AN: Here we are, another piece here.
I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to tell me what you think!
111
"They adore you," Jean-Luc said. "And who could blame them? You charmed them."
"I didn't do anything," Beverly said.
Her voice was quiet, as was Jean-Luc's. The room they occupied was mostly dark with a few flickering lamps lit for ambience more than actual light. If it were colder, they would have lit a fire in the room's fireplace. Perhaps, Jean-Luc thought, they would do that when they returned to celebrate the holidays, and he could sit and hold Beverly in front of the fire. Perhaps, even, he could convince her to make love to him in front of the fire.
The warmth of a little extra wine at dinner still seemed to spreading through Jean-Luc's body. He felt warm, comfortable, and relaxed. Of course, maybe it wasn't the wine at all. Maybe the sensation of intoxication, and the sweet release and relaxation that went with that, was owing to something else entirely.
It had been a very long time since Jean-Luc had celebrated the holidays and, now, he had the promise of time spent with family to hold onto until those days came to pass. He had the promise that he, and Beverly, and the extended family that they were creating, would all gather at the Château Picard to celebrate home and family—however that may look. The thought warmed him in a way for which he'd hardly been prepared.
"Come here, Beverly," Jean-Luc said. "Put your book away and…come be with me."
She smiled at him over her shoulder. The room had an old chair, and she was curled up in it with some volume she'd plucked from a shelf somewhere in the house. Jean-Luc normally didn't mind reading at night, but tonight he had other ways he'd rather spend his time. He didn't despise admiring his bride as she sat in a chair and read a book by lamplight, leaning over on her elbow with a dreamlike look in her face, but he'd much prefer to admire her up-close, where his hands could enjoy the sensation of her flesh beneath them.
Beverly required no more prompting. She closed her book, left it resting on the arm of the chair, and brought the lamp with her as she crossed the room to where Jean-Luc sat on the edge of the bed. She placed her lamp on the dresser, brightening the area of the room just a touch more, and then she came toward Jean-Luc. He held his hands out to her, and she walked into them.
"Come on," he urged, edging his body backward on the bed to make it clear that he intended to welcome her onto his lap, and he was making room for her.
She looked genuinely pleased. She raised her eyebrows at him.
"My center of gravity is not exactly what it was, Jean-Luc," she said.
He heard the rest of what she didn't say, and he slipped his hands down to squeeze gently at her ribcage, putting just enough pressure there to let her feel the hold he had on her.
"You're the most graceful person I know, but, if you should feel that may fail you, then I promise you that I won't let you fall, Beverly," Jean-Luc said.
She placed a hand on either of his shoulder's and crawled onto the bed. When she was as close to him as their bodies allowed, she lowered herself to rest on his lap, facing him, with her knees at his sides.
Just as he promised he would, Jean-Luc held onto Beverly as an added reassurance that he wouldn't allow the mattress to somehow shift and topple her backward to the hard floor beneath. He felt as her muscles relaxed and she trusted that she wasn't likely to get hurt. She sighed as she fully relaxed, and she leaned forward to offer Jean-Luc one of the soft, long kisses in which they could both get lost for a while.
"I love you," Jean-Luc said, his voice no louder than it had been before, the moment that their lips parted.
Beverly smiled at him, all the way to her eyes, and bit her lip. She shifted her weight a little, making herself more comfortable.
"I love you, too, Jean-Luc," she said. With her hands free, she used them to massage the back of his neck and to scratch her fingertips gently against his scalp. "It's not difficult to love your family, too. They're a part of you."
"Robert is exceedingly difficult at times," Jean-Luc said. Beverly laughed quietly. "However, you have handled him amazingly today."
"I don't think he approved of me," Beverly said. "At least, not at first. He never asked the question about what came first, the baby or the marriage, but I could hear it simmering all day long. I don't think he approved of everything happening so quickly for us—or, maybe he didn't approve that we've kept it a secret so long."
Jean-Luc hummed at her. He held her eyes with his own. He let his eyes drift down to her lips before they returned to her eyes again.
"What Robert didn't approve of was the fact that I married you," Jean-Luc said. "He's jealous."
"Marie is delightful," Beverly said. "Beautiful. Friendly. A breath of fresh air, Jean-Luc. There's no way that Robert was jealous."
