A/N: Chapter 14 at last! I'm not particularly happy with this one, it's a little disjointed, the funny bits aren't really funny, and if I had the time, I'd set it aside for a bit and redo it later. I might still do that, but it serves the purpose of moving the story along, so I'll post it in the meantime. (Shows you how much of a shock being back to work was.)

I'm really happy that the last chapter was so well received, please don't be too cross about this one.

I should have the next one up much sooner, since I have two days off, yay.

There are about six more chapters to go and we'll enter movie territory soon. (Nervous about that)

A big, big, big "Thank You" to everyone who reviewed.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek, any of its characters, or any lyrics to Dolly Parton's songs. (The one I'm using here is "Baby I'm Burning")

"Engine core temperature has reached critical, Sir." Aureya was shouting over the din of general mayhem into the com unit currently connected to the bridge, while the warning lights were flashing red alert. The persistent sound of the sirens, and the loud hiss of steam emitting from the cooling system, did nothing to improve her focus.

She had to step over P'Grell's dead body in an attempt to reach the secondary access panel, while simultaneously keeping a close eye on the core temperature indicator still operational on the main panel, now blocked by a large metal girder that had fallen across part of the engine room when the Klingon Bird of Prey had fired its second volley of phaser torpedoes straight at them and had broken through their shields. Attempting to override the main command codes proved less simple than it should be with the use of only one arm and with no other engineer left alive. She had just managed to gain access to the main panel and to transfer functions onto the access point she was working on, when the cooling system finally gave in. An enormous plume of steam obliterated everything in view for a moment before the final warning siren went off. Red letters had appeared on all access screens, counting down mere seconds.

"Engine failure in 5, 4, 3, 2,… " the computer announced.

"Shit!" Aureya closed her eyes in defeat.

With a deafening roar the entire room went bright white, glaring light swallowing everything in its path.

"And there goes the engine." Gnall announced in her head. Aureya took the earpiece out, opened her eyes, and looked around the now once more completely unscathed room. Greenberg was still leaning slumped against the far corner, but Shrem was sitting up cursing.

"Fuck, that was the sixth time, and why do I always croak first."

"Because, Mr P'Grell, you keep making the same mistake over and over again, you just haven't figured out what it is yet." Lieutenant Gnall announced through the observation window of the simulation room.

"You know, if you actually told us what we did wrong we might do a better job next time, Ma'am." Aureya sounded far less cordial than would be appropriate, but she had lost a number of limbs, her eyesight, and hearing at various points of the afternoon, and had watched her fellow engineers die 3 times. She was in markedly foul humour.

"What would be the point of that, Ms Newman? Life does not work that way." Gnall sounded grim.

"Life may not, Ma'am, but this is a simulation. You are supposed to teach us."

"And you would be an expert on the subject of education, because…?"

"Commander Lennox… "

"Ah, I see, you are still sore about my refusal to petition the board for funding for the so-called Lennox Challenge." Gnall was now clearly baiting her, a wide grin on her face.

"I was not even thinking about that, but now that you mention it, I think you are disrespectful and arrogant to think that you can decide to withdraw support for something that has been a part of Starfleet engineering…" Gnall interrupted her once again.

"While I have you in this rebellious mood, would you care to hazard a guess as to what went wrong with the simulation?"

"What?" Aureya felt distinctly wrong-footed.

"What, Ma'am." Gnall corrected her.

"The access codes, Ma'am."

"Elaborate?" The older woman wore an infuriatingly smug expression on her face.

"There is no reason for them as far as the three main panels in the engine room are concerned."
"And pray tell me, when did you figure this one out, just now?"

"No, Ma'am, after the second simulation, but it is not standard procedure to have general access from all three… "

"Standard procedure? Is that your job as chief engineer, to uphold standard procedure? Or is it to keep your ship running and your crew alive?" The Lieutenant had crossed her arms over her chest and was throwing Aureya the most irritatingly sarcastic look.

"Ahm, … " Aureya could not help it, she had to admit that Gnall had made a rather valid point.

"And two more things, Ms Newman: firstly, tell Mr P'Grell to stop stepping on the blasted main cooling vent, he keeps getting steamed every time before he even knows what happened, and secondly, I have already been given permission and funding for the Lennox Challenge. Congratulations, both you and your boiled blue friend have made the cut again this year, only restriction is that, since you're both defending the title you're on the same team and are therefore not allowed to add a third engineer." Aureya was stunned.

