I've been without wifi, and also struggling with a series of debilitating mental health symptoms, but I wanted to post some stuff I wrote to tide over until I can finish and post another chapter to my Trek fics.
Anyway, here's a peak at the 3rd vignette/chapter of "To Mirror The Father" (Picard's perspective of Wesley growing over s2):
The room only had a dozen or so students inside, lining a promenade aisle through to the front of class, where their teacher sat under a large screen, working on something.
A few teenagers looked up curiously at the sound of the door, but this was quickly halted by a shout from their teacher got things back in line: “Eyes down everyone, I need these by the end of the block.”
Most turned back to the notes on their digital textbooks, though a few subtly turned to glance upon the prompt not to.
“Captain?”
Wesley instantly covered his lips with his knuckle, trying to shove the exclamation back into his mouth.
“Head down,” the man at the front of the class ordered.
“...Yes sir.” Wesley squeaked, trying to slide out of the off-guard spotlight and back into the crowd of onlooking students.
Now more of the children were looking than ever; none of them were stupid enough to openly stare, but styluses hovered over screens as not-so-discrete glances were shot.
Jean-Luc crept up towards the front of the class. Wesley wasn’t watching as subtly as his peers; he fumbled his deskthings, nervous eyes shooting at his captain.
“Focus, mr. Crusher,” Jean-Luc reminded as he passed. Wesley shrunk a little, trying to grip his stylus as more student curiosity was stirred around them. Jean-Luc made hastily to the desk at the front. “I’m here to sign Wesley Crusher out from class,” he lowered his voice for privacy; he wasn’t exactly sure how this was done, but he assumed this ought to be the most direct way.
“Of course, Captain,” the man set aside his active monitor and opened an administrative screen. “Make-up exemption for his practicum?” Jean-Luc confirmed briskly. “Relationship?”
“Excuse me?”
“What’s your relationship with the student? We have Cmdr. Riker and Data listed as emergency contacts.”
Jean-Luc was taken aback. He wasn’t used to having his good word questioned on his own ship.
“It’s okay, sir, the Captain is my ultimate superior,” an unsteady voice piped up behind him.
“Wesley,” Jean-Luc turned about sharply, intentionally leveraging the power of the given name. “Are students supposed to interrupt class?”
“No, sir, but—”
“Than perhaps you are trying to communicate that you’re homesick and want me to contact your mother about your behaviour?” Jean-Luc prompted, drawing the line even clearer in case not wearing his badge made Wesley forget how the dynamic between adults and children was supposed to work.
This sudden and rapidly elevating volley of dialogue had drawn the attention of the other students, who had dropped any facade of note taking to watch the drama unfolding.
Wesley was still for a split second; his ears started flushing pink, then his cheeks and neck, then he lowered his eyes, slumping smaller at his desk. “...No, Sir.”
“No,” Jean-Luc nodded seriously. For a second the room held suspenseful silence, a tense jury waiting to see if the magistrate donned a black cap, until their teacher cleared his throat and the children’s eyes shot back down to their study notes. Jean-Luc turned back around, eager to be done with this. “If you’ll check the personal file,” he said lowly to the other man, “You’ll see that Dr. Crusher updated her son’s shipbord next-of-kin shortly before her transfer.”
Summary: An encounter with a quantum fissure leaves Picard with more responsibility than he asked for, but he'll do what he always does—his duty.
Chapter 37
Logically, Beverly knows that no one she passes in the corridor could possibly know where she’s going, but she still feels rather conspicuous as she walks to Jean-Luc’s quarters, practically floating along, buoyed by her hopes for where the evening might end up.
When Jean-Luc cancelled dessert, she guessed something must have happened with Louis. Despite her request to be informed when Louis fell asleep, she wasn’t certain Jean-Luc would ask her to come over. Nevertheless, she watched the clock, growing more and more restless as the hours passed. When his message finally came, Beverly leapt from her chair, nearly forgetting to reply.
She reaches Jean-Luc’s quarters and goes to the door farthest from Louis’s bedroom. She knocks lightly and waits, smoothing first her hair, then her sweater. She’s just about to knock again, thinking she must have done it too quietly the first time, when the door slides open.
Most of Jean-Luc’s casual shirts are v-neck blouses that show off just enough of his chest to confirm a toned physique, but the one he’s wearing now is her favorite; it’s teal, and it gives his grey eyes a greenish hue that she finds appealing.
“Can I come in?” she asks—with a bit more of a purr in her tone than she intended, given that she doesn’t know what exactly happened with Louis and therefore doesn’t actually know what sort of visit this might me, regardless of her hopes.
His gaze rakes her from head to toe before he meets her eyes and smiles. “Of course.”
He moves aside so she can enter, and as she sweeps past him she notices that, while his smile is wide enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes, it seems strained, and his clothes are uncharacteristically…rumpled.
There are two glasses of wine on the coffee table, so Beverly crosses to the couch and sits down. Jean-Luc sits next to her, body angled so that their knees touch. Beverly reaches over and lays her hand on the knee resting against her own.
“Is Louis okay?”
Jean-Luc lets out a deep breath. “It’s been a long day.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He hesitates, seemingly considering it, then shakes his head. “I don’t want to ruin your mood. Or the evening.”
Which suggests that he wants a distraction.
And yet, she pushes.
“Jean-Luc.” It’s sharp enough for him to quickly snap his gaze to hers. “I’m here to listen. That’s what friends are for.”
“Is that all we are? Friends?” He raises an eyebrow. It’s teasing—his tone is teasing—but the way he swallows, the way his eyes flick back and forth between hers, is fragile.
“Well, I’m hoping we’re becoming more than friends”—she raises her own eyebrow challengingly— “but that’s what we’re still working out, isn’t it?”
She expects him to continue this cautious yet playful little dance they’re doing, but instead he’s suddenly serious.
“Are we foolish for even attempting this?”
No, she thinks defiantly.
She’s willing to move forward as slowly as Jean-Luc needs, but she absolutely refuses to go backwards, to let him retreat.
Beverly knows this might not work out—and that would be painful, but she can’t imagine Jean-Luc doing something to purposely hurt her that would make her not want to remain his friend. It would be awkward, naturally, and it would take time to learn how to be friends again after being lovers—and Beverly very much intends for them to be lovers—but if Will and Deanna can do it, Beverly believes she and Jean-Luc could too.
