sixthiterationlogs | fading in and out

Entry tags:

fading in and out

WHO: Beverly Crusher
WHERE: Outside mostly
WHEN: backdated to October 14th
OPEN TO: Everyone!
WARNINGS: will update if needed

A lot of things have happened since Beverly surfaced out of the fountain. Some of them have seemed almost normal for a Starfleet officer to experience, while others seemed like something a Cardassian or Q would cook up. Despite still not being pushed for Starfleet intel or information on the Enterprise, Beverly isn't entirely convinced that one of the above isn't running the entire show.

On days like today, she leans more towards Q. If she were at all aware that yesterday was her birthday, she would be even more convinced that Q is the prankster.

The day starts out as well as most, but partway through, when she's headed to the Inn for lunch, she notices that the ground is unusually bright. She lifts a hand to shade her eyes from the sun and barely anything happens. In fact, as she turns her hand over, she notices it isn't casting a shadow at all. More to the point, she isn't casting any kind of shadow. Even turning around and looking down doesn't produce anything. Nor does lifting her feet.

"The trees and buildings are all casting shadows," she comments to herself, but loudly enough for anyone nearby to hear. "Are the people just not?"

She probably looks a little strange wiggling her arms and legs around, as though a shadow will simply fall off of her if she moves enough. Eventually, she'll end up in the Inn, where she finds she is still not exactly casting a shadow, even in the unnatural light inside. Still, even shadowless people need food. And maybe a bit of company.

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"Absolutely," Peggy assures her without even a moment's thought about it. She's more than willing to offer Beverly as much benefit of the doubt as is required, because when a person is ill, nothing they say ought to be held against them. "Besides, I'll take the compliment that I looked young enough to be your son," she jokes mildly, trying to keep the mood light.

"I have a great many questions, but I'll only ask if you feel comfortable answering," Peggy says, knowing well enough that you can't draw blood from a stone.

Beverly's smile turns warmer and more genuine at Peggy's response. The other woman has always seemed very kind and compassionate and this is no different. A light laugh follows that. "He'd be twenty-five this year," she offers, another mild tease to add on. Despite the fact that she's used past tense, she seems happy to talk about him and proud, the way a mother should. Really, it's only because she hasn't seen him in three years, not because she has any idea that he might not have survive his current mission.

As though to wave away any of those thoughts and to encourage Peggy to ask away, Beverly waves a hand. A sill shadowless hand, she notes silently. "Please, feel free. I don't think there's a lot that's worth hiding at this point. You've already heard me mutter about alternate planes of existence."

"Well, in that case, perhaps only a little charmed," she teases. "I'm twenty-seven, this year," she shares, feeling not for the first time a touch out of her element given that she always feels much older than her twenty-seven years, yet, she fears that people look at her and think otherwise, given her youth.

"You spoke about missions and somewhere that Wesley had gone," she says, trying to think clearly about the words Beverly had used, but struggled to recall it. "It sounded terribly strange to me. What did your son do?"

Beverly's smile broadens just a little bit more. Honestly, she isn't all that surprised to hear how young Peggy really is. With how mature she is and how much older she acts, Peggy really does remind Beverly a bit of Wesley and any of a number of other young Starfleet officers who have all had the discipline, determination, and maturity that Peggy shows.

It's also nice to see that her sense of humor is still intact and she can take a little of Beverly's good-natured teasing.

When the question finally comes, Beverly tilts her head back slightly and lets out a breath of air. She isn't surprised to hear that particular curiosity, but it's one of the hardest to explain. There's a lot about it that even she doesn't know, that Wesley didn't really know before he set out. How does she even begin to explain that?

"I don't honestly know," she admits, her gaze moving up towards the ceiling for a moment so she can gather her thoughts. "Sometimes I think I put too much pressure on him too early, with all those stories of his father. He wanted so much to follow in Jack's footsteps for so long until he realized that he didn't have to. So when the opportunity came to really learn and grow and become himself and not just his father's son, he took it."

That's the short story, the less involved story. The one that doesn't actually explain anything. Letting her gaze fall back to Peggy, she offers an apologetic sort of smile. Time to get down to the meat of it.

"I think by now it's probably pointless to deny that my organization doesn't just explore. We explore space. We travel the stars and honestly the last time I was grounded on a planet like this was... two years ago." And that was because the Enterprise-D had crashed and they were waiting for the Enterprise-E to be built. "I think Wesley wanted to be an officer because of Jack, but he developed... I don't know. The ability to affect existence with thought? It was all a little confusing. All I know is he's literally traveling and exploring other planes of existence. I haven't seen him in three years."

