Author's Note: This story is set between my earlier stories "The Path Not Taken" and "A Dance to Remember" but can be read as a stand-alone. Thanks to Kallie49 for the helpful suggestions.

Beverly Crusher entered the captain's quarters on the Enterprise to hear strains of music filling the room. She stepped inside far enough to let the door slide closed behind her and then stood still, allowing the sweet, simple melody to wash over her. After a very long day in sickbay it was both a relief and a pleasure to come home to such a calming atmosphere.

Jean-Luc stood facing the viewport with his back towards her, head down as he played, clearly lost in the music he was creating. She noticed that he was still in his uniform even though his shift was long over and the dinner hour already behind them.

The last notes faded in the air, and after a moment of silence had passed she took a small step forward. "Jean-Luc?" she said softly, tentatively, wanting to alert him to her presence without intruding on his meditative state.

His head rose at the sound of her voice. Slowly he turned towards her, his hazel eyes slightly unfocused as though he was waking from a dream. "Beverly." He blinked and glanced around the darkened room. "It's getting late. I must have lost track of the time."

As he turned towards her Beverly's attention was drawn to the delicate object he cradled in his hands. "Your Ressikan flute!" she exclaimed, unable to keep a note of surprise from her voice. She'd seen the box that held it many times in the alcove behind Jean-Luc's desk, but rarely the instrument itself.

"Yes," he nodded. "It was three years ago today that the probe from Kataan made contact with me."

"Oh. I –" she broke off, about to teasingly say that she hadn't realized he'd been keeping track of the date. But the something about the solemnity of his expression stopped her. "I didn't realize," she amended. She motioned towards the delicate instrument in his hands. "You still remember the music?"

"I remember everything." His voice was grave, and sent a chill straight through her.

She edged towards him, aching to understand what made that experience still so obviously important to him. Now that she thought about it, it struck her that, although afterwards he'd informed the command staff about the planet and the people, their society and their culture, he barely mentioned his own personal experiences. As far as she knew he'd never spoken about them to anyone.

She wished that he would share what about it was clearly bothering him so that she could help him through it. Yet as his long time friend she was also keenly aware of his desire for privacy about personal matters, and his reluctance to share his feelings even with those closest to him. More than anything she didn't want to endanger their newfound intimacy by pushing him to reveal anything with which he wasn't comfortable.

"What you were just playing," she said instead, "Was that a piece from Kataan?"

"Yes." There was a pause. "Would you like to hear?" he offered, his voice uncharacteristically hesitant.

She swallowed against the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. What he was offering her wasn't his memories of his life on Kataan, but something arguably just as dear to him. It touched her deeply to know he was willing to share something so private, so emotionally intimate, with her this early in their new relationship. "Yes…very much."

He turned back toward the viewport, then threw her a look over his shoulder. "I'm no expert," he warned.

Wordlessly she nodded to let him know she understood, then turned to settle onto one end of the couch and pull her long legs up beneath her comfortably.

Beverly listened in absorbed silence as he played a slow, simple folk tune that managed to be at once sad, soothing and hauntingly beautiful. Once finished he replaced the instrument in its box with painstaking care and rubbed his fingers absently over the metal inlay. Then he drew in a breath and turned to squarely meet her gaze.

"That was lovely," she told him earnestly. He would know at once if she were being less than fully honest. And the honest truth was that the music had been lovely – a little tentative here and there, but resonant with a profound emotion that she found quite moving.

"Thank you," he replied, setting the box back on its shelf and then moving to join her on the couch. He sat down beside her and lifted one arm to wrap it snugly around her shoulders.

Beverly eagerly nestled into his side, nuzzling her forehead against his cheek with a contented sigh.

Although throughout the years Jean-Luc had regularly found one excuse or another to touch her – a reassuring clasp on her shoulder in sickbay, a courteous hand at the small of her back at official Starfleet functions – he was generally standoffish with others and for that reason she'd somehow never imagined him to be a tactile man. So she was altogether delighted to discover that he seemed crave her touch as much as she did his.

As she settled into his embrace, it amazed her to think how comfortable, how natural, this newfound intimacy with Jean-Luc was. Already she couldn't imagine any other way of being. And all those years she'd spent alone felt like they belonged to a different lifetime, a distant memory divorced from her present happiness by a vast, unbridgeable chasm. There was certainly no going back for her now, and she was certain he felt the same.

They sat together in peaceable silence for a few moments, his fingers absently stroking through her hair, before he sighed and said quietly, "It's extraordinary to me even now that I can have nearly forty years of memories of a life that never existed. A life that gave me something I never expected to have – a home and a family."

Beverly sucked in a sharp breath and drew back to catch his gaze. She hadn't known about a family. None of them had.

His eyes met hers, not hiding the sadness in their depths. "For all those years I had a wife, children – a son and a daughter. Even a grandson, near the end."

"You loved them," she whispered, hearing the pain that vibrated in every word he spoke. She sank back down against him, hoping against hope that not having to face her gaze would make him comfortable enough to share this clearly very sensitive subject with her.

"Very much." The nearly inaudible words hung in the air.

"What were their names?"

"Batai and Meribor were my son and daughter. My wife's name was Eline." He exhaled a soft sigh. "I still miss them, even though I know they didn't exist, that they weren't real."

