SO IT GOES

-x-

I'm wondering whether this is turning into a series of Data/Geordi shorts, centring around death and featuring ridiculous instruments. If I ever do another similar one it might have to incorporate a Hurdy-Gurdy. Or a Wurlitzer. So, yeah, I don't always bang on about death, honest, it's just a theme that's very relevant to this pair. And I didn't manage to fit in a Hitchiker's Guide ref anywhere in this one – Blast!

This story takes the final few paragraphs of The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut as inspiration – while it doesn't give away any huge plot points of the book, it might be slightly spoilery if you haven't read it yet but are meaning to (you should, it's wonderful!) So much thanks to Mr Vonnegut, who is, I'm sure, resting in the same Happy Place that all good androids go to eventually.

Again, I've tried to keep science out of this, but if I've fudged any particular details, I apologise in advance.

Don't own rights, not for profit, just for fun, please don't sue, and so on.

Enjoy!

Scribbles

-x-

Doctor Li opened the door to a small house cast in gloom. Her elderly patient – the sole inhabitant of the house – was sat in a corner, doing nothing.

The Doctor sighed. The old man had taken to Doing Nothing more and more over the last few weeks. It didn't bode well at all.

'Captain…?' she ventured.

The old man didn't stir. 'How many times do I have to tell you? Don't call me "Captain". I'm not a Captain!'

'So you're retired,' shrugged Li. 'You still deserve the rank, and the respect.'

'Then respect my wishes. Don't call me "Captain".' The old man shrugged a little, to himself. 'S'never felt right to me. I was never a Captain. Not really. Not in here.' He tapped his chest, stiffly. 'In here, I was an Engineer. Always was, always will be.'

Li settled herself down in the chair next to her patient. 'So what should I call you by, then?'

'By my name!' The old man shook his head in exasperation. 'For God's sake, are we gonna have to spend the first five minutes of every appointment worrying about formalities? It doesn't matter, Doc. It really doesn't matter any more.'

Li held up her hands in acceptance. 'If you want to be informal, then we can be informal, Geordi.'

Geordi nodded once, curtly. 'Better.'

'So.' Li smiled at her patient. 'How are we feeling today?'

'Not so good.' Geordi paused. 'I finished my book.'

'So I noticed. Why don't you start a new one?'

Geordi sighed. 'There's no point. I'll probably be dead before I get to the end.'

Li frowned. Her patient had been growing ever more disinterested in the business of staying alive since he'd been referred to her, but she'd never heard him talking like that before – mentioning death with such a casual resignation.

'How do you mean, Geordi? Aren't you feeling well?'

Geordi managed a short, mischievous smile. 'Don't worry, Doc. I'm not planning on throwing myself off a cliff or anything, if that's what you had in mind. But I' m old, you know…'

'Nonsense! You could live another 50 years!'

'Don't you threaten me, Missy!' He smiled again. 'No, this is it. I've come to the last paragraph. I'm winding down. I'm getting tired.' He noted her concerned expression. 'And I'm OK with that. Seriously. I'm OK.'

'Geordi, there's nothing physically wrong with you. There's no reason that you should be dying.'

'There's a perfectly good reason. My time's just up. That's all.'

Li folded her hands in her lap, her look of concern not fading. 'Where has all of this come from, Geordi? There has to be some sort of trigger for this kind of thought in a perfectly healthy man like yourself.'

Geordi paused, running his hand over his lips. Li could tell when a patient was reticent about telling her a particular symptom.

'Geordi, please. I'm your Doctor. Just tell me.'

'You're gonna think I'm a crazy old Loon.'

'No I'm not.'

'OK…' He met her eyes, seriously. 'I've started seeing things.'

'In your sleep, you mean?'

'No,' Geordi replied. 'When I'm wide-awake, and lucid. Always in the corner of my eye, y'know? And when I try to look properly, it's gone.'

'What are you seeing?'

'An angel.'

He retained his gaze. Dr Li had always found those pale blue, mechanised implants in her patient's irises a little disconcerting. The electronic within the oh-so-human, the crisp nanotechnology staring out from within the haggard old face… they were so cold for a man once so genial and warm, and it seemed that now their cold was starting to spread to the rest of him. There was something else, too – she found those electronic eyes to be utterly inscrutable. She could never read their meaning. Perhaps it was the old man's sense of humour, but she could never, ever tell whether he was making fun of her or not.

