The Aftermath of Wolf 359

Chapter 10

Crusher tapped the door panel on Picard's quarters and got no response. "Computer location of Picard?"

"Picard is in his quarters."

"Medical override. Crusher five seven one gamma white." As the door opened she noticed the room smelled of booze and vomit, and she found Picard lying on the floor with a large mostly empty bottle of Romulan ale in one hand and a PADD in the other. An empty bottle of red wine and a wine glass was on the table next to his computer terminal. She looked at the screen for a second and saw he'd been reading the causality and damage reports from Wolf 359.

She shook his shoulder to try to wake him, noticing the PADD in his hands listed the ships at Wolf 359, with the number of dead and assimilated on each. When he didn't respond to her, she checked his vitals, wishing she had a med kit, and immediately noticed they were abnormal, she then called for emergency transport to sickbay for both of them, while putting the PADD in her pocket.

Once she stabilized Picard, she tapped her combadge to contact Hanson about the PADD. They met in the conference room a few minutes later, and she handed him the PADD.

"What is this?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but my guess is that it's updated causality statistics from the sensors on the Borg ship. Picard wrote it. I presume it's for you."

"Why didn't he bring it to me then?"

"He's in sickbay comatose from alcohol poisoning. I found him unconscious, barely breathing, with that PADD in one hand and an empty bottle of booze in the other. I doubt he remembers writing it."

"Is he going to be alright?"

"Physically? Yes, I stabilized him before I brought that to you. Psychologically, I don't know. Failure has always been the one thing he doesn't handle well."

Several hours later Picard woke up squirming and screaming. "Jean-Luc, calm down, you're on the Enterprise in sickbay." Crusher said.

"I feel awful."

"I know. You had alcohol poisoning. I couldn't give you the only thing that's been effective for your nightmares because it would interact badly with alcohol. I gave you something to quickly drop your blood alcohol level, which is going to give you a nasty hangover."

"Worst hangover I've had in many years."

"What the hell were you thinking? Were you trying to kill yourself?"

"What happened?" Picard asked somewhat confused.

Crusher shook her head, "I found you on the floor of your quarters comatose from alcohol poisoning, with an empty bottle of wine on the table, and an empty bottle of Romulan ale next to you on the floor. If I'd checked on you a half hour later, you'd be dead."

"I wasn't that drunk." He replied.

"You had a blood alcohol level of .42. You were unresponsive and barely breathing. What I don't understand is how. You've been drinking for 50 years now, it's not like you can't handle your alcohol. It didn't occur to you to stop drinking after you puked on the carpet?"

"I was sober when I puked on the carpet. The alcohol was helping with the nausea. The more I drank the less I wanted to puke."

Crusher shook her head, concerned. The sedatives had been helping with the nausea, and it made some sense alcohol would do the same. "Why didn't you call me? I never should have tried lowering the dosage of the sedative I've been giving you, you clearly weren't ready. I told you to call me if you were having trouble with that. If you wanted something for stress induced nausea, I could have given you something safer and more effective."