It was a nightmare. *He* had her in his evil grasp…and *He* would not hesitate to harm her if he didn’t cooperate. But what was asked of him was impossible…Menos Corva was not his to give, and he seriously doubted Starfleet would agree to these terms.

This is what Jean-Luc told Gul Madred when they met again.

"Your military’s reluctance to hand over Menos Corva is not my problem. It’s yours."

"You have asked the impossible. The Federation wouldn’t hand it over if you had kidnapped ME."

The Cardassian smiled and, in his cultured, elegant, flowing speaker’s voice, gave him the news he had sought after silently.

"Your Beverly is not faring well in my prison. She’s been there far too long. She’s beginning to lose hope, Picard. From what I see here, she has every right to."

The news shattered him. ‘Don’t give up, Beverly. Please don’t give up. I will get you out of there soon. I promise.’

Madred watched the inner turmoil with a smug grin. ‘Precisely, Picard. I will have her life, in return for the life you stole from me.’

It was time to leave, and Madred turned to go, dropping a PADD behind him as he beamed away.

Picard bent and picked it up…he knew what it was. More violence. More torture. But he had to see her…had to see for himself how badly beaten down she was. He had to know how much time he had left.

He turned on the PADD.

She was there, in her usual place, hanging by her wrists, clothed by sweat and…blood. She had already been tortured this time…so what was the purpose…

"You have fought me well so far, my dear. I enjoy a good struggle."

Beverly made no move. She hung limply off her restraints, too exhausted to formulate a response.

"Your Jean-Luc would be proud."

At he mention of the name, Beverly’s head came up a little, and Jean-Luc could see her face. It was bruised and scraped in several places. Dried blood ran downward from her mouth and nose, and her eyebrow had been split. The sight of her beautiful face, pummeled so mercilessly, made Jean-Luc ill.

"You and he have an odd relationship. You have been friends for a quarter century, and perhaps more…I wonder, Doctor, how deeply do your feelings for that man run?"

She didn’t answer, but Jean-Luc saw a familiar expression cross her face. One he’d seen before, in the strained situations they often placed themselves in. Madred leaned in closer, bending to her ear before continuing.

"I believe that you are in love with him."

Beverly’s eyes went up to meet Madred’s, smoldering with a frightened hate.

"Do you?"

She remained silent.

Madred reached backward and grabbed her hair, pulling it back with force as he screamed. "I can take your beloved Jean-Luc and snap him in two! I will bring him in here and let him share in your pain! Do you want that?! I WILL KILL HIM IF YOU DO NOT COOPERATE! DO YOU LOVE HIM?! ANSWER ME!!!"

She cried out in pain as her head was jerked away, falling into tears at the thought of Jean-Luc being injured. She found herself crying out before she could think.

"YES!"

Madred seemed to calm after that, but continued his interrogation. "And you’ve loved him for a very long time, haven’t you?"

In a quiet, sobbing whisper, she answered.

"Yes. I’ve always loved him."

The PADD clattered to the floor.

~^~^~

Madred decided to drop in on his "guest" once more on a day months later, confident after his final meeting. He could care less about that damned planet. It was *Picard* he was after.

He had lost his rank after Picard escaped. He’d lost his family. He was given this one shot at redemption.

"Deliver Menos Corva to us, and all your glory will be returned."

She was unconscious on the floor where he had left her earlier. After his questions were answered, he’d made sure she would be unable to speak again for a long time. He bent to inspect her life signs, smiling as he felt her thin, thready pulse and slow, shallow breathing. ‘She’s alive,’ he thought simply.

Next he examined her midsection.

‘Good,’ he thought as he read the information off the tricorder. ‘The child is healthy, and nearly due. I’ll have to set the plan into effect soo—‘

He was interrupted by the sound of the intruder alarm. He was here already. ‘No matter,’ he thought quickly. ‘It’ll be hours before they reach this area. In the meantime…’

He pulled out an ancient syringe and injected it into Beverly’s bloodstream.

‘…forced labor is always enjoyable…’

The room reverberated with his evil laugh.

~^~^~^~

The away team was kept to minimum. Picard, Riker, Geordi, Data. All volunteers.

None of them knew what lie ahead. All of them were rather hoping it would be easy.

Such was never the case.

Trouble seemed to lurk around every corner, and it wasn’t long before they realized they were in an underground maze. Even Data seemed perplexed by the confusion.

Not knowing what else to do, they trekked on.

~^~^~^~

Madred watched Beverly’s reactions carefully. She was coming around, becoming more aware with each contraction. He checked the tricorder, looking for dilation, and found it.

"Nine and a half centimeters, Doctor. Almost there," he said with an evil grin.

Beverly wanted nothing more than to scream at him, but she was too weak to move and was unable to speak. The contractions now had a firm grip on her, and she endured them as best she could, but it wasn’t enough. After all the pain and torture she had been through, the agony of this childbirth sent her over the edge, and a piercing, nearly inhuman scream filled the world as the strongest contraction hit.

~^~^~^~

Jean-Luc heard it.

"Beverly…that was Beverly! We’re closer than we thought."

Data ran calculations, taking into account how muffled it was, and how strong it was. "She is directly below us, sir."

"We’ve gotta get down there. Now." Will knew Beverly well, and considered her one of his dearest friends. He had heard and recognized the agony in her voice.

"How do we get down there?" Geordi asked.

Data thought only momentarily before acting. "Stand back please."

With his phaser, he blasted a hole in the floor, four feet in diameter, and jumped in.

The others followed…and immediately wished they hadn’t. Madred knelt before an exposed Beverly, wallowing in a pool of her blood, holding a small, wailing baby.

Beverly turned her head for a moment to see who had come in. She tried to smile when she saw the Starfleet uniforms…but she didn’t have the strength left…

Madred held the crying newborn up triumphantly. "Behold, Picard! Behold your infant daughter!"

