Snow Falling Softly

2370

Dr. Beverly Crusher stared at the terminal screen long after the Federation symbol had faded to black. Nana had died. She'd known it was coming, but Nana hadn't yet reached one hundred twenty five, considered the young end of when Howards tended to die. Allie had sent her messages when Nana had taken ill, but the Enterprise had been too far away to make it back to Caldos in time. The illness had taken her quickly. Andrew's message told her that Nana would be placed in stasis so that Beverly could attend the funeral, and perhaps Wesley if he could get away from the Academy. Her son's reply had been short and to the point: Exams. Send my best. End of transmission.

Wesley, Allie, Andrew, and little Gracie, all that was left of her family. Only Allie and Andrew would be there with her to say goodbye, and Gracie, not entirely understanding what was going on, only that her grandmother was gone. Nana had taken care of the twins for all of their sixteen years and Gracie for all four of her, Beverly and Wesley their cousins who flitted the skies while they stayed on Caldos.

Or so they were told. So everyone was told, with Nana and Beverly holding the truth tight to their hearts. As the screen blinked off, Beverly remembered the past that was running full force to catch up with her present.

2354

The snow fell outside. Beverly sat on the end of Nana's couch, watching the dying embers in the fireplace pop and sizzle into darkness. Was it snowing on Earth, where Wesley was? The thought floated into her mind before she realized she'd been thinking of her son. And the thought of her son brought forth images of her dead husband. It was snowing when Jack died. She had been outside with Wes, making snow angels in the backyard. They clattered inside, stomping off snowy boots, peeling off soaking wet mittens and hats, picking up mugs of hot chocolate from the replicator, her barely four year old son dropping marshmallow after marshmallow into his. She settled him into an armchair with a quilt that had been sent from Nana and stoked up a fire. Aside from starships, she had never lived in a home without a fireplace.

Crossing the living room back to the kitchen for her own mug, she'd seen the light blinking on the terminal. In the days to come, she often thought if she hadn't read the message, then perhaps it wouldn't have happened. But life doesn't work that way, only dreams, and never in nightmares. You could only scare yourself awake, yet by then, the nightmare had already happened.

A touch on her shoulder jolted her out of her daydream. "What were you thinking?" Nana asked, settling herself on the other end of the couch.

The words came to her mouth, unbidden. "It was snowing when Jack died."

"They planned this, you know. The weather modification net."

"We were making snow angels."

"They do this every year, at Christmastime, a reminder of old Scotland and their yearly holidays."

"It will be snowing when..." Beverly stopped. A pocket of pine sap burst in the flames, filling the silence.

Nana's hand reached out for hers, the older woman's fingers squeezing hers in reassurance immediately felt. "When your twins will be born. It'll be soon, I can tell you that. And then you can go back to Earth, and back to Wes, and bury yourself in your work so you can forget."

Beverly bit her bottom lip in her effort not to cry. "Some things I don't want to forget."

The hand squeezed again. Warm wisdom flowed from Felisa's touch. "You won't forget the good things. There are things, Beverly, that haunt you. They fall around you, the soft flakes of memory, and refuse to melt and let you go on. And now you'll associate snow with everything that has happened in this year. I'm afraid you won't be able to enjoy it again, to throw snowballs with your children, to drop into the cold blanket of winter and carve snow angels out of it like you did as a child."

"I won't be able to make snow angels with my children," Beverly said. "Only Wes, my child. These two won't know me as their mother, they'll never know their father, they'll have you, as their grandmother, Wes and me, as their cousins. And how can this be carried off? What about the people in the village? Won't they figure it out?"

"No one has seen you in these past months. None of them know how many children I had, only that I've had at least one, your father Paul. How could they deny that these two wouldn't be my grandchildren?"

"Records, they could search through--."

"They wouldn't. Our family seems cursed in some way, they feel. Your parents dying and you having to be raised by your grandmother. They won't think twice with these two. I know it. We've been through these arguments often enough." Nana paused. "You want to take them with you, don't you?"

"What I want and what has to happen are two entirely different things." Beverly bit her lip harder.

"You haven't told their father."

"Nana, it shouldn't have happened at all. We made a mistake, we've betrayed Jack, betrayed Wes, betrayed ourselves. We haven't spoken since and we can't, because if we do, we have to acknowledge something of what happened. It needed to be forgotten."

