Walking Wounded

She watched the weak figure lying on the bio-bed in Sickbay. The Doctor tried not to look too alarmed but she can read him too well. The hope of a recovery is slim at best. She curses herself for not being there, for not getting Janeway out quickly enough.

Kathryn stirs, pain shooting through her body, unable to feel her legs and barely able to move her head. Through the mist of hurt, she manages to recognise her surrounds. She soon feels the presence of someone beside her.

“Captain?”

Kathryn relaxes. It’s Seven; she’s alright, Seven will see to it that she’s treated. Kathryn feels herself collapse back into darkness.

Seven glances at the Doctor, expecting him to do something; he simply shakes his head in defeat. There is nothing more he could do for her. The Captain’s exposure to the toxin gases has been too severe; now all he can do is wait and hope that her death isn't too painful.

* * * * * *

I wish to speak, but can’t. I wish to hold her, but can’t. I feel her look at me in such a way that all I hold sacred fades away. I want to explain, but she wouldn’t understand. I feel death calling me, enfolding me in its dark serenity…

* * * * * *

He sent for Seven as soon as Kathryn worsened, but she had been too late: she would be forever too late.

The body was still. So still, Seven thought it looked as though it were sculpted perfectly from clay. She moved towards it: she wasn’t afraid. She took the Captain’s small pale hand in hers. The blood that pulsated through her veins felt no life in the hand that she held. She felt despair coarse through her, it forced its way from her gut to her lips where it spilled out into her voice as she released a pitiful noise. A cry. A plea for the woman in front of her to get up. To get up and be well again.

The Captain did not move. Her eyes remained closed, her lips firmly pressed together.

Seven leaned forward and kissed Janeway’s forehead. The skin against her lips was smooth, smooth and cool. She stood again, the touch of Kathryn still pressing against her lips. Reminding her.

She let go of Kathryn’s hand. She wanted to hold onto the memory of her, but she couldn’t do that while she look upon what remained of her friend. This empty frame, this vessel which had once possessed a soul so unique, so vital to her. Seven felt her insides compress, she could not breath and her throat felt as if it were being cut from the inside.

Seven had never experienced pain like this. She was aware of grief on behalf of a loved one, she was aware of physical pain inflicted by force, but nothing had prepared her for this brutal assault on her senses. Her emotions attacked her within; fear, love, hate, shock, helplessness, anger, injustice - all plagued her.

So many thoughts whirled through her head that she could not distinguish one from the other. Her mind was chaos. Her hand reached out and took Kathryn’s again. She could not accept that this was it: this was how it would end.

She heard soft weeping behind her, but did not turn. She could not bring herself to see someone else sharing in her pain; that would finish her; she knew it. She could not console herself, how could she console someone else?

She heard a low cry and realized it had come from her. She clamped her Borg hand over her mouth. She would not be reduced to ruin in this moment, she would save it, she would store the pain and release it later - when she had no more time with the Captain. She didn’t want to waste what few moments she had left with Kathryn shedding tears that would prevent her from seeing that golden auburn hair and that delicate profile.

Kathryn would soon be sent the way of her ancestors, released into space to roam the galaxy for eternity. Seven felt glad, glad that Kathryn would stay immortal. Beautifully immortal. She had no more pain, no more suffering to endure and Seven was grateful. ‘It’s the ones left behind who suffer,’ she tells herself. ‘Those who die are the lucky ones, they don’t have the memories; they have peace.’

Seven wants to die also. She wants to climb beside Kathryn and share in her perpetual rest. She wants to take that journey with Kathryn but she had to stay. Voyager needed her. Kathryn needed her to remember, to carry on and so she would stay, knowing that one-day she would join Kathryn. One day, they would be together again.


 

~The End~