Troi was walking to her quarters when she sensed someone in incredible pain. This person was currently reliving a certain trauma. She realized it was coming from the quarters she was walking in front of. She recognized this room as Erik's. It was incredibly odd to feel this kind of trauma from someone, and even stranger that she should feel it from Erik. She had never felt anything from him before. She walked up to the door and chimed it, announcing her presence. There were a few moments before she heard Erik say to come in and the doors opened. It was obvious that Erik was trying to remain composed for Troi.

"Hey." Was all he said when she entered. He really didn't know why she was here. They were friends and he respected the counselor very much, but they weren't really close enough for house visits.

"Is everything ok?" She asked concerned.

"Yes. Why?" Erik responded, confused by her question.

"Well I was walking outside and suddenly I sensed immense pain from you."

"Oh sorry," he took a moment to concentrate before speaking again, "Is that better?"

Suddenly Troi could no longer feel Erik's emotions. She felt the same way she always has with him. "Why do you block your emotions from me?" She asked. "I felt incredible trauma from you. That's not something you should be hiding. I can help you if you let me."

"Thank you, but I'll be fine."

"Please, I've never felt anything like that before, you shouldn't push it down it'll only get worse."

"I really doubt you can help."

"What harm could it do to just talk."

Troi could tell that she'd finally won him over with that. However she didn't know if it was because of what she said, or simply because he gave up, but either way she was happy it worked. "Fine," Erik said. "Where do you want to start?"

"I find the beginning is always a good start."

"Well a nephilim like myself, the child of an archangel, isn't exactly a well loved species amongst the other angels. Many believe all nephilims to be freaks, or monsters. So, immediately after I was conceived, my father had to do everything he could to make sure the angels didn't know I existed. It wasn't too hard, because they were currently in the middle of a civil war that was taking place just after the apocalypse, so they were pretty busy. As time went on though, a few others had discovered my existence. My dad protected me as long as he could, but it wasn't long before he was captured and tortured by Asmodeus." At the look of confusion from the counselor, Erik explained who that was. "He's a powerful form of demon referred to as a prince of hell. I lived on my own for about three years or so. I learned about my powers as much as I could. It didn't take long before I figured out that I was much more powerful then the things I faced. I didn't need food or sleep as often as humans did, so I could devote myself to studying and training. When I felt I was ready, I decided to go to hell to try and save my father. It didn't work out too well."

Troi could only imagine what that last statement could've meant. There were so many things she wanted to ask, but the one that came out was, "How old were you?"

Erik paused for a second not exactly expecting that question. "Seven." He laughed at the look of horror on her face. "Yeah, I, Uh, I had quite the ego growing up."

She was shocked into silence for a moment, but continued with their little session. "What made these memories resurface?"

Erik's smile disappeared from his face, "Dr. Crusher saw my scars." He answered sheepishly. "I know it's stupid, and normally I wouldn't care, but it's the first time someone's seen them, and known what I am. Normally I can just lie and say that a mission went wrong or something, but she knows that something like that wouldn't leave a scar for me."

Troi could understand this. Erik has been living a life of secrets and lies for centuries now, so for someone to even know his species is incredibly strange for him. His way of life as been destroyed because he decided to open up to the Enterprise's crew. "May I ask how you got these scars?" Troi asked him, but before he could respond she added, "If you don't want to tell me then don't though."

"No there's really no point keeping it secret now." Erik sighed. "Well like I said, I went to hell with the hopes of rescuing my father, and I was doing fairly ok for a little while. I even managed to steal one of Lucifer's angel blades. However, when I found my dad, I also found his captor. Asmodeus quickly figured out who I was and what I was there to do. He took the archangel blade he'd been using on my dad and struck me a few times. He beat and cut me until I passed out. When I woke up, I was in the middle of a street in South Dakota. My wounds were slightly healed, not much though, and I still had the blade."

"Do you know how you got out of there?" Troi asked.

"I've always assumed it was whatever my dad had left in him." Erik shrugged.

"Was you're father ever saved?" Troi asked. Part of her kept asking questions for pure curiosity. Erik's was a strange story, one she'd never heard before, and she's heard her share of odd experiences.

"Yeah," Erik answered, "about a year later."

"Who saved him?" She asked.

"A man named Arthur Ketch handed him over to some friends of my father's to use as a bargaining chip for protection from Asmodeus." Erik responded.

"Have you seen him since then?" She asked.

"Yeah shortly after he came back he payed me a visit, but I haven't seen him since then." Erik explained.

