In the morning Jean-Luc found himself outside Beverly's door, hand on the chime, without really being aware of how he had come to be there. He couldn't recall actually having decided to come see her before he left and yet here he was. He needed to see her for himself, to make sure she didn't need anything, need him, even if he no longer had the right.

The doors hissed open and he entered only to stumble to a halt at the sight of Peter McArthur lounging bare chested at Beverly's kitchen table.

"I assume you're looking for Beverly," he said. He was totally relaxed, legs crossed, hair tousled from sleep and a shadow of a beard present on his jaw.

On the table in front of him were two plates containing the remainder of what looked like toast and fruit and a carafe and two coffee cups. Picard looked back at the man, his face set in rigid lines of anger. It seemed that he'd interrupted the end of breakfast. "I sent her to get a shower." Picard stiffened and blinked slowly at the other man. Just who was this man that he was sending Beverly anywhere? The younger man was observing him closely, his mouth compressed in a satisfied and knowing smirk.

"You know, Captain, I must admit that you confuse me," he drawled.

"How so?"

"From your attitude and your reactions, I would say it's fairly clear that you're in love with Beverly." Picard's panicked eyes flicked towards the bedroom and bathroom beyond. "Yet you seem to know very little about her. And instead of trying to get to know her better, you're shuttling off to continue an affair with a woman you've only just met." Peter raised his coffee cup and took a leisurely sip. "Just a guess, but when you've finished with whatever her name is, I bet you'll expect Beverly to be waiting, right here where you left her. So you could see where the confusion comes from. You love her, but you've brought her very little happiness, I think."

There was a moment of stunned silence as he absorbed what McArthur had said. His first instinctive reaction was anger and denial, but wasn't he right? He'd never gotten any sort of recounting of the first decade of Beverly's life. The death of her parents. Her time on the doomed colony of Arvada.

Of course she'd never volunteered any details but…. Why had he never pressed her? She'd always managed to convince him to pull out and examine his nightmares, to confess his darkest fears. She'd always provided him with comfort and absolution. Celtris III, his abduction and the consequent hijacking of his body and mind by the Borg.

Hell, she'd even played agony Aunt to him as he unburdened his feelings about other women over the years. And he'd never really reciprocated, he realised. Not after Odan. Not after he'd realised that he could no longer sufficiently mask how he felt about her. And yet he'd continued to rely on her emotionally as well as physically, as a lover and as a friend.

Well, I didn't know how she felt, he justified only to hear an immediate rebuke. You certainly do now though, don't you… You have for years.

He had, of course, been there for her to vent, to support and counsel her but it had mainly been on a professional level or in some way related to Wesley, even after they'd become lovers.

Perhaps she didn't trust you to stick around, Jean-Luc…. Seeing her last night, getting just a glimpse of some of the horrors she'd survived as a child... She'd obviously felt unable to share those horrors with him.

He found himself hoping that it was a reflection of her not wanting to add her nightmares to his own. If he was being honest, however, he had little doubt that it was an indication of how little she trusted him. Not like she trusted McArthur, he thought morosely.

She'd known the man in front of him her entire life and she'd never once mentioned McArthur to him, her lover and closest friend, yet McArthur and Beverly were close, they had obviously maintained contact. Suddenly he wondered if Jack had known about Peter and then immediately felt ashamed of his jealousy of a dead man.

"I get the feeling that you don't like me very much, Mr. McArthur."

"Well, at least you've got one thing right," Peter replied sarcastically. He could see the older man bite back a heated response.

"I was coming to check on Beverly. If you will excuse me." He went to move towards the door to Beverly's bedroom and found the other man suddenly on his feet and blocking his path.

"Actually, I don't think that I will excuse you, and if you're coming to say goodbye," he said in a menacing undertone. "why don't you do her a favour and just leave? Don't you think she's been through enough? You've apparently moved on. So has she." Picard felt his stomach twist and his chest clench painfully. The message in McArthur's eyes was clear.

The two men stared at each other, hostility and aggression rebounding between them. Picard slowly blinked, then took a step back. With a final look at Peter, he turned on his heel and walked out the door and down the corridor towards the turbolift.

—--

Beverly made straight for the sanctuary of her office when she arrived in Sickbay after having breakfast with Peter. She was still furious with him, but that fury was secondary to the overwhelming sadness she felt at Jean-Luc's departure. A note. He'd left her a note on the ship's internal messaging system. Saying goodbye, that he hoped she was feeling alright (whatever that meant) and that he'd see her in a few months' time.

