Structural Note: This chapter jumps back and forth in time and tense. It takes place during and immediately after the episode "Silicon Avatar," but timestamps are omitted for stylistic reasons.

Warning: This chapter is M-rated for violence, strong language, and adult content, including mildly explicit depictions of physical and sexual assault (rape). While I believe the events in this chapter are integral to the story, if you truly aren't comfortable, you can skip to chapter 18 (once it's posted) without losing the thread of the plot.

Fractured

Before...

Gold hands in heavy non-Starfleet black sleeves reach for my face and force my gaze upward. Malevolent yellow eyes meet mine, and a too-familiar voice smarms at me, "Hello, Pigeon."

"Lore…."

"Didja miss me?" His mouth descends toward mine. "Give us a kiss." His assault on my mouth is rough and hard and tastes of acid. I squirm, but he increases the pressure on my cheek bones. "Ah-ah-ah. Play nice, little bird." There's an alert tone from another part of the - ship? I think we're on a ship, but I'm not sure - and he shoves me backward against the wall. "Gotta play a little hide-and-seek with your friends on the Enterprise. Hold onto something, it's gonna be a bumpy ride."

He leaves through the only visible door, and I take the time to look around. This space isn't a storage room, then, but a cargo bay. We are on a ship. Low ceiling, close walls. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure it isn't very big, as ships go.

There's a shimmy that turns into a shake. Breaking orbit, maybe? I'd felt shuttles strain at such times. Gravity cuts out for a split second, just enough to lift me off my feet and then slam me into the cold metal deck. I bite my tongue when I land and can't help crying out.

"Told you to hold onto something!" His voice echoes through the vessel.

I've never wanted to punch someone in the face so very badly.

Now...

The incessant beeping was driving me crazy. The steady pulsing monotone of machinery, frustratingly familiar and yet, for some reason, unidentifiable, kept pinging at my brain. I wanted to let go, to sink into the soft blackness of oblivion, but the beeping insisted upon calling me back. There was something important about the beeping.

After...

The sound of a comm-badge being activated. The familiar warm tenor I long to hear speaks, close by: "Data to Enterprise."

- "Report." The tinny response issues from the comm-badge speaker.

"I am on the bridge of Lore's yacht. There is no evidence of his presence, sir." A beat, and then he adds, "She is here." The sound of approaching footsteps. The electronic trill of a tricorder. "And alive."

- "Is she injured?"

"I am still assessing." My eyes are closed but I feel the change in light; he's kneeling next to me. My throat is raw, burning, I cough and taste blood.

His voice is even closer, softer, soothing. "Zoe, it is Data. Do not attempt to speak."

He means it as a reprieve, but I have to be sure. "Is it … is it really you?"

"Yes, Zoe, it is really me. It is Data. You are safe now." His hand touches my hair with infinite tenderness, strokes it away from my face. I hiss softly, as some of it is matted to my skin with blood and plasma. It stings as it separates.

(=A=)

Before...

The bridge – if it can be called that – of Lore's ship is tiny, almost cramped, and decorated in shades of dismal slate, dreary charcoal, and darker-than-dark black. The deck plating is painted metal with rubber mats. Designed for use, not for comfort.

It echoes the outfit Lore is wearing. His outfit….

"Is there a special store for super-villains?" I ask, eying him up and down. "Skinny jeans? Leather chaps? Really? Most men would stick with a codpiece, not dress like a reject from a Rigellian rocket-rider gang." He's shucked what I thought was body armor – it's just the leather jacket that goes with the chaps, apparently –and tossed it over the railing that circles the upper deck of the bridge. Now, his top half is covered in a silvery grey shirt – the thermal kind that makes human skin feel itchy, like you're wearing a metal scouring sponge.

He grins at me, and I shiver. "You don't like it?" He feigns being hurt. "But I picked it out just for our anniversary, Pigeon."

