Archive of Our Own ^beta

- Eric Clapton

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He is my captain.

I doubt I could explain to anyone who has never been in Starfleet exactly what it means. I've never been able to convey it to Mother, and she's telepathic. There are classes at the Academy for counselors to help us understand the mindset of an officer, the camaraderie of men and women working together in a crisis, and the bonds that develop between CO and subordinate. The loyalty I feel is nothing new. My fellow officers feel it, too. It was part of what kept Will aboard. It was slightly different for me at first. Counselors and doctors stand apart from the others. We're low on the chain of command and cast in the roles of nurturers and healers. Approaching the captain as a counselor would a patient was more familiar to me than approaching him as a subordinate.

I think my first real experience as subordinate -- or at least the one that stands out in my mind above any other of the first years of my service aboard *Enterprise* -- was a mistake I made, involvement with a member of a closed community. If I had been more attuned to the Starfleet portion of my education, if I had not been so caught up in my role of supporting and empathizing with others, that might have been avoided.

But now, years later, what I remember most clearly about that instance was the captain's response. I had expected discomfort on his part. I knew he did not do well with personal issues, for reasons unknown to me at the time; I suspected then that his forced distance was an adaptation to previous experiences, and I knew that having a counselor aboard was a new and disturbing thing for him. I did not expect his quiet tact and mild rebuke, and even less, his understanding.

He gives second chances. His reputation for being demanding, even overbearing, would seem to contradict it, but it complements it. The combination communicates a particular message -- upon committing some error in judgment, an officer expects to be thrown off the ship, or at least rebuked with an official black mark on his record. Upon receiving a calm and concerned talking-to, the officer realizes, from the captain's formal yet sympathetic demeanor, that here is a commanding officer who expects the best of his officers but also recognizes that in striving for the best, mistakes are made -- and are not always fatal to the career. The captain exercises discernment in weighing the chances of future offenses, the officer realizes, and is soon striving to meet the captain's expectations out of a desire to prove himself worthy of the implicit trust the captain extends in the officer's capacity to improve.

The captain doesn't even have to go through this process for all officers, as word of mouth is an excellent tool. So Captain Picard quietly harnesses the energies of his crew without wielding his power as commanding officer like a bludgeon. He's much more subtle in creating a loyal crew than I think even he realizes. If he's aware of the effect this process has, I can't see it. Like most people, he has his blind spots. But, he's also very perceptive. He's typically sensitive to his bridge officers, for example. He notices when his friends are troubled and at least asks after their welfare.

That he hasn't asked after mine troubles me. It's a symptom of something I don't want to think about -- I must find a way to address what cannot be addressed.

It's a Betazoid problem. Go abroad, mingle with "dead heads" who have no inkling of how many subliminal vibes they give off, and be inundated with information that can't be addressed in any way. You learn to let it all fade to white noise. Be selective. Unless one stimulus rises above all others, shouts to you, at some point you cease to 'hear' it all.

My dilemma began with me. Months ago, before Will Riker left. Will knew something was going on with me but I wouldn't tell him -- how could I? -- so it went back into the darkness of my heart to hide, and he never directly asked again. But he let the frustration with this secret build, because he could tell it was important, because I never kept things from him. . . . Imzadi is often misunderstood, as many bonds are. Will and I had a connection that I will never have with anyone else. It's what humans would call 'kindred spirits.' We were not complementary souls; we were drawn together because of the similarities, not because we completed each other. So many things in common -- stubborn, opinionated, sensitive, passionate, and determination to be more than ordinary, to make a difference.

We could have been more than friends, I suppose. But we could never stop being friends. I blame myself for the schism that developed between us, because if I had told him I had fallen for my captain, he would never have made the fatal assumption that I had fallen again for him. What else would I not be willing to tell him? he reasoned, since I had shown no signs of a relationship with anyone else, and certainly, I had no reason to hide even an unreturned attraction to someone. I'd told him early about Worf. He wasn't discouraging. I'd mentioned in passing how attractive I thought others were, and he never seemed bothered.

But I said nothing about the captain. It sat in the pit of my stomach in a guilty lump -- my patient, my captain. How could I have done this? I had never felt this way while counseling him, never. Though I hadn't had a session with him since just after facing down the Borg over twenty-first-century Earth, he would expect me to step up if he needed me. I had a responsibility to my patient. As for my feelings, he didn't reciprocate; it's an empath's curse -- or gift -- to have that certainty about someone. I've avoided embarrassing situations often because I could tell how someone else was feeling. The advantage in any relationship with a non-telepath was mine.

