Beverly Crusher was returning to her Nana’s home on Caldos. It was the first time she had returned since the events that had occurred after her Nana’s death. Embarrassment still gripped her every time that she thought about the metaphasic entity, Ronin. She remembered the look on Jean-Luc’s face when he had caught her in the grip of Ronin’s ‘influence’. Fancy having your best friend catching you in the act with a ‘ghost!’ As she packed for shore leave, she sang an old Gaelic song her Nana had taught her as a child. The door to her quarters chimed.
“Come,” she said, and then returned to singing the song.
Jean-Luc Picard entered his CMO’s rooms. He could hear her singing in her bedroom. “Beverly, I was just stopping by to see how you were going with your packing,” he said.
Beverly poked her head around the corner. “Oh, hello Jean-Luc! I’m almost finished!”
“What was that you were singing? I’ve never heard anything like it before,” he asked.
Beverly laughed. “Just another one of my many hidden talents, Jean-Luc. Actually, it’s an old Scottish Gaelic walking song called Mhorag’s na horo Gheallaidh. My Nana taught it to me as a child.”
Jean-Luc smiled to himself. “I had no idea you spoke that ancient Earth language.”
Beverly grinned. “Well, there’s not that many of us left, and most of them live on Caldos. I was getting myself in the mood to return there. The Celtic spirit runs very deeply through the people of Caldos. It’s about time that I gave in to the pull of my ancestors and spent some time there.”
Jean-Luc smiled at the red headed doctor. “Well it’s the one place where you fit right in, with that hair of yours.”
Beverly stopped packing and turned to him. “Would you like to spend some time there with me?”
Jean-Luc was seriously tempted. Time alone in the beautiful Doctor’s company was something he would really enjoy. “Well, I have made arrangements to visit the Setrian archeological sight on Setrus Prime. But maybe I could drop in on my way back for a week or so.”
“That would be lovely. This time of year on Caldos is just wonderful, and there will be the Fires of Beltane for you to see,” Beverly said.
Picard thought for a moment. “I don’t seem to recall that festival,” he said.
“The ancient Celtic Year was divided into four quarters,” Beverly explained. “Each has their own unique celebration. The people of Caldos still keep the old ways alive. The fires of Beltane happen at the start Summer.”
“Sounds wonderful,” he said.
Beverly nodded and finished her packing. This shore leave is going to be very interesting, she mused. Jean-Luc has no idea what he’s letting himself in for.
After she had said her goodbyes and beamed down to the planet’s surface, she set about putting her Nana’s house to rights. She cleaned and swept until the house was exactly the way her nana would have liked it. She couldn’t help a sad sigh as she sat at the table, a cup of herbal tea next to her. She missed her nana and the house was not the same without her.
The week passed without any trouble and Beverly had started to relax. Without the presence of Ronin in the house, it was peaceful and safe. Beverly gathered up her gardening equipment and went out in the warm sun to try and tame the overgrown patch had been her nana’s front yard.
Jean-Luc found her doing just that, the sunlight in her hair. He watched her secretly. He didn’t often come across her like this, happy and carefree, dressed in a simple sundress. She hummed a little tune and absently pushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear. She also appeared to be having some trouble with the thin strap of her dress as it kept falling down her arm.
She was without a doubt the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
He gave a small cough and alerted her to his presence.
“Why, Jean-Luc, you’re early! I wasn’t expecting you until next week!” she said as she ran to meet him.
“I could always leave and come back later,” he said.
Beverly grinned impishly as if considering what he had said. “Oh well, you’re here now, no point in leaving,” she said at last. She put her arm through his and led him into the house. “I’ve made a bed up for you in my old room. There’s a lovely view down across the fields,” she said. “It’s the first room you come to at the top of the stairs. You can’t miss it, it’s full of all of my old junk. I’ll make us some tea and then you can tell me all about your time on Setrus Prime.”
Picard went up the stairs and found the room just as she’d said. He put his bag down on the bed and looked around him. On the walls and dressing table was the history of Beverly’s youth. A photo of a very young Beverly with her parents, school awards, the odds and ends of a teenage girl’s life. His eyes landed on a photo of a very handsome young man. Obviously an old flame.
