Star Trek: The Next Generation – Souvenirs

Written By: Commander Cody CC-2224

CHAPTER 7

In the main sickbay, Dr. Crusher kept her eyes on the sleeping children like a watchful hawk. Her eyes were also on the monitors that kept track of their heartbeat rates and body temperatures.

Looking at Ben reminded Dr. Crusher of her teenage son Wesley, who left the Enterprise and his career in Starfleet to become a little deity on the planet Dorvan V, under the influence of the Traveler, who sort of assisted him in finding his true destiny. Of course Wes's hair was slightly darker than that of Ben's. Wes had a tendency of being brash overconfident, just as Ben often did, though that would be found out later once Ben woke up from his hibernation slumber.

Then of course there was little William and the rest of the sleeping beauties. William was fast asleep, his handsome peach-colored face as radiant as the fluorescent lights illuminating the sickbay. The same could be made with the girls' faces as well. With the girls' mobcaps removed, their long flowing hair could be seen running freely down their heads. Felicity's hair was a little disheveled, and so was Nan's and Elizabeth's. If the girls woke up in that state, they would (sort of) start feeling ashamed of their immodesty, as having uncovered hair would have gone against the conventions of modesty back in their timeline.

The sickbay doors opened and in surged Miles O'Brien. At this point he was on afternoon break, and he wanted to satisfy his curiosity about the contents of the cryo-tubes. He was informed by Commander Riker that their time-traveling guests were in the main sickbay, so he decided take a sneak peek.

"Hi," greeted Dr. Crusher.

"Hi," returned O'Brien. "Did I miss anything?"

"You just missed the part where the senior officers were working to extract our five guests from the cryo-tubes. The sickbay personnel just brought them here half an hour ago."

"Oh. Because when I asked Commander Riker about the contents of these bizarre tubes beamed from an alien shuttlecraft, he replied, 'Cryo-tubes with sleeping beauties.'" He took a cursory glance the sleeping children. "And these people, they were the ones extracted from those tubes?"

"Yes, that's right."

O'Brien found himself a little too attracted to them that he stood wide-eyed and slightly open-mouthed. "They're like little angels," he remarked. "They nearly remind me of my little girl when she's sound asleep." He was referring to his little girl Molly O'Brien, who was half-Japanese, half-British, since he was married to a strikingly beautiful Japanese woman by the name of Keiko.

"The captain says that they might be children taken from time," informed Dr. Crusher. "But we can't know for sure unless we personally interview them. Mr. La Forge has just retrieved a backpack containing devices from the alien shuttlecraft that might help us find out about these children; possibly personal logs concerning them and how they managed to get into this timeline. You might consider taking a peek at Engineering; Data and La Forge say they will attempt to upload them to their tricorders."

"Riiiight," O'Brien replied slowly, as if the very idea sounded odd to him. "Very well, then. I'll go take a look in the Engineering section."

"Don't worry," assured Dr. Crusher. "We'll call you when they wake up."

"All right, Doctor."

O'Brien smiled a little, turned his back, and promptly left the sickbay.

Twenty minutes later…

Dr. Crusher was pacing back and forth around the main sickbay. Suddenly she noticed that the little boy was gradually stirring from his sleep. William rubbed his eyes and gradually opened them. His blurry vision started to become clear.

William pushed himself up on his bed and looked around with bugged-out eyes while slightly open-mouthed. He had never expected to be in an exceptionally quiet environment from the one he knew back home. The entire room was lighted, in contrast to the slightly dark room in the Merriman's house that he knew when he woke up every morning. William had never seen any light so bright and at the same time not so blinding to the eyes.

He turned his little head right and left until he noticed Dr. Crusher in her flowing light-blue overcoat. In the midst of his profound astonishment, he plucked up the courage to ask the lady where he was.

"Uh, Miss?" asked William innocently.

Dr. Crusher abruptly turned around and noticed William, who was now completely awake. She smiled lightly.

"Yes?"

"Where am I?"

"You are in the main sickbay of the Federation starship Enterprise."

"What's the 'En-ter-prise'?"

Surprisingly this brief conversation William and Dr. Crusher were having was enough to stir the rest of the children from their hibernation slumber. The Doctor started noticing Nan gradually awakening herself. She gently rubbed her eyes.