'An… angel,' she repeated, carefully.

'Yep. I think he's come for me, at long last.'

'Did the angel say anything?'

'Not yet. But he's always been kinda chatty, so I'm guessing he's just waiting for the right moment to strike up a conversation.'

Dr Li raised an eyebrow. 'You know this "angel"?'

'I used to.'

Li shook her head with a sigh. 'You know, all of this… it's probably as simple a case as your implants malfunctioning slightly. Why don't I refer you to get them checked out?'

Geordi sat back, indignantly. 'I know what I saw.'

'Everybody's eyes plays tricks on them sometimes, Geordi,' continued the Doctor. 'We don't know that it wasn't just your implants showing you a column of white that wasn't really there at the edge of your vision, and your mind built a recognisable figure around it. Doesn't that sound more plausible than visitations from spiritual beings?'

'I know what I saw,' Geordi repeated, flatly. 'I know it sounds crazy, but I know what I saw.'

'OK.' Li scratched at her ear a little. 'I never had you down as the Religious type.'

'I'm not,' replied Geordi, with the same flat, matter-of-factness. 'But I've seen a lot of strange things in my time, Doc. More than you can probably imagine. A friendly Angel of Death…?' He shrugged, casually as you please. 'Small Fry.'

There was a short pause as Doctor Li thought this through. After a moment she offered him a smug little smile by way of showing that she had come to a conclusion.

'It's Picard, isn't it?'

Geordi's sudden smile matched hers. He gave her no answer.

'Admiral Picard…? Your old Captain…? It's only since his death that you've started this deterioration. You wish you could see him again for advice, for guidance, so…'

'You're a Doctor, not a Counsellor,' grinned Geordi, cutting her off.

'I'd like to think I was a little bit of both…'

'The angel isn't Picard.'

'But it has to do with Picard, doesn't it?' Li insisted. 'In fact… yes, I remember now… there was talk that he appeared to have a hallucination on his deathbed. It seemed as though he was caught up in some sort of Rapture…'

'It's not just talk,' Geordi told her. 'It's true. I was there. We all were. He'd been weakening for days. We all knew it was Goodbye. And then, right at the end… Darndest thing. He was slipping away one second, the next, he was propped up on his elbows, his eyes wide open… only he wasn't looking at any of us, he was looking at something… someone… at the end of his bed. And he smiled.' Geordi smiled himself at the memory - a warm smile that had been missing from his features for a long time. 'I hadn't seen old Jean Luc Picard smile with such a simple joy for… years, I guess. And he said, "I thought it was you", and then he stopped, like he was listening, and he said, "so have I, Old Friend". And then he said "how delightful". And then he laughed…' Geordi's smile faded back into that old, cold expression again. 'And then, he died.'

'Peoples' minds do play tricks on them in the final throes of life,' Li told Geordi. 'Feelings of lightness and elation, visions… it's the body's way of easing you into death.'

'Time and Space are funny old things,' Geordi replied. 'They're not as rigid as we often think. Things… people… sometimes slip through, although we don't always notice them. There was an Empath in that room when he died. She said that she felt something in that spot that Picard was staring into. Not a tangible presence as such, but… a sensation of great peace, and goodwill. And love. Love for every one of us standing there. Doesn't that sound like an angel to you?'

'Geordi… even if, against all the odds, you're right, just because Picard died after he saw this "angel", doesn't necessarily mean you have to too!'

'Maybe you're right,' Geordi sighed. 'Maybe I just want to. Maybe I just want to find out for sure what all of this means, if there really is anything at the other side. Maybe I'm just sick and tired of all this living.'

'Geordi, don't talk like that.' Li furrowed her brow. 'I have to go, I'm late for my next appointment.' She got to her feet. 'I'll be back tomorrow. I'll schedule a longer slot so that we can talk about this properly, and I'll get you booked in to have those implants checked. In the meantime, no more of these dark thoughts, huh? Start a new book. Or go out for a long walk, it's a beautiful day out.'

Geordi didn't get up, but remained utterly motionless in his chair. 'I'll see what I can do.'

Dr Li wagged a finger as she left. 'Doctor's orders.'

