seaQuest DSV
Fic Title: One Part Be My Lover
Fic author: Paula (APB)
Fic rating: R
Disclaimer: This is based on the second season of the Amblin Television and Universal Television series "seaQuest DSV", created by Rockne S. O'Bannon. As is understood, I do not own any part of these characters, and have made no profit in the writing and sharing of this fic. But I would love to hear from readers. that is the only payment I desire or require. Thank you.

Further disclaimer: This is a Trey Barlow seaQuest fic. Trey Barlow and Ari Adler are original fictional characters created by Paula and katirene. This is part of an alternate universe seaQuest series.

Summary: Trey doesn't get leave and Tim comforts her.

Warning: Contains non-graphic, romantic sex between consenting adults. m/f

Author's note: the orginal draft of this story was helped greatly by Katirene, hell of a lot more that just beta'd. I'm in her debt more than anyone will ever know..I work best with the constant reinforcement usually only seen in 5 year olds
This version was beta'd by Mel, Cari and Margret (I'm insecure, sue me) who each helped point out things I'd missed..which were legion.


One Part Be My Lover,
by APB(Paula B)


"She didn't get leave... nothing, how could they do that?" Tim looked over at the three others at the table, who were eagerly craning to get a look at the papers in his hand.

Reaching over, Miguel took the hardcopy of the leave list from his friend's hand to double check and then handed it over to Lonnie and Ari; the two women reading it together.

It was an outraged Lonnie who broke the silence, "You're right. Nothing! Not even 4 hours! It's not like Ford to snub someone completely."

"I could understand if Ford had denied me leave, but after she was cleared of all charges and got the drop on Jameson and ended his reign of terror... she deserves to go." Tim moaned in reply to Lonnie's statements.

Putting his head in his hand, Tim failed to see the person in question walk in until the chair next to him was pulled away from the table and a clear soprano voice chirped, "Gee, who died, guys? Nice funeral air going on over here," Trey commented, bumping Tim's shoulder playfully.

"Have you seen the leave list?" asked the sullen Lieutenant.

Trey smiled ruefully, reaching over under the table and gently stroking his leg for reassurance.

Looking into his eyes, she replied, "Yes. Jim and Ford feel that even though the charges were dropped, it's imperative that my record be impeccable. And with the amount of time that I'm spending on the research, even with the upper brass happy as hell over our progress, it doesn't look good from a military standpoint that I don't have the minimal ratings for my position. My scores on things aren't even close and with the officer tests coming up, I need to get things more in line for my specialty. So I stay and get my targeting and logistics plotting sharpened and spend some more time learning to use the WSKRs for security."

She shot a sideways glance at the smallest woman at the table. "Ford also said that if others can qualify for their tests and boat duties, I should, too."

Ari's pale skin flushed, and she opened her mouth to respond, but Tim's plaintive complaint beat her to it.

"But still, Jim knows what you went through. You'd think of all people he'd be the one to go to Ford and make sure you got some down time. Maybe if I talk to him...."

Shaking her head, realizing that she wasn't going to convince Tim that Jim was doing this for her career, trying to make sure that there was no hint of favoritism in her files. Trey turned to her friends.

"Lonnie, you mind being his date for the day one more time? You can listen to him mope all day so these two" she said, nodding to the unauthorized couple, "won't be subjected to his lost puppy dog looks. After all, I'm still in Irene's dog house."

In a way, the charges from the Ceendee assignment had saved her from the potential wrath of her best friend after Miguel's birthday. Not having been at the party that Trey herself had planned, she missed the lovely shade of red that the little one had turned when the party boy had opened Treysa's gift to him, the white peignoir set she'd bought for Ari. But it was a whirlwind from that point in time till the three of them left to defend Trey against charges and to level her own set of charges against the man who had made three days of Trey's life hell.

But that had set off the events that had caused Tim to think that Trey had moved on past needing him in her life, causing him to leave the seaQuest to try his hand at being a painter, a train of events which had arisen out of a series of miscommunications and which almost ended with Tim's death at the hands of the escaped Dagger, Mariah.

"Perhaps I ought to stay behind and help you, Trey," Ari offered dutifully. "After all, it is partly my fault that you're in this mess." Miguel immediately sat up straight and began to bellow, and Lonnie added her objections, as well. But Ari was giving Tim a half-smile, hoping to cheer him up.

