Chapter Text
Will Riker was pacing.
It was something that he had leaned to resist during his days at Starfleet Academy. Will had never been the type to sit still when he was calm and even less so when he had something to be anxious about. However, the image of a pacing first officer was not conducive to his practical and collected image nor particularly comforting to his commanding officer. Though Riker was not a first officer at this moment.
No, he paced back and forth as a husband.
Deanna had informed him that she was planning to stop by Sickbay before returning to their quarters this evening. His concern often had a way of coming out as impatience, which is what anyone who happened to stumble into the room he paced in would likely conclude. However, the worry was the prominent emotion. It took everything in him to resist the need to run over to sickbay right at this minute but Deanna's message had not come with an explicit invitation for himself.
He had chosen to wait for her in their quarters. Give her the time and space she needed. Will knew that if Deanna needed him she would tell him.
As the minutes ticked by painfully slowly, Will couldn't help but imagine what was occurring in sickbay at the very same moment. If it was about what he suspected it to be he was unsure just what news Deanna would possibly be returning with. Beverly had told them both that while it was possible to begin testing at this time it was best to wait at least another week before they discussed their next steps.
Had something changed? Had Beverly called Deanna in early? Was that good or bad?
Were they going to be parents?
With each question that flooded into his mind, his pace increased in speed and intensity, the sound of his boots increasing every time. Though the last question brought its own dizzying feeling of anticipation that he felt deep in his stomach with warmth.
He paused as he heard the sound of the door swishing open to reveal the image of his wife.
"Imadzi?" he called out mentally before his brain even had time to process a verbal action.
Deanna took a few cautious steps in, letting the door close shut behind her. Will searched her for something that would enable him to understand what she was thinking. What she was feeling. The sooner he knew, the quicker he could try and remedy the situation.
However, all he could focus on was how small she looked in front of him.
Deanna's voice rang back into his mind. "Will."
Their telepathic communication was intuitive. An extension of their deep intimacy, built up and perfected over a decade. It was now second nature to Will. Though he was never able to communicate long sections of prose as she was. Instead, his way of communicating was cruder in this way than if he was to speak; driven by instinct and flashing thoughts that passed through his mind.
"Baby?"
He cringed as he watched the thought reach her. He couldn't help the lack of tact. It was all that was on his mind. A baby. Their baby. His message to her had been soft and hopeful.
Deanna's tone was not.
"No baby," her face fell.
"Deanna," he tried to reach deeper into her thoughts to comfort her with his presence.
She let him in.
“I felt something. I thought -” she looked down.
“It’s okay. There will be another chance.”
“I know.”
Will took a couple of steps towards her, their telepathic connection not enough anymore. He needed to touch her.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Talk...or stay in each other’s thoughts,” Deanna looked up with a watery smile.
"As nice as being in your mind is..." Will relaxed his tense stance and reached out for Deanna’s hand and pulled her out of the doorway. “..talk,” he spoke out loud for the first time. “Come here,” with one hand in hers and the other around her waist, he guided her down onto the couch.
“I’m not pregnant,” she began, releasing a steadying breath. “Beverly, she said she could do further tests to see if I had been…if it had worked. If it had been an early…loss. It can be hard to detect at this stage.”
“Come here,” Will pulled her closer. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
“I thought this would be the time.”
“So did I.”
“It is alright,” Deanna smoothed her hands over her thighs as she sat up straighter. “Beverly is confident that with more invasive treatment that we should have no issue having a baby,” she said optimistically.
Will nodded. “But this would have been…for lack of a better word…more preferable.”
Four weeks previously, while on shore leave, Will and Deanna along with Beverly had traveled to the planet of Volphaes. It was a unique society that had kept its distance from the gaze of the federation. Though several years previously, Deanna and Beverly had visited the planet during an epidemic and struck up something of a friendship with a group of the Volphae.
In reward for their aid, the Volphae had offered the two women a gift. A gift of a child, which understandably, they could not accept.
Reproduction on Volphaes was something of a magical mystery to Federation science. Their entire population appeared to be analogous to an earth female yet their reproduction was deemed by Beverly to not be asexual in nature. The planet itself seemed to carry an intrinsic ability to guide and nurture life into being.
As a couple and their friend, not Starfleet officers, Will, Deanna, and Beverly had returned to Volphaes to participate in a ritual of fertility. To in a way finally take the Volphae up on their offer.
