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Weekends together were rare, but all 3 members of the Crusher/Picard family had managed to make it to La Barre for a whopping 42 hours together.
The family had currently set about attempting to make Coq-au-vin, a traditional French dish, without the use of any replicator technology. While Jean Luc had grown up with cooking like this, it was a struggle for all three of them to figure it out.
Just what they needed, a challenge.
Doing all of Starfleet Academy in one year was a lot. Jack had been given many bypasses in his course load; deftly passing the Warp Theory, Communications, Xenolinguistics, Navigation, and Xenobiology exams on his first week. That was a hell of a week. But even still, he was having to take a double course load in order to get through it all.
His father had been very convincing that Starfleet was the right path for him, flaws and all. While he sometimes struggled in his Ethics and Diplomacy courses, looking for what was actually the right course of action instead of what was deemed best by the Federation, his mother assured him that this was normal, even for the best Starfleet officers. She claimed that it would make him a better officer to disagree with the rules now and again.
His father had scoffed at that at the time, looking up from his paper book at them both and smiling.
"No Jack, it says to let the meat rest for 30 minutes. We can't just skip that step in real cooking," Picard pointed to the ancient recipie- handwritten in French from many years ago. He looked so focused, all the while an errant carrot slice held tight to the collar of his shirt. Jack and his mother had noticed, but silently pledged with a look and a smirk not to tell him about his vegetable passenger.
The three of them had settled in to Chateau Picard on Earth. Well, as often as they could all get back there with their busy schedules. His father was continuing to enjoy a teaching tenure at the academy, but, of course, he was not teaching the beginner courses that Jack was enrolled in. Admiral Picard hosted advanced seminars on Archaeology, and was helping the academy to build courses on understanding the Borg. Yes, he was actually talking about what happened to him all those years ago, and in front of a room full of Masters students as well! Jack was certainly not ready for that, but, with Councellor Troi's help, he was definitely starting to heal and process his own relationship with the Borg.
His mother, the newly crowned Admiral Crusher, had spent the weeks after the Space Dock battle at Jack's bedside, helping him recover from his assimilation. All the while, working furiously on a Padd to develop the technology to "de-borg" the transporters, as she called it. She had accepted the position as Head of Starfleet Medical, again. After 20 years away, they had given her the top job... that was how much of a badass his mother was.
Jack grinned, looking over at Beverly who was currently dissecting the chicken with expert knife skills, both men standing back to let the master show her craft.
He certainly had his share of medical experience, but Jack had not chosen the medical track at the Academy. Sure, he loved helping people and healing people, but the pull of command was too hard for him to ignore. Now that he knew his father, he was quickly coming to realize that he was destined to follow in Jean Luc Picard's very large footsteps, at least, in the study of Command and Leadership.
His parents joked that he was a disappointment to them both, as he rejected the study of both Medicine and Archaeology.
Jack opened a third bottle of Chateau Picard wine, the first one having been used as an ingredient in cooking the dinner, and the second being used in helping to abate the stress of cooking. He turned from the counter to retrieve the wine glasses for a refill, an quickly turned back away from his parents, as he caught them in an affectionate moment.
While he was getting used to seeing his mother in a relationship, since she had never been in so much as a close friendship in all the time he had known her, he was still shocked at how *happy* she was now. Jack had never thought his Mum was unhappy before, but now, he was realizing how lonely she must have been. Protecting him all these years, helping the medical needs of others around the galaxy, but never actually doing anything for her own joy, her own fulfillment.
He saw how she lit up when Will Riker came by, or how hard she laughed with Worf and Data. Jack saw a spark of electricity in her eyes as her and Geordi were elbow-deep in transporter technology. He watched her physically relax around Deanna, and they each cradled a cup of tea while they laughed and cried over stories they had never shared with each other from the last two decades.
And of course, he saw...
Jack knew his parents both loved him. He had known that his mother loved him all his life, even when he acted out as a child or teenager. He knew that as hard as these years of isolation had been on her, she did it from a place of love and never resented him or regretted it.
He also quickly learned how much his father loved him. That *asshole* he had met on Earth, who claimed that Starfleet was the only family he ever needed, was not the same man before him now. Sometimes Jack caught his father just staring at him, and he felt like Jean Luc Picard's entire universe held him in the center. It was a humbling feeling, to be sure.
But he had never thought about how much his parents loved each other. Sure he knew where babies come from, but this was not a fling from 20 years ago between coworkers. He saw the way they always stayed physically close to one another, the lingering looks. The way they said each other's name. He knew there was a lot of history between his parents, but he found it hard to believe that they had really ever resisted their feelings for each other.
He looked up from the wine glasses to see his mother laughing as she chomped on the escaped carrot slice that she had plucked from her companion's collar. Jack saw his father reach his arm around her shoulder as he chuckled in response, before he remembered "that thing" in the other room he forgot to get, and left to give them some privacy. It was one thing to be happy for his parents to have found each other again, but to actually witness the flirting... well, yuck, they were still his parents.
Jack had spent quite a bit of time discussing with Deanna the idea that his birth brought death to his mother's life, career and love. Deanna always assured him that his parents would have rather done it the same way all over again, and have him in their lives, than to have stayed together and never had him. Deanna also assured him that his parents were usually so blind to how perfect they are together that they probably would have screwed it up anyways.
Jean Luc and Beverly were getting the last items on the table as Jack decided he had waited long enough to come back in the room.
"There he is", Picard exclaimed as Jack rounded the corner. "Come, have a seat. Let's toast to our success."
"I think that's a little preemptive Jean Luc," Beverley eyed her plate suspiciously. "Not a lot of quality control technology in good old fashioned home cooking."
"Only one way to settle this," Jack uttered as he lifted his drimstick and bit into it. "Ugh," he head jerked back as the food clattered back to the plate. "Hard as a rock once more. Another utter failure."
"Impossible!" Picard replied, "we followed Maman's recipie to the letter!" He too bit a piece of meat and grimaced.
"I just don't get it boys, how can we be so bad at this?" Crusher shrugged her shoulders, even as the smile never left her eyes. "Looks like it's just potatoes and carrots for us again tonight."
"Oh I do so love these traditional Picard family dinners," Jack said as he took a large gulp of wine.
"I can tell you this isn't what my traditional dinners were like" Picard replied, chin resting on his knuckles in frustration.
Jack, seeing the true humor of these two decorated admirals who can't cook a chicken, lifted his glass dramatically. "Well then," Jack stood, looking at his parents, "to new traditions then. May we continue to avoid mistakes of the past, by making new mistakes in the future instead."
Jean Luc and Beverly stood and raised their glasses, along with a round of hugs and generous mouthfuls of wine.
"To new mistakes in the future" Jean Luc replied, clapping his son on the back as Beverly left to go get the replicator out of the pantry...again.