The BLTS Archive - Captain & The Counselor
In the Love Light
by Lori (zakhad.ficsite@gmail.com)

---

This is just a short bit, not even really a story -- I tried
to knock out a little backstory for certain conversations later on. I
needed a better idea of the mid-engagement relationship. Thought I'd
throw it on the site FWIW.

---

Stars keep secrets as they wander indiscretely
While the echoes of a song go drifting by
We must be careful not to lose our way completely
Or the magic that we seek here
We can't be sure will be here

In the morning
With the moon away
And if in each other's arms
Is where we're meant to stay

In the love light
When our eyes have grown accustomed to the daylight
We'll see what waits for us to share
For all the things we've dreamed of in the moonlight
Will be there

~ Sting

---

"We aren't going riding, we aren't going to Earth." Deanna smiled at a
passing lieutenant. She smiled more frequently now than before I
proposed to her, and for any reason. Almost as though she were looking
for excuses to do it. "So where are you taking me?"

"You were supposed to guess."

"I can guess you're up to something. You're smug."

The holodeck date had become a monthly event, if not bi-monthly, and
we took turns surprising each other. Deanna made certain it was
different from horseback riding or other holodeck activities we did
together; she took to dressing up for the occasion. This time, I'd
planned something different than the usual restaurant or tour of some
familiar place on Earth or Betazed.

"That's a very nice dress."

"Thank you," she said, glancing down at herself. She changed her
wardrobe over time, and I'd noticed since she has been with me she
wears longer skirts and looser outfits off-duty. This one featured a
pattern of gold and green in a trellis pattern on an off-white
background.

Coming around the last corner, we were confronted by a small group of
people heading the opposite direction. One of them stopped.
"Counselor, do you have a moment? I really need to -- "

"Shawn, I'm sorry, but this isn't a good time."

The young ensign stopped open-mouthed and glanced at me. I've found
that remaining straight-faced and merely looking back at the junior
officers when this sort of thing happened was usually enough to put an
end to any potentially-uncomfortable situation. He turned back to
Deanna, unphased.

"Um, I was just hoping, that if you had a few moments -- She said that
I -- "

"This isn't a good time or place for this. I have an opening in the
morning at eight hundred hours, that's the best I can do. Excuse me,
please." Deanna stepped around the tow-headed ensign, who couldn't
have been more than twenty.

"But -- "

Deanna winced, which the cadet didn't see, and turned around. "I'm
sorry, Cadet, but I'm off duty and I have a prior commitment. First
thing in the morning." Her iron 'commander's voice' came out,
surprising both me and the ensign.

The thin shoulders slumped. "Yes, sir." He spun on his heel and
wandered off.

"What a monster you are. The poor fellow obviously had a major
crisis," I murmured.

She smiled cynically, raising an eyebrow. "He's twenty-one, and every
girlfriend is the 'one and only.' He's on the third girlfriend since
he came aboard, and every time he two-times she breaks it off and he's
heartbroken."

"Of course. She was his one and only, why wouldn't he be heartbroken?"
We resumed our leisurely stroll. "He'll also go blind if she denies
him, and she's the most beautiful woman in the galaxy, and he really
wasn't paying any attention to the girl in the too-small pink bikini
in the pool, he just wanted to find out where she got the suit so he
could get one for the one and only."

"I hope you never used any of those."

I smirked at the thought. "No, I was even more clueless than that, at
that age. I suppose the 'going blind' line wouldn't work with you?"

"Have I ever given you a reason to try it?"

"Stop looking at me in that tone of voice in the corridor. I'll go
blind."

She laughed at it, veering to bump shoulders. "You're terrible."

"Have I told you lately how beautiful you are?"

"Let me guess, the most beautiful woman -- "

" -- in the universe, and all the other universes parallel to ours,
and in the alternate realities and. . . . You're supposed to tell me
to shut up any time now. I've run out of alternates and parallels."

"I wanted to find out the true scope of my beauty," she said as the
holodeck doors opened before us. "I was waiting for an actual count of
just how many alternate and parallel universes in which I'm the most
beautiful woman."

