The Thing He Loves


She's not dead.

That's what I told myself, in the days after the accident. She's in stasis, and perhaps someday, perhaps when we return . . . I used the title Acting Captain.

For a while, I was "acting" in name only. Tuvok pretty much ran things. After a month or so I began to recover enough to notice what was going on around me. Most of the crew were sad, resigned. There was only one person who looked the way I felt. Seven.

The skin of her face had gone grey in places, particularly around her mouth. She was sitting in the mess hall, her hands around a mug. I sat down.

"How are you doing, Seven?"

"I'm cold," she said.

I knew what she meant.

"She was your friend." It was a statement. Her voice was hoarse, as if she hadn't been speaking much.

"She was your friend, too." I spoke softly.

A look came into her eyes. "She said she couldn't be, once."

"She told me that was what she wanted to show you. Right after you were severed from the collective. She told me that was what we had to offer, friendship, but I think she was speaking for herself."

"She said she was my Captain, that she couldn't always be my friend."

"There were times she was more the Captain than I would have wished too."

She gave me a look of understanding. Then she shivered.

"I've raised the temperature in my quarters," I said, "if you'd like to . . . finish your meal there."

***

I told her stories, things Kathryn had done, things she had told me. Seven could remember details with amazing precision: her exact words, her mannerisms. We comforted each other.

I don't remember which of us touched the other first, but I do remember that she was sitting on my bed, her legs drawn up, and that she was leaning against me. She put her face into my neck, as if to soak up the heat of my skin. I felt her breath. Several of the pins in her hair were falling out.

I began to take down her hair. It reminded me of Kathryn's hair when it was long. Of the times I had wanted so much to touch it. Of the perverse pleasure of seeing it knocked loose when the ship rocked under enemy fire.

Seven was sitting in front of me, and I freed her hair, removing the last of the pins. My fingers combed through her hair, then trailed along her temples. She was leaning her head back, eyes closed. She began to make little mewing noises. I was aroused by touching her, but it surprised me when I realized that she too was excited, when her breathing quickened and the mewing became soft cries. In spite of her beauty, I had never imagined her to be a sexual person.

"Please," she said, pulling off her clothes. I took off my own.

I buried my face in the damp blond curls between her legs. Head thrown back, body arched, she responded with an intensity which kept surprising me. As she came, I forgot where I was, forgot Kathryn's accident, lost myself in the scent of her excitement and her cries of release, so that when I slid inside her, I don't think I really remembered who she was.

She didn't have her own quarters. She spent a lot of time in mine.

We would remember Kathryn, and often it ended in our lovemaking. It was intense, silent except for our cries, almost frenzied. I don't think either of us was thinking of the other.

Seven's complexion returned to its normal elegant paleness. She kept herself busy; she continued to work in Astrometrics, and had asked to assist the Doctor is sickbay. I could sometimes concentrate for a whole duty shift at a time.

People saw us as a couple.

"I'd like to have a child," she said one day.

***

"Shall we call her Kathryn?" I asked, as I looked at the tiny perfect girl.

"No," said Seven adamantly. She looked--frightened almost. And I thought perhaps this was a new beginning for us. That she wanted to forget Kathryn. That she wanted me to forget. That she wanted me to love her for herself. (And I think, perhaps, briefly, I did.)

***

Kai was four. (That's what we'd called her; it rhymes with "sigh.") She was small and beautiful, curious and stubborn and bright.

Seven and I had soon drifted apart. We no longer slept together. What we did share was Kai.

One day Seven asked to talk to me, alone, in my ready room.

"She's not your child, Chakotay. Not biologically."

It was one of those odd moments. Odd, in its intensity, odd that, given the nature of our relationship, I felt betrayed. It made sense, I thought, that I wasn't the only one to comfort her. I wondered who he was. I wondered if he too had had to seduce her with Janeway stories. The intensity of the jealousy surprised me.

I grabbed her by the shoulders. "Does he know, the biological father?" I expected her to break free of my grasp, to throw me off, knock me to the floor.

"It's not . . ." she said, but I wouldn't let her finish.

"Does the"--I spat the word--"father know?" I demanded again. "Yes or no?" I was shaking her now, and she was letting me.

"No," she said, "he's dead."

And then the rage seemed to burn itself out, to pass. I let her go.

"It's all right," I said softly. "She's mine."

Seven looked at me miserably.

"It's not what you think, Chakotay. I never slept with anyone else. I never knew her father. She's not mine either. It's not all right."

"What?"

Seven told me then that Kai was Kathryn's clone.

"But you knew the laws?" I asked. "You knew the taboo?" Cloning was so unacceptable in the Federation that clones were not granted the rights of sentient beings.

"I knew. Oh, but Chakotay, I didn't think I could live without her."

"But Kai's not Kathryn."

