A Mother Knows

February, 2367

A Mother Wonders…

Emily Harris has been sitting on the hard, plastic chair near the bio-bed holding her daughter for almost three hours now, with the steady beeping of the machines monitoring Zoe's vital signs as her primary company.

Beverly had last been by two hours before, with assurances that the girl would be fine, and Counselor Troi had stopped by about forty-five minutes after that, urging her to consider self-care. "Commander Harris – Emily – there's a couch in the lounge just across the hall. Go stretch out for a while; one of us will come get you when she wakes up."

But Emily wouldn't budge. "I wasn't there for so much of her childhood," she explained to the sympathetic, dark-eyed counselor. "I have to be here for her now."

Troi had peered at her for a moment, then nodded her head. "Alright. At least let me get you a cup of tea." She'd gone to do that, returned with tea and a small plate of fruit and cheese, and watched her eat and drink, reminding, "You'll be no use to Zoe if you're exhausted and half-starved."

It had all tasted like sand.

Around her, the lights of sickbay were mostly dim in observance of the night shift. Some departments on the great starship operated all day, every day, while others, like her own division of the science section, kept more traditional 'office hours.' Sickbay was somewhere in between. Right now, most of the staff was gone, but Dr. Crusher – Beverly – liked to oversee special patients herself. Emily could see the light in her friend's office, and hear the murmur of her voice and the counselor's in quiet conversation, but she couldn't discern the words.

"Commander Harris, may I join you?"

Emily doesn't need to look up to see who has interrupted her vigil. She recognizes the evenly-modulated tone of Commander Data's voice well enough. She could tell him that yes, she does mind, that he is intruding on a family moment, but when she does look up at him, finally, there's something, some barely perceptible thing in his face, in the lines of his body, that rocks her.

He cares about Zoe, she thinks. He isn't here for form's sake, but because he needs to be.

"Of course," she answers him, her voice feeling a bit rusty. She waits for him to settle into the chair next to hers, before she adds, "I wasn't expecting you to come back, though."

She watches him open his mouth, close it, and then open it again, having apparently determined what he will say.

"Zoe is my friend."

"I'm still not sure what happened," Emily tells him, after a beat or two of silence during which she absorbs the simplicity of the android's statement. "I know she left your lesson early. She was upset when she came back from seeing you."

"I believe I may be to blame. She saw the paintings I had done of my father, and took issue with a statement I made about his death. Then she left abruptly before we were able to… talk it through."

"I'm sorry for your loss." Emily wasn't aware that Data even had a father, or whom – or what – he meant when he used the term, but it didn't matter. "Do you and Zoe often have such discussions?"

"Our conversations have covered a great many subjects," he answers. "Though music and math are disproportionally represented. However, I must confess that where emotions are involved, I often have trouble… keeping up."

Emily chuckled softly, knowingly. "Zoe's always been a bit of a whirling dervish," she tells him. "Music and drama are about the only things that have ever kept her attention for very long, but I suppose that's not unusual in our family."

"It would seem she is following in her father's footsteps, so to speak."

"And her grandmother's," Emily adds, asking after the fact, "or hasn't she mentioned that her grandmother is the activist and folksinger Irene Harris?"

Emily has seen Data's eyes flicker back and forth while he searches for information more than once, but it never fails to unnerve her a bit. Still, she keeps her eyes on his until he refocuses on her. "I did not realize," he tells her, "but I am not surprised. Zoe is both opinionated and quite expressive."

If her daughter has spent enough time around this man to cause him to notice those things, perhaps she should have made the girl redirect her time. "If she's becoming a nuisance…" But she doesn't think 'nuisance' is really accurate. "Data, I haven't discouraged Zoe's friendship with you because I assumed you'd tell her if she was overstepping her bounds. Sometimes, I forget that she's only sixteen; she's dealt with so much these past few years."

But Data is already countering her statement. "Zoe is not a nuisance," he says, giving every impression that he does not understand why anyone would believe so. "I do not foresee a time when she could become a nuisance."

"If she does…"

"In the unlikely event that were to happen, I would speak with her directly."

Emily nods, accepting that. They are both silent, listening to the monitors. Did the speed change? Was there a rustle from the bed? She leans slightly forward, and then resettles herself. "Data," she asks softly, "do you mind if I ask you something personal?"

His answer surprises her, if only because she can hear a hint of her daughter's voice in his inflection. "You may ask."

But she is undeterred. "Fair enough." She takes a moment to compose her thoughts. "Zoe joined me on the Enterprise around the time you… lost… Lal. I've often wondered if she reminds you of your daughter in some way?"

