Sorry, sorry, sorry! A quick summary of the current story arc: Vorik is set up on a blind date with Trumari on the holodeck, where Tom Paris locks them in together. The ship and holodeck malfunction, disabling the holodeck safeties and making the date far more exciting than Trumari had planned. Vorik finds Trumari's forced company far less objectionable than he had expected, and he endeavors to be reasonably polite. In the meantime, the conversation turns more serious.

The change in Trumari's emotions from grievance to actual grief was hardly what Vorik been hoping for. He decided to resume the previous discussion. "What were the primary points of argument that convicted you of treason?"

"Besides suddenly being inconvenient when the Cardassians were trying to ransom me?" Trumari asked acerbically.

"Yes."

She sighed. "Well, for that you have to understand that my family's position here in the Federation was different from your typical Romulan refugee. We weren't dissidents, not exactly. My clan is oathbound from birth to a very special type of service to the First Family of the Noble Born."

"The Emperor or Empress." Vorik realized.

"Right. Well, when I was six, I made myself a very particular personal enemy of the Praetor by foiling an assassination plot in a way that especially shamed him. The Empress sent me and my immediate family the only place we might possibly be out of his reach, in the hopes that we might be just a little bit safer here."

"Which you were, until the Cardassians?"

"Yes. When I enrolled in Starfleet Academy, I told them up front about my very personal loyalty to the Empress as the rightful sovereign of the Empire, and took an oath to recuse myself from involvement if that loyalty, and service in Starfleet ever came into conflict. It was only a problem a few times, and I always kept my superiors well apprised of any potential conflicts, but I never actually had to recuse myself. Until I got a message from the new Empress asking my family to come back and take up our hereditary post because everyone who'd stayed in the Empire was dead, that is."

Vorik was curious. Was this the root of the treason accusation? "Did you consider it?"

"What? Of course I did! We all did! I let my superiors know, and took a leave of absence, just like I was supposed to, to visit my family, discuss the implications with my mate, and consult with many, many lawyers."

"And then Cardassians?"

"And then Cardassians." She agreed. He was fairly certain he didn't want any more specifics on what "Cardassians" meant in its entirety. Given how she had behaved afterward, it had probably been traumatic.

"I do not think I approve of your willingness to leave the Federation." He told her. She snorted and then attempted to convince him that he'd have considered it, too. Her argument was not entirely unmoving.

They were shaken hard again, during which time the ship's artificial gravity failed for a moment and Trumari once again injured her wrist further. This time she was clearly having far more difficulty coping. "I take it you can feel your hand again." He remarked as she cradled it against her. "Yes." She hissed, breathing hard.

It was clear shock was not going to be averted by such simple measures as a small degree of assistance with her body temperature. He had a means of relieving her pain, perhaps two, but both were far too intimate to offer someone he could hardly call a comrade, let alone a friend unless the emergency was extreme. The hologrid flickered, and then went out, dumping them on the floor of the holodeck. Trumari screamed. He attempted to pry open the door of the holodeck with the aid of the emergency door release, but to no avail. Sighing internally, Vorik resigned himself. He made the offer. "If you will remove your upper garments, I will use neuropressure to reduce your pain."

Trumari stared at him incredulously for a moment, and then began to laugh hysterically. "It was not intended to be amusing. I was quite sincere."

"Uh huh. Yeah, still, I'm going to have to decline. My shirt stays on."

Vorik almost frowned but caught himself. "I assure you, my intentions are far from voyeuristic. Your layered clothing would interfere with the efficacy of the technique." She nodded.

"I get it. I even mostly believe you. Doesn't matter." There was a surge of brightness, a painfully high-pitched hum, and the hologrid lights went out. Trumari laughed again, a near hysterical sound.

"Are you alright?" It was an imprecise inquiry, but he had little data to work with, and inquiring directly about her emotional status would have been uncouth. Even if she probably wouldn't mind.

"I'm not any worse." She informed him, her voice strangely muffled. He also heard rustling sounds.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking my shirt off, stupid." She grunted, clearly struggling.

He ignored the insult. He could have deduced that, if he'd tried, and should have. "Do you require assistance?"

"No. Back on might be a problem though. I haven't pulled it over the splint."

"Is your thermal undershirt still on?"

"Yes. That's not coming off."