With some difficulty, using the lung power developed while growing up with two brothers, Trey managed to restore some semblance of peace. Glaring at the source of the trouble she firmly refused the offer.

"COME ON!!! Lets be sensible here. There's no reason for you to stay, Jim's enough of a slave driver, acting like I'm a blot on his record, lets not add ye ol' Cuban getting pissy because I caused him and my other boss not to be able to...well, what ever it is they're up to when on dry land. So, you guys go have fun and think of me often and bring me back something to eat after the picnic. Hey if I'm going to make this military thing work like the rest of you, I need to get my act together."

As Miguel captured Ari's hand and pulled it out of sight, Trey turned to her best friend and, as importantly, her boyfriend, and asked "You want to walk me down to the Gym?"

Jumping up, Tim quickly agreed, "Sure," and pulled her away. They could hear the other three laughing behind them and Lonnie's carrying voice suggest, "You'd think he didn't care for our company!"

As they walked out into the corridor, Tim asked, "Now what are you working on at the gym?"

"Brody wants me to work against Novaczak, someone significantly bigger and stronger than me. I gotta feeling that I'm going to be sore as hell. You think you could be available for a rub down afterwards?"

"I can do that, it'd be my pleasure." Tim answered her with a bashful grin. "Is he waiting for you, now?"

"No, I want to get in early, to warm up. Going to need all the advantage I can get."

At this response, Tim reached over and took her hand in his, pulling it up for a fast kiss. With an uneasy glance around, Trey tried unsuccessfully to jerk her hand back, hissing, "Damn it, just cause we're not prohibited from dating doesn't mean that we should rub command's noses in this."

"I don't care!" he declared defiantly, continuing in aggrieved tones, "This would have been the first chance you and I would've had to be off the boat and away from the regulations."

Nodding sadly, she answered, "I know, but there's nothing I can do. You think I'm happy about this? If I'd thought anything like this would've happened I would've done something with you when I talked you in to going to the strip club. But that's water under the bridge. Hey, you get to relive the glory days of the usual suspects."

With a determined look on his face when they got to the gym, Tim pulled Trey over to the alcove where the equipment was stored. Due to some details of architecture making it a blind corner, it was a favorite place for couples to steal a quick kiss and caress. Pressing her back towards the wall, he kissed her with all the passion pent up in the past few weeks of regulation behavior, aggravated by constant contact. Her answering desire reassured him that she felt as he did, and helped him release some of his frustration at the situation. Sighing heavily, he pulled back, holding her gently and leaning against her body.

"I don't want to relive the glory days of the usual suspects, I want you. See what I learned with Mariah is that life is precious and so are you and I almost lost both."

Gently laying her head against his, Trey realized how much he felt for her. She suddenly understood how much recent events had affected him - Trey and Ari being hustled off to defend against the charges had lead directly to Tim's ill-fated resignation attempt, and his subsequent abduction by the renegade Dagger.

"And if I had fought to be allowed to tell you what was going on, you would never felt that way and left. So you almost died cause I didn't love you enough to fight to tell you. Damn lousy girlfriend I am."

Tim pulled his head back and looked down at her watering eyes with consideration. Reaching up a tender finger, he caught one crystal teardrop as it rolled down her cheek and held it up as evidence.

"Girlfriend? Just Girlfriend?"

"I'm a pretty lousy girlfriend, let alone anything else." Sighing heavily, the burden of mistakes from her past weighing her shoulders down, Trey tried to pull away, only to be thwarted by his tightening arms.

"Don't you use this as excuse to withdraw from me, don't you dare! I've fallen hard for you, lady, and I'm not letting you go just cause I can't be on leave with you."

"But we could've finally..." Whatever she was going to say was stopped by his finger going to her lips.

"Its not about that...is that what you think has me upset?" Tim stopped talking and stroked the side of her now tense face.

"It has nothing to do with making love and everything to do with just the freedom to do the normal things like hold hands and kiss you whenever I want to for a few hours." Stopping to add one of his lopsided grins, he continued "Don't get me wrong, I still want you. But I promised you after Ceendee and I promised myself that it would happen when it felt right, not just on some arbitrary day."

