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Captain’s log, stardate 45782.57. After the mission to secure the peace treaty between the Valtese and the Kriosians, the Enterprise has been routed to investigate the radio silence of the SS Tsiolkovsky. The Tsiolkovsky was observing a dying red supergiant star, when Starfleet mysteriously lost all contact with it. Since the Enterprise is in the area, they’ve requested we try to find the ship at its last known coordinates…
Beverly couldn’t explain it. All eighty of the Tsiolkovsky crew dead from various causes, though almost all of them self-inflicted in some way. Then from the Enterprise, Geordi was the first to begin showing signs of the same affliction, emotional distress and intoxication, but nothing showing up on the tricorder. Nothing showing up on the deepest of scans, physiological or neurological. Either way, the infection — intoxication? She honestly still doesn’t know — is swarming the ship at an alarming rate.
She’s aware of the timeline from Starfleet. They lost contact with the Tsiolkovsky a little over forty-eight hours before they sent the Enterprise looking for it.
They’re rapidly running out of time.
Unsure of what else to do, she’s reduced staff in sickbay to a skeleton crew, confined the bridge officers to the bridge, and tried to isolate or quarantine everyone else. The latter has proven difficult as the intoxication spreads, encouraging others to more and more reckless behavior.
“Beverly,” Deanna says from the door to her office. She’s cradling her head in her hand. “I need another hypo.”
Beverly winces, afraid she was going to say that. The emotional turmoil is taking a toll on their resident empath. A quick glance at the chronometer on her terminal reveals it’s barely been two hours since the last one.
“I’m sorry, Deanna, I can’t give you anything else yet,” she says, standing up. “Maybe you should go to your quarters; it might be calmer there.”
Deanna’s black eyes are bleary, unfocused. “No, no.” She tries to wave her off, but she grimaces. “I’m fine. I want to help you.”
Before Beverly can say anything else, she hears something clatter in sickbay. Springing around her desk, she gets out the door just in time to see Geordi stumbling about. “Damn it, Geordi, no!” she says, glancing over her shoulder. “Deanna, can you get him while I get—”
“On it,” Deanna says, pushing past her. “Geordi, calm down, you’re okay—”
“What’s happening to me?” he cries out, drunkenly stepping toward her. “Deanna, I’m — I feel like I’m burning up.”
“I know, Geordi, I know,” she soothes, trying to guide him back to the biobed without touching him. Behind them, Beverly prepares a hypo.
“Is this what you feel like?” Geordi asks, and Deanna confusedly asks him what he means. “I feel like I’m feeling everything all at once. Is this what you deal with all the time? So much emotion constantly?”
“Yes,” she admits, and perhaps he senses her guard dropping under the emotional weight.
Whatever it is, Geordi lunges suddenly, exclaiming, “I gotta get out of here!” and Deanna instinctively moves to block him. She doesn’t mean to catch his hand in hers, but once it’s done, it’s done, so she holds him still as Beverly quickly administers the hypo to him.
“Oh, no, Deanna,” Beverly says when she realizes.
Deanna smiles painfully. “Guess we should have reconsidered wearing those hazard suits, huh?”
“Picard to Crusher.”
Beverly sighs, pushing her hand through her hair before tapping her combadge. “Go ahead, Captain,” she says, setting the PADD aside and scrubbing her hand over her face. Maybe she should synthesize something for the headache forming behind her eyes.
“Data and Will have found something in the historical records from the original Enterprise. Apparently they faced a similar intoxication during the breakup of a planet; the CMO of the ship was able to devise a cure. I’ve got Data downloading the information to your terminal now.”
Beverly turns to her computer, seeing the file come through. “Got it, Captain.” She can’t resist adding, “You would have thought they’d have mentioned this at least once during all those classes I took at Starfleet Medical.”
She just catches Jean-Luc’s wry chuckle. “You should write a strongly worded letter,” he says, before becoming serious again. “How is it going in sickbay, Doctor?”
“I’ve given Geordi enough tranquilizers to take out three Klingons, but the intoxication burns through it faster than should be physically possible. I can’t keep him sedated for long. During one incident, he managed to infect Deanna.”
“Deanna?” Will’s voice cuts through, and Beverly winces. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine, Will. I have her sedated for now. Stay on the bridge. That’s an order, Commander,” she says in a tone that she knows he won’t argue with.
“We’ll let you get to your reading, Doctor. Keep us updated on the situation,” Jean-Luc says. There’s a hesitation, and then, “And Beverly? Be careful.”
She smiles to herself. “Aye, sir.”
Digesting the information from the Constitution-class Enterprise would be fascinating if not for the clock ticking in the back of her brain. It’s all complex water molecules and carbon and the effects of a planetary breakup has on gravity, resulting in a sickness similar to alcohol intoxication. The cure seems almost simple in the face of all of that, especially with the Enterprise-D’s comparatively advanced technology.
