Waking Up
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Star Trek: Enterprise
Copyright: Paramount
Phlox woke up from his hibernation cycle with three distinct impressions: a blanket tucked around him, the lovely face of Crewman Elizabeth Cutler smiling at him, and the vague memory of having acted very foolishly in the recent past.
"Morning," said Miss Cutler. "Well … sort of. It's eleven hundred, ship's time. I'm glad you're awake."
"My pets?"
"I've taken care of them in your absence. The Pyrithian bat seemed a bit lonely, but otherwise they're all fine."
"I'm in Sickbay?" He glanced around. Biobeds, diagnostic equipment, his animals in their cages – hadn't he planned to spend hibernation in his quarters?
"Oh dear … " Ensign Mayweather. Allergies. Alien painkiller. Subcommander T'Pol hypospraying him awake and hustling him into Sickbay in bare feet and pajamas. Swaying on his feet, mistaking Mayweather for Captain Archer, swearing a blue streak in his native language and making sexual innuendo at, of all people, the Subcommander. And Miss Cutler had seen it all. His face began to burn.
"Are you okay?" She reached out to touch his blanket-covered shoulder, but drew it back.
"I … I may have behaved inappropriately earlier," he muttered, turning over in the bed to avoid her bright green eyes. "My apologies."
"Hey, it's nothing to be ashamed of." She laughed quietly. "You should see my father when he's got the flu."
He turned back to look at her. "You mean you don't … "
"It's okay, Phlox." He usually found human eyes quite dull compared to his people's, but Miss Cutler's compassionate green gaze was impossible to look away from.
"I've never seen you so embarrassed. I didn't know you could get embarrassed like humans do."
And there it was again – the reminder of just how different their species were. Every time they got comfortable together, it would crop up again making things awkward.
"It's a social instinct, Crewman," he said, somewhat testily. "Every sentient species has it. We don't usually have anyone but close family watch us while we hibernate, after all."
"Oh. Oh, I'm sorry." It was Miss Cutler's turn to blush. "I didn't know … I was only making sure you were okay. Should I … ?"
She took several steps back, as if to leave the room. Her head was lowered, her dark blonde hair glinting with golden highlights. Her hands, he noticed too late, were still streaked with sand from fishing Rigelian bloodworms out of their terrarium to feed to the bat. Her eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep.
How long had she sat up, waiting for him to wake?
"Don't go!"
The volume of his voice surprised them both. She stopped with one foot behind the other.
"Please. Eliss – Elitha - " He stumbled over the four-syllabled foreign name. "Liz. I need to ask you something."
"Yes … ?"
"My behavior didn't shock you?"
"No."
"You didn't find it too … alien?"
She sighed and pushed back her hair. "I told you before. I've never had a problem with you being alien. I … I like you the way you are. The way you – the way you take care of everyone here, people and animals, even insects. That's what matters."
"Like me?" Carefully, hopefully, he began to sit up. "I detect a hesitation there. Are you quite sure you only like me?"
She went pink as a Denobulan orchid. "I thought you weren't interested in anything more than friendship."
"I never said that."
"Then why … ?" She shook her bobbed head and threw up her hands in exasperation. "Why did you go into so much detail about - about how many wives and, and co-husbands you have?"
"Because I wanted to leave no room for misunderstanding. It seems I failed."
He held out one hand and beckoned for her to come closer. She did, but only a few steps; he still couldn't touch her unless he hauled himself out of bed.
"Liz, you must understand – my people are very practical. If you're thirsty, you simply take a drink, correct? That's how it is with mating for us as well. Still, most of us aren't married as much as I am; it's mostly due to all my travelling."
"A lady in every port, eh?" Liz teased. "Like the old Earth sailors."
"Exactly. And we have no room for things like jealousy or rivalry. If my wives were to meet you, for example, they'd probably be awed by your skills in exobiology, pepper you with questions about your life story, and most likely invite you for group sex."
He hadn't thought it was possible, but Liz turned an even deeper shade of pink. "That sounds … fascinating," she said, her lips twitching into an awkward smile even as her eyes began to darken, "But you might try asking me out to lunch first."
"Then, Elizabeth," she beamed as he got the name right this time, "will you do me the honor of accompanying me to the mess hall?"
He held out both hands to her, letting the blanket slip to the side.
"We might want to drop by your quarters first." She eyed his blue pajamas with good-natured amusement as she helped him to his feet.
"Oh, er, yes. Of course."
He put his arm around her slender shoulders, exaggerating his weakness. The way she looked at him, raising one eyebrow as pointedly as T'Pol herself, made it clear she could see right through that. She wrapped her own arm around his back, tentatively at first, but then firmly. She smelled like salt and flowers.
She was looking at his face – his round, middle-aged face with the Denobulan ridges a Starfleet colleague had once compared to a lizard's – as if she found it beautiful. Just when he thought he had figured out everything there was to know about humans, they surprised him once again.
He was, as he had told her, a practical Denobulan. He gave a great deal of himself to his profession as a healer, but never everything. He always held back. Emotional reserves, so to speak, in case of another ordeal such as the Valakian epidemic. If he had let himself feel all the empathy he could, it would have broken his heart to discover that evolution was leading the Menk to take their place.
He could care terribly, if he let himself – and not only about his patients.
He had the strangest feeling that Elizabeth Cutler was about to ruin his life. And yet, he led her into the hallway without letting go.