(for Tim and Dick)

[thedoctordances]

Beverly. A man. She wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea, especially since she had run into Major Winters (who looked about as much like Major Winters as she looked like herself right now), who had revealed that she was his usual self's dead ringer

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[cantstopmoving]

When Dick said he planned to check on Bev, Tim insisted on coming along. She's his (currently her) medical mentor, after all, and Dr. Beverly Crusher complete with exclamation points of geeky Tim glee that aren't any less adorable with Tim tiny and female with eyelashes as long as his arm. Dick can't deny those huge blue eyes and pretty soft mouth anything, especially not if it means he can spend a little more time with her today.

"Should I be jealous of your geek crush?" he teases across his shoulder when he knocks on her door. "Bev, it's Dick. You there?"

[thedoctordances]

Oh shit was the first thing that went through Beverly's mind, which was slightly uncharacteristic of her. "Uh," she called back, her voice sort of a croak, if a pleasantly deep one. "Yeah, be right there, if you don't mind surprises."

Dick was observant and smart, he'd figure it out. She got up from the chair and went to the door, opening it. "Yes, it's me."

[needsarobin]

Tim couldn't be very surprised by the deeper voice coming from the room but her eyebrows went up when Beverly proved to look very similar to three other island residents. Tim spared a moment to consider the elegance of the multiverse's economy of form. Billions on billions of variations in humanity possible and the same patterns showed up again and again. "Good morning, Dr. Crusher," she said in her own changed tone.

[cantstopmoving]

Dick spares a glance at Tim who has an unrecognizable but adorable geek look on her beautiful face, but it's Bev who garners the lion's share of his attention. "Hm." A quixotic smile plays around his mouth as he reaches for her hand. "Still gorgeous. You okay in there?"

It's a study in contrasts, petite Tim's precise professional greeting and his playful personal one. Anyone who knew them wouldn't be surprised. Anyone who didn't...would wonder if they even knew each other.

[thedoctordances]

It took Beverly a second to figure out who the woman was, but from the manner of speaking and the appearance..."Thanks, Dick. Tim, I guess that's you? In the same metaphorical boat?"

She scrubbed her free hand through her hair. "Sorry, it's just...sort of...awkward." Her balance was different, for starters, and she couldn't walk too long without...jostling. "Come on in."

[needsarobin]

Tim nodded in her habitual short way, mouth quirking into an equally familiar barely there smile, "Difference being I've been through this before. It gets easier after a day or two, usually just in time for it to be entirely disorienting to wake up in your own body again."

She gestured for Dick to precede her into the room, automatically deferring as a matter of seniority.

[cantstopmoving]

Tim and Bev, too, are a study in contrasts. Tim, lithe and graceful in her underpowered new body, definitely female, despite the male mind. Bev, uncomfortably awkward in her new more powerful form, still definitely female, despite the male body. It pokes a lot of interesting holes in prevailing gender theory, but Dick's more interested in the practicals. Like the fact that Bev's going to chafe if she doesn't figure out how to walk with a dick.

He held the door for Tim and gestured for her to pass, a matter of chivalry, but he nodded to Bev. "Nothing to apologize for, and I'm here to help if you need anything."

[thedoctordances]

Maybe it was the differences in physical training, or maybe it would have been better if Beverly had tried to accept the form a little better. "Thank god it'll be short. This is just...odd. Like my mental construct of myself hasn't caught up with the physical change. I know anatomy, it's just using it that's difficult."

That and her own voice startling her.

[needsarobin]

Tim nodded, purely clinical, like this was a medical curiosity and not a radical reassignment by forces beyond their control, "I find it easier to think of myself as female but I'm probably a minority. I don't think that anyone will find this easy to say the least." Tim tucked her hands into her pockets and leaned against the wall just inside the door. "I can't shake the feeling that Dick is probably still better at being a girl than I am," she added, somewhat amused.

[cantstopmoving]

Dick's usual instinct to cuff Tim in the back of the head for sassing doesn't even rise. That's maybe the weirdest thing of all for him: unleashing his continual ambivalence about whether to treat Tim like Monet or like Roy in definite favor of Monet. They're in public, or semi-public, so he restrains the impulse to kiss the top of her head and flips her ponytail instead.

