Title: After the Passages of Time

[raqs]

FOR: Name/LJ Name: Brilliant Lies / brilliant_lies

Fandom: Our only real point of request contact: Star Trek TNG: Troi/Crusher

BY: dith/raqs

NOTE: I have never in my life written any Star Trek fanfic. So this is a first for me!
Thank you orca_girl for the quick & dirty beta and the laughing at it!

Wordcount: 5105

Rating: NC-17 (duh, this IS me we're talking about)

Warnings: far future/AU

DEEPLY sorry for being so late - I will not again presume I can write fanfic for a show I haven't seen for fifteen years! I promise!

After the Passages of Time...

The blip was warm.

She felt the burst of hope in her gut, the excitement that made this all worthwhile, that paid off all the disappointment and exposure to despair that made it so hard to keep going.

"Life signs readings are positive," she said, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice.

Her Captain showed all the excitement for both of them. "Really? That space station is barely more than a skeleton. How many?"

"I see at least seven."

"Any other reading on them yet?"

Deanna shook her head. "Sorry, Beverly, they are too far away at the moment."

When she looked up, Beverly's slender fingers were already moving over the helm controls.

The helm controls were intact, even though they were shabby and had the ingrained dirt of years' worth of fingerprints on them. The rest of the bridge was largely intact too, except for some holes underneath the consoles of the science and weapons stations. That was why they'd bought the Marathon. There was a lot of meat on her bones. They could live a long time by selling off the meat, piece by piece.

She didn't miss the multicolored tunics - those bright primary colors
framed with black, as if imagination had a bad reputation. She thought
Beverly might miss them, though. They weren't really clothes, not to most
of the lifelong Academy people. They were symbols.

Symbols were no longer popular out here.

As they pulled up closer to the derelict, she watched Beverly program the
autopilot to approach and pause at a safe distance, and watched her re-arm
the panic-button program. "Computer," said Beverly, "program
alpha-niner-see-ex-two-four-niner, activate, execute code Scat."

"Accepted," said the computer calmly as if nothing were wrong.

How could the computer not know, Deanna wondered idly as she touched the buttons at her own station, getting ready as they had done dozens of times before. How does it not know that it's supposed to have a crew of fifty and only two of us are here?

"We're hailing them and... they are answering," Deanna said.

"Onscreen," said the Captain.

He was dirty and he looked surprised. "Federation starship... Marathon? I thought that was a bigger ship."

This is probably the biggest ship left in the fleet, thought Deanna as she suppressed a giggle, before she realized that she was perhaps about to lose her grip on calm. She took a deep breath.

"I am Captain Crusher, commanding, and the Marathon is on a search and rescue mission, commander, do you need assistance?"

"Do I - What the hell does it look like, lady?"

"How many crew do you have?"

"I've got dozens of bodybags full... How many do YOU have?"

The man was looking around what he could see of the bridge, greedily, taking in details, and Deanna didn't like it.

Beverly just smiled. "I meant, how many people do you have in need of evacuation?"

"There's five of us left," said the man, and immediately Deanna felt the ping that told her he was lying.

She pushed the button that lit the little yellow light on Beverly's chair arm and Beverly smiled smoothly again. "Just a moment, Commander," before she cut the screen.

"He's lying, Captain," and Deanna shook her head sadly. "I can't even tell WHY he's lying. It could be a trap, or it could just be force of habit."

"Wonderful." Beverly wrapped her hands together and leaned forward in her chair, pressing her knees together tight. "I'm not inclined to leave them out here to rot."

"We can pull a little closer..." Deanna didn't sound enthusiastic but she knew better than to try to dissuade Beverly from her so-called 'search and rescue'.

Bev stepped down herself and adjusted the controls at the helm before turning the comm screen back on.

"We can evacuate you to Rygel 16 if you'd like," she said, again sounding as if she were offering nothing more than a stick of gum, calm and carefree. "Are there any of your crew who require medical assistance?"

"What? No no. No medical. Yes, of course yes we'd like to evacuate - Rygel 16? Really? We heard there was no more fighting there but... You have warp capacity?"

