Work Text:
Data tapped his fingers on the desk as he worked, trying to mimic the idle movement he had observed humans doing in the past. The report from Geordi on the new improvements to the secondary plasma injectors scrolled past his eyes at the highest rate the screen was capable of displaying clearly. The modifications seemed to be working well, and had increased engine efficiency by 5.3%. Still, he thought he saw a way to increase the efficiency by an additional 0.25% by adjusting the flux ratio of the forward injector port. He would have to tell Geordi in the morning, when he was up.
Data had learned the hard way that humans strongly disliked being woken up in the middle of the night, particularly for matters that could wait until the morning.
The engineering report finished displaying and Data began to load a novel instead. He had read all of the relevant reports and papers, and although he did not technically require rest, he was not due for his shift for some time. He often read during these periods, when it was too late to talk to people and too early to work. The ship was quiet, with little noise save for the warp engines in the background, and the soft breathing of Spot sleeping on the floor next to the bed Data had replicated for her.
Spot was intriguing to Data, and he felt a kinship with her that he felt with only a few other members of the crew, such a Geordi. He knew that she was likely incapable of the complex thought processes indicative of sentient beings (though he would not entirely discount them, considering how many seemingly nonsentient entities actually turned out to be so), but he felt the kinship nevertheless.
Humans were complicated, Data knew. They had complex social rituals and customs that often had to be indirectly deduced, and he still struggled to understand and master all elements of interaction, though he was improving.
Spot, on the other hand, was not complicated. She was not always easy to understand - he could not fathom why she refused to sleep in her bed and eat the food he made her - but she made sense in a way that humans often did not, and she did not judge him.
(Or at least, if she did judge him, she kept it to herself)
Data continued reading his novel, capable of doing more things at once than any human. He was thinking about Spot, working on Geordi’s engineering problem, analyzing the astrometric data they had collected at the nebula they passed yesterday, and reviewing his recent conversation with the Councellor on Betazoid theories of psychology.
But he was also reading a novel, and it was in that novel he came across the phrase “cats can’t love.”
It was not a very good novel, Data had to admit. He would, to use the vernacular of the time, call it a “trashy romance novel.” He was reading it more for the historical context than for the plot.
“You’re cold and hostile,” the male love interest informed the protagonist. “Like that cat of yours. It doesn’t love you, don’t you know that? Cats can’t love. They might seem like they can, but it’s not real, and neither are you!”
Data felt that the male love interest was perhaps not the best choice for the young woman starring in the novel, but they were not real and their romance was, consequently, also not real.
Still, the off-handed phrase kept running through his subroutines, even as the characters in the novel moved on.
Cats can’t love.
Was it true? Data didn’t know. How could he, when he didn’t know what love was? It was not as though he, himself, had ever felt it. He valued his friends, and he felt secure in the knowledge that they valued him in return, but was it love?
He had, once, reviewed the literature on emotions, searching for a definition of feelings such as love. He had come away with more questions than answers, and it seemed like everyone with an opinion described it differently. Pleasant or painful, actions or emotions, a choice or an accident - everyone seemed to view it differently.
Data’s novel finished, and instead of loading another one he found himself getting up from his desk and crossing the room to where Spot lay sleeping. She woke as he approached, arching her back in a deep stretch and yawning. He ran his hand over her soft fur and picked her up, feeling the purr as keenly as he heard it. She looked into his eyes for a long moment before blinking, slowly, and turning away.
Cats can’t love.
Data remembered the words of others at the Academy, careless and cruel. “What is it doing?”, they would say. “A robot can’t have friends.”. Many people there had been kind and willing to interact with him, but there were always some who felt that he didn’t and would never belong.
“I don’t doubt your usefulness to this crew, Data. I simply don’t think you are capable of caring about it as deeply as a human officer would,” Data remembered his first Captain telling him, after he had been passed over for promotion in place of a much less experienced and qualified officer.
He had proven them wrong, of course, at least on some counts. He had been awarded for bravery and dedication, and he had friends here that he wanted to protect.
But he still didn’t really feel, and he knew that would always mark him as an outsider. Even Vulcans, for all their calm facades, felt emotions - they simply suppressed them. Data didn’t have anything to suppress at all.
Spot wriggled in his arms a little, pushing herself up to rest on his shoulder. She was still purring away, content with Data’s hand gently rubbing her head.
Cats can’t love, the novel had said.
Data didn’t know if that was true, didn’t know what love was or how it looked and felt. He didn’t know what it meant or how to recognize it.
But if he had to guess, he would have said that it looked a little like this - this warm little creature sitting on his shoulder and trusting him with her care. She valued his presence, and he valued hers, and he didn’t know if either of them was capable of love, but it would have to be enough.
For once, Data thought that maybe it would be.