Don't I Know You From Somewhere...

Posted on Sun Jan 18th, 2026 @ 3:56am by Lieutenant Commander Emni t'Nai & Lieutenant Tork

Mission: Port of Call
Location: Turbolift
Timeline: Mission Day 4 at 0830

[Turbolift - USS Sojourner]
[MD 4 - 0830 Hours]

She'd put this off for too long.

Emni stood before the aft turbolift -- the one closest to her quarters on Deck 2 and waited. It had been four days since they'd lost Lieutenant F'rar. The Captain bore the particularly painful job of notifying families, but she had offered to do the work of collecting the engineer's things to be carefully stored and sent on to her next of kin when they reached Pathfinder Station. She had been cognizant that Ensigns Drol and Ratthi had lost two roommates--F'rar hadn't had been Acting Chief at the time of the accident and so hadn't yet transferred to a Senior Officer berthing. And there was time. She wasn't eager to disrupt the two women as they processed through the loss of two roommates in one fell swoop.

A swoosh brought her out of her reverie, as the doors parted and she stepped inside. The PADD she carried was tucked against her side, clasped in one hand. She hadn't bothered to bring a container, not expecting to find much, if any personal effects in the Chief Engineer's office. She sighed, speaking to the middle distance as the doors slid closed. "Deck 6, aft," she requested.

As the turbolift resumed it's march downward through the ship, Lieutenant Tork eyeballed the woman who'd stepped onto the lift he'd hopped onto on his way to other parts of the ship. He'd met the woman in the cargo bay a few days ago, but he hadn't gotten a very good look at her... or rather more to the point he hadn't been paying too much attention since he was only half listening to what was going on and mostly just pining for a shower... which he did eventually get even if it took a few hours of tinkering to make that happen. Now that he had all the time in the world, relatively speaking, the shape of the woman's profile sparked a memory he hadn't bothered to dredge up in a fair few years.

"Why do I feel like I know you... I mean from somewhere else, not here..." Tork spoke up with his brow drawn in contemplation.

Though she'd acknowledged the Ferengi as she stepped into the lift with a slight nod of her head, she had still been lost in thought and so it took her a moment to catch up to the fact that he'd been speaking to her. "I'm sorry," she said. "what was that?"

"Don't 'what was that' me..."Tork grumbled out of pure instinct before realizing why tone the woman had used had irked him so badly, "So this is how I find out you're not slumming it in Sickbay anymore, Doctor Feels? You haven't sent me a message in... almost a year, and I gotta bump into you in a damn turbolift to find out you went and got some ambition or something?"

The Ferengi folded his arms across his chest and shook his lobed head in disappointment, "And here I was, thinking you on the wrong side of the wormhole and it was just comm lag... but no, you're on the same side of the thing and you were too busy being important..."

Emni's eyes widened. How long had it been since she'd seen the Ferengi in person? Had it been a decade? Surely it had.

"Grease?" she asked, absolutely flabbergasted. She peered at him. A few more wrinkles. His lobes had filled out a bit more since she'd seen him last. And he'd lost a fair bit of weight giving his face more of a gaunt look than she remembered--no doubt the result of a few weeks as the guest of Maje Subrek. "I knew your voice sounded familiar, but then..." she frowned, "then there was just so much to do and... and I chalked it up as wishful thinking."

Her tone shifted nearly as quickly as his had, then from shock to a tone tailor made to respond to his disappointed kvetching. "And when was the last time I heard from you?" she asked. "I was on Risa for weeks. Months! And I know I sent you something while I was there. It wasn't until the Sojo launched that I knew for sure I was headed back to the DQ and I was the CMO when we left!" Her eyes were fiery, lit in the way that only someone who knows someone well and feels entitled to indignation can be.

"And you know full well that the Andarok was out in the fringes of the Beta Quadrant just before your ship rotated into the Delta Quadrant. What was I supposed to do, rig up a Quantum Slipstream engine?!" Tork huffed with a petulant scowl, "Besides... can't get the right parts for something like that in the Beta Quadrant... and even I'm not crazy enough to cobble something like that together unless I know it will work. And anyway, I sent you a message when I was getting shipped off the Andarok because I was supposed to be getting assigned to another ship out here and figured we could at least keep in better touch if we were in the same part of the galaxy for a change."

The Ferengi let out an irritated huff before his glaring face slackened, "How've you been holding up? Figure with everything I've seen of this ship and how badly it's glued together, you've probably had a bad run of it."