"But you said… "

"Oh, I say a lot of things. … Now, let's run that simulation one more time, shall we? Would you like to make some adjustments to the set up of your engine room first?"

"Indeed, I would." Aureya couldn't help but grin at Gnall. As she passed P'Grell he gave her a little slap on the bum then smiled happily. She could not believe that Uhura, of all people, had started that stupid little habit. The next one of her friends to smack her rear end would get a finger up the nose, no matter how disgusting doing that would be.

"Oh, that is vonderful news. … Vell, I haf to tell you, I already knew about that."

Chekov gave her a sly grin. "Lieutenant Gnall practically bludgeoned the board into applying for the race to be held on Wulcan, as part of the ACT." Chekov informed Aureya as they made their way to the Green Wolf. He had, quite uncharacteristically, asked Aureya for a drink, claiming he had to discuss girl trouble. Not that Aureya was not already fully informed about the tall, young woman, who was 'tragically' in Chekov's first year M&L, and whom he had a massive crush on.

"I totally forgot, that's this year, isn't it?... The ACT I mean."

"Yup, last time vas vhen I vas in first year. I don't think it should be legal to make a 14 year old go through that." He did not seem to hold any particularly fond memories of the time. The Adverse Conditions Training that Starfleet operated every three years, was certainly not intended for teenagers. One week in the freezing ice deserts on Andoria, followed a few months later by a week in the scorching heat of Vulcan, was a tough one for all but the most resilient of the fully-grown cadets.

"How could you forget, the first part is in three veeks?"

Forgetting things had proven too easy recently. Apparently retaining information was rather difficult when your entire brain was focused on worrying about a certain green blooded someone. But now that Pavel had reminded her Aureya couldn't help feeling marginally excited despite the fact that students had returned with toes frozen off and severe heat stroke. She was about to ask for some details of the experience, when she remembered something else he had mentioned almost in passing:

"Wait, did you say the race was going to be on Vulcan?... Darwin's earwax, how the hell did she talk them into that? The entire board is scared senseless of the Vulcan High Council."

"I haf no idea, but that voman could talk a dog into dancing the waltz." Aureya conceded that Chekov had a point there.

"Vait here for a moment." They had reached the Wolf, but Chekov motioned her to stay as he slipped into the door. Feeling rather suspicious, Aureya suddenly had the feeling of having forgotten something important.

"Ok." Chekov's head poked out the door, an impish smile on his face.

"Pavel, what did you do? … What's going on?"

Chekov merely grinned at her, then grabbed her hand and dragged her into the bar where a loud chorus of "Happy Birthday!"s reminded her what exactly had slipped her mind.

"Oh yea." She remarked a little sheepishly, as Gaila rushed forward to hug her tightly, Shrem right behind her, managing to wrap his arms around both of them and lift them off the floor, making them squeal.

"You forgot, didn't you?' Gaila asked when she finally let her go.

Aureya just laughed and shook her head in disbelief; then she recalled an important detail:

"Hang on guys," she shouted over the general noise "it's not till tomorrow."

"Oh, we have every intention of being here till then." Kirk had made his way over to them and handed her a beer, clacking his own off it loudly.

After having to endure about six sets of a cappella, out of key birthday songs, one of which was in a language she had never heard before and which resembled a serious throat condition, Aureya settled in nicely.

The presents she received were mostly gimmicks (edible underwear from Kirk, a blindfold and earplugs from Shrem, an abacus and a digital book entitle "So you're still a virgin" from Gaila), only Uhura, Bones, and Chekov opted for getting her real gifts: a hand-quilted throw with tribal motives, an antique music box with the solar system made of real silver, revolving as it played Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik", and tow leather-bound books, both collections of Russian poetry in translation. She was quite touched by the latter, but had to admit that she could not help but laugh at the former. Shrem elaborated on his gift by telling her:

"See, it'll be like I'm not even there,… I can be totally naked now."

"No."

"Fine.' He gave her a fake pout.