She’s locked in her office, waiting for the synthesizing process to finish, when a scream cuts through sickbay. Immediately, she’s out of her chair and armed with a hypo, just to see Deanna sitting up on her biobed. Her knees are drawn up to her chest, her hands clutching her head, and she’s wailing.
“Deanna,” Beverly says calmly, but loudly to cut above her cries. “Deanna, it’s Beverly.”
“Beverly!” Deanna sobs. She looks up at her with unfocused, teary eyes. “Beverly, please, help me. It hurts.”
“How can I help? What hurts?” she prompts, concerned Deanna might be manifesting new symptoms.
“My head. It’s killing me.” Deanna bows her head again, a choking sob escaping her. “I can feel everything. All the emotions, all the turmoil — it’s so much. Humans are so repressed all the time and now you’re all feeling so much so openly—” Overwhelmed, she breaks off and buries her face in her hands.
“I know, Deanna, it’s okay,” Beverly murmurs, calm and careful as she approaches. “I have something to help you.”
She doesn’t expect Deanna to suddenly uncoil, to reach for her hand as it nears her. When she does, Beverly winces, trying to draw back but it’s too late. Deanna has her in a tight grip, eyes wide and irritated.
“Please. Please make it stop.”
“I will, I promise,” she says, pulling her hand free and showing her the hypospray. “This will help.”
Deanna relaxes, allowing Beverly to inject her, and Beverly helps her lie back on the biobed. Taking a deep breath, she flexes her hand, as if she can somehow shake off the infection she knows is already working its way through her system.
Walking back to her office, she sinks into her chair. “Computer, location of Captain Picard,” she calls out, and the computer dutifully alerts her that he is on the bridge. Sighing, she taps her combadge. “Crusher to Picard.”
“Go ahead, Doctor.”
“I have an update for you, Captain. Could you go to your ready room?”
A pause.
“Give me a moment, Doctor.” Another pause, and she can picture him walking across the bridge and into his ready room. Her badge chirps as he reinstates the connection. “Beverly? What’s wrong?”
Beverly bites her lip, still eyeing the traitorous hand that Deanna touched. “I’ve been infected, Jean-Luc,” she says, keeping her voice steady.
“What? How?”
“Deanna got me.” She sighs and looks at her terminal, checking the cure’s progress. “The cure is still synthesizing. It should be finished soon and I’ll do a test injection. It’s not ideal to test it immediately without any precautions, but considering the circumstances…”
He doesn’t respond.
“Jean-Luc?”
“Have you developed any symptoms yet?” he asks. His voice is as steady as her own, and she imagines him standing in his ready room. She wonders if he’s sitting at his desk. Either way, she can see his face: calm, like he’s staring down a Romulan warbird. Entirely the captain in the moment.
She doesn’t want the captain. She wants her friend, because though she doesn’t want to admit it, she’s scared. If she can’t cure this before she’s too far gone — that will be it. They’ll be dead like the crew of the Tsiolkovsky.
“No, not yet. The infection just happened. I have… some time before I start displaying symptoms,” she says, floundering a little. The rate the intoxication sets in varies between species, but also between people of the same species.
She has time, but not enough of it.
“Understood. Let me know how the test injection goes.”
“Yes, Captain,” she murmurs as the connection ends. Her eyes stay locked onto her terminal, the cure’s progress displayed on her screen.
The forty-eight minutes it takes for the cure to finish is the longest forty-eight minutes of Beverly’s life. She can feel the intoxication setting in: she’s perspiring, her thoughts keep wandering, and she feels almost blissfully happy. There are only a handful of times she’s been truly drunk in her life — medical school and then pregnancy didn’t leave much time for it. Still, there was a particularly memorable night out with Jack, Walker, and Jean-Luc, a rare moment when all of them were relaxed and loose. Even Jean-Luc, usually the ever-responsible one.
Reflexively, she licks her lips, and then she shakes herself out of the — well, it was less a memory and more a daydream at this point.
That night is hazy from the passage of time and the Romulan ale they had imbibed, but she thinks she’d remember if she had climbed into Jean-Luc’s lap. Especially with her fiancé present.
Her terminal alerts her that the computer has finished synthesizing, and she blows out a breath. “Not a moment too soon,” she mutters, painfully aware of the sweat on the back of her neck and the flush adorning her cheeks.
She loads the hypo and walks into sickbay, unsurprised to see Geordi starting to stir again. If this doesn’t work, she isn’t sure how she’s going to keep him sedated longer. Already she’s pushing the physical limitations of his body, even with the intoxication eating through the sedative.
“Is this gonna help me, Doc?” he asks pitifully, head turning toward her.
