ETERNAL SILENCE (PG)
by Carol Sandford

As much as we have between us, and as much as we know each other, through good and through bad, especially the bad, did we ever actually say, ~ I love you~ Did we ever look into one anothers eyes and hearts and whisper those words?

Everything about us conveys that we love each other; the way you speak to me, Deanna, asI hear it in your voice. And the way I ache when you touch me. It doesn't need much, sometimes nothing at all. Sometimes I ache as much when you reach out and touch me with your mind.

I see the need in your eyes, even though you deny me - us, to satisfy that need, and I do need you, Deanna, more than you'll ever know. It's as clear as the need that you must hear in my voice when I have spent more than a heartbeat losing myself within your eyes.

I know you love me, almost as much as I know that the sun is going to rise, or that the stars are going to twinkle at us tonight. But as sure as I know those things, I know that our love will stay silent, unspoken, concealed and intimate. Just between us. Just between you and me.

I sometimes wonder why we put ourselves through this eternal torture, but being without your love would be like not being at all. I can't resist your pull and I have no defense against you at all, and I don't mind. Having your invisible love is better than having none at all.

Many times you have stood before me and looked into my soul, as I have done to yours, and willed our hearts to open up enough to utter words that would break the spell that seems to have locked us into an eternal silence.

Three words. Three unspoken words that could change our destinies forever, but they remain locked away. But why? We have earned the right to utter an endearment that belongs to lovers like us, for we have loved, we have suffered, we are friends, and we are together - kinda.

But still we are denied.

Here we are, entwined eternally together by a bond, but silenced by a force that would set our words free.

I love you, Deanna Troi, but you know that, as much as I know that you love me, and maybe, one day, those words will spill from my lips as they touch yours and you'll whisper them back to me.

Maybe.

End