Standard disclaimer: The title, as well as the story, is based on a song by October Project, whose every song rocks with P/C resonance. Therese is all mine, but the other two characters belong to the mighty Paramount.

Therese Des Marais hated comm systems. People who mattered would come to the door or send a message to be read at leisure. Starfleet people did not matter, not to Therese, but here was one on the comm system, demanding to speak to Johnny.

She would do anything to protect Johnny. She didn't love him, not exactly, though once, a long time ago, she had. Now she ached for him in such a different way, and she knew this Starfleet person, this Starfleet doctor, had brought nothing but grief to Johnny. But she also knew Johnny would want to speak to this person, and so she called him and left the room.

Ten minutes later he emerged, his face glowing. She wanted to ask, but didn't, concentrating instead on the mundane. "Jacques was by. He said to remind you he needs time next week to start on Marie's roses. G-d rest her soul, she always insisted on starting them on the fourteenth."

He smiled, looking better than he had in years. "There will be no need this year, Therese. She's coming home."

Therese folded her arms over her bosom. "She said that, did she?"

Johnny bowed his head. "No. But Selar said the Pasteur would be docking at McKinley day after tomorrow."

"So you didn't actually speak to her."

"No. But she always loved tending Marie's roses."

Each had identical unspoken thoughts. Even if she didn't like tending her husband.

If she hadn't been so hurt, Therese would almost have been happy with the thought of her coming back. After all, in anticipation Johnny had taken his medicine as he ought, had rested, exercised. His inevitable downfall was halted, reversed even, a little, so that he could look spiffy for his wife. The Pasteur docked, and he suddenly became shy, an emotion he had not shown before he got ill. He did not contact her, and Therese would not. A day passed, and then another. Johnny waited for a miracle to prove he had not spent so much of his life loving an illusion. Therese's heart ached for him, wanted him to be happy, but hoped that she would forget to contact him, showing him, once and for all, that she was not the woman he thought her to be.

On the third day after the docking, there was a knock on the door. Wiping her hands on her apron, Therese went to answer it. It was her.

"Therese," a certain coldness, politeness in her tone. Not the voice of someone who belonged.

"Mrs. Picard." Put her in her place; this is no starship, and there's only one captain here.

At the sound of her voice, those few syllables, Johnny came running, stopping at the foyer so as not to look too anxious. "You came."

"It's the thirteenth. Marie's roses need to be tended tomorrow."

His face lit up--she had remembered, unprompted. What else might she recall? He started to babble, something he didn't used to do, and quieted down as soon as he realized. She laid a gentle hand on his arm, "Keep talking, Jean-Luc. I've always loved the sound of your voice. Do you remember that winter on Ketoniah IV, when it rained so hard we couldn't leave our quarters?"

It was difficult, remembering, and he wondered if she was really recalling their happier days or only testing to see how far his disease had progressed. But he would never forget that winter, the long days too harsh to brave, reading her poetry and Shakespeare, and, eventually, the local newspaper and comm system directory. And in between negotiating a treaty on that comm system, they had spent their time in bed...

"Some memories I'll never lose, Beverly." She smiled, he noticed, as if she really wanted to be here. Maybe she did. Maybe he was deluding himself. It was something he was very good at.

"I'll set an extra place for lunch," Therese's voice interrupted. Picard glared at her. "I'm not hungry," she amended. "I think I'll eat later."

Therese hurried off to the kitchen, but not before noticing the short look of triumph on Beverly's face, the sign of a first battle won.

Lunch was tense, filled with small talk which was entirely too small. She didn't want to speak of her ship for fear of offending him; he didn't want to speak of his life for fear of boring her. All those years in which they had been friends and not lovers were looked back upon with longing--had they lost their friendship along the way? With Beverly gone as much as she was, it seemed sometimes their marriage had been lost, as well. They had gambled everything to be together, and today neither knew if they had won or lost.

In the middle of the meal, silence and illness and shyness suddenly made him awkward, and he spilled his tea on her uniform. No matter, she thought, it hadn't been a good idea to wear it in his home (our home she reminded herself) anyway. She excused herself to go upstairs and change.

She returned too quickly, clothes unchanged, and spoke with no preamble. "I think I should be going now."

