Work Text:
Chris left that part out of the official report: the fantasies.
Not Starfleet’s business.
Not anyone’s business.
Not even his business.
It’s cruel to plumb someone’s thoughts, to share their secrets and watch for a reaction — a reaction Number One barely gave; irritation, if that, not the red-cheeked humiliation he would have felt if that had been done to him. So it’s right to ban travel to Talos IV. No one should ever have to endure that sort of mental pillage ever again.
Nope, never again.
Ever.
Except … ahem.
Fantasies? About him? From the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen?
So Chris calls her into the ready room. Official. Ship’s business. And Number One stands there, hands clasped behind her back, face placid, and he sits behind his desk and asks if there’s anything he should know about, anything at all that she feels is important, anything that would or could affect their working relationship going forward.
There’s a breath, her eyes darting, seeming to examine him, his skin tingling under her gaze — dear God, she’s just looking at him, not even touching him and he could burst apart, fight armies to win her favor, cross oceans for the privilege of catching her handkerchief before it falls to the ground.
“There is one thing.” The tip of her tongue rests on her upper lip, soft pink on deep red. Arousal. He would recognize it anywhere. He’s never seen it from her before, but the implications are obvious.
“Go on.” He leans forward in his chair, his stomach leaping with hope, with excitement to be that much closer to her, to hear what she has to say, to learn what she wants him to do.
“I …” Her eyes lower, eyelashes like a veil hiding her true intentions. “It’s a lot to ask.”
“Anything you want, you’ve got it, Number One.” He’s insane, heart-poundingly, skin-tingingly insane. There’s no telling what’s in that masterful mind of hers. It’s always the quiet ones. He could be volunteering for something so hauntingly deranged, so deliciously debased, so —
“The computer operating system, sir.” Her gaze meets his and she’s in this, she’s ready, she’s … did she just say computer operating system? “Based on the success of the Gupta-Katzman hybrid matrix for the food synthesizers, I believe implementation of a hybrid matrix for the ship’s operating system could utilize the voice-activation features of the communication database as well as the command processing capabilities of the library database to create a complete Library Computer Access Retrieval System — LCARS, for short. I can get the basic code ready for prototyping and, if it works, this could revolutionize not only the Enterprise, but also Starfleet’s entire approach to —”
“That sounds great.” The parts he understood, at least, and Chris is careful not to let his stomach-dropping disappointment that it’s this LCARS idea that put the excitement in her that he had thought … well, never mind. “Use all the crew you need for testing.”
Her smile isn’t particularly big. Chris has granted permission for plenty of special projects and officers are usually effusive in their appreciation. But Number One only offers a somewhat muted, “Thank you, sir,” then she turns and is gone.
As if there was something else she had wanted to say?
There are a routine few weeks of survey missions, hours on the bridge together, the back of her uniform shirt shifting as she breathes, her shoulders angled downward as she monitors readings, the light that plays on her hair dancing, dancing, dancing, and Chris’ command chair is too close and too far, a front row seat to a show he may or may not be invited to see, and something smells different like … like flowers. Delicate, pretty flowers, the sort of stuff people write poetry about — a rose petal soft under fingertips or a sprig of night-blooming jasmine that brings comfort in the darkness. The scent is on the bridge, floating through corridors, gauzy, lingering, a tease to Chris’ senses when he tries to sleep.
He takes the turbolift to sickbay, tells Phil nothing’s wrong but has anyone on the crew reported an odd smell that causes certain symptoms — an almost intoxication-like reaction, pleasure and relaxation and invigoration all at once?
“The only new smell I know about on this ship is Number One’s new perfume.” Phil doesn’t even get out his medical bag, just leans a hip on a biobed and folds his arms to deliver a correct diagnosis for Chris’ olfactory obsession. “She got a parcel in the latest mail drop. Been wearing it ever since.”
Perfume. That marvelous scent is … Number One’s perfume.
