"Doctor Crusher?" He tentatively called out.

Silence.

Picard tried to make his way into the room, but he soon discovered that the floor was covered with objects of all sorts that had been tossed and strewn around. He looked around once again, trying to scan the room, but there were too many dark niches.

"Doctor?" He called out again.

"I am not your doctor." Suddenly, a low voice was heard coming from a dark corner.

Picard saw a movement coming from the direction of the sofa and slowly, he moved forward. There was a figure huddled on the floor between a broken vase and the side of the couch, in the darkness. He slowly approached her. "Doctor, is that you?"

"Go away", the figure simply said.

"I can't."

"I can't have you here, just… leave."

Picard crouched, keeping some distance between him and the other Beverly. "Why can't you?"

A beat. Silence.

"You remind me of him."

He could see her lower body, her knees drawn up against her chest and her back resting against the wall, but her face was in shadow.

He sat down in front of her, keeping the same distance so as not to crowd her. "I can't just leave you here alone."

"What do you care? I'm not a member of your crew." She spoke the words harshly

Suddenly, Picard remembered a similar instance from his past. The setting was different, though, there was more light.

"Beverly."

She stopped what she was doing and turned around sharply. "What."

"Beverly, please."

She scoffed and turned around again, busying herself. They were in a spacious room with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. They were at Starfleet Headquarters.

She spoke up angrily, "I have to get this done before Wesley gets here, if you don't mind, so please leave."

To tell the truth, he hadn't expected such a vehement reaction to his presence. He circled the table she was banging at and saw what she was doing. She was collecting items in a box quite fiercely. He spotted the title of a book she had just picked up: "How to advance your career through marriage". He reached out to her.

"Don't touch me!" She recoiled. "I'm busy."

Not once had she met his eyes.

"Beverly… he was my best friend."

This time she fixed him with a death glare that would've made a Klingon warrior shrink. "He was my husband!" She shouted. "And now I really have to do this, so please-"

Before she could finish the sentence, Picard suddenly took a step forward and circled her with his arms. At first, she protested, trying to push him away.

"I am not letting you do this by yourself, I am not leaving you alone. This is not fair, I know", he whispered in her hair, holding her tight. Suddenly, she stopped struggling and went deadly still in his arms, and the next thing he heard was a strangled sob, muffled by his sweater. "I know", he repeated.

"You obviously need someone to talk to", Picard pushed on.

All of a sudden, she leaned forward, into the light. "Talk about what, exactly? What can I possibly accomplish by talking? And to whom should I talk? To you?" She scoffed.

He was taken aback by her appearance. Her usually blue eyes burned with a defeated rage, tears had obviously left dry trails on her cheeks and her long hair was in knots.

Noticing his scrutiny of her, she whispered once again, "Go away". As she made to retreat into the darkness, she raised a hand to move her hair away from her face. Just then, he noticed something glistening on her fingers.

"Is that blood?" He asked, alarmed.

As if truly seeing her fingers for the first time, she looked at her hand, mesmerized. "You're right", she acknowledged. "Destroying your own furniture will do that to you", she added with a bitter smile.

Picard quickly got up from his position on the floor. "We have to get you to Sickbay."

"There's no need. I'll just replicate a dermal regenerator." She got up as well, and made a move towards the replicator.

The captain, though, beat her to it. "Let me."

He came back with a dermal regenerator, holding out his left hand.

After a moment of hesitation, she acquiesced and slipped her right hand in his. As he ran the tool over her bruises, she felt the stinging sensation fade away. As she watched him tenderly tending to her scratches, she felt something, something that had been…

"Stop that." As if she had been burned, she tore her hand away.

Picard was startled. "I'm sorry, did I hurt you?"

She was starting to feel constricted, the air insufficient to sustain her lungs. The walls were closing in and she was powerless to stop them. "Yes", she swallowed. "Yes, you did. You hurt me… when you let the Enterprise be destroyed. You hurt me… when you died. You hurt me… when you let my son…" Her throat closed, and she let out a strangled sob. She felt her midsection starting to burn and she doubled over, holding her belly. "Oh, God…" She was hyperventilating and unable to focus on breathing. She was dimly aware of the other Jean-Luc reaching out to her, but she never felt his touch, the last sensation she felt was tasting the salt of her tears.

ooOoo

Jean-Luc Picard sensed what was about to happen before he saw it, and extended his arms just when the other Beverly collapsed, catching her before her head reached the ground.

"Why are you so angry with me all the time?"

The stage had changed, but the players were the same. They were now on Starfleet grounds, namely in the middle of the park they used to go to with Jack when they were still following courses at the Academy, and they were alone.

Her hair whipped when she turned around abruptly, stopping in her tracks. Her eyes flashed dangerously. "Are you really asking? You got some guts!" Her face scrunched up in disgust. She started walking away again, but his hand shot out and grabbed her arm.

"No, Beverly, this ends now. It's been two weeks and you're still treating me like a piece of shit! I wanna know why."

She shook off his hand and planted her feet in front of him. "Oh, you wanna know why, huh? Maybe it's the fact that my husband died because of you!"

He was shocked at that. She had been hostile towards him after it happened and he had imagined it had something to do with this, but hearing her say it with such contempt was another matter entirely.

She continued, "You had the power to save him, but you didn't, and now it's too fucking late!" Tears of rage were gathering in her eyes. "Yes, Admiral Bassett told me how it all went, how you chose to leave him down there. Why didn't you tell me?"

Picard lowered his gaze to the ground, then looked back up into his friend's eyes. He looked defeated. "It's true, I didn't tell you. And I'm sorry…"

"Sorry!" She repeated, incredulous. "Do you have any idea-"

"I do, as a matter of fact!" He burst out loud. "He was my best friend! And I got him killed! Do you understand that? It's my fault my best friend died, it should've been me, it should've always been me! I've got no wife nor children, no one would've missed me and everyone would've kept living their happy life!" He turned around, so she couldn't see that his eyes were swimming in tears.

While he was wiping them away, he suddenly felt a gentle hand touch his back, the fingers spreading open.

"Hey…", Beverly softly said. "I would've missed you."

Picard opened his eyes when he heard a groan. He had been resting on the sofa, his head leaning on the back of the couch and the other Beverly's head in his lap. "Welcome back", he simply said when her eyes opened and focused on his face.

She assumed a sitting position with a grimace. "How long was I out?", she asked, rubbing the back of her neck.

"I'd say approximately ten minutes."

She took in the state of her living room. The lights had been turned on and the destruction of the place was now evident: vases had been knocked to the floor, the painting hanging above the armchair had been slashed, and the armchair itself looked like it had been stabbed, some of the stuffing spilling out. The floor was littered with dead leaves, shards of glass and soil that had spilled from the potted plant standing in the corner. She imagined she saw pieces of her broken spirit in there as well.

"I'm sorry about all this."

"It's quite alright."

She got up. "I should probably clean up."

Picard got up as well. "I'll help, if you don't mind."

This was easy. This was something she could concentrate on piece by piece, step by step, and as she worked with this other Jean-Luc, the reality of her predicament was forgotten for awhile.