Leo had been given a small efficiency apartment rather than a dorm room with a roommate, because of her specialized situation. Data sat at a tiny café table while she used a single electric burner (gotten from one of the maintenance guys after much dark negotiation and promises of vintage rock and roll disks) to prepare her dinner. The best she could do in the way of "real" – as opposed to replicated – food was a goose egg omelet, eggs courtesy of Boothby the groundskeeper. Not only had he supplied them free of charge, he understood why she wanted them so badly. The vegetables came from the hydroponic botany lab. Leo found that by currying favor with the various "low level" employees of the Academy she could pretty much find almost anything she wanted. Except for welcome company. But she was beginning to feel like she'd found that this evening, however accidentally.

"It must be difficult for you to find non-replicated food," Data observed. He seemed impressed, if perplexed, by her determination to cook "the old fashioned way".

"Everything here is so well-managed, recycled, and, urgh, replicated. All that has its place but I like the molecules in my food to be as close to their original configuration as possible. I'm funny that way."

Not getting the joke, Data added, "You are 'funny' in several ways."

She dropped the pan in the sink (custom installed for her by a hydro engineer referred to her by Boothby-- she also liked to do her own dishes) and joined Data at the table.

"I guess I'll take that as a compliment?"

"I meant it merely as an observation." He sat quietly watching as she ate, but with an expectant air.

"Can I get you something? Coffee, tea, WD-40?"

He appeared to be accessing some file or other, then nodded in sudden understanding. "Petroleum based lubricants have not been used for several centuries," he explained. "My structural lubrication is a specialized synthetic blend."

Leo had finished eating and couldn't hide her smile. "Data, I think you're going to have an easier time if you only take about half of what I say seriously."

He considered this. "Very well. How will I ascertain which half?"

"Well I tend to be pretty careful to make logical sense when it's important. So if I say something that makes no sense at all, it's probably a joke."

"Smartass."

"Exactly."

He still sat there as if he expected something of interest were just about to happen.

"Really, Data, you look like you're waiting for something."

"You were about to tell me how you came to be here." A moment's pause. "Unless that is too forward a question for our new acquaintance."

"Was I? Oh yeah, I'd forgotten. Sorry. Thanks for reminding me."

"You do not have to thank me. I am unable to forget anything I have seen or heard."

"You could be very handy, or very dangerous, to have around depending on how careless I get." An eyebrow rose. "Never mind. Well, how I got here… how not to take a week or two to explain…"

"Perhaps if you begin with… the week before you came here."

"You're a sensible man, Data. The week before I came here I was living in the Northeast United States. You were right, I'm a stranger to way more than the Academy."

"You are not of this time."

So he could tell. Probably her speech patterns or something. "I last saw my home in October of 2006. I've been here on campus for about two and a half months. With about three weeks between the two while the powers that be decided what to do with me." She didn't say any more right away.

"If this is a difficult subject for you…" Data thought it might be causing her distress.

"No, really, I don't mind. It's just easier to adjust when I can forget there's an adjustment to make. I'm all wrapped up in studying and all, so it keeps me from thinking about it."

"You must have encountered someone from this century in your own time. How did it happen?" He remembered hearing about an incident involving a cruiser class ship, the Avalon, caught in a magnetic anomaly not long ago. It had simply disappeared, and reappeared some months later, with mere days having elapsed in the ship's chronometers.

"Well I was enjoying a Jack on my deck, admiring the full moon,"

At that point Data interjected, "Jack? Was he your spouse?"

"No, 'a Jack' means a drink, Jack Daniels."

"Ah. From the 19th century, bourbon whiskey."

"Right, none of this 'synthehol' crap, thanks. Anyway I heard something in the bushes – did I mention I lived in the woods? – and thought time to go in… it was bear season and they tend to wander around… when I saw this guy in strange pajamas come stumbling into the dooryard."

"Strange pajamas?"

