Captain Crusher studied the communiqué from Command, frowning as she did so. They were to divert from their current assignment in the Kaleb Sector to supplement the Starfleet psychiatric center on Betazed. According to the mission brief both the Titan and Enterprise had been involved in the liberation of over 1500 people who had been held captive on Dentarus IV for several years. A fair portion of them had actually been there since the last few months of the Dominion War. The Hippocrates, her ship, was being requested because of the expertise of several of her crew. Of the eleven doctors she had on board the research vessel, eight of them were Vulcan and two were Betazoid. Every one of those physicians had been specifically mentioned because of their telepathic abilities and history of dealing with psychic trauma. She also had two nurses mentioned who were also Betazoid, both of whom had been resistance fighters on Betazed before joining the Fleet.
The reason they had been cited only became apparent after she had read the account of what had happened. Not only were these people suffering from acute post-traumatic stress disorder, every one of them were now telepathic. They were exposed to some sort of retrovirus, which had induced telepathy in the non-telepaths and heightened the ability of those who had skill to begin with. While her team was aiding the recovery effort, Starfleet was asking her to research the virus herself.
Other than her assignment and the bare minimum of background there was very little information to go on. Generally she was at least told of the circumstances where a victim of something as traumatic as this had been found. This time there wasn't any more information other than initial diagnosis and where they were found. This was not something that settled well with Beverly Crusher. Either Command did not want her to know or they didn't know themselves. If it were the former, she would deal with the frustration and be done with it. However the latter option did not sit well. After all the years of serving with them she knew that both Will and Jean Luc were very meticulous in writing their mission logs. If both of them had chosen not to include most of the details of this little jaunt of theirs, it had to be one hell of a mission.
Well, I guess I need to get this place moving. Then as soon as I do that I need to call that would be boyfriend of mine and get whatever hadn't been put in those logs. I have a feeling that this is not a case of my not needing to know. And so help me if the two of them managed to hurt themselves I will give them even more to feel pain over.
"Lieutenant Morgan." Beverly waited for the response.
"Yes Captain."
"Get everyone back here on the double. Tell them they have one hour. Anyone that doesn't make it had better talk to me. Any one that is non-essential will have to find their own was home if they truly have a good reason to stay at the moment. We have new orders. As soon as everyone in on board, set a course for Betazed, warp 8."
"Aye sir."
Now to call Jean Luc and see what he got himself into this time.
Beverly knew that the Titan and Enterprise were working together. Last week, Geordi had called to inform her that Data had left a Will and that he had wanted it executed as close to a year after his death as possible. What he wanted to know is if she could come. She couldn't leave the ship at the moment, so she gave him her blessings to go ahead. That was the only thing that she knew. Settling her thoughts into the background she began to see if she could even reach them. "Computer, are we in communications range of the Enterprise?"
"Affirmative."
"Open a channel. Enterprise, this is the Hippocrates. Please respond." She patiently waited.
Lt. Comdr. Buckley greeted the doctor. "Captain Crusher, a pleasure to hear from you. I had a feeling you would be calling us. What can we do for you?"
"Well, I guess you could say that this isn't just a social call. Is the Captain available?"
"He's in the ready room. Let me page him."
"It only took a few seconds for Jean Luc to answer her. "Beverly, let me guess. Command took my suggestion and sent for the Hippocrates."
"At least I now know how they decided to send for a ship that is almost four days away to deal with trauma victims. Now would you care to tell me what you and Will did this time? I will remind you that I quit patching up the two of you a year ago."
"This time you do have to patch either of us up. Physically both of us are fine. Will however is under the care of one Lwaxana Troi for the next several days, if you can believe that one."
That was a very interesting development. Unless it had to do with the virus she was supposed to research, she could not comprehend why Will's mother-in-law would be tending to him. "Since I am now thoroughly confused, why don't you start from the beginning and don't just stick to what I think was probably a very edited mission log."
"Ok. It all started when the Fleet asked me to look for a single shuttle that had vanished in a little backwater system called Dentarus. The pilot's name was Lwaxana Troi. The Fleet agreed to my request to have Will aide in the rescue attempt. According to command she had reported a telepathic distress call immediately before they lost contact.
"Well, she shows back up on a Romulan warbird, the same ship that Will was supposed to meet at DS9. Once she fills us in on the details we investigate. The next thing significant that happens is Deanna comes up with an idea to send an away team down to the surface to see what the man has. Now Will overrides both his first and second officers and goes on the mission. The team consisted of Deanna, Commander LeBeau, himself, and a geologist that he gave a field commission to in order to keep me from stopping a civilian from going into a hostile situation. Will wasn't even the Commander of the mission, Deanna was."
"I can see Will doing both of those things." Beverly interjected.
Picard chuckled at her amusement. "Anyway, to make a long story shorter. The mission goes sour. Will is captured in an ambush and LeBeau stays behind to look for him. Deanna and Heath, the geologist, make it back. In the process however, Deanna destroys a runabout."
He waited as she absorbed the situation. Truthfully he expected her to say something about Deanna's piloting skills. After all he hadn't been able to resist a remark about it himself.
