The BLTS Archive - Tapestry Four
by Unzadi (unzadi@aol.com)

---

Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Paramount.  This story and the original
characters therein belong to me.

---

*Blackness....pain....movement.  Movement?  Shouldn't be.  Try. Yes.
Wrist.  Arm.  A little...only a little, but enough.  Could be enough.*

*Breath....not mine...  Who?  Willie....  Think.  Where? Cave?  No.  Not
anymore.  Floor...cold, metal....vibrations....humming.  Sounds
like....engine? Lights.  Dim lights.  Voices.  Angry. Confused.
Worried.  Ber....Berrek. Willie.*

*Pain....head hurts....ribs.  Willie?  No.  Hear his voice. All right.
For now.  Need to tell him....part of their plan....  Get moving,
Cromwell.*

Sarah tried to squeeze some form of sense into the information crowding
her brain.  Only seconds before, they had been brought into the
odd-looking room, one without any pretense of Philemite disguise.  What
then?  Without warning, some violent force had shaken their
surroundings, as if the Philemite's Mykba, in all his malevolent fury,
had grabbed the room and shaken it in his fist.

She was lying on the floor with Willie draped over her torso, forming a
human cross.  For a second, stark terror filled her that whatever had
thrown them had taken him from her forever, leaving her utterly alone
and helpless.  Reason intruded on panic, and she felt the rise and fall
of his chest, ragged but strong.

*Others?*

Unable yet to turn her head more than millimeters, Sarah concentrated
instead on the sounds and smells around her.  Blood.  Human, Philemite.
Willie moved. She could hear Rald speaking in hushed, rapid Philemite,
and strained to hear Kalat's voice over the beeping whines of Romulan
klaxons.  There was no response from Kalat, wife of Rald, save a few
silent moans.

---

"Oh, my God."

In the still silence that followed the initial explosion, Beverly
Crusher's voice sounded small and far away.  Great, malformed blobs of
black smoke vanished into the night sky, the steadily falling ice and
snow hissing as they made contact with the smoldering ruins of the
Romulan compound.

"Will,"  she whispered, horrified.  "Data."  She looked down at her
gloved hand and found she was tightly gripping Geordi's arm.  After
telling herself to do it twice, she released him.  "Is...is everybody
all right?"

"I am uninjured,"  Worf growled, his dark eyes fixed on the burning
snow. "Doctor?"

"Fine.  I'm fine.  Where's Sinclair?"

Sabrina Sinclair coughed, clearing her throat of what she was sure were
several of her internal organs.  "Right here.  New orders, sir?"  She,
along with the others, turned an anxious face to Worf.

For a moment, he stood unmoving, emitting a growl that started as a mere
vibration, not even a sound.  "We will proceed,"  he said through
gnashed teeth,  "as planned.  They may still be alive."

"Good idea,"  Geordi agreed, patting Sinclair on the shoulder to give
her confidence.  From his VISOR's readout, he could see that the young
woman was petrified.  Like the rest of us aren't....

---

A cold rush of air cut through the haze of dust and debris that settled
on the room.  One lone snowflake touched down on the top of Picard's
head before the onslaught of snow and ice began in earnest.  Looking up,
Picard saw that the roof of the governor's office had been transformed
into something resembling a slice of Swiss cheese.

"Governor?  Centurion?"  He called out for the two he'd been with only
seconds before, but was met with only the rushing wind and the wild
beating of his own heart.  Out of more habit than hope, he tapped his
communicator.  "Picard to *Enterprise*."  Nothing.

It was that which caused his immense surprise when he felt himself begin
to dissolve.

---

The first thing Eliva Riss noticed was that she was outside.  Cold,
fresh air mixed with the nearly unbearable smells of smoke, charred
food, incinerated refuse, and burning flesh.  Quickly glancing around,
her antennae swiveling instinctively, she found Rohit Sabu and Jeffrey
Taylor nearby.  Both were breathing in a manner that indicated they'd
likely sustained only minor injuries.  That was good.  Excellent.  Eliva
pulled herself to her feet slowly, so as not to aggravate the torn
muscle in her left calf.  She could walk on it, she was sure, but not
far or fast.

Limping over to Sabu who was closer than Taylor, she pressed her fingers
against his neck to gauge his pulse.  Strong and steady.  Although his
eyes were still closed, she favored him with what he called her bug
look.  Even with the gravity of their situation, the remembered
compliment warmed her.  She ran questing hands over his torso, then his
limbs, and debated whether she should pinch his nostrils together to
stop the bleeding of his nose.  No, she decided. Taylor needed attention
as well.  Clicking the saucers of her antennae together, she reluctantly
left her first patient for her second one.  A jagged gash decorated
Jeffrey Taylor's white and orange brow, looking like someone had decided
to augment the intricate orange tattoo with streaks of red.  The wound
was ugly, but not deep.

After washing it with snow, Eliva determined the gash was the worst of
Taylor's injuries.  That was also good.  She would need both Sabu and
Taylor.  Now that they had accomplished their most immediate goal -- to
escape -- they still had to find somewhere else to be.  Returning to the
compound was impossible;  there was barely any compound left.

---

Deanna Troi stared in utter disbelief at the image filling the main
viewscreen on the *Enterprise*.  She registered the calm, measured tones
of the Vulcan security officer, Lieutenant Commander T'Lina, asking
questions and giving orders.  Those were the only calm emotions Troi
could sense.  There was horror, fear, denial, confusion.  Although she
saw Wesley Crusher sitting upright at his post, posture Academy-perfect,
carrying out the Vulcan's commands, she knew the only thing that
concerned the young man was his mother's safety.  He felt for the others
as well, but his mother was foremost.

She heard a low keening sound, a wail, and as she tried to focus both
her senses and her sight on who it might be coming from, she realized it
was her own voice she heard.  "I have to go," she whispered, not caring
if anyone heard her, or noticed her departure.  Nearly blinded by the
avalanche of emotions, she stumbled for the closest door.

As it turned out, the door was not the turbolift as she had thought, but
the head.  Sitting on the closed commode, she put her head between her
knees and closed her eyes.  Will.  Beverly. The captain.  Data.  Geordi.
Sinclair. Cromwell.

The room spun dizzyingly, as if it, too, were caught up in the
explosion.  Troi felt a roiling nausea building in her gut, but forced
it down.  There had to be a reason for this to affect her in such a
strange manner.  This was far from this first disaster she had
witnessed, far from the first time intense emotions of others crowded in
with her own.  She raised her head to take in a deep, steadying breath.

Wesley's fear collided with her own apprehension, twined around her
confusion, and glanced over the stored feeling of Will's grief.  Deanna
shook her head. Lieutenant Cromwell's grief was still there, and anger.
Determination, pride, duty, and self-blame all warred for her attention.
She could clearly hear her mother's voice.  *You should have centered
yourself before returning to duty, Little One, instead of having that
sundae.  Too much chocolate is going to ruin your figure...*  Deanna
actually found herself smiling at the thought, absurd as it was.  The
only thing she was absolutely sure of was that things, whatever they
were, had taken a turn for the odd.

---

The Romulan commander strode angrily down the corridor of the ship,
leaving the hold she'd just beamed into, not knowing, and not caring how
many others had been recovered along with her.  If she looked, she would
have seen a human male in the red and black of Starfleet's command
branch, a man with a face her mother had described a thousand times.
The face of her mother's true loyalties, the one that had caused the
woman's death when the commander herself was but a confused child.

Instead, she let her fury carry her onward.  This incident meant the
destruction of everything she had slaved long and hard for.  That fool,
Pirnak! It had to be him.  It had to be his fault.  She had known he was
too weak to do the job properly, but she'd wanted to wait for the right
time to unfurl her plan.  Had he only done his job correctly, if he had
behaved like a true Romulan, they wouldn't be in this mess.

She stepped into the lift that had jostled with a fluctuation in power.
It matched her mood.  She had no liking for the worst-case scenario in
any endeavour, and least of all this one.  Even if anything had survived
the explosion, there was no time to go back and retrieve it. She swore,
the expletive ringing off the confining walls of the lift.  At least the
Federation wouldn't be able to get anything, either.  She consoled
herself with that small comfort.  Father would like that.  An enemy's
loss is always a gain, he had often told her.  She hoped to gods he was
right, and that her superiors would keep that in mind.  If Pirnak had
lived through the explosion, she would make him wish that he had not.

---

The sharp blare of a distinctly alien klaxon bore into Will Riker's
brain like a laser drill, painful in its clarity.  He was dimly aware of
Sarah's soft body beneath him, and rolled off her, wincing at the stab
of pain in his shoulder. Although he'd given much thought to the
possibility of the two of them being in similar positions, it was under
far different circumstances, and with far less company.

Sarah was alive, although the drug still seemed to have its hold on her.
One of these days, he vowed, he was going to get her alone when she was
conscious and they weren't running for their lives.  It would make an
interesting change.

Data had already gained his feet, and was busy making sense of the
control panels.  In the opposite corner of the room, Rald bent over
Kalat, speaking to her in soft, urgent tones, his shaking hands
caressing Kalat's long white braids that were now speckled with pink.
Against the stark white of the Philemite woman's skin and hair, Riker
could see a trickle of bright pink coming from a gash near her temple,
above the beginnings of her orange tattoo.

"This panel,"  Data began without preamble,  "appears to be the control
center for a small shuttlecraft.  I believe this room we have entered is
actually such a shuttle."

"I'm not surprised,"  Riker answered, moving away from Sarah to check
Rald and Kalat.  "See if you can find any communications system."  Up
close, he found it hard to believe that only moments ago, he'd thought
of Rald and Kalat as the enemy.  Despite the odd coloring of their
faces, the expressions were all too familiar.  Rald's eyes were a dark
rose with worry as he kept dabbing with the sleeve of his robe at the
blood from Kalat's wound.

Kalat herself now bore none of her mysterious, haughty countenance, but
had a haze of dull pain settling over her features like the fog over the
bay near Starfleet Academy.  It was a look Riker had seen on countless
officers he'd served with, from his cadet days on. He could hear a
rattle in the woman's breathing.  "Here,"  he offered, pulling off his
own glove, holding it against the wound.  "Hold that firm."

Rald took the glove and did as Riker said.  "Mykba,"  he whispered.  "I
thought this was what Mykba desired.  Has he wanted otherwise?  Ah, I
know he has deceived others, but us?  We have wandered as he commanded.
What else could he desire?"  The face he turned toward Riker was a mask
of confusion and despair, pink eyes searching for some sort of
explanation. "I have no more to give but my family."

"Rald, is there a way you can communicate with the Others from here?"
Data's voice was as smooth and even as ever.

The Berrek man nodded.  "Kalat was right.  You do know the Others.  I
will stay with her,"  he decided.  "You and Rek will carry on."

Riker let out a huff of exasperated resignation.  He could see no point
in trying to convince Rald to do anything else.  If he were in Rald's
place, he'd do the same thing, no question about it.  He wasn't sure if
it were weakness or loyalty, but there wasn't time for any philosophical
exploration. Bracing one hand against the wall, he pulled himself to
standing and joined Data in front of the control panel.  "What have you
got for me?"

The android's fingers moved over the flat surface of the touchpad with
growing confidence.  "I am not entirely certain how the system operates,
but I should be able to pilot the shuttle as soon as I discover the..."
His voice cut off abruptly as what had previously been a blank wall
became a view of the skies above Philemon Three.  "Viewscreen,"  he
finished.  "We appear to still be in the shuttlebay, which has been
cleverly disguised as a natural formation.  Such camouflage would
indicate a long-standing Romulan presence."

Riker nodded. He'd suspected as much. "Can we launch from here?"

"I believe so.  The controls are labeled in a patois of Romulan, and the
Berrek dialect of the Philemite language."

"Like what Sarah was used to hearing.  That makes sense."  Riker paused,
running a hand over his beard.  "What doesn't make sense is the
difference in shuttle design.  This one looks like they didn't want
anyone to know what it was.  Or where. Taking the time to conceal their
compound so well that it fools the natives," he paused to glance at Rald
and Kalat, ensconced in their own reality, "means whatever they're after
is too important for my liking."

Data inclined his head as he got their bearings.  "That does seem to be
the case,"  he agreed.  "I cannot say for certain why, though.  Perhaps
Lieutenant Cromwell would know."

Riker afforded Sarah a look back over his shoulder.  Data was right;
any answers they were going to get in that area were probably going to
come from Sarah -- just as soon as she was able to move and talk.  If
there was one thing he'd learned from leading away missions, it was that
he couldn't count on everyone coming back alive.  Whether or not Sarah
could help, they were going to have to figure things out just the same.
*Might as well get started*  "Any theories on what caused our little
earthquake?"

"Several,"  Data replied evenly.  "It is unlikely that we have
experienced an actual earthquake.  More likely, there has been some sort
of an explosion. These," he pointed at a triangular arrangement of green
lights that blinked rapidly, "seem to be an indication that damage has
occurred to what was serving as a shuttlebay.  These indicators, which I
take to be related, are also in a state of warning.  I recommend a quick
departure."

"Make it so,"  Riker responded automatically.  "Try and raise the
*Enterprise*, or the governor's office, or....anybody.  We're going to
need medical attention."

"Aye, sir."

---

Picard was surrounded by Romulans and white-robed Berrek Philemites.
From a cursory glance of his surrounding, he could tell that he had
materialized into the cargo hold of a Romulan vessel.  Eyes darting
around for the sight of any other Starfleet officers, he found he was
the only one.  Some Romulans were in uniform, while others were dressed
in Berrek robes, confirming his suspicions. Pirnak, as best as Picard
could tell, was not among them.

Whether that was by chance or design didn't matter. Completing the
 mission did. Striding up to the closest uniformed Romulan, a man of
 middle years and few weapons, Picard tapped him on the arm.

"I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard, of the Federation starship *Enterprise*,
and I demand to speak with the commanding officer of this vessel."

The Romulan looked at Picard as if the Starfleet officer were a
bothersome child, obsidian eyes flickering over the red-and-black of
Picard's uniform in distaste.  "I will take your weapon, Captain." He
held out his hand and raised an eyebrow.

Picard rested his hand on the phaser, meeting the Romulan's assessing
gaze evenly.  "Am I a prisoner here?"

"No.  Your weapon, please."

"If I am not a prisoner, I would prefer to retain it.  When will I be
able to speak with your commander?"

The Romulan looked from Picard to the Berrek that milled in a confused
circle about the cargo bay, all murmuring some sort of chant,
punctuated by the occasional sniffle.  "The commander will be most eager
to speak with you, Captain,"  he assured Picard.  "You will accompany
me."

As the Romulan took hold of Picard's arm, he was joined by another, who
took the opposite position.  Together, they took a protesting Picard
down a short corridor.  Their only response to his repeated inquiries
about Governor Anderson was to state that the governor had not been
harmed;  Picard would likely see him soon.

Picard had his doubts, but knew that this was not the time for
resistance.

---

"Romulan warbird decloaking!"  Wesley Crusher's voice cracked and his
muscles tensed as he called out.

In contrast, the Vulcan security officer's voice was perfectly calm, her
posture as relaxed as though she were up to her neck in bubbles.  "Red
alert. Raise shields.  Hail the vessel."

The sound of the red alert klaxons and bright flashes of crimson light
accompanied the arrival of a very embarrassed Deanna Troi from the
bridge head, her cheeks flushed scarlet.  With as much dignity as she
could muster, Troi took her customary seat in the command centre, only
slightly more in control of herself.

"Hailing Romulan vessel," Wesley reported, bracing himself for whatever
was to come.  *Love you, Mom...*

With a green haze of light, the starfield was replaced with the image of
a male Romulan of middle years.  "*Enterprise*, this is the Romulan
warbird *Talon*. We mean you no harm.  While recovering our scientific
research team from the planet, we have accidentally taken aboard your
captain and the civilian governor of your Federation settlement.  Lower
shields so we may return them to you."

T'Lina looked to Troi and slashed her hand across her own throat, the
signal to mute the transmission.

Troi took a deep breath and concentrated on the Romulan.  "He is telling
the truth,"  she decided.  "I sense no deception, but rather anxiety.
He is very eager to return our people to us."

"Do you believe he is telling the whole truth?"  T'Lina inquired,
accompanying the question with a delicately arched brow.  At Troi's nod,
she gestured for the muting to end.  "Are there any other Starfleet
officers or Federation citizens on board your vessel?  There were
several other officers planetside at the time of the explosion."  She
paused for a second, then looked at Wesley. "Ensign, scan the *Talon*
for life signs."

"Reading only Romulan and Philemite, sir.  Besides the two humans,"  he
qualified sheepishly.

Before T'Lina could say anything else, the Romulan hastily spoke up.
"The Philemites aboard out vessel are here voluntarily, which they will
all happily tell you.  I regret that there is no government official who
can document this, but I don't have to tell you how difficult it is to
organise a nomadic people. They have been assisting us in our scientific
research over the past several months.  We plan to leave this system as
soon as we have returned your people to you."

"I see,"  T'Lina responded dryly.  "Before I lower the shields, I will
require proof that you do indeed have Captain Picard and Governor
Anderson."  She remained sitting in the command chair, in a manner that
made Troi think the Vulcan woman were watching a holo-movie.  "As soon
as you provide such proof, I will order the shields lowered to permit
the transport.  I wish the *Talon* safe passage out of the Philemon
system as much as you do."

There was a moment of silence as the Romulan debated T'Lina's request.
"Very well."  The angle of the viewscreen shifted, and all on the bridge
were able to see a Romulan transporter room, Picard and Anderson
standing, guarded, but apparently unharmed, on the platform.  "Is this
proof sufficient?"

"It is.  Shields down.  You may transport them directly to our bridge.
There will be no other action taken by your vessel against ours, or we
will fire."

"Understood.  *Talon* out."

---

Three robed figures came over the rise of the tall snowbank, one carried
between the other two.  Geordi was the first to see them, his VISOR
picking out the necessary information to rule them out as a possible
threat.  "It's part of the away team,"  he called out, causing Worf and
Sinclair to immediately sheathe their weapons.

With Geordi's assessment, the four officers headed toward the advancing
figures, cautious but eager.  Soon, Geordi was able to discern that one
of them was Andorian, the distinctive body temperature registering in
his VISOR's heat sensors.  "Riss!"  he cried.

Eliva's antennae twitched in response, catching the sound of Geordi's
voice over the howl of the storm.  Balancing the injured Taylor between
them, she and Sabu stood on the crest of the snowbank for only a few
seconds before she could find the proper direction.  Down.  On the other
side of her, weary from exhaustion, with one of Taylor's arms draped
limply about his neck, Rohit Sabu began to laugh with relief.  It would
all be over soon.

If, that was, they could survive the storm.

---

"How are we doing?"  Riker's voice was rough and hoarse, edged with
exhaustion and not terribly encouraging.

None of this, however, registered with Data.  "Fuel reserves are full,
although not standard Romulan issue."

Riker nodded.  It figures.  "Some combination, like everything else?"
He saw the android mimic his nod.  "As long as we have enough of it to
get this thing to the Enterprise, I don't care if it's running on mashed
bananas."

"Actually..."

"I get the picture."  He cut Data off curtly, turning his attention back
to the shuttle's other passengers.  Sarah was looking better, he saw to
his relief. Her eyes were opened slightly, and if it wasn't his
imagination, her right hand wasn't lying exactly as it had been the last
time he'd looked.  The sooner Sarah was able to move, talk, or do
something, everyone's chances were going to take a giant step toward
better. Especially her own.

Rald and Kalat, however, weren't doing as well.  They were still in that
same corner, Rald cradling his wife like a child, murmuring to her as he
kept one hand determinedly firm on the makeshift bandage that covered
her head wound. Riker had tried twice in the past few minutes to talk to
Rald, or relieve him of his vigil, but the Philemite man would have
nothing of it.  For him, there was no one and nothing save Kalat.
Looking at the two of them reminded Riker of a picture he'd seen of his
Riker grandparents during their first off-planet holiday.  *Some
things*, he thought, *are the same no matter where you go.*  He could
hear Rald softly humming to his wife.

"Romulan warbird decloaking,"  Data reported.  "Shall I attempt to
hail?"

"Get whoever you can,"  Riker said, bending over another panel where
dull red and yellow lights blinked steadily.  "What are these?"

Data looked over his shoulder to see what Riker was asking about. "The
red lights are the fuel indicators, and the yellow ones are most likely
life support."

"Makes sense." Riker turned to the viewscreen.  The Romulan vessel
hovered in space like a great bird waiting for...for what?  Prey?  Help?
Something else?

"Romulan vessel not responding."

Riker wasn't surprised.  Why should they?  Why should anything go right?
It hadn't so far. *Come on, Brit.  Give us something.*

Just at that moment, and to his surprise, Sarah did actually that.  The
sound Sarah made wasn't a word, wasn't an utterance of pain, and did
absolutely nothing other than get his attention. From the strained look
on her face, Riker could tell Sarah was intensely concentrating on what
little movement she could muster.  However little it was, it was going
to help.

Pulling herself up so she rested on her elbows, she inclined her head
toward Kalat.  Near the hem of the Philemite woman's pink-stained
dunf-fur robe, lay a small device of dull grey metal.  It was the same
metal as most of the shuttle, but buffed, and in an all-too familiar
shape.  A Romulan communicator.

Riker moved across the short space between himself and the device, his
hand darting out to snatch it before Rald could notice, if he would at
all.  The Philemite man still rocked and hummed, oblivious to all else.
"Data, I'll pilot.  You see if you can get this to boost the
communications system." Tossing it into the android's long white
fingers, he stepped into the place in front of the controls.  Then, he
smiled.

---

Although Data hadn't mentioned it, Riker was sure he'd been about to.
Locating what were the equivalents of the controls Riker was used to was
laughably easy. On a small black screen near the bottom of the panel,
there was one blip, green and tiny, which had to be the shuttle.
Another one, also green, was the Romulan warbird.  The red one,
though....that, Riker intuitively knew, was the Enterprise.

---

The pile of snow-covered rubble stirred as one sharp shard of ice found
its way through the maze of debris to poke a dazed mind into
consciousness.  Putting out one hand, then a foot, and with determined
effort, Pirnak slowly freed himself from his prison.  It had not been a
nightmare after all.

Wind howled as the ice and snow whipped around him.  The roof was gone,
his mind registered dimly.  The roof, the walls, all of the room he'd
stood in so recently...all of it was gone.  Why was that?  He could
remember the loud sound invading his mind, remembered flying though the
air as his surroundings collapsed with a great roar and rumble.

Feeling for his communicator, he found nothing but a hole in his outer
garment, one of many.  The left sleeve was ripped away.  He could see
it, out of the corner of his eye, hanging like a flag from a jagged
piece of metal on top of what used to be the human governor's desk.  I
claim this world for the glory of the Romulan Empire...

Pirnak knew, when he called for Picard and Anderson, when he looked for
them, but didn't find them, that he was alone, utterly alone.  He saw no
purpose in trying to find anyone else.  The governor's Philemite
assistant didn't come when called for, either, despite his repeated
shouts.  He found the reason why as soon as he looked through the ruined
doorway. Sprawled across the ruins of the floor, covered in a fine silt
of debris, the woman was quite dead.  Like everything else.  With a sign
of resignation, he looked out on the white expanse before him.

This, he had known all along, was a possibility.  One man was nothing in
the great light of the glorious Romulan Empire.  Squaring his shoulders,
Pirnak chose a random direction and started walking.

---

Beverly's examination of Taylor had to wait until they'd dug a deep
enough pit to shield all seven of them from the storm.  Although his
injuries were no more serious than those of Eliva and Sabu, he was in
shock from the explosion. Beverly had no doubts that Taylor's
claustrophobia had contributed to the trauma of his captivity.

Tired from digging and bewildered by recent events, they huddled close
together as Eliva filled in her senior officers.

Worf's expression, as best as Eliva could tell, was stoic as he listened
to her account of the trio's brief time in the Romulan compound, from
their capture at the stalactites to the chemical destruction of the
toilet, and the entire compound.  Although they'd seen little aside from
their small cell, what Worf heard matched Lieutenant Cromwell's account.
It was difficult for him to keep from feeling a small sense of
satisfaction;  to his way of thinking, the Romulans had deserved what
they'd gotten.  There was no honor in torture.  For their end to come
about from a receptacle for human waste was only fitting.

Since Eliva and Sabu had not reported seeing any Romulans or Berrek
during their escape, it was possible that there had been some sort of
plan for this contingency.  Worf refused to believe that any Starfleet
officers had been killed in the blast.  It was possible, he admitted to
himself, but it was also, for some reason, wrong. Empathy had never been
one of the Klingon's strong suits, but in this instance, he knew he was
right.

At Beverly's suggestion, the group shared a round of standard rations.
Taylor ate, especially hungry once Beverly was able to pierce through
his shock, although he had to be helped in getting the food to his
mouth.  Nobody spoke or moved much.  All of their energy had to be saved
for one important task: waiting.

---

Everything happened at once.  The glitter of a transporter beam
materialised into the forms of Picard and Anderson at the same time
Wesley, his voice cracking as he spoke, reported the *Talon* was going
into warp, headed away from the *Enterprise*, out of the Philemon system
altogether.  No sooner had he gotten the words out his mouth, the
officer at Tactical cut in.

"We are being hailed."

Both Picard and T'Lina turned to ask for more details, T'Lina putting up
a delicate hand before either of them spoke.  "Do you wish to resume
command, Captain?"

"I will.  Thank you."  With that, he gave his torn parka a tug downward,
the unconscious gesture convincing him that he was, at last, where he
belonged. "On screen."

The departing *Talon vanished*, to be replaced with the image of a
white-faced Will Riker, his trademark broad grin of triumph belying the
disguise.  "It's good to see you, Captain."

In saner circumstances, Picard would have returned the greeting.  At the
present, all he could get out was a terse, "What's going on?"

Riker gave a backward glance over his shoulder.  "I wish I could say,"
he confessed, looking forward again, his grin giving way to a firm set
of jaw. "Data, Cromwell, and I hooked up with a band of Berrek, who took
us into a hidden shuttlebay.  We managed to launch after the explosion.
Two of the Berrek are with us and will be needing medical attention.
Cromwell, too," he added with another backward look.  "She's been given
some sort of drug to keep her immobile.  The Romulans..."