“I don’t think what we’re doing is foolish,” she says. “I think we were foolish for letting our fears hold us back for so long.”
She lifts her hand to his face, cupping his cheek. He leans into her touch, his eyes closing and his features smoothing out, the strain she witnessed earlier draining away. Gently, she strokes his cheekbone with her thumb. “If it’s too difficult for you right now to balance us and Louis, we can—”
His eyes fly open. “No.” His gaze is steady. “That’s not what I want.”
“Then what do you want?”
His lips part, but before he can speak, there’s a sound from Louis’s room—a quiet, pained moan. Jean-Luc is up and moving immediately. Beverly almost follows but remembers herself at the last moment and remains on the couch.
Louis may like her, but she’s not his parent; Jean-Luc is. Jean-Luc is his father and his safe place and the only thing he needs to see when waking up scared and confused from a nightmare.
That knowledge doesn’t stop the longing. She misses being needed the way Louis needs Jean-Luc. She misses having someone to take care of like that. She misses Wesley. She misses being a mother.
(She’s obviously still a mother, but it’s different when your child’s an adult.)
To distract herself from the longing, she sips her wine. Half of her attention is on Jean-Luc’s voice in Louis’s room—low and soothing—and the rest of her attention wanders the room, snagging on two items that are very out of place: a set of thin rectangular blocks that must be for building, and a marble maze.
That explains why Jean-Luc’s clothes are rumpled.
Beverly grins and tries to imagine him sprawled on the floor with Louis, building some elaborate castle with the blocks, or racing marbles. Whenever Jack played with Wesley, it was like he became a boy again himself. It’s hard to picture Jean-Luc being boyish.
She’s still grinning when Jean-Luc emerges from Louis’s room. He returns to the couch and lifts his wine glass from the table.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs before taking a sip.
“You don’t have to apologize.” Beverly readjusts, moving until their knees are once again touching. “Bad dream?”
Jean-Luc nods tiredly, shoulders slumping.
“Tell me what happened today,” she prompts softly.
He hesitates again. Beverly waits. Maybe she shouldn’t push. Maybe she should just give him the distraction he seems to want…
But then Jean-Luc takes a deep breath, takes another sip of wine, and proceeds to tell her about the holodeck, about Louis’s request that they eat dinner alone in their quarters.
“I think I may have pushed him into some things too soon,” Jean-Luc admits. “I thought a sense of normalcy would help, but I don’t think he was ready.”
Beverly’s heart clenches and she finds herself squeezing Jean-Luc’s forearm reassuringly; she knows returning to duty as soon as he was allowed is what helped him move on from both his assimilation and his week of torture, but Louis is just a boy, and he has more than one singular traumatic event to overcome—he has several years’ worth of them.
“You should take more time off,” Beverly advises.
Jean-Luc nods. “I will.”
He sips his wine but remains turned away, withdrawn.
“There’s something else,” Beverly says. “Something else is weighing on you.”
Jean-Luc smiles lopsidedly at being caught out, but stares at his glass for a long moment before answering. “I watched the other Data’s logs today.”
Oh.
“Worse than you expected?” she asks.
He nods again. “He suffered, Beverly. And I—I feel as if…” He trails off, grimaces. “I feel as if I should be suffering too. For not being there for him. For…being the one that caused it.”
“You didn’t cause it, Jean-Luc. And neither did the other you.”
Jean-Luc lets a breath out through his nose that sounds distinctly like disagreement—he still blames himself for what the Borg did through him, he’s still ashamed that he wasn’t able to resist them.
Stubborn, prideful man.
Abruptly, he shakes his head and turns towards her. “I’m sorry, this isn’t how I imagined the evening going. I’m not being very good company right now.”
She offers him a soft smile. “It’s alright. This is what being together is supposed to be like—sharing the good and the bad.”
She’s treated to another raised eyebrow and a teasing, “So we’re…together?”
Beverly flushes at her choice of words. They’re not anything yet. They opened a door, but they’ve yet to walk through it. This is only the threshold, and it’s going to take more than some kissing—delightful as it is—to determine what they are, to push this past the physical, past giving into their lust for each other.
But that will take time, and right now Beverly very much wants to give in to that lust. So she curves her lips into a coy smile.
“Aren’t we?” she asks. “Unless I’m mistaken, we both told each other last night that we” –she can’t make herself utter the word love— “have feelings for each other. And then we—”
“I remember.”
His voice is low and gravelly, his gaze sharp. There’s suddenly a tautness in the air between them, exactly like last night, exactly like that afternoon in sick bay. Beverly’s pulse quickens, and her skin warms in anticipation.
“Jean-Luc, I need you to be honest with me.”
“Always.”
“I need to know if what you want right now is to talk, or to be distracted.”
“You are not a distraction.”
“You know what I mean.”
He breathes in slowly, eyes locked on hers. “Right now, I would very much like to be with you, and to save the discussion concerning what happened to my son and what I’m going to do about it for a time when I do not feel so overwhelmed by it.”
Beverly nods. “Okay.”
He takes it for the permission it is and leans in to kiss her.
-/-
Picard’s worries melt away the instant his lips meet Beverly’s, but no sooner has he slid his hand along her jaw—coaxing her to tilt her chin back, change the angle of their kiss, deepen it—than he hears Louis cry out.
The sound pierces his soul.
He draws back, swipes his thumb against Beverly’s cheek apologetically. “Perhaps now isn’t the best time after all.”
He tries to remove his hand, but she covers it with her own, holding it in place.
“It might be a long night,” she says. “Why don’t I stay and keep you company?”
He grins, and presses another swift kiss to her lips before rising to go to Louis.
#5 and #13 with Reginald Barclay (Star Trek TNG)? Thanks a million!!! I absolutely LOVE your writing!!!
Fandom: Star Trek TNGPairing: Reginald Barclay x ReaderWord Count: 840Rating: Ga/n: Ok full disclosure nonners, I haven’t watched TNG in a long time and I could not remember Barclay for the life of me. But I watched some clips and I hope I still wrote a thing that works for you!
You gently folded the uniform you’d worn for five years, packing it carefully though you wouldn’t need it where you were going. Deciding to leave the Enterprise had been one of the hardest decisions you’d ever made, but you knew it was time. You wanted to try something new and if you were honest with yourself you’d known that for awhile now. You’d only stayed behind because of Reginald, but it was time to face the truth that this game you played of almost-flirting, almost-caring, almost-trying to do something about the tension between you would remain at a stalemate forever.
