XXXI.

"You asshole!"

Panic. She had thought she was resolved to dying, as she had been her whole life. She had always known that some day she would make a mistake, not reach a check point on time, or perhaps she would just keep a perfect record until the day came when she was too old and too slow to be an adequate tasker anymore. She had always known that it would happen and it would be up to them, but that feeling seemed strange and far away now, like the sad conclusions of a different person. She was panicking now. Rational thought seemed to allude her as she clawed at the metal band around her neck, pulling until she felt the shooting pain down her spine. She had to get away, had to be free. She knew it wouldn't work. She knew, in fact, that what she was doing was suicide, but what was left? Only panic.

And much of that probably had to do with everything that was going on around her.

"Doctor!" Data shouted, "I need a medical kit and some thermal protective sheeting. Ensign!"

Blake scrambled to his feet, his eyes practically popping from his head at the sight of a battered Lin and a stern Commander Data, "Sir?"

"I need a micro-polymer diffuser and an uncharged power cell."

"Power cell?"

"Yes!" Data barked, "A tricorder power cell would be ideal."

Lin felt her feet leave the ground as Data scooped her up and crossed the bridge. He bounded up the steps of the control platform and deposited her in the chair there. Others were moving too. The other one, Lore, was also on the platform now, his fingers working over the console at an impressive speed. With a violent lurch the deck beneath their feet shifted and Lin felt a pull on her insides, forcing her against the arm of the chair.

"A warning would be appreciated!" Picard barked as he fell against the side of the sofa. Anna was helping him to sit down, but like Picard her attention seemed to be focused on Data.

"Relax, Picard. That was the least of our problems. They can't find us through the cloak, but they're attempting to—." He was cut off when another violent jolt shook the ship and made the lights flicker.

"They're firing randomly to see if they can craze our shields!" Blake shouted as he reached for a console.

"Ensign!" Data barked, "The power cell!"

Blake, no doubt rattled by Data's ferocious tone, went scurrying for the storage compartment on the far wall. The deck plates rattled and shifted at Lore made course correction to avoid the volleys of weapon's fire flashing across the view screen. During all of it, Lin saw nothing but the shiny glass surface of the console a few inches from her face. She had dropped her head there against her arm in despair, waiting, but now Data had her pinned down in that position. His hands were working at the implant on her neck.

"Data! What are you doing?" She gasped, trying to pull away.

"You must be still!" Data declared, "Doctor!"

Crusher came rushing up the platform, her kit and the other tools in hand. She opened the kit on the console and pulled out a roll of blue material that jiggled like rubber as she unfurled it. Data took it and placed it over the back of Lin's neck and head. Using one of the small tools from the kits, he cut a square in the material just large enough for the neck implant to jut through.

"This will protect your skin." Data assured her, "You must be careful not to move."

"H...how? What are you going to do?" Lin sputtered. There was hope, some hope, but she was too reluctant to grab hold of it. She didn't want to believe he could save her because she did not want to be disappointed. Of course, it was rather strange to worry about disappointment when she would be dead!

Data kept his hand on Lin's back, holding her still, but managed to come to her side and kneel down until she could just see his face. She turned to look at him cautiously. He was mere inches away.

"Lin," He whispered quickly, "there is a micro-charge in your implant. It is designed to kill you by severing your spinal cord and destroying your brain stem."

She cried out some unintelligible and tried to rise, but Data held her still. She knew all this. It had never been a mystery, yet hearing it now just seemed to make it all so much worse.

"Listen to me." He continued. Despite his calm words, his face was twisted in worry, "I am going to transfer the power for the micro-charge into an empty power cell. I do not have time to remove the implant first. They may activate it any moment, as you said, and we must disarm it. Do you understand?"

"Yes." She breathed. She closed her eyes and tried to close her ears to the world. She had always wondered if it would hurt. Probably not. The most efficient forms of death were rarely painful, at least not for long, and the Dominion was nothing if not efficient.

Instead, she chose to think about the last half hour of her life, perhaps the best thirty minutes she had ever known. Being in excruciating pain, made even more so by being jostled and bumped as Data had run with her down corridors and around sudden turns; hearing the sound of phaser fire and claxons as the Jem'Hadar had sought to murder them all, knowing now that she still might die and the ones who had come to save her might die too, all of it still amounted to the best thirty minutes in her life for one simple reason. Data had come back for her. Someone cared about her enough to risk his life and those of his friends. Data had come back for her!

