‘Just when I think I‘m over her, she does it. She does it again, and it
all starts anew.
All it takes for that damn woman to get me started again is a look. A look
that tells me that she remembers ~me~.

She remembers what I did to her, way back when, when I taught her something
more than love, and it always manages to surface at an inopportune moment,
or when something has been said that somehow conjures up an image in her
mind that brings on ‘that look‘

I try not to dwell on it too much. I can‘t really because it does something
to me that has me usually running for cover so that I can compose and
rearrange myself. Such is the power of her.

And thats on a good day. On others, she leaves my mental state in something
of a quandary. Somewhere between wanting her and wanting to wring her
dainty little neck!

I can‘t help loving her but its something I try and hide. Not from her, but
from me. I need to function on board this ship and I can‘t do it if I‘m
constantly thinking about her.

Sometimes I can go HOURS without her crossing my mind, and I think I‘ve
forgotten about what we had, and then I turn a corner and WHAM! I see her
and my head goes into Lothario mode. I‘m sure she must think that I don‘t
think about anything else.

I can‘t help if looking into her eyes puts an image of her lying beneath
me, writhing against the soft earth as I make love to her, no more than I
can help pulling her into my arms when she desperately needs nothing more
than a cuddle.

You tell yourself that you don‘t care. Sometimes I have to do that just to
get through the day, and then when I climb into my bed, alone again, my
body goes cold as the lie washes over me. Of course I bloody care! Too
damn much.

She‘s under my skin, big time. She‘s also in my heart, permanently. Christ,
she‘s even tucked away in my soul and I have no hope of evicting her from
there, even I wanted to.

Which I don‘t.

Sometimes when she catches me unaware, on days that I find she‘s never from
my thoughts, its hard. Its harder because I know she ~knows~ , and I know
that she sometimes wants to ~talk about it~. But how can I?

I am a man.

I have desires.

Unfortunately she is my desire.

Every minute of the day.

Even though she is my friend. Even though I am her friend and she would
kill me if I abused that friendship.

I think.

Trouble is, I‘m too scared to find out. I‘m chicken. So sometimes the
little that I can do, I make the most of. Like a cuddle. Like a chaste
kiss. Like a smile. Like a word that accidentally slips out when she forces
my heart into my throat, squeezing that damn word out.

Its a strange word; Imzadi.

Its a beautiful word.

Its ~our~ word.

And every chance I get to use it, I do, almost as much as every chance I
get for a cuddle, or a kiss. Its as far as I‘m willing to go, for now.

But it doesn‘t stop me thinking about her. Nor loving her. I couldn‘t
imagine life without having Deanna Troi somewhere around me. Whether it be
in my thoughts, my arms or in my soul.

She‘s there for keeps.‘
--

End