A/N: Thank you 29Pieces, SnidgetHex, and pallysd'Artagnan for reviewing! I'm glad you enjoyed the fic. ^_^

Chapter 5

Picard sat up slowly and looked around La Sirena's sickbay. Soji was awake and rising from her cot. Both of them looked toward Rios lying on the medical bed. Behind it, the EMH was talking quietly with Raffi and Agnes. Everyone looked far too grim for the victory they had just achieved.

"You stopped the Lethean's telepathic attack," Seven surmised quietly.

"Yes, but…" He trailed off as Soji surged forward toward Rios.

"Why isn't he waking up?" she demanded. "It worked."

Emil nodded gravely. "Yes, the neural degradation ceased. But…I'm afraid there was a lot of damage. I can gradually take him off the life support, but there's no way to tell how much cognitive function he'll retain."

Soji simply gaped at the EMH uncomprehendingly. "But, we were just talking with him. He's still in there!"

Picard briefly closed his eyes in grief. This was one of life's hardest lessons: sometimes you can do everything right—and still fail. How many young cadets and officers had he had to walk through such a learning experience?

Soji threw a desperate look around at each of them. "We were so close. It worked. It can't just be for nothing."

Not nothing, Picard thought. At the very least, they gave Rios the ability to find peace, at the end.

"Hang on," Raffi spoke up. "All this scanning and mapping of brain substrates…if we had a copy of Rios's mind, intact, couldn't we just…reconstruct the damaged pieces from that?"

Emil pursed his mouth in intrigued thought. "It's hardly the most wild idea that's been floated today. But we didn't make a scan before the attack was able to progress too far."

Raffi broke into a giddy grin and waved her finger at him. "No, we have one from earlier. One complete scan divided and overlaid in five different holographic programs."

Picard furrowed his brow, not following.

"The EHs," Agnes said, eyes widening.

Raffi nodded earnestly. "Rios did a self-scan of himself when he programmed them. They have his memories, his personality. Granted, scattered into a dysfunctional spiderweb, but if we gather all the EHs and map those neural networks, then compare them with Rios's, can't we just…fill in the blanks?"

"You guys really are insane," Seven commented, but she sounded impressed.

"We don't exactly have anything to lose at this point, do we?" Raffi pushed, turning to Agnes.

Agnes bit her bottom lip as she considered it, but after a lengthy beat lifted her head staunchly. "I'm willing to give it a shot."

"Alright," Raffi said, "all EHs, get your butts in sickbay. We've got a lot of work to do."

Picard was forced to take several steps back as the room suddenly filled with the other emergency holograms. They were surprisingly eager to help in whatever way they could to save their captain. But then, they were, on their most basic level, Rios himself.

Elnor came to stand beside him. "More waiting," he said sullenly.

Picard glanced at him sideways. "Not necessarily. I think they're all going to need some coffee to get through this. Why don't we replicate some for them?"

Elnor flicked a glum look at him, but then nodded. "That is not nothing."

"No," Picard agreed. "It is not."

.o.0.o.

Rios felt like he was floating in a bog, like his marrow had been slurped out and replaced with sludge. And yet at the same time he didn't quite feel…tangible. And that was a trippy sensation. Everything was dark and frozen and he couldn't move and that should have been more alarming but every time he started to panic, exhaustion would snatch it away and he'd sink again.

Voices warbled around him, indistinct and distant. But there was something…comforting about them. Familiar.

"Cris, can you hear me? Open your eyes for me, baby."

There was something in that voice, something he responded to on an instinctual level. It somehow loosened the mire around him and he felt himself rising to the surface.

His eyes cracked open sluggishly, filling his vision with painful lights and blurred colors.

"That's it," the voice coaxed.

He shifted his gaze toward it, blinking languidly until the fuzzy shapes took on sharper edges and he could make out the worried face of his best friend.

"Raffi?" he rasped.

She broke into a watery smile and let out a half blubbering laugh as she brushed his hair back from his forehead. "Yeah, right here. How are you feeling?"

He frowned. "I had the weirdest dream…" Pieces were flashing through his mind in a confusing jumble.

"If it involved the three of us running around the ibn Majid while being hunted by an alien assassin," a new, older voice spoke up. "Then it was no dream."

