Chapter Nineteen
Still in some kind of slumber I awoke, in a stiff hospital bed with a robe covering my shattered body, limp arms at my sides, feverish, sweating. The fluorescent lights blurred above my head, and the monitors beeped and buzzed and told me nothing. My breath came in fits and starts, shallow and effortful. I felt someone's hand resting in mine.
There she was, just a few feet away, in her Starfleet uniform, her hair swept neatly around her face. Those eyes. That mouth. I remembered. I remembered everything; the feel of her sweet breath on my neck, her angry glare, the way she held me in her arms so tightly I thought I might break. I remembered her pale blue dress, clinging to her, soaking wet at three in the morning, standing in the pouring rain, as she begged me to touch her. Her voice thick and low with desire, her throbbing wetness, her warmth, only a few strokes of my hand and she came crashing down over me, leaving me so surprised, eternally shocked that she needed me so badly. I remembered the first time she told me she loved me, and I could never really understand why – but that was just Deanna, and that was just the way we were together, and the feeling of her soft palm in mine could remind me of every touch we had ever shared.
"Dea – Deanna – what are - ?"
I tried to say something more, but no words would come to me. Startled, she gripped my hand tighter and rested her eyes on me, as brown and beautiful and as full of kindness as I had ever seen them.
"Shhh," she said. "Close your eyes, imzadi. It's okay."
I breathed out.
"You've never called me that before," I managed, before I felt my throat closing in pain.
She smiled faintly, stroking my hand.
"Well, that's what you are to me. Close your eyes."