AN: Here we are, another little piece to this one!
I hope you enjoy! If you do, please do let me know!
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"How are things? Any luck?" Beverly asked.
Her voice didn't have the tone of anyone that was feeling frantic or worried about the task about which they were inquiring. She didn't even sound, honestly, very interested in the answer to her question. It was asked in the soft sort of way that one asks "how are you" when they are merely interested in moving past the required social niceties to get to what is truly more interesting to most parties.
The sound of her voice made Jean-Luc smile. He couldn't help it, and he didn't try to fight it.
"Not a damn bit," he said with a laugh.
Beverly echoed his laughter and a chill ran through him that danced all the way up his spine.
The evening felt like pure intoxication, and neither of them had had a drop to drink, despite the fact that they'd brought a few salvaged bottles from the ship's storage that had survived the crash. Their plan had been to share a drink or two over the best meal that, so far, they were capable of preparing from local fare.
For a few days, they had been tasting the plants and animals which they had come across. Neither relished the idea of killing animals, of course, but they had both agreed that they required what the animals could provide, and beggars couldn't be choosers, as the old adage went.
In their recent explorations, they had discovered a lake that was fairly close to their camp and fed by a creek of sorts. Jean-Luc suspected, and Beverly agreed, that the creek likely fed into some much larger river, if they were ever to feel up to exploring longer distances. There were all types of animal life in and around the lake, but neither of them was fast enough to catch any of the fish-like creatures they could see by hand, and they hadn't yet replicated or fashioned tools with which to catch them.
They had also discovered any matter of flora and land-dwelling fauna.
Jean-Luc had argued with Beverly that he ought to be the one to try the food, thus discovering whether or not it was safe, since she was the doctor and, arguably, would do a better job at saving his life than he would at saving hers, but she had argued that it was better to know how she would metabolize something than how he would, rambling off some statistics and other such information that had finally caused Jean-Luc to stop listening and to bend to her will with little further argument.
So far, she had only been sick once, and the offending plant had only yielded one bout of slightly violent vomiting. As soon as it was out of her system, there seemed to be no lasting effects.
They had discovered, though, several plants and animals that appeared to be safe for consumption, including the root of a plant that was something like a very fibrous potato, a sweet fruit that grew on nearby bushes, a small bird that appeared incapable of flying but roamed around the planet in what appeared to be rather large numbers, and a creature that was akin to a rabbit, which Jean-Luc had managed to snare after many failed attempts and a few moments lost to pure laughter between himself and Beverly as they tried to chase the thing down for their meal.
Their abilities to set successful snares, however, were improving with each new attempt. They didn't catch something every time they set a snare, but they also didn't miss every time, either.
There was, currently, no real division of tasks in their little dwelling—Jean-Luc still felt his heart do something of a nervous dance whenever he thought of the word "home," so he tended to try to avoid it. They both thought of things that needed to be done together, and they both worked toward executing tasks for the benefit of both of them. Whoever seemed best suited to the task at hand was the one who took it up.
This evening, Beverly had volunteered to cook their meal, putting to good use everything they'd carried from the ship to make this task easier and more pleasant to the soul engaged in it, and Jean-Luc was working on reassembling an old-fashioned communication device of the type that they normally kept on hand in case of certain kinds of emergencies—especially crashes where systems were completely down. In no small twist of irony, however, the device had been of the few items to very nearly be entirely destroyed in the crash.
Some little piece of Jean-Luc's mind couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't some sort of sign. And, if he truly believed in such things, he may very well feel it was evidence that something in the universe had meant for them to be here and, ultimately, to stay here—at least for some time.
Beverly moved close to where he was sitting, his tools and the pieces of the communication device spread out on a blanket like remains, and leaned down next to him. He could practically feel the warmth of her body from her proximity. He allowed himself the briefest of seconds to close his eyes and try to savor the moment—something he felt an instinctive need to do whenever Beverly was near.
"Maybe we should give up," Beverly said.
Jean-Luc's mind searched for any indication of sadness or regret, but he found none in Beverly's tone. She had a soft sort of acceptance to her words.
She returned, briefly, to tend the cooking food. Jean-Luc saw her move it away from the fire, covering it so that it would stay warm and finish its cooking under the less harsh and demanding circumstances of its own heat. The meat could be tough, but they were working with various ways to make it less so. She returned with a cup which she offered to Jean-Luc before settling next to him. Jean-Luc immediately identified its contents as one of the ales brought from the ship, though he wasn't sure which without tasting it.
"Food will be ready soon," she said. "It should rest for a few minutes. Then, we can eat."
"There's no rush," Jean-Luc said quickly. Then, he hesitated before broaching his next topic. "Beverly—did you mean…maybe we should give up for the evening, because the light is failing," Jean-Luc said, "or…that we should give up on the device?"
