Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

He's two years old, and in the sickroom bed, his mother is dying.

It's a slow sickness, the kind that sneaks up on you and saps the color from your skin. Yesterday she was the smartest person Will Riker knew. Adept at languages, capable of weaving worlds out of her mind alone. Now that spark is gone and in the sick room, one second at a time, his heart is dying, too.

At least deaths like this, by prolonged disease, are rare. At least he'll never go through this again.

He's fifty-nine, and in the sickroom bed, Thad is dying.