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“I know you’re close to the Crusher family” No. The word slips into his thoughts before he continues listening. Not just close...they are my family. “There’s been an accident.” Oh God, Wes. “Wesley’s fine...but one of the other cadets didn’t make it.” Jean-Luc’s hear simultaneously soared in joy and wept at the loss of a young life. But it hadn’t been Wesley. The boy he had come to look on as a son was going to be fine....physically. Jean-Luc thanked Admiral Brand and told her he and Beverly would handle it. The Admiral just gave a sly smile, as basically everyone in Starfleet knew about their odd relationship by now.
Jean-Luc carried the bottle, and Beverly had three glasses when they knocked on Wesley’s dorm room. When Wesley’s roommate offered to leave Wesley alone with his parents, no one actually bothered to correct him. Jean-Luc’s relationship with the Crushers was complicated and hard to define on a normal day, let alone when tragedy struck.
Wesley was enveloped in his mother’s arms and Jean-Luc guided the mother and son onto the only piece of furniture that would hold all three of them – Wesley’s bed. Jean-Luc sat down on Wesley’s other side and poured out the drinks. Strictly speaking, cadets were forbidden from drinking, but Jean-Luc felt the exception could be made. It wasn’t every day one of your best friends died – Jean-Luc certainly knew how that felt. Before he had come to see Beverly and Wesley after Jack’s death, Jean-Luc had gotten blindly drunk on board the Stargazer. Being drunk didn’t fix anything, naturally, but the temporary numbness certainly helped.
The three silently toasted the lost life and downed their drinks in a single sip. Wesley held out his glass for more, and after a silent nod from Beverly, second glasses were poured. Wes began to sob. His shoulders slumped and he leaned against Jean-Luc. Beverly wrapped her arms around her son and rested her head against his as he sobbed into Jean-Luc’s shoulder. When he said “I’m sorry, Dad”, it took Jean-Luc a minute to realise Wesley wasn’t talking about Jack, but him. Jean-Luc did the only fatherly thing he could think of doing and he patted Wesley’s back and murmured “It will be OK, son.” He would be lying if he hadn’t thought more than once in the intervening fifteen years since Jack Crusher’s death about asking Beverly to marry him. So if Wesley wanted to call him Dad now, well, who was Jean-Luc to stop him? Beverly’s watery smile from the other side of Wesley was the only sign Jean-Luc was given that he had done the right thing.
Wesley’s sobbing subsided. He was nineteen, a Cadet and an Ensign and he shouldn’t be crying like this. But somewhere he knew he needed this release, and he needed the two adults he was closest to with him. He felt like he was five years old again being comforted by Jean-Luc, but somehow it didn’t seem to bother him enough to pull away. Being sandwiched between his mother and Jean-Luc, Wesley felt as though everything would be alright. Everything would come out in the hearing, and he would go back to being Picard’s Boy, as some of the Cadets had teased him. But right now, with his parents – yes, parents – arms around him, he felt safe and content.
When Wesley’s roommate returned later that night, he found the Picard/Crusher family sound asleep in Wesley’s bed, arms twined around one another. He quietly left the room, deciding the family needed their time together.