by Qzeebrella

Sound

The music of the violin swirled around them, slow and deep at first.  The notes floated higher and higher lifting me upon the music. The air shivering as the vibrato blended in with the tremble of the back beat. Each note flawless, played at the exact moment they should be played for the exact length of time they should be played. No improvisation, no mistakes, and no real soul within the music. Which was why he could never quite explain to Data just why he would never make it as a professional musician.

After all, "you're just too perfect" likely wouldn't make sense to Data.

Touch

I have touched at least a thousand different beings - the way blind people used to before sensor nets and visors came along. Without any technological help, I got a sense of what the other being looked like by using only my hands and fingers. So many kinds of sentients:  hominids, felines, canines, cetaceans, and even silicones. To my sense of touch Data was just another hominid, his skin texture just a tiny bit different in comparison to humans as a
whole, but not so much different as to be thought of as unnatural.

It was just unique. Not that I'd ever tell Data, for the android already obsessed over all the ways he differed from humans and ignored all the thousands of ways he was the same.

Scent

Have you ever been in the middle of nowhere, way up north, where the night darkness stretches out as far as it can go? The dusk lasting for days and days and sometimes for weeks? Have you ever taken a deep breath in all that stillness under a new moon with only starlight and freshly fallen snow around you? Have you ever felt so much wonder at that clean, clear, biting scent that it filled you to overflowing? Have you ever hoped with all you were that the perfect, unspoiled, innocent beauty all around you could stay that way forever?  And sighed, heartbroken from your innermost soul because you knew it wouldn't, it couldn't?

Well that's what Data had always smelled like to me. Starlight and new snow and innocent beauty. I have worked hard to keep him that way and he has done all he can to rid himself of that untouched childlike innocence.

And I have both looked forward to and have dreaded the day when he will no longer smell of innocence, having rid himself of it by drinking deeply from the fountain of emotion.

Taste

I knew Data does not need to eat or drink and yet I invited him to join me whenever I went to Ten Forward. Whatever I ordered to eat or drink Data just had to try.  When I first became friends with him and ate with him there beside me, I noticed that the food and drink seemed to taste new. As if I were tasting it for the first time.  In reality, all I was doing was trying to taste it for Data.

I've tried to describe the bitter, nutty taste of my favorite beer to him. Or the sweet tartness of a Granny Smith apple. You know the kind? Where the first bite is always full of crisp apple and the kind of tart juice that gets your tastebuds dancing. Or the way a piece of cheap milk chocolate will get all clumped together on your tongue as you let the chocolate melt and pool there. Or how the way a tall cold glass of milk flows over your tongue, down your throat,
and coat your stomach tasting its freshness all the way down and the coolness radiated joy from your stomach after drinking it.

I once tried to describe lemon cake to Data. How each bite is rich with the taste of lemon, the sweet sponginess of cake and the glaze of barely there frosting, making the cake the perfect sort of afternoon snack. No matter how I've tried though I just couldn't quite get Data to understand just how great lemon cake is.

Data did tell me once that though he analyzes food rather than tastes it, he had developed preferences for certain things. That he associates certain food and drinks with the people he  shared them with and that these associations led to Data having his favorite things to eat or drink.

I was irrationally pleased by the fact that most of the foods Data really likes is because he has associated the taste with me.

Sight

When I first met Data I assumed that he was still nearly new and only a few years old. The expressions on his face were still so very innocent. The way he pursued interests with such enthusiasm and seemed perpetually wrapped in a childlike naivete, I thought he was a child.

Now, I knew from the very beginning that Data was not a flesh and blood being. After all, the visor let me see things that others can't see. The scans my visor took showed me things such as the constant body heat, and other little things that clued me into the fact that this was the android I had heard so much about. And yet, I had never seen Data as just a machine. I always saw him as a man.

At first, Data was just a coworker who made the responsibility of handling the helm so much easier. Then, as I started to get to know him I noticed just how unique Data is. Not simply as the only android we had known about for years, but in the sense of being ever open to new experiences. Data never judged an alien by their appearances, they were always treated as an individual first. That openness with aliens helped him when he reached out to learn and to grow as an individual.

Data moved calmly and deliberately, always seeming so sure of himself. The android had a certain elegance to his movements and yet, still a tiny hint of awkwardness to everything he did. Almost as if his `father', Dr. Soong, had worked hard to make sure he didn't make Data too perfect. As if Soong had known most people feared perfection.

There was a newness that hovered over Data, even now, six years into their friendship. A gleam  - half glow from the unvarying body temperature, half halo.

Data was unique, an art form. More than just moving sculpture, he was a sentient being with a soul whether he knew it or not. He was my best friend, my mentor and student, my confidant and confessor, and my most valued friend.

He was also the only one of the command staff to have never referred to me as "the blind pilot,  Geordi", or "the blind engineer, Mr. LaForge." Data had always referred to him as "Geordi LaForge, our chief engineer." He'd no more describe me to others as "the blind man" than he would tell others "the 156.64 centimeter tall man." That's why I love him. In that one friend loving another way, not the `in love' kind of way.

Not that there's anything wrong with two men being in love, it's just that Data is my friend and only my friend.

Really.

Any declaration from me of "I love you", could only be met by puzzled silence. So I had never told him I felt this way, having settled long ago for watching him from afar. Yearning for what could have been.

The end.