Chapter 4 – Jumping right in

Beverly,

          By now you are probably thinking that I found your letter unwelcome.  I can tell you that nothing could be farther from the truth.  Yes I have spent the last twenty-four hours warring between duty and the heart.  While I have found that I am not quite ready to give up the Enterprise I can not give up my heart either.  Not only do I want to try to see if this could work I want it to succeed.  I long to be able to sit here and shower you with prose ad poetry but find that I to am too nervous to do so. 

          I can honestly say that I was shocked to find your letter at my terminal yesterday, although I had come to the same conclusion not a few moments before I read your letter.  I love you Beverly Howard Crusher, and I am not willing to stand by ad not tell you that.  I want to see you as soon as it can be arranged.

          I want to act like a couple of teenagers in love.  And I want you to be the one that I act that way with.  I spent hours trying to put my life into perspective and I have found that while I have had feelings for others the only one that I want to be with is you.  Until the time that I can see you in person I wait with a lighter heart than I have had in a long time.

                                                                             Jean Luc

          It was a very happy and nervous Captain Jean Luc Picard that copied the letter and sent it off.

          This can't be happening.  I feel like I did when I was a young girl again.  Beverly read the letter for a second time.  She simply could not believe what she was seeing.  Not only was the man she wanted to spend her life with willing to do something crazy he had wanted to do it at the same time.  For so many years, most of which she had been his CMO she had put her feelings in a tiny bottle and only be a doctor.  It hadn't mattered that she had rationalized many years ago that Jack would have wanted her happy and that he definitely would have approved of her choice.  Wes had even told her that he would have been ok with Jean Luc in her life.  Her best friend and the former first officer of the Enterprise had both teased her mercilessly for her worry and fear.  Yet she had shoved all of it aside for duty.  Now she sat at her terminal looking at both her greatest hope and fear in the form of a letter from her beloved.

          She had known for years that he had loved her.  The two of them however took turns pushing the other away for the last fifteen plus years.  Finally after all the intervening time they were both pulling at the same time.  The only drawback to the revelation was that she was in San Francisco and he was God only knew where.  The ship was supposed to be at DS9 but she knew the Captain and command way too well.  It wouldn't hurt if I tried to see if I could get to him.  I don't need to be here yet and I still have over seven months of shore leave due to me.  With her mind set she went to see if she could pull enough strings to meet with her beloved.

          "Welcome to DS9 Commanders.  Captain Kira sends her regrets.  It seems that this entire mess of trying to reunify the Bajoran religious structure is keeping her too busy to even come down here at the moment."  Vaughn took the hand of the woman who stepped off the pad.

          "When's the last time you addressed me by rank, Uncle Elias?  I know Mom and Dad didn't see you that much I remember you being there often enough to know me better than being just the Ship's Counselor of the Enterprise."

          I Elias hadn't known better he would have sworn that he was looking at the girl's mother.  But then again, excluding Deanna Troi who actually favored her father, most Betazoid women that he knew acted like their mothers.  Smiling he spoke again, this time more as the 'Uncle' that she had called him.  "Ok Lana I give.  But I have to at least hold to protocol some of the time.  Anyway the last time I saw you I did not have to address you as anything other than cadet.  Now look at you, counselor on the Enterprise, and coming here as a diplomat at that."  He had almost forgotten about Worf, although absently he wondered how he could have missed something as big as the Commander next to this woman who was just over a meter and a half tall.  "Where are my manners?  Commander Worf, a pleasure to see you again." Now he shook hands with the Klingon.

          "The pleasure is mine sir, especially under much more quiet circumstances."  Worf's bass voice echoed in the room.

          "Agreed.  Considering the first time was during a firefight, I have to say I am greatly relieved to meet under diplomatic stress instead.

          By the way, as soon as Dax knew you were coming she asked if I would extend a dinner invitation from her to you.  Tonight after the initial meetings at Quark's?"

          Worf was a bit thrown off by the invitation.  Ezri Dax was not his wife, but she held all of Jadzia's memories.  Not only that but she still loved him as well, although it was only the Jadzia part that felt that way.  Ezri had fallen for Dr. Bashir and the two of them seemed on their was to marrying themselves.  It always bothered him to be around her but over the last few years he had managed to come to grips with it and they he had even become a friend to the woman.  It still however left a bit of a bad taste in his mouth.  Instead of demurring he decided that maybe it would be a good thing for him, and her.  "Tell her I look forward to it."

          "Good.  Now on to business.  No offense to you Commander," he looked at Alana, "can you explain to me why you were given this assignment over Commander Worf?"

          "I believe that it is because she impressed the captain."  Worf answered the challenge before Alana could speak.  When e said it he realized that he took no small amount of pride in what she had managed to do in the month that she had been stationed on the Enterprise.  She was completely different from both Deanna and Jadzia but her heart beat as a warrior and even though she chose to use the word for her battleground, she was a warrior nonetheless. 

