She looks at him with narrowed eyes. That wasn't an answer. Oh, it was a passable effort at one, but -
She replays what he said in her head. "The Captain wouldn't send you if he thought you were compromised." She forces herself to replay what happened. She won't be able to sleep tonight as a result, but something isn't adding up.
"'Not something you are typically prone to,'" she repeats slowly as her forehead scrunches in thought. "And it wasn't the virus," she adds after a long moment.
Something doesn't fit. She knows about the dark side of biological beings and the uses he could be asked to do or be coerced into just because he was so curious...so willing to please.
It was the one blessing she had counted on. She knew damn well sobriety brought restraint and better judgement - but if someone did anything under the influence it wasn't the drugs magically creating new thoughts for you. The impulse was already there. You just had enough sense not to act on it.
So, yes...She had been trying to find a protector. Yes, she would have tried those ridiculous lines on Jean-Luc if he'd shown up and knew that...if he'd...
She physically shakes that thought away.
The one protection Data had, she figured early on, was there was no way he could be intimately abused. No interest was no interest. It made it safe to come to him when the nightmares got bad just to talk and laugh for him at him continued experiments in humanity. It made it a warm, friendly thing to answer his questions...to let a softer side of herself slip out; to admit she frequently didn't know much more than he did. If that warm feeling grew - and, if she were honest - grew quickly, then it was just too bad there was one more aspect of humanity out there that would never be reached, but, she rationalized, it also meant no one would ever be close enough to be hurt on either side of the equation.
And now the equation wasn't balancing. She was hurting and there was something not adding up on his side either.
"'Typically,'" she says, as neutrally as possible, searching his face for any clue. "Is not 'never.' It's not even in a light year of 'incapable'." Tasha starts to feel the potential in this, even where he doesn't. She blushes furiously and it's as if the whole ship shut off the artificial gravity; all heady and with her stomach forever falling, but she presses on. She is sure she'll hate the answer, but she has to know.
"Was it the situation - the offer? Would anyone would have sufficed - or is it because I asked?"
Inwardly, she prayed to whomever listened to such things that this was not the moment her friend had finally learned to lie.
no subject
She replays what he said in her head. "The Captain wouldn't send you if he thought you were compromised." She forces herself to replay what happened. She won't be able to sleep tonight as a result, but something isn't adding up.
"'Not something you are typically prone to,'" she repeats slowly as her forehead scrunches in thought. "And it wasn't the virus," she adds after a long moment.
Something doesn't fit. She knows about the dark side of biological beings and the uses he could be asked to do or be coerced into just because he was so curious...so willing to please.
It was the one blessing she had counted on. She knew damn well sobriety brought restraint and better judgement - but if someone did anything under the influence it wasn't the drugs magically creating new thoughts for you. The impulse was already there. You just had enough sense not to act on it.
So, yes...She had been trying to find a protector. Yes, she would have tried those ridiculous lines on Jean-Luc if he'd shown up and knew that...if he'd...
She physically shakes that thought away.
The one protection Data had, she figured early on, was there was no way he could be intimately abused. No interest was no interest. It made it safe to come to him when the nightmares got bad just to talk and laugh for him at him continued experiments in humanity. It made it a warm, friendly thing to answer his questions...to let a softer side of herself slip out; to admit she frequently didn't know much more than he did. If that warm feeling grew - and, if she were honest - grew quickly, then it was just too bad there was one more aspect of humanity out there that would never be reached, but, she rationalized, it also meant no one would ever be close enough to be hurt on either side of the equation.
And now the equation wasn't balancing. She was hurting and there was something not adding up on his side either.
"'Typically,'" she says, as neutrally as possible, searching his face for any clue. "Is not 'never.' It's not even in a light year of 'incapable'." Tasha starts to feel the potential in this, even where he doesn't. She blushes furiously and it's as if the whole ship shut off the artificial gravity; all heady and with her stomach forever falling, but she presses on. She is sure she'll hate the answer, but she has to know.
"Was it the situation - the offer? Would anyone would have sufficed - or is it because I asked?"
Inwardly, she prayed to whomever listened to such things that this was not the moment her friend had finally learned to lie.