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Warp six painted the stars into long, slow streaks beyond the viewports; beautiful, soft white lines blending into the dark. The Enterprise moved calmly, certain of its direction.
Inside Ten Forward, Guinan polished a glass that was already clean. She did it the way some people moved through her lounge, quietly, repetitively, with intention. The bar lights stayed low, soft and forgiving as the stars, soft enough to let everyone pretend they weren’t exactly who they were at this hour. Drinks were only an excuse, what they really came for was permission to be quiet. To exist without explanation. Ten Forward gave them that. Guinan made sure of it.
Warp six wasn’t fast enough to feel reckless, not slow enough to feel without purpose. Inside, time pooled instead of moving. Rank loosened its tie. Regulations softened their voices. Even Starfleet’s finest needed a place where the universe could lean back and exhale, if just for a moment.
Guinan set a glass down in front of a tired officer and met their eyes just long enough to remind them they were still okay, thriving and present on the ship. Still here. Still moving forward, even if it didn’t feel like it.
Data chose the corner where the light thinned out, where Ten Forward and its patrons forgot to look too closely.
The window beside him was wide, generous with the expanse of the universe, but he did not bring his gaze to it, not really. The stars slid past at warp six, he knows this from his previous glance with precise, measurable calculations, but they failed to hold his attention. Watching them would have been redundant.
He wore civilian clothes now. A black turtleneck that erased the line where uniform and rank used to begin, dark trousers, sensible shoes. No rank pips. Not anymore. No Starfleet insignia. Nothing that asked him to be addressed a certain way. Once, he would have been here on duty, posture aligned with Starfleet’s expectations, presence justified by commission and command structure. Once, every moment had been in service of becoming more human. The fabric of civilian life sat differently on him; less formal obligation in the seams, more choice.
To the room, he looked like a man waiting for someone who might not come. Guinan noticed, of course. She always did.
His hands rested on the table, fingers folded with deliberate care. He did not fidget. If he looked like he was thinking, it was only because humans assumed stillness meant thought. Now there was no directive. No ladder. No measurable outcome that wasn’t purely personal.
Data looked down at the thick glass bottle in front of him; imperfectly symmetrical, the kind of thing made by hands instead of replicators. Light bent through it unevenly, amber deepening toward the base. Beside it, a small glass Guinan had placed without comment.
Gin, from Finibus VI.
Not synthetic, Guinan informed him.
Data had poured precisely twelve milliliters. Enough for analysis.
He tilted the glass, watching how it clung to the sides. Viscosity marginally higher than Earth gin. Botanical oils suspended longer. Distillation method likely pre-industrial, copper stills, low automation. There was care in it.
He ran a spectrographic analysis internally, mapping concentration, tracing the signature compounds that differentiated it from synthehol’s dull emptiness.
Data considered Riker’s preferences the way one might study a star chart drawn from memory. The way Riker’s mouth tilted slightly when something surprised him. The way he favored warmth over sweetness, complexity over novelty. The way he drank slowly when he was thinking, quickly when he was pretending not to.
Offering alcohol was not required. It was not protocol. There was no regulation governing gifts given without occasion, no equation to justify the impulse that had led him here, seated in shadow, civilian clothes absorbing the light.
Still, he catalogued the act carefully.
Probability Riker would enjoy it: high.
Probability Riker would ask where it came from: moderate.
Probability Riker would understand why Data chose it: unknowable.
Data found that last variable… compelling, and adjusted the conclusions. There was, as always, a margin for error… Human taste was inconsistent, subject to the very things he was trying to calculate; mood, memory, fatigue, the echo of an argument hours old or a victory not yet acknowledged. Commander Riker, in particular, defied clean prediction.
He could dismiss a perfectly balanced liquor on one night and savour something flawed on another, claiming later it had “character.”
Data had never been able to quantify what, precisely, constituted ‘character.’
