A Horn for All Your Songs

I'd come off shift and had checked in with Dr McBride, before wandering up to the captain's quarters. He was resting on his sofa, reading; listening to his favourite Telemann flute sonata (the one in E minor), looking very comfortable.

"Report, Number One?" he asked, without looking up.

"McBride says hello," I answered. "Mr Data has the bridge." I bent over the sofa and kissed him, lightly, on his forehead. "You look entirely too comfortable, sir," I said, grinning. "Perhaps it's time to get back to work."

"You think so, William?" he murmured, bringing me down for a more complete kiss.

"I'm back at work," I said, coming round the sofa and lifting his legs so I could sit down. I laid his legs back across me.

"The implication being?" he said.

"That if I'm back to work, so should you be," I answered, trailing my fingers up and down his leg.

"I still have sick leave," he reminded me. "You have used yours completely up."

"I know," I agreed. "I can never get sick again."

I continued to trail my fingers on his thigh, until he reached out and grabbed my hand. "Are you here for a reason, Number One," he asked, "or just for general harassment?"

"You've hurt my feelings, Jean-Luc," I said.

He glanced up at me. "Oh, for God's sake, William," he said, placing his book on the floor. "Stop pouting, and come here."

"I'm not pouting," I said, and then, "We could finish this elsewhere."

"As if that hadn't been your goal from the start," he said, but he was laughing as he said it, and we did, indeed, finish it elsewhere.

I was lying in his arms, with my head on his chest, and he was running one hand through my hair.

"Do you have plans for this evening, Will?" Jean-Luc asked, kissing the back of my neck.

"Other than this?" I replied. "This was my plan….ow!" I said, as he bit me.

"Stop fussing," he said, kissing the spot where he'd bitten me.

"But you bit me, Jean-Luc," I complained. I tried to turn over, but he wrapped me tightly in his arms.

"Can I help it when you taste so good?" he asked, and then he said, "You did start this, you know."

"I know," I said. I was silent and then I asked, "What were you thinking of?"

"I was," he began, letting me go, "thinking of your Dr McBride."

"What about him?" I moved, and Jean-Luc sat up, and then pulled me back into his arms.

"You know, he's been on the ship for almost six months," he said thoughtfully.

"And?" I asked. "Wasn't that the original duration of his training?"

"Yes," Jean-Luc replied. "It will be a shame to lose him, when he goes."

I was quiet, and then I said, "He's part of the family."

"He is, that." He kissed me on my head. "I wouldn't have you, if it weren't for him."

"I know," I said. "I love you, Jean-Luc."

"Et je t'aime," he answered.

I said, "You have something in mind, sir."

"I do," he answered, "and I wish you would stop 'sirring' me in bed."

I grinned. "I just do it to annoy you," I said.

"You are – " he began, and I finished,

"As I have always been," and I mimicked his accent, "a royal pain in your arse."

It was some time before we returned to the subject of McBride.

"You're having more?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow at me.

"I'm hungry," I answered, helping myself to more of the cioppino.

"You're always hungry," he returned, sipping his wine.

"I'm a growing boy," I quipped, and he said,

"Indeed."

"No one has any idea at all, Jean-Luc," I said, "of just how mean you can be."

"Poor Will," he said, smiling. "First everyone yells at you for not eating, and then everyone yells at you for eating."

I opened my mouth, and he said, "I wouldn't say that to me, if I were you. I am neither Deanna nor Joao da Costa."

"What would you do to me, sir, if I did?" I asked, grinning.

"I am sure, Number One, that I could find some suitable punishment."

"I might like it," I suggested.

He shook his head. "I have been trying to have a conversation with you, William. Do you think you could stop being silly for five minutes?"

"Sir," I answered, and he sighed. "Okay, okay, I'll stop," I said. "I'm sorry, Jean-Luc. I'll behave."

"Thank you," he said, and I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself; however, he'd chosen to ignore me. "I was, if you remember, thinking about your Dr McBride, Will, and how we owe him a great deal."

"Yes, I know," I said. "You've thought of something you'd like to do for him?"

"I have," he said. "I know we have a Chanukah party every year – but, Will, this year, I'd like the whole ship to celebrate Chanukah – and I'd like you and Deanna to organise it."

I thought for a moment and then I said, "Isn't the new guy in stellar cartography a rabbi? What's his name – Lior Cardozo? There's not a lot of time to learn the music," I said.

