The BLTS Archive - Metascar
by Blue Champage (rowan-shults@sbcglobal.net)

---

Blue Champagne here.

I do not own any of these characters or settings. I do own the
dialogue spoken and the actions taken by these Paramount-owned
characters in this Paramount-owned setting.

Please do not post or print this story without running this header.

---

Deanna Troi's curiosity was piqued; she sat staring for a moment at
the appointment calendar where it shone on her desk screen. Lieutenant
Yar, Chief of Security, had claimed an hour of the counselor's
workday. Natasha Yar didn't have the distrust of things medical that
some very physically oriented people did--she was friendly enough with
Deanna on the bridge--but from what Deanna'd been able to sense in
their seven-or-eight month acquaintance, Tasha would've just come by
some evening to talk, if anything were bothering her. To think first
of therapy rather than a chat with a friend was out of character for
Tasha, and Deanna was not often surprised in such matters.

She realized with a pensive frown that actually, she hadn't seen much
of Tasha at all lately. The last time the lieutenant had dropped in,
Beverly had been there, and Tasha had quickly withdrawn, saying she
didn't want to intrude. The doctor's invitation to stay had been
countered with a protest of forgotten work, and Tasha hadn't seemed at
all flustered.

But then she didn't come by again for, what was it, nearly four weeks
now. The plot thickened as Deanna realized Tasha had taken a rotation
at night watch on the bridge; as a section chief, she approved the
scheduling for her people, and was not obligated to participate in
shift rotation.

Some non-telepaths were acutely uncomfortable living or working near
those with receptive psychic talent; it could be as simple as that. As
a psychologist, she understood that those from non-telepathic cultures
were raised with the--perfectly natural--assumption that anything they
did not choose to say would remain unknown to the general populace.
But Tasha, she was certain, wasn't one of those people.

In any case, Tasha knew that outside of the Betazoid species, with
whom Deanna could easily send and receive thoughts, she could catch
only barest actual thought-fragments. From other species, she could
sense only emotions, though admittedly at a level of sensitivity
unique, as yet, to Betazoid-Human crosses (or Betazoid -Vulcan, where
it could be something of a problem). That was the reason Deanna had
gone into psychology in the first place.

Putting Tasha's puzzling actions on mental hold for the present, she
turned her attention to reviewing her notes on her first appointment
of the day, an Andorian separated from his eight-way marriage for far
too long; he was considering resigning from Starfleet, despite an
excellent career record and high prospects.

She sighed; half her job was somehow helping people make such
impossible choices—without letting the patient look to her, the
all-knowing empathic counselor, to provide an answer in which nothing
is lost and nothing is strained. 'There is,' she thought, 'such a
thing as a client having too much faith.'

Sometime after lunch--her patient for the hour following it had left
an apologetic note at her message code, saying he'd be there if a
sudden extra workload allowed the time--her door signal warbled. 'Ah,'
she thought, 'Ensign Reykjavik.' "Come," she called cheerily, settling
into her chair near the end of her office sofa.

Before the door had time to open, she was hit with a shock of
eye-bugging tension, and as Tasha stepped into the room, she quickly
leaned over to pick up her PADD, then raised her head and smiled.
"Hello, Tasha. Please, sit down. How are you feeling?"

Tasha sat, but spread her hands and asked with a half-smile "Can't you
tell?" She looked shyly down at the floor.

"I...can tell you're tense. It's a natural reaction; even though we're
friends, this context is different for us, and many people find a
psychological therapist intimidating at first. Do you remember what I
showed you?"

Tasha looked perplexed, running a nervous hand over her flaxen hair,
then brightened. "You mean, this." She began tapping the relevant
nerve bundle below her ear and Deanna smiled, nodding. She sat back in
her chair and re-cued her PADD to Tasha's file. "You're a bit early;
let me catch up in my daybook."

"Your hair."

Deanna looked up. "My hair?"

"It's...long. I mean," Tasha laughed, "It's down. I've never seen it
down."

"Oh, yes." Deanna idly twisted her finger in a glossy black tendril
and released it, returning to her PADD, saying "I sometimes wear it
down for my appointments with the crew."

"Why?" Tasha's cocked head and puzzled look were almost childlike; but
Tasha could be childlike, in some ways.

"For the same reason I'm wearing this dress--" she gestured with a
blue-gauze clad arm. "It's less intimidating. The arrangement you've
seen me wearing on the bridge is the traditional hairdress of the
women of the Fifth House of Betazed. Actually, firstborn daughters are
supposed to wear something even more elaborate, but my mother never
asked me to wear the silver net."

"Why do you wear it on the bridge and not for this?"

"It's less...I feel less the Captain's advisor, and more a therapist,
with it down; more...accessible."

"Your mother doesn't wear the hairdress."

"My mother has always done things her own way, but my wearing it goes
rather a large way toward pacifying her, considering my decision to
leave Betazed."

"She was angry about that?"

"Not angry, exactly," Deanna said, quirking her mouth. 'I have got,'
she thought, 'to get back in control of this conversation. Tasha's
obviously going to tap-dance.' "My father would call her argument
'noblesse oblige'. I would have led a life similar to my mother's, or
to anyone's born in a noble hierarchy that becomes little more than
honorary as the government changes toward a more egalitarian form. And
if you want to talk about hair, or governmental systems, we can have
dinner this evening," Deanna smiled. "I was rather easily drawn,
wasn't I? Right now, we have other things to discuss. How is
everything in--"

Tasha got up and paced to the other end of the room, her slim body
tense, controlled. Deanna had seen her move when she was unguarded,
and it was the difference between the long-legged lope of an
adolescent, and the concentration of a tight-rope walker; half fluid
athletic grace, half overgrown little girl. "How are things on day
shift?" Tasha asked. "I hear Will hasn't had a taker for poker since
he cleaned out Ensign--"

"Tasha," Deanna said gently, "come and sit down. Computer,
half-lights." The computer bleeped acknowledgment and the lights
dimmed. "Play Troi music program three-B."

Tasha turned around, calm, but visibly maintaining it. She came back
to her seat and sat, taking a deep breath. How to remain calm was a
major point of security training, but Tasha's methods obviously
weren't working very well for her at the moment.

Deanna waited, letting the other woman listen to the gentle flute
music and soft, vibrating bass undertone. When Tasha seemed to unwind
a bit, Deanna started to speak—

The lieutenant opened her eyes and raised her head, looked at Deanna,
froze a moment, and said "Computer, resume normal lighting."

The lights came up. Startled, Deanna looked quizzical, and Tasha said
"Your...the half-lights are...with your hair like that you
looked...honestly, a little odd." She laughed nervously.

Deanna said patiently, her voice soft, "Computer, half-light. Do not
resume normal lighting without my voiceprint. Troi Gamma three." The
lights dropped.

Tasha smiled sardonically at the wall, leaning her elbows on her knees
and clasping her hands, shifting her gaze down to them and saying
"You're going to relax me if it's the last thing you do, I suppose?"

Deanna only said, with a half-smile, "If my hair is so distracting,
I'll move over here." She got up and went to the desk, a distance
behind the couch. Deanna found little that was useful in Freud's
theories, but even he had realized the occasional efficacy of a
relaxed environment that abnegated body-language and eye-contact
interplay.

"Are you feeling calmer, Tasha?"

"Yes," Tasha whispered, though she hadn't moved or looked up.
"I'm...all right."

"I'd like you to lie down on the couch and do a breathing exercise for
a few minutes. I'll lead you through. Breathe deeply once, as you did
a moment ago. Once more. Now close your eyes, and focus on a point in
space, a point just above your eyelids. Remember to breathe, steady,
in and out...see a red number ten in front of you, just above your
eyelids. Concentrate on it..."

In a few moments, she was saying "You are deep in the calm pool. Soft
ripples move in the pool around you, in and out, but they do not
disturb you. You send your own ripples, in and out. Your eyes are open
in the calm pool. Open your eyes. How do you feel?" Deanna said,
feeling Tasha's perception of the room around her as her eyes opened.

"Quiet..." Tasha breathed a few times. "I like the rhythm. Breathing.
The...stasis."

"Yes," Deanna said softly. "It is very comfortable."

"Equanimity."

"Yes."

"Am I hypnotized?" Tasha asked in her little-girl voice,
smiling--Deanna couldn't see the smile from where she sat, but she
could sense it.

"Yes, in a way. The feeling of--stasis, as you called it, is a state
in which this equanimity is a palpable, substantial thing. Can you
feel yourself maintaining it, as stray thoughts and perceptions come
through and change your focus?"

"Yes...I've been hypnotized before..."

"I want to ask you some questions." She kept her voice, as always in
this sort of endeavor, as level and low as possible without becoming
inaudible. "If I ask you something that upsets you, don't try to
answer unless you want to. Go back to breathing, and when you feel the
equanimity again, tell me."

"All right."

Deanna thought a moment, as the music played softly, and she became so
attuned to her patient she could sense each breath Tasha took.

"There is something specific that disturbs you."

"Yes."

"It has frustrated you for some time."

"Yes." The word was plaintive, definitely frustrated.

"Can you tell me what it is?"

A long pause. "I...don't know…"

"Is it difficult to tell me because it is hard to describe, or because
you're reluctant to discuss it?"

"Oh." Tasha barely giggled. "It has a name."

"Is there someone to whom you would feel more comfortable describing
what disturbs you?"

A long pause, and a sense of ironic hilarity from Tasha. Deanna was
ready to come back in and help, but Tasha said "Yes, but he already
knows."

"I see. So you have told your feelings to someone, and it has not been
sufficient outlet."

"Yes."

"You need not answer this if you don't wish to. Who is it that knows
what's troubling you?"

"Oh. Data, of course." Tasha shifted just a bit on the sofa.

Of course, Deanna thought. Whatever. "Would you like him to be here?"

"No. I'm all right."

Deanna got up and came back to her chair, settling in it as the
computer, through the PADD command, continued to record the session.
"Can you tell me why you thought of making an appointment to see me,
rather than simply coming to talk to me some evening when we were both
off duty?"

"It seemed safer. It's more formal; I didn't expect you to hypnotize
me. And I do have a problem I can't seem to either solve or ignore."
The lieutenant smiled, her eyes closing again.

Safer? "And can you tell me any more about the problem?"

"I'm in love with someone."

"I see. And you don't wish to be." Tasha nodded. "Is this person a
subordinate, or--"

"No, it's not that."

"Then...your feelings aren't returned?"

"Probably not."

"You haven't approached this person, then."

"No." Tasha shook her head, and Deanna felt waves of resigned sorrow
from her.

"Because you're afraid of rejection," Deanna said softly.

There was a pause, then Tasha replied slowly "I'm pretty sure she
doesn't feel like I do. She's not the type to keep something like that
under wraps. I'm also worried...she's a coworker. And every time she's
in danger, on a difficult mission, or…I start losing perspective. It
becomes....painful to concentrate, and that's very...unusual for me."

"Yes, it is. I see your problem. Do you think if you told her how you
felt, it might make it easier to continue working with her? Perhaps if
she understood, she could help to make things easier and more
productive for you, even if she didn't feel the way you do."

Tasha smiled, eyes still closed. "She already makes things easier for
me. It's one reason I love her. She's one of the few people who've
ever made me feel safe. When she's near me...I can feel her presence.
It's...like sunlight, though I can't see it. Like a warm bath. I feel
it." Her eyes opened, and she stared glassily into the distance. Tears
were standing in her eyes. "She's the strongest, gentlest person I've
ever met."

"You love her very much," Deanna said gently. "I can sense the depth
of it in you."

"Yes," Tasha whispered.

"If you don't plan to tell her, have you thought of any alternative
plans? A transfer, a...schedule change..." Deanna paused, and went a
little more carefully over the well-deep emotions she was sensing from
Tasha. Her eyes widened.

Tasha looked at her, smiling sadly. "That's the biggest problem. She's
an empath; no matter what I do, eventually she's going to know
anyway."

Still staring into Tasha's eyes, Deanna reached over to the PADD on
the table and stopped recording.

Tasha's eyes closed again, and she said slurrily "I think you'd better
count me back up now. I'm starting to (yawn) get sleepy." She yawned
again.

"Of course," Deanna said automatically. "See the violet number one,
just above your eyelids. Hold the image a moment..."

Tasha sat up when Deanna had counted her all the way out of the
hypnotic state, looking anywhere but at Deanna, mostly at the floor.
"So," she said, almost inaudible, "now you know."

'And I can see why she described a counseling session as "safer" than
a social call.' "Yes."

They were both quiet a moment, then Deanna got up and sat next to
Tasha, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Did you think I'd be angry?
Did you think I'd be anything but flattered?"

"Someone like me...I have no business approaching you. I can't believe
I'm going to say something this corny, but I can't think of another
way to put it. You're like an angel. You bring peace and...calm and
understanding, and you're so strong, nothing could make you lose
control, lash out...you've always known just the right things to say,
to me, to everyone--" she stopped, closing her eyes and vanquishing a
sob. She opened her eyes and turned to face Deanna. "I'm not...you
know how I grew up..."

