Structural Note: First, this story is actually inspired by Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites, and each chapter represents a movement in one of the suites. Also, with the exception of the Prelude, much of this story is told in epistolary format (letters, vid-calls, messaging). Unless otherwise noted, all letters are video messages.
UNACCOMPANIED
A Suite for Actress and Android
III. Courante
In a Baroque dance suite an Italian or French courante is typically paired with a preceding allemande, making it the second movement of the suite or the third if there is a prelude. Courante literally means "running," and in the later Renaissance the courante was danced with fast running and jumping steps, but the courante commonly used in the baroque period was described as "chiefly characterized by the passion or mood of sweet expectation. For there is something heartfelt, something longing and also gratifying, in this melody: clearly music on which hopes are built."
Stardate 45603.38
(Thursday, 8 August 2368, 8:06 PM PDT, local time)
San Francisco, Earth
The comm-unit is chiming as I unlock the door of my apartment. I've just come from a full day of rehearsals, plus my second session with one of the therapists Counselor Troi had recommended, followed by dinner with some of my troupe-mates, and all I really want is a bath, a book, and bed, but I answer the call anyway, because it could be Annette calling for a meet-up, or Mom checking in with me. It isn't either of them, though the call is from a Starfleet channel, and my first reactions are surprise, and then concern when the 'fleet logo resolves into the familiar gold-leaf features of my boyfriend.
My halfway-across-the-galaxy boyfriend.
"Data? We talked yesterday, is everything alright?" Please don't tell me something happened to you or Mom.
His voice is rock-steady, just like always. "Everything is fine," he answers, "except for the distance between us."
I melt a little inside, and feel a smile spreading across my lips. "Flirting gets you everywhere, " I tease, hoping that if I keep things light, banter with him instead of lapsing into sweetness and goo, he won't notice that I'm upset and exhausted. More the latter than the former, but, still. "So, is this an extra social call, or…?"
"I am afraid it is not. The Enterprise is heading into a region of space called the 'Typhon Expanse,' and communications are likely to be severely delayed. I did not wish you to worry." He pauses before I can respond, adding after a moment of silent assessment. "Something is wrong. Do you wish to talk about it?"
"How much time do you have?" My tone implies that the query is rhetorical.
He answers me anyway. "Twenty-one point four minutes."
"Is that when the poker game starts?" When nothing major is going on, it isn't unusual for there to be more than one officers' poker game in a week.
"It is," his confirmation is matter-of-fact, but his expression softens and his head tilts slightly forward, his brows drawing together just a bit. "Zoe, you are evading."
Guilty as charged. "So, you know I went to see that therapist on Tuesday," I begin, even though I know that Data, of all people, doesn't need to be reminded.
There is a slight movement of his head that means he's increased the level of focus he is giving our conversation. "You said that you were uncertain whether Dr. Gratz is a good fit."
"I'm still not certain," I confirm, "but most of the first session was basic questionnaire stuff, and setting goals, and you and Deanna both said I should give him a real shot before I wrote him off completely, so I kept today's appointment."
"Ah," he says, understanding evident in his tone. "It did not go well?"
"I should have known he was evil as soon as I noticed he had a goatee," I grumble. His reaction tells me he doesn't understand the correlation, and it's not a good time to explain. "No, it didn't go well. He's been through the files Deanna sent, and he's started asking questions."
"You were prepared for that eventuality," he reminds me gently.
"Yes, I know. It's just… I was expecting we'd sort of ease into things. Instead, he asked me - and the thing is, it's not an invalid question, exactly – he asked me if Lore…" I can hear agitation taking over my own voice, and I stop talking. Take a deep breath. With deliberate calm, I continue, "He asked me if the only reason you and I are a couple is because we reacted to things Lore set in motion."
On the screen in front of me, Data's golden eyes go wide. I can practically see the speed of the blinky lights inside his head increasing as he considers – and just as quickly discards - the possibility. I also see his expression alter yet again, to one of firm resolve. "No."
"Data?"
"Zoe, you are correct that the question is not invalid. I have considered it, as well."
"And?" I knew my own expression was troubled. Make it better, I think. It's what you do.
Data's response is intense, as if he is trying to reach across the light years and wrap me in his certitude. "While our first 'proper' kiss was prompted by Lore's actions at Starbase Twelve nearly a year ago, our friendship had already begun to grow into more before you ever encountered him the previous February."
"So you did know I was crushing on you!" I blurt, amused, and, oddly, a little bit embarrassed.
"I… suspected," Data confirmed. "However, I was referring to my own perceptions of our friendship."
"Oh?"
"While I have participated in the birthday celebrations of several of my friends and colleagues, as well as many of the students living aboard the Enterprise, you are the only person to whom I have ever presented jewelry."
I look down at my left wrist, still encircled by the beaded bracelet he'd given me for my sixteenth birthday, and returned to me after I'd lost it when Lore grabbed me from Melona. "Mala beads aren't exactly jewel-." I stop myself, responding to the pointed look he is giving me. "So what you're saying is… he might have pushed us a little faster than either of us intended…"
"… but we would have arrived at the same 'place' eventually." Data finishes the sentence for me. "Yes, Zoe. Of that, I am certain."
"I wish we were in the same physical location right now," I admit, not caring how pathetic it probably sounds.
"I wish for that as well," he said. "If I am able, I will keep our subspace 'date' on Sunday," he added. "I am afraid I must go now. I am devoted to you, Zoe."
"I love you," I answer. "Win big."
His response is a curt nod acknowledging my instruction, his nonverbal promise to try. I grin back at his image and blow him a kiss as the connection closes.
(=A=)
Stardate 45616.72
(Tuesday, 13 August 2368, 5:17 PM PDT, local time)
San Francisco, Earth
I leave the rehearsal hall a little after five, allowing the concierge to hail an air cab for me. The distance from the Idyllwild building to my therapist's office isn't that great, but I'm tired and sweaty from rehearsal, and the few minutes in air-conditioned silence will give me the chance to compose myself.
The media screen in the back is set to FNN, and I notice that mainstream media has finally caught up with the story about Lt. Worf's miracle surgery and recovery. FleetNet had the story days ago, and was much more balanced in their approach. I can't help but smile at the notion that wherever I go, news of 'home' follows me.
I'm the last patient Dr. Gratz has on his roster that day. I know because his receptionist, Wanda, makes a point of telling me she'll be at her desk, "until you're done, because female patients aren't supposed to be alone in the building."
I don't bother telling her that, thanks to the boxing lessons I've been taking, I have a decent right hook, and could probably take the doctor if he tried anything.
(I could definitely take her but I don't bother mentioning that, either.)
Inside the inner sanctum, the lights are subdued, and the furniture is comfortable enough to put you at ease without being so comfortable you forget you're in a doctor's office.
"Zoe, welcome back. I wasn't sure you'd be keeping your appointment. Have a seat." He isn't unfriendly, really, just a little cold. Clinical.
"I wasn't either," I tell him with no irony whatsoever. I sit in the center of the couch, directly across from him. "Deanna and Data both said I should give this – give you – another chance."
