AN: Here we are, another piece to this one.
I hope you enjoy! If you do, please do let me know.
111
Beverly sighed and continued her search through the boxes they'd piled haphazardly in the corridor. Jean-Luc heard the sigh—and, perhaps, even a hint of a frustrated growl—as he approached with another find.
"Nothing satisfactory?" He asked.
She looked at him, brow furrowed, and scowled for a second. Then, her features softened as she chose to respond to him and not whatever she was feeling internally. The scowl gave way to a smile, and then she laughed quietly in her throat.
"I'm beginning to feel like Goldilocks," she said.
"Goldilocks?" Jean-Luc asked.
Her smile was more sincere. Whatever frustration she'd been feeling was lessening a great deal. Jean-Luc almost imagined that he could feel the air around them lightening and cooling—something that would be welcome, given the fact that the air in the interior parts of the ship felt hot, and somewhat humid, and a little stifling. The air was stale and practically sticky in spots. The destruction to the ship was such that there was plenty of air for breathing—coming in through the holes and cracks as it did—but there wasn't any real circulation. The air seemed to take so long to move from one place to another that it had time to become hot, damp, and stagnant.
It was breathable, though, and that was really all that mattered to the two of them.
Getting hot and sweaty, after all, would simply be a possible excuse for a little cooling off with some of the nearly icy water of the lake.
Jean-Luc pushed the thought of the cold water and wet, bare skin out of his mind as quickly as his brain cruelly forced it into his mind's eye.
They hadn't talked about what had happened by the side of the lake. Beverly hadn't begun a single "we need to talk" type of conversation that covered everything they probably did need to talk about. She hadn't scolded him or demanded an apology for the fact that he knew he had been rough with her—and he hadn't been very attentive to her needs.
She hadn't asked about their future or demanded any explanation of his intentions for that possible future.
And Jean-Luc was immensely grateful that she had done none of those things, because he didn't know what to say to her, if she did ask.
He was sorry. He was sorry for the fact that he knew he'd been far less than tender. He was sorry for the fact that he hadn't spent the time that he thought he should have on what she had wanted and needed—he hadn't thought much about her feelings at all, really, once his had taken over.
And as for the future?
Jean-Luc knew little of planning futures beyond Starfleet, where each step of the future was, in some ways, laid out before you. There was always some idea of what you were meant to do "next," and that wasn't so when it came to personal relationships. Perhaps, Jean-Luc thought, that was one of the reasons that he found personal relationships so daunting. There were no orders. There were no paths to follow that had been tread a thousand times before. There were even fewer guarantees, in personal relationships, than there seemed to be in dealing with the Romulans or even the Borg.
What Jean-Luc had seen of personal relationships didn't leave him having much faith in them, and certainly not much faith in himself as a suitable half of a proverbial whole.
Jean-Luc was a coward, when it came to personal relationship, and he was sorry for that, but he felt powerless in the face of his own fear.
Relationships were difficult. They were unpredictable. And, from what he had seen, they often seemed to end badly. Often, it seemed, there was tragic loss if a relationship seemed to have some chance of defying the odds and continuing on happily forever. To love was to set oneself up for either losing or leaving that person to deal with loss. In other instances, the relationships that Jean-Luc saw seemed to end in either a complete mutual dislike or, possibly worse, the slow demise of love—or even affection—on the part of one partner, while the other held on desperately to anything that might be left. Then, there were the relationships that seemed to drag on far beyond the point where one or both of the people involved seemed to crave the end, yet just kept trudging along as if constantly waiting for it. All that seemed to remain between them, at that point, was their quiet, long-suffered misery.
Jean-Luc feared relationships. He feared feeling trapped. He feared witnessing the slow demise of what was once beautiful. He feared leaving Beverly behind to suffer the loss of him, but he feared losing her more than anything else.
And he ached desperately to hold her, but he feared the moment when he must let her go or, worse, the moment when he realized that she no longer wanted his touch—and he was terrified to find out which might lie in their future, if they tried to pursue some future that went beyond the friendship in which he had found many hours of comfort and solace.