Deanna took Tasha's hands in her own and said urgently "Your past, the
things that were done to you--it's NOT your fault. You know it, I know
it--"

"It doesn't matter whose fault it was, it happened!" She pressed her
lips together. "And I'm...such a hothead and it's so hard to think
things through--you're so good at that, you already just KNOW
everything...I'm not--I'm--"

"Not what, Tash?"

The taller woman ducked her head, focusing her eyes on Deanna's hands
holding her own. "Not good enough…"

Deanna couldn't believe her ears. Tasha? Feeling this way about
herself?' "You are one of the bravest, most conscientious, most loving
people I have ever met, and all that despite your past." She rested
her fingers under Tasha's chin and tilted her head up. "Never," she
began, then repeated more emphatically, "NEVER think such...such
libelous rubbish about yourself. You are worth anyone alive. In
fact..." Deanna's tone softened, and she finished "You're worth ten of
anyone alive." Knowing that this had definitely gone beyond a
counseling session, she hesitated only a heartbeat or so before she
brought her mouth to Tasha's and kissed her lightly.

She had to lift herself and lean forward a bit, Tasha being taller,
and the lieutenant accepted the weight, wrapping her arms around the
smaller woman and prolonging the kiss until they finally had to take a
breath.

They remained wrapped together a moment; Tasha was trembling.

Deanna nearly fell over as Tasha suddenly released her and jumped to
her feet, repeating "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Deanna, I'd never--oh
DAMN." Tears gushed into her eyes and she bolted out of the cabin, the
doors barely drawing apart in time.

Deanna sat blankly for a second, dumbstruck, then leaped to her feet
and ran to the door. "Tasha! It's all right, don't--" but the security
chief was already out of sight.

The counselor touched her comm badge. "Computer, locate Lieutenant
Natasha Yar."

"Lieutenant Yar is in Turbolift Four."

From the direction she'd taken, Tasha was probably going to her
quarters, one deck below Deanna's. The counselor left a cursory note
at her message code, explaining her absence as due to an emergency,
for her two remaining clients of the day; then she started for Tasha's
quarters.

Where she found the door locked. Tasha was in there, though; Deanna
could sense it. "Tasha," she said patiently, "open the door. This may
begin to look odd."

No response. "Are you all right?" Still nothing. Deanna touched her
comm badge again and started "Troi to Doctor Crusher--"

The door whooshed open. "No," Tasha whispered, then turned and went
back into the cabin, Deanna following.

"Yes, Deanna?" came Beverly's voice.

"It's nothing, Beverly," Deanna said, "sorry. False alarm."

"That's all right. Are we still having dinner tonight?"

"You may want to ask the Captain instead. Something urgent has come
up."

"All right. I'll see you in my office tomorrow. Crusher out."

Tasha had sat down on the couch, hands folded between her knees,
staring at what seemed to fascinate her most lately, the floor. She
had obviously been crying, but was quiet now.

Deanna sat next to her and said "Would you mind telling me what you
were apologizing for a moment ago? It was I who kissed YOU, after
all."

Tasha sniffed. Deanna leaned over and got a tissue from the end table
to hand her. Tasha blew her nose and said "I didn't want you to
think...that I expected anything. That I would push for…any more."

"You wouldn't have to push hard."

Tasha turned her head and stared squarely at Deanna.

"You seem to think you haven't got a prayer with me. You've heard me
describe you at least once as an exceptionally beautiful woman; one
would think you'd realize you have something more than a snowball's
chance in purgatory." Deanna smiled, carefully, and laid her hand
lightly on Tasha's knee.

The lieutenant still couldn't seem to speak. Deanna's brow creased.
"Tasha, are you all right?"

"Fine...but…"

"If--you can give me a little time, to get used to the idea of
this...I do love you, Tasha, and I have for some time; I thought you
knew it."

"Yes, as a friend...not like I..."

"Not yet, perhaps, but I'd never encourage you if I didn't think there
was a real chance that would change. I'll never lie to you, especially
about something like this."

"Oh, I know that...but..."

"Of course, you'll have to start going to a different counselor.
Professional ethics and all."

"I can't believe..." Tasha paused to clear her throat and tried again.
"I just don't believe this. You." Tentatively, she touched Deanna's
cheek. "You really want...?" Tasha's voice was a bare whisper of her
soft, clear soprano.

Despite the reality of her past, there was still a deep and trusting
innocence at the core of her being. Strong she was, capable she
certainly was--in part because of that unshatterable trust. But in
many ways, Deanna thought, Tasha was very fragile. Tash would
literally rather take on hordes of armed and angry Klingons than have
to deal with something like this. 'It took a great deal of courage for
her to reveal this to me,' Deanna thought. 'I will never, ever mislead
that trust.'

"I really do. Really." She leaned over and kissed Tasha again, this
time moving over and settling in for the duration, and Tasha responded
with an urgency that could only be described as manic. Deanna, while
used to a slower pace than this, quickly got caught up in her
companion's urgency. Ordinarily she shielded herself somewhat on such
occasions, knowing the necessity of being able to tell her own
feelings from those of her lover, but at the moment a whole world of
Tasha was being revealed to her, and she didn't want to miss any of
it.

Unfortunately, an unavoidable interruption occurred--getting their
clothes off proved to be problematical. Neither of them could slow
down long enough, and Tasha kept repeating things like "You're so
beautiful, so beautiful--"

'You're no slouch,' Deanna thought, but unlike her companion she
couldn't do this and mumble words around it at the same time. She
managed to get Tasha's uniform undone, and Tasha helped out by prying
her own boots off through stepping on them one at a time with the
other foot and yanking. When Deanna managed to slide her hands in
under Tasha's undershirt, the taller woman gasped and shivered.

But as for Deanna's dress, there was no getting out of it, literally;
it had no fastenings and stymied all their efforts. Finally they had
to break apart long enough for her to pull the stretchy thing off over
her head. They resumed, as well as they could since Tasha hadn't
waited for Deanna to get resituated, and the empath was still blinded
by hair—

Deanna sensed a gyroscopic abnormality in their balance and the world
tilted and she landed with a jarring thud on her back with Tasha's
weight on top of her, the wind knocked out of her with an unromantic
grunt. She noticed that the standard crew quarters carpet felt far
rougher on her exposed back than it did against her bare feet.

"OH my God, Deanna!?" Tasha frantically swept at the blanket of glossy
hair until she uncovered the counselor's still wide-eyed face. "Are
you all right? I didn't hurt you, did I? You're so small, so
fragile..." she was running her hands all over Deanna's limbs and ribs
as if checking for injury.

"I'm fine, Tasha. Really, I won't break," she reassured the taller
woman, "but perhaps the couch isn't the best place for this."

"Right." Tasha got her legs under her, but instead of standing and
pulling Deanna up she lifted the other woman in her arms, an
expression of naked adoration on her face. She just stood there a
moment, gazing into Deanna's eyes. "I could drown in your eyes. It's
so trite, but..." she sighed.

Deanna smiled, but the other woman's flesh--and emotions--touching her
so closely all over were making her crazy. "That's very sweet. But
aren't your arms getting tired?"

"What? Oh." Tasha blushed--Deanna smiled; Tasha blushed very easily
for a person who could knock over a large Betazoid arctic horned
bear--or one small Betazoid woman. Deanna started tracing her tongue
up Tasha's neck as she was carried toward the bedroom, but quickly
stopped when Tasha swayed dangerously, groaning low in her throat and
bringing Deanna's head into a near-miss situation with the doorframe.
'All right, I can make it three more seconds,' she thought, and then
they had reached the bed.

---

"I love everything about you."

Deanna smiled, stretching, and turned her head to bestow the smile on
her companion. "You're quite lovable yourself." The sheet and blanket
were on the floor, but she was too relaxed to get up and get them, and
besides, Tasha was generating more than enough heat to keep her
comfortable.

"No, I mean it. I love your eyes. I love your hair, your skin..." she
nuzzled Deanna's hand where it lay open on the bed, picked it up and
kissed it. "I love your accent. I love your voice and the things you
say. I love the way you see things, I love your calm, your strength,
your gentleness—" She laid her head back down, her cheek in Deanna's
palm. "I love your sense of humor--oh, yes you do, you have one, I've
seen it. Other people may miss it because it's important for people to
find you reassuring, and wisecracks wouldn't help that any. But I know
the things that make you smile, even when you hide it."

"I don't hide it very well, apparently," Deanna chuckled.

"Well enough. Not everyone...watches you as closely as I do. I'm…very
aware of you when you're near me." She pulled Deanna against her and
they moved gently together, getting comfortable on the pillows. "I
love your ability never to hide from a feeling, yours or anyone
else's, just because it's inconvenient or uncomfortable. It takes so
much courage to remain that vulnerable when you don't have to. I guess
that's the thing I love most about you--how much you love. You have so
much of it, and you give it so freely. It flows from you like
a...spring of light. It shines in your eyes, even when you cry. You're
the most beautiful person I've ever met--"

Deanna, her throat closing, laid her fingers across Tasha's lips.
"Please. Stop. Or I'll cry right here," she explained hoarsely. "I'm
not an angel, Tasha. I can be as petty and small-minded as anyone
else. I have my moments of weakness, doubt, of taking the easy way
out. And everything you've said about me--especially about love--is
true of you. I was never put through the hell that you were, and you
came out of it with your ability to love, and to trust, intact. I
would have built such shields that not even the strongest telepath
could have dismantled them, and I'd have remained that way the rest of
my life. YOU are strong, Tasha, and beautiful. You are someone who
gives people reason to believe in the perennial nature, and the power,
of unselfish love." I'm waxing so eloquent, Deanna thought, but does
she believe me?

Tasha couldn't speak for a moment; she kissed Deanna deeply, and the
empath returned the kiss wholeheartedly. Tasha whispered "But...I'm so
violent. So...hair-trigger. I swing a fist first and ask questions
later."

"Or you swing a boot, more likely, but when do you do that? Only when
the people in your care are threatened. You defend them, physically,
which is not something I'm certain I would have the courage to do
without at least a belt phaser."

"But you're so small! And your empathy--it would be hard for you to
shut out the feelings of the--"

"As may be. Tasha, you mustn't deify me. Inevitably you will come to
realize that I am as fallible as you, as anyone, and you will
be...disappointed. And I hate the thought of your being disappointed
in me."

They lay close, feeling the warmth and softness of each other's skin,
the blood coursing under the skin, the soft intake and release of
breath. Tasha reached up and caressed Deanna's breasts. "I love these,
too. Now I know what the expression 'rosebud breasts' means."

Deanna smiled again. "If you keep complimenting me like this I'm going
to be very embarrassed."

"You're already embarrassed."

"Well, yes, but how--"

"You don't blush in your face, but you do across your chest. See?
Computer, full lights."

"Ow." Deanna covered her eyes. When she lowered her hands, Tasha
kissed the closed lids apologetically. "I'm sorry, I forgot how
light-sensitive your eyes are. Here, look."

Deanna looked, and went into a giggle fit. Sure enough, her pale skin
was rosy with a soft flush across her breasts, stomach and thighs. "I
swear to you, I never noticed that. And no one's ever told me."

"They probably thought you knew."

"I suppose. Oh, I knew I flushed like this from exercise--especially
this sort of exercise--and occasionally when I've been angry, but I
didn't realize I did it when I was embarrassed."

"You? Angry?" Tasha wrapped her up in her arms and legs and rolled
over on top of her, saying "Never."

"Ask Will if you don't believe me." She tickled, and Tasha squirmed,
laughing, and Deanna kissed her, and they suddenly reached an unspoken
agreement to disregard the dinner plans they'd made.

---

"When did the nightmares start?" Beverly asked, handing Deanna a cup
of Valerian tea and sitting down next to her with a cup of coffee.

"When we first encountered Sela," Deanna sighed, and sipped. "When I
saw her--when I read the captain's report to Starfleet about the
timeline in which Tash hadn't died--it was bad enough simply hearing
of Sela's existence, and the circumstances that brought it about.
Having to...sense her--SO unlike Tasha, and yet--" She paused, closing
her eyes. "It was a nightmare. And I HAD to sense her, to advise the
senior staff about her belief--her certain knowledge--that she was
Tasha's daughter...I began to realize that I had never really dealt
with...Tasha's...her loss.

"I went to doctor Selar, complaining of stress-induced nightmares that
were disturbing enough to affect my duties, and she gave me an inducer
to use for a week."

"Why didn't you come to me?" Beverly asked the question neutrally, for
information, not with any sense of betrayal.

"Because our relationship is more than professional. You'd have asked
questions."

"True. Tell me about the content of the nightmares."

"Interestingly enough, Tasha's almost never in the dreams; there is a
theme, of horror and loss, and my responsibility for it, but the
actual events change quite often. But...last night..."

