AN: This is the third piece. There should be one more piece to this one.

I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

"I'm sorry…Jean-Luc," Beverly panted.

Jean-Luc held her hand with one hand, and with the other he alternated between doing mostly useless things, he was sure, like pushing her hair out of her face or rubbing her belly, since she seemed to find some comfort in his touch. Every now and again, when his back would tolerate it for another stretch of time, he leaned down and held her as she rested in the chair, and during those times, she almost seemed like she might sleep, despite everything.

He offered her ice from one cup and small sips of water from another. He dampened a cloth and wiped her face and neck frequently.

He walked with her around sickbay, from time to time, when that was what she wanted to do. He had even danced with her when thought that swaying back and forth with him was the most comfortable way she could spend her time laboring. He'd only helped her back in the chair when she'd asked to sit.

The only thing he absolutely didn't do was go more than a few feet from her, since she clearly didn't want him any distance away for any reason at all.

It had become abundantly clear that, for the most part, Doctor Moran intended to leave them alone. She came, every so often, and quickly checked the monitors for both Beverly and the baby, but she didn't stay long. She offered encouragement—Beverly was doing well, Jean-Luc was doing well, the baby was doing well. They were, as far as Jean-Luc could tell, a family that was very good at "doing well."

Jean-Luc didn't know how long they'd been there, exactly, but his feet, legs, and back were getting tired. He shifted between standing and sitting in the uncomfortable chair he'd been offered. He swallowed back laughter the first time he noticed it, stopping himself before he could complain about his discomfort. He was certain that Beverly's discomfort far outstripped anything that he was feeling.

They had been there long enough that Data had come to visit Beverly—with Deanna in tow—and he'd offered his apologies from some distance away, not feeling comfortable getting too close. Beverly had forgiven him, but not with any genuine show of affection for the time being. She clearly needed time to get over things. Worf came, also keeping his distance, to ask if everything was as it should be, but he hadn't neared Beverly or Jean-Luc. Wesley had come, too, but he'd clearly felt as uncomfortable as anyone possibly could, and quick kiss to his mother's cheek had been the most he was willing to offer before he'd practically run from sickbay.

Deanna had stayed a while after everyone else left, holding Beverly's hand and offering her some reassurances that everything would be over soon and she would have a beautiful baby to show for everything. Deanna's presence had been comforting enough that Jean-Luc had been able to sneak away long enough to use the bathroom, and Deanna had promised to be on standby in case he should need relief again before the baby came.

For the most part, however, it had been Jean-Luc and Beverly, alone in their quiet corner of sickbay.

The contractions were stronger, now, than they had been. They lasted longer, they were more frequent, and though Beverly made no loud declarations of discomfort, Jean-Luc could see her reactions to the pain as it registered on her face.

He could also tell that, very often, she almost seemed to be swimming in some kind of dream. She was far away from him, even when she was with him, and she only seemed to come up for moments of absolute lucidity. Doctor Moran, however, had assured him that she was fine, and that every mother had her own way of coping with childbirth.

"Why are you sorry, Beverly? Don't be sorry—you've got nothing to be sorry for."

Beverly looked at him. She frowned at him.

"He shouldn't come yet, Jean-Luc," she said. "He's too early." Her face drew up like she might cry, and she gave way to the emotion. Only one sob escaped, though, before she drew it back mostly under control.

"Hey—now—hey—none of that," Jean-Luc said softly, touching her face. "He's fine. He's going to be fine. He's strong. Like his mother. You heard Doctor Moran. We're not concerned. The device will be ready for the moment he's born, and he'll wear it until we're confident he's strong enough for the surgeries."

Beverly's one sob gave way to others, and Jean-Luc left her only long enough to retrieve tissue so that he could mop at her face for her. He saw, from the screen, another contraction, but she only seemed to register it, herself, with fast breathing that neared on hyperventilation as she tried to juggle it with the tears.

"Deep and slow, Beverly," Jean-Luc offered, trying to soothe her with his voice. "Deep and slow. Breathe for him…and yourself…and me. Because I can't do anything for any of us, Beverly, and it's breaking my heart." He brushed his fingers against her cheek and wiped away her tears. "You're breaking my heart. He will be healthy. And he'll be strong. And if he needs two more weeks to grow bigger and stronger, then we'll give him two weeks. Here—my love—try to drink a little more of this."

Beverly swallowed barely more than a sip of water, but she'd accepted a small handful of the ice chips to suck. The action of getting her to suck on the ice also seemed to get her to relax and breathe a little less rapidly.