"While I would gladly argue that, despite the many merits any woman may have and bring to a relationship, there is no man alive that, upon seeing you and, more than that, coming to know you, Beverly, would not feel jealous that I am your husband, I didn't actually mean that Robert is jealous of my marriage to you."
"Why would he be jealous, Jean-Luc?" Beverly asked, breathing out his name with the air of humoring him.
"Because, he's always been jealous of everything that I've accomplished, even if it was never my intention to make him jealous. Our whole lives, the only thing that Robert has really been able to hold over my head—the only thing that he could always feel made him better than me, somehow—was that he had a family. He was going to stay here, and carry on all the family traditions. For Robert, that made him superior. He was married, and he had a son. He would carry on the Picard name, as it should be. For many years, Robert has held that over my head like proof of his superiority over me. Today, I arrived with a wife. A future family. Robert's jealousy over everything I've ever done or been started to surface when he perceived that he'd lost something that he held onto so dearly."
Sensing that she was secure enough, now, that she didn't need him to keep his hands still, holding her into place, he eased his hands down and squeezed. She smirked and raised her eyebrows at him. She responded to his kneading by virtually ignoring it for a moment. She trailed her fingers around his face, massaging his head and seeming to simply be entertaining her fingers with caressing him.
"You surprise him. You show up with a wife that he knew nothing about…"
"He knew about you, even if he never expected you to be my wife," Jean-Luc said. Beverly made a face, and Jean-Luc laughed quietly. "I've been in love with you for a long time, Beverly. I spoke of you, years ago, and then I stopped…"
"Because of…"
"Because he didn't seem to care," Jean-Luc said. "And I didn't want to share what was so precious to me with someone who didn't care—even if he didn't know that my love for you was wrapped up in stories about replicated meals and a picnic gone awry thanks to far too many ants."
Beverly laughed.
"You told him stories about the three of us?" Beverly asked.
"That was the only way I had you in my life," Jean-Luc mused. "I've been in love with you for a very long time, Beverly."
"I love you very much, Jean-Luc," she said.
"I know," he said, nodding gently to tell her that she didn't need to search for more words. His feelings weren't hurt if her heart couldn't say that she'd loved him too—not when she'd been married to Jack, and not in the same way. "And I know you loved Jack. Very much. That's as it should be. You were his wife." He raised his eyebrows and sighed. "And, now I hope that I haven't ruined the mood."
"You haven't ruined anything," Beverly assured him. "Robert must have felt surprised to see you here with a wife and a little one to come."
Jean-Luc hoped his expression didn't come across as something Beverly might find less-than-desirable. He could see, in her eyes, that he hadn't remained quite as neutral as he'd hoped.
"Well…at the very least, he warmed to you considerably as the day went on," Jean-Luc said. "It's no surprise that you had him practically eating from your hands by the end of supper."
Beverly laughed.
"That might be a touch dramatic," she offered. "Still—Jean-Luc—I think that he's at least pleased to retain something over you that makes him feel superior. I think, perhaps, it might be something that's on your mind, too." Jean-Luc didn't respond to her with anything more than a hum. "Robert still has a son, to carry on the family line, the Picard family name."
Jean-Luc didn't expect to feel as struck as he did by the words. Maybe, more than the words, it was the fact that everything he'd been somewhat boxing up inside of himself threatened to escape a little at possibly being seen. Maybe, even, more than that, it was the look of absolute, tender understanding that Beverly gave him, as though she didn't fault him for a moment for his entirely unnoble thoughts.
"René is a fine boy," Jean-Luc said.
"He is," Beverly agreed.
"I've always thought of him as—as close as I'll likely ever come to having a son of my own."
"Do you still think that's true now, Jean-Luc?" Beverly asked.
"One never knows what the future holds," Jean-Luc said. "I'm realizing that more and more. I never would have expected to be here, like this, with you in my arms."
Beverly smiled.
"And our little one nestled between us," she offered with a quiet laugh. "Jean-Luc…I admired your efforts to defend our daughter today. Your efforts to build up all that's possible for her…all she could achieve. Even if I know that you're every bit as disappointed with her as René."
Jean-Luc drew in a breath and held it. Beverly wasn't accusing him. She didn't seem angry. As he moved his hands and massaged her back, he found no tension in her muscles. He could feel her full weight pressing against his lap as she relaxed into him.
