The Best Day

(Author's Note: This story is an addition to the episode "Life Line" and may not make sense without it.)

"I have an excellent father;
his strength is making me stronger.
God smiles on my little brother:
inside and out, he's better than I am.
I grew up in a pretty house and I had space to run
and I've had the best days with you."

- "The Best Day", Taylor Swift

"This is when Lewis won the Daystrom Prize for creating me," Haley told the Doctor, beaming as she clicked forward to the next picture on the viewing screen they'd set up in the holodeck. They were sitting together on a couch inside the otherwise bare room, like a twentieth-century movie audience. The picture showed Dr. Lewis Zimmerman on a stage, accepting a golden plaque from a grey-haired woman in blue; Lewis' lopsided grin was unmistakable even in profile. Haley stood on a platform behind them, hands clasped, wearing her customary plum-colored dress and an unreadable expression.

"Reg took these," she explained. "He was sitting in the front row, cheering his loudest."

"You don't look very happy," the Doctor observed.

"I had to stand there for about an hour while Professor Martin – that's the chairwoman of the Daystrom Institute – made her speech," Haley confessed. "I was happy for Lewis, of course, but I could've done without those people staring at me."

The Doctor grimaced in sympathy.

"Then Lewis interrupted her." Haley's eyes twinkled with mischief. "He asked, at the top of his voice: What's the point of giving me a prize for creating the first self-aware hologram if you'll just put her on display like a prize pig?"

The next picture was a close-up of Professor Martin's bony jaw dropping in shock. The Doctor burst out laughing; so did Haley, shaking her blond head at the memories and covering her mouth so as not to be too loud. The holodeck was soundproof, but it was hard to break the habit of being quiet at midnight, especially when Reg was snoring on the living room sofa and Lewis was still recovering from surgery.

"So he asked me if I'd had enough, and I said yes. He took me offline right there," she continued, still smiling, "Uploaded me into my transport unit, marched offstage and didn't activate me until we got back home."

"Trust the old reprobate for that," said the Doctor, glancing at the exit, as if he could sense his creator's state from three rooms away. "The first self-aware hologram?" he inquired, catching Haley's eye, mainly to reassure her that he was not unnecessarily worried.

She nodded. "Deliberately created, that is. There was a rogue holonovel character who took over the Enterprise once; he was an accident. But since I'm only a prototype, the storage space in my matrix is very limited. I wasn't programmed with special skills, like you or the other EMHs … " She shrugged, determinedly casual, as if the words of nine years ago didn't hurt at all, though she still heard them as if it were yesterday. "The newsfeeds called me a 'gimmick' and a 'waste of energy'."

"Haley!" The indignant flash of the Doctor's hazel eyes made him resemble Lewis more than ever. "Don't tell me you agree with that! Why, you – you have the kindest personality of any of Lewis' creations. Just the other day he was telling me I should look to you as an example."

"Really?" If she were organic, she might have blushed. Their creator rarely praised anyone; when he did, it meant a great deal.

"He cares for you, you know," he continued, in a softer tone. "You're obviously not a gimmick to him."

These words warmed her heart as she picked up the remote control and scrolled all the way to the oldest photos in the database. She stopped at the image of a dainty young woman with sandy hair, an oval face and pale, wistful blue eyes, standing on a transporter platform and waving at the camera. The uniform she wore was outdated, a mustard-yellow dress which didn't suit her at all, and her hair was swept up in a bun; otherwise she was the spitting image of Haley herself.

The Doctor glanced from one to the other. "Is that … ?"

"Helen Zimmerman," said Haley. "Lewis' wife, leaving for her first shipboard assignment in 2319. Three months later, her shuttle crashed during an away mission. She was pregnant with Lewis' daughter. Neither survived. He understood all along that her career was dangerous," she added, "But she'd chosen it at least. It was the child's death that gave him trouble."

The Doctor nodded somberly, as if he understood more than she was saying.