He came downstairs and found Beverly in the house’s small kitchen making tea the old-fashioned way—in a pot.
“I’m afraid there’s no Earl Grey,” she said with regret. “I was going to get some for you at the markets next week, but I’ll make it up to you by brewing you a cup of Nana’s special blend myself.”
He took the tea and sat at the old table, sipping it as she went about getting some freshly baked cakes out of the old wood stove. This is pretty close to heaven, he thought to himself. After their morning tea, they went for a walk around the village.
“So tell me, Beverly, what is this festival you were telling me about,” he said curiously.
Beverly said, “Beltane is one of the major festivals of the old cycle of the year. It is a time of renewal, a time to celebrate the return of summer and the bounty of the land. Two large fire are built and lit. Everybody puts out the fire inside their house and then re-light them from the the Bel’s fires.”
Picard listened, fascinated.
“The village erects a Maypole and the young men and women dance around it weaving the ribbons in and out. It is said that the pattern they make will indicate the abundance of the crops in the coming harvest. It is a time when the veil between the world of the Sidhe and our own world is very thin.”
He interrupted her. “The Sidhe?”
“That’s the name for the fairy world,” she answered.
Jean-Luc smiled. *How very quaint*, he thought.
They continued walking and he noticed that some of the doors of the village houses were decorated with garlands. “Why do some houses have flowers in the windows and doors?” he asked.
Beverly blushed. “That’s the May boughing.”
“What’s that?” his interest was pricked now.
“Well, when a man takes a fancy to a woman he can signal his interest by hanging garlands of flowers and hawthorn branches on her door. They signify the blossoming of his sexual interest in her. They go into the woods on the Eve of Beltane and express their love for each other. It’s a time to be passionate without the taboos of guilt and sin, ” Beverly said. “Jean-Luc, Beltane is a time to celebrate the fertility of the God and the Goddess, the crops and the people. In the old days many a baby was conceived by the light of the Beltane fires. The people just accepted it.”
Jean-Luc did some calculations in his head, “You’re a Beltane child, aren’t you?”
Beverly smiled and lowered her head. “Yes, I am.”
They returned to Beverly’s house. There were no garlands on her door.
The week passed and soon it was the eve of the Beltane fires. At sunrise, Jean-Luc left the quiet house and headed out into the woods a short walk away. He went about picking the prettiest flowers and cutting the young wood from the hawthorns that grew in the glade. By the time he returned to Beverly’s small house, he had fashioned a reasonable imitation of the garlands he had noticed in the village. Using a fastener, he attached the garland to Beverly’s door.
Once he had finished, he set about making breakfast.
The smell of eggs cooking wafted up the stairs and awoke Beverly. She pulled on her robe and made her way downstairs. She almost laughed out loud at the sight of her Captain scrounging around in her Nana’s small kitchen. When he saw her approach, he gave her one of his rare full smiles. Beverly felt her heart flip over. For the millionth time she regretted her hasty dismissal of his attempt to further the relationship between them after their mental joining on Kes Prytt.
“Beverly, I’ve made you breakfast. Sit down,” he said
“You must have been up early,” Beverly said. “I sleep so well here that I didn’t hear you.”
“I’m surprised at that,” he said, and laughed. “I made enough noise down here to wake your neighbours.
Beverly smiled at him as he put a plate in front of her. “Wow, This is very good!” she said, her mouth full of eggs.
“I can do more than just captain a starship you know,” he joked. Then he sat down at the table. When she had finished, he said softly to her, “There’s something I want to show you.” Taking her hand, he led her to the front of the house.
Beverly gasped when she saw the garland of flowers woven into the hawthorn boughs hanging on her front door.
Jean-Luc gently turned her towards him. Taking her hands in his, he looked into her eyes and placed a loving kiss on her lips. “Beverly, I know a man that would like nothing more than to declare his interest in you on this Beltane Eve,” he said softly.
Beverly blushed, it was now or never. “Why wait until tonight?” she said. Then she took his hand in hers and turned back to her house.
The Goddess of Caldos looked out from behind the thin veil of the Sidhe and smiled.