…Still, the gin’s profile aligned closely enough with Riker’s preferences to justify the attempt. The offering would not embarrass him. It would not feel careless. If nothing else, it would open a conversation. Data marked that as sufficient.
He decided to take the bottle back to their quarters. Not now, but later. When the bridge lights dimmed. When command loosened its grip on Riker’s shoulders. When the day had fully finished with him.
For the moment, patience was indicated.
Data lifted the glass and took a sip.
He processed the profiles carefully, even without the ability to taste. It’s such an odd shade of Amber that he isn’t sure if he’d like to taste it to begin with. There was no need to catalogue that variable, however. Some inputs did not benefit from dissection. He swallowed.
A pair of officers laughed too loudly at something Data assumed was meant to be humorous. It caught his attention a little too late. He did not hear the punchline, voices blurred together, words dissolving before they really reached him. He considered whether the failure was environmental or internal, then dismissed the distinction. It did not matter. Even if he had heard it clearly, he possessed no true sense of humor. Laughter remained an equation with missing variables.
The sound washed past him and went nowhere.
A glass clinked against the bar, loud but brief. The noise echoed longer in his awareness than it should have. Guinan glanced in his direction. She met his eyes, golden yellow, steady, further away than the ship from Earth, and then looked away again. Not out of dismissal. Out of understanding. She knew what waiting looked like. She knew who he was waiting for. Some things did not need to be acknowledged aloud. She still kept an eye on him, the way she did with ion storms that hadn’t decided whether to break yet.
Data lowered his gaze to the small glass in his hand. The gin caught the light of the stars. Riker was still on the bridge. Ten Forward laughed and lived without him. Without Data. The room did not notice his absence from its center as a lieutenant commander any more than it noticed his presence at the edge. He remained seated, patient by design, instruction and habit, holding a drink meant for someone else, waiting in a place that knew how to be full with humanity when he didn’t.
His observer served drinks with one hand and watched the room with the rest of herself. A refill here. A quiet word there. Between movements, her gaze drifted back to the far corner, never long enough to intrude, always long enough to confirm he was still there. Still waiting. Still folded neatly into his patience.
She did not need Data’s sense of time to know when Riker would be relieved. She felt it instead, the rhythm of the ship, the subtle shift that came when command fatigue finally outweighed duty. It wasn’t down to the second, Guinan had never cared for that kind of precision, but she knew the shape of the evening well enough to recognize where it was headed.
Soon.
She polished a glass that actually needed it, then set it aside. Another patron waved her down. Another story, another small grief, another laugh that didn’t quite reach the eyes. Life passed across her bar in fragments, still, she watched Data.
If he were anyone else, she thought, he’d be lonely.
Not the loud kind, the kind that demanded attention or filled the air with complaints. The quiet kind. The kind that sat politely in the corner and waited to be chosen. A wallflower. A kind of lonely that came from having one person be the center of your gravity, and realizing how small the rest of the universe could feel without them.
Data did not name that feeling.
He didn’t say he was lonely, didn’t say he expressed any feelings of sadness.
He simply did not reach for anyone else. These days, he spoke to few beyond Riker, no casual dinners, no wandering conversations, no idle connections to pass the time. His world had narrowed, not from lack, but from what he said was focus. From devotion that he claimed was everything to him now.
Guinan’s eyes softened.
She poured another drink, slid it across the bar, and glanced back toward the window. Data just sat, just as he had before, just a glass in hand, posture composed, civilian clothes absorbing the starlight just so. Waiting with a patience so complete it almost looked like stillness.
It took hours.
The night thinned out just a little at first, the loud laughter losing its edge, the conversations unraveling into softer vocals. Ten Forward grew quieter in the way a place did when it realized it would not be the center of attention forever.
Commander Riker came off shift and did not come straight to the bar, and when he had he entered Ten Forward like someone easing back into normal life, shoulders still carrying the bridge, eyes adjusting to the dim. He scanned the room once, habit, not intention, and saw Data immediately. Of course he did. Data had a way of being visible even when he was trying not to be.
