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Captain Jean-Luc Picard really didn’t know what to do around children. With the exception of his friends Beverly and Jack Crusher, none of his friends had any children, and his brother and his wife didn’t have any yet so his only current contact was with Wesley Crusher, about every other month when he docked the Stargazer with the base Beverly was stationed on for Jack to visit his family. His only other experience was with his former Commander’s children, who used to run amok throughout the ship and would cause all sorts of problems. As a result, he had banned children from being on his ship, a move he had been regretting ever since Beverly had left his ship to have Wesley. In fact, he had been considering removing his ban just for her if a suitable position could be created for her in Sickbay. He was behind his small desk in his quarters when his door chime went off, startling him as he wasn’t expecting anyone. To his surprise, his chime had been rung by a child.
“Er...hello?” Jean-Luc strode over to the door and glanced down at the child. The child had red hair and blue eyes, and if Jean-Luc hadn’t known Beverly and Jack only had Wesley who was the spitting image of Jack, he might have thought this was their child, as the resemblance to Beverly was uncanny.
“Cookie?” The small child, a girl, Jean-Luc thought based on her pink dress, held up her arms to him. He knew from being around Wesley that this seemed to be universal toddler for ‘pick me up’, so he bent down and hoisted the small girl into his arms.
“What’s your name? Where are your Mommy and Daddy?” Jean-Luc glanced down the corridor, but to his surprise there were no frantic parents chasing after their child and the child wasn’t in distress and seemed at ease with him.
“Cookie?” Jean-Luc gave the girl a dubious look.
“I doubt your name is ‘Cookie’, young lady, but is that what you want?” Jean-Luc pressed a button to leave his door open in the hopes that he would see or hear the parents of the girl and he carried her over to his sofa. “Wait here.”
He went up to his food slot and ordered a cookie, and a glass of milk. As an afterthought, he requested the milk go into a plastic cup and only be half-full. The machine whirled and the little girl giggled when she was handed the large cookie. She held it up high.
“Dank Ooo” The girl happily munched on her cookie and drank her milk and began to yawn. There still had been no sign of the child’s parents, so Jean-Luc could only assume they were still unaware she had escaped, though he was also sure none of his crew had a child on board due to his rules. The girl yawned again and Jean-Luc went to his bedroom and pulled a pillow off his bed along with a throw blanket and he placed the pillow on his sofa. The girl immediately put her head down and he covered her with the blanket.
“Ni ni, Papa.” Papa? Jean-Luc decided the girl must be tired and assumed the man putting her to bed was her father, so he pressed his lips to her forehead.
“Ni ni, Cookie.”