Standard abject grovelling at Paramount's feet, for owning the franchise which owns Trek and our beloved characters. This is the sequel to "High Jinks" (title gives it away, huh?) and I was wrong in that story about its place in the timeline; it is obviously after "Attached." And for all of you who asked for Worf in a kilt--I truly think y'all are *strange*... :-)

soferim@Netvision.net.il

It had been a wonderful afternoon. Alexander's class had enjoyed her re-creation of the Caldos Highland Games, and the level of hilarity was just a bit higher, the crowd just a bit larger than need be, keeping things lively. Now it was time for the school field trip to end, but she hoped the senior bridge officers, who had drifted in over the past few hours, would stay a bit longer.

As the holodeck doors opened to let the children depart, a lone figure walked in. Captain Picard looked around, slightly bewildered. Beverly walked up to him from one side, a florid Scotsman from the other. Beverly reached him first. "I thought we were going to have dinner together. I hadn't realized you were having a party," he said, a bit wistfully.

"Not a party, not at all. Just Alexander's class trip. Everyone else just sort of... came."

He spoke softly. "I would have come, too, had I been invited."

Beverly took his arm, a little sadly. "Jean-Luc, won't you ever learn? You never needed an invitation to come."

The Scot finally reached them from the other side. "Don't go telling me this is another of your men, Beverly Howard."

Jean-Luc saved her from a reply, sticking his hand out. "I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard."

"Ian McFly, Games Master." He turned back to Beverly. "Now this is a man. Not that gawsie halfling you brought in here. The sight of that one in a kilt was enow to frighten the bairns."

"Worf," Beverly whispered to her companion, and he nodded, glad that someone, even a holodeck creation, realized he was more appropriate than the run of aliens she seemed to prefer.

"Yer from France, I ken," the gamesmaster said.

"Yes."

"Been there. Didna like it." That said, the man walked away.

Beverly led him about the Holodeck, explaining the Games, showing him the sights. The other officers kept out of their way, whether by coincidence or design--it was a big enough program to get lost in.

Night began to set in the Holodeck world, and the senior officers began to drift out, singly and in pairs. Beverly had almost forgotten that after the Games the real games started--she certainly had neglected to tell her friends.

The only reason she stayed behind with Jean-Luc was for the vicarious pleasure of showing her captain off to Holodeck recreations of her neighbors, people whom she had long, and in vain, strived to impress. It was only when the music started up again that she remembered the nighttime fun Nana had never let her witness, the games she had managed to sneak out and watch anyway.

"Come on," she called, tugging at Jean-Luc's sleeve. Now that the children were gone, the adult fun had begun. In the center of a lawn, the dancers were lining up for the Highland Fling, and Beverly almost moved to join them, until she realized the absurdity of asking Jean-Luc to participate in such a spirited dance.

They walked in companionable silence for a while, soaking up ambiance, and finally Beverly realized that she was hungry. "Jean-Luc, didn't you say something about dinner?"

"Yes. Isn't that a pub ahead?" The two entered the riotous room. It wasn't the type of setting he would choose for dinner with his friend, but it was her program.

It did seem to Picard, though, that it was a trifle too riotous. He turned to Beverly, a question in his eyes, and noticed her eyes shining. She was watching the men and women at the bar, mesmerized. "High Jinks," she whispered.

"High Jinks?"

"Truth or Consequences. Dare or drink."

Jean-Luc's mind raced with possibilities. "Intriguing," he murmured, using one of Beverly's pet phrases.

They sat at a table and ate, watching the festivities for a while. A man deposited some drinks at their elbows, demanding of Beverly, "Can ye dirk dance?"

Jean-Luc questioned her with a glance, but she was already standing. In the middle of the room, a large space was cleared, and Beverly stood in the center. Two men knelt on the floor, and others handed them two large swords each. Beverly stood between the swords and said, "Ready."

