A Frame of Living Wood

A Tu b'Shevat Story

1.

It had been stupid, profoundly stupid, and it had probably been my fault as well. I knew that I should simply stop sulking and go back and apologise, but there was this tight little ball of mad inside me that made me head in the opposite direction. Maybe I'd been a jerk – okay, I know I'd been a jerk – but wasn't that what McBride had tried to help me learn? Sometimes you were a jerk, and it didn't have to be the end of the world, and you could just work through it – but he'd looked at me, and I thought, shit, in two seconds he'll call Security, and I'd said, "Fine. Have it your way, then," and had stormed out.

Hell, stormed out, my ass. Slunk out is more like it, because I was the one who'd been a jerk, after all, and he'd had a right to get mad at me, or whatever the fucking word was. But he didn't have a right to get so goddamned mad, and if he'd given me half a second I would have apologised, and this was obviously going nowhere.

So what the hell do you do when you're the First and you've had a fight with your lover, who just happens to be the captain, and everybody on the goddamned ship knows that you're with the captain, and can probably surmise that he's the reason you're in some sort of a foul mood, and there isn't one sane person on this ship who would want to be involved in that kind of a mess. Even Deanna has had the good sense to judiciously disappear.

So there was no way I was going to Ten Forward, because Guinan was Jean-Luc's whatever she'd been way before I'd even been born, so if I were looking for a shoulder to cry on it certainly wouldn't be hers. And everyone else would probably prefer to jump out of an airlock rather than listen to me bitch about how unfair Jean-Luc had been. Which left the gym or the holodecks or the observation deck – instead, I walked onto the turbo lift and said, "Deck Seventeen."

I didn't have to be maudlin about it, but I'd enjoyed the Arboretum before I'd begun my relationship with Jean-Luc, and I didn't need his damned permission to go back. The only drawback would be that I might meet Keiko, and I hoped, as the doors opened, that she was in the preschool room with Molly.

I took a moment to just breathe in the air, which is what Deanna had taught me to do, and so I stood there breathing for a bit, and I could feel myself calming down somewhat, and I figured I'd made the right choice. I could walk down the path to the pond, and I could take my boots off, and just relax on the lawn, and if I did that for an hour or so I'd be ready to go back and apologise for being a jerk, and maybe he'd actually accept my apology.

As I came round the shrubbery into view of the pond I saw a figure in the long robes of Vulcan and I wondered how I could have possibly forgotten that the Ambassador was on the ship. And then I thought that it was no wonder Jean-Luc was so uptight, and I sighed, because I'd pretty much made a mess of things and Dr McBride was no longer on the ship to help me out, and I was absolutely not going to go to da Costa for advice on my sex life. He was crouched down and I wondered what he was doing. I felt a little stupid, because maybe it was some Vulcan ritual that I didn't know anything about, and here I was the first officer of a ship with a number of Vulcan crewmen, and yet it seemed I was still, despite my friendship with Stoch, woefully ignorant of their culture.

I approached slowly, not wanting to disturb him, but I also didn't want to give up my plan of sitting in my usual place by the pond and trying to calm down. Finally I decided that the Arboretum was big enough for one Vulcan doing some strange ritual and one human in a freaking snit and I walked over to the bench where I usually sat and bent over to take off my boots.

He was planting something, I could see that now, and it almost sounded as if he were singing something softly to himself. I pulled off my socks and stretched, and then stuffed my socks in my boots and stood up. I wondered if he had permission to plant something new in the Arboretum, and then I thought that perhaps my argument with Jean-Luc had just fried my critical thinking processes, because he'd been a science officer and he was an icon in Starfleet and he could probably do whatever he goddamned wanted to do. So I walked over to the pond, and sat down on the slope, and rested myself against the little flagstone wall, and closed my eyes.

"Even, Commander," he said, from right beside me, "when you are being quiet, you are loud."

Obviously, this was just fuck Riker day or something. I opened my eyes and said, "I'm sorry, Ambassador. I was trying to be quiet. I didn't mean to interrupt you."

He gathered his robes and sat down beside me. "It was merely a comment, Commander," he said. "It was not meant as a criticism."

"Oh," I said. Now I was feeling both sulky and stupid. I should have stayed in bed (not that Jean-Luc would have permitted me to).

"I was given permission to plant the fruit tree," he said, after a pause.

"Of course you were, sir," I answered. Shit, it was like sitting next to Deanna's mother.

"I understand from Captain Picard that you are recovering from a serious illness," he remarked.

Jean-Luc was talking to him about me? Of course, Jean-Luc had that closeness to him, because of his meld with the Ambassador's father, so perhaps theirs was a relationship that might encourage confidences. And, I thought, perhaps that was a good thing, because since Dr McBride had returned to Starbase 515, there really wasn't anyone with whom Jean-Luc could speak about me, and about our relationship. He'd never much cared for intimate discussions with Deanna, and it would still – despite all we'd been through – be awkward talking to her about me.