Their eyes did not meet.
Riker veered toward a bustling cluster of officers instead, all crowded around each other. Familiar faces. Easy laughter. Someone already holding a drink out for him like they knew he would eventually come. He accepted it with a grin that came easily, the kind that suggested the day, the away mission, and duty had been long but survivable.
Data did not react.
He took a small sip from his glass. The gin was lower now, the bottle still full and heavy in weight and style beside him. He recalculated nothing. This outcome had always been within acceptable parameters. Riker liked his private social time.
Riker talked. He leaned against the bar, one foot hooked around the leg of a stool. He laughed at stories Data could not hear clearly, slapped someone lightly on the shoulder, nodded along with a complaint about the bridge rotation. Time passed. An hour, approximately. More, possibly. The room continued to empty itself of urgency.
Guinan watched it all without comment.
Data stayed where he was. He did not look at Riker again. He did not watch the stars. He simply waited, patient as a function that had no termination condition.
Eventually, the crowd thinned enough to release him.
Riker’s laughter softened, then stopped. Conversations reached their natural ends. Drinks emptied. One by one, officers drifted out, leaving behind empty glasses and the quiet residue of companionship.
Only then did Riker cross the room.
He approached Data without ceremony, chair legs whispering against the floor as he pulled one out and sat across from him. Close enough now for the low hum of the engines to fill the space between them. He set his glass down a little too carefully.
Data looked up, “Commander,” he said, voice even, unmarked by the passage of time.
Riker seemed to notice everything around himself all at once. His blue eyes lifted, sweeping Ten Forward in a slow, deliberate gaze. Corners first. Reflections in the glass. The bar. The shadows near the doors. He looked the way a man did when he was counting witnesses rather than people.
The ship watched back.
The hills had eyes.
The Enterprise always did.
Everything remembered. Corridors whispered. Even in a room half-empty, there was the sense of being observed; not just by eyes, not exactly, but by knowledge. This ship knew its crew. It knew their patterns. Their failures. Their attachments. Their lives.
Everyone knew this one.
Everyone knew that Data belonged to Riker.
Beyond the way that demanded announcement, and did not spectacle in turn. Riker wasn’t careless enough for spectacle. He he wasn’t careful either. Not really. He had never mastered the art of secrecy when it came to the things he chose. This was chosen. Firmly. Loudly. Even if the way he carried it sometimes wavered under the weight of being utterly ashamed.
He exhaled through his nose, something tight loosening just enough to hurt. Slowly, so slowly, the commander slid his hand across the table. His fingers found Data’s without hesitation. Cool. Certain. He folded Data’s pearlescent hand into his own like it was the most natural thing in the universe, like there had never been a version of this where he was embarrassed by it.
Data’s gaze dropped at once.
He looked at their hands together with an attention that bordered on emotion. The contrast struck him; the difference in temperature, the slight tremor in Riker’s thumb, the pressure that said ‘here, now, stay.’ He did not analyze further. He did not need to.
His lips curved, just barely. A soft smile on perfectly shaped golden lips.
Riker noticed it and looked away again. Embarrassment flickered through him, not regret, not exactly, not when no one else in the entirety of space had sex like this; but something closer to shame. Not for holding Data’s hand, but for taking all of him. For taking a machine as a lover. For letting the night prove, once again, that patience was something Data carried more gracefully than he ever could.
Ten Forward pretended not to see.
Guinan turned her back at the bar. The stars kept sliding past, indifferent as ever. The ship listened and said nothing. Always listened. Always saw.
Riker’s fingers brushed the neck of the bottle without lifting it. Tapped once. Stilled. He still hadn’t looked up, “I went to my cabin after my shift ended,” he said again, quieter now, like repetition might turn it into something else, “…But you weren’t there.”
