The BLTS Archive - Home by Brighid (earthstone@lycos.com) --- This was a bit of something for Mona. It's JB/MEO, post-series. Go figure. It's a PG-13, almost, anyway. © 2000 --- Miles Edward O'Brien fingered the leather of his jacket with one hand while the other successfully guided a tumbler of Bushmill's to his mouth. After a slow sip and swallow, he cleared his throat, opened his mouth, and then did not speak. "Yes, Chief?" Julian's amused voice cut the stillness, and there was a world of richness in his tone, in the gentle gleam of his dark eyes. "Just thinking, it's been awhile since we've done this," he said gruffly, gesturing to his leather bomber jacket and Julian's. "I'd forgotten how much I missed it." Julian's smile quirked up another notch. "Well, living on Earth and teaching at the Academy tends to make it difficult to meet on a weekly basis." He took a long drink from his own glass. "How is Keiko, and Molly, and Yoshi, and Julianna?" he asked at last, for the first time, and his voice was hesitant, unsure. Miles' gaze flicked up, pale blue eyes almost searing in their intensity, with the love they reflected. "Beautiful, every last blessed one of them. Molly is the head of her class in Physics, and Yoshi's playing first violin in the school orchestra, and Julianna is a little minx, even has Keiko wrapped around her little finger. And Keiko's head of Xenobotany at the Academy. She's got scads of little green-thumbed toadies in our greenhouses every weekend." Julian was still smiling, but there was a twinge of wistful in it, and more than a shade of sorrow. "You're a lucky man, Miles Edward O'Brien. You must have done something absolutely bloody marvelous in a previous life, because I haven't the faintest notion how you managed to deserve them in this one!" "Got that right!" Miles saluted with his glass before draining the last of it. "How's Dax doing?" he asked hesitantly, carefully looking over the railings to the bar where the soft flash of the replicator indicated it was in sleep mode. "He's fine," Julian replied. "All 2.3 metres of him. And happily married to boot. Worf and I sometimes go out for drinks when he's on the station," he said drily. "With my enhanced metabolism, I can even keep up with him through the bloodwine and remember all the disgustingly maudlin things we talk about the morning after. Apparently our Ezri let the Jadzia inside her out to play more than even she realized, wild girl. But she got Sisko back, and Tiber says that she was happy at the end, didn't suffer." The doctor stared ruminatively into his glass. "I don't think he's lying, but he might be. Tiber is impossibly, insufferably kind. Even managed to get a word through the Cardassian Wall to Garak, begged him to come and see me." For a long while there was silence, and Miles could feel the thrum and pulse of the station in his feet, feel it in his blood the way he had when he'd been piecing it back together with sweat and spit and twine. He reached out and laid a hand on Julian's hand. "I'm grateful. I was out of range when it happened, and from what the old scaly bastard tells me, you were a right mess. I'm glad one of us managed to get to you, kick you back into the living." Julian curved his hand over, gripped the Chief's tightly. "As much as I hated him at the time, I'm grateful now." He shook his head. "One minute I was lying in bed with the covers over my head and the next I'm over his shoulder in a refresher set to cold water, and he's chattering away saying, 'Believe me, my dear Doctor, this hurts me far worse than it hurts you!' Bloody determined bastard. Stayed here six months, and even offered to get me papers to come stay on Cardassia, as his household physician." He pulled his hand away, swallowed the last of his own drink, and set the glass down with gentle precision. "So, how about we go blow Jerry out of the sky?" Miles nodded, and stood, and together they made their way into the holosuite that Quark had left running for them. The door closed silently behind them, and they were in a cabin, with a crackling fireplace and a four-poster bed dominating the rustic main room. He turned to the quiet man beside him, and noticed the first threads of silver in the dark hair. "So, Jerry. Drop your coat and get over here," he said gruffly, and his fingers were lost in Julian's hair, and he couldn't feel the silver, so he just remembered the dark head and unlined face that he'd first kissed so many years ago. Their mouths met in a hot fusion of need and longing that fourteen years and a quarter of a galaxy between could not assuage. At long last the kiss ended and they stood back. "Right bloody out of the sky," Julian said breathlessly, reaching for Miles again, but the older man pulled back slightly. "Come back to Earth, Julian," he said suddenly, seriously. "Starfleet's been wanting to hand you the Medical Section for two years now. You're wasting away here, and sweet lady, but you're sad. It's always in your eyes, your voice. I can't hardly stand it any more, hearing from you and knowing there's not a damned thing I can do about it!" Julian shucked his own jacket, and headed over to the bar to pour himself a drink before settling on the bed. "Keiko's a wonderful woman, but there's only so much she can forgive, Miles," Julian said carefully. "Only so much she can share." Miles threw his hands up in the air in sheer exasperation. "For love's sake, you silly git, do you think I'd be offering this without her leave? Hell, it was her idea first!" He crossed over, sat next to Julian and took a swig from his glass. "She's older now, and she's settled and secure and she loves you to pieces herself, and you've been family so damn long she's just not afraid anymore. It's not about forgiving, never was. She knows that this thing between us was the only thing that kept me sane when she was gone all the time, kept us together, really. And she remembers that one time, that she came back unexpectedly, and found?" he trailed off reminiscently, and poked Julian in the ribs. "You know. At any rate, she wants you to come back with me. I want you to come back with me. To come home." He reached out, traced the lines just starting around the younger man's eyes, the silver threads in his hair. "Please, Julian!" He leaned forward, and kissed the younger man, without the urgency of before, but with all the love redoubled. "I'll think about it," Julian whispered at last, his breath softy and whiskey flavoured, and there was hope there for the first time in almost eight years. "Now shut the hell up and take your clothes off, you silly man. God, you accuse me of talking too much!" For a long time there was no talking at all, just the sound of the fire and the whisper of skin on skin. Then, much later, when the fire burned low and they were on the edge of sleep, Julian's voice pierced the quiet. "I loved Ezri," he said. "And I love Keiko," Miles returned, and he smiled into the doctor's shoulder. "But you like me more," Julian countered. "And I like you more," he concluded softly, sleepily, echoing a conversation from years ago. Miles reached down and pulled the quilt up over them, and pulled the younger man tightly into his arms. "I bloody well love you, you stupid bastard," he whispered affectionately. "I know," said Julian, on the edge of sleep. "Love you, too. And home sounds pretty damned wonderful, right about now." "I was hoping," replied Miles. "And when we wake up, it's my bloody turn to be pilot. You flew the last two missions, and I'll be damned if I'm letting you crash us again." A single brown eye opened and regarded him with amusement. "Are we talking the World War simulator, or are you making a truly bad euphemism?" Miles smacked him soundly. "Forty-six years old and still an idiot," he growled, and then settled into sleep. --- The End