sixthiterationlogs | i wear my heart on my shirt

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i wear my heart on my shirt

WHO: Beverly Crusher
WHERE: The Inn, her house, fountain square, the spring
WHEN: August 15-20
OPEN TO: every section is OTA
WARNINGS: Mentions of: death, terrorist attacks, being held hostage. She'll be having delirious flashbacks and I'll update warnings as needed based on threads.

August 15th is mostly a normal day for Beverly. The luncheon is nice, the only difference to her day. Otherwise, she spends the day at the hospital doing her duty or at her house, working in the garden or inside. It's while she's in the garden that she begins to notice how... off she feels. It isn't much at first, though she wobbles a bit when she tries to move and can often be found leaning over with her hands on her thighs and her eyes closed. Sometimes she's even very obviously leaning against the fence itself for support, and she isn't entirely sure she can manage to make it through.

Eventually, she manages to get back into the house. Just inside the door, she calls out, "Jean-Luc―" and falls to her knees on the floor.

The 16th hits her hard. Visitors may be welcome to stop by while she's sick, but she may or may not be lucid. During those lucid moments, she's chilled and feverish and very obviously ill, but she can at least hold a decent conversation. When she isn't lucid... less than pleasant may not accurately describe her condition. She paces when she can pull herself out of bed, and when Jean-Luc will allow her to. While stuck in bed, she rolls and tosses, not entirely aware of her surroundings, and can be heard mentioning something called the "Ansata" or "Cardassians" with a tone of distate mixed with fear. Someone lucky might even hear "Q" in a tone of quiet loathing. The unlucky may hear something else in a tone of cold and very real fear: "It's the Borg."

Early on the 17th, she starts escaping. It's never for long, but any time Jean-Luc needs to use the bathroom or make tea or food or check on her garden or even closes his eyes for half a second she takes the opportunity to flee. She's fast for someone who's as ill as she is. Clearly there's a lot of built-up energy inside her. Either that or she's literally running on empty and will drop to the ground in the next instant. Either way, she ends up in places like the Inn or fountain square. One time, she even makes it to the spring, where she ends up cooling herself off by swallowing a bit of it at some point. By the end of the day, she's back in bed.

For the 18th and 19th, she stays in bed for any visitors who might want to come by again, but this time Jean-Luc is stricter about her confinement. It's just as well, though she isn't in any frame of mind and hasn't the strength to escape again. By the 20th she has miraculously recovered and after lunch, she heads back to the Inn to see if she can find anyone who visited or might have heard that she was ill so she can reassure them that she's fine.

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Caught something? A deep frown crosses Beverly's face. They're talking about the Borg and the only thing she could have caught from the Borg is a severe case of assimilation. One hand reaches up to her neck, brushing across the skin between her jaw and her collarbone, first on one side and then the other.

"I can't have caught anything," she protests, as though it makes all the sense in the world. "I can't feel any puncture wounds on my neck and I don't think my skin's going gray. I don't feel anything." But how would she know? She's never been assimilated before and she isn't about to ask Jean-Luc.

Though if Peggy really doesn't know what the Borg are, she should probably be warned. As much as the not-very-lucid Beverly can manage, anyway. "The Borg. They're a cybernetic race. The way they 'reproduce' is by assimilating every sentient humanoid species they come into contact with."

Peggy presses her lips together until they're flat and vanished, seeing as she doesn't think that sensible conversation is going to do much good at this point. Keeping her eyes on Beverly to ensure she's not about to do anything silly like try and run, she lets the other woman talk it out, deciding that they're going to need to get some fluids into her.

"It sounds awful, I'm glad they're not here," she says, punctuating the last two words of her sentence awfully hard. "Beverly, how do you feel about drinking some tea while I fetch you a cold compress for your forehead?" she suggests. "Wouldn't that be lovely?"

Sensible conversation is, unfortunately, not something Beverly is particularly capable of at the moment. She's trying, but her mind is a mess. It's foggy and clogged up with water. Thinking straight just isn't going to happen.

