The BLTS Archive-Forever Love
by Kella

---

The author retains the right of copyright, and requests that any
people wishing to repost this work of fanfic on their sites, or other
usenets, please e-mail her. No reproductions without permission,
please.

Yea and verily, I say unto you: Paramount is demi-god of the Trek
World... and all the fanfic people are little minions, forced to hide
underground with their (brilliant?) works of art based on the terrific
series. No original episode has been copyright-infringed, yaddah,
yaddah, yaddah.... and Paramount/Viacom can kiss my derry-aire....lol
(sorry if it's spelled wrong, but French was never my strong suit...)

---
"Forever Love" by Reba McEntire

The first time I laid my eyes on you I knew,
We'd spend this life side by side.
I still feel the same, though you're so far away.
I swear that you'll always be mine,
Forever love.

I promise you.
Someday we'll be together,
Forever love.

I won't give up,
No matter what.
I'll be waiting for you,
Forever love.
Minutes and hours and years may go by,
But my heart knows nothing of time.
So don't cry, just keep me right there in your dreams,
And hold on to these words of mine:
Forever love,

I promise you.

Someday we'll be together,
Forever love.

I won't give up,
No matter what
I'll be waiting for you,
Forever love.

(repeat)

Love is a road to our destiny.
Nothing can change what is meant to be.
Forever love.

Oh, I won't give up,
No matter what.
I'll be waiting for you,
Forever love.

I'll be waiting for you
Forever love.

---

*Do you remember what I taught you, Imzadi? Can you still
sense my thoughts?*

Shock. Pure, unadulterated shock. Then loneliness. That
heartbreaking, world-ending loneliness. Then, full-circle, right back
to shock. Pure, terrifying shock. There was nothing like it in the
universe, and it had him by the proverbial balls. That gut-wrenching
feeling had him, and it didn't look like it was going to let him
loose. He wanted the deck to open up and swallow him whole.

How could she be so damned calm about this? She just stood there, not
listening to Picard but appearing to, while she stared at him with
those luminescent dark eyes of hers. He knew she was probing his
feelings, trying to ascertain his level of shock. Hell, he doubted
anyone needed to be an empath to detect it, he was damned sure he
wasn't hiding his consternation too well. He looked over to Picard.
The Enterprise captain seemed to be guessing that something was afoot
between his two new crewmembers, but didn't say anything to them about
it. For this, Riker was thankful.

"Have the two of you met before?" was all the older man said.

He could feel her laughter, clear as a bell, inside his head. Damn
that woman, she was laughing. She was obviously enjoying this, he
thought. "We have, sir," he replied, trying to keep the sturdy dam
that was holding back a flood of memories in place.

"Excellent," Picard went on. "I consider it important that my key
officers know each others'...abilities." Riker looked to him askance.
The captain knew something was afoot. Just how much had she told him,
anyhow?

Deanna Troi looked to the man standing between her and her former
lover. "We do, sir. We do." *Indeed...* she finished mentally. Riker
looked at her dejectedly.

Did she know what she was doing to him? All he was aware of as he
continued to stare at her was that Picard and Troi were moving to the
nearest turbolift, and that he was plainly expected to follow. His
life was sure to be plain hell from this moment forward, because he
had never been fully able to bury this remnant of his past. And yet,
here it was, right in front of him, reopening a fresh wound just to
watch it bleed. Then, he heard her voice, lilting into his mind, as
the doors to the turbocar slid home.

* I, too, could never say goodbye, Imzadi...*

*Oh, God*, he thought. His tour on the Enterprise, he was sure from
that point on, was bound to be a hell of a long one.


---

Riker woke up in a cold sweat. His sheets were drenched with
perspiration, and he was breathing heavily. Another memory, another
flashback. He'd not been able to dodge them for the past thirteen
years, it only made sense that he'd encounter them here. But, why in
hell couldn't he leave them behind? Insomnia didn't become him, and he
was grappling with emotional trauma daily now. Things had been tough
on the -D, but his life was downright impossible here on the -E. He
couldn't go to the ship's counselor because of the obvious reasons.
So, here he sat, in bed, with no way to fully deal with his past but
to try and ignore it.

It didn't work. But then again, nothing ever did. Maybe he could go
to Beverly for a sedative that would induce a dreamless sleep. But
Beverly and Deanna were good friends. Good friends talk to one another
about various things. He didn't want to become one of the various
topics in their friendly conversations during aerobics.

Therefore, through sheer pride (and fright), he remained in his state
of insomnia. Forced to dwell on the past and what might have been.
What should have been. What he didn't do enough to prevent from
happening in the first place. What he gave up. And most of all, not
what... but who was sleeping down the corridor from him, driving him
crazy on a nightly basis.

Or at least, he was under the impression that she was sleeping...

---

Deanna Troi paced the length of her bedroom. She too was battling
insomnia. One could guess from her expression which was winning.
Someone was driving her crazy. Someone who shouldn't be driving her
*anywhere*, let alone insane. She rubbed her temples. She hadn't felt
this kind of headache since awakening from her tequila-induced
slumber, in a seedy bar, back in the year 2063. She stopped pacing and
sat on the edge of her bed, taking a moment to remember.

"Who is this jerk?" Zefram Cochrane slurred as he hurled a
bottle across the room, in Will Riker's general direction.

Deanna slowly shook her head, trying to clear the fuzz that seemed to
have invaded her brain. "Will Riker, meet Zefram Cochrane." She wanted
to fall asleep, without falling off her barstool, into the waiting
arms of the lewd Cochrane.

She allowed herself a small smile as the shock errupted on Riker's
face. Confronted with one of his childhood heroes, the most
historically represented figure in Federation lore, Will was disturbed
to discover that the man was no more than a boozing womanizer. Even
through her liquor-hazed senses, she could easily detect the jealousy
emanating from Riker as he noticed the moves Cochrane was making on
her. That was when he noticed he was projecting, erected the shields
around his mind, and was blocked off from her from that point
on.

Deanna sighed, as she tried once more to read his thoughts. He had
been the only man she had ever formed that close a link with that she
could read his exact thoughts. Now, it was severed. He barely even
spoke to her in the halls now, except on the way to a staff meeting.
Even then, it was none of the comraderie she had come to expect from
her closest and dearest companion, the man to whom Beverly came a
close second in terms of friendship.

She sighed. Her definition of how she felt about him had blurred over
the years. When they had first started serving on the Enterprise-D
together, she had been so hard and bitter from their experience those
years ago. Then, as the time she spent with him grew, so did her
feelings for him. She had had to constantly remind herself that a
relationship while on the same ship could go sour and ruin things for
both of them. Then there had been that brief affair with Worf.

Worf.

Deanna paused from her musings of Will to turn her attention to the
Klingon officer. Poor Worf. He had gotten married to Jadzia Dax, and
Alexander had gotten a stepmother, last year. Just recently, the
Enterprise had gotten word that Worf was now a widow, Jadzia having
been murdered by an insane Cardassian named Dukat. The symbiont had
been saved, of course, and had been transplanted as soon as possible.
The lucky Trill ensign was, ironically enough, a counselor on Deep
Space Nine now. Poor Worf was doing his best to avoid her, at his last
subspace transmission to Troi.

Troi sighed again.

The men her life. One of them was hurting and she couldn't help him.
The other was hurting too, but could heal on his own, through time.
She couldn't help Will. She knew he was hurting, but she didn't know
how or why.

His thoughts were closed to her now, though she didn't know what she
had done to deserve this treatment. She could read very few emotions.
The ones she was able to detect were sadness, loneliness, and despair.
She wanted to go to him, but wasn't sure if that was the best thing.
He had obviously locked her out of his personal life, and she was at a
loss as to what might have triggered such a response from him.

She wondered if he was dreaming of her.

She was under the impression that he was sleeping at all.

---

Jean-Luc Picard tapped his fingers on the edge of his ready room
desk. He looked at the screen of his computer terminal, not happy with
what he was seeing. It was forty-five minutes before Will was due for
the beginning of his shift. Picard shouldn't have been in his ready
room at all, it being that his shift started three hours after Will's
did. But Picard, too, was suffering a sleepless night. He had
explained to Data of his affliction when he arrived on the bridge,
and, after assuring the now-emotional android that he was not here to
relieve him of duty, he was allowed to proceed to the privacy of this
room without further inquiries from Data.

On the terminal, Picard saw data streaming by. He tapped the keyboard
every so often to pause the scrolling by of the text, and to read some
of it. The text contained the results of Riker's latest psychological
examination. Picard and the others had been pressured to undergo
similar examinations, at the behest of Starfleet Headquarters. HQ
didn't want deranged heroes on their hands. Deanna had had hers and
had passed with flying colors. Picard had been pronounced sound of
mind and judgement, and hardly a word had been said of the fact that
he had committed a direct violation of orders by coming to the aid of
Earth.

Worf was judged as best as the Federation could judge a warrior race,
whose thoughts were predominantly about the various ways of killing
other living things. Geordi was judged and given a clean psychological
bill of health, as were Beverly and her nurses. Reg Barclay had to
spend two weeks in therapy, recovering from a direct meeting with the
Great Zefram Cochrane.

Will Riker... was shown to be hiding something from his evaluator.
Will showed all the signs of being depressed, having anxiety attacks,
and a mind-meld had encountered sophisticated Betazoid mental shields.
There was obviously something that he was hiding from his friends and
superiors. The only information they had been able to glean from Riker
was that he had trouble getting to sleep at nights.

Picard knew there was much more to it. Lately, Riker had been late
for shifts, meetings, and crew evaluation reports. He had grown more
detached and non-responsive as time went on. Jean-Luc had noticed this
for himself, but had grown more concerned when Beverly had brought it
to his attention. He had contacted Deanna about it. She had suggested
a counseling session for Will. Picard had relayed the request to Will
Riker. The first officer had politely refused.

Something was definitely amiss....


---

"Goodbye, Will." She walked out of the room without looking
back.

Riker stood there, staring after her. "Deanna... don't leave things
like this. You know I can't say goodbye."

It didn't hit him then, that his future was walking out that door
with her. But he blamed himself for it every day of his life that
would follow. It was his fault.

Riker bolted straight up in bed, once again from a nightmare of
memories. He couldn't take this anymore. The constant fear of the
memories resurfacing in his sleep, when he could find it. Sedatives
didn't help, and his shift performance had a lot left to be desired.


His shift....

"Oh, shit..." He mumbled various profanities as he groggily went
about getting ready for a shift that, according to the chronometer, he
was already twenty minutes late for. "Oh man, what will Deanna think
of me?" This thought brought him to a screeching halt, in the midst of
his preparations. "Deanna? Dee couldn't give a rat's ass about me now.
Not personally. Only as a friend." He punched the bulkhead in front of
him.

So hard that it shattered the outer bone of his hand.

He grabbed his hand, yelping in pain. "Damnit," he cursed, trying to
comb his hair and beard as best he could with his left hand. "It's my
fault anyway," he said aloud to himself. "If only I hadn't been such
the hotshot, not willing to settle down. Now, look at me. I've lost
her. Just like I'm losing my mind." He looked to the bulkhead that had
inflicted so much damage to his hand, after his unprovoked assault
upon it. He was mildly pleased to see that it had sustained a dent. A
dent rimmed with blood. His blood.

He grabbed his uniform jacket with his left hand, and stormed out in
his red turtlneck and uniform pants. His shoestrings were untied, and
he was attracting curious stares from the crew as he passed through
the halls. He entered a turbocar. "Sickbay," he barked to the
computer. The doors slid shut and the 'lift was off to its
destination, with Riker trying to put on his jacket with one hand,
also trying not to aggravate the bleeding injury on his right hand.

He stormed through Sickbay's entrance, receiving a baffled stare from
Nurse Alyssa Ogawa. "Is there something wrong, Commander?"

"Yeah, there is," he barked. "Where's Beverly?"

