Lara was frozen to the spot. She took in breath harshly and deliberately, as if that would help her at that moment in time. A cursory glance around the room revealed no friendly faces. At least, until she encountered the concerned countenance of Jo'rek. Her room mate regarded her stiffly, as if he did not want her to read his feelings.

But she was still in trouble. The seminar room was large – much larger than those at Starfleet Academy – and the walls seemed so high as to make speech and sounds echo.

"Cadet." There was the voice again. Demanding and harsh. "I will not ask you again. Why are you late?"

She had wished for the ground to swallow her up there and then. How could she possibly disclose any information to the professor? He did not look to be in a conciliatory mood. She swallowed hard and forced herself to look him in the eye. "I apologise, sir," she began tentatively, though her voice was strengthening. "But I lost track of the time. I had been running laps in the training grounds when I came into difficulty."

"Can anyone corroborate this story?" the professor inquired again, his dark eyes boring into hers.

Lara resented the spectacle greatly. Had this occurred at Starfleet Academy, the teacher would have taken her to one side and given her a quiet word. But Romulans apparently didn't have much regard for privacy and personal space – the unisex dormitories were testament to that –so the professor simply scolded her out in the open, in the middle of the conference room, with the rest of the class watching the issue unfold. They were to learn from the mistakes and misdemeanours of others.

But what she had told the professor had been a lie. The difficulties that she had mentioned had been fictitious, except for the fact that she and Jo'rek had been talking at such great length that time passed them by. While Jo'rek managed to reach the lecture just on time, Lara had decided to do another lap, to see if she could beat her personal best, determined on proving her worth against the Romulans, though the plan totally backfired.

Her breath escaped her in a single long sigh of relief when she noticed Jo'rek raise a hand and stand up. "Yes, sir. I was. I only just managed to get here on time."

The rest of the class were watching the spectacle intently, but as soon as they heard their professor speak again, their attention was only on him.

Seemingly satisfied with the cautionary words that had been delivered, the teacher sat down at his desk and asked for every student to bring out their padds.

As they were walking back to their joint dorm, Lara decided that she ought not wait any longer to thank him. They had travelled in silence, and she gathered that he was embarrassed by her, or possibly by his accepting responsibility for her actions.

"Jo'rek," the word left her mouth uncertainly. "I just wanted to say thank you. For standing up for me during the lesson."

He gave her a curt nod, barely even looking up to face her, as he put the keycard into the door and the thing slid open. "You are welcome."

Internally, Lara groaned. Romulans could really be infuriating sometimes. Perhaps a Vulcan would make a better room mate, even. After all, though they gave off no emotion, you at least knew where you stood with a Vulcan. Their Romulan cousins, however, were sneaky and sly and ultimately their expressions were unreadable.

"Why are you so quiet?" she asked him, watching him curiously. "I mean, when we were running you couldn't keep your mouth shut. But now… I don't know." She shook her head and sighed, thinking that she was getting ahead of herself. She was being foolish and naive.

Jo'rek cast his watchful gaze over in her direction and seemed to be considering for a moment. It was perhaps the longest moment of his life. "If you wish to know, I am concerned for what my father will say..."

Lara frowned. "You father? About what?" She left her bed and sat on the edge of his.

Jo'rek seemed too engrossed in telling his story to notice how close she now was to him. "I will have disgraced him, Latuka."

His use of her Romulan name – her code name – made her shudder briefly. She wanted him to call her by her proper name.

"He had such high expectations for me. I was supposed to follow in his foot steps and uphold our family's name."

"I don't understand. What have you done that's so bad?" she asked.

Jo'rek bent forward and briefly held his head in his hands. "I shouldn't have said what I said earlier."

"What…?" She cut off her own sentence when his meaning dawned upon her. "Oh. You mean defending me?"

He didn't even nod, but he had no need to. "When my father hears that I have been transgressing my schedule and that I was late for a lesson because of fraternising with an off-worlder..."

His words shocked her, but she managed to regain her composure. She was starting to finally see how different Romulan culture was from Earth culture. It seemed that parents had absolute control over their offspring, even when they were adults. But his words had hurt her, and she was sure that he could see that they had. "I'm not an off-worlder," she muttered, the irony twisting like a knife in her stomach.

He regarded her stiffly for a moment, but the moment seemed to last an aeon. He was sizing her up, scrutinising her. His gaze caught on her eyes, which had since grown shy and unrevealing.

"And, anyway," she began, desperate to distract him for a while. "You weren't late for a lesson. You arrived on time, right? I'm the one who turned up ten minutes afterthe thing started."

He nodded slowly, his head bobbing up and down in uncertainty.

"Besides, I liked you standing up for me." Lara could hardly believe herself when those words left her mouth, but she had said them, they had been heard, and there was no going back. His hand was resting vacantly on the side of the bunk, and she felt an urge to touch it, but she did not. His face displayed anguish and distress, but those feelings were overshadowed by something else. Something worse. Fear. Of what, though? The Academy authorities? His father? Her?

As Jo'rek brought his brooding gaze up, he found himself looking her in the eye. She was beautiful, he found himself contemplating. And however much he tried to shake those thoughts from his head, they would not budge.

"I apologise for implying that you were an off-worlder," he suddenly said, and the randomness of the apology somewhat startled her.

She smiled genially. "No matter. I know what you meant."

"I'm hardly the embodiment of Romulan attitudes," he quipped, not resenting the self-deprecating remark.

"Perhaps you embody the best of the Romulan attitudes," she suggested.

"And what would that be?" he asked, confused.

She considered for a moment, her hand still in contact with his, their eyes still locked. "Compassion. Compassion for your people."

He would have called that pride under any other circumstances, but when faced with her undeniable beauty and honesty, he found it hard to contest. Any thoughts on the matter dissolved when he felt her hand in his, and her reacted without thinking, reaching his other hand up to touch her face she was somewhat scared. Part nervous, part excited.

Before he knew it, he had leant forward and touched his lips to hers. She held the kiss for a fraction of a second, before abruptly drawing back. Her change of expression alarmed him, and he felt a blush of anguish rising on his skin. His face grew hot and he suddenly felt as though the room were caving in on him. He got to his feet and stared at her.

She looked at him questioningly.

He swore under his breath, before storming out of the room, leaving her in perplexity.