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From: captain973@aol.com (Captain973)
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative
Subject: REPOST: "Discoveries" (1/3, P/C)
Date: 29 Feb 1996 00:17:21 -0500
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	Disclaimer: Yup, you've heard it before. Paramount owns everything
(including my soul,
should they actually ever see fit to put our beloved captain and CMO
*together*) in this story, but
the story itself is mine. Please feel free to distribute this story. Do
not remove my name or this
message from it. If you do, well, heck. It's your conscience, not mine.
	This story is written as a Picard/Crusher story. If you have a
problem with these two
being together, read no further. If, however, the thought of Jean-Luc and
Beverly *together* has
you bouncing in your chair with excitement, by all means, continue
reading. This is fan fiction,
written solely for your amusement, and mine.
	And now, without further ado. . .

	Author's Note:	This story takes place immediately after the Star
Trek: The Next
Generation episode "Attached".


Discoveries

By

Melissa Zander

Chapter 1 - The Next Morning

	Breakfast was an awkward affair.

	They glanced at each other surreptitiously throughout the meal,
but nary a word was
said.

	Jean-Luc Picard buttered a croissant, but had no appetite for it.
Beverly Crusher did the
same with hers, but set it down after a moment. They took to staring at
their coffee cups, rather
than at each other. The silence was deafening.

	Suddenly, Beverly threw her knife down on her plate. The sound of
the knife clattering
on the plate echoed like an explosion in the painfully silent room.
Jean-Luc jerked back to the
here and now, away from his thoughts, thoughts that had plagued him all
night long and made
for a distressingly sleepless night.

	"So are we going to sit here like statues all morning, or are you
going to talk to me?"
Beverly fumed.

	Jean-Luc recovered from his surprise. His voice, low and quiet,
sent chills up her spine.
"What would you have me say, Beverly?"

	"Anything would be preferable to this damning silence you've been
affecting this
morning. You could try something like 'Good morning, Beverly.' That would
be a good start." The
sarcasm in her tone cut him like a knife.

	"You seem to have forgotten that I did say good morning to you.
Perhaps your mind is
elsewhere."

	A blaze of anger began to grow in her eyes. Directed at him, he
felt it all the way across
the table. "Like back on Kes-Prytt? Jean-Luc, let it go! What's done is
done."

	Why was he doing this? her mind screamed. Had she hurt him that
much last night? Had
her saying no to his offer to fully explore their feelings ruined their
friendship more than saying
yes would have?

	He rose from the table. His voice dropped even lower, to that
deadly tone that came
about only when he was thoroughly furious. "It is not done, Beverly. It
never will be." With that,
he exited the room, leaving her sitting in his quarters, shaking with
disbelief, and wondering just
what he had meant by that parting comment.

Chapter 2 - A week later

	They had pretty much managed to avoid each other since the morning
of that fateful
breakfast. Aside from the occasional encounter on the bridge and at staff
meetings, they
mutually decided that distance would be best. However, they didn't know
that they needed not
distance, but to talk heart to heart and get the entire matter completely
out in the open. So
instead, it festered within, a wound in their souls. Neither could
tolerate it.

	The door chime sounded in his ready room. Picard barely looked up
from his
viewscreen. "Come." The doors parted, and Beverly walked in the room
purposefully. He kept his
eyes carefully trained on the screen before him, but his heart was
pounding in his chest. "Can I
help you, Doctor?"

	She took a deep breath. "Yes, as a matter of fact, you can. You
can start by looking at
me, instead of that screen." He pushed it away and turned in his chair to
face her. Her piercing
blue eyes bored into him, and his heart began to pound ever harder. "What
is it?" he asked, his
voice thick. But even as the words left his mouth, he knew.

	"I thought maybe we should talk. I don't know about you, but this
past week has been
pretty hard on me. I miss you, Jean-Luc." She gave him a slight smile. He
returned it. "I've
missed you as well, Beverly." But her words, spoken beside a campfire,
came echoing back to
him. 'Or perhaps we should be afraid...' and the hurt and the sadness
washed over him anew.
She saw the change in his facial expression immediately. "Jean-Luc?"

	Just like that, she saw the almost visible walls he constructed
come up, and she sighed
in frustration. "Why can't you just let it go, Jean-Luc? Why?" His answer,
while spoken quietly,
was like a slap in the face. "Because I've let it go for twenty five
years, and I just can't do it
anymore."
	Before she could respond, he continued. "If I knew that you didn't
feel the same way
about me as I do about you, perhaps I could let it go. But I heard your
thoughts, Beverly. You
love me, as I love you. I've loved you since the moment I met you, and
I'll never stop. You know
that; you heard my thoughts just as clearly. But, somehow, it just isn't
enough for you, is it? Once
again, you followed me to the edge; and, once again, you backed off at the
last moment. I know
you're scared. So am I. But if I can get over it, why can't you?" He sat
back and crossed his
arms, watching her.

