Stopping in the middle of corridor junction 14-E, Sidney La Forge hit her communicator. "Drop Delta and Echo," she ordered, and forcefields snapped into place around her as the voice of Commander Seven came across the comms with a curt, "Acknowledged."

"Looks good," Captain Shaw said after a moment. "That's the last test for now. La Forge, you and Crusher can stand down until contact with the Shrike is confirmed tomorrow. Go rest up."

The young ensign nodded, looking up at the camera in the ceiling where she knew they had been monitored not only by the bridge, but also her father and sister in the engineering lab. "Yes, sir."

As the forcefields vanished again, Jack Crusher let out a breath beside her, glancing around the bulkheads and reaching out a hand to test the empty space. Rarely one to shy away from a fight, he still wasn't entirely keen on facing Vadic directly, given her overwhelming advantages. Still, this might give them at least a sporting chance. Or a fraction of one. Which was better than the sod all they'd had. "Well. Seems all right. Are you nervous?"

"No," Sidney lied, then looked slightly sheepish. They'd been tense and focused during the multiple run-throughs of this trap they were setting for the Shrike, but as Jack relaxed and turned his frank attention back to her, it was hard not to soften in response—an effect he seemed to keep having on her. "I mean, yes. Aren't you? You're the bait."

"We've gone over it a few different ways—it ought to work. And we've got to try something." He shrugged, trying to muster his usual confidence, and quirked a smile at her. "You and I've got our parts down perfectly, at least. So. Equally great at flying, cloaking device installation, setting traps for evil Changelings…"

"Hold up. You're great at flying?"

He made a show of considering. "Right, well, I'll give you the edge on that one."

"Maybe not on cloaking device installation."

"There I think we're even," he agreed affably, eliding the minor detail that they could've blown up main engineering. "But still a good team, yeah?"

"Hmm. Jury's still out." Sidney folded her arms, failing to suppress her smile. Cocky flyboys had been a dime a dozen at the Academy, and she'd had little patience for any of them…but Jack seemed different. Not nearly as smooth as he thought he was, sure. But kind of charming in his earnestness. And also cute when his eyes crinkled like they were now.

She could practically see Alandra rolling her eyes at her from decks away.

"Anyway, I think it's a good plan," Sidney said, deciding to ignore her sister's imagined smirks for now. "Even if my dad doesn't love it."

"My mother doesn't either," Jack said ruefully. He wondered whether that was due more to the considerable risk to himself, or the fact the plan had been proposed by Picard. His mother hadn't voiced either rationale specifically, but from the hard set of her eyes once the argument had been lost, he thought it was both. Come to think of it, the same probably also applied for Sidney with her father. It was another thing they had in common: highly protective parents who had rather a few issues with the admiral.

Never mind the admiral was also his parent. He sighed.

"They really were good friends, weren't they?" Sidney asked, thoughtful. "Before we were around, I mean."

"Sure." Jack nodded and leaned back against a bulkhead, arms behind him. Titan had been eerily quiet since the transfer off-ship of most of the crew to the Intrepid. He would very much rather hang out here with Sidney awhile than return to the even-more-eerie quiet of his quarters for the long night ahead of them; he was happy she didn't seem in a rush to head off, either. "I mean from the stories my mother told, she always liked getting to work with your dad on cybernetics, on Data and other androids. And they loved playing poker together."

"Oh, right." It was interesting they had probably grown up hearing some of the same stories, just from different perspectives, she thought. She absently brushed her bangs to one side and smoothed her newly-straightened hair. "I think the first time my dad grew his beard, he had to shave it off because of some poker bet they made."

"Ha. That tracks. My mother hates beards for some reason."

"Also, he told us she had once talked him into being in a musical she put on." Which scenario she had always found hard to imagine about her serious, buttoned-up, truly-an-engineer father.

Hard to imagine, Jack almost said, before he stopped himself. Had the thought come from her or from himself?

"And they were the last two on the Enterprise with Admiral Picard…" Sidney trailed off as she saw an odd shadow crossing Jack's face. "Jack?"

Something's wrong. Again, he wasn't clear if it was her thought or his, and then Sidney tilted her head and her voice was the shadow's, speaking his name in cold, mocking echoes as crimson lightning flashed and thick, blood-red vines crawled and twisted up the corridor walls all around them. Panic gripped him and his heart began racing. The medicine was supposed to stop all of this—why did it keep happening?

