It is the end of a staff meeting. The Doctor is speaking.

"I would like to do some further research on the neural interfaces that were used during the Hirogen occupation. I am interested in how they block the memory, and how they provide information directly to the brain. I'm wondering if this could be used as an educational device." The Doctor looks pointedly at Seven.

"What are you proposing, Doctor?" I ask.

"I would like Seven to return to the holodeck with a neural interface. I believe that I can modify it so that she can retain what she learns. I would use the World War II program, since it is already extensively developed by the computer and would require a minimum of additional processing time."

"You want to send her back to be shot by Nazis?"

"I was thinking of something a little more pleasant. V-E Day. The celebration of the end of the war. If anyone else wishes to join her, I believe that interacting with real humans would be more complex, and thus more beneficial, than with holograms alone. And it would aid my research on the neural interfaces. Please speak to me later."

"Seven, is this all right with you?" I ask.

"Do I have to sing?"

"Not if you don't want to," the Doctor answers.

"Very well, I will do it."

After I dismiss the meeting, I ask the Doctor to stay. "Are there any risks to this experiment?"

"None that I can anticipate."

It is appealing somehow . . . The end of the war. And though of course I cannot remember believing I was Katrine, there was something about it. I had kept the clothes. I liked the way they felt, the way they fit.

"Doctor, I would be willing to join Seven."

"That would be excellent, captain. However I'm afraid that producing a dual consciousness in an unaugmented human might be disorienting. Seven is used to a multiple consciousness; you are not. You would believe yourself to be Katrine."

"Would I remember it?"

"I'm not sure. I would only attempt to override the memory engram suppression if I could develop a completely safe method of doing so."

***

It is the Coeur de Lion. The Germans have surrendered; the war in Europe is over . . .

Katrine is at a table with Captain Miller and several others. Seven/deNeuf is sitting at the bar. She notices the way that Miller is looking at Katrine. Admiration and something else. In her head she hears Mademoiselle deNeuf's thoughts running softly. It is a comfortingly familiar experience. And now there is a feeling, something a little sharp and sad as she watches the two joking together.

Seven/deNeuf is not wearing an evening dress, she is not singing. She is tired of singing, of dressing up. She is very glad the war is over, but there is a feeling almost of loss. A loss of her place in the conflict, a loss of her friends in the Resistance.

Katrine leaves the table of the American captain, comes and sits beside her at the bar.

She motions to the bartender, who brings a bottle of champagne. Seven/deNeuf notices Chakotay/Miller's eyes following Katrine.

"The American--he is attracted to you"

"Yes, I suppose he is." Katrine smiles, almost shyly, There is a brief silence. "And you?"

For a moment Seven is not sure what the other woman is asking her.

"Are you attracted to me?" Katrine glances away as she clarifies her question, looks down the bar, looks at her champagne glass.

Seven was not expecting this. She looks at Katrine. She is wearing the men's evening dress she usually wears in the bar. She appears to be nervous. Her hair is beautifully done. Her lovely hands finger her glass.

Yes, says the Frenchwoman in her head. "Yes," says Seven suddenly. "Yes, I am."

Katrine turns towards her and smiles. It is a wonderful smile. "Well then, perhaps we could make this celebration a bit more private."

Seven feels her whole body go suddenly warm. This isn't right, is it?

"I'd like that," she answers. "But I have to go see someone." She slides off her stool.

Katrine puts out her hand and softly touches Seven's arm "Hurry back," she says, smiling.

***

I watch her leave. I wonder who she is going to see; I didn't know she had friends here, but then I know so little about her.

I notice Captain Miller looking my way. I like him; I feel I've known him longer than the short time the Americans have been in St.Clair. I would like to be his friend, but I don't think that's what he's looking for tonight. And if she doesn't come back? Ah, I will think about that then.

Brigitte is off with her American, the boy. This time I think she'll accept him; she has the baby to think of. St.Clair is no place for a half-German child. In America he will have an American father.

I would have taken her to Paris, but even there . . . And so much has changed between us. There was a point, somewhere, when she ceased to love me. It was her idea to bed the Nazi, but I didn't stop her. She said I saw him in our bed, that it had changed her for me. I don't think it was that; I think it was that I was so frightened for her.

I could have stopped her, but I didn't. I don't think she could forgive me that.

But this is a happy time. And perhaps tonight I will not go to bed alone. Perhaps my chanteuse will return. She said she was attracted to me, and I don't think that she lies, not easily.