"I'm right here," came the CMO's voice from across the room. She
appeared two seconds later, a newborn baby in her arms. "Here, Alyssa.
Hold her for me?" The nurse gratefully took the infant and disappeared
from sight, leaving Bev with a thoroughly disgruntled Will Riker. The
doctor in her assessed him thoroughly, from his bleeding hand, to his
irritability. "Well, Will," she said, getting a protoplaser from the
medkit nearby. "What should we work on first? Your hand, or your
acrimonious attitude?"

Riker took a deep breath. "Just heal the hand, Beverly."

Beverly complied, giving him a look. "What did you do, Will? Get into
a fight with a bulkhead?"

"Basically," he mumbled, wincing as the protoplaser finished mending
the bone inside his hand. When she was done, he gave it a quick shake,
although it was still sore, he felt well enough to show for duty.
"Thanks, Bev," he said under his breath. He headed towards the
corridor.

"Will?" Beverly called after him and he turned. She pointed at his
feet. "Tie your shoes, Commander."

---

"And in your belief, the commander is no longer a competent member of
the crew?" Picard voiced the words, even as he felt his stomach churn
at them. The decision he was about to make would condemn his first
officer to relief of duty, as well as endless sessions with Counselor
Troi until he had returned to his old self again.

"That's right, Jean-Luc. Something's wrong with Will, but he won't
let anyone near him." Beverly looked as if her hands were tied.

"Deanna, can you..." he started.

Troi cut him off. "He won't let me read him." She paused, then began
again. "Captain, the bond that Will and I shared was so great that
we've been able to read each other's thoughts. Now, however, he's
developed shields around his mind. I can barely tell at times whether
or not he's conscious." She shrugged in frustration. "I don't know why
he's blocking me. Perhaps he does, perhaps he doesn't even know
himself. I strongly suggest that Will come in for counseling. Until
then, he's no good to the crew."

Picard knew how hard those words must have been for Deanna to say.
Will's performance *had *been waning lately. The senior staff was
lucky if he made an appearance at all at times. Just then, the
conference room doors opened, and in stepped William T. Riker. He
looked significantly worse for wear, his eyes were bloodshot, and his
uniform wasn't neat as it was when the *old* Will used to wear it.
This Will barely had the uniform jacket on, the turtleneck wasn't
tucked into his pants, and--according to Beverly-- his shoes *still*
weren't tied.

"Sorry, I guess I'm late, Captain," he mumbled as he took his
customary chair. "What did I miss?"

Deanna looked at him, not with pity, but with yearning. Oh, how she
wished to help this man that was her imzadi, her first love, her only
soulmate in the universe. She looked to Picard, who cleared his
throat.

"Will, it has come to my attention that you require some, how shall I
put this, facilitation."

Will looked balefully at Deanna, who managed to keep her face a mask
of detachment. "This was your idea, wasn't it, Counselor?"


She didn't answer.

The anger welled up inside him, though deep down he knew it had no
logical focal point. Nor was his intended target Captain Jean-Luc
Picard. But that was exactly the person he blew up at. "So, what are
you saying? That I can't take care of myself? I can take care of
myself just fine!"

Beverly cleared her throat, and attempted to inconspicuously point
out to Riker the status that his shoelaces were in. He ignored her.

Deanna leaned forward, "That's not what we're saying, Will..."

He cut her off. "Oh, don't give me that, Deanna. You'd do anything to
get me on that counseling couch of yours and give me a good talking
to." He rose, rather rigidly, and almost knocking over his chair.
"Well, you're not getting into my head. Not like that!"

Picard had had enough. What was happening to his trusted first
officer? "Will, calm down," he began.

"But, Captain, don't you see what she's trying to do? Oh, we can't be
any more than friends, but we can be doctor-patient, now, can't we?"
Will was now bordering on hysteria. Beverly sat on the edge of her
chair, preparing to sedate him, if necessary.

Picard's nerves snapped. This was getting to be more than he could
tolerate. "Number One, it is in the opinions of both Counselor Troi
and Doctor Crusher that you be pronounced mentally incapable until you
agree to seek help and treatment." He lowered his voice to a dangerous
level, knowing that he now had Will's full attention. "And I am
personally relieving you from duty until such criteria are met. Do I
make myself clear?"

"Mentally incapable?" Will barked. "On what grounds?"

Picard stood from his chair and slammed his palms on the conference
table, startling Troi. "On the grounds that you're standing here,
half-dressed and thirty minutes late for duty-- for the fifteenth day
in a row-- screeching like an idiot! Good God, look at yourself, man!"
He pulled Will's head down so that he was gazing into his reflection
in the obsidian surface of the table. "*Look* at yourself!" He
released him, his tone softening. "Where is my first officer? Where is
my friend that I have known for the past nine years, Will?" He walked
to the viewports, turning his back to the other three, including the
disturbed Riker. "Get some help, Will. I need that trusted Number One
that I've had for so long. I need him back, now. You're no good to
anyone as you are."

Will looked to Deanna, and was consternated to see a tear rolling
down her cheek. But, in his present state of mind, his judgement was
clouded. He lowered his voice to bare inaudibility, and said
determinedly, "Then I'm no good to anyone." With that, he bolted out
of the room.

Picard sighed deeply, turning to Troi. "Deanna, anything?"

"Captain, his mental shields are degrading, I can feel it. But that
may be a sign that his mind may be also." Deanna cried inwardly, in
frustration and sadness. What was she supposed to do?

She cried out with her mind, *Let me help you, Imzadi....*

Meanwhile, three decks below, Will Riker was in his quarters and
about to attempt the unthinkable...

---

"Beverly..."

Doctor Beverly Crusher turned to face the owner of the voice. Deanna
stood directly behind her, hands clasped in front of her. Bev thought
she looked particularly vulnerable. "Yeah, Dee?"

Troi gestured to the exit of the conference room. "Would you walk
with me? I need to talk to you."

A corner of the doctor's mouth quirked upward slightly. "Does the
counselor need counseling?"

"Yes, she does," Deanna replied somberly.

"It was a joke, Deanna."

"Oh."

Beverly sighed, looking behind them. "Jean-Luc?"

Picard didn't answer immediately, preferring instead to stare out at
the stars. Only after Beverly's third summons of his name did he
partially face them. "Yes?" he asked quietly.

"Will you be all right?" Beverly's concern was evident in her voice,
but Picard waved her off gently.

"I'll be fine, Beverly. I just need to think, that's all."


Crusher smiled understandingly. "If you need to talk, I'll see if I
can fit you in..."

Picard smiled wanely. "Thank you, Doctor." With that said, he turned
back to the stars. They seemed to be his only source of comfort
nowadays.

Crusher sighed, turning to the conference room exit. "Deanna, let's
talk."

"What I don't understand is why Will has been blocking me out. Why he
won't let me transmit my thoughts to him. It seems as if he's
systematically shutting me out of his life. I have to know why."

Beverly and Deanna were walking down the corridor of the Enterprise,
heading for the mess hall, where they were sure to run into Guinan.
The ubiquitous bar hostess was not about to let Ten-Forward's
destruction separate her from the legendary crew, her friends. She had
signed aboard right after the recent battle with the Borg, claiming
she had waited until after the attack, so that she might spend more
leisurely time with the crew, rather than have to watch any more
death; she claimed to have known the attack was coming. For all the
Enterprise crew knew, she did.

Bev looked to Deanna. "Why don't you ask him, Dee?"

"I can't do that," Deanna shrugged helplessly. "What would I say? And
what about those random comments he makes in regards to our past?" It
was becoming more and more apparent to Beverly how upset this was
making Deanna. "Bev, I'm worried sick about him, but from the few
emotions I can read from him, I know he'll never believe me." She
sighed. "Not in his present state of mind."

Beverly stopped in the middle of the corridor, which was fortunately
empty-- she wouldn't have moved out of anyone's way, anyway. "Deanna,
listen to me very carefully: You asked if he was systematically
shutting you out of his life? Well, what if he is? And perhaps those
little quips about your past romantic life are his way of telling you
he's no longer content with the way your life is? Think, Dee. Men are
typically emotional retards, you of all people should know this. But
not Will." Deanna remained silent, mulling this over, and Bev forged
ahead. "You are the empathic one. You have the degree in psychology.
You of all people on this ship should be the one diagnosing Will's
psychological state, not me. And I can't sense either of your
thoughts, so what do you want me to do?"

Deanna sighed. "But those comments about our relationship... He knows
that we're just friends. We're *imzadi*, but that doesn't mean we have
to be lovers."

"No, you don't have to be, but do you even want to, Deanna? *That's*
the question."

"The risk is much too great, Beverly. Will wouldn't be able to
commit."

Beverly interrupted her friend. "Deanna, you must have been in a fog
the past nine years. I don't know if you've realized this or not, but
our Commander Riker has changed significantly during our years
together. If he were still the same Will that you knew on Betazed,
would he have turned down all those promotions to captaincy? From what
you've told me of your past, you make it sound as if Riker were a
'love 'em and leave em' kind of guy. Maybe you'd better give him a
closer look, now. He's not exactly the brash young man you purported
him to be when we first met."

Deanna was silent.

"Look me in the eyes and tell me that I'm wrong. In fact, look me in
the eyes and tell me truthfully that you *don't* love him back."
Beverly's jaw was set. Troi was not backing out of this one.


Troi looked up at her. "Beverly, I don't know anymore." Her eyes were
tired. Bloodshot, even. Her cheeks were pink and swollen from crying.
"I know I love him as a friend, and I know I'd never live with myself
if anything ever happened to..." her voice trailed off.

They had resumed walking a couple of minutes ago, so Beverly didn't
immediately notice that Deanna had stopped dead in her tracks until
she was no longer speaking. When Crusher turned around, Deanna was
dead-white, looking as if she had just seen an apparition.

"Dee? What is it?" Beverly shook her shoulders.

And, staring straight through Beverly as if she weren't there, Deanna
screamed.

---

When the emergency medical team met Beverly and Deanna in Will
Riker's quarters, the sight that greeted them was shocking. Beverly
got right down to business, barking orders for hyposprays full of
antidotes. She ordered a crying Deanna Troi to continuously wave the
tricorder over Riker's insensate form.

By the time they got the anti-grav up to his quarters and got him
down to Sickbay, the verdict was clear. Employing the use of synaptic
charges and basic CPR, Beverly tried desperately to save Will's life.

"Breathe Will! C'mon, goddamnit! You are not leaving this world until
you've had a full life and tons of babies... now breathe!"

After fifteen minutes, Beverly logged it in. Will was given a
permanent wing in Sickbay. The log read: Will Riker, living. Status:
coma. Cause: attempted suicide by poison.

---

Picard was paged from the conference room by an almost hysterical
Deanna Troi. The message was clear, from what he could make out
through her tears. Come to sickbay immediately, something's happened.
When he entered Sickbay, he saw a crowd of doctors and nurses around a
biobed and Troi standing off to the side in tears. He walked to her,
placing his hands gently on her shaking shoulders, in an effort to
console her. He regarded such as being beyond his power to grant,
however, as he already knew the situation before Troi could explain.

When the activity around the biobed lessened somewhat, and one of the
nurses moved out of the way, Picard was able to tell for certain who
the form on the biobed belonged to: the bearded face belonged to
William T. Riker. A couple of minutes later, Picard watched as Beverly
and the others breathed partial sighs of relief. It was clear he
wasn't out of the woods yet, the look in Beverly's eyes told that
there was something wrong that shouldn't have been. But Will was
alive.

That, in itself, was enough for Deanna, who exhaled loudly and broke
into tears of relief. The sheer trauma of the whole situation was too
much for her to handle in her typical stoicism. Beverly waited until
Deanna's sobs had subsided before motioning the two of them into her
office. Upon the door shutting behind them, Beverly walked to the
window, where she had a clear view of Riker's unmoving form.

