21.
Supper had been sandwiches and soup and salads from Miquel's comida, and both he and Jean-Luc had managed to eat a little. He knew Jean-Luc was too tired, really, to eat, and his stomach was – it wasn't really hurting, but maybe he was afraid it would begin to. If da Costa noticed he wasn't eating, it wasn't mentioned, and Rose took the occasion to formally announce her news, much to the surprise of Jean-Guy.
"I'm going to be an uncle!" he declared and then he glanced at his brother and Papi. "You already knew. I'm always the last to know anything."
"On that rather sour note," Will said, standing, "Papi and I are retiring early. If you'll help us up the stairs, Ensign, you can then go. Captain da Costa will be staying the night. Sascha," Will added, supporting Jean-Luc as he rose from his chair, "if you'll make up the guest bed in the library for Mr da Costa? Please."
"Aye, sir," Sascha replied.
"Am I ordering everyone around again?" Will asked as they walked, slowly, down the hallway.
"Need you ask?" Jean-Luc answered.
Will thought he heard Locarno make a noise behind him, but when he turned, Locarno's face was set. "Are you certain you aren't Portuguese?" Will asked. They'd reached the stairs and Will said, "My offer still stands, Mr Picard."
"You will put your back out," Jean-Luc said, "and I can still manage the damned stairs. Mr Riker."
"If you'll support the other side of him, then, Locarno. One step at a time, old man."
"My offer still stands as well," Jean-Luc responded.
"Looking forward to it, Mr Picard. Still sure you want this job?" Will asked.
"I just hope," Locarno answered, grinning, "that I am equal to the task."
There was still a little swelling around the contusion on Jean-Luc's thigh.
"I forgot the ice," Will told him. "Do you want clean pyjamas, since you had supper in those?"
"No," Jean-Luc said, "I did my best not to spill."
Will said, "Not quite feeble yet?"
"I think," Jean-Luc replied, "I could use the ice. And if you could rub that hip again. It's very sore."
"Let's take your medication first," Will suggested. "Do you want me to ask Rose for pain medication?"
Jean-Luc sat on the edge of the bed, and Will pulled him in, letting his head rest on his chest. They stayed like that, Will's arms around Jean-Luc, Jean-Luc's face pressed against his shirt.
"Will."
"Yes?"
"Are you going to finish telling them?"
He sighed. "Should I get Rose?"
"Is this a negotiation?" Jean-Luc looked up, and there was the hint of a smile around his lips.
Will considered. "Doesn't seem like a fair exchange," he said. "You take the pain medication and I change my relationship with our kids."
"You have already changed your relationship," Jean-Luc reminded him. "You have taken away some of their innocence, but you've replaced it with understanding."
"Who said you could be so smart?"
"You," Jean-Luc said, and now he was smiling, "already knew I was smart when you married me."
"No wriggle room at all," Will said. He kissed the top of Jean-Luc's head.
"None."
"And all I get is you taking pain medication in return?"
"I could manage other things, if I took the pain medication."
"In that case," Will said, "I'll go get Rose."
He fully expected to be back in the woods, running along the path, but instead he found himself sitting on the bank of the creek with Rosie, his feet dangling in the icy water, listening to an eagle cry and the dogs playing.
"Hello, Rosie," he said.
She'd been looking at something in the water, and when she looked up at him, her eyes were dark and she was giving him her Rosie-grin. He sighed, because he'd been afraid that she would be something else, but she was not. She was just Rosie, and he kicked his feet so that the water splashed up at her. She laughed, and then she splashed him back; the ravens were chasing the eagle, the crisp scent of pine was in the air, and the sunlight was reflecting off the water.
"I miss you," he said, and she took his hand and held it, the way she had on that very last day.
"Why?" she asked. "I've been here all along. You've always known where to find me, William."
"Have I?" Her hand was warm and brown, and he enjoyed the feeling of her stubby fingers laced in his slender ones.
"Of course," she answered. "There's a trout, look."
He watched the cutthroat suspended in the current, the reds and greens flashing, and then Rosie splashed again, and the fish was gone.
"I named my daughter after you," he said.
"I'm glad you have a daughter."
"I'm sorry, Rosie," he said. "I'm sorry," and then he was awake, and he could hear Jean-Luc's soft snore and the rain pattering lightly on the tiled roof.
He wished he'd been running in the woods.
It was useless, he thought, to try to sleep again, and so he slid slowly out of bed, trying not to disturb Jean-Luc, who was snoring softly. It was so close to the time when Jean-Luc always woke, and he hoped Jean-Luc was exhausted enough to continue sleeping; he was certainly sound asleep now. He padded into the head, eyeing himself tiredly in the mirror. He'd be damned, he thought, if he'd go to the party tonight looking as if he were suffering again. There was shit one could replicate to cover the dark circles under his eyes and he was guessing Jean-Guy might be the one to know what kind. He splashed water on his face and ran his hands through his hair. He'd take a shower later, with Jean-Luc, maybe; now he just wanted to creep into the kitchen and make a pot of coffee. He figured he could get two cups in before da Costa was awake.