When she simply looked expectantly at him he continued. "When Deanna returned she enacted a battle field transfer and listed the two of them as missing in action. Then she proceeds to come up with this hair-brained scheme to get them back. Captain Troi suggested that we play to this man's meglomania, keeping him occupied enough to get a security team down there to retrieve not only Will but what she was now sure was over a thousand people that were being held in the facility."
"You say that with admiration, but you called it hair brained. What did Deanna come up with?"
"Well, to just look at it you would think that it was crazy. According to the profile the Tal-Shiar has on the man, he is a hyper intelligent person with grandiose plans of power. Deanna's suggestion was to use his greed to create a telepathic army and make him doubt his self-given sense of authority. The idea was to open negotiations with letting him think that the Federation had beaten him on creating telepathic troops. The hitch was that between both ships we only had four true telepaths: Deanna, her mother, Alana and Dr. M'Lyrae. Now, M'Lyrae is good, but he is also Vulcan. Deanna is only telepathic with other telepaths. Alana has a little more telepathy than Deanna but she is pretty much in the same situation. That only left one person, Lwaxana.
"What she came up with was using Lwaxana for a ringer for Marty. Then once we started talking to him, we went down there as soon as we could get the others together.
"Now I want you to imagine how strange it felt to me to sit on the bridge of my own ship, with my Number One sitting at the helm like a green cadet and Deanna's mother sitting in his chair. Now think about how disconcerting it would be to then look at Deanna in the command chair of the Titan while her mother is next to me in the same exact pose Deanna was in. Anyway, we got in. Once the security force found us shooting did start. At that point Lwaxana was the most important member of the team. She locked horns with Taldoran, the man responsible, which gave Alana the chance to take the man down."
"So where were you during this? I have never known you to shy from a fight. Even when you should have."
"Beverly, I hope you can understand when I tell you I am not ready to talk about it. Maybe when you get here, but not now."
"I won't push, but if it is bothering you that much I would suggest that you talk to Alana yourself, or maybe even Deanna if she has the time."
"I might at that my love. For right now I am just glad that it is over. It wasn't much as fights go, but it drained me. Now to continue. They did find everyone, with only 10% casualty rate, and all but three of those were wounded only. LeBeau was critically injured and will be unable to return to duty for several days. Will on the other hand did not even get a scratch on him physically but he was given the virus you are going to research. Which is why I am still here. Deanna wants me to be the one that reinstates Will. Bev, this thing is nasty. It actually makes a person into a telepath."
"My God, what's he going to do now?"
"Live with the ability. He was given several options, this was the most risky, but the only one he was willing to try. He told me something last night after Alyssa would let me see him. I have known for quite some time that Deanna could tell if Will was in trouble, even when he wasn't on the ship. What I didn't know until yesterday was that now it goes both ways. Apparently when he went to Betazed after the D crashed something happened. All I know is that he didn't want to give that up. I also found out that the bond that they share includes a limited form of telepathy and that it has existed ever since they began dating. Given that he would lose all of those abilities if he chose any of the other options, I can't say that I blame him."
"Well, at least that explains the confusion over Lwaxana. She is one formidable woman, and extremely gifted from a telepathic standpoint. I expect that since Deanna probably couldn't help him that the only one he would even let touch his mind to help him heal would be her. They have had problems over the years but he would feel better with family poking in his head than a stranger. Now I am going to change the subject. How did the reading of Data's will go?"
"Very well actually. For the first part of the night we had a wonderful reunion. I guess it was after midnight before we ended the evening. By the time Geordi began, which by the way I did not even know Data had left a will, we had been talking for about four hours. When he was done I will admit that there was not a dry eye at the table. We sat in silence for several minutes. Then all of a sudden Deanna perks up. She tells us that she has some news that will definitely cheer us." I am going to draw this out. I can't wait to see the look on her face. He waited. Finally he noted that she was about ready to reach through the comlink and strangle him if he didn't go on. Smiling he continued. "Now here I am wondering what could be so good that it would change her mood so quickly. I even asked her that." She still hadn't seemed to glean what he was heading to. He simply gave it another moment before finishing the tale. "This is when I see Will out of the corner of my eye and he looks like a cat who ate a canary. I look over to him and he then proceeds to tell me that he is glad that families are welcome on long range vessels again." The smile that graced her face was worth the baiting he had given.
"Are you telling me that Deanna is pregnant? That is some wonderful news." The next statement that came out of her mouth was much more forward than she generally was. Aside from the letter that she had sent which had started their relationship she generally let Jean Luc bring up decisions to be made within their life together. "So, now that your kids have lives and families of their own, when are you going to settle down?"
"After this past week I have been giving that a lot of thought Angel. It was one of the reasons I wanted to have the Hippocrates brought here. You and I need to talk."
"Jean Luc Picard, is this what I think it is?"
"It very well might be, although I was going to wait until we were together. It may not be the most romantic way to do this, but I think I would like to go ahead and ask you now. Beverly Howard Crusher, will you be my wife?"
Beverly was stunned. As much as she had wanted to simply shout to him she was paralyzed by shock, and yes a little fear.
"Beverly are you alright?' He asked after she hadn't said anything for over a minute.
"Jean Luc I don't know what to say."
"I believe that the customary response would be yes."
Finally she found her voice. "Yes Jean Luc. I will marry you." He voice sounded distant to her, yet her heart sang louder than it had for decades.