AN: This is an episode rewrite that's part of my little episode project. Please note that it's just for fun, so don't take it too seriously.
I own nothing from Star Trek.
I hope you enjoy. If you do, please do let me know!
111
Beverly sat by him, no longer pretending that she was there in an official capacity. She'd come, of course, to the privacy of the room as the Chief Medical Officer, but she left that role as soon as the door was closed and she was certain that they were alone.
Beverly had made the trip, many times, to private rooms as the Chief Medical Officer. She'd left those rooms with the same role, after shedding decorum while they were granted absolute privacy.
Jean-Luc had agreed to this mind-meld somewhat against Beverly's better judgment.
At least, she could be here in a professional capacity to monitor Jean-Luc's physical reaction to the mind-meld, and she could be here in a personal capacity to monitor his emotional reaction.
Sarek and Jean-Luc had more in common, really, than they might have admitted. Jean-Luc was a notoriously private man, and he had a tendency to bury his feelings down deep inside of him. He rarely ever took them out and actually dealt with them. Beverly knew that, perhaps, better than everyone—even Deanna Troi—because Beverly had been his lover for some time; his secret lover.
The mind-meld was proving difficult for Jean-Luc because Sarek's Vulcan emotions were simply too strong for Jean-Luc to hold them back. He was forced to feel them, entirely, and he was forced to simply deal with the fact that they would overwhelm him, despite his desires to the contrary. He was helpless against them.
Beyond that, Beverly knew that his own feelings were mingling with those of Sarek, and they were making it even more difficult for Jean-Luc to maintain any sense of control—something on which he'd practically built the very foundation of himself.
Beverly would sit with him, though, as his doctor, but mostly as his friend and lover, and she would comfort him through this experience.
As Jean-Luc cried out, his suffering intensifying, and gave voice to some of the greatest concerns that were clearly causing Sarek a great deal of distress, Beverly felt her whole body prickling with the need to help him and comfort him. When his cries switched from distress to those of genuine exhaustion, and he turned to lamenting his fatigue—like was something that he couldn't stand or survive—she knew she had to do something, little though it may be.
She took his hand and held it in hers, offering him some physical comfort through what she hoped was a grounding touch.
"It will pass, all of it. Just another hour or so. You're doing fine. Just hold on," Beverly assured him. He calmed slightly. She sensed it, as well as saw it in the tension of his facial muscles. "Shhh," she soothed again, gently. "You're doing fine. Not that long now. An hour, Jean-Luc…maybe less. You can do this. Just hold on. Hold onto me…I've got you."
For just a moment, Beverly felt a twinge in her stomach. Her chest tightened. Her mind wandered away from the moment to think about a future moment, and to wonder if he would hold her hand and say similar things to her when she most needed to hear them from him.
She brought herself back to the moment quickly, practically shaking the thought out of her mind. Jean-Luc needed her now, and the future would keep.
Jean-Luc made eye contact with her. It was one second. It was a flash of him among the confusion in his mind.
"Beverly," he said. She smiled at him and nodded her head gently, squeezing his hand tightly.
"I'm here," she said. "You're doing fine, Jean-Luc. You can do this. It will pass. Hold onto me. Hold on."
Jean-Luc's breathing calmed slightly. He relaxed a little. He squeezed her hand back and looked at her through tired eyes that showed that fatigue of dealing with everything that was happening inside his mind. She dared to raise his hand and kiss his fingers. She had only just lowered his hand when she felt his fingers tense.
His whole body tensed again, and he was seized by another bout of intense thoughts and emotions. Beverly held onto him as he protested, angrily, everything she couldn't see or hear.
"No! This weakness disgusts me! I hate it! Where is my logic? I am betrayed by desires. I want to feel. I want to feel everything. But I am a Vulcan. I must feel nothing. Give me back my control."
"Jean-Luc!" Beverly said loudly enough to get his attention. For extra emphasis, she used her free hand to slap the table.
The sound snatched Jean-Luc free from his anguish for a moment. She watched his expression as it changed, shifting with the tide of emotions inside him.
