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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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He's twenty-two and he's studying [Her mouth curls up in what's almost a smile] everywhere, now. Up until very recently he was at Starfleet Academy, where both his father and I attended, but he was ... struggling there. Instead, he's traveling with a teacher who has the ability to alter space and time with his mind. Wesley has shown evidence of having some of the same abilities so he's learning all he can about it.

[Which is what made this so much worse. For a second, she had thought he'd found her here somehow.]

S'a good age for findin' yourself. [ Ladon struck out on his own at the age of twenty-two. Granted he parted with his parents on... less amicable terms. ] Alterin' space and time though... S'that run in the family?

Not as far as I know. I certainly can't, and Jack couldn't either. Who knows, though? Maybe Wesley is on the first step to the next stage of human evolution.

Could be. S'a lot for one young fella to go shoulderin', though. [ He smiles a little at that. At least she seems to be approving of her son's path. ] Let alone his ma. Sounds like you two're close.

[Of course she is. Wesley's made mistakes, but going with the Traveler isn't one of them.]

We are, especially since... [There's a long pause. She hasn't really brought up Jack's death to anyone here, not directly anyway. She never had to, at home. Everyone already knew.]

My husband, his father, died when Wesley was very young.

M'sorry to hear that. [ And he genuinely is. Family loss is something that tends to hit him extra hard, thanks to how he grew up. Losing a mate is even more serious in dragon culture than in human culture.

... He tries not to think about the families that have lost fathers and sons thanks to his job. He spares them as much harm as he can, but it's a bloody business. ]

So you raised him on your own?

Mostly, yes. My grandmother was able to help some, but being in Starfleet meant I was often light years away from home. Wesley stayed with me on my assignments.

[She smiles fondly as she thinks of everything the crew of the Enterprise has done for her and Wesley over the years.]

Of course, we almost always had plenty of good friends around. Starfleet is our family too.

S'the folks you work with? [ Considering what they're stuck on now is considered a fleet, Ladon can assume that "Starfleet" is something similar. Though likely without the kidnapping or reality telly-vision part. ]

Guessin' he got t'learn a lot from you. S'he interested in bein' a doctor too? An, er, space and time alterin' doctor?

[She chuckles a little at that.] No, no, he's always been much more interested in the mechanical rather than the biological.

And yes, Starfleet is the organization I work with. Our main job is scientific exploration.

A robot doctor, then. [ He's partially kidding. He spent enough time on Sacrosanct to get to know a few robots. Some weren't awful killing machines. He supposes even talking toasters might need care now and then. ]

Must be used to this whole visitin' other planets deal we got goin' here, yeah?

[She gives him an amused half-smile at that. "Robot doctor" is not the term they would use, of course, but it's actually not that far off.] Maybe. He did do a lot of work in robotics and is close friends with our android crew mate, Data.

And yes, I suppose I am, though I'm definitely not used to having cameras watching my every move.

Ain't seen many of 'em here. Robots, I mean. [ The station was rotten with them, both from the rift and as part of the systems in place on Sacrosanct. Ladon had gotten attached to his own little gang of them-- as attached as he could be to big hunks of metal anyway-- that helped him around the bar. ] Sounds like your son's got a good future in front of him, yeah?

Don't think anyone's used to the damn cameras. Er, 'scuse my language.

[She chuckles and waves a hand dismissively.] There's no need to apologize. Trust me, I've heard much worse. [She works with a Klingon, after all.]

[Now she's eyeing that bottle of alcohol Ladon brought. She nods towards it.]

Is that from your bar?

Edited 2015-06-01 14:50 (UTC)

S'from my stock, figured I'd go doin' some promotion. Never too early. [ The bar doesn't exist just yet, but he's working on it. He lifts his brow at her, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. ]

Could pop down t'the kitchen and grab a couple of glasses, if you want.

[Beverly stretches her arms across the table gratefully.] Could you? That would be great.

[ He grins, gives one of her hands a gentle pat. ] No problem, doc. I'll be right back, yeah?

[ And he gets up, leaving for a few minutes. When he returns, he has two stout glasses in his hands, a few ice cubes in one. He raises it with the clink of the cubes. ] In case you take yours on the rocks, yeah?

Right now, I'll take it either way.

[ He smiles a bit at that, then goes about unscrewing and popping the cap off the top of the bottle. He pours each of them a glass, then slides the one with ice over to her. The liquor is a dark, amber color and to be honest he's not sure exactly what it is. His sense of smell tells him it's a whisky, but hopefully it doesn't have too much kick to it for Beverly. Or not enough.

He lifts his glass a little towards her. ] To mothers and sons, yeah?

[With a sad, half-smile on her face, she lifts her glass in return.]

And to new friends.

[With that, she tosses back a sizable portion of her drink, wincing as it goes down. That burns a lot more than Hawke's wine.

It's perfect.]

Maybe I shoulda got shot glasses, yeah? [ It's a gentle tease. But he does nurse at his own drink as she recovers from throwing hers back. He's been in similar situations before, when the effect of the alcohol is all that matters. Sipping at it is pointless in those circumstances. ]

[Her cheeks flush red with embarrassment and she self-consciously swirls the ice around in what's left of her drink.]

I don't normally do this.

[ He laughs at that, then shakes his head. ] I ain't one to judge either way, doc. Everyone's got their reasons for drinkin' or not. I just supply when asked.

[ It's the same approach he takes to his weapons business, though arguably a little less controversial. ]

Yes. Well. Thank you for that.

[She keeps staring into the glass for a minute before looking back up at him, her eyes glistening with unfallen tears.]

You know what the worst part is? How angry I am.

[She snorts and downs the rest of her drink.]

And there's nothing I can do about it.

[ He leans back and swirls the liquid in his own glass, watching her. He nods along in sympathy. He doesn't have children of his own, but he has his family, his little brother... And he misses them. Reminders leave him conflicted between pleasant memories and frustration that memories are all he has. ]

Much as you don't wanna hear it... the anger's good. S'when you don't get angry, you just get resigned or sad, s'when you've given up. You stay in one of these damn places long enough, givin' up gets harder an' harder not to do.

You're gonna go home, doc. And you're gonna see your son 'gain. You gotta believe that.

[She laughs a little.]

I'm too stubborn to believe anything different.

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