"I'm not a fucking pigeon," I say. "And it's not our anniversary." Except it is, in a way. It was a year ago this month that I followed him to that bar. Of course, I'd thought he was Data at the time. Looking at him now, I don't know how I ever mistook Lore for the man I love. Data's face is gentler and slightly rounder, they carry themselves completely differently, and Data's eyes…. Data's eyes are warm while Lore's are all cold fire. "Why am I here? What do you want with me?" The ship pitches and yaws, and I lose my footing.

Lore's grin widens into a toothy leer. "Sit at conn."

He's in the captain's chair, but there is a sunken area below the main bridge with another seat centered at a single control board. I start toward it, but the ship spins around, and I'm thrown down the stairs to the control pit floor. I hear, rather than feel, the crack of my temple against the side of the console. Something warm trickles down the side of my face, and I wipe it away with my sleeve.

"Careful, Pigeon. Wouldn't want you to break anything."

I don't know if he means me or the console, but I don't have time to ask, because as soon as I settle myself in the chair we're moving again in nauseating swoops and dives, and suddenly the view screen is dominated by a giant crystal snowflake-thing. "That's the thing that destroyed Melona," I observe out loud. Way to state the obvious, Zoe.

Now...

The beeping finally resolved itself into the sound of the bio bed monitors in sickbay. Data's voice, pitched low so as not to disrupt anyone (me) wafted over me, "Emily, you should rest. I will stay with her."

"I know I should," my mother answered. "But I don't want to miss it if she opens her eyes. Are you sure she was awake when you found her."

"I am certain," came his quick response. "She was awake and aware of where she was and who I was. She understood that she was safe."

After...

"Knew you'd come."

"I am sorry I took so long," Data's voice, so calm. I want to crawl inside it. "Can you sit up if I help you?"

A slight nod, my head moving against the deck. His arms supporting me, gathering me to his chest. Safe. Sheltered. Warm. Sobs well up inside me, then burst forth. "Data he…" Words fail.

His breath. Hint of cashew. His kiss to the top of my head. Absolution.

"I know," he says. "I know."

"Safe?" I ask, just to be sure.

"Yes." His hands, stroking my hair so gently. "You are safe. I must secure this vessel, and then I will take you home."

Trust this. Trust us. Trust Data.

"Don't let go."

"No, Zoe, I will not. I will not let go."

Eyes open, I meet his gaze. His eyes are so warm, like twin suns.

Burying my head against his chest, I let the sobs come as they will.

(=A=)

Before...

"Pigeon, meet Phil."

"Phil?"

"'Crystalline Entity' is so twenty-three sixty-six, don't you think? Besides, it looks like a Phil."

I refuse to give him the pleasure of laughing at his joke. Instead I demand, "Did you send it to Melona?"

"Oh, look at the little girl, getting all incensed."

"Did you?" I repeat the question.

The ship goes into another spin, arcing over the top of the snowflake – of Phil's outermost rays. "Where are we? Where's the Enterprise?"

"You're at conn; you tell me."

I look at the control board, but I only know how to fly a flitter, and a little about how to read the information on a standard shuttle display. "I don't…." I start, and then I turn in the chair. "You led it, didn't you? You led that thing –"

"Phil –"

"Phil, then. Whatever. You led it to Melona. You wanted those people to die."

He shrugs. "Phil was hungry. Fucking with my brother and his precious Starfleet - that was just a bonus. I couldn't grab him; you little girl, are my consolation prize." He pauses long enough for me to want to drag words from his mouth. "But no, I didn't want them to die." He gives a curt laugh, cutting himself off and adds darkly, "Didn't particularly care if they lived, either."

"Data was there, you know. On the planet. You might have killed him, too."

Something changes in the android's face. Fear. He's afraid… of himself, maybe? "You're lying."

"Why would I bother lying to a fuck-bot like you?" The epithet isn't one I'd normally use, and I hope to god that Data never finds out I even know the word, but just now, it's the worst thing I can think to call him, and I can tell it stings.

