Title/theme: ACCIDENT
Genre: humour/fluff
Rating: PG 13, for innuendos XD
Summary: "Oh, I'm sorry Captain, I must be in the wrong room."

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Commander La Flaga yawned and stretched as he strolled along the hallway of the Archangel. He had been working on the Skygrasper for the last couple of hours, and the idea of a nice warm shower felt good right about now.

He yawned again, feeling the fatigue from his muscles and mind. He slept lightly for only a few hours the previous night, feeling the need to keep half-awake in case the enemy attacked.

After a shower, I'm going to bed…

He stopped by his room, grabbed a towel, and headed for the shower room, whistling to himself absent-mindedly.

The door to the shower room slid open with a swoosh as he came towards it. His tired mind wasn't really paying attention as he sauntered into the room.

However, there was someone in the way, trying to exit.

"Oh sorry," he apologized as he started to sidestep to make way for the other person, but stopped immediately in mid-step as his eyes made out who it was.

He was standing face-to-face with Murrue Ramius. Her hair was wet, and she was only covered by a fluffy towel wrapped around her body.

An awkward silence passed as they stared at each other. Both of their minds blanked, before trying to figure out what was going on.

"C-Commander!" she managed to stutter out as her face went beet red.

"Uh…" his sleep-deprived mind refused to function properly as he could only stare at her, stupefied.

"What are you doing in here?" she mumbled, pulling her towel upwards and looking away in embarrassment.

"Huh?"

He had wanted to ask her the same question. What was she doing in the men's shower room?

Unless…

He gulped. Did he just…

"Oh, I'm sorry Captain, I must be in the wrong room." He apologized immediately, hoping to save whatever shred of dignity he had left, and quickly headed for the door.

"Yeah…" she refused to look at him, her cheeks burning, and chose to stare at the floor instead. But something on the floor caught her attention. She bent down and picked up the object.

"Wait Commander!" she called out. He stopped and turned towards her.

"You forgot your towel," she told him as she held out the said object. He smiled gratefully and came toward her.

Unfortunately, she forgot that the hand that she had used to hold up her own towel was now holding out his towel.

Without the support of her hand, gravity won as the fluffy white towel around her body unravelled and slipped to the floor.

He stopped again mid-step as he stared at her, his mind blanked, once again refusing to function properly.

She realised too late. Her face went bright red again as she let out an embarrassed squeak. She tried to cover up using his towel, but not before almost instinctively shoving him away. The door slid open as he stumbled backwards and landed in the doorway.

Her whole body shook and was red with embarrassment, as she looked anywhere but at the man sprawled on the floor, halfway in the room and halfway in the hallway. And he quickly looked away, saving her some dignity.

One thing was for sure, he wasn't sleepy anymore.

And as if things couldn't get any more awkward, Natarle Badgiruel just had to choose this exact moment to pass by.

She raised a questioning eyebrow as she surveyed the scene before her, looking slightly disgusted.

"This isn't what it looks like!" Mwu and Murrue both protested at the same time.

--

--

"I can't believe you two!" Natarle scolded darkly as the three sat in the Captain's office. "What kind of example are you setting for the rest of the crew!" They didn't answer her, nor did they meet her angry gaze, finding the wall or floor more interesting.

She turned to Mwu with a death glare. "Of all people…Commander, what were you doing in the women's shower room?"

The man in question held out his hands defensively. "It was an accident, I swear!"

Natarle raised her eyebrow. She wasn't convinced, knowing him…

"I don't care what excuses you have. That was sexual harassment, and according to military code, you could be facing court martial right now," she told him.

He palmed his face. "I told you, I didn't mean to, honestly! I entered the wrong room by mistake," he tried again to clear his name. But the Lieutenant just ignored him and ranted on about the military code and how he should know better.

Meanwhile, Murrue sat behind her desk, rubbing her temples as she listened to the exchange. She had never felt so embarrassed in her life. But Natarle was making way too big a deal out of it, and she didn't feel it was fair to Mwu. He hadn't really meant to after all. And it was sort of her fault that landed them the awkward situation that Natarle had found them in.