He looked up, startled, wondering if his concentration had faded out, erasing from his mind the context for her anger.

"I seem to be disturbing." She fingered a plate. "I've taken her place at your table."

"Don't be ridiculous," he chided, understanding her annoyance. "She is the only one who works in the house. What would you have me do, ask her to take her meals in the kitchen while I dine in solitary splendor? It does me good to have someone to speak with."

Neither mentioned all the letters he did not send his wife, all the subspace messages he did not return or initiate, all the emptiness between them he chose not to fill with speech.

"I shouldn't be upset?"

"No, you should not." He smiled, amazed at how pliant she had become, how diplomatic. Captaincy was taking the edge off her temper. So he thought.

"And the fact that she's taken my place in your bed?"

He sputtered, spilling the tea in his cup yet again. "What gave you that idea? Therese?"

"You never used to sleep with pillows for two."

He cast about for explanations. "She's made the room up for you, too."

"No, she hasn't. My bag isn't in your room; it's in the guest room. And since when does your taste in literature run to 'Pride's Purple Passion'? It was on my nightstand--or is it her nightstand?"

He rose, trying to calm her with his touch. "Beverly, please. Therese does not share my bed--our bed. That's absurd. I haven't thought of Therese that way in over sixty years."

She raised an eyebrow, unconvinced.

"I sleep restlessly. You know that--I always have. But lately, what with the change in my medication, it's been worse. Some nights she sits up with me, or, I think, watches as I sleep. I suppose it must be quite boring for her, and so she reads. And I will tell her to move your bags. Your place is by my side."

Both decided to leave the implications of that last statement lie.

The afternoon passed pleasantly, Jean-Luc covering his nervousness by showing the latest improvements to the vineyard, Beverly by cooing approvingly at them all. He said nothing of his plans to sell, now that he was no longer well enough to care for the place and there were no Picard heirs to take over; she said nothing about her restlessness and rootlessness. While she was there he could pretend there was a reason to go on; while she was there, she could pretend she felt a connection to this place as strong as his.

The dinner they had was quiet and pleasant. He ate little, and she almost chided him, but forbore, suddenly shy, no longer his doctor. After dinner they sat in the library, in front of the fire, pretending to read. Once, when his back was turned, Beverly slid a PADD containing a medical journal into her book, and for a time her reading interested her. For a while, Jean-Luc played with the fire, allowing himself to forget he no longer had the concentration required to read his beloved classics. After a while, he abandoned the pretense and sat back, watching her.

"That must be fascinating," he said, breaking the silence. She murmured a response. "And yet you haven't turned a page in ten minutes."

She had the good grace to blush; he loved to watch the color suffuse her cheeks. "Guilty as charged, Mr. Hill." She opened the leaves of the book, revealing the contraband PADD.

"Ship's reports?"

She put on a mock-stern glare. "Please. I am on shore leave, you know."

He smiled, glad she at least remembered that. "A Rigellian porn novel?"

That made her laugh, the first time this day he had heard that once-beloved sound. "I wish. No, it's a medical journal. I don't find much time to read them aboard ship."

"I thought you said you were on shore leave, Captain Picard." He loved saying her name that way; it brought back memories of when that name had been his.

She raised her eyebrow, waiting for him to complete his thought.

"I don't think your CMO would approve of you spending your shore leave reading professional literature; I know mine never did."

"No? What did she recommend?"

He thought. Once, her every word lived somewhere in his memory, but now so much was blocked to him.

She took pity on him. "I think she said something about your pampering yourself, going somewhere beautiful."

"Quite likely."

"And then you went to Risa."

"Oh, yes." That was a never to be forgotten vacation, if only because Beverly never let him forget it, or its consequences.

"But this isn't Risa, Jean-Luc."

"True, but I think it's far prettier, and I'm sure I can manage a thing or two to keep you amused."

"Such as?" The teasing lilt was back in her voice as though the years of infrequent contact and solitary nights had never happened.

In answer, he reached for her hand, and they sat there like that, two silent people touching, watching the fire glow. Long minutes later, he stood and wordlessly led her upstairs to their bedroom. Tonight he would make her forget her rank in Starfleet and her career. Tonight, he would make her remember what it was like to be a person. A woman. A wife.