A particularly strong contraction hit, and Jean-Luc lost her focus for a moment. He didn't mind. He held her hand in his, and he stroked her face while she did what she normally seemed to do—she went inside herself to deal with what was happening. Jean-Luc watched the monitor.

"You're doing well. So well, Beverly. You have to breathe. I know it's getting hard, and I know they're not letting you rest, but you have to try to breathe, OK? He needs you to breathe. There it is—that's the peak. You're going down now. It's going down and you'll have a minute or two to rest."

Jean-Luc could tell when she came back to him for a second.

"He won't be able to hear my voice," she said. "He won't know my voice." Her face drew up again, like she might cry again, and Jean-Luc dampened the rag, once more, that he used to wipe her face. As he passed the cool rag over her face, he kissed her several times, peppering her face with soft, quick kisses. They seemed to calm her, and she drew in the deepest breath he'd heard her take in a while and let it out with a long sigh.

"That's right," he told her, keeping his face close to hers. For just a moment, more than likely, she was calm. She closed her eyes, and he didn't worry. "Relax, Beverly. Breathe. This will all be over soon. I promise. And he'll be here—and none of the rest will matter. Not being able to hear is not the worst thing in the world—it's not as bad as hearing too much like he would without the devices. He may not be able to hear your voice, Beverly—because that's what will be best for him for a while—but he will know your voice. He knows it now. He's heard it all along. And even if he doesn't know your voice, he'll know your smell. He'll know your touch. He'll know you love him. And just think about how happy he'll be the day he hears your voice again. It's not you who should be sorry. I'm sorry that I've given this to him—that I've done this to you."

Jean-Luc didn't know what would be the worst-case scenario—assuming that their son was healthy and the Shalaft's Syndrome was the worst they had to deal with. He was sure the worst would be if the devices—devices meant to render the baby deaf temporarily—didn't work, and they had to witness his agony until something could be done. But beyond that, he wasn't sure what was worse. Was it worse to ask Beverly to wait—care for their son and always anticipate the surgery, worrying about its possible complications—or was it worse to take her newborn from her and perform the surgery immediately, assuming he was healthy enough to handle it?

Beverly opened her eyes and turned her face toward his. She kissed at his lips and he indulged her, meeting her and giving her the kiss that she'd tried for. Her hand found his and squeezed, a sign of another contraction, but she didn't break the kiss, so he let her have what she seemed to need.

"I love you," she panted out to him when the kiss broke—Jean-Luc didn't scold her, this time, about not breathing deeply enough. "I love you, Jean-Luc."

"I love you more than my life," Jean-Luc assured her.

"I'll never be angry with you. Neither will he. Neither will any other son we may have, Jean-Luc. Not about this."

"And I'll never be angry with you," Jean-Luc assured her, "about anything pertaining to…whatever happens in this chair."

She laughed, entirely lucid and with him for the moment.

"It hurts," she admitted. "Oh—Jean-Luc…it hurts."

He could have almost said it was the first indication of any discomfort, but he'd been reading her body language and facial expressions while any outright declarations of pain had been absent.

"I know it does," Jean-Luc said. "And if I could take this from you, I would."

She smiled. It was his favorite kind of smile from her. He knew she was about to tease him, and he relished it before it came.

"You wouldn't survive," she teased.

"You are probably right," he agreed. He took her hand, kissed it, and then reached for the ice cup. "I am not as strong as you are. Here—put this in your mouth." She smirked at him, but she opened her mouth and he shoveled in enough of the ice to keep her busy for a second. "That way, you cannot continue to point out my shortcomings."

Her sharp intake of breath, a moment later, was no surprise to Jean-Luc. He'd seen the contraction building on the screen. She started to hum—the greatest evidence of her pain, so far—and Jean-Luc started back on his circuit of touching while talking to her to help with the pain, his assistance evidenced whenever she no longer felt the need to hum to herself and, instead, she focused on his words, perhaps, or whatever it was that was happening in that place where she went inside herself.

"I'm going to push," she announced suddenly and quite urgently. "Oh—I have to push now, Jean-Luc."

She raised up like she might leave the chair entirely, and Jean-Luc stood up, ignoring the aching protest of his back and legs at the sudden change of position.

"Jean-Luc!" Beverly protested when it was clear he was leaving her.

"Doctor!" Jean-Luc barked out, reluctant to get too far from Beverly.

Doctor Moran, luckily, had stayed close by and ready for this moment. She came jogging over, looking quite happy about the whole situation. She moved a tray full of instruments and uncovered them—they'd been well out of sight for the whole time. Among them was the device that would help their baby with the immediate effects of Shalaft's Syndrome, when the calming sounds of his mother's womb no longer soothed the pain that hearing would cause him.