Except the captain. I had no advantage with him at all, even though I knew so much of him -- his internal landscape so often observed, though from a safe distance, that I could have described it to anyone who spoke Betazoid. I knew he could decide, on a purely rational basis, to do anything, be anything, and succeed.

It's my habit to create rifts between friends, apparently. First, there was Worf, now long gone. Then I kept my terrible secret from Will, who misread me as a result and wanted me to go with him to his first command; I refused, we argued, and he has not spoken to me other than a few cold attempts at civility over subspace. Months after, Beverly transferred and would not speak to me, and I knew something had gone wrong between her and the captain. I feared she had recognized in me the symptoms of the lovelorn and guessed who it was. I know now that she did not tell him, even if she guessed. I would have heard from her or the captain long ago, if so. He would have addressed it as a captain should address infatuations his subordinates might develop for him.

Four of us remained then, and I wasn't as close to Data or Geordi as I was to Will or Beverly. The captain became almost as much of a loner as when he'd first come aboard. I could be delivering one of my usual reports, and he seemed to drift away, listening just enough to respond but never quite engaging himself in real conversation. In the past he might go on long tangents and we would find ourselves discussing interesting cultural trivia or perhaps the nuances of a good play, especially those written and produced by our crew. He didn't seem interested in much any more. Oh, he would go to functions as always, it was routine, but he was slowly withering inside.

I should have done something, but for the first time I failed as his counselor, and the failure festers in my heart like an untreated infection. He needed me. I'd lost my objectivity and I could not face him as a patient again. I knew that if I tried, that faith he had in me as an officer would demand that I volunteer the reason I could not do my duty. Trapped in a mobius of truths, unable to escape the weary path I had worn for myself, I kept up appearances and tried to get over him.

I couldn't change my feelings. And now, I can't look him in the eye any more. I see him and feel the urge to run for the nearest exit. Because after months of enduring his slow descent into depression, my growing guilt, and the paralysis of desperately wanting two mutually-exclusive things -- to be open with him, and to continue aboard the *Enterprise* -- I realized something that only complicates the situation, which already seemed impossible.

I saw him at a play. A horrible play, written by someone in sickbay. A drama in which a first officer and a subordinate have a love affair that tears them apart emotionally and ends the first officer's career. Plays are interesting to me; the emotions of the players follow their parts to an amazing degree, but are still not quite synchronized, because of course they're playing parts and realize the circumstances are not real. Sometimes actors could project enough to convince me, however, and the male lead, the first officer, was one of the more convincing I've seen -- for the first half of the play.

I realized by the third act that he was really in love with the female lead. The later scenes, in which the first officer confronts his ex-lover, he played with such an undercurrent of despair that I knew I was seeing two plays on stage, and that the woman had no idea -- she acted her part well enough, but I could tell she had no deeper emotional investment, no idea her counterpart had such feelings, because he was pouring all of them out to her on stage instead of telling her as himself. It devastated me. Here was a facade like mine, someone playing the part of a colleague and all the while pouring out love and despair she would never know about -- I couldn't get up and leave. I couldn't attract that much attention to myself. I already felt like I might be showing too much of my reaction in my face.

And then the captain tried to talk to me afterward. He was so lonely, so genuinely seeking a little companionship, finally opening up after long months of despair. I couldn't respond -- I had to get out before I burst into tears from the accumulated angst, mine and the male lead's. I left the captain standing in the theater.

Now I had failed my captain as a friend in addition to my earlier failure as a counselor, and it was too much. But it wasn't all. As I sat alone in my quarters, having indulged in guilty tears, I began to meditate, hoping to wipe away enough pain that I could objectively decide what to do. I had already half-heartedly explored options and found openings on Betazed and Earth. Now I should decide which applications to send.

As I calmed my thoughts, smoothing concern away into the corners, I sensed him, across the walls and rooms between us, and the loneliness and despair brought tears to my eyes all over again. It was my fault, I was certain; I'd rejected the first friendly overture he'd made in weeks, and increased his suffering.

