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So far, it’s taken them forty-five minutes to say goodnight; they’ve only walked from their seats around the poker table to just outside the bar on Forward Avenue. Picard is visibly sleeping standing up, Deanna seems about five minutes away from throttling Will if they don’t get going now, and Worf has clearly already gone home in his mind.
And, sure, it’s the first time they’ve all sat together for a game of poker in 25 years. Geordi is well aware of that, and he loves his friends as much as the next guy, but God he’d like to be back in his hotel room and in bed right now. This is big, obviously, but they’ve all been seeing each other fairly regularly again for the past year now: this is almost a normal meet-up between friends, and Geordi isn’t sure standing outside in the middle of the night at their age is warranted for that kind of reunion, really.
Funny how something he missed so much for so long became almost routine again so fast.
Contrary to Will, whose usually impeccable social skills seem to have dissolved in the absurd amount of drinks he’s had, Data at least does seem well aware that they should all be getting on now. Thank God the tens of subroutines Data wrote on politeness and social niceties back in the day seem to have mostly transferred with his memory —Geordi is hoping that, once one of them gets going, the rest will follow. Unfortunately, for now Data is seemingly waiting for something, aware that the party’s over but lingering until one last thing is done.
“Geordi?” he asks him when the group finally starts to break up a little, grabbing his arm. Data’s been hovering behind him for a while now, glancing at him while everyone says goodbye. “Do you have a moment?”
They’ve wished Will and Deanna a safe journey home by now, and Picard has staggered down the avenue waving goodbye. Worf has managed to vanish unnoticed, as he tends to do. Beverly is the only one still outside with them, having drunk enough to push through the fatigue and come out the other side in top form again. At this stage, she’ll probably be here until Guinan closes the bar.
Geordi takes a deep breath, hoping the fresh night air will wake him up a little. “Uh? Eh, yeah, sure…” The air does nothing, it’s not even fresh. “I mean, I better get back to the hotel soon, but— Yeah, go ahead.”
Beverly waves at them, gestures for them to get back inside and, when all they do is wave back, she goes back inside by herself yelling that they’re no fun.
“Last week marked one year since I was activated in this form,” Data tells him, staring at the spot Beverly was standing on a minute ago rather than looking Geordi in the eyes.
He says it quietly, almost sheepish. Geordi feels guilty all of a sudden, like he’s forgotten someone’s birthday. In a way, he kind of has. “Oh? Oh, yeah! Uh, congrats, I guess? Did you— Should we plan something to celebrate, or?”
“Oh, no, no!” Data says, shaking his head with a chuckle.
If there is one thing Geordi won’t be getting used to anytime soon, it’s Data chuckling. That will definitely, regardless of how much he loves the guy, always creep him out to no end.
“Well,” Data continues, “if you like, Geordi, but that isn’t what I wanted to ask you about. I may still not have achieved a perfect grasp on human interaction, but even I wouldn’t ask for a party to be thrown in my own honor.”
“Ha! I don’t know, Data, you’ve gotten pretty good,” Geordi tells him, and that’s a hell of an understatement as far as he’s concerned. “Honestly, now, between the two of us, I’m really the awkward one!”
Data nods —a little gravely, Geordi feels, for the situation. “Yes, that is closer to what I wanted us to talk about…”
“How awkward I am?” Geordi jokes. “Gee, thanks.”
“No, no,” Data answers in a hurry, slightly concerned. He didn’t catch the joke, and there’s something deeply comforting to Geordi about that. “I wanted to ask you about the changes I have undergone this year.”
“Oh yeah?” Geordi leans against the wall next to the bar’s doors, and Data takes a step forward, looming over him as if about to reveal classified information. This look like the universe’s most polite drug deal, two old guys whispering at each other in the night, hands in their pockets.
“Yes.” Data gestures towards the bar. “Can we— Could we sit down?”
Beverly and Guinan are laughing inside, and Geordi figures 10 Forward is probably not closing anytime soon.
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” he says, worried now. He watches as Data’s shoulders drop in relief.
With the way Data's phrased it, Geordi figures he wants to talk to him as his engineer (well, an engineer, really, but even after all this time, Geordi stills feels like he's Data's engineer in the way everyone else on the ship thought of Beverly as their doctor, back in the day), rather than his friend. Which is worrying —considering Data didn’t mention a single issue in the past year, Geordi just assumed his new body maintained itself in a more effective, organic fashion, and therefore didn't need an engineer anymore.
