Chapter Text
He was walking faster than normal, but somehow slowing down didn’t feel like an option.
The commander from Starfleet Medical had her hair scraped back, and her uniform so immaculate that he felt both as rumpled as he did confused from how fast he had arrived there.
He wasn’t sure whether she was setting the pace or if he was, but he noted that she had a PADD pressed flat against her chest.
He cleared his throat and tried to keep his voice even. “How did you know to contact me?”
She didn’t answer right away and her shoes squeaked once against the floor.
“Her file listed you as next of kin. It was heavily encrypted, but triggered automatically when she was admitted. I assume she set it up that way.”
He nodded and set his jaw. “She never changed it.”
“I wouldn’t know, Admiral. All I can see is that it was confirmed yearly, last time four months ago.”
He swallowed and tried to appear as if that didn’t faze him.
They passed a bank of windows where rain was streaking the glass, and somewhere, a monitor chimed and a nurse’s voice murmured something behind a half-closed door.
He noticed the way the commander kept looking at him, like she was waiting for him to say something he hadn’t.
“She hasn’t…” He shook his head. “I haven’t spoken to Doctor Crusher in… quite a while… seven years.”
The commander hesitated, then adjusted her grip on the PADD. “We are simply following protocol.”
“Yes, of course.” He wanted to say something more composed and Admiral-like, but those words stuck. “Where… did it happen?”
“New Marseille sector. Civilian district. There was… an incident outside a transport hub.” She paused, looking down at her PADD.
“Security teams responded within minutes to an irregular incident. Dr. Crusher was found on the pavement, near the main concourse. Witnesses reported weapons fire, some sort of altercation. We’re still collecting statements.”
He looked at the commander, trying to read what she wasn’t saying. “Was anyone else hurt?”
He felt there was a beat and that she perhaps didn’t quite meet his eyes. “There were others on scene. But Doctor Crusher was the only one injured severely enough to be transported here.”
He pressed two fingers to his temple and closed his eyes.
“What… exactly happened to her?”
“A disruptor wound. Romulan make as far as we can tell from the energy signature. Head trauma. Entry at the left temporal lobe.”
He thought the commander spoke almost too rehearsed.
“It’s… not survivable, usually,” she continued. “But Dr. Crusher was stabilized in transit.”
He stopped walking, and the commander nearly collided with him before catching herself.
“Is Beverly conscious?”
She took a deep breath. “No. Dr. Crusher is in a deep coma. But there’s activity, just beyond baseline, which frankly is more than we had expected.”
He looked at her, searching for something he knew she couldn’t give. “Beverly will wake up...”
She shook her head, almost imperceptibly.
“We cannot tell you, Admiral. There’s damage. Significant trauma to the left temporal lobe, and secondary swelling we’re still managing. The scans show… disruptions. Some areas are quiet, others… ”
She paused, looking down at the PADD as if searching for better news.
“She’s fighting,” the commander continued and finally looked him in the eye.
“You can see it in the patterns. Most patients with this kind of injury… there’s a flatness, a settling. But Dr. Crusher…” She hesitated, searching for words. “Her brain isn’t letting go. There are spikes, surges. Reflexes..”
She let out a breath, slow and careful. “It’s not a guarantee. I won’t pretend it is. But it’s more than we usually see. And sometimes… that means something.”
He let out a shaky breath. “Beverly will wake up,” he simply repeated.
The commander chose not to argue and simply watched him for a moment, then gestured toward the end of the corridor. “We’re monitoring everything.”
He nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak.
They reached the door which swished open, and they both stepped inside. “Take your time. I’ll be outside if you need anything.”
He hesitated and held his hand hovering over the frame before he stepped further into the room and let the door seal behind him.
The room felt cold and he just stood there for a moment, moving his fingers against the palms of his hands.
Beverly lay perfectly still on the biobed in front of him. Her hair was longer than he remembered, and a little lighter at the ends, but it fanned across the pillow in that same careless way it always had.
Her skin looked almost translucent under the lights, which somehow made him focus on a few freckles on her cheekbones.
Her hands were resting on top of the blanket where her fingers curled like she’d been holding something before she let go.
He watched her chest rise and fall and looked at one of the monitors above her head, without really taking much from it.
Another screen to the left showed patterns he couldn’t read beyond the fact that it had to do with brain activity.