It was at this time the door opened and her sparring partner for the session arrived and Trey hadn't done any of the stretching exercises that were the whole purpose of her getting there early. But on the whole, making out with her man was a lot more fun.


The early part of the leave was spent just looking around the town and having a light lunch, during which Tim enjoyed just being off the boat. Although it was home, with his friends and his love there, he was still glad when he could feel the sun and breeze.

One of things Tim was searching for was a key chain to replace the flamingo one that was broken during Trey's away mission. But nothing seemed right till the foursome was passing one of the nicer pawn shops and Tim suddenly wanted to stop at it.

Looking through the cases of antique costume jewelry he spotted what looked like a St. Christopher medal, but not in 14 kt. gold like, this one had a blue enamel center with a black enamel outer ring, and was hanging on a black cord. Motioning the shop keeper over Tim asked to see the piece in question.

"That just came in with a lot of surfer items from an estate. It was made in the 1960's but it was never worn. According to the seller, it was bought for a girlfriend that the man broke up with."

Looking over at Ari, Tim asked, "What do you think? It'd make me feel better if she had this. The black and blue would suit her and... But would it upset her? She's not catholic, and has made it real clear that she's not going to convert."

Walking over to take a better look at the item in question, with Miguel looking over her shoulder, never letting her too far from his touch. Ari made her only comment after placing her hand on his arm to reassure her old friend, "I think if you explain that it'd make you feel better and that's the only reason you bought it, she'd wear it."

Chuckling, Miguel couldn't stop himself from adding "And if you add other jewelry she'll not say a word."

To which an outraged Lonnie Henderson replied, "Miguel, you make her sound mercenary. Like she couldn't buy what she wanted herself."

"No, Miguel's right. She could use more earrings, she's only had those two pairs I bought her and a couple sets of cheap ones she bought at Ceendee."

Tim started looking around the cases, seeing things that were either too flashy, too expensive or just wrong. As much as he'd like to buy her a set of diamond studs, the cost of even pawned ones meant that that she'd see it as him pushing - so those were out. However, he spotted a pair of elegant single pearl studs that would go well with the mandarin styled dress in her closet. Then there was the split skirt and ivory blouse outfit that she had bought along the way, like the one she described when telling him that fantasy from the '40's.

He knew his girl was a tomboy in this rebuilt part of her life, but she had bought a couple of "girl" type outfits, so he just let it ride till eventually she'd talk herself in to wearing them, but maybe the earrings would give her a push.

So Tim bought the missing musketeer the two items and they headed to a beach picnic, with Tim still moping a bit, but trying bravely to put on a happy face for the sake of his three friends. But he knew that he was failing miserably when Ari grabbed his hand and had Miguel and Lonnie hold him still while she wrestled his watch off.

"Hey! What are you doing that for?" he yelped trying to free his hand and/or reclaim his stolen watch.

Panting a little with the effort to hold on and undo the clasp, Ari irritably accused, "You've been looking at this blasted watch every few minutes. I'm sick of it! It's like you're counting the seconds until you can safely leave and we won't stop you!"

With a disgusted twist to his lips, he stopped fighting and let the bossy kid steal his watch. She was right, after all. He'd carefully calculated exactly how long he had to put up with this purgatory before he could justify leaving and going back to the boat. Anyway, he could always peek at one of the others' watches.

Tim finally saw his chance to leave when Miguel and Ari were sitting of on the far side of the community bonfire, sitting on the sand with their arms around each other and finding the answers in each other's eyes, looking like the world's most happy couple. Lonnie, who had volunteered to sit on him if he tried anything, was off making Brody's life miserable and since Jim was trying to stay away from Tim, in order to prevent any ill feelings coming out and causing an unpleasant incident, they were some distance away.

Feeling like a schoolboy playing hooky, he crept away. But as he was heading back up the long sandy slope towards town and the shuttle pick up, Lonnie caught sight of his escape and signaled the other two with her eyes. Coming at him from three directions, they scored an interception and tackled him before he managed to make a clean break of it. That wasn't the worst of it, though. The girls TICKLED

But that was too much for Miguel. He helped Tim to fight them off, then helped him up and brushed off the sand with rough sympathy.

