Fic:: Wine, Poetry or Virtue [ST: TNG]
May. 9th, 2014 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenThis is the last of my recent batch of Star Trek ficlets! For soupytwist, who wanted people to be happy.
Fic:: Wine, Poetry or Virtue
by Raven
3000w, Star Trek: The Next Generation, gen, kinda, ensemble (including Guinan and Lwaxana Troi!). The crew of the Enterprise-D get drunk and make poor decisions.
The important thing to remember here is that they're all on shore leave. Deanna and her mother and Guinan and this beautiful pink curved glass with the frosting of sugar and crushed mint leaves, all on shore leave. The glass did sterling work in the entire Tethys sector. It helped Geordi fix the universal translator and helped Will give inspiring speeches to keep their morale up and helped Deanna counsel a whole ship's complement who are all as fruity as a nutcake. It needs a break.
"Fruity," she says, after a while, inhaling the mint and passion fruit and strawberry flavours. "Like this glass."
You're drunk, little one, says her mother's voice into her mind. Deanna puts her hands on her hips and says, "I wish you wouldn't do that."
"Be careful what you wish for," Guinan says, and Deanna says:
"Another drink."
"How very wonderful," Lwaxana says, enunciating every syllable very carefully, and Deanna huffs and giggles and says something about a pot calling a kettle pink.
So, it's been a great evening. It's been a great evening with the Tethans. Tethyans. Something. A great week. They made first contact about a gazillion years ago, actually five, so this is second contact, cultural acclimatisation or whatever and they've been into space since then so there's nothing to do with the Prime Directive in any of the briefings. Which is great. Deanna hates reading about the Prime Directive in pre-mission reports because it always involves about fourteen compulsory footnotes that begin "Kirk" or "Enterprise". But even without that, Deanna has negotiated and coaxed and soothed and stroked down ruffled feathers and done empathic readings on about a gazillion, actually quite a lot more than five, totally alien minds, and when it was all over the Tethyan Chief High Something Something Provost asked Deanna what she wished to do next and she's pretty sure she meant to say something sensible about a job well done and enjoying cultural commonalities but what came out of her mouth wasn't that. She's lucky the universal translator doesn't even know Federation Standard for "get wasted".
"Isn't it so interesting," Deanna says, gesturing with the glass to the empty observation deck, "that they've got two sentient species on the planet. Interesting. I mean. And they love us! I mean." She stops, gestures more precisely, and the stray mint leaves stop showering onto her hair. "I mean, cultural and accession negotiation proceeded without incident. Uh."
The ship shifts beneath her, like they're making sail, and there's no more booze in Ten Forward. Lwaxana – why is her mother on board, anyway? Deanna thinks about that for a moment, and no answer is immediately forthcoming – moves in close to Guinan and says, with great gravitas, "Perhaps, behind the bar…"
Guinan shakes her head, then nods. Deanna is confused. "Closing time," Guinan says, waving a mysterious finger, "will be far, far later in the capital city of a planet that just agreed to join the Federation than aboard, the, uh." She smiles a conspiratorial smile and Deanna can't putting her own finger to her lips, like they're sharing a secret. "Federation starship Enterprise."
Deanna smiles back – really, Guinan has all the best ideas – and they tumble in the direction of the door and along to transporter room three. On the way there they half-fall into Geordi, who's arm-in-arm with a dark-haired stranger, and Lwaxana shivers deliciously. Just before the sparkle of dematerialisation, she mutters, "I never knew Geordi La Forge desired men. And such desire!"
Well, Deanna thinks, everyone on that planet will be a Federation citizen in the morning, who can blame Geordi for getting a jump on it.
Jump on it, she thinks again, and giggles, and then they're on the planet's surface, surrounded by low, warm sandstone-analogue buildings, standing under a clear sky. The night air is soft and full of promise, carrying the sounds of distant laughter and music, and just on the street they're on Deanna can see at least fourteen drinking establishments with raised awnings and a general attitude of being open for business.
