Sharah pulled herself up off the floor outside the holodeck. ‘If you can still hear me…’ The problem was she could ‘hear’ everything. The ship wasn’t huge but it was too much. She choose to head to her quarters which were closer than sickbay. She hit the button on the COMM panel, “Computer show me the way to my quarters.” The panels lit up allowing her to simply follow the arrows rather than try to navigate. She had made a grave error tonight. She didn’t regret going. She had nice crew mates and she wanted to make friends. The corridor swirled in her vision and she stopped to take a deep breath. She could still hear all the background ‘noise’ but it was a little better the farther she got from everyone. She made it to her quarters, went in and stumbled to the nearest chair. “Computer load Fayth Music 3.”
“Unable to load, specified file is not located on the database.” Sharah groaned. She hadn’t had time to load her personal files. “Computer play something soothing, instrumental only, from Betazed or Vulcan.” The soothing music came on and Sharah tried to focus on it. “Computer increase volume by 3 increments.” The music got louder and she was able to focus on it enough to stop the dizziness. She thought about contacting Lt. Mika, but this wasn’t that bad, she had had worse. She wanted to talk to someone though, and without thinking she was contacting Cmdr. Ballaris at the Academy.
“Sharah? Are you alright?” Cmdr Ballaris was her neuropsychologist at the Academy. He took one look at her and was concerned. “You don’t look well. Do you need a doctor. I think you should call the doctor right away.”
Sharah sat with her eyes closed facing the Comm screen. “No, at least I don’t think so. The dizziness is easing, but the headache is starting. It’s been so long.”
Ballaris was curious but understood that Sharah was having a problem because of her over-empathic abilities. “Sharah you’ve done well for many years, are you going to tell me what is going on? What has been so long.”
Slowly over the next half hour Sharah explained to Cmdr. Ballaris about her excitement, being up front with Lt. Mika about her condition, and then attending the cadet mixer in the holodeck. “I haven’t been around that many people all at once in years. I always worked in small lab groups, small classes. It made it easy to manage.”
“Not so much with all the cadets around?” Ballaris offered.
“No it wasn’t. I tried, but I guess I was tired. I don’t have a lot of practice in large groups. I don’t want to offend anyone. They deserve their privacy.” Sharah’s insecurities were going to make her start rambling into areas they had discussed over and over again. Ballaris started into inturupt her, when she said, “And then he TALKED to me.”
Ballaris was confused, “Okay. Sharah that is what people do in social situations. No one there knows you. I didn’t want to tell you because I know you don’t want special treatment but I made sure you went to the Challenger so you would be with all new people. No one would know you.”
Sharah was fiddling with an alpha-wave inducer. “No, not like that. He SPOKE to me, telepathically!” She stopped fiddling. “It was my fault, I guess he was intruiged by having a betazoid on board. He kept asking me all kinds of questions and I really didn’t want to answer. And he purposely was thinking loudly and I heard him and without thinking I answered, but you know, he’s human so I had to make him hear me. I didn’t mean to, Cmdr Ballaris. I really didn’t, but then he just kept conversing with me.”
Ballaris nodded, “And any use of your telepathy allows all the other stuff in. You got overwhelmed didn’t you?” Sharah nodded, “I had to leave, I got sick. And I hate it! I was actually having a good time. I was meeting my crew mates and, for the most part, having a normal conversation. There is a science officer on board, who is really into exocultures. I was hoping to compare notes with my exobiology research.”
Ballaris spoke with Sharah for awhile longer. He was very proud of her for going to the social, and he was sorry she had gotten sick, but she had tried, something she wouldn’t have done even a few months ago. “Sharah do you still have the alpha wave inducer?” She held it up. “Good, I think it might be good to use it tonight. You haven’t had any episodes in awhile, but you have your first real shift tomorrow and I think it would be good to make sure you actually sleep so you can function tomorrow and your paracortex rest. ” He gave her the settings to input and while she configured the inducer he sent a note to her CMO and the ship’s counsilor to let them know what was going on with her. Sharah ended her call.
She was finally able to process the last thoughts Joseph had sent her. She was in too much pain to answer him, though she got the impression he was fascinated by telepathy. Instead she sent a message to his comm. ‘Dinner would be nice.’

Sharah thought about her conversation with Griess and decided she would like to discus exocultural studies with her exobiology research. She sent the following message to his work station. “I have to decide the type of study I want to conduct. I was hoping I could bounce some ideas off of you about exobiology and exocultural studies, if you have time.”

Sharah set the alpha wave inducer and went to bed.