He was undecided. She felt the shift between his desire to tell
her his news and his temptation to wait. But as she grew madder, he
relented. "This has to be a first," he laughed. Then he grew more
somber, "Deanna," he began, his voice changed to a tender address he
usually reserved for when making love to her and his chest heaved up and
down in a forceful rhythm, "there were effects of the Briar Patch no one
anticipated..." Licking his lips, his smile immediately spread again,
"it seems that one side-effect of the region is that any drug designed
to..."

	He never got to finish. Suddenly everything made sense to her.
Like a proud father. "Oh, Riix, I'm pregnant!"

	"Yep! And I knew before you did. That's got to be a first. The
man telling the woman..."

	He was talking but Deanna wasn't concentrating on his words anymore,
she was trying to keep the gray fog from swallowing her. His arms were
around here and his panic was like a slap in the face. She took a couple
of quick breaths and felt her feet solid under her once again. Will was
supporting her in his arms. His face was pressed close to hers.

	"Are you sorry, Deanna? You can tell me if you are."

	Now it was her turn to laugh. "No, Will. I'm not sorry at all.
Everything is just happening so fast."

	"Resume," he instructed the turbolift. "Well, that's what happens
when you take everything so slow for so long. Sooner or later things
either speed up or stop altogether."

	Deanna linked her arm in his while resting her head on his shoulder.
A baby. She let herself enjoy the glow of the moment before
acknowledging the insistent push of reality as it crowded its way
through her euphoria. This changed everything - she couldn't risk taking
chances with Will now. She was going to have to force him to face the
challenges of the future today, no matter how hard he might want to
pretend they could wait.

	***

	Beverly met them at the sickbay door. Nurses busily talking in
huddled groups comparing data looked up as the Commander and Counselor
followed the CMO into her office. Deanna could feel the curiosity,
followed by the certainty of recognition grow as Bev's staff saw her and
Will together. If she had come by herself, no one needed to know, but by
entering at Will's side, she had announced her condition to the world.

	"This won't take long," Beverly assured the nervous couple seated in
front of her. Taking her tricorder in her hand, she passed it over
Deanna. Frowning, she tried again. "Well, I'm not sure if this is good
or bad news for you two."

	Deanna felt her own anticipation mounting, reflecting Will's.
Bracing herself to hear Beverly confirm what she already knew she licked
her lips and held her breath.

	"You are all clear, Deanna." It wasn't the news Deanna had expected,
even though she should have known better than to get her hopes up. She
had been such a fool. Will had no idea of course the difficulties she
would face in trying to have a baby. Men were always amazingly ignorant
of such details.

	"What?" Will demanded. Deanna felt a twinge of guilt as she felt
the sting of his disappointment.

	Beverly patted his shoulder, "Take it easy Will. You need to
understand that Deanna is half-human and half-Betazoid. Typically
genetic intervention is required for inter-species conception. Even the
effects of the Briar Patch couldn't change the fact that it is very rare
for a pregnancy to occur on its own under such circumstances without
help - even if one partner is of a homogenous background."

	"I don't understand," Will said. Deanna could feel his confusion
and sadness add a new weight to the emotional baggage of his personal
life.

	"Will, we have never talked about ..." Deanna halted, waiting
for him to look at her but he kept his head down as he struggled with
his disappointment over the results of the test. Rubbing his shoulder,
she got his attention and mentally reached out to him, conforting him
even as she continued talking,  "there's a lot we need to talk about.
This is just one problem we would face if we got married. There are
others."

	"Marriage?" Beverly's eyes lit up, easing the deep crevices that
her exhaustion had dug into her previous expression. Will shrugged off
the awkward moment. "The topic has been under discussion."

	Deanna rose from her chair. Reaching over she gave a tug on Will's
arm, "Come on, Commander. I'll fix you dinner in your cabin and we'll
continue that discussion."

	"You'll fix me dinner?" he asked, his voice full of skepticism
as he rose to his feet.

	"You've had a long day. It's not easy going from daddy to bachelor
in an hour," Deanna said, patting his back. As she pushed him out Bev's
office door, she turned and waved good-bye. "We need to talk too," she
told Bev as they passed.

	"Yes," the doctor agreed, "I'd like that." It sounded like an
afterthought as she added, "Sorry, Will."

	He waved off the comment with a frown, but a small smile returned
when Deanna leaned over and kissed his warm cheek. "She said difficult,
not impossible," she said reassuring him.

	***

	"You're not usually so nice to me," Will said taking the glass
of wine Deanna offered. She sat down on his lap and rested her forehead
on his. The bond was growing but it wasn't so strong that she could send
without concentrating and the physical closeness made it all the easier
to reach him.