"The commander," she began slowly, "is in a coma. But, I can't find a
reason for it. Medically, we've done all we can. The poison hadn't
been in his system too long, we were able to formulate an antidote
quickly enough, thank God. So, physically, he should be fine." She
turned to face Deanna. "It is my belief that Will doesn't *want* to
come out of his coma."

Picard looked surprised. "Why would he not?"

Beverly shot him a look. "Well, he was willing enough to attempt
suicide. It only stands to reason that he wouldn't want to come back
to the reality he's known. Something in his life was so depressing for
him, he obviously wasn't able to handle it, or simply didn't want to."
She turned to Deanna again. "Dee, you're the counselor. You're also
the person closest to him. You said yourself that you two shared a
telepathic link of some kind. Maybe you can help him work through
this. Bring him back?"

Deanna looked at her helplessly. "But, Beverly, he blocked his mind
off from me. He won't let me even *think* to him. It's like he doesn't
want any part of me. How am I supposed to help him if I can't *read*
him?"

"You said earlier that his mental shields were degrading. Wouldn't
they be that much weaker when he's unconscious?" Crusher pressed.

Picard looked to Troi. "Counselor?"

A tear slid down her cheek as she responded. "I'll try my hardest,
Captain."

And Picard knew that she meant it, not only as a professional
counselor, but from the bottom of her heart and her soul. From the
well of the feelings left over from her affair with Riker so many
years ago. Feelings that still were there, but she still had yet to
realize they hadn't disappeared yet.

---

Later, after Sickbay was observing "ship's night", Deanna Troi could
be seen sitting at Riker's side. She had long ago exhausted her supply
of tears, and now was silently sitting there, attempting to punch
through the shields that Riker had habitually erected around his mind.
Sickbay was empty, save for the two of them, and Bev in her office,
and still Deanna couldn't concentrate hard enough for her telepathic
link with Riker to be at its peak. Beverly had been right: Will's
shields were in a weakened state, but they were still difficult to get
around.

* Will? Can you hear me?* she sent desperately. *If you can hear me,
answer me, please...* She wasn't sure, but if she had to describe the
picture that formed in their thoughts, she would have described it as
a scared little man poking his head out from a crack in a door, afraid
to greet the outside world.

* Go away, Deanna.*

The supply of tears replenished itself as joy overwhelmed her. *Oh,
Will. Please, don't do this...*

* Do what, Deanna?* His thoughts sounded inside her head with a
sarcastic ring to them. *Whether I choose to live or die, it is still
my choice. Why should you care, anyway?* Physically, Will Riker gave
an infinitisimal shift on the biobed, but still did not awaken.

*What? *Deanna mentally shook her head. *What would make you say
that? I'm your friend, Will. I've always been your friend....*

* And that's all you're going to stay. So, friend, what do you want to
talk about?*

* What do you mean, that's all I'm going to stay?*

*Oh, I don't know. Someday, I'd hoped you'd graduate from 'friend' to
become my mother,* came the biting retort. *Come on, Deanna. Whaddaya
think I mean?*

*Why do you have to be so cruel? *Deanna pleaded.

* I'm being cruel? I've been asking, no, begging to start something up
again and...* his thoughts trailed off.

Deanna sensed that the "little old man" was about to duck back inside
and lock the door behind him. *Will, no! Wait!*

*Just leave me alone.*

And the door slammed shut.

---

When Beverly came by, expecting to see a solemn Troi, what she found
was a half-hysterical Deanna, weeping inconsolably.

---

"We will always be together, *Imzadi*. We will never be truly
be apart. But, I believe, we can never truly be together, either. You
will never be happy settling down, Will. It is better this
way."

Deanna awoke with a start. She looked around quickly, realizing that
she had fallen asleep in sickbay. Beverly was standing across the room
from her, and looked up, somehow sensing that Deanna had awakened. She
walked over to her.

"Good morning, Dee," she said, pseudo-cheerfully. "Feeling better?"

"What am I doing here?" was the first question out of the tired
counselor.

A look of confusion flitted across Bev's face. "You cried yourself to
sleep on one of the biobeds last night. I thought it best not to wake
you, you looked like you needed the rest."

Deanna checked the chronometer. "What time is it?" Her brain cleared,
and the numbers on the display began to make sense to her. "Oh, no.
I'm late, aren't I?"

Crusher smiled, shaking her head. "It's okay, Deanna. I told Jean-Luc
you'd be late for duty this morning. That attempt to reach Will last
night must've really taxed you."

Deanna buried her head in her hands, partially out of exhaustion, but
mainly out of sorrow. "It didn't end at being simply an *attempt*..."
she muttered.

Crusher moved closer to Troi, stealing a glace at the unmoving form
of Riker next to them. "You mean you *talked* to him? Telepathically,
I mean?"

"Only briefly." Deanna brought her face up to look at the man lying
in front of her. "He was very bitter. I can only speculate as to why."

Crusher remained silent for a few moments as Troi seemed to mentally
puzzle out what she could remember of her conversation with Commander
Riker. "He made several cruel remarks to me..."

"Cruel? Will?" Bev looked at her in skepticism and worry. "Deanna,
how far gone* is* he?"

Troi shook her head. "Pretty far, Beverly." Then she was silent for a
moment. Beverly stared at her until suddenly Deanna burst out crying.
Crusher put her hands on the other woman's shoulders to comfort her.

"Deanna, you're becoming stressed out over this. I know it hurts to
see Will like this, but..."

Deanna cut her off. "No, Beverly, you don't understand. I *know* why
he's like this..."

Bev looked at her silently while she waited for Deanna to finish.
Finally, "Well? Why has Will suddenly cut himself off from the outside
world and tried to end his own life?"

When Troi finally met Crusher's eyes, there was infinite sadness in
her own. "Because he loves me." She turned her gaze back to the still
form of her former lover, troubled friend.

The silence in Sickbay was punctuated only by Troi's moanings, "It's
all my fault..."

---

"Because he loves her?" was Picard's reply.

Beverly looked at him in solemn confirmation. "That's what she said,
Jean-Luc. And from the start, you know that's what we already knew."
She crawled across their bed to get an extra pillow, the gold band on
her left ring finger catching the glimmer of the overhead lights. She
looked at her fiancee. "You and I both know how things with Will and
Deanna have been since they met again. Touch and go, at best.
Especially where romance is concerned."

Jean-Luc shrugged. "But I was under the impression that they had
remained good friends all this time."

"We all had been. I doubt even Will and Deanna knew how their
emotions were resurfacing. Deanna's a trained Betazoid psychologist.
She knows exactly how to bury past emotions, even subconsciously if
she has to."

Picard sighed. "But Will is another problem. He's loved her so much,
he can't hide it anymore, and when it looks like there isn't a
snowball's chance in hell of her reciprocating, he decides he can't
handle it anymore."

Beverly nodded. "I just don't know how long Deanna can afford to
remain superficially convinced that she loves him only as a friend."

Picard smiled wanely. "Maybe she'll discover on her own." He gathered
the soon-to-be Beverly Picard in his arms. "Bev, love, I think I'll
remove her from active duty for a while. Just until Will comes back to
us and is whole again. Deanna too, for that matter. What do you
think?"

"I think it's a good idea." She kissed him as she wriggled away and
off the bed, preparing to walk to the replicator. "I also think I'm
hungry."

Picard smiled. "Good, replicate us both a snack, would you?"

"Who said anything about you?" she asked playfully.

Jean-Luc chuckled as she went to get the food. The humor behind their
smiles was thinning underneath the plain fact that they were scared of
losing a friend.

Beverly winced as her hind quarters wakened with the pins-and-needles
sensation every human hated. She and Jean-Luc had been sitting here
talking for gods-knew-how-long. They shared equal worries. They shared
equal fears. They shared equal sides of the bed.

---

He was unconscious, that much was a given. He was in a coma, that
much was also a given. What was *not* a given was the fact that he was
*aware*. He dreamed. He heard. He understood. He could not, nor had he
the intention to, speak.

He was dreaming now.

In his dream, she was with him, silent. She never spoke, but remained
there with her back to him. This Riker had already deciphered:
Whenever the *real* Deanna Troi communicated him from the outside, her
dreamlike counterpart would embody her thoughts.

Right now, Riker was pacing. "Well?" he snapped at her. "You don't
have an answer for *that* question, do you?" Riker had asked her why
she could draw a line between her heart and his for so long that her
emotions for him would atrophy. She had not responded. He didn't care.
"Well? Answer me, damnit!" He didn't expect a response.

But he got one.

She turned around to face him, tears in her eyes. "I'm here, Will.
Why have you been blocking me?"

Riker shook his head and laughed bitterly. "Blocking you? I've never
blocked you, Dee. You severed the link, not me."

She shook her head. "That's not what happened. I haven't been able to
read you at all lately, and you never answered my mental sends. The
psyche evaluator even said, and I concur, that you established
Betazoid-type mental shields." She smiled. "How you managed that is
quite a mystery, considering you're not a telepath."

He looked at her deeply, before turning away. "Only when I'm with
you."

Troi, who in reality was sitting across from Will's bed in sickbay
gripping his hand tightly, had received her notice from Picard that
she was removed from active duty until such time as Will was back and
to his normal self. She had, over the past fifteen hours since,
examined her feelings for Will. She was in a precarious position: She
loved him, but she would not allow herself to create a dependence on
her love from within Riker. Neither could she withhold that love from
him, not letting him know how she felt before it was too late.

Such things must be dealt with delicately.

Meanwhile, Riker was walking away slowly. She propelled her dreamlike
counterpart forward to follow. "Will?"

"What is it, Dee?" He wasn't looking at her, but at a group of
children playing beneath them. They all bore the same resemblence to
one another, as if they were siblings, and both boys and girls were
among the playful group. Deanna and Will were standing on a grassy
hill, overlooking a valley where the children were playing. Looking at
them, then at Will, then at herself (which was odd, but possible,
considering that she wasn't actually there, but reading his thoughts
and responding. She was simply a counterpart in his mind...), she
realized with a start that the children all bore striking
characteristic resemblances to herself and Will Riker. He sighed
wistfully as he watched them play.

"Will, in your thoughts, those are *our* children, aren't they?"

He looked at her in resignation. "Yeah. They *would've* been." He
continued walking. "There won't be any now."

*How do you know, Will Riker?* she thought to herself.

He turned to face her. "I know because I've tried everything I know
how to..." he trailed off. He returned his direction, quickening the
pace.

She hurried to keep up. She was startled when he replied to what she
thought was a private musing. Then she remembered what he had said a
few short moments ago. *Only when I'm with you...*
"Will?"

His shoulders hunched, as if he had suffered severe blows and was now
a nervous creature. "What do you want, Deanna?"

"I want your attention."

He refused to turn to face her. "Well, looks like you've got it. I've
got nowhere else to go."

Troi wisely kept any retort out of her mind, lest he pick up on it.
"Will, look at me."

"Why?"

She walked over to him and placed her hands on his shoulders (all of
this inside his mind, of course), and turned him half-way around.
"Because your eyes are the windows to your soul. I want to see your
soul, Will Riker."

For the first time since she had contacted him, he locked his eyes
onto hers. "Well?" he asked skeptically. "What do you see in my soul,
Deanna?"

She waited a few seconds before saying gently, "Love."

Will's eyes brimmed with tears as he turned away. "I could have told
you that."

She grabbed hold of his arm and held him from leaving. "Will, I
wanted to know it for myself."

Riker sighed. "Knowledge is power, Dee." He turned to her. "What are
you going to do with that power, is the question." He wrested his arm
from her grip. "What does anyone do with power, but corrupt it?" He
turned from her. "How could you know what I feel, truly?"

As he walked away, and the scene around their thoughts grew darker,
she called after him, "Will, am I really worth doing this to yourself
over? Would you really kill yourself, just because you're afraid I
won't love you?"