With a wrenching effort of sheer will, Jack forced the nightmarish vines to recede and the voice to fall silent. "I'm fine," he managed.

"You sure?" He didn't look it.

He nodded and ran a hand over his face, trying to shake off the momentary spell as the hallway cleared in his vision and Sidney returned to sounding like her normal self. "Yes." That was better—his voice was steadier. He knew Sidney would probably be sympathetic if he tried to explain, but there seemed no tidy way to sum up the ghastliness of his present condition—sorry, just occasional terrifying hallucinations—so: far easier just to push past it. He took a deep breath. "Sorry. The Enterprise…"

"They were the last two." Somehow, rather than being unsettled as she had been the one other time she'd seen Jack like this, Sidney felt only concern for him. They might only just be getting to know each other after his inauspicious arrival on the ship, but there was something she instinctively trusted about him, an almost tangible connection with him; and she could tell he was shaken by whatever had just happened, though it had lasted mere seconds. "Hey, want to start walking back?"

"That'd be brilliant, sure," Jack said gratefully. Not how he'd intended to win an invitation to spend more time with her, but he would take it.

She fell into step beside him, stealing curious glances sideways. For having come from Starfleet parents, it was funny how he didn't carry himself like any kind of officer, instead strolling with more of a studied casualness. Then again, it seemed like he hadn't spent his life around Starfleet at all…except for the stories. "So, um, do you play poker?"

"I'm fairly decent at it. You?"

"Hmm. Why do I think that's an understatement?" He shrugged innocently, and she realized his perfectly neutral expression was her answer in itself. Nice. She'd have to really be on her game to match that good a poker face. "I'm not so bad either."

"Is that also an understatement?" His blue eyes became livelier. "Then maybe we could play sometime."

"Maybe." Sidney hid a smile as she reached for the wall panel to call for the turbolift, then hesitated and pulled her hand away. "Why did your mom leave?" she asked, startling them both with the abrupt question. She blushed under the sudden intensity of Jack's gaze as they turned towards each other, adding, "I mean…it might have been nice to meet you. Before now."

"Yeah?" Pleased, he smiled back at her, taken with the deep blush spreading across her cheeks. "I, um—to answer your question, I know she was upset to leave her friends. Like your dad. And even, honestly, the admiral himself. But she felt I would be a target because of the admiral and she wanted to keep me safe." His smile faded a bit. "Whether or not it was right…well, I always thought so, but a lot of good it's done now. And—it would've been nice to meet you before, too. Absolutely."

Before she could reply, the turbolift doors unexpectedly opened next to them to reveal Alandra and Geordi La Forge. Surprised and suddenly conscious of exactly how close she and Jack were standing, Sidney took a quick, smooth step backwards.

Not smooth enough for her older sister to miss it, of course. "Hey, sis. We were just coming to find you. Hi, Jack," Alandra added sweetly, directing the predictable, and predicted, little smirk at Sidney.

Jack glanced between the sisters, bemused. "Hi." The commodore, he noted, still regarded him with heavy suspicion; but while Jack could admit to being legitimately frightened by, say, Vadic and the nightmare illness that kept trying to take over his brain, he was not, all due respect granted, particularly frightened by La Forge père. For Sidney's sake, he would try his best to appear as harmless and benign as possible. Given, however, that he'd recently enlisted one or both of the commodore's daughters to participate in a minor theft (borrowing, really) of major starship equipment, plus this scheme to bait a murderous Changeling bounty hunter into boarding their ship, he was fairly certain it wouldn't help his standing any.

Still, worth a try.

"We're all set down here, sir," he volunteered to the elder La Forge, straightening respectfully. "We've just been, ah, going over things again to be sure."

"Hmph." Unmoved, La Forge stared down the corridor as if he could recalibrate the shield emitters from here, then turned his attention back to them. "Well, Titan should be in position in the next few hours. Then…I give us until morning at most before we're found. We should probably all get some rest while we can, but Sid, I'd like you to join your sister and me for dinner first."

"Sounds good to me," Sidney agreed. "See you later, Jack." She flashed a quick smile at him and then brushed his hand subtly as she stepped past him.

Like that, the words appeared in his head, and he should have been nonplussed again, but of all the strange and alarming things that had been happening to him this week, this evolving connection with Sidney La Forge instead was…pleasant. Maybe he'd land that poker date sooner than he thought.

Jack grinned as he caught Sidney's knowing smile back at him, before she disappeared with her family.