The BLTS Archive - Missing Scene: Silent Enemy
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by kalita (kalitafic@hotmail.com)

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Archive: ENT Slash; WWOMB; Kalita's fanfic. Others by permission

Disclaimer: I don't own them. They were born in other creative minds,
but they keep intruding into mine, so what's a girl to do?

Spoilers: Silent Enemy - Mild

© Kalitafic 2002

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"Where were you at dinner?" He asks, and I shrug.

"I ate in my quarters." I say plainly, "Now that we got the amplifier
working, I wanted to answer a few letters." I don't tell him that I
was with Malcolm. No one knows about that; no one needs to.

"You missed T'Pol's latest bout with chopsticks."

"Damn, dinner and a show." We laugh.

It's not officially an inspection tour. He disguises it as friendly
banter, but I show him around engineering anyhow. We both know the
unspoken code.

"Tell me something. Do you spend a lot of time with Malcolm?" I
glance at him reading his expression; the question seems innocent
enough. I throw it off with some stuff about swapping out power
relays in the armoury.

We've agreed that we won't tell anyone; except Natalie. I wrote to
her after the first time Malcolm and I slept together. I hated
ditching her via subspace relay. What other choice did I have? Her
reply seemed philosophical enough, wished us well, telling Malcolm he
is a lucky man. Damn, why does that sting? I would've liked to say
goodbye to her face to face, she deserves at least that but it's not
gonna be that way.

The Cap'n asks me if my parents would be able to tell him my
favourite food.

"Hell yeah! My mother'd give you her recipe for pan-fried catfish,
and not let you go until she was sure you wouldn't screw it up."

"Malcolm's parents don't know what his favourite food is."

That doesn't surprise me. I am probably closer to him than anyone on
this ship, and come to think of it - I don't know what his favourite
food is. He doesn't volunteer information about himself and I respect
that.

He's never talked to me about his parents. He has a picture of them
in his quarters but that's about the limit of my knowledge of them. I
don't think there is any deep dark secret about it. Malcolm just
doesn't see any necessity in talking about 'em.

In some ways, that reserve is like a protective shell he has built; a
cocoon that he can slip into, holding the world at arm's length. It
protects him from us and sometimes I think it protects us from him.

I've seen him flare sometimes; in moments when his guard is down.
When the ship is under attack, or if he thinks she is not up to his
standard for repelling or defending against attack - he can bite then
and he does. His staff respect and admire him but those moments are
different. Those moments turn it sour. Once or twice I told him to
ease off.

He is just as capable of 'spitting sparks' - that's his term for it -
at me as well. We've had some damn fine arguments in the privacy of
his or my quarters. We never came to blows - at least not yet. He has
wanted to hit me a couple of times; I saw it in his eyes but he never
has. I wonder sometimes just what it would take to push him past that
boundary. I'll never attempt to find out though.

The Cap'n pumps me for information about Malcolm until he is called
to the bridge. I wonder briefly if he's got us figured but it's not
something I have a lot of time to focus on. I'm needed in engineering
and my thoughts are on that for the time being.

Maybe later I will ask Malcolm what his favourite food is, or his
favourite colour or somethin' I dunno any of that and just now I am
beginning to think I'd like to.

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The End