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

[humandroid]

Humans have often commented on his penchant for silent, efficient movement. Of course, in that line of thought, humans have often commented on all of his notable functions. The limits of his strength. The speed at which he is able to process new information. His ability to adapt to new and unusual situations.

Data has been with Starfleet for quite some time now, but it already seems safe to say that serving aboard the Enterprise presents him with the newest and most unusual situations yet.

He debates seeking Tasha out for a time-- in his own way, at least. Events of late could be considered strenuous ones. The assigned downtime for personnel is well-earned. People often utilize these time periods for socialization and recreational activities. Getting to know one another, engaging in activities with friends. Lieutenant Yar has not made efforts to avoid him entirely, per se, but even Data doubts if it can be argued that she would enjoy engaging in controlled social rituals with him while off-duty.

The desire to seek her out in itself, however, presents enough of a puzzle to seek her out regardless of these facts. It is... not a feeling. Not an impulse. A point of interest, perhaps. Other members of the bridge crew- of ship inhabitants by and large- have proven relatively easy to seek out in times such as these. Data has considered the likelihood that his association with Lieutenant Yar would bear a different approach had they not been physically intimate (either at all, or simply not so particularly early in the Enterprise's ongoing mission). From his understanding of human behavior, it is quite likely.

He requests her location and finds her in enough time to catch her last frustrated outburst of sorts. Catches the recorder on reflex and examines it for potential damage. Suffice it to say, he understands nothing more than he did on entering the holodeck two minutes ago.

"It is not advisable to throw holo-recorders with force. Recordings are often recoverable from damaged pieces, but in the majority of cases, there is a 2.01 percent possibility that they will be beyond repair." He folds one arm behind his back. Tips his head to the right. "I believe this recorder has been spared even superficial damage, however."