Genre: StarTrek: The Next Generation

Title: New Civilizations

Summary: Guinan plays bartender and Riker crashes a wedding party.

Chapter 12

Guinan never walked, she glided. Many an ensign had cracked jokes about the possibility of the lounge host having wheelies in her boots. As always, she moved smoothly as ever up to the young man seated at the bar who was gazing gloomily at his drink. Ten Forward, often aglow with a hundred people, was quiet at this time and seemed dark. The lighting hadn't changed but the atmosphere often did. The illumination from the internally lit bar gleamed upwards to the two faces on either side. "I don't think I've seen you in here before." This ploy could only work with those people who didn't know Guinan, didn't know that she remembered everyone she'd ever seen, anywhere.

"Oh, I've been in here before." The youth sighed and continued to stare morosely into his glass.

"Oh? Funny. I'd thought I'd have remembered. I've seen the blue woman on the crew, but not you."

The young man looked up and looked at Guinan with a patently bored expression. He said, "I was the blue woman." Then he paused and waited for the reaction. Guinan didn't disappoint him.

"But you're—I mean, she wasn't—"

The bored expression remained while he said, "I'm a Tarlusion. I'm from Tarlus II." He sounded as if he was coaxing an answer from a bright ten year old.

Guinan could only act dumb for just so long. "Oohh! Sure, I get it." She smiled in congenial understanding, but the yeoman in front of her didn't see it. He'd gone back to staring at his dwindling drink.

"You lose something?"

Not lifting his head, he answered, "No. Why?"

"Well, the way you're staring into that glass I'd thought you'd dropped something in there." One of the oldest lines in the publican's repertoire didn't work. The young man continued his gaze in silence, so Guinan switched to the direct approach. "Excuse me for being so rude as to interrupt your meditation, but there are only two people in here, you and me. I'm a very social person and I like conversation. Now the most common conversation between a bar host and a customer is to talk about what's bothering them. At the moment, I don't have anything bothering me. How about you?"

Anyone looking into Guinan's calm face when it was in the 'listening mode', could not resist fulfilling its purpose. The young man assembled his thoughts. "I think I've lost one of the best friends I ever had."

"How so?"

"Well, I never thought twice about my changing. I mean, at home, we just go through it, you know?"

"Yes, so?"

He ducked his head and looked away. "Well, here, everyone's made a big deal out of it. You non-changers, you treat women differently from men."

"Come again?"

He looked desperately at Guinan and words came tumbling out. "Everyone treats me so differently since the change. It's the first I've gone through since joining Starfleet. I'd only gone through two other changes on Tarlus II, where it's normal."

Guinan kept her voice calm. "How are you being treated differently?"

"As a woman I got smiled at a lot, and everyone talked to me in quiet tones. Also, I had to speak up to get my point across. Now, as a man I notice there are fewer smiles and people are much more serious around me. People talk louder, even people I've worked with for several months. Suddenly I've been given more credence, as if I somehow got smarter. But worse, before, men flirted with me and women were friendly but now everyone is acting, well, so neutral you'd think I was a machine. You know? Same name, same height, same memories, same everything, just that now, they know I change gender!" Zidadit ran out of steam.

Guinan waited a couple of beats to be sure he was finished. "And on Tarlus II you treat everyone the same?"

He made a face. "Well, pretty much. I mean, well, pretty much."

Guinan shook her head gently, which made her head covering wobble slightly. She said, "So, what has this got to do with the friend you lost?"

The bored look returned to Zidadit's face but colored slightly brown with impatience this time. "He met me when I was a woman. Now, I'm not."

It was Guinan's turn to look patently bored. "So?"

Guinan and Zidadit stared at each other a moment. "So, you non-changers allow your perceptions of gender to shade your relationships. I think my friend would be very upset to find that his 'girl' friend is now a man. The people I work with seem to be."

Guinan shook her head. "If you know this guy so well, I'm surprised you were friends with him at all. And why didn't you tell him in the first place that you're, shall we say, versatile."

"I didn't tell him because I assumed he knew. I mean, I thought it was pretty obvious that I'm a Tarlusion. It wasn't until after I started changing and the crew I work with made a few comments that I realized they didn't know Tarlusion from Andorian, that they didn't know I change gender every few years. You know, sometimes I think the crew thinks I had a sex-change operation or something!"

"Are you afraid your friend will think the same thing?"

Zidadit looked down at his drink again. "The way everyone is so hung up on gender, I'm afraid it'll clean blow his mind to find I'm a man, now. If he'd maybe seen me change little by little, but I'd been working so much, I didn't have a chance to see him. Now, I'm afraid to. And I miss him, too. He was a good friend." He concluded by looking up into Guinan's cherubic face.

The two continued to stare at each other. Guinan was obviously trying not to lose patience. "I think you should go find your friend and say 'Hi,' to him."

"But what if—"

"Just do it."

