Author's Note:

This chapter maybe isn't the most Will friendly ever, but I honestly have some serious beef with that guy at this point. Yeah, the characterisation was great, Frakes did a great job of being the suave Casanova we all admired, but really, I binged this show at 14, and all I could think was that he's kind of a jerk. Having read through the Imzadi backstories, I think maybe he gets too much credit, but thinking about it, he's always behaving in a way that makes me think he loves her more for the comfort of knowing she's always there, but not for the practicality of it: having his cake and eating it kind of thing. I don't know, I think more the coward him for not stepping up earlier, maybe that's a controversial thought (?), feel free to let me know if I've just essentially called your grandmother a swine.


The morning arrives in softer colours than the night had been painted in, the low and heavy sun, rising in the way that she admires so much, so welcome after months on a starship in the vacuum of space. All the dew on the grass sparkles like a half a million diamonds, each individually placed by the hands of the gods, all to reflect the rising light in a way that causes all the landscape to be lit up too.

She sees this changing world through her window, standing at the very centre of its bay with a mug of freshly brewed tea in her hands, the steam and the white veil of the glass obscuring her view just enough that the sight is not harsh to her sleepy eyes.

She is not sure of the time.

The whole house is still hunkered beneath a dome of her thoughts, and she can feel how it is impossible to permeate still, though she hasn't the strength to hold it up for much longer with such power, hasn't the strength to let it down.

In her mind, a memory of the night before.

She had been so unsure of where her change of heart came from at first. But waking to find him in her own home, his hands on her body in such a way that they could have been together for years, reminded her so starkly of how he had felt before.

And she was right, he had been more dedicated than the first time, but she had been right also: that the very fact that they were possessed of a first time is enough to tell her that they will not survive a second.

Her work is made up of putting other hearts before her own, always with the consideration she admires of herself, and she will not watch herself be destroyed by him only to please his own heart, only to satisfy her fears of being alone.

This burden she has had placed upon her - to carry a child - she would so love to not have to be alone with it, but a child is no reason for two people to come together in the face of a thousand reasons to not, even when there is love involved, especially when there is love involved.

His love comes not without its limits, and he speaks so often yet says very little at all, the reason why all her poems remain unfinished, and even when she asks herself about what love means to her, she can think only of the heartbreak he causes her.

She is not fragile, but she loves recklessly in a way that keeps getting her hurt.

She is hurting.

She cannot afford to hurt when she needs to be strong for herself, for whatever it is that's happening to her: she will have to do it without him.

Visions of the water come to her, in place of the window, in place of her own eyes, and she is seeing perhaps what Beverly could not - the power of the creatures beneath the surface. They had shown her beautiful things, images of rolling hillsides, baby birds and crying children; the peace of wildlings, and storms that have the silent power to change an entire landscape in one moment of anger.

Beverly had not seen it - she knows - but she had, and somehow in amongst it all, she had decided. No Will, no more of a breaking heart, because she will need to heal herself far too many times before this is over, without considering how he will change her.

He had changed her before - it was not enough.

At the end of the winding path, two figures appear, blackened silhouettes against a burnt umber sun.

She knows who they are before they come close, because they feel both simultaneously of every wonder of a waking world, and of nothing of wonder at all.

Tightening the knot at her waist, drawing the robe in closer to her belly, she finally moves her body in gentle, fluid ways, and she is water once again; not beneath it, or drowning in it, or mourning the loss of its love - she simply is.

The door chime rings, and her mind immediately shrinks away from the touch of a loving machine, the bubble she had built around herself recedes back within her body, with time enough to allow them in.

"Hello Data, Captain Picard,"

Deanna greets them, one arm extended again against the back of the open door, the other open palmed and beckoning them inside.

"Counselor Troi, are you well, you appear to be fatigued?"

The android questions, his eyes scanning the building around him as he enters ahead of the Captain, asking a question he has no idea comes off as terribly caring for a man who claims to understand nothing of humanity; she is touched.

