Promise of Love

by C. M. King

  He stood up. “How about we get dressed and I walk you back to your quarters."

  Rieko turned away to finish dressing so he couldn't see how upset she felt. They had amazing sex, a great cuddle, a nice talk, and now she got ‘walk you back to your quarters'? “I can walk myself back,” she said.

  She turned to find pain in his eyes. “I'd like to have you walk me back to my quarters,” she said, her voice showing her false excitement.

  "You don't mean that,” he said.

  "I didn't know how much it would hurt you,” she said about his truthful rejection of her offer. He frustrated her and confused her. Why couldn't he just let himself go, really let her in, just let her spend a night in his arms?

  Stuart reached out to her and drew her into his embrace, his bare flesh warm against her. “I'm trying, Rieko.” He looked in her eyes. “I want to be able to return all you give me. I am trying.” His gaze traveled through her to her heart, deep inside to her very soul. “I'm going to figure out how to love you,” he whispered.

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  Chapter Eleven

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  Stuart stood at his station on the bridge monitoring systems, calibrating the ship's guns. He gently watched her while doing his tasks. She looked tired from lack of sleep. He hoped she was able to sleep after he dropped her off at her quarters last night. He hadn't.

  He'd returned to his quarters and spent most of the night working on Taylor's model until exhaustion had finally overtaken him in the wee hours of the morning. More and more lately, he had found himself working on that model because of Rieko. Working on something with that much detail helped him clear his head of thoughts, or focus his thoughts; it depended on his mood.

  Last night had been... Even all those sleepless hours of model building hadn't fully answered his questions. He wished he could love Rieko. She deserved it. It seemed so simple for everyone else. Stuart cared about her very much. More and more he couldn't imagine Resolution without her. He didn't want to imagine himself without her. He couldn't screw this up. He couldn't lose her. Yet, somehow he couldn't make himself love her.

  The sex last night had been great, but then it usually was. As they learned the idiosyncrasies of having each other as lovers, the sex was just getting better. The rest though, to have her lay in his arms and be so open with her, the entirety of his flesh unsheathed, his soul open for her to peer on. They had talked about personal things, including his father, and it had been so easy, so painless to tell her things, gloriously painless.

  He had thought that first step of asking her out, that first date, that first kiss, would be the most difficult. Every succeeding step grew harder and more painful than the last, but last night was easy. Maybe it was just retread over already covered ground. He could hope though that he had reached some crest and that things would get easier from now on.

  Stuart glanced up at the sound of the lift doors opening to reveal the captain and commander.

  "Lieutenant MacEwan, could I see you in my ready room?” Captain Allen's command sounded casual. He strolled on to his ready room without looking at Stuart.

  "Certainly, sir.” Stuart left his station and followed the captain. The door closed behind them.

  Allen crossed the floor of his small ready room, sat down at his desk chair, and turned to look at his Armory Officer. Stuart could tell that wherever the conversation headed it would not be comfortable. So, he wanted to make no pretense the conversation would be comfortable by taking a seat. He stood in a parade rest stance before his captain.

  "Lieutenant, you and Rieko are,” Allen paused for the correct word, “seeing each other?"

  Stuart didn't like where the conversation headed. “Yes, sir,” he replied, crisply. Although his relationship with Rieko may be technically fraternization because he slightly outranked her, they served in very different departments. It was not as if Rieko worked under his direct command. “Is that a problem, Captain?"

  "No, personally I don't have a problem with it.” The captain gave Stuart the once over. The sides of his mouth looked as if they wished to tug into a smile. “You certainly aren't the only ones in such relationships on this ship.” Allen shifted until he leaned forward in his chair. He placed his hands on his legs. “Poloski, however, does seem to have some issues with such things."

  The Commander worked more by the book than even Stuart himself. Allen pushed himself up and began to pace a path from the desk to the door. Stuart stepped out of his way, still standing rigidly.

