AN: This is an episode rewrite that's coming with a few parts. 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

Choosing to love had always been simple.

Deciding to love someone was easy. Resolving oneself to love them despite all their imperfections—to embrace those very same imperfections—was nothing more than a matter of will. Arranged marriages had worked for ages in many cultures because of this truth. Choosing to love was simple—far simpler than many wanted to admit.

It was finding a way to not love those you were destined to love that was complicated.

If Beverly Crusher could have chosen not to love Jean-Luc Picard, she likely would have made that choice years ago—not because Jean-Luc wasn't a good man, because she believed him to be the best man there was, in many ways—but because it would have been easier for her and for her heart in the long run.

Jean-Luc was a man that was every bit as committed as anyone ever had been to remaining non-committed to marriage, home, and family. Beverly knew this well, because every time the flame between them flared up, he practically ran from it as though it were a true fire, set to consume him and burn him away entirely. Beverly had heard all of his excuses—he was a Starfleet captain who didn't have time for romance, he would never be able to dedicate the time and energy to home and family that it deserved, he didn't want to leave her alone, he couldn't bear to make her a widow again—and she'd accepted them, without making him face the truth.

He was afraid.

Jean-Luc was a brave man when facing many things, but when it came to matters of the heart, he was a coward.

He loved Beverly, and she knew it, but that fact scared Jean-Luc more than anything. For that reason, he had been running and fighting for years—always coming back to her, because he was as powerless as she was when it came to finding a way not to feel what they both felt, practically in their souls—while Beverly dealt with the aftermath of his fear and her own affections.

Beverly would have been lying to say that she wasn't afraid, herself, as she stood in her quarters, coming to terms with the next chapter of life that she was currently facing. There were times, though, when one simply had to face their fears.

At least, she thought, it would be easier for Jean-Luc to face his fears, if she was beside him, facing them with him.

Her heart pounded in her chest a little harder as she neared Jean-Luc's quarters. They had breakfast together every morning. It was their practice, and it hardly ever changed—whether or not they were in an era where Beverly slept beside Jean-Luc the night before.

Over breakfast, they discussed everything from what was happening on the ship, to idle gossip, to philosophical opinions on important life matters, to the feelings that were constantly flowing between them in one form or fashion.

This morning, however, Beverly knew that what they had to discuss was going to be one of the most serious—and most personal—topics that they had ever faced, together, over that table.

She stood, her hand on the chime, and drew in a breath. She held it and released it slowly, forcing herself to be calm. One of them, after all, would need to be at least somewhat in control of their emotions, and she imagined that Jean-Luc would need a great deal more time to settle than she did. After all, she would be fine on her own, if that's what it came to, and she knew that. She could handle this—she'd done it before—and, in many ways, this was a blessing to her. It wasn't like she didn't love being a mother, and it wasn't as though she hadn't wanted more children. This might not be how she imagined it happening, but it wasn't a tragedy. Knowing that she could handle the future that was laid out before her gave Beverly a bit more control over the situation and her feelings.

Jean-Luc, however, had never before learned that he was going to be a father.

Beverly activated the chime and, when the door slid open, she practically bumped into Jean-Luc. Immediately, his eyes went wide, like he was shocked, and Beverly's body reacted to his obvious fright.

"I'm sorry, I'm late," she stammered, her body relaxing as she judged that there was no actual danger and accepted that she'd merely surprised him, somehow.

Her eyes slid over to the table, though, and she felt her own jolt seconds later. It wasn't fear, exactly, but she definitely wasn't free from an emotional response to what she saw there. There was a woman sitting at Jean-Luc's table, and she looked rather comfortable, even if Jean-Luc didn't.

Beverly felt her stomach sink. Her relationship with Jean-Luc could, at most times, be described as something of an "on again, off again" kind of relationship, but she hadn't realized they were "off again" at the moment, and she certainly hadn't realized they were quite this off.

Still, she rushed to put on the best smile that she could, and she hoped her expression hadn't given her away.

"Excuse me," she said. "I didn't realize you had company."

Beverly started to leave. She started to turn and simply walk away—to collect her thoughts somewhere else. Anywhere else, really, would be preferable. But Jean-Luc reached out in her direction. He reached for her like he anticipated her leaving and wanted to stop her. She paused when his hand touched her shoulder.

"That's all right. Uh…allow me to introduce you." Jean-Luc gestured toward the woman at the table who was now looking very intently at Beverly. "This is Beverly…Doctor Beverly…Doctor Beverly Crusher," Jean-Luc stammered, clearly not recovered from his earlier shock of simply seeing Beverly at his door for their regular breakfast. He frowned at Beverly. She might have read apology in his expression, but she couldn't imagine him choosing to apologize, when he had clearly made the choice to invite this woman into his quarters—possibly even for the night. She hadn't gotten here accidentally, after all. "This is Vash. She's a friend of mine from the Archaeology Council."

