A/N: I love Riker and Jack's interactions this season, right from the beginning when Riker punches Jack, to how delighted he is when he realizes Jack is Picard and Beverly's son, and then how much he continues to advocate for him. He's very protective and plays a critical role in pushing Picard to build a relationship with his son. On Jack's side, it really comes through in his distress after Riker is taken by Vadic, and he tells Picard in "Dominion" he would gladly trade himself to Vadic in exchange for Riker because Riker has a family: "Riker…was good to me from moment one."

Thanks so much again to Alison for the beta!

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Find me, Jack…

He felt the languorous pleasure taken by the shadow as its silken words coiled around his chest like thick vines, trapping and suffocating, tendrils piercing his skin. Stop, he thought fiercely, struggling to resist, stop stop STOP, and with a gasp he awoke to find himself covered in sweat. Gently mocking laughter echoed in the darkness. He shuddered.

He rolled off the bed and stumbled to the washbasin, splashed cold water over his face, held his breath until the sound of the laughter had faded beneath the barely audible drip of water into the sink. Raising his head, he saw nothing but his own exhausted reflection in the mirror. He exhaled shakily—

With a sudden crack the mirror fractured out from its center and he shrank back in terror.

Jagged red vines crackled through the room like lightning, the voice floating seductively among them.

Connect the branches…

Smoke flashing crimson, and the red door before him, beckoning, drawing him in, just like the ethereal voice.

Open the door, Jack…Find me…

He squeezed his eyes shut, slammed his palm against the side of his head in desperation. Again. Again. Again.

At last the voice and the storms fell silent and Jack Crusher opened his eyes, trembling, to find the mirror perfectly intact and the darkened room empty of smoke and vines. He braced his hands against the side of the sink until his breathing slowed, then grabbed a towel to dry his face. Just a bad dream, he told himself, but with ever less certainty since the visions and the voice had begun in recent months to intrude on his waking hours. It didn't feel like a dream. It felt like he was going bloody mad.

He pulled on his trousers and tugged a shirt over his head. It was ship's night. With the changeling who'd attacked him now dead and Vadic left derelict back in the former Ryton nebula, wandering the halls of Titan seemed a far sight safer at the moment than trying to fall back asleep.

He'd made four or five circuits of the deserted deck and was starting on another when he nearly collided with a larger figure rounding a corner.

"Sorry," he muttered with barely a glance, then straightened as he realized who it was. "Captain."

William Riker smiled at the younger man, taking in his disheveled hair and bleary eyes. "Trouble sleeping?"

"I, ah—it's nothing."

"I've got 'nothing' going on myself," Riker said easily. "Join me?"

Reflexively wary but too spent to object, he followed the captain down the corridor to an empty, dimly-lit crew lounge. Low-slung couches were arranged in cozy nooks against the walls, with taller dining table sets and an assortment of greenery and eclectic art from various Federation cultures interspersed throughout.

"Have a seat." Riker gestured to a taller table by the observation window, before grabbing two drinks from the replicator behind the bar. "This used to be one of my favorite places on the ship."

Jack had stopped for a moment in front of an abstract Denobulan sculpture. He turned, interest piqued despite himself. "Titan was your ship?"

"Her predecessor, for twelve years," Riker affirmed, settling into his chair and sliding the second glass across the table. "They used a few elements from my Titan when they commissioned the A. The warp coils, this lounge….For this room they copied the design and moved all the furniture and art over so it still felt familiar." He inclined his head to indicate one corner. "The kids always used to camp out in that particular booth like it was theirs."

"Ah." Jack took the seat opposite, a peculiar feeling washing over him. In an alternate universe, he thought, he too might have grown up the son of a captain on a starship, discovering little nooks and crannies of the Enterprise to claim as his own. It wasn't as though he regretted anything about his childhood on Earth with his mother, or that he cared to be known as the son of Jean-Luc Picard. But in that alternate universe, he might have been friends with Thad Riker and his sister. And his mother loved children; she would probably have enjoyed being a surrogate aunt to Riker's…but it had never come to pass. He slumped a bit in his chair.