As the evening wore on and the party properly warmed up, Aureya took a moment to slip away into the far corner of the bar, two shots of whiskey in her hand. She sat down at the little unoccupied table placing one glass in front of the empty seat next to her, then lifted the other in salute:

"Cheers, Alec, so glad you could make it." She whispered, downed her shot then made her way back to the rest of her friends, leaving the untouched second glass where it was.

She was pleased to find Captains Taylor and Pike among her guests and took the time to have a drink with each of them. Unfortunately, this led to her acting in what she considered the most pathetic of ways by scanning the bar regularly for a certain person's face; as expected, she never found it.

Aureya almost managed to forget about him, when Jim, Bones, Pavel, and Shrem took the dance floor, giving her meaningful looks. Noyota and Gaila appeared next to her, the first merely laughing, the other one dragging her forward while bringing along a small wooden chair, setting it down right in the middle of the floor and pushing her into it.

To the sound of a cheesy 20th century song that kept repeating the words "baby I'm burning", but still managed to upset Aureya with the line "… each time I kiss you, and everything goes up in flames", all four men started gyrating around where she sat like a lump of salt on her chair. The fact that some thought had gone into the choreography of the piece was only apparent from observing Bones, who, being the excellent dancer that he was, barely looked ridiculous until the halfway point where the clothes started to come off. Kirk's movements and facial expressions were so downright dirty, that the entire bar was in stitches watching him. Pavel resembled nothing so much as a newborn calf, so painfully uncoordinated that Shrem was kept busy leading him around the floor and preventing him from hurting either himself or others.

As the music built dramatically, uniforms started to fly in a mock strip tease, for instead of sexy underwear, all four dancers were sporting shiny yellow leotards with the words "mean, green eat'n' machine" printed on the chest and a large number 22 on the back. After recovering from the shock of being dropped into the middle of all this nonsense, Aureya nearly made herself sick laughing; it had just gone midnight.

As it came close to 0100 hours, Aureya noticed that the bar was beginning to look empty. It was, after all, midweek and they all had classes to attend the next morning. Shrem and her had been debating the choice of a navigator, now that Chekov was no longer available, then changed the subject to the first leg of the ACT and the one day shore leave they would be given while on Andoria, then right back to the question of navigator.

"I trust Pavel's judgement, if he says take Rubens, then I think we should take Rubens." Aureya smiled across the table at Chekov, but he had clearly not heard her and just smiled back with a question in his eyes.

"I worked with Harman last year, and while he's not brilliant, I just can't snub him like that." Shrem stated rather weakly.

"Fine, blame it on me."

"That would make me look whipped." He gave her a little shake of his head that made his antennae wobble a little.

"Oh brilliant, male ego and pride, as if I didn't have enough of that."

"You have a male ego?"

"Never mind,… poker?"

"What?" Shrem looked a little confused.

"Do you play poker?'

"Yea?"

"Fine, we'll play for who's going to be our navigator during shore leave on Andoria, I'm sure the others'll be in, we just divide them into two teams."

"Well then I get Nyo, she can't play." Shrem grinned.

Aureya had to laugh at him:

"You sure are eager to win. Maybe I should rethink being happy about you as my partner for the challenge."

Shrem just smiled and shook his head.

They were all still bearably sober when they left the Green Wolf at around 0215 hours, so Kirk announced:

"We'll have to go for a real thing soon."

"Too much work to do, not gonna happen." Aureya told him from Shrem's back, who had decided that it was necessary to give her an honorary piggyback ride home. Just to get the most out of the evening Kirk, Gaila and Chekov stayed at Eya and Shrem's quarters; things were, however, far more civilised than usual: P'Grell slept on the couch, Kirk and Chekov in his bed, and Gaila shared with Aureya.

Well, things were civilised but for the fact that Gaila was a worse sleep groper than Kirk.

"You are not feeling well today." Commander Spock stated this rather than ask it during office hour the day after Aureya's birthday party.

He had kept their interactions to a bare minimum in the weeks since the incident of the elective hand to hand, had made no further attempts of being friendly with her, and she had accepted this. She had not questioned his judgment, not because she agreed with any apparent decision he seemed to have made, but merely because she was too stunned to think clearly. Her Orion genes had slightly different ideas and made her irritable and jumpy, presumably out of frustration.