I don't think that I knew how much I desired her, not until tonight. I couldn't risk it. Her papers said she had German parents; she said her parents had been French dissidents living in Germany, had been arrested early in the Third Reich, that she had been given to a German family to raise. That she had only recently discovered the truth. I didn't always trust her, wasn't certain that she could turn her on adoptive people so easily. And when I did come to trust her, the war continued. I needed her, her skills, her obedience. I dared not want her. And oh, she is so angry, so driven, such a fighter. But when she sings, when her face softens and she sings those songs of love . . .

***

Seven hurries out into the street, which is full of celebrating people. Mademoiselle deNeuf wants her to return to the bar, so there is a disoriented feeling to her trip to the entry to the holodeck. "Exit holodeck" she commands, and the gate into the real world slides open. The character in her head is silent.

The Doctor materializes. "How is it going?" he asks.

"I think maybe we should stop the program."

"Why, are you bored? It's only been twenty minutes." The Doctor's voice drips with disdain.

"No, it's not that. It's the captain, she . . . "

"She's perfectly healthy; I'm monitoring that."

"Yes, but, she's, well . . . "

"She's not enjoying herself?" The Doctor looks closely at Seven.

"No Doctor, I think she is enjoying herself." Seven is surprised to find herself blushing.

"Ah, I see, well, excellent," the Doctor says, smiling knowingly.

"But she's someone else, she doesn't know what she's doing."

"No, not strictly speaking," says the Doctor. "Her neural interface is still suppressing her memories. But that's all it's suppressing. Not her personality. Not her motivation, her desires. If she's having a good time, why not. I don't begrudge them a little enjoyment."

*Them.* Seven is confused for a moment. She has seen almost no one she recognizes. Just Katrine and Miller. Then Seven realizes that is who he is talking about: the Captain and Chakotay.

"Very well doctor," she answers, and turns back into the holodeck.

She hurries back to the Coeur de Lion.

Katrine is no longer at the bar. Seven/deNeuf looks anxiously around the room. She sees that Miller has an arm around a buxom young woman with long dark hair. She relaxes slightly. And then she sees that Katrine is behind the bar, conferring with the bartender. She wants to run to her, but something, deNeuf, tells her not to. She walks.

Katrine smiles a small quick smile. She is placing a bottle of champagne on a tray with two glasses. "Would you take this to . . . " She leans toward Seven and speaks more softly "Upstairs, the door to the right of the landing? I will be through here shortly."

Seven/deNeuf takes the tray, leaves the room as unobtrusively as she can. She climbs the stairs, puts the champagne down on the floor and opens the door. It is Katrine's bedroom. She has never been in this room before. It is simple, high-ceilinged. Two French windows with white curtains look out onto the street. Seven/deNeuf retrieves the champagne, puts it on the bedside table. Then she looks around the room, curious.

***

When I enter, she is sitting at my dressing table. There is little that is personal here, just a picture of Brigitte, taken several years ago in Paris. I had kept it hidden, but now I don't know what to do with it, frame it, give it back. It is pushed into the edge of the mirror.

I take off my jacket and stand behind her, looking at the reflection of her face. I touch the side of her neck, her shoulder above her blouse. Her skin is warm. I take the clip from her hair, which is not waved this evening, just straight, and clean and soft. I take her hair in my hands, move it to her left shoulder. I lean down, bring my lips to the back of her neck. She shudders slightly as I kiss her.

I straighten up. She is so beautiful, but so much more than that.

***

"You know, " Katrine says, "there was something, the first moment I saw you . . . I didn't know you'd were on our side, of course. But I very much wanted you to be." She smiles. "And not only because you are good with weapons."

Memories come to Seven, her own, and deNeuf's. Memories of meeting someone she really respected, someone who impressed her. Someone who, in spite of herself, she longed to like her, to trust her.

Seven/deNeuf slides around so that she is facing Katrine, looking up at her.

"Madame, there is no one whose attentions would more flatter me."

***

I take her hands, move towards the bed. She sits on the bedspread, her feet drawn up under her. Her hair hangs loose. She looks younger than she usually does, softer.

I feel oddly unsettled. Not uncertain that I want this, want her. But nervous, almost as if this were twenty years ago, as if I were inexperienced, and the touch of a woman's lips all the sweeter for being forbidden.

I open the champagne, pour and hand her a glass. She sips it, savors it. She puts a hand out to me; I take it and sit beside her.

"Mm," she says, "Very nice."

"Yes," I say.

She takes another sip. I take her glass from her and put it on the bedside table. I kiss her. Her lips part slightly. She is still, almost as if surprised, but not unpleasantly, for she lets out a tiny moan of pleasure. And then she is kissing me back, and her mouth tastes of champagne . . .

