Forwarded by the ASC-VSO 
Posted: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 07:42:49 GMT  
In: alt.startrek.creative 
From: "Lori" zakhad@att.net 
 

Title: The Fire and the Rose
Author: Lori (zakhad at att dot net)
Series: TNG (Captain and Counselor)
Code: P/T, R/f
Rating: PG
Date: 1/31/04
Part: 5/5
Archive: ASC, BLTS, www.zakhad.com




It took six hours to deliver, and would have taken longer if not for the
coaching of El. The elation I felt in the beginning is slow to return.

I knew real childbirth would be nothing like the scenarios we were put
through in basic training; when I was at the Academy, we didn't even have
access to holodecks. I've never been confronted with an actual birth, let
alone one for which I was partly responsible.

Deanna is asleep, a state that I envy. I'm in the lone chair in the corner
of our bedroom with Amy in my arms. She's wrinkled, misshapen, curled in on
herself, and nothing like I remembered Yves being. Of course, I hadn't seen
Yves right away -- it had taken a week and a half to resolve the crisis in
the Briar Patch and rendezvous with Guinan. Thinking about that now, in
light of what we've just been through, I almost feel guilty, until I
remember she'd not completed labor with Yves; he had been transported out.

This baby, our daughter, looks like an alien vegetable. All her hair stands
straight up and her skull is nearly pointed.   She blinks once in a while,
and it's then that I see we've managed to have a little Betazoid-eyed baby
with sparse, brown wisps of hair on top.

El sits cross-legged, crooning unknown words and swaying over her bowls of
incense. She ordered everyone around, solicited Bell's help at a critical
point as the baby crowned, and when Amy finally slithered out into Bell's
hands, called out loudly to alert the rest of the household. That brought
Will and Yves into the room. Yves, who spent the night being cranky and
tired but unable to sleep for more than ten minutes at a time, had stared at
Amy in horror until El put an arm around him and mumbled an explanation. I
wondered if she hadn't used telepathy in soothing him.

Now, two hours later, I am the only one other than El who is not sleeping.
Between witnessing the birth, the chaos shortly after, the cleaning up, and
the baby herself, I cannot stop the racing thoughts and the turmoil in my
heart. I want to be happy, I am happy, overjoyed to have this daughter of
mine. But I am overwhelmed by what Deanna experienced. Bell claims that it
was a short labor, an easy birth. I can't believe it.

"You should be resting," El says. I open my eyes and realize only then I'd
shut them. She holds out her arms and I place Amy in them.

"I don't know if I can."

She pushes my shoulder, forcing me back into the softness of silky
upholstery. "You will rest. I have something to tell you. Both of you."
Smiling down at the baby, she balances on the balls of her feet and sits on
her heels, her robe falling into loose folds around her. "Amia, I will tell
you a story of your parents."

She doesn't know us. We've only just met and unless Deanna did something
telepathically I'm certain El knows nothing of our story. I'm surprised, but
she glances at me with a knowing smile and ignores my staring.

"I will tell you a story of our past," she continues. "A true story that has
been told often. Tena, a daughter of a House, lacked a husband. She had
suitors and lovers, she loved, but she would discover each time that her
heart had not found its home.

"She left her House and family to go out in the world. With her she took
trusted servants, especially one man whose father and father's father had
served the House. She had known Jenon all her life and knew he would serve
her well. Vowing never to return until she found her heart's home, Tena
passed through her province into the next, and then the next, visiting each
in turn and meeting all manner of people. She visited House and hovel, field
and township, with Jenon and the other four servants at her back.

"There came a day, many years later, when she stumbled into a place she had
been before. She recognized the town as her own home -- her House was not
far away. By this time, only Jenon remained with her; the others had begged
to be released to go home to their own families and she had allowed it. She
stood in the market and watched children she had known, now grown and having
children, buying and selling in the market. She felt suddenly very old,
exhausted and hopeless.

"Tena passed through her town, and when no one recognized her, she continued
to stumble on. Jenon ran ahead to the House, believing she was going there,
but although she was on the same road, she did not go home. At the
crossroads she went west.

"At last, she stumbled to the very top of a hill, and stood on a cliff
overlooking the sea. She had taken the path to the sands far below many
times as a child and spent many happy hours playing there. She looked down
through tears at the white ribbon of the surf, the deep waters of the ocean,
and thought about her long journey. Even though she had gone around the
world, she had found no one.

"Despair overcame her. She wrenched her heart from her chest and threw it
away from her, falling to the ground to die. She had been gone so long that
everything had changed, and still she had found no home for her heart; she
could not bear to go one more step alone.

"At the same time, Jenon had realized that she had not followed him, and
retraced the path to find her. He arrived on the cliff in time to see her
fling away her heart. As it flew away on the wind, he ran to retrieve it. He
found it in the sand, just before it was washed away forever into the ocean.

"He brought it back to Tena. When she opened her eyes, she found her heart
beating with new vigor and Jenon kneeling beside her, and she discovered
that throughout her travels, she had always had what she sought, standing at
her back, and if she had only turned around she would have seen clearly."

El paused, loosening then tucking the blanket around Amy. "But maybe she
might not have seen, if she had. Because sometimes it is the journey that
shapes us into what we must be -- we are all potential, Amia. We are all not
yet what we will be. And once we have become, we begin again to become
someone else. Would Jenon have been her heart's home, if he had not gone on
the journey? Would her heart have been ready to be given, if not for the
journey?"

