spookysgirl@earthlink.net

Thoughts, Dreams and Miracles

PG

spookysgirl

1 of 2

I've officially cloned Riker and Troi, so these guys are mine, but the original DNA base was borrowed from Paramount.

No surprise here this little ditty is Riker POV, but it's also first person so bear with me. This simple little morsel has been sitting on my hard drive for months due to the aforementioned first person, so although I will still be forwarding flames to my dark-side I've advised it under the circumstances to be lenient. <BG>

Rain like angels tears drips over the beveled glass windows—thunder like choked sobs echo the rain's sentiment. I memorize the moment, in my heart and in my soul and as if I can't trust my own mortal skills I jot it down in my notebook. Pen and ink, almost an unknown in my time, but something that makes my moments appear more concrete as the black meets the white of the page.

I've learned my moments come from anything, stimulated by a breath, a sound or even a scent. But I've also learned that my moments almost always include her. Over my shoulder I look at the closed hospital door as if I can penetrate it with my gaze, measure her progress, know that everything is fine. In the quiet corridor my sigh seems to echo, and in an effort not look out of character for a Starfleet officer, a captain even I slouch into the nearest chair. My new writing complete, I flip back through my past—black and white words enhanced by the colors, sensations and sounds that inspired them.

The thoughts on the papers are only abstracts, I glide my index finger over the first page and read the few words scribbled beneath the layer of plastine I seal all memories in. The words are simple and to an outsider would appear to be written in code— rain's scent, a repeated warble and a dark inky blue. Oddly those three descriptions fill my mind with my first intimate encounter with Deanna, and in the vision I can feel her sweat slicked skin against mine, the softness of it contrasting the rough ground under my back. For me that encounter in the jungle was the most life altering sensation I'd ever felt, and here, now in the stark hallway of the hospital I can feel it as if it were yesterday.

But nothings perfect and sadly the meaning of the deep blue triggers the same fear and sadness it had then. Never one to worry about performance, that foreboding blue represents another first in my life. Fear stopped me from asking her how Maror had treated her, if he'd touched her, taken anything from her she'd been unwilling to give, and the unasked question had taken my instinctive touches and caresses and turned them into delicately planned pleasure; at least until I'd lost myself in her.

I know now that she hadn't been hurt, at least not in the way I was afraid to face, and I also know now she was aware of my reservations—reservations in the innocent beginnings I'd tried to equate to guilt about ravishing a woman I'd been assigned to rescue.

Another sigh, another look to the frosted glass doors and I flip ahead— Paper, dreams and a burgundy silk ribbon. The memory awakens a gripping sadness and an unbearable loss, though now the gift, the last gift I 'd received from Deanna before our posting to the Enterprise affords me a smile and warms my heart.

The wrapping had been elaborate; gold embossed paper and as I mentioned the fine silk bow, but in the box was nothing more then a translucent pink paper folded in the most intricate pattern. The instructions on the small card attached were simple, as you fulfill your dreams this dormant bud will bloom, the everlasting petals holding a piece of your satisfaction and pride between its layers of shimmering pink. This strange gift, signed only until we meet again imzadi has stood by my bedside since that moment in my quarters on the Potemkin, but time and fulfilled hopes have flushed its fragile petals open, a beautiful blossom holding my achievements and dreams in a flower blessed with eternal life.

My sigh this time is long and deep and marked by the impatience I'm feeling, my palms damp from the same emotion I leave a cloud of moisture on the next page. Under the condensation the muted words burn into my eyes— flickers of cranberry light, rosewood oil and dominance. A bizarre combination I know, and one just like the jungle I can now smile about.

Two weeks after I'd boarded the Enterprise and my sleepless nights were taking their toll on me I showed up at Deanna's door with a towel and bottle of rosewood oil in hand. Presumptuous for sure, but I'd come to the decision that I COULD have my cake and eat it too, and under my strong hands, seduced by her favorite scent I would take back control of a situation that was sending me to a cold shower on a nightly basis.

She'd agreed to the massage of course, only a damn fool would turn down one of my massages. And under the palms of my oil slicked hands I'd felt her body respond, heard her contended sighs, and well, at least I was sure I smelled her impending arousal.

The control was mine I thought, I had her right where I wanted her and the cold temperature setting on my shower would soon become an unnecessary selection. She let me kiss my way up her back, over her exposed neck, her cheeks, her closed eyes, even the corner of her slightly parted lips. I licked my lips, tasting her and the heady flavor of the oil and began whispering my well thought out proposition to her. It really was brilliant; the perfect way for us to have each other—discreetly—enjoy others and still have a professional relationship while we give our relationship an indefinite amount of time to grow.

To this day I'm not one hundred percent sure where I went wrong, if it was the other people thing or the satisfy our urges without a need for commitment. Whatever it had been I spent three hours and several subsequent evenings listening to a lecture on everything from the levels of intimacy, to the immaturity of human males, to some dumb-ass story about a boy she used to like in seventh grade. I learned one lesson, although I'm sure I was suppose to learn several, I learned never try to manipulate Deanna Troi, if you can't come out and say exactly what's on your mind.... Say nothing. The lesson is still serving me today.

"This is nuts!" Sighs aren't working anymore in taming my impatience; I grumble the opinion to the closed doors and the empty room. The doors and the room refuse to answer, but vocalizing has helped so I return my attention to the book.

Murky green glow, stale breath and Klingon sweat, my time on the Pagh. A moment that I consider one of my proudest accomplishments though from the words I used to conjure up this memory one would never think so, just as my pride in this assignment stems more from feeling fear, recognizing it and coping with it instead of denying it. With that in mind you understand that that's how Deanna comes to play even on ship bathed in the horrid stench of Klingon sweat.

