Humanity

Humanity, per Webster, is the fact or quality of being human or humane. Bringing this trait of mankind to one being had been my driving force to sever Seven of Nine from the Borg Collective. I believe now that I was intentionally unaware of the other feelings that pushed my decision until today. They had lain dormant within me along with many other reasons that were not required of a Starfleet captain. It is only now that Seven of Nine has forced me to examine my own more personal motives within it all.

She touched my arm yesterday stopping me from a decision; I thought then, it was made as her captain. All my decisions are based on my command whether they are personal or other. But today I know there is more to it. More than just my command affecting my decisions, there had been another reason for me, Kathryn Janeway not the captain.

It wasn't her stopping me that propelled me into this inner turmoil. It was quite simply her touch. Physically it was gentle, not restricting an effortless humane gesture on her part. It was a non-verbal suggestion for a different course of action. It came replete with a look in her eyes of concern. And truth told not just eyes, but beautiful sky blue eyes that can hold the warmth of a summer's day if one chooses to look close enough.

Her touch, those eyes sent shivers through me. Shivers that came with a message attached. It read, "Kathryn Janeway does not practice what she teaches." I ignored it as I had countless many times before. Filed somewhere deep inside under behavior not becoming a Starfleet captain.

Now a day later the internal alarms sound again in my mind, "Does not practice what she teaches!" Repressed shivers that are cause for me to hug myself accompany it. My heart responds, something that I have never allowed before. All that fills my mind and my heart has chosen this opportunity to break free of its emotional prison. I have not enough wits about me to hunt them all down and lock them back up. What am I saying? I had become my own emotional warden. How have I allowed myself to be as removed from my own feelings as Seven of Nine had been removed from humanity? And what kind of leader have I become sacrificing all that is truly me for the good of. . .

Traversing the Delta quadrant, I have no one and Starfleet regulations specifically state that under no uncertain terms am I to have relations with any member of my crew. Here I sit with 50,000 plus light years before the Alpha quadrant, with Starfleet regulations that were created with no thought to this kind of distance and me, the captain. If I break this rule then what other rules will become inane for me?

The alarm is still sounding. It has awoken in me, need. Do my needs out weigh the rules? I know that they do, but am I strong enough as a person, then as captain to learn a good balance between the two?

Will I be able to share, with her, the personal reasons for having severed her? Will she see differently the time I spend showing her what life has to offer? Yet she has attempted to show me by nothing more than a simple touch. A touch with more humanness than anything I have given her. I will break the rules if not for myself then for her, and I will stand accountable if and when the time ever comes.

"Captain, we are within hailing frequency of Anglar 5."

The internal alarm has silenced. For the first time in a long while I am facing a reality that has many possibilities. One for certain with eyes as blue as the sky. . .

"Request orbit instructions, Lt. Paris, Let's get this over with and get back to Voyager." Captain Kathryn Janeway replied with a slight smile playing on her face. She thought of the decision she had now made and of who consequently she had left behind.