Deanna smiles, lifts her face into a more animated shape; she had slept through the entire night, and much of the early morning.

"I'm fine, thank you Data, the library is just through here,"

She motions him to the closed door at the bottom of the stairs, left of where the front door opens from, and encompassing almost the entirety of that half of the house, save for where the back room cuts in beside the kitchen.

He simply nods his own thanks, and bumbles off inside, affording the Captain the opportunity to speak with her at last.

"Captain,"

She begins before he can say anything at all, turning back into the living room, adjacent to where Data had gone to, expecting that he will simply follow.

"I imagine you are not here to read my books?"

"No Counselor,"

He is following her, responding with an uncharacteristically soft voice, but frowning as he comes upon the mass of shelves covering the walls - he chooses to say nothing on it yet.

Taking the cue from her, he perches himself on the edge of the sofa, across from where she has seated herself comfortably in the armchair, tea now back in her hands.

He tries not to tug at his uniform as he speaks.

"I came to make sure you're okay?"

He is clearly uncomfortable.

"Is your presence not required on the bridge, Sir?"

She inquires, steering him away from his train of thought, not really asking much of anything.

"Not at the minute no, I've left Will in charge,"

Picard responds candidly, but he watches as his name puts a bolt of lightning through her spine, a miniscule reaction, but a reaction nonetheless.

"Though I begin to wonder if it may be foolish to trust that man with my Vessel, given how he could not be trusted with you,"

Deanna's eyes snap away from the spot on the wall behind him, and directly into his own - wary, warning.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about Captain,"

The room quiets for a second, a deep and profound hush that does not permeate, does not do anything other than afford him the opportunity of response, sharp and well thought out.

"Deanna, even if you hadn't personally beamed the man into the middle of my bridge, I'm sure he would have found some other way to demonstrate to me that he hurt you."

He chides softly, his hands coming together between where his elbows are resting on his knees, those eyes of his still not freed from her stare.

"Captain…"

"Deanna, please,"

Picard interrupts, the formality lost on him.

"I don't think I care to know what he did anymore, I just want to know if you're okay, if there's anything I can do to make it better?"

She has to remind herself not to cry, that it will make concentrating on speaking aloud too hard for her, and she takes a deep breath before even opening her mouth.

"Before the Enterprise,"

The girl begins.

"We had love,"

And this is a very peculiar way to phrase it, Picard thinks.

"We had love that is spoken of only in legends, we were imzadi, something which was not meant to be broken,"

She takes in another, shakier breath, lets out a sigh.

"But he left me for a dream he had of the stars, the day we were to be wed, because he felt that there was more than a legend to his life, that he deserved more than legends to build forever on,"

Picard has to focus hard on the word wed, focus hard on all its connotations, on the look that springs into her eyes at its sound, then disappears just as quickly.

"When we met again, I told him no, that we could not continue where we had left - not while serving aboard the same ship,"

A beat.

"I did not tell him that it would simply be too painful, that something which is supposed to be unbreakable, cannot be taken up anytime one feels the desire for something more,"

She smiles, a terribly morose expression.

"I could not tell him that a legend means more than a casual night together, that he cannot use me in the way he might use others - I tried to tell him but I could not."

The Captain blinks slowly, if only to break the hold she has on him for a moment, if only to try to take that moment and use it to really think about what she's telling him, and if she means any of it in the way he thinks.

"Our love is a legend, one which did not exist until it did, and I was told that it would hurt me, that he would use me like a security blanket, long enough to feel good about himself, then discard me again - but that the love would walk around with me all my life, a blessing and a curse,"

Deanna utters, finally pulling her eyes from his, turning her gaze to regard all the books that surround her, up and around the whole room, and she is just a girl in a fable, destined always to be the one to hurt.

She looks back to him, affording herself just one tear, and she tips her head to the side ever so slightly - a tragedy.

"Legends are so often warnings, after all,"