Chapter 11

Jean-Luc wasn't hungry. This was normal for him during stressful times, but he knew he should at least go through the motions of eating breakfast. Normally he ate alone and quickly, however, this morning he didn't want to be alone in his quarters, replaying the same disturbing images in his head. The sudden mysterious death of his friend Kor, and then the violent murders of Kor's family had left him cold and disturbed.

His sudden need to be near other human beings was unfulfilled when he entered the cafeteria and found it nearly devoid of life. Now as a few more officers trickled in, he sat not quite, but nearly alone, trying to eliminate chaotic thoughts from his mind.

He needed to pull himself together before they reached the former Federation colonies. He had left the away team assignments primarily to Zev, although he of course could override her decisions if necessary. Zev was as solid an officer as he had ever served with, which is not to say that they never disagreed. He could count on her to take on any responsibility. Once they had been colleagues of the same rank, highly competitive, but always with mutual admiration and respect. And yet now she seemed content being his first officer. The point was, he could count on her to focus on the business at hand.

Overtired and distracted, he dropped his forehead into his hands. He rubbed his temple which had been struck violently by a blunt, metal weapon just about 24 hours or so before. He should have had a noticeable bump...rather, he should have been dead. But due to the intervention of the entities that had introduced themselves to him as the "Q", he was still alive and at least felt unscathed.

He hadn't mentioned any of his injuries to Command or to his crew. There was no way to sugarcoat it for himself any longer; he was simply lying. To mention to his superiors that he was being tracked by an apparently omnipotent race of entities who sometimes interfered with his role as captain of the Stargazer, could spell the end of his career. But that was the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is that this revelation could place the people he cared about in danger.

He was an explorer and could not deny that he was intrigued by the Q. But he also feared them and their apparent fascination with him, which he could not understand. Why him? Perhaps if he continued to humor them they would eventually leave him alone. Still, part of him doubted that they ever would, and this feeling left him cold and isolated. There was a sentiment that was extremely callous underlying the Q and their interactions with him. Was he nothing more than an experiment to them?

Beverly hesitated next to the nearly empty table, holding her breakfast tray in her hands. Captain Picard's head was bowed and his forehead was in his hands in some kind of meditation. She considered walking away, but since the exam in sickbay, she had been plagued with doubts as well as her persistent curiosity. Had her eyes or the scanner deceived her? Had his cardiac implant really been repaired? Finally, she found her voice. "Captain, may I sit down?"

His head jerked upward, and she winced slightly at this extreme reaction.

He appeared in a daze for a moment. "Yes, Doctor. Yes, of course. I was just leaving."

"Were you just leaving or were you taking a cat nap?"

"A what?"

"A cat nap, sir." She felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth as she settled into the chair opposite to him.

To her surprise, he laughed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Perhaps I was. But now that my breakfast is finished-"

"You call that a breakfast?" She pointed accusingly at his plate on which was displayed a single banana peel.

"Yes." He took a sip of his tea and shrugged, watching with feigned disinterest as she began to eat her substantial breakfast. It was then that he realized that he wished he could spend more time with Beverly, and at the same time he now fully realized why he should not. The last time he had felt so obsessed with a woman, he had been much younger. And still, there had never been this feeling. Beverly Howard was making him question everything.

Her next question jolted him back to the present.

"What happened to you down there?"

There was medical curiosity in her voice, but also a concern, which he brushed off as being simply professional.

For the first time, he considered telling her the truth about what had happened to him; what had been happening to him for years. But instead, he just blinked, and said, "Nothing."

She leaned in as though about to confide in him, but her voice was laced with disbelief. "You left the ship with a defective cardiac implant and returned with it operating probably better than ever. So obviously something happened to you."

He crossed his arms and sat back in his chair, put off by both hersharp tone and close proximity.

"Everyone else may let you off easy, Captain, but I won't. Not about this."

