A/N: I started working on this a while ago and never intended to publish it, but when I read Mizvoy's Crossing the Line, her companion piece to my The Last Straw, I was reminded of this little ficlet. With some encouragement from Miz, I started working on it again, and here is the result. This piece is set sometime between "Fair Haven" and "Spirit Folk". Feedback is always welcome. Thank you for reading!
JUST PRETEND
By KJaneway115
I have so much passion inside of me - passion that needs a focus, a direction. I can't focus it where it truly belongs, at least not right now. It's not practical. It's not possible. There are so many reasons that it would never work. I could have to send him into danger at any moment, give an order that would end his life. My passion could sweep me away, compromising my ability to make good command decisions. There's an old song that says, "I don't trust myself with loving you." An apt observation, in my case. I don't trust myself; I don't trust our circumstances; I don't even know if I trust him. I cannot give him my passion. So I create an imaginary life, an imaginary man, an imaginary love. With Michael, I can allow my passion to live.
Most of the time, I don't need anyone. I am a strong woman. I am independent. I am self-sufficient. I don't need a relationship to be happy; I don't need a man to take care of me. I do pretty damn well on my own. But sometimes, I feel fragile. Sometimes all I want is to crawl into bed beside him, to feel his strong arms around me, to smell his masculine scent and burrow into the safety of his embrace. When I have a bad day or exhaustion overcomes me, I want to go to him. I want to fold myself into his body, to feel his powerful spirit shielding me from danger, from harshness, from the weight of responsibility.
As captain, I make all the decisions. It is my job to know what is best for everyone, including myself, and I am not afraid to decide. I willingly accept the responsibility that comes with the weight of a hundred and fifty lives. But sometimes, I wish that someone else would decide what we should eat for dinner or how we might spend our shore leave. I wish that someone would decide to pick me up and carry me to the bedroom, or decide to keep me in bed long after the alarm sounds in the morning. Is it so wrong to want someone else to take control, just for a minute? Is it so wrong to want to be protected by another person? Is it so wrong that I want someone's strong hands and loving embrace to make me forget my burdens, just for a little while?
I cannot allow anyone to do these things for me, so I construct a different life. I am Katie O'Clare, and Michael Sullivan is in love with me. There is no starship and no Delta Quadrant, no command structure and no protocol. I live in a different time and a different place where Michael can shelter me from the harsh realities of the world. I create in him the perfect romantic partner. He says all the things I'm longing to hear and sees beyond the front I present to the world to the person I truly am. He is the one who forces me to let down my guard; I couldn't hold back from him if I tried. I pretend that true love - the kind you read about in books, the stuff of fairytales - exists, here, now, in the world. I pretend that rare, unfailing kind of love is real and could be part of my life. I make myself believe it while Michael says all the right things and holds me when I want to be held or comforts me when I need a shoulder to cry on.
When my body cries out for release in the dark of the night, I imagine that I am Katie O'Clare and that Michael is running his hands over my body, finding every sensitive spot, worshipping my skin, my hair, my eyes, my lips. I picture us on an Irish hillside, romping through the grass, or hiding in a barn, deep, soul-searing kisses overwhelming us, our hair strewn with hay. I imagine us in bed together, his muscular body above me, driving me higher and higher in waves of pleasure. I cry out his name when I reach the pinnacle of my release. But in these fantasies, just as when he holds me in his photonic arms, I know it's not real. I can't lie to myself - not really.
I picture Michael because I cannot allow myself to picture the real object of my desire. If I let myself imagine him, if I allow my mind to take me to that fantasy, how will I ever keep it separate from the reality of my day-to-day life? How will I be able to treat him with mere professional courtesy during the day, knowing that the night before I was crying his name into the darkness of my quarters? How will I keep myself from giving into my real desires the next time his beautiful, dark eyes meet mine? So I don't imagine his dark eyes. I imagine another set of eyes, another person's face, another man's arms around me, another man's body inside of mine.
Even my fantasies are subject to parameters. Oh, how I long for a day when I can let those parameters slip away, when I can let my defenses down altogether, when I can feel safe enough and certain enough and whole enough that I can give myself completely. I long for the moment when I am sure that letting go is the right course of action, when I know I can fall and be caught safely. Sometimes I doubt that day will ever come. I think that is a pleasure reserved only for the young and naive, and my time for such things has passed. I wonder if I will spend the rest of my life imagining that I am Katie O'Clare and loving a man who doesn't exist.