"I can see why you would keep her on the ship with you. As a token of goodwill, I'll let your wife stay here instead of sending her to get dirtied up in the mines," their captor said in a sly voice. He stood and walked around the desk. "There is the matter of your central computer. We have been unable to gain control of it." He leaned over to look at Lilly, and Riker pressed on her with his arm, pushing her back behind him. She had to grab at his waist with her left hand to keep her balance, and she felt him flinch.
"You don't really think I'm going to help you, do you?" Riker said. She could picture the mocking expression that had to be on his face, and it cheered her up a little.
"I think that the mines of Ligos VII can be very hazardous. Now... what is the population of your ship?"
Riker's tone was stark. "One thousand fourteen."
"Very hazardous, Commander."
With that, the little man walked past them to confer with the one with the weapon. Riker turned to watch him, and when Lilly stepped out of his way, he rested a heavy hand on her shoulder. Ordinarily, she would have been offended; clearly he wanted her to stay put without actually ordering her to, but there was something comforting about that action. His outrageous lie wasn't a one-off, his hand seemed to be saying. He planned to protect her.
"You two, come with me!" the guard said, raising his weapon.
They were led to a conference room with a narrow table surrounded by many purple chairs. Riker seemed to recognize it, and he settled into a chair after pulling out the one beside it for her.
"Sit. You may talk. But know, I am listening for any talk of escape!"
"I'm sorry about the inconvenience," Lilly said quietly.
Riker's smile was thin. "You're safer here with me. The Ferengi aren't known for their good treatment of women." He glared disapprovingly at their guard and then turned his chair and his body toward Lilly, propping his head on his hand with his fingers acting as a shield to cover his lips from sight. As soon as he started to mouth something to her, though, the guard stepped forward.
"Hands down!"
Riker sighed and turned his chair back toward the table.
"I know! We can play Tic Tac Toe," Lilly said brightly, pulling her pocket-sized spiral-bound notebook out of her pants. The small pen that was tucked into it was probably not 24th century technology, probably. It had lasted longer than any pen its size had a right to, but she wasn't complaining.
As she leafed past the pages of notes she'd made to herself over the course of the last week, their Ferengi guard shuffled over to the opposite side of the table in suspicion.
"What is, 'Tic Tac Toe?'" he demanded, lifting his weapon.
"Oh, it's just a child's game, but I don't like being bored. You take turns with the same paper and pen. One of you writes a line of words, then the other person responds to it, and so on. The first one of you to laugh loses," Lilly said in a nonchalant tone. "I'd offer for you to play, too, but the game is only for two players, and I don't know if you can even read English?"
"Ferengi officers don't play female games," the guard said with a sneer.
"Your loss," Riker said, smiling tightly. "Can I start?" he asked Lilly, holding his hand out for the pen.
"Fine, but I start next time," she said, pretending to sulk. Riker pushed the page over to her after writing something short, underlining one of the words with a flourish.
That was brilliant.
Lilly blushed and didn't look up at him when he offered her the pen.
Thanks. Are we the only ones on the ship?
She turned the notebook to face Riker, who shook his head. "Nice try," he said, writing the next line.
They kept the children here under guard, including JL.
Lilly looked at the words and gasped, looking up at Riker. His face was completely transformed by a smile to the point where it almost looked like his eyes were twinkling. He looked so handsome that way that her heart nearly skipped a beat.
"Don't laugh, now!" he said in a teasing voice. "I know you don't like losing."
"You'll have to teach me how you handle it with such grace, then. After all, you have had lots of practice," Lilly replied flippantly. She snatched the pen from his fingers.
Do they know it was you who locked down the computers?
"No, this won't do at all," he said when she turned the notebook his way. She liked that he didn't waste his line on answering her questions.
We need to come up with a way to activate a messaging system. Laugh.
Lilly read the first line, nodded, and then glared at him when she read the single word at the end. He smiled at her in a smug way, and she forced out a laugh.
"You think that's winning? You're going to be destroyed in the rematch, mister," she said. The Ferengi guard smirked at her, and she frowned at Riker as he held out the pen. He quirked his eyebrow and set it down on the table, moving his hands away from it as if in surrender. Lilly sent a mental apology to him as she wrote down her line.