I had learned enough about Betazoid custom to know the story would end
there, with a question. Betazoid stories are often meant to cause one to ask
questions, or cause reflection. El's certainly did that.

"Thank you for your help, El. You've been invaluable."

"It is my pleasure." She rises, brings Amy, places her in my arms, and
stands back to appraise me. "There has been much sorrow in your lives. It
remains heavy on both of you. This should be a joyful time for your family."

"Yes." I don't have the energy for a rebuttal.

El tilts her head. "I will return this evening to help, if it is needed."

"You are too generous." I had already offered payment, which she had refused
as if offended.

"You are too self-sufficient. It is what a community is for -- you were in
need of my help. I could spend the time."

"Thank you." There is nothing else I can say. She smiles, sensing my
sincerity, and gathers up her things.

When she leaves, I notice Deanna has stopped snoring. Had she heard the
entire story? It sounded like ours, in some respects, and now that El is
gone I think about the look on Deanna's face when I first found her in
despair at a table in the ship's lounge. We have been together almost six
years. Our time together has almost been curtailed a few times, but the rest
has been happy. I wish there had been something more I could have done, but
the K'korll stole months of my life, when all is said and done, though
perhaps I should regard that as the price I paid to stay alive. Deanna
claims that they did as well as they could with an alien they had never seen
before. But when I see how low my condition brought her, it's difficult to
be positive about it.

She rolls over and peers at me. "I thought of that story," she says quietly,
verifying my hunch. "When you found me that evening in Ten Forward. She told
it in Standard. The original is slightly different."

In my arm, the baby makes a mewing sound. I touch her cheek, so small it
nearly vanishes under my thumb. "In what way?"

"Humans speak of the heart when they are talking about love. Betazoids
believe it's nothing to do with a physical organ -- we need no metaphors for
it. It's more similar to the human concept of the soul; it's spiritual,
abstract, and almost holy. When El speaks of tearing out the heart, in the
Betazoid it would be equivalent to willing oneself into insanity and death."

"*And* death?"

"One of the prices of having more control over one's own mind." Deanna
winces as she shifts position beneath the blanket. "Losing control of the
mind results in physiological reactions leading to the eventual death of the
person. We can also think ourselves to death, like the Vulcans."

My mouth is dry. "Was that what you were doing, then? When I found you in
Ten Forward you were -- "

"Jean."

"She said it was our story."

We've been sitting in what little light filtered through the curtains. When
she turns on the lamp near the bed, she blinks and squints. Sitting up,
moving like an old woman, she winces and gradually stands up.

"I can't deny the similarities, but it's a very old story, of which there
are many versions. As she told it, it's the beginning of a story of hajira.
That's likely all she meant."

This feels like it could be a disagreement. I don't even want to talk about
it anymore -- I'm certain she's downplaying her former condition to reassure
me. "I wish you would go back to bed."

Deanna makes it to my chair and stands over me. The night shirt is a plain
white shift, hip-length, that I'd replicated for her after she'd showered.
Already, milk stains dot the front; for as long as she decides to
breast-feed, she will experience leakage.  Right now she is as sexually
unappealing as I have never found her, her face still a mask of weariness,
her body sore, her energy gone. Her hair escapes the braid El had made.
She'll be able to sit without extra cushioning thanks to Bell's regenerator
but she's done nothing yet about strained muscles elsewhere. She walks as if
every movement were painful.

And yet, as she holds out a cupped hand to me, she smiles. It doesn't do
anything to erase the exhaustion but it does light up her eyes. I try to
understand, and it takes too long to make the connection, but when I realize
she's acting out the gift of her heart to me, I cup my hand over hers.

"Thank you," she whispers. Tears tremble down her cheeks.

I can't speak. I should be thanking her. But she senses that and takes my
hand.

"Come to bed. We'll put her between us."

The routine is familiar. The light is put out. Facing each other, we lay
with the baby between us, all of us on top of the covers. I put my palm over
Amy's stomach and as my eyelids close I feel her hand over mine.

I'd heard somewhere that happiness in marriage comes not by staying in love,
but by falling in love over and over again. Though I have been dubious about
this as the only route to wedded bliss, I've discovered that it is in fact
possible to fall in love again, with the same woman. Sometimes within weeks
of the last time.

She's soon asleep, leaving me awake and content. There have been many nights
over the past months that I've lain awake listening to her breathe, but this
is the first night since my return from K'korll that I do so while awash in
peace and contentment.

It's only much later, after sunrise, when the baby fussing awakens me and
disturbs Deanna, that I remember the story, Deanna's dismissal, and I
experience further difficulty with remaining focused on the present. Had she
been so hopeless? What if I had not searched her out in Ten Forward? Was I
really her savior as El implied? I cannot help but think of her as mine. My
life is more fulfilling now in ways I could not have imagined, when I was
only an officer set on a career-oriented path. Her presence in my life has
been a gift, or so I've always thought. This new perspective makes me
remember things I have not thought about in some time -- her unhappiness,
her uncertainty regarding our future together, how my own optimism had
blinded me to certain facets of myself and of her.

As I hold Amy and wait for Deanna to finish waking up, I decide that the
issue is likely to cause more difficulties if I pursue it further, and
resolve to let it go. We have ridden along the edge of tragedy for so long
that I suspect I've begun to search it out. I would rather move forward
again and enjoy the present, where my daughter is, where my weary wife and
moody little boy need me to be.