"Oh drop it Natarle," she told the other woman, holding back her annoyance. "Like he said, it was an accident. I'm willing to look over it, and so should you." She stared at the Lieutenant, and missed the grateful smile that Mwu gave her then.

The two women stared at each other wordlessly, challenging one another. Mwu looked on, not sure whether to feel worried or amused.

"Why are you letting this go so easily Captain?" asked Natarle. Then with a sarcastic raise of an eyebrow, she added dryly, "Could it be that you actually liked it?"

Murrue wasn't expecting that. Her eyes widened and she quickly looked away, the redness creeping onto her face again.

Mwu grinned mischievously and wagged his eyebrows at her as this new possibility dawned on him via Natarle's comment. "Now there's an idea…" he mumbled to himself, his voice low enough that the other two (luckily) didn't hear.

Murrue's gaze turned to him by accident and found her face growing even hotter at the expression on his face. She quickly turned away again, but not before giving him a warning look.

"You realise, Captain, that I may have to put this in the report as well," the Lieutenant said calmly, deliberately ignoring the exchange between the other two, despite the fact that it was caused by her comment.

"What!" Murrue looked up quickly, horrified. "Natarle, you can't…"

"This is yet another…incident that I have to report," she reiterated her statement firmly.

"Don't tell me," Mwu spoke up before Murrue could, "That you're jealous, Lieutenant Badgiruel," he stated casually with an amused grin and a quick wink at Murrue.

Murrue had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as Natarle turned a deep shade of crimson in answer. They weren't sure if she was shocked or embarrassed or indignant. But it was pretty rare, and amusing, to see the prim woman looking so flustered.

With a slight growl low in her throat, Natarle stared at him and stated clearly through clenched teeth, "No. I'm not."

"Oh really," he raised his eyebrow the same way that she had, looking unconvinced.

She looked away quickly, seemed to swear under her breath, before she finally sighed and grumbled, "I'll overlook it this time."

She turned on her heels, gave them a final disgusted look, and left the room with her head held high.

They waited until they heard her footsteps fade down the hall before bursting out laughing.

"Thanks Commander, that sure was an…interesting way of getting her off my case," Murrue told him between her laughter.

"Hey, any time!" he grinned. "That woman needs to learn to loosen up a bit."

"Hmm," she agreed. "I'm just glad that she's not reporting this. Because it'd be very, um, awkward."

Mwu imagined their superiors reading the report, and wanted to laugh at the mental image of their reactions. But in reality, he was glad too that Natarle had let this go. After all, it wouldn't look too good on his record either.

"Look Captain, I'm sorry about what happened. I honestly didn't mean to." He didn't want her to get the wrong idea about him.

"I-It's okay," she answered. "And I guess I'm sorry for shoving you like that." She looked away, to hide her blush, but also to hide her sudden urge to laugh.

She didn't hide it very well, because he noticed and laughed, causing her to laugh as well.

"I guess military training does have its uses eh?" he laughed.

"Yes, but I would've never thought it'd come in handy in this situation," she answered with a grin.

"So," Mwu leaned closer, suddenly feeling bold as he wanted to know the answer to another question. "Was the Lieutenant right? Did you like it?"

That earned him a well-deserved slap on the cheek.

AN: lol, I've been bitten by the humour bug XD. I was tempted to stop at when Natarle found them, but the second scene was too amusing XD

Inspired by a scene from the 2nd vol of manga, when Mwu got blamed on for spying on the younger girls, got water dumped on him and slapped by the girls, before getting chewed out by Natarle... poor guy... and he didn't even do anything...

I'm not sure whether Murrue has her own bathroom, but we see in phase 9 (?) that the girls do have a public bathroom with showers...

hehe, it was fun picking on Natarle at the end XD. The scene was kinda inspired by the 1st vol of the novelization (much better than manga, so many cute Mwurrue moments...), where it seems much more often that Mwu and Murrue ganged up on Natarle XD