and then what?”
“And then nothing – the stimulants are what the commander would call a ‘one-shot deal’.” Phlox sighed, shaking his head. “He won’t be able to do it again for a week at least without risking doing damage to himself, and that is a risk I won’t allow him to take no matter how big the hole in the hull is or what the captain wants.”
“Does the captain know he’s gone his limit, then?”
“I doubt Captain Archer has spared the situation a thought yet,” Phlox snorted. “But I fully expect he or Sub Commander T’Pol to call down here looking for the commander sooner and not later, wanting something immediately. I believe I shall derive some very petty and unprofessional satisfaction from telling them they have to wait.”
It was the sub commander who called, but directly after Phlox almost gleefully told her the engineer wouldn’t be available for several more hours Archer blew into Sickbay looking angry and worried. “How long was he on them?!” he demanded.
“Four days,” Phlox told him, unruffled. “Don’t worry, Captain, he will be awake in two more hours and ready to go over the damage reports with you.”
“That isn’t what I’m worried about,” Archer all but snarled. He stalked over to the side of the biobed and looked down at the sleeping engineer with an indefinable expression on his face. Almost unconsciously, one hand reached out to touch Tucker’s hair. “Dammit, I’ve told him not to do this. I don’t care what kind of crisis we’ve got, we can spare him a few hours to sleep and eat every day.”
“In that case, you might want to see to it that he is allotted time for those activities,” Phlox said dryly. “And Starfleet Command doesn’t agree with you. Of course, I don’t agree with their protocols either; they actually approve the stimulants for two weeks’ continued use, but I won’t allow a human to use them for more than four or five days.”
“Trip was on them once for the ‘approved’ time,” the captain ground out. “At the end of his two weeks they put him out and an hour later he had a ‘cardiac incident’ – they weren’t watching the monitors, he almost died. He was in recovery for fifteen days, four of those in a coma, and I told him never again. No matter what Starfleet thinks, my people are not expendable no matter what the circumstances.”
Malcolm blinked, and then blinked again and flushed, swiping the back of his hand across his tearing eyes. Where the hell had that come from? He wasn’t one to cry, especially not for no reason like this. Maybe the drugs were to blame. “Whatever it is you’re giving me, Doctor, I don’t believe I want any more of it,” he muttered, swiping again to remove the last of the moisture.
Archer looked back at him, and Malcolm was surprised to see an expression of guilt flicker across his captain’s face before it was quickly covered up by fresh concern. “I’m sorry, Malcolm, I didn’t even ask…how are you feeling?”
“I’ll feel better once I’m allowed out of medical incarceration,” Malcolm told him. He shot a dark look at Phlox. “And once our good doctor here finds his missing bug.”
“Now Mr. Reed, I have told you it’s nothing to be concerned about,” Phlox chuckled. “And as to me letting you go, perhaps this afternoon. You have healed enough for us to begin physiotherapy, so after the first session we’ll see if you feel like going back to your quarters.”
“I feel like going back to my quarters now,” Malcolm grumbled, folding his arms across his chest. He wasn’t quite pouting, but almost. “It’s not like I haven’t been up walking round Sickbay already today.”
Archer chuckled. “Sounds like someone needs another shot of happy juice.”
“Indeed,” the Denobulan agreed. He arched a questioning eyebrow at the armory officer and the pout diminished noticeably as apprehension clouded Malcolm’s gray eyes. Phlox smiled at him, not reassuringly. “We’ll have to keep that option in mind, won’t we?”
Malcolm shifted, winced, and forced himself to settle back into his pillows. “I’d rather we didn’t, actually. And with the commander out of action, the ship might need me…”
“Nice try, but no – you may be an engineer, Lieutenant, but you’re not that kind of engineer.” Phlox was still smiling in that unnerving way. “And Commander Tucker will be back on his feet in two hours, whereas you will be off duty for two more days and restricted to light duty for a week after that.”
The armory officer’s face fell, and Archer couldn’t help but laugh. “If it makes you feel any better, Malcolm, Trip will be on restricted duty for the next week too,” the captain consoled him. “If he so much as thinks about working more than one shift or skipping a meal I’m going to come down on him like a ton of bricks.”
