Reed's Armory -- A Malcolm Reed Fanfiction Archive ..

Title: Reed Alert

Author: Taryn Eve

Author's e-mail: [email protected]

Fandom: Enterprise

Pairing: Reed/Sato

Rating: PG

Category: Het

Summary: Malcolm unexpectedly keeps Hoshi busy in the aftermath of Singularity.

Spoilers: Singularity

Comments: This was a challenge from David at Linguistics Database.

Archived to Reed's Armory on 10/15/2002.

Chop chop chop.

The firm, repetitive sound made Hoshi wince. It reminded her of her ill-starred stint in the galley. While under the influence of the singularity, she had screamed for carrots like an enraged Klingon. All in all, she'd rather forget the whole experience.

She picked up her novel, a book she had borrowed from the captain, and started reading again. What was this Heathcliff guy's problem, anyway?

Chop chop chop.

Throwing down her napkin, she marched over to the galley, determined to find out why Chef was making such a racket so early in the morning.

Malcolm Reed glanced up from the chopping board with a sheepish look. An array of bright colored vegetables lay murdered before him, apparently victims of the large butcher knife in his hand.

"What are you doing?" she asked, puzzled. "Do you even know how to cook?"

Malcolm's face flushed. "I can manage, Ensign. Thank you." The dismissal was plain in his voice.

Hoshi folded her arms. "So why are you here, anyway?"

The lieutenant gave her a dark look as he reached for a towel to wipe his hands. "It's a personal matter."

Her gaze dropped down to the mangled broccoli, potatoes, and yes, carrots. "Yes, I'd say it was personal. Remind me not to make you mad, Lieutenant."

"Don't make me mad," he said, giving her a sour look.

"You could use an apron," she said, looking around for one. "Don't give me any lines about Reed men not wearing them, either."

She'd heard a lot about Reed men lately. And Tucker men, and Mayweather men, too. Sighing, she made a mental note to have dinner with the other female crew more often.

"Chef said I'm not to touch his apron, and oddly enough, they don't come as standard issue in the Armory."

Hoshi grinned. "You are in trouble, aren't you?"

Nodding his head, Malcolm reached for a large stockpot. "My tactical alert last night ruined dinner. The captain tried to smooth things over, but this was the result." His sigh sounded heavier than the book she'd been reading earlier.

She smiled. "I'll take pity on you and help you out."

"You will?" he asked, brightening. "Thanks, Hoshi." Setting the knife down on the counter, he handed her a large carrot, then flashed her a wide smile.

Funny, she thought. She hadn't realized he could smile like that.

She picked up the knife and started chopping, thinking about his smile.

"Carrots," she said, shrugging.

++++++

Malcolm emerged from his lavatory, still convinced that his hands smelled like vegetables. There was nothing for it, though. At least Hoshi had saved him before he'd gotten to the onions.

The door chimed and he went to answer it, hoping it wasn't someone else wanting him to pay for his unwitting misdeeds. Thankfully, no one would be able to make him budge from the tactical station once he went on duty in forty minutes.

Captain Archer gave him an assured smile from the corridor. "Malcolm. Hoshi told me you escaped from the galley with your scalp intact."

"Good morning, sir," he said, feeling nervous. Surely not another complaint?

At his gesture, Archer entered the cabin and looked around. "Er, tidy place you've got here."

Malcolm stifled a wince, wondering if the man was going to inflict breakfast on him again. "Thank you, sir."

"I guess you're wondering why I'm here," Archer said, holding a padd out.

Malcolm straightened his posture and put his hands behind his back. "Sir, if it's about my tactical alert system, I've almost got the bugs worked out."

"That's not my concern," Archer said. "Well, it is my concern, but I have something else I'd like for you to look over for me."

Malcolm's stomach fluttered. Oh no, here it comes, he thought, turning on the padd. Dear God, there is a hell.

"I figured since you have that classical British education, you'd be well-suited to give me some advice on how to put my sentences together for this prologue I still have to write. T'Pol tried to help me out, but she sort of lacks the personal touch."

Malcolm started coughing, hard. Classical British education? Where did he think Malcolm had gone to school, 19th century Oxbridge?

"I prefer slinging guns to words, sir."

Archer raised an eyebrow. "Would you prefer Trip to help me?"

Malcolm shuddered. No doubt the discourse would ramble off into an epic about football and catfish and the joys of shaving on a planet without any water whatsoever...

"What about Hoshi?" he blurted out. "For God's sake, she's a linguist."

The captain grabbed back his padd and grinned. "You're a genius, Malcolm."

He darted out of the cabin. Malcolm leaned against door after it closed and sighed. If he were a genius, why was everyone trying to get him to do their bidding? Real geniuses had minions.

Or was that evil geniuses who had minions? He couldn't remember.

++++++

Hoshi heard Travis groan for the third time that hour. Looking up from the captain's magnum opus, she frowned at the pilot. The low, pained noise he kept making almost made her want to borrow a phase pistol to stun him out of his misery.

"You should go to Sickbay," she said, trying to sound concerned instead of irritated. "It sounds like you're in a lot of pain."

To her surprise, Travis shot Malcolm a dirty look. "Well, you know that tactical alert we had last night? I was sleeping after my shift. Somehow, I woke up thinking I was in Sickbay still and I fell out of my bunk and hit my shoulder on my desk."