Beverly sat next to Jean-Luc, her knees drawn up, telling Jean-Luc that she was relaxed, but also that she was beginning to respond to the chill that always crept heavily into the air as the days on their planet moved toward night. He moved just a little to the side, bringing them to just barely touch, and she leaned into him.
It was for warmth. That's what he would say and, likely, that's what she would say, too.
But Jean-Luc enjoyed it far more than he would if it were just for the sensation of fighting off the chill, even if it made him nervous to think as much, and he did wonder how Beverly felt, even if he couldn't ask her for fear that she would turn the question around on him.
Beverly leaned into him and seemed to seriously contemplate the practically shattered remains of the communication device that Jean-Luc had been trying to put back together with a limited amount of skill and a great deal of wishing for magic.
"Jean-Luc," Beverly said with a touch of hesitation.
"Hmmm?" He pressed, when she paused and made no sound of continuing.
"We sent the beacon," Beverly said. "We tried to call on every frequency…"
"We have no idea that any of those things worked," Jean-Luc said.
"And this is any more reliable? Assuming we can even get it to resemble what it once was?" Beverly asked.
Jean-Luc felt a weight settling in his belly.
"It may be possible to…"
"Jean-Luc," Beverly said, interrupting him. Her words had been sharp enough to slice through his attempt to ramble on and offer her unwanted, empty declarations of hope.
He looked at her. He really looked at her, in a way which he seldom allowed himself to do. In a moment, he took in her face and her features—everything he'd loved when he'd first met her and his feelings were entirely not allowed, and everything that had changed with the years and the experiences that had their ways of adding their own touches to the human canvas.
There was hurt—he could see a flicker of it in her eyes—and, of course, there would be. The life they had known was back there, even if the idea of where "there" was, now, was as vague as the idea of where "here" was. Her friends, her family, her loved ones…her Nana's home, to which she'd loved to return. They were all back there. Her son was back there.
There was hurt, because Beverly was human. Jean-Luc had his own hurt, though monumentally less than hers, he imagined, when he thought about the fact that they may never see "there," or anyone associated with "there," again.
But there was something else there. There was acceptance—true acceptance. And there was a flicker of something else—something his own soul seemed to recognize. It tugged in him, like it was striving to reach out to her, pulled by a magnet, when he saw it in her eyes.
"There's a very good chance that…that Starfleet isn't coming for us," Jean-Luc said.
He was surprised at how free he felt to finally put the words out there and into the atmosphere. He felt the weight lift off of him. There was no need to try to pretend and keep up a show of false hopefulness.
He felt like they were alone, and he wasn't sure that they would ever be rescued. Now, he could simply admit that truth, instead of trying to sugarcoat it.
Beverly smiled slightly and nodded her head, gently.
"I know," she said simply.
"I'm sorry," Jean-Luc said. "I know that—Wesley…and your Nana…your friends…you have so much, Beverly, that you've lost…"
"Starfleet has always been about risks," she said, not that it was the first time that either of them had said it or heard it.
"But, truly, if I had any power at all, I wouldn't see you lose again," Jean-Luc admitted. "Ever."
He felt a cold snap of realization as soon as he said it. He hadn't meant to say it. Of course, he'd thought it, and he'd meant it, but he hadn't meant to say it, and he certainly hadn't meant for his voice to sound like it did. He hadn't meant to allow it to sound quite that way.
Beverly, however, softened, and her shoulders rolled slightly forward. He felt a warmth from her that he might have blamed on the ale if he'd done more than barely taste it on his tongue.
"And that's enough, Jean-Luc," Beverly said. "For me—that's enough."
Jean-Luc nodded his acceptance of her words, and his appreciation.
"Well, then…we have confessed our true feelings about the likelihood of our rescue and, with that, we have both seemed to silently accept that we may call this place our home for the foreseeable future, if not quite a bit longer. What do we do now?" He asked.
Beverly smiled and shrugged her shoulders gently.
"You can start by cleaning this up," Beverly said, gesturing toward the pieces of the communication device that would never be reconstructed into anything useful. "And shake the blanket…I don't know what I'm sitting on, but it's unpleasant."
Jean-Luc laughed and nodded.
"I'll clean this up," he said.
"And I'll bring us some plates," Beverly said. "The meat ought to be as tender as it's likely to get."
"And then?" Jean-Luc asked.
Beverly drew in a breath and let it out with a sigh that very nearly sounded invigorated. It was certainly much fuller of energy than the hour would have made reasonable.
"Then, we'll just…play it by ear," Beverly said. "There's no Starfleet. There's nobody here. For once, we can just…do what we want, as it occurs to us to do it."
"Freedom?" Jean-Luc said with a laugh.
"I suppose so," Beverly said.
"It's a little frightening," Jean-Luc admitted.
"The other side of frightening is exciting," Beverly said simply, rising to her feet to go and get their plates, leaving Jean-Luc to sit with his thoughts on the matter and to clean up the mess—literally and figuratively.
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AN: My apologies, sincerely. I may not be very good at slow burn, it seems.