“I certainly hope so,” she says a touch too honestly. She doesn’t add for all of our sakes, though she thinks it. She presses the hypospray to his neck and waits, holding her breath.
Geordi shakes his head, and for a moment, she thought he was clearing it. Then he reaches for his VISOR, disconnecting it, and he sobs. “It didn’t work,” he says, unseeing eyes tearing up. “I still can’t see.”
Beverly shuts her eyes against the swoop of her stomach, momentarily bracing herself against the biobed in her disappointment. “I know, Geordi. I’m sorry,” she murmurs, coaxing him to lie back down and rest. Once he’s settled as much as she can get him to be, she walks back to her office.
She slumps over her desk, pressing her hands into the surface of it. With a shaky hand, she taps her combadge. “Jean-Luc?”
A pause that she thinks lasts longer than normal passes, before he responds. “Dr. Crusher?” His voice is hesitant.
“Could you…” Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. Somehow, her mouth is dry while the rest of her is… distinctly not. Her skin is hot, sweat beading on her scalp. A heat of a different kind builds lower, and she tries to ignore it. “Could you come to sickbay?”
“Doctor,” he starts, but then he pauses. She could almost hear the hiss of a door opening, if she could focus on it. When he speaks again, his voice is softer, “Beverly, you said it was best if we remained on the bridge. To minimize the risk of—”
“Right,” she cuts him off, turning so she’s sitting on her desk. She covers her face with her hand. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I’m not thinking straight.”
“You’ve started to experience symptoms of the infection?”
She laughs humorlessly. “The intoxication,” she says, dropping her hand from her face. “It really is like alcohol inebriation. The impaired judgment, the uninhibited thoughts…”
“Beverly?”
She wants him to say her name again. Perhaps in a slightly different tone. She can almost hear it: soft, lilting. The way his accent would curl around the syllables. The way his tongue would shape the sounds. He would say it in her ear, his breath tickling her skin. She shivers.
“God, Jean-Luc, the thoughts I’m having right now,” she murmurs to him. If she had the presence of mind, she’d be embarrassed. “I can’t stop them. I can’t focus.”
“I know it’s difficult, but you have to try,” he says and she moans softly. His voice has gone gentle, but encouraging.
“All I want to try right now is—” She swallows, biting her lip. She wants so much that she isn’t sure where to begin. “What was it you said to me last week?”
“I’m not sure what you mean. When?”
“After breakfast, when we were discussing the metamorph. Kamala.”
The name is surprisingly fun to say. She repeats it in her head: Kamala, Kamala, Kamala. She pictures soft doe eyes and an innocence that belied her purpose. Distantly, she feels a bit angry, a sense of sisterhood rising — and then she’s thinking of Jean-Luc’s hand in hers. A reassuring smile. The warmth of — so much warmth.
“May I take off the uniform?” she says, low and sultry. Then she giggles. “That’s what you said to me. Did you know that I wanted you to mean it literally?”
He inhales sharply, coughs. “Beverly!”
“Right, sorry. I shouldn’t have been thinking like that when you were trying to tell me you wanted someone else.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I always thought we shared an…”
“We shared a what?” Jean-Luc asks when she doesn’t continue. “Beverly?”
“Never mind,” she says, shaking her head though he can’t see her. “I shouldn’t be telling you this right now. I should — I should be—”
Her gaze wanders around her office: her terminal, a discarded hypo. She’s supposed to be doing something. Jean-Luc says — he says something, maybe her name again. Maybe he asks a question. She can’t make it out, so she hums, her thoughts scattering.
“I should come to your ready room,” she says decisively.
“Wait, no—”
She cuts the connection, striding out of sickbay.
The ride in the turbolift is brief, but excruciating. There are so many reasons she shouldn’t do this, but how badly she wants to do this is drowning out any reasonable thought of why she shouldn’t. When the lift door opens revealing the bridge, she walks out of it without glancing at the officers, even when Will calls out to her.
“I need to speak to the Captain,” she replies, only looking up when the door to the ready room opens as she reaches it.
Jean-Luc is there in the doorway, his mouth dropping open when he sees her. His expression would be comical, except all she can think about is how much she wants to taste him.
“Jean-Luc,” she says, “I need to speak to you privately. Urgently.”
“Doctor.” His voice is controlled whereas hers is anything but. “This is — not a good time.”
She steps closer to him until she’s almost pressed against him. “Mm, I could show you a good time,” she murmurs, staring at his lips.
His face twists in an unreadable expression and then he’s pulling her into the ready room behind him. “Beverly,” he says once the door is shut. “We can’t. Not now.”
“It’s never the right time for us.” She pouts at him, running her hand up his chest. “Do you know how many times over the years I’ve tried to tell you…” She licks her lips, distracted by the way he gasps at the touch of her fingers at the nape of his neck.
