Chapter Text
Counselor Troi walked onto the bridge with a sort of slow, conspicuous dignity that suggested she’d been crying. She met Donovan’s eyes only briefly — cool gaze, eyebrows arched. A reminder to keep his mouth shut about what he’d seen when he took Riker to her room.
Not that Donovan had anyone to tell. He nodded to her in greeting from his position in the command chair, and then turned to the helm, where the sight of Ro’s Bajoran earring made his stomach twist.
“Sensors?” he asked, fighting for composure.
Data tapped his screen. “Sensors show no life signs and no breathable atmosphere, sir.”
Donovan sat back with a sigh. “Take us out, then, Ensign Ro. On to the next one.”
He passed Troi a handheld PADD with all the info on their latest star system pulled up. The planets had looked hopeful on long-range scans, but up close, the would-be life signs had all turned out to be nothing but radiation interference. Yet again. It had been weeks since their cartography mission brought them to an inhabited planet, and Donovan could only hope one of these unlikely little bodies would turn out to be a suitable candidate for terraforming. That way, the bridge crew would stop feeling like their time had been wasted on busywork. He kept an eye on the viewport and tried to stay sharp as they surveyed the next planet.
“Sensors show no life signs and no breathable atmosphere, sir,” said Data again, in exactly the same tone. Donovan made sure not to sigh this time, just to break the pattern.
“Very well. Ensign, take us out. Mister Data, as we approach the next planet, I’d like you to—”
Behind Donovan, the turbolift doors hissed open, igniting the fight-or-flight instincts of everyone on the bridge. The shift roster was full; there shouldn’t be anyone coming in now unless it was an emergency. But a civilian staggered out onto the bridge and froze, as if he didn’t know where he was. It took Donovan a moment to piece the data together and realize who was in front of him: nightclothes, pale skin, gaunt frame, blue eyes.
Riker.
“Commander—” Donovan said as he got to his feet, but Riker had acclimated himself by then, and he made a beeline straight toward the computer. He waved the ensign there out of his way. At first he just studied the controls, his eyebrows furrowed. Then he remembered how to work them so fast that by the time Donovan got to him, he’d already accessed files ten encryption layers deep.
“Commander,” Donovan said in a low voice, “you—” are not authorized to use the bridge computer. “—are not in uniform.”
Riker ignored him. He scanned the files on the screen and reached forward to tap on one, but Donovan caught his arm. Before he could say anything, Riker jerked away, using their considerable size difference to shove Donovan aside. He approached the helm. His jaw was tight, his shoulders were back … and there was a gleam of sweat in his hair, lit up by the soft white lights overhead.
“Data, with me,” he said, gripping the railing tight. If he’d ordered anyone else, they wouldn’t have moved, Donovan knew — because they were too shocked by Riker’s appearance to even speak. But Data jumped to his feet and loped toward Riker — and when Riker swayed, Data supported him on one side even as Donovan hurried forward and supported him on the other.
“Data, your place is on the bridge,” said Donovan, hauling Riker upright. Concern made his voice come out sharp. On the other side, Data got Riker stabilized and stepped away, his eyebrows furrowed.
“Commander Riker has requested my assistance,” said Data.
“I didn’t give you permission to leave,” Donovan pressed. He checked Riker’s eyes to see if he was even lucid, or if this was some sort of feverish sleepwalking. “If you state your purpose, perhaps I—”
“I need your assistance with a research project,” said Riker to Data as if Donovan hadn’t spoken. As if he hadn’t almost fallen where he stood. “We can do this in my quarters, Data. Come on.”
He swept his sweat-soaked hair back from his forehead and headed toward the turbolift — and the only thing he did to persuade Data was lightly tap his arm, but Data obeyed. Donovan watched in helpless disbelief as his Science Officer abandoned the bridge. He got a glimpse of them in the turbolift — Riker’s skin almost as pale as Data’s, and his hands shaking violently — and then the doors closed.
The bridge was silent. Donovan stared at the closed doors for a moment; he felt out-of-body, like he was floating. He cataloged the pale faces and trembling hands around him without emotion. How many of them had last seen Riker over a year ago, tall and fit and smiling? A rotten way to reintroduce him, Donovan thought, but nothing he could do about it now, and that helplessness chafed at him more than anything else. Slowly, he turned to face the helm and saw Ro watching him, a sharp smile curling her lips. She made no effort to hide it when Donovan looked at her. She just raised her chin defiantly and let the smile settle into a smirk.
“Something to say, Ensign?” asked Donovan levelly.
“No,” said Ensign Ro with a lilt to her voice. She turned back to the helm as if nothing had happened. As Donovan took his seat, he caught Troi staring at him too, with an entirely different expression: guilty, somewhat sick.
“I have to report this,” Donovan said to her, his voice almost a whisper. He tried to convey just how apologetic he was — and just how serious an incident this was — but he couldn’t tell if it got through. Troi pursed her lips and nodded, but at the helm, Ensign Ro said, in a loud, clear voice:
“Why?”
