She had become aware of his conscious state some time ago. She couldn't pinpoint the exact minute. She did know however that she had chosen to go on working blithely, ignoring any perceived change in status of the mass of blinking lights before her, continuing to test inputs. She couldn't help imagining what those open eyes would be seeing. What they would be like to look at, animated. What would be his first words. To her? She felt a thrill at that, but was unsure of the origin or the cause… was it elation at accomplishment, anticipation of a much-imagined first face-off or simply excitement – and anxiety – at the suddenly real prospect of not being alone anymore. She wasn't afraid, she found. Should she have been afraid of a head sitting detached from its, as yet still disassembled body? The notion seemed preposterous… and yet not.

Lore blinked. Once. Twice. Disorientation was rapidly replaced with a keen sense of a displaced existence. He was on a flat surface in surroundings at once alien and familiar. It didn't take him long to place the familiarity. But who was tinkering with his circuitry behind his field of vision? In his late father's abode? How had he come to be here? Where was…

"So many questions." This, aloud. Slow, soft and in his usual cadence.

The appendages working on his skull ceased their activity. Someone was coming round to face him. A female body appeared. Human. Draped in a short tunic of flowing white fabric. Then, slate grey eyes. Staring intently into his. Searching his face. Quiet. And then that heretofore slightly compressed mouth formed the words:

"Where would you like to start? But first, how are you?"

She half-expected a programmed response. I am functioning within normal parameters.

"I am incomplete."

"Yes. Your body is here."

"Why am I not with it."

"Prudence. I can barely handle your positronic matrix as it is."

"What are you doing with MY positronic matrix?" First emphasis. Pronoun. Ownership asserted.

"I'm trying to fix you."

They stared at each other across a divide that was barely a meter, and yet spanned the length of both Lore's entire remembered existence to date, as well as hers on this island-planet with his inanimate form, in a matter of microseconds. 'This is … unexpected', was his first conscious appraisal of the situation. 'She is alone' was his next.

How long had she considered this project of hers as an 'it'. As something to be done. What was she to do, 3.8 years later, when 'it' had come to life? How was she supposed to react? How should she treat this 'him'? As an equal, an adversary or an accomplice? As something to be feared, to be wary of? 'Someone' she mentally corrected herself.

That first conversation had stalled after her bald admission of the facts; he was able to retrieve much of what had transpired in getting him from Daystrom storage to Terlina III (for reactivation and rehabilitation) from the files she had constructed and placed in his synaptic storage… He was completely reliant on what she told him, there was no way for him to corroborate any of it, she realized. She noted with some amazement at how quickly her thinking had shifted from a calculated scientific disconnect to something resembling empathy for the disembodied, animated ('not just animated, but sentient!' she chided herself) head sitting before her on her work station.

"Why?" he asked plainly, without preamble.

Why indeed, her thoughts echoed.

"I thought I could do it. I thought I should do it."

Could. Should. This was definitely not expected. The implied arrogance of the words was not lost on him, as it would have been on his bro…

"Data is no more." This delivered in monotone, in sharp contrast to the slight lilt normally present in his intonations. That was the only eventuality that would have made any of this even remotely possible. A remoter possibility would have been that events had led his brother to finally find it in himself to forgive him, in which case Data would have been the one to wake him.

He watched her lower her gaze from his at this, in deference to… her perceived pain at his loss? Was that what he was feeling at this moment? Was he allowed to feel? The thought startled him. Something was different about his thought processes. What had she been doing to him exactly?