"Mind your tongue, Pigeon. Or have you forgotten my warning? That mouth of yours will get you into serious trouble someday."

I stare at him, taking in every line of him, every nuance of body language. When I speak again it's in a voice that's purposefully low and slow, and I carefully enunciate every consonant. "You didn't know that, did you? You almost killed your own brother – your only family – and you didn't even know."

"Stop it." His tone is almost petulant. While Data sometimes seemed like an inquisitive five-year-old, his brother has morphed into a defensive one. Even his face is suddenly less defined, younger.

I realize I've found a button I can push. "Is that what you want, Lore? Do you want Data's death on your hands?"

"I don't want him dead, you stupid girl. I want him with me." His voice is soft. "He's my brother. He belongs with me, not serving fragile, petty human beings. Not emulating creatures who'll never truly accept him." There's a beat and then Lore admits, "I love him."

"Right, because everyone expresses their love with attempted murder of a colony of people, and the kidnapping of their brother's girlfriend." As soon as the last word is out of my mouth, I know it was a mistake.

Before I can even formulate a way to walk it back, he's descended into the control pit, lifted me by the hair, and thrown me to the floor. I feel the ship doing more crazy navigation, and decide to stay where I am.

(=A=)

Interlude: Kallisko

I'm not the only one who is startled when the comm system crackles to life. Lore clearly wasn't expecting it either. The audio is choppy, but when I move to a sitting position, so I can see the screen, everything is made clear. A freighter is trying to flee from Phil.

Their mayday, an open hail broadcast on all channels, is heartbreaking. "Stop this," I tell Lore. "You can communicate with that… with Phil, can't you? Stop this!"

"Why?"

Another voice breaks in on the same channel before I can answer. A voice I recognize: Captain Picard. He's telling them to evade, to run, but the freighter doesn't stand a chance. There's a power surge, and the lights in the ship flicker. Phil is strobing, and the pulses of light reflect on Lore's face.

"Mmm," he says, licking his lips, as if he were the one that fed on the energy, the people, in that ship. "Tasty. But not as tasty as you, Pigeon. Did you ever give Data my message? That I had the first taste?"

On the view screen the freighter has gone dark and is adrift in space.

I send a silent prayer to the universe for the people who were aboard, and for whoever might be waiting for them back home.

I ignore Lore's dig at me.

(=A=)

Before...

My comm-badge is in my bra. I consider this, consider my options, while Lore is in apparent communion with Phil. He stands in front of the captain's chair, arms down, head thrown back. Ecstasy is apparent in every line of him, in the way he's holding his body, in the expression on his - I so never needed to see this man's o-face.

The only image on the screen is a close-up of the crystal creature, and I can't help but be struck by the terrible beauty of the silver-white filaments. Its power is pulsing visibly. Strobing.

Lore's eyes are closed. I reach into my shirt, into my bra, and pull out the small gold pin. The metal is warm from my skin.

"Drop it."

I palm the comm-badge. Time to see how good an actor I really am. "Drop what?" I ask innocently.

He turns on me, and it takes everything I have not to flinch away. "Open your hand." He comes closer, leaning over me, and I kick out, the way I did in the hotel room after he pierced my tongue, but he catches my booted foot before it makes contact. "Nice try, Pigeon." Lore pulls my boot off and throws it at the bulkhead wall. It ricochets off and nearly hits me in the head. When he repeats the process with my other boot, he throws it in the opposite direction, and with less force.

He drops to his leather-clad knees in front of me, and takes my hands, my wrists, really – one in each of his. The comm-badge is in my left hand, but both my hands are in fists, and when he starts to squeeze it's everything I can do not to let go. I tug and twist, but his hands are a pair of vise-grips and white pain floods through me as the bones in my right wrist crack.

"Little pigeons have such delicate bones," he whispers into my face. That was one wrist. Shall I do the other?"