"Are gone,"  Picard interrupted, his voice taking on a calmness that
didn't reach his eyes.  "Let's save any further talk until all of you
are taken care of.  Ensign,"  he said to the human male at Tactical,
"prepare for the incoming shuttle.  I want a medical team down there
immediately."

Riker glanced down at the control panel.  "Main shuttlebay never looked
so good.  Have you heard anything about the other teams?"

"We'll talk when you get here, Number One.

The viewscreen crackled, the image folding.  "Aye, sir."

Picard coughed, his mind already leaping ahead to what he was sure would
be one hell of a debriefing.  "I want this docking on visual,"  he
declared as he felt a tapping finger on his shoulder.   *Anderson.  Not
now!*

Picking up on Picard's impatience, Troi glided over to the confused
governor with as much calm as she could fabricate. "Let's take you down
to Sickbay. After you're warmed up, we'll see what we can do about
contacting the settlement.  I know you're concerned about your people,
and they'll want to know you're all right."  Placing a guiding hand on
Anderson's upper arm, Troi flinched at the coldness of his parka sleeve.
It was like plunging her arm into a snowbank.  With a trailing glance at
the viewscreen, she steered the quivering man into the turbolift.  Be
all right, Will....

"Shuttle approaching docking bay."  Wesley's voice was far from calm,
and nowhere near steady, but he was doing his best.  "Annular force
field in place."

Picard became aware that he had his fingers crossed.  The shuttle looked
like the shuttle they had originally recovered upon finding Lieutenant
Cromwell, with only minor differences.  It was larger, and this time,
its Romulan origins were less apparent, but still there to the knowing
eye.

The odd craft moved like a small boat sailing on a serene, glassy lake,
as it entered the shuttlebay.  As if from far in the distance, Picard
heard someone report that the docking was complete and successful.  A
loud cheer erupted from the rest of those present, accompanied by a
splattering of applause, and the stamping of feet.  *Bravo, Number One.*

---

Sarah woke, hours later, with the dim knowledge that she had been moved.
Instead of the sloping grey metal of the Philemite shuttle, she looked
up at bright white lights, illuminating a humanoid form.

"Good afternoon, Lieutenant Cromwell.  It is afternoon, you know.  I
thought you might be wondering."  The Romulan's thin line of a mouth
curved up into a sneer.  "How nice to have you back with us after all. I
wouldn't recommend sitting up.  You might find it.... uncomfortable."

From the corner of her eye, Sarah could see the Romulan....what was his
name?....pulling off a pair of tight gloves that snapped as they left
his hands.  He dropped them carelessly in a receptacle out of her
vision, and turned his attention back to her, eyes colder than the
entire bloody planet. She ran her tongue over her lips;  they were dry.
"Where is....are...my companions?"

The Romulan patted Sarah's shoulder.  "No names?  My, my, how very
commendable. Give no aid; that's your Starfleet's policy, isn't it?  You
certainly are dedicated, Lieutenant Cromwell.  Your commanding officers
must be very proud of you.  Even in the face of heinous torture, you
stand firm.  Very, very commendable.  It doesn't matter, though," he
added with a laugh. " We'll find out without your help.  We've done all
right so far."  He paused for only a second. "The only question is, will
we find out in time?"

"In time?" Sarah felt her heart and several other important organs leap
into her throat as she squeaked the words out.

The Romulan physician turned away from her, busying himself with some
items on a table Sarah couldn't see.  There were other voices, but she
couldn't make them out;  it was as if they were on the other side of a
thick door, and whispering.

She's not back with us yet....  Neural stimulator....toxin...
implant....recovery....

She is still confused.....her perception of time....

Sarah braced herself for whatever it was the anonymous voices had
planned for her next.  *The only thing to be afraid of is the unknown.
Disruptors, maybe? One of the other devices?  The men again? What does
it matter?*  Sarah squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, opening them
only when she finally saw the thin yellow line she'd designated as her
trigger.  *Think about something else. You're not here, Lieutenant,
understand?  Go back to New Orleans...*

There was a clatter of glass against metal before the Romulan turned his
attention back to her.  He stepped into the edge of Sarah's vision, his
mouth curving into a parody of a reassuring smile.  "Your....companions
were injured, Lieutenant.  We have recently been in contact with your
vessel, so if we had more information on who our guests are, we would be
able to help them.   You must be important, to have such a large number
of personnel looking for you. There were so many sent planetside that
I'm afraid we can't just guess which ones were with you.  With the dunf
venom, the bite wounds becoming infected, and the injuries from the
explosion, there is much to do.  If we only knew...."

She tried to sort through the Romulan's words, dragging herself back,
millimeter from painful millimeter, from the smoky nightclub where Willie
wrung a heartbreaking "Saint James Infirmary" from that blasted trombone
of his,  but the Romulan's speech was becoming more and more disjointed,
harder to tell apart from the other voices.  He wanted some sort of
information from her, that much was certain.  He always did.  An offer
of anesthesia or salve or a clean robe had a price most of the time.
She had no reason to believe that this was any different.

The reasoning, though, was beyond her.  If Willie and Data, or any of
the others, for that matter, were alive and conscious, the bloody Roms
would already have the names, ranks, and serial numbers.  If they were
otherwise....

A sharp, white pain shoved its way through Sarah's head, and she jerked
her hands up to claw at her hair.  The movement, the ease with which she
accomplished it, and the sensations accompanying it were all out of
place. They didn't make sense. She could feel her hair with her ungloved
hand.  It was clean and soft and free of mats or tangles.  She couldn't
remember being bathed lately. This had to be part of the Rom's game.

Anything they had to say about Willie, about Data, about any of what was
happening, had to be untrue.  They'd say anything to get information out
of her, but she wasn't talking.  She hadn't said a word so far and
wasn't about to start now.

No.  That was wrong.  She had been talking.  Recently.  To the Rom
physician. She didn't dare make the sound, but instead laughed silently
at the absurdity of her thought.  Why would she be talking to him?
More importantly, why wasn't she beating him senseless if she could
move? Why hadn't she bashed his bloody skull in with one of his own
instruments?

Metal scraped against hollow metal.  Liquid poured into a container,
where it sloshed, and she knew, although she couldn't see it, spilled.
Someone cursed, but not in Romulan.  Liquid poured again, this time
staying in the container...made of what? Transparent aluminum?  They
didn't use that much, not the Roms.

As the physician came closer, Sarah saw that reality was all wrong.
Instead of the dull silvery metallic uniform, or white dunf fur her
captors always wore, the physician wore a close-fitting garment of blue
and black.  The hands that guided her own back to her sides were
masculine, wide, broad, and brown-skinned, with manicured but
unvarnished nails.

Don't worry....this is normal....  Draining her system of....

Not afraid....determined....searching for.....

Sarah blinked, winced, and tried to turn over.  All of this, every
bloody bit of it, was wrong.  No, she corrected the thought, not wrong.
Past.  She willed herself to spot her senses, as she'd been trained to
do.  Choose one central thing and hold onto it. Blue.  Any more blue?
Yes.  More there, and there. Blue with black, always blue with black.
Red with black,  Gold with black. Green behind.

She began to match the combinations of colour and black with voices.
With her senses focused on one thing, the next step was to add another.
The close blue and black was a deep voice, steady and calm.  It
responded to "Martin." Another blue and black voice was female, and bore
an Asian accent.  Red and black was close, but didn't say much.  Gold
and black didn't say anything. Green, behind her, was female, alien, but
not Philemite.

"Commander, see if you can do anything..."

She wants something familiar....something she knows....

Red and black came closer, and Sarah knew she should know the form that
wore it, knew that she should trust it.  Or that she was supposed to.
At the moment, she wasn't sure.  There was another hand, a familiar
hand, brushing her hand back from her temple, touching her face, her
shoulder....her bare shoulder.

That was something else to focus on.  Not once during her time in the
compound had she been entirely undressed. Not even when the men came.
Even they had only moved her robes just enough to suit their purposes.
She hadn't expected modesty to be one of the few courtesies the Romulans
afforded her, but she had learnt that expectations were often shattered.
This time, however, she felt a familiar sheet of smooth material as the
only thing between her and the comfortably warm air.

"Brit."

Hands, only one set of them now, touched her, strong and male.  Without
 force. Their purpose was clearly not to hold her down, but to reassure,
 to communicate.  There was no threat in this touch.

"Brit."

Sarah felt the smooth tip of something made from cool metal against her
neck, then the quick pinch of a hypospray's action. Her mind dismissed
the Romulan physician as belonging to memory alone.  Nothing they had
given her had ever been smooth.  The colours, which belonged to the
present, were clearer now, sharper, although she still ached.  Blue and
black stepped away from her, leaving only red and black in the immediate
area where she lay.  Green took a few steps back as well.

"Brit."

Slowly, the mud clogging Sarah's perception began to seep away,
filtering down through the expanding net of what she could be confident
she knew.  The sounds around her cleared, registering their familiarity
even if the names eluded her. Human names usually did that anyway, she
reminded herself.  When she shifted her position, trying to sit, she
found red and black aiding her.  Something with a pleasant, firm feel to
its general softness was put under her back. "It's over."  She
recognised the voice as her own.

Willie's hand clasped hers.  " It's over.  Unless,"  he qualified,
grinning, "you count the reports, debriefing, staff meetings, and all
the rest of the fun.  How are you feeling?  Up to a mountain of
paperwork?"

"Tired."  Sarah blinked to clear her vision.  Willie was no longer in
his Philimite disguise, but back to his standard uniform, all traces of
albino coloring and orange tattoo gone.  She took a moment to drink in
the sheer beauty of him, spotting her senses on the lock of chestnut
hair that flopped over his forehead.  "What happened to the others?"

It wasn't Willie's voice who answered, but one that she could now place
as Betazoid.  "The rest of the away team has been recovered,"  the
counsellor assured Sarah, stepping into her field of vision.  "There
will be time to talk later.  Right now, the best thing you can do is
rest."

"Consider that doctor's orders,"  the dark-skinned man in medical blue
confirmed,  waving a diagnostic wand over Sarah's temple.  "There are
going to be a lot of questions when later gets here.  If you thought you
were popular the first time you were here, that was nothing."

Sarah noticed the concern in the man's deep brown eyes.  She had become
familiar with that look over the years, every time someone older than
she was had some news they didn't think she'd be able to handle.  Nine
times out of ten, they were mistaken. "Something is wrong,"  she stated,
bracing herself for whatever it was. *Paddington, where are you when I
need you?*

"Doctor Martin will talk with you later,"  Troi said, physically placing
herself between the doctor and his patient.  "The immediate danger is
over. You need to relax now, and calm yourself so that the healing can
take place."

The Betazoid counselor's logic wasn't hard to follow.  "And whatever
this is will upset me?  I'd rather hear it and then decide what I'll do
with it from there. In light of what I've seen recently, it can't be
much."  She looked to Willie for aid.

Riker exhaled, glancing at Troi, then Martin.  He nodded, wrapping one
of his hands around one of Sarah's.

Reluctantly, Dr. Martin held a small container out to Sarah.  "Do you
recognise this?"

She took the container, a clear cube that held an odd-looking appliance.
The thing was mainly crystalline in nature, with an intricate network of
the thinnest possible wires wrapped around it.  She turned it so she
could see the device, suspended in the cube's center, from all angles.
"Is this made of Philimite crystals?"

Martin inclined his head, the dusting of silver at his temples catching
the light.  "As far as we can tell, yes.  That's why your initial
medical scans didn't show us anything about it."  He paused, taking a
deep breath.  "Does it seem at all familiar?"

Sarah shook her head.  "Other than being made out of those crystals, no.
Should it be?"

The doctor looked at Troi before saying anything.  At the counselor's
slight nod, he went on.  "We found this device implanted in your upper
left arm."

The fact hit Sarah as no surprise.  Why shouldn't the Roms have given
her such a souvenir?  "What does it do?"

"We haven't determined exactly what it did,"  Martin said, carefully
stressing the past tense, "besides functioning as a tracking device."
He took the cube away from Sarah, handing it to the attending med-tech.
"That's probably all it was.  Nothing to worry about."

Sarah felt Willie's hand on her shoulder again, pulling the metallic
sheet up as it had slipped slightly during her handling of the cube.
"That's enough for now,"  he said with gentle authority.  "You need the
rest.  So do I,"  he confessed.

At that, she took an assessing look at him.  Not only had Willie's face,
hair, and eyes been restored to their natural coloring, and his dunf fur
robes replaced by the his standard uniform, but he bore no signs of his
injuries. Even with the wonders of modern medicine, he would have needed
more than a hypo and a magic wand. "How long have I been here?"

"Just a couple hours short of a day,"  Dr. Martin answered. "There's
been a lot going on, but nothing that won't wait until you've gotten a
full cycle of natural sleep.  Doctor's orders."

Sarah couldn't fault the doctor's reasoning.  "I could use a bit of a
lie-down,"  she admitted, feeling her eyelids demand to droop.

"Besides,"  Riker added, his voice holding equal measures of affection
and firmness,  "you were given a direct order by Doctor Martin.  I'll
expect you to follow that, Lieutenant."

"Aye, sir,"  she affirmed before sleep claimed her.

"Your turn next, Commander,"  Martin addressed Riker sternly.  "You do
still remember where your quarters are, don't you, sir?"

Riker responded with a reluctant grin.  "I thought that's where I was.
I was just waiting for all of you people to go home."  On seeing that no
one else seemed amused, he held up his hands in defeat.  "All right,
point taken.  I'm going.  But,"  he qualified,  "I want to know about
any changes in Sar....in Lieutenant Cromwell's condition as they occur.
Or any of the others,"  he added, turning to go.

Stepping quickly to keep up with him, Deanna followed.  "Lieutenant
Cromwell is going to be fine,"  she assured him as they left Sickbay and
entered the deserted corridor.

"I'm sure she will."  Riker lengthened his stride.

"That's good,"  Troi agreed, hurrying to catch up.  "Will, we need to
talk."

Riker stopped and looked at her.  "Now?  You heard Dr Martin's
recommendation."

Troi could feel a remnant of anger in Riker as he looked at her.  It
wasn't a feeling she was used to having directed at her.  She smoothed
her skirt, nervously.  "No, not now.  Later.  Alone."

"About what?"

Deanna wanted to just send the emotions to him, as she had been able to
do in the old days, but she knew that wasn't what was needed. Nor, for
that matter, would it be appreciated.  "About what happened... the last
time we spoke. Before the away team went down.  We did miss our
appointment," she added softly.

"That would be a good idea,"  he conceded, covering a stifled yawn by
running a hand over his beard.  "We'll play dueling schedules after the
morning meeting."

She smiled.  "That would be nice."

*It might be nice,* she thought, *but it won't be like it would have
been before.*  Something elemental had changed.  She was able now to put
a label to Riker's flicker of anger a minute before.  Defence was a much
better word.

"Get me if they want you for..."  He gestured back at the door, his
words taken over by the yawn he could no longer hold back.

"You care for her a great deal."

"More than I thought I did."  He swallowed, then headed for the
turbolift, his body running on automatic.

---

Picard didn't know where to begin.  The Romulans might have quit the
Philemite system, there might be nothing left of the compound but
rubble, but the problem was far from over.  He leaned forward, placing
his folded arms on the reflective black surface of the conference room
table.  "You're telling me that this was implanted in Lieutenant
Cromwell?"

"That's correct."  Doctor Martin sat across from Picard, next to Geordi.
The object of their discussion sat in the middle of the table, still
suspended in its sterile cube.  "Right here," he indicated a tiny chip
of the pink crystal crowning the device, "is the reason we didn't find
it right away.  It's cloaked."

Picard's eyebrows shot up in surprise.  "Cloaked?"

"Cloaked," Geordi confirmed.  "From what I can tell, it looks like the
Romulans were using Lieutenant Cromwell as a guinea pig.  We got our
hands on this little baby soon after it was removed, and it wasn't even
turned on.  Except for the cloaking, that is. If it had been activated,
they would have been able to tell where she was, but nobody else would
know that they knew.  Pretty tricky, if you ask me."

"Indeed,"  Picard observed, staring at the small cube.  "How effective
would such a device be?"

---

Geordi gave the cube a quarter turn.  "At first, great.  As far as I can
tell, it would be pretty damn hard to turn off, once it's been
activated.  Basically, this is standard Romulan technology, with the
exception of a few of the frills. If it actually worked one hundred
percent, I'd love to see the Federation get their hands on it.  The
problem is with the cloaking crystal.  There's an instability in the
sub-molecular level."

Martin nodded in agreement.  "On contact with the human system, the
crystal is encountering something totally alien.  If this had been in
Lieutenant Cromwell much longer, especially since she's now in a much
warmer environment than the crystal is used to, it would have started to
break down."

"And what would that have meant for her?" Picard asked.

Martin glanced at Geordi, then said only, "Trouble."

---

The silence and darkness overwhelmed Sarah as she sat bolt upright,
swallowing a scream.  Quiet, quiet....  In the hush of her surroundings,
she could pick out each individual sound in the sickbay, name its source
and function, to convince herself this was no dream.  She still listened
for something else; something she knew wasn't there.  She took a deep
breath.  There would be no heavy, approaching bootsteps, not the harsh
clump of the guard, not the scraping limp of the physician.  Those were,
and always would be, gone.  The place where they should have been was
strangely empty.

Starfleet boots sounded different from Romulan boots.  Starfleet boots
were smoother-soled, thicker at the heel, whereas Romulan boots were of
a uniform thickness.  The air filtration in Sickbay was nothing like the
Romulan/Philemite system at the compound.  Sickbay's system was more
sophisticated and efficient.  All of the familiar consoles, with their
familiar blips and bleeps and colours looked out of place with the
reality Sarah had become accustomed to. Against her best efforts, the
tears began.  Mustn't scream...

With a violently shaking right hand, she pushed an errant strand of hair
out of her eyes, her fingers, still curled into a claw, scratching her
cheek as she did so.  The pain from the action was slight, and it
registered only in the farthest corner of her brain.  The sight of her
own blood on her broken fingernails registered even more dimly, and only
after she felt the sting of her tears on the abraded skin.  All of her
attention had to go to the door, the door, the door...

Sarah's eyes fixed on the door, expecting it to open, expecting to
see... what? Security?  A med-tech? That bloody Betazoid counsellor?
Probably that one, she decided, dashing away the traitor tears with the
back of her wrist.  She concentrated on taking in the air calmly,
forcing herself to taste the heat, the filtration.  Someone would come,
she knew.  Maybe they wouldn't respond every time she made a noise, the
way the Romulans did, but they would come, and she didn't want them to
find some snivelling child when they did.

The wait wasn't long.  No matter where or when it was, it seemed that
someone was vitally concerned with whether Sarah Cromwell was awake or
asleep.  The doors opened, the lights of a sickbay night cycle revealed
as they did so. Sarah relaxed her guard, but only for a second.  The
form in the doorway didn't fit with everything else.  The black hair,
cut severely across the forehead, the greenish skin, the pointed ears,
the shiny metal object in the woman's upraised hand....

It was too much, too cruel of a deception.  Without conscious thought,
Sarah's instincts took over, rejecting this latest illusion.  She waited
for the woman to approach her, remaining motionless until she could see
the blinking red light at the tip of the metal appliance, feel the
warmth from the woman's skin. As soon as she could, Sarah launched
herself at the intruder, shoving away the person, but getting a firm
grip on the appliance.

Propelled by the force of Sarah's attack, the blue-uniformed woman fell
backwards, slamming against the wall, her body thudding against the
smooth metal before sliding to the floor.  Sarah, clutching her prize,
approached the still form cautiously, her breathing quiet but ragged
from her effort.  She couldn't make out any readily visible weapons, nor
did it seem that the woman had carried anything but the slim metal
device Sarah now held.  Even in the dimness, Sarah could tell that the
woman still breathed; the blue and black covered torso rose and fell
steadily.

Watching this, Sarah's attention was drawn to the delta shield on the
left breast of the woman's blue coat.  Starfleet....

Feeling her heart leap into her throat as her surroundings began to spin
once more, Sarah forced herself to focus on the crumpled form.   Now
that she was past the first moments of terror, Sarah could see that the
woman's features were Vulcan, not Romulan, the severe black fringe
across the forehead a straight line, instead of coming to a centre
point, as the Romulans favoured. She called for the lights.

As soon as they came up, Sarah could tell that there had been no blood
spilt. That was good, very good.  Trembling, she lowered herself slowly
to the floor. Her grip loosened, sending the rectangular device
skittering across the smooth tiles.  She reached out to recapture it,
study it to make some sense of the situation.  The first thing she
noticed about the thing was that it wasn't a disruptor, but a medical
tricorder.

---

Riker had just fallen into a fitful sleep when the sound of his
communicator on the nightstand woke him.  "Riker here," he growled,
slapping the nightstand in the general vicinity of where he usually left
the communicator.  On his third try, he found it.  "This better be
good."

"Ensign Schaeffer here, sir, from Security.  You requested to be called
to Sickbay if there were any change in Lieutenant Cromwell's condition?"

"That's right."

"There's been a change, sir."

Riker muffled a curse.  "I'm on my way."  *What the hell is Security
doing calling from Sickbay?*

The first answer that came to him was that either Rald or Kalat had
broken out of their own rooms and tried something against Sarah.  Why
would they?  There couldn't be any possible gain from it. Besides, he
told himself, swinging his long legs over the edge of the bed, there was
no way in the galaxy either of the Philemites could get past the
security detail.  Without bothering to do more than shove his feet into
a pair of slippers and run a hand through his hair, Riker was out the
door, swallowing up the length of the corridor with long, impatient
strides.

Arriving in Sickbay, he found the activity not to be in Sarah's private
room, as he'd thought, but in the main examination area.  Sarah was
seated on one biobed, Doctor Selar on another. Two security personnel
flanked Sarah's bed, watching her.  Neither Rald nor Kalat were anywhere
in sight.

"What's going on here?"

One of the security officers, Schaeffer, whom Riker recognized by the
blond mustache-in-progress, stepped forward.  "There was an incident in
Lieutenant Cromwell's room, sir.  She called us via Doctor Selar's
communicator."

Confused, Riker looked to Sarah, who merely stared straight ahead.  "Are
you all right?"  He got no answer.

"I believe I may be able to explain, Commander," Selar offered, stepping
to the floor.  "When I entered Lieutenant Cromwell's room, in response
to a reading on her monitor, I did not identify myself.  I was carrying a
medical tricorder.  It is entirely possible that she mistook me for one
of her Romulan captors, and the tricorder for a disruptor."

Riker nodded, following the Vulcan doctor's hypothesis. "What sort of
reading prompted you to enter?"

Selar motioned for a nearby med-tech to hand her a padd.  Punching in a
short sequence of keystrokes, she pointed to the jagged amber line
bisecting the screen.  "This reading shows Lieutenant Cromwell's
brainwave activity during REM sleep, at the approximate time I entered
her room.  In layman's terms, she was having a nightmare.  The readings
show that it was especially vivid, and traumatic, waking her.  I had
entered with the intention of taking a more thorough reading, and seeing
if she wished to be deeply sedated."  With the need for illustration
past, Selar tapped a button and the screen went blank. "Upon my
approach, Lieutenant Cromwell was intent that I not touch her."

The Vulcan looked fine to Riker.  "I take it you weren't injured?"

"No, sir,"  she affirmed. "I have requested that Security not take
action against Lieutenant Cromwell, since her intent was only to protect
herself.  I am convinced she acted without malice."

"Sounds about right,"  Riker agreed, casting a concerned glance in
Sarah's direction.  She looked like a small, frightened child, arms
crossed tightly about her chest as she rocked herself, her loosened hair
falling like a protective veil around her face. "What do you recommend?"

Selar's answer was preempted by the arrival of a somewhat disheveled
Deanna Troi.  It was obvious that she, like Riker, had been recently
awakened, but she had taken the time to pull on her grey jumpsuit before
reporting.  Like the rest of the people in Sickbay, she took notice of
Riker's attire, but said nothing.  She could tell that everyone thought
having the first officer respond to a call, still in his pajamas, was
amusing.  Except, of course, for Selar, who was too Vulcan to indulge in
such frivolity, and Sarah, who was too overwhelmed with shock.

"I asked Counsellor Troi to be present,"  Selar explained, "since the
problem is emotional rather than medical.  If my presence is no longer
required, I am on rounds."  She handed the padd to Troi, who immediately
scanned the information it contained.

Troi's expression clouded when she read the description of how Selar had
found Sarah.  "How deep were the lacerations?"

Riker turned to Selar, scowling.  "You said you weren't injured."

"No, sir,"  Selar responded calmly.  "I was not.  The lacerations I
mention in my report were Lieutenant Cromwell's. They were
self-inflicted during the course of her nightmare, and only superficial.
They have been treated and should be fully healed in a matter of
minutes."

"Thank you,"  Troi said, turning her attention back to the padd.
Despite the seriousness of the present situation, Will Riker, standing
in the middle of Sickbay in his nightclothes, was funny.  It wasn't as
though she hadn't seen him in similar attire before, but still, she
didn't dare laugh.  "I think we have things under control.  Your other
patients will probably give you warmer receptions."

"They will be less violent,"  Selar agreed.  "I will remain available
for further questioning, should you require it."

Schaeffer coughed.  "Commander Riker, sir?  What should we do about..."
He inclined his head toward the small, blonde woman on the bed.

Riker looked to Selar and Troi.  "I'll take responsibility,"  he stated
firmly. "You are dismissed, gentlemen."

Surprised by Riker's decision, Troi placed a hand on his arm.  "Will,
can I speak with you for a minute?  Over here,"  she clarified, guiding
him away from the biobed and Sarah.  "That was a very... interesting
answer you gave Ensign Schaeffer.  Would you care to explain it?"

"I don't think it needs any explaining."

Troi disagreed.  "I do.  You're not a trained medical officer or
counsellor."

"Neither are they," Riker shot back, glaring after the departing
security officers.

Deanna sighed.  "Will, that's not the point.  She's had a deep emotional
trauma, and you've said you'll take responsibility for her.  Can you
honestly tell me that you would do the same thing if it were any other
crew member in question?"

