Chapter Text
Jean-Luc ran his hand over the back of his head and exhaled deeply, steeling himself for the fifth meeting of the day. This time, with Admiral Dougherty.
The man would, he assumed, provide a full report of the casualties, the results of the latest escalation that had seen entire fleets of refugees and Federation ships torn apart in a deadly confrontation.
He stepped into the briefing room. Dougherty was already at the table where he looked to be staring grimly at a star chart. The admiral didn’t look up as Jean-Luc entered, but his voice was taut when he spoke.
“Admiral,” Jean-Luc said. “I’ve seen the preliminary reports. What happened?”
Dougherty looked up with bloodshot eyes. “Admiral,” he greeted back. “We found the debris field in the Korath sector. It’s a mess… ships torn apart, bodies floating in the wreckage. It’s hard to say how many were involved, but the scale of this…”
Jean-Luc felt sick to his stomach, and as he stepped closer to the table, he could see the images of the debris field on the display in front of them.
Pieces of shattered starships, some bearing the unmistakable markings of Federation vessels, drifted among the wreckage of Romulan warbirds, and some wearing a blue butterfly that he didn’t recognize.
“And survivors?” Jean-Luc asked, being very much afraid of the answer.
“We’ve found... very few,” Dougherty replied. “Maybe a handful of escape pods, some damaged beyond recognition. Our teams are still pulling bodies from the wreckage. We have counted four hundred and eighty-seven confirmed dead, mostly Federation personnel, but there are still Romulan casualties to be accounted for, refugees, members of the Vanguard militia included, and medical relief personnel. And… I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse.”
Jean-Luc felt it… so very deeply. This was the cost of a mission meant to save lives. This was the price of his decision to intervene in the Romulan relocation, to place Starfleet at the forefront of a humanitarian effort that had clearly fallen apart.
“I should’ve seen it,” Jean-Luc muttered as he ran his hand over his forehead time. “The tension was already there. The factions, the Tal Shiar stirring the pot, and I…”
“No one could have predicted this, Jean-Luc,” Dougherty interrupted. “Even the Tal Shiar couldn’t have pulled off such a coordinated attack without internal dissension. You’re not the one to blame for this.”
Jean-Luc clenched his fists. “I made the decision to act. I brought the Federation in. I led this mission. And now… refugees caught between militias, Starfleet ships firing on each other, the Tal Shiar. It's exactly what I feared when we first agreed to this relocation, and what I foolishly, it seems now, thought I could help prevent.”
Dougherty looked away, and Jean-Luc noticed how his fingers were tapping nervously on the edge of the table. “It’s… for lack of a better word, a mess, yes. But there’s still time to salvage what we can. We’ve got a response fleet mobilized, search-and-rescue teams are still combing the debris field. We’ll recover what survivors we can. But there’s no easy way to clean up this mess.”
Jean-Luc stood there in silence for a long moment, feeling that like any other day for the past six months at least, this day was just a little bit darker than the day before.
He then cleared his throat. “We can’t leave the survivors to fend for themselves…”
“There are talks underway to negotiate some kind of ceasefire,” Dougherty replied, though his words were thin, as if he didn’t believe it himself. “But right now, the priority is to prevent further bloodshed. If we can’t stop the militias from clashing with the Tal Shiar, we risk sparking a war.”
Jean-Luc's eyes narrowed. “And if we don’t stop it, we risk everything. The Romulan people…”
“I know,” Dougherty snapped. “But we’re fighting against a storm here, Jean-Luc. You’re not the only one who signed off on this operation.”
Jean-Luc took a step back. He had believed that a greater good would come out of their, his, efforts to help the Romulans, but now it seemed the conflict had only gotten worse.
“I’ll speak with the factions… Starfleet will have to get involved in peace talks…”
Dougherty gave him a look that was mostly just tired, before he chuckled sadly. “Your plan is to run straight for the fire then?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, well… you may want to reconsider once you hear this next part…” Dougherty continued, suddenly sounding even more strained.
"Jean-Luc, I’m afraid I haven’t told you everything yet... and truthfully, I haven’t until now because, quite frankly, this is not like anything I’ve ever had to relay."
Jean-Luc turned to face the admiral that he knew fairly well. "What do you mean?"
Dougherty hesitated, looking down at the padd in his hands and started twitching his fingers against it before he cleared his throat.
"Yesterday," Dougherty began, taking a breath, "our rescue teams found something in one of the small medical pods meant for bio containment." He paused, looking at Jean-Luc as if bracing for his reaction. "They found… an infant, less than a day old."
