Title:
Connections
Author:
Whoa Nellie ([email protected])
Series:
TNG
Rating:
NC-17
Codes:
P/C
Summary:
A dream is a wish your heart makes. (Occurs during TNG season Seven episode
'Attached.') This story won second
place in the 2003 ASC Awards for Picard/Crusher pairing and the Hot Fudge
Sundae award in the 2004 Sacred Chalice of Rixx contest. Originally posted to ASC on June 11, 2003.
As
always: Paramount owns all the marbles, we just have a lot more fun playing
with them.
Feedback
is always appreciated.
Whoa
Nellie's Romance Star Trek Fan Fiction Stories
http://whoanellie.fortunecity.com
CONNECTIONS
Jean-Luc Picard stared into the fire as it
burned against the dark Kesprytt night.
This was the hardest conversation he'd ever had, forced to face the
truth of a lifetime of thoughts and emotions and unable to lie even to himself
without Beverly knowing the truth. He
made himself look at her, the torture a penance for the guilt he'd carried all
those years. Choosing his words
carefully, he tried to soften the blow of his words with the strength of his
friendship. "And then, little by
little, I realized that I didn't have those feelings anymore . . . twenty years
is, after all, a long time."
"And now we're friends." Beverly Crusher held his hand briefly,
giving a slight squeeze before letting go and looking back at the fire.
"Yes, friends." he agreed, still
wrestling with the idea of her knowing what he had kept secret for so
long. Coveting your dead best friend's
wife was not the most noble of thought or deed.
She abruptly stood, "Well, we still
have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow. We should get some sleep."
"Right," Picard watched as
Beverly walked over to the other side of the fire. He knew that something had changed between them, he could feel a
discomfort from her that carried a vague sense of disappointment and loss. Their friendship had become valuable to him,
there had been a few romantic liaisons over the past seven years including one
very serious woman, but Beverly's presence in his life had become a mainstay of
his daily routine. Now she didn't know
how to act around him and he knew it.
She laid down on the ground and curled up, facing away from him. After a moment, he followed her. On the hard ground with his hands under his
head, he gazed up at the stars and tried to clear his mind just as he knew she
was trying to do. His eyes began to
drift shut, the lines between reality and fantasy blurring into dreams.
...............................................
The ground was hard and unyielding beneath
them. He leaned forward on his elbow,
his mouth settling over her full, lush lips in a deep, passionate kiss. His hand moved to cup the back of her head
and pull her more fully into his kiss.
Slipping his tongue past her parted lips to stroke and caress the warm,
moist cavern of her mouth, he felt her lips and tongue respond, her arms
sliding around to hold him close.
Gently, he rolled her onto her back and covered her body with his
own. Her sweet scent wafted through the
night air, the supple curves beneath him a tantalizing sensation. With every breath, every throb of their
bodies against one another, his muscles tightened and his hardness grew. He had denied himself for far too long, this
was what he wanted, this was who he wanted more than anything. Breaking the kiss, he raised up slightly to
memorize everything about this moment, a memory to last a lifetime. A rosy flush highlighted her ivory skin and
accented the delicate features of her face and then her eyes fluttered open,
the bluest eyes he'd ever seen were staring up at him, silently urging him to
what they both wanted so badly. No
words were needed, their bodies acting on instinct alone.
He enjoyed the feel of her hands gliding
over the muscles of his chest, tracing along his shoulders and down his arms
while she stripped him to the waist. He
lowered his head to place an open mouth kiss on the hollow of her throat, flicking
his tongue against her pulse point. She
gasped softly in his ear as her head rolled back, baring her throat to his
gentle onslaught. He began removing her
clothing, wanting to feel her skin against his. When he unhooked her bra and peeled it from her body, a heated
surge of arousal shot through him at the vision of her breasts with their lush
roundness and ivory skin tipped with deep rosy peaks. His mouth made its way down the silken expanse of her skin to the
full curves of her breasts and imprisoned the taut nipple of one of her breasts. She moaned his name as he leisurely swirled
his tongue over the stiff peak, her long, slender fingers holding his head,
entwined in the fringe of grey hair to pull him closer. Savoring her impassioned reactions, he
nipped at the hardened crest slightly before suckling strongly. His mouth left her breasts to slowly journey
down the smooth skin of her flat stomach with a trail of hot, moist
kisses. He placed kisses around her
navel before erotically exploring it with his tongue. Her body trembled as his fingers slipped past her panties to find
the evidence of her mutual desire. He
paused to inflame the moist heat already aching for him before slipping the
sopping material down her long legs and flinging it away. His hands grasped the gentle flare of her
hips to hold her still as his lips finally moved on to their final
destination. With her whimpering pleas
for him ringing in his ears and heightening his own desire, he licked and
kissed the very center of her desire, relentlessly taking her to the peak of
ecstasy. His tongue continued to probe
and caress her intimately, her body spasming around his tongue and the scent
and taste of her pleasure an intoxication more powerful than Romulan ale.
