AN: Here we are, another piece to this!
I posted Chapter 32 earlier today, so please make sure you read that one before you read this one. (Since we got the new Picard teaser, I thought we should double up here.)
I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!
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When Jean-Luc had been a teenager, he'd first experienced an Deruvian artist's musical performance that, later, he'd heard described as cacophonous. For the rest of his life, it seemed, his mind would forever draw the word up when he heard something so extremely unmelodious that he found it disturbing.
Sickbay was cacophonous.
Jean-Luc didn't have to be in sickbay long before he knew that the surgical team sent to them was comprised of two or three surgeons at most, the others likely being sent to help with the medical emergencies on other ships that were handling the wounded Merobian soldiers.
Because they were dealing with what were likely serious injuries, he already knew that the somewhat limited medical team would treat this as something of a triage situation. They would stabilize incoming patients, and they would concentrate their efforts on those who needed it most urgently—sometimes putting two to three of their best medical personnel on one person at a time. Those with more minor injuries would be made relatively comfortable but, in reality, would be expected to wait.
In addition, anyone with anything minor would be treated elsewhere with basic first aid. Those who couldn't leave sickbay, but needed to be out of the way and, very likely, where they didn't have to observe anything traumatizing, were moved to one curtained off section. Unless one were to go into something like cardiac arrest, they would have to forego attention and creature comforts until the emergency had passed.
Nobody acknowledged that he'd been relieved of duty, but they also didn't acknowledge that he was the captain. As the captain, he moved through his own ship, especially in times of crisis, like a long-haunting ghost. They were aware of him, but there was no need to break their attention on other things for his presence.
In one area of sickbay—somewhat out of the direct line of sight of any patient—there were four beds with patients who were still and quiet. The blankets covering them were proof that they would remain that way. The people were being brought directly to sickbay as they were recovered—beamed up on stabilizing boards—and the bodies of the fallen hadn't made it to the morgue yet.
Jean-Luc walked toward them on knees that felt like they hadn't belonged to him for some time.
Everything in sickbay happened in slow motion for everyone except those taxed with saving lives.
Jean-Luc could recall an instructor that he'd known at Starfleet Academy and the speech the man had given one day—a speech that had haunted Jean-Luc. He'd given it to a room full of young, overzealous cadets who had been hyped up on the hope of their first battle, drunk with visions of honor, glory, and victory.
The man, he'd said, who had called victory sweet had never truly tasted it. He had never heard or smelled battle. Battle, the instructor said, sounded like misery, suffering, regret, and sorrow. Battle smelled like piss and fear. And when the battle was done, there wasn't the sweet taste of victory. There was only the sorrow for all that was lost, no matter which side you were on.
Jean-Luc smelled fear. He tasted it in the back of his throat.
One at a time, he steeled himself to fold back sheets as respectfully as possible. He saw bodies strapped, still, to stabilizing boards for easy movement and transport. He felt the heavy sorrow of their loss, and the guilty relief that none of them was the person he loved most in the universe.
The cacophony of sickbay assaulted his ears. He heard the sounds his instructor had pointed out as the sounds of battle and its after-moments. He heard the sounds of the surgeons, working as they had to try to save the lives they could. He heard the machines, and the cries of his suffering people.
And then he heard the sound that nearly took his already-somewhat malfunctioning knees from under him entirely.
"Recovered human female. Pregnant. Head trauma."
Jean-Luc felt almost as though he would lose consciousness. Somehow, he directed himself toward the area where the words had been said—the bed where their newest "recovery" had been beamed.
Coming into view, but keeping distance enough to not be in the way, Jean-Luc could see that Beverly, like all the others, had been strapped to a stabilizing board. These boards had built in sensors that helped to monitor certain information about patients and, though the information was less reliable than that produced by a tricorder, it helped in the short term. In addition, the boards kept patients, especially those who had to be moved or left unattended, from aggravating injuries or wounds.
From a distance, his legs feeling practically jumpy with the desire to run to her, Jean-Luc watched as one nurse made quick work of providing what might be considered the basics. An intravenous drip was started, and a series of hyposprays were administered, a couple of which Jean-Luc could identify from name simply from having spent time in Beverly's presence while she worked. One surgeon, temporarily stepping away from another patient, was there to stabilize Beverly and see if she needed their immediate attention, or if she could wait for those whose injuries were more serious to be treated first.