"Ladies," Guinan says, offering each of them an arm, "let's do this."
*
Of course they're not the first people to have had this idea. As they trundle past a window Dr Crusher and a couple of her nurses wave through the glass, and when they go inside Beverly has already ordered them three glasses of the house special, and a Tethyan-A waiter undulates to the table with a tray. (Tethyan-B people are mostly humanoid, although Deanna can't read them; Tethyan-A people are entirely transparent, both mentally and physically.) Deanna is inhaling deeply – mint, passion fruit, and strawberry, perfect – when Beverly makes a choked sound and pushes herself back from the table.
"My ring!" she bursts out, pointing at something gold and glittering in a small pool of spilled alcohol, collected in a dip in the wood. "That's my mother's wedding ring. I thought I lost it! "
Deanna stares at it. "I don't understand," she says after a minute.
Beverly looks at her, and then at the gleaming object in the pool. "I lost it on the ship," she says, uncertainly. "Maybe two or three months back. I'd turned my quarters upside down looking for it."
"Maybe it fell out of your pocket here," Deanna says, doubtfully, and realises she's beginning to sober up. The room is slipping into neat focus and she's beginning to be able to get an emotional read on people. Damn.
Luckily, her mother is on hand. "Little one" - she's waving another pink glass - "drink up" – and Deanna does.
"Huh," Beverly says, finally, takes an absent-minded sip from Deanna's glass and slips the ring on her finger. Deanna drinks the rest, slowly but determinedly. Sometimes, she thinks very deliberately, you just want to get drunk and have a good time, and sees her mother's smile.
"Enterprise to Dr Crusher. This is Dr Selar."
"What is it, Doctor?" Beverly asks, lazily. "You should that not only am I off-duty, I am pretty much off..."
"I am aware of your state of inebriation, Doctor." Selar's voice is clipped. "It is my opinion that there is something here you would wish to witness."
"Huh." Beverly slaps the combadge and deliberately knocks over her glass. It rolls, empty, off the table, and doesn't break. "Crusher to Enterprise. One to beam up."
Deanna picks up a feeling of general unwillingness long after Beverly's physical form has begun to dissolve, which she takes as evidence of strength of emotion rather than evidence of sobriety. And then Beverly's gone, and Deanna reaches down to pick up the glass and nearly punches someone in the face.
"Mother," she says, "there's a man hiding under here."
"They do that, you know, little one," Lwaxana intones, seriously. "Men. They just fall off their little perches. Oh, dear," she adds, "you're a little young for me, don't you think?"
Deanna pushes her out the way, leans down and says: "Reg. Are you all right?"
"Fine," Reg says, smiling beatifically. "I met this wonderful woman."
"You see?" Lwaxana asks Guinan, gesturing with a glass. "You see. Men all the same, everywhere. Of course you'd know, dear. Looking as you do. "
Guinan smiles. "It's always nice to be appreciated."
"Not that wonderful woman," Reg amends, still laid out flat with that little smile. "She asked me at the party, what my dearest wish in the world was. And I said, I guess I was trying to do a - you know. A little joke. That I'd never have to get in the transporter again. You know it deconstitutes you down to the molecular level? I mean, of course you know, it's just me who knows. In a manner of speaking. And she laughed. I thought she might... anyway."
Lwaxana is staring at him. "Your mind is a frightening place, my dear," she says, very gently, and Deanna glares at her and then gets broken off by a horrible fizzing sound somewhere in the vicinity of her own cleavage. She frowns, wobbles, and pulls off her combadge and shakes it.
"Reg, wake up. You're the engineer. What happened?"
"Crossed wire," he murmurs, drowsily.
Deanna shakes it again and says, "Troi to Enterprise. No, it's not that one! Pick up, damn you."
"Deanna." It's Beverly's voice and she sounds quite sober. "Deanna, I need you on the Enterprise now."
