"Beverly, I'm being completely honest here. When you left, you not only broke his heart, but mine as well." Deanna Troi uttered as she put a coaster under my mug. She and I had just sat down in her home on Nepenthe, already a few packed boxes scattered around the place. After the hectic events of the last few weeks, we decided it was time to finally have a proper reunion. "You might as well come see paradise before we leave it forever," she had said, as Riker began regailling me with tales of outdoor pizza ovens.

She had invited me here, but now the first thing out of her mouth was an insult. No, no, not an insult. A completely fair statement by a friend. I had left her and all my other friends, just as swiftly as I had left Jean Luc, with no warning or reason. In truth, I was panicking. Pregnant at nearly fifty, with a child who would immediately become at risk, just because of his last name. I was terrified. I had lost everything and everyone I had ever loved, and then along came Jack. And as much as it destroyed me to leave Jean Luc without telling him about his son, the events of the last few weeks showed me that my intuition was right all along. Jack was in danger, and it was technically Jean Luc's fault, but I could never have guessed that the danger would come in the form of a small part of his brain being infested with borg nanotechnology.

The awful thing was that, these people I had abandoned, the family I had left behind, were exactly the people I needed when the borg sent for Jack. If I had only known... what my life might have been, I'll never know.

I do know that it's time to make amends.

"Deanna, for what it is worth, I'm sorry." I grasp her hand as I lean across their cozy living room, "I really never wanted to leave all of you behind. I just...panicked. I ran. I was so afraid of losing my son, of him being in danger..."

I wince, realizing I am talking to a mother who did lose her son. Realizing yet another reason why she may resent me.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have.. "

"Beverly, I know you were doing what you thought you needed to. But Will and I have always wondered if things would have been different for Thad if you had been here to monitor him" Deanna says with shaky breath. I am glad I came prepared for this conversation, at least.

"I actually did follow Thad's medical condition though," I pull out my pads of research, opening up the most relevant, "the doctors were right. Only an artificial matrix could have saved him." I slide that pad of research over, followed by another, "here are all the places I tried to get you access to the right AI, you know, through the black market, " I slide a few more pads over, hoping my failed attempt at saving her son, would at least begin to make amends. "I'm really sorry Dee, for what it's worth, I may have left but I never abandoned you."

Deanna sat quietly for a while. She lifted the padd with contraband markets listed on it. She flicked her finger on the screen, skimming through the dead ends I had navigated for months, in a desperate search to save her son. She stopped on one that I had spent the most time on, a Ferengi merchant dealer who swore to me he had a positronic matrix from before the ban, in perfect working order.

"That one was my best hope." I commented, leaning my head on my fist, "went out to Ferenginar for it and everything... only to discover at the last minute that he had produced the effect inside a holodeck. I would have bought the damn case only to find it empty when I got to you."

She paused, looking at me with her brow furrowed. Finally, she closed her eyes, and clutched the padd to her chest. Tears began streaming down her cheeks as she looked at me.

"You know for years, Will and I mulled around our 'what if's, and you were always first on our list 'what if Beverly had been here, would she have been able to fix him?' Or ' what if Beverly could have found the technology to cure him?' And now, it turns out," she placed the padd down, and picked up my hand, "...you were there all along, doing everything you could."

I sighed, feeling terribly that I brought more stress to Will and Deanna. They didn't deserve any of this, I wished that they could have counted on me.

"You really did have justified fears, you know." Deanna continued, "we never know what fate has in store for any of us."

"I hope you know," I sighed, brushing away a few tears of my own, "that I regretted every day not being able to have you around."

"Okay, my pizza days are numbered, so prepare yourselves for a feast before I pack up the oven for good..." Will Riker boomed as he came into the house, his apron tied and his chefs cap on, he stopped, taking in the tearful scene before him, "...ah, a nice happy reunion, I see." He raised his tongs in defense against the emotional scene as he backed slowly out the door. I heard him shout when he thought he was out of range, "Nope, don't go in there gents, it's not worth it!" Jack and Jean Luc, who were "assisting the chefs", with Will and Kestra, would no doubt heed Will's warning. Neither of them would have handled the scene any better than Riker's quick retreat.

Actually...

