Chapter Text
Donovan knew why they were gathered in Picard’s ready room. Dr. Crusher, Counselor Troi, and Captain Picard had already signed the paperwork to return Commander Riker to limited light duty. He’d read the reports. Riker was, as of two days ago, no longer dryhaxalyn-dependent. His counselor reported full cooperation and baseline mental stability, with a strong recommendation that Riker return to work as soon as possible. He had passed all the necessary physical tests. All that remained was to inform the commander himself.
But when Riker stepped through the door, thin and pale, with his beard neatly trimmed and his hair clipped short again, Donovan still thought he looked like a lost child.
“Number One,” said Picard with forced brightness. Riker froze just inside the doorway, his eyes darting from one officer to the next. He eased his back against the wall and stayed where he was.
“Captain,” he said. He glanced at Deanna and a ghost of a smile crossed his face before it disappeared. “What’s going on?”
“You’re out of uniform, first of all.” Picard stepped forward while Riker was still processing this. By the time he handed over a PADD, Riker understood. He searched Picard’s face, his eyebrows raised, and then turned his attention to the PADD screen – to his orders.
The smile came back. At Donovan’s side, Deanna took a deep breath, her shoulders lifting from a slouch they’d been set in for months. She offered her hand tentatively, as if she wasn’t sure what would happen, and after a moment Riker reached out and hooked his fingers around hers.
“Welcome back, Will,” she said.
The new haircut was disconcerting. The uniform, too. For the past few months, the name “William Riker” had been connected to the image in Donovan’s mind of a gaunt, naked man gasping for breath on a filthy farmhouse bed, his pale skin covered in scars. Even as his beard grew in, the long hair remained, and that, paired with the civilian clothes, kept the Ferengi sex slave from really solidifying into “Will Riker” in Donovan’s head.
But now, from head to toe, the images matched up. The comfortable disconnect had been removed. The man sitting beside him in the Enterprise’s Alpha-shuttle was the same as the man in Starfleet’s personnel files: a sweep of brown hair, just slightly tinged with silver; a full beard, neatly clipped and soft to the touch; broad shoulders and sharp blue eyes scanning the controls. Will Riker had finally returned.
“Alright,” Riker said briskly, his fingers dancing over the dashboard. “What’s on the agenda?”
It had fallen to Donovan to make sure Riker’s practical skills were still up to snuff. He checked his PADD, where a list of routine Academy maneuvers were partitioned out.
“You’re going to take us on an empty-craft run around the moon first,” he said. “We’ll do a practice dip into the planet’s atmosphere, and if all goes well, we’ll come back for cargo and do a proper supply run down to the surface. Sound good?”
“Sounds boring,” Riker muttered, but when Donovan glanced over, he had a soft, distracted smile on his face. “Do you like conversation, Commander? Fill the silence?” His fingers hovered over a button overhead. “Or do you prefer music?”
“No music,” said Donovan a touch severely. “This is a skills test, remember?”
It was obvious that Donovan was the more stressed of the two. Riker’s grin grew a fraction.
“Conversation it is.”
He called the engines to life with a hum. He really did look better, Donovan decided, and not just superficially: there was a healthy flush to his skin and a clarity in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. When he reached for the steering stick, it was with steady hands and an air of confidence.
“Do you remember much of the last few months?” Donovan asked as Riker guided the shuttle out.
If Riker was uncomfortable with the question, he didn’t show it. He kept his eyes on the shuttle’s flight path. “Hmm … most of it. Is this part of the test?” He shot Donovan an impish grin. “Distract me with hard questions?”
“I wouldn’t do that while I’m in the passenger seat,” Donovan assured him, and Riker barked out a laugh.
“That’s how my dad handled it when we flew together,” he said. “He’d save up every bad report from school and wait till we were in the air. Called it a stress test.”
Donovan coughed, which was as close as he could get to laughing. He settled into his seat, arms crossed over his middle. The trip around the nearest moon was astonishingly smooth – better than many professionally-manned flights Donovan had taken – and by the time they dipped into the planet’s atmosphere, he’d relaxed entirely.
“Your dad taught you how to fly?” he asked, forcing himself to make conversation.
Riker angled the shuttle’s nose down. “My flight instructor taught me how to fly,” he corrected with a grin. “Dad just made sure he was doing his job.”
