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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Ned is finishing a task of collecting water from the spring to bring back to the Weirwood sapling he planted not far from his family home, which has surprisingly done well despite everything. He's returning the basin he borrowed from the Inn when he spots a woman he's seen around the village before, but with whom he has not yet made an introduction. He is a bit too far to hear what she is saying, though the sight of her - raising and lowering her limbs as though she has never seen them before - is a bit .. alarming. With the recent plague's memory still fresh in his mind, he wonders if it's still circulating and if she's currently hallucinating with fever.

Although he had intended on going into the Inn to begin with, he decides to focus less on returning the basin in his hand and more on the woman, to ensure that she's well. He follows in after her, eyeing her inconspicuously before disappearing in the back to place the basin back in the pantry. When he emerges, he finds her still doing the same inspection of her limbs, only inside now. After some deliberation, he approaches her.

"Forgive me, I could not help but notice - are you quite well?"

Wanda was working in the kitchen when Beverly walked into the inn. She hadn't seen the older woman that morning, having left the house at day break, nor had she considered that something strange might be happening in the village. The disappearing fruit had been strange enough, little did Wanda know, that it was just the start of the oddities.

She paused when she walked from the kitchen, staring at Beverly. She had gotten to know the doctor decently well over the last few weeks of living together and it wasn't hard to see that something was wrong.

"Beverly? What is it?"

Wanda stepped closer, her eyes falling to the ground as she noticed the lack of a shadow.

This time she is definitely not hallucinating with fever, at least not that she's aware of. Given the nature of this place and whoever the Observers are, she wouldn't put it past them to have put that one on her twice in such a short time, though. They haven't proven to be altruistic in any means.

Still, when the man finally approaches her, she offers a tight smile and then shakes her head. "I'm fine," she assures him. "I've just been checking to see if my shadow's going to reappear." It sounds so strange when she says it, but that is the truth. She hasn't been casting a shadow all day and it's odd. As if to illustrate her point, she holds her arm next to the closest light source. Still no shadow.

"Do you see anything or am I the only one who can't?"

Beverly has enjoyed having more people in the house. Jean-Luc is always a welcome sight, but Beverly is a people person. She likes being surrounded by people she cares for. Having Jean-Luc, Wanda, and Clint around means she has people to go home to, people to talk with and bond with. It's much better for her than living alone. Moving in with Clint and Wanda was one of the best things she could have done.

Beverly wiggles her fingers at Wanda's question, her gaze also on the floor, where the shadow still has not turned up. "You don't see anything, do you?" she asks, as though she might not be trusting her perceptions. Or senses. "I haven't seen my shadow all day. Everything else seems to cast one, but not me."

Baze is coming out of the woods with a couple dead squirrels he's caught-- too late for lunch, maybe, but good for dinner or an overnight stew-- rather proud of himself for using the bow instead of his snares, this time, when he spots the redheaded doctor twitching her arms around. He's just close enough to hear her comment, as he approaches. "No shadow? That's not possible, is it?"

And yet, looking down at her feet, he doesn't see anything, either.

Wanda looked down at Beverly's feet and then circled the woman with an inquisitive stare. "No. You don't have a shadow." She then stood next to Beverly. Her own shadow stretched out along the floor while Beverly had none.

Wanda had absolutely no explanation for this. It didn't make any sense.

She looked up at Beverly with a worried crease to her brow. "How do you feel?" She can't help but worry. What illness takes away a persons shadow? Unless this was some weird twisted Peter Pan reference. Wanda was having trouble wrapping her head around it.

At the inn, Peggy's there for her daily check-in to see if James has returned back or whether he's yet another name to add to her list of those who have vanished when she comes across Beverly, looking a touch like she's been thinking rather strongly on something. Drifting to her side, she gives her an attentive look. "Do you mind if I sit?" she asks, gesturing to the chair beside her.

Something is going on, something terribly strange, but right now, Peggy can't put her finger on it, only that there's something she ought to be noticing and isn't.

Beverly glances up at the voice, recognizing the person, and then shrugs. "It shouldn't be, as far as I'm aware," she replies. "But... I don't seem to have anything. And yet, you do. Switch places with me? Maybe it's something about where I'm standing."

She shifts around to give him space to take her place, unconvinced that this idea is the case. Wherever they are and whoever is in charge, things like this never quite seem to have a logical answer. It's enough to make a Vulcan crazy.

It definitely makes no sense to either of them. Beverly has no explanation, either, and that is what unsettles her. Maybe Data or Geordi might be able to come up with something, but without either of them, or even Wesley, she has nothing.

"I feel fine," she answers with a helpless shrug. "This is nothing like the last time I was sick here. I almost wish it did. At least then I'd have a better idea of what's going on. Have you seen anyone else without a shadow today?"

