The Soul-Drinkers
by Shire Scholar
Based on: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Copyright: Paramount
Disclaimer: This story is written and offered solely for pleasure and in tribute to the characters and the series. I make no profit and intend no infringement.
The wheels of the universe must be greased with irony, Jean-Luc Picard privately observed, for soon the Enterprise, on a mission of mercy, would assume standard orbit around a planet he knew to be merciless. Epsilon Ceti Prime demanded its visitors pay a high toll. The last time he'd been there, he'd paid with Jack Crusher's life. Now he'd have to ask Jack's widow to hunt in a graveyard in order to save strangers from certain death.
Picard shook his head slightly, as if to erase the morose image, and cradled his fencing helmet more comfortably into the crook of his left arm. Perhaps a work-out in the Enterprise's fencing salle would release some stress - but he doubted it. Sooner than he'd like, Epsilon Ceti Prime would be filling the Bridge's viewscreen. There was no escape. The past had finally caught up with the present. The indigenous plant life of that world was a medicinal treasure trove. - That much Jack Crusher had determined in the eco-survey he had conducted over fifteen years ago. Now one of the plants unique to that god-forsaken rock promised to be the cure for a plague decimating worlds four star systems away.
He was not looking forward to dealing with the Eridani, Epsilon's xenophobic inhabitants, who would live forever in his memory as a faceless people without honor. They'd killed Jack and given no explanation, offered no apology. Even now - still - his anger simmered, its intensity betrayed only by the white-knuckled way he gripped his foil. Star Fleet Command had ordered immediate withdrawal, as this was seen as a case of first contact gone awry. Picard was to take the Stargazer out of Eridani space immediately. But he had defied those orders and beamed down himself to retrieve Jack's body. He'd felt compelled to do so, for Jackson Crusher had died under his command - the first man ever to do so - and that had been hard to take. Harder still because Jack had been one of his closest friends. He'd found the body half-burned and abandoned outside a cave, tossed there like so much refuse on a roadside.
As he approached the entrance to the fencing salle, Picard wondered what price the isolationist Eridani would exact this time. He was still paying interest in guilt from the previous encounter, despite all the ensuing years. How, he considered with a pang of sympathy, was Beverly Crusher handling their imminent arrival at the place where her widowhood was born? He really should speak with her about it, but first he needed to purge the stress from his soul. A half-hour of vigorous drillwork should help. He hoped. Then the pneumatic door slid open, and he entered.
The salle was not empty, as it usually was at this time of day. Another fencer, a woman of considerable skill, was running drillwork of her own, countering the computer's array of moving light targets with a precision and agility that dazzled the eye. A buzzer sounded repeatedly, announcing touch after touch scored by the aggressive lightning-quick athlete.
Impressed, Picard wondered who she was. The heavy metal mesh of her mask obscured her face while her hair was tucked into a kind of snood that kept it from escaping as her work-out intensified. Absurdly, surprisingly, he was suddenly gripped by a desire to see the woman's hair flying free as she parried and lunged.
There was something in the way she moved - familiar and yet exotic in her fencer's dance of calculation and power. She gave herself over to it, surrendering to the sheer physicality of the exercise with sinful abandon, and Picard felt his body tighten in response. Who was this woman? He should know. Now the longer he watched, the more he had to know.
Finally, she missed landing a touch and stopped her sequence for a moment, drawing in a deep, shuddery breath. She did not turn to face him. Perhaps she didn't realize he was there, watching her.
"When you're through with your drillwork," Picard said by way of announcing himself, amazed his voice sounded so casual, "perhaps you'd honor me with a bout."
Startled, the woman whirled to face him. Then, in one quick but fluid gesture, she removed her mask, and the snood, caught on the headgear's brace, came off with it. A spray of red-gold hair tumbled past her shoulders.
"Beverly...!" Picard blurted, nonplussed. "I - "
"Had no idea it was me?" she finished for him, her tone unexpectedly icy. "Captain, I'm surprised. Isn't it your job to know everything?"