“Parcel from, uh, a boyfriend?” Chris is sweating, just a little. Heat that starts in his chest and around his ears and spreads to his armpits and the small of his back. He’s not prying, though. Perfume is a personal gift, yes, but it’s important for a captain to keep up with, uh, personnel’s personal concerns. Personally.
Phil’s chuckle is kind, at least. “From her mother.”
And there’s a mingling of laughter — her mother, of course! — because it was silly of Chris to even ask. Chris would know if Number One had a boyfriend.
Wouldn’t he?
After all, Number One is proficient at everything: conversing with crew in the mess hall, everyday banter on the bridge, shaking hands at promotion ceremonies — all the social expectations of her rank. She just doesn’t talk about herself very often is the thing, so Number One is both everywhere and nowhere, a mystery in plain sight.
Though there’s, uh, certainly nothing plain about Number One … those high cheekbones … bows of red lips … slim-hipped figure … and Chris is sweating again. Better go to environmental control to make sure the heating and cooling systems are ship-shape.
And, uh, everything is fine in environmental control.
Of course.
More weeks flow by and Chris is part of a landing party with Number One. A thick, humid jungle, palm fronds and spiky ferns, boots sinking into spongy ground, and it turns out the locals aren’t friendly. The mission goes to hell, Starfleet laser pistol blasts against swipes from alien machetes, and she seems fine, running next to him as the entire landing party makes it inside the shuttle. But Number One stays away from the controls, orders an ensign to fly them back to the ship. Chris pivots, muddy boots twisting as he turns to ask why his best pilot isn’t taking the helm and Number One had been hiding it — why was she hiding it? — but she’s hurt, the arm of her uniform cut from wrist to elbow, a gash dripping red, her knees buckling as she somehow manages to fall gracefully onto the hard floor. There’s blood, so much blood, and the shuttle is lifting off, they’re safe, Number One isn’t safe, she’s lying down on her side and Chris kneels in front of her, deck plating digging into his knees as he presses the sides of her arm together and she’s conscious but desperately pale as the blackness of space fills the viewports.
“Just a few minutes, Number One, and Phil will patch up that arm, good as new.” He’s talking to her, to himself, to whatever deity watches over either one of them. “You’re going to be all right.”
“They got Yeoman Colt in the ribs.” Her words slur and this isn’t the time for her eyelashes to veil her eyes, no, not now. “Sickbay needs to triage.”
Yeoman Colt is barely bleeding. Just a trickle.
“You’re our most injured but you’re going to be okay and we’ll have dinner, just you and me, to celebrate.” Did Number One’s pulse just quicken? God, there’s so much blood. “If you’d like that.”
“I …” There’s a quiver to her lips, as if she wants to smile. “I’d like that.”
The veil closes just as there’s a bump of landing in the shuttlebay, Phil already waiting for them. Phil insists on treating Yeoman Colt first, but his eventual medical ministrations mean Number One is all right, she had to be all right and she is.
“Let her sleep. Good medicine for almost any injury. Besides, don’t you have a job to do?” Phil points toward the bridge, an eyebrow cocked toward Chris.
Yes, yes of course. Number One needs to recover and Chris needs to … what is it that he needs to do again?
The bridge. Yes.
Number One is off duty for a few days, but her perfume wafts through the air. Not as much as when she’s fully healthy, but reassuring all the same.
Was agreeing to dinner a moment of weakness for her? For him? Whatever it was, a week after Number One returns to duty, Chris has a roast in the oven and she chimes at the door to his quarters exactly on time, her tight grip on the neck of a bottle of wine a testament to her healed arm and to the strength of the glass. But dinner conversation flows easily, not just ship’s business but also his recently renewed interest in cooking and her gossip about some ensigns who have seemed overly friendly in engineering. Plates are nearly picked clean, the bottle of wine empty, so Chris gets another bottle to start before dessert.