Watching what happened next fascinated Picard. In the center of the room, Beverly leapt and twirled while the swords at her feet writhed, moved back and forth in an intricate pattern which she had to anticipate and avoid. Her skirt and hair flashed, flew, transforming her into a blur of graceful motion. It seemed to go on forever, and with each passing second, Jean-Luc was sure his friend would stumble and be sliced by the flashing blades, but at the end of forever she jumped back, the swords stopped moving, and the room exploded in applause. As she made her way back to their table, colonists clapped her on the back, congratulating her.

"Very good, doctor."

"Why, thank you, captain."

The center of the festivities moved to another area of the room, and the pair just watched. Most of the dares were harmless fun, but there were a few which reminded the visitors of the adult nature of the game.

A woman strode up to their table and spoke to Picard.

"John Anderson my jo, John,

When we were first acquent,

Your locks were like the raven,

Your bonie brow was brent;

But now your brow is beld, John,

Your locks are like the snow;

But blessings on your frosty pow,

John Anderson, my jo."

Jean-Luc glared at Beverly, but she just shrugged. She had not programmed the holodeck woman to remind Picard of the passage of time. When the woman stood there, expectantly, he hissed to Beverly, "What does she want?"

"Poetry. She's challenging you to recite a poem to her."

Picard stood. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..."

The woman laughed and plunked a tanker of alcohol down on the table.

"You were supposed to match the poet she started with. Now drink your penalty," Beverly said.

He downed the tanker, "You could have told me. Who was the poet?"

"Burns, of course. This is Caldos. Do you know anything he wrote?"

He shook his head ruefully, and Beverly pushed a second tanker toward him. Facing the prospect of drinking another liter of Romulan ale, Jean-Luc wracked his brains for poetry--yes, he did recall one.

He faced the woman who challenged him.

"Green grow the rashes, O;

Green grow the rashes,O;

The sweetest hours that e'er I spend,

Are spent amang the lasses, O!"

The tavern broke out into song, for which Picard was grateful--he could not recall all the verses. Those he did, though, he sang out long and strong:

"But gie me a canny hour at e'en,

My arms about my dearie, O;

An' warly cares, and warly men,

May a' gae tapsalterrie, o!"

When the song ended the woman grabbed Picard into her arms, and planted a long, deep kiss on his lips. She tried to drag him into the center of the room, where musicians had begun playing a strathsprey, but he refused. Wordlessly, Beverly pushed the second tanker at him, and he quaffed his penalty.

A man approached their table, and dragged Beverly off to dance. She chose to play along rather than drink, but when she returned, she had a tanker in hand. "What did he challenge you to do?' Jean-Luc asked.

"You wouldn't want to know." The same man approached their table again. "Maybe we should get out of here while we still can," Beverly suggested.

"But this is just getting interesting," Jean-Luc complained, the drink and the atmosphere and the prospect of seeing his always-cool companion disconcerted getting to him.

"We can continue this in my quarters," she maintained, grabbing his wrist and pulling him standing, just as her dancing partner wrapped his arms about her from behind. "Computer, end program!" The tavern, the Games, and the too-ardent man all disappeared.

As he walked her to her quarters, the magic of Caldos began to wear off and sanity (the name he preferred to give to his repression) reasserted itself. He let her open her door and step inside the room, but he did not follow. "Thank you for a lovely evening," he said, making it clear he was bidding her goodnight.

"Don't you want to continue playing with me?" she asked, teasing.

"I don't think it's a good idea."

"Of course it isn't--if it were, we wouldn't just play it during the Games. C'mon--I dare you."

Oh, God--she was giving him That Look. The one which made him feel like she knew all the answers, and was vastly amused that he did not. The one which made him feel that he had no free will, that he was destined to drown in hers. The one that made him feel like the willing sacrifice to some omnipotent Goddess. He didn't even bother answering; he entered the room silently under her stare.

She replicated two glasses of single-malt scotch and placed them, heavily, on the coffee table. They took seats opposite each other, and he tried desperately to think of a worthy dare. Of course he knew what he'd like to dare her to do, but he wasn't drunk enough (yet) to be that obvious...

"Why don't you ever talk about your childhood? Why do you just show us tiny glimpses, like that program?"

She raised one of the glasses and gulped the contents down, rather than answering.

