A/N: Hello all! I know this chapter has been a long time coming (sorry, sorry, sorry!) and I know I always give the same excuse but, believe me, busy doesn't quite describe my life since I started doing A Levels. Rest assured that I will finish this story, but I cannot give any guarantees that it will be particularly soon, especially since there are quite a few chapters to get through as well... Anyway, here we are with chapter eight! To my reviewers (who, of course, are all wonderful!);
Verity Kindle: You don't watch the show? Lol, you're missing out, but anyway, yes, I imagine Malcolm's expression was a sight to see!
burrcat213: Naughtiness? Who said anything about naughtiness? Looks innocent. Thanks for reviewing!
firebirdgirl: Ah, welcome to the Quartermaster's Store! It's nice to see a new reader; I hope you enjoy the rest!
mw: Hmm, interesting idea, bringing in the Cook team – scope for a whole new fic methinks... Thanks for reviewing, hope you enjoy chapter eight, and sorry it took so long!
LadyRainbow: Having been writing about these characters for almost six months (blimey), I think that pretty much all of them have a serious number of 'issues'... and below it gets even more complicated! Anyway, thanks loads for reviewing, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.
Valadan: Another new reader! Thanks loads for reviewing – sorry this chapter took so long!
Disclaimer: The Enterprise and its command crew do not belong to me. The rather motley collection of 'downstairs crew', however, do. Anyone crazy enough is welcome to borrow them!
Chapter Eight
A Wedding Band
Henny, working in the Quartermaster's store under the concerned and watchful eye of Miranda Heron, was completely unaware of any rumours circulating with regards to her apparently very passionate affair with one Lieutenant Reed. Annan and Jill, likewise, were too involved with their own rather unpassionate affair to be concerned with rumours, Tiller never gossiped and Billy thought it best to keep his mouth shut considering the general mood of the store. It was therefore with some surprise that the six individuals working in the store that day looked up to find the grim countenance of Malcolm Reed enter their humble abode.
"Crewman Mackie," he said, ignoring Miranda's effusive greeting, "may I have a word?"
Seeing his expression and knowing with a rare insight of male sensitivity that discretion was required, Tiller cleared his throat and announced:
"You know, Billy, we'd best go down to engineering, see if Commander Tucker needs anything."
"But sir," Billy said, frowning, "we don't both - " he stopped, wilting suddenly under the combined glares of Ryan Tiller and Malcolm Reed, and rose with a nod and followed Tiller out of the door. Annan, without saying a word, got up and walked out, and after biting her lip and glancing between Henny and Annan, Jill Derner gave a helpless shrug and followed him. Miranda – who had heard the rumours but given them no heed until now – hung back and shot Henny an encouraging smile.
"Good luck." She said, and departed, leaving Henny feeling rather like the last man standing at the end of a battle. She glanced at the scowling face of the armoury officer and smiled weakly.
"You must have set a record. They don't even move that fast for one of Chef's specials." Her attempt at joviality fell flat, and she bit her lip, wondering why she was feeling so guilty when she didn't even know what she was supposed to have done. Was Reed offended because she had gone to his quarters the night before? He had welcomed her, or so she thought. She sighed. There was only one way to find out, and it wouldn't be achieved simply by sitting silently. To give herself some courage, however, she rose to her feet, nothing with a perverse satisfaction that her eyes were on an exact level with his. "Would you mind telling me, Lieutenant," she asked, her voice shaking a little, "what I am supposed to have done?"
There was a brief flash of surprise across his face, then, and Henny realised – with a tremor that felt almost like laughter – that his severity had not been towards her but to himself. She had seen that guilty look, after all, following the away mission. The face of the alien she had killed flashed in her mind once more, and she clenched her jaw, forcing it away.
"Or... what have you done?" She asked, and Reed laughed, a rueful smile spreading across his face.
"Nothing, for once," he said, shaking his head, "but rather – what we are supposed to have done."
Henny frowned in confusion.
"What?"
The smile was definitely there, now. Reed inclined his head slightly, the faint tremor in his shoulders indicating that he was holding back laughter.
"Well," he said dryly, "supposedly you and I, last night, shared a sleepless night of debauchment and passion." He raised an eyebrow. "I wish I'd been there to see it."
Henny spluttered with laughter, but when she caught sight of Reed's face she quietened. He was no longer smiling, and she realised – with the feeling of a slightly pricked ego – that he was positively mortified at the thought that the crew believed that they had done anything more than talk in his cabin that night.
"People don't – I mean, no one actually believes it, do they?" She asked, and Reed's face darkened slightly, deepening the lines in his face and reminding Henny that as well as being her superior officer he was also more than ten years her senior. Did he care so much about appearances, then?
