Immune- Chapter 19

Immune

by Trinneergirl

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

Chapter Nineteen

Trip tried to raise the forkful of pasta to his mouth, but his whole body shook with revulsion. He lowered the cutlery back down to the plate and sighed.

"You have to eat," Sau'mara told him in his soothing, deep voice.

"I know!" Trip replied, tears in his eyes. "It's so hard!" He looked up as Captain Jonathan Archer entered the room. It'd been three days since the death of Wilkinson and Trip hadn't eaten more than a few mouthfuls in that time. The starship skipper took in the situation at a glance.

"Still being fussy about your food, huh?" he asked. Trip nodded dolefully. "Well, this calls for drastic action." Trip's brow creased in perplexity as Jon walked over and sat on the bed.

"Cap'n?" he asked, bewildered. Sau'mara too was confused. Drastic action? What did that mean? Commander Tucker was ill, he didn't need punishing. Nor had Captain Archer, up until now, struck the medic, as the kind of man who would take so unfair a course as to punish a man for being ill. He decided to wait, to see how the human Captain would deal with the situation.

Jon loaded the fork with the pasta and looked at Trip, his expression one of deep, even severe seriousness.

"Here comes the choo-choo train, leaving the station," he said. Trip stared at his Captain in blank incredulity. "Chuff, chuff, chuff," Archer continued as he moved the fork towards Trip. As the food reached the mouth, Jon continued. "Then the train goes into the tunnel," he paused, waiting. "Open the tunnel," he told Trip, deadpan. "That's an order, Commander." Lost in fascinated amazement, Trip opened the tunnel. "Whoo, whoo! The train goes into the tunnel!" Archer finished and inserted the business end of the fork. "You may now close the tunnel, Mister Tucker." Trip closed his mouth and Jon withdrew the empty fork from between the closed lips. Trip chewed and swallowed the food in a daze. In the background Sau'mara grinned. Captain Archer, it seemed, knew exactly how to deal with his young Chief Engineer without assistance.

Amusement lit up in Trip's eyes as a second forkful of pasta started its journey. "Here comes another choo, choo," Jon warned his friend.

"I'll eat the rest myself," Trip promised. "No more trains, Cap'n, please!" He flushed in embarrassment. If he had to eat every last scrap, ANYTHING was better than being baby fed! Archer handed the fork to his Commander and watched as the young man forced down the food. When the plate was empty, the Captain smiled.

"Well done," he congratulated softly. The locked eyes smiled their understanding. Archer raised his brows and stood. "The Bolian repair ship is here," he informed his Chief Engineer. "They'll be starting repairs on Enterprise soon."

"What kind of repairs?" Trip demanded to know. "I don't wanna get back and find my engine hacked to bits!" He looked at Sau'mara. "I'm well enough to go back to work, aren't I?"

Sau'mara was about to flatly veto the suggestion when he saw the look in Archer's eyes.

"Light duty," the Drayalian doctor conceded. "No more than a few hours a day. You're still very weak, Commander." Trip nodded and threw back the covers. He stood and crouched by a side cupboard which contained a uniform he'd had Malcolm bring earlier. He dressed quickly and approached Jon, pulling up the zipper of his jump-uit. The Dryalian follical growth stimulator was working a treat and Trip had dealt with having to shave four times a day and having every part of his body itch like hell as the hair grew, with his usual stoicism. He now had a half-centimetre of hair and was beginning to look like Trip again.

"Let's go," he told the Enterprise skipper. Amused, Jon nodded to Sau'mara and left with his eager engineer. Sau'mara knew that Jonathan Archer had deliberately got Trip up to see to the repairs. Judging by the alacrity which the Commander had leapt up, it might just be the tonic he needed.

"I wonder what a choo, choo train is?" he asked the ambient air before leaving the room.

