Author's note: This story is AU with respect to the P/C relationship, but otherwise follows canon. It is set immediately before the Vulcan landing scene at the end of First Contact (and completely separate from my other post-First Contact story, Never Alone). I always wondered what had just happened with Picard and Crusher since they were walking up together behind the rest of the group at the end there, and I've written it a couple of different ways, but this is where I ended up now… namely, with a lot more angst than I started with. Don't worry, though, in this case I am aiming for a happy ending eventually!
This is the first story in many years that I've posted without having it completed first, but I do have a plan for it. Feedback gratefully accepted in the meantime.
"Captain—"
"Captain."
"Captain!"
The adrenaline was wearing off. Somehow he had managed—after the desperate, drawn-out battles against the Borg on the decks of his own ship, and the final struggle in Engineering to defeat their queen—to soldier on with scarcely a pause. With all of the competency befitting his decades of command experience, he'd proceeded to coordinate the recovery of crewmembers who had already escaped to planetside, direct the commencement of salvage operations onboard by those returning crewmembers, and beam down to supervise last-minute, ongoing repair efforts at the Montana missile silo site where, less than an hour from now, Earth's first contact with an alien race would occur. And yet now, as he fielded the seemingly nonstop inquiries from his crew, the adrenaline that had allowed him to act as the captain in all of these matters, was, without question, wearing off.
A few minutes later, after assuring himself that he would not be missed if he disappeared for a short while, Jean-Luc Picard retreated toward the treeline of the surrounding forest, hoping for a respite. But as the twilight deepened around him, unsettling memories of the day's events, which he'd efficiently managed not to dwell on till now, began to surface. He might well have helped to save the future, but before that he had come terribly close to ordering everyone to their deaths—or a fate that was far worse: assimilation. But Lily had been right: there was no way to stop the monsters who had taken over his ship, and he couldn't pursue them from his need for revenge. Ahab, indeed … and yet, he had so badly wanted to make them pay for what they had done. For when they had stripped away his identity, forcibly suppressed his humanity, made him the instrument of death for those thousands at Wolf 359...
He pulled his period peacoat closer in the chill air and kept walking down the rocky path. The natural sound of gravel crunching beneath his boots took on a surreal cast as it contrasted with the artificial whine of phaser rifle fire still ringing in his ears from the battles recently fought. Had it only been a few hours before? He shook his head to clear it from the memories and the haze, feeling the exhaustion starting to overtake his consciousness. And then another sound cut through the fog.
"Jean-Luc?"
He turned, saw the flash of red-blonde hair catch in the last light of the setting sun as she quickened her pace. He'd been scanning the camp for her face all evening, not sure when she would be able to make it here from the evacuation site, and now she'd found him. He felt a relief so overwhelming he all but collapsed into her arms as she reached him. "Beverly."
"Easy now." Beverly Crusher staggered momentarily under his weight before regaining her balance, steadying them both. He buried his face in her shoulder and for a moment she returned his fierce embrace.
But only for a moment. He felt her take a deep breath before she placed a hand on his chest and stepped back. Her demeanor shifted subtly as she looked him up and down, assessing his condition with the eye of a professional. Her voice was soothing, and yet—distant? That can't be right. "Let's get you taken care of."
Glancing around to find a place to sit down, she ignored his mild protests and led him back toward an old picnic table deposited on the uneven ground several meters behind the cantina. His muscles ached as she eased him down on to the bench, pulled out her tricorder and swept it over him. As she frowned at the readouts in silence, Picard attempted to catch her gaze, offering her a reassuring, if tired, smile. "Beverly, I'm really quite all right."
She snapped shut her instruments and fished for a hypo in the pouch attached to her period coat. "Surprisingly enough, you are," she agreed. "Except for the massive amounts of stress you've been under, and minor dehydration, and physical exhaustion, that is." The disapproval was clear in her tone.
"It's been a busy day," he pointed out dryly.
She breathed out sharply at that, and he caught a brief flare of emotion in her blue eyes before she averted them again. Wordlessly she pressed the hypo to the side of his neck. The hiss of the medicine brought immediate relief from the physical aches, but not from his growing uneasiness about why the person he was most glad to see in this world was so ambivalent in return.
"Hey." He leaned forward, reached out for her hand. "Beverly. I'm sorry. I know it's been a long day for you too. Are you sure you're all right?"
Evading the question, the physician shook her head. "Sometimes you have a gift for understatement, Jean-Luc." Then she hesitated, seeming to have a mental debate with herself before coming to a reluctant resolution. Her demeanor softened and she squeezed his hand briefly as she lowered herself to sit beside him. "How… how is Data?"
Her question caused a knife to stab through his tired consciousness as he belatedly understood. The last time they had seen each other, she thought he had finally agreed to abandon the ship, to destroy it in order to stop the Borg. She'd corroborated the self-destruct sequence he had initiated on the bridge, taken charge of the emergency evacuation, shepherded crew members, civilians, and Lily, to the escape pods. And then Data's voice floated through the Collective in his mind, and he knew he had to stay. But he hadn't found her, hadn't apologized, hadn't even said goodbye before heading off to what he knew was likely to result in his death. Instead he had left her to discover his absence from the escape pods on her own.