“And you were eleven?” Donovan guessed. He remembered from Riker’s file, but he tried to sound less certain than he was. It didn’t matter. Riker glanced over, first surprised, then with eyes narrowed.
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said, a little more guarded now. “You must have read my file pretty closely…”
“I wanted to see whose shoes I was filling,” Donovan explained. “And I knew your father. Remember?”
He could see from the slight pinching around Riker’s eyes that he didn’t.
“We called him together,” Donovan prompted him, waiting for Riker to complete the memory.
Riker chuckled. He led the shuttle back out of the atmosphere, to the relative quiet of space. “We did not,” he said. “I wouldn’t allow it.”
“You did.” Dononvan’s voice was firm.
Riker shifted uneasily in his seat. “What did he say?” he asked finally, shooting a glance at Donovan. A bit of resignation had crept into his voice.
“He never answered,” said Donovan.
At that, Riker seemed to relax a little. He guided the shuttle back into the Enterprise’s dock and settled into the clamps. Engines off, he popped the hatch and surged to his feet, ducking a little so his head didn’t clash with the low ceiling.
“C’mon,” he said, surprisingly friendly for how tense he’d been a moment ago. “Let’s load her up.”
Outside, the strain of quick manual labor battered all conversation away. Donovan leaned into it. It gave him the chance to assess what data he’d collected and compose his thoughts. Riker’s skills were unimpeachable – possibly the best flying Donovan had seen. But Picard hadn’t been worried over-much about Riker’s skills; what he really wanted Donovan to assess was Riker’s trauma. It had been a shuttle crash that led Riker into Ferengi hands over a year ago. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect a touch of discomfort, even panic, inside a shuttle now.
But as they secured their cargo and headed back inside – as Riker guided the shuttle into the blackness of space again – he looked at home. The line of his shoulders was relaxed, his face smoothed out, starlight sparkling off his eyes. His hands flowed with the grace of a seasoned athlete over the controls; he worked the steering shift like an extension of his own body. If there was any residual trauma connected to being in the shuttle, Riker expertly concealed it
And after they’d landed the shuttle and unloaded their cargo, as casually as could be, Riker intruded on Donovan’s private thoughts like a bulldozer.
“You know, I think I’m doing pretty damn good, considering my last two flights didn’t end so well,” Riker said with a grin.
Donovan’s shoulders tensed. He glanced sideways at Riker, on-guard for a tight argument.
“Two crash-landings right in a row,” Riker said.
“Yes. I saw the wreckage. Of the Romulan shuttle, I mean.”
Riker nodded. “If you remember when I took my first solo flight, you probably know how my skills matrix measured out.”
The skills matrix: a required test that every Starfleet cadet took, and which many put far too much stock in. Donovan’s had steered him away from command and into scholarship, but command had found him anyway. He thought back to Riker’s results, which he had indeed memorized.
“High marks in logic and engineering,” he said. “But your test administrator noted high levels of impulsivity, temper, rigid adherence to rules – a lack of creativity, but a good manner with other cadets. Natural leadership.”
“So I went ops, with a bead on command,” said Riker with a nod of acknowledgment.
“It doesn’t seem to be an accurate assessment,” said Donovan frankly.
“No?”
“I would rate you low on logic, high on creativity,” Donovan said. “I certainly would not make note of any rigid adherence to rules.”
Riker laughed. “What did I do to score so low on logic?”
Donovan shifted in his seat, a slight pause before he replied, “It’s just an impression.” He was beginning to regret his comments.
“Well, my point was just that I’m pretty good at shuttle maintenance,” Riker said, gently changing the topic – maybe because he noticed Donovan’s blush. “Growing up in Valdez, it helps to know a little something about mechanics. You rely on technology to keep you alive out there. If the climate control breaks, you gotta know how to fix it – and you better know how to build a warm shelter and a fire, too, just in case.”
Donovan nodded, thinking absently of Kallonia and its ‘primitive’ comforts, as his fellow officers had seen them. “I too scored high in engineering,” he said.
Kyle Riker had laughed at him when he learned that. He hadn’t believed it. Something about Donovan – his diminutive height, maybe, or his childishly light hair, or his polite mannerisms – had made it hard for Kyle to imagine him elbow-deep in engine grease. But Will Riker just nodded again, like it was the most natural thing in the world. To Donovan, the Rikers were worlds apart in many ways.
