Big Doors

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This is an AU story.

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Might-Have-Beens

Worf was more than a bit put out. If there was one think the Klingon hated, it was surprise parties. And as if that wasn't enough, he knew his immediate superior officer knew that, and she had promised to respect that.

He grumbled as much to a lieutenant in the room, who met him with a puzzled glance. "Uh, sir, is there something going on with the chain of command I should know about?"

"I do not understand."

"Sir, your immediate superior officer, as far as I know, is Commander Riker. I don't even know a Commander Yar. Is she a recent transfer? Is someone leaving?"

By now, Worf was extremely puzzled. Was this supposed to be a joke?

"Commander Yar, the Chief of Security. She's been the chief of security since the ship was launched."

"Sir, I don't know who she is, but you're the chief of security. Are you all right, sir? Is something wrong with your memory? Maybe you hit your head in the tournament."

"What?" Beverly was standing nearby and had heard the last bit. "What's wrong?"

"I believe the Lieutenant is playing a joke on me."

The man shook his head, looking a little scared. "Doctor, he's convinced he's not the Chief of Security."

She glanced over at Worf. Maybe he was the one playing the joke. "Okay, then. If you're not the Chief of Security, who is?"

He gave her a strange look. "Tasha, of course. Who else would it be?"

He'd expected her to laugh, to admit the trick at this point. But instead she got an angry look on her face. "Look, I don't know what you're trying to get with this joke, but that isn't funny at all."

"It was not intended to be."

"Then what was it?"

"A statement of fact, Doctor."

She looked now more concerned than angry. "Worf, I think you'd better come to Sickbay. You may have a concussion or you may have ingested something that's affecting your memory."

"My memory? What are you talking about, Doctor?"

Beverly all but dragged him into a separate room. "Look, I don't want to talk about this in public, but Worf - Tasha's dead."

Very few things could seriously affect the Klingon, but this did. "Dead? How?"

"You really don't remember, do you? She died on Vagra II almost six years ago."

"No. I remember that mission, but she did not die. She was nearly killed, but she was saved by Commander Data."

Beverly sighed. "The problem's worse than we thought. You're not just losing memories, you have false memories in place of the real ones. I'm not sure how that could happen."

"Hey, you two." Geordi poked his head through the door. "What are you doing out here?"

Worf suddenly felt dizzy and pitched forward. He was caught by Geordi and -

"Tasha."

"Yes?"

"You are here."

"Of course I am. Where else would I be?"

"I had a strange - I suppose it was a hallucination. In that hallucination, Dr. Crusher informed me you were dead."

"Ugh. Must have been some hallucination."

Worf looked around, and realize the three of them were alone. "What happened to everyone else?"

"Everyone else?" Tasha looked puzzled. "Data and Deanna are coming later."

"There was a large celebration in here before."

"Worf, we agreed on just the five of us." Geordi looked puzzled.

"Yes, we - wait, no. Five?"

"Yes, five. You, me, Tasha, Data, and Deanna."

"And Commander Riker."

The two officers exchanged a look. "Worf, are you sure you're feeling okay?" Tasha asked.

"Yes. Why?"

"Worf, Commander Riker's been dead for almost six years." Her blue eyes closed, Worf assumed to fight back tears.

Once again, the Klingon was stunned. But he realized one thing. "Six years. Did - did he by any chance die on Vagra II?"

"You do remember." Tasha opened her eyes again.

"No. But in my hallucination, when Dr. Crusher told me you had died, your death had occurred on Vagra II."

"No, Data saved me, remember?"

"That I do remember."

"But the entity dragged Will down into itself and killed him - you don't remember any of this, do you?"

"I do remember," he insisted. "It is just, I remember differently."

"Look, why don't I help you get to Sickbay?" Geordi reached out to take his arm, but again he felt dizzy and nearly collapsed. When he came to, he was standing in engineering next to Data. Geordi was standing across from him.

"Are you all right, Lieutenant?" Data queried.

"Yes - but why am I in Engineering?"

Data and Geordi shared a look. "Why wouldn't you be?"

"Last I remember, I was in my quarters."

Geordi and Data glanced at each other. The engineer spoke first. "Worf, you don't look so good. Maybe you should get to Sickbay."

"Yes, perhaps I should."

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Two hours later, Worf was expressing further confusion to Deanna. "Doctor Crusher says I am experiencing further memory loss, but my instincts tell me it is more than that. I remember those imaging logs. I could tell you every detail, every word."

"Worf, let's assume for a second you're right, that things did happen as you remember them. Are you saying that everyone's memory on this ship has been altered but yours?"