"No… please..." My tongue is bleeding because I've bitten it again, and my head is throbbing from where I hit it earlier.

"Please what?"

"Please don't…"

"Well, since you asked so nicely…." The pressure eases slightly, and I close my eyes against the tears that are coming. He releases my right wrist and wipes the wetness off my face with his thumb. I open my eyes – terrified and curious – he's shifted from cruel to casual so quickly. He sucks my tears from his thumb. "So, you and my brother?" he asks, almost conversationally.

I nod. "Yes."

He chuckles. "How cute. You know what they say: 'Once you go 'droid, you're spoiled for 'noid,' and you should know, Pigeon; you've tasted us both. Your comm-badge, please."

"Could you be more vulgar?" I snark at him, but I open my left hand, and let the communicator drop to the deck.

I expect him to pick it up. I expect him to make some kind of snarky reply. Instead, he uses his free hand to grab my hair, and when he rises to his feet, he yanks me to mine. Then he kicks the badge across the deck plates and narrows his eyes at me. "You used to be afraid of me," he says. "Don't get me wrong, little bird, I know you're afraid I'll hurt you again – and I can't deny it does something to me when you cry – but our banter… it's losing its spark, don't you think? It was so much better when it was charged with fear. Now… now you taste of…" He uses my hair to tug my head backward, and then he licks my neck. "Pity," he seems to decide. "You pity me."

"Shouldn't I?" I challenge. "You have what Data's always wanted, not just emotion, but actual memories of your 'childhood' with the Dr. Soong. You have a brother who craves the same things you do: connection, belonging, acceptance, family. And what do you do? You kill everyone you've ever known. You murder your own father. You do everything possible to drive Data away from you. You are all alone." Even as the words are spilling out of me, I know that saying them is the stupidest thing I could possibly have done.

"Shut up," he says. "Shut up!"

At first, I think he's talking to me. Then I realize that the Enterprise can be seen on the viewer, and Phil is changing… pulsing in different patterns and speeds.

I have nothing to lose; I push harder. "You say you love him, but I think what you really want is for him to love you. Isn't that right? Isn't that what you think? 'Everyone loves Data, but no one's ever really loved Lore.' It must kill you to think that your poor, emotionless brother can command such loyalty, be given so much friendship, be loved."

"STOP IT!" His scream is loud and pain-wracked, and the screen behind him is completely filled by the specter of Phil, now, because the ship is being pulled toward the great crystal creature. "SHUT UP, BITCH!"

He flings me away from him, and I skid on shoeless feet, hitting the bulkhead wall. If I survive this, I'll be covered with bruises.

"Data would never do what you just did," I fling the words between spasms of pain.

The pulsing has become full-on oscillation – Phil – the ship – everything, vibrating to ever-changing, ever increasing frequencies. In one horrific leap of intuition, I realize that Lore isn't just able to communicate with Phil. He's actually connected with it, through subspace, maybe? Whatever.

Lore crosses the room, drags me back to my feet, and captures my mouth in a searing acidic kiss. "You think I can't have what I want?" he hisses. "I already have you, Pigeon. You're wearing my piercing, and my marks are on your creamy skin, and it wasn't my brother who had the first taste of you, or the second. It was me."

I struggle against him, kicking and squirming, but he's holding me fast. "Don't," I say. "Please. You can just let me go. Just beam me back. They'll never know…."

"They already know, Pigeon."

He grips my broken right wrist and the sore, but intact, left one in one of his long-fingered hands. (Are Data's hands this big? I can't remember. Why can't I remember?) "Don't!" He backs me against the wall, and his free hand goes to my pants, tugging at the fastener, and then just ripping. "No, please."

My knee makes contact with his groin, and he laughs, and the sound is crazy. Maniacal. "Oh, does the little bird want that already?" His voice is a parody of what a lover (Data) would use.