Her android colleague also takes a moment, albeit a much shorter one, before responding. When he does, his voice is low, and his tone holds both candor and wonder. "She does not. Have you ever heard of two people meeting for the first time, and developing a rapport so quickly it is as if they had known each other for a much greater length of time?"

"You mean the feeling as if you'd known someone forever?" Emily asks. When he confirms that with a nod, she continues, "Heard of it. Even felt it. Why?"

"It would not be an inaccurate description of my affinity for Zoe."

"If you were anyone else," Emily warns "that statement would set off alarm bells. As it is, I worry that she's developing a cr—" But she does not finish the word 'crush,' because Data has interrupted her, and cautioned her that Zoe has probably been listening for some time. So there was a change in the monitors!

Over the next several minutes, Emily splits her attention between her daughter and Data. The former denies that she has any inappropriate feelings for her tutor. The latter doesn't question her, but stays nearby, a solid, supportive presence, and it's in their body language, the way girl and android seem to lean slightly toward each other, that she sees it.

There may not be a crush, but there's definitely something.

A mother sees these things.

(A)

July, 2367

A Mother Worries…

She is in Ten-Forward waiting for Ed to join her for dinner, when Data approaches her table.

"Commander Harris, may I have a moment of your time?"

Emily surveys the level of the red wine in her glass, using the time to decide if she's up to a conversation with her colleague. They've been analyzing the artifacts from a long-buried city on a now-lifeless planet that bears a strong similarity to the items from various meso-American cultures on Earth, and while she's fascinated by the stories these ancient treasures hold, this is also her off-duty time, and she isn't sure she wants to engage.

"It is about Zoe," the android adds, apparently sensing her reluctance in some way.

"You've heard from her?" Emily's daughter has been uncharacteristically brief in her recent correspondence from her summer program in San Francisco. While her letters and calls had been frequent and chatty when she was in her music program, her first week in the acting program had elapsed with no contact whatsoever, and then she'd sent a two-line blast to everyone simply assuring them that she was safe and well and that things were 'intense.' "I'm sorry, please join me," she adds distractedly. Then she asks, "Did you hear from Zoe?"

"We spoke last night over subspace, but I am not certain the advice I gave her was of any use," he shares. "When she told me she felt as though she was failing at ACT, I do not believe I provided the emotional support she was seeking."

"I wasn't aware she was struggling," Emily reveals. "It would seem Zoe turned to you, first."

Data steeples his hands in front of him, resting his elbows on the table-top. The gesture is familiar to her, and yet Emily cannot quite place it. "She asked if I had ever failed at anything, and I explained that I found my first few years of activation extremely difficult, and also 'struggled' during my time at the Academy."

"And you don't think that helped." She makes it a statement rather than a question.

"It seemed to make her feel better, but I am not certain it was… enough." Unspoken, Emily can tell, is the real concern: Data isn't certain that he can be enough. In that moment, she realizes two things: there is definitely more between her daughter and this android - this man - than a simple crush, and it is absolutely mutual.

"I'm afraid the only person who can tell you if it was enough is Zoe, herself." Emily sips from her wine glass, wishing Ed would hurry up and get here, but also glad that he hasn't arrived yet. "Data, this is a bit delicate. You're my superior officer, but I need to speak to you in your role as my daughter's… friend."

"I do understand some of the nuances of the different parts we all play, Emily," he responds. "We are both off-duty; please speak frankly." Somewhat wryly, he adds, "You cannot offend me."

Somehow, Emily doubts that, but she swirls the wine in her glass, watching the deep claret color refract the light as she composes her thoughts. "Data, I'm not sure exactly what there is between you and Zoe right now, but…"

"We are friends," he interjects.

Emily nods, accepting that, but immediately discarding it. "You may be now, but I have a feeling that when Zoe gets back from her summer in San Francisco, things may change. She's already seeking advice from you before me or her father. The two of you already spend a great deal of time together."

"That is true," Data agrees amiably enough. "Our time together is likely to increase, as well, as Zoe's father and her instructors at Suzuki have recommended she cease working with Lt. Starker, and expand our sessions to include technique."

Arching her eyebrows in surprise, Emily comments, "I hadn't realized you could teach technique."

"It is my belief, and that of Hugo, Cooper, and the Maestro, that Zoe does not require a teacher as much as she needs a coach."

"I see."

"If you object to the time – "

Emily shakes her head. "No, Data, I don't object. I'm beyond objecting. In any case, I hadn't meant to talk about Zoe's music studies. I was – I am - more concerned with the relationship that seems to be developing between you."