Jean-Luc wanted to know that, too, but he didn't dare to get in the way.
Beverly was alive. As she was attached to monitors, he could hear the sounds that told him she was alive. The sounds were no longer cacophonous. They were precious. The sounds marked the continuation of her life, and that made him feel like his own could keep progressing. He felt his strength slowly starting to come back.
Jean-Luc approached delicately as the surgeon who had stepped into the space to offer a quick hand in treating, more than likely, the head trauma that had been reported, left a nurse to finish doing what she could for Beverly after what seemed like a long few moments of repairing some damage, evidently, to Beverly's skull.
Jean-Luc's heart thundered in his chest.
"What can you tell me?" He asked the nurse.
She looked at him, wide-eyed, like she'd had no indication of his approach. She was a young nurse, an ensign, and she had been in the other group that had gone down to the planet's surface. She'd been relieved of duty, but it was likely her survivor's guilt that had driven her to volunteer to be here now. She looked nearly pale at the thought of speaking to him.
"Captain…"
"Please," he said. "Right now, I'm only Dr. Crusher's husband."
The young nurse looked a little more relaxed.
"Head trauma. Lacerations and contusions. There appear to be a few fractures. I can treat those, if you want, or she can wait for one of the doctors."
"Head trauma?"
"Already repaired," the young nurse said. "That's what she was doing," she gestured toward the surgeon that was already busy with another patient who had an abdominal injury.
"She'll be OK?" Jean-Luc asked, his voice sticking in his throat.
The nurse looked relieved. Then, she looked pleased. She smiled, and Jean-Luc realized that she was pleased with the idea of giving her captain good news. She nodded.
"She's stable," the nurse said. "Nothing she's suffering from now is life threatening. I can start to repair some of the damage, if you want."
He understood what she was saying. She could start healing the damage that Beverly had suffered. She had the skill to do that. Dermal regenerators, osteogenic stimulators, and the like would be the tools required to heal Beverly—all of which this young nurse could manage without supervision of any sort.
"The baby," Jean-Luc said.
The nurse made a face. She picked up a PADD that was gathering information from the monitors.
"They'll run more in-depth scans later, I'm sure," she said. "But—we have vitals, for now."
From the short distance that he maintained, Jean-Luc heard the moment that Beverly started to come around from the recently healed head trauma. He thought that he might have to request treatment for himself when all this was done. His heart could barely stand a moment more.
"Is it safe to touch her?" He asked, hearing his own voice coming out with a slightly less-reliable and far scratchier quality than he considered normal.
The young nurse smiled.
"Carefully," she said. "Just until I'm done."
He nodded his understanding. The young nurse started her work. Cleared by her captain to practice her skills at healing minor injuries, she started the work of removing Beverly's uniform to get a better look at what needed to be healed.
Jean-Luc stepped close to the biobed, keeping near Beverly's head so as to not get in the way. The stabilizing board's strap ran across her forehead and, as she opened her eyes, he saw her tense in response to it and the sudden feeling of being restrained.
"Shhhh," he whispered softly, stepping so that his face was in her line of sight. "You're temporarily restrained. It's a stabilizing board. I know you were dosed with a sedative, which you likely need, and something for the pain which you're likely suffering. You've suffered head trauma. You're aboard the Enterprise. Do you know who you are?"
Beverly's eyes went wide, and Jean-Luc's entire body responded. Instead of responding with the fear it had felt all day, though—the fear that he saw in her eyes—it responded with glee over the fact that her eyes were open and they were focusing on him.
"The baby…" Beverly said. It was neither statement nor question, and she tensed again.
"Please be still, Dr. Crusher," the young nurse commanded.
Jean-Luc held Beverly's face, careful to place his fingers in places where they wouldn't come into direct contact with the visible scrapes, cuts, and forming bruises.
"The baby's vitals are fine," Jean-Luc said, wanting to word things carefully, since nobody had paid careful attention, yet, to the little one. It would likely be the least of their worries, and the last to be truly treated, if it required anything. "Do you know who you are?"