"Well, you're with Jean-Luc Picard. Do I have to say anything more to
prove my point?"

We stared, each daring the other to not laugh at it -- for once it
came to an impasse. I gestured at the darkness waiting for us inside,
the simulation I left behind locked doors to go get her.

"Why is it dark?"

"It's not," I said as the doors closed. {Let your eyes adjust. And
don't speak.}

I found her hand as my own eyes adjusted and the blanket of stars
overhead became discernable. Very faint stars, as seen from G'naias 6.
I saw the glimmer of their light on the grasses and followed the path
marked by darkness, by the absence of the glimmer, and the coarse
gravel crunched quietly under my feet.

Deanna stayed close. The soft creaking of the night birds peppered the
silence. Her hands closed around my thumb and forefinger, the other
around my wrist. She let me pull her along and must have been looking
at the sky; when we reached the top of a rise I had to hesitate so she
wouldn't stumble down the incline. We went down the narrow trail
through the dunes, the breeze whispering in the glimmer grass, and
reached the sand.

The beaches on G'naias aren't like Terran or Risan beaches. The sand
catches any available light, like diamonds do. I led her up the
glittering sand. Now that the reflected starlight gave a little more
to go by, I could see her face, barely limned with the light, and the
cloud of dark curls around it. The metallic threads in her dress
surprised me -- the gold gleamed on its own. She stopped walking,
leaving her hand around my thumb and forefinger. The lap of the water
and distant gleams in an otherwise-dark expanse of lake seemed to be
the object of her studies.

Reclaiming my hand, I took my flute from my sleeve where I'd concealed
it and began to play. Months of work had gone into this melody. It had
come to me in pieces while thinking about different aspects of our
relationship; the more I thought about her, the song coalesced. The
major elements were set in my memory now but the interludes weren't
fixed. Like her, they changed with the mood.

By the end of the song she smiled. As she turned her head slightly, a
tear on her cheek caught starlight. {That was beautiful. What's it
called?}

I put the flute in an inside pocket of my jacket, took her hand, and
kissed her lightly on the lips. {It doesn't have a name. I should name
it after you, since it was about you.}

Her arms went around me. I thought about her, and all her facets and
moods of which I had never been aware until last year, and stood with
her under the stars enjoying the peaceful pleasure of having her body
against mine. We parted by mutual assent, unspoken as usual, and
continued hand in hand along the water's edge.

We walked to the end of the beach and back, and eventually we found
some large rocks near the dunes and sat, together but not touching. I
played my flute and found my fingers running through other songs I
knew, including ones I hadn't played in months. Even the one for
Batai's birth. At the end of the one I'd played at Meribor's wedding,
I put the instrument away again and shifted on the rock, leaning back
to look at the sky. The birds had ceased their creaking. We were left
in silence but for the soft, nearly-inaudible lap of water. The night
was cool, but not cold, and she had relaxed so completely that I could
actually sense her in my own muted way, through the bond.

"Where is this?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"G'naias. It's a colony now. We beamed down to investigate -- this is
the beach we materialized on. It was my third away mission. In
daylight, you can't stand on this sand. It blinds you. We came back at
night and found it like this. I think we stood there for nearly ten
minutes, awestruck at the serenity and beauty of it."

"Have you ever been back there?"

I smiled sadly, thinking of the times I had intended to go back to
places and never done so. "There have been too many things occupying
my time since then. Other places to go, things to do."

"What made you think of bringing me here?"

"You reminded me of it."

"I did?" Her surprise was palpable.

"How do I feel right now? Is it familiar to you?"

Now her pleasure reached me, outwardly manifested by the smile. I
couldn't see her eyes well enough but I knew they had to be glowing
with the emotions I could sense. "Yes."

