Title: The Heart of the Matter
Author: Whoa Nellie ([email protected])
Series: TNG
Rating:
G
Codes: C
Summary: Ever wonder why Beverly leaves the ship at
the end of Nemesis? This is a prologue
scene addition to Nemesis that was inspired by a challenge on another board. The challenge involved writing around the
theme of deception, but was limited to one thousand words which, for us, is a
quickie. So here is the extended
version full of everything that had to be cut to meet the word limit on the
original challenge. Originally posted to ASC on November 3, 2005.
Author's
Notes: This doesn't fit into any Whoa
Nellie universes.
Acknowledgements: Paramount owns all the marbles, we just have
a lot more fun playing with them.
Feedback
is always appreciated, posted or
e-mail.
Whoa
Nellie's Romance Star Trek Fan Fiction Stories
http://whoanellie.fortunecity.com
THE
HEART OF THE MATTER
She walked with a determined pace down the
corridor and stopped in front of her destination. Outside Will Riker's quarters Beverly Crusher paused, her hand
hovering over the control panel for a moment before finally activating the
chime. When the door slid open
immediately--faster than she'd expected-- she took a deep, steadying breath and
stepped inside.
"Dr. Crusher," Riker looked up
from his packing and smiled in greeting.
"Deanna's in her office finishing up some last minute things before
the wedding."
"I actually came to see you,"
she said. Nervously, she perched
herself on the nearest piece of furniture for support. "I haven't had the chance to
congratulate you on getting command of the Titan, it'll certainly be strange
around here with Deanna and you both gone.
Before you leave, though, there's something I'd like to clear up between
us."
The strained, hesitant tone of her voice
caught his attention and he pushed the box aside to give her his full
attention. "Thank you, I
think."
Beverly sighed and shook her head in
resignation. "It's nothing bad
just uncomfortable and long overdue. I
was talking with Ezri Dax recently."
"Deanna met with her about the
position as ship's counselor here on the Enterprise, didn't she?" Riker
asked trying to put a face to the name.
Nodding, she continued. "Odan came up in conversation and,
while the circumstances were unusual, she thought that you would have retained
some of Odan's memories and feelings."
"Beverly," he began.
"Don't misunderstand where I'm going
with this," she interrupted.
"Do you have his feelings for me, yes or no?"
"Yes."
Beverly couldn't face him so she got up
and began pacing around the room.
"Why didn't you ever . . . pursue those feelings? You were chasing every available woman in the
known universe at that time in your life, why not me?"
"I learned a lot from my brief time
as Odan's host," he prefaced his reply.
"I certainly saw a different side of you while I was Odan."
She flushed with the memory of that night,
of Will's hands and his body mingled with Odan's words of love. She had wondered on occasion how her life
might have turned out if Odan--the original host and symbiont--had lived. Would she have been willing to leave the
Enterprise to be with him?
"Odan loved you very deeply," he
said. "Feeling that made me
realize exactly what I was looking for in my life, that sort of marked the end
of my casual relationships with women.
I'd never really thought of you like that in the years I'd known you
since we met at Farpoint Station and by that point, even with a different
perspective on you, I felt like you belonged to Captain Picard in a way. It just--"
"What!" she exploded, not even
caring what else he was going to say.
"You think I belong to Jean-Luc?
Great, he thinks I belong to Jack; does it occur to anyone on this ship
that I am not property?"
Riker held his hands up in a placating
gesture. "Beverly, answer me
this. Would you really, truly have
wanted a relationship based solely on the ghost of a feeling left behind by
someone you'd loved and lost?"
His words struck her with the force of a
physical blow. "No," she
replied calmly. "No, I wouldn't. Thank you, Will and congratulations on your
pending nuptials and captaincy. You
deserve all of it."
......................................................
Deanna knocked on the doorframe of
Crusher's open office door. "Are
you busy?"
"Will talked to you," Beverly
stated flatly, not even questioning the inevitability of this conversation. At least Deanna had come to her so this
discussion would be in the comfort of her office. Somehow it was less threatening and less invasive talking to the
empath as a friend rather than in her office as a counselor.