“Jesus, Data, last time someone sat me down like that I was handed divorce papers,” Geordi says as they head inside, trying to lighten the mood. Why joking about his failed marriage is suddenly is go-to when it comes to alleviating the tension, he isn’t sure.
Data cocks his head to the side, confused. He shakes it off pretty quick, though, and then he’s grabbing Geordi by the arm again to drag him back inside. “Do not worry: as you are not currently married, no one can divorce you at this time, Geordi.”
Geordi noticed a while ago that Data tends to revert back to the way he used to talk when it’s just the two of them —like he doesn't get figurative speech and jokes, like he still can't master contractions. He's often wondered whether this is just through force of habit or if it's a calculated effort to inspire trust. Geordi suspects it's the latter, and he doesn’t know how to feel about it at all.
When they sit back down, Beverly and Guinan shoot them a look. Well, the two of them shoot them two simultaneous but very different looks: Beverly raises an eyebrow, half laughing, and does a little questioning gesture towards Geordi; Guinan smiles knowingly, and gives Data a small nod.
“I will admit to finding this uncomfortable as well,” Data says once they’re sitting down again, their barstools facing each other on the far end of the bar.
“Oh well, here goes,” he continues after some time, the set phrase sounding stilted in his mouth. “How do you feel, about those aforementioned changes of mine?”
Geordi can’t help a tired laugh. This has been a long night, and clearly it will be turning into one long morning. He’s not even sure he understands the question, really.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” he says, “your affinity for loaded questions, that’s not changed a bit even after all these years!”
Data doesn’t answer, just does a little circular motion with his hand so that Geordi carries on. And so Geordi does, somewhat begrudgingly. “Eh, let’s see. I guess I’m happy for you, and… well, I feel weird saying it, but I’m kind of proud, really: you’re pretty much who you always wanted to be these days, that’s something not everyone can boast of.”
He may be tired but he does mean all of that, truly —more than he feels like explaining to Data in the middle of the night.
“I— Thank you, Geordi.” Data reaches for his hand on the bar to pat it, but he doesn’t look entirely satisfied with Geordi’s answer. “That is not entirely what I meant, however.”
Data stalls, and Guinan appears with typically impeccable timing.
“One for the road, gentlemen?”
Geordi shakes his head, laughing. “Well, some restraint’s not a bad idea, even when you don’t drink, Guinan. Believe me, you can only have so much of that fizzy strawberry stuff you gave me before you start seeing pink when you close your eyes. Eight’s my limit, I think, thanks.”
“I will have one, please,” Data says, despite having never ordered that before as far as Geordi knows.
Guinean winks at him. “As close as you can get to liquid courage without getting drunk, right?”
“Before I…” Data starts again once she’s gone, “Before my original body was destroyed with the Scimitar, would you find it fair to say we had gotten close?”
Geordi would call that the biggest understatement of both of their lives, but he’s known Data long enough to have heard much, much worse. “Ha! Yeah, I’d say that. I mean, I would’ve said we were close about two months after we met, Data, but I never had much of a frame of reference when it comes to that kind of friendship before, so.”
“Neither had I,” Data says matter-of-factly, with none of the shame it causes Geordi to admit to that. “But would you say we had been getting closer, just before my destruction?”
Geordi could have seen the follow-up question coming a mile away without his implants, easily. He already had an inkling of what Data meant by “close” when he asked his last question, and now he’s sure, but God understanding the question doesn’t mean he knows how to answer it, or why the hell would Data ask it.
Guinan leaves Data’s drink in front of him on the bar so discreetly Geordi only notices it’s there after he’s been wondering why he can smell strawberries for no apparent reason for a couple of minutes.
“Eh, yeah,” he answers. “I… Yeah, I do know what you’re referring to, I’m being deliberately obtuse, here, buddy. But, yeah, to answer your question, I’d definitely say we had. Why?”
Before he answers, Data drinks the better part of the drink through the swirly straw, in one long unbroken sip that would probably make anyone with an actual digestive system spit back the entirety of the drink in under a minute.
“Here is a selection of statistics regarding the last three months before the coup d’état,” Data starts.
Now Geordi gets why the long drink, and he sort of wishes he had ordered one as well, if only to have something to do while he listens for the next five minutes.
“67% of the times you laughed in my presence were prompted by a misguided attempt at communication on my part —failed jokes, misinterpretation of social etiquette, lack of knowledge on topics humans are generally familiar with.”
