AN: Well, a few people wanted more, and I'm a sucker for longer, more involved fics. So, I guess we're going to do this. If you're along for the ride, welcome and thanks!

I need to make the quick note that I haven't finished all of TNG yet. That being said, please do excuse the fact that I am playing very fast and loose with canon and even some of the characters. This is just for enjoyment. I beg suspension of disbelief.

It should be noted, as well, that I'm aware that most people don't like Wesley, but I just can't hate his character. I'm sorry, I just see him as a teenage boy, and that's how I'm going to have to write him.

I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

Beverly was a doctor and, even though she knew well that best practice would require her to seek the consultation of another shift doctor to assist her in handling the changes her body was undergoing, she decided against it. She wasn't ready to share—not with a medical provider on the same ship who, ultimately, worked under her. She wasn't ready for anyone to know—not until she was ready to tell, at least, and she was taking her time working up to the moment when she made her secret common knowledge.

During her downtime, Beverly could run her own tests. She could adjust prenatal vitamins for herself that would meet her personal needs and take care of any deficiencies she might have, thanks to a sometimes less than perfect diet. When the nausea started in earnest, she could program a hypospray for herself that would help to alleviate the symptoms of the pregnancy or, at the very least, to reduce them to a point where she could manage them. She could monitor the growth and vitals of what she believed to be—at least until someone came in to tell her differently—the youngest current resident of the Enterprise.

The only thing that Beverly hadn't been able to do was to scrounge up the courage to let her secret be known. Telling everyone was going to be difficult, especially since she'd decided not to admit that Jean-Luc was the father. She would blame it on some indiscretion—some shore leave accident, perhaps. She would be counting, very heavily, on the fact that her crew members would suddenly lose at least three-fourths of the intelligence that she knew each of them to have, since a simple mathematical equation would tell them that she hadn't left the ship at any time when she might have picked up her tiny stowaway.

The only defense that she'd figured out for the moment when someone confronted her about that—because she did fear that someone would bother to do the rudimentary math—was currently nothing more profound than the defense that Wesley had used as a toddler when he'd been caught doing something. She would grit her teeth together and choose silence until they either gave up or simply chose to continue on with their own unconfirmed assumptions.

Beverly had to tell Wesley, and she thought that it was important, perhaps, to tell him first—even though the thought of telling him that he was to become a big brother to a fatherless child, thanks to his mother's indiscretion, nearly took her knees out from under her entirely. Each time she thought she gathered up the courage, she found herself unable to keep food down for half a day, and she backed away from the confession.

She might have gone on like that forever—daydreaming about eventually introducing the child into the population and hoping that everyone somehow accepted it without asking questions about how it even came to be—until she realized that she'd run out of time for honesty.

She had replicated her uniform in a few different sizes, but the fit adjustment of simply going "larger" hadn't quite worked well with the slight changes that were taking place with her body—not if she wanted her uniform to remain neat enough that she wasn't drawing attention to herself just for the fact that she'd forgotten how to wear one properly. When she'd carried Wesley, she'd wanted, desperately, to show the effects of her pregnancy. At the time, she'd felt like her shape hadn't changed for most of the pregnancy, and she'd even cried over it a time or two; she'd been sure she'd never look pregnant, which she recognized was somewhat irrational. Now, wishing she could conceal things for a while longer, it seemed like the baby was anxious to make an appearance of sorts. Each pregnancy was different, and she knew that, but she wasn't quite ready for it to be so obvious. She could somewhat disguise the form-hugging elastic band of the maternity uniform pants, but the self-admission that she needed them meant that she had to recognize that, soon, people would begin to notice that there was something different about her.

Wesley, who saw her constantly, would actually be less-likely to notice. Still, because he saw her in nearly every kind of garment that was proper for her to wear around their shared quarters, he was going to have plenty of opportunity to notice. Beverly didn't want him to figure it out before she told him. She didn't want him to feel like it was some kind of betrayal.

Beverly replicated the meal and set the table before she called Wesley for dinner and away from his studies.

"Wow, Mom," Wesley said, eying the food as he took his seat at the table. Beverly smiled. She'd pulled out all the stops and tried to think of some of his favorite comfort foods that he'd loved most while visiting his granny—Beverly's grandmother—in his earliest years.

"I thought you might like a little taste of Granny Howard's favorites, and some of your favorites, too," Beverly said. "I thought you might like something else for dessert, though—chocolate mousse?"

Wesley sat down and started to serve himself. Beverly followed suit. She could hardly imagine trying to stomach even a mouthful of the food at the table, despite the fact that she'd taken a hypospray to try to hold off the nausea that seemed to be a nearly constant feature of her life these days—proof that whoever coined the term "morning sickness" had never experienced it—but she served herself as she normally would, hoping that she could make everything seem as calm and normal as possible.