~^~^~^~^~^~


I awaken and find myself awash in sunlight. At first I'm not certain what
time it is; it takes a bit to orient myself and realize that from the angle
of the sunlight through the window, which is on the west side of the room,
it's evening and the day has gone. I must have been so briefly awake that I
don't remember waking to check on Amy. I'm remembering the birth, holding
her, nursing for the first time, a blur of smiling faces and Yves excited
and shrill -- fragments of the day come back to me. I've never been this
exhausted before that I couldn't stay awake.

As I sit up slowly I'm aware of soreness, but I have to see my baby. Jean
arrives, shutting the door behind him, as I start to shove away the covers.
"Here you are," he murmurs as he brings the small bundle of our daughter.
"She's slept quite a lot, in spite of the attention."

I only have eyes for Amy, but the bond is persistent and stronger than I
anticipated. I can tell Jean's tired and happy without trying, and no doubt
this is how he knew I was awake. He leans and kisses my forehead.

"I'll get you something to eat," he says, then touches Amy's head, or rather
the blanket that's wrapped around her. "Do you mind company?"

"Why would I?"

He raises an eyebrow. "You don't remember waking up before, do you?"

"I remember some things." And more, thanks to his remembering -- it's no
trouble at all to read his thoughts. He's relaxed, open to me and even
trying to help me see. Before, it was difficult for us to share such things.
He smiles, aware of this change and quite pleased.

Amy stirs, yawns, and opens her eyes. The dark gray tells us she will have
Betazoid eyes. I smooth back the blanket and notice her sparse, straight
hair isn't as dark as I thought it was; now that it's dry, it's a familiar
reddish-brown. Both of us are grinning, and the happiness doubled by our
sharing it with each other. She's a product of mixed genetics; my father had
light-brown hair, too. But it certainly seems that she's got her father's
hair, and I can imagine what my mother will say about it.

A knock on the door interrupts our joint adoration of Amy's gripping
ability.  It's Bell, coming in to see if we're up to dinner. By which she
means me. She glances at me but smiles at Jean-Luc.

"We'll be out in a minute. I'd like to wash my face."

She looks at me, confirming by her expression, which is so polite and
forced, that I look horrible. "I'll set the table -- we should be ready in
about ten minutes."

After she's gone, Jean-Luc takes the baby and helps me out of bed. He winces
with me a few times. "I don't want to do this again," he says as I steady
myself, pull on my robe, and take a few steps toward the door.

"Do what?" He's not sure how I'm going to react, and this worries me enough
to bring me back to him. "Jean?"

We stand together next to the messy bed, waning sunlight staining the white
linens to yellow, our luggage on the floor near a chest of drawers, and it
strikes me how strange it would seem to some that we'd had a child here, in
a house owned by people we do not know while staying with friends. I know
the answer I would give and wonder if any would truly understand it.

"Two children is enough."

His face shows his age, as it hasn't done since the early stages of his
recent recovery. Memories of the birth pass between us. He's probably not
the first human who's experienced the birth of a child second-hand, as he
isn't the first to marry a Betazoid. Still, it's not what I had planned. I
hadn't anticipated this sudden change in our bond. If it had continued as I
expected, he wouldn't have been able to channel so much of my pain.

"I'm sorry you had to participate on that level. I think something about our
encounter in the park left us with a residual -- "

"I don't mean that. I can't watch you suffer that way again."

"It's not -- "

"I can tolerate a lot in the name of duty. I can't -- " He looks down at the
baby, his inability to express it frustrating him.

"Then we're even. I'm not sure I could manage another round of alien-induced
madness."

His eyes meet mine. We're lost for a moment in his regrets, my remembered
pains and his, our mutual grief over the months of suffering. Then he pulls
his mood up with a force of will that's typical of him.

"They're waiting for us."

He's right, so I head for the bathroom to wash my face and brush out my
hair. There's a tiredness in the house, some resignation and wishful
thinking; I can identify who's feeling what. Yves is worried about
something. It's swiftly supplanted by anger. I pull my hair up into a clip
quickly, intending to hurry out to see what's going on, and a muscle in my
arm reminds me with a stab of pain how strenuous a natural birth can be.
I've strained more muscles than I knew I had.

The living room, dining area, and kitchen are different -- there are plates
and other receptacles arranged around the room. Will steals something from a
bowl and notices me with a smile. "There she is!"

Yves leaps out from the kitchen, his face smeared, and Bell comes behind him
with a rag -- a face-cleaning in process. That's a relief; I'd thought his
anger was over something less trivial. I'm surrounded by all of them,
including Jean-Luc and the baby.

"People have been bringing things all day," Bell exclaims. "You didn't tell
us you had so many friends here!"

Betazoids don't have to know each other for months to make friends. "Did
anyone bring chocolate?"

"Over here!" Yves dodges between the legs of adults to reach a plate of
brownies. Will goes in pursuit, thwarts Yves' attempt to stuff a brownie in
his mouth before picking up the tray, and picks up Yves. "Was getting it for
Mama," Yves blurts loudly.

"Mama can get her own," Will says wearily.

"I'm sorry, he keeps getting into everything," Bell exclaims, retrieving
John from under the table and removing a glob of something sticky from his
fingers. "The minute we prevent one of the kids from eating candy, the other
one is into a different plate."

"It isn't just candy. We're having Betazoid for dinner." Jean has put Amy in
a carrier and placed her on the floor nearby. He transfers several covered
dishes from the corner table in the living room to the kitchen table. John
is not happy to be in a highchair, and Yves loudly expresses the wish to sit
with me. The chatter while plates are covered with food and beverages are
replicated is all about the food.

