She never told Jim Kirk that she wasn't in love with him.
First year of Starfleet wasn't the bundle of fun Gaila thought it would be. She never expected it to be easy of course, or everyone would be doing it. And it's not like she has a family to miss back home.
But she'd thought that it would be a veritable feast of new cultures for her to sample, boys and girls laid out in front of her like a buffet of love. She really likes that phrase; buffet of love. It's how she sees life. Gaila is very much a lover not a fighter, and even though most people tell her that Starfleet isn't right for her if that's her motto, she likes to disagree. Because she's read the rules really carefully, and deep space exploration is all about discovering new cultures and embracing them into the Federation. If that isn't a declaration of love, she doesn't know what is.
And she figures out really quickly that's she's as near to perfect as Engineering is going to get. There's just something about computers and complex equations that she knows, knows as well as she knows the inside of her own body. It's no surprise to her – though it is to her instructors, like she can't get laid and do her homework – when she's practically top of her class. So the infamous Starfleet curriculum, she thinks, isn't that bad.
But she hadn't counted on the overwhelming loneliness of it all.
They tell her four weeks and eighteen Cadets in that while Starfleet absolutely approves of the fact she's an out and proud Orion, not everyone shared her enthusiasm for polyamorous sexual practices. So they whip her up a bunch of pheromone suppressors. They don't dampen her sexual urges at all but they stop everyone from reacting to her as strongly. She still gets laid, but not quite as much. They even give her a room all to herself, so she can be as Orion as she likes.
But she learns seven days into this new routine that she doesn't like it at all.
The suppressors play havoc with her system and some days she just wants to stay in bed and cry. Cry because her body aches. Cry because she's stuck inside all day and not getting enough sunlight. Cry because her pheromones have definitely halted the amount of sex she's getting, and all the people she does pick up really aren't as open in the bedroom as she'd like them to be. But most of all she wants to cry because for the first time in her life she feels completely and utterly alone.
She sees the other Cadets with room mates, sees them laughing over lunch and sharing little in jokes that only come with waking up with someone. She has friends sure, and she absolutely loves them. But they could be closer, much closer. And when she sees parents coming to visit their children on campus, sees the glowing pride in their faces, she wishes for the first time in her life that someone would be proud of her. She's proud of her and for years it was enough. But – and she never tells anyone about it – she finds herself waking up with dried tears on her pillow.
It's not that she's depressed or anything. This life is so much better than the one she left behind.
But now she understands what humans mean by sometimes being in a crowded room and feeling totally alone, and Gaila really doesn't like it.
And then Jim Kirk comes alone and Gaila loves him.
She tells the campus officers that she'd love a room mate and they find her Nyota, who is pretty much heaven in a chocolate flavored wrapper. (Alright, she doesn't know if Ny actually tastes like chocolate but she'd be willing to bet good money on it.) With Nyota comes Jim Kirk, and not willingly. She first meets him when he's following her room mate around with a kicked puppy look, begging her to tell him her name.
"Oh! It's-" She's elbowed impolitely in the side by Nyota before she can finish, and for the first time in three minutes Jim notices that there is someone else. It's really a first for Gaila, being ignored for another woman, but she loves Nyota and oddly the rejection doesn't bother her. Not that she feels rejected for long, because Jim finds her far more willing to put up with her advances and soon transfers his infatuations.
And for three years he is everything she loves in a man. Seriously, if she was going to commit to one person for her entire life (which she would never do) it would be James Tiberius Kirk. The fact that many other Cadets share her sentiments doesn't bother her. She encourages him to seek out other girls, to compare and contrast and learn from his encounters. In turn for her never-ending understanding there is absolutely nothing he won't do for her.
In the three years they're Cadets together, she gets him to wear a butt plug for the entire day. To all his classes and a night out. No other human male (she found a girl in her second year who was really open to the idea, but for some reason it was gay for a guy to do it. Gaila found this ridiculous since half of them were actually sleeping with guys as well as her, but whatever.) does it for her, but Jim is open to everything. Even the threesome with the Nteng-Hai slime alien with fifteen tentacles. He breaks into the security office to steal the recording of her screwing her basic comms professor in the mess hall after dark. When an alien insults her honor (because she does have some thank you very much) he beats the crap out of it and gets a demerit in the process.
They have the perfect relationship. They can screw who they like, push each other to do insane stuff and just be themselves. Gaila can count on one hand the people she can be herself around, and she loves that Jim is one of them. She shows this affection by setting him up with the best of her conquests, including a very flexible gymnast who could literally put her legs behind her ears.
So when they're celebrating the successful hack of uptight Commander Spock's program with an impromptu quickie in her dorm room, she lets the sentiment slip. Jim, I think I love you.
And then he freaks, and Nyota interrupts before she can explain that she's not actually in love with him. Everything happens so fast after that with the hearing and the distress signal, that Gaila never gets a chance to explain. If she did, she thinks it would kind of go like, "hey Jim, you're like an insanely hot brother I'm not blood related to, so it's totally okay to sleep with you. I love you." In an odd way, Jim Kirk becomes family to Gaila somewhere in the course of three years.
But she never gets a chance to tell him that.