	"I was surprised at how much you wanted me to be pregnant," she
sent.

	His arms clung a little tighter to her. "Well, you know..." his
voice hung in the air.

	"No, I don't know, Will. It's one of the things we've never talked
about."

	He raised his eyes to study her, then nodded his agreement. "I
guess."

	"I had no idea that you wanted a family so bad."

	He shrugged, his discomfort with the discussion evident. "I
never thought much about it I guess, but today when I it seemed there
was a chance...I should have realized..."

	"I should have told you, but this phase of our relationship is
new and most of the time we haven't spent talking." Deanna smiled in
response to Will's own grin.

	"It wasn't wasted time," he teased as he started to run a finger
down the length of her arm.

	Pulling back Deanna reached over to the dinner plate and speared
a piece of his steak dinner, which she offered to him from the fork.
"What if you get promoted to Captain?"

	"What if you get offered a position at Starfleet Medical?" he
countered.

	"I asked you first."

	Will leaned forward snatching the meat in his teeth. He chewed
for a minute as he thought. "I'd tell Starfleet I'd have to talk any
move over with my wife," he grinned, "that would be you."

	"And if I didn't want you to go, you'd turn them down."

	"Right." Will picked up a glass of wine and held it out for Deanna,
"Now your turn."

	Sipping it, she savored the taste for a moment before agreeing,
"I would do the same. Talk it over with you. It would be hard being
apart, but..."

	"We stay together," he interrupted.

	"What?"

	He gritted his teeth between his clinched jaws, "I won't leave
my family and be off somewhere on a starship while my children grow up
without me. And I won't leave you. Maybe I didn't think about the
problems of us having a baby..."

	"Of me having a baby, Will, you don't have amalgamated DNA," she
corrected him.

	Carefully, he repeated his words, which took on a slightly different
meaning as he emphasized them, "Maybe I didn't think about the problems
of US having a baby, but I'm well aware of the bond and what it would be
like if we were apart."

	"How do you know about that?" she asked.

	"Deanna, this link between us scared me to death when I first
realized it existed. After our disastrous farewell on Betazed, it felt
like an iron chain around my neck. Everywhere I went I had this faint
sense of you in my head."

	"That's impossible."

	"No, it was possible. Not what I wanted, but there was no denying
it. A week before I was to leave for Risa, I was reading a Betazed text
on telepathic connections..."

	"That's why you never met me at Risa?"

	"We were so young to be trapped like that. I understood or imagined
I could, what it would be like for you if we were apart, to feel
emotions without knowing if I was in pain because I'd just run into a
chair or because I'd been hit with a phaser."

	"Will, we don't know that our link would be as strong as two
Betazoids."

	"Yes, we do. We were apart for ten years. Tell me you couldn't
feel the connection during that time." She didn't answer. "That's what I
thought. I knew your mother was right, but unlike her, I knew you were
just trying to break free of her control. You would have resented your
bond to me as much as I feared my link to you."

	Deanna stood up and looking down at him but she couldn't deny
the truth of his words. What she had seen as betrayal when he hadn't
shown up at Risa had been concern for her too.

	She watched him reach out catching her hand in his. He continued,"I spent
years trying to prove to myself it was an imagined bond and then years
trying to convince myself that if I ignored it, it would - go away.
Finally I understood, it would never go away - it'll just get stronger."

	"Yes, that's true," she agreed.

	He was rubbing the top of her hand with his thumb. When he followed
her eyes to the spot on her hand, he stopped, raised his eyes to her and
waited, but she said nothing. "What are you thinking?"

	Her small laugh greeted the question. "I'm thinking you never
fail to surprise me. Life with you would be entertaining Commander."

	"I want to do it, Deanna."

	He caught her off guard and she couldn't read his emotions, "Do
what?"

	"I want to get married. You can interview me all night, but you
aren't going to foresee every obstacle that will come in our way. You
have to have faith. In us. That we will make everything work even if we
stumble along the way."

	She started to turn away from him, but he slipped a finger under
her chin and guided her face back toward him. "And one more thing."

	"What?"

	His kiss was swift and as he pulled away he whispered, "You have
to promise we will always be together. No matter what opportunities come
our way."

	Tears spoke for her since words refused to come. "I promise."

	"You do?"

	She shook her head up and down, "I do."

	"Ah, those are the words I've wanted to hear you say," he said.
"Now, since I've proposed and you've accepted, do I get to stay the
night?"

	It was Deanna's turn to smile. She rose, pausing briefly at the
bedroom door, "You do."

	-The End-

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