Title: The Q Experience
Authors: Sita/T'eyla
Rating: PG
Genre: Humor/General
AN: Thanks to csifan2000 (hope you'll enjoy this chapter... maybe some of it will sound familiar, too (?) ;-) ), Exploded Pen (Do you always kill each other on Xmas? Just joking. You're right, Monopoly should be made illegal, it's an awful game), Jen717 (Ohh, you caught us! Right, Hamster Huey was originally created by Bill Watterson who does the Calvin&Hobbes comics. And yes, at least one of us (Sita) is a big fan:-) ), soultoast, KaliedescopeCat, chopsticks (yes, there's definitely a lesson beneath all of it... it will all be revealed at the end of the story;-) ), Gabi (Kapitel 14 war super! Ausführlicherer review und neue Übersetzungen kommen bald! LG!), Reedie (looks like you got something in common with Malcolm ;-) and Dacker Spaniel (ramble away, we don't mind. After all, we're the ones with the long-winded, never-ending author's notes... *g*) for reviewing. Here's Chapter 5, read and enjoy it!
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Chapter 5: Babysitter Blues II - The Return Of The Monsters
Malcolm turned onto his back again, pulling the covers up to his chin. For a moment he listened to the even breathing coming from Travis and Hoshi, then turned his head, casting a furtive glance at Trip. Trip was still lying with his back turned to him, but Malcolm was pretty sure he wasn't asleep. By now, Malcolm's anger at Trip had almost disappeared, and he started feeling kind of sorry. After all, it had been him who had been cheating. He had not paid the rent not only twice, but at least five times before Trip had caught him - Trip had owned at least two thirds of the streets and twice as much money as he'd had, and Malcolm hadn't wanted to lose.
Now, however, he found himself wishing he hadn't cheated at all. It had gotten them into so much trouble, and, even worse, Trip seemed to be really mad at him. And even though Trip could be a little blockheaded sometimes, Malcolm found that it never really got boring when they were together. Ever since he'd suddenly found himself in this strange place and first met Trip, they had gotten along really well, and up until now, they hadn't really had any major disagreement, either. But at the moment it sure seemed like Trip would never even talk to him again.
Malcolm turned his head, looking over at Trip again. Well, he thought, it can't hurt to try.
"Trip?" he whispered. "Are you awake?"
Trip gave no answer, only pulled up his covers a little further. Malcolm was silent for a moment, then tried again.
"Hey, Trip! Are you awake?"
"Leave me alone," Trip grumbled. Malcolm rolled onto his side.
"Come on, Trip. This is boring!"
"I'm not talkin' to you anymore," Trip said, not turning around. "You cheated."
"Oh, come on!" Malcolm said. "We didn't finish that game anyway."
"Yeah, because you cheated."
Malcolm sighed, turning onto his back again. He really wished he hadn't cheated; it hadn't gotten him that much money, anyway, and Trip seemed to be still very angry with him. For some time there was silence, and Malcolm already felt his eyes begin to droop when suddenly he heard Trip's voice.
"It was really unfair of Archer to send us to bed that early."
Malcolm rolled onto his side, facing Trip who had turned around as well. He felt a grin spreading on his face.
"Sure was," he said. "But he didn't even shout that much, did he?"
"Naw," Trip shook his head. "Still, I don't see why he sent us to bed. We weren't fightin' anymore, anyway."
Malcolm nodded. He was glad to have Trip talking to him again, and racked his mind to find an interesting topic of conversation.
"You know," he said, trying to sound casual, "I thought that Armoury was really cool."
"That what?" Trip asked.
"The place where all the guns were," Malcolm said. "You know, with the phasers and photon torpedoes."
"How come you know it's called an Armoury?"
Malcolm grinned proudly. "My granddad told me. All the battle cruisers and submarines of the Royal Navy have one."
Trip's eyes widened. "Your granddad's in the Navy?"
