Completely purposeless!  A little license with the holiday and some poetry from Charles de Lint.  As well as a plot device used in "Second Chances" which I blatantly borrowed for this one hour writing exercise.   (I haven't even read this twice ... it's time for bed!)



"The Music Lovers Hear"
(a Valentine's Day vignette)
QDestinyy@aol.com


    Valentine's day.  It was overemphasized, overbearing ... and definitely difficult.  Not to mention it was just about the silliest Earth tradition Deanna Troi had ever heard of.  Who ever heard of keeping a holiday in order to celebrate the `idea' of affection in any event?         

    Ridiculous.  That's what it was.  Plain and simple.  Which is why it didn't make a bit of sense that she was brooding.

    Oh, perhaps it was the fact that she'd received four Valentine gifts already:  three from admirers she wasn't even aware she *had* ... and one from Beverly Crusher that was definitely a gag and didn't count. 

    Or perhaps it was her own sense of misplaced guilt at not even having considered the occasion until the morning of.  In either case, Deanna wished the day would just end.

     Stepping up to a neglected stack of data PADDs on her office desk, Troi lifted the first of them and began reading.  It was a case evaluation.  A newly wed couple having problems adjusting to `married life' and their careers on board the Enterprise.

    "Well," Deanna muttered under her breath, blowing up on a strand of hair that crossed her forehead, "I suppose you should have thought of *that* before you took the plunge, shouldn't you?" 

    Realizing she was speaking to no one, Troi frowned at the sound of her own voice and dropped the PADD back into the pile.  It could wait until tomorrow.  They all could.   And in the meantime, she could go back to her quarters, lock the door and draw a very nice, very hot bath....

    Yes.  That would do wonderfully.

    Smiling for the first time since she'd entered her office for the evening, Troi called out the lights and went for the door.  It was in that moment that she noticed something different.

    Paper.  Very old paper.

    There was a sheet of it on the floor near her door.  Or had it been shoved under and she'd missed it when she came in?  Frowning thoughtfully, Deanna bent and lifted the scrap, careful not to tear or mar its surface.

    Paper was a rare commodity on board a Starship.  Especially parchment this old.   It was certainly never used for any practical purpose; and though she cherished the ancient medium, it wasn't often that Deanna saw much modern use for it, either.

    Lifting the delicate fold, Troi examined the text.  She read it once, and then again.  It was Terran Standard, and the penmanship was a very deliberate, scripted verse.



I envy the music lovers hear. 

See them walking hand in hand. 

Standing close; heads touching.

And I ache to hear the song that plays between them.

The stirring chords of romance's first bloom.

The stately airs that whisper between.

You can see it in the way they look at each other.

The shared glances, the touch of a hand.

The smile that can only be sweet.

You can almost hear it, if you listen close.

Almost, but not quite.

Because the music belongs to them.

And all we have of it ... is a vague echo....



    It ended with the promise of more.

    As Deanna read the text for a third and final time, she found she was truly curious enough to seek out the rest.  And the author.  Thoughts of her bath and her evening forgotten, she slipped from her office with the poem in her hand.  

    It said `the music lovers hear'.   There was a statue in the Arboretum carved from solid alabaster.  Two figures bent together, almost touching at the head.  Clutched between them was a small harp where the water from a fountain flowed beneath.  It seemed just coincidental enough...

    She rounded the corner of the corridor and called for deck seven when the turbolift arrived.

    Riding the lift was an uneventful process until the third deck when her ascent was suddenly halted.  The door slid open, and she stood face to face with Will Riker. 

    He stared at her for a moment; as though he was surprised to see her at all. But he proffered his signature grin after barely an instant - the one that made her cheeks burn for no valid reason she'd ever been able to fathom.   Oblivious to her thoughts, he stepped companionably inside.

    "Counselor,"  His head tipped casually as he spoke, and he was calmer than usual.  She could barely tell what he was feeling at all -- though he appeared to be cheerful on the outset, despite his formal address of her title.  "Headed somewhere?  Plans for Valentine's day?" he asked.

   "Deck seven."  She saw no reason to deceive him.  "And my only plans are to have a hot bath and spend the evening relaxing in my quarters."

    "Ah."  Riker nodded sagely.  "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't your quarters on deck eight?"

