The BLTS Archive- For Old Time's Sake by Trexphile (trxphile@cox.net) --- DISCLAIMER: Paramount own toys. Me borrow play. Yada yada, blah blah. Feedback greatly appreciated. June 1997 --- He hadn't expected to see her again. So much time had passed. Twenty years,after all, is a long time. The reception hall was filled with people -- multicolored flashes intermingling, seemingly every race in the galaxy represented. They had all gathered together to honor him, Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, on the official announcement of his retirement from Starfleet. Wearily, he pressed another hand in his, making the necessary small talk and nods. His actions and responses had become mechanical and he felt as if he were floating above the crowd, observing the incessant banality from a safe distance. Another nod, another smile, and one more nameless officer moved on. Picard sighed and took a sip of the tasteless drink in his hand, tugging at the hideous collar of the dress uniform. 'Last time I ever have to wear this atrocious costume,' he mused. He spied the exit and decided that he was leaving, guest of honor or not. After setting his full glass on an empty table, he began his slow yet determined maneuver through the crowd. At his approach the doors opened and he felt a growing relief at his impending escape. As he stepped across the threshold, he looked back warily at the noisy room, hoping fervently that no one was noticing his break for freedom. "Oh!" A surprised cry, the sudden crash of two bodies. He turned his head quickly and saw blue crystal fire, shimmering silvered gold. "I'm sorry! I --" he began, then realization poured over him, his heart stopping. "Jean-Luc?" A voice of silk draped across his entire being. "Beverly?" He almost reached out for her but stopped himself. "You're leaving? Is it over?" Her initial exasperated frown had been replaced with a growing smile of recognition and -- dare he think it? -- happiness. He couldn't stop smiling. "Actually, no ... I just ... I was feeling a bit tired ... You look wonderful, Beverly." She dropped her gaze for an instant, and unease rose as the barrier came up. She looked at him again and he saw the change, the coolness. "Thank you, Jean-Luc. You're looking well yourself." She reached out and touched his bearded cheek but there was no tenderness in the touch of her fingers. They were the hands of a physician, probing, observing. "I must say, the beard is different. How long have you had it?" She dropped her hand. "Five years now," he whispered. "Beverly -- can we go somewhere and talk? She indicated the closed doors with her hand. "But the reception ..." Impulsively, he grabbed her outstretched hand. "... will still be there. We won't be gone long -- just a chance to catch up. It's been a long time ..." She hesitated, glancing toward the doors. Then she sighed and smiled a small, tight smile. "Why not." --- "Is this allright?" Jean-Luc indicated the small corner table. "Yes, this is fine." Beverly sat in the chair he pulled out for her and folded her hands on the table as he took the seat across from her. She looked around the small, lightly populated lounge. "This is pleasant, even if there is a bit of a Starfleet feel to it." Her smile was wry. "Yes, well you have to go a bit farther than a block away from Headquarters to get away from it completely." A waiter approached them and Jean-Luc turned to Beverly with a questioning look. "I'd like a glass of white wine," she replied, answering his query before he voiced it. "Yes, two please," Jean-Luc said and the waiter nodded and left without having spoken a word. The silence began to thicken. His chair became suddenly uncomfortable and he shifted, searching for a different position. He remembered a time, long ago, when the silence between them was an easy one, comfortable and comforting. This silence, however, had lasted for twenty years and it hung now quivering and taunting, daring him to slice through it and reach her as she sat contemplating the San Franciscan night through the rain-spattered window. He gathered his strength and thrust forward, as the silence jeered at the feeble attempt. "How have you been?" He almost sighed in frustration at the formality of her reply. "Very well, thank you. The Pasteur is a wonderful ship. I've been very pleased with her and I couldn't ask for a better crew. And how is the Enterprise these days?" He nodded. "Will is an outstanding captain. Of course, we all knew he would be. I think he held out all these years so that when he finally accepted a starship command, he would be sure it was the Enterprise." Beverly just smiled, a wistful smile and Jean-Luc could feel all the memories and the accompanying pain in that smile. The waiter returned, bearing their drinks and the silence grew again as he set them down and moved away. Jean-Luc lifted his glass first. "To the Enterprise and the Pasteur -- and the captains that guide them on their voyages." The clink of crystal did not dispel the oppressive air. 