"You're getting off the subject,"  Riker warned, looking over Troi's
shoulder at Sarah, who was still rocking herself back and forth, humming
softly.  "You read Doctor Selar's report.  She doesn't think there's any
danger, and neither do I.  Sarah doesn't need a security detail assigned
to her."

"She has done injury to both herself and another,"  Troi pointed out.
"We need to take measures to make sure she won't do either of those
things again."

Reluctantly, Riker had to admit that Troi was making sense. "Is having
her watched every second the best way to do that?  Look at her.  She's
terrified."

Turning her head to get a better view, Troi saw Doctor Selar pushing a
handful of long blonde hair out of Sarah's face.  From the composure of
the porcelain features, it was nearly impossible to discern her inner
fright.  Only Troi's empathic sense allowed her to notice the
combination of confusion, fear and embarrassment behind the mask Sarah
was working hard to maintain. There were no violent urges threatening to
surface.  "Let me talk to her," Troi bargained, giving Riker's arm a
reassuring stroke before heading toward Sarah.

Selar stepped aside as Troi arrived, but remained in the background.

"Sarah?  How are you?"  There was no vocal response, but Sarah looked
up, her violet eyes meeting Troi's onyx ones before darting away.  "Do
you know where you are?"

Sarah's answer came in a soft whisper.  "Sickbay."

Troi smiled.  "That's right.  You're in Sickbay, on the *Enterprise*.
You're safe.   Nobody is going to hurt you."  She stopped at that, at a
loss as to what she should say next. Sarah's eyes didn't meet hers, but
sought out Riker's.  It was then that Troi could feel her patient's fear
subsiding.  She took a step back from the biobed.  "Would you like me to
give you something to suppress dreams?"

"No, thank you,"  Sarah managed to answer. "I won't be needing anything.
I'll muddle through."  She paused.  "That was more embarrassing than
frightening." She dared a glance at Riker, through lowered lashes.

"It scared me,"  Riker said with a reassuring grin.  "Would you mind
terribly if I asked you to sit with me until I calm down, Lieutenant?"

Sarah's relief was evident in her relaxed posture, and the slight lift
to her lips, even though she didn't say anything.

Riker looked to Troi.  "How about I walk this young lady back to her
room," he gestured towards the private room,  "and the counsellor gets
to go back to her own quarters?"

"I think that would be fine,"  Troi accepted, catching Riker's
compromise. "We'll talk in the morning,"  she directed at Sarah, "Right
after you're released to your quarters.  Good night."  She spared a
smile for Riker, then turned to leave.

---

That's it,"  Beverly Crusher announced, with a satisfied sigh. "They are
out of my Sickbay."  She watched as the Sickbay doors closed behind a
departing Rald and Kalat, with Worf accompanying them.  In only a few
minutes, the Philemite couple would be beamed back down to a location
close to the rest of their procession, none the worse for wear.

She and Picard had spent the better part of the last evening debating
the merits of Doctor Pulaski's memory wipe procedure. While Rald and
Kalat already had knowledge of some Romulan technology, that didn't
necessarily mean that they needed to know what a Federation starship was
like.  On the other hand, it was unlikely that the philosophy of the
Berrek would change; wandering nomads whose most advanced invention was
food storage weren't likely to be terribly interested in space travel,
even with the possibility of intergalactic wandering.  Besides, the Merb
already had that technology.

In the end, it hadn't mattered.  Beverly found that the Philemite brain
was resistant to any attempt to alter memory storage.  Another one of
those surprises, she thought, tapping her stylus against the padd.  All
Kalat had wanted, the Philemite woman had told her, was for herself and
Rald to resume their lives as they had been before the Others had
interfered.  Maybe, Kalat had said, it was the will of Mykba that they
wander only so far.  Certainly, their own procession would now be
content to remain within the mountains.  They were, after all, Kalat had
told her, the arms of Mykba.  Staying within their boundaries, the
Berrek were as safe as babes in bundling.

Rald had still held the hope that one day they would wander again beyond
the mountains, but Troi had assured Picard that the man didn't believe
violence and deception were the means to that end. If he ever intended
to pursue that goal, it would be peacefully, although Kalat's influence
on him might put the idea aside altogether.  Life would go on, in one
form or another.

"Doctor?"  Eliva Riss touched Beverly's arm to get her attention.  "We
need your,"  she paused, "sssignature on this."

Beverly put down the padd she'd been holding, and took the one Eliva
offered. "Oh."  The text displayed on the small screen caused her
already gloomy mood to plummet.  "This is the part of the job I hate,"
she confessed with a heavy sigh, affixing her signature to the death
certificate of Stephanie Cromwell, aged four months prenatal.  She
paused for a moment, before handing the padd back to Eliva.  "I'd much
rather be conducting a prenatal examination.  There's nothing like
showing the parents..." her voice dropped off in mid-sentence as Beverly
remembered the circumstances.  She directed a breath upwards, ruffling
her bangs.  "Well, the mother, in this case, the first holo-scan.  No
matter how many times I perform one, I'm a sucker for those little feet.
True masterpieces every time.  The scan is what ought to be on this
padd, not death statistics."

Eliva's antennae drooped in sympathy.  "It is not a good thing,"  she
agreed, her voice soft and tender.

"How's Ensign Taylor?"  Beverly asked, changing the subject.

"Ssstill complaining,"  Eliva reported, her antennae bouncing back to
their normal position.  She appreciated Doctor Crusher's assigning her
to oversee Jeffrey Taylor's recovery.  "I believe he is,"  pause,
"prolonging hisss ssstay intentionally."

Beverly nodded, as she turned towards her office, motioning Eliva to
follow. "You mean he's still embarrassed?"

"He doesss that easssily,"  Eliva answered, stifling a small click, her
version of a giggle.  "I believe that the only injury,"  pause,  "he has
truly sssussstained isss to hisss pride."

---

*Lieutenant Sarah Cromwell Personal Log, Stardate...*

*Who bleeding cares what the stardate is?  It's six months and then some
from the last time I made a log entry.  You're the computer; you figure
it out.  I'm tired.*

*What's to say?  I always thought I'd know what to do if I ever got to
make another one of these, and now that I actually can, I find that I've
been wrong. The time in the compound?  I've already told that to
everything with ears, it seems, and I'm in for more, so I won't waste my
time.  Why tell myself everything over again?  It's not likely that I'll
be forgetting anything.  Or anybody.  I can still see all their faces,
every one of them.*

*The Roms, the Philemites.  All of them.  They're so clear in my head
that I want to reach out and slap them, but when I do, nothing is there.
My hand goes through the air, and I feel like a blooming idiot.  The
bastards aren't real anymore.  They're just gone.  With the exception of
the one in my cell, I didn't even have the pleasure of dispatching
them.*

*Odd, that.  I killed someone.  I killed another sentient being.  I
planned how to do it so there would be no mistake, no margin of error,
and I carried out the plan.  I had to.  It's part of the drill.  If
captured, do whatever it takes to escape, at every opportunity.  I
wonder if they understood what that meant when they put it in the
manual, and why they didn't say anything about how it would feel
afterward.*

*There's Willie, of course, but other than being there, he isn't doing
much good.  No, that's not what I meant.  He's a good man, and a good
friend, and...after all the times I called up his memory to make myself
feel better while I was down there, it's strange that I don't like
seeing him during official matters.  It's the way he looks at me, like
I'm about to shatter.  I am, of course, but he doesn't have to remind me
of that.  God, it's hard.  I don't know how to live on a Federation ship
anymore.*

*No, no, I do, but there's other information on top of it, all the
answers to all the questions everybody from Security to Medical to that
bloody counsellor keep throwing at me, so it's difficult to bring up.
The things I practised mentally while I was in the compound, telling
myself I'd have a need to remember...they're different when I try to do
them in actuality. Little things, like making myself at home in standard
quarters.  I have to decorate these rooms or lose my mind altogether.*

*I hate guest quarters.  I always have.  They're too temporary; like
they might get snatched away at any moment. I'd rather have my own
things, but they're too far away, and likely boxed up and shipped home
long ago.  I wonder if Gali filched a pair of my knickers.  He always
said he would, if given the chance. I suppose he's had it by now.  Could
have taken my whole lingerie drawer if he wanted to.  I wouldn't put it
past him, either.*

*Probably have to be fitted for new, anyway.  My body's different,
thanks to a combination of native cuisine and...and Stephanie.  That,
and the fact that they had to go and change the uniform while I was
gone.  I can't even put on the same uniform I used to wear.  Not that I
miss it entirely.  There's no more scant, thank God, and I do like the
new collar, but it's not the uniform I remember.*

*Bugger all.  Computer, end log entry.*

Sarah heaved a sigh of pure impotence and slumped back against the
cushion of her chair. "What's the use?" she asked nobody in particular,
kneading at her closed eyes with freshly manicured fingers.  Even having
nails again didn't help, despite the counsellor's assertions, and the
chatty Bolian who had hovered over her during the entire procedure.
Twice, during the hour she had spent in his establishment, she had
fought the urge to grab something, anything, from the manicurist's tray
and shove it up a random Bolian orifice until she couldn't see the
handle anymore.  The counsellor had been wrong.  Little bits of
socialisation weren't easier than jumping into people right off, and a
little bit of pampering wasn't doing any bloody good, either.

"I'm not a damned poodle," Sarah muttered, dragging herself out of the
chair and taking slow, tired steps to stand in front of the mirror.
Pulling the pins from her hair, she began to tug the long strands free
of the elaborate braided style Mot had talked her into, cursing as one
of the pins found its way beneath her fingernail.

She stuck the injured digit into her mouth, sucking instinctively before
pulling it out and wiping it on the leg of her uniform.  Her finger
didn't hurt, not in any real sense of the word.  Pain applied now only
to far greater injuries.  The action, she told herself, had been one of
remembered motion, the next logical step in the sequence.  Anyone
watching would have expected Sarah to suck on her finger after pricking
it, and she was used to being watched.

"Computer," she said, considering each syllable before it rolled off her
tongue, "please create one Paddington bear, small."  Combing through the
unbraided strands of her hair, she flipped the entire mass over one
shoulder as she watched the plush animal appear on the replicator's pad.
She added her thanks when she was able to see the familiar yellow hat
fully materialise.

Crossing to the replicator, she was hesitant to reach out and pick up
the bear, half-afraid that it would vanish, its plush furry paws
replaced by a dunf fur mitt over a Romulan hand that held something
sharp and sinister.  When it didn't happen, Sarah let out the breath
she'd been holding for what seemed like months, and hugged the small,
overcoat-clad bear to her chest.

"Hello, old friend," she whispered into the upturned brim of the yellow
hat, not caring that she was leaving a smudge of scarlet lip colour on
the felt. "Now, where do you want to go?  Do you like this room?"

She raised her head slowly, eyes scanning the room.  She hadn't had much
time for decoration the first time she'd tried to smooth in, so things
hadn't much changed.  The table that should have held the ferret cage
was still empty.  She hadn't had the heart to replicate a simulated pet,
although she'd certainly known enough people who did that rather than
bring a real animal onto a starship.  "That," she explained to
Paddington, running a finger over the nap of his nose, "misses the
entire point.  You can't just call up a friend from the computer. No
offence," she apologised to the bear, her eyes settling on the sill of a
viewport.

"That's where you go," she decided, starting for the opposite side of
the room, then veering off and heading instead for the doorway in an
adjoining wall. "But in the bedroom.  Just in case we have any visitors,
you understand. You're classified.  I wish you could have met Stephanie.
The two of you would have gotten along famously, I'm quite sure."

Two steps into the bedroom, Sarah's communicator chirped.

"Counsellor Troi to Lieutenant Cromwell."

Sarah sighed and placed Paddington on the top of the dresser before
responding, a manicured finger gliding over the smooth metal of her
badge.  "Cromwell."

"It's 1400 hours, Lieutenant," the faint Betazoid accent related, a
breath of impatience accompanying the words.  "Did you forget about our
session?"

*No, I was bloody ignoring it.*  "No, ma'am," she replied instead,
feeling an immediate queasiness in her stomach.  "I'm on my way."

She took only a moment to undo the rest of Mot's handiwork, repinning
her hair into its usual figure eight before giving her uniform a final
look-over. Despite having been given the option to wear off-duty
clothing, it was only the uniform, new as it was, that gave Sarah the
reassurance that she was truly back on board a real starship.  "See you
later, Pads," she said to the bear as she slipped through the door.  "No
parties."

---

Jean-Luc Picard clicked off the viewscreen and steepled his fingers
under his chin.  Riker was right; Captain Graham Nesmith did look like a
genetic cross between a Ferengi and a weasel. The *Hoyle*'s captain's
manner didn't do much to dispel that notion.

Picard found it strange that Nesmith had not yet spoken personally with
his officer, but allowed it as one of the man's fabled idiosyncrasies.
He only knew that, in Nesmith's place, he could not in good conscience
rest until he was fully satisfied his officer had indeed been recovered.
Especially, he thought as he got up to request his customary cup of Earl
Grey, if the officer were as exceptional as Sarah Cromwell.

He'd spent the last hour, before speaking with Nesmith, poring over
Lieutenant Cromwell's service record.  It wasn't completely unheard of
for an especially intelligent cadet to be admitted before the age of
eighteen; Beverly's son, Wesley, seemed headed for that, himself.  To be
admitted at the age of fifteen, after finding an error in the entrance
exam was something else entirely.  The feat had set the pattern for the
rest of Sarah's career to date.

The matter of what to do with the young woman now was not going to be an
easy one.  Aside from the fact that she was in what could be an
extremely delicate state emotionally, there was her physical
recuperation to consider.  Starfleet Command had little regard for it,
Picard mused. They wanted her delivered to headquarters at the first
convenience, for debriefing, with as many preliminary debriefings as
Picard's staff could fit in.

Picard savoured the first sip of his Earl Grey as he scrolled his
viewscreen to the list of options he'd come up with, none of which were
a particular favourite.  Since whatever forces governed the universe
were feeling especially merciful, the Enterprise's next mission was a
benign mapping one.  No inhabited planets, no hostilities for light
years.  It was a perfect time for shore leave, he thought, making a
mental note to discuss the subject with Troi when she was next
available.  By his estimation, she should be in the middle of the first
session with Lieutenant Cromwell.  He sat back in his chair, allowing
himself a moment of proud satisfaction that the young woman was in the
capable hands of the best counsellor in Starfleet.

---

"Lieutenant Sarah Cromwell reporting, ma'am."  Sarah came up short, her
boots scuffing against the short carpet of the corridor as she caught
sight of the counsellor waiting just outside the door of the conference
room where they were to have met five minutes before.  "Under protest."

Deanna bristled at the defensive tone in Sarah's voice, but showed no
 surprise. She had expected as much.  "So noted," she acknowledged with
 a slight inclination of her head as she allowed Sarah to precede her
 into the room.

Normally, Deanna would have held this session in her own office, with
its soothing mauve-and-periwinkle walls and accommodating cushioned
furniture.  With Sarah Cromwell, however, she had found that those
surroundings had the exact opposite effect than she had planned.  All
during the psychological examination, though Sarah's conscious attention
had been firmly focused on the viewer and the selected images Deanna had
it parade past her, the woman had sat perched on the edge of her seat,
like a frightened bird ready to take flight at any moment. Deanna had
thought at first that it was in reaction to the images, or the test
itself, or even Sarah's trepidation at returning to the planet's surface
so soon after escape, but the reaction had begun before Deanna had even
mentioned the test.

Sarah showed none of that inclination for flight now, in the neutral
setting of the conference room. The Englishwoman was comfortable in this
room.  She felt she belonged in a place like this, with the standard
conference table, ringed by standard chairs, exactly the same as it
would be on any other Galaxy class ship.

As Deanna settled into her usual chair, gesturing for Sarah to take the
seat opposite her, she took a moment to asess her patient.  Sarah's
uniform was inspection-perfect, making the small, compact body with its
soft, feminine curves, radiate with an unmistakable command presence.

Although Deanna knew that Sarah had reluctantly, at her recommendation,
submitted to Mot's staff, the only evidence of such indulgence were her
manicured fingernails, returned to graceful ovals, and buffed to a
healthy shine.  The businesslike coil of Sarah's hair owed nothing to
Mot's fancy, although Deanna could still feel the Bolian's excitement at
working with such material.  All in all, the woman looked the same as
the picture in her personnel file, save for a shadow beneath her eyes.
Deanna nodded her approval.  "How are you feeling today?"

"Truthfully?"

"Of course."

There was a flicker of consideration behind the intense violet of
Sarah's eyes. "Truthfully, I feel like I've been buggered by a Horta. Is
that honest enough for you, ma'am?"

Deanna felt the other woman's emotional wall rise up like a ship's
shields at a captain's command.  "Honesty is always best," she replied,
feeling a crack in her own personal resolve. With the rising of any
shields, be they ship or personal, there was also a readying of weapons.
"Did you want to talk about your psychological evaluation?"

Sarah folded her arms in front of her, leaning into the table.  "Are
there any new results from the last time you looked at them?"

"No," Deanna answered, drawing her hand back from the padd she'd
intended to pick up.

"Are we going to have another one?"

Deanna blinked, her lips curving into a frown.  She'd thought about
testing Sarah again, when there was no threatening mission in the near
future, but saw no reason to mention that.  The re-testing wasn't a
requirement, although it might have provided some answers.  "Not unless
you feel it's necessary.  Are you requesting a second test?"

Sarah's expression mimicked Deanna's, down to the professional concern
in the eyes.  "If I did, that would counter the first test and prove
that I *have* gone bloody insane, wouldn't it?  No, thank you.  If we
could just get through whatever it is you have there," Sarah said dryly,
her eyes darting to the padd near Deanna's hand, "I've got a lot to
catch up on."

Smoothly reaching out to pull the padd out of Sarah's vision, Deanna
keyed up a new screen.  "A lot has happened," she agreed, keeping her
voice casual and pleasant.  "Is there anything in particular you're
interested in knowing?  I could help you find whatever information you'd
like."

"Do you know the winner of the grav-ball tournament on Alpha Centauri?
I had excellent seats reserved for it, and shore leave all arranged.  I
remember counting off the days until the first game while I was in the
compound. Seventeen."

Deanna tilted her head to make a note on the padd.  The edge in the
other woman was unmistakable.  While it wasn't uncommon for a patient
in similar circumstances to focus on seemingly trivial matters, Deanna
sensed that grav-ball was one of the farthest things on Sarah's mind, a
decoy.  "That should be standard information," she said, looking up from
her note. "Have you checked?"

"I've been busy," Sarah returned, shifting her chair a few centimeters.
"But I'll put it on the top of my list when I have a spare moment.
Along with everything else.  I suppose I could fit it into my leave."

There was a sigh of resignation at the end of Sarah's words that seemed
to linger in the air.  "Have you been thinking about what you'd like to
do on that leave?"

Sarah considered Deanna's question for a silent moment before answering,
running her fingers along the edge of the table.  "What do you think
about atmosphere diving on Q'onos?"

"I think it's a little dangerous," Deanna answered, feeling the
emotional push away that came with each of Sarah's answers. "And I also
think you're trying to avoid the real reason we're here."  Giving the
padd another click, Deanna set it aside.  "You've been through a
traumatic period, and coming back to so many changes in your life is
going to make adjusting difficult. I'd like to help you with that."

Letting out a slow breath, Sarah slipped her hands from the table to
rest in her lap.  It didn't feel right, so she laced her fingers
together and rested her lower lip on top of her knuckles.  "You would?"
She punctuated the question with a dull laugh that turned her eyes to an
opaque, unreadable purple.  "Exactly how do you intend to do that,
*ma'am*?"

Deanna swallowed, feeling for the moment as though she were in the
middle of a dressing-down by a senior officer rather than counselling
one of her patients.

"There are many treatments available to you," she began, keeping her
voice as even as possible.  "If you're not comfortable with counselling
at this stage, you might want to go over the medical options."  Deanna
picked up the padd again as she spoke, her fingers tapping in a request
for a list of available treatments.

Sarah's features froze, the room falling silent save for the rush of the
ship's engines and the click of Deanna's fingers on the keypad.
"Medical?"

Deanna clenched her fingers about her padd, feeling Sarah's tension peak
just as the list appeared.  After a glance at the first option
displayed, she tilted the screen toward herself. "There... there are a
variety of medical treatments and procedures that can take troubling
memories out of..."

Before Deanna could finish her sentence, Sarah's hand darted across the
table and grabbed the padd.  There was a quiet intake of breath by both
women as Sarah's eyes scanned the screen, turning nearly black as all
the colour drained from her face.  The first entry on the screen slammed
into her head with the force of a photon torpedo. "A Pulaski wipe?  You
want to perform a Pulaski wipe on me?  What do you think I am, some
mewling infant who can't handle her own thoughts?  This session is
over."  Sarah pushed her chair back from the table, her posture ramrod
straight as her lips pressed together into a tight line, one hand firmly
gripping the padd.

Deanna blinked as Sarah rose, fighting the urge to look up and see if
the emotional storm clouds she sensed from the other woman had taken
physical form. "Sarah, wait," she called out, dashing around the table
and chasing after the smaller woman as she strode toward the door.
"That's not it at all.  Please, let's talk about this.  Give me the padd
and I'll show you..."

With a defiant look, Sarah held the padd out to Deanna when she had
gained the corridor, letting it clatter to the ground, just millimetres
shy of Deanna's reaching hand.  Executing a precise turn, she quickened
her steps with each second she put between herself and the counsellor.

Deanna tried to go after her, but found a strong hand clamp about her
upper arm.  She turned round, looking into the stormy face of a
perplexed Will Riker.

"What just happened here?" he asked, watching Sarah's escape.  "Is she
all right?"  His words were ominous.

"We were discussing some treatment options, and..." she broke off as
Riker released her and picked up the discarded padd.  "Will, I can
explain later. Right now, I need to talk to Sarah."

"You'll do no such thing, Counsellor," he ordered, reading the screen.
"I'd say you've done enough.  Next time, don't put a Pulaski wipe on the
top of your options list."  Shoving the padd into Deanna's hands, he
strode past her. "I'll take it from here."

---

"I thought I'd find you here."  Riker tried to suppress a sigh of
relief.  "Counsellor Troi told me what happened at your session."

Sarah turned from the rolling expanse of English hillside before her, a
little sigh accompanying her motion as she dragged her booted foot in a
semicircle on the ground.  "She wanted to take out a part of my brain,"
she whispered.  "A Pulaski wipe.  I saw the padd."

"I know," Riker answered, watching her standing there, trembling.  "It's
not going to happen.  Deanna had a list of options.  She wasn't ordering
anything. Nobody's going to force you to submit to any procedures.  I
promise."

Sara nodded.  "Am I on report?"

Riker took a step forward as the arch faded.  "No.  Are you all right?"

"Not according to your ship's counsellor.  She's probably got me
recommended for intensive medication or a stay at a mental health
facility.  Maybe both. Probably both. It doesn't matter."  Sarah cast a
furtive look back over her shoulder.  Sheep grazed placidly on lush
green grass beneath a clouded sky that held the look and scent of rain
to come.  In the distance, the high stone walls of an E-shaped Tudor
manor house rose in silent splendor, thick vines of ivy creeping about
the ancient grey stones.  "I do plan to apologise.  For the record."

Looking around at Sarah's choice of holodeck program, Riker inhaled
deeply and smiled.  He'd know Cromwell Manor anywhere.  It was true that
the holodeck couldn't reproduce the English climate perfectly, not being
able to get the right amount of dampness or the scent of rain in the
air, but it had been worth a try.  As long as it didn't include
Percival, the goose with a taste for his trousers, he wasn't going to
complain.  This was close enough.  "Rehearsing?"

"For what?"

"Going home."

Sarah returned her attention to the sheep.  A young white lamb sidled up
to its mother and butted its head against her side, causing her to turn
so it could nurse. She felt a clutch in her gut, and closed her eyes.
*Stephanie...* "That."  There was a moment of silence, heavy as the
clouds above them.  "I'd rather just report back to the *Hoyle*, but
that's not advisable, it seems. Can't do that, they tell me.  It's not
for my benefit.  Might cause complications in recovery, you know.  God
forbid I don't bounce back the way the manuals say I should."

Any casual observer would have missed the slight tremble to Sarah's
chin, the tiny droop in the posture her Qadarian nanny had drilled into
her, with proddings from suction-tipped tentacles.  Will Riker was no
casual observer. "Hey, don't  you start crying on me.  They don't cover
that in the manuals, either."

"I don't cry,"  she protested.  "At least not in public."

Riker crossed the distance between them with long, measured steps.
"We're not in public."  Coming up behind Sarah, he enclosed her in his
protective arms, resting his chin on the top of her head, sinking into
the soft coil of her pale blonde hair as he inhaled the subtle
rose-and-something-else fragrance of it, Sarah's own blend.  He'd missed
that. "Cromwell Manor in springtime.  That's definitely something to
lift the spirits.  I feel better already."

"I checked the weather net, and they said it's likely going to be
snowing when I get there.  I wanted to practise being home, but the
thought of seeing one more snowflake would have sent me running straight
out an airlock,"  she confided, settling into his embrace. "I know I'll
have to get used to it, but not right now.  Maybe by the time I get
home, I might be better.  Or maybe I'll just stay inside if I can't look
at the snow.  There aren't a lot of windows in the north wing.  I could
stay there.  Elizabeth the First did, once, when the manor was first
built.   William the Fifth did, too, and Frances the First.  If all of
them could stay there, without consequence, I should be safe enough.  I
just don't want to see any more snow."

Sarah felt the rumble of his laughter before she heard it.  "I'm with
you there,"  he agreed.  "How about we hijack the captain's yacht, just
the two of us, and head off to Risa?  I know a great place, right on the
beach, where we could spend the whole leave baking in the sun and
stuffing ourselves with fruit so ripe it practically hurls itself into
your hand."  An image came to him then, of Sarah, thirteen years old,
standing in the rain outside the summerhouse at Cromwell Manor, the
juice from a ripe purple tanga fruit dripping down her chin, resisting
the rain's attempt to wash it away, waiting for him to do it instead.
"Hey, I even know how to get everyone to leave us alone, guaranteed."

She afforded him a suspicious, sideways glance.  "How?"

"I'll just tell them we want the honeymoon suite, and offer to pay by
the month."  He flashed her a rakish grin.

