A/N: Here's the second in the series of the developing Malcolm/Hoshi relationship, written when I was still new at this fan fic stuff some years back and for some reason, never posted here. You don't have to read the first one, Tracked, to follow this one. Let me know if you like it.
Also, sorry to those on my alert list if you got 2 notifications...part of the story got eaten the first time I posted it. I have no idea what happened.
"That man! He makes me so mad!" exclaimed Hoshi Sato as she and Elizabeth Cutler walked down the corridor.
"Are you still upset with Lieutenant Reed?" Liz asked, giggling.
Hoshi gave her a dirty look. "He left me lying in the mud with a faceful of the captain's underwear!"
"Come on, Hoshi, he was just doing his job. The captain is his first priority. And you have to admit, using the captain's underwear for Porthos to get a scent from worked."
"He didn't get a speck of dirt on him!" Hoshi went on as if her friend hadn't spoken. "He didn't ask if I was hurt, just took off after Porthos when the darn dog finally decided to track the captain. I was so embarrassed!"
She kept complaining all the way to the cargo bay. "I still have to see him every other day for phase pistol practice, too. I can't seem to concentrate during practice no matter how hard I try, even if I picture his face on the target. Do you know what he said yesterday?" Mimicking the armory officer's British accent perfectly, she said, "'Ensign, I suggest you talk to Doctor Phlox to see if there is some physical reason you are having difficulty handling a phase pistol.' I know what I'd like to do to him with a phase pistol!"
Ever since their return from the planet where Captain Archer had been accidentally injured, Hoshi became flustered whenever she was in close proximity to Malcolm. It wasn't doing anything to help her phase pistol training. Her scores now were worse than when she had started.
"I feel insecure around him, or at least uncertain," Hoshi said, plucking at the hem of her tank top as they walked along. "He knows what to do in every situation and he knows how to take care of himself. And his know-it-all attitude really intimidates me. It makes me feel like I'm a child and I don't know how to do anything!"
"That's not true!" Liz said. "You are the absolute best linguist in the universe, and some of our contacts would have been disastrous if you hadn't been along. Well, more disastrous than they were," she said with a grin. "I'm in the same boat, you know. Everyone has been scheduled to learn how to use the phase pistols. Can you see me gunning down some vicious bug?"
Hoshi couldn't help but smile.
"That's better," Liz said. "Now let's get those squirt guns and pretend we're shooting Lieutenant Reed. At least maybe this time you can hit the target."
Hoshi playfully slapped at her friend, the teasing putting her in a better mood.
They ran into Travis coming off his shift, and the helmsman tagged along to the cargo bay where crewmen stored personal items. Liz's container had been shoved to the back, and they had to move many of the barrels and boxes to get to it.
"My six-year-old nephew gave me these," Liz said as she opened the container and pulled out four squirt guns. "He was so excited about me being on Enterprise, but he was worried, too. He gave me these to protect myself from 'big, bad aliens.'"
The guns ranged from a palm-sized mini pistol to a pump-action rifle. Hoshi reached for a medium-sized gun shaped like an old projectile handgun as Travis inspected the rifle.
"These are so neat!" Travis said. "Let's fill 'em up."
Liz and Hoshi exchanged an indulgent look and followed him to a water spigot at the end of the bay. The handle on the spigot was tight, and Travis got a rag from the maintenance locker to use for a better grip. With a sharp yank, he was able to open the spigot. That's when he noticed that the rag had lubricant on it, and it had gotten all over his hand and the spigot handle.
"Here, let me fill all of them so you don't get any of this on you," he said.
One by one he filled the squirt guns, returning the one Hoshi had picked out to her and giving Liz the mini-pistol and the other medium-sized gun. The rifle he kept for himself.
"OK, ladies, since I've got the big gun, I'll take both of you on," the handsome young man challenged the women with a mock leer.
"Travis, you are so full of innuendo," Hoshi sassed back.
Taking aim at Liz, Travis yelled, "Tag! You're it!" and let loose a stream of pressurized water.