We sat a while longer. Her hand crept up to rub my leg. I'd never been
with anyone else who sought physical contact so often. When we were
alone she would touch whatever part of me she could reach, and it
wasn't sexual -- sensual, perhaps. At first I'd been uncomfortable
with it, but she always sensed it and backed off. I gradually found
myself expecting it, then anticipating the feather-touch of her
fingers, especially at the back of my head. Now it was almost reflex
to cover her hand with mine. She doesn't have large hands; I have an
impulse to handle them as if they were made of porcelain, but I know
she routinely uses them to pummel opponents on the holodeck in her
martial arts practice.

My hand over hers, we did as we often do, and simply enjoyed the
togetherness. I thought about her on Zanzibar, digging for artifacts
at my side and subtly taunting Vash -- I'd been with her long enough
to see how subtle she could be. The others hadn't noticed the cold war
between the two women. Attuned to Deanna's body language as I'd
become, I could read her posture and knew her 'buttons.' Vash pushed
too many of them, probably sometimes on purpose to get even for daring
to show up on the expedition and fend her off.

I disliked the way I'd felt the same old attraction to Vash, felt like
a traitor for it, but Deanna hadn't condemned me. It assured me of
what I already knew -- no matter who walked out of my past, my cygne
wouldn't be angry at me for it.

While I thought about Zanzibar, about Gary and the expedition and how
Deanna had stayed with us regardless of her disinterest in the dig
itself, she turned away from me. It was just a turn of the head, but I
knew something other than an interest in the opposite end of the beach
was afoot. She'd been leaving herself open to me -- it was the only
way I could detect her emotions -- and now she was pulling back again,
so I couldn't read her at all.

"Deebird?"

It only brought her part of the way back. She smiled, glanced at me,
but looked at the ground.

"Mon ami?"

"Je t'aime," she whispered. "I don't want to talk about it here."

"We could go home."

She nodded. I knew it was something serious then, and the way she
walked further from me than usual in the corridors on the way to our
quarters verified it. I did my best not to make guesses and panic.

I sat down on the couch, hoping, but she sat apart from me with her
hands in her lap. A counselor's posture. Usually she kicked off her
shoes and curled up next to me when we'd gotten in from a date. I
waited, looking her in the eye, and caught myself trying to cross my
arms -- I wanted to do something with my hands, reach for her or
fidget, and ended up mimicking her posture. She seemed nervous and it
was making me nervous, too.

"Do you have any reservations about marrying me?" she asked, her eyes
finally meeting mine.

I almost rejected the idea out of hand. But she was serious, and I
knew by now that anything a woman thinks is serious, really *is*
serious, even if it isn't. "I'm not certain I understand why you're
asking this. If I did have reservations I wouldn't have proposed."

"If we didn't have hajira, would you have proposed?"

I leaned an elbow on the back of the couch, turning toward her more.
"I don't see how the hypothetical -- "

"Please think about it." The fear in her eyes set me on edge. I wanted
to reassure her. She would reject it if I tried.

"We didn't have it in the beginning. It wouldn't make a difference in
how I feel, Deanna. I'd be in love with you regardless."

Her eyes fell, and she became too interested in a seam on her skirt,
running a fingertip up and down it. "You haven't thought much about
the actual ramifications of marriage, I think."

"You mean legally?" How else could she mean? We were already living
together.

"There are different types of marriages."

"You're referring to that renewable contractual agreement some
paranoid person thought was such a good idea, aren't you?"

She flinched at my tone. "I take it you don't care for the idea."

"I hope you didn't think I would -- that's not marriage, it's a damned
business transaction. What the hell are you getting at, Deanna?"

I regretted the outburst immediately. Her posture sagged, and now she
averted her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. "It's just that we
haven't talked about it. And I've been counseling an engaged couple
through their own disagreements over certain aspects -- "

"All right, fine, we need to talk -- but why are you so upset about
it? Why this fear?"

"There's a lot to discuss. You proposed so suddenly, I know you didn't
think any of it through -- I know you didn't think about having my
mother as a mother-in-law, or whether my name will change, or how we
would handle property. You have a vineyard, I have whatever my mother
would leave -- which, the Fifth House aside, is a lot to think about.
And given that she's been married three times and will probably be
again, there's a chance she might yet have another child. She's
actually mentioned it to me once or twice, and though I don't know how
serious she is, I wouldn't put it past her to -- Jean-Luc?" She read
my incredulity at the thought of Lwaxana having a baby at her age. I
realized then that I needed to research Betazoid biology more
thoroughly than I had.

