Mara blinked her eyes open and found herself staring up at a white ceiling. She forced her dry eyes to blink again, wincing in slight pain as a headache began to pound.

She got up and looked around the room she was in, brushing down the skirt of her green dress as she did so, and holding her head in a loose grip, her now really tangled hair standing on end as she did not recognize her surroundings.

She was in a room with a bunch of strange-looking things that she assumed were beds, but had a bunch of buttons and computers and junk attached to them. There were doors to offices that were empty and dark, and cabinets filled with bottles and other things she did not recognize. She spotted a few tables that were bare, long, and empty, apparently just there for looks, but the surface was glowing.

Mara frowned slightly. It looked almost like a hospital. Mara shook her head in disbelief and then uttered a pained, "Ow!" as her head sent blasts of pain throughout, sending flashes of colors in front of her eyes.

She stood still for a moment until her vision cleared, and then looked around, taking extra care not to jolt her head too much. The thought of that pre-caution immediately flew out of her head as soon as she saw Erik's lifeless body. She uttered a short gasp, and ran over to his side, checking for a pulse, and sighed in relief as she found one.

"Thank God," she muttered. Mara had no intention of being held responsible for a senator's death. "He must have fainted," she said to herself. "The book says to gently shake him into consciousness." She scoffed. "Yeah, right. Since when have I ever done anything by the book?"

She grabbed his shoulder and roughly shook him until his teeth rattled. "Erik! Wake up!" she yelled in his ear. "OW!!!!!!!!!" Erik wailed as his ears started to ring and his head was a blur of pain. He felt his head touch the floor again, and when he finally got his eyes open, there were three women standing in front of him dressed in a green dress, arms crossed, and scowling down at him. Finally, the three women merged into one and he became aware it was Mara.

"Oh, no," he moaned. Mara rolled her eyes and bent down, grabbing his forearms and pulling him up. He wavered and held onto her arms to stand up straight.

Just then, the doors burst open, and a man dressed in a strange blue uniform ran in, helping to carry another man who was unconscious. "Sorry to interrupt your date, sirs!" the man said.

"You think we were dating?" Mara and Erik yelped.

Mara and Erik looked at each other in disgust and horror, and Mara let go of his arms, and Erik fell straight back to the floor, with a sickening thud.

"Ow!" Erik complained again. "Oh, be a man," Mara chastised him. "Dr. East, this man needs medical attention at once!" the man in blue said impatiently.

"Dr. East?" Mara repeated in disbelief. "I'm not a doctor, I'm a nurse!" "Dr., this is no time to play games!" the man said, now a bit angry. "Lt. Harris was hit by a phaser blast! He needs medical attention now!"

"But, I...I..." Mara said, helpless. The man continued over to help Erik up. Admiral, we need you on the bridge." "Admiral?" Erik asked, caught off guard. The man looked slightly puzzled. "Yes, sir. Immediately. Romulans are attacking and we need you." Erik immediately fell into his role. "All right. Follow me."

Before walking out of the room, he turned to Mara and smiled deviously. "Dr., I trust you have everything under control here?"

Mara gritted her teeth, and muttered, "Why, you little-"But he was gone in a flash, and she was left alone with an unconscious man. Clearly, she was not in New York anymore. Tentatively, she felt for a pulse. It was weak, but steady.

"Um..." Mara said.

"Dr.?"

Mara nearly jumped a mile high to hear a voice behind her. She whirled around and sighed in relief to see a puzzled looking woman in a red uniform behind her. "Why do you hesitate?" the woman asked.

"Well, I...are you a nurse?" Mara asked stupidly.

The woman raised her eyebrows. "I am," she said carefully. "Okay, then here's a test for you: what would you recommend we do now?" Mara asked, hoping the woman knew more than she did.

The nurse walked over, looking calmly at the man, and turned to Mara. "We give him a hypospray, some kihule, and total bed-rest," she diagnosed. "If it was only phaser, we will not have to surgically remove anything from his system."

"Exactly!" Mara said, relieved. "Congratulations, you pass." The nurse beamed with pleasure and waited. "What?" Mara asked. "He needs a hypospray," the nurse said, as if reminding her.

"Oh! Right! Hypospray, hypospray..." she searched different cabinets, scattering through different shelves and bottles dropped from the shelves and to the floor. "Where'd I put that damn hypospray?"

The now dubious nurse picked up a hypospray off the floor and handed it to her. Mara laughed nervously. "I knew that. I was just...testing you again. Congratulations once more, you pass."

As she and the nurse headed back to where the patient was resting and Mara tried to figure out how the stupid thing worked, while realizing that she was most definitely not in New York anymore.

Valerie smiled as she sat in the control seat of her Romulan warbird. Life was so beautiful, she thought. She was living out her life now as a Romulan in charge of a warbird, and was now attacking a Federation ship.

Could life get any sweeter? No, she thought, it most certainly could not.

Well...at least until a Romulan officer named Vokar walked onboard. She looked at him and couldn't look away. He was so cute...And then he looked at her, and they were caught in each other's eyes...

She was jolted out of her reverie as they came within firing range of a Federation ship. "Sir! Do I fire?" barked someone. She answered immediately, "Fire!"

And they fired at the Federation ship where Mara was hopelessly lost as a doctor and Erik was hopelessly wonderful as a leader...

A/N: Sorry if the Romulan and sickbay part was unrealistic: I wasn't quite sure what to do and I don't know that much about stuff like that. Also, sorry if the Vokar part was too much, Val...if you don't like it, rewrite it and I'll replace that section. ï