He looked at her once before she was escorted out of his mind. "You
shouldn't even have to ask that," he said softly.

"Will!" she screamed into the darkness.

* Yes, Imzadi?*

* I love you... I love you, Imzadi. Please believe me....*

Silence, then, *How can I?*

The anguish that filled Deanna's soul was almost too much to bear.
*Oh, God, Imzadi, what have I done? What have I done?...*

---

Deanna, in sickbay, looked around the room. Beverly had been sitting
there monitoring them with a medical tricorder. She was positively
astounded. "Dee!"

Deanna Troi looked at her. "What, Beverly?"

"The readings on Will's synapses while you were talking to him! It's
almost... well their activity suggests everything about him that would
make him conscious. But he's not."

Troi smiled with no humor. "Yes, it's quite a puzzle, isn't it, Bev?"
She stood, stretching. "Well, I suppose, in a sense, Will *is*
conscious... but he also refuses to wake up."

Crusher knew what was coming. "It's not your fault, Deanna. You
didn't know."

Troi whirled to face her, anger and self-recrimination evident in her
voice. "That's where you're wrong, Beverly. I *did* know. I've known
for the past *nine* years." Her voice softened and a solitary tear
made its way down her cheek. "I just didn't trust."

Crusher went to her, embracing her and lending her support as it was
needed. The counselor proceeded to tell Beverly as much of what she
saw in Will's mind as she could before breaking into tears.

"Oh, God, *Imzadi*..." Troi wailed. "What have I done?"

---

Inside the mind of Will Riker...

He heard every word of their conversation. He knew that they didn't
think that he could hear them. But he could. In his mind, Troi's words
still rang...

"Oh, God, *Imzadi*... What have I done?"

Insanely enough, he couldn't respond. For the one time in his life
when he felt able to tell Deanna what he really felt, he wasn't able
to. It was then that the folly of his actions hit him.

* I tried to take my own life*. He thought in amazement. *I alienated
everyone I ever loved and whoever loved me. And for what?*

The image in his mind of Deanna Troi, her beautiful face marred with
tear-tracks, crying over him, made him want to weep himself.

*Oh, God, Imzadi,* he thought. *I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.*

And, looking at what was holding him back from the world, he began to
fight....

---

Lwaxana Troi woke up rested. She had been tired of watching the
holochannels that Betazed had been broadcasting lately, and had
retired early the previous evening. She went downstairs, mentally
summoning Mister Homn to prepare her a pot of hot chocolate, a craving
she and her daughters had picked up from her late husband, Ian Troi.

Kestra.

Lwaxana sighed. She would never get over losing her oldest child. It
was a pain she would live through for the rest of her life. But she
thanked Deanna for helping her deal with the pain she had hidden in
her soul for so long. Poor Deanna, she only found out she had an older
sister just prior to the destruction of the Enterprise-D

Lwaxana realized with a start that she hadn't received her weekly
letter from Deanna for the past three weeks. It wasn't like Deanna to
forget, no matter how angry she might be at her mother. Lwaxana sat at
the breakfast table and nodded a thank you to Homn, who had placed her
cup of chocolate in front of her as she had sat down. Homn slowly
walked off as Lwaxana took a sip of her hot chocolate and checked her
message terminal, hoping for a message from Deanna.

Nothing.

Worried, she reached out to Deanna with her mind. She wouldn't be
able to read her child's thoughts at such a great distance, but she
would be able to sense her state of mind. She persevered in searching
for Deanna's emotions until she finally found the tendrils of thought
that were her daughter's mind.

There were moments of silence as Lwaxana read and analyzed her
daughter's emotions. Stress, despair, and anxiety. Love. Sadness.
Then, she noticed something else.

"Oh, My Little One!" she exclaimed aloud. Such a vocal outburst was
unusual in the house, and Mister Homn came quickly, to find Lwaxana
standing at the windows with tears in her eyes. Turning to Homn she
thought cast to him.

* Pack us up quickly, Homn. Our baby's in trouble.*

* Yes, Madam.*

---

Deanna woke up on a biobed in Sickbay, for the third morning in a
row. Beverly, for the third morning in a row, walked up to her with a
faux chipper attitude, telling her that--for the third morning in a
row--she had cried herself to sleep at Will's side. The only remark
that Beverly made that distinguished this morning from the past two
was, "Oh, and did I mention that your mother is coming here?"

Deanna Troi shot up into a sitting position. "What?"

Crusher looked at her quizzically. "Lwaxana Troi, Ambassador of
Betazed, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Riix, Heir to the Holy Rings
of Betazed, Daughter of the Fifth House, not to mention Your Mother,
is coming here...."

Troi stood, stretched, and paced towards the bathroom. "Yippee."

Bev followed, puzzled by Deanna's nonplussed behavior. "Dee?"

"What?" Troi mumbled, splashing her face with cold water.

"I'd thought you'd at least be happy with the news that your mother
is traversing thirteen sectors just to come see you."

Deanna looked at her. "She's traversing thirteen sectors to see if
I've gotten married yet."

Crusher crossed her arms in stubbornness. "Maybe not, Deanna. Has it
ever crossed your mind that maybe, for once in your life, Mom might
actually be worried about you?"

"Oh, it crossed my mind. I was always disappointed." Troi crossed to
Will's side again, sitting down on the biobed that she was beginning
to call home.

Crusher brought her breakfast, and looked at Deanna. "Dee, baby, you
haven't left Sickbay for three days."

Troi looked up at her with tears rimming her eyes. "And I won't," she
declared defiantly, "until Will is safe and whole again. I won't leave
him again."

With those words said, the discussion was over.

---

Inside the mind of Will Riker....

"And I won't until Will is safe and whole again. I won't leave him
again."

Those words rang inside his head, all the while Riker was fighting
his damndest. It was hard. Whatever had a hold of him had had him in
its grasp for so long, it wasn't about to give up without a fight.

*Deanna, I love you... *he thought before plunging into the fray once
more...

---

Deanna woke up with a start. The nightmares she had been having were
growing with intensity. It wouldn't be so bad if the memories weren't
infused with the dream. But, somehow, remembering made her nocturnal
visions all the more frightening.

Looking around, the first thing she realized was that she was not in
Sickbay. For the first time in the last two and a half weeks, she had
not awakened at Will's side. She panicked.

Bolting upright in bed, she screamed. "Will!"

The lights blinked on and Lwaxana Troi hurried in, followed by a
sleepy-looking Mister Homn. Deanna was hysterical with worry, and so
was only mildly surprised to see her mother--and her manservant--in
her quarters. Tears streamed down her face and her breath came in
short, abbreviated gasps.

Lwaxana sat beside her on the bed, rubbing her back gently and making
comforting noises. Homn stood off to the side, hands clasped in front
of him.

"Shh, Little One," the older Troi murmured. "It's okay." With her
mind, she reached out to Deanna, giving her a lifesaver of calm in a
tempestuous sea of emotion. *It's all right, Little One, Will is in
Sickbay.*

*Mother*, Deanna's mind whispered back, *I can't leave him. Take me
back.*

Lwaxana's brow creased in worry. *Little One, you haven't left
Sickbay since Will...*

*And I won't*, Deanna cut her off, *until he's awake and mentally
whole again.*

*Little One, if you continue to cry yourself to sleep in Sickbay, how
long can you expect to remain mentally stable?*

Deanna's tears stopped, although her sniffling continued. *Fine,
Mother.* She set her jaw determinedly, and began to think in the
shielded portion of her mind that her mother couldn't reach. She rose
from her bed and began to dress herself. Being in a state of relief
from duty, she chose off-duty civillian clothes over her uniform.

She crossed to the lavatory to brush her teeth and hair, a puzzled
Lwaxana following her. After applying minimal make-up, Deanna put on
her suede shoes and crossed to her desktop terminal. All this without
saying a word to Lwaxana.

Finally, her mother could stand it no more. *Little One, what are you
doing?*

*Calling Beverly, Mother.*

* Why are you calling the doctor? Are you ill?*

Troi smiled cynically at Lwaxana. *Always, Mother.*

*Not funny, Deanna.*

* The best I can do, Mother...* Troi punched the code that would
connect her terminal to the one in Captain Picard's quarters.

The screen blinked on and Jean-Luc Picard answered. "Counselor," he
began with his brow furrowed. "What can I do for you?"

"Captain, sorry to disturb you, but is Beverly there?"

"She just left for Sickbay, Deanna. I could page her to your quarters
if you would like..."

"No, thank you, Captain. I'll meet her there. I need to talk to her
about Will."

Picard nodded understandingly. "Understood, Deanna. Keep me apprised
of his status, would you?"

Troi nodded sadly. "Of course, Jean-Luc."

The connection terminated and Troi silently left for Sickbay, with
Lwaxana scurrying to follow. Having not slept a wink all night,
Lwaxana Troi was already dressed and ready to follow Deanna around the
ship if need be.

---

Beverly stared at Deanna blankly. "You want to what?"

Troi patiently crossed her arms across her chest and stared down at
Will's unmoving form. "You said yourself that he's in no immediate
physical danger. He only requires daily food injections, right? Well,
I'm relieved from duty for the time being... I could do it."

Crusher smiled. "So you want to install a biobed in your quarters?"

Troi shook her head. "His. I'm moving into his for now."

Lwaxana walked over to Deanna and took her by the shoulders. "Little
One, this is madness! You can't move out of your own quarters! Let
Will stay in Sickbay!"

Troi shook her free and, in a fit of irrationalism, stormed to the
other side of Sickbay and back again. "No! I won't be separated from
him again. You and Homn can stay in my quarters. But I'm caring for
Will myself."

Beverly shook her head. "This is crazy, Dee. But, you're right. It
wouldn't hurt him to be taken care of at home. Besides, he *is* taking
up space." She sighed, and Lwaxana looked positively mortified. "All I
ask is that you let me come by at least once daily to check up on
him."

Deanna smiled. "Agreed."

Lwaxana threw up her hands and fled the room.

"I'll have Chief Mackenzy beam Will and the biobed to your quarters,
and we'll have a technician hook it up..." Bev was saying as the
ambassador left.

--

Counselor Troi's personal log, stardate 504422.1....*sigh*

Day three of my new nursing postion. For hours and hours on end,
after I 'feed' him, I sit there, trying to contact him again. My
efforts have proven fruitless thus far, but I will *not* give up hope!
Will needs me, he's in trouble. I *will* get through to him. I just
don't know how long it will take.

I haven't been sleeping much. Somehow, the knowledge of our sleeping
in such close proximity to one another prevents me from attaining much
rest. The first day, I had to get Jean-Luc to help me re-encode Will's
quarters to allow myself access as well. Beverly and the technicians
were here early in the morning, installing power conduits in the walls
so that they could install the biobed. I'm glad Bev was there, because
I must've looked a tearful wreck. She was there to comfort me, as I
must have needed to be.

The transporter chief beamed the biobed into Will's livingroom later
that day. Funny, I'm having trouble adjusting to thinking of Will's
quarters as my own now. I feel like such an intruder, like somehow
Will's quarters are telling me I don't belong here. Crazy, I know, but
I can't seem to shake that feeling. I've only brought a few of my
personal belongings here, so far. My mother is making this extremely
difficult. She wants me to stay in my own quarters so she can keep an
eye on me. She loves me and means well, I know, but she just doesn't
understand how important it is that I do this.

The technicians and Beverly hooked up the biobed and the technicians
left. Beverly called down to Geordi, asking him to allocate more power
to Will's..my..*.our* quarters. Geordi was such a dear about it. He
oversaw all the pwer flow changes himself, then he came up here to
make sure the technicians did a proper job of hooking up the medical
bed.

He gave me a hug, too.

