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Who: Beverly Crusher
Broadcast: No
Action: Blue Fish
When: May 10 (Mother's Day for anyone who celebrates it)

[Having had her fill of the casino scene for now, Beverly is back on board the Blue Fish, hard at work in their sickbay. She quickly discovered that she is unable to download the Starfleet database from her newly-obtained tricorder to the ship's computers, so she has been painstakingly typing up some of the more important information. Right now, she's going back over some of her own medical logs from the Enterprise, editing typos and adding comments where necessary. It's a slow process, but the more projects she has to work on, the better. Today is a day she'd rather not think too much about.

Unfortunately for her, Atroma is not going to allow that to happen.

Hi, Mom! says a bright, chipper voice. A voice she would recognize anywhere, the most important voice in the world to her.

She stands abruptly, knocking her chair over in the process. Where is his voice coming from? Did he... is he really here? A momentary surge of hope flows through her.]

Wesley?

[He continues to speak, Sorry I haven't written in a while. Things have been so crazy at the Academy lately. We got a new member of the Nova Squadron today, her name is Sito Jaxa and she's from Bajor! She's got a pretty cute nose...

Beverly gasps, feeling as if someone's just stabbed her in the heart and twisted the knife. This is only a recording, and an old one at that, before the incident with the Squadron, before Sito... scrambling around the room, she finds the tricorder where she left it sitting on a nearby table. A small hologram of Wesley is being projected above it as he talks. For a solid minute or two, she simply stares at the hologram, not really comprehending his words.

Anyway, I just wanted to wish you a happy Mother's Day! I miss you! His smile is so wide, so happy, and then the hologram shuts off. Beverly picks up the tricorder and scrolls through the messages. There they all are, every single letter he ever sent her while he was away, the videos she sent back of planets she had visited, holoimages of the two of them together on the Enterprise. She is absolutely certain these weren't here when she first got the tricorder out of the voucher machine. Selecting another letter at random, she hits play. There's no hologram this time, but he's excited: it was his first day of zero-g training. She picks up her fallen chair and drags it over to the table so she can sit and just listen.

Suddenly, it all gets to be too much and she begins to cry. Once she starts, she finds she can't stop, so she just lets it go and falls forward, elbows on the table and head in her hands, desperately hoping no one will see her like this.]

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[Beverly pats his hand, almost like she's the one doing the comforting, not Sokka. ]

Thank you. It really does mean a lot to me. You see, today is a holiday in my world: Mother's Day.

Edited 2015-05-12 03:13 (UTC)

[And on hearing that, his heart sinks. He knows where this conversation will go and a part of him wants to get up and walk out right now, to avoid it completely. But that wouldn't be fair to Beverly, she needs him.

Besides, if she's going to have this conversation, best it's with him instead of Katara. Still, his shoulders hunch a little, and his usual humour vanishes from his tone. ]

That would explain why they chose today. I'm sorry, it's not fair they did this to you.

[Despite how upset she is at the moment, Beverly still notices Sokka's reaction to her words. Of course, she doesn't know exactly why, but she can hazard a guess: Sokka talks all the time about his sister, but rarely their parents, just as she has barely mentioned Jack to anyone in the fleet.]

I suppose it's what I get for saying I wasn't going to play their ridiculous ratings game.

Edited 2015-05-14 03:25 (UTC)

[Sokka gives a soft, annoyed huff. ]

It's still not fair. That's like trying to force you into it. Do this thing or you'll have to deal with crappy memories that'll mess with your head.

I'm sure that's exactly what they're doing, considering they did a similar thing to me on April Fool's day.

[Dryly.] Maybe I'll just put myself into stasis the next holiday that rolls around.

...Oh yeah. That thing.

[Screw this place. ]

Let me know when it is, and I'll try to make it pretty for you. I don't know any of these holidays.

[Her expression softens. Aww, Sokka.]

There shouldn't be any more for a while, unless there are some that aren't celebrated in my world either.

[They missed First Contact day, so she assumes Federation Day will be skipped as well, and that is the next major holiday until Halloween.]

But thank you. That's a very sweet offer.

We have a couple holidays in my world, but...nothing like this. No- [he pauses, exhales ] no mother's day or anything like that.

[He offers her a weak smile. ]

Hey, you're part of the crew, we look out for each other.

I know. Doesn't make it any less of a nice offer.

[She sighs.]

Wesley is always so good at remembering these things. Better than I am, sometimes. There's been more than a few Mother's Days that I would have completely let pass me by if it wasn't for him. This is the first one that ...

[She drifts off, determined not to cry again.]

[Oh. Well.

Sokka sits there awkwardly for a moment, before putting an arm around her and giving her a one-armed hug. ]

Well, listen. I know the date now, and I'll always remember it. [Ha...ha.] How about I spend time with you, be a surrogate Wesley for the day? I'm told I'm great with impressions.

[The last part is joking, to try and diffuse the awkward, but the rest is sincere. ]

[Remember that not-going-to cry again plan?

Because it has failed.

Beverly briefly leans into the hug with a laugh that sounds suspiciously like a sob. When she pulls away and looks at Sokka, her eyes are brimming with tears.]

I'd like that.

[Oh nooo, he made her cry more. He fucked it up!!!! ]

Oh...good, because I'm aiming for less tears.

Don't worry.

[Cupping his face in both her hands, she kisses him gently on the forehead.]

These are the good sort of tears.

[Oh, that's nice. He's missed stuff like that. It tugs his heart a little, but he manages to smile.]

Good tears, I can live with.

[She keeps holding his face for a moment, staring at him very intently. There's something more there, something he's not saying. Finally, she lets go of him, wipes her eyes, and picks up the tricorder again.]

Would you like me to show you how this works?

[There is a whole well of things he isn't telling her. Eventually, he'll find the words. He largely doesn't speak of it to save her own feelings above his own. ]

Yeah! It looks really cool.

[Don't worry, she won't force him to talk about it, not until he's ready.]

It's called a tricorder and it's basically a multi-purpose tool we use all the time in Starfleet. It can be used as a scanner, database, GPS, recorder... lots of different things. I think Atroma must have blocked some of its usual functions, for example, its universal translator, but so far it's worked perfectly fine.

Edited 2015-05-20 22:40 (UTC)

[He'll be peering at it curiously, his augment helpfully making sense of something he'd struggle with for months on his own. ]

That has to be the most helpful thing I have ever seen.

[She nods.] It really is. I don't think I truly appreciated how dependent on it I was until I didn't have one any more. I mean, in some ways that was probably a good thing to function without it for a while, but I am glad to have it back.

[Even if Atroma is using it to fuck with her.]

I can get that, I felt the same way about my boomerang.

[He chuckles, shaking his head.]

I know it's not exactly the same thing, but it's an important part of me. It's got me out of a lotta scrapes.

[She nods and is about to say something in response, when she thinks of something else instead.]

This reminds me, Allen got Timcanpy, I got the tricorder, a friend of mine got a book.... did you get anything from your world out of the voucher machines at the casino?

[She's going to regret asking him this. He nods, happily. ]

Yeah! I got my satchel! I got it when we went to the Earth Kingdom.

Your satchel? Is that... an item that's really important to you then?

[She doesn't mean to sound so skeptical, she's just trying to figure out Atroma's logic here.]

I wouldn't say it's important. It's not like my sword or my boomerang or my hawk. But it's still mine.

[Oh god, if Sokka had been given his hawk... she is very thankful it was just a satchel.]

Hmm. I have been wondering why we've been getting the things we have. The reason behind the tricorder, well... [That sadness from earlier crosses her face again] that's obvious now.