'I'll see.'

-x-

Geordi walked slowly through the Botanical Garden. It was indeed a beautiful day – a glorious, bright October afternoon. As a younger man, with that clunky old Visor, he would have gladly given his right arm to have gazed in wonder at all those reds and golds of the trees, burning like so much precious metal against the cloudless, azure sky. Colour was one of the very last things that he had grown weary of, but now even all of Earth's beauty laid out in front of him in every hue imaginable brought him no joy any more.

Then he passed something, which made his heart leap. He stopped, not daring to turn and look directly at the figure on the bench, just in the corner of his eye. Instead, he stepped slowly backwards, keeping the seated figure at the edge of his vision, and sat down next to it. The figure was still there.

'You took your sweet time,' he whispered with bated breath.

'Are you implying that I am overdue, Geordi?'

Geordi half exhaled, half laughed with a sudden relief at the voice, and finally summoned up the courage to turn and look at the figure.

'I assure you, this is precisely the correct moment for this meeting, in spite of your impatience.' Data gave him a small smile, and Geordi burst into tears.

Data attempted to pat his aged friend on the back in an awkward imitation of human comforting gestures, but that only made Geordi start crying harder. Instead, Data placed his hands neatly on his knees, with a confused frown.

'You appear to have been eager to see me again lately, even to the point of wishing for a swift end to your life. That in itself I cannot comprehend. And now, you seem to be unhappy that I am finally here. It is most bewildering.'

Geordi wiped his eyes, trying to sniff the tears into submission. 'That was you, wasn't it? Talking to Picard.'

Data nodded, calmly. 'I was permitted to comfort Jean Luc in his final moments, and to bring him to the Afterlife, as I have been with you.'

'I knew it.' Geordi nodded. 'I knew that smile on the old Captain's face. I knew that the only thing that could make somebody smile like that is seeing you again.' He paused. 'You said something to him, and then he replied "so have I"… you told him that you'd missed him, didn't you?'

'I had,' replied Data, simply.

Geordi sniffed again, suddenly angry this time. 'How could you go to him first, Data? How could you tell him that you missed him before you told me?'

Data cocked his head a little. 'Geordi…?'

'I missed you! I missed you most of all!'

'I do not doubt that you felt my absence. However, it was not your turn to die at that point. It was his.'

Geordi stifled more tears.

'How dare you die in the first place?'

Data continued to frown. 'The last moment in which I saw you, prior to my termination, you seemed accepting of my decision…'

'Oh yes,' Geordi interrupted. 'Back Then. All so noble, all so heroic, all so sudden… we never stopped to think about what would happen after, did we? I never considered what it would be like to live with a hole in my life for so very long. I was alone, Data. I never knew how lonely I was 'til you were gone. How could you leave me on my own like this for fifty long years…?'

'Forty-eight years,' Data corrected, 'nine months, three days…'

Geordi landed a half-hearted punch on his deceased best friend's shoulder.

Data stared at his punched arm for a moment. 'Are you angry with me?'

'Yes, dammit! Man.' Geordi pushed a hand through his sparse, wiry hair. 'I used to get so mad at B4, you wouldn't believe it. They had to call security one time cause I wouldn't stop throwing stuff at him. But then I realised it wasn't him I was angry at, it was you. But at the same time, in the same thought, I always forgave you. I had to.'

'I am glad.' Data held out his arm. 'Feel free to hit me again, if it makes you feel any better.'

Geordi declined, a smile playing around his lips.

'Indian Burn?' offered Data. 'I assure you; it will do me no harm. I am doubly impervious to physical pain now, being both an android and dead.'

'So you are definitely dead…?'

'Definitely.'

'Just because… after I worked out it was you Picard had been speaking to, I started scratching out a little theory…' Geordi paused, a little coyly. He'd never tried to speak the thoughts he'd had about the reasons behind his former Captain's dying words aloud before. 'I thought that maybe the explosion had somehow dislodged you in Time and Space…'

'Only insofar as it killed me,' Data replied, 'which is a fairly effective way of dislodging one from dimensional constraints.'

'But you never believed in an Afterlife,' Geordi argued. 'Certainly not one that you could make visits from. You didn't even know whether or not you had a soul.'

