Loaded Gun, Finished Fear

A loaded gun

A finished fear

The hugs and tears of our reunion morph into a messy, gossipy conversation over breakfast in Data's rooms with each of us trying to catch the other up at the same time we're listening, and eating, and (at least in my case) attempting to include our host by providing context.

It quickly proves to be too much for my frail father. He asks apologetically if we might continue in the afternoon, over tea in one of the common rooms. No sooner have I expressed agreement (I'm a little overwhelmed, myself, and what else can I do?) then he takes leave of us, his waning footsteps syncopated by the thump of his cane. Apparently, he hasn't yet mastered the trick of moving it at the same time has his weak leg.

Left alone with Data, I'm at a loss. I've eaten enough that I'm no longer hungry, and I feel bad leaving him to clean up, so I push up my sleeves and begin stacking plates back onto the cart near the door – our morning meal had not come from any replicator.

Quick as lightning, his hands reach out to grip mine. "Zoe… your wrists…"

I glance at the half-forgotten marks from my time with Lore the last night I was on the ship, and I blush. "It's not what you think…" I begin, and then I amend. "Actually, I have no idea what you think, but it's nothing I'm not… used to."

"My brother did this?" he asks.

"He did," I answer carefully.

"As a disciplinary measure?"

"Not exactl… no." His unwavering yellow-eyed gaze has me looking up, and for some reason I can't dissemble with him. Or maybe I'm just grateful to talk to someone I don't have to lie to or evade all the time. "He likes to be in control," I explain softly. "The night before I left, he decided that meant I didn't get to use my hands."

He pushes the cart of used dishes out the door, then returns to request, "Please come with me."

"I thought you were keeping me away from everyone?" I make it a question.

"You are unarmed, and I do not believe you will risk doing anything to further distress your father in his poor health."

"No," I agreed. "I won't."

"Very good." As he had on the Starbase, he puts a guiding hand at my back, but this morning I find his touch not so much jarring as reassuring. Maybe this is his plan. Seduce me with kindness until I beg to stay. Inwardly, I admit, it wouldn't take much. Even though I've seen practically nothing of the facility, met no one, there's a… a feeling… here of warmth and security. Constant vigilance! I remind myself, remembering a phrase used often in a favorite book from childhood.

(+A+)

The medical center Data brings me to is bright and cozy, with several mismatched chairs and a couple of shabby couches forming waiting areas. The doctor on duty introduces herself as "Dr. Ogawa, but we're not formal here. You can call me Alyssa."

Her friendly professionalism instantly puts me at ease. "I'm Zoe," I say.

"She is the maestro's daughter," Data adds helpfully.

"I see the family resemblance," she grins. I match her expression. My father and I look almost nothing alike. He's blonde; my hair is chestnut-brown. His eyes are blue; mine brown. Before he went to prison, he would have been five or six centimeters taller than Data, whereas I knew from experience with his brother that I came to just below the android's chin. "So, are you here for your 'welcome' physical?" Alyssa asks, and, unsure of what the correct response is, I defer to my host.

"Zoe has injuries to her wrists," Data supplies. "And I suspect there are other injuries that are less obvious. However, if you have time, an 'entrance exam' would be a prudent measure. Zoe will be our guest for… some time."

If Data's referral to me as a 'guest' gives Alyssa any qualms, she hides them well. "Sure thing," she breezes. "Why don't you go have a seat while Zoe and I do this?" she suggests. Half-teasing (I think) she adds, "You can still guard her from chairs."

"Very good," Data repeats the phrase he used earlier and moves away from us.

Alyssa, meanwhile, leads me a few meters further into the med center, to a privacy cubical with an exam bed inside. "Hop up," she invites. "Let's talk about your injuries first."

I show her my wrists, and she examines them. "These are a couple of days old. Data didn't have to restrain you, did he?"

"No, they're left over from… a partner."