“I’m pretty handy with a wrench,” Riker said. “I’ve been in a few sticky situations where I had to do some battlefield repairs – I’d like to think I’m pretty good at it.” He shrugged. “But I couldn’t figure out that Romulan shuttle for the life of me.”
Donovan stayed silent.
“I remember escaping from that ship,” said Riker, his voice distant. “I didn’t think I knew how to fly. So far as I remembered, I’d never done it before. But the controls made sense to me; it was instinctive. I was able to get the engines going, activate my shields, dodge a few parting shots.” He punched a button on the dashboard, instructing the Enterprise to open her docking bay. “But all that knowledge faded when my adrenaline crashed. After I landed on Ipsand, I could never get it to come back. I worked on that shuttle for months and never figured out how to get it up and running again.”
“Maybe you didn’t want to leave,” Donovan suggested, bracing himself for the reply.
Riker was in the middle of landing the shuttle, but he ripped his eyes away from the viewscreen to glance at Donovan, eyebrows raised. He guided the shuttle into the docking clamps by muscle memory. “Commander,” he said, and his stammer returned, stealing his words for just half a second. He laughed at himself and shut the engines off. “Commander,” he tried again, calmer now, “my options were to leave or to die there.”
I know, Donovan thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. He just offered Riker a pale smile and checked off the shuttle flight skills on his PADD. Riker’s smile dropped. He searched Donovan’s face, eyes darting, hands lax on the controls, and Donovan already regretted saying anything, wished he could take it back. Determined not to give anything else away, he showed Riker the PADD, with all his flight skills signed off.
“Good to go,” he said.
It was near the end of Beta Shift, and according to Donovan’s PADD, Counselor Troi’s last patient had already left for the day. He circled the hallway a few times to make sure – just in case the session ran over. In his head, he replayed the day from that early-morning meeting in Picard’s ready room all the way until now – a day filled with skills tests that would have offended any ensign, but that Riker went through with good cheer and aplomb.
He closed his eyes. He saw a fire on Kallonia, the flames licking color over Luvo’s cloth-wrapped shins, the dirt blackening his fingernails – the scent of wine on his breath when he leaned close, their fingers hooking together when he tried to pull back. The heat of Luvo’s body seared through the memory and left a flush of color on his skin.
Donovan concentrated all his mental energy on that image and collapsed it into a field of sparks. They descended, slow and hot, into his veins. He wasn’t here to talk about Luvo. He was here to talk about Riker – about that moment in the meeting with Picard when Will Riker took Deanna’s hand and smiled at her.
Welcome back, Will, she said.
Was he back? Really? His skills were fine. His demeanor was sound. But Donovan thought of Luvo and dug his fingernails into his palms. It felt too easy.
And he supposed only an empath would know the truth.
He forced himself to activate Deanna’s door chime. He’d left Riker at Worf’s, where the two were enthusiastically discussing which opera programme to load into the holodeck – Klingon, historical, with a real-life murder among the orchestra. Worf’s door had let Riker in automatically; Deanna’s too, the last time they were here.
And Donovan’s tent on Kallonia had a protective field that he’d set to let Luvo in whenever he wanted – whenever he needed shelter. Whenever he wanted, except that last night. The night he threw Luvo out. Rejected. The night Luvo died. Abandoned.
Donovan turned on his heel, his heart hammering. He was halfway down the hall when Deanna’s door hissed open.
“Commander?” she called, her voice gentle. Donovan froze, his hands clenched into fists. He forced himself to turn, to face her, and felt the muscles of his face tugging into a mask. Deanna just studied him, those wide black eyes threatening to pull him toward her. She stepped out of the doorway, gestured inside. “Would you like to come in?” she asked.
No escape now. Stiffly, Donovan made his way back like a prisoner walking straight to the firing squad. He brushed past Deanna, careful not to touch her, as if that might help box up the memories. A desperate war to contain the chaos was being waged. Donovan was losing this battle.
“I wanted to talk to you about Commander Riker,” he said, relieved to hear his voice was steady.
“Oh?” Deanna circled him, one eyebrow raised. If he let her get the next word in, she’d have total control over the conversation. Donovan moved forward decisively and took a seat in Deanna’s chair.
“It’s about our meeting this morning,” he said firmly.