Jean-Luc’s brow furrowed deeper. "An infant?"
"Yes. The pod, as I said, was a small bio pod, not meant for passengers at all. Just medical supplies and samples. It was barely large enough for the baby, small as he… is.”
Dougherty took a step closer and Jean-Luc noticed how his voice dropped. "We checked the records, and the medical team ran standard tests, just as we would with any survivor. And it showed something that… raised a lot of flags for us about …who the child belongs to.”
Jean-Luc’s mind raced and he felt confused about why Dougherty was so hesitant. "So, we’ve found an infant alone in a pod?” he retraced, waiting to figure out what Dougherty was getting at.
"Erm, yes…” Dougherty continued in a tense voice. "But it gets… I don’t know if that’s the right word, but worse. The tests... the genetic profile of the child... it shows that the infant is… your son, Jean-Luc."
For a moment, everything seemed to freeze. Jean-Luc blinked and felt his mouth was suddenly slightly open. “Come again, Admiral!?” he asked, feeling in that moment that he had no memory of anything that could possibly explain this.
“You’re the child’s father, Jean-Luc…” Dougherty repeated. "We ran every test. Starfleet Medical confirmed it. There has been no manipulation. The infant is fully human, and the DNA matches yours, Jean-Luc. There’s no mistake."
"That can’t be right, Dougherty. This is some kind of mistake. I haven’t... I haven’t…”
Jean-Luc felt he couldn’t think at all while his mind was reeling, trying to reach for something… some logical explanation, but there was nothing.
He felt dizzy. The very thought felt like a cruel impossibility… except for… the one person who was always in the shadows of his thoughts, even when he didn’t want her to be.
His voice cracked. "The child’s… mother?"
Dougherty hesitated and lowered his eyes and swallowed hard before answering. "The recovery team couldn’t find her among the wreckage, and there’s no sign of her on the ship. But, Jean-Luc… the woman who gave birth to this child is, which I see in your face now… Jean-Luc, it is … Beverly."
Jean-Luc’s breath caught in his throat as his mind flashed back six months, when she had left the Enterprise without telling him in advance. Chosen, he thought, to step away from Starfleet and from him.
"Beverly?" His voice trembled with a mix of shock and confusion. "But... she left. She left. She… Dougherty, where is she?”
Dougherty’s face remained tight with sympathy. He knew about Beverly’s sudden resignation, just as all of Starfleet did, perhaps more than Jean-Luc himself, of how attached the man, the legend, Jean-Luc Picard, had always been to his CMO.
"We don’t know, Jean-Luc. The circumstances surrounding the child’s presence in the pod are unclear, and it is quite frankly a miracle that he’s alive. Someone… was very resourceful in making him safe under dire circumstances. From the report, he was, as I said, no more than a few hours old, so we can assume that he was born during the battle.”
Jean-Luc gave out a guttural sound and leaned slightly forward, trying to steady himself.
“The pod had the Mariposas butterfly on it, and we’ve searched that wreckage thoroughly, but she’s not among the survivors we’ve recovered. The assumption now is that there are no more survivors from the Mariposas relief vessel. I’m truly sorry, Jean-Luc. I know that… she was always special to you…”
“Special…” Jean-Luc repeated hoarsely, not able to say anything more. He stood motionless as his mind churned through memories of Beverly’s departure, of their last conversation, of their shared moments the weeks before she left … just as he tried to remember what he had said to her when she had wanted to talk.
"She must be out there, Dougherty, she… must be?" Jean-Luc said in a raw and suddenly very desperate voice. “Beverly, she … she’s very resourceful. She’s so …very strong.” His voice just “died” right there.
Dougherty nodded, but sighed at the same time. "We’re doing everything we can. In the meantime… you’re placed on leave to go… see and … make arrangements for your son.”
Jean-Luc stared at Dougherty. “My son… yes. I need to … make arrangements for … my son.” He sounded almost as if he didn’t know what his own name was, and there was no color left in his face.
Dougherty’s eyes softened. "He’s at Starfleet Medical, under observation. They believe him to be a few weeks premature, but he’s healthy. Leave it to Beverly to save even the most fragile of beings in such a hopeless situation … if not … herself. Dismissed, Admiral…”
As Jean-Luc turned to leave, his mind was completely consumed by images of Beverly, his son, whose face he did not know, the conflict, the chaos, the bodies.
Why had she been there in the first place, and where the hell was she now? Gone? Absolutely not … gone. She could not be. He needed her. Their… son… needed her.