"Ah." It's clear she comprehends exactly how I got the marks. "Any other injuries of a similar nature?" she asks, a note of sympathy in her voice, which she's pitched low to make it more difficult for Data to hear, though I suspect he could, if he chose to.

"Not similar, but… related, I guess?" I say. "There's a bite wound on my left breast. It hurts a lot, and it was oozing a little this morning."

"Alright," she says gently. "Let's have a look."

I remove my shirt and bra, wincing when the latter comes away from my nipple. Alyssa, I notice, winces with me. "That looks infected," she says. She picks up a medical tricorder and medical probe and scans the wound. "I'm going to give you an antibiotic, Zoe," she explains, trading the scanning equipment for a hypospray. "Then I'll use a dermal regenerator on the wound itself and on your wrists." I feel the stinging hiss of the injection.

"Thanks," I say.

The dermal regenerator is next, and even though it also stings a little, that pain dissipates quickly, and my breast and wrists are soon unmarked. Lore's instructions to leave the mark on my breast echoes in my head, and I shake it slightly, as if I can physically shift the memory away from my conscious mind.

"Okay, lie back now," Alyssa requests, and I comply, resting my head on the pillow she's provided. "I'm going to run a general scan, and ask you a few questions."

"Go for it." Medically, at least, I have nothing to hide

"You're sexually active?" she confirms.

"Yes."

"Is there any chance you could be pregnant?" She must see me stiffen, because she adds, "Sorry, it's a standard question."

"Oh. No. There's no chance." Beyond no chance. A negative chance.

"Contraception?" I tell her I'm on annual injections, and she nods. The exam bar of the bed – it's an older model – moves over me from head to toe, beeping different tones. "Hold exam," she instructs after a high-pitched beep that sounds more insistent than the others. "Zoe, when's the last time you had a pelvic exam?"

"When I first arrived on the Enterprise," I tell her. "Last September." It's currently March, on Earth. I haven't had that sort of physical since before I started sleeping with Lore. "Why? Is something wrong?"

"There's unusual scarring on your vaginal walls."

My voice is soft when I ask her. "Does it look as though… as if a mild acid came into contact with… me?"

Dr. Ogawa – Alyssa - is reconfiguring the controls, changing the parameters of the scanning device, so I can't see her expression, but there's a sort of hum from the diagnostic scanner, and another beep, and she tells me. "Yes. It looks a lot like that." Gently, sympathetically, she asks, "Zoe… is the partner who tied you up and bit you the same person who caused this?"

"Yes."

"Is your relationship consensual?"

I squeeze my eyes shut. "It is… and it isn't. He's the first officer of my ship, and I'm a cadet, a woman, and the daughter of a powerful senator. He can be charming. He can also be brutal, and our relationship is based on power and politics and protection. I'm… he's never forced me to stay with him, but when we're together, in private, he's always the one in control." I pause. "You must think I'm weak and stupid and – "

But the older woman cuts me off. "There's no judgement here, Zoe." Her voice is warm and calm. "I was a cadet once, not so long ago," she shares. "A lot of us were. My section commander worked his way through almost every woman in our year, promising protection, plum assignments, lots of things. So, no, I don't think you're weak or stupid. If you were, you'd never have survived even six months on a ship like the Enterprise, and certainly not in a relationship with someone like…." She stops herself.

"You know who he is, don't you?"

"The Enterprise is a famous ship, Zoe. And Data…"

But I don't need her to finish that sentence, because I can fill in the blanks for myself. Data feels guilty for Lore's behavior. That's probably why he's being nice to me.

"I understand," I tell her. "So… am I clear of any scary diseases?"

"You are," she confirms with a friendly smile. "Hold still a minute and I can heal that scarring," she adds.

I nod. She presses a button. I feel the familiar tingle of dermal regeneration in a wholly unfamiliar location, but it's over in a few minutes, and Alyssa is swinging the scanning arm away from me, and helping me to sit up. She hands me my shirt and I put it back on with a muttered, "Thank you."

