Thread by @ShelfNerds

#MicroTreks

Picard stands amid the black, crackled beams. A memory of ash colors the breeze.

His nostrils flare, pulling in air. He kneels, pressing a fist in the dirt, his eyes closed.

“We’ll rebuild,” a woman begins. Her footfalls crunch the dead, dry debris and grass.
1/6

“It’ll be just as it was,” the woman says.

“Perhaps you can indulge in a replicator now,” Picard says, standing up.

They embrace for a long, heavy moment.

“Marie,” he says.

“Jean-Luc,” Marie replies.

“It’ll be better than it was,” Picard says.
2/6

“And it will be yours,” Marie says.

Picard pulls out of the hug. “What? Mine? No. This is your home.”

“It stopped being my home when—well,” Marie says.

Picard runs a hand over his head and nods. “I—I will cherish every vine, every board of wood.”
3/6

“It seems we both lost our homes,” Marie says.

“Yes, the Enterprise—is—well, there is talk of another,” Picard says.

“Then you’ll be back up in the stars,” Marie says.

Picard surveys the ghosts of his childhood etched in the black rumble. “Yes.”
4/6

“Then I will manage the vineyard until you—return home,” Marie says.

Picard stares blankly. “Thank you, Marie.”

A smile pops onto his face as he turns to kiss her goodbye. “I’ll see you at the service tonight.”

“In the vineyard, where your brother was at home,” Marie says.
5/6

“And beneath the stars,” Picard adds. “For—René.”

Marie tears up, her lips stiffening to contain something from within.

Picard rubs his hands gently down her arms, then leaves.
6/6