“I had a shot of vodka before I came here tonight.” Number One holds her wine glass out for more, long fingers loose on the delicate stem, the blue of her eyes even prettier than usual in the light of his quarters. “Shouldn’t have been so nervous.”
She was nervous, too?
Chris pours, the tinkling sound of a wine-purple waterfall just for her. “I was so nervous, I cracked an egg wrong for the roast.”
“How do you crack an egg wrong?” Her almost-full glass raises and lowers slightly, a signal to stop pouring, so Chris does, switches to refilling his own glass, he can get dessert later.
“Oh, you know.” The circle of purple liquid rises toward him, welcoming, like diving into something good and right. “Eggshell pieces in the bowl, having to pick them out one by one, usually accompanied by a few curse words. One of those everyday reminders of the banal failures of humanity.”
Number One seems to be examining the layers of light glinting from the curved sides of her wine glass.
“You would be amazed,” she speaks lowly, in that way that could signal libidinousness or inebriation or confession, “by what I do and do not know about humanity.”
It’s … it’s as if Chris’ sternum has become too tight. Something about what Number One said and how she said it — another mystery in plain sight — pulls air from the room.
You would be amazed …
She fantasizes about him, but what amazements might she imagine in that glorious mind of hers?
… by what I do and do not know …
They could explore what they know. What they don’t know. Together.
… about humanity.
Humanity. That … that’s a brain tickle. There’s something she’s leaving unsaid, perhaps unintentionally implied, a deeper piece of information.
Her head tips back as she drinks, muscles in her neck shifting, and Chris’ fingertips tingle to touch her there, to move lower, to talk and to touch, to learn her body and her incredible mind. And he’s distracted, stupid, clumsy with the wine bottle, a clatter on the table but no spill, thank goodness, because this is his opening, his chance to ask again, to ask for real because Chris was too formal last time, he understands that now, expecting her to open up in the ready room was a lousy idea. This is better, this is about not just fantasies — hers and his — but getting from fantasy to reality, a newfound comfort with each other that could bring them closer in every way.
“What I’d like to know …” he begins, but Number One’s chair scrapes and she’s standing, tugging her shirt down as if the cloth had been out of place even though she’s pin-perfect.
“Thank you for dinner. This was very nice.” And she does smile this time, slightly, tremulously, the bows of her lips bowing up, but not as much as they could. Then she turns and strides away, the door to the corridor sliding open and closed, a whiff of perfume, too much wine, and too many questions left behind.
So that was weird.
But Chris was right, dinner was an opening for something new, a camaraderie that becomes easy in a way it wasn’t before, interactions benefitting from a closeness that increases and deepens, and, in that way, not just weeks slip-slide past but months and years, meals and ship’s service and comfort together that cooks through except for edges raw with questions. Yet every time he considers trying again, really trying to find out if they have a chance for another kind of intimacy, there’s the memory-ghost of her slight, tremulous smile — had she been upset with him? angry? afraid? — and the door to his quarters closing behind her, his hope remaining, his care for her — love? no, that would be ridiculous, just a crush, some harmless lust — trapped in the amber of a truncated after-dinner drink. And his chest tightens with fear to try and lose, to not even have her friendship after it took her almost bleeding out on a shuttle floor to get them to that first dinner.
She perfects the LCARS prototype.
He leads mission after mission.
She meets him in his ready room again, tells him she needs to resign, she’s in Starfleet illegally, she’s Illyrian — You would be amazed by what I do and do not know about humanity — and he won’t let her go, can’t let her go, too many years of … whatever they have … like heat haze in the desert, a phenomenon that can only be seen from certain vantage points but exists, sharp borders rendered indistinct but borders don’t matter, definitions don’t matter, everything important is still there, no, he won’t accept her resignation, and her eyes shine with something more than appreciation. Something soul-deep. Resonant. Hopeful in the way they’ve been for so many years.
