A dream before dying
Summary: Five years after Nemesis, Picard meets an old adversary and an old friend… This is a slash story, and while Chapter 1 is rated T, this will be changed to M (for Data/Picard) when later chapters are posted.
Disclaimers: I have made no money from writing this story. I do not own anything connected with any of the Star Trek franchises, which all seem to belong to a complex combination of CBS, Viacom and Paramount. Neither do I own either Commander Data or Brent Spiner – if I did, you think I'd be wasting my time typing???
A/N: There are many excellent post-Nemesis stories out there: this is simply another stab at resolving the emptiness left by the end of that remarkable movie. It's also my response to Brent Spiner's statement (challenge?) that he was getting too old to play Data. Too old, sweetie? Never!
* * *
Chapter 1
The Enterprise hung silently, a beautiful, closed white pearl in the open blackness of space. Her lights bathed the emptiness around her, and her pale beauty would have taken any passing species' breath away.
Throughout the long, curving corridors that ran the length and breadth of her, that external motionlessness was reflected in the subdued mood of her crew. Science projects were quietly continued, medical research went calmly on, children were taught gentle lessons, but something was strangely amiss: the atmosphere was dull, without edge, and infinitely tinged with sadness.
In a room with the lights dimmed to a safe and cradling intimacy, Commander Geordi La Forge sat by a bedside. His face showed the resignation of despair, and his cheeks were streaked with the dry paths of old tears. After weeks of frantic, desperate activity, largely without sleep and too frequently without food, he had done ranting at the world and was almost at peace, holding the hand of his dearest friend as he slipped out of life into the beyond. Occasionally the still figure on the bed tightened his grip on Geordi's fingers, but the pressure never lasted, and soon, he knew, it would be gone forever.
No-one else was here: all business was over, all goodbyes said. This was a time for these two alone. As the Enterprise's crew worked with scarcely-held breaths, Geordi sat and shared his Captain's last, quiet hours.
He dozed a little sometimes, and occasionally he spoke, unaware if the dying man could recognise anything in this world, let alone his Chief Engineer's soft voice. But the doctor had said that, deep in a coma as he was, there was still a chance that the Captain could hear the sounds around him, and Geordi was going to hang on to him – let him know he was worth the trouble of a conversation – until the very last. He gazed at the beautiful, pale face, knowing that the time was fast coming when he would never see it again except in log entries and holos; that soon he would reach out to touch his friend and would find only emptiness in his outstretched hands.
A sudden movement caught his tired glance: behind his closed lids, the Captain's eyes flew from side to side with hysterical, directionless energy. Whatever was going on in that formerly magnificent brain, life still struggled for expression there.
Geordi smoothed the receding silver hair back from the still-unlined forehead. He would have given his heart's blood to save this man's life, but he knew that, even if his body was drained of every last drop, it would do no good. All he could do was wait until the end, keeping vigil with his friend as he walked the loneliest road of all.
"Sweet dreams, Data," he whispered.
* * *
A universe away, Captain Jean-Luc Picard was woken from his own deep but less final sleep by the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that he was not alone. In the room's dimness, he caught a movement in the shadows, and immediately reached for the comm, but found his hand held back by an unseen force.
"Who's there?" he called, not particularly worried but nevertheless irritated at being disturbed. Who would be able to penetrate the Enterprise's defences without alerting security? He soon received his answer: the vague movement unfolded and emerged from the darkness, resolving itself into a human form that Picard recognised, and only too well.
He uncurled himself and sat up, an impatient expression on his face.
"What, no word of greeting for me, mon Capitaine?"
"Q."
The other man, resplendent in an admiral's colours rather than the humble captain's he usually wore, had clearly hoped for more. "More of a statement than a greeting, but I suppose it will have to do. You always were rather ungracious."
"What do you want?"
"There you go again, you see? No finesse, no style, no – "
"Q!"
Q sighed, contriving to look hurt and almost pulling it off. "Surprisingly, Jean-Luc, I am on a mission of mercy. No, don't look so incredulous. It's not of my choosing I assure you but, having been given the job, I shall do it to the best of my ability. I need you to join me in a walk through another man's dreams, Jean-Luc. Will you?"
Picard stared at him. Q seemed serious – unwontedly so – but what was this about a mission of mercy? Q, on a mission of mercy? What was the expression – you might as well ask a Ferengi to donate to charity? And yet… The man's eyes were sincere, but they had often been so before, and it had meant nothing. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me exactly what's going on. You can't expect me to follow you just on your whim!"
Q pouted. "And I thought you would follow me to the end of the world. Ah well, such is the fickle nature of man. No, Captain, this is a much more serious business, I'm afraid. A matter of life and death, you might say."
"Life and death?"
"Yes – the end of something astonishing. But not here. Not within your experience, Jean-Luc. We've got much further to go than that."
Picard was intrigued in spite of himself, but Q's smugness annoyed him. He shook his head: the man had to be reined in. "Q, are you going to tell me – "
"No, I am not! Enough! Oh dear, we'll have to get you dressed…" Q snapped his fingers and, despite the protests that died in his throat, Picard found himself clothed, shod, and whisked away to another world entirely.