Then Miguel started in on him. "And just where do you think you are going? We promised Trey we'd keep an eye on you, you know. I've seen her angry, I don't want to be in those crosshairs again, let alone after a day she's spent on a weapons range. And god forbid she start tinkering with the WSKRs again. She gets some kind of perverse delight in rewiring them."

Looking from Miguel to Lonnie with Ari close behind, feeling as though they were his captors instead of his friends, no matter how well-meaning they were, Tim spread his hands and tried reasoning with them.

"Look, Jim told me he set it up that she could only work till 1800, that's an hour from now. I have an idea that maybe we can salvage some time for us today after all."

Cocking an interrogative eyebrow at him, Miguel nodded thoughtfully. "Hey, Ari! Why don't you and Lonnie go make sure that Jim doesn't grab all the beer." Ari gave him a disbelieving, raking glance. "What?"

But Lonnie grabbed her by the arm. With a meaningful nod, she declared disgustedly, "Boy talk!" Ari smiled and nodded, pursing her lips at Miguel, "Let's leave them to it. Come on."

While Tim caught his breath after the onslaught from the two "girls" he noticed Miguel watching their exit- well, one exit in particular. His eyes were gleaming and his bottom lip was caught between his teeth

"Earth to Miguel, come in Chief." Tim finally gave up and started to turn to leave when his friend finally emerged from his private world he shared with Ari. Touching Tim's arm before he got to far, Miguel asked, "Hey wait, so what's the game plan? Anything I can help with?"

Giving his friend a look of disbelief, Tim said "There are things I'd rather do for myself, you know. I doubt that her anatomy has anything I can't handle myself or haven't seen."

And for a brief 30 seconds Tim had managed the impossible, he'd left Miguel speechless.

The silence was eventually broken with both men dissolving in to gales of laughter as Ortiz exclaimed "Damn it that's NOT what I meant!"

"I know, but you have to admit it was too good a straight line to let go. But to answer your original question, you can tell me how to rig a room sensor to ignore something."

Ari paused before rejoining the others to look back and admire the view. Miguel was well worth looking at in shorts and a t-shirt, and Tim was so comfortable. She was glad that after the ongoing struggles to make the relationship work, after the troubles with Lucas and then the fall out from when Jameson had thrown several curveballs at them. Trey and Tim had finally been able to relax and just enjoy each other's company. Even though the rest were leaving her behind after the morning swim, Trey looked happy earlier, being as openly affectionate with the Lieutenant as she'd ever been.

"I wonder what they're talking about?" she asked impishly. Ari shrugged one shoulder and, still looking back, continued on the way to the fire.

"Damage control," she answered obscurely. Without giving Lonnie a chance to respond, she flashed her own mischievous eyes at the taller ensign.

"You know, it was pretty nasty of Brody to keep Trey out. Let's get him!"

The poor man didn't have a chance.


"Ensign Barlow, that'll be all for today."

Trey looked up from the screen of the terminal on which she was running her current simulation,) She gave the security noncom a puzzled look. "Excuse me? I wasn't aware that there was a time limit?"

"There isn't one on the SIMMs, but Lt. Brody said to stop you at around this time. "

Trey wandered back to her quarters, mentally thanking Jim for having that much sensitivity to her situation and thanking the fates that she could have a real hot water shower, since they were connected to land water supplies.

Talking more just to just hear a voice than anything after a day of listening to blasts and beeps of various kinds, Trey started mapping the rest of her night out. "Ok sooooooo I guess if I grabbed a shower and came back and sent a note to Tim to come wake me up we could at least have my dinner together. If I just grab undies and and my robe to wear back here that should be OK. I'll get dressed before we go to the galley."

Upon returning to the boat Tim had checked with the bridge. He found that Trey had done her bridge work first and was still in the lower tactical area, working on the backup boards,sharpening her skills there,. However, she wouldn't be there for much longer so he headed right for her quarters and did the tinkering that his friend had instructed him in. Seeing that it was 18 . 05, Tim scampered over to Ari's room, grateful that the little one had left her door open - as though she knew he'd need a place to stash things. Listening with the door open, he heard Trey approaching talking to herself, and then heard her leave again to go take the shower. He knew she'd head for there to release some of the stress from the day of learning, since she didn't expect her usual stress relief back for another couple of hours.

