Chapter Text
Angel Falls
Ten Forward was busy with people. Three weeks had passed since the Enterprise had docked at McKinley Station, Earth, for repairs following the battles with the Borg. Captain Picard had returned to duty on a part-time basis ten days ago, Elizabeth Shelby had disembarked and the ship was swarming with technicians and engineers. The day had been long and tiresome for Will, full of debriefs and report-writing, all alongside his usual first officer’s duties. But there had also been one very significant meeting. After much consideration, he had decided to surrender his field commission. The meeting with Starfleet Command had been this afternoon and yet he could still feel the nervous energy thrumming through him, leaving him feeling like he’d been in another battle and in desperate need of some rest and relaxation. Which was why he’d made his way to Ten Forward.
As he entered, he saw Guinan watching him and he nodded to her. “What can I get you, Riker?” she asked as he approached the bar. Her eyes alighted on the three pips on his collar but in her usual mysterious style, she said nothing more.
“Trakian ale, please, Guinan.”
When she turned away to get his drink, Will used the moment to glance around the busy lounge area. He knew most of the people by face and name, and he could have taken a seat at just about any table he chose, but it only took a moment before his eyes fell upon one individual, an individual who had a habit of standing out from any crowd, at least as far as he was concerned.
Deanna Troi sat alone near the windows, some wickedly sinful chocolate concoction before her on the table. Her face was resting in one hand while with the other, she spooned the chocolate around the bowl with slow, thoughtful strokes. He noticed, though, that she was doing very little actual eating, which in itself was unusual. If Deanna wasn’t eating chocolate when it was there in front of her, there was almost certainly something very wrong indeed.
Behind him, Guinan cleared her throat and he turned quickly to see her slide his ale towards him. “Thanks,” he said.
“She’s been there for an hour,” said Guinan, “just spooning that dessert around.”
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know, why don’t you go and ask her?”
Will looked at the El-Aurian, who gave a small shrug. He took a draft of his ale, then headed towards Deanna. She did not look up as he arrived, which again was unusual. Under normal circumstances, it was damn near impossible to surprise Deanna with your presence. Part of the package of being an empath meant she had a sort of sixth sense of anyone near to her, even if they’d learnt some Betazoid mind disciplines in the distant past. He placed his hands on her shoulders and she jumped and turned sharply.
“Will!” she exclaimed with a wide, happy smile. “I haven’t seen you in three days.”
“I’ve been really busy,” he said, pulling out the chair opposite hers and sitting down. He tapped his collar where just three rank pips now shone.
“You told them you wanted to stay on the Enterprise.”
He nodded. “You were right. They were ready to offer me the choice of any of the ships that came home from Wolf 359.” His fingers ran over the coolness of the gold, the familiar smoothness and patina. His whole adult life he’d quested for that fourth pip and here he was, having achieved his goal, handing it back. It was a bizarre set of circumstances such as he’d never entertained before.
Deanna studied him a moment, then asked, “How do you feel about it?”
Trust Deanna to narrow him into his emotional response, he thought. “Tired,” he said with a soft chuff. “Relieved, a little, I guess.” Rubbing his hands over his beard and face, he sighed. “I don’t really know yet. It’s all still fresh.”
“Yes… These things can take a while to process.” She returned her gaze to her dessert, turning thoughtful once again. “I was thinking about you and what you were saying to them all afternoon.”
“Did you think I was going to leave?”
“I thought it was a very real possibility, yes.” She reached across the table and took his hand in hers, giving his fingers a little squeeze. “I’m glad you’re not, though.”
At that, he found himself lost for words and so, for a long moment, they simply sat there, holding each other hands. Deanna’s fingers caressed the skin on the back of his hand. When he finally spoke again, it was to turn the conversation to the mundane and everyday, something safer and less difficult to dwell on. “Do you want to have some dinner with me? I’m hungry and you don’t seem to be eating whatever that was.”
