First ever star trek fic, so please be nice...it's just a cute little one-shot involving Trip and Hoshi, hehe.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek, or Enterprise, or any of the characters

Her towel dropped at the precise time the door opened. Frozen with shock, she managed to throw her arms over herself, water still dripping all over the place. "What are you doing?" Her words came out more of a screech as she hastily grabbed for the towel.

By this time Trip had turned his back and was trying to form some semblance of an apology. "I'm sorry 'bout that Hosh, I swear that I didn't see a thing. Well I might've seen something but it wasn't on purpose, I just kind of…"

The rest of his words were lost on her as she snapped, "Just stay turned around until I put some clothes on." She grabbed the closest thing she could find and pulled it over her head. Her face was burning, she could feel it. Trip had just seen her…naked. Trip. Hoshi. Naked. Those three things did not go together, not at all. Wishing that Enterprise would enter a state of temporal flux or something to that effect she cleared her throat. "All right…you can umm…you can turn around now."

His face, she imagined, was at the moment roughly the same shade as hers. Carefully focusing on her eyes he ran a hand through his hair. "So…if you want we could just forget this ever happened."

So she was forgettable. Clearing her throat, Hoshi tried to pull together the threads of her dignity. "Did you need something?"

"Huh? Earlier you said something about having an emergency, thought I'd come check it out." He seemed to be struggling with himself and he finally added, "didn't quite realize that the emergency had something to do with you bein' naked 'n all."

If she hadn't been busy trying to keep her shirt from riding up, she probably would have retaliated in some way. Instead she just glared. "My door is broken." If she hadn't been so mortified, she probably would be laughing at the irony. What she really wanted was for Trip to leave so she could put on proper clothes on. "You can uh, come back later and fix it. You know, when I'm actually…dressed…"

Backing up he cleared his throat. "Of course, yeah…I'll just come back later then."

The moment the door shut behind him she sat down on her bed with a sigh. Well, that hadn't been so bad. Who was she kidding, that had been horrifying. She was the kind of woman that wore clothes that fully covered her; she was teacher for god's sake. She was certainly not the kind of woman that dropped her clothes in front of male colleagues. And Trip. It just had to be Trip of all people. If it had been Malcom, or Captain Archer, or anyone else but Trip she could probably deal with it. Malcom would have been so embarrassed that he wouldn't have acknowledged it and the Captain, no doubt, would have apologized tirelessly. But Trip. Trip was a different story.

She knew she was kidding herself. The real reason she was so incredibly upset was because, deep down, every time she saw him there was a little tingle in her stomach. Every time he looked at her, or she heard heavy southern accent, her knees went a little weak. And he had just seen her naked. Her life was over. And she had exactly two and a half minutes to get into uniform and onto the bridge.

Sitting down, Hoshi couldn't help the fact that her face was lit up like a neon light.

"Everything all right? Hoshi?" Archer was looking at her with concern.

Clearing her throat, she nodded. "I'm fine, Sir."

"Captain, I got somethin' that you might want to take a look at." Trip had walked through the door and she felt her back stiffen.

She didn't move. Trip said something involving her name. She wasn't really sure what it was.

"Hoshi? Trip? There something going on that I need to know about?"

Hoshi turned and smiled tightly. "No, why do you ask?" Despite her attempts to keep her voice level, she could hear it shaking.

Archer raised his eyebrows. "Because he just asked you question."

"Did he? I didn't hear." And that came out more of a squeak.

There was silence as Archer looked from one to the other. Trip grimaced and Hoshi refused to meet either of their eyes. Finally she blurted, "Ican'tworkwithTriprightnow." Despite the fact that all her words had run together into a jumbled mess, Archer seemed to have understood.

Trip was staring at her and she knew what he was thinking. Why the hell hadn't she kept her mouth shut? Judging from the looks everyone was giving her, she probably should have. She would never live this down. Malcom and Travis were eyeing Trip curiously, and T'pol just raised one of her sharp eyebrows.

Deciding that throwing herself out an airlock would probably be a good solution, she looked at the Captain. "Permission to leave my station, Sir?"

Archer nodded. "Permission granted, but Hoshi?"

"Yes?"

"Whatever's going on…work it out."

Work it out. Work it out. How was she supposed to work it out? Taking a sip of tea she choked it down quickly as it scalded her tongue. Shoving the mug out of her way, she let her forehead it the table, throat burning. Today was not her day.

After her seemingly impossibly long shift was over, she opened the door to her quarters…only to find Trip sprawled out on her bed. "What are you doing?"

Trip sat up with a slightly guilty expression on his face. "Sorry about that, I was waitin' for you to let you know that I fixed your door."

So he had remembered. "Thank you." She was at a loss for words; it seemed that every time it came to Trip she was always out of things to say.

"Well, anymore problems and you just give me a call." He started to walk past her but stopped suddenly. "About earlier, I really didn't mean to walk in on you like that. I'm sorry. Besides, it ain't like I haven't seen it all before you know, and it's not like you got anything to be ashamed of."

Images of Trip and a certain Vulcan popped into her head and she blinked, trying to rid herself of the thought. Feeling her anger rise slightly at his flippant attempt to an apology, she placed a hand on her hip, "What is that supposed to mean?"

It seemed that Trip was regretting his words because he lifted up his hands, "Whoa now Hosh. I didn' mean to say that. I really am sorry."

He looked sorry too and Hoshi sighed. "It's okay. I mean it's not okay, but it's okay." In that moment she wondered why exactly Archer had been so intent on having her, she couldn't even string together a coherent sentence in English. "Let me rephrase that, I know that you didn't mean to, so I guess I can forgive you."

Smiling, Trip leaned in to her, "Good, I wouldn't want to ruin our friendship."

"Oh, is that what this is?" she wasn't quite sure why her voice had risen slightly. She was, however, sure that right now they were standing in her quarters and they were only inches apart.

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking. What were you thinking?" He looked her in the eye.

"I don't know."

"Well, how about I help you out."

Confused, her eyebrows drew together slightly. "You're going to help me figure out how I feel?"

"Yeah, it's somethin' like this."

His lips were on hers before she could figure out what was going on and she felt her arms automatically finding their way around his neck.

"So that's how I feel about you, is it?" she released him slowly and he smiled slowly.

"I might've been lying, 'cause really that's how I feel about you."

They had to have entered some alternate universe; that was the only way something like this could be happening. But they hadn't, this was her, and this was her hearing what she had wanted to hear for so long. Suddenly she found her voice. "Really?"

He looked at her, blue eyes meeting brown. "Yes Hoshi, really."

She grinned suddenly, "You know…I was just thinking about another shower."

Catching her meaning, he ran a hand through his hair. "Know what, I think I could use one myself."

It looked like her day wasn't turning out to be so bad after all.

Yes, no, maybe?