Six weeks after Jean-Luc's return from the dead, Will arrived at the house on the stroke of eight. Deanna arriving simultaneously at the château in Labarre to break the news to Robert before the rest of the world, the galaxy really, found out. Half an hour later, a small team of Starfleet security specialists flooded the island of Îl de Ré to stand guard at the transporter station, the shuttle launch, and of course, at the home of Beverly and Jean-Luc.
Louis and Ted were both home, Beverly had excused them both from the lycée and the university due to yet another 'family emergency' days ago, and Ted had made the relatively quick journey home via public transport. They were busy throwing a ball around in the garden, content in each other's company and the vast amount of snacks she'd left out for them.
She went up to the bedroom to check on Jean-Luc. She didn't know exactly what the day had in store, but she was fairly certain that it wasn't going to be pleasant. He'd been informed, of course, but she wasn't completely sure he would have retained the details of the plan. He was having trouble focusing on the minutia, his mind often literally light years away.
She pushed open the door cautiously, "Jean-Luc?"
He was sitting shirtless on the armchair with his head in his hands, the shirt he had intended to put on dangling from one hand. He was rocking back and forth ever so slightly and from her position, the only thing she could focus on was the remains of the brand on his back, still bright pink and very visible.
"Jean?" she said gently as she went to him. She crouched down on the floor next to him and touched his knee softly. "Penny?"
He gasped, startled, then smiled at her. She was relieved.
"I was just… thinking." He trailed off for a second, then looked back at her confused, "Are you okay?"
"Me? Of course, why do you ask?"
"You look worried… everyone always looks so worried."
"Well, it's not been the easiest few months I suppose," she replied, smiling, hoping he'd read the humour in her understatement of the century.
He sat back in the chair, "It's today isn't it?"
She nodded, "Yes, they're about to make the formal announcement. Will is here."
She stood then, smoothed her hand across his shoulders, studiously avoiding the scarring. He captured her hand when it came near enough, stilling her movement. "Don't please…"
She could feel the muscles in his back tense, saw his jaw lock, his teeth tightly clamped together. "I'm sorry."
"It's… I don't want to…" he stammered, as though he might be about to reveal something to her. He put the shirt on, fastening it across his chest. "How long do you give it before we get inundated?"
"Will has all the details, but I know there's a team here – out front and around the back. They put up a defence shield and comms blackout over the house, while the hubbub dies down. I think we'll be okay."
"And Robert?"
She nodded again, "Deanna is over there now… do you want to speak to him?"
He rubbed at his eyes, tired of the tell-tale prickle of tears. He'd never wept so much in his life and now he was back, it seemed like the only thing he could do. Now he was faced with the prospect of speaking to his brother again, he couldn't contain his emotions. He nodded, sure he wouldn't be able to trust his voice. "I do…" he whispered after a moment. "I really do."
Her own eyes were welling up as well. After today, everything was going to change – again. In the next hour, the world was going to know that Jean-Luc and the other survivors were home, as well as the basic details of what had happened to them on Xhandria. a not insignificant piece of news.
"Ready to face the music?" she said, standing and holding her hand out to help him up.
He grabbed her hand and was grateful for the assistance. He stood slowly, painfully, then took a moment to breathe through the anxiety he could feel bubbling away. "As I'll ever be."
When the story went live, there was a moment of silence in the living room. Everyone had gathered around the screen to watch live as the Federation News Service broadcast the tamest details of the mission that had gone so horribly wrong, and the triumphant news that Starfleet had managed to rescue and bring home 17 survivors, including Jean-Luc.
There was nothing new, of course, nothing that he hadn't already elaborated on in much more disturbing detail than the anodyne details included in the broadcast – even if they were out to sensationalise. He felt self-conscious suddenly, as though it were his fault somehow. He paced across the back of the living room – back and forth, back and forth. In the background, he'd heard the whole thing laid out in report style and it sounded, and felt, like it had all happened to someone else.
He rubbed at his temples, trying to quell the rising feeling of nausea, and a kind of tingling feeling that made him feel as though there were bugs crawling through his veins… like nanoprobes. He felt restless, ashamed. Now everyone would know. Robert…
"When did she tell him?" he asked quietly.
"Do you mean Robert?" said Will. Jean-Luc nodded, Will continued, "She would have arrived there the same time as I got here. He knows… she sent confirmation before we released the broadcast."
"He hasn't called."
Beverly didn't know what to say. Knowing how it felt to hear unexpected news of this magnitude, as well as knowing Jean-Luc's brother, she found it easy to put herself in his shoes. "It is a lot to take in Jean, I'm sure he's trying to figure it out before he speaks to you. Deanna's with him, he's probably trying to figure this all out."
"I think I'm just going to…" he said. He was agitated, needed to get some distance between the inhabitants of this room and himself. He needed to be alone.
"Papa, don't go..." said Ted longingly.
But he couldn't look anyone in the eye – least of all his sons. He felt trapped, images from his captivity suddenly flashing in his mind with increasing frequency.
He stalked upstairs and the images grew in strength and intensity flashing before his eyes with the speed and veracity of a fairground ride or casino wheel. As he ascended the stairs, the wheel slowed down, enabled him to focus on one or two memories instead of everything all at once.