He grabbed the bags he'd brought back with him, having stopped and gotten Trey the food she'd requested and not really expected. Having gotten Wendy's blessing for Trey to start having a bit of alcohol after there being no consequences from the Ceendee binge or St. Patrick's poker game, Tim had also bought a bottle of white wine to go with the 'chicken wings' that she was so fond of and the rest of the picnic style foods he had picked up.

Spreading out one of the sheets from his bunk, turning on the boombox that the gang had gotten her for Christmas with one of her preferred disks, and placing the candles that he'd bought to try and give them a small bonfire like the rest were still enjoying still (This was the reason that he'd talked to Miguel about that sensor, he didn't want an alarm going off on the bridge while he was trying to spend time with his love.) He settled himself to wait.


Returning from her shower more mentally tired than anything, Trey was puzzled at the glimmer of light coming out the window of the door to her quarters. She didn't remember leaving the reading light on by her bed.

With a slightly uneasy feeling Trey wrapped her robe tighter around her before opening the door and finding that her man might be a quiet Comm. officer but he had a little more romance to him than she would have suspected.

On the floor of her quarters was a blanket with several candles bunched together, a picnic lunch spread out with an open bottle of wine, one of her old Bonnie Raitt CD's playing low and most importantly - Tim. Smiling up from the floor, Tim broke the stunned silence from Trey. "Best I could do for a bonfire in here."

Leaning casually against the door, Trey replied, "And you're not supposed to be back for two hours, you. Those babysitters I hired did a lousy job."

"No, they tried, but then Jim told me he was having you cut loose at 1800 and I thought I might be able to get us some time together."

Realizing she was a bit under-dressed in just her robe and panties, Trey thought this might be the time finally to break out one of the pretty things she'd bought all those weeks before, so with a twinkle in her eye, she said, "Turn around and close your eyes till I get changed." Giving her an evil smirk, Tim's only comment was "Well, gee, I think that's a fine outfit."

"Yeah, easy access is a prime concern for mister hormone, I bet. But," winking at him, "give me a minute here."

Tim heard the rustling of clothing behind him, sounds that made him desperately want to see what was going on behind him, but he honored his agreement and waited. Hearing the privacy shade being closed, he saw Trey approaching out of the corner of his eye and started to turn. Trey was standing there beside him in the floor length scarlet chemise that he remembered folding and putting back in the bag that horrible night she returned from the away duty. Smiling gently, he put his hand up as an invitation for her to come sit on the floor, he pulled her down so she was sitting between his legs with his arms wrapped around her. "I will admit that this is much nicer and," he stopped to lick his lips. With the two of them finally not walking on eggshells, he felt able to say what he was thinking, "It's much sexier than that boat issue terry robe. I'm very happy you decided to finally wear that, 'cause you have no idea how long I've wanted to see it on these curves."

Melting in to the warmth and comfort of Tim's body and more importantly, his love, Trey rested her head back on his shoulder. In a bashful tone of voice, she answered "I'm glad you like this, I bought for you, always thought you'd see through me eventually though and ...but you stayed. And, wow, so this is what happy feels like after all these years." So, for the next hour or so, they sat there, intertwined, leisurely eating, talking and just enjoying the wine and each others company with the caresses getting a little freer and more insistent as they got more and more comfortable with the concept that no one was going to come looking for them.

Finally, wanting to see more of his face - and be able to return more of his affections, Trey turned on her knees to face him, with a thought coming to her at the same time. "Thanks for dinner, that was a real treat. I'm guessing that Wendy gave the ok for the wine." To which he nodded. "Then I need to thank her." Watching Tim's face reflecting the flickers of candles made her think, " Hey, how come the heat sensors aren't going off in here from that many candles?"

"It pays to be best friends with the sensor chief, didn't you know that? Miguel told me how to dismantle it for the night."

"When did you do that? I mean I wasn't gone that long, taking a shower."

"I did it when I first got back from leave. Do we have to talk about this now?"

"No, why?" Trey answered, ducking her head in a shy way, seeing something in his eyes that had never been there before.

