Echoes

Sound and Light

She sings.

I don't know if anybody else knows that, but she sings. She sings along with programmed music selections, when she’s cooking dinner, and while she uses the sonic shower. Her voice is reed-like and innocent, a contradiction to her regal, obstinate beauty and a complement to her luminous china blue eyes.

Most of the time, when she sings to me, we're dancing in my quarters. She activates the privacy locks on the doors and our communicators, moves the coffee table, and puts her arms around me. I lean against her, and close my eyes completely. I try to become indistinct, to somehow blur into her biosuit. She moves her hands in slow circles on my back, taking away the knots and stresses of the day.

Then she sings, softly, plaintively… her lips seraphic in their naiveté. And in the safe harbor of her embrace I breathe deeply. I can’t forget who I am and what I’ve done, but for a little while it doesn’t have to chafe as much. For now I can let this certainty be enough for us both.

It’s been years. Years since I let her see me in the morning wrestling with dreams of sunsets at Union square and my dead father. Years since she let me catch her silently staring out the window, the starlight painting her skin as she scowls.

Something is different now.

She asked me yesterday if I was aware that we had just had an anniversary, that she had just been to a gathering last week and felt the pain of secrecy keenly. She couldn’t tell them about me, couldn’t describe what we have.

She doesn’t just want me now, she wants us.

I told her that her discretion was vital, as it always has been. I can’t make it easier for her however I put it. I can make it easier for me and I suppose that’s what I’m doing.

I told her the tension of our separation fueled our passion. I told her that those who know the realities of replicators and errands don’t know the flawless passion that we have.

In short, I lied.

I promised her things would be different when we got home, that we could lead a different life.

“This is my home.” She said quietly. “You are my life.”

I love her. I love her because she never capitulates. I love her for her wondrous intelligence and her unconscious coquetry. I love her because she has the air of doubting nothing, the integrity to be guiltlessly selfish. I love her for what is also in me: the struggle and sacrifice, the honor and valor.

She only knows the love of warm sheets, of tangled legs, gripping and sweaty. That is the love I have given her in return for the plaintive slow dances when we are fully clothed.

I told her once, very early on, that she didn’t even know what love was. She still doesn’t. And that is my fault, my failure.

What do I say to her? Do I tell her that there are days that Voyager is a curse because I know that what she craves I cannot give? Do I tell her that I fear the loss of control, the loss of my very soul as I am immolated by my desire for her?

What words would I use?

How can I tell her… that there is beauty in the small kiss; the kiss given in passing, in public, at transporter pads, before opening the door to my mother’s house…. dry and close-lipped and tender with the simple pain and fear of everyday life. The kiss of two lives entwined, the caress of something shared. The kiss we cannot afford. The common price of passion that is too high for us to pay while we make our way home.

How can I make her understand? This is not our home. It can be hers and it can be mine, but there is no “us” and there is no “ours” on this ship. There can be no time to cuddle near the replicator and pick decorations with which to adorn the walls and nooks of our home. No space for us to stroll and dally and dream of children with strawberry-blond hair. Not enough. Never enough to enjoy the miraculous mundanities of normal life: of Icheb in the Academy visiting on weekends, picnics with B’Ellana and Tom, rich conversations with Tuvok, broken sonic showers and malfunctioning replicators, cooking disasters and garden fiascos. This is not a home.

How can I ask her to wait, to patiently bear the long years ahead and take what little happiness we can? The bursts of light in the void mean so much until we can see the light of our destination.

Why can’t she see it….the light of our forever, the light of what is possible, the light of perfection itself? This is the light that I consume to keep me going through the months and years…

I don’t want to know if it’s the distance, both physical and psychological, that makes our lovemaking burn so bright. I don’t want to know what I should tell the fire in my chest, so willing to send flames into my hands so they will reach out for her, touch her in my dreams, have her touch me in reply.

I am a lovely void, a black hole gorging on fears. I’m not afraid of what I am. I’m afraid of what I’m not. I’m afraid of the person she sees when she looks at me… because I wonder if I can ignite a passion that could burn, not that bright, but that long. Long enough to light our way through the darkness of the path that leads, finally, home.

