Chapter 3

0100 hrs.

A nurse went in to check on Ensign Crusher. She adjusted his IV medication and noticed he had somehow kicked off all of his blankets. When she went to pull them back up on him, she noticed a light sheen of perspiration on his face and neck. His dark brown hair was nearly plastered to his forehead and he seemed to be curled up in the bed.

She took a tricorder and scanned him noting that his temperature was elevated. As she finished her scan she was startled to see a set of brown eyes staring at her.

"Ensign Crusher? Are you alright?"

Wesley stared at her with clenched teeth breathing sharply, his hand clutching his abdomen.

"Where's my - Where's Dr. Crusher…?" he stammered.

"She was exhausted Wes, we sent her back to quarters. It's late…what's wrong? I just gave you pain meds an hour ago."

"Not working." He delivered in short clipped sentences as he rocked on the bed panting. The nurse quickly screamed for Dr. Adams, as the doctor came barreling into the private room.

"How's my favorite patient?" Wesley glared at her as she unfolded his hands away from his sides and pulled away his clothing. She touched the place on his belly and found it extremely warm to the touch. In fact, Wesley was significantly warm all over.

"Oh dear heavens, give me your tricorder." the nurse handed over the equipment as she turned Wesley over to make him lay flat. He pulled his legs in tightly, unable to escape the agony coursing through him. She scanned him quickly closed her eyes and sighed angrily.

"Get the OR ready for surgery, and get a hold of Dr. Crusher tell her she needs to get down here immediately. I'm going to scrub up." the fair skinned doctor replied. She pulled her long brown hair back in a hair clip she kept in her jacket pocket-constantly at the ready, and stared at her patient with calm hazel eyes.

As they began to move the anti-grav bed - Wesley held the doctor's arm firmly. "What's wrong with me?"

"There is sign of infection and something serious is going on at the internal wound site. If we don't go in and fix it and find out what's wrong, you will only get sicker..."

A brief flicker of panic crossed his young face, but he quickly recovered.

"Will my mom do the surgery...?"

"She's on her way now sweetheart, but we have to get started before she gets here." Dr. Adams nodded to the nurse as she placed a mask over Wesley's nose and mouth.

"Just relax and breathe deeply and it will all be but a memory soon." She softly stroked the wet tendrils of hair from Wesley's forehead.

He nodded slowly, a single tear escaping his eye lid as she gently wiped it away. His pain and terror filled eyes slid shut, the anesthesia taking him under yet again.

"Okay he's out. I want to be ready to start in 2 minutes. This kid is not dying on my watch." the doctor demanded.

By the time Beverly Crusher was called to Sick Bay, her son was in the surgical suite and was already being administered anesthesia. She didn't want to frighten him, so she did not burst in. How dare Dr. Adams not consult her before beginning such an operation on her son, her only son!

She paced back and forth as the nurse finally handed Dr. Crusher a PADD containing all of the current scans, readings and vital statistics on Wesley.

She was about to scrub in and take over the surgery when she suddenly staggered to one of the chairs in sick bay. Wesley's temp had soared since she'd left, it was blatantly obvious that an infection had set in, and his stats were elevated straight across the board. He was in pain, and he was not putting out any fluids. Something was wrong with the integrity of the intestinal wall.

"Oh God..." she whispered covering her mouth. She walked up to the surgical suite and peered through the window as she watched Dr. Adams reopen his belly wound and began cutting into her son.

Meanwhile in the surgical suite Doctor Adams was busy searching for the source of Wesley's infection and pain. She found there was some residual fluids build up in his belly from the first surgery, and pus indicative of infection in the stub of the appendix that had been left behind from the first surgery. She explored the abdominal cavity carefully and found she needed to remove a small portion of his large intestine as the infection had started spreading to it as well. A simple appendectomy had turned into a major operation in a matter of minutes.

Almost two hours later, after completing a number of complicated laser guided sutures, she carefully cleaned out the wound and inspected everything before performing a lavage, attaching a JP drain and closing him up again.

The nurse hung more antibiotics and a 3 day drip as a chest tube was taped to his chest.

As soon as Dr. Adams emerged from the surgical suite, she saw a distraught Doctor Crusher waiting at the glass. She disposed of her gloves and mask and approached the nearly shell-shocked mother.

"I'm sorry we couldn't wait for your arrival Dr. Crusher, time was of the essence."

Beverly took her eyes from where her son was being cleaned up and turned towards Dr. Adams. She took the worried mother by the shoulder and told her what she had found and what she had to do to help Wesley get better.

"I was hoping to avoid a more invasive procedure but part of the intestine was compromised. He'll have a Jackson Pratt that you can take-down in two days. I wanted to rule out the chance of sepsis."

"Are you certain that all of the infected material was removed?"

"We took multiple camera images internally, you can check them yourself." Dr. Adams walked past Dr. Crusher and was surprised to feel a hand on her shoulder.

"Thank You. Thanks for doing what needed to be done." Dr. Adams enveloped Beverly into a hug.

"I'd sooner cut off my left arm than let anything happen to that boy! Now go, clean up, and don't let him see you like this. The nurse will get him situated."

Doctor Crusher was glad that her son was going to be okay. She left briefly and returned just before 0400hrs and said that she wanted to stay for the rest of the night until he woke up. They then took him to one of the private rooms in sickbay where Wesley could be monitored and Doctor Crusher could be beside him in one of the additional anti-grav beds that they had in there for just that reason.

