Worf's sash knocks the table as he tries to manoeuvre himself into a chair, and all the senior staff look up from their panels to acknowledge him, all but Data, who has already assessed the sound, and discarded it as inconsequential.
"I apologise for my lack of punctuality, Sir,"
The Klingon addresses Picard directly, where he sits at the head of the table.
"There was an… issue, in the forward lounge,"
He explains delicately, and it is almost imperceptible to notice how his eyes shift fast to Deanna, and then away into his lap just as soon.
The Captain has not noticed this.
"Not to worry Mr Worf, we can start the meeting now that you're here,"
He nods to Data, who takes his cue and stands abruptly, activating something at his own panel; the table quiets.
"As requested, Geordi and I have completed a full and in depth analysis of the disturbance detected in the shield grid, at the same time as Counselor Troi's encounter,"
And this is what they are calling it now, Deanna herself sitting on Commander Riker's right, an expression of neutrality plastered expertly to her face.
The main viewscreen powers up in a series of complicated equations that attach themselves to a linear graph.
"It's taken this long to put it all together 'cause of some lost data on the mainframe, but once we recovered it we were able to put together this,"
Geordi says, still sitting at his own chair, but rocking on it so that he is facing outwards and towards the display he refers to.
"It is a comprehensive timeline for the specific points in the shield grid where disturbances were detected, across a span of approximately 15 minutes, including data relating to phenomenon detectable using external sensor readings,"
Data continues, pointing one of his long fingers towards the graph, where the points plotted continue to increase in frequency until disappearing completely.
"Our analysis has been unable to detect any bio-molecular reading from the energy form, but it does provide us a dimensional image of it, suggesting that at zero hundred and thirty hours, a spherical being of raw energy breached the outer shields with a diameter of one point seven nine metric units,"
The display changes to a mock up image of the energy being, and it seems rather much like the light Counselor Troi has been describing from the beginning.
"By zero hundred and thirty seven hours, we can follow it's movements using the internal sensors, through a couple of crew quarters and a public bathroom, to the Counselor's bedroom,"
Laforge finishes off for them both, a team undoubtedly, and close enough to work by finishing the other's thoughts, a perfect friendship between man and machine.
They both turn in tandem to address Deanna, their expressions almost identical.
"It is exactly as Counselor Troi described,"
Data states with curiosity, as though he is confused that she had such a grasp on the situation before he did, the simple fact that she did not need all this technology to tell them as much.
"And we can be sure that these two events are linked?"
The captain queries, hopeful still that this all is one giant misunderstanding, a dream that he will soon wake from.
"A call was made to Doctor Crusher approximately two hundred and ninety five point five eight seconds after the energy being disappears from internal sensors,"
Data's explanation is crisp, mechanical, and terribly damning to any hope they might have had left. Through this, Deanna has remained silent, and under the table Will's hand has found its way atop her knee, rubbing over the fabric there in a soothing motion that perhaps is lost on her.
She seems light years away.
"I see, thank you Mr Data, Geordi,"
Picard nods thanks at them both, and the viewscreen dies into blackness again as the android retakes his seat between Worf and Laforge, the chair dipping its concession with a slight squeak.
"Well that sorts out the how, I suppose,"
Riker breezes, hoping to move this on quickly for the sake of Deanna if nothing else, her skin has become tense beneath his touch.
At least this time she has his solidarity and not his distance.
"So what do we have on the who, Doctor?"
He cranes his head around to address Beverly two seats down from him, who has flanked Deanna too in that same show of support, and perhaps also with that feeling she has been full of so much lately, that she must hover, in case something should go terribly wrong.
"Yes, well, I have the full genetic analysis back from Counselor Troi's amniocentesis yesterday, and the results are certainly confusing to say the least,"
"Doctor?"
Picard questions.
"I'm afraid I might be raising more questions than I'm answering, but I can say for the most part that this child is definately made from Deanna's DNA, it's just there's a single chain that the computers can't identify, there's no record of such a pattern anywhere in the data banks,"
Beverly explains, her eyes focusing more on the Captain than on the other three men across from her at the table, still uncomfortable that they have to have such intimate conversations in an open forum this way. Especially when an event such as this is under scrutiny.
"Are we concluding then that the lifeform is a hostile?"
Worf asks, breaking his own silence of thought in a way that can be trusted of him to do, thinking always of the worst case scenario.
"Absolutely not,"
Crusher tries to hold back on her defensiveness, but it is an arduous task.
"The genetic makeup of the foetus indicates to us that Deanna is the mother, contributing almost 100% of her DNA which suggests a kind of asexual reproduction has been stimulated, only their patterns are not so identical as to suggest it is a clone,"
She sighs her frustration.
