"Captain's log, Stardate 50803.7. We have arrived at Malicon III, where part of the crew will enjoy shore leave, including myself and Dr. Crusher. Upon our departure, the Enterprise will head to the Niden Cluster to conduct a routine astrological survey."
=/\=
Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher stepped up onto the transporter pad in Transporter Room 3. "Have a good time, Captain, Beverly. Throw some snowballs at each other for me," Commander Will Riker grinned.
"How about I bring one back to throw at *you*," Beverly said with a wicked smile.
Picard looked at his traveling companion. "Good idea, Beverly. Then maybe you won't throw any at me."
"Not a chance, Jean-Luc. We're going to be in a beautiful cabin surrounded by snow for a week, and you don't expect me to throw any snowballs at you? I thought you knew me better than that," Beverly said with a look of mock umbrage.
Riker laughed and turned to the transporter chief.
"Energize." Just before they disappeared, Will waved goodbye.
The captain and doctor materialized inside the main lodge at Malicon's
premiere ski resort. After registering at the front desk, they were taken by a snow
hoverer to a beautiful two bedroom cabin a distance away from the main lodge. Outside the
cabin, two snowmobiles were parked, ready for their use.
Their escort led them inside, started a fire in the fireplace, and gave them a brief tour before departing. Finally alone, Beverly kicked her snow boots off, collapsed onto the couch in front of the crackling fire and sighed in utter contentment. "Ahh, this is the life. A secluded cabin in the snow, a roaring fire, and a handsome starship captain to attend to my every need. What more could a woman want?"
"A touch of reality, perhaps," Jean-Luc commented dryly as he moved towards the couch.
"Honestly, Jean-Luc, you'd think I forced you to go on this vacation at gunpoint." She moved her feet enough to make room for him on the couch, and then plopped them onto his lap when he sat. "Besides, don't tell me you were looking forward to staring at a bunch of stars for a week."
He regarded the wool-stockinged feet in his lap for a moment. "Beverly, you know I don't like going on vacation. A captain belongs on his ship."
"Bullshit, Jean-Luc. You needed this. Admit it." She nudged his leg none-too-gently with her heel, coming dangerously close to a vital male area. He squirmed and sighed.
"All right, you win. You'd think that after almost thirty years, I'd know better than to argue with you."
She grinned smugly. "One would think." Swinging her feet
off him, she rose and stretched, cat-like. "C'mon, Jean-Luc. Let's go for a ride.
Those snowmobiles out there look like fun."
They emerged outside into a winter wonderland. The sky was an ominous
gray, but a weather control net kept the normally vicious winter storms of the planet at
bay.
Beverly bent down near the snowmobiles and scooped up a handful of snow, patting it into a firm, round ball with her gloved hands. Jean-Luc turned around at the sound of his name, only to get nailed in the chest with a snowball.
He looked down at the snow clumps falling off his parka, then back at Beverly. A wicked gleam lit his eyes as he leaned down and scooped up a large chunk of snow. As he sculpted it, he said mildly, "You know, Beverly, you really shouldn't have done that."
He advanced towards her, and she backed up into the path going by their cabin. The snowball he had was much bigger than the one she made. It looked more like a snow cannonball.
She abruptly reached down, grabbed two handfuls of ammunition, and tossed them at Jean-Luc. One went whizzing by his ear, and the other smacked directly into his face. He didn't look amused.
With a deftness that surprised her, he split the large snowball in half and retaliated, hurling the two chunks at her and picking up more snow to fire smaller ones. Beverly dropped to the ground as one hit her in the back when she spun around. She didn't know where the others went, until she heard a muffled cry of surprise from the path directly behind her.
Beverly got to her feet and studied the couple standing before her. Jean-Luc's "revenge" had caught them completely unawares, and they were both sporting snow clumps stuck to their clothing.
The four studied each other for a long moment, and, as one, began to laugh. "I'm really sorry. We didn't mean for anyone to get caught in our little war," Jean-Luc offered.
The woman smiled at him. "It's an interesting way to meet your neighbors, I'll give you that." She gestured down the path they way they had come. "We're two cabins down the path, about a mile away. We were just out for a walk. I'm Leila, and this is my husband Bob."
Handshakes were exchanged as Beverly and Jean-Luc introduced themselves, as well. They talked for a while, and then Leila and Bob made their way back along the path, continuing their walk.