"I'm sorry, Sir. I am aware that it is inappropriate to be hung-over for work. I have no excuse." She had taken to using the formal address again, even in private, as he had done likewise. And while she had been able to follow her lectures of that morning without problems, a certain cotton woolly feeling in her head announced that the sleep deprivation and the after effects of the alcohol were catching up with her.

He merely nodded in acknowledgment. She knew him well enough by now to realise that he preferred a simple apology to any excuse. A sentiment she emphatically shared. Without another word to her, Spock handed her a pad of lecture notes to proof. They both worked quietly for the remainder of the hour and it was only when Aureya was packing her bag and was about to leave, that he placed a small fabric covered box on her little desk.

"I would ask you to open this in your quarters.' He told her.

She merely gave him a puzzled look.

"Sir there was no need, I… " She felt a lump in her throat, her slightly delicate condition making her more emotional than usual.

"I insist. You gave me a very thoughtful present for my last birthday, it is only appropriate that I give you something for yours." He was rearranging the objects on his desk as he spoke, a clear indication of his current discomfort.

"Thank you, Sir." She had to swallow her impending tears.

"It is something rather meaningful, it used to belong to my mother, she gave it to me at her last visit." He told her quietly.

"You shouldn't… " She didn't quite know what it was she wanted to say.

"I am sorry for my behaviour towards you. And I am sorry I did not possess the self-control to be your friend." He told her, still not looking at her, but at the picture of his parents on his desk.

"But I need you to understand that I have nothing but the utmost respect, … nothing but affection for you." He looked at her briefly a pained look in his eyes, then returned his gaze to the picture.

"I will not dismiss you from your position as my assistant, but I will not require your services during my office hours any longer. As for your other duties, I see no reason why you should not be able to fulfil those with a minimum of personal contact. I shall change your tutorials to merely once a week and put more emphasis on self study."

Dismissed, Cadet Newman."

Aureya was in shock, she stood with her mouth opening and closing for a moment, then as the meaning of his words fully hit her, her eyes began to well up.

She grabbed the small box, shoved it into her bag and left his office hurriedly. She did not want him to see her cry, not because of the way she knew it affected him, but because she was ashamed at having nothing better to offer in response. She felt like a coward for allowing him to dismiss her like this. All he had were apologies and some trinket of sorts. She could not explain her own feelings at the moment he had sent her from his office, but as her heart rate slowed and her brain began to function again, she was pretty sure she was angry, no that was too meek, she was furious.

When she arrived at her quarters Shrem was, for once, on his own, sprawled on the couch, nose in a pad. Giving him a quick wave, Aureya made her way to the bathroom for some privacy. Her hands were shaking slightly as she reached for the little box and opened the lid carefully. The glint of something metallic caught her eye and as she took a closer look, she saw that on a small silk cushion there was a lovely silver pendant, about the size of a birch leaf, set with pale blue and translucent white stones. Brushing her fingers over it, her breath caught and the lump in her throat that she had carried with her from Spock's office, broke apart, flooding her whole body with the pent up emotion. She was sobbing like a child and Shrem, usually not that perceptive, knocked on the bathroom door.

"You Ok, sweetheart?"

No, she was most definitely not Ok.

"Fine." She choked out, but could hear that her voice would never convince her roommate.

"I'll be fine in a minute." She added, which was just as far from the truth, but at least gave her the option of coming out of the bathroom before the red around her eyes had gone away. When she made her way to the kitchenette, Shrem gave her a concerned look.

"You're not talking about it?"

"No." Her answer was plain and simple and non negotiable.

"Need a hug?"

"Yes." As her friend wrapped his arms around her, he asked into her hair:

"Do I need to be worried?"

"No."

""K then,"

Heartbreak was an odd sort of thing, as far as Aureya could tell; she had experienced nothing that so altered her perception of the world around her. She tried very hard not to feel mild resentment towards Uhura and Bones for that quiet happiness at their constant bickering they exuded whenever she met them together, or to feel as if it was too easy for some, every time Gaila, Shrem, and Kirk made it so blatantly obvious how much fun each others' company was to them. Even Chekov's crush on his student seemed laughably uncomplicated to her. The new, sullen, jealous and angry Aureya was someone she barely recognised in the mirror. She could not bear to look at her friends the way she now did, and decided on a new target for her resentment and blame: Vulcan bloody logic and pride. And while she felt no different about Commander Spock than she had before their little doomed experiment in friendship, many things that he stood for, that he regarded as so superior, were now everything she had sworn to show him up for. She had no desire to hurt him, to humiliate him; she merely wanted to prove to him, and to herself, that he was wrong about something. She wanted to show him, that no matter how much he might want to control things, make the world around him conform to his notions, that certain things were simply out of his hands, were a rule onto themselves.