Riker waited, but Jack didn't seem inclined to further conversation, instead staring into the middle distance, looking at once exhausted and vulnerable. Little wonder, he thought. For all his admirable courage, skill, and ingenuity, Jack was still, to Riker's mind, impossibly young to be dealing with everything the universe was currently throwing at him—personally, at that. It would be more surprising if he weren't rattled by it.

He broke the quiet. "How're you feeling, kid?"

Jack shook himself out of his reverie and sat back up, fingering the glass in front of him. "Fine. Really, just—a bit fatigued."

"But not fatigued enough to get some sleep."

Jack shrugged and took a sip of his drink, then made a face. Synthale. Well, it wasn't his first choice, but given how frayed his nerves still were, maybe it would do the job that half an hour of pacing had failed to. The burning down his throat still felt satisfying. "What, are you stepping in as my doctor now?"

"No. Your mother is the best at what she does." Riker was unfazed at the pushback. "You've been through a lot over the past few days. I'm offering a chance to talk."

For some reason, the words stung. Really, what would he say? Right, I've been hunted by changeling mercenaries, poisoned by verterium, put my mother and an entire ship of innocent people in danger—oh, and I'm hallucinating carnivorous plants everywhere. Let's have a chat. He ducked his chin and glanced up. "Look, I appreciate the concern, but with all respect, I can manage myself."

"Bullshit," countered Riker. "I seem to recall it took a team effort to 'manage' yesterday." He tilted his head. "In fact, the Crusher-Picard crew made a pretty damn good team by yourselves. None of us would have made it without you."

Accepting the rebuke, Jack didn't look away from the captain's steady gaze, but he mentally recoiled from the praise. He knew he and his mother made a good team; they always had. Working with Riker and the Titan crew—and yes, Picard—he'd experienced a little of what it must have been like for his mother on the Enterprise, with a rapport that led to something brilliant that was greater than the sum of its parts. But that didn't mean he was anywhere near to thinking of the admiral as a part of his real family. Because family, if it meant anything at all, had to at the very least begin with your partner and children, didn't it? Surely Riker would agree; he'd once left Starfleet for his own family. But when had Picard ever shown he understood that?

He finally dropped his gaze to the amber liquid reflecting in his glass. "Thanks. Though seeing as I appear to be the cause of all this, I ought to try and fix it."

"But you don't have to do it alone," Riker said, kindly. He leaned one arm on the table and lifted his glass in appreciation. "You know, I'd heard that story a few times before—about your namesake. I didn't really believe it would work for us. That was some impressive navigating by you and your father."

Jack's expression tightened and he nodded wordlessly, subdued again, as he took another swallow of his ale.

Riker paused and studied the young man's face, a perfectly fascinating blend of his parents', wondering again what had caused him so much disillusionment with Picard. He trusted without question it hadn't come from Beverly; people changed, but character didn't. Even though she'd hidden Jack, she never would have poisoned him against the man she clearly still cared deeply for. So what happened?

Never one to shy away from the direct approach, he leaned forward. "Kid. You told me a few days ago that the admiral was a disappointment to you. It seems to me there must have been a reason. So…why?"

Jack shook his head. Intuitively he understood why it mattered so much to the captain, but he'd never even spoken of the reason to his mother, and couldn't bring himself to tell Picard yesterday, either; it seemed pointless to attempt it now. He looked up bleakly. "Sir, I'm sorry—I'm really sorry about your son," he said quietly. "I am. It's just…not likely to be that way with the admiral."

Damn. Riker set his jaw. He knew the kid was sincere, but with the limited perspective of youth, he still didn't get it—and he for damn sure didn't know what Riker did, from hard experience, about fathers and sons. He drew in a breath and tried another tack. "This time last week, Jack, I was sitting alone in a San Francisco apartment, working on my Frontier Day speech and feeling sorry for myself. You seem to understand—when I lost my son I lost part of myself. I have my wife, my daughter…but this pain still hurts like hell, and until yesterday, I wasn't sure I was going to find my way back. You know why I'm here? My friends. Your parents. Because when it came down to it, with her life and yours, your mother trusted Jean-Luc Picard, and he crossed the quadrant to find her again. Do you really think he doesn't want to know you, too?"