"Guinan," Deanna says, "will you and Mother" - but they're not even paying attention, Lwaxana pushing her hair behind her ears in a half-coy gesture and Guinan suggesting something from the cocktail menu. Deanna rolls her eyes and says, "Enterprise. One to beam up."
She's running out of the transporter room and down the darkened ship's corridor when she runs straight into Will Riker. "Deanna!" he says. "I tried to comm you..."
"You and Beverly both," she tells him, falling into step beside him. "What is it?"
"Have you seen Ensign Ro?"
That's not what Deanna was expecting. She frowns and says, "Not since the party. Is she..."
"That's what I'm trying to find out," he says, ruefully. "She was meant to take her post an hour ago. I don't want to wake up the captain unless we actually have to declare her AWOL. It's just... you know what she's like."
"I'm sure she's out for a drink somewhere and lost track of time," Deanna says, privately wondering who Ro drinks with and if she, Deanna Troi, shouldn't get better drinking buddies, and the ship lurches again under her feet, which seems unfair now that the alcohol is draining out of her system. "I'll let you know if I see her."
He nods and jogs off down the corridor. Deanna shakes her head and goes on to sickbay, which seems oddly full of activity for this time of night, the intensity of the light giving her a headache. As she reaches the door, she hears someone say: "Why does he have blue eyes? From everything I've seen in the records, they should be brown."
"No," Dr. Selar says, turning to some scrolling diagram of – genetic code? Deanna isn't, probably, sober enough for this, though she's picking up that Selar's Vulcan control is fraying at the edges, and isn't that alarming. "No, I have here the last information on file for both his parents, a twenty-five percent chance exists…"
The stranger, who does have blue eyes, looks up at her and says, "Counsellor Troi?"
"Well," Deanna says, "you're… new" – and sits heavily down on the neighbouring bed and catches her breath and does a quick assessment of her own mental state. No amount of alcohol, she decides, can explain this.
She's about to do a reading on him, for professional courtesy's sake, when Will runs into sickbay and says, "Who the hell is that? Abandon ship!"
*
"Data," Riker says, some time later, after all the running and yelling is over, "that is incredibly disturbing."
They're back in the bar. It isn't even closed to customers, though Deanna is pretty sure no one else could fit in here without every one of the three hundred Enterprise crew members already present taking a species-appropriate deep breath.
"Sorry, sir," Data says, but he doesn't sound sorry, more amused. Everything he says sounds amused. Deanna wonders if she's going to have to reassess several years of interaction in light of this new information.
"Data, stop that," Geordi snaps, and takes the knife away from him as though from a fractious child, though not too late for Deanna to see the drop of blood rise to the surface of his fingertip. "Commander? Is everyone accounted for?"
Will nods. He's just come in from making the rounds; the rest of the crew are all in the other bars along the street, and they'll worry about Starfleet's image problem later. "Everyone except Ensign Ro."
He sounds genuinely worried about her, and Deanna has a flash of affection for him. Data, meanwhile, reaches for his combadge and says, "Data to Enterprise. Please respond."
"Data" – apparently, everything about Data is putting Will's teeth on edge right now – "no one's left. We transported everyone off save anyone who was already down here."
"The Enterprise has not yet begun atmospheric re-entry, sir," Data says mildly. "The computer core is still intact. Computer, data summary on principal economic and social structures on Cardassia Prime, please."
"Error. Cardassia Prime is uninhabited." The combadge fizzes a little. "No inhabited worlds exist in the Cardassian system."
Deanna inhales sharply, and Data nods. "I believe her parents met in a Cardassian-run refugee camp on Bajor, sir."
"She wished herself out of existence?" says Geordi, horrified, and then: "Who the hell wishes the Enterprise would fall out of the sky?"
