He died peacefully, so I am told - although a century of acquaintance with the doctor causes me to question that statement. Surface appearances notwithstanding, he was never, to my knowledge, at peace.
I confess to surprise at the news of his death. Not to the death itself - 145 years is old age for a human, even in this century. The surprise is that I did not know of it until I had been told. We had been close in the past - he had held my soul - and I had always assumed that I would be aware of his death when it occurred. Assumptions are not logical.
I knew when the captain died - I felt the severing of our bond like a physical blow. I knew that he had not died on the Enterprise B as history states, yet I also knew that retrieving him was beyond our power. I told no one. I wanted to spare their feelings. When he died in the nexus - decades after the historical "fact" - I knew it and then I mourned; not before.
That statement is not strictly accurate. I had mourned the unfortunate - and I must admit, unthinkable - passing of our friendship years before.
I grieved more deeply for the doctor. I am not ashamed to say this. Even my father's people will admit to grief, if only ritualistically, and over the years I have become able to acknowledge emotions as easily as my mother's people will - though only to a few. He was one. He would say that throughout the decades I have learned to "live easy in my skin". (An interesting turn of phrase.)
There was a time - long in the past now - when I would not have believed anyone who told me that I would one day regard the doctor as closer than those of my blood and that I would miss him when he was gone. However, when a man holds one's life in his hands, it changes the relationship of necessity. More so when it is the eternal life that he holds, as the doctor once held mine. Since that time, we have both learned to acknowledge the respect we had always held for each other and the friendship that grew from it through the years. When our friendship with the captain was broken, the friendship between the two of us grew. Even when we no longer had contact - when I "disappeared" on Romulus to facilitate what I had hoped would be a reunion between my people and the Romulans - there was still a bond. And so I always thought that I would know.
The doctor was a troubled man, never at peace as long as I knew him.
Perhaps that is why we clashed so often when we first met. Perhaps we each saw the turmoil hidden inside the other - mine behind my unemotional facade, his behind his cynical one - and fought against it, as we could not fight our own. It has been my observation that humans are often most antagonized by the traits in others that they dislike in themselves. (I am no longer young enough or arrogant enough to deny my human self.) I have been able to achieve inner peace, putting away the turmoil that was so much a part of my earlier life. I doubt that the doctor ever attained the same good fortune. I am sure that he did not, as the Earth poet said, "go gentle into that good night."