A/N: Because we can never have too many variations on domesticity memes. I think that Malcolm would relish doing the grocery shopping, because he secretly enjoys being Mr. Mom. And G-d bless Trip-he really tries, doesn't he?

You can tell by the ages of the children that this is 2171ish as well. Henry and Serena are my dear beta BonesBird's OCs, I'm only borrowing them in reference. She really does deserve a medal, you know, for holding my hand through it all every time I try to write Erika. Of all the characters in the series, she's the one I have the most trouble with.

Intertwining Destinies: Because It's The Thought That Counts

The One Where Malcolm Loses One of His Children, Erika Is In the Right Place at the Wrong Time, and Trip Tries to Make Things Right

Sundown was fast approaching when the gentleman entered the supermarket, his brow furrowed as he studied a scrap of paper intently. He wore a crisp Starfleet uniform, somewhat wilted due to the lateness of the hour, and his short hair stuck up in every direction as if he had run his hands through it repeatedly. As he passed by the checkout lane at the end of the row, the cashier on duty noticed two little girls scrambling to catch up with him.

The oldest, perhaps six years old, tugged on her father's belt loop as they passed a decorative display of sweets. "Father, may I please pick out some chocolate? Mattie and I—" she cut a conspiratorial glance towards her sister to make sure she was keeping pace with the conversation, and then rubbed circles on her stomach. "—we're starving."

The perceptive three-year-old nodded and proceeded to imitate her sister's actions, all the while jutting her bottom lip out in a display of impishness. She had repeated these actions often enough to know that no one—not in the least her father—could resist her whims when she did so.

He sighed, shaking his head. His weekly excursion to the grocery store, usually relaxing due to the notable lack of spouse or children, had been interrupted when his wife had called to say that she had gotten caught up in a meeting and would be leaving her laboratory later than was planned. Consequently, the father had to pick up his girls from the Academy Preparatory School and tote them uptown to the grocery, all the while visualizing that his usual route—one that often took a little less than forty minutes, no more and no less—would suddenly become a lot longer.

Malcolm secretly relished the opportunity to perform even the most domestic of duties. While he might never embrace the culinary or decorative arts like T'Pol had, it was his chosen task to bathe, groom, and tuck his daughters into bed every evening. He'd sit Indian style behind his eldest and run a fine-toothed comb through her hair while she babbled endlessly on her latest literary obsession, then pull the covers up to her chin and regale her with a pacified version of a tale from his days traversing the stars.

Yes, it could be said that Captain Reed did enjoy being a father, but sometimes, he wished he could take a break from it.

"We'll have to ask your mother," he replied absently, with a sort of air of finality that he hoped would indicate to them that that would be the final mention of the matter. Then, turning around and taking a knee, he lowered himself so that he would be at eye level with his children. "I have a mission for the two of you. It shall be difficult, but nothing is too challenging for my girls."

Meredith's frown quickly turned into an expectant grin, while Matilda's dark eyes seemed to glitter with excitement. When they leaned in, he said, "Run along to the back wall and get some milk and biscuits for breakfasts. Now, listen, because this is the most important part. You must do so as fast as humanly possible, for if the employees catch you, they will surely take away your treats."

They nodded gravely, hands clasped together. As his daughters dashed out of sight, he called out, "And be sure to meet your father in the produce aisle when you are done!"

A moment of silence followed, wherein Malcolm had to cross his arms over his chest and admire his handiwork. In the realm of distracting children with menial tasks to gain a fleeting moment of peace, his aptitude was unparalleled.

So absorbed was he in considering this that he scarcely noticed a low whistle coming from somewhere behind him. Turning, he discerned the source of the tone; Admiral Erika Hernandez-Archer leaned against a stanchion a few feet away, an amused smirk adorning her features.

"Good job, Mr. Reed. I haven't seen such wheeling and dealing since my last conference at the Coridan embassy," the Latina lauded him. She wore a faded pair of jeans and a threadbare sweatshirt, her chestnut hair swept up in her signature high ponytail.