Rios lolled his gaze toward the foot of the bed where he found a surprising number of people gathered. Normally that kind of attention would have irked him, but he was too tired and dazed to be irritated at the moment.

"Admiral."

Picard arched a brow. "You remember I'm not a captain anymore. That's good."

"How are you feeling?" Soji repeated Raffi's earlier question, wringing her hands in front of her.

A reflexive "fine" was on the tip of his tongue, but the nervous look in everyone's eyes gave him pause. He glanced to his left and saw Agnes and Emil standing at his side, also watching tensely.

He swallowed around a dry mouth. "My head is killing me," he admitted. He frowned when he noticed a few of them wince at that.

"You went through a major trauma," Agnes was quick to explain, and he could see her trying to erect a mask of professionalism. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Rios furrowed his brow as he tried to drudge up the memory of what he'd last been doing. The air was heavy with how important his answer would be, he could tell. But why? How badly had he been hurt?

A spike of pain pierced his skull as he abruptly remembered the Lethean's attack.

"Cris?" Raffi called worriedly. "What is it, what's wrong?"

He forced his eyes open again, not realizing he'd closed them. "Nothing. I- I remember the Lethean." His brows pulled together and he looked back at Soji and Picard. "You came after me."

Soji looked relieved while Picard nodded carefully.

"Do you remember what happened while we were in your mind?" he asked.

Rios shuddered at the memory of it, of the ship crumbling into nothingness around him, of not knowing what was happening or how to stop it. And then at the end, when Soji and Picard had borne witness to his failings and weakness.

"Do you remember?" Soji pressed, and yes, Rios remembered her earnest eyes, her passionate pleas for him to let go of his past and hold onto his present.

"Yes," he said, voice cracking.

"I'm sure you all have a lot to discuss," Emil interrupted. "But Dr. Jurati and I would like to run some more scans."

"I'm fine," Rios automatically growled.

"Cris," Raffi said softly. "You really weren't."

And he could see in their eyes—all of theirs—just how close it had been, and a lingering fear that maybe he wasn't all right yet. It made him uncomfortable, eliciting that kind of response, and he would subject himself to Emil's fussing if it meant getting away from everyone else for a bit while he tried to put the loose pieces in his mind back into place.

The others started to leave, murmuring several "welcome back"s on their way out. Even Raffi left. Rios wanted to get up, but the moment he tried, he found he lacked any energy whatsoever to see it through.

"Please just lie still," Agnes begged.

He tried not to fidget as she and Emil went through a variety of scans, focusing mostly on what looked like ones of the brain.

"Should I be worried?" he asked tautly.

"Actually, you've recovered remarkably well," Emil replied. "I think I'll write a paper on this incident and the unprecedented measures that were taken to bring you back. Ah, in collaboration with Dr. Jurati, of course."

Rios frowned and reached out to snag Agnes's wrist, a cold feeling sweeping through him. "I'm still me, aren't I?" he asked nervously, unsure whether he wanted to ask what exactly they'd done with the whole consciousness transferring thing.

Her expression softened and she leaned down to kiss him. "Yes. I'll tell you all about it later. Right now, you should try to sleep off that beast of a headache you have. And if that's the worst symptom you walk away from this with, then I'm taking you dancing in the holosuite next week."

Rios quirked a brow at her. "Dancing?"

She kissed him again. "Yes."

Emil walked over with a hypospray, which Rios normally would have barked at him to put away, but Agnes was distracting him and he was so tired he barely felt the cool contact and hiss of the device. All he felt was his headache fading and that floaty feeling returning, but it wasn't so dark and heavy this time.

.o.0.o.

Rios sat on the floor of his quarters, having immediately retreated to them after Emil had given him a clean bill of health a few hours earlier. His mind was clearer now and he remembered everything.

Or thought he did. Agnes had explained about using the patterns from the holo squad to repair the brain damage he'd suffered from the Lethean attack. He supposed there was no way to know if there were any gaps left unless he was confronted with something he couldn't recall.

Which was partly why he was sitting on the floor in his room looking through that box of mementos that he only dug out when he was wickedly drunk and maudlin. He hadn't had anything to drink this time. He pulled out a picture of him and Vandermeer and stared at it for a long time. It still hurt. But the pain meant he hadn't forgotten.

