AN: Here we are, another piece to this one.

I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

"Guinan—you know something…" Beverly said.

The barely-there smile that Guinan gave her was clearly meant to comfort her, but it didn't. All it did was convince Beverly a little more that El-Aurians, a species about which they knew truly very little, were even more other-worldly than Beverly had suspected until now.

Beverly had called Guinan to sickbay to ask her about what she might know about this Nexus, about Jean-Luc, and about anything that might be happening or be about to happen. To her surprise, Guinan had responded very quickly to her request because she was already en route to sickbay.

"Please, Guinan," Beverly said, gently pulling the woman toward a quiet corner of sickbay where their whispered conversation wouldn't draw any attention. "Tell me what you know so that we can prepare."

"I can't predict the future, Doctor Crusher," Guinan said.

"But you know something…" Beverly said.

Beverly felt frustration bubble up inside of her when Guinan made a somewhat noncommittal face—clearly trying to decide if she wanted to say anything to Beverly or not. Guinan was extremely secretive about her race, her abilities, her past, and anything else that might be considered personal knowledge. She shared bits and pieces, mostly to make people feel comfortable in her presence, but she never really shared too much of consequence.

"Guinan…" Beverly pressed. Guinan visibly softened.

"I have—sensations…perceptions," Guinan said softly, the almost ever-present hint of a smile on her features. "Perhaps that's the best way to explain it. I sense things."

"Like Counselor Troi?" Beverly asked.

"I am not entirely without empathic abilities," Guinan said, neither truly confirming or denying her abilities. "But—it's something more. It's something different. It's not just emotions. It's…"

"Cosmic disturbances?" Beverly asked, swallowing back amusement at her own attempt to fill in the silence that followed when Guinan broke off, choosing the end to her statement before she'd ever stated anything of actual importance. Guinan shrugged slightly and gently nodded her head. Again, it was a gesture that neither fully confirmed nor denied what Beverly had said. "Guinan—will Captain Picard be successful at stopping Soran? Do we need to move the Enterprise farther away from this Nexus?"

Beverly was hot. She was dizzyingly hot—and then she wasn't. All over the ship, people were complaining of symptoms that she was simply starting to think of as symptoms belonging to some kind of Nexus-induced fever. She could run tests all day long, but she didn't have the time or space to really think about what was happening or to truly analyze the tests that she ran to any useful outcome. She didn't have the time to run effective tests with non-effected individuals. She had no way of finding anything to treat anyone, because she couldn't begin to understand what was happening to any of them, and she didn't have time to figure it out.

Since her belief was, without a doubt, that her responsibility was to first do no harm to those who came to her with varying complaints, she comforted them and offered them the least invasive ways to solve their problems that she could—something which bothered some of those who came to her seeking a hypospray rather than the practices of more traditional healers.

"The future isn't a straight line," Guinan said. "Time isn't a straight line. It's more like—a kaleidoscope. All the possibilities constantly fall in and out of place. Nothing is permanent. Nothing is exact. A piece falls into place only to shift again a moment later, with the slightest movement. The picture isn't clear for anyone."

"But it's clearer for you. Is that right?" Beverly asked.

Guinan held her hand, and she held Beverly's eyes with her own. She shook her head.

"No," Guinan said. "Only the pieces are more visible to me."

She looked at Beverly's hand as she held it in her own. She squeezed it and brought her eyes back to Beverly's. She smiled at her. This time, it was a little more sincere than it had been before.

"There's nothing we can do to help Captain Picard at this point," Guinan said. "Whether or not he's successful depends entirely on him."

"The Enterprise?" Beverly asked. Guinan narrowed her eyes, and Beverly wondered if she did see some kind of kaleidoscope shifting and turning, colored pieces falling into place only to shift somewhere else, inside her mind.

"We won't know until we know," Guinan said. "I can't predict the future. But—I'll stay with you, just in case you should need my help."

111

Between the internal heat that the proximity to the Nexus seemed to be causing everyone, the loud blare of the red alert claxons, the yelling of voices trying to convey messages over the din of screaming and crying coming from children and some grown civilians aboard who were less practiced at dealing with emergencies, and the overwhelming stench of sweat and anxiety, Beverly felt her senses were bombarded with input.

When this was done—and she had no way of knowing when that might be—and if she survived, she knew there would be a time where she would simply have to sit. She would have to digest this—all of this.

For now, though, there was nothing but action, and she pushed down everything else.

It had been impossible to see exactly what was happening between Jean-Luc and Soran on the surface of the planet. What they had seen, though, was the explosion of the star. As soon as it had become evident that the star was going to explode, they'd tried to start moving the Enterprise, but it had all happened too quickly, and their reactions were too slow, even though they'd been as fast as they could possibly be. The shockwave had rocked the ship to the point that it had felt as though she would come apart. Beverly, like many others, had ended up hard against the floor, trying to keep their senses enough to react as effectively as possible.

From the shockwave alone, Beverly's job would have been cut out for her. There were, without a doubt, injuries everywhere, but there wasn't time to properly deal with them.