"Now, Doctor," Picard said, the line of his mouth hardening at her verbal jab. "That's hardly fair. I make no claims to omniscience."
Some of the ice melted from her demeanor then. "No," she agreed quietly, giving him an oddly assessing look. "No, you don't."
The moment stretched into an eternity of unease. Determined to restore some semblance of normalcy, Picard said, "Yes, well, I'm still interested in a bout if you are."
"Of course," Beverly replied with a mirthless smile. "But then, we've been fencing with each other for years, haven't we?"
The remark, which should have sounded flirtatious, somehow didn't, Picard noted. Rather, it was challenging. Almost predatory. This was not the Beverly Crusher he knew at all.
The familiar yet un-familiar woman donned her mask and positioned herself on the bouting strip. Picard did likewise, and they saluted each other, touching their foils to their own masks.
"En garde!" Beverly commanded, dropping quickly into opening position. Picard followed suit, and the bout commenced.
Beverly advanced a few steps without extending her foil, then quickly took a few more steps backward, then forward again. Picard mirrored her moves. It all seemed more like dancing than fencing - until he heard her laugh, a low, throaty purr of assessment rather than amusement. Suddenly he felt like a mouse in the paws of a hungry cat.
She feinted, and Picard managed to parry her attempted attack - but just barely. He found himself retreating and parrying again, but he couldn't find an opening for a clear attack of his own. Her feints were wearing him down; her footwork so adept, she always managed to stay tantalizingly just out of his reach. Yet she continued to beat back his blade again and again.
"Come on, Captain!" she chided him as the speed of her bladework increased. "You can do better than this!"
Beat. Parry. Advance. Beat. Parry. Advance. - The relentlessness of her measured approach bore down on him, and Picard only half-concentrated on her taunts.
"Don't feel guilty about trying to best me," she continued, the near-playful tone in her voice at odds with the strength of her attacks. "But then, you probably don't have any guilt to spare, spending it all on Jack...!"
What she meant was a mystery to Picard, for his full attention just then was immediately taken up by having to riposte an attack that had slipped under his guard. His breath was coming now in stentorian gasps. What was driving this woman?
"Really, now, Jean-Luc. Don't hold back," she admonished as she effortlessly parried another of his attacks. "Jack said you were one of the few fencers who could best him."
She surprised him then by retreating a few steps, her foil cutting a small, elegant circle in the air. He knew she was teasing him, luring him in while she searched for an opening . It was hypnotic, seductive, and Beverly's voice matched it in maddening intensity as she said, "But here's the surprise. I could always best Jack!"
Her lightning lunge was a blur to Picard as she found her opening and rammed her weapon under his collarbone. The impact shot a vibration through his shoulder and down his arm. His foil dropped from boneless fingers as, much to his surprise, he slumped to his knees. But even more perplexing was the sudden sensation of warmth which trickled across his chest. He touched his hand to his shoulder and it came away slick with blood.
Trying to reach up to Beverly with his right arm sent him into agony. His vision swam, but he was aware enough to know Beverly had thrown down her foil and mask and rushed to his side. But instead of checking his injury, she cradled him in her arms and half-sobbed, "Jack!"
Confusion, coupled with near-blinding pain, proved too much at the moment, and Picard surrendered himself to the looming blackness.
In Sick Bay, Dr. Crusher worked on her patient with a speed and precision rivaling what she had displayed in the disastrous bout. As she stopped the flow of blood, then cleaned and sealed the wound, she explained to her assistant that there had been an accident. Her foil, apparently defective with a hairline split, had broken from the force of the impact. The momentum of her lightning lunge created its own follow-through, and she had stabbed the captain directly under the right clavicle. The broken blade had gone deep enough to puncture the axillary vein. Lots of blood. Lots of pain. But no real, lasting damage when tended to immediately. Which it had been.
Her assistant walked away, curiosity satisfied, but Captain Picard stared at her with a frosty patience that unnerved her even more than she already was. He deserved a satisfactory explanation. She just wasn't sure she had one.