The Romulan's indignation held for a moment longer, but it was a guttering flame and finally it gave out and she sighed. For many a sigh like this would have seemed out of character for the XO. She so frequently pulled the doctor's neutral bedside manner she'd learned around her like a cloak when dealing with the rest of the crew. Only Bjorn, and perhaps now Axod... and Karim... once upon a time... had seen her in any significant state of frazzled.

"We've been through it," she agreed. A well of relief edged her voice, but with it a depth of weariness. "I'm not sure I can manage it all in one turbolift ride, though," she said.

As if to punctuate her statement the lift came to a halt on Deck 6, doors opening to the corridor she had previously requested. She stared out the open doors for a moment and then turned back to Tork. "Have you been to Debbie's yet?"

"Unless 'Debbie's' is some new way to refer to Jefferies tubes or something... what do you think?" Tork said in a sarcastic manner as he looked toward the opened door, "I've spent the better part of my entire stint on this ship either crawling around in those, slapping new hull plating onto this ship in mid-flight, or sleeping. Haven't had time to do much else."

The door still hung open, clearly anticipating the disgorgement of the turbolift's passengers, but instead Emni spoke again to the middle distance. "Deck 7," she directed.

The lift doors took just a moment longer then slid closed again. "Tell me you've at least been eating in between all of the time crawling about the ship's innards," she said, more as a rhetorical question than one actually expecting an answer.

A moment later the doors opened again and this time Emni stepped out, pausing to wait for Tork to follow. "Come on," she said, "Unless you have someplace else you urgently need to be."

Tork shrugged, "I mean... I'm technically not on duty since I'm not part of the crew, so it's not like anyone would actually miss me if I didn't show up somewhere else, right?"

The Ferengi followed the woman along the corridor, moving just fast enough to stay relatively at Emni's side, even if it wasn't exactly in lock step.

Emni smirked, glancing over, and slightly downward, at Tork. "That hardly seems likely considering you've turned our entire shuttle bay into an industrial replicator and have been helping direct the transport of exterior hull plating. It seems very likely you could be missed all things considered."

She'd heard few complaints about the Ferengi's insertion of himself into the repair process and made a mental note to check in with Lieutenant Parsons when she could. Besides the harrowing experience of not only stepping into the Acting Chief role in a moment of crisis, but also being the one to fly a Kazon shuttle into the belly of a Kazon Maje's ship to retrieve their stolen officers--he'd hardly had a break. Having a ranking officer who wasn't part of the crew intervene in what he'd just stepped into could easily be as alarming as it could be a relief.

"Speaking of that," Emni continued, defaulting to business where a world of updates was likely the more appropriate direction, "how has it been working with Mr. Parsons?"

"I'll let you know if I ever actually talk to him," Tork said flatly, "I'm not trying to get in the man's way, so I just wander in, peek at what needs to be done, and then go fiddle. He hasn't asked me to do anything, and I'm not trying to muscle in on his engine room. Wouldn't have appreciated it on the Andarok, so I'm not trying to do that to anyone here. But you know me, Feels... I can't not play around in the tubes or fix something when it's obviously broken. Sure, I converted your shuttlebay into an industrial replicator... but let's be honest with ourselves... how many 'by the book' hew-mons do you know that would do what I did? Had a hard enough time convincing that Flight officer of yours to entertain the idea, much less actually do the work. While I'm here, I'll give you and your people the best of the crazy ideas that are swimming around in my head. Least I can do for the rescue. But I'm not going to push out your people from their departments to make it happen. Unless your Parsons fellow comes to me and asks me to do more than dabble, dabble is all I'm here to do."

"Speaking of crazy ideas I've had," the Ferengi said with what could only be an impish smirk, "I'm actually surprised that my shuttlebay conversion didn't tip you off to me being... well... me. I distinctly remember us having a conversation in the library about doing something similar for one of those 'worst-case scenario' exercises we worked on together. And if I remember correctly, you told me it was simultaneously the dumbest and smartest idea you'd ever heard of... and how no one in their right mind would allow it."