“It was a Meridian chocolate nest,” she told him. “And no, I couldn’t eat it. It just seemed too rich.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “Now I know there’s something not right in Deanna Troi’s world.”
“I’m perfectly fine, thank you.”
“Oh sure you are. Chocolate is your life, you once told me.”
She stared at him a moment, as if she were trying to be angry at him, then gave up and looked away with a wry smile. “All right, all right. It’s been a tough day and I needed to let that go before I could face the thought of eating anything… even chocolate.”
“Why was it so tough?” he asked in concern.
“I had several appointments with survivors of Wolf 359 this morning that were quite difficult, then I had a session with the captain.”
“Ah,” said Will. Captain Picard had proven himself to be ferociously determined in his recovery and it had taken Deanna a lot of her own determination to get through to him that he couldn’t simply parcel away the trauma of what had happened to him and pretend it wasn’t there. “Is he still proving a challenge for you?”
“Of course,” said Deanna. “He wants me to sign him off as fit to return to full-time duty.”
“And you don’t think he’s ready?”
“I think he needs to give himself longer, yes. Perhaps take some time away for a holiday so he gets away from the ship. This desire he has to use work as a coping technique is not a long term solution.”
Immediately, Will thought of Worf and the odd conversation they’d had just an hour ago about the visit of his parents. Will’s suggestion that Worf take some time off duty while they were aboard had not gone down well and Will had been left wondering why he’d bothered to take a concern for his friend’s wellbeing.
“You think the Captain’s going to take time for a vacation? Do you not remember how hard it was to get him to take those few days on Risa last year?”
“I remember,” said Deanna with a sigh. “But I’m going to keep working on him. We’re stuck here for another three weeks, aren’t we?”
“Until the deflector dish has been refitted, yes. There’s been a few problems so it’s going to be longer than expected.”
“A little more time is good. I sense that he is considering it.” She paused and tilted her head. “Are you going to take some shore leave?”
Will rubbed his beard. He’d not thought he’d even have time to spare given how much responsibility he was still shouldering in the captain’s absence, but as the deflector had been delayed for an additional two weeks, there was now the possibility that he might snatch a few days to have a break of his own. To Deanna he said, “I don’t know if I’ll get the time. I’d like to though. What about you?”
“I’ve got a few days booked in next week.”
“Any idea where you might go?”
Deanna shrugged her shoulders. “Right now I’d go just about anywhere so long as it had some sunshine, a bathtub and a big bed.”
A waiter came and took their order then and once he had gone, they fell to silence. Around them, Ten Forward continued, the mood easier and more joyful than it had been in weeks.
At length, Will reached across the table and took up her hand. “I never thanked you for what you did on the Bridge that day.” She met his gaze, immediately understanding to what he was referring. “I needed those words and I realised that I never would’ve taken them from anybody but you. So, while I may have hated you in that moment, I am grateful, really.”
“Just doing my job,” she said softly.
“And a very valuable job it is.” He paused. “You know, if I’d taken command of the Melbourne, I wouldn’t have had a counsellor. Only some of the Excelsior class ships have on board counsellors and Melbourne isn’t one of them.”
“I know that. It’s something Starfleet Medical has been trying to address with Command for several years now.”
“When I think of all the work you’ve done with the Enterprise crew in the three years you’ve been aboard…”
“It’s been a very fulfilling role. One I might not have considered if it hadn’t been for you.”
That made him stop and stare. “You mean, you joined the Enterprise because you knew I was going to be first officer?”
Deanna laughed out loud. “Gods above, Will Riker, you really do think the universe revolves around you, don’t you?”
“Hey, that’s not fair. You just said—"
“I know, but that’s not exactly what I meant. I meant that if I’d not met you and spent the time with you that I had, I’m not sure I would have been quite so keen to take up a position aboard a ship rather than one planetside. You made travelling the stars seem so exciting… so rewarding.”
“Oh,” he said, feeling like a bit of an ass. “Sorry.”