If we act volatile now, he'll be grateful when we 'calm down' and it'll give us more leeway to talk.
To Lilly's surprise, Riker laughed as soon as he read what she'd written. "I never get tired of watching the way your mind works," he said in a voice full of admiration. Heat flared up in her face at the compliment. She was confused about whether he was teasing or genuine, but either one in that tone was enough to make her heart race. 'What the heck are you doing!?' she asked herself, shaking her head and jamming the pen's lid on before offering it to him.
Riker took the pen from her and tugged the lid off with little to no effort.
I may need to pretend to unlock their access in order to get through to JL.
When he placed the lid on the pen, Riker made eye contact with her and pushed so hard that she thought she heard a click. When Lilly took it from him, she couldn't get the lid off. Riker sat back in his chair and just watched. Lilly wondered if he had ever used a novelty pen like this before. If he hadn't, what she was about to do would blow his mind.
Rather than try to tug the lid off with her teeth, she simply twisted off the other cap and held up the pen, showing him the highlighter end.
"How did you know that was there?!" Riker asked, clearly holding back a laugh.
"I'm full of surprises," she said loftily.
"You certainly are," he said. His blue eyes were full of approval.
On the other side of the room, the Ferengi guard snorted awake from where he had apparently been dozing against the wall. All humor drained out of her as she realized they could have overpowered him and possibly taken his weapon, if only they hadn't been so distracted by the nonsense with the pen.
She closed her eyes and sighed, avoiding looking at him as she wrote,
Is there anything I can do to help you get access to the computer?
Don't laugh, please.
"Don't be discouraged by failing once. It's when there's a pattern of failure that you need to worry," he said, crossing his arms and leaning back, cocky and self-assured. As he'd spoken, he'd thrown a quick glance at their guard, and she suddenly understood. He could be telling her not to be upset that they'd missed their chance.
"Better to have more data points?" she asked, meaning they could be prepared with a plan, if he fell asleep again.
Riker nodded, so she offered him the pen without the highlighter lid. Now he either needed to use the yellow highlighter and admit defeat, or risk getting it on his fingers with no chance of washing them off any time soon. As if it took no effort at all, he pulled the pen lid off and tried it on the highlighter side. It stayed.
Triumphantly, he smiled at her and pulled over the notepad, flipping it to another page for the third time since they'd started 'playing Tic Tac Toe.'
As he wrote, Lilly muttered, "You're going to sprain something, being so sure of yourself."
"Unnatural," the Ferengi guard said under his breath, glaring at her. Lilly glared back before looking down at what Riker had written.
I won't be able to check any messages.
We need you somewhere to do that for me.
Lilly stared at his message for a full minute, feeling the weight of both of the men in the room staring at her. Then, she thought of something.
She laughed and said, "Alright, you've got me. I might as well go back to our quarters, at this point."
Riker seemed to understand what she meant, and his resulting smile was wide and rewarding. She hated how much she liked it. It was much easier to dislike Riker and find him off-putting when he was obvious about disliking her right back, but now that he was faking nice, she kept being taken in by his charm.
'It's an act!' she tried to remind herself. 'He's just trying to get his ship back, and so are you.'
8888888888
Will almost felt like he was back in the Academy in the simulation test his innovative Crew Psychology professor gave all graduating students. It wasn't graded, and it was never the same, either. Legend had it that each option was only repeated every five years, and there were over twenty-thousand option. The simulation he'd ended up with was a ship take-over situation, just like this one. He'd solved it by using Morse Code to communicate, something his meticulous professor had included in the code as recognizable by only 25% of the Riker's simulated crew. It had been both sheer luck and determination that brought Will out with his fake crew intact and the fake ship undamaged, and he'd learned not to rely on the idea that everyone he'd serve with would know the same things he did.
'Please list all languages known, including any considered obscure and ancient' was now a question on his crew onboarding questionnaire.
Of course, if you weren't in a location where you could easily access the computer on a read-only basis, there wasn't much point in knowing a thousand different languages. Will, the four adults in children's bodies, and Lilly could coordinate to overthrow the Ferengi scavengers best if each group could communicate. He assumed that at some point, he'd be ordered to unlock the Ferengi's central computer access, and he was prepared to stall as long as necessary. The physical stuff would have to be left to the captain and his junior crew. If he was reading Lilly's hints correctly, she could be the go-between, with the further benefit of requiring another guard to watch over her in his quarters.
