Late in ship's night, Captain Picard sat in his quarters, scrolling through the data on his PADD, his left hand flexing and clenching.
Still furious, almost 15 hours since his argument with the Chief Medical Officer; that old, old argument of theirs - the Prime Directive.
Several increasingly heated exchanges had served only to ratchet up the ante. Inevitably, Beverly's tempestuousness landed her just this side of open insubordination.
Fascinated, the senior staff turned as one to their Captain, for the next move.
Picard's voice took on that deadly, deceptively quiet tone that terrified everyone on the rare occasions he resorted to it.
Everyone that is except Beverly.
Her response had been to transfix him with a look of withering scorn before storming out of the senior staff meeting, blue lab coat flying in her wake.
Without so much as another word, never mind his permission.
"Damn it," he hissed, flinging the PADD aside, realising that nothing he'd read for the past 40 minutes had made any impression at all upon his mind.
It was 23:50, but Picard knew that he would not sleep anytime soon. Rising suddenly, his chair slammed against the bulkhead.
*She will not come tonight,* he thought, smiling grimly at the double entendre. Casting about his dimly-lit cabin in his search for calm, Picard's fingers rested lightly on a much-loved anthology before restlessly moving on.
By 01:15, second balloon of cognac swirling in hand, Picard recognised the provocative, twisting shift of tension for what it was, resting his head back against the couch to watch the stars streak by and wait.
The doors to his quarters suddenly swooshed open, the bright light of the corridor beyond momentarily blinding him, before they just as quickly closed. Knowing the contours of his quarters in the dark almost as well as he did, Beverly sailed straight past him to the bedroom, discarding her lab coat along the way.
Saying nothing.
Picard hated that blue lab coat of Beverly's with a passion, always had.
She had deliberately used it as a shield against him for the better part of that first year following her sudden return to the Enterprise from Starfleet Medical; even more effective as a deterrent than the silence that had accompanied her departure from his ship in the first place.
She still used that lab coat as a shield occasionally, if less effectively. Her silence was another matter entirely.
Flirting with danger, he deliberately stepped on her lab coat as he bent to remove his boots.
"Fool," he muttered, knowing it to be true, but not permitting the inevitable repercussions stop him from purposely leaving his boots where they fell.
There would be an argument about this...tomorrow.
*This works,* he thought, not for the first time, nor the last.
And it WAS working.
Despite Starfleet's concerns or their tortured history or the constant and obvious differences of opinion; in spite of her temper, his detachment.
There was an electricity between them...
...the ecstasy of their collisions.
He heard the shower faucet spraying water as he removed his undershirt.
Savouring the last of the cognac, Picard carefully placed the glass on the table before moving to his bedroom. The remainder of Beverly's clothes were strewn about haphazardly. He almost tripped over her boots on his way to the bathroom.
She'd placed them neatly side by side on top of the open pages of his well-thumbed copy of Macbeth.
Most definitely, there would be an argument – tomorrow.
His body tightened further from deep inside as he removed the rest of his clothing.
The bathroom was steamed up as he entered. Picard didn't hesitate, opening the door to the shower cubicle.
To find what he had spent more than half his life seeking – Beverly welcoming him into her embrace.
...Until tomorrow.