RP for haughty_alpha

[empirical_data]

Who: Data | Kerr Avon | The Seventh Doctor
What: The Doctor uses his TARDIS to allow Avon into Data's mind, and not only save him but see how much Data cares for him.
When: At the end of Lore Plot.
Warnings and Notes: Continued from here...

Comments

[haughty_alpha]

Avon was...contaminated. His reflection in the mirror still didn't feel like his own. But he was alive, fully conscious, and functioning. He knew that, sooner or later, his experience with the Borg would come back to haunt him - but not today. Today, he needed to get out of the clinic and find Data. If he couldn't walk unassisted, he would crawl. No amount of pain or trauma was going to keep him from his fiance any longer.

[dominie]

Luckily, that was where Seven found Avon before he did something ridiculous.

What sort of monsters were these Borg. Oh yes, quite like some others that he'd known. But the damage to the valiant man he had met in another life was outright horrifying.

He mad his way over to Avon, regardless of whether he'd recognize him or not, and gave him a careful once-over. "Avon, I'm going to have to try and help you so that you can help your fiancee. Do you understand me?"

[haughty_alpha]

Avon stared at the dapper little man. All that really registered in his still-foggy brain was the offer of help for Data.

"Why does he need help? What's happened to him?" He lunged forward suddenly, reaching for the man's shoulders. "Take me to him. Now."

[dominie]

"I'm the Doctor. The only one left. Whatever was done seems to have sped my other selves on, but your android has been injured. He suffered a great deal of damage trying to stop his brother's machine. He's having difficulty pulling through."

He pulled his arm over his shoulders, slipping another around his back to help him up. "The TARDIS's medical facilities should be able to set you to rights."

[haughty_alpha]

Avon struggled to his feet with the Doctor's help, not questioning his identity. There was something trustworthy about him, and Avon was too tired to be belligerent. "The other Doctors...are gone," he repeated, dazedly. "And Data is hurt, but still alive. And we're going to help him. Good. I'm sorry, I - I'm having trouble thinking clearly. Data can't die," he affirmed, tightening his grip on the Doctor. "That outcome is not acceptable. You understand, don't you. He cannot die. I will not allow it." A flash of his old arrogance, marred by the threat of tears in his choked voice.

[dominie]

The dedication tugged at his hearts a little. The same dedication he'd felt in some of his earlier selves.

"I know. My younger self staved off the initial crash, but he was ripped away before he could assist through the end of the process." He patted Avon's chest sympathetically, guiding him out past the business still going on, toward his strange little timeship.

The little man could usually be petulant and unpleasant himself, but he was exhausted himself after the ordeal. After Davros and the Borg Queen, and nearly losing another companion.

"We stopped his brother. You'll help me work out what's wrong with him and we'll come out of this completely victorious. There's no other option. We need to prove their brand of hate doesn't take the victims they suppose it does."

[haughty_alpha]

"I'm sorry," said, referring to the disappearance of the other Doctors. He had an idea, after all, of how it felt to experience the death of another self - after the teleport accident which had created his ill-fated duplicate.

"Lore is dead?" Part of him hoped so. Another part longed for the pleasure to destroy him personally.

[dominie]

"Yes, another victim, really. He was mad. But salvageable, had the Master not gotten his hooks into him. The woman that shot him was expelled from the village as well, Sarah Conner."

He manoeuvred Avon toward the blue box, fishing out his key and opening it up. With a foot in the door, he eased the man through.

The ship was indeed bigger inside than out, but given Avon's condition it was hardly the time to be impressed with such things. Especially with Data wired into the console as he was, staring vacantly up at the ceiling on a gourney, lost in whatever was going on in his net.

"I've got to get you to medical, come along..." he insisted as he eased him through the console room.

[haughty_alpha]

Avon didn't consider Lore to be 'salvageable' - the risk to Data would be too great, in his opinion. But he didn't argue. The disappearance of the woman was unfortunate, but not his concern. "And - Travis?" Avon hoped very much that the one-eyed lunatic had been left for him to deal with.

