Chapter Four – The mind can not tell what the heart doesn’t know

It had been three days since T'pala and her team - including Ben Tucker - had taken quarters aboard the Galahad and had started work on the modifications to warp-core A. That had left Ben with little free time, which had made it all the easier for Tarin to avoid him.

But even if Ben had had time to spare, she had enough work on her own hands. Admiral Khorolev had decided that the engine tests and modifications should not interfere with the Galahad's mission of patrol and exploration. If anything went wrong they could just switch to their secondary warp-core, so he had assigned the ship another mission. They would scout the Rawindra sector, see if there was anything there worth sending in a survey ship for a closer look. While that would keep T'pala and her team on board a little longer than originally planned, it would keep Tarin busy and offer the perfect excuse to avoid Ben for as long as she wanted.

Lieutenant Veal was in the middle of reviewing the requests from the different science departments for use of the main sensor array when the door chime rang. 'Now what?' She had to present her recommendations to Commander Blake and the operations department in the morning and she was running out of time. The last thing she needed now was a distraction from her work.

Tarin rose and smoothed out her uniform with her left, her right still holding the padd she had been working on. "Enter." The door slid aside and revealed Lieutenant Commander Ben Tucker. He had his hands behind his back and Tarin wasn't sure she wanted to know what he was hiding there.

"May I come in?" It was a simple question, nothing more, and Ben didn't move an inch while he waited for an answer.

"I am sorry Ben, this really isn’t a good time. I have to finish this soon.” She waved the padd around before pointing it at her computer terminal. “If it’s not too important, maybe it can wait until tomorrow?"

"I can wait until tomorrow, but I can’t judge how important it is to you." Ben looked down and paused for a second. When he looked up again, nothing of the easygoing man Tarin knew was there any more. "How important am I to you, Tarin? I know I have no right to barge in on you like this, but the way you are avoiding me, it’s like Deneva happening all over again."

Tarin slumped back in her chair. “Look, Ben, there’s a lot going on in my life right now and I just don’t know how you fit into it.” She closed her eyes and squared her shoulders. “I can’t promise that it will change anything between us, but you should give me a little more time. Please?” Tarin opened her eyes and held his gaze, as Ben nodded a quarter inch.

“Okay,” Ben slowly replied, “if that’s what you want I’ll leave you to your work.” He turned around and Tarin saw what he had kept hidden behind his back. That he had remembered her favored wine after three years was surprising enough, but. . . “Is that a real rose?”

Ben turned back to Tarin again and held forth the flower. “Yes, it is.” He brought the rose close to his face and drew a deep breath. “Wine and a red rose. Pretty old, huh?”

*****

Tarin wordlessly placed the glasses on the coffee table but kept the opener in her hand. To her this was strictly a conversation between two old acquaintances, not a romantic wine and roses evening.

"Listen, Ben, I have a good life here and the last thing I want is some short affair to mess it all up. I know it sounds cruel, but you were right about one thing – you deserve a straight answer." She toyed with the bottle opener for a moment, but Ben Tucker stayed silent, gave her time to make up her mind what to say next. 'As if I could make up my mind.'

"What we had back on Deneva was the best time of my life. You helped me forget my past, got me looking out for the future again, but I have found my place in life, and I am not sure you can fit into this life I have. Perhaps we could have a good time while you are on board, but soon enough we will have to part again. I can do well without that and I don’t want to change my whole life to make our relationship more enduring." 

“So we are back right where we left off on Deneva.” Ben sighed. “Funny thing is you didn’t even ask me what it is I want from you, but I guess that’s not too hard to figure out, is it?” He shook his head and answered his own question: “No, not with me.”

After a moment of silence Ben reached out and gently wrested the opener from Tarin’s fingers. He uncorked the bottle, poured himself a drink and sampled the wine. "It’s not what I want, but I don’t want to pressure you," he said. "There’s probably nothing I can do about it if you really want us to be just colleagues."

‘NO, that’s the last thing I want,’ Tarin’s heart screamed at her mind.

Tarin grabbed the bottle and poured herself a drink. She downed half the wine in one gulp and forcefully set the glass back on the table. “I don’t know what I want anymore!”

She jumped out off her chair and threw up her arms as her voice rose to a shout. “I have everything I ever wanted and somehow it’s all wrong! This isn’t about you and me, but I have no idea what it is about.”

