Five women Jean-Luc Picard took to dinner

A result of an LJ meme. Seema’s Fault(tm).

1.

They walked into the otherwise-empty bar, the bald man and the Betazoid, and he thought (not for the first time) that it was a good thing she wasn’t really telepathic. Although, she did seem distracted. He almost repeated Beverly’s oft-used ‘penny for your thoughts’ but refrained; who knew if Beverly habitually used it with other crew, and no need to advertise his close relationship with the doctor any more than necessary. Not that Deanna probably didn’t understand exactly how he felt. . . .

Why the hell did he always end up thinking this way? This was Deanna.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he said as they found a corner table in the back.

She laughed. “Oh, I’m sure you know I’m thinking about Will.”

“He’ll be back. Late, but in one piece.”

Deanna waited while the bartender put down coasters, plunked a basket of dry crusty items typical of bars between them — thirst-inducers by any other name — and left them with well-used laminated menus. No padds in this backwater colony that he’d seen so far.

“She’ll come back, too,” Deanna said softly as the bartender moved out of earshot, into the back room.

He hoped, while the menu blurred, and he wished, but he couldn’t even muster the optimism for Beverly the way he could for Will. Too close. Too hard. Too many weeks passed while they waited, here on this world near the demilitarized zone, each hour of silence on their designated frequency decreasing the odds.

Deanna’s hand on his wrist anchored him, just the way they’d been doing for each other for the past month. With a gasp, he inhaled and smiled and said, “I wonder if they have tea.”

2.

Dinner had taken hours. Between the admiral’s constant stream of narrative that wandered from Dissemination of Trivial Information to Outright Lecture, and the mostly-raw cuisine — he had never liked sushi — his digestive tract had complained non-stop since the arrival of the unagi.

Tactically speaking, dining with Nechayev had been a good idea. There were no less than five admirals, including herself, retiring over the next six months. He already bore the dubious honor of being the oldest human captain ever. The 1701-F would be finished in a year, and though he knew people were assuming he wanted it, the thought made him vaguely uncomfortable. He followed his instincts in these things; ignoring the discomfort would have a tragic end. His intuition had served him well.

Although, it had led him to chewing endlessly on raw fish with Nechayev, who had not aged so gracefully and tended to ramble now, especially after a few sips of sake. Granted he had been thinking only of promotional possibilities, but.

Somewhere around two a.m., he fantasized of hunting her down and beating her senseless with an eel, as he made his tenth trip from bed to head.

3.

Corey left the table and set a wandering course between tables, winding across the restaurant floor toward the facilities in the back, leaving Marta and Jean-Luc laughing at his drunken performance. Jean-Luc fell back in his chair and reached for his glass, enjoying the brilliance of Marta’s joyful eyes and smile.

There had to be a way to broach the subject of sex. He wanted to hold her sometimes more than anything, yet he knew enough by now to understand that it might ruin their friendship. How did people do it? He’d read about relationships, sexual and otherwise, and yet he still didn’t seem able to grasp the nuances of how to go about it. Being raised in a small village full of traditionally paired husbands and wives hadn’t prepared him for the Academy dorms and the experimentation of cadets from all over the quadrant.

Marta had had many friends, some mutual, and two boyfriends, both long gone. She’d been so casual about them, too. They’d come and gone with hardly a ripple in their lives, as if she’d kept them distinctly separate on purpose.

Jean-Luc thought about asking questions, but when? Off duty hours were for dom-jot, drinking, and laughing. Sometimes also sex. There would always be sex without consequence available. Those mysterious, elusive consequences.

4.

“I think, now that the war is over, you ought to take some leave.”

Picard responded with a gruff ‘harumph’ of disdain. Picking up his favorite tea cup, he sipped and debated clearing away the dinner dishes. Beverly leaned to steal his dessert, a profiterole filled with chocolate custard. He watched her eat it in small bites, licking her lips and fingertips delicately, giggling as she found a bit of it on the back of her hand.

Tempting.

“I’ll take leave,” he said as she swiped a bit of custard from her thumb with a slow lick. “If you go with me.”

For a second, she gazed at him with such shock that he suspected a replay of the aftermath of Kes-Prytt — fleeing at the mere suggestion of something more than friendship. Then she smiled and popped the last bite of the profiterole in her mouth, and licked her lips slowly, sensuously, and he thought taking leave was a rather brilliant idea.

5.

“Come on,” Jean-Luc cried, hurrying down the lane. “Hurry! We’ll be late!”

“Non, we will be fine,” Maman replied. She followed him toward the school, where other parents and children were gathering for the spring banquet.

Jean-Luc waited for her at the gate, fumbling with the lapel of his best jacket, running his hand over his hair again. When she caught up she smiled merrily and made him glad all over again that Robert hadn’t wanted to come, that it was just him and Maman and they could laugh over silly things together. For some reason, Robert didn’t laugh as much any more. Papa kept saying Robert was a man now. It bothered Jean-Luc only when it meant Robert got to go where he pleased and take the tube to England when he and Marie wanted to.

Jean-Luc took Maman’s arm and grinned. “We should have our picture taken.”

“Oui, we should indeed.”

Much later, while sitting alone as the stars drifted past and the Enterprise crossed the quadrant at warp six, Jean-Luc opened his family album and found the picture. Maman, in her blue dress with the lace collar, smiling, her hand on his shoulder. He smiled, just as his twelve-year-old self was doing in the picture, and began to hum her favorite song. It was her birthday. Someone from the florist should be putting flowers on her grave on his behalf, right about now.

**

A profiterole is what we in the US know as a ‘cream puff.’