A month later, he had managed to stay away from Medical, and had been cleared for two hours duty per day. He returned home just before lunch, managed a bite to eat, then was floored for the rest of the afternoon. He slept soundly each day until Beverly came home. She would wake him, they'd take a stroll along the shoreline, then eat together mid-evening. Invariably, he felt himself growing sluggish with each bite he managed and just about had the energy to make it back upstairs and get himself ready for bed for the night.
He resisted the temptation to compare his current existence with his time on the Enterprise, that way madness surely lay. Still, there was something to be said for how things had worked out. His life was contained, smaller, but with it came a new kind of peace and contentment. His relationship with Beverly was blossoming and he had no doubt this was in part due to the lack of duelling Cardassians, sneaking Ferengi, or to the fact that he was much safer on Earth than he'd ever been out in space.
Now that part of his career appeared to have run its course, he finally allowed himself the indulgence of realising how close he'd come to losing his life entirely. There'd been that year, after his time with the Borg Collective, when he'd felt he'd spent longer in sickbay than his own quarters. It had taken an age to recover from his assimilation, then he'd been stabbed by the boy in the incident with the Talarians, quickly followed by being gravely injured on an out of the way moon in the Pentarus system. That time, he'd come far too close. He'd made peace with it, as he'd lain there on the floor of the cavern, could remember feeling resigned to his death, but all the same.
He'd know of course, that a Starfleet career came with a whole host of risks. Now that he was looking back on it, he could appreciate that while he'd been in the thick of it, he'd taken his health for granted, forgotten that putting himself in the way of harm wasn't a normal thing to do. It had been though… out there.
When Banda had finally moved on to take care of the next poor ranker in need of her assistance, they'd thrown her a surprise meal. She been moved to tears, and so had he. She'd done so much for him, taken him from his lowest, neediest point, and teased him back to health, merciless in her mother-henning, and so too in her unique sense of humour. She had been exactly what he'd needed, but he was never going to admit it, somehow though, he knew that she was well aware of the role she had played in his recovery so far. He was going to miss her.
And now, he was about to ramp up his duty hours, a full half day awaited him. He was nervous, wasn't sure if he'd be able to handle it. Couldn't abide the thought of needing even more sleep in order to simply function in his new role.
"You don't need to worry you know." She said, nose to nose as they lay next to each other in bed.
"How so?"
"You get to take this at your own pace, if it's too much, you can drop the hours. Starfleet owes you one – they know it." She kissed him on the nose.
"Well, only one way to find out I suppose…"
"And what's that?"
"One foot in front of the other, and repeat."
He pulled her close to him, wrapped his arms around her. He could feel the warmth of her body against his own, felt the softness of her hair under his chin. He breathed her in, amazed that the universe had finally allowed their relationship to happen. If he never got out in space again, he knew he would be okay as long as she was there with him.
"Jean-Luc?" she nudged him with the top of her head.
"Hmmm?" he replied sleepily.
"Come on, we've both got a day to get started." She unwrapped his arms from around her and wiggled free. Standing, she held out her hand for him, "want to take the first shower?"
He raised his eyebrows at her from underneath the covers. She knew exactly what he was implying but there was no way that was going to help either of them get where they were going on time. She removed her pyjamas in one smooth movement dumping them on top of him then slinking to the bathroom as naked as the day she was born.
"Not fair Beverly… not fair." He laughed getting up reluctantly. He pulled on his robe then padded off downstairs, and went to make them some breakfast, coffee and croissants, a bitter-sweet reminder of their mornings on board the Enterprise. His mind wondered absently to the ship, to Riker, Data… the rest of the senior crew. He tried to imagine where they were, what kind of mission they were on. He could find out easily of course, but something had kept him from making the call. He didn't want to delve too far into his reasoning, he was pretty sure it would be too painful to contemplate in any depth.
As he poured their drinks, and waited for the pastries to materialise, he ran through the day ahead. A meeting first thing at HQ, he was going to be given a choice of three postings now his admiralty training was nearing completion. Then, before he ran out of steam, he somehow had to get himself to Medical for a check-up, then home to sleep… it was going to be a long day, relatively speaking.
"Penny?" said Beverly as she sauntered into the kitchen. She looked immaculate as always, her hair perfect, uniform flawless. She sat down and took a sip of the coffee he'd just poured.
"Oh nothing… just thinking about the day ahead, wondering how I'm going to manage to stay awake." He replied, taking his own seat at the table.
"Well, would it help if you knew that pretty soon they'll be kicking you off the books?"
"They will?" He wasn't sure what to make of this unexpected news.
She took a bite of her croissant and another glug of coffee. She rose, went to kiss him on the cheek, "Don't worry, it'll go fine, nothing to worry about," she said as she headed out toward the front door, grabbing her uniform overcoat.
"Okay, well, later then I suppose." He said, kissing her goodbye before she slipped away out of reach.
He turned back for the kitchen, glad of the extra half hour he had before he needed to get to HQ. His mind tried to remember anything of his illness back on the ship, and on the starbase. He pretty much had nothing of the whole sorry time except for flashes of confusing images of various sickbay scenarios. The last thing he could properly remember was the meal on Jendoken 4, the next thing was seeing Will and Deanna at Medical here on Earth. What had happened to him in between those moments was anyone's best guess. Thank goodness Beverly had been there for most of it. He implicitly trusted her with his life – had had cause to trust her with his life on numerous occasions.
He put his maudlin and trepidatious thoughts to one side then went to get himself ready for the day ahead. He pulled on his uniform, still adjusting to its new parameters. What did they do to the necks on these things…
