He's all right for now, Beverly had said, but in point of fact their son was three sheets to the wind and not, evidently, all right at all.

On reflection, Jean-Luc Picard conceded it was probably how he himself might have taken a terminal diagnosis at that age. Well: it was also how he was tempted to react now, hearing the sentence pronounced on his only son, due to the faulty inheritance he'd unknowingly bequeathed.

But it wasn't about him, as Beverly was quick to remind him—though he had the sense to know that himself—so he ignored the tumbler on the bar counter beside him and leaned forward. "I lived with Irumodic Syndrome for decades," he said, trying to lend encouragement…however well or poorly the attempt was being received. "Fate has a way of surprising us. And you're young, Jack."

Jack Crusher scoffed, highly amused. "If only you were as good as passing on genetics as you are wisdom." Although really, Cheer up, your brain may stay broken like this for decades was hardly reassuring, was it? Probably his mother had sent Picard after him, Jack thought, and he supposed he should give the admiral credit for coming. But why had either of them believed he could be reassured by the person responsible for his condition?—the person who'd actually gone and bloody died from it?

He took another defiant swallow of his drink. Words couldn't fix him. Bourbon, however, might. He'd have to keep testing that hypothesis.

Picard's forehead creased. "Jack…"

Jack decided he was done with parental philosophizing for the present. He cast a sideways glance and chuckled. "For so long, my mother thought to protect me from you," he rued. "To shield me from being collateral damage in the life of Jean-Luc Picard." His father kept silent, face inscrutable now, as Jack finished off his drink with a flourish and slammed it down on the counter.

"Irony is," he continued conversationally, swaying a bit as he stood, though there was nothing unsteady in the sudden hardness in his eyes, "maybe I was doomed before I was even born."

He left little room to reply, and less to follow. As the heavy holodeck doors shut behind his son, Picard turned slowly back to the polished wooden counter and studied the glasses there. One for my old man, Jack had said gaily.

Old... Picard grimaced. Old, and continually proving himself inadequate to this task of being a father.

He took a long drink and closed his eyes. With the ship doomed and adrift in the Ryton nebula, he had chosen this program, a recreation of his favorite Earth establishment, as a place to begin to forge a real relationship with his son, hoping it would put him at ease. Only afterwards—far too late—had he realized that years ago, he had unwittingly rejected Jack's own attempt to connect in this very place.

He could picture the sunny afternoon in Los Angeles as clearly as if the holodeck was manifesting it in front of him here: the youth at the bar, cap pulled down low to obscure his face. The guileless expression that had all but crumpled at Picard's words. The vacated red barstool. The entree untouched on his plate as he puzzled over the brief exchange with an oddly nagging disquiet.

Five years he could have had a relationship with this fascinating, challenging, complex young man who was his son—five years, and he'd thrown away the chance with a blithe applause line. It wasn't entirely fair; how could he possibly have known? Nothing about the situation, then or now, was entirely fair. But the realization that it was in part his own actions—not Beverly's, and not Jack's—that had led to those five particular missing years, had knocked him directly off his high horse. From that new position of humility he was having to reconsider his role in all of it.

A fragment of verse floated to mind: Our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not.

For every tentative advance he was able to make with Jack, setbacks seemed to follow, whether from circumstance—this diagnosis being only the latest blow—or his own missteps. Yet…did it mean anything that Jack had just chosen to return to this setting on his own? To let his father join him, if only for a short while?

The doors hissed open and Picard swiveled around, rising in surprise when he saw who it was. "Beverly."

Pensive, arms wrapped protectively around herself, Beverly Crusher hesitated a moment in the Titan corridor before stepping into the unfamiliar program. Amber sunlight filtered lazily in through street-level windows, casting deep shadows across the old-fashioned basement establishment. The light and shadow, with the motley assortment of old framed photographs and branded neon signs plastering the walls, the dim illumination from mismatched orange and crimson pendant light fixtures, and the faint blues rhythms wafting through the air, all lent a moodiness to the atmosphere. It was the kind of place, she thought, that had seen centuries of anonymous patrons pass through its dark mahogany booths, and she wondered about its appeal to Jean-Luc.

He must have seen the question on her face. "Guinan's," he murmured. "In California."