Ben Tucker was stunned. He had never imagined Tarin could blow a fuse like that. He wanted to shout back at her, tell her how much he had wanted this to be a pleasant evening instead of the disaster it was swiftly turning into, but he couldn’t – not when he looked up at her and saw a world of pain on her face.

“Tarin, I am sorry, if it’s me I’ll go. I never wanted to cause you any pain.” Ben couldn’t believe that whatever was eating at her had nothing to do with him. Nothing else made sense to him. Perhaps he should go, maybe it would help her, but it would feel like he was running out on her. If he had unwittingly caused all this he should at least try to help her, ease her pain.

He picked up the rose from where it lay on the table between the glasses and held it up. “Do you have a vase? It would be a shame to let this flower die before it’s time.”

Tarin’s eyes widened and when she started to turn away from him Ben was unsure if she was laughing or sobbing. She pointed at a cupboard in the corner of the room, before completely turning towards the window. “Over there.”

*****

When Ben returned from the bathroom with the water-filled vase Tarin was still starring out the window. He put the rose in the vase and placed it on Tarin’s worktable. He turned the blossom towards the woman he still loved after all those years and smelled the sweet fragrance of the rose once more. “There. Much better, isn’t it?”

Tarin shot a glance over her shoulder and Ben was delighted to see a hint of  a smile playing around her troubled features. “Yes. Better.” Perhaps she had just needed to blow off some steam.

She turned towards the window again and Ben reached for his glass. He took a sip of wine as he waited for Tarin to speak up, but after a minute he realized it wasn’t going to happen without his intervention. He refilled Tarin’s glass and stepped over to her side, handing her the glass. “You look like you could use this.”

“No thanks.” She waved him off and leaned on the window sill. “It will take a lot more than a glass of wine to calm my mind.”

Ben placed the glass on the sill by her elbow and leaned against the bulkhead, glancing at Tarin from the corner of his eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Yes.” Tarin shook her head. “No.” She leaned forward, resting her forehead against the window pane, concentrating on the cool sensation of the glass. Her heart was still in turmoil, but her mind felt as empty as the void outside the ship.

"Look Ben, I need some time to make up my mind about a lot of things. Talking with you about it might even help, but I don't want to drag you into this."

"Even if you say it might help you? That's silly." Ben's voice was full of care and warmth and in spite of herself a smile tugged at Tarin's lips. 

"I know, but for weeks I have tried to figure out what's wrong with my life. Right now I think I am getting closer, but I have to do it on my own. I know you want to help me, but this isn’t just about some bad memory from my past, it’s about my whole life. Please don't think I am pushing you away. All I need is a little breathing room."

*****

"What's wrong with that woman?" Ben asked himself as he paced through his quarters. "Or better yet, what's wrong with me. To think we could just continue where we left three years ago." It had been idiotic, to hope that she would have missed him as much as he had missed her. 

He stopped pacing and slumped down on the sofa, crashing his feet down on the coffee table. Perhaps it would be best to just forget about Tarin, but he couldn't do that any more than he could walk across the moon without a spacesuit.

Her pain had deeply moved him, but all compassion aside he just plain loved her, even after three years. 'But why?' Ben asked himself, as he contemplated what made Tarin so special to him, what separated her from all the other women who had crossed his path.

Of course there was the sex. It was not that important, but it was an obvious starting point. Ben recalled what it had been like, the smoothness of her skin, the suppleness of Tarin's body, but compared to other women he had made love to she had been a bit inexperienced and somewhat self-conscious, at least initially. No, that was not it.

‘How about her mind, her spirit?’ Ben started a mental list. ‘Intelligent, curious - more about sciences than anything else, able to completely focus on her work, a good listener, compassionate.’ Those were all good qualities, but still not enough to explain his infatuation with her.

But there was something else about Tarin that defied Ben's best efforts to put it into words. She could bring out the best in the people around her, a talent she was most likely not aware of herself, or if she was she never hinted at. A part of it was her compassion, her empathy. Often it was hidden behind her scientists mind, but it was still part of her and part of the quality Ben tried to name, but putting it into words was not that important.

The last three years Ben had thought it was something that had happened only between the two of them, but spending a few days on the Galahad he had discovered how wrong that assumption had been. He had never inquired directly about her, but whenever a conversation had turned to Tarin Veal he had sensed how much her colleagues liked her, appreciated being around her, for the simple reason that she was who she was.

‘And now it’s gone, buried under all that pain and grief.’ Ben’s fist smacked into his left palm with a force that snapped him out off his troubled thoughts. ‘I love her for who she is, not for what she’s done to me!’ Was it true, were his feelings for Tarin and not for what she had turned him into?

