Malcolm and Hoshi: The Missing Scenes

Observer Effect

Where’s Malcolm?  Why doesn’t he come to me?

Hoshi lay on the bunk in Decon, wondering whether she’d said the words aloud.  Somehow it didn’t seem that important.  Trip knew, the captain knew, Phlox almost certainly knew, and the only other person likely to be in Sickbay and able to overhear the conversation via the comm was T’Pol.  If she found out it could be awkward, but then given the way things were going it might not be awkward for very much longer.

The thought terrified her, but she wasn’t lucid for all of the time now anyway.  And she wasn’t sure if the thought of dying wasn’t better than going on feeling worse and worse the way she was.

“Hoshi?”

“Gosh, Trip, I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“No problem.  I wasn’t asleep.”  He propped himself up on one elbow and peered at her.  The sweaty, waxen pallor of his face told her how bad her own must look.  Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that Malcolm wasn’t here right now after all.

But still, he should have come to talk to her, should have come to give her some comfort.  Why hadn’t he?  Was it because of Trip’s inhibiting presence?  She could imagine that he’d be intensely uncomfortable discussing anything personal in front of his superior officer, but in the circumstances surely he could make an effort?  He didn’t have to say anything much.  Just to see him, to know he cared ... oh, of course he cared, she believed that implicitly, but she needed him to give her courage.  And perhaps just to say goodbye ....

“You’re worryin’ why Malcolm hasn’t been to see ya,” said Tucker quietly.

Time was when she’d have blushed, have prevaricated, but she hadn’t the energy.  “A little bit,” she whispered.

“I can make a guess.” He reached out and touched her hand lightly.  “I don’t think he’d be able to cope with the idea of you bein’ so sick.”

“You think so?”  It was plausible, more than plausible; a veteran of Sickbay himself, her fiancé certainly wouldn’t go there voluntarily.  She knew, moreover, that his helplessness in the current situation would tear at him like steel claws in the gut.  But in the beginning, when they were still under the impression that it was just another of those alien microbes that the doc would find a cure for in half an hour or so, then he could have shown up, just to look concerned and chivvy Phlox about a bit ...

... why hadn’t he?

“I want to see him,” she muttered, despising herself for the weakness.  “I want ... I want to say....”

“‘Gee, lover boy, is that a phase pistol in your pants or are you pleased to see me?’” suggested Trip.

“Trip Tucker, if we get through this I am so going to slap you.”  Right now she hadn’t the energy to lift her hand, let alone slap him, however thoroughly he deserved it.

She shifted position slightly, trying to get comfortable, feeling a wave of sweat break out across her body. 

Why hadn’t he come?  It couldn’t be that he didn’t care. 

A sudden thought came to her that made her nauseous with fear.  Was he sick too?  Had he somehow contracted the virus himself, through contact with one of the other landing parties?  Was he lying unconscious in his cabin or in some out-of-the-way place where his collapse might not be noticed? 

Her head spun.  Another wave of sweat broke over her.  They wouldn’t tell her if he was sick.  They wouldn’t want her to have the additional stress.  He would have come if he’d been able to.  He’d have dragged himself off his deathbed if it was something ordinary.  But he wouldn’t have endangered the crew.  He’d make both of them die alone if the alternative was spreading the virus.

She had to find him.  She had to tell someone. If he’d fallen, if he was sick, they wouldn’t know.  She had to get out, had to find him.  I need to tell them while there’s still time.

“Hoshi?” Trip stared at her as she lurched upright.  The effort almost made her vomit, but she had to do this.  She had to.  The captain... the others... they didn’t know about Malcolm being sick.  This realization, combined with the terror of being locked in, overwhelmed her.  She had to get out.

She had to.