“Ensign,” Troi cautioned.
Ro turned in her seat. “You must have an awfully low opinion of us if you think something like that would impact our ability to follow orders,” she said, her voice close to a sneer. “So Riker undermined your authority — is that what you were planning to say? Surely the Killer of Kallonia can handle his authority being undermined.”
She said that last with a smile, but it was the type of smile that could cut through flesh. Donovan met her eyes, unimpressed.
“Dismissed, Ensign,” said Donovan. His voice came out flat and measured. Convincing. A few of the officers sent Ro significant looks as she left, but Troi was staring straight at Donovan, her eyebrows furrowed. No doubt she could sense his pounding heart, his sweaty palms, the inner turmoil clawing at his guts. No one else could see anything amiss, but an empath…
Donovan adjusted his combadge with a sigh. The helm and science station had been manned, quietly, by ensigns who were trying awfully hard not to catch his eye. As he stood he felt for the first time the tension that had been building among his fellow officers ever since Data obeyed Riker’s orders over his. He glanced around at them, memorizing in one brief look the subtle expressions, the discomfort that hung over them like a shroud. Then, with a quiet, casual dignity, he touched Troi on the shoulder.
“You have the conn,” he said.
This museum didn’t exist. Not anymore. Shortly after Donovan left Kallonia, it was bombed to pieces. But here, in the holosuite…
Soft light illuminated the artifacts on display. In the East Wing, where Donovan and Picard now stood, many of the artifacts came from the same dig where Donovan first met his Bajoran friend Luvo. These were the artifacts he remembered best, so there were no empty spots in the display case. He’d touched many of these artifacts himself, brushed the dirt from each surface, lifted them gently from their place in the earth and helped Luvo clean them in the shade of their tent. But in the other wings, the display cases were almost deserted. Here and there a single artifact remained, preserved by Donovan’s memory: a case of iridescent insects he and Luvo had admired; a series of sketches by an old Bajoran master, notable because on other planets, only his paintwork was known. But everything else — all those little relics that Donovan couldn’t remember — were lost to time.
“Perhaps you’d better tell me what happened,” Picard said.
Donovan turned away from the display case. He’d asked to meet Picard here, ostensibly to indulge their mutual love for archaeology. In reality, it was to give himself some breathing room, ensuring he kept his body under tight control while he explained. Easier to do that here, where he felt comfortable, rather than Picard’s ready room. He called up the memory of the incident — Data disappearing into the turbolift, Ro’s smug smile — and bit back a sigh.
“There was an incident on the bridge,” he said. “Commander Riker…”
He saw again the rumpled nightclothes hanging off Riker’s frame. The drops of sweat glistening in his hair. The stumble.
Donovan abruptly changed tracks.
“This was the capital museum on Kallonia,” he explained with a hint of pride. The control panel for the display lit up at his touch; he’d programmed the holosuite to give him access to whatever artifacts he desired. “My team contributed to these displays through our archaeological digs … before the war. I discovered this one myself.”
Picard leaned closer, his eyes narrowed. He watched as Donovan removed a slab of etched stone and held it in both hands.
“I saw a lot of trauma during that war,” said Donovan softly, his expression darkening a bit. “Before and after, too. The Bajorans have been oppressed for centuries…”
“I am…” Picard searched for the right word, his voice grave. “... familiar with their struggles. Ensign Ro…”
He trailed off. Donovan understood, anyway. He turned the slab of stone over and showed Picard the other side. The front face, the one on display, depicted a family at dinner. The other side, hidden from visitors, showed the father speared by his own weapon, the family gone.
“I worked with the Prophet of a local sect,” Donovan said. “The ethnic majority on Kallonia. In the Prophet’s ranks, I met hundreds of men who had been — in some way — tortured by Cardassians, either physically—” He thought of Luvo (just a boy, really, even younger than Donovan, and so eager to learn from someone in Starfleet, to fantasize about what he’d go through if he ever joined the Academy, if he graduated from being the dig site’s waterboy and left Kallonia, saw the stars…) and Donovan closed his eyes, his grip tightening on the stone slab, his breath quickening. “—or emotionally, socially tortured, by breaking apart their communities, killing their children and wives.”
He forced himself to study the etching, as if looking for answers. His thumb traced over the dead man’s outstretched hand. It was crude — Luvo had believed it to be an eyewitness etching, a memorial stone of sorts left behind by one of the children depicted on the other side. Donovan had disagreed; he didn’t believe there were any children left.
“Men who are traumatized,” said Donovan softly, pausing. “...especially warriors … they question authority. They disobey the people over them. They get defiant.” He shrugged minutely, a barely-noticeable shift of his shoulders. “That’s just how it is. Maybe in some way it helps. It allows them to reestablish their position in society, their rank. It might not be pleasant for everyone around them, at times, but I think…” He corrected himself. “I know it’s necessary.”