Geordi sighs; not only does that makes him sound like a jerk, but to make matters worse he’s got no idea where Data is going with this.
“An exact third of the positive feedback you gave me in those three months, barring professional matters, was related to my manner of speech: my inability to use contractions was mentioned by you twice, and my inaptitude for expressive intonation and pitch three times. On two occasions, you complimented my nonhuman relation to emotion, albeit half-jokingly.”
And that, on top of making Geordi sound like a jerk, that makes him seem like he’s got some kind of weird fixation as well. He wonders whether this is going to turn into an argument, which would definitely be a first.
Geordi does remember a few of those instances, to be fair. As Data continues, he searches to see if it really was as bad as Data seems to remember it in his own memory, though. It’s pointless, of course, the likelihood of Data misremembering anything being pretty low.
He remembers working on something late at night in his quarters —or were they in Engineering? Whichever it was, Data was with him, and a lot more peppy at 2 A.M than he was. Once Geordi had managed to fully take apart the little device an away team had brought back from the planet they were orbiting without breaking anything (a miracle, considering it was about the size of his thumb and about as sturdy as a soap bubble), he had pushed the entire thing across his desk so Data would examine it. He had gotten up with a groan, making it as clear as he could that no matter how good or bad of a job he had done, he was certainly not looking at that thing again until the next day.
“Ah,” Data had gone, inexplicably, “hats off to you!”
Maybe it was only because it was so late, but that had sent Geordi in a fit of giggles that only subsided half an hour later when he fell asleep. Something about Data deciding to test an expression so old Geordi had never even heard it said out loud in the middle of an incredibly boring task late at night, when enthusiasm was the least expected feeling to express, had just struck him as hilarious at the time, for some reason. Funny, because by then he’d had about a decade of experience getting used to that sort of thing coming from Data.
Two weeks passed, easily, before Geordi stopped going “Ah, hats off to you!” every time either of them got anything done, from a job in Engineering to getting something from a replicator. This kind of thing has got to be what Data’s referring to now.
And once he remembers that, of course the rest comes back to him as well. Geordi sees himself shaking his head and going “Lucky” when Data turned off the chip before they had to talk to a prisoner in the brig. He remembers laughing so hard he was sure he’d die making Data read the titles on Riker’s old 20th century records, because somehow all those phrases without any contractions sounded hilarious. If he’s honest, Is That Not a Kick in the Head? and Why Do You Not Do Right? are still pretty funny to him twenty odd years down the line.
Geordi has nothing to say for himself, he just really, really liked Data. Not much else to it.
“You referenced my unrealistic neck movements twice as well, in a way which I then categorized as fond. Finally,” Data continues, “the three times my appearance was mentioned in your comments, the characteristics you praised were those that made me stand out from my human peers: your enjoyment of my inner workings from an engineer’s point of view was brought up twice, and the last instance was a joke you made on my inability to age and change as naturally as a person could —which you called ‘a hell of a good problem, if you ask me.’”
Yeah, Geordi definitely remembers saying that. And he stands by that one, really, he never got why Data wouldn’t have wanted to look exactly the way he did then for the next hundred years. Had Geordi looked like that back then, he figures he would’ve been pretty happy to stay like that for centuries, and he would probably have spent all that time staring in the mirror too.
By now, it’s pretty clear that this isn’t going to turn into an argument at all. Clearly Geordi underestimated Data’s ability to tell the difference between genuine mockery and the sort of light teasing you get from someone with a crush. Which means this conversation is about to get a lot more uncomfortable than it already is.
Geordi is the one who has to take a breath once Data’s done. “Alright… thanks for that, Data.”
He thinks back to the sheer number of times someone’s shut Data up with those exact words, and cringes at himself. Geordi continues, laughing because it’s either that or leaving now out of embarrassment. “Great, I really needed a detailed account of how bad I had it for you back then, and how obvious I was about it, too! Still, I don’t suppose all that was only to make me feel like an idiot?”
“Not solely, no,” Data says, and he smiles, “although I do find myself enjoying that aspect immensely. You did confirm my main worry just now, however: you did indeed ‘have it bad’ for me, didn’t you?”
Geordi sighs. “Yeah, I— Jesus, I never thought I’d ever say this out loud. I did, yeah, big time.” He forces a laugh. “I knew it would never happen and I figured, well, he’s probably worked it out for himself and is being nice about it… which I really appreciated, by the way.”