"Well, Doctor?" he finally asked, his even tone betraying nothing of what he felt.
"You'll be fine," Beverly assured him in a too-bright voice. But he gave the lie to that when, trying to hoist himself off the bed, he grimaced with pain. "Though your shoulder will be sore for a day or two," she supplied as needless afterword.
"Doctor..." Picard said again with an edge, and Beverly knew his patience - frosty or otherwise - was at an end.
"Captain... Jean-Luc," she began with a sigh. "This wasn't intentional. I didn't know the foil was defective. I just wanted to best you, not kill you." She tried to smile but was met with stony silence. Perhaps directness was the better part of valor, she decided.
"Jean-Luc, it was - is - because of Jack. My late husband. Jack." Even as she said the words she could hardly believe them. What must the Captain be thinking? But she forced herself to go on, saying, "I've been ... angry lately. Counselor Troi suggested it might be anniversary-related grief breaking through to the surface, particularly since the Enterprise was scheduled to be at Epsilon on or near the date he died." She grew quiet then, and her eyes held a faraway look when she at last said, "That's today, you know."
At this, Picard's expression softened. "Beverly, I - "
"No, let me finish!" she insisted all in a rush. "I have to finish so maybe one of us will make sense of this!" She looked anywhere but at the Captain, trying to find a way to impose sanity on something insane. "It's more than grief. Even more than guilt, although I feel that, too. Did you know that Jack would never have accepted an assignment on the Stargazer if I hadn't been stationed on the Cameron Research Outpost? He wanted us to have some kind of togetherness, and Stargazer was scheduled to make frequent stops at Cameron."
"I knew you were at Cameron during the Romulan fire-strike," Picard offered, trying to deduce where she was headed with this. "You got a commendation for your work in the attack..."
"The attack that was taking place while Jack was being killed on some benighted hunk of rock that no one had even bothered to investigate until then!"
"Beverly, " Picard began, not sure how to proceed. Her posture was ramrod straight, and she was making a show of not meeting his eyes. "I'm sorry. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't remember him and feel guilty for having given the command that sent him to his death."
At last she met his gaze, but she was furious. "You feel guilty? Do you think you have a monopoly on that emotion? Or even a right to it? Jack was under orders to investigate a dangerous situation. That was his job - and yours." She began to pace, hoping, perhaps, to find another outlet for her anger elsewhere in the room. "That I can forgive - someday." She stopped then and studied the laser suture she still held, as though it would help her stitch together her next words. "If anyone has a right to feel guilty, it's me! I took the Cameron posting without even consulting Jack. All I could see was the coup it would be for my career. I never even considered the effect it would have on my family. So Jack took Stargazer to be near me, and it killed him. I killed him!"
She knew she was shaking, and she didn't care. At last she had admitted her culpability.
Picard felt his next words drop into the silence like stones down a hollow well. "No, Beverly. The Eridani killed him - while he was acting under my orders. You can't blame yourself for what happened."
"Oh, but I do, Captain," she said, slamming down the suturing instrument. "Every day of my life! And now if I were prone to ancient superstitions, I'd say that Jack's come back to exact a new sort of penance from me."
"Beverly, this really isn't like you at all," Picard chided her in an effort to calm her down.
"And how would you know what's like me, Jean-Luc? I've been walled in by own emotions since the day Jack died!"
"Doctor - Beverly, what happened just before in the salle?" Picard's voice was kind but still carried the weight of command that brought Beverly back to herself.
She took a deep breath and at last explained. "Jack - my thoughts of him, my feelings for him, even my nightmares about his death! - it's as if they're draining out of me, bleeding from my subconscious to pool into my waking mind." She closed her eyes and shivered at her own imagery, and when she continued, her voice had dropped to a near-whisper. "It's all happening outside of me somehow - as though my memories were dancing on my skin, trying to escape... and now I suppose they have."
"How so?" Picard asked gently, ever aware the question seemed achingly intimate.