It felt a little strange to see one of his supervisors in such casual circumstance, so Malcolm said quietly, "Thank you, Admiral."

She snorts and steps aside to allow him to scrutinize the selection of dry pasta in the next aisle. With one hand, she balances a full basket of goods on her hip. "Come on, Malcolm, we're both off duty, and just how long have you known me?"

A certain number of years immediately popped into his head, but he couldn't be sure. Now that he thought of it, it seemed that her husband had mentioned something off handedly about her taking a personal week with their children. In a feeble attempt at making casual conversation, something he was very clearly not up for at the moment, he asked, "How are Henry and Serena?"

"Probably tearing up the town with the Mayweathers. Travis and Fiona offered to take them to the park, and who am I to say no?"

Malcolm shook his head, fully understanding why she had not. Serena Archer, ten years old, was a veritable carbon copy of her father and thrice the spitfire that her mother was, while Henry was a flawless example of everything that four-year-old boys had stood for since the beginning of time. Yes, her children were a handful, but who was he to judge on that?

"I suppose you're enjoying your day off, then."

"I am. You should have seen Jon moping around the house this morning because he had to go to work and I got to stay home. He's more petulant that any infant I've ever met," she stood on her toes to reach something on the top shelf, then mumbled her thanks when the Brit assisted her. "Speaking of which, how's your better half?"

"Working late as usual," Malcolm grumbled.

"Ah," the look she gave him was sympathetic. "Trouble in paradise?"

He scoffed. "Absolutely not. In fact, I couldn't ask for better." It came out of his mouth before he could tailor it for snappiness.

She held up her hands in front of her, probably to say something about his ridiculous levels of defensiveness, before they were interrupted by an out of breath little girl stumbling into their lines of vision.

"Daddy, I turned around for half a second—" Meredith paused, leaning over and gasping dramatically for air. Erika couldn't keep herself from smiling.

"Not now, we're having a conversation," Malcolm chastised her somewhat coarsely.

"Nonsense, I was just waiting for your little ones to show up. How are you, Merry?"

At the sight of the pretty lady that was friends with her father, and the realization that he would be more than furious when he discovered what she'd done, the girl burst into tears.

"I lost Mattie!"

-0-

Captain Charles Tucker, warp field engineer and Floridian extraordinaire, was feeling quite confident in his romantic abilities at the moment.

There had been a dry period in the household as of late; it didn't have everything to do with the fact that his seven year old son nearly insisted on staying up at ungodly hours of the night, doing heaven knows what on his personal PADD that he had been issued for school. Trip would pass by his room after visiting the bathroom, only to see the tell-tale glow of an LCD screen from underneath the door. Of course, he knew that it would be there; forget premonitions, fatherly intuition explained most of it. By the time he was done confiscating the device and tucking his son back into bed, Hoshi had run the gauntlet with a pair of colicky one year old twins and had collapsed into bed face down, making it clear that there would consequently be no conduction of amorous activities that night. This was beginning to frustrate Trip. He called up his parents, who had moved to Sausalito after his marriage for the very purpose of being closer to their grandchildren. It turned out that they were more than willing to watch the Tucker brood for one evening, and his father had even thrown in a knowing chuckle and a bit of rather inappropriate advice. And with that, Trip had had gotten home early, fully knowing that his lovely bride would arrive later in the evening, and had proceeded to set up the perfect dinner.

He knew that Hoshi missed her native cuisine and didn't expect much of him in the culinary department, so that was why after standing for ten minutes before the best Japanese takeout joint on the west side of San Francisco, he had given in to his more chivalrous standards and had returned to their house empty handed. Surely they had the proper ingredients in the stasis unit for a three course hibachi dinner. Surely.

That's where he had been wrong. After discovering that there was no sticky rice to be spoken of—not even a handful of soba or udon noodles—Trip had settled for the ten minute microwaved variety. After sprinkling it with a variety of spices with labels that certainly didn't contain any English, he decided that he was fairly well off in that department.

