"Five minutes, Jack," she called up from the bottom of the stairs.

"Okay, Mom," his voice floated back down towards her.

"And don't forget to brush your teeth." She waited for a response and when none was forthcoming called up again, "Jack…"

"Alright…" She heard his footsteps move above her, thumping lightly towards their shared bathroom, then finally the sound of running water.

"And don't just wet the brush, Mister."

"I 'ow 'om!" came the indignant reply as if she hadn't caught him doing that very thing just last week. Shaking her head, she moved across the living room and back into the kitchen area where she mindlessly finished packing Jack's snacks for the day. She tried to stick to fresh non-replicated food whenever possible. Between starbases and starships and even Medical, she'd had enough replicated meals to last her a lifetime.

That, in fact, had been one of the decisive factors when she'd been house hunting; a real functional kitchen. She'd wanted something with modern conveniences but something that felt more traditional, more like home. The entire street, and indeed the adjacent streets as well housed many families with children of all ages. She'd known from the moment she'd laid her eyes on it, at almost eight months pregnant, that the three-week search had finally ended, that they were home.

It had been a good thing as well, considering that Jack had put in his appearance not even a week after she'd moved in. And the house and surrounding neighbourhood had been good to them. Within walking distance of Jack's school, and close to the Mariposa offices and clinic where she spent most days, even if the two locations ere in opposite directions.

She snagged Jack's backpack and zipped it closed after tucking his lunch bag inside. She was just about to call back up and tell him to get a move on when the door chime sounded announcing Ana's arrival. Dropping the pack beside the wooden bench opposite the staircase she keyed in the door code releasing the locking mechanism.

Beverly smiled distractedly at the tall blonde woman waiting on their doorstep. "He'll be right down… I think." She turned back to the staircase in time to see her son's compact little body hurrying across the landing. She held her breath as he tripped artlessly down the staircase and released it only when he'd jumped the last three steps landing safely in front of her.

"Jack, how many times do I ha-"

"Sorry, Mom," he said contritely while scooting around her to put on his pack.

"Less sorry, more listening," she chided, exasperated. Jack was a constant ball of nervous energy and some days it took all her patience and concentration just to make sure he made it through the day without bodily injury. Sighing, she pulled him to her. "I love you, baby. Have a good day."

"Love you too." He hugged her quickly and even submitted to a quick kiss on the forehead without grumbling.

"I'm off early today. I know it's Jack's half day, but I'll be home," Beverly turned to address Ana, the nanny she employed to care for Jack before and after school and the off night when she was called away for an emergency. Ana was surprised but hid it fairly well. Not in all of the years that she'd been working for the doctor had she ever known her to take unplanned time off or deviate from her schedule.

"We'll come back here right after school then," Ana tossed over her shoulder as they exited the house.

As she watched them descend the porch steps and turn right on the sidewalk, Beverly engaged the locking mechanism and breathed a sigh of relief. Her mind immediately turned to what had been eating at her since far too early this morning, when she'd awoken to find Jack missing from his bed. She was very aware that she potentially had much bigger problems, but she could only handle one thing at a time right now, and if she allowed herself to think about what was really bothering her...

Less than a week ago, Jack had woken her up in the middle of the night crying. She'd flown down the hall to his bedroom, feet barely touching the floor, to find him incoherent and trembling. That he'd been having vivid dreams, she'd of course known. He's not the only one, Bev, she thought as she soothed her overwrought son. But her mind had quickly detoured away from that possible connection and focussed on what was in front of her, what she could control.

Ultimately, she'd brought him into her bed after changing his sweat-soaked pyjamas and giving him a neuro-inhibitor to ensure a dream-free sleep. For the next several nights she'd repeated the injection, and though it wasn't a permanent solution, she'd decided to have him sleep in her bed as well, thinking that perhaps a change of location and her presence would be helpful. Two nights ago had been a test of sorts, one that had been a spectacular failure.

