Dr. Beverly Crusher had been the acting Head of Starfleet Medical for three weeks now. In that time she had decided to fully engross herself in her new job.

It was so insanely different from being a CMO on a starship. She was in charge of all these medical students and young interns and doctors, and their eagerness to get out there and cure every virus in the galaxy was both incredibly comical and quite refreshing to her.

They were so naïve about what starship life was really like, but she liked it, their enthusiasm.

She did seriously doubt that she had ever been half as clueless as the students now under her tutelage, but just the same she loved her job.

Part of her, the part still clinging to her old life, didn't want to admit it, but she enjoyed this work. It was nothing like being a starship doctor, but it had its own rewards.

The best part being the fact that they all looked at her like she was a god. Even the actual doctors at Medical showed her nothing but respect and took interest when she talked about some aspect of medicine, or even just a personal anecdote from her days on the Enterprise or even before.

And the crazy thing was that when she first came to Starfleet Medical, she hadn't even been expected to see patients! They wanted her to be content not doing the very thing that made her who she was as a person? No, that would not work for her, and so she immediately fixed that little blimp in her job description.

Sure, Beverly spent a lot of time instructing and forming young minds and a lot of time meeting with medical professionals from all over the quadrant and a lot of time doing paperwork, but that didn't mean she was giving up actually practicing medicine. Beverly was a doctor, of course. A damn good one, and she needed to see patients, to do some good and make a difference.

And so, one of her first decisions as the acting Head of Medical was to give herself two days a week to see patients…

"God Damn it!" Beverly muttered.

Immediately, she couldn't help but think that if one of her students or residents had displayed such blatant unprofessionalism in the OR she would have skinned them alive…or at the very least formally reprimanded them.

The benefits of being the boss, she supposed.

Unfortunately there were also a whole lot of downfalls to being in charge. For example, the situation she was in now.

No, this was not how this was supposed to go. Yes, the patient before her was a very sick man and yes there were risks with any surgery, but Dr. Crusher had been so sure that he would be okay. She truly thought that things would go how she had planned…she thought she could save him.

Yet on the table before her, her patient's vitals were plummeting and despite the most valiant efforts of herself and her team, there was nothing left to be done.

His heart had just given out, too weak to continue pumping blood through his frail body and too weak to sustaining life.

Beverly shut her eyes and then let out a breath.

Attempting to regain her composure and put authority behind her words, she turned to the nurse standing next to her and gave the order:

"Call it."

Two words that officially declared her surrender.

"Time of death, 0534."