The Bolians, who turned out to be a humanoid race that were as blue as Andorians but hairless and with a sort of crease that went right down the middle of the face, neck, and body, turned out to be friendly and useful. Trip Tucker soon became legendary with them as they worked with him on the rerouting of the systems he had jerry-rigged in his lonely crossing of the Vort Cloud. The respect they had for him bordered on awe as he explained what he had done and why. Trip, whose personal definition of light duty was a twelve-hour day, had to be rousted out by a member of the crew, even the Captain himself, in order to drag him away from the repair work. He found that Hoshi was right, once he had forced himself to start eating, it got a little easier. He was putting the weight back on and the follicle-growth enhancer had been stopped once he had two centimetres of hair. He was still subject to occasional fits of melancholy and some dizzy spells, but the energy was back and rising daily and his positivity had returned. In just ten days Enterprise was as good as new and wouldn't need to return to Earth. The morale of the crew rocketed and Enterprise felt like a happy ship again.

There had been a long talk between Trip, T'Pol, and Captain Archer about their new situation. Jon had given Trip the title of Co-First Officer and he and the Vulcan Science officer were to share the tasks. T'Pol would, at Trip's insistence, still be the First Officer in name.

"It's logical," he told her with a smile. "You are there on the Bridge far more often than I am. You're on the spot to actively take control should you need to. I'm more likely to be in Engineerin'. If we're both there I certainly trust you enough to take your orders. I'll do as many more Bridge duties as I can, to give you more time to do the Science stuff you need to get done."

"Thank you, sir," T'Pol replied, relieved he hadn't mentioned her illness. Trip exchanged a look with the Captain. He'd asked T'Pol not to call him 'sir'. But she insisted and he wondered how he was going to get used to hearing it from her. No doubt about it he was her superior officer now. He glanced down at the three squares and the dot on his chest and his eyes misted over as he remembered everything. It seemed forever ago he'd won his promotion to Full Commander. It was just over two months!

Jon and Trip had also had a lot of talks together. The Captain knew he had to build some bridges with his young friend and, while Trip was with him and under his eye, he wasn't sneaking off to do more repair work. Their friendship was slowly getting back to its old footing, but their was a guardedness about the Commander now that Jon was saddened by greatly. He gave that guardedness respect, however. Trip had been through hell and had changed through crises most people never experience. Having someone hate you to the insane and obsessive level Kurt Wilkinson had hated Trip, must have been dreadful to experience and hard to overcome. Jon had discussed the shame, the pain, and even the guilt Trip felt with the engineer.

"It's like I must have done something to provoke it, Cap'n," Trip had said softly, nursing the glass of bourbon in his hand, staring down into the golden-brown depths as they swirled.

"You're a good-looking, intelligent, friendly guy who's extremely good at his job," Jon responded. "Are you meant to be ashamed of doing the best you can with the gifts you were given?" Trip's brows, now fully grown back, raised in acknowledgement.

"I know," he told the Captain. The young man shook his head. "He believed I was your whore," he stated flatly. "He made me say it, made you say it. He so wanted to believe that everything I have I paid for by opening my ass-cheeks." Trip was unable to keep the bitterness from his tone. He looked up at Jon. "Even with the sabotage, the beating, the attempts to drive me insane... the one thing that sticks in here," he tapped a finger to his forehead, "is that if I hadn't overcome him in the cargo bay, he would have raped me." His voice shook on the words and he took another sip of bourbon, letting the bitter alcohol slide down his throat in a burst of warm liquid.

"It's over, Trip," Jon reassured. "You won because you're brave and brilliant. He didn't rape you, Trip, and he never will. Let it go." Trip nodded, but his eyes were deeply troubled.