"Listen, Zoe… I'm sure being here is overwhelming for you, even with Data and the maestro watching over you. If you need an ear – if you want a friend – come find me. Please?"

Her expression is open, her eyes fixed on mine. "Thank you," I repeat, adding her name, "Alyssa. I don't know how long I'm staying or how much freedom of movement I'll have, but I truly appreciate the offer."

She lets me leave then, and I return to the waiting area to find Data sitting with a young boy of about twelve, their heads bent over a padd. He's the age I was when Dad was taken.

"Do you remember the mnemonic device I taught you, to help remember how these equations function?" I hear Data ask, his voice in an obvious 'teaching mode,' a gentler version of the one I've heard Lore use with my classmates during exercises. "It begins with an 'f,'" he hints.

"Fo… foal, no… foel?" The boy glances at Data, but the android's expression is neutral. "FOIL!" He doesn't quite shout the word.

"Very good. And what do the letters in 'foil' represent?"

"First, outside, inside, last," the boy chants. "Oh… so I do this…" and he uses a stylus on the padd. "And then this, and this…" More taps and scribbles. "And the answer is seventeen."

"That is correct, Noah. You did very well."

I see the boy's pleased grin, which turns shy when he notices me. "Wesley said Data brought the maestro's daughter here to be with him until he dies. Are you her?"

Dying? My father is dying?

The boy's statement has thrown me, but the man with the answers is sitting right next to him, so I pull myself together. "I'm Zoe," I tell him. "Algebra was hard for me at first, too."

"I'm Noah. I hate math, but Data makes it so it's not so bad."

I manage a weak smile. "I bet he does."

"Noah, you are late to your math class," Data reminds him gently.

"So are you," the boy shoots back.

"Wesley will be leading your class today," comes the android's response. "I am needed for other tasks just now. Will you take your padd, and demonstrate the next two problems for your classmates?"

The boy clearly doesn't want to leave; I can see him weighing options in his head, the same way I did at his age. "Yeah, okay. Thanks for the help, Data." He leaves the couch they're sharing, and heads off in the opposite direction we'd come from earlier, pausing to call back, "Tell Aunt Alyssa I'll see her at dinner!"

Data promises to do so, and the boy runs off. He waits a beat before addressing me. "Your father had intended to inform you of his condition himself. I am sorry you had to find out so…"

"Suddenly?" I ask.

"Indeed."

"I told Alyssa a few minutes ago that Lore could be cruel, but this… you? You're just as bad, Data, dragging me here to see the father I thought was dead, just to wait for it to happen so – what? So you can send me back to the Enterprise on a suicide mission, or send me off to Earth to do something to my mother?"

"That was never our intent," he responds in the firm-but-gentle tone I'm beginning to learn is his trademark. "Rather, it is your father's hope that you will join our community, and work for the benefit of our cause."

"But you said…?"

"I said that you would see your father, which you have done, and that you would be given the opportunity to perform a service for us," he reminded me, his tone still gentle, but less firm. "You interpreted that to mean a mission for the Resistance, and should you choose to join us, it is possible that such a mission could occur. However, the service I referred to in our initial conversation is simply to ease the maestro's final weeks with your presence."

"Oh, is that all?" My tone is snarky and bitter, and I'm not sorry. "Just act as a balm to a dying man I haven't seen since I was a child?"

"I can see that you are upset." I wonder if he was programmed with customer service skills, or if he's really as sympathetic as he appears. "If you will allow me to, I would like to help."

"Help?" I still sound bitter, but, at least to my own ears, I also sound exactly how I feel: incredibly young, and terribly lost. "Help how?" I'm pacing in front of him. "Can you go back in time to when he was arrested and prevent me from being sent to my mother? Can you erase the last eight years? Can you give me the life of art and music that I was supposed to have? Because the one I'm living involves being terrified and exhausted about ninety percent of the time."

I realize that Data, who may well be a candidate for sainthood, is sitting there letting me rail at him, and abruptly, I change tacks. "Do you have a gym?"

