Chapter Text
She had been avoiding truly speaking to him since explaining her disappearance to him. It was all she could do to not collapse in his arms or beat at his chest; either way, begging him to explain why trouble always needed to find them and why it was risking them their son now. A son, she reminded herself, she had kept from him for this very reason.
She thought back to his words when they had first returned to Federation space.
“You have a chance to return to your lives. And… I hope to be a part of them.”
Of course she wanted him in her life, she had never not wanted him in their lives. Fear of the loss that had followed her all her life had driven her to latch onto their unborn child and run as fast as she could. The stars be damned.
They wouldn’t take another person that she loved from her; not when they had already kept everyone she had loved before from being hers.
Beverly wiped away at the tears that threatened to form. The stars blurred past as she stared out the viewport in the Observation Lounge. She had left Jean-Luc in sickbay with Jack and she had come to the old meeting room after putting Jack under sedation, needing some time to herself.
“I never got to tell you how lovely you look.” A stubborn tear fell down her cheek at the sound of his voice. She fumbled, wiping it away as he sat in the chair beside her.
“When exactly were you going to tell me?” she asked, smiling wryly. “When I was in the medpod? When we were glaring each other down in sickbay? Or when we nearly killed a changeling?”
“All of those times,” he admitted, “you wear your age well.”
A flash of pink. A knowing smile with the promise of more. A gunshot… The memories all flashed before her eyes. She had wanted to kiss him them, she still wanted to kiss him now.
“Beverly, I –”
“Jean-Luc, I –”
They smiled at each other. Memories of Kesprytt danced through her head followed by a flash of bitterness. It was never hard for them to understand each other and yet they still pushed each other away every time they tried to come together. It was infuriating, even to her. She looked back out to the viewport, the splattering of stars encompassing her viewing field.
“You died, Jean-Luc, you died, and I wasn’t there to stop it,” she finally said when he didn’t speak.
“Beverly…” She ignored him and continued speaking.
“One of your people got in contact with me, I still don’t know how he found me,” he was looking at her confused now, “but he did. I went back for your memorial and found you walking around alive. Can you imagine what that was like? Showing up in La Barre, sure I would find Deanna and Will planning your memorial since I wasn’t there, and instead I find you playing with your dog.”
“Why didn’t you come see me then?” The question was asked so quietly she almost missed it. She considered her answer. She was walking a tightrope, on the precipice of revealing too much and not wanting to reveal anything.
“There was someone else there.” There. Vague enough to mean anything.
He thought about her words before he nodded.
“Laris.”
“Must have been, where is she now? Back in La Barre?” Waiting for you, went unspoken, but she knew he would have caught it.
“No…” he pulled at his shirt like he used to pull at his uniform, “she left. She’s on Chaltok IV by now.”
Beverly hummed and returned to watching the warp trail of the Enterprise through the viewport. Jena-Luc watched her for several moments before his expression turned serious.
“She knew that if I went to you then I wouldn’t leave you again. Not unless you made me.”
Oh. Beverly paused stunned. He caught the expression that flitted across her face and let a self-deprecating chuckle escape.
“You’re surprised I’d admit that?” She turned to face him as he raised an eyebrow at her. “You’ve been in my mind; you know how strong my feelings for you are.”
“I knew how strong your feelings were on Kesprytt, that was thirty years ago, Jean-Luc.” She raked a hand through her grey locks. “A lot of things can happen in that time. Our feelings were never strong enough to make it work with everything else happening.”
“But they should have been.” His words echoed in the observation lounge.
“Jean-Luc, I won’t ask you to pick me, before Jack, before all of this I would have, I deserved –”
“You deserve me to choose you, fully and completely, every single time,” she went to interrupt him, and he held up a hand, his eyes begging her to let him finish. “And if you will give me one, final, chance to prove it to you.”
Her eyes widened. The weight of the last four days pressing down on her, trying to open the cracks in her armor. She swallowed down the emotions begging to be released, leaving the room in silence.
“I meant what I said,” he said softly when she made no move to speak, “about being your husband, I just… could not get the words out, every time I tried, I would find some excuse, some reason to not ask. No matter how superficial the reason was. When Deanna and Will announced their engagement that was the hardest; watching you help Deanna plan the wedding, all I wanted was to give that to you but I was so afraid of the… possibility of rejection, I kept quiet.”
