Completion
Stardate 44969.86
Thursday, 21 December 2367, 00:03 hours, ship's time
Aboard the U.S.S. Descartes shuttlecraft
"Data, are we a couple?"
He knows, because not only has he spent a significant number of waking hours with this young woman, but also devoted considerable amounts of his processing power to analyzing their relationship, that Zoe has likely been stewing over this question for the better part of the day.
"I can think of no other term that adequately describes our current relationship," he tells her in a soft voice. Partly, it seems like the sort of thing that should be uttered with reverence, and partly he is concerned he might cause her to bolt again. Research and observation have shown that his softer voice soothes her.
Not that she can bolt far, but she has shown a tendency to run from him each time their relationship evolves, and every time she does so, he is left confused: are the kisses she initiates violating some portion of his ethical programming that only she can recognize? Should he be stopping her, rather than embracing, encouraging, even enjoying the closeness those kisses represent?
[Begin ethics fault check, level two.] The instruction is internal, one of the myriad things that he is doing while also keeping the majority of his focus on the operation of their craft, and, secondarily, on her.
Her response may determine the results of the diagnostic.
"Okay," she says, a hint of a tremble in her voice and a small smile on her somewhat [facial expression analysis...puzzlement? confusion? Bewilderment!] bewildered face. "Okay," she repeats. As if she understands that fleeing from this moment would also confuse him, she touches his shoulder, and explains, "I'm not running from you, okay? I just have to pee."
[No faults found.]
The combination of her acceptance of their status and her assurance that she is not running, but merely heeding the needs of her body elicit a spontaneous smile from him.
They spend the rest of the day in alternating periods of conversation and comfortable silence. They share meals and confidences. They play poker, though she insists on a variation with which he has limited experience.
He wonders if it is only he who perceives an ease between them here, in this isolated shuttle, a level of comfort greater than typically exists. He decides not to ask, but rather to enjoy the experience.
After their poker game, Zoe admits that she needs rest, and he is pleased when she chooses to return to the co-pilot's seat in the cockpit, and make her bed there.
While she is using the small bathroom to prepare herself for sleep, he replicates a mug of tea for her. He is not certain that she will want it, but it has become their ritual, and when they are separated by distance or circumstance he… misses… the experience.
Tea is no longer enough.
[Repeat ethics fault check, level two.
Action performed within the last cycle.
Repeat? Y/N
Y
No faults found.]
Zoe stumbles on her way back to her seat, her balance offset because he turned his chair, and Data's reaction, not just reaching out to stabilize her, but drawing her down onto his lap, is as analogous to instinctive as he is capable of being.
When he repeats the words she spoke to him a month ago [twenty-eight days, ten hours, sixteen minutes, six-point-three-seven seconds] "No more talking," and then captures her lips with his own, there is a sense of completion, not unlike the satisfaction of the final connection which closes a circuit.
(=A=)
Stardate 45054.83
Sunday, 21 January 2368, 01:41 hours, ship's time
In Data's quarters on the U.S.S Enterprise
"Like it?" It is early in the morning of Zoe's seventeenth birthday, and they have just come from her party on the holodeck – the party he planned for her. She has just seen the second part of his gift to her: a painting of the two of them together, in party clothes, from an image captured at her father's New Year's Eve party, three weeks before.
Data had discarded the first three attempts at this painting, because he could not quite duplicate the look of his girlfriend's hair.
Girlfriend. Zoe is his girlfriend.
[Girlfriend, definition: A regular female companion with whom one has a romantic or sexual relationship. Common synonyms: companion, confidante, date, flame, intimate, main squeeze, partner, sweetheart.]
Zoe is his girlfriend, and has made it very obvious that she would like to be his lover, that she desires him. As an android, Data is not driven by sexual desire, but the thought of coupling with this woman – with his girlfriend – is one he finds appealing. If touching her and kissing her increase the perception of connection he has experienced almost since meeting her, how much more would sexual intimacy increase that connection.
"Like it?" his girlfriend says. "I love it. I love you."
Before Data can respond to those words - words no woman has ever spoken to him – Zoe is apologizing for her statement. "Do not apologize," he tells her. "Do not ever apologize for what you feel."
In truth, he has suspected Zoe's feelings for him for quite some time [four weeks, three days, twenty-point-six-seven hours] but actually hearing the words from her lips has a profound effect on him. His body temperature increases by zero-point-five percent, and his processing speed slows by one-point-four-six-nine percent.
Just as he wishes to understand the human condition (and not, as many of his friends interpreted, to actually be human), Data wishes he could give Zoe the response she deserves, the response she denies that she expects when he asks why she did not tell him sooner.
He wishes he could say I love you.
He wonders at the ethics of continuing a relationship with a woman who has expressed very real feelings for him.
