The Fantasy of Fate
By:  QDestinyy@aol.com
Rated:  PG-13

I'm so in love with her, it hurts sometimes. I need her strength so much, it takes my breath away. I never realized how much a man could love a woman until the moment that I let myself believe...

She was a fantasy before. A dream I had the day that I was born. I knew I'd find her then, but I forgot as I grew up. And in the emptiness that came between, I thought I'd always be alone. That solitude would be my ultimate fate. If I believed in fate.

I didn't... then.

But on the day my eyes met hers across a crowded room... I knew. The universe had stopped. My mind went blank; my heartbeat slowed... and right there, standing wide-eyed at a wedding for her dearest friend--I had the dream again.

I'd never met an empath. I didn't know if there was something I should say--or do. She was different than the others. Her eyes seemed to see right through me, unlike anyone else I'd ever known; rich and dark and luminous with mystery. As alien as the sky at night on Betazed; as radiant as starlight. She looked at me. I looked at her. And everything I'd ever understood began to melt and float away.

I believed again. In something I had cast aside before. A concept I'd forgotten since my childhood. I didn't know it then, but I had changed. And even though she hadn't said my name, I thought--she knows it too.

At least, that's how I remember that day. The two of us alone, with several hundred people on the sidelines, standing guard. I had to have her. Had to be with her... some way. My jaded mind was filled with thoughts of how we'd sneak away, together. Find a quiet place and join our bodies in the most exhilarating way

I was young. And dumb. A naive idiot who thought his hormones drove his heart and that his soul was just a nuisance he could shut off while he played. I'd lived that lie for over twenty years. Until Deanna called my name.

The first touch of her mind was liquid ecstasy; a feeling like a drug that washed my every care away.

She wasn't quite so moved. She seemed surprised at first, with our connection. But I was mesmerised. It was new for me, and unlike her, I had no basis to complain. I didn't know what it could mean... until the day I felt her pain.

We fought it. Both of us. For reasons of our own. Deanna, since her spirit hadn't joined her wayward heart. And me... because I'd never woken up at night--the evening of a great, exciting mission--and found I wished I didn't have to leave.

It weakened both of us. And 'weak' was something I could never be. So I took off. I left her on the very night I'd held her in my arms. I cited duty, Starfleet, sacrifice, but really... there was nothing I could say. I just... got scared.

And so did she, I think. Though she would never say the words. I know she found it difficult. The two of us with lives so unresolved. So young, so desperate for a change... the fantasy we found just wasn't it.

Oh, she was wise and I was strong, but we had barely lived. In the end, it didn't work. It couldn't be, and there was something sadly final in our shared insight that day.

We never said goodbye. We just moved on. In stoic, Riker style, I thought I'd chased the demons off. I figured everything was right again. With me. My life. My calling. I left Deanna far behind and as the light years glimmered by, it seemed I'd almost found a way to let her go.

If only I had known....

The Enterprise was my first waking dream come true. Her graceful bearing, polished corridors and thrilling missions made my proud, ambition soar. She was everything I'd ever hoped for... ever consciously adored. I thought my life was perfect. And it was... until I saw Deanna's smile once more.

I hadn't been expecting it. The way she came on board. A Counselor--on a starship? Then again, I'd never served on one so large before. It did make sense. But had I thought to check the manifest before I'd disembarked the Hood, I might have...

Hell, I might have left and been there sooner--just to see her. Just to stand there and remember how it was. I think my mouth hung open. When the Captain 'introduced' us, I could feel her smile inside. She had the upper hand--of course--she knew that I'd be there. But I was damned if I was going to let that show. I had my pride.

We walked on eggshells for the first few months. I tried to touch her, but she told me it could never be that way a second time. So I respected her desire. I kept my distance--physically. I found her friendship through the strength of that resolve and somehow, I drew strength from it in ways I didn't understand I ever could before.

