This is a sad chapter, so get tissues at the ready. ok!


Chapter 7

An Inconvenient Loss

"Sir, the purpose of this gathering confuses me."

"Oh? How So?"

"I find my thoughts are not for Tasha, but for myself. I keep thinking

how empty it will be without her presence. Did I miss the point? "

"No you didn't, Data. You got it."

-Data and Picard, Skin of Evil

It was a sad day for the crew of the Enterprise. They were headed to Omicron IV to fix a minor problem in the grand scheme of life. They were going to Omicron IV defeated and a little less happy because they had lost a life on the Enterprise. A life too young to die in a shuttle explosion and too bright to suddenly be extinguished. That life was Ensign Wesley Robert Crusher. On several occasions he was called Wes for short by friends and family.

The Alpha shift was dead silent, they had lost someone, someone very precious to them. Alpha shift ended at 1600 hours, but the memorial wasn't until 2000 hours at "sunset." For four hours they had to wait to give Wesley's spirit direction. When 2000 hours came the senior officers with O'Brien and Keiko went to the holodeck.

1949 hours

Picard's quarter

Picard adjusted his uniform jacket to make it straighter. He looked into the mirror, his reflection looked back at him. His room was dark and shadowy, he had forgotten to even request lights, quite frankly Picard didn't even care. A light in his life had been smothered, such a young life, too young to die.

He sighed heavily and then said to himself. "Let get this over with." Picard then started to walk out of his quarters and headed to the holodeck.

Outside Holodeck

When Picard reached the holodeck, all of the senior staff was outside the deck waiting, they looked up when they heard footsteps. It was their fearless leader, but like the rest of them he was has sad and heartbroken about losing Wesley. He just nodded and they nodded back. Picard went over to the holodeck's control module.

"Computer locate; program F. C 18." Picard said and then waited for the program to get ready.

"Your program is ready. You may enter." The computer said in a female voice. The holodeck's doors opened and the group walked into the simulation.

There was a wide and steady river and a little riverbed that was flourishing. The most wonderful and beautiful thing there was the sunset. This was no ordinary sunset, it was like seeing night and day at the same time. But it was depressing, the sunset was making it cold and unpleasant.

There were nine candles and box of matches on a wooden table. They each got a candle and they formed a circle. Picard spoke the words that they didn't want to hear.

"We are gathered here today to remember a brave and intelligent young man. His name was Wesley Robert Crusher. When he first came on to my ship he was merely a boy, who quite frankly got into a lot of trouble and caused most of it, he was a loose cannon who had potential to become a great Starfleet officer. When I saw in him great potential, I gave him a field commission. He started off rough around the edges and then something wonderful happened, Wesley started to grow into a fine officer. As he grew the rest of us grew with him a bright light in our lives." Picard paused for a second and then continued his monologue. It was getting colder and white flowers started to close and the sun was getting lower in the water filled horizon.

"He was not only a light, but a star in our lives. He always said that he loved the stars and now that he is among them, we give this boat to guide him." The small group went over the riverbed where a little wooden model boat with a white sail which was on its port side on a couple of river rocks. Beverly was the who picked up the boat and went into ankle deep water. She turn the boat right side up and placed it in the water and pushed it off into the sunset. A great Westerly wind gave a tailwind to the little boat pushing it further down the river. The wind blew leaves and hair into Beverly face she pushed her hair back behind her ears.

They gathered back into a circle. The boat was over the horizon when the sun finally set and it became night. Deanna lit a match and lit her candle and blew out the candle. She then took her candle and started to light Riker's candle and then he lit another person's candle, and so on, until all the candles were lit.

"A moment of silence for the one who has passed." Deanna spoke trying not to cry. The moment was long and once it was over the group went out single file of the holodeck. Then they separated and went their ways to grieve.

Riker

Riker walked into Ten Forward sluggishly and sat down at the bar. He started to ordering Synthehol after Synthehol and started to drink excessively to try to dull the pain. But he couldn't just drink the pain away, he had to face it sooner or later, but not now. He had just lost his prodigy and a little brother, how would he deal with the pain? He still felt guilty about Yar's death. While he was drinking, he didn't see Deanna sitting at table with an untouched chocolate sundae.

To see Deanna not eating chocolate was just unnatural.

Deanna looked at her treat, she moved the ice cream around in the bowl, she was depressed and not even a chocolate sundae could cheer her up. She felt everyone's sadness and grief for the loss of Wesley Crusher, so it didn't help either with her mood. It was hard on her just to feel everyone's strong emotions, she was having a hard time trying not to cry under all the emotional intensity, along with her own emotions. Wesley, to her, was a little brother that she never had, but now that he was gone, her world was less bright and a little less warm.

