AN: Here we are, another piece to this one. There's one more to come to wrap this one up.
I hope you enjoy! If you do, please do let me know!
111
"I'm almost ready to take him," Beverly said, referring to the whining Romulan that was fighting sleep and fighting Jean-Luc in the bed.
He had reached some level of contentment in the bath, but he had never given into sleep. Sleep, for Elnor, was only coming when the battle was well and truly lost. Still, Beverly remained optimistic. They had made some progress, at least, and he'd relaxed a little in the bath. She had hope for what was to come.
"What's the rush, Beverly?" Jean-Luc said, somehow sounding both entirely defeated and a touch too energetic—he was practically bubbling over with the anxious and irritable energy of someone who hasn't rested in far too long for the good of their psyche. "He's never going to calm."
"He'll calm down," Beverly said. "He's already a lot better than he was when she left."
Beverly replicated the nutritional supplement that would help make up for the fact that Elnor was refusing to take in the food or liquids that he simply required. It would keep him going a bit longer, while Beverly figured out the best way to handle things.
Jean-Luc had played with Jack—who was also exhausted—and the attention and affection from his papa had sent the little boy off to sleep without so much as a whimper. Now, they could focus all their attention on getting Elnor to rest and, perhaps, getting a little sleep for themselves that wasn't caught in cat naps that seemed to happen "in spite of" everything around them.
"Hold him," Beverly said. "He's going to fight me on this."
"What would be the difference in this and every other aspect of his existence that he has fought with the true spirit of a warrior?" Jean-Luc said wearily, pinning Elnor so that Beverly could release the contents of the hypospray into his neck. He howled and fought Jean-Luc. Beverly was certain that, at this point, the baby didn't even know what he protested or why, he was simply miserable—and so was everyone else.
He wanted the security, comfort, and love that he'd come to expect in his life—and he wanted his mama. That was really what it boiled down to. He loved his mama desperately, and he wanted her back. He couldn't understand where she was, why she'd left, or if she intended to come back. What little he could understand, it seemed, he felt unable to trust.
Beverly reminded herself that distrust was essentially hardwired into the baby's DNA.
Jean-Luc hugged an unhappy Elnor against him, while Beverly recycled the hypospray and finished getting ready for bed.
"I'm beginning to think we've simply made a mistake," Jean-Luc said. "That I've made a mistake."
Like a drunk man, long after he should have been cut off, talking into his drink, Beverly let him go on without much interaction. He didn't need it. He was sleep deprived and irritable. He didn't want a conversation; he wanted an ear for his laments.
"Maybe it was wrong to bring him here at all. Maybe it would have been best to take him to one of the colonies with the other Romulan children. What kind of parents are we that we must feed a child with supplements…and how long do we let that go on before we admit that we're incapable?"
"Jean-Luc," Beverly said softly, slipping into one of the comfortable and well-worn cardigans that Laris loved, "I think it's time that you stopped talking so much. Little ears can understand, sometimes, what little mouths can't yet repeat. Nothing about our family is a mistake."
"Sometimes, Beverly, it's true that some species simply thrive with their own."
Beverly laughed quietly.
"And what of our wife?" She asked. "Should we have…left her on a colony, too? And our baby that she's carrying? Do we just…leave them all on some colony? You are tired, Jean-Luc. That's all. Exhaustion starts to make us all fatalistic, after a while. The greatest mistake we made was letting you-know-who go to Chaltok IV alone. This time, it would have been better for us all to take a trip and have a little family vacation there."
"You hardly seem fatalistic," Jean-Luc said. "And I would venture to say that you have slept less than me."
Beverly smiled at him.
"I've moved beyond fatalism and on to absolute delirium," she teased.
"Her sweater?" Jean-Luc asked, as Beverly put the warm bottle of Laris's milk on the nightstand, arranged her pillows, pulled back the blanket, and eased into bed.
"It smells like her," Beverly said. "Alright, Elnor…look at Mommy."
Elnor glared at her, but it was sufficient. She smiled at him and started to unbutton her nightshirt. The movement caught his attention, and she bit the inside of her mouth to think that, for very different reasons, the same act could get a lot of people's attentions.
"Remember, Elnor, how we talked in the tub? Remember that Mommy said…she will always love you and take care of you? Well—I did mean it. I know I'm not Mama, and I'm never going to be Mama, but I can hold you and…try to give you something at least a little comforting. Will you come to me and let me try?"