His eyes move back and forth, flickering in his search for information, and, Emily realizes, connection. Then his expression broadens and brightens in a 'eureka' moment. "Ah!" he exclaims. "You believe that my friendship with your daughter may develop into a romance." As she had done earlier, he makes this a statement rather than a question.

"Don't you?"

Data's voice is soft when he admits. "It is something I have begun to consider. Zoe says that we seem to 'fit' in ways she did not expect, and I cannot disagree. Where I have always been somewhat awkward in my attempts to socialize with women in an extra-collegial manner, with her there is a perception of ease. As well, she is one of a relatively few people who accepts who and what I am at 'face value,' and does not expect me to 'play human' for her comfort."

"Oh, Data… Do we do that?" Emily's chagrin is nearly palpable.

"You do not," he is quick to assure. "But many others do."

She nods again, and takes another sip of her wine, but before she can speak Data continues:

"If you would prefer I maintain a strictly teacher-student relationship with Zoe, I will respect your wishes."

But Emily surprises herself with her answer. "No, I don't want that. From what I can tell, you and Zoe have a real connection, and if something should come of it, eventually, nothing I say will stop it… but you're an officer, an authority figure, and while Zoe is over the age of consent she's very young. It will be up to you to set limits on how fast, and how far, your relationship goes."

He blinks his golden eyes at her. "I do not understand."

Emily is actually pretty certain that Data understands exactly what she means, but she spells it out anyway. "It would be wiser if you didn't allow your relationship to become physical – sexual – before Zoe is a legal adult."

If Data is insulted or taken aback by his tablemate's dictum, she cannot tell. "I see," he responds, and while his eyes do not flick back and forth this time, there is every sense of the same internal search, even so. "I am not certain that my friendship with Zoe will develop in the way you believe. As I said, I have only recently begun to consider the various paths our… relationship… may take. However, you have my word, Emily." His stress of her name is pointed, a reminder that this whole conversation is irregular at best. "I will not allow our relationship to become sexually intimate before Zoe turns eighteen."

And now that the words have been said, and the promise made, Emily is overwhelmed with a sense of wrongness, not in the concept of her daughter possibly dating this man, but in the mandate she has just laid down. She has no appropriate response, but Ed, dear Ed with his laughing eyes and dapper manner, arrives to save her.

"Emily," he greets, leaning over her to peck her on the lips. "Data," he greets, straightening to a standing position. "Are you joining us for dinner?"

"Thank you," Data answers politely, "but no. I have duties I must complete." As soon as he rises, the man, the potential suitor, is gone, and the officer has returned. "Commander, Professor, enjoy your evening."

"What was that about?" Ed asks, sliding into the just-vacated chair. "Is everything alright?"

"I'm honestly not sure," Emily says, shaking her head. "I either just pushed my daughter into a relationship or meddled her out of one, and I'm honestly not sure which outcome I prefer."

Ed casts his gaze toward the figure of the departing second officer. "Zoe and Data?" he asks, though he doesn't expect an answer because he repeats it, the other way 'round, with a musing tone. "Data and Zoe. Hmm. They do sort of fit."

"That's what Data said," Emily says, shaking her head. "He was quoting Zoe at the time."

"Well, there you go, then."

(A)

February, 2368

A Mother Sees...

It's only after Zoe has been hooked up to needles and tubes providing her with nutrients and hydration, only after her daughter is laying on the bio-bed looking pale and broken, that Emily realizes she is not alone in this vigil.

Her brown eyes lift from her child's still form (because Zoe may be a young woman, but she's still and always Emily's child) to lock gazes with Data's golden ones. There is no agony in his gold-leaf features, no horror, no pain. But then her eyes travel from his face to his hand, wrapped around her daughter's, and when she looks into his face again the devotion pouring out of him nearly floods her.

"She loves you," Emily says simply. "But you know that, don't you?"

"We have discussed it," comes his soft confirmation. "She insists that she does not perceive me, or our relationship as 'lacking' because I cannot feel the same, or return her words."

"And yet you're here, and you haven't let go of her hand."

"I promised that I would not," he tells her.

It is in that moment that Emily stops seeing Data as her superior officer, her colleague, or even the friend he has become over the past year, but simply as the man who is her daughter's lover.

She has already released him from the promise he made the previous summer, recognizing that she no longer had the right to make those decisions for Zoe, and had never had the right to make them for the man across the bio-bed from her. Whether or not they've actually consummated their relationship is something Emily refuses to consider. She hopes they haven't, hopes they'll choose to wait.

