Dark and Fine:
Playing With Starlight
I
Friendship
¡§...but her hair was dark as the shadows of twilight. As the light upon the leaves of trees, as the voice of clear waters, as the stars above the mists of the world, such washer glory and her loveliness; and in her face was a shining light¡¨[i]
Will had another appointment with the counselor his father had set him up with. It turned out Kyle wasn¡¦t the one who needed the counseling, it was Will. Counselor Troi seemed to have the idea that Will had ¡§abandonment issues¡¨ and she thought that somehow, just by choosing the right words to ¡§counsel¡¨ him that he would be able to get over it.
Since laying his eyes on her for the first time that day, Will had a nervous, flighty sort of feeling he couldn¡¦t get rid of. He found himself starting to think of the counselor more and more, as if just the thought of her could make everything he lived with just whoosh fly away, blown off lightly like a little feather. He was both excited and scared, the same feeling he had when he was about to release The Dark Life.
Only he didn¡¦t care whether or not it made money. He just wanted to get it out.
Whatever. He started the day with a trip down to his editor¡¦s office and finally announced that he desperately needed an extension. Ron wasn¡¦t too happy about it, considering that he would have to tell his boss and then write a press release. He had other, more pressing matters to attend to, seeing as how Will wasn¡¦t his only client, his wife was pregnant and his life was now filled with mood swings and sudden cravings galore.
It was actually a little amusing.
Next stop: the counselor.
~
Maybe it was her eyes that drew Will in. Or maybe it was her stunning psyche. She had informed him of her heritage as did he, and they found that if she let it, time would escape them, drawing them away from their own realities, into one which only the two of them existed, where only the words and expressions exchanged mattered.
They talked of subjects varying from Will¡¦s writing career to his childhood (she had insisted on it, it was part of her job after all) to her childhood and her career in Starfleet.
She couldn¡¦t help it.
Gently, slowly, carefully inching into his mind, she felt a simple, innocent, almost boyish spirit in Will when they talked of Starfleet. She could imagine him tall, maybe in a position of command, maybe even as the captain¡¦s right hand, where he would guide some illustrious, already accomplished captain through Romulan and Klingon attacks, or maybe even Borg.
Take the Enterprise for example. Picard would undoubtedly get along with Will like brothers, along with Worf, and Data, who Deanna predicted Will would find odd but friendly amusing. The corners of her mouth turned upwards as she entertained the idea, not realizing how far she was about to fall for him.
¡§...and then Mom would come in and yell at Dad for something silly, and he would just laugh it off as if it didn¡¦t matter, because it really didn¡¦t...¡¨
Deanna could imagine Will as a young boy on Earth, in the middle of the harsh freezing weather of Alaska, growing with a mother, on his way to live a good life...
She could practically see it with her own eyes...
...a young, blue-eyed, dark haired boy, born under the light of the stars...
...¡§Mommy! Daddy said that he was going to play with me all afternoon!!¡¨...
...a little boy writing his first poem about playing with the same starlight he was born under...
...a growing twelve-year old boy, suspiciously confident, winking at a throng of ogling girls passing by...
... ¡§...a thing for brown eyes. Yeah. Big, brown, eyes.¡¨
... ¡§It¡¦s all your fault!! GET OUT!! Get out, and never come back!!!¡¨
...a quiet house, occupied by a lonely, gray-haired man...
...the boy turning slowly into the man he would become, writing, turning his back on the night sky...
...¡§I¡¦d like to get published.¡¨...
...a tall, dark, and definitely handsome bearded man, lost, unsure, scared, and struck with a worsening case of writer¡¦s block...
¡§It sounds like you started off right.¡¨ Deanna forced the lump in her throat to fall back into her gut, remembering her own childhood. Her father had often read to her, mostly western¡¦s, and she had sometimes let her mind drift, to imagining the minds of the genius writers who concocted these adventure-filled plotlines, how the stroke of their instruments went, what it would be like to have lived in those ages and have written as they did...