Silence fell between the two of them again. Beverly watched him carefully, her heart racing. In the span of five minutes, he had put more effort into their relationship than he had contributed either of the last two times they had tried to be together. She couldn’t believe that it would work though, no matter how much she wanted to spend nothing but the rest of her life in his arms; she was always the pragmatist in their relationship, she had to be again now.
“So where does that leave us?” she asked, folding her hands across her abdomen. “You want us to try again, even with five previous attempts. Even with me running away for twenty years and hiding your son from you. Everything in the universe saying that no matter how much we love one another, we just don’t work together as a couple.”
“Beverly,” her name coming out through a chuckle, “I was the problem every single one those times. I took you for granted. I took us for granted. I relied on always having your friendship, your good heart, your loyalty. That was never fair to you.”
“You did more than that.” The accusation hung in the air between them. He sighed.
“You’re right,” a hand rubbed at his jaw, “I blocked every transfer assignment that came across my desk for you. I made it clear to anyone that came and expressed interest in you, romantic or otherwise, that you were mine and damn anyone who tried to interfere with that. You deserved better, I was the one who was afraid of letting you know the depth of my feelings.”
She smiled mischievously. She had already known that. It had given her satisfaction during the times they were together in a basic and primal way. She had wanted him to say it now as a final confirmation that he was really and truly ready to put things to right. Jean-Luc noticed the smile on her face and shook his head.
“It took our son getting assimilated by the Borg for us to have this conversation.” He held out a hand to her when he finished his statement, and she returned the gesture. Her hand fitting in his just as she remembered. He threaded their fingers together and leaned towards her.
“Timing has never been our strong suit,” she responded, leaning towards him in kind. Their foreheads met in the empty space. They stayed in that position for several moments before the Enterprise dropped out of warp. They turned their heads to look out of the viewport to the catastrophic destruction surrounding Earth. She smiled at him sadly.
“You’re going to have to help clean this up,” the realization had hit her before but she hadn’t wanted to admit it until she was faced with the destruction the Borg had inflicted on the fleet.
“Not without you,” he placed a hand on her chin and pulled her forehead back to his, “not again.”
She collapsed against him. Over twenty years of loneliness, stress, and pain washing over her body, the tears she had swallowed down over the last few days finally hitting her and falling in earnest. Without moving his forehead from hers, his thumbs came up and brushed the tears from her cheeks. He was whispering soft words of love and devotion and they echoed in her head as her hands came up to the back of his head and clutched him to her.
They stayed like that for several moments, the catharsis of the moment between the two of them keeping them connected.
“I understand that you two are having a deeply emotional moment,” Deanna’s voice echoed through their commbadges causing them to jump apart, “and while I’m happy for you, because truly this is overdue, the rest of us would like to check on our children and the state of the fleet so if you could join us we’d appreciate that, thank you.”
The two looked at each other and began laughing. Beverly looked around the room as their laughter subsided.
“You know… I don’t think we ever had sex in this observation lounge,” she contemplated. She was sure that they hadn’t, the ready room and her office had been christened by them, but their first attempt at a relationship had been so short-lived there hadn’t been much time for anywhere else before the destruction of the Enterprise D.
“Beverly!”
“What!? We didn’t! I was just pointing it out!”
“Must you?” Jean-Luc groaned, taking her hand in his, pulling her to her feet as he rose from his seat.
“Yes, I must, if we’re going to be all in, then I’m going to point out our past failings that are in desperate need of correcting,” she smiled wickedly at him. He rolled his eyes and brought their intwined hand to his lips.
“I will correct anything you request me to,” he vowed before letting their hands drop, releasing her hand from his own. They began to head to the bridge before another thought revealed itself to her. Beverly stopped walking and turned to him.
“Are we not going to discuss the fact that I’m still your next of kin contact and you hadn’t seen me in twenty years.”
“Well, my dear,” he smiled at her, “the same way you knew I would come when you called, I knew that if anyone was able to find you and something had happened to me, you’d come as well.”
She hated that he was right.