Snow Falling Softly XII
Andrew kept his lips pressed tightly together so he didn't inhale any of the biting snow. It pelted all of them, tiny particles of fury, the impacts feeling like they should have left welts. Before them, the trail they'd broken heading out from the house was nearly completely covered, Conal's prints beside theirs all but gone. The captain must have paid close attention to tracking their path to be able to find them. Andrew rode in the rear of the group, not wanting his sister glaring at him or giving him any sort of look at all. He knew she was confused by him, at his anger, at him walking away in the cave. It wasn't like he knew exactly what made him leave. All he knew was that in that moment, he had to get away. Seeing Wesley, right in front of him, he'd been nearly blinded by the rage reaching out across his vision. It scared him. Scared him like he'd been scared back then.
Before the bout with Shalaft's, he hadn't experienced pain like that. Nor had he experienced anything as bad since then. Waking up, Nana saying good morning, and having a voice that used to be so warm become a spike through his brain. He'd screamed in return, and the scream made the spike expand with the force of an explosion, threatening to break apart everything inside his skull. His hands had flown to his hears, covering them, but it didn't help. Nana had tried to soothe him, but that meant talking, even in hushed tones. He didn't make the mistake of screaming again, whimpered instead. It still hurt.
Nana consulted with a doctor in the village. Like Felisa Howard, the doctor had no idea what was wrong with Andrew. Together, they concocted some sort of medication that rendered him deaf. That scared him as well, only slightly less than the pain of hearing. A world that had been so full of noise and distractions had gone completely silent, bare and lonely. He'd wanted his mother. During that time, Nana took care of him, and he loved her for it, but she wasn't his mother. Despite not knowing his mother the instinct was there, when he was scared and vulnerable, to want her comfort. He had screamed for her, once he couldn't hear, and could feel the vibration of the scream in his throat. Then Nana had brought him and Allie to Delos IV, to Dr. Quaice, to Beverly, and she had fixed everything. Like a mother would.
Andrew shook his head, as if he could banish the memory as easily as shaking the snow from his hair. Distracting himself with the present, he studied the captain at the head of the group, leading the way to home. The man was barely taller than Beverly, but had a presence to him that could command attention from a person far more effectively than any taller man could. Andrew had made himself a student of Picard's career a few years ago.
He remembered why.
Then no amount of head shaking, of staring into the driving snow, could stop the memories from returning.
2367
A knock on the front door brought Andrew running from his studies in the library to answer it. He slid across the old wood floor on socked feet, an action that normally brought him the wrath of his grandmother. Most of his socks ended up torn, dirty, or both. The twelve year old flung open the door. It would be Beverly and Wesley, come to visit. Beyond the door, three figures waited. Andrew didn't move from his spot, not believing what he saw. Then one figure walked in, the whine of machinery working with each heavy step, each step becoming doom itself. Finally, the red beam from the cyborg's eye fell on his face. "Resistance is futile," the being said. Andrew recognized it. Locutus. The thing that had butchered so many at Wolf 359. And it had come to deal with him, to take his sisters and his grandmother, to take him. He would rather die, but he wouldn't be given the chance. Then the two remaining figures stepped through, laid their searching beams on him, speaking in monotones. The first face, it had been Wesley. Pale and cold, covered with the machinery. The last being that stepped through the doorway, when Andrew saw who it was, he fell to the floor, realizing there were things worse than death. The Borg that was Beverly told him, "You will be assimilated." And Andrew screamed.
He came awake quickly, the nightmare wrapping around his head. Sweat poured from his body, the sheets soaked, but he was cold, clammy. His breaths came in short gasps, as fast as the heart pounded inside his chest. The dark walls of the room closed in--they were the cube of the Borg ship. He had to escape, get outside, out into the open. Without any thought to shoes, coat, anything to protect him from the cold of winter, he ran outside.
Andrew ran out into the snow of the front yard, ran until he couldn't feel his feet, his lower legs, until he fell down, half buried. The moon rose above him, the only witness to his escape. Winter's night nipped at him, but it couldn't change that he was no longer enclosed, there were no walls, nowhere a Borg could hide.