If Data hadn’t drunk the entire thing, Geordi would pour that pink drink over his own head right now, just to end the conversation there. “But, you know, we’re all adults, I don’t think there’s any need to make a big deal out of it. Especially not now, when all that was such a long time ago.”
Data points his index finger up in the air. “Ah, here lies my concern. What I wished to illustrate with those statistics was the connection between my initial form and your feelings towards me. This year, as I grew more and more accustomed to this new state and its abilities, I became worried they would— drive you away?”
His mouth presses into a line and his eyebrows shoot up like what he’s saying is mildly bewildering even to him. “Far be it from me to doubt your friendship but I do worry I have lost a great deal of your affection precisely by becoming less... more human, maybe?”
Geordi shakes his head, a somewhat cynical chuckle leaving his throat before he can catch it. “Do you really think how I feel about you depends on your aptitude for contractions?”
“Obviously not. However, I do think traits such as these formed a whole, which you seemed to like. And which is not there anymore.”
Geordi doesn’t want to think about this too much, maybe for fear of finding Data is right on this. It’s not something that was ever supposed to happen, there’s no way either of them could possibly know how to deal with it.
People change over the years, sure —and yeah, after twenty years, at first you may barely recognize someone who used to be your friend. In Geordi’s experience though, in those situations, all it usually takes is half an hour catching up with them for you to realize they’re still the same person. No matter how much they’ve made progress or how low they’ve fallen, whether they’ve discovered new passions or forgotten old interests, people never change as much as they’d like to think they do.
This past year, though, Geordi has found out that may not apply to androids. And while he’s sure he feels the same about Data as he did then, he’s not quite sure why anymore. If every single thing that made a friend who they were goes away and you still love them, what exactly did you ever love? That’s definitely not the kind of question Geordi wants to ask himself ever, and especially not at 2.30 AM in a bar.
He shrugs. Even if Data’s right, Geordi would never tell him anyway. “Yeah, you were my friend, I liked you. And you’re my friend now, so...”
“Yes.” Data nods for a little too long. “But would you say the absence of these traits nowadays are what prevent you from feeling for me now as you felt then?”
Now, Geordi just has to laugh at that. The fact that he feels the same about him even though Data has changed so much is exactly the one thing Geordi finds confusing, and precisely the one thing Data has nothing to worry about.
“I mean, I’ve still got it pretty bad, Data. Only now I’m old enough to— to just push it aside, I guess...” Geordi stalls for a second, wondering how he can make it clear that he has no interest in acting on this without sounding like he doesn’t care about Data anymore. “So many things happened since then— back then my life was pretty much all working with you and spending my off-duty time with you. Now, having something of an unrequited crush on a friend, that doesn’t really seem like such a big deal to me anymore, you know?”
“Ah. So you do miss who I was then?”
Well, at least some things definitely haven’t changed, like Data’s tendency to hound him with pointed questions until Geordi tells him exactly what he wants to know. And he never knows why the hell Data wants to know what he does, that doesn’t seem like it’ll ever change either.
“God, nothing I’ve just said implies that, Data, where the hell did you get that from?” Geordi sighs. As much as he loves Data, he really wishes he could be back in his hotel room right now. “I do sometimes, okay? It’s got nothing to do with you are now, I just get nostalgic— of course I do, don’t you?”
Data doesn’t answer, and so he continues. “Yeah, sometimes I look at you now and think, I don’t know, about how fun it was spending half an hour explaining a joke to you, or spending time in Engineering hooking you up to the Computer. That’s… well, that’s not even related to you changing anyway, it’s about how much time we used to spend together— Doesn’t mean I hate you now, if that’s what’s worrying you. We just can’t get that back, now, so sometimes I miss it.”
Data shakes his head. “I meant, Geordi, are there changes you dislike?”
“Dislike? No!” Geordi rushes to say. An old habit of poking fun at his friend makes him continue, and a smile grows on his face despite the bleakness of their conversation. “Eh, I mean, you laughing will never not creep me out. It did back then, still does now. I just get the instinct to reach for the closest weapon every time, force of habit, that’s all... Apart from that, Data, no, of course not!”
“How about changes to my appearance?”
This feels like the weirdest workplace investigation.
Geordi shrugs again. “Uh. I don’t know, I mean…” As he thinks, Data’s face falls a little, and Geordi feels like a jerk for even thinking about it at all, rather than automatically denying it. “Well, you look different, obviously, but… we’ve all changed. You’ve aged, so have I— we’re about the same age, anyway, aren’t we?”