Emni had the presence of mind to look ever so slightly abashed at Tork's admonition. Color flared lightly along the severity of her cheek bones--a shift that would give a human the impression of bruising even as a Vulcan or fellow Romulan would recognize a blush. "It's been an uncommonly busy few days," she offered evasively. She had, in fact, remembered the project Tork mentioned. Their stint as study partners had been at the Academy's request. Though Romulans and Ferengi both were able to enter Starfleet readily now they weren't exactly there in great supply. And her people even less so after the supernova that spread many of them across various colonies. And both had struggled with the other's respective best subjects.

They rounded a bend in the corridor, the door to Debbie's filling the dead end ahead. "I did remember the project," she admitted as they closed on the entrance. "Even considered that it was an odd coincidence that two different Ferengi would come up with it." She sighed and stopped shy of the door's sensor. "But I probably should have tracked you down sooner either way. What kept you from realizing I was me? There can't be that many Romulan officers on Starfleet ships in the Delta Quadrant. Sojourner is the first ship deployed for Pathfinder II."

"Honestly?" Tork replied with a shrug, "It was the red uniform. You swore up and down all through the Academy that all you wanted to do was heal people, you'd never be anything but a doctor. So when I saw the red, I assumed you were someone who maybe shared some ancestor or two, but didn't think it was you. Don't get me wrong, you don't look bad in it... just never really saw you making that move. You'll never catch me in anything other than an engineer's uniform though."

Tork passed through the entrance to the 'diner' and let out a dispassionate grunt, "You know, when you mentioned the name of this place, for some reason I imagined something..."

"Dirtier?"

The Ferengi let out a mirthful chuckle, "Got it in one. You remember that one place down in Monterey, the... oh... what was it called... The Sly McFly? Remember how we walked into that place and the whole room just froze? At first we thought it was because we walked in there holding hands, but it was just because they'd never thought a Ferengi and a Romulan would come walking into a bar right after someone told some stupid joke a few minutes before we walked in about something similar. Some of the best free bar food I've ever had."

With a snort of amusement Emni nodded. "It was a few weeks after the nova," she commented back, tone uncharacteristically wry. "And you were the one who insisted I get away from campus. I don't know what as more novel, the two of us there together, a Ferengi with a Starfleet issue spanner in his back pocket, or the appearance of someone from a race that was newly decimated." Her tone had darkened slightly as she spoke. Hobus was an old wound now, but the memory ached anyway. "It was pretty good food for the price though..."

She led them towards one of the red vinyl booths near the back sliding into one side and snagging one of the heavily plasticized menus. "Don't let Debbie hear you thought her place was going to be dirty. She'd engineer a new lock on your quarters."

"Oh please... dirty is a compliment for a good diner... or at least I think it is. Felt like every run down place we went to back on Earth had some of the best food on that side of the galaxy. You remember that Bolian place we went to just before you graduated? Place was falling apart at the support studs, but damn if they didn't have some of the best... whatever the hell that stew was," Tork reminisced as he took a seat across from Emni.

"Greasy is a compliment for a good diner," Emni corrected, eyebrow arching pointedly.

"So what does this place do so good that it has you defending it so loudly? Don't tell me it's just a soft spot for the owner. I'll be a little disappointed in you if the menu doesn't match your enthusiasm about it," the Ferengi chuckled, reaching for the Romulan's hand purely out of habit before realizing he'd let the nostalgia bleed into the present. His hand paused just shy of grazing her fingertips, his brow drawing together as he struggled with whether or not to pull back or not.

As if on cue Emni's eyebrow crept back upward. Her gaze, though, was on the clay brown fingertips that lingered in the middle of the table. It had been that simple. Falling back into old rhythms. And yet, it was completely different as well. They weren't cadets getting each other through the hardest classes amidst the chaos wrought by the Hobus supernova. She was an XO... had gone command track despite the fact that she'd never truly imagined doing so. And he was... a friend. But one she hadn't seen in a very long time.

Her gaze, infuriatingly doctor neutral, skipped up to check his expression. It had been a long time since she'd had to navigate on body language alone, but like everything else, checking Tork's facial expression was an old rhythm. Uncertain she reached across, snagging his hand for a moment, squeezing, and then releasing it. "It is really good to see you," she said with a tiredness that somehow detracted nonetheless from the depths that statement held.

"You know something," Tork said with an expression that was equal parts frustrated and content, "I didn't realize how much I missed that until now. Guess I took it for granted all those years... Told myself when you graduated that it was for the best that I put it out of my mind and got back to collecting and creating things. And so I did... for years, I didn't really bother to think about anything else." The Ferengi snorted in self-deprecation, "And now we're here... decades later... and you being here across this table just feels... right."

