Ensign Andrew Riker glanced up from his work in concern at the panic in Dr. Abbey Paris' voice as she requested a beam-out from the wreckage. His eyes fell on the table in the command center just in time to see the petite physician appear in a cloud of blue light. As soon as she fully materialized, she dropped the med kit she was clutching in her hand and sprinted away from the crowd.

"Why do they always run away?" Riker muttered to himself, less than ten seconds behind her, running as hard as he could to catch up. Although he considered himself to be in pretty good shape, he could see that despite the fact that his legs were probably a good thirty centimeters longer than hers, his Betazoid quarter had nothing on her Klingon quarter. He was pretty sure he wasn't gaining any ground; if anything, she seemed to be pulling away from him.

She finally came to a halt about half a kilometer away from the command table, her small chest heaving, not from the exertion of the run, but from the emotions that caused it in the first place. Although his empathic abilities were nothing compared to a full Betazoid, or even his half-Betazoid mother, he still had to steel himself to approach.

"Paris?" he asked tentatively. "Abbey? Are you alright?"

"Go away, Riker," she said between clenched teeth. As he got closer, he could see the tears streaming down her face. "I'm serious, Ensign. Leave me alone."

"No," he said, softly but firmly. She glared at him with a force that could melt duritanium before turning on her heels and stalking away. She walked a few meters before taking a seat on the top of a picnic-type table, her back still to the pilot. Riker blew an exasperated breath through pursed lips and glanced around, realizing for the first time that he was in a park of some sort. Strange city, he mused, reflecting on the parks and stadiums in the middle of the metropolis, surrounded by tall skyscrapers.

He took a slow walk around the park, giving the doctor a few minutes to cool down before joining her on the tabletop. At some point in the rubble or in the run from it, her long braid had worked its way out of the knot at her neck and hung down her back, several loose locks falling around her face. Tears were no longer falling from her eyes, but he could still see the tracks they had made down her face. Her gaze was locked straight ahead, fixed on nothing, her mind obviously focused inward. "I told you to leave me alone, Ensign," she finally said, still not looking at him. "Doesn't anybody listen to a damned thing anyone says around here?"

He smiled slightly at her profanity and the fact that it was in Federation Standard, not Klingon as it was earlier. Like most teenaged boys, he spent a great deal of time learning to swear in a variety of languages, but the Klingon words that had come out of her mouth as she operated on Savin Colbee Peretal would have made even the most brazen of teenagers blush. "I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings as I followed you here. I think I'd get lost if I tried to find my way back alone."

She rolled her eyes at the obvious attempt to cheer her up and shivered slightly in the cool night air. Holding her arms tightly to her chest, she rubbed them vigorously as if trying to warm herself. "Here," Riker said, shrugging out of his red uniform top and draping it over her shoulders. It was large enough to wrap around her twice and long enough for her to use as a cocktail dress, but it would probably keep her warm.

"You're going to get cold," she protested, seeing that he was wearing only the standard light-weight black tee-shirt now. She tried to give the uniform top back to him, but he refused, shaking his head.

"Betazoids don't have as much problem with the cold as Klingons," he said. "Besides, I lived in Alaska growing up. Well, I lived in Alaska for the few weeks a year we weren't in space. This would be a balmy summer evening." She shivered involuntarily at the thought of such cold weather. Even growing up in San Francisco had been too cold for her. "I should make you pay for use of that jacket," Riker said after a pause. "Such as, dinner?"

She snorted derisively. "I told you, I don't date pilots."

"Well, luckily for me, I'm not really a pilot."

She arched an eyebrow, studying him out of the corner of her eye. "I should probably let Captain Lopez know that," she said dryly. "I'm sure he'd like to know that someone who isn't a pilot has been taking one of his fighters out for a ride."

He chuckled. "Okay, okay, so I'm a pilot now, but not one of those born and bred for the job pilots. I wasn't born in a Borg transwarp conduit between the Delta and Alpha quadrants or anything." She stiffened slightly at the mention of her older sister's birth, and he quickly continued before she had too much time to dwell on the fact that he knew intimate details of her family members' lives. "Flying and being a Starfleet officer is my second career," he explained. "I didn't want anything to do with Starfleet when I completed my secondary school studies. I went on to the University of Betazed, majored in music performance. After graduation, I played in a group on Risa for a couple of years. When the war started, I went back to school and into the flight program at the Academy."

"Music major, huh?" Paris repeated. "What did you play?"

"A little bit of everything," he said with a smile. "I started with the trumpet. My dad plays the trombone and loves jazz. I practically grew up in this holodeck program he had of some New Orleans bar. As I got older, I started playing through each of the positions in the band. The music department at UB has very strict proficiency requirements for performance majors. I had to perform recitals in two or three instruments from each class, as well as voice." He grinned. "And that is definitely not my best instrument. What about you? What do you play?"

"What makes you think I play?"

Catching her by surprise, he grabbed her hand, studying her long, thin fingers. "These are definitely musician's hands," he observed.

"Piano," she said, snatching her hand back. "Since I was five."

"You still play?" She nodded. "We should get together sometime and jam," he said with a grin. "I know a great bar in New Orleans."

"You never give up, do you?" she asked in disbelief. She shivered again, pulling the large red uniform top tight.

"I'm very persistent," he agreed as she began rolling up the long sleeves of his uniform jacket to her wrists. "I've been told it's one of my best traits."

"You've been told wrong," she retorted. She released her braid, using her fingers to comb through the knots, causing dust and small slivers of wood to fall away before she quickly rebraided it and again tied it at the nape of her neck.

She suddenly stiffened, her eyes growing wide. "Paris to Kellogg," she said, tapping her combadge. "What's Saime's status?"

*Just a second, I'm in surgery with Jackson right now,* the physician replied over the comm link. A minute later, he said, *I just asked a medic. He's asleep now. He was complaining of pain and he has a standing order for pain meds, so the nurses gave him some more, and he was out a few minutes later.*

"Is he still tachycardic?" she asked, getting up from her seated position on the table.

*I assume so, Dr. Kellogg said. He's been tachycardic as long as I've been watching him. I assume it's a combination of his baseline and elevations from pain.*

She swore slightly under her breath, now walking briskly back toward the field hospital. Riker, sure that she had forgotten he was even there, got up to follow. "He's an athlete," Paris said. "He would be bradycardic, in any species' physiology. He needs to get to surgery. The pain is coming from his heart."

*His heart?* Kellogg asked, baffled. *The pain is in his abdomen.*

Paris was now jogging back toward the hospital, Riker still following from a safe distance. "I can't believe I didn't remember this until just now," she said. "I've been going over the textbook on Zevian physiology in my head. The heart is innervated by what translates as the vagal nerve. That's what controls the rhythm, but as far as pain, the heart is tied into the visceral fibers. Injury to the heart is received by the brain as referred pain to the abdomen in Zevians, much like a human would feel pain in the left shoulder."

Now it was Kellogg's turn to swear. *I can't believe I missed that. Shit. I can't step out of this surgery.*

"I don't want you to," Paris said. "I'm on my way over now. Get the medics to move him to a surgical field and have a nurse standing by to assist me. I want to start operating as soon as I arrive, which will be in about two minutes."

*He'll be ready,* Kellogg promised. *Good catch, Paris.*

"Let's hope it wasn't too late," the quarter-Klingon replied grimly. She signed off the comm link and picked up the pace.