She left early the next morning to tend the roses. Nothing changed about this part of the garden, she thought, before noticing the hammock set up near the bushes. Nothing much, at any rate.

She was well into her work before he joined her, stretching out in that hammock, watching her as she pruned her late sister-in-law's only legacy. Other than exchanged "Morning" s, neither spoke for a very long time.

Finally, he broke the silence. "About last night..."

"Jean-Luc," she warned softly.

But he insisted. "I'm sorry."

"I'm a doctor; you don't need to apologize. These things happen to every man, sooner or later, and it is a common side effect of your new medication. I'm just surprised your doctor didn't mention it. Maybe I should talk to him, remind him."

"Beverly," it was his turn now to warn.

"What?" She returned to her work, still uncomfortable by this daylight discussion of nighttime troubles.

"Stay away from my doctor. I don't want you to interfere."

"Stay away from your life, you mean." She snapped off a dead branch, scrutinized it. "Stay away from your life."

"Beverly, that's not what I meant!" His level voice grew querulous as it did, lately, when he was crossed.

"Isn't it?" Her voice had none of its old fire; like her hair, it was stranded through with grey.

It took far too many moments to think of a rebuff and when he was finally ready to utter it, she was no longer interested in listening. He stared at her rigid back for many more minutes until he retreated to the house in defeat.

She didn't come into the house for lunch; he hoped she ate with the farmhands instead of dining only on her foolish pride. When suppertime came and went and she hadn't reappeared, he went out into the gardens to search for her. Therese tried to dissuade him, but this wasn't the first time he had endangered himself for her. Besides, he had a flashlight and a purpose--no wayward vine or trick of failing memory would catch him tonight.

Beverly heard the footsteps, but did not turn around. She lay on her side on the hammock, the roses all pruned and mulched, a half week's work done in one day of terrifying fury. Jean-Luc eased into the hammock behind her, embracing her waist when she didn't turn into him. He wanted to apologize--for last night, for this morning--but had forgotten how.

They lay there like that, silent, listening to the night sounds, for what seemed like hours, but was probably only minutes. "Does it hurt you so much?" she asked, curious.

"What do you mean?"

"Me. Healthy. Doing what you used to do, what you love. Being what you always were."

"Oh, no, Beverly, I was never like you are. I wished I could be, but..."

"What?" Genuine shock shone through her voice.

"You do everything so elegantly, gracefully. So full of fire and righteous certainty. You know what you want and do it. Yourself. You don't need--me or anyone else."

The sound she made could have been a laugh. It could have been a sob.

"I always needed, Jean-Luc. But rarely did I find anyone who appreciated that."

"You never needed me for anything," he insisted.

This time there was no doubt--the sound she made was both laugh and sob.

"I wanted...needed...but you never wanted to be needed, never wanted anyone dependent on you."

He straightened, removed his hands from her body. "That's absurd. I was the captain of a Galaxy class starship; over a thousand people depended on me."

Beverly's voice sounded distant. "No, they depended on the captain. It just happened to be you. When the Borg took you, we managed with Will. And when the Cardassians had you, we might have hated him, but we functioned fine with Jellico. It was those pips everyone needed to rely on, the uniform. Not the man inside it."

He took in the information silently, this shattering of the image he had thought the one thing he had to give her. "And you?"

"Me?"

"If it weren't I, would you eventually have found someone else?"

"I had found many someone elses, briefly, along the way."

"Would you have remarried?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Probably not--I waited so long, why ever do it? I had learned to be self-sufficient. Lonely, and liking it that way."

"But you married me."

"I thought you needed me." He couldn't see her wry smile, but knew it must be there. She continued. "If I couldn't need, being needed seemed the next best thing."

Jean-Luc loosened her hair and buried his face in it.

She felt him grow closer, begin to explore her body. "Jean-Luc, sex won't solve our problems."

"No, but I want to learn how to let you need me. This is a good place to start, I think."

It had been so very long since her last leave at home. And she was so tired of being self-sufficient. Knowing she'd damn herself for it in the morning, she rolled over in his embrace and placed her lips on his.

Early in the morning, feeling the dew on age-weary joints, they finally dressed and went inside. Neither noticed Therese Des Marais watching from a window, disapprovingly. If they had, neither would have cared.

