In the Depth of Winter

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me, there lay an invincible summer." —Camus

Chapter 1

Time had somehow gotten away from Jean-Luc Picard. Now he paced in his quarters, trying to figure out where exactly in time he'd gotten himself. It couldn't be a dream, he was sure of it. Then again, perhaps that's what crazy people told themselves. It's all real, all of it. Everyone else is crazy and in the end, I'm the only sane one left.

More than likely, the opposite was true. And like a madman, his feet carried his robed body out the door to find the nearest person. He had to find out where he was, he'd gone from past to present to future and to god knew where right then. He came around the corner and nearly skidded to a dead halt as he came across Will Riker and Deanna Troi. Obviously, the two had been on some sort of date. Normally he would have granted them privacy and only told Beverly about it later, but his current circumstance was too important to set aside.

"Counselor!" he said, surprised at the level of insistence in his voice. "What's today's date?"

Troi turned around, freeing herself from Riker's arms. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Picard made note of the new development. Her dark eyes were puzzled.

"The date," he repeated.

"Four seven nine eight eight," said Will.

Picard repeated the number to himself, over and over. The present, he was in the present. Andrew was away on that trip with his fencing team, learning more about teamwork by climbing a mountain together. His other son hadn't been born yet, both the girls were on the ship, and the ship herself was patrolling near the Neutral Zone. But even knowing where he was did nothing to help him feel anywhere near sorted out. "Four seven nine eight eight," he said again, then realized Riker and Troi were giving him odd looks.

"Captain, are you all right?" the counselor asked.

"I'm not sure," he said. "I don't know how, or why, but I'm moving back and forth through time." His statement hung between them, and he knew exactly how ridiculous it sounded.

Deanna glanced up at Will, then back to Picard. "Why don't you come in and have a talk with me, Captain," she said.

He followed her into her cabin, barely registering her dismissing Riker, pacing as soon as he was in Troi's living area. His feet were cold, he looked down saw that they were bare, and he was running about the ship in his bedclothes. But instead of cracking a joke about it to ease the situation, he kept talking about his experience. "It was though I'd physically left the ship and gone to another time and place. I was in the past..." Some of it came back to him, the uniforms, how tight they had been, how his back would hurt after wearing one for the entire day. How young everyone had been.

"Can you describe where you were? What it looked like?" Troi had settled herself into one of her chairs, leaving him to pace.

His hands moved through the air as he tried to explain, but it was like a memory that caught the corner of his eye and when he tried to look at it directly, it was gone. "It's all slipping away so fast...like waking up from a nightmare." He tried again. "It was years ago, before I took command of the Enterprise. I was talking with someone. I don't remember who. But then—everything changed. I wasn't in the past any longer. I was an old man, in the future. I was doing something outside. What was it?" His hands came out in front of him, rubbing together, as if he might've been holding something. But the memory of what it was slipped away. "I'm sorry. It's gone. I can't remember." The captain stopped pacing and looked over at Troi, feeling more and more like an idiot.

"Would you like something to drink? Tea?" She stood up and walked over to the replicator without waiting for his reply. "Have you considered the possibility that it was just a dream?"

Certainly he had. He'd told himself repeatedly that he was just dreaming, but it couldn't be just that. It was too real. "It was more than a dream, the smells and the sounds, the way things felt to the touch. It was all so real. I was there, I'm sure of it." Picard gave her a slight smile. "Although it would seem that pinning down the where and when of it is very unreal."

Deanna mirrored the same smile back to him, but stayed on topic, recognizing his attempt to lighten things up enough for him to let the situation go. "How long did you stay in each of these time periods? Did it seem like minutes? Hours?"

"I'm not sure." He ran his hands over his bare scalp and resumed his pacing. "At first, there was a moment of confusion, of disorientation. I wasn't sure where I was. But that passed, and then I felt perfectly natural, as though I belonged in that time." Like he did now, but the present felt a bit different to him. Once he knew he was here, he felt at home. "But I can't remember how long I stayed there." Picard paused again, giving Deanna a pained look at his inability to describe what was going on. "I know this doesn't make much sense. It's a feeling more than a distinct memory."

The counselor picked up the two teacups and walked back towards where he stood. "Maybe we can identify specific symbols," she said, reaching to hand him his teacup. "Can you remember anything you saw, an object, a building perhaps—"

The captain reached out to take the tea and then Deanna's voice faded away and this disappeared entirely, as did the teacup, and instead he found himself holding a vine. For a moment, he stared at the vine as if it should've been something else. Then he remembered the pruning shears in his hand and set about finishing trimming the vines. It was late summer, the grapes were starting to take their last turn to ripening. Soon enough it would be time for the harvest. The national council hadn't yet decided what day it would start, but by the looks of the vines and the hot, dry weather, the decision would come down soon. Then he would look for help for the manual labor, because like Robert, he refused to use mechanical methods. It just never seemed right, all that machinery between the vines, shaking them to have the grapes fall off onto a conveyor belt.