I note that Will and Bell smile at each other, speak casually, and though I
sense all is not resolved, both of them seem set on being civil to each
other. It isn't difficult for either of them to manage. Something's changed.

"How are you feeling?" Bell asks me finally, as we're moving on to dessert.
Will glances at us, but is occupied with John's demands for an "ookie."

"Tired. But I was hungry." I picked up the baby after eating to hold her
while everyone else finished at a more leisurely pace.  Amy feels more
secure while being held, which is not unusual, but since I'm sensitive to
that I'll probably repeat the pattern I followed with Yves and hold her as
much as possible. Letting others hold her won't be a problem, but I won't be
able to leave her in a crib for long.

"And sore," Bell adds, giving me a knowing look. "At least you're not as
upset as you were."

I know, from what I gleaned from Jean's memory of the day, that I was not
the most pleasant person when she came in to check on me. "I'm sorry, Bell.
I shouldn't have snapped at you."

"It's not unusual for new mothers to seem to be in an altered state. She --
" Jean stops when he realizes he's speaking to a doctor and a psychologist.
He smiles sheepishly. "Sorry. I suppose I've had altered states on the mind,
so to speak."

He hasn't tried to make light of it before, and the attempt catches me off
guard. My sudden tears in turn catch everyone off guard. Yves slides down
from his chair. "Don' cwy, Mama! I get you some chocwatt!" He stops,
dismayed by everyone laughing at the offer, and to make him feel better I
ask him to get me one of the brownies.

This is why we came here. The smiles, the happiness, the freedom to be
ourselves and leave the uniforms behind for a while. It's what we've needed
most of all. Though we could temporarily bury our worries in work, returning
to family helps us heal the hurts and reminds us of why we're doing the work
in the first place.

~^~^~^~^~

The neighbors descend in force on the second day after Amy's birth. The
house is overrun by Betazoids, sending John into hiding and Yves into
overdrive. He's never had so many people with eyes like Mama's to question.

I steal away with my daughter to change a diaper. Our room is empty. With
the murmur of conversation punctuated by laughter in the distance, I unwrap
her, clean her up, and pause to assess her at two days old. Her skin is soft
and clean, her wispy hair reminds me of my own, and her eyes already show
signs of being as expressive as her mother's. Or perhaps I imagine this in
anticipation of having a happy little girl to spoil.

The door opens and closes. I know it's not Deanna, but I don't turn around.

"She's got you on your knees," Will says as his shadow falls over the bed.

I reach for the clean diaper. "I don't mind so much."

"Our guests finally left. Bell's assembling lunch. Any special requests?"

"No. I'll eat whatever's there. We have enough Betazoid dishes sitting
around by now that we could eat for a week without replicating."

"Who are you?"

He's so serious, I look up from fastening the soft corners of the diaper.
"We've covered this, Will. A couple of decades ago, when you first came
aboard?"

"No. Who are you now?" Will sits on the edge of the bed and puts a fingertip
in Amy's hand.

"I don't know how to answer that."

"I was afraid you'd say that." He sniffs, one end of his mouth rising in a
smirk.

All at once, I'm angry -- at him, yes, but this is larger and fiercer than
he deserves, and I realize at once that an outburst, though satisfying,
would do neither of us any good. I hold the baby, wrapping spread fingers
around her curled limbs and tiny body, forcing gentleness and barely
touching her face with my thumbs. It's almost the same sort of caress I give
Deanna sometimes -- thumb to cheek, then up along the eye socket to the
brow. Amy turns her head to the right, mouth open, looking for something to
suck on.

Will is musing as well; he contemplates, apparently, the baby's face. The
silent moment gives me the opportunity to think -- memories spin, words and
sentences from the past, and Deanna comes into clearer focus. She wants me
to believe she can handle anything because she wants to believe it herself.
She doesn't want to think of herself six years ago, of her despair over the
impasse of falling in love with her captain. I tend to think of her as
capable of handling any emotional crisis in a direct and mature fashion, but
I see now that this is due to her counseling abilities. It's obvious, as I
think about it, that it's only the crises of others she handles so directly.

And now, it's me. I've become close enough to her that she's less able to
handle my difficulties. They become hers. Again, something I realized would
happen, that she warned me about just before our first kiss, in fact. So I
must now compensate and rely on her more as a wife, less as a counselor, in
emotional matters. Somewhere inside I've still expected her to be both. I've
waited for something that won't come, the counselor I knew would always be
there to help me through, and I'm not alone in this.

Will invited us here and has spent most of his time waiting -- he's had that
manner, of someone who's expecting something to happen and needs only to
wait for it. He doesn't seem cognizant of the fact that she's a first
officer, he's been off the ship for years now, and that there's no reserve
of energy left in her to help him. He doesn't see what's so obvious to me.
She needs to recover, she needs time and space and renewal, she isn't
anyone's support at the moment. She even told him this, and yet somehow he
still waits for it, as if he expects her to fall into the old role in spite
of the changes.

I am the only support she has. Perhaps I should do as I've done in the past
and lead by example.

"She isn't your counselor, you know."

Will nods. "That's what she said. I'm not sure why you think I expect her to
be."

I look up at him, sit back on my heels, pausing in the rewrapping of the
baby. My stare unnerves him.

"I don't need her as a counselor," he says softly, possibly to avoid
sounding defensive.

