Chapter Text
The dust had settled as much as it could in that in-between space after Vadic and the stream of old enemies had been defeated, but before any of them had returned to something like their normal lives. Reports were filed, casualties counted, formal charges considered and dropped. All the loose ends of conflict and tragedy were accounted for and tucked out of view.
Somehow, early in their stay on the Titan, Jack had managed to contact a salvage team in the hope that the Eleos had not been completely obliterated. They’d been able to track down some of the living and cargo sections somewhat intact, and so far out of the way that it hadn’t yet been picked over by scavengers. Usable medical supplies had been redistributed to the nearest planet. Almost certainly a crate or two of clandestine weapons had been absorbed into a more questionable stream of commerce. And an array of personal effects had been delivered to them en route to Earth, where Beverly and Jack would have to decide how to move forward with everything they now knew.
Beverly had nearly wept when she found a small keepsake box among her surviving belongings. Inside, along with her mother’s locket and a pair of earrings Jean-Luc had given her several lifetimes ago, was a single memory chip just where she’d left it a few months ago. She pulled it out and set it on the desk in her temporary quarters, periodically asking the computer to check his location on the ship. When she had confirmed that Jean-Luc was in a public place, she picked up the chip and walked out the door.
“What’s this?” he asks, an inscrutable look on his face. Understandably, for each of them, there was no simple transition back to the way they’d been. They found themselves slipping into moments of easy camaraderie, whether they wanted to or not, just as effortlessly as they moved through anger, regret, self-doubt, and longing.
She stands in front of him now, memory chip extended, trying to keep her expression neutral, hoping that a room full of shipmates would keep each of them in check. He’s surrounded by an array of PADDs, a cup of tea. It could have been any number of decades ago, and he would have presented the same vignette.
Her voice wavers slightly despite her best effort, “I made this for you.” Her tone sounds too light for the weight of what she offers. She clears her throat, tries again.
“I didn’t know how or when you and Jack would meet, but I hoped that you would. This was meant to help fill in some of the gaps.” It still sounds weak even to her, but it is the truth.
“An album?”
“Yes.”
“A memory chip in exchange for 20 years of secrecy?”
She deserves the contempt. “Yes.”
He looks between her face and the chip several times without moving. Her hand is steady, her gaze is unguarded.
Finally, she leans forward and sets the chip on the table in front of him. “It’s all arranged in chronological order so you can just ask the computer to autoplay the whole thing. It will display the dates too, if you like.”
He listens to her instructions, but says nothing. “You won’t see or hear me,” she assures him, “It’s as though I don’t even exist.” His eyes flick back to hers more sharply this time.
She offers a small, soft smile and turns around to leave.
He waits until the doors have closed behind her. He counts to twenty to make sure that she is really out of view before he grabs the chip, sweeps up the PADDs in front of him, leaves the cold cup of tea, and makes his way back to his cabin as quickly as a retired admiral, whether disgraced or redeemed still for history to decide, can respectably do.
He drops the PADDs in a heap on his desk and, frowning at the slight shake in his hand, inserts the memory chip into the console. The desk interface springs to life, pulling up dozens and dozens of files, a mix of videos and photos neatly labeled with keywords. He did not know what he expected, but already this is more.
“Computer, autoplay all files in chronological order. Display stardates.”
The first file pops up unceremoniously, and it steals his breath. It is a still image of an infant Jack: face still puckered and ruddy from birth, eyes half closed, swaddled in a gauzy blanket, a thin layer of dark hair on his head. While he is still wrapping his mind around what he sees, the computer dutifully slips to the next file, a video taken a few weeks later.
“Computer! Pause program! Return to the previous file and hold.” He takes his time scouring the image, trying to absorb every detail. The effort is immense. At last satisfied that he has committed newborn Jack to memory, he instructs the computer to resume and realizes that each still image is set to hold for exactly seven seconds.
Unbidden, a memory comes roaring back. The Enterprise-D. An interminable presentation from Data on the evolution of stringed instruments (The Emergence of the Modern Violin, Earth, Italy, 1550 – 1700). After they’ve left Ten Forward, he rants to an increasingly amused Beverly about appropriate pacing and respecting audience attention span. She barely manages to suppress her laugh, trying valiantly to maintain some decorum as they make their way through Deck 8.
“Well, Captain, in your seasoned opinion,” she manages to infuse the word with a dig at the cranky old man lurking behind his complaints, “what is the appropriate time for a slideshow image?”
“Seven seconds, precisely.” There is no logic behind the response. He only hopes that an immediate, finicky reply will be enough to release the laugh she is still trying to hold back. She may even find him self-deprecating.
He is rewarded for his efforts. She throws her head back and laughs out loud. She never laughs like this, rarely shows her teeth when she smiles. It is worth the joke at his expense.
He pulls himself back to the present and hardly moves for the next half hour.
It is a record of . . . everything. Milestones, minutiae, every birthday. It is the life of Jack Crusher (and not a hint of Beverly Crusher) from his birth until the final video dated a few months ago.
The display reverts back to the file menu, and on a hunch, he opens the raw data. He inhales sharply as he looks back through the archive. She did not assemble this today, or last week, or even after creating the last recording. This program has been a work in progress since a few days after the first image was taken. She has added to it, consistently, for all of this time.
He is not sure how to understand the queasiness that settles in his stomach. Is he angry that she has been thinking of him and his parentage all this time? Is he grateful? Sad? Overwhelmed, if nothing else.
He shifts in his chair, rolling his neck and trying to loosen his back. He restarts the program: Jack as a baby, working up to a smile and then a giggle that exposes his first tooth breaking through. Jack taking wobbly steps, unassisted. A young boy, Jack gets a puppy. The dog shows up in later images regularly, her muzzle eventually whitening, until finally she does not. Jack loses his first tooth, his wide grin framing the gap that matches the tooth he holds up for the camera. He skins his knees, breaks an arm. Jack blunders his way disjointedly through telling a joke. Jack goes to school. Celebrates with friends. Speaks impeccable French. Wins awards. Wins what look to be fencing awards. He grows, matures, begins to move easily in his body, smiles readily.
The last file is a video, taken from a discrete distance at what looks to be a space station. Jack fidgets nervously amongst the crowd. A cry of excitement out of the frame draws his attention. A young woman sprints towards him, jumps into his open arms, wraps her limbs around him, holds him tight, and kisses him soundly. They are, both of them, radiant with youth and fearlessness and possibility.
This is the only moment that he may detect Beverly. Just before the video ends, the frame shifts slightly. The hand holding the recorder must have moved. In that beat before the image clicks off, there is a quiet hum close to the microphone. It is too quick and too faint to be certain whether the hum is happy or wistful or even from a person at all, but his heart seizes in the knowing that it could be Beverly. Beverly happy at her son’s – their son’s – happiness.
The file menu dutifully takes over the screen once again. He immediately saves a copy of the program to his personal network for safer keeping than a basic isolinear chip allows.
He considers again what he’s seen. He considers why she would have kept herself out of this record of Jack’s life. The answer comes to him in a flash, and he is on his feet.