"Dance with me," she challenged.

Oh, no, he thought, his head already spinning with the effects of drink. I don't dare. He raised the other glass and emptied it.

Beverly rose to get them two more drinks. She stumbled slightly, not immune to the scotch herself.

Jean-Luc really did not think of his next challenge; it just came pouring out of him. "Why do you live as though Jack is coming back any day?"

"I do not!" She drew her knees up under her chin.

"Yes, you do." For someone who was making such a scathing accusation, his voice was surprisingly gentle. "Tell me one way your life is different now then when Jack was with me on the Stargazer."

"I..." She thought a moment. She had her work, her friends. And then she went home to her empty rooms. She raised her drink.

After she had finished, she asked him, "Why did you run from me that first year aboard the Enterprise?"

He scoffed. "I've told you."

"So that's all I'll ever be to you? Jack Crusher's wife? Now who's living as though Jack were coming back?"

"You know how I feel for you. You heard it on Kesprytt."

"But you never said it! How can I believe it if you can't say it? Say it. I dare you."

He looked at her, his mouth working, but no words coming out. He had spent so many years avoiding thinking about his feelings for Beverly that the words were locked in his throat and made it ache. He drank a scotch to soothe it. She stood, and refilled their glasses again, and it was his turn to issue a challenge.

Later, if pressed, he would claim he spoke because of the drink. It was a pitiful excuse, since all they were drinking was synthahol, whose effects were easily negated. But the artificial alchohol gave him artificial courage. "Do you still want me?"

She refilled her glass and downed the shot in a single gulp. Jean-Luc assumed she was taking the drink as forfeit, and was startled when she spoke, having imbibed some false courage of her own. "Yes."

"Now?"

She began to answer, then cut her words short. "It's my turn to ask the question, not yours."

"So ask..."

"Why do you always take 'no' as an answer? Why do you have to be such a gentleman all the time?" A decade of frustration broke through in her voice.

"Is that what you wanted?" he asked, astonished.

"No fair answering a question with a question. Dare or drink."

And so he dared. He leaned forward and swept her into his arms, pressing his lips hard against hers, pressing her back into the couch cushions with the force of his embrace. And as he hoped, as he suspected from her question, she responded willingly, surrendering her objections, her fears, her doubts to his confidence and need.

He felt his head begin to swim, victim of sensory overload. Her perfume, the flame of her hair at the edge of his vision, the softness of her lips, the feel of her arms around his shoulders...Jean-Luc was a man of the world; he knew how to love a woman, but here, with Beverly, he was stymied--he wanted to do everything, all at once, touch her everywhere, taste her, love her. One thing he knew for certain--her living room couch was not the appropriate field of play.

Having fulfilled the challenge set for him, he issued one of his own: "Come with me."

Jean-Luc led her back into the bedroom, not daring to look at her or touch her, afraid that after one touch he would not be able to wait, that after one look into her eyes, and he would give into the desire reflected there, and not wait until they reached the bedroom.

Once inside the bedroom, he turned abruptly around, causing Beverly to stop short, bumping straight into him, into his arms, into his kiss. They kissed until his lips felt rubbed sore, until he could barely distinguish whose tongue was whose. Her hands began roaming along his arms, and he pushed her jacket off her shoulders, down her arms.

She busied herself with caressing his hips as he unbuttoned her blouse. He pushed apart the placket, and unhooked the front of her bra, not taking the time to strip her of her garments. Later there would be time. Now, there was only fire. He bent to take a breast in his mouth, and her hands danced sinuously over his scalp and in the short hairs on his neck. His own hands were busy exploring under her modest tweed skirt.

There was no more fire in his blood--it was lava flowing through his veins. The effects of the synthahol had long ago worn off, but both were intoxicated with the scent and sense of what they were about to do. His tongue was doing the most deliciously wicked things to her nipples, his hands were running riot over her hips and thighs. Beverly was rubbing herself savagely against his growing erection, as though they could merge through the cloth.