Deanna was quiet so long, so still that not even the tea in her cup
displayed a ripple, that Beverly prompted "What was different about
last night's dream? What made it enough to finally talk about your
relationship with Tasha?"

"When I was trapped by Armus in the shuttle...I couldn't lose my head,
I couldn't. It easily could have meant my life--or worse, someone
else's--to give that creature what it wanted. But I felt her die,
Beverly." She whispered again, "I felt her die. I felt it. I couldn't
stop it, I couldn't even REACT to it, and last night I felt her die
again, and again, and--and I was screaming--and I knew I'd sealed
everyone's fate at the hands of that creature, because I was feeling
such pain, and—Beverly, so many more might have died if I had let
myself feel—'' she stopped, taking a shuddering breath.

Beverly allowed her a moment, then said softly, "It sounds like that
might have been the first time in your life you couldn't allow
yourself to do what you knew was right--to feel the pain, and grieve."

"More than that. I couldn't even…be Betazoid, or even human, for that
matter. I have—had no idea how to—keep it from happening, the
feelings, they were too powerful, I couldn't…let them flow through,
let them happen and be…to put it more simply, I couldn't do any of the
things I normally do to keep calm—the feelings were too powerful—I
don't know what happened, Beverly, I don't even know what I did. If I
did, I'd have some idea where to start."

"Maybe that's why it's taken this long... you know that Tasha would
want you to do whatever is necessary, feel the pain, even regress into
that situation--she couldn't have wanted you to compartmentalize it,
carry it with you forever--"

"Of course she would never have wanted that. I don't want it either,
and if the pain had been this active for the last few years I probably
wouldn't be functioning at all. I tell people, almost every day, to go
through the process of grieving, to accept the pain, the loss, in
order to pass through it. And I have done so myself, with other
losses, other circumstances. But this..."

"Deanna, if Tasha was right about one thing, it's your courage to
feel--the ability to feel even the most frightening things and yet
remain functional--a strength most of us don't have. You just didn't
have that CHANCE in this situation. You haven't had any release but
the memorial service, and that can't have been enough, not for
something like this. You had to freeze the pain into that moment, and
you've had no experience unearthing such feelings in your own
mind—your Betazoid, metaconscious-leveled mind. So it's still there,
in that moment when you were powerless and trapped, and felt her
die--"

"She died BECAUSE I was trapped," Deanna cut in bitterly. "She would
never have acted so rashly if it hadn't been me in that shuttlecraft.
She was impetuous, yes, but she acted without orders, against
procedure. She would never have forgotten herself so far for anyone
else."

"I was there too, Deanna. Will followed her when she started to cross
the slick. It's not as though she lost control and bolted. It's true
she acted without orders, but Will would have backed her decision. He
trusted her instincts. This was no different, in that respect, from
other occasions in which he let her take the lead."

"But it WASN'T her decision to make. She made it anyway, for me."

Beverly was quiet a moment, then resumed her original line of thought.
"So, then; you are still--or, I should say, now--feeling terrific
guilt, as well as the simple fact of her loss and your no-win
situation in being able, or not, to react to it. Not only that, you've
discussed your love for each other with no one, before or after her
death--not even Will? I remember having to look for you in his
quarters the morning after the service."

"Yes, and it was only then that I thought of what YOU must have been
suffering, when you couldn't save her--"

"I'm not mentioning it to cast blame, Deanna," Beverly cut in,
squeezing Deanna's hand firmly. "I was asking you about what happened
with you and Will that evening."

Deanna sighed. "He was wonderful; we held each other and cried for a
while--I cried a great deal more than he did, that's just his way--and
I slept there with him, what sleep we got...I was repeating
meditations--rather fruitlessly--and he was drinking real whiskey and
staring at his terminal, though I didn't see what he was accessing. We
didn't talk, not more than a word here or there. For neither of us was
there a great deal to say. She was gone. We were there for each other
as well as we could be."

"But you've never talked with him since then about your relationship
with Tasha?"

Deanna shook her head, not looking up.

"So no one in your life has had any idea of the magnitude of the loss
you suffered, so much greater than anyone else suffered at her death."
Beverly shook her head. "It's a wonder you're only having nightmares.
This would be enough to send many people into some form of breakdown,
a catatonic state, or at the least amnesia, selective or otherwise."

Deanna essayed a wan smile. "Liberal and frequent use of Betazoid
meditation techniques. Lately, I've had to drop everything and center
myself two or three times a day. Some days I have to cancel
appointments and spend half the day in a clarifying trance. It's
affecting my work, and if there's one thing no one should have
inflicted on them, it's an unstable therapist." She paused, and added
"Beverly, I don't want you to think that I wouldn't have trusted
you--"

The doctor held up her hand to stop the pending apology. "You didn't
tell ANYONE, Deanna, I don't feel singled out. This obviously has
nothing to do with me, or anyone else you might have told. This is
about you, not about trust." She sipped her coffee, thinking.
"Is...does Tasha have anything to do with the reason you stopped
wearing your hair in the Fifth House coiffure?"

"Very astute, Beverly." Deanna sighed and continued in a more civil
tone, "She loves--used to love--my hair down. She would wrap her hands
in it when we made love, bury her face in it and tell me it was a
crime to twist it up in that headdress. I can't just leave it down, of
course, it's too long--but I won't cut it. So...it's still
regulation--" Deanna smiled for the first time in the last several
hours, "--but it's more as she would have appreciated it. It's a pity
I never thought to do these little things for her until she was dead."

"Stop that at once," Beverly overrode the comment. "Grief is one
thing, but I won't let you actively tear yourself up. You know she
wouldn't want that. You know what sort of trap it is."

Deanna was quiet, then said very softly "It's only now that I
realize...so much of what I do is influenced by whether it would have
disappointed her. I never thought about it, and when I did I usually
just blamed my mother and her unending disapproval of the manner in
which I conduct my life; I used that as explanation for the times when
I felt a sense of responsibility, or a prick of conscience. Tash was
so...she had so much wonder and energy and generosity of spirit,
despite everything, despite..." she sighed and closed her eyes. "It
would have broken my heart to feel I'd done something that would
sadden her, or make her think less of me. I've never felt like that
about anyone else, not Will, not anyone. Love, yes, respect,
friendship." Beverly squeezed Deanna's knee comfortingly.

"But she was...she said I was like light, warmth, but it was she who
was like that, who was..." Tears spilled over and she set her cup down
on Beverly's coffee table. "It should have been me. Not her. Not her."

Beverly wisely forwent reminding Deanna that such sentiments were an
unhealthy regression into blame and guilt, and just held out her arms
instead. Deanna moved into them, holding on to the other woman like a
life preserver, holding her breath until she was sure she wasn't going
to cry.

You'll have to cry sometime, a niggling voice reminded her. A few
tears at her memorial service aren't going to be enough.

---

"Dea...you know when we were all affected by the virus that--"

"I'll never forget," Deanna moaned. "I went straight into the middle
of Will's work with Chief Engineer MacDougal and made a complete fool
of myself. He had to CARRY me to sickbay. I'd lost all ability to
shield myself..."

"No worse than the rest of us," Tasha assured her, reaching across the
table to clasp Deanna's hand. She sipped her black hole and started to
speak again, stopped, and blushed.

"All right," Deanna demanded, smiling, "spill it, lieutenant. I know
what that blush means." She ran her finger along Tasha's cheek and
under her chin, then settled black, sipping her hot chocolate. Her
hair was down, of course, though woven with strands of silver. Her
evening "dress" of faintly shimmering aqua gauze threatened to blow
off her shoulder with any stray air current.

Tasha was in a forest-green sheathe, barefoot, with a pair of
silver-and-malachite earrings swinging in the wisps of her slightly
overgrown blonde hair. She pondered the remains of the dinner before
them on Deanna's dining table, then said "When I came to your quarters
and went through your things--it was true I wanted to find something
pretty to wear, and hopefully have you dress me in it, but...more, I
wanted to...tell you how I was beginning to feel about you. All that
stuff about changing my image was window dressing, though that's
exactly what I ended up doing."

"You came close to telling me," Deanna said. "I've rarely been
complimented with such sincerity. But then..." Deanna winced with
memory. "I went all professional on you, even when I took your
hand--I'm so sorry. I thought it was only the virus. It must have felt
like a bucket of cold water."

"Um, yes, kind of."

"Is that why you didn't come back when I called for you to?"

"Yes. I was still sane enough to feel like a fool, at least for a few
minutes--and at least when it came to you," Tasha admitted. "But I
didn't let the whole thing stop me from getting laid."

"Oh?" Deanna's smile widened. "Who was so much more intelligent than I
about it?"

"Data."

Deanna nearly snorted foam through her nose. "Oh, my--how did he take
your approach?"

"He was pretty blown away. I didn't exactly give him a chance to say
no."

"And now?"

"Now I think I have a much bigger problem with it than he does. I told
him to keep it to himself, and that I didn't want to discuss it with
him, but I've got to admit..."

"...admit?" Deanna prompted.

"That he was, well, pretty good. REALLY good."

Deanna smiled. "I suppose you chose him because he's so very
unthreatening."

"Yes, and also because he conveniently showed up at my quarters when
I'd finished making myself...uh, more available-looking, at least, but
if it hadn't been him I doubt I've had the courage--" She suddenly
held up her hand, her expression slightly panicked. "But that's not
the only reason--"

"It's all right, you've convinced me that my making you feel safe
isn't the only reason you want me."

"Love you," Tasha corrected, making deep eye contact and smiling. "Not
the only reason I love you."

Deanna put her drink down and got up, coming around the table to sink
into Tasha's quickly offered lap. "I love you, too, Tash," she
whispered, and kissed her. The taller woman seemed paralyzed for a
moment; then, realizing exactly what Deanna meant, she nearly squeezed
the stuffings out of her. Deanna gurgled sharply against Tasha's mouth
and felt immediate relief from the constriction. "I'm sorry, Dea, did
I--"

"You didn't hurt me. I keep telling you I won't break."

They began kissing again, and finally Tasha gasped "I don't want to
crush your dress--"

"Crush it," Deanna whispered urgently, running her tongue around the
other woman's ear, "stop worrying so much."

Tasha groaned and rose from the chair with Deanna in her arms.

Later, both dresses in a considerable state of disrepair underneath
them, Tasha murmured "We should clean up, I suppose."

"If you mean us," Deanna said matter-of-factly, rolling over to tap
the tip of Tasha's nose, "you're coming with me. If you mean the
cabin, it can wait. Don't worry; I had the presence of mind to drop
your earrings in the chair you bumped into on our way in here."

Tasha giggled, and Deanna said more softly, "Really, Tash, you can
relax a little with me. You needn't be the soul of propriety at all
times. If you're afraid of what we talked about earlier, the memories,
the old behavior patterns--I'm here. I'll keep you safe."

Tasha slid her topmost arm over Deanna and said, making a slight face,
"I know I've been...maybe overconcerned with propriety, but I'd really
rather you didn't have to see any of that...that stuff, Dea."

"I've already seen it, especially when we make love. I can't help it,
no Betazoid has shields THAT strong. And it's done nothing but
increase my respect for you."

Tasha raised her head from Deanna's chest and stared at her wide-eyed.

"I'm not pushing for anything, Tash, but trust is part of what love's
about. If you keep things from me because you don't feel like
revealing them, that's one thing. But you can't honestly believe
there's anything that would frighten ME away, can you?"

Tasha was silent, her eyes closed; Deanna could tell she was fighting
tears. She refrained from touching Tash, sensing that she did not want
to be sent over the edge of sentiment and burst into tears right at
the moment.

Finally Tasha inhaled and opened her eyes, saying "This was going to
be a surprise, but what the hell, why wait." She rolled over and
opened a drawer in the bedside table.

Deanna smiled delightedly. "You hid a present for me? How did you
explain the entrance authorization in your monthly report?"

"I haven't, and my plan so far is to see that that nobody asks." She
rolled back over with a gleaming gift box in her hands, wrapped with a
red ribbon from which a small card depended. The box was too large to
hold jewelry, but that was the only thing it gave away from the
outside.

And even that turned out to be wrong. The box contained three sturdy
hair wraps, designed to hold her hair swept up and back either tightly
or loosely. One was a dark mauve with glittering red stones--similar
to the stones in her Fifth House headdress--one was of indigo with
clear azure stones, and the third was a nondescript dark color with a
pattern of tiny gleaming black stones.

"Tasha!" Deanna exclaimed, but Tasha was pressing the card into her
hands. She opened it automatically, and laughed to see the inside
covered with multisized pink hearts. "You know how corny I can be,"
Tasha murmured apologetically as Deanna read the words 'Gilding the
lily, I know. I guess these are really for me--maybe you'll want to
let your hair down a little on duty. If you do, these should keep it
regulation. I love you. Tash.'

"It...they must have passed your replicator limit, gemstones are a
complex--"

"I didn't replicate them. I bought them on my last shore leave."