He glared at her. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Reminding herself that she was speaking to her commanding officer, she tried to measure her tone a bit more. "It means, sir, that before you went on your away mission you had a defective heart and you were my patient. I had laid out every specific course of treatment for you. When you returned just hours later, your heart defect was gone, and you are still my patient, and so I need to get to the bottom of what happened to you. That's what I mean."

"And so what are you asking of me?"

"I need you to let me run a few more scans. It won't take more than 30 minutes, and then I can get back to you with the results."

He could read the confidence and determination in her expression and felt even more drawn to her.

He steeled himself. What if she found something...something that connected him to the Q? What if she found something that proved an outside species had tampered with him? Perhaps the awareness of his colleagues would cause the Q to decide to let him be. And yet, he wouldn't have broken one of the rules the Q had placed on him-he wouldn't directly tell anyone.

He crossed his arms. "Very well," he finally allowed. "I'll submit to your medical scans, Doctor."

She looked more than surprised. "Oh! Well, okay. Yes, I am glad to hear you are coming around to my way of thinking on this."

He smiled slightly. "I wouldn't go that far. I'm simply attempting to be a compliant patient."

Her eyebrows shot up. If only Dr. Schreiber could see us now.

Sensing some vulnerability in him finally, she decided to press her luck. "Jack is convinced you ran into some kind of trouble down on Kronos..."

His mild disposition abruptly disappeared. "Jack hasn't been briefed on my away mission. Even if he had been he's not authorized to share that information with you," he snapped.

Jean-Luc immediately cursed himself silently. The words had exited his mouth more harshly than he had intended. Jack was of course his friend, and he was learning to work with Beverly Howard as a new colleague, yet he struggled to relate to them as a couple. All it had taken for him to have a negative emotional reaction was her brief mention of Jack. He needed to be more careful.

She was watching him with a strange expression as though considering whether she should continue to voice her thoughts out loud. And yet, he had no doubt that she would.

"You probably already know this...but Jack is a very sensitive guy."

He just stared back at her in silence.

She pursed her lips at his non-reaction.

"He cares about you and is worried that you're shutting him out."

Jean-Luc tapped his fingertips on the table, not feeling entirely comfortable with the direction of this conversation. Finally, he looked back up at her. "Beverly...I don't know what you want me to say," he said quietly.

She shook her head. "You don't have to say anything. I'm not trying to get into your personal business, but I think you should know that Jack thinks you're still mad at him for the comments he made about T'Pel."

"What comments?"

She laughed. "At the poker game...remember?"

He rubbed his chin. "If Jack has any concerns, he can certainly come and discuss them with me." He looked at her directly. "I don't engage in anything other than professional relationships with members of my crew," he added in a firm, almost rehearsed manner. "And even if I did...I wouldn't discuss those relationships."

"I see," she said, not surprised by his view, but surprised that he would feel the need to express this to her.

Suddenly his coolness broke a bit. "And I don't respond to ship-wide rumors," he clarified. "Once you've spent a little more time onboard starships, you will see what I mean."

"I respect your view, Captain. But I hope that doesn't mean you disapprove of Jack and me for pursuing a personal relationship as we pursue our respective careers."

An eerie quiet fell between them.

All Jean-Luc really heard was, "...you disapprove of Jack and me..." He shrugged and grabbed for his food tray. "We don't need to discuss this; or at least...I'd rather not," he said honestly. He got to his feet, now eager to put some distance between himself and Beverly Howard.

Beverly flushed and she looked as though she was going to give him a piece of her mind when her eyes darted from his face to someone who had just entered the room.

Later he would lay awake at night, wondering just what she would have said and replaying the slight widening of her eyes, and wondering whether it meant anything.

She clamped her mouth shut, as Jean-Luc followed her gaze and turned his head to see who was approaching.

He remained standing stiffly, holding his food tray as T'Pel approached with a single cup of green tea in her hand.

"Good morning, Captain...Doctor Howard," said the Vulcan officer, who sat down gracefully at the table next to where Picard had been sitting.