You heard the door slide open behind you, likely Geordi who had offered to help you with your things once you’d landed.
“I’ll be really in just a moment,” you said.
“Why do you hate me?”
You spun around to find not Geordi, but the man you’d been thinking about. Reginald’s brown eyes sought yours and the pain in them was hard to bear.
“Reg?” you breathed. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been trying to reason out why you’re leaving,” he said, crossing the room towards you and then pausing, uncertain what to do or where to go.
“Reg…”
“It could be that you received a better job offer, but the Enterprise has been your dream job since you were a child. You told me that time we were stuck in the engine room together,” he said, ticking off his reasons on his fingers as he spoke.
“It could be that something has happened back home and you must return to them, but I believe you would have told me. You told me when your cousin contracted that Valerian Flu last year so it stands to reason that you would mention something life threatening.”
The way he remembered all of these moments, rattling off even more anecdotes to support his theory, made your heart ache and swell all at once.
“Which leads me to my conclusion that you must be going because of me. But I can’t figure out why,” he said, looking at you helplessly. You sighed deeply and shook your head.
“I’m not a problem you can work out,” you said. His brow furrowed.
“I don’t think you’re the problem, I think that I am but I don’t understand why,” he explained, taking another step forward.
“Reg, how long have we been shipmates?” you asked.
“Five years,” he answered immediately.
“And in all of that time, how many times have you ever been fully honest with me about your feelings?” you asked. You watched warring emotions in his soft, brown eyes, a blend of longing and sadness that pulled at your heartstrings.
“It’s not that simple,” he said.
“It could be,” you argued, “If you wanted it to be. My god Reg you’re the most brilliant man on the whole damn ship but you can’t just… be honest with me. Or maybe you’re just having trouble being honest with yourself. Whatever it is, I can’t put my life on hold anymore waiting for you to run the numbers enough times that you decide to be brave.”
You turned your back on him in anger, and to hide the tears that sprang to your eyes.
“I’ve never been good at this,” he confessed, “People have always been so hard. So much harder for me than it was for other people. I’m so jealous of the casual confidence Riker shows, the charm that Geordi exhibits. Hell even Data can communicate better than I can. But, Y/N, know that it’s not from lack of caring. If I… cared less, I may be able to speak of it more.”
You recognized the line he nearly quoted, a classic piece of literature he’d found you reading the first time you met which launched the conversation and nearly launched so much more. You blinked back the tears and snapped the suitcase shut, summoning your courage as you turned to face him.
“Take care, Reg,” you said, forcing a smile on your face. You walked past him, heading to the door when you were stopped short, a hand taking yours.
“Don’t leave me,” he said, the pain in his voice leaving you breathless. His hand clasped yours tightly and you wanted to believe if you stayed and gave him the chance he would find the words. You turned to face him, not hiding the tears in your eyes. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You can’t lose something you never had,” you said, pulling your grasp from his. You continued towards the door but faltered as you reached the threshold, peering over your shoulder to throw one last chance his way.
“Picard knows where I’ll be stationed next. If you want me, not the convenience of someone on the ship but me, you’ll know where to find me.”
With that you forced yourself through the door without another look back though a part of you knew you’d be looking over your shoulder hoping to find Reginald Barclay standing there for the rest of your life.
Summary: An encounter with a quantum fissure leaves Picard with more responsibility than he asked for, but he'll do what he always does—his duty.
Chapter 35
Picard sits in his chair on the bridge long enough to make his presence known, then he retreats to his ready room. There, he returns to the other Data’s logs.
It takes the rest of his shift to finish the remaining two years’ worth of recordings, and by the end he’s once again emotionally and mentally exhausted—but at least now he knows. Remembering Deanna’s advice from earlier, he uses the final half hour of his shift to clear his head, opting for relaxation as opposed to exhilaration this time to settle his mind.
It’s as if the entirety of his being is clenched tight as a fist, but gradually—his eyes closed, Chopin playing gently in his ears, the taste of Early Grey sweetened with sugar and lemon dissolving on his tongue—his thoughts loosen and wander.
There were bright spots amidst the darkness, moments where Louis appeared on screen with a smile to announce that it was his birthday (“I’m 7!”) or that he grew a full inch taller or that he lost a tooth (using two fingers to hook the corners of his mouth and pull it wide to reveal the gap where his two front teeth were missing).
Often, Louis wasn’t visible but his presence was evident in other ways: humming a tune in the background, interrupting Data to ask a question about his school work or the book he was reading, a sound that could only be him practicing the piano.
The worst is over, Picard tells himself. He can’t change the past, he can’t change what Louis went through; he can only control the here and now, help Louis recover, move forward.
Before he leaves, he checks for any messages from Deanna. As promised, she provided a list of toys for Louis but clarified that Louis should be the one to choose and that anything he chooses to play with that’s safe is technically fine. She concluded with a treatise on why Louis should have toys that takes Picard nearly ten minutes to read and leaves him feeling like a complete ass for not thinking to provide them sooner.
There’s a message from Will as well, and when Picard notices the timestamp his heart skips a beat and he moves immediately to the edge of his chair, poised to leap to his feet and run.
But the message merely informs him that Louis was briefly upset by an occurrence on the holodeck, and that he insisted he was okay, wanted to stay, and that Will is monitoring him closely.
As there’s no follow-up message, and as Picard was never paged, he assumes everything is fine.
Nevertheless, he walks more swiftly than is strictly necessary to Will’s quarters.
When Will calls for him to enter, Picard finds him and Louis sitting at Will’s dining table playing cards. Louis smiles at him, a bright, happy grin that warms Picard more thoroughly than a cup of tea or a glass of wine, a liquid warmth that seeps into his very soul.
And to think, there was a time when I believed I didn’t need this.
Gul Madred tried to diminish Picard, the Borg attempted to extinguish him entirely, and both times Picard resisted—he fought tooth and nail to remain himself, to hold onto his identity.
On Kataan, it was his choice to let go and become Kamin, become a husband and a father, become more. He embraced his return to the Enterprise, but he’s not the same person he was before Kataan.
Not deep down.
Deep down he knows that Louis’s smile is worth more than any accolade.
“What are we playing, gentlemen?” he asks.
Will and Louis have cards in their hands, the deck stacked face-down between them, and, at their elbows, cards lying face-up that seem to be paired by color and number.
