Curtana; The Blade of Mercy

Chapter One; Curo

Curo. Verb. 1. Attend to 2. Heal/cure 3. Take care of 4. Worry/care about

Locked once more in his quarters, Data stared up at the ceiling. They hadn't bothered to restrain him, his crippled legs rendering him almost immobile. They had even taken Spot away, presumably because he couldn't be trusted to care for her.

Time slipped and swirled around him and, with nothing else to do, he closed his eyes and activated his dream program.

He was walking down the corridors of the Enterprise, surrounded by the comforting blanket of sound from the force field in his cell. Somewhere, someone was screaming, but he couldn't tell who. The walls ran red with blood, and his feet splashed as he walked towards his brother, who was wearing his uniform. They met and merged and passed through each other like ghosts, not quite touching. A raven flew over his shoulder, trailing golden droplets from its wingtips. It was followed by another, dripping blood from its talons. They swirled around his head, croaking and flapping, before wheeling away. He spat out eleven teeth and listened to them clatter onto the deck plate, bouncing and kicking up crimson splashes.

There was a woman kneeling on the sodden floor, clutching at her throat, her eyes wide with terror. It was the new android, and it had never lived, and it keeled over sideways and dissolved into the blood, its dark hair drifting away like foam. Lal looked up at him sadly as he walked by, an umbilical cable linking her to Maddox, dangling from his own chains. Geordi was on his hands and knees and there was blood running down his face as he looked up at Data, his eyes open holes, drooling gore.

"Your fault!" He hissed as Data walked past. His brother was there, waiting, walking towards him, naked, and he was naked too and unashamed, and their outstretched hands met, palm to palm, and then the mirror shattered and he was standing in a maelstrom of glittering shards, black feathers and crimson droplets.

He opened his eyes as the door hissed open and Geordi entered his quarters. The man's head was bowed, he seemed unwilling to meet the android's gaze.

"So, I'm here to take a look at you." He mumbled. Data shook his head to try and clear it. He felt groggy.

"You said that you would find someone else..."

"Well, there isn't anyone, okay? Just me. So." Geordi flicked idly at a cat toy left on the table. "Here I am. Let's just... get this over with."

"Geordi, I want to..."

"No." The man held up his hand. "No. I don't wanna hear it, I don't want to talk to you. I'm just here to try and fix you, that's it."

Data contemplated this for a moment. "I see."

Geordi moved to the side of the bed and leant over to push his hand under the android's back, and Data felt all his love and passion for him swelling in his chest, burning through his circuitry, flooding him with adoration. He reached up his hand to cup Geordi's cheek, and the man jerked his head back, glaring down at him.

"Don't, just... Just don't." Geordi's jaw was working, his brow furrowed. He pressed his fingers into Data's switch and the android relaxed into unconsciousness, his arm falling limp to the bed.

Geordi stood there for a long while, looking down at the immobile android, before shaking his head with a sigh and grabbing his case of tools.

When Data came back online, it was with a shock of clarity. Only now did he realize how stunted his thought processes had been, how distorted by emotion. He lay there as Geordi gathered his tools, eyes flicking back and forth as he analyzed his past actions, his behaviours. He looked across the room at the man.

"What did he do to me?" He whispered. Geordi glanced up and then away from him.

"He made a damn mess of you. It was all... so many crossed circuits, stuff spiced and rewired. He'd managed to fit a booster on your emotion chip, bypassed a bunch of your programming. A damn mess."

"I..." Data didn't know what to say. He called up his logs, sifting through his memories with horror and shame. "I am so sorry."

"Yeah, well. We've got enough going on right now, so I can't get started on repairing your legs or replacing your arm and teeth for a while. So, I'll... I'll see you later." Geordi moved towards the exit, and Data threw his hand up, reaching out.

"Wait! Please Geordi, I want to..."

"Look." Geordi turned back to look at him. "I know you weren't thinking right, but... Some of the stuff..." He ran a hand down his face. "I can't talk to you right now."

"But if you give me a chance to..."

"Data! I said I can't, okay? Just, just leave it."

"But..."

"No. Not now." The man turned away again.

"If not now, then when, Geordi? I want to explain..."

"Data..." Geordi shook his head, turned once more to the android. "Honestly, I can't imagine how anything you could tell me could make me feel any different."

"Do you no longer love me, then?" Data whispered.

"I wish I could stop loving you, it'd make all this a damn sight easier." Geordi sighed, began pacing the room. "I've been so... So worried. I imagined any number of ways that you might behave when I finally got you back. I, I thought I was prepared. But, to see you like that, with Lore of all people... What the hell was going on? He... He's insane, Data!"

"I love him, Geordi. I have my memories, and I know..."

"Wait." Geordi stilled his restless movements, fixed Data with his silver eyes. "What? Memories? What's that supposed to mean?"

"The emotion chip contained my memories from Omicron Theta, before I was deactivated. I have integrated them into my main memory banks and..."

"Omicron Theta!" Geordi's mouth had fallen open. "You have your... your childhood memories?"

"Yes, from the time that I first came online fully, with my father and mother, and my brother..."

"And what you learned, what you remember, that's enough to make you forget what he did to you? What he made you do, how many lives he's ruined? Really?"

