Chapter Text
It wasn’t often that Data had cause to speak with Counselor Troi in a professional setting. Though, this was an unusual case. Precarious things hung in the balance of human emotion, as they so often did, only this time, Data’s usual approaches had all the opposite effects he’d wanted. The android stood at her door, considering the problem he’d found himself in. It was just after 2000 hours, near the end of Troi’s usual schedule. Data knocked on her door. When she answered, one look at him told her what was wrong. She creased her eyebrows, sympathetic as she always was.
“Hello, Data. I thought I might be seeing you in here. Please, come in.”
Day and night were stark on the Enterprise, and yet, there was a flavor of dusk, as people at their stations began to yawn, changed out with a much thinner nocturnal skeleton crew. The ship was humming with beautiful, soft quiet, the register of the engines below their feet, and little else. The conversation was replaced with sleep as the ship wound down to the end of an artificial day. Though both the man and the night were artificial, even still, Data wasn’t usually out this late. He stepped inside of Troi’s office, where the quiet seemed somehow even stronger than usual, somehow cushioned all around him. He took a seat on the couch for patients. “Good evening, Counselor,” he said, “I am sorry to bother you at this time. I believe I am in need of your services.”
She nodded knowingly as the door slid shut. She looked a bit tired tonight, the blue circles beneath her eyes still visible under her makeup. “You’re not bothering me, Data.” Then, she wandered to her own seat, and sat down with a sigh. She diagnosed him; “You’re worried about Geordi.”
“I cannot feel worried, Counselor,” he reminded her, “Though, Geordi is the matter which I would like to discuss. I believe that Geordi may be attempting to sever ties with me as his best friend. As I do not wish for this to be the case, I thought it would be wise for me to secure a second opinion before taking any rash action.”
“Cut ties with you?” the Counselor asked, leaning back, crossing one leg over the other, “Have you been fighting lately?”
He considered this, looking down. “It has not been my intention to initiate fights,” he said.
“Then, it would be better to say he’s been fighting with you?” she surmised.
“That would seem to be a closer approximation,” he answered.
She nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps this is an obvious question, but… I assume this began
after
he was retrieved from the Romulan vessel.”
“Yes, Counselor.”
“Well, Data, sometimes when people suffer something traumatic, their behavior changes, even to their friends! It doesn’t mean they want anything to change, just that they aren’t ready for things to go back to normal right away,” she explained patiently. This confused him. His eyebrows creased.
“But… Geordi has said that all he wants is for things to go back to normal. I was attempting to facilitate that.”
Troi opened her mouth for a moment, considering how to rephrase. “Oftentimes it… isn’t that easy, Data. As his friend, you have to help him through this, even if his behavior is unusual. It won’t go back to normal right away, even if he may want it to. Even if both of you want it to! You have to take this slowly.”
Data processed this for a moment, then cocked his head. “Take what slowly, Counselor?” he asked.
Troi thought about speaking once again, then resolved towards a different approach. She checked the clock. She had time. “Data… perhaps it would be best if you started from the beginning and explained the problem to me so that I can better help you with the specifics. You were with him when he first woke up in sickbay, weren’t you?”
“Yes, Counselor,” he answered.
When Geordi woke up, he was terrified. His uniform was torn along the shoulder to reveal an array of intentional electric burns and brutal, jagged cuts, blood caked into the yellow of his Starfleet uniform. His visor was gone - even after finding a slim window to beam him over, there was no chance that they could go back for a subtle piece of machinery like that. Without it, his blind eyes darted around the room as he backed himself into a corner, scalpel gripped tight in a sweaty right hand, wielded as a weapon. In medbay was a standoff. On one side, Geordi, a few breaths from hyperventilating, thoroughly unconvinced that he was anywhere but a Romulan holodeck, stuck in a very realistic simulation of the Enterprise. On the other side, Dr. Crusher and her nurses, unsure whether it would do more damage to restrain him by force or to let him finish out his panic without their help.
The moment he heard about the situation, Data headed down to sickbay.
He found his best friend making a stand against anyone who dared to come close to him, a good distance away from the exasperated doctor, who was seated on one of the beds trying gently to get through to him.