Beverly wasn't asking him about the future, though. She wasn't accusing, and she wasn't scolding, and she wasn't asking him to explain anything.
She was sitting on the floor, among things they'd already gathered, and she was smiling at him in a sincere way.
He felt some of the nerves that kept renewing themselves within him, untangle slightly.
"Don't you know the children's story, Jean-Luc?" Beverly asked.
"Of course, I do," Jean-Luc said, lowering himself to sit near her with the box he'd most recently brought from searching among the items in storage. "I'm just not sure what has you feeling like Goldilocks. Are there bears here, Beverly, that I've somehow missed?"
His teasing was silly, and yet she still laughed. It was a simple thing, but it made him feel good to think that he could amuse her—and to know that she would laugh to make him feel good, even if his joke wasn't all that funny. His nerves untangled themselves a touch more.
She sighed, this time with less anger behind her frustration than the first sigh that he'd heard. She looked around and picked up the different items she'd been examining out of the boxes she'd already gone through.
"No—it's the whole feeling of this mesh is too large, Jean-Luc. The smaller fish will slip right through it. But this mesh is too small. The water and dirt will get trapped, and we'll just end up with slow-draining bags of water."
Jean-Luc couldn't help but laugh a little at her assessment of the meshes they'd found so far—most of which had been attached to different items they'd been meant to deliver to one place or another.
"I think I may have something for you," Jean-Luc said.
"Something different than everything else we've seen?" Beverly asked. "At this rate, we're going to have to take these apart, entirely, and weave our own nets."
"You might start preparing yourself for the best fish dinner that you've ever had," Jean-Luc said. "At least, assuming that we find that our fish are edible and at all appetizing, once they've been caught and prepared."
He pulled the box around and opened it.
"What's in there?" Beverly asked, leaning up enough to try to look over the box.
"These were a specialty item that we were supposed to drop by the colony on one of the moons of Beldevak when we passed that way," Jean-Luc said. "There are at least a dozen boxes of them. And I remembered…they were quite strange, but they do have these netted panels."
He offered one over to Beverly, and she examined it. Her eyes widened, and her smile lit up, and Jean-Luc couldn't help but smile in response. He didn't even try to ignore the response that he felt in his chest. He loved to make her smile like that—no matter how or why it happened.
"Jean-Luc…these are perfect!" Beverly said.
He laughed at her enthusiasm—all born over netted panels.
"I believe you mean to say that they're just right," he teased.
She laughed and her cheeks blushed slightly redder than they were from the warm air.
"They're just right," she said.
"Each panel is a bit small, I'm afraid," Jean-Luc said. "But they appear to be easy enough to detach."
"You said there are more boxes of these?"
"A dozen or more," Jean-Luc said. "I stopped looking after I opened a few of them. I wanted you to tell me what you thought before I spent much more time on them."
"The netting detaches pretty easily," Beverly said, turning over the item in her hand and pulling the corner of the netting free from its original intended place.
"And there's a piece under here," Jean-Luc said, moving next to her to show her what he was looking at, "that would be quite sharp if we were to detach it. I think they'd make suitable blades for weapons. They won't cut wood, but they'll be good for at least a dozen other tasks."
She looked thrilled by the prospect.
"Let's get the other boxes and get started. We'll collect the netting in some boxes and the blades in the others. Then, I can take these nets apart and use the threads for stitching these panels together to make larger nets."
"It's going to be quite time consuming," Jean-Luc pointed out.
Beverly laughed at that.
"We've got nothing but time, Jean-Luc," she said.
She got up and started off in the direction from which he'd come—clearly meaning to go and gather up some more of the boxes.
As he watched her go, he thought for a moment about what she'd said. They had plenty of time—or, at the very least, they may have plenty of time.
