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"What are you doing for shore leave?" Amina asks, leaning over Gillian's console with a smile.
Gillian blinks, glancing back down at her screen. "I, uh, I hadn't really thought about it." She can monitor George and Gracie and their family from here, and the Enterprise crew are out on a mission light years away. And since that's pretty much everyone she knows on Earth of the 23rd century, she's kind of at a loose end.
Amina hums, nodding as if that's the answer she expected. "I was going to visit a friend of mine in Paris," she says. "You could come with me, if you want?"
Something sparks in Gillian's mind. "Isn't that the headquarters of the Federation?" She still hasn't quite gotten her mind around that idea - that Earth is part of a coalition of dozens of planets all working together. She'd always kind of assumed humanity would blow itself up before it got that far.
(Though from what she's learned about the 21st century, they did come alarmingly close.)
"That's right," Amina replies. "Lyta – that's my friend – works as an interpreter for the Federation Council. She's a Betazoid," she adds, as though that means something. Gillian has gotten used to that by now – the feeling that everyone around her is speaking in code.
"I've never been to Paris," she says, instead of asking. She's barely been out of North America, if you don't count trips to space. She was always so busy, with studying, with work, with the whales… everything else just seemed to fall by the wayside.
"I've only been once myself," Amina replies. "Lyta's promised to take me round all the touristy stuff. Eiffel tower, Federation monuments, a few museums… It'll be fun. You should come." She hesitates, then adds, "I want you to come."
She reaches out, fingers brushing over Gillian's arm, and Gillian's heart speeds up. Her first instinct is to pull away, but she reminds herself that things are different now. She's different.
Maybe it's time she proved it.
"Yeah," she says, covering Amina's hand with her own. "I'd really like that."