He found himself counting the seconds between blips, as if that would tell him anything.
When it didn’t he sat down.
The chair was set back from the bed, as if someone had already decided how close was safe.
He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, studying her face. She looked both exactly as he remembered, but also somehow as someone who had been far away for far too long.
He wanted to reach for her hand, but didn’t.
Instead, he traced the air above her knuckles, remembering the way she used to tap her fingers when she was thinking, and the way she would press her palm to his chest when a moment would have passed between them.
He had imagined seeing her again in a hundred different ways, but never like this. Never with her so still, her face half-turned away, as if she might vanish if he looked too long.
“Hello, Beverly …” he managed in a hoarse whisper, and it almost surprised him when he didn’t get a “Hello, Jean-Luc …”
Instead it was just quiet, and he felt a lump forming in his throat.
He was hit with the all too familiar feeling of the years spent filling in the gaps with guesses, blame, regret… never quite sure if he was angry or simply lost without her.
“Mon cœur.” That came out even lower. “I’m going to need you to wake up soon … So I can ask you … no, tell you … that …”
He let out a breath, slow, and closed his eyes listening to the machines and the sound of his own breathing.
He tried to picture her waking, turning toward him, saying his name like she always had with half amusement, half challenge.
But when he opened his eyes again, it wasn’t her face he saw, instead it was a flicker of movement at the edge of the bed, which made him blink hard, thinking he was simply caught up in his own confusion.
And then he saw it… a small face peering up from the far side, half-hidden by the rails.
Reddish-blonde hair, sort of stubbornly untidy, and blue eyes fixed on him with a quiet defiance.
His chin rested on the mattress and one of his hands was gripping the blanket hard, and Jean-Luc was suddenly confused how he hadn’t seen him before, and why the commander hadn’t said anything about another visitor.
The boy just watched him, steady, as if he had been waiting for Jean-Luc to notice him all along.
“Erm … Hello …” Jean-Luc finally said in a voice rougher than he had intended.
The boy quirked his head a little, studying him, but didn’t respond. There was something in the set of his jaw that made Jean-Luc confused and disoriented without really being aware of it.
“Are you lost?” Jean-Luc tried again, softer this time.
That made the boy shake his head so his curls bounced. He looked away for a second, then straightened, pulled down on his little sweater, and squared his shoulders.
“I’m keeping watch!” he announced, clear and authoritative, the kind of voice that brooked no argument.
Before Jean-Luc could respond, the boy pressed on, still holding his ground. “Who are you?”
“I… I’m Admiral Picard,” Jean-Luc muttered, still a little bewildered and he missed the way the boy’s eyes widened, just for a heartbeat, before narrowing again.
“Are you supposed to be here?” the boy asked, sounding a little more doubtful. He looked from Jean-Luc to Beverly, then back again.
“I believe so… The hospital called me. You see, Dr. Crusher here is an old… friend of mine.”
The boy tilted his head again, considering. His eyes darted over Beverly again. There was a wariness there, but also something fiercely protective.
“But now that you know my name, do you think you could tell me yours?” Jean-Luc finally ventured, gentler now.
The boy hesitated, chewing at his lower lip.
“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers…” He paused, backing up a little.
He looked over Beverly again, as if checking she was still there, then fixed Jean-Luc with quite a stare.
“Is Admiral Picard the same as Captain Picard… I mean… Are you him? Is your name… Jean-Luc?”
That took Jean-Luc by surprise. For a moment, he could only nod until he cleared his throat.
“You know me?”
The boy shrugged, while Jean-Luc was trying to process the way he had said his name.
For a few seconds, it was just the two of them, but then, without saying anything more, the boy straightened and walked around the end of the bed.
His movements were careful, and he stopped on the other side, reached down, and tugged the blanket higher over Beverly’s shoulders, smoothing it with small motions.
He then let out a breath, almost like he was bracing himself, and rested his hand gently on her arm before looking up and meeting Jean-Luc’s eyes directly.
“My name is Jack,” he said in a clear voice.
Jean-Luc could only stare, still trying to make sense of how the boy belonged here, how he knew so much.
He found himself repeating the question, softer this time. “Are you lost? Or… how did you come to be in this room?”
Jack shook his head, his mouth set in a line that Jean-Luc had seen many times before.
“I’m not lost,” Jack said quietly. He looked down at Beverly and tightened his fingers slightly on her arm before looking back at Jean-Luc.