Deanna's eyes widened. "Natural stones? Tash, it's far too lavish,
especially the Betazoid garnet. And at your last shore leave we
weren't even--how can I accept this?"

"Gracefully," Tasha smiled, and her grey eyes became deep and soft.
"The way you do everything else."

Deanna rescued the box of ties and the card and got them gently to the
bedside table before the general thrashing about could knock them
across the room.

---

Deanna paused on approaching Doctor Crusher's quarters, and took a
deep relaxing breath. Beverly had often laughingly told her that
therapists made the worst patients, for any form of medicine,
especially counseling; but though she was doing her best to be
co-operative, Beverly was on target so far. Deanna was not used to
ignoring, suppressing, feelings in this way. Walling the pain--and
major attendant portions of her mind and memories—away. And far worse
than it would have been for a non-Betazoid non-superempathic
non-psychologist.

'Nothing to do about it now,' she thought, 'but do what must be done.'
She briskly tapped Beverly's door signal.

"Come."

She stepped in. Beverly was getting up from her couch to meet her at
the door, hands held out, but she paused, eyes widening. "Deanna...are
you sure about…" she gestured at Deanna's outfit.

Deanna was wearing a filmy aqua gown, the folds of which flowed like
liquid, more blue, then more green. It depended from one shoulder,
revealing most of her back. Her thick, waving black hair was down and
woven with silver strands, and she wore dangling silver earrings set
with small malachite stones.

'She's breathtaking,' Beverly thought. 'But this is probably something
she wore for Tasha, and she's having a difficult enough time without
inviting trouble like this.' "I mean," she said aloud, "there's no
rush, remember."

Deanna's eyes were flat, as was her voice. "We've made no progress at
all our last three sessions. I've been stubborn about this long
enough."

"Three sessions is nothing in some cases, you know that. A stage of
slow progress doesn't mean you have to take the immersion approach.
I'm here." She went ahead and took the counselor's hands. "You don't
need to take the sink-or-swim leap. I'll help you stay on track. And
I'll keep you safe."

Deanna gazed up at her, a half-smile on her face and an odd--perhaps
hysterical--light in her eyes. "This isn't the sink-or-swim leap,
Beverly. My memories… it has been very...difficult to bring certain
things to the surface. A few props may help."

"If you think this is the way, then of course. Come and sit down."

There was a vase of lilies on Beverly's coffee table, and Deanna spied
them, then reached out and looked the question at Beverly, who made a
be-my-guest wave of her arm.

Deanna plucked one of the lilies from the arrangement, settling the
others back into an artistic repose, then turned the lily in her hand,
gazing quietly at it, her eyes dry.

"Would you like some tea? Valerian?"

Deanna smiled. "I went down to sickbay and talked nurse Ogawa into
giving me a mild sedative. But a cup of hot chocolate would be
lovely."

"I might have known." Beverly got up to get the chocolate, and a cup
of Valerian tea for herself.

"With whipped cream," Deanna called from behind her.

"Of course," Beverly smiled.

When she came back, she said "Those are beautiful earrings. Did she
give them to you?"

"No. They were hers. I kept them when I supervised the disposal of her
personal effects. She did loan them to me, and she even offered them
to me--" Deanna smiled. "She had a penchant for giving me beautiful
things. But I wouldn't take them; it meant more to me to wear them,
knowing they were hers. They're still...I still think of them as
hers."

Beverly nodded, sipping her tea. "So you shared your personal things
with each other very easily."

"She said that when we finally moved in together, we could consolidate
everything. Except our clothes, of course. I'd swim in anything of
hers. She was as tall as you are."

"I remember."

"In fact--" Deanna stopped and swallowed. "Except for a few things I
gave to Data--a small personal holo, a handwritten note she'd intended
be given privately to him if she should be...unable to give it to him
herself, a few other keepsakes...I put everything in storage, under my
voice lock." She looked up. "Before you say anything, remember that--"

"We didn't know of any living family, and Starfleet was the only home
she had. You weren't out of line, Deanna; it was your job to make
decisions like that, and you had more right than anyone else to her
personal effects, even if no one knew it then."

"And--really--there was so little to...dispose of. She wasn't much for
accumulating possessions, though she was very fond of loading ME with
gifts--and now that I think about it, at least half the things I put
in storage, I had given her."

"Have you thought of taking them out of storage and looking through
them? I'd be with you, and if you need something to help bring up the
memories--"

"THAT," Deanna said with a strangled laugh, "would be the sink-or-swim
leap. And believe me, Beverly, you don't want to be in the room with
me if the dike should suddenly break."

"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else." Beverly put her cup down.
"You're going to have to realize that you are not the therapist here,
that you must not try to protect me, that I am as capable as you are
of dealing with a distraught--even severely distraught--patient. If
you keep trying to keep a...a venous backflow valve on what you allow
through to me--"

Deanna smiled briefly.

"--then we're never going to get anywhere."

"I suppose so."

Beverly considered a moment, then said "Would you like to tell Will
about what we're doing here? I'm sure he wouldn't mind being your
landing pad after our sessions."

Deanna shook her head. "No, Beverly. I love Will, and I trust him. But
he is, and always has been, far too willing to stand between me and
anything that upsets me. IF he happens to be around. Also, he might be
hurt that I never told him about Tash. He'd've told me, were our
positions reversed. He's a good man, and a good friend. But he's not
who I need right now."

"You must know that I have a bit of a protective streak myself, but I
do understand."

"I know. There was a reason that I chose you, even though you were a
close friend, to help me with this, rather than a counselor whom I
didn't know, who would have no preconceptions. You know...this part of
me. The part that...melted at her adoration of me, when she was so..."

'If you only knew,' Beverly thought, 'I didn't think of you that way,
until now.' Quickly she said, before Deanna could pick up the feeling,
"And I respect that part of you, too, remember that. Don't be ashamed
to talk about it."

Deanna's head dropped, and she turned the stem of the lily around and
around in her fingers, her hair curtaining her face, the silver
strands glinting in the half-lights. 'I knew she was beautiful,'
Beverly thought, 'but now I understand what completely flooded Will,
and Tasha, and everyone else who's ever been stopped in their tracks
by her mere appearance. I've never seen anything but her equanimity,
her strength and competence--and that impish sense of humor. Seeing
her...humanity, I suppose, if that's the word, her fragility...'

Beverly was startled to find herself wordlessly comparing Deanna with
the lily the smaller woman was holding. Black Dahlia, she thought,
smiling a bit as one of Jean-Luc's detective stories offered another
comparison. She sipped her tea and said "We've discussed the
generalities about your relationship, and the specifics of its
beginning. Perhaps we should continue to be more specific, to help
bring the memories up. You said that you and she shared a shore leave
shortly after you knew you were in what could be a permanent
relationship. Would you like to tell me about it?"

Deanna sighed and closed her eyes. "Yes, we'll talk about that."

---

Deanna met Tasha in the transporter room; Tash was wearing a loose,
cream-colored cotton shirt and emerald-colored chamois trousers,
tucked into a pair of worn brown boots. She was wearing her malachite
earrings, and leaning against the console, chatting with the
transporter operator on duty.

"--until the last group," the young woman was griping. "And all
because someone ELSE screwed up the diagnostic."

"You don't really expect whoever it was to confess, do you?" Tasha
giggled. "Chief MacDougal would have their--oh, Dea." Her voice
softened in a rush of breath, as it often did when she was pleased
with something. "You're ready?"

"Willing and able," Deanna said softly, checking the positioning on
the blue-gemmed hairdress. She'd worn a soft, blue, form-fitting
jumpsuit, easy at the joints, with a jewel neck and flat-folding thigh
pockets containing a few personal items. Between her own flat boots
and Tasha's thicker-soled ones, she barely reached Tasha's chin.

She could feel Tasha's eyes devouring her, and smiled, but the blonde
woman only said "I guess we're ready." She picked up a shoulder
carrysling and stepped up to the transporter pad, Deanna following.

"Energize," Deanna said, with a sidelong look at Tasha, and she
couldn't help smiling when she saw the stolen glance returned.

They materialized on an expanse of thick, soft grass, and immediately
felt a very slight lessening of the gravity field surrounding them.
"Weloya is smaller than Earth?" Deanna wondered.

Tasha was looking around at the view. "Not much smaller, but the
core's not as dense as it is in most class-M planets. The planet's
still settling, but very slowly."

It was early in the day, the sun up but still near the low hills to
the east. The grass was a bit bluer than Earth grass, and the sky a
bit greener than Earth sky, but since neither of them was from Earth
it didn't detract from their appreciation of the beauty of the plain,
broken here and there with clumps of trees. Hills rose up behind them,
to the south, and they could hear water rushing somewhere; they
couldn't see where the stream came out from where they were.

Tasha took Deanna's hand and squeezed it. "Let's find the water."

Deanna smiled and followed. They had to climb through some foliage and
over a few impeding objects, including one hill in its entirety, but
they found the place where the river exited the mountains and flowed
across the plain, only a dozen or so meters broad, but blue, clear and
lively. The bottom was rocky and sandy; no plants were growing in it
near where they were.

They sat down in the grass, panting slightly, brushing various forms
of vegetable matter off their clothing. Tasha reached for Deanna's
hair and the Betazoid leaned over and let the other woman work a
couple of leafy twigs out of the dark mass. "If I'd known we were
planning on a hike in the woods, I would have braided this," she
murmured during the procedure, running her fingers through dark
strands.

"A hike in the woods? That was barely a stroll."

"The R'lellan River on Betazed, on the forcefield walkway, watching
the noctilucent currents flowing below your feet, is a stroll. THAT
was a hike. But I'm not complaining," she added quickly. "This place
is beautiful. Is it a park?"

"Of a sort. It just happens to cover most of a large island near the
equator." Tasha pulled a PADD out of her bag and Deanna made a face
when she saw it, and Tasha laughed. "I only want to show you this."
She keyed at the PADD, and the screen produced an aerial view of the
surrounding pastoral landscape. "There are no large predators, and
what mammals there are mostly burrowers. So if we go for a walk across
the plain, watch where you put your feet."

"In this grass? It reaches my knees. It's soft, at least, but lighter
gravity notwithstanding I'd rather not break an ankle and have to
transport back to the ship."

"I brought a medkit," Tasha said innocently, then rolled over to
Deanna, grinning, eyes gleaming. "Or I could carry you," she said, in
that voice just above a whisper.

Deanna grinned back, caressing her face. "You're always doing that.
You should have a break on your shore leave."

"Carrying you is NOT a chore." Tasha pulled herself up over Deanna and
they fell back in the grass. Deanna pulled Tasha down, and they
abandoned that line of conversation for a while.

"There's a small lake about a mile from here," Tasha whispered into
Deanna's ear.

"Do you want to go there?"

"We could go swimming. The water's perfectly safe."

"Naked? In the daylight?"

"Well I can't SEE you in the dark," Tasha said, with falsified
annoyance at having to explain something so obvious.

Deanna smiled. "Communal bathing is unremarkable on Betazed, and as
you know, we even get married naked. I was worried about you, not me.
By all means, lead on to the lake."

They scrambled up. "It's more a wide bend in the river," Tasha amended
as they started off, staying close to the bank, the better to avoid
whatever this planet sported in the way of gopher holes. "But it's big
enough to swim in, and the water's clear all the way to the bottom.
Geordi says you can see the sand shifting with the currents along the
bottom, when the sun is high but not right over the water--he meant
that we could see it, too, I'm sure, or he wouldn't have bothered to
tell me."

"How long will the sun be up?"

Tasha paused and consulted her PADD. "Weloya has a twelve-hour day at
this season, in this latitude; the night lasts nine hours. It's high
summer where we are."

"A very balmy summer." Deanna closed her eyes and felt the sunlight
and wind on her face, perfectly tempered and comfortable. Clouds
sailed across the sky, offering the occasional relief of shade.

"That's why you don't see any of the natives around. They were more
than happy to offer this park to us for shore leave; this temperature
is their equivalent of...of eggs-would-fry-on-the-sidewalk," Tasha
came up with.

"So everyone's inside, in the air conditioning." Deanna smiled.

"Right. So anyone we see is likely to be our own crewmates."

The walk was made especially enjoyable by the slightly lighter
gravity, and the water in the river performed interesting
perambulations as it wandered over the rocks. With the springy, soft
grass, they made headway practically effortlessly. There were birds
here, of a sort--they didn't look quite like Deanna's idea of birds,
but from what she understood, evolution had taken an avian turn fairly
quickly on this planet. They at least made reassuringly familiar bird
noises as they soared overhead, occasionally swooping to divenab one
of the local rodents. The birds left the water alone, though, except
to drink from, and Deanna mentioned this point.

"No fish," Tasha explained. "A global disaster many thousands of years
ago--I told you the planet was still settling; about a dozen major
volcano chains went off at once, and the resulting drop in the light
level killed everything above about ankle-level on the food chain. The
Weloyans were advanced enough not to be completely wiped out, but
their level of technological development took a pretty major hit."

