A.N.: In order not to be completely confused about how things have come to this point, it is advisable that you read the novel "Attached Meant" and its sequel "De-Tached: Story One: Life With Beverly".

Of course, if you'd rather just go with the flow without reading my earlier efforts, that's okay too. The situation isn't that difficult to understand. Jean-Luc and Beverly are happily married and living in the house that he'd inherited from his Aunt Adele, in San Francisco. Picard is the Superintendent of Starfleet Academy now. Beverly is the temporary head of Starfleet Medical, though in a few months, by order of the head of Starfleet - Fleet Admiral Winston Holt Wiley - she's about to become the new admiral in charge of Starfleet's new Hospital Fleet. Oh, and Beverly is pregnant. And thanks to an aftereffect of their psychic bond from the KesPrytt incident, Jean-Luc can feel everything that Beverly feels during their pregnancy including morning sickness. Amongst others, they are served by Jean-Luc's former personal assistant and friend, Mildred Krebs.

All of this is set in an alternate universe that takes place immediately after the episode "Attached". Therefore, nothing canon that happened after "Attached" exists in this a/u. Riker is now captain of the Enterprise. Robert and Rene are alive. Admiral Nechayev is a good guy, Etc.

All the usual disclaimers apply. STAR TREK is Paramount's property. But it is fandom's playground.

This author would greatly appreciate any reviews or comments.

DE-TACHED:STORY TWO:

LIFE WITH BEVERLY:

CHAPTER 1: Baby Blues

Pure, unadulterated fear gripped his throat. He stared into the room, trying not to give rise to his disbelief - or his temper. He fought himself to remain calm even as he quietly stepped into the room, refusing to give in to his panic or to do anything that might frighten his pregnant, maddening bride. "Beverly…" By the very cool and collected tone and timbre to his voice, she should have had some sense of his disapproval.

"Jean-Luc! What do you think?" Beverly was in a very cheerful mood this evening, somehow not sensing -or deliberately ignoring - the undercurrents of the distraught temper of her husband.

Jean-Luc carefully stepped closer to the ladder on which his wife was perched. She was on the fourth step up from the bottom. He didn't want to do or say anything that would upset Beverly until she set both feet on terra firma. And then she would know what his opinion was about her climbing a ladder in her condition. How utterly reckless, careless, not to mention incredibly stupid of an action it was. "What are you doing?" Again, he spoke softly, even as he watched her every little twitch with a stare akin to that of a peregrine.

"Picking the colors for the nursery, of course." The smile that she bestowed upon him was full of delight at the pleasure of his company - and it revealed more than just a bit of the scamp in her. And then she glanced over at the different colored stripes near the crown moulded ceiling above the French doors. She studied them for a minute. "I want to see what our paint choices look like when the light hits it at different times during the day."

"Don't they have computer projection programs that do exactly that?" Again, he was trying to maintain his calm.

"They never seem to actually accomplish that. They never quite look realistic." She paused to smear one more stripe of paint - this time an aquamarine tone - next to the other nursery room color candidates. "I think I'm partial to the aquamarine," she observed as she blithely took a step backward, off of the ladder.

His scream froze in his throat as he watched his wife float down to stand on the parquetry floor. It was then that he saw her anti-grav safety belt strapped about her waist under the over-sized pine green sweater that she was loosely wearing.

With a smile that told him how she'd already guessed as to why he had been upset with her, and his reaction to the sight of her up on a high ladder, and how he had thought that she was being reckless, she nobly refrained from saying a word. She walked over to him, tapped his nose with a sticky finger, made sure that she dabbed more than a smear of blue paint there, embraced him, and then fiercely kissed him so thoroughly that the remnants of his fright faded into their swirling passions.

A few more satisfying and reassuring kisses later, Jean-Luc pulled his bride onto his lap, as he positioned both of their bodies on the edge of the day bed that had just been set up in the room. "I hate it when you do that."

"Do what?" she murmured against his shoulder as she rested her head there. He automatically began to slowly stroke her golden red hair as was now his habit whenever they were close and conversing.

"Set me up to prove once again, that I am the most overly-protective, over-bearing idiot of a husband with a pregnant wife that this solar system has ever seen."

"That about sums you up," she agreed, "though I would have said the galaxy…"

"Will you forgive me?"

"Only if you forgive me for leading you on," she teased.

Suddenly, he was serious. "Beverly, I really am sorry that I was foolish enough to believe that you'd climb a ladder without taking the proper safety precautions."

"Jean-Luc, I must confess that I've been known to be reckless on occasion."

He couldn't help it. He had to query, "Only on occasion?"

She ignored his little jibe and continued. "But I never will be foolish as long as I carry our child." She brushed her lips against his. "I need you not only to understand that, but to believe it as well. I won't endanger our baby, darling."

And the logical part of his brain believed her as he gathered her back into his arms for another kiss.