A voice interrupted his thoughts. "You know, for the life of me, I can't figure out what the hell a French cocked hat looks like."

Picard stood up slowly, joints creaking in protest. The small of his back had started to hurt again, his hand moved to massage it as he squinted out from under the brim of his hat towards the source of the voice. "Andrew," he said.

The boy, if you could call a forty-one-year old man a boy, smiled. "I figured an old Frenchman like you might know. Maybe even that hat you've got on your head is exactly that kind of hat."

"Andrew," Picard said again, opening his arms to his son. "I thought you were on Romulus," he said as they stepped back.

"I was," Andrew said, reaching down and picking up one of the tool buckets Picard had abandoned. "Now I'm not."

Picard frowned and ran his fingers through his short beard. "Why are you here?"

Andrew sighed and gestured with his hand. "Well, when a mother and a father lov—"

"Andrew." Sometimes, speaking to his son was exactly like speaking to his son's mother. And sometimes, he missed it, while other times, nostalgia was the last thing on his mind.

Another sigh, this one accompanied by a long look down the rows of vines, towards the setting sun. "I was just dropping by."

Then Picard knew exactly why his older son was there. He turned and studied him, waiting for his son to look him in the eye. Even after all these years, the boy hadn't become a very good liar at all. "You were on a dig on Romulus. One of the biggest digs they've had in awhile, your foundation had even managed to get a permit from the Klingons to be on Romulus and now you're just dropping by to see your old father on the family vineyard in France."

Andrew kept facing the horizon. "I was in the neighborhood."

"On the other side of the quadrant."

"It's a big neighborhood."

The sun crept closer to the ground and Jean-Luc knew. "You heard," he said. He made it a statement, there was no question in what he said so that Andrew had nowhere to move.

"I still talk to Mom, even if you don't." Andrew turned away from the sunset and back to him.

"How would your mother know?"

"Dad, you went to a Starfleet doctor. You have a daughter who's also in Starfleet Medical. That daughter still talks to her mother who talks to her son. If you really didn't want any of us to know, you would have seen a doctor not affiliated with Starfleet." Now, Andrew was looking him in the eyes.

"I think for me to escape any of you knowing what's going on with me, I'd have to seek medical treatment in the Delta quadrant."

"You might have a point," Andrew said.

Curiosity struck him. "How is your mother?"

Andrew studied the ground. "She's fine. Seeing on of the doctors she works with, I think. I'm not sure." He looked back up. "When's the last time you saw a doctor?"

Suddenly, frustration flashed right through him and headed straight towards his son. "I'm not an invalid, you know. Irumodic Syndrome can take years to run its course." The quiet snuck between them, and Andrew continued looking towards the ground, then muttered something so softly that Picard couldn't hear it. "What was that?" Picard asked.

Andrew looked up, frustration and hurt apparent in his own eyes. "I said, that it was better I see more of you now than when you really start to get sick."

Now it was his turn to feel like an ass. "Oh," he said, as quietly as Andrew's first comment had been. "Well, as long as you're here, you can help me carry in some of these tools."

The boy reached out and took the other bucket from him. Picard looked at him again, realizing that he had to stop referring to him as a boy. His hair was even starting to pick up some gray, he hadn't noticed that before. Andrew had been lucky enough to escape his father's hairline, keeping all the rusty colored hair he'd gotten from his mother, Beverly.

Beverly.

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and his thoughts about his ex-wife faded away. In their place, he saw some scraggly looking men around the edges of his rows, running in and out of the cleared paths. Picard drew to a sudden stop, causing Andrew to nearly knock him over. "Did you see that?" Picard asked.

"See what?"

Again, they moved, they were taunting him now. Jeering at him.

Then they were gone. But then he wasn't in a vineyard anymore, he was in a shuttle and Tasha Yar was explaining something to him about the the ship outside. The Enterprise. The shuttle skimmed across the outside of the larger vessel's hull and Picard felt a swell of pride. It was his ship. "Sir?" Tasha said.

Then another voice. "Captain?"