Fragments of Hope

I have loved her unendurably.

And will continue to do so for as long as I draw breath.

Sometimes she cries out in her sleep. Never a name, nor anything that could be considered a word; only a sound, so small it creates a need in me, a need to hold her. I reach out for her, to cradle her in my arms… to attempt to assuage whatever emotion runs rampant in her dreams. She turns away, as if I had disappointed her in a way she cannot articulate. I am left watching her back, her even breathing, her hair on the pillow and on her soft shoulders smelling of a vague and elusive sweetness. I reach out for her and realize that she has no knowledge of my existence; that in sleep she returns to an unnamable bliss without me, a happiness I neither provided nor am capable of partaking of. I can only hold her when she allows, be there when she needs me, and sometimes have her nestled in my arms as she is now.

I kiss the area between her nape and her shoulder, where the light of a nearby binary star crosshatches delicate shadows. She stirs slightly, shrugging me off like an intruder. I wrap my arm around her waist and mold my body closer to hers, and she turns in my arms, her face now only one word's distance from mine.

How strange that my life has come to this… sifting through a myriad of meanings and memories of this Collective, searching for the right word to bridge that immeasurable space between her life and mine.

Soon her eyes will begin to open, and her hand will rise up suddenly, blocking the unexpected sight of me, so close, so soon.

I always anticipated that I would want more than the patterns I had observed in the crew, more than a few nights of sweaty copulation in her quarters, and then the slow end, the boredom and pettiness. I stated my intentions clearly from the beginning. She looked frightened by my words, wary of my sincerity, and distrustful of the naked longing and new-born loyalty. I remember the strange, subtle emotions that flickered over her face. How she stared back at me, as if memorizing my face, and then wrenched her gaze away. How she told me she loved me, her face reddening, her mouth an embarrassed grimace. She had waved an arm awkwardly at her own words, wary of my intimacy.

It has been years. Years since I had given her my body time after time to treat as she pleased, to tear in pieces if such had been her will. Years since I lay bare my every thought and desire, since she penetrated my consciousness and severed me from all I knew. Years have passed and my need… my love for her is still unquenched, and every decision and action I make is still a test. It is almost as if she requires me to prove the sincerity of my intentions, to prove that I will remain by her side.

There are still conflicts between us, a sea of disagreement and hostility that I am unable to cross. She told me yesterday, when I restated my request for a deeper relationship, that I was acting like a spoiled child. She has always perceived me as a child. It is infuriating. I can no longer tolerate her flippant indifference regarding our relationship… our love.

I understand this Collective now. I have experienced the pain that they have felt, the futility of a love that has no logical future. I have tried to assimilate hope and forgiveness, but I know that such emotions are pointless.

She will leave me.

Or I will be forced to leave her.

That is certain, as certain as the warmth that will fade from the sheets we lie on, as certain as the furious copulation that ensues when she needs me too much and is too proud to acknowledge it.

Her desire is insufficient. I want her to love me, love me for everything and anything I may become. I want to place my hand on hers in the mess hall. I do not want her to flinch when I state my emotions… my intentions. I need more, and she has nothing left to give me.

She has been my undoing.

I cannot stand her.

I cannot withstand her.

Love's debris

Seven tried to put her arms around the Captain, to pull her close… but she turned away in anger.

“Kathryn.”

The Captain turned and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her savagely. “Was it good when he fucked you? Was it all you imagined it would be, Seven? Were your experiments with me successful?”

“Kathryn, I…”

“Have you had your fun? Is it him you think of when you’re in my arms? Do you fantasize about him coming inside you?”

“No!” Seven replied, tears coming hot and fast into her eyes.

“Did his huge holographic dick give you pleasure, Seven?” Kathryn snarled, digging her nails into the young woman’s shoulders. “Did you get what you needed?”

“I need you!” Seven shouted. “I need you to be what you can never become! I want what we can never have! Why is that impossible? What have I done? The purpose of the simulation was merely to discover my error, to probe what I had done that prevents you from loving me. It was private.”

“What kind of excuse is that?!”

“It is your excuse!” Seven spat at her. “Or are you the only one who is entitled to have privacy, to have secrets… to create holographic lovers.”