The waiter chose that moment to reappear with their meals and Will welcomed the distraction. As soon as the plates were laid in front of them, Deanna tucked into her Betazoid salatin with enthusiasm, whatever had been bothering her before apparently a thing of the past. “It’s funny, you know, when I was thinking that you would be leaving,” she said, “I thought about when you joined the Potemkin all those years ago and how we kept in touch those first few weeks…”
Will looked up, surprised by her comment and its history, a flush of unexpected heat running through him as his mind filled with how they would call each other on subspace every evening to talk about their days and how those calls would sometimes slide towards more sensual activities. “They were good calls,” he murmured.
“They were.”
“Though perhaps not appropriate for where we are now.”
“No…”
They smiled at each other. It always seemed to Will that they were a step or two away from reigniting whatever it was that still burned low and slow between them. Her eyes dropped back to her meal and she took up another forkful. “So what have you got left to do this week?” she asked, changing the subject smoothly.
“There are some personnel changes coming up - a few disembarking and a few joining us – so there’ll be some orientations to do and changes to duty rosters. There’s some work still going on in Engineering and the rest of the refit of the deflector dish to supervise. And obviously the next few weeks’ shore leave schedule to plan. I’m going to be pretty busy for the next few days.”
“Not much of a chance for a break then.”
“I’ll try to get a few days, one way or another, even if I have to get Data to step in for me,” he said, returning to his meal. He realised that he’d near enough inhaled the food on his plate as there was hardly anything left at all. He must really have been hungry. A quick glance across the table showed him that Deanna was still only half way through hers, so he slowed his pace and deliberately measured each mouthful. “I bet your schedule is full…”
“Very full,” she said. “It would be busy with just the Enterprise crew, but Starfleet are sending me some other cases. Survivors from Wolf 359 mostly.”
“Difficult ones?”
“Any case of trauma is difficult, Will,” explained Deanna. “And these are people who have lost their crewmates, partners, children and friends.”
He shook his head. “I’ve been trying not to think about it.”
“Which you know is not a strategy I tend to approve of…” she chastised lightly. She leaned forward and looked at him carefully, her eyes gaining the evaluative look of the counsellor. “How are you coping, Will? We haven’t talked about you.”
“I’m fine,” he dismissed.
“Will…”
“Honestly, Deanna, I’m fine. I won’t deny that I could use those few days of shore leave but I think that applies to everyone on the ship.”
She nodded. He felt the gentle warmth he still got in the base of his brain when she was reading him empathically, a remnant of times past. “I’m fine,” he asserted and reached across the table to take up her hand again. “Remember what you said about me once? Where there’s no sense, there’s no feeling…”
He mugged a dumb face at her and she laughed. “Well, there is that.”
The rest of the evening passed in comfortable companionship but as the time edged towards midnight, Deanna made her excuses and stood. “Walk you back?” he suggested, getting to his feet too. She nodded and held out her hand for him to take.
He happened to look up as he grasped Deanna’s hand and pulled her close to his body and saw Guinan standing at the bar, her eyes on them. He threw a smile in her direction, which she returned, her gaze unwavering, enigmatic as always.
“Goodnight Commander, Counsellor.”
“Night, Guinan,” called Will over his shoulder.
They walked slowly back to deck eight in relative silence. In the turbolift, Deanna rested her head against his shoulder and sighed. He could tell she was tired, but even still, he wondered about inviting her back to his cabin for a nightcap. There was often a point like this reached in evenings they shared, where their reluctance to part ways became an almost physical presence between them, one that required real effort to push aside.
They reached the door to her cabin first and she stopped, yawned and looked up at him. “Thank you for a lovely evening, Will. I really needed your company tonight.” Her smile was warm and grateful and she let out another sigh. “I would’ve really missed this, Imzadi.”
“It wasn’t the right time,” he said. Leaning down, he kissed her softly, lingering a moment longer than he probably should do, then stepped back. “See you tomorrow.”