“Tell me what?” he murmurs to her and she shivers in response.
“Oh, Jean-Luc, don’t you know?” she whispers just before she pulls his mouth to hers. When their lips meet, she moans, the sparks skittering over her fevered skin, and her tongue slips out to drag against his bottom lip. His mouth opens to her and she brushes her tongue along his, reveling in finally tasting him. She loops her arms around his shoulders, pressing her body to his.
He breaks apart first, breathing heavily. “Beverly,” he rasps, “you’re infected. You’re not — you’re not thinking clearly.”
She can almost see the moment the Captain slips back into place as he lets go of her, unhooking her arms and stepping back. Somewhat dazed, still caught in the feeling of finally kissing Jean-Luc Picard like she’s wanted for years, she watches him sit down in the chair at his desk. He tugs on his uniform top as is his custom. She pictures ripping it off of him, blinking against the images flooding her brain.
“I’m not,” she admits, “but that doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about this before. The problem now is that I can’t control it. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Jean-Luc’s eyes widen, though she’s uncertain if it’s because of what she said or because of how she’s approaching his desk now. She strips off her lab coat, letting it fall to the floor, and then she perches on the edge of his desk.
“I can’t stop thinking about the way you say my name and how much I’d like to hear you say it when I’m touching you. Or how good your hands would feel around my waist, holding me.” She licks her lips, closing her eyes and tilting her head back as she imagines it. Her hands traverse her own body. “How would you touch me, Jean-Luc?”
He says something in French — an oath, she thinks — and then he’s standing in front of her, his hands helping her adjust until she’s sitting on the desk properly. With him so close, her legs have to part so he can stand between them. “Do you know what you do to me?” he murmurs, his eyes so dark she can barely make out the irises. “Have you always known how much I wanted you?”
“No,” she says sincerely. “Show me.”
“Forgive me,” he whispers, then kisses her, hard and unyielding. She whines at the delicious force of it, the way his tongue presses in and tangles with her own. One hand is at her waist, the other in her hair, tilting her head as he controls the kiss. Instinctively, she wraps her legs around him, drawing him impossibly closer to her, until she can feel him hardening in his pants.
He tears his mouth from hers, blazing a path down her jaw. “The things I want to do to you, Beverly,” he says gruffly, nipping at her earlobe. “I hardly know where to start.”
She moans in protest when he steps back from her, her legs falling away from his hips. “Jean-Luc—”
“Turn around,” he interrupts, urging her to stand. She does so, spinning in place and pressing her palms to his desktop. He moves her hair over her shoulder and then he’s tugging at the fastener of her uniform.
As he reveals her spine, he leans in, kissing the nape of her neck. His hand slips into her uniform, following the line of her standard-issue bra, and she shivers at the gentle brush of his fingertips along her skin. Dotting kisses along her vertebrae, he cups her breast in his hand, squeezing gently.
“Oh, God,” she moans, tugging her arms free of her uniform and pushing it down to her waist. “Jean-Luc…”
“Beautiful,” he says into her skin, nipping at her shoulder blade. He kisses his way across her shoulders to her neck, sucking at her soft skin before he turns her back around.
She meets his eyes and bites her lip at the hunger she sees there. She reaches for him, pulling him into a kiss, and then he grabs her uniform, pulling it down her legs.
“Damn it,” he mutters as her boots prevent him from stripping her completely. He bends down to pull them off, carelessly dropping them to the floor, and finally he gets her completely out of her uniform.
Expecting him to rise back up to her, she sits down on the desk and parts her legs for him. He looks up at her, eyes dark and hungry, and he surprises her by reaching for his chair. Once he’s seated, he takes one of her legs and places it on his shoulder, sensuously kissing a path up her calf.
Her head falls back on her shoulder when he swirls his tongue against the back of her knee before sucking there. “Oh,” she gasps, and he’s kissing up her thigh now, nipping at the sensitive skin there. He slows down, moving more languidly as he gets closer to where she wants him most. She reaches for him, cupping the back of his head to try and lead him.
He lets her, pressing kisses from her hip to her pubic bone, teasing.
“Please, Jean-Luc,” she moans.
Jean-Luc hums against her and then he mouths at her through her underwear, and Beverly’s entire body jerks at the electric current that shoots through her. He licks at her, dragging his tongue over her center in long presses.
“You’re so wet,” he murmurs, sitting back and bringing a hand to press two fingers against the sopping fabric.
Fuck, the way he’s staring at her, occasionally glancing up as he rubs against her — it has her gasping, writhing on his desk. He presses against her clit, rubbing hard, and she can’t help but cry out, her own hand covering her mouth to try and stop the sound.