"In the Royal Navy. But he's retired long since."
"Wow." Trip rolled onto his back again. "Yeah, that place was really cool. I'd like to go there again one of these days. But without Archer."
"He'd never let us go there on our own," Malcolm said. "He'd say it's too dangerous."
Trip looked at him again, and Malcolm saw an evil grin spreading on his face. "Only if we ask."
Malcolm stared at him. "We wouldn't get away," he said then. "Captain Archer would want to know where we are going."
Trip rolled his eyes. "Maan, we have to wait till he's asleep, of course."
Malcolm considered. It was a very tempting idea, having a few hours in the Armoury for themselves without any grown-up supervising them. Maybe he'd be able to get a closer look at these torpedoes Captain Archer had said he was "not to touch"...
"We're going to get in so much trouble," he said, but Trip waved a dismissive hand.
"We didn't get in any trouble about that resequencer-thingy either. They'll never notice."
Malcolm was silent for a moment. "Do you think he's asleep yet?"
Trip shook his head. "Not yet. Let's wait for two more hours."
"Okay," Malcolm said, feeling excitement build in the pit of his stomach at the thought of being able to tinker with all these weapons in that wonderful Armoury in only two hours time.
-###-
"The monsters are back!"
Archer felt someone tug at his sleeve and turned his head, blearily blinking into the darkness. He could make out a small figure standing next to his biobed and a moment later he recognized Hoshi.
"Whassamatter?" he asked, blinking a few times to get rid of the sleepy haze in front of his eyes. "It's not morning yet, is it?"
Hoshi's eyes were wide as she answered. "The monsters are back. I'm afraid of the monsters."
Groaning, Archer sat up, pushing his blanket aside and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. "Has Mr. Reed been telling you bedtime stories again?"
Hoshi blinked up at him. "Porthos can't eat the monsters," she said earnestly. "They're too big."
"You've been dreaming," Archer said, getting up and taking her by the hand. "Why don't you just go and lie down again-"
"No," Hoshi said, her eyes filling with tears. "I don't want to go where the monsters are. I'm afraid of the monsters."
Archer sighed. "Alright," he said, "I'll go with you. The monsters are afraid of me." And if they aren't yet, then they're going to be, he added in thought, thinking that someday he would tell Malcolm some bedtime stories of his own. Hoshi looked up at him, an amazed expression on her face. "Really?" she asked, and Archer nodded.
"Terrified."
He opened the bedroom door and immediately knew that something was wrong. Malcolm's and Trip's beds were empty, their covers thrown carelessly onto the floor. The two boys were nowhere to be seen. Archer stared down at Hoshi. "Where are they?" he asked. Hoshi turned her head, taking a quick glance over the room.
"The monsters? They're gone. I think you scared them away."
Archer shook his head. "Nono, Malcolm and Trip! Where have they gone?"
Hoshi blinked. "They're not here. Maybe they were eaten by the monsters."
"Will you stop going on about those monsters," Archer said just a little irritated. "Did you see where they went?"
Hoshi stared up at him, her eyes filling with tears again. "I'm... I'm afraid of the monsters," she sniffled. "They ate Trip and Malcolm." She began to cry. Archer looked down at her, at a complete loss what to do. Then he crouched down in front of her, looking her straight in the eyes, hoping he would be able to get through to her.
"Look Hoshi," he said. "There are no monsters. That was a dream of yours. Malcolm and Trip were not eaten by any monsters, they're gone and I need to know where they went. Did they say anything to you?"
Hoshi flung her arms around his neck, crying harder. "I'm afraid of the monsters," she wailed. "I don't want to go in there. There're monsters in there. I want my mom."
"Why am I not surprised." Archer picked her up, patting her on the back. "Now calm down, Hoshi. There really aren't any monsters. Why don't you-"
From the corner of his eyes he noticed a movement and a moment later he saw Travis sitting up in his bed.