Suddenly the quiet of Ten Forward was snapped with the grand entrance of the two pairs of newlyweds and their entourage, all in high spirits. "Now excuse me, I have a wedding reception to tend to." Guinan turned away and glided towards the boisterous group.

The men in the party were whooping loudly and making raucous comments about delaying the groom's connubial bliss as long as possible, slapping them on the back, and winking broadly at everyone. The women were laughing and jibing at the two silent brides, offering to show the girls how to get the upper hand first.

Guinan directed the group to their tables decorated appropriately for the occasion. Everyone oooh-ed and aahh-ed at the simple but ingeniously effective preparations crafted by Guinan's guiding hand. There were even two small cakes, each topped with representations of the couples, the miniature men clad in the gold and black of Engineering, the tiny female partners depicted in rainbow colors, dressed in short white gowns. There were two more tables spread with finger foods, flanked with flower arrangements echoing the vibrant colors of the brides. Large bowls of synthaholic potables were available, surrounded by glasses large enough to satisfy any party thirsts.

Quietly observing that the brides were indeed dressed in abbreviated gowns, the same as the dolls, Guinan was pleased she'd been right. She'd guessed the brides' friends had designed their attire and knew this work section's tastes fairly well. However, she now saw she could have made the grooms' figures bowlegged and the brides magenta colored and dressed in Klingon battle wear and it wouldn't have really mattered. It looked like most of the members of the party were there to simply eat and drink hearty and the brides and grooms were too involved in themselves to notice particulars.

Assured that the party would no doubt continue without her supervision, Guinan turned to see what else could use her attention in her domain and was startled to see Riker standing just inside the doors. On later recall she wasn't sure just whether it was his stance and the look on his face, or if it was just his appearance in that outlandish headdress that had surprised her. Maybe it was the fact that he looked like he'd slept in his uniform and hadn't groomed his beard. Unkempt was just not a word she ever would have associated with the only officer she'd ever seen who could look positively debonair in regulation Starfleet uniform. And the hat! She had heard the scuttlebutt about the gift from the Kronatina, but she hadn't thought that Riker would be sporting it around the ship.

In spite of their friendship, Guinan didn't even consider greeting him. Something about the look on his face or the way he stood told her to keep her distance. Since he had taken no apparent notice of her, Guinan faded back into a shadow, and disappeared for all intents and purposes. Something told her she should keep an eye on her strangely appearing friend.

She saw Riker, at first, simply looked around Ten Forward, almost as if he'd never seen it before. He took notice of the man still sitting at the bar, the bar itself, then the tables and chairs, the huge view ports showing the vast space beyond, and finally the noisy group. His observation of the party, a general one at first, seemed to sharpen and focus abruptly on the two pairs of newlyweds.

According to Guinan's later recall, "Now, ordinarily, when Riker sees a party going on, he just naturally gets into a good mood. He puts on a big smile and gets jolly, even if he only means to stop by, say hello, and then go on his way. This time, well, I couldn't name his mood but it sure wasn't fit for parties."

Guinan watched Riker's face work from intent, to puzzled, to some sort of determination. His body took on a wary stance, his arms spread out slightly from his sides, and his legs spread for balance as he advanced towards the celebrating group.

Everyone welcomed him, making comments on his party hat, apparently taking little notice of his silence, of his intense glare at the two brides, or of his decided lack of party mood. The two brides, however, took very alarmed notice. They shrank under his scrutiny, turning for protection towards their proud husbands. One of the girls seemed determined to burrow into her partner's armpit, shrinking down, huddling against his side. The other one started to disappear behind her mate, using his body to shield her from Riker's gaze. Though everyone else was laughing and making jokes about how it was too late for Riker to lay claims and how the brides were now safe from his clutches, he gave no heed or answer to anyone's greetings or ribald comments. He merely continued to stare, first at one bride and then the other, advancing to within a foot or so between the two.

Although the others, who were drinking and eating more than paying attention, weren't conscious of anything dramatic in Riker's mien, the two grooms did get the nervous giggles. Between trying to reassure their fearful brides that there was nothing to be afraid of and trying to mumble greetings to their strangely behaving commanding officer, honored by his august presence, they had more than they could handle. Groping at the girls who seemed to be determined to embarrass them, and doing a good job of it, they simultaneously broke into the blushing sweats.

Riker ignored the men, continuing to stare first at one and then the other of the multicolored shrinking violets, his jaw thrust forward, not so much in belligerence, but more like a sort of distrusting curiosity. He also lightly huffed and snuffed several times in the girls' direction, causing one girl to sink entirely to the floor under the scrutiny. She wound up pitifully peering at the commander from between her husband's legs. Finally, seeming to come to a conclusion, Riker backed off a step, turned, and abruptly left the lounge, eyed by several curious observers, Guinan included.

Guinan almost went over to the party, to reassure them and try to get them back into the party mood, but there was no need. Theirs was not to reason the behavior of senior officers but rather to party-hearty, so Guinan left well enough alone. Other customers were coming in, and needing service of their own.

TBC to Chapter 13

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