    "They are,"  again, she nodded.

    His eyebrow rose.

    Unwilling to be goaded, Deanna merely shrugged.  "I have a stop to make, first."

    When he was unsuccessful at hiding the upturn of his lip, she narrowed her eyes.

    "Commander..."  She addressed him formally.  "You wouldn't by any chance just *happen* to have an idea who might have dropped a piece of very old paper in my office, earlier today, would you?"  Her voice held more than a hint of accusation, but the look of surprise he offered her seemed genuine enough.  As did his feelings.

    "Paper?  What paper?"

    Frowning at having been incorrect, Deanna exhaled a thoughtful breath.  Her hand closed around the small scrap and she shrugged.  "It's nothing, I guess.  I was just wondering."

    Riker leaned forward.  "Can I see it?"

    Troi looked back at him for an instant, gauging his response.  Then she shook her head.  "No."

     He looked disappointed.   "Why not?"

    "Because." Keeping her fingers sealed around her prize, she carefully explained:  "It wasn't addressed to you."

    "Was it addressed to you?"  he smiled again and she wondered how to respond.  Finally opting not to, Deanna pointedly ignored his continued look.  "If it wasn't addressed to you either, then how do you know  *you* should have looked at it?"

    "I found it in my office."  She smirked petulantly.  "That makes it fair game."

    "Right."

    Deck seven arrived and Deanna stepped quickly from the lift.  What she wasn't prepared for, was for Riker to follow.

    "Where are you going?"  she stopped him in the corridor.

    "The Arboretum, as a matter of fact.  I for one *do* have plans for Valentine's Day."  He winked at her.  "I have a date.  And I intend to celebrate."

    Images of the previous week flashed through her memory and Troi recalled the pretty young lieutenant Riker had recently escorted to a formal event they'd all attended.

    "Sandy Ghent?"  she asked before she'd realized the words had left her lips.  A fact which seemed not to phase Will at all.

    "A very beautiful woman."  He nodded.

    Shrugging as unaffectedly as she was able, Deanna squelched her desire to roll her eyes and opted to smile instead.

    "Well, I hope you have a wonderful time celebrating..."  she thinned her lips, "...whatever it is you're supposed to celebrate on this day."

    "You mean you don't know?"  This time, he stopped her, placing his hand on her arm as they neared the garden enclosure.

    "Know what?  That we're all supposed to pass out little red hearts and pretend we love one another for a day before it's back to `life-as-usual'?  What's to know?"

   "Counselor!"  Riker mimed an abject sense of shock.  "You're a trained psychologist.  And an empath.  How can you not *embrace* the importance of Valentine's Day?"

    "I just don't see any point to it,"  she turned away from him and frowned at his logic, unwilling to analyze whether or not he should be right.  "That's all."

    "You're wrong."  Riker let her arm go and the two of them resumed their walk towards the Arboretum while he spoke.  "And if I didn't already have a date, I'd prove it to you."

    "Don't strain yourself, Will." 

    "Look,"  As they entered the double doors, he paused them one last time.  "Why not think of it as - a spiritual awakening?"  his eyes sparkled with mirth and she knew precisely why.  She was forever trying to bring him around to her way of thinking when it came to matters of a more existential nature.  The spiritual included.

    "Oh, please.  No one has a spiritual epiphany because it's written on their calendar, Will."

    "No."  He conceded, "but taking the time to consider, because its written on your calendar, can certainly lead to a higher understanding of things?  Can't it?"

    She was about to respond, when he suddenly got that look in his eye.  The one that said he had to leave in a minute because he was late.  And how she remembered that look so well from all his others, she would never be certain.  Her words died in her throat.

   "Sorry."  He smiled apologetically.  "I'd better-"

    "Go on, Will."  With a rueful smile, Deanna shook her head.   When Riker turned, she called after him.  "Have a good time."

    This time, she meant it.

    "I intend to."  He grinned.   And then he was gone.  Disappeared around a pathway, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

     Spiritual awakening, indeed.