Or at least that's what she had been hoping when Zoe left the ship to be part of the Melona mission. Emily had been so proud that her daughter was invited to go. Now, though, with her daughter broken and violated, and seeming so small and fragile in the bio-bed, all she can hope is that the almost-palpable connection flowing between the young woman and the stalwart android at her side will be enough to see her through the recovery she will soon face.

They remain, the both of them, mostly silent. Emily finally accepts an offered chair, sitting in it, and resting her head on the edge of Zoe's bio-bed. Data, too, accepts a chair, but his posture remains perfectly erect.

Each of them, at one time or another, encourages the other to leave, to rest, to indulge in self-care. And each of them refuses.

Finally, Emily observes. "Data, you may not be able to feel love but you care for Zoe very deeply, don't you?"

His simple answer removes the last veil on his relationship with her daughter. "I am devoted to her," Data says. More quietly, in a tone meant only for Emily, herself, and for Zoe's sleeping ears, he adds, "She is necessary to my ability to function adequately."

Emily allows herself a tiny smile. He can deny it all he wants, she thinks, but Data does love her daughter, in his way.

(A)

October, 2368

A Mother Knows…

Emily surveys herself in the three-way mirror one last time. Her dress is a vintage piece: tea length and made of cream-colored silk. She has chosen an equally antique fascinator made of Brussels lace, and with her hair rolled this way, and the headpiece pinned into place, she decides she doesn't look half bad.

The 1940's, she reflects, were an excellent decade for women's fashion. Thankfully ages-old trends are continually being re-hashed, re-purposed, and re-imagined. Also thankfully, her daughter has an eye for figure-flattering attire.

Her daughter… Zoe is in the bride's dressing room with her, and for the next half an hour, it will be just the two of them in here, primping and waiting and primping some more. The younger woman's dress is also vintage, also includes lace, but in the form of a peach overlay atop a sage green sheath.

In the mirror, Emily meets her daughter's eyes. "You okay, kiddo?"

"I'm okay it's just… does that squishy-fluttery feeling ever go away?" Zoe's face is aglow with love, and Emily is certain it isn't the daughterly kind. This is not the first event where she and Data have appeared as a couple, but it is the first such event that is attended by a significant number of Starfleet officers, including at least two admirals.

"Squishy-fluttery feeling?" Emily isn't quite certain what her daughter means.

"You know. The one that feels like Sychoran firedancers have taken up residence in your belly and are beating all their wings at once?"

"I'd have said butterflies... And no. Not if you're really in love with the person who causes the feeling in the first place."

"Butterflies are too tame for what I feel when I look at Data," Zoe shares in a confessional tone. Then she wrinkles her nose and says, self-deprecatingly, "Here I am making this all about me, when I shouldn't be. This is supposed to be your day, Mom."

Emily shakes her head, bemused. "Oh, Zoificus." She sets her lipstick down on the dressing table, and pushes her chair backward. Rising, she moves toward the low couch under the open window, catching her daughter's hand en route, and drawing her along. "Come sit with me."

"Mom?" She seems reluctant, but the younger woman joins her mother on the plush sofa, sitting at a slight angle so they can see each other's faces.

Emily feels her face soften into a reflective expression, the one her daughter refers to as her 'gushy mom look.' "You're really not a little girl anymore," she muses. It's been a frequent refrain over this past year, but somehow, this time, she really means it. "Of course it's firedancers for you. Data is your soulmate. With Ed and I… it's different, sweetie. This is our second time around. Passion gets tempered a little when you're older."

"You are not that old," her daughter insists. "You're not even forty. Ed's barely into his fifties."

"I said older, not old," Emily points out, somewhat acerbically. "Still, though, it's different. We've both been through this before. We love each other, and that love is strong, but we're also more cautious."

Zoe's dark eyes narrow into peering slits, and she seems, Emily thinks, to be studying her mother. She wonders if her own eyes narrow the same way when she's trying to stare down a problem. She bets they do. People have been referring to her daughter as Emily's 'mini-me' for half a decade now, and the resemblance has only grown stronger over the years. "You're not having second thoughts?" She cannot tell if Zoe is worried or excited about the possibility.

"About marrying Ed? Not in the slightest. But I feel like I'm stepping away from you when you need me most, Zoe. You've gone through so much this last year, and I'm not sure I've been enough of a support." She pauses, and adds, "You've been leaning on Data, more than me, for some time now."

"He's my…" The young woman with the softer version of Emily's own face seems reluctant to commit to a label. "He's my partner," she says, after a couple of false starts. "Aren't I supposed to be turning to him?" Where once there would have been snark in that question, Zoe's tone, instead, is a mix of budding maturity and open vulnerability.