"That's a relief," I say, picking up the last corner of the baby's blanket.

With Amy in my arms, I return to the dining room. Bell is carrying a pitcher
from the replicator and nearby, Deanna is picking dishes from the collection
on the counter. Predictably, she carries a platter of stuffed oskoid to the
table. It's one of her favorites.

"I owe you an apology."

Deanna stops, crosses her arms, and waits for the rest of what I'm saying,
hiding her feelings behind pursed lips. I suspect I may be scolded for this.
Behind her, Bell turns her back and pretends pouring beverages is
all-encompassing.

"For months, I've subconsciously expected Counselor Troi to show up. I
realize that I've been waiting to be a patient again. Operant conditioning?"

She sighs, uncrosses her arms, uses a thumb to capture stray curls and put
them behind her right ear. "That would presume you had come to a point at
which you felt rewarded for counseling. We've been through this, Jean."

Will's followed me out; I hear his uncertain shuffle of steps behind me.

"I know. But I don't always have complete control of feelings, you know."

"Another presumption, that you have any control at all," she says, chin
coming up and smile escaping. "Classical conditioning, to answer the initial
question. The association of external stimuli with an event or object, until
the stimuli alone triggers the response that the event once did. Operant
conditioning involves rewards to modify behavior."

"Pavlov's Picard?"

Her brow furrows as she tries to contain incredulous laughter, as Bell is
unsuccessfully doing in a corner, a palm to her mouth to muffle snickering.
Deanna resolves her disbelief and grins in enjoyment of my ridiculousness,
which she is probably sensing is deliberate.

"If only I had known that the captain's stern facade was a cover for a
streak of mischief several parsecs wide," she says lightly. Stepping around
the table, she kisses my cheek and smiles down at the baby, brushing Amy's
cheek with a fingertip. She freezes as I place a palm on her cheek; she
meets my eyes, asking silent questions. She doesn't attempt telepathy,
however. I 'push' and feel the connection, test the bond, and as we share
the thought she smiles and drops her gaze.

"Not mischief."

"No," she agrees softly. "I suppose not. But if I admit that it's a
deliberate bit of buffoonery to cheer me up, I tend to react in ways you
find uncomfortable in public."

"Or perhaps hold it at arm's length and analyze it?" I've teased her before
about fly-by psychology.

She throws her arms around my neck and pushes her nose against my ear, her
kiss landing somewhere on the soft skin of my neck. "Thank you, beautiful
fish," she whispers in Betazoid. At least, I think it's that -- I know
'fish,' and 'thank you,' in several forms. The trouble with languages that
have tonal components.

"Merci, cygne."

She stands back and takes Amy, and after seeing her seated I take her place
in the preparations for lunch. Bell hums happily; on her way to the table
with glasses, she bumps my arm with her elbow and smiles at me.

Will left the room at some point, as when I look he is not there, but he
returns with the boys a few minutes after Bell and I sit down, and his
expression is one of weary acceptance when he's not interacting directly
with someone. He participates little in a conversation about the gregarious
nature of Betazoids and why so many people we don't know come to see us.
Bell wants to know more about what motivates strangers to come here when
birth is, in her estimation, for family to experience.

At last, in a pause while Bell refills Deanna's glass, Will looks directly
across the table at Deanna and says, "I'm sorry."

Bell raises the pitcher and glances at him, then gives me a look of
incomprehension. I turn to Deanna and wait. She studies Will, while under
the table her bare foot finds my shoe and slides up until her toes can knead
my ankle.

"I understand," she replies at last, and Counselor Troi appears briefly in
her clinically-empathic and appropriate smile -- the one that tells a
patient she does understand from the professional and objective distance
necessary. "Don't worry about it."

Will attempts a smile. "Pavlov's Riker."

Deanna and Bell shake their heads in unison. "It was only funny once." Bell
reaches for his mostly-empty glass. "Afraid you'll have to find your own
term, cher."

"Ookie!" John shouts, trying to wiggle out of his high chair and throwing
down his cup.

"Cookie!" Yves exclaims. "Siwwy baby can't tawk!"

"You couldn't talk either, at that age," I inform Yves to distract him from
the amusement everyone else is showing at this.

Yves stares at me in disbelief. "Could too."

It's interesting to realize the assumptions we didn't know we were making.
Perhaps, as I age, I become more able to identify my own. Perhaps when Yves
is older I can help him understand that assumptions can be damaging. It
would have been useful for me to understand at an earlier age.

"You talked as well as John. You understood what he was saying, didn't you?"

Yves is so easily angered. He slides off his chair and is chided by his
mother for leaving the table before being excused. Red-faced and loudly
protesting, he climbs back up and sits frowning at his half-eaten lunch.

"Would you like a cookie, too, Yves?" Deanna asks.

He sits up straighter and smiles. "Yes!"

"Then finish your lunch. You too, John."

Yves' pout returns; he glares at John and grabs his fork. "Stupid baby."

"Yves. It's not John's fault you didn't finish eating. You aren't getting a
cookie until you finish, and that's not John's responsibility, it's yours."

I wouldn't have expected her to speak this way to such a young boy, but
she's done it consistently and I tend to do the same. She explained once
that a child's verbal skills develop slower than understanding, and that
Yves is following a learning curve that's more Betazoid than human. I don't
care, so long as he's learning and we're getting along.

Yves watches John picking up vegetables in his fingers, then stabs at his
own with the fork and crams food in his mouth until it's obvious he's racing
with John, whose plate is emptier.

