Chapt. 9

Stars held no comfort; they hadn't for weeks. Her life was such a mess these days, with the disappearance of her husband and children, everything that had been consistent in her life for the past three years had disappeared. She didn't even have her job at the moment. In fact she had nothing but time and concerned friends.

And it was all so damn confusing! Why couldn't she reason it out?! Why couldn't she explain how she started to long for Will's strong arms around her instead of Worf's? It had only been three weeks and already she was looking forward. How could she?! She loved Worf! She had, she did. And no one could ever replace the emptiness her children had left behind in her spirit.

But already she was aware of how Riker's presence would fill part of the emptiness Worf had left behind, simply by being there and caring for her.

"This *isn't* right!" She yelled at herself, the despair even noticeable to her own ears. It was wrong to feel this way; wrong, wrong, WRONG. The crystal vase at her left became the victim of her self-loathing and crashed against the wall; thousands of little pieces of razor-sharp crystal landed on the covers of their, *her* bed. With angry and desperate sweeps she brushed the shards off the bed, not even noticing the lacerations and little cuts that covered her hands and arms more and more.

The sweeps became more and more violent as time passed but shards wouldn't go away, and neither did her confusion or hurt. Her emotions were overwhelming, tied into a knot so strong she couldn't even dissect it herself. The entire situation was simply frustrating, above and beneath everything else.

The crystal scattered over the bed totally forgotten she dropped herself onto her back, welcoming the stinging pain, yet at the same time hardly realizing it. She drew her hands from her temples through her hair to the back of her head, leaving smears of blood on her face and in her hair.

And that was how Will found her an in definitive time later when he came looking for her.

The smile he had been wearing dropped instantly in horror at the sight of her limp, blood-covered body and face. "Oh my god! Deanna!" To his eternal relief Troi stirred, 'at least she's still alive,' and rolled onto her side. Only then did he see the little pieces of a glass-like material that covered the bed and the floor aside from it. "Dea? Dea?! Wake-up!" Quickly, without paying attention to the sharp pieces, he made his way to her side. "Dea? We have to get you to sickbay."

Languidly she rolled in his arms, drunken from exhaustion. At first sight her injuries had seemed horrible; blood stained the white, half-sleeved robe she wore and the sides of her delicate features. Now that he was closer however he could see that in fact the blood on her face came from the tiny cuts and lacerations on her hands.

Relief flooded through him as he realized her injuries weren't life threatening, but at the same time he wondered --not without concern-- what on Earth had possessed her to thrown herself into a bed filled with sharp pieces of glass?

She was dead-weight in his arms, still half asleep and unaware what was happening. Her head rolled against his chest and instinctively nuzzled up against him. When she softly sighed his name however, it startled the hell out of him.

He'd carried her to bed numerous times in the past weeks, some times she was still awake, some times half asleep and other times deeply asleep. But whenever she'd sighed, or whispered or yelled a name it was Worf's and on rarer occasions Eric's and Shannara's. Except for her nightmares, in those she never seemed to call out for her husband, only for her children.

He made his way to sickbay without interruptions and gently laid her down on a biobed in a private-room. Her life was hard enough without gossip among the Enterprise's crew. He called Beverly, knowing full well she'd never forgive him if he didn't.