"A gym?"

"Or a music room? Music and physical exertion are how I… process." He seems to be waiting for more, so I elaborate. "Back home - on Centaurus? - I used swim or surf almost every day. On Earth, with my mother, I surfed and at the prep school she sent me to, I rowed crew. At the Academy, the focus was on combat training, but there was still a pool, and there were guards to make sure no one 'accidentally' drowned, but what I fell in love with was boxi…" I trail off, because the look I'm getting is one of consideration and evaluation. "What?"

"We do not have a dedicated music room. Many of us play instruments, and there is a piano in the common room where we will be meeting with your father, later. I cannot offer you a swimming pool, I am afraid, but we have a small gymnasium with a heavy bag and some weights. If you wish, I will accompany you there and you can 'burn off steam.'"

"I'm sure this isn't how you planned to spend your day."

"I had planned to get to know you – the 'real' you, and not the child your father remembers – as much as you would allow. If accommodating your desire for physical exercise will further that goal, I am amenable."

"You're studying me," I accuse.

"In a sense, yes," he admits. "While I do not believe you are likely to go on a killing spree, and while I have ensured that you have no access to outside communication, you are still somewhat of an 'unknown quantity,' and I cannot allow you to roam freely without being certain it is safe to do so."

"So, I am a prisoner!"

"No. You are a guest. Merely one who must remain under… supervision… for a time."

"Does supervision include spotting me with the heavy bag?"

"If you wish."

"Any chance there's someone I can borrow some clothes from?"

"Clothes?"

Gesturing to my current attire, I explain, "This and what I wore yesterday are basically everything I have with me other than my uniform. When I left the Enterprise, I'd been expecting to meet my mother's yacht where there's a private suite and a closet full of clothes that belong to me. Being kidn – " I pause at his look and amend "- diverted here wasn't exactly something I could plan for. If you'll recall, I stole a t-shirt from you last night… or was that this morning? I'm still a little space-lagged."

Data's eyes begin to flicker back and forth in an eerily birdlike fashion. "It was early this morning, local time. There are several women in here who are close to your size," he tells me after his eyes refocus. "But, I believe there are items in stores that will be better suited."

"You store clothing?"

"We retain nearly everything we find, but we also have several merchants and vendors who help us acquire goods and supplies. As well, we make 'shopping trips' from time to time."

"Of course, you do."

"Do you wish to accompany me?"

I was instantly calm. "Yes, please."

We go to the supply room, where I select several outfits, underwear, socks, and workout gear. I decide against any of the nightwear – it's all too frilly, and I already have Data's t-shirt. After leaving my new wardrobe in his quarters, he takes me to the gym, and lets me whale away at a heavy bag for the better part of an hour.

We both know I'm working out frustration, confusion, and distress, but he doesn't ask questions, and when, at the end, I break down in incoherent sobs, he pulls me into a warm, solid, hug, and rubs circles on my back until I'm calm.

(+A+)

My father is already in the common room, seated in a wing chair with his feet propped on an ottoman and a lap blanket covering his legs when Data and I arrive. My hair is damp from my second shower of the day, but the exercise has me feeling more centered than I was earlier. I notice that the piano has a round stool, the kind I used to spin on until I was sick when I was a kid, and I choose to sit there.

"Do you still play, Pigeon?" my father asks.

"There isn't a lot of time for music at the Academy, and no opportunity at all on the Enterprise," I inform him, but I see disappointment darkening his blue eyes, and I add, "I play whenever I'm home. Mom keeps the baby grand in tune for me."

My mother is a ruthless politician, and not above using her own daughter as a pawn in her games, but she loves music as much as the rest of us, and ensured I kept up with private lessons when an arts school was taken away from my educational options.

Out of habit, I test the keys of this piano. They're a little mushy, but the instrument is in tune, and I start noodling a bit while Data and my father have a quiet conversation. If I paid attention I'd be able to hear what they were saying, but I'd been asked to give them a moment, and, for now, I'm willing to comply.