"I can imagine. It's true I don't see many flowers," Deanna mused,
"Except those little star-shaped ones. But surely not ALL the fish
died. And surely not all the water plants—"

"All but the simplest ones. A few are more sizable now, but they're in
the ocean. There are protozoa and microscopic plants in the fresh
water, but they're harmless to us."

"Even if we swallow them?"

"They die and we, uh, excrete them. I was on shift with Geordi, and
he's already been down. He got the full list of warnings from Life
Sciences. Didn't you read the list they sent out on the computer?"

"Beverly told me not to worry about it."

"Well, she was right, as usual." Tasha kicked a sandy clod, and it
described a slightly higher arc than she'd intended before landing in
the water.

Deanna sensed a quickly-damped annoyance. "Is something wrong, Tash?"

"No...it's just that you and Beverly have so much more in common than
you and I do, I--I felt maybe she had more right to your time than I
do. You became friends so quickly. I thought...if you were going to be
interested in one of the other command officers, which I didn't think
you would be anyway, you're too smart about things like that—and she's
the same rank as you are--"

"I spend my time with whom I choose," Deanna said, stopping Tasha with
a hand on her arm. "I care for Beverly, and she cares for me. But I
think she may still be mourning her husband, and--" Deanna stopped
herself from mentioning the captain, even to reassure Tash. "--and it
would take a while before I could feel THAT close to her. Is this why
you left that day, a month ago, when she was in my quarters?"

Tasha hung her head.

"Oh, my dear--" Deanna caught her around the waist. "You were feeling
vulnerable. Don't worry about it. By the way, you covered admirably. I
couldn't sense a bit of discomfort from you."

Tasha smiled slightly, not looking at Deanna.

In short order the river began to widen and a small, sandy beach
littered with small bits of wood and pebbles appeared on the near
side, the bow in the river sweeping away from them. There was a
grouping of trees--the trees here were tall and slim, like very large
willows, Deanna thought--on the near side, and they had to make their
way around it to get to the larger section of beach; from the trees
protruded a dead tree bole that lolled in the water, its bark softened
away.

Deanna stepped over it where it still attached to the bank, and bonked
her nose directly into an oncoming forehead.

She yelped and stepped back, an answering yelp sounding in her ears;
holding her nose with both hands, she opened her slightly teary eyes
to see the brown, bugging eyes of Ensign Concepcion Gomez, who was
holding her own forehead.

"Sorry," Deanna managed to splutter nasally, laughing, and Gomez
grinned "Same here. This grass absorbs all the noise people are
supposed to make walking. It should at least rustle."

Deanna extended her arm and helped Gomez over the tree bole. Tasha
came up to steady them both, and a young woman Deanna didn't know came
through the avenue through the trees Concepcion had used. "Lieutenant
Yar, Counselor Troi, this is crewhand Ayallah Muchuden." Concepcion
waved introductions while rubbing her forehead. Ayallah offered her
hand to Deanna, saying "Hello, counselor. I work in the medical
biology lab."

"Yes, I think I've seen you in sickbay. Have you met Tasha?"

"Not...no, I don't think so," the dark-eyed, curly-blond woman said,
obviously not sure whether to salute or offer her hand. Tasha shook
her hand, appearing at ease, but Deanna could sense her slight
disconcertment. Apparently she hadn't expected to meet anyone else,
and she was uncomfortable. The swim, no doubt; Tasha was friendly
enough, but very private about some things, especially displaying her
body, and with her past that was unsurprising. Also she probably just
wanted their privacy back and was wondering how to gracefully ditch
these two.

This was blatantly demonstrated when Tasha asked, smiling, "So how
much time have YOU got left on the surface? They can be so stingy with
shore leave, can't they?"

Concepcion made a sour face. "A little less than an hour. We came down
yesterday morning."

Deanna said "I was just going for a swim--Tasha was going to find a
good place to camp tonight before she joined me, but I'd love some
company."

Ayallah and Concepcion looked around the beautiful sunlit
surroundings, the sparkling clear water, exchanged glances, then
grinned. "So we beam up wet," Concepcion said cheerfully, and they
began shedding their garments. Deanna unhinged the catch in her
hairdress, and said, her face turned so that only Tasha could see her
expression, "I'll...probably still be in when you get back." She
whispered the word "Please" and then finished cheerily "don't be
long."

Tasha smiled her appreciation at Deanna's handling of the situation,
and added a smoldering look of promise, then started off around the
curve in the river, carrysling balanced effortlessly.

Deanna turned back to the water and finished divesting herself of her
garments, folding the water- and stain-resistant material and setting
it on a rock, tucking her hairdress into one of the expandable
pockets. When she looked up her companions were already naked, picking
their way around the edge of the river, looking for a way to wade in
easily. Compared to the air, the water was cool, but far from as cold
as many mountain streams Deanna had tangled with; of a certainty,
Betazoids didn't care for ice-cold water, but being half human she
handled it somewhat better than her agemates. On one of the camping
trips her father had taken her on, when she was seven--shortly before
he died--she remembered standing naked on the edge of a dock,
uncertain, even though he was standing below her with his arms held
out. THAT had been cold water.

This was merely refreshingly chill. Deanna was at a convenient sandy
spot, and just kept walking in, up to her knees across the sandy
bottom; one very nice thing about the clear water was the lack of
hidden dropoffs. She stepped deliberately over a lip of rock and sank,
just a little too slowly--the tiny gravity difference again--up to her
shoulders, with a light shiver. She held her breath and ducked,
wetting her hair thoroughly, and surfaced head back, pressing the
water back and away from her face with both hands. She felt amazement
from her one of her companions and said "Is something wrong?"

"This water is COLD," complained Concepcion. She added, grudgingly,
"Well, I AM used to swimming in the Gulf of Mexico."

"And I'm used to the heated pool on the holodeck," Ayallah said,
venturing out far enough to raise her feet and kick a few strokes.
"But this is nice. It's not that cold, Connie," she urged, "you'll be
used to it in a few minutes."

"By the time I'm used to it we'll have to beam up," Concepcion said,
in the process of climbing over some sun-warmed rocks and back to the
bank. "I'll wait here and take some sun."

"It's your shore leave," Ayallah laughed, and turned a somersault in
the water.

Deanna swam out to the deep place Ayallah was in and said, water
droplets glinting on her face and shoulders, "I haven't done one of
those in years."

"Knock yourself out," Ayallah smiled, and began paddling and rolling,
stretching in the water.

Deanna wound up having to hold her nose to somersault successfully, as
her first attempt was accompanied by an involuntary inhalation that
sent her splashing and spraying back up, much to everyone else's
entertainment.

"All right, I'm not seven any more," she conceded. "Full Betazoids
swim like fish--or better than I do, at any rate--and I always felt
the odd one out, so I prefer the more controlled environments."

She went under and swam around for a while, rotating in the water to
look up toward the light, which made her squint and turn to face the
bottom again. Her lungs could store more oxygen than a human's--she
just had to remember to hyperventilate for a few minutes first; full
Betazoids didn't need to--and probably the only thing that didn't keep
the other two from making a misguided rescue attempt was the sunlit
nature of the water, allowing them to see that she was simply
meandering around down there, running her fingers over large rocks and
picking up small ones, sifting handfuls of glittery sand.

She resurfaced to see Concepcion getting into her uniform and Ayallah
getting out of the water, shaking her short hair vigorously.

"Akkh!!" Tasha had returned, and got a faceful, which she snorted and
wiped away, grinning.

"Sorry," Ayallah said, abashed, and started getting quickly into her
uniform. "Wouldn't want one of the doctors or God forbid the Captain
to be standing in the transporter room the one time I beam up in
nothing but a layer of H20 and a smile." She finished and said "Let's
get back up so I can dry off."

Concepcion was giggling, but touched her comm badge and said
"Enterprise, Ensign Gomez and Crewhand Muchuden to beam up."

As they shimmered, Ayallah raised a hand to Deanna, and she waved back
as the two disappeared.

As soon as they were gone, Tasha dropped her carrysling, and Deanna
said "Did you find a good--no, don't! You'll ruin those pants--"

Tasha hovered at the brink for just a moment, then quickly and none
too gently removed her clothes and fell full-length into the gleaming
pool with a huge and unapologetic splash, catching the
still-backpedaling Deanna close and kissing her, slowly, her hands
sliding everywhere on chill, pale skin.

"Tash, love--wait, let me look at you." Tasha reluctantly backed off,
taking in the sight of Deanna in return; they kept hold of each
other's hands.

"You look like a water spirit," Tasha whispered. "You definitely swim
like one."

"And you look like..." words failed Deanna. What Tasha looked like was
a big, golden, healthy animal, so full of life and fire that Deanna
could only gaze, enraptured. "Like a sun goddess."

Tasha swept her close, and they didn't have to fight for words for
quite a while.

---

"I didn't think I was EVER going to get you out of that water," Tasha
sighed, falling down next to Deanna on the thermal blanket they'd
unrolled. The soft, veiny grass was more than sufficient padding,
though a bit uneven in places depending on how and where they rolled
around.

The sun was just going down, and the spot Tasha had located for their
repose was an almost circular clearing, bordered loosely by the
faux-willow trees. "Shouldn't we put on some insect repellent?" Deanna
wondered, pawing through Tasha's carrysling.

"I didn't bring any. There are biting insects, but they won't bite us
because we don't smell right. Their only prey is the birds. They don't
bite the little mammals, either."

"Oh. Well, that's something." Deanna was scrubbing at her hair with
Tasha's shirt.

"Hey."

"You did say you'd do the packing, and you didn't bring any towels."

"Sorry. I haven't had long hair in my entire life, and I didn't
think."

Deanna went to hang the shirt on a branch and came back, settling back
to the blanket as a small, sparkling materialization started halfway
across the clearing. "Tash?"

"I left our supper in my quarters," Tasha grinned, going to retrieve
the basket. "While you were still swimming, I called Data and asked
him to beam it down for us."

"I'll have to remember to thank him. Heavens, is that real wine?"

"I bought it on my--"

"Your last shore leave," Deanna finished for her. "You certainly
planned ahead on that trip, didn't you?"

"Not really. It was just...hoping, maybe fantasizing, I don't know."

Deanna leaned over and kissed her, hard. "Did that feel like a
fantasy?"

Tasha grabbed the back of Deanna's head and brought their mouths
together again. "Much, much better. Though you might not believe some
of the ones I've had."

"Tell me."

"God, Dea, I can't. I'd explode. It's too embarrassing."

"All right. I'll pick them out of your mind," Deanna grinned, making
threatening gestures toward Tasha's temples, curling her fingers
suggestively.

"You can't do that!"

"You're going to try to stop me?"

"I mean, Betazoids can't do that. Especially not half-Betazoids. It's
touch-telepathy."

"True," Deanna sighed, but was cheered by the sight of the things
Tasha was unloading from the basket. They fell upon the food like
ravening targs. It was mostly replicated, but the replicator did a
pretty good job on many dishes.

Deanna was cleaning up while Tasha found a good place to answer a call
of nature.

Deanna realized she was thinking about children.

She stopped moving with a jolt. Children? She didn't even especially
want children. Not right now, at any rate. Her fianc?'s courage in
breaking their arranged marriage had made her realize that she didn't
have to follow any of the predestined, goes-without-saying plans her
mother or her caste expected of her.

Not her. Then, it was Tasha who was thinking about children.

When the blonde came back, Deanna had everything tidied away and had
slipped into her nightgear, an off-the-shoulder lightweight cotton
gown, which she would never have worn for a serious camping
expedition. This, she thought with a smile, is more like when my
father and I used to sleep out in the back yard. "Feel better?"

"I wish the trees around here were wider."

"You don't have anything I haven't seen."

"No, but there's about two hundred of the ship's crew down here
somewhere; we've already run into two of them."

"And it feels more vulnerable than simply being naked, I would
imagine."

"You'd IMAGINE? Do they do EVERYTHING right out in the open on
Betazed?"

Deanna smiled. "It would probably seem so to you. We prefer privacy
for such bodily functions; but we consider the prevailing air currents
and the water table and such more than modesty."

"It must be so different, living on a planet of telepaths," Tasha
mused, pulling on a nightshirt and unrolling a couple of pillows,
waiting for them to puff gently up before placing them at the end of
the blanket Deanna's head was at. "No one could be hurt, because the
person hurting them would suffer--and everyone would know who did it,
and what they did."

"I wish it were always that way, though it's more like that than
like...the ship, for instance. If you're that interested, I'll give
you a holotour of Betazed when we get back aboard."

"I'd love it. But right now, how about a tour of a Betazoid?
Half-Betazoid."

"You're insatiable," Deanna grinned.

"And you're not complaining." Deanna was amazed at how deep and
fascinating Tash's eyes were--now grey, now green, now blue. Deanna
had always had a taste for light-colored eyes, but Tasha's were every
light color, depending on the light, or her clothes--or, most likely,
her mood, which Deanna was learning to sense to the last iota of
intensity.

