Mira Romaine was quiet and shy. She had a soft nervous smile and a habit of looking at people through her eyelashes. Since coming aboard the Enterprise, she had kept to herself and her duties - organizing a transfer of equipment and information to Vulcan II on behalf of Terran Aid. It was an important task, but she had a sort of natural bookish diligence. She accomplished her goals easily, once she set her mind to them. But her goals were always things like compiling a reference guide for admirals in need of studying Tellarite political language. She had no desire to take over the Alpha Quadrant for instance.
From across the mess hall, Engineer Scott was watching her with dreamy eyes. He wondered what her hobbies were, if she enjoyed conversations about engineering, if she liked the leafy little salad she was eating…
"Scotty! Scotty, are you listening?" Sulu snapped his fingers in front of Scotty's face, but it did nothing to disrupt his gushy contemplation.
"He is dead," Chekov shook his head sadly, "I will inform the captain."
"Shut up, the both of ye," Scotty sighed with a dopey grin on his face, "I'm thinking about important engineering stuff. The last thing I need would be you two distracting me from mah duties."
Chekov gave Sulu and inquisitive look. Sulu shook his head knowingly, and subtly pointed towards Mira Romaine's table. Chekov seemed genuinely surprised.
"I did not think that he would like such an intellectual woman!" He whispered across the table, his eyes wide with amusement.
"That's not her intellect he's looking at, Chekov." Sulu explained. He had taken it upon himself to explain things to the young ensign, much in the way one would train a puppy.
"Yer a terribly shallow man, Mr. Sulu," Scotty said with great disappointment in his voice. He leaned back in his chair and interlocked his fingers behind his head, "There is a woman of substance. I find it quite sad that you canna recognize it."
"If you appreciate her so much, why are you sitting over here?" Chekov asked slyly. Pretty good for the seventeen-year-old, he thought.
"Because!" Scotty replied with a scoff.
"That is not an answer!" Chekov scolded.
"It'd be rude of me to just get up and go over there! I'm havin' lunch with you, poor company that ye are…" Scotty replied smugly. There. That ought to shut the kid up.
"Oh, we're poor company?" Sulu chuckled, "As opposed to you? The guy who's been staring across the room for so long he's collecting dust?"
"How's it my fault if yer boring?" Scotty answered, but his joking voice had already fallen back into a state of enchantment. He was staring at Mira again.
"I knew we should have had lunch with Yeoman Rand…" Sulu mumbled.
"That is not better," Chekov argued, "I do not need to hear about how handsome the captain is while I am trying to eat."
Scotty let out a wistful sigh. Sulu flashed him an expression of absolute disgust. It was one thing to stare, but it was quite another to pine like a teenage girl.
Then, all of a sudden, and without any warning, Chekov stood up and began to make his way across the room.
"What's he doing?" Scotty gasped in a horrified panic, pulled out of his daydreams with brutal force, "What is he doing?"
"Chekov!" Sulu whispered frantically, "Chekov! Get back here!"
Mira looked up from the report she was reading to find a fresh-faced kid smiling at her. He was wearing command gold, but he didn't look like he should be finished with high school. Let alone cadet training. He didn't seem to be going away either. He'd walked over there on purpose. She responded with an expression of utter confusion.
"Hello!" Chekov said very brightly. What was Scotty afraid of? This lady was incredibly approachable. Like all librarians.
"Hi." Mira replied meekly.
"My friend is an engineer!"
"Um, lucky you?" She looked around, searching for any hint of why he had suddenly struck up a seemingly random conversation.
Across the room, Scotty couldn't hear what the daft boy was yammering on about, but he could certainly see that whatever it was made Mira very uncomfortable. He took a deep breath, fixed his courage, knocked back Sulu's drink…
"Hey!" …Stood up, straightened his uniform and headed over.
"Oh look! Here he is now!" Chekov said happily as Scotty approached. Mira seemed distinctly relieved that someone else had arrived, and was hoping very much that he could help her.
"Alright, Pavel. That's enough outta you." Scotty clamped a hand down on his friend's shoulder.
"I told her about you." Chekov said proudly, and gave the engineer a conspiratorial wink.
"You hafta forgive the lad, Miss," Scotty nodded to Mira, "He's still a wee bit wet behind the ears. Socially inept, we usually call him."
"Oh. It's alright." Mira smiled, but she was it was obvious that she was still nervous. She was terribly shy.
"Get on home, laddie." Scotty growled at Chekov and pushed him roughly towards their table.
Chekov hurried back to sit with Sulu, expecting praise for his accomplishment. Scotty was talking to his girl. A job well done.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Was all Sulu wanted to know.
Mira smiled warmly at Scotty, he had a kind of vivacity that caught her attention. He was cute, good-natured and friendly. There was something very genuine about his face and his voice. She found herself hoping he'd ask to sit down, or at least talk to her awhile.
"Thanks for letting me be a hero," Scotty told her with a twinkle in his eye.
"What do you mean?" Mira laughed. Not her usual shy, pseudo-compulsive laugh. But a warm, joyful laugh. Something about that twinkle made her smile.
"It's not everyday I get a chance to rescue a beautiful woman from a chatty Russian."