Disclaimer: Like I would own enterprise... Which I don't by the way...
A/N: Okay, I said I might give up on this one, but I'm gonna try one more chapter to see if I can't make it work, or else I'm gonna try something else entirely... (Which I hope Dyslexic Moaner will check out as well...)
What's a military?
(Kat)
Today I was gonna spend the day with Malcolm in the armory. Oh, timeframe wise, it's about 2 days after I made my choice to remain here. Everyone seems to enjoy my company, especially Hoshi. She and I have a really good friendship started and I don't wanna ruin it yet. However, Malcolm still is being really mean... I mean, he really ignores me when he gets the chance. I really wanna make him smile, but I don't know how I'm gonna be able to do that. When Hoshi isn't on the bridge, I'm with her, but if she is, I'm with Malcolm, and if they both are, Trip doesn't mind me being in the engine room helping run errands. Yeah, an ambassador running errands, but I actually love to do it. Trip seems to enjoy my company more than Malcolm does.
"So...where are you from?" I asked from the step I was sitting on.
"What do you mean, where am I from? I'm from Earth!" Malcolm said, and he looked a little annoyed. I can tell, because his eyes are in the process of thinking something out and I just interrupted his thought; however, I found what he said very funny, so I couldn't stop myself from giggling, and he looked over at me with a very stern glare.
"I know you're from Earth Mr. Reed, but which part? Doesn't Earth have different parts?" I asked.
"Does where you're from have different parts?" he asked, "You do mean like continents and such, right?"
"Yeah, we have those...but we have 13 worlds to live in should we chose to... well, some people do," I stated, thinking, "But it's still expanding. I think when I get home; the 14th world might have already formed..."
"Where are you from?" he asked. I decided to get back at him.
"I'm from wherever those coordinate states. You know, the ones the Vulcan captain gave to Mr. Archer," I said.
"Very funny Miss Forest," he said, "And please do stop calling me Mister. You are making me sound old."
"Okay Malcolm!" I said, and he glared at me again. I put my head in my hands and stared back. He sighed heavily and turned back to the computer.
"I'm from Britain," he said, "It's a country that's in Europe." Yea, an answer, now... well... I didn't know what to do next. I've only been pestering him to know where he's from for about the past 2 days!
"Do you have any family?" I asked, anticipating that it would take another full two days to receive an answer to that question, and another two after that to find out who's in his family.
"Yes," he said. I think he's just given up trying to get me to bug off, so he's just dealing with me until I go spend time with Trip or Hoshi. In other words, he didn't like me as much as he said he did. I stood up and walked over to him.
"So, you really don't like me then?" I asked.
"It's not that!" he exclaimed, "It's just... I...well; I don't trust people, even an ambassador. We had one before and trouble followed." Aha! I should have pestered him about this first, why he seemed so annoyed with me and didn't want to be around me all the time.
"Oh, is that it?" I asked with another giggle, "I get it now!"
"What do you get?" he asked me.
"You don't trust me because you've had bad experience, so you don't want to be around me because you think I'll be trouble," I said.
"You're annoying, I don't think you are much trouble..." he said quickly.
"I'm not gonna cry," I said firmly, and then fake sniffled, "I just...well..."
"What?" he asked, as he turned away from me back to his work.
"Never mind!" I said firmly, "I'm gonna go find Hoshi, she said she'd meet me for lunch." I would never get him to smile; at least, that was what I decided.
"Actually, I feel like lunch too. I should make sure you find Hoshi," Mr. Reed said, coming up to the door with me.
"Are you joining me for lunch?" I asked, "I thought you thought I was trouble."
"..." Malcolm said nothing.
"Well?" I pressed.
"I've given up. I'll just... I don't know you seem to need a father figure and if you insist on hanging around me all the time I might as well be a father figure. I mean, you don't seem to want to stop bugging me, so I might try to make something of it," he muttered and I smiled up at him, an ear to ear grin. Malcolm looked down at me and I giggled.
"Well, can I call you dad then?" I asked and he sighed.
"NO!" he said, "I'm still not like that. Father figure, that was what I said, not an actual father!"
