The first food stall defeated Rebecca’s itinerary in under four minutes.

It occupied a narrow space beneath a striped awning, its serving counter built around a circular stone oven. The vendor pulled flat loaves from the heat with a long handled paddle then split them open and filled them with roasted vegetables, a white cheese and something green which released a cloud of steam when crushed.

Rebecca stopped so abruptly that Sora took three more steps before she noticed.

“We were going to check into the hotel,” Sora said.

“We were,” Rebecca agreed.

The vendor lifted another loaf from the oven.

Rebecca watched it with fixed attention.

“And now?” Sora asked.

“Now circumstances have changed,” she said, still staring at the food.

“You saw bread.”

“Precisely.”

They joined the queue.

Rebecca ordered two portions after asking the vendor enough questions that she now knew the history of the oven, where the cheese came from and the name of their daughter, who apparently also operated a stall.

Sora stood beside her, quietly entertained.

“You collect people,” she said when Rebecca returned with the food.

“You said that already.

“And it remains true.”

“I was making conversation,” Rebecca said with a smile.

“You know where his daughter attended university.”

“He was proud of her.”

Rebecca handed Sora one of the warm parcels.

The bread was crisp at the edges and soft within, the filling savoury. Sora took another bite before she could pretend to assess it further.

Rebecca noticed.

“Oh,” she said. “You like it.”

“It is acceptable.”

“You closed your eyes.”

“The sun was in them.”

“They were facing the bread.”

Sora continued eating.

They moved deeper into the market, following the slow current of people between the stalls. The awnings divided the sunlight overhead. Each lane seemed to devoted to something different. Food, clothing then pottery and now small workshops where things were crafted from metal and glass.

Rebecca consulted her PADD with one hand while holding the remains of her lunch in the other.

“Medical department first,” she said.

“You have a list?”

“I have ideas.”

“That is a list.”

“It is more flexible.”

Sora glanced at the display. “There are names beside each item.”

Rebecca tilted it away from her. “Confidential.”

“You have written ‘Rynka-something she will deny liking.”

“That is an entirely reasonable note.”

“What does Dr Maguire need?” Sora asked.

“A cup.”

“Does he not already have one?”

“He does, but he keeps leaving it in the Biolab.”

“So your solution is to provide another cup for him to leave in there?”

“Eventually, he’ll have one everywhere he needs it.”

Sora considered this. “Surely he could just replicate more?”

“Where is the fun in that?” Rebecca smiled.

They stopped at a ceramics stall where cups and bowls were stacked in elegant towers that appeared structurally impossible. They stallholder assured Rebecca that they were secure.

Rebecca tested this by touching nothing.

She selected a wide bottomed cup painted with waves for Dr Maguire, then spent several minutes choosing between two sets of tiny charms that looked like metal instruments.

“They’re functionally identical,” Sora said.

“One set has little tricorders.”

“So does the other.”

“The little screens are different.”

“They’re three millimetres wide.”

“Details matter.”

Sora picked up one of the charms and examined it. “This one looks like a Klingon disruptor.”

Rebecca looked closer. “That is supposed to be a hypospray.”

“It is a very aggressive hypospray.”

“Perfect for the night shift.”

She brought six.

At the next stall Rebecca found preserved sweets in translucent wrapping, each piece containing layers of colour. The vendor offered a sample.

Rebecca accepted.

Then another, after explaining that Sora had not received the same flavour.

Sora pointed out that she hadn’t asked for one.

Rebecca pointed out that this was why she required supervision.

Within an hour, Rebecca’s promise to carry everything had become a tactical error. Two bags hung from one shoulder, another from her wrist and a long narrow parcel had been tucked awkwardly beneath her arm.

Sora carried nothing except the original travel bag.

Rebecca noticed her looking.

“I have this under control,” Rebecca said.

“The narrow one is sliding.”

Rebecca caught it with her elbow. “Still controlled.”

“What is it?”

“A tool.”

“For Rynka?”

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“I have no idea.”

Sora stopped walking. Rebecca stopped several steps later and turned.

“You purchased a tool without knowing what it was?” Sora asked.

“The woman said it was useful for precision repairs.”

“Which repairs?”

“Precise ones.”

“You know she will ask.”

“I’m aware.”