Part II: The Fruits of the Goddess
“Take a step beyond the circle,
Light entices,
But passion is tempered with fear
Of somehow being mistaken
Trust me, I’m feeling my senses awaken
All that is real we have yet to discover
So be my lover
Days will echo, and rapturous nights we will slowly uncover.
When you’re my lover
Reason will dance like a fool.
Take the past
but hold it lightly
memory’s heavy when it’s held to tightly.
I feel I could glide effortlessly
To live within the same dream
you are…”
—Beltane, Wendy Rule.
They had only been together for such a short time. The Beltane fires. She sat in her bathroom, trying to calm down. How could this possibly be? Have I got the worst luck in the universe? Her shoulders slumped. Maybe, just maybe, it was a mistake. She scanned herself with the tricorder again. No mistake. She was pregnant. Positively, undeniably pregnant and about four weeks along. Oh hell! That explained the nausea in the mornings. She had missed breakfasts with Jean-Luc because of it.
Her mind wandered back to Caldos and that night with Jean-Luc. She had given into the lure of her ancestry. She was a child of Beltane herself, and with the heat of Bel’s fires in her blood, she had taken a lover.
No sin.
No Guilt.
She had told him that what happens on Caldos, stays on Caldos.
But it seemed the Goddess of Caldos, however, had other plans in mind.
*
Jean-Luc Picard was in his ready room. Lately when things were quiet like this he often caught himself musing, thinking back to that day on Caldos with Beverly. She had been so relaxed with him there, so carefree and happy. He remembered her reaction at seeing the May boughing garland he had fastened to the door.
She had blushed. Really blushed. He had found that so charming. Beverly’s fair skin was like a colour barometer of feelings. He had, for a few seconds, thought that he had gone too far. That she would withdraw from him like she had done so many times before when he had tried to explore the feelings between them.
He had offered her his heart, woven into the Hawthorn boughs on that Beltane Eve.
The sunshine of her smile had fallen upon his face. Warm as summer.
“Why wait until tonight?” she’d said.
Jean-Luc had been giddy. His mind spinning as he had looked into her eyes. He remembered the feel of her warm hand in this as they made their way back to the house. Her hair was shining brightly around her face, like a fiery halo.
She had looked like the Goddess herself.
They had kissed as soon as the door had closed. He had moved towards her slowly, lost in this moment he had waited so very long for. Imprinting on his mind the soft look on her face as her eyes had closed and she had waited for his lips to touch hers. He wanted to take this slowly, to savour her surrender.
“Mmm…yes”, she had sighed as his lips had touched hers, taking the kiss, that had been so anticipated. They had climbed the stairs, pausing only to kiss each other again as they reached the landing outside the bedroom.
She had smiled at him. A smile full of promise.
Once inside the room, he had let his hands wander over her through her silky robe. He threaded his finger through the strap of her nightdress, sliding it lazily down her arm. He placed his lips on the creamy skin there. His tongue sliding out, tracing a path along her collarbone to her neck. His teeth nipped her gently. He had heard and felt the intake of her breath. The sensuous sound of it filled his senses. His kisses moved down over her soft skin. He felt her tremble as his breath warmed the cleft between her breasts. He felt her hands at his chest, undoing the buttons of his shirt. Going lower to the loosen the fastening at the top of his trousers. He had helped her remove her gown, watched, mesmerized, as it slid over her curves to the floor. She had waited as his clothes joined hers, tangled together in a echo of what awaited the flesh.
They faced each other.
He drank in the sight of her.
God she was beautiful, more perfect than he had ever imagined. Was it the soft light of the morning or the magic of Caldos that added a shimmering glow to her skin?
He had gently laid her down on the bed.
She held her arms out to him, beckoning him to her.
He knelt beside her.
He worshipped her with his eyes as he caressed her with his hands and mouth.
He spoke her name gently, “Beverly.”
“Shhh….Don’t talk…just love me,” she had answered.
And so he had.
Telling her with his actions what he had tried
to say for so long with words.
Her body was a sacred thing to him, a poem of sheer perfection.
Slowly and tenderly, he showed her his passion.