"I see." I'm not familiar enough with his different tones to know if that was dismissive or adversarial. I only know it wasn't neutral. "Do you always discuss therapy sessions with your lover?" Adversarial then. Oh, joy.
"Partner," I correct, choosing the word Data has been using more and more often lately. "Data and I have no secrets, except as relates to his work and my lack of security clearance." I know this to be true, and my certainty is evident in both my voice and my posture.
"I see," he says again. "Last week we discussed the possibility that you and Mr. Data fell into a relationship as a reaction to his twin's actions. Have you given that any thought?"
I feel myself bristling, and shift slightly on the couch. The movement is just enough that the beads in my bracelet click together – I love that sound! – and I smile at Dr. Gratz. "I have, and you're wrong. Data and I were already close friends before I ever met Lore."
"He was your teacher?"
"Yes."
"The subject was advanced mathematics?"
"He also coached me in music theory. We met every Saturday morning during the first semester of my sophomore year. After my semester break, he was coaching me in technique as well. The only other cellist on the ship who had the experience to teach couldn't take me any further. When I returned to the Enterprise after being away during my summer break, we restructured our musical relationship, and became partners rather than teacher and student."
"Why did you give up music?"
"Excuse me?"
"You're here in San Francisco as an apprentice in a theatre program. Why aren't you in a music program? Aren't you wasting all the time Mr. Data spent on you?"
"First of all," I tell him, trying not to sound angry, "it's Commander Data, not Mister. And secondly, we still play music together. It's not something I'm ever going to give up entirely; I just realized I didn't want to make a career out of it."
Dr. Gratz continues with this line of questioning, asking me about music, about theatre, about my relationship with Data, apparently perceiving connections I cannot. It's more like an inquisition than a therapy session. I feel like I'm being hammered.
Eventually, I reach a point where I feel worse than I did when I entered his office. I take a breath and confront him. "I don't understand how analyzing my music studies has anything to do with helping me sleep through the night without having horrible dreams."
"Don't you?" his thin, sharp eyebrows (I bet he has them shaped) lift over his gray eyes and darker gray hair. "You feel conflicted about the fact that you are in an unequal relationship with the twin of the person who raped you. Your nightmares are the manifestation of your doubts about being in an intense relationship with someone of his position and authority when you are still a little girl who has no business living on her own."
My right hand balls itself into a fist of its own accord, and I almost have to sit on it to keep myself from jumping up and hitting him.
"That," I say in my firmest, darkest voice, "is not true. "
"Mr. – Commander – Data is a machine, is he not? By his own admission he has no emotions. He's a line officer on the ship where you live, where your mother serves, and, emancipated or not, you are still only seventeen." I think he's done, but then he continues. "You've stated yourself that he and… Lore, is it?... are virtually identical. I'm sure the force of his personality is enough to keep you believing you're happy when you're together, but now that you're separate from him, you're beginning to see things as they really are."
Put like that, I can understand why the doctor sees me – sees us – that way, but I also know he's missing the big picture. I am certain that he's completely, utterly, wrong about the reason I'm having nightmares again, as well. I open my mouth to rebut his statements, but he interrupts before I even make a sound.
"You might wish to think about these things between now and your next session, Zoe. For now, our time is up. Do you want me to have Wanda call a cab for you?"
I manage to answer yes to the cab-query. It's waiting when I get down to the lobby, and I give my address and invoke the privacy screen before the tears start flowing.
At home, I have only half an hour to recover before I have to change and leave again. Admiral Nechayev has insisted I join her and a few friends for dinner, and while a part of me wants to spend the evening with bad videos, a carton of ice cream, and a spoon, the more mature part of me recognizes that being around people who know me, and know Data, is actually the wiser choice.
Still, I take a moment to log onto my comm system and record a letter to the man I love, and send it off to him.
Within seconds after I receive the confirmation that my missive was successfully sent, I receive a new item in my inbox. Nothing important just an advertisement, but I glimpse the header even as I instruct the computer to delete it, unread:
Where is your data headed?
But I already know. My Data is on a ship on the outskirts of the Typhon Expanse. I can only hope nothing unexpected happens.
(=A=)
Stardate 45623.68
(Friday, 16 August 2368, 6:24 AM PDT, local time)
San Francisco, Earth
After my second night in a row of tossing and turning, waking up to stop nightmares from taking hold, and listening to the songs Data recorded for me in order to fall asleep, I find myself sipping coffee at six in the morning, and trying my subspace call to the Enterprise yet again.
I route this attempt to my mother's attention, in case the reason I'm not getting through to Data is because he's on an away mission.
Before I can finish the process of calling, though, I get the alert notices for three incoming messages. One is from Ray, telling me he'll be in a seminar at the Academy beginning Monday, and would I like to have dinner one night during the week. One is from Nonna, confirming my travel plans for the evening shuttle to New York – they'll meet me in dirtside arrivals. And the third is another advertisement for another data-comm company:
Is your data being throttled?
I have to wonder about that. Is Data in trouble on an away mission, or is this really just a communications glitch because of time conversions, greater distance, and unusual regions of space. I envision a warp core breech and everyone running for escape pods, imagining klaxons, chaos, and lots of smoke.
Then I shake my head. Stop expecting the worst, I tell myself.
I answer the two messages from actual people, and delete the advertisement.
My attempt to call Mom times out like all the subspace calls I've made to the Enterprise have for days. Giving up on the option of real-time communication, I record another letter, and send it off, not to my mother, but to my partner.
(=A=)
From: Zoe L. Harris, San Francisco, Earth
To: Lt. Cmdr. Data, U.S.S. Enterprise
Dear Data,
I've tried calling every morning since Tuesday, and the subspace relay keeps giving me a time-out message. I don't know if there's something wrong with my comm system or just that you're in a communications blackout, and I'm trying not to worry.
When should I worry?
I know my last letter was kind of a mess. I'm still feeling a bit uneven, but Somak has been really kind, especially considering where I nearly kicked him. I think I told you he's pure Vulcan, but doesn't practice Cthia in the traditional way?He became an actor, he told me, because "…the mindfulness required to produce a believable emotional response on stage requires just as much control and self-knowledge as the more traditional approach to the disciplines of reality-truth."
Anyway, we were on a lunch break yesterday, and I was a little agitated – I didn't sleep well Wednesday night – no nightmares, just bad sleep – and I was trying to do the meditation exercises Tev and Deanna had both taught me, and he said, "Excuse me, Zoe, but I believe there is a better technique for you to use."
At first I thought he was making a pass at me – don't worry; he wasn't. It turns out that his wife, who is human but was raised on Aldebaran, is a massage therapist and yoga instructor – the legit kind, not the kind that's really a sex worker (not that there's anything wrong with being a sex worker if that's your thing) – and she had an opening for a massage right then, and we really clicked.
I don't think I've felt this relaxed outside of our bed since… wow, I can't remember.
Tara – her name is Tara - is lovely, and she and her employees have yoga classes and Pilates classes, and even just a stretching class. She's been combining meditative breathing with the stretch class – apparently a lot of her clients are dancers and actors – and so I went to a class last night. It's not boxing, but the pure physicality of it was really helpful.