The greedy look was back in his eyes.

"We can arrange for your transport," said the Captain calmly, but her slender arms folded over her chest were a good signal that the fellow better stop asking questions if he knew what was good for him.

He didn't, though. He was turning his head and peering through the screen at Deanna, and she suddenly knew that he was trying to see if she had grey in her hair.

They were close enough now that she could quite taste the mood of the derelict station, and it was a taste she would like to get rid of as quickly as possible.

"Screen off," she said out loud as she cut the connection without further discussion. "There ARE even more than seven life readings on that station, Captain, some of them faint, but I don't think there's anything we can do about it. He would like our warp drive. Very much. He would like to have women on his station even more."

Deanna couldn't stop her nose from wrinkling but Beverly just shrugged. "He's obviously a little short-sighted, Commander."

That made Deanna's lips thin but she said nothing. She wasn't the one sensitive about her broadening hips, her thickening waist and drooping breasts, or even her aching joints. Beverly looked as she always had - perhaps she had a little more gray in her hair, but if anything she was even leaner than she had been as a younger woman. But Beverly was the one who couldn't believe that a desperate man would still want to capture women if he could, and that she herself would do just fine for his needs.

"We still need to --"

But they didn't have time, because at that moment the warning klaxons went off and the ship rocked.

"That little weasel!" Beverly shrieked as she dove for the command console. "They have photon torpedoes!"

"Two more bearing on us point five eight two," and Deanna tried to sound calm but she was just as furious. Why? Why couldn't they ever just part amicably? Had everything in the universe really gone so much to hell that people couldn't even let their little ship get away without trying to destroy it?

For the briefest of seconds Deanna wished that the had the wherewithal to fire back.

A slap of her hand and the shields were up but she was reading the other monitors fast even as Beverly brought them about and tried to head them away.

"I'm not getting warp - why am I not getting warp --" Beverly fired backwards over her shoulder.

"Damage to the port engine... it looks like it is confined to propulsion, life support is unharmed but the engine..."

"I can't get warp on one engine?"

"Wait, we probably can... let me run some automatic patches."

Deanna coaxed the computer into helping while Beverly looked back up at the screen, now showing the burnt and eviscerated hulk of a space station receding in the distance behind them. Deanna could feel a thin thread of anger and frustration following them out into the void of space again. But it was Beverly's face that showed the crushing of hope.

"He wasn't on that station, Beverly. We knew that when we approached it."

"We know he wasn't supposed to be on that station, Deanna." The Captain's fine-boned chin looked pointed, determined, but her eyes were filled with tears she wouldn't shed. Not while she sat in the Captain's chair. Not on the bridge. "But who was where they were supposed to be, those last few years as the Federation fell. The records are so incomplete, the options so many --"

"It's a big galaxy. But human-inhabited worlds are still relatively few." They both knew that it was an impossible task, to locate one person in the last dregs of the war-torn Federation's motley collection of planets and moons and asteroids that had until only recently been planets and moons.

Besides, thought Deanna for the millionth time, the odds were that Wesley had found a way onto another plane of existence entirely. If he wanted to find them, he would. If he could.

She wondered, idly, since she had no real basis for comparison, which was worse. If Beverly's son couldn't find them, or if he could but just didn't want to.

From a mother's point of view, she supposed, both must suck.

"What now?" and Beverly dropped wearily into her worn, shabby captain's chair.

"Limp back to Rygel 16 just as we have done five times before," Deanna said as she shrugged one still-expressive shoulder and smiled over it at her captain. "I think they can repair us again."

"We'd better start trying to figure out what we can trade for repairs," Beverly said wearily, as if she were about to get up and do so, but she remained seated, long legs sprawled out of the chair, head tilted back and tired, the picture of the opposite of the tightly anticipating Captain of so few minutes before.

---

Here were things not worth trading, Deanna thought to herself and allowed herself a little hidden bubble of glee as she unwrapped her personal treasure trove of toys.