Tork looked up into the Romulan's eyes, "I said a lot of things back then... didn't say a lot more... never regretted any of it until now. And I really only regret not saying one thing to you before you left."

Something long quiet threatened to squeeze the Romulan's insides and she had to fight the desire to squirm uncomfortably in her seat. She could think of twenty different things he might have said as she was shipping off to the Hargreaves ranging in degrees of seriousness from inappropriate joking to well thought out philosophical musings.

And just about everything in between.

"And what was that?" she asked when he didn't immediately offer up the thought he had so pointedly indicated he should have made. Her menu was forgotten, open on the table before her and she had, unconsciously, folded her hands together on top of it. One thumb worried the line from the knuckle on one finger downward.

A cough next to the table startled her, pulling her back to the 50s decor and soundtrack of Debbie's. "Sorry, ummm, ma'am." The server, complete with skates, appeared to be one of the the handful of engineers who were pulling extra shifts right now to help keep the Sojourner in one piece. How he had time to help out at Debbie's was beyond her.

"Yes Mr. B'Tano?" she asked, settling her features into an open neutrality.

"Did you want to order?" the beleaguered engineer asked.

She chuckled, aware that she'd completely failed to even offer up suggestions. "I'll have the pancake stack with whatever Debbie's extras on top are today," she said. "And a cup of coffee please."

Tork finally picked up the menu that had been next to him the entire time and glanced at it in the same nonchalant manner he used to when the two of them had done their grand diner tour back on Earth. "I'll have the steak and eggs platter, medium steak and scrambled runnier than the runniest eggs you've ever made before. If it helps you imagine it better, they should come out in a bowl, not on the plate. Got it?"

"I'll..." B'Tano said as he tried to stymie a gag at the description of how the Ferengi wanted his eggs, "I'll see what I can do..."

Tork waited until the man had retreated before his jagged grin split his stoic face, "I love when they squirm like that."

Emni shook her head, with the put upon amusement of someone highly familiar with the young engineer's reaction. A strange sense of familiar mixed with complete newness sped through her. It was nearly like having dejavu except they had never sat at Debbie's together before that moment.

"Nothing to drink?" She asked with put on sweetness as she reached across the table to snag his menu, pairing it with her own and putting them back in their place.

"I'll ask for it when he comes back. Might even slurp up some of the eggs when he brings it to me," Tork said with the most devious look he'd had all day.

"So..." the Ferengi settled back into the seat he was perched on, giving Emni a meaningful look but letting the utterance hang vaguely in the air, not quite a statement but also not quite a question.

This was familiar territory. Tork had something to say, though without the emotional input Emni was far less likely to guess what. She would wait him out.

"So?" She said back with a questioning tilt to her head. Her eyes sparked with amusement and no small amount of teasing.

The Ferengi stared back at her, his dark eyes unwavering as he held the woman's gaze. He'd done this dance with Emni a thousand times if he'd done it at all, and each time had been as exhilarating as it had been frustrating. Tork knew she couldn't peek into his thoughts, just like every other empath or telepath that had walked in and out of his life. Usually he simply derived a little joy out of confusing the poor creatures so lost without their glimpses into someone's psyche to make them feel superior. But with the woman sitting across from him, it had always meant a little more. It was like trying to fit a Federation plasma relay with a Cardassian flow regulator... you could mess it up in so many ways, but getting it right always felt euphoric.

The Ferengi tilted his head to one side as he stumbled upon that realization and decided that, unlike his younger self, it wasn't an epiphany to keep to himself. He balled his fists as he straightened himself up and took on a serious air that he almost never had outside of an engine room.

"I never should have let you get on that transport," Tork admitted finally, "At least... not the way it went down. All those empty platitudes... half-written letters that never got sent after you were gone. All of it... every single minute of it was wasted time."

The Ferengi leaned forward, folding his arms to support the shift in posture, "I forgot how to feel without you around, Feels. And that's my fault, because I wasn't in a place where I could admit that to myself. Freshly cut ties with my folks, all the stress of having to learn someone else's way of doing things... I couldn't see the good thing we had when we were living in it, and I was too stupid to do anything but close off the memories and pretend they didn't matter. You were my female..." Tork paused when the word came out of his mouth, his face scrunching up in disdain, "No... the Ferengi way was never our way... You were the containment field that kept all the volatile things raging in my core where they should be, separate but useful. Without you, everything collided and just... imploded. And I'm inclined to put things back the way they were."