"I shouldn't make assumptions. Sorry. Go on."

"I was trying to point out that it's conceivable, for whatever reason,
that I might end up raising my own sibling." How had she gotten to
that conclusion? What was she thinking about her mother having
children for, anyway?

"Contrary to rumor, I'm not allergic to children. I raised two of
them, didn't I?"

She flinched, her eyes going wide. "This isn't Kataan. We have
careers."

"I don't understand why this is an issue. We're both reasonable and
rational, and there's no reason we can't work out problems as they
happen. I can't predict the future any better than you, Deebird. We'll
work things out."

She picked at the seam. If she didn't stop this, she'd have the dress
unraveled to threads. "I can't be my own counselor, or yours, and I've
never been married. I don't have any personal frame of ref -- don't
laugh at me!"

"I'm not -- where are you going?"

Some days, that empathy of hers can be a curse -- hiding your reaction
from her is impossible. She stormed from the room. At least she didn't
leave our quarters, but it was bad enough that she shut herself in the
bathroom. It reminded me of the holodeck fiasco some months before,
when she'd been humiliated by her own incorrect assumptions and I'd
been so useless in comforting her. She normally didn't leave the room
in the middle of a conversation -- she must have concurrently come to
some realization of her own and felt embarrassment.

I waited but the door didn't open. {I wasn't laughing at you. I was
amused by what you were saying, that I had more experience than you at
this -- but it's not applicable to our situation. I didn't choose to
marry Eline.}

Seconds ticked by, into minutes. The door finally opened. She wore her
blue robe, her hair loose over her shoulders, and faced me squarely.
"But she was your wife."

"But she was also possibly a product of reality mingling with my own
subconscious expectations of what a wife should be like, and there's
nothing to prove she wasn't. It took months for me to accept her
completely, just the same. We didn't have the same things to negotiate
-- as you say, you and I have our careers, a different lifestyle. The
only thing I can carry over is the knowledge that arguments and
disagreements aren't fatal to a relationship unless we allow them to
be. I don't care if there are differences to resolve. I know that
you're willing to work with me instead of making demands. The details
are beside the point."

"I suppose," she said, toying with the lapel of my black jacket.
"That's enough to make me feel fortunate that I accepted the proposal
-- that and the fact that you're the handsomest man in the universe,
and all the alternate -- "

"All you have to say to convey the point is that I'm with Deanna Troi,
she of the impeccable taste and sharp eye. Yes?"

Slyness finally made its appearance, in her eyes and the small smile.
"Oui, m'sieur poisson, you are a credit to your mistress."

Taking her hands, I pulled her into the bedroom. "Sit down. We haven't
finished the conversation."

She waited on the end of the bed while I changed, hands in her lap,
watching me. I'd gotten used to her watching me that way but
initially, any hint of her attraction had made me uneasy. Her eyes
followed me as I came to sit with her in my nightshirt.

"I don't know why you bother wearing that."

"Because I'd look silly in one of yours, not to mention it wouldn't
fit." I sat, one leg folded beneath me, and gave her thick robe a
pointed glance.

"We're supposed to talk. I can ogle without following up on it, you
can't seem to manage that." She sobered and found another seam to pick
at, this time the edge of the coverlet on the bed. "What was Eline
like?"

She'd never asked. Not even when I'd been her patient, and working
through the transition from Kataan to the ship. "Very patient, and
kind. Devoted. She loved Kamin very much, and it showed in everything
she did, even when she was upset with him."

"You loved her too. It shows in your face when you talk about her."

It was very hard not to look away as I answered that. "It took time. I
was never in love with her, but I did come to love her."

"You don't have to feel guilty about it. It's very common for
surviving spouses to feel guilt when they finally move on to new
relationships. But I don't think you felt the guilt when you were
with. . . ."

