Deanna sighed. If Beverly weren’t her best friend, she wouldn’t be standing in front of Holodeck 2. She wouldn’t be waiting to be totally shunned by a eighteen-year old. And, she wouldn’t be about to help someone who needed it.
Deanna sighed again, this time a little more decidedly.
“Computer, unlock the doors. Clearance Troi-Alpha-Omega-Omega-9.”
The doors slid open, and Deanna found herself in a lush green forest. The sound of a small crick was the only one after the doors had shut behind her. There was no wind, no birds, no anything.
She walked for a little while, until she came upon a steep cliff. Here the wind was blowing, and the sound of ocean waves crashing on the shore far below echoed in the ravine. Clouds rolled restlessly by in the sky.
“Wes.”
“Hello, Counselor.”
Wesley was standing near the edge of the cliff. Deanna’s mind focused in on the calm in the midst of the other emotions ravaging through his mind.
“Wes, what are you doing?”
“Everything.”
As if by his command, a wisp of sea air arrived on the wind, and Deanna was overcome with sensory input.
“Here I can see and hear and feel and smell and taste. I can do everything.”
“Really?” Deanna could feel a false air of enjoyment and freedom. “There’s still something you can’t do. What is it?”
Wesley turned away from the cliff and Deanna, choosing instead to face the woods.
“I remember helping my mom write this program. It was about eight years ago … on the anniversary of my father’s death. We worked on it for almost four months, making sure every detail was just so.”
“Wes … ” Deanna noticed a change in Wesley’s tone and his demeanor. He was distancing himself.
She had lost track of the conversation, and it took her a moment to realize it had stopped. She found him resting against a large oak tree. She slid down to rest against the tree also.
“Wesley, what is it? Let me help you … please.”
“You don’t know what it was like in there. Nobody does.”
“In where?”
“In there, in that cage I was trapped in. No sight, no taste, no touch.” Wesley’s voice cracked, but Deanna could tell he was determined to continue. “I could only hear for a little while. They kept me quiet for a little bit after I came out of my coma. Before then though, right before,” Wesley swallowed hard as the memories started to surface more and more, “I was caught. I was trapped in a white mist, and I couldn’t see anything really. It was all just so … so … “
“Belittling?”
“No,” he said, regarding Deanna in a softer light than before, as if he was truly noticing her for the first time. “More … dehumanizing than anything.”
“That must’ve been very hard for you.”
“It was, but … there was something else … ” Wesley’s eyes narrowed in thought as he tried to remember. “I can’t remember. There was someone … someone talking, but I don’t know who.” Wesley though long and hard, but decided to let it go. With a shake of his head, he looked back at Deanna. “Anyways … “
“Wes,” Deanna started tentatively, “you need to leave this behind you before you can get a clear view of it.”
“I don’t think I can. You didn’t realize this, Deanna, but I’ve never been more terrified in my life, not even when I took the psych test to try and get into the Academy that first time.”
“That’s perfectly understandable, Wes. What you went through wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. I would be surprised if you didn’t have some aftershocks, but if you let this rule you, you’ll still be trapped.” She stood and headed for the path that would lead her off the holodeck. “The only difference will be that you’ll be the one trapping you.”
Deanna left Wesley to sit and contemplate.
And that was exactly what he did. He didn’t want to be trapped again, never again. But he could already feel the walls closing in … and they were closing in fast.
But at the moment he didn’t care. The clouds raced by mindlessly, and Wesley joined them, allowing his mind to race amongst the clouds. He could see the finish line, and he strove towards it. It held the answers to his dilemma, the missing connecting pieces to his feelings. The face … the voice … why couldn’t he hear him clearly?
Damn, he thought with a blow to the ground. Free, only to be trapped again.
^\/^\/^
Beverly paced her quarters. What Deanna had told her about Wesley was not encouraging, but it did give her an idea. There was nothing else she could do for him now. That only left Jean-Luc.
Would he do it? The thought raced through her head. Hell, I’ll make him.
Beverly grabbed her lab coat and draped it over her arm as she headed out of her quarters.
The day she couldn’t convince Jean-Luc Picard of something concerning the Crusher family would be the day hell froze over.
^\/^\/^
Jean-Luc Picard sat in his usual place in his Ready Room with his usual face of command firmly in place. He sipped a cup of Earl Grey between turning the pages of one of his favorite Shakespeare volumes. He clapped the book shut after he realized that he wasn’t even reading the words. Almost three acts of Hamlet had passed before his eyes … and he had thought for well nigh twenty minutes that he was still reading Othello.