His love.
He kissed a path down her body, lower and lower, seeking his goal. Her soft sighs and moans drove him to limits of endurance. He felt her give herself over to him, to the enjoyment of what he was doing to her. His mouth giving her such pleasure. He stopped as she neared the brink and returned to kiss her mouth, sharing the taste of her body. He felt her hand slide down grasping him, stroking him. Placing him at the centre of her heat.
“Please, oh please, now,” she moaned.
It would take a stronger man than he to deny her.
He slid into her, taking her, the wet heat of her opening to let him in.
He started to move, the two of them became one.
He felt the friction build, the heat of his passion pushing him toward fulfillment.
He thrust into her slowly at first and then harder and faster as her cries drew a primal response from him as old as the God and Goddess themselves.
He knew the moment her orgasm had taken her. He felt the rhythmic contraction of her muscles and the rasp of her fingernails down his back. He felt a fierce sense of satisfaction as she had called out his name at the zenith of her passion. When he could no longer hold himself back he had let go and flooded hotly into her, claiming her with his body’s essence, his mouth against her neck to drown out his throaty moans.
And then it was over.
He had not wanted to withdraw from her. Thinking if he did, she would disappear as she had done so many times, when he had awakened from his dreams. He had held her in his warm embrace, happier than he had ever been before, until sleep had claimed them both.
He awoke to the feel of her smile against his chest as her fingers made patterns in the hair there. He looked down at her red hair, then allowed himself the luxury of running his fingers through the copper waves, marveling at the colour as it ran across his skin. He had always wanted to do this.
She sighed as contentedly as a child and let him do as he wished.
They had spent the rest of day together in bed, finding all the hidden pleasures that each other’s bodies held for them. Jean-Luc took as much from her as she was willing to give. He memorized the fragrance of her skin and the way she looked just before she lost the battle and gave into her orgasm. He recalled her low, sexy laugh when she had him at the mercy of her touch.
They had made love again, even as Bel’s fires were lit.
She had given him her body, but did he have her love? “You know Beverly,” he had said softly, “I feel as if this were a dream, that if I let you go now, will you disappear behind the mists of the Sidhe?”
She looked into his eyes, serious now. “Jean-Luc, what we have here is sacred. It is just between us and the Goddess. Remember what I told you, at Beltane there is no sin, no guilt. Here on Caldos, I am yours and you are mine, but I can’t say if it will the same away from here, on the Enterprise.”
He felt himself tense at her words. He had hoped that they had finally gone forwards together. Was this a new barrier to keep him out?
They had beamed back aboard the Enterprise at the end of shore leave. Things had been so busy that he had not had a chance to talk to her alone. With dread, he had noticed that she had stopped coming to breakfast in his quarters. It was as if they had slipped out from behind the veil of the Sidhe and back into the real world.
The door chimed as he stood watching the universe go by. “Come,” he said.
“Jean-Luc.”
He had always loved the way she said his name.
“Beverly.”
She walked across the room and sat down on the sofa. “We have to talk.”
He took a deep breath, steeling himself against whatever she was going to say. Then he turned around.
She was smiling. This was unexpected. She looked radiant, happy…glowing. The same way she had looked on Caldos, when the fire was in her blood. “Jean-Luc,” she began, “there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you…”
Part III: Winter of the Goddess
“With your hand in mine
We will walk the way of the dark divine
Oh how I dreamed of things impossible.
Seems like a life ago
I had walked the fields where the flowers grow
I had picked the bloom of my beautiful sorrow
Oh how I dreamed.
Sometimes I feel your pain
Like a driven nail, like the falling rain
Like the future pulled through an open vein.
Oh how I dreamed.
See the gaping wound
The blood on which I float
Your love is both the poison
And the antidote
That saves me.”
—Oh How I Dreamed, Wendy Rule
Beverly woke early. Her back was killing her. She shifted her weight. The child in her womb kicked her in protest. She sat up in bed and ran her hands over her belly. There was no denying it, she was huge. No wonder her back ached so much. She slid her feet into her slippers and made her way downstairs to make a cup of tea. Her child, lulled by the gentle movement of her body, stilled and went back to sleep. Beverly sat in the kitchen of her Nana’s house on Caldos.