"I did, but it wasn't the same. I wasn't engaged to Nella. You
shouldn't compare yourself, Deanna."

She shrugged, wincing sheepishly. "I wasn't doing it on purpose. I'm
just paranoid, I suppose, looking for things to go wrong between us."

"I'm not going to change my mind. I'm not that insane. You're staying
right here with me, and we'll be just as we are now. Unless you're
thinking of changing your name?"

That seemed to be what she wanted -- she scooted across the bed and
leaned into my arms. "Having two Picards on the bridge might be
confusing. But, I'd like to use it socially whenever possible. Mrs.
Deanna Picard."

She hadn't said it before. Hearing it sent a shiver down my spine. "It
could go the other way, you know."

She giggled, half-climbing into my lap to wrap her arms around my
ribs. Her hair smelled of one of her favorite perfumes, a light musk.
"Jean-Luc Troi just wouldn't sound right."

"No, it wouldn't. Do you have any reservations about marrying me?"

Her arms tightened. "I only wonder how things will change."

"Is this insecurity I'm hearing?"

"Not. . . exactly. I just know that relationships change after major
events, like weddings. . . ."

She made an appealing armful, but not when she sounded this way. The
link receded as she spoke. I hummed the song I'd written for her
against her scalp until the tension ebbed and I could feel the warmth
from her that had taken so long for me to distinguish from my own
emotions in my clumsy non-Betazoid fumblings.

"Have you decided when, or where, at least? Engaged is nice, but
hardly permanent," I mumbled.

She let go, tilting her head and looking at me as I let her pull away.
"I thought about it but can't decide whether it's better to offend my
mother or embarrass the non-Betazoid part of the guest list."

I'd thought about it, too. The ill-fated engagement to Wyatt Miller
and the turmoil over the ceremony had come to mind often since I'd
issued the proposal. "I don't have to tell you how I feel about the
idea of walking around naked in front of everyone. I'm quite certain
not all will have the same appreciation of my physical perfection as
you."

She smiled at it and played with the collar of the nightshirt. "The
problem would be too many of them appreciating it too much, I think.
Oh, I don't know, Jean-Fish. I knew it would come to this indecision,
if I ever did find someone who wanted to marry me. Maybe it would be
simpler to just meet up with one of your fellow captains somewhere and
get it done that way."

The surrender in her voice bothered me. "What's really bothering you,
Deebird? What aren't you telling me?"

Her slump and bowed head boded ill. I caught her hand in mine and
kissed it while waiting; her fingers curled around mine as if out of
reflex.

"What are you afraid of?"

"You're Captain Picard."

"Oh, merde, don't tell me you're intimidated by rank -- you've never
been that, not from the very beginning when you came aboard."

"Have I ever told you about the first time I heard your name?"

I had been about to pull her close again, and stopped, leaving my hand
on her arm instead. "There's some significance to that?"

"In a lecture at the Academy. I was second year, and a retired
professor came back to lecture. He was quite jovial and full of
amusing anecdotes, and recalled a number of his students well -- he
quoted you as one of his more difficult ones, and told us how far
you'd gotten since you needed a tutor. Trying to get some of the more
arrogant ones to accept the need for a tutor, probably."

It was a reminder of something else I had found difficult to accept,
the age difference, but I found the fact that the professor had chosen
me as an example more distressing. "The point?"

"I've heard about you from the beginning of my career onward, and the
reality hasn't disillusioned me much."

"Even after the wrath of Jadavran cuisine?"

She rolled her eyes to look at the ceiling, trying not to laugh aloud.
"That came close. Luckily I removed myself to the couch before
succumbing to the impulse to light a match."

"I hope you aren't trying to convince me you're indulging in some sort
of hero worship."

"Being famous by association could make it difficult," she said
faintly, then added, almost like an afterthought, "for the children,
if we had any."

Of all the reactions I could have chosen, I had to pick the worst one.
"If I were famous, that might be a problem," I snapped.