"Uh." Reg Barclay crawls out from under his table, finally. "I think that would be me, Commander. I didn't want to transport up to the Enterprise…"
"So the Enterprise is coming to you," Data says, and Deanna kind of forgives him for thinking that's hilarious, and then says:
"I have an idea."
*
It can't be Beverly, still holding her mother's ring like any second it's going to disappear back into the firmament. Of Data and Geordi, Deanna doesn't want to ask which one didn't use their wish. Reg is hiding under a table and threatening never to come out ever again. Her mother –
I shouldn't be here at all, little one. Her mother smiles inside her mind; it's a comfort. What did you wish for?
Pink cocktails and good company, Deanna thinks back, and stops still for a moment in the shining light of her mother's affection.
"Will," she asks, "did you, by any chance" – but he shakes his head, and later she'll have to ask what he wished for. Dr Selar wished to hear from her daughter on Vulcan. Worf wished for Alexander's future prospects and a bigger bat'leth. Ensign Ishikawa wished for cream cakes for tea. Everyone wanted something; everyone needs something. Deanna goes out for a minute's fresh air, stands there taking deep breaths and deliberately not looking up at the sky, when a gentle hand lands on her shoulder.
"Kid," Guinan says, "I guess you're looking for me."
Deanna says, "Guinan..."
"Almost grew out of wanting things," Guinan says. "You do, after a long life. Almost."
She looks up, Deanna following her gaze, and the Enterprise hits atmosphere like a shooting star.
*
The world comes back into focus slowly. Deanna is lying on a picnic blanket spread over grass so soft and perfect it's probably a hologram, and breathing in, she recognises the careful scent of everywhere and nowhere – of what the holodeck provides when no planet is specified. She keeps her eyes closed for the moment and listens to the deep, warm resonance of the ship beneath her head.
"Provost," Captain Picard is saying, somewhere close at hand, "thank you for agreeing to meet with me. Before we conclude our accession negotiations, I find myself needing to raise the subject of certain… abilities your people may have."
Their footsteps fade away. Deanna opens her eyes on a small, civilised garden party. Geordi, dressed in civvies, is chasing a silver tabby across the grass and Deanna picks up the quick jaggedness of animal thoughts: it's not holographic. "Data," Geordi calls, "when did you get another cat?"
"I do not recall," Data says, sounding confused. "In fact, a period of around eight hours is currently inaccessible to my memory banks."
"Huh," Geordi says. "Can I name her?"
Deanna sits up and hugs her knees. "Strawberry?" her mother asks, handing her three without asking. "They're your favourite."
"I figured," Guinan says, from behind her, "we all deserved a little something. Even if I had to" – she waves a hand – "you know."
Deanna smiles a little and takes a bite of the first strawberry. "Ro Laren?"
"Back where she belongs, torturing Commander Riker." Guinan gestures again across the space, and Deanna makes out Ro saying something to Will, who is waving a trombone around in response. "She doesn't remember a thing. You were more in the eye of the storm, so to speak."
"Huh," Deanna says, consciously echoing Geordi. "It seems a little unfair on you, Guinan. You didn't get to – even for a while."
"Don't you worry about me, kid," Guinan says, "I've got all I need."
Guinan's eating strawberries too, Deanna realises; that her mother, Lwaxana Troi, daughter of the Fifth House of Betazed and Heir to the Holy Rings, has just carefully picked out from the basket and handed to her. They both read as happy, Deanna decides. Happy, with just a tinge of pink juice and mint-sweetness.
Deanna curls back up on the grass and listens to Geordi deciding to name the cat after his eighth-grade girlfriend, and Data's silence like laughter; to her mother, telling Guinan about the scent of flowers in the house where she was born; to Captain Picard telling the Provost that he wishes always to live in interesting times; to the ship, as steady as a heartbeat. It's a beautiful afternoon. She thinks she'll take a nap.
end.
soupytwist, who wanted people to be happy.Fic:: Wine, Poetry or Virtue
by Raven
3000w, Star Trek: The Next Generation, gen, kinda, ensemble (including Guinan and Lwaxana Troi!). The crew of the Enterprise-D get drunk and make poor decisions.