“Go Fish, sir,” Will replies.
“But with poker faces,” Louis says.
As if to illustrate, both of their expressions go blank.
“I wasn’t aware a poker face is such a crucial part of Go Fish strategy,” Picard remarks.
“In this version it is,” Will explains. “In this version, when someone asks you for a card, you’re allowed to lie and say you don’t have it even if you do—but if your poker face isn’t good enough and they catch you, you have to reveal 3 of the cards in your hand.”
“That’s quite the motivation to tell the truth.”
“Or to have a very good poker face.” Will tilts his head towards Louis. “His isn’t too bad. He just needs some practice.”
“C'est ce que tu penses,” Louis murmurs, smirking at the cards in his hand.
That’s what you think.
Picard chooses not to translate that and instead asks, “Are you ready to go?”
Louis nods. To Will, he says, “Can I use your bathroom?”
“Of course.”
Louis lays his cards down and trots deeper into Will’s quarters. Will starts to stand, catches sight of Louis’s hand, and frowns. “For how long have you had that king?” he calls.
“Since the beginning!” Louis calls back.
Will chuckles and shakes his head. “I guess his poker face is better than I thought. I asked him for that king twice.”
“I suspect you have only yourself to blame for that,” Picard says dryly. “Or rather, your other self.”
Will grins. “That reminds me, sir. Have you considered my invitation?”
The poker game on Friday evening, the day before they’re scheduled to arrive at Earth.
Picard sighs. “I have, Number One. If it still stands—and if you’re certain it’s appropriate—we’ll be there.”
His first instinct was to refuse, until he reasoned that it would be a good distraction, a nice way to relax before reporting to Starfleet Command.
(A brief foray out of his comfort zone, for Louis’s sake.)
“I’ll make sure everyone’s on their best behavior,” Will promises. He glances to his left, then steps closer, and in a low voice, asks, “Did you get my message?”
“I did, and I must apologize—I didn’t see it until only a few minutes ago.”
“It’s alright, sir. If it had been an emergency, I would have paged you directly. I just wanted you to know what happened.”
“What did happen, exactly?”
“Well, he caught a fish” –Will stated he was taking Louis fishing when Picard dropped him off; he’s still in the flannel shirt and khaki trousers he donned for the occasion—“and when we got the fish out of the water…I don’t know, I think seeing it that way, knowing it’s dying…sometimes that’s hard for a little kid.”
There’s a crease between Will’s brows, tension in his posture. He’s worried about Louis, Picard guesses, but also worried how Picard might judge him.
“Commander,” Picard says, sternly but quietly. “I want to make it clear that I trust you.”
“Sir?”
“With Louis, I mean. What happened today in no way diminishes that trust.”
Will couldn’t have predicted that the sight of a dying fish would upset Louis. Picard would not have anticipated it either.
“Thank you, sir,” Will says. “I’m still happy to watch him whenever you need me to.”
“I appreciate your help, Number One.”
Appreciate is not nearly a strong enough word. That Louis felt safe enough with Will to stay with him speaks volumes. Picard must allow that relationship to grow—even if it means that he must also cultivate a more personal relationship with Will, daunting as it is to cross a line he hasn’t crossed as a commanding officer since Jack Crusher.
When Louis returns from the bathroom, they say their goodbyes and then Picard ushers him into the corridor—where they run directly in Deanna.
She’s clearly surprised to see them, but she masks it quickly with a smile. “Hello again.”
“Hello,” Louis replies cheerfully.
Will pokes his head into the hallway. “You’re here early.”
“I thought you might want some help preparing dinner,” Deanna says, tone stunningly neutral.
Will grins. “You don’t trust me to pick what we’re eating, do you?”
“No.” It’s succinct, matter-of-fact, and somehow not impolite.
Louis looks back and forth between them. “You’re friends?” he asks.
“Yes, friends,” Deanna and Will answer simultaneously, their voices in perfect sync.
Louis’s gaze flick back and forth one more time, taking in Will’s carefully blank expression, Deanna’s casual attire and her hair, which seems different than usual though Picard can’t pinpoint how. The boy’s eyes narrow, and Picard knows precisely what’s coming and clears his throat loudly before they’re all plunged into a very awkward situation.
“Well, have a good evening you two,” he declares, giving Louis a pointed nudge in the direction of the Turbolift.
In their quarters, they both change for dinner, Picard out of his unfirm and Louis into something not grass-stained, but when Picard moves for the door, Louis lingers near their dining table.
“Can we eat in our quarters tonight?” he asks.
His voice is small, hesitant, as if nervous about making such a request. Perhaps they rushed him into some things. Perhaps Picard should have followed Beverly and Deanna’s advice and taken more time off, eased him into the crew’s company more carefully, more slowly.
Internally, he decides that tomorrow he’ll take another personal day. Outwardly, he smiles gently, and says, “Today was a very long day. I would also prefer some peace and quiet this evening.”
Louis leans into him, head bowed and tucked against Picard’s side. It’s not quite a hug, more of a…request. Picard puts an arm around his shoulder, runs his other hand through Louis’s hair.
“You know what else I would enjoy tonight?”
“Non,” Louis murmurs, waits, his eyes half-closed.
Summary: An encounter with a quantum fissure leaves Picard with more responsibility than he asked for, but he'll do what he always does—his duty.
Chapter 33
Beverly hasn’t seen Jean-Luc since last night, and at that first shared look it all rushes back—the thrill and the anxiety of their confessions, the intoxication of kissing him. There’s an immediate thrum of need inside her, and she sees its echo in Jean-Luc.
Then Deanna excuses herself, clearly overcome by what just passed between the two of them, and Beverly realizes she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to act around Jean-Luc.
Probably normally.
Probably as if she can’t remember how his hands felt on her thighs.
Probably as if she didn’t see the outline of his arousal and imagine palming him through his trousers.
Get it together, Beverly scolds herself.
Jean-Luc already has his professional mask in place; Beverly puts hers on too, shrugging on her doctor persona like shrugging on her lab coat. Jean-Luc observes her shift in demeanor and turns to Louis.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
Louis nods and looks to Beverly for instruction. She pats the examination table. “Hop up.”
He obeys and sits with his hands resting loosely on his thighs, shoulders relaxed, watching her curiously but not warily. It’s a dramatic change from his first visits to sick bay. He trusts her, and Beverly knows not to take that for granted.
