Six Months Later

"Of course, Deanna. There's always a place for you on the Enterprise," Jean-Luc Picard told his former starship counselor. "It does sadden me, however, that the situation between yourself and Will has gotten to this point. You two seemed so happy together at your wedding, and I honestly thought that you had resolved all of your issues."

"Well...a couple more issues have come up recently," Deanna said. "I still love Will, and I don't want to divorce him. It's just that I've had to face several stress factors lately, and I think I need some time on my own to deal with them."

At first it felt strange to be back aboard the Enterprise, especially with Will, Beverly, and Data no longer there. Data. The memory of the beloved android brought tears to Deanna's eyes. She had known him since first coming aboard the Enterprise as its counselor, and it was just so hard to believe that he was really gone forever. The more primitive android, B4, did his best to fill Data's shoes, Deanna knew, but although he did possess all of Data's memories, he still wasn't really Data, at least not to her.

Picard's new first officer, Commander Martin Madden, was tall, although not as tall as Will. He also had dark brown hair and blue eyes like Will, but he was clean-shaven. He greeted her warmly and seemed eager to be of assistance.

As the Enterprise already had a full-time counselor, Deanna would serve as her back-up, filling in for her on vacation and sick days. In addition, Picard had kindly carved out a place for her updating medical and psychiatric files.

The first few days of this were busy enough to keep Deanna's mind off of her troubles. However, later in the week, Deanna was eating lunch in Ten Forward when a heavy depression suddenly descended upon her and, without warning, she burst into tears.

A moment later she sensed a feeling of warmth and caring, felt a soft hand on her shoulder, and looked up into the concerned eyes of Martin Madden.

"Can I be of assistance in any way?" he asked.

"Oh, never mind me. I'm just having a pity party." Deanna tried to laugh.

"If there's anything you'd like to talk about, I'm willing to listen." Madden sat in the seat opposite Deanna's.

"Thank you, Commander Madden."

"Please, call me Marty."

"All right." Deanna smiled. "I really don't know where to start."

"Well, the logical place would be at the beginning." They both laughed.

"I suppose a good place to start would be about six months ago. That was when I found out that one of my clients was my husband's biological son."

"Whew!" Marty whistled through his teeth.

"I found out his mother's name and remembered that she had been an old flame of Will's. Then I looked up my client's birthdate and did the math. He was born almost exactly nine months after his mother's fling with Will."

"That would narrow it down a bit. So, how did Will take the news?"

"Well, he was shocked at first, of course. But after the shock wore off, he was...happy. He got this idea that he should spend as much time as he could with Matthew to help make up for all the time he wasn't there when Matthew was growing up. I began to feel neglected and lonely, but I was afraid to say anything to Will because he tends to get so defensive about anything having to do with Matthew."

"Matthew has a serious girlfriend now, so of course he doesn't spend as much time with Will as he did before. You'd think that would be a good thing, but...you see, I've been wanting very badly to get pregnant for a few months now, but so far, nothing's happened. I'm so afraid that I waited too late to start trying and I might not be fertile anymore. The last time I got my period I was so depressed that I cried all day. Will said that he was tired of seeing me sad so much of the time and that maybe we should just give up and consider adoption. I flew into a rage and told him that I wanted a baby from my own body, that he already had a child from his own body so he couldn't possibly understand how I felt. He looked at me as if I'd just slapped him. That was when I realized that I needed some time apart from him."

An awkward silence followed, broken finally by Marty.

"You know, Counselor Troi..."

"Please, call me Deanna."

"Deanna." Marty smiled kindly. "I don't mean to sound as if I'm trying to give you advice, but I've heard of situations before where an infertile couple adopted a child and then the wife got pregnant very soon afterwards. Some of them had been infertile for years."

"I appreciate your trying to help," Deanna told him. "But I feel that a child should be wanted for itself, not just as a means of getting the child you really want. And besides, I don't think that I could ever love the adopted child as much as I would a child of my own."

Marty shrugged. "It was just a thought."

Suddenly something occurred to Deanna. "Are you married, Marty?"

"Not yet." He grinned. "I'm still holding out for the right one."

"Any kids?"

He shook his head.

"None that you know of anyway, right?" she teased him.

He laughed heartily. "Definitely, positively no kids. I'm not the type to throw caution to the wind, Deanna."

Unlike some people I could mention, Deanna wanted to say, but didn't.