Snow Falling Softly XXIV
Wesley Crusher watched Captain Picard and Andrew Picard as each of the others did the same. Two pairs of similar eyes, each now tempered steel, waiting to see who would speak first. It was Andrew, breaking his gaze from Picard and settling it on Wesley. "You didn't say anything about resigning," he said.
"What are you doing here?" Picard asked Andrew.
Wesley spoke without giving Andrew a chance to answer the captain. He alternated looking at each of the other two, trying to get them to stop glaring at one another. "This is what I decided," he said. "I was trying to follow my own father, do what he did. But that isn't my path to take. Everyone expected me to follow him, everyone expects me to stay in Starfleet. But just because everyone expects it doesn't mean it's right. Right now, I want to live on a planet, live on a place with seasons, a place that doesn't pass everything at warp seven. I need to know who I really am."
His words were enough to deter Picard's focus from his son. The captain turned to Wesley, the cold fury from before not diminished in the least. The hammer struck again. "That still does not excuse what you did on the planet. You've provided a spark to the tinder of the situation down there and it's become a conflagration."
Andrew broke in, addressing Picard, the boy's body rigid, his voice a scalpel, calculated to cut exactly. "Blindly following orders doesn't excuse you from your moral responsibility," he said.
"I do not follow orders blindly," Picard replied. "This issue has been brought up more than once by Admiral Necheyev to the Federation Council. The council spent years negotiating these terms, brought in a representative from the Native American nations, and this is what they have decided. We cannot override what those experts have said is the best way only on our emotional whim." Picard split his intimidating look between his son and Wesley.
"How many would it take before it becomes wrong?" Andrew asked before the captain could even take in another breath. Before Wesley had fully comprehended Picard's words. The captain had protested, he had brought up the issues that he and Andrew were speaking about. And he began to wonder if he and Andrew were wrong and should shut the hell up before the consequences of their actions would become irreversible. Andrew didn't seem to have any thoughts along Wesley's lines, his words continued in a train, a train barreling headlong into a dark tunnel with no outlet. "Six hundred? Six thousand? Six million? How many before we've crossed the line?"
Picard's presence increased within the room, threatening to squeeze the two others against the walls in its forcefulness. "That is not the case here," he said.
"We do have a responsibility here," Andrew said.
"We?" said Picard. "You have a responsibility to yourself, not to any of Starfleet's actions. Wesley had a responsibility to Starfleet, one that he abandoned in his actions on the planet and in his decision to resign."
Andrew had drawn himself up to his full height, his frustration pushing against the other two in the room, though he hadn't moved from just behind the head of the table near the door. "You've abandoned your responsibility to yourself, your responsibility to your family and your ancestors. You have a responsibility to not repeat history."
"We cannot be held accountable for all the actions of humanity," Picard replied. "This is not about ancient history, this is about recent history, the present, and Mister Crusher's actions on the planet. None on which your opinion has any bearing. As this is a Starfleet disciplinary matter, I would ask you to leave." To one without resolve to face down that which he feared, Picard's tone would have pushed them out the door before any defense could be mounted. He would find himself outside, the doors closed, wondering how he got there and how he had kept his skin.
Andrew was not of that sort. He took one step forward, directly into the path of the captain's unmitigated fury. "His name was Javier Maribona Picard. Son of Sabine Picard and a Spanish Army officer."
"This has no bearing--."
Andrew took a step closer. "Assigned to Juan de Onate's expedition as a lieutenant to Captain Vincente de Zalvidar while putting down a revolt by the natives of Acoma."
"You will leave this room--."
Another step. "Their orders were to exact revenge for the deaths of Spanish men."
Picard raised his voice. Wesley hadn't heard the captain raise his voice in a long time, the last time had been enough for Wes, enough for anything within earshot. Bearing the full force of the voice was to stand in the path of a storm, buffeted by the high winds, hoping you wouldn't be taken aloft and away by the wind. "This will go no further!"
