A whole month later and Jean-Luc Picard was quietly congratulating himself on a whole week of falling asleep in the right place, at the right time, and on purpose. He was waking well, he felt energised and had managed to start taking care of himself almost entirely on his own.

He showered, shaved, dressed, and brushed his teeth enjoying a little solitude in the bathroom - something he would never gain take for granted. After pausing for a second to catch his breath after his morning's exertions, he ambled downstairs for breakfast. He was starving.

"Ah there he is… good morning Admiral."

"Good morning Banda, how are you today?"

"Well, I am fine but more importantly, the reason we're all here after all, how are you?" she said, getting her tricorder out to carry out his first scan of the day.

"As you can see, I am feeling quite well Banda, thank you. Now, I'm going to plant myself in front of the replicator, I've been dreaming of breakfast all night."

"Hungry then?" She pocketed the tricorder after sending off the data to Medical.

"Quite hungry, yes." He said before turning to the replicator, "bacon, eggs, baguette, large portion, tea, Early Grey, hot."

"Got your appetite back, got yourself ready for the day… you'll have me out of a job soon enough." She said, smiling, truly glad that he was looking so much better.

He turned with his plate of food in one hand and stopped for a second trying to work out how to get his drink too, on his own. Banda, on seeing his predicament, reached for the drink wordlessly and carried it over to the table.

"Banda, and I mean this in the kindest possible way, I really hope so."

"Well, you'll have to put up with me on these reduced hours for a while yet… but seeing as you're ready and feeling good, I'll get out of your way. What's your plan for the day?"

"I'm going to meet Beverly on campus for lunch, catch up on a little reading… you know, nothing much."

"Don't forget to take your medication and make sure you get a nap in."

"Yes Sir. Understood." He laughed.

"Well then, I'll see you late afternoon. Have a good day now, and take care of yourself."

He nodded to her as he eyed his breakfast longingly, far too polite to start eating before she'd finished talking.

"Get to it, Admiral. Tuck in." she said squeezing his upper arm before she left.

It turned out his eyes had been far bigger than his belly. He recycled what was left of his over-enthusiastic morning meal then glanced about the room. Silence. Stillness. Just him…

He took the remains of his tea into the living room, ready to catch a break for a few moments before calling his brother and leaving a message for Riker.

The first he knew of the unscheduled nap to which he had succumbed, was the feeling of cold tea seeping onto his chest through his shirt. He startled awake sending the cup and saucer crashing to the floor from its apparent resting place on his chest.

"Merde!"

He stood too quickly, felt the blood rush to his feet and before he knew it, he'd collapsed, dizziness overwhelming his sense of which way up he was supposed to be. He fell fast, whacking his head on the glass coffee table in front of the sofa. He sat in a heap on the floor, blood dripping from his forehead down his face and onto the rug.

"Merde…" he said again.

He sat still for a moment, tried to let his head remember the concept of gravity. Let the room stop spinning before he attempted to get up again.

A few moments passed and finally his head stopped dripping, and he felt like he might stand a chance of regaining his feet. The floor was a mess, shards of the cup lay scattered around along with two halves of what was once a perfectly good saucer. His blood was already starting to dry, gradually turning to a brown shade, the rusty tang detectable in his nose.

He stood slowly, cautiously, keeping his head low in case he felt light-headed again. He stood for a second in place, not trusting himself to make the move toward the kitchen.

Beverly kept a med-kit in there, just in case. He padded through to the kitchen, reached into the cupboards, searching for the kit. He wanted to get this healed, didn't want anyone to make a fuss. He was fine, he was fine.

After a few minutes of searching, he found the kit. He took it to the table and opened it up looking for the dermal regenerator, and a dose of pain killer. He felt his head gingerly, one of the definite downsides of his lack of hair, his head was more vulnerable to knocks, and cuts. His fingers landed on the edge of the wound and he hissed, drew his fingers away.

He pressed a hypo to his neck, felt the sting as the dose entered his system, and within seconds, the pain was gone. Next he took the regenerator to the nearest mirror.

His face was a mess. Dried blood stained his cheek, and a pretty decent-sized wound stretched over his eyebrow and up toward his ear. He directed the head of the regenerator toward the top of the wound, clocked his hand trembling and pressed to start the healing process. He closed the wound in a shaky zigzag pattern and hoped against hope that he'd done a good enough job so that Beverly wouldn't notice. She didn't need to know about this… it was just a minor bump, nothing he hadn't sorted for himself in the past.

Once he'd cleaned himself up in the bathroom, he was starting to feel a little tired. He sat for a moment on the edge of the bed. Just a little rest, that's all he needed.

He was startled back to wakefulness by the sound of the front door opening. He froze, knew the broken pieces of the cup and saucer were still scattered across the floor, knew there was a decent amount of his blood staining the rug.

"Oh my god!"

Banda's voice echoed through the quiet of the house. He was relieved, with Banda at least there was a chance of him keeping this from Beverly.

"It's okay, I'm up here." He called to her, trying to muster as much strength to his voice as he could.

"Admiral? Admiral?!" she shouted, increasingly frantic.

"I'm fine." He called back, stopping when she finally reached the bedroom.

"Oh my god! What on earth happened?" she shouted, breathless now and rushing to him with a hypospray in one hand, and a phaser in the other.

