~*+*~

"Will, stop pacing will you?" He did as asked, nervously playing with the end of the sleeve of his dress uniform. Next to him his wife and CMO tried desperately to focus on anything but her captain's nervous behaviour.

"Is my hair okay?"

"Geez Will, relax! She won't kill you for a stray lock of hair."

"No," he agreed, "no, she'll kill me no matter what." Noticing his wife's frown he threw his hands up in the air and started pacing again. "Serah, she's Deanna's mother! She protects Deanna more fervently than a Vulcan protects his sanity! Lwaxana Troi is a force to be reckoned with, especially when she's angry."

"Will, it's been twenty years. If she wanted you dead you wouldn't be standing here right now." The logic in her words were registered in Riker's mind, but nonetheless he was dealing with Lwaxana Troi and Lwaxana Troi was more unpredictable than an Olir'tak'toe. His time to worry was cut short when the ensign behind the console informed him the ambassador of Betazed was prepared to beam up. Sighing heavily and resigning himself to the inevitability of Lwaxana in 'protection-mode', he nodded and waited until the through the blue glimmers of the transporters beam three people became visible.

He gasped loudly and vaguely felt his wife's hand on his arm, before he --out of habit-- took a step towards the platform and extended his hand. "Ambassador, welcome onboard the Titan."  Taken a back by the formality in his voice Deanna slowly stepped down and accepted his held-out hand. "Captain." Politely she nodded and then stepped aside so that Will could welcome Beverly and Kyleigh while she said hello to Serah.

Will was surprised that when Beverly stepped down she made no attempt at all to hug him like he expected. He quickly forgot about that when his eyes fell on the young woman accompanying his old friends. His mouth fell open and his eyes nearly popped out his head. It was like he'd gone back in time by forty years. Right there in front of him stood Deanna, looking almost exactly the way she had when he had first met her.

When the woman stepped up to him and held out her hand he snapped out his reverie just in time to see the look the woman in front of him exchanged with Deanna. "Lieutenant Felisia Troi, sir." Dumbfounded he barely managed to accept her hand and continued to stare at her. "Captain, if you excuse us. My mother and I are exhausted from the trip; we'd like to be shown our quarters." Half out of surprise he turned towards Deanna, just missing the disapproving glare she shot her daughter. He did catch Beverly grinning and briefly wondered what was going on between the three women.

Exchanging a quick look with his wife he gestured at the door and began guiding the women to their quarters. After he had pointed Deanna her quarters and assigned the one next to those to Kyleigh she declined, pointing out that she would stay with her mother for the duration of the journey. When
Will bemusedly thought how depended Deanna's daughter was on her mother, it earned him a glare from Troi which struck him as odd for she couldn't have picked up on his thoughts. He could no longer sense her, therefore he assumed the bond was severed. There was no way she could hear what he was thinking.

Writing it off as a coincidence he watched the Trois retreat into their quarters and was again surprised when Beverly remained outside hers. "Will, could you show me to Sickbay?" Until then it hadn't occurred to him it was quite unusual to bring a medical physician along to negotiations of such a delicate nature. "Of course, is there something wrong?"

"No," she stated absently, "no, everything's as well as can be."

~*+*~

"Mom! Mom, I can't find Flow!" Now there's a surprise, Deanna thought sarcastically. "I'm sure she'll turn up somewhere Liz."

"Mo-hom!"

"Oh all right." After a quick roll of her eyes Deanna obeyed her daughter's wishes and scanned for their pet. Flow was a six month old Betazoid kitten and already she managed to escape from pretty much everything. One would almost suspect she was an offspring from Data's first cat Spot. This time Flow had managed to --a small grin splayed across Troi's face-- the Bridge, oh she could just imagine the look on Riker's face. "Okay, I'll go get her."

"Mom?"

"What? I'm just going to pick up our troublemaker." Slowly Kyleigh came into the room, her dark eyes suspiciously eying her mother. "Where is she?" Deanna didn't yield under her daughter's strict glare and with a warning glance broke eye contact moved to the door.

"Look Kyleigh, it's no big deal. I wanted to make a stroll around the ship any way; I'll pick her up in the mean while." Kyleigh blinked at Deanna's use of her official first name. She's been called Lishia or Liz for as long as she could remember and her mother only used her first name when she was getting angry.

"She's near Riker, is she not?" Taking a deep breath Deanna turned around and locked her eyes on her daughter's, conveying with one simple look that she wouldn't divulge any objection against what she was going to say. "Look, for the past three days you've managed to keep me away from him one way or the other, but I can't avoid him forever and we *are* on his ship. So I might as well face him and hope I can talk him out of throwing you in the brig for endangering ship's procedures which is exactly what he wants to do right now." With those words Troi spun around one more time and left the room.