The weight in his voice wasn’t accusation. It was worse than that. It was expectation.
“I am sorry, Sir,” Data replied, automatically adjusting his volume downward, calibrating himself to the tension in the air. His thumb did not move beneath Riker’s hand. He did not pull away. He had learned, over time, which motions escalated and which ones did not, “…I am aware that you prefer me to stay in your quarters, and to not exit without permission. I did however wish to procure you—“
“—-Data,” Riker said it like a warning disguised as concern as he interrupted. He inhaled, long and controlled, the way he did before a difficult command decision. Before giving an order that would cost something, “I—” he stopped. His jaw flexed, tongue mulling over what he had to say, and what he really should be saying, “I didn’t mean to destroy your painting.”
The words landed with care, placed deliberately on the table between them. An offering…. Almost.
Still no apology.
“I am aware, sir,” Data said. It was true. He had been aware the moment the room had gone silent with a built up rage, the moment Riker’s raised voice had gone into something extreme, something palpable. He had been aware as the canvas tore, as pigment fractured and scattered like his paint palette and brushes across the floor. He had been aware as Riker’s anger filled the space where explanations should have gone.
Awareness, however, had never altered the outcome.
“Will,” Riker’s voice softened around his own name, but the softness did not reach his eyes. It rarely did, not when the subject was damage already done.
Data hesitated.
The hesitation was small. Barely measurable, and yet it existed, and that mattered. Once, using Riker’s first name had felt like closeness. Now it felt like permission he wasn’t sure he still had, “yes,” he said instead. Neutral. Safe.
Riker finally looked at him then.
There it was, that familiar conflict behind the blue. Pride and regret circling each other without ever making contact. Riker was many things: brave, brilliant, generous in ways the ship depended on. He could face down enemy fire without flinching. He could give a crewman his last ounce of faith and mean it, but he had never learned how to step back once he crossed a line with Data.
“I didn’t mean it,” Riker said again, quieter still. His grip on Data’s hand tightened, not painfully, but enough to be unmistakable. Possessive, “You know that.”
Data nodded.
He always nodded.
Intent had become irrelevant somewhere along the way.
What mattered was impact.
What mattered was the pattern: the raised voice that came faster now, the temper that burned hotter, the silences afterward that stretched longer and demanded more careful navigation.
What mattered, though he didn’t see it, was that Data had stopped painting in shared spaces.
That he flinched, not physically, but internally, when objects were handled too roughly. That he had to recalibrate immediately. That he chose corners and low light and gentle patience, because laying low was safer than proximity when emotions ran high.
Riker exhaled, frustrated, “I just—sometimes you disappear. And I don’t know where you go, and it feels like—” He stopped himself, shook his head. He didn’t finish that sentence either.
Data looked down at their joined hands again. His smile from earlier was gone, replaced by something smoother, more neutral, “I had simply removed myself to avoid further escalation,” he said gently, “It seemed… rather prudent.”
Riker stiffened, “That’s not what I want!” he said at once. Too fast. Too loud for the room, even now, “— I mean, I don’t want you afraid of me.”
Data’s processors stalled, just for a fraction of a second.
Afraid was a human word.
Loaded. Emotional… But he understood its function.
He understood warning signs. Raised voices. Broken objects. The way violence didn’t always begin with hands, but he did go along with the belief, his belief, that love excused damage…. And Riker loved him.
“I am not afraid, sir,” he said carefully. It was not a lie. Not exactly, “I do not experience fear.”
Riker searched his face, looking for reassurance. For absolution. For the familiar way Data always smoothed over the rough edges of his temper by simply enduring them and offering what he calculated was his feelings and representations of love.
Riker leaned back slightly, as if distance would give him clarity, “You’re upset that I ripped up your painting of Spot,” he said, testing the explanation aloud, trying it on for size, “…That’s why you came here.”
He glanced around Ten Forward again, eyes flicking toward the shadows, the windows, the bar, anywhere but Data’s face.
