Disclaimer: Star Trek is the property of Paramount. I own nothing.

Author's note: Telepathic communication is shown using *.

Chapter Twenty

Deanna stared at Beverley in disbelief for a moment then dissolved into peals of laughter,

'You are so awful! Even my mother wouldn't ask me that.'

Beverley smiled smugly, delighted to have shocked her normally unshockable friend. She waited for Deanna to stop laughing then said,

'So?'

'So, you don't really think I'm going to answer that, do you?'

'Why not? You've told me about all your other lovers.'

'True but you don't work with my other lovers.'

'I don't at the moment but there are several that I might work with in the future. The way people move around in Starfleet, any one of them could end up on the Enterprise at any time.'

'Well, yes, but that's different. You work with Will, Worf and Jean-Luc now.'

'So? Why does that make a difference? Or are you afraid that I'll lose my respect for them? I'm surprised any of them are that bad in bed.'

'They're not. They were all very good and very different,' said Deanna with an air of finality.

'Different? In what way?'

'If you can't figure that out for yourself, I'm not telling you,' said Deanna repressively.

'Well, let's see. Will was quite young when you had your affair with him, so I'm going to guess that he was eager and inexperienced but with good stamina. Probably keen to learn. Worf, hmm, I imagine that he's got amazing stamina. Probably not wildly experimental though, he'd be too worried about hurting you. Jean-Luc, well he's got the advantage of plenty of experience and he doesn't have an ounce of xenophobia in his psyche so I imagine your differences excited him rather than anything else. Not sure about his stamina but his testosterone levels have always been very high so he's probably got a high sex drive for a man of his age.'

Deanna smiled blandly at Beverley, being careful not to let her expression waver as Beverley analysed each of the men. Inwardly she was amused by how much Beverley had got right, though Will had not been that inexperienced when they met and Jean-Luc had had no problems with stamina whilst they were on Ydea. However, Deanna had no intention of letting Beverley know how close to the truth she'd come, so when Beverley said,

'How did I do?'

Deanna just smiled and said,

'Why don't you have sex with each of them and find out?'

'Yeah, like that's going to happen. Though it would be amusing to see the look on Will's face if I propositioned him.'

Deanna giggled,

'He'd be sure it was a test of some sort.'

'Or that I was ill.'

'Yes, he wouldn't know whether to take you to bed or to Sickbay.'

'That would be so funny.'

Deanna and Beverley smiled at each other, sharing an image of Will, half eager, half wary. Deanna was about to ask her about Odan when the computer chimed, signalling that their session was about to end, so instead she asked,

'Do you want to walk for the last ten minutes?'

Beverley nodded and they walked through the perfect Betazoid landscape, chatting idly about the facilities available at Starbase 93.

Once they'd completed the docking formalities at Starbase 93, Jean-Luc handed over the bridge to Data, saying,

'Log me as off duty, please, Mister Data.'

'Aye, Captain.'

'I'm going onto the base for a few hours. Commander Riker is on leave, so you're in charge.'

'Yes, Sir. When will you be back?'

'In time for alpha shift tomorrow.'

'Aye, Sir.'

Jean-Luc went to his quarters to change out of his uniform and then made his way to the docking tunnel and on to the starbase.

He had given his and Deanna's situation some thought and had decided that he needed to take action. Accordingly, he had asked Deanna to have dinner with him tonight at one of the base's hotels. She had agreed and had suggested that they eat in her room so that they didn't have to try to dodge off duty Enterprise crewmembers.
Deanna had sent him her room details and so he went directly to her room. The door opened to his palm print and he found himself in the lounge area of a small suite. As he closed the door, Deanna came out of the bedroom and he lost the ability to think. She was wearing a white bathrobe, loosely belted at the waist. As she walked towards him, the belt loosened allowing Jean-Luc a tantalising glimpse of her voluptuous body. He reacted without conscious thought, pulling her into his arms and kissing her. She melted against him and he lost track of time as he ran his hands through her hair and down her back, kissing her again and again. Deanna relaxed her shields slightly and reached out to his mind, feeling their empathic link forming effortlessly. His desire washed through her mind and she groaned as it combined with her own, sending her spiralling upwards. Deanna reached for the hem of Jean-Luc's shirt, pulling it up so she could caress his chest, lightly pinching his nipples. He moved from her lips to her neck, kissing and sucking gently, making his way to the spot beneath her chin.