Ben jumped off the sofa and resumed his restless pacing, but whenever his mind turned to Tarin Veal and the question lingering in his thoughts he saw her as he had seen her on Deneva. He had been happy with her well before he understood why she meant so much to him. It had been for his sake even then, but it had been so much more because of who she was. He had fallen in love with Tarin Veal, not with the Ben Tucker she had brought to the fore.

‘And I still love her just as much.’

*****

“Damn, I am so stupid.“ Tarin threw the padd with the sensor schedules down on her work desk and nearly toppled the vase. She reached out and brushed her fingertips over the petals of the rose. A bottle of wine and a red rose – Ben had been right, it was a cliché, but it was also very sweet. Like Centauran bougainvillea and a few other flowers, Terran roses had resisted every effort to cultivate them away from their native world. If Ben hadn’t brought it all the way from Earth in stasis he must have paid a fortune for this single flower.

‘How did I ever stop missing him?’ Ben Tucker had everything she had ever wanted in a man and he had it in spades. Honest, self-assured, amiable, easy-going, and understanding. “And he’s a great lover.”

Tarin blushed and shook her head. “Great. Now I am talking to myself.” She rose and started to pace around her quarters. “Get him out off your head, you silly girl. Whatever it is has nothing to do with Ben at all.”

Or perhaps everything had to do with Ben. Whenever she thought about him Tarin envisioned the moment he would have to leave for Earth again. The thought of her life suddenly being without him again frightened her more than anything she had ever faced. "But why? I know that it's coming, so why can't I just go ahead and enjoy myself with him while we can?"

'Because when he is gone I will be right back where I am now. That's why I fear loosing Ben again. Without him my life will be as empty as it is now.'

"No, my life isn't empty. I have everything I always wanted."

'And that's the problem,' a tiny voice in her heart told Tarin. She stopped dead in her tracks and concentrated on that inner voice. She wasn't sure if it was her mind or her heart who had come up with the thought, but it didn't matter.

‘There is so much more to do, so much more to learn, but I have accomplished everything I ever wanted.’ All of Tarin’s dreams had come true, but was there anything more she dreamed of, any other goal she could strive for? “No.”

There was a lot more she could accomplish as a scientist – she was far from perfect, even in her special subject of stellar sciences, but it was no longer what she dreamed of, what she longed for. ‘When did it come to this?’ Tarin asked herself, but now that she had finally found the question, part of the answer came readily to her.

It had been about two months ago when the Galahad had been nearly destroyed by a subspace shockwave. Captain McSorley had been seriously injured, Commander Blake trapped in engineering and internal communications went off-line. Suddenly Tarin and Joaquin Amaya had been the senior officers on the bridge, neither of them trained for the responsibility placed on their shoulders.

It had been a harrowing experience, but when it was over she hadn’t needed Captain McSorley’s praise to know she had done well for a science officer without any real command experience. In that instant she had realized that something was amiss in her life. The feeling had been there before, but on that day it been brought into sharp focus, grown to a strength she could no longer ignore.

Tarin didn’t know why she had not realized it much sooner, but perhaps she had once again defined herself too much as a scientist. Thinking outside that particular box was still hard, but now it became a little easier with every passing minute. It was time to rethink her career, look for a sense of achievement in places she had never looked before, but another thought kept her from contemplating her future career in any detail.

Ben had nothing to do with all her emotional turmoil. The sudden certainty exhilarated Tarin. He was all she could ever hope for in a man and he loved her. ‘And I love him.’ They would go their separate ways again in a few weeks, but until then they could be happy together. Parting from Ben would be a sad occasion, but it wouldn’t leave her as empty as she had feared. All Tarin had to do was make the most of what little time they had.

“Computer, locate Commander Ben Tucker.”

*****

The door had opened only halfway when Tarin stormed into Ben's quarters and flung herself at him. Before he had any chance to react Tarin had slung her arms around his neck and planted her lips on his mouth in a kiss that took Ben's breath away and made his heart skip a beat.

For a moment that stretched into eternity he indulged in the sensation of her kiss, felt his body react to her closeness in a way that was far beyond his conscious control, but when he tried to ease them apart to look at Tarin's face, her hold on his neck turned to steel. Before he could wonder if this was really the woman he had left only an hour ago Ben Tucker's heart overruled his brain and his emotions took control of his mind and body.