Wesley felt his body attempting to merge itself with the floor, hoping to become a bit of furniture in the room so that he wouldn't also fall prey to the captain's anger. Or to Andrew's anger, staring defiantly at Picard as the captain's hard eyes drilled into him.
In answer, Andrew only took a step towards his father, raising his voice to the same level as Picard's. "They took their revenge, under orders--."
"I have asked for you to stop--." Each exchange ratcheted up the volume, the projection.
"Under orders," Andrew repeated, "By killing six hundred of the villagers, capturing another six hundred, cutting off the right foot of every man age twenty five and over, then throwing seventy warriors to their deaths off a cliff. All within the confines of Spanish law, all within the confines of given orders."
Wesley looked at Picard expectantly, waiting for the backlash, for the call to Security to take Andrew out by force. But the order never came. The stone visage had dropped from the captain's face, his eyes widening just so, some of the fury had run out, chased out by shock. He hadn't known. The captain hadn't known about that ancestor, about that massacre, about the terrible crime against humanity committed by Javier Maribona Picard. When the captain finally spoke, his tone had dropped to match the stricken look on his face, eyes vacantly pointed in Andrew's direction, yet not seeing his son, or anyone. "That was seven hundred years ago," he said.
Wesley's eyes flicked back to Andrew. He realized his younger brother had not been full of courage, or perhaps he had been, and it had been expended entirely. His body had slackened from the hard resolve from before, relieved that Picard hadn't entirely lost his temper. That he hadn't ripped open a rift between him and his father. When he replied, it was the strained whisper of a voice in the aftershock of conflict. "And seven hundred years later, one of the same family is under orders to commit an immoral act."
"This is not the same thing," Picard said, but Wesley heard it, heard Picard question what was right, what was wrong, in this situation. They were getting to him.
Andrew looked near collapse at the emotional strain. Wesley took the lead, set the path towards their goal. "No, Captain, it's not the same thing. But it doesn't make what you're ordered to do, what you're prepared to do, any less immoral. Your orders violate the Prime Directive. They violate the guiding principle of the Federation, they interfere with another culture by taking them away from their home. Each time you've violated the Prime Directive, it's been for the right reason. You did not follow orders absolutely. If I recall, absolute obedience doesn't bring about absolute moral right. It brings about the ignorance of the truth. I'll repeat the words you told me. 'The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth--be it scientific truth, historical truth, or personal truth. It is the guiding principle upon which Starfleet is based.' The truth, Captain, has been staring you in the face for days, and you've closed your eyes so that you won't have to see it."
A whisper came from Andrew, words mumbled underneath his breath. Wesley couldn't make them out. Picard must have heard more, because his head snapped over to where Andrew stood, supported by leaning on the table with one arm. "What did you say?" Picard asked, a sharp edge to his tone, Andrew's words had sailed past Picard's armor with ease.
Andrew looked at up, all the fight gone from his gray eyes, the steel giving way to the liquid of sadness. His reply came quietly, the silent trip of an arrow shot true. "The very first time any man's freedoms are trampled, we are all damaged," he said.
Picard's eyes widened once again. Wesley recognized the words, phrases Picard had declared to Admiral Satie in the drumhead years ago, when an inquiry board sought traitors that never existed. When that board's quest, all by following orders, had taken away freedoms of the people aboard the ship.
Andrew continued. "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied--chains us all, irrevocably." The boy's head lifted, studied his father, searching his eyes. "Are we still chained? Are we the next link in a chain forged seven hundred years ago?"
The captain finally spoke, his face beginning to recompose into the captain's mask, his voice strengthening, yet with none of the hardness brought by the fury of before. The anger was gone. "No, we are not."
"Then I don't understand why you aren't doing the right thing. Why the man I've looked up to, the man I was proud the call my father, is willing to violate his own principles. As if nothing he's done before bore any meaning at all," Andrew said.