"He resigned from Starfleet and devoted his life to the field of holography. And after almost sixty years, he achieved … well, me – a sentient hologram with his and Helen's traits combined, who will never grow old or die before he does. I'm the closest thing he has to a daughter."

If Lewis had seen the Doctor's eyes at that moment, he would never have accused his creation of lacking compassion again.

"In that case, I'd be honored to consider you my sister." He squeezed Haley's small hand in his, and she smiled.

They watched many more pictures after that, sometimes with an explanation, sometimes without one. Click. A younger, healthier, dark-haired Lewis in the lab, posing with one arm around Haley. "My first activation ... I was so confused. Nine years, it feels like a lifetime already ..."

Click. Lewis and Reg, absorbed in a fierce game of chess. "That was before he joined the Pathfinder project. I was worried for Reg at first – he's so awkward, and you know what Lewis can be like – but they really hit it off. I think Reg reminds Lewis of himself as a young man."

Click. Reg caught in mid-gesture, talking to an EMH Mark Two to test its social subroutines. "They were supposed to be like male versions of me, but personality-wise they turned out more like Lewis."

"I know what you mean. I met one two years ago; obnoxious fellow. Long story."

Click. Lewis swatting Roy (the holographic housefly) away from a gigantic chocolate birthday cake while Reg blew out the candles. Click, click, click. Haley in a variety of outfits, from ballgowns to overalls to catsuits to the simple dress she wore today.

Click. Lewis in a green-lit holosuite, shaking hands with a handsome, cappucino-colored young man in a contemporary Starfleet uniform, while his exact duplicate watched them with an uncomfortable smile. "The Mark Three was modelled after Dr. Julian Bashir, the youngest Chief Medical Officer in Starfleet History. He's genetically enhanced, and it was actually Lewis who uncovered the secret. It made a huge scandal, but the Mark Three is by far the most successful of the EMH models. Oh – no offense."

"None taken."

Click. A smoky, intimate nightclub reminiscent of Sandrine's, with a silver-haired man in a tuxedo singing into an antiquated microphone. "That's Vic Fontaine, based on a 1960's jazz singer. He's in-character and sentient, if you can believe it – it's as if the real Vic Fontaine had dropped in from the past, swallowed the database on interspecies diplomacy and opened a nightclub on Deep Space Nine, which is where Lewis sold his program to. So you see, Doctor, you're not the only Zimmerman hologram who loves music."

She spoke in a respectful, but slightly detached tone; as if she, or even the Doctor, who had fought with Lewis every day since the beginning of his visit, belonged to him more than Mark Three or Vic Fontaine ever would.

Click. Lewis spinning in his office chair to face the camera, wearing his trademark baggy, off-white cardigan and a very kind smile.

"So that's what he looks like without a sneer," the Doctor couldn't resist remarking. "Hmm … not bad. I can see the resemblance between us."

Haley beamed. "That sweater is my work, actually. It was after he interrupted his conference on Vulcan – "

"With the 'pointy-eared blowhards'?"

"Exactly … and flew back all the way here just to repair a malfunction of my program. I wanted to thank him for … for taking care of me. I didn't expect him to wear the thing every day, but when he got sick … well, I guess it helped a little."

Click. Reg and Counsellor Troi at the dinner table, trying very hard to look as if nothing was the matter. Click. Lewis, white-haired and frail as a ghost, wrapped up in the cardigan and staring out the viewport in lonely abstraction. Click. Lewis two seconds later, aiming a bloodshot glare at anyone with the impertinence to see him dying.

"You've helped much more than 'a little', Haley," said the Doctor. "In fact, I don't know where we'd be without you. That scheme you cooked up with Mr. Barclay and the Counselor may very well have saved our … our father's life."

Click. Lewis sitting up for the first time after his operation, leaning against three pillows, glowering down at a bowl of broth while Reg and Haley sat on either side of the bed. Already he looked brighter, more solid, than in the previous two pictures.

"You saved his life," said Haley, leaning her head on the Doctor's shoulder. "Don't forget … little brother."