Waves on an Indigo Sea
He wondered now, if all those years of never having been able to sleep, were just in preparation for this. The room was still except for the whirring of the fan and the laboured breathing of the quiet figure in the bed. The nurse was in the corner, jotting notes on her padd. She'd told him to go to bed, but there was no point, was there? He felt as if he hadn't slept in years. His ears strained, listening for the sounds of the others, Locarno, in the kitchen, perhaps, talking to Jean-Guy, but there was nothing. He could walk, he thought, into the dayroom and open the door out onto the verandah and probably hear the gentle swells of the sea. He wouldn't, though, go, even into the dayroom. His world, which had once encompassed all the quadrants of the galaxy, was now confined to this one room, to the quiet figure asleep in the bed.
He was glad Locarno had come. Locarno had grown, from that clever young ensign, into a practical, dignified man. He could have said no – he had his own life, his own career, even his own family, now – but he'd been a kind young man and that hadn't changed. He'd arrived on the redeye from London without any hesitation, bringing Jean-Guy with him, and Will was relieved, because it meant he wouldn't even have to deal with Rose and the children. Locarno would deal with it all.
The breathing shifted, and the figure stirred. He reached out and stroked the mottled hand, lightly, so as not to cause pain.
"I'm right here," he said. "It's all right."
Jean-Luc's dark eyes gazed at him, but they were guileless, uncomprehending. He touched the papery-thin cheek, kept the hand in his.
"Are you in pain, Jeannot?" he asked, but of course there could be no answer. It had been weeks since the last coherent sentence was strung together. Now there was just the laboured breathing and the occasional whimpers from pain.
It was an irony not lost on him that dehydration would take Jean-Luc in the end, that same enemy he himself had fought over forty years before.
"Can you tell if he's in pain, Lieutenant?" he asked the nurse, whose name he had momentarily forgotten.
She walked over to the bed with the tricorder, checking the numbers. "His heart rate and blood pressure are weak but steady, Admiral," she answered. "But I can give him a few drops on his tongue, if you'd like."
The implication was that it would make him feel better, and not necessarily Jean-Luc. "I don't want him to have any pain," he said, feeling his jaw harden. "He's suffered more than enough."
"I know, Admiral," the lieutenant agreed, resting her hand, briefly, on his shoulder. "It won't be long, now."
He said nothing, turning back to Jean-Luc. "It's all right, Jeannot," he repeated. "Close your eyes. I won't leave you."
The eyelids fluttered once and then closed. Perhaps, Will thought, there were still moments when understanding occurred. He was a man used to doing – and yet there was simply nothing left for him to do. A subspace communication had been sent to Sascha, somewhere out in the Gamma Quadrant on the McClendon. Rose and Graeme and the children would be on the Paris to Barcelona shuttle in the morning. Da Costa had said he was en route. And everyone else, Will thought, was either dead themselves or far away. Even Marie, more sister than sister-in-law, was too ill to come. He hoped young Laurent wouldn't tell her. There was no point in her enduring one more loss.
Jean-Luc moaned, and his hand seemed to spasm, briefly. Will stroked it, soothing the tight muscles, until the spasm ended.
"Do you want me to get your son?" the lieutenant – Zoysia, he remembered her name now – asked.
Did Jean-Guy need to be here? He didn't know. He of course had been the cause of his own father's death and for a moment he was smelling smoke and breathing ash, feeling his father's surprisingly-calloused hand in his. "It's all right, son," his father had told him, "just let me go." And he'd opened his hand and his father had slipped away into the dark of that terrible night.
"Yes," he said quietly. "If you would."
"Sir," the lieutenant replied. She placed her padd and tricorder on the desk behind her, and walked out of the room.
Jean-Luc's eyes were open again, and he smiled at him, the same smile he'd been giving Jean-Luc since the order to manually dock the saucer section. He bent over and kissed Jean-Luc's head and there was a flicker of – of something – in his eyes, and then Jean-Luc's lip turned upward.
"I'm trying to be grown up, Jean-Luc," he whispered, and he took the too-small hand again in his.
The fan was noisy, he thought, and he realised that there was no other sound. He stood up, placing his hand on the still-warm cheek. Nothing, and then there was the small intake of breath, and he felt his own breath in response. He could hear the voices of both Jean-Guy and Serge Locarno. He'd looked away, and when he looked down again, there was only silence and the fan, useless now.
"My poor, sweet boy," he said, knowing that neither one of them would hear those words again. He kissed Jean-Luc's fingers, lowered his still hand to the quilt.
Then he opened the window so he could hear the sound of the waves on an indigo sea.