Way more helpful than being interrogated by a non-therapeutic therapist. I didn't go to Dr. Gratz yesterday, and I don't regret it in the slightest.
I'll try calling again tonight, but I'm going away for the weekend. Nonna and Papa are insisting I spend some time with them, and I really want to do it. For much of my life they were just faces in video recordings and names on Christmas and birthday cards, and I'm really enjoying getting to know this whole other part of my family. Besides, a weekend of sun, sand, and someone else's cooking sounds like just what I need. You know their contact info, and I'll have my personal comm with me.
I'm trying to remind myself that space is big, and you're supposed to be exploring it, but I can't shake the feeling that something is wrong.
And I'm still having bad dreams.
I miss you. I love you. Cuddle Spot for me.
- Zoe
(=A=)
Stardate 45631.78
(Monday, 19 August 2368, 5:33 AM EDT, local time)
Niantic, CT, Earth
My grandparents' house sits facing Long Island Sound, and I can hear the water lapping at the shore from my bedroom window. The tide is almost at its lowest point and even though the moon is a good ten days from full, there's enough light to see the mud-flat where the water was mere hours before, and will be again in another few.
I haven't talked to Data – or Mom – or anyone on the Enterprise since the twelfth, and FleetNet hasn't mentioned anything about the Enterprise at all – but being with two people who love me has really helped.
Except…
Except, Nonna has been looking at me and clicking her teeth all weekend, and Papa's usual jocularity has intensified with each day, as if, between them, they wanted to fix everything that was wrong.
I'm awake now, because the breeze has shifted, breaking the summer humidity, and the tide has ebbed, and I feel like the ocean is calling me. I leave bed, and pull a pair of shorts on under Data's Starfleet Academy Athletics t-shirt, and I tiptoe downstairs on bare feet and brew a cup of my grandfather's strong black tea in one of his heavy porcelain mugs with the two thin green lines encircling the rim.
I like these mugs. They fit perfectly into the curve of my hand, and their weight is somehow comforting. My grandparents don't have a replicator but they do have instant hot water, so my tea is brewed in the faint illumination of the nightlight over the sink. The soft yellow glow strikes me as somehow wrong, and I realize I miss the blue and green glow of the nighttime settings Data uses on the monitors in our quarters.
Using a spoon, I squeeze out the teabag and toss it in the recycler. I add a tube of sugar, one of the packets Nonna collects from various restaurants more out of habit then necessity. At home, I would have milk in tea like this, but here I've been drinking it black, the way Papa does, and I like the stronger flavor, and the way it leaves my gums almost dry.
I take the mug and one of Nonna's hand-crocheted afghans – this one is all daisies – out to the porch, and curl up into one of the Adirondack chairs that everyone in Connecticut seems to own.
I'm not even out there for five minutes before the door opens and closes behind me. I expect it to be my grandfather, he who keeps fisherman's hours, still, after over a decade of being retired, but it's Nonna. "You are just like your mother, bella mia, coming out here to commune with the sea and stars." Her voice is rough with age and warm with affection, sort of like the blanket I'm wrapped in.
"I didn't mean to wake you," I tell her.
"I'm old, Zoe. I don't sleep so well, anyway." She settles herself into the chair next to mine. We're both quiet for several minutes, while I sip my tea, and when I set the mug down on the flat arm of the chair, her hand stretches out to clasp mine. "You miss him, your android."
"Data isn't my android," I correct automatically, but I know she isn't referring to him that way out of derision. "But yes, I miss him."
"Papa couldn't get through to the Enterprise to call your mother last night. I think you knew this?"
I nod and then realize she probably can't see all that well in the pre-dawn light. "Yeah. I knew. The ship is in the Typhon Expanse. It's this part of space that's on the edge of Klingon space but nowhere near the homeworld, so no one's really explored it. Data said communications would be 'delayed' but today will be a week since I've heard from him. It's been a couple days longer since I've heard from Mom, but we don't typically talk quite as often."
"You're worried."
I'm terrified, I don't admit, because I don't want to scare my grandmother. "Yeah," I answer. "I know I'm probably overreacting, but between not hearing from Data at all, and this horrible therapist I've been seeing to help with the nightmares, I'm all messed up." I squeeze her hand, feeling her parched skin and wrinkled fingers. "It's one of the reasons I was so eager to come here. I guess I just needed to be coddled, a little bit."
"That's what grandparents are for," Nonna assures me, and I can hear the smile in her voice. "Look, bella, the sky is pink now."
I lift my eyes from the shadowy forms of the jetty and the sand, and look up at the lightening sky. "Sun's coming up fast," I say.
"It seems that way, no?" She pauses, hesitating before she asks the question she's been holding back for weeks. "Your mother said you were part of a mission? That you were kidnapped and… Madonna mia… that you were…" She lowers her voice to a whisper on the last word. "…raped?"
"I was a student volunteer helping to plant a colony. I knew one of the families – they were some of Gran's farm interns when I was little – and I needed a community service credit for my transcript. It was supposed be a really easy thing – and then it wasn't."
I've told the story to a few people now, but I'm still not entirely comfortable telling people. But this is my grandmother, who loves me, and wants to help. "There was a crystal alien and it attacked and we had to hide in caves. Data… Data was the one who figured out the caves would protect us… and his brother… his brother was the one who kidnapped me, and raped me."
"An android can have a brother?"
"Dr. Soong created both of them," I tell her. "It's the relationship Lore claimed and Data… god, Nonna, he craves family so much… you can't blame him for believing the best of Lore, at least the first time they met."
"And you turned to him after? Why? Because no emotions means no judging?"
"Data has emotions," I tell her. "They're incredibly subtle, and he would deny that his reactions are emotional, but… Anyway, no, I was crushing on him before I came to Earth last summer. We spend so much time together – math, music, the play – and he really held me together after the Borg when Mom was hurt… And then when Lore accosted me on Starbase 12, and Data watched over me until Mom and Ed got back to the Enterprise… something shifted. I mean…" I stop, realizing something. "Our very first kiss… we're coming up on the anniversary of it."
"I thought you weren't a couple until Christmas…"
"We weren't… exactly… we were… I guess we were trying to figure out what we were… probably for longer than either of us realizes." I feel my lips curving into a smile. "The first time we kissed, it was partly because I knew that was the only way to get the piercing out of my tongue – " I pause in my open musing to explain that – "but it was also because… because I'd wanted to kiss him before I left the ship, but I wasn't ready, and I don't think Data was ready either, and then…"
"You saw the chance and you took it?" I hear the teasing lilt in her voice that is so much like my mother's, and like mine, despite her voice being scratchy from age.
"Something like that."
"And…?" Nonna's question is obviously leading somewhere.
"And? And what?"
"Was it a good kiss?"
I laugh into the summer dawn. "Yes," I say. "All things considered, Nonna, it was a very good kiss."
"And now the two of you are lovers, yes?"
Is it bright enough, now, that she can see me blush? "Nonna!"
"What? You're a healthy young woman, and you've told me you moved in with him. Besides, the bed in your apartment? That's the kind of bed you choose when you have a lover to share it with."