  "Poloski brought it to my attention this morning.” Allen reached the desk and turned around to pace in the other direction. “That you and Rieko are having...” Allen stopped near Stuart. His brow knotted in thought as he searched for the correct wording. “Sexual interludes during your lunch break."

  "Yes, sir, we have.” Stuart kept himself rigid, and hopefully kept his worry out of his eyes.

  Allen took a step closer. “Stuart, what exactly are your intentions with Rieko?” Concern for Rieko showed in his voice, for the little girl with a crush that he thought of as a sister.

  How much had Taylor told him about the other women Stuart had been with? Rieko wasn't like any of those women to him. There was a time he thought he couldn't treat her different than them, but he could and he did.

  Stuart looked up to see the Captain waiting for his answer. “My intentions are good, sir.” He cared about her too much to hurt her, but then there were times one hurt those close to you without meaning to. Stuart hoped this wouldn't end up being the case with Rieko.

  Allen accepted the answer even if he didn't fully believe it. He moved a bit closer. “Be a little more discreet Stuart about your lunch time...interludes."

  "Aye, sir.” Stuart took Allen's request as an order.

  "If you do...” Allen ran out of a way to finish and left the rest unspoken. “Take a shower after, both of you."

  "Aye, sir."

  He felt the captain's eyes on him and willed himself to meet his gaze. Allen leaned in closer. Stuart made sure to keep his eyes on Allen, and made his face solid and controlled.

  "If you hurt her,” Allen threatened, “I will make you pay."

  While part of Stuart felt furious at the captain for saying such things to him, being an older brother himself, another part realized that the captain was just trying to protect her.

  "Dismissed, Lieutenant,” Allen said.

  "Sir.” Stuart turned crisply and exited the ready room.

  * * * *

  The conversation with the captain had been odd and whatever it was Poloski had discussed over breakfast had made lunch with Taylor even odder. Being Taylor and this being their usual lunch routine neither he, Taylor, nor Rieko mentioned anything about the tension at the table. They all seemed to not want their lunch to be spoiled by discussions of stuff they all knew and all knew they knew.

  After lunch Rieko parted ways with them and headed back up to the astronomy lab. Stuart had to check into sickbay about a minor wound inflicted during the encounter with a recent aggressive alien race. The wound was healing fine, but the doctor wanted to give his final check-off on it.

  "The supply closet in Engineering.” Taylor's voice knocked Stuart out of his thoughts. Stuart wondered how Poloski even knew about that.

  Stuart was granted a quick break to grab something to eat while his armory staff helped out the engineering staff with a massive engineering crisis. He had spent more than half of that time in the supply closet with Rieko. Food wasn't what his body had needed right then. He enjoyed it when she gave up some of her control to him, but then it was even better when she took control from him.

  Taylor shook his head. “I am never gonna think of that closet the same again.” Stuart tried to stop the blush he knew spread over his cheeks. Taylor looked over and smiled at Stuart, who made sure to stay looking straight ahead.

  "Good luck with the doc,” Taylor said. He hung a left to Engineering. “I haven't even done t
hat in my supply closet,” Taylor muttered to himself as he walked away.

  Stuart calmed his thoughts and gave a big sigh as he pushed open the doors to Sickbay. How much odder could today get?

  "Ah, Lieutenant MacEwan.” Doctor Valentine greeted him with his usually jovial voice. “Right on time, as always."

  Stuart undid the top of his uniform and took off his shirts to allow the doctor to examine him. He certainly didn't think this was necessary, he felt fine, but the good doctor had proven himself to Stuart. If Valentine said he needed one last check-up for the injury, then he probably did.

  "The wound appears to have healed nicely, Mister MacEwan.” Valentine studied the pink line of new skin that curved around Stuart's upper arm. Because of the doctor's work, the scar when healed would be rather unnoticeable.

  "Are you and Ensign Hayashi dating?” Valentine continued to examine Stuart.

  Not the Doctor too, Stuart thought. With a loose grasp on Stuart's arm, Valentine knew he had Stuart trapped. Valentine's pale gray eyes in his dark face watched Stuart.