“This is different.”

“Of course, Captain.” Seven said coldly. “Now it is you who feels betrayed. Are you happy now? You are right. You now have a valid excuse for ending this relationship.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were never sure of me!” Seven screamed, pushing Kathryn away so hard she hit the opposite bulkhead. “What am I to you, Kathryn? A valued member of the crew? Your astrometrics officer? A guilty pleasure you indulge in? Am I a guarantee, a promise that you are not alone?”

“That’s what love is!” Kathryn yelled, shaking with fury.

“That is not love, that’s bribery!” Seven’s words stabbed at the other woman like daggers. “There are no promises. There are no conditions. It is only you and I that are relevant… You say you love me but what you mean is that you will love me if I behave in a manner that is acceptable to you. You are the liar! You are the hypocrite! You tell me that you want me to regain my humanity, my individuality and yet you deny me the right to be loved for who I am…Do you think I don't notice the way you look at me? Do you believe that I do not see your disappointment, your belief that I am insufficient? I can feel, Kathryn. I can love. I can be hurt as easily as you can and I am tired.”

“I’m tired of you hammering at me, Seven.” Kathryn retorted.

“Very well. Then let us terminate the conversation as you usually desire. Would you like me to undress now or will you do it yourself?” Seven glared at the smaller woman. “Will you be taking me right here on the floor, or will the Captain have the time to take me in her bed? I have to understand your schedule and the proverbial call of duty, after all.”

“What right do you have to be so bitter? What right do you have to be so smug? You’re the one who has violated my trust in you, you’re the one who never trusted the love I have for you.”

“You give me no reason to!” Seven retorted. “You break your promises to me. You tell me you want me but you reschedule our ‘dates’ if you have to work, or sleep, or talk to a crew member or make the rounds.”

“The ship comes first!” Kathryn said, the steel in her voice as hard as duranium.

“Every time?! You treat it as some sort of penance! You flagellate yourself because you think what we have is wrong. You tell me you love me but you believe that what little of a relationship we have is a weakness, a crime, a personal failing. And in the end you blame it on me.”

Seven's chest heaved with the exertion of crying so much, her voice raw and hoarse. “I am tired, Kathryn. I am tired of you looking at me as if I had done something horrible that only you can see. Only you will not tell me what it is because then you might have to forgive me. I'm tired of being trusted only when it is convenient for you. To be loved as long as you are not vulnerable, as long as you're not jeopardized.”

Kathryn recoiled from the words as if she had been struck.

“You know nothing about me, Kathryn. You only know what you want, but you only take it when your desires do not put you at risk. You deign to give more than you take, because the more you take, the more you become accustomed to taking. Habit mutates into need. And you refuse to need anyone!”

“I don’t need anyone but you! Why can’t you believe that? What do I have to do to prove that to you?! Do you need the entire ship, the entire galaxy to sit up and notice? I love you!”

“You are not in love with me. You are in love with the idea of me. You only need me to need you. And we both know it.” Seven wept, her hands shaking as she reached out to the smaller woman. “How can you love me when you don’t know me? How can I love you and know you when you refuse to let me become a part of your life? You revel in your inconsistencies. You declare that you love me and yet you refuse to acknowledge that. Not merely to the crew, but to yourself, and to me.”

“You don’t understand.” Kathryn cried.

“You refuse to let me! You are terrified that someone may understand you. You maintain these contradictions not because you cannot be understood but because you do not want to be! Do you think you will lose your identity, your individuality, if someone understands you? Or are you just as terrified as I am that no one will think you are worth knowing? Worth loving? Tell me. Help me to understand!"

Kathryn's body shook as she took shallow breaths and angrily wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Why do you turn away from me, Kathryn?" Seven said desperately. “What have I done? Why do you run from me… from what we could become? What are you trying to protect yourself from?”

“You!” Kathryn screamed, the word wrenched out of her very soul. “Can’t you understand that if I love you the way you want me to, if I let myself go… Seven, I would kill in your name and think it worth it. There would be no code, no directive, no civilization or mission, nothing that would matter more than you. I cannot love you that way… Not yet!”

