The beginning is as good a place as any to start, difficult as it is. After giving his hand a squeeze in return, Beverly folds her arms loosely across her chest, more to give her hands something to do than because she feels particularly threatened.
"I remember it like it was yesterday. 2354. My son Wesley was five years old. Our marriage was five years old. Jean-Luc came himself to tell me the news because he was one of my closest friends. Sometimes I can still picture it, how it felt and exactly how the scene went as he told me. Jack, my husband and his best friend, had been killed in the line of duty and the responsibility was his."
Hence her difficult and confusing relationship with the ship's captain, made all the more difficult by her temporal displacement. As if they didn't have enough between them before she was brought here. Her eyes glaze over as she loses herself to the memories, talking through them as if she still sees them play out before her eyes.
"I remember sobbing into his shoulder. I felt as though a part of me had died with him. I remember having to tell Wesley that his father wouldn't be coming home again, realizing that he had picked it up from what Jean-Luc had said, before I even tried. For a long time afterwards, I could feel a deep and desperate darkness, like a weight was trying to choke me, cut me off. How could I live without Jack? How could I do anything at all? But it was Wesley, crying at night - Wesley who so thoroughly depended on me for his survival - that brought me out of that darkness. If something happened to him, I would never forgive myself.
"And so we survived until 2364, when I heard that the new Enterprise-D was looking for a Chief Medical Officer for her maiden voyages. As soon as I heard who would be her captain, I put in for a transfer to that position. I knew Jean-Luc and he still was a good friend, despite the awkwardness and the pain hanging between us. I had forgiven him long ago, though I knew he hadn't forgiven himself."
Awkwardness and pain that still hang between them, especially now. Blinking, Beverly lets her gaze return to Merlin's, pausing to let him digest what she's told him so far.
no subject
"I remember it like it was yesterday. 2354. My son Wesley was five years old. Our marriage was five years old. Jean-Luc came himself to tell me the news because he was one of my closest friends. Sometimes I can still picture it, how it felt and exactly how the scene went as he told me. Jack, my husband and his best friend, had been killed in the line of duty and the responsibility was his."
Hence her difficult and confusing relationship with the ship's captain, made all the more difficult by her temporal displacement. As if they didn't have enough between them before she was brought here. Her eyes glaze over as she loses herself to the memories, talking through them as if she still sees them play out before her eyes.
"I remember sobbing into his shoulder. I felt as though a part of me had died with him. I remember having to tell Wesley that his father wouldn't be coming home again, realizing that he had picked it up from what Jean-Luc had said, before I even tried. For a long time afterwards, I could feel a deep and desperate darkness, like a weight was trying to choke me, cut me off. How could I live without Jack? How could I do anything at all? But it was Wesley, crying at night - Wesley who so thoroughly depended on me for his survival - that brought me out of that darkness. If something happened to him, I would never forgive myself.
"And so we survived until 2364, when I heard that the new Enterprise-D was looking for a Chief Medical Officer for her maiden voyages. As soon as I heard who would be her captain, I put in for a transfer to that position. I knew Jean-Luc and he still was a good friend, despite the awkwardness and the pain hanging between us. I had forgiven him long ago, though I knew he hadn't forgiven himself."
Awkwardness and pain that still hang between them, especially now. Blinking, Beverly lets her gaze return to Merlin's, pausing to let him digest what she's told him so far.