The ship seems to drop beneath us, and I find myself flat on the deck, with Lore on top of me, his hands around my throat. The pulsing crystalline entity on the screen is looming larger and larger, and the lights are flickering weirdly.

"Oh, poor Pigeon is a broken bird. Lore doesn't take good care of his pets. Don't squeeze so tightly, you might hurt it."

I try to reach his back, where the power switch is, but I can't breathe, and he's so heavy.

"Pigeon mustn't touch the button… ah-ah-ah…" he says, and he pins my hands over my head with one of his, while the other rips open my shirt. He releases my hands, but I don't have the strength to try anything else. "Pretty, pretty, Pigeon," he says, before he bites my breast - my nipple - through my bra. It's not a playful bite. He breaks the skin.

In the back of my mind I'm glad I chose the red lace bra for Valentine's Day, because the blood won't show.

(=A=)

Now...

"This can't be easy for you, either," my mother observed, speaking the words softly. "Surely keeping this… this vigil… isn't the best use of your time."

"I promised Zoe I would not let go," Data explained, and lifted our clasped hands, presumably so my mother could see.

"You care for her very deeply, don't you?"

I expected him to evade her question, to give a non-answer. Instead he surprised us both, speaking the words he'd uttered to me in bed. "I am devoted to her."

I felt tears begin to pool in my eyes, but even real crying took too much energy.

After...

Cradled against Data's chest, still sobbing, all I know is that his hand has left my hair.

He's holding me close, so tightly, with both arms, and he keeps reminding me. "You are safe, Zoe. I am with you, and you are safe."

"My fault," I sob. "He… he… and it was all my fault."

"No." Firm. Assuring. "No matter what you said or did, you did not deserve this."

"But he said… and he touched… .and he…"

"Hush, Zoe. It is over. It is all over."

Before...

Lore's teeth are locked around my left nipple. I want to wriggle free, but I'm afraid it will hurt more if I do. His words echo in my head: I had the first taste. I had the first taste. I had the first taste. My throat hurts, and I'm choking on bile again.

The vibrations increase. The steady whine ascends the scale, the pitch grating to my ears. I can't imagine how android hearing responds to the sound. I close my eyes, and I find a few moments of unconsciousness.

When I come back to myself, Lore has released his mouth from my breast, and is taunting me, "Pigeon's gonna get plucked. Pigeon's gonna get pounded." One hand is gripping my hip, holding me still and pressing me against the deck at the same time. Cold metal against my skin. My blouse is gone. My bra is in pieces. I don't want to think about the marks he is leaving on my body.

The soft khaki trousers I'd been wearing have long since been shredded, rent to ribbons just by his fingers, as if he were stripping away flesh and not just fabric. His fingers are hot against my skin, trailing down my stomach, delving between my legs. Burning. Acid and heat.

His fingers push into me through my underwear. "Pigeon's a naughty girl, wearing red lace. Does my brother get to see these things?" The fabric rips against his fingertips and he flexes them inside me, twisting and turning and driving in as far as he can reach.

I scream, and buck. "NO! Stop! No, please… please, don't!" I repeat it over and over.

He pulls his hand away, then there's a tug and a burning sensation as elastic is tightened and pulled. He holds my ruined panties over my head, so I can see them. "Should I leave them for my brother to find, or keep them as a souvenir?" He waves the scraps of red lace like a tattered victory flag. "Or maybe you're my souvenir, little Pigeon. Whatcha think?"

"Not your color," I rasp out. My throat burns from thirst, and from the pressure of his fingers.

"No?" he asks and tosses them away. "Eh. Perhaps you're right." The sudden burst of near-lucidity is somehow scarier than what came before, but there's still that electric keening whine, and as it goes higher up the scale and the oscillations become frantic, he reaches for his chaps, tugging the buckle free, and then for his jeans, ripping open the button fly.

I have just enough coherence to notice that he's going commando, and something in me thinks, that of course he would. I wonder if I'm going crazy, like he is, or if it's just a defense mechanism.