She looked at the bookshelves, hiding from me. "Your name is in
textbooks. Run a search sometime on the Academy coursework library and
see how many hits there are on your name. I suspect these days a cadet
can't take a class in any of the branches of service without hearing
your name once, whether it's a mere mention as in 'first discovered in
this sector by this ship under the command of Captain Picard' or a
more in-depth treatment of one of your battle tactics, or the articles
Beverly published on post-assimilation -- "

"Deanna!" I hated the way she pulled in on herself, shoulders hunched
and hands held against her stomach as if shielding herself. "Is this
one of your reservations? Are you actually hesitating because of
this?"

"No. It was just a thought."

A touch of her chin brought her head up easily enough. I ran my finger
along her jaw; she leaned, following my hand as I pulled away. "Why
the insecurity, Deebird? Why now?"

She pushed fingertips along the side of her nose as if massaging the
beginnings of a headache. "There's so much I don't know about you.
There's so much more to know. All I know is from working with you,
from the months we've been together, and what's in the computer."

I *almost* reacted badly to it. Catching myself was only made possible
by the realization that this was an unusual situation -- she didn't
normally do this. She'd been quite content for months to let personal
revelations come whenever they may; both of us tended to live in the
present.

"What was it that you thought about, that started this?"

"The beach." She paused too long. "It made me think of someone. . .
and how much time we spent talking, the things we talked about, and
how different it is now. How many years have passed. How many times I
thought I'd found someone I would want to spend my life with."

"So torture me now with indecision based on past certainty that never
materialized?"

She stared at me, her jaw moved, and I almost managed to dodge. She
grabbed a pillow from the unmade bed and slugged me with it. "I had a
perfectly good funk brewing, and now you've spoiled it."

"Oh, funk you."

She dealt me another blow across the shoulders with the pillow, but
she laughed. "It would serve you right if I went blind," she
exclaimed, tossing the pillow to where it belonged and shoving me
over.

We ended up in her favorite position, with her head on my shoulder.
She draped herself over me and sighed.

"If you really wanted a funk I could have loaned you one of mine," I
said at length. "Wouldn't want you to go blind. Though Geordi probably
wouldn't mind if you used his old visor, I really wouldn't want it
digging into my chest. Ow!"

"What's put you in this mood? Why won't you be serious?"

"Yanking chest hair won't make me any more serious." She loosened her
fingers and patted the spot. "Thank you. I just think you're panicking
for no good reason. You won't come up with one solid reservation, you
keep veering off into this funk of yours, and I don't see why you
would be so worried."

Deanna not responding in the middle of a conversation rates fairly
high on the list of things you shouldn't ignore, somewhere between
black holes and supernovae. I began to wonder if she'd fallen asleep
on me. I was about to put out the lights and see if I couldn't manage
pulling covers over her when she moved her head.

"I'm afraid you'll have second thoughts. I -- "

"The only thing that will make me have second thoughts would be the
continuance of this nonsense! If there's something wrong just tell
me." More silence. I guessed, without any hints to suggest it, that I
was about to receive an undesirable response to that. "I'm sorry, I
shouldn't have interrupted you. Can you please tell me, in one
sentence, what's wrong?"

She sat up, slid to the end of the bed, stood, and retied her robe. "I
wish I had a girlfriend on board I could really talk to. One sentence
-- only a man," she muttered, leaving the room.

This reminded me too much of a one-act play Beverly had done once,
about miscommunication between genders. And the ensuing argument with
her about the level of realism in the lines between the characters --
it turned out that all the women in the audience thought it was
accurate and all the men shook their heads in disbelief. I'd thought
it a caricature, an exaggeration, that the man misread so many of the
woman's statements. Deanna had stuck up for Beverly's side, adding the
weight of the counselor's point of view to the mix. Generally, human
males were sequential, goal-oriented, and would seek a solution to
difficulties presented to them; human females tended to approach
things more holistically and would talk things out simply for the sake
of venting before deciding what to do about the situation. I'd not
really thought about it in such encapsulated terms, but since that
discussion so long ago I had had opportunities to recognize it in my
interactions with Beverly, and less often with other women. Deanna,
perhaps because of her counseling background, had expressed herself in
terms I understood, with one or two exceptions such as the aftermath
of our encounter with Shelby. Until now.