“Not ever!”

“You see, this is what I’m saying! You don’t trust what I say! Have I ever broken a promise to you when it mattered? I’ve always come back for you, chased after you, and rescued you from the Borg Queen and half this damned quadrant! And all I ask is for you to wait! Wait! Why is that so difficult? You’re like a child! A petulant child! Oh no, you can’t wait, you have to have everything now… now when it could destroy everything I’ve worked for!”

“Kathryn, do not use that tone with me.”

“SHUT UP!” Kathryn yelled. “For once shut up and accept that I know better than you do! Don’t you dare presume to tell me what I will or will not say! Not on my ship!”

“Kathryn, stop.” Seven’s voice was dangerously low. “Do not provoke my anger or--”

“Or what? You’ll run away again? Come on, Seven! What kind of stunt do you want to pull this time? Are you going to take the Flyer? Oh no, this time it isn’t enough. This time you’re *angry* so you decide to express your DISTRUST in my love, a love so pure and powerful that it can never be supplanted or excised EVEN IF I WOULD HAVE WANTED IT TO, and you THROW IT ALL AWAY! You give up! You give up, a coward and a quitter to the end! You have no faith in me. You give up all these years together… And for what? For Chakotay?”

Kathryn’s hollow laughter slashed through the distance between them. “He never even wanted you on Voyager. He’s never trusted you.”

“You claimed you believed in me, trusted me, even with your very life. And yet now you do not even allow me to explain myself. You are a hypocrite.” Seven replied stonily, each syllable jagged with meaning. “Explain to me, Kathryn, how a relationship with the Commander would be any different?”

The back of Kathryn’s hand struck the starburst implant on Seven’s cheek. “Don’t you accuse me! Don’t you dare blame my behavior towards you! You were everything to me. Doesn’t my love count for anything at all? I put you before everything!”

“Everything except yourself!” Seven screamed. “You can never love anyone, Kathryn. There is no room left in your heart for anything except your obsession. You call it duty. You think of yourself as a mythical Ulysees, shepherding the crew home and avoiding the temptations of sorceresses and sirens lest they take you from your precious quest, your mission. But it is YOU, your pain, your sacrifice, your redemption that is paramount.”

Kathryn balled up her fists and stuck them fast to her sides, her eyes on fire. But Seven narrowed the distance between them and stepped so close to her, Kathryn was forced to tilt her head and look Seven straight in the eyes.

“Kathryn, your father and Justin Tighe did not die because you were weak. Voyager was not thrown into the Delta Quadrant because you were wrong. Mark did not leave you because you were to blame for stranding your crew. Not everything in the universe revolves around you. It does not care. I do.” Seven replied quietly, her right cheek already sporting the beginnings of a bruise. “Whether you believe me or not, I did not program that simulation in order to destroy our relationship, but to repair it. I see now that such efforts are futile. You will fight me even as I strive to love you the only way I know how.”

“Just get out!”

The taller woman shook her head and walked away abruptly. She turned briefly, just before the doors completely shut on her tear-stained face. “"I love you for everything you are… even now… even for this. I only wish you would accept it.”
 

As Always

“I felt completely nude of all protective devices like thoughts about life and purpose and duty… I started seeing myself as doomed, pitiful – just this awful realization that I’ve been fooling myself all my life thinking that there was a next thing to do.” She said, looking out of the large mess hall window. “And then the rest, as they say, is history…”

“I think I would rather you fell in love with me for me.”

“I did. Of course I did.” She said, taken aback. “Why would you think otherwise?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Just… things… that you used to do.”

“Such as?”

“Kathryn, I do not really know if you want me to talk about this.” The blonde said, stirring her peppermint tea slowly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t want me to talk about this. It will make you extremely uncomfortable.”

“Well, that’s never been a deterrent before.” She said with a wry laugh. “Why so now, Seven?”

“Annika. My name is Annika now.”

“Yes, I know.” She said ruefully. “But you’ll always be Seven to me.”

“And you’ll always be stubborn to me.”

“Mmmm, stubborn old cow.”

“You are not a cow, Kathryn.”

She smirked. “Why, thank you, Annika.”