That cut through Sarah's melancholy, as Riker had thought it would.
"Willie," she chided as she turned herself to face him, smiling a bit
herself as she caught sight of his broad grin.  "I never took you for a
deserter."

"Nah.  I wouldn't be deserting.  I'd take leave; you wouldn't believe
how much I've got coming."

"Actually, I probably would, if you haven't changed."  Before he could
answer, she reached up and placed a small finger across his lips,
lingering on the dark brush of his mustache before falling back to her
side.  "I know.  Socks and underwear.  That's all a man like you ever
needs to change."

Riker smiled back at her.  "Would you mind putting that on record?  Just
in case I might need it later."  Even as he spoke, he could feel the
small bit of Sarah's cheer draining away.  "Forget Risa.  We'd both get
sunburned anyway. Come on,"  he urged, keeping an arm draped around her
shoulder.  "Let's take a walk."

They walked over gently rising hills for several minutes before either
one of them said anything, holographic sheep staying politely out of the
way as they went.  The easy camaraderie that had been formed by an
out-of-place cadet and precocious child years ago returned naturally as
Riker's long strides slowed to match Sarah's smaller ones, falling back
into their familiar rhythm as though no time had passed.

Riker looked at Sarah occasionally, meaningless words of small talk
coming to his mouth and dying there before they could be spoken.  She
fit there, under his arm, not even reaching his shoulder, his hand
resting comfortably about her waist.  "Ever going to talk to me again?"

Sarah looked up, her attention turning away from some inward point.
Back at the real Cromwell Manor, the leaves would be mostly off the
trees, and a welcome crispness in the air.  The holodeck had given the
trees too many leaves.  She'd have to fix that.  "What do you mean?"

"You've been quiet for so long, I was starting to wonder. I'm not
 joking, Brit. Say something."

Fixing her eyes on a stone wall far in the distance, Sarah tried to find
words for her thoughts. "I'm frightened, Willie.  For the first time in
all of this, I'm actually frightened."

Coming from anyone but Sarah Cromwell, that would have been bull.
"What's scaring you?  For me, the Romulans and dunfs were enough.  What
more could you want?  Cardassians?  Rogue Klingons?  Tholians?"

She shook her head, a single hairpin falling to the ground, forgotten,
along with his teasing questions.  "When..."  She swallowed.  "When
Counsellor Troi and I spoke, she made me realise that nothing is going
to be the same again. Not ever.   I thought the danger was over, but
it's really beginning, and there's not a bloody thing I can do to stop
it."

Riker stopped walking.  "There is no danger.  You're going on rest
leave, then back to the *Hoyle*, or maybe a better assignment.
Santopietro on the *Nairobi* wants you. He's already been putting out
feelers."

Sarah looked up at Riker, her eyes narrowed skeptically. "Since when
does Vincenzo Santopietro have a ship?"

"Since July," Riker supplied, his eyes glued to the stray wisp of hair
by Sarah's right ear. He had a finger that was itching to touch it, but
he kept his hand tightly clenched by his side. "It might be a good
opportunity for both of you.  I remember reading his assessment of your
field study, and the man was impressed, to say the least.  He's going to
give you a better time of things than Nesmith will.  You might want to
look into the opportunity."

Sarah shook her head and gave a small, flat laugh.  "Did he put in the
part where I can spin flax into gold and tame unicorns? The man was a
bit too impressed, if you ask me.  I always had the sneaking suspicion
that he wanted to know if I could balance a ball on my nose and copy *La
Gioconda* in eggshell mosaic while singing 'God Save The King' and
repairing the warp coil with my toes, or some such."  She paused, tucking
the stray wisp back behind her ear. " What class of ship?"

Riker smiled down at her, calling to mind the ridiculous image she'd
suggested. "I knew you couldn't resist. The *Nairobi* is Miranda 
class, with a few missions that make me think about putting in for the
XO position if you don't want it."

"XO?  What happened to the original first officer?"

"Paternity leave."

Sarah nodded, sending another hairpin to the floor.  "Then I'd be out of
a job in a year's time, when the man comes back. No, thank you."

"I figured you'd say that.  I wouldn't worry; you'll have other offers.
Even if you do go back to the *Hoyle,* it's going to be a step up.  You
were up for promotion while you were..."  He hesitated, swallowing
around the dryness in his throat.  "You were up for promotion anyway,
and current events should only boost that.  Starfleet's golden goddess
reigns supreme."

Sarah winced at the nickname she'd borne since her Academy days, but
coming from Riker, it was bearable.  "I don't have a problem with the
back to the *Hoyle* part," she considered, "and I do like the bit about
the promotion.  If I were allowed to go right back to where I'd left
off, everything would be fine.  I'd have something to do, some reason to
be in this uniform, this body, walking around.  Left to rusticate..."
She shook her head.  "I don't know what would happen then."  She bent to
pluck a tiny white flower, examining the shape and texture of the
petals, becoming absorbed in the thin line of pale pink that traced each
petal's edge.

"Life went on without me for half a year.  That's a very long time for a
Sarah Cromwell-free universe to prove it can function perfectly well.
I'm just not convinced that wandering the moors is going to slow it down
enough for me to catch up.  I can't get that time back, and that's the
frightening part.  Loss of control confuses me."

"Seems to me,"  Riker said, putting a finger under Sarah's chin to lift
it, "we've had this conversation before.  All this talk about not
catching up... Only that time, you were wearing your hair in two braids,
and concentrating all your efforts on stealing my Academy text, which
you did manage to get."  As he spoke, his free hand slid into the thick
coil of Sarah's hair, fingers in search of pins that he easily found.
"A Sarah Cromwell-free universe isn't all that great," he whispered.
"Trust me."

Her reaction startled him.  She leapt back, her eyes no longer blank,
but snapping with purple indignation.  "I don't need coddling!"

"I... I wasn't..."  he stammered, wondering what the hell he'd said to
upset her.

"My childhood is long past, thank you.  I thought you would be the one
person to remember that, or were you sent here to inform me that I don't
have the slightest say in what happens to me? That I should just be a
good little girl and be so thankful that I have such a bloody brilliant
future that it doesn't matter how or when I get there?"  She inhaled
sharply, then continued, blinking back the moisture from her eyes. "I do
care, in case anyone is interested.  Two days ago, I was healthy enough
to go dashing about the grandest iceberg in the known universe, right
into the thick of things.  With no guarantee that any of us were going
to make it back, it was perfectly fine for me to be on active duty.
Today, after the danger is past and the enemy's fled, I'm not up to
carrying padds from office to office?  Tell me what sort of sense that
makes, because it's beyond me!  I can lead a team straight into a
Romulan compound, but I can't work?  I can't do what bloody Starfleet
Academy trained me to do?  Explain that!"

Riker took a step toward her, his hand outstretched.  "Brit..."

She'd called those strong, broad hands with their elegantly tapered
fingers to mind several times during the past months, concentrating on
how they had combed through her hair or brushed against her skin.  Sarah
knew she couldn't begin to count the times she'd called up and replayed
the memory of those hands holding hers outside the summerhouse on a
long-ago English night, when they were the only thing to keep her world
from crumbling.  She had felt them comforting her only a few hours
before, in Sickbay, but now the hand Riker held out to her seemed like
the enemy.  She pushed it away.  "Don't pity me."

"All right, I won't pity you."  She looked to him like a tiny Valkyrie,
her hair coming loose from its pins and falling in a pale tumble past
her hips, violet eyes sparkling with pain and anger.  "But I'm not
letting you destroy yourself, either."  *And just as soon as I figure
out how to do that, we'll be in business...*

The silence hung between them.

*Willie, I'm frightened.*

*Seeing you like this frightens me.*

*Life went on without me... I don't know if I can catch up.*

"Come here,"  he whispered, adding "that's an order," for good measure.
It worked.  She went into his arms, not crying, not even trembling, but
still with an uncertainty he could feel. "You're going to get through
this, Brit.  You always do."

---

Nearly an hour after her patient had left the conference room in an
angry hurry, Deanna Troi was still hard pressed to make sense of what
had happened, no matter how she looked at things.  Normally, she would
have attuned herself well enough to the patient that she would have
known when the patient getting uncomfortable, would have known where the
limits were.  There had to be a reason why things were different with
Sarah Cromwell.

After looking through her records, Deanna was able to rule out any sort
of mind control on the human's part.  There were some alien species that
were able to block telepathy, fewer that could block empathy, but Sarah
Cromwell, being completely human, belonged to none of them. If she had,
it might have explained not only Lieutenant Cromwell's behaviour during
their aborted session, but the reason she'd withstood Romulan captivity
as well as she had.  It would have explained a lot of things.

As it was, all Deanna had gathered were more questions.  Isolating
Lieutenant Cromwell's emotions at the time of her leaving didn't work.
There had been too many, too much tied together to be easily pulled
apart.  Like a spiderweb, everything touched everything else in some
manner.  Relief was linked to regret, which was linked to fear, to
anger, to survival.  Grief and hope twined together, twisted around
tenacity, mingling with other things that Deanna had been unable to even
get near.   She wondered if she ever would.  That, she was beginning to
realise, might not be possible.  Some personalities never meshed.
Counsellors weren't gods, despite what some of her textbooks seemed to
indicate.

Deanna didn't particularly like the fact that she, herself, might not be
able to do anything at all for this particular patient.  Maybe, she
thought, a more seasoned counselor could do better.  Maybe Sarah would
feel more at ease with a male, or a human...  "Maybe,"  she spoke aloud,
pacing the room,  "I don't have enough information."

---

Guinan set another polished glass on the shelf behind the bar in
Ten-Forward.  It wasn't necessary, of course.  The ship's recyclers did
all the polishing that was ever needed.  In fact, she could get all the
glasses she wanted just by asking the computer for them.  The polishing
was only one of the millions of comforting gestures that put everyone's
lives back in place after the interruptions that life aboard a Starfleet
vessel routinely brought.

Throughout the lounge, crewmembers could be seen performing their own
calming rituals.  A game of 3-D chess, an exotic drink, and a table by
the rushing stars did wonders to affirm that life did, in fact, go on.
No matter that rumours were flying fast and furious about the real
reason the Romulan warbird had beat a hasty retreat, or what had more
recently transpired in the corridor outside Counselor Troi's office,
Guinan still remembered what everybody drank.

The El-Aurian barkeep paused to take stock of the room.  The tables were
comfortably filled, but not crowded.  A general buzz of conversation in
several languages, created a pleasant background for each individual
group's interaction.  Two groups in particular caught her interest.

At a table in the center of the room, Eliva Riss sat across from Rohit
Sabu, blue fingers intertwined with brown beneath the table, a rapidly
cooling carafe of Jamaican blend coffee just off-center on the tabletop.
Jeffrey Taylor, forcibly ejected from his stay in Sickbay, sat with
them, but not taking part in the conversation, such as it was.  His
chair was pushed slightly back from the table, his arms crossed over his
chest.  He watched the other two with a scowl.  Sabu and Eliva, eyes
locked over their long-cold coffees, weren't paying him much attention.

Guinan smiled and sent a waiter over to replace the cooling brew.

Closer to the viewports, a cluster of senior officers had recently
pulled two smaller tables together.  It had begun with Worf nursing a
large prune juice as he sulked over the Romulan encounter that never
was.  Geordi had joined him soon after, Sabrina Sinclair following just
minutes behind.  Beverly Crusher had been next, and the one to declare
an impromptu party.  She'd kept Guinan's waitstaff busy with orders for
drinks and snacks, once she'd had the tables arranged to her
satisfaction.

Guinan could tell that Worf's original reason for coming to Ten- Forward
had been momentarily pushed aside, but not forgotten. Several
conversations quieted when the door slid open to frame the shapely form
of Deanna Troi.  The Betazoid looked around, nodding to Beverly and
company, but headed for the bar instead. She wasn't up to that much
company.

At precisely the same time Deanna reached the bar, Guinan placed a tall,
frosted mug on a napkin.  "It's called an egg cream,"  Guinan explained,
sliding a bowl of small purplish nuts next to it.  "An ancient Earth
beverage with no real egg, but it does have chocolate, and enough
bubbles to take your mind off your problems."

Deanna took up the mug, with a grateful smile.  "Thank you."

"You had that I-need-chocolate look about you.  I've heard at least
twenty-three different versions of what happened between you and
Lieutenant Cromwell today.  Maybe one of them is close to what really
happened, but I think there's a lot of embroidery going on."

The bubbles from the strange drink tickled Deanna's nose, but the
chocolate froth itself was cold and delicious.  "I've never felt
anything like it,"  she found herself saying as she settled onto a
barstool.  "What are these?" She picked up a nut between two fingers,
turning it over to examine the texture.

Guinan popped a nut into her own mouth and closed her eyes to savour the
taste. Swallowing, she opened them again and nudged the bowl closer to
Deanna.  "I bet you always had them shelled for you.  Try rubbing off
the skin.  Make sure you wipe your hands afterward," she said, sliding a
shimmering cloth next to the bowl.

Deanna did so, revealing a pale lavender nutmeat.  She smiled in
recognition. "I did.  My mother's valet often had purple stains on his
fingers, but I never knew what they were from until just now."

"Isn't that amazing.  I'll bet you used to wonder, didn't you?"

Putting the shelled nut back in the bowl, Deanna took another drink.
"Are you trying to tell me something?"

Guinan cocked her head, her broad russet hat tilting at an absurd angle
as she did so.  Still, it remained on her head.  "Do you think I am?"

"If it's about Lieutenant Sarah Cromwell, I could use it."

Guinan picked up another glass to polish.  "I'm afraid I don't know her
very well,"  she confessed, rubbing the inside of the fluted glass with
a soft grey cloth.  "She did stop in here for a while before the second
away team went down.  I asked her if she was supposed to be here, and
she asked me if I was. Then, she promised not to start any fights or
dance on the tables, and that's about it.  The captain came in, they had
some tea, and they left.  No revelations there, I'm afraid. You might do
better talking with someone who knows her.  Maybe Commander Riker could
help. I hear he used to know her on the *Hood.*"

"Commander Riker and I don't seem to be able to talk about her much.
It's like they've got a private club I'm not invited to join."

Drawing her hairless brows together, Guinan made a soft tsk-ing sound.
"That doesn't sound like Commander Riker.  There's got to be a reason.
Have you considered asking him?"

Deanna, unable to speak because of the bubbles in her nose, shook her
head.

"You could ask Lieutenant Cromwell."

"Not after what happened today.  That's what's strange about all of
this.  She just..." Deanna made a vague gesture with her right hand.
"Left.  She was angry, upset."

Guinan placed the glass on the shelf and reached for another.  "Being
held captive will do that."

"No,"  Deanna clarified,  "that wasn't it.  She was angry at me."

"I see.  She didn't invite you to join the club, either, is that it?"

Deanna looked puzzled, and used the time it took to shell and eat a nut
to think before she responded.  "I'm supposed to be counselling her, but
I can't get close enough."

"Does she run to the other side of the room when you come in?  Did she
try to hide under the couch in your office?  Pretend she's not home when
you call her quarters?"

"Almost.  She does it emotionally.  She tenses up the second she sees
me.  She thinks things, and..."

Guinan made a minute adjustment to her hat, tipping the brim scant
milimeters over her eyes.  "Thinking is bad?  I always thought it was
the opposite."

"It's not that," Deanna explained with sigh.  "She won't talk to me, and
I've promised not to read her empathically.  There's a request in her
psych file dating back to her Academy entrance."

Guinan made a hum of understanding.  "Sounds logical. Someone like
Lieutenant Cromwell probably had her fill of psychologists and empaths
early on.  All those tests and sessions, trying to find out how much
knowledge could get into such a young brain.  Couldn't have been easy."

Deanna rolled a nut between her fingers, letting the skin drop to the
counter before letting the nut go as well.  "But this doesn't have
anything to do with intellect.  The fact is that I don't know what the
problem is, and I think maybe she doesn't want me to know.  She's put up
a very direct block."

"I thought you weren't going to read her," Guinan observed, reaching for
another glass.  "Did something change that, or was this before you read
the request?"

"I read the request," Deanna said, her voice rising in self-defense as
she rolled the nut around with the tip of one finger.  "I thought I
heard her say something, but she hadn't spoken.  It was only an empathic
trace, a strong one. Things didn't get any better from there."  Deanna
traced a finger around the rim of her mug, examining the frost her
fingernail gathered.  "Our session was...well, you've heard what
happened."

Guinan shook her head and placed a glass on the shelf.  "No, I've heard
at least twenty-three versions of what happened.  I haven't heard any
from anyone directly involved, unless you want to count the two ensigns
who were coming off-duty two decks above and happened to be in the same
turbolift as one of the security guards who responded to your call."
She gave Deanna one of her enigmatic smiles, letting the Betazoid know
she was going to do some aggressive listening.

"I know that some species are resistant to empathy or telepathy,"
Deanna began, hesitantly.  "But Sarah Cromwell is completely human.  She
shouldn't have any of those abilities."

"You said she *shouldn't*.  Does that mean she does?"  Guinan halted her
polishing, waiting as still as an ebony statue for Deanna's answer.


Deanna tried to figure out what Guinan was really asking, but as she
always did, found that the El-Aurian's essence eluded her.  "It's hard
to say.  She definitely presents a challenge."

Guinan started polishing again, distractedly, her eyes looking past
Deanna, to the door.  "Nobody likes to run away from a challenge.  A
threat, maybe, but not a challenge."

"What would be threaten..."  Deanna stopped in mid-sentence as the door
whisked open, admitting Will Riker, with Sarah Cromwell on his arm.
Sarah's hair wasn't in the standard duty roll, but one long, loose
silvery blonde braid that reached to her knees.

"I've got a customer,"  Guinan excused herself, gliding to the other end
of the bar.

From where she was, Deanna watched Riker and Sarah's entrance uneasily.
He had an arm draped comfortably around Sarah's shoulder, mirroring the
emotional closeness they shared.  They were calming each other, healing
together, after an upsetting time for both of them.  For some reason,
Deanna sensed that it was an important observation she'd just made.  She
requested another egg cream and prepared to watch what would happen
next.

---

Riker's hand moved from Sarah's shoulder to the small of her back as
they navigated their way through the maze of tables.  They stopped to
exchange greetings with Sabu, Eliva and Taylor before they joined the
other senior officers by the viewport.  As Beverly waved them over,
Geordi got up to fetch more chairs, and Sinclair busied herself
rearranging the cups and bowls on the table so there would be something
resembling empty space.  Worf remained where he was, staring sulkily
into his prune juice.

When Geordi returned with the chairs, the entire group launched into
what looked like a game of musical chairs before finding a satisfactory
arrangement. The problem was solved when a uniformed waiter brought a
third table, along with the next wave of refreshments.

"It's nice to see gallantry isn't dead in this modern age,"  Beverly
remarked when Riker pulled out Sarah's chair for her.  She noticed the
way the small blonde woman flicked her braid out of the way before
sitting, and the way Riker's hand imperceptibly stroked against the
shining pale rope before he took his own seat.

"Not at all," Riker returned with a grin, "It's just wounded."

In spite of herself, Sarah found her eyes rolling.  "I thought he'd have
learned some better jokes by now,"  she addressed the group in general,
her eyes flickering over their faces.

"I bet Data still has that comedy tutorial program,"  Geordi offered.
"There is hope."

They all laughed at that, except for Worf, who looked slightly amused,
for a Klingon.

"Actually,"  Beverly cut in, the spark of an idea dancing energetically
in her bright eyes, "You two are just the people I was hoping would join
us."  She paused, looking from Riker to Sarah.  "After all of what we've
just... accomplished, I was thinking that everybody could use a good
party to lift morale."

"Is that not what we are doing now?"  Worf grumbled into his prune
juice, dark brows drawing together as he drank.

Beverly cast the Klingon a scolding look.  "A real party; something
fancy, maybe with costumes.  Definitely some sort of theme;
something... festive. How much time do we have before reaching
starbase?"  she turned toward Riker, looking hopeful.

If he were going to be totally honest, reaching the starbase was one of
the furthest things from his mind at that moment.  He ran a hand over
his beard, to give him time to think.  "About three days at current
speed.  I'd have to check if you want hours and minutes."

"I don't,"  Beverly said, reaching into a shallow ceramic bowl for a
plump green berry.  "Estimates are fine.  What I was thinking of..."
She paused to pop the berry into her mouth, savoring the squirt of juice
as she bit and swallowed.  "Was something springy."

"Springy?"  Worf looked perplexed.

Beverly wiped the berry juice off her fingers with a napkin.
"Springlike," she clarified.  "I don't know about the rest of you, but
all that snow gave me cabin fever.  I feel like throwing a garden party.
You know, flowers, music, dancing, maybe a few games.  White wicker
furniture and a gazebo for a sit-down dinner; trust me, it's going to do
wonders for morale."

Riker coughed.  "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's not
going to be practical.  We're going to have our hands full for most of
the time.  This is as much of a party as we're going to get."

"Thought so,"  Brina Sinclair thought aloud, her freckled features
wrinkling with distaste before she realized she'd spoken.  "I mean, I
thought we would have a lot of... work.  Sir."

"No need to apologize,"  he assured her.  "I don't like it any more than
you do.  Starfleet Command has a shipload of questions for everybody."

Geordi nodded, picking up on Riker's theme.  "Like what we were able to
recover from the planet, how it worked, why it won't work...."

"And what made the Romulans take off like their tails were on fire,"
Sinclair put in, glancing at Worf.  The Klingon was still scowling, but
the mention of Romulans did serve to put a light in his eyes.

Beverly sighed deeply.  "So we scratch the garden party.  Will we at
least have time for a bowl of punch in the arboretum?  I'd settle for
that.  Really.  I won't even push for civvies," she promised.

"Maybe,"  Riker allowed.  "We could use a little levity."  Out of the
corner of his eye, he could see Sarah's braid hanging below the seat of
the chair, its end dangling just shy of the floor.  He had the urge to
wrap it around his hand. "Pass that over here," he asked, indicating a
shallow metal bowl holding a colourful assortment of  small jellies.
"You've got to try this,"  he insisted, placing the bowl in front of
Sarah.

Selecting an irregularly shaped golden brown jelly, Sarah took a second
to examine its translucence before tasting it.  Her eyes flew wide open
at the intensity of the flavour.

"Will Riker!  I thought you were her friend,"  Beverly chided, handing a
tumbler of cool liquid across the table to Sarah.

The younger woman accepted the drink, but only sipped delicately.  "It's
all right.  There's a bit of a kick,"  she admitted, dabbing at her
mouth with a napkin that had somehow appeared near her free hand.  "But
it's better than some stuff I've had lately.  Romulans can't cook."
This last, she delivered with an upward tilt of her lips as she reached
for a second jelly.

Abruptly, Worf pushed his prune juice away and stood.  "I believe I will
attend to my duties now.  Good day."

---

Deanna could feel Worf's irritation and impatience as he strode away
from the group, eyes straight ahead.  Her mug, halfway to her lips, was
no match for the impact of Worf's accidental collision.  Deanna's mouth
gaped open as the icy cold beverage slid down her neck and chest, each
chip of ice making itself intimately acquainted with her person.

"Are you injured?"  The Klingon grabbed Guinan's polishing cloth from
her, and dabbed once at Deanna's collarbone before thinking better of
the action.  He handed the cloth to her, averting his eyes.  "I should
have paid attention to where I was going."

She took the cloth in one hand, to wipe at her jumpsuit while fishing
ice out of her cleavage with the other.  "I'm fine.  Thank you.
Everything is fine." So much for unobtrusive observation.... Deanna now
knew she had the undivided attention of most of the room, including and
especially the senior officers. She dabbed at the spreading stain on the
lavender fabric, wishing she could be beamed directly into her shower,
or at least a fresh uniform.  She did the next best thing.  She left.

The cloth was still in her hand as she hurried down the corridor to the
turbolift, acutely aware of not only her own embarrassment, but the
amusement of those she passed.  Pressing a dampened hand to the touch
panel next to the doors, she didn't have long to wait for the lift to
arrive.  When it did, the doors parted, revealing someone she really
didn't need to see at the moment.

"Captain,"  she greeted Picard, as she decided to let a chip of ice
remain exactly where it was until she was completely alone.

"Good evening, Counsellor.  Is it safe to enter Ten Forward, or are you
the exception?"

Deanna could sense Picard's mild amusement, and was surprised to find
that it put her more at ease.  "I think it's all right,"  she confided
with a smile. "Worf was just in a hurry to get away."

Picard raised an eyebrow.  "Oh?"

"Doctor Crusher has plans for some sort of party, I think.  I wasn't
close enough to hear what was going on.  I think she mentioned costumes
and games."

"Hmm.  Party, you say?  Perhaps I'd best find other entertainment for
the evening."  Picard's mind was racing with the possibilities of
Beverly Crusher's infamous party plans.  He resolved to be roped into no
more than attendance, and that only if there were time for the gathering
at all, which he doubted. He paused, standing in the still-open lift
doors.  "Counselor, have you seen the Katarian ferns in the arboretum
yet?  I hear they're exquisite specimens."

Deanna shook her head, feeling the melting ice drip down her torso.
"No, I haven't had the chance."

Picard cast a nervous glance down the corridor toward the lounge, as if
he expected Beverly to rush out, ready to whirl him down the hallways of
the *Enterprise* in some festive folk dance, purely for her own
amusement.  "No time like the present, eh?"

"I'll need to change first."

"Of course."  Picard stepped back into the lift, to allow Deanna to
enter. "Deck eight."

---

Jeffrey Taylor sat at his station, trying hard to ignore the tall, surly
Klingon behind him.  "No change, sir."

"Attempt the scan again,"  Worf ordered, not turning away from the
screen he was examining.

"Aye, sir."  Taylor gave the computer exactly the same coordinates he'd
given it three times before that morning, and fully expected to get the
same results. It didn't even bear thinking of.  Whatever he got, the
security chief would want him to run it again, and again.   They could
sit there until judgment day, and Worf wouldn't be satisfied that the
*Talon* had left them, without trying anything.

Truth be told, Taylor didn't much see the reason a Romulan warbird would
just turn tail and run away from the *Enterprise*, but, as a lowly
ensign, his was not to question why.  On one hand, he was glad to have
the endless repetition of scans.  That meant he didn't have a lot of
time to spend in his quarters, which meant he didn't have to be around
Rohit Sabu as much.