Liz screeched as the cold water hit her in the chest, making her stagger. Taking refuge behind a storage barrel, she returned fire. Travis ducked and her shot went high, splattering on the wall above the spigot.
Hoshi had ducked to the side and got off a shot that hit Travis square in the seat of his uniform. With a yelp, he spun around to shoot at her but couldn't pump the water rifle fast enough to pressurize it for another shot before she scampered behind a row of cargo containers. Getting on her hands and knees, Hoshi quickly crawled to the other end of the row.
The whole time, Liz kept yelling. "Travis, come back here! Let me get a decent shot at you!"
"Why don't you come out from your hiding place?" Travis yelled back. "Afraid I'll knock you over with my next shot?"
Hoshi slid over to another group of cargo containers. Peeking out, she saw Travis disappear behind the containers where she had just been. Scuttling along on her knees, she circled around to that spot. She peered around the container at the end of the row and saw him down on his stomach, facing away from her.
"Where are you, Hoshi? Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Travis called in a sing-song voice as he edged along on his elbows.
"Quit talking and start shooting!" Hoshi said with a laugh as she pelted him with another squirt to the back of the pants.
Travis flipped over and got off a blast that grazed Hoshi's cheek. Spluttering and shrieking, she rolled away, putting the cargo containers between them again.
Liz, seeing that Travis had turned his back on her, sprung up from behind a low wall of metal boxes and let loose with spray from a squirt gun in each hand, screaming like a banshee. In her enthusiasm, she missed Travis and ran out of water as well. "Damn!" she said, dropping back down and scrambling toward the spigot.
Hoshi had lost track of Travis when she had rolled out of his line of fire. All the noise Liz was making wasn't helping. Even if Hoshi hadn't known before, she would have been able to tell now that Liz's specialty was entomology--a lot of Liz's curses compared certain parts of Travis to the anatomy of insects. It certainly was distracting, even to someone who knew invective in more than thirty-five languages.
Hoshi didn't want Travis to sneak up behind her, so she headed for the nearest wall that she could put to her back. Travis, on the other hand, knew exactly where Hoshi was. Paralleling her moves, he headed toward the wall and got in position next to the door. He held the rifle ready, eyeing the end of the row of containers where she would emerge from cover.
As soon as Hoshi showed herself, Travis stood up and opened fire, drenching her tank top. Hoshi shot back just as the cargo bay door opened. She missed Travis by a mile, but hit a very startled armory officer, flanked by two security guards, right between the eyes.
For a moment no one moved, Travis and Hoshi both staring in shocked horror at Malcolm, and Malcolm glaring at Hoshi. Then Malcolm slowly reached up with one hand and wiped off the water which was running down and dripping off the end of his nose.
Hoshi couldn't help it. All her frustration of the past few weeks came out in one short sentence delivered with a smirk--"Gotcha, sir."
Malcolm's eyes narrowed a fraction. "If I hadn't known you were aiming for Mr. Mayweather, Ensign, I would congratulate you on your improved accuracy," he said in an icy tone.
Hoshi snapped to attention. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Travis standing at attention and looking just as embarrassed as she was.
"Sir?" Travis spoke up, trying to deflect the armory officer's ire from his friend. "She did get me twice out of two shots. And her evasive efforts weren't too bad. She's pretty sneaky."
Malcolm only stared at the helmsman, who became more flustered under the unrelenting scrutiny.
"Um, would you believe this is kind of like target practice, but only with people as targets?" Travis asked hopefully.
"Target practice," Malcolm repeated thoughtfully.
Turning abruptly, he dismissed the two security guards who, to their credit, hadn't so much as snickered the entire time. Malcolm watched them leave, closed the cargo bay door and turned back to the two ensigns.
Raising his voice, Malcolm said, "Crewman Cutler, please come out and join us."
Liz sheepishly stepped out from behind some cargo containers and moved to stand at attention with her friends in front of the armory officer.