***

Seven is not surprised that Katrine kisses her. She is surprised by how it feels, how the other woman's lips against hers feel like no touch she has ever experienced. She finds she can push deNeuf's voice into the background, and then there is nothing but Katrine's--Janeway's--lips on hers, and her fingers unbuttoning her blouse. As Katrine undresses her, caresses her, each touch, each place their skin meets, is different, surprising, amazing.

She feels the other woman's fingers on her, slipping into her. No knowledge, no memory prepared her for this, this pure intensity. She is lost in sensation. And then she is coming, and for a moment she's not sure what's happening, but then she remembers--ohhh--but it's nothing like experiencing it. She hears her own voice crying out.

And then she looks up at Katrine, whose hair is loose, whose face is warm, relaxed, aroused. Seven puts her hand out, touches Katrine's temple, trails her fingers down the line of her jaw, her neck, turns her hands and brushes the backs of her fingers over Katrine's still clothed breast. She hears the other woman's breath catch.

"Please?" asks Seven.

Katrine smiles in answer.

And then Seven is taking of the remains of Katrine's clothes, and touching her. And now she does access her knowledge of human sexuality and sexual technique, for she wants desperately to please her lover. She makes love to her with her mouth, her fingers, her whole body. She hesitates for a second to use her Borg hand to its full advantage, but she remembers that the program seems designed to cause the participants to ignore inconsistencies. If they could have Nazis with lizards' heads, she thinks, a little augmentation won't be noticed. Her fingers slide into the other woman's sex. Fingers inside, and fingers out, and Katrine's head is thrown back, and her moans are coming faster and then she is grasping Seven to her as she comes. And Seven thinks this is the most wonderful thing she has ever done, to give this woman this pleasure; it suffuses her own body with excitement.

They lie naked next to each other, their skin damp. Seven realizes she doesn't feel alone. If only she could stay here, like this, Katrine/Janeway nestled against her. And then she remembers that the doctor won't leave them here forever, that he will be switching off the neural interfaces. She is quite certain that Janeway would be more distressed to regain consciousness naked and in bed with Seven than she was to find herself about to shoot her.

"Katrine, please, wake up."

"Mm, why?"

"I want to go out. The war's over. Everyone is celebrating."

"The war's just as much over here," says Katrine smiling.

"I want to go out with you. I want to see the moonlight in the river."

"A romantic after all," Katrine teases, but she gets up. They wash and dress and walk arm in arm to the holographic river.

They find a secluded spot. Katrine leans against Seven/deNeuf; Seven realizes that she is falling asleep, and she rearranges their position so that Katrine's head rests in her lap. She runs her fingers along her hairline. She does not remember seeing a sleeping human before. She notices subtle changes in the musculature of Katrine's face. She finds herself thinking she trusts me. She finds herself thinking she is very beautiful though she is not sure what this means. A song comes into her mind, a song that deNeuf used to sing in the bar. Very softly she begins: "Would it be wrong to stay/ here in your arms this way/ Under this starry sky . . ."

Katrine shifts slightly, opens her eyes. "I always liked that song," she says before falling back to sleep.

Seven/deNeuf continues almost inaudibly: "When I need you so much/ And I have waited so long/ It must be right/ It can't be wrong."

She sits still holding the sleeping woman. An hour passes. She doesn't feel bored. The sky is just beginning to lighten when Katrine disappears.

***

The Doctor has had us beamed directly from the holodeck to sick bay. Chakotay, dressed in his Starfleet uniform is on his way out the door when Seven arrives. She sits up on her biobed. She looks different somehow. Happy? Nervous? More human? I am not sure. Then she looks up at me as if she were about to say something, but she doesn't.

"The Doctor tells me he has removed nearly a half bottle of champagne from my blood stream," I say, "so I assume the scenario was celebratory."

"Yes, " says Seven."You don't remember anything?"

"No. The Doctor says he's going to study the safety of restoring the memories."

"Cela ne presse pas," Seven says to the Doctor in what I imagine to be twentieth century French.--I don't translate; it seems to be something between the two of them, for he responds:

"Ah, yes, I understand. Thank you." And then: "You found the experience educational?"

"Very educational." Seven smiles.

"Good. Perhaps you'd like to do it again sometime."

Seven hops down from the biobed. "Perhaps I would, Doctor."

Maybe I'm imagining it, but there seems to be more feeling in Seven's inflection.

"Good night, Seven."

"Good night, captain."

END