"This has to do with your family," Wesley said. "Past and present. The man you've been, that's the man I've wanted to be my stepfather. The man I wanted to marry my mother. The man you will become if you keep your eyes closed on the truth, he isn't the man I know." Wesley continued when Picard shifted his gaze from Andrew to him. "You used to know when to do the right thing, you knew what it was when I didn't see it myself. I learned from that, I learned more from that moment in your Ready Room than from years of philosophy courses, years of serving on this ship. Would you render that meaningless?"
"What would you have me do?" Picard asked them both. "My hands are tied."
"Then untie them," Andrew said. "Overcome your own cultural prejudice and tell the colonists all of their options. That they can remain on their planet if they withdraw from the Federation and join the Cardassian Union. Given the choice between Cardassia or death, they may choose Cardassia. Or they may choose death. But if they choose death in that instance, they will live that choice in their last moments knowing the entire truth of what has happened to them."
When Picard didn't reply, when Andrew said nothing more, the silence of space flooded in through the windows, filling the emptiness. None of them looked at each other, their eyes turned inward, each seeking the truth within themselves of who they truly were. What would be right. The captain looked over at Andrew, at Wesley, back to Andrew. "Do you have anything else to say?"
Andrew shook his head. "I have nothing more to say to you until you've done what's right." He straightened, removing his hand from the table.
Wesley saw the light in Picard's eyes dim a little at Andrew's disapproval. When they met Wesley's eyes, they dimmed a little more. "Wesley?" Not Mister Crusher.
"No, I--." His reply was cut off by the sound of a transporter gone wrong. Picard and Wesley looked towards the front of the room, where Andrew was half de-materialized by Bok's foreign transporter beam.
"Riker to Picard," came the first officer's voice over the ship's comm system. "Geordi traced a signal and Bok is trying to beam Andrew off the ship."
"I know," Picard replied. "Andrew is in here."
Wesley realized he'd never seen the look on Picard's face before. Helplessness.
"Geordi is establishing his own lock on him now," Riker said.
La Forge's voice joined the comm channel. "I'm losing his signal! Bok's re-establishing the lock!"
The captain surged forward, as if to join Andrew in the transport and be taken with him if necessary. But by the time Picard reached Andrew's spot, the boy was gone. It took only seconds for the captain to compose his face, seconds for Riker to come running into the room behind the two Security officers. Seconds for Wesley to realize what the captain would choose to do in this situation.
Picard looked at Wesley, the former cadet an afterthought. "Consider yourself confined to quarters," he said, then left the room with his officers.
Wesley went over to the window, seeing the planet below, mind racing, thoughts derailing everywhere, scattering ignorance. The captain would choose the duty to his family over the duty to his career. The colonists would never hear all of their choices, the entire truth. In the aftermath of Andrew's abduction, Wesley would fulfill the duty abandoned by the captain. He knew his brother would approve, otherwise, Wesley would be as helpless as the captain was in this moment.
Beverly Crusher's day had started out nothing like her oldest son's. She came half-awake in her own bed to realize there was a well muscled arm encircling her, the hand resting on her hip. Behind her, the father of her children slept peacefully, the lines gone from his face in his sleep as she had seen before. She barely heard him, resisted the urge to reach over with her own hand to touch his chest, reassure herself that Jean-Luc was indeed breathing. But when she shifted slightly, the hand on her hip stayed there, moving of its own accord to match her movements so it wouldn't be separated. And they could continue their sleep, no one having to make a midnight dash for their own quarters, could wake up and start the day without guilt.
The doctor heard little feet beyond the closed door of her bedroom, then the door opening to allow Gracie to run into the room, climb onto the bed. As the little girl burrowed herself in the space between her two parents, she mumbled a good morning and promptly fell back asleep. A glance at the chronometer told Beverly they had a couple more hours left before the alarm would go off. She turned her head to see if Jean-Luc was awake. The gray eyes that looked back at her were his, not their daughter's. The smile on his face matched the contentedness in his eyes, Beverly returned it, then settled back into her pillow. She fell asleep again, Jean-Luc's arms encircling her and their daughter.