=/\= =/\= =/\=

He suspected that it was close to 0200 hours, though he had little inclination to confirm that fact with their bedside clock. For that would have required moving, and possibly brushing his body against that of his wife. And he suspected that his touching her, even if it was by accident, was the last thing that his wife wanted. They both were in bed. And she was wearing a pink flannel nightgown that he had never seen before. And never wished to see again if he were ever given the choice. Neither of them could sleep.

There was nothing but silence…

And he had not the faintest clue as to why.

Beverly had completely shut him out. It had started yesterday evening. They'd been talking, laughing, complaining about the actions of certain subordinates. And then he knew that she'd felt something from the baby. He'd recognized the expression on her face. And instead of opening up the silent bond between them, sharing the moment as she usually did, she had suddenly erected barriers. Barriers that he did not even know that she could raise between them. And then, she had refused to answer his questions - any of his questions. And it had been that way between them for going on thirty hours now.

He felt nothing from her now. No morning sickness; no sudden intense craving for Risian mandarin orange, anchovy and Gouda cheese pizza; no desire to spend hours abed inventing new ways to pleasure each other. She had completely closed herself down to him. She had shut him out.

And he had not the faintest clue as to why.

=/\= =/\= =/\=

Beverly hid behind the offices of support staff that protected the head of Starfleet Medical from unwanted intruders. She knew that sooner or later, Mildred would brave those barriers and work her way into her inner sanctum. She knew that her husband would send Mrs. Krebs instead of himself. She knew he was hurt by her actions, and that, after asking her several times what was wrong and receiving no real answer, his next step would be to send in the big guns in the form of Mildred. She knew that once she had shut out Mildred, he'd be summoning Wesley at some point in time as back up.

So she wasn't that surprised when Mildred barged into her office. Beverly had been ostensibly studying at her desk, a padd report about the infection patterns of Dionysian flu on board the closed environs of starships. In reality, she had just been waiting for Mildred's arrival.

"Hon, are you okay?"

"Yes."

"The baby - is it okay?"

"Yes, Mildred. The baby is doing as well as is its mother."

"You want to tell me about it?"

"No." On Mildred's swift hurt expression she added, "That is, not yet, Mildred. Not until I know myself for sure, what's going on."

"Okay, Beverly. We'll do it your way." Mildred walked away from the crystalline desk covered with padds, and an antique French pottery parfumerie filled with lavender, and stepped out the door. But she paused in the doorway and looked back at Beverly, studying her. "He doesn't deserve to be treated like this, Beverly. Even if you won't tell Jean-Luc what's really going on, you could at least talk to him. He is hurting, Beverly. And he doesn't know what to do with himself." With that, Mildred walked away.

Beverly waited until her door was fully shut before she brought up her view screen again and finished composing her sub-space message to Deanna.

=/\= =/\= =/\=

"Ya-hoooo…"

"I think you mean yoo-hoo," Mildred corrected, as she trailed in the wake of one of the few women in the universe who could actually impress her. Not to mention royally annoy her. Mildred contemplated brushing up on her knowledge of untraceable poisons and/or referencing her library of books that contained secret information about the most painful, untraceable ways to kill someone. Slowly. Mildred Krebs was in one of those moods.

"No. 'Yahoo' is exactly the right word," the ambassadress sniffed.

Mildred rolled her eyes, even as she waited expectantly for the fireworks to begin. For whenever Lwaxana Troi was in town, there were sure to be fireworks.

They entered the library looking for Jean-Luc. It was early in the evening, and the library was usually the place where Jean-Luc could be found before dinner. Except that this time he was not in sight at all.

Mildred inwardly groaned. Surely he hadn't been stupid enough to…

"I know you're in here, Jean-Luc!" Lwaxana imperially bellowed into the air.

"I was just…" Jean-Luc abruptly realized that there was no polite way to explain his instinctive reaction to the presence of Lwaxana Troi in his house, so he just simply walked back down the spiral staircase with as dignified an expression as he could muster.

Neither lady doubted that he had clambered up the iron staircase the moment that he'd realized that Lwaxana Troi was in the hallway to the library. But both ladies refrained from pointing this out to the admiral. They could afford to be magnanimous over the little things.

"Lwaxana, how… unexpected," was Jean-Luc's opening salvo as he greeted the lady from Betazed.

"You obviously don't listen to Starfleet gossip then," was Lwaxana's reply as she looked about the room. Not that she would admit to it, but she was impressed with the ancient house and its decor. "I've been visiting Holt fairly often over the past few months." Watching him blanch over this bit of romance news almost made up for Jean-Luc's lack of an effusive greeting. Lwaxana idly wondered how he would react when he learned that she was to be his house guest - at his wife's invitation, no less.

"You look…" Jean-Luc paused from paying a compliment to the lady since it was going to take him a good moment to pull his thoughts together over the sight of Lwaxana in her pink, purple and gold outfit.

Mildred finished the sentence for him, as she snarkily observed, "…like her dress designer ran out of fabric for the front of her dress. It's a wonder that you haven't expired by now from Arpian Pneumonia. I hear that naked bosoms are the easiest way of catching it."

If looks could kill, Mildred would have been dead decades ago.