They’re in his ready room. The bridge crew is right outside, so close — fuck, she feels so close already, just from this — and she can’t do that. She can’t cry out, no matter how much she wants to. “Oh, fuck,” she hisses, teeth catching her bottom lip again as he slides her underwear to the side and brings his mouth to her.
God, that’s good, the feeling of him against her without anything in the way, and she’s rolling her hips to meet his mouth, one hand clutching at the desk’s edge. “Jean-Luc,” she whines, clutching at his head, holding him in place as he flicks his tongue over her clit. “Right there, oh God, don’t stop.”
Logically, she knows the enhanced sensations are because of the intoxication heightening everything. Nonetheless, a part of her always suspected Jean-Luc would be good at this, and he is, the way he sucks and licks, not just at her clit but at her folds too, drawing out the pleasure of it. All too soon, she can feel her orgasm building as he eats her like she’s his last meal.
She tries really, really hard not to cry out. She might even succeed or perhaps she can’t hear it over her pulse thudding in her ears. All it takes is one particularly delicious suck around her clit for her release to crash over her, her vision momentarily whiting out as she comes.
“Delicious,” Jean-Luc murmurs, and he’s kissing up her sternum, taking a moment to lavish attention on both of her breasts before he kisses her hard. “You taste so fucking good, Beverly. Just like I imagined.”
He really should not say things like that, because she’s not sure she can pretend like she’s never heard them once this is over. This — right, she’s supposed to be doing something, trying to fix this, to save them — and just as quickly, the thought is gone as Jean-Luc’s tongue slips into her mouth, tangling with hers. She slides her hands up his chest, fingers clutching at the fabric of his uniform, and then she realizes he’s overdressed.
Seeking out the fastener on his top, she undoes it expertly, pulling it off of him and separating their lips long enough to appreciate how he looks in the gray undershirt. She runs her hands down his arms, lingering over his muscles before she’s stripping him of the undershirt as well. She’s seen him shirtless numerous times, especially since she stepped onto the Enterprise as CMO, but never like this. Never when she could actually take him in and enjoy what she was seeing.
“Beverly,” he says impatiently, reaching for her, but she has enough presence of mind to stop him.
“You’re not the only one who has imagined this,” she replies, meeting his gaze with a sultry look of her own. She leans in, kissing his lips and then his jaw, biting at the spot where it meets his neck.
He groans, and she can feel the vibration of the sound underneath her mouth. It elicits a soft moan of her own, and she can feel herself getting wetter with the desire to hear that sound again. She nibbles her way down his throat, drawing patterns on his skin with her tongue, and her name escapes him, rough and lustful.
“I want you,” he says, one hand grasping her chin to pull her into a kiss. His other hand goes to her breasts, tugging one of her bra cups aside so that he could pinch and roll her nipple between his fingers.
The kiss turns sloppy, their teeth knocking together in desperation, but that doesn’t slow them down. It spurs her on, has her hands dropping to his pants and undoing them enough to slip her hand inside. If she thought she enjoyed the groan he made with her lips at his neck, it doesn’t compare to the lick of lust that shoots through her at the sound he makes once her fingers wrap around his cock.
She pulls him out of his briefs, jerking him in teasing strokes, testing to find the rhythm and pressure that he likes. “Like that?” she asks, watching his face carefully as she twists her wrist.
“Uh-huh,” he groans, dropping his head to her shoulder. “God, Beverly… Your hands…”
She releases him long enough to lick her palm, then she grasps him again, stroking. His hips thrust in time with her pulls on his cock, and she whispers to him, “Mm, tell me, Jean-Luc.”
He doesn’t reply with words, instead he raises his head and kisses her hungrily. “I can’t wait anymore,” he says into her mouth, a hand sliding between her thighs. He strokes through her wetness, two fingers pressing into her and making her gasp.
“Fuck me,” she murmurs, nipping at his bottom lip. A heady moan escapes her as he thrusts his fingers inside of her, curling them just right, before pulling them out. She opens her eyes in time to watch him rub his cock against her, teasing her clit with the head, and then he’s there at her entrance.
Slowly, he pushes into her, and she moans loudly, uncaring at who might hear her on the bridge now that he’s inside of her. He withdraws until just the tip is in her, then thrusts back in, slow and measured to let her adjust to the intrusion. Once he’s completely buried inside of her, he kisses her, open-mouthed and deep.
For several moments, she enjoys the kiss. Enjoys the sheer pleasure of touching him, and having him like this, until the need for more overpowers everything else. She writhes against him, rolling her hips as best she can while sitting on a desk.
Jean-Luc moans, tearing his mouth from hers and thrusting into her, slowly and then building a rhythm. Beverly leans back, planting a hand behind her on the desktop and adjusting so she can have leverage to meet him. She gasps, eyes rolling back into her head at each thrust, her free hand gripping his hip, her nails digging into his skin.