"Yes," I said. "I am mostly recovered, now. I am still in treatment for some of the lingering symptoms."

"The knowledge of Section 31 has been quite a shock for him," the Ambassador said. "Even though they have now been exposed, I do not believe that they will be non-operational for long."

"No," I said, and briefly I thought about Admiral Pressman. He was just the type to be attracted to Section 31.

"You have had some sort of altercation with the captain?" Spock did not look at me, and I didn't look at him, but I could almost hear – was it my imagination? – an undercurrent of amusement in his voice.

I sighed. This was clearly not going to be my day at all. There was, of course, no point in denying the obvious. "Yeah," I said. "I've been a jerk – I'm good at that – and he's uptight. It wasn't a particularly auspicious combination."

He was silent, and then I saw his shoulders shake, briefly. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought he was laughing at me. He said dryly, "I am familiar with the syndrome," and then I knew he'd been laughing. It occurred to me that he was referring to his captain – ah.

"You were wondering what I was doing," he said.

"Yes," I answered.

"You are familiar with the Jewish faith?"

"I've become more familiar," I said. "My doctor, Alasdair McBride, is Jewish – and he taught me about some of the major concepts, especially about healing, and about some of the major holidays. And I'm friends with our rabbi from stellar cartography."

"Yes, Rabbi Cardozo is a very interesting man. He told me about the Chanukah celebration you had for Dr McBride."

"That was the captain's idea," I said. "It turned out well."

"Today is Tu b'Shevat," the Ambassador explained. "The fifteenth of Shevat. In Israel, it is the start of the spring rains, and so it is a day to commemorate the rising of the sap in the fruit trees, and the beginning of spring. An important holiday in any agrarian community."

"Like break-up," I said, and I felt a little bit more comfortable. "Where I'm from – in Alaska – the first sign of spring is the annual break-up of the ice on the rivers. It's a muddy, messy season – but one that's really celebrated, after a winter that's bitterly cold and almost completely dark."

"Yes," he agreed. "On Vulcan, because it is mostly a desert planet, the spring rains are also an occasion of great joy."

I was quiet for a minute. McBride had been a Betazoid Jew. And Spock? "Are you Jewish, then?" I asked.

"My mother was," he said, "and so, technically, am I. I commemorate the holidays in her honour – and I have found, over the years, that there is a spiritual symmetry between the teachings of the Talmud and the writings of Surak."

That was a little deep for me. He glanced at me, and his dark eyes were kind.

"You are still suffering from your illness," he said.

I could feel my hand start to shake. "Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Because," he answered, "you are still too comfortable in denigrating yourself. I rather doubt, William – if I may call you that? – that anything is too deep for you."

There was a part of me that wanted to protest, but I could also hear both McBride and Jean-Luc concurring with his assessment.

"I'm still in therapy," I said. "It will take longer than six months to eradicate a lifetime of self-hate, Ambassador."

"Perhaps, William, you were not really a 'jerk' in your quarrel with your captain, and his response was one of frustration at seeing you still in pain."

I'd grown quite used to the feeling of being a pinned bug under the treatment of McBride, so I didn't say anything.

"One of the ways we celebrate Tu b'Shevat," he offered, "besides the planting of young trees, is with a seder – a ceremonial dinner – in which fifteen different fruits are eaten. I have been invited, of course, by Rabbi Cardozo, to celebrate this with his family and congregation, but I am no longer used to large functions, and I was never very fond of them, even when I was on my Enterprise. I intended to have the ceremony in my quarters. I would be pleased, however, to share it with you."

"Thank you," I said quietly. "I would like that."

There'd been no formal agreement between us that I would move into Jean-Luc's quarters, even though I, de facto, had done exactly that. Most of my belongings – such as they were – were still in my own quarters, although my clothes and more personal items were in his. I kept my trombone, for example, in my quarters, because I didn't want to disturb him with my practising, so my quarters were a perfect place to go if I'd wanted to continue my sulk.

Curiously, after speaking with Ambassador Spock, I didn't feel like a pouty adolescent anymore, and so, because it was my day off, I decided I'd go back to Jean-Luc's quarters and figure out what I was going to say to him when he came off the bridge. The Ambassador had invited me for eighteen-thirty hours, which, he told me in all seriousness, approximated sundown in Israel on Earth, so I had plenty of time to shower and change clothes and look up this holiday on my padd so I wouldn't be completely ignorant.