The night had been cold, but the old wood stove stood warmly, still offering its heat. Beverly had returned to see the glory of late summer on Caldos come and go, the leaves had turned into the gold of Autumn, and now the bare branches of winter.
The wheel of the year had turned. The dark of Samhain had balanced the brightness of Beltane. I’ve almost come full circle. Soon the baby will be here, she thought.
“Yes”, whispered the Goddess.
Beverly sighed and let the memories wash over her. It had been so long since she had seen Jean-Luc. His name carried with it a wave of sadness and regret so intensely physical it made her gasp as if she had been dealt a blow.
“Jean-Luc. Can’t you feel my pain?”
She had been so full of hope when she had given him her news. She had been sure he would be as happy as she was to find that she carried the child of their love in her womb. Instead, he had reacted with anger and disbelief. She remembered the stinging words he had thrown at her. Asking her how she, as a doctor could have let this happen to herself, to them.
She had told him the truth. She didn’t know how the impossible had happened, only that it was so.
Then they had been drawn into the tragedy of the house fire at La Barre, Jean-Luc’s sorrow at the deaths of his brother and nephew. Next, the drama of the Nexus and the resulting loss of the Enterprise D. Beverly watched as Jean-Luc’s world had fallen apart around him. The more she had tried to get closer to him, to comfort him, the more he had avoided her. It seemed the thought of the child growing in her belly, and all it represented, was something he was not ready to face. She wondered secretly if the wisdom of the old ones was true when it said that men have trouble coming to terms with the changes in their lives. For women the phases of life, like the triple Goddess—the maiden, the mother and the crone—were so easily understood, but for men, fearing the impact to their lives that being a father brings, it was not so clear cut.
By the time that she was to be reassigned, things had gotten so bad between them she had asked for extended leave, hoping against hope to get a reaction from him. She had been to see him before she left the Enterprise and had told him gently of her plans to return to her Nana’s house and bear the baby there. She had kissed him and told him she would give him time to face his demons. Jean-Luc had seen her to the transporter room, and let her go.
So she had come home to Caldos.
Home to her people.
They had welcomed her with open arms. She was a powerful healer, as her grandmother had been before her. That her belly was full of the fruits of the Goddess at Beltane caused not a stir. She had tried to contact Jean-Luc, but she had received no answer to any of her messages. Her troubled thoughts plagued her soul. Was she destined to walk this path alone, to raise another child on her own?
Through Will and Deanna, she had found out that Starfleet had plans for an Enterprise ‘E’.
Yet of their Captain they had heard nothing. Deanna had seen her friend’s sadness, sensed her fears. “Don’t worry Beverly, he’ll be alright,” she had said. “He’ll come to you.”
But he hadn’t.
And soon his baby would be born. She felt the now familiar tears begin to fall like winter rain.
And outside the Goddess wept with her.
The room was growing lighter. The pink fingers of dawn were spreading across the grey sky. There was a knock on the old wooden door. She made no move to answer it.
The knock sounded again, more urgently this time.
Beverly got up out of her chair and stretched her aching back. She walked over to the door, having lost none of her natural grace in the last month of her pregnancy and opened it.
“A man could freeze to death out here in the rain, Beverly Crusher,” a voice said in deep teasing Gaidhlig.
Beverly answered him in the same language. “And what would you be doing out and about at this time of the morning, Ewan McDonald?”
“I was on my way to see to the traps, when I saw your light on. I thought I would stop by and make sure everything was alright with you and the bairn,” Ewan said.
Beverly grew serious now. “I’m fine.”
“You’ve been crying,” he said.
She couldn’t deny it.
Once again he cursed the man that had bought such sorrow to her. Ewan McDonald was a giant of a man with the build of a rugged highlander. He had a very soft spot in his heart for Beverly Crusher. He had been her friend for many years and at one stage had been much more. She was his childhood sweetheart. He had been her first lover. His picture, he knew, still stood in her room. She had left him behind to explore the stars, been married, a mother and then widowed too soon.
