It was turning out to be a pretty piss poor day.

Lieutenant Travis Mayweather leaned back in his chair, trying his best to ignore the strained atmosphere on the bridge. He knew his thoughts should be on his duties, on the job in front of him, but his mind kept drifting to the two letters in his quarters. One ... maybe good, the other maybe ... not so good.

He had no idea what to do.

Travis had been born in space and knew, somehow, that he would die in space. He didn't know what to do with himself when planetside for longer than a week. And now, Starfleet wanted to ground him. Permanently.

They didn't see it that way, of course. What Starfleet saw was opportunity: come teach our cadets how to fly and we'll promote you! It was a measure of how valuable he was on Enterprise that Starfleet even gave him the opportunity to decide his fate; usually, they just cut orders and demanded it. Instead, they gave him the option. Promotion and grounding or continue to fly.

And then, there was the other letter. The one from Gannet. The one in which she promised to wait for him and even hinted at a future together. On Enterprise.It bothered him a lot that he wasn't entirely sure which one was good news.

It just wasn't fair.

Normally, Travis would ask Hoshi what she thought and get her opinion. She was pretty much his best friend on the ship, despite their complete lack of mutual interests. She had an uncanny ability to see right through his bullshit - even when he couldn't - and identify the real core of his problem; more than once, her advice had allowed him to maintain his sanity, especially during the Expanse mission. But lately she was ... distracted. He glanced at Lieutenant Commander Reed, noted the intensity in which the senior tactical officer studied his board and hid a smile; he wondered if the commander was using the tactical board to avoid looking at Hoshi. They'd argued last night and, though Mayweather didn't know the specifics, he had a pretty good guess what it was about. Hoshi had been dating Malcolm for a while, started maybe a week after her promotion to lieutenant, but his recent increase in rank had caused some serious problems between them. Travis suspected that Hoshi still wanted to continue their relationship but Malcolm - proper, stuffy, British Malcolm - balked at the idea of having relations with someone he outranked. It was that, or she was pregnant but Travis doubted they were that dumb. Or sloppy. Either way, she had no time for his problems.

He'd considered visiting Phlox but quickly decided against it; the Denobulan was brilliant and had more degrees than anyone really needed but Mayweather still couldn't quite forgive him for the whole Sim incident. That thought led him directly to Commander Tucker and he crossed the engineer off of his list simply due to T'Pol; he had no desire whatsoever for the Vulcan first officer to learn that he was having problems making these sort of decisions since she'd probably make a note of it in the official record: demonstrated inability to make prompt decisions regarding personal career. Yeah, that'd go over well for future promotions. Sure, Trip might not intend to mention it but T'Pol had a way of finding things out. It wasn't that Travis was intimidated by the Vulcan or anything ... well, actually he kind of was but that wasn't the point. He almost sighed.

He really wished he could talk to Hoshi.

A beep from her console drew his (and everyone else's) attention; she tapped some keys, listened to something and then spoke.

"It's Commander Tucker, sir." Her eyes came up and she locked gazes with Commander Reed's; Travis could almost feel the tension, could feel the frustration and emotion. He glanced back down to his board.

"Onscreen," Reed ordered.

Suddenly looming before them on the immense viewscreen was Commander Tucker; he was half turned toward T'Pol, his face scrunched up in either annoyance or confusion. With those two, Travis considered, who could tell? Maybe it was both. Tucker glanced back to the screen.

"Yeah, oh hey, Mal." That was clearly not appropriate communications etiquette and Trip didn't seem to care. How the engineer got through the Starfleet Training completely eluded Mayweather. "We should be reachin' planetside in about 10 minutes. We'll comm you when we get visual." Reed opened his mouth to respond but T'Pol interrupted first.

"Nine point seven minutes, Commander." Tucker shot her a look that could have meant anything from I'm going to shoot you to Let's make babies. Travis leaned toward it meaning the latter.

"Like I said, 'bout ten minutes."

"Copy that, Commander," Reed interjected quickly; his eyes never left his board. Neither seemed to notice.

"Your estimate was inaccurate; I was merely attempting to correct it."

"That's 'cause it was an estimate! Catch you later, Mal. Estimate's aren't supposed to-" The screen blanked out mid-sentence, returning to an image of the planet they orbited, and Travis found himself shaking his head. Silence reigned for a long moment but, from past experience, Mayweather knew it wouldn't last.

"They really do argue about everything, don't they?" It was Ensign O'Connor at the Science Board; he'd been aboard for less than a week.The new guys always notice that first, Travis grinned to himself. From the Engineering console, Rostov snickered. Several others chuckled at the question but not, Mayweather noted, Mister Reed. Either he actually was focused on his board or he was really trying to ignore Hoshi.

Dammit, he really wished he could talk to her.