The important thing to remember here is that they're all on shore leave. Deanna and her mother and Guinan and this beautiful pink curved glass with the frosting of sugar and crushed mint leaves, all on shore leave. The glass did sterling work in the entire Tethys sector. It helped Geordi fix the universal translator and helped Will give inspiring speeches to keep their morale up and helped Deanna counsel a whole ship's complement who are all as fruity as a nutcake. It needs a break.
"Fruity," she says, after a while, inhaling the mint and passion fruit and strawberry flavours. "Like this glass."
You're drunk, little one, says her mother's voice into her mind. Deanna puts her hands on her hips and says, "I wish you wouldn't do that."
"Be careful what you wish for," Guinan says, and Deanna says:
"Another drink."
"How very wonderful," Lwaxana says, enunciating every syllable very carefully, and Deanna huffs and giggles and says something about a pot calling a kettle pink.
So, it's been a great evening. It's been a great evening with the Tethans. Tethyans. Something. A great week. They made first contact about a gazillion years ago, actually five, so this is second contact, cultural acclimatisation or whatever and they've been into space since then so there's nothing to do with the Prime Directive in any of the briefings. Which is great. Deanna hates reading about the Prime Directive in pre-mission reports because it always involves about fourteen compulsory footnotes that begin "Kirk" or "Enterprise". But even without that, Deanna has negotiated and coaxed and soothed and stroked down ruffled feathers and done empathic readings on about a gazillion, actually quite a lot more than five, totally alien minds, and when it was all over the Tethyan Chief High Something Something Provost asked Deanna what she wished to do next and she's pretty sure she meant to say something sensible about a job well done and enjoying cultural commonalities but what came out of her mouth wasn't that. She's lucky the universal translator doesn't even know Federation Standard for "get wasted".
"Isn't it so interesting," Deanna says, gesturing with the glass to the empty observation deck, "that they've got two sentient species on the planet. Interesting. I mean. And they love us! I mean." She stops, gestures more precisely, and the stray mint leaves stop showering onto her hair. "I mean, cultural and accession negotiation proceeded without incident. Uh."
The ship shifts beneath her, like they're making sail, and there's no more booze in Ten Forward. Lwaxana – why is her mother on board, anyway? Deanna thinks about that for a moment, and no answer is immediately forthcoming – moves in close to Guinan and says, with great gravitas, "Perhaps, behind the bar…"
Guinan shakes her head, then nods. Deanna is confused. "Closing time," Guinan says, waving a mysterious finger, "will be far, far later in the capital city of a planet that just agreed to join the Federation than aboard, the, uh." She smiles a conspiratorial smile and Deanna can't putting her own finger to her lips, like they're sharing a secret. "Federation starship Enterprise."
Deanna smiles back – really, Guinan has all the best ideas – and they tumble in the direction of the door and along to transporter room three. On the way there they half-fall into Geordi, who's arm-in-arm with a dark-haired stranger, and Lwaxana shivers deliciously. Just before the sparkle of dematerialisation, she mutters, "I never knew Geordi La Forge desired men. And such desire!"
Well, Deanna thinks, everyone on that planet will be a Federation citizen in the morning, who can blame Geordi for getting a jump on it.
Jump on it, she thinks again, and giggles, and then they're on the planet's surface, surrounded by low, warm sandstone-analogue buildings, standing under a clear sky. The night air is soft and full of promise, carrying the sounds of distant laughter and music, and just on the street they're on Deanna can see at least fourteen drinking establishments with raised awnings and a general attitude of being open for business.
"Ladies," Guinan says, offering each of them an arm, "let's do this."
