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As the escape pod barrels toward the surface of the Earth, Data turns on Picard in a rage. "I could have saved the ship," he says, nearly yells it. His voice is louder than Picard has ever heard it. "I could have stopped the Borg Queen and saved the ship, but you did not give me a chance!"
"I didn't think it was worth the risk," Picard says, his quiet steadiness a contrast to Data's frenetic anger.
"But now everything that I did… the things I endured as part of my own plan to stop her, they mean nothing. It was all for nothing."
"What was all for nothing, Data?"
"Everything I did to save the ship… none of it mattered."
"But what did you do , Data?" Picard pauses, considers the horror and shame in Data's too-human blue eye. "What did she do to you?"
"It does not matter."
The escape pod is heading back toward Zefram’s camp on autopilot, so Picard turns away from the console to face Data. His second officer looks as if he’s being held together by adhesive tape rather than nuts and bolts. His single strange blue eye stares widely ahead, searching for something in nothing.
And he’s whirring. Data is emitting a low hum, like an overworked computer unable to cool down its processors. He’s sitting against the side of the pod, knees and elbows all drawn inward like he’s trying to curl up in on himself.
“Data.” Data doesn’t look up. Picard considers suggesting he turn his emotion chip off, but then it occurs to him that if it were possible for Data to do so, he would have done it already. Whatever the Borg did to sabotage his system has left him unable to switch off the chip. “Data. They’re gone. They’re dead. They can’t hurt you.”
Two eyes, one blue, one yellow, gaze at a spot somewhere behind Picard’s head. “She did not hurt me,” Data says. He sounds like he’s speaking from the bottom of a well, looking hopelessly up at the light of day. “Her intent was to change me.”
“I know. And I remember,” Picard says gently. “And I remember… that it hurt .”
For just a second, Data’s mismatched eyes meet his. Then he looks away. Picard thinks back to the last time that he was at that bottom of that well, drowning in subcommands and cybernetics and Locutus. He’d looked out from a body that didn’t belong to him anymore, and Data had been there. Data had been there to find him and pull him back.
Now, Picard stretches his arm out, holds a hand palm-up to Data. Data doesn’t take it— instead, he looks down at his own hand, at the forearm with the grafted human skin. “She changed me,” he says quietly.
“I know. She changed me too.” Picard’s hand is still extended, reaching out to Data the way Data once reached for him. “She changed me. She broke me once, Data. But you and Beverly and Deanna, you put me back together. And I’m still the same man now as I was before. And you are, too.”
Data’s other hand, the one that is still whole and still his , reaches out and grasps Picard’s. Picard clasps Data’s hand between both of his, trying to tether him in the here and now, in the safety and comfort of this escape pod, the last intact little piece of the Enterprise .
When Geordi sees Data and Captain Picard approaching the camp, he surges forward, relieved that his best friend is okay. At the last second, Deanna grabs his arm and holds him back. "Something's wrong."
No shit. The Enterprise is a flaming ball of debris. Everything's wrong. But isn't it enough that Data is alive? Can't he just be happy about that?
But then he starts to realize it for himself. It isn't just the emotions that Deanna must be sensing— it's the way Data's holding himself. And his face… something is strange there. Geordi blinks, wondering if his new implants might be malfunctioning.
It's as if there's a line slashed across Data's face, separating his normal pale-gold skin tone to something darker, something more… human.
"My God," Deanna whispers, still reading the emotions coming off of Data. "It must have been awful."
Lieutenant Gomez approaches Data, clutching one orange furball in her arms. Data’s analysis of the ship’s destruction pauses, his logic circuits skittering. Spot had been on the Enterprise . The Enterprise had been destroyed. Spot was dead. Spot had to be dead.
How can Gomez then be carrying her, stroking her behind the ears, presenting her to Data with a sympathetic smile? “She missed you,” Gomez says, transferring the cat to Data’s arms. But she’s wrong, Spot is merely a cat, she does not experience complex emotions, does not miss Data when he is gone, does not—
Spot immediately begins purring, rubbing her head against the point of his chin. Despite the stolen skin on his face and arm, despite the stench of Borg he positively reeks of, Spot recognizes him.
Missed him.
Loves him, maybe, if cats are capable of love. He has never felt less like himself, and Spot loves him anyway.
“Thank you,” Data says. “For rescuing her.”
“Of course,” Gomez says, and her smile is genuine.
The crew scatters. The captain goes to South America to pursue an archeological career, and Dr. Crusher follows him, eventually opens up a clinic where she uses her advanced medical knowledge to help people as much as she can. Riker and Troi take off to Alaska.