'Therefore, I expect you could only imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to discover on dying that I did have an immortal soul, and not only that, but that the life I had lead had earned it a place in Heaven.' Data watched his friend's nonplussed expression. 'That concept does not entertain you?' He raised his eyebrows. 'Hmm. I am surprised. Jean Luc found it positively…'

'…delightful?' finished Geordi, remembering Picard's very last word. A thought hit the old man. 'You keep calling him "Jean Luc". What, are you guys on first name terms now? All it took was a 15 year friendship and your mutual deaths?'

'Paradise is not a place for rank, or formality,' Data informed his friend. Indeed, Geordi noticed that, although the android was dressed immaculately in his old uniform, he wore neither his pips nor a Comms badge.

'Besides,' continued Data, 'under current circumstances it would feel a little odd to refer to Jean Luc by anything but his forename, considering that he has opted to spend the last few months as an 18 year old.'

'You can choose your age?'

'Any age you have lived,' replied Data. 'Jean Luc is thoroughly enjoying being young again. Death has brought out a certain element of Whimsy in him. Tasha is very rarely any older than 10, but then she was unable to fully experience childhood when she was alive.'

'Tasha's there too?'

'And Lal,' nodded Data. 'Apparently, my mother has also been seen, although I am not certain whether it is the human or android Juliana Soong who is there, if not an amalgamation of both. She is quite the Metaphysical conundrum…'

Geordi snorted a slight laugh, shaking his head. 'A magical place where you're reunited with all your loved ones…'

'Not all,' Data added, darkly. 'I have it under very good authority that Lore was sent to The Other Place. And although I have been asking after my father since I came to Heaven, it appears that nobody has seen or heard from him there. I have come to the conclusion that he too was most likely unable to enter. And Spot was not sentient, although I have heard some rumours of a Cat Heaven elsewhere, so there is hope for her.'

Geordi rubbed his forehead. 'Cat Heaven…?'

'Yes. To allow felines into a paradise for humanoids would be improper.' Data paused. 'You seem… annoyed.'

'Cat Heaven, Data?' Geordi replied. 'Tasha Yar and Jean Luc Picard running round as kids? It's all too easy. All too simple.'

'There is no such thing as "too simple".'

'Too literal, then. The Afterlife you're describing…it's like some 6-year-old's idea of what Heaven is like.'

'Perhaps, then, an infant is the best qualified to imagine Paradise.'

'I mean,' Geordi continued, 'next thing I know you'll probably get out your wings, halo and harp…'

'Do you wish to see my wings and halo?'

Geordi just blinked at him.

'I rarely wear them,' Data continued. 'I find them most unnecessary, not to mention, cumbersome. I do not, however, have a harp.'

'Well, that's something…'

'They ran out,' Data explained.

'They ran out… of harps… in Heaven,' repeated Geordi slowly, hoping that Data would be able to understand quite how ridiculous that sounded.

'Geordi?' Data queried. 'Every new piece of information I furnish you with about the Afterlife only seems to infuriate you more. I was under the impression that you were eager to discover the secrets of the next world.'

'Yes,' sighed Geordi, exasperated, 'but it was supposed to make sense! We're men of science, Data. You were supposed to rationalise it all for me. Now you're finally here, and you're spinning yarns about harps and pets and… second childhoods, and…'

'Ah,' Data nodded. 'I believe that I see your problem. You have been waiting for a solution to the matter of life, death and what comes after – a solution which you can apply to the knowledge you already have about the workings of the Universe.'

'No,' Geordi argued, 'I just wanted the solution to be believable!'

'Then believe this. What I am telling you is the truth.'

'But it doesn't make any sense.'

'In which case, you must cease in your attempts to make sense of it.' Data paused again. 'Did you know,' he added, 'that for all the great scientific and philosophical minds I have studied and met, both alive and dead, the single most truthful, revelatory phrase I ever heard said about the nature of the Universe was spoken to me by Lore?'

Geordi frowned. 'You serious?'

Data nodded. 'I do not believe that its impact was intentional. The manner in which he said it was offhand, as an unkind throwaway gesture. Its meaning only truly struck me at the moment of my death.'

'What was it that he said?'