Jean-Luc and Beverly turned away from their newfound friends and were beginning to check the snowmobiles out when a bombardment of snowballs had them ducking behind the machines. They peeked out to see Leila and Bob laughing and waving, then disappearing out of sight.
=/\=
They returned to their cabin just before dark, having snowmobiled for the remainder of the afternoon. Snow was starting to fall, blanketing them in a calming quiet as they entered the warm, cozy cabin. After shedding their outerwear, Jean-Luc built a fire in the fireplace, and then helped Beverly prepare for dinner.
Dinner was a quiet, candlelit affair. Jean-Luc opened the bottle of wine he had brought with him, and after they finished eating, they retired to the couch and sat in companionable silence in front of the fire.
By the time the last of the wine was finished off, it was quite late. The fire had burned down to softly glowing embers as Jean-Luc and Beverly bid each other a sleepy good night and retired to their respective bedrooms, neither noticing the heavy snow falling outside, or the rapidly increasing wind.
=/\=
Beverly awoke a few hours later to a mind-numbing cold and the sound of wind battering the cabin. She slipped out of bed and, after pulling on a thick sweater over her flannel pajamas and an extra pair of socks, wrapped the quilt from the bed around her and peeked out her bedroom window. What she saw, and didn't see, made her gasp in surprise. She quickly made for Jean-Luc's bedroom next door.
She poked at the softly snoring lump in the middle of his bed. "Jean-Luc, wake up."
He mumbled something unintelligible, and his hand poked out of the covers long enough to pull the quilt over his head. Beverly sighed in exasperation and looked around for something to help. She seized the extra pillow on his bed and thwapped him over the head with it. A muffled curse was heard from under the covers, and Jean-Luc's head emerged. He focused sleepy, annoyed eyes on her, squinting slightly in the darkness. "What?"
She gestured at his bedroom window and sat down on the edge of his bed. "There's a blizzard out there. We've lost power."
He snuggled back under the covers. "Nonsense. The weather control net breaks up storms. It allows mild snowfall, and that's it. Go back to sleep."
With a tug, Beverly yanked the covers away from his body, revealing a bare chest and flannel pajama pants. She was allowed a brief moment of admiration until he yanked the covers back under his chin. "Damn, it's cold!"
"For lack of anything better to say, Jean-Luc, I'll just say 'I told you so' and leave it at that. Obviously, the control net isn't working, and the storm knocked power out. I don't think there's a generator, either." Taking pity on his burrowed form, Beverly got up and found him a sweater and thick wool socks. "Here, put these on. You'd better build another fire so we have some heat. Guess we'll be sleeping in the living room for the rest of the night."
She left him then and wandered into the living room, where he joined her after a few moments, wrapped as she was in the quilt from his bed. A fire was roaring minutes later, and, curled up on the floor in front of it, Jean-Luc and Beverly fell asleep once again.
=/\=
The blizzard continued to rage into the late afternoon. Beverly and Jean-Luc had passed the time by talking, eating (and, thankfully for them, the replicator seemed to have a back-up battery powering it), reading, playing cards, and occasionally napping.
By now, however, Beverly was bored to tears. Jean-Luc seemed content with his book, but she was desperate for a new activity.
A quick glance at the bowl of grapes in her lap brought an idea to her mind and a wicked grin to her face. She plucked one off its stem and regarded it thoughtfully for a moment, then turned her gaze to Jean-Luc, who was seated on the couch next to her overstuffed chair.
After picking up the book she had earlier discarded on the floor and using it to disguise her bowl of artillery, the grape sailed through the air, bouncing off the top of Picard's slightly bowed head and onto the pages of his book.
His head snapped around to Beverly, only to find her reading quietly, her eyes drooping slightly. After casting a quick, suspicious glance at the ceiling, he popped the grape in his mouth and continued reading.
*thwop*
A moment later, another grape landed on the top of his head and fell onto his book. His head turned, very slowly now, to regard his best friend. She was sitting just as before, although she now looked like she was about to fall asleep. Shrugging, he ate the second grape and vowed to keep an eye on her.
Minutes passed, and no more grapes. He finally turned his full attention back to his book.
*thwop*
*thwop*
Two grapes, in rapid succession, followed their predecessors. He turned, quicker than before, in time to see the bottom of the bowl in Beverly's lap.
She looked up and met his gaze, and began giggling. Ignoring her amusement at his expense, he grunted derisively and turned back to his book. Without so much as a glance her way, he murmured warningly, "I'd suggest you find something a little less potentially dangerous to do with your time."