She hadn't even reacted. She'd simply listened to the message and walked out of her quarters and headed toward Sickbay, putting her professional persona into place with each step that she took away from that message. She needed to work, she'd put herself back together through routine and duty just as she always had. She was still hollowed out and numb from her completely uncharacteristic emotional meltdown last night.

What the hell was wrong with her? She'd been through much worse and had never lost control so completely. Maybe she needed some R , some time away from the ship. Just as she was about to cross the threshold of her office she heard Alyssa calling her name, "Dr. Crusher?"

Taking a deep breath and pasting her most bland professional expression on her face she turned to greet her head nurse. "Yes, Alyssa?"

"Doctor… Beverly… I just wanted to make sure that you'd seen the results of the scan I took when you were brought up the day before yesterday. I know you were only in here for a short while yesterday evening and you got sucked into-"

"Lieutenant Barclay's… issue, yes." She looked more closely at Alyssa whose expression seemed to be a mixture of sympathy and anxiety. Beverly felt her own anxiety spike sharply in response. "And to answer your question, Alyssa, no, I haven't had a chance to review the results. I'll do it first thing." The nurse nodded tightly and hurried off to a patient on a biobed at the far end of sickbay.

A few minutes later, as she sat gazing at the console screen on her desk, she felt a wave of ureality wash over her. Well, she thought somewhat hysterically, at least I know what's wrong with me. The tears, the irritability, mood swings, bouts of anger and sadness, an overall feeling that she was unwell… In an instant, everything had changed irrevocably and-

She jumped up from behind the desk and hurried out to the main examination room. Catching sight of Alyssa, she called her over. "Alyssa, could I see you in my office for a moment."

When the nurse was sitting in front of her and the privacy screen had been engaged, Beverly suddenly didn't know what to say.

"Alyssa… I assume that you've seen the tricorder results that you transferred to my station."

"Yes." Alyssa met her eyes unflinchingly. "I erased the tricorder record and purged the record transfer from the database after sending the results to the terminal in your office," she said carefully.

"So-"

"The results aren't anywhere else in the system," the nurse assured her.

"Thank you, Alyssa," she whispered tearfully and blew her breath out forcefully in an attempt to keep the tears at bay. "That's all for now."

Ogawa got to her feet and started for the door before stopping abruptly and turning back towards her boss. "Beverly? Do you need anything? Anything at all?"

Beverly merely shook her head, her chin was quivering and Alyssa must have known how close to the edge that she was. She nodded and left the office.

—--

"And this doesn't change things?" Peter was circling her quarters like a caged animal.

"No. No, it doesn't. If anything it makes the decision about where my life is going and what I need to do next easier." He looked at her questioningly. "I won't be allowed to remain onboard the Enterprise, Peter."

"You would if-"

"No. That's out of the question. I will not hold him hostage in that way."

"Hostage!" He snorted derisively. "Beverly…"

"He's gone, Peter. He left early this morning."

"Not forever! You said yourself that the man goes through relationships like I go through assignments."

"I did not say that!" she retorted with an offended look. "I wouldn't be with someone who did that, Peter!"

"Well, you might as well have. And it reflects poorly on him, not you. How do you know he's already left anyway?"

"He sent me a message." Her voice caught on the last word and he crouched down in front of her chair.

"He stopped by this morning."

"He did?" She felt pathetically weak that those handful of words made her feel so hopeful."

Peter nodded, "You were in the shower. We had… words…"

"For God's sake, Peter! I told you to leave it alone!"

"I know and I'm sorry. I think he wanted to say goodbye. You were still a mess this morning, Beverly. Did you really want to talk to him, for him to see you like that?"

"No," she conceded.

"I still shouldn't have sent him away. I'm sorry. So… what are you going to do, love?"

Her gaze was focussed over his shoulder, somewhere towards the viewport, her mind was probably halfway to Ba'Ku he thought sadly. She was silent for so long that he didn't think that she was going to answer, then, "I'm coming with you, Peter. I'm coming with you to Earth."

—--

"Computer, location of Chief Medical Officer, Beverly Crusher."

Deanna was storming through the ship's corridors, the anger vying for dominance with hurt disbelief barely held in check. Deanna normally didn't do anger, but the computer's response nearly sent her off the edge. She almost bowled over an ensign from Engineering without bothering to apologise or check if he was alright.

"There is no one of that designation on board the Enterprise."

"You have got to be joking! Give me the location of Dr. Beverly Crusher, then."

"Dr. Crusher is in her quarters."

She trotted into a turbolift and called for Deck 8 while her mind replayed the short conversation she'd just had with Will over comms. Of all the ridiculous things she'd ever heard…. What in the hell did Beverly think she was playing at?