Elnor scrubbed at his eyes in response, but his whining ceased. That, alone, was worth it. It started up again, but the moment of silence gave Beverly a renewed hope. She bared her breast entirely and held her hands out to Elnor, shushing Jean-Luc when he started to say something.
"You don't have to sleep, Elnor. Just—come snuggle with Mommy and…have some milk?"
"I thought it would take days for you to produce milk," Jean-Luc said. Beverly gave him a warning look. He understood it.
When Elnor reached for her, Beverly felt a true rush of happiness. She felt like she'd accomplished something wonderful. She took him and immediately moved him where he would smell Laris's sweater. Elnor grabbed for it, and cried, but the sound of these tears was different, and they felt like they tore at the lining of Beverly's heart.
She thanked Jean-Luc when he passed her tissues.
Beverly moved Elnor into position to nurse, draping the tail of the sweater around him so that he could hold it, somewhat enveloping him in one side of the sweater and wrapping him in Laris's scent. He already looked like he might sleep with that little comfort and the anticipation of what was to come.
"OK," Beverly said. "You know how to do this…come on."
Elnor latched onto Beverly, and she closed her eyes for a moment. It had been some time since she'd weaned Jack, and the feeling of a baby at her breast again was one that made her entire body flood with memories and maternal instinct—and a very strong sense of longing.
"I thought that your milk wouldn't be in for days," Jean-Luc said, his voice very soft.
"I will try to introduce that milk once he's very relaxed," she said. "For now…if it's just a soft pacifier that soothes him, I don't mind. It'll help with the production, too. La—you know who likely dry nursed him a good bit when she was trying to get things started, especially since she didn't have the best of supplements to start."
Jean-Luc drew in an audible breath and sank back into his pillow with a sigh. Beverly, too, drew in a breath and let it out, practically feeling cleansed.
"Listen to that silence…" Jean-Luc said.
Elnor, for his part, had his eyes closed and was the definition of a peaceful, soothed baby for a moment. Beverly closed her eyes, too, and she felt the tension dissipating from her body. She relaxed, and she allowed herself to simply start to enjoy her surroundings, instead of trying to mentally block them out.
And, then, she felt a sensation that she hadn't expected to feel. She heard sounds—quiet, peaceful sounds—that she didn't expect to hear. Her body responded, again, practically from head to toe.
"Jean-Luc…he's nursing," Beverly said softly, almost afraid to interrupt reality and have it vanish.
"And it's wonderful," Jean-Luc said.
"No—Jean-Luc…listen," Beverly said. "He's swallowing, but…he's really getting milk. He's satisfied, not just because he's got her scent, and something that feels comfortable, but…he's also getting milk. He's getting his little tummy full."
Jean-Luc opened his eyes and sat up.
"Isn't that what we've hoped for?" He asked.
"It's wonderful," Beverly said. "Except my milk isn't supposed to come in for days."
"You said he might stimulate it, didn't you?"
"Help to stimulate it, yes, but…even with that, I would think that it should take longer," Beverly said.
For what felt like a very long moment—probably made longer by the fact that they were staring at each other in a silence that they hadn't heard since practically the time that Laris had left—Beverly and Jean-Luc simply maintained eye contact while they both considered the situation. Elnor, for his part, was greedily nursing, though still somewhat in a state of near sleep, as though he were entirely unwilling to give up even one of the pleasures that he had so recently found.
"Beverly…" Jean-Luc said, drawing her name out in the way that he often did before he approached her with some idea that he'd been working on, "is there anything else that might promote the more rapid production of milk?"
"You mean like…"
"Body changes of any sort?" Jean-Luc asked.
Beverly felt like she'd been splashed with frigid water. It was sudden, and startling, and she could see on Jean-Luc's face that she wasn't alone. Still, she let him open the proverbial door.
"Body changes…?" She questioned, the tone of her voice not quite as confident as she wanted it to be or as strong as she was accustomed to it being.
"Forgive me," he said. "I wouldn't mention it, otherwise…I do know that it's a faux-pas and one of those things against which I've always been heavily advised, but I've noticed some changes in your body, Beverly. Not that…not that I'm opposed to the changes in any way, and I wouldn't have mentioned them, except…some remind me of changes that I've seen in La—in you know who's body…and with this turn of events…"
"I hadn't even thought about it," Beverly said, interrupting him. "I feel so stupid. I hadn't even considered it. With everything, I've just…"
"Things have been quite busy," Jean-Luc said. "With the bonding, and the adjustment to married life for us all, and the boys, and even with La—with her being pregnant…"
Beverly laughed nervously, swallowing back as much as she could so as to not disturb Elnor too much. Even in the moment, feeling slightly overwhelmed, she remembered that he needed to be switched to the other side. She broke his latch, saw Jean-Luc wince at his complaint of the situation, and quickly got him settled on the other side, semi-wrapped, once again, in the cardigan that smelled of their currently absent partner.
