Will's brain was trying to crawl out of his skull, the baby wailed on as Deanna carefully checked him from head to toe.
"Are you sure he doesn't look just a little bit yellow to you?" She asked again running her palm along the side of Luc's face.
"Deanna he looks bright red to me." He sighed, rubbing at his temple. "He's hungry just feed him."
"I just fed him two hours ago. Selar said every three hours." She fretted, wrapping the boy back up as she undid the hooks of her shirt. "What if I'm not making enough milk? Or if there is something wrong with it?"
Will let the elbow holding him up straighten as the baby's mouth was finally full, his body flopped painfully back to the sheets. His son still whimpered between swallows.
"There's nothing wrong with your milk." He groaned.
"Selar said-."
"It's not an exact science Deanna maybe he fell asleep too soon before. He was hungry now, not an hour from now. There is nothing wrong with your milk."
She considered it, her eyes focusing on the window before shaking her head, dismissing him completely.
"Maybe I should call Beverly."
"There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with HIM." He covered his face with his arm. "Jesus, Deanna your going to make everyone crazy. There is nothing wrong with him."
She was still for a moment, nothing but the sound of the baby's less frantic sucks made a sound.
"There's defiantly something wrong with you." Her voice was void and cold. As many times in the past three days as he had imagined her saying something like that it was never in that voice. His breath increased in his ears as he slowly sat up and moved off the bed.
"Yeah well.." He swallowed against the bitter taste in his mouth and tried not to stumble as he made his way to the door. He thought about telling her he was going to check on Lizzie but one glance back at the bedroom and he realized it wouldn't have mattered. She was already moving her hand along Luc's arm, looking for something anything that would alert her to the impending doom that she was sure her son was about to suffer at any moment.
He closed his eyes for a second , leaning into the hallway between their room and Elizabeth's, before the doors to his daughter's room opened.
He checked the panel first, he always did. Despite the warning of every Starfleet and Betaziod neonatalogist he'd ever met.
'Babies are small sometimes the sensors misread them. Trust your eyes, not what the readouts say. If it says she's not breathing but she's smiling at you? She's breathing.' One very patient doctor had assured a frantic Lwaxana, more than once.
Will preferred the readouts. Especially with Lizzie. Especially at night. Sometimes when she slept his daughter was remarkably still. Her chest didn't rise and fall with breath like normal children. Her mouth did not open with a click when she needed more oxygen then her nose could provide. Lizzie Riker's body didn't breath. The large wall unit in her bedroom did it for her now, and the swirling seven centimeter deep pack that molded into the back of what ever outfit she wore did it for her during the day. Outfits that were specially made for her by a Usian biologist turned seamstress on the Titian along with the woman's own clothes. Usian's dermal covering was nearly as sensitive as Lizzie's skin, nearly.
Will's eyes drifted along the opening of his daughters pajamas. One of the only places her skin wasn't covered was on her face, the base of her throat was covered in tiny pale bruises from the rub of the hypoallergenic material there. It looked awful.
Geordi and he had many conversations about children and chronic pain. No matter how many times LaForge had assured him that Elizabeth barely noticed her own constant battle, Will couldn't help but ach for the fact that she had a battle at all.
"She doesn't know anything else Captain." Geordi reminded him lightly. "It's her baseline. It's what she expects life is like for everyone."
He rubbed his face again for the hundredth time tonight as if he could rub the pain and fog from his own head. He'd smiled numbly when Beverly had asked him how he was doing this afternoon after she'd been summoned to check Luc for the third time since his release from Sickbay.
"I'm more worried about this.." Will deflected, his eyebrows raising towards where Deanna fretted over her newborn. (This time he'd seemed too sluggish for her liking.)
"It's to be expected." Beverly smiled. "She's never had a healthy baby before. She's scared."
No, Will had decided. She was way beyond scared. She was terrified. Consumed.
Too consumed to realize she was being irrational. Too consumed to realize she should be grateful that this baby did not need her vigilance now that she had sheparded him safely here.
Too consumed to realize the struggle that was playing it's self out in her husband's mind, the war his body seemed to be at with itself.
And he'd be damned if he was going to tell her.
He watched Lizzie's blood make it's way into the wall unit, swirling as it was oxygenated and forced back in. He remembered the long discussions that had gone into how to get the unit's connections into Lizzie's body. It rejected everything man made and reacted to organic matter not from her own body.
Right now Will felt like his body was doing the opposite. It craved intervention and rebelled against itself.
It was too be expected as Beverly had put it, but Deanna's behavior was hard to accept. He had wanted it too be different. He wanted peace for her. They'd been so long without peace. He wanted to lay on the bed with the baby between them marveling at how his chest rose and fell with breath and the way his mouth opened with a click when his body needed more oxygen than his nose could provide.
He wanted some of that consuming worry to make it's way from her to him. He needed organic matter not from his own body. He needed the feel of her cool hand on his aching head. The sent of her hair to ward off the rolling nausea.
He wanted her to help undo what he had done to himself in order to give her what she needed.
He ran his eyes over Lizzie before he lowered the medical force field and let his hand skim the long soft sheath of a night clothes that covered his daughters back.
He thought of Lieutenant Barlata and her long slim Usain digits as she proudly handed him her current creation for Lizzie. He found himself missing the Titian.
Lizzie's challenges there were just one more obstacle for his unique crew to dissolve.
He smiled when he thought of how his team would have handled this crisis.
'We are having a problem with the forward sensor array, the biology department is in need of a Killiari Geologist and the Captain is still fighting with his addiction to pain medication after the telepathic amnesia.. Also if anyone has any ideas on how to chill the Counselor the hell out please see Ensign Seat on your way out.' He could remember how Christine's words would rush out of her mouth as she finished the end of a briefing.