"I'm not going to comment on the childishness of what apparently has been going on here," Malcolm lectured in his best superior officer voice, his accent more pronounced than usual. "I understand the stresses of being cooped up on a ship. I understand that sometimes you have to do things to relieve that stress. But you violated regulations by turning on that spigot without authorization, causing an unwarranted security alert, not to mention that the mess you've made in here is out of line. I expect it to be cleaned up within an hour. Get to it!" As the three moved to comply with his order, he said, "Not you, Ensign Sato. You have another assignment."
Puzzled, Hoshi returned to attention.
"You are going to be the target for my target practice," Malcolm told her, watching in satisfaction as her eyes widened in disbelief. "My goal is to squirt you. Your goal is to not be squirted. I will allow you to keep your gun and have a head start. You have the run of the entire ship, and neither of us will use the computer to track the other's movements. Consider this part of your defense training."
Looking into his stormy blue-grey eyes, Hoshi shuddered, but whether it was from anxiety or something else, she didn't know. She was too astonished by the bizarre turn taken by what had started as a simple squirt gun fight.
Malcolm raked her up and down with a glare. "I assume from your attire that you are off duty for the rest of the day?" he asked. At her answering nod, he said, "Good. We'll have a time limit of three hours for this exercise, starting now."
"Sir?" a bewildered Hoshi asked.
"You are wasting your head start, Ensign." He paused for effect, then barked, "Move!"
Hoshi flinched, gave one desperate glance to her friends and, squirt gun in hand, took off like a scared rabbit for the cargo bay door.
After she scampered out, Malcolm turned to Travis. "Ensign, fill the rifle before you shut off the water spigot."
Travis retrieved the largest squirt gun and took it over to the spigot. Turning his body so that Malcolm couldn't see what he was doing as he filled the rifle, he deliberately spread lubricant from the rag on the trigger. He turned around and, with a straight face, took the gun back and handed it to the armory officer without a word. Malcolm, hefting the rifle and then heading for the door, didn't see Travis start to smile.
Hoshi decided this was the most insane thing to happen to her since she first came aboard. Being chased by a pissed-off armory officer with a squirt gun would have been funny except for the fact that she was the one being chased.
She hadn't been paying attention to where she was going as her mind wrestled with the outrageous situation, and now she found herself standing in front of the door to her own cabin. She knew it was the first place Malcolm would look, but as long as she was there, she decided to use her bathroom sink faucet to refill her gun, which had been emptied of the last of its water when she made the bull's eye on Malcolm's face. Standing at the sink as she filled the gun, her eyes came to rest on the air vent grating on the wall. There was no way she was going to crawl around in the ventilation system. She could probably fit in there, but her claustrophobia wouldn't allow her to try. Instead, she loosened the bolts holding the grating in place. Ripping off a small piece of her wet shirt, she snagged it to one of the bolts. That done, she dashed out of her cabin and around the corner just before Malcolm rounded the bend at the other end of the corridor.
Lying down on the deck to get below his line of sight, Hoshi peeked back around the corner and saw Malcolm punch in some numbers on the entry panel to her cabin. She almost laughed when she saw that he had picked the biggest squirt gun; somehow it was in keeping with his character. She also couldn't help but admire his rear from her vantage point on the floor, but shook that train of thought aside. As soon as he entered her cabin, she quietly got up and moved off to find a place to hide.
Malcolm kept the rifle aimed forward as he looked around the room. The only places to hide were under the bed, in the closet and in the bathroom. She wasn't in the closet or under the bed, but he didn't expect her to be. Behind the locked door of a bathroom was more her style, he reasoned. In two steps he was at the bathroom and kicked the door's control panel with the heel of his boot. When sparks flew from the panel and the door slid open with a bang, Malcolm considered that he might be pursuing Hoshi perhaps a bit too enthusiastically.
Glancing around the bathroom, he saw the loose air vent grating. He fingered the bit of fabric and smiled. Hoshi's claustrophobia was well known on the ship, and he wondered if she thought he would actually fall for this ploy. He had to admit it was a good try, though.
Thinking about Hoshi, he decided she would hide somewhere she felt comfortable. Sickbay would be his next stop.
