Damn.
Dr. Beverly Crusher sat in her office in the Enterprise sickbay, staring sightlessly at her padd data on Ensign Koh and cursing her wandering mind. It was evening, ship's time, and moving towards the end of her shift. She should be nearly finished collating and analyzing her data on the Ensign's condition so that she could complete her report before she went off duty.
Instead, she found her thoughts once again returning to a certain Jean-Luc Picard. Due to their various duties and this current military situation on Almaga471 she hadn't seen him for several days, and found herself missing his familiar presence. Despite the bitter aftertaste left by their ill-fated mission to Kesprytt III six months previously and her determined refusal to explore the romantic possibilities it engendered, things between them had quickly returned to normal. Jean-Luc, respecting her wishes, had never again brought up the subject, and his forbearance enabled them to relax back into their comfortable and abiding friendship.
In fact, in a strange way they seemed to be growing closer than ever before. They'd begun to share each other's meals, and finish each other's sentences. It was as though the intimacy of the experience that they'd shared – as undesired as it had been at the time – had somehow bound them even more tightly together.
It was because of this growing closeness that she found herself increasingly worried about him.
No, not worried. Concerned.
She activated her console again, pretending it was only for the second or third time that evening instead of the eighth or ninth. "Computer, what is the status of Away Team 1?"
"Away Team 1 returned to Enterprise 1943 hours."
Beverly let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.
Jean-Luc was back. He was safe.
That left only one away team down on the surface. Almaga471 was a relatively new member of the Federation, and one that was now battling insurgents from their hostile neighboring planet. While Jean-Luc and various other Enterprise crewmembers had spent the day meeting with the Almagan defense ministry and various military leaders across the main continent, Commander Data and his team had been deployed to investigate the northernmost island on the planet after the Almagans had reported some unexpected atmospheric disturbances in that region. The potential for armed confrontation involving Starfleet was real, much as it had been on Kesprytt.
Her thoughts inexorably drifted back to the events on that planet.
The revelation that Jean-Luc had loved her from the time they'd met twenty years before had come as a shock, and as an unexpected gift. Not only was it deeply, profoundly flattering, it clarified several things that she'd always wondered about: why he'd been so reluctant to have her join the Enterprise seven years ago, and why he'd so carefully avoided her after Jack's death. It also explained some intriguing facets of the man himself: why he'd never married, or had children, and why none of his occasional shipboard dalliances had endured.
For it had become clear to her during their time together on Kesprytt that, far from waning with the passing of time, his passion had not only reawakened, but even deepened, in the years that they had served together on the Enterprise.
As for the thorny question of how she felt about him…
It was true that there had always been a frisson of attraction, a chemistry between the two of them, right from the very beginning. It also clearly hadn't waned with time, as their experience with the Tsiolkovsky infection proved. All these years later she was if anything more attracted to him now than ever before, for the passage of time had only added to his considerable physical attributes both experience and an extraordinary strength of character.
Yet she'd told herself that night on Kesprytt that, although she doubtless cared for him deeply, she didn't harbor the same romantic inclinations. He was her captain, and her best friend, but there could be no possibility for anything more.
Which hadn't prepared her for the intense relief she'd felt the next morning upon pushing him through the force field into Kes territory and out of harm's way. Or for the following swift, sure realization that she could bear any fate at the hands of her Prytt captors so long as she knew he was safe.
Or thinking further back, to that harrowing experience three years before when she'd inadvertently become trapped in Wesley's warp bubble experiment. As the bubble shrank and with it her memories, the one person she'd held on to longest in her mind and heart – longer than her colleagues in sickbay, her friends on the command staff, even her own son – was Jean-Luc.
These were only a few of the signs that, beneath it all, she had come to care much more strongly about him than she wanted to admit – even to herself. Because no matter how many times she told herself they were just friends, nonetheless she did love Jean-Luc Picard. She had for years.
And not in an entirely platonic, comradely way, either.
But with that sneaking realization came the fear. Jean-Luc was the person with whom she was most comfortable, and the one person in whom she confided, and trusted, more than anyone else in the universe. She needed him as a comrade in arms, as a confidant, a friend. His presence nourished her, sustained her, like nothing else in her life.
They both had jobs that placed them in deadly peril on a regular basis. There had been any number of occasions in the past when one or the other of them had nearly died in the line of duty, and that wasn't likely to change any time soon. If something were to happen to him, it would be painful enough to endure the loss of the precious friendship they already had, without the added agony of having lost a lover or husband as well.
She knew full well what it was like to love a Starfleet officer with all her heart, and to lose him without the slightest warning. She couldn't stand to love and lose another.
She could survive it. Of course she could. She was strong, like all the Howard women before her. But it would leave her heart an empty shell that nothing would ever fill again. And that was a cost that would be too high to bear.
No, she just couldn't take the gamble. Even if it meant keeping Jean-Luc at arms length for the foreseeable future.
After all, she was certain that they would eventually get together. Perhaps when they were both retired and comfortably settled somewhere back in Federation space they could find the mutual fulfillment they both so deeply desired. There was still plenty of time.
With that thought bringing a slight smile to her lips, Beverly picked up her padd and began to analyze her data.