"They wouldn't," Reed said, "if it were not spread by such a reliable source – your friend Crewman Manning."
"Cathy?" Henny shook her head, blinking slightly. "But – why?"
"Well," Reed said, a hint of humour returning to his voice, "it may have something to do with this ring, which she thrust at me in the armoury – in front of a dozen other crew-members – with a severe dressing-down for 'using' you in such an unprofessional manner."
Henny frowned at the ring which he held up for a moment, before biting her lip as she remembered what she had told Cathy about it. It was almost laughable, really – it had never fallen off by accident before, though she did have the habit of playing with it when she was anxious.
"Oh." She said, not especially keen to explain to the lieutenant why her friend had instantly equated the presence of her ring in his quarters with their spending the night together, and then feeling a surge of guilt as she realised she had not even noticed her mother's heirloom as missing. She held out her hand. "May I have it back, please?"
Reed nodded but, instead of placing it in her palm as she had expected, took her hand and slid the ring onto the fourth finger. Her hand twitched slightly and he dropped it, looking rather shocked at his own actions.
"I'm sorry – I didn't – I mean - " He stopped, and Henny couldn't help but note that, with his hair sticking up from when he had brushed a troubled hand through it and his face flushed a deep red, he looked very much more like a schoolboy than a Starfleet officer. The image contrasted so greatly with the sombre, serious Lieutenant of a few moments before that Henny laughed, realising only as she did so that this was a mistake, for Reed's expression turned instantly from embarrassment to one of anger. "Crewman," he said, biting the word out, "I would be very grateful if you would do your best to quell these inappropriate rumours." He inclined his head grudgingly. "Good day to you."
With that, he turned and left. Henny let out a long breath and sat down, closing her eyes briefly. She had come very close – too close – to snapping at Reed as he had walked out, and it had taken whatever shred of controlshe hadleft not to. She knew, after all, a temper that did not need testing when she saw one. Yet her own temper - or control – was also very close to breaking. She had avoided thinking about it all day and yet now, if only to distract herself from the disastrous interview she had just experienced, she cast her thoughts back to the men she had killed, and what the others had learnt about them.
"I think they were protestors of some sort," Miranda had said, looking unsure whether to tell her even that much, fragile as she knew she had seemed, "you see, the new government that has taken over preaches equality but... well, as far as I can see, they're well fed and their people aren't, which to me seems a pretty poor way of running a society." Even in the circumstances, Henny had smiled slightly. Miranda was not, by her own admission, the greatest academic but she had a wry, temperedinstinct combined with an innate sense of justice. Fortunately, her other main quality – her motherliness – overruled any possibility of her condemning Henny for her actions. Henny, unfortunately, already blamed herself. She had seen the faces of the two men (she had ceased to think of them as 'aliens', oddly-coloured and tentacled as they were) and would continue to see them, drawn and hunger-lined, every night as she lay down to sleep. She knew who, in a fair argument, she would support.
She looked up (glad now for any distraction) as the door swished open once more, half-hoping that it would be the lieutenant, but felt a similar surge of anticipation – though of a rather more brutal sort – when she saw that it was, in fact, Catherine Manning, looking rather chagrined.
"Hello, Henny." She said. Henny nodded, and rose to her feet, doing her best to imitate Malcolm Reed's most effective glare – a glare which, she thought to herself with a more than a little surprising bitterness, Reed had trained on her but a few minutes ago thanks to Catherine Manning's leaping mind and wagging tongue.
"Cathy," she said. "We need to talk."
888
Jill had given up pursuing Henson when he had taken refuge in one of the maintenance hatches, deciding that if he was desperate enough to avoid her that he would willingly enter such a dusty, close-crammed place then he probably deserved to be left well alone. She headed to the gym, instead – Henny's "word" with Lieutenant Reed might well take anything from between two minutes to an hour – and was a little surprised to find Billy there, already pummelling a red punch bag. She grabbed it as it swung towards her, frowning a little.
"Easy, there. Whatever happened to checking on engineering with Tiller?"
Billy snorted and brushed a lock of bright hair from his eyes, and Jill watched him for a moment, thinking of the rumours whispered among the women of the lower-decks that he liked her... in a way that Annan clearly didn't. What would things be like, if she tried to return those feelings? Simpler, for one – Billy had none of the issues, or neuroses, which plagued Annan, who, it was said, had received the lowest score in psychological stability testing in the entire crew. What-might-have-beens were comforting, to an extent.
"As I said: you don't need two." Billy replied guardedly, and Jill hastily re-assessed her idea of his 'simplicity' as she followed him into the changing rooms and leant against the wall. He glanced back at her, his gaze a little more open. "You must be desperate for company, to risk seeing me in the nude, Jilly."