"Don't you provide the music every year?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said, "but it would be nice to arrange something special."

"Make it so, Number One," he said. "I'll leave it in your capable hands."

"Oh, you won't get out of participating, sir," I told him. "I'll let Rabbi Cardozo find a role for you."

"I knew I could count on you, Will," he replied, and then he said, reaching for my hand, "I don't suppose you'd be interested in sharing a dessert?"

Rabbi Cardozo – Lt Cmdr Cardozo – was a tall thin guy, almost as tall as McBride, with light red hair and freckles all over his face and hands. We were meeting at my usual table in Ten Forward for lunch. I waited until he'd finished saying grace over his meal, and then I asked,

"Is replicator food kosher?"

He laughed. "If the replicator itself is certified, yes, Commander," he answered, and then he said, "Thanks, sir."

"For what?" I said.

"For not mentioning the freckles," he replied, and I grinned.

"They are rather striking," I agreed.

"I am kept humble," he said, "and not just by mapping stars. But you didn't ask me here to talk about stellar cartography, did you, sir?"

"No," I said, "and if you don't mind, Rabbi – it's Will, for now. I'm not here as First Officer."

"I had a feeling you weren't," he said. "Will. And I am Lior. Shalom, Will."

"Shalom," I answered. "Lior." I took a sip of my coffee, and then I said, "I'm assuming you've met Dr McBride."

"Indeed I have," Lior said. "He rarely misses Shabbat services. I understand that he was a significant help to you."

"He saved my life," I said. "I owe him a great deal."

"And you want to talk to me because -?"

"We have a Chanukah party every year," I said. "I turn my swing band into a klezmer band, and we turn Ten Forward into a pretty festive place. This year – the captain and I thought we should do more than just a party. We're far away from Betazed, Alasdair's home – and even farther away from Earth. What can we do, for him, that will make it seem like home?"

"You have the music?" Lior asked.

"The same stuff we do every year," I answered. "You know. Oy Chanukah; Ochos Kandelikas; Mi yimalel; S'vivon. The Dreidel Song." I rolled my eyes.

"Would you like to arrange something new?"

"I'd love to," I said.

"I've got a few songs you could listen to," he said. "You leave the rest to me, Commander."

"You have to include the captain," I said, grinning. "It was his idea, after all."

Rabbi Cardozo grinned back. "I wouldn't dream of excluding him," he said. "I'll keep you updated, Commander. And I'll send you those songs."

"Thanks, Rabbi," I said, standing. "I'll talk to Guinan and get her on board."

"It's been a pleasure, Commander." He shook my hand.

I walked over to the bar and said to Mac, "Is Guinan around?"

There were two songs he sent that I really liked, and that we hadn't played before. The first one was a blessing that was added for Chanukah called Al Ha'Nissim and the other was a song that had been written after the state of Israel had been founded, called Jerusalem of Gold. Lior had sent me several versions of each, and I got the band together, and Jai Patel – who'd been my physical therapist for all those weeks that I'd been in treatment, but who was also my first clarinetist – and I sat down at the keyboard and, with the help of the rest of the band, we knocked out a pretty decent swing version of Al Ha'Nissim with a klezmer riff, including a terrific solo for Jai.

"Are you going to sing this, Will?" Jai asked me.

"Sing it?" I echoed.

Jai shook his head, and my bass player, Lecomas Watson, said, "Will. You're the only man in this band with a voice. You don't sing enough."

"Shit, LC," I said, "I'm just a horn player."

"You forget I've heard you sing," Jai insisted. "This is your party – and this song is a blessing. It's supposed to be sung. Get the rabbi to teach you the pronunciation."

"We are not," Jamie Munro said, "gonna let you get away with not singing. Sir."

"We could get O'Brien to sing it," I offered. "He's a good tenor." And then I said, wickedly, "Or the captain."

"It will mean the most coming from you, Will," Jai said, "and we all know you can sing."

I sighed. "I haven't sung in public in years," I said. "Not since the last show I did at
the Academy." Then I said, "And you know what this will mean? Beverly will hear me, and the next thing you know she'll have me and Data and Worf doing fucking Gilbert and Sullivan for the captain, and I fucking hate Gilbert and Sullivan. Tit-willow, my ass."

"Will," Jai said.

"Oh, fine," I agreed. "But if I end up doing Gilbert and Sullivan, I'll make sure you pay, Patel. I'll have you transferred to the Gamma quadrant."