When she awoke again, Gracie had disappeared from the bed. The youngest shared the morning person tendencies her older sister had. Her supposition was confirmed when she heard Gracie banging on Andrew's door and Andrew's shouts for her to leave him alone, go away, he was trying to sleep. "I keep forgetting that with children around, you don't have to set the chronometer's alarm," she said.
Jean-Luc chuckled behind her, then kissed her neck. "Good morning," he said.
Beverly hid her face in her pillow. "You're completely awake, aren't you?"
"Yes. Call it what you will, but once I open my eyes, I'm fully awake nearly instantly."
"I call it a sick, twisted trait to welcome morning with such cheerful aplomb," she replied. "You get the lavatory first and I'll sleep. Then you can deal with those barbarians while I take my shower." Now she knew exactly where Allie and Gracie had inherited their morning-person nature.
With another laugh, the captain did as he was told, then touched her on the shoulder when he was out, making sure she did wake up. He kissed her forehead, already dressed in his duty uniform, looking sharp. In return, she glared at him, got up, and sauntered into the lavatory. When she entered the living room dressed for the day, she was fully awake but not yet fully thrilled about being awake. Jean-Luc had gotten the four of them breakfast and a fifth place was set for Beverly. Now that her brother was back to himself, Gracie pestered Andrew with questions.
"Allie said you have a fencing tournament soon," Gracie said.
"Mmm," replied Andrew.
"Are you going to fence epee or foil?"
"Epee." Andrew hadn't looked at his sister, only at his breakfast.
"Will you fence me in foil?"
"Not right now."
"When?" Gracie's voice was bubbling.
"Right after you stop asking me questions." Andrew's voice was not.
"What if I stop right now?"
"What if I throw you out an airlock?" Andrew said, finally looking across the table at Gracie.
Gracie glared at him. "You would not."
"You're right, I wouldn't. It's too early for that sort of thing," Andrew said, then went back to his breakfast.
Allie laughed at Gracie's indignant look. Smiling, Beverly took her seat across from Jean-Luc, who seemed to be lost in thought. The doctor knew he had negotiations resuming that afternoon, that most likely he'd started running through all the points of contention in his head, trying to find a common ground for compromise. She left him to his thoughts, grateful for the quiet, though not given a choice by her youngest. Having reached a halt with questioning her brother, she turned to her mother. "Can I see where you work?"
Andrew gave Gracie a shocked look. "You want to go to Sickbay?" he asked.
"Yes," Gracie said, as if the answer were completely obvious. Which, it was. Then she turned back to Beverly. "Can I?"
The doctor shrugged. "I don't see why not. I don't have much scheduled this morning except paperwork, which means there are many other things I'd rather do, such as show you around." Maybe her youngest would become a doctor. Beverly glanced at Andrew. "When's this tournament of yours?"
"Not until next week," he said after he'd swallowed the mouthful of food. "I'm trying to get an epee team together, so we can do individual and team events. There's enough decent epeeists on the ship, I can't believe they hadn't done any team events."
Nana had told Beverly that Andrew had done the same thing on Caldos. There had been a foil team and no epee team, but plenty of epeeists. So Andrew had made the team himself and within a few months, taken them to the Federation's top tournament. The salle's coach had said that while Andrew was an outstanding epee fencer, it was his strategy and leadership that gave the team its needed cohesion to take them as far as they went. When the coach told Andrew as much, the boy had denied it was him at all, it was entirely the team. If he continued on his course, Andrew could become a starship captain. He had the raw talent for it, it only needed to be focused, honed.
Allie made a face. "I have to see Counselor Troi," she said.