"It's incredibly difficult science to try to explain, I'm not even sure I understand it myself, but we can see from analysis that the child does have two parents, two contributions of DNA, however slight one may be, it's almost as though whatever this life form did -"
Her speech drops off for only one moment, her gaze flitting over to Deanna briefly, caught up on what this life form did, everybody not wanting to really say it.
"It, uh, it mutated Troi's own DNA to donate a paternal half for the fertilisation of an egg containing the other half of the DNA, whatever the remaining nought point two percent is, that is the only part that is not related to Deanna in any way,"
Picard sighs.
"So you're saying that's negligible?"
He asks, confused.
"I'm saying -"
Beverly takes a steadying breath.
"Well, I'm saying we don't know,"
Worf's eyes draw themselves more narrowly into suspicion, as though he has been proven correct, but the Doctor is quick to clarify before he can say anything more to heighten their nerves.
"But all of our scans, all the data we've compiled, everything we've learnt so far is telling us that this is just a baby, half human, half betazoid,"
She tells them definitively, but there is something of trepidation beyond her voice that only the Captain is able to catch, having known her for so long; Deanna can feel it instead in her mind.
They neither say anything at all.
"Do you perceive any threat here, to the Counselor or to the Ship?"
Worf asks, trying to keep himself away from the panic button, measuring his words with practiced diplomacy that he unashamedly has learnt from Deanna herself, in their shared time on the bridge.
Collectively, Riker, the Doctor and Geordi sigh at his efforts, the man clearly ignoring what it was said, his one-track mind fixed almost permanently on the things that would threaten his position.
"Not overtly, Lieutenant,"
Beverly tells him.
"Of course I have some concerns about the Counselor's health, but at the minute they're well managed, and I don't think we quite have a Sigourney Weaver situation on our hands here,"
She smiles coyly, attempting to lighten the mood, but her seemingly ancient reference is completely lost on everybody but Will, whose face contorts at the thought of it. He snorts, if only to signal that at least somebody understood her, but the rest remain as blank faces around the table, and Data's eyes continue to scan left and right as he searches his data banks for the reference.
"Well, is it a boy or a girl then?"
Geordi cuts in jovially, his voice lightening up in some genuine joy at the thought of a child, especially one borne of someone so lovely as Deanna.
"No!"
The Counselor herself responds urgently, before Beverly's opening mouth can give anything away.
"I mean -"
She all of a sudden feels every pair of eyes on her, as though she has done something more incredible than simply call out after such a long time of silence. Every open eye is only for her.
"I do not want to know yet,"
Deanna explains, turning instead to Will, who is more keenly soothing the top of her leg, remembering their conversation the night before, how there had been so much she left unsaid, how even he had struggled to get any coherent reason from her - truthful or not.
"Of course,"
Laforge responds in good-humour, allowing himself not to be phased, trying to take the attention back from her sudden outburst, knowing all too well the creeping heat in the apples of her cheeks, the increase in her heart rate at the pulse in her neck.
These things that only he can see.
"Everybody loves a good surprise,"
He chimes, a broad smile made up of his face, and it is a strangely truthful thing to have come upon him.
"Indeed,"
The Captain adds, standing swiftly from his chair and rounding it to hang onto its tall back - an overly casual gesture, but a gesture nonetheless.
"As long as you're feeling okay, Deanna?"
He turns more pointedly to her, emphasises that he cares only really for her, rather than whatever it is becoming of her. She smiles her usual grace, always a smile for him.
"Yes Sir, I am thank you,"
His eyes find themselves temporarily distracted by the vision of Will's hand on her thigh, but he is loath to linger, to rob her of whatever solace she may be able to find in all of this chaos; so long as nothing rash comes of this, he will leave it be.
"I'm glad to hear it,"
Picard looks away and up to meet the individual gaze of each of the senior staff.
"So long as nobody else has any further concerns?"
He is met by 5 shaking heads.
"Right then, we can move on,"
The chair is left swinging as he takes his hands away and walks further out in front of the table, addressing them all now as the leader in this new conversation, now that they can turn away from such a delicate conversation that he finds himself with little to add to.
"Astrometrics tells me that their scans of the nearby de Beauvoir Nebula are almost complete,"
Beverly, at the opposite end of the table, smiles softly at the endearing sound of his french accent, and for a moment, he is disarmed by the youth this makes of her.
"We should be on our way to Starbase 71 again by the end of the week, for refits under Admiral Kyoto, but in the meantime Mr Data has kindly offered to run a skeleton crew on the bridge this Sunday,"
Picard nods gratefully to the android, and a certain sense of anticipation rises across the table for what is about to be said, though they had expected as much.