And she was still amazed at her own immediate reaction every time
Tasha touched her, how her heart started thudding wildly and her skin
became almost too sensitive to bear. Learning to prolong their
lovemaking to more than about three minutes, until time to rest up for
round two, had been an exhaustive, fascinating, magical challenge. Not
that Tasha hadn't needed the practice, too.

Deanna knew it was true that Tash could sense when she was around.
Some humans had limited psychic ability--not telepathy; more like
instinct, attunement--and Tasha's had been harshly reinforced by
necessity. Now, though, she could use the hard-won sensitivity to get
closer, infinitely closer, to Deanna.

Deanna was drowning in sensation, her own, Tasha's, the love and need
and delicious satisfaction that could come merely from feeling Tasha's
skin resting against her own…

Much later, gazing up through the light, shifting canopy of the outer
edges of the tree's leaves to where the bright stars of the moonless
night shone, she sighed, yawned, and said "I love you, Tash." That was
always going to be good for a squeeze and a deep, soft kiss, Deanna
thought idly, pleased at the prospect.

Tasha finally replied "I love you too. And the best part of it is, you
do know how much."

"Yes." Deanna smiled. "I have a question. Were you thinking about
children earlier?"

Tasha started. "I suppose I'd better get used to that, but I didn't
think you could...register such specifics."

"Only with other Betazoids, usually, but you're my Shyllamdi."

"Is that like an Imzadi?" Tasha asked softly.

"No. Imzadi means beloved, and you are that, but the word I would use
for you is Shyllamdi."

"And that means, exactly..." Tasha was up on her elbows facing Deanna,
and slid one arm across her and began fingercombing the long,
night-black hair, gazing at her in fascination.

"It means a person I choose to spend my life with, with a degree
of...I can't explain, in my own language the difference is obvious,
but it just won't translate. It includes the fact that you're a woman,
that I want you in my family--that I'd insist my house accept you as a
full member-by-marriage and that I would leave that house if they did
not--and that I would be willing to have children with you. Some less
hard-and-fast meanings--"

Tasha stared, dumbstruck.

"I'm sorry," Deanna whispered contritely, but smiling. "I didn't mean
to drop all that on you at once, but the word...it seemed so natural
to call you Shyllamdi."

"I...wasn't thinking about children immediately, don't worry. I..."
Tasha was babbling, her overstressed joy neurons firing randomly. "I
was just wondering if you planned on having them at all, because I do,
some day, and I can't imagine...leaving you, ever, even to do that."

"I've thought of them on a someday basis as well. We've got the rest
of our lives, and since Betazoids, outside our noble castes, tend to
choose the most mentally and emotionally compatible person available
rather than whoever has the most convenient genitalia--"

Tasha giggled and slapped Deanna's nose with a strand of grass that
had gone to furry seed. "You romantic."

Deanna giggled too. "I was only going to say that it's common to use a
genetic combination and implantation procedure on Betazed. But we can
talk about that later. We'll talk about everything, later." She slid
her arms around Tasha's neck, her smile vanishing, her eyes going
intense as only Betazoid eyes could. "I don't want to think now. I
only want to feel you."

"Now who's insatiable?"

"Tash…"

"Dea..." A breathless kiss. "I love you, Dea..."

---

As the sky turned pink in the east, Deanna was lying with Tash's head
pillowed on her chest, wrapped securely around each other. The rest of
our lives, she thought. Even that won't be enough time to be with her.

Tasha stirred, opened her eyes. They smiled a good-morning, and Tasha
stretched with boneless satisfaction. "We didn't need the tent. I
could have saved the space."

"We had everything we needed."

"That's sure true." Tasha reached up toward the back of Deanna's neck,
but Deanna popped the sonic toothbrush into the questing hand instead.
Laughing and sitting up, Tasha said "All right, all right. You're the
dainty little thing, aren't you?"

"I'm going to drown you in the river for that one."

"Do we have time to go back to the water?"

"We have until noon, local time," Deanna said, consulting the PADD.
Tasha had finished her teeth and was reaching for her pants, but
Deanna, bare as an egg, was darting through the trees toward the
river. "Race!"

Tasha gawped at this un-Deanna like behavior, then grinned a
determined grin and muttered "Tits to the wind, Yar," as her longer
legs launched her after Deanna.

As Tasha caught up with her and toppled them both over an embankment
and into the water, Deanna's thought as she hit the stream was that in
her life, she had been variously satisfied, felt pleasure, felt
exhilaration, and even been truly happy--but THIS was joy...

---

The door warbled.

After a pause, as her eyes wavered uncertainly toward the door, Deanna
called softly "Come."

Beverly stepped in, wearing the bronze velvet tunic and transparent
gold tights she often did off duty. She stopped in her tracks on
seeing Deanna.

The black eyes were hollowed out of a skull-white face, skin
lusterless and flat. Her hair was a nightmare, outright snarls living
in it. She was wearing a crumpled nightgown in which she had been,
apparently, too close to an altercation between a large cup of
chocolate and the artificial gravity. The cup and the remainder of the
stain were on the floor by the replicator.

Beverly left her face inert. "Your shift started on the bridge an hour
ago. Captain Picard located you and then called; when you didn't
answer he called sickbay for emergency assistance. Fortunately I was
stopping by there at the time and told him I'd handle it."

"Thank you," Deanna said blankly, displaying no real interest in the
news. Or, for that matter, in anything.

'She's almost completely dissociated,' Crusher thought. 'I suppose
that must mean that we were getting somewhere, working through to
where we needed to be, what we needed to find.

'The bad news (continued her internal monologue, as she sat on the
couch as close to Deanna as she could get,) is that we've obviously
struck bedrock. Any farther than this, and we'll be, as she put it,
breaking the dike--and if her defenses are this powerful, I don't know
if her mind will withstand that. Apparently we've done all we can in
our last four or five sessions to dismantle the defenses around what
she can't face. When the last ones go...

'They used to call it breakthrough. But then, they also used to
believe in catharsis.'

Beverly got up to go to the replicator for a glass of water. "Do you
want anything, Deanna?"

"No."

'At least she's not catatonic, but she responds only to an immediate
stimulus. If I try to make her think about Tasha and the work we've
been doing, she may withdraw entirely. If I insist on too much
response from her about ANYthing, she may withdraw entirely, but
that's a human danger…damn...I wish we had another Betazoid
psychologist on board. She is half human, but I have no way of knowing
how, or even if, that affects this particular crisis. Maybe I just
need to leave her be and let her come out of it on her own, in a few
hours, or days...maybe I need to give her a roundhouse and pound her
against the floor. Damn it, SHE'S the expert on the Betazoid mind, not
me...'

She could get one of the other qualified people on board to give a
second opinion...or two of them, or three--when it came down to it,
Beverly knew as much about the Betazoid brain and mind as any of
them--more than most--and she was closest to Deanna personally. But
maybe that was blocking her from seeing something important, or even
just something helpful. Her emotions might be--

Beverly froze for barely a beat before touching her comm badge. "Dr.
Crusher to Dr. Selar."

"Selar here, Doctor."

"Are you engaged in any activities of an emergency nature?"

"No, sir."

"I need you at once in Counselor Troi's quarters."

"Right away, Doctor."

"Wait--Selar, bring a hypo and two canisters; one of andelizin, and
the other of ecpetrine. If there isn't any in stores, replicate ten
ccs of each drug."

There was no perceptible pause. "Of course, Doctor. At once. Selar
out."

Beverly returned to sit next to Deanna. She reached out and took the
Betazoid's hand, but aside from a reflex twitch of the muscles there,
there was no reaction.

Selar was at the door within three minutes. Once again, Deanna called
"Come," but with no more interest than before.

Selar came in and stopped; she relaxed with her hands crossed behind
her, the small medical case held loosely in her left. "I see that the
counselor is in a state of moderate to deep dissociation."

"Yes," Beverly said dryly. "That was my assessment, too. If she were
human, this would be an obvious symptom of deep clinical depression,
but in her case…" She sighed, then reached out and turned Deanna's
face so she could meet her eyes. "Deanna, I know our sessions have
been private, and I wouldn't ask this if I could avoid it, but I'd
like to discuss them with Doctor Selar--only Doctor Selar. And I'd
like you to take a sedative and sleep for a while. You probably
haven't slept much lately, have you?"

Deanna blinked slowly, then, with what seemed a great effort, turned
her head to laboriously focus her eyes on Selar. "Hello, Doctor."

"Hello, Counselor."

"You...you're going to give me..."

"A sedative. Yes."

Deanna lost her focus again, but Selar seemed to take this as enough
response, and, prior to loading the hypo, raised her eyebrows at
Beverly. "Shall I, doctor?"

Beverly nodded, and Selar proceeded. When Deanna collapsed, Selar
lifted her easily, balancing Deanna's head on her left shoulder.
"Shall I take her to her bed, or--"

"Yes, I'd like to talk out here."

"She IS, essentially, in coma, doctor. Even her metaconscious mind is
shut down."

"I know that. And we can't leave her this way for long, so please--"
she indicated the door that led to Deanna's quarters proper.

Selar returned momentarily. "Come here," Beverly said, at Deanna's
desk terminal. "I'm going to show you as much of this as I can in a
few minutes--I've been seeing her for months, and I'm trying
to...narrow this...down..."

She finally managed to select a few dates out of all the recordings,
and added some comment if something relevant seemed incompletely
explained.

"This is where I started to lose her," Beverly said, keying the next
recording, "she was still responsive and functioning, working with me,
and at the time I didn't realize what was happening. Slow sessions are
all too common. But as you can see, the problem progressed."

After she had managed to convey everything she could in an hour or so
to Selar, Beverly watched the Vulcan gaze at the now-blank screen a
moment; Selar then said "And what can I do for you in this situation?"

"I..." Beverly looked away. "I thought my love for Deanna, our
friendship, might be blinding me to something important. I know her
well--maybe too well, and I didn't know THIS, any of it, until she
finally told me. And now...I have to suspect almost any course of
action I think of."

"Why is that?"

"If this were a human patient, I would do whatever it took to take the
patient back to the event so that the process of grief could begin. I
would use appropriate measures to keep the patient from
recompartmentalizing, or lapsing into catatonia--whatever it took to
make the process possible. It's HER job to advise ME in these—"
Beverly stopped and controlled herself.

"She's Betazoid; she may be more fragile--or more resilient. I may be
trying to protect her from what she needs to face--or, conversely, to
bring this to an end, in the only way I know how, despite the
uncertainties. I don't know her like this, yet I know her well enough
to--I needed...a dispassionate opinion."

Selar nodded. "Obviously."

"Sorry. I don't ordinarily babble."

"It is understandable."

"So." Beverly inhaled and exhaled, shakily. "What do you suggest?"

"I suggest that you turn this case over to me."

Beverly stared. Selar stared back. Finally Beverly sputtered, "I've
been her therapist for this entire case. All you know is...what I've
been able to impart to you in--what--a little over an hour."

"Yes, it has been some time. We should bring the counselor out of
sedation; her condition may be changed somewhat simply by the fact
of--"

"What specifically do you know about Betazoid psychology? Wait--are
you thinking of mind-melding with her?"

"No, of a certainty. I am a Starfleet doctor, not a Vulcan healer, and
I know precisely as much as you do about Betazoid psychology, minus--"
she fixed Beverly with a firm stare, "the knowledge you have of this
specific Betazoid. Which, as I understood it, was your concern in
continuing as primary therapist in this case. I have what should be
sufficient time to familiarize myself with further facts of the case,
her responses to questions in different areas, her reactions--"

Beverly was startled to feel tears pricking her eyes. "So you're
saying I should--in her best interests--butt out."

"Nothing of the sort. She needs the support of a close confidant at
this time. I am suggesting you take on that role, leaving the
administration of the case to me."

Beverly was silent a moment, her brow creased, staring hard at the
desk screen. Selar simply waited.

Beverly lifted her hands, punched a few changes into the case records,
and said "You are, as of this date and time, the primary therapist and
prescribing physician in this case. I will not interfere with your
judgments or decisions in any way."

"I both welcome and require your input, doctor. All I ask is that you
remember that I shall be—''

"I just put you in charge of the case, didn't I?" Beverly snapped,
twisted the desk chair away from where Selar was sitting, and strode
toward the door.

"Doctor."

Beverly stopped.

"Your friend needs you."

"Damn." Beverly clenched her fists, and said "You'd better bring her
out of that coma. There's nothing I can do if--"

"As you know, she will be somewhat tranquilized for the remainder of
the day, and I suggest you be with her. I will be spending the day
studying the case records and preparing a decision for tomorrow
morning as to how best to continue her therapy." Selar stood,
approached the door, and handed the small medical case to Beverly. "I
cede to you the duty of administering the ecpetrine."

Beverly gave her a sour look and was immediately ashamed of it. "I'm
sorry. I've been a CMO too long, I suppose."

