I began wiping Jacob off with a towel. One powerful set of lungs on him. A smile came to my face as I wrapped him in a blue blanket. I gave Jacob to Bridget and she was crying.
“Thank-you. Both of you.”
I stood back as Beverly looked at the baby in Bridget’s arms. This was her family.
“Hi grandpa.”
She took in every feature of her grandfather that she could. Wouldn’t it be something to meet a family member from the past? I found my mind wandering to my own family in this time frame as I peeled off the gloves from my hands and throwing them in the bin by the door.
“I actually didn’t know what grandpa Jacob looked like. There are no pictures of him in my time. Only little blurbs about who he was and how he shaped the things to come. He’s remarkable gran.”
Bridget’s nose flared, but then her gaze softened as she held Jacob.
“I told you don’t call me that. I’m not that old yet. He’s amazing isn’t he?”
Without interfering, I counted ten toes and ten fingers, each hand and foot had five of course, but they were all perfect. Bridget gasped when Jacob opened his eyes.
“He has blue eyes.”
Beverly knew that. She’d said that almost all the members of her family had blue eyes. Except for a few. I made my way on the other side of the curtain and back on the edge of the bed with Deanna and Gracie. Gracie had just fallen asleep. I traced her nose as she slept. Deanna was also asleep. Carefully scooping Gracie up from her spot on her mother’s chest, I put her back in the plastic basinet next to the bed. Deanna suddenly stirred in the bed and sat stock-still, straight up.
“Someone’s coming, and they are very agitated and angry.”
My guard instantly up, my left hand rested on the plastic basinet, while my right arm snaked around Deanna’s waist. I could feel her tense under my gentle grip. I shook my head, whomever they were, they weren’t getting the baby or Deanna. The door to the room burst open and I suddenly felt an explosion of pain in my stomach. I barely had time to look down at the blood that was now starting to pool out of me from the wound in my stomach. Gunshot wound. How is Beverly going to fix this one? There were voices in the hallway, but not sure where they were coming from. I was seeing spots before my eyes. Gracie was screaming at the top of her lungs. Deanna was screaming at someone, but everything was becoming a big blur. I tried speaking when I felt pressure up against my stomach.
“Shh Will don’t talk. I need to stop the bleeding.”
I could barely see Beverly’s face. She was blurry and I was having trouble breathing. I tried to speak once more, but only heard gurgling in my throat, then there was a metallic taste in my mouth.
“Don’t talk Will. Don’t talk. You have a punctured lung. Try to take slow and even breaths. That’s it. I need some help in here! Would somebody please help me?”
Everything around me was starting to turn white, I knew I was on the verge of passing out.
“Oh no you don’t Will. Stay with me. Keep your eyes open, there you go. Good boy. Keep your eyes on me. That’s it.”
I could barely see Beverly anymore. She was only an outline. The pain was unbearable by now and I didn’t know how much more I could take before my body completely succumbed to it.
“Could somebody please help me? This man needs a shot of Morphine now!”
The last thing I heard before I passed out were the screams of Deanna and Beverly, Gracie was screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Don’t touch me! Get your hands off me!” ———————————————————————————————————————
I woke somewhere different, but the pain in my stomach was still there. Groaning, I attempted to open my eyes. There was that strange thing over my nose and mouth like when we were first brought here. I felt the urge to cough and I felt something damp on my lips. A voice somewhere off to my left, and then I heard a loud voice yelling.
“…He’s vomiting blood! More suction!”
I didn’t care what was happening to me, I was more worried about my family. Where was Deanna? Beverly? Gracie? Where were they? There was someone close to my ear.
“Everything’s going to be ok Mr. Riker. You’re in good hands. Just try and relax.”
I heard Beverly’s voice suddenly, but I wasn’t quite sure where it was coming from. I tried once again to open my eyes, but I couldn’t.
“Will I need you to relax. We have your eyes taped shut so that we can perform surgery. You have a punctured lung. We’ll need an ultrasound and exploratory surgery to see where else you’re bleeding. I’ll get you another shot of Morphine.”
I nodded. Soon my head was swimming, but I wasn’t feeling any pain. Soon I heard nothing.
———————————————————————————————————————
At first, there was only loud beeping in my ears. Then I heard someone crying next to me. Slowly opening my eyes, and instead of seeing Deanna, it was Beverly. I swallowed and attempted to speak.
“Hey…”
Beverly quickly wiped her eyes and looked me straight in the eye.
“The military police, they took my grandmother. Grandpa too. I don’t know where they took them. Other than gran was locked up somewhere.”
There was something else in Beverly’s eyes that didn’t seem right.
“There’s something else?”
She nodded her head and pulled up a chair.
“Yes, they locked up Deanna and took Gracie. I don’t know where they took her. I tried to stop them, but all I got was the butt of a rifle to my head. 16 stitches.”
