1. Tell

A/N: I write whatever comes to me in the middle of the night. Forgive my lack of knowledge when it comes to ST terminology, and for making Malcolm and Hoshi terribly out of character. Later chapters, if there are any, will likely be things I wish could have happened.

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><p><em><em>I never find out till I'm head over heels<em>_

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><p>The sea was dark beyond the flesh of her wrists. Its violent, blue-green waves were deafening as they complied with the malevolence of raging winds. Hypnotically raising and falling, they repeatedly, hopelessly, crashed on themselves in fear and jealousy. Patches of white foam drifted from depth's core to the shallow, tame waters at the edge of the shoreline. Unable to return, the billowing groups of pearline buds separated to forlornly rock in their cradle of tides, waiting for the moment they would meet their end above the darting bugs and moss-covered stones.<p>

Hoshi realized, as she gazed about the beach, feeling at one with her settings, that she was beholding the mouldings of her heart. A dream.

She faced the waves, placing her fingers to the area in her palm, as T'Pol had shown her, and closed her eyes in order to gain strength.  
>A stabilizing calmness passed through a cluster of nerves behind vision and swept throughout her skull. Eventually the sensation settled in what felt like a collapse, her entire consciousness resting in one place. All swayed to an area that she visited only in moments of extreme serenity. With the door open, she delved.<p>

She knew the tides outside were calming, she didn't have to look. She could feel them ease as she felt her heart swell.

After a moment she opened her eyes, crossing her arms to walk the newly transformed shore. The wind caught the hem of her white dress, and threw her loose hair about her face. Her bare feet slowly moved from one spot to another. Grains of sand fell from her feet as life to nothingness in an area near where they'd originated.

A worn square of glass was with movement uncovered from the sands, and became known to Hoshi only by its coolness against arch. Gathering it in her hands Hoshi held it to the sky. It had at one time been as vibrant as emerald, a stained window, but now it had from the caress of the sea earned a rough, white patina. An emptiness without need of a soul.

Hoshi pushed the dull glass into her palm, to veins; without knowing a sharpened tine still existed on its end; drawing blood, drawing darkness. While focused on her hand she noticed to her side a half-shadow lingering in a corner where it should have been whole. Turning to see its cause in full she discovered nothing, but heard in the distance stones fall from a hillside.

Making to follow she first looked to the gem-like glass in her hand - to her flowing blood - and found a line of red escaping to the air in a trail, as though of twine. Instantly she knew it was a line to life, an extension of organ, and decided to follow, placing fear somewhere outside herself. In the belly of the sea.

In a dress and without shoes made scaling the low hill rather difficult, but she eventually made it to the top. Standing in the wind she looked to the course of red: it had split in five different directions. She could see only the beginnings of each, the lines disappearing beyond obstructions which waved as though holograms. Dunes, trees. She stepped to the middle and again closed her eyes; walking blindly. Trusting her instincts.

She did not know which path she'd selected until, moments later, she chose to become aware of her surroundings. A charred, blackened cliff wall loomed by her side, it reached lengths she could not ascertain. All else was sand and stones. Suddenly, to her left, she once again spotted the shifting outline from earlier and her path of red leading to it. With steps in dreams she approached.

As she neared the silhouette, and it became less hollow, unknown, she saw that it was human, a male. He was not in a Starfleet uniform, dressed instead in black. Though he was looking to his hand with his back to her, he had an air of familiarity about him. Not feeling threatened, she touched his shoulder, wishing him to turn. Malcolm Reed faced her with a brow knit in confusion, sadness in his eyes, his mouth open as if to ask Hoshi a question. She noted in his hand was a piece of glass identical to her own, he even shared a similar wound: a ribbon-like lifeline which she quickly affirmed met with hers.

Malcolm looked down to their shared line, to blood, then in her eyes as she woke.

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><p>~oOo~<p> 


	2. Amélie Poulain

~oOo~

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><p>Ensign Sato was across from him, tapping a button on her console as she looked at a screen replete with varying symbols he couldn't comprehend. Malcolm had become aware of her as she'd moved her hand to her mouth, cupping the mic of her earpiece closer, a light reflecting from somewhere behind to meet his eyes.<p>

The Bridge was all but sleeping in its current state of inactivity. Without its Captain, Science Officer, or Chief Engineer, there was an unusual lull as the Enterprise drifted the endless, cold reaches of space.

At his station Malcolm was in another realm of emptiness. Seeing Ensign Sato he, suddenly, in an unprovoked fantasy, pictured himself standing at her side; so close he could feel the warmth of her being. With the glow of warmth he soon escaped to a room not his own.

