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Who: Beverly Crusher and Friends!
Broadcast: No
Action: Blue Fish
When: October 13th

[Dr. Beverly Crusher, Personal Log, October 13, Seventh Month after arrival. Today is my birthday.

Theoretically.

With a sigh, Beverly stops typing. Normally, she is all about birthdays, both her own and everyone else's but today... frankly, today is weird. By her own calendar, her birthday should have been two months ago, yet time isn't flowing normally back home. Or time isn't flowing here normally. Or something. Damn alternate universes. And does it even matter when no one is aging anyway? She rubs her temples. This is too much to think about before breakfast (though admittedly, the vagaries of traveling through spacetime are better to focus on than the fact that there is no one from home to celebrate with in the first place).

Once she has some coffee in her, she comes to a decision. Real birthday or not, she's going to give herself a little holiday. Which means people aren't going to be seeing her around the dusty moon, or much at all really. After taking a nice long hot bath, and changing, for once, into something other than the fleet issued jumpsuits, she spends most of the day in her quarters, reading and listening to old letters on her tricorder. Even if she can't be with them today, she at least wants to hear Wesley and Jean-Luc and Deanna, surround herself with their voices. It doesn't make her as sad as it once did. Instead, she finds the recordings comforting, for the most part.

Late in the afternoon, however, she will emerge to set up shop in the kitchen where she's going to bake herself a cake! If anyone wants to find her (or that yummy smelling cake), that's where she'll be, humming a jazzy little tune as she cooks.]

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Me either. Today has been... an unusual birthday to say the least. The crew has been so sweet though, so that part is like home at least.

I'm glad. Even if you're not home, you're still surrounded by people who will support and celebrate with you. It's... a good feeling.

[Beverly doesn't answer, just smiles happily in response before getting up to cut Jennifer a slice of cake. It's a simple single layer yellow cake with homemade vanilla icing - though there's significantly less icing than she intended, given her and Sokka's competition earlier. Placing it on a plate, she brings it over to her friend.]

And thank goodness I'm surrounded by people more than happy to help me eat this thing.

There's that, too- thank you. Any occasion to have a cake is a good one. [She thought back to her sleeping/fainting spells and realized- she was surrounded by people who cared, too. Beverly, Steven, Davesprite, Wanda... and others.] Maybe if someone else comes to visit, I can get a start on this getting-to-know-people stuff, too.

I'm sure someone else will stop by... This kitchen attracts a lot of visitors it seems.

Then I'll stick around for a while. I'll figure things out yet... I'd just hoped that by now I'd know how to be social. But then, I didn't exactly have a normal childhood.

What do you mean?

[Her tone is curious, but not pressing.]

If it's alright to ask, I mean. I can't exactly say I like talking about mine either.

[Jennifer sighed a little and could feel herself going red.]

I was one of those genius kids. I skipped 3 grades in elementary school, was in college and had enough for a bachelor's degree before I was 18... so that left me in a weird position. I was a bit too young to relate to my classmates, but most people my age found it hard to relate to me. I never belonged anywhere, no matter where I ended up. I didn't have much of a social life 'til I was an adult and my friends on Atlantis made an effort to include me in things. So I guess I never learned how to be social, in a sense.

You sound like Wesley.

[She takes her seat again.]

I never worried about how he was doing in school or if he was getting into trouble... in fact, I worried he wasn't getting into enough trouble. He spent all his time alone, tinkering on some project or another, or with me or sometimes with some of the other senior officers, but rarely with kids his own age. I thought...

I thought I was partially to blame. I mean, having your mother as one of the senior officers, it's a little like being the principal's kid isn't it? But it wasn't that at all.

[Jennifer smiled softly.]

No, it wasn't you- any more than it was my parents who made me the way I am. When you're struggling to relate to people your own age but still at that stage where hanging out with adults is weird, sometimes it's hard to enjoy anyone's company but your own. Sometimes that's all you want. I mean, I hate to sound like a braggart, but really intelligent people tend to forget that not everyone sees things the same way or understands things as readily as they do. And when you're a child and even grown-ups can't follow you sometimes... [She shrugged.] Coupled with my aforementioned shyness, it made me stand out, not always in a good way. So I retreated in on myself a lot. It was easier than trying to talk to people.

[This makes a her a little sad to hear, not just for Jennifer, but for Wesley too. Even now, when he's found what he wants to be, where he belongs, he's still so isolated. Beverly reaches across the table for Jennifer's hand.] If it's any help, I don't know anyone else in the fleet I feel more at home with than you.

It does. ... It helps a lot. [Jennifer smiled softly at the touch.] My friends back home... some of them knew what it was like, and that helped me feel better about myself and like it was okay to let people in. John- he was our ranking military officer- acted the lazy fool so nobody knew how smart he really is, and he gets underestimated a lot. Rodney dealt with it by being a jerk most of the time, but he still comes through when you need him, and everyone respects him for it. I've got people I like, people I trust, and even though they're few, it's been good for me. I want to capture that again.

[She nods.] It's hard here, even as used to moving as I am, to getting transferred to a new post. This is different. Everyone's out of place, so we have to make our own place, out of a situation none of us want to be in.

Yeah... at least we all have that much in common. And oddly, I find it easy to relate to people when they're my patients, but outside of that? Not so much.

No... that makes sense to me. When someone comes to the clinic, there are very clear roles: you're the doctor, they're the patient. There are usually pre-established expectations of what those roles entail and you're both working towards the same goal, so it's easier to know how to act.

Yeah... that's a good way of putting it. And when people are sick or in pain, sometimes they can't even speak to me beyond expressing that. So when I'm in that mindset, and have a specific thing to talk about and a goal to focus on... it's easier to navigate than just chatting to a stranger. [She laughed nervously.] I know... I need to just go out and do it. Stop feeling so self-conscious, you know?

But easier said than done, isn't it?

It is- and when I don't do it, when I put it off and continue keeping to myself, I feel self-conscious about THAT, too. It's a vicious cycle.

Try not to be so hard on yourself. Start out small. There are a lot of projects going up on the Iskaulit… maybe you could offer to help with one of those. That way, there’s a certain goal in mind and everyone is working towards that, so there’s not as much pressure to socialize.

That's not a bad idea- I'd kinda forgotten about the Iskaulit, to be honest. I've not had much of a reason to go over there, since my clinic idea ended up not working out.

Well, Ino and I would be happy to have you in the garden. Or, if this would be of more interest, I know Jim Barnes is setting up a gym. There's the bar as well but... I don't know how that's proceeding.

I'm not a huge drinker, anyway... but the gym sounds good. I need to spar... become slightly less sucky at fighting.

[Beverly smiles.] You should talk to him then! I admit, I don't know him well, but he seems like a very nice person.

I'll do that. ... thanks for the advice. And for listening to me. I feel like I should have all this figured out by now, you know?

Believe me, no one has it all figured out in their twenties. Hell, I don't have it all figured out now at... [She rests her chin on her hands.] Whatever age I am.

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