Beverly said nothing for a moment, trying to shore up her defenses against the rising tide of memory. She appeared resolute when she finally said, "When we were fencing in the salle and I wounded you, suddenly it wasn't you anymore. It was Jack, reeling from an energy blast. Jack - slumped in my arms, burned and broken and dying."
She looked away then, ashamed of how absurd it all sounded, even though it had terrified her when it was happening. "And then just as suddenly, I could see that it was you I held so tenderly. You who had been hurt - and by my hand."
Turning back to the Captain, she felt her eyes glisten with unshed tears, but whether they were tears of remorse or grief or shame was impossible to tell.
"Beverly, apparently the thought of this mission has taken its toll on you." He touched her hand then, tentatively, as if unsure it was welcome. She didn't resist. "But we're the only Federation starship within range, the only ship that could get here in time to be of any good in stopping that plague. And although I've never actually seen them..." Here he paused, gathering his words with care. "I've had... dealings with the Eridani before."
"Dealings!" Beverly repeated, aghast. "A neat way to put it!"
But before they could argue the point, a transmission from the bridge interrupted. "Riker to Picard," the First Officer's voice said, somewhat hesitantly, Beverly noticed.
"Go ahead, Number One," the Captain responded.
"I thought you'd like to know we've arrived at Epsilon Ceti Prime. We've been hailed, sir," he said, and his hesitancy became even more obvious.
"Yes, Mr. Riker?" Picard said, his patience wearing thin. "Is there something wrong?"
"It's difficult to explain, sir," Commander Riker hedged. "I think you'd better come to the bridge - and bring Dr. Crusher with you."
Beverly and Picard shared a look of startlement, but Picard assured his first officer, "We're on our way." Then they left Sick Bay in silence, keeping their own counsel.
As she and Picard stepped onto the Bridge from the turbo-lift, Beverly noted that Will Riker had the look of a man bearing disturbing news. Deanna Troi looked equally overwhelmed and sent her a beam of pure sympathy. The viewscreen was filled not with an image of planet-rise, but rather with odd, flickering lights.
"What is it, Mister Riker?" Picard said as he walked to the command chair. He held his upper torso even more erect than usual, if that were possible, Beverly thought, as he slowly sat down. The small wince of pain that passed over his features as he sat back was perceptible only to her, however. "I asked you before if something were wrong."
"We've been hailed by the Eridani, sir," Riker began, looking unsure of how to proceed, " and they -"
He never got the chance to finish, for the lights on the screen coalesced into an image, that of a young man in an old style Star Fleet uniform. Most of the Bridge crew were intrigued by the anomaly, but Picard and Doctor Crusher were stunned.
"Oh, god!" Beverly whispered, barely able to breathe.
Picard had shot out of his chair, oblivious to the pain in his shoulder. He moved closer to the screen, as if that would help him to better believe the impossible - for they were looking at Jack Crusher. Young. Whole. Alive.
"Hello, Captain," Lieutenant Crusher said casually, as if resurrection from death happened every day. "It's good to see you again." But his eyes were hard as he said the words. His gaze then scanned the room, softening when it stopped to rest on Dr. Crusher. "And Beverly!" His voice had more animation now and genuine warmth. "I knew you'd come if I called."
Beverly gripped the back of a chair for support, but said nothing, just continued to stare at what she tried to dismiss as merely a waking dream. Picard, however, took the measure of the man on the screen as he said directly, "We were expecting a representative of the Eridani."
"I speak for the Eridani," Lieutenant Crusher announced coolly, "and I've been authorized to tell you that your request for aid has been granted - if you meet one condition."
"And that would be?" Picard asked, while Beverly marveled that he betrayed no emotion, no sense of discomfiture at conversing with a dead man.
"Send Beverly planet-side."
"To head the Away Team?" Picard questioned, suspicious.
"No," the image of Jack Crusher stated firmly. "To stay. To share her life with me."