Now, to get her there. He wrote,
Start looking tired. After ten minutes I will suggest confining you to quarters.
When he slid the notebook over for her to read, she immediately burst out laughing, despite the fact that she'd just 'lost' by laughing at the last time he'd written a line.
"I'm sorry, I think I'm finally unable to focus long enough to play this," she said, rubbing both hands over her face. "I could barely sleep at all last night, that's why you woke up to find me on the couch."
"Rest your head, then. I'll draw you a picture in your notebook for when you wake up," Will told her. He called out to the Ferengi guard. "Can I replicate her a pillow?"
"No. No tricks," the little man said.
"It's not like you can James Bond a pillow without preparation anyway," Lilly said, faking a yawn and laying her head down on one folded arm on the table.
Incredibly, as Lilly had predicted, their guard seemed to be used to the idea of the two of them having the notebook and pen. Will was free to write whatever he wanted.
Before he wasted any percentage of the ten sheets left in the tiny notebook, though, Will needed to formulate a plan. He traced his eyes over Lilly's blonde hair and sucked in a startled breath when she sat up, huffed, and pulled a small black elastic band from her pocket and quickly pulled her hair into it. Then, she set her head back down, seeming to deliberately trail the ponytail over into her face as she did so.
He suspected that in about two minutes, she'd sit up and huff again, pretending to be irritated by the same tickling ends of hair. Lilly was setting the stage for the request to be locked into her quarters. Their quarters. Because he'd told them she was his.
Will rubbed his hand over his mouth and then up through his hair. This was the other part that felt like the Academy simulation. His twice-damned professor had included personnel conflict as a key part of the problem to be solved. For his closest friend at the time, the simulation had been of an away mission Ford was leading. Alan Ford had just broken up with his girlfriend of nearly three years, and he'd told Will that, sure as hell, his ex-girlfriend was in his simulation as the science crew member of the away team. Ford hadn't told Will much more about it, just that he'd nearly failed the thing thanks to his uncertainty about whether it really was Jewell or a simulated version of her.
Ford had gone first of their small group of friends, and after hearing about his experience Will had been confident that a romantic entanglement wasn't going to complicate his simulation.
But it had.
It just wasn't a romance involving Will.
Instead, it was a relationship between two senior officers of his crew that caused an aura of mistrust and suspicion between the five simulated bridge officers and Will as their captain. It had been hell from an administrative and command perspective, but he'd made do, and come out from the other side with more than just an appreciation for the differences between people, but also for the way bonds could and would cause conflict in an otherwise healthy group of people. Deep down, Will knew that this lesson was part of why he'd never let himself be drawn back into Deanna's orbit.
That interwoven puzzle that he'd been engaged in for that simulation was what was so familiar today-the feeling of being pulled in many directions at once, some personal, some professional, all perilous. His advice to his simulated crew at the time was to compartmentalize. He'd told his officers to identify the most important things, recognize them, and then set them aside if they weren't helpful. It had worked in the moment, but now Will hated that advice. He didn't want to identify what was important to him about Lilly. He wanted to excise those emotions and let them float away into the void of space.
As predicted, Lilly groaned into the circle of her arm and lifted her head up.
"Can't get comfortable?" Will asked her in a gentle voice.
She whipped her head around to look at him, clearly surprised. Will felt a pang of guilt; had he alienated her so much that she was that shocked at a tone of kindness?
'That's good,' his conscience intoned. 'Keep her at a distance.'
"Lack of sleep makes me super irritable, sorry," she said softly. "It would be better in our bed."
"Keep trying," Will said. "They'll never agree to that." He glanced over and feigned disappointment. "Ferengi are notoriously hard-nosed when it comes to negotiation. I can't imagine there's anything we could offer them, anyway."
As he'd hoped, the Ferengi guard stood a little straighter and seemed proud to have overheard something he perceived as positive about his people.
"I'm going to try to get back to sleep, I guess," Lilly said. "I need you to calm down, though. I can feel you stressing from feet away. Take a walk around the table or something." With that, she set her head down, and Will felt the now-familiar admiration welling up inside him again. She was good at this.
