JUST DO IT

Hoshi slipped out of her robe and handed it, invitingly open, to Reed. There was the twitch in her mouth and the tickle in her throat of an impending giggle, which she abruptly choked off again, pressing her lips together to contain the sound.

Reed eyed the robe suspiciously. That isn't exactly Starfleet-issue, is it? he asked, slowly. His eyebrows were knitting together over his nose, his forehead creasing into faint, firm lines, and his blue eyes glinted distantly. Hoshi had to admit that when he looked like that, sounded like that, each word enunciated to perfection and every facial muscle still as glass, he almost scared her.

Almost.

Reed disdainfully took the pink, fluffy item of clothing from Hoshi, eyeing it from top to bottom. Whatever else could be said for her unorthodox choice of robe, it had a pacifying effect on him. It's got a rabbit on the pocket, he pointed out dryly, not taking his eyes from the offending article. Hoshi felt the giggle pressing against her tonsils again, making her teeth itch, and transformed it into a cough.

Somebody gave it to me as a going-away present. Look, if you'd rather walk through the ship in your underwear, then that's fine by me. She gestured for him to return the robe to her, offering open hands under his nose.

Reed snatched it clear of her reaching fingers, hasty and pretending not to be, and Hoshi diplomatically coughed again. No, thank you, Ensign, he said crisply. Hoshi smiled, exasperated in a way only the slowest of her students had ever managed to elicit from her before. She bit her lip, wickedly enjoying his predicament, and kept her amusement to herself.

Go on, Lieutenant. Give me a twirl.

He put the robe on, his face grim. It was at least three sizes too small for him, and stretched and buckled across the broadest points of his arms, shoulders, and chest.

I look like Priscilla, Queen of Space, he remarked.

Hoshi tutted, close to hyperventilating in her attempts to force back the errant laughter. For all the lieutenant's cool, efficient exterior and practical manner, he was not one to be made fun of and often bridled at personal jokes to that end. Which was strange, considering how quick and dry his natural wit was towards others.

Come on, princess, she laughed. Let's get back to our quarters.

------------------------------

Hoshi led the way. They stole from one shadow to another as they had come, the baby pink a luminous anticamouflage in the morning shift gloom, and finally took refuge behind a blinking console. Hoshi felt Reed bump lightly into her back as she pulled up short, and half-turned her face to find his uncomfortably close, his breath warm down her neck, prickling the fine hairs at the base of her skull. His chest kissed briefly against her back, his thighs touching hers.

she hissed, startled.



Why am I leading the way? You're the one that's supposed to be good at being covert. What she was really asking, beneath a colorful attack on his role as armory officer, was why he pressed so close. In any other circumstance, and in her experience, the lieutenant was a lead-the-way kind of guy.

Reed bridled, perhaps aware of her inner question. I'm hiding behind you, he said, curtly. Lead on, Ensign.

Hoshi rolled her eyes, and went on.

They made it out into the brighter glare of the corridor without encountering a single crewmember, and Hoshi allowed herself the luxury of breathing more easily, content that there was nobody to overhear its depth. Behind her, close by her ear once more, Reed's constricted throat whistled tunefully. He had barely breathed since she woke him, his formerly desperate, deep gulp descending into stilled quiet; but his silence was far from tranquil. There was no ease in the taut muscle of his arm against her, in his unmoving chest. It would be easy to believe, if she wished to turn a blind eye, that it was the conspicuous robe and their equally conspicuous situation that had made him so edgy; but Hoshi didn't believe it. The distance in his disquieted gaze, staring over her head at nothing, was enough to tell her that. And in her time as a linguist, ever since she was small, she had learned the acquired art of listening, not only to people's words and tones, but to their breathing patterns as well. There were those languages where such things were as important as the sounds they accompanied. Reed's was . . . frantic. Strained.

Are you all right? she asked, finally.

Do you realize we're facing a formal reprimand if we get caught like this? Not to mention the rumors . . .

We won't get caught. Lighten up.

Reed did not argue the point further, but he looked none too happy about it. He couldn't argue it, of course; it had been only a thin excuse.

They arrived back at his quarters with no further scare, and to Hoshi's sharp ears his high-strung breath began to soften and steady, just a little.

He thankfully stripped off the offending pink robe at the door, and handed it absently back to Hoshi. The sweat she had noted earlier, with some concern, had either evaporated or else had been absorbed into the fabric, and his pale skin was dry over shoulders now more yielding and flexible, the granite angles smoothed out. The lines in his face were still faintly visible, but had receded significantly. He looked more relaxed, as if the dream she knew to be responsible for disturbing him had faded, but lingered still.

