A/N: Some of the characters contained in this story are the property of Parmount Pictures, I'm only borrowing them for my own amusement. Also if you are not a fan of stories featuring characters that are not regulars on the show as romantic interests you will probably not want to read this story.
PS There will be more of the normal characters in the next few chapters, but this chapter is more of a character introduction.
As Lieutenant Malcolm Reed walked into the lift, he encountered a soaking wet Ensign Samantha Hardcastle. He had often met her in the mess hall, and although he found her quite attractive, he had never had the guts to even speak to her, other than on matters concerning the ship or business. 'Now is as good of time as any, Malcolm, at least you'll have a valid reason for asking.' He mentally encouraged himself. "You're soaking wet, Ensign?" 'Oh great opener, you idiot, like she didn't already know that she was wet.' Malcolm thought sullenly.
Samantha gave a small laugh as her cheeks reddened and said "I, uh, I jumped into the spare plasma coolant vat. They hosed me off in Engineering, but I didn't have a change of clothes."
"Purposely?" Reed asked, his face softened slightly with concern, but if Samantha hadn't been really paying attention she wouldn't have even caught the minute change in facial expression.
"No, I was walking on the catwalk, when another crewman came from the other way. Needless to say I swerved left when I should have dodged right. We had a head-on collision and I lost my balance." She said, sure that her cheeks were approximately the color of a ripe tomato. 'Nice one, Sam that is really the way to get a guys attention: tell him how much of a klutz you are.' "Anyway, Commander Tucker told me to go get changed and then check in with the Doc, to make sure that the coolant has no adverse affects, other than being extremely slimy and hard to get off."
At that moment the lift came to a halt at Reed's floor. They stood there for a few seconds in silence, before Malcolm finally spoke. "Why don't you use my shower; its much closer than your quarters. Besides that way you don't have to explain this to your roommate as well."
"Thank you, but how do you know where my quarters are?"
'Uh-oh' "As tactical officer and head of security, I know where everyone's quarters are." Malcolm lied through his teeth. He had just remembered because he had seen her leaving her quarters when he had sealed off Daniel's quarters, and didn't want to admit that it had been implanted in his memory as the residence of a cute bird.
"Oh, yeah I guess that's true." She said as she followed him off the lift. They only had a short walk to his door as compared to her quarters which were 3 decks up and about another 30 minute trek. As he keyed open the door, music wafted through the doorway. "I'm a Lumberjack and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I work all day, I cut down trees, I wear high heels, panties, and a bra, I wish I were a girlie, just like my dear Papa." Came the sound of the rather odd lyrics. Sam only arched an eyebrow as a smile slowly crept onto her lips.
"Computer, kill music." He said, it was now his turn to blush, he had left the music on while he had run to the armory to get a forgotten padd. "Sorry about that, it's Monty Python… a British comedy group. The shower's in there. While you get properly cleaned up, I'll get you a towel and a change of clothes. Feel free to borrow my soap if it helps." He said as he showed her to the bathroom.
"Thanks. The music's good, I knew I had heard it somewhere. I am, believe it or not, a fan of British style comedy." She said as she made her way into his small but quite tidy bathroom. Her last statement just made him like her even more. Malcolm felt like a giddy teenager, having a girl in his room for the first time. 'Oh grow up, it not like I've never had a girl in my quarters before. Besides, I'm just being a friendly coworker; saving her an embarrassing and long trip to her quarters, it's not like we're on a bloody date.' Malcolm conversed with his ego while he set about the task of getting a towel and a set of clean work out clothes that were likely to fit her better than one of his uniforms, and setting them discretely inside of the door to his bathroom. Not knowing what to do with himself now that he had done everything he said that he would, he sat down and went back to work after making sure that his back was facing the bathroom door. After about twenty minutes Sam emerged from the bathroom clothed in the t-shirt and shorts that he had laid on the towel. The towel itself was hanging over her shoulders. 'Bullocks she looks cute in that.' Malcolm thought as he turned when she cleared her throat.
"Thank you so much. I really appreciate you saving me from walking all the way to my quarters soaked like that." She said grateful and awkward at the same time. "Can I get these clothes back to you sometime tomorrow?"
"Take all the time you need. I've got plenty of sets." 'Bugger that sounded cheesy.'
"Thank you Lieutenant. … I best be getting to the Doctor to get checked out." Sam said after a few minutes of strangling silence.
