Deep into the ship's night and long after her shift had finished, Deanna Troi and Will Riker sat together on the sofa in her quarters. They'd eaten hours earlier, discussing Picard's predicament until they had exhausted every detail. Beverly had called the day before, filled them both in. She'd sworn them to secrecy, if it ever got back to him that she was trying to pull strings, well, all those discussions they'd endured about the Prime Directive would pale into insignificance in comparison to the earful he'd give her; if he had the strength.

Will was devastated; as the former First Officer, it had been in his remit to take care of the change of command. He'd thought back to the chaos of the Admiral's transfer first to SB 3, then back to Earth and could just as easily forgive himself for not crossing that final 't' as he could kick himself for not paying enough attention. He knew that crewmembers with replacement parts had to carry spares, knew too, after Picard's run in with that Lenarian compressed teryon beam, how important it was to have those spares to hand when needed. He knew too that life in Starfleet came with an element of the unexpected; to argue that Picard's departure had been so, was really no argument at all.

He took a sip of his ale, placed it back on the ring it had already made on the coffee table. He felt guilty as hell and knew that when it came down to it, he was to blame for Picard being laid low yet again back at HQ.

Deanna squeezed his arm, smiled sympathetically at him. Sometimes her empathy was unwelcome… the last thing he needed now was sympathy. What he needed, was a solution.

"Don't beat yourself up Will…."

"Deanna… don't." he said, rising.

She stopped suddenly, frozen in place. "I've got it!"

He watched her rise from the sofa and move toward her desk, "What?" he asked, "Deanna?"

Deanna tabbed at her terminal, opening up a priority subspace call. In moments, the puzzled face of Lwaxana Troi was staring back at them.

"Deanna darling, whatever is the matter?" Came the melodic tones of her mother.

"I just thought I would call and see how you are. We haven't spoken in a while."

"Oh, come now… remember who you are talking to?" she smiled, prodding her daughter, opening up the space she needed to verbalize the emotions she was reading.

"Well, I'm not supposed to discuss it…"

"You're deeply worried about someone you care about… there's something of a clock ticking? Come now Little One, you know there is very little to be gained from not telling a telepath what's going on… even from this distance I can see you've lost your lustre."

"It's cap-Admiral Picard…"

"Jean-Luc is hurt?" Said her mother, instantly shocked. No point keeping anything from her, her telepathy was very advanced. Deanna wasn't lying of course, but she still felt deceitful somehow, taking advantage of her mother's fondness for the Admiral. "Darling, tell me everything."

By the time Deanna had explained the terrible situation to her, her mother had summoned Homn to ready the diplomatic shuttle. She was only sixteen hours away from the Enterprise on Galvin V, scheduled to give an ambassadorial presentation encouraging trade with Betazed.

Will smiled as she closed the call. Between them, they had the beginnings of a plan… she hadn't quite worked out the full detail as of yet… but she had sixteen hours to play with. The stakes were too high, they had to succeed. She kissed him on the cheek as he called in a new set of coordinates.

A week went by, Theodore was growing bigger by the second, content and much happier now that he wasn't enduring the excruciating pain of Shallaft's Syndrome. Despite everything that was going on, Beverly was enjoying her leave. When she'd had Wesley, Jack had shipped out when he was just a few months old, she was in her residency, and she'd had a very different experience. She'd been far too busy to enjoy her firstborn, now she was far too aware of how quickly it all passed – she was determined to enjoy her surprise baby. He was starting to engage with her, laughing, babbling, a general delight.

At the same time, as though she were split in half, the days dragged by as she watched Jean-Luc growing weaker. The new heart was making progress but was still a week from completion, his old heart deteriorating faster than she had anticipated. The pacer was keeping him alive, a fact they were both more than cognizant of. He was uncomfortable, pale, worn out, his heart relying more on the pacer to keep it on track than anything it could do for itself. It was as though all the progress he'd made in his initial recovery from the Arkonar poisoning had been for nothing. His skin was grey, he voluntarily remained in bed, making the occasional trip to the sofa, panting by the time he got there, his hand going to his chest to stem the discomfort he felt every time the pacer kicked in.

There was a plan in place, he was being monitored incredibly closely, she knew he would be transported the very second things started to take a turn for the worse. Medical had a detailed tracker – blood gasses, oxygen, BP, BPM, virtually everything was being monitored and for that she was grateful.

She had him tucked in the spare room on bedrest, so he wouldn't disturb Theodore, and so that Theodore wouldn't disturb him. He was so sick that he hadn't even grumbled. That's how she had known just how bad things had become. He just needed to make it through the next week.

She'd tried everything she could think of, she'd called Deanna and Will, knew they couldn't break orders nor go against Nechayev, but she'd tried nonetheless… She couldn't believe that in this day and age, it would come down to a missing part and poor planning.

She was managing to look after him well enough on her own, knew it was only a matter of time before his replacement would be ready. The trouble was, she really wasn't sure if he would last that long.