"No, Geordi, I have not forgotten, nor can I forgive him, however I understand him more completely, now that I have an insight into his motivations..."

"He's a psychopath!" Geordi threw his hands into the air and resumed his restless pacing. "You, you 'understand his motivations'? Do you realize how crazy that makes you sound?"

"Geordi!" Data barked. "How can I be expected to explain the situation to you if you will not allow me to complete a sentence?"

"I don't see how you can explain any of this!" Geordi snapped. "It's crazy, just crazy! Look, I... I already said I didn't want to do this now, I've got enough going on. I'll come back when I've got the time to get you fixed, and that's the last I've got to say about it!"

"Geordi, please!" Began Data, but the man had already stalked from the room.

Guinan looked up at the doors to the lounge bar a second before they opened and Geordi loped in, head down. He threw himself onto a stool at the bar, and she sidled over.

"What can I get you?"

He shook his head and sighed, not meeting her eyes. "I dunno. I don't care."

She pursed her lips and turned away, returned a moment later and placed two empty glasses on the bar in front of the engineer. He quirked an eyebrow as he looked up at her, and she gestured to each glass in turn as she spoke.

"That one's 'I dunno', and the other is 'I don't care'. I put a dash of 'whatever' in that one, just for good measure." She folded her arms and looked at him with her deep dark eyes. "Now, what I can get you is a big glass of 'tell me all about it'."

Despite himself, Geordi cracked a smile. "What's in it?"

She frowned thoughtfully. "Well, that depends. What I do know is that, although it might leave a bad taste in your mouth, you'll feel better afterwards."

"Got any Saurian Brandy?" Geordi asked hopefully. Guinan shook her head.

"Only the replicated kind. The last thing you need right now is alcohol."

"I beg to differ. I think what I need is to get very, very drunk."

Guinan looked at him for a moment before gliding to the replicator and returning with a large mug, gently steaming. She put it in front of him, and Geordi snorted a laugh.

"Coffee?"

"Yes. Because I think what you need is to get very, very sober." She leant across the bar on her arms as Geordi sipped. "So, talk."

He closed his eyes for a moment as the bitter drink warmed him, opened them again with a sigh.

"I dunno what's going on with him. He's, he's just so... different. The Data I know would never have done those things. I mean, we're talking about him being an accessory to murder! That's... I can't get my head round it."

"So, he's changed. Do you know why?"

"He said something about getting his old memories back, but I don't see how they could change him so much."

"That's because getting the memories is the 'how', not the 'why'. You talked to him?"

"I..." He inhaled deeply, wrapped his hands around the warm mug. "I tried, but I can't seem to... I can't talk to him like before."

"Hmm." Guinan was frowning. "I take it that it didn't go well, then?"

"Oh, we just ended up arguing. I guess it's all just too soon, it's so... fresh in my mind."

"Okay. So, you talked to him. Did you try listening?"

"Well..." Geordi scowled. "No, I guess I didn't."

"And why didn't you listen?"

Geordi sighed again, sipped his coffee. "Probably because I don't want to hear what he has to say."

Guinan quirked an eyebrow, wordlessly nudging him on. Geordi scowled and thumped the mug onto the bar.

"Because if he explains, I have to accept it, and maybe it's easier to be angry with him, because right now, I'd rather hate him than try to wrap my head around why he's done what he's done. Because if he explains, it might make me hate him less, and that means I have to care again, and, and..." He inhaled deeply again his breath shuddering. "And I'm not sure I can cope. I don't know if I can keep caring about him so, so much, because I think it might end up killing me."

"Right." Guinan nodded thoughtfully. "One more question; D'you often wear your shoulders as earrings?"

Geordi's brow furrowed deeply. "What? Is that some kind of a riddle?"

"No. Your shoulders are up around your ears. Lower them."

Geordi looked at her for a moment before he registered just how tense he had become. He leant back and straightened his spine, let his shoulders drop, inhaled deeply and breathed it out slowly through his nose.

"I can't stop thinking about him." He murmured, closing his eyes. "Why did it have to get so complicated, so... difficult?"

"No-one ever said it would be easy. Trust me, I know. Caring hurts, sometimes. But you've got to make a decision; Do you think what you have is worth the work, the pain, the fight? Or, is it better to know when to quit?"

Geordi opened his eyes, looked at her with his silver gaze. "What do you think?"

She shook her head. "Doesn't matter what I think. It's what you think. And what you feel."

"Damn, it's just like it was when we first got into this mess, my head versus my heart. I love him, I really do, but... I don't know if it makes sense for us to keep at this."

"Do you know where he stands on this?" She tilted her head to one side.

"He... he says he loves me. And, I guess, if he really wanted to be with his brother, then he would have left with him. I guess that counts for something."

"Damn right it does." She said. "It means he's made his decision, and now he's waiting for you to make yours."

"But how can I say for sure I want to be with him when I don't even know why he's done all this terrible stuff?"

"Well, for that, you're going to have to listen to him." She reached out and gently drew the empty mug from his hands. "Now, can I get you anything else?"

"Nah, I think I'm sober enough." He stretched his back, rolled his shoulders. "Guess I've got some thinking to do."

"Alright. If you need another, you know where to find me."

"Yeah. Thanks, Guinan."

She watched him leave the bar, her dark eyes sad.