<fwip, fwip, fwip, fwip, fwip, fwip, fwip...>

"I think you should do it." Lieutenant Commander Julia Abernethy peeked at the corner of her cards and threw a gold chip onto the table. "Five."

Tara Vincent rolled her eyes upward in silent supplication. "I thought we agreed not to talk about that any more."

"Talk about what?" Counselor Leyala Hann sipped her wine demurely as Tara shot her a poisonous look over one broad, blue-clad shoulder.

"Like you don't know, Ley."

One elegantly arched, perfectly Betazoid eyebrow rose. "I only know this is a source of great conflict between you and the good Nurse Abernethy, and that it is also something you have been considering doing, or not doing, for at least a few days."

"Oh, really..." Commander Kieran Sullivan looked avidly about the table. "Wouldn't have anything to do with the new deep-space Explorer due to leave dry-dock in a few months, now, would it?"

"Tara's going to the Explorer?" Koren Arctros, the Yamato's Rigellian Assistant Chief Engineer carefully elbowed his left-side neighbor, Doctor Lassiter McTavish. "Better clean her out now, Lassiter."

"I intend to," came the smooth response, the woman's faintly Vulcanoid features giving her an elfin quality as she smiled mischievously. "I'll see that and raise five." She tossed the chips onto the table.

"Fold," Arctros stated succinctly, slapping his cards to the table. He looked across the table to his Department Head. "How could you know about Tara going to another ship and not tell me?"

Two silver chips came from Arctros' right. "I'll see that," Sullivan drawled.

Tara sighed. "Tara is *not* going anywhere," she asserted, looking at her cards one last time. "I fold," she grumped, leaning back in her chair, her lanky frame sprawling across it in striking, albeit unconscious, elegance.

A chorus of "yeah, uh-huh, mm-hmm" came from around the table.

Except from the Chief Engineer, who was uncharacteristically silent.

"Well I think it's wonderful." This from Ensign Krenn-Palann Jornna, who shook Tara's left wrist in an affectionate gesture. "With all that coursework in diplomacy and first contact, and didn't you get a master's in Exosociology? I think it's a great idea." He studied his cards. "I'll see you and raise ten."

There was a silence.

"Yale?" Julia finally interjected into the dead quiet. When there was no response, she waved her hand in front of the blue eyes that had remained focussed somewhere deep within the cards. "Yale!"

The red head popped up, Chief Engineer Yale Paddington blinking rapidly.

Everyone laughed.

"Come on, Yale, it's your call," Lassiter grinned.

After a moment of confused tension, she threw her cards to the table. "I'll fold," she said wearily. She stood slowly, seeming much older than her thirty-seven years. "Take my chips, Tara," she said in a dry, tired voice. "I'll see you all later."

And with that she was gone, leaving an even heavier silence in her wake.

One by one, each pair of eyes turned to Tara, the silence hanging over them all until Julia Abernethy finally broke it.

"You... little..."

"Jules," Lassiter said warningly.

"You didn't tell her," Julia said in indignation. "Did you?" she demanded.

Tara sighed wearily. "No. I didn't."

"Why not?" Leyala questioned gently.

"Because there was nothing to tell, alright?" Tara stared each of them down defiantly. "I'm not going. No need to bring it up at all."

"So... why is she angry?" Jornna asked with his characteristic confusion over Human female behavior.

Tara stared at the table darkly.

"Because Yale will feel that Tara is passing up an incredible opportunity, just because they are in a relationship here on the Yamato," Leyala clarified in her forthright yet gentle way. "She would never want to hold Tara back, or feel that Tara sacrificed..." she looked at Tara pointedly, "what could be the opportunity of a lifetime." She tilted her head. "Something she was trained to do... something she very much wants to do?"

There was another long pause.

"I'm sure they have Engineers on the Explorer," Lassiter said, a little too lightly.

"She won't leave the Yamato," Arctros stated flatly.

Tara nodded. "We have an agreement," she said, and if her voice was somewhat bitter, no one chose to point that out. "She belongs to the ship. This is her life. Her first and only love. I'm just... her mistress, I suppose." She looked up at them. "The Yamato always comes first."

"Maybe it's time to put yourself first," Sullivan observed quietly, riffling his chips. He raised his vivid blue eyes to Tara's green ones. "You know I would rather give up my pips than to say anything bad about Yale, but sometimes... sometimes she takes people for granted, Tara." He lowered his eyes, then shrugged. "Sometimes she doesn't see people at all. Just her engines. Her ship."

"It's not that simple," Tara said softly.

"It's as simple as you want to make it, Tara," Lassiter said gently, but passionately. "We've all seen it, the way she ignores you, just... God, help me out here, somebody!" she entreated, spreading her hands as she addressed the rest of the table. "She's *using you*, Tara."

"Waitaminute," Arctros interjected. "Yale is not that kind of woman. Whatever else she is, she is not a user."

"You're right, Koren." Tara said softly, as several people drew breath to interject. "But so is Lassiter. And Sully." She shook her head slowly. "I don't think either of us intended it to turn out this way," she sighed. "But it did. I'm never first for her. I never will be. I lover her so much, but I just... I have to figure out if that's enough -- or whether I need more. Whether being second is something I can accept for the rest of my life."

Everyone sat in companionable silence for a moment, Leyala leaning forward from her customary perch behind Tara and wrapping her arms about her shoulders. "Just remember, *ullundri*," she said softly, using her term of endearment for Tara as the younger woman leaned her head against her temple affectionately. "Just because you can, doesn't necessarily mean you should."