Only after her tremors subsided did he
begin traveling back up her body, tasting every dip and curve along the
way. As much as he wanted to continue
his exploration of this lovely vision, his burning need for her was now almost
overwhelming. He braced his arms on
either side of her shoulders and settled himself between her long shapely
legs. Her graceful hands slid down his
chest, past the waistband of his trousers to find and caress the evidence of
his desire for her. Even through his
trousers, the hard length throbbed under the ministrations of her talented
hands. A groan escaped him as she
opened his trousers and shoved them down to his knees, taking hold of him with
an even more insistent touch. Gently nipping at his lower lip, she panted,
"I want to feel you inside me."
He slowly eased his hard length into her
heated depths, both surprised and tormented at the tightness he
encountered. When he had completely
buried himself inside her, he paused to savor the extraordinary sensations
engulfing him. Her body seized his, her
hips rocking up insistently and forcing him to take several deep breaths,
struggling for control. Slowly he began
moving, pulling almost completely out of her before burying himself in her
softness with long, hard strokes. He
fought to keep his motions methodical, suppressing the urge to speed up. Her body tightened around him, drawing him
in deeper and deeper, impatiently coaxing him for more. The supple curves of her body molded almost
instinctively to his, their bodies striving in unison for the pinnacle of
pleasure. He gradually increased the
rhythm and she matched his movements, the urgency overtaking both of them until
she arched herself toward him, calling his name. Her body gripped him tightly in a second, powerful orgasm and a
deluge broke loose in his own body. He
made one final, powerful thrust, holding himself deep inside her, as his own
explosive release consumed him. His
roar of triumph merged into a feral duet with her cry of abandonment,
"Oui, Vash!"
............................................
The captain's quarter's on the Enterprise
glowed with warm candle light. Dinner
had been pleasant and, after the recent events on Kesprytt, quiet conversation
over an after-dinner aperitif was almost surreal. Beverly took the glass Jean-Luc handed her and sat on the sofa,
relieved that he backed away to sit in the chair facing her. There were things that needed to be said,
closure to an unwritten chapter of their lives. Unsure of how to begin the conversation, she studied his face as
he looked around, in his glass . . . everywhere but her. "Penny for your thoughts."
"I was just thinking that, as
distracting as it was, I was beginning to get used to hearing your thoughts and
I find that I miss it," Picard admitted.
Beverly smiled fondly, "So do I; it
was very intimate." There was the
opening, discussing the emotional intimacy they'd shared. "You know, last night I couldn't
sleep."
"Oh?"
"I was awake for several hours and,
thanks to the implants, I got to hear some very interesting dreams of
yours," she said. That dream, more
specifically his feelings during the dream, had been very powerful.
Trying to suppress an urge to blush, he
gave a casual chuckle. "A man
cannot be held responsible for what his mind does while he's asleep."
Beverly thought back to one particular
morning when their usual breakfast had taken an intriguing turn. "What about when he's awake?"
He sat up and reached for her hand, almost
pulling back when she didn't immediately respond. Once she had hesitantly laid her hand in his, he said, "So now that we've had this unique
experience, what do we do?
"What do you mean?" She was stalling, unable to believe the
direction he was taking this conversation in.
His thoughts and feelings about her when they were connected--when he
finally admitted that he'd loved her--they had all been in past tense. He didn't feel that way about her anymore
and they both knew it. He felt that way
about someone else now, someone whom he didn't think he could ever have.
"You know exactly what I mean."
Hoping that she was wrong about what he
was insinuating, Beverly replied, "No, I don't. The implants have been removed, remember?"
Without releasing her hand, Picard moved
over to sit next to her, cradling her hand in both of his. "Now that we know how each of us feels,
perhaps we should not be afraid to explore those feelings."
She had to force herself not to
react. Once she would have been his
first choice and if Jack's ghost hadn't been between them, there might have
been something there. She wasn't his
first choice anymore and she knew it.
She was just the convenient choice in place of the woman who had left
him for the excitement that Q offered instead of the heart that he
offered. He wanted Vash, he craved the
feelings that Vash created in him and he dreamed of Vash. Friendship was all that the two of them had
now, all that they would ever have. She
leaned forward and brushed her lips across his cheek in a gentle kiss, fighting
the tears that threatened. "Or
perhaps we should be afraid."
There was nothing left to say, he would
always be a special part of her life, a valued friend; but she'd known real and
abiding love with Jack and she couldn't imagine spending the rest of her life
knowing that Jean-Luc's feelings for her were borne out of loss of the one he
really loved and the emptiness of looking back on years spent alone. She deserved more than that, they both
deserved more than loving the one you're with only because you can't be with
the one you love. "I think I
should be going now." She kissed
him one last time and picked up her glass, carrying it over to the table not
sure if she wanted him to stop her or not.
When he didn't say anything, she set her glass on the table and started
toward the door. Tomorrow they would
have breakfast as usual and everything would be as if none of this had ever
happened. "Good night."
"Good night," came his quiet
reply.
Pausing outside the door for a moment, she
reflected on all of the 'could have beens' and 'might have beens' if only . . . With wistful wisdom, she thought, ' I'm not the woman of your
dreams, at least not any more.'
**FINIS**