He blinked and re-focused his eyes. Deanna Troi stood in front of him, looking at him curiously, the teacup still in her outstretched hand. He'd yet to take it. As he tried to re-orient himself, he stepped backwards and collapsed into the chair behind him. "Tasha, I was just with Tasha. We were in the shuttle..." and then the memory slipped away from him again, water between his fingers. He closed his eyes and held his head in his hands. "And before, I was..." then he couldn't remember. Where had he been before? Something with his hands, his hands. Over his thoughts, he heard the counselor calling his wife.

"Troi to Dr. Picard. Something's wrong with the captain, we're on our way to Sickbay."

For once in his life, Jean-Luc Picard had no intention of protesting.

Beverly had already been awake when Deanna's call came. In fact, she'd been expecting it. But even expecting those sorts of calls did nothing to make you feel any better once you got them. When Jean-Luc had practically sprinted from the room, she'd come awake and hadn't been able to get back to sleep. Already, the pregnancy had caused her insomnia to return and falling asleep in the first place was a feat in of itself. At first, she wanted to follow him, get him to tell her what was going on, but she didn't act on it, because she also knew him. He needed time and space to sort himself out, and then she could get him to talk. But then when he ran out of their quarters, not saying a word to anyone, she knew something else was wrong, very wrong.

So she expected the call, and while waiting, busied herself with changing back into a uniform, checking to make sure all the kids were alive and asleep. Little Gracie slept like her brother, soundless, almost eerie in how silent she was. Beverly crept into her room, watched her sleep, then leaned in close to hear the small puffs of breath that told her that her daughter was indeed breathing.

Allie slept like her, arms and legs flung out, she didn't snore but you could hear her breathing, you knew she was alive even from the doorway. Even though Andrew was gone on a trip, Conal still slept in his bedroom, raising his canine eyebrows at her when she opened the door. She went to retreat from the room before the big dog got up, but she wasn't quick enough and he ambled over to her and followed her out. She mindlessly went to the replicator and stared at it, vaguely feeling like she should be doing something, but having nothing to do yet. Waiting. So she stared until Conal pressed his nose up against her swollen abdomen. As she got closer to her due date, the Irish Wolfhound had kept a close watch on her, as attentive as any of her family members. The call from the counselor had startled both of them, and she'd thrown on her labcoat and was out the door before Deanna even finished her request.

Jean-Luc was already seated on one of the biobeds when she flew through the door. It felt odd to see him like this, almost as worried and helpless as a child, especially when he was clad only in his pajamas and bathrobe. Beverly frowned at him as Alyssa handed her a tricorder. She opened it up and started a basic medical scan. "What's going on?" she asked.

"I'm traveling back and forth through time," Picard said softly.

Beverly's hand paused in its travel with the tricorder.

He continued. "I was in the past, with Tasha, I remember some of it now. When we were in the shuttle, she was showing me the outside of the Enterprise, before I took command. Then I was in the future, I was an old man. I was in the vineyards..." he trailed off, taking a breath. "I had Irumodic Syndrome. So..." Another pause, this one longer. "Perhaps you should check for that as well, see if it's starting already."

Beverly's hand stopped again, longer this time. Then she turned to her head nurse. "Alyssa, can you set up the neurological scanner for me?"

Ogawa gave her a quick nod and went over to set up the machine. Beverly had finished her scan, but the tricorder remained in mid-air while her eyes read and re-read the results. They showed that Jean-Luc was perfectly healthy, at least so far. But Irumodic Syndrome, that would only show on a level four neurographic scan, and as far as she knew, Jean-Luc had never had one. The scans usually weren't done unless there was a genetic predisposition for any of the disorders that could be detected by the scan.

Irumodic Syndrome. Like Alzheimer's in the twenty first century, Irumodic Syndrome took away the person's personality, their ability to speak, think clearly, to recognize the world around them. Eventually, they couldn't recognize themselves, much less their family members. You should have scanned him when you found out how his grandfather died. They never diagnosed him but his symptoms were like Irumodic. You could have missed this and Jean-Luc will have this illness and you could have stopped it.

"Beverly, are you all right?"

The doctor looked up at Deanna's question. "Oh, I'm fine. I'm sure the scanner is ready now, we should do those neurographic scans to see if there's anything we missed. The base readings say you're fine, Jean-Luc," she said, looking at him as she finished talking.

He nodded slowly. "Maybe the neurographic scans will just show that I'm crazy," he said.

The doctor gave him a quick, tight smile. She almost wished it were so, that it was some sort of psychosis that was causing her husband's current condition, and not the beginnings of Irumodic. One could be cured while the other couldn't. Her worry only grew as he obeyed her given instructions and even Alyssa's instructions exactly, not shifting at all. On any normal visit, it would be all she could do to manage to get him to hold still while any other of her staff unlucky enough to be assigned the task would give up in frustration. In fact, the only Picard that was cooperative as a patient in Sickbay was Gracie, and Beverly suspected it was only because she wasn't old enough to know better. As she typed in the instructions for the scans, her hand sought out his. Then she let go so the scan could finished. "Go ahead and sit up," she said. "I'll be right back, I need to get the results."