Beverly shot up out of her seat. "Good morning, Commander. I was just leaving."

T'Pel nodded at her. "Very well, Doctor. Perhaps we will share breakfast another time."

Beverly laughed nervously. "Of course! Um...I will see you both at the briefing later," she said glancing at the Captain before moving swiftly away through the room.

Jean-Luc sat back down very slowly trying to keep from watching Beverly Howard's swift departure.

T'Pel sipped her tea and then put it down carefully. She turned halfway to look at him and got right to the point. "You have not responded to my messages, Captain."

He cleared his throat. "My apologies, Commander. I have been a bit preoccupied."

"Indeed. We have not spoken more than a few words since you returned from Kronos. I was concerned for your welfare, but you look physically well."

"Thank you-I mean, yes. Yes, I am well," he trailed off awkwardly. She was concerned for him?

"Did your visit to Kronos achieve what you had intended?"

The sensation of Kor's dying sister clutching him with a desperate plea to avenge her family became astonishingly real again. "No," he said quietly, feeling T'Pel's gaze upon him.

"I recognize that your mission was personal in nature...so I will not inquire further unless you choose to speak of it again."

"Thank you."

T'Pel shifted to look at him directly. Her dark brown eyes which were typically calm and self-assured, now held something new. Perhaps a confusion or uncertainty. "Captain...my concern for your welfare has caused me some...disturbance," she finished after seemingly searching for the correct word.

"Oh?"

"To experience feelings of this kind, is not logical."

He adjusted his collar which had begun itching him. Have courage, Picard. "T'Pel...what happened in the gym that day...when we kissed. I apologize."

"It was just as much my conduct as it was yours, Captain."

"I truly respect you," he said. "I hope that you know that."

"Of course."

"I have a policy of not...engaging in personal relationships with my officers. Unfortunately, it has been a struggle for me recently, when I interact with you off-duty."

"Do you wish to stop interacting with me?"

"I uh...it's not that simple."

"Are you sexually attracted to me, Jean-Luc?"

His mouth hung open for a moment. he glanced around them but didn't see anyone within earshot. He took a deep breath. "Yes," he admitted and surprisingly felt an immediate sense of relief.

"Vulcans must mate every seven years," said T'Pel. "It is what we call the pon farr. To manage this most Vulcans are wed to a member of the opposite sex during childhood, and many times they are bonded telepathically."

He had heard of the rituals of pon farr, but didn't really understand any of it, nor had he felt it important to learn until now. "I see."

"This was not my experience," she continued. "My parents wished me to be a Shara, or priest. Therefore, I was never betrothed in marriage to anyone, which is what I continue to prefer. However, that does not change the pon farr, which is intrinsically part of being Vulcan. A Vulcan may partner with anyone they wish but still must learn to manage the pon farr. This is different than human sexuality, is it not?"

"Human sexuality is quite...complicated," he admitted, unsure of how he had gotten into this conversation and less sure of how he would escape it.

"Indeed," said T'Pel. "I request that we continue this conversation later," she said frankly.

Before he could think of something to say in response, the wall terminal beeped. "Captain to the bridge."

"I don't like being kept in the dark," Zev declared, coming out of seemingly nowhere to fall into step with Picard.

Picard had trouble getting ahead of the long-legged Andorian and her quick footsteps, and so he finally halted. "Neither do I," he said tightly. They were alone in the corridor, and so he said, "Out with it, Zev."

"I just came out of an intelligence briefing by Starfleet Security. Command is either failing or has refused to provide us with any helpful information about this colony we are on our way to visit, Captain. I need more information to adequately prepare for our mission."

Picard stepped to the side, letting Zev pass in front of him through the open door. "Then information you shall have," he said, following her into the briefing room. .

Suddenly, she whirled around and faced him.. "Are you keeping me in the dark, Captain? What really happened to you down on Kronos?"