To another universe, where history had unfolded subtly differently: where its course had run nearly – so very nearly – parallel to his own. Until five years previously, when everything had come apart.
* * *
Captain Data rose from his bed, and looked back to see his beloved Geordi holding his own hand. It was a strange sensation, and he was puzzled. He knew he was dying – unexpected as it had been, he had accepted that fact's inevitability together with the silvering hair, the loss of muscle tone, the shading of his skin from cream to a colour close to that of Caucasian humans – but had assumed that cessation of function would be the end of everything. Despite hints that he might possess a soul, and still-prevalent beliefs among many species that any such soul would be immortal, he certainly had no expectations of any form of existence after death.
So what was he doing here, dressed in graceful clothes, watching himself?
He looked around, and immediately felt a compulsion to leave the room. His feet moved almost of their own volition: he was fairly sure he could have remained still had he wanted to, but he was too interested in where he might be going to stop. Out of the door, down the hall – no-one else seemed to be here, which he thought odd, but in the interests of scientific endeavour perhaps he should just accept it and keep walking. It was rather unsettling, walking he knew not where and being in two places in once; but his curiosity was strong, even in death, and a small part of his decaying neural net found the whole thing intriguing and exciting.
As he walked, he gradually became aware that he was not alone. Beside him moved a tall, heavily-featured man he thought he had never seen before; he felt he ought to have been alarmed, but instinctively knew that his companion meant him no harm. The man kept pace with him but did not speak and, at last, Data stopped and turned towards him. "May I ask why you are following me?"
The man grinned. "You may ask, my dear Captain Data – what a strange sound that has! – but I may not choose to answer."
Data blinked. Whoever this was, he was most perplexing. "I see no reason for you to speak in riddles," he replied, "or to deny me an answer."
"You haven't changed."
"Do I know you?" He felt a positron sequence trying to fire, and failing.
"No. And yes! Come with me, my little android, and all will be revealed."
Data opened his mouth to speak again, then decided that there was little point: his unlooked-for companion apparently had no intention of enlightening him but, as he appeared to be taking him towards the answers he sought, continuing to walk with him seemed to be the most sensible course. Making their way through the corridors, however, he felt his trepidation grow: the configuration of these halls was not quite as he remembered it, and they seemed to double back on themselves and cross their own path several times in their wanderings, but he knew that their meanderings were taking them inexorably in a direction that he had not trodden in a long time, and had no wish to tread now. The last time he had walked these corridors had been – he stopped, unable to go further.
"What?" his companion asked impatiently.
"We are approaching – " he tried to say the name, and found that, even after all these years, he still could not without the danger of his vocal subroutines malfunctioning. His beloved Jean-Luc, dead through Shinzon's malice and hubris, not even a body to bring home, just a long walk down empty hallways and a room to be secured, quarters to be sealed… "I do not wish to walk further with you."
"But you will." The stranger took his arm, and in spite of his deep desire never to see those bereft spaces again, Data found himself drawn along, down this corridor then the next, towards pain, despair, the unfriended space where a friend should be… He began to panic, and tried to deactivate his emotion chip, always a last resort but possibly allowable in this strangest of situations. He could not do it, and glanced in alarm at the man beside him. "No – naughty, naughty, Mr Data. You're going to need that."
"I do not – " Data gathered his wits, slowed his positronic firing rate, and fought for control. It was surprisingly difficult to achieve. Abruptly, they were at what appeared to be their destination; he raggedly indicated the closed doors, behind which there had once been so much, and now was – nothing. "I do not wish to enter Captain Picard's quarters. I have not done so since – since my Captain died. I do not wish to do so now."
"Squeamish, Commander – sorry, Captain? Or afraid of ghosts?"
Data flinched, though he did not know why. Today, he seemed to be experiencing the full weakness of the human condition; how ironic, he thought, to achieve his life's ambition just as he was about to die. "Captain Picard gave his life so that I and this crew – this galaxy – might survive," he said quietly. "I think of him – and mourn him – every day. I do not think it unreasonable that I would find it painful to stand in the quarters he used to occupy."
The other man was silent for a moment. "You're quite the sentimentalist in this universe," he said. "It's almost endearing."
Data's circuits experienced a sudden surge. Complex links, previously disconnected, cemented themselves into his neural pathways, and information of which he had not – at least not since he began to die – been aware became abruptly available. With a shock that was not entirely artificial, he knew with whom he walked. He experienced the sort of frisson he assumed Captain Picard had often known: anticipation, and not entirely of the pleasant kind. He turned to his companion and looked him in the eye. "Q!"
"You sound just like Picard," Q said, in something like irritation. "Why am I never given a warm welcome when I visit my friends on the Enterprise?"
"Perhaps because you have no friends on the Enterprise," Data replied drily, sounding more like the Data of old than he had for some months. "You are not generally a harbinger of good news."
"A harbinger!" Q exclaimed in childish delight. "What a wonderful word! Me, a harbinger!" His face, mercurial as always, suddenly became serious. "What would you like me to 'harbinge' for you, Mr Data, hmm? How can I make your dreams come true?"