If you had told him that he would be Captain of the Enterprise E and missing his old command he'd have told you that you were nuts, but he was. And not for the first time either.
He missed the unspoken theme that the crew of the USS Titian would have to overcome it's diversity. That they would have to be adaptive and understanding. There was no space on that ship for anyone to be judgmental. The ridged expectations that made the Enterprise impeccable also made it unforgiving.
Had it always been like that? How had he coped before? He ran his fingers down Lizzie's hair and thought about how the crew must see his daughter.
Challenges; hoveraids, breathing devices, specially designed clothing and quarters, that was the norm on the ship where she spent most of her life. This ship was not that ship.
Maybe he had made a mistake. The fact that he even entertained the thought hurt his very soul. He pressed a kiss to Lizzie's face before securing her force field and making his way back to the bedroom.
Deanna and Luc were asleep, curled lightly on the bed. He straightened it before leaning over an kissing the baby's head and then Deanna's temple. Her hands tightened ever so lightly over her son. Will watched for a moment before pulling his uniform on and making his way out of their suite.
He ran his hands along the arch of the door in silent apology to his ship. His home. Only one starship had ever meant more to Will Riker than this one.
The D. God how he'd loved that vessel. He remembered in the Captain's 'future' how he'd still had her out among the starts long after any sane person would have called it quits. Not Will Riker, he loved her. And at the time the only woman he loved more was the one at the helm when the former had been sent crashing to the rocky ground of a planet he wanted to forget existed.
She was not as cutting as the E, not a point on her really, she was smooth. Her design purely diplomatic, sketched long before the Borg were known to them, before the Dominion existed.
He made his way along the corridor, swallowing back the waves of irritation and exhaustion.
He loved this ship too. He remembered the first time he saw her back at Mars.
He remembered Data's crisp greeting how he'd met him at the end of the gate with things to sign.
"Welcome aboard, Sir." Will had smacked the back of his hand across the androids chest with a smile.
"Missed you too Data."
How Geordi had appeared behind him, his smile as wide as his visor. "Come on Commander. I've got so much to show you!"
He remembered wanting to get it all of his busy work finished before getting to transporter room three two hours from then.
"Make a short list Geordi I don't have as long as you want me to." He'd grinned back, clapping his friend on the shoulder.
He remembered how he'd rushed back just in time to be there when she shimmered back where she belonged. He remembered how light and perfect she'd felt in his arms as he'd snatched her off the platform and crushed her to him.
"Will.." Her soft airy whisper had felt like water to a dying man as pressed her temple into his chest. "God I thought this day would never get here."
There was so much promise back then. So much joy. A year apart had made them all so eager to get back out there, together.
Was that still there? Were they still eager? Was he?
"State destination." Will Riker jumped at the sound of the computer's voice. Even she sounded disappointed in him. He didn't remember getting in the turbolift, but that was where he was currently standing. He blew out a breath.
"Main Engineering?" He didn't know if he was asking permission or for direction, but the computer gave none. It just started sending him in the direction he'd asked. He slid out of the lift and made his way back towards the main engine room, still not knowing where he was going.
"Captain?" Geordi's voice rose in surprise. "What are you doing here? I thought you were on leave?"
He looked at Will's face for a moment before his smile faded.
"Is there a problem?"
"Nah." Will shook his head. "Just restless. I need to.. get out. What about you what are you doing out here?"
"Ah..Trying to get some stuff done. Leah gets back in three days and I don't wanna have anything nonessential to work on when she does." He scratched his cheek in what Will might have thought was embarrassment if he didn't know Geordi Laforge like he did.
"How are David and Elexa?" Will hadn't seen Geordi's step-son and young daughter in years.
"Wonderful. Both doing very well in school." Geordi looked back at the engine before turning back to Will.
"It must be hard. Not having them on board?"
"Sometimes." He puckered his lips. "I was glad we decided to keep them on Earth with her sister during the war. That was the right decision for us. Then Leah didn't ever see any reason to disrupt them. David had never even been on a starship before when Leah and I first started dating. Forget living on one! When she was pregnant with Elexa she was still working on the Foremost and it's new engine design. Then the war started, by the time she joined me here, Lex was in kindergarten. When it was over she was in seventh grade. There wasn't much of a reason then for her to uproot everything."
"I can't imagine not being there. How hard that must be for you. It's not like the Enterprise gets back to Earth a lot."
"We make it work Captain." Geordi smiled. "They come onboard during Summer break from school. I take a lot more shore leave than I used to. You just wait."
Will smiled.
"You know Beverly would probably give you something for the headache." LaForge told him softly.
"I'm okay Geordi." He sighed. "But thank you."
"Take care of yourself Captain. You're no good to them if you don't do that." He huffed.
"I will." He lumbered towards the warp coil and looked at it like it was alive. "Are you happy Geordi?"
"Sure Captain." He said lightly, moving to stand behind Will.
"With the ship?"
"She's the best there is."
"Then what?" Will sighed.
"Sir?"
"I've climbed to the top of the ladder.."
"And it's not all you'd hoped for?"
"I don't know."
"You're tired Will." The engineer said softly. "And you're body's taken a hell of a beating. Get some sleep. Go see Beverly." He snickered. "Hell Sir.. Go see Judith."
Will's eyebrow rose and fell with a smirk.
"She's good.."
"I don't like the hard stuff anymore, Commander." He teased.
"Goodnight Captain." If he didn't know better Will Riker would have thought it was an order.
"Goodnight." Will whispered back making his way towards the turbolift. "Geordi? Thanks."
"Anytime old friend." Laforge called back softly.