"That's the last of them," Travis grunted as he and Liz heaved a heavy storage container into place along the wall.
"We got off light," Liz said. "All we had to do was clean up our mess. Poor Hoshi! Can you imagine being chased by the lieutenant all over the ship? I got the impression that he was getting a kick out of it, too."
"I wonder how Hoshi's doing," Travis said as he wiped his brow. "You know, we could probably use a comm panel to listen in."
"We can't do that... Can we?"
"Come on, Doctor. I need a place to hide."
Hoshi was bouncing up and down with impatience. She had explained what was going on as quickly as she could to the Denobulan, who was intrigued by her description of what appeared to be an adult version of hide-and-go-seek combined with a mating ritual. He'd readily agreed to help.
"There's decon," he suggested.
"Way too obvious."
"How about the patients' dressing room?"
"Same thing," Hoshi replied as she looked nervously over her shoulder toward the entrance to sickbay.
"There's the imaging chamber."
"What?! You know I have claustrophobia."
"All the better!" Phlox said. "The lieutenant does know about your claustrophobia, does he not? I doubt that he will look in there, simply because it's a place you wouldn't normally go."
"Oh, all right," Hoshi said and screwed up her courage.
The comm panel nearest to the cargo bay they could use was in the transporter alcove.
"Are you sure you know how to do this?" Liz asked Travis.
"Actually, Hoshi showed me how. Remember a while back when the captain came up with that cross-training idea? I did communications. This is the practical application of an obscure yet useful technique Hoshi showed me. It's called eavesdropping."
"Shut up, Mr. Show Off, and find them."
"Where do you think she went?"
"I don't know. Somewhere she feels safe, probably. How about sickbay?"
"Sickbay it is," Travis said as he fiddled with the controls on the panel. A moment later, they grinned at each other as they heard the doctor's voice over the comm.
"Just lie down on the bed and I'll retract it into the chamber, Ensign. This may even be a step toward confronting your fear of enclosed spaces."
"I doubt it. Just get rid of him as fast as you can so I can get back out of this thing."
Travis and Liz heard muffled shriek over the comm as the door to the chamber rumbled shut.
"Now, now, Ensign. You'll have to be quiet or you'll give yourself away."
Phlox was calmly taking inventory of one of his supply cabinets when the doors to sickbay slid open and Malcolm sauntered in.
"Lieutenant Reed! What brings you to sickbay? And what is that you're carrying? Something new you've come up with in the armory, hmmm?"
"I'm looking for Ensign Sato, Doctor," Malcolm said as he scanned the medical area. "And this is a water rifle."
"A water rifle? I don't believe I'm familiar with that type of weapon," Phlox remarked, peering interestedly at the device.
"It's not a weapon. It's a toy."
"A toy? Aren't you a little old to be playing with toys?"
"Doctor!" said Malcolm. "Ensign Sato and I are engaged in a training exercise. And you haven't answered my question. Has Ensign Sato been here?"
"Yes, she has. She was rather upset. Said something about needing a place to hide, I believe it was."
"You don't mind if I take a look around, do you?"
"Go right ahead, Lieutenant. It gives me another chance to observe human behavior."
Malcolm frowned at the cheerful doctor, then walked over to the decon chamber. Sliding open the observation port, he looked inside. No one there. Turning around, he was startled by the doctor, who had moved silently to stand right behind him.
"Did you find her?" Phlox asked politely.
"No!" Malcolm said. The rifle was getting heavy and he switched it to his other arm. With his free hand rubbed his forehead, unknowingly leaving a streak of lubricant there.
He sidestepped the doctor, whose grin had widened at the sight of the streak on the otherwise neat and clean officer. Malcolm next checked the patients' dressing room and bathroom. No one there, either. This time he was prepared when he turned around.
"Anything?" the doctor asked from a foot away.
"What do you think? You're practically right on top of me! Do you see her?"
"No," Phlox said, noting with interest that the lieutenant had wiped his forehead again, smearing lubricant into one eyebrow.
"She's not in sickbay then. Unless she's in there," Malcolm said, gesturing toward the imaging chamber with the rifle.