"Nonna, I love you, but you are a bad, bad, woman." I'm teasing her, and we both laugh.
"See, talking to your grandmother, it helps, yes?" The smug satisfaction in her tone is unmistakable.
I nod again, my hand still wrapped around hers, so I know she can see me, and feel the motion. "It helps," I agree, "yes."
And, perhaps oddly, it really does.
We stay on the porch a while longer, until the sun is fully up and the boats in their moorings have become recognizable as such, instead of being triangular silhouettes. "Your grandfather is going to lend you my old flitter," she says. "You'll need a 'car to help your mother with wedding things, and it's easier and cheaper than renting one. Don't refuse him. He loves you, and we're both so glad to have you so close."
"And it will make it easier to visit?" I ask.
She drops my hand, and makes a sort of shrugging motion, "That, too. Now… lets go inside and wake up Papa. Make him take us out to breakfast on your last morning here."
(=A=)
Stardate 45642.25
(Friday, 23 August 2368, 1:34 AM PDT, local time)
San Francisco, Earth
From: Zoe L. Harris
To: Lt. Cmdr. Data, U.S.S. Enterprise
Dear Data,
(Singing)
Oh where, oh where, has my Da-a-ta gone?
Oh where, oh where can he beeee?
(Speaking, in a tone that seems a bit too bright.)
It's been ten days since I've heard your voice in person, and ten days since I've had a letter, and the only reason I'm not convinced you're trying to avoid me for some reason is that I haven't heard from Mom or anyone else in just as long.
I mean, I talk to you the most, but, still…
FleetNet hasn't mentioned the Enterprise since that story on Worf, and the only thing keeping me sane is that I'm incredibly busy. We've got all four shows in rehearsal now, and even though I've only got real parts in three of them, there's this unspoken rule that we all watch the rehearsals for the shows we're not in, and let Lach and the rest of the cast know if things are working or not.
Earlier this evening, we took Songs for a New World and a few scenes of The Tempest on a short road trip, performing at The Mountain Winery in Saratoga. It never occurred to me that a winery could be a venue for theatre, but the staff was incredibly welcoming, the view was incredible, and they not only provided amazing food for our backstage snacking, but fed us after our show. I've only been home for fifteen minutes – see? I'm still covered in stage make-up and glitter – but I wanted to see if I could get to you before bed.
Tomorrow night… tonight, really, I'm meeting Ray Barnett and Wesley Crusher for dinner… I owe the Alazar's a visit, and I think they'll enjoy meeting more Enterprise people. Besides, I really want to see Wes eat with his fingers.
(Her tone becomes more wistful)
I wish I were going to dinner with you. Here, on the ship, anywhere in between. I wish…
(She sighs, and then forces herself back into 'chatty Cathy' mode.)
Sometimes, I think the whole universe is trying to remind me how much I miss you. I switched to a commercial comm account – I'm sure you noticed the different message headers – and while I'm not getting tons of unwanted mail or anything, I keep getting advertisements for information storage or increased bandwidth.
This morning, when I logged in to check mail, the first thing I saw was an ad that would have made me laugh if we were together. Insufficient Data? it said. We can help. But no amount of storage or bandwidth or free subspace minutes can make the light years feel smaller, or the time until I see you pass more swiftly.
Anyway, it's really late, and I have a busy day tomorrow. They're doing our official headshots for the programs and then I'm being interviewed – interviewed – by the Chronicle.
I really hope you're alright.
I love you.
- Zoe.
(=A=)
Stardate 45644.30
(Friday, 23 August 2368, 7:33 PM PDT, local time)
San Francisco, Earth
Alazar's is nicely full when I arrive a few minutes later than I'd planned, but I see Wes and Ray at a table in the window. I knock on the plate glass and grin when both of them are startled. I dart inside before they have entirely regrouped.
"You're late, sis," Ray says, standing up and wrapping me in a hug. "It's good to see you."
"You too," I answer, hugging him back, hard. We step back from each other and I turn to Wes, who has taken his cue from our mutual friend and is also on his feet. The two of us don't typically hug, but when he reaches for me, I allow it. I suspect he's as worried about his mother and the people he once served with as I am about my own, and Data. Our embrace is brief and awkward.
"So, how's the famous actress?" Ray teases as we take our seats.
"I'm not famous," I counter. "I've only done one interview, and I don't think they even reviewed our performances on Hunter's Moon."
"When did you perform on Hunter's Moon?" Wes asks.
I smile, remembering the days Data visited me there, and the combination of his presence and my first taste of being an equal member of a theatre troupe. "Last month. Lach took the five of us from the musical."
"I thought you weren't starting performances until September?" The question is from Ray.
"It was a special thing." I'm about to elaborate when the server comes to the table. She recognizes me as a friend of the owners, and asks if we want the usual selection. I've been bringing Idyllwild people here all summer, and they know my preferences. "Do you trust me?" I ask my tablemates, and when both of them say that they do, I confirm. "Yes, the usual."
"How did you find this place?" Ray asks as he sips a Tuskers beer. I'm drinking sparkling Altair water with lime, and Wes is drinking normal ice water – he's still on probation, he says, and can't be caught drinking, even in summer.
"Data introduced me. The owners' daughter is Tewoldi Alazar, from engineering."
Over our meal, we keep the conversation light – Wesley's summer course-load, Ray's leadership seminar, a description of my typical day – but when dessert arrives, it's Tsage herself who serves us and her face is lined with the kind of worry I've seen on my own mother's face from time to time.
"Zoe, I'm glad to see you. Who are your friends?" Even worried, she's warm and gracious.
"Ensign Ray Barnett, and Cadet Wesley Crusher," I introduce. "Wes and I were classmates on the Enterprise; his mother is the Chief Medical Officer. Ray's billeted there now." I make a wry smile. "Well, not now-now, obviously, but…"
She nods and smiles, placing our cups of coffee and the slices of chocolate torte in front of us. "I do not wish to impose," she begins, "but… I have not heard from Tewoldi in over a week, and it is not like her. We have the FleetNet channel, but there has been nothing." Her accent is always musical, in her concern, it is thicker than I'm used to hearing.
Ray, Wes, and I exchange looks, and I can tell we're all thinking the same thing. "I haven't heard from Mom or Data in ten days," I share. "Wes?"
My friend looks a bit sheepish. "Mom and I aren't exactly talking that much right now… but I haven't heard from anyone on the Enterprise since the twelfth or thirteenth."
Ray is only an ensign, but he's also active-duty. "I haven't even tried to check in," he confesses. "First I was on vacation with An – with my girlfriend – " his correction is done to protect Wesley, I know – "and since then I've been at the leadership seminar. I can do some poking around, if you want, but I haven't heard anything."
"Is this one of those times when 'no news is good news' is supposed to apply?" I snark. "Admiral Nechayev is a personal friend." I address my comments mostly to Tsage. "If I haven't heard from my mother or Data by tomorrow morning, I'll call her, and see what I can find out. Alright?"