It had been explained to Deanna and Will that with Beverly acting as the required third party in the ceremony, a pregnancy, and child of their own could be helped into existence. Even if male-aided reproduction had not been employed by the Volphae for centuries.
“The ceremony was extraordinary. I’d never felt so in tune with my mind and body,” she smiled warmly as she reminisced. “I truly thought it had worked,” she chuckled in embarrassment. “Isn’t that silly? Believing in magic.”
“Not at all. It wasn’t magic. At least not to the Volphae,” Will placed a hand on her leg, stroking it gently. “And I don’t regret the experience, even if it did not provide us the outcome we so wished for.”
Deanna smiled, resting her hand over his. “I don’t either.”
It had been something of a long shot to begin with. And if Will was completely honest was an idea that had made him uncomfortable at first. Using an alien culture to conceive a child was not something that sat well with him but seven years on the Enterprise and life with Deanna had opened his mind. Such ceremonies and rituals were part of everyday life in many worlds, including Deanna’s own.
So when the opportunity to return to Volphae had arisen the timing appeared too good to ignore. A trip away from the Enterprise had been needed for them both. Their marriage and subsequent decision to begin the journey to start a family of their own had been something of a whirlwind that had never quite let up. Nearly two years later and not for a lack of trying, they were without a child and an explanation.
Beverly had been more than happy to help support them in this endeavor and had assumed her role as a non-contributing witness of the ceremony. Something that all Volphae couples seeking the creation of new life were required to have.
She had been there as their friend. Though as their physician, Beverly had even suggested that such an experience would be beneficial for the couple regardless if its promised outcomes were plausible or not. Especially if they were not keen on turning to more medical types of intervention just yet. Beverly had helped many couples conceive in her career and this was no different.
That night, in a clearing by the crystalline purple lakes of Volphaes, the three of them had formed a unique bond. And walked away with hope.
A hope, that while diminished, was still there between them.
“There is always that Betazoid fertility ritual we could try before we turn to the hard science,” Will joked lightly.
Deanna raised her brow. “The naked one,” she concluded with a smirk.
“Something tells me Beverly may not be as keen to join in on that one.”
A protective warmth rushed through Will's body as he watched Deanna erupt into a small laugh with him. He lived for the joy on her face and would destroy anything that brought otherwise to her. Together they relaxed into each other’s hold, letting the burden they carried lighten as they held it together.
Though the look of amusement on Deanna’s face soon faced as it was replaced with one of confusion. Her breaths quickened and she doubled over, burying her head in her hands.
“Deanna, what is it?” Will asked.
“I can feel it,” she complained, her voice unsteady. “In my head...it’s there again, what I felt before - ” she gasped.
“What is there?” Will stood up and came to kneel in front of her. He took her hands in his and tilted her head up so he could see her face. “Should I call for Sickbay?”
Deanna stilled, her eyes piercing into his own as she spoke. "Our...our child?"
Will had little time to take in Deanna’s words and their implication before he was distracted by the urgent sound of the door chime. It rang at least three times before he spat out the command to let them in, planning to instruct whoever it was to get medical help while he stayed with Deanna.
When the visitor neglected to make their identity known as they walked inside, Will was forced to turn his head around.
"Beverly? Why are you?"
There was a strange conflict of feelings that passed through Will as he took in the image of Beverly standing by the door. The panic he felt was pushed away slightly as he considered the reason for her visit. Maybe she was here to tell them something, he thought. Something good. Maybe Beverly had got it wrong.
Maybe Deanna was pregnant after all.
Beverly remained stood in the shadows. "Deanna...Will..." she fretted, her eyes darting across the room to both of them.
Her demeanor uneased him. She was as almost as small as Deanna had been when she had come home only twenty minutes previously. Beverly did not look the in-control doctor that she usually was.
Whatever she was here to say, it wasn't good, Will concluded with a sharp breath.
Deanna tensed. "Beverly..." she said with apprehension.
Will felt Deanna push herself off the couch and he steadied her as they both made steps towards the doctor. Together they closed the distance between them.
"What is it?" he asked.
Beverly paled before them. "We...we may have a problem," her voice shook, disbelief running through it as if she had not quite accepted what she was about to reveal. "I'm pregnant."