"What's going on?" Travis asked sleepily, looking around. "Where are Trip and Malcolm?"
Archer tried to loosen Hoshi's grip on his neck. "I don't know," he said. "I need to go look for them. Why don't the both of you just lie down again and-"
"NO!" Hoshi screamed, her grip tightening so hard that Archer felt like he was being strangled. "I DON'T WANT TO STAY HERE! I'M AFRAID OF THE MONSTERS!"
"Alright, alright, alright," Archer said, gasping for air. "You can come with me. But you get back to bed," he said to Travis who had gotten up as well. Travis shook his head emphatically.
"I'm not staying here all alone. I'm afraid of the dark."
Archer stared at him. "But you weren't before!" he sputtered, and Travis shrugged.
"I am now. Can I come, too?"
Archer took a deep breath, then decided it didn't matter anyway and took him by the hand. "Okay, okay," he said. "You can come, too." He cast a glance at Hoshi who was still howling away at the top of her voice. "Why're you still crying?" he asked. "Where we're going, there are only two monsters, and only the kind I'm afraid of."
She broke off for a moment, staring at him with wide eyes. "There... there are monsters?" she whispered, then broke into noisy sobs again. "I DON'T WANT TO GO WHERE THE MONSTERS ARE!!"
Smart move, Jonathan, Archer thought, heading towards the sickbay doors with a screaming Hoshi on his arm and Travis in tow.
"What kind of monsters?" Travis asked curiously. "The big slimy green ones Malcolm told us about? They eat only girls, I'm not afraid of them."
This caused Hoshi to cry even louder and Archer to fasten his pace. Opening the door, he looked down the corridor, considering where to go first.
I bet they're in the mess hall, he thought, trying not to think of what they might be doing there just now. Or they're on the bridge, playing Crash The Ship. Or maybe they went down to Engineering...
Shuddering at the thought, Archer pressed the turbolift button and decided that it would probably be best to go to the bridge and scan for them. They could be anywhere on the ship.
On the way to the bridge, Hoshi kept howling in a high-pitched voice right next to his ear, Travis kept bouncing up and down beside him, talking about everything in general and monsters in particular and Archer felt himself coming closer and closer to losing it completely. Why me, he thought. I didn't do anything. This is just not fair, Q.
When the turbolift door slid aside, Archer stepped onto the bridge, expecting the worst, but neither was Malcolm standing at the tactical station, firing off the ship's torpedoes, nor was Trip sitting on the science console, taking it apart. The bridge was empty. Walking over to the science station, Archer tried to loosen Hoshi's grip on his neck in order to put her down, but she was sticking to him like bubblegum, not letting go.
"What're you doing?" Travis asked, coming up beside him and reaching out for the buttons on the science console. Archer snatched his hand away.
"DON'T you touch that," he said. Travis pouted.
"Why?"
Ignoring him, Archer began to awkwardly operate the scanners' controls with one hand, initiating a full internal scan of the ship. As he had expected, there was one Vulcan bio sign in T'Pol's cabin, one Denobulan in Phlox' quarters, three human ones on the bridge and... Archer froze.
No, he thought, no, this can't be. Not the Armoury!
A thousand horrible images popped up in his mind at once, and Archer set off in a run for the turbolift doors, dragging a startled Travis along behind him.
Two minutes later, he arrived at the Armoury door, panting, and slammed his fist down on the panel. The door slid open.
"I'M GONNA GETCHA, YOU ALIEN BASTARD!!"
Archer heard a loud crash beside him, and a second later Trip came charging from behind a container next to the door, brandishing a phase pistol and yelling like mad.
"YAAAAAAAHHHHHH-"
Quickly setting Hoshi down onto the floor, Archer lunged forward and grabbed him by the arm, yanking the phaser from his hand.
"WHAT THE BLAZES DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
Trip stared at him, eyes wide with shock.
"Wha... where did you come from?"