	Beverly didn't know what to say. That something that always held
her back, always
stopped her just before she let go, snapped her back into place again.
Scared? She was terrified.
She wanted him, but just couldn't take that final step. He saw her
decision in her face before she
even put it in words. "I just can't, Jean-Luc," she whispered. He nodded,
and his stone captain's
mask slipped back into place. "If that is everything, doctor, I really do
have some work to do." He
turned his screen back and studied it intently, as she stalked out of the
ready room.

	After she left, he stared blankly at the viewscreen, not really
seeing it. In its reflection, a
single tear could be seen rolling down his face, a tear that was shared by
the woman who had
just walked out of his ready room . . .and his life.


Chapter 3 - Two weeks later

	The Enterprise had become a tomb for those who walked her
corridors. The gloom that
had pervaded the ship since the mission to Kes-Prytt grew worse with each
day. The source of
that gloom could be traced to the ship's captain, whose demeanor had grown
cold; whose temper
had become one easily stoked into an inferno, and to the ship's Chief
Medical Officer, whose
bedside manner and temperament had so deteriorated that the crew avoided
sickbay for
everything short of terminal injuries.

	The captain was, as seemed to be standard these days, ensconced in
the sanctuary of
his ready room when Counselor Deanna Troi walked onto the bridge at the
beginning of her shift.
Commander Will Riker was seated in the command chair, staring glumly at
the main viewscreen.
She sat down next to him, and studied him a moment. The general feeling on
the bridge was one
of faint despair, from those who had grown weary of shouldering burdens
that weren't their own.
She suddenly stood and headed for the turbolift, saying, in voice that
carried clearly through the
bridge, "That's it. If no one else is going to get to the bottom of this,
I will."

	A few minutes later, she strode into Dr. Crusher's office. "You're
going to tell me what's
going on, Beverly, and I don't care if I have to lock you in here to do
it." Beverly barely afforded
her a glance. "Hello to you, too, Deanna." Deanna grabbed a padd out of
the doctor's hand and
slammed it on the desk with a vehemence that surprised them both. Beverly
opened her mouth
to speak. "What gives you the right - " Deanna cut her off. "Everyone on
this ship is miserable,
thanks to you and the captain. Now you're going to talk to me and tell me
why. If you don't, I'll
declare you mentally unfit for duty, in which case I'd have to do a
complete psychological
workup, and I assure you, I am very thorough. Make your choice."

	Beverly stared at her, astounded. Deanna, to the best of her
knowledge, had never
resorted to threats like this. It did nothing for her temper, which was
already rising. "Why don't
you talk to the captain? I'm sure he could shed some light on this,"
Beverly spat.

	Deanna crossed her arms firmly across her chest. "Why don't you
talk to the captain?"
The sudden lance of emotion that flowed through Beverly confirmed Deanna's
suspicions.
"Unless, of course, talking to the captain is what started this whole
mess." Beverly sat there
fuming for a moment, until she noticed the tears that were freely flowing
down her face. Then
she broke down.

	"He just couldn't leave it alone! He'll never let me forget it!"
Beverly cried out,
anguished. Deanna pulled up a chair and sat, ready to listen.

	And so the entire story of Kes-Prytt poured out. About Jean-Luc's
confession that he had
been in love with her. The words he spoke that denied that he still did,
at the same time his mind
contradicted him. About her confirmation of their friendship, one that
they both cherished. And
about later, as he fell asleep, the dreams of his that she saw, in which
she relived every touch
she had bestowed upon him, every word she had spoken, magnified by his
passionate
recollections, and wishes for more. And most of all, how, at the Prytt
border, as they stood on
opposite sides of a force field, they had both said "I love you" in their
minds.

 	She further recounted the night after they returned, that fateful
dinner where he had
offered her the opportunity to explore their newfound feelings, and her
rejection. She had thought
he had taken it well, but, in truth, she hurt him deeply, a hurt she was
only now beginning to
realize as one as deep as her own.

	Deanna saw before her a woman torn, and beyond, and man in as much
pain, but both
too stubborn to end it. No two people belonged together more than Jean-Luc
Picard and Beverly
Crusher, and everyone realized it but them. But would they get the chance?

****^****^****^****^****^****^****

"All of us have violent instincts. We have evolved from predators.
....Well, not me, of course. I've just been programmed by you predators."

---The Holographic Doctor, ST: Voyager

****^****^****^****^****^****^****