"So am I," she says fervently, in reference to the Borg not being here. She still isn't sure what she would do if they did turn up. "All right." Tea does sound good, even if she's now straining a bit to make sure she can't hear any cybernetic movements outside.

"I just hope they stay away. It's possible to sever a drone's connection to the collective, I've done it before, but it's tricky and I don't have the equipment necessary here... I think. We don't have laser scalpels here, do we?"

As if Peggy would know what she's talking about.

Peggy is grateful to have this win, nodding her head with mild victory as she reaches out to squeeze Beverly's shoulder gently, a reminder that she's still there. "Yes, I hope they stay away as well," she agrees, choosing to play along with whatever odd fantasy that Beverly has concocted at the moment in her mind. "We have regular scalpels and I have every bit of faith in your ability to make it work."

Perhaps she shouldn't be encouraging someone with a hazy state of mind into using scalpels at this moment, so she busies herself with the tea and compress, bringing them back and setting the tea on the table. "Here we are," she murmurs, resting the cloth on Beverly's forehead gently. "Let's let that sit for a moment."

Soon enough she'll have a garden of chamomile and she'll be able to make more tea out of that. One day she'll hope for a replicator, too, so maybe she and Jean-Luc can have earl grey tea instead of this limited supply. There are a lot of things a replicator could fix, even if they'd have a hell of a time figuring out a power supply.

Especially without a proper Starfleet engineer around.

She can't help the slight wrinkle that creases her brow at the mention of "regular scalpels," though she doesn't say much about it at the moment. Regular ones probably aren't as good as the ones she's used to. Nothing else here is as non-invasive as she likes. Needles, syringes, scalpels. She'd hate to see what surgical equipment is like.

Her hazy mind doesn't remember that she already has.

"Thank you," she says instead, both to the reassurance that she could make it work and to the tea and compress that suddenly appear. When did Peggy go to get those? She really must be out of it.

"I haven't been sick in years," she complains softly. "We've eradicated just about every Earth-borne illness. Even the common cold. If I had my medicine and a decent hypospray, I'm sure I could cure this... whatever it is."

The Starfleet officers are just a little bit spoiled with regard to the technology level and even the society that they're used to. Not having anything is really starting to wear on the doctor.

Peggy hums softly at the thanks, her worry still brewing about Beverly's condition. While she can apply these little bits of field medicine, she's hardly in a position to diagnose anything serious. There's a part of her that worries that if this is something like the flu that people are talking about, they don't have near enough drugs to be able to treat this the way that she'd want to see it treated.

"To be fair, there is a hypothesis that we're not on earth," she says, which possibly isn't what Beverly wants to talk about, given that she's not likely in the mood to debate where they are. "Do you think there's any sort of medicine around here that we could use?" she asks, trying to prod and poke to see whether Beverly has received any mysterious boxes that might come to be of use.

On the plus side, she's slowly making her way down towards a more lucid frame of mind. The down side is that it's taking its sweet time getting there.

"You know, I was saying that not long ago," Beverly agrees almost eagerly, as if she's glad to finally have the excuse to talk about things like this. Things she's not supposed to talk about. "It's like we're in a simulation or a created planet or moon. I can't imagine that it's Earth or even a real planet. There's no way for anyone to be able to reverse or halt a planet's rotation. It's just not possible."

The question catches her by surprise and she has to take a few long minutes to think it over. Eventually, she shakes her head and then promptly winces at the spike of pain through her head. "No. I don't think so. My garden's almost bloomed, but it's not ready yet and even that won't really do much for this. We just need to bring my fever down."

A cold compress, or what passes for one here, will help more than most anything else right now.

Peggy reaches forward to adjust the compress when it begins to slide off, cautious not to distress Beverly too much in the process. "No, it seems a bit strange, not to mention the part where time and space seem to be useless pieces of information," she can't help point out, seeing as it shouldn't be so normal for people from all walks of life and points in the timeline to exist in the same place.

"Well, I've got a cold cloth on your head and tea at your hands, any more than that and I'm afraid we're out of my comfort zone," Peggy confesses. "Is there anything I can do apart from that to help? Would you like to try and eat something?"

