*This was more than just another kiss.*

If it had been simply that, it could have ranked right up there with Marna Wilson, fourth grade recess. Behind the swings, out of the sight of Matt and William, for god's sake, who would have teased the life out of any of your gang caught locking lips on their watch. After giving you the beating you deserved for breaking the "guy code," of course. That was only proper—you'd given your word, you're expected to stick to it.

But she was pretty, the first of many to turn your head. Besides, she kissed you first, so it really wasn't you.

*This one was yearned for, plain and simple.*

Becky Morgan, on the other hand…yeah, that was all you. Another looker, but more than that, she'd been almost like a buddy for two years, living next door with her mother and sometimes-present, usually drunk father. And at seventeen, when an opportunity presents itself as warm, sweet-scented breath less than half an inch from your own lips, you take it, giving comfort and accepting the body that is offered alongside. Take it and run with it, fast and hard. You took her—and she took your heart. Again, the first of many.

Or maybe, it just seems like more than the few it really was.

*This one turned from friends to lovers in the time it took to close the distance between.*

The heartbreakers followed, one by one. Sophie, Margret, Caroline…each one taking you to another level as you entered adulthood, staked your claim, and struggled with choices no one should be faced with when in love. Or in lust, even.

Sophie, with the declaration of nihilism and the honey lips that followed, the lips that shortly thereafter cleared your conscience but killed your innocence. "Sure I want kids, but not with you." No. With anyone *but* you, apparently. Of course.

*This one breathed only for you.*

You thought Maggie was different, had to be. A serious affair right from the beginning. That kiss made the difference, showed you things from another point of view, giving you a more permanent sense of how things *could* be, *should* be, with a family, a career, a picket fence, and dinner at the in-laws every holiday. Crissakes, her parents thought the world of you and *your* dad took to teasing her with "babygirl" within the first fifty-two minutes at the Chinese restaurant…and she *let* him. How much more did you need to know this was a forever thing?

But *she* needed more. More than you could give, or be, more time, more attention, more of *you*. Less of Starfleet. The impossible. So she broke your heart behind the parade field bleachers, in the mud and the moonlight, a simple two words passing over those lips you loved, you adored, you knew were yours. "I can't." You couldn't even return the ring for fear of whispered gossip that could damage a destiny. You still have it, locked away for god knows what. Posterity, some could say. A reminder of what to expect from love, more than likely.

*This one was filled to the brim with the unknown.*

Caroline began and ended with a kiss, as tentative and guarded as your heart had become. You were chinking the walls by then, with expectations of where your life would go, what you would do, how it would happen. You let her in step by step, methodically, allowing yourself the small luxuries of love as it seemed safe to do so—sharing a touch, a bed, a dream or two. But in the end, the caution you were living by was hers, and love so carefully crafted faced choices you couldn't live with, nor could she, and you parted, touching lips and giving blessings, good luck, bye bye, have a good life. Except, fuck you, that was becoming quite impossible.

*This one, oh god, was wild, abandoned, even precarious by any standard.*

So here you are, now, still tasting those lips, barely a breath away from the first and only, praying to whatever god is coming to mind that it won't be the last and yet afraid, *so* afraid, to lay yourself bare yet again, just one more time, not wanting to hurt, or be hurt. It can't be happening, yet you will it to continue, hoping that the life you feel in the body pulled in closely to your own will become life-giving in your bed. Tonight, next week, three months from now, it won't matter, doesn't matter.

*Only this kiss matters.*

So goddamned craved, mystifying, satiating, singular—and it changes *everything*. Who you are, who you were, who you will become. In ways you cannot even fathom, and ways you already can feel churning deep inside yourself.

Open your eyes. *See*. Look into those steely-blues, into the changes you find hovering there as well. It isn't just you. It isn't a fluke, a favor, a lark, or a lie. It's as real as the blood coursing through your veins and pounding in your ears. It's the strength of desire bidding your hands to touch skin, to probe muscle, to wander along an unfamiliar path.

It's the danger inherent in your position as his captain, and the safe harbor you find in his protective arms. His charge has been to keep you alive, and at this moment no one and nothing else could ever accomplish that task the way the simple touch of his lips upon yours has.

It may have been just a kiss.

But it sure as hell feels like love.

***

—fin—