"You are human, and under emotional strain. I take no offense. I will
contact you at 0800 hours tomorrow morning. Shall I call your
quarters, the sickbay, or the Counselor's quarters?"

"Call here. I don't want to leave her alone in this condition, and I
won't betray her confidence any farther by taking her to sickbay."

Selar nodded and left.

Beverly turned to the other door in the room and went through, her
fingers nervously working the case open. She extracted the emptied
hypo, loaded it with the drug that would counteract, in part, the one
that now sedated Deanna to the point of near-coma, and approached the
partition that screened the sleeping area.

Selar had obviously tried to arrange the Counselor comfortably, but
there was only so much one could do with a body that lax. There was a
rolled towel under Deanna's neck, and she lay on her back, palms up.
For some reason, Beverly stared a moment at the ivory skin of Deanna's
wrists and the thin blue veins pulsing there.

"She'd never do that," Beverly scolded herself, but she didn't know if
she believed it as she pressed the hypo to Deanna's neck. She replaced
the instrument and the expended canister in their case and sat down
next to Deanna, a ways down the bed; it wasn't reassuring, waking up
blurry, to have an indistinct face hovering inches from your own.

As Deanna's eyelids fluttered, Beverly tried to assume a cheerful,
patient look, but suspected she wasn't looking much more cheerful than
she felt. At least Deanna's metaconscious, and with it her empathic
abilities, would still be muted.

Deanna focused. "Bev...Beverly, what happened?"

Great. What to say to THAT? The Betazoid couldn't follow the
complexity of the truthful response. "You've been ill. But we're
working on a way to make you better. You're going to be all right."

Deanna smiled sleepily. "It's your job to say that." Her accent, which
had faded some over the years, was very evident again.

"I mean it this time. I wouldn't mislead you."

"I know. I wouldn't mislead..." Deanna drew an effortful breath, her
brow wrinkling, then relaxed a second, and finally said "Am I well
enough for a bath? This gown feels like an encrustation." She stumbled
over the longer word, but although her motor skills were impaired, she
seemed responsive.

"If you don't mind some help. I wouldn't want you getting too sleepy
in the water."

"Of course." Deanna shifted a little, frowned, and shifted a little
again. "Bev..."

"Here." Beverly got Deanna's arm over her shoulders and lifted;
everything seemed fine until the last of Deanna's weight was off the
bed, and then Beverly realized the Betazoid's attempt at walking was
doomed to dismal failure. "I can't carry you completely, but you'll
have to rest most of your weight on me. Step where I guide you. Come
on." With a deathgrip on Deanna's right arm where it lay across her
own shoulders and her left arm supporting the smaller woman at the
waist, Beverly began making progress; she grunted as Deanna stumbled
once. "It's all right, I've got you. Do you feel as if the room is
going around?"

"A bit...I don't feel sick, though..."

Deanna reached for the doorframe as they went through to the bathroom,
her eyes focused and the reach very clear and directed. She missed it
by some six or seven centimeters and frowned when her hand closed on
nothing. "It's right THERE."

Beverly managed not to laugh. This wasn't really funny, but Deanna
like this...she could be intimidating, as a person if not as a
counselor, when in possession of her health; cerebral, cool, sharply
intelligent, wry. It wasn't that she liked Deanna better sick, it was
just...sort of sweet.

She peeled the nightgear off Deanna and settled her into the tub--the
chocolate had actually stuck the gown to the skin of her outer
thigh--said "Just tell me hotter or colder," and started the water.

"Warmer," Deanna sighed, and as the tub quickly filled, she started to
slide down into the water.

"Oh no you don't," Beverly said, plunging her arms into the water to
grab Deanna's shoulders.

Deanna got a slit-eyed smile on her face, suddenly breathed heavily in
and out several times, and slid down, staring up at Beverly from under
the water, still smiling. She blew bubbles at the other woman and
closed her eyes.

"Stop playing around," Beverly muttered, but she was having to force a
smile off her face. She plunged her arms into the water and dragged
Deanna back up and enjoined her to cut out the cute stuff, but had to
laugh as Deanna did. If Tasha was the only one who had the luck to see
Deanna this way, Beverly was starting to envy her.

And yet, she pondered--as she continued to basically bathe Deanna, who
was doing well just to keep upright--it was her refusal to lose
control in a bad situation that attracted Tasha. Tasha had just also
seen the qualities that lay beneath as well as those--equally
important--on the surface.

As for Deanna, well, Tasha had been very popular, very open, very
responsive, despite her own pain. It wasn't hard to imagine the
Betazoid falling in love with her.

Beverly, with a sharp warning to Deanna to keep her shoulders above
the water, went to find a clean nightgown for her; while so occupied,
she heard a loud thud, and returned to the bathroom at high speed to
see Deanna lying on her back on the floor, her feet still hanging over
the tub edge.

"I can't seem to stand up," she assessed calmly as Beverly
concentrated on getting her heart to start beating again.

From the direction of her outstretched arm, Deanna had been reaching
for the towel on the nearby shelf, and Beverly handed it to her with a
display of disgust. "I TOLD you that."

"That was…half an hour ago."

"Trust me. You'll be weak for a while." She interrupted Deanna's
semi-effectual drying motions by sitting her up and taking the towel,
starting to rub the other woman briskly with it.

"Oh," Deanna said, her eyes focusing again for a moment, "you're all
wet." She laid her hand against Beverly's sopping dress, over the
collarbone, running down a bit in concern. "You're SOAKED."

"I've been bathing a recalcitrant patient, all right? Now just slip
this

on—'' Beverly got the gown over Deanna's head. "Give me your right
arm. No, your other right arm. Good...now—no, uncross your feet—wait,
I'm not—sit down, sit down—all right, we'll try again…"

Finally she sighed and said "I'm going to try to pick you up. You have
to help a little; try to hold on around my neck. I know that's not
very easy right now, but try. Here we go." Damn all heels, Beverly
thought as she wobbled. But she did get Deanna wrestled out of the
bathroom and back to the bed.

Releasing her burden with a sigh of relief, Beverly suddenly slapped
herself in the forehead. "I forgot to ask--"

"I don't need to go yet."

"Well, let me know when you do. I'll be at the desk, catching up on
some things, and I'll come in to check you every thirty minutes. You
should try and get some sleep, if you can. I know the andel--the
medicine we gave you interferes with normal sleep--"

"Andelizin."

Beverly started. "What?"

"You gave me andelizin. I rec...remember the way...the symptoms now."

Beverly sat down on the bed. "Yes, we gave you andelizin. We didn't
know if your being Betazoid put you at greater risk than…I didn't know
what else to do. That's why your empathic senses are still a little
numb."

"I see." She lay there a moment, and Beverly's heart sank as she saw
tears forming in the depthless black eyes, making them even brighter
and deeper. 'God, I hope she doesn't remember everything yet--'

"Would you help me with my hair, Beverly?" Deanna's voice was soft,
but not closed on a sob; the tears ran down her temples into her wet
hair, but no more followed them. "There's a...a brush, in my dresser."

"Of course." Beverly patted her hand and went for the brush. Sitting
down at the head of the bed, she helped Deanna sit, or sort of slump
forward, and said, hesitantly "Are you sure a static brush wouldn't be
better?"

"They make my hair stiff for days. If it's too much trouble--"

"No. Don't be silly." Beverly stroked her hand down the soft, tangled
black mass several times, then set to work on the nearest snarl. 'I
think I was liking doing that too much,' she thought.

Then, still picking at the snarl, she realized didn't have to keep her
manner professionally detached. She was here only as someone to be
with Deanna--in fact, the only one Deanna wanted here, that was plain
enough.

She worked through the worst of the tangles, stopping to check
Deanna's balance occasionally, and ran the brush though the entire
mass several times. She said "There. Is that better?"

"Much. Thank you. Beverly, could you change your dress?"

"I'd like nothing more. Is your gown getting too wet?"

"No. I think the only things I have you could wear are gowns like this
one. You could wear one while your dress dried, unless you want to
replicate something."

"I replicate far too many clothes as it is. You haven't seen half
what's in my closet." She pulled off her shoes, went to the drawer
she'd found the nightgowns in, and pawed around until she found
another large, billowy one. "I'll never wear most of it--you'd laugh
like a hyena at some of it." She pulled her dress off and went to hang
it in the bathroom, came back and started getting into the gown. She
continued "There's an evening dress with the front shaped all like a
glittery peacock with his tail unfolded, but that's just the lower
part of the bib; the wings come up higher and one covers each breast.
It's a new high in low taste." She pulled her tights off and turned
back toward Deanna, smiling.

Deanna was holding out her arms. She was weaving a little, but her
gaze was steady.

Beverly went to her automatically, but as she folded Deanna close—God,
it was a relief to be able to do that--she realized she still needed
to worry. "Deanna...I'm not sure..."

"I don't ask anything more than this," Deanna whispered, her accent
thick.

That was something, Beverly thought, but there was still the danger of
transference, which was a sneaky duck-out hatch since it could
disguise itself as almost anything. A new love affair, a close
friendship--though they already had that--or even some totally
unrelated interest. Usually transference was obvious, but sometimes it
wasn't, and if there was one individual in the galaxy who would be
able to convince herself, and everybody else, that it was not
happening, that was Deanna. And an undiagnosed transference could
blindside therapy, the trauma could remain undealt with, and the
patient's difficulties could remain, albeit in subdued and/or altered
form.

Of course, sometimes it was just the thing. It could allow a gradual,
less painful detachment from the object of loss.

'I HATE psychology,' Beverly thought, almost grumbling aloud. 'Give me
a crushed ribcage any time.'

Beverly raised her voice to an audible whisper. "I want you to know
something. I'm not your doctor any more. Doctor Selar is administering
your case." 'And Selar thought this was the best place for me, so the
hell with professional reservations.'

Deanna lifted her head, the question in her hazy eyes.

"I was...too close to the problem, finally. You're in such pain, and
the best I can do only seems to lead you to the threshold of a trauma
I don't know how to handle--I can't trust my motives, whatever my
opinion of how to proceed is at any given moment, and I'm too close to
you. When we talk, when I see you, all I want to do is...this, I
suppose. I want to help you, and I—it seems my inclination to comfort
you rather than treat you might be the one to follow, after all."

Deanna laid back against her, holding as tight as she could, which was
not very. "This is wonderful, Beverly. You are helping me. I trust
you. I wouldn't want anyone else to see me like this, but--"

"I'm sorry about Selar, but I didn't see any--"

"You did the right thing. Selar will keep what she knows to herself,
and she will find out what is proper to do and do it--no matter how
much it--how hard it is for me. I wouldn't want to put you through
that."

"And I don't want to have to be the one who does it. This is going to
sound strange, because I know you know it already, but I love you.
I'll be with you--I'll be on you like a rash. For whatever it is Selar
decides."

Deanna reached up to Beverly's cheek, apparently for aiming purposes,
and kissed it, near her fingertips. "I love you, too. Lie with me here
for a while, until I fall asleep."

They got comfortable; Deanna curled up on the pillow, and Beverly
snugged up behind her with her arm across Deanna, so she could get up
without making significant rearrangements when Deanna fell asleep.

Deanna's breathing evened and slowed a little, finally; Beverly was
starting to get drowsy herself. She floated at the edge of sleep,
feeling the soft warmth pressed against her. 'This is nice,' she
thought, 'we've never done it before. Too bad she had to be so
ill...for...is it my mothering urge kicking in? Wesley's grown out of
my care, so I...no. Not what's happening here.' She didn't know how
she was so sure of that, but she was.

Some indefinable time later, Deanna turned over, taking Beverly's
arm--now half-numb, but Beverly didn't notice until Deanna was already
moving it—wrapping her own hands around Beverly's and folding them
against her chest, pressing her face into Beverly's neck. "I can't
sleep," she whispered. "The drug...I can only half-sleep..."

"Do you want to try to sit up? Though you really should rest if you
can." The feeling started returning to her arm; luckily it hadn't gone
dead enough for pins and needles.

"No. I'm fine, if you're here."

"I'm not going anywhere." Deanna's breath was warm against the base of
Beverly's throat. She extracted her arm, slid the other under Deanna
and pulled her closer. Deanna wrapped her topmost arm around Beverly's
waist and whispered "Thank you."

'Thank me?' Beverly wondered. 'There's nowhere else I'd want to be
right now.'

The peace in the room was like a blanket. The sensation of oasis, an
eye in a hurricane, was soporific enough that they both fell asleep.

When Beverly woke, she tried to move and found herself entangled; she
remembered where she was and craned her neck to see the clock next to
the bed. It was nearing midnight.

Great Scott, I MUST have been drained, she thought, and looked down to
see Deanna's great eyes open and glowing in the starlight through the
viewports over the bed.

"It's about time for us to get some sleep," she joked faintly.