Well . . . thank you, Ensign, he said, not directly looking at her. Hoshi smiled passively at the way he stumbled over the words, but he was looking away, and did not see it.

That's all right, she replied. Couldn't let you fall into the warp reactor, could I?

I think I might have been spotted before that happened, he tried to joke; but it was half-hearted, vacant.

She waited for more, knowing how much more there was to come, and sensing in the heave of his shoulders and the way his lips pressed together thinly that he was battling with himself to keep it under lock and key. Surprisingly, considering the rivers of sweat that had been flooding down him before, there was no lingering scent of it in the corridor. There were never many smells to either repel or appreciate on a hermetically-sealed starship, a fact Hoshi often mourned—she missed the fresh scent of morning that used to wash through the air in Brazil, or the busy, intermingled odors of the cities back home.

Well . . . goodnight, she said, when his reserve had apparently won. She took one last look back over her shoulder as she walked away, wanting to see him safe back inside before she left. The doors were just whispering closed behind him.

Hoshi went on her way, the robe bundled carelessly in her arms and spilling from her grasp. A faint scent rose from the fabric, mildly fizzy, like sherbet and lemon in a tall glass full of ice on a summer's day.

I never knew Malcolm had such good taste in body spray, she thought, and continued on to her quarters with a private smile winding through her sleepy face.

------------------------------

Reed lifted his face to the streams of warm water, allowed it to run down his brow and trace the line of his throat. A bizarre break from his routine, this—to take a shower in the ghost hours of Delta shift, when, in all honesty, his bunk should have been his first instinct. He had learnt, in less pleasant climes than these, to become a creature of habit and discipline, except when his work required adjustments to his schedule. Knowing he should be getting his beauty sleep when instead he was scrubbing the residue of a sweat-soaked dream from his itching skin left him disquieted.

If he had been truthful in telling Hoshi that he remembered nothing of the dream itself, then he had kept back from her the more pertinent, and more vivid, memory; the sense of urgency, of helplessness to its call, that dominated it. The voices, murmuring in twisted, tangled streams, incoherent and inseparable, impelling him to obey them.

He had tried to resist; his own voice had answered, however powerless. But those voices, that cacophony, were too strong.

Reed shook himself from his melancholy and let the steam wrap and curl around him, closed his eyes and smoothed the water through his unruly hair, trying to mute the clamor in his brain. He had barely been able to focus that confusion to humor Hoshi, as she made her thoughtful offer of that ghastly robe. Reed smiled to himself, indulgently, disguising the shiver that shot down his spine. Who knew what he would have done if she hadn't waked him

(you know what to do)
and disturbed him in time.

(just do it)
A sound broke him from his thoughts, from the trails of steam cooling on him. Rat-tat-tat. He stopped, the steam dissipating, listening for it to come again. Rat-tat-tat. A tap. A tap on the glass.

And it was little more than a tap—the kind of staccato made by stilettos on a road, as if somebody was knocking with the end of a ballpoint against the frosted Perspex in the shower door. Reed shut off the water, and stood dripping in the shower cubicle, listening for it to come again, half-decided to step out and go a little closer. All the better to hear you with, my dear. He listened, and sure enough, it came again. Rat-tat-tat. Sharp little dots, rapping on glass. There was a patience to that tapping he instinctively didn't like. He ignored the strike of cold as the steam's heat faded, ignored the tickling sensation as the water streaked down his back and legs and stomach, and blinked it out of his eyes. Still he listened, not sure what it was he wanted to hear; the sound, or silence. What he would be most comforted to hear. What he would be afraid to hear. So he stayed where he was, boxed in by glass so opaque with condensation that he could see nothing beyond it. All he saw were the stripes made by the creeping trickle of water sliding down the glass, cutting through the steam till they looked like bars in a prison window. Glimpses of the room beyond flashed in those slim streaks . . . glimpses of shadows, watching him. Reed reached out his hand, meaning to dry the condensation away . . . and then stopped. He hesitated for a long time—long enough for the water to cool on his body and pull his flesh into goose bumps, long enough for his hair to dry against his temples and that maddening, marrow-deep itch to begin again—and then, finally, he reached for the glass once more.

His outstretched fingers, now shivering with cold, did not reach the pane inches from his nose. They did not need to. As he reached, the steam began to melt.

There, in the condensation misting the shower door, spelled out like a child will spell out their name with their finger, were three, short words:

JUST DO IT.

