(Posted two chapters at the same time, so don't forget to read the one before this too!)

Holodeck Four, One Month Later

On the stage, old and tired men played old and tired music. Smoke clung to the air like a veil. Shadows moved within the veil, some of them dancing and some of them weaving in and out of the crowd with trays of drinks. Everything looked like a dream, a soft and sultry memory, as Riker made his way to the back of the club.

His eyes swept over a cluster of tables and chairs that huddled to one side of the dance floor. He saw suits and fedoras, the glimmer of a pearl necklace, the glowing tip of a cigar, and at the very last table, the one pushed against a crumbling brick wall, he spied a young woman in a Starfleet uniform.

Her hands lay clasped on an empty table, and though she watched the band run through their number, her eyes looked at something much farther in the distance. As they finished their set with a shimmering shake of the cymbal, scattered applause drifted up with the smoke. The young woman lifted her hands to clap, an automatic, absent-minded movement. She almost could have been part of the programming.

"Mind if I sit here?" Riker asked. She jumped, her hands slamming down on the table in front of her. It made Riker jump as well. "Whoa, it's just me! I've been looking all over for you. Picard's got a new mission for us-nothing too exciting. We brief in a couple of hours."

The color returned to her face, along with a sheepish grin. Her hands slid off the table and onto her lap. "Oh, sorry. I just...here, take a seat."

He pulled out a chair, swiveling it around and straddling it with his arms slung across the wooden back. "What is all this, anyway?"

"It's Chicago. 1940's. You know her, of course." Carmen nodded towards the stage, where a woman had made her entrance. Her skin was the rich color of caramel. Her lips and nails were painted red. Her hair, dark and glossy, had been swept to one side of her head. She cupped the mic in her hands as though she were holding the face of a lover.

"No more blues, I'm going back home

No, no more blues, I promise no more to roam

Home is where the heart is

The funny part is, my heart's been right there all along"

Riker leaned back in his seat, latching his fingers together behind his head. "Carmen McRae," he smiled. "You come here to watch her?"

"Yeah. My dad used to bring me here all the time to listen to her sing. After being back there, on the other side, it...it made me think about him."

Riker's smile slowly faded. As time went on, it had been easier and easier to forget that he was not Carmen's real father. Yet there were fleeting moments while he was nursing Billy to sleep with a bottle, or watching him learn how to grasp things in his pudgy little palm, or listening to those baby breaths in the dark, when he'd feel a stinging reminder of all that he had missed with his surrogate daughter.

"We'd sit at this table and share some apple martinis. Then the band would pick up and he'd ask me to dance," Carmen continued. "I knew none of it was real-the drinks, the singing, even Carmen McRae up there. But he was real. It was like he left some...some mask at the door, and he'd slip back into an old, forgotten version of himself."

She cleared her throat, shifting in her chair, trying to make herself more comfortable. The woman on the stage flashed Riker a smile as she started singing the final verse.

"Anyway, I still remember the morning after he was killed, that first morning without him. I laid in bed and waited to hear him start getting ready for work. The silence drove me crazy. I ran all the way here, to Chicago, hoping to drown out that awful silence. Hoping that somehow, I'd look up and he'd be standing there, asking if I wanted to dance." A short, bitter laugh fell from her lips. "The band played. The waiters made their rounds. And he never came. I just...I had to come to grips with the fact that I'd never dance with my dad again."

Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath. She reached across the table and took hold of his hand. "For awhile there, I thought I lost you again. When Leyton said...when he said the Enterprise…"

Riker squeezed her hand. "Hey, hey. Look at me," he ordered. When she met his gaze, he could see a mist of tears across her eyes. "We thought we lost you, too. But we found each other again, didn't we?"

A smile fought for life on her lips. "We did. And now I get to see you all the time. The real you."

Her words broke his heart softly, gently, in a way that he had not expected. In his mind, he saw her racing along the Betazed beach, chasing that silly kite and being a kid for the first time in her life. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask you…" He paused as a man with shiny black shoes and a crisp bow tie stopped by their table, setting a couple of martinis down in front of them. "I should have brought this up sooner, actually. The whole time you were gone, I couldn't stop thinking about it."

"About what?"

"It's just that...I know you didn't have a choice when they made you a soldier. But you don't have to keep doing this. You don't have to wear that uniform if you don't want to. From here on out, the choice is yours."

Carmen's forehead furrowed. She put her elbows on the table, slouching over her drink. "I never really thought about that."

"Will you, though? Will you promise to think about it? I mean, you don't have to leave the Enterprise. Maybe you could work full-time in the arboretum with Keiko."

"I think that would be a more dangerous option," she quipped, bursting into laughter. "And yes, I promise to think about it."

Carmen McRae finished her song. As she bowed for a round of applause, the piano picked up a jaunty tune. The saxophone and a cello joined in. Riker smiled at his daughter from across the table. "Can I ask you one more question?"

"Like what?"

He rose from his chair, holding out a hand in her direction. "Will you dance with me?"

A few tears slipped down her cheeks and trickled over the smile she sent back to him. "I'd love to," she said, taking his hand and letting him lead her away from the table. Soon enough they had joined the other shadows in front of the stage, dancing until all their tears, and all their troubles, were nothing but shadows as well.

THE END

We made it, guys! Excuse me while I have an existential crisis now haha. To everyone who's been following Carmen's journey, thank you so much. You're the reason that, so many times in the midst of everything else getting in the way, I kept writing.

Working on these fics has been such a cathartic experience for me. The truth is (if I may be emotionally bare for a moment), my childhood was marked by violence and abuse. I spent years in counseling, learning how to cope with PTSD and depression and feeling very lost.

I found my way out of it. Like Lwaxana said in one of these chapters, loss leaves a hole in your heart, but other people come along who know how to fill it up. They build bridges across your walls. I know this is true, because I now have my own bridge-builders.

I wrote these stories because as Carmen healed, and as Carmen found herself a family, so did I. And my hope is that anyone reading this would maybe feel the same. Whatever draws you to fan fiction, I hope that if there is a hole in your own heart, Carmen has helped fill it up a little along the way.

As for what's next, I don't have any more plans. I thought I was done, but I miss Carmen already (haha) so I wouldn't mind doing a one-shot or something with a handful of chapters. Zara08-I really like your idea of bringing Thomas Riker into things! I jotted down some ideas the other night, and might make something of it in the near future! :-) If anyone else has any ideas, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message. And if any of you are writing fics of your own, make sure I know about it! I'd love to follow along!

Thanks again for everything, I could never really say it enough. Keep going boldly, wherever life takes you!