The doctor looked up from his diagnostics. He smiled at Trip.
"Commander – it is obvious from your behaviour that you have some, unexplored feelings, for Ensign Sato, shall we say. And it also seems apparent that you are finding the long-term effects of living in a closed environment confining. Perhaps pursuing a relationship with Ensign Sato would help relieve some of those symptoms?"
Trip looked at Phlox. "Now you're sounding like T'Pol. You guys must really think humans are driven by sex."
"As a doctor I can tell you that all sexually-reproducing species are driven by sex – it's inbred, commander," Phlox smiled.
"Well that's not what I want Hoshi for… At least, what I mean is, I wouldn't go out with her just for relief. I wouldn't with any member of this crew. Not to use her for a bit of fun – that's not why I'm here. I like Hoshi for all the right reasons, I promise you."
"But you don't believe you should develop a romantic relationship with her?"
"I'm not supposed to, Doc, that's the long and the short of it. Hoshi's just a junior officer. If she really does like me, it's my responsibility as the senior officer to… well, discourage her."
"Well, Commander, I must say, since working with humans I have become increasingly baffled by your mating rituals. I can't pretend to understand them. That you yourselves would make rules that forbid you from exploring your feelings seems… not in keeping with your relaxed attitudes towards other issues."
Trip looked up at Phlox wryly. "Is it really all that different to you giving Elizabeth Cutler the brush off?"
For the first time Phlox looked a little embarrassed. He looked down at his tricorder. "That is a quite different situation. Crewman Cutler and I are of different species; her feelings for me, such as they are, involve little understanding of my people. Humans still have a lot to learn about Denobulans."
"Ya know, that's right," Trip realised. "Ah've been servin' with you over a year and I know hardly anythin' about Denobulans. Why is that?"
"We are a quiet race, Commander, and many of our customs are very different to your own. And besides, I'm here to be your physician, not a teacher."
"And sometimes a counsellor, huh? Well, thanks for listenin' to me, I 'preciate it."
"Does this mean you've decided what to do about Ensign Sato?"
Trip sighed. "Yeah, I guess I have. I'll see ya, Doc."
------------------
The following day, Hoshi was back on the bridge, trying to forget her behaviour the day before and still trying to puzzle out the subspace message they had received the day before. She felt unbelievably embarrassed about what she had said to Trip, and she was hoping to avoid him for as long as possible. If only she could get on with some work she'd feel better, but she was still stuck in the middle of nowhere. She sighed.
"Still having problems, Hoshi?" The Captain asked her, hearing her sigh.
"Yes, sir," she answered. "In fact, I think things are getting worse."
Archer took pity on her. She looked miserable. "Hang in there, okay, we'll get there," he told her encouragingly. Just then there was a beeping noise from the other side of the bridge.
"I'm receiving a message from engineering, Captain," Mayweather called out from his position at the conn.
"What is it, Travis?" Archer asked, looking up.
"Commander Tucker wants Hoshi down in engineering. He says he's had a breakthrough."
"Great!" Archer said enthusiastically. "Hoshi?"
Yeah, great! Just when I was thinking I couldn't feel any worse. Now I have to face Trip in front of the entire engineering crew and I pretend I didn't just make a fool of myself asking him out.
Hoshi tried to smile at the captain and made her way to the turbo lift, trying not to notice Lt. Reed as he followed her with his yes. But she was soon walking into main engineering, to greet a grinning Trip.
"Hey, Hoshi! Good news!"
"You've fixed it?"
"Well, not quite," Trip confessed. "But we've done the hard part. And the Comm system should be back up within the hour."
"That's great, Commander. But how did you do it?" Hoshi replied, a wave of relief rushing over her. And at least Trip didn't seem to be acting any differently.
"Actually, it was something you said, Hoshi."
"Me? When did I..?"
"C'mere." Trip led her over to a wall of engineering showing a schematic of the ship. "Yer remember when we'd been working for hours yesterday, tryin' to fix one and not mess up the other? You asked why the heck couldn't we just separate the two systems, the UT and the Comm?"
"Ye-es," Hoshi answered slowly. She stared at the ship schematic. "You've managed to do it?"
"Jest a bit a' rewiring," Trip answered confidently. "The problem was the two systems use a lot of the same circuitry around the ship, so that the UT can function simultaneously with the Comm system. The signal relays were gettin' overloaded, and the data was gettin' shifted around. That's why everythin' started goin' haywire. By seperatin' the two systems, we can bypass that problem. It'll take some more work before they'll run happily alongside one another, but at least we can get one up and running while we're fixing the other," Trip turned to Hoshi smiling, pleased with himself. "What d'ya think?"
Hoshi smiled back. "That's great, Commander, I didn't think it'd be possible to fix the problem so quickly."
"There's still work to be done on the UT, Ensign, but at least we can have in-ship communication again. And don't forget, it was your idea, Hoshi, we'd still be scratching our heads if it wasn't for you."
"Well, I don't think that's entirely true, sir, but thank you."
"You deserve the credit, Hoshi; you were worrying about that thing like it was yer first born. But," Trip gestured towards the warp core, "I know how that feels. I'll let you give the captain the good news. I'll speak to him myself when we get the Comm system up and running again."
"Thanks, Commander - I'll tell him it was all your hard work!" Hoshi said, and she turned towards the turbo lift once more.
"Wait a sec, Hoshi," Trip waved to her. "Could I have a word?"
He drew her over to an empty corner and checked none of his staff were within hearing distance.
"I just thought maybe we should talk about yesterday," he said, trying not to look her in the eye.
Oh crap, Hoshi thought. "Yes," she said.
"I just wanted to say, that I hope I didn't, well, you know, upset you or anything, turning you down last night," Trip said, trying to clear his throat as he spoke.
God, he looks so uncomfortable. He must really not like me.
She waved a hand a dismissively. "No, sir, not at all. I understand – I shouldn't have asked you to join me last night. I was just tired and… not thinking right. I didn't… you see, I didn't mean anything by it, sir. I should really be the one apologising."
She doesn't really like me after all. Phlox was wrong. God, what a fool I am, goin' on about her to the Doc' the whole a last night!
"No, Hoshi, not at all. It was just a misunderstandin'. These things happen. We should just forget about it. I wouldn't like this to affect our friendship – I've really appreciated working with you the last few days."
"Thank you, Commander. I'm pleased we got the Comm system up and running again." Why do I sound like that? All polite and stiff? He's going to think I'm upset because he said no. (Oh who are you kidding – you are!)
"I'm glad we spoke about this – cleared the air." Clear the air? What am I saying? Jeez, I don't think ah could feel more awkward.
"Have a good day, Commander," Hoshi gave Trip a small smile.
"Have a good one, Hoshi," Trip let her go. They each went their separate ways.
Damn, they both thought.