He returned his cup to the Reclamator as the door chimed.
“Come.”
Beverly Crusher entered the Ready Room, unsure of exactly how to breach the subject at hand. Her hands clenched and unclenched nervously, and her lab coat stubbornly refused to lay just right on her agitated form.
Jean-Luc emerged from around the corner, performing the Picard Manuever.
“Beverly,” he said, surprise rising in his voice. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Jean-Luc … I … ” Beverly stammered and ran a hand through her hair. “Damn. Why is it always so hard to talk to you?!”
Jean-Luc tried to contain the perplexity he felt rising in him and allowed Beverly the time and space she needed. The last question had been more of a rhetorical one made to herself than one that needed an answer.
“I need you to talk to Wesley.”
“Me? Beverly, you can’t be serious.”
“I most certainly am, Jean-Luc. He needs help, and I … I think you’re the only one who can give him the help he needs.”
“But certainly Counselor Troi would be better equipped … “
“Deanna’s already talked to him, and he didn’t open up to her, at least not enough for her to be any help.” Beverly rubbed her arms briskly with her hands, as she moved over to the couch. She folded one leg under her and tried to think of how she could convey what Deanna had told her to this powerful man before her. Eventually, Jean-Luc joined her.
“Beverly, you know I’ve never been very comfortable with children … “
“He’s not a child anymore, Jean-Luc.”
Jean-Luc had been prepared for that, and yet, he hadn’t exactly expected to find himself believing those words so thoroughly.
“There’s nothing I can say to him, Beverly.”
“Jean-Luc,” started Beverly. Now had to be the time. “Deanna was telling me about her conversation with Wesley … She told me that he said the last months have been very hard on him.”
“That’s underst … ” Beverly stopped his words with a raise of her hand.
“He said that no one could understand what it was like for him in there.” Beverly’s eyes focused on the couch, as if drawing strength from the inanimate object. “He said he was cut off from almost all outside influences, must’ve been like being cut off from himself, all he had ever known or trusted.” She chanced a glance at the man sitting slightly less than two feet away from her, but his face had none of the expression she was looking for, nothing that she needed. With a deep intake of breath, Beverly turned and looked Jean-Luc directly in the eyes … almost as if to face down his demons. “He said it was the most dehumanizing thing that had ever happened to him.”
Finding his view of Beverly, as her eyes drove meaning into the very heart of his soul with every word, marred with tears, Picard brusquely stood from the couch, pulling the front of his tunic down as he rose.
Soon, he found himself staring blankly out the window in his Ready Room. He could almost feel the implants on his face again, the thousands of voices echoing through his head. And he knew that no one deserved to go through the impact of that kind of torture … not alone and not again.
Beverly had resigned herself to the fact that apparently hell had frozen over. Her last words had been desperate and cruel. She had had no right to rip open this wound of his.
“Where is he?”
Beverly shook her head.
“What?”
“Where’s Wesley?”
“Probably still on the Holodeck.” She blinked her eyes as her mind started to register the fact that Jean-Luc might actually be going to help her son.
Picard nodded roughly.
“Jean-Luc?” asked Beverly, rising from her seat now. “You’ll help him?” Her face beamed with a trust and hope he felt he could not refuse.
“Yes.” His sad eyes met Beverly’s, and she realized the pain he had gone through was still there. And prayed that this would help them both.
“Thank you, Jean-Luc.” She gave him a small peck on the cheek and left him to gather his demons, to prepare for his walk with the shadows once more.
^\/^\/^
The doors opened onto Holodeck 2, and Jean-Luc Picard entered. No breeze penetrated the stale air that hung just inside the doors. A howling traveled down the path before him, and he set out to find the cause.
The first thing that caught his attention was the sunset. Bright blue streaks highlighted a green sun. The waves crashed against the shore, and Jean-Luc shivered as a breeze blew past him. He turned away from the sea, the warmth now gone from the sun.
He found Wesley staring blankly at the scene Jean-Luc had just turned away from. He silently approached him, knowing somehow that Wesley had seen him and was waiting for him.
He sat down on the next to Wesley. Another wind brushed up against the two of them, and Picard pulled his jacket closer around him. He looked over at Wesley.
The vacant look in Wesley’s eyes had fled, and Picard felt anxious at what he now saw there.
Pain.
