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"Pinocchio is broken. His strings are cut."
As soon as the recess is called, captain Picard stands abruptly and begins to walk out. He has barely taken one step towards the door when he stops and turns around. He marches up to the judge's table, snatches Data's arm from her slacking grip and strides towards the android slumped on the witness chair. Only then does his demeanour soften, as he reattaches it, reaches for the hidden switch and wakes Data up.
When he has made sure that his officer is fine, aside from his obvious confusion, he finally storms out of the room. The whole process has lasted all of five minutes, start to finish. He hasn't looked in Will's direction once.
Will lowers his eyes to the table when he catches himself looking in Data's direction as his fellow officer gets up and returns to the defendant's side. He doesn't know what he will see if he does make eye contact, and he's too much of a coward to find out. What he has said… What he has just done... there is no forgiveness for that —but he suspects that Data is too soft-hearted to condemn him as he deserves, and that burns even worse.
There is a persistent buzzing growing louder inside his head. The world is suddenly disconnected, soft around the edges, like he's watching from somewhere far away. Maddox is saying something to him, sounding grateful of all things, and it is just too much. The ringing in his ears gets louder and suddenly there are white spots clouding his vision. He feels cold down to his core, his stomach churns and with a visceral certainty — ha! — he realises what is about to happen. He swallows and stands.
The part of him that is still a Starfleet officer, that still holds onto his pride — which he no longer deserves, he may as well have signed his friend's death sentence himself to prove a damn point — balks at making a bigger spectacle of himself. The mere idea of the judge seeing — of Data seeing, of the Captain seeing, and he can't take their concern, and their disgust would break him — gives him a new burst of strength.
Though his legs feel like badly replicated gelatin, he manages to let go of the table and take a step and then another. In front of his eyes there's only the door out of the courtroom, then a deserted hallway, one feet in front of another, breathe in for three, breathe out for...
The bathroom's door slides open with a soft hiss and in four strides he's in the closest cubicle, bending over the lavatory. His knees crash against the floor and the door bangs behind him, but he is only dimly aware of it. The bile burns in his throat, making it impossible to breathe as he heaves, and reality shrinks even further. For one blessed moment, everything is quiet in his head, even if it is only because his guts have decided to fall off.
Afterwards, he collapses bonelessly against the flimsy wall separating the lavatories, drawing his knees close to his body to fit into the tiny space, because standing right now is out of the question. He focuses on breathing, swiping the sweat on his face with a sleeve like a child. It has been years since the last time his body has rebelled against him so violently, so long that he can't even remember when or why it happened — except that he probably hadn't deserved the pain, then.
His eyes sting. He looks at the ceiling, tracing the air ducts with a distracted gaze. His breathing gets back under control, but he can't make his hands stop trembling. When he looks at them, he notices a smudge of grease coating the pads of his fingers from where his hand brushed against Data's elbow joint when he detached his arm — not as warm as a human's but not cold, with a faint pulse right until he pressed the hatch, stop thinking!
He doesn't know if it is the lights or just his imagination, but the stain glistens with a damning red hue.
He struggles to his feet, contorning in the small space to get up, and flushes the toilet. He opens the door, exiting the little cubicle and moves to the sterilizing unit, but changes course at the last moment to reach one of the water sinks.
The water is freezing cold. It usually is, outside of officer's quarters. Will lets it run through his fingers, reaches for the soap to get the worst of the gunk out and then scoops some more water with his other hand to get rid of the bitter taste of bile on the roof of his mouth. He reaches to close the tap, hesitates. Takes the soap again.
He scrubs.
The grease is still there, under his nails. He can feel it sinking into his pores. He scrubs, wishing he could wash away his shame with it. But he can't, it clings to him like a leech.
He had thought that he was prepared for the shame and the guilt. It had been necessary, someone needed to fill the prosecutor's stand. He walked into this with his eyes wide open. He has been following Starfleet law, following his orders — like back on the Pegasus, and Captain Pressman's laugh echoes in his memory, the phantom weight of a hand on his shoulder and he had promised to never choose poorly again, but here he is, vomiting in a station's bathroom like he's still that stupid, baby-faced ensign who had only just realized what he had done —but he hadn't expected to be hit by the realization of the true stakes like this.
Stupid. Careless. It's nothing less than Data's life at stake. Data's freedom, and if he loses that, Will's good intentions mean nothing.
He feels wrung out, hollow like someone has carved his insides out. — How many colleagues have to die because of you before you get a damn clue?
He might not have pointed a phaser at Data but what he has done is worse, nothing less than a violation. He has gone straight for a weakness shared in confidence, and shut him down. Pinocchio indeed, and what does that make him? — Lamp-Wick, the idiot child with his donkey ears ...
His badge chirps.
"Commander Riker, court will resume in ten minutes."
He grips the sides of the basin, bowing his head. He has to pull himself together. He can't return like this, and he definitely can't run away. The trial isn't over, it's the defense's turn now, if he isn't there Judge Louvois might still rule summarily against Data; that can't be allowed to happen.
Preventing that has been the whole reason for this farce, the only reason why he agreed to — but did he have to maim Data in the process? Treat him like a thing? Savour his victory?
He needs to move. See this thing through to its conclusion.
He splashes water on his face, and finally closes the tap. He adjusts the jacket of his uniform, and straightens his spine, locking every conflicting emotion back up inside. It is not over. Captain Picard can still fix this. He can… They can… there has to be a way to fix this. The captain will find it. He'll save Data. This isn't the end, it can't be.
It won't be.
That thought is the only thing that gives him enough strength to go back to that courtroom.