Felisa found him minutes later, shivering and curled up in a fetal position. Vaguely, Andrew was aware of her presence, of her helping him up, bringing him back into the house. "My mother," he murmured, over and over again. "I want my mother." Nana had wrapped him up in a quilt, rubbed him down to get him warm again. He felt the love from his grandmother, he knew she was taking care of him, but it wasn't what he needed. He said it again. "My mother."
"She can't be here right now," Felisa replied.
And he cried. His mother had to be dead, so long ago that he didn't even know her. Couldn't even imagine her in his mind, like Wesley could with his father. Not a single picture could be found, as if his mother had never existed except to give birth to him and his sister. The jealously found him again, ready prey, jealous of Wesley, having a mother. Having Beverly as a mother, someone whom Andrew had imagined could be his mother. Or what his mother would have been like.
"I hate him," he said.
"Who?" Nana asked.
Andrew sat in front of the fire Felisa had started, holding the quilt around him like a shield. "Wesley."
She had been going to the kitchen to get the boy something hot to drink, but returned at his words, knelt in front of him. "Why do you hate him?" she asked.
"He has a mother."
Nana frowned. "Do you hate every boy that has a mother?"
Andrew closed his eyes, he couldn't look at Nana. He knew he was a horrible person for thinking it, and most of the time, he managed to forget he even felt this way. "No," he said.
"Then why Wesley in particular?"
Andrew's answer came back, fierce, all the emotion from his nightmare channeled into his reply. "Because his mother is Beverly. He doesn't know how lucky he is." He sat back, covered his head with the quilt, unwilling to talk anymore. Nana had left him alone after that, speaking to him only to chase him back to bed. When he awoke in the morning, he'd thought the entire episode a dream.
When he came down for breakfast, Nana seemed no different than when he had said good night to her the day before. Then she spoke. "Andrew, we're going to get you a puppy," she said.
He blinked. "What? Why?"
"I think you need a dog," she said.
Andrew didn't argue. He'd wanted a dog for awhile, he knew what kind of dog he wanted, knew where he could find it. "Mairi's father's dog has puppies," he said. "They might be ready to go."
Nana had taken him later that morning, visiting the puppies. The gray male had padded over to Andrew first, licking his fingers, his tail waving. "Conal," Andrew said. "I'll name you Conal." He'd given a lot of thought to what he'd name a dog. It had been Conal who had avenged Cuchulainn's death when he killed Lugaid in the stories of the Irish Ulster Cycle. The name meant strong wolf and Andrew knew that Conal would grow to be a big, strong dog. One that could protect him and his family.
From that first night, Conal slept in Andrew's room. Slowly, the nightmares had gone away, fading as the puppy grew. Andrew studied his dog, wondering if warm-hearted Conal could ever do anything he wouldn't fathom doing. If Conal would ever be capable of hurting anyone, unless he was made to do it. Immediately he thought of Locutus, of what Captain Picard had become, and if he had been controlled, made to do those awful things. So he studied the man called Jean-Luc Picard. The more he read, the more he realized that Picard must have died a thousand times while he was Locutus. Must have desperately wished for death rather than to have caused the death and suffering of so many people.
Andrew discovered what scared him so badly about the Borg. It wasn't the death, it wasn't Locutus, it certainly wasn't Picard. It was the idea that he could be made to do things he'd rather die before doing, all without the hope of escape, without the hope of death, and instead would spend a lifetime dying.
2370
Andrew felt fur under his hand. He looked down to find Conal loping next to him, nudging his head under Andrew's hand to get him out of his reverie. His dog certainly had grown into a large one. The wolfhound weighed more than the average human and stood more than three feet tall at his shoulders. Yet Conal was one of the most gentle beings Andrew had ever known and he trusted him with his life. The dog gave him a bark, then raced ahead of the group. Andrew realized they must be close to home.
Beverly Crusher continued the stew's preparations as night fell, a dark curtain over the snow, doing nothing to dull the sound of the wind. Gracie helped to her best ability, finding spices and vegetables and trying to decipher Nana's handwriting. Then the little girl had started in with her questions. "You argued with the captain," she said.
"Yes," Beverly replied.
"And he left."
"Yes."
Gracie peered up at her. "Is he coming back? Or is he going to be lost like the others?"
The doctor knew that Jean-Luc would come back. It was one of those things, a certainty, that he would come back. Even when he had been taken by the Borg, had been transformed into that horrible creature called Locutus, somewhere inside her, she had known he would come back. He always did. "The captain always comes back," she told Gracie.