"She's WHAT?!?" she'd yelled up at the ceiling, as if Will were somewhere above her instead of down on the station below.

"I don't know, Deanna! I'm stuck down here dealing with the personnel transfers and the orders were just delivered to my PADD! I need you to find out just what in the hell is going on!"

Hurt, bewildered and furious, Deanna arrived at Beverly's door and stabbed the chime aggressively with her finger. There was absolutely no way Beverly was leaving like this, slinking off the ship like this.

Peter had already beamed down to the station with his travel gear to organise their transportation back to Earth. Beverly heard the door chime sound three times in impatiently quick succession and tried to ignore it. She had a good idea who it was and she couldn't take anyone else trying to convince her to stay on board. The conversation with Peter had been enough.

She was in her bedroom when the override alarm chirped and she heard the doors to her quarters hiss open. She was on her knees emptying the shoes from her closet into a soft canvas bag when she heard movement in the bedroom at her back.

"Beverly, are you going to tell me just what in the world is going on?!" Her head hung in resignation and she turned around to see a mixture of shock, disbelief and betrayal on Deanna's face.

"I'm transferring," she replied as calmly as possible. "I'm leaving. Tonight." Unable to face the upset on her friend's face, she tucked the last of the shoes into the bag and zipped it closed. She then pushed to her feet and headed into the ensuite bathroom. Deanna followed her and stood just inside the doorway.

"What do you mean you're leaving, Beverly?" Beverly randomly snatched up the contents of one of the vanity drawers, then moved back towards Deanna.

"I've accepted a position in San Francisco. It's past time I tried something new." Beverly moved around the Counsellor and came back through into her bedroom, arms full of toiletries which she dumped onto the bed then quickly and methodically sorted into a travel kit.

"I thought you hated it there? Last time you couldn't return to the Enterprise fast enough." Deanna said sharply as Beverly moved on to her dresser. She wasn't oblivious to the fact that the doctor wasn't sustaining eye contact nor that her mental shields were fully deployed. She was moving about the room as if she were trying not to present a stationary target. Beverly was hiding something.

"Things change. It's not the same posting. I've been given a position at the teaching hospital on the academy grounds, clinic rotation and a chance to do some teaching and some research in a dedicated lab."

"I see…. Beverly, I know that you said that you didn't want to talk about what happened on Ba'ku, that you were fine-"

"I don't and I am, Deanna." The red head aggressively pushed a drawer she'd just emptied back into place. Deanna battled an almost overwhelming desire to grab Beverly by the arms and force her to still.

"Is this about last night, then? About what Peter said?"

"No, Deanna. It's not. Since you're here I assume that Will has received my transfer orders. I wasn't going to leave without saying goodbye. Selar will take over immediately for me in sickbay. She should have been snapped up for promotion long ago. I'm not leaving anyone in the lurch," she stated mechanically.

"Except us, Beverly. Your friends who love you," Deanna retorted emotionally. For a moment Beverly's face crumpled but she quickly looked away and when she turned her gaze back to the Counsellor she was her usual composed self.

"I have to go, Dea," she husked, her voice cracking slightly. "I know you don't understand right now…. But the decision has been made for me."

Despite Beverly's efforts to block her, Deanna could feel the other woman's complete certainty. Nevertheless, she tried one last time to get her stubborn friend to open up.

"Made for you? What does that mean?!? Beverly, did the Captain-"

A harsh laugh that sounded suspiciously like a stifled sob erupted into the tension between them. "No, Deanna. It's not what you're thinking… It's something else and I promise that I'll tell you about it, but not now. Later. I promise."

"This just doesn't feel right, Beverly. What will we tell him when he returns?"

"The truth."

"But-"

"No buts. I need you to help me get through this part. Please, Deanna. It's not what I want, but it's what I need." She reached out and grabbed the Counsellor's hand while the other gripped several pairs of leggings, a favourite during off duty hours.

Deanna could sense that there would be no changing her mind and squeezed her hand, "What can I do to help, Beverly?"

"Help me pack. I need to be down on the station within the next hour."

"Alright," she agreed and pulled her forward and into her arms.

"Please, Dea," she heard Beverly whisper against her hair. "I can't fall apart right now. I just have to get through this." Deanna squeezed her tightly and caught the oddest sensation of doubling. Slightly dizzy and nauseated, she held onto Beverly's hands as she released her. Something, some understanding niggled at her, just out of reach. There then gone. She reluctantly let it go.

"I'll pack the rest of the bathroom?"

"Thank you, Deanna."