"Please, Deanna. We need to talk." Will closed the last bit of distance between them and placed his hands lightly on her shoulders.
The moment he made contact she pulled away from his touch and turned quickly to face him. Her tear-filled eyes flashed of hurt and anger before suddenly becoming devoid of all emotion. "This was a mistake. I am sorry, Bill." Her voice was just as emotionless - even, steady and calm.
Riker on the other hand was far from calm. He refused to believe what he was hearing. "No, Deanna. It was not a mistake." He took her firmly by the shoulders forcing her to meet his gaze. "I will not dismiss what just happened between us, not again. I made that mistake once in my life and I refuse to do it again."
"Please, don't -"
Silencing her with a gentle finger to her lips, he shook his head. "I need to say this." He stepped away form her and began silently pacing the small space. When his thoughts were gathered he ceased his stride and regarded her, capturing her dark eyes with his. "I cannot take away the hurt that I have caused you in the past, I know that. Nothing can excuse the fact that I pushed aside our relationship in favor of my career before, but when you stepped out from that turbolift it felt as though the universe was giving me a second chance to make things right. Hearing your voice in my head -- god, Deanna, I never thought I would get to experience that again. It's like a drug." She tore herself from his gaze, overwhelmed by all of the raw emotion she saw within his crystal blue eyes and felt within them both. "I knew that I had missed you and that I still loved you, but the intensity of those feelings didn't hit me until that moment. How I managed to breath without you near me I will never know because the mere thought of living without you in my life is enough to rob me of my ability to function."
Placing a gentle finger under her chin he forced her to look at him again. "Please Deanna, don't shut me out. Don't regret what we have done." He let his thumb run tenderly over her cheek.
Deanna sighed lightly, reveling in the slight contact. She closed her eyes, willing her next words to come out of her mouth before it was too late. "I do want to be in you life and I won't shut you out." His relief rushed over her as he moved to take her in his arms, but she held up a hand, stopping the embrace before it had begun. "I want to be a part of your life as a friend, nothing more." She opened her tear-filled eyes and felt their hearts break at her words. "Right now I am not capable of anything more."
The emotional blow to Riker's gut caused him to double over in pain. His mind was whirling. Friend, friend... end, nothing more. The words echoed through his soul. End, nothing more.
"Deanna, Imzadi, I love you." His words were pleading, full of all the love and desperation that flowed between them.
"And I love you too." She didn't hesitate, she didn't have to. She knew that she loved him with everything that she was. "But that's not enough to begin rebuilding a romantic relationship, not right now. Not while we are serving on the same ship. I have worked too hard to get where I am to risk it all by getting romantically involved with a superior officer."
"Deanna, you know that Starfleet could care less about what two consenting adults do when they are off duty."
"But what if things go bad between us. I don't think I could survive the pain again, and I know I wouldn't be able to serve with you." A shiver rippled through her small frame.
"Deanna, please. I --"
"Bill, don't." She turned her back to him, fixing her eyes on the stars, but not really seeing the streaks of light that passed by, her arms wrapped protectively around her. "As difficult as it was, I have made my decision. Please respect my wishes and allow me to be a friend."
There it was again, that word. Friend... end. Riker opened his mouth to speak, but found no words through the ache. Instead, he just turned and walked silently out of her quarters.
When the door slid shut behind him, Deanna's resolve finally crumbled. She didn't even feel the pain when her knees hit the floor below, her own emotional anguish pushing everything else aside. Huge, heaving sobs wracked her body as she finally gave into the turmoil within. Though she new she was making the right decision for herself and her sanity, that didn't ease the pain she felt to her very core.
After a few moments the ache dissipated and was replaced with nothing Deanna was numb, a self-defense mechanism her psyche initiated. The pain and the hurt will still there, in the background, threatening to punch through the wall at anytime, but for now she kept them at bay. She had to. She had no choice.
Finding her strength again, she made her way to the bedroom. Without even bothering to remove her crumpled uniform, Deanna collapsed into bed and fell into a restless sleep.
Riker couldn't sleep either. Deanna's words playing in his mind like a horrified, twisted dream. Lying on his back on the bed, he stared at the smooth contours of the bulkhead.
He had returned directly to his own cabin and proceeded to quickly down four glasses of synthehol hoping a painless haze would set in. But as it always is with synthehol, right when you think you are about to reach the edge of drunken oblivion, you are snapped back into the land of the sober.
Eventually he had given up and crawled into bed, the stabbing pain pushing him to exhaustion, but sleep evaded his grasp. Friend...end. The words repeated in his mind like a mantra. The images of their passion burned onto his mind's eye.
The tears slipped unnoticed onto the pillow and hours later he too fell into a restless sleep, plagued with memories of his past.
End ?
Friend is a Four Letter Word
by Cake
To me, coming from you,
Friend is a four letter word.
End is the only part of the word
That I heard.
Call me morbid or absurd.
But to me, coming from you,
Friend is a four letter word.
When I go fishing for the words
I am wishing you would say to me,
I'm really only praying
That the words you'll soon be saying
Might betray the way you feel about me.
But to me, coming from you,
Friend is a four letter word.