But that wasn't all, either. I ran across him in the officer's mess at lunch the next day, and he saw me, and I sensed the jolt and the wish and the pain -- and I had to cancel and reschedule afternoon appointments. I sat in my office, shaking, groping for control of myself. Meditation eluded me. I almost convinced myself I had imagined it in my desperation. Almost. He couldn't be in love with me, I told myself, he'd never been interested in me -- appreciated me perhaps, as he'd appreciated many, but only in passing. But I knew. I reached equilibrium, even managed a little relief, thinking that he would react somehow.

I persuaded myself he would come to me. I thought he'd progressed that far over the years. There was Lieutenant-Commander Darren, and his openness to a relationship with her; there was his wistful recollection of Eline. There was his slow acceptance of something more than a working relationship with his senior officers. He had come so far, even made partial peace with his brother. So much emotional growth. I tried to bury myself in work so I would be found that way, an efficient officer, something he appreciated. I wanted him to be rational, to discuss his feelings with me -- because they should be addressed, because infatuations between captains and subordinates needed addressing, because he wanted to tell me, because I wanted to hear him speak his feelings to me.

But I should know by now that dreams are for the young. Captain Picard is many things, but most of all, he is a starship captain first and foremost. No woman has ever distracted him from that. Not even Beverly.

He did not try to talk to me, though I waited a week. For another week I sent out application after application. I pushed patient after patient over to Counselor Davidson's care.

And so I come to the present -- I have allowed myself to be trapped here by my loyalty to my captain and my career, but I can't stay. I have to get off the ship. I have decided.

Tomorrow morning, I will turn in my resignation. I will tell him in person if I can force my feet to take me. I will send it to him if I can't go. I will not leave my quarters after that until we are at the starbase, even though that's scheduled a week from now, after Zibyan. I will spend the time setting up interviews, so that when I arrive on Betazed I'll have a reason to eat, sleep and breathe, and to get away from my mother. I will spend the rest of my time meditating and purging him from my thoughts. I will leave the ship, get on a transport, sit as far from the viewports as possible so I cannot see my home as I fly away. This will be least damaging to my career and to a friendship I value. Perhaps not as honest as he would expect of me, but I think of Beverly, her obvious anger toward him, and I can't stand it. Perhaps in the future when my feelings for him have ebbed. Perhaps we might even smile sadly over it. He'll shake his head, I'll gently tease, and we will reminisce about adventures we had as officers.

But this thinking only angers me. I cannot bear this. He is suffering now more than before, and I am suffering, and I am powerless. Anything I tell him now would only worsen the situation. I can't trust myself not to collapse in an emotional wreck. He didn't come to me on his own. That should tell me all I need to know. My fantasy of his sudden appearance at my office door to discuss it, only to confess his undying devotion and make his profession of love with a kiss -- it's the most ridiculous idea I've ever had. I have no right to be an officer on this ship any more.

I pace my quarters, thinking of him, and it's not his appearance I remember -- though his hands are large and strong, and his smile. . . his eyes. . . .

A shower helps. Washing my face and careful makeup helps. I examine myself in the mirror, and I think about possibilities. I think about going to him now, tonight, and wonder what would happen.

Knotting my fingers in my hair until the pull on my scalp hurts, I try to stop thinking about him. It's impossible. Impossible.

What if he were open, not to a relationship, but to a fling?

Impossible.

I pull until a tuft of hair actually comes free. This is not good. This is not, not, not good, there must be a way to prevent this obsession. Because it will turn into one, if I am to stay aboard for the time it will take to get to the starbase, and continue to think this way.

But I cannot stop thinking about what it would be like, to be touched -- his hands on my skin, his lips on mine, his passions focused on me, his mind on me, his --

The reality would probably cure me. The cynical side of me makes itself known at last -- he is not young, and unlikely to have any stamina. He is unlikely to allow himself to do this. He is a professional and he's abandoned attempts at this sort of thing before. Why would he take another risk?

I'm breathing hard, I'm crying again. I won't be able to sleep. I won't be able to eat. I've put off leaving too long -- I should have left months ago, when I realized I couldn't be his counselor again. I am pathetic. My makeup is ruined again, and I'm a wreck. Looking again in the mirror, I can see where I've gained weight and a few wrinkles.

