Two weeks later, the U.S.S. Stargazer shipped out, without Jack Crusher. He had gone to Starfleet and filed a formal request for reassignment, citing irreconcilable differences between himself and his commanding officer. The truth was, the two men hadn't spoken to each other since that night. Starfleet had frowned upon so late a transfer, but Crusher had been insistent. He had called in ever favor he ever had, not to mention damn near everyone who had ever been considered anyone in the Fleet. Eventually, the job was done, and Walker Keel had been reassigned as Jean Luc Picard's first officer.
Jack had taken an assignment on a starbase in a sector near Earth that allowed him to return home often. At first, determined to save his marriage with Beverly, he had made the short trip weekly. Since That Night, their relationship was spiraling downward faster and faster. She had grown distant and quiet, and, wrought with frustration, he cut himself off from her. As the months crawled by, he came home less and less often. When he was there, they seldom spoke and he slept on the couch. Eventually, he buried himself so deeply in his career that he stopped seeing her all together.
Beverly, for her part did little to save the marriage. She immersed herself deeply in her studies, trying to defer the turmoil her personal life was giving her into energy to excel in her professional life. She did little but study, work, eat and sleep. There was nothing else left for her. She kept in touch with Walker and Picard, though Jack had become estranged to Keel as well. Through the grapevine, he had discovered that Walker had known about Picard's feelings for Beverly, and Jack could never again look at either of the two men he had once called his best friends without affixing blame on them for destroying the life he had worked so hard to build.
Over time, Beverly developed a relationship with Picard that was deeper and more profound than any she had ever shared with Jack. He visited her on leave, and was there to comfort her and slowly take the place of the love she had lost. They discussed sharing their life together. Picard had only one thing stopping him. The guilt.
Walker was there for them all when Jack and Beverly divorced. He hugged Beverly and reassured her that these things happen. "Some things are meant to be," he said, glancing at Picard, "And other things that seem to be are not." He looked at Jack, whose face was despondent and detached, as though he were in a place where pain did not exist, but neither did anything else. He clapped Picard on the back briefly and told him to stop dallying around and do what he had wanted to for years. "You don't be guilty, Jean Luc," he insisted in the same way he always did. "If they had wanted to fix things, they could have. They gave up before they ever really even tried. They made that choice, not you." Last, he walked up to Jack. "I'm sorry," he said.
"So am I," said Jack
"Don't be," Walker said. "All things work for good. That's the thing with fate. You thought something was right for you, but this is life's way of telling you there's something better." Jack nodded, but said nothing. The two never spoke again, but Crusher never forgot what he said.
Two months later Walker Keel was killed on an away mission.
Jean Luc Picard, who had never lost a friend while in command, couldn't find it within his heart to forgive himself. He began to look at his career in a different light, and think about a simpler life. Eventually, he left the stars and settled back in LaBarre to raise a family with his new wife, Beverly.
Beverly went into private practice near the Picard family home after finishing Medical School. She never quite forgave Starfleet for stealing from her both her first husband and a good friend. Though she never said anything against the organization she never again had any involvement with it.
As for Jack Crusher, he continued on with his life. He worked on that same starbase for years and years, drank too much synthohol, spent too much money and had too many wild affairs. Sometimes, though, as his life became more and more the stagnant one of a man who could have been something if only he had tried, he would remember another time and place that he had lost long ago. He told himself he never really loved her anyway. He told himself that, ultimately, Jean Luc Picard had taken nothing from him, and he reasoned that he had never wanted a family anyway. Then he reached for the bottle again.