This next bit, I've written and re-written a dozen times in my head. I hope to God I got it right.****
“So, you’re still sore at Willow?”
Tara looked up in surprise. She was seated across from Dr. Devereux in his office, undergoing an informal “debriefing” – basically his asking for juicy details about her misadventure on the planet of the Guardian of Forever. She had, however, skipped over Willow’s trip through time. Not only had Captain Murdock asked her to keep it under wraps, but…
“Wh-wh-why do you say that?” she said, then rolled her eyes as her stammer made the prickliness of the subject self-evident. “God. Someday Dr. Govarr is going to have to give me neural shocks to make me stop doing that!” Devereux chuckled. Damn him.
“I don’t know, really…it’s just after your little escapade with her down on the planet, I would have thought you’d be chomping at the bit to talk to her. Especially after the captain confined her to quarters afterward, and no, he did not tell me about this, I had to alert my spies.” Devereux paused to gaze thoughtfully at his young assistant. “I don’t suppose you care to tell me why?” Tara’s silent shake of her head was his only answer. “Yeah, I figured.”
“It’s just…” She wasn’t sure why she was opening the door even a crack like this. “Sometimes, I…I get the idea that if she really could go back, to the twenty-third century, and not affect anybody or anything…” She trailed off.
“And this surprises you, why?” Devereux’s clinical tone was only slightly leavened by compassion. “Of course she would like to go back! Anybody in her situation would. All the things she didn’t get a chance to do, all the people she’s never going to see again…it’s all unfinished business. What do you think she really wants, in regards to that time?”
For a moment, Tara was silent as she pondered the question. All at once, the answer came to her. “Closure.” Her expression lightened as she said it, like the sun emerging from behind storm clouds.
“Exactly.” Devereux noted the change in her demeanor, pondered briefly the deeper meaning behind it, but said nothing. Instead he commented, “So, as long as we have that cleared up…” He reached for the everpresent bottle on his desk and poured a finger of rust-colored liquid into a handy shot glass. “As my Andorian friend said—“
Tara reached across the desk and gently, but firmly, put a hand over the glass. Devereux regarded her with raised eyebrows. “Well, if you wanted some, all you had to do was ask,” he said lightly.
She gently tugged the shotglass out of his hand; however, rather than partaking herself, she set the drink on the desk. She regarded him with a set, professional air. “Charlie, what are you doing?”
“Having a drink?” he quipped half-heartedly, noticing the no-nonsense demeanor but playing dense.
“I think you’ve been having a few too many. A lot of people think you’ve been having a few too many.”
“Actually, I would have thought everybody would have said I’ve been having a lot too many,” Devereux shot back.
Tara didn’t react to the snap. “No…everybody else is being too polite. But they are noticing your little habits. Maybe because you’re being so ostentatious about it.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “So, um, are you going to tell me why you feel the need to self-medicate to such extremes, or am I going to have to drag it out of you?”
Devereux did not answer, turning away from her. Tara leaned forward and plunged on. “It’s something to do with your wife. Rachel.”
The older man did a credible job of hiding any physical reaction to the query, keeping his relaxed posture in the chair. However, Tara’s empathic sense picked up a wave of emotions, dark currents that he struggled to control, usually through his usual regimen of booze.
Not allowing herself the slightest particle of triumph, Tara stood and slowly began to walk around the desk, placing herself in his field of vision. “I can understand the grief and sadness, Charlie. Even the anger…” Now she had to dredge up a memory of her own, one that still had some raw edges for her. “M-my mother died, when I was seventeen…”
Charlie stood to look her in the eyes for the first time. “I know. I mean, it’s in your service record.” He paused sympathetically. “Sakuro’s Disease, if I recall correctly.”
She nodded, not trusting her voice for a few moments. “After she d-d-d…was gone,” she took a deep breath, trying to still the tears that threatened to spill out and completely obliterate her professional demeanor, “besides all the usual stuff…I was so angry with her. Part of me couldn’t believe that she w-w-would just…go and leave me alone, with a father and a brother who never really l-loved me…” She had to stop then, choking back a sob as long-buried resentment came to the surface.