And now she was back again with the child of another in her belly.
He wondered for the umpteenth time just what sort of man this ‘Picard’ of hers was. That she loved him dearly was obvious. The child she carried was much more that just the product of the lust of Bel’s fires. She was soon to give birth to his bairn, and yet the man Picard had never come to see her.
He was obviously a fool.
Beverly stood watching him, her hands braced behind her back as she stretched her muscles. The movement accentuated her girth, and Ewan wondered how it was that he could still find her so attractive even this far along in pregnancy, and to another man at that. The woman had something of the Goddess in her for sure. She was just as beautiful now as she had ever been.
She smiled at him. “Why don’t you come in and get warm. I’ll make you something to eat. I could do with the company.”
The man that fathered the baby on you should be here to keep you company, Ewan thought. But he smiled for her and said, “That would be grand.”
They sat and talked, and by the time he was ready to leave, she was at least on the surface, happy. She walked him to the gate. He put his arm around her waist, his hand on her belly and bent down to whisper a joke in her ear. He felt her laugh. He couldn’t resist pulling her closer, placing his lips on hers, remembering the feel of her, just one more time.
Beverly was for a moment too stunned to react,
and let his lips caress hers.
And so they were when Captain Jean-Luc Picard came upon them.
His resolve almost faltered as he took in the sight before him. A very pregnant Beverly in the arms of a very handsome man. The man was kissing her, and it certainly looked like she wasn’t complaining.
He cursed. Loudly.
“Jean-Luc!” the shocked words slipped out of Beverly’s mouth.
Ewan looked closer at the man approaching them. So this was her ‘Picard’. He was older than he’d thought. Balder, too. But the man had a presence, and from the look in his eyes, unfinished business with Beverly Howard.
The couple standing before Jean-Luc broke away from each other but, he noticed, the other man did not remove his hand from Beverly’s waist. It was a gesture of protection, of ownership, of rivalry.
Gracefully, Beverly left Ewan’s side. She walked the short distance to face him. “So, you’ve come,” she said shortly, full of fire.
Jean-Luc marveled at her spirit. He had treated her appallingly, had left her to cope while he had wallowed in his own self pity. He had thrown away the gift she had offered him… “Yes,” he answered simply.
“Well, you’d better bring your bags into the house before I change my mind.” She turned her back to him and walked slowly down the path towards the house.
Jean-Luc picked up his bags and followed behind her.
Beverly stopped to talk quickly to Ewan.
“Is this him?” Ewan asked.
“Yes it is,” she answered.
“Do you want me to hit him for you?”
“Not yet.”
“You know where I am if you need me.”
The Gaidhlig had flowed so fast between them that Jean-Luc had truly felt like an outsider. Ewan cracked his knuckles, threw a truly menacing look at ‘Picard’ and walked slowly away.
Inside the house, Beverly turned towards Jean-Luc. She lifted an eyebrow and crossed her arms, telling him without words that what he had to say had better be good.
He placed his bags beside the door and looked at her. “Beverly.”
She felt the child inside her kick as he said her name. “Jean-Luc,” she answered as cool as could be.
The silence stretched between them.
“So what brings you back to Caldos?” Beverly said at last.
Jean-Luc winced. Damn, I deserved that. He lowered his head, ashamed.
Beverly nodded at his bags. “You can put them in my old room. I think you know the way.” She turned and he was dismissed.
Beverly went straight into the kitchen. Oh shit, did she need to sit down. She had felt her heart leap at the sight of him coming along the road to the house. Thank god Ewan had been there to hold her back or she would have run down the road to meet him like some lovesick school girl. She had to play it cool. Let him woo her if he wanted her. Let him think that she had taken an old lover back into her life. Let him suffer!
She smiled and patted her belly. “Your papa’s come home,” she said softly.
Upstairs, Jean-Luc was not feeling at all well. The picture on the dresser. That’s where he had seen the man she was with before. He picked it up. So the old flame had returned had he, offering a shoulder to cry on and god knows what else…
Beverly heard him moving around in her old room upstairs. She quickly gathered her wits together and by the time Jean-Luc entered the kitchen, she was busying herself with some cleaning. She heard him cross the room, and felt a prickle of anticipation as he came to stand behind her.
