Chapter Text
The medics swarmed them as soon as they materialized in sickbay. Scanners flashed — someone manhandled Donovan out of the way — an orderly ushered Worf out and shut the door. Probably a good idea, Donovan decided, although it rankled him: Worf was a mess, and he wanted nothing more than to be here, but a week from now, when his emotions cooled, he’d regret letting everyone see his reaction.
Donovan smoothed out his own expression and kept a wide berth from the medical team. He circled them like a shadow, listening to the results of every scan. Malnutrition and dehydration were the worst of it, possibly unavoidable, with a broken replicator and a ruined shuttle. But there were additional symptoms to worry about: Riker’s skin was cold and slick with sweat, his teeth chattering; he routinely pitched sideways on the mattress, hanging his head over the side of the biobed with his lips stretched open in a dry, helpless retch. On his neck, bruised and infected, there was the telltale irritation of hypospray abuse. The skin there had turned purple and green, gaping open at the pore-like holes where unknown medication had been administered.
When the patient had stabilized and the extraneous medics had gone away, silence crept in. Peaceful, strained, with the smell of infection and vomit hanging in the air. Beverly stayed behind, a laser regenerator pinched between her thumb and forefinger. She ran it over the ruined skin on Riker’s neck without a word.
Her professional mask didn’t crack, exactly. Her expression stayed calm and cool, the empathetic but almost-bored facade that all the best doctors learned when they were young. It was the kind of face that said, “Yes, it hurts, but that’s okay — it’s really nothing to worry about.” But behind Beverly, where the patient couldn’t see, her back muscles were so tight that her shoulder blades showed through her lab coat. Donovan eyed that note of tension and then grabbed a rag, easing into Beverly’s peripheral vision so he could mop up the mess of stomach acid and saliva on the sickbay floor.
When he stood up again, she had that shoulder tension under control. Perfectly relaxed now — or so it seemed — Beverly aimed her beam at the knot of infected flesh on Riker’s throat. Cloudy blue eyes followed her, studying her face.
“You’re awake, Will?” she asked.
No response. Donovan could see the line of concern between Beverly’s eyebrows, but she masked it well, keeping her voice light and teasing.
“Deanna will be glad you shaved your beard,” she said, almost begging for a reaction. When Riker neither smiled nor responded, she ran a gentle finger over his healed hypospray wound and said, “You want to tell me how you got this?”
“You know me,” Riker said.
“Yes?” said Beverly, not understanding. “I thought I did. But the Will Riker I know doesn’t take dryhaxalyn. What happened down there, Will?”
The patient’s face remained closed-off. For Donovan, a stranger, the meaning of those words, “You know me,” was instantly clear. He stepped forward, easing Beverly out of Riker’s line of sight.
“We haven’t met,” he said, presenting his hand. Riker shook it, his grip weak and his skin clammy. “I’m Lieutenant Commander Donovan of the U.S.S. Enterprise.”
There was no flicker of recognition in Riker’s eyes. He let his hand fall.
“Federation,” he said. “Am I a prisoner, then?”
Beverly stirred at Donovan’s side. He put his hand on hers, below the biobed, out of Riker’s line of sight — a silent command to stay silent.
“Why would you be a prisoner?” he asked.
A lazy smile spread over Riker’s face. With no answer forthcoming, Donovan scanned down Riker’s naked body. Whip scars curled around his shoulders and over his ribs, where the lash had bitten into him and left a permanent mark. But it wasn’t just scars that branded him as different. On his wrist, a small black insignia stood out against the pale skin.
“A Ferengi design?” Donovan asked, turning Riker’s hand over.
He closed his fingers into a loose fist. “Yes,” he said.
“You didn’t have that tattoo when you left,” Beverly cut in.
“Left?” He studied her distantly, without emotion. Donovan traced a finger over the Ferengi tattoo design — a simple hammer, a symbol of some sort — but he’d barely made it around the deadly-looking curve of the hammer head when Riker jerked his hand away. Absently, Donovan said to Beverly,
“What are the symptoms of long-term dryhaxalyn abuse?”
“Long-term?” She pursed her lips. She wanted to argue with him — Donovan could sense it — the same way Worf refused to believe that Commander Riker would steal drugs from the Ferengi. But there was a new, hard edge in her eyes that told Donovan she’d already accepted the truth. “Heart arrhythmia and high blood pressure. Impotence.” Riker’s face remained expressionless. “Memory loss,” Beverly admitted.
“Is it permanent?”
Riker’s eyes had lost focus. He turned his head away, arms crossed loosely over his scarred chest. One palm rested over a thick, silver scar on his abdomen, where someone must have dug a curved blade into his flesh.
“It could be,” said Beverly quietly. “But just going through withdrawal could lift the brain fog. Commander—”
“Call me Lieutenant Commander,” said Donovan in a soft voice, pleading with her with his eyes.