Then, the transporter chief beamed Will into these quarters onto
*his* biobed. Of course, the transport wasn't completely without a
hitch. The last remaining technician blushed before fainting dead
away. Bev, to her credit, didn't stare--much. Geordi, the poor man,
cleared his throat and turned his back. Beverly caught me staring at
Will-- or rather, *where* I was staring-- and gave me a teasing look
of admonition. She then called down to the transporter room and asked
the man there to beam Will's *clothes* over as well.

I smiled, I remember. I smile as I remember the minor fiasco. I'm
only slightly ashamed at where my attention was drawn, but one could
hardly blame me. The sight of Will naked has-- so far-- only been in
fifteen-year-old memories. Shall I say, -ahem- his *physique*, among
other things, has definitely improved over the years. After they got
him dressed, Bev showed me how to feed him by injection, and various
other things. After giving me a comforting hug, she promised to stop
by again the next day-- which was yesterday, Day Two-- and left.

I replicated myself a meal and sat at Will's side all evening, trying
to contact him telepathically as well as speaking aloud to him.
Sometimes, I almost think I hear him answering me. I feel I may be
losing my mind.

Yesterday was day two, and I hadn't slept at all the previous night.
So, of course, I was awakened at Will's side by a worried Jean-Luc and
Beverly. I explained to them that I simply slept in. Beverly looked
the skeptic, but thankfully, Jean-Luc turned her attention back to
Will, lying patiently on his bed.

I went to shower and dress and came back to the livingroom to find
them still there. They looked a little uncomfortable, but I quickly
was told about their concern over their impending widding. Jean-Luc
and Bev had already decided to postpone it until Will was awake, but
were wondering about the fact that Will was to be Jean-Luc's best man,
just as I was to be Beverly's maid of honor. I assured them that I was
just as concerned as they--if not more so-- and that I would find a
way to right the situation. The left, I gave Will his food injection,
and talked to him awhile about things going on around the ship.

Last night I cried myself to sleep again.

Today is Day Three, and I've run out of tears. I just don't have the
strength to cry anymore. I have no regrets of taking this caretaker
status, but I am beginning to question my usefulness. At first, I had
believed that if Will and I were left alone together for a long enough
time, I could establish a more reliable mental link with him and bring
him out of this. That ideal is fading is the light of the harsh
reality that Will might never come out of this.

Today I have decided to go to my mother for help. Being a more
powerful telepath, perhaps she can help me in creating that stronger
communication with Will. It is now time for his food injection.

End log and save.

---

Lwaxana rang the chime to Will Riker's quarters, where Deanna had now
set up residence. The ambassador felt it ridiculous for Deanna to be
putting herself through such mental trauma. Will was important, no
doubt about it, but Deanna's mental health was more important to her.

* Maybe I'm just biased because I'm her mother,* she thought tiredly.
There was no response immediately following the activation of the door
chime, so Lwaxana rang again. Looking at Mister Homn, who merely
shrugged, she thought- cast inside.

*Little One, it's mother. Are you awake?*

*I'm in the shower, Mother.*

*Sweetheart, how am I supposed to get in? *Lwaxana asked, puzzled.

*Announce your presence to the computer, and the door system will let
you in*.

*How nice.*

*I thought so.*

"Computer, this is Ambassador, Lwaxana Troi. Identify," Lwaxana
stated in her primmest of tones.

"Working... Identified: Troi, Ambassador Lwaxana."

The doors swished open, revealing a dark living room and a bed with
glittering lights. On the biobed, underneath a blanket, lay a
nondescript figure. Lwaxana could only guess it was Will. Entering,
Lwaxana gestured for Mister Homn to follow. "Computer," she called
out, "lights." When the lights blinked on, Lwaxana was horrified at
what she saw.

The figure she had seen on the biobed had *not* been Will. It had
been his blankets rumpled up on the bed. Will was lying on the floor
next to the bed, eyes closed, mouth open in a silent cry for help. One
arm was outstretched before his head, in the direction of the
lavatory, hand hardened in a clawlike grip on the fibers of the
carpet. The lights on the display attached to the biobed were blinking
furiously and a muted alarm had gone off. Will looked as if he had
been trying to crawl to Deanna.

Of course, in a sonic shower, Deanna would have been able to hear
none of this. Homn moved to pick up Will, but Lwaxana mentally stayed
him, her hand outstretched.

*Little One! Deanna! Come quickly!*

"Mother, I'm coming; what is..." Deanna had been coming through the
bedroom doors, a clean, new dress on, and the sight that greeted her
eyes made the remainder of her words catch in her throat. Dropping the
glass of water she had been holding in her hands, she ran to Will's
side.

"Oh, my God! Will!" She placed her hands lightly on his shoulders, as
if afraid to touch him. "Dear God, Imzadi, speak to me! Imzadi?" She
smacked the comm badge she wore. "Beverly! Come to Will's quarters
quick! It's an emergency!"

"I'm on my way," came the clipped voice of the CMO. Lwaxana and Homn
stood back and watched as Deanna bent her head down to Will's, crying
mixed tears of relief and sorrow. Will had moved. The question was: in
which direction?

---

Beverly shook her head in puzzlement. "I just don't understand any of
this." She turned to Troi and raised her eyebrows. "His brain
activity, at the time he decided to go for a walk, was off the charts.
Now, it's relatively back to normal." She smiled at Deanna
reassuringly. "All signs say he's out of the coma. Have you tried a
mental scan, yet?"

Deanna shook her head. "Will's blocking me somehow. Perhaps I'm not
strong enough..." A light went on over her head. "Mother?" she said,
turning to Lwaxana, who had (suprisingly enough) remained silent up
until now. "Mother, could you...?"

A look of sympathy crossed Lwaxana's features. "Even* I* can't read
someone who's unconscious, Little One."

Deanna looked confused. "But, I was able to read Will while he was in
a coma..."

Lwaxana smiled wanly. "There are various levels of consciousness and
unconsciousness, Deanna. What you would describe as a coma would
probably be a state in which the individual's-- in this case Will's--
mind or brain had been traumatized to the degree where they became
trapped inside their own subconsciousness, either voluntarily or
against their...will." She quirked a corner of her mouth at the
miniscule joke.

The younger Troi nodded slowly. "So," she said, "Will wasn't
technically asleep, but trapped inside a... a mental shell?"

"Or hiding, Deanna."

Deanna, looking down at her feet, nodded again. "Or hiding." Turning
to Beverly, who was scanning Will again, she asked, "Bev, can you
stimulate him?"

Crusher gave her an amused look. "How did you have in mind? Remember,
I'm engaged to be married; how would Jean-Luc react?" While Deanna
found herself caught between laughter and indignation, Beverly
consulted her tricorder. "Besides, I don't need to; he's coming around
on his own."

Sure enough, Will's eyelids fluttered open and he moaned groggily.
Deanna barreled past Beverly so fast she almost knocked the good
doctor to the floor. "Will!" She latched onto his hand closest to her,
gripping it tightly. "Imzadi!"

As Will sat up slowly, he looked around in confusion. "Wh-where am
I?" he croaked.

"You're in your quarters," Deanna managed to say calmly. "Welcome
back, Imzadi..."

He looked at her as if he'd never seen her before in his life. "Who's
'Imzadi'?" Smiling at her in a mildly flirtatious manner, he said
three words that caused Troi's world to cave in around her: "Have we
met?"

---

Jean-Luc Picard could've sworn that he had heard a woman's scream,
resonating throughout the bridge. He looked around abruptly, then
fixated his gaze on Data. "Data, did you just hear anything remotely
unusual?"

The android cocked his head in confusion. "Yes, sir. It sounded very
much like Counselor Troi."

La Forge moved to the captain's chair from his engineering station.
"I heard it, too," he said softly.

Picard's worry got the better of him. "Counselor Troi," he shouted at
the overhead intercom system, "is everything all right down there?"
There came no response. "Computer, location of Counselor Troi?"

"Counselor Troi is in the quarters of Commander William T. Riker."

"Where is the Chief Medical Officer?"

"Doctor Beverly Howard Crusher is in the quarters of Commander
William T. Riker."

"Computer, list any other conscious inhabitants of said quarters."

"Troi, Ambassador Lwaxana. Homn, Mister. Riker, Commander William T."

"What?" Picard breathed. "Computer, restate last conscious occupant."

"Riker, Commander William T."

Something in Picard's voice conveyed the urgency to La Forge and Data
as he said, "Geordi, Data; follow me please." Together, the walked to
the turbolift as fast as they could.

The trip three decks down seemed far longer to Picard than it
actually was. When the 'lift got to Riker's deck, the three
practically ran down the hall, almost knocking over a hapless ensign
who almost didn't get out of the way in time. Not bothering to ring
the door chime, the men walked right in.

Inside, they were all astonished by the sight that greeted them:
Lwaxana and Will were locked in a staring contest, while Beverly and
Mister Homn were kneeling at the side of a fainted Deanna Troi.
Beverly looked up and gave Picard a worried expression, jerking her
head in Will's direction. Picard went to the ambassador's side.

"Lwaxana..." he started.

"Not now, Jean-Luc. His mental defenses are weakening."

Picard looked to Riker, who didn't appear to react to this. Finally,
after a long, agonizing moment, Lwaxana Troi turned to face Picard.

"Just as I had thought," she said simply. She looked at her daughter,
who was coming around. Then back to Picard, "Captain, I think it best
that we-- with the exception of Will and Deanna-- meet in Sickbay
immediately. Or the conference lounge, whichever you prefer.
Meanwhile, my daughter and Riker can introduce themselves." She walked
out of Riker's quarters as Picard's mouth fell open.

"Introduce themselves to whom?" he asked, puzzled.

Beverly appeared behind him, laying a hand on his shoulder. "I'll
explain in a minute," she whispered in his ear, guiding him out.
Geordi and Data followed, as did Homn, leaving a saddened Deanna Troi
alone with a forgetful Will Riker.

---

"So, you're saying he doesn't remember anything concerning Deanna at
all?"

Beverly nodded. "It's very localized, Jean-Luc. He recognized me at
once, the ship, asked about you, the others, but drew a blank when
Deanna appeared to him. She needs to work with him to discover exactly
how localized his amnesia is."

"But she cannot do so telepathically," Lwaxana interrupted. "To do so
would doom Will's memory forever."

Picard's head snapped abruptly around to face her. "Explain," he said
tersely.

Lwaxana Troi sighed and sat down on one of the biobeds. Gesturing
vaguely with one hand, she said, "I saw inside his mind, Captain. As
is with all amnesia patients, a portion of his mind is battling for
independence. I know not what he was fighting in his mind; but if he
loses, his memory will be lost forever. That is why Deanna *must not*
use telepathy when dealing with Will, otherwise he will be
distracted-- and a single distraction can cause the battle to be
lost."

La Forge looked puzzled. "Then how can we help him regain his
memory?"

"We must join him and help him fight from without, not from within,"
was Lwaxana's solemn reply.

---

Meanwhile, Deanna had moved from the chair Beverly had left her in to
get something in one of the back rooms, the bedroom. When she silently
reappeared, Will regarded her with open curiosity. She carried a small
box that Lwaxana had brought her from Betazed. Inside that box were
remnants of Troi's memories, from the time when she and Will had been
together on Betazed, all those years ago. No look of recognition
crossed Will's features as she set the box down on the coffee table.

After taking an obvious effort to compose herself, she calmly turned
to look at Will. "I apologize for the obvious confusion you must be
feeling right now. I'm not sure exactly how I would react if I awoke
to find a strange man in my quarters."

Will smiled lightly. "That's all right, I've always wanted a
roommate. I guess I'm glad I finally got one that's a woman." He
cleared his throat after a moment, realizing that his attempt at a
joke had gone flat. The silence was uncomfortable. Finally, he hopped
off the biobed and stuck out his hand. "I heard them call you
'Deanna'. I'm Commander William Riker." He paused, then smiled, mildly
embarrassed. "But of course you already know that. Your name is?
Miss..."

