The man frowned at her, then asked, "Commander, are you OK?"

"Who?" she asked, looking around for someone else.

Realization seemed to dawn on the mans face, so he came up to her side, and said, "I think it best if we stop by sickbay first."

"Umm, OK," she replied, not even sure what that meant.

Tom quickly walked through the doors into sickbay, immediately moving to the bio bed where Kalia was.

"Commander!" she said, sitting up quickly.

Commander Kara Trieal rushed out of her office and pushed Kalia back down. "Rest easy," she said, "He’s our superior officer."

"Oh, you mean the First Officer!" Kalia said, smiling at him. "Hello, sir."

Kara nodded and smiled, then looked to Tom morbidly. "I think I found the problem, sir," she said.

"What is it?" Tom asked, not sure he wanted to know.

"I don’t know if you are familiar with her file or not," Kara began quietly, "But Kalia was exposed to severe Theta radiation poisoning a while back. It resulted in partial memory loss, but she had slowly gained those memories back."

Tom easily put two and two together, and when he did, his jaw dropped. "Are you saying it’s a relapse?" he asked, fear edging into his voice. He’d heard of the relapses that sometimes occurred with Theta radiation poisoning. Usually, the patients did not recover, and permanently lost their memories.

Kara nodded, the sadness showing on her face making Tom’s stomach feel worse than it already did. He looked to Kalia, then back to Kara. "I know I’m asking a lot, Kara…"

She smiled and nodded. "I always was good at making up medical advanced on the fly," she said jokingly. Tom knew she was trying to lighten the mood…but it wasn’t working on him.

Kara moved to a computer console and began working, but as she did so, she stated plainly, "I can temporarily suppress the symptoms, giving her memory back to her, but as I said…it’s only temporary. She’ll need that time to discuss anything she needs to with her junior engineer."

"Understood," Tom said slowly, nodding his head equally slowly. "I’ll have him report to sickbay immediately. Please keep me posted, doctor."

She looked at him with an expressionless face, then looked down to her work. Tom turned towards the turbolift and moved to it. Thankful he didn’t have to walk through the corridors just yet, he entered the turbolift, then ordered it to the bridge.

Just what I need, he thought to himself. I’m about to lose someone on my first assignment as first officer…

Cadet Chris Harriman stepped into the restaurant, taking in the view the windows had of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. Normally, he would have stopped to enjoy the view for a while, but he didn’t want to take the time to, not this time.

He had found out from Lieal that Sarah was a partial Betazoid, and she had sensed some nasty thought from Chris when she slapped him. It had taken him a few hours to remember what he had been thinking about at that time, not accustomed to having to recall his thoughts. He soon remembered that a…certain thought had popped into his head, without him even wanting it to have, when they had met.

When he realized that, he had asked Lieal another favor…and she had somehow managed to get Sarah to meet him again. So here he was now, looking around the restaurant…only to find no sign of Sarah.

His heart sank for a moment as he thought, she stood me up. However, a waving motion caught his eye, and there, in a back corner, barely visible through all of the people that were present, was Sarah. When she saw that she had caught his eye, she motioned him over, a sorrowful look on her face.

Chris nodded and immediately began to make his way through the crowds of people, the noise giving him a headache. I thought my birthday parties had been loud he thought to himself.

Finally, after much pushing, and being pushed back, he made it through, and was surprised to find the corner completely empty of people, except for him and Sarah. He stood there for a moment, simply staring at her. She seemed to be avoiding his look, which made him more uncomfortable than she was probably feeling right now.

He moved to the chair opposite of her, put his hand on it, and asked, "May I?"

Though she probably hadn’t heard exactly what he had said, she knew what he had asked, and therefore motioned in a positive way. Chris pulled the chair out and sat down.

Before he could get a word in, she immediately stated bluntly, loud enough to be heard, "I’m sorry!"

Still she was avoiding his look, and still that made him uncomfortable…but that surprised him. He had come with an apology himself, and hadn’t expected Sarah would have reason to apologize.

"For what?" he asked, realizing he had asked too softly.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. Loud enough for him to hear, she said, "I sure chose a bad place for this. Come on, let’s go!" She stood up and began moving out, managing never to look at Chris the whole time.

Curious, and not willing to leave it all with that, he immediately followed her, and managed to keep up with her as they went through the crowd.

They immediately managed to make it out onto the sidewalk, where they both slowed down and simply began walking. Chris didn’t pay attention to where they were walking, and he was pretty certain that Sarah hadn’t paid much attention either.

