ROLLERCOASTER
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Bereft
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The noise of the funfair faded fast as one walked towards the coast. By the time a visitor to Wonderland had walked the ten minutes to the beach, all there was to hear was the moderate, cool wind in the crab grass, the occasional seagull overhead and the hush of the breakers on the wet sand.
'I thought I'd find you here.'
Data, who had hitherto been perched neatly on a dry, grassy mound, motionlessly staring out at the fabricated ocean, looked up at Tasha.
'I hope you do not mind my using the programme without you…'
'It's fine.' Tasha paused. 'You look sad.'
'I am not sad.'
'But you look sad.'
'That is probably fitting, given the circumstances. Perhaps part of the reason why I have found it necessary to seek a moment of quiet contemplation is that I am aware that I should be sad.'
Tasha laid a hand gently on his shoulder. 'Do you want me to leave you alone?'
'That is not necessary,' Data replied. 'I entered the programme alone purely because I did not wish to trouble you for your company. I assumed that you would be otherwise engaged with Nurse DiMaggio this evening.'
Tasha sat down alongside him. 'Rocco and I aren't going to be seeing so much of each other for a while.'
'You have terminated your relationship…?'
'We've…' Tasha struggled, 'we've come to a mutual decision that we should…' she gave up, with a sigh. 'Yeah. It's over.'
'My commiserations. Nurse DiMaggio seemed to be a very pleasant individual.'
'Oh, he was lovely,' Tasha replied. 'Probably a bit too lovely for me.'
Data cast her a confused glance. 'How can you find a person to be "too lovely"?'
'Sometimes it's nice to have a little friction with a person,' Tasha told him. 'A little tension, a little discord. Without it, things get… well, they get pretty boring.'
'Oh.' Data paused. 'Should I make an attempt to be less amiable towards you, lest you begin to also find our friendship boring?'
Tasha snorted a short laugh. 'I wouldn't worry about that, Data. Tension's one of the few things the pair of us aren't lacking in.'
A spark of comprehension slowly flickered into life in Data's eyes. 'As a result of our physical relationship…?'
'Yes, Data.'
Data blinked as another concept hit him. 'I sincerely hope that this tension between you and I had no ill affect upon your regard for your relationship with Nurse DiMaggio.'
Tasha paused. 'It might have done.'
'I am sorry.'
Tasha pinched the bridge of her nose. 'What am I saying? It's not fair to drag you into the break up with Rocco – it isn't your doing. You - my reactions to you, that is - were more a symptom of the relationship with him being all wrong, not the cause. I made a steadfast decision a few weeks back, a short while after what happened in the Turbolift, to leave you be - to push you to the back of my mind and really throw myself into making things work with Rocco, and still things didn't pan out. I've realised that, if it was meant to be, I'm sure I'd never have been so easily swayed in the first place.'
She paused again, and turned to face him, seriously. There was something very different about his expression. He appeared older, somehow. The low twilight cast shadows over his face, which seemed to deepen the furrows of his brow. She could tell that he was still not convinced of his innocence in her break-up with DiMaggio, but that was not what had changed about him. His blankness had gone. His features no longer fell into an expression of simple neutrality, but into one of faint, resigned sadness – so slight that one could barely tell the difference. But it was there. As much as she already knew he would claim she was merely projecting emotion onto him if she pointed it out, she knew that it was there.
'Why are we talking about me?' She asked, softly. 'Me and Rocco splitting isn't the end of the world. We should be talking about you. We should be talking about Lal.' She regarded him carefully, watching for any alteration of expression. 'That is,' she added, 'provided you want to.'
'Why should I not wish to talk about her?' Data asked. 'I would imagine that to discuss the impact that she had upon those of us who knew her would be a fitting tribute.'
'It takes some parents time,' Tasha told him, quietly. 'You only lost Lal yesterday – it can take some people years to be able to talk about the death of a child. Everybody grieves in their own way.'
'I am not certain that I am capable of "grieving", as such…'
'You are grieving,' Tasha asserted. 'You're just doing it in a very Data-ish way, that's all.'
'"Data-ish"?' echoed the android, rolling the invented term around his mind. 'You mean that you perceive that I am mourning, in my own idiosyncratic manner?'
'Q was right. You do get there in the end.' She offered him a sad smile. 'Lal was such a lovely girl.'
'Not too "lovely"…?'
'Not at all. She was perfect.'
Data shook his head. 'She was far from perfect. Had she been perfect, she certainly would not have suffered the system failures which terminated her.' He paused, and there again was that heavy inhalation and exhalation of breath – that almost-sigh that she had heard once before after Q had left them. 'I did not make her strong enough to survive. I failed her.'
'Data.' She took his hand. 'Don't blame yourself. It wasn't your fault.'
'She was my child. I was supposed to protect her from harm, but I failed to do so. It stands to reason that I am, in part, at least, responsible for her demise.'
'Don't talk like that. Please? I know it's natural for grieving parents to turn all their distress and anger inwards, but…'
'I am not distressed, Tasha,' Data replied, calmly. 'Nor am I angry. If only I could be. I cannot help but believe that I am mourning incorrectly.'
