At least now she is sleeping better, even if she cannot eliminate the need to recede within herself in silence, or to shy away from the company of anybody but a machine, then at least she can say she is sleeping.

Her quarters are dark, and too hot, and covered in un-recycled plates and bowls, as well as unfitting clothes and data pads: but at least, for the moment, she is sleeping.

That hollow place within her continues to swallow up her emotions, and she feels that just to continue moving forward might be to ask too much of herself, and yet somehow, day after day, there is a smile on her face, and an excuse at the root of her tongue.

The closer they come to the neutral zone, the less she is expected to keep up her appearance, though it has slipped quite considerably anyway. By the time they come to rendezvous with the Tiberius, her skin is pale, her face unmade, and her hair in a messy crown about her head - but, at least, she is sleeping.

And Will is on one of the away teams, meaning the air on the bridge is so clean, so unsullied by his sulking tension that she can properly breathe beside the Captain, who is not so uneasy at her presence as she maybe thinks he should be, given how he has tried to hold her out at arms length. Yet somehow, she is still permitted her bridge duty, maybe because he feels she has something to offer still, and she is glad that he can see that in her, even when she sometimes cannot see it in herself.

On the viewscreen before them, the Tiberius hangs limply in space, one half of it's lower decks held up by scaffold and burnt conduits, a symbol of a war that the Federation hopes to avoid. There is nothing much more to do than stare forward at this image, and track the motions of each blip amongst the stars, of those distant ships that continue to patrol along the neutral zone, both Klingon and Federation operated.

But there is something distracting her from this view, and it is not the way her stomach jumps rhythmically as the child hiccups within her, or the rising feelings of tension among the staff, or even the apprehension of Worf behind her, but something that is far beyond the stars and the millions of miles of empty space. It is, at first, a simple passing thought, as though these few days they have spent travelling here have culminated in this certain feeling she cannot name, but as the minutes turn into hours on deck, it is becoming more than a tingle at the back of her teeth, something which she cannot continue to ignore.

"Captain I -"

Deanna begins, with no real plan in her head as to what more to say; he turns to her immediately, a pair of concerned eyes that had been focused before on a data pad in his lap.

Their eyes lock for a few moments of confused silence, but this serves only to worry him further.

"Counselor, is something wrong?"

Picard prompts her, and from the helm an ensign turns slightly in his seat, a sense of curiosity emanating from him with morbidity; she cannot concentrate.

"I'm not sure,"

Her gaze turns instead back to the view screen, the feeling builds in the back of her mouth - if only she could find the words.

"I think -"

She frowns, turns back to him, a long fingered hand raised now to gesture where she had been looking, the words now moulded into something more cohesive, something she can explain.

"Captain, there's someone out there,"

Deanna states, all taste of trepidation gone from her tongue, now that she is filled with a second hand emotion she can finally name, now that it is fear, and it has an origin that is gaining on them.

"A cloaked ship?"

Picard questions, glancing over his shoulder at where Worf begins to type more fervently at his panel, ears tuned finely to their conversation.

"No,"

A beat.

"Not a ship,"

One of her hands moves to smooth over the fabric at her stomach, to cradle the swell of her baby, unknowingly.

"A child,"

Hush descends over the bridge, and he has always tried to listen to what she has to say, to believe her when she tells him something which he cannot himself verify, but a child alone in space amongst all this - there is something of a stretch to the thinking.

"How can you be sure it's not one of the children aboard the Enterprise?"

He asks in the silence, and he knows immediately that it's not for him to question what she feels, yet here he is, second guessing her regardless.

"Because he is alone,"

She swallows thickly.

"And scared,"

There is that look in her eyes again, the one she had held at Farpoint, the one she had for the crew of the Tsiolkovsky, for Tasha; he knows now not to doubt it's strength.

"Mr Worf?"

He calls over his shoulder, and suddenly all the sounds of the bridge return to them, tapping and beeping and the deep thrumming of the warp core beneath them all.