"And you can't."

Beverly shook her head. "Not anymore. Not when I found out...and I couldn't terminate. I couldn't, even though it would've been for the best." Her voice cracked.

"I think, my child, that had you done it, it the guilt would have eaten you alive. Every day the idea of those two lives would pass before you, two lives which you created and then ended..." She paused. "You love him, don't you?"

The blush crept into her cheeks, tugged along by the guilt that filled her. "Differently than Jack, I never would have left Jack, I didn't love him more than Jack, but I thought, at first, it was infatuation. And now I know it wasn't."

"You still feel you've betrayed him."

The metallic taste of blood signaled she had reached her limit in biting her lip in an attempt to stave off the emotions that demanded to be released. She could only nod, nearly imperceptibly. Her chin trembled and Nana's arms were around her and pulled Beverly to her shoulder. The story tumbled out of her mouth in a flurry of words. "He brought Jack's body home. I demanded to see the body and Jean-Luc took me. The entire walk to the morgue, he warned me, over and over that I shouldn't remember him like that. I just thanked him for being there. The guilt coming from him had nearly knocked me over at first. And then the sheet draping Jack's body was removed and he was...Nana, he was a shell. No longer Jack. It hit me, that he was gone, Wes and I were alone, and I couldn't stop myself from crying. Jean-Luc was awkward at first, not knowing what to do, then he put his arms around me and let me cry myself out. He took me home. Distracted me with stories, distracted Wes with stories, made us dinner. Built a fire. Wes fell asleep, Jean-Luc carried him to his room and put him to bed."

She stopped.

Felisa didn't speak. Waited.

Beverly continued. "He came back out and I had fallen asleep in front of the fire. He managed to find one of your quilts and placed it over me. As soon as it touched me, I had started to wake up. I felt him, he'd knelt next to the couch, brushed my forehead with his lips and he choked out, 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have saved him and I couldn't, he should be the one here taking care of you. I'm sorry.' The right thing to do then was for me to pretend I was asleep and let him leave quietly. Instead, I opened my eyes and found him so close...so I reached out. Reached out to the man who had taken care of me that day, to the other man I loved, seeking to drown out the pain of losing Jack. Drew him onto the couch and kissed him, not allowing him to speak any protests, needing his love and comfort. Wordlessly, we made love with only the dying fire as witness. Sleep took us. Barely an hour later, he woke before I did and slipped out the door, leaving only a note behind. I pocketed it, put it away, locked it up and never read it. When I woke and found him gone, I went to the door, opened it. Snow had started to fall again and his boots had left his trail behind him, the new snow swirling to cover it up. I thought it would be the end, all the evidence erased, no one would ever know, especially Wes. We didn't speak after the funeral. The days went by and became a blur. A month, two months passed. And then I found out that evidence had been left."

Beverly stopped again, hand moving to her abdomen, swollen with nine months of a pregnancy with twins. "Nana, Jack and I had been trying for another child. He was supposed to have come home later that month, and I'd stopped the birth control regimen so we could try again. And instead of Jack's children, I'm carrying Jean-Luc's. If he knew, if he knew the guilt would kill him as surely as a phaser blast would. I've known Jean-Luc long enough that I know what he does with guilt and with those he feels guilty about. He avoids it, so he can remove it from his memory, so he can continue to function as the Starfleet captain that he is. Telling him would end everything for him. And Wes...Wes is so angry at him, for him being alive and Jack being dead. One thing keeps Wes from hating him, that night when he told Wes stories about his father, all the funny things he father did, situations he got into, things he said about Wes, about me. Jean-Luc gave Wes a storehouse of memories about his father that night and somehow, Wes knows what a good thing it was. If Wes knew what happened after he fell asleep, I'm afraid that would take those good things away from him. I can't do that. It hasn't even been a year since his father died. He needs those things. I need those things. Jean-Luc needs those things."

Felisa's arms tightened, as if to give her strength to her granddaughter. "I can't give you absolution. You can only do that for yourself, and only when you're ready. You won't be a stranger to your children. You'll see them every year, you'll see videos and have photographs."

"They won't know me as their mother."

"They will, in time."

