Chapter 4

"And so you wound up walking out here?" Picard asked as he settled in beside her on the well-worn couch.

Beverly nodded, then took another sip of the wine, not needed the alcohol as much as she needed a moment - another moment - to try to quiet her still turbulent emotions.

She had thought - in the brief moment when she had thought anything - to simply let him cry himself out, knowing the emotional release in a man so unused to allowing himself feelings would do more than any discussion or explanation could - and had taken him in her arms, hoping her physical presence could console him where no words ever could.

But his grief had brought up the ghosts of her own pain: his sorrow recalled her own. Even as he had come into his arms, crying, she had felt the tears beginning in herself, sobbing for him - and for herself. Everything she had had - and lost; everything he had wanted - and had never had.

They had held each other, grieving, until, at last, the tears were gone - then simply stood there, in each other's arms, seeking - and finding - an emotional refuge in the other's presence.

But the unity brought about by the shared pain quickly faded; shaken and embarrassed, Picard pulled away, taking Beverly's arm and gently guiding her into the great room.

He had left her there, ensconced in the corner of a well-worn couch, still trembling, only to return a moment later, a handkerchief, two glasses and a bottle of wine in hand.

The handkerchief he handed over wordlessly, allowing her to minister to her own tear-stained eyes, then turned to the wine, making a ceremony of opening the bottle: carefully removing the seal, he wiped a trace of mold from the bottle's lip, then carefully uncorked the bottle and ritually examined the cork - not as a semblance of some pretension about the wine, she realized quickly, but rather as a way to buy time, to give her a chance to collect her feelings - and to hide his own, she reminded herself.

Good wine, she added as she took a first sip. She glanced at the dust-covered label, and was surprised to discover the bottle was not one of Robert Picard's vintages, but one of Jean-Luc's father. That made it at least fifty years old, she realized with a start - and possibly far older.

She took another sip of the ancient vintage, a smaller one this time, savoring the rare wine as it deserved - and forcing her mind away from the emotions that still boiled on the edge of her consciousness.

It wasn't what she had intended, she reminded herself. In the best of circumstances, confronting Jean-Luc Picard about his personal problems was difficult; coming here, to his home, to confront him about what she knew must have been a disastrous journey could easily have turned difficult into impossible.

But he was, above all else, her friend; whatever the risks, she owed him this.

But prepared as she might have been for the man, she had been unprepared for everything else. The unseasonable heat that had blasted across France, she reminded herself, sucking the very energy from her body; the heat and the distance - and the confusion, she added. My own damned fault: I should have brushed up on my French rather than assuming everyone had Universal Translators. That might have made me a little more welcome in LaBarre - and the people there might have been a little more forthcoming with information about where the Picard vineyard was. Including, she added as she felt her feet beginning to throb once more, the distance.

"You never told me you lived so far from town," she finally said.

Picard smiled. "You never asked."

"I assumed that when you said you were from LaBarre, you meant you lived there - not eleven kilometers away."

"This is a vineyard, Doctor," he reminded her gently, "not just a house. The vines take space, the house takes space, the propagation sheds..." He shook his head. "It takes a lot of room - and this is not the only vineyard in the region. When one says they are from LaBarre, it is understood that one is from the region, not necessarily from the town proper."

"I understand that - now," she agreed, "but had I known when I left San Francisco this morning, I would have worn something more suitable for walking," she added, glancing down at the road-stained dress and shoes she was wearing. "But then again, none of your fellow townspeople were eager to help me find you in any case. It seems they're very protective of your privacy. They barely acknowledged that they knew who you were - let alone where you lived or how to get here."

And they probably knew best, she admitted to herself as she finished the wine; I shouldn't have come out here. I had the best of intentions but...

But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Biting her lip, she turned away, only to feel the weight of the goblet in her hand increasing.

Turning back, she watched as Picard refilled the glass.

"And so you wound up walking out here?" he asked as he settled down beside her on the well-worn couch. "I'm surprised you didn't get lost," he added.

"I did - several times," she admitted, thankful for once for his reluctance to talk about himself. "What have the people of LaBarre got against signposts?"

Picard smiled at her. "You should understand, Beverly; you're from a small town, too. The philosophy here is: If you don't know where someone lives, you probably shouldn't be going there," he said. "But at least you found it."

"Eventually. I assume you're going to give me a map to find my way back," she added.

"Of course," he agreed solemnly.

They stared awkwardly at each other for a moment.

"More wine?" Picard finally asked.

Beverly looked at the nearly full goblet, then shook her head, realizing he was a strained for a safe topic as she was. "No, thank you. I've taken up enough of your shore leave as it is - and I'm going to need a clear head to get back to town before dark. But if you don't mind, I'd like to wash my face before I go," she added with a smile. "I don't want to go back to LaBarre looking like this."