"You'll never give up my clarinet, sir," Jai said, laughing.

And LC said, "Let's work on the next song."

Deanna got the kids involved, with the decorations and with the dreidels, and with a children's chorus of a medley of the kids' songs. We got Lior to temporarily certify Guinan's kitchen, and Lior's wife Tzippi spent hours in the kitchen with the staff getting the food ready.

We fit in the rehearsals of all the different groups – and somehow Jean-Luc managed to get us over to DS9, and he had some crazy scheme to get McBride off the ship with some stupid workshop that Joao da Costa and Stoch rigged up with Captain Sisko. Sisko hadn't forgiven Jean-Luc – but his fight against Section 31 had set the two of them on the same side again, and Sisko was more than willing to help us out with McBride's Chanukah – especially when he found out that I'd played baseball as a kid.

So we had six hours to decorate the ship and set up Ten Forward – and I don't think I've seen morale as high as it was, with all the kids and their parents putting up decorations on every deck, and the way Deanna and Guinan and Lior and Beverly had done up Ten Forward – well, it was exhilarating. And that was a feeling I didn't recall ever having before – but Jean-Luc promised me that's that what it was.

I wished I could have seen Sandy's face when he beamed back onto the ship, with Transporter Room Three festooned in blue and silver and handmade papier maché dreidels hanging from the ceiling, but I was in Ten Forward running the kids' chorus through one last rehearsal. I got the signal from Miles, as soon as Joao and Stoch led Sandy from the transporter room; we had exactly thirty-two minutes before they would arrive, as da Costa and Stoch were taking Sandy from decorated deck to decorated deck.

At T-minus five minutes we were ready, and you could have heard a pin drop in Ten Forward. The table was set – all the various chanukiyot had their two candles ready, the shammes candle and the candle for the first night of Chanukah – Lior's Kiddush cup, a beautiful silver goblet was in the centre of the table, along with the challah and the latkes and the sufganiyot. Our Enterprise family – all of us Jewish for this night – were waiting for Alasdair Gidon McBride to walk through the doors.

"Are we ready?" I said to my band, and we tuned up.

"We're here," da Costa said;

the doors opened, and in the darkness a solo voice sang, "Baruch ata Adonai, eloheynu melech ha-olam…" and we added the music to the blessings as everyone joined in as one after another the candles on dozens of chanukiyot were lit and Sandy was led to the head table and given the Kiddush cup, and his sweet tenor sang the blessing for the wine and was joined by the children's chorus for the blessings of the challah and the season.

I saw Jean-Luc stand, and he said, "Dr McBride, none of us on this ship knew how to adequately thank you, for the tremendous work that you have done – for returning our beloved Commander Riker to health and to us – for saving not only Will Riker's life but mine and countless others' as well; and for helping us to expose and check a great evil that had threatened our way of life, and everything that we on this ship stand for and believe in. You are – as Will said to me – a member of our Enterprise family, and so we celebrate with you, tonight and from this time forward – the triumph of light over darkness that is Chanukah. You, sir, are far away from home – as indeed we all are – and so we thought that we would bring your home to you."

At that point McBride's cousin Admiral Laidlaw rose, and said, "L'chaim, Sandy," and as everyone joined in, we began – piano, andante – our arrangement of Jerusalem of Gold, with the children's chorus joining in.

I saw Deanna say something to McBride, as we finished the song, and I saw him turn to look at me. I took the microphone and I said,

"Doctor, I don't have the talent that the captain has in making speeches – I'm just a horn player. You brought me out of the darkest place imaginable, and healed me in a way I didn't believe was possible. You saved my life – but you did so much more than just save it. You gave me a life that was worth living." I stopped for a minute, and then I said, "I'm just a horn player, Doctor – so I'll let my music speak for me."

I nodded at Jai, and the wail of the clarinet began the strains of Al Ha'Nissim, joined in by violin, and horns, and accordion, and bass, and guitar, and me as I sang the Chanukah blessing:

Al ha' nissim, v'al hapurkan, v'al hag'vurot, v'al hat'tshuot,

v'al hamilchamot sh'asita;

lavoteneinu bayamin hahem baz'man hazeh;

And we rocked Ten Forward to the sound of klezmer swing.

We thank You, for the miracles, and the deliverance, and the victories,

and the salvation, and the battles that You did for our ancestors in those

days at this time.