"Acceptable." Vorik told her, reaching his hands out to locate her more precisely. Fortunately, the first thing he found was the tousled hair on the back of her head, and not something more awkward. He trailed his hands down her neck and across her shoulders, then down her spine, locating the nerve and muscle groups he would need to manipulate while doing his best to ignore the evidence of rather severe past injuries he found there. Scarring so thick it could be felt through the thermal undergarment. He didn't want to contemplate the significance of their locations, but with his entry level training in neuropressure, even he could tell what it meant. Not only had someone with knowledge of how best to cause a Vulcan or Romulan pain tortured her, but they'd left her in such condition that the pain would never completely stop. He began more carefully as a result. It wouldn't have taken much time or contact for him to relieve the pain in her injured wrist if that had been the only consideration, but he was not going to leave her in any pain at all, if he could help it, and if only she would let him finish.

"Vorik."

"Yes?"

"Why are you doing that? You've finished what you offered to do."

"It would hardly be logical to offer my limited services as a healer to an injured person, and then not extend that healing to another injury found in the course of treatment of the first." She snorted. "Right, of course. Logic."

"Do you doubt my word?"

"No, but are you sure that's your only motivation? Pity doesn't come into it anywhere?"

Vorik reflected. "If compassion was no consideration in this interaction, I would not have offered."

"I don't want you to feel sorry for me." She muttered. "I want you to like me."

Vorik raised an eyebrow in the profound darkness. "I cannot compel myself to 'like' you."

"I know that." She retorted irritably. "If I'd realized being Rihannsu was still such a problem for you, I'd have never bothered."

"I may grow used to it, in time," He informed her, "but I can hardly offer myself as a mate to someone of any race, whose honor I doubt." Somehow in the darkness, Trumari manage to scramble away from him, turn, and hit him soundly across the face. Again. She swore at him vehemently. Vorik could hear her crying as she did so. He realized, belatedly of course, that he had probably just topped his previous most tactless comment to a woman (as chosen and defined by Tom, since he was still struggling with the illogical concept of tact). It wasn't the worst thing he'd said to Trumari tonight, but those potentially offensive statements had technically been intentional. No doubt she had interpreted his statement as a reiteration of his mistaken belief that she was currently a licentious woman. That was not what he had meant, at all. As Tom would say, he had put his foot into his mouth.

Of course, perhaps what he had meant was offensive as well. That being that he questioned whether she was a person of integrity, whether she knew who and what she was, whether she had found her moral footing in the odd space between the Rihannsu and the Vuhlkansu she appeared to occupy, or if she was just camouflaging herself appropriately, a prime example of Romulan duplicity.

"Trumari, that is not what I meant."

"Shut up. I never should have let Tom talk me into this. Every time I start to think you just might be worth the effort of befriending, you remind me why I hate you."

Vorik was fairly certain he knew why Trumari hated him, since she'd delivered a litany on the subject more than once, years ago, but that she might have reasons beyond the obvious physical ones for wanting a relationship with him was news to him.

"Why?"

"Why do you remind me? I don't know, you're the one who keeps doing it! I thought you might have grown out of it, but then you did it again! I'm starting to think being young and stupid has nothing to do with it!"

"It is not my fault you are older than I am." Vorik said stiffly. It didn't seem the time to address 'stupid.'

"I'm not. I'm younger actually, years-wise, anyway." Vorik blinked slowly in the dark. What?! He quickly reassessed several assumptions and deductions. "You attended the Academy when you were very young," he finally said lamely.

"Fourteen, almost fifteen. And married at twenty, if you were wondering."

Some humans might be ready for the Academy at fourteen, but a Vulcanoid? It was ridiculous. She probably hadn't even had all her childhood teeth in! Twenty and married? That was a child still! His mother had still been choosing his clothes for him at that age! He'd found it objectionable, of course, but the effort preventing it would have required had seemed too costly. Had Trumari even reached full growth by then?

"I imagine social pressures force Rihann children to mature more quickly." He speculated.

Trumari snorted. "You think? I had official kitchen and meal service duties by the time I was six. Vulcan children might be taking on the desert by then, but throw them in an commercial/industrial sized kitchen and all you'll get is injured children and dropped food."

"It seems likely." He agreed.

"You're being suspiciously agreeable." Trumari's voice was muffled again. Evidently, she was trying to get her shirt back on. Offering to help seemed unwise.

"You have accused me of being close minded regarding yourself. A brief self-examination has forced me to reconsider my conduct."

Trumari muttered something in Rihann either he or the Universal Translator didn't quite catch.

A/N: Sorry this took so long, I have been going back and forth between being super busy and in slumps, so I really didn't have it in me to do much writing. I also had to take some time and decide if my plan to make Trumari younger than Vorik really made sense or not. I feel like it is a bit of a stretch, but some of the rest of my planned plot will get a bit perforated if I change it now, and I'm not up for that. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!