AN: Here's another chapter to this one!
I hope you enjoy! If you do, please let me know!
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"The area is as private as we can offer," Dr. Moran was explaining as she led Jean-Luc to what he might consider the farthest reaches of the sickbay, where a section was closed off with a curtain. She'd been telling him things—things he couldn't understand and, really, couldn't even hear. He was aware, not of her words, but of the fact that each of his steps felt both urgent and difficult to make. His whole body felt tense, and a little shaky. He could hear the blood rush past his ears and he could hear his heavy breathing.
His daughter wasn't yet a part of the world, and just the acknowledgement that she was, in fact, really coming, made him feel entirely disarmed.
"Here we are, Captain," Dr. Moran said, leading him into the space where Beverly had already changed, presumably by herself, into a gown and was in the process of pulling her hair up into a ponytail. When she looked at him, he saw something flash in her eyes that made him wonder if she hadn't expected his arrival. She erased all doubt immediately.
"Doctor—the captain is a busy man," Beverly said cooly. Though there were no barbs in her words that anyone who didn't know her well could have sensed, they tore at Jean-Luc.
"And yet he has made time to be here," Dr. Moran offered with a smile. Jean-Luc sensed, beyond the doctor-patient relationship, a moment of choice to use the friendship that they had built over their time of working together. Dr. Moran turned to Jean-Luc. "I will keep checking in, but you will let me know if there are any changes of note. Don't worry about bothering me, or anything else. I'm here to help, but I'll let you two have some time together."
"Thank you, Doctor," Jean-Luc offered.
He watched the woman go, almost with a sense of longing. When she was gone, he knew, he was left alone with his wife and his poor choices.
"Beverly…"
"This isn't a good place for you, Jean-Luc," Beverly said. "This is a place where…there is talk of dilation, and cervixes, and contractions, and I know you don't want that."
"I deserve that," Jean-Luc said. "I do. I deserve that and a great deal more. What I said was ignorant, and insensitive, and I deserve any punishment that you deem fit. However, Beverly, I am going to ask you, sincerely, that you be willing to belay that punishment…just for now, and even though I don't deserve it. I beg of you not to deny me this. Do not deny us this experience together that we have waited for all these months. Please…let me share this with you, and then you can be as angry with me as you need, but please don't deprive me of this time with you and of the experience of our daughter's birth."
Beverly's eyes pierced him for a moment longer, and Jean-Luc's chest ached. He didn't see anger there—not genuine anger. He saw hurt, and the worst part was that he knew that he'd done it.
"I am…truly sorry," he said. "Please, Beverly…"
She sighed, and the hard façade she'd put on cracked and most of it crumbled away.
"I don't want you here if you're only going to be miserable, Jean-Luc," she said. "I'd rather…do this myself and have them call you on the bridge when she's here."
He stepped toward her, now. The space designated for them had a few items for her comfort. There were monitors and such for if and when they were needed. There was a bed and a birthing chair, which Jean-Luc understood were present because different mothers had different preferences for their deliveries. There was a chair for him and a bassinet, among other items.
The bassinet's presence made Jean-Luc's heart beat rapidly in his chest.
He touched Beverly's arms, where she stood, and then ventured to step a little closer to her. He caressed her face, and she didn't pull away from him.
"I would only be miserable, if you were to ask me to leave," Jean-Luc said. He smiled at her to comfort her. "I have to admit, however, that I expected things to be a bit more…hectic."
She smiled at him and laughed quietly.
"These things take their time, Jean-Luc," Beverly said. "I would like the whole experience to be as calm as possible. I want it to be as peaceful as it can be."
Jean-Luc nodded his understanding and agreement.
"I want exactly what you want. I want everything to progress exactly as you want it to progress. I am, however, afraid to…ask questions," Jean-Luc admitted. "I already feel quite out of my league, and very much at risk of saying something insensitive without meaning to do so."
Beverly made a noise of annoyance at him, but he didn't fully believe it. She ended it with a hint of a laugh.
"I absolve you, Jean-Luc, of your sins—at least temporarily," she said.
"The sweetest absolution," he teased. "Are you…in pain?"
"I'm fine," Beverly said. Jean-Luc had the feeling she would say that, no matter what.
"What can I do?" Jean-Luc asked. "I feel—rather like I need to be doing something."
Beverly smiled at him.
"I'd like to—walk around," she said. "You could walk with me. Hold my hand."
"Is it safe to do that?" Jean-Luc asked. "Shouldn't you be—lying down or resting or…?"
"Trust me," Beverly said. "Walk with me. Let's see if we can't get your daughter to come and meet us."
