You have no idea how fun this chapter was to write. Especially the suspicious handprints on McCoy's person. I know I said the most slashiness from this story would be hitting on, but I simply could not resist. So, ah, light gropage alert. Not the act, merely the after effects ;) I'm imagining this is a couple of months after the previous chapter. I've not decided on an exact timeline yet, but I'm pretty certain I'm going to do a sequel - Meeting the Enterprise or similar - from Harry's perspective. Less jumping about and more fluid.

Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter Word Count: 1168

4. Scotty

He wasn't sure whether anyone else had noticed, since he was the only one who had such a dedication to them, but Scotty had noticed recently that the standards of the sandwiches had shot up. Which was odd, because he hadn't changed the replicators' programming since that incident with the live fish. Which he still insisted had nothing to do with that tiny miscalculation he'd made.

The other food, too, had become less… cardboard-y. But he wasn't sure why. He appreciated it, most definitely, because there was nothing quite like trying to fix the automatic atmosphere settings on an empty stomach. Except, perhaps, the same situation after various ensigns had been meddling with said system. Which they did. Frequently. Which had led to a very displeased Science and First Officer actually coming down to the engine rooms to give him an honest to god Vulcan scolding. Scotty hadn't even realised Vulcans could scold. He thought they got stuck at the I-am-superior-and-disapprove-of-you setting.

But he digressed. The point was that the food was better and he wanted to know why.

At first Scotty thought that the system itself might be at fault - if 'fault' was the right word. He wasn't sure what, precisely, but something had changed. The main circuit board wasn't working in the way the programming indicated it should. The information that was entered by a user was all directed to one computer on the storage levels which then forwarded different parts of that message to the relevant areas, before all the information came back through the sister computer and the rest of the system until it arrived, as a plate of sarnies, at the relevant replicator. Most of the time.

From what he could tell, however, once the information got to that first computer it stopped dead. Which was odd, because if that happened the message shouldn't be received by the storage capsules, so the food wouldn't be made, so the replicator wouldn't be able to actually replicate food. It would just blip annoyingly and use up that particular person's credits.

But it didn't. The food arrived, as it should, and stunning quality too. Although, how stunning it really was Scotty couldn't really tell, having not eaten a genuinely brilliant sandwich since the beginning of the mission. Which was far, far too long ago.

So he decided that a little manual exploration was necessary. Newest brilliant sandwich in one hand, a particularly faithful screwdriver in the other (and a pair of scissors and a welding torch in his pockets just in case) he began the journey to the storage decks and the room that housed the two computers that synched the whole system in the hope that there, at least, he might find some answers.

Whatever he expected to find it was not Doctor McCoy. It certainly wasn't Dr McCoy with floury handprints on his bum, significantly redder lips than usual and a guilty but pleased smile turning up the corners of his mouth. Which turned immediately into a death-threatening scowl when Scotty coughed to announce his presence.

"Not. A. Word," the good doctor growled out, brushing past the engineer and making a rapid retreat to the medical bay. Not quite fast enough for Scotty to miss the blush.

"Ye might wanae brush the seat o' your trousers off, laddie!" Scotty called after him, chuckling heartily at the stumble in the other man's stride and McCoy's hands trying desperately to pat away all signs of flour.

Huh. Flour. Scotty couldn't remember programming that into the replicators. There was, once in a while, a crew member who wanted to do a bit of hands-on cooking, but if so they had to go another two levels down from this - almost back to engineering - to get any of the base ingredients. Determind to solve this mystery once and for all, he slammed open the door and hoped to high heavens that no one was naked.

The individual he met wasn't nude, which was a relief. He did have very floury hands though, which was perplexing. Then Scotty took enough time to take in the rest of the room and blanched at what this stranger had done to a perfectly safe, sanitary engineering room.

"Issa kitchen!" he blurted out, half yelling.

The stranger grinned widely at him, keeping half an eye on him and the rest on the dough he was pounding with his hands. "Yep," he said cheerfully.

"But - but…" Scotty trailed off. It was sacrilege.

"Mr Scott, I assume? Head of Engineering?" the dark haired cook asked.

"Aye," the Scotsman replied warily, snapping his jaw shut and trying to ignore the tic in his eye.

"Harry Potter. I'm the new chef."

Scotty flinched. "Chef? We don' have a chef! She dinnae need a chef!"

Harry stared at him blankly, hands never stopping moving, in spite of his lack of concentration on them. "She? Oh! You mean the ship. Well, no, I suppose the ship herself doesn't need a chef, but the people living on her do."

"Dinnae mock me, lad," Scotty warned, waggling his favourite screwdriver at him. "And dinnae tell me what this fair lassie needs or don't."

The 'chef' huffed and stopped kneading the dough, wiping his hands off on a towel - a courtesy he had 'forgotten' with McCoy, Scotty absently noticed - then he turned to the panels of dials and knobs and buttons that made up the second of the two computers.

"No!" Scotty gasped out, before a sandwich appeared in the tester replicator in the room. He stared at it suspiciously with narrowed eyes.

"Well go on then," Harry insisted. "Try it. Compare that replicated sandwich to the one in your hand - one that I made earlier, by hand, I'll have you know."

Scotty turned his narrow eyed gaze on the young man. "Not wit' hands tha' had nae been washed I hope," he said, trying not to think about where on the CMO's person those hands might have been.

"Pfft," Harry replied succinctly, waving a negligent hand. "I'm a chef, not an idiot. Eat!"

Not removing suspicious eyes from the chef, Scotty took a bite out of the sandwich he still clutched in one hand. It had become a bit squished by his grip, but the lettuce was fresh, the bacon crispy and the tomato spurted yellow seeds down his chin the way tomatoes should do. It was a truly beautiful sandwich. Then Scotty lifted the replicated sandwich and ate a mouthful of that. Cardboard-y was an understatement. It was limp and tasteless and not worthy of the name sandwich.

Harry continued to smile winningly.

Scotty continued to scowl darkly.

Then he took another bite of Harry's sandwich. And another. And dammit, he didn't care if the hands that had made it had come straight from groping McCoy (well, alright, he did, but not as much as he'd originally thought) because it was a bloody good sandwich.

Finally he conceded grumpily, "aye, laddie, I suppose you'll do."

AN: I am so sorry for the rubbishy 'Scottish' accent. If it's any consolation it'd be worse if I was reading this out loud to you :D Also, the random snog session is more or less to make up for the fact the closest I got to Spock mooning over Jim was the whole 'if anything should happen to him… well it didn't bear thinking about' bit from the previous chapter. And the complete lack of chemistry in Bones' chapter. And because flour handprints are too much fun. Next chapter is Nyota's, coming up tomorrow. Until then, leave a review?

Love, Yellow
xx

PS Thanks to Alec McDowell, Fire Dolphin, flamenin, Keitsu Han'ei, pikachumomma and xXxOtAkU-444xXx for reviewing and everyone who fav'd or alert'd. Love :)