"Don't mix those up." He said, trying to calm the situation with a little levity.

"At this moment, I'm not entirely sure which one would be better suited… what happened?" she said, adopting a security pose as she burst into the en suite bathroom, checking for intruders. Finding the room empty, she perched on the edge of the bed and reached forward to get a closer look.

"A little mishap, that's all…" he winced as she poked around the edge of the still apparent wound. "That hurts."

"I bet it does. Come on then, spill."

"Well, yes… 'spill' would seem an appropriate word. I uh… dropped a cup-"

"-and a saucer…" she interjected.

"Yes, and a saucer. Then I uh, stood a little too quickly and well…"

"You feinted."

"I did no such thing." He replied quickly. "I just lost my footing a little bit."

"Hmm, a little bit… go on." She said, rising to get a washcloth from the bathroom.

"Well, I uh, hit the corner of the coffee table as I went down."

"I see…" she said returning with a damp cloth, immediately wiping at the dried blood on his face. "And then you tried to heal it up yourself, am I right? Of all the…" she muttered wiping roughly at his face.

"Banda, really," he said, taking the phaser from her spare hand and checking it was switched off. "I'm fine, it's nothing to worry about."

"Now listen here Admiral, this is not 'nothing'… what you have here is a deep wound that you have patched up pretty badly I might add." She prodded at his head again, then pulled out her ever-present tricorder. "Now hold still… yes, just as I thought. Your blood pressure is very low, and your temperature is rising steadily even as I take this scan."

"Banda…"

"Now, lie back there and stay put."

"Banda…"

"It's a good job I came back… I thought the place had been burgled… all that blood! I mean, honestly… I thought you'd been attacked for pity's sake-"

"Banda." He said, finally managing to get a word in edgeways. "Please, I'm supposed to be meeting Beverly in…" he glanced at the chrono on the bedside table, "in five minutes. She's going to worry."

"Oh no you don't! I'm not falling in with some sort of plan to dupe her. You Admiral, are going to fess up… besides, we're going to have to swing by Medical and get this healed up properly. You need an autosuture and dermal graft. You really went down hard didn't you… lost your footing…honestly. If I didn't know you better…"

He flopped back against the pillows, knew he was defeated. He hadn't really stood a chance against this one, she was indefatigable in her ministrations.

"Now, stay there, rest. Let your body just have a minute to regulate. I bet you're already feeling sleepy aren't you? I'm going to clear up downstairs, then I'll come and get you and we'll go get you sorted out." She said busying herself with taking his shoes off, pulling the duvet up to his waist. She pressed a hypo to his arm with a good dose of the medication he needed to reduce the temperature.

"But… Beverly?"

"Oh and I'll be calling Doctor Crusher, don't you worry about that." Her voice faded as she walked away. He could hear her muttering to herself as she went downstairs, heard the clang and clash of a disgruntled woman cleaning up an almighty mess.

"Merde."

A few hours later and Jean-Luc was sitting on the edge of yet another biobed in the emergency room at Medical. He wasn't going to lay back… wasn't going to be here for long. No, he was perching on the edge because this was a quick visit: he just needed to get himself patched up then he'd be on his way. Admittedly, he had tried everything in his power to stop Banda from calling Beverly which had naturally failed.

"You might as well make yourself uncomfortable then?" teased Banda.

"I don't intend to be here for long… I'm fine Banda, really. Why don't you get home?"

"Oh no you don't… I know exactly what'll happen the minute I turn my back."

"Oh?" he said, raising an eyebrow and immediately remembering exactly why they were here, "Ow."

"Leave that alone… you'll split it open again." She said as she pulled his hand away from the wonky wound threatening to burst open.

Before she could explain to him how reckless with his own health he was being, a breathless Beverly came jogging in. As soon as she saw him, saw that he was upright and didn't appear to be in any immediate danger, the tense expression on her face relaxed revealing a smile – she was happy to see him.

"Jean-Luc, there you are. What happened?" she said laughing, she had immediately clocked the bad job he'd done of fixing his own head.

"I'm sure Banda has filled you in." he said, trying to maintain at least an air of authority. He did not enjoy being the object of amusement.

"Oh she did… I just wanted to hear you admit it…" she finished, as she poked at the edges of the barely held-together wound.

"Admit what?"

"That you can't do everything yourself and that there is some use for the medical profession after all?"

He crossed his arms, his bad mood threatening to make him say something he might regret. He opted for silence, it was often the best strategy when faced with overwhelmingly bad odds and fierce adversaries.

"Well, let me get that fixed up for you. If you're lucky, it won't scar."

A nurse came in with a tray of equipment and Beverly set to working on his forehead with an autosuture. It took a matter of seconds, then the visible evidence of his morning's contretemps faded into the past, a dim and distant memory.

"There, done. Easy." She said as she pressed a dermal patch over the wound.

"Easy for you to say."

"Yes Jean-Luc, easy for me to say… nothing to do with the years of training and experience at all." She finished, helping him off the bed.

He shrugged into his jacket and looked for help from Banda.

"Oh no you don't Admiral… you won't have any help from me. Listen to this woman, she's absolutely right."

Beverly was far more gracious than he. She kissed him on the cheek tenderly, then hooked her hand through his arm, "Come on, let's go home."