“As always, Captain.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” She asked, her hair falling past her ears as she leaned forward.

“What?”

“That… ‘as always’. It’s a strange reply. I’m sure the other senior staff have noticed.”

“Ah there it is, that endless obsession about propriety.”

“Alright, alright let’s not get into that again.” She said, rolling her eyes. “It’s just that -- to return to the original topic of discussion -- I did love you for who you were. Very much in fact. I'd like to think that I loved you in a way that only ever asked the everyday from you… that never asked you to be anything other than you.”

“Your thoughts are certainly your prerogative, Captain.”

“Is that your polite way of telling me to go to hell?”

“As always, Captain.”

She glared in mock anger. “Now you’re just doing that to provoke me.”

“As always, Captain.”

She let out a small sigh. “You know, I’m glad we can still talk like this. I don't believe in burning bridges.”

“Nor do I. But I must admit… sometimes I believe that this is one that should no longer be crossed. Or maybe it's one that should have never been built at all.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, sometimes I… I…” Her words faded into silence.

“Go on…”

“Never mind. I’m sorry, I’m not quite myself… today was long and particularly emotionally taxing.”

“All the more reason for you to tell me what’s bothering you.” She leaned closer to the table and placed her hand gently on top of the younger woman’s hand.

“I told you, Kathryn… Believe me, you wouldn’t want to hear what I have to say.”

“I hate it when you say that.”

"It’s the truth. You know it is. You’re just being supportive and nice because you think it’s your duty as a friend… as a Captain. That’s why you’re ‘glad’ we can talk this way, that we can still interact."

“You know, this is the part of ‘Annika’ that pisses me off the most. This overweening arrogance, this presumption… I hate how you always act as if my behavior is predictable. As if you finally figured me out, finally discovered what makes me tick and now you patronize me. That’s probably why you left me in the first place.”

“Kathryn, that’s not fair.”

“Admit it. You thought you knew me so well. You thought it was just going to be too difficult, too inefficient, too high a cost for you to pay.”

“Kathryn…”

“Admit it!”

“Computer, freeze program!”

Annika Hansen slumped against the holographic table and wept into the palms of her hands.

“Can’t you understand? This! This is the reason I left you! This is the reason I had to leave you! You never wanted to hear the truth! The truth is that being free is not being without obligation, but being able to love. To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.”

She stood up and leaned over so she could look the hologram in the eye. “The truth is that I want to be allowed to love without limits.”

She started jabbing the hologram in the chest, feeling increasingly more frustrated as the force field pushed back. “The truth is that sometimes I need to know how you feel about me. The truth is that sometimes I grow weary of asking and of ‘figuring you out’. The truth is that I still love you.”

Annika sobbed and wrenched herself away from the perfect replica of the face she saw in her dreams.

“Even if I changed who I am, I couldn’t change the fact that I still love you.” She said softly, tears slipping down her cheeks and neck. “The truth is that I cannot even be your friend anymore, because I can’t even talk to a hologram of you without fighting with you... without being hurt by you.”

“And as always, the truth is that I miss you… and I don’t know how to tell you in a way you would understand or would think was appropriate.” Annika dried her tears on the black sleeve of her Starfleet uniform.

“As always, Captain,” She said with a dry laugh, “The truth is I need to touch you and be touched by you. The truth is that I want you to allow me to love you. I want you to love me… or tell me the truth.”

Annika took a last look at the hologram before she called an end to the program. “Happy Anniversary, Kathryn.”

She sank to her knees on the black and yellow grid, the cold hard deck plating of the holodeck. Annika smoothed her fingers through her hair and schooled her features, taking deep cleansing breaths.

The chirp of a communicator broke the still, slightly stagnant air. “Icheb to Annika”.

“Annika here.” She acknowledged, steadying herself.

“The prescribed time for your holodeck session will expire in five minutes.”

“Thank you, Icheb.”

“Certainly.” The young man replied. “Icheb out.”

Closing the comm channel, she leaned against the wall, closing her eyes and letting her thoughts meander, soothing her nerves. Tuvok had taught her several relaxation techniques, as well as suggesting that her future time in the holodeck be timed by another person, and not the ship’s computer – which she could override. Naturally, she had chosen Icheb. He was the most precise. She had never asked him to stop reminding her, and it had become a habit neither of them had “grown out of”.