"I want to see Counselor Troi, too," Gracie said.
Allie sighed. "Fine, I'll try to see if she'll let me bring her to Sickbay. Then you can ask her five hundred questions and she won't have time to ask me any."
Beverly frowned. "You're supposed to be seeing her for a reason," she told Allie.
"I know," Allie said. "But there are some people," she looked over at her brother, "who need to speak with her a lot more than I do."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Andrew said, not looking at his sister, instead casting a sidelong glance at the chronometer. "And would you look at that, time for me to go." He stood, gathered up a couple PADDs, and was out the door with a quick good bye.
Andrew's farewell had brought Jean-Luc out of his reverie, looking at the chronometer himself. "I should go as well," he said, standing.
"You were very boring this morning, Papa," Gracie told him.
The captain gave her a warm smile. "I have a lot on my mind with our current mission. I promise I will make it up to you and try not to be so boring again." Then he kissed the top of her head, Gracie rewarding him with a broad smile.
Beverly gave him a smile of her own as she stood. She would need to get to Sickbay soon, check the logs from the night before. Jean-Luc gave her a soft kiss goodbye, saying he'd fill her in later about the negotiations and what the time frame would be. In the meantime, Allie had gotten up, moved over to them and gave her father a hug. "Thank you for staying," she whispered to him.
"Thank you for asking," he replied, kissed her forehead, and left to captain his ship. Allie followed soon after, leaving Beverly with a chattering Gracie to bring to Sickbay.
Once in Sickbay, Beverly's staff was entirely willing to entertain her daughter as she read the logs. Alyssa Ogawa took to Gracie immediately, showing the little girl how to work tricorders, medical scanners, showing her pictures from the computer's medical texts. Even Dr. Selar lifted an eyebrow in appreciation of Gracie's enthusiasm and curiosity. When Gracie promised not to break it, Alyssa finally allowed Gracie to use one of the medical tricorders, the child zooming around Sickbay, managing to stay out of the way, yet scan every person within reach after she'd asked permission.
The doctor stepped out of her office in time to see Gracie begin to scan anyone within reach. Alyssa stood next to Beverly. "Think she'll be a doctor?" Ogawa asked.
"I don't know," Beverly replied, smiling in Gracie's direction. "She gets so curious about everything, asking so many questions. I doubt she'll be choosing what she wants to do with her life anytime soon."
Sickbay's doors opened to admit Allie and Counselor Troi. True to her word, Allie had asked Troi to visit Sickbay and see Gracie. Seeing her mother, Allie gave her a grin, letting her know she'd gotten away with it. When Beverly looked at Deanna, just behind Allie, the counselor winked. Allie had not gotten away with anything.
Gracie ran over to them. "Can I scan you, too?" she asked.
"If you are Sickbay's newest doctor," Troi said. "Then you can certainly scan me."
Gracie scanned her, pronounced her in good health, moved to her sister. Allie had been entirely unsuccessful in keeping a straight face. "Are you sure she's healthy?" Allie asked her.
"The tricorder says she is," Gracie replied.
"Tricorder isn't always right," Allie said. "Scan me."
Gracie did so. "You're healthy, too."
Beverly knew Allie was up to something. Her challenge to her sister to scan her had been some sort of set up. Her suspicions were confirmed when Allie proceeded to pretend to faint. If Beverly hadn't known Allie was pretending, she would've believed it. She would have to get Allie involved in her next production, the girl had something there.
"You're faking it," Gracie declared. "You can play dead all you want. I know the tricorder isn't broken." She walked over to Beverly. "I'll even scan Mom to prove it."
The doctor waited as her daughter gave her a medical once-over. As Gracie's gray eyes read the read-out, her small mouth drew into a frown. "I broke it," she said, then looked over at Alyssa. "I'm sorry."
Alyssa shared Gracie's frown and took the tricorder from her to check. The nurse read the information, glanced up at Beverly, read the information again. Then she handed the tricorder over to her boss without a word.
