“Resistance is futile.”
Picard lay awake trying to clear the stubborn image of the collective from his mind. It had been awhile since the nightmares had kept him from sleeping, but now, with their recent encounter with the Borg and the things he had done…
“Resistance is futile.”
The faces of countless crewmembers flashed before him for the umpteenth time since the memorial service. Thousands of people had been there, many family members of the deceased. There had been tears for everyone — except him. He was still captain of the Enterprise, even after the court-martial. It had been decided that saving Earth and humanity was worth hundreds of lives. And as captain, there could be no tears.
But it wasn’t worth the lives. He had tried explaining it to Deanna, but she was overloaded as it was, dealing with the few crewmembers they had managed to save, particularly Data. As it was, Beverly was the only one that understood him. She was the only one who had faced death as much, the only one who had faced the decision of when to kill and end suffering.
She had been there by his side at the memorial service, silent tears for the massacred. It had been a dismal day as each name read died in the silence. And now they all came back to him in the darkness of his quarters, the only place the tears were allowed.
The door chimed, and he jumped at the sound. It had chimed a second time before he answered.
“Come,” he said, quickly wiping away the salty liquid trails from his face.
He was grateful to see the flash of a blue lab coat enter the room.
“Jean-Luc?”
He stumbled wearily into the common area to greet her.
“Hello, Doctor. What can I do for you?” He moved to take a seat behind his desk, trying to create an aura of composure and leadership.
“I was about to ask you the same thing. How are you sleeping?” There was more than friendly concern in her voice, and with good reason. The bags under his eyes emphasized his already haunted face.
“Can I get you anything?” Picard asked evasively, heading for the replicator.
“No.”
“Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” The cup materialized before him, and he moved to take a sip. But his reflection in the liquid stopped him. It was his face, but an artificial eye stared back at him with alarming clarity, the red sight cutting into his soul. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
“No!” he demanded, hurling the cup to shatter on the floor.
“Jean-Luc!” She was almost used to this by now; but it still uneased her to see him lose control like this, bringing back memories of a time when they had almost lost him. “Jean-Luc, it’s all right.” She pulled him over toward the couch.
“Resistance…”
“Is never futile. There are always possibilities, Jean-Luc.” She desperately tried to break the grasp the memories held over him.
Clouded eyes faced passionate ones; she seemed to be the only person who could reach him in these flashbacks of his.
“So many lives… Hernendez, Waitley, Spartur . . .” he stated, slowly reconciling himself to the present again.
“You can’t blame yourself, Jean-Luc. The Borg have been doing this to countless others through countless systems. You’re only one man…”
“But I was there captain. Beverly, they trusted me to help them, and I…”
“You did the only human thing possible; you helped them in the only way possible.”
“No, I… I can’t believe that.”
“You must, Jean-Luc. For yourself, for the few of us who did survive, for this new crew that’s ready to serve under you, ready to trust you.” Beverly paused, letting her words sink in.
“I… I can’t do it, Beverly. I can’t do this anymore. Disaster seems to follow me. First the Stargazer, then Jack… Dammit, Beverly, the Borg are here because of me, because I had to stand up to Q. Robert always said I was too arrogant for my own good. The Battle of Wolf 359, the Enterprise-D, Robert and Rene, my relationship with you… Fate has it in for me.”
A silence hung in the room.
“Jean-Luc, our relationship…” She looked out into space. Some things just could not be expressed in words and she didn’t even really know what she wanted to say. Certainly she cared about him, and she hated seeing him beat himself up over things that were out of his control.
“You don’t need to say anything, Beverly. I understand.” He remembered the hot and humid environment mixed with the cold touch of metal against his flesh and shivered from the touch of such a memory.
“Jean-Luc, are you cold?” she asked, concerned.
“No,” he said, standing up briskly. The cold darkness of space seemed to be the only thing that could offer any comfort as the stars flashed by and the hum of the ship reverberated through his body. He just needed something else to consumed him as the Borg had.