Immediately after the shockwave, there was the first sounding of the red alert claxons and the announcement that the warp core was damaged. A breach was imminent. The only way to save them was to separate. They had to evacuate to the saucer section.

Beverly helped move as many people as she could. She grabbed for children, she passed babies from one set of arms to another. She supported injured people and tried to stabilize those that were hurt enough to move them to safety. She tried to comfort those that were never Starfleet trained for these kinds of emergencies, while also doing her best to keep them from slowing anyone else down.

Beverly knew well that a warp core breach, if they didn't separate, would kill them. She knew that the crash that followed the separation could kill them. She knew, too, that the panic that people were feeling at this moment could be fatal.

And it felt like it was her job to try to keep all of that from happening. It was her job to see that as many people survived this as possible.

As soon as the saucer section was completely sealed off and the separation was complete, Beverly felt the change in the stability of the ship beneath her feet. The world around her, because Enterprise was the entirety of her world at the moment, rocked violently. The vibrations that came up through her feet were enough to make her teeth chatter. The loss she felt over Jean-Luc—sure that something must have happened to him to make this their reality—and the fear that she felt as a living, breathing human being facing what could likely be her death—were all emotions that had to be pushed down deep inside her.

"Get close!" She commanded as she moved up and down the corridors, making sure that people were as safe as she could make them. "Get down! As low to the ground as you can get! If you have children, help guard their heads! Try go guard your own against impact! When we hit, it will be hard, but stay low! It'll be OK! Relax as much as you can! You can help protect yourself from injury if you relax! It will be OK!"

She wished that she could truly guarantee the things she said—things that she had to say to keep panic from taking over. As tightly as people were packed together in different places, panic breaking out would almost absolutely ensure that there were more injuries and death than there had already been or would be from just the crash that was coming.

Seeing them like this, her heart ached that she couldn't protect them more.

Someone got sick. Beverly heard the retching. She heard the complaints of people around whoever had gotten sick. The complaints came from those who were already nearly hysterical over the whole situation—people who had started to calm down simply from physical and emotional fatigue, and the simple inability to maintain a long-term and constant state of near-panic.

The floor beneath Beverly's feet rolled and rocked, and her stomach responded, uncomfortable with the fact that it felt like that very floor might simply buckle and give way. They were moving impossibly fast through changing atmospheres as they headed for the planet. Beverly was the only one still on her feet in the area. She'd danced when she was younger, and she still did to keep fit. It was one of her favorite ways to blow off some steam and relieve stress on the holodeck, but she kept her programs a secret as much as she could. Her balance had always been quite good, and it was the reason that she hadn't already hit the ground against her will. She was aware of the subtle changes in the deck floor as she moved her body to keep her footing and made a few final rounds to try to help people assume correct positions and protect their children from the impact that was coming.

Hands grabbed for Beverly as she passed by. They tugged at her uniform. They caught her feet, ankles, and legs. She tried to keep to the middle of the bodies to keep from being pulled into anyone. They somehow believed that their proximity to the Chief Medical Officer would somehow keep them from being killed. Beverly seemed to be the only one that knew that she was just as mortal as the rest of them.

Other officers, helping her deal with the families who didn't have the same "face death boldly" training that they had, did their best to help her keep everyone calm.

The hands that finally found real purchase on Beverly moved from her leg, where they slowed her movement, to her arm. She found, with some surprise, that she couldn't shake the hands off. They were stronger than the others had been.

She realized it was Guinan. On her knees, with enough room against the wall for the both of them, the El-Aurian held tightly to Beverly.

"Doctor Crusher—you have to get down. We're about to make impact. You can't help anyone, when they need it most, if you don't survive."

Beverly's stomach tightened. She might have argued with anyone else that there was probably still time—that they had no way of knowing when impact was coming beyond the computer's reminder to brace for impact, which was less than absolutely precise. She wasn't going to argue with Guinan, though—not when the El-Aurian seemed mostly calm and absolutely certain of what she was saying.

Beverly moved into the space that Guinan had somehow made for her, and Beverly felt Guinan curl against her in an almost protective stance—the same, really, that Beverly had suggested for the mothers with their children, and for those that were helping mothers who had several children to protect.

The feeling of Guinan's proximity, despite the heat that Beverly felt radiating out from her body, was comforting in an inexplicable way. Beverly closed her eyes and braced for impact just as the first hard proof of it came, jarring every bone in her body, and sending everyone around them into reactions that indicated they were dealing with their fear in whatever way they naturally felt compelled to deal with the possible approach of death.

Beverly kept her eyes closed. She focused on her breathing. She focused on remaining as relaxed as possible so that the impact would pass through her body, rather than causing unnecessary injury. She focused on the unexpected comfort that Guinan's proximity offered.

She did her best to ignore that the feeling of crashing into the unknown seemed to drag on for an eternity when, without a doubt, it probably passed in the blink of an eye.

She smiled to herself as Guinan's earlier imagery came back to her brain while it searched for a way to distract itself. The kaleidoscope pieces slid into position and waited for the next turn.