Beverly went to the other terminal as the information downloaded and got interpolated. As she watched, the scanner's information downloaded to the padd and populated on her screen.

Her breathing stopped. She had to make a concerted effort to tell her lungs to let go of one breath, to take another, let go, take another. Right there, on the parietal lobe, there was a defect. Her fingers reached out and brushed the padd's screen, as if she could erase it. It could be the beginning of the illness, right in front of her. It could be months or years, maybe even decades, but it would happen. If the illness set in quickly, he would miss so much. Their children getting married, grandchildren, because while he might physically be there, the echoing shell of his former self would be a warm body, containing nothing that used to be the brilliant mind of Jean-Luc Picard.

She suppressed a shiver and ignored a concerned look from her Betazoid friend. "I've finished extrapolating the data from the neurographic scan," she said, holding the padd in front of her like a shield. "I don't see anything that might cause hallucinations or a psychogenic reaction."

Both Picard and Troi showed slight relief on their faces, but Beverly couldn't share in that. A psychotic break would be easier on all of them, compared to the alternative.

"Is there any indication of temporal displacement?" Deanna asked.

"No. Usually a temporal shift would leave some kind of trypamine residue in the cerebral cortex. But the scan didn't find any." Beverly crossed her arms and fixed her husband with a raised eyebrow. "Personally, I think you just enjoy waking everyone up in the middle of the night."

When he smiled this time, though small, it was genuine enough to reach his eyes. "Actually, I just like running around the ship in my bare feet," he said.

The smile she returned to him was small as well, but just as genuine. Alyssa tapped her arm and handed her the other results, then disappeared. She'd obviously read the other results and knew that a private conversation would be ensuing and had decided to make herself scarce. She had the sixth sense of a good nurse. "Your blood gas analysis is consistent with someone who's been breathing the ship's air for weeks. If you'd been somewhere else, there would be some indication of a change in your oxygen isotope ratios," Beverly said, then she stopped. The other information would have to come out, there was no other news to give, nothing else in the report that could provide relief, only worry remained. And that worry was something she needed to speak with Jean-Luc alone about, at least at first. Beverly slid a glance at Troi. "Deanna, could you excuse us?"

Sometimes, having an empath as a friend and counselor came in handy. When the doctor made her request, she didn't have to worry about hurt feelings on Deanna's part, she'd know there was no spite or anger behind it. They just needed some privacy. "Of course," the counselor replied, then made herself as scarce as Alyssa.

She wanted to sit, she wanted to pace, she even wanted to run, anything but tell him the news she had to give. Finally, she leaned against the biobed across from where Picard sat, his eyes following her closely as she moved. "Jean-Luc," she said, "I scanned for any evidence of Irumodic Syndrome, as you suggested. There wasn't any. But I did detect a small structural defect in your parietal lobe." She handed him the padd with the graphic data output.

He glanced at it, then looked back up at her, his gray eyes had widened a bit. "A defect that you've never noticed before?"

That I should have. She knew it wasn't him accusing her, she was accusing herself. "It's the kind of thing that would only show up on a level four neurographic scan. It could leave you susceptible to several neurological disorders, including Irumodic Syndrome." She continued with her clinical line of thought, trying to sound positive so that he could be. "Now, it's possible you could have that defect for the rest of your life without developing a problem. But even if you do, many people lead perfectly normal lives for a long time after the onset of Irumodic Syndrome."

He didn't believe her either. "Then why do you look like you've just signed my death sentence?" he asked, standing and taking her hands in his.

She shrugged. "I'm sorry. I guess..." she bit her lip, wanting to stay in control of her emotions, but her clinical detachment had disappeared as soon as Jean-Luc had stood up. "This just caught me off guard." Her eyes went to the ceiling, the walls around them, the floor.

"Hey." He'd moved his hands to cup her face to make her look directly at him. "Let's not worry about it. Something tells me you're going to have to put up with me for a very long time." He kissed her softly as she smiled at him and his gallows humor.

She held her forehead to his. "It won't be easy, but I'll manage." Standing there with him, her body finally settled and became still. Chuckling at her comment, his hand drifted from her cheek and onto her abdomen. As if he'd sensed his father, their son kicked inside her, telling them that he was alive and well. His chuckle turned into a grin, their problems disappearing, if for a moment. But while you were in those moments, it was all that mattered.