STAR TREK - NEMESIS

STAR TREK - NEMESIS *TO BE REVISED WITH ADDED DETAILS OF THIS ENCOUNTER*

Aboard the Enterprise, it was night, but in Riker's and Deanna's cabin, Will Riker was still hard at work, studying one of a series of data padds that were scattered before him on the desk.
Deanna Troi looked on him with tender concern. He had been like this for hours; devouring every scrap of information on the Reman culture, Reman defenses--while muttering in frustration about the utter void of data on the new praetor, Shinzon.
Deanna understood Will's compulsion. She knew that at least part of his driveness was due to his personally and professionalism; but she had also sensed the surge of jealousy that had overtaken him at Shinzon's blatant advances towards her while the Away Team had been on board the Reman Warship: Scimitar. And more than jealousy: Will was honestly worried that the praetor's interest in Deanna presented a very real and definite kind of danger to not only her but also to the Enterprise-E and Captain Picard too. Subconsciously, Will was distracting himself from the ship's counselor until he was certain he had his emotions under control, lest they cause Deanna any crn. rn.
She was touched by his desire not to trouble her. Poor man, she thought, cursed with a Betazoid wife. It would be nearly impossible for him ever to hide anything from her. Yet she had promised herself that she would do her best not to intrude on Will's inner emotional life, unless requested to do so.
But some emotions--like the ones her new husband felt now--were just too strong for her to ignore or to blot out of her mind. Sometimes it was also a curse being empathic or telepathic; in her years of service in Starfleet and particularly aboard both the Enterprise- D & E, she's had to deal with many such situations where mental abilities were both of value and a hindrance to herself and to her fellow shipmates.
As for Praetor Shinzon, Troi was not particularly alarmed for her safety. True, he had been genuinely attracted to her to an extreme, disquieting degree, yet she understood: He was a young man, raised by Remans who were separated from their own females. The only women he had ever seen were Romulans, whom he utterly despised to another extreme degree.
Now, for the first time, he had seen a human (or at least, a half-human) female up close, within his reach of touching her with one of his own hands. Young and in his prime, Shinzon reacted in expected fashion--by overreacting. It would have made no difference whether Troi or Beverly Crusher or any other human female officer from the Enterprise such as Lieutenant Commander Robin Lefler Crusher currently visiting on board the Enterprise-E, had beamed aboard the Scimitar.
At the same time, there had been one small incident that planted a nebulous discomfort in Troi's mind. There had been a moment, when Shinzon had moved toward her, that she imagined she felt an attempt at telepathic communication--not by Shinzon, but by his Reman Viceroy. Yet the sensation had been so subtle--and so fleeting--that she later decided it had hadn't happened at all, that it had been the product of her overactive imagination during an extremely intense moment. And so she had reported it to no one--certainly not to Will, who was still frowning at the same data padd that he was holding and had been holding for several minutes.
"Will," she said gently, "you need to rest..."
He squinted harder at the same readout on the data padd, the furrow between his dark eyebrows deepening. His focus was so intense he hadn't even registered her presence or words at all, only that there was a distraction he needed to guard himself against registering.
Deanna raised her voice to a level not easily ignored. "As ship's counselor, I'm recommending you get some sleep."
Will Riker heard her this time. He tossed the data padd onto the desk, then drew a palm over his eyes and sighed as he looked up at her. "Some honeymoon," he said glumly.
Despite her own disappointment, she smiled and went over to him, then leaned down to kiss the side of his cheek, where the skin was clean-shaven. "Come to bed." She pulled him up from the chair; he rose easily, willingly, the crease between his eyebrows fading away.
"Imzadi," he said, his lips curving upward in a soft smile.
They kissed. Deanna felt her own passion, and Will's building. She pulled him backward across the deck until at last they fell back onto the bed.
In that instant, all thoughts of Romulans and Remans and the deadly arsenal aboard the Scimitar faded into the void. In Deanna's mind she and Will Riker were alone, adrift upon the Opal Sea, their bodies supported by gently undulating waves. As her desire grew, she moved her arms, her hands, sensually around his body, caressing him, snaking her fingers through his hair. Her own hair, now straight and long, cascaded onto his cheek, and he lifted it to his lips and kissed it. She smiled; she knew he preferred her natural curl, but he was wise enough to do nothing but compliment her new style, knowing that she was bored. She pulled closer to him.
Her rich dark brown eyes were half open. In the space of a human heartbeat, no more, she watched as Will's hair between he fingers faded to nothingness, until she touched only scalp.
She recoiled at once.
There, on the bed, a smiling Shinzon lay in place of her new husband - Commander William T. Riker. She put both of her hands upon his smooth, rock hard, warm chest and tried desperately to push him away, but Shinzon held her fast.
He whispered to her softly, tantalizingly in her ear, "Imzadi".
"No," she gasped in complete terror and horror at what she was experiencing at the savage mental assault on her mind.
He reached forward with a trembling hand--a stranger's hand--and he began stoking her cheek, the outside of his curled fingers brushing lightly against her smooth, warm skin. Deanna shuddered, repulsed at the very touch of this stranger that was violating a moment that was suppose to be a moment of true happiness for herself and her beloved new husband.
"He can never know you as I know you," Shinzon breathed in the scent of her freshly washed, silky, rich brown colored hair. "He can never touch you as I touch you..."
"This isn't real," Deanna countered flatly. Shinzon had found a way to force his way telepathically into her mind, but the body that pressed against hers was Will Riker's. She had to remember this, or surrender to the absolute horror that she was experiencing at that moment.
"Can you feel my hands?" Shinzon asked, pulling her even more tightly to him. "Are they real? Can you feel my lips...?" He pressed his mouth to the smooth contours of the milky white flesh of her bare neck, causing her to rear her head back in utter and complete revulsion.
Yet when he looked up at her again, his face was neither that of Shinzon's, or Will Riker's either, but of the fanged, ghostly and horrorifying face of Shinzon's loyal viceroy's.
Deanna froze, yielding at last to the terror as sharp claws grazed her smooth unblemished skin in a monstrous parody of a caress.
From the Reman Viceroy's corpse-pale lips came Shinzon's voice, "I'm with you, Imzadi."
In a flash, the Reman Viceroy metamorphosed into his praetor. Shinzon kissed her neck tenderly, moving from her neck to her lips, from her lips to her cheeks with wanton desperation, "I'll always be with you now, Imzadi."
"NO!" Troi shouted. With an act of infinite mental and physical strength, she pushed Shinzon from her mind and body.
"Deanna?!"
It was her beloved husband's voice, her husband's body. Will Riker looked tousled, bewildered, more worried than ever. For a long moment, Deanna just starred blankly up at him, uncertain whether Shinzon or his viceroy would reappear to again; but the intruders were gone. Her mind was once again her own. She threw her arms around Will Riker and took comfort in the strong arms that engulfed her in a safe, warm embrace that she was longing for at the moment.