From her spot on the floor, Allie asked, "Gracie, what did the tricorder tell you?"
Beverly stared at the information that had made her nurse do a double take, trying to keep her jaw from falling open. There was no way. The tricorder was broken. Alyssa, having come to the same conclusion, was already handing her another tricorder to double check the veracity of the information. Meanwhile, Gracie answered her sister's question. "It told me that Mom was two people. That's impossible. I must have broken it."
Allie was up on her feet in an instant, her long legs carrying her quickly to where Beverly and Ogawa stood. "It's not broken at all," she said to her sister. When she reached her mother, she said, "Let me see that."
Beverly frowned.
Allie sighed. "Please."
Crusher looked across the room at Deanna, the counselor's eyes already knowing exactly what the tricorder meant. Hell, everyone within earshot did, except for Gracie. Everyone in the medical field knew what two life signs from a human female meant.
"What's it mean?" Gracie asked.
Beverly sighed, handed the second tricorder, which had given the same reading as the first, over to Allie. Then she knelt in front of Gracie. "It means," she said. "It means you're going to have a little brother or sister."
Having heard her mother's words and read the tricorder, Allie burst out laughing. "Mom, this is statistically impossible. Absolutely impossible. I mean, I'm assuming you and Dad," Allie checked to see where Gracie was--she was safely now gabbing with Troi over by the door, "Are both on birth control. Seriously. You're a doctor."
Frowning more, wanting to know how it had happened, Beverly motioned her daughter to follow her into her office. As she sat down at the terminal and starting calling up information, she answered Allie. "Your father is. I wasn't, well, I am now, but I wasn't until very recently. Subdermal implants, both of us. It should be impossible for this to have happened. Ridiculous. Maybe all the tricorders are broken. Or something is wrong with the captain's implant."
"I assumed you would have checked it recently," Allie said.
The doctor felt slightly uncomfortable talking about these things with her daughter, but at the same time, Allie was an intelligent, mature young lady. Better to be open and honest than have Allie have to resort to other means to get information. "I have, it was working perfectly fine." Beverly drummed her fingers on her desk, re-reading the captain's medical file. "There has to be something different with your father's body chemistry that we haven't caught." Then she saw it. The artificial heart. The neurochemicals and hormones used to keep his body from rejecting it not only rendered Jean-Luc's type of implant ineffective, but reversed the effects and increased the chance for pregnancy. Normally, if the female involved had an implant of her own, it wouldn't be a problem, as it used different compounds. If not, there was an overwhelmingly large statistical chance that if the woman had ovulated recently, pregnancy would occur. Which explained Andrew and Allie, which explained Gracie and now apparently, explained little whomever. Beverly relayed this information to Allie.
Who laughed. Hard. She struggled to regain control as she brushed tears out of her eyes. "You have the worst luck ever," she said. "I mean, it's what, one or two shot kids?"
"Allie."
"You even go two for one the first--."
"Natalie."
"Just wait till Dad hears about how fertile he is, he'll feel all manly--."
"Natalie."
Allie looked up, blue eyes wide, the smile tugging hard on her lips, the girl desperately trying not to laugh in the face of her mother's apparent ire. But she couldn't keep her composure and the laughter started all over again. Beverly gave up trying to be serious and joined her daughter in laughter. Then the doctor's communicator chirped. "Riker to Dr. Crusher."
The laughter stopped. "Crusher here," Beverly said.
"Doctor, the captain needs you to report to his Ready Room. Bok has abducted Andrew from the ship."
She and Allie exchanged a shared look of terror. Then Beverly was up and out the door, almost running up to the bridge. She couldn't lose him. Not now. For a few brief moments, she had forgotten Bok, lessened her vigilance. And now there would be no more denial. The turbolift couldn't move fast enough.
Author's Note: No one gets to whine about the cliche. It was too much fun to write.