“Geordi, you need to try to calm down,” she scolded gently, “If you keep hyperventilating like this, you’re going to pass out.”
“Stop it,
stop it!”
he snarled, “Do you seriously expect me to fall for the same trick twice?!”
“Geordi, it isn’t-”
“You know, sooner or later, the real Enterprise is gonna come back for me, and when Captain Picard finds out what you’ve done to me, you’re going to have Hell to pay!” he shouted at them. The words were brave but his voice was shaking.
Data took a step forward, making his presence known. “Geordi,” he said firmly.
The voice caught his attention, and his head turned sharply. Then, he pressed himself even deeper into the corner of the room, shutting his eyes. This time, he talked to himself. “It’s not real…” he whispered.
“I must disagree,” he answered gently. “I am going to approach you now. But I will not hurt you.”
At this, his eyes went wide, the laser scalpel in his hand shooting up in front of him, for all the good it would do. “Don’t come any closer!” he warned him. Data denied him, just that once. He took only one step closer, gently taking hold of the back of Geordi’s shaking hand with his own. The second he did so Geordi gasped rapidly enough it may have knocked him right out, flinching at the touch. But when no pain followed, he calmed. Geordi breathed slowly, eyes twitching towards the floor, looking at nothing. Waiting. Then, with a clatter, he dropped the laser scalpel.
He turned to Data, and slowly, shaking, wrapped both his hands around Data’s. Mystified, he whispered, “Data…?”
Data was as still as ever. He spoke to him in just the same tone, the politeness of his usual chipper tone turning almost into tenderness at a volume so low and soft. “Yes, Geordi. I am not a simulation. Nor is the Enterprise. We have found a vulnerability in the defenses of the Romulan ship and beamed you aboard.” Then, he paused, and added, “We could not locate your VISOR in time.”
He took this all in for a few moments, hands still wrapped around his. He said nothing, eyebrows creased, and swallowed.
“If,” Data went on, “you are still wary of your situation, I would be willing to provide information which the Romulans could not access.”
“Yeah…” Geordi whispered, “Yeah, you’d better do that.”
Data poured through months, years of memories in half a second, scouring for something which would be inaccessible. Something personal, casual. Something Geordi would remember. “Approximately four weeks, three days, and three hours ago, you and I played a game called ‘Battleship’. I understood the rules quickly, and was ultimately the victor. You claimed I was simply ‘better at games than you were’, but, I argued, there was not significant proof of this, since you had still defeated me at ‘chutes and ladders’ and ‘candyland’. You found this amusing, though I did not understand why.”
Geordi let out a shaky sigh. “It really is you,” he marveled, “I’m off the ship…? I’m… I’m really…”
Then, with a sigh, his knees buckled, relief flooding his face as he collapsed, quickly caught behind the arms by Data, who brought him to his feet again. In a fluid movement he moved him towards the sickbay bed, just close enough that he could feel where it was, and he fell over it, leaning on his arms. Seeing him now, it was clear how weak he was, how long it had been since he’d slept. Worse than the burns and the cuts was the unsteadiness he carried about him. Most of the time Geordi was efficient, effective, with good posture and sharp, smart movements. Now he was wilted, clumsy. With the adrenaline gone, he was barely able to stay on his feet.
“And what did he say after that?”
Data shook his head, looking back at the curious Troi. “Nothing, Counselor,” he answered frankly. “Geordi did not say anything else for the remaining time I was with him on that day. Dr. Crusher was able to heal some of the more surface level injuries, however, many of the burns ended up being from more complicated weaponry. She decided that trying to deal with them while he was in the state he was in would be… unwise. He fell asleep shortly after that.”
“I see,” she said, “Data, part of this still confuses me. How is it you managed to calm him down so quickly when no one else was able to?
“That is simple, Counselor,” he responded, raising his eyebrows “The material which makes up my biomechanical skin is quite unlike almost any other compound used in machinery or in the skin of known sentient beings. As the Romulans have never come in contact with me, the feel of my skin in a Romulan simulation would be realistic. I knew that Geordi, as the primary engineer who monitors my systems, would be able to recognize the accuracy.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That’s very clever of you, Data,” she said.
“Thank you, Counselor.”
“What next? I take it you went back to the bridge?”