Doctor Moran moved a stool so that she could take her position.

"OK—you want to push, but let's not push just yet, OK? You still with me, Doctor Crusher?"

"I'm not pushing," Beverly said. "Oh—but I want to…please…I have to."

"Doctor—her teeth are chattering again," Jean-Luc pointed out, holding on to Beverly's hand.

"And she's shaking," Doctor Moran said. "It's fine. Her vitals are fine. It's actually pretty normal. It should stop somewhere in the next hour or so. Doctor Crusher—you're fully dilated, push when you feel the need, OK?"

"This is it?" Jean-Luc asked. Doctor Moran smiled at him. "This is it, Papa," she teased. She playfully winked at him. "All your hard work is nearly done. I'm afraid Mama still has just a bit more to do."

Unsure of what to do, exactly, Jean-Luc kept up with his already-familiar running string of commentary. Beverly clung to him, and he wondered if she might have broken at least one or two of the small bones of his hands. Still, he let her have them. Sacrificing his hands was the least he could do at the moment. This stage of things was, honestly, the busiest of all of them, though it was still nothing like what he'd prepared himself to experience. Doctor Moran was steady and calm, and Beverly responded fairly well to that—at least until the precise moment that she didn't.

Jean-Luc looked to Doctor Moran the moment that he wasn't sure if Beverly had become possessed by something. She suddenly became frantic, and she'd declared that the baby couldn't be born or, at least, that she couldn't give birth to him. There was no use in going on. She had nothing more. She was done.

Doctor Moran had simply smiled at him, crinkled up her nose, and shook her head.

"She's not done," she assured him. When Beverly overheard that, and loudly protested that she was, in fact, done, Doctor Moran simply hummed and nodded her head. "You're right, Beverly," she agreed, clearly choosing to use Beverly's given name for the connection she needed to establish with her at the moment. "You can be done. Just—give me about three more pushes…and you're done."

"I'm done now!" Beverly growled at her.

"Two more," Doctor Moran countered. "Just two, and I'll let you take your baby with you."

"I can't!" Beverly argued.

"One more, then…and I'll throw in your husband. One more really amazing push, Beverly, and you can take the whole lot home with you," Doctor Moran offered. "Every Picard we can scrounge up on the ship, Doctor. It's a bargain."

"Shit! That burns!" Beverly spat, her teeth still chattering somewhat intermittently.

Doctor Moran laughed, and Jean-Luc didn't know what to think. His heart was pounding in his chest with fear, but he also felt absolutely exhilarated.

"So, I've heard," Doctor Moran said. "Papa—you want to see your son come into the world, or are you skipping that part?"

Jean-Luc stretched enough to continue to offer Beverly a hand, fully-reluctant to ask her to relinquish her hold on him, and to see what he was being offered to see. He had expected to be overwhelmed by the birth, but he still wasn't prepared for how he actually felt. As soon as the baby's head was out, the devices were first fitted into place that would, hopefully, render him deaf until his surgeries could be performed. There was hardly any time from the moment that the device was fitted into place, and Doctor Moran told Beverly that she could push again when she felt the urge, that their son was fully born.

In a veritable whirlwind of activity, the Caitian nurse took the baby from Doctor Moran, wrapped in a blanket she had ready, and transferred him directly to Beverly's waiting arms—her chest bared by the nurse in preparation of her first time holding the baby. While the nurse and Beverly cleared the baby's airways, Doctor Moran tied off the umbilical cord and offered Jean-Luc the opportunity to sever the physical tie between his wife and his son.

Both his wife and son were crying, though Jean-Luc imagined it was for different reasons. While Doctor Moran finished her work, the young Caitian nurse helped clean up the baby as Beverly held him.

"Jean-Luc," Beverly said. "Look at him…"

Jean-Luc didn't know if she'd planned to say more, and simply couldn't manage to get the words out, or not. However, he found it didn't matter. He felt like he could read her mind as surely as any telepath ever could.

He came to her side, and she beamed at him with their newborn son held against her chest.

"He is perfect," Jean-Luc said. "Thank you, Beverly."

Jean-Luc leaned and kissed her. His heart felt like it might burst in his chest. His son was here and, at the very least, he appeared perfectly healthy. Beverly looked healthy and happy—and what strength she'd lost would return with a little rest. He had the most important things in his life right here. Jean-Luc knew that, whatever else might be to come, they could deal with that—together.