That much for "a woman scorned".

Not that he had strictly speaking scorned her, not that she had not agreed to everything he had decided for both of them; she had not argued when he had said a relationship was impossible, she had not denied him when he had kissed her, she had been such a push over in every possible way.

Come here puppy… bad puppy, go away puppy.

She had never really had an opportunity to think about what any of this really meant. The realisation of quite how bizarre their mutual attraction was, had only recently taken shape in her mind, she had been too confused by her own feelings to make any judgment on the matter.

What does he even see in me?

What the hell do I see in him?

None of it made sense. But she knew now how to distract herself: the Kobayashi Maru.

"I think we should do it." Aureya folded her hands in front of her chest with a look of utter determination on her face.

"Vhat, but Eya you said it vas not vorth…"

"I know, Pavel, and it might not be, I wouldn't want to make this decision for anyone else. If Kirk is in and happy to be held responsible, then so am I. That doesn't mean you have to be." She knew she was acting like a child; being bold so someone would notice her, pay more attention to her. She didn't care, the idea of irritating him, of eliciting any kind of emotional response from him, made her almost shake with excitement. She suddenly understood the rush he must feel when he saw her cry, her own pleasure seemed to her just as perverse.

"Excellent, that means if we hack it, and damn it, it sure looks like we're going to, you'd be willing to go in and connect the whole thing up." Kirk gave her a grin that was triumphant and worried in equal measure.

"Sure, might as well be me, I'm the smallest and most wiry of us." Aureya smiled at him, a wicked glint in her eyes.

"Cool, we'll make Starfleet history." Gaila chirped. "I'm halfway through the software matrix, it's a good thing the Maru has been around for a while, got the original program through an unsecured link into old library files. I don't know why Commander Spock didn't redo the whole thing from scratch, it would have been safer."

"He has a thing for tradition, probably thought working with the original matrix was a way of continuing the line unbroken." Aureya pointed out.

"Isn't tradition illogical?" Noyota asked.

"Logic is sometimes a bit vague when it comes to the Commander, I think he bends the concept occasionally, when it suits him." Aureya earned herself some amused looks for that.

"You have my sympathy." Kirk told her, and when she gave him a puzzled look he explained:

"It must really suck having to spend so much time with the pointy-eared prick that you start to understand how his mind works. Seriously, my condolences."

"Don't even go there." Aureya mumbled, avoiding Kirk's eyes.

Bones threw her a sympathetic look of a completely different kind at this. She had to hand it to him though, apart from the occasional glance, Bones was as unobtrusive about being in the know as he could possibly manage. It occurred to her briefly that he might be a good candidate to ask for advice, but then concluded that he'd be entirely pragmatic and tell her to get over the whole thing. Well, she intended to, just as soon as Jim, Chekov, Gaila, and herself had wiped the floor with Commander Spock.

Mmmm, it almost seemed as if she felt something like resentment towards old pointy ears, so much for her emotions remaining unaltered.

"H-hhh-o-ly sh-sh-i-t-t-tt." Aureya had intended to follow her curse with an actual sentence, but her teeth were clattering so violently, she thought better of it. As it was, she felt her sentiment had been expressed quite adequately.

Their team consisted of 18 people including herself, only four of whom she had known before the ACT; to her great relief Shrem, Gaila, Kirk and Uhura were all assigned to the same group. Tasked with the search for resources and equipped merely with the most basic away kit, they had been stranded in the middle of the Andorian ice desert and were left to their own devices. They would be closely monitored, so that, unlike on a real mission, there would never be any real danger to anyone's life.

"Beautiful, isn't it?' Shrem was standing next to her, merely dressed in moderate cold weather gear, a big smile on his face.