"I suppose you are," she says, and they laugh together, and then cry together when the laughter inevitably turns to tears. Emily isn't sure why they are laughing, but it feels as though something has released, and something else has taken hold. She draws her daughter into a wordless embrace and is gratified when the hug is returned in kind. Tighter and tighter, and then a sudden letting go, and Emily reaches for a strand of her daughter's chestnut hair, twists it between her thumb and forefinger, and lets it go. "I know you've faced some challenges these last few months," she says. "But Zoe, I'm so proud of you, of the young woman you are, and the person you're growing into."

"I love you, Mom," the other replies.

They stay there on the couch, quiet, still, just being, and then Emily gives her daughter a gentle shove, before she rises and returns to the mirror. Her mascara didn't run, and only her lipstick needs another quick touch-up. She smiles at her reflection, and marches toward the door, tossing a jaunty invitation over her shoulder. "I'm getting married today, daughter-of-mine. Want to come along? I hear there's gonna be a hell of a party, after."

During the ceremony, Emily's attention is on her new husband, of course. Ed looks somehow younger with his sons at his side, as if their youth has infused him, while her happiness feels doubled because Zoe has been her cheering section during the entire planning process.

At the reception, while she and Ed share another dance, one where they are still at the center of things, but not nearly so as during their first dance as husband and wife, he murmurs in her ear, "Michel and Remy told me that Zoe forbade the use of 'step' in front of 'brother' and 'sister,' and told the boys to think of Data as an older brother. Your daughter may well be the poster-child for gracious inclusion."

Emily smiles, and nips at his earlobe before whispering back. "Our daughter," she corrects, a teasing lilt underneath the words. "You and Zach can duke it out for which of you will escort her down the aisle when she gets married." And then she is panic-stricken, and nearly steps out of the dance. "Did I just say that out loud?"

Ed's expression is quizzical. "About Zach, or about Zoe getting married one day?"

"Either," Emily answers. "Both, I suppose. Look at them."

The song is ending, and they step away from the dance floor long enough to wet their mouths with champagne and watch their friends and family mingle. The young woman in question is standing at the edge of the dance floor, also watching.

For a moment, Emily tries to catch her daughter's eye, but before she can, Data steps up behind Zoe, bends his head so he can speak privately, and then draws her backward, against his body, his arms sliding around her, and his hands meeting just below her breasts. It's an intimate posture, one that reveals more about their relationship than even a super-intelligent android likely realizes, but Emily understands it all too well.

Her daughter is still so young, not even eighteen, and yet when she returns to the Enterprise in December, she won't be coming back to her room in Emily's quarters, but to the home she has claimed with Data, in his.

"They look good together," Ed observes, shaking his wife out of her reverie.

"They do," Emily agrees. "They fit," she elaborates, quoting something Data once told her and Ed himself once observed, something Data had heard from Zoe, and found to be accurate. "There's a teaching position opening at Starfleet Academy next fall," she adds. "They've begun the search process; I'd like to apply."

"You'd transfer off the Enterprise?"

"Zoe will be in college by then. If I'm on Earth, we'll be able to visit each other without forcing her to give up vacations with Data."

"What about Zach?"

"Earth to Centaurus isn't that hard a trip, and Zach travels often."

"And you believe she and Data will last?"

Emily looks at her daughter and the unique being she has chosen to love, the one who, semantics aside, gives every appearance of loving the young woman in return. She always expected that one day she would mark the moment when her daughter was truly ready to stand on her own, but she always thought it would be at Zoe's wedding, not her own. "I think they're in it for the long haul," she says.

"Did she tell you that?"

Emily shakes her head. "She didn't have to," she tells the man she has chosen to start a new life with. "A mother knows."

Notes: This piece is a left-handed prelude to Crush III: Sostenuto, which I'll likely start posting in about a week. It's also a gift for Lacrimula Falsa, who is not only a gifted writer herself, but is also one of the people I (mostly jokingly) include in my "brain trust." She always encourages me to write more of Emily, and she always tells me, gently – but honestly – when something doesn't work for her.

This piece references a lot of the CRUSHverse, but specifically gives Emily's side of Crush chapter 45 ("The First Taste), Hello from Earth, Having a Wonderful Time, Wish You Were Here, chapter 6 ("Interlude: Fear of Failure"), Crush II: Ostinato, chapter 18 ("Fugue"), the one-shot "Devoted," UNACCOMPANIED: A Suite for Actress & Android, chapter 4 ("Sarabande"), and the one-shot "Cake."