Imzadi. Part 38

"Consider it kept." She leaned back. "So... did you come here to discuss everything except what you really want to discuss?"

"And what might that be?"

"Us."

He let out a slow breath. She waited for him to speak.

"I don't know what's going to happen with us," he said. "I saw what my life was like without you... saw what I developed into. I can't say I like it very much. But... that was when you had been pulled from my life completely. We could continue in the way that we are now, and as long as you're there to be friend, confidant... soul mate... things could work out well for both of us."

"I see what you're saying," Deanna said slowly. "Of course, on the other hand, if we become... or go back to being... lovers... things could work out even better for us."

"Or worse," he pointed out.

"Or worse," she acknowledged.

He shook his head. "I feel so ridiculous. Do we really have to wait forty years until we're ready to take a chance on the two of us?"

"No, Will"-she smiled-"we just have to wait until we're ready. It might take forty years. Or who knows? It might take forty days. We have to wait and see. But at least we have a chance. It's up to us how we use it."

He nodded and then said, "Oh... by the way... I made something for you. It's only an approximation, of course, based on my memories... memories which were filled, at the time, with the sight of a particularly nubile young maid of honor and her magnificent figure."

Her face colored slightly. "Will, what are you talking ahout?"

He brought his hand from behind his back. In it was a thin, white, gauze headband.

She stared at it, uncomprehendingly at first. But their she understood. "That's... that's like the one Chandra wore!"

"So I did make it close enough so that it's recognizable, Good. Um... if you wouldn't mind turning your head..."

She angled her head around and he looped it around and back, pulling her hair through. She stood and presented herself for inspection. "How does it look?"

"As beautiful as the woman wearing it."

She felt her emotions turning to melted b.u.t.ter, and she went to him. He enveloped her in his arms, and their lips came together....

And for a long moment, all the confusion and complexity of their lives fell away, and they were once again the young man and woman hungering for each other; the couple shyly learning about one another and exploring the things that each of them lacked and each of them provided; the new lovers in the jungle, intoxicated with their environment and each other; she was the woman whose life he'd saved, and he was the man whose life she had made.

And they had all the time in the universe...

CHAPTER 44.

Mary Mac watched in astonishment as four people emerged from the swirling vortex of the Guardian of Forever: Admiral Riker, Commodore Data, Lieutenant Blair, and one more form that tumbled forward, clearly unconscious.

She went to them, rolling the body over to get a better look and confirm what she had thought. "This... this is Mar Loc!"

Data looked at her, his head tilted. "The scientist whom you said had departed?"

She nodded in silent amazement.

And then the Guardian spoke, in that vast and all-encompa.s.sing way that it had: "All is... as it was."

Data turned to face the Guardian. "You mean that Admiral Riker did indeed restore the time line to its original form?"

"All is as it was," repeated the portal.

And now Blair stepped forward, his long fur swirling. "For crying out loud," he shouted, "if you knew that time had been tampered with in the first place, and you knew that the admiral's actions were correct... then why in h.e.l.l didn't you tell us that?!"

With utter serenity, the Guardian replied, "You did not ask."

There was dead silence, except for the howling of the wind, for about ten seconds. And then Blair managed to get out, "We didn't ask?"

Riker started to laugh.

"We didn't ask!" Blair sounded positively outraged. "You mean everything we went through, all the difficult decisions we had to make, all the... we didn't ask!"

"We didn't," said Data in quiet amazement. "That was very foolish of me. In my determination to uphold the Starfleet imperative of noninterference with time, I..."

And Riker, who had managed to calm himself down sufficiently, said, "What you did, Data, is forget the very first duty of Starfleet... something that I started thinking about when I was spending time with Capt. Wesley Crusher, and remembering the hard lesson he learned back in his Academy days. The duty that supersedes all the imperatives and directives..."

"That we must always seek the truth," said Data.