“There are just some things that are beyond your control. You can’t be ‘Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Preserver of Everything.'” Beverly paused and Jean-Luc looked at her, the pain still fresh in his eyes. “That’s my job.”
A small smile crossed his face, but the memories were still too recent, still too vivid.
“But it is my job, Beverly; as a Starfleet officer, I am sworn to protect everyone on this ship. They trusted me; I’m the one they’re supposed to be able to look up to, to want to grow up to be like. I… I let them down; I let you down. I should have been . . . better. I should have killed the Borg when I had the chance. One virus in one Borg… could have wiped out the whole damn collective. I should have killed them when I had the chance.”
“You never could have done it. Jean-Luc, there’s nothing you could have done.”
“No, I should have…” Crazed eyes moved from object to object in the room, doubting even the very existence of everything before him. Memories of collection flashed through his mind . . . Doubts, regrets, missed opportunities…
The blood rushed to his face as Beverly slapped him back to reality. He quickly focused on worried blue eyes that searched his back.
“Jean-Luc, you’ll drive yourself crazy if you keep going like this. I can tell you as a doctor that if you run yourself ragged like this, you’ll eventually stress yourself out. And then you’ll either go crazy or you’ll die.”
Jean-Luc sat, elbows on knees, hands trying to wash away the disillusion. Beverly rose and walked to the replicator. “Either would be preferable to this hell,” he muttered to himself.
“Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” She retrieved the cup gently. “Here, Jean-Luc. Drink this.”
He took the cup and was… repulsed by the smell.
“I… I don’t want it. Thank you though, Beverly.”
Nimble fingers hesitantly took the cup. Such slender hands, as if they belonged to a fairy or an angel, anything but such a mortal creature. She doesn’t deserve such a life of misery and loss. Jack. Wesley. Thousands of victims, some dying before she could ever reach, others under the practice of those same hands…
“Beverly…” She turned at the sound of her name, waiting for some miracle cure to come to mind in front of the replicator. “How do you do it? How do you keep yourself going day in and day out?”
Beverly sighed the sigh of a doctor, of someone who has seen more than their share of death and knows that they will see much more before they die.
“I don’t know. At first it was Jack and Wesley. As long as they were around, I could kind of minimize the hurt. I knew that I was still alive and that I wasn’t alone. Then when they left, I forced myself to move on. I mean, I had already learned how to after losing Jack but, in a way, Wesley tied me to the past, kept me from moving on completely. When heleft, I was faced with a new situation entirely. I felt myself leaning more and more on the company of my friends; you, Deanna, Will, Alyssa, Geordi, Data, even Worf with his rough Klingon demeanor. Just knowing that I wasn’t alone seemed to help.”
“But how do you stop the hurt?”
“You never do. I can still remember the first person who died on me… I spent weeks going over every detail, searching for the one thing I should have done differently, just one move… but I never found it because it wasn’t there to be found. Death is a part of mortality, and eventually I had to face that fact… I had to face Death.”
“I keep trying to do that, but I keep losing…”
“That’s the point, Jean-Luc. Death is not an opponent you can beat… You just have to… stall him as long as possible, learn how to live with the loss. It’s not something you ever really learn to accept; you just sort of reconcile yourself to it.”
The words seemed to make sense in the midst of utter confusion. Perhaps the ultimate victory was not to beat Death, but rather not to let Death beat you.
“A stalemate.” The clarity and understanding began to light up his haunted face. He still had to grieve, but now it would be for the dead and not the living.
“Yes,” Beverly said, smiling faintly as she squeezed his hand.
“I’ve never been too found of those.”
“Hmm. Especially when you’re playing me.” She snuggled in closer to Jean-Luc. “It’s good to have you back, Jean-Luc.”
The only response was a breathing pattern indicative of a deep sleep. She rearranged him into a more comfortable position on the couch and left him a hypospray for the sore muscles he would surely have when he awoke.
She took a last look at his face before leaving. It was innocent as a child’s, no longer plagued by doubts and regrets. There seemed to be an air of peace around him as he slept, and Beverly left knowing that it would be a sleep deprived of the echoes of the past.
^\/^\/^