"Your desk isn't next to your bed," Malcolm said in protest.

Travis hunched over his console. "I sort of rearranged my furniture after I got out of Sickbay a few days ago."

Hoshi and Malcolm exchanged a worried look over the pilot's head. They'd heard bits and pieces about the doctor's odd behavior during the singularity. However, they hadn't known that the experience had been bad enough to inspire Travis to try his hand at interior decorating and defense. Hoshi could just picture the desk shoved up against the door of her friend's quarters...

"Maybe Hoshi can take a look at you later," Malcolm said. "She's got a better bedside manner than I do, I wager."

"You aren't planning another tactical alert tonight, are you?" Hoshi asked, waving the padd at him. "Thanks to you, I have homework tonight."

"I can reschedule it," Malcolm said, giving her an abashed look.

In that moment, he looked inexplicably handsome to her for the first time. Hoshi could picture him wandering the Yorkshire moors, sighing for his lost love.

"You do that," she said gruffly.

+++++

Malcolm sank onto his bunk, every bone aching. After his duty shift, he had tracked down Trip to go over the faults in the Armory's relays. Of course, the chief engineer had to argue about it all, which only made the job last an impossibly long time.

Someday perhaps he'd work on a ship with an engineer who would believe everything Malcolm had to say. As things stood, he felt like he was the embodiment of the Chinese curse. He lived in interesting times, especially the times he and Trip got into it. God help them if they reached the end of their careers and ended up in the same Starfleet retirement home. The paint would blister within a week, no doubt.

The comm chimed. Malcolm resisted the impulse to take a phase pistol to it.

"Reed."

"Er, are you busy?" Hoshi sounded tired. He prayed that she wouldn't ask him for help on the captain's masterwork.

"I'm here if you need to speak to me," he said, not wanting to move a muscle outside the room.

"I'll be there in a minute. Sato out."

He shook his head, not knowing what she wanted. Maybe it wasn't the captain's assignment. Had his rash of tactical alerts ruined something for her lately, too?

Pulling on a robe, he looked around, then straightened the bed and put away the padd he had been reading. Pratchett was a much more integral part of his neo-classical British education than any other of the usual suspects of literature. The Joyce he'd been reading last year had been intriguing, but he liked to be entertained, though he would never admit that to Trip Tucker.

A second after the door chimed, he opened it and stared at his visitor. Hoshi was dressed in a tank top and sweatpants, and she looked worried. She clutched an old-fashioned book in her hands.

"Hi," she said, biting her lip. Her hair was down, and it framed her face in a distracting manner.

"Hello," he said, giving her a puzzled shrug. "Is something wrong?"

She sighed. "Can I come in?"

"Of course," he said, motioning her inside. He offered her a chair and then sat down on his bunk. "What have you been reading?"

She flushed and looked away. "That's the problem. I haven't been reading it."

Malcolm folded his arms. "Oh, good lord, not again." Throwing his arms out, he stood up and started pacing. "Look, I apologize for my damned Reed alerts, all right? I won't schedule any more for another month at least."

She started to laugh. "Reed alerts?"

He rolled his eyes. "Something Trip coined."

Hoshi regained her composure, only to glance at him again and start laughing harder.

"You can't be too angry with me if you're laughing," he said wryly.

Rising to her feet, Hoshi walked up to him. "I'm not mad at you." A flicker of doubt crossed her face, then she leaned in and kissed him. He pulled back, took a deep breath, and then stared into her eyes.

"May I ask what exactly inspired this?" he asked, placing a hand on her shoulder to steady himself.

She rubbed his arm. "You're always trying to do the right thing."

"Ah," he said, suddenly feeling guilty for his thoughts of making her his minion earlier in the day.

She looked down at the book on the chair, then at him again. "You're a pretty brave guy, and you're intelligent, and you're a good friend."

"I've got a pulse, a clean bill of health, and sometimes I smell great, too," Malcolm quipped. More seriously, he frowned. "You haven't ever looked at me this way before, let alone kissed me. What's going on?"

She shrugged. "I figured out that I don't want to get to know a guy in a book. I'd rather spend time with you. What do you think about that?"

Malcolm stared at her. Hoshi was a lovely woman and a good friend. He couldn't ask for a better chance with anyone else.

"I think you've had a Reed alert of your own," he said, leering at her.

She groaned, then knocked him back onto his bunk. "You're awful."

"Terrible," he said, pulling her into his arms and kissing her.

"Just...ooh...bad." She groaned his light kisses reached her ear.

The horrific clangor of the tactical alert blaring made them jump out of the bunk.

"I thought you rescheduled tonight's alert!" Hoshi yelled.

Malcolm slapped his forehead. "I forgot." Yanking open his wardrobe, he searched for a clean uniform.

Warm hands sneaked inside his robe and grabbed his waist.

"I think we can afford to be a few minutes late this one time," Hoshi said in his ear.

He turned around to argue with her. It was his duty to order her to get to the bridge and hurry to her station as quickly as she could.

Instead, he stared into her warm, dark eyes and felt his will melting away. She cupped his cheek and then kissed him again.

Yes, he thought as her warm lips caressed him. He wrapped his arms around her, feeling content for the first time in forever. He didn't need minions or evil geniuses. He just needed Hoshi in his life.

So, he thought, this is the Sato alert.

They could live with that.

~the end~