Deanna continued to gaze at her a moment, then whispered haltingly,
touching Beverly's hair, "Beverly...would you--would you like--"

Beverly closed her eyes. "You can't do this, Deanna, you know I'm not
Ta--"

"I KNOW you're not Tash," Deanna overrode her, distress creasing her
face. "I know it. You're Beverly, my friend--you're...safe. And I have
a feeling that whatever Doctor Selar is planning for me isn't going to
feel very safe. I only want to know...don't do it just for me. If you
say yes, say it for yourself, too."

Beverly stood at what may have been the stupidest decision of her
life, and decided she should go with the easy out. She kissed Deanna,
and said "I'm with you. I'll be with you."

"I KNOW. I want to know if you want to make love with me."

"Isn't that what we've been doing?" Beverly laughed, but the words
were too real.

Deanna smiled a teary smile. "Yes, it has. Kiss me, Beverly." Beverly
did, and said "Where's your toothbrush?"

Deanna began to laugh, and didn't stop until Beverly threatened to get
up and find it, and then Deanna told her exactly where, in the
bathroom, the toothbrush was.

Beverly brought it back, and Deanna used it, and handed it to Beverly,
who used it and set it on the nearest bedside table, saying "Aren't
you thirsty?"

"I'm HUNgry."

In twenty-six minutes, a fowl supper had been demolished, sides and
all, and Deanna had eaten an entire chocolate mousse with only a
little help from Beverly. The plates, utensils and dish covers were
all over the bed; Beverly stacked most of it onto the floor, ignoring
the small things like utensils. Deanna kept making blurry motions of
straightening, forgetting where she was going with something, putting
it down and going back for something else. "Don't worry about it,"
Beverly tried to reassure Deanna, pulling her down to the bed, but
Deanna kept getting up.

Beverly rolled over on her. "Just kick them onto the floor. Stop
getting up."

"I have to clean up."

"No, you don't. Now, stop." Beverly kissed Deanna, and Deanna lost all
interest in clearing away the dinner remains.

But she paused, looking up at the other woman, her gaze intense. "Is
this real? Is this because you want to?"

'Is it?' Beverly thought, but she heard herself answering firmly "I
want to. Very much. When will you understand that the only place I'd
ever want to be right now is with you?" 'Great Scott. I suppose I DO
want to.'

"Because I need your help," Deanna said faintly.

"Oh, no. It's not altruism. Like I said before, all I want to do is be
here, doing this, with you, and not only because I can't bear your
pain, or the thought of you facing this alone--like you do almost
everything, Deanna…"

Deanna was tearing up, but she often did that, seldom cried outright.
"Will and I have been so close...but he always tried to protect me,
shield me, keep me from facing what I had to face, if it
wasn't...pleasant. You're just...here for me. It's rather an odd
sensation."

"You must know," Beverly said softly, "how badly I do want to protect
you. You do inspire that in people. I think it's one of the reasons
you're so...detached, cerebral, most of the time."

"I know you want to, but you don't. That's a very important
distinction, and all the more meaningful because you do want to do it,
but you know it wouldn't be best for me, and...you accept that pain,
rather than doing what would feel easiest, even justifiable. You are
with me. But you don't try to take care of me. That means a great
deal, to me."

Beverly traced the sweeping line of Deanna's brow, down her

cheekbone, finally brushing the full lips softly. "Tell me what you
need from me. You'll have it."

Deanna pulled her head down to kiss her hard, and that seemed to be
enough of an answer.

---

They were sitting close together, dressed in uniform, when Selar
called for the second time that day; the first had been to speak at
length with Beverly--Beverly had left to use her own quarters, at
Deanna's insistence. "We're too attuned," she'd explained. "I'd
practically be able to hear everything you said to each other. I'll
center while you're gone."

"Selar to Doctor Crusher."

Beverly took Deanna's hand. "Crusher here."

"All is in readiness. Do you need additional time to emotionally
prepare?"

Deanna shook her head. "Let's get this over with." Her grip was like
steel wire.

"No, we're ready," Crusher said, firmly preventing her voice from
shaking.

"I will meet you in holodeck two. Selar out."

Beverly and Deanna exchanged glances, Beverly's chagrined, Deanna's
terrified. "I think I know what she's planning to do," Deanna said
faintly, accent apparent.

"So do I. Do you want to stop this?"

"No. Just don't leave."

"Never, while you need me."

Selar was waiting outside the door of holodeck two. She said "You will
be with the counselor for this session?"

Beverly nodded.

So did Selar. "Well enough. However, I must ask you to say nothing, to
her or anyone else, until the I have stopped the session and/or given
you permission to speak."

Beverly nodded again. Selar told the computer to run program Selar
One.

When the computer indicated readiness, they stepped inside, and a low,
agonized sound came from Deanna.

The sink-or-swim leap, Beverly thought grimly. They were standing on
sandy ground, rocks littering the area. In the near distance was a
crashed shuttle, rocks and debris covering part of it, one of the
nacelles broken completely off and lying some distance away.

Standing on one side of what looked like a swath of black scum along
the ground were Beverly, Will, Data...and Tasha, of course. Armus was
in the vaguely humanoid form Deanna remembered from the tricorder
records, which was no doubt where Selar had got this data.

By the time her ears were working again, Will was saying "We mean you
no harm. We have injured crewmen in the shuttlecraft; we need to get
to them. May we pass?"

"You haven't given me good enough reason," the Armus thing growled.

"Preserving life, all life, is very important to us."

"Why?"

Will paused, realizing what he might be up against, and said "We
believe everything in the universe has a right to exist."

"An interesting belief--one which I do not share. You may leave now,
if you wish."

At that, Tasha reached full boil--Deanna recognized it, though most
people wouldn't have--and said "We're not going without our shuttle
crew."

"Who are you?"

"Enough! We won't hurt you, but we have people who need attention--we
must help them." She turned her back on the creature and jogged
quickly toward the narrow end of the slick. As Beverly had said, Will
followed, and after him, Data.

"No," Deanna was groaning, tears streaming. "Not this again. Not this
again, I can't--" she turned to hide her face in Beverly's shoulder,
but Beverly took both her hands firmly and, keeping hold of them,
turned her head to face the scene.

"NO--"

A blast of energy flew from the creature, hit Tasha, and sent her
literally flying, end over end, a good three or four meters. The
holo-Beverly was beside her immediately; Will and Data were firing at
the creature--

And suddenly, she was in the shuttle. Feeling Tasha die—how could it
be—the hologram couldn't--

She let out a scream the likes of which Beverly had seldom heard in
all her years of medical practice--it was clear even through the
shuttle hull. They could also hear pounding and thudding, more
screams, and occasionally discrete words like "--OUT" and "TASH,
TASHA--"

Beverly turned on Selar. "You said I'd be with her!"

"You will be in a moment. It was important that she relive feeling
Lieutenant Yar's death--and this time, react as fully as she would
have had it not been for the Armus entity."

Beverly could see that, but she couldn't bear the continuing sound of
Deanna's screams--

Then the scene shifted again, and they were in sickbay, Tasha on an
emergency table, and Beverly began a descent into her own personal
horror…

…from which she was distracted by the sudden reappearance of Deanna,
right next to her, still screaming, sinking to the floor. Beverly
caught her and held her up.

Will was looking at the readouts, saying "You did it!"

"No," the holoBeverly replied, her hands not slowing down, "I've got
her on total support. There's no independent brain activity at all.
Neural stimulator."

Beverly was crying, too, now, but nothing approaching the hysterical
state that had overtaken Deanna.

Beverly heard herself say "Let's try direct reticular stimulation."

"Direct, doctor?"

Deanna fiercely fought all efforts to make her look at the table where
Tasha lay, a great diseased-looking splotch where she'd been hit
growing on her face. To Beverly's surprise, Selar, expressionless,
took Deanna's shoulders in her hands and turned her around. The sheer
force of the turn was enough to stun Deanna into a momentary lapse of
hysteria, diminishing it to great, sobbing gulps, and opening her
severely bloodshot eyes.

But in a moment, the holoBeverly was resting her hand on Tasha's
forehead, as if to protect it from the useless assault of the
reticular stimulator.

"She's gone. There's nothing I can do."

"TASHA--" Deanna broke free—amazingly, as it was Selar holding

her--and lunged for the table, but it and the surrounding sickbay
scene vanished at that moment, and Deanna fell in a heap onto soft
grass. The park scene from Tasha's memorial service surrounded them.

Selar said very softly "This may be the most difficult part for her."

MORE difficult than--Beverly started in dismay, and began formulating
something extremely harsh to say to Selar, but she stopped as she
spied the figure walking down the hillside toward them. Tall, slim,
athletic--and smiling.

The holoTasha bent and lifted Deanna's shoulders from the ground.
Deanna could only stare, shocked and exhausted, only fearing some new
horror.

"I'm not Tasha," the holo said, in exactly Tasha's soft soprano.
"Here." She touched Deanna's face.

Deanna took a shuddering breath. "No, you're...not my Shyllamdi. I
can't sense anything at all from you."

The holoTasha nodded. "Think of me as a messenger, between you and
Tasha. I'm here for you to be able to say goodbye to her, and give you
a message from her."

Deanna wiped her nose and face on her sleeve and sat up, still shaky,
her voice trembling. "Message?"

"She says she loves you, and she always will, and that if there's a
life beyond this one, she'll wait for you there. She also says she
hopes you'll always remember her with love--not with pain. She wants
nothing more than for you to be happy."

"But if I hadn't been--if she hadn't--"

"If Tasha hadn't done what she did, YOU could easily have died, and
now she'd be going through the same thing you are. Only worse; it WAS
her job to protect you. You were helpless. You had no choices to make.
If it had to be one of you--and I think she would have believed,
looking back on the situation, that it did--she would never, ever have
let it be you. It just wasn't in her nature."

Deanna nodded, staring at the grass. "You said...you could tell her
goodbye for me."

"Yes, I can."

Deanna, either too shocked or too unwilling to think right now--or
else believing in the possibility; Beverly was certainly beginning
to--whispered "Tell her I've never loved anyone the way I did her.
That if there's a life after this one, I'll find her there. Tell her I
wouldn't give up the time we had together for anything in the
universe. I won't ever forget--but I'll learn to live with it, people
do. And I'll...try...to go on with my life, without that cold box in
my mind directing every move I make. She'll always be my Shyllamdi."

"I will tell her. Believe that." The holoTasha kissed Deanna tenderly
on the forehead, and rose; as she turned to walk back out of sight,
fresh tears spilled from Deanna's eyes. The hologram WAS eerie,
Beverly had to admit. Selar must have been exhaustive in her
programming.

Deanna was lying on her side on the grass, weeping softly. Beverly
said "Selar, your understanding of the human mind--goes far beyond
what I've seen in most Vulcans."

"As I said, I am a Starfleet Doctor, not a Vulcan healer." Her eyes
went to Deanna, and she said "Your part of her therapy begins again
now. If you wish, you may bring her here to see any part of this
program again; the voice lock will respond to you, or her. And if you
again find yourself forced to choose between the actions of a
professional therapist and those which your instincts prompt you to,
do not hesitate to call me."

Beverly smiled weakly. "Thanks for being the heavy, Selar." She knew
better than to promise a return favor; and Selar, rather than saying
that thanks are illogical, merely nodded her head.

"What was the name of this program again?"

"Selar One."

"One. Why did you name THIS one 'One'?"

"It is the only holoprogram I have ever written. I will converse with
you again on your return to sickbay, Doctor."

Her first program. Conceived, researched, mapped out and written in
one day.

Beverly could only nod, and Selar strolled out, hands loosely clasped
behind her back--a neverending enigma in Starfleet boots.

Beverly went to Deanna, lifted her up sitting, and held her while she
trembled and cried quietly.

---

"Deanna, in a sense, it's only been three days since you lost...since
you lost her. Are you sure about this?" Beverly was sitting on
Deanna's couch in her sickbay smock.

"Definitely," Deanna, said, clicking her comm badge to the front of
her uniform. "We can't keep explaining this to the captain as 'a rare
Betazoid ailment' and we especially can't keep asking Selar to falsify
the medical records. I'm amazed she'd do it even once."

"I would have been, too," Beverly muttered, "once." Aloud, she said
"Do you want me to come back here after our duty shifts?"

Deanna sighed, gazing into Beverly's eyes. "I'm starting to become
very attached to you, Beverly. Very. But there's still the danger of
transference. I appreciate everything you've done for me, more than I
can say--"

"--but it's time to stop being quite so helpful. I understand."
Beverly smiled. "But I want you to remember that any hour of the day
or night, I'm as close as the comm."

Deanna sat down next to her, and kissed her gently--they were both
about to go on duty, and it wouldn't do to show up with the figurative
hay in their hair. "I promise, if I need to call you, I will. And I
might. You're not off the hook yet, you know."

"'Hook' she says," Beverly sighed, rolling her eyes.

Deanna only smiled. "It would be nice to meet in Ten Forward for
dinner."

Beverly smiled, squeezing Deanna's hands. "It's a date."

---

The End