"Do not move." Data said again, though she was still as a statue. She felt a cold weight through the protective sheeting over her neck, than a low hum, so soft that she felt it more than she heard it. It was followed by a tiny pop that made her want to jump out of her skin. What was happening? Was it working? Was she going to die?

"Lin..." Data whispered. A moment later she felt his fingers brush across her cheek, startling her. She had not even realized she was crying.

"We're clear!" Lore announced. The ship took a final jolt and everything seemed to calm, like a boat just leaving the rapids.

Lin felt a startling brush against her neck, something cold moving across her skin. The black metal band of her collar, the collar that she had worn every second of her life for as long as she could remember, slid down against her shoulder, then fell to the carpeted deck.

She stared at it as if she had never seen it before. It was just a strip of black metal, sprung out into an oblong curl now that it had been released from its circular attachment.

"Lin? Are you all right?" Data said gently.

He removed the protective sheeting from over her neck and shoulders, and the rush of cool air against her skin was new and bizarre. Still staring at the strip of metal on the floor, she reached up and tentatively touched the side of her neck. The inch wide area of skin that had lived and grown under that collar for thirty years was slightly rough and numb, like an old callus.

"Lin?" Data said again.

She burst out laughing...and once she started, she could not seem to stop. It was gone. It was lying on the deck at her feet like a dead thing, and it was just...over. No more schedules. No more check points. No more food rations. No more...anything. Everything.

The only life she had ever known was absolutely, irrevocably over.

Her laughter intensified until it hardly sounded like a laugh anymore. Her face was wet and the world seemed to be closing in around her.

What do I do now? Where do I go? What am I supposed to do?

"Lin? Can you hear me?" Data held her shoulders, his voice tense with worry.

"What's wrong with her?" Lore demanded from his place at the console. "We might need her help to get out of here."

Data shot him a warning glare, which even Lore appeared to take seriously.

No, no! I can help! I should help! But Lin's intentions were quickly crumbling, and the world around her was growing very muffled and quiet. All she could see was Data's concerned face, and all she could feel was the pressure of his hands on her shoulders.

"She's in shock." It was the other red-haired woman who had spoken, the older one, but Lin could not focus on her either. Instead, Lin reached down to grab the old metal collar-now so very old. It was a mistake, as blood rushed to her head and providing that last thing to push her over the edge into unconsciousness.

Data caught her as she slumped out of the chair.

(*)

THE SHIP WAS QUIET AND DARK and peaceful. It sounded like the times when all the people slept. B-4 had come to like that time of day back on the Enterprise, when the lights were lower and everything was real quiet, because the people needed to sleep and people could not sleep if there were bright lights and noise. He could still hear lots of sounds, but that was because his hearing was better than human hearing. Lore always said that if he was going to 'listen to other people's business,' he needed to 'keep his mouth shut about it.'

But he did not mean to listen.

Lin was asleep too. She had fallen out of her chair and Data had carried her to the lab that Dr. Crusher was using as a sickbay. Blake and Captain Picard were also asleep, and Worf had taken the cot in the second lab and Lin had the other in sickbay and Blake had said so loudly 'I am going in there and sleeping on that bed, Lore! I've been awake for damn near two days! Just try to stop me!'

Blake had sounded so mad and B-4 had worried that Lore would also be mad, because Lore did not like to be shouted at, but Lore had laughed and told him 'whatever.'

So everyone was asleep except Lore and B-4, and Data too, and that was okay. People needed to sleep. The bridge was dim and empty now. Lore had told him to entertain himself and not interfere with the ship's computer, then he had gone away to some other place in the ship.

B-4 hoped everyone woke up soon so they could talk and tell stories and do things. B-4 liked doing things with people.

"I will tell Lin about the Enterprise when she wakes up." He said aloud, enjoying the idea. But his smile quickly faded at the sound of his voice. It was different, deeper. Everything was different. Several hours ago, not long after Data had taken Lin away, Lore had stood him before the mirror in his quarters and B-4 had seen a stranger. A stranger with golden blond hair and peachy-toned skin and blue eyes. He did not look like himself anymore. He did not look like Data and Lore anymore.

B-4 clenched his fists angrily. He did not like it. He did not want to be different from his brothers. He wanted to be more like them!

He crossed his arms over his chest in a good imitation of the frustrated gesture he had seen Blake enact so many times. Not being satisfied with that action, he also plopped down on the sofa behind him. The sound of something clattering to the deck drew his attention and B-4 turned around. Earlier, Dr. Crusher had left Lin's collar on the back of the sofa cushions, but now it had fallen.