The unspoken ending is that she honestly doesn't know if she'll ever see him again. She doesn't know if he's alive or dead or if he's become part of some energy something out in the universe. She chooses to believe that he's living his dream and learning all he can from the Traveler. If she doesn't, if she ever finds out that he's gone, she'll lose herself and it'll be far worse than the day she found out that her husband had been killed.

"I've heard a little of an organization like that from someone else here," Peggy admits, cutting in just a little before Beverly begins to go too far, mainly because she doesn't need to be repeating things that she already knows, for both their sakes, she thinks. It's a strange thing to hear about such abilities, mainly because of Peggy's own dealings with something vaguely similar.

"Where I come from, we saw two people impacted by an unknown substance. They developed abilities, as well," she says, careful given that she didn't want to equate zero matter with Beverly's son so cavalierly. "Do you think something was the catalyst?" she asks.

It's a curious thing and it might be pointless to try and draw parallels, but she needs to at least try and apply some logic.

Beverly isn't entirely surprised, given who else is and has been here. It's something of a relief in many ways. "Who told you?" she asks curiously, mainly so she knows who has said what and also to decide how much she can say. How much Peggy has already heard will determine the depth of her stories.

"No, not that I'm aware. Our scans would have indicated something, even if it was an anomaly. Whatever powers he has are all natural."

Not that this is too comforting, but it's better than the idea of some strange substance altering her son. Or all the things Wanda has told her so far.

"He has a guide to help him. I have to be okay with that." Her shoulders lift in a helpless sort of shrug. "I just hope he'll be all right and that one day he'll come back. It's all I have."

"Her name is Nerys, we had a rather interesting discussion about religion in terms of the planets that are visited," Peggy says, not entirely surprised by the pleasantness of the conversation, but that it had come up at all. It shows that there's always something to surprise her, here.

"Natural powers, that's...well, it's a bit new to me," she admits. "Usually, either scientific or alien interference has been the cause of people having extraordinary abilities," she says, because Peggy absolutely believes in the existence of them (she helped orchestrate it with Project Rebirth, after all), but the idea of them naturally is utterly new.

"I don't have children, but I imagine that it would be terrible to have to let them go, even for a short time," she admits. "How did you bear that separation?"

"Ah, Nerys. The one person out of the three of us who isn't bound by the Prime Directive." Beverly's lips twist with amusement in spite of the topic. She likes Nerys well enough; the Bajoran woman has proven herself to be a valuable ally and a good friend.

"Well, I can tell you that it's unusual for us, too. But Wesley always was special. He was a problem-solver from an early age. Maybe it was genetic and for whatever reason this ability just manifested in him instead of whatever genetic line it came from." She shrugs. Whether she or Jack were the genetic line no one will ever really know. The only thing that matters is that their son has it, the real thing. It's his ability to learn. His life.

"Oh it was," Beverly admits. "Letting him go was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. After losing his father twenty years prior, I wasn't ready to see him go. But if he'd stayed in Starfleet, I likely wouldn't have seen much of him anyway. He would've been assigned to some other starship and we would only have brief comm-channel communication." Admittedly, at least then she would know whether he was alive or dead and have a general sense of where he was. With this situation, she has nothing but hope. "He wasn't happy where he was and the decision to try a life of his own was his choice to make. How could I have tried to take that away from him?"

"I remember you telling me about that," Peggy says, even as she settles into the chair, crossing her legs as she leans a little towards Beverly, her interest plain both by the topic, but also to keep her mind off other things, such as the grief that's been haunting her nearly every waking moment. If she can focus on something else, then it will help.

"I suppose that's what being a parent truly is," she says, as if she has any actual experience in such things, rather than speaking from what she believes she knows. "Letting them do what they must for the greater good?"

"And you? What did you want to do?" Peggy says, because even though Beverly was clearly prioritizing her son, she still had her own desires, of course. She must have them, everyone does.

"The greater good... or their own good." Beverly shrugs lightly. "I guess it's all the same when it comes down to it. Sometimes... you just have to let them go because the more you hold them back, the more they'll fight it. And you don't want them to be miserable. I would do anything to make him happy."

