Cinderella
By Ann Page

She stood at the large bay window, staring out at the rolling hills that were cloaked in the inky darkness of the newly fallen night. She looked up and, because her room was dark, she could see the myriad of stars that flashed and twinkled in the moonless sky. 'Gods, how long has it been since I was among them?' she thought. She slowly straightened her back and gently rolled her aching shoulders. The long walk through the woods that ran along the back of the manor to the rolling sea had been wonderful. They had left her alone and she'd been free to think and feel the grief that had been simmering just below her skin for the better part of the two days she had been here. Her daughter knew something was wrong, but she had been raised well. She wouldn't pry. She would only cast strange looks across the room when something was mentioned and her aging mother's face would flicker and close down. She would look at her brother and they would exchange worried glances. She ran her fingers through her still short, gently gray hair. She remembered when she had cut it. The freedom she had felt was a still remembered pleasure. It was so much better to go into battle or chase after a new alien villain and not have to worry about how professional you looked because your carefully coifed hair was hanging out everywhere. Not that she had cared at the time.

The door to her room slid open and her daughter stepped into the small rectangle of light. Her daughter was quiet for a time as she took in her mother, in a darkened room, standing at the window, apparently staring forlornly at the surrounding country side. She could imagine the melodramatic thoughts running through her daughter's mind. She watched as her mouth opened to say something and then closed. Finally, "The kids want you to tuck them in."

"Of course." She stepped away from the window and followed her daughter down the hall to where her two grandchildren were patiently waiting, already in bed, but clearly too excited to sleep.

"Grandma!" Selena hopped up and clasped her in a great hug. Thomas jumped out of bed and scrambled onto Selena's. He too wrapped himself around her. In their own innocent, naﶥ way they sensed something was wrong and their attempt at comfort was a small balm to her raw nerves. She looked down at Thomas and took in his familiar features. He was the spitting image of his grandfather, dead for three years now. His unruly hair was the same golden shade and when his ocean blue eyes sparked a certain way, she knew exactly what he was thinking. It was the exact same look in Tom's eyes when he was hatching something. Mischief coupled with a wily intelligence. A dangerous combination and she had little doubt that her son had his hands full. She looked over to Selena, who took after her father, pale skin and ink black hair.

The aristocratic features that had first attracted her daughter. But Selena still had the same sparking blue eyes as her cousin.

"Tell us a story.' Thomas climbed onto her lap and wrapped his thin four year old arms around her neck. Selena sidled up to her side and wove her own seven year old arms around her waist.

"Please?"

"Yeah!"

Selena joined in her cousin's enthusiastic entreaty.

"Okay. But you two scoot into bed."

She stood up as they scrambled back under the warm blankets covering their beds. She pulled the rocking chair from the corner and sat it in between the beds, facing the children who were staring expectantly at her. She thought for a moment and then started.

"A long time ago, there was a small, uh, town, with many people living in it. They worked hard and the harvest was good one year, so their queen, who lived in a magnificent castle, decided to throw them a ball."

She remembered that particular dance well. Something to lift the crew's morale. Trying not to remember, Katherine embellished on her memory, deciding where to lead this tale, away from still fresh pain.

"Now this was no ordinary ball. The queen was wise and good and her subjects loved her, but she was getting old and her one son had no wife to speak of. She decided that at this ball he would pick his bride. She invited ladies and royalty from surrounding lands as well as all the available young maidens from her queendom.

"Now her son was not happy to be forced to give up the freedom he now enjoyed; hunting with his friends, riding his favorite mount in the surrounding hills and telling tales with his uncle, who had helped raise him since the king's death. But the queen was not going to allow him to run from his responsibilities any longer, the land needed an heir and a stable respectable king to look after it when she was gone. The prince sullenly conceded.

"The ball was set for a month after the September full moon. The hard labour of harvest was over and best forgotten or relived around a blazing hearth, sipping sweet ale. Four days prior ladies began arriving and settling into the castle for an extended visit. Each was on their best behavior as they wanted to impress the young handsome prince. The visiting ladies and the maids of the queendom each donned their best and most beautiful dresses the night of the ball and wore their best and most beautiful jewelry and had their hair done up in the most becoming way, each hoping to catch the eye of the prince. Their parents were hoping their daughters would attract the prince as well, or at least one of the other available young men who were coming as well. The prince could only marry one girl and it was rare that so many beautiful girls were together in one place.

