Nearly an hour later, Beverly brought her slightly limping counterpart back into the main treatment bay, and they emerged into a bustle of activity. The treatment bay felt much different than before. The lighting had been raised, and along the side wall Picard was speaking to several groups, crew who had sorted themselves into tight-knit clusters, and they looked as though they fit together (ah, they must have grouped themselves by their home ships). Several other security personnel were dismantling the awful, ominous treatment platform, and a clutch of admirals hovered near the main door, muttering.

Beverly watched as Picard ended his conversation with the captured crew and stepped over to the admirals. But then he looked over to her and the other woman as if they had called out to him, locked eyes with the other woman, set his jaw. Beverly turned to see the other woman nod across the room, then the woman turned, deliberately ignoring both Beverly and Jean-Luc, walking over to a small gathering of captured crew. As she approached, the cohort expanded to bring her into the center; two members promptly embraced her unashamedly, relief on their faces. After a moment, the security personnel invited the group to leave through the side entrance, presumably towards freedom, a shuttle bay, a path back home. Without a backward glance, Beverly Picard, reunited with her crew, left.

She gets to go home, Beverly thought with a cold slice of jealousy, then embarrassed shame - she had been captured, battered, impregnated against her will...home will bring that woman some comfort, but there is much still ahead of her.

Beverly looked back at Jean-Luc to observe him standing next to the awkward admirals, padd in hand, staring at the now empty doorway with an inscrutable expression. And while Beverly still felt a vague sense of jealousy towards the initial hunger he had revealed on his face when sharing a mental connection with the other woman, she didn't want him to feel pain. Because being connected to a woman who didn't love him had to be a bitterly painful experience. And she didn't want him to hurt any more.

Picard looked up then, blinked, met her eyes. Handed his padd to the admirals, closed the distance between them and met her face to face. "We're leaving," he murmured, voice low and quiet underneath the steady metallic noise of the platform being deconstructed and the relieved mutterings of the rescued crew members clustered together.

Beverly nodded, suddenly wanting to be away, away from Medical, away from the haunted eyes of the captured crew from other universes, out of this subterranean network of secret labs underneath the surface of Earth. "Take me out of here," she rasped, throat suddenly tight, and he took her arm and nearly dragged her out of the lab, back up the way they came, through corridors and passing medical crew who paid them no mind. After long moments, they emerged into more public areas of the giant building, sunlight streaming into floor to ceiling windows, families, children, medical officers going about the daily business of Medical. Then they exited out of the front doors, fresh air and sun hitting her face, but still he pulled her, she walking briskly to catch up, wanting to ask where he was taking her-

"I'm taking you home," he tossed over his shoulder, and she realized that she was speaking aloud her concerns. As they approached a public transporter platform, he continued, not meeting her eyes. "I have no ship and you have no lab," his words an echo of the brief time they spent in his bed, in France, in the farm house, under the dappled sunlight.

She stepped up next to him, feeling the coolness of the air once he seemingly reluctantly lifted his hand from her arm in preparation for transport. The beam took her for the familiar, brief pause, then her eyes adjusting after materialization to the darkened, nighttime vista of the town square, just a short walk from the farmhouse.

His voice punctuated the sound of leaves in trees. "But we belong together. And wherever we are together? That, my Beverly, that is home." After a moment, she realized that he was continuing the abrupt discussion they began while escaping Medical. Then the meaning of the words themselves penetrated her tense mind.

Home. Our home is wherever we are. Together.

Her eyes blurred, and her throat closed up again with emotion. She reached out and took his hand, still on the platform, and looked out into the darkness, to a sleeping world.

"Yes," she whispered. "Let's go home."