"William, what are doing?" asked Nan in a sleepy tone of voice. "You're waking us up…"

Nan stopped talking abruptly in mid-sentence. She sat up in bead wide-eyed and open-mouthed. As she turned her head back and forth around the room, she was just as shocked as William was. The astonishment and excitement was too much for her that she jumped out of bed and attempted to shake her older sister from her beauty sleep.

"Lissie! Lissie! Wake up! Wake up! Look!" she cried ecstatically.

Dr. Crusher could only laugh at the seemingly hilarious scene that little Nan was making. The little girl's incessant prodding made Felicity stir from her deep slumber. Within the timeframe of a few seconds she pushed herself out of bed and plopped herself upright onto the floor.

But Felicity noticed something strange about the floor as her bare feet touched it. As her vision cleared, she noticed that the floor was carpeted in blue color, which was kind of bizarre to her, given that she was used to walking on slightly thick rugs back in her day. When she lifted her head slowly, she noticed that she was in a strange, well-lighted room. She turned around fast until she noticed her younger sister and brother, completely awake.

"Lissie, you look terribly strange," remarked Nan innocently. "What happened to your clothes?"

"What happened to yours, too, Nan?" returned Felicity, who was confused, just as William was when he woke up. The girls looked at themselves clad in her thermal gown. Then Felicity looked around the room slowly until she noticed the Doctor.

"Are you all right, Miss?" queried Dr. Crusher.

"Aye, ma'am. I'm fine thank you. Where are we? And where are our clothes?"

"You're on board the Federation starship Enterprise."

"Starship?"

"Yes. As to your clothes, they were taken to the dryer and the tailor is fixing them. He should be coming in about a minute or two."

Felicity was utterly confused about her surroundings. Impulsively Nan decided to intervene. "What's a star-ship?" she asked.

Dr. Crusher was slightly at an impasse. If these children from a different timeline, and possibly one from long, long ago, she would have to exercise caution when divulging information related to the future. So she chose her words as carefully as she could, and cleared her throat.

"Let's just say that it's a vessel traversing across outer-space," she replied hesitantly.

"You mean one that travels across the stars?"

"Yes."

Nan started jumping in excitement. "Lissie! We're in a space-ship!"

"Really?" asked Felicity in an incredulous tone of voice as she stared at Nan. Then she centered her head and pondered on the matter for a short moment. "We must be away from Earth, then; away from Williamsburg; away from Father and Mother and baby Polly!" She turned and stared at Dr. Crusher, wide-eyed and agape. "How big is 'space'"?

"It's vast," replied Dr. Crusher in a genial manner. "But it's not entirely empty. There are other entities in space, such as planets, star clusters, milky ways, supernovas, and yes, other starships traveling abroad."

Those bizarre terms got Felicity even more confused than ever. Nan was looking at her pleadingly, as if she was asking her for enlightenment. Then she remembered what Captain Fass told her during the interview aboard the Corellian science vessel about the century they were currently in. Felicity wasted no time in verifying to the Doctor what she was told by the Corellian captain. But at the same time she didn't want to ask her question in a manner where Dr. Crusher would get suspicious about their whereabouts. She was a little too tired to answer questions requiring long, detailed answers.

"Dr. Crusher, what time are we in?" asked Felicity, as calmly as she could.

"Technically, you are in the 24th century, Miss. The exact date is April 11, 2378, 1200 hours."

"1200 hours?"

"The afternoon. Of course time here is different. Because we're no longer on Earth, we use the military time to distinguish what time it is on board the Enterprise."

Dr. Crusher immediately noticed Ben and Elizabeth gradually stirring from their sleep.

"Wazzup," muttered Ben. Impulsively he tossed and turned while half asleep until he fell to the left side of his bed, the one adjacent to Elizabeth's.

THUD!

The audible thumping sound was enough to wake Elizabeth completely. Just like William, she was quite clueless as to where she was. She turned her head until she saw Felicity and Nan near each other. William at this point was seated on the bed in a flabbergasted mood.

"Lissie, I heard a loud thump. Could it be…?" She stopped as she saw Ben groaning sleepily. Felicity and Dr. Crusher rushed to the scene.