"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!" Archer looked around, on the verge of panic. "Where's Malcolm?!"
"I'm... I'm here, sir," a small voice came from across the room. Archer saw Malcolm emerge from behind one of the torpedoes and was shocked to see that he was holding a phase pistol as well.
"PUT THAT DOWN!!" he yelled, and Malcolm jumped, immediately dropping the weapon. The phaser fell to the floor with a clatter, and, releasing Trip, Archer made a grab for it. Examining both pistols, Archer noted with immense relief that they weren't equipped with power cells, so that even if one of the boys had actually pulled the trigger, they wouldn't have been able to cause any damage. Slamming the weapons down onto a console next to him, Archer turned to the two boys who were standing next to each other, shock and dismay written all over their faces as they stared at him.
"What-were-you-thinking?" Archer asked in a deadly voice, taking a step towards them. "Sneaking off in the middle of the night, playing around with phase pistols, what were you THINKING?!!"
"We... we just wanted to have some fun..." Trip said in a shaky voice. Archer took a deep breath.
"FUN?!! YOU COULD'VE KILLED EACH OTHER WITH THESE WEAPONS! ARE YOU COMPLETELY OUT OF YOUR MIND?!!"
"B-but we didn't break anything..."
"I don't CARE if you broke anything or not! Didn't you LISTEN?!! These weapons are dangerous, they're REAL weapons! If they'd been loaded you could've KILLED each other!" Archer started to pace. "I really don't know what's wrong with you two! You don't listen to what I say, you don't listen to what Phlox says, you're constantly getting into trouble - it's a never-ending story, and I WON'T have it! Do you have any idea of how scared I was, waking up and finding you gone, ANYTHING could have happened! And going to the Armoury in the middle of the night, when I explicitly told you NOT TO TOUCH these weapons! I'm REALLY disappointed in you!"
Turning back to the boys, Archer noticed tears running down their cheeks and stopped in his tracks.
Great, he thought, and now they're crying. Squinting his eyes shut, Archer pinched the bridge of his nose, forcing himself to take slow, even breaths. Okay, Jon. You caught your Chief Engineer and Tactical Officer playing Mars Attacks in the Armoury in the middle of the night, and now they're crying because you shouted at them, but you're not going crazy. You're not going crazy.
Opening his eyes, he looked back at Trip and Malcolm and had just opened his mouth to say something when suddenly there was a loud thump, followed by a yowl of pain.
"OWW!"
Archer swiveled around and saw Travis lying on the floor at the foot of the stairs leading to the upper level, screaming at the top of his voice.
Just what I need, he thought, hurrying over to Travis and helping him to his feet.
"What's wrong?" he asked, raising his voice to drown out Travis' high-pitched howling. "Did you hurt yourself?"
"I FELL DOWN THE STAIRS!"
You could at least have knocked yourself unconscious, Archer caught himself thinking, then stomped down on that absolutely abominable, anti-children thought. This was not what he was supposed to be thinking right now.
"Did you hurt yourself?" he asked again, and Travis wailed, "I bumped my knee!"
Now that's too bad, isn't it. "Come on, Travis," he said, "don't cry. It's okay."
But Travis kept on screaming, and Archer gave up, getting to his feet and looking around. Trip and Malcolm were still standing where he'd left them, sniffling and wiping their cheeks, while Hoshi was sitting on the floor next to the door, crying as well. Looking back down at Travis' scrunched up face, Archer felt the mad urge to laugh.
This is my senior crew, he thought. My senior crew!
Sitting down on the stairs, he buried his face in his hands. Q, he thought, Q, if you ever, ever, ever set a foot onto this ship again, I'm going to rip your head off and throw you out an airlock.
"Captain?"
Archer turned his head and saw Phlox standing in the doorway. Looking around the room, the doctor raised his eyebrows with a mildly surprised expression on his face.
"What's going on here?"