Also, I'm using my time to figure out how – or if – I should confront Dad about the truth of his health.

My noodling resolves in to Bach's "Minuet in G," but it's too spritely a song for what I'm feeling, and I modulate out of it, and into a song I remember from childhood about a child afraid of thunder.

I haven't sung it in forever, but suddenly the words are there, and I can't not let them out:

"Little child, be not afraid
Though rain pounds harsh against the glass
Like an unwanted stranger.
There is no danger.
I am here tonight."

Music has always been a balm for me, a way to process everything. Swimming. Boxing. Music. I've been here less than twenty-four hours and checked off two out of three, almost as if it's been planned.

"And I hope that you'll know
That nature is so.
This same rain that draws you near me
Falls on rivers and land
And forests and sand -
Makes the beautiful world that you see
In the morning."

"Everything's fine in the morning.
The rain will be gone in the morning,
But I'll still be here in the morning."

It's only when my father joins in on the last three lines, his once-powerful voice now reedy and thin, that I realize I've stopped the conversation, that I've been singing full-out, instead of under my breath, and that Alyssa and a few other people are hovering in the doorway.

"I'm sorry," I say, closing the lid so I won't be tempted to play more. "I didn't mean to disrupt anything."

But when I turn to my father, I notice that his cheeks are wet with tears, and I realize that with his broken hands and wrecked voice, the man they call the maestro can't make music any more.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Pigeon," my father assures me. "I've missed your singing."

"You used to criticize me constantly," I remind him. "'Don't belt, Zoe. Breathe from your diaphragm, Zoe. If you lift your eyebrows when you attack the high note you won't be flat, Zoe. Remember, coo like a pigeon, Zoe, don't scream like a crow.'"

"Is that where your nickname comes from?" Data asks, interrupting our nostalgia moment.

"It is," my father confirms. "But we have other things we must discuss. Alyssa; I can see you hovering. I'm fine, for the moment. Data, would you mind getting tea for everyone. My pigeon prefers herbal blends."

"Certainly, sir." Data leaves his chair – a shabby wingchair that is a mate to my father's – and moves to the replicator to procure tea for all of us. He's either incredibly thoughtful, or he provides afternoon tea for my father often, because he brings a plate of fruit, cheese, and crackers as well as enough mint tea for three, and honey for those (me) who want it.

I leave the piano stool and perch on the ottoman Data isn't using, forming an intimate circle with the two men. While I listen to my father outline the trauma he experienced in prison, I watch Data deftly guiding a mug into the older man's hands, and steadying his trembling grip.

"The agony booth caused most of the damage, Pigeon," my father shares between slurps of tea, and tiny nibbles of cheese and crackers. He avoids the fruit, but encourages me to indulge in the crisp apples and sweet grapes. "At first, the sessions were random, given in response to a perceived slight, or an invented infraction. By the time Data orchestrated my release, I was in it almost daily."

I shivered. "I've been put in the booth on the Enterprise," I confess. I don't tell them it was one of Lore's kinky sex games, another of his attempts to mix pleasure and pain. Low-level bursts of the energy that basically rips your cells apart from each other and knocks them back together, just at the point of orgasm. But I avert my eyes when I tell them, and I have a feeling Data suspects why I was in it. "Even at a low dose it's horrible. It took me days to recover… I can't imagine. Daddy, I wish…"

"I know," my father soothes. "I wish you'd at least known I was alive, child. I confess, there were days when I also wished I would die."

"When did they break your hands?"

"It happened a few weeks before my escape. A guard decided to make a point. When I was too slow to get up and walk to the booth, he crushed my hands with his titanium-soled boots."

"Daddy, that's horrible." It's more than horrible, but I don't have the right words.

Every line in my father's face is etched into my memory at this moment, because all he does is make a kind of half-shrug and say, "Pigeon… it is what it is."