He stood up, and the guard didn't even bat an eye. He watched Will until the two were mere feet apart, and only then did the Ferengi guard raise his weapon and say something.
"That's far enough. Go back the other way."
Will nodded, holding his hands up in an effort to look non-threatening. As he walked back around, he looked at Lilly, her legs curled up in the chair, head pillowed on her arm. Here she was, flesh and bone, beauty and brilliance. He'd known she had a head for leadership and clever problem solving from the historical record, not that she'd spent time talking herself up in her own journals. To see her mind working in real time, though, that was something else. There was a light, easy touch to her insights, with no heavy-handed fanfare or self-congratulation at all.
He leaned against the bulkhead that framed the windows and let himself look at her a little bit longer. The fact that she was attractive had been a small factor in deciding to use her as a fake relationship in the Academy, but his choice had been more about her intelligence and their shared interests. She loved the outdoors as he did, she'd even been out walking when Q had ripped her out of her own time and brought her to the Enterprise. He'd always thought she was pretty, but lately in his interactions with her he realized she was beautiful. It was her spirit, her ability to go toe to toe with him despite all of his authority, and today, her intelligence that made him recognize that what he thought of as beauty was not just her looks but her inner core as a person.
"I can see why you want her with you," the Ferengi guard said. Will looked up, startled, and saw a knowing look in the squirrelly man's eyes. "You're possessive, like a real man."
At the table, Will saw Lilly's body tense up in its curled-up position. He was speechless; unwilling to risk exposing his lie, unhappy with the implications of getting complimented on his treatment of a woman by a Ferengi of all people.
The door opened, and a different guard shoved a young man through it. It was the captain.
"Dad!" Picard crowed, running to him and enthusiastically throwing both arms around Will.
"Careful son, you don't want to wake your mother," Will said, nodding toward Lilly, who was in the exact same position she had been before the Ferengi had commented to him.
"No, of course," Picard said. Even in his child's voice, Will could hear the depth of sardonic understanding. His next words sounded heartfelt, though. "I'm truly grateful that she's safe."
Over the next minutes, Will held a rigidly controlled conversation with Jean-Luc Picard, peppering his phrasing with parental admonitions just as the captain channeled his inner bored teenager. The fact that he said he was bored helped Will introduce him to the Picard variation of Tic Tac Toe. The two of them planned out a strategy right underneath the Ferengi guards' eyes while Lilly pretended to slumber beside Will.
After making his 'son' laugh three times in a row, Will wrote one final message:
All that's left is to try to get Lilly locked into my quarters.
"Oh, leave that to me, Number One," Picard said. Quickly, he added, "He's my number one dad!" to assuage the suspicions of the Ferengi.
Lilly's shoulders started to shake. She was probably desperately holding in laughter, Will thought.
"Oh no, Mum's having another one of her nightmares!" Picard said, feigning distress. "It would be so much better for her and the baby if she could sleep in her own bed. Haven't you asked, Dad?"
Will started coughing. Jean-Luc's innocent outrage was one thing, but his addition to their deception was a step too far.
"Your female is with child?" the childrens' guard asked in awe.
Will noted that Lilly was now holding onto the edge of the table with one white-knuckled hand, and she sniffled.
"She's my step-mum. They're quite happy. I can't wait to be a brother!" Picard said enthusiastically.
Lilly started coughing and finally lifted her head. Her eyes were red, her face was covered in tears, and if he hadn't been certain she had just laughed herself into sobs, Will would have sworn she was exactly as her fake son said she was: exhausted, miserable, and pregnant.
"Jean-Luc? Oh!" Lilly said tearfully. She stood up and grabbed the captain, hugging him to her chest with a viciousness only an angry woman or a desperate mother could show.
Will covered his mouth with his hand to hide his smile, and both Ferengi guards looked deeply affected. They looked at each other, at Lilly, at Jean-Luc, and then at Will.
"Could she? You could lock her in?" Will asked, grateful for the amusement that gave his voice an emotional catch.
"Stay here!" one guard said. Then he dragged the other one out of the door and it closed behind them.
Lilly let go of the captain immediately.
"That was quite rough," Picard said, straightening his jacket.
"Pregnant!?" Lilly asked in a subdued squeak.