"Yeah, you know, like all these recycled plastic-y looking uniforms you guys wear." Data shifted in his chair and surreptitiously glanced down at his uniform. "So I have no neighbors, and didn't see any vehicle, so I called down to the guy, who let me tell you looked like no kind of bear hunter I'd ever seen, and said 'hey dude, if you don't tell me who you are and why you're here in about 3 seconds I'm calling the cops.'"

"You had cops in the woods?"

"I said the woods, not the rainforest. Rural areas have police too, you know. We're not all hillbillies."

Data was concerned. Had he said the wrong thing? He thought his seminar training had been going rather well, actually. "I did not mean offense. Who was the man in the strange pajamas?"

"He wouldn't exactly tell me at first, but he convinced me he wasn't some axe murderer so I let him come up on the deck. I almost did call the cops when I found out what I thought was a cell phone could dissolve me at 30 paces."

"He was armed with a phaser."

"I know that now. Then I though I'd had too much Jack too fast."

"And how did you find out about his phaser?" He couldn't imagine a Starfleet officer taking the Prime Directive so lightly.

"Long story short, he told me his story. He was part of an away team from a ship called the Avalon. They'd gotten sucked into some magnetic cloud and when they came out the other side they were in the place they planned to be but a little, uh, ahead of schedule."

"Three centuries. He told you this before contacting his ship?"

"Yeah. The poor guy was really lost in the purest sense of the word, you know? I gave him a drink… big mistake. Who knew you guys don't have real booze? I swapped it for herbal tea before he got really hammered. Anyway he got real loose real fast and told me all about it, the ship, the magnetic anomaly, the time jump. The reason he had no vehicle… and that was the best news I'd heard in years!"

"Transporter technology was something you had been anticipating?" He couldn't fathom this. Her difficulty with warp drive mathematic bespoke a certain lack of hard technology mindset.

"Well not specifically, but I always hated long trips just to get there you know, I always said 'I don't wanna go there, I wanna be there', so finding out that someone invented instant travel really got me interested."

Data shook his head in consternation. "The crewman violated a serious regulation when he revealed his origins to you."

"Oh god, please don't say the P.D. word – Prime Directive? – or I'll get such a headache. For weeks every meeting, every interview, Prime Directive this, and Prime Directive that…"

"It is essential that we not contaminate other cultures with knowledge out of sequence with their natural development."

"I know, I really do, I even agree it's a good idea. But this poor guy, Lt. Lewis I think was his name, they were gonna drum him right out, court martial or whatever, and I had to raise six kinds of hell to keep it from happening."

"Do you mean six levels of hell? As outlined by Dante?"

"Whatever works, I guess. Anyway I convinced them it wasn't his fault and he just got a stern talking-to or something. Hey, he didn't know there was 100 proof in that glass! And it wasn't really his fault that I got beamed back up with him, either."

Now both of Data's eyebrows rose. "You were transported back with the away team?"

"Well he had to go back, of course. He'd been on a 2-hour reconaissance, and was supposed to meet the three other members of the away team where they'd landed. But he didn't quite trust himself in the woods in the dark, smart guy to notice, so I went with him. He told me to hang back in the trees until they left. I mean, I'd convinced him that even with what I saw that I was no kind of science engineer and there was no way I'd be marketing a phaser anytime soon, so he decided to let me be. Where I live some people are always talking about the mother ship and all that so it would've blended right in anyway."

Data was caught up in Leo's story, and what hadn't yet occurred to him was the rather remarkable fact that Leo had simply accepted the story of the Avalon crew member's sudden appearance as fact, to the point of taking him back to the beam-up site. For now he simply asked, "But if you were hidden in the trees, how were you caught in the transporter beam?"

"Well… that was kind of my idea. When I heard them call their ship, and heard that little sparkly whine, I thought damn wouldn't I love to see what he's talking about! So I just sort of ran out and grabbed onto him before they went up."

Finally the singular nature of the events caught up with Data. "That is most unusual. A man in strange pajamas wandered out of the woods, became intoxicated, and told you a story about his starship and his temporal displacement via a magnetic anomaly, and you accepted every word as fact. That is most unusual."