Data nods, and from the proud little smile that instantly appears on his face Geordi just knows this won’t be just a yes or no answer. “I was first activated three years after you were born. So, yes, technically we are “about” the same age. Despite being only three years older than me, you have however lived 9125 days more than I have. However, this specific body was only created thirty years ago. You could also, additionally, add the years lived by every consciousness inside it, as well as the experiences of the colonists, which would make me 300 years old, approximately. But, yes, we are of similar ages.”
Trust Data to take three minutes to answer a simple question about his age. Geordi is really starting to question his idea on androids changing in a way humans don’t.
“Alright, alright,” he says, laughing. “See, I’d say we did look like we were about the same age back then. And, now we look like we’re pretty much the same age as well. Less noteworthy to me than if you’d ended up not aging, actually.”
Without actually meaning to do it, Geordi grabs Data’s hand on the counter —he stares at it for a while, wondering why it looks so unfamiliar, and presumably looking ridiculous himself while doing so. It doesn’t seem to surprise Data too much, though.
The two dots finally connect in Geordi’s mind. “Now, I get why Altan Soong went with the age thing, but I don’t get why the skin color had to go. That looked great.”
It really did, but Geordi has got to wonder whether he’s bringing this up solely to be a dick, seeing as he never even realized Data had a somewhat unnatural skin color until he got implants —so it’s definitely not something he ever had any reason to be particularly attached to.
“Mastery of synthetic dermal approximation, I imagine.” Data makes a face, likes he couldn’t possibly care less about the kind of appearance he’s been given. “Did you find me attractive, back then?”
Well, while he doesn’t seem to care about his own appearance, for some reason it looks like Geordi’s opinion on the matter is of some importance to him. Geordi doesn’t get why.
He does remember worrying about what Data would think of his appearance anytime it changed himself, before —speaking of implants, he remembers anxiously hurrying to Engineering to show Data the second he came back from leave after he got them, more concerned with Data’s reaction than the blinding headache— but that’s different. Anyone with a crush on his friend would have done that.
Coming from Data now, though, the same attitude is pretty much inexplicable.
Geordi nods, chuckling to himself. “I think we’ve established that already but, yeah, if you want to be annoying about it, I did.”
Data nods as well —a very serious kind of nod, like he’s a psychiatrist jotting things down. “Is that still the case now?”
“I mean, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t.” Geordi looks at him, trying to find any sort of recognizable expression on Data’s face that could tell him why the hell it matters at all.
He doesn’t, and he’s got to admit that alarms him at little. “Is that a problem? Because I promise you I’m not pining away, buddy, believe me —and I still don’t expect anything from you. Nothing to worry about, I swear.”
“No, nothing to worry about indeed,” Data says, which is a pretty damn opaque answer as far as Geordi’s concerned. He never thought he’d see the day when Data would start talking in riddles, but apparently here it is. “The opposite would have worried me much more, Geordi, to tell you the truth.”
“Yes, right, exactly!” Geordi says, a little too loudly. He nods with a frankly inappropriate level of enthusiasm, relieved that he may finally have got Data’s meaning again. “It’s a compliment, if anything, that’s all.”
Data sort of groans in annoyance and, again, this is one of those things Geordi never thought he’d witness. “This would have been easier for me to say all those years ago, but I do think the conversation might stall if I do not say it now.” He squeezes Geordi’s hand, which for some reason Geordi forgot to remove from Data’s wrist earlier. “How you felt about me then was and still is important to me, and I would have been distressed had your feelings changed since.”
Geordi laughs; now he’s sure he’s understood. “Oh, so you did have an ego back in the day, see! Told you.” He pats Data’s arm. “Well, that’s alright, everyone likes to be flattered, it’s nothing serious. I don’t mind —I’m glad, even, we all deserve a little ego boost once in a while.”
“Geordi,” Data says, narrowing his eyes like Geordi’s an anomalous reading on a tricorder, “are you being ‘deliberately obtuse’ again?”
“Maybe? Look, I’d hate to get the wrong idea and get my hopes up in vain now, Data, after all those years keeping them in check.”
“Noted.” Data nods. He is getting up from his seat, clearly about to do something —Geordi would not trust himself to bet on what exactly, though.
Data steps forward to stand facing him, and clasps his shoulders with both hands, with a level of strength Geordi thinks would be far better suited to apprehending a criminal.