Data's expression suddenly altered, twisting itself into a vicious grin, perfectly imitating the android's psychotic brother. For a moment, he became… the only word Geordi could conjure up to describe it was spikier. He shrugged a little at Geordi, with a casual cruelty, and sneered 'Shit happens'. That said, his face fell back into its usual gathered serenity, his hands fell back onto his knees. His body smoothed its spikes into still, straight lines again. 'Pardon the impersonation,' added Data in his normal voice, 'but that never sounds quite right coming from myself.'

'"Shit happens"?' Geordi echoed. 'That's it?'

'Que sera sera, as Jean Luc puts it,' Data replied. 'Although I prefer Lore's expression. Needless faecal allusion aside, I feel it is more succinct. Events occur, and then other events occur as a result of the first set of events, and so on. Some are good, some are bad, many can be viewed as both. I was created. You were born. We met. I died. You survived. I see all of those as positive occurrences, since, had any one of those events not taken place, we would not be sitting here together now, about to ascend into Paradise.'

But Geordi wasn't listening. Geordi was staring off into the middle distance, as though hit by a sudden realisation.

'Final throes of life…' murmured the old man. 'People's minds do play tricks on them…'

'Begging your pardon?' Data inquired, politely.

'It's all too good to be true,' Geordi breathed. 'I just wanted this to happen so much, I wanted to see you again, for you to explain it all to me…' He peered up into the sky. 'There's a Starship coming for us, isn't there? That's what's going to take us into Heaven.'

Data opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again with a slight, faintly rueful sigh. 'You have ruined the surprise,' he told his friend, as though hurt. 'We thought that you would enjoy a final voyage in the Enterprise D. You always did seem to prefer that vessel to any others you served on, even its successor.' He paused. 'How did you know?'

'It's from my book.' Geordi sighed, resting his head in his hands. 'I've taken all of this from my damn book. And even in the book it's not really real – just a dying hallucination. Hypnotised by a benevolent creature into having one final, beautiful vision. God, why am I doing this to myself?'

Data regarded his friend curiously. 'Doing what?'

'This scene has been played out before, Data,' Geordi replied, sadly. 'In the book I read yesterday. This is a dream. This is all just a badly re-hashed dream.'

'Which book?'

Geordi reached into his bag. The slim novel that he had finished reading in the park the day before was still in there. He held it out for Data to see. 'I know, I know,' he told his friend, with a self-deprecating shrug. 'Ink and paper. Very old fashioned. But I like the smell.'

Data gave the book an experimental sniff and shared a nod of agreement with Geordi. 'It is the only kind of book there is in Heaven.' He read the title on the book's cover aloud. 'The Sirens of Titan.'

'I'm reading my way through the 20th Century,' Geordi explained. 'Passes the time.'

'I do not recall this novel,' Data noted.

'Really?' Geordi raised his eyebrows. 'I've read a book that you haven't? Well, now I know I've gotten old.'

'I may well have read it in the past, or had it downloaded into my memory banks,' admitted the android. 'I may have merely forgotten it.' He shot his friend a proud smile. 'I forget things nowadays. I do not know whether it is a sign of my mind degenerating after death, or that I am continuing to become more human in the Afterlife. Either way, I find it most enjoyable.'

'No way,' Geordi replied. 'You can't tell me you've become scatterbrained.'

'Never anything important,' Data assured him, 'but small pieces of information - yes. The melody of an aria, the tones in a painting, the plot of a novel… one moment they are in my mind, the next…' He pinched his fingers together at his temple and then splayed them out away from his head, like a dandelion clock exploding in a gust of wind. '…Poof!' He exclaimed, for good measure. And then, in case Geordi hadn't understood the meaning behind his odd little mime, added 'I forget them.' He opened the book. 'And then, I am able to experience them again, as though for the first time. Do you mind if I read?'

'Go ahead. You'll see what I mean when you get to the last chapter…'

Data held up a finger to Geordi. 'Please refrain from telling me the ending.'

'Data, we're living the ending!' Geordi watched as his friend began to swiftly rifle through the pages, his eyes flitting speedily from side to side, taking in whole blocks of text in a microsecond. 'That is,' he corrected himself, 'I'm imagining us living the ending. I shoulda known when you started describing a Heaven that seemed to have been made for a kid. You were like a child in so many ways, I put you in a child's Paradise, and had you come back to bring me there, where I could be a big kid along with you…' He sighed. 'Wish fulfilment, that's all this is.'