She understood. “Lieutenant Commander, dryhaxalyn has been prohibited in Federation space for more than a century. Most medical research conducted on this subject is carried through by out-of-the-way rehab programs on non-Federation worlds. The gap in research communication can be immense.”
He nodded. A glance at Riker showed him — apparently — asleep, but his shoulders were tense, his biceps standing out, his skin still covered in a sheen of fresh sweat.
“Tell him who he is,” Donovan suggested.
“I had planned to,” said Beverly a bit dryly. She edged past Donovan, outwardly smiling. But when she smoothed Riker’s hair back, as Riker unconsciously flinched at her touch, there was a hint of pain in her eyes. “I’ve got him from here, Lieutenant Commander,” she said. “You may go.”
“Crusher to Donovan.”
Donovan jerked awake, sucking in his first deep breath in over an hour. There was a crease on his cheek from where he’d fallen asleep against his desk, and he looked first one way, then the other, trying to determine where Crusher’s voice was coming from. His uniform tunic lay draped over the foot of his unused bed, and he took his time unfolding it and searching for the combadge. “Donovan here,” he said calmly, palming a layer of sweat off the back of his neck.
“Can you come to sickbay, Lieutenant Commander?”
“An emergency?” Donovan asked.
“The opposite.” She hesitated. “I’m clearing Commander Riker. To return to his quarters at least.”
Donovan assessed this, his eyes flickering. It had been a long two weeks since he and Worf found Riker on Ipsand. He’d spent most of that time struggling to keep the bridge crew focused — not an easy task when they had little to work on and a long-lost first officer to welcome back. And of course, he’d been observing Picard, picking his brain, trying to determine his own spot on this ship. The uncertainty was unsettling. He was fairly sure he wouldn’t be summarily kicked off at the next space station. That wasn’t the Enterprise’s style. But…
“Why are you telling me?” he asked. “I don’t imagine it’s because of my rank.”
A pause. “No,” Crusher admitted. “He asked for you.”
Donovan sat up slowly. “He asked for me?” No answer. “And why is that?”
He listened closely to the quiet warble of static. There were fluctuations that he thought indicated movement. Like she was angling away from a crowd of eavesdropping medics — or from Riker himself.
“You know,” Beverly said finally, voice low and packed with meaning, “he’s had a lot of visitors since he checked in.”
Donovan stayed silent. He’d seen the visitor’s log. And he’d known since his first cold, stiff welcome here that Riker had a lot of friends.
“They all remember him,” Beverly said. “We all remember him as Will Riker. Commander of the Enterprise. His memory is intact — mostly, now — but for the past fortnight he’s had a steady stream of visitors telling him how they used to watch him play trombone in Ten-Forward, or how he helped them fill out paperwork for a promotion, or…”
Donovan had caught Counselor Troi crying once — hidden off a main corridor, tucked into a Jeffries Tube when she was supposed to be on the bridge. And just this morning, after he and Picard shared a cup of tea, he’d listened to the captain stumble over “Number One” again before settling on Donovan’s first name. The only time he’d used it in over a year.
He took a slow, deep breath.
“You don’t remember him,” Beverly said carefully. “The way he was. You have no expectations.”
“No. And I took his position, of course. I imagine that factors into it.”
“He wants to speak to you,” said Beverly, her voice firm. She ignored the probe about rank. If she knew how Riker felt about Donovan, she wasn’t talking.
“I’ll be there,” Donovan said.
The man waiting in sickbay was closer — much closer — to the personnel photo still pinned to his file. He was in the head when Donovan entered, but the door was open, so he could see Riker bent over the sink, vigorously washing red-knuckled hands with a hospital soap so dry and antiseptic that it might just crack his skin. Donovan stayed back, hovering just outside Riker’s peripheral vision (he hoped). Now, the man’s infamous height was apparent — at least as tall as Worf, perhaps a touch taller — and a healthier weight now, after two weeks in sickbay. His pale skin had turned ruddy, his beard was growing in, his too-long hair was clean and soft, not quite so damaged as Donovan had assumed.
But there were still bags under his eyes.
“I remember you,” Riker called from the bathroom. He had a good voice, Donovan decided at once. Boisterous, cheerful. The kind of voice that set ensigns at ease. “I halfway-thought you were going to arrest me.”
He scrubbed the water off his hands and turned to face Donovan. One look at his smile and Donovan understood the appeal without liking it. If Riker were healthy, that smile would probably win Donovan over in a heartbeat. But right now, impish and infectious though it was, it struck him as a little forced.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” he asked.
Riker’s smile dropped in an instant. He blinked at Donovan — the word ‘sir’ — and then recovered. Hands in his pockets, shoulders down, he said, “I thought you could show me where my quarters are.”