"Oh—Jean-Luc…" Beverly breathed out. Jean-Luc felt his throat tighten at the feeling she put behind his name. He smiled at her.
"You most certainly are not Jean-Luc," he teased. A smile played at her lips. He closed his eyes a moment, drew in a breath, and let it out slowly to calm his pounding heart and to give thanks for that simple smile. When he opened his eyes, she was still smiling at him.
"This is out of alignment," the nurse said. Jean-Luc glanced to see what she was talking about as she examined Beverly's left arm, just a few inches to Jean-Luc's right. For the osteogenic stimulator to work, she would have to pull the bone back into place.
"It's OK," Beverly said when Jean-Luc looked at her. "I'm ready."
"Tell me what you know," Jean-Luc said. Beverly clearly understood what he was doing. She held his eyes. He touched only the spots on her face where he knew there were no visible injuries. He stroked a finger gently over her cheek.
"I'm Doctor Beverly Crusher. Now—Picard," she said. She smiled at him. "My son is Wesley…"
"He's going to be very happy to see you," Jean-Luc said. "He's been keeping himself occupied in engineering."
"I'm pregnant, and…you said the baby's vitals are good?"
"They're great. Things are very busy here right now, but when they calm down, Dr. Moran will examine everything…" Jean-Luc broke off a moment. When the nurse put the bones back into place, and began the repair with the osteogenic stimulator, Jean-Luc saw the pained response on Beverly's face. She growled out her discomfort and panted once it had mostly passed. The nurse apologized, but there was nothing she could have done differently, and Beverly managed to tell her as much.
Jean-Luc hovered nearby as the nurse finished healing what she could. A final tricorder scan confirmed that she was done until someone could check her work, and she gave Jean-Luc permission to stay with Beverly while she went to help assist with the others—five of which, Jean-Luc assumed, were still alive and being treated for a variety of injuries, since he'd heard no different.
Left alone, with permission to do so, Jean-Luc finished removing the restraints that Beverly wore, and he helped her off the stabilizing board so that she could simply lie more comfortably on the biobed. He covered her with a blanket. Free to touch her, he ran his hands over her body, searching for something that not even he could name—the reassurance that she was truly there, well, and whole, restored to him. He moved from her feet up to her face again, and she didn't protest the touch at all. She seemed to understand what he was looking for, even though he couldn't name it himself.
Finally, satisfied that she was real and whole, he kissed her. She kissed him back, though he did urge her to stay down when she seemed like she might move her face to come after him for another kiss.
He smiled at her.
"Easy," he said. "Careful. Be still, Beverly. Please. For just…for just a while more. Just in case."
"Jean-Luc…"
"I thought of a million things that I would tell you," he said, interrupting her. He kept his voice low, and his face close to hers. "I thought of everything I would say if I ever saw you again. Now, it seems as though I can hardly remember a word of it. All I can remember—the only thing in the entirety of my mind, at the moment, Beverly—is that I love you. You are the single most precious thing in the world to me, and I love you."
She smiled.
"I love you, too," she said. "So—so much. There's time for the rest."
"Now there is," Jean-Luc agreed. "But…I thought…I was afraid that…"
"Later," Beverly said, renewing her smile. Jean-Luc felt his stomach tighten. He thought he could understand what she was saying without saying it. Later, they could say it all. Later, they could show each other exactly what they felt. Later, when they weren't in sickbay, and he wasn't the captain—though he knew that he was currently on temporary leave—and she wasn't the chief medical officer.
"Can I do anything for you? It will be some time before you have the attention of anyone—and for that I'm most grateful, because it means that you are well. But, please…allow me to do something for you, Beverly."
She laughed quietly.
"I don't want to make a fuss," she said, obvious teasing in her tone.
"I want you to make a fuss. To me."
"I'm very thirsty, Jean-Luc," Beverly said. "If it's not too much trouble…may I have some water?"
Jean-Luc smiled at her. He laughed to himself.
"I can't explain to you how wonderful it feels to have the task of getting you water," Jean-Luc said. "I'll be right back."
"I won't go anywhere," Beverly said, a laugh sounding low in her throat.
"I pray you never do," Jean-Luc assured her, kissing her once more before he went for water, not admitting to her that he was nearly terrified to leave her side again, even for a moment.