Data

Data went to his room and automatically started to play his violin to take his mind off of Wesley's death. But the more intensely he played, Data found that he could not take his mind of Wesley. Data played even more intensely, if he was not an android someone could mistake this intensity for anger, but there was a trace of sadness and guilt in his golden eyes. His bow string's hair was starting to fly off of his bow, then Data stopped playing his violin suddenly. With his android strength he tossed and broke his violin and he didn't even notice it break, then he went over to his desk to try do some work. Spot ran over and jumped on to Data's lap and nuzzled her head on Data's hand to get him to pet her.

Data scooped Spot up and sat her on the floor then said; "Not now Spot, I am working." Data turned back to his work. Not even giving a glance at his concerned cat, who cared for him very deeply.

Geordi

"I ORDERED YOU TO GET RID OF THOSE GLITCHES AN HOUR AGO!" Geordi yelled at a poor ensign, who quickly ran to the other side of engineering to do what he was ordered to do.

A Lieutenant went up to Chief Engineer LaForge to give him a report. "Sir. . ." LaForge turned around to face the Lieutenant. "WHAT?!" He yelled.

"I found something that may help with the investigation, sir." The lieutenant reported quickly trying not get on LaForge's bad side. But without knowing it he was on LaForge's bad side.

"LIEUTENANT THE INVESTIGATION IS OVER!" He yelled.

"But sir . . .it is a report from the st . . ." Lieutenant spoke with nervousness in his voice.

"SHUT UP! AND GO BACK TO YOUR STATION." Geordi ordered.

Geordi started to pace around main engineering. In truth Geordi wasn't angry at all, but in deep pain. He couldn't deal with the pain of Wesley's death, he just couldn't. Yar's death was nothing compared to this.

Worf

Worf was in command of the final shift of the day, before night shift and Data would take command. To say the least the shift was uneventful, Worf sighed trying to take his mind off of Wesley's death. Worf thought maybe if he did some fight simulations on the holodeck that he could face the pain of loss, maybe he could even invite Riker

Beverly

Beverly walked into her room. Words couldn't describe her pain. She had just lost her son, her world, her universe, he was gone. How she wished that she had Jack to comfort her, Jack was the most caring and selfless man she had ever met, but underneath he was deeply troubled and even violent sometimes. But she rarely saw that side of Jack, there was only once that she could think of where she saw that side of Jack. She figured that Jack got abused when he was a child, it was some time after they got married and she was pregnant with Wesley that Jack told her one night about his abuse. Jack promised that he would never lay a hand on their son and that he would always protect her and their son.

How much pain he had to endure as a child, but it gave Jack a strong sense of righteousness. Jack was also very warm and comforting to her and Jack was everything to her, and Wesley. Now Jack was gone and so was Wesley.

Beverly sat down on her bed and started to grieve for her son. She couldn't stop the tears from falling from her cheeks, she couldn't think what she could do without her son.

She couldn't think about the funeral, what was she going to do without her son? Her whole world was collapsing. This was far worse than Jack death, at least with Jack's death she had Wesley to grieve with, but now she had no one to grieve with. No one on the ship knew what it was like to lose a child, not even her closest friends. But what made it worse was that she didn't know if Wesley was alive or dead. There was a connection between mother and child that couldn't be explain by science, biological, or even spiritual and it was stronger than anything in the universe. She felt something, anything if Wesley was dead, but she didn't feel anything, so Wesley couldn't be dead. She knew in her heart that Wesley wasn't dead, but her mind told her that it was time to move on with her life because nothing could change the simple fact that.

Wesley was gone.

Picard

Picard entered his ready room. He sighed heavily and went over to the replicator. "Earl Grey. Hot." Picard picked up his tea and went over to his desk and sat down. He looked up at the door.

"Jack, I failed you." Picard said out loud.

"I killed your son, Wesley. Jack if you can hear me. Tell Wesley I am sorry for getting him killed." Picard paused and then continued. " Wesley, I should never have taken away your father when you needed him the most. When you came board my ship, I expected you to hate him for what I did to you, but you didn't hate. You gave me respect that I didn't deserve. But did I give you the respect you deserved, no . . .I merely thought of you as annoying pest. An annoying pest that was really persistent." Picard slightly laughed.

"Wesley, when I gave you the field commission of Acting Ensign. I made a promise that I wouldn't get you killed, like your father. I didn't want to hurt your mother again." Picard spoke in a broken voice.

"Wesley, I am so sorry." Tears were flowing from his eyes uncontrollably, tear droplets fell from his face and hit the his desk. The tear drop hit the desk with a "TAP."

"I am so sorry, Wes . . ." Picard wailed.

"This is all my fault . . ." He sobbed.

"All my fault . . ." Picard said softly to himself, as he started to grieve for his dead Ensign. . . No not his Ensign . . .his son. Wesley was dead and it was all his fault.


What will happen next? Don't you all hate me! Will they ever get Wesley back? Will the Enterprise's crew ever get over the lose of Wesley Crusher? If you want to know the answers, you'll have to come back and read the next chapter.

I won't demand reviews, like the last chapter. The only reason that I did that was because people didn't review chapter 5, so I want be doing that any time soon.

Reviews= happy author= faster updates

Please review!