Beverly seems to snap out of her thoughts at the sound of the voice, but she smiles as she spots Peggy. Giving her head a slight shake, she motions for the other woman to sit with her. "Not at all. I've been meaning to see how you're doing lately anyway."

Beverly might have something strange to worry about, but she wouldn't be the woman she is if she didn't ask after everyone else around her before addressing her own problems.

Peggy settles, rather happy for the distraction given that there appears to be no trace of Barnes being back from wherever he is (if he's even still here, given that she doesn't have high hopes for him after she knows she's lost Steve). "It's touch and go," is all that Peggy says, treating this as a mission report rather than being something more personal.

"And you? Last I saw you, I believe you thought I was your son," she says, straining to recall Beverly's feverish words.

It's not directly Jean-Luc's intention to head for the Inn, for all that he's aware that it's lunch time. Still, he stops for a moment when his path happens to cross Beverly's, and though he wouldn't have noticed that she doesn't have a shadow had it not been for the fact that he happens on her just in time to overhear her comment about it, it is a little strange.

Which he's coming to expect of the village thus far, but this is beyond even what he might have expected.

(And he does stop to make sure that he's still casting a shadow before he answers.)

"Not that I'm aware of. I'm assuming this is something that's only just started?"

And indeed, should she look, he is casting a shadow, just as he should be.

It's the mission report style briefing that tells Beverly that whatever Peggy has been up to, it hasn't all been good. She won't press, at least, not now. Instead, she offers a sympathetic glance before it turns slightly sheepish.

"Think you can forgive me for that?" she jokes lightly. She remembers snatches of the fever dreams and the illness itself, but not quite everything. Vague memories of each delusion surface before she pinpoints the one that featured Wesley. "As much as I would love to see him again, I know he's not here. And you are definitely not the same person."

But she's all right otherwise, given the way she's been walking ever since and how coherent and lucid she is now. Everything's been all right since, thankfully.

Her lips twist. "You probably have a lot of questions to ask about that and I won't blame you for them." She might even be more willing to answer them now, since the fever dreams blew open a lot of her secrets.

"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.

Wanda shook her head from side to side. She thought back to the strange happenings of this month: Clint and Hawke. They had different things happen but there had been on thing in common between the two events.

"Did a fruit disappear in front of you before losing your shadow?" She wasn't sure if Beverly knew but if she was a victim of one of the strange fruits then at least Wanda could confirm that it'd go away on its own. As it is now, it's more than a little unsettling and certainly due to some mischief of the overseers.

That wasn't a comforting thought.

It's enough to bother a rational rebel sort, too. Baze circles her once to try and find some sort of shadow, before moving to stand in her spot. Nope, he still has his shadow. (His own fading will start tomorrow, and then maybe it will make a little more sense.) "Are you still solid?" he asks. That's the only reason he can think of why someone wouldn't have a shadow, if light just went through her, along with anything else.

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."

"Your - shadow?" Ned inquires, unsure if he has heard her correctly. The statement draws his gaze away from her face and down towards the ground, eyes in search of aforementioned entity - which, now that his attention has been brought to it, he is unable to locate it around her body. He glances down towards the ground underneath him to verify whether or not it might be the dim lighting of the Inn that has caused such a thing, but there his blackened self lies - starkly contrasted in darkness compared to what is underneath her.

"No, you are not the only one," he finally says, lifting his eyes to meet hers, curiosity and confusion in his. "When did this start happening?"

"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.

"If it has been longer, I've been less observant than I thought," she muses, glad at least to see Jean-Luc here. Maybe he can help her figure it out, because she's at a bit of a loss. "I've never seen anyone lose a shadow like this before. I'm assuming it's some new trick from the Observers, but why I'm not sure."

Or how to get it back. She would like it back, if only so she can feel normal again.

She glances at him, noting his shadow. "I see it's only me with this problem. I wonder why?"

Beverly isn't entirely sure what a fruit has to do with anything. Her brow furrows slightly and she shakes her head at the question. "No. I haven't had any fruit today. Why? Is something wrong with the fruit here now?"

She watches him try to sort things out with her and for all that it's comforting that it isn't just something she can't see or figure out, the fact that he's still got his shadow is decidedly distressing. That might mean that something is wrong with her, though what it is she can't figure out. She feels fine at the moment and she's been touching things all day. That doesn't mean she's still solid now, though.

So she holds out a hand to him. "As far as I know, but try touching my arm. Maybe I'm not now."

She shoots him a resigned sort of look, the kind that says she knows how strange it sounds and asks him to humor her for a short time. On the plus side, he at least seems to be willing to do that much, glancing around her, presumably for her shadow. His shadow seems to be perfectly intact and that makes her wonder more.

"I first noticed it about midday," she admits, almost apologetically. "I wasn't paying much attention before that. Have you noticed anyone else with this problem?"

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