Over the next few weeks, Selma found herself changing her office up again and again. But she eventually found the right configuration that helped her begin running a very efficient entertainment and mediation service for the members aboard station.

She opened her first service station in the outtake/intake area Mondays through Fridays. As soon as the miners realized that she would be there every morning with different flavors of coffee and other hot liquids, and any additives that you could put into it, they started showing up just a little bit earlier before it was time to board the outgoing shuttles. An interesting side effect of this development? There were less incidences of miners missing outgoing shuttles on those days. The moods of the workers seemed a bit less grim after getting hot coffee or liquids of their choice into their systems.

For workers on their way back from the opposite shift, a few still wanted coffee to remain awake for a piece of their day before catching sleep later, but others took advantage of the hot tea, chai, cocoa, as well as Denobulan spiced drinks, and hot Andorian drink options.

After her send-off and welcome duties were finished, Selma would go to her office and grab a quick breakfast and then take care of any conflict resolutions and disputes between not just miners, but miners and their managers, managers and station personnel, et cetera. She would take off the rest of the week after a very late lunch Monday through Thursday to work on her school coursework.

In addition to hot drink mornings, and conflict resolution, Selma made certain to have Wednesday matinees from 11:00 am-1:30 pm for anyone not on duty. Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings were her biggest times, since there was a movie/stage location onboard station. The hours of 6-11 p.m. were always filled with movies, karaoke, and/or some kind of talent show for the entire station's personnel at the theater. The night shift miners appreciated being able to catch that matinee while the day shift crew were appreciative of whatever was going on during the weekend. Sundays were reserved for special family activities since more people were bringing spouses, life partners, and children to live with them at the station. A school had also been set up by another station employee, and Selma was in the initial stages of partnering with them for special class trips for various age groups during the schoolyear.

Selma found herself in a real rhythm by the time she had been aboard station for a few weeks. What she also was, was ridiculously tired. She was working seven days a week. At first it was fine because she was, mostly, having fun.

It was officially starting to feel 'not so fun' anymore.

It became obvious to not only Routh, but also Thevaar, that she was burning her proverbial candle from both ends. Routh had quickly become one of her friends, but Thevaar had gotten the impression that he ought to stay out of her way. He willingly acquiesced. Some part of him did respect her drive and ambition. Surely there had to be some reason she was doing this to herself! But what could it be? He did not know and he knew better than to ask. The two seemed perfectly fine avoiding one another. Selma was certainly fine, but Thevaar did wish he could have been a better individual toward her from the beginning.

One not so fine morning as she was preparing her coffee station, something happened that changed the course of their relationship drastically.

##

Selma was in the thick of serious coursework, and one of her papers needed to be turned in. She had stayed awake much longer than usual to finish her work. At some point that night, she looked up at the clock and was startled to realize she was going to have to get up to set up at the intake/outtake in a matter of hours!

After sleeping for a meager three hours, she awoke an hour ahead of her usual time in order to proofread the paper she had finished writing only hours before. She ran to her office to send it out via subspace. Once the paper was on its way, she issued an audible sigh of relief. She would make her deadline, after all. But she cringed thinking about how it would be time to do this again for another paper in only two days.

Though exhausted, she did have a small feeling of contentment after having handed in some work, so her spirit was light as she happily went down to the coffee station to finish her daily setup. As chance would have it, the water had not been brought up for her to finish filling in the water tanks. "Oh, brother…" It was literally the last thing she needed to get the show on the road that morning. The workers would be there in an hour wanting the hot liquids of their choice!

After checking to see about the holdup, they were able to finally open things up to pipe in the water. All of the tanks began to fill… except for one.

"Selma," one of the young women from the maintenance crew said via intercom, "give us fifteen minutes. The chief will come and check that thing out."

"Ah, it's no big deal," Selma answered as she began to climb the ladder. "It's probably just a clog in the hose or something," she opined as she checked the intake gauge. "I've worked those out before."

"If you say so," said the maintenance person. "But I really think you ought to wait for us to come up there and take care of it." Selma was already putting on a glove.

She climbed the ladder and leaned over into the big vat. She had to shimmy in more than was comfortable, half of herself was in and half out as she hung on the side of it. Selma found the intake hose and tried to stick a gloved finger into it, but found the internal port had not opened. "Yes, there it is!" she manually opened the port by sliding it to the side and the water finally began spilling into the giant tank. They would have to check, later on, why the port hadn't opened when it was supposed to. Selma was still at the top of the vat, half her body still hanging up there teetering on the edge. But something about the water beginning to enter the tank, the look and sound of it as it began to fill up... there was something hypnotic about it, something so- very- relaxing… and she was so- TIRED-

Her eyes, that quickly, started to close. Selma fell, head first, into the vat of now rapidly rising water. She didn't know what had happened or why, but she lost her footing and that was that.