Jill laughed, realising as he said it he was quite right – she had come to the gym for someone to talk to, not for a workout. She shrugged, though wondered if her presence embarrassed him, and whether she would be pleased it if did.
"We work in pretty close quarters, William," she said, returning his 'Jilly' with her own use of his most formal name, "there's not much I don't know about you, after all." It was true: the worst place to try and keep a secret was on a starship. Billy, however, shot her a slightly odd look, his lips pursed.
"You think?"
Jill rolled her eyes, if only to allay the moment when the conversation would turn from teasing to serious.
"You, Billy, are as white as the untrod snow. In fact," she paused, feeling a sudden flush of courage and recklessness, "the only secret you've managed to keep is who it is that you..." she trailed off and Billy paused, with his t-shirt halfway up his body, his expression frozen.
"What?" He asked, and Jill saw his Adam's apple bob slightly as he swallowed. She took a step towards him.
"Do you find me attractive, Billy?" She asked, even as her rational mind groaned in protest. What was she doing? Avenging herself on Annan? Or putting right a mistake she had made long ago?
"Jill, I really don't think we should be -" Billy spluttered, looking helplessly young in his half-rucked up shirt, "- Jill, it isn't you – it's Annan!"
Jill paused, expecting this protest – he shared a cabin with Annan, after all – but something in his voice made her pause, and she looked at him carefully. His hands were outstretched, stopping her from coming any closer, but his expression was not one of man torn between honouring a friend and fulfilling his own desires. In fact –
"When you say," Jill said quietly and very, very slowly, "that 'it's Annan', do I take it that you mean..." she trailed off, and Billy shrugged a little ruefully.
"I mean, you are a very attractive woman, Jilly, it's just -"
"I'm a woman." Jill nodded, before bursting out laughing at his abashed expression. Glancing down, she realised his hands were still up in defence and quickly stepped back, the flush of embarrassment filling her. "Oh, God, Billy, I'm sorry – I really wouldn't have –"
"Stop." Billy held up a hand, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter. I know what you were doing, and I know why you were doing it, it's just – well, you'd have better luck with the Captain than with me."
Jill choked slightly, then glanced at him, a little curiously.
"I take back what I said. You're a dark horse, William Cortan. Annan, huh?"
Billy shuffled awkwardly, and Jill was exceptionally glad that this was a time when few people came into the gym. She didn't want to think about the rumours – true or not – that would fly should the news get out that she had spent half an hour in the men's shower room with the supposedly shy and innocent Billy.
"Yes. Please don't tell him."
"Of course I won't!" Jill paused, another thought striking her. "But, Billy – we're in competition now!"
Billy laughed, then, and Jill had to admit that she had not heard him utter such a sound before. He had laughed, of course, at the many and varied jokes that popped up during long and boring shifts, but he had always seemed a little guarded. He had freed himself, with her, at least.
"I wouldn't worry about that, Jill. Annan doesn't – well, I don't think he approves of my sort particularly well." Billy's smile was tinged with bitterness, and he looked much older than he ever had before.
"No," Jill said, thinking of Annan, with his infuriating ideas and beautiful eyes, "I don't suppose he would. But we love him anyway, don't we?"
Billy nodded, then glanced pointedly at the shower.
"You know, Jill, I may now, uh, be 'on the same team' as you, but I do have some modesty."
Jill stared at him blankly for a moment before realising with a start and blushing furiously.
"Oh – of course – sorry -" she made hastily for the exit but, on an afterthought, turned round and smiled. "I'm glad you felt you could trust me with – you know."
Billy raised an eyebrow, his hands half-way down to his top once again.
"Well, Jilly, it was the only way I could see to stop you from kissing me. Desperate times call for desperate measures, huh?" And he gave Jill his best innocent smile.
Jill raised her own eyebrow and decided there was really no other response to such a statement but to leave. She was barely ten metres down the corridor, however, when she passed the Captain. Remembering Billy's words, she flushed and hastily put her head down and hurried to her quarters, deciding that at least on her own she avoid both causing any more problems or receiving any more confidences. She sat down at her desk, and a picture of a tall, dark-haired man in Starfleet uniform smiled up at her. With a sigh, she touched the frame, feeling a small surge of guilt for the man within it, despite his having been gone from her life for six long years.
"James," she said, looking at the frozen face of her husband, lost in the course of duty, "why can life never be simple?"
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A/N: Well, there we have it. The love triangles of the Quartermaster's Store are getting more and more complex... please tell me what you think. I hope people aren't too confused at the end of that chapter... I know I was when I wrote it!