Avalanche

**Avalanche**

I don't own star trek e.t.c

'He didn't want to do this, and he knew he didn't. Yet here he was doing exactly what he disliked. It was like this every time, he couldn't say no, something about his English background, he thought it would be rude, coupled with the fact that in the Navy a cadet never disobeyed a request. And so here he was and he hated it.'

Malcolm Reed pondered these things as he carefully attached on his ski boots, sitting in the shuttle sailing through space. He was trying not to let his mind wander over past events, desperately diverting his attention to keep it clear.

'_What should he think about next, ski boots, yes objects of the devil, they had been developed over the past few decades so they allowed more flexibility yet somehow still managed, like the ones in the 21st century, to restricted ankle movement to a minimum. Therefore meaning you tottered around on ice, one of the slippery surfaces, not the best design concepts he could think of, apparently they had kept the original design due to respect to the ingenuity…'_ Malcolm snorted, shaking his head; these fundamentalists and their ideas were going to get people into a lot of trouble one day. Little did he know how much he was temping fate with that concept.

Hoshi was looking at Malcolm out of the corner of her eye, looking was a bit of an understatement actually, she was gazing at him. She saw him smile and her heart lit up, she had always fancied him from the beginning but that was just his dark smouldering looks, and those eyes, which could shift magically from grey, to sky blue and then to the colour of the sea on a stormy day, she knew no other way to describe that colour. She was sinking deeper and deeper into reverie, Reed was always a bit of an enigma to her and she yearned to discover more, she had always fallen for the underdog, the one who was always there but never praised, rarely appreciated. And this time she had fallen bad, she had tried to find out as much as possible but it was hard, he was still a mystery. Lately he had seemed a little sad not depressed but more melancholy, something from her physiology lessons flashed back to her, the theory first developed by Hippocrates and which had been updated by contemporary professionals ever since. It was the classification of personality types, there were five basic types melancholy, choleric, sanguine, introverted sanguine and phlegmatic, and it was the balance of fluids in the body that decided which one you were. Malcolm had always been a mix of melancholy and phlegmatic, meaning that he never looked very happy from the outside but inside she hoped he was at least content and that he was always very calm in the face of danger. So seeing him smile raised her concerns, albeit for a while, yet she yearned to find out why he was so upset. Oh God he was looking straight at her she blushed and lowered her gaze.

Malcolm had just noticed Hoshi looking, he always did, Spidi sense his sister had always called it, when he knew someone was watching him. He looked up and smiled at her, he saw her blush and inside somewhere something jolted, _'Hoshi now there was a far better subject, recently whenever he had seen her, he had felt warm and fuzzy inside, he had tried to cover it by showing no expression. But he knew that tactic had side effects one being he looked cold and uncaring. He had worn it a lot when he first came aboard but gradually it had lessened, as he grew closer to the crew, now it was back. He disliked his reaction to his feelings but he didn't know how else to cope.'_

The shuttle landed jolting various people out of their various different thoughts. Charles Tucker stood up from the helm looking decidedly pleased with himself for such a smooth landing; he looked around the cockpit for expressions of wonder. He didn't receive any and so apparently they had not even noticed the change in speed or descent, man he was good, he harrumphed.

' Oh, I am sorry commander,' said Malcolm, ' Superb landing, Biggles himself couldn't have done better.'

Tucker frowned at some reference to a book, _' most probably about battles_,' he thought and then proceeded to zip up his ski suit. The trip had been his idea, Malcolm had looked a bit well crappy lately, and he had thought a bit of relaxation would do him some good. It had been a surprised carefully arranged with the Captain, one he had gotten from some very happy family photos he had seen. When he had sprung it on Malcolm he had accepted, not with the enthusiasm he had hoped for but with a smile that was better than nothing.

Malcolm looked out of the porthole at the snow-capped mountains with mixed emotions he knew they were beautiful and a bit of skiing would do him some good, but he just couldn't shake off a nagging dread. '_Why couldn't I just say no, no thanks I am not very fond of skiing, or wow a trip that sounds great Trip what about to some place, any other place, well possible not the ocean, but any where else mountains he didn't mind, fields, woods, as long as it wasn't too cold or wintry or a place where you could die just by staying still for to long. Why, oh why had he shown him his photographs of the holidays he had had as a kid, he bet, to use a phrase he had stolen from American movies, his bottom dollar that was where Trip had gotten his idea from.'_

As Trip opened the door, and a frost bit inducing gale, the ones you can feel ripping through your clothes and flesh and touching your soul, blasted in and Malcolm knew he wasn't going to be warm for a long time yet.


End file.