In this room Hoshi tilted her head to a side, pushing the tip of her index finger lightly to the hollow of her cheek, leaving behind a black, circular smudge of a paint-like substance. A black dot, as if blush. Malcolm's eyelids fluttered as he realized her silent instructions. Nudging her with his mouth, before kissing away the darkness. His teeth and mouth faintly graying, backing away.

Hoshi responded by turning her head, leaving another spot of paint with the tip of her finger. He kissed again, covering lightly where she wanted. Their weakness combining. Threatening collapse.

Tearing himself from his thoughts, Malcolm saw that Ensign Mayweather had noticed his distraction - his staring to the void air - and hurriedly he looked to the console readout. In the few seconds he'd been away nothing had changed. There were no threats present.

_Now where had he seen that kiss before? It wasn't a memory of something he'd experienced. It was a girl. A girl he'd seen in an old movie. One that he had watched ages ago with his sister, back on Earth. He pictured an actress he couldn't name. Pixie-like, dark hair, bright eyes almost eclipsed by a world of vibrant, rushing colors. That girl had moved to kiss a man in the way she wanted, in the way_ _he now knew he wished, no matter how vaguely, he could now recreate with Hoshi, God help him. He closed his eyes as he could feel them roll upward. He didn't need this._

"We're receiving a transmission from shuttlepod 1. It's Captain Archer," Ensign Sato said looking toward Lt. Reed.

Malcolm didn't maintain contact, answering her with what now was beginning to feel like a theatrical line.

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><p>~oOo~<p> 


	3. Reasons Left to Find

~oOo~

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><p>He came to her during the night.<p>

The chime of her door was followed by his hushed voice asking for admittance. Heavy with sleep, she raised from bed and faintly executed his welcome. Without a word he stepped into her quarters, his upper body arching sideways to make allowance for his rushed entry.

The closing door silenced in an instant a streak of light that, with Malcolm's compliance, had dared to press upon a room not its own. There was a pause in the darkness afterwards in which she could hear only his uneven breath. Two, maybe three inhales before her hand hit a light switch, creating another layer, another stillness they would inhabit. In it they seemed to waver as with the pulse of instruments. Cello, violin the keys of piano darting over unplanned notes. Rocking faintly in place, like the manifestations of a word waiting to be said, a catch in a throat. Or perhaps the movement existed only in her mind.

"Ensign Sato, forgive me for interrupting you. I realize this is... is very... It's still so early. I didn't think you'd be asleep."

"I wouldn't normally, sir, but Dr. Phlox gave me something for a headache."

"I'll come back another time. Just forget it." The door slid open with its familiar hiss.

"No," Hoshi calmly replied. "Now's fine."

Being overly aware of Hoshi's current state, one of semi-undress, Malcolm's gaze turned to a wall in her room. He slipped beyond the reach of the door; his left hand cupping his right, as though readying himself for something for which there would be no way to prepare. Turning he nodded in agreement to her proposal, pressing his lips together, languidly blinking his eyes.

Studying him, a thrill ran over Hoshi as she realized the possible implications of their surroundings. She, however, allowed the felling to dissipate, to as mist leave her crown, before throwing a robe over sleepwear, so as to not give him the wrong idea. Her dark eyes glistened in the half-light.

"I saw you do something the other day...," he started.

She willed him to come closer, a spark igniting, tightening her skin. Against his knowledge he complied with her will. With less distance she could feel his words entering the hollow before her spine, reverberating past her core.

"You had been having trouble. Anxious about the mission until you began to do some sort of meditation." He took her hand and touched two fingers to a spot of raised flesh above the heart of her hand, pressing lightly. "I was wondering if you would show me how to do the same."

Hoshi felt her wrist fall to her side. The prints of his still awake, throbbing on the bloodlessness he'd left. She took the cold hand - her own now foreign - and pressed again where he had. "I can try. T'Pol's the one who showed me how. Really, you should go to her for help."

His features became slightly agitated, annoyed with himself. "I'm sure you are more than capable of instructing me."

Hoshi assented, though she questioned his assumption. Searching the room for a place to rest she came to realize her bed was the best option. Her quarters were sparse, made with efficiency in mind, not entertainment. With some hesitation she sat down. Hoshi watched as he placed himself beside her. A hand steadying his weight found itself resting under an overturned sheet, to a warmed curve that had minutes earlier covered an ankle, a foot.

"I didn't realize that I was so obvious."

"What?" He asked, swallowing.

"With the meditation exercise."

"Oh, don't worry. You aren't," he said, not thinking. "By chance I happened to catch a glance of you at practice."

