Cracked

Cold. She was cold.

It took a long time for anything else to penetrate that thought. There was pain that spread across her arms and torso, but she was only vaguely aware of it. Her head hurt, and a heaviness in it would not let her focus. She must have a concussion. She was bleeding, somewhere down on her leg. One eye, the human one, wouldn't open. The other one still sent its mechanical impulses, but her brain couldn't process them properly. Her brief glimpses of the darkened, dusty space around her made her sickeningly dizzy. Seven wondered if she might be going to throw up.

How long had she been here? Hours, maybe. Away from the ship, it was hard to tell how much time had passes. And having been unconscious, she thought wryly, made it even harder to tell. But long enough.

Long enough to understand that she probably wasn't getting out.

She hadn't thought about that so much when she'd beamed down. Lieutenants Torres and Kim's communicator signals had been lost in the magnetic tangle of the planet's crust. She and Commander Tuvok had transported down with signal boosters. If they had to leave the equipment behind to rescue the people, it was a small price to pay. Kim and Torres had been found easily enough, but in the first moment's of re-transport, Seven had felt the degradation and realized that the equipment couldn't maintain their patterns without manual input.

So she hadn't thought about it much, either, when she stepped out of their collective beam and went to work. Nor when they disappeared and the signal booster shorted and she was alone in the dark. Not until the second transport beam, reaching blindly, had flashed brightly across the cavern ceiling and found no living person. Only rocks that destabilized and fell. There was very little she remembered from that time to this, however long that was.

Hours.

Days.

Maybe if they had to leave the Borg girl behind, that was a small price to pay, too.

Seven couldn't believe how much she hurt. Shards of rock pressed into her sides, prodding at bruises and the sensitive edges of her implants. If she could move, just a little, she might be able to get more comfortable.

It took several tries to manoeuver herself into a sitting position. The Borg tracework on her left hand sent shrieking, disconnected impulses to her, the cybernetic version of pain. Pain, she knew, was the body's way of reporting that it was damaged. Somewhat irrationally, she wished that she could acknowledge her body's message so that it might shut up. Or. What was it that Lieutenant Paris had said, the last time he came back shattered from an away mission? Pain is good. It lets you know you're still alive. Knowing Paris, the line probably wasn't original, but it was comforting.

Focus on that. You are still alive.

And in spite of her body's objections, she was sitting now, her back against the cavern wall, her knees pulled tightly against her breasts, her arms wrapped around them, hands clutching one another. Holding herself together. It was a good enough position in which to die. Of blood loss, of dehydration, of asphyxiation, of the terrible cold that didn't seem to have anything to do with the air temperature.

She wanted to make a noise. She hadn't heard anything since waking except the sound of her own stricken breathing. She wanted to say something. To see if her voice still worked. It would prove that she was still alive.

"Well, fuck."

The Captain would have been proud. It was idiomatically perfect.
 

You suggested once, Kathryn, that I might have another family, outside the Borg. Cousins and grandparents. There are fragments of them I remember. I remember my cousins' bedrooms and their toys. I remember my grandmother's blond hair going grey.

I remember that my grandparents lived on Earth, and they were farmers. My grandmother kept a two-hectare garden behind the machine shed. She planted it, weeded it, harvested it by hand. She watered it with a back-and-forth sprinkler that did one ten square-metre patch at a time. She grew beets. The back of the garden had a raspberry hedge as tall as a trees.

I remember visiting her with my cousins. She came out to us with a quart of raspberries in a green plastic bowl and a gallon of peas in the pod. Then she took all us girls and settled us down on the field stone porch and told us not to come back inside until we were dirty. I ripped my shirt on an ancient barbed-wire fence and bled a little. My cousin Karen dug a raspberry cane out of the compost pile and whipped me across the back of the leg with it. I think we trampled the snapdragons.

My grandmother stripped all three of us, and dropped us in the tub together. Her bathroom had no shower. It smelled of old hand lotion.