"No... not the way they were. Better than they were," Tork said, his voice low but firm.

Emni blinked. She blinked and she opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again when a cogent reply didn't immediately appear.

"Tork," she finally said. Using his name rather than the short form of the nickname she'd given him early on when he'd been tutoring her through her engineering courses usually acted as a warning signal. Not only that she was serious, but that she was concerned about how he might respond. "It's been almost 15 years." The weariness she felt, that added weight that came from the responsibilities of being the ship's XO, felt as if it settled freshly on her shoulders, bleeding into her tone. The idea of having something so dear as a close friend. A close... whatever it was they were back then... was achingly tempting and also, she knew, far more complicated than he might think.

"We're 10 days out from Pathfinder," she continued. "And then what will we do? You'll be reassigned or ferried out to your original assignment. I'll be..." She gestured at her surroundings intending the move not just to include Debbie's, but all of the Sojourner. "Messages are tricky out here... It's..." she frowned, finding herself interrupted, once again, by Ensign B'Tano--this time bearing a tray with the requested breakfast foods. She accepted hers gratefully, bringing the coffee mug to her lips and blowing lightly across the top. It felt like a shield against all manner of suddenly resurfaced uncertainty.

"I forgot to ask for a glass of water," Tork looked up to the Ensign with a crooked grin.

The ensign took in Tork with a look that suggested he wasn't entirely sure the toothy grin was menacing and gave the Ferengi a sharp nod before turning and fleeing toward the kitchen.

Once B'Tano had left, Emni set her mug down again, wrapping her hands around it more to have something to do with them than anything else. "We've been talking for what... 30 minutes? 45? I need a minute to... to... get used to the idea of you being on the same ship... in the same sector even... before you go proposing better than before statuses."

"Maybe I will get reassigned. Maybe I'll stay on that station for a while until that happens. Maybe... maybe... maybe," the Ferengi said, each repetition of the word sounding more robotic than the last.

"Emni," Tork said with a sigh, "I did a lot of speculating after you went off to that ship. And it amounted to little more than empty feelings and regrets. So what if we've only been talking for an hour? That hour has been more meaningful than the last fifteen years has been... at least for me."

"Look... I know I threw this at you faster than a circuit bursting from a power surge, but I owed you an honest answer... the one I didn't give you back on that transfer pad. I should have told you to stay close by, promised to catch up to you, promised to be more than just a patch job on your core breach. And now that I have the chance to fix a mistake that I made out of sheer stupidity... Why the hell wouldn't I? Shows growth... you know... that thing you always accused me of being too late for," the Ferengi cracked a smile.

Anyone who might have been looking on at the pair of them might have seen Emni's expression and assumed that Tork's earnest exclamations were actually the Ferengi giving the XO a dressing down. Her expression remained carefully neutral, broken only by sips of her coffee. Anyone who knew her well, though, would have caught the extremity of uncertainty in her eyes--a mixture of longing for something that had at one time been a lifeline for her while also very carefully considering the sting of loss that was part and parcel to so many of those who undertook long distance connections in Starfleet. Friendships, family ties, and often times romantic attachments, all had to be particularly strong to last out the distances.

At Tork's last remark, though, the Romulan's mouth twitched, one half hiking up into a small smile that acknowledged the inside joke being referenced. For a long moment she was quiet, sipping again to give herself space to think. Space to process. And then, she considered, there was the uncertainty of whatever had passed between herself and Karim while he had been aboard. Certainly not... not the years long connection she'd had with the Ferengi across the table, but... something that had suggested a deeper understanding. Something that simply hadn't been investigated. That perhaps never would.

Finally, she set her mug down, sighing almost forcefully. She met his eyes, searching them as she considered and finally opened her mouth to reply. "Do you know how many people aboard this ship know about Jori and Sulli?" she asked. Of course he didn't. She knew he didn't. "Two. Bjo... Captain Kodak," the course correction in title was quick but impossible to miss. She was friends with the captain. Had been before she had agreed to step into the XO's shoes. "and Counselor Qo," she continued. Karim too, she thought, but he didn't count. He wasn't there.