Beverly gasped and came forward. "Stop it! That's enough! You're not Jack! How could you be? Jackson Crusher is dead. I brought his body back to Earth myself. He's dead and buried!"
"Why do you doubt that it's really me, my Beverly? " the Jack-being asked her in a soft, wounded tone. "We are so much more than just our bodies."
"Metaphysics aside, Mister Crusher," Picard interrupted, making pointed use of the name, "you can hardly expect me to bargain with the life of one of my crew."
"Can't I, Captain?" Lieutenant Crusher countered. "I seem to recall you doing that with me when you sent me to my death."
Stung, Picard flinched momentarily but managed to argue, "Ah, but you insist that you're not dead. There's a hole in your logic somewhere, mister!"
"A kind of death, then, Captain," the lieutenant conceded. "But what was most important about Jack Crusher survived. And if you want the humanoid life in the Guarini System to survive, you'll send Beverly to me. A husband and wife should be together."
"You're not my husband!" Beverly spat out. "And you prove it with every word you speak. Jack would never put conditions on helping people in need."
"Necessity breeds change, dear heart," he said quietly, forlornly. Then his official mien cloaked his features once again as he declared, "We need something from each other, Captain. You'll remain in orbit as our guests while you consider our offer." He began to turn away from the screen but then paused. "Beverly," he said in a voice now shyly hopeful. "I need you ... and you need me."
The screen went dark, and Beverly saw red as her emotions warred within her. That couldn't be Jack, yet there was a stirring inside her at the sound of his voice, a kind of soul resonance, stronger than memory, stronger than death. Could something of Jack have survived after all?
Then suddenly a shudder rumbled through the ship, and the viewscreen lit up with a myriad of deep, roiling colors. Commander Data at Ops informed all and sundry, "Readings indicate that the energy field we see on the screen has locked us into place. We are, in effect, prisoners, rather than guests."
"Which is not surprising," Picard responded and tapped his com-badge. "Mr. La Forge, we seem to be settled in for an extended stay at Epsilon Ceti Prime. See what you can do about giving us some options."
"I'm already on it, Captain," LaForge assured him. "I've been monitoring the readings since their first hail. The one thing I have noticed is that the energy flow patterns don't seem to be simple discharges. They most closely resemble sentient brain waves."
That gave the Captain pause. "Well," he said simply, "that should yield something interesting. Carry on, Mr. LaForge. Picard out." Then turning to Deanna Troi, he requested, "Counselor, your impression of what we've just experienced..."
"Commander LaForge may well be right, sir. I do get the sense of someone - even many 'someones' - watching and waiting." Then she glanced at Beverly, and the doctor could feel Deanna sending her waves of support as she told the Captain, "As for the Lieutenant Crusher entity, he reads as human, sir, and the emotions he radiated when he spoke to Dr. Crusher were loving and familiar."
"Are you suggesting that really was Lieutenant Crusher?" Picard practically barked in disbelief.
Deanna first looked at Beverly as if that would help her form a proper defense of her observation. "The most I can determine is that it appears to be."
Beverly's gasp exploded like a gunshot across the room, but she managed to compose herself as Deanna continued. "The energy patterns are not consistent, however. Plus, he did refer to the Eridani as 'we', and if he really is Jackson Crusher, he hasn't aged a day. We know so little about the Eridani, Captain. They could well be skilled telepaths using images from our own thoughts and memories to better relate to us."
"Or to better manipulate us!" Picard countered, then with a nod in Beverly's direction said, "Doctor, if you'd join me in my Ready Room..."
"Of course, Captain," she responded and followed him, feeling a little dazed, still trying to get her bearings, still sorting through ever-stronger impressions of Jack.
When the Ready Room doors slid shut behind them, giving them needed privacy, she slumped into the nearest chair and closed her eyes.
"Beverly," Picard began, and she could feel him next to her chair, radiating concern yet hesitant to touch her.
