Tuvok yearned for the calm he’d had moments ago. “Lieutenant, I cannot express how truly sorry I am for what—”

She held up her hand. “Screw the apologies, Tuvok. That’s not what I need, not what I’m asking for.” He raised a curious eyebrow, and she went on. “When I get afraid, the way I like to deal with it is to face it head-on. That’s what I’m here for. Tuvok—I want you to teach me to defend myself.”

Tuvok’s head pulled back fractionally. “Lieutenant?”

“I know, I took the usual Starfleet courses, but they didn’t quite know how to deal with someone as—as fragile as me. It basically came down to ‘keep your phaser handy and try to stay out of the way.’ But obviously that can’t always work. And it’s not enough for me, to be dependent on a weapon, on a machine, on other people. Because other people can’t always protect me.

“I need to learn how to defend myself better against people much stronger than I am—which, let’s face it, is going to be just about everybody. And I want you to teach me how.”

“Lieutenant…I appreciate the request, but perhaps you would benefit more from a more qualified teacher. Commander Keru, perhaps.”

“No. No, it has to be you. I understand, you’re afraid of hurting me again. Hell, I’mafraid of you hurting me again. But that’s why it has to be you, Tuvok. If I can learn to hold my own against you, then I can beat this…this emotional baggage you’ve saddled me with.

“Besides…we’re crewmates, right? We’re going to be working together for, probably for years. We need to be able to trust each other. So here I am…extending my trust to you. Do you accept it?”

Tuvok pondered. It was a very surprising gesture. He would not have expected an emotional being to be so prepared to trust him after…

No. His surprise was not about her ability to trust. It arose from his difficulty trusting himself. Yet the star-jellies had trusted him. Deanna Troi had trusted him with her mind. Captain Riker still trusted him as his tactical officer. T’Pel had trusted him enough to join him in his new life. And now Melora Pazlar was offering him her trust in spite of everything. With so much trust extended his way, was it logical to deny it to himself?

Tuvok rose. “I will meet you in holodeck one at 0800 tomorrow morning, Lieutenant. I expect you to be prompt. And I expect you to follow my instructions without protest and without distracting attempts at humor.”

Melora gaped at him in disbelief. Then she shook her head and laughed. “You have a deal, Commander.” She rose and stood at attention. “No attemptsat humor.”

Tuvok realized he was in for quite a challenge.

“May I join you, Christine?”

Vale looked up at Jaza’s voice, surprised to see him in the mess hall. “Najem, hi. Uhh, sure. I thought you were down on the planet.”

“I was, but there was some equipment I needed, so I thought I’d come up and grab some lunch before gathering it.”

“Ah, okay.” She let him eat in silence for a few moments, then spoke. “Najem, I need to ask you something.”

“Sure, anything.”

“You know how you’ve been this really good friend to me the past few weeks?”

He stopped eating. “I, um, I’ve tried,” he said modestly.

“Yeah, about that, though. Has it really been about being a friend to me? Or has it been about keeping yourself available to me and being really good to me in the hopes that I’d fall for you? Sort of a no-pressure romancing?”

It was a moment before he responded. “Actually it’s both. Is that a problem? I mean, there is no pressure, you’re right about that. And I’d sort of gotten the impression lately that maybe you might be open to…changing your mind about us.”

“Well…I was.”

He studied her. “Was. As in, not anymore.”

“Yeah.”

“May I ask what I did to change things?”

“Nothing. Pardon the cliché, but it’s me, not you.” She took a deep breath. “When the Pa’haquel had Deanna captive…Will was ready to sacrifice her for the greater good. I could see it was tearing him up inside. But he was able to make that choice. Thank God he didn’t have to, but he was able to.

“And when I saw that, I realized…I don’t think I could make that choice about someone I…someone I loved.” She smirked. “In a weird way, it bothers me to realize that. The woman who inspired me to join Starfleet in the first place…when we met, she actually killedher own lover to stop him from killing me. I’ve always tried to live up to her example, and it’s a bit disturbing to admit I can’t in that regard. But at the time, really, I guess I thought more about her bravery than about what she had to sacrifice. I didn’t know her as well as I know Will and Deanna, didn’t know her lover as anything but a suspect. So I didn’t feelit the way I did with Will. Now that I have…I just don’t feel ready to put myself in a position where I might have to make that kind of choice.

“So I really need to notbe in a relationship right now, Najem. I need to focus on my Starfleet duties, and not have to deal with complications like that. Maybe someday, when I’ve matured more as an officer, as a woman, I’ll be ready. But not now. Okay?”

He placed his hand atop hers. “Okay. I understand. But I want you to know…whatever ulterior motives I may have had, the friendship is genuine. And it’s there for you if you need it.”

She placed her other hand atop his. “Thank you. I appreciate it. And we’ll see how it goes. For now, though…for now you should get back down to the planet. Back to work.”

He nodded solemnly, and removed his hand from between hers. They sat in silence for a moment, accepting closure.

But then he looked up. “Um, can I finish my lunch first?”

It was good to be the captain’s wife.

Will and Deanna had discovered a perfect, idyllic nook tucked away between the body of a sessile young jelly and the shore of the thermal lake in which it sat. Will had exercised his authority to command everyone else to stay well away from the lake so they could have it all to themselves. Yet once she’d started to take advantage of their solitude and unfasten his uniform, he’d suddenly realized that the star-jelly itself would be a spectator. He’d hesitated for a moment, babbling something about contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She’d reminded him that this “minor” was nearly two hundred years old and shared the collective knowledge of its entire species. “Oh, great,” Will had said. “You mean I have the whole species as an audience?”

“Don’t worry,” she’d purred. “Their perceptions of it will be filtered through me, so I know they’ll be suitably impressed.” She’d gone on to offer several less verbal and more persuasive arguments, and soon he’d gotten back into the spirit of the moment.

Now they were basking together in the afterglow, leaning against the firm, soft surface of one of the jelly’s supporting ribs, resting their weight on a shelf it had materialized a little below the waterline for their benefit. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Will said after a while.

“I know,” she said. He threw her a look of mild, amused annoyance before growing serious again.

“When you were in sickbay…merged with the jellies…”

“Yes?”

“When you asked why we hadn’t had a child yet…was that the jellies speaking, or you?”

She didn’t reply right away. She stood up out of the water, stretched, shook out her hair and leaned against the slope of the support rib. His admiration of the sight was palpable, but she could sense that it hadn’t diverted him from the question. She hadn’t really meant it to, but she’d needed a moment to build up her courage.

“It was both, I suppose.”

“We haven’t really talked about it much.” He had to pause for a moment himself, but then he came out and asked it. “Do you want to have a baby?”

She smiled. “It wasn’t something I’d really thought about…not consciously, anyway. I didn’t even realize it had been on my mind until the jellies found it there. I think it started when I was first reaching out to try to contact them. My mind brushed across everyone in the crew…even little Totyarguil.” She knelt by Will, took his hand. “The way his mind felt, Will…it had such purity, such perfect innocence. There’s nothing quite like it. To feel a, a soul like that inside me, to know it came from a part of me…and a part of you…it would be more amazing than anything I’ve ever experienced.”