They'd set the ship's evening to fall early, both to conserve power and because there was not much left to do on the long slow trip back except go to bed.

Deanna wished again that Beverly's friendship were flexible enough to allow them to do that together, even without any sexual context. It would be nice to sleep again in someone else's arms.

Then she revised her wish. The sexual context would be even better, she admitted to herself as she carefully reassembled the small Betazed vibrator and turned it on. So much better than the Earth versions, though as a collector she had a few of those too. It was carefully shaped, sinuous but strong, with a shape that was reminiscent of a tongue. It was entirely programmable, and the power supply would last for at least a hundred years.

It had been a long day, Deanna thought to herself, realizing with a sinking sensation in her stomach how good it would have been to have more company if the people on board that space station hadn't wished them harm. It would be so good to have someone else's hands on her skin now, skimming over her breasts, sliding down her arms. It would be good to have someone else's body heat sinking into her, someone else's breath mingling with her own.

Lonely, her brain thought clearly, then automatically flipped to the chapters for Loneliness, treatments for.

Never mind, she thought to herself. A few good solid orgasms were a treatment for many kinds of negative feelings and Deanna intended to help herself to a few.

She liked to take her time. She'd arranged things in her room so she had handy places to rest her feet. She wasn't as young as she had once been.

She thought of her mother cursing her father's genetic influence on her and chuckled. Yes, she was aging faster than the usual Betazoid, but she had also lived much more. She had no complaints.

Well, yes she did, she thought, hands stilling, irritated with herself for feeling that she had to be honest even with herself. She missed Will. She did not enjoy outliving him.

However, if she had not, Beverly would be alone now and that would not be all right.

Poor Beverly. Deanna's hands starting moving again, stroking her belly gently, teasing higher or lower as she pleased. She did not think, from the sensations Beverly emanated, that she treated herself to release as often as Deanna did. And while Beverly's sexual drive had waned with age, and had never been at the same level as Deanna's, Beverly was healthy and ... lonely too.

Why couldn't her friend make it easy, Deanna wondered. Why couldn't they just hold one another, share some friendly orgasms, relax one another out here in this crumbling sector of space?

Deanna would enjoy it. Bev's arms and legs were slender and lean, her shoulders broad, and Deanna had always liked those things in a lover. It didn't matter to her that Beverly was a woman, but she knew it mattered to Beverly, a great deal.

Silly Bev. Deanna smiled again and shook her head, feeling her hair bunch up behind her neck. Making things more difficult than they already were.

She had one foot hooked up on top of a chair back and one hand comfortably cupping a heavy soft breast when the door clicked. It didn't chime any more, but it did click. Deanna was proud of the click, too. She had figured out a way to make it click. She was a counselor, not an engineer. It was fun to learn new things, though, and even at her age she was still up for a challenge.

Oh. Click. Someone wanted in. Deanna flicked off the toy and pulled the sheet up along with her as she padded to the door. It was Beverly, or they'd been boarded. Either way it was worth a look.

"Captain."

She knew perhaps the greeting didn't quite go with her look, naked, with a sheet half-draped over her, black hair still only slightly touched with gray tumbling loose over her shoulders.

"Deanna."

Informal. Informal was good. Deanna smiled. "Is something wrong?"

"No, I - Oh, well --" Beverly's long narrow fingers were twisting around each other, as if she had something to say but needed to knit it first.

"I'm sorry, would you like to come in?" Deanna took a step back, gestured with her hand at the bare room behind her.

"How do you DO that?" Before Deanna could even respond Beverly went on, her words in a rush. "How do you just keep acting as though, as though this were a ship, as though there were a Federation, as though I were the Captain and everything was okay and just --"

"Beverly." Deanna put out both her hands and took Beverly's twisting, pulling fingers in her palms. "I think you might be on the verge of hysterics."

"Hysterics? YOU THINK? Were you not there when that station shot at us today?? And I've lost count of the --"

"Beverly." Deanna's voice was even softer. "Did you want me to get you a sedative?"