Strangely I'd never though of myself as an alien, a bit perverse at times, maybe even slightly off color in some of my sexual adventures, but not an alien and certainly not an alien that could arouse for only that reason. My sex for freedom with Lanel had left me with chapped knees from the course fabric she'd laid on the floor, a mentally engraved image of the tattoo on her throat and a new insight into pleasuring a species that was—well— alien.

I'd fallen back on Deanna that day too, calling her image to mind and keeping it there in spite of the ridges and very sharp prickly things my hands were instructed to massage. Until then and since then I'd never had a sexual experience I didn't remember fondly—Another lesson learned, there really is such a thing as too rough, and the pain, pleasure line does have a limit.

I flip ahead—far ahead, because unfortunately that moment haunted many others for a long while after that.

I keep flipping as my eyes lift to the brisk clicks of footsteps coming down the hall, but as if I'm an unseen entity the pretty young redhead brushes right past me and moves inside another sealed room further down the corridor.

I draw my outstretched legs up to my chair, prepare to stand, demand to speak with someone about this ridiculous delay, but as I begin to close my notebook the words on the page catch my eyes and force me to remember.

Rosewood oil again. I roll my eyes. I still wonder if she chose it for our bath together to stimulate not only my senses, but my memories of her lectures years prior. The next word is gloating, doesn't fit into the intimacy and perfect image my mind is portraying, but when Worf contacted us in that sated and surreal moment, and Deanna's cheek lay flush against my clean-shaven one, and her naked body was draped over mine that's what I felt. A silent flip off to the oversized jerk that had somehow found a place in Deanna's heart and forced me for the first time ever to face the concept of my life without her in it.

From the brief look Deanna had offered me I knew she felt it, but when the transmission ended she'd never mentioned it, never smiled knowingly, never so much as batted an eye in a way that suggested she may have been gloating as well. Nope, Deanna did what Deanna does best created a world where she and I are the center and my past, present and future are all held in the liquid crystals of her eyes, tied somehow to her soul. Twenty years after falling under her spell and only then did the revelation hit me like a jolt from the heavens. My finger spirals over the final word on the page— future. And though I'd always thought she'd be a part of it, it was in that moment, encased beneath silver-blue bubbles that I knew without a doubt that not only would she be a part of it, she was the whole of what it meant.

"Just five more minutes Captain and you can go back inside."

Absorbed by my thoughts the soft voice startled me and I strained to see past the young nurse wedged between the partially open doors.

"She said I should let you know," she clarified when I failed to respond.

"Thank you." I said that much before she'd turned. "Tell her I love her," I added, after the doors whooshed shut.

For a moment it was as if I 'd become entranced by the doors, the hazy shadows from the room behind it snaking and twisting over the frosted panels.

A shake of my head and it's back to sighing, I freed a long one that rippled the newer pages not yet sealed in plastine; I stopped on the third to last entry I 'd made— whip cream, read alert and yes. Not quite far enough in the past to engender a full smile, this memory gets more of a half smile and a slight wince.

Mentally I'd been preparing for this day since leaving the Brier Patch, but moving at my normally, oh god maybe it's too soon pace I didn't find the perfect moment until four days after taking Command of the Enterprise. I wanted her to remember this moment, the moment when Will Riker actually said will you marry me without any contingencies or what ifs or whens. I wanted to ask her and have her know I meant now, complications be damned.

Planning where and how I wanted to propose wasn't a problem. Hell, I'd programmed the location into the holodeck months before... The raising star on Risa. For years my mind had pictured her there, sitting in one of the white wicker chairs on a private balcony, tropical breezes lifting her hair, her own perfect scent dominating the exotic floral that drifted on the breeze, but in the perfect image my mind supplied, tears streaked her face and the warm eyes that had captured my heart were frosted with disappointment. Maybe it was selfish to use the place where I'd left her waiting on Risa, but my hope was to eradicate any negative, even a negative she'd felt twenty-five years before.

What to eat, what to drink, what kind of flowers to adorn the suite with wasn't a problem, my problem was getting rid of her, my subsequent problem turned out to be how I'd accomplished it. I used my power as her commanding officer, took a tiny indiscretion and reprimanded her for it by giving her double bridge duty. It was perfect, after all she was an officer, her duty required her to remain on the bridge, I was set...or would have been if I'd recognized her anger before I showered.

Behind the closed doors of my ready room I checked my chronometer, contacted my chief medical officer, my partner in deception, and stepped into the shower before activating the flow. Another lesson learned, don't step in without checking the water first, it might be too hot, it might be too cold or it might not be water at all—Shit, it could be pink whip cream. A mind that's conditioned to expect water takes a good long minute to register whip cream by the way. By the time my shivering body got in touch with my brain I looked like a rejected ice cream sundae, and when the red alert sounded that same sundae had no choice but to wipe off as much as it could, dress over sticky pink and run onto the bridge.

I managed to amuse a lot of people that day and my perfect proposal fell well shy of its initial potential. However I made due, ask her to marry me and found out that whip cream showers when shared with the woman you love are far more conducive to romance then any suite on Risa.

"You can go in now William." An encouraging hand squeezing my shoulder followed Lwaxana's words; her watery smile brought me quickly to my feet. "She's doing fine, anytime now."

I couldn't even image what my smile looked like, I'm not sure I'd ever felt one stretch so tightly over my face. With only a light kiss to Lwaxana's cheek I made a beeline for Deanna's suite, my book of moments left open to a blank page.

*