Disclaimer :: I don't own anything Star Trek. Or Data... though I wish I could... But Starfleet ruled that he is sentient and, therefore, not property.

Dream 9

Water...

Data inhaled. No water entered his lungs.

He twisted around - his feet weren't on the ground as they normally would be... He was swimming... Suspended between the surface and the lake bottom...

Data kicked his feet... Pushed back his arms...

...His body moved through the water...

...The water moved coolly against his skin...

The thrill of new sensation shot through his insides. Data smiled.

He pushed himself forward, smoothly and swiftly. Then a movement caught his peripheral vision from some dark distance.

A pang of concern passed through him - *is this a nightmare?*

He swam toward the darkness... The water grew darker and darker...

Out of a seeming nowhere, her face became clear in the dusky murk - and she reached forward to touch his face - and her mouth found his...

Data's chest felt as if it might burst! He opened to her. Tasted her intrusive tongue. The feeling to kiss her forever was... overwhelming.

He broke the kiss to look at her...

Her dark blond hair drifted like gauze about her face... And her face was a pale beacon in the gloom...

Data dropped his feet through the water as he pushed himself toward her again. He reached out and drew her to himself with his fingertips... With his palms...

And then his gold-hued lips met with hers again... His hands on the sides of her jaw... his tongue pushing into deeper mouthings...

His body soon pressed against the length of hers... And her arms wrapped about his shoulders... their legs intertwined...

Data savored each motion of every deep kiss... *don't let this end... don't let this end...*

He tipped his head the other direction, rotating the kiss...

- and they moved in the water - rotated a full 360 degrees...

- and they began to rise through the water...

...the water moved coolly against his skin...

...and her skin was pressed warmly against his...

His head broke the surface of the water - and she was gone.

His arms shot out to tread in the water and he yelled. But his voice was drowned out by the thunderstorm. Rain pounded on the surface of the ocean around him. He yelled again - "Where are you!?" Lightning flashed a touchdown on the waves somewhere to his right, but no shock arrived...

"Aahhhhh! Where are you!?"

Panic.

The thunder crack crashed - like and explosion in his head - like what it would be if his neural net had fused -

- Data gasped, awaking in the dark of his quarters... His chest heaved and a foreign whine left him...

And that clicked something in his brain. It was clear he needed to talk with Counselor Troi again...

"Computer, raise light level to full."

As he sat up and pushed himself out of bed, his body felt oddly foreign too, without the flesh of his dreams... His polyalloy bones moved different... He didn't *feel the carpet under his feet... He went to the bathroom and stared at himself, undressed, in the mirror...

~.oOo.~

AN :: yet other chapter i've had done for ages. i'm rather excited to finally get to put it up, 'cause i really like the idea and i've enjoyed writing Data's couple of nightmares, as well as their aftermath, so to speak. i was inspired two pics off of imgur, which you can see if you pop over to my DeviantArt page (link in my bio) and go to "Dreamscapes 12"- one is of two people kissing underwater, and the other is a person swimming in a lake during a downpour.