We continue chatting, alternating between heavy subjects and light. I learn that what I've begun to suspect is true: Dad has funded the Resistance for years, but while he was in prison, it was Data who handled all the day-to-day operations, moving their headquarters to this facility, making it into both a home and a community.

By the end of the afternoon, I'm convinced my new android friend should be canonized.

When my father tires, instead of calling Alyssa or one of the med center volunteers, Data and I escort him to his rooms.

While I tidy the bedding, Data helps my father in the bathroom, treating him with the same tenderness I expect he'd treat a small child, or his own beloved parent – if he had either. We get my father settled, and he asks if I'll massage a pain-relieving balm into his hands.

I glance at Data, who retrieves a tube from a nearby cabinet. I'm not sure if he's hovering to protect me, or protect my father, or both, but his presence seems natural, somehow.

I let the salve emulsify in my palm before I massage it into my father's paper-thin, leaf-dry skin. I can see – and feel – every knot of mis-healed bone, every vein, and I worry that I'm using too much pressure, but when I glance at his face, his eyes are closed and his expression is one of peace.

Struck by the shape of my father's fingers, once so elegant and graceful, and now gnarled and twisted, I spread my own hand on the blanket next to his. This is the one physical trait we have in common: musician's hands.

My father is asleep before we leave the room, and I'm unsettled enough that when Data guides me, not to his rooms, but to a large chamber that's been turned into an indoor garden, I barely notice the route we take.

He leads me through the space, to a bench near a small pond. "My friend Keiko created this space because she considers it to be unhealthy for humanoids to be deprived of green and growing things for too long. As I said, I cannot offer a swimming pool, but many people find spending time near this pond to be quite relaxing."

"Thank you," I tell him. "For everything. You're very good with him."

"I am glad to help."

I know I should be asking tons of questions, but I decide that they can wait until I've sorted through everything I've learned, and everything I'm feeling. Data lets me sit there, silently, until I'm ready to leave, and then we return to his rooms where I curl up on his couch with a novel for a while. When there's a knock at the door, with an invitation for both of us to join Alyssa for dinner, I'm happy to go, if only to get out of my own head.

(+A+)

"Data," I ask over coffee and bagels on the fifteenth morning that I wake up in his bed. "Is there… do you have a partner who's been displaced by my staying here, or by all the time you're devoting to my father and me?"

Please say no, I think, and then I stifle that line of thinking as best as I can. The truth is, I'm asking partly because I'm becoming more and more attracted to him, and partly out of enlightened self-interest. If there's someone painting a target on my back, I want to know.

"I have not had a romantic liaison in quite some time," he answers frankly. There's something in his tone that's almost sad… or maybe it's more regretful. Unlike Lore, who is obvious about what he feels, this man's emotions are subtle, nuanced.

"I'm sorry," I tell him, though I'm not certain why. "I thought maybe you and Keiko were a thing." I've met the gardener now, a few times. She's been warm and welcoming, seeking me out for the occasional lunch.

"Do not apologize. I expected that you would ask at some point. Keiko and I are friends, and nothing more. I believe she has her eye on Miles. He is one of the men who keeps our shuttles in working order."

"Well, you know everything about my love-life." I counter. "I won't deny I'm curious… but I don't want to pry."

Data refills my half-empty coffee mug, as has become our routine. My father is usually with us for breakfast but he's chosen to remain in bed this morning, and my conversation is as much to distract me from worrying about what that means as it is to get a better handle on the man I'm cohabitating with.

"Her name was Jenna D'Sora. We served together on the Stargazer. When we met, she had just ended a relationship with someone who had not been treating her particularly well. We worked together on several missions, and became friends, and one day, in the torpedo bay, she kissed me."

"And you fell in love?"

"Not as such. I… at the time, I had not yet developed the capacity to feel romantic love, but we were close enough that when she revealed that she was pregnant I offered to marry her and act as a father figure to her child."

"You're a very kind man, Data."

"Thank you, Zoe. I believed it to be the correct thing to do."