The doorbell rang before Worf could answer, and Geordi stepped into the room. "Counselor." He gave her a nod. "Worf, I wanted you to know that we re-examined the imaging logs. They don't show a Cardassian ship or any evidence that the Array was reprogrammed. From what we can tell, the Array suffered a simple mechanical failure."

Worf shook his head again. He remembered seeing an image of a Cardassian warship in the logs. "That is not right. I was certain that -" He suddenly became dizzy again, and then he was on the bridge.

"Now, Mr. Worf!" Picard yelled. "Now!"

"What are you waiting for?" Will asked as Worf stared at the unfamiliar console. "Raise the shields!"

"This panel configuration has been altered," he said helplessly. "I do not know how."

The ship shook from the force of weapons fire. The operations officer glanced down at his panel. "Direct hit. Engineering Section and deck forty two. Shield generators are overloading."

The ship rocked from another hit. Picard waved to Tasha, who jumped up without a word and all but knocked Worf out of the way. "Firing photon torpedoes. Full spread."

Direct hit on their main reactor," she said shortly. "They're returning fire. Captain, we have heavy damage to the deflector systems. Hull breaches on decks seventeen and thirty six."

"Ensign, take us out of here, maximum warp."

" Aye, sir." The pilot punched the engines.

"Are they pursuing us?"

"No, sir," Tasha replied in a tight voice.

"Bridge to Engineering. Mr. La Forge, what's your status?"

"This is Ensign Hayes, sir," the responding voice came back. "Commander La Forge has been taken to Sickbay with plasma burns. There's serious damage to the secondary plasma conduit but I think we've got it under control."

"Acknowledged. Ensign, lay in a course to Starbase 129."

"Aye, sir."

"What happened back there, Lieutenant?" he asked Worf sharply.

"I believe I experienced another memory loss."

Will gave him an odd look. "Memory loss? What are you talking about?"

Worf sighed. "I do not feel well. Request to be temporarily relieved of duty, sir."

"Granted."

"Captain -" Tasha began.

"Yes, go ahead."

She bolted for the turbolift so fast the door slammed in Worf's face.

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"Doctor." Tasha nearly ran over Alyssa Ogawa in her haste to get into sickbay. "How is he?"

"It's not good, I'm afraid. He's been asking for you."

Nearly all of Geordi's body was covered in burns. She was afraid to touch him. She whispered his name through her tears.

"Tasha," he whispered back weakly.

"Now you hold on, you hear me? I need you to hold on."

"I'll try."

"Commander." Alyssa's voice was soft with sympathy. "There's nothing I can do. We're going to lose him."

"Tasha - call the Captain."

"Why?"

"I don't -" he gasped for air. "I don't have next month, Tasha. We have to do it now."

"I'll call him," Alyssa said from behind them. "Anyone else?"

"Worf and Deanna. And call Will too."

It was a still-perplexed Worf who walked into sickbay beside his newly-discovered wife. "What is happening here?"

"I don't know. Tasha?" Deanna could see that her friend was crying.

"He's dying, Deanna. Geordi's dying."

"I'm so sorry." She offered Tasha a hug. It was gratefully accepted.

"I've asked the Captain to come down here. If I have to lose him, I want to be married to him first."

She hurried back to his side, and Worf turned back to Deanna. "Married? Tasha and Commander La Forge?"

Remembering what Worf had told her about his memory loss, she turned to him. "They dated back on the Victory and broke up just before they came on the Enterprise. After Maddox took and disassembled Data -"

"Maddox took Data?" Worf was dismayed.

"That didn't happen in your timeline?"

"No."

"Well in this timeline, Tasha and Geordi drew closer together and rekindled what they'd had. Two months ago, he asked her to marry him. They were planning a wedding for next month." A look of deep sorrow crossed her face. "Now there'll be no ceremony. But she still wants to be married to him."

The Captain arrived and took in the situation. "Is there nothing you can do?" he asked Alyssa in an undertone. She shook her head.

Through her tears, Tasha relayed her request, and he nodded gravely. Will, Worf, and Deanna stood by.

"Since the days of the first wooden sailing ships, all captains have enjoyed the - the privilege," he could not bring himself to say the happy privilege "of joining together two people in the bonds of matrimony. Do you, Natasha Yar, accept this man as your husband, to love and cherish above all others, until death separates you?" The last words nearly stuck in his throat.

"I do," she whispered through her tears.

"Do you, Geordi La Forge, accept this woman as your wife, to love and cherish her above all others, until death separates you? "

"I do."

