After what could have been called a very awkward walk back to their shared dormitory, Lara took off her coat and boots and pulled out a padd. Jo'rek watched her with veiled eyes. The blue in them was darkening, and he did slightly scare her. He was much taller than her, much stronger, and evidently, he was Romulan. She looked like one, but she knew that she was simply a weak female human. That thought did remind her of that day when she had hauled him up to his feet as he dangled helplessly off of the edge of that cliff in their training exercise. But that was a different time.

He turned the lights up; the brightness was unnecessarily intense, and she found herself squinting. Romulans didn't like lights to be too over-the-top, and that knowledge did unnerve her. It was almost as if he was attempting to accommodate for her weaker human eyes.

"What exactly was it that you wanted help with?" he then inquired of her. His face remained disappointed, let down.

She handed him the appropriate padd and he studied it with bored eyes. "It's about Singularities, I think."

"Well, what don't you understand?" he asked, and his tone of voice made her feel stupid.

"The process of confining them, to make artificial ones that can be used in starships," she clarified.

He sat down beside her and drew a quick sketch of a Romulan warbird. She watched intently over his shoulder; her proximity to him made him slightly lose his concentration. He looked back at her, their faces centimetres apart. She gave him an encouraging smile. "I get that much," she said. "But how about that bit?" she asked, pointing to a part of his rough diagram.

He set about explaining it to her, before launching into a lengthy description of the merits of artificial quantum singularities over warp drives. She feigned interest throughout, convincing herself that she needed to keep him occupied. She couldn't use him. Not after he had opened up to her about so much.

As she glanced down to watch his fingers as he pointed to numerous parts of the diagram, her eyes caught on something. Just peeking out of his sleeve, though it was tight fabric, was a small black mark on his wrist. Not wanting to pry, she quickly averted her gaze and looked back at the padd. But he had already seen and it was too late.

"I'm sorry," she said promptly, quietly. "I am listening."

He put down the padd and held the hand that she had been observing. He pulled back the sleeve and she looked on could make out a symbol of some sort; it looked like Klingon script, but she wasn't sure of that. It didn't look like any ordinary tattoo, though, she thought. "Has it been burnt into the skin?" she asked, slightly disgusted.

He nodded simply. "It has. It means 'I will never forget'."

"That doesn't look like our language," she observed. It certainly didn't appear Romulan to her.

"It isn't."

"What is it?" she asked further, as she looked at the tattoo.

"It is written in the Vulcan tongue. Whenever I look at it, I am reminded of my mother."

"I… I shouldn't have asked. I'm sorry," she murmured. She felt awful, even more so when she remembered that she was using him. Romulan or not, she wasn't sure that he deserved it.

"There is no need for you to apologise," he said simply. "It was a decade ago, at least. I am no longer sad."

But she knew that that wasn't true. He had this tough exterior – this hard-headed, emotionless, infallible appearance that was present in all Romulans – but that was all it was: an exterior. Underneath that facade, he was smaller, more afraid and in need of help.

He turned from her, and she heard him sniff. He reached his hand up to wipe his nose and his eyes. His temples and cheeks were taking on a deeper, darker shade of green. And then he took in a deep breath and got to his feet. "I am sorry for having appeared so weak."

She started, perplexed. But then she remembered who she was meant to be and she nodded at him sincerely. "That is quite all right. Just remember, in future, that to cry is to show weakness. We are not weak."

"I will not hold it against you if you feel duty-bound to report it."

"Well, I don't," she said shortly, not even thinking.

He raised an arched eyebrow and then frowned. "Why not? You ought to. I expect you to."

She could have laughed. But she sobered up quickly and turned in her seat. She stared down at the padd for the briefest of seconds, before thinking long and hard about what she might say. "Oh, Jo'rek, I'm not going to report you for being un-Romulan."

Her words and her tone of voice startled him, confused him, caught him unawares. She sounded nonchalant; Romulans were never nonchalant.

