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Post-ep for 'Shockwave Part 2'.
Inspired by the Darren Hayes song 'Black Out The Sun'.
Beta'd by VesperRegina, to whom all due thanks!
Everyone has one of those nights.
When the heating is at the wrong setting, whether you set it to warm or cool; when the bedding appears to have had nettle fibers woven into it; when the mattress has more lumps than badly made custard; when the pillow is either too hard or too soft, but is at any rate irredeemable; and when the sheet throws itself into a prodigious sulk and detaches itself at every existing corner, so that within less than twenty minutes it consists of a pool of rumpled cotton which conspiratorially insinuates itself into whatever area of the bed in which you choose to lie in the desperate search for comfort and sleep.
On this particular night, Ensign Hoshi Sato was having an even worse time of it than usual.
It wasn't that it had been her worst day ever. At least it could be said that she hadn't ended up on an alien ship full of corpses. She'd only ended up on Lieutenant Reed's doorstep in a state of advanced indecency. Of course, if she had to end up on anybody's doorstep half-naked, it just had to be his. Trip or Travis would have made a joke of it, just to make the situation bearable for everybody; the captain would have been gallant enough to pretend he didn't even notice she hadn't half her uniform on; T'Pol would probably have had a silk pajama top ready in her hand to throw around her.
Malcolm Reed, though...
She turned over for the umpteenth time with a movement that was perilously close to a flounce.
Had he had to look so damned horrified?
Back to the other side of the bed. Even more lumps whose existence she had never previously suspected. The sheet wrapped itself lovingly around her leg, and the pillow appeared to be made of a duratanium alloy.
She kicked the blankets off and lay on her stomach.
Unfortunately, that position was never likely to help. Just lately, the firmness of the mattress had borne a superficial but somehow comforting resemblance to that of a certain armory officer. And after a day like today had been, cold hard reality made her dreams that bit less real and that bit more painful.
In your dreams, he doesn't look ... horrified.
One of the lumps in the mattress had made its way into her throat.
Damnation. She wasn't going to cry. If he didn't know a good thing when it turned up half-naked on his doorstep, that was his loss.
She evidently wasn't going to get to sleep. She contemplated seeking out her stash of chocolate, but caffeine wasn't going to help her problem.
A glance at the clock. The ship would be deserted at this hour. Exercise. Perhaps half an hour of working out in the gym would tire her out, help her to swallow the lump in her throat. Things would look better in the morning, they always did. If only she could snatch a few hours' sleep – otherwise she'd be swallowing yawns from one end of her shift to the other tomorrow, and the captain wouldn't be impressed.
The thought was followed by the deed. Abandoning her uncooperative bed, she slipped on a set of leisure clothes and slid out of her room.
The corridors were very quiet. The running lights were on half power to simulate night-time. There was no one about. Up on the bridge, the gamma shift was running a few tests to prepare for the next mapping project, a huge nebula whose edge they were scheduled to reach in two days' time. The barely perceptible tremor of the deck plating under her feet showed that the ship's engines were running as smoothly as cream; somewhere Trip would be sleeping with a contented smile.
As she walked along the corridor towards the turbolift, Hoshi contemplated Trip's many perfections. He had a body to die for, a nature that was as kind as it was sunny, and a brain that had propelled him to the head of his department on the first Warp 5 capable starship ever built when he was barely thirty years old. Half the female members of the crew swooned at his every smile.
So why wasn't she among them?
She loved Trip. She really did. You couldn't help it, when you worked with somebody that adorable. Even when he was occasionally grumpy you knew it was just a glitch in the system, and when he was through growling and he'd got whatever technical hitch it was sorted out, normal service would be resumed immediately.
He was the best older brother she'd never had.
Travis? He was the best younger brother she was glad she hadn't had. Their war of pranks on each other was in abeyance at the moment. She was still trying to think of something to get him back for the last one, and she was biding her time. He'd never treated her as anything other than a sister, and their relationship would probably always be that of siblings. Never anything more.
Jonathan? There'd been a flirtation, back in Brazil, but he'd had his eyes on far distances even then. He was still living the dream. And Starfleet gossip mentioned Captain Hernandez. The thought didn't pain her; Erika Hernandez was another one with her sights on the stars. They were alike enough to take what they needed from each other without adding to each other's burdens.
And as far as the alpha bridge crew went, that left...