"Perrin. Amanda. I wanted to give you so much more. I wanted to show you such tenderness. But that is not our way. Spock, Amanda, did you know? Perrin, can you know how much I love you? I do love you!"
Anger had given way to anguish and pain. The parts of Sarek that were practically boiling inside of Jean-Luc's mind were focused now on repressed love and the regret of not loving openly and completely—especially before it was too late. With a wave of emotion that unsettled her stomach slightly, Beverly realized that Jean-Luc's added anguish, here, was likely owing to the fact that he, too, struggled in this area.
She had told him, before, that it was fine—that she understood that he sometimes fell short of expressing his feelings, she understood that he struggled with the idea of public shows of sentiment and affection, and she didn't mind that their relationship hadn't yet been brought out of the dark and made official—but that didn't mean that she always meant what she said.
His need to hide his feelings hurt her, too.
Beverly loved Jean-Luc, and though she was willing to love him in secret, as she'd done, and to accept that he had some need to keep their love under wraps, perhaps even to himself sometimes, she couldn't help but sometimes feel hurt by his secrecy and repression.
After all, she was only human, and she couldn't help but to take things personally sometimes.
Still, there would come a time when things had to come to light—but Jean-Luc wasn't ready for that. Not now.
Beverly moved to be beside him—closer to him. She wiped away the tears that the feelings—his own and Sarek's as they blended and became one—brought to his eyes and sent trickling down his cheeks.
He turned, his eyes met hers again, and she knew that he was seeing her, once more, through the haze of everything.
"Beverly…" He said, his voice giving away his exhaustion and the almost strangling quality of it all.
"I'm here, Jean-Luc. I'm not going anywhere."
"No—you won't. Will you?"
She smiled at him softly and shook his head.
"Never," she told him, though a feeling in her gut made her wonder if that was a promise that she could keep. For now, though, she meant it. She wanted it to be true.
Jean-Luc drew in a breath and let it out in a sigh. His tension dissipated for a moment. The strongest emotions were coming and going in waves like contractions—and Beverly's mind drifted only a second more before returning to the man who needed her comfort now.
"It's quite difficult. The anguish of the man, the despair pouring out of him, all those feelings, the regrets. I can't stop them."
Beverly didn't respond to him with words. His pain—Sarek's pain, yes, but Jean-Luc's too, which was buried every bit as deeply as the pain that Sarek did his best to hide—made Beverly's throat ache. She swallowed against it. She reached her arms out and pulled him into her when he seemed to crumple under the weight of it all.
His warm, wet tears dampened her skin. Beverly kissed his cheek and tasted the salt of them. Her tears blended with his, and she held him tightly as he sobbed, insisting over and over that he couldn't stop the feelings from flowing out of him as they were.
"Don't even try," she told him, doing her best to help him find any relief she could.
111
"Jean-Luc…you don't have to be embarrassed, you know," Beverly said.
Jean-Luc hadn't said he was embarrassed. In fact, he'd hardly said anything at all since the mind-meld—at least not to Beverly, and not outside of an entirely official context.
"Am I embarrassed?" He asked, a hint of cold sharpness to his tone. He washed down what little breakfast he'd eaten with a swallow of tea.
"I can understand why you would feel that way," Beverly said, ignoring his defensiveness. "You're a private man. A proud man. But you're also forgetting something very important."
"Of which you are about to remind me, no doubt," Jean-Luc said.
Beverly laughed to herself. She shook her head and took her time with a bite of the buttered croissant—which was just about all she could handle for breakfast these days, not that Jean-Luc had noticed that she was shying away from everything else. She washed it down with the peppermint tea she'd chosen for the morning.
"You know—it wasn't only Sarek who has repressed a great deal of his emotions," Beverly said. Jean-Luc eyed her across the table. "I love you, Jean-Luc. And I'm not afraid to say it. You don't need to be embarrassed with me. In fact, I wish you wouldn't."
Jean-Luc sighed.
"I'm not very good with feelings," he said, dropping some of the put-on defensiveness.
"I hadn't noticed," Beverly teased. She smiled at his warning look.