He put his hands on her shoulders and slowly turned her around until she was facing him.
She didn’t want to meet his eyes, so she let her head drop. Then she shivered as she felt his fingers move softly over the skin along her jaw, then onto her shoulder and down her arm until he reached her hand. She felt his fingers lace through hers warmly. She watched his thumb massage the palm of her hand, the sensual movement causing a frisson of arousal to race through her.
He used his other hand to tilt her chin up and his eyes locked on hers. “I love you,” he said softly, simply.
She saw his head lower and closed her eyes to receive his kiss.
His lips were warm and firm…how I dreamed of this…she felt his hands draw her into his embrace. The kiss became hungrier. His hands moved down her back and onto her rear. He pulled her into him as close as her belly would allow, and held her there as if he were afraid to let her go.
She let herself indulge in a small caress up along his back and then kissed the side of his neck. She parted her lips and let her tongue slip out to taste him. She had to know that he was real, not some illusion. She heard the hiss of his breath between his teeth. His hands tightened on her butt and she felt his mouth against her ear. His whispered words of lust made her skin glow as hotly as the sinful things he was saying to her.
Beverly felt her body giving in to him. So much for playing hard to get, she chided herself.
Jean-Luc’s mouth had left her ear and was moving down her neck onto her shoulder. She felt his touch as he moved the neckline of her blouse so he could kiss her further down. He gently undid the buttons and let his hand slide lazily inside to cup her breast.
“Why can’t you just say ‘sorry’ like everybody
else?” she scolded softly.
He smiled. “I’m sorry Beverly.”
“I find it hard to have a conversation with your hand on my breast,” she said seriously.
“I don’t,” he stated flatly. He bent to kiss her again.
The child between them chose that moment to move restlessly in her womb.
Beverly felt Jean-Luc’s reaction. Startled, he removed his hands from inside her blouse and placed them gently on her belly.
“Does it do that often?” he asked in wonder, but before she could say anything the baby answered for her, stretching and kicking an affirmative beneath his hands.
Beverly smiled, Jean-Luc was such a serious man and it showed as he concentrated on feeling the movement of his child inside her. So different to Jack—he’d always had a joke to crack or a funny one-liner to lighten the situation, but this man…as different as night and day they were. She knew that Jean-Luc’s emotions ran so deep that everything he did, he did with passionate intent. She had seen that so many times during their friendship and even more so as his lover.
“My child,” he said softly, possessively.
And at that moment she forgave him everything. “Make love with me,” she said softly.
“Are you sure?”
Beverly answered him physically, with a kiss.
*
Jean-Luc had undressed her slowly, he was being so gentle with her, treating her like she was fragile, made of glass.
Beverly was pleased at his restraint but after so many months of longing she wanted him—now. “Jean-Luc, we can do more than just kiss you know.” She took his hand and placed it on her belly. “It’s okay to have sex right up until the baby’s born.” She moved his hand further up to her full breasts. “You just need to learn the right technique, that’s all.”
She moved against him. “I have to feel you in me Jean-Luc.”
It was all the encouragement he needed.
She showed him the ways to pleasure her, how to make love without the baby getting in the way. The sight of her fertile body responding to him only enhanced his enjoyment.
At last Beverly felt her orgasm break over her, she gasped sweet and low, and let the man she loved feel exactly how pleasurable it was for her. She heard his moan as he too gave into the bliss her body had given him.
They lay together sated, their legs entwined, Jean-Luc hard up against Beverly’s back, his hand across her belly. He spoke into her ear, “So where does this leave your admirer, Ewan?”
Beverly stretched and answered, “Well I suppose he will still have his sweet memories of me, when I was young and slim and innocent.”
“It seemed like he was after more than a memory
to me,” Jean-Luc almost huffed.
Beverly was enjoying this immensely. “He cares for me.”
“You still have his picture in your room.”
“Well, Jean-Luc, a woman never forgets her first lover.”
Picard was speechless.
“Don’t let that gruff exterior fool you,” she went on. “He was a very gentle and tender lover, he taught me—”
“Beverly! I don’t want to hear that!” Jean-Luc exclaimed.
