Part 35 (2/2)
”I don't know if I would say that, but would that be so terrible if I did?”
”Well... yes ...”
”Yes?” Deanna felt as if someone had just knocked her world forty-five degrees to starboard.
”Look at it from my point of view... .”
”I'm trying!”
”If I said and did all the things that I'd been thinking of doing... and you told me you loved me and so on ... how would I know it's genuine? Worf just dumped you.”
”I wouldn't say 'dumped'...”
”All right, he called off the engagement. He broke it off. That... that must be shattering to you. You're probably still in shock, still trying to deal with it.”
”I'm dealing with it fine, Will. It's you I'm getting impatient with.”
”But if I attempt to put together a relations.h.i.+p with you now, I won't really know if it's what you genuinely want... or whether you're just on the rebound from Worf and looking for any emotional port in a storm. It would be disrespectful to the relations.h.i.+p you just had with Worf. You're one big walking exposed nerve... .”
”I'm not an exposed anything!” Deanna said. ”What I am is a woman who just had a fiance step aside on behalf of a man who is now saying that he doesn't want me out of respect to the man who stepped aside for him! I'm starting to feel like a leper!”
”It's not like that, Deanna,” and he took her in his arms, holding her tight and rocking her back and forth. She found herself melting into the warmth of him and moving with the swaying. ”I... do love you. I do. You know that.”
”And I love you, Will.”
”I just think we should give it time.”
She stopped rocking and took a step back to look up at him. ”Time,” she said, her voice flat.
”Yes, time. That's all. And during that time we'll be working toward a-”
”Time!?”
”Yes. Time until it feels right...”
And she stalked him. Riker backed up apprehensively. ”Deanna...”
”You know what? The only time you seem to want me ... is when you can't have me! But when I'm available, suddenly you run in the opposite direction!”
”That's not true,” Riker protested, running in the opposite direction. He snagged his satchel and said, ”I think what we should do is discuss this when you're less emotionally worked up. This is for your own good....”
”I am sick of people doing things for my own good, and I can a.s.sure you, you have not even begun to see me get worked up.”
”Wait... I know.” He held up a cautioning figure and put on his most charming smile. ”I know... what you like to hear.” He cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders, and, sounding more romantic than he ever had, started to recite...
”I hold you close to me.
Feel the breath of you, and the wonder of you And remember a time Without you But only as one would remember a bleak and distant whoa!!!”
The last word was the result of Riker seeing that Deanna had suddenly grabbed up the vase that he had so carefully placed on the table. She swung it in a fast underhand arc and let fly. Riker barely dodged as the vase shattered against the wall next to him.
”I read you poetry and you throw breakable objects at me in response?” he asked in astonishment. ”How could you-?”
”It felt right!” bellowed Deanna.
”I'll... I'll see you back on the Enterprise ... okay... ?”
”Not if I see you first!”
Deanna flopped down onto the couch as she listened to Riker's hastily retreating footsteps. She shook her head and sighed.
”Either I'm going to marry him ... or kill him,” she said after a time. And then she realized that the two weren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
It made her feel a little better.
NOW.
Wo rorf awoke with a start... and looked for Jadzia.
She wasn't there. Her scent remained in the chair, but she was gone. It took a moment for that fact to sink in, and when it did, he felt more empty than ever.
Nothing. It had all been for nothing.
He rummaged around their ...
.. . his...
. .. quarters a bit more... and then he found a picture. A picture of the two of them from their wedding day. Worf and Jadzia, smiling toward the camera. Happy. So happy.
For nothing.
It had made no difference at all.
He ran his fingers across her portrait...
And the portrait was wet.
He didn't realize the origin at first... and then he did. It was liquid, coming from his own eyes, dripping onto the picture.
And his mind suddenly went to the world of Soukara. The world where they were to meet the Carda.s.sian informer, Lasaran ... and Jadzia had become injured. Had he left her, had he completed the mission ... she would have died, there on Soukara. Instead he had come back for her, abandoned the mission, tossed aside everything that he had ever learned about duty...
... for her.
... for Jadzia.
Because of what he had felt for her. Feelings that were beyond anything, he realized, that he had ever felt for Deanna.
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