Donovan nodded. “Dr. Crusher told me you’d been cleared.”
“In a manner of speaking.” He shrugged. “Not cleared for duty. But at least I can get out of these paper pajamas and into…”
He searched the room as if he might find the right words hiding somewhere behind Beverly’s medical equipment. Couldn’t he remember what he used to wear, out of uniform? Or was he the type to never wear civilian clothes at all? Donovan gave Riker a moment to think, but nothing was forthcoming. After an awkward silence, he gestured subtly to the door, just a casual lifting of the index finger.
Riker nodded. He caught up to Donovan in one stride, rubbing the back of his neck. In the hall, where every passing petty officer seemed determined to gawk at Riker, Donovan tried to distract him.
“Dr. Crusher told me you got your memory back,” he said.
“Mostly,” Riker nodded. He half-smiled and amended his statement. “Fully. Just… it doesn’t feel right.”
“No?”
“Not yet.” They walked in silence for a bit. Donovan deliberately slowed his pace, waiting to see if Riker would take the lead by muscle memory. But when he slowed down, Riker faltered. Like he didn’t even know how to get to the turbolift. “As if God has given me one face, but I make myself another,” Riker said.
Donovan frowned. “Meaning what, exactly?”
“Meaning … I guess … let’s say I spent the last year or so named John Smith, with no memory of Will Riker. Now I’ve got those memories back, and I’m supposed to feel like Will Riker.” He shrugged emotionlessly. “Only I still feel like John Smith, just with Will Riker’s memories suddenly dumped inside my brain.” He blinked. “Uh, not that I really had a name,” he said. “But not having a name for your new identity doesn’t make it, you know … I mean, on Tilonus IV, he went through the same thing.”
‘He’, not ‘I’. But he most certainly meant Will Riker when he said that, because Donovan had perused Riker’s file. Tilonus IV was the planet where Riker was knocked unconscious and subjected to a brain probe that turned his memories of the Enterprise into a mere delusion. And Riker talked about all this with a casual grin. It was the casualness of it that chilled Donovan. No name, for an entire year… his sense of self so destroyed that he could talk about it with a smile…
He pushed it out of his head. They’d reached the turbolift and set in a course for Deck Eight before he placed the quote, the one Riker had recited earlier.
“Shakespeare,” Donovan said.
“Hamlet,” Riker agreed.
“I didn’t know you were a reader.” Picard had never mentioned it. Riker just gave a bashful smile.
“I’m influenced by good friends,” he said. His smile faded fast, eyes going distant. Remembering something — someone. When the turbolift doors opened, Riker led the way out, his body guiding him down a route his mind didn’t fully remember. He only stopped when he realized Donovan wasn’t following him. For a moment, standing there in the corridor, he looked lost. A sailor marooned at sea.
“This way,” Donovan said, pointing toward the guest quarters.
“No. That’s where we put the diplomats. Officer country—” Riker started to gesture down the hall, then realized in the middle of the sentence that his old quarters must have been moved. After all, he wasn’t an officer anymore, not really. Officially, he was still listed as MIA.
He snapped his mouth shut and nodded.
“They put you in my old room?” he asked, his voice carefully neutral, but beneath his thin pajamas, the tendons in his forearms were sticking out, the shoulders a too-sharp line.
“I suppose they must have,” said Donovan.
Riker gave an uneasy shrug. “Makes sense. You are the first officer. You deserve a first officer’s quarters.”
Donovan let the statement breathe. They’d selected a spacious room for Riker, a sort of guest suite usually reserved for visiting officers. Riker stepped inside — faltered — studied the room in a slow turn. No decorations, no personal effects. Riker rubbed his thumb against his forefinger.
“My things?” he asked lightly.
Did he remember his things?
“Counselor Troi went through them,” Donovan said. “I believe she saved most, if not all, of what she found. I was there when she boxed them up.”
“Troi,” Riker said. A spark entered his eyes and he grinned at Donovan, a genuine smile this time. “She visited me in sickbay. Deanna!”
“Yes.”
“Okay, lead me to her!”
Donovan suspected Riker knew the way. Troi’s quarters weren’t far, so he kept his pace slow as a snail, letting Riker run ahead and giving himself time to check Troi’s schedule on his PADD. No patients right now. Good. Ahead of him, Riker had stopped, studying two identical doors on either side of the hallway. He hesitantly drifted toward the correct one and raised his hand to hit the chime.
The door slid open before he could.
“You set your door to let me in?” Riker called, eyes sparkling.
From inside there was a gasp — a crash of a dropped PADD hitting the floor — and Troi came into view. Donovan expected her to rush to Riker, to hug him. But curiously, she held back.
“Will,” she said, and she lapsed into silence. Her dark eyes scanned his face; her fingers hovered centimeters from his cheek, without touching him. She let her hand fall.
