Disclaimer;; I don't own any of these characters. So. Yeah. Usual disclaimer-y stuff applies. Thanks to my lovely beta T'Key'la for putting up with me! Haha.

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"Um… a corpus callosum has something to do with fucking, right?" Gaila tossed her red curls over her shoulder. Her blue eyes reflected only boredom, but for once, she was interested in learning the answer. Gaila was never one to become particularly panicked about academia, but as the final exams of senior year were only a day away….

Bones furrowed his brow in quizzical amusement. Jim snorted and choked on a gulp of Max-Trimethyl Cola. Uhura alone seemed to be unimpressed by her friend's peculiarities, and only scowled.

"Not everything is about sex, Gaila. The corpus callosum is the part of the brain that controls inter-hemispheric communication. How can you not know that? It's the largest white matter structure in the brains of most humanoids! Didn't you pay any attention at all to the notes on contralateral axonal projections? Gaila! Are you listening?" Uhura's lips tightened and her neck stiffened in the telltale signs of exasperation.

"Oh, God… I am so screwed." The green-skinned Gaila sunk in her seat, chewing nervously on her lip. She began to pick fretfully at the pizza in front of her. Sauce stained the tips of her fingers and cheese collected under her long nails. Tears sprang to her eyes. Between failing her anatomy exam and xenolinguistics exam, when would she have time for a new manicure? She gave an exasperated cry, crunching the piece of burned pepperoni that was stuck to her palm.

From across the table, Jim slurped noisily at his cola and proceeded to cram a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth. "You wun thum?" he asked, voice muffled by pasta, as he extended his drink to Gaila. She raised a hand in rejection, repulsed by the mass of partially masticated noodles that showed from his mouth as he spoke.

"Ugh… why the hell do I consider you a friend, you pig?" she snapped, turning to look at Uhura, who was primly dabbing the grease from her garlic bread. Gaila wanted to whine, or cry, or throw a tantrum. She knew that Uhura would have no sympathy for her. She never did. Gaila made a firm metal resolution to terminate her friendship with Cadet Uhura. Such resolutions never lasted long. Gaila, true to her passionate race, had a quick temper, but rarely stayed angry for long, particularly when it concerned her roommate.

Uhura was a willowy, pretty girl, but in every other way different from herself. Uhura was, in the kindest sense of the term, a stuffy, undersexed shrew. Regardless, she'd comforted a homesick Gaila in their freshman year, encouraged her to exercise even when she was on her period, and never let her eat too many calories or spend too many credits on a pair of shoes. Nyota Uhura was a good friend.

When Uhura could be convinced to abandon the lab for the town, the pair made quite a stir. Gaila's striking jade skin and Nyota's creamy coffee complexion certainly stood out when they left the Academy grounds. As Gaila deemed appropriate, her friend drew still less attention than she. It was to be expected. Though Kenyans were uncommon, Orion women were beyond rare.

Suddenly, Gaila leapt to her feet. "Ok, I am so not gonna fail my senior year. I told Pasha and Sulu I was gonna meet them to study, and you know what? I'm actually gonna go!" She looked slightly giddy as she smoothed her red cadet uniform, a completely dull red sack of a thing. She'd attempted once to improve it by raising the hemline a few inches. Apparently, that was against Academy Code 328, and the disciplinary staff had not been pleased. They seemed to believe quite firmly that she would never graduate. Well, she would show them! Gaila bounded towards the library hall with a graceful, light-footed gait.

The library was not a place that she spent a great deal of time in. Her boisterous personality was not suited to silence, and quelling her desire to laugh loudly and speak louder was rather difficult. The tight-lipped librarian didn't intimidated her in the least, and Gaila would not have been afraid to call for her friends. However, they were in plain view, sparing her another run-in with the disciplinary staff.

Hikaru Sulu and Pavel Chekov were decent boys, the disposable kind who required little work to be friends with.

"If the laser's trajectory is 323 degrees, what is the probability that it will strike the nuclear vessels we are attempting locate?" Sulu read a physics program from his PADD.