It may well have been the right decision to stay in an attempt to rescue their dear friend—it may even been a decision she would have supported—but though he had never intended it, it had also been a decision to abandon his wife.
Stricken, he managed to reply, "Data's fine. He'll need a few repairs, but he was the one who saved the Phoenix and the Enterprise, too." It certainly wasn't me, he added silently, with some bitterness.
"I'm glad to hear it," she said quietly. "I was afraid he was lost for good. And I wasn't truly looking forward to spending the rest of my life here, either, although I'm sure we would have found a way. Or I would have, anyway." He flinched, though her words were said without accusation. "So... it's good we can go home."
"Yes." His voice was hoarse. He shifted in the darkness to face her directly, imploring her forgiveness now. "Beverly. I didn't mean to leave you. I know it was unpardonable of me. But I owed it to Data to do everything I could to try to save him. Please understand."
He had lived with her long enough to recognize that her calm, almost detached manner of speaking was her way of controlling her emotions, but in the dim light from the cantina he could see her eyes were bright. "Of course I understand that, Jean-Luc. It's Data, of course I understand. What I don't understand is why you would ever think you could go on a suicide mission without so much as telling me. I found out when Lily gave me your orders as the senior commanding officer on the ground. I don't know how you could possibly think that was all right."
"I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking," he admitted, distraught. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "When I realized he was alive, there wasn't much time to act. Perhaps I was afraid that if I saw you, I would lose my resolve, or that you might not leave if I'd found you—"
Now she clenched her fists in her lap. "I'd been following all of your orders until that point, Jean-Luc. What makes you think I wouldn't follow that one?"
He was taken aback by the sudden edge of bitter self-accusation in her voice. For the first time he realized she wasn't upset only with him, but herself. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to suggest—" He stopped, tried again, feeling even more miserable than before as he understood that it hadn't only been his actions during the evacuation, but also what had happened before that that would have hurt her deeply. He recalled his own clipped words to Lily Sloane before she had snapped him back to his senses: The crew is accustomed to following my orders. And her biting response: They're probably accustomed to your orders making sense. Beverly had argued with him also, but not sufficiently to break through the rage that had driven him against the enemy attacking their home. But it was hardly her fault he had been deaf to reason then. He covered her hands with his own, leaned forward. "Beverly, forgive me. You aren't the one who did anything wrong," he said firmly.
Her tone sounded strained. "I don't know about that." When she saw the evident distress on his face, she hurried to add, with a wan smile, "I mean about the me-not-doing-anything-wrong part, not the forgiving-you part." She paused, collecting herself, and when she spoke again her voice was reassuringly composed and resolute. She reached up and brushed her thumb across his cheek. "Jean-Luc. A lot of things have happened today. The most important thing is that the ship is saved and the mission was accomplished. You should be proud of that. Maybe we should just focus on that for now."
He nodded slowly and closed his eyes as he leaned into the welcome warmth of her hand. It was somewhat difficult to focus on the mission's ultimate success when he'd seemingly made such a mess of things in the process. But surely she was correct, and now wasn't the time to dwell on, nor sufficiently atone for, his sins.
A beep from his communicator startled both of them. "Riker to Captain Picard."
He took a deep breath before responding. "Picard here."
"Captain, I didn't see where you'd gone. You should come back over to the landing site—the Vulcan ship is about to arrive." Riker's voice was full of excitement at the prospect of witnessing this seminal event in human history, and Picard smiled in spite of himself. Then again, this moment truly was what all of their efforts here—flawed as they may have been—had been in service of.
"Of course, Number One. Thank you for letting me know."
"Have you seen Beverly? I can let her know also."
"No need, Will. She's with me. We'll be there shortly." He tapped his communicator and turned towards her. "What do you think?" he asked softly.
Beverly nodded at him, pushing up from the wooden bench. Smoothed down her tan coat, held out a hand for him to stand. "Come on, Jean-Luc. Let's go watch this chapter of Federation history."
He smiled at her gratefully, kissed her, was immensely relieved when she kissed him back. "I love you."
"I know, Jean-Luc. I love you, too." One more smile, a bit sad but hopeful. "We'll figure it out, somehow."
Together they rounded the back corner of the Bozeman cantina, keeping back a bit from the rest of the group, looking up to see the Vulcan ship descending. The sight of it took his breath away. Beverly glanced at him and squeezed his hand. Everything else could be set aside for now—the privilege to witness first contact, right in front of them, watching the ship he'd only ever seen in museums, was almost beyond belief.
A hush fell over the assembled crowd as the door of the T'plana-Hath slid open and the Vulcan commander emerged.
Picard heard Zefram Cochrane's awed utterance in front of him. "By God. They're really from another world." And Will Riker's prompting, as he smiled broadly: "And they're going to want to meet the man who flew that warp ship."
As they watched the first tentative exchanges between the Vulcans and humans, Picard and Crusher moved up to join the Enterprise senior crew. A part of him wanted to stay longer, but he wanted, much more strongly, to return home—to his ship, to his own time, and especially to his love. He addressed his first officer quietly: "Number One, I think it's time we made a discreet exit." As they prepared to transport, with an encouraging glance from Beverly, he said a fond goodbye to Lily, the woman who had helped to set him back on the right path today, and then turned back to the woman who—he hoped—would continue to keep him there.
"Energize."