"What? No. For pete's sake I could still medicate myself, if that were what I needed, which it's not, even I can tell that it's not. Of course not. I, uh..." Her flood of words ran out and she stood there in the middle of the floor, a tall, strong woman looking suddenly helpless.

The gray strands were colorless threads in the otherwise constant fire of her hair and Deanna felt suddenly very protective of her old friend. Standing there in the middle of a starship's quarters, wearing the old Starfleet uniform, Beverly looked like a scrapbook of the past.

"What did you want?" Deanna prompted her gently.

"Oh, I... Deanna, really, it's too embarrassing, I can't but I have to and I don't know what to... oh never mind."

Just as Beverly was beginning to blush, Deanna felt, below her confusion, her decisive and serious need.

"Oh. OH!"

"This is incredibly stupid. I have to go now. Please excuse --"

"No! No, Beverly, please! Please don't go." Half-laughing, half keeping a grip on her sliding sheet, Deanna clutched for one of Bev's flailing hands and met her eyes. "It's okay. It's a good idea. Really."

"Re - what?"

"Honestly," and Deanna was tugging Beverly, just a little, still smiling, towards the bed, "I was just having the same idea myself."

"Oh, I - really?" Still blushing furiously, Bev pushed a hand up through her hair, apparently feeling the need to smooth it even though it was completely tidy and pulled back from her face.

"Really."

Just then Beverly looked down and caught sight of the little tumbled collection of toys Deanna had laid on the bed and winced, her hot embarrassment immediately replaced by visible fear - but also curiosity, curiosity that no one but Deanna would have been able to detect.

"Don't look at those. Really. I'm glad you're here. I wanted you to come and it's a good idea for both of us." Drawing herself up as tall as she could be, Deanna reached both hands up to cup Beverly's face, pull her down a bit, and kiss her.

It had been a long time, Deanna realized half-consciously, since she'd tried the kind of kiss old friends gave each other. It was new but not, businesslike but sincere, and Deanna put her energy into it, sending her warmth and her affection through her hands and her lips and her breath.

Heedless of the sliding sheet, Beverly snapped out of her immobilized astonishment to wrap those long, strong arms around Deanna.

And there in the shabby little stateroom, one woman naked with her graying hair tumbling down all around her, one woman fully dressed and looming over her, they laughed together, laughed until Deanna was afraid they would get the hiccups, dancing close to the edge of hysteria together in great peals of laughter that shook their bellies and burned off the last of the adrenalin.

When they were done they were half-lying on Deanna's bed, tossed across each other, and looking at each other the way two people do when they've known each other for thirty years and were limping their way home across the apocalypse.

"What do I DO?" squeaked Beverly, picking up one of Deanna's toys and turning a dial, making it hum, until Deanna started laughing again.

"Whatever you want," and she pulled off the sheet and dropped it at her feet before she tackled the fastenings on Beverly's still trim, still unimaginative, still primary-colored Starfleet uniform.

She wasn't expecting Beverly to give directions but Deanna didn't need any. She could feel, when she scraped a fingernail along the inside of Beverly's elbow, that the sensation only felt oddly ticklish to Beverly; whereas when she touched her tongue to the hollow at the base of Beverly's throat, she could almost taste Beverly's heart speeding up.

"Let me," she said, quashing Beverly's still ongoing attempts at formulating a sentence. "Sometimes talking is one of your better skills. But tonight is not your best attempt."

"Oh, uh --"

But that was the end of that discussion, as Deanna had the Captain's uniform off, her hair released, and managed to quickly, methodically, discover the effect of a tongue tip dipped in the navel, a swipe of the fingertips behind the knee, and finally, because it was going to be no surprise, a smooth brush of the thumb pad against the nipple.

Oh yes, thought Deanna as Beverly curled closer and wrapped a free hand around one of Deanna's ankles. Company was better. So much better.

"Do you like...?" Deanna picked up one of the toys, handmade light-years away on a world that was now gone, smooth and slightly soft and eternally warm from the microscopic sliver of dilithium embedded in its heart, and Beverly looked completely different, completely open and twenty years younger as her eyes glittered and she nodded, vigorously, Yes.