Later, she dressed in my pajamas with bears on them, and I asked her, Why didn't you tell us not to? Not to get hurt? Not to get hit? Not to eat so much we threw up?

She said, You would have done it anyways. Go to bed and stay out of my raspberries.

I can see her in you, Kathryn.

My grandmother went outside after dark in her nightgown and rubber boots. She built a fire on the gravel drive and seared the composted raspberry canes away.
 

Eighteen hours was what it took. The time began with B'Elanna Torres' stricken look when she realized that the failed second beam-out had caused at least a partial cave-in. After ten hours, the Doctor had come into engineering and ordered Torres to bed. Kathryn had watched from her perch as the hologram rested one flickering hand on the engineer's shoulder to escort her out and didn't comment. She wasn't thinking anymore, except to notice that half the ship's population now seemed to reside in engineering.

In the beginning, Kathryn had made herself a promise. They weren't leaving anyone behind. Ever. Even if all that was left to haul back up was a bloody corpse.

please, don't let her be dead

Maybe they had a solution. An argument between Paris and Vorik had spawned a bastard child of logic and Tom's glittering intuition. If a warp-field could be incorporated into the transport beam, if the magnetic patterns of the nameless planet's crust could be calculated, if everything was where they expected it to be . . . the rescuer should be able to walk through solid stone. If.

She couldn't ask anyone to do this. She went herself.

A strange moment in the transporter room, when Paris sped up to her, stopped and stared, then pressed pressed his forehead to her hands. Whispered, "Captain . . . ," and turned those ice-blue eyes of his on her.

Kathryn hugged him hard, briefly, stepped away. "I'm always careful, Tom."

Then the wet, open-mouthed kiss of the modified beam and she was standing in a space so tiny she could light every niche with her hand lamp. There was still oxygen, and the draft told her the air was circulating. The rocks scattered around her feet had blood on them.

Even with the added light, she almost didn't see Seven until the girl raised her head. The clothes and blonde hair were so covered in dust that she might have been part of the geology. Kathryn caught a flash of blue eyes before Seven dropped her head again to bury her face in her knees. Thin shoulders under the filthy catsuit trembled. Soft sounds. Seven crying.

Contained as she was in the modified transporter beam, it took Kathryn several seconds to cross the small space between them.

"Seven."

Whimper. Seven's body was chillingly cold to the touch.

"Oh Seven." Kathryn moved as if she were in deep water, stretching the field around the figure on the ground. She only felt it close completely when she knelt and wrapped her arms around the cyborg woman. Rocking that shaking body against her shoulder, crooning wordlessly to try to calm her down. "Okay, it's okay. Hush now."

Whispered, "I thought . . ."

"No, no, Seven. I wouldn't leave you."

Tears. Nothing like the screaming fits Seven had thrown at her in the beginning, when they'd done war over the girl's wish to return to the Borg collective. This was fear. Fear of losing that she'd seen in Tom's eyes when she promised to be careful. And the fear of being alone. Her poor Seven, who'd spent eighteen hours in this dark, silent place. How long had she been crying? Kathryn pressed her lips against the dusty blond hair.

come on, Tuvok, pull us back

She couldn't tell exactly when Seven released her own knees and wrapped both arms around the captain, but she felt the shifting warp field as long-fingered hands clutched at her uniform. "It's all right. I would never have left you behind. Never."

Already captured in the beam, Kathryn didn't feel the switch from the planet to Voyager. The transporter room was dark and empty and warm. Only Tuvok crouched by her shoulder, studying his captain with her arms and legs tangled in the blonde girl's, one eyebrow slightly raised and a curiosity in his eyes he couldn't hide. But he wasn't judging, yet, any more than Seven was willing to let go.
 

The Borg, Kathryn, are something I said you could never understand. You said you could imagine. but there are whole months and years I spent with them that even I don't remember. I was a child.