He watched as she disappeared inside her cabin and the doors slid closed behind her, then sighed and turned to walk the twenty paces or so around the corner to his own quarters. Deanna’s yawn had reminded him of how he too could do with a decent night’s sleep. He’d been working all hours, rising early and retiring late and he could tell it was all starting to catch up on him. Perhaps he should book those few days of shore leave for himself now, while it was on his mind…
He turned the corner and saw Guinan standing outside his cabin, still as a statue clothed in swathes of richest purple. “Guinan?” he said, surprised. In all the time he had known her, he had only seen Guinan outside of Ten Forward a handful of times. He was sure she must have quarters of her own, but he’d be damned if he knew where they were. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, I’m fine, Commander.” She paused. “May I come in?”
“Into my cabin?” The request was remarkable enough that he utterly failed to keep the surprise from his voice.
“We can talk in the corridor if you’d prefer.”
“No, no, sure, come in.” He gestured for the mysterious hostess to enter. Once inside, she began to wander about the room, picking up items or pausing to look at objects but she remained silent. Will watched her curiously.
At length he asked, “Can I help you, Guinan?”
She turned and fixed him with a firm stare. He’d seen the same look before, several weeks ago, when she’d visited him in the captain’s ready room and in response, he felt his pulse beat a little faster. Clearly she was here for more than just a social call.
“I was talking to Picard earlier and he told me you’d been down to Earth to speak with Starfleet. To hand in your field commission.”
“Yes, I—”
“Making you the first Starfleet officer in over twenty-five years to take a demotion from a rank awarded in the field.”
Will’s lips thinned. He didn’t really want to be reminded about that little piece of trivia. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d put on his record for the future. “Guinan, if you’re here to lecture me about my decision, with all due respect, it’s my business and my business only,” he said.
Guinan ignored him and returned to her meandering trip around his quarters. She paused beside the bookshelf and gazed thoughtfully at the few trinkets he had displayed there before finally alighting on the copy of Ode to Psyche that Deanna had given him. In silence, she thumbed through the pages, Will’s feeling of awkwardness multiplying with every minute that passed. When she came to the inscription on the first page, she stopped and appeared to consider the words.
“I know why you’re staying here on the Enterprise instead of taking up all those offers of command,” she said as she closed the book and returned it to its position on the shelf. Will’s eyes narrowed and he stared at her. She continued, “You’re playing it safe again, Riker.”
A surge of indignation rushed through him. “I’m playing it safe? Did you not hear how we beat the Borg? That wasn’t playing it safe, Guinan! Everything I did that day was a risk!”
“Oh. I know that. But this afternoon you stood in front of Starfleet and told them you were handing back your field commission.”
“I decided it was not what I wanted right now.”
Guinan crossed her arms and came to stand a few paces in front of him. “The first time I met you, Riker, you were sitting in my bar drinking Scotch and working. When I spoke to you, you told me that a good first officer was always on duty, that your goal in life was to captain a starship and that nothing stood in the way of you getting what you wanted.”
Remembering the conversation, Will raised his chin and chuffed a sardonic laugh. To his more mature ears, he sounded like an arrogant shit, the kind of person he now found intensely irritating. Who said that kind of thing to people they’d just met? “And now here I am turning down a captaincy, is that you’re getting at?”
“I’m not here to judge,” said Guinan. “I’m here to make you see what you’re doing. Because I don’t think that you do.”
“I understand the decision I’ve made.”
“Do you?”
In exasperation, Will sighed. He hated this trick Guinan did where she almost walked you into admitting something yourself. Deanna did it too and it didn’t seem to matter how many times he’d experienced it, he always fell for it.
“Why have you decided to stay aboard the Enterprise?”
“The Enterprise is a prestigious ship. The flagship of the Federation. Our missions are exciting and I get a great sense of satisfaction from them. I feel like I have much more to learn from Captain Picard and from the crew around me.”
“All very true. But none of those are the real reason, are they?”