"Well why not? I'd had my sense of reality bent so far out of shape lately, why not believe in time-jumping scientists from space? What could I possibly have to lose?" There was a bleakness behind her words that Data didn't fail to process, but he didn't inquire further. "Besides, there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio..." She noticed the approximation of a smile of recognition. "You like Shakespeare?"

Data resisted the urge to recite Hamlet's entire speech to Horatio, and merely said "Very much. I have performed in several of his plays as part of our theatrical group aboard the Enterprise. Please, continue."

"So there I was on the Avalon and the captain was going mental over what to do about it. His chief medical officer said they could do something in my brain to make me forget. I said uh-uh, no way anyone was going to rearrange my brain. It is all I have between me and, well, whatever. They couldn't guarantee that there wouldn't be some 'overlap' of a few cells this way or that. Some other specific though 'non-essential' -- nice of them to make that judgment -- memories might be erased. So I said hell no. Their ship's counselor went all over it with me, how if I stayed how hard it would be, I wouldn't just be leaving my home and friends but reality as I knew it. And like I said, my reality was a little shaky at the time anyway. The bottom line was that what I had, well it wasn't worth giving up some of the most important things I might not remember if they erased the wrong bits. And after all that had happened I was ready for a change anyway." She shook her head and smiled ruefully. "Careful what you wish for, huh?"

Data had taken in her story, and his knowledge of humans made him mindful of what a difficult transition this friendly young woman had only begun to make.

"Do you not miss your friends? Your life in the 21st century?"

Leo looked a little haunted then, a little sad. "Sometimes. Not much I guess. Life is where you find it, right? Well there is one, Paul, my best friend, 20 years' worth. He knew me, he knew me to the bone, most of my life, good bad and ugly. I knew him the same way. No mysteries, just knowledge. He told me what I needed to know, instead of what I wanted to hear. He was a part of every rite of passage and major decision of my life. He was like an extra part of my brain. Okay, my soul."

"You must miss him a great deal now."

Leo fought back the churn in her gut that threatened to leak out of her eyes. "Oh, I got a head start on that before I left. He died in mid-September."

"I am sorry." There was a sincerity in his voice that transcended positronics, and it touched her. "What happened?"

"Cancer happened. My own denial happened. See, some people are supposed to be there forever, because they've been there forever. So losing them is just not an option. Until you do. So much of me felt gone when they buried him, I figured whatever got left behind in the 21st century wouldn't miss me much. And of course the great cosmic joke is that one of the first things I learned when I got here was that all those nasty medical things that had our backs to the wall back then don't even exist anymore. If only Lt. Lewis had arrived a couple months before… you'd be sitting here talking to a 58-year old English Lit professor instead of a struggling administration candidate."

"I am satisfied with the existing interaction." Data had gleaned enough to finish her story for her. "Since you would have to be 're-educated' to become assimilated into this century, you were assigned to a Starfleet facility for the purpose. There are hundreds such places throughout the Federation."

"I wanted to stay on Earth. I was ready for a change, like I said, but I realized I needed something vaguely familiar to anchor myself to. And so I convinced the captain of the Avalon to sponsor me for admission to the new program here at the Academy. It's the kind of stuff I did in my time, administration and ops, logistics and all that. Believe me, from what I've seen there isn't much difference between a CEO and a starship captain. Both in charge of the big stuff, both out hopeless with the little stuff."

"You saw a way to be productive in your new world. That was very forward-thinking."

She laughed. "That was very desperate. It's all I know how to do. I'm no dummy," and Data smiled internally, "but if I have to learn a whole new universe I'd better stick to something I know how to do to make a living. So here I am. I took the entrance exam and everything, and they graded it on a massive 'prehistoric humanoid' curve, and figured I might turn into something useful to the 24th century. But hell, if I flunk out I can always go to work for Boothby. Except I tend to kill plants. I mow a mean lawn though."