“I’m just going to take a blood sample,” she tells him. “Can you get your sleeves up past your elbows?”
“Both of them?”
“Yes.”
Jean-Luc is on the opposite side of the table from Beverly, close but not suffocatingly so. He doesn’t smother Louis. He manages to offer him both security and space simultaneously, and Louis seems to thrive on it. Beverly knows now that Jean-Luc has parenting experience, but she also thinks that he stepped into his role so well—embraced it so completely—because of his age; had he become a father when he was younger—at the age Jack became a father—he would have been much different.
Not bad, just different.
One thing that Beverly thinks would have been the same in either case, however, is his complete cluelessness when it comes to clothing.
As she waits for Louis to push his sleeves up, she notices he’s been wearing the same two shirts on rotation. She’ll have to inform Jean-Luc that owning exactly two shirts may be fine for him, but as Louis won’t be in uniform for 23.5 of the 24 hours in his day—Beverly assumes Jean-Luc removes his uniform only to shower—Louis is going to need a little more variety in his wardrobe.
Maybe she can take him shopping on Earth. She loved doing that with Wesley. Wesley was, naturally, never as enthusiastic about it as she was, but Beverly thinks Louis is different.
(He folds his own pajamas every morning.)
“Ok.” Louis is finished. He watches silently as Beverly takes each of his forearms in hand and gently rotates them to expose their anterior sides.
Remembering Louis’s interest in the scan of his wrist bones, Beverly explains, “I’m looking for the best location to draw blood from. This area”—she traces a triangle on the inside of his right elbow—“is called the cubital fossa.”
Frowning—a very specific compression of his mouth and scrunching of his brow that Beverly recognizes—Louis twists towards Jean-Luc. “En français?”
"It's the same,” Jean-Luc says quietly. “Fosse cubitale.” His eyes flick to Beverly’s, including her in his next statement. “Many medical terms, albeit Greek or Latin in origin, actually entered English through French.”
Beverly actually knew that already; Louis nods like he’s filing that information away.
“There are two large veins here,” Beverly continues, pressing her thumb over each in turn. “The basilic and the cephalic.”
(“Basilique et céphalique.”)
“And between them is another vein, the median cubital vein.”
(“Veine cubitale médiane.”)
“Médiane,” Louis repeats. “The middle?”
“That’s right. The median cubital vein is in the middle of your arm, but it’s also in between the basilic and cephalic veins. It connects them. Yours is so close to the surface of your skin that it’s visible.” She indicates the faint bluish ridge bisecting the pale skin of his anterior elbow. “This is the vein I’ll draw blood from.”
“Because you can see it?”
“Yes.”
(And also because it’s larger and more stable than either the basilic or cephalic veins, but that explanation would draw attention to the size of the hyposyringe and the fact that veins can roll, neither of which are things Beverly wants Louis worrying about.)
One of Beverly’s passions is the history of medicine. She’s always been intrigued by the evolution of technology and methodology, but what fascinates her the most are the practices that have withstood the test of time.
Tourniquets, for example.
Nothing beats a tourniquet when it comes to drawing blood, because despite the invention of the hypospray, they have not yet discovered a way to get certain fluids out of the body without puncturing it.
“What’s that for?” Louis asks.
Beverly smiles reassuringly as she ties on the strip of blue rubber. “It creates pressure in the vein to help make it even more visible. I know it’s tight. It has to be, I’m sorry.”
Next comes the hyposyringe, which is unfortunately an only slightly less barbaric instrument than it was centuries ago. It’s self-sanitizing and dermal regeneration functions are improvements, but it’s still very stabby in nature, which is not something most people enjoy.
Jean-Luc is one of those people.
Because Beverly knows to expect it, she sees the sudden rigidity of Jean-Luc’s expression when she picks up the syringe, the slight widening of his eyes.
“This is going to pinch a little bit,” Beverly says, unsure which of them she’s actually trying to comfort. “But it will only last about five seconds.”
The last time she did this to Louis, he was unconscious. He watches the hyposyringe right up until she places it against his skin, and then he looks away. His fingers twitch when she slides the needle in, but he doesn’t react otherwise.
“Count to five,” she instructs.
Louis takes a deep breath. “Un. Deux. Trois. Quatre. Cinq.”
The vial was full before he got to three, so by the time he finishes she already untied the tourniquet, removed the needle, and passed the sample off to Geordi.
“There,” she says. “You’re all set.”
Louis blinks at his arm and then at the tray of her tools and then at her. “I can get down?”
“Yes. And you can roll your sleeves back down, too.”
Once Louis’s feet are firmly on the floor, Beverly addresses Jean-Luc. “Your turn.”
-/-
“My turn?” Picard asks, raising an eyebrow.
Geordi turns away from the monitor he’s prodding. “In order to prove that Louis’s quantum signature doesn’t match ours, we need an actual sample to compare it to. It makes the most sense to take it from you.”
“You didn’t inform me of this yesterday.” Ever since the Borg, Picard’s not been overly fond of needles. They tend to evoke a very…visceral response in him.
“I’m sorry, captain,” Geordi says, spreading his hands in apology. “Truthfully, we didn’t think of it until we started setting up here. If it’s a problem, we can take the sample from someone else.”
“It’s not a problem.” To admit that it is, in fact, a problem—for others to know that he has this problem—would be intolerable.
He looks at Beverly, wonders if she purposely pulled the reverse of what she suggested for Louis’s physical: one of them goes first to assure the other that it’s safe. There’s a sympathy in her expression that rankles him. He hates that he’s still so damaged from his experience with the Borg that he requires careful handling.
“Louis,” he murmurs. “Why don’t you go check on Deanna?”
The smaller the audience, the better.
“I want to watch,” Louis says.
Picard sighs internally. Fine. He knows he could insist, and Louis would obey, but he doesn’t see the point in turning this into something it doesn’t need to be. Louis is just curious, and Picard will just have to maintain his composure while Beverly pokes him with a needle the same way the Borg poked him with needles.
(And drilled into him, injected him, cut him—cut away his individuality.)
The physical response is immediate. As soon as he decides he’s doing this, it’s as though his brain fills with a fog that obscures everything except for his dread, and as he takes Louis’s place on the examination table, he’s hyperaware of his body and yet somehow also separate from it. It takes a concerted effort to remove his red suede jacket, to fold it and lay it next to him, to roll up his sleeve and offer up his bare arm. He feels himself slipping away, retreating—but when Beverly touches him, the fog lifts as abruptly as it descended.