She'd been rudely pulled out of a very pleasant dream of her own and plunged into a hysterical scene in her five-year-old's bedroom. She'd gone from a passionate embrace with Jean-Luc to embracing an inconsolable little boy rambling about vines and red doorways through muffled sobs. She'd finally realised that he was terrified of his own closet door.

Last night she'd awakened and found him missing from his bed completely. She was nearly frantic with worry after searching both the first and second floors when she finally noticed that the door to the third floor was ajar. She'd almost collapsed with relief to find her son curled up, sound asleep in the blankets and pillows that lined the floor of his fort.

This morning when she'd attempted to get him to explain how he'd ended up in the attic he'd become agitated and claimed not to remember anything at all. When he'd said it, his eyes had slid away from hers, and when she suggested that they reinstate the neuro-inhibitor, he'd outright refused.

And those were just the things over which she had some semblance of control. On top of her overwhelming preoccupation with Jack's situation, Beverly was having her own issues this morning. In fact, as of last night, she'd begun to question her own mental state, and maybe even reality itself.

At least with the morning to herself she could think, try to make sense of what was happening and make some sort of plan. After bringing Jack back to her bed last night, she'd cancelled all of her appointments for the day, she simply hadn't been able to face going into work. She didn't yet know if she'd be going back to work ever again, as irrational as that sounded.

She leaned forward and cradled her head wearily in her hands. The situation was just so surreal, but there had to be a rational explanation. Surely. They had both been having very vivid dreams. Perhaps it was something in their diet, something from the local market… It couldn't be though. She hadn't purchased anything unusual and the effects would have worn off by now.

After cancelling her appointments for the day, she'd spent the rest of the night last night, scanning the house's air and water supply, even going so far as to test random food orders from the replicator. Nothing in the house was producing an anomalous result, not that she'd ever really believed that anything would.

The problem was, that the root of Jack's malaise seemed to be unbelievable, impossible. How could they be sharing dreams? You're not Beverly. Don't be ridiculous. Jack told *you* about the red door and that information was incorporated into your own dream and-

She scrubbed her face with her hands. It didn't matter how many times she'd tried to rationalise this in the past almost nine hours now. She knew it wasn't irrational, that she wasn't irrational. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth… God, that only made her think of Data and his obsession with holodeck mysteries… Which in turn made her think of Jean-Luc.

Mechanically she moved out into the foyer, then up the stairs, into her bedroom closet and pulled down her travel case. She didn't think, wouldn't allow herself to veer away from her plotted course. Because somehow, somehow, she was sharing dreams with her five-year-old son and his father.

——-

She had just retrieved Jack's travel bag from the shelf in his closet when she heard the door chime downstairs.

"Computer, time?"

"It is currently 11h51."

She set the case down on the bed and flipped it open. Turning to Jack's dresser she began randomly pulling socks and underwear, pyjamas and-

The door chimed a second time just as she was returning to the closet to gather Jack's shirts and trousers. She stood stiffly, frozen between the bed and closet, head down and unbreathing. The morning's initial panic had receded since Jack and Ana's departure, and as the hours had ticked by she'd found herself oddly reluctant. Each task on her mental checklist had been accomplished with a strange and contradictory lack of urgency. If she just waited, she'd reasoned at one point, he would surely come. Of course, he would find them and it would all be over and she could just-

The door chime went a third time. Drawing in a much-needed breath, she felt herself move towards Jack's bedroom door. She blinked and she was at the top of the stairs, exhaled and the front door loomed dauntingly in front of her-

Why London?!? She screamed at herself. Why so goddamned close? She'd never been able to sever that tenuous connection and here she was, about to pay the price for all of her moments of weak sentimentality-

The door chime went a fourth time, and he could now no doubt see her silhouette through the curtained window set into the door. And Jack was coming. Dear god, Jack was coming and-

With a sense of inevitability, she saw herself move to open the door.