“You might want to share that plan with the sub-commander,” Phlox snorted, his humor rapidly disappearing. He saw the look the captain and the armory officer shared and sighed, deflating again. “I do apologize, that was unprofessional of me; I’m tired too and my temper is much shorter than usual at present.”
Archer thought about that for a minute, shared another look with his armory officer, and did the math. “Did T’Pol know about the stimulants, Phlox?”
The doctor snorted again. “She not only knew, she ‘suggested’ that the commander be kept on them for the officially recommended time. Now granted, she does not know his medical history…”
“How did she find out he was taking them?” Archer interrupted. “Did you tell her or did he?”
Phlox stiffened. “The sub-commander came to me to request it, actually, not realizing Commander Tucker had already done so himself – the day the accident occurred, as a matter of fact,” he responded. “She was rather displeased that I would not follow Starfleet’s two-week protocol and made several pointed remarks about the whole situation being handled much more logically by Vulcans.”
“If we were Vulcans,” Archer said, scowling, “there would be a dead armory officer floating around back in that minefield and a week or so from now we’d be replacing our chief engineer.”
“Quite likely, yes,” Phlox agreed. “But we are not Vulcans, and therefore we have neither of those situations to contend with.” He dredged up part of his perpetual smile from someplace and put it back on. “And Lieutenant Reed will be fine, Commander Tucker will be fine, so as humans say, ‘all’s well that ends well’.”
“Oh, it’s going to end, all right.” The captain was still frowning. “I’ll talk to T’Pol – I thought she’d come to an understanding of why and how we do things around here, I guess that understanding didn’t go as deep as I thought.”
“I’m not sure it’s that, sir,” Malcolm ventured. He bit his lip when he suddenly received all of Archer’s not-so-pleased attention and shook his head. “She wasn’t out there advocating that you cut me loose, was she? Are you sure her comments to the doctor weren’t simply a reaction to the stress of the situation?”
Archer and Phlox shared a surprised look, and then the doctor nodded. “It is very possible, Captain. I should have considered the possibility myself. What made you think of it, Mr. Reed?”
Malcolm shrugged. “The Sub-Commander tends to retreat into purely logical thinking when she feels that a situation is outside her ability to handle,” he said. “It’s in my security report on her.”
“Why do you have a security report on T’Pol?” Archer wanted to know…and then he frowned as realization dawned. “You have one on all of us, don’t you?”
“Of course, Captain.” Malcolm shrugged again. “After all, the worst security breaches come from the inside.”
Archer actually shuddered. “I don’t even want to think about that.”
“You don’t have to – thinking about it is my job, not yours, sir.”
The statement was completely matter-of-fact, but the captain felt put in his place by it anyway; he’d gotten them into plenty of trouble over the course of the past year and a half by refusing to let Malcolm do his job. He was saved from having to come up with some sort of response when Trip’s biobed beeped, and then beeped again. It didn’t sound like an alarm, but Phlox immediately pushed past him, scooping up a hypospray from a tray beside the bed and then just standing there, his light eyes fixed intently on the screen. “Doctor, what…”
The bed beeped again, and the doctor immediately rolled the sleeping engineer’s head to the side and injected the contents of the hypo into the side of his neck; a level on the monitor that had been bouncing slightly leveled back out, and Phlox shook his head. “Well, now we know,” he said. He put down the hypo and sighed, returning his attention to Archer. “You won’t have to worry about Commander Tucker using the stimulants again, Captain,” he said. “I’ll be noting in his records that he is unable to take them. That,” he waved a hand at the now-steady level – a reflection of Trip’s heart function, Archer realized with a chill, “was a reaction to the combination of stimulant and sedative in his system, not merely to one or the other, and therefore any such combination is off-limits to him in the future.”
“So that was,” the captain swallowed, “the beginnings of another ‘cardiac incident’?”
“I’m afraid so. I caught it in plenty of time, never fear,” Phlox reassured him. “He will still be up and around in two hours and ready to give you his report, but I must insist that he not actually return to work until tomorrow.”
“That won’t be a problem.” Archer told him decisively. “I’m going to go have a little chat with my second in command about it right now, as a matter of fact. Notify me when Trip wakes up – or if anything else happens.”