Then she’s gone, taken from him in a shimmer of light. Worse than her leaving the ready room after Talos IV, unspoken words gone in a hiss of the door. Worse than her leaving that first dinner, a freshly opened bottle and wine in both their glasses. Worse because he could truly lose her this time, her arrest bringing visions of her red blood in the shuttle, triage, her perfume lifted from the very air he breathes and everything without her is incomplete and wrong.
They talk through comm screens, her shoulders tense in her prison jumpsuit and maybe the readings she’s taking are his. Measurements for loyalty and tenacity and care. So he says what he said the last time his stomach knotted in terror at losing her — You’re going to be okay and we’ll have dinner, just you and me, to celebrate. If you’d like that. — and there’s no quiver this time, no hint of a smile, the distance between them everything and nothing but she says it all the same — I’d like that.
And she is okay. Allowed to stay, beamed back aboard with her supposed crimes pardoned, a legal Illyrian officer, rank and status intact, everything the same if that’s what she wants, if that’s what he wants.
“We need to have that dinner, just the two of us.” The room bobbles and blurs. He’s had a few drinks at her welcome home party. Needed liquid courage to remind her of his promise, of her promise, of the promise they’ve had for so long and maybe she’s not interested, maybe he’s been misreading the signs all these years except he hasn’t. He knows it in his guts, Talosians or no, he saw a pink tongue on a red bow of an upper lip, he heard her voice dip low, he recognized the shine in her eyes when he wouldn’t accept her resignation. And her perfume, a perfume she hasn’t worn in years except that perfume has become inextricable from who she is, roses and jasmine and a certain softness in the dark.
She’s had a few drinks at her welcome home party, too, a gentle sway as she sets her wine glass on the table, a clink of hard surfaces meeting, her eyelashes not a veil but a flutter of welcome. “I know a place.”
They have to wait, she says, probably until Enterprise is in spacedock, both of them able to take some time off. The day arrives and she gives him coordinates, sets off a few hours before he can get away from a last-minute briefing, meets him at a spaceport on a planetoid deep within a nebula, her breath forming puffs of steam in the cold air, her cheeks ruddy with excitement. It’s too early for dinner so she takes him on a walking tour of the city, supplemental oxygen mask for him for higher and lower elevations that isn’t needed at middle elevations, her jacketed arm tucked in his — they’ve walked like this before, usually when one of them was injured, so this isn’t new, no reason for his heartbeat to quicken or for his cheeks to sting not from the cold but from a dumb smile stretched across his face — and she explains what he sees.
A park where she played as a child. Monkey bars more intricate and a slide more sharply angled than any he’s ever seen, children on swings arcing so high that his legs twitch to save them from falling but the children are fine, all laughter and games and fun.
An open area between two skyscrapers, wild grasses and tall trees, a reminder to Illyrians to always remember where they came from.
A statue commemorating the planetoid’s earliest inhabitants whose genetic modification successes and failures served as a template for later refinements, testaments to Illyrian tenacity and intelligence. He’d like to read the inscriptions, but even the Federation Standard translation is difficult to parse — is the colonial dialect too complex? — plus it’s getting dark and Number One seems ready to keep going.
“I hope you’re hungry.” Her arm, the arm he once held together on the deck plating of a shuttlecraft, his fears of losing her choking him even though she would be fine, that arm steers him toward a building. “The hotel has a restaurant, so there’s no need to go back out into the cold.”
Oh.
He is hungry.
But he, uh, hadn’t thought about accommodations. Didn’t even know if they were staying over after dinner. The Enterprise doesn’t need them, so there’s no reason to rush back. And she’s right, the air has gone from chilly to downright icy, his eyes pricking with cold, his oxygen mask not needed at this elevation but the additional cover would actually be welcome. Except her arm is still in his and even through their jackets, she’s warm.
She’s so warm.
They’ve spent hours together today and she’s mostly talked about things, not so much about herself. But, by hosting him here, she’s creating an opening for something new as sure as him hosting her for their long-ago dinner created an opening for something new back on the ship.