Beverly considered her options. She could leave. She could say goodbye, and she could turn around, and she could leave. She could assume what she already did—that Jean-Luc had forgotten, conveniently perhaps, to tell her that they were "off-again," and this was some new woman that he was temporarily inviting to share his life on some shallow sexual level. If she did that, however, she wouldn't know exactly what had happened or how serious this was, and that would drive her mad—not to mention, there was still the little issue that she'd come there to discuss with Jean-Luc. She had to decide how she wanted to handle that. Her secret would keep, after all, but not forever.

Beverly stepped into the room and sat at Jean-Luc's vacated place at the table. She picked up the croissant from his place and tore a corner off of it.

"I didn't mean to interrupt. The Captain and I often share breakfast and morning tea together," Beverly said, explaining her presence to the woman in the most innocuous way possible, hoping for an explanation in return.

"Yes, I know. Jean-Luc has told me all about you," the woman—Vash—said.

Beverly felt a little struck to think that Jean-Luc had been discussing her with this woman that she didn't know at all. She nearly choked on the piece of croissant, and she did her best to hide it by washing it down with a swallow of tea from Jean-Luc's cup.

"Really? When was that?" Beverly asked, hoping that she appeared nonchalant. Jean-Luc, for his part, somewhat hovered nearby. His anxiety was palpable to Beverly, and all that did was raise her own.

"On Risa, where we met," Vash said.

Beverly felt her face grow warm. Jean-Luc had gone to Risa for his vacation the year before. She'd suggested a few alternatives, never wanting to admit that she really just didn't like the idea of him going to a pleasure planet alone, but he'd been set on Risa. That had been during one of their "off-again" moments, and Beverly hadn't felt that she'd had any right to tell him that she was jealous of the thought of him going there.

They had, not long after his return, been "on-again" and Beverly had asked him what had happened on his vacation. She distinctly remembered telling him that he could be honest with her—after all, everyone knew what commonly happened on Risa—but Jean-Luc had insisted that nothing of interesting had happened. Nothing at all.

Beverly couldn't help but smirk at him now that the "nothing" he'd told her about was sitting at the table in his quarters, making it quite clear that they were "off-again" without Beverly having been informed.

"I see. That must have been during your vacation last year," she said, directing the words to Jean-Luc to see how he would react. He visibly swallowed. She didn't need to be an empath to sense that he was panicking.

"No," he stammered. "Yes. Yes."

Beverly hummed and nodded her head gently. She put on the best smile she could and turned back toward Vash.

"Well, I'm surprised he never mentioned you," she said to Vash. She realized, as soon as she'd said it, the way that it had come out wasn't as veiled as she'd hoped. It came out sounding a bit petty and catty—but, then, Beverly was feeling a bit of both those things.

She had no claim to Jean-Luc, really, since he wouldn't commit to her and their sometimes relationship. Both of them, at least occasionally, entertained others, especially when they were "off-again." She simply hadn't been prepared to come face to face with Jean-Luc's latest dalliance, and especially not when she'd gathered herself up and prepared to have such an important conversation with him over their customary breakfast as the one she'd come to have.

Despite her best efforts, she couldn't help but feel a bit hurt, but she swallowed back against it and tried to will herself not to let her expression give anything away.

Vash, for her part, looked surprised and, maybe, a little upset, herself.

"So am I. Doctor, are you busy?" Vash asked.

Beverly considered it. She could say that she was busy. She could leave and go somewhere to nurse her feelings. Or, if she played her cards right, at least she could know a little more about this woman that, foolish as it may seem, she was instinctively considering an enemy of sorts.

"Not at the moment," Beverly managed.

Jean-Luc started to say something, like he might intervene. Vash interrupted him. She gave Beverly the kind of smile that, to Beverly, made it clear that she wasn't the only one who felt something of a competition brewing.

"I would love to see some more of this marvelous ship," Vash said, clearly directing her words to Beverly.

Beverly tensed and, then, immediately made herself relax.

"I would be delighted to show it to you," she said.

Jean-Luc did his best to intervene, once more, but he only managed to stammer out a sound or two. Beverly raised an eyebrow at him. She wished for a chance to speak to him privately, but she was also not sure of what she would say to him, if she were given that chance. She opted, at this moment, for the best thing that she could say in front of Vash.

"That is, if it's all right with you, Jean-Luc."

Jean-Luc looked slightly defeated. He sighed.

"Of course," he said.

"Don't worry," Vash told him. "I promise to behave myself."

Beverly put an arm on Vash's back, when she rose, to lead her out of Jean-Luc's quarters. Some part of her wondered, as they walked, exactly how each of them would really behave themselves as the day went on.

After all, Beverly felt admittedly uncharacteristically territorial at the moment, but she also understood what Vash, perhaps, didn't. Jean-Luc loved her—he had for a long time—and he had been unable to commit to her thanks to his deeply ingrained fear. Even if Vash was a short-term, secret fling from Risa, returned for activities Beverly would rather not think about, Jean-Luc would never commit to her.

Was there really any need to fight for the right to hold water that, as soon as it was taken up, would run through both of their fingers?