"Ah." That explained it. How long had it been since she'd seen the enigmatic El-Aurian? Probably as long as all her other friends, she thought with a familiar twinge. But of course Guinan wasn't here, and Beverly noted the lack of any other patrons either, holographic or not, so: at least for a moment, she and Jean-Luc were alone. Whether that was wise or not, she didn't know. What she did know was that, reeling from the succession of blows raining down on them from all sides, she kept feeling instinctively drawn to be near him.

That didn't mean it wasn't still hard. Beverly drew in a steadying breath and met his eyes. "Did you talk to him?" she asked quietly, resting her hands on the edge of a rounded cocktail table.

She didn't sound as anxious as she had earlier in Sickbay, Picard noted, though the fact she had tracked him here perhaps betrayed otherwise. Unfortunately, he doubted he could do much to alleviate the anxiety, for either of them. "Briefly. I'm afraid he's not receptive to hearing much from me at the moment." He frowned. "I did try."

She gave a small smile, acknowledging the effort. "It's probably not you. He's always had a tendency to retreat when he's upset," she said, then amended, "Retreat, or lash out with words."

"Eloquently, at that," he agreed dryly, recalling the multiple instances of the latter he had already been on the receiving end of. "Jack is…quite gifted verbally."

It was an understatement, Beverly thought; much different from Wesley with his intuitive scientific gifts, Jack had been advanced with language from an early age, impressing his teachers as a voracious reader and socially fluent speaker who'd also taken to French and Latin with ease. As with so much else of Jack's character, she found it a fascinating testament to the influence of nature and nurture that he debated just about everything with her own passionate intensity—but also with Jean-Luc's flawless mastery of rhetoric.

Not sure she should make the observation aloud, though, she said only, "Yes. I suppose I hoped he might respond differently to you."

"He may yet. I won't give up trying." Picard paused as Beverly bit her lip and looked away, still grasping the table in front of her as if it were a shield; but she didn't move away, and he weighed what to do. She had, perhaps understandably, shut him down earlier. His own diagnosis of Irumodic Syndrome—or rather the discovery of its possibility, in the neural defect brought to light by Q—had marked the original turning point in their relationship from friendship to something profoundly deeper, and even with all of their focus now rightly on Jack, the cruel irony must surely have struck Beverly as hard as it did him. He knew she must be struggling. She'd rejected even the smallest overture towards herself and her own feelings, though, so he assumed she preferred for them to maintain their tentative truce at a distance.

But she was the one who had sought him out here… "Beverly?" he asked carefully.

"It's fine, I—" Her eyes were bright as she collected herself and met his concerned gaze. "Thank you for trying."

"It's the least I can do." He shook his head, doubting again that anything he said had made, or could make, a difference. "I—realize I'm not particularly good at this."

"You were always better than you thought," she said, her voice soft.

"But not enough." The words were said without rancor, but he felt a dull stab of pain. Not enough for you to trust me; not enough to have given me a chance with our own child. Did it cut so deeply because of the unfairness of the judgment?

Or because it was true, and she'd been right to keep him away?

Picard swallowed the bitter taste rising in his mouth, regretting that he'd spoken aloud, trying to remind himself that she surely had meant to encourage him and not twist a knife; and that it was going to be a long road for both of them—and Jack—if they could even make it through this crisis to start anew. The hell of it was that he wanted to, in spite of everything. But he'd rarely felt so dispirited.

Beverly felt the fragile ice cracking beneath them. "Jean-Luc," she began, but it was his turn to stop her.

"It's all right," he said. He turned away and, not knowing quite what else to do, circled behind the bar merely to find something to occupy his hands.

"No, it's not." A few quick strides brought her around the table, sunbeams flashing as she moved in front of them. Something had changed since their reunion. His anger towards her, self-righteous or justified, seemed to have bled away. What remained was distance and devastation—and that almost felt worse. Nothing she'd ever done had been with the intention of hurting him.

No, it was just the inevitable result.

Beverly lifted her chin, trying to stay composed. She'd thought she had long ago accepted the consequences of her choices. But facing the consequences, facing him, was so much harder than she imagined in the abstract. "I do trust you, Jean-Luc. And you came when I had no one else to turn to. But I…" She faltered, continued quietly: "I understand if I've broken your trust so badly it can't be repaired."