'Listen to yourself, Data! There is no right or wrong way to grieve. You aren't failing her now for not wailing and beating your chest, and you didn't fail her when she was alive. Short as it was, Lal had a much better start in life than I did; than you too, for that matter, and that's a testament to you. Stop beating yourself up.'
'I am not.'
'Stop denying everything I say.'
'I am not denying everything you say…'
'There you go again!' Tasha forced herself to calm down. 'Maybe you could join a support group. Maybe they'd be able to talk a little more sense into you. Has Deanna mentioned anything along those lines?'
'I have not yet spoken in depth with Counsellor Troi regarding Lal's death.'
'You're kidding. Why not?'
Data paused. 'Was the point of this conversation not to discuss Lal's life, Tasha? We appear to be talking solely about me, and my reaction to her death. There is no merit in dwelling on such matters, with you, or Counsellor Troi, or anybody for that matter.'
'Please, talk to Deanna,' Tasha persisted, 'she'll understand. She lost a child recently too - after a fashion.'
Data didn't reply to that. He just looked at Tasha, with that dimly aged and sad expression. A realisation slowly dawned on her.
'That's exactly why you haven't approached her,' she added, 'isn't it?'
'I noticed that the Counsellor was particularly saddened by Lal's death,' Data replied. 'I am aware that often individuals can find that events which do not directly affect them can serve as painful reminders of similar events which have occurred to them in the past. I remember how distressed she was when Ian's material form expired. I have no wish to return her to that state of suffering.'
'Deanna's a grown woman, and a professional. She deals with the grief of others every day. You know that. It's not that you wanted to protect her from upsetting memories; you just didn't want to share the hurt. You want to keep it to yourself.'
'I feel no "hurt".' Data paused again, with a faint frown. 'Even if I did, why would I covet sole possession over it?'
'Because you're as weird and twisted as the rest of us poor saps.'
'"Weird"…' echoed Data, with a certain sense of wonder, '…"twisted"… is that what you truly believe?'
'Please don't take that as an insult.' Slowly, gingerly, Tasha twined her hand around the crook of his elbow until their arms were linked. 'I think I understand you better today than I ever did before.'
'You too have experienced the loss of close family,' Data recalled. 'Your parents…'
'…my sister…' added Tasha, under her breath.
Data looked across at her. 'You lost a sister, also?'
Tasha nodded, and rested her head against his shoulder.
'I did not know that you had had a sister who had been killed.'
Tasha drew breath to correct him, to tell him that the loss of her sister had been emotional, rather than mortal, but Data carried on talking.
'Is it that you did not wish to discuss her death for the same reasons that you have assumed I do not wish to discuss Lal's termination at present; because you did not care to share your grief?'
Data paused, giving her the chance to reply with the truth of the matter.
She didn't.
She remained silent, her head on his shoulder, her eyes cast out to sea.
'In which case,' continued Data, 'I can only speculate that you have chosen to tell me of this now in order to join with me; to share the burden of loss. Does the old adage not state; "a problem shared is a problem halved"?'
Tasha looked up at him, still holding her tongue.
'Perhaps you were correct about my seeking isolation over Lal's death,' Data concluded. 'That you have shared with me a loss that you have kept a secret for the years we have known one another has helped me to comprehend that, and that such seclusion is ultimately unnecessary. I shall seek counselling over her death.'
He paused again, giving Tasha another opportunity to tell him the truth. She turned her gaze back to the sea, and thought. While it was true that, when they had parted ways, Ishara had still been alive, Tasha had long since faced up to the fact that the chances of her surviving long on Turkana IV were slim. The likelihood was that her sister was already dead. Even if she wasn't, she may as well have been – it wasn't as though she was ever going to see her again. Their sisterhood certainly had died many years ago. And allowing Data to continue with his misconception did appear to be easing his grief. Who would benefit truly from her telling the truth, she asked herself – her, or him?
'Yet again,' added Data, 'you have sacrificed your privacy, which I know that you hold dear, in order to benefit me.' He wrapped a hand gently around hers – a gesture she was sure he'd never offered her before. 'You are a good friend, Tasha.'
Tasha took her head from his shoulder and looked him in the eye. 'I'm so sorry about Lal.'
'And I am sorry about your family.'
He paused for a second, then leaned towards her and planted on her unresponsive lips the same light, partially-platonic kiss that he had tried out on the Ferris Wheel all those months ago.
Tasha drew away from him – only a couple of inches, but enough for him to sit back, blinking with confusion and concern.
'I don't think now's the time,' Tasha explained, softly.
'My apologies.'
'Don't apologise.'
'I have committed a faux-pas.'
'No you haven't'
'I have.'
'Data?'
'Yes?'
'Stop being so argumentative.'
'I was not aware that I was being argumentative.'
'You're doing it again!'
Data opened his mouth, paused, then nodded in agreement. 'I shall return to the quiet contemplation that I initially came here for.'
'Sounds like a good idea.'
'You are welcome to remain here and meditate with me.'
'I'd like that.'
'Very well.'
'Off we go, then. Quiet contemplation.'
'Indeed.'
'Yep.'
There was a pause as they both looked out to sea, their arms still linked.
'Data?'
'Yes, Tasha?'
Tasha paused again, then placed her head back on his shoulder.
'Nothing.'