Daughter? How? But then he remembered, seven months ago, when Madred had first found Beverly. He had struck him unconscious before kidnapping her….

"You sick son of a bitch. How the hell could you?"

"Very easily Picard, I assure you. But she is not yours to keep…"

A shimmering orange light began to take hold of him, but Data’s fast reflexes forced a phaser bolt into his belly. He rushed forward to rescue the descending infant, and caught her inches from the ground.

Jean-Luc cared little about the child right now. His main concern was Beverly, unconscious and bleeding badly on the ground before him.

"Beverly…" he called. It wasn’t a surprise when the silent form remained quiet.

Data knew. It was obvious to him that Beverly was losing her life. The faint bluish hue of her lips was enough to tell him that.

Will and Geordi were stunned, clueless as to what to do.

Only Data had the presence of mind to call for a beam-out.

~^~^~^~

Within moments, they were all back on the Enterprise. Jean-Luc was rather roughly shoved out of the way as Selar tried to get to her dying commanding officer.

He sat, feet away, as they tried to stabilize her there, on the floor. They lacked the time they needed to move her. A stimulant was injected into her system to stabilize her fading heartbeat…

~^~^~

Selar took a detour, needing to get away from the ICU. Away from her dying friend. ‘It is illogical. I am showing emotion. Vulcans do not show emotion.’

She found, however, that she didn’t particularly care at the moment.

Quietly, she entered the nursery, finding only one occupant and one staff member: Alyssa Ogawa. She had volunteered to care for Beverly’s child, feeling the same urge to get out of the ICU that Selar did.

"How is the child?" asked Selar.

"Sweet. Beautiful. She is a very good baby…." Alyssa’s eyes fell. She looked up to Selar, tears threatening to fall, and asked about Beverly, pleading silently for good news.

"She’s stabilized, in a deep coma. It’s beyond all logical thought that she will survive."

Tears welled in Alyssa’s eyes as she came to the realization that she would never work with Beverly Crusher again.

She held the child tightly.

~^~^~

Jean-Luc stood the eternal watch.

He sat beside her continuously, leaving only for seconds, and then only if one of the senior officers or Alyssa stayed with her. She was going to recover. She was going to live and she was going to help him raise their child.

Their little daughter was an oddity to him. She wasn’t conceived normally, rather was part of Gul Madred’s diabolical plot. However, she was still his daughter, and his opinion of children had changed over the last ten years, starting with Wesley, continuing with his "son" from Kamin’s lifetime, changing slightly with the appearance of Jason Vigo, and altering permanently with the death of his brother, Robert, and his nephew, René. He found a dream of having children and a family among his many goals now, and he had once thought that, perhaps, he could fulfill the dream with Beverly by his side.

Now, it appeared, the dream would never come true.

He had brought the child in a few times, trying to inspire Beverly to wake up once again, for the sake of the child that, while unexpected, was his, and hers. He would keep her, despite the outcome, knowing that Beverly would be unwilling to let anyone go through what she had once.

He was asleep, dreaming of better times, when he felt a tightening around his hand. His head shot up within nanoseconds, looking intently at the face of the beaten woman on the bed. He could see her eyes flutter as she struggled free of the blackness’s grip.

It was moments later that he saw her eyes open again, the pure blue of them taking his breath away as they always did. She smiled weakly at him and squeezed his hand again.

"I’m alive?" It was rhetorical, set in a strained whisper. She took in her surroundings with a bleary eye. "And on the Enterprise…" She turned next to Jean-Luc and, in a stronger whisper, thanked him. "You saved my life…you saved my sanity…" Her eyes darkened at the sudden influx of memories from that place…and then she remembered.

"The baby, Jean-Luc….where is it?"

Jean-Luc was crying, unable to tear his eyes away from her face. "Safe. Alyssa insisted on caring for her." He tenderly brushed locks of her hair out of her face. "There are so many things I have to tell you now…when I thought I’d lost you, I felt my life slip away as surely as yours had. I knew I couldn’t live without you." He paused, if only for a second. "I love you, Beverly. My heart is yours. Forever."

She savored his touch, his warm hands against her cooled skin. His words, spoken in an anguished voice, had been tender and sincere, and…perhaps most important to Jean-Luc…reciprocated.

"Jean-Luc…" Her voice was quiet, rasping, and strained with weakness, but strong enough to be heard and understood. "I’ve been meaning to tell you this for quite some time, but something had always stood in my way. Fear—of losing our friendship, something I’ve relied on. Of losing you…if anything had happened to you…" She trailed off once more. "The last nine months have allowed me to think about a great many things…including how I feel about you." She looked deeply into his eyes, then said what he had been waiting to hear for twenty five years. "I love you, Jean-Luc, with all my heart and soul."

He bent to kiss her lightly, smiling as they laughed simultaneously, happy to be in each other’s company…and arms…once again.

Epilogue:

Two silhouettes stood silently, looking out into the stars beyond. They had just had a very busy day.

Their 13 month-old daughter had decided to color the walls in her room all shades of purple, green, blue, red, and yellow possible, give her poor puppy a bath in the pond in the arboretum, and smear some bootlegged chocolate all over her bedspread.

And this had been *before* noon.

Over the course of the child’s lifetime, it had taken every ounce of energy they had to keep up with her precocious nature. She was, perhaps, the greatest challenge that had ever been set before the two.

And they accepted this challenge gladly.

Now, after the ship had quieted and began it’s recovery from this, the horrible day that Hurricane Gabrielle had struck hardest, the two elder Picards spent what was left of their anniversary alone.

The stars blinked in silent approval as the forms retreated to privacy, jealous of the love that would burn longer and brighter than any single star in the universe could aspire to.