The ship listened. It always did.
The hills have eyes.
Data did not answer immediately.
Riker filled the silence with his own reasoning, the way he always did when discomfort threatened to turn inward, “You’ve been… distant lately,” he went on, “…You just sit there. Don’t say anything. Like a plant in the corner….” A short, humorless breath, because he knows he’s the one who’s instructed Data to ‘go away,’ and to also not leave their quarters, “You stay still for hours. Or you read. Slowly. Like you’re killing time on purpose.”
He said it like an observation. Like a diagnosis. Like something mildly inconvenient.
Data lowered his gaze. Unsure how to proceed. Constantly unsure how to keep Riker pleased.
It was true. He had been conserving motion. Reducing presence. Remaining small in shared spaces, careful not to intrude on Riker’s space unless explicitly summoned. He had learned that stillness provoked less irritation than curiosity. Silence less than questions. These were not adaptive behaviours listed in Starfleet manuals… But they worked.
Riker noticed the signs. Of course he did. He wasn’t blind. The quiet. The withdrawal. The way Data no longer offered suggestions unless asked, no longer followed him from room to room, no longer tried to bridge the gaps in conversation.
Riker knew.
He just didn’t care enough to stop.
“What is it this time?” Riker asked, softer, almost annoyed, a little aggravated, “Depression?” The word came out with a faint edge of disbelief, like it truly offended him. He shook his head, lips curling slightly, not cruelly, not overtly. Worse. Dismissively, “You don’t get depressed, Data. You don’t—” He gestured vaguely, frustrated, “You don’t feel. You’re a machine.”
The word landed harder than his voice.
Data looked down at himself, like shame was the only thing he really could feel, even if it wasn’t true.
“What does a robot know about sadness?” Riker continued, as if reasoning through a problem that had already bored him, “About being lonely? Stressed? About having a bad day? Do you even give a damn about what I go through on the bridge everyday? The pressures of command?”
Data’s fingers curled slowly against the tabletop.
He did not interrupt. He did not correct the premise. Didn’t insist ‘Android’ over ‘robot.’ He had learned that defending his interiority often escalated things, turned irritation into anger, anger into something physical, something that left marks not always visible.
Instead, he listened.
He listened to the rationalization, the way Riker reframed destruction as accident, violence as frustration, withdrawal as Data’s own malfunction. He listened to the convenient certainty that absolved Riker of responsibility: If he could not feel, then nothing Riker did could truly hurt him.
This logic had been sound. Data agreed.
It had justified raised voices.
Broken objects.
Hands gripping too tightly, then loosening without comment.
Data lifted his eyes at last, “I am capable of altered cognitive states,” he said quietly... Carefully… “Including prolonged reductions in motivation, engagement, and self-directed initiative. However, I would prefer that you give me initiative.”
Riker frowned, “That’s not—”
“—what humans call depression,” Data finished, evenly, “I am aware.”
The words were precise. Didn’t expose his circuitry. Safe.
They did not include the way the painting had mattered, not because it was art, but because it had been fragile, and his. Because it had been destroyed in anger meant for something he should have physically taken out on Data’s person.
They did not include the way Data now avoided sudden movements. Or how he catalogued Riker’s moods the way one tracked ops readings.
They did not include the way something inside him had learned to dim itself, slowly, to survive proximity.
Riker scoffed softly, “See? You’re fine…” He reached for his glass again, satisfied. Explanation achieved. Responsibility avoided.
Data did not respond.
Riker lifted his empty glass and held it out without looking at his Android, fingers loose around the rim like it was an afterthought.
Data reached for the bottle at once. He poured carefully, precisely, tilting the glass just enough to keep the liquid from rushing itself on the crystal. The gin caught the light as it fell, pale gold from dark amber. Twelve milliliters became twenty. Then twenty-five. He stopped there, remembering Riker’s preference for moderation that felt generous rather than restrained.