"Right. And the truth," said Riker, hauling the unconscious Mar Loc, a.k.a. Eza, to his feet, "is that this little sleaze decided to make his people's life better. Mary Mac... have you had any unexplained bruises in recent weeks?"

"Why... why yes," she said, looking at Data. "Remember, Commodore? I had a round bruise on my upper arm."

"A spray-hypo mark," said Riker. "Press down too hard, you leave one. One night while you were asleep, he must have shot you up with something to make sure you stayed asleep- or perhaps even something that induced sleepwalking. He brought you out to the Guardian, used you in your sleeping state to open the force field, returned you to where you were sleeping, stepped into the Guardian..."

"And the rest is history," said Blair.

Riker smiled. "Not anymore."

Moments later, Mary Mac had enlisted Blair's aid in dragging the unconscious Mar Loc away, vowing that when she got through with her report to the Federation science council, Mar Loc was going to be sent somewhere where time could truly be appreciated... an Orion prison (for his crimes against Mary Mac), where life was so difficult that days tended to pa.s.s like years.

"I want you to understand, Admiral," Data said slowly as they stared into the glowing arch of the Guardian of Forever, "that I am truly sorry for my actions."

"It's all right, Data. On the face of t... what you did, or tried to do, was correct."

"Curious... in my efforts to kill Deanna Troi, I made several mistaked. I did not intend to, but I did. They were almost clumsy in nature."

"Perhaps, Data, you did it on purpose. Perhaps you wanted to be stopped."

Data looked at Riker with curiosity. "Is that possible?"

"Of course it's possible. One of the key things about being human, Data... is that you don't always know why you do the things you do."

"How very odd. I must admit... I did feel somewhat like Brutus."

"Ah, but Brutus, remember, was an honorable man," pointed out Riker. "The important thing is that it's all worked out for the best."

"Has it?"

Riker looked at Data speculatively. "What do you mean?"

Data gestured around them. "While we are on this planet, Admiral, in the heart of the temporal vortex... we are untouched by whatever changes might have been made by your reparations. When Mar Loc originally altered time, we -and our memories- were simply altered with it. We had no awareness that anything was different. Now, however, we were at the center of the change. Although you were the architect of the restoration, the actual changes were made without us being a part of them in the here and now. When we leave this world... there is no certainty as to what will happen to us. Our memories may s.h.i.+ft to accommodate the new time stream. Or we may retain our memories, but find ourselves in a strange new environment. There is even a remote possibility that we simply blink out of existence, if we do not exist as ent.i.ties in this time stream."

"I don't think that's going to happen. And you know why, Data? Because I meant what I said earlier. I think that this thing" -Riker pointed to the Guardian- "is G.o.d's window. And I don't think that G.o.d would have let us in through his window if he didn't intent for us to live in his house."

"That's very spiritual, Admiral."

"I didn't use to be a spiritual person, but I had a good teacher."

Riker gazed up at the swirling skies, the vast colored streaks and the miasma of temporal rifts that formed the heavens above the Forever World.

Distracted, he said, "I really don't know what else there is to say, Data, except..."

"Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here?" suggested Data.

Not looking away from the skies, Riker simply nodded. "I think that probably covers it," he said, but he wasn't paying attention.

And he realized that in the sky's swirling and whirlpool shape, he saw a painting he'd seen a lifetime ago...

"We're going to face a new and different universe, Admiral. Are you not at all afraid?"

There were reds and purples, and then, in the midst of that vast mixture of cosmic existence, Riker saw a face...

"No, Data," he said quietly. "I'm not afraid at all. I think it's going to work out just fine."

And he called out, as he had called out in hopelessness and despair for year upon year of desolation.

And the answer came.

Whether is was from within him, or whether it came from somewhere out there in the galaxy, from someone who was the better part of all that he was, he couldn't be sure.

But it was there just the same. Tears came to his eyes as he heard, in his head, the words that he had waited half a lifetime to hear. Sweet and musical, in a voice filled with promise.

And the words were: Welcome home... Imzadi...