"I could open it up for you, if you like," Phlox offered. "Considering her claustrophobia, though, I don't think she would have put herself in there. Do you?"
"No, you're right about that. I'll have to continue my search elsewhere. She's better at this than I thought she would be."
Travis and Liz managed not to laugh so loudly that they couldn't follow what was going on in sickbay. They heard the "swoosh" as the sickbay doors opened and again as they closed. Then came the sound of footsteps and another "swoosh" as the imaging chamber opened.
"Come out, Ensign. He's gone."
"It's about time. God, I hate small spaces!"
"You did quite well!"
"So did you. You told him I'd been here but not that I hadn't left. Nice touch saying I wouldn't put myself in this contraption."
"It was the truth--I'm the one who put you in there. May I make a suggestion as to your next move in this, er, training exercise? You appear to be totally on the defensive. Don't you think you ought to go on the offensive, hmmm?"
Hoshi considered the situation from a different angle. So far, she'd just been running and hiding, trying to keep ahead of the armory officer.
Overhearing Malcolm's parting comment about her being better at this than he thought she would be made her feel somewhat better, but the doctor was right. She needed to go on the offensive if she wanted to have any chance of winning. And although the armory officer had said her goal was to avoid being squirted, she felt that, to truly win, she had to squirt him.
She wasn't sure she could sneak up on Malcolm; he'd been trained to do this kind of thing, after all. She would have to go about it another way. Remembering that he had overridden the code to her cabin door gave her an idea, but she'd have to get help. Deep in thought and without bothering to say goodbye to the doctor, Hoshi left sickbay.
"Now where did she go?" Liz asked as Travis tapped into various comm stations around the ship.
"I don't know. Unless we hear her talking, we won't know where she's at. Let's call Phlox and find out if he has an idea of where she may have gone."
Malcolm didn't know it but he was looking for Hoshi in places she had considered and then dismissed after she changed her strategy. First he checked the mess hall, then the armory, but he didn't find her in either location. His next stop would be main engineering.
On his way there, he admitted to himself that he was enjoying this, except for the fact that he hadn't found Hoshi yet. She was indeed sneaky. If she managed to last the three hours, her confidence might be built up a bit. Not that he didn't want to win, but if she didn't lose, maybe it would rub off on her phase pistol scores.
He walked into main engineering and spotted Trip coming out of his office.
"Hey, Malcolm. What's with the big gun?" Trip asked as he closed the door to his office behind him.
"I'm conducting a training scenario with Ensign Sato. Have you seen her?"
"That's not a real gun, is it?" Trip asked, his voice faltering on the last few words as he noticed the lubricant smeared on Malcolm's face. In addition to the streak across his forehead and in one eyebrow, there was now a smudge on one cheek. Trip bit down on his lip to keep from laughing.
"Commander, please." Malcolm was beginning to think that no one was taking him seriously, especially now that the chief engineer couldn't seem to look him in the eye. "Just tell me: Has she been here?"
"Here? Yeah, she was right here in this spot where you're standin', but not now."
"Well, which way did she leave engineering?" Malcolm asked.
"I, uh, didn't see her leave," Trip said.
With an exasperated grunt, Malcolm shifted the gun to a more comfortable position and made for the nearest exit.
Trip, shaking his head, watched the armory officer walk out of main engineering. Then he went back to his office, opened the door and said, "Come on out, Hoshi. He's been here and gone. What's with the grease all over his face?"
"I was right!" crowed Phlox. "She did go to engineering."
Liz shushed him as she leaned closer to the comm panel. What with Phlox and some crewmen who had been passing by the transporter alcove and wanted to know what was going on, there were now six people listening to the play-by-play over the comm.
"Good thing you came to help us," Travis whispered to the doctor. "I thought for sure she would have gone to the mess hall next."
Liz shushed them again, just in time to hear Hoshi as she came out of Trip's office.
"You're sure you want to help me with this, Commander?"
"Of course, Hoshi. I'm the only one besides Malcolm with authorization to override door codes."
