I just finished watching All Good Things, and as my mind tends to it wandered off to one side to see how I could play, and this is what it came up with. It's set just after the poker game at the end of the episode, and goes a bit into the future but before Worf leaves for DS9. Unbeta'd and probably imperfect. Enjoy and please review! C x

Commander William T Riker stood at the window of his quarters, staring out at the stars, the open emptiness that surrounded the only place he had called home for many years. All this had nearly been lost, due to one action by an almost malevolent being. Q's trial of humankind had begun seven years ago on his first voyage on the Enterprise and earlier today, as he had just been informed, the trial had nearly ended all human existence. What he had learned from what Jean Luc had told them was that perhaps a time came to give up and move on, in relation to certain relationships that were developing on board ship. The entry bell chimed.

'Come' he called, gruffly, it could only be one person. The door slid open and she hesitated on the doorstep. 'If you're coming in, then come in. don't let all the heat out.' He said, softly, using the phrase his father had always used, the one that made her laugh. An attempt to lighten the mood. Put them both at their ease. There was no laugh. Just a rustle as she walked through the door. He heard her sit down at the table that still held the remnants of the poker game. Not on the sofa. That was how far it had gone; she didn't curl on his sofa in the way she had always done. Would probably never do it again. A image of her curled on a metal chair, with Klingon weaponry behind her, flitted into his mind, and he banished it as quickly as it had appeared.

'Imzadi…' she began.

'Should you be calling me that?' he asked her, not unkindly, but not kindly either. Even to him his voice sounded dead.

'Will, I've always called you Imzadi.' She replied, he could hear the shock and pain in her voice and hated himself for causing it. 'It doesn't matter what happens, between us or between us and other people. You are and always will be my Imzadi.' She sounded sure of herself. He wanted to scream at her, but I'm not, because you don't sit on the sofa anymore. And then realised how stupid that sounded. 'Worf and I…'

'Are in a relationship.' He finished for her. 'I know. And don't worry, I'm fine with it all. Actually, I'm taking one of the new lieutenants to Ten Forward tomorrow.' And winced. She was an empath, would know he was lying. There wasn't a sound behind him.

'You and Worf…' she started a moment or two later.

'Can maintain our professionalism, I don't want our relationship to deteriorate as much as the Captain said it had in his future visions.' Again, no response. He wanted to turn around, look at her, but he was hurting and couldn't do it. The chair scraped back.

'Well then, I should leave you to your sleep, you are on duty in 10 hours.' The doors opened and he span in time to see the dark hair disappear into the corridor. He stopped himself from following her.

He was standing in the window again. It was much later, months in fact. He'd just risen to check his padd before going on duty. This week's lucky someone was still asleep in the bed behind him. Not this week's, he corrected himself. He'd been seeing Lieutenant Weatherby for almost a month now. A hairbrush covered in her red hair sat next to his comb on the side in the shower-room, her toothbrush knocked heads with his in the glass next to the mirror. The door chimed.

'Come' he called out, not looking around. The door slide open and stayed like that.

'Am I disturbing you?' a feminine voice asked. He turned to see Deanna standing dishevelled in the doorway. He cast a guilty glance towards the bedroom, and shook his head.

'Not at all.' He smiled as she came in. She glanced at the table, strewn with the remnants of the meal he had shared with Weatherby, and walked past it to sit in her old spot on the sofa, curling her legs up and tucking her feet beneath her like a cat. Her hair was tied back but strands strayed free, her eyes were smudged with black and tears. Instinctively he went to the Replicator, stopping at the table to scoop up the mess and dispose of it before ordering. 'Chocolate, Mayan, hot, sweet. Brownie, chocolate-fudge, hot, cream. Latte, hot, sugar. American Muffin, apple and sultana.' He lifted the tray of items that appeared and carried them to the coffee table before darting into the bedroom to grab the fleeced blanket that no one else ever used and then, sitting next to her, tucked it around them both. She sighed and snuggled in closer to him, and he put an arm around her shoulders. 'Is everything ok?' he asked.

'Not really.' She replied, with cream on her nose. 'Worf and I decided that it was time to call it a day. Things weren't really working out.' He nodded, had seen it coming for a while, well, maybe hoped it would happen. He reached down to her nose and wiped the cream off it before kissing the top of her head.

'Do you need to talk?' he asked, feeling odd and foolish that he was asking the ships counsellor if she needed counselling. She shook her head.

'No, I, I just missed you.' She looked up as Helen Weatherby walked in, wrapped in the bed sheets that she had bought Will in an attempt to make the room more homely. 'Oh.' That was it, the only reaction she made.

'Will, I heard voices…' Weatherby trailed off and checked herself by the door. 'Counsellor.'

'Good evening Lieutenant. I'm sorry I wasn't aware Will wasn't alone.' Deanna said, sitting up and looking uncomfortable now.

'No, no, it's...' she left the sentence open and he winced inwardly. 'I should go anyway, duty calls and all that.' She disappeared into the room and reappeared hurriedly, fully dressed. 'Good bye, Counsellor. Commander.' The door fssshed and she was gone.

'Will.' Deanna admonished him. 'You should have told me she was here.'

'Why?' he asked, trying to capture some schoolboy charm in his tone.

'Well, because that was a goodbye goodbye.'

'Oh, was it? Never mind, wasn't working out anyway.' He grinned at her, and she batted him around the head.

'Honestly.' She murmured, settling down against him again and taking another sip of the hot chocolate. 'Can I sleep here on the sofa tonight?' she asked him.

'Of course Imzadi, it's your sofa. And it's nice to have things back to normal. I missed this.' He grinned again, and then the grin slipped into a contented smile as she giggled against his chest. He adjusted the light setting with a few words, and they settled down to chat and listen to a concert Data had put on a few nights before. Yes, he thought, it was nice to have things back to normal; she was sitting on the sofa.