"Good," she said. Beverly barely had time to take another breath before Gracie caught her off-guard again. "Are you my mother?" she asked.
The doctor looked down at her youngest daughter. "Yes," she said. Then she knelt down and looked Gracie in the eye at the girl's height. "I'm sorry."
The girl reached out with her hand, put it on Beverly's cheek. "Why are you sorry?" she asked.
"Because I didn't tell you sooner," she said.
"Oh," said Gracie. "I thought it was because I was a bad kid."
In spite of the situation, Beverly let out a small laugh at how absurd it was, for Gracie to be considered a bad kid. "Don't you ever think that," she told Gracie. "You're not a bad kid."
"Then I wasn't dreaming. Because when I was falling asleep last night, I thought I heard you tell me that you were my mother and that the captain downstairs was my papa." Gracie put her small hands on Beverly's shoulders. "Is that true, too?"
"Yes," Beverly said.
"But he got mad when you told him." Gracie's gray eyes were glistening. Beverly knew that the girl thought her father had rejected her. And it hurt all the more, because within the space of a day, the child had come to love her father, without even knowing who he was.
The doctor reached out and drew Gracie into her arms, squeezing her tight. "He was mad at me," she explained. "For not telling him. He wasn't mad at you, he's not mad at your brother and sister, either. He loves you, I promise that." And she knew it was true.
Scratching at the door and then barking alerted them that Conal had come back. Gracie broke free from Beverly's arms and ran over to the door, flinging it open and nearly tackling the wolfhound. "You're back!" she shouted to the dog, who was now doing his best to lick Gracie's face clear off her head, his tail wagging wildly.
Beverly stepped around the dog and her daughter to look outside. A smile spread across her face as she saw four figures pitched against the wind, slowly making their way to the house. As they walked in, she took note of their appearances. Allie and Jean-Luc looked none the worse for wear, aside from cheeks flushed with cold. When she saw the state of her two sons, she knew Wesley had told the twins. Her oldest son's left eye was almost swollen shut, purple bruising mottling the skin surrounding it. Andrew had a good sized scrape down his entire right cheek, encrusted with snow and blood. The boy noticed her looking at his wound. "It looks worse than it feels," he told her, stamping his feet to dislodge the snow, not meeting her gaze.
"I'm sure," she said, her tone letting him know that she didn't believe him.
He ignored her.
The door shut, the group shed their boots, coats, hats, gloves, trying to warm up. Without anything being said, they all went upstairs and changed into dry clothing. Gracie found a towel and dried off Conal in front of the fire. They each came downstairs one by one. Beverly gave them soup, feeling like she was doing something to help them, knowing that the storm inside the home was brewing in this quiet. Jean-Luc was first.
"Thank you for bringing them home," she said.
He nodded, accepting the mug she offered him. "You're welcome," he said. "They know."
She sighed. "I know, I knew as soon as I saw Wesley's eye and Andrew's cheek. Did you talk to them at all?"
The captain shook his head, frowning slightly. "No. But they all look at me differently. I can see it."
"They aren't seeing you as the captain anymore, they're looking at you now as their father, and wondering what you're like as a father."
"I wonder that myself," he said. "If I'll be any good at it."
Before she could stop herself, she took his free hand, gave it a quick squeeze. "You're off to a good start. You brought them home." She let go of his hand, unable to read his expression.
Wesley, Andrew, and Allie made their way into the kitchen, removing any chance of Picard replying to Beverly's comment. The doctor found her medkit and herded the group into the warmer front room. She went to Wesley first, his eye in more need of attention than Andrew's cheek. The cadet accepted his mother's ministrations as she mended his eye.
"I think you should've left him with it for at least a day," Allie said from her spot leaning against the armchair closest to the fire.
"You just wanted to admire your handiwork," Wesley said, his voice not like it had been earlier that day. It almost sounded as if he were good naturedly teasing his sister.
The doctor swung her head around to look at Allie. "You did this?" she asked.
"I told you she could take care of herself," Andrew answered. "Boys were scared of her when she was little."
Beverly listened as she moved from Wesley to Andrew, holding his face still while healing his cuts.
"What do you mean, 'were scared'?" Allie asked.