The Borg that handled him were not gentle, their restraints were never warm, and Beverly’s fingers are both.
Picard swallows and blinks. He’s aboard the Enterprise. He’s in sick bay, Beverly’s there—
And so is Louis.
“Papa, est-ce que tu vas bien?”
Are you okay?
He’s to Picard’s left, pressed against Picard’s leg with both of his hands resting on Picard’s knee, and he’s far too observant to have missed Picard’s reaction.
In French, Picard replies, “I’m okay.” He wants to smooth out the crease between Louis’s brows, but he settles for squeezing his shoulder instead. “Needles just make me nervous.”
“Because they hurt?”
Picard hesitates. A lie would be easier, but the truth is a chance to connect, to reveal his own trauma—to show Louis that he’s not alone in his. Quietly, he confesses, “They make me nervous because they remind me of the Borg.”
There’s no French word for Borg, so anyone paying attention could guess what they’re discussing.
“When they assimilated me”—assimilé in French, also easily recognizable for anyone listening closely—“it was…it was like a surgery.”
Louis huddles closer. “They used needles on you?”
“Yes.”
And drills and scalpels and saws.
“But it’s alright,” Picard says quickly. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.” Your father isn’t hurting anymore. “It’s just the memory that frightens me a little.”
“Don’t do it if you’re scared.”
It’s easy to smile then, to chuckle. “Louis, sometimes we must do things that frighten us.”
“I know,” Louis huffs. “You told me that before.”
It’s a conflation—he’s referring to his real father. Picard’s noticed that, occasionally, the line between him and his counterpart is blurred for Louis. He makes a mental note to mention it to Deanna in case it should be addressed.
“Jean-Luc, are you ready?”
Beverly’s voice draws his attention back to the warmth of her fingers on his arm.
“Yes, I’m ready.”
Her touch is clinical and efficient but gentle. It grounds him. Only when she tightens the tourniquet above his elbow does he shift his focus back to Louis, to ground himself there.
“Do you want me to hold your hand?” Louis asks gravely—in English.
Beverly smiles. Geordi also smiles, though he pretends (wisely) to be concentrating on the progress of the RNA analysis.
“No,” Picard says. He moves his free hand to cover both of Louis’s, still resting atop his knee. “But I would like a distraction. Will you talk to me?”
The procedure is over in an instant but at its conclusion Picard is markedly more knowledgeable concerning the many similarities between foxes and cats. He continues to listen until it’s clear that Geordi is ready to report, and then he slides from the examination table and slips back into his jacket.
“Louis, please go check on Deanna.”
She’s been gone a rather long time. He understood when she fled that it was because of whatever emotions passed between him and Beverly when he entered sickbay. He stifled them as swiftly as he could, and he saw Beverly do the same.
“I bet she’s having a snack,” Beverly adds, rather loudly—they must be audible from her office. Hopefully Deanna will hear her and take the hint, linger in Beverly’s office with Louis so that they can discuss the results of the analysis in private.
But Louis hesitates, glances at Geordi over by the main monitor. “What about the test?”
“We already know what the results will be,” Picard replies. “Having proof doesn’t change anything. We’re acquiring it only because we know Starfleet will ask, and we wanted to do the test somewhere you feel comfortable.”
He explained as much that morning. Convinced, Louis nods and leaves the room, heading down the hallway towards Beverly’s office. When he’s out of sight, Picard turns to Geordi and Data.
“It’s official,” Geordi announces. “Louis is not from this quantum reality.”
Picard recognizes the strands of RNA, but he requires Geordi’s explanation to grasp the significance of the accompanying data. The proof indeed changes nothing, except to provide a small portion of the shield he intends to build around Louis.
“Are there any repercussions for keeping someone from another quantum reality in our reality?” he asks.
Geordi and Data exchange glances.
“Well,” Geordi says. “Something like this has never happened before, captain, so I really can’t say.”
“One possibility,” Data interjects, “is that over time, Louis’s quantum signature could eventually align with ours.”
“How much time?”
Data shakes his head. “I do not know. As I said, that is only a possibility.”
Picard nods to himself. “Alright. Prepare the results in a presentation for Starfleet. Pair it with the DNA results.” They may as well prove that his and Louis’s DNA matches even if their quantum signatures don’t.
Geordi collects what he needs and then he and Data move towards the door.
“Commanders?”
They halt at Picard’s call.
“Yes, captain?” Data asks.
“I’d like your presentation finished for review by the end of your shifts tomorrow, and I expect everything in it to be completely accurate and truthful.”
Geordi presses his lips together to hide a smile. “Of course, captain. We’ll get working on it right away.”
When the door closes behind them, Picard turns back to Beverly.
“You seem worried,” she comments.
“I am worried,” he tells her quietly, leaning against the examination table and crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t know what Starfleet Command wants.”
“You’re afraid they want Louis?”
“Yes.”
She sighs and moves closer, lays a hand on his bicep. “I’m afraid of that too.”
It means something to him, that she cares for Louis so much. He unfolds his arms and takes her hand, holds her fingers loosely in his.
“How are you?” he asks.
It’s not something he would typically say, but he doesn’t know how to address everything between them. He hadn’t realized until he and Louis walked into sickbay that he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to act around her in public now. They’re not a couple. They’re not…anything yet.
“I’m fine,” Beverly says, in a tone that implies she’s amused. “How are you?”
Picard smiles in answer, runs his thumb over her knuckles. “Will you come over tonight so we can continue our discussion?”
“Do you want to talk, or kiss?”
“Both,” he admits.
They’re alone. Beverly funneled other patients into the auxiliary rooms for appointments or emergencies so they could have privacy for the RNA analysis. There’s a slim chance of someone walking in on them, or of Deanna and Louis returning, so but it’s probably foolish to kiss Beverly now, but he wants to.
And so he does.
He leans forward and she tilts her chin up as if she was just waiting for him to make up his mind. Picard meant for it to be chaste, just a light sweep of his lips over hers, but Beverly grabs a fistful of his shirt and tugs him closer. He lets out a small sound of surprise but doesn’t resist, mimics the movement of her mouth and parts his lips.