"It seems to have done the trick. If this works, we can send messages back and forth to put your plan in place," Picard said. "Here," he said, handing the notebook to her. "The details of the plan are in there, thanks to your Tic Tac Toe deception. Very clever, by the way."
"Thank you," Lilly said, closing the notebook and sliding it into a pocket.
The door slid back open, and Will slid a supportive arm around Lilly, feeling her tense up against him.
"I will take your son back to his room," one of the Ferengi guards said.
"I will take the two of you to your quarters, where you will use your command authority to confine her," the second guard said, narrowing his eyes at them.
Will released the breath he'd been holding in relief. Lilly wouldn't have been able to get into his quarters, and her own were nowhere near where command officers lived. Even a Ferengi would have figured that out.
"Stay brave," Lilly said, cupping the captain's face. Will took the opportunity to ruffle his hair.
"I shall not forget this," Jean-Luc promised. Then, he dutifully followed the guard out the door.
Lilly's shoulders were shaking again, and Will pulled her against his chest, feeling her resist him the whole time. "Let it out," he said soberly, and her arms came up to brace herself against him as her whole body shook.
"You should have said something sooner. Females are delicate and even we wouldn't endanger your unborn," the guard said unhappily. Lilly hiccuped.
Will allowed himself to stroke his hand along her back and up into her hair, pulling the elastic free so her hair could cover her face during the walk, just in case she couldn't hide her laughter. She must not have figured out what he was doing, though, because when he stepped away from her, she glared at him as he tucked the hair holder into his pocket.
"You must lead," the guard demanded, gesturing with his weapon.
Will reached for Lilly, but she stepped back, wary. Again, he held up his hands in mute surrender, and started walking for the door. To his surprise, the Ferengi guard didn't train his gun on Lilly or even take up position behind her, but instead walked beside Will, with his weapon pointed squarely at his chest. With every step Will took, the guard looked more disapproving, throwing glances at Lilly to make sure she was following them. In the turbolift, Lilly leaned against the wall by the door, and the Ferengi guard stared at her wide-eyed.
By the time they reached his quarters, Will was worried about what their guard was up to. Sure enough, before either of them could touch the panel to open the door (and Will was grateful at Lilly's outstretched hand, because it lent credibility to their ongoing lie), the Ferengi guard yelled at them.
"Stop!"
It was so sudden that Lilly actually stumbled against the locked door, and Will instinctively reached out for her. She wasn't accustomed to faking an easy physical familiarity, and so when she flinched away from him, their distressed guard didn't miss that.
"She is upset. That is not good for an unborn child, even a human one."
"That's why she needs to rest," Will said patiently.
"No!" the guard shouted, lifting his weapon. Again acting on instinct, Will blocked Lilly's body with his own, stepping between her and the guard. "Make her feel better!" the Ferengi man demanded. "Now!"
Will forced his body language to uncurl and held his left hand up. "Do you have a wife, or children? Because let me tell you, I wish it was that easy!" he said in a joking, put-upon tone.
"It would be easier to soothe her if she weren't wearing clothes," the Ferengi snapped.
"You can't be serious," Will couldn't stop himself from saying.
"Ferengi females aren't entitled to clothing. Their job is raising the young!"
Will didn't even want to imagine what Lilly's reaction was to this revelation. He spoke as if to a stubborn child. "I can soothe her best by opening the door to our rooms and letting her sleep."
"You will leave her upset and it will harm your child. I cannot be responsible for that. If you will not remove her clothing properly, you must do something else. Human lobes aren't sensitive…" the guard looked at Lilly, then at Riker, then shook his head in despair. Then, his eyes lit up. "Kiss her, then!"
Will had the urge to rush this officious little jerk of a Ferengi, take his gun, and then take his motherfucking ship back. The captain was counting on their plan, though, and it was a good plan. He let out a long sigh and tried to think of what to say to dissuade the guard from his disastrous order.
There was no way he could kiss Lilly. He'd have to transfer off of the ship, and not just because she would hate him twice as much as she did already. Will had been half-way in love with her before she ever arrived in his century, and after today, he was even farther along. Her self-sacrificial suggestion before the attack and quick wit afterwards had anchored that seedling of attachment deep in his heart. Touching her, kissing her… that would make it bloom.