So vigorously was she rubbing against Jean-Luc that she sent the both of them tumbling backward onto the bed. She ended up on top of him, and continued in her maddening movements, making him lose track of time, place, self. With a twist of his hips and arms he reversed their positions.

For the first time since they entered the bedroom, she spoke. "Do you dare?"

Oh, yes, he dared, and more. He rose from the bed and shed his clothing with swift movements while she lay there, watching him. Her eyes went wide with a combination of desire, fear, and naked lust.

When he made no move to rejoin her on the bed, she called out to him, but he was fixed in his place, staring at the picture of her, disheveled, wild, staring at him. "If you don't dare, you have to drink, remember?" she managed to gasp out.

His smile lit the starlit room. "What a wonderful idea, Beverly." He knelt at the bottom of the bed. Neither had taken the time to remove her clothes, but there was no more time. Jean-Luc pulled her knees to the edge of the bed until her boot heels touched the floor on either side of him. He touched his tongue to her intimately, and she reached out to run her fingers over whatever presented itself. He grabbed her hands, held them captive beneath his own. "Uh-uh," he murmured, and the vibration from his words against her body nearly sent her plunging down an abyss of sensation.

But he wasn't ready for her to fall, and so he pulled away, leaving a lingering kiss high on her innner thigh. "Take off your clothing," he whispered, using his turn at the game. She stood on unsteady legs, the high heels of her boots nearly truipping her. With her back to him, she slowly took off her jacket, neatly folded it, and laid it on a table. Then came her shirt, and then her bra. Beverly looked over her shoulder to see whether Jean-Luc was watching, and he was, transfixed. She unbuttoned and unzipped her skirt, pushing it slowly past her hips to fall on the floor, followed by her underwear. Then she sat down to remove her boots. "Come here," she said, bent over to unlace her boot.

When she straightened, he was standing above her. She meant to meet his eyes, but her attention was diverted along the way. He held his place, erect and glorious, and she was suddenly struck by the awareness that not only did he love her and want her, he no longer was ashamed to admit it. The fear and confusion which had always formed a barrier between them had dropped away.

Jean-Luc placed a finger below her chin, raising her eyes to his. In their glittering depths, Beverly read the plea and challenge. She inched forward, feeling the waves of heat eminating from his burning body, and stoked his fire with strokes of her cool tongue, feeding the flames with her moist mouth.

He laced his fingers in her hair, bringing handfuls forward to engulf the scant centimeters not already lodged deep in her mouth. The fingers tensed and relaxed, clutched her scalp and held on for dear life as she alternately licked, stroked, swallowed..

. "Beverly..." he groaned, pulling himself out, shuddering as he passed the circle of her taut lips. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her out of the chair. She leaned up against him, the length of him sliding between her thighs. Beverly raised one leg and rested it on his hip, raising herself slightly and then sinking onto him.

Jean-Luc's knees gave out, and he fell into the vacated chair, holding Beverly close to him. She laid her hands on his shoulders, and he placed hers on her waist, helping her raise and lower herself above him. Their movements were slow, delicate, deliberate, tantalizing, tormenting them both with the twin urges to savor the exquisite sensations and to speed the tempo, drive themselves just a little bit faster, a little bit harder, deeper.

Jean-Luc bent his head to take a nipple back between his teeth, and Beverly was gasping between placing open mouthed kisses on his scalp. The temptation to lose control grew too strong, and he began to thrust up into her, and she to crash down onto him. The movements became more and more rapid, the breaths more and more ragged, until an intense look very akin to pain crossed Jean-Luc's patrician face as he spilled his essence into his lover. The throb within her sent Beverly into the abyss after him, moaning and gasping.

For several long minutes they sat like that, his head against her breast, hers resting on his head. Then Beverly gently disengaged and stood, stumbling slightly on her cramped muscles. She led Jean-Luc to her bed and pushed him back onto the comforter. She stood at the foot, her eyes roaming over his body lavaciously. Again? he thought with a mixture of desire and shock.

She climbed in beside him and ran her tongue along the curves of his elven ear before whispering, "I dare you..."

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I'll take your breath away."--Sarah McLachlan