"Slow down," I tell him, and his look of agony at being forced to comply
wounds me. I still remember being that frustrated by restrictions. Still,
part of parenting is restriction, for the child's welfare. "This isn't a
race."

Deanna strokes his head, distracting him from disgruntled contemplation of
his plate. He leans on her and buries his face in her dress. After a moment
of comforting him she nudges him away. "Finish eating."

This time, he complies without further protest. Bell seems a little
surprised. She glances at me, then at Will. Hopefully she isn't comparing.

I watch out of the corner of my eye and when Yves puts the last bite of his
lunch in his mouth, I speak. "Yves, could you get me a cookie?"

He's off the chair before he finishes chewing. When he returns from the
counter he has the entire plate of cookies. He offers it to his mother
first, brings it to me, and takes one for himself as I select one.

"Thank you. Give the plate to Uncle Will."

John leans and begs as Yves passes his chair; Yves hesitates, but after a
look and a smile finishes his trip around the table. With the plate
surrendered to Will, he races from the room, cookie jammed in his mouth.
Fidele, as usual sitting out of sight in the next room for the duration of
the meal, barks a welcome.

"So much for being excused," Will comments.

"We pick our fights." Deanna stacks Yves' plate on her own, collects
silverware, and stands.

At least the remainder of our stay looks to be peaceful. I  won't ask for
details of what's happened between Will and Bell. Nor will I discuss my
thoughts regarding what's happened between myself and Deanna, in the past or
present. She is smiling, and I will do nothing that could threaten that. For
now.

~^~^~^~^~

Amy is a week and a half old, and we're packing our things. Yves is
overwhelmed and wanting to take people he's met back with us. I feel like
I've wandered through a pleasant dream; eating, sleeping, and caring for the
baby while life goes on around me. Not our life -- we've been living in some
sort of borrowed existence, nothing like our own. Jean-Luc has relaxed into
being just a father, the captain temporarily tucked away with the uniform
and pips.

I'm trying to decide how to get everything we want to take into our luggage
when Will comes in. "Got a minute, Dee?" He smiles, and for a moment I
remember the young officer I fell in love with; this last week he's showered
his wife and son with attention, and it appears to have had the usual effect
of changing him into the bargain.

"I have many moments, since we're not leaving until morning. But I can only
give you a few. Yves will be back any time now to see if Tas or Reed can
come with him."

Will grins. "He's a great kid. Bell would love to take him with us."

"You're in a good mood." I fold shirts into squares, tucking in sleeves. One
of them has the telltale stains indicating the presence of a baby in the
family; I set it aside to recycle it. That's more room for other things. In
the middle of the bed, Amy snuffles and continues to sleep undisturbed.

"I know what happened," he murmurs. "To Jean-Luc, I mean. He told me some of
it."

"And I suppose what he didn't say told you the rest." A hole in one of Yves'
shirts prompts another discard.

"You could have called me. I'd have listened, if you needed to talk."

"In retrospect that seems to me a bad idea, but I appreciate the offer, just
the same."

He picks up pants and folds them twice over, giving him a reason to come
closer. "You've been upset with me since you arrived."

"You perceive that I've been upset with you. I was, briefly."

We fold and sort clothing in silence for a bit, while he thinks. Finally, he
says, "Bell and I are separating."

I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach. That wasn't what I wanted to
hear at all. The shirt in my hands is Jean's; I resist the urge to find him
or to cling to the shirt in his absence, and fold it carefully.

"She's going to spend at least a year in residence at a hospital on one of
the colonies. She'll rotate back on board when there's an opening in my
sickbay. Neither one of us wants to force one of the doctors to transfer
before they're ready, and it will give us both some space."

I hate that hormones make me so prone to tears and so sensitive to others.
Blinking furiously, I turn away to pick up a pair of shoes near the bedside
table. They'll fit in the largest bag, in the end. Bending is easier without
the pregnancy, though the extra weight I gained is still there.

"It's not ideal for John, but it's better than the two of us arguing all the
time about it."

There are no easy answers. Sometimes there is only the best one can do with
the circumstance. I know this. It's still unacceptable.

"I suppose he'll stay with Bell," I manage.

"I'll try to make at least one visit, and we'll meet to exchange custody
once in a while."

"That's good." It's probably too obvious that I don't believe him, that I'm
pessimistic, but it's the best I can do. I study the array of souvenirs and
realize I've left one thing out of my packing plans. Dodging around Will,
still without looking at him, I go out and fetch the clock from the shelf
it's been on all this time and place it in the middle of the bag, then
rearrange clothing around it haphazardly, undoing all the folding I'd been
so careful about.

"That's got to be one of the ugliest clocks I've ever seen," Will says,
feeling a little worried about me but knowing better than to tell me.

I want to defend the clock. It's the ugliest antique I've seen in a long
time, and as a child of Lwaxana Troi, I've seen some ugly objects touted as
art. But it's my husband's clock, and by association it's mine, and I can't
possibly be light-hearted about it. Using a sleeve, I wrap the thing's legs.

"How long will it take you to put it in storage?"

He flinches when I whirl about and glare at him. There's nothing I can
say -- it would come out incoherent and hostile, and it isn't his fault. I
understand he's doing the best he can. I know he's probably tried to talk
Bell around to staying with him. But she can't stay a nurse in his sickbay
forever, he can't force doctors to leave to accommodate her, and she
deserves a chance to move forward in her career.