Annika sighed. She wished the Doctor would find a stronger therapy for Tuvok, something that would delay the progression of the disease… he had seemed to be in remission for the past eight months, he had even returned to duty. But he had a relapse and was even now slipping further into the coils of this disease. She needed Tuvok’s calm, his words of peace and quiet support, now more than ever.

As the holodeck chronometer signaled the end of her holodeck time, and Annika Hansen stood, holding her head high. She realized as she walked out through the arch and into the corridor, that she missed having her own internal chronometer, missed to a certain extent, the accuracy and precision of her implants.

“Sev-Annika.” A voice called out as she stepped out of the turbolift on Deck 3.

“Captain.” She acknowledged. “How can I help you?”

“As you know, Naomi will be taking her first Combat Tactics simulation exam in two weeks. I was wondering if you and Lieutenant Paris could throw something together to fit this mold.” The Captain requested, holding out a PADD rather stiffly.

“Certainly.”

The smaller woman’s tone softened. “I don’t want you to put too much time into this, you’ve been taking on a lot of extra work since Tuvok… went on leave.”

“I understand.”

“I mean it.” She warned, her tone softening. “I don’t want you, or anyone else on the crew, to push themselves too hard."

“As always, Captain.”
 

The Void Before

A footstep broke his reverie, and without turning around he greeted his Captain… and friend.

“I’m sorry, Chakotay.” The Admiral said. “I’ll come back later.”

He gave a hoarse laugh. “Stay. This is getting ridiculous anyway. You’d think we were still courting her.”

“Well…yes.” Kathryn agreed tentatively. Then she moved forward and placed the bouquet of lilies on the grave. “I suppose it is a little silly.”

Chakotay stuck his hands in his pockets. The harsh winter wind sapped his energy. He felt old. He watched the Admiral as she arranged the flowers on the grave. “It’s been 19 years, Kathryn. Did you know that?”

“I…hadn’t realized.”

Chakotay shook his head. “Yes, you have. More than you probably like to admit.”

Kathryn stood up, dusting the knees of her slacks with the palms of her hands. “Well, old wounds…”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Chakotay replied. “I…She would have appreciated it. Letting me stay on as your Ex-O, keeping me busy after she…”

Kathryn cleared her throat. “Well…what are friends for?”

“Yes.” Chakotay said. “Indeed.”

“Well, I should get back to the…uh…personnel reports, I left at the office.” Kathryn said, turning around.

Chakotay caught her by the shoulder and forced her to face him. He stuck out his hand. “I forgive you.”

Kathryn looked down briefly, and then looked him straight in the eye. “Chakotay, no matter what you believe… Once you were married, I bowed out. There was never anything between us. Even if sometimes, I may have wanted there to be. There was never a more faithful woman than your wife. She loved you so much. She always did. She loved you more.”

Chakotay took a deep breath. “She loved you longer.”

“God damn it Chakotay, she married you!” Kathryn spat. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Yes.” Chakotay replied, calmly. “I had her in life. But she died in your arms. And for years I’ve resented – No, hated you for it. Now I can forgive you.”

“Why?”

“When Miral was injured in that Cardassian skirmish last year, do you remember that?”

Kathryn nodded.

“She told me that for a long time, while we thought she was unconscious, she could hear everything. She just couldn’t open her eyes or even move. And she heard you talking to the Doctor.”

Kathryn’s face reddened. “What did she hear me say?”

“She said that when the Doctor told you she was going to make it, you bawled like a baby.” Chakotay replied.

Kathryn turned away. “Mitigating circumstances.”

“Yes. I’ve been thinking a lot about it ever since.” said Chakotay, his voice turning quiet. “Towards the end, when the nanoprobes could only maintain her nervous system… she was in such terrible pain. And I keep wondering if she felt the way Miral did… if she was alive and she heard everyone saying goodbye to her and the Doctor saying she didn’t have much time… Then I think, maybe I should have done it.”

“Chakotay…” Kathryn cautioned.