"Now it so happened that there was one particular girl in the land that was particularly beautiful. She had wild flaxen hair and eyes like sea after a storm."

Memories assailed her and she was forced to pause. Her grandchildren waited, curiously patient as the mind pictures of the one woman who had ever held her in love's grip danced through her thoughts, and the accompanying grief at her death flashed through her eyes. She shook herself and continued.

"The girl was a virtual slave, waiting hand and foot on her two step sisters, trying win the approval of her step mother, the only family she had since her father's death. She was treated as the worst servant and was forced to sleep in the attic, curling up the warm chimney, heated from fires below. Her step sisters had laughed when the invitation to ball arrived and she expected to go as well." Each in their turn, Katherine imitated the screechy voices of the two and listened to the soft laughter of her grandchildren.

"'Cinderella, you must help us to prepare, their will be no time for yourself.' 'The prince would never marry a maid!' Cinderella quietly swallowed her hopes and dreams of escape.

"The night of the ball loomed clear and crisp, the stars shone like so many lanterns set in the sky, the moon like a beacon. The ballroom of the castle was decorated with hundreds of lush pine garlands and candles and the gentle breeze from the windows slowly breathed the scent of pine and beeswax in and around the lovely people milling about the room. Cinderella's sisters mingled under the watchful eye of their mother.

Cinderella sat at home, mending socks in front of the warm fire and silently weeping, wishing with all her heart she could be at the ball and imagining all the finery. She failed to note the glow behind her as a small globe of light floated into the room, through the window. She was startled when she turned around and saw the wizened old woman standing in her kitchen. 'What are you doing my child? You must go to the ball.' Katherine remembered Harry urging Seven in exactly the same way. She had nothing to wear either, which Harry helped remedy.

"'Who are you?' Cinderella asked. 'I am your fairy god mother and you shall go to the ball.' With a wave of the wand in her hand Cinderella was standing outside in front of a lavish carriage, wearing a beautiful gown. She stared in shock and wonder at the old woman who was waving and saying, 'Be back before the stroke of midnight and have a good time, my sweet!' and with that Cinderella was whisked off to the ball. Once there the prince noticed her right away, standing in the door way in her blue velvet dress with gold embroidery."

Katherine slowed her voice and felt it thicken as she remembered Seven in that dress. The shade of royal blue had picked up the flecks in her eyes and they were like a beacon shining across the holodec, catching Katherine and nearly drowning her. Desire had hit her like a punch, she had almost doubled over. Her own red satin dress had suddenly felt heavy and overly warm. Katherine shook herself and reformed the rocking chair under her and the bedroom around her. She glanced at the two children on either side of her and noticed they had fallen asleep. Thank you, she sent a silent prayer up to the ceiling. Every fairy tale she knew involved a blonde heroine except for Snow White and she could never remember all the names of the dwarves. This particular story was cutting too close to the bone, threatening and painful.

"You tell the best stories, Grandma." Tom's quiet, sleepy whisper drifted over to her as she left the darkened room, before he fell back to sleep. She silently retreated to her bedroom before her daughter could ambush her in the hall. Memories were washing over her, unrestrained waves that she was helpless to avoid as they pulled her far out to sea and into the depths of the past. She was already gone when she lay back on her bed, wrapping herself in the cocooning black of night.

Katherine recalled vividly the night of the ball. Everyone dressed up and she held a loose court at one end of Tom's intricately designed program. The air was hot with the thousands of candles and the energetic dancers. Crew members asked her to dance and she was sure she had danced, but she only had eyes for the vision in blue that drifted in the peripheral of her sight and teased her with its nearness.

Seven was so achingly beautiful that Katherine was sure everyone could hear her heart beats over the loud orchestra. How she had longed to ask Seven to dance, to hold the porcelain skin against her, to whisper that she was more precious to Katherine than anything, her own life. But that bridge had been crossed once already and Katherine had burned it herself when she had retreated across it again. Seven had been burned beyond recognition in the fire and she didn't want to risk again. She would resent Katherine's attempt at reliving a memory. The charred remains of their life as a couple had been long since locked away.