"Okay Mr. Reed!" I said, still smiling.
"And don't call me that either. I'm not that old, I already told you about that didn't I? Just call me Malcolm," he said exasperated. I smiled even wider.
"Okay, Malcolm..." I began.
"And no nicknames!" he said.
"Aww!" I cried.
"Hey, is Kat in here?" a familiar voice asked, interrupting our argument. It was Hoshi!
"Miss Hoshi!" I exclaimed and ran up to her and hugged her as best as I could, "Guess what, Malcolm's from Britain!"
"He told you that, eh?" Hoshi asked jokingly, looking at Malcolm, "Did he tell you anything else?"
"Nope, well, he told me he had a family, but I don't know how big it is yet!" I said, "Which reminds me... Malcolm, over lunch, could you tell me what a military is?"
"You don't know what a military is?" Malcolm and Hoshi asked in unison.
"Probably not in the way I know it to be...well, c'mon, or lunch will get cold!" I said and grabbed both their hands. Well, I managed to surprise them... I wondered if their military was like the same thing from my planet.
"Yum, this food tastes really good!" I exclaimed happily.
"That's good to know. So Ambassador, you really want to know what a military is," Malcolm asked.
"Yep, and if I can call you Malcolm, you can call me Kat," I said.
"How come you don't call me Hoshi then, instead of Miss Hoshi?" Hoshi joked with me, knowing all to well that she appreciated the respect.
"Well, that's because," I said.
"Never mind, I don't need to know," she replied with a smile.
"Well then Kat, a military is basically soldiers..." Malcolm began.
"Are you a soldier then?" I asked.
"Yes and my ranking is Lieutenant..." he explained.
"So then does that mean you're high in command?" I asked.
"I lead the security force upon Enterprise... but at home, I'd be head of a battalion or something like that," he said.
"Did you want to be on this ship at first?" I asked.
"What does that have to do with a military?" he asked.
"I'm curious!" I defended.
"Sort of..." he stated.
"Sort of what?" I asked.
"I didn't really want the job at first... I wasn't exactly sure it was for me. I come from a military family," he said, "I can only remember up to my grandfather, but I'm sure it went back past that..."
"And a military family is..." I pressed.
"That's when someone in your family from each generation has served in the army or the navy or the air force or even the coast guard... Is it possible I am forgetting any branch?" he asked, almost to himself.
"I don't know, don't look at me..." Hoshi said and continued to eat.
"That's okay, you can just tell me later if you do remember it," I said.
"That's not the point, the point is that..." he began.
"The point is you haven't even touched your food all that much and if you don't eat it soon I'm gonna take it from you!" I said with a giggle, "It's alright Malcolm... I don't need to know that..."
"But you were asking..." he defended.
"I know and I think I have all my answers now so it's alright!" I said, "I really think it's kinda like mine back home, just mine uses magic in battle, among other things."
"Really?" Hoshi asked, intrigued now.
"Yea, I mean, we use weapons and such, but not like the phase pistols you people use... I mean like we use swords, bows and arrows...staffs..." I tried to list off as many of the weapons as I could.
"They sound very primitive," Malcolm said and I only smiled at him.
"Some are ordinary, but some are infused with magical abilities making them much more powerful, even better than the weapons you have!" I exclaimed brightly.
"Highly unlikely," Malcolm said, but I continued to smile at him anyways, "What do you have to be so happy about?"
"Beg pardon?" I asked, drinking from my hot cocoa.
"Why are you smiling all the time?" he asked.
"Well, you don't seem to smile often... so, why don't you smile?" I shot back at him.
"I don't wish to smile, I don't have to," he said.
"Then why is it weird that I smile?" I asked.
"Because you do it all the time!" he exclaimed. I giggled a little bit and looked up into his eyes. He had really nice eyes. I sighed and smiled again.
"Well, that's because I have friends, isn't that something to be happy about?" I said, hoping that would be a decent explanation for him.
"I don't get women and this is one of the reasons," he muttered and poked at his food.
"You know, smiling is healthy," I said.