A few moments of silence had passed as Troi thought over his story. "I want you to let me feel you." There were a few moments when nothing had changed. She had began to wonder if he would disobey her, and refuse to open up. Suddenly, she felt the same bizarre presence that brought her here. The pain was still there, but it wasn't as agonizing any more. She began to understand him with an entirely different perspective. Even after he revealed what he was, to her he was still her inferior in a way. She still saw him as someone younger and of a lower rank. She had respected him of course, but when they were working she was the elder and more experienced. Now, she finally understood how old he is. As she stared across at his calm figure after telling such a traumatizing story, she felt like a child. There was a maturity there that she'd never really gotten the chance to see. He's older than starfleet, or even space travel, and yet to so many he was nothing more than just another ensign. "Don't hide yourself from me any more. We're your friends, you don't have to hide from us, not anymore." She said after collecting herself.

Erik nodded his understanding. It wasn't long after that that Troi decided to leave. As the day finished off, Troi tried to keep a smal part of her attention on Erik's emotions. She wanted to make sure he didn't start hiding himself again, but she was also intrigued by what these revealed about her friend.

Troi was in her room, getting ready for bed. She still had a small bit of her attention on Erik. There was over 300 years of hidden emotions in his mind for her to go through. She had just gotten into her pajamas and started brushing her hair when she heard a familiar voice jokingly in her head.

"How long you planning on digging around in my head?"


Erik did as Troi asked, and stopped blocking his mind from hers. She found the feeling very odd. Erik was often very calm about things. It was extremely rare that something was truly a new experience for him. She found it extremely hard to still feel like his superior though. She often felt this when her inferior was older than her, but she was reminded when they showed that they did not have experience in what they were doing. However, he had that experience. He knew more than most people on this ship, maybe even the captain. Though the strangest part for her was knowing that he could feel her presence in his mind. She didn't often come across people who could do that. Her mother would probably be able to tell when Deanna is there, or maybe some strong betazoids.

Later that night all the senior officers and Erik got together in the holodeck to simulate a trip to the beach. It was Data's idea actually. He had read that a common place to experience fun and relaxation is the beach, and wanted to not only observe these emotions but see if he could have some similar to that. After the revelation that he has a soul, he has tried many experiments like this to explore the emotions he does have. Most of his experiments had actually been fairly successful, though it took him a long time to recognize what the emotions were. All of his friends have been more than happy to take this journey with him. They too were excited to learn that Data had what he'd been looking for all his life.

Each of Data's friends showed up in swimsuits. The boys all had on swim trunks, and Erik and Geordi had on a baggy shirt. Deanna wore a blue bikini, and Beverly had on a green whole suit. The holodeck was programmed to create various toys that could be played with on the beach. There were two beach balls, a plastic bucket and shovel, some water guns, and a net was set up on the beach. Geordi went for the bucket and shovel, and Data joined his best friend in building a sand castle. Beverly and Deanna went to play a game of volleyball with the beach ball, and Riker, Erik, and Worf grabbed the guns.

Riker, Erik, and Worf filled their guns with water, then took a few paces away from each other. When they decided they were far enough, Worf yelled, "Fire at will!" Immediately Erik turned to Riker and shot him. Worf was also shooting directly at Riker, but would also get Erik a few times. However Erik would only shoot at Riker.

"Why are you only shooting at me?" Riker shouted through his laughter.

"He said fire at Will!" Erik answered.

"I don't think that's what he meant." Riker said as he tried to fire at Worf.

Erik gave a small laugh at his pun, but quickly turned to fire at Worf as well. When Erik looked over and saw the girls in a very heated game of volleyball he got an idea. "Seize fire!" He yelled. He huddled close to the other two and told them his idea. It took a bit more convincing for Worf, but all three of them agreed to the plan. They all walked up to the girls who hadn't noticed them at all, and began to shoot them with as much water as possible. Beverly shrieked when the water hit her, and hit the ball backwards across the beach. Deanna also shrieked and was very thankful that she didn't have the ball at the moment. When they saw Riker and Erik laughing extremely hard, they realized what had happened.

"Thank you," Deanna joked, "I was about to lose."

That comment caused Riker and Erik to laugh even harder.

"That doesn't count." Beverly said as she prepared to serve the ball.

Erik left the group to go join Data and Geordi. They had built an incredible sand castle. It was about as tall as them and intricately detailed. Erik wasn't too surprised though, since those two could build an entire universe if they felt like it. "Feeling anything Data?" Erik asked.

"Yes, actually. I am feeling great joy at being here with my friends, and seeing them happy as well." He explained.

Erik smiled, and continued to inspect the castle. Their peace was slightly ruined though when another presence joined the group. There was a short, pudgy, man standing behind Erik suddenly. Erik Data and Geordi all turned to face the man, and their friends soon followed. The pudgy man wore a black business suit, and was smiling at the crowd before him.

"Hello," He said, "I am Nirah." The small man was still smiling, and seemed to enjoy everyone's reaction to his presence. "The god Ištaran is holding an auction, and you have been invited." He handed a white piece of paper with gold trimming to Erik. The man looked around and added, "You can invite two of your friends, but that's it." After that he disappeared as quickly as he came.