'What do I say now?' Jean-Luc thought, a bit desperately. He was afraid that when the wine was gone from the glass, Beverly too would be gone. Too fast, he thought, there's so little time. He was surprised when she spoke. "How long now has Will been the captain?" More small talk. Well, so be it. "Ten years. He's already made quite a name for himself." "Yes, he has. I heard about the incident with the Parsha. He was brilliant. But I suppose he was just following the example of the previous captain. He had plenty of examples to draw upon." The corners of her eyes crinkled and the sight of that familiar beautiful smile made his heart quicken. "He and Deanna seem happy -- I spoke to her a few months ago by subspace. They're expecting, you know." "They are? I didn't know. Well, I must remember to congratulate them!" She lifted her glass again, the wine half gone. "I heard about your work with the Romulans. It appears that unification may actually be a possibility within our lifetimes." 'I don't want to talk about his!' his inner voice screamed. 'Why are we wasting time with these banalities?' "Well," he replied calmly, "I don't know about that but progress has definitely been made." She took another sip and as the level of the pale liquid dropped even farther, he could hear it laughing at him. No! he cried out, silencing the taunts. It will not be this way! He leaned forward then and stared directly into her eyes, still afraid to reach for her hand or touch her in any way. "Beverly -- it's so good to see you again. I have missed you." She looked down at her glass. "Yes ... I have ..." She looked back up at him and the pain was there, exposed and accusing. "Jean-Luc, this is very uncomfortable for me. I ... really don't know what to say. Seeing you is ... difficult." He was surprised at the frustration that rose within him, a frustration that bordered on outright anger. "Then why did you come? How did you expect to and not see me?" "I don't know -- I felt like I needed to, that I owed it to you somehow." Instead of defensive anger, he saw nothing but a sadness in her eyes, and this disturbed him more than her anger would have. He was, after all, accustomed to dealing with her anger, but not this other emotion -- one that he was wholly responsible for. His response was a whisper full of contrition. "You don't owe me anything, Beverly. I'm the one who owes you." "I used to tell myself that but I stopped a long time ago." Now that the conversation had turned with his insistent prodding, he was suddenly afraid to push it further, afraid of what he might hear. He watched her drain her glass and the other fear resurfaced, knocking this newest one away. He couldn't let her leave, not yet. "I never expected you to come. I was afraid that you still hated me." A brief flicker of compassion crossed her face and he loathed the sight of it. I am pathetic, aren't I? Oh, but you don't know how pathetic I really am. "Oh Jean-Luc, I never hated you." She pushed her glass aside as he felt her gathering her thoughts together. "You made a choice -- it was yours to make." "It was the wrong one." There -- I said it. It's taken twenty years, but I said it. He continued, brazen desperation overriding hesitant caution. "I wish that you'd stayed on the Enterprise. Maybe if --" "How could I stay? Stay and see "her" there, a constant reminder of the choice you'd made? That was too much to ask, Jean-Luc." She pulled up tall in her chair. "I'm sorry. I guess I haven't put this behind me like I thought I had. I thought I could do this, but I can't. I have to go." She rose and he rose with her. "Don't leave, Beverly." His voice didn't hold an old man's plea but the commanding timbre of a starship captain. She noticed the change and stopped, stilled by his words, and her eyes glistened suddenly. "Jean-Luc, I don't think I can do this." "Sit down ... please." She obeyed without a word. He began speaking, the words coming automatically, surprised by the ease of their release. "You know why she left, don't you? It was because of you. She finally told me she was tired of competing with you, with the memory of you. You may have been gone physically but you were still there, whether I wanted you there or not. I was the one who kept you alive. I didn't intend to -- but I realize now that you had become a part of me, of my existence, and I would have died too if I hadn't kept you alive in my heart." Beverly seemed to be holding her breath as she sat motionless, watching him. "Nella realized it before I did. And that's why she left." It was done. He'd waited nearly twenty years to say the words and now he felt drained, a worn out old man. For an endless time she said nothing and when she finally did, her voice trembled with the whispered question. "Why her, Jean-Luc?" Yes, why her, Jean-Luc? He had asked himself