"That's the secret. Making it true. I don't pretend to be a girl when I dress. I am a girl." He realizes belatedly this might require a little explanation and gives Bev a rueful and sheepish smile. "Detective work requires undercover. Not all of my personae are male. It's amazingly useful to be our boss's winsome date, a wealthy seductress, or a coat-check girl on occasion. If you don't mind a frank observation," he continues, as though he'd never changed the subject to their work. "You'll probably be more comfortable in tighter underwear. I'd suggest tucking it back, but that can be unpleasant in the event of sudden arousal

[thedoctordances]

"How handy, though I honestly can't see it. Reminds me of the time they turned Jean-Luc into a Romulan," Beverly said, then laughed, motioning them over to the thankfully new furniture. "Come on, sit down, might as well use the sorry you got turned into a human male present. I'll have to go get some different clothes later."

Sudden arousal. She looked slightly dubious about that--she knew about it, but hadn't counted on the experience for the laughs.

[needsarobin]

That had been an awesome episode. Tim smiled but didn't show her recognition in any other way. That was one of the first skills you had to learn on the island, even if you were talking to one of the coolest people who had known and worked alongside another of the coolest people ever to grace a small screen. Tim wouldn't have been all that impressed to meet Gates McFadden--though she was beautiful as anything and that was definitely worth a moment or two. But Beverly Crusher still was one of the more amazing people she'd been able to meet as a result of being on the island. She figured she'd finally get over how cool it was approximately never.

"I could run and get you some from the clothes box, if you'd like," Tim volunteered helpfully. It wasn't intended to be ingratiating. As her intern, it was just part of Tim's job to be useful. It was better than picking up dry cleaning anyway.

[cantstopmoving]

He hears Tim's geek-brain going, maybe even sees the little wheels spinning off into geek-bliss when Bev mentions Jean-Luc and Romulans. When Tim talks to her, he still sees the woman on his TV screen, and thinks awesome episode, Dick would just bet. But Dick never really got hooked on the show, so the name's more familiar from their conversation on the roof, her quiet admission.

"Genetic manipulation?" Dick asks, as casually as if he talks about physiological transformations every day, and follows Bev into the room. "You got off better than Tim if the island gave you a gift for turning you into a guy. All she got was the ponytail, which is cute, but not really compensation." Except when Dick ran his fingers through it and she shivered, but he's not going to do that here.

[thedoctordances]

"Thanks, Tim," Beverly said, smoothing her hands over her jeans, "but I'd worry that all it would give you were backless chaps or something like that. Harder errand than you might intend. Don't feel you need to make an extra trip."

She sat down, finally somewhat able to judge the distance properly--it probably meant that the neurological processes were settling and her perception of herself was solidifying. That was both good and terrifying at the same time. "I'm not sure," she said in response to Dick. "It'd be damn hard to do something like that overnight and painlessly, at least with the tech I know about."

[needsarobin]

Tim shrugged, "It's no trouble. I usually manage to find something. Plus I want a couple changes of clothes for myself so it's not an imposition." She didn't really care what she was wearing, to be honest. The only thing she needed was something to patrol in tonight, since her uniform would categorically not fit and even if she'd been willing to consider the Spoiler costume, Stephanie was built very differently than Tim was at the moment.

In any case, Tim didn't wait for further protests, just gave a short wave and ducked out of the room again, leaving Dick and Bev to talk.

[cantstopmoving]

Even with Bev here, it's hard for Dick not to smile stupidly after Tim when she leaves. Beautiful, petite, feminine and every inch of her still his Tim. Pulling his gaze back to Bev, he nods. "We run into that from time to time, but there's magic in our world."

He takes a seat next to Bev and curls his hand around her knee. "So." His gaze flickers up to meet hers. Warm and concerned, friend to friend. "How are you really?" The answer is probably 'fine' because she's not the sort of person to let herself get rattled; exactly the sort of person who needs someone to insist upon asking.