“Geordi,” he says, “I apologize in advance for the short period of distress this will undoubtedly cause you, but I cannot see how else to move this forward.”
It’s only when Data cups his face that Geordi starts to realize what he’s about to do and, by the time he’s sure, Data’s already kissing him anyway. Geordi pulls him closer, his hands squeezing their way under his jacket; there’s warmth there, and he can’t tell if this is new, if he never noticed before, or if it’s simply been too long.
On the other side of the room, Beverly —who is, in her defense, fully drunk— whoops and slams her glass against the counter with a thud and a cheerful shout. And Geordi hasn’t felt this ridiculous in years, decades really, and Guinan smiling to herself next to Beverly, like she knew about all this thirty years ago, only makes it worse. The entire thing’s well worth the slight humiliation, sure, but still— this is mortifying.
“Now, see,” Geordi manages to say when he pulls away, “that’s a major change right there. Spontaneity.”
“Is it a change you dislike?” Data asks him as he sits back down on his own seat, clearly unaware that people don’t usually go back to sit a feet away after kissing someone for the first time.
“God, no. Not one bit.” Geordi laughs. “Especially not right now.”
Data stands back up, then sits back down in silence. He frowns, visibly a little surprised at himself. “While I am now able to act much more spontaneously, I find myself still very much ill-equipped when it comes to handling the consequences of said spontaneous acts.”
“I think that’s the case for everyone, Data. Come back here, for a start.” Geordi leans forward to tug on the front of his jacket until Data stands back up —the barstools are high, there’s no way they’ll end up face to face if he stands up himself while Data’s perched on that.
Geordi kisses him and, thankfully, Beverly and Guinan seem to think the novelty of it has worn off already —if they’re looking at them, they’re being discreet about it anyway. He pulls Data close again, as close as he can, and for some reason starts to wonder whether they’ve ever hugged.
If they have, Geordi doesn’t remember it. It feels ridiculous to him, suddenly, that he’s never even hugged someone he’s loved so much for so long, someone he did everything with for so many years. Someone whose entire system he has rewired, rebooted, connected and disconnected so many times.
“What would you say to a walk right now?” he asks Data, barely pulling away. Geordi is finding out that, with age, even an event as unforeseeable as kissing his best friend of over thirty years can’t get his mind off his initial goal of heading back to his hotel for a full night’s sleep.
Data looks at him with his head tilted, confused. For a second Geordi thinks he forgot what would you say isn’t a literal question and is about to answer hello, walk which is the last thing he needs right now.
But no, Data just shrugs. “I… I would not say walking is my chief concern at the moment. I wouldn’t mind it, however, if a walk is what you want at this time.”
“No, it’s not like a walk’s the one thing I’m craving right now. I do want to head home, though.” Geordi shakes his head, undecided between sighing and laughing. “I’m trying to get you to come back to the hotel with me, Data, not proposing we go walking on the streets of L.A. in the middle of the night to get some cardio in.”
“Ah, apologies!” Data’s face lights up, in a way got never used to. The kind of way that tells Geordi Deanna would be sensing something from him if she was around right now. “Yes, in that case, I would very much like to walk.”
Beverly stumbles towards them as they hop off their seats, a huge grin on her face. Guinan follows her, her eyes meet Geordi’s and she smiles.
“I knew it’d take you a couple of failed dates to get it, but I never thought you’d ask out the entire ship and stay married for a decade before you realized...”
Geordi tries to laugh, but he’s not sure a simple, good-natured dig has ever hurt this much.
“You know, no matter how it might feel, this is happening at precisely the right time. Trust me,” she says. Geordi does trust her, but he can’t find it in him to believe her right now.
Beverly finishes telling Data whatever she’s whisper-yelling in his ear, and haphazardly pats one of their shoulders each. “Alright, if I haven’t heard from either of you in three months’ time, just know I’ll be landing on Athan Prime, and— well, you’ll just have to invite me over for dinner then, won’t you!”
It’s only once they’ve waved everybody goodbye for the last time, once they’re finally heading out, that Geordi remembers Data doesn’t live on Athan Prime. He dismisses Beverly’s comment as a simple oversight —which is bound to happen when you’ve ingested your own body weight in bloodwine. Pretty unlikely that she would know something he doesn’t about Data moving in the near future.
