A/N: Sorry it's taken so long to update-not that anyone's reading except a few. Oh well. :D Anyway, here's the next installment. I might not be able to write more for a very long time, unfortunately, because I will be studying for my semester exams, which suck-majorly.

Mara grimaced as she ate her dinner. "Problem?" Erik asked as he came over to sit by her. Mara glared at him. "I have several problems," she answered. "One, I am aching all over from fighting with you, which was one of my biggest mistakes ever as it only enhanced the opinion that you and I are having an affair, which in itself is the most disgusting idea ever created in God's galaxies; two, I am wearing a stupid dress that makes me feel very insecure and I have been hit on twice more-"

"One moment," Erik said, holding up his hand. "You didn't lock these in the morgue, did you?" "No," Mara said, "I shoved them in the waste disposal system." "Are you serious?" Erik asked. "To copy you, no, I'm Mara," she said, "but yes, they are now quite uncomfortable." Erik sighed in exasperation. "Continue."

"And thirdly, the food here is worse than army food, which is very hard to believe," Mara finished. "Twice my pepperoni pizza has tried to crawl off my plate, and I think there's something living in my Coke." Erik peered into her glass, and leaped back as something inside it definitely moved.

"Ah-ha," he said. "Sounds horrid." "Yeah, and you could set me free from all my misery by just firing me!" Mara said. "No," Erik said. "Not likely." Mara groaned in frustration, and was about to slam her head on the table when she thought twice of it: afraid that her head might start aching again, and also afraid that the pizza might try to crawl on her.

"Go away then," she moaned. "'K," he said cheerfully, and went to dispose of his lunch. "Could you throw the Coke away while you're at it?" Mara asked, her voice muffled as she rubbed her sore eye.

"I'm not going anywhere near your Coke," Erik said. "I'm too afraid it might try to suck my brain out." "That wouldn't be a bad thing," Mara shot back weakly. Erik peered closer at her. "Dr. East, are you all right?" "I'm fine." Mara forced herself up, feeling her head aching even more. "I have to get back to work." "You don't look so well," Erik said. Mara laughed. "Concerned about my health, Admiral? I'm fine. I just have a headache that reaches down to my ankles. Now leave me alone. There are a lot of sick people that need taking care of."

"Yeah, yourself included," Erik said. "Go lie down. You look like death." Mara laughed at him. "Well, wouldn't that be a good thing for you?" "Not when you're the only doctor on this ship," Erik said. "You're flushed, shivering, and look like you're about to hurl on my shoes."

"You're very observant, Admiral," Mara said, and her chest started heaving. "Whoa, whoa!" Erik leaped back as Mara threw up right where his shoes had been. As soon as she was done, she collapsed on the floor, her eyes staring dully around the room. "I didn't know they still had the flu in the twenty-third century," she said. "You have the flu?" Erik asked as he and some nurses helped her up. "That would be my diagnosis," she said. "Either that or the pizza was a poisonous snake in disguise."

"So you're contagious?" Erik asked. "Yup," Mara said. "Are you sure you have the flu?" Erik asked anxiously as he let another nurse take the arm he had been holding. "To quote on of the loves of my life, 'I go hot and cold. I have enough nausea to light up the city of Toledo, and I have fever to burn. Now am I sick or just in love?" The next second her head lolled back and she went completely limp against the nurses as they bore her away to her rooms.

"Great, just what we need," Erik groused. "The flu. Well, back to work people! Let's hope the nurses can handle this."

Within two days, practically the whole ship was down with the flu. One poor frazzled nurse was trying to run everything by herself, giving shots and trying to keep everyone happy all at once. Even Erik had the flu but he stubbornly didn't let himself feel the effects of it and kept on leading the ship while people dropped like flies all around him.

Mara was finally starting to feel better and was trying desperately to recuperate to help with the sick people, but so far she couldn't even get up without falling down again. So she lapsed into a sleep full of dreams-both disturbing and sweet.