Tsage's smile is a watery one. "Thank you Zoe." She forces a lighter, more 'customer friendly' tone and adds, "And thank you for bringing more friends. I hope you all come back." She drifts away to check on other diners, but I make a point of finding her before we leave, and when she pulls me into a fierce hug, I don't mind, because she's using me as a substitute for her daughter, and I'm using her as a stand-in for my own mother.
(=A=)
(The following is a representative sampling of the contents of Zoe's comm-system inbox. Assume that all messages are video recordings unless otherwise noted.)
From: Harb Culkin, Generation Next Magazine
To: Ms. Zoe Harris, Corsican Flats #2-A, San Francisco, Earth
Zoe! Zoe! Zoe!
Harb Culkin here! Saw the interview you did with the Chronicle – great stuff. Are you really only seventeen? You're very well spoken for someone so young.
Let me get to the point: Generation Next Magazine is doing a feature article on young, up-and-coming artists, and we'd love to include you. Have your agent or publicist call me, or just comm-me yourself.
From: Lachlan Meade, Idyllwild Theatre Troupe
To: 2368-2ndSeason-TourCast, Idyllwild Theatre Management
(Meade's Scottish brogue is at a medium level of thickness during this missive.)
Lads and Lasses.
I've attached the document with yer schedules fer the month of September. Please look it over. Please note: we're resting Songs for the first week; you five know what yer doin', an' I dinna want things gettin' stale.
We're gonna be runnin' Tenor in the mornin's on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and 'Tempest' in the afternoons all week. Fridays we'll be runnin' Tanagra, and Songs on the odd morning as needed.
The lot of you should expect that critics and agents will be in and out of rehearsals over the next few weeks. Dinna worry; they dinna bite.
Questions? Shoot'em at me by reply, or catch me at the theatre.
Ta!
From: Lachlan Meade, Idyllwild Theatre Troupe
To: Zoe L. Harris, Corsican Flats #2-A, San Francisco, Earth,
To: Zachary Harris, Beach Haven, Centaurus
Lassling –
The management office and my assistant are getting' tired of the number of calls comin' in fer you. I hired you because yer a bright talent, not because I thought ye'd bring us press, but I canna deny the press is a bonus.
I'm sending this to yer Dad as well, because he's likely yer best source fer advice, but I think ye should consider getting an agent. If ye'd rather, I'm glad t'help ye find a good match also.
Whatever ye decide, don't let it be a worry. Yer doin' good work this summer, lassling, and it's the work that matters.
Ta!
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From: Zachary Harris, Beach Haven, Centaurus
To: Zoe L. Harris, Corsican Flats #2-A, San Francisco, Earth
Darling Zoetrope -
Please do me the favor of a live comm-call when you get home? I miss your smiling face and scathing wit.
Love you to the Gamma Quadrant and back again.
- Dad.
From: The Office of Marvin Gratz, MD, PhD, San Francisco, Earth
To: Ms. Zoe Harris, Corsican Flats #2-A, San Francisco, Earth
Ms. Harris,
As you have missed three scheduled appointments in a row, with no calls to cancel, we have pended your files, and released your future appointments.
Please do not hesitate to reschedule at your convenience. Our offices are open 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Regards,
M Gratz / wsmythe
From: Annette Butler, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, Earth
To: Zoe Harris, Corsican Flats #2-A, San Francisco, Earth
Oh my god, Zoe, I saw you on the news! I mean, I saw an interview from the Chronicle and it was you and… why didn't you tell me? The other women in my dorm think I'm a lunatic because as soon as the story came on, I was jumping around our common room going, "That's my friend! I know her!"
We should get together one of these weekends. I miss you!
(=A=)
Stardate 45649.24
(Sunday, 25 August 2368, 2:57 PM PDT, local time)
San Francisco, Earth
From: Zoe L. Harris, Corsican Flats #2-A, San Francisco, Earth
To: Lt. Commander Data, U.S.S Enterprise
Data –
I can't decide if I should keep sending letters on the off-chance that you're getting them and just can't respond, or if I should just wait to hear from you.
Friday night, I met Ray and Wes at Alazar's for dinner, and Tsage said she hadn't heard from Tewoldi for over a week, and when Wes and I compared notes, we realized that nobody has heard anything from the Enterprise in - well, it's about two weeks, now. So, I did something I probably shouldn't have.
I called Alynna and asked her if there was anything she could tell me.
I was expecting to be admonished for abusing our friendship, or at least lectured for going around proper channels (whatever they are… I mean, if I can't contact Mom, and I can't contact you, what proper channels are left?), but she was actually alarmed to hear that no one had been able to comm in or had received mail out.
That was Saturday.
On Sunday, I woke to my comm system chiming, and the admiral's face asking if I would mind joining her for morning mass at the cathedral.
I haven't been to mass since Christmas, but I enjoyed attending her church last summer. There's something so comforting in familiar rituals. Besides, even I recognize that when an admiral invites you to hang out with her, 'no' is never the appropriate answer. So I got dressed as fast as I possibly could, and afterward we went to brunch at this tiny little place just up the block – one of those places that tourists love but locals love more. We went there a few times last summer – I think I mentioned it.
Anyway, over brunch she told me that the only thing she knew was that other ships had reported making course corrections to avoid an expanding spatial anomaly that might have been in the sector where the Enterprise was last known to be – commercial ships, not Starfleet, so she wasn't revealing anything.
I hadn't realized Starfleet paid that much attention to commercial craft, but Alynna said sometimes it's the people who run cargo who know the most about any given region of space, sort of the way long-haul truckers and small-fleet fisherman know the best roads and waterways on any given planet.
That hadn't occurred to me before, but I thought it was interesting.
In other news, rehearsals are going well. I'm more and more comfortable playing Miranda, but I still feel like I'm too young to play her convincingly. Lach says not to worry, that her innocence and sheltered life make her younger than her chronological age. (Lach also says he likes the way I handle Shakespearean language, though, so… whatever. I'm trying to just play that part and not stress over it.)
I wish I could talk to you about it in real time. I trust your opinions. Also, I just miss hearing your voice. There's this crispness to the way you pronounce certain words - mostly words that begin with a hard 'c,' that just makes me shiver.
Actually, there are a lot of things you do that make me shiver.
God, I'm so pathetic.
God, I wish… I just wish I knew what was going on. I mean, bad news would be devastating, but no news is definitely not good.
Trust me on this.
Okay, deep breaths. I'm attaching my Chronicle interview. Within hours of it going on their feed, Lach said, the theatre was getting calls, and I've even had people messaging me at home asking if I'll be in a magazine, or something.
Dad asked me to call him tonight, so I'd better end this so I can do that.
Oh, about the interview… they asked if I was dating anyone, and I didn't know how open I should be, and that's another thing we have to talk about. I mean, everyone on the ship – my family, my immediate friends – they all know we're a couple, but… I mean, this is just one six-month gig, and then I'm a normal person again, but if I continue with a career in theatre – and I think I want to, but ask me again in mid-November when I'm living out of a suitcase – it's going to be a thing.
Tell me I can do this?
I love you.
- Zoe.
P.S. I'm still having bad dreams, but the time in Tara's studio, and forcing myself to actually socialize are helping. Really.