"I heard there were beautiful women in need of comforting," my cheeky son poked his head in the doorway, not brave enough to come all the way in, but protective enough of me that he had to come in and check.

Deanna and I laughed as we clinked our tea cups.

"They are good tears, Jack," she said, wiping at her cheek, "I am just feeling very grateful to have a friend like your mother."

Jack matched the good mood with a smirk of his own, "Are you sure about that? Seems a bit of an absentee if you ask me."

"Get out of here Jack!" I called as he ducked the pillow I whipped at him.

"You know Bev, Will told me that he can't help looking at Jack as a fascinating chemistry experiment... honestly I feel the same way. The rest of us barely knew you were dating, and then suddenly you had a 20 year old son! And oh my, there is so much of both of you in him."

"I love how much of Jean Luc I see in him. He is an amazing young man." I conceded, not entirely wanting to talk about my relationship with Jean Luc, and absolutely not having a clue where I stood with the man now. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Jack will be joining me on Earth in a few month's time to take on the command track at the Academy. He's a natural leader."

"That's wonderful Beverly, truly. I know the three of you will be very happy together." Deanna smiled, taking a sip of her tea. "I know," she continued, taking in the confused look on my face, " You feel like you don't know where you stand with him...but I know Jean Luc Picard, and the feelings radiating from him are love and commitment... and..." she scrunched her face in amazement, "...and completion. Wholeness. Having a family with you has brought him a feeling of being whole in a way I've never felt from him. Ever." Deanna drained the last of her mug, carrying it over to the kitchen, "I know he is terrible at expressing himself, as are you Beverly, but he is not going to leave you two behind. You have a real family now, you're going to have to get used to it."

Much later that evening, with full stomachs and happy hearts, I wind up wandering towards a lakeside dock with Jean Luc, the rest of our company having headed inside to gather around the fireplace with a strage pink drink supposedly made from the native berries here on Nepenthe. I am sure that this is a "set up", but I don't much care. After years of listening to old computer logs, and old palylists... I finally have the man himself in front of me. No nebula, no borg, no danger.

We settle on a bench by the water, he puts his arm over the back of the bench, almost like an arm around me.

"You know," I begin, referencing a conversation from earlier, " I never stopped looking for a cure for you either Jean Luc, just like I never gave up on Thad." I tuck a leg underneath me as I continue, "turns out, Irumodic Syndrome was never the illness that needed curing in the first place."

"You know, the thing I never really understood about all that was, why did Q tell me that it was Irumodic Syndrome in the first place? Was he trying to throw me off the truth, or did he truly not know what had happened all along?"

"So much for being omniscient then! Gosh, Q. There's a name I haven't thought of in a long time! What ever became of him? Did he come to visit you again after I left?"

He chuckled, reaching for my hand, "Yes, I am sorry to tell you that he actually died a few years ago. He took me on a trip to the past to learn about my mother...said it was a gift for me...and then he passed away!"

I pause, turning away from the lake to look at my companion, "No kidding. I guess that's the last we'll hear of him then!" I smile, incredulously.

I pause. He is so close, and his smile mirrors mine.

I pause, remembering myself, remembering the way I betrayed the man next to me, remembering the absolute chaos of the last few weeks... and then I kiss Jean Luc Picard anyways.

I pull back, looking for some kind of affirmation.

"You know, my darling," he whispers, planting an extra kiss on the side of my lips in a way that absolutely breaks me, "one cannot think in such a linear fashion when it comes to the Q." He grins, in a cheeky way that reminds me of our son, "the path from the past to the future very rarely forms a straight line for us anyways."

I squeeze his hand, feeling his palms rough, his knuckles swollen with age. Seeing my own aging hands entwined with his.

"So you would say, that we... can never say never, Jean Luc?"

"We could say that, indeed. But I prefer to say never many, many times with you, Beverly. I never want to live without you in my life again. I never want to go back to a time when I didn't know my son. I never want to lose this feeling of...being whole..."

I pull him into a hug, holding him close and feeling his warmth around me. I feel relieved in a way that I haven't in years, maybe a whole lifetime.

Eventually we leave our moment on the lake to walk back to the Riker's house, where we can begin our evening of drinking questionable berry drinks, begin our days as a family of three, and begin picking up the pieces of the life and love I left behind so many years ago.

What if? How about: What's next?