“I like that plan.” All these years of wondering, of hoping for something more with her — could Chris find out tonight? Their friendship can withstand a stumble if he asks and Number One says no. He wouldn’t lose the rose and jasmine of her, the angles of her shoulders and the bow of her lips. He wouldn’t lose the shine in her eyes and the heat haze of what they have even here on his planetoid where she’s his only source of warmth.
Would he?
The door to what must be the hotel opens in front of them, a slice of light that widens in the dark night. A step inside and there’s immediate comfort in a place he’s never been. A cozy lobby, not too fancy or fussy, a fireplace that crackles and the rustle of book pages turned by people ensconced in sofas nestled by the fire.
And he’s not in a private room ensconced in a sofa by a fire with her, not breathing in her scent, his lips trailing along her neck, her soft sounds of enjoyment encouraging his attentions. That’s not what’s happening — he’s walking alongside her to a lift — but could it? Does she really fantasize about him the way the Talosians said she did? Or is he the one who fantasizes about her without tether to reality?
They enter the lift and she taps a button for the top floor as well as what looks like an override control. And he doesn’t have to ask, she explains as the lift rises. “The default might be too fast for you. I set a slower speed.”
She’s considerate, thoughtful, the hotel’s temperature system preventing her breath from forming puffs of steam this time. But it’s as if there is steam, a flowing source of invisible energy that coils around them, catching calves, waists, shoulder blades, pulling them together, closer, closer.
So he asks about the lift and also not about the lift — about their years of friendship potentially leading to another layer of their relationship: “Does a slower speed bother you?”
Her eyes are piercingly blue. “Not at all.”
Not at all.
Closer.
Closer, a certain steadiness in her gaze and heaviness in the air.
Closer, his head tilting, her head tilting.
There’s a ding, and the door opens to a group of people waiting for the lift. Number One strides out, leads Chris to a coat check.
He’s not crazy.
He almost kissed her.
She almost kissed him.
It happened. Not a fantasy. And she’s shrugging off her jacket and she has on a deep purple sweater — not her uniform shirt, almost the color of the wine he poured for her so long ago — and Chris was right not to wear his uniform shirt either, a dark grey turtleneck under the jacket he gives the coat check attendant.
Someone takes them to a table. The restaurant is small, crowded, dark tablecloths on round tables, curved banquettes so people can sit close together and admire the view — the city skyline bright in the night, floor-to-ceiling windows of cloud cover that doesn’t dampen the lit-up buildings, it enhances them. A banquette easily fits them both, seated close enough that Number One could slip her arm in Chris’ arm if she wanted to, the way she did when she showed him around the city.
But she doesn’t do that.
Instead, her head rests on his shoulder, a soothing weight of relaxation, comfort radiating from where she’s chosen to rest with him.
To breathe with him.
To simply be with him, glittering cityscape and what seems like a fancy restaurant.
“Chris, I need to tell you something.” She’s looking out the window, not at him. “This is a little embarrassing, but I’ve thought for years about how nice it would be to take you to places that are meaningful for me and for us to see this view together. I grew up looking at this view, and sharing it with you … well … it only took getting arrested to make it possible, but I want you to know today has been … it’s been a longtime fantasy fulfilled for how well something like this could go.”
This … this was her fantasy? This is what the Talosians were talking about? Showing him around her hometown and sitting together in front of the skyline she knew as a child?
Disappointment should flow through him, a shiver of cold resignation for the bitter truth that what he wanted with her isn’t what she wants with him.
And that does happen, a little.
Okay, more than a little.
But Number One doesn’t often talk about herself and she just did. Number One once calmed her nerves with a shot of vodka to have dinner with him and now she’s resting her head on him before they’ve even picked up their menus. Maybe Chris is the one who’s been fantasizing not just knowingly but unknowingly — pink tongue, voice dipping low, shine in her eyes and tilt of her head all imaginings in service of his libido, not hers.