(=A=)
Stardate 45658.47
(Thursday, 29 August 2368, 12:03 AM PDT, local time)
San Francisco, Earth
Smoke. Smoke and klaxons and bodies floating in space. Screaming and pain and klaxons and the violent tremor that comes from an explosion. I know that I'm dreaming, that I'm caught in a nightmare. Wake up, I tell myself. Wake up! But it doesn't work.
Okay, if I can't shake it, maybe I can explore it. I have to be dreaming about explosions for a reason, right?
I look around the place I'm occupying in my dreamscape and catch my reflection. I'm wearing jeans and my purple combat boots. My lips are swollen, my tongue… I stick my tongue out at the mirror – I know it's a mirror now – and there it is, the stud with the data solid in it.
I taste blood and acid and my tongue is thick.
This isn't the ship. This isn't even Lore's yacht. This is the Starbase.
"I had the first taste… and the second. Oh, pigeon… "
Lore's words, but not actually Lore, because I broke him. I broke him while he was breaking me.
I look out the window and feel the explosion again, as it rocks through the station. I see the bodies floating in space.
I hear his voice. No, not Lore's Data's.
I hear words… Reflected shield harmonics, gravitic mines. The boy is the only survivor. The Enterprise has better sensors. Data's words, but not complete sentences.
Is your Data protected? Is your Data secure? What's ahead for your Data?
Smoke and klaxons and the deep rocking of the ship when the cosmic filament hits it.
Data's head in Will's arms.
Data's body scorched.
Klaxons and smoke and explosions and pain and "I had the first taste," and Keep Earth Human!
And everything clicks.
My nightmare resolves.
Wake up. Wake Up! WAKE UP!
I open my eyes to my bedroom, brightly lit by the full moon shining through the open curtains. I'd left the window open so I could watch the moonrise. My apartment is cold, and I shiver.
Tea. I need tea.
I get out of bed, pulling sweatpants on under my t-shirt. Data's t-shirt. Still chilly, I get the uniform jacket he gave me on Centaurus and put it on as well. The sleeves hang past my hands, like always. If I were to look in the mirror, what would I see – a scared little girl or a young woman wrapped in her lover's clothes? Probably… a bit of both.
I padd out to the kitchen, the floor cold under my bare feet. I don't like wasting replicator credits on tea, but boiling water will take too long.
"Tea, peppermint, hot. Pot of honey."
My order shimmers into existence and I take the tray to the couch, and turn on the entertainment system, flipping channels. Infomercial. Infomercial. Horror movie – not in the mood for blood and gore. Too bad, it's one of my favorites. Keep flipping, Zoe. Slavegirl Diaries – it's meant to be a soft-porn soap opera about Orion sex-workers. I've heard it's actually really well written. Not tonight.
FNN. A reporter is on site at Starbase Twelve. "Just over a year ago, this travel hub was torn apart, quite literally, by a terrorist's bomb. Four days from now, dignitaries from Earth, Andor, Centaurus, and Mars will gather to pay tribute to the victims of the September Second attacks, and honor their memories by being onsite for the reopening of the Green Sector of the starbase…"
I change the channel again, and settle on a family-friendly dramedy about a single mother and her teenaged daughter who live on Hunter's Moon. Having been there, the jokes about everything being wrapped in fluorescent tube-lighting make more sense to me.
I sip my tea.
Monday is the anniversary of the bombing, which means Monday is the anniversary of Lore piercing my tongue. I haven't heard from Data in seventeen days. Either one of those things is enough to give me nightmares, but together… It's no wonder my brain has been messed up half the summer.
Data would appreciate the fact that I solved it myself.
Deanna would suggest that something must have triggered the nightmares in the first place. Does it matter what it was? Maybe. Maybe not. She'd suggested I keep a journal once, or a log, and I'd scoffed at the notion but maybe it isn't such a bad idea, after all. Something to think about…
I drain my cup, and switch the channel again, this time to FleetNet. Still no mention of the Enterprise. The cup goes into the recycler and I go back to bed. I don't have rehearsals in the morning, but I do have plans to meet Oberlyne and Tara for lunch before afternoon rehearsals, and they'll worry if I look like I've been up all night.
Lying in the too-big-without-Data-to-share-it bed, I stare at the moon, and just for a second, I imagine it smiling at me, but it's only my imagination.
(=A=)
Stardate 45660.99
(Thursday, 29 August 2368, 10:09 PM PDT, local time)
San Francisco, Earth
I'm about to get into the bathtub when my comm-system starts going crazy.
Incoming message from Lt. Commander Emily Harris. Incoming message from Lt. Commander Deanna Troi.
I hold my breath, one foot on the floor, the other resting on the side of the claw-foot tub, waiting for the rest.
Incoming message from Dana Swenson. Incoming message from Keiko O'Brien.
But nothing from Data.
Incoming message from Lt. Commander Geordi LaForge. Incoming message from Captain Jean-Luc Picard.
I step away from the tub, and grab the closest thing there is to wrap around myself – Data's jacket. I'd slept in it, and left it on the hook when I showered this morning. I don't even bother to fasten it closed, before I go to the couch and tell the comm to send the messages to the entertainment system screen in chronological order.
"Zoe, honey, the ship's been caught in a time loop," my mother's voice. Dana and Keiko's letters – brief notes, really – are much the same.
Geordi's letter is more specific. "So we were stuck in this loop for seventeen days, Zo' and I probably don't need to tell you that it was Data who figured out how to get us out of it."
Good to know, G-man, but where is Data? "Play message from Captain Picard," I tell the computer.
His crisp tones inform me only that he has received my last letter but due to the time distortion, it will be several days before he can answer properly.
I'm about to play Deanna's letter when the comm erupts again, this time with a subspace call from the Bozeman. The Bozeman? I don't know anyone on that ship. But I take the call, and when the image – the quality isn't great – stabilizes, I'm flooded with relief and joy.
"Data! Oh, god, you're alive."
"Yes, Zoe. Very much so."
"The comm started going ballistic about an hour ago and there were all these messages, but nothing from you and… I was so scared and worried and… you were caught in a time loop?"
"We were," he confirms. "I am afraid I only have a moment to speak with you. I am aboard the U.S.S. Bozeman, en route to Earth. We will be arriving at San Francisco Spacedock in approximately one week." He pauses, seemingly noticing what I'm wearing. "I do not believe a uniform jacket has ever looked so… stimulating."
I glance down at the open jacket, and blush, pulling it closed. "I was stepping into the tub and it was close," I explain.
"I am gratified that it gives you comfort." There's something in his eyes, in his voice, that isn't typically there, but it's only for a second and then it's gone. "I will not be able to speak with you again until we arrive, but I am certain that Admiral Nechayev will keep you apprised." Again, he pauses. "I will see you soon."
I don't know what my face looks like to him, but I feel like my smile must be blinding. "Okay," I say. "I love you."
He doesn't tell me he's devoted to me. Instead, he touches his fingers to his lips, and blows me a kiss. That and the slight tilt of his head, the faint flicker of his eyes, are all I need.
The connection drops.
