"See ya."

He walks out the door.

Halfway back to his quarters, he stops. He finally remembered where he'd heard of The Adventures of Captain Laurence before.

"The romance novel?!"

Laurence cleans up and goes to bed. He wakes up early again, and is grimly thankful for it. He has things to do.

At 0700 hours according to the computer, he calls Harry.

"Good morning, Ensign Kim." He doesn't sound particularly happy or good about it.

Harry did not follow the disaster with a pretend-drunk bonding session and isn't all that happy with Laurence right now. But if nothing else, helping Laurence out is one of his duties.

"Hey Laurence."

"I fear I must ask of you a favor."

"Please convey my apologies to Lieutenant Torres for my remarks last night. Paris apprised me of several misunderstandings which I held, and I greatly regret giving offense."

"I hope-- that is, I would like to ask a further favor, that you might convey these as soon as possible, so that she may not feel too great an imposition in having to conduct herself in my presence at boot camp this morning. I should not like to oblige her to any... awkwardness."

(Laurence assumes that Torres would rather not be in the same room with him at this time, and that orders forcing her to do so anyway would mean she will be obligated to studiously pretend he does not exist. He would rather avoid giving her such an obligation, even if she doesn't especially want to chat regardless.)

Well, okay, that helps. It's kind of weird for Laurence to be using him as a go-between, instead of just apologizing directly? Is that normal in the 18th century?

"I'll be sure to let her know." (he wants to add "thanks" but that's a bit weird since it's not an apology to him? whatever)

"You might want to tell her yourself if you run into her though."

What the fuck, obviously not

"I... would assume that it would cause greater offense for me to address her directly, in such a situation," he says slowly.

Tom said dueling was outlawed, but surely she would at least hit him or something if he tried to talk to her right now? She didn't seem like a coward.

It was a weird 18th century thing!

"I think people do things a little differently nowadays? I think a less direct apology comes off as less sincere since it implies you're not willing to deliver it face to face."

"But I can tell her anyway, and you can do what seems best next time you see her."

... really, though?

"I... see," he says. "Thank you for the advice. I will consider it."

He ends the call and heads to boot camp when it's time. He's trying to avoid both Tuvok and Torres, so... he'll do his best to arrive one minute early, giving him time to scope out a spot off to the side where he can easily avoid Torres when she comes in, but not so much time that Tuvok could strike up a conversation with him. He doesn't especially want to talk to the security chief right now.

Then he'll wait quietly until things get started.

Tuvok is waiting silently in the same spot he occupied the first time.

B'elana walks in at exactly the starting time. She gives Laurence a brief glance before boot camp starts again.

Laurence tries to gauge her reaction, and looks vaguely shamefaced himself.

B'elanna's feelings:

• She's still kind of pissed about being snidely called out for some prehistoric social infraction.
• On the other hand, he did apologize, sort of, and that counts for something.
• On the other other hand, last time his whole thing was allternating between snide remarks and politeness, so maybe the apology is more of that?
• On the same other other hand, he didn't actually apologize in person for some reason? She doesn't like him, but she's not about to punch him in the face.

She's making minimal effort to hide any of that, but her facial expressions aren't really high bandwidth enough to convey 4 bullet points, so she winds up looking ... annoyed, basically.

Okay. Good enough. This seems like a situation where the fine art of Polite Ignoring will be helpful.

(Not Stiff Ignoring or Pointed Ignoring, those are different.)

The parameters of Polite Ignoring are: He will acknowledge her and/or engage in pleasantries if appropriate, and will endeavour to maintain a pleasant expression where possible, but will not engage her in conversation or go near her without a reason or her initiating it first.