Chapter 6: Salad Course

Two days.  It was not a lot of time as far as Deanna Troi was concerned.  Under normal circumstances it would have been impossible to learn a person's motivations and motives in that span of time.  But that is just what she had managed to do.  She and Will had agreed try Tina's suggestion of letting Julie and Tom get to know each other.  Somewhere in the back of Deanna's mind she was relieved at the choice.  He deserved the chance.  He had done the right thing when he had taken Will's place and saved Will's career, even ensuring that Chancellor Gowron wasn't assassinated in the process.  His willingness to sacrifice his own freedom, and possibly his life to do the right thing, had been rewarded by everyone looking the other way when he had escaped.  She did not regret the decision to better get to know the new Tom Riker at any point during the two-day trip to DS9.

In the intervening years he had been one of those Robin Hood characters, aiding the oppressed by liberating what the fortunate did not have necessity for.  Deanna had to give him moral credit for the way things had been conducted in his cell.  She learned that they rarely ever took more than they actually needed, and never took what could not be lost without hardship from others if they could help it.  During the war he had been one of the Maquis that had come to the aid of the Federation, gathering intelligence and siphoning out all that he could manage.  During that time he had alluded to a couple of missions that she felt she would have felt proud of him for, if he had actually could have told her about them.  After the war had ended he found himself as one of Admiral Nechayev's pet spies.  While Deanna could not entirely agree with this idea, she actually understood his motives.  His resemblance to Will, including genetics, would have made him invaluable to the Admiral, and having been in her share of battles she had gained a more pragmatic view about intelligence operatives.

All in all Tom had become almost as altruistic as Will, albeit in a more vigilante way.  Deanna found herself warming to the man in much the same way that she and Will had been for a very long time, minus the sexual tension.  She still amazed at the relief she felt at not been sexually attracted to Tom.  Tom on the other hand was still warring over old feelings.  Overtly he was hiding the conflict well.

Even Will was handling the situation better than she had hoped.  While she doubted that the two of them would ever be friends, she was now certain that they could maintain a professional relationship, without trying to kill each other.  This had been an unexpected boon for her.  After the first afternoon together she had been able to actually relax because she knew that they would not have the pissing contest that she had feared they would. 

Once she was sure of the new Tom Riker, she had even been honest enough to tell him that the reason that she had involved both Tina and Will was because both of them were telepathic.  The pang of regret that passed through Tom when the full realization that Will and Julie not only could sense each other, they could have full telepathic communication nearly knocked Deanna over.  When Tom realized that he was emoting so strongly, he managed to block it from his conscious mind.  They explained that the only reason that Will had such a strong ability with Julie was the virus that he contracted.  Having been left trying to figure out how to deal with the new gift, he finally decided to live with the ability.  Tom still felt as if he had been cheated, but in the typical Riker fashion he managed to continue stoically.  Before leaving that first night he cornered Deanna and honestly told her the trepidation that he felt and that he just would need time to learn he really could manage to just be her friend, if she would allow it.  Deanna had reluctantly agreed to see what happened after this mission.

Julie, for her part, took everything with the wonderment of a child.  The first day she asked Tom so many questions, Deanna swore that Tom would throw up his hands in disgust.   Instead all she sensed in him was the same frustration that any adult had with a child.  Listening to them banter had given the other three ample opportunity to sift through Tom's public mind.  It was not something that Deanna liked to do.  If nothing else it would have been considered rude.  But given the lack of time she decided that expediency outweighed decorum.  She had however made a point of making sure Tina and Will, especially Will, did not probe too deep.  After all, he had been working as Starfleet intelligence for the last few years.  One thing that Deanna did not expect was the ease with which Will could read Tom.  Between the three of them, with a few insights from Julie had given them, she had what she would have called an accurate profile of Tomas Riker in less than a day.

There were several pieces of intelligence information gathered that day as well.  Most of it entailed the true state of the Cardassian Empire.  While the core systems had been steadily recovering, the outer systems were in a sorrier state than the Federation colonies in the DMZ had ever been.    For this information alone Deanna had been grateful to get Tom back into Federation hands, these people actually needed help.  He also had told them that after he had signed on with the Admiral he had managed to procure more medical supplies and even a few technicians and one or two doctors.  Deanna found herself able to feel a certain amount of pride towards the man.

On the second day Will and Deanna had allowed Tom to take Julie to the holodeck without a chaperone.  They spent almost three hours together and never once did Julie feel the need to call her parents.  When the returned to the apartment Julie was very happy and Tom looked and felt as worn out as Will usually did when he would spend time on the holodeck with Julie himself.  Deanna allowed herself a small giggle.

Now all we have to do is crack a computer database, get the information and the away team out and get back home, in one piece.  She watched her daughter leave Tom's side and climb into her father's lap, telling him avidly about what she had done.  The quiet confidence that exuded from her husband's psyche gave her a boost.  We can manage that without even breaking a sweat.  She turned her attention to Julie who was telling her father about the hose she had been riding in the mountains of Alaska.