AN: Because I always love new toys to play with, and because I've been thinking about this for a long time, and because I was feeling stuck today, I had to do this. I'm sorry.

I own nothing from Star Trek.

I hope you enjoy! If you do, please do let me know.

111

"All hands abandon ship!"

Even as he swam upward toward consciousness, Jean-Luc remembered giving the command. He remembered sending everyone to the escape pods. He remembered the ship being set on auto-controls. The direction, the speed, none of it mattered—not anymore. He remembered the computer's confirmation that all pods had been ejected.

All that had mattered, at that moment, was making sure that everyone else was off the ship before they lost their window of time.

As soon as he'd heard Data's prediction of how long they had before the gravitational pull would drag them all into the anomaly—from which, as far as they could tell, there was no escape, even if they did survive—Jean-Luc had known that he had only one move left to try to save the people who depended on him. Data had assured him that the anomaly's strange pull was almost entirely concentrated on the ship, and that the size of the Enterprise seemed to disrupt the pull in such a way as to make it so that nothing in the surrounding area was affected as long as the Enterprise was in the pull-stream. If the pods were jettisoned with enough power, and at the right angle, they would be entirely free of the pull. Jean-Luc had put Engineering on one final task—to change the trajectory of the pods and reroute power to provide each with a more powerful launch. Then, he told his people to abandon the ship. Every last one of them was to go.

At least, as the anomaly had dragged the Enterprise into the darkness and the unknown, Jean-Luc had held onto one comforting thought—they had survived.

And, it would seem, so had he.

Jean-Luc did not recall the impact. He didn't remember much of the crash at all. Whatever it had been that had been dragging the Enterprise into the anomaly—they'd called it a gravitational pull but, really, they hadn't had time to study it well enough to know what it truly had been—hadn't offered Jean-Luc and his failing ship the smoothest ride once the ship had entered the anomaly.

Jean-Luc remembered losing power after a few dangerous explosions caused by the stress of the space surrounding him. He remembered everything going black on the ship. He remembered wondering if the warp core would explode. He remembered realizing that he had absolutely no control over anything—and that this was very likely how he would die.

And then everything had gone black for him, as well as the ship.

As Jean-Luc woke now, he found himself not entirely in darkness.

There was some light, but it was light that was seemingly coming from outside of the ship or, rather, from outside of what was left of the ship. If the atmosphere was toxic, it wasn't so toxic that it would kill him instantly—after all, with the light would come the air.

The fact that he'd survived, honestly, surprised him, and he nearly felt like holding his breath and waiting to see if his body was simply taking its time succumbing to the internal injuries that may very well be extensive and ultimately fatal.

He got up, slowly, and found that his body worked. Nothing seemed broken, though he couldn't say that he felt entirely without physical damage. If not serious, there were at least some uncomfortable and bothersome flesh wounds. Jean-Luc knew that he was unlikely to find a replicator that worked at the moment, but he might be able to get power restored to some part of the ship, depending on the damage sustained. He could replicate regenerators, if he could get something working—or he might be able to find sickbay and simply locate something that would help him in the meantime.

He laughed to himself as he left the bridge, manually opening doors and travelling through the ultimately dead ship, because he did feel a little as though he were going to be required to find sickbay—assuming that it still existed at all.

The ship around him was in relatively good shape in a few places that he passed, but it was absolutely in shambles in others. It had crashed, plain and simple, and Jean-Luc still wasn't sure where he was or what might happen to him here. His only concern, at the moment, was finding sickbay and locating what he could there. If he healed the few seemingly minor injuries he had, at least he'd be prepared to face whatever was outside the ship, and to figure out what his next moves might be.

When Jean-Luc found sickbay, he found it to be one of the areas that looked to have been hit quite hard from the buckling and whatever other influences from which the ship had suffered. The doors were bent oddly, but he managed to pry open a space large enough for himself to fit inside. He immediately found one of the emergency kits near the entrance—some of the easiest to locate on the ship—and found a light source. He began his search for supplies.

