To: Dispatcher 652-I agree with you. Now, I'm toying with putting poor Tom in mandatory counseling as he begins his tour on his new ship.

To: Zara08-Thanks for the nice review. It's taken me a while to get the courage up to post my stories and I appreciate hearing from you.

To: Fred27-I know I've lurked for awhile. It's nice to know someone likes my attempts to share my stories.

Note to all: The characters and S.T. Universe are not mine, but the dreams are.

Vestiges of Pain by Demi Elliott

In his dreams, she called him Will. His dreams were all that he had left of her; or for that matter, of himself. Events had happened so fast, that in a matter of days, he had been rescued from his solitary prison, only to be reunited with and then rejected by the love of his life. Before he was able to get a real handle on things, he had been once again been cast adrift; it seemed to be his fate to be alone. He should have known better. Some people just weren't meant for the whole, happily ever after thing.

He couldn't even be himself anymore. Thanks to that dammed freakish transporter accident, all that made him who he was had been stolen from him, even his name. Not even his memories were his own, except for those of the last eight years; and that was a time he'd just as soon not think about. His dreams of the life he had wanted, his dreams of the two of them together, were all he had left that belonged only to him.

He had always believed that they would be together one day. It had never occurred to him that, should they somehow meet again, they would not have a future together. Initially elated at having been saved from his lonely torment; and giddy with the awareness of her presence, he had wanted only to be with her once more. It was only later, when he had the time to think things through that he realized that she hadn't wanted to see him; that she would have avoided him if she could.

She had given him one night and he knew now that she had come to him because she felt his fear and confusion; and being her, she had a need to ease it. Unwilling to connect with him in the soul deep joining that he craved, she gave him what she could and shared her body with him. It was in that moment of intimacy, when he realized that she would not allow their souls to touch, that he lost what tenuous control he had over his emotions. She held him then, for several hours as he sobbed, as he begged her to love him, to touch him as he so desperately needed. Finally, he slept from exhaustion.

When he woke she was gone. He understood her need to keep herself separate and he couldn't blame her for holding back from him; the situation was just too bizarre for anyone to deal with and he was aware that she was hurting too. But he couldn't keep himself from loving her. He couldn't stop wanting her love to love him the way she had in his memories. And, he couldn't stop his dreams.

Even now, he still had difficulty wrapping his mind around the fact that she now loved another, identical Will Riker. Had it not been for her, he might have tried harder to fight for what should have been his by right. But, he could see that his struggles were causing her pain and he couldn't handle knowing he was the cause of her distress, so, he did the only thing he could.

He gave up and accepted the position on the USS Gandhi when they offered it to him, not because he wanted to, but because he knew how much it would hurt her if he didn't at least appear to try to resume living again. And he didn't want to hurt her anymore than he already had. So, deciding to call himself by his middle name, Thomas; he did his best to begin again.

Just before they transported him away, he kissed her one last time, pulling her close, and opening himself fully to her, mentally reaching out to her in a final desperate attempt to touch the inner connection they had once shared. Blinking back tears of failure, he buried his sorrow deep inside himself, and looked up meeting the eyes of his brother self. He simply said: "Take care of her" before giving the command, "energize". He focused on her smile as the beam took him away.