"Because of this." Pushing her strap down off of her one shoulder till it took enough of the scarlet material down to expose her breast. Looking in her eyes for approval, which was there, Tim kissed his way down to the tip, which he first kissed and then gently sucked into his mouth, eliciting a deep moan from her. Raising herself up to her so she could pull her gown over her head, exposing her body to him, but for the small triangle that was covered in the matching satin panties she had put on. Part of Tim thought about making a crack about playing hard to get, but he realized that after the attempted rape her self confidence had plummeted, so for her to offer this treasure was as great a gift as he would ever get. Removing his ever present t-shirt and his shoes and socks so she wouldn't feel that she wasn't the only one who wanted this, though, his arousal was fairly obvious.

Taking her hands in his, Tim gently pushed her back to lay on the floor, lowering himself beside her, working his way down her naked torso with his mouth from her neck to her navel, taking his time, nibbling at her nipples, kissing the valley between her breasts and trailing downward, eventually letting go of her hands in order to caress her sides.

Looking up from where he'd rested his head on her stomach, Tim broke the silence, asking, "I realized something today, Trey."

Running her hands through his hair, she gave a questioning "HMMM??" as a response.

"How much I love you and that this thing between us is a wonder, for both of us." Moving from where he had been resting so that his face and hers were together he continued, "as much as I was attracted to you that first day, the woman I have here, this one that I love, is so much more beautiful cause you can see how confident you are." Stopping to kiss her passionately, he continued to hold her face in his hand "I hadn't planned this for tonight, but I don't want to wait any longer, if that's ok."

Smiling at him, she nodded her head, "That would be very ok. And I'm confidant because you gave it to me. No one's ever loved me before. Now, though I have these wonderful friends and you, most of all you. So yes Timothy O'Neill, I would desperately love to make love with you."

Holding his hands and using them to get him to sit up beside her, Trey folded her own knees under her. Moving slowly to give him a chance to stop her, she undid the fly to his jeans, pushing them down off his hips along with his boxers, with Tim lifting himself up enough for her to slide them the rest of the way off.

Then she stopped, suddenly afraid to do anything for fear it would be the wrong thing. Tim noticed a hesitation to her now and the fear. "What's wrong? Anytime you want to stop, you say so Tresu, cause I only want this... "

Trey interrupted with, "No, nothing's wrong...just frightened that you might be disappointed in me. I mean the mechanics I know, this is different though. This time, it means something."

Closing her eyes and bowing her head, she just sat there letting Tim hold her for a few minutes till her man leaned back from her, giving her a gentle smile and saying, " You know, I was thinking the same thing...so we both learn something new tonight." Smiling at her, he leaned forward to kiss her, running his hands over her breasts. His reassurance gave her the courage to start an exploration of her own, examining his naked form, from the planes of his chest and abdomen to the narrowing of his hips ending with a quick running of her hand lightly up one side of the length of his erection and down the other to cup his testicles, eliciting a sound from him that was close to a male purr.

"I think you still have to too many clothes on, what do you think?" asked the man of her dreams, the one she had been so sure didn't exist.

With that Trey guided his hands to the band of her panties, lifting her hips to help him pull away the last barrier between them, Tim laid down beside her. Pressing her left shoulder down so she was lying flat, Tim knelt beside her naked form. Starting where he'd left off earlier, Tim kissed his way down the rest of her body, caressing her legs to relax her so that he could get at the place he wanted. Tim gently worked his way around her thighs, working his way inward , eventually using his tongue to flick inside her, eliciting a hiss from her and causing her to open her legs wider, giving him better access to her. He took his time, using his mouth to do a leisurely exploration of her treasures, bringing her to a more profound level of arousal than she'd ever experienced before. Part of him wanted to see if he could bring her to orgasm just this way, but that was for another night. For this night he wanted that to be a shared experience.

Rising, he looked at Trey before moving to kneel between her open legs. Thinking to himself that he now understood how cliches became cliches because they were so true, he thought that the woman under his attention was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, with her eyes dark with desire, her lips swollen from his kisses, her breasts flushed, and her nipples erect. He positioned himself over her, ready to bring the two of them together. He stopped with the head of his member just outside her, to give her one last chance to object, to make sure, one last time. Searching her face, he looked at her, seeking any hint that she didn't want this as much as he did.

Sensing that his hesitation was more for her than from any lessening in his resolve, she said the one right thing that she had never said before in her life. "I love you, Timothy O'Neill and don't you doubt that or how much I want this, now."