A portion of fried pork, something that Hoshi called tonkotsu, served as the main entrée. He'd never asked how to make it, but it couldn't be so far off from the veggie oil bucket method used in the south…could it?

For extra brownie points, he set out a bottle of sake, knowing full well that so many of their romantic escapades had started with a communal drink of the potent alcohol. Trip was just finishing cleaning up when he heard the front screen door slam shut, indicating that his wife had arrived.

He met her in the foyer, but immediately could sense that something was very, very wrong. It was all in the body language. With her shoulders slumped over and eyebrows knit together, Hoshi looked like a bull ready to charge.

Nevertheless, he moved towards his wife, arms spread out and lips parted in his trademark disarming grin. Effortlessly, as lithe as a cat, she moved out of his reach, then sneered.

"Damn it, Trip, can't you see that I've had a bad day?" Hoshi demanded.

He frowned. This was not how he envisioned his evening going. Maybe a little small talk here, a shot of liquor there, a bunch of cuddling…but no, not this. Deciding to humor her, he asked, "Well, darlin', what made it so terrible?"

"Long. Way too long," that seemed to sum it up pretty succinctly. She tramped into the dining room, ignoring Trip's painfully inadequate attempt at a romantic table setting and dropping her overflowing purse onto the countertop. "And then I get a message from my dear, dear husband saying that he's shipped our children off for the evening without even consulting me first! Imagine what else he could do if that becomes a habit! I'll come home to find the entire house plastered in hibiscus flower wallpaper!"

Trip was indignant for his affinity towards Hawaiian print to be called into question, but knew that Hoshi's anger wasn't genuine. She had a variety of moods, some pleasant and some not so much, but in this instance her combination of exhaustion and frustration morphed into the perfect storm of irritation.

"I'm sorry, Hosh. I wanted to surprise you. I've made us a meal, you see…"

She stops in her tracks halfway to the staircase. "You did?" Slowly, her upper body comes into view around the corner. In the low light, with candles scattered about every available service, his feeble stab at cooking appeared almost presentable.

"That's right," he confirmed, bowing low and pulling her chair out for her.

Hoshi sat daintily, still unsure if this restored her previously sour mood. As her husband sat across from her, she flashed him a flirtatious smile and dared to try the rice appetizer.

Seconds later, she began to cough, chunks of noodle and spice spewing out of her mouth. As she hacked into her napkin and Trip's guise morphed into one of concern, she sputtered, "What did you put into this?"

"Just some spices," he replied innocently, "from the rack on the third shelf in the cupboard."

Now recovered, she sighed indulgently. "Hon, that's where I keep the alien spices that are brought in by the deep space freighters."

He was stunned. "I swear, the labels looked like Japanese!"

"A lot of languages look Japanese, Trip, whether through their syntax or alphabet structure." Now that she was no longer choking, Hoshi began to poke at the pork entrée with interest.

"This," Trip proclaimed proudly, "is tincapsoup—"

"Tonkotsu," she corrected him absently, thinking that it didn't look like anything she had ever made for him before.

"Yeah, that," he mumbled, beginning to sweat, "I put my own spin on it. The old way mixed with the new way." Then, to show that it was perfectly edible unlike what he had just served her, he sawed his way into the pork chop and took a bite.

His expression fell. The meat was woefully undercooked. Hoshi caught his hesitation, setting down her fork, and the couple sat in silence for several minutes.

Suddenly Trip stood, causing the contents of the table to shake and almost upturn. He began to pace lengthwise across the dining room and into the kitchen, wringing his hands as he went.

"I'm so sorry," he said at the same time Hoshi assured him, "It's okay."

"No, it's not! I tried so hard to make this a special night for the two of us! We never get time alone anymore. And, no, I'm not talking about the few minutes we sneak in in between the kids' after school activities. I'm talkin' meaningful time as a couple. My parents never got that, and God knows how they survived forty years of marriage! I don't want to live as a stranger in my own home, Hoshi! We've always said we're a team, and now's the time we really need to be, when the going gets tough. I swore to Jon eight years ago that I'd love you fer better or fer worse, and by God, I'm going to keep that promise!"

