j7-3
 

Her hair hangs loose about narrow features, brushing too-white shoulders that seem frail when bare like this, slumped, the confident set to them missing. Their owner gazes silently out through the viewport at passing stars that give the only light in the room and rob her pale form of any colour it might have had.

Kathryn stands too long in the doorway, tracing the shape of the lanky body with her eyes. In her mind's eye she looks along the barrel of a gun and sees fear in the too-blue gaze that still doesn't waver from her face, willing to meet death without a quiver, even if at Kathryn's own hands. She trusts too much. Kathryn fears for her, for what can happen to her perfect innocence if even Kathryn's protection should fail.

She told Tuvok he was not to harm her. Too harshly, perhaps, but even though it had been some time since self-awareness had returned, her heart still hammered at the nerve-memory of squeezing the trigger.

She follows the lines of dark metal and pale scars across the thin, thin body. No-one else sees her Seven like this, or knows the fragility hidden behind Borg superiority. For Kathryn, it is a delicate gift, she thinks, but frightening. She could too easily damage her without trying.

Seven looks at her, and smiles. Kathryn's breath catches at the aching beauty of the sight, and the implicit trust her Seven has in her, even now.

Too long, she watches. Seven frowns. "Kathryn?" Her name, a question, with worlds of meaning riding seven letters and every one holds two hearts and minds intertwined in the balance. Kathryn regrets the fading of that perfect smile even as she mirrors its memory.

"Yes, Seven." She answers a thousand questions and crosses the room, shedding her robe as she does so. Warm skin touches like silk as their bodies meet and move together. No more words are spoken. A sound above a breath, a gasp, could shatter them both.

Seven senses somehow the urgent need in Kathryn's mouth, her hands, the desperation of her touch, and responds with the breathless openness of the hidden passion Kathryn loves. Afterwards Seven holds her as she sobs, releasing the fear, the anger, the tension of the conflict that had started in Saint-Clare as she pointed a gun at her beloved.

Finally, she sleeps, wrapped in strong arms that cradle her tenderly. She needs this, needs the benediction of her own private angel, stolen from Heaven and perhaps only lent to a lost, middle-aged captain who should have known better than to fall in love with a Borg too perfect to be possessed. Too soon she feels full lips brush her temple, and the warm, soft body is gone as her angel again steals away. Alone again in a bed too big for one, Kathryn Janeway waits for the morning.