'This tale is riddled with scientific inaccuracies,' announced Data, the book already a third finished.

'I don't think accuracy's the point,' Geordi told him. 'I think you're supposed to suspend your disbelief.'

Data shook his head as he continued to read. 'I shall have to discuss this with Kurt the next time I converse with him.'

Geordi glared at Data momentarily, then rolled his eyes up to the sky. 'And now he's telling me he's buddies with Kurt Vonnegut,' he appealed to nobody in particular.

'I am a machine, residing in Heaven,' reminded Data, still reading. 'As you can imagine, that peculiarity arouses considerable interest. So far, I have mercifully been able to avoid the attentions of the Scientists and the Philosophers, but I am quite the celebrity amongst the Science Fiction authors.'

'Why just the authors?'

Data shot his friend a quick glance. 'Mark Twain told his Book Group.' He went back to his reading.

'What?'

'I did ask him to be discreet when we happened upon one another several years ago, but you recall what he is like.'

'Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut share a Book Group in Heaven,' repeated Geordi, flatly. 'You see, that's the sort of thing I mean. How am I supposed to believe that?'

'Perhaps it is you who should suspend his disbelief, Geordi.' He reached the final page of the book and snapped it shut with a curt nod of comprehension. 'Ah, yes. I can see that the similarities between the protagonist's ultimate situation and your own are suspiciously close.'

There was a pause.

'Well, then?' Geordi prompted.

'Hmm?'

'Aren't you going to admit that this really is just a dying hallucination? Or prove somehow that it isn't?'

'I know that I am myself, and not a hallucinatory figure,' answered Data, 'but I cannot prove that to you. I am not surprised that you are under the impression that this may be unreal. I myself have contemplated the possibility that this may all, in fact, by in my imagination – that I am still in reality at the point of death, but that my conscious has appeared to me to stretch out indefinitely, allowing me the illusion of becoming reunited with the deceased in an idealistic setting, and watching those I left behind continue with their lives. A parting gift from Dr Soong, perhaps, or even a second unsolicited endowment from Q.' Data paused. 'It would be unlikely, however, that either of those parties are modest enough to allow such an illusion to continue for so long without their own arrival in order to inform me of exactly what they have done and take full credit.'

'But that would ruin it,' Geordi reasoned.

'Precisely,' agreed Data. 'And if it is merely a gift which the giver does not wish to ruin, who am I to do so? Whatever this is, I have decided to enjoy it to the full.'

He paused. Geordi didn't reply.

'After all,' Data continued, 'I believe I deserved it.'

There was another pause.

'I was a Saint.'

There was another, much longer pause. Geordi turned his face away from his friend for a while, turned back towards the copper leafed trees, and Thought.

'That's what all of this is about, isn't it?' He muttered. 'Stop thinking about things, stop trying to make sense of it all, stop questing… just let things happen. Relinquish control. Stop swimming, and just let yourself be dragged along by the tide…'

'And enjoy it,' added his friend.

'But I'm not that kind of person,' struggled Geordi. 'But then, neither are you, and you managed it… but then, if you're not really you…'

A couple of experimental strums on what sounded like a high-pitched guitar threw the old man off his train of logic. He looked over his shoulder to the android at his side, who seemed to have tired of listening to his friend's cogitations and was plucking tunelessly at a ukulele, which had apparently sprung into his hands from nowhere.

'Why?' was all that Geordi could say.

'I told you. They ran out of harps. Instead, I have my old violin, a saxophone, a set of timpani drums and this.' He began to strum a few, more tuneful chords on the tiny instrument. 'The timpanis are my favourite, but they are difficult to transport.'

'This is a test,' said Geordi, flatly, 'isn't it? You're just being as ridiculous as possible, to test how much nonsense I can make myself believe, aren't you?'

'You will have your choice of instruments, of course,' continued Data, 'but would you mind trying your hand at the clarinet? In a few more years a group of us will be coming back for Will Riker with a Swing Band, and we are a little light in the woodwinds.'

Geordi rubbed his eyes. 'Why should I believe any of this?'