Still groggy, yet more alert, I sat up in the bed and saw something round and metal surrounding Bev’s wrists.
“What are those?”
She held up her hands to me and winced.
“They call these handcuffs. You can’t free your hands unless you have a key for them.”
Holding her hands out to my own, I tried to pull them off her wrists. It was a lot of grunt work. I stopped when she let out a small cry.
“Ah! It’s no use Will. I already tried several times to see if I could get my hands out of these by using some Vaseline, all it did was make my hands slippery. The cuffs haven’t budged one bit.”
Her wrists were becoming red and raw. There had to be some way to get these things off her wrists. It was a week before I was up and about. A soldier came to my room with a grim expression on his face.
“Get up, I’m taking you to see your wife. Put this on.”
The soldier handed me a black blindfold and I covered my eyes with it. He obviously didn’t want me to know where we were going. I could hear Bev’s soft footfalls behind me and the clicking of the metal cuffs. Suddenly I felt her hand on my left shoulder. Another soldier had shoved her forward.
“Keep moving. The room’s just up ahead, to your right.”
Bev and I heard a large and heavy metal door in front of us open up. The two of us were shoved in and the blindfolds all but ripped from our faces. What I saw in front of me was nothing short of disgusting. They’d given Deanna a bucket in case she’d gotten sick. The first thing that assaulted my nose as I’d entered the room was the smell of vomit and sour milk. I found her curled up on the bed in the corner with a thin blanket over her. Making my way over to her, I carefully knelt down in front of her.
“Sweetheart it’s me. Look at me.”
She’d lost some weight, the circles under her eyes were very noticeable and apparent. Her hair was still matted and stringy. There was another bucket just to the left on the floor next to the bed with fresh water in it and some washcloths on the end of the bed, untouched. Beverly and I set about trying to clean Deanna up as best we could. She seemed so far away. I found the source of the sour milk smell when I pulled the blanket back.
“Food for my babies. I won’t let them go hungry.”
There were several small bottles filled with milk. Beverly’s eyes saddened as she continued cleaning her up.
“She’s on a hunger strike. They give her food, but she won’t eat. She won’t eat until she sees Laura and Gracie.”
I was at the end of my rope. Q had gone way too far this time. It was time to go home. I looked around, I hadn’t even noticed he was in the room until I spotted him in the corner.
“Alright Riker. I’ve had my fun with the three of you. But now I’m rather bored. You can go back to your precious ship. But not without consequences.”
A flash of light and we were back on the Enterprise. We were back in Sickbay. Deanna was lying on a bio-bed with a blanket draped over her. Rolled up in a ball and on her side, she stared at the wall. She seemed lost. Slowly making my way into her line of vision, she finally made eye contact with me. Her eyes focused and became wide. Clumsily, she threw herself into my arms and cried.
“Shh, it’s alright. You’re alright now. We’re safe. We’re home now.”
When she finally calmed, I helped her lie back down. Moving just above her head, her eyes lit up as she got a look at Laura and Gracie. They were both becoming fussy. They were hungry.
“You need to eat Imzadi.”
But Deanna shook her head and reached into the basinet for Laura.
“No, the girls need to eat first. Then I’ll eat.”
Sighing, I reached into the second basinet and placed Gracie into Deanna’s left arm. Tears of relief and happiness streamed down Deanna’s face as she watched our girls nurse. We were home and we were safe. Privacy screens were erected around Deanna as Captain Picard came into Sickbay.
“Report Number One.”
I straightened out my dirty uniform and realized I must look a sight to the captain.
“It’ll all be in my report sir. I’d rather not go into great detail here. Case in point, Q is responsible for us leaving the Enterprise. We were on Earth, but in 2011.”
Captain Picard smiled at me.
“Sounds fascinating number one. I look forward to reading your report.”
Taking that as his queue to leave, he hurriedly stepped out of Sickbay. Beverly walked over to me, all smiles.
“She got away.”
I was confused for a moment.
“Who got away?”
She handed me a padd with Bridget’s photo on it and paragraph’s of information.
“My grandmother Bridget and her son. They got away. Apparently a guard helped her escape from Area 51 through a hole in the chain-link fence, where a car was waiting for her. They moved to New York City and that’s when she changed her name to match my own. She resigned from the Air Force and they lived out there lives in New York City. She worked at one of the hospital’s in Manhattan. There’s even a picture of my grandfather Jacob in there.”
I scrolled to the bottom of the padd and found a picture of an adult Jacob, with striking red hair and blue eyes. I smiled as my mind went back to the squirming baby that Beverly and I had helped to deliver.
“Well at least two good things came out of our time in the past. I have a feeling Deanna’s going to be eating for the next few hours. She hasn’t eaten in almost 3 days.”
It would take some time for Deanna to heal, but as long as she had me by here side, she would never be alone. After all, I was her support beams in all of this. That and we had our family back. Our whole and complete family. Our nightmare finally over for good.
End
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