Resistance Is Futile - Pt 24

What had she been thinking?

Doctor Beverly Crusher sat on her long couch, gazing out at the slowly moving star field. They were still under Impulse power, and would be until the Captain gave the order to go to Warp.

Into Borg space.

Where Deanna would most likely beam into a Borg Cube, allow herself to be assimilated, and pray that the drug they gave her would allow the Borg to feel the pain of the hundreds of thousands of individuals and hopefully destroy themselves. And no matter what happened, the admiral would be there to pull Deanna out and restore her to good health, as if the assimilation had never happened.

And what does the Doctor do? Sucker punch that very admiral. In front of everybody. Well, maybe not everybody...Geordi claimed he was looking elsewhere when it happened.

Beverly barely moved her head when her door chime sounded. She was under General Arrest, so she had no control over her door functions. However, when the door chimed again, she turned her head and said, "Come."

The door slid open with ease and Admiral Hamilton herself entered.

Beverly stumbled to her feet to stand at attention.

"At ease," Virginia said, alighting in a chair. She waved for Beverly to retake her seat. She couldn't help but be amused at how the woman managed to look at attention even while she was sitting 'at ease'. But then, she probably wasn't at ease right now. Virginia studied the other woman for a long moment, wondering how the other would have reacted had their positions been reversed...had Beverly heard another woman's name come from the mouth of her lover...not once, or even twice. She herself hadn't mentioned it to Picard, not even after they'd showered and were preparing to go their separate ways and he'd asked what was bothering her; an event that had happened less than an hour ago. "You were not informed of the mission?" she asked finally.

"No, I wasn't. Deanna..." Beverly trailed off.

"Go on."

"She was planning her wedding and forgot to tell me."

Virginia smiled, surprising the doctor.

"You're amused?" Beverly asked, out of turn.

"You have no idea." Virginia crossed her legs, only a little sore from Jean-Luc's earlier administrations. "Which is why there are no charges against you and you are no longer under arrest."

Beverly was momentarily speechless, but only momentarily. "Thank you, Admiral."

"You're welcome. I have no doubt that it is something you won't soon forget. Tell me, you're the one who brought Picard back from the Borg."

It wasn't a question, but it certainly required a response from her. "I am."

"Could you do it again? Bring someone back from being assimilated, I mean."

"I believe so. Their technology is always advancing, more quickly than ours, so it gets a little harder each time, but I believe I could. If I had to. I was under the impression I wasn't going to have to."

"Let's just say that the mission parameters are being changed. Admiral's prerogative. To which you are under direct orders not to discuss with anyone until after the mission is completed and Deanna and I have returned."

"You're still sending Deanna?" Beverly's tone, though confused, now had an edge of iron in it.

"I am sending no one."

It took a moment, for Beverly to get what the Admiral was hinting at. But when it dawned on her..."Why?"

Virginia was quiet as she contemplated her answer. "Can I trust you Beverly?"

"As long as what you're planning doesn't harm this ship and her crew, yes."

"It has been my plan all along to take Deanna's place in the mission, the events of last night and this morning confirmed my decision. I can no more send someone to this death, even if temporarily, than I could when I was younger. Some have accused me of having a hero complex." Virginia shrugged. "I see something that needs to be done, and I'm simply the best one to pull it off."

"But...you have the power to rescue someone else...and to restore their memory...like it never happened. I won't be able to do that for you."

"No one could. Ian's tried before, to alter some of my memories to make them less painful...he described the sensation...and he said my mind rebels when memories are tampered with." Virginia wondered what she could say to convince the other woman, because she suddenly felt a need to. "Beverly, it's better this way. Deanna will still go with me, because I'll need her to transport me off before the Cube explodes. But she won't have to face assimilation herself. I will have a list of things for you later, requests and orders if anything should go wrong. This is...I have to do this, Beverly."

"Does Jean-Luc know?"

"No. And I have no intention of telling him."

"Have you been leading him on?" Beverly demanded angrily.

"No. My interest in him is genuine...it is his that isn't. He thinks it is, but his heart betrays him. I am not telling the Captain, because he does not need to know."

"He'd try to talk you out of it."

"Wouldn't you? Haven't you?" Virginia sighed deeply. "My heart could not bear to hear the things he would say, because my heart would know them to be lies."

Beverly looked at the woman before her...looked at her through the eyes of a woman...and seeing the woman before her...not the doctor seeing the admiral...but one woman seeing another woman. And the woman before her was hurting. "What happened?"

Virginia didn't want to trust the tenderness and concern she suddenly heard in the other woman's voice. To admit defeat to 'the other woman' was humiliating. But she found she had little choice. "Have you ever been with a man...intimately...and he's called out a name that wasn't yours?"

"Once."

The admiral flicked a piece of imaginary lint off her uniform pants. "Picard loves you, Beverly. His head has him convinced it will end badly...but his heart doesn't buy his reasoning. So don't give up on him."

Again, it took a moment for it to sink into Beverly what the admiral was saying. "I won't. And ... I'm sorry."

Virginia quenched the tears that threatened to fall. "Yes, well...that is life. Now, you must return to duty and I must speak with Guinan." The admiral rose quickly to her feet. "I will speak to you later on the mission's new parameters. And just in case I need to mention it, Deanna is not to know of these changes either."

"Understood," said Beverly, following the admiral to her feet. She watched in silence as the admiral left without another word.

Beverly was glad, very glad, to hear that Jean-Luc still loved her, and she was unable to stop the sense of triumph that came with the other woman's admission...but at the same time, it broke something in her heart to know that the knowledge came at that woman's pain.

What a strange turn of events.