And she was thankful for the tissues that Jean-Luc passed her to sop up the tears that fell even as she was also feeling a wave of anticipation and happiness.
"I've been so busy trying to be…a perfect partner…and mother…that I didn't realize," she said. "I need a tricorder, Jean-Luc. We need…we need to be sure."
She was sure, though. Suddenly, she'd never felt surer of anything. Jean-Luc didn't argue, though. He eased out of bed and went directly for the tricorder. When he came back, approaching her from her side of the bed, Beverly noticed that his hands were trembling, but she didn't point it out.
"Do you want to do it?" He asked.
Beverly smiled at him and shook her head.
"I think you should, Papa," she said. "Make sure you change the parameters of the scan. Otherwise, it won't automatically register things correctly."
She watched his face as he made the adjustments to the tricorder, and she watched it as he scanned her. She saw the precise moment that his face registered what he read on the screen.
She was thankful when he smiled at her, laughed quietly, and nodded, before putting the tricorder on the nightstand beside the unused bottle of milk.
Kneeling next to her, he reached for the hand she was willing to give him—a hand that, moved from its location, wouldn't bother Elnor.
"It would seem that…we're about to embark on this adventure again," Jean-Luc said. "But—before I say anything else, Beverly…may I just say that…that I love you, and I am quite happy to be doing it with you from the start?"
Beverly smiled at him.
"I know what you mean," she said. "And—I love you. And I'm happy to be doing it with you from the start. Jean-Luc…four under five is, well…a lot."
He nodded. The dimness of the light made it difficult to tell, but Beverly thought he might have blanched slightly.
"It is quite a lot," he said. "But—given the choice, who would we go without?" He shook his head. "I'm quite unprepared to give up anything that we have."
Beverly laughed quietly.
"That wasn't how you felt an hour ago," she said.
"I hope you know that I didn't mean a word of it," he said.
"I do," Beverly assured him. "And I'm sure that he does, too. We won't mention it to…our wife…that you considered unloading the lot of them at the nearest Romulan colony."
Jean-Luc frowned sincerely, and Beverly could tell that he did genuinely blanche.
"Beverly…"
"I'm only teasing," Beverly said. "I know that you weren't being sincere. I know that you love our family…and our wife."
"Beverly—we will have a great deal to tell her, when next we speak to her."
"All wonderful things," Beverly said. "I suppose we ought to call her soon. She has to be worried that we're not answering her communications."
"We'll call her in the morning," Jean-Luc said. "After breakfast. And we'll hope that seeing her face and hearing her voice doesn't cause any sort of setback."
"For now," Beverly said, "come here, Jean-Luc…hold me?"
"I can't think of anything I'd rather do," he said, coming around to get into bed with her again. He did move close to her and hold her. She closed her eyes and leaned into him. She hummed.
"The only thing I would rather do, maybe, is sleep while you hold me," Beverly said. "Jean-Luc…he's finally asleep."
Jean-Luc affectionately nuzzled her ear.
"So he is," he said. "And so shall we be, as soon as possible. Isn't the old adage that you should sleep when the baby sleeps?"
"That's about to become a very, very important part of our lives," Beverly said. "But—I'm excited for it."
"Me too," Jean-Luc assured her. "I love you, Beverly."
"I love you," she echoed.
"Sleep," Jean-Luc said. "I'll hold all of you. We may only get an hour or two, but it will be the greatest hour of sleep that I dare say any of us have ever experienced."
Beverly laughed at his teasing, but she closed her eyes. She felt the weight of Elnor as he slept on her, gone from them for a while into a world where he was soothed and happy. She felt Jean-Luc's arms around her and the weight of his head as he rested with her. She imagined, because she knew it wasn't entirely true, that she felt the weight of their newly realized little one as it rested in her womb, practically growing bigger by the moment.
And she drifted off, feeling like she was floating, despite the wonderful, warm weight of it all, content to sleep as long as Elnor would allow.