David:

Saavik never saw the way I looked at her.

And if she did it meant nothing to her. To be a Vulcan was to be unaware of emotion. And I loved her for being Vulcan, I loved everything about her. She was perfection. While other girls were just beautiful faces with sugary laughs and after you're attention to get you in bed, Saavik was both a beautiful face and a woman with brains, dedicated to her work and life, a beautiful mind besides the beautiful looks.

I just wished she could realize how I feel about her.

True we are friends and we spend nearly every minute together. Every day I join her on the bridge to work, I like to watch her as she sits at her station, but she doesn't notice, she's always too engrossed in her work. We eat together, sometimes work out together, and every night I'll go to her quarters, or she'll come to mine, and we'll have diner then finish off our work in each other's presence. I love that I get to spend so much time with her, and I'm delighted that she considers me her friend. I just wish we could be something more than friends, and that I wouldn't have to leave her, or she me, each night. I want to spend every moment I have in her presence.

I would tell her, but I'm so afraid she'll reject me, or she won't understand, and I'll ruin our relationship altogether. I'd hate myself if I did that.

I love Saavik for who she is, but if only she'd look at me the same way.

Saavik:

When I next glanced up from the screen David was asleep in the chair across from me. I'd eaten with him in his quarters and then set to finish work as usual. But I realized now that I'd worked later than I usually would, and I'd been so focused on my work that I hadn't seen him drift off.

I stood up to leave, knowing I should just leave him be. But I glanced back at him and something about him made me stop. He just looked so peaceful, yet also insecure, as if there was something missing from him.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I knew I shouldn't, it was a violation of his privacy, of his own mind. But I bent over him a pressed each of my hands to either side temples, and allowed his mind into my own. His ideas, his views, his feelings all fled into my mind at once; hopes for Genesis, fears about his parents, his dreams and nightmares all mixed into one. And then there was me, I was everywhere in his mind, how he felt about me, what we wanted to do to me.

I pulled back from him, and not gently, it hurt but I was in too much shock over what I'd just come to know. I stayed there, whether for a few seconds or thirty minutes I'm not even sure, but I just kneeled on the ground beside him in the chair watching him as he didn't even stir.

I could not let him know, I told myself in a panic, I should never have done it and I didn't even know why I did it.

I pulled myself onto my feet, ready to leave and pretend for both our sakes that I'd never done anything. But before I left I was caught again, and I dug the hole even deeper for myself as I leaned down over him and let my lips touch his. His mouth felt warm and soft, but that's as far as it went, with nothing in return. It was enough to ensure my trauma for the next weeks though.

I pulled back and rushed out without another glance.