B-4 frowned and stood. He would retrieve it and make sure that he kept it so Lin could have it later. It belonged to her, and he knew how people did not like to lose their things. Smiling at his idea and the thought of giving the collar back to Lin, he pulled the sofa away from the bulkhead and knelt down to get it. When he did not see it right away, he decided that it must have gone under the sofa further, and dropped done on all fours to reach.

"You should be asleep. You've been awake for thirty-seven hours." It was Lore's voice, and B-4 heard it at the same time he noted the approaching footsteps.

"I know, but you need help monitoring the sensors, and Data's...distracted." Anna replied.

Anna is not asleep! B-4 grinned.

"That he is." Lore scoffed, then spoke with a voice much more subdued, "But, eh...I'm glad you're not asleep. I was hoping to talk to you alone."

B-4 was about to rise and say hello to Anna, but he paused mid-motion behind the sofa. Lore wanted to talk to Anna alone. He would not be happy if he knew B-4 was in the room, because then they would not be alone.

I will pretend I am not here, and then Lore will not be mad. B-4 smiled, quite pleased with himself. Later, when he told Lore, Lore would be happy. Lore had taught him that pretending was very important.

(*)

Lore hated feeling nervous. It was like being embarrassed, minus the audience. Only there was an audience, of one, and she was standing before him now with a composed look on her face...waiting.

"Okay. What about?" Anne said.

Lore glanced around the darkened bridge. There were tools and data pads scattered over the control console. A pair of boots, so large that they must belong to Worf, lay tossed against the platform steps, and the sofa lay angled away from the wall as if someone had not bothered to push it back after disturbing it. In total, it was hardly the setting in which Lore had imagined doing what he was about to do. Ha! Who was he fooling? He had not gotten as far as actually imagining the moment. Despite his cognitive speeds and simultaneous trains of focused thought, he had not imagined it. Probably because now, just as in every moment prior, he had no idea what the hell he was doing.

This is a mistake. I should leave well enough alone.

But she was continuing to look at him, and the ring box in his coat pocket felt like it was gaining mass.

"Is, um..." She shifted her weight as she spoke, "Is it about Blake? You know I don't care if he sleeps in our quarters for a while. He's exhausted."

"What?" Lore frowned. "No, not that. I've taken care of that anyway."

"Taken care of...?"

"I want to ask you something," he cut in. Sharply. Abruptly. What the hell was wrong with him?

"Oh...okay." Anna tilted her head, but her lips turned up in a kind of expectant smile. Expectant? No, he must be imagining things now.

"I love you." He said it as if it were an introduction, then cringed at himself.

Anna smiled and laughed a little. "I love you too. But that's not a question."

In way it is. "Do you think there would ever be a time when you...wouldn't love me?"

Anna's smile dropped, "What? Why would you ask me that?"

Oh, yes. This was going very well... Lore shook his head, but he could not back peddle now. The concerns he had so stupidly shared with Blake only days before were still there and still very real. What if one day she gave real thought to the fact that he could not give her everything a flesh and blood man could? What if she continued to watch her nieces and nephews grow up around her and eventually became jealous of their parents?

"Anna...I'm not human." He said bluntly, "You might want things some day that I will never be able to provide. If you do, I see no reason to make the...end...any more complicated than it needs to be. So, if you do, someday want..." He closed his eyes. Why did he feel like he was losing something?

"My God." Anna breathed, shaking her head, "You are terrible at this!"

"W-what?" He balked, eyes wide.

"It sounds like you're leaving me." She said, "You sound like you're telling me we should end it now because I might want to some day."

"No! That's not what I'm saying!" How the hell had he managed to screw this up this badly!?

"I know that's not what you're saying, but it really sounds like it. Which is why I said you're terrible at this."

"This?" He shook his head, unsure. He became even more confused when her expression morphed into a big smile.

"Yes." She said, chuckling, "This." Anna stepped toward him and wrapped her arm around his waist. He thought she merely meant to hug him when, instead, she slid her other hand over his coat pocket, then slipped it inside. Lore gapped like a fish when she removed the ring box and held it between them.

How the hell...

"Listen to me, Lore." She said heavily, but still smiling, "I love my sister's kids, but I don't really think I'm cut out for it, and even if I were to change my mind some day, I will never change my mind about you. Never."