"So is laughing," Hoshi pointed out.
"Yeah, well, I do that a lot too!" I said and poked Malcolm in the shoulder.
"What was that for?" he asked with annoyance in his voice.
"Because, poking people is fun. The next best thing is tickling... Are you ticklish?" I asked.
"I don't think so. Malcolm laughs so rarely it's hard to think he's ticklish," Hoshi said, looking thoughtful. Malcolm didn't look up from his food.
"Even if I was, I wouldn't tell you," he said, "This is a pointless conversation, we have moved completely off the original topic!"
"Friends do that all the time and it doesn't matter!" I said, "I have friends at home and we never stay on topic for to long unless it's very important!"
"Whoever said we were friends?" Malcolm asked impatiently.
"I did. We're friends, I mean it, well, more like kinda friends, and you still don't like me much..." I trailed.
"..." Malcolm kept his mouth shut and didn't even look at me.
"Is there a problem sir?" Hoshi asked, letting a smile shine through on her face.
"No, there is not! Good day!" he said and picked up his tray and went somewhere else.
"What did I do wrong?" I asked Hoshi and she shrugged at me.
"I don't know. You shouldn't let it bother you, he's like that to a lot of people," she said, and I found myself smiling again.
"I'm gonna make it my goal before I return home," I said definitely.
"What goal?" she asked.
"I'm gonna get Malcolm to smile!" I said and giggled, a smile upon my face once again, "I mean, I think I can do it, I just gotta think real hard about how to do it!"
"Good luck," Hoshi said, "You've got quite the job ahead of you."
"I know," I said, "And that is gonna be lots of fun to do!"
TBC (?)
A/N: And that's a really long chapter for me. I can't believe I wrote that much.
Like it? Hate it? Tell me how to improve if it needs it, if this chapter was better than the others and please, only constructive criticism. If anyone wants to beta this, tell me, I probably could use one.
By the by, if you sincerely must flame me, please keep it rated G-PG... I'm gonna go and play Pokemon Coliseum now if you don't mind, and if you do, I don't care, so bye!
A/N: Okay, I said I might give up on this one, but I'm gonna try one more chapter to see if I can't make it work, or else I'm gonna try something else entirely... (Which I hope Dyslexic Moaner will check out as well...)
What's a military?
(Kat)
Today I was gonna spend the day with Malcolm in the armory. Oh, timeframe wise, it's about 2 days after I made my choice to remain here. Everyone seems to enjoy my company, especially Hoshi. She and I have a really good friendship started and I don't wanna ruin it yet. However, Malcolm still is being really mean... I mean, he really ignores me when he gets the chance. I really wanna make him smile, but I don't know how I'm gonna be able to do that. When Hoshi isn't on the bridge, I'm with her, but if she is, I'm with Malcolm, and if they both are, Trip doesn't mind me being in the engine room helping run errands. Yeah, an ambassador running errands, but I actually love to do it. Trip seems to enjoy my company more than Malcolm does.
"So...where are you from?" I asked from the step I was sitting on.
"What do you mean, where am I from? I'm from Earth!" Malcolm said, and he looked a little annoyed. I can tell, because his eyes are in the process of thinking something out and I just interrupted his thought; however, I found what he said very funny, so I couldn't stop myself from giggling, and he looked over at me with a very stern glare.
"I know you're from Earth Mr. Reed, but which part? Doesn't Earth have different parts?" I asked.
"Does where you're from have different parts?" he asked, "You do mean like continents and such, right?"
"Yeah, we have those...but we have 13 worlds to live in should we chose to... well, some people do," I stated, thinking, "But it's still expanding. I think when I get home; the 14th world might have already formed..."
"Where are you from?" he asked. I decided to get back at him.
"I'm from wherever those coordinate states. You know, the ones the Vulcan captain gave to Mr. Archer," I said.
"Very funny Miss Forest," he said, "And please do stop calling me Mister. You are making me sound old."
"Okay Malcolm!" I said, and he glared at me again. I put my head in my hands and stared back. He sighed heavily and turned back to the computer.