No -- I'm still having trouble with this, because I know he loves me, I know what I sensed, and if there's one thing I've always known, it's that men find me attractive. I can't help but know it even when they say nothing. I've hated it. I've even wished I could poke eyes out. How uncharitable, how uncompassionate, how not-Betazoid. I hate it more now that I am in love with him. The attention of other men repulses me. I want more.

I want the captain to see me, want me, touch me. I don't want casual and temporary from him. I want to sense how he feels for me, so much that it's tempting to tear at my hair again for a distraction. This can't be the Phase, can it? But there have been no symptoms -- it's just me, being hopeless again.

I go to all the trouble of doing some research on France. If I can't stop thinking about him, perhaps I can focus on innocuous aspects of him. At random, through images in the computer, listening to stereotypes as delivered by the impersonal, pleasant computer -- had he ever listened to what the database had to say about his home? It's only distracting for a little while. It tells me nothing useful about him. I pick a dress at random from the pictures, not even knowing what time period it was from or what to call the style, and request a copy from the replicator. Would he recognize it? Is it too subtle?

I'm dreaming. He'd never --

I pull the dress over my head.

He would never, never --

It's comfortable. Not quite see-through, unless one stands in the light just right. I could probably put another person in it with me. I can wear it off the shoulder, or on. I leave my quarters --

Never. Never. No.

His quarters are right there. Right down the corridor! The tough, thin carpeting feels abrasive on the bottoms of my feet.

My fingers stop, hover over the annunciator button, hover.

NO!

I flee, but the wrong way. Someone comes out of a lift; distraught, I hurry past the lieutenant with a fleeting smile, into the lift. I can't risk having to talk to anyone. Not even innocent lieutenants. I fear the consequences -- it feels as though I'm slowly going mad, roaming through a nightmare of my own making.

I can hardly see where I'm going. Did I tell the lift deck ten? Eleven? Not that it matters. Luckily, most of the corridors are deserted. The lounge that used to be Ten Forward verifies where I'd gone. Deck ten, forward, where many parties had taken place. Where weddings had happened. Where I had spent many hours laughing with friends.

If I had gone in, if we had -- if he had --

He isn't Will. Though I know he has female friends who were also liaisons, I can't be one of them. I can't tell myself it would be nothing but a fling. For me, it wouldn't be. I am coming to pieces now -- if I had let myself go through with it, I would have turned myself into an even more wretched and useless woman. This is why I should have left the ship.

I couldn't have foreseen this state of mind, I chide myself, taking a seat. The place is almost empty. A lone waiter, only here in the evenings, brings what I request. The chocolate is bitter, and it's my fault.

It's all my fault. My choices brought me here. I think of my possible future, which will not happen, because it should have happened by now -- the captain had told me of my death quietly, pulling me aside from the others, respecting me that much. Letting me react however I would with a little privacy. Geordi would have implants, Beverly would have a ship, and I would be dead. But I am alive, and Beverly is still a CMO, just on someone else's ship. Geordi's implants are the only thing that's happened. The bad feelings between Worf and Will don't exist; any ill will that existed remained between me and Will.

I think of the captain's eyes when he told me. His touch on my arm, the barest touch, ever mindful of propriety but wanting to comfort. That was long before I fell -- it was fortunate, because if he looked at me now that way, if I sensed any of that sympathy and warmth from him, I would --

"Mind if I join you?"

He looks at me, he's smiling, and for a few seconds I struggle with my own feelings. The universe, which had tilted and threatened to throw me off into darkness, rights itself. My back straightens. The captain is here. I'm smiling, oh it's good to see him smiling -- it's been so long. Why did I avoid him?

"Of course not, Captain."

He takes the chair across from me, glances around, and the uneasiness I can't sense is in his face. "Are you sure I'm not intruding? I don't want you to make allowances just because I outrank you."

"Don't be silly." I know why you're here, no need to clarify. But I realize -- he's not clarifying it for my sake. For his. He wants to know I'm not welcoming him because he's the captain. He wants to know I want his companionship.

The waiter comes to offer him something, and I am thinking, and plummeting from brief euphoria. He wants to know why I've been avoiding him. That's all. I'm fantasizing again.

"I *am* interrupting you." Now he's concerned, and sad. My heart is so heavy I can hardly breathe.