Deanna cocked her head. Slowly, she sank into the patient’s couch, studying Donovan all the while.
“As you know, I’ve been conducting Commander Riker’s skill tests,” Donovan said.
“And has he performed adequately?”
She was amazing at keeping her voice totally neutral. Donovan’s eyes glinted with appreciation. “More than adequately,” he admitted. “I’d heard he was the best pilot on the Enterprise…?”
“Don’t let him hear you say that,” said Deanna dryly.
“Well, I think it’s still true, from what I’ve seen.” Donovan bit his lip. He saw again Deanna’s fingers hooked with Will’s. “Counselor…”
Sensing the change in mood, Deanna took a slow, steadying breath.
“He seems fine,” Donovan said, trying to convey a thousand meanings in those three words. He reminded himself that empaths don’t read minds.
“But you have reason to believe he isn’t?” Deanna prompted.
How could she say that so calmly – discuss this like it didn’t affect her? Donovan searched her face, suddenly uncertain.
“I’m asking you,” he said. “Is he fine? Is there anything I should be aware of?”
He was usually great at reading faces, but if Deanna’s expression shifted, it was so minute that Donovan couldn’t tell.
“I’m not his counselor, Commander,” Deanna said almost apologetically. “Have you spoken with his doctor?”
“I’m speaking to you,” said Donovan. He kept his voice level and calm. “What do you sense from him?”
Silence.
“Is he ready for duty?”
Silence.
Then, slowly: “I would not have signed his release form if he weren’t ready,” Deanna said.
“Then why do I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?”
Deanna’s mask was perfect. When he stared into her eyes, all he saw was himself. With a sigh, Donovan drew himself up and prepped his last decent shot.
“Earlier today,” he said, “in Picard’s ready room, when you took Commander Riker’s hand. What did you sense from him then?”
The only sign of life from Deanna was the slow rise and fall of her chest. Only gradually did she look down at her clasped hands. Her thumb ran over a ring on her index finger, the sort of complex alien jewelry that Starfleet officers loved to bring home to their spouses. Had she picked that out herself? Was it a gift? A souvenir?
“The truth is, Commander,” said Deanna heavily, her eyes down, “I don’t sense anything from Commander Riker.”
Donovan stared at her. “Nothing?” he said as her gaze shifted uncomfortably. “You mean he doesn’t feel anything at all – or do you mean he’s blocked you out?
“I mean that I’ve blocked him out,” Deanna said, meeting Donovan’s eyes. She pushed her breath out in a sigh. “When Commander Riker returned to the Enterprise, he was like a stranger to me. There was nothing familiar waiting for me in his mind.”
“But now that he’s gotten his memories back…”
“Perhaps it’s different,” Deanna acknowledged, her voice guarded. “But I didn’t block him merely because I sensed a stranger. The level of self-hatred and pain coming from him was simply too much – even for a trained empath – to bear.”
She kept her features fiercely composed as Donovan studied her.
“A stranger,” he breathed. He scrubbed at the short hair at the back of his neck. He’d heard the two of them were lovers once. Something more. Something alien, Betazoid. Picard had told him a story early in his time on the Enterprise, about a solo mission Riker went on to a terraforming planet. When he was caught in an avalanche, Deanna Troi sensed it, even from light-years away. There was no one else she could sense like that; Donovan knew it because he’d asked her to do it himself, whenever his away teams got separated, to no avail.
“But he is the same man,” Donovan said, just to make sure. He was no longer sure who he was trying to convince, himself or Deanna.
“Oh, yes,” said Deanna, her voice soft and brittle. “Of that I’m sure. Commander…”
Donovan waited. He kept his face open, unguarded. He let her read him.
“After Kallonia,” Deanna said, “did you ever return to being the same person? Or are you a stranger still?”
Donovan took a seat next to Geordi and grabbed the deck of cards while he waited, trying un-self-consciously to pull off a bridge shuffle. He’d never been good at it – his hands were too small, first of all, with a lack of dexterity that had plagued him ever since Kallonia, when he went to battle with the Bajoran electricity guns that always left his hand numb and tingling. The other issue was that, until the Enterprise, he’d had vanishingly few invitations to play cards at all. The setting was both uncomfortable and unfamiliar.
He cut the deck and took one small stack in each hand. Halfway through the bridge, as usual, the cards fluttered out of his control. Worf smacked his hand down on top of them as they sprayed across the table, catching a good chunk of the deck before it went too far.