"Admiral!" a panicked ensign called out. "Yes?" Erik cleared his head of the fog that he had absent-mindedly let take over him. Only pure willpower was keeping him from falling over and hurling his guts onto the floor. "Romulan warbird!" But by now it was too late, and Erik collapsed into unconsciousness, feeling the comforting blackness embrace him and he drifted into a dreamless sleep as the flu took him over. And the ensign prepared to be blasted away to death-but the warbird merely took them into its tractor beam and pulled them closer.

Mara pulled herself from the haze to hear people running around and calling to each other in urgent voices. She pulled herself up, and pulled on her robe, holding on to the wall to keep her world from turning her upside down.

"Rhonda!" she called out, sounding like a weak puppy. "What's happening?" Rhonda hurried over to her, eyes wide and her lips in a straight line. "The Romulans have us in a tractor beam," she said tightly. "Get back in bed." "Which one?" "Which one what?" Rhonda asked in confusion. "Which warbird? The RIW Kaleh?" "Oh, hell, I don't know," Rhonda said. "They all look the same to me."

So she got back in her bed, but insisted on keeping on her robe. As soon as Rhonda was gone, she put her hand under her pillow and pulled out a phaser she kept there, just in case a stupid crewman went too far. She switched it on and listened to the faint steady hum, and pushed it to kill.

"They're coming!" came the faint cry, and Mara took that to assume that the Romulans were boarding the ship, or they were sending Federation members to board the Romulan warbird. Either way, she didn't care.

Mara shoved herself up and out of the bed, hauling herself along the wall, and managed to close her door with a soft whisk, and hid in the dark corner of the room where she could easily shoot any intruders. I can't believe I'm doing this, she thought to herself. I've never killed anyone. She glanced at her phaser, wondering briefly whether she should only set it to stun, and did so, not thinking that she could manage to kill someone-even if they weren't a human being. She was in the saving-people's-lives business, not the taking-people's-lives business.

I hate my guilty conscience, Mara thought. That got me into trouble in college when we dissected cats. I cried for weeks.

Just then she heard a fierce voice ask, "Where is Dr. East?" Mara gripped the phaser tighter in her hand, as her heart beat faster, and the world started spinning again. Just then her door whisked open, shedding light on her. "Dr. East-" began a Romulan, but Mara didn't even let him finish as she squeezed the trigger and stunned him. As more Romulans started pouring in, she aimed and stunned as much as she could, although she missed nine times out of ten since their were three of each Romulan in her blurry vision.

Finally, one Romulan grabbed her arm and took away the phaser, but Mara reached out desperately with her other free hand and found a spare crowbar that she also kept by her bed, and there was a clang as metal met flesh, and the Romulan's eyes rolled up and he collapsed to the floor. But before Mara could grab the phaser, another Romulan took away both the phaser and the crowbar, and tossed them to another man.

"Get up," he said in a harsh voice. Mara stared at him, trying to decide whether to give him one of her snappy comebacks or a very sore shin, but as she was about to swing her foot at his shin she thought twice as her head started to spin again.

And so she pushed against the wall and stood up. "Let's go," the Romulan snapped at her, and grabbed her arm as he started to walk, then stopped again when she started stumbling as she wasn't sure whether she was going to walk into a wall or not. "Sorry," Mara lied, "but I can't walk. I have a fever of 102.7, I believe, and the flu. Are Romulans susceptible?"

The Romulan looked at his other comrades and they shrugged. He rolled his eyes and started to just drag her along the floor. "Leave me alone!" Mara protested. "I can walk!" He raised his eyebrow, and let go of her arm. Mara fell down with a thump. She sighed miserably, and gave him her hand and he half-carried half-dragged her to the transport room.

Mara gasped at seeing Erik's limp form. "What did you do?" she demanded. "Is he dead?" "No, he's unconscious," one of the Romulans answered her. "I think he's sick." "Oh, perfect," Mara muttered. "The admiral just had to choose this moment to give in to the flu."

Mara stared straight ahead as the Romulan kept a firm grip on her arm, and wished that she had never gone to see that stupid Broadway play as her atoms were whisked away to the Romulan warbird.