*Oh, Deanna. We've arrived. *

Her mother's voice in her mind acted like a powerful stimulant, ripping through her brain, completely confusing and disorientating Deanna. She pushed Jean-Luc away, reeled towards the sofa and sat gracelessly, pressing her hands to her eyes.

*Deanna? *

Unable to cope with the overload, Deanna projected as forcefully as she could,

*Mother, get out of my mind! *

She sensed a moment of hurt disbelief and then her mother was gone.

After a moment, Jean-Luc sat beside her and took her hand, saying, anxiously,

'Deanna, are you all right?'

Deanna blinked at Jean-Luc, trying to speak but unable to form a coherent sentence. Seriously worried now, Jean-Luc said,

'Are you being attacked?'

Deanna shook her head, desperately trying to regain control of her brain.

Jean-Luc went to the replicator, got a glass of water and handed it to her and then waited. Deanna sipped the water and shakily re-established her shields. After a couple of minutes she said,

'It was my mother. She contacted me to tell me she's here. I was wide open because of our link and I overloaded.'

'Overloaded?'

'The two stimuli together were too much and my brain produced too many neurotransmitters. Only for a few seconds but it was enough to make me feel completely disorientated.'

'Do you need me to leave?'

'No but I can't link with you at the moment.'

'Understood. Do you need to go to Sickbay?'

'I may have to but I need to talk to my mother first.'

'Couldn't she meet us in Sickbay?'

'She could but she'll be beside herself with worry if you tell her I'm in Sickbay.'

'Couldn't you contact her telepathically to reassure her?'

'I can only reach my mother over short distances unless she contacts me first. Besides I may be fine in a few minutes.'

Jean-Luc didn't think that was likely but Lwaxana was likely to be quite difficult enough as it was, without Deanna greeting her from Sickbay and Deanna was talking normally again and some of the colour had returned to her face, so he decided that it could wait.

'Did you say that your mother is here?'

'Yes.'

'But I thought she couldn't get here until tomorrow?'

'So did I. She probably bullied some poor captain into breaking the warp speed barrier.'

Jean-Luc smiled at Deanna's wry assessment. Lwaxana was a force of nature and he could imagine how assertive she would have been if she thought Deanna needed her.

'How long do you think it will be before she gets here?'

'I don't know. Why?'

'I was hoping that we could talk this evening.'

'You came here to talk?' said Deanna, quizzically.

'I had intended that we would have dinner, talk and then make love,' said Jean-Luc, trying not to respond to Deanna's amused smile.

'So what went wrong?'

'What went wrong? Well, a beautiful woman opened the door wearing practically nothing so I decided to alter the order.'

Deanna smiled happily at the compliment, basking in the relaxed warmth that she sensed from him.

'So, what did you want to talk about?'

'Us. I wanted to know what you want. And I wanted to ask before the Betazoid expert arrived.'

'How do you mean, what do I want?' asked Deanna hesitantly.

'I mean, do you want to have a full relationship or would you rather keep it as a Friendly Fire agreement?'

'You do realise that what we want may turn our to be irrelevant? If it's one of the permanent bonds, then we'll have no choice.'

'Yes, I know. That's why I wanted to talk to you…because I would like to start a full relationship, regardless of what Telna says, and I didn't want you to think that I was merely bowing to circumstances beyond my control.'

'Oh.'

Jean-Luc forced himself to wait patiently as Deanna thought about what he'd said. Eventually, she said,

'I don't know what I want. I've been trying to decide what to do for weeks now. Half of me wants to fling myself into your arms but the other half of me keeps thinking up reasons why a full relationship would be a bad idea.'

'There are a lot of reasons why it would be a bad idea,' agreed Jean-Luc, 'You're under my command, I'm obsessive about my job and I have a terrible track record with women to name but a few. I have thought about them and about some of the issues that affect you, Will, Worf, the fact that you know almost everything about me and the age gap between us, but in the end I decided that they aren't important if we want to be together.'

'Do you really think we could manage it?'

'Yes. It will be difficult sometimes but we're used to being honest with each other, which will help.'

'All right. Yes.'

Jean-Luc reached out and pulled Deanna gently into his arms, horrified to discover that she was trembling. Deanna wrapped herself around him, burying herself in his warmth and strength. As they held each other, the knot in Deanna's brain slowly unravelled itself, she stopped shaking and fell asleep. Jean-Luc shifted slightly so that Deanna's head was in a comfortable position and settled down to wait for Lwaxana to arrive.

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