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Puppy Love
Captain Janeway exited her ready room, with Naomi Wildman tripping closely behind. The young girl held three padds clasped to her chest, her eyes shining with excitement. "Naomi, our next meeting is scheduled for 1400 hours, 10 days from now. Do you think you can have your reports ready for me by that time?" "Oh yes, Captain! You can count on me. I'll be the best assistant you ever had!" The Captain cradled Naomi's face in her palm. "Good. I'm sure you will be." Looking up she asked, "Mr. Kim, would you mind accompanying my new assistant to her next tutor? She is due in Astrometrics. You might want to stick around down there and see if there is anyway you can facilitate the lesson." "Thank you, Captain! I mean, I would be happy to take Naomi there." He held his hand out, "Let's getting going, pal. Where's Flotter?" "You can't bring toys to work, Harry!" He and the Captain shared a delighted smile as Harry ushered the child into the turbolift. Captain Janeway turned as they left and sat down in her command chair. Chakotay leaned over whispered, "So, the ever expanding duties of our favorite Captain now include teaching and matchmaking?" She gave him a quick wink and whispered back, "Teaching her is like getting a vacation. I just wish I had more time to spend with all our little ones. And as for the other, these things need a little push now and then Commander." He chuckled and winked back at her, "I'll remember that, Captain." ~*~*~* "Computer, Deck Six. What homework did the Captain give you Naomi?" "It's not homework!" Naomi replied, "I have reports to prepare for our staff meeting." "Sorry! What are the subjects of your … reports?" "Dumb stuff. I have to read two Flotter adventures and tell the Captain what I've learned." "Why are they so dumb?" "Because I could just go to the holodeck and play the stories and have Flotter tell me. Its inefficient for me to find the answer, if it is already there." Harry hid a smile, "I see. What else do you find so dumb." "Well, she wants me to draw pictures from stuff in the mess hall. I don't know why we need pictures of leola root for a staff meeting." "And the last one?" Harry queried, vainly trying to stop laughing. "That's a hard one. It says something about figuring out the energy dispersal of a solar jet C-wave when it jumps from the 11th to the 16th or 17th levels. I don't know what that means." "Don't worry about it. Once you get to those levels, nobody can make much sense out of it. Maybe Seven and I can help you with that one." Just as she turned to thank him, the turbolift shuddered, then halted, throwing them to the floor. "Ow!" Naomi hit her head against the wall as she fell. Harry scrambled to her side. "Are you all right? Let me see." Naomi let Harry scoop her into his arms and examine her bruised forehead. When he was sure she had nothing more than a bump, he set her gently on the floor next to him. "Looks like you'll survive…. Computer resume lift." They felt nothing. "Kim to engineering." "Ensign Kim, this is not the best time to call." "I'm glad to hear your voice too, Vorik but this isn't a pleasure call. We are stuck in a turbolift and thought you might have a hint of an idea of why and if it is dangerous." "What's the matter, Harry? Are we afraid of a wittle stalled turbolift?" "Hello B'Lanna. Not yet we aren't, but Naomi and I were wondering what the problem is." "Oh. Hi Naomi." The tone of B'Elanna's voice changed from teasing to reassuring. "Don't worry, Honey. The turbolift just stalled out when the power surge from our slipstream experiment shorted out a few things." "How many things B'Elanna … Honey? Can you beam us out?" "Cute, Harry. Well….not quite yet. All systems are out but the impulse drive, life support, self -powered devices like the com badges and illumination." "Cute, B'Elanna. How long?" "Don't know Harry, but it would be a bit quicker if I can get back to work."