She lowered her head, shifting her gaze to the fibres of her robe, twisting a patch unconsciously. "I get a little nervous sometimes. We were in some pretty cramped areas on that last mission. Sometimes it gets so bad out there, in that suit, that I feel like I can't breathe."

Hoshi noted the displeasure on his face and moved on. "Sub-Commander T'Pol told me to do this." She brought his hand closer, pretending the skin didn't belong to Malcolm; that it was Commander Tucker or Captain Archer's hand she examined. Her friends. But she found not seeing his face helped only a little. "Sometimes I feel like the fear is more than I can take."

He ruminated on her words, saying nothing as he faded elsewhere.

"Do you ever feel that way?" She let go his hand. Catching herself she attempted to dismiss her words. "That was improper. Forget I asked."

Malcolm clasped her hand. "No. Hoshi, I feel that way now."

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><p>~oOo~<p> 


	4. Holds

~oOo~

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><p>The pale, oval curve of her skull had, in two bloodied spots, been entered by a surgical instrument. Her mind subsequently raped, violated in ways unimaginable, so that it could be used against her will to aid the Xindi. Left too long in their clutches in this weakened way, Hoshi had returned as a shell; ragged, barely coherent.<p>

As Malcolm tended to her in the aftermath of her torment, he wondered how Captain Archer, perturbed, could willingly force the linguist out of the ship's Sickbay and into the Sphere yet again. Lt. Reed knew that losing one crew member's life, compared to all of the others at stake, was a risk the Captain needed to take, but why, out of all the people on board, did Ensign Sato have to be the one to suffer? Her brilliance resulting in her possible death.

He inhaled, dismissing his thoughts. Dabbing a cloth in water he covered gently her wounds. She looked as though asleep, her hair loose; messy. A hand on her chest, her stomach rising and decending with breath. From periphery he noticed her fingers move, her eyelids twitch. Grasping a memory in the dark.

"Oh Hoshi, poor girl," he whispered to himself. He wished Dr. Phlox were here simply so that he could know she was in good hands, he not being confident with his medical knowledge, or lack thereof.

He would do everything he could to keep her alive.

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><p>~oOo~<p> 


	5. Bring Your Rain to Fall

~oOo~

_Desire me so deeply _  
><em> Drain and kick me hard <em>  
><em> Whisper secrets for me <em>  
><em> Try to go too far<em>

_-The Smashing Pumpkins - Pug -_

~oOo~

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><p>"Do you ever search for me in the shadows?"<p>

Questioningly she blinked, registering the lowered tone of a voice she knew well without need of a face. Her slow, turning steps brought her to Lieutenant Reed, who was standing behind her in the corridor of gray and blue tinted hues of electricity.

"I have sought you," his continued, his gaze her waist, the hall. His pale fingers knit. "In the darkness you were a light smiling back at me. Coming close to death as many times as I have in the line of duty, I have found that there is one consistency in all scenarios regardless of circumstance: I always summon you. While on the Bridge, when there is a threat made to the Enterprise, when we're shaken and thrown, I try to find you across from me at the controls. You're there with the backings of warning signals. Together, in the same room as we might die. Away missions, like the one today - down on that planet, when death feels so imminent, I see you in a flash and that's all it takes. You're there to help me, but not knowingly, not as I want. And ... and it feels so wrong and pathetic, to harbor these feelings. These _fantasies_. They've, this... has been going on for so long ... A self-indulgence. A foolish hope." Malcolm began to falter.

With movements so fast he could not by sight catch them, he felt her hands on either side of his face. A stray finger behind the right ear, to his left along his jaw, her stomach pushing against his as he was backed to a wall.

Deliriously he wavered, his head swaying backwards, seeking rest though finding none until the corridor wall hit him with a force he didn't mind. His arms flew numbly to his sides upwards, near his neck, and in a tizzy he was reminded of a carnival ride from his youth. The verious swaying lights, his stomach in his throat as in a circle he had been thrown to the sky with faceless others. Oh, how that had felt. How this was ... how...

Hoshi's eyes briefly met his as he conceded to her will. He noted their change, the warmth and hunger behind them, before he was forced to close out the world with her kiss.

"We can't," he gasped, his mind returning without his body. He knew the words were at heart not his but he felt compelled to recite them. "It's wrong. Fraternization ... Someone might see us."

"Then we'll go where they can't." She stumbled the few steps to her quarters, pulling him with her.

Inside her room she excitedly looked him over. "Malcolm_, _honestly you shouldn't start things you have no business stopping."

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><p>~oOo~<p> 


End file.