Jean-Luc's blood ran cold and his heart nearly stopped when, allowing his beam to travel over the sickbay floor, he heard a groan that could only belong to another person who was, very likely, at least somewhat roused by the light. He knew, instinctively, and without even seeing her, that this was no patient left behind.

"Beverly!" He called out, searching for her. He heard the groan again. It was a sound that told him that she was coming into consciousness, but she wasn't yet fully able to communicate. "Beverly! Stay where you are…I'll find you."

If he'd been less frantic, he might have found her faster. If his knees had cooperated better than they did, he might have reached her more quickly.

As it was, he did his best to blame his body's somewhat violent reaction on adrenaline and possible injuries surrounding the crash, and he pushed all other explanations out of his mind.

When he reached her, he dropped to the floor beside her, ignoring the pain in his own body.

"Beverly…Beverly…it's OK. I'm here. You're going to be OK. Stay still. Let me look at you."

"Jean-Luc?" Beverly said. "Jean-Luc…"

He slipped a hand around to the back of her head. He could tell, from the dampness on his fingers, that her worst injury was probably the one to her head.

"You've hit your head on something. I'm going to have to find a dermal regenerator."

"I had one…" Beverly breathed out, trying to look for it herself.

"Stay still, Beverly," Jean-Luc commanded. Using his light, he went in search of it himself. She'd dropped it not too far from where her body landed, more than likely, but the subsequent movements of the ship had sent the things skittering across the floor. On hands and knees, and not worrying about trying to be the least bit dignified, Jean-Luc found it. On his journey back to Beverly, he also found her tricorder. It was cracked, but it still worked—though probably not the best it had ever worked since its creation.

Jean-Luc scanned Beverly when he made it back to her and determined that her greatest injury was the head injury, as he suspected. She tried to sit up, but he forced her back down until he'd at least treated the wound. When he was satisfied that she was otherwise as well as he was, he helped her sit up.

"I don't suppose you found a hypospray for this headache?" She asked. She laughed a little, making it clear that she was teasing.

"When there's a chance to inspect the damage a bit more," Jean-Luc said, "we'll see what we can do to get some power back on and get replicators back online. For now…I'm afraid we're quite literally in the dark."

"Let me see this," Beverly said. She took the tricorder. She scanned Jean-Luc. She pronounced him healthy, as he suspected, but she did identify some cuts and scrapes that required her attention. He let her use the dermal regenerator to treat his wounds.

"That cut on your face bled a lot," she said, "but not enough to cause you any lasting damage. Still, I'm glad that we had something to help heal it."

"I'm very lucky to have had that cut," Jean-Luc said. "Without it, I may have chosen a different course of action. I may have never come here and known that you were aboard. I could have sworn that the last report I received from the computer was that all pods—with the exception of mine—had been jettisoned."

Beverly laughed low in her throat.

"There was an error with one of the pods. It wouldn't eject. All the others ejected."

Jean-Luc felt a sinking sensation in his stomach.

"And it was yours that wouldn't eject?" He asked.

"It was mine that carried Ensign Weathersbee instead," Beverly said.

"You should have joined with someone," Jean-Luc said. "Wesley. You could have fit, Beverly…in an emergency."

"I knew that the captain may need medical care," Beverly said. "I wasn't going to leave you alone, Jean-Luc. I meant to make it to the bridge, but…I was gathering supplies, an emergency kit, when…"

"It all happened very quickly," Jean-Luc said. "I had control and, suddenly, I was entirely without any control at all."

"But—we're alive," Beverly said.

Sitting on the floor of a wrecked sickbay, with Beverly's hip leaning somewhat against Jean-Luc's legs for support as they had tended to each other, it was easy to forget that they'd just been through an event that very likely could have killed both of them.

Jean-Luc wanted to be mad at Beverly for being here—for having put herself in danger, and for having been in a position where she might have died—but he was also glad to have her here. There was no one, really, that he would rather be with—though, of course, he had rarely ever let himself come close to truly admitting that to Beverly.

