Okay you guys, here is the final chapter of the House Call series... Brace yourselves.
Epilogue, Twenty years later…
Jean-Luc held his granddaughter's tiny hand in his own as they sauntered unsteadily and slowly along the shoreline, waves lapping gently at their feet. Aurélie, Ted's two-year old daughter, with her auburn hair and piercing green eyes was a delight to him. Both of them were barefoot and covered in sand from their explorations so far. She had a tiny spade in her free hand and used it to poke at various spots along the way, burbling away in her baby French.
She stopped every few steps to point at something wonderous and when she did so again, he crouched down to look more closely, enjoying seeing what was so familiar to him through fresh, new eyes. She had noticed a tiny hermit crab as it tried to scuttle into the sand and hide itself away. Aurélie stared, amazed screeching her joy and dancing around the tiny creature as it did its best to make itself scarce.
Soon enough, she started to grow tired and asked to be picked up. Jean-Luc scooped up his granddaughter and she cuddled into him. He was taken back to when Ted and Louis had been this age, revelled in the feel of her weight against him, and the complete trust she clearly had in him. He had never felt more honoured.
He wondered slowly back to the spot on the beach where his family was gathered. Beverly sat under a huge umbrella, a floppy hat on her head. She was his destination, both literally and metaphorically. In all the years they had enjoyed together, this one fact had not faltered. They were bound together across galaxies, the stars, and by the family they had created between them – their biological progeny, as much as the members they had chosen for themselves.
Ted with his partner, Mathilde, had brought Aurélie home for the weekend to visit. He had taken on a new role as as a professor of Quantumn Positronics in Paris at the Sorbonne and his small and very new family were putting down roots after years spent off-planet. Leave it to Ted to travel half-way across the galaxy only to settle down with a French girl.
Louis and his wife Coco were also in town. He was about to head off back into space as the freshly minted CMO aboard none other than the brand-new Enterprise G. Something that made Jean-Luc feel proud beyond belief. He couldn't wait for the launch, knowing he had a front seat invite as an ex-Enterprise captain, and as the very proud father of one of its senior crew members. Louis had ended up taking after his mother after all his wilful tendencies had worked themselves out. Most of them at least. Beverly made sure he knew how to keep some of the characteristics that had been so troubling during his teen years in reserve, ready to handle recalcitrant captains, and make medical breakthroughs in the nick of time – all the hallmarks of an excellent ship's CMO.
It was something of a celebratory visit home – when both the Howard-Picard offspring coincided it was a rare and precious opportunity to enjoy their family.
Will and Deanna had joined them for the afternoon, Kestra was living away on Betazed. Geordie and Data would be stopping by later on.
He couldn't have been happier. After the summer, they were going to let Ted and Mathilde have the house on Îl de Ré, and he and Beverly were going to take over at the vineyard. Robert was getting older, more frail; he and Marie were retiring, he'd had enough and done his time as the family custodian, or so he had reminded his younger brother.
He himself had taken retirement from his role at the Ethics Advisory Commission he'd headed. After a couple of years spent focusing on his recovery, he'd spent months on an archeological dig in Japan, then later Hawaii, transporting daily from their home. When he'd got the dust out of him, he'd risen from the depths of history, finally ready to take control of his life once again. He'd made amends with his feelings for Starfleet, the opportunity to make a difference to future generations of command officers proving to be just the tonic he needed. He had spent the later years of his career making space safer and retuning the peaceful exploration of the galaxy, ensuring Starfleet never forgot the mistakes of the Xhand Massacre.
They'd done good work, re-shaping the Federation, forcing it to return to something resembling its original purpose. He was proud and when it came for him to retire, he'd felt content, at peace with his decision. He'd given a lot, too much. He would never forget.. But he'd had the opportunity to make a difference once again, forcing the creaking wheels of such a huge institution to realign themselves and travel once again in the right direction.