With her hands on his hips to guide him, he finished the motion that made them one unit, stopping to kiss her with everything he had in his being before continuing. Starting to move slowly at first, his strokes became more intense and frenetic, with Trey matching his intensity and passion building to his climax, with hers following after few more strokes from her lover...yes, finally that. Her lover. Tim collapsed on top of her, and Trey wrapped her legs around him, keeping them joined as his now softening member began to shrink out of her slippery opening.


But after a while, the exposed portions of Tim's sweat-slicked skin started to get chilled. Lying intertwined with Trey, the more sensitive parts were warm enough, and she had a fine comforter in him with the blanket beneath, but he wanted something a bit more all-encompassing for himself. He started to pull away from her, surprising a mew of protest, and a tightening of Trey's arms around him. "You're not going anywhere."

Kissing her gently to stop the slight pout, Tim answered, "Why don't we go curl up on your bunk? It's softer and I'm getting cold up here. And I have something for you"

"Thought I just got something from you,!" was her smartassed answer. Much as she disliked the thought of letting him go, she had to admit that it was hard and cold now on the floor, with less distracting her from the discomfort. She let him get up and started to rise herself when he pulled her the rest of the way up and then just swung her on up further into his arms. Trey squealed with surprise at being picked up and grabbed wildly for his neck, getting a tight strangle hold on it before relaxing to allow him to breathe. He carried her the rest of the way to the bunk, all four steps of it. Settling her gently down, he motioned for her to wait while he went and got the small bag from the place where he'd bought her the jewelry earlier. Returning to the bed, he crawled past her, knowing that she preferred the outside, with them settling in face to face, then reaching down and pulling the covers up again over the two of them, excluding the world. Cuddling face to face, Tim reached into the bag that they had trapped between them and brought out the medal.

"OK, I know that you're not catholic, but I bought this for you, to make me feel better. It's a St. Christopher medal, but it hasn't been blessed yet so really its just a pretty disk right now. So will you wear this till we can get it blessed?"

Looking at the black and blue disk that was hanging on a black cord Trey was torn, wanting to do what she could to make him happy but not wanting him to think that she shared his beliefs. "Well, it's the right colors for me, but you know that I don't...."

"That's what I said, Tresu, wear it for me, not 'cause you believe - and hopefully I believe enough for both of us and it will still protect you." And he took it out of her hands and slipped it over her head. "Anyway I couldn't find a keyring to replace the flamingo till this popped up. Seemed like you were fated to have it."

Giving her the box with the earrings, he waited with his eyes closed. Hearing the intake of breath, he smiled. Opening his eyes, he was treated with a big smile, "So I'm guessing that they meet with your approval?"

"Very nice Mr. O'Neill. I like them, as you knew I would. But you didn't have to, it's not like I'm in this for the gifts." This last was said in a slight whine, a bit of the petulant child coming out, mostly from her being tired.

Whispering in her ear, "That's why I did it, 'cause you never expect things, never ask for things. Go to sleep baby, I'll stay as long as I can."

In a voice that told him she was almost asleep, Trey mumbled "Baby? I like that...being Tim's baby." And then she was asleep.

The next time she opened her eyes, a short while later, Trey found that the stereo of hers was still going, playing a very appropriate song. She continued to rest her head on his shoulder, trying to imprint what this one moment felt like so that her fear of loneliness could never convince her to settle for less again. Closing her eyes, she drifted, just living for the moment.

"So if you know how
Why don't you say 'em a prayer
They're gonna need all the help they can get
They remember too much
about what went wrong
It might be they should learn to forget.

Forget themselves in each other
And leave what belongs in the past
Carry their hearts like a newborn child
Cause it's only the moment that lasts.

They're not forever, they're just for today
One part be my lover, one part go away." ***

But now she wasn't going to tell this lover to ever go away, she was going to fight to make this work.

*an FYI, US surfers in the 1960's wore St. Christopher medals..often of the kind described here, of a painted enamel over pewter, not of the traditional gold cast like Tim or Miguel's

**refers to events that take place in "Havana dreams" segments of the Sweet Dreams story(s) at either WWOB or http://geocities.datacellar.net/Area51/Comet/9976/timeline.html

*** Bonnie Raitt, "One Part Be My Lover", used with out permission but with great amounts of respect and admiration

THE END

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