Once again she raised her head, studying his expression. "They were to you."

Very slowly, he nodded.

She bit her lip, recognizing that she was about to trend on very uncertain ground. "You said you never expected to have a family," she said quietly, and then looked him firmly in the eye. "Because of me?"

He'd loved her ever since they'd first met, just a few years after he'd taken his first command. But back then she'd been with Jack, and it tore at her heart to wonder if her unattainability – her very existence – had led to his being alone and unattached for all these years. She set her jaw, bracing herself for whatever answer might come.

He understood the underlying motivation for her question, as she knew he would. "Not entirely," he replied, his voice gentle and warm. "It is true that I wanted all of that with you. But even when I was a boy I knew that I would never be content to settle down on one world and raise a family. I wanted to be out among the stars, and I accepted that this was part of the tradeoff that would be required."

He must have seen something of her sorrow in her face, because he reached out and tenderly stroked his thumb along the line of her jaw. "If I had it to do again, I'd make the same choice."

Beverly nodded, letting her relief show. The idea that she might have hurt him for so long – however inadvertently – was unbearable. "You've never told anyone about your family on Kataan before have you, not even Deanna," she said, returning to the original subject. Considering what a solitary, reserved man he was, she wasn't truly surprised.

He stiffened. "I told Lieutenant Commander Daren," he admitted finally, reluctantly. "We played together several times, and she asked me of the flute's origins."

Beverly froze at hearing the name. Nella Daren, pianist and stellar cartographer extraordinaire, who had been briefly posted to the Enterprise a few years before. The talented, accomplished woman with whom Jean-Luc had been able to share his love of music. And of all the women who had passed through his life, the one – besides herself – he had come closest to truly loving. She held herself very still, trying not to let the envy she felt show.

But he seemed to sense it anyway because his arm tightened around her in reassurance. "She was you, you know," he told her softly.

Beverly wiggled far enough out of his embrace to stare at him in astonishment.

The corners of his eyes crinkled in amusement at her reaction. "She was not only beautiful, like you, but strong-willed, professional, artistic, assertive –" he brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead with a gentle finger. "All qualities that I've always loved in you."

She smiled faintly, accepting the compliment. Although she couldn't really assess the woman's character, it was true that – not that she'd noticed at the time – there was a strong physical resemblance between herself and the Lieutenant Commander. Maybe that was why it had hurt so much to see them together… "I was very jealous of her," she confessed in a whisper, dropping her eyes to where her fingers toyed with the collar of his uniform. It was something she'd never admitted before, even to herself. "The way she fascinated you."

He pressed a kiss to her temple, comforting. It was true that many of the qualities he loved in Beverly he'd also been fortunate to discover in Nella. Yet it was also true that had he been with Beverly at the time he never would have looked twice at the Lieutenant Commander. Or at Vash, for that matter.

Beverly exhaled a tiny sigh. She could feel Jean-Luc's profound love for her. Knew it with the same certainty that she knew that electromagnetism and gravity held the universe together. Yet she still couldn't help wishing that she could share the same intimacy with him through music that Nella Daren had. She wondered then, in a rare and unaccustomed moment of self-doubt that she didn't enjoy. But she couldn't help it. She had to know: if he wished he were still with her. "Do you ever –"

But Jean-Luc stopped her with a finger against her lips. "No," he stated without hesitation, once again reading her feelings with unerring accuracy. "Everything I've ever wanted is right here." His smile was soft and content with the knowledge that she was with him now, his partner in every sense of the word, and that the reality of their now inextricably intertwined lives was more satisfying than anything he'd ever imagined.

For a long moment she held his gaze. Then she nodded, finally, accepting his words, before reaching up to tenderly cup his cheek with one hand. "Thank you," she told him simply.

His eyes looked a question.

Beverly hesitated. The impulse now to make a joke, to change the subject and lighten the mood, was strong, but she resisted. Soon after they became lovers she'd promised herself that she would try to refrain from reflexively using humor as a way to deflect his attention away from her deeper emotions. Instead she said, "I understand what a private man you are, how difficult it is for you to share your feelings. And – I want you to know how much it means to me when you do."

To her surprise he glanced away, as if ashamed, before returning his gaze to hers. "I sometimes forget that I can tell you things these days."

It was an unexpected admission, one that sparked a pang of disappointment in her chest. "You couldn't tell me things before?" They'd been best friends for years – at least she thought they had. She rarely hesitated to tell him what was on her mind, in her heart. It distressed her more than she was willing to admit to hear him say there were things he felt he couldn't share with her.

Jean-Luc shook his head. "Not these things." He drew her down against his side once more, folding her hand in his and pressing it against his heart. "Not – how beautiful you are. How your hair shines in the starlight. How much I love to touch you, to hold you."

Beverly buried her face in the crook of his neck, momentarily overcome. It seemed she was getting all those years spent wondering if he would ever open up to her repaid in one night.

Filled with happiness that she'd finally taken the opportunity to make a life together with this remarkable man, she stretched languidly upward to nibble his earlobe, purring, "I think it's time we started making a lifetime's worth of memories of our own."

"Agreed," he said quietly, then drew her to him for a slow, passionate kiss.

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