"I'm all right, Jean-Luc," she assured him, opening her eyes. "Besides, all that really matters are the lives of everyone in the Guarini System. We need the Epsilon herbs and plants. Replicated versions don't carry the same potency. They're ineffective. Useless." She looked directly at him, her gaze open. "We can't let any more people die, Jean-Luc."
The impact of what she was actually saying hit Picard with the force of a phaser blast. "You're not seriously thinking of giving in to his demand? We'll find another way."
"Captain, we're almost out of time. There is no other way." Her voice was patient, her tone resolved. "I'm a doctor, Jean-Luc. I can't delay and risk losing the chance to help simply because my past has literally come back to haunt me."
Picard crouched in front of her chair so that they were at eye-level and took her hands in his. "Beverly, you don't have to do this. We both know that - that emissary - is NOT Jack! More than likely, as Counselor Troi theorized, it's just a telepathic trick, a memory echo, tapping into our -"
"Guilt?" she finished for him. "We both have that, Captain. I for putting my ambition before everything else and you for sending one of your closest friends to his doom."
Looking deeply into the Captain's eyes, she saw there a well of concern she could easily, happily, drown in, a desire to take her burden and make it his own. Her chest tightened with an emotion she dared not recognize as she focused on her mental image of Jack. "Thank you for wanting to help... but don't. If you take my guilt from me, you leave me nothing of Jack to hold on to."
Picard squeezed her hands gently and stood up, his resigned sigh doing little to cover the quiet desperation he projected to her. "The Eridani still have the ship in their energy lock. All we can do is wait."
"Jean-Luc," she said in a voice just above a whisper as she rose and joined him in studying the starscape, "I've been waiting for over fifteen years."
Then suddenly, inexplicably, the small desk com-screen trilled for attention. Beverly and Picard whipped around to face it and found themselves looking once again into the eyes of Jack Crusher.
"And I've been waiting for you," he said in a dark and compelling voice. "Beverly... come...!"
She reached unconsciously toward the screen in a mute gesture of longing, but Picard brought her back to herself by declaring, "All right. She'll come - to talk and then decide. I will not allow her to be blackmailed - or seduced. If she stays, it will be her choice. If you really are Jack Crusher, you'd want to grant her that much dignity and respect."
Unreadable emotions flickered across Lieutenant Crusher's face, but at last he said, "Agreed."
"Fine. An Away Team will beam down in one hour - that is, if your associates will release their stranglehold on my ship."
"Done," he acquiesced, and the com-screen went dark. Another shudder trembled through the ship's hull; then the "feel" of the vessel returned to normal.
Picard touched his com-badge. "Picard to Engineering."
"LaForge here, sir," Geordi responded. "Captain, the energy lock seems to have released itself."
"As expected, Mr. LaForge," Picard acknowledged. "But do check to see that the field is completely clear. An Away Team will be beaming down in one hour. Picard out."
Beverly studied the darkened com-screen a moment longer. Then she reached up and, soft as a sigh, caressed her captain's cheek. Surprised, he almost pulled back. She stared at him wordlessly for a few seconds longer, lingering now at the just-opened doors to the Ready Room. Then she turned and was gone.
A rock-hewn landscape of wind and sorrow greeted Beverly as she materialized on the surface. Bleak, she noted. Epsilon Ceti Prime was bleak. How could anything of Jack, a man who'd known joy, been joy, and shown it to her, survive in such a place? How could she?
But she had come here to see it through. She couldn't allow Captain Picard or anyone else to risk further contact with the Eridani. If she gave them what they wanted, they would keep their end of the bargain. That much she had discerned from her contact with whatever it was that claimed to be the resurrected Jack Crusher. She had felt it in the marrow of her bones, in her very cells. And so she had answered the singing in her blood and come.
But why? To save the Guarini, she told herself; to protect the Enterprise, of course. ... And for Jack, she finally admitted in the private chambers of her heart. For Jack, who lived for her still in memory yet green. Did he also miraculously live outside her deepest self? She had to know!
