"Ma'am, are you all right? Did I say something wrong?"
Matthew's voice brought Deanna back to the present. She felt the concern he had for her and was comforted by it.
"I'm so sorry, Matthew. It's just that...I've been having headaches off and on all day, and another one hit me just then."
"Would it be better if I just came back another day?"
"Oh no, Matthew, that's all right. I'll manage," Deanna said with a smile. It wouldn't be fair to Matthew to let her personal feelings interfere with her professional duties. "Now, where were we?"
"Um...you asked what my mother's name was."
"Oh yes. Well, forgive me for being intrusive, as that's none of my business, of course. Why don't you tell me about your relationship with your stepfather."
"It was fine until I learned the truth about him. He always treated me the same as my sister, although there were always things I wondered about. Like my stepdad, being Betazoid, he has telepathic and empathic powers, and my sister has them too, although not as strong as his, since our mother's human. But I never had them at all, and I always wondered why not, until I found out, and then of course it all made sense, since my mom told me that my real dad was human too."
"What's your relationship with your stepdad been like since you found out?"
"Well, I was really mad and bitter at him for a long time, because he had just let me think that I was really his son all that time and had never told me the truth. But then I thought about it and decided that maybe he didn't tell me because he was trying to protect me."
"Do you think it would have been easier for you if you had known the truth all along?"
Matthew shrugged. "Sometimes I think it would have been better if I had just left things alone and not secretly gotten into my mother's safe. Curiosity just got the better of me."
Deanna sighed. She felt genuinely sorry for Matthew, and also quite angry at the former Wendy Roper. Look what a mess she had made, and all because she had been horny...but of course, she couldn't put one hundred percent of the blame on Wendy...