She could feel her cheeks beginning to get hotter. She wrung her hands as she always did when she was nervous. She closed her eyes, as if she could escape from this awful dream-gone-wrong, but when she opened them, she was once again greeted with the sight of the stark grey dorm and Jo'rek's inquisitive glare. A harrumph erupted from her lips and she could no longer face him. Her heart was beating a million times a minute and she could almost see her pulse in her wrist.

"I need to tell you something."

Jo'rek waveringly took a step forward. His footsteps seemed to Lara to echo. She looked down at her hands as they sat emptily in her lap and then she felt a tear cascade down her face. She would have wiped the tear away had Jo'rek not caught it. "You can tell me."

She looked as if she were deliberating with herself. She had to tell him the truth at some point, but she had no idea how to. And, if she did tell him, how would he take it? He didn't much like his father – she knew that much. But family – with the exception of military prowess – was everything to the Romulans, so she could hardly badmouth his father's administration. She reminded herself then that it was not the praetor who was in the wrong. And then there was the issue of how much to tell him. She didn't have to say that she, Charles, Seb and Data were human. She could just say that she knew of a traitor in the Romulan government. But she calmed herself down with the realisation that Jo'rek was probably going to find out sooner or later. It was a poor plan.

"I'm not Romulan," she murmured. She repeated it in a louder tone. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for you and I… for us to… I'm just so sorry." She looked up at him; his face gave nothing away. "We – I mean, ah, me, Chebais, Devran and Sevin – were selected by Starfleet Academy to go on this mission. For planetary sociology. There wasn't really any espionage involved, honestly. We just had to take notes of what Romulans got up to. Their traditions and ideals. Nothing military or anything like that."

For the entirety of her revelation, he had remained calm and collected and quiet. His eyes were fixed on her. "I know that."

Her mouth fell open in surprise. "You… what?"

He nodded shortly, and the movement only annoyed her and confused her more. "You left your padd in here once, and the screen was left on. I saw your findings."

"You know I'm human?" she finally spoke again, her eyes darting frantically about his person. "You never said. You… we… we kissed."

He gave her a smile. "I know we did." He paused. "And I have no regrets."

She ran her fingers through her hair. She felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off of her chest. She could breathe again. "I don't understand," she muttered. "I'm human and you're Romulan… No..."

He hunkered down andreached out a hand and held her face; his handswere cold and firm and scared her ever so slightly. But she had grown to trust him.

"Starfleet sent us on this mission for planetary sociology. But we had another reason," she began again. She cast a throwaway look at the door. Beyond it were two of her friends and her brother. She wanted to see Charles. "Data – that's Devahk – he picked up this transmission between the proconsul and someone high up in Starfleet Command."

"And you've come to… investigate it?" he asked.

She nodded sadly. "Yes. And when we found out that your father is the praetor, well… to put it simply, I was meant to get to know you."

At that, he raised an eyebrow. He rubbed his temple.

His unreadable expression scared her. She followed him as he took his hand from her face and walked away from her. "But I swear I didn't want to do that. I hated… using you for this mission. I'm sorry. All I ever seem to be doing is apologising."

He was containing his anger, it seemed. He was keen not to appear as a Klingon or some other passion-driven species. "Illhusra," he swore. "You used me?" he repeated, flabbergasted, his voice tight and the words spoken through gritted teeth.

She nodded sadly. "Yes, and I'm so sorry for it. I never wanted to. Never..." Her words faded from her and she was silent. She went up to him so that they were mere inches from one another, and she raised a hand to his face, holding his chip. "Jo'rek, you must listen to me."

He fought to shake his head, to shake her away from him. He bit his lip. "Latuka. What is your real name?"

"Lara."

He echoed her name, feeling the syllables glide over his tongue. It made her feel both delighted and scared to hear him say her name. Her proper name.

"Please, Jo'rek, listen to me."

Her pleas did not fall on deaf ears. "I don't have to listen to you, Lara," he said, saying her name again, as if it were some new stylish fad. "I have heard all I need to hear." He looked down at her, with her distraught face. "And I forgive you."

"You forgive me?" she spluttered. "Why? After all I've done."

He cast her an unwavering look. "Because I have fallen in love with you."