Part 27 (1/2)
”You can't do this! You have studies... duties... a destiny!”
”I want to be with him, Mother! I was wrong to let you intimidate me into submission again. I was wrong to let him just walk away. We can't go back to the way it used to be, Mother. It's not going to happen. It would be a lie, and I won't live a lie!”
Lwaxana placed her hands on her hips and said sarcastically, ”And what are you going to do? Quit your studies?”
”Probably.”
”Marry him?”
”Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I'll just go with him, be happy to be near him. When he s.h.i.+ps out for his next a.s.signment, I'll try to sign on. Some sort of job, I don't care what. Chief cook and bottle washer-it doesn't matter as long as we're together.”
”You on a stars.h.i.+p?” Lwaxana said, appalled. ”A beautiful, free creature like you, cooped up in a s.h.i.+p for years? Millions of light-years away from home? It's insanity!”
”I've thought about Starfleet for years. A life of adventure, of experiencing minds and philosophies beyond what I have here. But I never really considered it as an option. Now, though, I understand. There's a galaxy of possibilities out there-even for a daughter of the Fifth House, if she simply has the nerve to take them. And who knows? Maybe I won't join Starfleet. Maybe I'll go back to geology. Maybe I'll paint myself blue and become a naked dancing girl in the Zetli system. But whatever I do, it will be my choice, not yours.”
Deanna headed for the door, and in her head she heard, If you go out that door, don't come back.
Deanna went out the door.
CHAPTER 30.
Deanna entered the emba.s.sy, which was quiet since it was after hours. But she stumbled upon several security men, whom she remembered from having met them in the jungle at the rendezvous point.
”Evening, miss,” said Sommers, nodding slightly.
”h.e.l.lo. I'm... I'm here to see Lieutenant Riker.”
”Yes, miss. I'm sure you are,” Sommers said. ”You know the way?”
”Oh, yes.”
He waved her past and Deanna disappeared down the hall. Sommers whistled softly to himself. ”The officers get all the women.”
Deanna went straight to Riker's quarters, her heart pounding. She had envisioned what he would say, what he would do. He was going to be so proud of her. The way that she had stood up to her mother, the way that she had taken control of her life. He would congratulate her, he would be thrilled at her love for him, he would take her in his arms...
She walked into his quarters and stopped dead in her tracks.
The room was only partly lit, but she could see Riker was lying in bed, naked. His uniform was tossed in several places around the room. He was asleep... and curled around the naked form of a woman whom Deanna immediately recognized as Wendy Roper.
Deanna made no sound, but her mind screamed in embarra.s.sment and mortification.
It was more than enough to awaken Riker.
He sat up, confused and disoriented. He also sat up much too quickly because he was solidly hung over, and for a moment he thought his head was going to ricochet across the room. He sputtered uncomprehendingly... and then he saw Deanna, standing in the doorway, backlit by the hall light.
It took him a moment to reach the full realization that this wasn't a dream, or for that matter, a nightmare. ”Deanna?” he said in a voice that sounded distant and ill.
She wanted to run shrieking down the hallway, but there was no way that she was going to retreat in that manner. ”My apologies, Lieutenant. I seem to have come at a bad time. Perhaps if I'd called ahead, you might have been able to fit me into your schedule.”
Her tone made Riker's hair hurt. ”Deanna,” he said again, and started forward. But his coordination was way off and instead he crashed to the floor.
The noise awakened the stone-cold-sober Wendy, who sat up in confusion and looked around. She saw Deanna. blinked in mild chagrin, and pulled the blanket around herself.
”Deanna,” Riker began again. He grabbed at his uniform and started to pull it on.
”How nice. You have a thorough command of my name,” she said, her arms folded.
”This isn't what it seems.” Then Riker looked at Wendy, and the rumpled bed, and back to Deanna. ”All right, it is what it seems. But I... you said you didn't want to see me anymore. You said we were finished and-”
”And it had been less than twenty-four hours since you'd had female companions.h.i.+p, so naturally you got over me. In fact. not only did you get over me, you practically vaulted over me,” Deanna said, her voice getting louder.
Riker made shus.h.i.+ng noises, which only prompted her to raise her voice more. ”Are you afraid someone will hear?” she demanded.
”No,” he whispered. ”It's just... my head hurts.”
”I'm sorry about your head,” she said, not sounding remotely sorry. ”I won't burden it further.”
She spun on her heel and walked away. Riker, his uniform disheveled, nevertheless ran after her. He caught up with her halfway down the hallway and spun her around.
”You said-” he began.
”I know what I said. And would you like to know what I said to my mother? I told her I'd been wrong to toss you away. That it was time for me to find my own path. And that I wanted that path to be with you.” Hot tears welled in her eyes and she fought them down. ”But I foolishly a.s.sumed that you wanted that as well.”
”I do-”
”No, you don't. I crawled out on a limb for you, and you chopped it off behind me.”
”It wasn't like that. I wasn't thinking straight, and Wendy showed up, and-”
”And it was an opportunity.”
”Yes.”
”And it didn't really mean anything.”
”That's right.”
”And how do I know,” she said icily, ”that our time together didn't fall into the same categories?”
He took her by the shoulders. ”You know that it didn't.”
”I thought I knew that. But now I'm not sure. And what's worse, you're not sure either. Will... I thought we had something special. The physical and the spiritual. But for me, one hinges on the other. For you, it doesn't. And I don't think that's ever going to change for you.”
Riker felt something slipping away from him, something very important-more important than he could have guessed-and suddenly, desperately, he wanted to save it. ”I can change,” he said. ”I can-”
”Not overnight. Maybe someday, but maybe not ever. It may be, for you, something that can only come with maturity. I can't hinge my life on maybes. Because you're going to go away and I have to make decisions, and I can't base those decisions on uncertainties.”