111
Jean-Luc had some preconceived notions about labor and birth. Most of them, admittedly, came from films that he'd seen here or there, and they were supplemented by a few scraps of things he'd read—always meaning to read more in preparation for the event—and scraps of people's stories he'd heard from time-to-time.
Nothing he'd gathered into his knowledge bank prepared him for the actual process of things.
He hadn't expected the entire thing to take as long as it did. He lost track of time entirely, hours and possibly even days got lost in the timeless world of sickbay. Beverly carved out a little tract of the sickbay where she felt comfortable walking, and she did a great deal of pacing from one end of her chosen trail to the other. Back and forth, like a toy on a track, she seemed to find comfort in the pacing.
Instead of screaming at him, as he had come to expect her to do, she was rather calm when her contractions came—slow and spaced at first, and faster later. She would lean against him, seeming to relish when he held her, and she would squeeze his arms and rest her head against him, sometimes moaning out long sounds dotted with what sounded like unintelligible words that he didn't ask her to repeat.
When she wasn't pacing, her other favorite way to spend her time was holding on to the bed, or leaning on it with her head on her arms, often swaying as though she were dancing. She made requests of Jean-Luc, and he did his best to follow them. She wanted him to press his hands here or there—as hard as he could and, though he feared he would hurt her by following her instructions, she would insist that he press harder if he failed to obey. He pressed balled fists into her back until the muscles in his arms ached for her relief.
Jean-Luc started to feel exhausted, eventually. He wanted to sit. He wanted a change of scenery. He wanted something to stimulate his senses that was beyond the repetition, with only some slight variations, of everything that was taking place in this one space.
And he knew better than to say that to anyone, or even to insinuate it. He thought Deanna might call that growth.
This was about Beverly. He was a witness to her experiences here. He was a helpmate, and nothing more, really. His role was support and comfort. His own comfort was entirely beside the point in this process.
The only thing, it seemed, that Beverly didn't want was to hold still—a point that surprised Jean-Luc. He had expected her to be restricted to a bed or the birthing chair. He had expected that she would want to lie down. He had expected that she would hardly move during the entire process. And, yet, the reality of it all was that Dr. Moran was occasionally able to coax her one place or another for a quick examination of things—at the end of which she declared where they were and how things were progressing—but Beverly popped back up, as soon as the examination was done, almost like a Jack-in-the-Box.
Jean-Luc knew, then, that something was truly happening when she told him, of her own free will, that she was ready to go to the birthing chair, and that the baby was really coming.
Dr. Moran was calm and upbeat. She brought a positive energy to the space that Beverly seemed to welcome, and Jean-Luc was pleased with anything that made Beverly happy. He'd helped Beverly into the birthing chair, and he'd helped to get her comfortable—or, at least as comfortable as he imagined she could be, at the moment.
Dr. Moran came alone, apparently planning to handle the delivery on her own, unless she had some reason to call for a nurse. She examined Beverly, while Jean-Luc held Beverly's hand and nuzzled the side of her face. She was, at this point, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and her hair was damp. Still, her complaints had been few and far between, and Jean-Luc felt most shaken up by the fact that even though she was clearly uncomfortable during her contractions, she was doing none of the screaming and cursing his life that he'd been led to expect.
He felt nearly alarmed by the fact that things weren't as violent as he'd believed they would be, but Dr. Moran didn't seem concerned about things at all, so he did his best to follow her lead and accept that all was well.
"Oh—yes—this little girl is ready to make her appearance," Dr. Moran said. "I bet her parents are ready to meet her!"
"We are quite anxious to meet her," Jean-Luc agreed when Beverly squeezed his hand and started to breathe through the next wave of pain that hit her.
"That's good…that's good," Dr. Moran soothed. "Breathe through it. On the next one, you can start pushing when you feel like it, Dr. Crusher."
"Beverly," Jean-Luc reminded her. "She prefers it…especially for something like this."
Beverly simply nodded a little more enthusiastically than was necessary—probably because she was very much working with splintered attention—to confirm that Jean-Luc's request was one she appreciated.
When the next contraction hit, Beverly's moans—almost like something of a whale song throughout the whole process—were a little louder than before. Jean-Luc looked to Dr. Moran to see if she would indicate that there was something wrong, but she didn't seem at all alarmed by Beverly's new vocal practice. When the sounds gave way to something of a growl, she seemed encouraged more than concerned.
"Good…that's good, Beverly, keep going!" She urged. "That's good! Keep pushing!"
Beverly focused on what she was doing. Jean-Luc felt entirely and completely useless and helpless. He wanted to do something to help Beverly, but there was nothing he could do. The only thing he could seem to do was hold her hand and whisper words of encouragement, mostly echoing what he heard from Dr. Moran.