Bringing him back to the present, he felt Aurélie growing heavier in his arms, and when he peeked down at her, he found she was staring out at the ocean, a thousand mile stare telling him she was completely at ease and close to sleep. Her long eyelashes brushed the tops of her cheeks, her thumb in her mouth – just as he remembered her father when he was this age. She had her grandpére wrapped around her finger from the second she was born. He was so proud, so happy, so content.
"Penny?" said Beverly quietly.
"She's completely perfect isn't she?" he replied quietly, carefully taking the seat next to her.
"She certainly is… Are you okay?" she asked, brushing a hand lovingly over the baby's head as she finally drifted to sleep.
"I'm fine… don't worry. Just feeling a lot of love for all that we have." And with his granddaughter still cradled against his chest, he reached across to her and kissed her tenderly on the cheek. "I love you."
"I love you too," she kissed him back.
And she did. After all they had endured, the years he'd spent recovering after the Xhand, the trials of raising a family and watching as their sons blossomed into accomplished young men at the top of their respective fields, she loved him. An immutable fact. And now, as they were entering this next phase in their life together, she couldn't think of anyone she'd rather be with, or any place she would rather be, and neither could he.
He settled into the seat and watched as his sons lolloped on the sand, relaxed and happy, both of them without a care in the world in the lull between the last adventure and the next. Neither of them would suffer as he had given their specialisms. Neither of them would be asked to risk life and limb for the Federation. Louis may face some of the worst of it, but as a medic, he wouldn't be asked to charge in head-first. For that, he was grateful. Now he knew what it really was to love one's own children, and indeed, his grandchild, he had arrived at a fresh appreciation of the plight his own parents had endured when he had first gone off into space.
Aurélie snuggled closer still as he settled into a new position on the chair. He savoured the moment, the sound of the waves lapping rhythmically against the shore, the gentle breeze rolling in off the sea, the feel of the soft sand beneath his feet and marvelled at how the next generation of Howard-Picards was already here, in his lap, adorable, sleepy, and safe.
So, there you have it. The actual end. There is no more.
If you've lurked your way through this, now is your time to shine! Go ahead, leave that review, tell me what you think. A huge thanks to my serial reviewers – your support and encouragement has meant the world to me. Hopefully, I managed to reply to each one of you (except for my mysterious Guest 1 and Guest Dos). Thank you, really.
I don't normally do a big closing speech but this is such an epically long piece of work that I felt the need. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself now it's done. And it really is, I have no more House Call in me!
I feel... awed. This story has taken me through the whole Covid nightmare, kept me sane, given me a focus, and now it is all over. The whole House Call series is the length of a weighty novel, in the region of 120,000 words would you believe – something I've never done before. Writing for characters I love so much has been a joy, difficult, sometimes incredibly so. There are so many characters I wanted to be part of this, and some I just didn't have the space for. I liken the process to having a whole bunch of juggling balls going all the time in perilous fashion, the end is where each ball finally falls into place, I hope all the threads I wanted to explore have fallen into place for you as well.
The more eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that Jean-Luc and Beverly remained unmarried – something I wanted for them as modern future folk. Just a little note of interest for you here!
I'm going to miss Ted and Louis – I really enjoyed writing them and seeing how they changed as they grew up. You may notice that I changed Ted's full name and gave him a much more bombastic and very French set of middle names, you'd have to go to part two, epilogue to spot it though.
It's time for poor old Jean-Luc to have a well-earned rest, I think I've put him through enough, don't you? A major illness, a long recovery, babies, a heart replacement, years of torture, more years of recovery... poor guy. Now I'm going to close the lid on this box and let him see out his days in the vineyard with the love of his life, Beverly. No doubt they'll be regularly hosting get-togthers for their family. Ted, Louis and baby Aurélie will pop in for weekend visits, Sunday lunch... bliss. Then there will be raucous evenings entertaining their Enterprise friends – a wonderful life and much deserved. Au revoir...