Aureya contemplated hitting him, but the layers and thick padding of her own clothes made it hard to move, she contemplated giving him a few choice words, but there was still the whole teeth clattering business, so in the end she merely rolled her eyes to heaven, hoping they wouldn't freeze into place while contorted.

A giant padded blob appeared by her side and was only recognisable by bits of green sticking out between snow goggles and balaclava.

"I c-c-cca-a-n't f-f-feel my t-t-oe-ssss." Gaila announced.

Uhura was overseeing the construction of shelter behind them, but they all knew that wouldn't do them much good unless they could construct a heat source.

Giving Shrem a little whack on the arm, Aureya indicated the direction of the crashed glider that had been planted to make the simulation more realistic. Shrem just kept grinning, so she whacked him again, pointing more frantically.

"What? …need to pee?"

Aureya groaned.

"H-h-he-a-tttt." She managed.

"What?"

Aureya gave up and simply grabbed Shrem and dragged him off towards the shuttle. After two hours of picking the shuttle apart and salvaging anything left undamaged by whatever had ended the shuttle's life of active duty, they made their way back to their little camp to find a large tent-like structure and not a single person in sight.

All sixteen remaining members of their team were huddled in a big lump in the middle of the tent.

As they came in Uhura smacked Kirk across the face:

"I-I t-t-t-old y-you-u t-to st-tto-p th-a-ttt."

Apparently not even the most severe of conditions could curb Kirk's groping enthusiasm.

After managing to get the tent to a hospitable temperature, taking inventory of their rations and water supply, they unanimously decided that they would need to send out small teams, one at a time, since they could not afford to have everyone on full output for however long their teachers had decided to leave them stranded. After attempting to enquire about dangerous life forms from Shrem, to which he only responded with a shrug, it became painfully clear that what they had considered to be an advantage, was the exact opposite. Shrem had apparently been instructed not to divulge any information, evening the playing field for all the teams without a native team-mate.

"Charades?" Aureya ventured hopefully.

Shrem shook his head.

Uhura gave an exasperated sigh and cut in:

"There are two main types of predators on Andoria, only one lives in the desert, and it mainly hunts smaller game, so we should be ok, I'd still take a phaser though." Uhura looked a little smug.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the walking encyclopaedia." Aureya announced; the team broke into fake applause.

Noyota wrinkled her nose but smiled anyway.

With a team of five on recon and the other thirteen at base camp at all times, they in fact managed to find some drinking water, some ice roots and even hunt down some of the small white furred mammals quite common on Andoria. Despite their success, the constant white glare, the freezing cold, and the lack of activity soon began to wear down their little group. Aureya decided to appoint Gaila and herself as the "morale team", which Gaila interpreted to apply only to the male team-members and required some instruction on. Storytelling, singing old traditional songs and playing word games or guessing games, were some of the options open to them, since the away kit provided no materials other than survival necessities. After the second day, no one needed any prodding anymore and the base team would readily lapse into old half-forgotten tunes or tell fairy tales and legends to stave off boredom. Even though there were five non-human members in the team, most old stories had a universal message common to all, and seemed to work beautifully in keeping them entertained.

On day five, some had begun to wonder if Starfleet had in fact forgotten about them, their small com unit picked up some static on a secure frequency. Uhura switched off the automated distress call they had been broadcasting and took over on the com.

"Broadcasting on all Starfleet frequencies, this is Lieutenant Uhura from the USS Mariner, marooned on Parton Omega, come in." She duly stated the details supplied for their training mission.

"USS Mariner, this is Captain Pike of the USS Darwin, do you read."

A huge cheer went around base camp and Shrem quickly contacted Kirk and the other four in the away team on the communicator to have them return to base.

As it turned out, their little team was one of only 7 out of the original 32 that had made it as far as day five. Everyone was a little stunned at this, for while it had been bitter cold and unpleasant, none of them had perceived the experience as being anything unmanageable.

Having a well deserved drink in one of Shrem's favourite hang outs, and with the entire following day at their disposal, Aureya spotted Captain Pike and Commander Spock over at a small table not too far from where Shrem, Kirk, Gaila, Uhura, and Bones – happily reunited – were sitting. Markedly avoiding the second man's gaze, she made her way over to Pike to shed some light on their little mystery:

"Excuse me Sir, may I ask you a question?" she was aware that she was now fully ignoring Spock by not giving him the customary greeting, but she truly didn't care.