So Katherine had watched, felt the living breathing pain of regret coil itself slowly in the pit of her stomach. She had not looked away when Seven had caught her staring and smiled slightly, acknowledgement of her captain, not of a former lover. Katherine had smiled back and screamed silently inside. Three months and she still felt the vastness of the void beneath her, floating in suspended animation, constantly feeling the anguish as she had been thrown in. As she had thrown herself in. She couldn't find the bottom, so there was no where to claw back up from. That night had been a lesson in self restraint and patience.

Katherine thought back to the day the worm hole had been found. Tests and more simulations and finally a course plotted through the spatial storm that had propelled them to three light years from Earth. Home. A place where Katherine could run far, far away from the pain discovered on Voyager. Seven had been indifferent to the pain of their eventual parting. Katherine had wondered if she had ever loved her. It didn't matter, Katherine had still loved Seven to the depths of her being and whether it had ever been returned, it never would be again. Three days of good byes and farewells with the people who had been her family for six years and every one went in separate directions, she to an ambassadorial assignment to the new contacts they had made in the delta quadrant, Seven to a science-exploration ship, never to return to Earth.

Katherine's trips off planet had dwindled in number slowly as new responsibilities formed. She saw none of her crew for two years until Tom Paris had shown up on her doorstep one morning. 'Just visiting.' he'd said. The visit had turned into an extended stay as Katherine relived their past together and caught up. For a year after that he flitted in and out of her life. It had taken him that long to convince her to marry him. Even now Katherine didn't know why she had married him. She was sure she wouldn't have if Seven had come to the wedding. A reminder of the one she truly loved. But Seven had not come. She had not even sent word. Tom's companionship had allowed her to firmly close that part of her past off.

Her life with Tom had been good, calm, and content. The two years they had alone were quiet and filled with discovery. Tom, no longer part of star fleet, nevertheless could not stay out of the cockpit. He had slowly built a business as a mercenary pilot, one who would fly anywhere and rescue anything or anyone. In those turbulent times, his talents had been in demand. What with her busy schedule and him barely being planet- side, their sexual relationship was sparse. Given that and her age, the pregnancy had been a complete shock. The twins had been a joy and a gift to them both. But through it all, through the years of raising her children and building bridges for them, of laying next to Tom in her bed, Katherine could not escape the sea-at-dawn eyes that followed her through the long nights. Seven had flitted though her life like a rarely seen bird, weaving through her existence to become a common thread binding Katherine forever to the past. Every few years Katherine would deliberately track Seven down, excusing her overprotective prying in a veil of duty. A stretch of days filled with aching restraint and having the love she felt quietly acknowledged and ignored. Seven was aloof, but a glint in her eyes, a lightening flash, told Katherine she remembered as well. On the eve of one these visits word had come of the explosion.

An experiment gone wrong, one whole sector of a science ship destroyed, only one fatality. Working late as always, a sensor overload had ripped apart the fuselage of a lab and caught Seven of Nine by surprise, killing her instantly. Katherine had been one of the first to find out, her personal log secretly tagged to immediately recognize Seven's name.

When Tom had died of a rare virus picked up on one of his missions, the death been slow enough not to be surprising and to be a relief. This news was a shock, a cold dead hand laid upon Katherine's heart, cruelly twisting and scratching. The tears were bitter and burned their way to freedom from the very depths of a long denied soul. There was no closing, Katherine could not cut off the well of grief that rushed out and enveloped her in a dead solitude. Seven could not go to Katherine's wedding and Katherine could not attend the tiny memorial, no matter how much she needed to wrap the memories around her. If she did not go then Seven was alive somewhere, coldly mocking her humanity and sometimes embracing the memory of a love that lived on even now, pushing through the web of the afterlife to seek solace in the arms of an entrancing ghost.

As dawn crept over the country side, breathing life into the night sleeping land, Katherine drifted off, asleep and dreaming of a blond temptress in a sadness blue velvet dress, finally wrapped in the pain red velvet encased arms of the woman who loved her more than the gods. Dancing and dancing through the remainder of the night, forever locked in a tight embrace of regrets no more and passion relived.