Deanna took a deep breath. "Troi," she said, shaking the proffered
hand. "Counselor Deanna Troi."

Will looked puzzled. "Counselor to whom?"

"To the *Enterprise*," she said simply.

"We have a counselor?"

Deanna sighed, took him by the arm, leading him to the couch. "Will,"
she said, sitting him down, then sitting next to him, "you have what
is known as selective amnesia. Do you understand what that is?"

Riker nodded. "It means that I am unable to recollect certain events
based around a certain theme in my life."

Troi nodded. "Such a memory loss could be caused by a traumatic
event; therefore--in order to avoid another trauma by having to deal
with the event-- the mind shuts out or down all memory engrams that
have to do with the person or place that had to do with the traumatic
event."

Riker smiled wryly. "And since I can't remember *you*, it stands to
reason that you were the cause of my traumatic event."

Troi lowered her eyes to the carpeting. "Much to my grief," she
agreed. "But we're going to get your memories back, Will. I need your
help, all right?"

Will nodded; she took his arm again, guiding him to the bedroom with
the lavatory in it. She released him when they entered the bedroom---
which she had been sleeping in lately--- and selected some off-duty
fatigues for him to wear. Turning to the door, she said over her
shoulder, "You might want to freshen up. Take a long, hot shower, and
get dressed."

As she left, it was then that Will noticed that the only thing he was
wearing were silk underwear and a sickbay shift... which was, of
course, open in the back, and not nearly long enough. He sighed.

* Wonderful*... he thought, heading off to the shower.

---

As soon as Deanna heard the water running from the livingroom, she
collapsed onto the couch and cried until she fell asleep.

---

Riker tested his memory as best he could. For the life of him, he
could not remember a single thing having to do with the woman out in
his livingroom. He could remember the alphabet, he could remember the
tours of duty he had on every ship he'd ever served on. He could
remember the names of all his friends. He could remember the great
Zefram Cochrane and the reports of the battle with the Borg. What he
could not remember was anything having to do with the woman on the
other side of those doors. This frustrated him to no end. He was
damned sure that she had played some sort of major role in his life.
What it was, he didn't know exactly.

Meanwhile, the ringing of the door chimes woke Deanna from a fitfully
short nap on the couch. Groggily, she got up, smoothed out her dress,
and went to answer the door. The panels parted to reveal two
nervous-looking men, commonly known as La Forge and Data. Gesturing
them in silently, Deanna went to the replicator and made a cup of tea
for herself. Turning to them and sipping her tea gingerly, she cocked
an eyebrow.

"What can I do for you two?"

Geordi and Data looked at each other hesitantly, as if wondering how
to breach a delicate subject. La Forge turned to her. "We were just
wondering, Counselor, how you wanted to play this..."

"What Geordi means," Data interjected, becoming more human all the
time, "is that we wish to know the course of action you are going to
take in recovering the commander's memories."

Deanna sighed. "I don't know, you two. I just don't know."

"That makes four of us," came a bass voice from the rear of the
livingroom. "But I could sure go for a synthehol drink right about
now. How about you, Geordi? Data?"

Data watched Deanna visibly wince at the realization that Will was
uncomfortable addressing her personally. But, to her credit, she
picked up Riker's lead, nodding as if she had intended nothing else.
"That sounds wonderful, doesn't it Geordi?"

Geordi and Data played along, as only friends could. "Guinan hasn't
seen the commander for a while. She'll be wondering where her favorite
poker player is, don't you think?" Geordi offered with his most
disarming smile.

Riker offered his arm to Troi, who dutifully took it, and led his
friends out of his quarters. "Well, God forbid we keep Guinan waiting
much longer!" he chuckled as they made their way to the reincarnation
of the old *Enterprise*'s Ten-Forward. They entered the mess hall,
which had a small bar at the back of the room, and planted themselves
at a booth near the viewports.

Guinan, the ubiquitous El-Aurian hostess, appeared by their table
immediately, padd in hand. "What can I get for you all today?
Commander Riker, good to see you up and about again!"

Riker nodded slowly. "It's good to be up and about again..." His
voice trailed off as he looked at Deanna for a long moment, then
looked back to Guinan abruptly. "Two Skagway Slides and a
Transporter," he said, reciting Geordi and Data's --as well as his
own-- favorite drinks from what was left of his memory. He looked back
to Deanna. "And you..."

"Srjula," she said shortly.

"And a 'srjula' for the lady."

Guinan seemed aware that something was amiss, but she gave Troi a
look that clearly said *later*. Deanna nodded. Aloud, Guinan said,
"Andorian tea? That's not your preferred usual, Counselor."

Troi shrugged. "I order to reflect the mood I'm in."

Guinan nodded. "I hear you. Drinks are on the way."

When the woman was gone, Riker turned to Deanna. "What about Andorian
tea reflects the mood you're in?"

Troi remained silent and Geordi caught the commander's eye. Shaking
his head inconspicuously, Geordi ended that branch of the
conversation. However, fairly new still to the inane understandings of
human nature, Data was determined to make yet another *faux pas*.

Cocking his head like a sparrow not sensing the ever-present cat, the
android looked at Counselor Troi, who shifted slightly under the
scrutiny. "Over the past three-hundred years, Andorian tea has been
regarded as bitter, tart, potent, unattainable, rich, tasteless, and
remedial; the Andorians, of course, have regarded it widely as
nerve-calming and therapeutic..."

"Thank you, Data." Deanna was sure that if looks could graphically
maim and kill, Data would have been no more than charred body parts,
strewn along all 24 decks.

"But, I am curious as to which feeling you are using these regards
as, metaphorically, in order to describe herself," Data forged on.

Deanna silently wondered how Data's head would look, mounted above
her holographic fireplace.

Trying to make light of a sticky situation that Data had, once again,
helped Deanna find her way into, Geordi looked at Riker, then Data,
squarely. "Well, I sure wouldn't call the good counselor a tart. Rich
is also out of the question, as monetary gain has been equalized for
at least two centuries," he laughed.

"And I definitely wouldn't say Counselor Troi is tasteless, she has
excellent taste in style," Riker picked up, smiling. "However, I find
her presence nerve-calming, and extremely remedial. Therapeutic,
even."

Troi blushed.

Data, unaware that he had gotten them into a mess of polite
extrications and veiled meanings, blindly perpetuated the
conversation. "But is the counselor potent, unattainable, or bitter?"

Geordi and Riker exchanged glances, while Deanna silently wished to
send her android companion crashing through the nearest bulkhead.
Riker cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows. "Given my lack of
memory, Data, you'd have to tell me about that. I honestly don't
remember much concerning the good counselor."

Data nodded. "Ah, I am sorry, Commander."

Geordi couldn't resist turning the last table on Deanna. "What does
Andorian tea represent to you, Counselor?"

The daggers that shot out of Troi's eyes were almost tangible. Then,
composing herself just as the drinks arrived, she said, "Comfort. I
regard it as I would any other tea. It represents comfort and hope and
sympathy."

Guinan smiled. "Nice definition, Deanna. I would have said the same
thing." Giving the younger woman a knowing glance, she moved off to
another table.

Geordi watched her escape, envying her ability to leave. Sipping his
Skagway Slide, he allowed his gaze to wander over the room. After a
few faces passed under his gaze, his focus rested on a dark-skinned
female sitting across the room from him. And she was *smiling* at him.

As the others prattled on and on about little things, like how long
it had been since their last shore leave, Lwaxana Troi breezed
throught the entrance of Ten-Forward. Seeing his window of escape at
hand, Geordi stood, sipped the last of his drink, and nodded to his
three companions. "Commander, Counselor, Data. I've gotta get going. I
wanna get to bed and get some sleep."

He turned, having said that, and moved in the direction of the young
woman who had been meeting his gaze.

Commanders Riker and Data followed his movements visually, smirking
as Geordi offered his arm to the young lady and she took it. Data
cocked his head, feeling slightly envious at Geordi's narrow escape of
Lwaxana Troi. The Betazoid ambassador quickly found them and was soon
a foot from their table.

"Hello, Lit--" Her voice trailed off as she received a mental warning
from Deanna, reversing gears. "Hello, Deanna."

Deanna looked utterly composed. "Hello, Mother."

Lwaxana looked innocently at the chair that had been vacated by La
Forge not too long ago. "May I join you, or is this seat taken?"

The younger Troi smiled politely. "Geordi went to bed, he needed his
sleep."

Data gave Deanna a patronizing look. "Counselor, Geordi may have gone
to bed, but I seriously doubt that he will get any sleep tonight."

Riker, Data, and Lwaxana proceeded to laugh heartily as a puzzled
Deanna watched La Forge leave with a woman on his arm.

---

When they returned to Riker's quarters, there were a couple of
moments of more uncomfortable silence between them. Nervous clearing
of throats had now become common place. Deanna and Will, just stood
there looking into one another's eyes, wondering what the other was
thinking. Lwaxana had been convinced to take Data to the holodeck,
where the anxious android was hoping to coerce her into participating
in a recreation of Sherlock Holmes. Therefore, Will and Deanna were
alone together.

This put them in a sticky situation. Before they had returned to his
quarters, Deanna had tried to make preparations to move back into her
own. The computer had primly stated, in no uncertain terms, that the
quarters she had entered were no longer her own, but were general
access guest quarters, presently reserved for Lwaxana Troi and
company. After inquiring as to who made the transfer of ownership of
her home, Deanna deduced that the captain and his fiancee were the
ones responsible. *I'll make sure they have a wedding they won't
forget....* she thought darkly.

Will knew her predicament almost as well as she did. While they had
been walking from the new Ten-Forward, Deanna had briefly outlined
their past together, up until the coma. Any questions he had asked,
she had answered, some more reluctantly than others. Basically, he
understood that he and the professional counselor in front of him had
had a strained relationship at best, usually--especially throughout
the latter years--they had remained the best of friends. Secretly, he
wondered to himself what he had done to ruin a romance with the
beautiful woman he was about to share quarters with.

Peculiarly enough, the word she had told him about...*imzadi... that*
rang a bell with him. He didn't quite fully understand the meaning of
the word still, but he knew that it was a word that he and Deanna had
often ascribed to one another. She had described it only as, "a word
that comes from my Betazoid heritage, and a word that you and I
know...knew together."

Deanna seemed tired, she dropped on the couch. Gesturing to the
biobed, she smiled. "I suppose you won't be needing *this*
anymore...."

He moved to sit beside her. "No, but you might want to keep it
around... for emergencies..."

Troi looked at him, barely concealed fear in her eyes. "Please, Will.
Don't scare me anymore than I already have been. I don't think I could
take another coma, especially not if it was you..."

Will made soft comforting noises, gathering her hands up in his.
"Shh. It's all right. I don't intend to become comatose again. I would
never put you through that for me again."

Sadness and anger hardened her gaze as she seemed about to say
something, but evidently thought twice about it. Instead, gently
removing her hands from his, she stood. Going to the replicator, she
ordered up a hot chocolate.

* That's right.... *he thought to himself in shock. *Deanna is a
chocolate fanatic!*

Deanna didn't take notice of his inward surprise; instead she took a
gulp of hot chocolate and looked at him, then toward the two bedrooms.
"I don't quite know why you asked for your quarters to have two
bedrooms, but there they are. I've moved my belongings out of yours,
which I have been occupying, and into the 'guest' bedroom.

Since Jean-Luc and Beverly obviously went to great lengths to make
sure my quarters were non-existent, we are forced roommates."

There was something in Will that knew *exactly* why there had been
two bedrooms installed... but, once again, it was just outside of his
grasp.

He looked at her sadly, with tears welling up in his eyes. "I wish I
could remember..."

Deanna obviously felt remorseful for the harsh words that had come
galloping from her mouth. She crossed to him, placing a hand on his
bearded face. "I'm sorry, Will. I am truly sorry, I didn't mean the
things I said. Forgive me?"