Picard stared down behind the bar, saw the shelf where he'd yesterday pulled out a phaser to level at Ro Laren, felt grief wash over him. For thirty years he had waited to tell his former protégée how deeply she had wounded him with her betrayal. But confronting Ro was far less satisfying than he anticipated, because he'd never imagined she felt just as deeply wounded by him, by his judgmentalism.

I wish you could look into my heart and understand…I only did what I thought was best, Ro had told him; and he raised his gaze, stricken, to the woman he had loved, had never stopped loving, really, for more than half his life.

Before the end, before she'd left, he would have insisted to anyone that Beverly was everything to him, would have meant it, too; but the upsetting truth was that he too often had failed to put her, put their relationship, as his first priority. To be sure, they both respected the demands of duty, and their friendship had always prevailed regardless, but it was foolish to have assumed that was, or always would be, enough. He'd now had two decades without her to despair that he should have known better all along.

And yet.

He could believe Beverly, too, had only ever acted as she thought best. But he had to be honest with himself that he didn't know if he could ever understand her decision regarding Jack. Not truly. Humility and all, part of his soul was still utterly crushed that she believed he wouldn't have cared, wouldn't have changed things, had he but known.

He was my son, too. It all could have been different. I could have been. We could have been.

Beverly's strikingly clear blue eyes, that had always seen straight through him, that even now seemed to perceive him with more clarity than he could himself, fixed him with painful honesty, and he thought shamefully: Or couldn't we, after all?

Perhaps not. But perhaps…perhaps their rediscovered faith in each other—shown, as she'd said, in her call for help to him from the Eleos, in his answering quest to find her—could yet prove enough to cut through the morass of hurt and betrayal. He wanted to believe, to trust again, in her. In the two of them. In the idea that their own rift of decades could somehow be mended…

Picard took a deep breath, offered a ghost of a smile. "May I get you some coffee?"

Beverly blinked. After a moment, gaze locked with his in unspoken dialogue, she nodded slowly, accepting the olive branch. "I was up in Sickbay half the night. Cappuccino would be nice."

He programmed the beverage for her and Earl Grey for himself and set matching glass mugs down in front of them. He found the barstool behind the counter and settled across from her, raising his eyebrows to check her drink was correct, and she nodded again.

Smoky tendrils undulated across the electric-blue lighted panel behind him with hypnotic sluggishness, but Beverly kept her eyes on him, watchful, as he sipped at his tea, seeming to weigh his words.

"Beverly," he began at length. "What you said before—please know, it isn't irreparable between us. At least, I very much hope that it isn't."

"Well," she said, her expression softening. Though she'd tried to dampen any hope they might move beyond their détante…the hope had still persisted. "I admit I'm relieved to hear you say so."

Picard shook his head. "I regret that I've given you too much cause to doubt it. But as we are attempting to fully trust one another again…" He sighed. "There is something I need to tell you, as it may affect how you feel about this—about us."

She raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"You said that Jack had decided not to meet me. I now know why." He explained with quick economy, finished grimly: "I simply didn't realize at the time. You've no idea how sorry I am. It wasn't anyone's fault but mine."

Oh my God. Her face flushed hot as she absorbed the story. That was the reason? All that time she'd been second-guessing herself, hoping that someday Jack would change his mind about meeting his father, and that was what had happened? Just a misunderstanding of catastrophic proportions on both sides. For his part, Jean-Luc appeared genuinely remorseful, as to be sure he damned well ought to be—but while Beverly understood him only too well, their son… "Jack never told me. He wouldn't talk about it."

"So I surmised. Beverly, I…owe you an apology for my reaction to you when I heard that."

"I knew it was hard to hear," she murmured, still stunned, remembering the breezy way Jack would always deflect her efforts to persuade him to reconsider his decision. She should have pushed him harder—she knew when he was trying to charm her out of noticing something was wrong.

Right, like the worsening symptoms of a deadly genetic condition?

She leaned her elbows on the counter and massaged her temples, stifling a bitter laugh. How much else had she failed to see?—at what cost to her son? To all of them?

"Regardless. I am sorry. I want you to be in no doubt that I care about Jack." Picard hesitated, added: "And you."