Perhaps she should have let Tork react, but instead she plowed ahead. "I had plenty of time to consider things too. To ask myself if all of that had been just... just... extracurricular. Something to pass the time. Convenience." She frowned. "And I knew my own answer, but for all rights it seemed as though you were ready for us to move along. To put the core breaches behind us. Maybe to have to do our own repairs." She jumped onto his metaphor, recalling with a bittersweet feeling, how she'd done so on so many other occasions. "I... I need a minute. To wrap my head around this," she finished, almost lamely.

Tork nodded as she finished speaking, a small smirk dancing on his lips, "I suppose that's only fair. I waited fifteen years to have the lobes to tell you what you should have heard all those years ago. How about this. We'll eat this meal, you take your time wrapping all those emotions around your cognitive conduit, and we'll revisit it after. I mean, I have my steak here, got some respectably runny eggs..."

The Ferengi chose that exact moment to pick up the bowl that his eggs had come in and took an exaggerated slurp. The Ensign slash waiter appeared with a glass of water just in time to recoil in terror at the sight of Tork practically inhaling the soupy yellow-white mixture. The drink was deposited with more haste than most could muster while trying not to forcefully vomit and retreated as fast, or perhaps slightly faster than his legs were capable of carrying him.

Tork set the bowl back down with a viciously cruel smirk, "I know what you're going to say, Em... but exploiting cultural misconceptions is hilarious. And don't for a second try to tell me you've never thought about doing it too."

With an exasperated yet affectionate shake of her head Emni chuckled. "I was going to say that's gross," she commented, knowing full well that she didn't care in the least and yet finding the impulse to needle Tork all but irresistible. "And I would never..." she continued. With a slight rise of her eyebrows she straightened in her seat, rolling her shoulders back and tilting her head just so as she looked imperiously down her nose. "... use my Romulan ancestry as a way to intimidate hapless ensigns."

The Ferengi snorted at the woman's failed attempt at a denial, "And Cardassians don't drink kanar either." Tork picked up his utensils and sliced off a rather respectable chunk of the steak he'd been given, depositing the protein into his mouth with all the grace that one would expect from a man of his sizable lobes and stature. A few cycles of chewing later, his head began to bob in satisfaction.

"Stuff's not too bad. Not really feeling the... greasiness... thank you for the correction earlier, I wasn't sure I had the right term for a place like this. But it's better than that one place we went to when we spent the weekend at that cabin resort that one hew-mon in your xenobiology class recommended to us over the winter break that one time. You remember that place, don't you? I can't deny the aesthetics were pleasant and all, but the food there was just so... mediocre. Still not sure why you ever said it was part of the charm..." the engineer said with a nostalgic lilt to his voice.

"That's the point of places like that," Emni commented back realizing belatedly that this was probably an almost echo of the comment she'd made at the time. "Ambiance is the thing they're selling. The food is secondary." She shrugged and picked at pancake with her fork. There were 3 in the stack, each bragging a liberal pad of butter and some kind of berry compote topped with a dollop of whipped cream. All told it was the kind of meal that typically made folks question where the Romulan put it. Though she was aiming for a calm and collected exterior, one that was clearly unruffled by Tork's declaration of... what exactly... affection? Desire for... something more than affection? Despite her best attempts she was struggling to wrap her head around the thought. Not only that, but with Tork she couldn't cheat.

The ambient emotional temperature around her was of a tired crew--one that was struggling with the dissonance that came with normal duties after a crisis. There was relief too. And other, more thorny emotions underneath them all. Anxiety. Depression. Grief. The thought occurred to her that maybe Tork wasn't interested in picking up where they left off so much as desiring the safe familiarity of it. She frowned.

"How long where you on Subrek's ship?" she asked, trying to keep her tone casual before popping a bite of the berry pancake confection into her mouth.

"A few weeks, I think. Long enough to get the lay of the land and have a plan cooked up to spring myself out. Didn't know there were other Federation-types there, kept us pretty isolated from other... 'acquired help', I suppose you could call us. If they hadn't killed my pilot for getting funny ideas about a jail break, I'd have at least sprung him out along with me," Tork said with an almost too casual shrug.

Emni frowned, recognizing the coolness of Tork's answer as a familiar tone--one that harkened back to the core breaches he had so pointedly mentioned not that long ago. She tried to catch the Ferengi's eyes, looking for another piece of body language that she could add to the puzzle of his answer. "Tork," she said gently, reaching her own hand across the table, palm up, and leaving it there. He could take it or ignore it. Either way she would honor. "A few weeks is a long time to be held captive in a quadrant so far from home with no guarantee that you'll escape."