  "I suppose you could say we are dating.” Not that they had necessarily been on that many dates.

  "Hmm. I've got some cream which will help with the scarring.” Stuart wondered if the doctor's interest was to Stuart's response or his wound.

  Valentine walked across Sickbay and rummaged through something on the cabinet looking for the cream. “Have you and Rieko had sex yet?” Valentine's voice seemed so casual it took Stuart a moment to register that the doctor seriously asked such a question.

  For the second time today, Stuart fought back a blush. He sat on the examine table feeling very exposed and trapped. This time, however, Stuart did not blush. “That's really none of your business.” Stuart clipped off the words crisply.

  "It is a serious relationship?” Valentine asked.

  Stuart couldn't really answer the question. How good were his intentions? Valentine crossed the room to return to Stuart with the cream he was looking for.

  "I'm not sure,” Stuart answered finally.

  Valentine began to rub the cream on Stuart's scar. “You haven't thought at all about perhaps someday marriage, children?"

  "We're just dating,” Stuart said. This was worse than the talk with the captain or Taylor's funny looks at lunch. His British sense of propriety meant for all of this to be left unspoken. “We haven't discussed either yet.

  The doctor stopped rubbing the cream into Stuart's scar. He looked intently at Stuart. His stomach tightened and he fought back a wave of nausea. He thought about his father, grandfather, the MacEwan curse. He was no more fit to raise children than they had been. He couldn't do that to Rieko's children.

  "I wouldn't be very good at it,” Stuart said. Valentine's face scrunched up. He opened his mouth to ask another question and Stuart cut him off short, “At being a father."

  Valentine's face relaxed a little. His pale blue eyes stared back at Stuart. He cocked his head. “Why?"

  This wasn't something he would explain to the doctor, now or ever. “Are you done, Doctor?” Stuart's voice sounded tighter than he wanted it to be.

  "Yes, Lieutenant.” Valentine backed away.

  Stuart quickly pulled on his shirt and redid his uniform. Valentine gave a smile to Stuart unfazed by the reluctance of Stuart to explain further. With one last look at the jovial doctor, Stuart fled Sickbay.

  There was no way now that Stuart could return to the bridge to spend the rest of the day not looking distracted. What were his intentions? What did he want to be to Rieko? What did she think about marriage and children? Stuart headed to the armory to align and calibrate the ship's cannons instead.

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  Chapter Twelve

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  "What has been up with people today?” Stuart's voice held near exasperation as he strolled into Rieko's quarters.

  "Where have you been?” she asked.

  She knew he hadn't returned to the bridge after lunch because she'd gone up there to drop off a few reports to the captain. Then he had missed supper as well, something he didn't do anymore. She turned to fully take him in. His sleeves were still rolled up. He ran a hand through his messy hair.

  "Working in the armory.” Stuart plopped himself down on her bed.

  "You missed supper.” Rieko tightened her lips. That wasn't like him anymore, and she wondered just what had been so pressing to have missed a meal, or had he just been avoiding something.

  Stuart sighed and shook his head. “First there was the Captain. My intentions with you, Rieko, are good."

  She frowned a bit at the thought of Shawn having cornered Stuart.

  "Not sure if I can keep them.” Stuart frowned. “But they are good.” His words seemed to come from his mind and exit his lips without a thought about whether they were correct.

  "Well, of course, they are.” Rieko stood up from her desk and sat beside him on the bed. She laid a hand on his knee.

  "Then the doctor,” Stuart continued, “all talking about marriage and children. How do you tell him it's just sex."

  Her frown deepened, because what they were doing was much more than sex to her and had been for what seemed like so long now.

  Stuart shook his head, and a look of fear showed in his blue eyes. “Well, of course, it's not entirely,” he said.

  Rieko nodded. Whatever it was they had she hadn't thought ahead enough to them having a future together. She still struggled with getting him over being all right with where their relationship was.