Picard moved a little closer, his voice low. “What happened on the bridge, Commander?”
Donovan huffed a humorless laugh. “Nothing and everything, sir. That’s the issue. A man who’s been through what Riker’s been through — and, well, a man with his record, on top of that — my instinct is to say that a little insubordination is to be expected. That we should let it slide.” He ground his thumbnail against the stone grooves, and when he spoke again, his voice came out haltingly, wrenched from his throat one word at a time. “In fact, I still think that. The issue is it wasn’t just him. And trust me, I know too well that it doesn’t look good for an outsider such as myself to pull old-timers up for disrespect. When you’re an outsider, you have to take the disrespect with a smile, or you’ll never be accepted. I learned that lesson too well on Kallonia. There was a time when—”
He saw the horses again. Always, he called those native creatures horses, because it made Luvo laugh. But when the charge on Juwal went wrong, when the horses fell and died, that little joke bit Donovan in the ass. He couldn’t remember the local word for these beasts, and all he could do was gesture helplessly, stuttering in a mix of English and dialectical Bajoran as he tried to rectify his own stupid mistake, the mistake that landed him here with slick animal death reeking in the air, in the wet earth clinging to his cuffs, and Bajoran blood dripping from his hands—
“Donovan,” Picard snapped.
The stone slab slipped from Donovan’s hands. He blinked down at it, shattered in pieces on the floor. His breath came out in shallow gasps.
“Computer,” he said, “revert to starting parameters.”
The stone slab disappeared. It popped back into existence, whole and unharmed, behind the display glass.
“I don’t need to hear about Kallonia,” said Picard, softer now. “I’ve read the reports, Commander. Whatever happened there does not need to be repeated between us.”
Donovan managed a nod. Internally, he was rebuilding his emotional wall. Re-filing the errant memories. He barely heard Picard’s voice as he worked: Luvo, Kallonia, all of it folded and tucked away…
“And you are not an outsider on this ship,” Picard was saying. “You are my first officer, my second-in-command, and my crew will treat you as such. Understood?”
“Understood,” Donovan murmured.
“Now tell me what happened on my bridge.”
Donovan told him the whole story, his heart pounding, but his voice calm. During the retelling, Picard closed in on himself. He positioned one hand over his lips, hiding his mouth — and his eyes became shuttered, unreadable.
“Your assessment?” he asked when Donovan was done.
Donovan warred with himself. Mentally, he repeated all over again the pros and cons of reporting, saw himself after the Battle of Jawal, the way he menaced the admiral who’d come to visit, nearly lost his rank, his position, his head. He swallowed hard.
“I think … if possible, sir, I think we should let it go,” he said reluctantly. “I think we should treat it as an anomaly — uncharacteristic of Commander Riker. Because, if I’m not mistaken, sir, it is uncharacteristic. No?”
Picard’s eyes flashed. “You are telling me what you think I wish to hear.”
“No, sir. I’m taking Commander Riker’s unique circumstances into account.” And trying not to think about his own behavior back on Kallonia, all the times he exploded on superior officers, or weathered explosions on his own.
The past was the past. His behavior back on Kallonia, the insubordination, the abuse. It had no place here. It was irrelevant .
“Then, Commander Data and Ensign Ro?” Picard prompted.
“I’ll defer to your judgment, sir.”
“I think not.” Picard folded his hands behind his back, shoulders squared. He glanced at the stone slab in its display case. “You will handle them, Commander, because it is you they disrespected. I expect a report in the morning, with the details of your reprimand and whatever punishment you see suitable.”
“Sir, Ensign Ro — perhaps it would be better if someone else—” The glimmer of her earpiece in the soft bridge lights. Internal chaos threatened to break loose, once again. Donovan doubled down his focus.
“You will handle it, Commander.” There was fire in Picard’s eyes. But a sad smile touched his lips. “You have my sympathies. I know Ensign Ro can be a handful.”
I know she holds you responsible for Kallonia, was what he meant. To act as if Donovan were just shirking a mildly unpleasant task … clearly it was meant to be a kindness, but a seed of helpless resentment burned in Donovan’s chest. He grunted and tried to keep his displeasure off his face. He worked his features into a more acceptable mask, determined to reflect a calmer demeanor, one that didn’t mirror how he really felt. With control regained once more, he turned his attention back to Picard … and knew at once that Picard had seen the whole struggle. It was there in the thin, somber line of his lips, the wary hint of softness in his eyes. But all Picard said was:
“I do agree it’s concerning.” His gaze went distant. He studied the stone slab. His fingertips trailed against the glass, but unlike Donovan, he didn’t open the case to touch it. “May I offer you some advice?” he asked.
“Of course, sir.”
“Speak to Data,” Picard said. “Find out what Commander Riker ordered him to do.”
He met Donovan’s eyes and let the full weight of his gaze rest between them.
“Get a full report,” he said.