Then he waited.
There was something unmistakable in the way Data watched Riker now, an attentiveness honed by hope. His posture straightened by a few degrees. His head inclined, just slightly, as if aligning himself for better reception. Internally, calculations queued and reordered themselves, all around a single variable: ‘Will this please him?’
Riker sniffed the drink, distracted, more out of habit than curiosity. He took a sip.
Data’s gaze fixed on the smallest details; the pause before Riker swallowed, the way his mouth shifted as the flavour developed, the brief narrowing of his eyes as the botanicals bloomed. Data compared each micro-expression against stored patterns, against nights that had ended well and nights that had not. Things that relaxed him and things that did not.
This mattered.
If the gin fit Riker’s palate, it meant Data had done something right.
That he still knew how to be a good partner.
That he could still anticipate his needs, still be useful, still justify his presence not as obligation but as choice.
Riker swallowed and leaned back, a little “Huh,” left his lips. Another sip followed, larger this time, “That’s… actually good.”
Data’s shoulders eased, barely perceptible, but real. His lips curved again, that small, careful smile returning like something he allowed himself only in success, “I hypothesized that it would align with your preferences,” he said, unable to keep the faint eagerness from his voice, “The distillation process produces a dryness similar to Earth-based gins you have previously favoured, while the botanical profile introduces—”
“Yeah,” Riker interrupted, waving a hand, “You nailed it.”
The praise landed like a reward.
Data absorbed it instantly, filing it somewhere deep, somewhere that had begun to substitute approval for command experience. His attention heightened further, as though success demanded maintenance. He watched Riker drink again, archiving satisfaction as proof of his own worth.
This was what he was good at.
Anticipation. Accommodation. Being a good host. A good companion.
A good choice.
“I intended to bring the bottle back to our quarters,” Data added, gently, “For later. If you wished.”
Riker nodded, distracted already, eyes drifting back toward the room,“Sure. Yeah. That’s fine.”
Data accepted the dismissal without protest. He folded his hands together on the table, waiting again, content, for the moment, with having done something correctly. With having pleased him. With having demonstrated, once more, that he was worthy of affection if he performed well enough, predicted accurately enough, stayed attentive enough.
Riker’s hand found Data’s again, as if by reflex.
His thumb brushed over Data’s synthetic skin; so smooth, unblemished, manufactured to endure. The contact was gentle enough to look like tenderness. It always did. Data registered the pressure, the warmth, the subtle change in rhythm as Riker’s pulse steadied against him.
He wished, briefly, dangerously, that he could feel what this was meant to be.
He understood love conceptually.
He understood devotion, attachment, pair-bonding, preference reinforced over time. The way different cultures chose their mates. He knew Riker loved him; that much was evident in the way Riker claimed him, the way he reached for him without asking, the way that maybe absence irritated him more than presence ever could.
Still… there was a gap; an unbridgeable space between knowing and feeling. Data stood at the edge of it now, aware of what should be there.
Riker looked at him for a long moment.
Something unreadable passed over his face; fondness, perhaps, or possession, or the simple relief of finding Data still exactly where he had left him. Then his gaze shifted, already moving on, already elsewhere.
Toward the entrance.
Toward the ship.
Toward what came next.
“The pieces still need to be picked up,” Riker said.
He said it casually. Like a reminder. Like an errand that had slipped his mind. Not an apology. Not a question.
Like Data was responsible for the aftermath.
Data’s fingers tightened slightly around Riker’s hand before he let go.
“I have already addressed the matter,” he said, voice calm, eager to preempt dissatisfaction. “I cleaned our quarters thoroughly; floor surfaces, furnishings, storage units. I disposed of the damaged canvas and remaining materials.”
Riker blinked, then nodded once, satisfied.
“It should now meet your preferences,” Data continued. “I ensured alignment with your preferred organizational standards.”
He paused, then added, because this, too, mattered, “The space is adequate.”