"I'm from Britain," he said, "It's a country that's in Europe." Yea, an answer, now... well... I didn't know what to do next. I've only been pestering him to know where he's from for about the past 2 days!
"Do you have any family?" I asked, anticipating that it would take another full two days to receive an answer to that question, and another two after that to find out who's in his family.
"Yes," he said. I think he's just given up trying to get me to bug off, so he's just dealing with me until I go spend time with Trip or Hoshi. In other words, he didn't like me as much as he said he did. I stood up and walked over to him.
"So, you really don't like me then?" I asked.
"It's not that!" he exclaimed, "It's just... I...well; I don't trust people, even an ambassador. We had one before and trouble followed." Aha! I should have pestered him about this first, why he seemed so annoyed with me and didn't want to be around me all the time.
"Oh, is that it?" I asked with another giggle, "I get it now!"
"What do you get?" he asked me.
"You don't trust me because you've had bad experience, so you don't want to be around me because you think I'll be trouble," I said.
"You're annoying, I don't think you are much trouble..." he said quickly.
"I'm not gonna cry," I said firmly, and then fake sniffled, "I just...well..."
"What?" he asked, as he turned away from me back to his work.
"Never mind!" I said firmly, "I'm gonna go find Hoshi, she said she'd meet me for lunch." I would never get him to smile; at least, that was what I decided.
"Actually, I feel like lunch too. I should make sure you find Hoshi," Mr. Reed said, coming up to the door with me.
"Are you joining me for lunch?" I asked, "I thought you thought I was trouble."
"..." Malcolm said nothing.
"Well?" I pressed.
"I've given up. I'll just... I don't know you seem to need a father figure and if you insist on hanging around me all the time I might as well be a father figure. I mean, you don't seem to want to stop bugging me, so I might try to make something of it," he muttered and I smiled up at him, an ear to ear grin. Malcolm looked down at me and I giggled.
"Well, can I call you dad then?" I asked and he sighed.
"NO!" he said, "I'm still not like that. Father figure, that was what I said, not an actual father!"
"Okay Mr. Reed!" I said, still smiling.
"And don't call me that either. I'm not that old, I already told you about that didn't I? Just call me Malcolm," he said exasperated. I smiled even wider.
"Okay, Malcolm..." I began.
"And no nicknames!" he said.
"Aww!" I cried.
"Hey, is Kat in here?" a familiar voice asked, interrupting our argument. It was Hoshi!
"Miss Hoshi!" I exclaimed and ran up to her and hugged her as best as I could, "Guess what, Malcolm's from Britain!"
"He told you that, eh?" Hoshi asked jokingly, looking at Malcolm, "Did he tell you anything else?"
"Nope, well, he told me he had a family, but I don't know how big it is yet!" I said, "Which reminds me... Malcolm, over lunch, could you tell me what a military is?"
"You don't know what a military is?" Malcolm and Hoshi asked in unison.
"Probably not in the way I know it to be...well, c'mon, or lunch will get cold!" I said and grabbed both their hands. Well, I managed to surprise them... I wondered if their military was like the same thing from my planet.
"Yum, this food tastes really good!" I exclaimed happily.
"That's good to know. So Ambassador, you really want to know what a military is," Malcolm asked.
"Yep, and if I can call you Malcolm, you can call me Kat," I said.
"How come you don't call me Hoshi then, instead of Miss Hoshi?" Hoshi joked with me, knowing all to well that she appreciated the respect.
"Well, that's because," I said.
"Never mind, I don't need to know," she replied with a smile.
"Well then Kat, a military is basically soldiers..." Malcolm began.
"Are you a soldier then?" I asked.
"Yes and my ranking is Lieutenant..." he explained.
"So then does that mean you're high in command?" I asked.
"I lead the security force upon Enterprise... but at home, I'd be head of a battalion or something like that," he said.
"Did you want to be on this ship at first?" I asked.
"What does that have to do with a military?" he asked.
"I'm curious!" I defended.
"Sort of..." he stated.
"Sort of what?" I asked.