"Certainly, Cadet Newman."

"Seven? Only seven, really? … I don't mean to sound conceited, Sir, but, … well, it didn't seem that hard."

Pike gave her an amused grin, then laughed outright.

"So you had no idea what you were doing, did you?'

"Sorry, Sir?"

"You and Cadet Gaila?"

"I'm not following, Sir."

"Most of the other teams had massive personal …psychological issues. Cabin fever, I believe it's called. The purpose of the exercise was to demonstrate that adverse conditions are only a small part of the problem if you are stranded in the middle of nowhere. Half of them gave up, the other ones went as far as sabotaging each other, wondering off on the rest of their team into the desert, starting violent fights… stuff you wouldn't believe. This place can drive people crazy."

"Ahm,… Sir, I'm still not following,… what exactly did we do to not go mad?"

Commander Spock's voice cut across the conversation and made Aureya wince:

"I believe you succeeded in distracting your team while simultaneously creating a strong sense of community."

Not looking at him but keeping her eyes on Captain Pike instead, she asked:

"How?"

"Ah yea, that would be all the singing, and playing games, and telling stories, I would say." Pike informed her with a grin.

"Are you bloody serious?"

"Sure looks like it, well done, Cadet."

"Cool."

"Freezing, more like it." Pike joked, white puffs of air escaping as he spoke.

Smiling at him in farewell, then giving him the proper salute, once again ignoring Commander Spock and not being reprimanded by either man, she made her way back to their table. On her way back she heard Pike ask:

"So, what's going on,… what'd you do?'

"I have no comment on the matter."

---

When she reached her table Shrem was already mixing cards.

"So are going to do this or what?"

"Now?... ahm, sure."

"Ok, Kirk and Bones are with you, Gaila and Uhura with me."

Aureya had to laugh at that, for while Gaila was a decent player, Uhura was a novice and Bones and Kirk were heavyweights, Shrem had absolutely no intentions of winning this one.

Wrapped in their winter coats and shivering slightly, they settled into a rather short game of poker, for Shrem kept dropping cards, showing them to the table or turning his deck around "accidentally".

"Reuben it is." He announced.

"Oh, so sorry about that my friend, whatever will you tell Harman?"

Aureya grinned, but was still mildly sorry for the young man who had to go through the Winner's Lap with them last year.

Making her way to the restroom Aureya spotted Commander Spock observing her from the far end of the bar. She made a note of ignoring him once again, but when she was on her way back to her table he intercepted her.

"May I have a quick word with you, Ms Newman?"

"What now, Sir? I think you've said quite enough to me, thank you."

Uncharacteristically he physically stopped her by grabbing her arm.

"I detect a certain note of resentment in your voice."

"You think?"

"Are you being sarcastic?"

Aureya sighed at this, shook her head and noted:

"Yes, Sir, I apologise."

"I have restricted personal contact with you not because I wish to do so, surely you must be aware of this. It merely serves to safeguard the continuation of our relationship in an adequately professional, appropriate form."

Aureya groaned, there was that word again: appropriate.

"You decided on what was most convenient for you, Sir, you never once asked my opinion. …And while I can understand that you feel the need to distance yourself from me, you cannot possibly expect me to be happy about this, I'm having a hard time just being compliant. …As for me being resentful… well, can you blame me?"

Spock merely inclined his head looking at her thoughtfully, then he reached forward towards the collar of her jacket and brushing her neck briefly, making her shiver, this time not from the cold, retrieved a thin silver chain with the pendant dangling from it.

"And despite your resentment you choose to wear this." He stated. His expression was unreadable, but Aureya interpreted it as smug.

Truly infuriated by his arrogance, Aureya slapped his hand away forcefully. He dropped the pendant but almost immediately tried to reach for her once more.

"Don't you dare touch me again." She practically hissed at him. "Don't you dare take liberties… you are the one who ended this, my emotions are none of your concern anymore, that does not mean you don't have to respect them. …Just go back to your stuck up, lonely little life and leave me be. That's what you want, isn't it?" With one last glare at him she turned on her heel and marched back to her table. Fortunately none of her friends had witnessed the little altercation. The Kobayashi Maru could not come fast enough.

A/N: Review please.