     "I'll bet you didn't have a spiritual awakening this morning..."  Deanna stared into the grass near the pathway where a tiny dead lizard had succumbed to some nameless fatality.  She felt a stab of sympathy for the creature; which was odd, considering she had no love for reptiles, otherwise.  Perhaps it was the circumstance. Or, she added ruefully, the date.  "Now there's an irony,"  she continued aloud.  "Dead on Valentine's Day.  I wonder if there's a poem about *that*."

    But as she continued on the path, the statue loomed ahead and there was another bit of paper on its edge.

    "Perhaps I spoke too soon?"  Deanna smiled and lifted the sheet from the stone, reading its words:





You begin by loving.

And you go on loving.

And loving teaches you how to love. 

And the more you love,

the more you learn to love.





    It was unsigned.  Unascribed in any way.  A pang of silent disappointment filled Troi's thoughts as she folded the sheet in her hands.  

    The poem held no clue for a new location that she was able to discern.  For a time, she merely held the tiny slip between her fingers.  

    Sitting on the edge of the alabaster monument, Deanna let her hand dip carefully into the glassy fountain-water.  She released the paper and watched it glide slowly over the smooth surface of the warm pool.

    "Now that,"  a quiet voice from around the other side of the statue spoke up, "seems a crying waste of good paper..."

    Glancing up from her daydream, Deanna rose slowly from the edge of the fountain.  She stood across from the author of her handwritten notes and suddenly felt her heart hammering against the inside of her chest.

    "This was you all along?"  It didn't make any sense.  She'd been so sure he wasn't the one...

    "I didn't write them, if that's what you mean.  I'm afraid I have two ancient poets to thank for those words."  He smiled disarmingly and her chest began to hurt.

    "I thought,"  her voice rose an octave, but she cleared her throat softly,  "you said you had a date."

    "I do."  At this, he nodded slowly, still smiling.  Only when his eyes looked into hers, did she nearly drown.  "With a *very* beautiful woman."

    Will Riker circled the fountain-statue and carefully made his way to stand before her.  With one hand, he took her fingers in his.  With the other, he touched her face.  "Call it what you'd like.  I had ... a spiritual awakening this morning."

   His face drew nearer, and she was paradoxically unable to pull away as she had in the past.  In any other moment, she might have reminded him of their pact; their choice on board the Enterprise.  But something froze her voice as his breath caressed her cheek.

    "Do you know what happened then?" he asked softly.

     Soundlessly, she shook her head, still captured by his gentle hold.

   "I replicated some paper."  He grinned. 

   So did she.

   "That must have been quite an epiphany, Commander."  The tease in her voice belayed the shiver of her body from the nearness of his stance.

   "It was." 

    The moment came. He pressed his lips to hers and there was nothing in the universe but the power of that instant. Desire; primal and needful, it spilled as liquid heat between them.  It pulsed across their union for all of two seconds.  Before he pulled away. 

    "I was wondering..." he managed on a breath.

    He didn't finish his thought, and she stared up at him, flushed from the warm, familiar feeling of his hands on her body and his lips against her mouth.  She looked back at him, bewildered.

    Moving so that his face caressed her hair; so that the heat of his breath on the shell of her ear forced her eyes shut and a ripple of pent-up tension to release itself across her shoulders, Riker asked:  "Would you be my Valentine?"

    Deanna's eyes flew open and she watched him pull away.   

    "What?"  Her voice was hushed; nearly giddy from the tension of the moment.  And she began to laugh.  She laughed as a child might laugh at the discovery of a new and wonderful magic.   She laughed, and then she realized... she knew.       

    Without waiting for a response, Troi lifted her hand and pressed her fingers to his face.  She drew him toward her, stopping only when their mouths were close once more. 

    "Yes,"  she whispered softly, falling forward into more than just a kiss.  "Yes..."  her smile caressed his lips. Eyes closed, breath mingling, she let him kiss her again and again.

    Riker drifted from their intimate embrace for only a moment.  She watched him look down on her and she saw something in his eyes she'd never let herself observe before.  "Happy Valentine's Day,"  his words flew straight to her heart and she smiled.

    "I hear it."  Deanna whispered in awe, sliding within the circle of his arms.

   "What's that?"  He pulled her close and brushed his cheek against her hair.

   "The music lovers hear."

    Will said no more, but she could feel the words he opted not to speak.  The notes were true, as a tiny sheet of paper sank quietly to rest in an alabaster pool.



[END]