Worf— along with many of the other non-humans on the crew— becomes part of a commune, focusing on celebrating and mourning the artforms and cultures they will not live to see again. Reg Barclay sticks with Zefram Cochrane and promises not to show him too much hero worship.
Data stays with Geordi. They rent a tiny apartment in southern California. Data learns to tell people he has a skin condition. Geordi fixes cars and talks Data down when the memories of the Borg Queen roar the loudest.
It’s night. Data's fingernail (fake, synthetic) digs into the flesh of his right arm (real, human). It leaves little half-moon marks, and he presses until blood begins to well.
Geordi notices.
"Hey," he says gently, sitting on the twin bed across from Data. He takes Data's hands in his own. "Talk to me. What are you feeling?"
"I wish I were not." They never figured out how to undo the damage the Borg Queen did to his emotion chip. He’s unable to switch it off the way he could before.
“I could see everything,” Data says. His voice sounds distant, and his eyes gaze across the room at nothing in particular. “My plan. The way it would go. She would… touch me. I would play her game. I would save the ship, despite her.” Geordi watches silently from the other bed, waiting for Data to continue, not pushing him. Just listening. Just being there. “And now the ship is in pieces in Earth’s atmosphere,” Data says. “And she is dead, but still I can… feel … her… I feel her here all the time.”
One of his hands spidercrawls up his arm and clamps against his shoulder, pressing into the skin hard. Data shakes hard enough that his teeth rattle, a tiny contained earthquake throughout his body.
Geordi reaches a point where he can’t just watch anymore, and he gets up and crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed beside Data. He puts an arm around his friend’s shoulders and sways slightly, rocking him, letting Data rest his weight against him.
“I feel her all the time,” Data says. “And I see … what she did to me…” He holds out his arm, looking at the mismatched skin, a patchwork along his forearm. “I have to look at this, I have to see it every single day… Geordi,” he says, “when I used to look for myself in ancient Earth literature, I found myself in HG Wells and Philip K. Dick. And now… now I believe I am closer to Shelley’s creature.”
“You’re not a creature,” Geordi promises, huddling against him in the dim light. “You’re not a monster. You’re Data. You’re still Data.”
“Parts of me are different,” he says. “Parts of me are gone.”
"This… these…" Geordi murmurs, his fingertips skating over the seam where Data's synthetic bioplast meets the (stolen, soft) skin. "They're a part of you, Data. They're scars. They're a reminder of what you survived."
"They remind me of my own selfishness," Data says, trembling as though he is about to cry. "My own failings."
"You aren't responsible for what she did to you," Geordi says, continuing to trace lines and circles and spirals across the skin on Data's arm. "What's that they say about getting into an escape pod, huh? You're responsible for securing yourself before you help anybody else. Everyone on the Enterprise was in a crisis situation, Data," he explains. "Your number one priority was surviving, and you did."
"The ship—"
"That was like the sixth Enterprise , Data," Geordi says. "Ships get destroyed. They get decommissioned."
"I should… I should be—"
"You should not be decommissioned," Geordi says, his voice coming out much more ragged than he intended. Almost unable to help himself, he reaches up and cups the side of Data's face, his fingertips brushing against both the synthetic and organic skin.
Data shudders for a moment, but then he leans into the touch.
"Never," Geordi whispers. "You're not a tool. You're not some... thing... for us to turn off and set aside, Data. You're part of a family, and we love you. I love you."
Data winces. "I do not—"
"I know, it's okay, it's okay if you don't feel it back—"
"I do not… warrant ," Data says, "such dedication or— or devotion , please… I am not worth it."
"Tough." Geordi pats him on the cheek. "It's not going away."
Data nods, and then his eyebrows pull together and he leans into Geordi and sobs, his face pressed into the crook of Geordi's neck as his whole body shakes.
"I've got you," Geordi says, stroking his back in smooth, repetitive motions. "I've got you."
“There have been other time travelers in the history of Starfleet,” Geordi points out. “Even, I mean… I’ve been doing some research, in the here and now. 100 years ago there was an incident at Roswell… if you read the description of the aliens, they sound like Ferengi. And in 1986, a man dove into the whale tank at the Cetacean Institute in San Francisco. Data, look at this picture.”
Data looks. “That is Ambassador Spock.”
“Exactly,” Geordi says. “So I figure… I mean, someone is bound to come for us eventually, you know? Someone will know that we’re all back here in the past, and they’ll come get us. This won’t be forever.”