As they approached the TARDIS, he couldn't help giving a wry smile. After all the time he'd spent plotting how to get access to one...

All thoughts were driven from his mind, however, when he saw Data. He tried to pull away, to go to him, but his exhausted body didn't want to obey him; he staggered in the Doctor's grip. "Data...what has that creature done to him?"

[dominie]

"Gone, as far as I know."

When Avon nearly pulled out of his grip, the smaller man's hold got a little firmer, not letting him tug loose nor fall. "The machine was formatted for Lore. When Data hooked himself to it was completely the wrong operating system. He's manifesting his injuries as part of his dream program. I need you to help talk him through it." Loathe as he was to admit it, he was fond of the android but not quite as close. He preferred the company of roughians and generally intolerable folk more than his former selves. It was his offensive and unrelenting optimism. He doubted he could appeal to Data as his younger self did.

But give up? No. The man's fiancee, oddly enough, was primed to assist Data in the matter.

Still holding to Avon, he slipped near the console and flipped some levers. Immediately the voice of the Collective quieted, the outside effectively blocked off in the interior of the ship. "If I can get you properly situated I should be able to let you engage him."

[haughty_alpha]

Avon's lip curled. "You mean he ran off. Cowardly bastard."

He let out a short gasp of relief as the Borg voice released him; it was like a clamp letting go in his mind. "Ah - thank you." He closed his eyes, allowing himself to revel for a moment in the wonderful silence. Then he pulled himself together and returned his attention to Data.

"I understand. Tell me what to do."

[dominie]

"He disappeared actually. I suppose he's escaped you. But now I need you to do what you were just doing, unfortunately. Just with him. I can take you to the infirmary and put you under a scanner, work on ridding you of these nanites and healing your injuries. I can hook you up to a network while I'm doing that.

"You see, if we don't convince him to keep repairing himself, to figure out how to wake himself up, then he's not going to." Another few toggles and tuggles and he had the viewscreen showing Data crouched and hugging his knees, still sitting in the rubble futiley trying to collect himself as other figures milled about.

"All of those are android versions of people he knows. The best I figured was that they represented memories. The village, and the damage to the androids, is what the machine did to him. You need to keep him repairing himself."

The last sentence he added with some urgency. The TARDIS was very fond of Data. Very much so, even now. And she spurred on a more extreme state of unrest.

[haughty_alpha]

Avon flinched at the image on the screen. Data looked so...lost. It sent a pang through him - fear, despair. But he said confidently, "fine. Hook me up and I'll do what needs to be done."

[dominie]

Seven thumped Avon's shoulder, both in support and consolation, and started to guide him through to the infirmary. The set up was that bizarre mix of futuristic and levers. The machine was odd that way.

"Lay down on the bed," he motioned to the one in the centre of the room with a scanner over it. "While you're out, I'll clean out some of these nanobots and keep an eye on his condition. If he starts spiralling down, I'm pulling you out."

No matter what Avon might think, the Doctor saw no use in losing two lives today.

[haughty_alpha]

Avon took a deep breath that entirely failed to calm him. "All right," he said, in a voice so small it embarrassed him to hear it. He lay down, folded his hands on his chest, and closed his eyes. After a moment he said, more steadily,

"No. Don't pull me out, whatever happens." He had to be clear on that. If he lost Data, he lost everything. There would be no impetus to save his own battered consciousness.

[empirical_data]

Seven would still try, even despite the request. But he fixed a couple of wires with suction cups to Avon's temples, adding nothing of that thought. "It will feel like you're going to sleep. Just settle in and relax, and you'll start dreaming in a-"

Suddenly it wasn't so much Avon on a table, as Avon in the battered village. The androids Data had managed to repair working on the buildings, attempting to set everything right.

Data, though, was still hunched some distance away, trying to collect himself as he was looking over the still disabled form of his brother and the disembodied arm that had appeared after reactivating the android representing Avon. Looking for the most part utterly alone.