Captain Riker had two weeks of shore leave before taking command of the USS Titan. He had already spent the first week on his honeymoon with his wife Deanna. Now he decided to spend the remaining time to deal with an unresolved issue from his past.

"Why are we going to Lazon II, out of all places?" Deanna asked him. Lazon II was on the edge of Federation space, near the Cardassian border. The Cardassians had used the planet for labor camps and were forced to cede it after the Dominion War.

"I need to take care of some, um…family issues", he replied.

"What family? Deanna asked, knowing that both of Will's parents were dead and he had no siblings.

"I have decided to talk to Tom. I want to tell him that I accept him as a brother", Will answered.

"I am glad you want to make the first step. This has been on your mind for a long time." She responded.

Will and Deanna have had many conversations about this topic. Especially after they found out that Tom had survived the Dominion War. What had made matters complicated was that Tom was not Will's brother. He was a duplicate of him. Or was it the other way around and Will was a duplicate of Tom? In the database the keeps records of all Federation citizens and on all official documents Will and Tom were twin brothers and only certain members of Starfleet knew the truth about the transporter accident that had split Riker into two identical copies of each other.

William T. Riker was happy with his life. He had just married the love of his life and he had recently been promoted to Captain and was about to assume command of a brand new ship. But there was someone who was all that what Riker was and had none of the things Riker had. And Riker felt sorry for him. Riker was on his way to see who he thought was the loneliest man in the Galaxy. He could understand what that man was feeling, because in a sense that man was him. A different version of him.

Three days later

The two men were sitting at the bar, arguing. Both men looked almost identical. The only difference was and their facial hair. While one of them had a full beard, the other one had a goatee. They both shared the same DNA, but they were not twins and they were not even clones. They were two manifestations of one of the same person, they both were William Thomas Riker. During a freak transporter accident many years ago, Riker was split into two separate individuals, who both shared the same memories until the moment they were split. While the man with the full beard went by the name Will, the one with the goatee went by Tom. While Will had a successful career in Starfleet and managed to reunite with his love Deanna and even marry her, Tom had gotten the short end of the stick. While Will rematerialized aboard the USS Potemkin and went on to become first officer of the Enterprise, Tom was stuck back on Nervala IV for eight years, alone and forgotten until the Enterprise found him. Following his rescue from Nervala IV and meeting his doppelganger, he took the middle name of Thomas and made it his first name. It got later shortened to Tom. After serving in Starfleet for two more years, Tom fell in with the Marquis. Posing as Will, he stole the USS Defiant to attack the Cardassians. After being apprehended by Captain Sisko, Tom was handed over to the Cardassians, who imprisoned him in a labor camp on Lazon II.

His experiences had made Tom bitter and envious of Will. Tom refused to realize that he was Will and Will was him. They both had the same potential because they both had been the same person up until the point where they had split into two different individuals.

"Are you sure you are not here to gloat? To "rub it in"?", Tom asked spitefully.

"If I was here to "rub it in", as you say, I would have worn my uniform and my wedding ring", Will replied. He had deliberately decided to wear civilian clothes and had taken his wedding ring off, so he would not give the appearance that he was here to gloat about his wedding or his promotion. "I'm here to offer you my support"

"I don't need your support." Tom responded. "Where was your support when I was stuck on Nervala IV for eight long miserable years? Or all those years when the damn spoonheads made me mine deutronium ore on this dump of a planet here."

"You know as well as I do that nobody knew that you were still down there. And I didn't know where you ended up after you stole the Defiant. Until a few weeks ago I didn't even know you were still alive. So what are you going to do now? Hang out in bars, get drunk, and throw pity parties for yourself?" Will yelled.

"You don't know what it was like", Tom yelled back.

After Tom and Will almost got into a fight, Will left the bar and returned to Deanna, who had been waiting for him. Tom picked up the box from the bar and threw it on the floor. When it hit, the lid fell off and he saw a mobile holographic emitter inside.

Will headed back to Mars with Deanna aboard a runabout and told her what had happened during the flight and arrived just in time to take command of the USS Titan. He wondered how Tom would react when he found out what was in that box.

In 2364, while the Enterprise had been docked at Starbase 74, the Bynars had created an extremely realistic holodeck program in order to distract Will Riker and Captain Picard so they could steal the Enterprise while they could reboot the computer on their homeworld. After the Bynars had left the Enterprise, Riker returned to the holodeck, but the Minuet he knew was gone; in her place was another brunette – similar looking to his, but nowhere near as sultry, enchanting, beautiful, and perceptive. He had been unable to get the original version back until almost fifteen years later.

Ironically, he had already gotten back into a steady relationship with Deanna and was close to proposing to her when one day his old friend Teller Conlon sent him a backup copy of the original version of the Minuet holodeck program. Will had told Teller about Minuet and now finally Teller had been able to track down the Bynars who had performed the upgrades on the Enterprise. He was lucky that they had a backup copy and he had been able to obtain it from them. Teller Conlon had owed his friend Will Riker a favor from back in their academy days. And this had been his chance to repay him.

Since Will had found happiness with Deanna, he did not want the Minuet hologram anymore. But he knew exactly who would get as much joy from the Minuet hologram as he would have if he still had been single. He knew that Tom had the exact same taste what women was concerned and this would really brighten up his life. Tom had been jealous that Will ended up with Deanna. There were two Rikers and only one Deanna. Maybe by giving Tom the next best thing, he could make peace with him. Or at least get peace of mind. So he downloaded Minuet onto a mobile holographic emitter and tracked down Tom.

Tom Riker was speechless when he activated the mobile emitter in his apartment and the most beautiful woman he had ever seen appeared.

"My name is Minuet. Do you like Jazz?"

Two weeks later

Tom Riker was a different person. He now had something to live for again. He didn't care that this woman was not a real woman, that she was just a hologram. She was the best companion he could imagine. Tom Riker began to take charge of his life and his community. Lazon II had been a prison planet. After it had been liberated from the Cardassians by the end of the Dominion War, many of the freed prisoners left. But also a large number of people stayed behind. Those were the ones who had no one left, whose homes had been destroyed, whose families had been killed. Those who had no means to get off the planet and those whom nobody cared about. It was a mix of Humans, Romulans, Klingons, Bajorans, and various other races. Tom was a leader and he was going to take care of the settlement where he lived. If they didn't get along, he would make them get along. He swore that he would transform this former prison camp into a thriving community. Tom started talking to people and began offering solutions to problems. He had already secured some deals to trade some of the Deutronium for a large scale industrial replicator. Using the replicator, they could make parts to build another one. Then they would have two replicators and they could start using one to produce things the settlement needed, while they could make more replicator parts with the other one. As a former Starfleet officer, he had many skills and much knowledge he could take advantage of in order to make this world a better place for himself and the people around him. He had also made arrangements for one of the buildings to serve as a school and Minuet has offered to work as a teacher. They did not need to wait for the Federation to fix things. The Federation was busy rebuilding more populated planets, such as Betazed. He could take care of things. He was Tom Riker and he didn't need any support.