"But vhy vould ve be lookink for ze nuclear wessels?" Chekov responded, eyes wide with young, foolish curiosity.

"Jesus, Chekov."

Gaila giggled at their brother-like bickering, and dropped comfortably into an open chair beside the pair. "Sorry I'm late. So, what's the deal? Astrophysics? Piece of cake." She grabbed Sulu's PADD and scanned the problem several times. Math, engineering, and advanced computer sciences were the Orion's forte. However, these word problems confused her. Why couldn't the writers just relay the situation? Why did there always have to be some convoluted scenario? She took a pen in hand, and slowly began to scratch out the unnecessary words, leaving only the numbers behind. With a burst of excitement, she realized that she knew what to do. With a pleased squeal, she took pen to paper again and began to solve the set of equations. "Ta-DAA! And here it is boys. 43.1 percent chance of striking the nuclear wessels." Gaila laughed, fondly mocking Chekov's accent. Sulu rolled his eyes while Chekov dipped his head and grinned sheepishly.

"Since when are you smart, Gaila?" Sulu asked, placing the physics PADD in his bag.

"Hey, give me some credit. If it has numbers or a dick, I can do it." She winked at her Japanese-American study partner. He wasn't phased, as he was used to her blunt manner of speech. Chekov, however, still blushed at her words, vigorously shaking his head like a child.

"But seriously, I'm not worried about this stuff. It's Spock's test I'm worried about. I can't and never will be able to speak Romulan, Andorian, Vulcan, or whatever we're supposed to be learning. It all sounds the same to me. It took me long enough to learn Standard." Some of the spunk left her blue eyes, and she sank back into the chair, wishing she had been assigned a different professor for xenolinguistics. Spock was notoriously tough on his students, and she envied those who had professors that were content to have their students reading Klingon proverbs.

"Did you study ze wocab?" Chekov asked kindly before launching into a listing of words and their translations. Gaila was dismayed to find that she didn't even know what the words meant in Standard, and dropped her head onto the table with a loud 'thud.'

"You guys… I am so fucked," Gaila murmured, looking hopelessly up at her friends. Sulu gave a sympathetic shrug, while Chekov knitted his eyebrows in worry for the Orion.

"Wow. You really are bad at this language stuff. If I were you, I'd go see the Commander. You'll have to sit through a lecture about the evils of procrastination, but it'll keep you from failing." Sulu advised, scribbling further notes into his PADD.

Gaila rolled her eyes, surprised that he would even suggest that. Just thinking about that self-righteous Vulcan made her angry, and she launched onto one of her famously emotional and exaggerated slippery slopes. "I would rather fail his test, have to become a streetwalker to support myself, live out of dumpsters, and ultimately get stabbed to death by a crack dealer than have to spend extra time with that pointy-eared prick."

Chekov's large eyes widened further, and he stopped studying. He was a nervous and innocent boy. Gaila was accustomed to his shocked responses to her emphatic outbursts, but when Sulu also began to look uncomfortable, she began to get concerned. Taking a deep breath, she turned around, already instinctually knowing that Commander Spock was standing behind her.

"Cadet Gaila, I must request that when in public places you will at least attempt to refrain from both coarse speech in regards to your superiors and the overuse of logical fallacies in your arguments." He stood rigidly, as usual, spine straight as a poker, hands locked behind his back. He had the face of a statue and the ears of the devil. "I am hardly surprised that you have failed to prepare adequately for my exam. That being said, I would not be opposed to the idea of helping you to prepare. The chances of your failure will be 43.83213 percent. However, it is my duty as an instructor to aid students in their study habits, particularly in regards to final examinations. You will proceed to my office in 10.3 minutes. Tardiness is, as always, unacceptable."

As he strode away with quick, measured steps, she was left gaping, shocked at what she'd managed to get herself into. A tense silence passed. Sulu attempted to stifle his laughter, but failed. Even Chekov began to laugh.

Gaila rose numbly to her feet.

Her life was hell.