Beverly met his eyes again, freshly unable to stop tears from welling up. "Jack is your son and you are his father," she said, trying and failing to smile. There was no way she could process the rest of it right now. "I want for you to know each other. I never didn't want that, Jean-Luc."

"I believe you." And he did; he didn't have to fully understand it all to trust her absolute sincerity in this.

"He's just so damned stubborn sometimes."

Picard smiled faintly. "Perhaps I should apologize for that as well."

She laughed, incredulous, shaking her head. "Oh, no, that's probably all on me." Nursing a hurt for years without ever talking about it, though? That was absolutely classic Jean-Luc Picard. A colorful series of curses, aimed at the universe in general, streamed through her mind. Nature and nurture, indeed.

Not wanting to sidetrack on the point, Picard sighed and ran a hand over the back of his head, long since smooth as even the white fringe had gone. "For all of this unfortunate history to come out now, in these circumstances—it seems grossly unfair that this illness should be added to it."

Added to it… Something about his words halted Beverly's despairing train of thought abruptly in its tracks. Frowning, she rapidly blinked back her tears and straightened up. "Something's not right, Jean-Luc."

His eyebrows knit. "How do you mean?"

"Besides the obvious." Half-formed questions nagged at the edge of her subconscious and she narrowed her eyes, trying to bring them into focus as the flood of adrenaline receded. She picked up her coffee mug again and absently took a sip, rubbing her thumb on the white handle. "I've studied Irumodic Syndrome off and on ever since your diagnosis. Symptoms should never have manifested at this early an age for Jack—I've never seen or heard of this happening, in any of the literature."

"But you said the scans confirmed it—the neural defect, the effects," he pointed out, somewhat perplexed, but stepping smoothly again into an old dynamic of theirs. With their natural rapport, complementary skillsets, and deep-founded respect, they'd always excelled at working together to solve problems of all kinds—

Except, to his lasting distress, those in their own relationship. Which he might have just damaged again.

He set that aside to focus on their son and the questions Beverly was analyzing. "The neuroinhibitor is also effective for his symptoms," he added.

"Yes, all of the diagnostics confirmed it, but…" Beverly trailed off and tapped her fingers against the mug, puzzling through the pieces. "We still don't know what Ro wanted with him?"

Picard frowned, thinking through the all-too-brief time he'd had with Ro to learn about her investigations. "She didn't want anything herself. The Changelings have infiltrated Starfleet—she recognized their interest in Jack, but didn't appear to know why."

"Then I'm reconsidering—if Starfleet wanted you, or the Changelings did, they could have found you anywhere. If they really are after Jack not because of you, then why?"

His frown deepened and he shook his head; he'd been asking the same question and gotten nowhere. "Fortunately, it appears he's more than capable of defending himself."

"But that's part of it too," she objected, seizing on the remark. "Jean-Luc, Jack doesn't even know how he recognized the four Changelings—or how he defeated all of them. But all of this, and he's developed early-onset Irumodic Syndrome? What kind of coincidence is it that this condition should manifest right when he's being hunted by Changelings all across the Quadrant?"

Her intuition was—as always, he admitted—sound. "Are you suggesting there's a connection? What else could it be?"

"Yes. And I don't know yet." Beverly sagged back on her chair, fiddling with the coffee mug, finding her frustration mirrored in his dark eyes. "I also don't know how long we can run if all of Starfleet is chasing us now."

That he could answer. "Long enough," Picard said firmly. He reached out a hand towards hers in reassurance, but stopped short of touching her, intently holding her gaze with his instead. "Beverly, Ro had too much information for her agents not to have found more. Worf and Raffi will know something. If it is related to Jack's Irumodic symptoms, I have every confidence you will identify it."

With everything seemingly going to hell, Beverly found it strangely affecting to know the personal faith he still placed in her. She ducked her chin, an ivory wave of hair falling across her face. "Jean-Luc," she started to say, before the chirp of a communicator interrupted.

"Commander Hansen to Admiral Picard."

Picard paused before responding to the Titan's first officer. "Go ahead."

"They're here."

At the news of his old friends' arrival, he looked to Beverly, already standing from her tall chair and meeting his eyes with steady resolve. He drew in a deep breath. It was time they found out more, for the sake of all of Starfleet—and for their son.

"On our way."