Closing the door behind her as she
entered, Troi settled herself in a chair across the desk from Beverly and just
waited patiently. She didn't say
anything, she didn't ask any questions, she just sat and stared directly at
Beverly, eyeing her expectantly.
"It's not what you're thinking,"
Beverly said after several moments of silence weighed atmosphere in the room
down uncomfortably.
"What am I thinking," Deanna
asked.
Beverly leaned back in her chair and ran
her fingers through her hair while she searched for the right words. "This has nothing to do with
Will."
"It's about you."
"My life," she
acknowledged. "I've been lying to
myself for years, most of my life has been based on an illusion. Will just helped me realize that."
Deanna tilted her head questioningly
without breaking eye contact with Beverly.
"How so?"
"Do you know how long it took me to
fall in love with Jack?"
Deanna shook her head no and
shrugged. "You've always been
somewhat closed emotionally, never really letting people get close."
"That didn't stop Odan or John Doe or
Ronin from getting into my heart," she commented. "It took me a long time to trust what I
felt for Jack but having that love, I recognized those feelings when they
happened with Odan and the others.
Loving Jack, marrying him was the best thing that has ever happened to
me next to having Wesley."
"So where's the illusion?"
Beverly gestured around her. "This, all of these years here on the
Enterprise. Did you know that I once
told Jean-Luc that he owed me a husband?
It was during the incident with the Psi2000 virus, but it was what I
wanted. I wanted to feel the way I felt
during my marriage with Jack and I thought Jean-Luc owed it to me. He actually did just that, giving me a
husband in a way. He became something
of a father-figure to Wesley and . . . "
"And," Deanna prompted her after
a long silence.
"With the socializing, breakfasts and
friendship, he recreated the comfortable companionship I had with Jack,"
she finished. "All of the comfort
but without the intimacy--emotional or physical intimacy of real love. He pushed for that, twice if you count his
imposter, but both times I walked away and I just realized why. He's not Jack. I've been using him to create the illusion of the life I had with
Jack but the love wasn't there. There's
never really been anything standing between Jean-Luc and me, there's just never
really, truly been anything between us.
Our entire friendship is based on Jack's ghost--my feelings for
Jack. I thought I'd moved on when I
initially requested this posting, but I'm sitting here now after all these
years realizing that it's been nothing but a hollow imitation of the life I
wanted to have with Jack. I can't
really move on and fall in love as long as I have this facade of a marriage
with a ghost and an acquaintance."
"Captain Picard has been a great deal
more than an acquaintance," Deanna pointed out.
"But he wouldn't have been if I
hadn't used him to build this recreation of my life with Jack. We didn't keep in touch after the funeral;
we hadn't been in contact for nine years and I'd hardly given him a thought in
all that time. Now everybody on this
ship apparently thinks I belong to him.
It's not his fault, it's mine.
If I'd been honest with myself about what I wanted, how I really felt,
it wouldn't have gotten to this point."
"What about Captain Picard's
feelings?"
Beverly's smile was tight as she gestured
to her head. "I was in his mind on
Kes-Prytt, remember? He thought he had
feelings for me but all of those feelings were connected to Jack and me--he
wanted what Jack and I had, not necessarily me. This situation just gave him the opportunity to live it. We've both had the illusion we wanted--a
comfortable companionship without the love or work of a real marriage. It's the basis for a perfect relationship if
only our hearts were in it, but that's the one thing we're both missing from
this situation. It's just not enough
anymore. I want the feelings, the
emotion . . . I want more. I want my
toes to curl again."
Shifting in her chair, Deanna used the
opportunity to sort through Beverly's feelings. "What are you going to do?"
"Leave, I've spoken to some friends
at Starfleet Medical and I'm going to submit an official transfer request
today. Ezri Dax might be more receptive
to a position here as ship's counselor if there were an opening for a Chief
Medical Officer as well. Julian Bashir
is more than qualified to run things here, I'll recommend him to Jean-Luc for
the position when I give him my transfer request. Hopefully I'll be leaving the ship just after your wedding on
Betazed. It's long past time I stopped
deluding myself and really put the past behind me."
**FINIS**