Will shook his head. "Not unless you forgive me. I've obviously hurt
you somehow, and I ruined the life we might have had." Memories were
coming back for him, a drop of rain at a time, pooling up in his mind.
But, of course, for some reason Deanna couldn't sense this.

"Will, it wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was. It had to have been."

"Well, it wasn't, and that's the end of it. Understood?" Deanna's
tone left no room in Will for argument. "We'll discuss this tomorrow
after the wedding."

Will was slightly puzzled. "Wedding?"

"Yes, wedding. Remember? Jean-Luc and Beverly are *finally* getting
married tomorrow. He made the announcement while we were walking."

Will remembered. "Ah, I recall it now. But, Dee, I don't have
anything to wear..."

Deanna had stiffened. "What?" she asked, her face blanched. "What did
you say?"

Confused, Will repeated, "I don't have anything to wear..."

"No! Before that!"

Will thought. "Dee?" As she stiffened again, he thought he had
crossed some invisible barrier. "I'm sorry, I've obviously offended
you. I'll go to bed now..." He moved to leave.

She caught his arm as he exited the room, halting him for a second.
"No, Will! You didn't offend me. You've made me very happy; you're
making tangible progress!"

Will looked surprised. "How do you figure?"

"You haven't called me 'Dee' in ages!" Tears of joy spilled from her
eyes.

Will, still a bit confused, only nodded. "All right then, Dee. I'm
going to bed, all right? I need to be fresh for the wedding..."

Troi got a hold of herself, pushing him through the doorway to his
bedroom. "Of course, go to sleep! Get some sleep!" The doors closed
behind her as she ran to her own bedroom.

Will, undressing for bed, had only one thought about the woman
sharing quarters with him:

*That is one weird lady...*

---

Meanwhile, as Will and Deanna slept....

The battle was won, the enemy vanquished, and the victor dragging
himself off the battlefield. He had just enough strength to make it
home...

He was halfway home...

He was home....

God, it was good to be home....

Opening the door, he saw the lights were out. There was nobody
home...

---

* The victor couldn't see, there were no lights in his home that were
on. He stumbled around in the dark, searching for something that would
trigger the lights and let him see what had been done to his home
while he had been away at battle. While he was moving from one corner
of his home to the other, he tripped over a figure lying on the
ground. The figure looked up at him, blinking through bleary eyes.*

* "I was wondering when you were going to come back." The figure
smiled wryly. "It's been hell on earth trying to figure out how to run
things without you..."*

* "What happened? I mean, I know what happened, but I mean since I've
been away?" The champion's brow furrowed. "What happened to Deanna?"*

* His mirror image stretched. "Nothing happened to her really. She's
been worn to the bone, physically and emotionally, just trying to take
care of you. Me. Hell, I don't know anymore."*

* The victor thought for a moment, then said, "Listen, we're going to
have to merge sooner or later... we should combine memories. We'll
know what each other knows."*

* The mirror image nodded, smiling wryly again. "She loves... us...
you know. She wouldn't let me call her 'imzadi' without knowing
completely what it meant."*

* The champion nodded. "I know. Somehow, I know."*

* Then, as if moving to embrace, the two figures held their arms open
wide, as they merged into one being.*

* The lights flickered for a few seconds, then shone bright as one
figure stood alone.*

---

Will Riker's quarters lit up as Deanna ordered the lights to full
illumination. Once awakened, she could not get back to sleep, and she
had heard a noise in the middle of the night. She had gone in to check
on Will, finding him in the grips of a nightmare. His sheets had been
tangled up around him and he had been sitting bolt upright in bed,
wild-eyed and sweating. She had tried scanning him; but, no, the
mental shields were still in place. She had sat on the side of the
bed, soothing him and drying his forehead with the corner of his
sheets.

After talking to him for a while, she was disappointed to find that
not only did he not remember a thing about his nightmare, but he
hadn't regained any of his memories, either. Although he was still
calling her 'Dee'... That was something, at least...

She sat at the dining table, after replicating herself a hot cup of
chocolate, shivering slightly as she settled into her chair; she
adjusted her nightgown around her for maximum warmth. Slowly sipping
her hot chocolate, she savored the aroma as it reached her nose. She
let out a slow sigh of contentment, brief as it may be, and asked the
computer for the time.

"It is currently 0730 hours." The answer came in the form of Will
Riker's voice, and she looked up to see him leaning his hands on the
opposite end of the gleaming surface of the table. He looked like he
had fallen out of bed, there was a red hue to the left side of his
face, and his beard and hair were rumpled so comically that she had a
hard time keeping a straight face. He had a smile on his face,
however.

"I had a dream last night," he said softly. "Do you know what I saw
in my dream?"

Deanna gestured to the chair next to hers, Will sat down. Fully
interested, she leaned forward to him. "What did you dream about,
Will?"

Will looked at her for a long moment, then his face was the picture
of longing and love. "You."

Deanna blinked back a solitary tear that threatened to expose her.
"You did?"

Riker put his hand on her forearm, using his other to cup her chin.
Looking her straight in the eye, he nodded. "I dreamt that we had a
chance to rekindle a romance we had thought lost. And in my dream, we
were both afraid to, worried that our already strained friendship
would break apart if we tried to start a shipboard relationship. But I
knew, in my dream, that I loved you, and that I was always saddened
that the courage was never in me to tell you how I felt."

Troi suddenly remembered that she had to breathe. Gasping softly, she
composed herself and tried to be as professionally detached as
possible. "Are you sure it was a dream, or was it a memory
resurfacing?"

Riker smiled wryly. "I couldn't tell you, Deanna. You're the one
whose memories are intact." He got up and walked back to his bedroom,
the doors shutting behind him.

Deanna watched him go, finally letting the tear out and sighing
softly. "Sometimes, I am not so sure that they are, where you're
concerned, Will Riker..."

---

"Well, Captain," Will grumbled as he tried to button the collar on
Picard's wedding tuxedo, "Either we need to cut down on the amount of
beer and cake at bachelor parties, or you managed to do this on your
own."

"Careful, Will...." Picard mumbled.

Finally, Will got the clasps shut on the collar. "All right, you can
breathe now..."

Picard looked at his first officer sideways. "Thank you, Will."

Will nodded, guiltily.

Picard went to the younger man. "Will," he said softly. "It's okay.
We've all forgiven you for what happened. These things happen to the
best of us."

"I don't think your counselor has forgiven me for what happened."

Picard looked at him. "What do you mean?"

Will was silent.

"Well, she's been through a lot. I'm sure she's forgiven you, but she
might be wary of you." Picard clapped him on the shoulder. "These
things take time, Will."

"Time seems to be something I'm running short of..."

Picard nodded, then started. "Oh, speaking of which...Computer. What
time is it?"

"The time is 0900 hours," came the prim, female voice.

"Well, Will, seems we've got fifteen minutes to get to a wedding.
Don't you agree?"

Will nodded, the wheels in his head turning. He picked up his flower,
to be pinned on the lapel of his own tuxedo, and followed the groom
out the door.

---

Admiral Tao Nguyen, a petite Asian woman with a frost of snowy white
hair, cleared her throat, pulling at the collar of her dress uniform.
She could hardly wait for the ceremonies to be over with so that she
could change out of this incredibly uncomfortable monkey suit. The
downside to being an admiral was that she was required to perform the
marriage between the captain and his CMO, thus having to put up with
this insufferable costume for the next three hours. Her personal yacht
was waiting outside the ship, off the port bow. She could use her
admiral's prerogative to override this particularly inconvenient
protocol of Starfleet's, leaving the ceremony to the android officer
to perform. But, of course, that would be dereliction of duty, and it
would hurt her friend Jean-Luc's feelings... thus she suffered.

The sudden rise and fall of volume of the Federation Horns signalled
the arrival of Jean-Luc and his trusy sidekick, William Riker. Nguyen
was aware of certain difficulties regarding the handsome First
Officer. She had discovered the basic gist of the situation through
the time-honored traditional gossip...although the details were as
blurred as several rounds through the ship's scuttlebutt would
obscure. There appeared to be no problem with the best man, however,
as he took his place behind Picard, who had assumed his position in
front of the admiral. The podium in front of the short admiral (which
had been shortened, because Data had not wished to cause any
discomfort for the diminuitive woman) was suddenly adorned with the
booklet of marriage vows and the Federation code and blessing, as Data
gently placed it on the top of the podium and hurried to take his
place behind Riker.

Then, in strode Geordi La Forge, looking happier than he had in
years. Hooked on his arm was one of the most stunningly gorgeous
ensigns on the ship. An ensign from the science division, if Picard
remembered correctly. Geordi winked at her and whispered something
into her ear, then took his place behind Data.

All there was left to do was wait.

They didn't wait long.

The Federation Horns rose again in tribute, as Beverly Crusher and
her entourage entered the redecorated lounge. Her dress was a flowing
periwinkle blue, with sequins lining the hem of the skirt. The skirt
itself was slit up the side on the thigh. Muffled gasps of admiration
and surprise came from the guests, and elicited raised eyebrows from
the groom's attendants. Except for Jean-Luc; although he had not seen
the dress any time previously, he knew it was not atypical of Beverly,
and was not surprised. If anything, he was pleased.

Will's attention was focused on Beverly's Maid of Honor.

Deanna was in a lavender dress, strapless and low cut. It too had a
tight bodice and a flowing skirt that was slit up the side. She
refused to meet Riker's scrutiny but for a brief glance in his
direction. She was just thankful that they weren't at a Betazoid
wedding. That would have been a *great* way to infuse memories into
Will...

The bridesmaids took their place behind Troi, and Nguyen cleared her
throat.

"Since the first days of the wooden sailing ships back on earth, it
has been the honor and priviledge of ship captains to perform
marriages for those aboard, be they guests or crew. Jean-Luc Picard is
a captain who has been honored to have performed many such rites of
bonding, on all three ships that he has captained. And now the captain
is himself getting married. And the rest of us are saying, 'It's about
bloody time'..."

Jean-Luc blushed sheepishly as Beverly and the guests laughed.

And the ceremony continued....

---

Later, when all the wedding paraphanalia for the ceremony had been
cleared away, the reception kicked into high gear. Of course, the
honored couple got the first dance. Riker and Troi had seated
themselves at a small table off to the side of the dance floor, where
they proceeded to make inconsequential small talk.

Troi had long since ceased trying to read him, having given up the
task as futile. Riker's shields had cracked enough to allow her to
read him if she tried hard enough, but she just didn't try. So she
didn't know.

Riker, on the other hand, had a slightly different problem. "Dee..."

She held up a hand abruptly, stopping him. "Will, please. I was
ecstatic when you remembered your pet name for me, but enough is
enough." With tears in her eyes she looked at him. "Don't you see?
Unless you remember the big things, the little things become
meaningless. Unless you remember our past, our future is irrelevant."

"And what do you think I'm trying to do? It's not easy Dee...anna,"
he finished after a glance from her. "I can't patch things up to heal
if *you* refuse to give me the band-aid box!"

She cocked an eyebrow. The guests hadn't noticed his outbreak, and
fortunately, neither had the Picards. Lowering her voice, she said,
"Well, I want you to be able to remember on my own, with no help from
me."

"Why? So I can struggle with this alone? Is that what all good
counselors do? Sit back and watch as their patients try to do things
alone without any help?"

His tone was neutral, almost Data-ish, but still caused a tear to
roll down the side of her cheek. "Don't you think I'm hurt and
frustrated too? Don't you think it's been as hard on me as it must be
for you?" She stopped, thought for a second, then looked immediately
contrite. "Will, I'm sorry..."

He smiled lightly. Placing his hand on her arm, "RaBeem." That was
all he said, but that single Betazoid word carried an electrical
current into Deanna.

* I understand...*

Wait a second... Hiding the turning wheels in her head from her
expression on her face, she smiled evenly. "So, let's try a scan of
what you remember."