That was good for a number of reasons.  For one thing, it meant he
didn't have to hear his roommate sing the virtues of the fair Eliva
every other sentence. Ever since they'd gotten back from the giant
iceberg, it seemed that was all Sabu could talk about.  Taylor didn't
even want to recall Sabu's talk about how being that close to death made
a person appreciate life.  He just wanted to forget it all ever
happened.

It also meant he didn't have to hear any more bathroom jokes.  People
fainted all the time in stressful situations.  Counselor Troi had told
him that, and he had no reason to believe that she'd lie to him.  Still,
waking up from a blast, with part of a Romulan field commode, especially
the most disgusting part, on one's head wasn't... A tall shadow fell
over the console.

"naDev qaS wanl' ramqu',"  Worf growled as he turned away from Taylor's
station, his fists clenched at his sides.  "There is nothing happening
here," Worf translated, for Taylor's benefit.  "I have enough to make my
report.  You are dismissed."

Not waiting for the big Klingon to change his mind, Taylor left his
station at a trot.  No matter that he still had twenty minutes left on
his shift; if the senior officer said he was dismissed, he was
dismissed. He wasn't about to question that.  The Romulans clearly
weren't coming back, and he had a shore leave to plan.

Granted, there wasn't a whole lot of shore leave, and there were far
more exciting places to spend a few hours than a private research
station, but if that was where they had to transfer Lieutenant Cromwell
to her shuttle, so be it.  Who was he to question his superiors?

Before he could call for the lift to leave the security lab, the doors
opened all on their own, admitting Lieutenant Commander Data.  The
android nodded a greeting to Taylor, and walked over to Worf, a padd in
his gold-dust hands.

"Are you still attempting to locate the Talon?"  Data asked, looking at
the screen Worf glowered  over.

Worf touched a strong, brown finger to the keypad next to the screen,
blanking it.  "Not anymore."  He paused for a silent grumble.  "I do not
see the reason they fled;  we made no threat toward them.  Even so, they
have departed.  There are no cloaking traces anywhere near us."

Data cocked his head.  "Is that not a good thing?"

"It is,"  Worf admitted,his words tinted with traces of a snarl, "but it
does not make sense."

"Some things never do, I am often told,"  Data advised. "This may be one
of them.  I have the information you requested about Mersol Station."

Somewhat roughly, Worf took the padd from Data, and began to scan the
information it contained.  "We will not be able to dock,"  he observed,
his brows drawing together in consternation.  "We will have to send
shuttlecraft. Surely, the crew is not taking shore leave here?"

"We are not,"  Data said, to Worf's great relief.  "For that, we will
proceed on to Deep Space Five, as originally planned.  Only Lieutenant
Cromwell will be leaving the ship at Mersol Station."  On saying that, a
light in the android's golden eyes flickered, jogging his memory banks.
"Counselor Troi wishes me to inform you that she has officially ordered
you to take shore leave upon reaching Deep Space Five."  In response,
Worf merely grunted.  "Mersol Station's shuttle facilities are extremely
small.  The *Baumann* will not be able to dock, either.  Would it not be
easier to beam her to the transport?"

"Why do you wish to beam Counsellor Troi onto the *Baumann*?  Has she
been ordered to Starfleet Command, as well?"

"Counsellor Troi will be remaining with the ship,"  Worf returned,
scrolling forward on the padd. "I was speaking of Lieutenant Cromwell."

"Ah."  Data nodded once.  "Of course.  Beaming may or may not be
possible, depending on the state of the active experiments on the
station.  We will be advised of the conditions when we make our
approach,"  he explained.  "Until then, it is best to prepare for either
option."

Worf set the padd down on top of a nearby console, after endorsing it
with his imprint.  "Agreed. I assume the rest of the transport is as we
discussed earlier."

Again, Data nodded once.  "Lieutenant Cromwell will board the *Baumann*,
with the implant suspended in a sterile field.  She will remain with the
ship until reaching sector 001, where a shuttle will carry her to
Starfleet Command.  From there, a courier will take the implant to the
Vulcan Science Academy for study."

"We should have recovered more,"  Worf thought aloud, his voice heavy
with regret.  Data placed a hand on Worf's arm, a gesture he had seen
Counselor Troi perform often when she wished to console someone.  "We
recovered what we were able to recover.  Nothing more could be done."

Worf glared at Data's hand until the android was no longer touching him.
"The explosions were too convenient, and the Romulans' escape too fast.
It was too easy for them.  This matter,"  he decided, "is not yet over."

---

"Once more, and I promise that's it,"  Beverly Crusher vowed to the
patient on the biobed.  "This time, I remembered to put the security
lock on."

Sarah Cromwell shifted to make herself as comfortable as possible while
the icy cold diagnostic wand did its work.  "Thank God.  I don't mind
being caught in the stirrups only if there's a horse attached to them."

Beverly raised her head and lowered the sheet.  "Amen to that."  She
clicked the wand, sealing in the data she'd gathered.  "It's good to see
your sense of humour is undamaged.  You are now officially fine,"  she
pronounced, with authority.  "At least physically.  You can get
dressed."

Sarah slid her feet out of the stirrups, and, giving a firm downward tug
to the examination gown, hopped off the biobed.  "Really?  I was
thinking this might make a rather decent frock, with the right
accessories.  A few beads, something to cover the bum, and we'd
certainly have something unique."  She flashed the doctor a too-bright
smile and reached for her uniform. *Spectacularly horrible joke,
Cromwell.*  Discarding the gown, she slipped into her undergarments,
with a sigh of satisfaction. "Sorry for that,"  she apologized,
thrusting her feet into first stockings, then uniform.  "I'm usually not
such a comedian.  Only when I'm nervous."

"It's all right,"  Beverly assured her.  "I serve with Commander Riker;
I've heard a lot worse."  She took a deep breath, then continued.  "If
you're not required elsewhere, could we talk for a few minutes?"

Sarah threaded her arms through the uniform sleeves and shrugged its
shoulders up to match her own.  "Is everything all right?"

"Of course.  It's not even really a medical matter, technically.  After
what happened yesterday..."  She tried another approach.  "I know you
don't want to talk with Counselor Troi, and I won't order you to.  I
just thought you could use someone..."  She let the thought dangle as
she searched for the right word. Was there one?  Probably not.  "I
thought a little..." Beverly paused again. Maybe this wasn't as good an
idea as she'd thought it was a minute ago. "Mother to mother talk might
help things."  That was the best she could do, whether they were the
right words or not.

"I think I'd like that, Doctor."

"My name is Beverly."

The corners of Sarah's mouth turned up so slightly that only someone who
knew her well would call it any sort of a smile.  "I have an Uncle
Beverly.  It's a man's name in my family."

"I bet they'd be surprised to see me, then."  Feeling like she might be
making a very unwelcome intrusion, and not wanting to re-create the
aborted counseling session of the day before, she tested the waters with
an uncertain smile.

Sarah contemplated the doctor's remark for half a second.  "Probably.  I
don't think any of them have invited you anywhere.  I should stop trying
to make jokes, shouldn't I?" she asked, gauging the other woman's
reaction.  Beverly's blue eyes were darting around the examination room
as if she were trying to find a way out of the conversation she'd
started.

Sarah shook her head ruefully, then shoved an errant hairpin back into
place.  "I should try to be serious.  I'll translate the conversation
into Vulcan or something.  That should do it."

Beverly's brows knit together.  "Was that another joke?"

"No, actually, it wasn't.  I do mental exercises when I need to keep my
mind on something.  Or off something."  She paused to take a breath.
It's rather amazing that you said what you did, about mother-to-mother
talk right now.  I was thinking about Stephanie during the examination.
In a way, she's the only real thing that came out of all of this."

"She is real."  Beverly reached out a sympathetic hand to place on
Sarah's shoulder.  "Don't ever let anyone tell you she isn't.  Even
though she's not alive, not here to hold, she's still a part of your
life, and always will be. Stephanie was a very precious gift, no matter
how she came to be."

The words echoed Sarah's thoughts from only moments before.  "You sound
like you know what you're talking about.  I hope it's not from
experience."

"No, thank God.  I'm not."  Beverly took a ragged breath, the thought of
life without there being a Wesley being too grim to entertain even for a
second.  "I did lose my husband, Wesley's father, when Wes was very
young.  We'd been trying for another one, but..."  She took a breath to
steady herself.  "It just never happened.  That's the closest I ever
hope to get to it.  Unfortunately, I've seen more than a few women lose
a child before birth, and just watching it hurts.  Some of them try to
pretend there never was a child, especially if the child was conceived
by violent means."

Sarah took Beverly's hand from her shoulder and gave it a squeeze,
feeling the way it shook.  "It wasn't Stephanie's fault.  None of it
was.  I don't think I can assign blame to much of this. Maybe the bloody
Roms, but if it weren't for them, Stephanie never would have been at
all."  She paused, a quiet cluck coming from the back of her throat as
she pretended to concentrate on the placement of her rank pips and comm
badge.  "Isn't that one for the philosophers to argue?  Not me, though.
I've had quite enough of it."

Beverly nodded.  "I'd say you have.  Do you know what you're going to do
on your leave yet?"

Releasing Beverly's hand, Sarah ran her own over the front fastening of
her uniform, making sure it was closed.  "Try to make it as short as
possible, if I can do that.  I'd rather get right back to work, either
on the *Hoyle*, or some other assignment.  I've heard talk about the XO
position on the *Nairobi,* but I don't know how permanent that is.
Maybe he'll come back, and maybe he won't."  She tried to punctuate her
sentence with a laugh, but couldn't remember how to make the sound.  She
shrugged instead.  "If I take the position, and he does return, I'll be
right in the same place, looking for another posting.  It doesn't really
matter where.  No arctic planets, though."

"You could go somewhere warm, lie on the beach, read trashy novels and
gorge yourself on tropical fruit.  Or you could paint yourself into a
stupor.  Will said you were an artist."

Sarah nodded, a faint smile tracing across her lips.  "Has he been
telling tales, then?"

"A few,"  Beverly admitted.  "The best thing you can do," she continued,
meeting Sarah's eyes, "is take care of yourself. Medical science can
only do so much for your body.  The rest of it, the important part, is
in here,"  Beverly tapped Sarah's forehead.  "And here,"  she finished,
placing a light touch over her heart.

"I know,"  Sarah acknowledged.  "That's the frightening part.  Going
home, rehashing all of the past six months with the concerned nearest
and dearest, every one of them determined to make things the best for
me, and each one with a different idea of what that might be.  Sometimes
I think I'd rather face a hundred hostile Romulans than a dozen
concerned Cromwells.  The Romulans ask fewer questions, and the ones
they do ask are easier,"  she confessed with a small smile.  "I have a
rather unique family."

---

"I don't know,"  Riker mused, running a hand over his beard, more to
soothe his nerves than to smooth his whiskers.  "Is there a problem?"

Picard took a moment to asses his first officer's demeanour before
answering. There was nothing unusual in the way Riker was sitting, his
large, muscular frame arranged for maximum comfort, with one ankle
propped up on the opposite knee.  His poker face, the scourge of the
Thursday night card group, Picard had been told, serving Riker well now.
It was times like this that made Picard just a little envious of
empathic races.  Normally, he might have called Counsellor Troi to be
present for such a conference, but in this particular case, it would be
the worst possible option.

"No, Will,"  he allowed at last.  "There's no problem with your taking
shore leave.  In fact," Picard paused, a wry smile creasing his
patrician features into a bemused picture of irony.  "You're overdue.
Far overdue, according to Doctor Crusher."

Riker leaned forward, his poker face giving way to a challenging look in
his eyes.  "Then why are we having this conversation?  I doubt you
called me here so you could ask me to bring you back a souvenir."

"Counsellor Troi expressed..."

"Deanna?  What does she have to do with this?"  Riker's casual posture
fell away as he planted both feet firmly on the floor, sitting now
ramrod straight, and ready to leave at any moment.  "As I recall, she
was the one to mandate shore leave for all members of the away team from
Philemon Three."

Picard scratched nervously behind his ear.  "She did."

"Then, what's the problem?  I'm following everybody's orders.  Are there
any new ones I've missed?"

The captain glanced away from his first officer's eyes, feeling, if it
were possible, even less comfortable about the conversation they were
having. "Will, Deanna expressed some concern about where you intend to
take your shore leave."

Riker stiffened visibly.  "I don't think that's any of her business."

"Then you are leaving the ship at Mersol Station."

"Yes, sir, I am."

Picard exhaled into his fist.  This wasn't going to be at all easy, for
either of them.  "And you are planning on taking transport to Earth on
the *Baumann*."

"That's correct,"  Riker said, his voice hard.  "I'm taking transport on
the *Baumann*.  I plan to take it all the way to Sector 001, to Earth,
to Starfleet Command, and from there, I'll find transport to England.
It's the same itinerary as Lieutenant Cromwell's, if that's what you're
asking.  I don't see a problem with any of that.  Are you telling me
that Deanna does?  Because frankly, I don't think she has any logical
reason to protest."

There was a second of silence before Picard responded.  "She did express
some concerns to me during a conversation we had last evening."

A thin line of skepticism appeared between Riker's brows.  "What sort of
concerns?"

"Personal ones."

Instantly, Riker was on his feet, a deep furrow appearing between his
brows. "That's it.  If she's got some kind of problem with my friendship
with Sarah Cromwell, then she can talk to me about it.  With all due
respect, I think that Deanna going over my head like this is not only
unnecessary but unprofessional. I won't even..."

"Will, please."  Picard rose and held up both hands in a placating
gesture. "Deanna was only doing her job as ship's counsellor, and as
your friend, when she expressed her concerns to me. We spoke during
off-duty time, in the arboretum, not anybody's office or ready room."

Riker's posture was still stiff and defensive.  "I don't see how that
makes any difference."

Picard dropped his hands.  "I had hoped that you might.  I had also
hoped that you might appreciate having a sympathetic ear you've never
whispered sweet nothings into."

With that, the first officer's stern countenance relaxed.  "Well, there
was that one time on the bridge when you fainted..."  He took his seat
again, dropping the guard he'd had only seconds before.  "Sarah and I
are friends," he began, his eyes fixed on a spot low on the front of
Picard's desk as his captain sat.  "Old friends.  Very good friends."

Picard nodded.  "You supervised her cadet cruise, on the *Hood*."

"Captain DeSoto asked me to give Sarah special attention, make sure the
program kept up with her.  There was no problem with things the other
way around.  We got to know each other pretty well," he recalled, using
the quick brush of one finger over his mustache to hide a small smile.
"I won't make any secret of the fact that we took shore leave together
after her cruise was over."

Glancing toward the viewscreen he'd recently been using to check
records, Picard's grin mirrored Riker's.  "There are worse things a
young officer could do than visit New Orleans in the company of a
beautiful woman."

"We became very close there,"  Riker continued.  "I almost asked Sarah
to marry me."  He paused, remembering the words he hadn't whispered in
her ear as they'd strolled through the French Quarter on their way back
to the old hotel on the last night of their leave.  He could still see
the delicate silver ring he'd considered getting for her in the antique
shop he'd found by accident, could still remember the feel of it in his
hand as the clerk had shown it to him, and imagining how it would look
on Sarah's finger.  In the back of his mind, he could even hear the tune
of the music box he'd bought instead.  He shook his head, and
reluctantly journeyed back to the present.  "It wasn't the right time."

Picard considered Riker's admission with an understanding "Humph."  Troi
had suspected something like that.  "Your shore leave in New Orleans was
shortly before you took this assignment."

"Yes, sir.  Sarah and I have..."  He searched for the right term, and
wasn't sure there really was one.  "Unfinished business."

That, Picard could tell from Riker's expression, and the way he crossed
his arms in front of his chest, was all the younger man was going to say
on the matter for quite some time.  The captain steepled his fingers
under his chin, weighing his next words carefully.  "Your situation
isn't a terribly new one, I'm afraid, nor uncommon by any means.  I've
been there once or twice myself," Picard confided, the corners of his
mouth quirking upwards at the memories. "If I might offer a few words of
advice from experience?"  He waited for Riker's mute nod of assent.  "Be
careful, Will. There's a time for everything, and Lieutenant Cromwell's
plate looks to be rather full at the moment.  I'm sure that's all
Counsellor Troi was trying to say."

Riker had his doubts about that.  "Her life has had enough changes for a
while," he agreed.  "I just want to make sure she's all right."

Picard understood.  "As you should.  Just make sure you use some of that
leave time for your own recuperation.  I'll be needing my Number One at
full capacity."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning don't eat too much of that pub food. All that Toad in the Hole
and Bubble and Squeak is real, not replicated.  Doctor Crusher has
better things to attend to than your gastrointestinal disorders."
Picard stood, ending the meeting.  "Have a good time, Will."  He
extended his hand across the desk.

Riker took it, in a firm shake.  "Thank you, sir.  I'll do that."  He
turned and left the captain's ready room, giving the briefest of nods to
the bridge staff as he entered the turbolift.  "Deck eight."

---

"Lieutenant, I believe it is your line,"  Data prompted, his hand,
holding a tool that looked like a cross between a wrench and a coiled
bedspring, poised over the work surface.  His bright golden eyes looked
at Sarah expectantly.

Sarah blinked, willing her mind to concentrate on the tasks at hand.  "
'Neither death nor time will erase the stain of this dishonour to your
family's lineage, my lord.  The children of your children of your
children will lament over your actions today,' "  she quoted, her
inflection holding the intended menace.  " 'Redemption, if possible,
will be costly.' "  She paused, regarding the console in front of her.
"That's not right."

Data cocked his head.  "While it is true that the original Andorian is
somewhat vague on the true meaning of the word you have transliterated
as 'costly,' you have successfully conveyed the writer's intent."

Sarah, who had been crouching, sat back on her heels.  "Not the play,
sir.  The panel.  The lights are the wrong colour. There weren't any
purple lights. Among Philemites, the colour purple is sacred to Mykba;
they wouldn't use it for an indicator.  They used something else.
Green,"  she recalled after a moment's thought.  "Deep green, not quite
forest."

Geordi La Forge shrugged and rubbed some stiffness out of his left
elbow.  "It's all green to me."

"Computer, please replace the purple indicator lights with green, value
halfway between pine and forest."  She scowled.  "Computer, please
decrease yellow by three percent.  Thank you. That's better,"  she
pronounced as the computer complied with her request.  Your line,
Commander,"  she prompted Data.

Both she and Geordi could almost see wheels turning in the android's
 head as he searched his memory banks for the next line in the ancient
 Andorian drama.  " 'Cost is a relative term, as is time.  Speak you
 then of warfare?' "

The line, delivered in Data's normal smooth, even voice, coaxed laughter
from both humans. "I'm sorry, Data,"  Geordi apologized, his teeth
showing white in his ebony face,  "but I think I've had about enough for
one day.  I think this answers the question of why nobody's ever thought
to combine Andorian theater with the holographic reconstruction of a
shuttlepod before.  It's too much for us poor mortals."

"Lieutenant Cromwell is mortal, Geordi,"  Data pointed out, "as,
technically, am I.  It is entirely possible that I will someday succumb
to an uncorrectable failure of one or more systems and..."

Geordi laughed again and shook his head. "I get the picture, Data.  What
I was trying to say is that my brain is about to get lost in the
translation.  You two may be able to keep up with both things, but I'm
not sure why those two clans are fighting."

Data pressed a button on his tool, retracting the spring.  "There are
three clans, Geordi, not two, and there has been no fighting yet.  Would
you care to take the part of one of the clan leaders? It might help you
keep track of the conflict."

Laughing, Geordi had to decline.  "No, thanks.  So, Lieutenant,"  he
turned to Sarah.  "What do you think?  Are we official yet?"

Sarah stood, wincing at the slight cramp in her calves, a little
embarrassed that so slight a pain should bother her.  It was really
nothing, compared to others she'd had recently.  "Close,"  she allowed,
making a slow circle of the holodeck's reconstruction of the shuttlepod.
"Since I was in a bit of a hurry, I didn't get a good look at the
outside, so I can't say for certain about that. I'd say it's similar
enough to the one Commander Riker brought back."  Lifting the hatch
easily, she slid her small, trim body into the pilot's seat.  "Wish I
had seen the outside, though."

She could feel the blood pounding in her ears, as if she were once again
escaping from the Romulan compound, not knowing how much time she had
before they found her.  She'd only known what would have happened had
her escape failed. That was a thought she couldn't entertain then, and
refused to do so now.  *Focus, Cromwell.  Focus.  That's an order.*  She
closed her eyes for the briefest of seconds, then, opening them, looked
out the still-open hatch to take in the bright yellow-on-black grid of
the holodeck.  That steadied her enough to be able to place her hands on
the control panel.

With the luxuries of safety, health and time on her side, she traced a
fingernail along the dark metal surface, touching the coloured lights
that sat along it like the paints on one of her palettes.  "Computer,
please configure the set of lights I am currently touching in a
trapezoid instead of a triangle.  Thank you,"  she whispered out of
habit when the lights took on their proper formation.  "This is it,
Commander,"  she called to Geordi.

Geordi's VISORed face and broad shoulders appeared in the hatch.  "Are
you sure?"

Sarah nodded.  "I'll have to be honest and say that remembering what the
bloody thing looked like wasn't my highest priority at the time.  I was
more concerned with making it fly,"  she confided softly.  "What we've
got here is what I remember.  This panel over here," she said, tracing
her fingertip absently over the trapezoidal configuration again, "is
actually rather pretty, if I could forget what is. Rather like ancient
Vulcan architecture, by way of art deco. Strange,"  she dismissed the
thought, shifting in preparation to stand.

Seeing her intent, Geordi pulled out of the shuttlepod.  "Okay, great.
I'll just have Chief O'Brien check this over and see how the two
reconstructions agree.  How about we get some lunch while he's working?"

"That sounds wonderful,"  Sarah accepted, exiting the pod with a
satisfying stretch.  Even when it wasn't real, she didn't care to be
inside such a vehicle.  In the small space, there wasn't enough room for
both her and the memories.  As if to confirm her acceptance, her stomach
growled in anticipation of the meal.

Data, who was currently lying on his back beneath the holographic
shuttle, pushed out just enough so that his face was visible.  "I will
remain here, to assist Chief O'Brien,"  he volunteered.

Geordi dusted his palms off on his sleeves.  "Good idea.  The sooner we
can get this report together, the better.  I think we've all had enough
of Romulan-Philemite technology to last us for a long time.  I know I
have.  How about Italian?"

At the moment, Sarah didn't care.  Food was food, and as long as it
wasn't Romulan, anything was a banquet.  "Perfect."

"Great.  I've got a marinara sauce you wouldn't believe."

---

Her eyes weary from poring over her computer console, Deanna Troi
lowered her dark lashes and rubbed at her temples.  Still, the hushed,
hazy colors of Impressionistic paintings swam before her tired eyes,
combining with the brooding dark oils of the Dutch masters.   She'd
spent the better part of the morning staring at some of the more obscure
files Starfleet had on Lieutenant Sarah Cromwell, her artistic portfolio
being one of the more interesting without losing Deanna in intellectual
intricacies.  Somewhere between the British National Gallery's archives
and Burke's Peerage, her mind had refused to take in any more.

What did stick with her was the artistic influences.  Sarah's two main
influences in her own work were nearly polar opposites. Deanna wished
there were time to explore those choices of style.  Maybe that, if
anything, would be the magic key.

There was precious little time to assemble her recommendations for the
woman's future psychological care, which Starfleet Medical had deemed
absolutely necessary.  She couldn't argue with them on that count, but
she did pity whoever was going to take on the task.  Maybe, she allowed,
requesting a cup of hot chocolate from the replicator, it was personal.
Guinan had said as much. If Deanna were to be totally honest with
herself, she had to admit that something about the petite Englishwoman
set her on edge.  Just exactly what it was, she wasn't certain.

With a sigh of frustration, she turned away from the replicator, the
quickly-cooling hot chocolate momentarily forgotten.  She walked back to
her desk and fingered one leaf of the tiny Katarian fern that now
resided there, a gift from the captain.

"You plants have it easy,"  she told the soft green leaves in a
confidential whisper.  "All you do is sit there and recycle the
atmosphere.  Why don't we trade places?  I'll sit on the desk, and you
do the counselling."  The plant didn't say anything.  "Don't say I never
offered,"  she muttered, flicking the leaf and crossing her arms in
front of her.

Normally, she wouldn't have discussed a patient's care with Captain
Picard while they were off- duty, but she had already allowed that this
wasn't a normal case.  The captain had asked how things were going, and,
considering the strange way Lieutenant Cromwell's last session had
ended, he'd deserved an answer.  She'd given him one, of course, and it
was probably more than she should have said, both professionally and
personally.

Twirling a strand of hair around one finger, Deanna could hear words her
mother had told her long ago.  *Remember, Little One, if you can't
answer your own questions, you're probably not asking the right ones.*
That brought a small bit of direction, which Deanna found extremely
ironic, since Lwaxana Troi was the last person she'd ask advice from in
this situation.  "I don't suppose," she asked the plant again,  "that
you know what the right questions are."

---

Riker stood in the middle of his quarters, and called for the lights.
He wasn't hungry, especially after that conference with Picard, but the
excuse of having lunch in his quarters was as good as any to get some
time to himself. He removed his communicator and placed it on a small
table near the door, knowing it was only a symbolic act.  It didn't make
him any less accessible to anyone;  he'd have to wait until Cromwell
Manor for that.

The mere thought of his destination made things look a whole lot
brighter, right off.  As Riker remembered, there were no uniforms
allowed at Cromwell Manor, no communicators, and the only weapons to be
found were the ancient ones on display.  Reminded of the no-uniform
rule, he went directly to his closet, to survey what he'd be able to
take.  He wasn't going to put himself at the mercy of British tailors
twice in one lifetime.  That first Christmas with Arthur had been
enough.  More than enough.  The mere mention of the word tweed still
made him nervous.

He grabbed his valet case off the top shelf and deposited it on the
floor next to him, opening it. A visit to the ship's stores was
definitely going to be in order, he decided surveying the state of his
civilian wardrobe.  Riker hated shopping for himself, and always had.
Buying something special for a lovely young woman was something else
entirely.  That was pure pleasure, and worth every credit.  Maybe he'd
get Sarah something while he was at it.

