Author's Note: A companion piece to 'The Other Side' (not necessary to read that one first, but I would recommend it). This is more from Will's side of things. It's not a mirror of the other piece, as I figured different events would be significant for him.
** Triggery stuff: Stillbirth, baby loss. **
Post-Nemesis.
"I see the sun go down on the river
I feel the wind blow, I would've stayed to grey
I feel the air around you, it's kinda closing in
Do you feel it fall or do you feel at all? I can."
The Feel Again (Stay) – Blue October
1.
Night is indistinguishable from day on a starship; only the faint glow of a chronometer can tell the difference.
He always liked night better, until the night his imzadi screams out in his mind: I can't feel her, Will.
Three minutes is enough to shove on a uniform and rush her to sickbay, enough for their world to shatter in an instant when the scan reveals no heartbeat. He disconnects himself from the whole process, gives Deanna his hand and his heart and all his wholeness while he cracks under his skin, piece by piece.
Looking away isn't an option, not when the baby has got Deanna's hair and Deanna's eyes and his long eyelashes, on those small eyes that were days from being open wide.
2.
Being in their quarters is worse than he could have imagined; his heartbeat roars in his ears at the sight of all those small, insignificant things that are now cutting into his open wound like shards of glass. Suddenly he's gasping, fighting for control, because this wasn't supposed to happen, and everything is so wrong and upside down and utterly fucked up beyond belief that he can't think of a single way to fix it.
Rubbing at his eyes, Will tries to think clearly. He comes to the conclusion that they might want the baby things later, even if he feels like hurling the whole lot into the matter reclamator.
He isn't sure whether it's more for Deanna or for him; either way, he feels better when the space is empty of all those things that would remind them: miniscule socks and soft toys and bundles of blankets in pastel shades.
A tiny teddy bear, well-worn with its fur rubbed away in places makes him pause: Jack's first gift to Wesley, given to them by Beverly with the promise that it would quieten any night-time cries. Will thinks about the crashing quiet when their little girl was pulled from Deanna, the silence that made their hearts ache with lost possibilities. Stroking the bear's fur, he tosses it into the storage crate, snaps the lid closed.
Out of sight, not out of mind; somehow it still helps just a little.
3.
Back from the small funeral service, she pulls her hand from his, flinches away when he strokes her hair.
He tries not to let it hurt, because he can feel that she's wrung out and still physically sore and tired, her breasts aching with the pain of the milk their baby never needed. Lets her fall back to sleep while he sits and tries to read the PADD of literature Dr Alyssa Ogawa recommended.
They're linked, and he felt the flutter of that tiny, bright mind in his just as she did. He used to tease her by telling her he barely noticed it, that it was something her Betazoid senses were more adept at picking up on. If he's honest with himself, it scared him a little to be so connected to their unborn child, but he grew to love those incoherent, fleeting little thoughts that were strongest whenever their daughter was awake and happily kicking away at Deanna's rib cage.
It seems strange, to mourn the loss of something he never used to think he wanted. It makes no sense.
Taking care of his wife is the only thing that makes sense to him right now: forcing her to spoon some food into her mouth, helping her into the shower and off the floor when she simply refuses to get up.
His silence and the grim set of his jaw don't go unnoticed. Alyssa repeatedly asks if he wants to talk, and offers to sit with Deanna so he can have a break, but he stubbornly brushes off any of her attempts to comfort him. For him, it's simple: Deanna is hurting and he needs to help her, as if by alleviating the physical pain he can bear some of it for her.
Crying with the shower turned up high so she won't hear seems a small price to pay to hold himself together.
4.
"I'm sorry, Will. God, I'm sorry." Captain Picard's voice is thick, heavy with his own grief for what's happened. "I can't even imagine what you're both going through right now."
Will runs a hand through his hair, lets out a deep breath before he replies.
"It's not as bad as we think. There was no physiological cause. Alyssa ran tests, we're both perfectly healthy – there's no reason why, in a few months, that we can't –" he breaks off, swallows back a sob, because he can't imagine that she'd ever want to, that he'd want to, that they could bear to go through this again.