Adequate. Clean. Restored. As though nothing had happened.
Riker smiled faintly. “Good,” he said. “I figured you would.”
The trust in that statement was not kindness. It was assumption. The certainty that Data would absorb the labor, the cleanup, the erasure…quietly, efficiently, without complaint. Data sat very still, believing; because he had learned to: that love meant cleaning up the pieces, and that being good meant making sure no one ever had to see the mess again.
Data accepted it like a compliment.
Inside, something adjusted again. Another small recalibration. Another line crossed without resistance. He noted, distantly, that he had not kept even a fragment of the painting. No record. No attempt at reconstruction. Disposal had seemed… simpler.
More final.
He folded his hands together on the table, posture composed, expression serene. A good homemaker. A good companion. Someone who understood his role in maintaining equilibrium.
Riker rose first.
The motion was decisive, commanding, an end put to the evening without discussion. Data followed suit at once, instinctively, as though the command had already been given. Riker left their glasses on the bar for Guinan to collect. He paused there, posture easy again, charm reassembled without thought.
“Thanks for the drinks,” he said, warm and genuine, “Have a good night.”
Guinan met his smile with one of her own; polite, measured, professional, warm and still welcoming even as he left, “Anytime, Commander…” Her gaze shifted, just briefly, to Data, “And good night to you, too,” she added.
“Good night,” Data replied, inclining his head with a soft nod.
As they turned away, Guinan’s smile faded; not into anger, not even into judgment. Just something older. That she’d seen and felt before. Sadder. She watched them go, the easy confidence of Riker’s stride beside the quiet precision of Data’s, and thought, without blame, without illusion of what this was and what it wasn’t, that she wished Data had chosen someone kinder to him… But who could have known?
Riker had once been that man.
He caught Data at the small of his back as they walked, fingers pressing with casual ownership. Not enough to hurt, not that it would. Enough to guide. Enough to remind. Data adjusted his pace immediately, aligning himself without conscious effort. He did not resist the touch, and allowed himself to just be steered.
They passed through the doors of Ten Forward and into the corridor beyond. Crew members they passed nodded to Riker, smiled at him. Some glanced at Data. No one said anything.
Riker didn’t slow.
At the turbolift, he stepped in first and waited for Data to follow before turning, “Deck eight,” he said, before Data could.
The doors slid shut. Data stood beside him, hands folded neatly, posture composed. The lift began its smooth descent.
He knew, with certainty, that he was not depressed. He was not sad. Those emotional states remained outside his capacity, uninstalled programs he could reference but not run. His systems showed no imbalance, no malfunction, no deviation that would warrant concern.
He was also certain that something had been taken from him.
Not stolen in a single moment, not lost through damage or error, but worn away through repetition. Through adaptation. Through the steady practice of becoming smaller where he had once expanded.
There had been a time when he hoped, actively, earnestly, for his humanity. When he believed it was something he might grow into, piece by piece, through art and curiosity and connection. When each failure felt instructive rather than diminishing. When the future looked like an invitation instead of a narrowing corridor.
That version of himself had painted without fear of destruction. Had spoken without calculating consequence. Had waited for love without bracing for aftermath.
Now, hope no longer presented itself that way.
Hope required imagining a self who might want something for his own sake. A self who could risk disappointment without immediately restructuring himself to prevent it next time. A self who believed that tenderness did not have to be earned through usefulness or compliance.
Data no longer ran those projections.
Not because they were impossible;
but because they had become inefficient.
Adequate rather than becoming.
Riker’s hand remained at the small of his back, familiar pressure guiding him, keeping him in the present, feeling kept and loved.
The turbolift chimed softly as it reached their destination.
Deck eight.
Data stepped forward when the doors opened, already orienting himself toward what would be required next. The quarters would be clean. Order maintained. Disruption minimized.
Humanity, once something he reached toward with wonder, had become an abstract he no longer had to chase.