The curved window opened out onto the blackness of space. No lights came through, not even from the distant suns that the USS Enterprise was rocketing towards at speeds faster that relativity allowed. Its captain, Jean-Luc Picard stood at the window, staring out at that darkness.
The room behind him was empty but for a single man who lay at a table, snoring over what looked like some sort of technical journal about warp engines. It was impossible to tell with the man's head and arms draped over it like some hard tablet-screened pillow.
The Captain had been coming down to this part of the ship more and more as of late. It was hard to find a place to go where Guinan or Counselor Troi wouldn't find him. The latter, at least, seemed to be dogging his footsteps ever since he got back from France. He'd told her was fine more times than he cared to count, but what did that matter to an empath who knew when he was lying? Deanna might be able to read emotions, but she didn't seem to be able to understand. He had stood there and watched as the Borg used his knowledge to destroy the fleet—his friends. His comrades. How could he not bear some responsibility for what had happened? If only he had done something—anything—to stop them. But he hadn't been able to.
He had a firm conviction that if he was simply left alone, he would become fine in due course. They'd helped how they could. Now he wanted them to forget about it—so he could forget about it.
A wheezing noise caught his attention, soft at first, but growing in amplitude every second. A wind sprang up, biting and strong. He held up a hand and stumbled back. Was this yet another of Wes's experiments gone wrong? Sometimes he thought he gave that kid too much freedom, no matter how brilliant he was.
A blue box was emerging from the wind, groaning and shrieking as it did, as if it were being rolled into existence on rusty hinges. There was a click and a thump, and the wind and noise disappeared. It simply sat there, wedged between the black window and the nearest table.
The box was labeled "Police," and couldn't have been much taller than eight feet. Barely more than four feet wide.
Before he could tap his communicator to call whoever was on duty in security at this late hour, a man stepped out of the box. He wore a deep purple jacket, a bowtie, and a waistcoat adorned with an ancient pocket watch of sorts.
"Hello!" the man said brightly. "I'm the Doctor."
Jean-Luc straightened up and tugged his shirt back into place. "I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard. What is the meaning of this intrusion onto my ship?"
The Doctor gazed around innocently, a slightly befuddled expression crossing his face. "Not sure. Thought I'd pop out and see where the old girl landed me this time." He waved his hands around at the room around him, then suddenly stopped and pulled them in. "Your ship, did you say?"
The man was speaking gibberish. "How did you get through our shields? We're traveling at warp speed. No transporter would be able to put you and your…box onboard."
"Like I said, not sure. She does things like that. Usually I get attacked right after I land though. I must say, this is a nice surprise." The Doctor swung around and checked his watch—the one on his wrist, not the one hanging from his waistcoat—the face of which had fallen to the palm side of his wrist. "Twenty Three Sixty Six. Good year. Well, mostly. Not so good if you're a Federation starship, which," he put his hands in his pockets and looked almost sheepish, "…I'm guessing you are."
Jean-Luc was once again on the verge of calling security, but something stopped him. "Who are you?"
"I said, I'm the Doctor."
"Oh, the last thing I need is another Doctor," Jean-Luc said, almost in spite of himself.
"And why is that?"
"I'm more interested in what you're doing aboard my ship. Who are you? What are you?"
"Looking around. The Doctor. Time Lord."
"Time Lord? I'm not sure I've ever heard of that particular species. What's your planet of origin?"
"Gallifrey."
"Where is that?"
"It's nowhere. It's gone." The Doctor's face darkened. "It burned."
Without thinking, Jean-Luc said, "The Borg?"
"No, the Daleks. Well, not the Daleks. I—it was—a bad day." The Doctor stopped, as if he couldn't bring himself to go on. He immediately changed tack. "Why, are there Borg around here? Still?" He checked his watch again. "Hasn't Starfleet met them yet?"
"There were Borg. Not anymore. We destroyed them."
"Oh—good. Well, not good if you're a Borg."
Jean-Luc flinched.
"Or Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise…" The Doctor grinned childishly. "I thought your name sounded familiar. Big fan. Loved you're shenanigans with first contact in 2063—or has that not happened for you yet? Shenanigans—I must use that word more often."
"A big fan?"
"Yes, massive. Read about you a while back. Quite a good captain. And I hear you know the Borg well."
"You could say that."
"They say in the history books that you blamed yourself for Wolf 359," the Doctor said, seemingly blissfully unaware that he was embarking upon a touchy subject. "But I said no way—he's smart enough to know that a human can't win a mental battle with the Borg."
If was as if the man—or rather Time Lord—had read his thoughts before the box appeared. Stranger things had happened in his travels with the Enterprise.
Jean-Luc settled into one of the chairs that looked out into space. The Doctor took that as an invitation, and plopped down next to him, wiggling his feet and twiddling his thumbs, as if sitting still was a little more than he could handle.
"It's not a matter of intelligence or mental will. It's a matter of being able to fight an enemy who is exceptionally powerful. At that, I failed."
"But you didn't—you defeated them. 'Sleep' you told them."
"How do you know this?" Jean-Luc demanded, his face twisting.
"It's in your history books." The Doctor checked his watch again. "Oh, about a hundred or so years from now."
"That was not a victory. The fleet was still destroyed."
"Earth wasn't."
"What do you know of any of this?" Jean-Luc said. "You read some history book—what does that tell you? I was there! I watched those ships burn and could do nothing about it. So I think I have a bit of a unique perspective here, not just one of someone who read a history book."
"Ah, but you still saved the planet. Mine burned, remember?"
"Yes, well that's something but its hardly—"
"That's everything. You won. You saved billions on that planet."
"And I still lost the fleet."
"Yes. That you rather did."
They fell silent for a moment.
"Is that how history remembers it?" Jean-Luc asked suddenly. "That I saved Earth?"
The Doctor nodded.
That was something. In a way, he supposed he had. It was really his crew—they had saved him. But he—he had helped them stop the Borg in the end. It wasn't much, but it was another small load to lift off shoulders that were already crushed guilt.
He turned his attention away from the whole debacle, savoring the lightness. He focused on the strange alien. "And what of you? Did you win?"
The Doctor's face darkened again, and Jean-Luc almost regretted asking the question.
"Everyone lost. And I continued on. The only one left."
"And you tried to save them?" Like me? He left that part off, but he was beginning to understand why the alien had brought this up.
"I tried everything. But the Daleks would have overrun the universe—there would have been no universe. The high council was planning the end of time. The Daleks were planning to take over time. And I said no more." He looked away. "They're all gone now. Daleks and Time Lords. Gone in a moment."
Jean-Luc said nothing.
"You won at Wolf 359, because you kept fighting for what was right." The Doctor paused. "I lost, because I stopped fighting and did what was wrong."
A sudden screech came from the box. "No, no, NO!" The Doctor jumped to his feet. "Gotta go. Sorry. Big temporal anomaly got me here. It's gonna go any second."
"But—"
"Gotta go. Nice meeting you."
With that, the Doctor disappeared behind the blue doors. A second later, the box screeched into thin air. And Jean-Luc finally noticed that he still hadn't called security.
Later, he would wonder if it had all been a dream. The Doctor with the weight of a world on his shoulders, actually admired him for what he'd done in that battle with the Borg. Healing would come slowly, in stages. But it seemed he'd found a place to start. Maybe he'd go talk to Troi again after all.