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Reed's Armory -- A Malcolm Reed Fanfiction Archive .. |
Title: Dinner at His Quarters
Author: Nehal
Author's e-mail: [email protected]
Fandom: Enterprise
Pairing: Reed/Sato
Rating: PG-13
Category: Het
Summary: Why men should never plan dinners.
Spoilers: Dead Stop
Archived to Reed's Armory on 10/16/2003.
"Lieutenant, it seems several of the members of your team have been feeling- under appreciated. I have received several complaints, many from female members of the crew who view you as 'standoffish', 'rude' and 'ungrateful'. If you do not rectify this situation within the next twenty-four hours, I am going to have to report my findings to the Captain."
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Verbs. Adverbs. Pronouns. Nouns. Tenses: Subjunctive, S-
Malcolm. Reed. Lieutenant. Lieutenant Malcolm Reed-
Hoshi Sato, Communications Officer aboard the Enterprise, and linguist extraordinaire, sighed for what seemed the millionth time that hour. She had lost concentration again, and instead of mapping out the entire grammar structure of the Klingon language, the young ensign merely succeeded in typing her latest crush's name, in several languages.
So far, the Armoury Officer's name looked prettiest in Vulcan.
"Mind if I take a seat?"
A light but incredibly sudden touch to the elbow suddenly jolted the woman out of her reverie, and looking up, she smiled slightly at Sub-Lieutenant Alexis Kramer, a senior munitions designer at Armoury. Blonde, blue eyed and willowy, she was second only to T'Pol, in the ability to make men salivate just by existing, and although welcoming her to sit, Hoshi could not help feeling a twinge of envy.
"Of course. I haven't seen you in the Mess Hall for at least a week, don't tell me Malcolm's got you guys working double shifts too?" Ever since their little sojourn into that frightening space station last week, Malcolm had insisted upon working double, triple, even quadruple shifts in order to return the weapons systems back to normal, despite the fact that he seemed to have acquired several new weapons--including some interesting looking torpedoes.
At the mention of her superior officer, however, Sub-Lieutenant Kramer blanched, and pushing aside her plate, she looked carefully about the room to ensure no one was in earshot.
"What do you know?"
Hoshi frowned, eyeing the woman with a puzzled frown. When she did not speak, Kramer went on, in an unusually higher pitch than normal. "Lieutenant Reed--lets just say that he has not been acting himself recently. I'm sure its just stress, but--" A pause; an uncomfortable shift within her chair; a frown later, the blonde weapons designer pulled out a crumpled white rose, seemingly out of nowhere. "I found this in my quarters this morning when I returned from my shift, it came with a note but I was so embarrassed I--"
Another pause. This time the sub-Lieutenant really looked distressed, and intensely curious, Hoshi patted her arm distractedly for her to continue.
"What is it Alexis? What did it say?"
Alexis frowned, before shifting uncomfortably again.
"It said to meet him in his quarters for dinner tonight. His quarters. Can you believe it? Even if I wasn't completely against fraternisation, this is just absurd!"
Malcolm thought he had it all planned out. After Sub-Commander T'Pol had suggested he improve relations with his team, he decided that perhaps his no fraternisation rule had been a tad extreme. They were all adults on the Enterprise, after all; perhaps a little mingling was not such a bad idea after all.
Of course, he couldn't mingle with everyone at the same time. The idea of an Armoury Officer gathering sent visions of beer kegs, funnels, and his last days at University firmly in mind and those definitely had not been good. Not that he remembered much of them.
So he had decided to do as the Captain and dine with each of his officers in turn. Sub-Lieutenant Kramer would be first, she was after all the senior most officer under his charge, so he had sent her a note complete with a rare English rose. He had heard somewhere that she collected them.
Setting two plates of steamed sea bass upon the tiny Star Fleet issue table in his quarters. It wasn't much, but then again this dinner was not about the food; it was his way of saying thanks to his team. Without their diligence, precision, and willingness to work twenty hour shifts each day, there was no way he could have fixed all the damage those hostiles had done to his weapons systems-
Not that everything was damage. A couple of nifty looking torpedoes had been installed too, but he had no intention of using them until he had thoroughly checked them out. You could never be too careful with explosives--.
When the door chime rang, Malcolm swallowed nervously, and ran his hand through his hair a few times before tugging at his shirt. It was made from a delicate dark blue silk that Ensign Sato had said brought out his eyes--
"I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him. I--"
Hoshi was angry. Actually angry was too tame to describe the rage she felt well up in every fibre of her being. Men. They were all the same. If they weren't breaking your heart by being with you, they were doing it by sending other women love notes and flowers, and invites to fancy dinners when they thought eating with you was inappropriate.
"I'll show him inappropriate!" The young ensign growled, as she buzzed the Lieutenant's quarters again.
"Coming! For Pete's sake sub-Lieutenant this is a serious breach of-" Furious, Malcolm pulled open his door, fully prepared to chastise his sub-Lieutenant, T'Pol's recommendations be damned, when instead of the tall, slightly aloof Kramer, he found a small, and extremely furious looking Ensign. "Hoshi, what are you-"
Before he could finish, Hoshi had tackled him to the floor, her lips set firmly against his own.
What was going on? He wanted to ask, but as her hands ripped open his shirt, thought it would be more polite to save the question for later, when she wasn't so busy.
~the end~