Present
Part O

It's a party- - Christmas and our leaving Devore space. Neelix has suggested that we not wear uniforms. I look in the closet. There's the red dress. I made it for him, really. I can't wear it to a ship's party. Well, maybe with a jacket. I find a black jacket. Dark stockings, black shoes, a string of blue green beads.

I look at myself in the mirror. Festive, respectable. I take off the jacket and remember his fingers on me. I run my hands from the side of my breasts, over my waist, down to the sides of my thighs.

I put the jacket back on, covering the nipples my underclothing is now failing to hide, and I go to the party.

***

When I arrive everyone is looking at something in the middle of the room. I see that it is Seven. She is holding up a data storage unit. I wonder if she's drunk; if so, she's not a happy drunk.

"So who gave me this? Who did this?"

"What is it Seven?" asks Chakotay.

"Someone gave me something," she says.

"And you didn't like it."

She looks at him as if he's stupid. He's doing pretty well as far as I can see.

"Okay, anybody want to admit to this?" he asks, but it has an undertone of order to it. No one says anything. "What is it Seven?"

She glares at him again.

"Perhaps the giver wants to tell you privately . . ." he suggests.

"Perhaps I should speak to Commander Tuvok."

Okay, now I can see Chakotay is struggling to keep his temper.

I'd let them fight it out, but Neelix is looking appalled, and this really isn't the place. I step forward. "Seven."

She turns and looks at me as if I had crawled out from under a rock. Very festive.

"Captain," she answers, ice in her words. I suppose that fits in with the winter holiday theme, but not all that well.

Whatever fight she wants to have, I don't want to have it here. "Come with me, Seven."

I turn and walk out, and she does follow me. In the corridor I wait and she walks beside me, but nearly half a meter to my right. I had been thinking of finding a quiet spot for this conversation, but as I see the way she keeps away from me, I think it had better be private. I'd use my ready room, but I don't particularly want to take Seven past the bridge crew. We go to my quarters.

"What's this about?"

She is still looking at me as if I was growing scales. Which is a possibility. I check, but I look pretty much the same as always.

"Seven! Someone gave you something that upset you. What is going on? If someone behaved inappropriately . . ."

"Why did you do it?"

"What?"

"Why did you fuck him?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why did you fuck the Devore?"

So much for my plans to explain that "copulate" isn't normally used in informal speech. Something I can cross off my "to do" list.

"May I ask . . " I say, not just to buy time, but because I really do want to know. We were pretty careful, Kashyk and I.

She takes her data unit to my computer, activates it. And there we are. Recorded, I would imagine, by the internal sensors. In all our holographic glory, a dolls house version of my sleeping area. And Kashyk. And me. "Okay, I say. I get the idea." It's pretty surreal. "Where did you get this?"

"It was in my personal database. There was an attachment, saying it was a present. "I didn't make it," she says, obviously outraged at the thought.

"Why did it upset you, Seven?" I ask, as softly as I can. Not that I think it's an unreasonable response--I'd have been horrified to receive a holovid of Admiral Paris in bed--but I wouldn't have made a scene in the mess hall. Of course, I'm not Seven.

"I think someone is laughing at me."

"What do you mean?"

"I think someone on the crew gave it to me, to make fun of me."

"Why would they laugh at you, Seven? Why do you think that?"

"They know I'm attracted to you, Captain. They laugh at me for my innocence, for my hopeless "crush."

She says it in such a matter-of-fact way. I take a deep breath. I've known this, of course, but not quite to the point of putting it in words. And here she is saying it, and I don't know what to say.

"I'm pretty sure it had to be Kashyk," I say. "I gave him access to the computer, in my quarters only, but I don't think that would have stopped him sending the file to you. Or everyone on the ship, presumably, but since no one else is looking at me oddly, I think it was just you."

Of course she thought someone was taunting her, giving her a recording of Kashyk and me. And maybe Kashyk was, I don't know. Or maybe he was matchmaking. Maybe he thought she'd like it. He seemed so human, but he was working at that. I know nothing about the sexual mores of the Imperium.

And at almost the same moment, I realize how the file must have disturbed her. Not just my having sex with someone else, but the way we were doing it. She cannot stand it, my apparent powerlessness, cannot understand it. I don't imagine this is what I'm doing in her fantasies.

"As for why, Seven, I don't know that I can answer that. There was something between us, though I can't say exactly what. And I knew he wasn't staying. You know I can't take a lover who serves under me . . ."

She looks at me dubiously. Perhaps that was an unfortunate choice of words.

She's so beautiful. And I can think of nothing to say which will make any of it right.

I reach over. She's stronger than me, but surprise is on my side. I grab her hair with one hand, grasp her shoulder with the other. And I kiss her, hard. She tastes wonderful; it isn't easy to pull away.

"They have no reason to laugh at you, Seven," I whisper.

It was a risk, but she is standing in the same spot, smiling very slightly.

"You might want to fix your hair before we return to the party." I say. I have pulled a few strands from the bun. "But if you'd prefer not to . . ."

A brief look of surprise crosses her face. She tucks a wisp of hair in. One remains loose.

We walk back to the mess hall, silently again, but this time with less space between us.