Beverly sat beside her son pondering to herself why she let herself operate on him in the first place, and how could she have missed the secondary infection when she scanned him with the tricorder before she went to her quarters for the night. She just hoped that he would wake up soon - she needed to confirm that he was okay -and that the worst was over for him. She then went over to the computer terminal in the room and briefly looked at her eelier scan to see if she had missed anything, she did see a slightly elevated white blood cell count and a fever a little bit higher but she had put it off as just being part of the infection he had been dealing with before, the surgery.

Later the next morning at about 0900 hours, Wesley began waking up. This time he seemed a little more alert then he did after the first surgery. He felt someone holding his right hand. His eyes slowly opened and he saw he was in sickbay. At first he couldn't remember why he was there, but then he felt a bit of pain in his back and across his belly which was nowhere near as bad as the pain he had earlier that morning. He turned his head and saw his Mom resting her head on the bed beside him. He called softly to her to try and wake her. She stirred a bit as he tried to move his hand that she was holding. She lifted her head and saw that his brown eyes were open.

"Wes? Hi. How do you feel?" she smoothed her hand back and forth over her son's cheek.

"Like I've been beaten," he said.

"I can imagine..."

"Mom, what happened, I remember waking up in pain and Doctor Adams told me I needed surgery but I thought I'd already had surgery."

Beverly sighed, hearing her son's raspy, confused voice did nothing to calm her psyche.

"Wes, you had a secondary infection in your belly from the first surgery." She buried her face in her hands as he tried desperately to keep his eyes open to hear the rest of her statement.

"Okay?"

"As it turns out we ...I had left a little bit of your appendix behind, which still was infected. Unfortunately the infection started spreading and Doctor Adams had to remove a small piece of your intestine. Don't worry, you'll be fine, but you'll have to stay in sickbay for a little while longer. Ok?"

Wesley reached out and grabbed his mother's hand, and said "Thanks for being honest with me." She leaned down and kissed his forehead.

"Always, Get some sleep Wes," she replied.

"Are you leaving again?" his brown eyes had grown impossibly large again and that frightened child stared back at her, his face filled with fear.

"Not a chance. I have some work I need to do but I'll be right here. I'll come and check on you frequently but you should get some sleep. This is my bed kiddo." she pointed to the anti grav bed. "You're not leaving my sight until you're up and about. Now get some rest." She shook his hair as he watched her walk away before he closed his eyes and let the sounds of the computer scanning his vitals take him back off to dreamland.

Six Hours Later

Wesley took a deep breath and felt a slow spreading pain across his belly. He was about to cry out but then he remembered that even small movements seemed to hurt. He heard footsteps and quickly a hypojet was injected into his arm.

"Take slow breaths until the pain eases..." the soothing voice of his mother warned. He complied as he still kept his eyes tightly closed. "Good...take it easy...you keep tossing in your sleep and I'm going to have to put you in a stasis field son. Be still."

Slowly his pain ebbed away as he sighed deeply. He still felt a presence as he realized he was lying on his left side.

"Wes, you have a visitor..."

Slowly he opened his eyes and squinted at a shiny yellow and silver alien being ...holding what looked like a handful of Tribbles.

"Nooooo..." Wesley shook his head moaning.

"Wesley?" the alien said.

Wesley thought for a moment, that alien sounded suspiciously familiar. He felt a firm hand grasp his shoulder as his name was called again.

"Wesley?" his eyes popped open as he fought the pull of sleep and saw the visage of commander Data standing before him.

"Data?" he whispered hoarsely.

"Yes, it is I Wesley. How are you feeling?"

"Ok I guess, a little sore, what are you doing here?"

"Well. You were sick and or injured."

"Yes."

"Your condition is serious enough to warrant a stay in sick bay."

"Well...yeah..."

"Is it not custom for family and friends to visit those who are infirmed?"

Wesley smiled.

"Well yeah Data...but which are you?"

Data looked confused for a moment as if Wesley had asked him a question that was going to overload his circuitry. Wesley saved him the trouble. He reached for the androids hand and patted it. "Data. The answer is C. All of the Above."

"I was not aware there was a multiple choice variant to the question."

Wesley chuckled and then groaned as it made his belly ache.

"Never mind Data, you're my friend and you're family. Ok?"

Data simply nodded. He suddenly handed him a furry creature and tucked it into his arm.

Completely drained Wesley stared at it with droopy eyes and stroked the animal's fur.

"What is this?"

"You do not recognize it?"

"Well yes, I do, it's a bear...a teddy bear."

"Not an actual Teddy Bear. It is replicated actually. It's a 20th century AA Milne Gund style Winnie the Pooh Bear. 'The Sort of Bear Who is Always There'."

Data stared at Wesley as he clutched the bear tighter to him nesting it into his arms. He held it just as the boy Christopher Robin in the story had done. His eyes closed slowly.

Beverly Crusher stood watch at the door touched by the uncharacteristically human exchange between Data and her son.

Data was unsure of what to do. He reached out and patted Wesley's shoulder.

As he turned to leave a hoarse whisper stopped him.

"Thanks for coming Data. Will you come back and see me later?"

"Yes Wes."

"Thanks for the bear."

"It was the least I could do." A small smile graced Wesley's lip as he succumbed to sleep again.

Beta read and edited by Jadeblueafterglow17