Flashback/Test Scene:

[tasha_yar]

It was a nice simulation - all rolling hills and green grass. The sky was almost too blue, but Tasha didn't have the greatest color sense in the universe.

Picard had ordered her on a long break for everyone once the Enterprise returned to normal space after their time with the Traveler, and most of the crew was on well-needed shore leave on the world below. She tried going back to her normal comforts - working out, practicing with the aikido program, reading the latest reports. Hell, she even broke down and listened to Klingon opera in order to refine her grasp on the language.

It hadn't helped. The nightmares of being chased and caught with her senses blurred from any variety of drugs she could find making the dream-memories even more nightmarish and barely contained. They melded with the cage from her fight with Yareena. They blurred with Q's courtroom. And they had been blending with...that...ever since the Tsiolkovsky encounter.

It was all getting worse, not better, even as she felt herself wanting to settle in and make this a home. She was feeling her walls come up again - just like when she'd managed to do or say something stupid on her other postings. Lieutenant Yar could handle anything - minefields, riots, the criminally insane. Tasha made Wesley look like a goddamn sophisticated grown-up!

She sighed and looked at the holo-recorder in her hand. She stretched and pressed the button again. Self-pity wasn't going to get this done.

"Geordi, in those moments I felt the most despair, you took my hand and helped me to see things differently. You taught me to look beyond the moment."

Good. Solid. Decent. Sure, it felt woefully inadequate. It's not like she had a gift for words. With a silent apology, she moved onto the last person on the list. She'd splice this all together to put this in the middle - just to save some face somewhere. He wouldn't care, but she cared about the kind of idiocy he'd face.

"My friend Data," she starts on the speech she had planned. "You see things with the wonder of a child -" A smile plays across her lips. "And that makes you more human than any of us. And Data..." She hesitated. "Data, I..." Sigh, rewind, try again. "Data it did happen!" she manages to blurt out, followed immediately by a "Fuck!" Then a realization that was all being recorded again.

She flopped on the ground in defeat and impulsively threw the crystal hexagon back behind her.

"How about, 'Data, I'm sorry.' 'Data, I wish I wasn't so damn scared.' 'Data, I hope you didn't scar you for life so when you do find some person who is as wonderful and smart and fantastic as you are -" She growls in further defeat.

Then she realizes she never heard the holo-recorder land.

Comments

[tasha_yar]

Her lips twitch into a self-depreciating grimace. "Back on Vulcan," she says, mentioning her home as a young adult, "That usually meant I was in trouble."

She squeezes his arm once more before dropping her hand. She fidgets a bit to remove bits of tension in her neck and shoulders.

And she hopes he doesn't say something that will bring Ishara more to mind that this whole situation has, but - Well, this isn't about her...mostly. She does miss aspects of Data she perceives as "healthy," that feel as if they diminished after Lore's presence.

Maybe she's wrong? That happens frequently enough.

After processing all that through she nods to him. "All right, proceed with the hypothetical."

[humandroid]

"To my knowledge, you are not currently in trouble." He inclines his head towards her.

"My status as the only known being of my kind has effectively been revised to a status as the last of my kind. My brother is responsible for numerous deaths, many of which contributed to the largely unknown explanation of my origin and creation. If the same sequence of events were to occur in direct correlation with a human's lifetime, how might that make one... feel?"

[tasha_yar]

May he never understand that she is a walking, talking case of trouble.

Her eyes follow his as she speaks with far more calm and sadness than her normal cadence. "I am the only person who chose to leave Turkana," she admits. "Still. After all this time. Everything I say is going to be colored by that."

Tasha presses on. "There's a certain uniqueness in being the only one of your kind. It's lonely, but it's also special. There's a small bit of pride in it. Then there's the sense that only you and you alone can speak for a certain type of experience. That often leads to attention, and that attention can feel good and bad depending on the person asking and the circumstances."

"Then comes along another survivor." Her lips twitch into a sad smile. She had dreams where Ishara just suddenly showed up at her door - sober, free of the cadres, and all smiles - and she uses them now. "Someone where you don't need to explain things to over and over, that you don't need to apologize to for being so different than everyone else, and I can imagine there would be so much relief in that. There's joy that you aren't alone anymore. Maybe a little bit of loss in there, too, because as messed up as it is, there's a loss in no longer being unique."

"And then they abuse you - on top of everything you both may have done to survive. It seems like 'betrayal' is too mild of a word for something like that. Worse, they attack your sanctuary - defiling it. So, fear. Irrational, stupid fear."

"Then there's something I know you're doing." She places a hand over what would be his heart. "Taking what you know or have been told and re-examining who you thought you were based on that new information, because a human would feel disturbed in their sense of self."

Suddenly, this look of horror crosses her face and she steps back from him, blushing bright red and silent after a murmured apology. She looks ready to run.

[humandroid]

Data takes in her words with rapt attention. Every gesture, every cadence of her tone, every turn of phrase. Humans, he's aware, experience and rationalize events in ways unique to their own understanding, while he can only process events as they are. While some portion of his brain may undoubtedly apply itself to analyzing her explanations as such, he's content not to bring it into active consideration at current.

What must it be like to experience so many diverse and complex emotions within a limited span of time?

Enraptured may, in fact, be too mild a word to describe his interest.

"You do not need to apologize. I am familiar with the probability of receiving routine physical contact within certain parameters. And I found your observations to be quite... remarkable." Humans. They never cease to be remarkable. "If you would prefer to be relieved of cataloging duty due to your previously-expressed distaste, of course, that would be understandable."

[tasha_yar]

The embarrassment drains from her replaced by something...else. It's not attraction that is left in its stead. She know what that feels like. This feels...more. She likes it - too much. What he said though just caught up to her and there was something there that bothered her.

"Wait." She holds up a hand. "Are you saying that people don't touch you?"

[humandroid]

"I have been touched." In every factual sense, at least. "It is more common that such contact is limited to mechanical or professional exchanges, however. Experience has indicated that I am not yet-- adept at recognizing the appropriate circumstances in which to initiate friendly physical contact. Observance has been a key aspect of my ongoing improvement."

[tasha_yar]

She grimaces. "I'll own up to some of that confusion," she admits. After some time of silence, she explains.

"I think with what I just did, it was almost like...wanting to transfer strength. I trust you, and I like you, so that contact -" Her grimace morphs into bashfulness. "It feels good."

"But why I pulled away was that I'm not that good with touch either. I felt like I might have over-stepped myself and done something wrong. I don't want to make mistakes, especially when it comes to you."