She had meant what she said, at this point Riker really did want to throw Flow's owner in the brig, his only problem was that he didn't know who the cat's owner was. She had known exactly when the black kitten had jumped onto his lap at the middle of the bridge and had sensed Will's irritation as well as the amusement of the officers around him. Barely managing to suppress a grin she exited the turbolift and stepped upon the bridge.

"Flow! There you are!" At her exclamation all heads turned towards her. She ignored them and hurried down to where Riker was sitting with a black ball of fur on his lap. Flow was stubborn, to say the least. When in the right mood she'd find herself a lap to lie on and no matter how often she was thrown off, she'd always clime back. Oh yes, Betazoid kittens could be quite annoying.

"De--Deanna." For a brief second their eyes met, triggering flashes of memories but just as quickly she pushed them back where they belonged...far away in a dark corner of her psyche. Only to be remembered when she wanted to.

"Hello to you too Will. I believe you have something that is mine." She bent over and picked the little kitten up, holding it against her chest. "Thanks for watching her Will, she's real trouble sometimes." Her coy behaviour stunned him into silence, not at all like the way she'd behaved last time they'd seen each other, at Jean-Luc's wedding. "You're, you're welcome," he managed at last.

She was about to step back into the turbolift when he called after her. "Deanna! Maybe we could meet tonight in Ten-Forward or so?" His sudden burst of unprofessionalism surprised her, never had she seen him act like this on the bridge, but then she hadn't been a good example either and who knew how he had changed the past two decades?

"I'm afraid not Captain, I've got an appointment with my doctor." Before he could reply the doors closed and the lift began to move. Immediately Deanna sagged against the wall and hid her face in her free hand. She hadn't meant to reveal that! So far all three of them had been able to conceal the fact that Beverly was with them for medical support, Will would definitely start to ask questions now. "Damnit, damnit, *damnit*!"

~*+*~

Although Deanna had already left the bridge Riker could still see her. She hadn't changed much at all. Her hair was still as dark and as curly as it had been fifteen years ago. She had told him long ago that unlike Humans, Betazoids didn't loose their hair colour and now he could see that was indeed true. Her face had more lines than he remembered, but being in Starfleet did that to you and she looked every bit as beautiful as when he'd first met her.

In the three days that Ambassador Troi and her companions had been aboard, he had hardly seen her. Whenever they would run into each other it would be only a matter of seconds before Lieutenant Troi or Beverly would turn up and whisk Deanna away. Now that he saw how Deanna acted around him and that she apparently didn't mind being near him at all he began to wonder what was going on.

There were many things that just didn't make sense to him, but up and until now he had shoved them aside as eccentricities. He wasn't so sure now anymore though. Deanna was the only delegate send to Romulus, where normally the Federation would send a team. And there was a doctor accompanying her, and more disturbing, that doctor had already spend quite some time in his Sickbay without revealing why.

Could there be something wrong with Deanna? An illness of some kind that forced her to take medicine and keep a close watch on her health? But if that was true why hadn't he been informed? Did the Federation Council even know? It seemed he would just have to find out himself.

~*+*~

"Liz! Hurry up, you're late."

"I'm coming!" Quickly she replicated a towel and then headed to the doors, passing her mother on her way. "What? No fight about you coming along?" Deanna began to get quite annoyed by her daughter's motherly attitude, but as yet she wouldn't say so. "Nope, I've got some things I want to do. Good luck."

"Thanks Mom." Troi smiled knowingly and gave her daughter a quick good-bye kiss. Kyleigh and an old classmate of hers, Iza, hurried down the corridors, on their way to a velocity competition that would be held on one of the Holodecks. Deanna was glad that Iza had been stationed on the Titan, for now Kyleigh wouldn't hover around her constantly. Tonight she'd be alone; Kyleigh on the Holodeck and Beverly would spend the night talking with her husband over the commchannel.

Smiling contently she picked up her hot-chocolate and nestled herself in a big chair. It wasn't long before her thoughts began to wander through the years of her life and for once she allowed herself to remember.

~*+*~

This was ridiculous! He couldn't get a hold on *anyone* who might know what was going on. Admiral Picard had dodged his questions with his usual slyness, Beverly would just murmur that 'everything's as well as can be' and to make matters even more curious Deanna's personnel file required an Alpha One clearance. It seemed he had only one option left.