That thought combined with the recollection of his and Sarah's trip to
New Orleans, making Riker wonder if he'd done the right thing back then.
Just a few minutes ago, when he'd entered his quarters after speaking
with Picard, the conversation still running through his mind, it had
been easy enough to visualise Sarah's name beneath his on the nameplate.
For a second, he'd thought he *had* seen it.  It would have looked just
fine.

Shoving aside a civilian shirt he should have recycled long ago, he
uncovered a paper-wrapped rectangular object that caused a slow, broad
grin to spread across his face.  Taking it down, he removed the paper
carefully.  His own image, younger, smiling, and definitely out of
uniform stared back at him, captured in rich oil tones.  It was Sarah's
work.  She'd spent the first two days of their leave cajoling him into
posing for her, another coaxing him into wearing the while collarless
planter's shirt, and had given him the finished product before boarding
her transport for the *Hoyle*.  He hadn't hung it anywhere visible
because it had seemed vain to display his own picture, but strange as it
always seemed, he could see more of Sarah in the portrait than himself.
Her paintings always did that.  She always did that.

"*Willie, if you don't hold still, I can't be held responsible for how
this is going to look.*"

"Hell, Brit."  He placed the portrait back in its original resting
place.  This time, he didn't cover it.  Reminiscing wasn't getting him
anywhere and dodging the important stuff wasn't solving any problems.
Just like in everything else, the best thing to do was to march straight
into the lion's den and see what was going on.  "Computer, where is
Lieutenant Sarah Cromwell?"

"Lieutenant Cromwell is in Commander La Forge's quarters,"  the computer
reported.

Leaving the valet case on the floor, Riker strode out of the closet,
pausing only to shove the brown paper into the recycler on his way out.
There was a hiss and crinkle as he fed the wrinkled, dusty paper into
the slot.  It would make a decent riff, Riker mused, filing it away into
the musical part of his brain for future reference.  He also made a
mental note to pack his trombone. This leave might be the perfect time
to have another crack at composing.

It took less than a minute to cover the short length of corridor between
his quarters and Geordi's. Placing his hand on the comm panel to
announce his arrival, he was almost unable to make out Geordi's
invitation for the degree of laughter in the engineer's voice.

The sight that met Riker's eyes was, at first, frightening, except for
Sarah and Geordi's expressions.  Both were covered, from head to toe, in
a thick red liquid, but didn't seem concerned about it. In fact, they
seemed more amused than anything else.  Sarah was wiping some of the
stuff from her eyes, doubled over a chair, which was stacked with
towels.  Geordi, his VISOR shining through the mess, was holding a
cloth, dabbing at his face and hands with it. The strong scent of
oregano permeated everything.

"It's marinara sauce,"  Geordi explained as Riker surveyed the chaos in
front of the replicator. "Sarah and I were talking, and I gave the wrong
command."

"Obviously,"  Riker agreed, crossing to Sarah.  He ran a finger across
her cheek, then lifted the sauce-covered digit to his mouth.  "Geordi's
homemade sauce.  You're getting the royal treatment,"  he observed,
touching the other cheek to leave a matching track.  "Must have been an
intriguing conversation."

Composing herself, Sarah reached for a cloth from the pile on the chair.
Riker took another one and began to wipe at her hair with it.  "We
discovered we had a brief encounter once."  She stifled a laugh as she
watched Riker's eyes darken.

"A long, long time ago,"  Geordi clarified, darting an ebony hand
between them to grab a new towel.  He was starting to look more human.
"I think I was about twelve or so.  Ariana and I were travelling from
Mom's latest assignment to Dad's, and she decided to play her favourite
game.  Hide-the-VISOR,"  Geordi elaborated, scowling at the memory.  He
loved his big sister, but she was, and always would be, a brat.  "This
time, she got a couple other kids to play with her, but a very little
good Samaritan stopped it." He inclined his head toward Sarah.

She shrugged.  "I told him where the VISOR was;  they'd only put it
behind him and were giving him wrong directions.  Arthur can be a
jackass at times,"  she said, handing Riker the latest soiled towel.
"Would you mind recycling that?"

Riker bowed deeply.  "Anything to be of service to milady.  Did any of
this actually make it onto the food?"

"Afraid not,"  Geordi confessed sheepishly.  "We'll have to do this
later,"  he said to Sarah, taking the towels from Riker, shoving the
whole bundle into the recycler.  "I'd better get into the sonic, and
then see how Chief O'Brien is doing.  Meet you in the holodeck in
fifteen minutes?"

"Make that thirty,"  Riker answered for her.  "I've got to borrow this
lady for a bit."

Sarah shot him an arched look.  "May I at least get a fresh uniform
before you two turn me into a library book?  Half an hour should be
fine,"  she allowed. "Should we try this again for dinner?"

Geordi smiled through a thinner coat of sauce.  "It's a date."  From
anyone else, the answer would have earned one of the famous Riker
scowls, a point which wasn't lost at all on Geordi.

In the corridor, Riker and Sarah walked past the curious stares of a
string of preschool children and their teacher.  The sounds of the
children's laughter and questions made it difficult to maintain any
vestige of dignity until they entered Sarah's quarters.

Sarah headed for the bathroom, pulling the pins from her hair as she
went. Riker lowered himself onto the standard-issue couch near the
bathroom door to wait for her.  He could smell the faint scent of rose
and lavender potpourri here, one of Sarah's touches.

"I see you're making yourself at home already,"  he observed, noticing
the dried buds arranged in a seashell on top of the table.  There was a
sketch pad and a drawing charcoal next to the shell, the pad open to a
half-finished still life of a hairbrush and perfume bottle.  Settling
into the cushions, he picked up the pad as the familiar buzz of the
sonic scrub came from the bathroom.

Leafing through the pages, Riker flipped past several sketches of the
seashell, and a few detailed drawings of a disembodied humanoid male
hand, before he came to the picture that made him set the book down.  In
the center of the page, framed by a rough oval of violently crossed out
smaller sketches, was a portrait of a young girl, maybe eight or so,
drawn with loving care.  The girl smiled back at him, with eyes that
might have been Sarah's same violet colour, accented by a stick-straight
fringe of dark hair across the forehead.  Tiny pearl earrings ornamented
the child's delicately pointed ears.  Riker couldn't help whispering the
picture's caption, his voice catching as he did so.

"Stephanie."  Feeling his bile rise, he didn't notice the sonic had
quieted.

Sarah stood in the doorway, dressed in a fresh uniform, her long hair
falling over one shoulder as she brushed the blonde mass with a
standard-issue brush. "What are you looking at?"

Riker stood, surprised he didn't feel at all guilty.  "I saw your
sketchbook. It's been a while since I've seen an original Sarah
Cromwell."  He didn't want to count the sketches of the Berrek
Philemites, or their damned tattoos.

"There's only one original Sarah Cromwell,"  she joked, eyeing the table
warily.  She brushed her hair with increasingly swift movements until it
crackled with electricity, random strands standing out from her head
like moonbeams.

"Thank God for that,"  Riker added, casting a glance at the sketchbook.
"I don't like having anything between us,  he said, crossing to her with
long, sure steps.  "I saw Stephanie.  I mean, I saw your picture of
her."

Sarah set the brush down and began to plait the strands with shaking
fingers. "That sketchbook is private."

"Even from me?"  His blue eyes held her violet ones, looking into that
secret part of her that he knew wasn't closed to him. "Come on, Brit."
His fingers closed over hers.  "Do you want me to take over with this?"
He tweaked a strand of her hair to clarify his request.  "I think I
remember how."

Freeing the strand from Riker's grasp, Sarah backed away.  "I think
you're probably out of practise.  Besides, I don't care for you changing
the topic."

"I wasn't aware that I had."  Although he wanted to take Sarah in his
arms, he remained where he was, fighting the urge to just hold her.
"All I was trying to say was that Stephanie would have been as
remarkably beautiful as her mother is."  Against his better judgment,
the next question forced itself to be spoken.  "Do you know who...."

"No."  She cut him off with a sharp denial, finishing the braid and
fastening the end with a small band.  "It could have been any one of
four.  Willie, please.  I've been though this, and I'll have to go
through it again for Starfleet Command.  I'm always going to remember
it, but I don't care to recall any more than I have to.  If you're
really concerned for me, you won't press."

Riker felt like he'd stepped on a kitten.  "I'm sorry.  I was just
 wondering... The detail was..."  He let the sentence dangle, knowing
 the right words to finish it didn't exist.

Sarah considered him for a minute.  "I don't know how I did it, either.
That's just what she would have looked like.  A mother knows,"  she
finished, her voice wistful and misty.  "Could you hand me my hairpins,
please?  They're in the small dish by the windowsill."

"Still doing your hair in the window?  The interstellar Rapunzel strikes
again,"  he said with a chuckle.  He scooped up a quantity of pins from
the metal dish.  "Is this enough?"  At Sarah's nod, he handed them to
her, and leaned against the window frame to watch her put up her hair.

With a few deft twists, Sarah soon had the long braid secured into a
figure eight at the back of her head.  "Rapunzel's on duty,"  she
returned, turning about for Riker's inspection.  "Good enough?"

He smiled broadly.  "Perfect."  Absolutely perfect.  "There is one small
thing, though."

Sarah immediately put one hand up to her collar to feel for the right
number of pips.  Finding them there, she made certain her communicator
was properly placed.

"Nothing's wrong,"  Riker hastily explained.  "I was just surprised that
you haven't complained about not having the skant option.  I remember
how much you liked that."

"Don't you mean how much *you* liked the skant option?"  Sarah gave him
a sly smile as she started for the door.  Just a few steps shy of it,
she turned back.  "You wanted to speak with me. Have we covered it
already, or should I tell Commander La Forge I need more time?"

Riker favored her with a mock scowl.  "Is that any way to address a
superior officer?  I should report you for insubordination."  He paused
for a moment. "It's personal.  How about later, after dinner?  Like old
times."

"Like old times,"  Sarah accepted.  "Or should that be, 'like old times,
sir'?"

"Not when it's just us."

---

"There's only one main difference,"  O'Brien explained, standing between
two holographic reproductions of the Romulan/Philemite shuttlecraft,
"and that's the location of the auxiliary power source.  But it doesn't
matter.  There's still the  matter of the exact translations of some of
these markings."  He gestured at a panel that looked to contain an
assortment of random squiggles. "It was on Lieutenant Cromwell's model,
but not mine.  Then again, I've never been in an actual shuttle like
this, and we were only able to beam up fragments.  As for the
translation, I'm not a linguist."

Geordi looked at Data.

"I have not had much success,"  the android admitted, with a slightly
inclined shake of his head.  "I have ascertained that whatever the
meaning, it is not required for the safe operation of the shuttle.  I
believe it to likely be religious in nature.  This symbol," he
explained, pointing with one pale digit, "could be referring to Mykba.
It recurs several times."

Geordi nodded.  "This is all Philemite, right?  I don't recognise any
Romulan markings."

"That is correct,"  Data confirmed.  "I have searched my language banks,
and cross-referenced with all Federation or Federation-accessible
records that exist in Philemite.  The markings here must be a dialect
that is not commonly preserved in written form."

"He's thinking that maybe it's something the Berrek would use,"  O'Brien
put in.  "Besides their cave paintings, they don't record much."

"Perhaps Lieutenant Cromwell will be able to give the best translation.
It stands to reason that she would be the person most familiar with the
dialect." Data paused, looking at O'Brien's re-creation, then Sarah's.
"I should have asked her earlier this morning.  We might have been
distracted by *The Clans of the Barbarians*."

O'Brien's broad Celtic features registered complete puzzlement.  "More
Philemites?"

"I wish,"  Geordi answered with a shake of his head.  "Sarah and Data
were reading through a classic of Andorian theater.  From memory,"  he
elaborated with a grimace.  "I got lost after about an hour."

Data placed a comforting hand on Geordi's shoulder.  "For one not versed
in the traditions of epic Andorian theater, you showed acceptable
comprehension.  You had started to hum with the chorus of the third
canto.  That did not occur until the middle of the second hour.  I am
confident that, had we continued, you would have been able to..."

Geordi smiled his thanks at the encouragement.  "Thanks, Data.  Just be
warned,"  he directed O'Brien.

O'Brien grunted.  "I'm already warned.  She's British, isn't she?"

"Yeah, she is."  Geordi bristled, scowling as he examined an outer
panel.  "And I consider her to be a friend of mine, so I think you can
forget about any ancient political differences."

"Are not the Irish King Niall and the British King Charles second
cousins?" Data asked O'Brien.

The burly Irishman shrugged and grumbled something about principle,
which Data and Geordi couldn't fully hear.  "Just keep the Andorian
theater to a minimum," he told Data.  "If she knows the words to a few
decent Irish songs, that's a different story,"  he said more to himself
as he maneuvered his head and shoulder's into Sarah's shuttle model.
Immediately whacking his head on the shuttle's low ceiling, he swore.
"Romulans would hate it in here.  Too bloody cramped."

"Philemites are generally smaller than Romulans, and we have already
established that this particular shuttle had been designed for Philemite
use, not Romulan."

O'Brien, still half swallowed by the model shuttle, snorted his opinion
of the entire operation.  "Panel's probably their way of begging for
divine aid in flying the things."

Data's golden eyes flickered with interest.  "That is the most likely
interpretation I have entertained."

Leaning his forearms on the shuttle, Geordi nodded thoughtfully.  "I was
thinking along those lines,"  he admitted.  "For nomads, some of those
guys seemed pretty comfortable with all this technology."

"Rald and Kalat were able to easily operate the shuttle we arrived in,"
Data noted.  "Which is not entirely in keeping with the Berrek
philosophy.  Were you considering the possibility of Merb involvement?"

"Maybe,"  Geordi allowed.  "I mean, it's not much of our business now,
but you gotta wonder."

O'Brien muttered something that Geordi guessed wasn't fit for mixed
company. Backing out of the shuttle, he straightened and rubbed the
small of his back. "That governor wasn't telling all he knew, if you ask
my opinion."

"Your opinion was not requested,"  Data gently observed, "but you may be
correct."

"Like I said,"  Geordi reiterated with emphasis as Sarah entered the
holodeck, dressed in a fresh uniform,  "it's none of our business
anymore.  Starfleet Command just wants the specs, all right?"  He waited
for Data and O'Brien's nods.  "Great.  I've got more reports to fill
out, so I'll leave you to it. See you later,"  he added as he passed
Sarah, touching her lightly on the shoulder.  Privately, he agreed with
O'Brien, but Sarah Cromwell had been through enough already without
opening fresh wounds.  The sooner they all put the events of Philemon
Three behind them, the better it would be for everyone.

---

"Come."  Whoever it was, Picard welcomed the diversion.  As unsuited as
he was to children, he didn't care to read the autopsy report of an
infant who hadn't had the chance to draw her first breath.

Beverly Crusher didn't waste time with preliminaries.  "I've been
talking with the medic on Mersol Station,"  she began, her blue eyes
filled with storm clouds,  "Can you believe they don't even maintain a
proper infirmary?  They only use half of an auxiliary storage room..."
She blew a puff of air in disgust before continuing.  "That's not what I
came to talk about,"  she dismissed with a distracted wave of her hand.
"Do you know how long it took me to convince the man to allow us storage
facilities for the venom samples from the Merb hospital?  He actually
wanted to know if Lieutenant Cromwell could keep them in her own
baggage."

"I take it that Doctor Carrol finally did relent,"  Picard said,
inwardly cringing at the thought that he might be called upon to charm
yet another bureaucrat into reason.

"He did,"  Beverly allowed with a sigh,  "but it wasn't easy.  I think
he was under the impression that we were planting Lieutenant Cromwell on
his precious station to steal trade secrets."

Picard's mouth creased into an amused smile.  "Of course. Starfleet has
no greater need than to find new food sweeteners made from undersea
vegetation."

"It's not funny,"  she admonished.  "Don't even ask about his reaction
to having the child's body in his precious infirmary."  Without waiting
to be asked, Beverly sat wearily in the chair near Picard's desk.
Sliding a hand under the coppery line of her bangs, she massaged her
throbbing temples. "Jean-Luc, this entire thing is insane."

Picard nodded in agreement.  "I won't argue with you.  Just to make
certain, I'll speak with the station liaison and make sure that our
people are being put up in actual quarters overnight."

Beverly flashed him a tired but thankful smile.  "That's probably a good
idea. I wouldn't put it past Carrol to assign them storage slots and
tell them to lie very still until the *Baumann* arrives."  Then,
Picard's words sinking in, she blinked, suddenly alert.  "Our people?
Who else is going?"

"Commander Riker will be accompanying Lieutenant Cromwell to Starfleet
Command, and then to her home in England.  I thought you knew."

"No, I didn't."  She paused for a moment.  "It does explain a few
things, though.  Has Deanna seemed a little...off lately?"

Picard coughed, bits of his conversation with the Betazoid from the
night before running through his mind.  "We've certainly kept her busy,"
he hedged, drawing random patterns on the desktop with one finger.
"Make sure she takes some leisure time when we reach Deep Space Five.
In fact, I want you to make that an order."

"I fully intend to,"  Beverly asserted.  "But that's not what's worrying
me. Deanna is a very dedicated counsellor, one of the best I've ever
served with. yesterday's...problem had to have affected her, but when I
tried to talk to her about it this morning, she wouldn't say a word.  A
quiet Deanna Troi is a very scary thing to experience.  She's also been
avoiding Will like the plague.  The whole thing is downright spooky.  I
don't know what's going on, and I don't like it."

Picard contemplated her words.  "Are you certain you're not reading
anything into this?  I must admit, there are the markings of an engaging
drama.  You haven't been talking to anyone in your group, have you?"

"It would make for interesting theater,"  Beverly admitted with a slight
quirk to her lips.  "Maybe I'll look into that later, like a few years
from now, preferably somewhere far, far away from all the principal
players.  At the moment, I just want to make sure everyone's all right,"
She leaned in closer to Picard, her voice lowering to a conspiratorial
whisper.  "Even Wesley's been noticing."

"Noticing what?"

Beverly shrugged.  "I wish I knew.  He said he saw Will coming out of
Lieut...out of Sarah's quarters before his shift began this morning."

Picard looked down to find Beverly's hand covering his.  *We became very
close...  I almost asked Sarah to marry me...  "I wasn't aware that was
a crime."

"I do know that Will's been very protective of Sarah,"  she said, her
eyes locking with Picard's.  "That's not a bad thing. Sarah needs
someone safe, someone close right now."

Still seeing the vulnerability in his first officer's eyes when Riker
had divulged his past relationship with the woman, Picard could only
give Beverly an understanding "Humph."  There wasn't, in his estimation,
anything wrong with one friend wanting to protect another in a troubled
time.  If Will Riker still had romantic inclinations toward Sarah
Cromwell, that was none of Picard's business.  It wasn't anyone else's
business for that matter, either.

Sensing his thoughts, Beverly gave the captain's hand a warm squeeze.
"I hate to see people hurting,"  she confided.  "In any way, for any
reason, and especially when I care about the people involved.  Deanna is
my friend, as is Will, and I'm getting to like Sarah very much.  In
fact,"  she admitted,  "I'm sorry she won't be able to be here when the
children's theater group puts on *Sleeping Beauty* next month.  She'd be
perfect."  She sighed.  "I just don't want to see any trouble starting."

Picard stiffened.  "What sort of trouble?"

Beverly shook her head, the motion sending her hair swishing over the
blue of her lab coat.  "Just trouble."

He clapped a large, warm hand on top of hers.  "Seeing as how two of the
potential troublemakers will be off the ship in less than twenty-four
hours, I don't see much time for any sort of romantic intrigue.
Besides,"  he continued with a wry tilt to his mouth and a sparkle in
his eyes,  "I think everyone is far too tired to engage in anything of
the sort.  If you're so desperate for drama that you have to create it,
I'm sure the cast of *Sleeping Beauty* would be a better outlet."

"You're right," she agreed with a not entirely relieved smile.  "But I'm
not doing anything until we've all had a nice, quiet, uneventful rest.
A warm one, too."  She got up and turned for the door.  "You will be
seeing them off, won't you?"

Picard had planned on conveying his appreciation and sympathy for
Lieutenant Cromwell privately and quietly, as was his manner, but knew
that Beverly expected something a little warmer.  He assented with an
inclination of his head.  "Of course."

---

Deanna felt the tension in the room rise dramatically.  She didn't need
to look at him to know that Riker was now aware of her presence.  A few
minutes of browsing through a terminal on the other side of the room had
been an ineffective camouflage.  Maybe it would have been more effective
if she'd called up something she were actually interested in, instead of
perusing the selection of Tellerite hoof ornaments that had been left by
the previous shopper.  She could feel the hardness of Riker's sight on
her as though it were an actual tactile sensation.  Now, more than at
any other time in her knowledge of  him, Deanna wished that Riker were
empathic.  The words she wanted to say wouldn't come, mainly because
they weren't there.  The emotions were, for her, all too easy to find,
but translation was difficult. Almost impossible.

She noticed first that he was tense.  Hurt, grieving, confused, angry.
She could feel his tension rise, along with her own, when the only other
occupants of the  ship's store, a human couple with a child, left.  The
child's delight over the large stuffed bear his parents had gotten him
was a welcome, but momentary distraction.  She watched as the small
family made their way to the door, the child staggering under the bulk
of the bear, which was larger than he was.  Deanna hung onto the shared
content of the parents as they disappeared into the corridor.

With only that night and the following morning until the Enterprise
arrived at Mersol Station, the time for any sort of discussion was fast
running out. Steeling herself for a possibly hostile reception, Deanna
approached Riker.

---

"I like the blue one,"  Deanna suggested, peering around him to look at
the catalogue screen where an array of men's shirts was displayed.  "It
brings out your eyes."

Riker didn't acknowledge Deanna's comment, but scrolled to the next
screen. There was, in his opinion, nothing to say.

"I'd stay away from the paisley, though,"  she added, thrown off-
balance by a resistance she'd never felt from him prior to this mission.
"The pattern is too busy.  If you don't like this blue, the brown one is
nice.  I'd change the buttons, though."  She indicated a shirt in the
lower left corner of the screen.

For Riker, Deanna's presence was like having some cosmic puppeteer pull
all of his strings at once, as taut as they could go.  He pressed his
thumb against one of the images at random, only making sure it wasn't
either of Deanna's choices, or the paisley, which he hadn't liked
anyway.  "Purchase.  Display women's gift items,"  he ordered the
computer.  "Restrict to humanoid, personal use."  After a moment's
consideration, he added, "Appropriate for close association."

Instantly, the display changed to a holographic representation of a
blandly smiling humanoid woman of generic race.  Coloured lights
highlighted different parts of her body, indicating categories of gift
items.

Were circumstances lighter, Riker would have had no hesitation in
getting Sarah something outrageous, like a Tagusian pleasure garment,
guaranteed to bring complete ecstasy to both wearer and beholder alike.
Although she'd doubtless return it -- no, she'd make him return it --
hearing her explosion of laughter, holding equal notes of outrage and
delight, as he knew it always did, would be well worth it.

"Are you shopping for Sarah?"

"Are you?  She wears a small,"  he returned, stiffening.  When several
seconds had passed without Deanna leaving, he turned from the display
with the crisp perfection of a cadet under inspection, and fixed her
with a hammering look. "I don't want to get into this.  I just want to
take care of some personal matters before we reach Mersol Station."

Instinctively reaching out to touch her friend's arm, Deanna felt a wave
of dizziness crash over her as Riker stepped back, turning his attention
once more to the catalogue.  She was intruding on his privacy again,
that much was plain. The emotional wall was something she'd felt many
times before, but never from Will Riker.  It was very close, though, to
the wall she'd encountered when Sarah Cromwell had terminated their
session.  She didn't care to revive that scene, casting Sarah's role
with Will.

"I'm concerned for you,"  she said at last.

He didn't look up.  "Why?  Hold,"  he instructed the computer display,
considering and then dismissing a small, brightly coloured Alpha
Centauran fragrance receiver.  The thing had too much yellow in it.
"Continue."

Deanna knew Riker's command was meant for the computer, but she seized
the opportunity anyway.  "I don't know exactly."  She took a steadying
breath. "Things are very...fragile right now. Not just for Sarah,"  she
went on, gaining confidence as she spoke,  "but for you as well. You
were deeply troubled when Sarah was first reported missing.  Maybe I
should have encouraged you to face that feeling when it happened,
instead of waiting."

Riker turned from the display, the surge of anger that accompanied his
motion sticking into Deanna like a swung mace.  He hadn't wanted to
share his feelings on Sarah's disappearance then, and he didn't now.  If
Deanna were truly concerned for him, she'd have known that.  "Is that
how you work things?  Come around years later, after the damage is done
and try to make everything better? Nobody needs that kind of
counselling.  Not me, and definitely not Sarah."

Deanna concentrated on the pure emotions, distracting herself from the
words. Protection was first, a staunch defence that covered everything
else like a cloaking device hid a starship from enemy sensors.  Despite
herself, she felt warmed by the deep concern that powered such a
defense.  "I know you want to make sure Sarah is all right, but I want
you to be all right, too."  It was the wrong thing to have said.  Were
Riker another empath, he would have felt the underlying emotion that
accompanied her speech.  As it was, he was still someone who knew he
well enough to have little patience with games.

"And you think that if I go with Sarah I won't be?  What's going to
happen?" he asked, his voice dropping into a quieter tone that make
Deanna feel prickles of unease down her spine.  "Do you think she's
going to mistake me for one of her captors and attack me?"  When he saw
Deanna part her lips to answer, he held up a hand to stop her.  "No,
worse than that.  You think I'm going to be overcome with animal lust
the second I'm alone with Sarah in close quarters and traumatise her for
life.  Is that it?  I thought you had more faith in me than that."  He
paused, raking the same hand he'd quieted Deanna with, through his hair.
"I know I had enough faith in you to think you wouldn't..."  He shook
his head, and directed his attention to the screen. "Purchase,"  he
instructed, registering only that the item he'd just bought was some
sort of hairbrush.  He couldn't remember what colour it was.  "Business
concluded."

The computer informed Riker how many credits he'd spent, and requested
his imprint.  He pressed his hand flat against the panel, using the
broad line of his back as a screen against Deanna's viewing his
purchase.  Both shirt and hairbrush materialised on a small metal square
atop the console.  He snatched them up quickly, before Deanna could make
any comment.  He didn't want to hear it.

