Picard set his glass on one of the vacant silver trays. "I must leave briefly for a little comfort break." The last of the vintage Chateau Picard was starting to irritate his bladder.

"Hurry back," said Guinan quietly. She stared serenely at the rest of the wedding guests.

"Ah yes, early doors", Picard promised.

The trouble with the Enterprise-E was the overly clever architecture. Hokkaido's finest Feng Shui master had designed, the waste and water management to flow in the most uplifting and creative way. But this often meant that the rest-rooms, non-gender specific of course, were being deconstructed and reconstructed in steps moving towards or away from the center of the ship at any given time.

By luck alone, Picard found a rest-room, although the door outline was sealed and a small red 'fault' light flickered angrily at about door-handle height. "Override locks, computer." The doors hissed and separated smoothly, sliding gracefully into the walls.

The unscrubbed smell of sweat made the Captain pause before leaning in the doorway.

"I'm sorry. Were you using this facility, Will?"

Riker lay crouched near-naked on the floor and took a few seconds to respond. Picard could see his ship tattoos on his left bicep. The stylized ironclad boxhouse outline used by former USS Potemkin crew was fading. But the unofficial etched galleon of the USS Enterprise was still fresh below it. Picard did not have much time for tattoos - he had had the Pegasus name removed a long time ago - but they seemed to suit Riker.

Riker looked exhausted and his eyes wet with tears. "What time is it?" he gasped.

Picard glanced at an information panel at his side in the corridor wall. "Twenty hundred hours. Eight o'clock in the evening. Were you getting changed? You're not ready to leave already?"

"The wedding," he said under his breathe. "I have to get ready for the wedding."

The mild warming effect of his family's viticulture wore off instantly and Picard felt his blood cool to a chill. "But the wedding was two hours ago," he said, his voice struggling to stay intact. "And you..."

"I what?" asked Riker with a frown.

"You already married Deanna."

:::

"You must surely have some recollection of yesterday evening?" Picard was in no mood for vagueness. He loomed over his former Security Officer as convincingly as he could.

Worf put down his pewter tankard and sighed heavily. "It is all a bit of a haze, Captain. Mr. Crusher arrived and there were some songs based, I recall, around Viking mythology. All historically and anatomically unlikely, I must add." he tried to catch the attention of the servers to bring him more ales.

Picard's eyes widened. "Wesley? I thought his mother had forbidden him from attending such ritual debauchery." He sighed. "But I suppose he is a young man now."

Worf drummed his fingers on the side of the faux metal. "He seemed well prepared, and was adequately stocked with bottles of hard liquor from all the near galaxies. However, he did not attempt to compete with my legendary capacity for legalized poisons." He looked quietly content. "No-one did."

Picard tried to follow what details were discernible. "And Riker too? Will kept well away, I'm sure. We did all agree that a stags outing so close to the wedding would be a bad idea."

Worf tried to hold his face as blank as possible. "I do not like to say, Captain. In fact I recall only a tedious session with mahjong tiles which led me to find an excuse to go and find better conversation with some Rigellians. Entertainers."

"So Riker was there? Was Will part of the excursion, Worf? You have to tell me."

Worf nodded. "I confess, Captain. But no harm was done. You see him standing across the room from us without visible signs of wear."

:::

Crusher turned away from the rest of the people at the party and hunched over the table. "Please call me, Wes. I'm grown-up now. Despite what my mother thinks." Picard kept his eyebrows raised. Wesley cleared his throat and continued. "Thomas helped me out with obtaining my commission on the USS Titan. I don't know who he knows, but after all that trouble with the white hats and my hidden drinking problem, I was lucky to be cleaning toilets on Qo'noS. No offence, Worf."

Worf blinked. "None understood, and none taken." He sipped the last of the contents of a plain bottle in front of him. The bottle itself was the last of several that he had left lined up on the table in a disorganized tableau of the Battle of Wolf 359. He was considering dashing the glass items on the floor in a show of Klingon bravado. But it was the wrong moment.

Crusher whispered close to Picard's ear. "I was only asked to help out with a prank and you guys hadn't invited me to the stags party, so I thought it would be a good way to join in. And no-one got hurt, right?"

Picard slapped his forehead. "Hurt is relative, Wesley. What was the prank?"

Wesley shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. I had hoped it might involve Rigellian strippers, but Will had a lot to drink then went to his room to sleep. It all ended a bit lame really."

"What was your specific intent? Didn't the other Riker tell you anything else?"

"I just had to get him drunk enough to dress him up for an embarrassing picture. But he went off, like I said." Crusher peeled the paper label from one of Worf's bottles. He was keen to leave.

"So, somewhere between sending him back to his room and the groom arriving this morning, Will has been trapped in a restroom and replaced by Thomas Riker."

"Wait. Are you saying, Will didn't get married to Deanna?" Crusher raised his eyebrows. "Won't she be really angry about that?"

Picard patted Crusher's shoulder and tried to be calm. "That might be her mildest reaction. And don't forget who helped with this subterfuge."

Crushed felt his throat go dry.