On the third day of Beverly's visit, the Picards slept late, tired from the night before and the past day--Beverly for her overeager gardening, Jean-Luc with the pain of just being alive.

Therese debated allowing them to sleep on. She hated having the routine of her house disturbed, the breakfast growing cold on the stove, lunch to be prepared before the last meal had even been consumed--and would they ever come downstairs? What were they doing up there, anyway? Not that she didn't have a good idea; she had been married once herself, though that seemed like centuries ago.

But could he even do that? She had read up on his medication, as she studied everything which affected him. Some small twinge of jealousy hoped not, but for his sake, she hoped this reunion would give him everything he wanted. And that, if it didn't, that harridan he was bedding wouldn't taunt him about it.

It was the thought of Beverly which decided matters for Therese. She would let them sleep on. A few more minutes of oblivion and dreams had to be better for Johnny than waking up to face the wrath of Beverly Picard.

When she heard unfamiliar footsteps descending the steps, she made herself scare. Though it was late morning, it was still too early in the day to deal with Beverly. At midnight it would be too early in the day. Instead, she headed off to the herb garden. If she spiced the lunch stew right, there was a chance Johnny might eat enough.

It was there Beverly found her, her arms full of sprigs. "It not enough you've taken my husband, now you want my garden, as well?" Beverly asked, her voice low and dangerous.

Therese had gotten so used to trimming this garden for Johnny's meals that she'd forgotten when and why it was planted--at Beverly's behest, a wedding gift to remind her of her grandmother's home. But that she should begrudge Johnny the herbs, or the comfort of having someone nearby, some human comfort while she was out cavorting with her starship for months and years on end...She straightened. "If you had tended either, neither would need me."

Beverly laughed, and it was nothing like the soft laughter her husband had heard two nights before. "You think Jean-Luc needs you?" A thought struck her--what if it were true? He had never expressed need of her, but what if she was asking too much of him, had always asked to much of him, and all he could need was the so much simpler comforts a woman like Therese could offer?

Therese drew herself up to her full height, still several centimeters shorter than Beverly. "The Picards have always needed the Des Maraises. My father was gardener here, and my mother helped Madame Yvette. My grandfather ran the stables. His father..."

Beverly cut her off with an imperious wave of the hand. "Spare me. Did someone neglect to tell your family that slavery was outlawed a few centuries back?"

Therese bent back to her work with the herbs. "It is not slavery, it is pride. We are of this land as much as the Picards are. Don't tell me Johnny has never told you of his family's history."

"Don't call him Johnny! His name is Jean-Luc, or 'Captain,' or 'Ambassador.' He hasn't let anyone call him 'Johnny' for years. He doesn't like it."

"He lets me," Therese crowed. "He likes it from me. We're old friends."

Beverly's suspicions, laid to rest by Jean-Luc days ago, resurfaced. "Just how friendly are you?"

"How dare you!"

"How dare I?" Beverly hissed, all too aware that if she shouted, their argument might ascend to her open bedroom window. "I'm not the one who leaves lurid books at the bedside of another woman's husband. Are you sleeping with him?"

Therese did not stand up or turn around. "No."

Beverly recalled her husband's...difficulties... and asked again, "Have you slept with him?"

"No." Therese hesitated, decided to come clean. "Yes."

From behind her, she heard a gasp and forced herself to continue. "It was a long time ago--before you were born, I think. I was 16; I wanted to run off to Paris and be an actress, but my parents forbade it. He was 17, and had just failed the Academy entrance exam. His parents weren't kind about that, either. We needed consolation, and found it with each other all that year. Then he retook the exam, passed, and I didn't see him again for years. I married and moved away. He became famous, and I could say 'I knew him when.' I was widowed, he got married, and you reopened the house; I came back where I always belonged. I have never slept with your Jean-Luc. I have loved my Johnny, and will continue to love him in any way he'll let me."

"He loves me," Beverly insisted. "And I love him."

"I know that. And you know you're no good for him," Therese said. "Not good for him, not good enough for him."

Beverly didn't answer, but soon Therese heard the crunch of gravel as she walked away. She continued harvesting herbs, though she knew they would season her stew with the bitter taste of victory.

