On unsteady legs she rose from the bed she was sitting on. She let out a long, quavering breath, realizing only at that moment just how long she had been holding it. Then she looked down at the pendant that still hung from her neck, glittering with faint impressions of the stars that had filled her.
She shook her head.
"He certainly knows how to show a girl a good time," she said.
Chapter Sixteen
After ascertaining that her mother was back on the ship and unharmed, Deanna went straight back to her quarters. Riker, seeing that she was clearly concerned, followed her. By the time he got there, she was already pacing back and forth.
He had never seen her like this. He knew, from personal experience, that there was something about parents that took the most mature, level-headed and stable of individuals--which Deanna Troi most definitely was--and reduced them to a state of confused near-infancy.
"No one knows how to deal with parents, Deanna," said Riker soothingly. He sat on a chair and watched her circle the room like a caged cat.
"I should," she said. "I can help utter strangers, and yet I'm helpless to aid my own mother." "Maybe it's because parents always look at their children and see them only as the mewling infants they were at birth. They don't acknowledge expertise and maturity." "How can she not! I am mature!" cried Deanna with an impatient stamp of her foot.
"I am! I am! Oh God... listen to me." She sank into another chair, holding her head in her hands. "Listen how crazy she's making me." He moved from his spot and crouched next to her.
Taking her hand, he said, "Deanna, you're going to have to deal with this." "Don't you think I'm trying?" she said. "But I know she's making a terrible mistake. Why won't she listen to me?" "Tell me something," said Riker. "What did your mother think of your involvement with me?" She frowned. "I don't remember." "I think you do." "She said--" Deanna's face clouded and then cleared. "She said that it would never last. That you'd never be able to settle down, that your first love would always be Starfleet, and that it would never work out." "And did you listen?" "Yes, I listened, but..." "But what?" She sighed in unpleasant admission. "I did what I wanted anyway." "And...?" "But it did work out, Will," she said urgently.
"We're still the best of friends. We're..." "Not what we were," said Riker. "She was right. In the respects that she was focussing on, it was a mistake. Besides, she had her own fianc`e picked out for you." She waved it off. "It's ancient history, W." "History has a way of repeating itself," admitted Riker. "And just as you had to be free to make your own mistakes and own successes, so must she be free also." "But she came to accept you," Deanna said.
"Besides, it's totally different. I was young. But she's... mature. It's not the same thing at all." "It never is." She frowned. "You are so smug, Will Riker.
Wouldn't you rather have Q off this ship?" "Undoubtedly. But I'm not the one he's dating." "They're not dating!" she said. "They're.
I don't know what they're doing." Her hand flew to her mouth as she envisioned Q and her mother together. "Please... don't let it have gone that far. Will, she's been completely taken in by him, and everyone is just sitting around letting it happen.
Letting it happen! And it's all my fault!" "Your fault?" said Riker in surprise.
He was becoming more and more concerned about Deanna's fractured state of mind. Was it possible that somehow she was empathically linking with her mother, and her mother's chaotic body chemistry was wreaking havoc with Deanna as well? Certainly anything was possible when dealing with as powerful a telepath as Lwaxana Troi, and as skilled an empath as her daughter. "How could it possibly be your fault?" "It's the blasted Ab'brax," she said. "The mourning for my being unmarried. If it were just her being in phase, she could probably handle that..." I wouldn't bet on it, Riker thought.
"But she's in mourning for my single status as well. She dwells purely on what she doesn't have: a mate of her own; a married daughter. Emotionally, she's at loose ends.
If I were married, she could fuss over my husband. She could fuss over grandchildren. I can just hear her. "Me, a grandmother! Impossible!" And she'd wail and complain about getting old, and all the time she'd be loving it. Will, if anything happens to her because I was unable to prevent it, I don't know what I'll do. Standing there and watching it happen, as if she had some sort of terminal disease that no one could cure. Oh, Will, I don't..." He took her firmly by the shoulders.
"Deanna." She looked up at him, her confusion and frustration practically leaping out of her eyes.
"What?" He took a deep breath. "Want to get married?"
Sehra sat in her room, staring at the walls.
Kerin had apologized. She had won. But.
But she had envisioned her wedding celebration being one long, joyful experience. She had not anticipated any strife, any confusion, any problems.
But Kerin had been difficult. So difficult. And even though he'd apologized, there had still been that.
That what? It was nothing she could put her finger on.
She flopped back on her soft bed, and pulled a pillow out from under her head. She sat up, staring at the full-length mirror across from her.
She stared at her reflection.
She hated it. Her nose was entirely too long, her forehead too high. Her hair hung there like lifeless string. And she was fat. Fat and ugly.
She drew back her arm and hurled the pillow at the mirror.
A red-clad arm extended out from the mirror and caught it.
She gasped and skittered back on the bed, her hand flying to her bosom. She made little noises but wasn't able to get out a coherent sentence, or even a comprehensible word.
Her reflection was gone from the mirror, replaced by the image of... of that man! The one from the party! The one who had been dancing through the air and then had vanished like mist.
"You should be more careful," he said scoldingly, and extended first one leg and then the other. As if swimming, he eased himself through the glass, which actually shimmered at his passing. The glass closed, sealing around him, and when he stepped clear, there was no mark whatsoever in the glass to indicate that he had ever passed through there.
"How," she gasped. "How did you..." Her voice faded for a moment, then she found it again.
"Are you a wizard?" "In a sense," said Q. "A wizard at understanding what makes the minds of mortals function. My dear child," he said, kneeling before her, "I am both a great teacher and a great student. I am always trying to learn and understand. And there is much that you can teach me." She looked at her mirror, which now displayed only her homely reflection once more. "That I can teach you?" she asked in wonderment.