  Stuart got a look of disbelief. “Marriage and children?” he muttered.

  "You don't want marriage and children someday?” she asked.

  He looked over at her. A fear of saying the wrong words filled his stormy eyes. “Do you?” His voice cracked a bit.

  "Not right now, but someday...” She didn't want either now and who knows if it was even in their shared future. She did like the idea of eventually finding someone to share her life with, having children, and the idea of doing both with Stuart had a nice ring to it. “Do you?"

  "Children.” He gave a deep sigh. “I'd just mess then up. Maybe not daughters.” His voice held a little hope. “Sons, I'd just mess up, the MacEwan curse.” He, at least, thought what he said was the truth, and maybe he knew better about the subject than her. She knew he was a better man than his father.

  "Marriage I don't know,” he said. He shook his head. “My father ruined her, my mother, he killed something deep inside her.” His blue eyes bore into hers. “I think he really does love her. She really loves him, and his intentions were good.” His voice sounded bitter. “You can't remake someone that old without breaking them."

  Rieko remembered how he had told her one could reform anyone if they were weak enough. Was it his mother who he had been talking about?

  "I remember how she was when I was young.” A rare smile when talking about his family crossed his features, likely from good memories. “She was so happy and alive. Gave plenty of smiles."

  Rieko tried to imagine a young Stuart with a smiling mother, laughing, having fun. Once one got past his thick exterior, he did like to make jokes and smile. He had to have gotten that from somewhere.

  Stuart's smile fell away. “Now she's dead inside. She just sits there, not even her eyes are alive.” A deep pain showed in his voice, for a mother he had known and no longer fully had. “It hurts to see her like that. Doesn't it hurt him? Doesn't he know it's his fault?"

  "Do you really think you could do that to me?” she asked. Did he really think himself capable of such a thing?

  "I don't know.” He softly shook his head. He looked lost and confused. “If we were married and lived together, I don't know what I would demand of you to keep the order I want."

  "I wouldn't let you do that to me.” Her statement sounded blunt.

  Stuart stared at an empty corner of her room. “He did it little by little,” he said about his parents. “First she did one thin
g he wished, then two, then three, until now her life is his. She doesn't know who she is without him, what to do but serve him."

  The thought of a lifeless woman sitting motionless, done with one task and waiting for his father to give her another, broke Rieko's heart. Having never met the woman, Rieko still felt bad for what Stuart's father had done to her.

  Rieko wasn't like that. She couldn't be like that, and Stuart didn't want her to be like that. “Just because a woman does a great deal for her husband doesn't mean he controls her,” she said. Her mother did so much for her father, her brothers, even her, but none of them controlled her. She did those things to show her love for them in a way she thought she should.

  "My mother does a lot of behind the scenes things for my father,” Rieko continued. All those little things that seem to get done without anyone's work, that was her mother's doing. They all knew that and thanked her for doing so. “He greatly appreciates her for it, and he doesn't control her."

  "That's not the way it is with my parents.” Stuart shook his head. Rieko reasoned that likely it wasn't, that there was no respect, no appreciation, only the thought that his mother should obey without question. “Have you ever done anything like that for me?” His brow furrowed.

  "I don't think so.” He had never wanted her to do anything like that, so she hadn't. Ever since she was little she had known that as a girl the rules were a little different. There were things she was supposed to do without being asked, help with meals, cleaning. Of course Asian culture required more courtesy than the North American and European culture most of the crew were raised with.

  "Don't.” Stuart's voice came out harsh.

  "Just because I..."

  "Don't.” Stuart shook his head, and his voice grew ever harsher, holding more demand.

  "Maybe it's silly tradition, but Asian women are still somewhat taught to serve others. It's not entirely a bad thing,” Rieko said. It wasn't something she did often either. Her mother had always thought that part of love was, also, service.

  "Just don't, Rieko.” This time his voice sounded quiet and gentle. “Don't do that sort of thing for me."