"Enjoy your shopping, Counsellor.  I'll see you when I get back from
leave."

Deanna watched him go, all of her attention focused on the sudden new
impression she was getting.  He looked, he felt tired.  The air of
exhaustion went far deeper than merely physical, and remained in the
room even after the man himself had left.  Why, Deanna asked herself,
hadn't she picked up on it before?

---

Once again in the command chair, overseeing the night watch, T'Lina
watched with typical Vulcan calm as a small, unmarked ship inserted
itself between the Enterprise and Mersol Station.  "Scan vessel,"  she
ordered.

The ship was obviously no threat to the Enterprise, unless there were
cloaked weapons, which was unlikely.  Speed and cargo capacity, not
weaponry, were what this vessel had been built for.  She looked to be of
private design, her single nacelle dating her at twenty to thirty years
of age. It would be logical, then, to assume that she belonged to a
trader, possibly Ferengi.  If the ship were Ferengi, it would most
likely have been marked as such, and the DaiMon would have wasted no
time in hailing his potential customer and beginning the sales pitch.

"Scanning,"  Jeffrey Taylor reported from Tactical.  "Vessel appears to
be of private origin, with defensive weapons only.  Limited tractor
capacity, but nothing to worry about.  She has light shields, but
they're down.  Everything seems to be functioning within normal
parameters.  Picking up twelve lifesigns, various humanoid races, and
one, uh, domestic animal of some sort."  He waited for T'Lina's command
to hail, and did so.  "Unidentified vessel is responding."

T'Lina rose with regal calm.  "On screen."  At her command, the screen
blossomed into a most interesting picture.  A humanoid male, apparently
in his mid-twenties, fair in colouring, was dressed in what appeared to
be a costume T'Lina recognized from studies of eighteenth-century Earth.
He paced his bridge, the long tail of his golden blond hair swaying
between his shoulder blades.  The red and yellow lights of the small
ship's bridge glinted off the single silver teardrop that dangled from
his left earlobe, and cast colourful shadows on the fine material of his
full-sleeved shirt. Draped over his shoulder, a brown-faced ferret
chased the blinking lights, its long, furry body moving like liquid.
The man was muttering something about blood, but sounded more annoyed
than hostile.

"Captain,"  T'Lina began, to get his attention.  "I am Lieutenant
Commander T'Lina, of the Federation starship *Enterprise*.  Do you
require assistance?"

Hearing the Vulcan woman's voice, and aided by the waving of a hand in
the corner of his vision, the man snapped out of his pacing in
mid-mutter and favoured her with a courtly bow.  Next, he raised one
hand in the tradition Vulcan greeting.  "Peace and long life, ma'am,"
he said, his words bearing a heavy Cockney accent.  "Charlie Cromwell at
yer service, of the merchant ship *Aldith*. This energetic bloke 'ere,"
he paused to scratch the ferret behind one chocolate ear, "is Monty.  We
mean no 'arm."

"Live long and prosper, Captain Cromwell,"  she returned the salutation,
although she wondered what exactly he meant by meaning no *arm.*
"Starfleet regulations require me to ask the intent of your ship's
action."  She did not inquire about the ferret's actions.

"I've 'eard a rumour that ye've got me sister.  Do you?  'Er name's
Cromwell, too.  Lieutenant Sarah Elizabeth Anne Mary Catherine Cromwell,
ter be exact, late of the USS *'Oyle*."  He plucked at the lace cuff of
one of his sleeves, in obvious impatience, Monty racing down his arm to
nibble at the flourish. "If yer wanting 'er 'ereditary titles ter prove
anything, I can rattle them off in any order ye'd like."

"That will not be necessary, Captain Cromwell,"  T'Lina demurred.
"Please stand by."  She motioned to Taylor and the starfield flashed
onto the screen. Settling back into the command chair, she touched her
fingers to her comm panel.  "Bridge to Commander Riker."

There was a moment before Riker answered, and when he did, a forced
cough preceded his voice.  "Riker here.  This had better be good."

"Pardon me for disturbing you, Commander, but a small trading vessel has
intercepted the *Enterprise*."  She paused at Riker's muffled curse.
"There is no hostile intent.  The name of the vessel is the *Aldith*;
tactical is reading defensive weapons only.  Her captain has identified
himself as Charlie Cromwell, and wishes to know if his sister is aboard.
I have asked him to wait for an official reply."

There was a scuffling noise in the background and a female voice that
T'Lina assumed belonged to Lieutenant Cromwell, speaking hurriedly.  She
could not make out the exact words.

With a heavy sigh, Riker responded.  "I'm with Lieutenant Cromwell now.
Have a communications channel opened and patch him through to these
quarters.  Riker out."

The only indication T'Lina gave of her surprise at Riker's current
location was the slight, brief lift of her left eyebrow. She nodded at
Taylor.  "Hail the *Aldith*."

Charlie Cromwell had been pacing again, but this time had not taken his
unusual violet eyes off the Aldith's viewscreen, although he held Monty
aloft in one hand, torn lace dripping from his cuff as he chided the
animal.  When T'Lina reopened the channel, he was able to look straight
into her unfathomable Vulcan eyes, setting the ferret back up on his
shoulder.  "Well?  Where is she?  Do ye 'ave 'er or not?"

There was a certain command presence in the man's stance, ferret
notwithstanding  With booted feet planted wide apart on the *Aldith's*
deck, and unmistakable authority in his voice, he was clearly a force to
be reckoned with.  It was no matter that on his native planet, the
dialect he spoke would commonly brand him as of a labor class.  He was
used to being obeyed.

"I have been authorised to patch a communications channel through to
Lieutenant Cromwell's quarters.  You will be able to speak with her in
that manner, as we are speaking now."

He shook his head, the queue coming over one shoulder to rest on the
ferret's head.  "Won't do," he pronounced, flicking the queue back where
it belonged. "Respecting that yer an 'onourable woman,"  he began,
looking T'Lina up and down,  "I'll just say that I've a need to be
careful in matters such as this. I'll be needing to see 'er on yer
bridge, speaking exactly as we are now.  As I've said before, we mean no
'arm."  He shrugged, causing Monty to flow to the other shoulder.  "But
ye know that from yer scans.  Still, I'll appeal ter yer sense of family
'onour when I say we're not moving until I see me sister. In the flesh,
on yer bridge.  Go a'ead and ask whoever ye 'ave to;  I'll wait, but I'm
not moving."  At the wave of one hand, the screen reverted to the
starfield.

"Bridge to Riker,"  T'Lina hailed her commander again, relaying Captain
Cromwell's demands.

"Just a minute."  Riker looked to Sarah.  "Your call, Brit."

Sarah toyed with a lock of loose hair, wrapping half its length around
her fingers.  "If he says he won't move until he sees me for himself, he
means it. There's no real threat to the ship, only annoyance.  Chelly's
good at that," she mused, smiling.  The use of her childhood nickname
for her brother came easily.  "I should go."  She rose from her seat on
the bed, her hair cloaking the uniform she still wore.  "The longer he's
kept waiting, the more annoying he'll get.  Even with Vulcans, he knows
how to push the right buttons.  Much longer of a wait, and he'll have
her storming down here herself, ready to drag me up to the bridge by my
hair if need be."

"Let's not have it come to that,"  Riker agreed, downing the last of his
Prince of Wales tea, and setting the cup back on Sarah's bedside table.
As he stood, a though occurred to him and he took Sarah lightly by the
elbow to keep her there.  "You know your brother better than I do.
What's the likelihood he'll try to beam you onto his ship?"

"He won't,"  Sarah assured him, using her free hand to put her hair in
some semblance of order.  "He might think about it, but he won't do
anything I ask him not to."

Riker released her arm.  "Thank God for family loyalty."  He tapped his
comm badge.  "Riker to bridge.  We're on our way.  'We' means Lieutenant
Cromwell and myself.  Tell Captain Cromwell it's that or nothing.  Riker
out." Impulsively, he drew Sarah into a quick embrace, and came back
from it grinning.  "Being around you sure isn't boring."

"I should hope not,"  Sarah returned with pretended offence.  "We'd best
go, or Chelly will have the poor woman actually frowning."  With quick
steps, she led Riker through her now-barren quarters, feeling more than
a little odd at seeing the standard quarters as empty as she'd found
them.

They'd spent the past hour or so, after she'd finally sampled Geordi La
Forge's marinara on actual chicken and linguini, packing up the few
newly replicated items that Sarah would be taking with her.  The rest,
including all forms of decoration for the rooms, had been recycled.  At
the last minute, the dinner invitation had been extended to include
Miles O'Brien and his lady friend, Keiko Ishikawa.  Riker had joined
them as well, and the group had spent a companionable meal, discussing
everything but the recent mission.

Sarah had been immensely grateful to be in actual friendly company at
long last, without the image shattering into one of the bloody Romulan
simulations. There had been a moment, right before the food was served,
when Sarah had felt a fluttering of panic at sitting at the round table
with four other people.  It was too much like a questioning session, all
of them looking at her in the dimmed light.  There were a few awkward
minutes after that, banished by Miles O'Brien's toast "to the first
decent Englishwoman I've ever met...or hope to".  From there, things had
gradually improved, convincing Sarah there was nothing to fear.  She was
finally safe.

The highlight, both she and Riker agreed, was when the groups' raucous
rendition of "The Midshipman's Lament" in its seventh and bawdiest
verse, had caught the attention of a passing security officer, who'd
asked if everything was all right.  Now, as she and Riker entered the
turbolift for the bridge, Sarah had to amend her choice.  Seeing Charlie
again topped even that.  She didn't say anything else during the short
ride in the lift, too excited to speak at all.

When the doors opened, it was all Sarah could do to keep from bounding
out and running onto the bridge.  Instead, she waited for Riker, as
senior officer, to precede her.  Seeing the square, firm set of his
shoulders reminded her that she was still in uniform, and prompted her
into keeping her pace properly sedate.  Still, it was a difficult job
once she saw the *Aldith* on the viewscreen.

Riker approached T'Lina, who rose from the center chair.  "I'll take
over from here,"  he told the Vulcan, motioning her to the seat he
usually occupied.  She acknowledged his authority with a nod, and moved.
He stood in front of the command chair, posture straight.  No matter who
was in command of the small vessel, this was still an unusual maneuver,
and suspect.  He turned to Sarah. "Lieutenant, you'll stay out of view
until I tell you otherwise."  There was a flash of protest in her eyes,
which he expected.  "I'm not taking any chances." He gave his uniform a
quick tug. *I'm turning into Picard.*  "On screen."

"Guv'nor!  Yer looking well,"  Charlie pronounced in way of greeting.
"As much as I appreciate the 'onour of yer presence, there's a prettier
face I've been wanting to see.  I 'ope yer not 'ere to tell me it's been
another one of those benighted 'oaxes."

*'Oaxes?*  Riker mouthed the word silently, before remembering that
Charlie had just begun dropping his H's when they'd first met twelve
years ago.  Edgar and Madeline Cromwell had banished their son to his
rooms for that on more than one occasion over the holiday, but as Riker
now saw, it hadn't done them a lick of good.  *Must've forgotten the kid
was a Cromwell.*  "It's no hoax.  I just wanted to make sure you weren't
one.  Your sister's been extremely popular these days.  She's fine.
You'll be able to see her just as soon as I have your word that you
won't try anything."

Charlie looked stricken.  "Guv'nor!  I'm shocked!  D'ye think I'd
actually engage in any 'ijinx in yer august presence?"  His expression
sobered.  "Define anything."

"Sarah will remain on the *Enterprise*, and you'll move your ship from
her present position.  You and I know you're just saying hello, but an
outsider might think you were trying to intercept a Federation vessel.
We wouldn't want any misunderstandings.  If you have a need to speak
with your sister any closer than this, you can do so on the station."

Charlie grunted, which caused Monty to answer with a high-pitched
chitter. "Blighters won't let me on,"  he complained, as the ferret
nosed his earring. "Cited something about me carrying the competition's
product in me 'old.  This will 'ave to do fer now.  Ye 'ave me word."

Riker motioned to Sarah, who stepped into view.  "Hello, Chelly."  She
drank in the sight of her favourite brother like a woman dying of
thirst, brightening at the sight of her pet.  "Monty!  You brought him.
How are you?"

"Sascha."  Charlie's name for his sister came out in an incredulous
breath, "It's you."

"It's me,"  she confirmed.  "I'm alive, I'm safe, and I'm well."

He looked her up and down, scowling, his eyes resting pointedly on her
flat abdomen.  "I 'eard about a child."

Riker stepped in front of Sarah.  "You heard about a child?  Where did
you hear this?"

"I 'eard,"  Charlie answered in the same steely tone.  "No need ter get
a bee in yer bonnet, guv.  It wasn't from anyone in uniform.  Let's just
say I 'eard and leave it at that."

"There was a child,"  Sarah told her brother,  "but she didn't make it.
We're taking her home for a proper burial.  Next to Da, if we can manage
that." Words caught in Sarah's throat and she looked at Riker for an
excuse to shorten the meeting.  Without saying anything, she knew what
he was going to tell her. "Chelly,"  she said, "you'll understand that
most of the things you want me to tell you are classified, and the rest
aren't exactly for public consumption.  Can we do this later?"

Charlie thought for a moment, then nodded once.  "Later will 'ave to be
back at 'ome.  I've a run of me own ter finish."  He flashed her a
roguish smile. "Fitz'll have me 'ead if I leave 'im where 'e is now,
with only Sokal fer company.  D'ye 'ave a reliable transport?"

"I'd call a Federation ship reliable,"  Riker supplied.

"I wouldn't,"  Charlie disagreed,  "but I'm prejudiced.  Ye'll see 'er
safely off, guv,"  he stated with no hint of a question.  It was a
charge.

Riker nodded.  "I will, if you do as I asked and move your ship.  If
you're still there in six hours, you'll be standing between your sister
and her safe transport, and my security officer," he inclined his head
in T'Lina's direction, "will have no choice but to look into certain
records."

Not satisfied, Charlie fixed his sister with a penetrating gaze.
"Sascha?"

She sighed.  "I'm a big girl, Chelly, and I'm fine.  Go rescue James,
and we'll talk at home.  You don't really want to burden all these poor
people with family business."

Charlie looked like he was only considering complying with Riker's
request. "I'll be back about me run,"  he allowed,  "but I'll know if
everything isn't going as it should.  Race you to the scones."  He
smiled for Sarah's benefit, chucked Monty under the chin, and bowed
deeper than he had to T'Lina.  Soon after, the next view the bridge crew
had of the *Aldith* was her arcing out of their vision and back on her
way.

There was a moment of silence as those on the bridge watched the small
ship's departure, each considering their impressions of the strange man
who'd taken a very big risk just to say hello to his sister.  Jeffrey
Taylor knew for a fact that he wouldn't have taken the chance of having
his entire ship blown to smithereens just so he could check on any of
his sisters.  He couldn't wait to tell Sabu about this one.

It was Riker who broke the silence.  Noticing a drop of moisture forming
in the corner of Sarah's eye, he gently turned her by the shoulder
toward the turbolift.  "Commander T'Lina, you have the bridge."  He
started for the lift, tossing over his shoulder as he went, "Lieutenant
Cromwell has eight other brothers, so stay alert."  He didn't look back,
but knew T'Lina's eyebrow was up.

Once the lift doors had sealed them in and he gave the destination,
Sarah allowed herself to be folded into the safety of Riker's embrace.
"He knew," she whispered.  "God, he knew."

She was trembling;  Riker could feel it, no matter how much he knew she
was fighting it.  "You Cromwells always did have a way of finding what
you want." He held her even tighter.  "Did I ever get around to letting
you know about General Order number three hundred twenty-seven?"

Sarah sniffled.  "I didn't know there were that many."

"A lot can happen in six months,"  Riker hedged, his mouth brushing
against the softness of her hair.  "Starfleet just stacked up on the
general orders like you wouldn't believe.  Three hundred twenty-seven is
an important one.  No crying in turbolifts.  Strictly enforced."

"You're making that up,"  she accused, pulling back from him,  "but I'll
obey it anyway."

Riker smiled down at her.  "Smart woman.  As I recall, we were just
about to get you to bed when we were so rudely interrupted."

The mere mention of bed was too tempting to ignore.  Sarah tried to
stifle a yawn, but failed. "Chelly's not rude,"  she protested, her
words leading right into another yawn,  "he's unique."

"All right, he's unique.  You're still going to sleep.  In my quarters,"
Riker decided.  "You're not in any shape to be alone."  He wasn't about
to mention to Sarah that the drop of moisture he'd noticed on the bridge
had turned into a full-fledged case of waterworks.  That, and the fact
that her knees had buckled in the middle of her first yawn, decided it
for him.  "I can make it an order, but I'd rather make it a request.
I'll take the couch."

*In just a minute,* Sarah thought, *I'm going to tell him I'm not made
of porcelain and that I'm perfectly capable of sleeping in a room by
myself.*

It was the last thought she had before falling asleep.

---

Deanna remained in the ship's stores for a while after Riker had left.
She'd expected him to come back, not necessarily to apologise, but maybe
to at least clarify things.  He didn't. After ten minutes had passed,
she knew he wouldn't. That was like him, she told herself.  Will Riker
would be as calmly quiet as a Vulcan when something was bothering him,
with the same raging emotions on the inside.  As he'd promised, they
would talk about what had happened between them when he returned from
his leave, but at best there would be a gruff apology for words hastily
spoken.  At worst, she'd hear the words she was most afraid of: you
wouldn't understand.

Uncharacteristically, Deanna didn't feel much like shopping.  Still, she
pressed the flat of her hand against one of the imprint panels in the
nearest display console and requested a selection of toiletries.  As her
mother's voice often reminded her, no matter how far away Lwaxana Troi
actually was, there's very little a bubble bath and a box of chocolates
can't cure.

Narrowing down the selection of bath products to those that were
chocolate scented, Deanna barely registered the quiet opening of the
doors.  For a moment, she wondered if Riker had decided to return after
all, but the idea was just as soon extinguished.

"Hi."

Deanna turned to face the newcomer.  "Hello, Guinan,"  she greeted, a
false note of brightness in her voice.  "It's a quiet night for
shopping, isn't it?"

Guinan shook her head, giving a gently swish to the dark metallic fringe
trimming her wide midnight blue hat.  "I'm not here to shop."

"You're not?"

"I'm here to see you.  Something told me you might need a friend."
Guinan peered over Deanna's shoulder to see the display of merchandise.
"Chocolate bath products.  Looks like I came just in time."

Deanna felt herself relax, just a little.  "Why do you say that?"

Guinan shrugged, an elegant, reserved gesture.  "The computer says
there's only one case of Madarian chocolate bath gel left, and I haven't
been able to think of anything else all day."

Despite herself, Deanna laughed.  "What could you possibly do with an
entire case of Madarian chocolate bath gel?"

"You're not old enough to know,"  the El-Aurian answered, deadpan.
Still, Deanna could sense the underlying humour.  "Ask me again in
twenty or thirty years.  It's going to be all right, you know."

Deanna scrolled past the bath gel to a selection of body powders.  "What
is?"

"Everything.  Lieutenant Cromwell, Commander Riker.  Everything.  I
wouldn't worry if I were you.  The tricky thing is, I'm not you, so I'm
not exactly sure what it is you're worried about.  Care to clue me in?"

A sudden hint of suspicion crept into Deanna's eyes.  "Did Will ask you
to come here?"

Guinan looked thoughtful.  "Actually, we did speak in the turbolift."

The Betazoid's lips clamped into a thin, tight line.  "Really."

"Really,"  Guinan confirmed.  "I got into the lift, and he was already
there, I said 'hello, Commander Riker,'  He said 'hello, Guinan,' and
then asked where I was going.  I told him ship's stores, so that's where
he told the lift to go. After that," she shrugged again, "I was here."

"You mean Will rode the lift all the way back here when he'd just left?"

Guinan tilted her head to one side as though she had to think about her
answer. "Was he?  He didn't say.  If he'd just come from here, it was
very nice of him to come all the way back just for me.  Then again,
you know Will Riker;  always the gentleman.  He can't stand to see a
lady put out of her way for anything, can he?"

So that's it, Deanna thought.  "Are you saying he's only being
gentlemanly in paying Lieutenant Cromwell all this attention?"

"That's part of it, I suppose.  The way I hear it, they're old friends,
and the company of a good friend is one of the best medicines in the
galaxy.  I know it's my favourite medication.  Definitely beats
surgery."

Deanna had to agree with that.  "You're right.  It's just...  I don't
know. That's what's bothering me,"  she confessed, ignoring the tempting
display on the shop screen.  "There's not a single thing I can actually,
logically object to.  Lieutenant Cromwell has come through an extremely
difficult situation, and is doing remarkably well, mostly because of
Will's..."  She rolled her eyes as she reached for the right word.

Guinan put a hand on Deanna's sleeve.  "I know what you mean,"  she said
softly.  "You don't need to confine it into a word.  What I would worry
about," she went on to say,  "is how much of the problem belongs to
whom.  There's Commander Riker, Lieutenant Cromwell, you, Stephanie,
Ian..."  She ticked off each name on a long brown finger.  "Lots of
people."

"Why do you bring up Ian?"  Her son's name, which she hadn't spoken
aloud in a long time, resonated in Deanna's heart.  "Ian doesn't have
any part in this."

Guinan's voice and gaze were steady, but kind.  "Doesn't he?  Sometimes,
when we're uneasy around a new person, it's because they show us a part
of ourselves we don't like to look at, or are afraid to look at."

Deanna folded her arms across her chest.  "Are you saying Lieutenant
Cromwell and I are alike because we've both lost a child?"

"Maybe.  Maybe not.  Who's to say? I think that's a question you're
going to have to answer for yourself.  Right now, there's really only
one piece of advice I can give that will do you any good."

"And what is that?"  Deanna asked, puzzled.

"The Deltan fudge gel is overrated.  Squeeze the tube too hard, and it
all shoots out, but not where you want it.  I'd better get back to work.
My break is over."  With a swirl of fabric and fringe, Guinan turned and
glided into the corridor.

Deanna stood there for a moment longer, by this time even more confused
than she had been.  What was different, though, was that she now knew
the answers would come in time.  There was no need to press for them.
Selecting an old favourite cherry-chocolate bubble bath, she set off for
her own quarters, thoughts of the alien who had chosen to be her child
for all too short a time her only companion.

---

"Hey, come on, Brit.  Wake up.  Time to hit the road."

*Hit the road?*  Sarah's eyes blinked open, under protest.  The voice,
which the least-fogged portion of her brain told her belonged to Willie,
was out of place.  She was also out of place.

She pushed aside the standard-issue sheets and sat up, her sleep-misted
eyes sweeping the room.  The first thing to catch her attention was a
lovingly polished trombone, propped up in a corner under the sloping
viewport.  The second thing was Will Riker's amused grin.  He looked far
too pleased for anyone's good.

"Your quarters?"  Sarah scowled as she noticed she was dressed in a
large blue shirt which seemed to be in the process of swallowing her.
She plucked at the voluminous folds of fabric.  "How did I get into
this?"

Riker allowed himself to relax.  She didn't remember.  If she had, he
didn't know what he'd tell her.  "You woke up for a while,"  he hedged.
"I was a perfect gentleman.  My back was turned until I had permission."

"For a change,"  Sarah returned, rolling up a drooping sleeve to just
above her elbow.  "For the sake of expedience, I'll pretend I believe
you."  She fixed him with a glare which threatened dire harm.  "Where's
my uniform?"

"Uniform?  Uniform?  You have one of those?  I don't seem to remember,"
Riker teased.  I do remember some red thing, low-cut, with a slit up
the..."  He stopped in mid-sentence as Sarah's glare shifted from
threatening to warning. "Well, that's what I was about to replicate for
you.  Your uniform's over that chair."

"Thank you.  Now, step outside while I change."  Without waiting to see
if he did or not, Sarah extricated herself from the bedsheets, and flung
her slender legs over the side of the bed.  "Please,"  she added,
meeting Riker's appreciative gaze with an icy one.  "I've got an
appointment to keep before I go anywhere."  She pulled her sleep-mussed
braid out from under the shirt and began to separate the strands,
keeping her eyes on Riker.  "I want to see Stephanie."

Riker's joviality vanished.  "Do you want me to go with you?"

"Thank you, but no.  I have to do this on my own."  She sighed.
"Willie, I won't pretend any of this is easy, but I can't be treated
like some sort of invalid child.  I'm neither one.  You, of all people,
ought to know that."

"I have to do something."

"You could let me know where you hide your hairbrush,"  she suggested,
combing through the length of her hair with her fingers, pale strands
shimmering as they settled over the curve of her bosom.  "Or you could
get mine out of my valet case.  I just want to get out of here."

Riker pretended offence.  "What, and miss one of my famous replicated
breakfasts?  I know it's not your mother's cook's cinnamon scones, but
I've only had a few complaints on my omelets.  The way I remember our
mornings, you used to like them."  From behind his back, he produced a
rectangular box, wrapped in shimmery paper that changed colours where
his fingers touched it.  "As for the hairbrush, would this do?"

Sarah cocked her head, letting her pale hair fall over one blue-covered
shoulder in a silvery waterfall.  "What's this for?"

"It's for brushing your hair,"  he answered, with half a smile.
"Seriously, I do owe you a birthday present.  Your file said you were
reported MIA on April ninth.  Hell of a birthday present."  He stepped
close, holding out the package.  "This one should be better."

She took the box, allowing herself a moment to play with the changing
colours any movement of her fingers brought to the wrapping.  Searching
carefully for a seam, she slit it open with a fingernail.  The paper
wafted gently to the floor, like a gull landing on seafoam.  "There
really isn't time for frivolity,"  she chided herself more than she did
Riker as she lifted off the lid. Nestled within a froth of white,
rose-scented tissue, was a gracefully shaped, oval-headed hairbrush,
made of a metal with the same properties of that paper that had wrapped
it.  Plucking it out of its nest, Sarah held it up to the light.
"Willie, it's lovely. Thank you, but if you wouldn't mind..."

"I know.  Get out,"  he finished for her.  "Yeah, well, they do expect
me to do a little work now and again.  It was only Captain DeSoto who
liked me to stand around and look good.  I need to arrange for your
pilot."

