CHAPTER 3: Captains and Commanders…
The engines thrummed as if it were his heartbeat.
The power flowed throughout the decks as if it were his bloodlines.
The occasional sound of an indecipherable word drifting through his closed, ready room doors was heard as if it were his scattered thoughts.
The seated man behind his desk recognized none of these things. Nothing external was registering now, in this darkest of hours. There may have been a part of his brain that acknowledged all of this autonomically, but his conscious mind did not. He hadn't moved in almost an hour.
He couldn't.
His brain was still trying to grasp the fact that Ro Laren had betrayed Starfleet.
That Ro Laren had betrayed him.
His grip tightened. The shard of crystal that he was absentmindedly clutching pierced his flesh. He did not feel the pain. Or note the blood trickling down his thumb. The droplets landed on his desktop.
How could he have misjudged her so? How could he have so misjudged the soul of this officer? And how could he have so misjudged his own sense of judgment?
He was shaken to the innermost depths of his soul. Not even the Borg or Gul Madred had caused as much turmoil in his mind and heart as had his insubordinate Bajoran. The Borg and the Cardassian situations had been thrust upon him. But Ro Laren - he had chosen her, personally. He had accorded to her the trust he had for all of his senior bridge officers, totally. He had, in fact, trusted her, completely.
His mind still could not completely comprehend the enormity of this fact - this mistake. In fact, not even realizing it, he was now committing the greatest sin that any Starfleet starship captain could make.
Jean-Luc Picard was doubting himself.
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Guinan was amused by Will's telling of his mission with Ro Laren. "Now, fussing and feuding because of where you were sleeping? Now that sounds like Laren. The Bajorans have their prudish side..." Guinan intuitively knew though, that Ro's protests over sleeping arrangements had nothing to do with shared bed space. It had everything to do with whom Ro was sharing that bed.
Something ka-thumped.
Riker's boots slipped off the chair he'd been using as a foot rest.
Guinan ignored his little problem as she watched him sprawl out some more, lifting his legs so that most of his boots were back on the chair pad.
"So…?"
"So, what?"
"Did you become lovers again?" Her gaze was steady as she pinpointed Will Riker. This time he did squirm. A little.
He glared at her even as he reached for his glass. He didn't miss. "Ensign Ro and I were never lovers."
"That's not what ship's gossip reported," Guinan remarked as she watched him try not to squirm.
"Ro and I have had sex."
"Several times, or so I heard." She sipped her whiskey. "Is that all? And here, I thought that I'd heard that you actually believed that Laren was your wife. And that you rather liked that idea."
"Don't be an idiot," was Riker's unwise retort. "I never thought that." Guinan raised a hairless eyebrow. "At least, I never thought that after I'd regained all my faculties."
"You did, too. Otherwise why would you be so strongly denying something that clearly your subconscious wants?"
"Hah! What? Ro Laren? I've had better lovers."
She glared at him. "Actually, I would have said wife. Or, Imzadi. Or Ro Laren. Maybe both."
He had the good graces to recognize that he'd overstepped the boundaries of gentlemanly behavior. Not to mention the truth. He hadn't really meant what he'd said about Laren. The whiskey was loosening his tongue. He softly stated, "I didn't mean it, Guinan. Laren - she's not Deanna." He finished his drink. "But if I'd never loved Deanna, Laren could have been…" He put down his empty glass. "Guinan this is a very good whiskey, but it's not that good. I won't sit here and let you psychoanalyze me about what happened just in order to drink it. I get enough of psychoanalysis from Deanna." It took him a moment, but he thought of something. "Besides, you weren't even there."
"Are you sure about that? Maybe you forgot."
He glared at her, doing his best imitation of Captain Picard's icy glare. However, when Captain Picard did it, he usually hadn't imbibed more than a couple of ounces of real Canadien whiskey.
Guinan found his attempt to be unsuccessful. But it was amusing. Very amusing.
"So, you and Laren weren't officially lovers. You just happened to share a bed. And we all know how sexless your relationships can be when a beautiful, sensuous woman shares a bed with you, Will Riker."
"We didn't share a bed," he grumbled. "It was a pallet actually. And there were these bloodsucking beetles…"
Her smile was sympathetic. The look in her eye was not.
Will glared at her again. "The bug bites - they itched! A lot!"
Even as she tried to give him another sympathetic smile, she really didn't convince the commander of her sympathies. Guinan was rather enjoying herself, too much.
"And then what happened?"
"We spent the next few days going over the plans to attack the Pakled caravan carrying the retro-viral vaccines."
"And the Donaran Maquis cell accepted you?"
"Oh, yeah. I fit right in." He thought for a moment, and whispered almost to himself, "Too well, actually..."
Guinan reached over and poured more whiskey into both of their glasses.
He pick his glass up again, sipped and then continued his musings. "I really didn't even need what Captain Picard had arranged through Admiral Nechayev who then arranged through that shape-shifter on DS9 to create a creditable Bajoran rogue and rebel background for me. When they got around to actually checking my cover, they had already been believing it. They didn't doubt me for a nanosecond."
"I am sure that Ro Laren helped."
For a moment, he closed his eyes remembering just exactly how Laren had helped before he answered Guinan. "Yes, Ro did."