Poker night!
„He is not having anything reasonable",
Worf grunted towards Beverly nodding in Rikers direction. Beverly smiled, raised her eyebrows shuffled a pile of chips towards the middle of the table and said:
"We'll soon find out. Your 50 and 50 more."
Picard smiled watching his officers. "They are a fine crew", he thought. "I should have done this years ago."
He locked his eyes onto Beverly. His smile got wider without him noticing. His mind wandered back to his ready room. Her eyes full of sorrow and distress. He had the impression she was feeling worse than him. Love. She had leaned down and had kissed him on his lips. Her soft lips lingering on his mouth. This was not a ordinary friendly kiss. Not one of those she placed on his cheeks every now and then when they parted after diner. It was not like that kiss they shared after having left Kesprytt. It was a promise. It was a beginning of something more to come. It might not have been real. But somehow. Anyways. Things had changed.
Riker started to massage his beard playing with his chips looking into her eyes. Beverly leaned back feeling totally relaxed. She noted Jean Luc's eyes on her and smiled back at him being completely at ease here among her friends and with him. It is different he mused. Riker started to count his chips, looked down at his cards again. Beverly raised an eyebrow awaiting for him to call. But he turned his cards down.
"Too high for my blood. After all I am not earning a Captain's salary", he joked into Picards direction.
The Captain laughed and Beverly took the pot quite satisfied with herself. Then she looked him right in the eyes again. Her gaze was almost unnaturally steady and calm. It was more than a friends look. Neither was it a flirt. It was more. It was love.
"I think, I'll call it a day", Geordi said, pushing his chair back, others muttering and agreement. Riker nodded.
"Anyone interested in a round of Blackjack", Riker asked into the round.
"Will!", Deanna padded his lower arm.
"You will never manage to get back what Beverly won from you. She is just too lucky today!"
"Ok. You might be right",
He pushed back his chair and bowed before Beverly.
"I admit, you are the Queen of tonight's Poker Game."
"The Queen of the Darkness", Beverly mocked raising both eyebrows.
They started to laugh. Picard unwillingly shook his head.
"You could never be anything else than the Queen of Hearts."
Picard felt a shiver sliding down his back. Had he just said that aloud? He took a careful glimpse around. It seems everyone was busy collecting their stuff so nobody had noticed the significance of his words. Nobody but a pair of blue eyes that gave him a calming look smiling lovingly.
Picard was one of the first to leave Rikers cabin. He took some steps and then turned around to wait for Beverly. After all they were heading in the same direction. There would be nothing more reasonable than to leave together. And he didn't want this evening to end. Riker was saying his goodbyes, Geordi and Data had already left. Worf was still busy inside the cabin but Deanne was standing outside chatting with Riker when Beverly came out and nodded towards Picard in acknowledgement for his waiting.
After she had said goodbye to Will Riker she wanted to give her goodbye to Deanne. The two women hugged each other.
"Breakfast at my place tomorrow?"
Deanna suggested. Beverly glanced over Deanna's shoulder and locked with Jean Luc's eyes. She moved to open the hug, looked Deanne in the eyes and said:
"What about Coffee in Ten Forward in the afternoon?"
Deanne took a second to mentally check her agenda, then nodded.
„1600 hours?"
"Perfect", Beverly answered and started to move in direction of Jean Luc who had started to offer her his arm as soon as she had started to move towards him.
Deanna turned around to see her friend leaving and noticed in utter astonishment that Beverly took Picard's upper arm with both hands and that he started to guid her the way down towards the next turbolift. She stared. There was nothing unusual in them leaving together but the way he had pulled her towards him. The fact that she had let herself drift towards him so closely. She shook her head and opened her mind. But those two were too well hiding their emotions from her. The only thing she could sense when she directed herself towards Beverly was calamity.
Beverly herself had been astonished that the Captain had offered her his arm. It was certainly not the first occasion it happened but the other
times it happened she had always accompanied him as a friend to official Starfleet Diners, he so much hated to attend. She had become his regular partner for those occasions.
He couldn't afford to not be seen on most of those events and she spared him a lot of smalltalk with the people there. She was charming and a master of smalltalk whereas he preferred to stay in the background. They teamed up pretty well. And it was a lot of fun for both of them to gossip about those party's during one of their next breakfast occasions together. Occasionally he thanked her by dancing the last one with her and both them enjoyed the intimate touch implied while dancing.
But this was different. Picard was not one to show a lot of affection in front of others. The way he had held his arm out for her. The way he had smiled at her. The words he had spoken earlier. The insistence with which he pulled her to himself. All this was of a different quality.
Beverly felt all hot inside. She remembered all the times they had almost admitted their feelings for one another and she painfully remembered that one evening when she had head over heals fled from a romantic relationship letting her fear take hold of her.
She saw the goodness and love in his eyes. It was all to obvious. Ever since the events in Kesprytt she saw this love and hurt in his eyes when he looked her in the eyes. He tried to hide it and most of the time he managed quite well to not let it be too intense, but there were moments when he thought she didn't watch, she felt the intensity of his feelings going right through her.
She was still scared. But she was sick of letting her fear come in between her and the man she loved. They entered the turbolift together. As soon as the doors closed she loosened her grip around his upper arm and moved to stand opposite to him. He looked startled by the sudden loss of her warm hands around his arm.
She looked down and grabbed his hand to entangle her fingers with his. Jean Luc felt his heart beat faster by this simple teenage like gesture of affection. Her skin on his skin. He squeezed her hand as their eyes locked. She moved closer and closer to press her cheek next to his, her body leaning into him.
"I am still scared Jean Luc", she whispered into his ear.
"But I do love you too much to let you go."
He nodded. She moved even closer, touching his body with hers. Searching out all the warmth she could get from him. Feeling his love surround her. Her face leaning against his face. She inhaled his masculine scent. Neither of them dared moving. Beverly too afraid of losing his touch, Picard too afraid of scaring her away. He would take as much as she offered him and this was more than he had expected she would be giving him now anyways. He thought his heart would burst, feeling her soft her brushing over his lips. He tried to memorize every inch of her body being pressed towards him. He could lose himself in this moment. To be with her was to be.
As the turbolift started to slow down she moved back to put a certain distance between them. She definitely did not want to be caught in any intimate situation with the Captain by any of the crew and one would never be sure whom one would meet when the turbolift opened. After all, a starship never sleeps. Picard was a very private person and she did not want to make him feel uncomfortable. This would be one of the things she would need to get used to. Being a private couple. This was not the way she was with Jack or her other boyfriends. But then again she couldn't imagine it any other way.
What she had with him was going deeper than what she had had with any other lover. Even Jack, she noted. Jack was her first love. Not her first lover, but her first love. They were so young. She wondered how they would have grown old together. Would they have made it work. Would their love have grown or faded.
Calling Jean Luc her second love would be wrong. He was different. When they first met there was a flame. Beverly hated to admit that for a long time. Being with Jack it had felt all wrong. But there was a steady flame in her heart for this man. Over the years the flame had burned. A steady reminder of a connection deep in her heart. Thinking about it, she compared Jack to a fire rushing over her and she would never know wether the fire would have ceased over the years.
Jean Luc was a flame. It did not get bigger, it just got more and more intense. The flame would never cease. She needn't be afraid. The door opened and they left, hands still entangled. She had had opened her fingers when she moved back but Jean Luc didn't want to let her go and so she closed her fingers to his again. The sensation being caught that way by any of the crew burned in her arm but she would not let him go if he didn't want to let him go.