“Will do, Captain. But he should have no more difficulties now.” Archer nodded, managed a brief nod for Reed as well and then stalked out of Sickbay. Phlox, to Malcolm’s surprise, chuckled. “Oh dear, I do believe the sub-commander is in for a lecture.” He saw the armory officer’s look and his smile widened. “You were correct, Lieutenant; she was merely reacting to the stress of the situation. But Vulcans are trained to control such reactions and that is a control the captain has come to rely upon in a crisis, so this is an issue which must be dealt with swiftly to prevent it happening again.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Malcolm murmured, sinking back into his pillows. He couldn’t bring himself to feel any pity for T’Pol, even though a good part of the blame for the situation had to be the captain’s as well for mishandling his own stress over the past few days – which tendency was also in one of the security reports. If Phlox hadn’t been on top of things…he glanced over at Tucker, reassured by the steady rise and fall of the man’s chest as he breathed. The sight also brought back disturbing memories of the last time they’d been side by side in Sickbay, though, and he hastily looked away again. “He will be all right?”
“Yes, quite all right.” Phlox looked up at the monitors above Malcolm’s bed with a curious frown, then shook his head. “He will doubtless reassure you of that himself when he awakens. Now is there anything else you need, Lieutenant? Because if not, I believe I will go get some rest myself.”
Malcolm looked from the doctor to Tucker and back. “Are you sure you should leave…”
“There should be no further incidents,” Phlox told him. “And were anything to unexpectedly go amiss, you will be here and you are mobile enough to come fetch me.” He cocked an eyebrow. “You will be here, correct Mr. Reed?”
“I supposed I’ll have to be, now won’t I,” the armory officer huffed at him, folding his arms across his chest as the near-pout made a reappearance. “Go on, then, I’ll keep an eye on him. It’s not like I have anything else to do in this bloody infirmary.”
Phlox, strangely, did not seem in the least offended by Malcolm’s attitude; if anything, he appeared to be amused. “Very well, then,” he replied with a wide smile – the disturbing one that made him look frighteningly alien. “You know where I’ll be if you need me.”
Malcolm watched him leave, warily. That smile bothered him, it always had. It was a smile with secrets behind it; secret thoughts, secret, alien amusements, and for some reason it always reminded him uncomfortably that the Denobulan was as much researcher as he was physician. It was one of the things he didn’t like about being in Sickbay.
With a sigh, he turned his attention to the only other person in the room and watched him breathe again, the soft rhythm of the other man’s shallow respirations calming instead of disturbing him now that they were alone. The put-upon pout slowly faded and vanished, and the tense twinge in Malcolm’s injured leg faded to a muted background ache almost without him realizing it. In and out, in and out…he shook himself out of the hypnotic, sleepy state he’d been slipping into with a frown. Now why hadn’t he noticed that before? “Bloody idiot Phlox,” he swore softly, and swung his legs over the side of the bed, wincing when he finally took his weight but otherwise ignoring the returning spike of pain. He limped over to Trip’s bedside and gently, carefully, turned the engineer’s head back to a more comfortable position than the one Phlox with his life-saving hypospray had left it in. “Would have woken up with a crick in your neck,” he murmured, his fingers drifting absently upward to push the engineer’s hair back off his forehead, then down to pat his sleep-flushed cheek before reluctantly breaking off the contact. “You’ll be more comfortable now – you’re going to be uncomfortable enough once the captain starts yelling at you, no need to add to it if we don’t have to.”
Was that…had Trip just smiled? Malcolm backed off quickly and returned to his own bed; the last thing he wanted to do was wake the man up, especially to an unexplainable scene like that. He hoisted himself back up with a protesting groan and then resettled his leg on its cushion, cursing Phlox and his medications through the entire process until sheer bloody-mindedness finally drove back the threatening, incomprehensible tears that would keep filling his eyes these days. And then comfortable at last, the latest crying-crisis averted, he contentedly went back to watching Trip sleep, little knowing that he was echoing the engineer’s faint smile.
On the other side of Sickbay, Dr. Phlox smiled himself and turned away from the monitor to make a note on a nearby padd, chuckling under his breath. “Yes, I thought as much.”