"That is odd," Beverly allows, "but not as odd as you might think."

Alternate universes are more common for Starfleet to wander into, and mirror universes also exist, but a part of her isn't that surprised to find so many people from strange places around. For all they know, these places are just other planets the Federation has yet to find. The Delta Quadrant, maybe. They haven't exactly done much in the way of exploring that quadrant of space.

"You're doing fine," Beverly says, managing a smile. She's slowly coming back to herself, slowly finding herself more coherent and able to focus. She's also starting to realize that she's been saying a few things she might not have wanted to. Or even realized she was saying. So it takes her a minute or two before she realizes that Peggy asked a couple of questions.

"I guess so. It couldn't hurt, but I don't want to keep you here too long. I'm sure Jean-Luc isn't far." He's probably in the next room, resting or something. She doubts he's sleeping, if she's as sick as this.

"I'm just beginning to expand my horizons when it comes to odd," Peggy confesses, because while she'd dealt with her fair share of 084s back home, they had all still fit into her general worldview. Here, it seems as though that view is being stretched further than she would have imagined thanks to things that she hadn't even thought about before being possible.

She can't help but give a soft huff of wry laughter, what with Beverly coaching her when she's the one who feels ill. "Jean-Luc?" she echoes, giving Beverly a curious look. "You'll have to let me in on the secret of who he is," she prods.

They've spoken about aliens briefly once and Beverly was fairly cagey about it. Now that she's spent more time here, getting to know Peggy and now spewing all kinds of details about her own timeline and universe, there's not as much that she wants to keep quiet. Some things, yes, but not all.

"It's hard not to have an expanded definition when you travel the stars," she offers before Peggy's next question has her pausing.

Jean-Luc is both the easiest and most difficult person to explain. For all that she's grown to appreciate and trust some of the people here, Beverly hasn't touched much on Jack. To really explain how complicated her relationship with Jean-Luc is, she would need to, but she isn't sure that's necessary.

"He's my captain," she answers, her lips curling upwards fondly. "And he's one of my best friends. We've known each other for a long time."

"The stars came to us," Peggy admits, given that it's the only way that she can explain items like the Tesseract and the 084s that came crashing to earth, only to be found and misused by humanity. She's extremely grateful that they move on to speak of other things, since she's not sure she likes to linger on such other topics.

"How long is a long time?" she asks, smiling warmly as she adjusts the compress and offers the water again, preferring to focus on happier topics.

"Since I was a student at the Academy. Twenty, almost thirty years ago," Beverly answers. "He was Jack's best friend first, but the three of us were all good friends. Jean-Luc's been a mentor and even something of a father-figure for my son, Wesley."

Taking the cup again, she sips for a bit, letting her hands wrap around it for something to hold. Her gaze moves to focus on the cup, unsure if she wants to go into the situation surrounding her husband's death. They're on a decent topic, but it's a precarious one and can easily go downhill.

"I am glad he's here," she adds on after another few seconds. "Nerys is nice, but it's always good to have someone you know from your universe."

Nerys has been nothing but wonderful since they first spoke when Beverly arrived, but no one is quite like Jean-Luc or Deanna for Beverly.

Peggy wonders if any of the men that she works with (or worked with, given the strangeness of using the past tense to think about them) would still be at her side in twenty to thirty years. She'd like to think that Mr. Jarvis and Daniel certainly would be and she knows she can't get rid of Howard, but she supposes that even men like Jack and Jason could be there.

It's all hypothetical, of course, seeing as she's here, now. "Nerys is a lovely woman, I've been rather happy to get to know her. I find when we speak, I learn a great deal about the future, from theology to holodeck technology," she says. "Here," she murmurs, when the cup is done with, setting it aside.

"I didn't know you had a son," Peggy says tenderly. "You must miss him dearly."

Beverly isn't surprised to hear that Nerys is making friends here. For all that they might not know each other well, she can tell that Nerys is a wonderful person. She's been through a lot, but what Bajoran hasn't at this point? Still, Beverly appreciates her and hopes that they will or have cultivated a friendship of sorts.