Of course they're not the first people to have had this idea. As they trundle past a window Dr Crusher and a couple of her nurses wave through the glass, and when they go inside Beverly has already ordered them three glasses of the house special, and a Tethyan-A waiter undulates to the table with a tray. (Tethyan-B people are mostly humanoid, although Deanna can't read them; Tethyan-A people are entirely transparent, both mentally and physically.) Deanna is inhaling deeply – mint, passion fruit, and strawberry, perfect – when Beverly makes a choked sound and pushes herself back from the table.
"My ring!" she bursts out, pointing at something gold and glittering in a small pool of spilled alcohol, collected in a dip in the wood. "That's my mother's wedding ring. I thought I lost it! "
Deanna stares at it. "I don't understand," she says after a minute.
Beverly looks at her, and then at the gleaming object in the pool. "I lost it on the ship," she says, uncertainly. "Maybe two or three months back. I'd turned my quarters upside down looking for it."
"Maybe it fell out of your pocket here," Deanna says, doubtfully, and realises she's beginning to sober up. The room is slipping into neat focus and she's beginning to be able to get an emotional read on people. Damn.
Luckily, her mother is on hand. "Little one" - she's waving another pink glass - "drink up" – and Deanna does.
"Huh," Beverly says, finally, takes an absent-minded sip from Deanna's glass and slips the ring on her finger. Deanna drinks the rest, slowly but determinedly. Sometimes, she thinks very deliberately, you just want to get drunk and have a good time, and sees her mother's smile.
"Enterprise to Dr Crusher. This is Dr Selar."
"What is it, Doctor?" Beverly asks, lazily. "You should that not only am I off-duty, I am pretty much off..."
"I am aware of your state of inebriation, Doctor." Selar's voice is clipped. "It is my opinion that there is something here you would wish to witness."
"Huh." Beverly slaps the combadge and deliberately knocks over her glass. It rolls, empty, off the table, and doesn't break. "Crusher to Enterprise. One to beam up."
Deanna picks up a feeling of general unwillingness long after Beverly's physical form has begun to dissolve, which she takes as evidence of strength of emotion rather than evidence of sobriety. And then Beverly's gone, and Deanna reaches down to pick up the glass and nearly punches someone in the face.
"Mother," she says, "there's a man hiding under here."
"They do that, you know, little one," Lwaxana intones, seriously. "Men. They just fall off their little perches. Oh, dear," she adds, "you're a little young for me, don't you think?"
Deanna pushes her out the way, leans down and says: "Reg. Are you all right?"
"Fine," Reg says, smiling beatifically. "I met this wonderful woman."
"You see?" Lwaxana asks Guinan, gesturing with a glass. "You see. Men all the same, everywhere. Of course you'd know, dear. Looking as you do. "
Guinan smiles. "It's always nice to be appreciated."
"Not that wonderful woman," Reg amends, still laid out flat with that little smile. "She asked me at the party, what my dearest wish in the world was. And I said, I guess I was trying to do a - you know. A little joke. That I'd never have to get in the transporter again. You know it deconstitutes you down to the molecular level? I mean, of course you know, it's just me who knows. In a manner of speaking. And she laughed. I thought she might... anyway."
Lwaxana is staring at him. "Your mind is a frightening place, my dear," she says, very gently, and Deanna glares at her and then gets broken off by a horrible fizzing sound somewhere in the vicinity of her own cleavage. She frowns, wobbles, and pulls off her combadge and shakes it.
"Reg, wake up. You're the engineer. What happened?"
"Crossed wire," he murmurs, drowsily.
Deanna shakes it again and says, "Troi to Enterprise. No, it's not that one! Pick up, damn you."
"Deanna." It's Beverly's voice and she sounds quite sober. "Deanna, I need you on the Enterprise now."
"Guinan," Deanna says, "will you and Mother" - but they're not even paying attention, Lwaxana pushing her hair behind her ears in a half-coy gesture and Guinan suggesting something from the cocktail menu. Deanna rolls her eyes and says, "Enterprise. One to beam up."