"Captain, there is nothing on tactical or long range sensors to indicate any further vessels in the vicinity, I would have said -"

"I know, Lieutenant, I'm not making any accusations,"

Picard soothes, and from the helm, Data turns to face into the conversation.

"If I may, it is possible that the sensors are not detecting minor ionic fluctuations in subspace that may be caused by smaller, or sub-light crafts utilising cloaking technology. It is worth calibrating the sensors to detect such negligible fluctuations that may be indicative of a nearby craft, to determine the accuracy of Counselor Troi's suspicions,"

He suggests, and his gold eyes flash with something bright as he turns to speak with all of their attentions, finally resting his gaze on Deanna, with something which could be easily mistaken for fondness.

"I will make the adjustments,"

Worf responds without order, and for a few seconds, Data continues to watch Deanna, his mechanical eyes witnessing more of her than any of them can, calculating and cool in their assessment; the information is fed directly to her medical file, among a hundred other tasks he is in the middle of performing. In the silence, he wonders if Spot might benefit from more Taurine in his diet: an algorithm is written, a subroutine utilised, until the calculation is completed, and the whole process is ceased.

A proximity alarm begins to light up their panels, and Data turns back to the helm, focused on the information input beneath his fingers.

"Captain, there's a distortion just a few kilometres from our port bow,"

Worf says with some urgency, and from his station, the android responds.

"I am working on disabling it's cloaking device manually,"

Deanna turns to face the Captain again, the feeling now as strong as it has been, and in this state of suspension she finds herself tapping fingers against the top of her stomach.

He tries not to smile at this rare affection, knowing how she struggles to accept what grows of her.

Suddenly, the image on the viewscreen switches to an image of the section of space in question, and, in coordination with the beeping of Data's work, an object materialises in the distance, small and inscrutable.

"Magnify,"

Picard orders, standing to meet the image, hands already working to tug down at his uniform tunic.

"It appears to be an escape pod, Captain,"

Worf dictates, reading from his panel as the object grows before them, finally appearing as a small capsule, old and seemingly Klingon in design, though undoubtedly a relic of the old Empire.

"One occupant, approximately 4 years old, Klingon,"

He pauses a little to accommodate the refreshing information, trying not to allow his imagination to run away with him.

"Life signs appear stable Sir,"

He finishes, and Deanna wishes it were so easy to just stand beside the Captain and witness all this strangeness, but instead she remains in her seat, too unbalanced to really consider such a quick move.

"What are we waiting for Mr Worf, I need a transporter lock on that thing if we're going to bring it aboard,"

"But Captain, the security issues with bringing a hostile -"

Worf is silenced by Picards raised hand, and the man turns to face him at his console, looking down to where Troi sits in anxious silence.

"The boy is four years old - Counselor, are you sensing any hostility from him?"

She shakes her head sadly.

"He is terrified, Captain,"

Deanna states grimly, and so he turns his gaze expectantly on Worf, and there is less than a moment of indecision in the man.

"Very well,"

As the lieutenant works on his panel, Captain Picard does another turn to look back at the viewscreen, something about children and war beneath his breath, but it is too little to catch before he is trying to force order back into his life once more.

"Beam the escape pod to transporter room 2 and then accompany Counselor Troi there,"

He falters for a moment,

"If you feel up to it, Deanna?"

She nods vigorously to him, relieved at last for something more to do than stew in her own feelings, though it is clear Worf is not too happy with this arrangement.

"You two are probably the best faces we can offer the boy,"

He says before the man can mount any kind of argument.

"See if you can find out what happened to him, maybe show him around the ship, just try and keep him occupied while I find out just what the hell happened here,"

The Captain moves deliberately into the centre floor of the bridge, his eyes narrowing as the capsule dematerialises before him, a terrible taste at the root of his tongue.

"I want to know what exactly has to happen for a child to find himself alone in the middle of empty space."