"How did you know I meant—"

"It doesn't take a genius to figure out the only thing you could have been referring to." She stepped even closer, pressing the ring box against his chest as she lifted her other arm around his neck. The smile reached her eyes now, which glistening. She lifted up on her toes and said close to his ear, "You could only have been referring to children, because you absolutely excel at everything else."

Oh...

He held back a laugh. He wrapped his arms around her. He grinned like an absolute fool and was thankful there was no one there to witness it. He had his answer and he had yet to even ask. Still, for formality's sake...

"You'll marry me, then?" He said against her shoulder.

Anna belted a laugh. "'You'll marry me, then?'" She said in a mock deep voice, "Yes, of course I will. I love y—."

"You asshole!"

Anna gasped, genuinely startled, as Lore wrapped his arms around her and spun them around. Standing in the open doorway of Lore and Anna's quarters was Blake. He had both arms stretched across the doorframe, his breathing heavy and labored. His purple undershirt, in which he had obviously been sleeping, was completely soaked through with sweat, which also dripped down from his soaked hair.

Lore was not sure if he should be enraged at Blake's poor timing, or pleased with the obvious results of his work. He leaned toward rage.

"You messed with the environmental controls in there, you jerk!" Blake gasped. "It's a furnace in there!"

Lore drew and breath and said slowly, through clenched teeth, "Blake... Get. Lost."

"No! I know you think this crap is funny, Lore, but you don't know what it's like to be tired!" Blake said angrily, stomping further onto the bridge. "I just hope you—"

"Blake!" Came a plaintive, deep voice.

Lore spun them around again, this time in the opposite direction, to find B-4 standing in the space behind the sofa. His new flesh-tone features were formed into a scowl of disapproval.

"Blake! You should not have come onto the bridge, because Lore wanted to speak to Anna alone and now he is knows he is not alone and he will be mad!"

"What the hell?" Blake said, throwing up his hands.

"Bee!" Lore shouted, "Where you behind the sofa the whole time?"

B-4's posture slumped, "Yes. I'm sorry. But I was pretending and you said that was a good thing to do sometimes to make people happy. You were happy until Blake came. Anna said she would marry you and I can tell that made you happy."

"He did it now?" Blake grunted, looking to Anna as he wiped his hand across his damp brow, "I figured he would wait until we got back to Earth."

Lore's eyes widened, sheer disbelieve striking him dumb. What the hell was Blake doing looking at Anna with a comment like that? And...and why did she not look surprised?

Son of a bitch.

"You told her!" Lore bellowed, releasing his arm from around Anna's waist, "You told her about the ring and everything, did you?"

"Everything?" Blake squeaked, "No. No! Just that you meant to propose. And I didn't even mean to. It just slipped out!"

"Just like you're about to slip out of the airlock?" Lore sneered. He should have known! He should have known that stupid, childish, empty-heady little shit wouldn't keep his mouth shut!

Blake's eyes went wide as saucers. There was a moment of dead stillness...then Blake bolted. Like a track team sprinter, he was off and down the port side corridor in an instant. Lore actually jerked as if he meant to follow, but of course he did not. Catching him would only mean not killing him, and that was a trial he didn't feel like dealing with. Instead, he turned around again and faced his brother.

"Bee, if you knew I wanted to speak to Anna alone, you should have left the room so I would actually be alone with her."

"But if I stayed quiet and pretended you would have thought you were alone and then you would have been happy." B-4 replied, smiling as if he was quite pleased with this explanation.

Lore sighed. He wasn't going to deal with this right now. Instead, he turned resolutely back to Anna, who still held the ring box against her chest. He placed his fingers over hers and opened the antique box, showing the emerald inside.

"Let me guess?" She said, smiling tearfully, "Beth? This looks like her influence."

Lore nodded, his happiness flooding back in as if Blake and B-4 were just boulders causing a break in the water. He closed his eyes when it was clear Anna was going to kiss him, but...

"Will you change your surname when you are married, Anna?" B-4 asked brightly, "My mother changed her surname to Soong when she married Dr. Soong, so her name became Julianna Soong. But some of the women on the colony did not change their surnames when they married, and some did, and I did not understand why..."

B-4 was on a roll, it seemed, and there was little point interfering with it. Lore sighed with resignation, then took Anna's hand and they both walked toward the sofa to entertain Bee's questions. All the while, Lore kept his eyes on her, enjoying the smile that was meant just for him.