"Partly," she shares, "it's because whenever I respond to something emotionally, or turn to you for support, you act as though you're somehow… lacking… because you don't – can't – respond in kind. And I didn't want to be the cause of that perception, Data, because I don't feel a lack of anything in our relationship."
He strokes her arm as he speaks, fascinated by the different textures of her skin, the way there are nearly invisible fine hairs, the way her pulse accelerated in response to the movements of his fingers. Every minute change in her physiology is endlessly fascinating to him.
[Analyze: Zoe loves me. Zoe does not perceive me as lacking anything, per her own words. Zoe accepts my limitations, and is concerned for my well-being. Zoe actively discourages me from 'playing human,' and has expressed an interest in how I function. Perhaps it is not necessary to give her the words that I cannot speak. Perhaps it is enough to tell her exactly what she means to me, how she has affected my life and my programming.]
[ Ethics fault check, level two. Processing, processing. No faults found.]
Data gives Zoe a list – a litany – of all the ways she has influenced his life since their friendship turned into something more began, finishing with the statement, "You – your presence in my life and the relationship we have – have become necessary to my ability to function."
(=A=)
Stardate 45952.17
Saturday, 14 December 2368, 11:53 hours, ship's time
In Data & Zoe's quarters aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise
Zoe has been in his arms for twenty-three minutes, and Data would be content to hold her there, on his lap, her head against his shoulder, indefinitely.
Six months, three weeks, two days, ten hours, fourteen minutes and zero-point-one-eight seconds have elapsed since the last time Zoe was truly home. She had visited roughly six weeks earlier, for only two days, and when they had made love then, in their bed, in their home, the experience had been more intense that he had anticipated – he had cried her name at his completion.
[Completion: The act of completing. The state of being completed. Common synonyms: conclusion, fulfillment.]
Zoe has reached the conclusion of her contract with Idyllwild, and returned to their home on the Enterprise. He has told her that her presence was the final step in turning his quarters from a glorified workspace into a proper home.
Data is all too aware that this is not a permanent homecoming. Her school year will end in six months. At some point between June and August, his girlfriend will relocate to Earth for four years of post-secondary study at Yale University. He recognizes – they both recognize – that this is a necessary step in her growth, but there is – to use her vernacular – 'a part of him' that would prefer she stay with him.
He wonders at the ethics of continuing a relationship with her while she is away, but chooses not to analyze the various permutations of that topic at this time.
He missed her when she was absent from the ship.
He experienced never before perceived contentment during the month he spent sharing her San Francisco apartment.
He does not want to occupy these rooms without the woman he…
He still cannot say – cannot think – the word, but he now retains a perfect memory record of what it felt like to love her for the ten seconds he could. Data would like to feel that again someday. For now, however, he is content to breathe in the tropical fruit scent of his lover's hair (he still cannot quite capture it on canvas).
Spot appears, and jumps onto the back of the couch, digging her paws into Zoe's hair, 'knitting' it, as she so often does.
His girlfriend pushes the cat's paws away and lifts her head from his shoulder, laughing. "I never thought I'd say this, but I actually missed this stripy old fleabag."
Data reflects: the anniversary of the day they defined themselves as a couple is less than a week away. Spot is apparently happy. Zoe is in his arms, on his lap, in their home. In a few hours, they will be joining her mother and step-father for an evening meal, after which they will likely retire to bed together.
Zoe will remind him that he does not have to remain in their bed all night, but he will counter that with his own reminder: holding her at night, listening to her sleeping breath, being able to rest his hand on her hip or her breast – these are all things that he prefers not to miss. These are the things that, for him, intensify their connection.
Data nuzzles his partner's hair once more, and then tells her, "I believe that is merely her way of echoing my sentiment, Zoe: Welcome home."
He is the one to initiate their next kiss, lifting his hands to tangle them in her hair, sliding his tongue into her mouth, where hers will dance with it, devouring the essence of her and filling her with the cashew flavor she claims he has.
At the moment that Data's lips meet those of his girlfriend, lover, partner – his Zoe – there is a metaphysical click, a link being forged, a connection being sealed.
He has achieved completion.
Notes: This piece is dedicated to ReLive4Love, who, by virtue of living in Sweden, in a time zone seven hours ahead of mine, is generally the last person (other than my husband) that I chat with before I go to bed. The first section of this piece takes place during the prologue of For Auld Lang Syne. The second section takes place in chapter 15 of Crush II: Ostinato. The final section takes place in chapter 7 of UNACCOMPANIED: A Suite for Actress and Android. Data experienced ten seconds of love via a chip from Lore (not the chip) in chapter 24 of Crush II: Ostinato. Definitions and synonyms are modified from Dictionary DOT com. It goes without saying that CBS/Paramount own the rights to the canon elements of this story, but the rest is mine, and this is fanfic, written for love, not money.