“And what are you going to tell her?”

“That I saw it and thought of her.”

Sora’s mouth softened.

“That may work,” she admitted.

“It always does.”

“No,” Sora said, “people simply forgive you.”

Rebecca shifted the bags on her shoulder. “Same outcome.”

They continued into the quieter lane where the sounds of the marked became muted by hanging fabrics and thick stone walls. Here, the stalls displayed fewer objects, each set apart from one another deliberately.

Sora slowed.

Rebecca did not comment.

There were carved figures made from the black harbour stone, jewellery and small sculptures that moved in the breeze. Sora examined each one.

Rebecca waited for her through the first three stalls. At the fourth she said, “You know you are allowed to like something immediately.”

“I am considering.”

“You’ve considered fourteen things.”

“None of them were right.”

“What would make one right?”

“I do not know.”

Rebecca smiled. “You’ll know it when you see it.”

“That is still unhelpful.”

They reached a workshop filled with glass.

Light moved everywhere. It caught on suspended shapes, wind chimes and flat polished pieces mounted on the walls. The colours were subtle compared to the rest of the market, sea greens, greys, deep blues and pale amber.

An elder Colludean woman sat behind the counter, wrapping a piece of soft cloth.

“Tideglass,” she explained when Sora paused near a windchime. “Collected after the lowest tides and worked on by hand. Every piece responds differently.”

The chime consisted of five irregular slivers of green-grey glass hanging with a narrow frame. No breeze moved through the covered lane yet they still moved faintly.

Rebecca leaned closer. “I can’t hear anything.”

The woman placed the frame on the wooden counter.

“Touch the surface.”

Sora rested her fingertips on the wood.

A soft vibration travelled through it. Not music exactly, but a shifting pattern, gentle and irregular. She spaced her palm flat against the counter.

Her expression changed.

Rebecca saw it.

“What does it feel like?” she asked.

“Like…” Sora paused. “Like something speaking from another room.”

The workshop owner smiled. “The glass remembers movement. Air, footsteps, machinery. This frame was made for someone who prefers to feel sound rather than hear it.”

Rebecca looked at Sora. Sora noticed.

“It is beautiful,” she said withdrawing her hand.

Rebecca waited.

Sora moved to the next display.

“You’re not buying it?” Rebecca asked.

“No.”

“You like it.”

“I appreciated it.”

“This is liking something.”

Sora studied a set of small glass spheres. “It is not what I am looking for.”

“You said you did not know what you were looking for.”

“Then it cannot be proven that this is it.”

Rebecca gave the workshop owner an apologetic glance.

The woman’s eyes carried the patient amusement of someone who had watched this conversation occur in many forms.

They left without purchasing anything.

Rebecca looked back once.

—-

The market became busier as the afternoon moved on.

More Starfleet personnel arrived from the transport districts, many recognisable as groups of shipmates even without uniforms. They moved with the uncontained energy of crews who had spent too long within the same hull and had suddenly been released into open space.

Laughter rose above the stalls. Someone began to sing along with the musicians in the square. A child cried after dropping a sweet, recovered immediately when given another and then began laughing immediately.

Sora felt all of it.

The emotional pleasure accumulated gradually. Since the displacement she struggled to regulate and hold back the tide of others emotions her natural Betazoid ability allowed her to feel. It was not one mind or some feeling, it was hundreds overlapping one another. She reinforced the boundaries around her awareness.

They held.

Then a group brushed past closely, six people arguing cheerfully over where to go next. Their feelings rushed over her.

Sora’s breath caught.

Rebecca was asking her something.

She could see Rebecca’s mouth moving, but the words disappeared beneath the noise.

“Sora?”

“I’m fine.”

Rebecca’s face sharpened.

Sora continued walking.

The lane seemed narrower than it had a few moments ago. Bodies moved on all sides. Someone behind her frightened about something small and immediate. Someone ahead was carrying grief.

“I said I’m fine,” Sora repeated.

“You only ever say that twice when you aren’t.”

Rebecca shifted the parcels to one arm and touched Sora lightly between her shoulder blades.

“This way.”

“I do not need….”

“I know.”

Rebecca guided her through a gap between two stalls and into a narrow passage. It opened into a small artisan courtyard surrounded by workshops. Only a few people occupied it. Water moved quietly down a tiled wall into a shallow basin.