(=A=)
Stardate 45678.62
(Thursday, 5 September 2368, 09:00 hours, Zulu Time)
San Francisco Spacedock
Starfleet Arrivals is on lockdown when I get there, but Alynna Nechayev, who also arranged for my transporter pass, has put my name on a list, and when I check in with the security guard he scans my retina and reads my thumbprint and tells me that since I'm meeting a senior officer I should go to Lounge B until I'm called.
Unsurprisingly, the lounge is almost empty. The Bozeman, it seems, has been displaced in time by nearly a century. Instead of family and friends meeting the ship, each group of ten officers has been assigned a counselor and an ombudsman.
I, however, am not meeting one of the time-displaced; I am meeting the acting first officer, on loan from the Enterprise.
I'm meeting Data, and I know, because I asked Geordi, that he has never, in his entire life, had anyone meet him at Arrivals.
I get to the lounge just as they open the door from the umbilical walkway that connects to an airlock on the Bozeman, and I join the cadre of officers and counselors waiting to greet the crew. Data, because he is not really part of that crew, is the first of the officers to disembark.
I watch him, fascinated, as he walks purposefully across the umbilical from the ship. His eyes are forward, his posture perfect. In some ways, he's never looked more like the android he is. I shift my position slightly, and just that little movement is enough to draw his attention. His focus changes. Our eyes meet.
I don't precisely run to him, and Data certainly does not run to me, but in the space of a breath we are standing toe to toe. "Surprise," I say by way of a greeting. And then, because the Starfleet-sanctioned press corps has arrived I ask softly, "Am I allowed to hug you here?"
His answer is to gather me into his arms and nuzzle my hair briefly, but I can practically feel him calculating the degree of affection it would appropriate to display before he steps back just enough to have room to raise his hand to my chin, and bend his head so he can touch his lips to mine in a kiss that is chaste enough for public consumption, but leaves no doubt about our relationship. Only then does he breathe my name, adding, "I have missed you."
Somehow, perhaps because two admirals have become a very visible presence, we manage to leave Lounge B without the reporters asking us any questions. Even so, I am certain our picture will make it into the tabloids before morning.
I'm not wrong.
(=A=)
We don't really speak until Data's been cleared through the expedited version of immigration and we've beamed back to the Earth, to San Francisco Spaceport. On the ground, I confuse Data by heading toward the parking facility instead of to the transporter pads or ground transportation.
Realization hits. "In all the letters I sent – did you get any of them? – I think I forgot to mention that my grandparents gave me a loaner-flitter. They'll reclaim it after the wedding. You're welcome to drive it though." I yawn, and don't even have the decency to look embarrassed. "I finally figured out how to avoid the nightmares, but last night I didn't sleep because I was anticipating this morning." I glance sidelong at him. "Were you surprised that I met you?"
"Yes," he confirms, "I was. How did you obtain permission to do so?"
"Alynna arranged it. I'm afraid the payback is that we're going to a dinner at her house tonight, though. Do you mind much? She said you'd probably have to be in briefings most of next week, since you're representing the Enterprise, but that we could have the weekend and Monday before you're called in." I hesitate before unlocking my flitter, for we've arrived at its parking space. "Well, you'll have the weekend and Monday. I have rehearsals tomorrow, but it's only a half-day, since I'm not in the Darmok play."
I'm babbling, and I know it's because I'm nervous about his reaction to the letters I sent – letters that he probably received all at once. It's as though, if I can prevent any silence we won't have to discuss things like my meltdown after the last visit to Dr. Gratz, or the fact that I'm suddenly Lachlan Meade's latest discovery – at least, if you follow entertainment news.
But this is Data, and he's an astute observer of the human condition, in general, and my condition, specifically. Before I can slide into the passenger seat, he takes my hand. "Wait, Zoe." I turn around, so my back is up against the side of the air car and he takes my other hand as well. "I received all your letters, and have watched every recording and read every missive. Your distress also distressed me because I could not be here to help you through it. Had the Enterprise not been caught in the temporal disturbance, I would have come to you immediately."
"Even though you'd only seen me a month before?"
"Yes," he says.
"What did I do to deserve you?" My question is completely serious.
"It is not about deserving, Zoe," Data says, his matter-of-fact delivery only giving his statement more weight. "It is about belonging. We belong together."
I smile, and stretch up to kiss him. "I need to eat and get to rehearsal. Do you want to drop me at the Idyllwild building and take the flitter home?"
"That is an acceptable plan," he agrees. I shift away from the door so he can open it, and I slide into the passenger seat, giving him the access code as I do so.
Data handles the controls of the vehicle as deftly as he pilots everything else, and I enjoy just watching his concentration, his fingers playing over the buttons. I indulge in a brief daydream of the two of us flying somewhere much farther away than downtown San Francisco. Centaurus, maybe, or Terlina III. Our house in the jungle would be a great place for a private… wait… our house? I turn my face away, stare out the window. Stop it, Zoe… enjoy what you already have. If more is meant to be, it will come in time.
I have no idea where that thought even came from.
(=A=)
Stardate 45682.38
(Friday, 6 September 2368, 6:02 PM PDT, local time)
San Francisco, Earth
When I walk through the door of my apartment after an afternoon that had been co-opted by two more interviews and a presentation performance of Songs for a New World (we only performed three songs, no costumes, only the piano for accompaniment) for a couple of theatre 'angels' and the critics from Beings Magazine and FNN, I can tell that something is different. The lights are lower, and the candles on the table have been lit.
"Data?" I call into the softly lit space. "Are you here?"
He emerges from the bedroom wearing the form-fitting red knit shirt I loved seeing him in, tucked into black trousers. "I am here," he says softly, dipping his head to kiss me. "I took the liberty of replicating one of the dishes you introduced me to on the Enterprise."
"You're a saint," I tell him. I drop my purse on the floor and reach for his head with both hands, burying my fingers in his hair, and standing on tiptoe for better access when I return his kiss. The familiar faintly cashew taste of him mixes with the scent of the food he's prepared. "You made zucchini cashew casserole? How did you even get that recipe?" I glance at the table again, and the candles, the perfect place settings, register in a different way. "Are we celebrating something? Have I missed some obscure android-specific holiday?" I'm only half-teasing. There are still personal traditions neither of us has been able to share with the other.
"You have not." He glances at the table as well, and then to the couch. "Will you sit with me?" Curious, I follow him to the couch, where we settle into our usual positions. "Captain Bateson and I had many conversations during the Bozeman's journey back to Earth," he says. "He spoke of the wife and children he had left behind, and I told him about you. At one point, he asked how long we had been a couple, and I realized that there were many correct answers to that question."
I hadn't really considered that before. "Oh?"
"We could count from the shuttle trip from the Enterprise to Centaurus last December," Data explains, "but we could also claim the date last November, when – "
"- when I saw your paintings of me." I cut him off, finishing his thought.
"Precisely. Other dates are equally significant: the night of your last birthday, the night of your brother's birth…"
"The day we first put Lore's chip in your head…" I add.
"Yes. However, there is one event that I believe could be considered our 'pivotal moment.' It was stardate four-four-six-eight-two-point-one-eight."