"I know. I know that now. I thought I could transfer some of Kathryn's brain to her. When she was big enough. I did some research, computer models. It's been done with identical twins."

I looked at her in horror. "But that would erase some of who she is."

"I didn't realize . . . that she would be so . . . real. I didn't understand."

"Why did you tell me?" I asked.

"People may start to notice a resemblance," she said. "And you had the right to know."

***

We told the crew that Kai was Kathryn's biological daughter, that Seven had used one of the Captain's eggs to get pregnant. We told them that, right after the accident, Kathryn had regained consciousness long enough to give her permission. I don't know if they believed us, but they weren't in much of a position to question, and the Doctor corroborated our story. He would do anything for Seven. I've never discovered if she used persuasion or reprogramming.

***

When the probe returned, when we learned that the wormhole was stable and lead to the Alpha Quadrant, there was a great deal of rejoicing. And, for a few moments, I was happy too, happy for everyone, happy that Kai, now fifteen, wouldn't spend her entire life on a spaceship.

And then I realized we couldn't show up in Federation space with two people with identical DNA. That they would punish Seven and me wasn't the issue. But we didn't know what they'd do to Kai. We didn't know if they'd destroy an almost adult clone, but it wasn't a risk we could take.

We did it together--killed her, I mean. We hadn't done anything together in a long time.

We each keyed in part of the sequence that warmed the cryotank. Then we waited. We knew she was too badly damaged to live. We didn't know what the current medical technology on Earth would have been able to do for her.

I hoped she would die quickly, but she didn't. I think that waiting, waiting there in the cargo bay for Kathryn to die was one of the hardest points in my life.

Seven opened the cryotank lid. Kathryn was breathing now, unevenly. The color had returned to her cheeks. I touched her hair. "Goodbye," I said. I walked to the other side of the cargo bay and then turned back.

Seven was sitting beside the tank, as if beside a casket. I watched her lean over the unconscious form. They were almost the same age now.

Seven kissed Kathryn's forehead. When she straightened up, I saw that her face was wet with tears. I'd never seen her cry.

"I'll wait," she said. "If that's okay? The ship needs you. Kai needs you." She spoke very softly, almost pleading. I had agreed to this, but it was Seven's actions sixteen years before which had made it necessary. It was her killing, really, and I couldn't deny her request to be left alone.

As I left the cargo bay I felt relief, and something almost like jealousy.

***

We made up some technobabble about how the passage through the wormhole had resulted in complete brain death. The doctor signed the death certificate. We left her in the stasis chamber--encapsulated it--(we wouldn't be needing it again) and sent it off into space in the standard ceremony. I was made Captain. Nobody paid much attention; they were all caught up in their feelings about getting home, and perhaps they suspected that the whole stasis thing had been something of an indulgence, a denial.

Seven seemed--shaken. She had never been a very traditional mother to Kai, but they had spent a lot of time together, doing experiments in the labs, studying mathematics, engaged in a variety of intellectual pursuits that I would have found beyond me even if I hadn't been busy running the ship. Now Seven withdrew. Kai was very eager to see Earth and also, at this point, completely enamored of Naomi Wildman, so she wasn't as disturbed by Seven's behavior as she might have been.

I had thought our arrival on Earth would be hard on Seven, but she almost seemed not to notice.

We had been back a couple of weeks. Debriefing was winding down, and Starfleet was finally giving us a bit of freedom. No inconsistencies had been found in the logs, but then, no one was looking. The memorial service for Kathryn was scheduled for that afternoon. It was to take place on the farm where she was raised. We went early to see the place.

Seven had been avoiding Kai. So I was surprised when she walked up to us. She stopped, facing Kai, speaking with the affectless precision which had once been her habit. "I'm sorry," she said. Then she kissed Kai on the lips, a passionate kiss. I was shocked, but Kai seemed to take it in her stride. "I'm sorry," Seven repeated, looking at me this time. Then she left.

Kai stood next to me at the service. Her hair is darker than Kathryn's, and shorter, but the resemblance to the adult woman is, of course, striking. I had worried a little that Kai would remind me too much of Kathryn, that I would feel . . . but I don't. She is my daughter, not the woman I had once wanted as my lover.

We were suitably somber, but she couldn't mourn the "mother" she had never known and, oddly, at this point, neither could I. I had Kai. I could regret nothing that had lead to her.

It must have been different for Seven. She didn't return for the memorial service. She disappeared; we never saw her again. Maybe she wanted to escape the experimentation Starfleet had planned for her, but I don't think it was that.

Sometimes I imagine that she hadn't let Kathryn die, that she had reactivated the stasis chamber. And that she went back to find her, to take her somewhere, somewhere outside the Federation, where they could treat her injuries. It's improbable, I know, but Seven was an improbable woman.