'Because it sounds like fun.' Data stopped playing and beamed at his friend, with a fullness that, even with his Emotion Chip in perfect operation, he had never smiled in life. 'Does it not?' Data paused. 'You must believe what you want to believe. Nothing more, and nothing less.'

Geordi took a deep breath in, and slowly exhaled. The garden smelled heavily of sweetly decaying leaves and berries, but there was another smell, slighter but closer by – a smell that hit him with old, old memories. The android sitting next to him had a very particular scent – of synthetic hair and skin, and the fabric of the old uniforms, as well as the subtle undertones of a more organic smell… Data smelled faintly of cat. But most of all, his old friend smelled of the Enterprise. It was funny, Geordi pondered, how one picked those smells up from where you lived and worked, how you carried them around with you… and how you lost them again. They were such comforting scents – those of his ship and his friend. Nobody returning from a near-death experience, when describing sensations of peaceful joy and bright, shining tunnels, had ever mentioned anything as intricate and detailed as those old, familiar smells, to his knowledge. Perhaps, then, it was all really happening.

But if it wasn't…

If it wasn't, then what did he have to lose by pretending that it was? If it was fabricated, then it had been done so to such great detail… as Data said, who was he to ruin such a thoughtful illusion? And Data was right in another way, too. It did sound like fun.

Why should he believe any of this…? Because he wanted to, that was why.

He gazed up at the clear sky. 'So when's our ride getting here, anyway?' He looked back at his friend.

There was a split second's pause as Data read Geordi's expression of unspoken acceptance. 'Very soon now,' replied the android.

'So, what, are they gonna beam us up, or send a shuttle or…'

'I believe the intention is that the ship itself will land here.'

'Land?' Geordi blinked. 'Land?!'

Data nodded. 'Hopefully a smoother descent than the last time.'

'Is that in the slightest bit possible?'

'Not in the slightest.' Data set his ukulele down by his feet and looked up at the sky with Geordi. 'It will be an interesting event to witness.'

Geordi took another deep breath in of autumn and metal and cat, and breathed out his scepticism. 'I'll say.'

A quietness fell between them.

'There were these three Englishmen,' said Data suddenly, apparently wishing just to fill the silence, 'stranded in the desert. Just as they thought that they were about to die of thirst, they saw a small market up ahead, with three stalls. At first they assumed it to be a mirage, but as they approached it did not fade. They rejoiced that their lives had been saved and the first Englishman went up to the first stall. He asked the merchant there for a drink of water, offering any price… did I mention that the Englishmen were very wealthy…? For they were. However, the first merchant apologised that he had no water at his stall, only vanilla custard. And so the second Englishman approached the second merchant and again asked to purchase a drink of water at any price, only all that the third merchant…'

'You missed a merchant.'

'Which merchant had I got up to?'

'The second one.'

'Oh. The second merchant only had sponge cake. And when the third Englishman made the same request to the third merchant, all that he could offer was vanilla custard…'

'More custard?'

'Did I already say custard?'

'Yes.'

'What was the third one…? Oh yes. The final merchant could only sell them fruit flavoured gelatine. None of these were of any use to the Englishmen, and so with heavy hearts they returned to the desert, parched and empty handed. And as the market faded from their view, the first Englishman turned to his companions and exclaimed; "I say, that was a Trifle Bazaar".'

Data waited for Geordi to laugh, but the old man only flopped his head onto the android's shoulder in fond exasperation.

'Bazaar… Bizarre…' added Data, by way of attempting to explain the punch line. 'No?'

'It's the way you tell 'em,' sighed Geordi, closing his eyes.

'Are you tired?'

'Mmmf.'

'Then you must rest. I shall make no further attempts to distract you while we await the Enterprise,' Data resolved.

Geordi's head was suddenly feeling very heavy as he rested it on Data's shoulder, and he wasn't sure that he would be able to open his weary eyes again, even if he wanted to. He was beginning to drift away… to drift away with the tide.

'It's OK,' he yawned, 'go on.'

'You do not wish me to be quiet?'

'You've been quiet for fifty years,' he mumbled thickly as he felt himself nodding off, 'I like hearing you talk.'

'Forty eight years,' corrected Data, softly, for the second time, 'nine months…'

'That's it.' Geordi's voice was barely a whisper on the breeze now. 'Don't stop talking. Don't ever stop.'

-x-

The End