Conversations In Decon
(Home – Part I)

Enterprise hung in open space, moored in space dock, waiting to be taken over by the repair crews in three days time. Now that all crew was off the ship, it became even more obvious how battered she was. There was barely a bulkhead that didn't have any scorch marks and the hull was just a series of holes and breaches. It would take weeks to repair the damage. But that was merely metal damage. No amount of repair work could bring back the twenty-seven poor souls, who didn't make it back. No welding equipment could seal the rift that had opened between him and his family.

His parents were still in a psychiatric sanatorium. Heavily traumatized and drugged even heavier, they hadn't really recognized him. They had just sat side by side staring into the vast distance – mute and apathetic. The doctor had told him that it would take weeks if not months before they could even start to heal. The visit to his brother Jay in Dublin didn't go much better. He had been polite, but distant. It wasn't hard to see that he blamed his older brother for not being there of their parents.

Never mind that we were busy trying to stop the damn Xindi from finishing the job, Trip thought bitterly.

But his troubles didn't end there. His love life, if one could call it that, was even more in tatters than the ship. His relationship, or whatever it was, with T'Pol simply went nowhere. She had jumped his bones to claim her stake before Amanda could and since then she had held him at arms length, pushing him away if he dared come too close. Then in the last days she had started edging closer to him again. Revealing her age, even if it was accidental, might be a big step for a Vulcan, but for his human self, the whole thing was still going nowhere. Ever since that night she hadn't offered a single kiss or hug or any other sign of interest.

That was before she dropped the bomb on him, of course. Suddenly she wanted him to come to Vulcan with her to stay in her mother's house. But she planned to introduce him as 'a colleague' – no way he was going to gatecrash her mother's house before she had even acknowledged any interest in a relationship. Her last comment on the matter was still the incessant blather about how it had been an error to 'explore' human sexuality with him. And besides, going to Vulcan would mean leaving Hoshi behind – the only one, who had kept him sane during that ridiculous dancing around each other with T'Pol.

God knows on how many evenings he had sat in her quarters endlessly talking and complaining about T'Pol's antics, but even Hoshi could not make sense of some of T'Pol's antics some times, even though he suspected she had more insight into the mind of the resident Vulcans than most others. He knew that they met in her quarters regularly since the early second year of their mission.

His heated argument with T'Pol, that ended in her calling him Trip for the first time was also fueled by his brain-wracking worry about Hoshi, who had been abducted by the Reptilians and as soon as she was back on the ship, Jon took her on a suicide mission that he didn't come back from. When he held Hoshi in his arms after her return to the ship, he had barely held together. What he had really wanted was bawling unashamedly in joy and relief.

Asking them to move to Denobula with him could be an option. He snorted in grim amusement. They'd be the smallest family on the planet, but at least nobody was going to question or judge a man living with two females. They'd probably just wonder where the third one was. But there was the little detail of how to break the news to them. T'Pol couldn't even decide to launch into a relationship with him alone. The thought that she'd accept that he loved Hoshi, too was probably completely preposterous. If anything, he should probably get used to the thought that he'll lose both.

Meanwhile sickbay came into sight. With Hoshi, Phlox and himself as the only people on the ship, he thought Hoshi would like some company. Being laid up having to listen to the incessant happy chatter of Phlox was trying at the best of times. Since Hoshi was still recovering, today was probably not the best day to talk about this, he procrastinated.

When he entered sickbay he saw Phlox don a jacket.

"You going somewhere, doc?"

"To the surface of course," the Denobulan answered with one of the impossibly bright smiles of his. "Aren't you supposed to be off the ship, Commander?"

"Had to get a few things I forgot," Trip lied, hoping that the doctor would not report to the captain that the chief engineer had sneaked back on board for want of a better place to stay.

"If you are here, maybe you can spare a few minutes to keep Ensign Sato company, hm?" the doctor asked.

"Well, that's what I came for, actually. She must be bored out of her mind by now. Where is she anyway?" he asked, seeing that all biobeds were empty.

"She is in the decon chamber," Phlox explained and looked at one of his monitors. "She needs another ninety minutes of radiation treatment. Since you've repaired the chamber often enough I think you know how to let yourself in and out. The radiation is harmless to anything but Reptilian nanoviruses. Do you think you could spare the time to stay until the end of the decon cycle?"

"No problem doc, I've got nothing planned," Trip said, trying to make it not too obvious that he had no plans to even leave the ship.

"That would be a big help, Commander and it would allow me to extend my – what did Lieutenant Reed call it? - a yes, my 'pub crawl' with him and Ensign Maywheather. I will need to stay away from any alcoholic beverages of course."

"Have fun, doc," Trip said with a laugh, imagining a wasted Malcolm dragging Phlox from one water hole to the next. "Need me to operate the transporter controls?"

"That will not be necessary, Commander. Lieutenant Hess tells me that everything is programmed for an autonomous transport. "

"Was only an offer," Trip said with shrug. "Anything else I need to know?"

"Once the cycle is complete, please make sure Ensign Sato gets home to her quarters safely," Phlox instructed. "Please call me when you have done so."