Anything including letting him go and losing complete contact with him. It was the hardest decision she'd ever made, but it was the best one she could have under the circumstances.

"I would've kept him with me on the Enterprise, of course." She's a mother; of course she would rather have her child safe and with her than not. "But he really was miserable. Starfleet wasn't working out for him and it would have been such a torment to have kept him there." She takes a breath at that, her expression smoothing out into a sorrowful sort of half-smile. "I miss him, though. Every day. It's not any different from having him at the Academy on Earth and being wherever the Enterprise ends up, but at the same time... at least when he was at the Academy, I knew how to reach him."

"Not here, though," Peggy doesn't mean to bring up the sore point, but she says it before she can stop herself. Offering an apologetic look, she knows that she still has to bring up the point, because it's true. "I mean, I suppose you might put out letters to all corners whether letters in a bottle or simply ones you write and never mail, but it's not the same."

For Peggy, she'd already resolved herself to isolation, but people like Mr. Jarvis and Angie had broken through those barriers. It's the same here, but Peggy's family is long gone and the man she loves keeps going, something she is trying terribly hard not to put her thoughts towards.

Beverly shrugs in response to the observation. "It's not much different here from what it would be were I on the Enterprise. The end result is still the same. I have no idea where my son is or what he's doing. I just have to have faith in his abilities." It will always be something of a sore point for her, but what kind of mother would she be if she didn't worry about her son's well-being?

In a way, she's let go of the last piece of her husband and that is also a point that occasionally swirls around in her mind. But for all that she loved Jack with every fiber of her being, he isn't, can't, be part of her life anymore. She will always have their memories, though, and those she treasures. She has come a long way from the woman who almost lost herself to her grief and maybe that time and strength got her through letting go of her son, too.

Peggy wonders if she'll ever understand on that level. Children are not something that she's inherently ever thought about or wanted, truthfully, and yet, when people talk of them like this, she listens because on the off chance something ever happened, she wants to know how it would feel.

"Do you cope with it somehow?" Peggy tips her head to the side as she says what she does next. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but when you were ill, you said what you wanted to say, with no inhibitions. Perhaps because it's not as settled in your mind as you want it to be?"

"Would it be easy for you to watch someone you love walk off into the unknown?" Beverly points out gently. "Friend or family member doesn't matter. Of course it isn't settled, but it isn't my choice. I'd never be able to force anyone to change their minds about something like this. I wouldn't want anyone else to try to change mine."

Some people might think of her as passive because of her distaste for pressuring others or arguing about less consequential things. Her personal inner strength is in her ability to love and accept anyone. No matter what happened in the past.

As for coping mechanisms... there aren't really any good ones. Distractions, mainly, and the sheer belief that he's doing well. She keeps herself busy with her life. That's all she really can do.

"Sometimes I write him letters about what's happened to the crew or his friends. It's almost as good as having a conversation. Maybe one day I'll get a chance to show them."

"No," she says, with absolute certainty, though she hadn't known that Steve was walking away forever when he'd left her. She can still recall how she'd felt, too, watching Daniel rising up towards that zero matter and the panic she'd felt at losing both him and Jason Wilkes to it, so she understands all too well what it means to feel like that.

"I understand allowing people to make their own choices as well, even though it does lead to heartbreak." She inhales sharply to steady her emotions, not wanting to get too worn out about this. "Is there no vacation time, in that universe of his?" she can't help but joke.

Something in Peggy's reaction feels achingly familiar and for all that Beverly doesn't want to pull at something particularly painful in turn, she does reach over to rest a hand on one of Peggy's and silently give it a squeeze. Whatever pain the other woman is thinking of, Beverly thinks she can understand it. The look feels all too familiar.

But she retracts her hand quickly rather than poke at both of their wounds, managing a small smile in turn. "If there is, I don't know about it. I'll have to ask him when he comes home again." When they both come home again, but she isn't in any mood to consider the idea that they might not, that one or both might be stuck somewhere. "For all I know, time isn't even linear where he is. Wouldn't that be something to wrap your mind around?"

"I'm still not sure time is linear here," she says. "After all, I'm from the 1940's on earth and you're here talking to me about space travel and slipping into other dimensions," Peggy feels inclined to point out the obvious in that of how wildly mad that is.

It's something that, most days, she feels she's come to grips with. Then she'll have a conversation like this with Beverly and it all goes topsy-turvy again. "Do you really think we'll ever get back? Home, that is," she notes, now that the topic has been brought up.

