For all the people who keep asking me why I don't write J/C anymore -- the "Coda" story I never bothered with because of "Unity," and then "Scorpion," and then the fourth season and the fifth season and the current characters who prefer to use the holodeck for sex with holograms. It was a lot of fun while it lasted. Thanks, everyone, for the feedback and the stories and for keeping the faith all these years. I have no hope for Voyager, but I have a lot of hope for the future of entertainment if all the people I've met through fan fiction make a concerted effort to get things changed.

ENDLESS

by Your Cruise Director

The wind rises when they step into the boat, smelling of salt and earthy perfume. It causes the sail to billow like a sheet being thrown hastily onto a bed. The champagne flutes clinking between her fingers, she puts out an arm to steady herself but goes sprawling to the deck, her hair pulling free from the ponytail as she falls. Somehow she saves the crystal. He thinks he has never heard music like her laughter.

When he follows her aboard, the little ship tips with his weight, rolling her toward his feet. She takes his hand long enough for him to help her stand, then gives him the glasses to go with the bottle he carries in an old wooden ice bucket. Then she unwinds the rest of her hair, tossing the pins over the side into the lake. This is her element, not the vast openness of space nor the solid ground where she occasionally plants her feet. With the moon illuminating the submerged gold in her hair, in the soft blue dress he had never thought to see again, she looks like a naiad unaccustomed to moving outside the water.

My chest still hurts, she says, fluttering a hand to the spot beneath her breastbone where he pounded life back into her hours before. Instinctively he reaches out a hand to cover and clasp hers. The gesture offers an intimacy very different from the forced closeness from earlier, but she does not resist it, lifting his fingers to press above her heart. He can feel the soft rise of her breast against his wrist as she breathes, yet cannot tell whose pulse sings silently of life. She lets his hand fall before his other arm can tire of holding the bucket and the flutes, turning away once more towards the lake.

He sets them adrift, navigating into the open waters where the moon spills a river of light across their path. The sky is brilliant with familiar stars; he picks one, starts to make a familiar wish. Tonight he thinks he will not even mind if it does not come true. His own chest hurts, his heart swelled to bursting with the terror and relief of the day. It had been like a nightmare version of his own desires, her acid-bitter mouth open to him, his hands moving on her unresponsive body. He will have to be more careful how he words his wishes.

Where's the champagne? she asks, coming towards him from her seat in the prow, where the sail partially obscures her. He has her hold the flutes while he pours. The toast she offers is to new beginnings. A lock of her long loose hair blows across her face into her glass when she drinks. He moves to brush it out of the way, leaving a trail of champagne across her cheek. Irresistible. His finger catches the liquid, and he puts it in his mouth. Then he collects and sucks on the damp hair. By the time he releases her, she has taken back his glass to stop him from dropping it.

She and the champagne are both delicious, and he is instantly drunk, taking her shoulders in both of his hands to stare through intoxicated eyes at her radiance. He waits for her to take another sip before kissing her, thinking that he will taste the sweetness on her lips, but the sweetness of her lips makes him forget the alcohol. It is almost too much, after almost losing her. I love you, he says, because he must, as the wind blows her hair into his eyes and sends champagne splashing over them both. Then, in a sonorous voice, he orders the waters to be calm.

Nearly dying in his arms seems to have relaxed her. She laughs again, and licks his chin, and starts to take off her wet dress. He moves to help her, but cannot help kissing her once he holds her again, and they slide to the deck in a puddle of champagne and fabric. Her dress becomes a blanket and his shirt a pillow as their hands and the breeze study the contours of one another's bodies, naming and mapping the strange new worlds. In the light of the moon, in the swell of the tide, this becomes the only possible reality, the one true coda to the music of her laughter.