"Not a problem, please call me Malcolm, …" Malcolm said not particularly wanting her to leave just yet but not seeing any reason for her to stay. On a whim he said, "I was going to head to sickbay for something to battle my headache anyway, so why don't I walk with you" even though he didn't actually have a headache. 'Oh well a little aspirin never hurt anyone.'
"Okay. You can call me Sam." 'Oh boy, you think that could have sounded any less unoriginal.' Sam thought to herself.
And with that, they left his quarters for sickbay. During their walk they struck up a bit of a conversation. Once they got to sickbay, Malcolm asked for an aspirin, and, after receiving it, was ushered out of sickbay by Phox, so that the Doctor could conduct his scans.
**Two days later**
"Sir, the phase cannons seem to be out of alignment," a young crewman said from the other side of the armory, "and the deflector is off by .2 degrees."
The sound of the young man's voice cut into Reed's thoughts. He had been 'reading' the reports that had been handed to him about 15 minutes earlier. In all actuality, he had been thinking about his meeting with Samantha two days ago. The sight of her standing in his quarters, clothed in his work out clothes kept flashing through his brain. At the moment his work didn't really require much concentration, he was pulling a supervisory shift in the armory, and up till that moment everything had been running normally. Under normal conditions, he would have been using this time to get some work done in the armory's lab, but there was nothing that had to be done that minute, so he had granted his mind the freedom to wander aimlessly. "Okay, Jenkins." Reed responded, not having missed a beat. "If you need me I'll be down in Engineering, trying to get our Mr. Tucker to spare one of his 'precious' engineers for a few hours." Reed said, having an ulterior motive going down personally, instead of just using the comm. The armory didn't particularly need his supervising at that very moment, and the errand was an excuse to reengage his mind.
As he reached Main Engineering, he idly wondered how he could possibly get Trip to send Ensign Hardcastle, without raising suspicion from the Yankee engineer. He entered the heart of the ship and quickly found Tucker perched precariously on a ladder adjusting something that Malcolm was unable to see from his position on the main level. Trip soon become aware of the Lieutenant's arrival and called, "Be with you in a minute Lieutenant, just gotta finish checkin' the aft manifold." A few minutes later he had climbed down from his perch and had come to stand in front of Reed. "Now, what can we do for ya?" Trip asked, his southern drawl leaking through.
"The Phase Cannons are out of alignment again, I was hoping that you could spare someone to give me a hand up in the armory. … Perhaps, Ensign Hardcastle has time." Malcolm said, hoping that Trip didn't take very much notice of the latter statement.
Trip, for his part only raised a questioning eyebrow before turning toward the port side's highest catwalk. "Hey Sam, how's it comin' on those relays." 'He could have any number of reasons to request Sam, not the least of which is that she's the most promising engineer I've got.' Trip rationalized to himself. He didn't feel that it was his place to be asking about Malcolm's motives.
"Give me about 5 minutes, and I'll have them all done." Came Sam's reply.
Trip turned back to Reed. "If you need help sooner than five minutes, I can come down myself."
"No." 'That was too fast' "No, I think that I can manage" Reed quickly corrected his earlier haste.
"Sam, when you get done with those relays, head down to the armory, the phase cannons are out of alignment." Tucker yelled to the ensign. "She'll be down in a minute, Malcolm."
"Thanks." And with that, Malcolm made his way out of Engineering and back to the Armory.