"Well, time within our little dome seems fairly linear," Beverly replies with a light shrug. "We might be involved in some very complicated dimensional shifting and pulling, but here the days pass by pretty straight. Except for that time the sun stopped setting, but it might just have been one big long day, rather than time or even the planet we're on stopping entirely."

Of course, it might all be a simulation on a holodeck for all she knows, but she's less inclined to mention that to someone who doesn't have that sort of technology normally. She doesn't really need to throw around her conspiracy theories to people who are just trying to survive.

Peggy's question brings silence for a few seconds as Beverly mulls over that thought. She's given it consideration before and her answer is similar to her answer about Wesley. Her lips curl slightly upwards sadly. "I have to believe it," she admits. "Otherwise... why even bother fighting? I have a son to go home to and a crew that's become my family. As much as I enjoy talking to a lot of the people here and getting to know people like you, I have to believe that we'll all make it out of this cycle of torture."

"I keep thinking that I'm making some progress or that I'll find some way out, but then another month passes and something else happens that goes against every other theory I've had about this place," Peggy admits, the frustration bleeding into her voice a little. For all that she wants to think that this all has to do with zero matter, other people's experiences have gone against that.

So she has to think that they've been captured. Perhaps by someone from another world, but even then, everyone should have a weakness. That she hasn't found theirs and a way out in over a year is unacceptable, to her.

"I simply don't understand how we do that."

"I know," Beverly replies almost apologetically. She understands the sentiment, understands the feeling of hopelessness and anger. If she could do anything, if she could help figure it all out, she would. But she's at as much of a loss as Peggy.

That said, there is one theory she hasn't offered to her friend, something that won't be easy to swallow. Given that they've just been talking about time travel and extra dimensions in space, Beverly figures it might not be breaking things too much. Besides, she respects Peggy enough to offer it.

"There is one more theory Jean-Luc and I have tossed around," she adds on quietly. "In our time, the Federation has developed something called a holodeck. It uses holographic projectors to create simulations of anything you want. You have to specifically program the simulation right down to the blades of grass and the smells, but it's all very lifelike. You can't even tell the difference unless you know. For all we know... this entire valley could be an elaborate simulation, though for what purpose..." She shrugs lightly and gives a shake of her head. "It's hard to say."

She doesn't mention that holodecks can even simulate people, figuring that's a topic best left off unless Peggy asks. Some holographic people know they're holograms, but most don't and it can be an undertaking to convince them. That said, Beverly would really rather not think about her medical staff here being holograms, but at least they seem more trustworthy than that damnable Emergency Medical Hologram on the Enterprise.

"How did you manage to reproduce matter in a solid form?" Peggy asks, but her curiosity is genuine and not chiding. It's a good theory, as good as any of the others that she's heard, which means that it's viable to consider, but the only trouble is that she doesn't quite understand it totally. Programming does make sense, but wouldn't they be able to feel that something is wrong? That the trees aren't solid or the food isn't.

"I think Nerys might have mentioned something like that before, but I struggle to think that we could be in a program of sorts and not know or have it go wrong. Even then, if it is a holodeck, shouldn't there be a weakness to exploit? Programming to influence?"

"I'm sure an engineer could explain it better," she says wryly, "but it's a combination of photons and force fields." Holodeck technology is extremely complex but she's doing what she can. If Geordi turns up, she'll send him straight to Peggy to help out.

"It might not even be what I'm thinking. It might be one of those people transcending time and space just to see how humanity reacts to differing simulations." Or it could be like the SPECIES when they kidnapped Jean-Luc so many years ago, but the idea of being replaced by a copy is even less appealing than any of the others. "Or how other species react to being turned human."

It's more than Peggy will even be able to explain and it sounds like a wondrous thing that can't quite be put down into words, but she's more than happy to go with that. "I assure you, I've always been human," she quips, though she's sure that people have made plenty of comments and jokes in the past about Peggy's ability to be more than that.

"Even so, one day, there'll be a flaw," she insists, because she has to believe that. "We'll exploit it, somehow, and maybe that will be our way home."

"As have I," Beverly returns with an equal tease, gentle even in its amusement. Despite having been born on Earth's moon and growing up on a planet in another part of the galaxy, she is still entirely human.

"Exactly. We'll make the most of it. Not even the best simulation can go on forever."

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fading in and out

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