“I should have ended it, like she asked me to. But I thought she was giving up. I thought she was giving up on me and our life together.” Chakotay sighed, wiping away at the corner of his eye with annoyance. “She was always the more sensible one. She knew it was all over.”

“Chakotay, don’t blame yourself.”

“Oh no. I don’t.” he said sincerely. “I don’t blame anyone anymore. I just wish that I had had enough sense to stop stuffing her full of medicine…then I would have been there, with you, when it happened.”

“Her last thoughts were of you.” Kathryn said. “She was worried about leaving you. She told me so herself.”

Chakotay gave a small smile. “Yes. She would have done that.”

There was an awkward pause, and the Admiral had turned to go when Chakotay gave a short laugh. “I can still remember how happy she was when you agreed to marry us, and stayed throughout the reception.”

A tear traveled unnoticed down Kathryn’s face.

“You know what she said to me?” Chakotay asked. “She smiled and whispered: ‘The Captain loves me’. That was really a nice thing to do, Kathryn.”

But when Chakotay turned around, Kathryn Janeway had vanished.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Admiral Kathryn Janeway slammed down her communicator on the table with a thud. She picked up a snifter and filled a third of it with brandy. She put on some Bach and stood by the window, contemplating the San Francisco skyline. Her left hand massaged her temples and her right hand swirled the brandy around the glass.

Damn Chakotay. Damn him for being so damned sentimental. The dead were gone, they would never come back. And sooner or later everyone we love is scattered into the blackness of time, so what the hell is the point with this memorialization of the dead? Live in the present. That was the only way to get by. She shouldn’t even have gone to the cemetery. What was the point? She was dead. Her smile, her voice, her eyes… atoms scattered in the Delta Quadrant, a bronze plaque was the only solid testament to her existence.

Annika. She’d wanted to be called Annika ever since they had… last spoken about their relationship. She had lived a full life. She had smiled, laughed, danced, played pool, argued with B’Ellana, flirted with the Doctor, slandered Neelix’s cooking. Annika loved, fought, lied, repented, struggled.

True to her simulation, Annika had requested quarters and requisitioned a complete kitchen. She donned a Starfleet uniform, though she never chose to earn her commission. Annika had been a fine young woman, a superb crewman and a doting wife.

But she wasn’t Seven.

Seven of Nine had died a long time ago.

Never again had they played Velocity, alone or together. Gone were the late night visits and stimulating discussions, the tiptoeing into Cargo Bay 2 to watch her regenerate. Only their heated arguments about efficiency remained, but even those were conducted in public, during staff meetings and briefings. They were all that was left of Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero, the woman who had once loved her.

Kathryn drew on her discipline, the discipline of a Starfleet Captain, the pride and focus of a Janeway… and she had endured. She’d remained cordial, even supportive, throughout the abrupt transition, the wedding, the reception, the long maddening nights imagining what went on in her first officer’s quarters. Kathryn had survived with most of her sanity, if not her soul, intact.

And then it had happened.
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“You can’t ask me that!” Chakotay shouted as he stalked out of sickbay. “I can’t. I won’t!”

Several crewmen joined Kathryn as she stared at the retreating figure. Slowly, she stood up and made her way to the main biobed.

“Captain.” came a weak voice.

“Hello. I hope I’m not intruding.”

“No, not at all.” She replied, between hacking coughs. “I’ve been reading some reports, catching up on Icheb and Naomi’s progress…now that I’ve had so much time to myself.”

She looked horrible, pasty and emaciated… weak. What was left of her hair had been artfully covered by a white turban held together by a simple brooch, a gift from B’Ellana and Tom.

“I believe I’ve upset Chakotay.”

“Oh… well… I’m sure he’ll get over it.”

“Yes.” She said distractedly. “Perhaps.”

The Captain bent to arrange the pillows behind the young woman, trying to make her more comfortable.

“Captain… I would like to make a request... the same favor I asked Chakotay that made him so upset.”

“Yes?”

“If, at any point, my nanoprobes can no longer sustain my brain…and I have to be placed on cortical stimulation…I do not want to be resuscitated.”

Kathryn was too shocked to speak. In an instant, all the feelings, the memories rushed into her soul in torrents.