...the man who looked horrified when she turned up on his doorstep half-naked.
She got into the lift and brushed a hand across her cheekbone. She wasn't crying. She just had something in her eye.
Okay. In both eyes, then. They'd be fine in a minute.
They weren't really fine by the time she got to the gym, but she'd mopped them on her sleeve and sniffled once or twice in a dismal sort of way, and that was as much as she was prepared to concede to the situation.
The door hissed open. The main room was empty as she'd expected, its various pieces of equipment untenanted. But the light was on in one of the smaller practice rooms, and a strange series of breathy noises was coming out of there, with a background of some small, slightly tinny sound she couldn't identify.
For a moment she hesitated. The whole appeal of the exercise had been that she should have had the place to herself – a half-hour's solitude in which to exorcise the demons which lay between her and a decent night's sleep. But perhaps whoever was in here was in the same case as she was. It wouldn't hurt to just say hi, to perhaps open up a conversation – there were a good number of people on the ship whom she hardly knew, and she might make a new friend that way. Even if that wasn't an option, it would still be only polite to mention to whoever it was that she was using the equipment in the room outside; she wouldn't want them to come out thinking they were alone in the gym and get a heart attack from the shock of finding they weren't.
She walked quietly to the door, which was ajar. Silently she peered around it, framing her face into the best smile she could muster. A smile which fell off it as soon as she saw who was within.
He was completely unaware of her. He had his back to the door, and the metallic glint of an earpiece showed the source of that tinny sound she'd heard. He was listening to music through sport headphones. No – not listening to it. Secure in the belief that he was completely alone, the lieutenant was dancing to it.
He'd obviously preceded this by some time spent on more orthodox forms of exercise. Now she came to notice, a towel and a water-bottle lay beside one of the exercise bikes. His hair was black with sweat, his body glossy with it. The back of his grey pants displayed a spreading V-shaped stain where it had run down his spine. He'd stripped off whatever he'd been wearing on his upper half; a crumpled grey heap of wet cloth lay to one side, forgotten.
And he was beautiful.
Knowing he was unobserved, he was utterly unselfconscious. He must have been doing this for years, blending all the disciplines of muscular development and flexibility into a graceful interpretation of his chosen music. His body was lean, rippled with muscle, and incredibly flexible. His bare feet carried him from one complex movement to the next with the sureness of hours of practice; he not so much moved as flowed from one form to another, his face almost blank save for the frown of concentration and the faint movement of his lips as he breathed the words of the song. Whatever it was, it was a song that meant a great deal to him. She could see that by the sorrow and beauty of his gestures. He was dancing his heartache. And she should not, under any circumstances, be watching him.
She stole just another couple of seconds of illicit pleasure, simply reveling in the pure aesthetic spectacle of a superbly built male body displaying a coordination and grace that would have astonished anyone on the ship who was privileged to see it. To be sure, anyone who'd ever seen him demonstrating self-defense or taking part in a bout with other members of the crew would know that he was as strong and supple as a whip. With the amount of training he did, he was probably stronger than many men aboard who were half a head taller and kilograms heavier than he. But this, this was something else altogether. An unexpected and zealously hidden talent that he concealed from the world as if it was something of which he should be bitterly ashamed.
If she moved quickly he might well see her; his eyes were only half closed, and he was always as wary as a cat. With the utmost care she ghosted backwards out of sight. As soon as she felt it was safe she spun around and walked back across the gym on tiptoe. She had no way of knowing how long the song went on for, and whether it would continue long enough to block out the betraying hiss of the doors letting her out. But the noise of the headphones went on. It must be very loud, to be audible even out here. She only played music at that kind of volume when she really had some angst to let out.
Just as she reached the door she suddenly heard his voice, breathless and out of tune in the way that anyone's is when they sing while unable to hear themselves. The passion of his dance was in that too, however. It was a wail of suffering that echoed around the empty gymnasium and struck an echo in her heart as she poised with her finger above the last code button: "I don't wanna be lonely...".
She took her chance. The doors swished open and she fled, thanking her lucky stars that she'd got away with it and he never would know that he'd had an accidental audience.
But as she walked more slowly down the corridor to the turbo-lift, prey to so many different emotions that she doubted she'd ever get them sorted out in her head, those five words he'd cried out into the silence came back to her over and over again: 'I don't wanna be lonely...'.
Me neither, Malcolm, she thought. Me neither.
The End.
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