Rebecca chose a bench beneath a climbing plant and sat.

Sora remained standing.

Rebecca opened the final piece of harbour bread, tore it in half and held one portion out.

“I am not hungry.”

“Good. More for me.”

She ate it. Sora sat beside her. Rebecca did not ask what she was feeling. She did not offer breathing instructions or remind Sora where she was. She simply began talking.

“The aggressive hyposprays where a mistake,” she said.

Sora closed her eyes.

“I should have brought the other set,” Rebecca continued. “Although, the screens were badly painted. I also think the sweets may be mildly intoxicating.”

“They are not.”

“You cannot know that.”

“The vendor listed the ingredients.”

“He listed most of the ingredients.”

“He is legally required to list all of them.”

Rebecca considered that for a moment. “This is a frontier market, and I may have eaten too many”

The water moved down the wall.

The pressure behind Sora’s eyes began to ease.

She concentrated on Rebecca’s voice, the cool stone beneath her feet and the scent of the climbing flowers overhead.

After several minutes, Rebecca held out the remaining bread.

Sora accepted it.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No.”

“I should have noticed sooner.”

“No.”

“I knew the market would be crowded.”

Rebecca turned towards her. “You found me in another universe because I felt familiar. I think I can manage finding you in a market.”

Sora looked at her.

Rebecca seemed to realise what she had said only after it was already between them. She looked down and began reorganising the bags at her feet.

“You should buy something for yourself,” Sora said.

Rebecca glanced up. “What?”

“You have purchased gifts for your department, your family and for Rynka.”

“I brought food.”

“Food eaten while walking between errands does not count as a keepsake.”

“Why does it have to be a keepsake?”

“Because we’re on shore leave.”

Rebecca’s expression closed by a fraction. “I don’t need anything.”

“That is not the point.”

“Then what is?”

Sora hesitated.

Rebecca saw it, “go on.”

“You have spent the entire day making certain everyone else will receive proof that you thought of them.”

“I did think of them.”

“I know.”

“So why are you making it sound like a problem?”

“I am not.”

“You’re analysing me.”

“I’m speaking to you.”

“As my counsellor?”

The question struck hard. Sora straightened her posture. “I am not your counsellor.”

“You don’t always know how not to be.”

Silence filled the courtyard.

Rebecca looked away first.

The water continued to move over the tiled wall with infuriating calmness.

“That was unfair,” she said.

“It was.”

“But not entirely wrong.”

Sora stood.

Rebecca’s head lifted. “Sora….”

“I need some time on my own.”

Rebecca nodded after a moment. “All right.”

“The fountain near the eastern entrance. Half an hour?”

“I know where it is.”

“Yes,” Sora said. “You researched.”

She left the courtyard without looking back.

—–

Rebecca waited until Sora had disappeared before returning to the tideglass workshop. The elderly woman was still behind the counter.

“The chime,” Rebecca said.

“I wondered which of you would return,” the old lady said.

Rebecca glanced toward the lane. “Can you wrap it so she won’t recognise the shape?”

The woman reached beneath the counter for a box. “That depends, how observant is she?”

“Painfully.”

“Then I will use two boxes.”

Rebecca smiled for the first time since the courtyard. Across the market Sora stood before the ceramic stall holding a painted cup between both hands.

It was deep blue, broad at the base and designed to retain heat for hours. Inside the rim, a line of Colludean script had been painted in silver.

The vendor translated it for her.

“Stay long enough to be cared for.”

Sora looked at the cup for a long time. Then she purchased it.

—–

They reached the fountain from opposite directions.

Rebecca carried an additional package tucked beneath the others. Sora had put the cup inside the travel bag.

Neither mentioned the increase in luggage.

“I brought you something,” Rebecca said.

Sora’s gaze dropped to the parcels.

“Food,” Rebecca clarified.

She held out a small paper container filled with fried parcels and a bright citrus sauce.

Sora accepted it.

“Thank you.”

Rebecca picked up one for herself. They ate beside the fountain while the market moved around them.

After a while, Sora said, “We have not checked into the hotel.”

Rebecca looked at her PADD.

“Plans change.”

This time, Sora smiled first.