"Ben!" cried Felicity. She and the Doctor helped him up on his own two feet as Elizabeth jumped out of bed in the direction where Ben fell off his bed. Elizabeth grabbed hold of Ben's right arm and Felicity his left. Both girls held Ben fairly upright.

Dr. Crusher regained her composure and tapped her combadge. "Crusher to the tailor."

"Go ahead."

"The kids are already awake. What's the progress on their costumes?"

"They're completely dried. I just had to do a bit of mending here and there on the dresses, and possibly the undergarments."

"How long until you can bring them here?"

"Two minutes."

"Very well. Crusher out."

Ben was only slightly awake when his blurry vision started to become clear. Gradually his vision could make out the Doctor.

"Who are you?" queried Ben in a curt manner.

"Oh. I apologize for the delay of my introduction, since I didn't want to have to repeat my name over and over again in case any of you guys woke up at different times." The words were passing over Ben's head like water waves. It was at the moment that Dr. Crusher introduced herself formally that he perked up his head.

"Children, my name is Dr. Beverly Crusher, Chief Medical Officer on board the U.S.S. Enterprise."

"A woman doctor?" put Ben, slightly scornful.

"Yes." Dr. Crusher's eyes narrowed at Ben.

"That's awfully unusual," Ben remarked. "In my timeline, most of the doctors are men. How's that possible?"

"Um…it's a long story. But let's just say that in this century there are legislative allowances for equal opportunity of both men and women to pursue whatever career they like."

"That's awfully even more unusual." Ben turned his half-awake head to Felicity. "If such were the case, Lissie could work at Mr. Merriman's establishment without any…" He was interrupted when the electronic doorbell emitted a low beep and a high beep at a steady musical beat.

"Come," ordered Dr. Crusher.

The automatic sliding opened in opposite directions and in entered the tailor with a trolley carrying the colonial costumes. The tailor was of humanoid species, except that he had a light-blue face. The rest of his skin was of the same color. He was wearing loose, flowing, strikingly colorful clothes, decorated in Picasso style. The children eyed him in shocking wonder, as if they had never seen anything so unnatural.

"Your clothes, Doctor," the tailor announced briskly. "I take it they belong to these fine-looking humanoids."

"Yes," replied Dr. Crusher in a hurried manner. "That will do."

"Let me know if there are any problems with these costumes," piped the tailor, as he turned around and exited the main sickbay.

Dr. Crusher turned to the children. "Well then, now that you have your clothes back, I think it's time to change. Unless you wish to have another outfit."

"They'll do," replied Elizabeth, smiling coyly. "Thank you, Doctor."

"No problem. Once you're done, I'm going to let some of the senior officers know that you're completely awake. They'll want to get a very good look at you."

"Why?" asked Nan in her sweetly innocent voice.

"Because…you're…special. Now go get changing."

"Yes, let's," put in Felicity briskly. Turning to Nan she whispered, "Please don't lace my stays too tight." The Doctor ushered the children into her personal office for privacy. "And don't touch whatever's on my office desk," she ordered.

Dr. Crusher stationed her office entrance like a sentry guard on duty as the children undressed themselves from their thermal gowns and put on their clothes. Ben and William had no trouble getting their undergarments on, including their shirts, coats, breeches, and black-buckled shoes. The girls on the other hand, although the had nearly no trouble putting on their undergarments (shifts), had to assist each other in putting on their petticoats and gowns, which to them would have been a tad troublesome.

Ben and William were the first to finish, and as they waited for the girls they leaned on the wall, arms akimbo. The girls preened themselves a bit, helping each other fix up their hair and their dress, and fixed on their mobcaps as a final touch.

A/N: Wesley Crusher's incident at Dorvan V was derived from the ST-TNG Episode "Journey's End". Here is an excerpt from Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki:

Cadet Crusher resigned from Starfleet Academy in 2370 after The Traveler (posing as a villager on Dorvan V) guided Wesley to a vision of his deceased father telling him that his destiny lay somewhere other than with Starfleet. Wesley heeded the advice after which The Traveler revealed his true identity and promised to mentor the young man on his new journey, presumably to other planes of existence. (TNG: "Journey's End")