"I hope this works."
"I don't see why not. The last place he's gonna think to look for you is in his quarters. You should have no trouble gettin' the drop on him."
"Oh, my God!" Liz squealed in both delight and horror. "She's going to ambush him in his own cabin!"
Travis was looking at the comm panel in disappointment, however. "Now what are we going to do? I can't access any comm panels in private quarters from here, just public areas."
A collective groan went up from the group.
"Try keeping track of the lieutenant," Phlox suggested.
Quite some time later, Malcolm was ready to admit defeat. This was turning out to be more difficult that he had originally thought. He had traipsed all over the ship and hadn't found Hoshi. He had checked every place he could think of where she might hide, including the quartermaster's store and even the shuttlepods.
At one point, he had been passing by the transporter alcove and had seen a group of about ten crewmen along with the doctor standing around the controls to the device. Rostov from engineering had stammered out something about leading cross-training for transporter protocols. Malcolm noticed Travis and Liz at the back of the group, still looking sheepish, perhaps trying to make up for that stunt in the cargo bay by taking extra training.
Malcolm thought it strange that he hadn't been informed about this particular cross-training, and made a mental note to check with the captain about it later.
With a curt, "Carry on," he continued a few steps down the corridor and entered the turbolift. The lift door had barely closed behind him when the group in the transporter alcove collapsed in nervous relief, giggling and holding on to each other for support.
Travis reached over and punched Rostov in the arm. "Quick thinking," he said to the engineer.
Considering she had been stalked for a couple of hours, Hoshi was remarkably calm. It was amazing what having a plan could do for your confidence. She waited patiently as Trip did something to the keypad outside Malcolm's cabin.
"Once ya get inside, I'll reset the code so that Malcolm can't tell it's been tampered with," Trip said as he finished punching in numbers.
"Thanks for helping me out," Hoshi said.
"No problem. I just wish I could see the look on his face when ya squirt him. Don't get me wrong. I like Malcolm, but sometimes he can be a prickly little son of a, er... you know what."
The door opened and Hoshi stepped in, glancing back to see Trip giving her a thumbs up and an encouraging smile. Then he reached over, tapped a button on the keypad and the door shut.
Hoshi looked curiously around Malcolm's cabin. Somehow she wasn't surprised that it was incredibly neat. That would make it that much harder to ambush him, though; anything out of place would give her away. Her only option was to hole up in the bathroom.
An old adage, "A place for everything and everything in its place," went through Hoshi's mind as she surveyed the various grooming items lined up in a neat row on the bathroom shelf. Toothpaste, toothbrush, comb...pineapple-scented body wash?
Figuring that she might as well be comfortable, she sat down on the commode, checked the water level in her squirt gun, and settled in to wait for Malcolm to come to his cabin.
Malcolm caught a reflection of himself in the glass covering an emergency access panel as he was striding down yet another corridor. Stopping, he leaned closer to the glass and rubbed at a smudge he saw on his cheek, but only managed to make the spot bigger. Taking his hand away and looking at it, he recognized the substance coating his fingers as lubricant.
"Bloody hell!" he muttered as he inspected the rifle more closely, seeing lubricant all over the trigger mechanism.
Nothing to do about it but go get himself and the gun cleaned up. The time limit would be up by the time he got to his cabin anyway. He had already worked more than a full shift when he had walked in on the squirt gun fight in the cargo bay. He was ready to call it a day.
On the way to his quarters, he thought about revising his review of Hoshi's defense ranking. She might not be able to shoot to save her life, but her successful evasion of him definitely qualified as a survival skill.
His thoughts were still on Hoshi when he opened his door, and he fancied he could almost smell her perfume. He stopped just across the threshold, immediately alert, when he realized the faint aroma was not a product of his imagination.
Hoshi was about to climb the walls. The small bathroom didn't bother her claustrophobia too much, but she'd had to shut the door and she'd been waiting for more than an hour. Now that she had time to think about what she was doing, she was starting to lose her confidence.
