"Janeway was right about one thing. You are unique." --Ransom, Equinox II

I am restless. I have begun to undress, have taken off my jacket and turtleneck, but don't feel I can sleep. I need to speak to Seven, to know for certain what happened on the Equinox. 

I ask her to come to my quarters. The door chimes; I put on my jacket, fasten it, and then ask her to come in. 

I am standing by the viewport as she enters. I have read the Doctor's report. But I need to know for sure. 

"Captain." 

I turn."Seven."

She is slightly wary with me. Her hands are behind her back. It isn't surprising. I am never alone with her now, except in professional situations. I never ask her to come to my quarters. She has stopped coming on her own initiative. 

"I know what happened after the Doctor arrived." Oh God. The thought of it makes me sick. But even more sickening than the idea of the Doctor slowly dissecting Seven is the thought of Ransom . . . 

We had dinner, he and I, and I'd been so fucking trusting. I don't know why. But it's been a long time since I'd had anyone to talk to. He was a Starfleet captain, and some naive part of me, said, well, okay, here is someone you can trust. I'm not that stupid. But perhaps I was desperate. 

I talked about Seven. Too much. I knew that. About her history, about her time on Voyager, about her brilliance. "She sounds pretty amazing," he said, voice warm. "She's unique," I said. 

"Lonely repressed dyke," he was probably thinking. Close enough. 

He wanted her. The next day I saw him looking at her. It was nothing new; it didn't bother me. Plenty of my crew look at her that way. Some of them are much prettier than him, and they haven't swept her off her feet. It amused me. It was something else we shared. He knew it. 

When I learned about how he was killing the creatures, everything changed. I remembered the way he had looked at her as being evil. I hated him, hated him for his betrayal. Of me, of Starfleet. 

And when I learned she was on his ship . . .When I knew she was in the hands of someone who not only wanted her, but no longer cared about anything. For whom there were no rules. Who had crossed the line. 

It's not worse than death, of course. (Even during the first few months I was usually glad I'd lived) But I thought for her it might be. 

"Before the Doctor arrived, what happened?" I ask. 

She tells me that Ransom had her brought to him. Had offered to have her join him with his neural stimulator. Had said she could chose the brig, or being a part of his crew. She said she had chosen the brig. 

She retells it with minute detail. I know she is capable of this, but usually she condenses things, speaks more as unaugmented people do. I have to conclude that she realizes what I am asking, that I don't want any gaps. 

"Janeway's not the only captain who can help you become more human."

Oh god. I could imagine him leering as he said this. Did Seven know what he was saying? Probably. 

"He brought his hand up to the wound on my forehead. I thought he would touch me ,but he didn't. 'Have this treated,' he said." 

Ransom changed everything.

They have almost always obeyed me before. Always in battle. But now Chakotay, even Tuvok, all of them question me. I pursued the Equinox until the shields were close to failing and Chakotay shouted at me on the bridge. As if I had suddenly gone mad, as if I didn't know the limits of my own ship. As if decisions in battle are to be made by consensus. 

I think it is Ransom's doing. I've taken risks before, but I was the Captain, and that meant something to them. They trusted me. They don't trust me anymore. And not because of anything I did. Because they saw us as similar. 

We shared a lot, Ransom and I. Two lonely people lusting after a young woman. Two captains desperate to get their ships home.  

I hated him. 

I didn't tell Chakotay at first. Just said that we had a crewmember on the Equinox, that we had to get her. "This isn't about Seven, is it?" he said. "It's about Ransom." Chakotay's not always very bright. Though I suppose in a sense he was right. It was about Ransom. But it was always about Seven.

 And me. 

I have never killed outside of battle, in cold blood, for calculated gain. But I have put myself in the position where I had to kill. Put others in a position where they died. It's perhaps a small distinction, but it means a great deal to me. Perhaps too much. 

I look at her. She is tired, pale, so beautiful. I know I could easily kill anyone who hurt her.

***

Commander Chakotay is confined to quarters. Even I have heard the rumors that he went mad. Or that she did. Something about her interrogation of Lessing.

She is looking out the window when I arrive. She turns. She does not look insane. She looks tired. Worried.

She questions me about Ransom. I believe she wants to know if he assaulted me. I tell her everything he did, everything he said. She tenses when I tell her things he said about her, relaxes when it is clear that he didn't touch me.

I have read her service record. She too has been a prisoner.

When I was strapped to the bed, when the Doctor was dissecting my implant, I thought that everything would be all right. I believed that she would save me, or that I would save her. Lying there, on that dark ship, at that moment, I could not see a difference.

I want to tell her this but I do not know how.

She looks at me. She looks at my hands and starts.

"Your wrists . . . " she says, examining them. "They're bruised."

"Yes. The restraints in the Equinox's sickbay."

She holds my right hand in hers, gently pushes back my sleeve. It is a small bruise which begins just below my wrist.

"The Doctor should have done something about this." She sounds angry.

"It's not serious," I say.

Her hand trembles slightly. I think perhaps she is angry with the Doctor for what he did. She carefully examines each wrist.

It is a long time since she has touched me.

Then she releases my hand and looks at me.

"We did everything to get you back as quickly as we could," she says. "I did."

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

I don't know what she is sorry for.

I catch her wrists in my hands now, and hold them. She looks at me. She holds herself tense. She is still trembling.

"Does it disturb you to have your wrists held?" I ask.

She is silent a moment before she answers "Not by a lover, no."

I hold her as I kiss her face. She is very still. I kiss her temple and her cheek and the side of her mouth and I can feel her breathing increase, but she remains unmoving. I bring my lips to hers and then she does kiss me back and her kiss is hard and strong. She is holding my fingers now, and pulling me towards her bed.

She undresses herself.

I pull her to me, and it is not like anything I half remember, or anything I imagined. I forget all the half memories, the fantasies, the techniques. I touch her the way I touch myself. She cries out, almost as if she were in pain, almost as if she were sobbing.

***

My self-appointed conscience is confined to quarters. Seven's pale perfect body lies beside me. It is 04:50--just before dawn, perhaps, though no sun will rise here.

Perhaps I am no better than Ransom. Perhaps I am so far gone I cannot see the evil of what I have done.

I rise, put on a robe, wash, have a cup of coffee. I watch her sleep.

I remember the feel of her body on mine, the feel of her hands. I remember hearing my own voice repeating "I love you." It is something I have cried out during sex before; it is more, really, loving the sensation than the person--"How do you come to the still waters and not love the one who came there with you?"--But watching her sleep, her hair matted, her silver veined fingers curled, I realize that I do love her. That perhaps I have always loved her. And wanted her.

Our lovemaking was impatient, direct, forceful. Now I put a hand on her sheet covered hip and begin to caress her slowly.

In the morning I will reinstate Chakotay and try to determine the risk he poses, deal with the remnants of the Equinox crew, oversee Voyager's repairs. In the morning I will tell the Doctor that Seven fell asleep on my sofa. And that he should heal the bruises on her wrists.

But now I touch her, softly, gently, until she wakes gradually, wakes to my kisses, turns on her back, warm, aroused, smelling of both of us. Perhaps this is a terrible thing I do. I will worry about it in the morning.