"I find it… fascinating that you seem to be making a transition into an entirely new existence with little or no support. Have you made social attachments?"

"You mean friends? I don't know… classmates yeah, some people I study with once in a while, but I keep to myself a lot. It gets tiresome being the campus curiosity. Hundreds of cadets from species I'd never imagined, but I seem to be the one and only true oddity here."

"My transition from the Daystrom Institute to the Academy, and from here to my current posting was made easier by forming social attachments with others."

"I guess I've never been really good at that. I've always enjoyed my own company so much I wound up preferring it, which means my social skills sort of got rusty. When people have tried to get into my own little world, they can find it hard to get my attention."

"I did not seem to have that difficulty." His innate curiosity was interested in knowing why.

"I guess you caught me at a weak moment." Feeling that was unfair, she added, "And it's because when you ask me about who I am it's because you want to know me, and everyone else just wants to know about me. I feel very comfortable with you Data, and that's been rare for me lately."

That look of recognition returned. "I, too, find that those I encounter seem to fall into those two categories. It is sometimes difficult to learn which is which, especially when I cannot access intuition. And my inability to feel emotions can make others reticent to engage my acquaintance. I am lucky to count some particular friends among those I know."

"I guess I just don't know where to start."

"You may start with me, if that would be acceptable."

"With you?"

"I would be glad to add you to my set of friends. I find your company pleasant and diverting, you are intelligent and curious, and like me your nature and origins set you apart from your peers and make forming attachments problematic. We both must expend effort to find a commonality with those around us. I believe ours could be a lasting and worthwhile attachment."

Despite the precise language, Leo was very taken with his offer. "I have to warn you, Data, if you insist on opening this door and I decide to come in, you'll find it very hard to be rid of me if you change your mind."

"Why would I change my mind? I have found nothing but enjoyment in your company so far."

A cynical shake of her head answered him. "Ah, the two words we live and die by, 'so far'."

"It is all we can be sure of."

An android, a collection of circuits and positronic programming, and he understood her thoughts better than almost anyone she'd known. "Truer words were never spoken. Data you're absolutely the first person I've met here who speaks to me as me, as if you already understood. I'm so frustrated by the agendas of others. It's so hard to just deal with things and people as they are, when they always have something else going on under the surface."

"I cannot have an 'agenda'. I can only be as I am, and my positronic neural net can only process things as they appear to be."

Suddenly Leo was overcome with the urge to yawn. And she did, extravagantly.

"Has our conversation become boring?" Data wanted to know.

"No, absolutely not. I'm becoming unconscious, is all." Data accessed his internal chronometer.

"It is 0530 hours, and your examination is at 0800 hours. Why did you not tell me you need to sleep?"

Leo reached out and put her hand on his arm. "Because if I did that, you would've left. And I wanted you to stay. I've been struggling in an emotional desert, Data, and you're my magic oasis."

"But I am not a source of human emotion."

"Call it whatever you want. I needed something to provide me with some personal resonance, to remind me I don't exist in a glass ball in the zoo, and there you were. I'll be fine for the exam, and I'll crash afterward."

"I must leave you to review your notes, then. Would it be acceptable for me to call on you later in the day after my sessions, to inquire regarding your impression of your performance?"

"It would be completely unacceptable for you not to."

She saw him to the door. "Would you mind if I gave you a hug? It's okay if you say no. I just feel like I've had the first real human contact since I left home, and I'd like to finish it right."

Data was taken aback. She'd referred to their extended evening as "human" contact. But he understood this as a gesture of friendship, and that is what he had proposed, and wanted to pursue. "I do not mind, Leo." So she reached around his neck, and even kissed his cheek, and was surprised at the lack of awkwardness as he returned her embrace.

"I enjoyed our evening," he told her. "I am glad I 'got your attention'."

"Sometimes you gotta sneak up on me for it to work"

Data wasn't sure he understood that comment as she closed the door behind him, but decided it wasn't "smartass", and that they could pursue the question further at a later time.