Adaptations: A Sequel to Sustenance

Prologue

Kathryn Janeway kissed the damp inner thigh laid out before her. Ordinarily, it would quiver at the slightest provocation, let alone an ardent touch from her searing red lips. Tonight, however, it merely shifted position, more restless than aroused. Kathryn absently wiped her chin on a cast-off sheet and ascended the lanky body of her gentle, young lover, Seven of Nine.

They were both sweaty and tired from the efforts of their futile lovemaking, which made Kathryn wonder if perhaps Seven wasn't really in the mood after all, despite her apparent interest earlier in the evening. As she settled over Seven, however, the young woman quickly shut her eyes in mock concentration. Kathryn understood the gesture as a means to shut her out, but she wasn't insulted. She simply accepted that Seven didn't want to talk.

Stifling a sigh, she slipped her hands underneath her young lover's back and was gratified when Seven returned the embrace. So Kathryn tried again. Gripping Seven's shoulders, she began sliding her hot, damp body along Seven's, pressing her thigh into the thatch of blond coils between Seven's legs even as she rubbed her own engorged sex against Seven's fleshy thigh. Her movements were deliberate, languorous, seductive, her face nuzzling Seven's neck as she gyrated her pelvis around the sexy swells of Seven's upper thigh and hip bone.

Her own breath began to catch; Seven merely sighed.

Kathryn stopped and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Then she raised her head to study her companion's face.

"Darling, what's wrong?"

"What?" Seven responded, turning her attention to Kathryn as if noticing her for the first time.

"I asked you what's wrong. You don't usually take this long to climax," she explained gently. "You seem distracted."

The young woman inhaled sharply through flared nostrils. "I regret causing you such inconvenience, Kathryn," she blurted angrily. "If you wish to stop, just tell me!"

"That's not what I mea--"

Seven interrupted as she scooted out from under Kathryn. "I will get dressed and return to the cargo bay," she declared, preparing to bolt from the bed.

Kathryn instantly knelt up behind Seven and threw a restraining arm over her shoulder and across her chest. "Hey, stop," she called, her tone gentle but firm. "Seven," she whispered tenderly into the ex-Borg's ear. "Please, darling. Don't leave."

She pressed her naked bosom warmly against Seven's bare back, kissing softly along the nape of her neck, at her ear, along the blond temple. "Seven, please listen. I could make love to you for days on end, and I don't want to stop now. All I meant is that you seem tense and preoccupied." She nuzzled Seven's ear. "I'd like to help you relax," she whispered, "so you can climax......if you want to, my love."

Kathryn felt some of the tension and resistance drain from her partner's shoulders, so she gently pulled her down onto her back again, wanting to see her face. Seven was crying. The sight made Kathryn's own eyes tear.

"Oh, Seven," she cried. "I can't bear to see you like this."

Those words of comfort and love broke through the last of Seven's self-restraint. And with a gasping breath, she finally released all the hurt and anger and frustration that had been building quietly over the weeks since they'd been rescued. Her eyes stung as the tears streamed hotly down her cheeks. Try as she might, however, she couldn't seem to catch her breath. She detested this loss of control and felt embarrassed by it. Almost instinctively, she clutched at Kathryn, burying her face in the smaller woman's neck.

As if reading her mind, Kathryn cooed words of reassurance and support. "It's all right, my darling," she said, cradling and stroking the blond head. "Just cry, Seven. Let it all out," she encouraged.

Kathryn felt her upper body becoming progressively wetter, Seven's tears mingling with their sweat and the remnants of their lovemaking. The bed itself felt excessively damp. She pulled Seven closer, trying to move her over to a dryer spot, and pulled up the sheet to warm them both, wanting to help Seven feel cozy and safe.

After a long while, the young woman's wracking sobs gave way to smaller cries and finally to whimpering spasms.

Kathryn kissed Seven's temple, the bridge of her nose, the tear-stained cheeks, and then the corner of her lips. Then she reached over to her night stand and pulled out a tissue, using it to wipe her lover's eyes and cheeks and nose.

Seven's eyes drifted up towards Kathryn's. Catching the hand with the tissue, she pulled it close and kissed the wrist. Then she smiled sweetly at her lover.

Kathryn smiled back......relieved.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Seven sighed. She couldn't bring herself to complain about the crew to Kathryn. Whereas before she would never have hesitated, their personal relationship now made that enormously complicated. There was simply no way she could do it without placing Kathryn in the impossible position of having to take sides between her lover and her crew. Seven could never bring herself to do that. So she opted for a more circumspect but equally honest response.

"I do not want to discuss it, except to say that sometimes," she said sincerely, "I wish we were still stranded."

She half-expected the admission would bring her a sense of relief, but she felt suddenly embarrassed by it, remembering too late how difficult the ordeal had been for her unfortunate partner. The insensitivity of her own remark cut through her like a cold blade and made her feel small and wretched.

"Oh, I am sorry, Kathryn!" she cried. "I should not have said that."

"Shhh, darling, it's OK," Kathryn said. "I understand," she assured her.

In fact, she did understand. The statement spoke volumes, more than Seven realized. But then, Kathryn wasn't entirely blind to everything that had been going on. Nor was she completely immune herself to the looks, the hushed voices, the speculative glances, some tinged with reproach.

All the crew could plainly see that being stranded for twenty-five days on a desolate planet had profoundly changed their captain and their Borg crewmate, as well as the apparent nature of the relationship between them. Not that the captain flaunted her new romance in front of the crew, but even if she and Seven had thought to conceal their love, the endeavor would have been hopeless. The quiet intensity of their shared looks gave them away. The slight softening of their voices when they addressed each other. The way they seemed always to be silently communicating with each other, even with a roomful of people between them. One would have to have been completely blind and self-absorbed not to have noticed that the captain had fallen for Seven.....although, except for Chakotay and the Doctor, no one really understood the dire circumstances that had led to those undeniable emotions.

