The Enterprise is at warp, moving on to its next destination, and Deanna sits in her quarters, numb. It's a choice she's made, a carefully cultivated sense of emotional stillness that would put any Vulcan to shame, because if she isn't numb, she's devastated, and she can't feel that way anymore.
When her door chime rings, it startles her, and she has to remind herself to get used to that feeling. She can't tell who's outside, but she assumes it's Will again, and calls to enter.
It isn't Will.
"Is this a bad time?" Geordi asks, cautiously stepping inside.
Deanna wonders if his caution is due to her erratic mood since losing her empathic abilities. "No, come in," she invites, a smile she doesn't feel curving her lips by reflex. "Would you like something to drink?"
"No thanks." Geordi sits on the couch next to her, and she almost asks why he's here, but refrains. They fall into silence. And then he does something complete unexpected, and removes his VISOR, carefully setting it on the coffee table.
"Geordi?" Deanna asks uncertainly.
Taking a slow, deep breath, Geordi leans back into the couch. "I don't know what it's like... not really. I was born blind. I never knew what it was like to lose a sense I've always had. But this," he motioned to the coffee table, "has been part of me since I was five years old. When I take it off, I go back to being blind again. It's not something I particularly like doing. But I think, right now, with you, it's important. I don't know exactly how you feel, but when I'm not wearing my VISOR, I have a pretty good idea."
Days before, when the captain had compared her loss to blindness, it had made her angry. But when Geordi does it, it hits her in the chest with the force of a phaser blast, and suddenly she's crying.
He reaches for her, accidentally hits her in the shoulder before wrapping his arms around her, and she's crying into his neck in a way she'd never expected to.
She'd told Will that everyone felt like holograms, not real without the sense of their emotions, and while that was still true, sitting in Geordi's arms while he willingly forwent his sight just for the sake of creating an equal ground between them... this was real. This felt real, and she clung to him, afraid he might disappear if she didn't hold tight.