That night, searching his house for the wife who seemed to have abandoned his bed, he entered the room without knocking--it was, after all, his study, though rarely used these disconnected days--and caught Beverly at the comm panel, talking to her first officer. Sheepishly, she hurried off the line and smiled an apology to him. "Sorry."

"No need. You are the captain."

"It doesn't sound like you approve."

"You're on shore leave, Beverly. Don't you ever stop?"

She pushed back from his desk. "Why should I? You never did. I never asked you to."

He walked away, pulled back the drapes, and looked out the window at vineyards hired hands tended. "You always had something important you were doing, too."

He didn't see her eyes brim with tears; she never would have let him, anyway. Instead, she came up behind him and circled him with her embrace, laying her chin on his shoulder. "You could have things to do, too. If you wanted to. You don't have to hide here in your house."

"I don't? What else can I do? I'm too ill to command a starship--and don't lie and say I'm not; I'm not so far gone that I don't know how far gone I am. What else? Diplomacy? Negotiate a treaty and have it fall apart because I've forgotten which planet I'm on?" Still, after all these years, that incident preyed on his mind, galled him, long after everyone else involved had forgiven if not forgotten.

"I refuse to believe that you have nothing left to contribute."

"And I haven't the time to care what you believe. Your ship awaits you, Captain--it's time to go home." He shrugged out of her embrace and stormed from the room.

Beverly grimaced toward the closed door. "I thought I was already home."

She had planned to sleep that night in the small room off their bedroom they had once planned as nursery for the children who never were born. Even here Therese had had her say, and there was no longer anywhere in the room to sleep, the musty remains of a centuries old family having been hauled out of attics and deposited here to the exclusion of any useful purpose.

She opened the door to his bedroom and slipped inside, trying not to wake him. She might as well not have bothered; though his back was turned, he knew her step and spoke. "There is nothing for you here. Out there is where it all is--the service, the glory, new worlds to be explored, new people to be met."

"My husband is here. My home is here. And exploration was your dream, not mine."

"Go, Beverly. There is nothing for you here. I'll have Therese pack your bags."

She stopped her advance toward the bed. He might throw her out of his life, and she would have to accept it. His illness, living this restricted life in this small town--he was no longer the man who had been her captain, her friend, her husband. She could understand his delusions, if not accept them. But she would not have Therese Des Marais involved. "If you want me gone, I'll leave. On my own, thank you."

He turned to face her. "I don't want you gone. I'm just thinking about your happiness."

She threw him a sour look. When had he ever thought about her happiness? It had always been her job to manage their emotional lives, to soothe away his guilt in the middle of the night after their loving, to console him when he was retired, to nurse him through illnesses and doctor his soul through convalescence. And here she was, doing it again, walking away from the man she loved to spare him the embarrassment of a healthy, successful wife. If it were her happiness he wanted, he'd be living with her aboard her ship, maybe teaching a class or two, maybe just doing whatever he did here all day, sleeping in her bed at night, pretending he were still her husband in something more than name only. "I don't think I remember what happiness is. I'm not sure I ever knew."

Before breakfast her bags were packed and in the downstairs hall. She had taken her leave of the workers she knew, surprised by the number Therese had replaced on one pretext or another. They ate together, just the two of them, but each might as well have dined alone. Afterwards he walked her to the door; both pretended they didn't see Therese lurking in the shadows, watching the drama of their lives.

"Goodbye, Jean-Luc."

"Goodbye, Beverly."

She wanted to hold him, just one more time, but he had already retreated into himself, hunched up against the hurt no one but himself had inflicted. Happiness was a life away, a life past. He had nothing left to give her; they both knew it. But neither wanted to admit it.

Instead, she reached out a hand. "Take care of yourself."

He shook her hand, a cordial acquaintance. "You, too."

"Write."

He smiled ironically, knowing he never would, but in the long nights which stretched ahead they both knew he would compose the words of many unsent letters.

She opened the door, grabbed her bag, and left.

He closed the door softly behind her and turned to Therese. "It will be just like before. Just like before she came. Just like before I met her. I'll go on as I always have. It will be just like before."

Therese clenched her hands into fists, willing herself not to embrace him. He might need her pity, but he would not want it. "No it won't, Johnny. But you'll make do. Come to breakfast; it's time to start the day."