She's running out of the transporter room and down the darkened ship's corridor when she runs straight into Will Riker. "Deanna!" he says. "I tried to comm you..."
"You and Beverly both," she tells him, falling into step beside him. "What is it?"
"Have you seen Ensign Ro?"
That's not what Deanna was expecting. She frowns and says, "Not since the party. Is she..."
"That's what I'm trying to find out," he says, ruefully. "She was meant to take her post an hour ago. I don't want to wake up the captain unless we actually have to declare her AWOL. It's just... you know what she's like."
"I'm sure she's out for a drink somewhere and lost track of time," Deanna says, privately wondering who Ro drinks with and if she, Deanna Troi, shouldn't get better drinking buddies, and the ship lurches again under her feet, which seems unfair now that the alcohol is draining out of her system. "I'll let you know if I see her."
He nods and jogs off down the corridor. Deanna shakes her head and goes on to sickbay, which seems oddly full of activity for this time of night, the intensity of the light giving her a headache. As she reaches the door, she hears someone say: "Why does he have blue eyes? From everything I've seen in the records, they should be brown."
"No," Dr. Selar says, turning to some scrolling diagram of – genetic code? Deanna isn't, probably, sober enough for this, though she's picking up that Selar's Vulcan control is fraying at the edges, and isn't that alarming. "No, I have here the last information on file for both his parents, a twenty-five percent chance exists…"
The stranger, who does have blue eyes, looks up at her and says, "Counsellor Troi?"
"Well," Deanna says, "you're… new" – and sits heavily down on the neighbouring bed and catches her breath and does a quick assessment of her own mental state. No amount of alcohol, she decides, can explain this.
She's about to do a reading on him, for professional courtesy's sake, when Will runs into sickbay and says, "Who the hell is that? Abandon ship!"
"Data," Riker says, some time later, after all the running and yelling is over, "that is incredibly disturbing."
They're back in the bar. It isn't even closed to customers, though Deanna is pretty sure no one else could fit in here without every one of the three hundred Enterprise crew members already present taking a species-appropriate deep breath.
"Sorry, sir," Data says, but he doesn't sound sorry, more amused. Everything he says sounds amused. Deanna wonders if she's going to have to reassess several years of interaction in light of this new information.
"Data, stop that," Geordi snaps, and takes the knife away from him as though from a fractious child, though not too late for Deanna to see the drop of blood rise to the surface of his fingertip. "Commander? Is everyone accounted for?"
Will nods. He's just come in from making the rounds; the rest of the crew are all in the other bars along the street, and they'll worry about Starfleet's image problem later. "Everyone except Ensign Ro."
He sounds genuinely worried about her, and Deanna has a flash of affection for him. Data, meanwhile, reaches for his combadge and says, "Data to Enterprise. Please respond."
"Data" – apparently, everything about Data is putting Will's teeth on edge right now – "no one's left. We transported everyone off save anyone who was already down here."
"The Enterprise has not yet begun atmospheric re-entry, sir," Data says mildly. "The computer core is still intact. Computer, data summary on principal economic and social structures on Cardassia Prime, please."
"Error. Cardassia Prime is uninhabited." The combadge fizzes a little. "No inhabited worlds exist in the Cardassian system."
Deanna inhales sharply, and Data nods. "I believe her parents met in a Cardassian-run refugee camp on Bajor, sir."
"She wished herself out of existence?" says Geordi, horrified, and then: "Who the hell wishes the Enterprise would fall out of the sky?"
"Uh." Reg Barclay crawls out from under his table, finally. "I think that would be me, Commander. I didn't want to transport up to the Enterprise…"
"So the Enterprise is coming to you," Data says, and Deanna kind of forgives him for thinking that's hilarious, and then says:
"I have an idea."
