AN: This is a little story that was inspired by my enabler friend. With me starting back to work, she's helping me keep up with a daily writing regimen. I'm trying to write SOMETHING every day, even if it isn't much. Every little thing adds up, though, right? (Every little thing is also good for my mental health!)

Please note that I am playing super fast and loose with everything here. If you're a stickler for any sort of canon, this isn't your story. LOL

I do hope you enjoy! If you do, please let me know!

111

"I need you to show your location. Phoenix—show your location."

Laris reached over and silenced the communication.

Radio silence.

It went well with being an absolute blind spot.

The cloak was in place, and it worked. It worked well enough that not even the other rangers and resistance fighters could see her. She knew, too, that the Watchers wouldn't be able to see her. The Tal Shiar would have stopped looking for her years ago, especially since she was pretty good at flying under the radar, and the Changelings—well—they wouldn't be looking for her.

Laris was just a single-manned shuttle affectionately called a Laser by the Watchers. To the Rangers, it looked like a lifted piece of Tal Shiar machinery. It was a bit more than that, but it wasn't exactly state of the art. Laris was still an active Watcher, of course, but she'd been toying with how long she wanted to keep that status. During the existential crisis, of sorts, that she'd been having over the fact that her assignment to protect Jean-Luc Picard had taken something of a turn toward true, profound love for the man, she had foregone much of her connection with the Watchers.

If this self-appointed mission was successful, Laris would bring back to Jean-Luc the one thing that he truly loved. She would give him back what he thought he'd lost forever and, hopefully, she would end his pining.

She would also have to face the truth of their relationship and his feelings about her—since she'd already faced her own feelings about him a few times over.

That's when the decision would be necessary. If he didn't love her—if they couldn't consider what she might propose—there would be no need to consider giving up her role as a Watcher. Laris would simply, as far as Jean-Luc was concerned, fade into the ether. She would continue to serve as his Watcher, and she would simply keep her distance.

Radio silence.

If there was room for her in their hearts and their home, Laris would give up her role as a Watcher, since she couldn't enter into a trust bond with them without disclosing her absolute truth—and a Watcher couldn't tell that truth.

Laris's heart thudded in her chest as she saw what she'd been seeking—the Dominion had placed these structures in locations that were impossible to find. That's what they thought, at least. Laris figured that they simply lacked advisors who, like most Romulans, were accustomed to finding out things that others didn't want found out.

She prepared her ship for possible conflict and began searching for a place to land that would allow her to transport in and out, with her personal transporter, easily, quickly, and entirely secretively.

The scan that she ran found what she was looking for—the sequence that identified Beverly Crusher and confirmed her presence within the Dominion facility. Laris had acquired Beverly's information through certain avenues available to her as a Watcher. She had acquired her information about the functioning of the Dominion facility, however, through a different set of connections.

She would owe them one and, if this paid off, and she made it out alive, she would do something nice for them—a dinner and a visit to the Château, perhaps. That was assuming, of course, that she might be asked to stay there and not have to simply vanish.

Laris slipped unseen among the Dominion ships. She found a nice place to land, sat down, and put her little ship on stand-by so that it was ready for her the moment that she was ready to run for it. She could take her time getting into the facility, but she was going to be much less relaxed leaving it.

Laris ran a final check of all her systems, including the advanced cloaking device. She stretched, knowing that the difference between being stiff and limber could mean life or death in this situation, and she activated her own personal cloaking system.

The only thing that would keep her from joining those who were already in captivity in the facility was the element of surprise.

Laris ran her scan once more.

Beverly wasn't quite alone. There was another unregistered sequence that indicated the presence of another being in her direct vicinity—unusual, given that the prisoners were usually held separately. Laris figured that she'd take both of them, if she could. If she couldn't, she would at least get Beverly Crusher out.

She was Jean-Luc's Watcher, after all, and she'd sworn to find a way to make sure he had what he needed in life—even if it was the love of his life that he required in order to truly live.

"OK," Laris said, to herself and the empty ship. "Let's do this. The sooner I get in, the sooner I get out. Lwaxana—I'm counting on your liaison's insider information to keep my ass alive."

She set her coordinates, programmed in the extra parameter information provided to her by the leader of the Betazoid Resistance—who happened to have taken a Changeling lover and a husband—and assured herself that she was going to have the ability to beam as close to Beverly Crusher as possible without being detected.

As far as what happened after that, Laris was on her own.