“No, Counselor,” he countered, “I was not summoned to the bridge. Therefore, I stayed beside Geordi even after he fell asleep. Dr. Crusher wanted to speak with me, and asked me a question similar to what you just asked me. I gave her a similar answer. In exchange, I asked her about Geordi’s condition.”
“It’s nothing that can’t be dealt with,” sighed Crusher. She fell into a seat at her desk, dark circles under her eyes. She felt tired on a gut level, a tired that wouldn’t go away with sleep. “Right now the main concern is trying to avoid scarring. It usually wouldn’t be a problem, but the burns are unusual. I think they’re chemical, some compound I’m not familiar with.”
“Would scarring cause a health risk, doctor?” asked Data, cocking his head.
She raised her eyebrows, her chest rising up, and falling again with another sigh. “No,” she admitted, “It’s more for aesthetic purposes, Data. Oftentimes when people develop injuries from traumatic experiences, those scars can be challenging for them to live with. I’d like to protect Geordi’s self image, if I can.”
He nodded at that. Aesthetics, a sense of preference as to what one looked like, was something he didn’t generally understand. The closest he got to sympathizing was that he knew he wanted to look human. But caring about further details escaped him - it wasn’t as though a body with scars was any less human than a body without. “Doctor - do we know the cause of the injuries as of yet?”
Crusher’s face darkened. “I’m afraid the wounds suggest the intention to inflict pain, rather than cause real damage.” Then, more quietly, she looked him in the eyes and said, “Torture, Data.”
Data looked down at the ground, thinking about this. He imagined the scene for a moment, playing it through his head. He’d seen Geordi in pain before, generally brief moments when something in engineering overheated or short-circuited at his touch, but nothing that would come of the woulds which covered him. The image of it, his friend forced to feel powerless in the face of impending danger, was a disturbing one to say the least. Immediately, he ran through his memory of the mission, of Geordi’s abduction. Had he missed anything? Could he have done anything?
“There is a bright side,” Crusher went on, in response to his silence, “The fact that he wasn’t killed meant he held out. Probably didn’t tell them so much as the time of day, after weeks. He’s a lot tougher than I am, I’ll give you that.” She looked towards sickbay, where, beyond her office, Geordi was fast asleep. Data nodded in agreement.
“That is certainly admirable,” he agreed. “Has Starfleet had any luck in locating the Romulan ship that did this to him?”
She shrugged. “Would it matter if they did?” she asked.
Data looked startled, almost offended - if he could be offended, that was. “Is it not customary,” he asked, “for humans to attempt to locate and bring to justice the perpetrators of a violent crime?”
“Data, we’re on thin ice with the Romulans, I highly doubt Starfleet will risk war over one man.” Hearing the harshness of her words, her eyes fell shut. “I’m sorry, it’s… been a long day.”
“You do not need to apologize, doctor,” Data answered, “Though I find it unsatisfactory, I believe your assessment of the events to be correct.”
She softened at the word ‘unsatisfactory’, leaning over her desk, her arms folded up in knots. “This is going to be hard on all of us, Data. Most of all him. But now we all just have to try to look forward and get through it. You’re a wonderful friend to him - I’m sure you’ll be great help.”
Data raised his eyebrows. He thought about what little practical experience he had with helping someone through emotional difficulties, how often he failed, misunderstood, how often it was Geordi himself placing a hand on his chest just in time to stop him from saying something catastrophically wrong. “I wish I had your confidence, doctor,” he answered.
Crusher didn’t know what to say to that. So, she simply smiled - A forced on smile, for his benefit, still tired. “Good luck, Data. And good night.”
Data nodded. “Likewise, doctor,” he said, and headed back to his post. He lingered only for a moment to watch Geordi. He was fast asleep, a sight which people very rarely were privy to. He was usually a workaholic, even before all this happened, and skimped on sleep in the best of days. But this wasn't really sleep, was it? It was being passed out from exhaustion, unconsciousness. If Data knew Geordi at all, this would be the last good night's sleep he'd get in a long time.
When Data described this thought process, the counselor tightened up her position on the couch, knees coming a little closer into her, her dark eyes creasing with concern and sympathy. For once, she didn’t respond right away. A trace of true emotion came through in her usually professional voice when she told him, “It must have been very difficult for you to hear that, Data. To see him like that.”