Beverly stiffened. Fear raced through her. Nana was right. That time would come and it scared the hell out of her. While the choices were the good ones for the moment, as time passed, they would become less obvious, less right. Out loud, she said, "They'll be angry."

"Of course they will. They'll come around in the end."

Beverly stiffened again.

Felisa's voice drew into a sharp concern. "What's wrong?"

"They've decided it's the beginning."

Within four hours, they had come out squalling, brother following sister in lusty cries to match the shouts their mother had hurled during her labor. She fell asleep, each of them nestled in her arms. When she woke, she found that Nana had placed them in their bassinet. Beverly got up, took one at a time to the window. Dawn was breaking, the faint rosy lines of morning reaching up the horizon onto the clouds to pull up the sun. The clouds had continued to drop snow and flakes danced to the ground. First her daughter, holding her up so that her clear blue eyes could take in what they could, Beverly kissing her mass of dark brown, nearly black hair. Then her second son, squirming in protest, his eyes a gray like the clouds blanketing the sky outside, his own hair barely visible, a downy cap of red gold.

"You haven't told me their names," Nana said from the doorway.

Beverly turned and went to the bassinet, placing her son next to his sister. "I hadn't decided. Till now."

Felisa raised her eyebrows.

Beverly smiled. "Natalie, because she was born on Christmas, and it's one of those old traditions that Jean-Luc would appreciate."

"And the boy?"

"Andrew." She didn't have to give any further explanation to Nana. Andrew had been Beverly's grandfather, a kind soul who had a way with animals, he'd been the veterinarian for the colony before he had died in a flyer accident. He'd been on his way to help a mare give birth to a difficult foal.

Beverly had a month with her infants before she had to return to her oldest son and her life as a Starfleet doctor. By then she looked as she had before she'd left to visit her grandmother, lithe and fit, showing no signs of having borne twins.

2356

She and Wes managed to visit Caldos once a year. Wes never questioned the appearance of his new cousins. He was too excited of having relatives his own age. By the time she and Wes were able to visit for the first time, the twins were already walking and had started to talk.

Felisa had greeted them at the door, the children hot on her heels. Wes immediately gave his great-grandmother a hug, then bolted to play with his cousins. Beverly stood in the doorway, amazed at how much they had grown. She'd known on one level, because of the photographs and videos Nana had promised that she'd received. Yet to see them in person, walking, nearly talking, little people. "You'll let the flies in," Felisa said, hauling her granddaughter into the cottage. "Come inside."

Beverly barely noticed her being led inside, her eyes on her youngest two. So far, they resembled their Howard side enough that nothing would be suspected. Wes had taken all his features from his father. Beverly often realized that if she hadn't given birth to him, she would've doubted him being her son at all. Of course, she knew he was. His features served as a memory of his father and the legacy he had left.

She listened to her oldest son converse with them as they played with giant blocks painted with primary colors. Toys she had played with as a child, toys that had been stored in the attic until recently.

Her daughter reached up to place a block on the top of the tower they'd constructed. "Allie, no," Andrew said.

Beverly looked over at Nana.

"Andrew had trouble saying Natalie. Came out 'Allie.' It stuck."

Beverly smiled and continued to watch. Andrew attempted to complete a bridge.

"Not that block, Drew," Wesley said.

Andrew turned on Wes sharply. "Andrew," he said. "My name is Andrew."

Nana's explanation came before Beverly could ask. "He won't let anyone shorten his name. No nicknames for him, he hates them. Pitched a fit once when the mayor called him Andy."

The same way Jean-Luc had become about his first name. Anyone calling him Johnny got stared down quickly, the same glare Andrew had now fixed on Wesley, with eyes that were images of his father's. A tug on Beverly's leg brought her attention to Allie, who had gotten bored with the arguing boys and wandered over to the new adult. With her dark hair, bright blue eyes, porcelain skin and red lips, Beverly thought of her as her little elf. The doctor picked her up and was rewarded with a grin.

2370

A tap on her shoulder jolted her from her memory. "Doctor, are you alright?" Alyssa Ogawa, her head nurse, had found her in her office, starting off into nothingness.

