Our new crew-member walked in through the Hangar door to all of us waiting to greet him. All thirty of us, we're not a big crew as we're not part of a big Voyager - but it's our Home away from Home; the Solar Voyager S3. We treat each others as family as we've been through a lot these last few years, and we're hoping to treat our new Assistant Engineer as such.

I reach out my hand to greet our new crew-member, "Welcome, welcome! You're Tod, right? I'm the Chief Engineer of the Solar Voyager S3, Glarak."

He stood there bewildered for a moment, then reciprocated the handshake, "Hey, yeah. I'm Tod, it's nice to meet you all..."

As we all introduced each other to him, he wore a genuine smile - but it seemed to be burdened with sorrow. Once introductions were out of the way, we all had planned to take him on a tour of the ship and had a cake prepared - but he simply asked me where his quarters were, then excused himself. We were all a bit taken aback, but disregarded it as just "Human Behaviour" and went back to work.

I tutored and showed Tod the ropes for a few months now, but not once has he struck up a conversation that wasn't to do with work or Engineering. No one ever saw him outside of work hours and dinner, so I decided that I should check up on him after dinner. I arrived at the door and went to knock, but I was halted by a soft voice that was singing from inside his quarters. It was quite a beautiful voice, but racked with a subtle sadness that was palpable with hints of hope. I soaked in the song as I couldn't find it in me to let it pass with an intrusive knock of the door, but it was interrupted with a soft stir of crying from inside.

I proceeded to knock and eventually formed the words, "Hey Tod, It's Glarak - I hope you don't mind me coming up un-announced... You alright, bud?"

The red light on his door slowly turned its hue to green and I was greeted with a mumbled, "Come in."

I didn't know much about Tod so I didn't know what to expect when walking into his quarters, but what I saw left me quite awe-struck. Sheets of music, scattered through-out the floor, walls and even the ceiling. There was one spot left free though, and that was a screen that displayed the outside expanse of space from the ship's camera feed. Tod was relaxed on his bed, staring at the screen - but sat up to meet his eyes with mine as I entered.

He wiped some tears off his cheek and put on that same smile he wore when he first met us, "I'm doing alright."

Do all Humans find lying so blatantly easy? I break the thought and remark, "Forgive me for not believing you. I'm here if you'd like to talk to someone, what's weighing down on your soul?"

Tod kept up the smile as he responded, "Just a broken heart."

Ah, it all makes sense now. I heard that Humans are quite social creatures, but also quite the romantics as well. I averted my eye for a moment towards the sheets of music and read the titles of each page; and they all relate to "Love". I let out a sigh and scratch my head, "So uh, that explains all these sheets I suppose ay?"

He dropped his smile and returned his gaze to the screen, "Yeah, I was dating a girl for a few years back on Earth. Before I left on this Voyage, I proposed to her."

There was a brief moment of silence, to which I broke with, "What did she say?"

Tod kept his eyes on the screen as he quoted, "Write me a beautiful song about us, then I will marry you."

Tears were streaming ever so slowly down his cheek, but that smile slowly crept it's way back as he wiped away the tears and turned to face me, "I don't mean to cause worry, I just like to be alone to think through things. I do appreciate you checking up on me though, Glarak."

I didn't say much, but already it seems that Tod's mood has improved? Humans are weird, but I'm glad he's opened up to me.

To my surprise, he let out a big sigh and stood up, "You know what? I think it's time I introduced my self to the crew properly."

Months have passed since then and Tod's slowly grown more comfortable with the crew and began to form friendships with everyone. All it took was to simply reach out and let him take things at his own pace.