"Will do, doc. Have fun down there," Trip said with a smile and watched the Denobulan leave.

=/\=

Trip saw Hoshi's face light up with a bright smile when he entered, but he stopped dead in his tracks.

"You're naked, Hoshi," he stammered, not quite sure what to make of the situation.

"Oh, you noticed?" Hoshi asked pertly and giggled. He gasped when she struck a suggestive pose as if she was to have a nude photo taken. "Do you like what you see?"

Given the obvious invitation, he checked out her slender body. She had obviously lost some weight and was a bit on the skinny side as a result. Her butt was small and firm, as were her breasts. The short stubble covering her love triangle was a sign that she normally kept the area shaved, if it wasn't for the fact that her 'hosts' did have only nanoviruses, but no lady shavers on stock.

"You're beautiful, Ensign," he stuttered, using her rank in his confusion. Her silvery laughter shook him out of his baffled haze.

"And you are entirely overdressed, Commander," she answered in kind.

"What part of you needs decontamination exactly," he asked while zipping his uniform open. "I cannot remember a single time that Phlox had someone strip down to nothing for decon."

"He didn't ask me to, either," she explained with a giggle and he could see a slight blush creep up her cheeks. "I just like being naked."

Trip chuckled. Who would have thought? His shy little Hoshi was a closet nudist. "That explains why you always keep your quarters so warm," he noted, pulling the blue undershirt over his head.

He came to stand next to the bench she was lying on in his blue Starfleet underpants. Hoshi had sat up and he could see her gaze roam up and down his body. She made a motion as if she pushed down the panties she wasn't wearing.

He took a step back and crossed his arms over his chest. He sent her a lopsided grin.

"You want me to get naked, too?" he asked. It was a rhetorical question, of course.

"Yes, I want to see you naked," Hoshi said with the smile he found so enchanting. He saw how she playfully rolled her eyes.

"You've heard the rumors, haven't you?" he asked, smiling back at her.

She nodded, playing shy.

He traced the inside of his cheek with the tip of his tongue. It wasn't really surprising that this particular rumor had reached her. Ever since Anna had walked in on him while he was taking a shower in Engineering, news had spread fast among the female crew that the chief engineer, one of the most coveted catches on the ship to begin with, was 'well endowed'. He was sure that if the rumor mill was working anything like it usually did, most women on the ship believed by now, he'd give a horse an inferiority complex.

Two could play this game, however.

"So you dare me to strip down for you," he said with a challenging grin. "I might think about it, if I get to shave you, when I've gotten you back to your quarters."

He fought a laugh when she blushed a lovely shade of purple.

"Ok, deal," she giggled after a while. "Now down with it."

With a grin he pushed down his underpants and threw them over his shoulder.

"Holy shit," Hoshi squealed and he chuckled, seeing her amazed stare at his organ.

"Just short of nine inches when fully operational, if you need to know," he said in mock-exasperation as she continued to ogle his meat. He could feel some blood rushing south as Hoshi's obvious fascination with his sizable appendage started to arouse him.

"I don't think the word short and that behemoth belong in the same sentence," she stammered.

"What is it about the female obsession with size?" he asked, rolling his eyes. "Don't they say: 'It's not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean'?"

"True," she said absentminded. "But you can try as hard as you like, it takes a long time to get to England in a row boat."

Trip doubled over, laughing and when she was shaken out of her awe, she started giggling, too.

"Come over here, Fury, have a seat," she said and patted the bench next to her.

"So now that we've gawked at each other," he said. "How are you doing, Hoshi?"

"I'm getting better. I've still got nightmares, but Phlox says they'll go away, once the last nanoviruses are gone. The count is already low enough to be out of the woods."

"Glad to hear it," he said. "We were really worried about you, but I must say you surprised the lot of us. You're a lot stronger than you seem."

"I'm a lot that I don't seem like," she said with a giggle.

"Like a closet nudist," he said with a grin. "Who would have thought? The shy little wall flower."

Hoshi snorted. "That shy little wall flower came aboard on a two-year probation."

Trip looked at her with amazement. There was definitely a story in there. "You can't stop there," he demanded.

"In my second month at STC I had a difference of opinion with the Company Commander. I broke his arm."

Trip's eyes went wide. "Can I ask why?"

"Poker."

"You broke his arm playing cards? How did you do that?"

"He tried to shut down a game I was running for some of the recruits and a couple of the training staff."

This was getting better and better. "Hold on," Trip said with a surprised laugh. "You ran a floating poker game at STC?"

"The way the regulations are worded, gambling was an honor violation only if it took place during duty hours. So I ran the game on weekends. One night my C.C. showed up, tried to sweep all the chips off the table. And I, well, I have a black belt in Aikido. I think he was just upset that I hadn't invited him to play."

Trip shook his head in amazement. Then he noticed that gleam of mirth in her eyes.

"Out with it, Hoshi," he demanded chuckling. "That's not the whole story, is it."

"It's the official version," she giggled. "The reality is, the skunk tried to grope my butt while I was doing a striptease and I kicked the shit out of him."

Trip doubled over in laughter. "You got to be kidding me!"

Hoshi shook her head, smiling. "No kidding."