He sifted through other memories, recognizing each one, remembering them with a pang in his heart.

He'd somehow managed to let it go, back there in that disintegrating ship, to "forgive" himself. But it wasn't going to be a one-time deal and all his baggage instantly cured. No, forgiving himself was going to have to be a daily thing, something he'd have to continuously work at.

His door beeped with a caller.

"It's Jean-Luc."

Rios grimaced and stiffened, debating whether to send the admiral away or hastily stuff everything back into its box. But Picard had already seen him at his most vulnerable, so what did it matter?

"Come."

The door swished open and the old man stepped inside, his gaze sweeping curiously around the room.

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine," he replied, getting up off the floor. "There doesn't seem to be any permanent damage."

Picard nodded. "That's good to hear." His gaze dropped to the photos scattered about. "Contemplation for the soul?"

Rios shrugged. "Checking my memory. Nothing's missing so far."

"That's also good."

An awkward silence settled between them.

"Why did you do it?" Rios asked abruptly. "You could have died."

Picard didn't answer right away. "You still believe you're not worth saving."

"Not at the cost of someone else."

Picard pursed his mouth thoughtfully. "You know, my biggest regret after Data died was that it was him instead of me. I recently had the chance to see it from his perspective—I would have given my life for him and not regretted it for a single moment—and it was the same for him. If our places had been reversed, and you had the means to save one of us, even at great risk to yourself, would you have done it?"

Rios pressed his lips into a tight line.

Picard's mouth quirked knowingly. "That's what I thought. You've been a long time without a real crew, Rios. You've forgotten that's how we work."

He looked away. "I never wanted that burden again," he admitted. "Never wanted to be in the position to fail anyone ever again."

"Failure is the human condition. What defines us is we keep trying to be better."

Rios shook his head. Speech maker indeed.

"If you've finished checking your memory," Picard went on, "I think it would calm a few people's minds if you came out to see everyone. They also went through their own kind of turmoil over what happened."

Rios's first inclination was to stay in here, not invite so much unwanted attention. But it wasn't just about him anymore.

With a clipped nod, he followed Picard out. Elnor was standing just outside the room, leaning against the deck railing. He straightened at the sight of them, holding himself tautly at first. Rios was about to ask if he wanted something when the kid finally broke and surged forward, practically throwing himself at Rios in a weird, childlike hug with his arms around Rios's waist. Rios was too stunned to react.

"I'm glad you didn't die," Elnor said, voice muffled with his head pressed against Rios's chest.

Rios awkwardly patted him on the back. "Me too."

Elnor finally drew back, and Rios was reminded of just how young he was. For a trained warrior who dealt out death as easily as breathing, Elnor felt loss very poignantly.

Rios glanced over the railing to the mess below to see if the others were down there. They were. He clapped Elnor on the shoulder. "Come on, I'm hungry."

They made their way downstairs. Raffi, Seven, Soji, and Agnes all looked up expectantly at their approach.

"Hey," Raffi beamed. "You're just in time. We were debating on a share platter for lunch."

Rios arched a brow. "Really?"

"Giant plate of nachos," Raffi replied, holding her arms out to mimic the size.

Seven scoffed. "Too messy. Especially if we're gonna have seven pairs of hands diving in."

"What are nachos?" Elnor asked.

"Tortilla chips lathered in cheese sauce, guacamole, and salsa," Rios answered as he took a seat next to Agnes. She surreptitiously slipped her hand into his under the table.

"And meat and beans," Raffi added, affronted. Her face cracked into a slick smile and she wagged a finger at Rios. "No, I know what we need." She got up and headed to the replicator without telling them what it was.

Rios turned to Soji, who was looking a tad tentative where she sat across from him. "I haven't thanked you and Picard yet for saving my life."

Her shoulders visibly loosened and she smiled back. "You're welcome."

A moment later, Raffi brought over a large plate with a giant tear-and-share quesadilla. Rios looked up and caught her eye, immensely grateful for the anchor that she had always been in his life. She grinned back knowingly.

And as they all dove into this shared meal together, Rios remembered what it was like to be part of a crew.

Of a family.