I lived with the Borg for eighteen human years. They changed my body and my mind. I know you only see horror in them; that makes it difficult to explain. What I need you to understand is that what I was doing never mattered to me. I was within the collective. It was incredible pleasure. If you can imagine, as you say you can:

In the places where dimensions touch there are colours that the light spectrum of this galaxy cannot express.

Transwarp travel is the possibility of moving to any point in the universe. For the second of initiation, all destinations are equally possible.

A sentient race, in the course of its evolution, will develop between five and ten thousand languages. The Borg have encountered and assimilated eight thousand four hundred seventy nine such races. All languages contain words for love, death, and curiosity. Very few distinguish between mind and heart.

Ecstasy in a cybernetic touch, kiss of implants and energy.

There are 3.2 x 10 to the 18th power Borg, and all of them dream.

What your poet said: I sing the body electric!
 

She left sickbay at 0214 hours. The Doctor objected, growled at her that she ought to try to keep normal human hours, and she ignored him. Ignored, too, his admonishment to go back to the cargo bay and rest. Instead, she walked the length of the ship, listening to the internal hum of the ship's bio-neural circuits and mechanical structures. In her human auditory range, there was only a soft hiss. Her implants left her with a huge sense of the ship in motion. Electrical pulses surged, information raced through a multitude of optic connections, human and non-human crew members slept.

In the stern of the ship, she opened a random panel and let her cybernetic tracework merge with the ship's systems. Listened to it for long minutes. Then closed it and paced back towards astrometrics.

Her star map lit up as soon as she entered. *Her* star-map. Her creation, almost entirely. Ensign Kim's contributions had been worthy, but the system was her creation. He would have been decades constructing it on his own. And he never came in when she wasn't there. So it was hers. Logical and irrational. She wondered if the Captain would be proud of that moment of distasteful humanity.

"I thought you'd be here."

"Hello, Captain."

Light fell across her legs from the door. If she turned around, the Captain would be there, out of uniform and pushing stray hair out of her eyes with one hand. She sank into her Borg senses for a moment and identified the woman's perfume, her body-scent, the fabric of her clothes. Something synthetic and swirling -- a night robe, perhaps -- dyed blue-base red.

raspberry, Seven

yes, Captain

She didn't turn, but eventually the Captain came to stand beside her under the optic display. Ten thousand, four hundred twenty-seven stars arrayed and rearranged themselves minutely to account for the ship's continued movements.

Seven had a peripheral view of bare feet, and enough skin above them that she wondered what, exactly, the Captain wore under her robe. She stood at the rail, leaning over it slightly, as if she could step into the light fields by touching them. Seven stayed where she was, seated on the floor with her knees pulled up in front of her. It was only moderately comfortable, but it unnerved the Captain more than she was willing to admit, and that was an advantage for the moment.

"We wouldn't have left you behind, you know."

"You should have. It endangered the ship to remain in orbit for so long."

Swirl of raspberry at the corner of her eye as the Captain knelt. A warm hand settled on Seven's shoulder and squeezed slightly. She remembered sitting on the transporter platform with this woman for the better part of half an hour (twenty seven minutes, forty-one seconds), with her ear pressed to the Captain's heart. Human in its pulse, unreasonably warm.

"Don't be stupid. I'm not leaving you anywhere." Seven acknowledged that the Captain's usual construction of that phrase was simply I'm not leaving anyone behind long before she acknowledged that she'd relaxed at the words and that her temple now rested against Kathryn's collarbone.

There were words she was supposed to use in such situations. "Thank you."

Crooked grin. "You're welcome." The astral projection's light was unflattering; every line in Kathryn's face was starkly enhanced. A caricature of expression: sarcasm and affection. The silver strands just above her ears were entirely visible.

By turning her face just a little, Seven was able to press her lips into the V of Kathryn's robe and kiss the thin skin there. Bone underneath it, and a human heart underneath the bone. Three dozen freckles scattered over that flesh. Taste of salt and skin -- barely sour, and very warm. There was a hand lacing through her hair, holding her close in. It wasn't a threat, just a presence. One guiding her lips into the curve of a breast, the hook of her nose to press the fabric back. Warm, soft flesh underneath it.