But Wesley’s body was not ready to acknowledge this, even as his mind was starting to awaken to the realization of what he was feeling. He sat ramrod straight, determined not to falter in the slightest bit. But another gust of wind came up and Jean-Luc saw him shiver.
He took his jacket and wrapped it around Wesley’s shoulders.
Wesley curled his legs up to him and started to shudder at the simple aspect of human touch. His arms tried to hold his legs tighter and tighter against his body, as if to stop the shaking.
Jean-Luc was perhaps as uncomfortable as he had ever been. Never before had he been truly good at dealing with emotions or children.
But he’s not a child anymore, is he? Jean-Luc asked himself. He looked at Wesley closer and for possibly the first time, he noticed that Wesley had indeed become a man.
“Wesley … ” A barely audible cracked whisper emerged from Jean-Luc’s throat, but Wesley had heard him almost as if by a sixth sense.
“Why have you come?”
Jean-Luc shuddered internally at the tone of Wesley’s voice. It had an almost inhuman quality to it. Resistance is futile … The words started to haunt him again. He shook his head with his hand at his temples. When he finally looked back at Wesley, he discovered that Wesley was no longer sitting beside him. He looked around and finally his eyes rested on the sad figure standing near the cliff.
Jean-Luc raised himself off of the ground, hearing a few bones creak within him in the process. He regarded Wesley for a moment, fear of how to help him no longer a mystery. Jean-Luc was reminded fiercely of his own self as a youth.
That day … that day in LaBarre … when Robert and Father shunned me … Jean-Luc thought back to the day before he had left LaBarre to attend the Academy. He had felt alone for the first time in his life. Certainly there had been times when he had felt lonely, like the time Robert had left him out in the vineyards one summer, but always there had been someone who could side with him, someone to just be there with him. When he left for the Academy, he had felt as if there was no one in the world, or galaxy in that matter, that was on his side. Except Maman. Maman was always on his side. Sometimes though, a boy’s mother just wasn’t enough.
“Computer, end program. Load and run Picard-LaBarre-3.”
Wesley looked at Picard curiously as the wind disappeared and the deafening roar was eliminated …
… to be replaced by a quiet valley under a dark sky that hung heavy with the weight of many stars. Wesley looked over the land around him, noticing the vast vineyards and a solemnly lit house about five hundred meters away. It was so quiet and calm; it seemed as if there was nothing, and yet there was everything. A sense of peace seemed to fill Wesley, forcing the unrest and confusion to the surface. He flopped to the ground as the tears finally came.
“Wesley, you need to talk about it.”
Wesley shook his head fiercely and wiped away the tears.
“Wes, I know this hasn’t been the easiest thing you’ve ever gone through, but you don’t have to go through this alone.”
“You … you don’t know what it was like. Nobody does,” said Wesley, looking away from Picard and off into the distance. Sitting opposite of him, Picard took a deep breath.
“Yes, I do.” Wesley looked at Picard curiously and with an air of puzzlement in his eyes. “I know perhaps better than anyone else can.” Picard paused, and Wesley wiped the remaining moisture from his face. “You don’t know what it was like for me when … when I was turned into a Borg. Everything mechanized and out of my control … “
“Captain, I … it didn’t even occur to me … “
“It’s okay, Wesley.”
“But, Captain, I don’t want to have to make you relive that … not if it was worse than what I went through. I know what it’s like to relive something over and over, especially in your dreams. It’s can be very … very … “
“Disconcerting?”
Wesley nodded.
“But, Wes, you’re barely out of Sickbay. I doubt you’ve spent any of that time asleep.”
“I tried to sleep a little, but as soon as I fell asleep, I … I got scared.” Wesley looked down at the ground, as if ashamed. After a moment, he shook off that cover of feelings. “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Picard raised an eyebrow.
“The day … the day you showed up at the door to tell my mother … that my father … had died.”
“Ah.” Jean-Luc knew that they had both reached an even more common ground this time, for this had been a shared experience and with Wesley’s admission, Jean-Luc realized that the nightmares did not belong to him alone.
“Why did he have to die, Captain?”
Jean-Luc was startled out of his reverie by the intensely honest question.
“I don’t … “
“Why did it have to be him? Why couldn’t it have been someone else, some other nameless person on a dozen of other ships? What did it have to be him?”
Jean-Luc remained silent. Something inside Wesley was fighting a battle, and it wasn’t something he wanted to get into right now.