“Captain… the part of me that makes me who I am…it will be gone by then.”

“No.” The Captain croaked out. “I…I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“You can.” The young woman smiled sadly. “You don’t want to, but you can. I know about death, Captain, and I am not afraid of it. I do not want to be here, a drain on your resources, a burden to Chakotay…”

“The Doctor might find a cure. B’Ellana and Vorik are working every day, searching. They say they may be close… If we placed you on consistent cortical stimulation, or stasis, and if we discovered a new treatment-“

“I have had enough medicines pumped into my body.” She insisted.

“He won’t let you die.”

“Neither would you.” She straightened her back. “But it is not his life or his decision… anymore than it is yours.”

Her frail white hands trembled with effort as she raised it to cup the Captain’s face, the last tenderness they would ever share… the last glimpse of Seven of Nine that the Captain would ever have. “Kathryn… I will always be alive in you.”

The Captain hadn’t been able to say anything. Not then. And the young woman had never mentioned it again. But when the time came, when she lay back in bed, unable to move, unable even to breathe for herself as her nanoprobes could sustain less and less of her organs... she had done it. In those last moments as Kathryn held her and stroked her face, she had smiled. The same smile that used to dazzle Kathryn every time she woke up beside the woman she loved.

Kathryn had never told him. She knew better than to speak to Chakotay about anything concerning his wife ever again. But in the years since her death, an understanding had developed between Kathryn and Chakotay that had never been there before. It wasn’t so much a shared sense of loss, as they grieved in their own ways for their own reasons… it was as if the people they had been had died and they were merely empty shells that continued to exist.
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Chakotay sipped his tea only to find that it had gone cold. He wondered how long he had been sitting out here, in the darkness… a sad, crazy old man after all, just like his grandfather.

He closed his eyes, and remembered Annika. He was glad Kathryn had been with her when she died, he was glad that he hadn’t been. She had looked so happy. He would have missed the sequence of algorithms hidden under what seemed an innocuous encryption code, they were so amazingly compact, so obviously her own. But Annika… Seven… she had always been Seven, really, no matter what she called herself… Seven had trained him well. The nanoprobes had shut down in an ingenious pattern, mimicking her regeneration cycle. It had been painless. She had died in her sleep, efficient to the end. Even her funeral arrangements and her personal effects had been orderly… her few possessions and her letters to the crew itemized and ready for distribution.

Chakotay shut his eyes tightly at the memory of how convenient it all was. Everything that had been Annika had been parceled off to Naomi, Icheb, B’Ellana, the Doctor, and himself… and everything that had been Seven, every object she had loved in quiet secrecy, had been sealed in a neat container for the Captain. The bitterness still rose like bile in his throat, not because of Kathryn’s role in her death, not even due to any perceived infidelity.

She was never his.

Oh, she had loved him, certainly. He still yearned for the tenderness of her embrace, and the slow smile that would greet him after his shift, the quiet touch of her hand in his when she was frightened. But everything he had loved about her; her fire, her spirit, the essence of who she was beneath the layers of her carefully crafted persona, the woman who cried after each time they made love that first year together… so softly he had thought it a dream… this woman who shed the tears of an angel… that was who he had come to love.

He had raged against his selfishness, he struggled to release her from her vows and give her a second chance, to do what was right. And when he had finally spoken about it, when he told her to leave him and never look back… she had only closed her eyes and turned away from him.

“You know as well as I do, Chakotay, that sometimes freedom of choice is the freedom from choice.”

And he had never spoken about it again, their marriage an incomplete thought.

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Admiral Kathryn Janeway slept fitfully, one arm underneath her pillow. The fingers of her hand were nearly touching the drawer of her nightstand which was slightly ajar, several doses of sedative cluttered near a hypospray. Her right hand clutched a PADD with a short message.

Kathryn,

There are no more words between us, yet so many things to be said. No word seems to be the whole word, the correct word to express my emotions.

I love you, as I always have. I only wish that you had known, or that I could have made you understand, that what we could have had was not “too good to be true”. It was too good to be false.

And despite myself, as always, I thought that someday I would again be…

Yours,
Seven