Jack's face had reddened. He took another sip of his drink and set it down harder than he meant to, the single ice cube clinking against the glass. "It's not that simple."

"Tell me why," Riker insisted.

"Because he doesn't want a family," Jack bit out, pushing back from the table. "He never did." He rose and paced a few steps, frustrated, and turned back. Sod it—if Riker really wanted the whole sorry, humiliating story, he could have it: the bar, the cadets, the admiral enjoying all the adulation, and his own stupid, naive question. "He said Starfleet was the only family he ever needed," Jack finished bitterly, with a grand mocking gesture. "So bloody smug as he said it, too."

Riker rubbed a hand over his greying beard to cover his dismay, fitting the story into the context of his conversations with Picard since they'd originally found the Eleos. What a mess. The hurt on both sides here appeared to be matched only by the stubbornness—a trait with which he was all too familiar when it came to Picard, and Beverly for that matter. Apparently it ran in the family. But remembering the anger he'd harbored towards his own father when he was a young hothead not much older than Jack…Riker could admit that maybe Jack understood more than Riker had given him credit for. I could really use your help with this one, Imzadi, he thought ruefully. In the instant, he'd just have to hope Deanna's influence would guide him.

"All right," he said at last. "All right. First of all, you're not the only one who's ever accused the admiral of thinking too highly of himself." That earned a snort of sour amusement. "I'm sorry he said that. It must have been an absolute kick in the teeth. But he didn't know who you were. He was hurt, too, when your mother left—no matter how good her reasons, which I'm not doubting. Maybe…maybe what he said about family is what he'd convinced himself was true—because he didn't know you."

"Or it was the truth because he didn't have any reason to pretend otherwise," Jack countered, but some of his anger seemed to deflate along with his posture. Maybe Riker had a point. There had been a moment there on the bridge, in the middle of the exhilaration of their escape from the gravity well, when he imagined that Picard had finally put it together, that he knew. But it still couldn't change anything, could it? He dropped his head, dispirited. "What does it matter now?"

"Everything," Riker said, the force in his voice startling the other. "It means everything because it matters to you. Now I will readily admit, as someone who's known your father for forty years, he can sometimes be difficult. But he is a mentor and a friend, and he is a good man. I believe he wants to know you—you've seen it already. Don't write off the possibility of things changing. Just give it some time."

Jack leaned back against the observation window and scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair. "You sound like my mother," he said tiredly, glancing over with a sardonic look.

"She's a very smart woman."

"I know." He sighed. "Look, I'll…try."

"That's all I ask." Relieved, Riker stood too, collecting the empty glasses from the table. "Think you can get to sleep now?" he asked sympathetically. "We still have awhile yet before we'll make it back to the Alpha Quadrant and can stop for repairs."

Jack was so far beyond exhausted at this point that he questioned whether he'd make it out of the lounge, much less back to his quarters; but at the prospect of going back, he still hesitated, eyes sweeping the shadowed recesses of the lounge. There seemed to be no sign anywhere of the vines or the red door or the voice, so he dared to hope they might leave him undisturbed, at least for awhile. He nodded and crossed the room after Riker, a thought occurring to him belatedly. "Captain. Why couldn't you sleep?"

Riker smiled grimly, considering what to say as he deposited the tumblers back in the recycler. "Let's just leave it at, everything I told you about finding myself again." To lighten the tone, he added, "Also, Captain Shaw assigned your father and I to junior crew quarters. Bunk beds. Hard to sleep there."

Jack looked at him askance, not sure if this was meant to be a joke. "You're senior officers."

"He suspected we were trying to commandeer his ship under false pretenses." Riker shrugged, starting back down the corridor in the direction they'd come. "He wasn't wrong. But we needed a ship to find Beverly. And, apparently, you."

He was bemused. "Can you change it now?"

"As acting captain, yes, I will be exercising my authority to upgrade." Riker considered a moment. "Might leave your father there, though." He glanced over, glad to see that drew an almost-smile out of the younger man. He smiled back, laying a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Hang in there, kid. We're going to make it through this."