"Which means I want you all to take the day off,"
He says with a broader smile on his face, and suddenly Geordi is whooping with his fist in the air, the lightest of them all.
"Nice one Cap!"
Laforge exclaims, and Will joins in the sudden joy, leaning over to pat the Captain's arm in thanks.
"Don't thank me Lieutenant, Mr Data organized the whole thing - he tells me his observations of the crew indicate performance affecting fatigue, even I get the day off, thank God,"
He explains, pointing over to Data who sits with a bewildered expression on his face. At the mention of his name, he adjusts in his seat.
"That is correct sir, the recent events have caused disturbances in the crew, I believe a day off will be much welcomed,"
Geordi pats him heavily on the back, and his response is nothing more than continued confusion, though he smiles politely, as his subroutines have suggested he do, and the whole table is pleased to see it of him.
Will once again is rubbing at Deanna's thigh beneath the table, because she continues to feel self-conscious at the thought of how what has happened to her, and arguable her alone, is affecting the whole crew in such a deep way.
The look Worf had given her when he spoke of an incident in Ten Forward is beginning to take on some other meaning.
"As long as there are no other issues then?"
Picard asks, bringing everybody's attention back to him and not on the various expressions that shift and change in patterns of joy and confusion around the table.
Again, they all shake their heads no, and so the Captains hands draw together in front of himself as he rocks on the balls of his feet.
"Then you're all dismissed,"
The chairs around the table roll smoothly back in a kind of strange unison, and it is Deanna and Will who are the first to leave, nodding their thanks once again at Picard, and trying to seem as though they do not move as a pair.
"Doctor Crusher, if I might have a word?"
He calls to her, when she is almost to the door herself, and so she steps back to allow Laforge, Data and Worf to file past her, a puzzled look on her face.
The door shuts, and Beverly walks over to where he stands still at the top of the room, holding off at a slight distance.
"Is something the matter, Sir?"
She asks him, keeping up the pretences by sticking with rank; a derision comes upon him.
"Beverly, please, I need you to tell me seriously if you think, personally, that this child could be hostile?"
The expression falls off her face.
"Jean-luc,"
She echoes this intimacy he has asked of her.
"You know I can't make a judgement like that,"
Beverly moves closer to him than before, puts a hand against his forearm where it is tensed in his anticipation.
"I'm a doctor, I'm thinking about what's good for Deanna, then for her baby, and then for the ship - but she comes first,"
He frowns at this, hoping she maybe could have offered him something more to think on.
"But if you had to, if you weren't her physician, if you were on the lower decks, what would you think of this?"
Her hand falls away from him quickly, she takes one single step backwards.
"I guess -"
She manages to say, making a concession that she wouldn't make for anybody but him.
"Well, I guess I'd be wondering why her?"
Picard tips his head a silent question.
"Data's graph showed us how that life-form travelled from room to room for almost ten minutes,"
He is starting to understand.
"But it only took five seconds in Troi's quarters before it disappeared,"
Beverly runs a hand through her auburn hair, tousles it at its root where it is loose and clean, then fixes him with eyes that are frank, and only slightly scared.
"So I supposed I'd have to ask - why her - why her and not any number of other crewmen who were just as asleep, just as alone, and just as female as her,"
She pauses her emphasis.
"Hell, I might even be thinking why not me?"
Picard takes his eyes away from her own, and down to his shining black shoes against the deck, wondering if this is a prevailing thought amongst them all, if maybe this is where the tension has come from.
"You're saying you would feel unsafe, aboard the Enterprise?"
He has it wrong, she is shaking her head slowly at him.
"No,"
Beverly clarifies.
"Not unsafe - suspicious,"
A beat.
"It was Deanna who once who told me, that of all the species she's worked with, it is Human's who fear the unknown the most,"
The memory makes a shiver creep along her spine.
"She said that it is only our fear that drives us to distrust, and hate - I'd never thought of us that way before but she's right,"
Picard fidgets his fingers together, moves a little on the spot to check his balance, trying to listen more than to break down at any number of realisations.
"And I think now, because of this, people are finding it easier to be suspicious of her, because she was chosen, and they don't know why,"
It all makes a terrible amount of sense, and he finally looks up at her, impressed maybe that he is not in fact speaking with a counselor, but with the doctor he has known for too long for both their good's.
"This is what's putting the crew on edge then, the fact that we don't know?"
Beverly nods at him her affirmation, then bows her head slightly as she makes to leave, having no more to say than what she has left him to think on; he makes no move to stop her.
She turns back at the door.
"If not knowing is doing that to the crew, then I'm sure you can imagine what it's doing to her,"
