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He must have lost consciousness for a space, for when he opened his eyes again there were a number of people clustered at the side of his bunk. Phlox was unsurprisingly the foremost.

"You don't have to tell me, Doctor," he mumbled. "Sickbay. I can walk." He tried to stand up, and proved nothing much except that he could neither stand nor walk. His legs buckled underneath him and he fell forward into a chest that he discovered afterwards (to his intense embarrassment) was Liz Cutler's. Although he consoled himself with the reflection that it could have been worse – if it had been T'Pol's he'd probably have suffocated before they got him out again.

His world came back into focus when he was on a bio-bed in what he had occasionally described disgustedly as his second home on board ship. His invariably vociferous complaints about being there bore no relation whatsoever to his real gratitude for the care he received; Phlox understood this perfectly well, but nevertheless took a gentle revenge during his periods of residence by reducing him to the status of a naughty child who has to be coerced into taking the medicine for his own good. The doctor was ably assisted in this by the ship's captain, who was always available to reinforce any commands that the patient might show signs of hoping to circumvent. On most occasions this was a game of sorts, and both sides quite enjoyed it. Now, however, Malcolm was too battered to do anything but lie there and be grateful as the contents of the physician's hypospray worked their magic on his suffering. It didn't go away, but it all became more bearable, and he was cheerfully assured that his various hurts would be attended to in no time at all.

Phlox's ministrations were thankfully soon over. His ribs swathed in supporting bandages, his cuts sealed up and his right eye piratically decorated with an osmotic eel which he complained about so much that the doctor finally threatened to sedate him if he didn't keep quiet, Malcolm let himself relax as much as it was possible to do while the ship was still in danger and he had a slimy Thing sitting on his face.

Bernhard kept him informed, though under the doctor's stern eye his messages were kept short and to the point. When at last the lieutenant received the information that the captain had been safely restored and the ship was back under their own control, he finally managed to nod off, though his dreams were filled with uneasy images of fingers lightly touching his face without permission. Give it its due, once it had settled down and started feeding on his bruises the eel was a quiet passenger, but the view through the eye underneath it was disconcerting to say the least.

He didn't know what woke him, although even in ordinary circumstances he was a light sleeper; he wasn't aware of having heard anything, but he had a visitor. Hoshi was standing irresolutely beside his bed. She must have been here for a few minutes, because Phlox was pottering among his menagerie with the air of one who has said all he means to say regarding the patient's condition and is now content to let events take their course.

His mind immediately went back to the moment he'd opened his cabin door earlier on to let her in. The colour washed up in his face so fast it was surprising that the eel didn't choke on the surge.

It would be difficult to tell which of them was more embarrassed. Admittedly, a lot of his came from the memory of some of the extremely inappropriate thoughts that had popped into his mind since – mostly along the lines of wishing there'd been some valid excuse for him to demand a formal gesture of surrender. This not being at all the sort of thing a correctly brought up British officer ought to wish, he'd done his best to push them into the back of his mind. Now, however, with the ensign in front of him – now restored to respectability in the clothing department, though a treacherous, drug-addled part of him whispered 'unfortunately' – he was almost as uncomfortable as he'd been on that mortifying occasion when he'd mistakenly thought she was coming on to him.

"Ensign? Are you all right?" he asked. He couldn't imagine why she was here.

"Sir. I just ... I just wanted to apologize for the way I spoke to you when I came to your quarters." The blush deepened to crimson. "And for ... for the way I behaved in the Mess the other day."

"Ah." He struggled to maintain the expression of appropriate severity for about twenty seconds, and then he lost the battle. A grin spread over his face, one which widened still further at Hoshi's look of relieved amazement. What was she expecting him to do, issue a formal reprimand? "Well, I'd rather you didn't make a habit of pulling faces at me in public. But as for this morning, I think the circumstances were more than enough excuse. In fact, if anyone should be apologising, it's me. I should have reacted quicker instead of standing there goggling."

"Well, it's not every day you get a member of the crew turning up on your doorstep half-naked." She clapped a hand over her mouth, too late. "Sir, I'm sorry – I don't believe I said that!"

"No, you're right. It's definitely a first." He forbore to laugh, but he couldn't help wishing rather wistfully that it mightn't be the last. In those few startled seconds his wide eyes had taken in quite enough to make him want to see more. The chances of him doing so, however, were remote, apart from the odd snatched glance in the sterile surroundings of Decon where it was hardly appropriate to show interest. Life on Enterprise was miserably short on that magnitude of treat.

This being certainly not a proper remark to make to a junior officer, he kept the wish firmly to himself. Nevertheless perhaps it was the drugs he'd been pumped with that lent a singularly inappropriate gleam to his one visible eye.

Hoshi was a communications specialist with few peers. People tend to forget that communication consists of more than verbalisation. She was perfectly capable of reading very slight nuances of expression, and quite a lot of nuances had slipped past Malcolm's guard that in other circumstances would not have done so. She blinked, took a breath and stepped closer.