Kathryn's breast gave under her lips. It slid into her mouth at the barest suck and stayed there while she worked the nipple with her tongue and the blunt edges of her teeth. Feeling the faint pulse of blood in each vessel under the surface.

"I should tell you to stop." Soft and hoarse, as though she couldn't quite breathe.

"Don't. You can disapprove later." Kissing the warm flesh where the underside of Kathryn's breast usually touched her ribcage. Pressing the robe open and kissing down to her waist. "You can . . ."  kiss  ". . . write a formal reprimand . . ."  kiss in the indentation her uniform trousers had marked at her waist  ". . . regarding my behaviour . . ."  kiss in the navel, dipping her tongue in and observing the attendant shiver with something between clinical detachment and ecstatic appreciation  ". . . and submit it to whomever you wish." Her tongue brushed the rim of Kathryn's pubic hair, taking measure of the soft skin and the fragments of grey scattered through the red.

One more nudge and Kathryn leaned back on her elbows, spread her knees, and let Seven kiss the rest of the way down. Let her take measure of the scent she found there, sharp and bright and terribly organic, and the shape of this new flesh. Let her kiss the outer lips and the inner passage and kiss her deeply there, reaching up towards her heart.

At some point in the process, she must have curled herself around Kathryn's legs on the floor, because when she looked up with her face soaking wet, that was how they were lying.

"Oh, God."

"What, Captain?"

"I didn't think you ever smiled like that."

Seven considered that most likely she never had in human company. But the sharp contrast of the Captain's primness and her current debauched state was amusing enough to twist her lips into something dangerously close to a smirk. It was, perhaps, a peculiarly Borg form of humour. She would offer to explain it when she next needed a conversational advantage.

"Yes, Captain."

"Kathryn." Another gasp as she bent once more and licked the woman's still-swollen clitoris, delicately.

"Kathryn."

Long, warm hands pulled her up against Kathryn's body and held her there. The contact was something she needed, but she hadn't yet adapted her social postures to the hug in any consistent way, and she knew how awkwardly the two of them fit together. A little more comfortably after Kathryn calmly rearranged Seven's limbs, then her own, but only a little. She was between Kathryn's spread legs, close enough to kiss her, and none of the sharp bones of her arms were pressing into more vulnerable abdominal or mammary flesh. If the sprawl of her legs left something to be desired, she would correct it to a more efficient position when she next had the leisure to contemplate such a thing.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Thank you."

A smile she could feel against her hair. "Any time."

Warm fingers stroked the back of her neck while she continued to press her lips against the Captain's throat. Seven thought that she should say something. Explain the memories that she was still piecing back together, or the human emotions that cracked her reason at unsuitable moments. Why her life with the Borg had been beautiful enough that she should still want to cling to it. She was going to have to find words, soon, for the expanding, sharp lights of knowledge in the Borg collective mind, and the disorientation she still felt at their absence. Just as she was going to need words to describe the intrusive desire that shook her at moments when she touched this woman's body.

"You should come to bed."

"I am not tired. I do not sleep, as such, and in any case the Doctor kept me under heavy sedation for a number of hours. I would prefer to remain alert for a time if I may."

"Fine. Have it your way. But I'm going back to bed. Do you want to come?"

The Captain stood, and straightened her robe, and offered a hand. Majestic, really, this woman. If one were to put a spiritual or mythological name to her, she would be mother-goddess to the ship.

Seven didn't answer.

"Come on. If you don't want to sleep, you can read."

Seven followed her down the hallway, and listened the brush of bare feet against the threadbare carpeting. If she let them, her autonomous functions would carry her the rest of the way to the Captain's quarters, and the remainder of her attention could focus on the suddenly-important gaps in her ability to express herself verbally. The Captain would wake up in perhaps four hours, and by then there would be things that Seven needed to tell her.