Her coming here alone was a small price to pay to get so much in return. She only hoped Chief O'Brien would suffer no after-effects from the tranquilizing hypo-spray she had used on him to make good her escape from the Captain's misguided protectiveness. By the time any Away Team arrived in pursuit or for rescue, she hoped to be long gone, untraceable, but uyhaving left the way clear for the Team to collect the medicinal flora - and depart. Forever. Bargain sealed. Lives saved. Done.
"I'm here as you asked," she announced to her lonely surroundings. It was a wonder the wind didn't tear the words from her throat. She scanned the area with her tricorder and noted strong energy readings coming from a cave a few meters distant. An awareness of something familiar, yet not, drew her like a siren song, growing stronger with every step she took. Urgency pulsed in the air, seductive, beguiling. She followed the hunger, herself consumed by a primal need.
"Jack?" she shouted into the wind, and it no longer seemed strange to use his name, to expect to see him. He felt very near. "I've come alone. To stay." ...
… And with that, a swirl of lights spilled out from the cave mouth and coalesced into the dazzling bright figure of Jack Crusher. "Beverly," he said in a avoice she felt more than heard. He extended his hand to her, inviting her to share what he had learned, what he ahd become.
His radiant energy flickered across her skin, telling her volumes through some kind of cellular osmosis about the true nature of the Eridani. Something of Jack Crusher had survived here, after all, and she did not fear it.
She started to walk closer to the glowing figure, then paused. "The cure..." she said, suddenly unsure.
"Will be provided," the Jack-being assured her.
She was almost in his arms when the familiar sparkle of the transporter appeared at her own beam-down point. Captain Picard and Deanna Troi had materialized and, instantly assessing the situation, were on the run.
"Beverly, wait!" Deanna called out. "It's NOT Jack!"
Beginning to glow herself now as she absorbed more of the energy sent to her, Beverly looked unearthly as she cried, "But don't you understand? It's as much of Jack as I'll ever be able to have now!"
Picard reached out for her, pain from the effort etched in his face. But the alien radiance had grown too hot for safe approach by those uninvited. "Beverly, don't! You can't go with him!"
"Can't I?" was all she said and stepped into the embrace of the Jack-being.
The winds screamed an accompaniment as he wrapped his arms around her in a blinding cloak of brilliance. ...And they were gone.
Picard dropped to his hands and knees in shock, unable to accept what he'd just seen. Several minutes crawled by before Deanna approached him warily, hoping to help him sort out the tangle of his emotions. He had managed to retrieve the doctor's discarded tricorder and was running his hand over it as if it were a holy relic.
"Captain," Deanna began softly. Then suddenly she sensed more than Picard's numb disbelief. There was something - someone - on the hillside with them. "Captain, we're not alone." The air seemed to hum all around them, growing more intense by the second. "It's Beverly! I can still feel her energy."
In the next instant, Beverly Crusher stepped out of nothingness to stand directly in front of the Captain. "Jean-Luc..."
His head shot up at the sound of her voice, now lighter and happier than he'd ever remembered it being. She looked that way, too, light of heart and somehow free of a cankerous guilt. "But Jack..." Picard whispered hoarsely, his mind reeling.
Beverly smiled. "Not Jack. Not really." She bent down then and took his hands in hers. "But close enough to free me."
Her touch, he found to his relief, was soft and solid and decidedly human. They rose to their feet together, still holding hands. "It's me, Jean-Luc," she answered him with a laugh as she gently shook his fingertips and then let go. "Fully, truly me for the first time in years. I gave the Eridani what was needed - for everyone. Including me. Bargain sealed."
"It's true, Captain," affirmed a familiar voice. It was, once again, Jack Crusher - or, rather, his image. "You can send an Away Team to gather whatever is needed. None will be molested. It's the least we can do for our teachers."
"Teachers?" Picard echoed.
"Yes, Jean-Luc. Deanna's theory was correct," Beverly interjected. "The Eridani are telepaths of a sort. They learn from other races by sharing and absorbing energy."