**Meanwhile, back in Engineering**
Commander Tucker had gone back to work as soon as Malcolm had left without giving the odd request, much thought. Sam, however, had taken a moment to contemplate what had just occurred. For the past two days she hadn't been able to get the encounter with Lieutenant Reed, 'Malcolm', off her mind. When she had heard the sound of his proper but tantalizing British accent drifting up to her position on the catwalk, she tried to listen to the words that were being exchanged but failed. When Trip had told her to head to the armory as soon a she finished, she quickly got back to work, so that she could get out of Main Engineering. **Armory** After finally locating Reed, Sam walked up behind him quietly. She was actually a little nervous. "What seems to be the problem?" She said, not realizing that she had cat-footed up without his hearing her. Apparently, neither had Reed. At the sound of her voice, Reed must have jumped about a foot off the floor where he had been sitting with his head under a panel, which he bumped into. "Oh bloody hell" came the response. He quickly turned beat red as he extracted his head and turned to look at Sam. "Sorry, I didn't hear you come up." "That's okay, it was my fault anyway, I have a tendency to creep up on people when they're not paying attention." 'Yeah, especially when I'm nervous about talking to someone I like.' She continued her statement in her head. "So …" "Oh right, the Phase Cannons are out of alignment by .85 mm. You can access the controls from this panel here." he said point to a panel about 10 feet from where he had been working. "If you need any help or need access to the internal control, just let me know." He finished giving her the instructions. He had been staring into her eyes when she had prompted him. 'Why do I always come off sounding so cold, and distant when I'm asking anyone to do something?' He thought to himself as he turned back to his workstation. 'He looked so cute, yet strong, issuing orders. Sam! What am I thinking, he's a superior officer, I shouldn't even dream of looking at him like that.' Came the more rational side of her brain. 'It seems like he likes me too. … Even so, I still shouldn't get my hopes up. …Maybe I'll ask him if he wants to have dinner … What if he says no? … Hopefully it'll take till past dinnertime to get these cannons re-aligned … who am I kidding it'll only take an hour tops, dinner is at least 2 hours away. … Oh, wonderful, I have to access the internal controls in the barrel to finish this… maybe that isn't so bad, it takes two people to get to those relays … whoever's idea it was to put vital alignment circuitry inside the dumb barrel should align the things himself; they're almost impossible to get at… probably designed by some guy…oh well, I better get on with it.' This was the conversation that Samantha carried on with herself, as she worked on aligning the cannons from the external panel. "Lieutenant," she said seeing that there were lower ranking crewmen around. "I'm gonna need to get at those internal relays after all." "Okay, I'll be right there." He said as he finished replacing the panel cover to where he was working. As he met her at the hatch, he proceeded to enter the code, which unlocked the door. They both crawled in, Sam in the lead. Once they reached the access area, Sam unlocked the panel that covered the relays she had to work with. Malcolm then lay on his back to grab the panel, which was spring loaded to keep it from extruding past the surface during use, to keep it out of the way, while Samantha worked. 'Well this job has a great view' Malcolm allowed himself to think before retrieving his mind from the gutter to which it had sunk. After about 50 minutes of adjustment, Samantha had managed to realign the cannons. She took the cover back from Malcolm and replaced it into the slot and locked it. The job had gone amazingly fast due to the wonderful company of the quiet Brit. When they moved to extract themselves from the cramped quarters of the tube; they encountered problems. They were, for all intensive purposes, rather stuck. If Malcolm tried to slide back towards the hatch, he was blocked by Sam's right leg. If he moved forward towards space he would only be able to go about a foot before hitting the end of the barrel, which was closed due to it not being in use. Sam could only go up about 4 inches before hitting her head on the ceiling and her right leg, as afore mentioned had become tangled with Malcolm's. They both knew that there had to be a solution, but it was almost like one of those wire puzzles that can take hours to solve. One person would make a move only to get more tangled with the other. Finally, after about 10 minutes Samantha let out a frustrated laugh. "How the hec did we manage to get into this position in the first place?" "I'm not sure, but I think it was bloody well easier to get into than out of. Maybe if we both sort of scuttle simultaneously towards the exit we'll be able free ourselves in the open space." Malcolm replied. "I'm game." Sam said and with that they both tried to shuffle towards the exit. Surprisingly, it was working, rather slow and awkwardly, but it was working none the less. Then a thought occurred to Samantha. "Malcolm?" She only received a grunt in reply, as he was currently concentrating on what he was doing. "What if there's someone standing outside the hatch. You know a crewman or something, when we finally get there. All they're going to see is this jumbled human mass coming out of the tube. It won't exactly look very dignified." They stopped moving and thought about this for a minute. "With my luck, it would be Commander Tucker standing there." They both burst into laughter. Unbeknownst to the two officers, truer words could not have been spoken, for Trip had just walked in the armory to check up on how things were going and to get some equipment that had been stored in the armory's lab. As he walked in he heard the laughter coming from inside the tube. 