He considered that, raising his eyebrows. “I do not know if it was difficult, counselor. I only know that I did not wish for Geordi to be unwell.”
“Of course not. You’re his friend.” She shifted her position, placing both her feet down on the ground and leaning forward over her knees. “You know, Data… normally, at this point, I would ask you what you felt when you saw Geordi sickbay. But I’m not sure what to ask you. It’s clear that it affects you… yet, you don’t have feelings.”
“I agree that it is a predicament, counselor,” Data answered. “Though I am not certain how to resolve it.”
“Why don’t you just… try to describe the experience to me?”
His eyebrows creased. “I just did, counselor.”
“No. In terms of…” She lifted her hands for a moment, eyes pointed up as she considered how to go about this. Then, it occurred to her, and she smiled. “I know. Why don’t you tell me what you wanted to happen when you saw him?”
“That is simple, counselor. It is as I’ve said. I wanted Geordi to be well. I did not want for him to be in pain. He is my best friend. While I cannot empathize, I do sympathize, and consider it my duty to see to his wellbeing, particularly since he has done so much to help me.”
“So much to help you…” she echoed, “Then, you see helping Geordi as mere reciprocity?”
He looked down, considering it. “It is true that I believe I owe Geordi many favors.”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
It was true. He wasn’t sure. He certainly did owe him - Geordi taught him what friendship was. No one before him had treated him with such dignity, such humanity, such respect without so much as prompting. At first glance, Data was a person in his eyes. It was a relief, from the moment he knew him, knowing that there would be no extra explanations of his true motivations and behaviors when it came to his best friend. He was understood. Then again. That wasn’t about reciprocity, was it? “Perhaps… it is also true that I have some selfish motivation,” he admitted, eyes still scanning his lap as he thought, “Geordi is the person who best understands me. Therefore, I find him easiest to socialize and spend time with. Perhaps… there is a part of me which wants him to be well because that is the way I am accustomed to seeing him.” Then, a flash of worry at his words. “Is that wrong, counselor?”
She grinned. “No, Data. It’s very human,” she mused kindly, “Tell me more about this, Data. When did you see him next?”
“Geordi wanted to return to work immediately,” he responded, “I therefore assumed that he had resumed a functional emotional state, and wished for me to behave as I would usually.”
“You don’t think he had?”
He thought back. Then, he shook his head, a concerned look in his eyes. “I do not think so.”
Geordi was just as clever an engineer when it came to his own blindness as he was with a warp core. What seemed like no more than fifteen minutes he was functioning almost as efficiently as he was before, with an earpiece in his right ear linked directly to the computer and half a dozen new subprograms just for him to tell him real-time directions through the hallways, descriptions of the graphs on his display panels, and detailed reports on every part of the ship. The only thing the computer couldn’t account for was people - it wasn’t quite sharp enough to keep track of their exact positions, so in his haste to get from one part of engineering to another, there was a lot of slamming into people, which usually just annoyed him. Lately he didn’t bother to so much as apologize, only grumbling, brushing off his uniform, and proceeding to where he was going.
Data had never worked with him without his VISOR before, but he didn’t think it would make much of a difference. After all, he had his earpiece, and always expressed a desire not to be treated differently. To him, as he stood beside Geordi, looking at a viewscreen, it seemed uncomplicated.
“Magnify the fluctuation,” he was saying gently. It wasn’t to Data, but to his earpiece, connected to the computer. His eyes were vacant towards the front of the room, hands having effortlessly memorized the placement of the controls. Well, the majority of them. He missed a button every now and then - he was only human, of course. On the viewscreen was a spike on a graph, representing a pulse of radiation detected in the shield array. “Translate the fluctuation to soundwaves and then play,” he commanded. Then, his head tilted as he listened. He grimaced. He couldn’t tell.
“It may be difficult to distinguish through sound that there is a brief echo approximately point five seconds after the initial fluctuation. This might imply a disruption coming from one of the larger bulkheads, as the presence of an echo so delayed-”
“Yes, thank you Data,” he growled. Data stopped suddenly, confused. But still, he thought it better not to ask. “Point five, that could be…” He thought for a moment, but an answer wasn’t coming. “Dammit…” he hissed, leaning over the viewscreen, his head down. He rubbed his eyes, hard. “Point five’s gotta be a bulkhead in the starboard nacelle, yeah?”