“Well, you asked!”
“The picture goes!” he snapped.
“Yes, Jean-Luc,” she said sweetly.
She felt his smile against the skin on her shoulder. Beverly chuckled happily. He had come home to her. Their child stirred within her. She felt Jean-Luc’s gentle hands move over her belly, comforting his restless baby. As his hands moved, he sang a gentle song in French.
“What’s that you’re singing?” Beverly asked.
“A lullaby my maman used to sing to me when I couldn’t sleep,” he said softly.
Beverly turned towards him, drawing him into the heat of her embrace. “I love you too,” she said, and kissed him.
Outside, the tears of the Goddess had stopped. She would return soon to Caldos, after the long winter’s end. Her sunlight now shone brightly on the house, warming it with the first traces of spring.
Part IV: The Promise of the Goddess
Beverly’s child had been born just as the sun had come up on Caldos. After a short but painful labour, she had given one last great push to bring her baby daughter into the world.
“Welcome child,” the Goddess had whispered.
Jean-Luc had felt, as he held his daughter for the first time, that the universe was finally as it should be. At long last he had the woman he loved more than life itself by his side and she had bourn his child, the baby conceived with love on a fiery Beltane Eve.
Two months later, they had received word that the Enterprise E was to be commissioned. Jean-Luc had, of course, been offered the position of Captain. Beverly, he knew, was not keen to leave Caldos so soon. But her love for him meant that she would be by his side on the Enterprise E, come what may.
Still, he hadn’t given Starfleet his answer yet.
The fields behind the house had now blossomed
with the flowers of Spring. Jean-Luc wandered through them musing about
the last time he had been here, collecting the hawthorn branches and
blooms for Beverly’s May Boughing garland.
Beverly had drawn him back to her on Caldos like a honey toned Siren.
Coming along the road to her house, he had seen her and been pleasantly
surprised at how swollen her belly had become with his child. The
evidence of their coming together on that fiery Beltane Eve making him
ache with need.
The thought of her filled him with such fierce emotion. He had never felt about another being the way he felt about her, as he had from the first time he had set eyes on her. He remembered the very first words she had ever spoken to him. How he had admired the fiery beauty of her hair against the ivory of her skin. The thrill he had always felt when he had the chance to secretly observe her. Committing to memory how she had worn her hair and how beautiful she had looked in a certain dress. The primal way he had wanted to possess her and have her love. After so many years of worshipping her from afar, he couldn’t believe she was his now—to touch, to hold, to bed…
He had been almost overpowered by jealousy at seeing her in the arms of her old lover. His fists unconsciously clenched at the memory of it even now. He had felt raw outrage at seeing another man place his hands on her belly and cover her mouth with his kiss. And then he thought, Oh god, have I lost her?
He had laid his claim to her in the only way he could, relying on the physical need that had always flowed between them to speak for him. Just to touch her sent a shock through his senses, and he felt Beverly’s answering desire as he had kissed her creamy skin. He had pulled her to him roughly, his need for her overwhelming, and had felt her surrender, her hands along his back, her tongue against his flesh, tasting him. The longing he had felt for her exploded in him. His accent had thickened as he found himself telling her just how much he had missed her body, how much he had wanted to feel her touch him, to hear her voice as she moaned in her passion…then felt his daughter move restlessly in Beverly’s womb.
My child… The reality of his baby and the future ahead of them became, at that moment, crystal clear. He had seen Beverly’s smile, one of total forgiveness and unconditional love. They had slowly begun to made love. After so long apart, he had tried to restrain himself, but Beverly had shown him that there was no need. He recalled the words she had whispered to him as he had fulfilled her and once again made her his.
No guilt. No sin.
With a smile, he turned and walked back across the field to Beverly’s little house. He knew that she would be feeding the baby. He had found that he loved to watch as Beverly nourished his child with her breast milk.
His child, his future, was growing stronger every day.
And after, maybe, just maybe he could convince Beverly to sleep in this morning, and he would join her in the big old bed.
Starfleet and the Federation, he decided, could wait.