It was an obvious statement to make. One that didn't really need saying. And yet, she said it anyway, as if saying it could force him to acknowledge the reality of it. "That's a lot for anyone. How did you cope?" she asked, leaning into the question with an encouraging vocal nudge.

Tork snorted when Emni uttered the word home, his eyes closing as if to shut out the very concept. When he opened them again, they focused on the outstretched hand, and it didn't take long for the Ferengi to lean forward and slide his own into it, giving it a squeeze. He didn't say anything for a little while, just letting the moments slip away in silence as if time didn't matter anymore.

"Didn't think about it. Didn't have a reason to, Em," Tork said as his eyes drifted from their clasped hands toward her eyes, "Never really considered any ship I was stationed on to be home, let alone that worthless old freighter my parents used for their latinum bleeding business. Haven't felt like I really belonged anywhere in particular for as long as I can remember. This..." the Ferengi squeezed the Romulan's hand, "This is the only place that ever felt right. So... I guess I didn't cope with it. Didn't really have much to look forward to when I made my grand exit from that rust pile of a ship. Probably why I didn't leave sooner... or die trying."

She knew she should take the comment, the assertion, that she was home at face value. Knew, even, that he intended it well. But Emni couldn't shake the rest of the description that had come with it. Had she really done so poorly at helping him regain his own feet back then? Had she been so wrapped up in the loss of... of... everything... that she had failed the most basic rule of caring for those closest to you? Her frown deepened, but she didn't remove her hand. She let him sit, taking time to see if there was more to say or if he truly meant the answer to be as simple, and as bleak, as that.

Tork's lips curled into an almost sinister smile as he watched the woman debate some unknown but likely not wholly incorrect topic in her head. All the things that had changed over the years, she was still the same woman he'd met in that study room, toiling away at problems she was too proud to admit she needed help to solve. And he himself was still elated watching her gnaw at demons unseen only to throw her thoughts into chaos and make her forget for a moment she'd ever had a thought at all.

"I know that look," the Ferengi said, his smile sharpening a little more, "You're walking that labyrinth in that head of yours, trying to figure out whether I'm just saying things because I'm not that serious about it, or if there's some hidden web behind them you need to untangle. 'What's your angle', wasn't it? The first question you asked me when I first sat down next to you and pointed out that your schematic wouldn't work unless you flipped it upside-down and then backwards, and still it would only blink a little and make some noise. You looked so... lost, searching for an answer you should have known already. Not that I knew you were empathic when I plopped down into that chair, but that look of yours stuck with me. You were terrified and enticed in equal measure. Like a puzzle you couldn't see the solution to, couldn't figure out whether the pieces you were cramming together were right or wrong."

Tork gave Emni's hand a soft squeeze, "I missed that look... that face... you."

For a long moment she starred at the caramel colored hand in hers. The first time he'd done that, taken her hand and threaded his fingers through hers, she'd been surprised that his nails hadn't been sharp against the back of her hand. It had been such a ridiculous thing to think considering that she had burst into tears over another schematic that just wasn't working.

The chirp of her comm badge interrupted the moment and she frowned, tapping it with her free hand in response to the request of the ensign on the other end. "Go ahead ensign," she said.

A moment later she closed the comm and extracted her hand. "I've got to go look into this," she said meeting Tork's eyes with an apologetic quirk to her lips. Picking up her cup she tipped back the rest of the coffee and then half stood, spearing a large bite of pancake. She stood, chewing quickly and swallowing before she said. "Have dinner with me."

It was a request, but one made knowing the answer already. The apology dropped from her expression and her eyes glinted with amusement. "And I might have asked a different question if you'd led with telling me that you were the tutor I'd been expecting."

"Just call me when you want me," Tork said with a breezy smile before his face took on a more thoughtful look, "I feel like if I'd started with that, we wouldn't be having dinner tonight. So I made the right call. See you tonight, Em."

"Tonight," she confirmed. For a moment she seemed rooted to the spot, unmoving as she considered the Ferengi she hadn't seen for so many years.

And then she turned and, without looking back, made her way out of Debbie's, a small, private, smile on her lips.

--- A reunion by ---

Lieutenant Commander Emni t'Nai
Executive Officer

Lieutenant Tork
Displaced Engineer