"Make sure he can stay awake for the duration of the flight, if it's not
too much," Sarah requested, applying the brush to a long skein of hair
with slow, expert strokes.

Riker flashed her a grin, his eyes following the brush's progress.  She
didn't suspect a thing.  "I'll see what I can do.  You'll have the best
pilot this ship can provide.  I'll meet you in shuttlebay three, in two
hours."

"Two hours,"  she confirmed, turning the brush over in her hands,
delighting in the play of heat and light on its surface.

As soon as Riker had left, Sarah placed the brush down and sank back
onto the bed.  At least he was gentleman enough not to mention what woke
me, she thought.  Some day, the bloody nightmares would stop.  Some day,
she wouldn't spend all her nights chasing a little girl through a
corridor of exploding ice and crystals, with Romulan guards prodding her
from behind with their disruptors.  Some day, but not this one.  Give
one to the counselor, she admitted grudgingly, as her stomach had
finally gotten the message that someone had mentioned cinnamon scones.
I am looking forward to the bloody rest leave. Just for the scones, she
lied to herself.

Shaking the grim thoughts away, she stripped off Riker's shirt and made
quick work of a sonic scrub, grateful that she didn't have to actually
touch the muscles that still ached.  Once in her uniform, her hair
properly pinned, Sarah set out for her destination before she could
change her mind.  She hesitated only once, in the turbolift, when the
computer asked her for her destination.

"Ten-Fore...no, belay that.  Sickbay, please.  Thank you,"  she added as
the lift began to move.

*Now, Cromwell,* she thought fiercely, first blinking her eyes firmly
shut, then focusing on the rushing lights of the motion indicators.  The
doors slid open and she was faced with the etched caduceus symbols on
the Sickbay doors.

*You have to do it now, or you'll never do it.*  A cold sweat began to
seep out of every pore as fear hammered in her chest, heavy and
insistent.  "The Cromwell family has never bred a single coward,"  she
whispered to herself. "You don't want to be recorded as the first."

The Bolian ensign just coming out of Sickbay, a tray of vials carefully
balanced in his hands, looked at her curiously. "Ma'am?"

If heat were any indication of colour, her cheeks suddenly matched the
red of her uniform. "Nothing important,"  she dismissed.  Light glinted
off the Bolian's communicator and made prisms through the vials.  She
could tell from his expression that he was waiting for her permission to
go anywhere. *Cromwell, you idiot.*  "Is Doctor Crusher in?"

"She is, ma'am."

"Thank you, Ensign.  As you were."  Sarah swallowed the lump that
stubbornly insisted on lodging in her throat.  *Down, you. That is a
direct order.*  Her eyes scanned Sickbay for a sight of the redheaded
doctor, but found not a trace.  They couldn't have possibly moved
Stephanie without asking, but Sarah had learned long ago that words like
couldn't and never were often relative.

"Hi."

She jumped at Beverly's voice.  "Am I early?"

"Not at all."  Beverly took a moment to assess Sarah's mood.  "How did
the rest of the night go? No more nightmares?"

Tact has no place in medicine, Sarah thought.  "Tolerably well.  No more
Romulans, but there was a bit about arriving at my astrophysics final at
Academy, naked."

Beverly laughed.  "I think that's fairly normal.  Just the dream,"  she
qualified.  "Not actually showing up naked to the exam.  For me, it was
a nude registration line.  Not just me. Everyone. It looked like the
galaxy's biggest Betazoid wedding."  *Dumb thing to say, Beverly.*
"Sorry about that."

Sarah did her best to look unconcerned.  "Why?  If it's all the same,
Doctor, I'd just like to..."

"Not Doctor,"  Beverly interrupted.  "My name is Beverly.  I don't think
you really have that much of a problem telling me apart from your
uncle."

"Actually, I don't,"  Sarah conceded, a slight smile gracing her mouth.
"He's completely bald, but  he does have a favourite hairpiece that
looks like a tribble is napping on his head.  Nobody ever mentions it,
but it's common knowledge.  We always...  I'm babbling again.  Can we
just get on with it?"

"This way."  Beverly led Sarah down a short hallway, past the private
examination rooms, to a small, plain door marked MORGUE.  Pressing her
handprint to the touchpad, Beverly called for the lights and both women
stepped inside.

Sarah's eyes adjusted quickly to the darker lighting.  Despite her
practicing with gradually increasing amounts of light, she was still
most comfortable in a dusky room.  "Is that..."  She stalled in the
doorway, feeling small and helpless.  "Is that Stephanie?"

Beverly took the younger woman's hand and gave it a squeeze.  "That's
her body, yes."  The doctor's voice was choked with the sadness she
always felt in situations like this.  Babies Stephanie's age were
supposed to be safe in their mother's wombs, or failing that, in
incubation units.  They weren't supposed to be in tiny coffins.  "Do you
want to go now?  You don't have to do this.  I can have someone take her
to the shuttle."

"No."  Sarah's voice was firm.  "I need this."  She took a breath to
steady herself and approached the small coffin.  "Hello, lovedy,"  she
whispered, touching a manicured hand to the matte silver metal of the
containment unit. "I'll have something better made at home,"  she
promised. "Wooden.  You'll be with family, sweet.  I'm sorry about all
this."

From her position behind Sarah, Beverly watched the scene with mixed
emotions. She'd spent a good deal of time wondering what life would have
held for a child like Stephanie.  No matter what variables had been
dealt to her, Stephanie Cromwell would have known her mother loved and
wanted her.  That was all a child could really ask for, anyway.

Feeling awkward just standing there in silence, Beverly cleared her
throat. Sarah didn't look up, and Beverly knew the Englishwoman was
doing what she herself often did, especially when either she or Wes was
going to be on a dangerous mission.  Sarah was memorising her child's
features, small and indistinct as they were in their fetal stage.  To a
mother, that didn't matter.

"I never intended to have children at all,"  Sarah said quietly, her
eyes still on the casket. "I was going to be married to Starfleet, like
Kirk was.  I was going to have ship babies, not people babies.  I never
thought..."  The rest of the words couldn't breach the lump in her
throat.

Even though Sarah couldn't see it, Beverly smiled.  Wes has kind of
just...happened, before she and Jack had had a chance to discuss the
subject of children.  After the surprise of Wes, they'd decided on at
least one more. Although she'd never said anything about it, not to Jack
or anyone, Beverly had hoped that their second child would be a girl.
"You'd have been a wonderful mother,"  she assured Sarah, pushing the
thought of her own daughter who never was, aside.  Strange as the
thought might seem, Beverly was just the tiniest bit jealous that Sarah
had been able to feel her little girl inside of her, even for a short
while.

"I knew she was female,"  Sarah said in a voice that was just above a
whisper. "The first thing I thought when they told me was that I had no
idea what to do with a girl.  I have nine brothers," she explained, her
tone slightly apologetic.  "No sisters.  The youngest one, Oliver, was
my doll when I was a child.  My parents and other relatives bought me
dolls, of course, but I didn't want them.  I had Oliver.  He ended up
wearing all the dolls' clothes, riding about in the dolls' pram until he
was four."

Beverly couldn't resist asking, "What happened when he was four?"

Walking around the casket, to see the other side, Sarah gave her a
nostalgic half-smile.  "Charlie told Oliver what I was doing, and he
rebelled.  I didn't mind, though,"  she recalled, telling the story as
much as Stephanie as to the doctor.  "By then, I had enough studies and
artwork to keep me busy, and I was growing out of the doll stage anyway.
I just put the things away and never thought about them again.  Until
now. They should have been Stephanie's. That's the only reason I even
remembered them, and what I did to Oliver.  I don't think Oliver forgave
me for that."

"For making him your doll?"

"That, and for not being devastated when he rebelled against it."  She
paused, tracing the indistinct lines of Stephanie's form through the
clear metal window at the casket's top.  "She looks a little bit like a
doll one of my uncles sent me from his research station on Kernan
colony.  He was my favourite,"  Sarah stopped and quickly corrected the
ambiguity.  "I meant my favourite uncle. Uncle Stephen.   That doll
really didn't make much of an impression.  I left it in the box.  He was
a little disappointed in that, I could tell.  He'd selected the doll
himself.  I was more interested in the wrapping paper.  It was
hand-painted by natives.  I actually put it on my wall.  He understood
about that, but I think he would have liked for me to like the doll."
She was quiet for a moment.  "Uncle Stephen and I were quite close.  I
named Stephanie for him,"  she confessed.  "He was even going to be one
of my advisors at Academy, but he..."  She broke off, the pain of the
memory absurdly fresh, even though it was nearly a decade past.  "He
died before I began."  Along with that memory came the bittersweet
recollection of how Willie had been with her when she'd received the
news, and how he'd tried to comfort her.

Sarah afforded Beverly a quick glance, finding the other woman's
sea-green eyes open and receptive.  Still, she hugged the memory of
Willie's comfort to herself.  She wasn't ready to share that night, not
yet.  The whole universe had crumbled, and Willie had been there to put
it back for her, sealing everything in place with the brush of his lips
against hers as the rain splattered on the roof of the summerhouse.
Unconsciously, she raised a finger to her mouth, convinced that she was
smelling again the peculiar combination of horse, leather, spice and
rain that had been Willie that night.  In that respect, things hadn't
changed much. He didn't smell of horses anymore, but as for the
rest...she blinked back a tear as her eyes fell back on Stephanie's
small, still face.

"I'm sorry,"  Beverly offered, knowing it wasn't enough. "Where do her
other names come from?"

"Madeline is for my mother,"  Sarah answered, transfixed by what she saw
in her heart...not of a dead, prenatal infant, but of a whole and
healthy child, waving tiny fists to be picked up and cuddled, fed,
loved.  She would draw Stephanie that way, later, cradled, she decided,
in Uncle Stephen's arms, his strong, tapered fingers toying with a wisp
of dark fuzz on Stephanie's head, her miniature hands grasping at his
tunic.  "Laura is for the first Cromwell woman in Starfleet, and Juliet
is for Shakespeare's Juliet.  I was torn between Juliet and Andromeda,
but I thought Juliet would be easier for her to spell.  There was a lot
of time to think of names, late at night when it wasn't safe to sleep,"
Sarah remembered, adding in a dejected tone, "I suppose it doesn't
matter now." Stepping far enough away from the casket so she couldn't
clearly see the child's body anymore, she looked again at Beverly,
focusing her sight on the doctor's comm badge to stave off the dizziness
brought on by too much emotion. "How are we keeping the unit overnight
at the station?  I trust you vetoed the freezer idea."

No matter if she lived to be two hundred and thirty, which she had every
intention of doing, Beverly Crusher knew she would never cease to be
outraged by the suggestion Mersol's medic had made, to install the
casket in an unused food freezer.  "He regrets he ever said such a
thing,"  she satisfied Sarah, her vocal inflection duplicating the tone
she'd used when convincing the now-infamous Doctor Carrol that his
suggestion was a very, very bad idea.  "I think he comes from the same
place as Governor Anderson."  Seeing that her attempt was humour had
failed, she abandoned it.  "A section of the infirmary will have an
opaque force field around it and you can put..."  She paused, coaxing
her words out. "You can put Stephanie there."

The chime to the door sounded.  Sarah's eyes darted to the door,
wondering whose hand was on the touchpad.  "Is it time already?"  She
moved in front of the casket, in a vestige of maternal protection,
skimming the palms of her hands over the small window.

"Would you like me to tell them to go away?"

Sarah worried her lower lip between her teeth.  "No,"  she decided after
only a second.  "Time to get on with things.  Let them in, and we can
get underway." She kissed the fingertips of her right hand, then pressed
it against the tiny casket window.  "We're taking a bit of a trip,
lovedy. I'll be right with you the entire time.  No worries."  She
straightened, looking back to the door. "Come."

---

Riker had lied.  He didn't have to arrange for Sarah's pilot; that was
already long taken care of.  As a matter of fact, he was officially
off-duty, but needed to stay out of sight of a certain British
lieutenant for the next two hours, one and a half if he were going to be
overly thorough with the pre-flight check.  Just like he'd promised,
he'd made sure that Sarah was going to have the best pilot available.

Walking down the corridor with no particular destination in mind, he'd
paused for a  full minute in front of Deanna Troi's door, but couldn't
seem to make his hand reach as high as the touchplate. *Later.  Much
later.*

He'd thought of spending some time in Ten-Fore, getting in a few last
moments of pretending everything was going as normally as it should, but
he didn't feel up to that, either.  Instead, he'd ended up in the
holodeck, beating the hell out of various monsters from Worf's
calisthenics program for half an hour.  No matter what the things had
actually been programmed to look like, they'd all been Romulans to
Riker.  No specific faces, just Romulans, with slashes of orange
decorating their ugly faces.

Physically worn out, but in no better spirit, he'd changed the program
to duplicate the Hotel Bouchard in New Orleans, and had blown his
frustration into a truly magnificent trombone solo.  At least the
holographic audience thought it was magnificent.  Then again, they
probably would have applauded just as wildly had he blown his nose
through a spirited rendition of "Honey Bun."

With a sigh of resignation, Riker set about carefully preparing the
holographic trombone for storage before he remembered it was a hologram.
He shook his head in disbelief at the action.  This wasn't time to go
woolgathering, as Sarah would put it. Normally, if he were about to
depart on leave, he'd be in Ten-Forward about now, with an appropriately
noisy sendoff party.  It would normally be the real trombone he'd be
prepping for travel, and a wide variety of his favourite dishes
preparing to give him a good, old-fashioned case of indigestion.  He
didn't miss the indigestion part, but the noisy sendoff would have been
a nice distraction.

Deciding to let the ship's computer take care of the trombone, he saved
the program before exiting.  Why waste an appreciative audience?  They'd
be waiting for him when he got back.

As would his friends, he knew, making up for the lack of a sendoff party
with a welcome home celebration instead.  More than make up for it, he
corrected himself, grinning at the thought.  At the moment though, he
was glad things were quiet.  It was better for Sarah that way.  She'd
always been a private person anyway, and recent events hadn't changed
things any.  The small gathering the night before had convinced him of
that.  Sure, in the future, she'd probably get along fine with everyone,
even lead the bunch into getting kicked out of a bar or two, but for the
present, it was best to take a little at a time.

"You know,"  a friendly voice greeted him as he stepped out of the
holodeck, "if you act any more like a mother hen than you already are,
you may as well start clucking."

Riker nodded.  He hadn't expected anyone to be waiting for him,
especially not the elegant dark-skinned woman who had clearly been
standing right outside the holodeck door.  "Guinan.  Is there something
I can do for you?"

"As a matter of fact, there is,"  she answered, a peaceful smile
spreading slowly across her serene features.  "You can relax.  You can
also take this." She extended a small slice of sheet cake, resting on a
plate Riker recognized as coming from his own quarters.

Taking the offering, he examined it.  What at first glance looked like
some sort of decorative pattern was actually very precise handwriting in
bright blue frosting.  "Have a great leave, Will," he read aloud.  "Who
did this?"

"Some friends,"  Guinan allowed.  "They figured the usual celebration
would be a little out of place this time around, but couldn't bring
themselves to let you sneak off."

"Thanks.  I suppose you're not naming names."

Guinan shook her head, making the large circular hat she wore look like
it was rotating.  At second glance, Riker realised it was.  "Nope.  Just
accept the good wishes.  Isn't that all that matters?"

"Yeah, I suppose it is,"  Riker agreed, noticing for the first time the
container at Guinan's feet. "Mind if I ask what's in the box?"

This time, Guinan's grin admitted to some involvement.  "The rest of the
cake, minus a few slices, and a couple of gifts for your leisure time.
Captain Picard and Doctor Crusher asked me to convey their hearty
recommendations that you do have some.  There's also a few requests for
souvenirs."

"That sounds about right.  Tell my nameless benefactors I thank them and
I'll bring back everything Terran customs agents let me take off the
planet."  he hefted the carrying case, gauging the weight.  One more
thing to take into account on the pre-flight.  "Anything else?"

"Tea,"  she said.  "I'd like some loose, real tea.  There's a little
shop in Devon.  Cranfield's.  You can't miss it.  Don't worry about the
blend.  Just tell Maria Louise that your Aunt Guinan sent you, and
she'll know what you mean."

Riker had to laugh.  "Why do I sense a story behind this?  I'll try to
remember."

"You don't have to,"  Guinan supplied.  "It's all on the padd.  Have a
good leave."  With that and a final rotation of her hat's brim, she
stepped past Riker, into the holodeck.  "Computer, let's have some
fun..."  The doors closed before Riker could hear more.

Chuckling to himself, Riker ran his fingers along one of the box's
seams, trying to find the opening.  "Aunt Guinan."  He craned his neck
to look down the corridor, half expecting the rest of the crew to pop
out of one of the doors while he was occupied with the care package.
After a few moments of nothing, he tucked the box under his arm and
headed for the turbolift.  This leave promised to be a memorable one, no
matter what happened.  Or didn't.

---

"God."  The single word, flatly an entreaty, slipped out of Sarah and
into the dead silence of the shuttlebay.  The bleeps and blips of
various consoles didn't count;  like the hum of a starship's engines,
they translated to Sarah as normal, as nonexistent.  As silence.

The young humanoid manning the console just inside the interior door
said something to her, but she didn't hear him...or her.  She didn't
look in the ensign's direction long enough to notice.  Sarah
acknowledged what she assumed to be a greeting with a slight nod of her
head.  All she truly saw at the moment was the shuttlecraft *El-Baz*,
sitting poised for departure.  She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and
walked toward the shuttle on trembling legs. *Steady, Cromwell. It won't
do to have one of the juniors see your nerves.  Ditto for crying. None
of that now. You're in uniform.  Do it justice.*

She didn't want to know if it were a failing to want to weep tears of
gratitude at the sight of a Starfleet shuttlecraft.  Days before, she'd
been nearly convinced that she'd never see one again, much less travel
home in one of the bloody things.  To be meters away from one now was
almost too much to ask for. As outrageous as the thought was, she was
certain, for the space of one brief, fleeting moment, that if she
touched so much as a fingertip to the sleek grey metal, it would
shatter, and she would be left looking into the cold black eyes of her
Romulan inquisitor.  It had always been that way before.

This time, however, she knew it wouldn't turn out that way.  Her
heartbeat accelerated with each tentative step she took closer to the
shuttle, where Stephanie was waiting to join her on the trip home.

*Home.*  The mere thought of the word was beautiful.  *We're going home,
lovedy.  You'll rest in England, in good English soil with generations
of Cromwells; it's a little warmer there.  You should like the
churchyard. There's lots of trees.  You don't know what trees are, but
they're lovely things.*  She could feel tears running down her cheeks,
making wet tracks in open defiance of her earlier order.  At the same
time, she wanted to laugh in a roar of triumph that she, at least, had
survived, despite everything.  "Time for the next round,"  she announced
softly, dashing the moisture from her eyes with the sleeve of her free
hand.  After rubbing at the small wet patch on her left cuff, she looked
back over her shoulder at the androgynous humanoid. "When will the pilot
be arriving?"

"He's already here, ma'am,"  There was a slightly masculine tone to the
voice. "In the shuttle. He asked me to let you find him yourself."

"Did he?"  Sarah's brows knit together.  This was not, in her
estimation, the proper time to be playing a game of hide-and-go-seek.
No junior officer would think of doing such a thing, therefore narrowing
down the field of possible pilots to her equals or superiors.  Among
those, there was only one who knew her well enough to be that
irreverent.  *I know you're in there, Willie, and I adore you for it.
Even if you do what I think you're going to do once we've launched.*
Sarah sat down her valet case and popped the shuttle's hatch. "Hello."

Riker's bearded face grinned back at her.  "I told you I'd find the best
pilot on board."

"Mmm.  When will he be arriving?  I'd like to get underway as soon as
possible. Can't let Chelly beat me to the scones.  He'll give one to
Monty, entire, and cause a terrible mess.  Cook will scold."  She 
broke off her words with a short, dry laugh.  "Isn't that odd?  All of
this, and I'm worried about Cook scolding me because my pet might make
crumbs.  He likes to dig," she elaborated, calling Monty's antics to
mind.  "He'll try to make a tunnel in the scone before he tries to eat
any of it.  Crumbs will go everywhere, and then Cook will get all red
in the face and..." her voice faltered.  "And then..."

"Have you been crying?"

Sarah reached behind her, to retrieve the case and sling it into the
shuttle. "A little,"  she admitted, shrugging off her blathering of
moments before as she ducked her way inside.  "I'm all right, and I
intend to stay that way, rest leave or no rest leave.  Where shall I
stash this?"

Riker inclined his head to indicate the rear of the shuttle.  "Right
next to the others."

"Others?"  Sarah froze, her case halfway between the floor and her
shoulder. "What others?"

"My case, and the party case.  Some friends of mine thought the usual
sendoff wouldn't be in good taste, so we're taking it with us."

Slowly, Sarah put her case back down.  "We are taking it with us?  Are
you part of the we?"

"I am.  You're the other part."  Riker rose from the pilot's chair and
made his way back to meet Sarah.  "Would you consider a third entry in
the race for the scones?"

Sarah shook her head.  "I'd best.  You can help sweep crumbs."

Finally, Riker's grin grew into a mischievous twinkle in his eyes as he
let out the breath he didn't know he'd been holding.  "That's good,
because I'd be going along anyway."

Sarah nodded.  "I suppose Command wants a word or two with you, as well
as me."

"That's part of it,"  he admitted, the twinkle brightening.  "Can you
guess the rest?"

"You want Cook's scones."

Riker's laugh echoed through the small confines of the shuttle, rich and
encouraging.  "That might be considered another part."  *God help us all
when she's in command.*  "This isn't something easy to talk about," he
went on, taking his eyes from hers and running a hand over his beard.
"You and I have some...unfinished business that I'd like to get taken
care of."

"Are you referring to the poker game at Papa Henri's?"

"My God, you remember that?" His jaw dropped in amazement.

With a saucy smile, Sarah picked up her pack and made her way to the
rear of the shuttle.  "I probably remember a lot more about New Orleans
than you do. For one thing, I remember that you owe me twenty-three
credits."

The long-ago tune from a Zydeco band played through Riker's memory.
"Yeah, I probably do," he considered, with a shake of his head. "You
remember everything."  That, Riker had always thought, must be a
blessing and a curse. besides the pleasant, lazy shore leave, there
would always be vivid images of her Romulan captors, of the frozen wilds
of Philemon Three.  He didn't envy her that.  "Do you remember the
ancient, traditional American travelling song?"

Sarah groaned.  "Not that one, Willie, please.  I realize you're trying
to keep my spirits up, but really.  It's not necessary."

Drawing himself to his full height, which at that particular location
was less than comfortable, Riker put on an expression of mock
seriousness.  "Brit, I'm trying to keep my spirits up, because it scares
the hell out of me to think about what you've been through."

Sarah's breath came out in one heavy huff.  "I've survived, and I plan
to keep on doing so."

"Good.  I'm just coming along to see that you do.  Stow your gear, and
get in your seat.  We're preparing for launch."  He was pleased to see
that Sarah, for once, obeyed without comment.  Sliding into his seat
beside her, Riker started the procedures for their departure.

Watching him perform the familiar movements, calling out the necessary
information for the ensign at the bay controls, Sarah settled back into
her seat.  Only one night on board the station, and a short trip on the
*Baumann*, and she'd be home.  Earth.  Starfleet Command.  Cromwell
Manor...and Willie. When the shuttlebay doors opened to reveal the
endless starfield, Mersol station only a small dot, she knew what was
coming next.  The back and forth between Riker and the control operator
washed over her, the exact words lost in the comforting familiarity of
Starfleet routine.

All over the charted universe, these same words were being said by
people of different genders, ages, races, and species.  Docking clamps
released, annular force fields were activated and then deactivated, and
shuttles were launched off on adventures of leisure, research, or
battle.  At the moment, Sarah wished she would be on any one of them.
William Riker's evilly playful expression as he turned toward her after
they had cleared the *Enterprise*'s shuttlebay forced her to bow to the
inevitable.  Bloody ancient traditional American travelling song...

"Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall..."  Riker's deep, robust voice
seemed to fill the entire space before them, commanding the entire
universe to join in.

"Are you going to keep this up the entire way to the station?"

Riker paused, mulling over his options.  "Nah.  We should only get to
about fifty-seven or so, but I know how much you love tradition."

"And you've forgotten how much I hate that song,"  she added, knowing
full well she'd be joining him before he hit the "eighty" verses.  He
always seemed to be able to do that to her.  He drew the best out of
her, even when she didn't feel like it.  "What am I going to do with
you?"

"Have the leave of your life, lady, and that's a promise."

---
Epilogue
---

Far away from Mersol station, in the heart of the Romulan Empire, a
young woman, now comfortably warm and clothed in her accustomed uniform,
smiled coldly at the small, pulsating shape that floated in a vat of
thick liquid. "As you can see, General, our mission was not a total
failure."

The older male Romulan regarded her with some skepticism. "We cannot
return to Philemon Three, the crystals are lost to us, not to mention a
prisoner with a head full of more information than years of research
could provide, and we were forced to run like frightened children from a
Federation starship."  His glittering black eyes focused on the shape in
the tank.  "If this is all we have left, I am charging you, personally,
with its preservation.  If it fails then, Commander, you fail as well."

As a flicker of anger crossed the woman's features, she drew herself up
to her full height.  "Not it, General.  She."

"She, then.  It makes no difference."  He looked again to the tank, and
fund that he was indeed able to make out the form of a tiny fist.  "I
have had reasons to doubt those of...impurity,"  he warned, needing to
make no clarification.  The woman's blonde hair reminded him all too
well of her mother's treachery and deceit. "But Romulan blood, I hope,
will prove dominant."

"I regret that we have only a copy,"  she apologised, her tone sharp.
"But she is the first, the only copy.  It should make no difference in
the greater scheme of things."

The older man nodded.  "See that it doesn't."  With no further words
between them, he executed a military turn and was gone from the room.

On his wake, the woman placed a hand on the side of the vat.  "So it
begins, Father,"  she whispered as the doors closed behind him.

---

THE END
---

The end of the quartet, but the beginning of the adventure.  Watch for
the continuation, Afterthoughts, coming soon...