Whether it be their minds or their appearances, Deanna had once hoped to get to know one of these genius men ¡Vor women.
But that childhood dream had long been buried. She didn¡¦t know when, or why, but the image of her mother telling her of her father¡¦s death came to mind. That day, that god-awful day, would never bury itself, but Deanna knew that that had been the day she grew up, had stopped imagining the many people behind the Jesse James¡¦ of the world.
Will was talking. ¡§...died soon after that.¡¨
Deanna offered a comforting hand, something she always did for grieving patients. ¡§I¡¦m sorry, Will.¡¨
He took a deep breath, watching Deanna almost as if trying to fathom some unknown mystery buried deep within his subconscious.
¡§How old were you?¡¨
¡§Excuse me?¡¨
He repeated it again, adding more words, so as not to alarm her. ¡§How old were you, when your father died?¡¨
But Deanna didn¡¦t like it. She was the counselor here, and this conversation was going somewhere she didn¡¦t feel like venturing into. ¡§It doesn¡¦t matter, does it?¡¨ She snapped, unaware of her slight loss of emotion ¡Vsurprising, for her.
¡§I think it does.¡¨
¡§Of course it does,¡¨ Deanna took her hands away. ¡§it mattered when your mother died, hadn¡¦t it?¡¨
¡§Don¡¦t bring my mother into this, Deanna. I was asking about-¡¨
¡§Then don¡¦t do the same for my father,¡¨ Deanna interrupted. ¡§I¡¦m the counselor here.¡¨
¡§So you prefer to remain in control?¡¨ Will challenged, not knowing but enjoying what he was throwing himself into.
¡§I prefer to-¡¨ Deanna found herself at a loss for words. Will had the advantage, him being the writer and all. He was a dictionary of words, descriptive and non, he would come up with the best comebacks and frustrate Deanna, probably enjoying it the whole time.
¡§I prefer to do the job I was brought in to do.¡¨
~
The appointment after the next had began the same way. Will dove straight into what they had been talking of the last two days.
¡§Do you think,¡¨ Frustrated, Will knew he had let Deanna gain the upper hand when he lost his temper with her in the beginning of the session. Not that he cared. As of this moment, he wanted to get straight to the point of what had been tickling the edge of his mind since the day before. ¡§That perhaps you would help me more as a friend, than as a counselor? Because so far, we¡¦re on our fourth appointment, and it doesn¡¦t seem like anything is getting solved.¡¨
¡§Why would changing your status to a friend be any better than that of a patient?¡¨
¡§I don¡¦t want to be an
annoyance, Deanna.¡¨ The use of her first name caused his heart to pound louder.
He was in uncharted territory, and whatever the next step was, it was
completely oblivious to him. ¡§I don¡¦t like to argue, especially with someone
who is trying to help me.¡¨
She knew all along ¡Vof course. ¡§It is unusual for me to argue as much as I do with a patient.¡¨ Her mood disappeared like rain did, when the clouds cleared, letting the sunshine through. ¡§But to suddenly be a friend and not a counselor would be like trying to change black paint into white. It takes time.¡¨
¡§Alright, then we start over. You take me off your appointment roster, and I come back tomorrow, only for lunch.¡¨ Excitement lit his face. ¡§We begin, all over again.¡¨
This was not the way to go. What the hell was she doing? This was totally unheard of! What were they talking about, changing from patient to friend?
¡§I don¡¦t know...¡¨
His excitement dissolved like sand in the wind and as a new emotion ¡Vone more familiar to Will- began boiling like overheated water, Deanna found herself in fear.
What would she be missing out on if she didn¡¦t take his offer? On one hand, he was her patient, lost ¡Vwhich is what had landed him in her office in the first place- but confident and strapping ¡Vwhich was why she began thinking of the lunch she later agreed to, as a date.
What would she wear??!!