Rose was on the patio with a cup of tea, a sweater wrapped around her shoulders, even though the air was mild and there was no wind. He sat down beside her silently and sipped his coffee.
"Nauseous?" he asked her. Mercè's – or was it Laia's? – cat was in the back of the garden, peering into his pond. He clicked his tongue at it and it glared at him with coppery-coloured eyes before stalking off, its tail like a flag.
"Do you remember," Rose asked, her voice still edged with sleep, "when I begged and begged you for a kitten, and you said no, and you would never tell me why?"
"I thought Papi told you why," he said, after a moment. His hand had begun to shake and he set the mug down on the patio table.
"Papi said you were allergic to cats." Rose didn't look at him.
"I couldn't have told you, Rosie," he said. "You were just a little girl."
"No," Rose agreed. "But I hated you for months, afterwards."
"I know."
"You think there is a genetic component to what your father was, and my baby is at risk?" She did look at him, then.
"Da Costa says it's much more complicated than that."
"That's true. It is, in the literature. I will have to read Dr McBride's paper."
He shrugged. "He was different, right from the start." He reached for the coffee, but then didn't pick it up. "Even as a baby, according to my aunts. His older sisters. I met them, twice. They had husbands; families. Careers."
"It didn't stop them, then," Rose said.
"No."
"And it didn't stop you and Papi?" It was a question. A plea for reassurance.
He gazed at her, his face in feminine, perhaps; his eyes, bright blue, the curls he might have had if he hadn't sported a military cut most of his life. If he'd let his hair grow long, like Jean-Guy's. His jaw, softer; the cleft in his chin which had so delighted Jean-Luc when Rose had been born. He remembered tucking her under his chin, in those few weeks when Jean-Luc had left him, inhaling that warm, soapy fragrance that babies had, wondering if he would ever have the chance to breathe in her father's scent again, even then not allowing himself to cry. He would not cry; he hadn't then, and he wouldn't now.
"No, Rosie," he said, and he could see her brown skin, and her dark brown eyes, and her sly Rosie-grin which was only for him. "I'd always thought – " He stopped, to search for his words, and then he found them. "I knew how messed up I was," he said. "I'd had a good thing with Deanna – the best – and I'd thrown it away because I couldn't articulate to her how fucked up I felt inside." He paused, and then he continued, "But I always thought somehow I could figure out how to live with what I was, and that at some point in my life I could still get married and have kids. Have a life that was normal, even in Starfleet. Papi and I – we worked very hard, Rose. He had his fears about having children – even though they weren't the same as mine. But that one of you would turn out to be my father – that was never one of our fears."
"You were afraid you would continue the cycle of abuse?" Rose asked.
He felt as if all his air had been stolen.
"Dad?" She was looking at him, this odd mixture of daughter and professional.
He nodded, his words having fled.
"And Papi's issue?"
He could breathe again. "Papi was four when his brother Christophe-Henri died. He always thought it was his fault, because they'd been playing near an irrigation ditch. And he'd been told it was his fault, by his brother Robert. He didn't actually remember the accident, just what happened after."
"Like Sascha and me putting Jean-Guy in a box and threatening to throw him out an airlock."
"Yes," Will said. "Exactly like that."
"And all these years you've denied yourself a pet." She finished her tea and set the mug on the table.
He was silent, wondering if Jean-Luc were awake. Wondering if Jean-Luc had tried to get up again and had fallen in the head; was calling for him now.
"Mr Locarno is here," Sascha said from the doorway. "Shall I send him upstairs to check on Papi?"
"Please," Will answered, and Sascha turned away. Will could hear him talking to Locarno, and then to da Costa.
"Do you think there's any risk to my baby?" Rose asked.
"No, sweetie," he said, taking her hand. "I don't."
Locarno was at the door. "Shall I tell the Ambassador you're coming back upstairs?"
"Tell him," Will replied, rising, "that it's our anniversary, and I'll be bringing him his breakfast in bed."
"Aye, sir." Locarno walked away.
"I hope," Rose said, and when she looked at Will this time she was smiling, "that when Grae and I are old we are just like you."
Will held her, kissing her head, wishing she still had that warm, soapy scent she'd had. Then he grinned, because next year he'd be holding a grandchild.
"Of course you will," he promised her. "Old and cranky and losing your hair."
She grinned; not his grin, not Rosie's grin, but hers – Rose's - grin.