Complicated

Song: Avril Lavigne. Again.

"Why did they have to go and make things so complicated?" I complain to Liz as I pace the length of her quarters. "I mean, no, I wasn't just going to run back into Trips arms."

"Good girl," she says with a yawn.

"I was gonna make him suffer."

"Even better!"

"And then Malcolm . . ."

"Wait, what about Mr. Boom?" she asks as she looks up at me.

"You weren't listening, were you?" I ask as I stop to look at her.

"Sure I was, just not very attentively," she admits with a bit of a shrug.

"He made a move," I say as I come over to sit on the couch with her.

"How big of a move?" she asks as she becomes as alert as someone who was pulled out of bed at 1 am without coffee can be.

"By Reed standards, a big one," I tell her. "He was all sweet and caring and then he turned into a jerk and kissed me. I mean, did he think I was just going to jump into his arms crying 'my hero!'?"

She sits back and ponders this for a moment before getting up and heading into her room.

"You're going to have to leave Hoshi," she tells me as she comes out, fully dressed.

"Why?" I ask. "Oh, don't go and torture the poor man Liz!" I say. She's had her eye on Malcolm since forever.

"But he's all emotionally vulnerable and cute!" she whines.

I role my eyes and she stomps back over to the couch. "I hate you right now, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, yeah," I say. She sighs.

"Look, either go to him or go home, that's about all you have left to do. You cried on Malcolm's shoulder and look what that got you."

"Yeah, and I cried on yours and you want to ditch me to go and console the enemy!" I say as I give her a shove.

"Everyone needs a shoulder to cry on," she says, ignoring the fact that the two shoulders I went to cry out did me no good. I sigh and roll my eyes.

"Fine, I'm leaving. Fat lot of good you are," I tell her as I leave.

"You're welcome Hoshi," she calls after me. I just shake my head and head back to my quarters.

"What the?" I ask as I get back to my quarters and things have all been cleaned and there are daisies and buttercups sitting in cups and vases and just laying around. I hear a loud thump and some cursing.

"Trip?" I ask as I look around the corner into my room.

"Hey Darlin'," he says kind of sheepishly as he rubs his head.

"What's all this?" I ask as I stand in the doorway.

"You always said they were yer favourites," he explains as he comes over to me and holds out some flowers. I smile a little as I take them.

"I really am sorry Hoshi. I don't know why I was such a fool and . ." I cut him off and put him out of his misery.

"I like you Trip. I like this Trip, the one who puts his heart on his sleeve when he needs to and will swallow his pride and who will talk to me one on one. But you become somebody else around every one else and I don't like that."

I watch as he bows his head down so he doesn't have to look me in the eye. I reach out and make him look at me. "Look at me," I say. "You make me look like a fool when you do things like that, like I'm some trophy on your arm."

"I'm sorry Hoshi. I don't know how many times you want me to say it or how you want me to say it," he says, becoming frustrated with me.

I let him go and step away and we stare at each other for a moment.

"I should go," he says as he brushes past me, dropping the rest of the flowers on a table as he leaves without looking back.

"Trip!" I call, knowing that this time, I'm the one who screwed things up.

He keeps right on going and I feel my knees go week as I slide to the floor.

I look in the mirror in the bedroom and notice that he had just about finished in there and had taken the most time and care in arranging the flowers there and I feel the tears start to rise again.

"Dammit!" I say to myself as I drop my head into my hands for a moment before catching my reflection in the mirror.

"Why'd you hafta go and make things so complicated?" I ask myself as I look away from the mirror and around my quarters once more before wallowing in my own helplessness and misery.