And really, this isn't about him. Tears burn in my eyes. I can't exhale,
because the result would be a sob. I can't move, or I would run.

"You're really mad at me, aren't you?" he says. "It's just a clock."

"I understand sacrifices." My chest heaves with the effort not to sob. "I
understand temporary separation, and career issues. I will never understand
you."

"What?" He leans in, head tilting, frowning and puzzled.

"I -- " But I don't have to understand him, my rational side has always told
me. I don't have to know why, or how, or even what his decisions will be --
I've chosen to remain his friend, uninvolved in his more intimate affairs
unless he wanted me to be, and in this case I have made a point of backing
away and leaving him to handle everything himself.

And this is what he has done. Separation. Who am I to say it won't work out
fine? But somewhere in my heart, the little girl whose father died wants to
protect the little boy with blue eyes from this. It won't be permanent, as
if Will died -- but I had endured that too. Daddy left us there on Betazed
for months at a time. Every homecoming was special, resulting in trips and
special treats, with no sense of normal.

"Where is your father?" I watch him do a double-take -- he never thinks of
his father.

"No idea. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Probably more than you think it does." And that statement comes out colder
than I wanted it to, smooth, flat, refined by an anger I had forgotten. It's
amazing how certain circumstances make one remember old, old business that's
been supposedly dealt with. But John is a baby, and all I can see in his
future is a missing parent, whether it's father or mother, and on top of my
own childhood I have the recurring nightmare of whether Jean-Luc is healing,
whether it's only going into remission and sleepless nights and doubts of
reality will return next month or next year or ten years from now. So much
uncertainty surrounding so little certainty. And Will does not understand
any of this, so how can I continue the conversation without trying to shake
sense into him? This could be you, I want to scream -- this could be your
life.

Except it couldn't, because he's too careful, asks for missions that are
safer than probing uncharted regions near hostile territory. He did make
sacrifices. Am I somehow angry about that, too? Why do I expect him to
parallel my own experience? I always told clients, it's their life, their
decision, their solution -- only they can really make the hard choices,
because ultimately they alone have to live with the results. If that means
Will's child will eventually hate and avoid him, as he has with his own
father, so be it. There is no guarantee of how John will react, actually.

Who am I to say anything about his choices? I've been asking that, all this
time, since our angry parting just before he left the *Enterprise.* It's got
to be this undercurrent of expectation he's had on this vacation -- that
I'll fix the problem for him. Counselor Troi to the rescue. Jean-Luc had
apologized to me for expecting her to appear, and I hadn't caught on in
spite of my confusion that he would expect it -- he'd made an example of
himself because he noticed Will's expectation. And now I'm furious because
Will expected it, and because I reacted so automatically, at least
internally. Then he made the choice without my help and now I'm upset.

In the seconds it's taken me to think it through, Will stares, disbelieving
and possibly somehow still thinking this conversation might go somewhere
constructive. I want my husband, and he responds to that at once. A door
slams, and Jean-Luc is there, as if he'd only waited for permission. His
eyes alight with indignant ire, he's ready to defend me if necessary.

Will backs away from me. "I don't know, Jean-Luc. I only told her about Bell
and I."

The vacation has helped Jean. He's himself again, not the weary captain I
arrived with two weeks ago. He's studying me, looking for an answer to the
riddle of why I'd been feeling so angry and helpless. We stand there in
silence until it becomes obvious neither Will nor I will say anything.

Jean glances at the clock in its nest of clothing. "I intended to get a box
for that."

"Jean. . . ." I can't say anything, and I'm not even certain what I would
have said.

"I don't know why you're doing this now, anyway. I planned to help you
tonight before bed. Come outside and watch Yves try to play catch with Reed
and John." Jean gestures at the door.

He's so normal. He was so unlike himself four months ago that I was advised
to consider an institution. I would have had to raise two children by
myself. But he's so normal now, and it's such a relief, yet we're going back
to the ship in the morning, then away on a new mission -- not another survey
or another taxi job for high-ranking officials, but a real mission. And I
will not be on the bridge with him. I won't be there to talk him out of
whatever dangerous thing he could do in the line of duty, and while I'm
certain Geordi will try, Geordi doesn't know how to argue with him yet.

Now he's staring into my eyes, questioning my resurgence of tears, waiting
for an explanation. Will, taking the hint, slips past him and out the door.

"You've thought about the promotion?"

I sound too breathless. He straightens and tugs at an imaginary uniform,
straightening his navy shirt instead. "I wasn't aware that I should think
about it."

A wretched excuse for a laugh escapes me. "It isn't my place to tell you
what to think -- they would give you an excellent posting, you know. It
wouldn't be some office in the back hall."

"Is this an endorsement of the idea?"

I clear my throat. It's getting a little easier to breathe. "It's just a
question. I was only wondering, and thought I should ask, so I could prepare
for a move if I had to. It might take time to find a suitable home in San
Francisco."

Brow furrowed, Jean contemplates this as if hunting for a hidden trap. "They
didn't contact you, did they?"

"Who?"

"It's my fault, I suppose. I told them no, and they assumed you wouldn't
accept a promotion either." He smiles faintly, crosses his arms, and studies
the floor.

"They weren't going to promote me. You're getting better at lying
convincingly, however."

"It was almost true. I was expected to see it as a reason to accept my own
advancement, apparently.  It was mentioned in passing as a possibility."

I exhale and shake my head. I won't tell him that particular bait had
already been dangled in front of me, for slightly different reasons. "That
wasn't fair of them."