Devereux reached behind him and produced an old-style handkerchief, handed it to her with a touch on the shoulder. She nodded her thanks and wiped her eyes. Taking a few deep breaths, she looked at him again. “And then there’s the guilt, Charlie.” She noticed he drew back slightly from her then, his sympathetic demeanor becoming more guarded. “At first, I thought it was just survivor’s guilt, like with Willow, y’know, when she felt guilty about her friends being dead and all. But it’s more than that with you, isn’t it?” Devereux nodded numbly. “According to your service record, you took a medical leave of absence when you returned from a mission…actually, the record was a little vague about—“
“Yeah, it was, uh, classified,” Devereux replied offhandedly. “Back then, I did a few little errands for Starfleet Intelligence. Real cloak-and-dagger stuff.”
“It’s kinda hard, thinking of you as the skulking-in-the-shadows type.”
“Yeah, I was the poster boy for Living on The Razor’s Edge and Laughing in the Face of Death. ‘Course, I was a different person, then.” His eyes clouded as the memories came to the surface. “The mission I was on…required me to be out of touch for a few months. Almost a year. When I got back in contact with Starfleet, I found out…she’d been killed in an airtram accident…” Now it was Devereux’s turn to have trouble getting the words out. “I, I couldn’t handle it. It was like someone took a phaser and…shot it through me, and left this…huge hole right in me.” He turned from Tara and strode across the room. “She was…my everything. And then she was…gone. I couldn’t deal with it.
“Eventually, I was sent to a Starfleet medical facility. The counselors there…I worked with them, getting me past the whole thing.” Devereux recovered some of his clinical detachment, describing his past as if it were a case file. “The funny thing was, they all told me I had a real gift for psychotherapy. I took a real interest in what they did. After a while, I decided the best thing for me to do was to see if I could do this full-time.”
Tara nodded. “You wanted to change your life after your wife’s death. What better way than to…change careers?”
Devereux smiled. “I figured I’d be really good at helping Starfleet officers deal with personal loss, ‘cause, hey, I’ve been there, right? I went back to school, earned my degree, and eventually, I applied to Starfleet to reactivate my commission.”
Tara stepped closer to him. “But that’s…that’s not the end of the story, is it? You’re still in nine kinds of pain, and you don’t know how to get past it.” She peered into his eyes, electric-blue orbs piercing into his very brain. “Why? She’s been gone, how many years now? Isn’t it time you got on with your life?”
“It’s not that simple, Tara!” he snarled back at her. “You just don’t forget the love of your life and what you promi—“
“Promised…what?” Tara prompted when he didn’t continue. “What promise did you make to her?”
Devereux did not answer right away. When he did, his voice was barely above a whisper. “I was…young then. We both were. I was dedicated to my career, to eventually getting my own command. Rachel knew that. I mean, hell, I proposed to her in uniform…she knew that I would be gone a lot.
“I said, ‘No kids, Rachel. No kids, at least not right now. Someday, I promise.’ I promised her, Tara, and I swear to God, I meant it. I just didn’t want…I, my career, I just…” He broke down, leaning on his hands on his desk, his shoulders shaking heavily. For nearly a minute, nothing coherent came from the older man. “D’ya know, sometimes I have these dreams,” he was finally able to choke out, seeing Tara’s understanding and sympathetic nod, “Rachel’s there, and we have these kids, only sometimes, they’re grown up, having kids of their own, hey, look, I’m a grandpa, and then I wake up and I’m alone, alone with nothing but a chestful of medals and a sheepskin on my wall!” He covered his eyes with his hand. “God, all I’ve done is, is trade one career that was taking over my life, for another career that’s taking over my life!”
Tara reached over and gently removed his hand. As he turned wet eyes in her direction, she said, “Just because she d-died doesn’t mean you broke your promise to her. Things fall apart, they can fall apart so hard, and when we blame ourselves for the pieces falling, we’re trying to find some control over our lives that we don’t really have. When you decided to become a counselor, that was your way of trying, well, two things: you were trying to get control, and you were, um, trying to do penance for what you perceived as…breaking faith with your wife.” She touched his shoulder. “But, you still haven’t dealt with the guilt. You need to forgive yourself, Charlie. And, unfortunately, the person we find hardest to forgive is ourselves.”
Devereux nodded slowly, then raised his eyes, to look at her with naked pleading so different from his usual assurance. “Think you can help me with that?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light.
Tara smiled her trademarked lopsided grin. “Thought you’d never ask.” She drew him close, to let him rest her head on his shoulder, letting him wrap his arms around her, feeling him shudder and sigh and, finally, release his pain. She returned the embrace, feeling wounds both old and new close within herself.
TBC _________________
"Many such journeys are possible. Let me be your gateway."
as well as Sisko. Whew.
out. 
BWR 
That was excellent... 