"By the power invested in me by the United Federation of Planets, I pronounce you husband and wife."

Tasha leaned over and kissed him lightly. "Thank you, Captain. Now if you don't mind, we'd like to be alone."

The four other bridge officers came over with gentle goodbyes for their comrade and expressions of sympathy for his new, soon-to-be-widowed bride. Then they left the pair alone.

Geordi was too weak to talk, so Tasha did the talking. She told him everything she'd wanted to tell him for the past few years. She told him how much she loved him and she told him everything she'd wanted to do with him. And as his breathing slowed, she begged him to wait for her.

"I will," he gasped. "I'll wait forever. I love - love you so much. And if I see Data, I'll take him a message too."

This brought on a fresh flood of tears. Dear, sweet Geordi - he had never held it against her that she'd once been in love with his best friend. He'd never begrudged her a shoulder to cry on when she missed her first true love unbearably.

"Tell him I love him. And I miss him. And someday I'll see both of you again."

Geordi got a slight smile on his face, and then his whole body relaxed and Tasha knew he was gone. She clasped his hand to her chest and sobbed.

Worf reentered sickbay with a science officer to find his friend crying over the body of her husband. He was reluctant to even ask for what he needed, but if these jumps were ever going to end, he had to.

"I have experienced several - disconcerting events. I believe that, somehow, Commander La Forge may be connected to them."

The scientist scanned him. "No unusual readings," he said in an undertone, trying not to bother Tasha. "Energy residuals from the plasma burns, the beginnings of cellular decomposition. I see nothing that connects these bio-readings to your recent sense of discontinuity."

"What about his VISOR?" Alyssa asked.

"I still see nothing unusual. Perhaps we should activate it."

"Hook it up to the diagnostic array and I'll check it out." Alyssa carefully removed the item from the bedside table, giving Tasha a light squeeze on the shoulder. They hooked it up to the array.

"It's active," the science officer reported, but the words were barely out before he became dizzy, and then he was in Engineering, standing next to -

"Data!"

But it wasn't Data as he knew him. The man's skin was darker, his eyes were blue -

"You are human."

"You've shifted again," the once-android noted. "You look surprised to see me."

"In the last reality I was in, you had been disassembled by Maddox."

"Who?"

Worf was confused for a moment, then it dawned on him. "How long have you been human?"

"Six years. Ever since Commander Riker was granted the Q powers."

"He accepted Q's offer."

"No. When you refused your gift, he decided to stay. But he allowed Tasha, Geordi, and me to keep our gifts. What happened in your timeline?"

"I was not the only one to refuse the offer. You and Commander La Forge -" he realized his mistake when Data's face fell "did as well."

"We did think about it. But then he granted Tasha's wish, and she wouldn't have dreamed of denying it, and her enthusiasm was contagious."

"What was her wish?" Worf asked, though he suspected he knew.

"Her baby. Exactly as she had been at her death, except healthy. You do know about this?"

"I became aware recently. So, do you have any theories on what is happening?" Tasha's lost child wasn't a commonly discussed subject on Worf's native Enterprise, and it made him uncomfortable. Data seemed to notice.

"We've theorized that it's linked to Geordi's VISOR. Although he hasn't used it in years, we've kept it in Engineering as a sort of sensor device. At this point, that's all we know." He took a deep breath, as if swallowing back tears. "Now, here's where I want to start..."

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Tasha's eyes were definitely red, but she was more composed than she'd been in the past timeline, for which Worf was grateful. He hadn't exactly known how to cope with a breakdown from a woman who was normally so strong.

"Are you a new Worf, or the same one I was talking to before?"

"A new one. May I ask you something?"

"Yes?"

"Am I still married to Deanna in this timeline?"

"Yes."

"And you? Are you married?"

She nodded. "Five years now. Even before that, we lived together. Listen, there's one thing I need from you. If you run into Eva, don't tell her anything about where she came from or how she got here. As far as she's concerned, she's Data's and my daughter. I'll tell her sometime, when she's old enough to understand."

"I will not tell her."

"Thank you, Worf."

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Fortunately, Data and Will's solution had worked. Worf had sealed the rift that had been causing his strange jumps, and no one else even had any memory of the incident. He'd filed a report but kept most of the details private. However, it had planted one idea.

"Deanna," he asked, "will you join me on the Holodeck tomorrow?"

This chapter is based on the episode Parallels. I hope everyone liked the alternate realities; they were both fun and difficult. I wanted to write a scene with Eva in it but just couldn't get it right.

Please review.