And as Kathryn considered it now, maybe that was the problem. All most of the crew ever saw of Seven was the too cool Borg veneer with the steely arrogance and amoral efficiency. They knew nothing of the magnitude of compassion and devotion and sacrifice that Seven was capable of. Those were sentiments she reserved almost exclusively for Kathryn.

And all the crew knew of Captain Kathryn Janeway was exactly the sort of bigger-than-life image that she studiously projected, especially after stranding them in the Delta Quadrant. They could never see, and hence could never understand, the immensity of Kathryn's own need for love, her own capacity to be weak and vulnerable and hungry for human contact, for the press of a dear one's flesh, the embrace of her arms, the strength of her shoulder to cry on. That need was something Kathryn had only allowed herself to share with Seven, and even then reluctantly. It had taken all of Seven's great Borg tenacity and resolve and, once that was depleted, her very human tears to break through the captain's defenses and make Kathryn finally accept Seven's love and support. Ironically, then, their relationship grew out of characteristics that were the exact opposite of each woman's apparent nature: Kathryn's need and Seven's nurturance. How could the crew accept a relationship between two personalities they didn't even realize existed?

With a deep sigh and a subtle shake of her head, Kathryn admitted to herself that it had all been so much easier when no one else's feelings were involved, when no one else's opinion mattered. She pulled away a little from Seven so she could look carefully into her eyes, wanting the young woman to sense how earnest and heartfelt her next statement was.

"Seven," she began, "sometimes -- a lot of times, actually -- I wish we were still stranded, too."

Kathryn saw the confusion wash over Seven's features.

"No, darling," she gently corrected. "Not the part where I was starving. I definitely don't miss that," she joked bitterly with a sideways smile. "I mean the part where you cared for me, the part where we were alone, just the two of us. Endlessly making love," she added with a low, seductive trill. "I've never been happier in all my life than I was at that moment, past the point of wondering what had happened to Voyager and of worrying about what was probably going to happen to us."

There was surprise in Kathryn's tone as she continued. "I hadn't expected to feel so relaxed and content at precisely the moment when I was sure I had lost everything: my ship, my crew, my hopes of returning home, and soon, I thought, my life. There was nothing left in the universe for me to worry about except loving you. Oh, Seven, I was then and am now prepared to love you to my very last breath. And sometimes, when we're lying here together, making long, slow love to each other, I feel a little of that same carefree, joyous eternity."

Seven smiled through her tears, swallowing back the new surge of emotions that swelled in her throat.

Kathryn studied her again. "Do you still want to leave?" she asked softly.

Now it was Seven's turn to reassure. "No," she breathed. "I want you to make love to me, Kathryn. As if it were just you and me and the universe.....for a carefree, joyous eternity."

"Seven," Kathryn breathed, "oh, yes!"

Her lips immediately sought Seven's in an urgent kiss that became a deep embrace of their tongues. Seven's mouth was hot and wet and sweet against her own, and she told her so in that way lovers have of talking without words, two sighs whispering secrets, one moan calling out to another. Their breathing became heavy with excitement until Kathryn had to break away for fresh gulps of air. Only for an instant, however, as Kathryn's lips hungered for the taste of Seven's chin and then for the tender center of her throat. In the next moment, she began a slow descent of kisses, trailing down the valley of Seven's breastbone and then onto the flat plain of her abdomen.

"No, Kathryn," Seven said gently. "I need you up here.....with me."

"Of course, my darling. Anything," Kathryn replied, repositioning herself over her partner. "Oh, Seven, I love you so much." She kissed Seven's right cheek, then traced the starburst implant with the tip of her tongue. When she reached Seven's ear, she brushed her lips against the lobe and whispered to her passionately. "Just tell me what you want."

They clutched at each other then, Seven burying her face in Kathryn's neck, suddenly too embarrassed to admit what she wanted.

Kathryn perceived the hesitation and then guessed what Seven needed, what would give her -- what always gave them both -- a sense of comfort.

"You miss it," she stated knowingly. Seven's downcast eyes and half-bitten lower lip confirmed Kathryn's guess. "I miss it, too," she admitted.

Tears welled in the young woman's eyes at the admission. Kathryn had been so troubled by what they had done to survive on the planet that Seven hadn't entirely expected her to feel the same way. The truth was, however, that although Seven's breasts no longer produced milk, her body remembered the joyous sensation of feeding Kathryn and often ached with the need to relive that experience. And whether out of habit or instinct, Kathryn regularly felt an overwhelming need to taste Seven, her mouth gravitating naturally toward the young woman's nipples.

Kathryn blinked away her own tears and smiled sweetly at Seven. "You still sustain me, my darling. And maybe it's because of what it meant to both of us, but I always feel safest and happiest and most loved when you're holding my face to your bosom."

They kissed again, and then Kathryn trailed her lips to the warm, sweetly scented melons of Seven's chest. She kissed around one of the plump nipples, which puckered instantly in anticipation, and then took it into her mouth, sucking with a fervent yet languid rhythm. And when she felt Seven tighten her embrace and gasp with familiar pleasure, she smiled contentedly against the warm flesh, emitting a short, throaty moan of her own.

After having been stranded for over three weeks on a lifeless rock, this simple, natural gesture between them was, for both, the real homecoming. And it was good to be home.