"Did I say that?" Andrew said, trying to look over at Allie.
Beverly kept him from moving. "Hold still," she said, reminded of telling his father the same thing while trying to heal bruises from a fistfight.
Andrew met her eyes, his gray ones with her blue. For a moment, she thought she saw hurt, sadness, anger. Then it was gone, covered as fast as he could blink and regain his composure.
Wesley spoke from his seat across the room. "She went to me first."
Andrew was out of his chair before Wesley finished his sentence. Wesley met him halfway, the two of them grappling, then letting fists fly. The room became its own cloudburst. Gracie yelled as Beverly shouted, Conal barking and shoving himself between the two boys, Picard helping to separate them. After a short scuffle, Wesley and Andrew were drawn apart, Beverly standing between them, her eyes boring holes into them both. "Upstairs," she said. "To your rooms."
Wesley and Andrew began to protest.
"Now," she said.
Recognizing the unwavering tone of voice in their mother, both boys headed up the stairs, trading glares with each other but not even contemplating fighting. Beverly followed them, wanting to make sure they didn't try and kill one another again. She didn't allow herself to feel relief until their doors were shut. Conal, as if he understood the situation, stationed himself in the hallway, watching the doors. Running her hand through her hair, the doctor found herself walking to her grandmother's room, the only place she thought she could find some peace. She needed respite from the situation, time to gather her thoughts into some sense of coherence. Footsteps behind her caused the doctor to turn around. Allie stood there. "Are you okay?" she asked.
Beverly gave her a half smile. "I've been better." They walked together into Felisa's old room. Took in the rightness of the space, at the signs of Felisa's passing, the journal on the bedside stand. The doctor picked it up.
Allie sat down on the bed. "I'm not mad," she said.
So forthright. "You aren't?" Beverly asked. She knew Wesley was mad, Andrew seemed to be, though he hid it aside from lashing out at Wesley. Gracie, she had attributed her lack of anger to her age or that she hadn't come to realize that she was angry. She hoped for the former.
"I was at first," Allie said. "Especially when Wesley first told us. When I decked him."
"That was a nice shiner," Beverly said.
"Some of my best work," Allie said lightly, then grew serious again. "But then once Andrew and Wes stopped fighting, then fought again, then stopped, I decided one of us had to be reasonable about this, think things through instead of just reacting."
"Your father does that," Beverly said, then held her breath, not knowing how Allie would react to the comment she'd given without thinking.
"So I've heard," she replied with a wry smile.
Beverly started breathing again.
Allie continued. "I'm too tired to talk about everything right now, but I asked Wesley what you were like. He told me that I already knew you. And that's what I wanted to know." She studied Beverly's face. "I wanted to know if I do know you, if this secret you kept from everyone except Nana, is the only secret you have. That now that I know this secret, I really do know you, and I can trust you."
"You can," Beverly said. Then she handed the journal to Allie. "Read that. I think it will help you understand me better, understand why I did what I did. I even think Nana understood me better than I do myself."
Allie stood. "I think that was just Nana. She knew everyone better than they knew themselves. Creepy, if you ask me." The girl cast a glance in the direction of the other bedrooms, where her brothers were. "And I don't know what's wrong with Andrew. I mean, I know why he and Wes keep fighting, maybe. But I don't know if he's mad at you, or the captain, or whoever."
Beverly didn't know what to say. This was one of those moments, the ones you had nightmares about, or dreamed of, but then you woke up and couldn't remember what you said. So when it happened, you still had no idea what words were appropriate. Earlier, with Gracie, it had been easy, but the youngest was so open that it had been natural. Allie wasn't so young. She'd had sixteen years without her mother, compared to Gracie's five.
"I think," said Allie. "That you'll be fun to have as a mother."
Beverly lifted an eyebrow.
The action made Allie burst into laughter. "Wesley," she said, trying to bring herself under control. "Wesley freaked out when I did that to him. Raised my eyebrow. Said you did the exact same thing to him all the time. I didn't know exactly what he meant till just now."
"He always gets panicky when I do that," Beverly said, smiling. "Which is why I do it."
Allie had said the last part with her. "And that's what I told him. That you must do it on purpose because you know it bothers him. That's what I meant by fun--." A yawn cut her off.