“Sorry,” Donovan muttered.
He knelt beneath the table to gather everything that had spilled while the conversation went on overhead. He wished he could just stay there under the table, sheltered.
“Think he’s coming?” Geordi asked.
“Of course he is coming,” Worf rumbled. “I invited him.”
“Well, did he say yes?”
Donovan stretched out his arm to gather the last of the cards. Shoulders aching, he popped back up into his seat.
“Warriors do not require words to communicate,” said Worf stiffly.
Geordi parceled out the chips with a sigh. “So he didn’t say yes.”
“I think he’ll come, for what it’s worth,” Beverly chimed in. She’d been called in to replace Deanna, who’d been bawled out at their last match by O’Brien for using her empathic powers to cheat. And Donovan had been called in to replace O’Brien, who’d been bawled out for offending Deanna with his baseless accusations. The truth was, O’Brien just wasn’t great at poker.
“He’d been doing better lately,” Beverly continued. “He’s back to joking with me during his check-ups.”
Worf grunted in agreement. “We have resumed our regular meetings for morning calisthenics,” he said.
Donovan did a double-take at that, but weirdly, no one else at the table seemed surprised. He made a mental note to ask questions later.
“I mean, he seems better,” Geordi allowed. “But have any of us had anything more than surface interactions with him?” He angled his head toward Beverly. “What about Counselor Troi? Last I heard, they weren’t even speaking.”
A thick silence wrapped around them. Beverly shifted uneasily in her seat. She masked her discomfort with a quick, almost convincing smile. “Counselor Troi is just glad he cut his hair,” she said, her voice warm. “I don’t think she could handle the long flowing locks. Too much like Wyatt.”
A round of chuckles went across the table. Donovan made a note to ask about Wyatt later, too. He passed the deck of cards to Worf.
“Well, he’s officially late,” Geordi said. “Why don’t we get started?”
It was notable that no one suggested calling him. Worf dealt the cards with brutal precision; he had a habit of doling them out with so much strength that the cards were bent and creased. Donovan studied his hand, arranging the cards the way he liked them, by color rather than suit. A thick silence settled in between each player and hung over their heads like a wreath of smoke.
“Speaking of haircuts…” Geordi started, then hesitated. His fingers twitched as he contemplated whether to reorganize his cards. “I was there, actually, when Mr. Mott cut his hair.”
Slowly, every member of the poker party turned their heads, eyeing Geordi in silence.
“We caught each other in the hallway,” Geordi explained. “He just started chatting with me, asking about everyone in Engineering – it was just like old times, you know?”
Beverly nodded, her features suddenly fragile. At her side, Worf had lowered his head.
“And he was great with Mr. Mott,” Geordi went on. “I mean, really cheerful. Business-like. Same old Riker. But…”
Donovan kept his eyes firmly glued to his cards, his body rigid as he waited for Geordi’s words.
“But when he saw himself – I mean, when Mr. Mott handed him the mirror–”
“He did not like his haircut?” Worf interrupted gruffly. “I do not blame him. I have always contended that short hair is … unmanly.”
“Worf,” Beverly chastised.
Geordi breathed a little easier, a half-smile tugging at his lips. “No, but – it’s probably nothing.” He plucked one card out of his hand and tucked it into place on the other side. “It’s just that he dropped the mirror when he saw himself. That’s all.”
Saw himself as Commander Riker. Saw himself as the Starfleet officer who’d been missing for over a year, rather than the drug-addled sex slave he’d become. Donovan stared unseeingly at his cards, a sour knot filling his stomach with acid. His desire to be there was even less than before.
“Probably nothing,” Worf agreed, and then the door opened with a hiss and Riker ducked inside, already grinning.
“Ready to lose?” he asked brightly.
Grumbles went up all around the table. Riker slid into the only empty seat and drummed his hands against the tabletop, unaware of – or deliberately ignoring – the heavy mood. “Deal me in, Mister Worf!” he said eagerly.
The thick silence dissipated. Conversation sprang up naturally, easily – old friends catching up and teasing each other, Donovan fading into the shadows. Cards and chips scattered across the table, spilled drinks leaving dark stains on the velvet upholstery as they played.
And Riker, jovial and outgoing again, lost every hand.