I will take my time, Deanna thought to herself even as she knew she couldn't. It had been too long, too long for both of them and some things could not be done in a measured, stately fashion.

It was like taking her hand but also like holding her whole body when Deanna slid her own hand over Beverly's curls and between the folds, surprised at the way the flesh clung to her fingers despite the speed of Beverly's heartbeat.

She looked at her friend's eyes, and then Beverly was a doctor and just shrugged. "It's normal for human women to produce less lubrication as they age." And then Beverly was a woman again, bitter for years gone by. "And I, of course, am aging."

"Thank goodness," Deanna said gently, without adding anything about the finality - much less the imminentness - of the alternative. "This I can fix --"

When Beverly saw the little translucent bubble she started up, leaning up on one elbow, "That's too hard to replace, it's not --"

"Of course it is. A special occasion. For an old friend." And Deanna's smile shone as she squeezed the little bubble and three drops of the silvery Romulan lubricant fell like glass blood onto her hand.

And as she let the heat of her hand and Beverly's body melt the liquid she pressed it in, circling her fingers, making wider and wider motions, remembering the day they had found the Romulan cruiser, the unfamiliar task of searching it for salvage, and Beverly's quirky grin weeks later when she pointed out that her analysis indicated that the substance was not only almost supernaturally slick even when spread only a molecule thick, but that it was also biologically inert, making it "an excellent personal lubricant as well as a mechanical one."

Deanna had made a joke about the success of Romulan female engineers and they had laughed together, the laugh of two people in unfamiliar circumstances still trying to find their way and glad for the company.

Deanna chuckled again like that now, and let her fingers slide between Beverly's lips, over the dense bud and looked her old friend in the eyes as she said, "I couldn't be doing this alone."

"I could," Beverly said, tilting her head back and closing her eyes, "but it wouldn't be as good."

Chuckling again, Deanna took the opportunity to slide one of her fingers inside.

She felt Beverly gasp, felt the other woman's hands grab her wrist, felt the body below her start to move, and felt herself start to warm up from the inside out, with the heat centering somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

The warm slick toy she slid gently in to replace her finger, not moving it much, just to fill Beverly up, to give her something she liked, give her that sensation along with the firm, gentle strokes of a fingertip next to her most sensitive spot.

It had been so long since she'd had a woman in her bed. She'd forgotten the scent of a woman aroused, and the feel of softer skin. She shouldn't have, since she was familiar with herself; but somehow she had. Somehow, touching Beverly, she was reminded of who she was herself.

"Deanna," Beverly gasped, and the flush of pink on her face was lovely, she must be close, surely, yes, she was grasping Deanna's wrist but not to control it, just to hold on, "everything's wrong, everything everywhere is wrong, otherwise I wouldn't --"

"I know." Deanna let her voice be soft and low, without giving away the little dip in her chest. Beverly wouldn't. But Deanna would.

She felt Beverly shiver, saw the ripple moving along that smooth, gently rounded belly, and felt the release herself, her own muscles spasming along with the ones below her, let out a slow breath herself along with the other woman, put the toy aside as she felt as well as watched her friend relax.

She didn't say anything, just let Beverly's long body curl around her where she sat on the bed and used her free hand to touch the other woman's face, feeling where even those small muscles had let go.

Feeling where a tear trickled down from one corner of her eye.

She felt both the release of tension and the mourning in Beverly, mourning for their pasts, for everyone beyond the reach of a doctor now, for her lost son. Reason enough for a tear or two.

But she didn't want sadness in her bed. Not for now.

"Is it my turn now?" she said with half a grin, and Beverly turned one light eye up to regard her suspiciously.

"I'll do my best, but don't expect too much," her friend said, and her voice was normal, sounded just like the Beverly of old.

Deanna laughed and unfolded her legs - so short next to Beverly's! - and leaned back on one elbow, comfortably showing off even in the low light. "Perhaps you'd prefer to observe," she teased as she draped one free, bare leg over Beverly's hip.