The reminder that, once he’s gone home tomorrow, he might not see Data for weeks, even months, only further dampens his mood, though. He couldn’t possibly explain in words just how much he meant what he told Data earlier about missing not so much the past, but just how much time they could spend together back then.
Walking on quiet, dark streets after leaving a bright, loud room never feels right. They’ve walked halfway to the hotel in complete silence, and Geordi has more or less forgotten that talking would be the usual thing to do when walking with a friend, when Data grabs his arm to get his attention.
They don’t exactly stop, but Data slows down and stares at him. His eyes catch the light in the near dark the way a cat’s eyes would, and it takes Geordi a second to get used to it again. He remembers this scaring the hell out of him one night in Engineering —he still can’t believe he knew Data for over a decade without knowing his eyes looked like that in the dark, the VISOR never picked up that kind of thing.
“I was gone longer than we ever knew each other,” Data ends up saying, quietly.
Geordi forces himself to chuckle, because this is all awful and unfair and there’s nothing either of them can do about it now, no way they’ll ever get any of it back, and he doesn’t know how else he can possibly react without losing it entirely.
“If you keep saying that while looking at my face, I might start taking it the wrong way, Data,” he jokes. “Odd just how many things in my life I never thought I’d do without you there, though. I mean, I would’ve bet my life on you being at my wedding! Well— I never thought I’d get married, but you know what I mean.”
Geordi doesn’t say that, if he’s honest, he’s fairly sure he would never have gotten around to getting married if Data had been there back then.
“You would’ve made a great best man, by the way,” he adds to lighten the mood. “But yeah, same goes for my girls, it’s crazy to me that you only met them a year ago, that they never knew you growing up... Funny, isn’t it?”
Data starts walking at his usual pace again, tugging on Geordi’s sleeve to pull him closer as they walk. He shrugs. “Unless my understanding of humor is more lacking than I thought it to be, no, funny isn’t quite the word I would choose. I— I do know what you mean, however.”
This gets an actual laugh out of Geordi, the familiarity of Data entirely missing the sarcasm soothing him for a second. “I can’t believe how many things we thought were due to your programming turned out to be just— you, I guess? I mean, you wrote so many figurative language subroutines, and look at you now.”
“Yes.” Data nods. “Interesting that this was a mistake made on so many tries, and by two different men.”
Geordi shrugs. “Eh, I don’t think it’s a mistake. You’re modeled after them, maybe the Soongs were just a pretty literal bunch themselves —some people are. Alandra’s a bit like that, you two’d get along like a house on fire.”
“Hm.” Data looks at him, then looks again, as if wondering if he’s missed something again. “You are aware that so are you, to some extent, aren’t you?”
He pauses, and Geordi just knows he’s about to get hit by a monologue complete with statistics. “During the entire course of our time on the Enterprise, on 68% of the instances an officer commented “Great” upon witnessing something they did not like, you answered with annoyance at what you perceived to be enjoyment of an unpleasant situation. Despite the fact that you were prone to comment “Great” yourself when faced with similar difficulties, and laugh when I was surprised by your reaction.”
Geordi chuckles again. “Oh, did I, now? Well, touché. Guess Alandra didn’t get that from her mom then, uh?”
“That would be unlikely, yes, although I do not know your ex-wife.”
Which, again, is unfathomable to Geordi.
“Hm, explains why I’ve always hung out with you, then, you really were about the only guy who could make me look socially apt by contrast,” he jokes.
He forces a laugh out of himself when Data doesn’t react, to make sure he got that he was kidding. “Hey, I’m joking, Data!”
As if he ever went anywhere Data did for any other reason than to be with him.
“Ha! Yes, of course!” The number of times Geordi’s seen him react exactly like this to being made aware he’s just been told a joke.
Only, now, Data laughs, really laughs. And, yeah, Geordi can’t deny old reflexes tell him to look around the empty street for a trash can he can fight a malfunctioning android with. Still, with the way things have turned out for him tonight, he isn’t going to start complaining about it now.
As he starts to see the billboard screens above the hotel, Geordi tries not to think too much about leaving to go back home tomorrow —not just yet. Better not think about saying goodbye for now, about going back to a life Data barely knows anything about, about arranging for him to maybe visit in a few months, when they both find the time. The hardest thing is to not think about asking Data to leave with him tomorrow, or join him there whenever he can, and to stay with him this time. Geordi really tries not to think about that, because it could very well happen; it's so likely in fact that, if it doesn’t, he won’t know what to do.