DISCLAIMER: The ideas and words are mine, the characters are not... But we do spend a lot of time together...
"Not again," Raffi rolled her eyes up to the ceiling as soon as she walked into the bridge.
"Oh, hi," Doctor Jurati greeted the pilot, a little startled by her arrival. The ship had been running on autopilot for a long time now and the scientist had taken advantage of that to work on the science station of the bridge. Rios' ship was not exactly fitted for scientific research, and there was no dedicated laboratory space she could make her own.
Raffi, however, didn't even glance at the consoles on which the doctor was working.
"Do you have to listen to that all the time?"
"Don't you like opera?"
"What was your first clue?"
"Oh, I don't know... I think most of the time when people say they don't like opera what they actually mean is that-"
"Don't care!" Raffi said, turning around and walking away. She bumped into the captain on her way out. "Good luck, Rios, she's one of your own."
Cristóbal Rios looked amused.
"You have to excuse Rafi, she's a little..."
"Rude?" Doctor Jurati offered.
"Rough around the edges."
"I know someone who's a little like that," the emergency medical hologram said, walking into the bridge right behind the captain.
"Is that the ship's EMH?"
"What are you doing here?" Rios asked clenching his jaw.
"I happen to be fond of opera, not that you ever bothered to ask."
"You are?"
Doctor Jurati sounded delighted when she asked that.
"Most of us are. A taste for opera is an inheritance of sorts from Voyager's Mark 1. The doctor is particularly fond of opera and he is greatly admired among sentient holograms."
"You're an emergency hologram! There is no emergency!"
"Well if you must know, captain, Rafi activated me because she-"
"Computer deactivate EMH," Rios said, and he watched his lookalike disappear into thin air with an air of savage satisfaction.
"He is right," doctor Jurati said slowly, watching the scene. "You are rough around the edges."
Captain Rios considered that for a moment but gave up on saying anything back. Instead, he raised his leg above the backrest of the captain's chair as if he intended to mount it and allowed his body to fall heavily on the seat. Doctor Jurati turned back to look at him. She hesitated for a couple of seconds before saying anything.
"Huh—may I help you?"
Rios raised his eyebrows.
"This is my chair, you know."
"Oh, right," the young woman said, covering her mouth and blushing violently. She didn't seem to know what to do with her hands. "Sorry! Ah—I mean- Captain! Sir! I forgot, I— I thought I was at my lab, and when you came in—I get so into my work—But this is technically your office, of course! Computer, kill the music."
The the bridge became silent. It didn't last more than a fraction of a second.
"Computer, belay that order. Play music."
Jurati looked puzzled. Rios smiled. He seemed to enjoy the scientist's poor grasp of starship protocol, and how embarrassed she'd become only a few moments earlier when she thought she might be committing an infraction of some sort.
"Ah—should I leave?" she asked
"Go on with your work, doctor," Rios said tiredly, leaning back on his chair and closing his eyes. "I don't care about your synth diagrams at all, I'm just here for the music."
Doctor Jurati turned back to her console and studied the tridimensional model of Data that was spinning slowly several centimetres above the panel.
"He's an android," she mumbled.
"What?"
"He is—was an android, not a synth."
"Tomayto, Tomato…"
"It's not the same thing!"
"Isn't it?"
"Only in a very superficial way. Data was nothing like the A500s that went rogue on Mars. Data was… kind. Sweet. He had a personality. He even had dreams."
He didn't fail to notice the shine in eyes
"You speak as if you knew him."
"I only met him once," she answered quietly. "My parents were officers on board the Enterprise."
"Under—?"
He didn't have to finish that question. She knew he wanted to know if she was on the flagship when Picard was captain.
"Yes. One time, I was trapped in one of the holodecks when the ship went through a spatial anomaly and the program became jammed. I wasn't supposed to be there at all, but I was curious about the new fantasy program all the kids had been talking about. When the programmed became jammed though I couldn't call for the arch, and the safety subroutines were deactivated. I ran through the forest and hid at the top of the tallest tree I could find. Data was the one who found me. He climbed the tree and brought me down in his arms."
"If it had happened today they would probably have sent in an EMH or some other basic holo program for you."
"I guess… Most of the people I went to Daystrom with switched to holographic programming after what happened on Mars. I get it. It's not like there hasn't been pressure to drive people away from cybernetics. But Data… He was special… What he was is worth recreating."
"How tragic for you?"
"What?"
"Well… It is the tragic nature of our existence that we should struggle to survive in spite of the knowledge of our certain death. You're not only trying to survive you're trying to make someone else live forever."
Jurati turned back again and stared at Rios for a moment.
"You don't talk to people much, do you?"
"Is it true you killed a guy to save the old man?"
"Did he tell you that?"
"You did. I was listening over the comm. I even spoke to you."
"I don't remember that."
"Well, is it true?"
"Yes. It was a life and death situation. I had to do it. It was the rational thing to do."
"You don't kill a man because it's rational."
"I did. I am not a murderer. I realized that there was an assassin threatening my friend and I did something about it."
"Someone else would say that it was the fear you had for your friend's life that prompted you to act."
"Of course I was afraid! Didn't you just hear me say there was an assassin there? It's not like they teach a "how-to-keep-cool-when-there's-a-trained-killer-nearby" class at the Daystrom Institute."
"Then why not admit it that it is emotion that governs your actions."
"Perhaps emotion governs your actions. I am a scientist."
"We are all defined by emotion as human beings. It's what makes us different from other animals and equal to one another."
"What makes us different from other animals is our capacity for reason."
"More often I have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep."
"I don't even know what to say to that."
"Then let's just listen to the music. I am surprised you even like opera."
"Why?"
"Opera is like… like listening to raw emotion."
"Well, it relaxes me."
"Maybe you're listening to it wrong."
"You think you know everything don't you?"
"Ed assaporo allor la bramosia. Sottil, che da gli occhi transpira, " he recited urgently. "And then I savor the cravings which from their eyes transpires! What's relaxing about that?"
"You speak Italian?"
Rios shrugged.
"It's close to Spanish."
"Right," doctor Jurati said. She was intrigued, but when the Captain leaned back on his chair once again and averted his eyes she gave up on insisting on the matter. Instead, she turned to her work again, studying the schematics and allowing the highs and lows of the music to overpower the silence between them.
Author's note: I am enjoying Star Trek: Picard enourmously... This is a short tie-in scene that can take place at any time after episode 3 up until the end of episode 4 I suppose... I am still very much a novice in the study of Unamuno, but I hope the references I included make sense. I thought it would be in character for Rios to speak like that...
Please review, LLAP