She could see Beverly prop herself up on one arm, raise an eyebrow. "Perhaps I would."

It was better with company, Deanna reflected, even if Beverly did nothing but keep her company. It was better, with someone else's warm skin against hers as she touched herself, feeling where she was still slick and expectant, swollen a bit with waiting and with getting.

Out of consideration for an unexpected audience, she put aside the Betazed vibrator she had been going to use - good for G-spots but not for show - and picked up something thicker and straighter which, not incidentally, glowed.

When she turned it on and it started to buzz and its pinkish glow fell across her skin she felt Beverly laughing. "Oh no!"

"Oh yes," and Deanna licked it a little, getting it slicker before rubbing it along herself. The warm, nicely thudding vibration was heaven and she half-sighed, half-moaned a little when she slid it inside.

Beverly was shaking her head, but her head was propped again on her arm and she was definitely watching. "That looks good," Beverly told her and Deanna smiled into the dim light; Bev's voice was a little deeper. "Am I going to get to try it?"

"Perhaps," Deanna said, trying to keep her voice a little prim as she slid it deeper inside of her. "Perhaps I will operate it for you."

"Hmm." But Beverly still didn't move.

Instead Deanna did, still careful not to startle Beverly with anything quick, just taking advantage of the quiet company to relax into the sensation of being penetrated. She wondered for the billionth time if she would have enjoyed it more if she had been pure Betazed, as her mother's people had more nerve endings in the places that were now being touched; but for the billionth time she then put it out of her head, as it was quite enjoyable just as it was.

Unable to wait any longer she left one hand on that toy and picked up another, smaller, curved, with a flat end, and touched the recessed button at its end. That one too made a soft noise, though without glowing, and its soft, resilient end was almost as good as a finger - maybe Beverly's finger, thought Deanna with a jolt, soft but strong as well and moving in sure circles just like this was moving now - one of these days, soon, maybe tomorrow -

She couldn't keep her hips still any longer and she could feel her leg muscles contract against Beverly's skin, felt Beverly's hand move over to grab her ankle once again, hold her closer, and that was enough to push her over the edge into her own release.

Beverly's fingers tightened as all Deanna's muscles clenched and trembled and her head jerked back and she cried out, shaking through the next shock and the next before she could relax, breathing hard, mouth dry but every inch of her skin buzzing with an afterglow. Deanna thought she might be giving off light herself.

"Amazing," murmured her friend and Deanna felt her hand sliding comfortingly over her shin, cupping her knee. "What would the universe be like if everyone had an orgasm like that every day."

"Happier," said Deanna, breathing heavily, and chuckled when Beverly started to laugh herself.

Then Beverly's breath seemed to catch and for second she sounded like she was choking. "This is - this is what the end of the world is like, isn't it? Back to basics - VERY basics - "

"Beverly, this is what beginnings are like too."

Reversing herself, Deanna laid back on her bed and pulled the taller woman into her arms, cupping the back of her head with a hand that suddenly felt almost too small for the job, cradling Beverly's face in the crook of her own neck. "It is all right to feel good, even to be happy, even in the middle of --"

She was looking for the right term when Beverly said into her shoulder, "Such a mess."

"Well, I was thinking, such an unfortunate socio-political downturn, but yes, it could also be called a mess."

She stroked Beverly's shoulders till she could feel the other woman relax. The basic warmth of skin on skin seemed itself a sort of talismanic protection against the blank vacuum of space.

Knowing what would come tomorrow, and the next day - the long slow limp back to Rygel 16; the painstaking process of cannibalizing the ship to pay for its return to warp speed, picking a new target to investigate for survivors, figuring out where, or how, to look for Beverly's son next - that was all a kind of comfort too. There was a predictability to the utter chaos that was the fall of civilization, thought Deanna as she let her palm and fingers smooth, one warm surface, over and over again on Beverly's skin, felt the slower breathing that presaged sleep. Like the predictability of masturbation but different. Looking for that warm spot of hope that made it better, so much better, than being alone.