When Tarin finally broke their kiss Ben gasped for breath, but before he could say anything Tarin leaned closer to him again and brushed her face against his cheek, the tip of her tongue playing around his ear. “I want you, Ben Tucker. I don’t care how long this affair lasts or where we go after this mission. Right here, right now I want to make love to you.”

*****

Ben had no idea how much later it was when he propped up on an elbow and looked down at Tarin. "Okay, don't you think that this would be a good time to tell me what's gotten into you?" He leaned into her aura and lowered his voice. "Or maybe not," he murmured. "I am not complaining, you know."

Tarin cusped his face in her hands and brought his eyes inches before her own. "I love you, Ben. What more is there to say?"

Ben planted a quick kiss on the tip of her nose and smiled widely. "A lot more I think, but if you don't want to talk right now that's fine by me."

She shoved him away gently and held him at arms length. "There is a lot more than you can possibly imagine, but it can wait a little longer." She drew him in again, as her eyes closed and her lips parted. "Kiss me again, lover," Tarin whispered.

Epilogue – Looking for love in all the right places

“The next morning, after the mission briefing, I asked Commander Blake how soon I could take the bridge officer test. That day I turned away from my career in sciences and started to become a commanding officer. I am fairly certain that I would have made this decision sooner or later, even without Ben stepping into my life again, but he moved things along much sooner than would have been possible without him.”

“Oh no, I didn't,” Ben interjected. “You made up your mind all on your own. Don't blame this on me.”

Catherine Lee laughed softly, but before she had any chance to comment on what she had just been told, Tarin's eyes caught the time display on the Counselor's LCARS display. "Is it really this late? I am sorry Catherine, but I think it’s time for us to go now." Tarin rose and extended her hand to Ben.

"What's up?" he asked as he took the offered hand and stood up.

"I have some holodeck time booked for us and I don't want to let it go to waste.”

“Okay,” Ben replied, “but the holodeck will still be there tomorrow. What’s so important that it can’t wait another day?”

Counselor Lee was dumbfounded. “You haven’t told him?”

Tarin shook her head ruefully. “No, I hoped I could figure out all the details on my own, but since I have hit an impasse I think it’s about time to bring Ben in on it.”

*****

“Now what?” Ben asked.

Tarin just smiled and raised her hand at him, the hand that wore the engagement ring he had given her only a few days ago. “It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you. Computer, activate program Happy Days, background only.”

Around them a meadow appeared out of thin air, surrounded by gently rolling hills and the trees and bushes of a park. A warm breeze rustled through the verdant leaves and tugged at Ben's hair, carrying with it the salty smell of the ocean. Ben Tucker turned around and spotted the waves of the sea between the trees, the light of a bright summer afternoon turning each crest into a myriad of tiny sparkles. Somewhere hidden in the lush foliage birds started chirping as Ben squatted down and ran his hand through the grass.

"Very nice. I like the details." Ben drew another deep breath of the warm salty air and turned his face into the wind.

"Oh, but it gets even better. Computer, add chairs." Suddenly the meadow was no longer empty. Rows of white chairs appeared, arranged in two columns on both sides of an aisle. As Ben rose and ran his eyes over them he estimated seating for about one hundred.

"Okay, if you wanted to make me curious you have succeeded." Ben had some vague idea what this was leading to, but for now he was enjoying Tarin's cheerful expression too much to give it any conscious thought.

Tarin turned to him, her face all happiness, her smile more joyful than Ben had ever seen before. “Computer, add the rest of the program elements, except for central characters.”

Suddenly the chairs were filled with people. Most of them Ben recognized as officer’s from the Valkyrie and all were decked out in dress uniform, but that was not what caught his attention. Every single one of the holographic characters was facing an airy pavilion, that was decorated with an abundance of white Centauran bougainvillea and red roses.

"Is this what I think it is?"

"Yes, it is. Computer add central characters." In the pavilion a holographic Ben and Tarin appeared, both in dress uniform and facing each other. "For days I have tried to figure out what vows we should use, but there are so many alternatives. I thought watching us go through the ceremony would help me make up my mind, but it didn’t. Perhaps you could. . ." The rest of her sentence was lost in the passion of Ben's kiss.

When Tarin came to her senses again she found herself lying in the grass, looking up at the sky. She knew it was only a holographic sky, but it warmed her heart nonetheless. Around her there was a starship sailing through the void, but above were only blue skies and when she turned her head there was the face of the man she loved, the face of the man she had dreamed of before she had ever met him.

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