"Kiss me."

That's how it always was, always had been--a moment in time she knew she couldn't have. Not when she saw Seven's head tilt slightly in anticipation, not when her own heartbeat seemed to pound in her ears and make everything uncertain where it had never been uncertain before.

The hoverball brushed her bent leg, a barely perceived annoyance she pushed away with the heel of her hand.

As if it was possible or likely, as if the entirety of the situation was not at very best questionable and at very worst immoral. Staring down into dark blue eyes that were slowly closing against the creamy skin--smooth as the new milk from the dairy Kathryn had visited as a child--she wondered if she tasted as sweet as that first glass, unpasteurized, ignore the risk--

--drink the milk--

--kiss the girl.

Seven wasn't holding her ankle anymore--she'd fallen hard, perhaps she should raise her hand to her communicator and call Sickbay--though Seven's nanoprobes could take care of that, she thought--

Of all times now, this moment, when she was out of uniform and her hair was a mess and she didn't feel the weight of her command so heavy on her shoulders. When her skin was flushed and sensitive from exertion and her body was in the rich glow of exercise and she felt that incredible high--

--release of endorphins, that's all--

--that came from energy expended--

--it couldn't come from Seven.

As if it were simple, as if it were easy, as if it wasn't the most complicated thing in the world to do--the parted lips inches from her own, the soft breath sliding over her cheek like silk blown by a light breeze--as if it meant something. And she could--a motherly kiss on that flawless cheek, a maternal smile that would part her lips and then she could get up and walk out for a cooling shower in her room and thank God for her escape.

Not have to face a temptation that made her want to forget what this girl meant to her.

It shouldn't have happened--Seven shouldn't have fallen, shouldn't have tripped with advanced Borg-enhanced reflexes and a smooth floor, shouldn't have turned her ankle and cried out in shock. Kathryn shouldn't have had her heart drop into her stomach to hear Seven's soft cry of pain, shouldn't have run to kneel beside the girl's slim body and take that ankle in her hand--should never, never have looked into the blue eyes and have seen everything in them that made her words of comfort dry in her throat.

It was never easy. She was a Starfleet brat, a Starfleet Captain, you don't shit where you eat, you don't screw your officers--

--Seven's not an officer--

--your damned crew then.

You do the healthy thing and build up impossible fantasies in the holodeck instead.

Her hand touched the soft cheek, hearing the soft indrawn breath that could have been either one of them. The hand that braced itself lightly on her thigh as she moved into the caress like a cat, tendrils of damp blonde hair brushing her cheek, the smell of sweat and Seven in her nostrils.

She leaned forward, to brush that maternal kiss on milky skin, prepared that maternal smile already stretching her lips--and a simple turn of the head and their mouths met gently, softly, a brush of lips so light it could have been her imagination that they were parted as well. The hand on her thigh strengthening, the soft lips clinging, the blonde hair silky when it wound in her fingers.

She wanted to pull away. And she didn't.

A moment to think, to ponder how many ways this could be construed as abusing her power as Captain, before that brush again, slower, a little firmer, whatever there was in inexperience made up for in curiosity and fascination. How she tasted, how her mouth felt, how soft a touch could be--

--how it could terrify her--

--what it could mean.

She pulled back, feeling Seven's instant resistance before she was pliable, passive, waiting with those large blue eyes fixed on her, the hand on her thigh loosening but not moving.

Waiting.