When they started eating, Wesley picked at his food much like Beverly did, pushing bits of it around his plate with his fork, the same as she was doing.

"What's wrong, Wesley?" Beverly asked. Her stomach made an uncomfortable lurch in response to her own question. She worried that there was something bothering Wesley. If there was, she was going to have to address that, and it would likely mean that this was a bad time to burden him with her own problems. She didn't want to add anything else to his proverbial plate, but she didn't want to have to delay and repeat this, either—a fully selfish thought, she realized.

Wesley hesitated a moment, visibly struggling with the words and whether or not he wanted to say them. Finally, he put his fork down.

"It's just that—Mom—when you do something like this? I know that something bad is coming. This is the kind of thing that always goes with something you don't think I want to hear."

Beverly chewed on it a moment.

"Am I that predictable?" She asked.

Wesley nodded his head gently.

"So—if you could just tell me what it is, I'd rather just know instead of…instead of thinking about the whole time we're trying to eat."

"That's fair," Beverly ceded. She put her own fork down. There was no need in pretending she was going to eat when she hadn't even put a bite in her mouth yet. She smoothed down her uniform—which she'd chosen to keep on for the evening, since she felt it best concealed what she was starting to think of as undeniable proof of her "indiscretion." "Wesley—I don't know how to tell you this, and that's why I've waited this long…"

Wesley started like he might stand, and Beverly waived him down with one hand extended in his direction.

"Are you alright?" He asked. His immediate panic was palpable, and Beverly was sorry for having caused him any distress. Having lost his father at such a young age—an age that, Beverly knew, sometimes meant that he hardly remembered Jack outside of the stories she, and others, told him—meant that he was particularly protective of her.

"I'm fine," Beverly assured him. "It's nothing like that, Wesley. In fact, maybe it's not a bad thing at all. It's not…it's not a bad thing. It's just…something to come to terms with. Something to accept."

It was something that was making her feel like she might be forced to excuse herself from the table for a moment, before she ruined dinner entirely.

"Mom?" Wesley asked. His face screwed up in concern, and Beverly nodded, realizing that her expression was, perhaps, giving away her internal discomfort. Wesley reached a hand out and touched her arm as it rested on the table.

"It's fine, Wesley," she assured him. She reached for a bread roll and tore a small bite of it off. She ate it, wishing beyond any genuine hope that it might somehow absorb what she was feeling. "I'm just not…feeling the best." Wesley started again, and Beverly realized that she was failing at this even more than she'd imagined in some of her imaginings of how this might go. "I'm fine!" She said quickly. "I'm fine…and I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it. Wesley—I'm…" The word stuck in her throat, but she decided that she might as well get used to saying it. This was only the first of many such confessions she was going to have to make as knowledge of her situation circulated around the ship, "pregnant," she forced out finally.

Wesley stared at her. She didn't want to try to interpret his expression.

"Pregnant?" He asked finally. She nodded in response. "What do you mean? I don't understand…"

Beverly recognized that it was a knee-jerk response from shock. Wesley wasn't sincerely without the ability to understand the word "pregnant," the condition itself, or how one arrived in such a state. What he didn't understand, perhaps, was how his mother had become pregnant—given what he knew about her life and how little he knew about her secret little indiscretion.

Beverly sucked in a breath. It was time to try out some version of the story she'd concocted, even though she already felt guilty for lying to Wesley. She decided to try to keep the details to a minimum, recognizing that the lack of details might be the only thing that kept the lie she was constructing afloat—especially to her son, with whom she spent more time than anyone else.

"It was an…an indiscretion," Beverly said.

"A mistake," Wesley said.

"An accident," Beverly said. "I didn't mean for it to happen, but…now that it's happened? I'm looking for the good in this." She smiled at Wesley. "You were—one of the best things to ever happen to me, Wesley. Becoming a mother? Why wouldn't I want to do it again?"

Wesley's brow was furrowed.

"I wasn't an accident," Wesley said. There was a sharp, accusatory sound to his voice. For just a moment, Beverly thought, she might excuse it. She would allow him time to run the gamut of emotions, but not too much time. Still, something in his tone made heat come to Beverly's cheeks. "That's entirely different than this is!"

The heat intensified, and the nausea, though still present, was less pressing when the anger replaced it.

"You were a blessing to your father and I, Wesley," Beverly said. "But—if you have to know? You weren't exactly planned." Wesley looked shocked, and Beverly was immediately sorry. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. You were—and you are—the greatest thing to happen to your father and I. My point is that…not everything wonderful in life is planned, Wesley. In fact—I'd say that very few truly wonderful things are planned."

Wesley relaxed a little. His brow remained furrowed, though. He sighed.