"I'm fine, fine. I just got distracted." She glanced at the chronometer. 1915 hours. After missing breakfast this morning, she'd promised Jean-Luc dinner that evening. At 1900. Fifteen minutes ago. She grabbed her lab coat draped on the back of her office chair and zipped out the door of Sickbay, Ogawa keeping her smile hidden until her boss had left the room.

"Come." Whether it was his quarters or his ready room, Picard's baritone always gave the same command when someone wanted to enter his domain.

Beverly stepped through the parting doors, turned to face him, and tripped over one of his boots. She tipped forward, looking atypically not graceful. Picard caught her. For a moment, she found herself tantalizingly close to his face, staring right into his eyes. With less grace than her trip, she backed away, and explained her lateness. "Sorry, I got distracted by work."

A wry smile tugged at his lips. "Isn't that always the case?" He motioned towards the table, dinner waiting. "Perhaps we should eat before it gets more cold?"

She glared at him as she shucked her lab coat and tossed it onto one of his armchairs. "It's not like I did it on purpose."

"Of course not."

Beverly resisted an outright frown. Jean-Luc had been odd with her, ever since their experience on Kesprytt. No, not that. The experience afterward, when he had suggested moving their relationship forward and she had told him they should be afraid, then practically bolted from his quarters, leaving him with his discomfiture and those lit candles. None of which were present at the moment, only normal cabin lighting. He had disrupted the comfortable friendship they'd settled into after she'd returned from her year away when she took the helm of Starfleet Medical. It had taken them nearly a year to become comfortable again. She'd left him after they had nearly rekindled their relationship. In truth, they had rekindled it entirely, only for her to stamp out the flames the very next day. That time, she was the one who rushed off and left, refusing to speak of it when she returned to the ship. The captain had only questioned her once. Her reply had been so sharp and hurtful that he had never broached the subject since. She preferred it that way.

"Something's bothering you," Jean-Luc said.

"What?" She picked up her fork.

"You've been staring at your plate for a few minutes. Lost in your own thoughts."

"Sorry," she said, offering no explanation.

The captain made no efforts to hide his frown yet left the subject alone as he proceeded to eat his own dinner. Beverly fought off any more recollections lest Picard start questioning her again. "I need to request leave," she said after some time.

He looked up. "You're automatically granted a week's bereavement leave when a close family member dies," he said.

"Oh, yes. I'd forgotten." She ignored his questioning gaze.

Picard placed his fork on his plate and sat back. He'd finished, whether he had sated his hunger or not.

Beverly recognized the look, the body language. He wasn't going to let this go.

His words confirmed it. "Something's wrong," he said. Resolution carried in his tone, this time it was a statement. A pronouncement.

"I'm fine." She didn't want to play this game. Not now. Of all the times she had relied on him for support, this wasn't a time he could provide it, not by any means.

"You are not." His face softened. "Is it because your grandmother died?"

Truthfully, part of it was. She nodded, unable to verbalize anything, lest he ask more questions. Her nod should suffice, and he would take what he will from it and leave the subject be. She watched as he stood up, walked over to her, took her hand. "You hate being upset."

"So do you," the reply shot back without any thought on her part.

"You hate anyone knowing you're upset," he corrected.

"So do you," she said again, feeling a smile creeping up on her.

"Are you going to let anyone comfort you through this?"

She saw the question he had truly asked. Are you going to let me comfort you again? Fear shot through her from her ears and out her toes. She couldn't let him in, not about this. He couldn't know. Couldn't be told. Her reply came, hard, firm. "No."

At her tone, Picard had taken a step back, eyebrows up as the shock registered. Hardly any of her rebuffs of offered care had ever taken quite the tone he'd just heard. Words deserted him as he could only attempt to keep his mouth from gaping.

At the emotions that played out on Jean-Luc's face, Beverly knew she had to leave before she changed her mind, before she found herself in his arms, drinking in the safety he gave her. "I can't," she said. With that, she turned and left.

Picard watched her go, his expression unchanging.

---

When Beverly entered her quarters, a blinking communique light at the terminal on her desk awaited her. As she sat down, she hit the button with particular strength. A request for a real-time face to face transmission. Wesley. She keyed in the acceptance, expecting her son not to be around and having to leave the same missed-message notice he'd left her with the blinking light. Not so. His face appeared before her, more mature than the last time she'd seen him, eyes darker than before. Something was wrong. "What's wrong?" she said.

