Everybody Else's Girl
He's not the only man I've ever loved. I've loved other people besides him, and I think that's the thing: I loved some of them while I was in love with him. I pushed him out of the center of my universe. Once someone has been relegated to the outer orbits, it's impossible to pull him back in. That's what I would tell myself if I were one of my patients. I would be calm and understanding. I would hold my hands and promise me that he wasn't the first and won't be the last. I would be comforting, and my patient self would sob and say I was absolutely right. And then go home to a triple-fudge brownie sundae, because the talking cure is often useless without medication.
The thing is that I have loved other people. I met him so early. I was getting my master's degree. I was home, on Betazed, the same planet but not the same girl. I lived in a terrible apartment by the university, with a terrible roommate who skulked and scowled, hearing in my thoughts that I would always be happier than her. My mother would come by and run a disdainful finger along the moldings; she'd buy me implausible outfits and complain that my graduate-student gray made me unattractive. She thought that a woman shouldn't have so much going on in her head, and I raced around in my mind masking the evidence that I was sleeping with my child psychology professor to make ends meet.
Will's mind was so quiet. He was so simple. An inside-out person, all of his emotions prickling from his skin. When I touched him, they stuck in my hand like sea urchin spines. Starfleet was sponsoring my graduate degree, and I was doing weekend work on the base at Kilatxayi as part of the terms of my scholarship. Some of the other men at Kilatxayi had a taste for local girls, but Will just had a taste for girls. He went through them like water. He got stuck on me because I was harder to pass. Lying next to me after the dozenth time we'd made love, he told me he wanted to spend the rest of his life trying to understand me. "I wish I was a Betazoid, so I could read your thoughts," he'd say all the time, until it became a private joke.
"Betazoids can't read them either," I'd say. "They're in another language."
He knew that I could see that he wasn't sorry to leave me. I was another girl in another port, and he was in line for top command. He was going to be an admiral someday, and I was just a smart little thing with a cushy medic job.
Two days after Will left Betazed, the board approved my thesis. A week after they handed me my diploma, Starfleet pinned a second pip to my collar and sent me into deep space to counsel PTSD-riddled veterans of the Cardassian War. I put aside my textbooks and let them talk. Most soldiers are reserved, afraid of their own emotions, and their distance from themeslves appealed to me. I had planned to serve out my three years' repayment of my Starfleet sponsorship and go into civilian practice, but I felt a kinship with my self-alienated patients. I came to realize that I was one of them: career military. I renewed my contract and accepted a promotion. I was shuttled from starbase to research station to starship, sent to work with intractable cases. I had casual boyfriends all over Federation territory, as well as a girlfriend or two and one androgynous being. It was what everyone did. I liked the freedom not to feel anything for any of them, even if I seldom exercised it. My mother harped that I would stretch myself out thin and slack and never be able to settle down. My mother, the serial wife, nauseated me. She was so needy.
When I took the Ship's Counselor post on the Enterprise, it was a reassurance that I was taking myself in the right direction. I was the best in the fleet at what I did. I forced my smiles when Will embraced me like there was no water under our bridge. He told me that he'd never stopped thinking about me. Relieved that he wasn't an empath, I told him that I felt the same way.
The thing is that I'm the only person he's ever really loved. The thing is that I've loved a lot of other people. He falls in a lot of lust and a lot of infatuation. I fall off logs. All of those lovers in all of those ports were loves of my life.
I never should have tried to call one man Imzadi. The thing is not that I am incapable of being that to him. The thing is that I am not capable of giving myself over to him and being happy.
For four years, we have carried the same rank. When I passed the commander's test, Captain Picard wrote me a letter of congratulations. It was an awkward thing, but he sometimes finds it easiest to express himself when he has time to edit his words. "This crew has a tendency to forget that you are not only an excellent counselor, but an excellent officer," he wrote. "I hope that this will help you remember."
Every morning, I fasten three gold disks to the collar of my uniform and remind myself that I am a Starfleet commander. I have sat in the center chair of the fleet's flagship, and I have done her as proud as I could. (I only crashed her once.) Starfleet has been sending me on sensitive espionage missions. I am ordered to probe the enemy's thoughts and wrap up her secrets in the recondite corners of my mind. I have made a career of keeping confidences.
Will still wears his heart on his skin, which is probably why he still wears three pips on his uniform. I knew for a week before he offered me an engagement ring, but I wasn't the only one who guessed. I faked my surprise when he slipped it on my finger. The next day, I had to explain to everyone, "I told him that I don't know." They didn't have to feign their shock.
I said that I didn't know because I knew, and I knew it would hurt him. I can't be a Starfleet wife. I have worked with many of them; they have been my patients and colleagues, my friends. Yes, one was a lover, years ago-- a husband, but most civilian spouses are cut from the same cloth. They would rather be cheerleaders than heroes. They are ambitious only for others.
Yesterday, I had a subspace conversation with Captain Liu of the Dazai. She's in the market for a new first officer. The Dazai is a medical ship. It makes hard, long runs with emergency aid and supplies. It lies about its cargo; it sees unspeakable suffering and shrouds its memories in the Prime Directive. Medical ships are often the first to go down in border disputes or failures to convince hostile aliens of humanitarian intentions. Captain Liu thinks that my background in psychology and my honed empathic abilities will be profound assets.
When Will asked me to marry him, I said that I wasn't sure. When Captain Liu asked me to sit at her right hand, I could not muster a single hesitation.
In two weeks, the Enterprise will rendezvous with the Dazai. I'll tell Will that I'll never stop loving him. He'll believe me. I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry that he'll never know.