He nodded, taking his hand from her arm. "Shoot."

*He'd better thank his lucky stars I have the sanity not to take that
literally...* she thought darkly.

"So, what do you remember?" she asked simply.

"That's a professional scan?" he said humorously.

"It's a simple question..."

"Give me something definite..."

Troi thought for a moment, then said breezily. "What poetry comes to
mind?"

Riker sensed a trap, but forged ahead. "Well," he said, as if
uncertain, "there's not much. I assume you want a specific poem that
we both know..."

She nodded. *He shouldn't be able to remember this yet...At least not
the whole thing...*

He paused, then:


"I hold you close to me.
Feel the breath of you, and the wonder of you
And remember a time
Without you
But only as one would remember
A bleak and distant nightmare
And you shudder against me in your sleep
Do you share the memory with me of dark times past?
And you smile
Do you share the memory of times to come?
The future holds such promise
And just as I cannot imagine how I survived the past
Without you
I cannot imagine a future
Without you."


He shrugged. "That's all I remember of it. I can't seem to remember
who wrote it though..." he stalled. Suddenly, he began to feel the
prickling of hairs at the back of his neck, an all too familiar
sensation. He looked at Deanna. She simply was silent, staring back at
hin.

They both began to notice that the denizens of Ten-Forward had begun
to applaud loudly, and whistling noises could be heard.

Riker himself had not noticed that he had been speaking in stentorian
tones, loud enough for people to hear. Troi shifted as if
uncomfortable.

That feeling again... Riker hoped it wasn't what...

Suddenly, Troi stood up so fast that her chair toppled backward.
Being an incredibly small table, it was no small stretch what she did
next.

The crowd was stunned silent as Deanna Troi took a wide swing with
her right arm and slapped Will Riker hard across the face. The sound
of flesh meeting flesh so violently reverberated around the bulkheads.
Even Guinan was shocked silly. Everyone stared at the two in the
middle of the lounge. Jean-Luc and Beverly were standing there in
mortified fascination.

"You fucking son of a *bitch*!" she shrieked. An utter non-sequiter
for the counselor, to be sure.

Gasps were heard at this outbreak. The counselor gathered up her dress
and stormed out of the lounge. As she exited, for some strange reason,
the doors remained open. Various murmurings were overheard in the
crowd:

"He recites poetry...beautiful poetry...to her, and she curses and
slaps him in the face?" one voice said in puzzlement.

"Remember, she had that affair with Commander Worf... it must be a
Klingon thing she picked up..." another voice answered.

Attempting to bring levity into a bad situation, Riker stood up
proudly and indignantly. Pointing a finger after her, he looked
sideways at the doors. "Madam, I would have you know that my sex life
is none of your damned business. Furthermore, in none of her past
lives was my mother ever a canine!" he proclaimed loudly.

With that, he strode after her.

Beverly looked squarely at Jean-Luc. "Well, I suppose that's the
entertainment for the evening..."

---

Riker found Deanna sitting huddled on the floor, leaning her back up
against the bulkhead, halfway down the corrider from Ten-Forward. She
obviously hadn't gotten far before her anger and her tears had caught
up with her. So, she sat against a bulkhead on the floor, crying as if
no one else was there to care one way or the other.


As he neared her in proximity, she sensed him. In one fluid movement,
she was up on her feet in a heartbeat. She extended a hand, backing
away from him slowly, blinking hard to see through her tears. "Stay
away from me," she shrieked. "I don't want you near me!"

"Deanna, I..." he started, but she cut him off.

"No! I don't want to hear it!" With that, she took off at a
high-speed bolt down the corridor.

Will stood there, befuddled. He felt a presense behind him and
half-turned to face it. Lwaxana just stood there, serene, not at all
angry like her daughter had been.

"She's confused, Will. She's angry, scared, and confused." She urged
him with a gesture, making the words she said next almost unnecessary:
"Go to her."

Will took off at a steady jog after Deanna, leaving Lwaxan Troi
behind. One didn't need to be a telepath to know where Deanna had
gone. She was where she always went when she was having emotional
problems and wanted to be alone. He was also just as sure the doors
were locked. With the highest security clearance that Troi could
muster without captain's authorization.

Which is why he stopped by the officers' deck on deck 8. Entering the
rec lounge, he saw Security Chief Arlon sitting in a lone chair near
one of the viewports. She was sipping her synthale quietly, obviously
thinking private thoughts. Unfortunately, Riker wasn't in a mood to be
patient and wait for her to turn around and notice him.

"Rona," he gasped, having run up two decks, pausing for breath only
in turbolifts. "I need your help for a minute."

The tone of his voice mated with his words caused the young woman to
go on four-siren alert. "Where's the problem, Commander?" She
instictively reached for her phaser at her hip.

Riker put his hands up. "Whoa, Chief, hang on a second. There's no
security breach. Counselor Troi has locked herself on the holodeck
without her communicator, and we think she may be in some sort of
emotional trauma. For a Betazoid, this is a serious condition, and we
need to unlock her security codes. The only way I can do this is to
have you use your security override code."

"Why wouldn't the captain himself do this, sir?" she asked
respectfully, with just a hint of suspicion in her voice.

"The captain is attending his own wedding," Riker explained
patiently.

"All right," she replied after a beat, "let's go."

Together, they made their way up to deck five, and stopped at the
entrance to the holodeck. Once there, Arlon entered her voice print
identification code. The doors beeped and parted. Behind them was
revealed lush Betazed scenery. Riker turned to the security chief.

"Thank you, Rona." Pause. "You really should join the reception in
Ten-Forward., Lieutenant. It's really something. "

She shifted uncomfortably. "I would rather not, sir. I do not like
large gatherings of people altogether much. Too easily, they
oftentimes conceal the deadliness of an unexpected knife. It is much
too easy to be caught off guard there, sir. I prefer my solitude,
Commander."

Riker smiled warmly. "Just like a certain Klingon aquaintance I used
to know."

He entered the holodeck, allowing the holodeck doors to shut in front
of Rona, who quickly went back to deck 10 to be alone.

Riker knew the location here like the back of his hand. It was the
glade that preceded the Betazoid Art Museum. He and Troi had spent
many endless days here, during his tour on Betazoid. She had used the
museum to teach him about opening up his mind and soul to others,
including herself. Somehow, it seemed oddly appropriate that he find
her sitting in front of the painting with the large, goopy paint
swirls. It was one of the many paintings in the museum that Riker
could just not get used to. No matter how hard Deanna had tried to
coax him to open up his mind and relax, to see a picture where there
was none, Riker just couldn't adjust his definitive mindset to
accomodate her.

But that was the younger Will. The Will of the past.

The Will of today had no such problems adjusting his mindset.

He saw the picture clearly. Or painting, as the case may be.

He walked in her direction, until he was standing directly behind
her.

"Deanna," he began.

She interrupted him, not sounding particularly angry, rather like she
was lost somewhere in the past. "Will, remember that time when we were
working on your mental shields? Or projection? Yes, that was it. We
were working on a way to enable you to project your thoughts to
telepaths and to help you construct shields around your mind so that
no one could read your mind without your knowledge."

"Deanna..."

"Who knew that you would prove so adept at forming shields around
your mind?"

He fell silent as he saw a tear roll down the side of her face. How
did this happen to them? He remembered everything now...

"I know you do," she broke in, telling him that the bond they shared
was still intact. She had read his thoughts. "The thing I'm wondering
is, for how long have you remembered? Were you ever really in a coma?"

"Deanna, how could you doubt it? I couldn't even remember you. I
couldn't wake up."

"Will, stop lying to me. You know you could have if you wanted to.
You just didn't want to. As for the amnesia, well, I couldn't break
your mental shields, they were too strong. Mother claimed that she saw
something in your mind, but..."

"Deanna, be quiet. Now. Let me speak."

She looked at him, dumbfounded. To her recollection, Will had never
taken that tone of voice with her before.

"First time for everything," he allowed. The bond was still alive and
well.

She gestured to the chair opposite her bench. He sat down.

"Deanna, I don't know where exactly to begin, so just ask me a simple
question and I'll give you an answer as elaborate as I can make it."

Thinking this over for a moment, she nodded. "How long have you had
your memories back?"

Riker shrugged. "I don't know, actually. I just woke up this morning
and I suddenly understood and could recollect everything. I went to
bed with amnesia and woke up remembering everything."

Deanna looked at him. "Why didn't you tell me you'd gotten your
memories back, Will? Why the deception?"

Will sighed, then took her hands in his. "First of all... no, Deanna,
look at me." He took her chin in between his thumb and index finger,
angling it to face him. "First of all, it was never my intention to
deceive you. You have to understand it was a very disorienting
experience for me... having my memories back, all of the sudden. Then,
remembering things, I felt guilty. For what I had done to my friends.
For what I had done to you..." He shrugged. "I don't know what came
over me, Deanna. I'd been like that for a long time. At least since
the first time I saw you and Worf together. I know it's silly and
petty and ridiculous..."

She cut him off. "No, Will. It's not entirely healthy to be jealous,"
she paused, "but it is entirely normal." She leaned forward to
whisper, "Just between the two of us?" He nodded and she smiled slyly.
"I never was in love with him as much as I was in love with you. I
thought I could be, but..." She paused. "I guess that our bond is
stronger than we think... which leads me to believe that you haven't
exactly told me everything...like about this morning for example?"

Will feigned ignorance. "What about this morning?"

"Well, for instance, your unusual behaviour this morning?"

Will grinned sheepishly. "I was trying, in my own sleepy way, to
seduce you..."

She laughed softly, her bosom shaking slightly. She crooked her
finger at him and he leaned in for her to whisper: "It worked."

He looked into her eyes for a long minute. "Imzadi, I've made so many
mistakes where we're concerned. I don't know where to begin to make
things right. But I'm asking you to find it in your heart to forgive
me."

She smiled sadly. "We were partners in this fiasco, Will. If I
forgive you, you forgive me."

Will sighed. Then he smiled back. "Deal." He cupped her chin in his
hand. "The first order of business..." He lowered his mouth to hers,
which she greeted readily. The kiss was long, sweet, and filled with
the possibility of things to come.

She looked at him when they pulled apart. "Imzadi," she whispered.

Will nuzzled her neck. "Yes?"

"First of all, you have my permission to call me 'Dee' again..."

Will faked shock. "Oh my God! You mean it?"

She batted his arm and kissed him again. Another long one.

When they broke away for the second time, Will eyed her. "What's the
second thing?"

Deanna smiled. "Do you think we should ask the Picards if they
wouldn't mind sharing the happy day?"

Will's eyebrows almost collided with his hairline. "Dee? You mean
it?"

"Never been more serious in my life."

"Glad to hear it." He picked her up. "Computer, end program." He
carried her out the door. "Let's find the others, shall we?" They
continued down the hall towards the turbolift, her still in his arms.
They entered the turbolift and he called out for Ten-Forward.

As the doors to the 'lift slid shut, Deanna looked at him
quizzically. "By the way, how did you override my password lock?"

---
Meanwhile...

Lwaxana Troi, smiling, strode over to Beverly Picard and whispered
something in her ear. Jean-Luc patiently stood by. Beverly came away
from the whispering with a huge smile on her face. The new husband
looked at the two ladies quizically. "What?"

Beverly told him what Lwaxana had sensed as Riker came through the
doors to the lounge, bearing a smiling Deanna Troi.

As applause rang throughout the lounge, Jean-Luc Picard cried out,
"Oh, Admiral Nguyen?"

The petite admiral, who had been in the process of discreetly making
her exit, turned, dread on her face. "Yes, Captain?"

Jean-Luc smiled. "Would you mind staying a bit longer?" He turned to
Data. "Bring the podium back. Everyone gather round! Replicate another
bouquet!..."

Admiral Tao Nguyen blanched. "Oh, my god..."

---

The End