------------------------------

The rapping on Hoshi's door was frantic, a tattoo branding itself into the metal like a watermark. She had finally, blessedly, begun to drift off to sleep after some hour or more spent twisting in her bed, worrying that the lieutenant would sleepwalk himself out of an air lock in the night. She tried to ignore the twinge that warned her she should tell the captain, as Reed may be a danger to himself if this continued; but it was his own private matter, after all, and the decision to tell anyone of it should be his.

The knocking stirred her abruptly from her coasting mid-consciousness; a state as near sleep as she could expect tonight, and oddly, brought on in the most part by the scent now clinging forcefully to every fiber of her robe, the slumberous, dense fumes making her listless and heavy-lidded. That knock, never breaking and never letting up, seemed determined to elicit an answer, and also seemed unwilling to go away and let her nap.

she yawned, throwing back the quilt reluctantly. I'm coming.

She opened the door to find two agitated, blazing eyes staring full into hers, wide, bright, and feverish. The sweat had broken again on his forehead and cheeks, trailing slowly down his face and damping the finer hair at his temples. He was leaning heavily on her door frame as if his own legs would not support him, and one hand scratched persistently at the back of the other, rubbing the skin raw.

she gasped, stepping back in surprise.

he panted, can you hear that? Tell me you can hear that!

Hear what? Malcolm, you're scaring me.

She ushered him inside, one hand flinchingly nudging him by the arm, and closed the door behind him. She need hardly to have bothered; he dived inside almost before the invitation came, eager to be away from prying eyes, only his deeply ingrained sense of propriety preventing him.

What is this all about? What can you hear? she tried again.

The tapping. The tapping, don't you hear it? He had turned on her, almost fiercely, and she could safely say, now, that he was frightening her. He looked so . . . unhinged.

she said, very softly, dropping her voice low in the quiet of his hurried breathing. Malcolm . . . there's no tapping. She came a step closer, just one, extending a hand cautiously to him. He remained rooted, unmoving, wild eyes taking in her advance uncomprehendingly. The uniform he had this time managed to drag on, albeit crumpled, was darkening with sweat in blooming patches. It wasn't even hot in here, yet he must be burning up. What else can you hear? she purred.

He tilted his head to one side as if shaking water from his ears; then both hands shot up to clutch at his temples, his face pulling into a grimace she barely caught before his palms concealed it. he moaned, sinking down in the chair beside her desk. Voices. Tapping. The engines, they're so loud . . . It was almost a whimper, fading back into his throat as if afraid of the air around him. Hoshi barely caught the last:

They're telling me what to do. All the time. I'm sick of people telling me what to do.

Very slowly, anxious not to startle him, Hoshi sank to her knees on the floor beside him, and rested her hand carefully on his arm. He stirred, reacting to her presence, one hand sliding a little away from his face to look at her. It was a dream, Lieutenant, she said, very gently now, not at all sure it had been. Just a dream.

He nodded slowly, and she sank back on her heels, glad to see that for now he believed her. The captain had called the rest of his senior officers to his ready room, one at a time to avoid alerting Reed to it, and warned them that during the journey to Titrinus he may experience side effects from the nanobots, and that they must be on their guard for any signs. Especially, Captain Archer had said, of hallucinations.

If these weren't hallucinations, she didn't know what were.

he said, raising his head and removing his hands to fix her with eyes no longer wild, but bleary and bloodshot with sleeplessness, fever, and fear. That frightened her more than anything yet; he was never afraid. At least, he never looked it, on all their dangerous missions always keeping that cool, professional exterior, his temper and dry wit the only signs of emotion. She had never seen Malcolm Reed like this before.

She doubted he had ever been like this before.

she replied.

I have to know what these things are inside me, he whispered, strengthlessly. I can't sleep, I can't eat, there's voices in my head that won't go away . . . all night, there've been noises. You've just proved it. Don't you hear that? He smiled sorrowfully, knowing she would say no. She shook her head, minutely, seeing the smile twist into his familiar smirk, a darting glimpse of the old Malcolm; then it was gone.

Exactly. I don't know what's happening to me, but it's been happening since I got these . . . these nanobots. I have to decrypt them. Know what they are.

Shouldn't we tell the captain? We were trusted by the Vulcan High Command with this information, surely we can't just . . .

He raised his eyebrows, ironically reminding her, for a moment, of T'Pol. Can't we? Help me, Hoshi. You're the only one that can decrypt these things. If you can't . . .

Hoshi opened her mouth—speechlessly, because nothing would come out. Clearing her throat, she squeaked:

But . . . we don't know how to get them out of your bloodstream. We don't know anything about them.

I do, he said.