“Me and my mum, we always take care of each other. But… she is hurt. The bad people hurt her. But now I’m ready.” He finished with both fire and anger in his eyes.
Jean-Luc sat back. There was nothing childish about the way Jack watched over Beverly, and nothing uncertain in the way he spoke.
For a moment, Jean-Luc simply watched him, feeling his thoughts about all the years he had been without Beverly change.
He cleared his throat once again.
“Jack, you say…”
The boy nodded.
“And Beverly is… your… mother?”
He nodded again, strongly, and tethered himself to a lock of her hair on the pillow.
“How… how old are you, Jack?”
“Six… and almost a half,” he said, looking Jean-Luc clear in the eye.
“Six…” Jean-Luc muttered and ran his hand over his bald head, before looking up and exhaling deeply. “Six, indeed…”
Jean-Luc looked at Beverly’s face, and finally took her hand, though it made Jack flinch protectively.
“Six…” he whispered again as he brought her hand to his lips.
Jack watched the place where their skin touched, and Jean-Luc watched the boy and how he started looking at the door, then back at Beverly, as if wondering if someone else would appear.
Finally, Jean-Luc cleared his throat. “Jack… when they brought your mother here, were you with her on the transport?”
Jack nodded, not looking up.
“We were together. Outside on the pavement.” He paused, picking at a loose thread on the blanket. “There were a lot of people after it happened.”
Jean-Luc’s voice was gentle. “The… disruptor fire, you were there for that?”
Jack’s mouth tightened. He nodded again, slower this time. “It was loud. And bright. I tried to hold Mum’s hand but…”
He swallowed and his voice wobbled for a moment. “Mum told me to run. But I… I stayed.”
Jean-Luc swallowed and placed his other hand near where Jack was sitting on the bed. “You stayed until help came?”
“They said it would be better if I waited somewhere else. But me and Mum stick together. Mum would never ever leave me.”
Jean-Luc watched him, saw the way Jack’s chin trembled before he caught himself.
“That must have been frightening.”
Jack shrugged. “They kept asking me questions. About where we lived, who my mum talked to, if I saw anything. I didn’t like it.”
He shook his head, making his curls fall back into his eyes. “They told me Mum would be alright, but I can tell they think they don’t know.”
Jean-Luc let out a slow breath. “Did anyone tell you what happened to your mother?”
Jack’s eyes flicked to Beverly’s face. “I saw. Mum was… protecting me.”
The last part came out as a whisper.
“They say Mum needs to sleep so she can get better. But I heard them talking in the hallway. They said she might not wake up.”
His voice dropped to a whisper. “But Mum will wake up, for sure.”
He pressed his palm flat against Beverly’s arm, almost as if willing her to move.
Jean-Luc nodded. “Your mum is very brave,” he said quietly. “And so are you… I can tell.”
That made Jack smile a little shyly, before searching Jean-Luc’s face.
“Mum never lets me be scared for long.”
He hesitated, then added, “Before, sometimes, when it was just us, and we would talk about big things… Mum told me if anything ever happened, she had made sure my father would come.”
He studied Jean-Luc. “My… Papan… He’s French. Papan means father. I have practiced it.”
The lump in Jean-Luc’s throat had never been bigger. He looked at Beverly, then back at Jack, who sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
Jean-Luc reached across and placed a hand gently on Jack’s shoulder. “You did exactly right, Jack. You stayed with your mum. You took care of her.”
Jack nodded, not quite meeting his eyes.
Jean-Luc squeezed Beverly’s hand, feeling the warmth of her skin, and looked back at Jack’s face, really looked, seeing the lines of Beverly’s cheekbones, and the cleft of his own jaw.
Jack shifted, watching him carefully. “You knew my mum before me?” he asked in a small voice sounding like he already knew the answer.
Jean-Luc nodded. “Yes. We… worked together. And …” He sighed. “Your mum is my best friend. She was always very brave as you say. And clever.”
Jack smiled a little, proud. “Mum tells good stories. About space and … people.” He hesitated, then added, “Sometimes, she makes herself sad.”
“I know that feeling, Jack …,” he said quietly.
Jack considered this, chewing at his lip. “I think you are … French.”
Jean-Luc smiled. “I am indeed …”
They both blinked, and Jack reached out his hand across the blanket.