"And there, I think, we may leave it."

I've always had a flair for the dramatic. I thought that was exactly the point at which the curtain should be drawn, and I pulled Reed and his bien-aimée from that particular reality as neatly as Jean-Luc concluding yet another round of those tiresome diplomatic conferences of his.

He staggered slightly, blinked, and ran a hand down his Starfleet uniform to reassure himself that he was back in his own world. For sheer convenience I'd brought him back to his precious Armory, but across from us Miss Sato was still pressed against the post in the arena, her mouth tilted up to a shadowy image of himself.

Kissing. It's so unhygienic, but these Humans really do seem to place so much importance on it. I've never understood why.

"Was that – real?" he asked slowly, staring at me.

Well. As if I'm in the business of giving people answers. Naturally I waved the question away. "The important thing is that the young woman in question finally got to see the real you," I said testily. "As opposed to that stuffed-shirt persona you seem to feel it necessary to adopt on board ship."

"It's not my usual practice to run around naked in front of junior officers," he admitted with a smile that quite transformed his rather hard and humorless face and lent it (if such a word can really be used of his species) quite a remarkable charm.

Humans! He put on a display of astonishing bravery to save the life of the young woman he loves, and all that he can find to think of is that she had the 'privilege' of seeing his genitals on general display. It isn't as if she minded, I inform him tartly. (Actually she was quite pleased, though I can't imagine why.)

"Well, did you find what you came for?" he asked.

I waved an airy hand. "You were mildly entertaining. And see how generous I am in return! When I release Miss Sato, she'll see you as her conquering hero. What young woman could resist a man who risks his life to save her?"

Rather to my surprise, he didn't answer at once. Instead, he walked over to where she was still frozen, still as a statue, and studied her kissing the image of himself. He was no longer smiling; in fact, he looked strangely sad.

After a moment, he turned back to me. "I don't want her to remember," he said steadily.

What? I'd placed the both of them in a reality that would enable him to play Saint George slaying the dragon, and he didn't want the fair maiden he'd rescued to even be grateful to him for it?

"I went to all this trouble for you, and you don't want to reap the benefit of it?" I demanded indignantly.

He crossed his arms resolutely. "No."

Humans! Rejecting the benefits I could heap upon them must be a genetic trait. First Crusher and la Forge, then Riker, and even the Klingon and the android were tainted with the selfsame folly – and now Reed!

The whole lot of them are a conundrum, if you ask me. And I was thoroughly tired of trying to work them out, and especially of trying to make their sad little lives a little happier. My selfless generosity was never gratefully appreciated.

I was so exasperated I stood up and glared at him. "Would you mind telling me exactly why? – For heaven's sake, you're not worried about her having seen you naked!"

He shook his head. "Not in the least. At least, not in the way you mean."

Ah. I looked at him more carefully. A complex man, is Malcolm Reed, and there are more than one sorts of nakedness. Also he has a prickly pride, and a deep sense of honor, which overlays a great deal of unnecessary shame.

"You are aware that had you not done what you did, you probably wouldn't have survived it. And therefore, neither would she."

He looked at me levelly. "I'm aware of that."

"And so there could hardly be any more fortuitous opportunity to introduce her to the idea that you may have, shall we say, 'hidden talents'."

"Some more hidden than others," he quips.

Humans. They're so fixated on their genitals.

However, the gleam of humor was short-lived, and that dogged determination fell back across his face the next second. "I don't want her to remember any of this. I don't want her to be grateful to me for saving her from a cruel trick, and I don't want her to remember seeing someone who – who doesn't exist any more. Above all, I don't want her to remember being afraid."

He looked across at her then, and there was so much yearning in that look; if I were fanciful, I might almost think he was storing up the memory of how she'd kissed him.

"I take it you want to remember," I said truculently.

Give him his due, he hesitated. "I don't think that would be for the best," he answered at last, low-voiced.

Humans. I'll never understand them, not if I live for another twenty aeons. He loved her. He really did.

Well, far be it from me to foist my benevolences unwanted upon ungrateful recipients. (Though for a moment I did toy with the idea of making him irresistibly sexually attractive to every other living creature on board Enterprise. It would have been worth hanging around for a while, to see him pursued around the corridors by everyone from the captain down to the Denobulan's bat.) But with my usual exquisite sensitivity, I refrained. He'd had more than enough excitement for one day.

Next thing in their time consciousness, Hoshi Sato blinked at her communications console, thinking she'd momentarily dozed off. She thought she must have had one of those micro-second dreams they do, but shook it away. She couldn't remember it anyway.

Malcolm Reed looked up as Crewman Nwosu walked through the doorway, and nodded approval of the man's punctuality. His life was back to normal. Routine. Lonely. A block of gray granite with a core of fire that he keeps carefully shielded, fire on an altar to the goddess he worships from afar.

I'd had enough of humans for a while. A thankless lot at the best of times, and so I took my leave of that wretched little ship and left it to go on its way. After all, I have all the Universes to play in.

What? I'm not as mean as you think. I haven't taken it from him completely.

Sometimes, when he's low in spirit, he'll have a fragment of a dream: a dream in which she kisses him, her savior, her friend…

Will the dream ever come true? In the way he wants it to?

I may go back some day. Just to find out.

If I'm particularly bored.

Humans.

Such odd, vexatious little creatures.

I can only be glad I'm not one of them.

The End.