He recognised the signs, he was about to fall into a flashback and he was helpless to prevent it. The second the wheel stopped…
The reporter had listed the details of the mission. He'd been half-listening as they had laid out the chronology of it all. The journey out to Xhandria had taken a month, and then Starfleet had lost contact with the crew of the Apollo the moment they had arrived. There'd been an undercover mission to find out what had happened, Starfleet had done their best… taken six months before declaring all hands killed in action… whatever. Starfleet's best was so far from good enough he could laugh.
The memory of that first beating had him tucked into a ball on the floor on the floor of his bedroom as though he were right back in that room on Xhandria. He could taste the blood pouring from his mouth, his eyes swollen almost closed. He'd peed blood for weeks, nursed a dislocated shoulder; the first dislocated shoulder after they'd wrenched his arm so far behind him. They'd dumped him back in the cell, with some of the others, it must have been right at the beginning of it all when he'd been a part of the crew, not later when he'd been alone.
He was aware for just a moment of where and when he was; safe, he was home. He knew that. Then the power of a second more intense image ploughed through any sense of reality he'd had and he could have been anywhere.
The first time they'd branded him, they'd held him down, the weight of them making it difficult to breathe, crushing him, cracking a rib or two.
They'd held his head up, straining his neck back painfully so he could see them hold the iron over the coals, smell the heat of it meandering toward him. He'd been immobilised, entirely unable to move. Time had slowed to an interminable crawl as one of them had come toward him, the gag in his mouth making it impossible to make anything more than a horrified grunt. Then they'd pressed it to his back, hard. And for that glorious second he thought he'd got away with it. For just a moment it didn't hurt at all. He remembered thinking it was strange, thought they had tricked him somehow. Then the burning pain came. Searing, deep, agonising pain struck and he felt it in every cell of his body, unable to think past it.
Afterwards, afterwards… it was utter agony for days, weeks perhaps. They'd done it repeatedly, let it heal a little then gone in for a second, third, fourth… he'd given up counting.
He didn't know why… that's what he couldn't get his head around, nobody ever said why… they never spoke to him, he hadn't ever heard more than a few words of their language. They communicated some other way, he'd thought, when he'd cared.
There didn't seem to be any kind of communication attempt, no explanation… if there'd been some sort of cause, any kind of reason no matter how ill-thought out, he might have…
And the report had confirmed it. Starfleet was no closer to discovering the reason why they'd been taken and treated so brutally. Nor were they any closer to working why some of them had been spared, and some had never returned.
He hadn't seen enough of the planet to make it make sense. Hadn't seen how the Xhand civilian population operated. He hadn't cared then, wasn't sure if he cared now. It just hurt so much… he didn't know if he could even imagine a point when this wouldn't feel so bad. When he might not be so ashamed…
She left him for a few minutes, recognised the signs that he needed to escape, knew it was better to let him do that. After about twenty minutes, she went up to investigate.
She found him lying on the bed, his scarred back to the door. He'd taken a shower, he was wrapped in a towel and his hair was still wet. She could see how tense he was even from her vantage point across the room.
"Jean?" she said quietly as she went to him. She didn't want to frighten him.
He turned to her, startled. His face was red, silent tears were coursing from his eyes. "Flash back." He whispered turning back.
"Okay… how do you feel right now."
"Better."
"What can I do?"
"I don't know…" he said hopelessly. She perched on the edge of the bed, right next to him. She placed her hand next to where his lay on the mattress. Slowly, he reached for her hand, held it tightly, "I'm fine. Really."
"Robert is here."
"Oh…"
"Take as long as you need. You're in control of how this goes, there is no rush. Really – I can ask him to come back another day." He looked at her again, more tears welled in his eyes amplifying the green of them vividly. "It's going to be okay. I know it doesn't seem that way right now… I'm so happy you're home. I love you."
He sobbed audibly and reached out to hug her. She rocked him instinctively and wept herself. The news had brought it all into crushing reality. He was back, very few of them were. There would be families for whom this was all a terrible reminder of their loss of two years ago when they had endured the memorial. As fresh as that first wound only worse. For some unknown reason, the Xhand had chosen to take the lives of their loved ones entirely arbitrarily.
And poor Robert, all along thinking he was mourning the loss of his younger brother when in fact Jean-Luc had been here, trying to recover himself. They had known Jean-Luc was alive for a couple of months, and had been home for six weeks, and now the stoic Robert Picard was sitting in the living room with his nephews trying to assimilate this incredible turn of events.
A few hours later, Jean-Luc wondered downstairs after a lengthy nap to a much quieter house. Despite falling into the flashback earlier, he had been feeling stronger today, less like he might snap in two pieces. Before he'd made it even half way to the ground floor, he heard the unmistakable voice of his brother talking to Beverly. He smiled, truly glad he was going to get to see him again. During his captivity, he had had plenty of time to think about the people he held most dear and the order in which he'd kill to see them all.
There was Beverly in pole position, of course, then the boys, but after that, to his surprise, yet a realisation cast resolutely in stone, was his brother. They'd made great strides forward in repairing their relationship since he and Beverly had been back on Earth. Robert and Marie had been welcome babysitters when the boys were small. They'd spent plenty of time together as an extended family, along with René. Long days at the beach, barbecues in their garden, weekends in Labarre. Glorious memories he'd relied on in some of his darkest hours.
"Well then," Robert began, his voice deep, clear, resonant. "If anyone could quite literally come back from the dead and arise from the ashes from all the way across the galaxy… Jean-Luc…"
"I wouldn't put it quite like that."
"Mon dieu…" he said grasping Jean-Luc by each arm then pulling him into a fierce hug. "I missed you…"