"Invite me in, Beverly." His voice was low and gravelly. He had a raincoat over one arm. Funny the details you notice when your world is crumbling down around your ears, she thought hysterically.

"You really shouldn't have come here," she whispered. His mouth tightened slightly at her anxious tone.

"Perhaps not, but all the same. Invite me in." She instinctively backed away from the door allowing him to enter, her eyes roaming over him greedily. He hasn't changed, she thought and then immediately on the heels of that thought came another. Of course, he hasn't changed, Beverly! You just saw him last night. If there was a moment in all of this where she felt she might faint like some Victorian housewife, this was that moment. She swayed slightly, grabbing the wall for support.

When the sound rushed back in, she understood that Jean-Luc had been saying something. But Beverly didn't hear the thrust of his argument, his rationale, she wasn't listening to the words now forming in that oh-so-familiar baritone. Because her mind's eye was now travelling with Jack and Ana on their usual route home from school. Her eyes darted rapidly, manically between the chronometer visible against the far living room wall and the front door.

Suddenly she realised that he'd stopped talking, that he was looking her over in that too perceptive, concerned way he had, before his attention swung towards the staircase just to the left of the front door. Silently he started climbing. Beverly simply stared at him until finally her body jerked into motion.

On the second-floor landing, his eyes flicked up and to the right where he saw the narrow staircase that led up to what he knew was the attic on the third floor. He also knew that if he climbed those stairs, that he would find a blanket fort crammed full of bric-à-brac, treasures that only a small boy would want to collect with magpie-like compulsion. The boy. His boy. Jack.

He turned his head back to the door just to the left of the third-floor staircase, certain without understanding why, that this was the boy's room. His hand grasped the old-fashioned handle and turned, tented fingers lightly pushing.

And he was suddenly plunged back into the dream. Not when they'd first met, but the dream where they'd first spoken. The starships occupied their rightful place of honour, the books still formed an untidy leaning tower on the bedside table, the clutter of digging tools held court in the far corner. He could easily imagine how many times his mother had told him to tidy those tools.

He could sense her in the room just behind him, could feel the weight of her gaze on his nape. Real. All real. His eyes skittered away from the closet for the moment. Looking for a distraction, he ran a hand lightly along the footboard of the bed and that's when he saw it. An open suitcase, partially full, opened on the bed. He swung towards her, his eyes full of unspoken accusations.

"Jean-Luc, you have to go, now," she blurted out. "I…. You can't be here right now."

But it was too late, she realised as, in horror, she heard the chirp of the front door lock disengaging. Too late, she agonised as she heard voices, one feminine and amusedly patient, the other unmistakably the excited chatter of a small child just home from school. Too late as she heard the thump of a book bag and the thud of small feet racing up the stairs at her back.

"Jean-Luc, there's something I have to tell you…"

Far, far too late. For a moment everything was frozen, a static tableau. She saw the moment when Jean-Luc's eyes moved past her through the doorway. They glazed dismissively over Ana standing very still at the top of the stairs and came down to rest immediately upon Jack. She heard the sharp intake of breath, saw the colour leach from his face, his body swaying visibly.

"Hello, Jack."

"Hello, Admiral."

Without warning he launched himself across the room, socked feet slapping against the floorboards and collided with Picard, wrapping himself around his father's legs. Looking down at the thatch of soft brown hair, he swallowed hard to get himself under control before raising his eyes to hers. His hand cupped the boy's neck stroking softly through his hair. "Hello, Beverly."

Trembling with reaction, she slumped back against the wall beside the door. Finally, she found her voice. "Hello, Jean-Luc."

"You came." He looked down into Jack's eyes, now tipped trustingly up to his. "I knew you would come."

"Jack, what in the-" Beverly's question was cut short by Ana's concerned voice softly calling her name from the landing behind her. Unable to tear her shocked eyes away from the impossible scene in front of her, she muttered, "It's ok, Ana…. This… This is-"

"He's my father," Jack announced boldly into the awkward silence.