For half a second, Riker looked confused; the deliberate decision not to touch him, the reserved greeting… The smile on his face turned hard.
“I heard you kept my things,” he said, and his voice didn’t quite come out right. The smile fractured a little before he dropped it, unable to maintain the facade. He smoothed a palm over his hospital pajama top, looking more like a man at a funeral now. “I was hoping to find something to wear.”
“Of course.” Troi backed away from him, but she never really turned around, never let him out of her sight. Inside her quarters, Donovan could see the pile of boxes taking up space in every corner. A polished trombone stood on display, but Riker seemed not to recognize it. He watched expressionlessly as Troi examined the boxes, a little flustered. They were unlabeled, and Donovan couldn’t remember which ones they’d shoved clothes into and which held personal effects, so he figured Troi couldn’t either. Finally, frustrated, she abandoned the boxes and opened her wardrobe. She cast Riker a glance, hopeful and disbelieving and restrained, like she wanted to run to him, but kept holding herself back.
What did she sense inside him that made her hold herself back?
“Here,” Deanna said.
She pulled a sweater from its hanger. Riker took it, a line appearing between his eyebrows. He held the soft material to his nose.
“I think I remember this,” he said softly. Then, with a strange, sharp smile: “Smells like you.”
Deanna looked like she might cry. It was inconceivable to Donovan that anyone who cared for her could look at her like that and not go to her — not hold her. But Riker didn’t. He glanced at the ornate Betazoid mirror hanging on Deanna’s wall and deliberately turned his back on it, and he stripped out of his pajama top without a hint of modesty. His scars were on display for the span of a single breath, and then he pulled the sweater over his head.
Donovan glanced at Deanna. Her face had shuttered. There was still standing water in her eyes, but her cheeks had gone cold, the flush of tears dissipating. A ripple of shock tightened the air between them, both of them unnerved by the sudden — almost pointed — display.
“I’ll wait outside,” Donovan decided, hoping to escape the quickly deteriorating reunion.
“No,” said Riker and Troi as one. Troi’s voice was desperate; Riker’s, disinterested. He crouched before the boxes and tugged them open one by one, examining the contents with a listlessness that seemed to make Troi squirm. Riker pulled out one of his own uniforms, studied it without recognition, and stuffed it back inside. He unearthed an old book, its pages yellowed and fragile, and turned it this way and that without opening. He tossed it aside with careless indifference.
Troi’s face shuttered. She picked the book up — not exactly gently, but with a sort of distant numbness that concerned Donovan. She clasped it close to her chest as she backed off. Ode to Psyche — Donovan could see the lettering on the cover now. Helplessly, Deanna met his eyes, practically pleading with him.
“Why don’t you select some clothes, Commander, and you can go get some rest,” Donovan suggested. The building tension was almost unbearable by this point.
With a bored expression, Riker stood. He collected an armful of civilian clothes and bundled them up without any care for the wrinkles. “Alright,” he said without looking at Deanna. “I’m done here.”
They were halfway out the door when Deanna spoke.
“Will,” she said, voice low and wobbling, “do you remember me?”
He stopped. His face, when he turned, was expressionless. “Of course I remember you,” he said with convincing warmth. He hesitated, held his hand out to her, but he couldn’t hide the reluctance that tensed his shoulders and made his fingers curl. “Imzadi,” he said.
Deanna blinked furiously. Her hands tightened over the Keats book until her knuckles turned white.
“I do remember you,” Riker insisted, letting his hand fall.
“I know,” Deanna whispered. “But you didn’t, did you? Not until very recently.”
He didn’t answer. Deanna stared at the floor, at Riker’s bare feet. Her chest swelled as she took a deep breath. With a flick of her eyes, she asked Donovan to leave, but all he could do was edge further down the hall and turn away.
“You don’t have to feel ashamed,” he heard Deanna say.
Donovan snuck a glance. The bored expression on Riker’s face had abruptly twisted into outrage, incredulity — like someone had walked in on him while he was on the toilet, and now they wouldn’t leave. His voice, when he spoke, was unrecognizable: dark and firm, laced with malice.
“Get the hell out of my head, Counselor,” he hissed. He glanced around the quarters, at the boxes tucked into every corner, and then tossed his bundle of clothing on the floor in disgust.
“Will!” Deanna cried as he walked away. She raced to the door and stopped there, like she couldn’t follow him. He stalked right past Donovan without seeing him. Fury rolled off him in waves, almost tangible; a bristle that warned other people to stay away. The snarl on his lips was colorless, fixed.
By the time he reached his new quarters, he was trembling too hard to type the access code.
“What about your things?” Deanna called.
Riker stabbed his code into the doorpad and shouted back, “They’re not mine!”