"This is honestly the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to me, and believe me, that's saying something!" Lilly practically growled.
Then, before he could stop her, before he even realized what she was doing, she hauled at his arm to turn him around to face her and launched herself up onto her toes, tugging at his collar. He was caught off guard, but he was still a Starfleet officer, and he knew how not to get manhandled. He steadied her with both hands at her elbows and stared at her in confusion.
"Shit, I have no idea what I'm doing," he heard her whisper. She tugged at his collar again. "Lie back and think of England, Commander!" she hissed at him.
Understanding dawned, and Will suddenly felt lightheaded. "You-"
She wanted him to kiss her. Granted, it was to avoid derailing their plan, but Will leaned over, sliding one arm around her to help steady them, his other hand coming up to brush her cascade of blonde hair away from her face. He wondered if she could feel how fast his heart was beating through that hand as he cupped her cheek. She still had her fingers hooked into his collar.
Will paused at the very last second, asking permission with a quick lift of his eyebrows. Lilly's eyes narrowed in obvious frustration, and she opened her mouth to say something he definitely didn't want to hear, so he closed the distance and kissed her.
As soon as their lips met, Lilly clutched at him and gasped. The resulting movement made the kiss more intimate, and Will was overcome with a jolt of desire for her. He knew he should pull back, but he was carried away by her warmth and sweetness. Impulsively, he angled his head and stroked at the inside of her lip very lightly with his tongue, knowing this was his only chance and unwilling to squander it in the moment.
Lilly made a tiny noise and the hand in his collar slid up into his hair. That was all the encouragement Will needed to press her against the closed door of his quarters. He buried both of his hands in her hair and risked another swipe of his tongue, tentatively and deliciously answered by hers. Her other hand was at his waist, and when she slipped it under his uniform jacket and slid upwards in a gesture that felt both accepting and loving, Will let out a noise of his own.
She froze, and he drew one hand down from where it was tangled in her hair so that when he pulled away, he could hold her head still and look into her eyes. Will needed to see her expression. Her hand slid out of his hair and down to his chest; she'd already snatched her other hand away. Her eyes stayed closed.
"Lilly," Will said in a quiet, pleading voice. This was ostensibly for show, and if she looked upset he had no idea what their anxiety-ridden Ferengi guard would demand next.
At first she shook her head as if to throw off his hand, but he just slid the second one down to frame her face with both. That was when Lilly placed one hand on each of his wrists, gentle but firm. He let go, and she opened her eyes.
Lilly's eyes were troubled, the pupils blown, all color practically gone. She looked at him with an expression he interpreted as fear, and a spike of worry shot through him. Then, as if a ripple of acceptance washed over her somehow, she schooled her expression to a peaceful one and, shockingly, lifted herself up on her tiptoes, reaching for his head with both of her hands.
This time Will allowed himself to be led, and she pressed a brief, tender kiss to his lips before dropping back down.
That kiss shook him as much as the previous one had.
"Thank you, I think I can sleep now," she said in a soft voice, looking over his shoulder at the guard.
"Go on." The Ferengi's voice sounded unhappy, but Will had no intention of questioning his directions this time.
He opened the door via the panel and Lilly walked in.
"I know you'll go straight to sleep, but if you need anything, the computer will be offline," he told her. Then, for the benefit of the guard, he added, "I'm sorry I can't stay with you."
"I'm sure the pillows still smell like you," Lilly said in a rich, amused tone.
Will's hand spasmed at the controls, and the door shut before he could say anything else. The way her voice sounded had been seductive, and his body was thoroughly on board with that. He adjusted his uniform as best he could and took a few steps toward the Ferengi guard.
"You're coming to the bridge, now," the guard said, seeming to forget the part where Will was meant to lock her in. The guard's demeanor was closed-off and almost angry, and it wasn't until they were a few feet from the turbolift that he said anything else. "Perhaps-" he started, then faltered.
"Yes?" Will encouraged him as they stepped aboard. He was hoping to keep the man distracted enough that he continued to forget that Riker's 'wife' was unsecured in 'their' quarters.
"Perhaps it is not a bad thing, having one's female with you on your ship. There are certain…" the guard stopped when the doors opened.
Will smiled broadly. "Yes, yes there are." He took a long breath in and let it out before following the guard onto the bridge.