Of course, I went after Deanna. I found her cross-legged on the couch
meditating. Of course.

Retrieving my flute from its case in my top drawer, I sat cross-legged
on the floor in front of her and played very, very quietly, closing my
eyes and concentrating. Images of her danced in my mind as I played
the music they had inspired.

I faltered when she draped her arms over my shoulders, but continued
playing, trying not to smile. I had to stop when she blew on the back
of my neck and then nibbled on it. "What do you think you're doing? I
was trying to compose the latest addition to my masterpiece, Ode to a
Swan."

She clung, putting her weight on my back, and rested her chin on my
shoulder. "Let me guess, you were adding the Moody Bird Movement?"

"The Funk Fugue."

"I didn't mean to ruin our date. I'm sorry," she murmured. "Shawn has
been in and out of my office three times this week, and I've been
trying to calm Lieutenant Benninger's pre-wedding nerves. You're
supposed to perform the wedding next week, remember?"

"How can I forget? She's approached me four times to change the
location. She can't decide whether she wants an observation area so we
can see the stars, or the arboretum so there'll be the appearance of
being outdoors, or the holodeck."

Deanna's sigh tickled my ear. "You knew I was just having a premature
attack of the jitters, didn't you?"

"I thought once you had time to get used to the idea of marriage,
you'll be happily sorting out the details."

"I don't know about happily. I may be in a better mood, but it's still
not going to be easy."

"Can we finish our date now?"

Her hands slipped down the collar of my shirt. "Before you go blind?"

"That would be such a tragedy, considering I'm engaged to the most
beautiful woman in the universe."

"You're good for me, Jean-Fish."

"Yes, without me, you'd fall on the floor."

She pinched chest muscle for it. "Silly fish."

"Do you want to talk it out?" I made the offer soft and serious. She
felt warm but heavy on my shoulders. "I know I wasn't very patient at
first, but if you really want me to listen. . . ."

"It can wait."

Straightening, I turned, kissing her cheek as she slid off. "You are
everything I could ask for in a wife. You have all of Eline's positive
qualities, and none of her negative ones."

"Did she have negative ones?"

Patting her thigh, I leaned to kiss her again. "She wasn't real, and
she wouldn't have been happy aboard a ship with me. There's no sense
in comparisons between the past and what we have, Deanna. You know
this."

"I do, but there's nothing like a proposal of marriage to make you
think -- especially if you believe marriage is something permanent."

Her cheek was soft against my nose. She sat still, kneeling next to
me, and I could feel her opening to me again at last, the warmth of
heart fire racing down my skin.

{You need to think in the right direction. Marriage is about the
future, Deebird.}

"But I was thinking about the future. The ramifications."

When I moved away far enough to catch her eye, it arrested whatever
she might have said after that. "I understand the ramifications. I've
thought about them. Whatever happens, I'll never let the property, or
your mother, or anything else come between us. We'll work out the
details together."

She nodded, smiling, her eyes dancing. "I know."

"But it isn't enough to know it, you have to feel it."

"I do."

"Say that again."

"Why?"

"Practice."

"So we're having the standard Starfleet ceremony? Betazoids don't say
'I do.'" She settled with her head on my thigh, reclining on the
floor. "Play some more for me?"

"Of course. Any requests?"

"Ode to a Swan?"

"I'll even add another part, the Serene Cygne Sonata. I hope you don't
mind a few stops and starts, I haven't written it yet and I'll have to
experiment with it to see what works."

She laughed softly. "Experimenting with me always worked for you
before, so why not?"

"Non, ma petite, I never experiment with you." Caressing her face with
the backs of my knuckles always made her glow. "Unless you want me to,
of course. I still say the maple syrup would have worked."

