Chapter Ten: Heavenly Hoshi

            Trip entered his quarters, stripped off his uniform and let it crumple to the floor, and sat down on his bed in his underwear. The room was not decorated in its ordinary way; his harmonica was nowhere to be found, although at that he wasn't really surprised. There was no polished set for playing Go sitting in the corner. Everything was done subtly and there was a feminine touch about the place. Evidently, Hoshi lived with him.

            Well, he could deal with that. They were very close friends in his own universe, after all. It occurred to him that if they were living together in this universe that he would probably have to treat this like she was his girlfriend … and they were living together …

            Trip closed his eyes and thought of how she'd looked on the bridge, in those heels, with her hair down like that … and realized, smiling slightly, that it really wouldn't be that much of a challenge to be Hoshi Sato's lover for a little while.

            The door to his quarters opened and Hoshi strolled in, her stiletto heels clicking against the floor.

            She still looked gorgeous. With her hair down, in that close-fitting uniform, looking slightly more made-up than his Hoshi usually did …

            "The engineer's woman has arrived," she said, a touch wryly.

            He sat up on the bed and looked at her. "Hi, Hoshi," he said.

            "Mm," she said, picking his uniform up off the floor. She held it up, raising her eyebrows at him. "Reverting, are we? And here I thought I had you trained."

            Oh. Huh. This might take some getting used to; it had been a long time since Trip had shared his life with a woman on a regular basis and it seemed that his alternate self, while barbaric in many ways, had shed many of the conveniences of bachelorhood in his association with the linguist.

            "I thought you had better things to be concerned about than my laundry," he said wryly.

            "I'll say," Hoshi said, tossing his things at an unobtrusive laundry basket. "Today was impossible, Trip, just impossible. I don't know how much more of this I can take." She rubbed at her eyes with the palms of her hands, sighing as she sat down next to him on the bunk.

            Trip wasn't sure how to deal with this. "Er," he said, "what … oh."

            Hoshi's mouth quirked into a little grin. "You're so helpful, darling," she said. "But …" And she shook her head. "I came out here because I had to."

            "Captain Archer wanted you for this mission," Trip said. "He wanted the best."

            "Captain Archer always wants the best," Hoshi said, "and he has … ways … of getting what he wants."

            "I know," Trip said, hesitantly stroking her shoulders.

            She glanced at him oddly, as though startled by the tentativeness of the gesture … or maybe by the fact that he was listening to her; it occurred to Trip that he really had no idea what sort of Trip Tucker she was used to dealing with on the intimate level.

            Well, there was only so far he was willing to go to maintain pretenses. He wasn't going to hurt her. She wasn't like the others.

            But then again, how many really were like the others? This universe's T'pol had shown signs of integrity; she merely demonstrated the background of a more sensual, warrior-based culture. Captain Archer … Trip had sensed traces of his old friend in this Captain Archer as well, it was just that the scathing, biting, sarcastic creature that he had interacted with here was never usually aimed inward toward those who the captain liked; possibly this Jonathan Archer didn't know any other way to interact.

            And Malcolm – blending so easily with these crueler, more militaristic surroundings; where his Malcolm was lonely and kind of socially pathetic while being strongly career-minded and devoted to duty, this one was perverse and twisted socially, a stickler for the system, but still retaining traces of respect for duty and honor that characterized the Malcolm that Trip knew so well at home.

            He'd been able to play to Captain Archer, to play to Malcolm Reed, because he understood their other selves so very well in his own reality; these were twistings, caricatures of the people he knew, but in many ways they were the people he knew. It was only the system that they operated in that was different.

            The Empire, as they called it, was Starfleet, but without decency or moral concerns.

            Trip shivered at the thought.

            So even as the Hoshi Sato he knew so well deep inside felt as though where she really belonged was in the classroom and not on the bridge of the fleet's flagship, this Hoshi Sato maintained the façade of living within the system for the sake of her career – and under whatever persuasion of blackmail that her captain had inflicted upon her – but inwardly felt frustrated and unhappy with the system …

            The parallels. He could use the parallels. He was sure of it.

            "You're awfully nice today," Hoshi said, looking at him with eyebrows raised. "So who's the unlucky one?"

            "Unlucky one?" Trip asked, blinking.

            Hoshi snorted delicately. "You've made someone miserable today, haven't you?" she said. "So of course you're feeling magnanimous."

            "Oh … Malcolm," Trip said.

            Hoshi rolled her eyes. "Really, Trip. I wish you wouldn't."

            "He deserved it," Trip said fervently.

            "I'm sure he did," she said, and sighed.

"I'm trying to imagine what he would do if he had to choose between T'pol and a weapon, like she had to today," Trip remarked.

She leaned back on her elbows and glanced toward the ceiling of their shared quarters. "He'd take the weapon without a second thought," she said. "He's so cold, so calculating. He gives me the shivers."

            "Really?" Trip looked at her, surprised.

            "He's just so … good at it," Hoshi said. "It's creepy. It's like he was made to be a servant of the Empire."

            "I don't know," Trip said thoughtfully, "I think there's more to him than meets the eye."

            "Maybe," Hoshi said doubtfully. She looked tired. "I think I need a shower," she said.

            Trip hesitated, then offered her a little grin. "Want some company?"

            She seemed surprised by the offer, tilting her head slightly to one side, regarding him as though she'd never seen him before. "All right," she said.

            "Good," he said, "I was beginning to get a little stinky."

            "I wasn't going to say anything," Hoshi said, laughing softly. It sounded like she hadn't had occasion to laugh in a long time.

            Trip had never seen Hoshi naked before. It was … an experience, watching her take her clothes off. And he had a feeling that some of the scars and old bruises on this Hoshi's body wouldn't be on the body of the Hoshi at home. He wondered how many of them his other self had inflicted, and winced as he finished undressing.
            She was so beautiful as she stepped into the streaming, hot water. He almost forgot to get in with her, he was so wrapped up in watching the droplets running over her – dampening her long raven hair, streaming over her face as she faced into the shower with her eyes closed, down her whole body. It was as though he had never seen her before.

            He helped her cleanse herself with gentle fingers, soaping her body … and although she seemed surprised and confused by the attention, she smiled softly and returned the favor.

            And they made love in the shower, in the bathroom, and eventually back out in the quarters with the air strange and cool on their soaked skin. It was like nothing Trip had ever experienced before; he'd had women before, of course, but she seemed so tentative at first, as though this was a completely new and different experience for her, and then so passionate, so tender, so enthusiastic. Trip was certain that his other self had slept with her before, but it was clear that in this department at least he and the Trip she was used to were very different people.

            What with one thing and another, when they were finished they were lying together on the bunk in their quarters.

            "Thanks," Trip said, when he found words to express himself. It fell absurdly short, but what could he really say?

            "Thanks?" Hoshi repeated, incredulous. Her voice broke. He turned to look at her and was shocked to see that she was weeping – tears rolling down her cheeks.

            "Hoshi? What's the matter?" he said.

            Hoshi stared at him through her tears. "I … I'm sorry, Trip," she whispered. "It's never been like that before – you've never been like this before. I don't … I don't know what's happened to you, but …" And she buried her tear-soaked face in his naked shoulder, her body shuddering with sobs. "Please. Don't let it stop."

            Trip held her gently, aware in the back of his mind that he would never – never – look at Hoshi Sato in the same light again … and wondering if somehow he'd blown his cover here, in this strange reality, just by being too gentle, too tender with a woman who so clearly loved him (for whatever insane reason she might have to do so).

            And he thought, as he stroked her damp hair and tried to soothe her, to stem the freshet of tears as she wept into him, that even if he had, it was damned worth it.