"Yes," he said. "Yes—I am disappointed. Terribly, perhaps, depending on the hour of the day in question. And, yet, no. I'm not. Because I am happy to start a family with you, Beverly, whatever that may look like."
"But you thought that we'd start that family with a son," Beverly said.
"I had hoped so, yes," Jean-Luc admitted. Beverly reached and tugged at Jean-Luc's arm. When he gave it to her, she guided him to her belly, pressed rather tight between them, and helped him find the light movements beneath her skin. He smiled when he felt them, and his throat suddenly felt tight and uncomfortable.
"You're disappointed because you're having to adjust that dream that you had. You wanted a son because you value tradition, and family names are important to you," Beverly said. "You were raised that way, Jean-Luc, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. When I was carrying Wesley, I felt sure that Jack's enthusiasm might have been a great deal less if I'd been having a girl. I heard a great deal more about 'his son' than I ever heard about 'our baby.'"
She said the last part with a giggle—not with hurt—and it surprised Jean-Luc.
He closed his eyes a moment. He didn't really want to shut her out, but yet he felt like he needed a moment to refrain from seeing her. He needed a moment to not see how much she understood, and how little she seemed to fault him, when part of him felt almost like a monster.
When he opened his eyes, she hadn't looked away, and he wondered if she'd even blinked.
"It's OK, Jean-Luc," she said. She smiled softly at him, tenderly, and his chest ached all the more because he believed her.
"I don't want you to misunderstand," Beverly," Jean-Luc said, moving his hand from her belly to her face. "I don't not want our daughter. In fact…I am excited about every little change. How I can feel her now better than I could even yesterday, and I know that she's growing bigger and stronger. I don't want you to think that my disappointment means that I'll never love her."
Beverly laughed quietly.
"Oh—you'll love her very much," Beverly said.
"It's only that—I don't know what to do with a girl," Jean-Luc said. "I have no idea how to be a father to a daughter. I have no idea how to be a father at all. But I've always imagined that, if I were to have a child, there would be nothing for me but a son. I've never even imagined how I might be a father to a little girl. I have no idea what I'll do, honestly."
"You'll do the same things with her that you would with that son," Beverly said. "You'll do the same things with her that you'll do with any children we should have in the future, be they sons or daughters. If it's the little things you're worried about learning, there are holoprograms we can do together. I'll do them with you. If it's anything else? Don't worry. You'll love her, Jean-Luc. You'll be her Papa, and you'll come to love her as much as she'll love you. You and she will work out all your differences."
"With any luck, she will be as beautiful, clever, talented…and gracious as her mother," Jean-Luc said. "Everyone in the world will have no choice but to fall in love with her, and I will be among them."
Beverly hummed. She kissed Jean-Luc softly. The feather-lightness of the kiss sent a shiver through his body.
"You'll see," Beverly said. "Once you've settled into the idea of being Papa, you won't be among them, you'll be leading them."
"I'm certain you're right."
"And, maybe, our next child will be a son. There is still time for a few more Picards in the world."
"Maybe there is," Jean-Luc agreed. They'd talked about the possibility a few times in pillow-talk conversations. They'd imagined how their family might look, now that they were committed to it. Aboard the Enterprise, there was room for family, and Starfleet offered flexibility for new parents—even captains, Jean-Luc had learned when Beverly did a bit of looking into the leave allowances for active-duty personnel welcoming new arrivals. Beverly enjoyed motherhood, and she wouldn't have to sacrifice her career or her family aboard the ship.
It seemed they really could have it all, if that's what they wanted. It wouldn't be easy, but few things really worth having were.
"What do you say we practice a little, Jean-Luc?" Beverly asked.
"Practice?" Jean-Luc asked.
She swallowed back her amusement, but she wasn't entirely successful.
"Practice how we might make other Picards—for future reference, you know? Practice does make perfect, after all," she teased.
Jean-Luc felt a rush of warmth run through him, and he hugged her a little more tightly against him. He kissed her hard and with as much meaning as he could put behind it. She must have caught his meaning, because she responded immediately by deepening the kiss. She moaned out her satisfaction at the kiss and, shifting her body, rolled her hips. It didn't take a single thing more for her to communicate her hunger or for Jean-Luc's body to respond with equal enthusiasm.
"Let's go to bed, Beverly," Jean-Luc said, when their mouths parted and he felt he could speak. "We have a lot of practicing to do."