Lost Era 06_ Catalyst of Sorrows - Margaret Wander Bonanno [50]
Sisko groaned and put the pillow over his head, as if that would make it go away.
“Ben? Ben, come out of there and talk to me,” Jennifer bossed him, laughing and tugging on the pillow. She heard him mumble something, then sigh, then surrender. “Ben? You were at HQ today. My guess is it was something important. Is that what this is about?”
“Can’t a man have any secrets?” he wondered.
“Not when a shuttle comes all the way from San Francisco to retrieve you personally.”
He’d planned to wait until breakfast to tell Jennifer as much as he could about his meeting with Uhura, trying to figure out a way to tell her just enough but not too much, but now he thought: Wait a minute. What exactly is there that I can’t tell her, since Uhura told me not much of anything? Jennifer’s as much bound by Starfleet regulations as I am. She knows whatever we say about this never leaves this room.
He sat up and told her everything.
“And-?” Jennifer prompted when he’d finished.
“And, I don’t want to go off on some open-ended assignment and leave you and Jake.”
“And you told this to Admiral Uhura without even knowing what the assignment was?” Jennifer said carefully.
“Jennifer, I don’t want to leave you. Not for a day, not even for a minute. Can you understand that? I think I’m more in love with you than I was the day I met you. I feel as if every moment away from you is a moment lost forever.”
“Every moment except when you’re up to your eyebrows in engine specs,” Jennifer said dryly. “If I really believed that, Benjamin Sisko, I’d think you were a man obsessed, and I’d tell you you need to have your head examined.”
There was a silence between them, a silence where he lost himself for a moment in the liquid depths of her eyes and forgot everything else.
“You think I’m being silly,” he said at last, a little sheepishly.
“I wouldn’t put it in so many words, but-“
“- but I’m being silly. I should at least find out what the assignment is before I say no. Curzon said something about it helping me to see the world beyond an engine room, but-“
“And how often is Curzon wrong?”
“Curzon is a poet,” Sisko grumbled, rolling over on his side and clutching the pillow beneath his head in case Jennifer tried to take it away from him again. “I’m a pragmatist. I don’t have the patience for-“
“An assignment with Intelligence can only help your career, Mr. Pragmatist,” Jennifer suggested.
Sisko rolled over and scowled at her. “That’s Lieutenant Pragmatist to you. Are you saying you don’t think I’m being promoted fast enough? Are you saying I’m a trophy husband?”
Jennifer laughed and punched him on the shoulder, not entirely playfully.
“I’m saying you married another pragmatist. Someone who’s interested in seeing you become your best self.”
“No, that would be Curzon.” Sisko turned away from her again. He sighed. There’d be no sleeping until they got this settled. “Why is it everyone knows what’s best for me better than me?” he asked of no one in particular.
There was no answer from Jennifer, who lay there smiling secretly to herself.
“You want me to go back there tomorrow and tell Uhura I’m in,” he suggested. “Without even knowing what it’s about.”
“Oh, far be it from me to tell you what I think you should do!” was Jennifer’s answer.
This time it was Ben who said nothing.
“Ultimately, it’s up to you,” Jennifer said at last, kissing his elbow, which was the part of him closest to her. “But let it be about you, not about Jake and me, because we’re not going anywhere.” She kissed his arm where the bicep bulged, then his shoulder, then his neck, then his ear. “Wherever you go, however long you’re gone, when you come home, Jake and I will be right here. And I hope the same thing would be true of you if I were the one on special assignment.”
“Of course it would!” Sisko said plaintively, turning toward her, stroking her cheek, cradling