| Summer Greetings By:Snowballjane They'd forgotten her. In fact, she hoped they'd forgotten. The alternatives were possibly worse. Was there some family emergency? Her mother was always very punctual with every celebration. She remembered everyone's birthday, down to second cousins and she sent gifts to former work colleagues from four jobs ago. Something awful must have happened for her to forget her own daughter. Every day for the past week Ensign Hoshi Sato's first waking action had been to check the communications log to see if anything had arrived from home. Nothing had appeared. It was bound to happen, she reflected. They'd been away for months. Her mother's detailed daily letters had gradually become weekly notes as the family became more used to their Hoshi being so far away. That was ok. Hoshi knew her mother still cared - she just had a busy life of her own. But she was miserable nevertheless. It would be the first summer ever that she hadn't been home at all during July. And she'd spent days designing her cards to send home to the family. So why hadn't there been a reply? Now she was sitting in the mess hall, drinking orange juice and fretting. She tried to distract herself by staring at a PADD on which she was compiling a paper on alien facial physiology and the glottal stop, but she couldn't really feign an interest in the difficulty of making the sound with an enlarged tongue. "Shochuu omimai mooshi agemasu." Hoshi looked up to see who was mangling the Japanese phrase, and found herself staring straight into the eyes of Lt Malcolm Reed. He was smiling nervously with his hands behind his back. Hoshi had to laugh. "It's actually quite cool here," she replied. "Oh no, I've said it wrong," said Malcolm, his face falling. "I meant, well, er, umm, 'summer greetings'." He thrust out a hand containing a small gift-wrapped cube. "No, it's actually right," she said, jumping up and pulling out a chair. "Well, right-ish. The traditional summer greeting is to ask people how they are coping with the heat. And this must be my ochugen. You've been studying the computer database on Japanese culture I take it." "I wanted to do something in return for the fantastic birthday cake," said Malcolm sitting down opposite her and leaning forward excitedly. Hoshi noticed he looked slightly embarrassed. "Go on, open it." Hoshi was normally a parcel ripper, but the little box was so neatly ribboned she just had to open it carefully. As she lifted the lid she gasped. Nestled on a bed of soft fabric was a miniature Enterprise on a silver chain. She lifted it out and took a closer look. It was made up of tiny washers, nuts and screws. Her smile fell away and she bit her lip. "Oh, crumbs, you don't like it," blurted out the officer opposite her. "No, Malcolm. It's beautiful. It's just - well, I was sitting here feeling all homesick and then you go and." She sighed. "Sorry. And thank you. Did you make it?" "Yes, there's a torpedo launcher short of a few parts now." She laughed. "I hope you're joking." He pulled an 'innocent' face, all wide-eyes and 'who - me?', and Hoshi laughed again. "So, do you think it would be against uniform regulations?" she asked, lifting the tiny Enterprise by its chain and fiddling with the fastener. Malcolm stood up and walked around behind her, lifting her plait and fastening the chain. "It's Enterprise - how can it be against the rules?" he whispered leaning close to her ear. He straightened up suddenly. "Oops, I probably shouldn't be encouraging you to break the rules," he said, striding back to his seat. The pair chuckled conspiratorially. "So, why so homesick then?" he asked leaning back in his chair and knitting his eyebrows into a look of genuine concern. "I've had no shochu mimai from home," she said wistfully, toying with the little ship hanging from her neck. "At first I was just upset that I'd been forgotten, then I got in a panic that there might be some awful reason why they hadn't written." "It's probably just a backlog in communications through Starfleet you know," said Malcolm matter-of-factly. "I'm sure they're thinking of you." She knew. It was the most obvious answer. Some messages had taken weeks to reach them - now that they were so far out, only essential things, like orders from the admiral, were ever sent immediately. Still, it was reassuring to hear the words. And anyway, Malcolm's gift and greeting had suddenly made home feel a lot closer. "I know," she said, finishing her juice. "But it sounds a lot more likely when you say it." The End. |