"See, the ironic part is that she's not bound by the Prime Directive, so she can say anything she wants and it wouldn't matter. But if Jean-Luc or I do, we'll get debriefed." Or maybe face a court martial. It's not that she finds it unfair, exactly, but there's definitely a level of loyalty that Starfleet officers have to exercise on a good day. Especially here.

The topic of Wesley is a bittersweet one, though. For all that Beverly is a proud mother who loves talking about her son, she absolutely misses him. But not for the reasons Peggy likely thinks.

"I do," she confirms, her expression turning a little bit wistful, "but I haven't seen him in three years. He quit Starfleet to explore other planes of existence and I worry about him every day. I don't know where he is or what he's doing and I have to believe that you're still all right. But I can't stop you. It's your choice, Wesley. I can't stop you from making that choice."

Something in her shifts, her fever-delusions picking back up again. The longer she speaks, the stronger her delusion becomes, until she seems to think that Peggy is her son and that she's speaking to him one last time before he leaves.

"You do know that you're not back at home anymore," she says, which is a great deal of the pot calling the kettle black given how apprehensive Peggy has been to divulge classified information to anyone that she doesn't trust (or knows comes from a similar background and could be looped in), but at the same time, perhaps this is her working her way around to believing that she needn't be so secretive either about the past.

It's good, then, to think about this son of Beverly's, listening intently as she talks about him. "I'm sorry," she says, shaking her head. "Planes of existence?" She'd just begun to wrap her head around the time and the space travel, but this is a new one that might be quite difficult. "How does that even work?"

She's well aware of that fact. But Starfleet is strict about this sort of thing and the people who will debrief her are not known for their leniency. Temporal Investigations is the least fun group to have to deal with. She's already going to have to see them because of what happened just before she turned up here. Adding all of her village life here to that isn't going to be pleasant.

Unfortunately, she's lost the ability to comment on that, focused still on the idea that she's talking to Wesley rather than Peggy.

She shrugs at that question. "I'm assuming it means what it sounds like. Alternate universes and all sorts of things. You'll have so many adventures. I expect a full report when you get back."

Peggy's mouth is open as she begins to realize that Beverly isn't speaking to her so much anymore, though she's not about to say as much on the off chance that she somehow alarms her. She simply leans in and switches the cold compress so that the cooler side is now on the skin as she strokes her hair back from her forehead.

"Yes, I assure you, there'll be a full set of documented descriptions," she says, playing along with this little game because she doesn't know what else to do. "I might fetch another doctor, if you don't mind, while I'm gone?"

They can likely have a better talk when she's not in and out of delirium from the fever. She gives her head a slight shake, wincing as pain slices through her. "I don't know that anyone else will be able to go or else I'd find a way to be your doctor. And I'll be fine. I've got Doctor Selar and Nurse Ogawa to help me. You just... do your best to come back in one piece, all right?"

For a few seconds, she pauses, and then very quietly adds on, "I know your father would have been proud of you, Wesley. Jack would have wanted you to have your own life." Tears prick her eyes ever so slightly, as though her mind knows that this is still a difficult subject, for all that she thinks she's talking to her son.

She'll probably have to explain that later, too.

At this point, Peggy thinks it's far kinder to simply coax Beverly to get some rest. She's not entirely sure what else there is, not when a fever has grown so high that it's causing her to become delirious and mistake her for someone else. Best to play into it, then. "We'll talk about it later," she murmurs, keeping her voice even and calm. "Rest now," she says.

"Sleep," she adds, a touch half-frantic on the hopes that Beverly will listen to good advice and begin to rest. "I'll be here when you wake. We can talk then."

Beverly nods, seeming to take Peggy's advice the way she would have Wesley's. A smile crosses her face as she settles in against the pillows, her heavy eyelids closing as she drifts off to sleep again. Later on, they will certainly need to have a talk. Later, when she can actually hold a decent conversation.

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i wear my heart on my shirt

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