“There is a possibility of that. However, I would argue a more likely possibility would be from the bulkhead immediately below the warp engines, as the fluctuation was most intense near that area.”
“Right, the warp engines, right, I knew that…” he hissed. He went silent for another moment, and Data, a concerned look in his eyes, stood very still.
“Geordi,” he said, in that stern, special way he did, “This is a routine task. If you wish for me to complete it on my own, that would be perfectly reasonable under the circumstances.”
His head whipped right up at that, turning to face Data. Acid sank into his voice. “And what circumstances would those be?!” he demanded.
“I am referring to your presence aboard the Romulan vessel. It is most unusual for-”
At the word ‘Romulan’, he winced as though struck, leaning over the table again. “Alright, Data, I get it, you think I’m just some dysfunctional mess who can’t handle myself! Well, I’m not, alright, I’m here to work!”
His eyebrows creased. “I believe no such thing,” he assured him. “I have no doubts around your competence.”
“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “Data, just leave me alone, I have to get this done, I have to.” Suddenly overwhelmed with determination he returned to touching the panel and whispering to his earpiece, trying to manipulate the computer into giving the information he wanted, information that was really best presented visually.
Data remained by his side for another moment, however. “You do not wish for me to help?”
“Because I can’t do anything without your help, is that it?”
“No. Because you usually ask me to help you in engineering,” he reminded him gently.
“I-!” he began sharply. Then, he stopped. He sighed, covering his eyes as his shoulders sank. “Well, I don’t want your help today. I just want to get this done, it won’t take long,” he said curtly. “Why don’t you just… go back to the bridge?”
Data did just so. He only wanted him to be happy, after all.
“And you’re concerned that this behavior means he wants to end the friendship?” asked Troi. By now it was getting later on in the night. The sky through the window was ever black and speckled with the usual stars, and yet, the soft cushion of evening giving way to night was unmistakable, even in space.
Data nodded, a dim sort of disappointment in his face. “Does that not seem like what he wants?”
Troi sighed. “It may seem like it, Data. But I don’t think it is,” she said frankly. “Data, would you mind seeing me again at this time, next week?”
“Not at all, counselor. For what purpose?”
“I think that helping a friend who is struggling is a complicated problem, and one that I certainly can’t fix in one session,” she said, with a raise of her eyebrow. “I don’t think that Geordi wants to end a friendship with you. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s using his work to distract himself from dealing with what he’s been through.”
“Then I should try to pull him out of his work to encourage the healing process?” Data guessed.
“Well, that’s where it gets complicated. There is no one right answer. If there was, I wouldn’t need a degree to be a counselor. It’s up to you to try and determine when he needs space, and when he needs help. The only thing you could do that’s truly wrong is leaving him now.”
Data raised his eyebrows. “Counselor,” he said firmly, “With all due respect. Perhaps a human with natural instinct would be capable of making these sorts of intuitive decisions. But I am not human. I do not have any natural… feeling, as to the best way to behave. And as there is no way to reason it through evidence, I am unsure how to proceed.”
Troi slapped her knees, taking in a breath as she considered the question. “Well… The advice I can give you is this. Be yourself. You are accustomed to adjusting your behavior when those around you become angry or upset. But… Geordi will likely become upset unpredictably. When someone is feeling like they can’t rely on themselves, it is good to have a friend who they can rely on. I think if you do what you would be most inclined to do - if you behave logically - Geordi will feel that you are an anchor to him in a time of uncertainty.”
This surprised him. He raised his eyebrows, looking down at the ground. “That certainly is counterintuitive, counselor,” he admitted, “But I trust in your judgment. So I will try.”
She grinned, little dimples forming in her cheeks. “Good,” she said, “You’ll update me again next week, won’t you Data?”
“Of course, counselor,” he said, nodded, and stood up. “Thank you again for your services.”
“Anytime. And Data-” Before he could walk out, she raised a hand and called after him. Warmly, she told him, “Good luck.”
His face stern, he nodded over his shoulder in thanks. He’d certainly need it.