"It was too sticky. I refuse to let you use something that sticky on
me -- you would have yanked out hair with it."

"Not if it was warm enough."

"Another problem -- how warm is warm enough? I can just hear the
gossip if I ended up in sickbay with burns in all the wrong areas.
Play the song, Jean-Fish."

She ordered out the lights, so we sat in darkness with only the light
of stars at warp through the viewports, and I played, fumbling through
some of the sequences as I reached the improvised portion. She smiled
throughout and crooked an arm around me, pushing her shoulder into my
stomach to reach my back.

Setting aside the flute on the coffee table when I finished, I shook
her gently. "Deebird?"

Her eyes opened a little. "Hm?"

"I can't pick you up from this angle."

She used me to stabilize herself. When she was standing, I got up
myself, wishing my knees didn't feel stiff. She dropped the robe as we
reached the bed, revealing one of my old shirts, and crawled right up
to hug a pillow.

I draped the covers over her and went to put away my flute. When I got
in beside her, she turned to look at me. "I'm sorry, I'm just so
tired. . . ."

"Go to sleep, already. You've had a long day. I won't go blind."

"Mmm. Inside out." She rolled on her back, mumbled something
unintelligible, and went back under.

I kissed her hair and lay staring at the stars, thinking about
weddings and what I knew of them. Performing them had long been one of
my duties. Deanna would be a beautiful bride.

A snore interrupted my visualization of the event. The sound clashed
with the visions of a delicate and lovely woman in a gown -- it would
have been more at home with visions of Tellarites, or possibly
Nausicaans. I took her hand and put it on my chest; predictably, she
followed it, putting her head on my shoulder and sighing in her sleep.

With her in such close proximity, my thoughts turned to intimacy in
all its manifestations. I wasn't terribly surprised when she mumbled,
"I thought you were going to let me sleep."

"Why is it you can sleep through any of my emotions but that one?"

"Hajira."

"Very selective, isn't it?"

She muffled a few words into my shirt, then said, "If you can turn me
on, you can have me."

"You get blunt when you're this tired."

"Do you care if I'm that blunt?"

"Under some circumstances, no. Where's your 'on' switch?"

"If I didn't feel so wrung out I'd punish you for that. You're not
tired, you could at least -- "

"If I were a Betazoid, what would we do differently?"

The question silenced her for a full minute. She pushed herself up,
her hair falling in disarray, starlight catching in her eyes. "What?"

"You're Betazoid, I'm not. Remember?"

"The point being?"

"To rephrase slightly, if I were Betazoid and trying to get you
interested in sex, what would I do?"

She let her head fall forward, and it was only after her scalp began
scrubbing my chin that I realized she was laughing and trying not to.
"If you were Betazoid. There's a scenario I would never have imagined.
I suppose you'd do pretty much the same thing you do now, thanks to
hajira. Emote at me, grope, make provocative suggestions -- though
more of them might be projected into my head rather than spoken."

I ignored her elbow resting heavily on my rib cage and began caressing
the inside of her arm, where the skin was softest, with just one
fingertip. "What about sex? Are you neglecting my education in the
ways of Betazoids?"

While she stared across the inches at me, I slipped my hand up the
too-large short sleeve of the shirt she wore and found her breast. Her
only reaction was to move into it slightly. "I don't believe so. There
aren't so many differences as you would think in the actual physical
act, just in how we perceive it. Why are you suddenly curious about
this?"

"I believe in being well-informed. What about you in particular? Is
there anything you would enjoy that I don't know about?"

"You know how to touch me, Jean-Luc. Hajira." She pulled up my
nightshirt and ran her hand over my chest in slow circles. "And you
knew this would work. Are you still taking requests?"

"I would love to take any request you have, cygne."

"Sweat, and a regenerator."

"Can I shave it, since we're adding a regenerator to the equation
anyway?"

"I thought you were *taking* requests."

"Yes. . . . Should I work my way up, or down?"

"By the time you finish interrogations I'll be asleep again. Oh. . .
there's a good compromise. . . mmm, such good hands. . . ."

---

The End