          "I have to hear what you did for that one.  It is awfully hard to impress Jean Luc Picard.  Well since he has very seldom been wrong on his choices for diplomacy I will take his choice without question.  However I do still want to know what you did to set him on his ear in less than a month Lana.  Now why don't we go on to ops and meet the Captain?"

          "Thank you Commander."  With those formal words Elias and Worf watched as the little girl in front of them became a rather distant person, yet pleasant to look at.  The perfect unassuming diplomatic smile.

          The trip to ops was conducted in silence, which for Alana was a good thing.  She had a couple of things that she wanted to think about.  The first and foremost was Worf.  The man always wore his emotions on his sleeve, as Deanna had put it.  She had known that he had been married to a Trill before the war.  Jadzia Dax had been murdered on this station during the war.  The Dax Elias mentioned was the new host of the Dax symbiont.  She held the memories of Jadzia, as well as eight others.  For Worf this was a very hard thing to cope with.  When Elias mentioned her she had felt Worf begin to have an internal battle over how he felt about the idea.  She made a mental note to try to get Worf to come in for a counseling session when they got home. 

          The second thing she wanted to mull over also had to do with the Klingon that was beside her.  Worf had actually been proud of her for getting this assignment.  He was the hardest man to impress that she knew of.  Even Captain Picard could be won over more easily, and that was saying something.  Granted it was very paternal in nature, more like a parent, but it was there, pride in his little girl.  It made her feel a bit giddy.

          The last thing she wanted to contemplate was Elias Vaughn.  Until today when she stepped of the transporter platform she had never been able to read him.  Now, while still guarded, she could read his mental state.  This Elias Vaughn was much more at peace with himself and not afraid to allow others closer to him.  He was actually happy, from what she could tell for the first time in his life.  He was definitely a different man than the one her parents talked vaguely about and would be there once or twice a year. 

          All in all this had been a wonderful day so far, if she could just settle the pair of Targs wrestling in her stomach.

          "If I can make it and leave today I can be at DS9 in three."  A very bubbly Beverly Crusher spoke to the terminal.

          "That is wonderful Beverly.  We definitely need to talk."  Jean Luc positively beamed.

          "I was hoping for more than that.  We can talk for days on subspace, but not much else."

          "Good point.  My, how I have missed you the last couple of months.  Do you realize that I have found myself setting the breakfast table for two several times.  I have even gone so far as to make your tea before I remembered you weren't there.  That is one of the things I am looking forward to."  And more than that my fiery Angel.

          Beverly noticed the sparkle in his eye that usually accompanied him having less than pure thoughts.  Her response came as more of a purr as she allowed herself to flirt.  "I'll bet.  What else do you have in mind?  Professing your love to me is a start, but by now you know that I am a high maintenance girl."  Leaning over to suggestively look at the man she felt as if she was fifteen again with her first serious crush.

          "Well I can say that I have already been put in my place.  How does dinner on the Promenade sound for starters?  We're probably going to be there at least a week, if not closer to a month.  So we have plenty of time."

          "I guess that it pays to be Captain Jean Luc Picard of the Enterprise.  How many captain's can manage to arrange long shore leaves for his crew twice in less than three months?"

          "The first time I will remind you that it was battle damage that put us in dock, I will remind you.  This time it truly pays more to have a counselor who studied religion and a second officer that used to be a diplomat.  With Alana and Worf heading this to start with I won't need to be involved as much.  As a matter of fact if they do as well as I think they are capable of I can say that I think I might have a fair amount of free time during this mission.  So the next question becomes now what so we do?'

          "I can't believe it, you're delegating.  You must be getting old.  As for the question I won't even begin to answer the rhetorical part of it, but I will answer the literal.  Right now we are going to say good-bye.  If I don't get out of here soon I will miss my ride.  I was really lucky.  The Sovereign is leaving here on her way to a colony near the wormhole.  I pulled a couple of strings and they are going to give me a lift to DS9."

          "Now who does it pay to be?"

          "I guess I deserved that one."  She laughed.

          "Now I am glad that I said it.  I happen to enjoy seeing you laugh.  I will see you on DS9.  And Beverly…"

          "Yes Jean Luc?"

          "I have wanted to say this for you for years but never could.  I love you."

          "And I love you.  Good bye for now."

          "Good bye Love.  Picard out."

          I haven't felt this good since I left the Briar Patch.  Smiling Jean Luc Picard left his desk to join his crew.  Walking toward his chair for the first time since they had rebuilt her he truly felt like it was home again.  It wasn't the same home that he once had, but homes changed over the years as families grew and new members added.  No it was not his old home, but it was his new one.