"Your Lieutenant Crusher was the first human we ever tried to communicate with," the Jack-being explained. "We didn't know the intensity of our usual exchange would be fatal for such as yourselves. For the grief our poor attempts at sharing caused you, we apologize, but it was accidental."
"Why didn't you explain this all those years ago when Stargazer first came here!" Picard protested.
"We could not - then, " the Eridani only said.
"They're pure energy, Captain, giving and receiving power as a way of communicating with other species," Deanna said with a flash of insight. "They must need to first absorb some living essence of a species in order to understand them."
"You're correct, Counselor," the Eridani emissary replied. "Only after that can we create a representative in that species' own image to better relate with and understand them. When Jackson Crusher died, we absorbed something of his knowledge, even his experiences. Echoes of what and who he was remain with us still, as does the essence of all who share with us. But Lieutenant Crusher represented a new species, a new process. We needed time to drink his thoughts."
At Picard's startled expression, the Eridani apologized. "I'm sorry, Captain, but your language has no real equivalent phrase to explain the sharing process. 'Drinking of the soul' is the closest, albeit poetic, translation."
The Captain tired to block out the image that phrase brought to mind by pointing out, "Yet Beverly didn't die from contact with you. Why did her husband?"
"Jack's sharing and accidental death gave them the knowledge needed to learn how to adjust the process for other humans," Beverly herself explained. "Martyrdom of a sort, I suppose," she finished with a pensive look.
"Yes, the highest sacrifice! And now with Beverly's gift of self," the Eridani added, "we will learn of love shared, live love remembered." And he held out his hand toward the cave. A swirling pattern of light swam forward and reformed into a double of Beverly Crusher. The mirror image took her place at the side of the Jack-being, who twined his arm around her waist with an easy familiarity.
"Something of Jack has survived here, Jean-Luc, Deanna," the human Beverly declared, "and I was drawn to it. The Eridani need energy, this communion, to survive. They had absorbed Jack's anguish over our prolonged separation, but since they're a group mind, they had no experience with particular loss and yearning. The strangeness and intensity of the emotions were killing them. Jack's memories - echoes of his happiness and his sorrow - were resonating through them, and I could feel it deep within that part of me that clung to Jack still. I came here in answer to a cry for help - "
"And so the healer herself was healed," Beverly's twin interrupted gently, an innocence that Dr. Crusher suspected she'd long since lost shining anew from Eridani eyes.
"To heal and be healed is all one, after all," Beverly said with a small sigh of realization. "You helped me to remember that."
In response, her twin only smiled enigmatically, then said, "Your thoughts make a fine and heady wine indeed, one that we will drink deeply - and learn much from. You - and your Jack - have given us new life, doctor, and for that we thank you."
"And now, Captain," the Jack-being said before Beverly could form a reply, "allow us to express those thanks in a life-affirming way. I believe there is still enough time to collect materials to save the Guarini."
To the silent question in Picard's eyes, he answered, "Oh, there's no cause for alarm, Captain. No others will be approached to share. We have what we need - as do you." And with a very human grin directed at Beverly, he added, "Bargain sealed."
Beverly's eyes widened in wordless response, while Picard merely bowed his head slightly to express both gratitude and farewell. "A botanical collection team will beam down shortly, but we'll say our good-byes now."
As the three Enterprise officers stepped back from the cave mouth to await transport, the irony of the situation was not lost on Beverly. Her past stood mirrored - reborn! - before her through the grace of the Eridani. During Jack's life, even though she had loved him, she had never been able to give him that piece of herself he claimed would make him feel complete. Now here on the world where he'd met his death, she had willingly sacrificed a part of herself to keep his simulacrum - perhaps his very soul - alive.
But she had gained something as well. Something wondrous! She could, at last, think of her husband, the love of her youth, and remember him totally with … joy.
"Three to beam up," she heard the Captain say, and just before the trio was caught up in the transporter beam, Beverly reached over and clasped Jean-Luc's hand firmly in her own.
***The End***