111

"Fuckers…" Laris spat, mumbling to herself in the loudest voice she dared, which wasn't much more than a hiss. She'd managed to take care of the Changelings she'd encountered—not being able to beam directly into the room where Beverly Crusher was being held until she could get inside to disconnect the scrambling device installed there—but she hadn't taken care of them without any damage to her own person.

She would heal, though, and she would still venture to bet that she was better off than anyone being held in any of these rooms.

She would turn this facility over to the others as soon as she was out of here with Beverly Crusher. She would let them do what they could—bring who they would—to destroy this facility the same as they had several others, and to free those who were being held in captivity.

First, though, she had her own mission to accomplish.

Laris picked the positronic lock on the door with the assistance of the tool that Odo had acquired for her—a handy item that made him eternally her favorite Changeling. In fact, it made him one of the only Changelings that she found even slightly tolerable.

The door slid open soundlessly, and Laris glanced around, convinced that she was alone. To be sure, however, she ran a quick scan with her tricorder, its reconfigured components making it possible to detect the Changelings that could, otherwise, hide unseen in plain sight, and she let her muscles relax a little when she was sure that all was well.

She slipped into the room and closed the door behind her. As soon as she disconnected the interior scrambling device in the holding cell, she wouldn't need the door. She locked it, using the same tool that had opened it, and quickly changed the code required to open it. It wouldn't buy her a world of time if the Changelings came for them, but sixty seconds was sixty seconds.

All was fair, after all, in love and war.

The room was eerily lit. The Changelings didn't require light in the same way that some other species did, and the light that they chose was always odd to Laris. She found it a little disorienting any time she'd been called on to help eliminate a facility such as this, and she half-wondered if they chose the lighting for that reason.

She quickly found the scrambling device and deactivated it. They wouldn't notice that it had been taken offline unless they were running system-wide scans. She'd tripped no alarms, and she hadn't allowed the Changelings she'd encountered, and fought, the opportunity to notify anyone of her presence. Those that remained, working right now at whatever garish pastime occupied them, had no reason to suspect her presence or run scans for any weaknesses.

She would only get caught, at this point, if she was too loud, or if they happened to come for Beverly Crusher at precisely this moment—something which would, honestly, mark Laris as having some of the worst luck in all four quadrants.

With the scrambling device deactivated, Laris checked her scans. All that was left to do was to get Beverly Crusher and, perhaps, whoever was with her in the eerie, silent, darkness of the far corners of this cell, and to beam her directly back to Laris's ship.

"It's time to go home," Laris mused. She only hoped that the woman she was rescuing would be agreeable and want to stay at the Château. Jean-Luc, Laris thought, couldn't handle losing her again, not once Laris brought her back and he realized that he hadn't really lost her forever.

Starfleet preferred hyposprays, but Romulans sometimes understood that getting your hands dirty was the fastest and most effective way to handle certain situations. Laris palmed the cloth and quickly doused it in the liquid that would render Beverly unconscious, hopefully, before she could scream.

It would be nicer, of course, and gentler, to simply take her peacefully from the room. Laris knew, however, that the woman was being held in a torture facility. There was no reason to believe that she hadn't been tortured, and there was no reason to believe that it hadn't been going on for a while. She was unlikely to calmly welcome the presence of anyone. She was even less likely to calmly welcome the presence of a Romulan.

"I'm sorry," Laris muttered to herself. "Can't be helped…"

She'd make it up to her. If Beverly would stay, Laris would make this part up to her.

In the darkness, Laris moved around, her eyes slowly adjusting to the tricks that the troubling light created for her vision. She could tell, from the steady and rhythmic breathing that she could hear, that Beverly Crusher wasn't conscious in the cell. Laris knew that she could take the chance that the woman wouldn't wake before she could beam her out of the space. If, however, Laris misestimated how soundly Beverly slept—or how heavily she was drugged—and Beverly woke and protested what was happening to her, she could cost them both their lives. Laris wasn't going to take a chance like that.

She eased through the darkness, wondering about the location of Beverly's cellmate, whose presence caused another life-sign to register on Laris's scans. Laris settled on the decision that, if she didn't see the cellmate soon, she would leave them for the team that, hopefully, would sweep through here soon and get rid of the entire facility, moving all of the captives off to safer locations where they could receive help.

Reaching Beverly, Laris could only somewhat take in the woman's form. She had never seen Beverly Crusher face to face. She'd seen images of her—mostly the type that they held in records—and she'd seen a few of Jean-Luc's images around the Château.