"I'm sorry I can't make it to the funeral," he said, sorrow in his eyes.

"I know. It's okay, you've got exams."

Wesley grimaced. "Not just that."

Beverly's look matched her son's. "Then what?"

At first, the cadet studied something below his communication terminal. Then he looked up again, his eyes meeting hers.

He knew.

"I know," he said. "And I can't face them. I don't know how I'm even able to face you, Mom. Of all the things for you to do, for the captain to do. How could you?" He let his question hang between them, accusing.

Panicked, Beverly tried to feign ignorance. "Wesley, what are you talking about?"

Wesley's reply started out softly. "I wanted to know what would happen to my cousins," he said cousins as if it were an epithet. "Wanted to know if they had any other family except us. Because if they didn't, they'd have to stay with you, on the Enterprise. Instead of just the two of us, there'd be five. A big change. I looked around. Looked for this great-uncle that was their father, my grandfather's twin brother. Only, I couldn't find any records of him. Not one single record outside what was on Caldos. But he wouldn't have been born on Caldos, he would've been born in North America, like my grandfather. Birth records would be there. Guess what?"

She didn't dare say.

He continued for her. "Not a single one. Then I figured I'd go looking for their birth records, trace them back. Figured out their birthday, figured out when they were conceived. It wasn't till then I started to wonder, all as I searched. Do you realize how hard it is to find sealed records?"

"Sealed records tend to be sealed for a reason. Finding them isn't hard, it's finding what's in them that is." Her stomach dropped. "You found a way, didn't you?"

"Mom, I can hack into anything. And there it was, printed out for anyone to see."

"Not for anyone to see," she said, her tone rising.

Wesley matched her tone. "Of course not," he said. "Of course you had to hide it. It happened when I was asleep, didn't it? Dad hadn't even been buried yet, he was still in the morgue." He was shouting now. "He wasn't even in the ground!"

"Wes--" she started.

He cut her off, finally losing his temper, an occasion so rare with his happy-go-lucky temperament. "How can you even imagine what it's like, for me to find out that Captain Picard didn't just keep us sane through that night, but slept with my mother? Do you know what it's like, staring at two birth certificates that prove my mother having an affair? That prove that she has two illegitimate children by a man I once admired?" He laughed harshly. "And he doesn't even know, does he? Does he even know about them as our 'cousins'? Or do you have to keep them hidden away because he'd figure it out?"

"Wes--."

He wouldn't let her speak. His voice had dropped again, nearly a whisper, yet harsh as ever. "But that wasn't the end of it. You know, I might have forgiven that. A mistake. I remember, it was a hard time for all of us, including the captain. I think, on some level, I could understand that."

Those words gave her some hope at salvaging the relationship with her son.

So he crushed them, bit by bit. "You couldn't let it end there, could you? Once you were on the Enterprise, you couldn't let him go. I know why you left to head Starfleet Medical. You'd done it again, had another accident, another sealed birth record. That one was harder to trace. You'd constructed a better parentage for Gracie, found records of a cousin that had existed and died. Then created a new record of him marrying and having a child before he and his wife were killed by a plague on a distant colony planet. This time, I knew what I was looking for. And again, it stared me right in the face, plain as day, this affair that you can't give up, and the mistakes you keep making."

Anger flared up, covering her sadness in an instant. "They weren't mistakes," she said. "Not mistakes," she said again, more to herself than to Wesley.

He exploded. "They why were they hidden? If you weren't ashamed, then Captain Picard would know, everyone would know. Hell, we could all be a family."

"Wes--."

"Don't 'Wes' me, Mom." His eyes narrowed. "You're still sleeping with him, aren't you? Can't give it up?"

"Wesley!" she said, shocked at his insinuation.

He ignored it. "So you see why I can't go to the funeral. I can't face them, the mistakes of you betraying my father. Can't face you and the captain, two people so cold and unfeeling that they can't stop from sullying the memory of someone they supposedly cared about. I finally know how much family means to you." His finger stabbed the termination button, leaving Beverly with the Federation communication symbol, then a darkened screen.

When she was finally able to move, she could only make it to her bed, and fall into a fitful sleep.