“Harder, Jean-Luc,” she moans, tightening her legs around his waist. “God, I need more, please.”
He mutters something in French, then, “Fuck, you’re so tight,” and he kisses her quickly, guiding her down. The position changes the depth of his thrusts, has her crying out at a particularly sharp push that has pleasure lancing through her. “You feel so good around my cock, Beverly.”
She whimpers, clutching at him, her arms looping under his arms to hold onto his back. “Right there,” she says to him as he does something, hits some angle just right, and then she’s unable to articulate anything beyond wordless sounds. He’s kissing whatever part of her he can reach — her neck, her collarbone, he pauses his pistoning hips just long enough to capture one of her nipples in his mouth and sucks — and she’s, oh fuck, she’s loud. She knows she is, she can feel the cries reverberating in her throat, but she can’t stop. Not now, not like this.
He grasps her thigh, hiking her leg higher up his waist, and stars burst behind her eyes. “Oh, God,” she cries out, her vocalizations going higher as he begins to thrust faster. “Jean-Luc, I’m — I’m gonna—”
“I know,” he groans, and he’s fucking into her harder, harder, the salacious sounds of their flesh meeting echoing in the room. “I can feel it. Come for me, Beverly.”
She shouts, maybe his name or maybe nothing at all, she’s not sure as her orgasm roars through her. Somehow the virus intoxicating her only strengthens the feel of it, has her trembling and writhing apart on his desk as he thrusts through it until — he harshly moans her name into her neck, coming inside of her.
Her pulse thunders in her ears as she comes down from her orgasm, and she’s holding him to her, cupping the back of his head as he breathlessly presses kisses into her skin. He kisses her once they’ve both caught their breaths enough to do so, and then he pulls back, staring into her eyes.
Beverly stares back, at first in wonder and perhaps a bit of concern over what they’ve done, but then she notices something. Her eyes narrow and then she’s pushing at his shoulders, sitting up. “Jean-Luc,” she says, “you’re infected.”
“Well, yes, after that I imagine I am,” he says with furrowed brows.
“No.” She shakes her head. “You’re sweating profusely. Your eyes are dilated. We just had sex in your ready room. You were infected before I came in here. But how?”
He awkwardly tucks himself back into his pants, walking over to the replicator and requesting a towel. “I haven’t been off the bridge since you quarantined us up here,” he says and offers her the towel. When she takes it, he picks up his shirts and, after dressing, turns to stare out the viewport as she cleans herself up.
“Did you have any physical contact with Geordi before I had him in sickbay?” she asks, thinking it over. He doesn’t turn back around even as she collects her underwear and shimmies back into her uniform.
“No, he went straight to Engineering after the away team got back from the Tsiolkovsky.”
Beverly hums thoughtfully, walking past him to the recycler. When she turns back, he’s still at the viewport. “You can turn around now,” she says, taking a few steps closer to him. She wants to reach out and touch him. The heat is already rising again, the desire to take his uniform off stitch by stitch with her teeth, and she clenches her fingers into a fist to try to hold it off.
Taking a breath, she asks, “Has anyone else on the bridge displayed any symptoms? Will or Data?”
He turns around and, like a magnet, draws closer to her. She inhales, biting her lip. “No,” he murmurs, his eyes on her mouth. “No one at all.”
“I need to get out of here,” she says, forcing herself to step back. “I’ve got to — we need a cure, now. You should — you should stay in here, or go to your quarters now that you’re infected. We can’t risk the rest of the bridge—”
“Beverly—”
She waves a hand, snatching up her coat and walking out of the ready room. She doesn’t mean to look at the bridge crew — in fact, most of them seem to be doing their best to not meet her eyes. Her skin flushes for reasons not related to the intoxication or the desire to fuck Jean-Luc and she hurries toward the turbolift.
Riker follows her, glancing back at the ready room and seeing the captain not emerge yet. “Doctor Crusher,” he says urgently, stopping her before she steps on the lift.
“Not now, Will, please,” she murmurs with wide, embarrassed eyes. Over Will’s shoulder, she can see Worf adjusting awkwardly, and she winces to think what his Klingon senses might be picking up.
“Beverly, if you and the captain are both infected…” He regards her quite seriously. “I need to know what that looks like going forward.”
Beverly stares at him, knowing he’s right. She can’t let the embarrassment of having fucked the captain in his ready room with the crew right outside stop her from doing her job. “While the virus has affected him, I think his judgment in official manners are still sound. If I can’t figure out a cure in the next few hours, it won’t matter anyway. But I have told him to remain in his ready room or to go to his quarters to try and avoid infecting any of you.”