"I'm sorry. I'm afraid I'm not very good company." I can't meet his eyes for long. I have to have a reason for sadness. Luckily, there is one I can offer that he might believe, because it's true. "I miss them."

"We knew it would happen sometime."

"As long as it was sometime, it was all right. Doctor Mengis annoys me, Jean-Luc." I say his name, as I'd said it before in my fantasies, and almost wince. I never made a habit of calling him by name. He was my patient, is my captain. There have been occasions, but --

He's nodding "He isn't exactly sympathetic, is he? But he was willing to serve, and the war -- "

"I understand why Beverly left, professionally speaking." I don't want to talk about the war, or Dr. Mengis, but the avenue I've taken isn't exactly a comfort zone, either. Too late. "I don't understand it personally. I don't understand why she doesn't call me more often."

"You don't understand how she could leave me, you mean. That tells me you don't always sense what goes on around you."

He shocks me, with this willingness to even hint at what he and Beverly meant to each other. He's not looking away. He's here. I'm calm enough now to sense what's going on behind his serious, intent expression.

He's nervous. Careful. Not really interested in his tea, but it's something to use as a stalling tactic while thinking, just as I'm using my dregs of hot chocolate. And he's hopeful, though he pushes that down and suffers for doing it. In the instant I recognize these feelings, I come into my own. He needs a little guidance but he's not sure how to get it, or if I'll provide it. He wants to talk. He's afraid. There are things he needs to know, and he doesn't even know this -- but he's taking the first step. He is happy to see me. That remains obvious, though our conversation is bringing him a little sadness. But he's detached from Beverly, obviously whatever feelings he had for her are resolved, as his openness suggests and corresponding emotional state confirms.

I love him, I hung on for months stuck in indecision because I couldn't leave him, he's here, and I must part as a friend at least. If I have to go. He is my captain, and I owe him so much. He respects me even though I am weak sometimes. I have handled this so poorly -- he deserves better than that.

I can't run away from him now, can't let him down. Will did that to me once: assumed that I had come to my senses and gone on to the Academy to further my own career while he accepted a promotion rather than return to marry me. The captain has never let me down. I could not assume what I had been imagining, because he would never presume to make my decisions for me; he would ask.

So I stay, and I talk. And he smiles. The things we talk about don't drive him inside himself, though at times he flinches, and he invites me on a walk -- I can refuse him nothing now. In spite of what my mind knows, hope fills me to the point of bursting and the conversation progresses and he's still open, still with me, though we are quiet as we head for the holodeck.

There is a very old story told to Betazoid children, about a woman who travels far and wide but can't find her true love. At the end of her journey she reaches a high cliff overlooking the sea, and in despair she pulls out her heart and flings it to the wind. She falls to the ground, not seeing that the wind has carried her heart gently down to the shore, where a lonely man is contemplating his life and wishing he could have found his own true love. Her heart drops into his lap, and he looks up at where it must have come from, and climbs the cliff. In some versions, the young man was one of the woman's entourage, in others a stranger who has been on a similar journey. In all versions, they lived happily ever after.

I am thinking of this story when we walk into the holodeck, and he shows me his home; I am also reminded of an old saying, 'home is where the heart is.' He is still anxious, walking with me through the vineyard, and I am, too -- I know that it's more difficult than the folk tale suggests. Once you have caught a heart, you must learn how to keep it. And it occurs to me that part of keeping someone's heart is holding it tightly enough to reassure, yet loosely enough to demonstrate faith in the other. He's already shown such faith in officers; trust is a habit with him.

Perhaps he brought me home to see if I will take his heart. I wonder when he will realize that I have already offered him mine. I wonder what he will do - I suspect he knows how to hold a heart without pinning its wings.

The wind is at my back, the sun shines through clouds in his eyes. He doesn't know that I can sense him reaching out to me. He doesn't know, though he does, that I can see his heart. He may yet decide otherwise, but for the moment, he is taking the first tentative steps in the dance -- awkward, obviously it's been a long time, and my old role of counselor shadows us, but there are moments that he forgets himself and the clouds clear. I can see then what I already knew was there. There is a captain who has become a man, and it's the man I had hoped would notice me; he's slowly approaching, and he thinks he might be reaching for me. I allow my heart to hope, not timidly as before. It flutters in my chest, ready to fly at a moment's notice.

I hold the figurine of a swan in my hand, and smile.