The flippant question struck Data as viciously as if it had been a physical blow. The emotional drain of the last few days, as it had become obvious that system after system within him was failing, and their current proximity to Jean-Luc Picard's quarters, a reminder of past joy and the extent of what he had lost, combined to open his imaginative programs to possibilities that were not only impractical, but deeply foolish.
He stared at his companion, the anguish behind his eyes as real as if they had been human. "Unless you can change the course of events five years ago," he said flatly, "which I assume would be a challenge even for you, you cannot, as you put it, 'make my dreams come true'. I have no dreams."
"Oh, poor you. What a sad admission. Well, if you haven't any dreams, you won't want to know who's waiting for you in there, will you? Come along, back to your deathbed."
Waiting? Data's eyes turned back to the blank door, behind which he had shed so many unshared tears. His public reaction to Picard's death had been of a piece with his public reaction to most things: calm, emotionally-controlled, practical. Only when alone with the ghosts and the memories had he allowed himself to indulge in the entirely human response of weeping for his dead friend. The tears he had cried in that room had eventually led to a serious fluidic depletion in his circuitry, and Geordi had told him that unless he wanted to damage himself permanently, he would have to stop. From then on, although his grief was as deep and as real as before, it went unexpressed.
"I do not understand what satisfaction you gain from the manipulation of those unable to defend themselves," he said. "Yet I assume that you must find pleasure in attempting to goad me. You are clearly aware of the nature of my – " he hesitated, but only for a tenth of a second or so " – feelings for Captain Picard. I do not intend to gratify you with a display of emotion."
"I could make you cry," Q said conversationally.
"You could, but where would be the gratification in that? If you have something to show me, then do so. If not, I request that you let me die in peace."
"You're no fun. If you knew – "
"Q!" Jean-Luc Picard's powerfully distinctive voice, silenced forever five years before, filled the empty hall, which sucked up the sound like a sponge too long without water. "You've made your point. Now leave him alone."
"Always spoiling the fun," Q complained, an edge of petulance in his voice. "I was going to tell him – I wouldn't have let him go away without seeing you."
Data stood very still. As the familiar voice reached his processors, and his circuits identified the speaker and the fact that he could not possibly be speaking, files that he had placed into protective quarantine burst free and filled up his neural pathways with rich, active memories and anticipations that he had thought were backed up and safely in long term storage for ever. Every synapse was firing, a sort of electronic fireworks display welcoming the impossible presence of his friend. He noted that his internal temperature had risen, and quickly adjusted for the change. He had never known such disorientation.
Unable under Q's influence to disengage his emotion chip – even though he knew that was the coward's path – he was almost overwhelmed by his mental and physical response to the shock of hearing the long dead man's voice. He could see now, of course, that Q – how had he not recognised him immediately? His synaptic degradation must be further advanced than he had thought – had been leading to this ever since he had plucked him out of his peaceful slipping away towards oblivion, but nothing could have prepared him for the sheer joy of the sight of the dead man, standing there as if alive. Rational thought ceased, and he felt tears well up in his eyes. His autonomic functions neutralised and dehydrated them. But the confusion, the terror, the elation – those he could not control.
His responses had taken over two seconds, and he found time to feel shame at his lack of self-discipline. But for Jean-Luc… He looked at him, still outlined in the doorway, and compassionate eyes of infinite depth met his own. He longed to move towards him – to run, although he was only two strides away – and fling himself childishly into the safety of his Captain's arms. Q was right: this moment was a crystallisation of all his dreams come true. He did not move, however: he knew, dying as he was, that he must be hallucinating, and he had no intention of gratifying Q with any further reaction to his cruelty. But then Picard spoke again, and all his gathering certainty was blown away.
"Mr Data – won't you come in?" Data saw, as if through another's eyes, Picard's hand rise towards him, open-palmed, welcoming him, beckoning him into the beautiful past. He stared at the gesture, trying to find words. There were none, so instead he concentrated on a motor response, and stepped forward. As he did so, Picard fell back, allowing him to move into the darkness of the room beyond. He walked as if in a dream, though not so unaware that he did not feel the brushing of their clothes as they passed. It shot through him like fire.
"Thank you, Q," he heard Picard's say in a firm voice. "I'll take it from here." He heard Q object, and Picard calmly and quietly set him aside. Still protecting him, he thought – still standing between him and danger, even now. Still the friend he would never deserve. The pain of Picard's death stabbed and raked him as if he was experiencing it for that first, awful, time, and he cried out, the other's sudden presence freeing him from the barriers he had placed around his emotional expression, and making its control impossible.
He was dimly aware of the doors closing, leaving Q outside; of staggering slightly, not knowing where he was, losing his bearings in a sea of fresh grief; of strong arms catching hold of him, supporting him, leading him to the soft, deep sofa and cradling him in their blessed constancy and warmth. He leant his head against the solid, trembling chest of this illusion. "You are not real," he whispered. "I am dying, and I am imagining you. You are not real."
He felt the illusion's free hand reach behind his head, pulling him closer into the protective embrace. "Oh, I'm real, Mr Data. I assure you, I'm very real."
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To be continued in Chapter 2