Will nods and Beverly finally meets his eyes. She tilts her head. “Will, you’re perspiring,” she whispers and he grimaces. “Oh, no. It was you that — okay. Okay. I have to get back to sickbay and make a cure for this. Just… try not to infect anyone else and let me know if you or he start feeling worse.”
“Alright, Doc,” Will says, letting her step into the turbolift.
Once she returns to sickbay, she fights through the intoxication and the unfocused thoughts to work on the cure. It takes a bit of guesswork, postulating that because this is caused by the star going supernova versus a planetary breakup then the cure needs to be broader. After it’s synthesized, she tests it on Geordi and, to her relief, it works quite fast. Next she cures herself, then Deanna, and then she contacts her staff so that they can disperse the cure throughout the ship. She tasks Dr. Selar to administer the cure to Jean-Luc and Will; the Vulcan doesn’t ask why Beverly herself doesn’t go to the bridge, though she does raise an eyebrow.
She buries herself in writing reports, documenting not only the differences in the virus from when the Constitution-class Enterprise encountered it but also the formulations for the cure. She pens a strongly worded… suggestion to Starfleet Medical to include the virus in future curriculum, as well as to the Astrophysics department of Starfleet to further research the effects of planetary breakups and star supernovae on species that could be susceptible to polywater intoxications. Deanna checks in only once, over comms, an almost perfunctory message asking after her.
Beverly’s not offended by that. She knows how hard Deanna got hit by the virus, so her message is friendly in response but declines needing any further assistance for now.
The next message she receives is from Jean-Luc — from the captain. It’s an official message, putting the senior staff post-mission (if it could be called that) briefing off until the staff meeting tomorrow. She wonders if it would be possible to come up with some sort of hypo that would let her modify the memory of everyone on the bridge earlier. Including Jean-Luc and herself, because she can still feel his hands on her body, his lips against hers.
She doesn’t join him for breakfast before the staff meeting, deciding she can’t be alone with him just yet. Not that sitting in a room full of senior staff members, some of whom now know what she sounds like when she orgasms, is going to be any less awkward.
Everyone is already in the observation lounge when she gets there, and she ducks her head to hide the blush staining her cheeks as everyone’s eyes turn to her. Will and Worf shift awkwardly in their seats, Data is clueless to any cause for embarrassment, and of course, Geordi and Deanna have no idea. As she takes her seat beside Deanna, she feels her turn toward her, the confusion on her face undoubtedly caused by the sudden wave of humiliation seeping into the room.
“Later,” Beverly whispers to try and forestall any conversation. She tries to come up with as many tasks she absolutely must complete later to avoid Deanna after this. She briefly glances at Jean-Luc. “Sorry I’m late. Captain.”
He doesn’t look at her, his eyes kept stoically straight ahead. “It’s fine,” he says, then, as an afterthought, “Doctor.”
Things haven’t been this stilted between them since her first year on the Enterprise.
Jean-Luc begins the meeting, explaining the information Will and Data had uncovered about the Psi 2000 virus, and then turning it over to Beverly for the medical part of the debriefing. Some questions are asked, some directives are given for Beverly and Deanna to make sure the affected crew members are physically and mentally okay after the ordeal, and there’s even some gentle ribbing between Geordi and Will about the intoxication. All in all, Beverly feels like she’s almost made it out unscathed; the worst of it being when Jean-Luc commends Beverly for her quick work on devising a cure and Will allows himself a teasing, knowing smile in her direction.
He doesn’t say anything, though, so she’ll let him slide without ordering him in for a long and drawn out physical.
When the meeting is over and the senior staff are beginning to disperse, Beverly starts to stand just to freeze in place when Jean-Luc says, still not looking at her, “Doctor, could you stay behind for a moment?”
Will glances at her again, eyes twinkling, and Beverly glares at him fiercely. He coughs in a manner that sounds suspiciously like a laugh, before he leaves with the others.
For several moments, no one says anything. She chances a look at him from the corner of her eye, just to see he’s still locked into staring at the opposite wall. Finally, Jean-Luc sighs and runs a hand over his head.
“Beverly,” he says softly, and oh, she really wishes he wouldn’t say her name like that. Not right now, when she can feel the weight of his body on top of hers and hear his voice in her ear, saying her name just like that but with more lust. “I wanted to apologize for my… behavior yesterday.”
“Your… behavior?” She blinks, flexing her hands on the table before hiding them underneath the table, twisting her fingers together. “I was the one who — who came to you.” She has found the strength to look at him head-on now, though he’s avoiding her gaze.
“Yes, but I… As your commanding officer, not to mention your friend, I had a duty to not take advantage of you in a compromised situation. I knew you were infected and experiencing symptoms from the intoxication, and there were… I had several options I should have taken to keep you from stepping on the bridge, to keep you from… To keep you safe from situations you could not have an unimpaired say in.”