When Hoshi became aware of the doctor standing there, she scrambled to her feet and flung her arms around his leg, sobbing miserably.
"There are monsters in here! I don't want to be where the monsters are! I want my mom!"
Picking her up, Phlox came over to where Archer was sitting, his eyebrows climbing even higher as his eyes fell on the still crying Travis and the two older boys who were standing a few feet away, looking rather shaken up.
"Is everything alright, Captain?"
Archer let out a shaky laugh. "Of course everything's alright. Everybody's enjoying themselves, aren't they?"
Phlox blinked. "What happened?"
"Ask them." Archer gestured at Trip and Malcolm who flinched. Phlox turned around, facing the boys.
"Well, what did you do this time?"
"Ermmm..." Both of them stared at the floor, shifting their feet. "We didn't do nothin'," Trip mumbled finally. "We just..."
Phlox raised his eyebrows. "Yeeees?"
Trip still wouldn't look up. "We just wanted to have some fun, so we thought we'd -"
"Oh, you thought?" Archer interrupted acidly. "I didn't notice."
Malcolm sniffled again, and Phlox shifted Hoshi on his arm. "Am I correct in my assumption that these two young gentlemen are here without your permission, Captain?" he asked and Archer sighed.
"That's one way to put it." He got up again, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "These two "gentlemen" sneaked off to the Armoury in the middle of the night, played around with phase pistols, and now they've got the nerve to say they just wanted to have "some fun"." Archer glared at Trip who quickly looked back down at the floor. Phlox cleared his throat.
"Now, Captain, it's late and we're all very tired, so why don't we talk this through tomorrow, hm?" He looked back at the boys. "Well, you two, I think you know that this was very irresponsible behavior on your part, don't you?"
"Yes, sir," Malcolm mumbled, and Trip nodded quickly.
"As I said, we're going to talk about this tomorrow. Now why don't we all stop crying, go to bed and have a good night's sleep, so we won't be all cranky in the morning, hm?"
Even though Archer still had trouble suppressing the urge to take Malcolm and Trip and bang their heads together, Phlox' weird statement almost startled a laugh out of him.
"Good idea, Doc," he said, picking up Travis, who'd stopped crying by now. "Let's get down to sickbay and get these monsters settled."
"Monsters?" Hoshi raised her head, and Archer could have kicked himself, but Phlox only smiled at her, patting her on the back.
"There are no monsters, Hoshi," he said pleasantly, and - wonders never ceased - Hoshi seemed to believe him, resting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes.
On their way down to sickbay no one said much, including Trip and Malcolm who stayed a few feet behind Archer and Phlox, shuffling their feet and sniffling occasionally. When he pressed the button for the turbolift, however, Archer heard Malcolm's subdued voice.
"This is all your fault," he whispered to Trip. "I told you we'd get in trouble."
"I'm not the one who wanted to go to the Armoury," Trip retorted, but fell silent when Phlox raised his eyebrows at him.
When they entered sickbay, Travis and Hoshi were fast asleep and made no move when Phlox and Archer put them to bed. Trip and Malcolm crept into their beds without another word, disappearing under the covers, and Archer almost felt a little sorry for them. Almost.
As soon as he and Phlox had left the kids' bedroom, Archer started off towards his biobed, but Phlox put a hand on his arm.
"Captain, I hope you don't mind me saying so," he said, "but you do look tired. Why don't you go to your own quarters and get some rest as well, hm?"
"So I won't be all cranky in the morning, right doc?" Archer said with a half-smile. Phlox gave him a wide grin.
"Exactly, Captain."
Feeling both relieved and a little guilty, Archer gave Phlox a last nod and left sickbay, heading for his cabin. As he entered his wonderfully quiet, kid-less quarters, he gave a deep sigh, collapsing on his bed.
Let's just hope we'll find that Lake of Learning soon, he thought, closing his eyes. And two seconds later Jonathan Archer, too, was fast asleep.
TBC...
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