Picard doesn't look away from the screen – the way most people would – and Will appreciates that.
"Don't rush it. You're going to need each other right now. The future can wait."
"Thanks, Captain."
A sad smile glimmers on the face of his former commanding officer. "Jean-Luc will be just fine, Will."
"It's harder to break a sixteen-year habit than you think."
He terminates the connection.
5.
In those first weeks, sometimes he genuinely can't stand to be around his wife, when he can't ignore the pain screaming inside her head that she's echoing back to him.
It makes him feel like the worst person in the world, especially in the darkest moments of the night when she's crying and he's stuck to the other side of the bed, unable to touch her or even move to comfort her, because he knows if he does, he'll fall apart in the ugliest way and give her something else to worry about.
He finds excuses to check on the data in stellar cartography and keep an eye on the bridge crew, despite the assurances from his first officer that there is literally nothing that requires his attention.
One night he comes home to a hollow-eyed wife, fast asleep on the couch with a PADD resting on her legs, the blanket frayed from where she's been twisting it. Their quarters are a mess, the shades down for the eight day running, and he can't breathe, can't stay here with her one second longer. He kicks the table over with a violence that wakes her, and then everything he never meant to say to her comes spilling out in one vitriolic torrent, until he's empty and unbelievably ashamed of himself.
It takes that outburst to realise he's poisonously angry, not just with her, but with everything. The guilt sticks in his throat and chokes him until he can't do anything but ask the replicator for some definitely non-syntheholic whiskey.
"I'll have one of those as well," Deanna says quietly, her hand slipping into his with so much understanding and acceptance behind the gesture that he feels as though his heart might burst.
They drink enough that night that they sleep soundly, glad of the respite from their dreams.
6.
They drink the next night, too. And the night after that, even when they realise it's not going to make anything better.
7.
The silence on the bridge when he exits the ready room is deafening. After a beat, the steady chatter resumes, but Will has been an officer too long to miss even the smallest disruption to routine.
He manages to get it out of the second officer: Ensign Abeni's wife is having twins.
The junior officer steps into the ready room seconds after he's asked, looking clearly terrified. His fingers fumble at the hem of his uniform top, picking at a stray thread and unraveling it bit by bit.
Will steeples his fingers and leans over the desk, tells him: "Let's drop the ranks. Say what you're really thinking."
The Haliian helmsman blinks. "I didn't want to be insensitive, sir."
"I appreciate your concern, but there's no need to spare me. You don't get to be a Starfleet captain, Ensign, without being able to put aside your feelings when it comes to your crew." Will's glare is sharp, but he hastily hides a smile when the young man looks at his shoes, and he's very much reminded of a young, cocky ensign who would stumble over his words every time Captain Pressman summoned him to the ready room.
"No, you don't understand, Captain." Abeni says these words without fear, and Will is momentarily taken aback. "I didn't want to tell you because of – the way I felt when Dr Ogawa told us the news. I felt immense pride, a sense that my future was. And I couldn't imagine the way it would feel when that's ripped away from you."
"I hope you never have to," is Will's quiet murmur. "Dismissed, Ensign. And give your wife my congratulations."
8.
A communiqué from Kyle Riker is text only and comes weeks too late, just after Beverly's much-needed visit to the Titan.
Terrible luck, Will. My thoughts are with Deanna, she must be feeling awful right now. I never told you, but your mother and I lost our first one. It was an early miscarriage and it really hit her hard. We were so happy when we found out we were having you. You should have seen her face, Will. I'll never stop missing her.
We should catch up next time Titan swings by Earth.
All the best,
Dad
Will deletes the message with a grim smile; there's something reassuringly familiar in the fact that his father has completely avoided addressing his son's feelings about the matter.
Remembers a confused, heartbroken five-year-old who wanted his father and instead was stuck with a man who grieved for his wife and chose to prioritise that over the pain of a little boy who couldn't understand why his mother had gone.