Deanna's soul was always bright. She kept herself wide open. For the crew, the Captain... even me. In many ways, I never wanted more. I knew that if I came to her, she'd be there with an open heart and smile. I figured out that when I let her look inside my thoughts, it made her feel ... accepted. Closer, somehow. To a truth she never shared. Though the rest of the crew might wonder--blind to the secrets of her heritage and mind--I understood. At least in part. And if it made her happy, I soon realized I'd cope with anything to try.

I'd found the fantasy again. But in a different way. I needed her inside my life. I needed her much more than life. And when the thought of my career took second place to that, I think I wrote it off as something else. Something tangible that I'd describe to Admirals and sometimes to Picard, when he'd lean back against his chair and stare me down. Was I insane? How many offers for command could I refuse?

I didn't know. But then, I couldn't put it into words... not without her there.

What was it that I fell in love with first?--she asked me on the Enterprise one night. In a quiet room when we were all alone, she laid her head against my chest and settled in. It was over a week--one week, two days since we'd returned from B'aku space--since we'd become lovers once again. She tipped her head, looked up at me, and I was lost. She knew that too, since she'd been teasing me all day.

Great God of all, I loved her smile...

I held her closer in my arms and whispered softly in her hair, 'your eyes. I loved your eyes. They were the first thing that I saw...'

'Liar', she whispered back.

But I had turned her then. So I could watch her expression play. 'They were!' I argued, though I knew just what she thought. The thing was, she was wrong this time. 'You want the truth, Deanna? I don't remember what I saw. Or heard. Or even understood. Until you looked at me that day.'

Such tender prose was hardly noted for my style. But there was nothing I could do about it now, because beyond that, it was only true.

She looked at me again. And in some ways, it seemed just like the first time had. When we were young, and idealistic. I could see the stars light up her eyes, and though we truly were alone, I felt the most profound connection with the universe as she caressed my face.

Why it had taken years to come this far escaped me in that moment. Or why I'd let her have her way so long... when we both knew that nothing in the whole of space could ever break our bond.

I loved her then. So much it hurt. I needed everything she did that took my helpless breath away. And so I let myself believe... That she was real. That I would never be alone. That we were well and truly free. And in that case, I found that I could live with fate. If not embrace the concept whole.

She bore me back against the pillows and she smiled against my lips... and when I let go of the cogent hold I'd placed on my control, she took me in. I let her have her way. Because she'd started it. Because she needed it. And in the end, her sweet desire filled my thoughts above all other wants. Even my own.

When we made love as young adults it felt like flying. Incredible beyond my dreams. Beyond the human sense of wonder I had ever thought I'd known. But that was no where near what it was like now we were older; wiser, far more skilled at thinking, feeling, dreaming dreams we never let ourselves before...

In the days since we'd been lovers for a second time, it seemed so much had grown. When I was with her, I felt something live between us. Not the simple aphrodisiac euphoria of sex--the kind I'd interchanged over the years--but something different. Something far, far more.

It felt like ...dancing; drifting someplace near the stars, our thoughts connected through our hearts. The most incredible, mind-blowing link that cast aside the universe in favor of a 'higher' mental form. It thrust us far beyond the reach of touch. So that when Deanna kissed me, she'd found a place that no one else could ever go.

I felt the burning, desperate pull from somewhere deep within my conscious and I knew that everything I'd ever feared resided there. The life I'd lived; the hopes I'd lost. The dreams I'd set aside for something I had only thought was real...

But there was no more dread this time--when my encumbered human heart strove contentiously to sort things out. To merge the sense of longing in my body with the one inside my mind.

It all came down to HER. And for the first time in my life I understood... I had a soul. And she could touch it; hold it; make love to it... in the most amazing way. There was no question in my thoughts. No sense of wonder or regret. I saw the future--bright as day.

I felt Deanna call my name again. Her arms wound around my neck. I tasted everything corporeal about her, but the climax came inside--for both of us--still clothed. With our bodies tangled up on her soft bed. It shattered everything we thought we knew....

It made us whole, instead.



[the end]