"But you didn't marry."

"No. There was a mission that went wrong. Her ex – the baby's father – was injured, and Jenna felt obligated to be his caregiver. They left the fleet together, and I have not heard from her since."

"This was before Emperor Spock was killed?"

"Years before."

"How old are you?"

"Chronologically, it has been thirty-three years, one month, twelve days and…" he trails off when he notices my look. "Thirty-three years as of February second," he amends.

"But you were activated as an adult, so your contemporaries are closer to my father's age."

"In a sense. However, as I do not age as rapidly as humans do…"

"I thought you and Lore were functionally immortal?"

"We can be damaged, and we can be destroyed."

"Killed." I can't help but correct him.

"Zoe?"

"You aren't a thing, Data. Neither of you. Things are destroyed. People are killed." I shiver, because somehow that sentence feels portentous.

"As you wish."

I roll my eyes at him, but I'm teasing when I do it. Two weeks of intimate living conditions and near-constant togetherness have us acting almost like a married couple at times, and the fact that I'm still wondering what it would be like to kiss him only adds a sort of charge to our interactions. I start stacking plates so I don't have to meet his eyes when I ask, "You know the… the intimate injuries that Alyssa healed for me, that first day?" I'd confirmed days ago that he'd overheard my entire conversation with the doctor, and simply had the good manners not to bring it up.

"I recall." He's always terse, I've noticed, when we're about to tread into territory that involves deep emotions or intimate revelations.

"May I ask you something… something that goes beyond personal?"

He seemed guarded as he answers, "You may ask."

I turn away and begin stacking plates as I ask, "Lore's… every time he kisses me or… every time we have sex, it's like acid. His saliva his… everything. Is that an android thing or something he's doing because he gets off on pain?" I pause and look at him, see the stricken expression on his face. "I'm sorry… I shouldn't have… there's literally no one else I can ask."

But Data isn't horrified – and it is horror I perceive in his gold-leaf expression - because I've strayed over the line into TMI-territory, after all. "He does that to you… every time?"

"I… after the first time it didn't make me scream as much." I feel my face go hot. This really isn't an appropriate conversation.

"It is not an 'android' thing, except that we can adjust the flavor, viscosity and… pH balance… of most of our bodily fluids," is the information he supplies. "I am sorry you have suffered so."

Embarrassed and suddenly shy, I shrug. "You know what they say. 'What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.'" More softly, I add, "Thank you for telling me the truth. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

"Do not apologize," Data tells me. "As you said, there is no one else who could answer such a question."

"But…" I have no idea what I meant to say because when I meet his eyes again, I'm transfixed. His face – his smooth, beardless, mustache-less face is just so handsome, and his lips look so sensuous. My heart is racing, when I rapidly change tacks. "Do you ever watch romantic comedies?"

"I do not understand."

"Entertainment videos. Romantic comedies."

"There is a monthly 'video night' in the common room, and such choices are relatively frequent. Why do you ask?" His brows wrinkle, showing how perplexed he must be, and I almost reach out to trace them.

"Because in that kind of entertainment, there's always a moment where the mood shifts and one of the lead characters realizes she's attracted to the other, and really wants to kiss him."

Data takes the used breakfast dishes out of my hands, returns them to the replicator, and returns, but instead of taking his seat at the table, he goes to the couch. When we breakfast with my father, we often end the morning with us on the couch and Dad in one of the dining chairs, turned to face it. The straight back and firm seat provide better support, he says.

"Join me?" he invites, and when I do, he asks, "You wish to kiss me?"

"Can't slip anything by you, can I?" I quip.

"Very little," he agrees. "Zoe, if you wish to kiss me merely to satisfy your curiosity about android… flavor… "

"I don't," I object. And then I have to admit, "Well, I do, but it's more. It's… these past two weeks spending all this time with you – the way you knew to take me to the pond after that first tea with my father, the way every few days you suggest another session with the heavy bag, because you can tell I'm feeling antsy. It's the way, from the first night I was here, you made me feel safe and comfortable. You've opened your home, given me your bed, and given me your company."