"You're OK?"

Beverly felt a wave of relief. She gave him a soft smile—the best she could force at the moment.

"I'm healthy," she said. "Strong. You don't have to worry about me, Wesley. And—the baby's healthy, too. So far, everything is just as it should be."

"Who's the father?" Wesley asked after a moment.

The nausea that ebbed and flowed came back with a vengeance, and Beverly tried to absorb it with another bite of bread that she was, at the moment, at least pretending could do the work of some kind of sponge.

"That doesn't matter," Beverly said.

"Of course it matters," Wesley countered.

"No, it doesn't," Beverly said. She realized, in that moment, that Wesley was a little too comfortable talking to her as a fellow adult. Of course, she also recognized that was her fault. She had, in many ways, always treated him as more of an adult than he was—probably owing, at least a little, to the fact that it had only been the two of them since Jack's death. "Wesley—I've decided not to tell the father. It wasn't intentional, and he…doesn't need to be burdened by this. It's not something he would want."

"That's not fair!" Wesley said.

"I don't like your tone!" Beverly snapped back at him. He sat back. She recognized that she'd been a little harsher than she'd intended, but she wasn't exactly sorry for it.

"I'm sorry, Mom," Wesley said. "But—it's his responsibility, too, and you should tell him. This isn't your mistake to handle on your own."

"This conversation is finished, Wesley," Beverly informed him. He started to say something else, and she cut him off with a gesture of her hand and her words. "I mean it! I wanted to inform you of this, but I am not seeking your advice or your approval. This is an adult matter, and it's a personal matter. It's really none of your business."

"It's my brother or sister, isn't it? It's my business!"

Beverly stood up, aware of the frustration that was suddenly coursing through her body. She could practically feel it running through her veins, and she knew that wasn't good for anyone involved.

"If you're to be so inconvenienced," Beverly said, "then I'll do my best to keep this from being a burden on you. However, you are not an adult, Wesley. The decisions that I make are not yours to comment on, simply to accept. I'm not asking you to understand why I do what I do."

"Mom—it's just that…"

"That's enough, Wesley," Beverly said. "Take your dinner to your room. We've said all we need to say tonight. It's better for both of us, if we just sleep on this. As Chief Medical Officer, it's my responsibility to inform the captain of changes in the health of crew members, even if I am that crew member. I'm supposed to tell the captain tomorrow. I am simply informing you before you can hear it from someone else. I don't need you to tell me how to handle things, though, that are deeply personal to me. If I needed advice, I would have presented it to you in that matter. This conversation is finished for now."

Wesley looked like he thought about saying something, but then he thought better of it. He looked apologetic, though his brow was still furrowed.

"Yes, ma'am," he opted for, finally. He stood up and took his plate and glass—just as Beverly had told him to do—so that he could take his dinner to his room. Beverly remained on her feet, fighting back about a thousand conflicting emotions. "Mom?"

Beverly sucked in a breath and blew it out, hoping to hold back shame, anger, tears, and everything else she'd been trying to keep inside.

"What is it, Wesley?" She asked.

"I only want to say that—what I was trying to say is you shouldn't have to do it alone," Wesley said. "Not if the father's still around. I respect your decision, though. Just—I'll be here to help, as much as I can. As much as you'll let me."

Beverly meant to hold everything back. She meant to present herself as the fiercely independent person who didn't need anyone—and certainly not the son that, probably, she'd relied on far too much when she should have been letting him be nothing more than a carefree child. She couldn't quite hold the tears back, though.

Wesley put his glass and plate down quickly. Without saying anything, he wrapped his arms around her, and Beverly hugged him back.

"I'm going to eat in my room," he said. "You should eat something. I know that much about babies. Just leave the table—I'll clean up tonight."

"You don't have to take care of me," Beverly said, finally.

"No," he said. "But—I can clear the table."

"I don't want you to feel like this is your responsibility," Beverly said.

Wesley pulled away from her.

"It's not," he said, shaking his head. "But—you're my mother, and it's my brother or sister, right?"

Beverly simply nodded. Wesley didn't say anything else, and neither did she. There was nothing else to say, even though she knew there would be plenty more to say once everything had settled a little. Wesley took his plate and glass and headed toward his room. Beverly looked over the food and decided that the best she could do for a meal was to take a few pieces of bread with her. She replicated a cup of tea for herself, and she went to the bedroom, deciding to take Wesley up on his offer of cleaning up.

Tomorrow, she would have to tell the captain and, after dinner, she was having a hard time believing that everything would go the way of the smoothest of her imaginings. Still, her greatest hope was that he would be so occupied by his own affairs that he would be practically dismissive of her news and may not even need the poorly constructed cover story she'd created to cover over the truth.