“You really love to fly, don’t you?” Will asked him.
“More than anything. I don’t ever want to make captain, that’s for sure. They hardly get to have any of the fun.”
“It’s too bad,” Will said, trying to sound sincere when things were playing right into his hands. “I want to be here, and you want to be there. And yet, our positions are reversed.”
They sat in silence for a few moments while Trinidad processed the idea that Will had planted. “But do they have to be?” he asked.
Will casually took a sip of his ale and arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“What if there was a way to trade places? If I could go to Saturn and fly, and you could stay here and see Spock.”
“I don’t know if they’ll just swap out our orders like that, especially this late,” Will hedged.
“Maybe they don’t need to. We don’t look a lot alike, Will, but we’re about the same build. And no one on Saturn knows you, right?”
“Not that I know of,” Will replied.
“So if I borrowed your identity for a while ...”
“The people going to Saturn to fly with me know me,” Will pointed out. He hadn’t been able to get over this hurdle, though he hoped maybe Trinidad could come up with something.
“But they’re friends of yours, right?” Trinidad offered. He seemed even more excited by the prospect than Will was. “So maybe they could be encouraged to go along with the gag—”
“It’s possible, I guess,” Will relented.
Trinidad raised his glass and held it out toward Will’s. “Come on,” he said. “A toast. To getting what we want.”
Will lifted his glass and clinked it against Trinidad’s, watching the amber liquid catch the light as it sloshed around. “To getting what we want.” He liked the sound of those words.
He wondered what it actually felt like.
After leaving Trinidad at the Ready Room—fortified, he knew, by his success at persuading his friend to take a dangerous chance as well as by several glasses of strong Aldorian ale, Will decided that he wasn’t ready to stop getting what he wanted. His trip back to campus was kind of a blur, but he eventually found himself standing outside Felicia Mendoza’s door. He raised a hand to rap against it, but the door suddenly moved a little farther away than it had been. Looking down, he realized that the whole floor was moving—turning in a slow circle and pulsing up and down at the same time. He thought at first that it was an earthquake, but realized a moment later that it was far more likely the full effects of the ale kicking in. His stomach was making similar motions.
He had come this far, though, so he steadied himself and knocked at the door. It was only after he had done so that he considered the possibility that Estresor Fil might be here, and the embarrassment that might ensue.
But Felicia was alone when she came to the door, in blue cotton pajamas. “That’s not regulation uniform,” Will observed.
“Nor do regulations require me to be in uniform at oh-two-hundred,” Felicia shot back. “Will Riker, are you drunk?”
“There is a very distinct possibility that I am, yes.”
“Get out of here.”
“But, Felicia ...”
“Will, I would be perfectly happy to have you visit my room at virtually any other time. Although waking hours are, of course, preferred. But not when you’re too drunk to think straight. Much less stand up straight.”
What she was saying probably made sense. But Will couldn’t really concentrate on it because the floor was moving faster now, dipping and rising like a thrill ride, and she swam in and out of focus, and his stomach. ... “Felicia, I ...” he got out, and then he pitched forward and the world went dark.
When he opened his eyes again, he thought the movement would kill him.
“I see you’re up,” Felicia’s voice screamed at him.
“Shhh!” he insisted with a giggle that pierced his brain. “You’ll wake Felicia.”
“Are you still drunk, Will?”
He realized several things at once. He was on the floor of Felicia’s room, which he determined because he could see Felicia standing across the room looking at him, and he recognized the art on her walls. Someone—presumably she—had put a blanket over him while he slept. His brain was on fire, his mouth tasted as if a Klingon had been herding
targsin
“No,” he managed. “Because if I was, then I wouldn’t be in pain. Feeling no pain, that’s what they say, right?”
“Sometimes they do,” she agreed. “But you’re feeling it now, aren’t you?”
He tried to push himself to a sitting position. It didn’t work very well. He reached out and steadied himself against her bed and did it again, and this time he was able to sit up, as long as he leaned against the bed. His head throbbed blindingly and his stomach churned. “Yes,” he admitted. “I’m feeling it.”
“You do know where you are?”
“I’m in your room. I came here ... to talk to you.”
“You didn’t seem interested in talking. Snoring, maybe.”
“I’m sorry, Felicia,” he said. “I hope I didn’t keep you up.”
“After you woke me up in the first place, you mean.”
“Sorry about that too,” he said. The words were coming a little easier, but some water would make it easier still. She had already figured that out, it seemed, and she brought him a glass.
“You’re dehydrated,” she said. “You need to drink this. Slowly and carefully.”
He took a sip and felt his stomach lurch. He waited for it to settle, then took another sip. “I really messed everything up,” he said. “I am so sorry.”
“You’re a Starfleet Academy cadet,” Felicia said with a shrug. “It’s practically a graduating requirement.”
“You hardly ever mess up.”
“I am unique in my brilliance and self-possession,” she said, laughing.
“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.” Will drank some more water and felt a little stronger.
“If you came to compliment my good qualities, I’m sorry you were unconscious the whole time,” Felicia replied. “But now I have to get to class—as do you, although I doubt you’ll make it. So we’ll have to reschedule my praise.”
“But ... no, Felicia.” He forced himself to his feet, made it for a second and then fell back to the edge of her bed. Progress, though. “You know what? I’ve put this off too long. I know I’ve blown it, probably ruined whatever chance I might ever have had. But I still have to say it. So stick around, please. For a little while.”
“Will, this class is important to me.”
“But you’reimportant to me!” There,he thought. It’s out.
“I appreciate that, Will,” she said, apparently not quite getting what he’d meant. “And I like you too. But I don’t want to miss this class.”
“Felicia,” Will said, hanging his head and gripping it with both hands as if to keep its halves together. His outburst had been truly excruciating. “Just ... wait. Bear with me a little, okay? We’ve known each other for a long time.”
“Yes, we have.” She sat down on a chair facing him and waited. “So what did you want to talk about?”
“This made a lot more sense last night,” he began. “Or at least I thought it did. But ... well, us. I wanted to talk about us.”
“There’s an us?”
“I always wanted there to be,” Will said. “I guess after last night, I can see that there never will be. But as long as I’ve known you I’ve wanted to be with you.”
“And of course I was supposed to know this by the fact that you never once mentioned it.”
“Yes,” Will said. Then, “No. I mean ... you couldn’t have, I guess. I kept hoping you would just figure it out. And I wanted to tell you, several times. But things kept getting in the way.”