Beverly Crusher sipped at the coffee on her desk absent-mindedly. She had slept well, had a long hot shower, eaten a good breakfast, and felt like she could face anything the day held in store for her.

She had checked in on the Captain and caught up with the medic on night duty. The Captain had passed an uneventful night, he had been administered with further pain relief at regular two-hourly intervals, all the plasts were functioning optimally, his fluidic in and outputs were within tolerance, and while his temperature had risen in the night, they had managed to control it with medication. He was out for the count and Beverly was going to take advantage of this brief pause to get her reports all caught up now that she had arrived in her office.

The main sickbay, and most of cargo bay 2 were filled to the brim with survivors of what had quickly become known as The Battle of Wolf 359. The Enterprise had been the only ship left in the vicinity thanks to their mission to rescue Captain Picard.

Once they had him back, they had started picking up stragglers floating about in escape pods, drifting aimlessly through the ruins of half the fleet. There were in the region of one hundred Starfleet crewmembers they had managed to rescue… a number that paled into insignificance in comparison to the number of lives lost. Now they were within range of Earth, Crusher had the benefit of teams of fresh medics from HQ transported in to help her cope. An advantage that meant she hadn't even given the inhabitants of her sickbay a thought beyond checking everyone's initial status. Once they were triaged, they could be safely transported down to Medical and off her hands. She signed off on the most recent evacuees, permitting them to continue their recovery planet-side.

Beverly was broken from her reverie by the increasing frequency of the beeps monitoring the Captain's condition. She grabbed her tricorder and, tying her hair up into a bun as she went, ran into the trauma recovery room. She paused at the door unable to process what she was seeing.

Jean-Luc Picard was half-sitting on the edge of the biobed. His left hand was gently probing the edges of the plast covering the worst of his facial wounds, his eyes were cast down toward his arm contained within the industrial-strength regen cast, floating in the anti-grav field. As if sensing her presence, he turned his gaze slowly toward her as she drew nearer.

"Wh-what..?" he whispered quietly, hand still in place.

"Jean-Luc! You're up!"

Picard's gaze was locked onto her, his expression a picture of confusion. He was lost.

"Alright, you're going to be just fine," she said as she wrapped one arm across his back and pressed the other against his chest. He flinched at her touch, "I just want you to lay back there, that's it," she said as she kept her hands firmly on his body.

She manoeuvred him so he was lying down once again. His casted arm was locked into position. She had no idea how he had managed to get himself upright, nor how he had managed to break out of the effects of the neural calliper. Goosebumps broke out across his chest and he started to shiver. The regen wave tracked his body no matter what position he was in so it continued its path silently.

"Cold…" he whispered.

"I bet… okay just a moment," she said as she reached for a second blanket and raised the temperature of the bed, "There, you're going to feel better in just a moment."

He closed his eyes and Beverly waited as his body stopped shivering and started to relax. The beeping of the monitor dropped to its previous frequency. He was asleep once again.

Beverly blew out a puff of air to release the tension his early waking had triggered. Her hand still in place on his chest, feeling him warm up.

"Beverly?"

"Deanna! How..?"

"I came as fast as I could."

"I do not know how he did this. He is under so much sedation – the calliper, the drugs. He should have been under for another few hours."

"It's him, he's trying to find himself," Deanna replied mysteriously as she wondered over to the sleeping Captain.

Beverly smoothed the blankets, checked the regen wave, and dabbed at the edges of the cast to check the forcefield was still operating. It flashed a warning and sounded a low alarm calibrated so as not to wake sleeping patients.

"He's gone again."

"What do you mean?" Beverly asked, a moment of sheer terror flashing through her mind.

"No. I mean, I haven't been able to sense him since you knocked him out. He started coming to about 10 minutes ago. But now, he's back under," she turned to face her friend, "You can relax Beverly, he's not going to wake up any time soon," she smiled.

"Well, quite right. I didn't want to wake him until these were downgraded," she said as she indicated toward the heavy-duty plasts. "Still, it has been my experience that captains don't behave according to their own best interests too often. Not in sickbay anyway."

Deanna laughed in response, relieved that the confusion and fear she had sensed from the Captain were now non-existent. She realised that she was going to have to do some serious preparation if she was going to be in any position to help when he did come round. The depth and intensity of the dark emotions she sensed from him, albeit very briefly, were off the scale. This was going to take some time to figure out.

"Once I'm sure he's going to be staying asleep," Beverly continued, "I'll get the plasts changed and see what's going on underneath the arm cast. That's going to need another couple of days at least though by my calculations. I wish he could just stay asleep until his wounds are completely healed."

"I know, so do I. But he's not going to start to get over this until he's fully…" she paused, "…assimilated his experience. And that means he's going to have to face up to what's been done to him. He needs to see the process of recovery." Deanna added as they left the trauma room.

Turning for Beverly's office one again, Crusher touched her commbadge, "Crusher to Riker."

"Shelby here Doctor, Captain Riker is planet-side I'm afraid. Can I be of assistance?"

Crusher quirked an eyebrow, two captains on board at once was going to take some creative management.

"No. Thank you Shelby, Crusher out," she finished, she didn't want to share the Captain's progress over the comm system, and she didn't especially want to share it with the Commander at all.

"Would you like to join me for some lunch?"

Beverly checked the time on her display, "Sure, I can take 30 minutes. Ten Forward?"

"Perfect." Deanna replied.