“You know, I can forgive him for leaving us alone. We were ready for that; any Starfleet family has to be. But, he hurt her, and never even apologized or made sure that she was all right.”
“Who? Your mother?”
“He never said good-bye. It was the least he could have done.”
“Wes, I know that this probably won’t help very much, but your father loved your mother very much. I’m sure that he would never ever do anything to hurt her if he had any chance to avoid doing so.”
“I suppose so.” Wesley stood and walked toward an outcropping of rock. His lithe figure stood starkly outlined against the crisp night sky. “He hurt me too, you know. There were times when I would think that I hadn’t gained the privilege to have a father, almost as if I didn’t deserve one. It wasn’t fair, leaving me to grow up like that.”
Jean-Luc sat rooted to the ground. He knew all too well the trials of not having a father to praise and encourage you, to teach you how to fix the replicator or fly a kite. Maurice had never been that kind of father; he was always criticizing or comparing Jean-Luc with someone else, someone better. The day he had left for the Academy was the day Jean-Luc saw as the finish of his relationship with his father. He didn’t want that for Wesley; he didn’t want that for his son.
“Wes,” he began, standing as he spoke, “I know you haven’t had a father for probably what have been the most important years in your life, shaping who you are now, showing you where you want to go … but that doesn’t have to go on.”
“But my father’s dead and gone, and will be forever.” The remorse in his voice seemed unusually heavy.
“No, Wes; he’s not.”
Wesley turned slowly to face Jean-Luc with a face of bewilderment and confusion.
“What are you talking about? You brought the body home; you were in command; you are the one who relives that hell just as I do; you are one of the few people who can understand because YOU WERE THERE! How can you stand there and say that when you are … “
“Your father.” Jean-Luc blurted out the words, interrupting Wesley mid-sentence.
Both men stood, transfixed by those two words.
“Wh … what … why … when … ” Wesley’s words stumbled over each other as he half-collapsed against the rocks. His mind was racing as the world he had known spun around him. “How long … “
“Not long. Your mother didn’t even know until she was trying to save you from your experiment.” Jean-Luc cautiously advanced slightly, as if walking on pins and needles. “She wasn’t sure how you’d take this.”
“She didn’t want me to know, did she?” asked Wesley solemnly.
Jean-Luc hesitated, wondering if his answer would only do more damage.
“No, Wes. She didn’t want you to be hurt anymore.” Jean-Luc was grasping at straws, desperate to make good on the situation.
“Well,” sighed Wesley. He seemed to be deliberating his next few words carefully, as if the entire universe’s stable existence depended on them. “In that case, I guess I’ll just have to live with it.” Wesley shrugged noncommittally and started a walk towards the vineyards.
“Wesley, just wait one minute. You can’t just blow something like this off so quickly,” persisted Jean-Luc. “This is a very important revelation, and you need to consider it carefully.”
“Why?”
“Because … ” Jean-Luc cursed himself. Here he was afraid to own up to caring about his own son, his own flesh and blood. “Because I need to know that you’re okay with this, and are willing to accept me as … as … “
“My father?” questioned Wesley. “Captain, this may come as a bit of surprise to you, or maybe not considering you do spend a considerable time with my mother, but I already consider you my father. I don’t care about the actual technicality of the whole thing.”
“Really?” asked Jean-Luc, surprised yet by this revelation.
“Yes, sir. I’m just glad that it’s not all just in my mind any more.”
“So am I, Wes; so am I.”
The two continued walking towards the vineyards. As a cool breeze wafted the aroma of fresh grapes, Wesley turned towards Jean-Luc.
“Captain, may I ask you something?”
“No. The captain is not here.”
“Very well, then, F … Father … ” Wesley paused as his brain equated the new title, “Does this mean that you and my mom are going to get together?”
Jean-Luc turned frightened and embarrassed and chagrined at the innocent question. While he had indeed thought about the possibilities many times, the actual concept of doing something …
“I … I’m not sure.”
“You don’t know how much she cares about you.” The sentence was short but full of sincerity.
“Perhaps I will act on my feelings … but what business is it of yours anyway?” Jean-Luc asked, his voice light and unburdened.
“Well, I think I have a right to know what’s going on between my parents.”
“You do have a point there, Wesley. And, perhaps … ” Jean-Luc said, placing a hand on Wes’ arm, “perhaps this will be good for all of us.”
Father and son smiled under the starry night sky, ready to meet their shadows together.
^\/^\/^