*thwop*
Sighing, he ate the new grape and, after carefully replacing the bookmark, closed the book and rose from the couch slowly. She was already scrambling out of the chair away from him as he advanced towards her. "I did warn you," he said quietly.
Beverly led him in a circle around the room. "Now, Jean-Luc, I was only trying to have some fun..."
Before she could react, he grabbed her around the waist and swung her up over his shoulder. She squealed in surprise and pounded on his back. "Jean-Luc, it was just a joke! Put me down!"
"All right," he said agreeably, and moved back towards the fire. With a deftness and strength that further surprised her, he swung her around.
She abruptly found herself dangling upside down, her head resting lightly on the quilts on the floor, and her body pressed against Jean-Luc. He had a strong forearm clamped across her legs, preventing her from falling. "Happy now?" he asked.
She wanted to smack the smile she knew he had right off of his face. "I'll remember this when your next physical comes due, Jean-Luc," she threatened.
Without warning, she abruptly slid to the floor, and came to rest on the tangled quilts. Jean-Luc looked down at her, a smug, mock-apologetic grin on his face. "Sorry. I lost my grip." He gallantly offered her a hand to help her up.
She glared at him for a moment, and then accepted the hand. Just as he was about to pull her to her feet, her foot shot out and hooked him behind a knee. He landed next to her with a thud. "I see your mok'bara classes paid off," he muttered.
Beverly eyed his prone form appraisingly, then rolled on top of him. As she landed on his chest, he groaned. "Now what are you going to do to me? First you bombard me with snowballs, then fruit. Then you pull me to the floor and sit on me. I feel like I'm back in Combat Training at the Academy," he complained.
"Just having some fun, Jean-Luc," she teased. She brought one finger up and began to trace a pattern across his chest. Unfortunately, she caught the gleam in his eyes a second too late.
She was suddenly on her back, completely pinned by Jean-Luc's body. "Just having some fun, Beverly," he teased back.
"Oof. Get off me, you big oaf. I can't move."
He obliged by freeing her arms. Hoping to catch him off-guard, she pulled his mouth down to hers and gave him a quick kiss. "Still want to have fun, Jean-Luc?"
His voice, when he found it once again, rumbled low, tinged with the beginnings of arousal. "Since you put it that way, Beverly..." This time it was he that kissed her, and far more thoroughly than she had.
When they finally came up for air, Beverly slipped her hands beneath Jean-Luc's sweater. "You weren't too involved with that book of yours, were you?" she asked, her hands doing the most delicious things to his back.
"Um, no. Not really. Why?"
She tugged his sweater off over his head and, just before she kissed him again, said with a grin, "Because I think this'll be a lot more fun than reading..."
=/\=
Beverly and Jean-Luc found it hard to believe that they had been so cold that morning. They were so hot right then that the idea of opening a window was sorely tempting.
They lay on their backs on the rumpled quilts in front of the fire, gasping for air. "You were right, you know," Picard managed in between gasps.
"'Bout what?"
He rolled onto his side and began to idly run his fingers down her bare stomach. "That was a lot more fun than reading a book."
She laughed, and curled up against him, allowing the satiated drowsiness begin to take hold. He smiled and, after tugging one of the quilts free, draped it across their lower bodies and joined her in a contented slumber.
=/\=
Their "cure" for cabin fever saw them through the next three days. The Enterprise arrived early to pick them up, and sent a team of engineers down to the planet to assist in the weather control net repairs.
Will Riker met the captain and doctor in the transporter room. They both looked slightly flushed with warmth. Riker thought that was rather odd. Hadn't they been trapped in an unheated cabin for almost four days?
"I wish we could have gotten here sooner, Captain. But we just got word yesterday morning. We came as fast as we could," Riker told them as the trio walked down the corridors of the Enterprise. "You two must have been bored to death, stuck in that cabin for so long."
Will didn't fail to notice the heated, amused glance the captain and doctor shot each other. As they came to Picard's quarters, Beverly said, "We managed to find things to do."
Jean-Luc blushed deeply and tugged Beverly into his quarters, leaving a befuddled Will Riker standing outside. He was two steps down the corridor when he put two and two together. A wide, knowing grin spread across his face. Wait'll I tell Deanna, he thought.
Inside the captain's quarters, the recently snowbound duo completely forgot about the First Officer they'd abandoned. Since they still had another day of shore leave, they locked themselves in Jean-Luc's quarters, wondering if their cabin fever cure would work here, too.
It did.