"D, you heard," Leo called to the sound of the door to their quarters hissing open. The news had called up feelings of loss that she'd thought by now had healed.

"Yes," Data replied, coming to stand behind her at her comport. "Ambassador Spock." He didn't need to elaborate. The "communication closed" icon remained untouched on the monitor.

"Some people, they just seem like they'll be around forever."

Data noted the catch in his wife's voice, and knew she meant more than just the Ambassador. He didn't ask her, though, choosing to let her express her feelings in her own time. "I was unaware you were acquainted."

"No, not like that. But I'd only been at the Academy for a week, and every class I'd just started mentioned his name." She shut down the comport. "But you worked on that Vulcan-Romulan reunification scheme, didn't you, before I ever came." She said it with a touch of awe.

"Yes. It is a profoundly important memory. This is a great loss." Something wasn't being said, and he knew it, so he ventured, "Are you all right, my love?"

Leo stood and smiled a little sadly. "Yeah. You know I met him once. I was attending one of those diplomatic things with the captain in San Francisco. All the usual empty suits, so when he said 'I have someone I'd like you to meet' I wasn't exactly prepared."

Data led her to the sofa and drew her down next to him. "Yes, the captain told me you were... restrained in your admiration."

She had to laugh. "What a nice way to say paralyzed by terror. When he led me to the 'someone' and I saw who it was... I think my brain actually short circuited. I don't even remember what I said. I swear I must have been a complete dork."

Her husband smiled gently. "That must be why you have never told me. According to the captain you told the ambassador that you were 'unspeakably honored' to meet him." He was gratified to see her embarrassment at the memory give way to a smile of remembrance.

"Right... and he told me 'Captain Picard has spoken of you in the highest terms, which makes the honor equally mine.'" When she saw Data's surprise she went on, "Hey, some things even my little human brain can store with positronic-accuracy. And let me tell you I remember I was hopelessly trying to do that Vulcan salute thing, which I've never managed to get right, but he just took my hand and shook it as if that was what I'd intended all along." Her eyes widened. "Data, I was so, so... paralyzed." It was the only word she could think of that captured it. "I mean it was like meeting Magellan, or Einstein, or Cochrane. Here was someone who had made history... and I mean he created it! All that 'where no one has gone before' stuff... he did that! Yeah, we've done some groundbreaking things, but it was kinda like continuing in the same path that someone else blazed, you know? We wouldn't be here..." She paused and gestured with her left hand, the astral emeralds in her wedding ring sparkling, "I wouldn't be here, or you or the android project, or any of it, if it hadn't been for that first Enterprise, Spock and his crew-mates and that batshit crazy captain of theirs. And he was there in front of me. I almost passed out!"

Data arched a practiced eyebrow. "You believe Captain James Kirk to have been 'batshit crazy'?"

Leo rolled her eyes. "Well you'd have to be to do all that, wouldn't you? Back then, I mean." A thought suddenly occurred to her. "Hang on, lemme find something..."

She ran back to her computer and activated the database link. "Damn, I can't remember the file name... somebody took an image of us and sent it by subspace after the reception, the captain and the ambassador and me... I hid it away because I look like such a loser... but I couldn't bring myself to delete it."

Data processed for a moment. "Perhaps... if you look for a file marked 'dork'?"

"That's it!" she shouted, and called up the file. And there they were, Ambassador Spock and Captain Picard, the ambassador wearing an amiable smile, his hand resting on Picard's shoulder, whose smiling expression was an easy mirror of the elder Vulcan. And to their left, eyes locked on Spock like those of an early twentieth-century teenager gazing at Elvis, was Leo. "See what I mean? Dork. Ultra-über-supremo dork."

"If 'dork' denotes a look of sincere admiration," Data observed, "I believe it to be a most attractive expression."

Leo was staring at the image on the view-screen, lost in thought. After a moment she entered a command, and the picture of her and her "dork" moment was displayed on the living room wall among other images of herself, and Data and various of their friends, and of course her and the captain taken during visits to his home. She crossed the room to stand in front of the newest addition to their "memory wall".

"There. I think it's time to bring it out of hiding. Y'know," she confessed, "I always kinda hoped that after he retired Jean-Luc might entertain the Ambassador, and invite me along. I would've given anything to actually know him."

"It is a painful thing to lose the people you have loved and admired." Data slipped an arm around Leo's waist.

She sighed, and leaned into his embrace.

"Yeah. But nice to know they're in good company."