"We're alive," he said softly, squeezing Beverly's arm. "And—I suppose we ought to pack what we can of that emergency kit that you mentioned, look for some environmental suits, and see if we can get some kind of grasp on where we've ended up. We'll know a bit better where we go from there, once we've had the chance to take in our surroundings a bit."

"I'll pack a medical kit," Beverly said. "You look for the suits."

"I'd rather we didn't split up," Jean-Luc said quickly.

Beverly smiled at him. It was the kind of smile that simultaneously had a way of making him feel comfortable, and making him feel like his stomach was quite capable of doing actual somersaults.

"As you wish, Captain."

"Jean-Luc," he said. "There's hardly any call for formality, now, Beverly."

Her smile renewed.

"Certainly, Jean-Luc," she said. "Give me a hand?"

111

"It's a class M planet," Beverly said, reading the tricorder information to Jean-Luc. "The atmosphere appears breathable. There are no registered irritants or toxins in the air. We should be able to take off the environmental suits."

He reached a hand out and stilled her as she started to remove her helmet.

"If you don't mind, Beverly, I'll be the first," Jean-Luc said. She gave him a look that he recognized even through the somewhat limited visibility of her helmet. "You're the doctor," he stammered. "It only makes sense that…you're better equipped to handle the situation, should I have some adverse reaction to the atmosphere that we're not expecting."

She gestured as if to give him permission to do this, and he took off his helmet. He breathed normally, fighting the natural urge to breathe unnecessarily and unnaturally deep. He felt his pulse kick up, but recognized it as nothing more than anxiety from the anticipation of a possible problem. After a moment, he shook his head at Beverly.

"I don't feel anything," he said. "It seems perfectly breathable."

Beverly removed her own helmet, next, and shook her hair out. She drew in a deep breath, not bothering to limit herself out of fear that the tricorder readings—and Jean-Luc's own experiences—might be tricking them in some way.

"Class M planet," Beverly said. "Tricorder readings on the soil come back as comparable to Earth. Even though we have yet to see a body of water, the plant life suggests that there's water here." She drew in another breath. "Jean-Luc…it's beautiful."

Jean-Luc looked around.

The planet around them was lush and green. There were plants and trees and, he imagined, everything else that one would expect from a healthy, thriving planet. The air smelled fresh and clean. It was cool, but not too cold, and he welcomed the feeling of a light breeze on his face.

"It is beautiful," he sighed out. "It appears almost untouched."

"I'm getting readings for life signs," Beverly said. "But—none of them appear to be humanoid, and none are in our immediate vicinity."

"We'll keep a check on that," Jean-Luc said. "If we are to encounter the inhabitants of this planet—whoever they are—we want to be prepared. I'd rather they not take us by surprise."

"Agreed," Beverly said. "Jean-Luc…where do you think we are?"

He looked at her. He was surprised by how he felt, when he took inventory of those feelings, because he might have expected fear. He might have even expected something akin to terror. They seemed to be quite alone, though he wasn't ready to say that out loud to Beverly, just yet, in case it might frighten her. They were certainly quite without any of their comrades. The land around them seemed wild and untouched. And, yet, Jean-Luc found that he felt anything but fear.

He felt alive. He felt rejuvenated in an unexpected way. And he felt the thrill that he loved so much—the feeling that came with the promise of a grand adventure.

"I don't know, Beverly. I haven't the foggiest idea."

She didn't look frightened, and that comforted Jean-Luc.

"We should set off an emergency beacon," Beverly said. "In case there are any Federation ships in the area."

"Agreed," Jean-Luc said, though he somehow doubted there was anyone nearby.

"And we'll need food, and water, and shelter," Beverly said. "Maybe a fire, if the temperature continues to drop as the day ends. We don't even know how long a day is here…"

"We have emergency supplies on the ship," Jean-Luc said. "We'll figure out the rest. Just in case a day isn't quite as long as we would hope, though, let's not waste time before setting up a camp. We can do a bit of exploring once we're sure we're established."

"I would prefer it if we didn't split up," Beverly said. She offered it gently, like a suggestion, but Jean-Luc sensed a certain amount of urgency there.

"Splitting up was the farthest thing from my mind," he assured her.