"Absolutely," said Q. "For example... I am most interested in the concept that you Tizarin have. A number of human cultures have it as well--the idea of loving one, and only one, person." "Yes," she said slowly. "Yes, we believe in mating with one individual, for life." She got up and went to the mirror, running her fingers over it. "How did you--?" He didn't appear to notice her curiosity over the mirror. "So you agree to love no one except your mate for the rest of your natural lives." "That's right," she said.
He looked at her skeptically. "Truly?" "Oh yes," she said fervently. She still wasn't sure how he had come through the mirror, or what he was doing here. There was an air of unreality about the whole encounter that gave it a dreamlike aspect. It made her wonder if any of it was really happening. "Yes, if it's true love, you need no one else." "I don't understand," Q said. "If you meet another individual who is as attractive to you as your mate, you are forbidden from loving this person?" "You can feel deep affection for them," she said.
"Can you love them?" "Not in the same way." "And your people," said Q, leaning forward, interlacing his fingers thoughtfully. "Your people can control their emotions so thoroughly?" "We believe in "one man, one woman,"" she said.
"And when do you acquire this ability to control such base emotions as lust, desire, et cetera, et cetera?" "Generally," she said, "from the time when you fall in love with her or him whom you will marry. Your love for them totally consumes you." "A stream full of earth piranha would accomplish the same task, and it would seem far more merciful," observed Q. "So your Kerin loves you with total devotion, eh?" "Oh, yes." "Odd. That's not what I perceived." She frowned. "What do you mean, "perceived"?" "What? Oh," he sounded almost laconic.
"My powers are... well, there's no other way to say it... the be-all and end-all of human comprehension. And your fianc`e, Kerin, seemed to have some rather significant things on his mind during the dance this evening." "What sort of significant things?" she asked slowly.
Q pointed to the mirror, and Sehra turned to look at it. She gasped.
There was Kerin, locked in a passionate embrace with a girl from the Nistral.
"I don't believe it," she said firmly.
"That's his old... I mean, he feels nothing for her anymore. I don't believe he was thinking that." "Or this?" asked Q.
The Nistral girl faded, to be replaced by another, who had also been at the dance. Kerin had danced with her as well. Yet another girl that Kerin had confidently said he was not interested in as anything other than mindful host.
Mindful. He certainly seemed to have a mind full of her, all right.
"You're making this up," she said, but this time there was far less certainty in her voice.
"This one, then?" he asked, and there was Kerin again, chewing on the ear of yet another girl. "This was all in his mind. I didn't fabricate it.
I didn't have to. I just wanted to know if this was what you meant by his being singly interested in you.
Or maybe this is," and another girl appeared, "or this, or this, or..." "Stop it!" she shrieked. "Stop it! Stop saying these things! Kerin loves me. He does.
He does!" "Oh, I'm certain," said Q serenely.
"Although it's curious. He envisions all these females... except you. He seems endlessly intrigued by the physical side of a relationship.
Perhaps propelled by hormonal curiosity. Yet he doesn't seem to exhibit any interest in you. As if there were no mystery. Why would that be, do you think?" She turned cold eyes on him. "I don't know," she said. "And I think you're doing nothing but lying." "Nobody, dear girl," said Q, "can lie quite as well as we do to ourselves." He tipped an imaginary hat at her. "Good day," he said, and stepped back into the mirror. In an instant he was gone, the only thing left behind being the tear-stained reflection of a teenage bride-to-be.
Deanna blinked and drew an arm across her face. "What?" "You heard me." She actually smiled. "You can't be serious." "No, really." He was now circling Deanna's quarters, and he didn't seem to know what to do with his arms. Sometimes he had them folded across his chest, other times he draped them behind his back. "I've..." He cleared his throat.
"I've been thinking about it lately, and perhaps.
well, since we're on the same ship, and there's no one I feel closer to, and... it would take your mother's mind right off of Q. It would probably be for the best..." "You are serious!" "I think I am." Now she laughed. Laughed loudly and delightedly.
"Having never made a marriage proposal, I wasn't sure what to expect," said Riker, sounding slightly annoyed. "I wasn't expecting total amusement." "This is a conspiracy," she said, shaking her head. "Whenever I fall into deep depression over my mother, a male member of this crew takes it upon himself to cheer me up. First Wesley and his "difficulties," and now this." "Deanna, I mean it! I love you, and we should get married!" "Oh, Will," she sighed. She went to him and took his bearded face in her hands. "I know you love me. I know I love you. But this isn't the right time." "It may never be the right time," he said.
"Then, it never is," she said easily. "But not this, W. If you entered Starfleet with the same conviction that you made this... offer... you'd still be sitting in drydock somewhere. Will... I take this as a sign on your part of how devoted a friend you are. And how anxious you are to spare me pain. And if you look deep down into yourself, you'll realize that this proposal, as well intentioned as it is, isn't truly what you want." "How do you know..." He shook his head.
"Forget I said that." "It's forgotten. All of it is forgotten," and she kissed him on the cheek, "except your good intentions. Imzati forever." "Forever," he sighed. "I just hated to see you like this, Deanna. You're usually so..." "Stable," she said. "A rock. And that's how I'll be again. Perhaps Q has managed to turn my mother's head, but he'll no longer be able to affect mine. You've brought a great deal into perspective for me. A dash of cold water, as it were." "That's what I was always hoping my first marriage proposal would be like: an emotional slap across the face," he said dryly.
Chapter Seventeen
Wesley Crusher stretched in bed and turned over.
A female face smiled back at him, barely an inch away from his.
