Thirteen years after Jack's death, it is in the middle of the night that Beverly most keenly feels his loss.

On the cusp of sleep is when she has always been most susceptible to thoughts of what her life might have been had Jack lived to share it.

Shivering awake, the cold arcs from ears to toes and it doesn't matter how many times she resets the temperature gauge nor how closely she draws the bed covers about herself, nor how tightly her new bedsocks are secured, the chill finds it way to her core.

Recently, she calculated that Jack had shared her bed less than a third of the 6,000 odd days they'd been a couple.

Yet through all these years, Beverly has drawn comfort from vivid re-imaginings to sustain her through the night; of the carnal heat emanating from Jack's body as he snuggled at her back; of his feet roughly rubbing against her calves, of the solid warm weight of his arm strung loosely across her hip; of his soft sleepy breath gently tickling her ear.

Beverly had thought that she'd learned all there was to be learnt about loss from Arvada III but she had been wrong.

Growing up In Caldos after the disaster, many a night had been shared before the hearth with Nana darning her socks. Nana always wore woollen socks to bed. Until very recently Beverly had considered this some peculiarity of old people.

Beverly started wearing socks to bed a month ago.

Jack has been dead more than twice as long as their lives had been tangled up together but for the first time Beverly knows that in the absence of her memories of him, she has no reserves left to sustain her from the cold, pervasive sense of loss.

Now that she is back on Earth.

Now that she is acting head of Starfleet Medical.

Now that her teenage son is many light years away in the care and guardianship of Jean-Luc Picard.

Now that she is facing the harsh reality of living truly alone.

And she is alone.

Beverly is very popular and has many colleagues and acquaintances at Starfleet HQ, but she has no one to confide in like Deanna Troi, no one she can fully relax with like Will Riker, no one who loves her as unconditionally as Wesley does.

There is no one whose judgement she completely trusts like she has learnt to trust Picard.

What Beverly wanted most from her professional life was to make a real difference to the care and treatment of patients throughout the quadrant – and beyond - and she thought that HSM was the ideal position in which to best fulfil that goal. In fact, her role is, for the most part administrative and for the remainder, diplomatic.

Ten months in, Beverly knows that she has made a terrible mistake.

She became a medical practitioner to improve the wellbeing of others. She isn't a bureaucrat and she doesn't want to be one. But every day in San Francisco brings with it mind-numbing paperwork - and if she has to share one more salmon canape with Lt. Commander Hutch Hutchinson she's not going to be responsible for her actions.

Jean-Luc had tried to warn her.

By any measure, she was already an officer of great accomplishment as Chief Medical Officer of Stafleet's flagship. He said that she would miss the adventure of space exploration and the unique challenges it brings. He said that she would be sorely missed and although unspoken, she knew he meant more than by the crew.

But the offer to serve at the the pinnacle of her field – although utterly surprising - had not been one she could refuse.

So how was it possible to have gained everything and yet lost it all?

She longs for the comforting anchor of Jack's memory and it's not here - not here on Earth - not with her cast adrift from Wesley and Jean-Luc.

It is not reasonable to feel this way, but grief has its reasons and rationality is a luxury to which it is ill disposed.

She misses her family.

Fully awake, Beverly makes her way to the beeping monitor in the living room to find a message from Hutch requesting her presence at cocktails next Tuesday for a visiting delegation of Ferengi medico-consultants.

Pronouncing an emphatic "NO", in response, she curls up in the chair, adjusts a wayward woollen sock and prepares a priority sub-space request to the Captain of the Enterprise.