It didn't take a communications specialist to read the sudden little smile, or the way she nipped speculatively at her lip. He distinctly felt his pulse stop. Then it started up again, except that it was now a lot faster.

There was a long moment's silence. He watched her, torn between horrified realisation and insane hope.

"Your mouth looks really sore." Her voice was completely expressionless.

"It ... it is, a bit." He now had two utterly conflicting voices screaming in his head. Was 'No, please!' a valid sentence? He didn't say it, just in case it wasn't. In any case, Fraternisation was a sentence all by itself. So were Intimidation and Harassment. Not to mention She wouldn't touch me with a bargepole. He was hardly in the top league of the attractive male personnel on board at the best of times, and now he'd had the crap beaten out of him and he had an alien starfish stuck on his face.

She leaned forward. "Then I'd better kiss it better, hadn't I?" she whispered.

Disbelieving, he watched her come closer. His heart was now jumping somewhere at the base of his throat, trying to make its escape via his trachea.

Her eyelashes were dark fans against the perfection of her skin. Her mouth was soft against his, the sensation utterly unbelievable.

Perhaps it was as well that she kept it short. As it was, his breathing and pulse had speeded up so much that Phlox would think he was having an allergic reaction to the shots if he turned around right now.

She straightened up. Her expression was shy, apprehensive, a little conscious of her own daring. Wondering how he'd react.

For God's sake say something, you bloody fool. Don't just lie there gawping at her!

His subconscious came to the rescue just as he decided that suicide was his only option if he messed this up.

"It's so bad it probably needs repeated treatment," he said softly, daringly. Generations of Reeds who equated Fraternisation with Hellfire were probably spinning in their graves right now, but all he could see were her eyes on him and somehow the regulations seemed mysteriously less important than they had done. Why had it taken him this long to realise she was totally gorgeous?

"I think that could be arranged," she murmured. A glance wandered down to where the bulky bandages showed under the blanket. It didn't need powers of telepathy to deduct she was contemplating where else he might have been injured. OK, either I'm hallucinating or I've died and gone to heaven. It was even worth getting kicked in the –

Ouch! The sudden rush of blood south was obviously not a recommended treatment for the bruised parts of his anatomy that he'd flatly refused to have any damned eel applied to. With difficulty he smothered a yelp.

"Are you in any discomfort, Lieutenant?" Phlox bustled over, all concern.

Malcolm was in a quandary. For the doctor, he wanted to say none, for Hoshi, he wanted to say all over. "I've been better," he admitted eventually, hoping the Denobulan would misinterpret the unwonted colour in his cheeks.

Hoshi evidently interpreted it with absolute accuracy. Her eyes were brimming with laughter.

"You know you made me that offer of cooking me a meal once?" he said to her. "I've heard that enchiladas are really good for internal bruising."

"Really?" Phlox looked interested. "I will have to mention it at the next Medical Council."

Malcolm coughed. "It was only a rumour."

"We could always try an experiment to find out." She looked positively demure. Ice wouldn't have melted in her mouth, let alone butter. But then she peeked at him from under her eyelashes. "When you've had a bit more treatment, of course."

"Oh yes. I dare say I'll need lots."

By now the doctor was looking extremely puzzled. It was, after all, the first time his most problematic patient had ever referred to requiring a good deal more treatment as though it were the pinnacle of his ambitions.

"Anyway, Sir, I'd better get back on the Bridge. My lunch break's nearly over." In front of Phlox she reverted to something approximating formality. "I'll come back and visit you this evening ... if you'd like me to."

"I'll look forward to it, Ensign." Even the remnants of the cuts and bruising couldn't keep the smile off his face. He wondered if there was any way he could get rid of everyone else out of Sickbay so he could volunteer for some especially intensive therapy. Probably having a sign up by the time she arrived saying 'Everything By Mouth' would be a bit of a give-away, and anyway, knowing his luck, Trip would come in first.

The Denobulan looked from one of them to the other. His eyebrows rose. Fortunately, he refrained from anything more than a contemplative "Hmmm!" as Hoshi turned around and walked out of Sickbay.

Malcolm lay back on the bio-bed and tried his best to look 'extremely uninformative'. He'd have preferred 'forbidding', but after being caught in flagrante delicto flirting, his face muscles refused to co-operate any more. And as if he needed anything to make things worse, he was blushing again.

"I've got a headache," he said pathetically, trying to come up with a distraction before Phlox launched into one of his famous (or infamous) inquisitions into human sexuality.

"You certainly appear to have had an extremely eventful day, Lieutenant," the doctor agreed with a knowing smile. "It would probably be best for you to rest for a while longer. At least until this evening."

"Yes. I could handle that." Damn, his thoughts were running away with him again. Ouch. He'd better make sure that problem was fixed before setting a date for the enchiladas. Though on the other hand ...

Very slowly and carefully Malcolm turned on to his undamaged side. He didn't want anyone who walked into Sickbay to notice straight away he had a great big stupid grin on his battered face. For a day that had started badly and got rapidly worse, this had just turned into one of the best of his life.

Oh yes, he thought. I could definitely handle that.

The End.

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