The diplomatic thank you’s and goodbye’s said, Enterprise made ready to depart for their own side of the Vort Cloud. The three ships, human, Dryalian, and Bolian left orbit around the dead world and went their separate ways. A day later, the Vort Cloud loomed. Trip was seated at his engineering station and was the focus of everyone's attention as the spacecraft plunged into the dusty phenomenon. Hoshi's communications went off-line and there was nothing to see in the view-screen except the orange-tinted dust. Trip closed his eyes and shuddered, then got on with his diagnostics. But the tenseness in the slender man was easy to see. The moments that occurred on the way back were understandable but unpleasant. One late night, Trip was working in the access to the main airlock on a faulty compressor valve, when one of his dizzy spells hit. He leaned against the wall and took deep breaths, willing the nausea and swirling to subside. Suddenly the communications burst into life. "Archer to Commander Tucker. Trip can you come to the Bridge?"

The memory of his nightmare, alone in the cloud of dust, assailed Trip in a flashback of fear. He moved to the communications panel and tapped it.

"Why do you want me to go to the Bridge?" he asked. In the Captain's chair, Archer shared a mystified look with T'Pol.

"We have some unusual readings in the forward sensor array," he replied. "I'd like you to take a look," he responded. Trip stared around the empty air-lock area, there was no one to be seen or heard. He was alone. The dizziness returned. Trip stepped backwards away from the panel, until his back hit the wall, then his legs gave way and he sank to the floor.

"Trip? Commander respond." Archer's voice sounded urgent.

"I'M NOT COMING TO THE BRIDGE!" Trip shouted in defiance. "I'm not coming... Not..." Archer stared at T'Pol, his hazel eyes deeply concerned.

"Where is he?" he asked. The Vulcan accessed the bio-reading data.

"He's repairing the main airlock," she replied with her usual calm. Travis turned in his seat and looked at Archer.

"That's where it happened before," he reminded the Skipper. "When he was alone. Your voice trying to get him to the Bridge." Archer stood and went to the turbo-lift.

"Have Phlox meet me in the main airlock," he told T'Pol. Then he left. If he thought for a second that seeing the captain belting down the corridor at full tilt would unnerve his crew, Archer wouldn't have given a damn. His only thought was to get to Trip. When he turned the corner and saw his friend, it felt like his heart had stopped. Trip was seated on the floor, his back against the wall, his arms cuddling his raised knees. He was rocking gently backwards and forwards, just staring at the communications panel. He was making tiny mewling noises and Jon was terribly scared that his young friend had gone over the edge into insanity. Slowly, carefully, the Captain walked to face Trip and knelt in front of him.

"Trip?" he spoke softly. A long moment later the cerulean eyes moved to focus on his face, but Jon saw no sign of recognition. He waited, his expression friendly and open, hoping the Commander would come back to him. Trip suddenly blinked rapidly and took in a deep breath like a man who had been underwater too long and had just broken the surface. He looked around him, then he remembered what happened.

"Oh Cap'n. I'm sorry!" he offered contritely. "For a moment it was just like before!" Trip covered his face with his hands. "I keep dreaming he comes for me... Even as a corpse. Even then..."

"I'll be glad to get back through the Vort Cloud and get Wilkinson's body off this ship too," Jon replied. He helped his young friend to his feet as Phlox came into sight. Jon had very strong suspicions that the Denobulan hadn't just showed up, but had been waiting further up the corridor. Using a diagnostic tool, Phlox scanned Trip.

"Another dizzy spell?" he asked calmly. Trip nodded.

"Bad one," he admitted. "I started hallucinating." The Doctor ‘hmnned’ and carried out a thorough check. "Please don't say I have to go back to Sickbay," Trip pleaded. Phlox eyed him with unusual severity.

"Get something to eat and retire to your quarters immediately and do not work at all tomorrow and I'll spare you," he ordered. Jon would have bet money that Trip would have argued with the doctor's commands, but he would have lost. The Commander nodded acceptance and his fatigue was clear. Trip, the Captain noted, had been doing far too much since he had started work again, probably part habit, part to stop himself from thinking about what he'd been through too much. Taking the arm of his friend and nodding his thanks to Phlox, Archer led Trip off to his quarters.