9.
There are good days and bad days. The good days are when he feels like a captain, and not like a complete failure of a husband. Sometimes his bad days are Deanna's good days, and he values her happiness enough to put it above his own and bury his own pain beneath easy smiles and laughter. He is brave for her; the only way he knows how to be.
On the worst days he imagines this is some kind of punishment for his years of indecision, of ignoring what was staring him right in the face under the pretence of career. Will had always told himself he didn't want a family; his own experience hadn't exactly enamored him to the idea. Starship duty was dangerous work, and a family wasn't an option anyone took lightly. But he wanted one with her, because who he is makes sense with her in a way it never did with anyone else.
This is the cruel twist: to think that he had everything he wanted, only to have it snatched away.
10.
"I saw two patients today." Deanna's voice is bright and full of optimism upon her return from her first day back as a counselor. He can feel how drained she is, but she's putting on a brave face and he's going to let her, because she needs to do that.
She's a little paler and thinner from all those weeks she could barely force down a square of chocolate, but she's as beautiful in that uniform as he remembers.
She takes the chair Will offers her, unresistingly allows him to remove her boots and run his hands over her feet. The pads of his thumbs feel good as they find the pressure points on her aching soles and work the knots out.
Deanna looks up, smiling at the old warmth flickering in his blue eyes, that mischievous glint she hasn't seen in a long time.
"I remember I used to do this every night, when your feet were all swollen. Back before Tasha -"
She tenses instantly, and he could kick himself for being so damn stupid. He doesn't realise he's cringing outwardly, his eyes squeezed tight in shame until her soft hand cups his cheek.
"It's okay, Will. We can talk about before. That's not the part that hurts me." She pauses. "I remember I couldn't even see my feet near the end." There's a tentative smile, and he relaxes slightly.
It's the part that hurts me, he thinks silently, trying not to remember the light in Deanna's eyes when she felt the little kicks beneath her skin and invited him to share in it. He manages to keep that from her mind, and smiles back instead.
11.
Deanna's eyes are shining with a manic energy he recognises instantly when she grasps his jacket and pulls him toward their bed. It ends up being fast and awkward when he was aiming for tender and sensual – if he's honest, it's far from his best work – but they've both missed the connection and the closeness so much that none of that matters.
"We're going to be okay, aren't we?" Deanna asks him afterwards while they lie wrapped in the sheets.
He runs a hand over her long smooth curtain of hair that's just beginning to curl at the ends. She's worn her hair straight for years, but he smiles at the hint of those wild Betazoid curls he always loved to tangle his fingers in.
"Yes. It isn't always going to feel okay, but we're...us. We'll be fine." Will tries to sound like that Starfleet officer with a resolve of steel that she fell in love with. He isn't quite sure he believes it himself, but it convinces her enough to pull his face to hers and pick up right where they left off.
12.
Three months, two days.
Wesley's old teddy bear is sitting on the shelf above their bed when Will gets back after a long briefing with his first officer about an upcoming mission.
It's nothing, and it's also everything.
Will kicks off his boots, grabs a drink, settles back in an armchair and asks the computer to play some Dixieland jazz that he would inevitably be mocked for if he wasn't alone. Thinks fondly of Deanna, sitting a night shift on the bridge, and sips at his not-too-bad syntheholic Aldebaran whiskey.
It's been a long time since he's been comfortable in his own company.
Will has begun to think of things in terms of before and after. For better or worse, he knows this has changed them, and they can never be the people they once were; instead they are left staring out at the gulf between them and those who have never known the loss of a part of yourself. And if the fabric of what they are is now stitched with the darkness of grief, it's just another thread of the millions they've spent decades weaving together.
The after is as much a part of who they are as everything that came before, and however long it takes him to figure out how to exist in this new world, at least he won't be doing it alone.
He clinks his glass against the tabletop and whispers: "Sweet dreams, Tasha."