Beverly swallows slowly. “I’m the Chief Medical Officer; there is no place on this ship you can keep me from without relieving me of duty,” she points out. “Even if you had locked the bridge or your ready room, I could have overridden it. Unless you believed I wasn’t—”
“No,” he cuts her off firmly, meeting her eyes. “Despite the lack of judgment in… other areas, I knew you were still capable of doing your duty. And you did that in spades, Beverly. Do not think for a second that I doubt your abilities to excel at your position.”
She allows herself a small smile at his conviction. “Thank you,” she murmurs, demurring for a second. “But Jean-Luc, you didn’t take advantage of me. We were both impaired. As I realized once it was over, you were already infected. Otherwise I know you never would have—” She interrupts herself this time, laughing a touch manically. “My God, Jean-Luc. We had sex in your ready room. With the officers still on the bridge!”
Jean-Luc looks utterly stricken at this declaration, his ears rapidly turning pink. “I don’t see what’s so amusing,” he says as she continues laughing.
Beverly tries to school herself into a more neutral expression, but now she can’t stop giggling. “I’m sorry, you’re right. It’s a very serious situation,” she manages to get out, but dissolves into hearty laughter.
He doesn’t budge at first, watching her as she laughs hard enough there are tears in her eyes, and then — then he begins to chuckle, slowly building until he’s laughing as hard as she is. “I guess you’re right,” he says through his guffaws. “It’s utterly ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“Two senior officers on Starfleet’s flagship acting like two teenagers unable to control their urges? I would say so.”
Their laughter dies down, and Jean-Luc smiles softly at her. Almost wistfully, or maybe that’s her imagination. “Are you alright, Beverly? After the virus?”
“Perfectly fine,” she assures, briefly chewing her bottom lip before smirking. “Thought you might want to anonymously send Alyssa a gift for her discretion. I had to have her treat some rather… interestingly placed bruises somewhere I couldn’t reach, shall we say.”
“Beverly! You didn’t.”
She lets the moment draw out before releasing him from his misery. “No, I didn’t,” she says, chuckling. The bruises were real, caused by the desk’s edge digging into her bottom, but she’d left them. She kind of liked having a few physical tokens to remind her of their dalliance, though she wasn’t about to tell him that.
Jean-Luc laughs and shakes his head at her. “Well, I’m glad you’ve found the humor in this,” he says, tugging at his uniform top. “At least you can hide down in sickbay while I have to sit on the bridge with Will and Worf nearby.”
“Has Will been merciless?”
“He’s been behaving so far. I suspect he knows to give it a few days before he says anything.”
Beverly chuckles. “He nearly said something when you asked me to stay behind,” she points out. “But he thought better of it.”
“Oh,” he blanches. “I didn’t think about how that would look.”
“Don’t worry; I’m sure he doesn’t actually think that you’re pounding me into the table right now.”
Jean-Luc sputters and coughs, turning red again. “Beverly!”
She laughs, standing up from her seat and coming to stand next to him. He turns in his chair so he can look up at her, and when she extends her hand, he takes it. “I’m glad we’ve gotten past the awkwardness,” she says, squeezing his fingers. “I was worried I might have to find a new breakfast partner.”
Something flickers across his face, a microexpression that he masks too quickly for her to read. “No,” he replies with a small smile. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
She should release his hand. She should step back, and go back to sickbay, and he should go back to the bridge. They will, eventually, forget about the virus and the sex. Everything will go back to normal between them.
The moment lingers.
Later, she will not be able to explain what made her do it. Now, she releases his hand but catches his jaw, bending down to kiss him. The kiss is nothing like what they shared yesterday: it is gentle, light, and testing. As if she’s dropped a small pebble into a still body of water to watch the ripples.
When she starts to draw back, Jean-Luc chases her, his own hand coming up to grasp the back of her head and kiss her again. That same softness, but somehow more. More promising, more assuring. When it’s over, she presses her forehead to his, eyes closed for several seconds.
Opening them, she stands upright and says, “Breakfast tomorrow? The usual time?”
Jean-Luc smiles at her, the tiniest uptick of the corners of his mouth that somehow says so much. “Yes, of course.”
She walks out of the observation lounge without looking back. Her heart pounds all the way to the turbolift and for the entire ride to sickbay. When she walks in, Alyssa glances at her and then double takes.
“Feeling better, Doctor?” she asks and Beverly tilts her head.
“What do you mean?”
“You seemed preoccupied before the staff meeting, but now you’re almost glowing. There’s even a pep to your step that wasn’t there before.”
Beverly worries she turns as red as her hair as she ducks her head, heading toward her office. “Oh, well, yes. I am feeling better,” she calls over her shoulder, crossing into her office and immediately engaging the privacy features. The walls turn opaque and Beverly smiles to herself, wide and uninhibited.