Trip ate and tried to sleep, but found his mind whirring with thoughts. Eventually he rose from his bed and donned a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and left his room. He made his way through the corridors that were reassuringly full of crewmates and stopped outside the door to Sub-Commander T'Pol's quarters. Hesitantly, he chimed for entry. He heard the 'enter' in the cool Vulcan voice and, keyed open the door. T'Pol was seated at a chair, reviewing data on a screen.

"Commander," she greeted in a cool voice. Trip looked round rooms that were as spartan as his own, unsure of what to say. Eventually he decided the best way was the direct way.

"T'Pol, I need your help," he told her. "I can't go on, not with the flashbacks and nightmares." He moved to glance at a Vulcan statue of Surak that stood on a shelf. "You've always said I lack mental discipline," he half-smiled. The smile died. He turned and looked at his alien crewmate. "Help me find some kind of peace before I go mad," he asked her, his voice shaking. "Please!"

Whatever T'Pol had expected from Trip Tucker it wasn't this! She let a brow rise in surprise, then stood lithely to face the Human.

"You do not lack mental discipline," she told him. "You would never have got us through the Vort Cloud alone if you did. "You lack a logical sorting process for your mind. It denies you perspective and allows your subconscious to assail you with nightmares of your ordeal with Crewman Wilkinson."

"Can you help?" Trip asked, the need clear in his dark-blue eyes.

"I believe so," T'Pol replied. She motioned for Trip to sit in front of her on the floor. He did so as she fetched her meditation candle. Dimming the lights she sat, lotus-like on the floor in front of him and lit the wick. Trip, cross-legged, waited, open for anything, something, just so he could face going on.

T'Pol concentrated at first on just relaxing the young man's mind and body with breathing exercises. Then she took him deeper, helping him to sort out and clear his mental processes. When she went deepest into his mind, asking questions and listening to the sub-text in the answers, she was taken aback to find that one of the deepest concerns in his mind was her illness. Although it was illogical, she was strangely comforted to know that he wished he could help. She redoubled her efforts and, by the time Trip slowly opened his cerulean eyes, he was relaxed in both body and mind.

"Wow," he opined softly.

"It will take more than one session to clear the pathways of your mind," T'Pol warned him. "We could try again tomorrow."

"Thank you," Trip responded. "If you can spare the time, I'd be really grateful."

"Certainly," The Vulcan Science Officer told him. "19.00?" Trip nodded. He stood and thanked T'Pol again, before leaving her quarters.

Once back in his own room, Trip undressed and got into bed. He glanced out the large picture window, seeing the faintly glowing dust of the Vort Cloud. It was, he acknowledged, going to take a long time to recover from the ordeal he'd been through. But he was beginning to acknowledge that Kurt Wilkinson's actions hadn't been his fault or his responsibility. Why the Crewman had fixated upon him to the point of insanity, Trip didn't know. He probably never would figure it out. But nothing he himself had done had made it happen. He had every right to strive for success in his life. No one had the right to curtail or belittle him just because they didn't measure up themselves. Trip's blue eyes moved across to where Kurt had put the camera in his quarters. He and Reed had personally removed them, scanning every nook and cranny of the room to make sure no further viewing or listening devices remained.

Trip shivered at the memory of the footage Wilkinson had taken. It would all have to be passed on to Starfleet as evidence. Trip knew he was in for a tough time once the Vort Cloud had been passed. However justified, he had taken a life. There were going to be a million questions to answer, a million reports to fill out. He shook his dark blond head at the pain, suffering and devastation that one sick man had caused. Sighing, the Commander dimmed the lights and slept, not dreaming, for the first time, about being trapped, agonised, and violated by Kurt Wilkinson. It's doubtful T'Pol would have approved of the paths her meditation with him had opened, but Trip, young again and lost in the lovely arms of Lisa Braun, smiled in satisfaction.

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