The maintenance woman that had been speaking with her via incom could see it happening across the quad from far away. She couldn't believe her eyes, because not only had she just up and fallen in, but Thevaar had been passing by and that quickly he had practically flown up the ladder and stepped into the vat to retrieve her body.

"Damn, he's fast," quipped the maintenance woman as she sprang into action calling the infirmary about the developing emergency.

##

Selma's head was fuzzy. All she could see was a light being flashed into her eyes as someone was holding open her eyelid. "Hmm?" was all she could get out.

"She's coming out of it now," she heard a voice say. Was that Dr. Greenlink?

The light being flashed into her eyes was starting to assault her. Where was she? "I'm in med bay?" How had she gotten here? "What happened?"

"It would seem," Dr. Greenlink said as he put down the light, but continued scanning her with a medical tricorder, "you have a fondness for taking impromptu swims in giant tanks of water meant to feed into hot water stations. Foolish, really."

She knew he was teasing her and the edge of her memory remembered the horrifying realization that she was falling into a vat of water that was getting higher even as she hit the surface of it.

"If it hadn't been for Operations Manager Thevaar, you'd have drowned. That impact put you out in seconds. You have a nasty bump on your head."

She looked over just as Dr. Greenlink moved out of the way and saw the soaking wet Vulcan sitting on the biobed next to hers, a blanket draped over his shoulders. Her eyes looked up and into his. For the first time, she felt like he was actually looking at her, not judging her. But he did look terribly annoyed. "You have been working excessively," were the first words out of his mouth. "You have treated yourself with insufficient care and you have caused harm to yourself."

I think he just told me off. I deserve it, but damn. She couldn't help but be amused by it, though. Was this Vulcan actually upset at her? "Well thank you for saving my life," she said, only halfway sarcastic. But she really did know that she would have been messed up if he hadn't been there.

"Your gratitude is noted, but my actions were logical. I could not stand by and not act. We will not stand by and allow you to harm yourself again."

Uh-oh… "What does that mean? We?"

"The doctor, Station Director Routh and I all agree, you must find a better equilibrium between your duties aboard this station and your coursework. The maintenance crew is also not pleased at the special cleanup being undertaken of the receptacle that you fell into and I was forced to enter so that I may retrieve you."

She did feel guilty at the thought of the maintenance crew having to do the extra work because of her. "Ugh."

"Perhaps, if you are in need, we may work together and find an optimum way to rearrange your schedule so this will not happen again."

She wanted to open her mouth and object to his meddling. But then she realized two key facts. Number 1: He wasn't wrong. She hadn't found a good balance at all. And Number 2: He was currently in the very undignified position of being soaking wet after saving her from her accident. Just shut up and work with the man for now.

She sighed deeply. "You're right. I've been careless trying to get it all done."

His opinion of her shifted yet again. He found himself prompted to confess, "I must at this time address your displeasure at my behavior when first we met. You were correct. I was incorrect."

She found herself speechless. She hadn't expected him to say anything about that, and she most certainly hadn't expected him to take any blame.

"I misjudged you. I was wrong." He said nothing for a time and then another confession, of sorts, seemed to flow out of him almost involuntarily. "Given my past-" he paused, his eyes were not looking into hers for those seconds, "-I should have known better than to assume anything without further evidence."

She found herself nodding. If he could do an about-face like that without having a kick to his ego, she knew she had to give him a chance to work this off. "All right. We can start over. First impressions don't really mean anything, after all." But she did wonder, what did he mean by 'given his past'? What happened in his past? She figured, now was not the time to ask.

Dr. Greenlink returned just then. "I am releasing you to your quarters, however you are to do no strenuous activity for 48 hours. Give that concusison some time to heal. I'll provide you a note if you need it for your coursework. I'll also speak with Director Routh myself. He's ridiculously understanding, so you'll be fine." As he finished putting together her instructions for release from med bay, the doctor continued tapping things on his PADD as he said offhand, "Thevaar can walk you to your quarters."

"Whoa, wait, what?" asked Selma as she sat up much too quickly and felt a wave of dizziness. Before she could control her reaction, she found herself moaning in discomfort, "Oooohh," but recovering quickly enough to declare, "No, no, he doesn't have to take me any-"

"Illogical," Thevaar interjected as he stood. "I will make certain you reach your quarters safely."

Dr. Greenlink nodded. "Thank you. I have a med bay full of patients, the site to site transporters are being repaired, and the station just lost it's last nurse."

Selma looked at him in horror. "Lost it's last nurse?"

The doctor realized what she thought he'd meant. "No, not in that way! The nurse, he- he just got up and left. Packed up his desk, muttered something about being 'sick of this shit', and went directly to the next outgoing shuttle."

"That's messed up," Selma muttered to herself, but then remembered that Thevaar was waiting. She looked up into his warm, dark eyes. She couldn't help but notice just how smooth his extra dark skin happened to be, the beautiful placement of his facial features... those lips. 'Well… how am I just now realizing he's extra FINE...'