As Selma awoke the next day, she sat up and had the sinking realization that her body was very achy. She felt a pang of disappointment, but then remembered everything she had done the day before upon her arrival at the station:

After receiving her office location, she went to view it, and set it up according to her level of comfort and efficiency. When that was completed to her satisfaction, she went on an unofficial tour of the station. She had even spied out a preferred location for the early hours of the morning where she planned on sending off the morning shift miners and greeting the returning night shift workers every day. In the middle of all this, she happened to meet person after person living on the station, some miners, some not, eager to see what she had brought along with her to liven up their lives.

Once all of that was done, she returned to her quarters and entered her official schedule for that week. Lastly, she went on to complete more coursework in an effort to stay ahead of things. She found herself falling asleep in the wee hours of the morning, knowing this was not a good habit to continue. She promised herself that going forward, she would not do this to herself again.

So when she sat up in bed that morning, Selma tried to stretch past the achy feelings in her muscles. She had been putting together a piece of equipment the night before to drag down to the outtake area on her first day. "Thank goodness I don't officially start until tomorrow," she muttered to herself. Deciding to heed Station Director Routh's advice, Selma fell backward in bed and re-set her alarm to awaken her in four hours. She needed more sleep before proceeding with her plans for the day and decided it would be better if she were well-rested before trying to take on her new world of station life.

The next time she awoke that day, Selma felt more able to get up and out of bed. Still achy, she was at least able to shuffle her way to the shower. After checking, she saw that the water reserve for her quarters would allow her to technically grab a 5 minute real water shower every day. She decided to use save water and use the sonic shower function to get clean first, and then finish it off with a two minute blast of hot water.

Though sonic showers almost felt massage-like to the skin and muscles, there was no substitute, to her, for the sensation of hot water to finish things off in order to fully relax the body. It was the best feeling E-V-E-R after weeks in space with nothing but sonics to clean her skin.

After going through her personalized self-moisturizing program for her skin, she paid careful attention to the proper moisturization of her afro textured hair. Cutting it so short had gone a long way toward having more time to attend her duties, but she still had to pay close attention to it's moisture levels. The hot water in the shower would help the hair follicles absorb the conditioner she added to her hair afterward and then her curls were popping! Ready to proceed with her day, Selma decided to forgo cosmetics and got herself into a plain black jumpsuit to get some things set up in her office.

##

Thevaar

He was surprised to see Selma Tillerson-Parker making her way into her office that day. It wasn't at all far from his, though she was in fact closer to Routh's. Though he had already made up his mind about who she happened to be, he was still surprised and curious as to what she was doing on what was still her time off.

Watching from across the way as she went into her office dragging bags of things in with her, he automatically wondered what she was carrying in such an excessive amount?

But she went into her office and the door closed behind her. He could see nothing else.

##

Selma

She stood in her office and found herself thinking, again, that this was by far the biggest office she had ever had. Before setting up, she found herself just standing there in the space, looking around herself, actually getting a bit choked up. "Go on, girl!" she said about herself, actually full of pride. "Go ON!"

After meticulously putting away every part of her data collection, Selma sat down and tried to set up her computer's subspace communications link. She needed to hand in her assignments, but she didn't understand why she kept getting 'access denied' alerts. Sighing on a deep breath, she Looked down at her PADD trying to figure out why the access information given her by Station Head Routh wasn't working. She figured she would give it one last try before calling him up to get some help.

The door to her office opened, and she did a doubletake at who had entered. There stood the Vulcan she had met when she'd first arrived. She was already annoyed that she couldn't finish taking care of her school work submissions and now this? "Oh, it's you," fell from her lips.

##

Thevaar

He didn't understand why she was looking at him as if he were an uninvited guest. After her initial, 'oh it's you,' the silence sat there and stretched out between them.

"May I help you?" she finally asked when she got tired of waiting for him to say something, her voice and facial expression more serious than he had assumed it could ever be. Her eyebrows were raising as she waited, her lips pursed, and she had paused in the middle of doing whatever it was she was attempting to do.

"I received an alert from this office of someone attempting to access subspace communications." He was not at all hiding his suspicious thoughts.

She didn't know what he was trying to accuse her of and she mostly didn't care. "The information I was given to access subspace communications isn't working," she said, unbothered by the body language he was giving off. She could tell he was assuming this was a restricted action for her. He's gonna feel STUPID when he realizes-

He took the PADD she had referred to as having the subspace information and looked it over. It appeared that Director Routh had sent her this access link. Why would he do so? "And your reason for wishing to access subspace communications?"

She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms, and looked up at him with a cool defiant raise of her chin. "Exactly why do you need to know?"

He could see from the look on her face and the sound of her voice that she didn't care for his asking about her need to access the communications array. He took that as an admission of guilt. "We shall see." He went over to her intercom and opened hailing. "Thevaar to Routh."

"Routh here," came his answer through the com system.

"Is there some reason Ms. Tillerson-Parker was given a non-working subspace access code?" In his mind the fact that it did not work partway proved that she had come across the code by unscrupulous means.

Routh could be heard issuing curses under his breath in Andorian. "Ah! Parker! It doesn't work? That's my fault! I'll send her a corrected link! Is she there?"

"I'm here! It's my office, after all," Selma answered for herself before Thevaar could open his mouth again.

"I'll send it straightaway," he promised. "I apologize for this inconvenience. Is your school work late, Ms. Parker?"

"I'm good for now," she answered as if he were the one standing in her office and not the Vulcan in front of her. "I like to get ahead of my work. Why wait until the last minute?"

"I agree!" Routh mused. "I will go now and send you a new one within five minutes, is that all right?"

"That is fine by me, Director!" she smiled. The connection cut and her smile was instanly gone as she looked up at Thevaar. "Satisfied?"

He was the one that was now confused. School? "School?" he couldn't help but ask.

"My scholastic endeavors are none of your concern," she said as she stood and went over to a section of her office that was as far from him as possible. She also turned her back to him as she began searching among her data collection, trying to do anything that would help her keep her temper from going off.

And he realized then, that perhaps he had misjudged not only this situation, but also her character. "Ms. Parker, there has been a misunderstanding. I am willing to reconsider my original impression of you, if you are willing to communicate your-"

That was IT! She was now walking to the door of her office, didn't even let him finish his sentence. Her eyes were the only things that showed her anger as she said with contained outrage, "I should communicate with you so that you can reconsider your impressions? You can get right out of my office," she said quickly in a semi-dismissive manner. I don't care how good-looking you are with that smooth dark skin, with your tall fine self!

He hadn't expected this reaction. "Ms. Parker, explain yourself."

"I don't have to, Mr. Thevaar," she said as she lifted a hand, and shooed him out of her office space. "You obviously didn't get the memo. When it comes to me or anything I do, outside of my job duties? Your approval isn't needed."

"Needed or Necessary?" he asked as he stepped out of her office since he had been asked to leave.

It took only a few seconds for what he had said to sink in. Did- did he just try to correct my grammar? Her hand made a catch and throwaway motion as if she were grabbing his verbal correction out of the air and throwing it aside. "I said what I said. Have a nice day."

Having already been gestured out, he found himself facing the outside of her office as the door closed in his face. No one had ever treated him in such a manner. He was fascinated.

a/n - I will try to upload another chapter of this late today or tomorrow. J.S.