Cam stormed around her quarters shooting Terry and Jesse nasty glances. "Lighten up?" she squawked. "Lighten up?! Do you know how many times I've heard that lately?"

"Maybe there's some truth to it?" Jesse wondered tossing his cards in a pile.

"I take it your out?" Terry wondered.

"I'm out." Jesse grumbled back.

"All you two do is play that stupid game," Cam commented.

"I thought you liked playing poker. Rumor has it you regularly get your...well you mop or be mopped depending on the mood of the other members of the senior staff."

"You know Jess, you should be there. After all, you're a member of the senior staff as such. You should play St. Jean and McRaney sometime. In fact you can have my seat as far as I'm concerned."

Terry frowned, "Cam what is eating you?"

"Nothing is eating me Mr. James," she snapped back from her closet.

"Kate returneth soon," Jesse grumbled.

"All this for that?" Terry blinked in a soft voice.

Jesse nodded in reply.

"I heard that Sanchez!" Cam barked. "You need a pet. Remember that fine dog that was dumped on Betazed?" Jesse sighed.

"Remember? I was glad. No babysitting," Terry stifled a laugh.

"I have no clothes to wear," Cam sighed as she sat at the table.

"You're are being hopelessly female," Terry quipped.

"So?" "Next you'll tell us you need shoes."

"No I need a life. I'm tired of this one," She let her chin rest on her palm .

"Two things," Jesse picked up his cards and organized them.

"Two things what?" Cam wondered.

"Two things," Terry shrugged. "We'll be on Earth soon. Two things, a walkabout first and foremost."

"Walkabout?" Cam sounded bored.

"Sure, walkabout. Clears the mind. Second--"

"You want me to walk about."

"Go hiking," Terry commented from behind his cards. "Go sailing, do something absolutely un -work related."

"You mean a trip? Vacation?"

"More than that, but along those lines."

"Oh," she sighed.

"What about the second thing?" Jesse glanced at Terry.

"Oh no I'm not saying it. What do you take me for a fool?" Terry shot back. "If that's so then I'm leaving!"

"I didn't say anything did I?" Jesse said softly watching the frown deepen into Cam's forehead. Her rather deep set eyes took on a rather smokey haze. Where there was smoke there was fire. Cam was getting more and more annoyed as the minutes ticked by.

*** She was still wearing the same frown when she threw herself into the chair of Antos Bek's office. "My life is out of control," She grumbled.

"Grandiose statements are not your usual observations, Cam."

"It's how I feel. I feel like my friends are laughing behind my back. I feel like projects have gotten out of hand. I'm swamped and I don't know what to do."

"How is your brother?"

"My brother?" Cam wondered. The question caught her off guard.

"Hear me out. I sense there's some jealousy on your part concerning your brother and Kate."

"Jealousy," Cam paused. "I guess that's one adjective. I don't know what to think."

"He took a severe beating, nearly lost his ship."

"Part of his job," Cam shrugged.

"A risk he had to take. But what does that have to do with me?"

"I don't think your life is as out of control as you think. You only perceive it that way."

"I need a vacation, right? I'm short staff and I'm moving people around to be certain that everything's covered. How can I take a vacation?"

Bek shrugged, "So what was it about the card game last night that upset you?"

"Terr and Jesse had these really flippant attitudes. Neither one wanted to do what I wanted to do. It hurt. They kept poking at me to watch me jump."

"And you rewarded their behavior by jumping."

"It was so juvenile."

"That's men for you. Human males can be like big children at times, no matter how sophisticated they are on the surface."

"Boy isn't that the truth," Cam sighed, she picked up a padd and started fiddling with it.

"What are you thinking about?"

Cam sighed and glanced up, "Things...people. Just annoyed with myself I suppose."

"And how so?"

"For being...childish. I guess I've been throwing my share of tantrums lately as well."

"Why?"

"Feeling penned in. I guess I get a little antsy and weird when the pressures on. I feel trapped and my primal instinct is to fight my way out of it, including having tantrums," Cam thought a minute, "I'm scared Antos. I'm really scared."

"Why?" "I wish I knew."

***

The ocean lapped at the rocks crashing and moving restlessly. The smell of kelp and salt stung her nose bringing alive all the foggy mornings standing on the front porch of the house. Somewhere a gull mewed. Cam pulled at the tuft of oatgrass and fiddled with it feeling the little prickly hairs run through her fingers as she watched the sunset. She scarcely glanced up as someone settled next to her on a rock. It was cool and she gathered her jacket around her.

"Where is this?"

"My thinking spot." She replied blinking her long eyelashes at James.

"Earth," he pondered looking out to sea.

"Yeah," she shrugged.

"Where?" he wondered plucking a blade of grass himself.

"Point Lobos. It was a shuttles ride from the house and a place Id go and hide when I snuck out of school. This is where I decided my path lay in Starfleet. Up the coast there, to the north. The Academy, Headquarters, Baghdad by the Bay."

"Something's bothering you."

"And everyone has a degree in psychology."

"I want to apologize for the other evening," he said softly. "I think I had the wrong idea."

"How so?" "I thought. Oh hell it doesn't matter what I thought. What matters is--"

"Nothing matters," Cam cut in sharply.

"No Cam something does matter. Your feeling hurt and your acting like a spoiled brat."

"Not you too. I feel bad enough."

"Cam I don't understand you. I thought you had grown up and gotten beyond this behavior."

"There are behavior patterns you always fall back on. Yours is to lecture me to death."

"Maybe so. Maybe I simply take your fathers place when he's not here. Or big brothers."

"Terry," she said feeling choked up. She looked at him with her eyes growing misty. "I feel like I'm missing out on something. I'm being left behind and --"

"Missing? What are you missing?"

"Why doesn't it ever click?" She asked innocently. "Why is it that Kate can feel something and its utterly alien to me? How did she fall bigbodaboom for Pete and I'm sitting her stumbling like an idiot."

"How can you sit and stumble at the same time?" Terry wondered.

"I--" She coughed and frowned. "Well, OK. But that's not the point. I feel jilted, cheated. I feel like I'm chasing something and I'm not catching up."

"Well your chasing an illusion to begin with. Love isn't something tangible. It's so complex--"

"Please, I don't need the formula."

"No, you don't. But maybe you need more time in a place like this," Terry countered. "Besides when we make it home, you can walk it for real."

"But for now," Terry sighed. "Walk."

"Terry--" "What?"

"Never mind," Cam shook her head. Her ponytail had come unbraided and the wind off the Pacific sent the wild strands everywhere.

"If you wanted to know what Sanchez meant by that comment," he glanced at her. "He thinks you need a lover, but don't tell him I told you."

Cam sighed and pitched a rock into the sea, "Damn that big lunkheaded --"

"Really, Cam I thought he was your friend."

Cam stared at James for a long moment. She finally gathered her thoughts, "Terry, don't you see?"

"No."

"If love clicked then I would be having this quandary."

"No, I suspect you wouldn't."

"Love screws things up. It is the root of human unrest. Those who have it and those who don't. You're either looking for it or trying to get away from it-- or some such blathering nonsense."

"Just the same, take that walk. Arch."

Cam watched Terry walk off the holodeck. She grumbled to herself and pitched another stone into the Pacific.

Cam wandered along the coastline for about half an hour before it struck her. "Damn that's what I should do! Take the damn bull by the horns, that's how to deal with Taggert! Why not this as well? Ill just throw a party, invite some friends and have a ball. Humph maybe the old adage is right. Maybe I just need to think that happy thought and I can fly."