Trip sat in the mess hall, bolting down lunch and catching up on status reports. He barely tasted the food, nor did he really pay any attention to what it was.

He was being kept awfully busy by the major repairs. Busy in a bad way, or, in other words, stressed out. The plasma coolant kept leaking, no matter what he and his team did. Normally, he loved his work, but lately, he found he could use a vacation.

He looked up from the padds spread on the table like playing cards, attention caught by little chime that came from his watch. It was 18:00 hours. Time for his shift to end.

He put away his plate, stuck the padds in his myriad pockets, and got in the turbolift. "Sickbay," he announced to the computer. Dutifully, it obeyed, taking him to the hallway directly outside. It was the familiar routine of a few days, though it felt like longer that the chameleon had been aboard.

He walked into the bright room, feeling bright, too, like the leaden weight in him had been beamed away. He found the chameleon sitting cross-legged on her bed, reading from her padd. "More myths?"

She looked up, slightly startled, but barely let it show. "Been looking through the human biological database. That, and trying to avoid turning into the ceiling."

That got a quiet chuckle out of him. "You decided anything?"

"Yes, actually. I've found myself a name."

His eyes went bright, excited. "That right?"

She smiled, looking like a weight had been lifted off her, too. "Deloa."

He contemplated it, rolling the word around on his tongue. "Deloa. Where'd you get that?"

She handed him the padd, with a story cued up on it. "The Song of the Hidden Heart," he read aloud from the title. "Is Deloa a character from here, or somethin'?"

She nodded. "Deloa was a shapeshifter in Andorian mythology. Even though she was mortal enemies with the hero, who, I have to say, was kind of an ass anyway, I really connected with her."

"Why's that?," asked Trip.

Her face grew more solemn. "She was just like I am. She changed shape so many times, she stopped looking. Stopped caring. She... forgot what she looked like in the beginning."

She delivered the words with such casual resignment, as if relating a mildly unpleasant truth of life. Trip paused to regard her in a new light. He had never given much thought to shapeshifters, except for thinking that, in some distant corner of the galaxy, they might exist. Looking at her now, she bore no resemblance to the brown-haired female crewman he'd first seen her as. In fact, she didn't look female at all. Her voice was the only thing that gave that away, low as it was.

It occurred to him that it was entirely possible that the real Deloa was long forgotten.

"I... had no idea. If there's-" S

he held up a hand to silence him. "You know how I feel about 'sorry'. If there's something you can do, do it, but I doubt you can. I've lived with this since I can remember. It's not a tragedy to me."

He cast his gaze down, his big grey eyes mournful. "I feel like I should say somethin', at least."

Her expression perked up a bit. "Tell me a story."

"You serious?"

"Tell me a story," she insisted.

He sat down on the bed next to her. "You know, we got stuff to talk about, for real. Where's Phlox?"

"Out. Doesn't matter. I'm bored, tell me a story." She sat on the bed, waiting patiently, eyes politely anticipatory.

He caved. "Fine. What'd you wanna hear about?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Myths and legends, your childhood, hell, you could tell about your day, for all I care. Just talk."

He settled into a more comfortable position. "Alright. Uh... give me a second."

"One," she counted.

"Very funny," he shot back.

She settled back, laying down on the bed, while he sat on the edge.

"So, uh, me and the boys had a lot of repairs to do today. Me and ensign Jusofe managed to fix the faulty plasma shunt that caused the big explosion. 'Member that?"

She opened one eye. "Didn't hit my head that hard."

"Anyway," he continued, "Tomorrow, we're gonna re-connect the Epsilon conduits to the main system, put everything back in place. We'll take the makeshift work-arounds offline, and redirect the plasma through the main conduits. We'll finally be able to go to warp 5 again." He looked back at her. "Sounds nice, doesn't it?"

She gave him a sleepy little smile. "Sure."

He jostled her gently with one arm. "Hey, don't go sleepin' on me, now. We still gotta ask the doc about movin' you to my quarters. Besides, it's only about 18:00. That's dinnertime for us normal people, by the way."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, excuse me for having an odd sleep schedule. It's not like there's much else to do in this bland little room." In a sudden burst of attentiveness, she looked up at him. In that moment, he thought her eyes looked very alien, the irises oddly pale. "By the way, Trip, if you were wondering about the whole quarters thing, it's a yes."