For several minutes, they walked side by side, not saying a single word, and just looking around…looking at everything, except each other. Chris was thankful it was a warm night…which it usually was this time of year in the Bay area. They would have plenty of time to sort things through, since it was the weekend and they didn’t have many classes or any events during the first couple weekends.

Finally, taking the initiative, Chris said quietly, hesitantly, "You said you were sorry…but why?"

For the first time since they met, they locked eyes. Sarah’s beautiful blue eyes stared into his, and Chris could have sworn that she had tried to force herself to tell him telepathically. She looked ahead of them, breaking eye contact, and shook her head.

"I shouldn’t have entered your mind like I did," she said quietly, regret in her voice.

Chris shook his head, replying in an equal tone of voice, "I shouldn’t have been thinking what I had been thinking."

Sarah shook her head quickly and looked back at him. "If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s that people can’t control what thoughts enter their minds." She shrugged and added, "Many think they can, but they are simply denying that they have those thoughts…in a sense, they are lying to themselves."

He smiled at her, quickly understanding what she was getting at. "And if you can’t even trust yourself, who can you trust?"

Sarah nodded in agreement, also smiling, and replied, "Exactly! Those are the people with troubled personalities that counselors usually have to deal with!"

Chris frowned at that, shook his head, and said, "I’m not so sure that’s entirely the truth, but I do agree with you that people who are like that often have troubled personalities…or rather, more to the point, they have trouble interacting with people."

"Because they think if they do interact with other people, those thoughts are going to enter their minds any way!" Sarah added quickly.

"Precisely!" Chris replied, returning the smile. It was nice to talk with someone who knew that type of personality…for he used to have that type of personality, and that’s why he knew it so well. In fact…he still had that personality…

Sarah sighed, paused a moment, then said quietly, "I don’t have to be telepathic to know you want to apologize to me, as well." Chris looked at her, surprised that she could read him so well without her abilities. She tilted her head to one side and said softly, "Well, don’t…because you are not at fault."

Chris thought for a moment, then nodded in agreement. "True…that is what we just talked about."

She looked forward again, looking around and trying to get her bearings. She gave up a moment later. "So, Mister Harriman," she said. She looked into his eyes again, smiling, and asked, "What are you going to major in?"

Chris shook his head slowly at the memory. That night, they had talked about virtually everything. What their plans for Starfleet was, what their years in school were like, and just about everything else. They had a surprising amount of experiences in common…and their personalities were nothing but compatible.

However, the entire three years Chris had been in the academy…they had never told each other how they really felt. Both had been bursting inside, wanting to tell the other exactly how they felt.

Each and every day, Chris had determined that he would tell Sarah exactly how he felt about her. However…he didn’t want to ruin the relationship they had already established. Telling her might have destroyed their relationship…or so he had feared. It was ironic that both had felt the same way…but it also came as a relief to Chris when they had finally expressed those feelings to one another.

That one day on the Enterprise…

Lieutenant Chris Harriman, a huge smile on his face, pressed the chime on Sarah’s door. "Come in," her voice came through the door.

He pressed the Starfleet delta symbol on the PADD, which caused the door to slide open, and then entered. The door closing, he quickly moved to a poster of a famous ski mountain on Sarah’s wall.

He looked at Sarah, who was sitting on the couch with a book in her hands, and widened his smile.

A confused look on her face, Sarah asked, "What’s with you today?"

He didn’t say anything at first and just looked at her, then looked back to the poster. "The Enterprise was just ordered to Earth…for a four week refit and repair," he said matter-of-factly. He slowly looked back to her. "And the crew has that much shore leave time."

Sarah immediately set the book down, losing her place, and stood up. Quickly moving towards him, she asked, "You’re kidding?!"

Chris shook his head and said happily, "Nope, not at all." He motioned to the ski poster and asked, "I hear this mountain has great skiing."

Indeed, it did, too. Wolf Creek was one of the best, and oddly, least-populated ski resort on Earth. Centered in southern Colorado in the Rocky Mountains, it had great trails, and great views.

"All right, then," she said, excited. "Let’s do it!"

"I’ll help you pack," Chris said, quickly following her into her bedroom. Sarah immediately moved to the replicator and had the computer replicate a couple duffel bags. She threw them on the bed and moved to her dresser. As she started pulling clothes out, Chris started rambling a little.

"Just imagine, four weeks to do what ever we want," he said as he started helping her refold clothes.

Sarah smiled slightly and replied quietly, "Yes, that’s quite a while."

"Give us plenty of time to catch up!" he added enthusiastically.