the same question countless times and still wasn't sure why. He looked at her sitting across from him, those beautiful azure eyes glinting wetly in the subdued light, framed by lines that had deepened with time, her once bright hair now lightened with streaks of silver and his soul twisted and cried out. You fool, oh you fool. You cast away the most precious thing you ever possessed and you can never have it back. She sat, waiting for an answer. She deserved an answer. "I thought there was no hope for us. After KesPrytt and for a long time afterwards, I told myself that someday we would come together, that all I needed to do was wait for you." She shifted her gaze away from his and stared out at the wet city. "And then, after we returned from the 21st century and the Enterprise was docked at Earth --" "You saw Nella again." She finished the sentence for him, closing off any opportunity for him to divulge any more detail than either wanted to hear. "Yes." She kept her gaze fixed on the window and, mirroring the storm within both of them, the wind increased, whipping the tree branches and sending the rain hurtling against the glass. "I have to admit," she finally answered, "I was hurt very deeply by what happened, and after I left, it took many years before I could finally see everything as it really was. I realized that I was also to blame, that I took you for granted, Jean-Luc. I suppose I thought that you'd be there forever, waiting patiently for me to come to you, but only when *I* was ready. I never considered your feelings, at least not the way I should have. That was the wrong I did you -- it was the choice I made and it determined the choice you made." She turned to face him as a shimmering tear finally broke loose and sighed down her cheek. "Beverly ..." "Oh Jean-Luc, why did we let this happen? We lost everything, even our friendship... especially our friendship." More tears fell as she reached out at long last and grasped his hands in hers. "I've missed you so much. I thought of you constantly, dreamt of you every night. I wanted to call you, needed just to hear your voice if nothing else but I was so afraid ... " She bowed her head over their clasped hands and her fragility crushed his already shattered heart. "I've wasted so much of my life being afraid." A tear of his own escaped as one of hers dropped down lightly and curled along the curves of their intertwined fingers. He had longed for so many years to feel her touch once again, to say the words that should have been said long ago and he knew that he would never again have the chance that was before him now. He raised her hands to his lips and kissed the salty trail left by her tears. "It's time for both of us to stop being afraid. We had the chance once before and, if we choose to, we can have it again." She lifted her eyes to his and the hope he saw there gave him a peace that he hadn't felt in twenty years. "I love you, Beverly. I wish I could turn back time, that I could undo what I've done. But since I can't, all I can do is ask for your forgiveness and hope that perhaps someday you'll give me the chance to prove my heart to you." He smiled a truly contented smile for the first time in many years. "I will wait for you till the end." She was no longer crying and her face held, surprisingly, an expression of wonder as she lifted a hand from his and touched his cheek. This time, the whispering touch across his cheek was that of a lover's, questioning and yearning. He leaned into her hand and closed his eyes and heard her reply, the words silencing forever the taunting voices he'd heard for two long decades. "There's no need for either of us to wait anymore." He opened his eyes and sighed as he saw her loving, forgiving smile. He rose and pulled her to her feet and enfolded her in his arms and his soul sang with a new voice. She took his face gently in her hands and kissed his lips lightly, bestowing eternal absolution. "Where do we go from here?" she asked then. "It doesn't matter," he replied. "We have the rest of our lives to decide." "Yes," she smiled and stepped back. She took his hand and said, "How about for now we go back to the reception. I'm sure there are some people there I'd like to see, just for old time's sake." --- The End --- "For Old Time's Sake" by Carly Simon Let's make love for old time's sake Let's set right an old mistake Let's invite our hearts to break It's right tonight, but just for old time's sake. Remember you as Mars and me as Venus It's strange to see the grey in your hair And now to feel the peace so deep between us And to realize that we still care I used to think that we would wind up together Our destinies always entwined Oh but your heart kept changing like the weather And you wound up leaving me behind Let's make love for old time's sake Let's set right an old mistake Let's invite our hearts to break It's right tonight, but just for old time's sake ---