In the semi-darkness, Laris couldn't tell much about her, but it didn't matter. She was certain this was Beverly Crusher, and she was certain that she didn't want to waste time on formalities that didn't matter.

To be sure that Beverly didn't wake and scream, Laris pressed the cloth over Beverly's face, her other hand going immediately to the woman's chest to hold her down when, instinctively, she woke just enough to start to struggle against Laris. She feared that she was being suffocated. That was the brain's normal response.

A few deep breaths, though, of the kind that came from the initial panic of having her air cut off, and Beverly rendered herself unconscious, thanks to the drug that Laris administered to her on the cloth.

It wouldn't do her any harm and, really, she'd probably already been harmed far beyond anything Laris could ever do to her—not that Laris was one who really relished any kind of torture.

It had been required of her, of course, but she'd never enjoyed it—neither on the giving nor the receiving end.

When Beverly Crusher gave up all efforts to fight and went limp, Laris scanned her quickly. She was satisfied that her vitals were good, and that was all she cared about. The second life sign registered strongly, but Laris still hadn't encountered Beverly's cellmate, and she decided that the next team that moved through would take care of them, wherever they might be.

Laris held onto Beverly, activated her personal transporter, and beamed the two of them directly back to the small ship she called her own.

It was easy—too easy, really—so Laris wasn't at all surprised when, the moment she'd reached her own ship, an alarm sounded in the facility.

They knew they were short a captive—a captive who was, in all likelihood, valuable to them because of her ties to Starfleet and Jean-Luc Picard.

"Shit. Shit. Shit." Laris spat, bringing her little ship fully online. She hadn't had time to secure Beverly. She hadn't even had time to really look at the woman. She hadn't secured herself, either.

It was going to be a bumpy ride for both of them, but a few bruises were preferable to death or even some quality time on the torture tables inside the facility, where those who worked there tended to practice torture simply for the enjoyment of it. It was the kind of torture from which there was really no hope of escape.

Unless, of course, some random Romulan or other resistance fighter was willing to do what was necessary to spring you from the facility.

"Hold on," Laris said, knowing that Beverly couldn't hear her.

With her cloaking device still activated, she was able to maneuver unseen. Thanks to the small size of the ship, she was able to slide in and out, around the ships that moved around, circling the facility, ready to shoot down whoever was threatening them.

A few shots were fired, somewhat wildly. One grazed Laris's ship, and another followed suit as soon as she corrected from the first. They weren't shooting at her. They couldn't see her. Their scans couldn't detect her. They were desperate. They were firing blindly in the hopes that they might hit a cloaked ship.

"You must be pretty damned important," Laris offered to the unconscious woman who couldn't hear her and was probably less likely to suffer any substantial injury simply because she was unconscious and, therefore, wouldn't fight the rough movements of the ship as Laris tried to balance moving as quickly as possible—something her little ship allowed her to do well—and to avoid ships that were doing their best to entrap something they couldn't see.

Laris practically held her breath. She tensed her muscles, somewhat unconsciously trying to make herself small, as though both of these actions could ensure that her little ship slipped through unscathed.

Finally, she was far enough away from the facility that she could breathe normally. They were beyond the range of the weapons' fire—not that anything was being volleyed in their direction now.

For a moment, Laris sat and ran through scans of every inch of her ship. The little ship could use some minor repairs, but it was nothing that couldn't be handled easily when she parked it at the resistance hangar where she would leave it until she was needed again. From there, she could simply transport herself and Beverly Crusher back to the Château, thanks to the fact that she'd finally convinced Jean-Luc that having a personal transport pad available to them was a wise choice.

Laris hid her own shaky muscles from herself, pretending that she didn't have to spend a moment letting the adrenaline in her body dissipate a bit.

Then, she set the ship to follow the programmed route without her, at least temporarily, and she got up and moved toward the back part of the ship, where she'd left Beverly Crusher to sleep off the effects of the drugs she'd been given in the facility and the drugs that Laris had used to render her entirely unconscious.

On second thought, Laris probably shouldn't have left her on the floor. She should have checked her for life-threatening injuries, or any injuries at all. Of course, she'd been preoccupied with getting them out of a rather tight situation, alone. Laris decided to forgive herself the small lapse in judgement and courtesy.

As she reached Beverly Crusher and kneeled beside her, though, Laris's pulse kicked up. She took in the woman that she could see for the first time in good lighting. Her very first thought, perhaps, was that Beverly was beautiful, and it was easy to see why Jean-Luc was so absolutely smitten with her that he simply couldn't get past her—even when it had been Beverly that had walked out of his life and cut ties with him completely.