He felt an odd, warm swell of offhand happiness in the back of his throat. "So you'll stay with me."

"Sure I will. You're the closest friend I've got here. The only other people I've met on Enterprise are the doctor and the captain. I trust the doctor well enough, but he gets on my nerves. The captain seemed patronizing, and more than a little angry."

Trip smiled. "Sounds like captain Archer, alright. He's a great captain, but he don't take too kindly to stowaways."

"And you do?"

He waffled for a moment, not quite sure what to say. "Well... you're different."

She looked over at the wall. "Am I."

"Sure you are. I saved your life, remember?"

She smiled, sarcastically. "Someday, will you let me live that down?"

He shook his head. "Nope." He looked down at his hands, folded in his lap. "The truth is, Del... Don't mind if I call you Del, do you?"

"I call you Trip, don't I?"

"Fair point. Anyway, Del... I, uh..."

The door to sickbay opened, and the doctor came in, humming a little tune. "Ah, commander," he said brightly. "There you are. I've already made preparations for the chameleon to be moved to your quarters."

She piped up. "I'll move myself, thank you."

"Of course you will," he said, unflappable. He took a few little tins from a table, and started piling them into Trip's hands.

"What's all this, doc?"

"An anti-scarring agent. She'll have to apply it twice every day, for two weeks."

He shot a help-me type glance at Del, his arms overloaded with several dozen tins of gel. She locked gazes with him, and snickered. Phlox bustled off, presumably to go attend to one of his pets. "If that's all, commander, then I recommend you and miss Deloa go get some dinner, hm?"

Trip tapped him on the shoulder. "Actually, there is somethin' else." He looked back at Del. "Tell him, Del."

She creased her brow. "What?"

He turned back to the doctor. "Listen, doc, I need you to do somethin' for her. It's probably gonna be hard, but I need you to try."

Phlox stood attentively. "Oh?"

"You see, Del's been all shapeshiftin' since she can remember. Doc, she can't even remember her own face. If there's somethin' you can do..."

The doctor was already off, preparing his microscope and genetic analysis kit. "I believe I can manage. Deactivating the morphogenic sequences should prove a challenge, but I'm confident in my abilities. Optimism, commander!"

Deloa was, for the moment, too dumbstruck to make fun of him. "Wait... you're telling me you can actually do that?"

The doctor continued fiddling with slides and pipettes. "It's all a matter of finding the right nucleotide sequences. Unfortunately for you, it will involve a great deal more... poking and prodding, hm?"

She paused for a beat, then steeled her resolve. "I'll do it."

Trip looked back at her. "Del, I don't want you to feel-"

She cut him off. "No. I'll do it." She turned to face the doctor, standing barefooted on the cool sickbay floor. "I've been alive for thirty-two years, and every single day that I can remember, I've wanted this. I've tried everything I can, and if this is what's going to turn me back into the 'me' I never knew, do it. I don't care if it hurts."

Phlox smiled an ear-to-ear, fully sincere smile. "Now that's the resolve I love to see. I think you'll be very heartened to know that it won't hurt, at least not the analysis. I can't guarantee how your body will react, pain-wise, to the treatment, but I doubt it will be too bad."

Deloa broke into a smile. "When do we start?"

"First thing in the morning. You need to get settled into your new quarters."

She shrugged. "I won't argue with that." She turned back to Trip, and, all of a sudden, enveloped him in a hug.

"Whoa, whoa," he chuckled, patting her gently on the back. Because of the doctor's stature, she was decidedly shorter than him. He whispered down to her, "Thirty-two?"

She looked back up at him, half-amused, half-annoyed. "Something wrong?"

He shrugged. "Nah. Just got the impression you were younger, that's all."

She pulled away, smiling a cheeky grin. "Must be my youthful glow."

A warm smile spread across his face. "Must be."

A gurgle broke the ensuing silence. "What was that about dinner?", asked Del.

He patted her on the back. "You know, I heard chef made a real fancy, gourmet pizza."

She creased her brow. "Pizza?"

They stepped out into the doorway, together. "Just you wait."