So he lets go, his chest loose, his kiss to the top of her head the camaraderie of old friends. “This isn’t what I thought the Talosians meant when they said you fantasized about me, but I’ll take it.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath.
She pulls away, his chest tightening at the loss of her.
And her old irritation is directed squarely at him. “If you heard that, why the hell did you leave it off the official report?”
He had wanted to protect her.
And that seems really, really stupid right now.
“If you recall, Chris, you tried to block Talosian mind-reading with a base emotion — anger. I thought a test with a different base emotion could determine if there might be another way to keep them out of our thoughts. But my experiment was interrupted and I never found out if lust was effective.” She’s luminous with the righteous indignation of science thwarted. “Without inclusion in the official report, there’s no way to catalog potential feasibility.”
Lust … for him … as an experiment?
His old anger rushes back, straightens his spine. “You faked lust for me to test a hypothesis?”
Her spine is just as straight. “I didn’t fake a damn thing.”
She …
She didn’t fake …
There are clinks of silverware at other tables, murmurs of conversation, footsteps as people arrive and leave.
And, deep in Chris’ chest, a big, beautiful realization.
She didn’t fake a damn thing. Lust … for him … not an experiment. Real. Possibly the most real thing to have happened on that lousy planet. And Chris must be doing something in the here and now — his lips lifting in a smile of wonderment or his eyebrows rising in joy — because Number One’s irritation dissipates, her shoulders shifting not in measurement or analysis but in relief — a truth told.
“I didn’t know if you didn’t hear them or if what they said about me made you uncomfortable.” A waiter approaches and Number One waves him away, her gaze on Chris as steady as it was in the lift, his fingertips tingling to touch her. “I thought about telling you how I feel so many times, but I figured there was no point since I couldn’t tell you the truth about myself. Illyrians form life bonds, Chris. It didn’t seem right to not be able to explain.”
And he is touching her, taking her hand, bringing her warmth to his lips, kissing the delicate curve of each knuckle, inhaling her scent that hasn’t been roses and jasmine in a long time, yet still is and always will be. “I should have told you that I’d heard them, Number One. I was wrong. And I should have told you how I fantasize about you, too.”
It is a smile of wonderment — and eyebrows rising in joy. Hers. “Oh.”
He had been right. About all of it. The tip of her pink tongue finding the red bow of her upper lip again. Her voice dipping low again, “Oh.” The shine in her eyes and the tilt of her head and her lips nudge his for a kiss that’s soft, tentative, of course it is, they’ve both probably fantasized about this so much that everything is gauzy, dream-like, a first kiss that’s also a hundredth kiss, a thousandth kiss. A kiss in his quarters, her quarters, the ready room, the mess hall, the turbolift. Once or twice on the bridge, he’ll admit to that. A kiss he’s considered so many times in so many places and in so many ways that the real thing should pale in comparison to his fantasies.
Except it doesn’t.
It’s better.
Her sigh that flows into him, contentment.
His thumb tracing her cheekbone, he’s wanted to touch her for so long and he finally can, his hand trembling with oh yes.
Her palm pressing to his back, pulling him closer, and she’s so warm, so warm, so easy to touch, so warm.
His gasp of excitement as she sucks his lower lip between hers, a muffled moan of more, more.
He could get lost in this.
He could get lost in this forever.
“Excuse me, sir, ma’am.” What? What’s going on? “I’m sorry, but I need to ask the two of you to leave.”
Oh God, the waiter.
The fancy restaurant.
Chris should leap up, apologize, and check into a hotel room with Number One, forget about dinner and get started on fun having to do with that life bond she mentioned.
Her hand lifts, though, and she waves the waiter away again, her lips smiling on Chris’ lips, her chuckle starting out small, his chuckle piggybacking hers, growing, reverberations of laughter because maybe it’s a fantasy to want their first kiss — their hundredth kiss, their thousandth kiss — never to end. But, finally, it’s a fantasy they can share.