Deep down, some piece of him wanted to believe that Starfleet was coming for them. The Federation would search for them, and it would find them—whenever and wherever they were. They might be rescued before night fell on the planet again.
Of course, they may be here forever. They may have all the time in the world, as Beverly suggested—a lifetime. They may have a future, whether or not they talked about what that future might look like.
Jean-Luc let the thought settle in his stomach and, when he felt his muscles tense a little at the prospect, he got to his feet and started after Beverly.
"It was Cargo Bay 3 where I found the boxes," Jean-Luc called out. "I have an idea…if you're not opposed to a little additional exercise."
"What's that?" Beverly asked, slowing for him to catch up with her, now that she knew that he was coming with her.
"Why don't we take the boxes outside? We'll grab a tarp to take with us. We can sit outside in the fresh air and do our work. It's a great deal easier to breathe out there than it is in here."
Beverly smiled at him.
"I'd love that," she said. "I'm starting to feel a bit claustrophobic."
"It's stifling in here," Jean-Luc agreed. "Especially after as long as we've been at it. How many boxes do you think you'll need to make some proper sized nets?"
"I think we should take anything we can find," Beverly said. "And—at least ten of the larger mesh pieces, if we can find them, so I can take them apart. The heavy thread will be useful, even if I don't need it all for the nets."
"Fine," Jean-Luc said. "You take the tarp and the first load of boxes that you can carry out, and I'll bring the rest."
"I don't want you doing all the work," Beverly said.
"You'll get started on the more delicate work," Jean-Luc said. "I can certainly earn my keep by being the packhorse of the day. I might as well make myself useful, after all."
Beverly smiled at him, and there was something in her smile—something that sent a jolt through Jean-Luc. It wasn't too obvious, though, and Jean-Luc could almost convince himself that he'd missed it.
"I wouldn't want to be here without you," she said simply.
Jean-Luc felt his throat tighten.
"Beverly…" He said.
She stopped and looked at him.
"There's…something I need to say to you," he said. "Something—I've been meaning to say. Words…don't always come easily to me. You know that."
"I know," she said. She gave him an encouraging smile.
A thousand thoughts pinballed through Jean-Luc's mind. He'd meant to say so much, perhaps, over the years. He'd said none of it, really—or precious few things that should have been said. With Beverly's full attention at the moment, though, he found it hard to even know where to begin, or to know where he felt safe beginning.
Even he felt let down by his words, and he gave her a somewhat apologetic look while delivering them, hoping she understood what he wasn't saying—what he couldn't say, at least not yet.
"I can't imagine being here without you," Jean-Luc said. "I would never want to be. And—it hasn't escaped my attention that you essentially stranded yourself here for me. An—ultimate act, Beverly…of duty."
"It was a great deal more than duty, Jean-Luc," Beverly said.
His stomach twisted and knotted. He held her eyes. His pulse kicked up. Breathing was harder than he'd once remembered it being—and he tried his best to blame it on the thickness of the warm, stale air of the corridor in which they stood.
"Friendship…then…" He said, no longer knowing if he was trying to finish her thought for her, or instruct her how she should respond, in order to protect him from himself—to protect him from his foolish fear.
He was a coward, and he knew it. Yet, at the moment, he felt helpless against his own fear.
She smiled at him, but this time he didn't believe it—not like he had before.
"For friendship, then," she said, nodding her head.
Jean-Luc felt a sinking feeling that almost made him nauseous. Never before had he been so aware that someone was agreeing with him—confirming what he'd said he'd wanted—and felt so entirely devastated by that feeling.
"Beverly…" He said, his voice catching slightly on the lump his disappointment in himself caused in his throat.
She shook her head gently and renewed the slightest hint of a smile—reassurance, perhaps, but he didn't want it.
"Let's get those boxes," she said. "It's getting hard to breathe in here."
Jean-Luc nodded his head.
It was getting hard to breathe—painfully difficult—but it wasn't because of the stale, hot air trapped in the corpse of the Enterprise. Not for Jean-Luc.