“Perhaps,” Data says. He doesn’t sound as though he really believes it.
Geordi wakes one night to the sounds of quiet crying. He thinks at first that it is Spot, mewling to be fed, but then he realizes the noise is coming from Data.
The android lies in his bed, trying to stifle the sound of his sobs. Geordi pushes himself up, crossing the room. "Hey…"
"I am sorry, I did not mean to wake you," Data whispers.
“It’s okay,” Geordi whispers back. He places a hand on Data’s shoulder, breathing deeply and feeling the gentle vibrations whirring through Data’s torso. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Data nods, but he doesn’t turn to face Geordi. He remains facing the wall. “There are things I… feelings I want to experience,” he says, speaking slowly as if he’s hoping Geordi might interrupt him and stop him if he takes long enough. “I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I am… already… experiencing certain feelings. But it is unfair.”
He clams up. Geordi gives him a moment to see if he starts up again, keeping his hand firm on Data’s back. Finally he prompts, “Unfair to who?”
So, so quietly: “To you.”
Slowly, Geordi levers himself down to lie beside Data. He keeps his hand on Data’s back, conscious not to touch too close to Data’s off-switch. “And what if,” Geordi says, “I’m having those feelings too?”
Data’s whole body tenses up. “You deserve more,” he says bleakly. “You have been kind to take care of—”
“Data, shut up,” Geordi says finally, and then winces at himself. “Sorry. I mean—” He sighs, flopping down to stare at the ceiling. “You wanna talk about feelings? It hurts my feelings when you talk like that.”
“Like… ?”
“Like you’re some charity case that I took in,” Geordi says. “Data… we’re stuck here. You know? We’re 300 years out of our time. And I wouldn’t want to be stuck here with anybody but you. You’re… you’re my favorite person. And you’re saying… what? You think I don’t deserve it? Don’t deserve to be loved by my favorite person?”
Data finally turns around, lying on his side to look at Geordi, who rolls to face him. “You,” Data says, “make a logical argument.”
Geordi smiles. “Data, I’m gonna love you for the rest of our lives,” he says, says it as a fact. “If you want more than that, you’re gonna have to ask for it.”
Data pauses for a moment, processing. Then he says, “Can I kiss you?”
“Definitely.”
Data leans forward— tentative at first, and then joyful. He’s smiling when they break apart. Geordi wipes his tears away and surges forward to kiss him again.
“My head is resting in a cave in San Francisco,” Data points out one day. They’ve got Spot on a stupid little leash Data insisted on buying, and they’re walking her along the sidewalk. “And it is…” Whole. Undamaged. There are two eyes and they are both yellow, and they are both his. “I could…”
“What, Data?” Geordi says. “We can’t change the past… or in this case, the future. You know that.”
“Yes,” Data says. His eyes— one blue, one yellow— blink slowly. “Yes, I do know that.” His eyes gaze at nothing, unfocused. "But I could look like myself again."
“Hey.” Geordi brings his hand up to cup the side of Data's face, and he kisses the line where skin meets bioplast. "You do look like yourself."
After seven years trapped in the past, Data begins to malfunction.
The problems are small— a twitch in his neck, a stutter in his speech. As time goes on, his software and hardware become less and less efficient. Without the technology and tools that are stuck in the future, Geordi can’t do anything to help him.
“It is not so terrible, Geordi,” Data assures him, gazing with some interest at the slight but constant tremor in his left hand. “Is it not similar to the aging process humans experience?”
“I guess you’re right,” Geordi sighs. He himself is beginning to sport a few gray hairs at his temples. “You’ve even got wrinkles.”
“Wrinkles?” The thought had never occured to Data. But now that he’s considering it, he can see the truth in Geordi’s statement. The grafted part of his face does have faint lines where his eye creases. He turns back to Geordi. “Am I still handsome?” he asks, mouth quirking into a smile.
Geordi leans forward to kiss his crow’s feet (or, more accurately, crow’s foot). “Always.”
The years go by, and finally Data and Geordi are paid a visit by an old friend, a boy now grown who travels time and space, forever adrift. Wesley Crusher is a sight for sore eyes. “I could bring you two back to your own time,” he suggests, so much older and even wiser than they’d seen him last. “You could go home.”
Data and Geordi look at each other, and then back at Wesley. Both thinking the same thing. “We’re already home,” Geordi tells him. “Thanks, Wes, but… we’re good.”
That’s the year they attend the 100th anniversary of the San Francisco Pride festival, hands clasped as they watch the flags and floats go by.