'Sounds like they're having a good time.' He went about collecting the things he needed until he heard Malcolm's voice ring through the Armory. What he said was this "Oh smeg, the hatch is closed. Sam can you reach the locking mechanism?" "No, your knee is in the way." Came the quieter voice of Ensign Hardcastle. This was followed by loud knocking on the hatch to one of the phase cannons. This was actually being caused by Malcolm's foot, which was kicking at the door. They were trying yet again to reposition themselves so that one of them could reach the lock. Tucker put down the equipment he had been carrying and undid the hatch from the outside. There, with an amused smile plastered on his face, he was confronted with a jumble of legs and arms, which quickly lost its balance, as Malcolm had been using the hatch door to support himself. The two quickly untangled as they sprawled out on the floor. "Whatsa matter, Malcolm, get a bit tangled." Tucker said as he offered a hand to both people. They each indignantly took the proffered hand and stood up. "The tubes are a close fit," Malcolm said defensively. Trip held up his hands in mock surrender. "Hey, I'm not implyin' anything." He said, innocently. Malcolm gave him a skeptical look but said nothing more. Throughout this conversation, Sam had taken advantage of the two's friendly bantering, regained her composure, shut the hatch and had proceeded to the workstation to run some final tests. She looked at her watch idly as she finished up her scans. '1750 hours, wow that took longer than I thought it would, maybe I will ask Malcolm to join me for dinner, oh but I'm chicken.' Just then Malcolm turned from Trip and approached her. 'What am I thinking, I don't have the guts to ask her to dinner…its not like I've never asked anyone out before, … oh come on, I just need to go over there and ask her its not like I'm chatting up a total stranger… but a total stranger would be easier.' Malcolm thought to himself as he made his way over to where Samantha was running her scans. "Sam, my shift ends in about ten minutes and I was wondering if you wanted to get something to eat afterwards, nothing formal, just a meal in the mess hall." He said, almost rambling. "I'd love to. I'll meet you there 10 minutes after shift. Oh, is it alright if I wear my civilian clothes." She said. "That sounds wonderful. I'll see you there." Malcolm said and with that Samantha left on her way into engineering, having been drafted into carrying some of Tucker's equipment.As soon as Sam returned to Main Engineering, time seemed to come to a standstill. She really had nothing to do that she could complete in the 10 minutes before her shift ended.
"Sir, do you have anything I could work on for the next 10 minutes, I'll even do your paperwork?" She asked Trip.
"Well, let me think … 10 minutes before shift change hmmm … you think you could get me that accident report from 2 days ago in a day early?"
"Yes, all I have to do is finish the last paragraph … but it's in my quarters, sir."
"Well then I guess I better let you head up there 10 minutes early so you can send it over the comm. before shift." Trip said smiling like the Cheshire cat.
As realization dawned on Sam, Trip knows!, she leaned over pecked him on the cheek in a sisterly manner and quickly made her way out of engineering. It should be explained that Trip and Sam had been friends quite a long time and that he, being basically her mentor in college, always thought of her like a little sister.
When Sam walked into her quarters, her roommate Zoey looked up in surprise. "You're back 10 minutes early, what, did you end up in another vat of coolant?"
"NO, Trip let me off early cause he didn't have anything for me to do except get this report, and he heard I had a date tonight." She said brandishing the report in her hand much like one would handle a sword. She made the final changes to her report and then headed towards her computer terminal to upload it and send it to Trip.
"Must be nice to be friends with the boss." Zoey said teasingly, as she put the book she had been reading away. " So who is this hot date with anyway?"
"I still uphold the fact that I do not get special treatment in engineering. And you have to promise not to either laugh or give me some lecture about proper conduct before I tell you who I'm having dinner with. Besides it's not really a date, just a dinner with a friend… he just happens to be cute and charming. I just wish it were a date." Sam said from inside her closet. She was currently searching for something to wear.
"I promise, I promise, now tell me who this friend is."
"Malcolm Reed."
"Lieutenant-Commander Malcolm Reed…"
"You promised, besides HE asked ME."
"Girl, sometimes I don't know about you." Zoey said, shaking her head as she went back to getting ready for her shift. By this time Sam had emerged from the depths of her closet with an emerald green sleeveless satin cowl neck blouse and a tight pair of black slacks.
"You think this'll look okay."
"Yeah. Not too fancy, but not too plain. Have fun, I gotta book."
"Thanks." Sam said and continued getting dressed.
In the mess hall 20 minutes later, Malcolm walked through the door, wearing a sweater and slacks. He had sat through the rest of his shift impatiently, then he had rushed off to his quarters to agonize over what to wear. He had never had so much trouble picking out what to wear for a simple dinner in his entire life. Soon his eyes fell on a goddess in green. "Shall we get something to eat."