The faster he spoke, the more his speech turned into a hideous facsimile of his Southern drawl. Hoshi took it all in silently, beginning to feel bad that she had greeted him so poorly. When it was clear that her husband had ceased his emotional tirade, she implored quietly, "Sit down, Trip."

He complied, his body folding in on itself in a gesture of defeat. It was then she saw the bottle at the end of the table.

"Is that sake?"

"Yes, dear."

"My favorite brand?"

"Yeah."

"From that little shop downtown?"

"Mhmm."

The man was surprised in that moment for his wife to settle herself into his lap, straddling either side of his hips and leaning into him dangerously. With both hands, she reached behind her head to undo her ponytail, her thick locks falling to her shoulders in a way that Trip found incredibly sensual.

"Have I mentioned how much I love that kind of sake?" The glint in her eyes was positively wicked.

"Once or twice," he admitted, threading a hand through the hair on her temple and kissing her aggressively.

That was all it took. The Tuckers, at least for the moment, were back in business.

-0-

Malcolm couldn't believe his rotten luck. He had lost his child. Not temporarily misplaced her. Lost her. As he and Erika made tracks up and down the rows of the supermarket, the only prevailing thought in his mind was that his wife was absolutely, positively going to kill him.

"It's all my fault," the Admiral said as they crossed paths once again, "I shouldn't have been distracting you." Of course she didn't really think that, but after all of her years of marriage to the most aggravating blockhead in the quadrant, she had learned to pick and choose her battles.

He shook his head, as if to say never mind to that. "Where was the last time you saw her, Merry?" He stopped so fast that his daughter almost crashed into his backside.

"By the milk," she retorted, "and don't worry, I tried calling for her. She didn't answer." Then she said to Erika, as if she didn't already know, "Matilda's totally deaf."

The former armory officer had to hold in his groan. If he were three years old, where would he be? Hiding from his father, no doubt, but this was a different time and he was by no means the same man.

"Daddy, can I borrow your PADD?" Meredith asked.

"Sure," he said. At this point, he was willing to do almost anything to get the inquisitive little girl off his tail.

She accepted the device with pleasure, her tiny fingers dancing over the screen. As she moved off, Malcolm leaned in to conduct a semi-private conversation with his companion.

"None of the employees have seen her, even after the message over the intercom. We'll have to split up."

Erika nodded gravely. She understood the anxiety of not knowing where one's child was. In fact, if she was in the Captain's situation, she might not have behaved with as much composure. That was for certain.

The two began to work their way across the grocery store, pausing every few seconds to check over any loose hanging display cloths or boxes. They worked in silence and with such intensity that Malcolm nearly jumped a foot in the air when someone pulled at his sleeve.

It was Meredith, holding his PADD to face him, her tiny face stretching with glee at her discovery. A line of text had been selected from the drop down box, and he watched as the lines of the screen dipped and wavered to indicate various bodily functions.

He took the tablet from her, turning one way and the other until the signals began to strengthen. Following the biosign for some distance, the father and daughter found themselves under a plastic awning, wherein a sign posted on a collapsible table boasted free samples. There, the toddler could be seen gorging herself on chocolate pieces, the substance staining her hands, clothing, and face.

Sometime later, deep in the throes of the checkout process, Erika lifted her chin to address the gentleman in the aisle beside her. "That's one smart kid you've got there, Malcolm."

Taking a deep breath and visibly relaxed now that certain crisis was avoided, he looked around to find the girl in question. He only saw his youngest, candy bar in hand, gazing up at him with widened eyes. When he saw that expression, it could only mean one thing: she knew something, but didn't know how to verbalize it.

From some distance away, a crash was heard as a display was overturned and hundreds of cardboard boxes of cereal fell out of their carefully arranged places and onto the floor.

Erika didn't have to say anything, because Malcolm beat her to it. Bellowing, his face red with frustration, he could be heard to shout, "Meredith!"