Intervention

(Raffi, Picard & Elnor)

When Picard told his crew what had happened on Vashti, and exactly how a Romulan sword master had come to join them, Raffi was less than pleased.

"Goddamnit, JL!" she exploded. "A duel? At your age?"

"I would say I resent that," Picard replied mildly. "But as it happens, you're quite right. The Senator did challenge me, but I refused. I owe my life to Elnor's timely … if excessive … intervention."

He shot a look at the young man standing beside his chair that somehow conveyed both gratitude and warning.

"This isn't fucking Three Musketeers!" Raffi's bleached curls trembled as she shook her head in indignation. "Could you at least try not to get yourself killed?"

"Your anger is misplaced, madam," said Elnor, who seemed to be taking his galankhai duties very seriously, defending Picard from verbal as well as physical attack. "It was not the Admiral who began that fight – and it was I who ended it."

By the grim look on his face and the way his hand went to his sword hilt, it was clear what sort of ending he meant.

"It's all right." The old man's face creased into a gentle smile. "The day you stop being angry with me, Raffi, is the day that you stop caring. I pray that day never comes."

/

Portrait

(Picard & Data)

"Why, Data, it's lovely," said Picard, unwrapping the painting his friend had given him with reverent hands.

"Thank you, Captain."

"Not your usual style, I think?"

"No, sir. I was inspired by early nineteenth-century Romantic painters, such as J.M.W. Turner and Caspar David Friedrich. Since my emotion chip was installed, my perspective on art has changed considerably."

Data's tone was as detached and intellectual as ever, but Picard turned to the painting with new eyes, and what he saw wrung his heart.

There was something familiar about that girl, so alone against the raging sea. The blue of her eyes, the round shape of her face, even her hairstyle … To the best of Picard's knowledge, Lal had never worn a white cloak or even visited a planet, let alone a stormy beach. But the waves had closed over her head all the same, and her father had been left behind on the shore.

"Does it have a title?" Picard asked.

"The title," Data replied, his yellow eyes focused on the girl's painted face, "Is Daughter."