I was not expecting Jean-Luc to be in his quarters. I was calmer, since talking with the Ambassador, but I still had no idea what I would say to him except my usual default "I'm sorry for everything" position, which he sometimes found more irritating than if I hadn't apologised at all. And I'd wanted to have the time to think over the observation of Spock's, that maybe I hadn't been a jerk at all, that my behaviour was rooted in my illness, and his response to me had been one of frustration, which, of course, I'd confused with one of my ten words, "mad." I wasn't having flashbacks anymore, and I no longer suffered from night terrors, and most nights I didn't wake Jean-Luc with terrifying dreams in which I was hiding in my great-aunt's coat closet from my father. But I was still undergoing CBT – Cognitive Behaviour Therapy – and one of my weekly sessions was affect management – naming and understanding my emotions – with Deanna.

Despite what the Ambassador had intimated, I'm a simple person, really. I'm a pilot and a reasonably good tactician, and one of my real strengths is taking something on the wing. That works well in my day job – I'm great on the bridge, and even better on the battle bridge – but it sucks when it comes to relationships. And this was only the second real relationship of my life, if you discount my falling in love with a holodeck image and with an androgynous being (and McBride had quite a bit to say about that); my first relationship was with Deanna, whom I'd fled from after we'd become engaged. I understand now why I'd done that, and so did Deanna – but my track record at anything deeper than friendship isn't good.

Sometimes it's hard for me to know whom I'm dealing with – the captain or Jean-Luc, and that was yet another issue I was still tackling. He was at his desk, reading reports, something he usually did in his ready room, so perhaps he'd been waiting for me to return. I didn't know.

"William," he said, without looking up.

When I was ill, he sometimes would just hold me, and this was one of those times when I wished – not that I wanted to be back in that space – that he would see that words still failed me and that my emotions still tended to be all over the place. I felt, not always but at times like this, that maybe he expected too much of me – but perhaps McBride would say it was the other way around, that I expected too much of me. Either way, he was at his desk, and I was in the doorway, and there was more than just three metres between us.

"Jean-Luc," I said, and I walked in and pulled the chair up to the desk, slung my leg over it, and sat down. Normally he rolled his eyes when I did that, but he was too busy reading whatever he was reading. "How come you're off the bridge?" I asked.

"I think you know why," he said.

"Oh." There was nothing to say to that. I hoped he would say something, but he continued with his silence, and I sighed. "I went to the Arboretum," I said.

"Did it help?"

I couldn't tell whether he was being sarcastic or actually asking if it had helped me. "Yes," I said.

"Good," he replied.

"I met Ambassador Spock there," I offered. "In the Arboretum."

"Did you," he said. He shut his padd down and turned to look at me.

"It's a Jewish holiday today – I mean, tonight," I said. "They start at sundown, the holidays." I was reduced to babbling. "Did you know the Ambassador is Jewish?"

"William," he said again.

"Sir," I said, and then I winced. He hated it when I did that. The only time he'd ever shouted at me was over my saying "sir" when I wasn't supposed to.

He sighed. "What exactly is the matter with you today?" he asked.

I looked down. "I don't know," I said. "Sometimes I'm just a jerk, I guess."

He stared at me and then he said, "William, if that were simply the case here I might even find it amusing. But it is not, and you are not."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"I know," he replied. "But that, unfortunately, is not the point."

"Maybe," I said, "we should just reinstitute respite care, and I should spend tonight in my own quarters. Perhaps you wouldn't feel so –" I paused, and then I remembered what the Ambassador had said. "Perhaps you wouldn't feel so frustrated with me."

"Perhaps so," he agreed.

I hadn't wanted him to agree with me, but I'd just hoisted myself with my own petard, so I said, "The Ambassador invited me to have Tu b'Shevat seder with him. He said he didn't necessarily want to attend Rabbi Cardozo's."

"That was kind of him," he said. "Are you going?"

"Yes," I answered. "He is. Kind."

"You'd better get ready, then," he said.

"Okay." I stood. "You'll still be here?" I asked. "After I shower, I mean."

"These are my quarters," he reminded me. "Where else would you like me to be?"

I'd started for the bedroom and I said, without turning around, "Do you want me to shower in my own quarters, then?"

I heard him push the chair out. "William, come here," he said.

I turned and walked back towards the desk. McBride always talked about the reset button – where I could just take a flashback or a troubling memory and press the reset button, so it would go away until I could deal with it when I was ready to – and I don't think I've ever wanted to use it as badly as I wanted to now. I didn't understand why he was so frustrated with me, and I didn't understand why I'd been so badly behaved today, and the way he was saying things to me now, as if he expected me to understand him, when even after six months of stupid therapy I still didn't seem to understand anything at all.

"I suck at relationships," I blurted out.

He did roll his eyes then, and he said, "Oh, for Christ's sake, come here," and he took me into his arms. I rested my head on his shoulder and he said in my ear, "What am I going to do with you, mon cher?" and it didn't matter, because he wasn't mad at me anymore, or frustrated, or tired of me, or whatever the hell it was. "My poor boy," he murmured, and he walked me into the bedroom, where there is at least one aspect of a relationship in which I do excel.