Heat erupts in his belly. Beverly’s a good kisser, and surprisingly…enthusiastic. He would never have guessed that he would be the one trying to slow things down.
Her tongue dips into his mouth, teasing him, but when he tries to chase it, she pulls back and smirks. “I’ll come over with dessert.”
She’s clearly trying to kill him. Or just completely undo him.
Picard doesn’t move. He’s not able to. He takes a deep, steadying breath. “And what will we be having tonight?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Did you like the cranachan?”
“I liked it very much,” he murmurs with a grin.
She rolls her eyes and steps back, slipping out of the circle of his arms. “I meant the actual cranachan.”
Picard chuckles. “I did.”
“Should I bring something Scottish again? Or try something French?”
“It’s up to you.”
“You didn’t like the clootie dumpling, did you?”
“It was tasty. It was just—”
“Too heavy.”
“Too heavy,” Picard agrees.
“Ok, I’ll keep it light.”
“I’ll eat whatever you decide to bring,” Picard pledges. “And I’m sure Louis will as well.”
Beverly tilts her head. “Louis doesn’t seem like a picky eater.”
“He said his parents used to make him try everything, so there isn’t much he doesn’t like.”
“That’s good. Wesley was never very adventurous when it came to eating. Sometimes that was frustrating.”
Picard smiles. He likes it when Beverly shares something from her own experience as a parent in a way that makes it feel as though she considers them equals in the matter.
There’s a sound from the hallway, alerting them to Deanna and Louis’s return. Picard quickly takes stock of himself to ensure he’s presentable—expression under control, no other, more inconvenient physical indications that he was just kissing Beverly. When he’s certain there’s nothing about his appearance that could arouse suspicion, he greets them cheerily and gestures Louis towards the exit.
“Viens, Louis. Will is waiting.”
Louis skips over to Picard’s side, then turns and waves. “Bye, Beverly. À ce soir.”
“À ce soir,” Beverly responds. “I’ll see you two later.”
Picard can’t help looking back once they reach the door. He’s rewarded with a smile from Beverly, warm as sunshine, and an exasperated facepalm from Deanna.
Summary: An encounter with a quantum fissure leaves Picard with more responsibility than he asked for, but he'll do what he always does—his duty.
Chapter 32
Deanna’s empathic powers are technically passive—she can’t manipulate other people’s emotions, only sense them—but they are not without physical side effects. Excessive use can cause headaches, sometimes even fatigue, and there’s a constant risk of sheer overstimulation.
She hides this all to the extent that she’s capable of doing so. Will Riker is probably the only person aside from her mother who truly knows what her powers do to her. He seems to have a sixth sense about it, actually; he’s always aware of when she might be feeling too much or too strongly, and all it takes is a glance from him to remember herself, to dial her powers down or turn them off entirely.
In any case, Deanna usually keeps her mind closed to a certain degree in order to function. This way, she’s able to sense emotions but at a distance—just enough to perceive them but not enough for them to affect her.
The best way to describe it is like being enclosed in a tinted glass box: voices are muffled, expressions obscured.
But with Louis she opens her mind completely, unsure how deeply his feelings are buried.
When they walk into her office, he’s immediately wary, an almost caged-animal-like tension. Sometimes, when her mind is open and an emotion is particularly intense it will trigger other senses, and she’ll experience a smell or taste, see an image in her mind—occasionally have an actual physical sensation in her body. Now, Louis’s panic spikes and Deanna sees a brief flash of two faces: Louis wants his father, he wants Data—
Deanna gently lays her hand on Louis’s shoulder and is relieved when he doesn’t flinch or shrug her off. To her, that suggests his reaction is not a rection to her, but the setting.
“This is my office,” she says. “This is where people come when they need someone to listen to them or they want a safe place to express their emotions. It’s my job as ship’s counselor to care for the mental and emotional wellbeing of everyone on board.” She smiles then, and repeats it in simpler terms. “Dr. Crusher takes care of our bodies, and I take care of our minds.”
Now he’s confused, curious: why is he here?
“I thought you and I should talk. I sense that you’re struggling with some big, complicated feelings. I can help you make sense of these feelings.”
Doubt. A flare of wariness again. She suspects that someone from his past made a similar offer. Apparently, it didn’t work out very well.
Deanna turns so that they’re facing each other. “You know that I’m an empath, correct?” she asks.
“Oui—I mean, yes.”
(Don’t get her started on how cute his little French voice is.)
“Do you know what being an empath means?” she asks.
“It means you can tell what other people are feeling.”
“Exactly. For example, I can tell right now that you’re feeling nervous.”
He’s actually experiencing a shifting, snarled mass of emotions that he’s constantly trying to suppress—but it’s best to keep it simple, to pick a place to start ad go from there.
Louis frowns then, abruptly self-conscious of his nervousness, embarrassed by it.
“It’s okay to feel nervous,” Deanna assures him. “Everyone feels nervous sometimes.” She lowers her voice, and gives the room a long, scrutinizing glance. “Is this room making you nervous?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to go somewhere else?” she whispers, pretending as if the room might be capable of hearing her.
Louis grins, his nervousness dropping away. “No, I’m okay.”
Deanna straightens and brightens her tone. “Why don’t we play some games while we talk? I find that it’s easier to talk sometimes if my hands are busy.”
“Ok.” And then, in a very child-like way that pleases her, “What games do you have?”
“Games may have been an exaggeration,” she admits. “I mostly just have puzzles. I was thinking we could try these.”
She shows him to the tangram puzzles she had selected beforehand and stacked on one end of the couch. He studies them with curiosity, and definite interest—he’s never seen them before, but they’re appealing. He wants to try them.
“Would you like to do one together? Or separately?”
“Can I do one on my own?”
A feeling of contentment and an image of lying on the floor with a sketchbook with Data in the background of the small space they’re sharing, then paralyzing uncertainty and a classroom of students working in groups that don’t seem to notice his existence.
“Of course,” Deanna replies. “Pick one, and I’ll pick after.”
Relieved, Louis selects a hexagonal puzzle. Deanna takes a rectangular one, then sits directly on the floor and puts her puzzle on the table. Louis copies her. He organizes his pieces on the table, sorting first by color before deciding to do it by shape instead.
“Is there only one right way?” he asks.
“No, there are multiple solutions. That’s one reason why I enjoy these.”
She waits until she senses that his mind is fully devoted to the puzzle before asking, “Is it okay if we talk? Or would you prefer to concentrate on your puzzle?”