"That's what I told Nechayev. That you should be offered promotion only when
you deserved it, and that I won't be bribed into admiral's bars. One would
presume she was somewhat offended that I read that into the conversation, if
appearances counted for anything with her."

"You should be flattered. Look at the lengths to which they'll go to
convince you." I take John Bull out of the bag; his eyelids flutter and bob,
and the smaller of the two hands drops again to point at the six.

"What is this conversation really about?"

I suppose it's my habit to talk about something without really talking about
it. He's asked me this question before. "I'm not certain."

His touch on my back precedes his arm slipping around my waist. "What are
you afraid of?"

Shaking my head, I set aside the clock and start refolding clothing.

"You're upset about Will's solution to his difficulties with Bell."

"It's not a solution. Statistics on married couples enduring long
separations -- "

"Will and Bell are not a statistic. Neither are we. Where did your faith in
our friends go?"

A deep breath, then another, and I feel better about confronting him.
Tucking a pair of pants into the bag, I turn and find myself in his arms.
Easier now that I've had the baby, but still, my waistline makes me quite an
armful.

He smiles, then kisses my cheek. His lips are warm and dry, slightly chapped
I think. Rather than pull away he slides a hand up my back and holds me
tightly. I close my eyes and imagine we're in a similar situation -- one of
us in a desired posting, the other forced to choose between what's available
or a separation and a more deserved position.

But the comparison won't hold. There's more to contest in Will's case; he
hasn't been offered admiralty, and he doesn't think about retirement. I
think I could guess the answer to the question of what Jean-Luc would do in
a similar situation, but I don't know. I could ask him, but the answer would
not necessarily be truth -- we are not in the situation, and we do not know
what we would do once in it.

I want to return to the moment he kissed me for the first time, and live
there. I want to be the woman he will never forget when he looks at other
women, the center of his focus, the person he thinks about first every
morning. I want to be the measure by which all women he meets are judged. I
want too much, and I know that I have enough, more than many wives would be
able to expect -- I know what he has suffered and endured and recovered
from, the dark places in his life, the regrets he felt. I know him in ways
that Will would never be able to know Bell, partly due to my empathy, and
partly because we have a long history that Bell and Will do not.

The differences in themselves are not enough to make us immune from
relationship problems; we could still find ourselves pulling away from each
other. Hajira is not permanent nor is it binding. But there is that
determination we share, to be certain of the other's happiness, and I think
that this is what I should remember.

I open my eyes, and realize two things: Amy has awakened, and Jean-Luc is
clinging to me and trembling. No, three things -- I'm crying. Too many
emotions, too many thoughts, and he steps away to meet my gaze with tragic
eyes that tell me he's been aware of all of it. Rather than speak, he rebuts
the doubt and fear with a kiss, of the sort lovers give -- fervent,
demanding, intrusive. I can taste bitterness in his mouth and know that he's
been eating more of the Betazoid treats the neighbors have left for us. His
emotions are like mine, desperate and intense, but he craves something other
than reassurance. Or, something in addition to it.

This reminds me of his mood when we left Ten Forward together and started a
relationship that became a marriage. I once feared that I would not be
adequate to meet his expectations, or his needs. I feared he would lose
interest in me, change his mind about wanting a relationship, decide we
weren't compatible after all -- all those fears had proved false. Things he
had said seemed to indicate he had similar fears, once upon a time.

But we are not the same people, with the same fears. We have come through
events that nearly ended everything for us, almost lost his sanity to
terrible brain damage, and we have been so careful of each other since. The
fear must be related to the changes in us.

We rest after the kiss, nose to nose, foreheads together, and he's keeping
his eyes shut. He loves me in silence, unutterably affected and not knowing
what else to do to help me. Amy won't allow us this moment. After a few
grunts and breathy noises, she cries in the way of the newborn, plaintive
and without the volume of more developed lungs.

Jean goes to pick her up, drawn to his daughter, careful in gathering her in
both hands and leaving behind the blanket she's been wrapped in. Her limbs,
still bowed and tucked as they had been for so long in the womb, twitch with
the force of her cries. He settles her in his arms, holds her close, and
strokes her hair, murmuring something I can't make out.

I cannot have a guarantee that this will always be, this love and security I
have with my husband. I cannot keep him forever. I have always known this,
but like anyone else, I must learn and re-learn the lesson of acceptance and
endurance. It's only that our lives lead us into such extreme situations
that we're forever dancing on the edge of loss. I can't carry a false sense
of security, can't wrap myself in a daily routine as if we held jobs within
four walls and planet-bound, where even the weather could be predicted.

But at the same time, I cannot say that I would want to change a thing.

"She's hungry." My voice is still slightly husky with emotion. He waits for
me to sit down, passes her into my arms, and sits beside me.

In the dusk of a colony I have never been to and will probably never see
again, I lean on my husband, warm in the curve of his arm, and nurse a child
to whom we will be home and safety. We promise our children things we cannot
always give them and do our best to provide. Only time will decide if it is
possible for us to keep that promise.

"I love you," I whisper to both of them, close my eyes as Jean-Luc kisses my
hair, and let go of the fear. We are together. It is all we really have, and
it's all I want.

Love is compared to many things for many reasons. For now, for me, it is a
many-stranded knot of the people we have known, the places we have been, the
circumstances we have lived through, and at the center of it all we are
together. May it always be.

~^~^~^~^~^~

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

~ T.S. Eliot


--
Stephen Ratliff
ASC Stories Only Forwarding

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