"Can you convert that for me?" I should recognize it, but I don't.
"September sixth, twenty-three sixty-seven," Data clarifies. "At approximately twenty-three fifty-six hours, ship's time. It was a moment precipitated by external forces and yet, it was also a turning point in my perception of you, and in our relationship. It was…"
His words suddenly penetrate my brain, and I finish the sentence with him, "… the first time we really kissed."
He continues. "In a sense, today is our anniversary. Just as you realized that your recent spate of nightmares was triggered in part by the anniversary of what happened on Starbase Twelve, I have realized that we must reclaim this day, because it is the day I began to believe I could be an adequate partner, and one day, a suitable mate for you."
My eyes are misty, but I don't cry. Instead I move across the couch so I can wrap myself around him. "Data, you are so much more than 'adequate.' But 'suitable mate?' Really? Any woman would be lucky to have you."
He nuzzles my hair. "Perhaps. But 'any woman' will not suit me. Only you do." He places a kiss over my carotid artery, and I know he can feel my pulse racing.
"Is dinner in stasis?" I ask, and the apparent non-sequitur is not lost on him.
"We have time," he answers, lifting me onto his lap, but when my hands meet behind his neck, he surprises me by standing up, cradling me against the solidity of his body, and carrying me to the bedroom, to the bed I've been told is meant for lovers.
I gasp when I realize he's arranged candles here, too.
I reach for Data's shirt, tugging it from his trousers, but he stills my hands. "Please allow me," he requests, and when I nod approval he removes his own clothing first, before undressing me. His long, elegant fingers are cool and gentle against my skin, and the flickering candlelight turns him almost rose-gold.
"God, you're beautiful," I observe, not for the first time.
"As I have reminded you more than once, I am only Data… and you have stolen my line. You are beautiful Zoe." I'm sitting on the edge of the bed, and he lowers his head, first to kiss me and then to whisper in my ear, "There is something I wish to attempt, but if it makes you uncomfortable, we will stop."
"Do I get a hint?" I ask.
"It is something where android strength is an asset," is his cryptic response. "I must ask you to… trust me."
"Always," I say, and mean it.
At first, I am confused. His kisses and touches aren't that different from any other time we've made love, but when I want to lie back, when I need him to be inside me, he surprises me yet again, lifting me from the bed and bearing all of my weight, guiding me downward until he's sheathed within my deepest center.
I grasp his shoulders and cross my ankles behind him, more for balance than anything. I've seen this position – we've seen it together, actually – when we were flipping channels in the hotel on Hunter's Moon, and stopped on one of the questionable porn channels struck by the sheer cheesiness of it. I'd expressed disbelief that anyone could actually do that, never expecting that Data would catalogue the move and try it someday.
Multiple techniques, indeed, I think, before I can't think because my partner – my lover – is lifting me, lowering me, against him – on him. It's slow, and intense, and when I reach climax my shuddering release seems to come from somewhere so deep inside me I can't imagine anything more, and I bury my face in my boyfriend's neck to keep from scaring the neighbors with the sounds he's elicited.
When it's over, we relocate to the bed for more slow touching and kissing, until my stomach rumbles, ruining the mood. I can't help but burst out laughing. "I'm sorry." The words are pushed out between giggles.
"Perhaps we should have eaten first," Data observes.
"Uh-uh. That performance was better than any food." But we dress and return to the candlelit table and the dinner he admits he asked my mother for help with.
We forego dessert in favor of round two, which happens entirely in the bed.
(=A=)
Afterward, I lay with my head on Data's chest, and his arms around me. I lift my hand to play with his hair – I love his hair – and I ask softly. "Earlier… when you used the phrase 'suitable mate,' did you mean… you were referring to marriage, weren't you?"
"It is something I have considered more and more often as our relationship has progressed," he says. "Do you wish to marry, Zoe?"
For half a second I stop breathing, but I realize he's asking to gather information. "Someday, yeah," I answer truthfully. "Not, you know, tomorrow or anything."
"That would be extremely premature," he agrees.
"But you've thought about it… about us?"
"Did you expect otherwise?" Data asks me. "We have both stated we wish a future together."
"We have," I confirm. "It's just… all my life I've been taught that it's important for women to establish themselves as independent people before they make those sorts of commitments. Gran – Dad's mother – sends this letter to all the girls in the family when they come of age, with this sort of checklist of things you're supposed to do before you get married – have a tragic love affair, travel, live on your own, finish school, start a career."
"It would seem that you have already met many of those obligations," Data observes.
"Yes…" I say. "Except for the big one… I'm not even starting college for another year. And while, ideally, I'd like to delay any big commitments until I've graduated and maybe worked for a year..." I trail off, uncertain of how to complete my thought.
"That is not an unreasonable request," Data begins, but I silence him with a finger to his lips.
"I'd like to delay things," I said, "but I also know that your career is inherently risky, and functionally immortal or not, you can still be harmed. And it isn't just me who's been having a hard time being apart this summer."
"No, it is not."
"I want you to promise me something… "
"Tell me."
"I want you to promise me that you won't propose before I'm nineteen. Because if you do, I won't be able to say no to you, and it's too soon. I'm not ready yet. I'm just barely learning how to be your girlfriend – how to be with an officer. I think… I think I need some significant time in rank before I'm a candidate for promotion to wife." After I finish talking I have a moment of panic. Had I been too presumptuous? "I'm sorry," I say. "I shouldn't have said anything."
Data gathers me more closely against him. "You have said nothing wrong, and I am gratified to know that we are both 'on the same page' where our future is concerned."
"So much for roadmaps with vague topography," I snark, referring to a conversation we had at home in our quarters on the Enterprise. But then I remember that we only have the weekend and maybe a few more days beyond that before we have to separate again. "Data… will we ever get to a point where one of us isn't leaving?"
"I do not know when," he answers honestly, though his tone is gentle, "but I am certain that we will 'figure out a way.'"
As the candles burn themselves out, Data and I lie in my darkened bedroom, holding each other and talking. I finally start to drift toward sleep just as the sky is turning light, and I don't fight it, because I know any dreams I might have will be happy ones.
Notes: First. Dr. Gratz is, yes, completely unprofessional. Please trust me when I tell you there's a reason for his behavior, and he may not be what he seems. The four plays in Idyllwild's rotation are: Lend Me a Tenor, Songs for a New World, The Tempest, and a Kabuki-style version of the original fable of Darmok and Jalad, Tanagra Uncloaked. This last is my own invention. Niantic, CT is at present, part of East Lyme, CT. The times for dawn and low tide are based on estimates for August of this year. The date of the full moon in August, 2368 is from TimeAndDate DOT com. In contemporary aviation and the military, Zulu time is shorthand for UTC. As Starfleet Command is based in San Francisco, I've decided that Zulu time in the CRUSHverse is based on San Francisco's time zone. Morgan Bateson (played by Kelsey Grammer) is the captain of the U.S.S. Bozeman in the episode "Cause and Effect." Data and Zoe's first kiss takes place in chapter 6 of Crush II: Ostinato. Inspiration for the sex scene is courtesy of ReLive4Love.