It can't be Beverly, still holding her mother's ring like any second it's going to disappear back into the firmament. Of Data and Geordi, Deanna doesn't want to ask which one didn't use their wish. Reg is hiding under a table and threatening never to come out ever again. Her mother –
I shouldn't be here at all, little one. Her mother smiles inside her mind; it's a comfort. What did you wish for?
Pink cocktails and good company, Deanna thinks back, and stops still for a moment in the shining light of her mother's affection.
"Will," she asks, "did you, by any chance" – but he shakes his head, and later she'll have to ask what he wished for. Dr Selar wished to hear from her daughter on Vulcan. Worf wished for Alexander's future prospects and a bigger bat'leth. Ensign Ishikawa wished for cream cakes for tea. Everyone wanted something; everyone needs something. Deanna goes out for a minute's fresh air, stands there taking deep breaths and deliberately not looking up at the sky, when a gentle hand lands on her shoulder.
"Kid," Guinan says, "I guess you're looking for me."
Deanna says, "Guinan..."
"Almost grew out of wanting things," Guinan says. "You do, after a long life. Almost."
She looks up, Deanna following her gaze, and the Enterprise hits atmosphere like a shooting star.
The world comes back into focus slowly. Deanna is lying on a picnic blanket spread over grass so soft and perfect it's probably a hologram, and breathing in, she recognises the careful scent of everywhere and nowhere – of what the holodeck provides when no planet is specified. She keeps her eyes closed for the moment and listens to the deep, warm resonance of the ship beneath her head.
"Provost," Captain Picard is saying, somewhere close at hand, "thank you for agreeing to meet with me. Before we conclude our accession negotiations, I find myself needing to raise the subject of certain… abilities your people may have."
Their footsteps fade away. Deanna opens her eyes on a small, civilised garden party. Geordi, dressed in civvies, is chasing a silver tabby across the grass and Deanna picks up the quick jaggedness of animal thoughts: it's not holographic. "Data," Geordi calls, "when did you get another cat?"
"I do not recall," Data says, sounding confused. "In fact, a period of around eight hours is currently inaccessible to my memory banks."
"Huh," Geordi says. "Can I name her?"
Deanna sits up and hugs her knees. "Strawberry?" her mother asks, handing her three without asking. "They're your favourite."
"I figured," Guinan says, from behind her, "we all deserved a little something. Even if I had to" – she waves a hand – "you know."
Deanna smiles a little and takes a bite of the first strawberry. "Ro Laren?"
"Back where she belongs, torturing Commander Riker." Guinan gestures again across the space, and Deanna makes out Ro saying something to Will, who is waving a trombone around in response. "She doesn't remember a thing. You were more in the eye of the storm, so to speak."
"Huh," Deanna says, consciously echoing Geordi. "It seems a little unfair on you, Guinan. You didn't get to – even for a while."
"Don't you worry about me, kid," Guinan says, "I've got all I need."
Guinan's eating strawberries too, Deanna realises; that her mother, Lwaxana Troi, daughter of the Fifth House of Betazed and Heir to the Holy Rings, has just carefully picked out from the basket and handed to her. They both read as happy, Deanna decides. Happy, with just a tinge of pink juice and mint-sweetness.
Deanna curls back up on the grass and listens to Geordi deciding to name the cat after his eighth-grade girlfriend, and Data's silence like laughter; to her mother, telling Guinan about the scent of flowers in the house where she was born; to Captain Picard telling the Provost that he wishes always to live in interesting times; to the ship, as steady as a heartbeat. It's a beautiful afternoon. She thinks she'll take a nap.
end.
no subject
on 2014-05-10 08:59 am (UTC)no subject
on 2014-05-10 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2014-05-11 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
on 2014-05-12 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2014-05-11 09:08 pm (UTC)I also really love that this has such a Trekky plot and Ro Laren goes missing and Riker worries about her but it all works out. Worry and love and working it out in the end are what Trek IS, to me, and just. *FLAILY HANDS EVERYWHERE*
no subject
on 2014-05-14 10:59 am (UTC)