The process that he thought would bring their daughter in a matter of minutes suddenly became something that, like everything else, was going to take longer than he'd anticipated.
The longer that Beverly pushed, growling and tired, sometimes leaning her face into him while she panted and rested between pushes—crying, at least once, without attempting to explain what had brought her to tears—the more desperate that Jean-Luc felt to help her, and the more he was aware that there was nothing he could do.
He was aware something was happening, though, when her whole demeanor became a bit more desperate. She locked eyes with him, and he could see the pain in her eyes, but also a fear that felt like something far below the surface.
"I can't do this," she said suddenly. "I can't…oh…I can't do anymore…I have to stop…"
"I believe that is entirely out of the question, Beverly," Jean-Luc said.
Dr. Moran laughed quietly.
"It is," she said. "Come on, Beverly. You can do this. I can see her head. You're almost there."
Beverly protested a bit more. She insisted, sharply, to Jean-Luc that this activity—which she was doing, even as she protested—was outside of her ability and her desire. She wanted to leave. She wanted to be in their quarters. She did not want to do this, and she was not capable of doing it anyway—and, beyond that, there was a great deal of burning that made her at least a little angry with the world around her.
Jean-Luc simply did his best to encourage her. She was doing it, whether or not she wanted to do it, and it was going to be wonderful and result in the best thing for all of them. He promised her that they would absolutely be returning to their quarters, very soon, and they would be taking their daughter with them. Though he could do nothing about her discomfort, he encouraged her to hold onto him and squeeze the hand in which he'd already lost most of the sensation.
He left that hand with her, to hold, as he moved his body enough to be able to see, when he was invited to do so, as their daughter was born.
In some way, Jean-Luc realized, he'd been going through motions. He'd been playing some kind of role, pretending to prepare to be a father, while some small piece of him, perhaps, had never fully accepted that he was truly becoming a father.
Some piece of him had never fully believed the baby girl was real, and he realized that as he watched in awe as she came into the world and, crying, and was passed to her shaking, tearful mother, who let go of Jean-Luc, without hesitation, when her baby was offered in her direction. Dr. Moran had quickly cleaned the baby's airways, but the baby remained tethered to Beverly—something that didn't bother Beverly in the least. She stripped herself nearly entirely of her gown—which was only half on her body, to begin with, by the time the baby was born—and she held the baby against her, crying, for several moments.
"She's shaking," Jean-Luc said, his concern immediately choking him. The baby was here. She was crying. She seemed fine. His instincts turned to fear for Beverly and an almost primal fear that he would lose her—and he couldn't do this…absolutely none of it…without her.
"She's OK," Dr. Moran assured him, helping to mop at the baby girl and fastening something around the cord that connected her to her mother. "She's fine. Come here, Papa. Do you want to cut the cord?"
Beverly almost seemed unaware of them for a moment. She was whispering to the baby in her arms and Jean-Luc didn't try to hear her words. They felt, to him, secret and sacred.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," he admitted.
Dr. Moran smiled and handed him the scissors.
"You simply snip right here. There…it's OK. You won't hurt her."
Jean-Luc freed the baby from the tether that held her to Beverly and he realized his own hand shook as he handed back the scissors. His stomach ached inexplicably. The baby was here. She was here, and she was her own person. She was free from Beverly—an independent being.
And it seemed overwhelming and impossible.
Beverly looked at Jean-Luc, for the first time in a while, with a certain look of "presence" in her tired eyes. He smiled at her.
"Look at her, Jean-Luc," Beverly said. His smile only grew. His heart pounded in his chest from a rush of mixed emotions.
"I'm looking at her. You've come back to me," he said.
"I never left," Beverly said.
"You did," Jean-Luc said, unable to explain what he meant by that. "You did leave…for some time. But you've come back. And would you look at her?"
Dr. Moran slipped away, quietly, to presumably get a nurse or some other supplies. Jean-Luc suspected, as well, she was simply giving them some time and some privacy. He felt better, thanks to her absence, than he probably should have. It made him feel secure that all was truly well. Nobody was alarmed. All there was, at the moment, to do was to meet their daughter and welcome her into the world.
"She's beautiful," Beverly said.
"She's perfect," Jean-Luc said, still trying to fully grasp the reality of the moment. He rested his hand over Beverly's and over the baby's back—his daughter. She had calmed, but she wasn't entirely done fussing about her arrival into the world and subsequent treatment. Jean-Luc smiled to himself as his mind settled on a thought about her spirit and spunk already. "Just like her mother," he added.
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AN: I hope you enjoyed. Please let me know, if you did. Also, I'm terrible at naming babies, so I'm open to suggestions!