Louis’s attention splits. He side-eyes her, wary again, but she keeps her own attention on her hands and eventually his guard lowers. She feels a tentative blossom of trust.
“We can talk,” he says.
It’s a delicate operation, a share and an invitation to share back, a broad question and then a gradual narrowing down to the information she really wants. She focuses mostly on the here and now, but when an avenue to the past opens up, she tests it—if she feels him tensing, which is often, she pulls back and changes topic.
While they talk, Deanna begins to detect a thread of fear that’s woven through the present but also tangled up in the past, and she decides to tug on that thread.
“Louis,” she says slowly, “I sense that you’re afraid of something, but trying very hard to ignore it.”
Something inside of Louis cracks open and the contents ooze out, something that prickles Deanna’s skin and turns her stomach.
“I’m afraid something is going to happen and I’ll have to leave again,” Louis confesses.
Deanna expected avoidance, withdrawal—not a complete and instantaneous unraveling, a sudden surge of emotions so powerful that she’s consumed by it, helpless to stop the onslaught of sensations and images.
The smell of smoke, tremendous heat, flashes of flickering orange light, pain in her head and side. Will Riker standing in a corridor—uniform singed, bloodstained—then he’s blurred by tears and there’s just the pain in her head and side.
A Borg cube on a viewscreen. Data’s hand guiding her through a chaotic press of bodies.
She’s watching through a shuttlecraft window as a space station slowly disappears into the distance, a ship disappears, a planet disappears, a ship explodes.
“I don’t want Starfleet to take me away.”
Men she doesn’t recognize, a captain with four pips on his collar and a doctor in blue, a gang of yellow shirts, blood in her mouth, throat hoarse from screaming, fists aching from banging them against something solid that refuses to break.
It’s an effort to find herself amidst the maelstrom, but when she does, when she’s able to grasp her own edges, discern the border between her and Louis, Deanna closes her mind, the mental equivalent of lowering a blast door.
The roar in her head silenced, Deanna takes a deep breath and regards Louis. Instinctively, she wants to protect him, to fix the problem so he won’t be sad or angry or scared anymore…
But that’s not her job. Her job is to validate his experience, to help him recognize his emotions and deal with them.
“It must be difficult to feel as if you’re safe here when you’re so used to being in danger all the time,” she tells him quietly.
After a moment, he murmurs, “I feel safe sometimes.”
Deanna opens her mind, just enough to let in—
the scent of earl grey, the taste of bread and butter and bitter orange, her face pressed to a scratchy uniform shirt and a hand cradling her head; red hair, a soft touch on her cheek; Will’s laugh reverberating in her chest; the precise shape and volume of the space that Data takes up in any setting, any situation.
—and then she closes it tightly once more.
Afterwards, she’s feeling worn out, hollow. It’s because of this, probably, that she’s so determinedly trying to coax out the details of Beverly and the captain’s evening together.
“So, what did you have for dessert last night?”
“Cranachan.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s Scottish.”
Beverly’s answers have so far been nondescript, which is objectively completely fair given that they’re in sickbay and Data and Geordi are standing only a few feet away.
“Describe it to me,” Deanna insists. She opened her mind again, committed to catching every warm, fluttery emotion that Beverly’s trying valiantly to suppress.
Beverly arches a brow. “Describe it to you?”
“Yes. Tell me what it tastes like.”
“It tastes like cranachan.”
“And what does cranachan—” Emphasis Deanna’s— “taste like?”
Beverly smirks impishly. “It tastes like raspberries and cream.”
His tongue parting her lips, the taste of cranachan and coffee.
Smugly, Deanna says, “I thought you said you wouldn’t be able to enjoy dessert because Louis would be there.”
Beverly’s furious blush is accompanied by a brief lapse of control, a flood of sensations.
His hands on her thighs, thumbs dangerously low, stroking lines of fire against her skin; beneath her, between her legs—
Deanna closes her mind again until the sensory extras fade away. She doesn’t not want the juicy details, but that was about to go too far.
Data tilts his head. “Doctor, my counterpart’s memory records indicate that Louis has an immense fondness for sweets. Was he not invited to partake in dessert?”
“Children typically don’t partake until they’re much older,” Deanna informs him, at which point several things click into place for Geordi and he turns away to hide a smile. Beverly’s lips are pursed, her emotions a mix of annoyance and amusement.
Data’s face is scrunched in consternation. “Counselor, I do not believe that statement is accurate. I have witnessed children eating dessert on several occasions, and—”
A burst of something warm and bright in the corridor draws Deanna’s attention and she turns towards it with an involuntary exclamation.
Immediately on alert, Beverly moves to stand beside her. “What is it?”
“The captain and Louis,” Deanna replies. Their emotions are as recognizable to her as their faces or their voices would be. Beverly’s anxiety nibbles at the edges of her awareness. “Everything’s fine,” she says. “Don’t worry. They’re…I don’t know what they’re talking about, but there’s an intense feeling of love flowing back and forth between them right now. It’s really quite beautiful.”
She hums a note of contentment, that warm, bright feeling wrapping her up exactly like in all her memories of her father’s embrace. The sensation lingers even as the doors open. Louis and Captain Picard walk in together, Louis tucked into the place at the captain’s side that seems as if it was made for him.
There’s a moment where everything is still and silent, like a held breath, and then the captain lifts his head and his eyes meet Beverly’s and there’s a simultaneous ignition in both of them, a concurrent swell of attraction in both of them that builds and erupts and rushes forward and collides.
To Deanna it’s as if a bomb detonated somewhere in between Captain Picard and Beverly. Even with her mind partially closed she can’t avoid the emotional shrapnel.
Beverly’s weight in her lap, the texture of her tights—
The clean scent of Jean-Luc’s skin, standard issue soap or aftershave, she can’t tell—
Deanna giggles, then presses her hand to her mouth to stifle it. “I’m sorry, it’s—I have to—I’ll be right back.”
Her entire body alight with—frankly—unwanted sensations, Deanna escapes to Beverly’s office to cool down, replicating a literal ice pack to speed the process. Later, she’ll realize that she probably deserves this. She pried, and now she’ll be haunted for an eternity. She’ll conclude, also later, that her suffering might be lessened if she had someone to suffer with—and that someone, she decides with a grin that’s equal parts wicked and fond, will be Will Riker.