"I didn't really want the job at first... I wasn't exactly sure it was for me. I come from a military family," he said, "I can only remember up to my grandfather, but I'm sure it went back past that..."
"And a military family is..." I pressed.
"That's when someone in your family from each generation has served in the army or the navy or the air force or even the coast guard... Is it possible I am forgetting any branch?" he asked, almost to himself.
"I don't know, don't look at me..." Hoshi said and continued to eat.
"That's okay, you can just tell me later if you do remember it," I said.
"That's not the point, the point is that..." he began.
"The point is you haven't even touched your food all that much and if you don't eat it soon I'm gonna take it from you!" I said with a giggle, "It's alright Malcolm... I don't need to know that..."
"But you were asking..." he defended.
"I know and I think I have all my answers now so it's alright!" I said, "I really think it's kinda like mine back home, just mine uses magic in battle, among other things."
"Really?" Hoshi asked, intrigued now.
"Yea, I mean, we use weapons and such, but not like the phase pistols you people use... I mean like we use swords, bows and arrows...staffs..." I tried to list off as many of the weapons as I could.
"They sound very primitive," Malcolm said and I only smiled at him.
"Some are ordinary, but some are infused with magical abilities making them much more powerful, even better than the weapons you have!" I exclaimed brightly.
"Highly unlikely," Malcolm said, but I continued to smile at him anyways, "What do you have to be so happy about?"
"Beg pardon?" I asked, drinking from my hot cocoa.
"Why are you smiling all the time?" he asked.
"Well, you don't seem to smile often... so, why don't you smile?" I shot back at him.
"I don't wish to smile, I don't have to," he said.
"Then why is it weird that I smile?" I asked.
"Because you do it all the time!" he exclaimed. I giggled a little bit and looked up into his eyes. He had really nice eyes. I sighed and smiled again.
"Well, that's because I have friends, isn't that something to be happy about?" I said, hoping that would be a decent explanation for him.
"I don't get women and this is one of the reasons," he muttered and poked at his food.
"You know, smiling is healthy," I said.
"So is laughing," Hoshi pointed out.
"Yeah, well, I do that a lot too!" I said and poked Malcolm in the shoulder.
"What was that for?" he asked with annoyance in his voice.
"Because, poking people is fun. The next best thing is tickling... Are you ticklish?" I asked.
"I don't think so. Malcolm laughs so rarely it's hard to think he's ticklish," Hoshi said, looking thoughtful. Malcolm didn't look up from his food.
"Even if I was, I wouldn't tell you," he said, "This is a pointless conversation, we have moved completely off the original topic!"
"Friends do that all the time and it doesn't matter!" I said, "I have friends at home and we never stay on topic for to long unless it's very important!"
"Whoever said we were friends?" Malcolm asked impatiently.
"I did. We're friends, I mean it, well, more like kinda friends, and you still don't like me much..." I trailed.
"..." Malcolm kept his mouth shut and didn't even look at me.
"Is there a problem sir?" Hoshi asked, letting a smile shine through on her face.
"No, there is not! Good day!" he said and picked up his tray and went somewhere else.
"What did I do wrong?" I asked Hoshi and she shrugged at me.
"I don't know. You shouldn't let it bother you, he's like that to a lot of people," she said, and I found myself smiling again.
"I'm gonna make it my goal before I return home," I said definitely.
"What goal?" she asked.
"I'm gonna get Malcolm to smile!" I said and giggled, a smile upon my face once again, "I mean, I think I can do it, I just gotta think real hard about how to do it!"
"Good luck," Hoshi said, "You've got quite the job ahead of you."
"I know," I said, "And that is gonna be lots of fun to do!"
TBC (?)
A/N: And that's a really long chapter for me. I can't believe I wrote that much.
Like it? Hate it? Tell me how to improve if it needs it, if this chapter was better than the others and please, only constructive criticism. If anyone wants to beta this, tell me, I probably could use one.
By the by, if you sincerely must flame me, please keep it rated G-PG... I'm gonna go and play Pokemon Coliseum now if you don't mind, and if you do, I don't care, so bye!