~*~*~ Naomi stalked around the turbolift, hands on hips. "When I'm Captain, I'm going to replace these turbolifts!" "When you're Captain! And just when is that going to be?" "Captain Janeway said when she and Commander get us to Pasture." "Pasture? Where's Pasture?" Harry asked. She gave a sigh of exasperation and turned to him, "You are the navigations officer. Shouldn't you know things like that?" He gave a small chuckle. "I probably should. Maybe if you tell me exactly what the Captain said, I'll know what you are talking about?" Naomi sat next to Harry and started explaining in her most patient teacher's voice. "When I asked her when I would be ready to be Captain, she said she and Commander Chakotay were not quite ready to be put out to Pasture yet. So I asked her if I would be ready by the time we got to Pasture and she said it was a distinct possibility. Now do you know where Pasture is?" He tried to hid his smile, "Yeah, I think I do. You have time, Pasture's down the road apiece." "That doesn't sound very scientific. You are going to have to be more precise than that if you are going to be my First Officer." He couldn't hide his laugh this time. "You've been hanging around Seven way too much lately, and how come you are so sure you are going to be the Captain? I'm older, maybe I'll be Captain and you can be my First Officer." She gave him an absolutely incredulous look. "You can't be Captain! I'm the girl, silly! Didn't they teach you anything at Starfleet? The girl is the Captain and her boyfriend is her First Officer!" "Boyfriend!" "Of course, boyfriend. All the babies are too little and you are next youngest to me, so you get to be my boyfriend 'cause everybody else is too old or too young. The Captain runs the ship and the First Officer is her boyfriend." Harry rubbed his hands across his eyes. "Naomi, just because the Commander Chakotay is the First Officer does not mean he is the Captain's boyfriend." She gave him an exasperated, how can he be so dumb look. "If he isn't her boyfriend, how come they're taking the wall down between their quarters?" Harry was beginning to feel he was fast loosing control of the conversation. "They're doing what!? Naomi…, you can't go around saying things like that." "Why not? They are." "What makes you think they're taking the wall down between their quarters?" "Because they didn't have any wall between them in the mess hall. They didn't have anything between them in the mess, I looked." "Mess hall?" Harry knew he was lost again. "What does the mess hall have to do with them tearing down the walls in their quarters?" "That's where the leola root clay was." I know I'm going to regret this, he thought to himself, "Why did the Captain and the Commander have clay made out of leola root?" "I had the leola root clay!" Her tone of voice had that 'are you ever stupid' tone to it. "What would the Captain and Commander want with leola root clay? Boy, and you want to be Captain!?" If Harry wasn't so curious about the wall, he would have given up at that point. The kid had definitely been taking too many courses in the 'Seven School of Diplomacy'. Dissed by a four year old! "Maybe you had better start from the beginning, wherever that is?" She turned to him and looked at him sternly. "Pay attention Harry, I'm only going to explain this to you once. That's all Momma explains to me when I'm not listening to her. Now, are you ready to listen?" He bit off his retort about manners, figuring he'd get the whole story if he just went along with it. He just nodded silently. "I was playing behind the counter in the mess hall with some clay Uncle Neelix made for me. The Captain came in and got coffee from the counter. Commander Chakotay came in after her and started talking to her. He sounded kind of angry." Harry was faced with a moral dilemma at this point. Should he explain to Naomi that she really shouldn't repeat conversations she's overheard; or should he pump the kid and levy the information into better odds in the betting pool. "So, what did the Commander say to make you think he was angry, Naomi?" "He said that….he swore here…am I supposed to tell you the swear words, too? Mommy will get real mad if I use all those words!" Harry soothed the troubled child. "It's okay, you can just leave out the cursing. He used a lot, huh?" "Oh, yeah!" Naomi let out a sigh of relief and continued reporting the conversation. "He said that she'd better stop the …you know…pretending there was nothing wrong and get it out in the open. He said that she'd been cold as a witch's ….you know… like Seven has on her front…all week and he was….um….darned?…if he knew why. The Captain said some stuff back and he quieted down too." Harry couldn't turn much of a profit on that. "What did the Captain say?" "I don't know. I wasn't really listening until they started talking about taking the wall down." He gave a sigh and prompted the child, "And what did they say about taking the wall down?" "The Commander said that the wall between them was ten feet thick and she said that she didn't know how to take it down. He whispered something to her, but when I looked around the corner, I couldn't see how any wall could fit between them when they were hugging so tight. Then the Captain leaned up to kiss him." Harry could see definite monetary possibilities in this even as he thought that maybe he'd been spending a little too much time with Tom. "Then what?" "I don't know. I didn't see the wall, so I stopped looking. I figured they were talking about some other wall between them. The only other wall they have between them is the one between their quarters. How come their wall is so thick? The walls in our quarters aren't so thick. It's going to take them a long time to get a wall that big down." "Out of the mouths of babes," Harry murmured to himself. "Since you're going to be my boyfriend, do we have to kiss too, Harry?" He rose to his feet and ruffled her hair. " Uh, no, no. It's not necessary. Why don't we wait until Pasture, if its all the same to you." Before Naomi could answer, the turbolift gave a little shudder and started moving again. When the door opened onto the Astrometrics deck , Tom Paris and Samantha Wildman were waiting for the couple. Naomi was standing at attention on one side of the lift, with her hands clasped behind her and Harry was trying to melt into the wall on the other side. Naomi threw herself into her mother's arms. "Momma! The Captain gave me reports to do and we don't have to go to Earth because the Captain wants to go to Pasture instead and I'm gonna be Captain when we get there and Harry's going to be my boyfriend!" Sam looked over her daughter's head, laughing as she walked away. "No kidding? You've got a lot to tell me, don't you. Sounds like you've been drafted, Harry." Tom stood, watching Sam walk away. He turned back to Harry. "Hey, are you coming out of there. The Captain wants you back on the bridge. Boyfriend? Hmm, Harry Kim finally gets himself trapped in a turbolift for hours with a girl and who does he pick? No offence Harry, but isn't she just a little young for you? Harry pushed past him and started down the corridor in the opposite direction, muttering to himself and shaking his head, "Don't I wish!!!!! Don't I just wish!"
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