"I can't help it," he said.
"Well—you may want to start to help it, Jean-Luc, at least a little bit."
He perked up slightly, and furrowed his brow. The look, alone, was enough to know that he was asking her to explain what she meant a bit more.
"I'm not giving you an ultimatum," Beverly said. "Not exactly. Still…"
"Still, what?" Jean-Luc asked.
"I might like to know that you love me," Beverly said.
"You know I do," Jean-Luc said.
Beverly smiled. She did know. She believed him, even if she sometimes had her moments of insecurity and doubt.
"Maybe what's enough for Perrin isn't enough for me," Beverly said.
"Are you saying it isn't?" Jean-Luc asked.
Beverly considered the moment. She considered his reaction. She could sense that he was tense and worried. Perhaps, being privy to Sarek's feelings and regrets wasn't a terrible thing. After all, Sarek was a man much nearer the end of his life. His regrets would have a certain sharpness to them that Jean-Luc's hadn't quite achieved yet—except, of course, for those surrounding lost family, friends, and loved ones.
Jean-Luc was a man who, in this moment, was clearly fearing loss and regret.
And, perhaps, that was for the best.
It wasn't what Beverly wanted, not at all, but she would eventually have to worry about more than keeping Jean-Luc's secrets.
"Not everything can be kept a secret forever, Jean-Luc," Beverly said.
"Hardly forever…it's just…" Jean-Luc stammered. He stopped.
"No excuses," Beverly said. "I don't need anymore."
Silence settled between them. Beverly knew it was making him uncomfortable. She could see him practically squirming under the weight of it. Finally, he sighed and broke it.
"I do love you, Beverly," he said. "I want you to know that."
"I know it," Beverly confirmed.
"And—I don't want to have the same kinds of regrets that Sarek has. I have regrets already. Too many of them. I don't want more."
"Then—make the choice not to have them," Beverly said.
"It's only that…I really am quite bad at expressing my feelings," Jean-Luc said. "Especially when it comes to certain matters, as you know…"
Beverly thought a moment.
She'd made plans—plans that she always rejected later. She'd tried out different possibilities in her mind. She wanted to tell him everything in the most beautiful way possible.
But, sometimes, that wasn't how things worked out.
"Jean-Luc…I understand that you need time," she said. "I only hope that…" She stopped. Her own concerns stopped her. They stalled her confession. She decided to gather her courage up. She didn't want her own regrets, after all. "I only hope that you've learned to deal with your feelings by the time the baby comes…"
Jean-Luc looked at her. She looked at him. Again, she allowed the silence to settle between them as he processed what she'd said, and she sat with the relief of finally having said it, after worrying over it for the two weeks since she'd discovered the existence of their little secret.
"Beverly…did you say…?"
"Exactly what you think I said," Beverly challenged.
The slightest hint of a smile turned up one corner of Jean-Luc's mouth.
"Is it…?"
"Let me stop you before you go any further," Beverly said interrupting him. "If you're about to ask me if this baby is yours, Jean-Luc…"
She didn't need to warn him any further. He understood.
"My apologies," he said quickly. "It's only…"
"It's only that it's time for you to decide your next move," Beverly said. "I've kept our secrets secret, but…I'm afraid it's soon to be out of my hands."
"Starfleet will have to be informed," Jean-Luc said. "Although it's not forbidden, it is frowned upon."
"I can request a transfer," Beverly said.
"I thought—your intentions were never to leave me?" Jean-Luc said.
"Is that what you want?" Beverly asked.
"I don't want to regret anything about this, Beverly," Jean-Luc said. He stood up and came, kneeling beside her, not entirely unlike she'd been beside him in his ready room not long ago. He took her hand in his. "I am, as I have said, quite bad at expressing my feelings. I do love you, Beverly…and…I do want this. I do want to do this, with you."
She smiled at him. She tipped his face up and leaned forward, touching their lips delicately together. He responded with hunger, and she indulged him, indulging herself in the process.
"That's enough for now, then," Beverly assured him. "We can work with that."