Without waiting for his consent, she set down the wine glass and uncurled herself from the couch, rising to her feet, quickly followed by the man.

"Bev..." he began, but she cut him off.

"You were right, Jean-Luc," she said with a shake of her head. "I shouldn't have come out here. This is your leave - and I had no right..."

"Beverly..." he interrupted.

She looked up at him.

"Thank you," he said softly.

Feeling a release of tension she didn't know she was carrying, she gave a sigh, then smiled back. "You're welcome," she answered easily.

He smiled back, then reached for the wine glasses, handing hers to her, then gently touching the rims together.

They drank in silence, then Beverly lowered her glass back to the table. "But it is getting late, Jean-Luc," she reminded him, "and I really should be on my way back. If you wouldn't mind drawing that map..."

"It's more than late, Bev," he said, glancing out the window that filled one wall of the great room. "It's getting dark - and the roads have no more lampposts than they do signposts. I think it would be better if you stayed - until morning," he quickly added. "I wouldn't want you getting lost."

Beverly hesitated for a fraction of a second, then gave a brief shake of her head. "Thank you - but no," she replied, then smiled reluctantly at him. "As you said, I am from a small town - and I know the kind of rumors that might start if I don't come back. I am, after all, a Starfleet officer," she reminded him softly. "Even on leave, I have a reputation to maintain - as do you."

"I don't give a damn about my reputation..." he began to protest.

"Of course you do," she interrupted quietly. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have come here in the first place. If who you were - who you are to yourself - didn't matter to you, you would have come back to the ship; you would have come back and asked for help from those who care about you. Instead, you came here, because you didn't want us to see you, in pain and suffering."

"Bev..." he began quietly.

She raised her hand to the side of his face, silencing him, then gently caressing the worried lines that creased it. "I understand, Jean-Luc. You're hurt - but the last thing you want - the last thing you could stand - would be the pity of those people with whom you've worked for so long. That would be a humiliation you couldn't bear. That's why I came here - alone. I was on leave at Starfleet Headquarters when I saw your name on the incoming personnel manifests - and I didn't tell anyone. No one, aside from the people in town, knows I'm here. Your reputation is safe with me," she assured him.

He studied her for a long moment, relief heavy in his expression, then lay his had upon hers, gently drawing it away - only to keep it firmly locked within his own. "I know it is," he said quietly, studying the trapped hand that he held. "I've always known, Bev - but with everything that has happened... I..."

"You doubted," she answered for him. "You doubted your friends, you doubted me... and you doubted yourself."

He raised his eyes to hers, relief and gratitude filling them - along with a renewed admiration for her sensitivity - and her wisdom - and nodded in agreement.

"Appalling, isn't it?" he said lightly, scoffing at himself. "I can captain a starship, lead fourteen hundred crewmen through mission after mission, negotiate treaties, mediate battles - but when it comes to my personal life..."

"Jean-Luc," she interrupted quietly, "you are the captain you are because you've spent the last fifty years of your life learning to do just that. But when have you taken the time to have a personal life? It takes time - time and practice - and just like every stage of becoming a captain, there are going to be times when you succeed - and when you fail. Now you're going to have to do the same things you did when you fail as a cadet: you're going to have to take a step back, try to find out what you did wrong - and learn how not to make that mistake again," she added.

He snorted derisively. "Beverly, I haven't been a cadet for more than half a century - and I'm a little too old to start learning how to do anything - even have a life - all over again," he added sharply.

She raised an eye at him. "I see. So you're going to give up and spend the rest of your life sitting on the bridge of a starship?"

"There are worse ways to spend one's days," he reminded her, a forced smile on his lips.

"Yes," she agreed seriously, none of his artificial mirth crossing her face. "There are worse ways. You could spend it here, sitting alone in this empty house, tending your father's vines. Personally, I don't see much difference. They're both existences - but neither sounds like much of a life," she informed him bluntly.

"Beverly..." he began, only to be cut off by her once again.

"Because that's what matters, Jean-Luc. Not our careers, not our professional roles - they're part of who we are, yes, but they aren't us. I'm a doctor, a Starfleet officer, a mother, a wife, a widow... all those things - but first and foremost, I'm me.

"As you," she added softly, "are you. Sometimes you forget that, Jean-Luc. In your efforts to be the best captain you can be to your crew, you decide that that's the only part of you that matters. But you're wrong, Jean-Luc; you - all that you are - matters to us. To me," she added softly.

"I don't want to see you in pain," she insisted softly. "But closing off a part of your life, deciding that because something didn't happen as you wanted it to you, that you're only going live that part of your life where you've been a success, isn't going to protect you. It's only going to diminish who you are, and who you can be. And I don't want that for you, Jean-Luc. I care for you too much to ever want that for you."

He gazed into her eyes for a long time, saying nothing - then slowly reaching out, drew her into his arms.