He strokes his freed cock and leers at me. "I had the first taste," he says in the smarmy voice from before. "Now I get the first fuck, too."

"Don't. Be. So. Sure." I bite out the words, desperate for one last dig. One last bit of control.

He laughs. He laughs. "Guess you can compare us then, Pigeon. Does my brother hold you like this?" His hands slam me to the deck, grip my ankles and force my legs up, so my knees are nearly to my chest. "Does he order you to keep still, or does he prefer it when you struggle." His voice becomes a whisper. "Does he make you beg for it?"

"Please," I sob – as I have been sobbing – "Please stop. Don't. Please. No, no, no."

"Or does he hold back –"

"NO!"

"Keep everything soft and safe –"

"NO!"

"And human?"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

He slams into me, and his thrusts hammer my body against the deck, my head against the bulkhead wall. He's muttering things I can't hear because of my own screaming sobs and the whine shuddering through the ship.

I scream.

His… fluids… flood through me at the same time that the crystal – that Phil – shatters into nothing.

I scream.

Lore shoves away from me, and I hear him adjusting his clothing.

"Pretty bird," he says, and in that instant, I know that something has snapped inside of him. Something irrevocable. "Poor, broken Pigeon. Lore can't have nice things." There's horror and grief on his face, but his eyes… his eyes look like they don't see anything at all.

He lifts his foot, kicks the comm-badge across the floor to me.

He flips up his thumbnail. There's a transporter shimmer and then I'm alone.

Later...

I manage to move close enough to the rail to grab the jacket Lore abandoned. I don't want to wear his things, but it's better than being naked on the cold metal of the deck.

I stretch, whimpering with every tiny movement, and manage to reach the comm-badge, drop my hand onto it, hear the channel open. "This is Zoe Harris," I croak into it. "Please help me."

I hear a reply, people asking for information, but there's nothing left in me.

I close my eyes and give myself to oblivion.

(=A=)

After...

"He… he…"

"You do not have to say it."

But I do have to. I have to, now, or I never will.

"Lore raped me." The words hang between us. "I wish you could make it not be true."

His arms tighten around me and he buries his face in my hair. His whisper is the most heartbreaking thing I've ever heard him say.

"As do I."

We stay that way for several minutes. Him holding me. Me being held.

I close my eyes.

Safe. Secure.

Trust this. Trust Data. Trust us.

The electrical whine of the tricorder. The snap of it closing.

The comm-channel opening.

"Data to Enterprise. Two to beam directly to sickbay. Please have Counselor Troi on standby."

Now...

"The sedatives should have worn off by now." The professional, caring tone of Dr. Crusher's voice was oddly reassuring. "Has she shown any signs of waking?"

"She seemed to be crying," Data said softly. "In response to conversation."

"I can give her a stimulant, but I'd rather she wake on her own," the doctor said.

"I agree," my mother's voice answered softly, sounding exhausted.

I summoned the strength to wake up. Found the energy to open my eyes. I saw my mother's face first, and watched her tired worry turn to constrained relief. "Hi, Mom." I managed, though it hurt to talk.

"Hi, honey," she answered.

I turned my head and met Data's reassuring yellow-eyed gaze. "You didn't let go."

"I promised I would not," he reminded me gently. He extricated his hand from mine, and stroked my hair, apparently not caring that my mother was right there. "My Zoe."

Notes: First, thanks to KoraM852 for beta reading this chapter (though, really, that doesn't begin to describe how much she helped). Second, I feel it should be said: I don't believe rape should ever be used to entertain. The events in this piece are not meant to be gratuitous. The whole chapter is designed to offer a possible explanation for the shift from Lore as murderous opportunist in "DataLore" and "Brothers," to the much darker version we see in "Descent Part I" and "Descent Part II," as well as to give Data more of a reason for the permanent deactivation of Lore we see in the latter episode.