Of course, now Laris could see that her decision might have been influenced by the Changelings and the fact that they'd likely taken her captive not long after she'd vanished.

Laris's second thought was that Jean-Luc was going to be overwhelmed and overjoyed when she brought Beverly back to him. A thorough scan with the tricorder told Laris that she would need care, but she didn't have any injuries that couldn't be treated.

What Jean-Luc wasn't going to be prepared for was exactly what Laris hadn't been prepared for—and what she laughed to herself about, now.

"Right. What a wonderful operative you are," she mused to herself. "So fucking blind you might have missed an entire warbird."

Laris hadn't missed a warbird, but she had missed the second passenger that she'd brought aboard. With a few changes to the parameter of the tricorder scan, it registered healthy vitals for the second little passenger.

"At least there's that," Laris said. "Well—it is what it is. I can get you here safely, little one. Although—from the looks of things…I hope the ship's fast enough to get you both back to the Château before I have to carry you both in separately."

To buy herself some time, Laris replicated something she knew would slow down the process that was already underway. She injected it into Beverly's carotid artery. She followed it up with a sedative that would keep the woman under. She didn't know how much Beverly knew. She didn't know what she'd seen and experienced. She also didn't know how trusting she would be of a strange Romulan woman.

It was best not to have to deal with that when time was of the essence and there was nobody else to fly the ship.

Laris took another moment to bring a pillow and blanket. She decided it was best to move Beverly as little as possible. She'd apologize for that, too, later. For now, though, she had more important things to attend to—like getting Beverly and who she suspected to be the youngest Picard back to the Château before she had to practice her midwifing skills.

Laris moved back to the controls, took the ship off of autocontrols, and switched communications back on.

"This is Phoenix…online," Laris said. "Are you out there?"

She smiled when she heard Lwaxana's voice.

"Where did you go?!" She admonished. "You know better than to cut communications when you're moving into an unexplored facility."

"It's been explored now," Laris said. "I'll fill you in when I get a chance. Feel free to send in a team to dismantle the facility."

"Is everything OK? Are you OK?"

"The ship's in good condition. She needs minor repairs."

"I didn't ask about the ship, Dear." Lwaxana's response made Laris smile. Her handle among the resistance fighters was affectionately "Mother Hen," and it suited her in all ways.

"I'll heal, Mother Hen," Laris teased. "I have to get back. I think you-know-who needs to know about our little undercover work. I need to land in the back field and cloak there."

There was a sigh over the communications.

"It can't be helped, really," Lwaxana said. "He was going to know, eventually, at any rate."

Laris smiled and nodded to herself.

"I'm glad you agree with me," Laris said. "Tell your love that his information came in handy."

"And the rescue?"

"I believe that I got two for the price of one," Laris said.

"Two prisoners?" Lwaxana asked.

Laris hummed.

"Something like that," she mused. "I'll fill you in tomorrow. I think I'll be busy. I'll need someone to come for the ship."

"I'll arrange it," Lwaxana said.

"Any problems there?" Laris asked.

"You might almost be able to believe that it's just any night before they came," Lwaxana said.

"Good," Laris said. "I like the idea of you and your love having a quiet night on a beautiful planet. Enjoy it. Let me sign off and fly this thing."

"Phoenix?"

Laris smiled at the uptick of Lwaxana's voice. She could only manage to hum. Someone speaking to her with that much naked affection—especially with no expectation of something in return that would ever truly benefit them—was enough to choke Laris.

"I'm glad you're OK," Lwaxana said sincerely. Laris swallowed against the lump in her throat and blinked. She didn't need blurred vision—even if there was very little out here to worry about dodging.

"Goodnight, Mother Hen," Laris teased.

"Goodnight, Phoenix…don't turn off communications again."

"Yes ma'am," Laris teased again.

She disconnected, but she left her communications on, in case Lwaxana—or anyone else—tried to reach her. She relaxed into her seat. She needed to move quickly, but there were no immediate dangers. She let her muscles relax just a little.

Jean-Luc was going to be overjoyed…yes. He would be overjoyed beyond words.

But he was also going to be shocked to the point that Laris imagined that lack of words might very well be because he was rendered speechless.

If he had known, she would have known. She would have been prepared.

Jean-Luc Picard had no idea that he was about to be a father.