She wondered if she was totally certifiable. Here she was, sitting on the can in the security officer's quarters, waiting to ambush him with a squirt gun. She knew this was going to tick him off. Then her thoughts took another turn, as she realized how cute he was when he got mad. Being honest with herself, she admitted that he wasn't bad looking when he wasn't mad. But what was it about him that made her mad so easily?
Her ruminations were interrupted by the sound of the cabin door opening. Standing up, she gripped her squirt gun. Hearing nothing more, she wondered what he was doing. The best she could tell, he was still standing by the cabin door. It dawned on her that, somehow, he knew she was there. She gripped her squirt gun with new resolution, telling herself that since he would be the one to open the door to the bathroom, she had the advantage. She could get the first shot.
He could get the first shot, he knew, but only if he did this right.
He glided silently over to the bathroom door. Slowly he reached for the control panel, having discarded the idea of kicking it. He'd already broken one door on the ship today. Besides, this was his bathroom door.
Taking in a breath and holding it, he pulled the trigger on the water rifle just as he pushed the "open" button on the door panel. His shot was met by another stream of water that hit him square in the chest.
"Damn!" Hoshi shrieked as the burst of water from the rifle smacked into her tank top.
Looking incredulously at the corresponding wet spot on the front of his uniform, Malcolm leaned back against the door jamb and did the last thing Hoshi expected him to do. He started to laugh.
Hoshi glared at him. "This is not funny!"
"Oh, yes it is, Ensign. I think I've just been shot in the heart."
He laughed for a few more seconds, then sobered and looked at her. Hoshi's heart began to beat faster. From the look in his eyes, she realized that he meant he had been shot by Cupid's arrow, not her squirt gun. With a start, she knew that Cupid had taken aim at her heart, too.
"Hoshi," Malcolm said softly, gently touching her cheek.
Just as softly but with a slight smile, she said, "You're not so neat and tidy any more. You've got something all over your face."
Slowly he removed his hand from her cheek and took a deep breath to calm himself. "I know. That's how I found you. I came back here to clean up." In a matter-of-fact tone he added, "By the way, the time limit was up just as I entered my cabin. Congratulations. You've won by not getting squirted in the allotted time."
Hoshi was confused.
"Wait a minute," she said. "If you knew I was in the bathroom and time was up, why didn't you say so? Why did you shoot me?"
Malcolm raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to speak but closed it again when he couldn't think of what to say. He was saved from having to say anything by a beep from the comm unit. Moving to his desk and keying the panel there, he said, "Reed here."
"Sir?" Travis' voice came over the comm. "Is Hoshi...I mean, Ensign Sato...there?"
"What makes you think she'd be in my cabin, Ensign?"
"Uh, the time limit on your training exercise was up, sir. I was wondering how she did."
Hoshi had followed Malcolm out of the bathroom. Now she looked at him, indicating she wanted to answer. He stood aside to let her speak to Travis.
"I did fine, Travis," she said. "I didn't get caught, although I did get wet eventually."
"You'll have to tell me all about it later. Good idea hiding in the imaging chamber, by the way."
"Thanks. Hey! How did you know about that?"
"Well, um, we listened in over the comm system, using that trick you taught me."
"Who is we?"
"Me, Liz, Doctor Phlox, and, oh, about twelve others by the time it was over."
"What! All those people were listening in? You are in so much trouble!" she said.
Malcolm took Hoshi gently by the shoulders and moved her to one side before she could say anything else. Leaning toward the comm unit, he said, "I expect to see you in my office first thing in the morning, Mr. Mayweather. We need to go over some things about conduct becoming an officer."
They could hear Travis gulp before he acknowledged the order and closed the comm.
"The imaging chamber, eh?" Malcolm asked Hoshi. "My opinion of your abilities has definitely gone up."
"You should never underestimate me," she said.
"I'm beginning to learn that, Hoshi," he told her. Then, with a twinkle in his eye, he asked, "So, what should we do to teach Mr. Mayweather that it's not nice to eavesdrop?"
Hoshi couldn't help but grin back. She was starting to like this man.
the end