I'm saying a lot, but my voice is level, my tone serious, and Data is clearly paying close attention to me. "It's because of the way you take care of my father as if he were your own, and help the kids with their math lessons in a way that leads them to the right answer, but doesn't provide it. It's the way you rest your hand against the small of my back when you're walking with me, and the fact that even though you heard everything I said to Alyssa that day, you didn't push me for details, but let me ask my own questions, even when they're awkward and kind of rude."

"My father may have been funding all this," I continue, gesturing to the room around us, "but I know you're the one who's done all the work all this time. Yes, I know, you haven't been doing it alone, but you're the center. And you make me believe the Empire can be a better place again, and you make me want to be part of that change… but mostly, I want to kiss you, because I like you, and I like the routine we've fallen into with bedtime tea and breakfast with my father, and…"

As if my words are a loaded gun, and my bullet has found its mark, the rest of my explanation is cut off by the press of Data's lips against mine, firm and gentle and warm. It's a kiss that starts out chaste – closed mouths – but his tongue flicks against my lips, requesting entry, and I open my mouth to let him in.

His tongue finds mine, but he doesn't force anything; rather it's a sort of silent request, and I answer in kind, meeting his tongue with my own, making it a true exchange.

I can't remember ever enjoying a kiss so much in my entire life.

I'm so relieved to find that there isn't a hit of acid in Data's kiss. Instead he tastes faintly of some kind of sweet nut. Almonds maybe, or cashews. I'm not sure which. It's not strong, just a hint, an essence.

A woman could become addicted to his kisses.

We break apart, and I take a couple of shaky breaths. "Data?"

"You are not the only one of us who has been experiencing attraction." His admission is softly spoken, but his eyes, those warm yellow eyes, are wide open and fixed on my face. "May I release your hair?"

I'd twisted it into a messy bun that morning. I nod, and reach back to undo the barrette holding it in place, but he stops me, wrapping his hands around my wrists, and tugging gently. I flinch, and then I wince because I'm sure he thinks I'm reacting to him, when really, it's a sort of sense-memory of my hands being restrained.

Or maybe he gets it. "I will not harm you, Zoe. Please? Allow me?"

How do you say no to a handsome android asking to play with your hair? Answer: you don't. "Okay." My voice is tremulous. I feel like a teenager with her first real boyfriend, but at the same time, I feel impossibly old.

He lets go of my wrists, and I adjust my position on the couch, scooting closer to him. I reach out, resting my hands against his chest. He's wearing a long-sleeved red shirt today, and God, he looks amazing in that color.

With deft fingers, he releases the clasp of my barrette and teases my hair out of its twisted mess, so that it falls, wild and wavy from being put up while damp, around my shoulders. He twists one section of it between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, while his right drifts to my waist, providing warm pressure.

It's as if a circuit has finally been completed when he touches me, and when he dips his head to kiss me again I'm ready.

I'm so lost in Data's kisses, in Data's touch, in touching Data myself, that I feel like bells are ringing inside my head, and it's only when he pulls away from me and apologizes that I realize bells I'm hearing are klaxons.

"There is an emergency; I must go," he tells me, and the implication is that I'm to wait in his quarters, apart from the people who live here, because I'm still only a guest.

I surprise myself, and him too, by standing up. "No."

"Zoe – "

"I want to come with you. I want to be part of this." I realize my decision has been made for some time, but I haven't admitted to myself, let alone to Data or my father. "I want to stay."

Notes: The couplet at the beginning of the chapter is from the poem "Broken Mirror," by Tamara Moir. Zoe's internal reminder of "Constant vigilance," is a reference to Mad-Eye Moody's trademark phrase in the Harry Potter novels. The song she and her father sing is "Lullaby for a Stormy Night," by Vienna Teng. There will be one more proper chapter of this story, and then an epilogue.