=Mess Hall= =U.S.S. Chimera= Rick arrived at the celebration and quickly noticed rest of those gathered mingling and having a festive time. He sported a red santa coat and hat with whatever that fuzzy white ball was called on top. He decided to forego the white beard, red pants and fat suit that came with the costume, wearing his starfleet uniform underneath. He saw Hawk standing off to the side, keeping his distance from the others. Rick considered speaking with him, but decided that Hawk would become social when he felt it was right. The fact that he was here was a big step. Rick chatted it up with some of the others, but mostly kept to himself. He was usually so busy in engineering that he had little time to know the rest of the crew outside of engineering. Midway through the awards ceremony, Rick saw a familiar face sneak out of the room. He could tell that Jo Weathersby wasn’t feeling very festive and hardly noticed her at all during the party. Rick followed her and caught up with her in the corridor leading to the nearest turbolift. “Jo, what’s wrong?’ Rick asked. She turned around and seemed surprised by Rick’s presence. She looked like she had been crying as she rubbed her eyes with her right hand and tried to act little nothing was wrong. “I’m fine, sir,” she said. Rick studied her face and saw that her nose and eyes were red. “You as good of an actor as my brother, and he does a poor job at pretending to be a security officer, which he is, by the way,” Rick said. “So, what’s up?” “It’s ... it’s nothing,” she said. Rick just stared at her, crossing his arms, “You know you can tell me anything. Yeah, I’m your boss, but I’m also your friend. But, if it’s too personal, than just tell me to go away.” She looked down at the deck then back up at him as tears started to form in her eyes. She tried her best to fight them back. “I suppose that you will find out anyway,” she said. Rick waited for her to continue, but then led her to the turbolift and then to his office in engineering. He had her to sit down on the small couch in his office, then pulled up a chair next to her. “OK,” Rick said as she just nodded. There was a short pause as she looked down at her hands then back at him. “A few days ago, I was in sickbay,” she said. “I was having these headaches and feeling dizzy. I thought it was something routine, and that I could just get some medicine to treat it.” She looked away from as Rick just watched in silence. “They performed some in depth tests, which I thought was unusual,” she continued . “After a couple of hours, the doctor came back and told me that had sent my test results back to Starfleet Medical for further exam. Today, they got back the results.” Rick waited as she collected her thoughts. More tears begin to appear as one slowly glided down her left cheek. Rick stood up and grabbed a handkerchief from his desk and handed it to her. She took it and rubbed her eyes with his as Rick sat next to her and held her in his arm. Some might say that this was unprofessional, but to hell with professionalism. “They said that it was Temporal Cerebral ... something or other ... Syndrome,” she said. “It’s apparently so rare that only one and a million that are affected by temporal distortions get it. They also say that there is no cure.” Rick continued to hold her in his arms as she tired to keep from crying. “How bad is it?” Rick asked in a soft voice. “It’s fatal,” she said in almost a whisper as she was not struggling with her words. “I have five ... maybe six ... months before it ... it ...” She finally broke down as Rick held her even tighter with her face in his chest. He didn’t know what to say. He wanted to tell her that everything would be alright, but there was no way he could know that for sure. So, they just sat there for the next hour or so as he did the only thing he knew he could do, giving her a shoulder ... or in this case ... a chest to cry on. Acting Lieutenant Rick Rodgers Chief Engineering Officer U.S.S. Chimera and Crewman Jo Weathersby (npc) Engineer