"You should go to bed," Beverly said.
The girl gave her an impish smile. "Yes, Mom," and left the room before the doctor could say anything more. After Allie's footsteps had gone into her room, Beverly heard more, heavier ones. Jean-Luc. Quietly, she made her way into the hall, catching a glimpse of the captain carrying a sleepy Gracie into her bedroom. The doctor crept down the hall, listening to the conversation, completely unnoticed by either party.
Jean-Luc had settled the blankets around the little girl when she stirred. "I was supposed to ask you a question," she said.
"What question would that be?" Picard replied, his voice gentle.
Beverly bit her lip as she heard her daughter's question. "Are you my papa?" she asked. The doctor could imagine the courage that must have taken after watching her reaction earlier, when she had thought Picard had be angry with her.
The captain answered, reaching out with his large hand, smoothing the hair on top of the girl's head, "Yes." Beverly could barely hear him.
Gracie said, "Good."
This reply brought a chuckle from Picard. "I don't know what I would've done if you had said otherwise," he said.
"Are you mad at Beverly?" Gracie asked.
The captain's voice remained as soft as before. "I don't know," he said.
The little girl seemed to consider that for a moment. Then she said, "Can I tell you my fairly tale?"
"Certainly," Picard said, a bit stronger.
Beverly crept back down the hall, the words of Gracie's dream, the one she had told Beverly about the day before, floating behind her. In her grandmother's room, Beverly found the photograph she had found before, when she and Deanna and Andrew had searched through the boxes. The doctor did her best to straighten it out, trying to remove the creases she'd made when it had been balled up in her fist. Once it was flat enough, she left the room again, catching the tail end of the conversation between Gracie and Jean-Luc.
"Can you try?" she was asking him. "To make it come true?"
"I'll do my best," he said. "You should sleep." Beverly watched as he leaned over to kiss her forehead. "Good night."
"Good night, Papa," Gracie said, partially muffled by the pillow she'd snuggled into. Beverly didn't know if she had ever seen Jean-Luc as vulnerable as he looked then, right after his daughter had first called him Papa. The captain stepped out of the room, closed the door quietly behind him. Crusher cursed at herself, knowing that Papa should have been Gracie's first word, and Jean-Luc should have been present to hear it.
They made eye contact. She motioned for him to come downstairs, so they could talk and not wake the others. Once they were in the front room, she handed him the photograph, let him see what his daughter had looked like as an infant. Beverly watched as he stood, lit by the flickering light of the fire, staring at the photograph as if he could disappear into it. Watched as he began to cry, soundless, trying to stop and trying to look like he wasn't crying at all. "So tiny," he said.
"I'm sorry," she said from behind him.
"It's like what I dreamed of, you holding her, my child and her mother. But what I had dreamed had already happened."
"I'm sorry," she said again.
When he turned around to face her, she expected anger, prepared herself for it. Yet on his face was anything but anger. "I never thought she would be so small." He met her eyes. "I never told you about my dreams before, because I thought you would reject them, you would reject me. You see, I gave up on those dreams because I wanted to keep you in my life, and telling you what I wished for would chase you away. And I never told you." He held out the picture. "And she is so much smaller that I could have imagined, and you were more beautiful than I ever thought. If we had...if we had been completely honest with one another, we could have had this, together. Us." He motioned upstairs. "Them."
"And it didn't happen because we were both too afraid," she said.
"Yes, exactly," he said, nodding. "We each thought the other would hate them, reject them completely, think so ill of them that we would leave the other entirely."
She followed him along his path of reasoning. "But we each knew we would never hate the other or push them out of our lives entirely."
"Though we both did our damnedest to try."
"Yes, we did."
She wasn't sure exactly when it happened, but they now stood toe to toe, face to face, for the first time, revealing the truth in its entirety.
"I think," he said, reaching down for her hands. "That--."
His communicator chirped. "Riker to Captain Picard."
Beverly swore to herself that she would hang Will Riker by his toes the next time she saw him.
The captain took a step away from her. "Picard here."
"Sir, I wanted to let you know that the weather modification net has been fixed and you can beam up whenever you wish to return."
She saw the change in his stance, in his face, in his eyes, and knew he would be returning to the ship. The moment had passed, the chance for them to settle things between themselves, to become more than they had been, was gone.