Will shook his head. “I don’t understand. Those are the reasons I gave to Starfleet and they are the reasons I feel are the truth.”
“But they’re not the real ones.”
“Look, Guinan, with all due respect, whatever you’ve come here to tell me, can you just get on and tell me it?”
Guinan moved silently towards the couch, then sat down, straight-backed. She placed her hands primly on her knees. “The real reason you’re staying has nothing to do with prestige and all those other bullshit reasons you gave to Captain Picard and Starfleet. It’s because you’re too damn scared of not having everything you’ve got here on the Enterprise. You feel secure here and the Enterprise has become your home, her crew, your family.” She paused, watching as her words sunk in. “And then there’s Troi.”
Will bristled. “My relationship with Deanna has never changed my career plans.”
“Oh I think today it just did.”
“Guinan, Deanna and I are not together anymore. We haven’t been for years.”
“I know that. But you and she are close, are you not?”
“Yes, of course. We’re friends.”
“Like you and Beverley Crusher are friends?”
“Well, no, not exactly…”
Smiling and nodding in that way she had when she knew she was about to be proved right, Guinan replied, “Picard once read me a poem and I’m reminded of that now. It was called The Road Not Taken.”
“Robert Frost,” said Will. Frost’s works had been required reading for one of his school semesters. He’d enjoyed them, as much as he enjoyed any poetry; like most literature they had been brief focuses for his wandering, questioning intellect, but little more than that. Mostly, he’d forgotten all he’d read, but The Road Not Taken was one he still remembered well.
“Do you ever think about the path not taken in your life?”
“What’s that got to do with me choosing to stay on the Enterprise?”
Guinan shrugged. “Most people leave the path not taken behind them. But you… you’ve never left it behind. It sits across the Bridge from you every day, has dinner with you in Ten Forward several times a week, plays poker with you and visits your cabin for a nightcap.” She paused. “The reason you haven’t moved on from the Enterprise is because you have everything here you’ve ever wanted, conveniently placed. You have a family of friends such as you’ve never had before and the woman you love in the cabin next door to you on one side and on the other... your own ship. You're still standing at that fork in the road. You've never really made a choice. Tell me something, Riker… If Troi came to you tomorrow and asked to resume your relationship, what would you say?”
“I, er—” He frowned, looking away.
“What would you say?” Guinan pressed him. “Would you tell her no?”
A long moment passed while he considered the question, a moment during which he found himself settling onto the couch an arm’s length away from her and leaning forward to rest his head in his hands. When he and Deanna had found themselves both assigned to the Enterprise, working in close proximity, they’d made an almost subconscious mutual decision to leave the past alone. It hadn’t even been something that they’d really talked about, so keen had they both been to find their feet aboard a new ship in their new positions. He still looked at her and saw much of what had attracted him to her back on Betazed and there were times when that attraction thrummed strong in his veins, times when the unspoken agreement between them seemed stretched thin.
“I don’t know,” he said finally.
Guinan shook her head. “Then you are a fool, Riker. You must find the answer to that question or you will be here on the Enterprise for the rest of your career, waiting, content in this… this limbo, still standing at the fork in the road.”
“You believe that unless I move things forward with Deanna, I won’t want to leave the Enterprise?”
“I do. I’ve lived a few hundred years and I’ve seen a lot of love in that time. You both love each other. So what is stopping you?”
“Contentment, maybe?” admitted Will.
“Contentment,” repeated Guinan. “Not something to scorn at all. But perhaps it is something to fear for it makes even the boldest of us sit back and accept the hand we’ve been dealt.”
Slowly, she got to her feet and went to the bookshelf, selecting once again the copy of Ode to Psyche. She flicked it open and returned to stand before him before placing the book meaningfully in his hands. “Let the warm love in, Riker. It is yours if you choose it and, I dare say, you may find something more than contentment.”
And with that, she turned and exited, leaving Will sitting alone on his couch.