Work Text:
I stand off in a corner, holding a glass of champagne I will not drink, but which will prevent anyone from insisting that I need one. I stand by myself not for me, but for the crewmembers I know are uncomfortable with my presence. I see them shrink away from me in the corridors, or cease talking as I enter a room.
A year ago, the Captain said they feel that way because they do not know me and I must make better attempts at “connecting” with crewmembers. She said that anyone who knows me loves me. I found that statistic suspicious. “Where is your data?” I asked. She had none. “Just who you are, Seven.” Her answer baffled me. What had I done to earn love? I am Borg.
I arrived at the Prixin celebration early. I arrive at every crew celebration early. I noticed that humans did not like to be the first to appear at a function. And, by taking advantage of this human quirk, I could fulfill my promise to the Captain to “mingle” with the crew while simultaneously avoiding most of them.
I had been trying to understand humans for 4 years, but they had remained a frustrating enigma to me. They were weak and sentimental, they based decisions on emotions, and they were ruled by whim which they called “instinct.” Most mystifying: They attached positive qualities to these mercurial notions. I believed my inability to ”connect” with others on board might be a function of my cortical inhibitor. After my failed attempts at social interactions in the holodeck program, I decided against the removal of my cortical inhibitor but, months later, I reconsidered it. “Perhaps,” I thought, “it is the inhibitor which is making it difficult to “connect” with others.” I approached the doctor two weeks before the away trip to inquire as to what steps would need to be taken to prepare myself for the intricate surgery. The EMH informed me that he had made improvements to the procedure and that it would only take an afternoon. I had the surgery the next day.
I was not impressed with my feelings. They were sharp and random. They sprang out of nowhere from nothing. I had expected joy, happiness, connection, friendship. But, instead, I became painfully aware of how lonely and isolated I was. I was deeply unhappy. With a regulator on my feelings, I could remain blissfully unaware that my isolation and the crew’s disdain for me could be quite painful. I had made a terrible mistake. I began to contemplate leaving Voyager. All of this was plaguing me as I prepared to go on an away trip to search for supplies.
On the away trip, we were caught in a surprise nitrogen-ice storm. As the storm approached, I spied B’Elanna and Ensign Wildman, running for the shelter. They were not going to make it. I ran out in the storm, the nitrogen stinging. I scooped them into me as the storm hit full force and braced us against a tree. I could hear a crewman screaming, B’elanna crying, Samantha Wildman gasping for air. I could not move. I could not rescue the screaming crewman who’d been caught out. If I did, B’Elanna and Wildman would die. I felt such violent, contradicting emotions within me. I was going to let one person die in order to save two. Uncertainty. I was experiencing uncertainty. It was exceedingly painful. To a borg, a decision to save two and lose one is a logical course of action, but, as I pressed Lt. Torres and Ensign Wildman into me, I could hear the cries of Crewman L’tosk as he was slowly dying. The agony at the knowledge that I could not leave B’Elanna and Samantha to save him was unbearable. Were there no good feelings for me? Would I never be human enough to earn them? I could not tolerate the divide between my Borg logic and my emotional agony. This was not a state I wished to exist in. When I returned to the ship, I would tell the Captain I was leaving. She would protest, but, I vowed I would not allow her to sway me. As the seconds ticked by, I held my two crewmates and wished for the transport team to find us. Within moments, I felt my body deconstituting and reconstituting on Voyager.
I looked up to see the Captain, her eyes lasering into me. I felt a lurch in my stomach. There was something intimate in that look, some secret the Captain was holding. She offered to walk me to sickbay, which seemed inefficient. But, I allowed her to do so. I felt a need to have her near me. As soon as the turbolift doors closed, I felt her arms wrap around my waist and pull me to her. She was crying, “I can’t lose you, Seven.” She kissed my bloody abrasions, on my chin, my jaw, below my ear. I suddenly understood. She was the person. She was the person she was talking about when she said anyone who knew me would love me. My Captain. I brushed my hands down to her buttocks, and ground her against me, I had a desperate need to be as close as I possibly could to her. Her kiss instantly calmed me. All the pain of my loneliness ebbed away and I felt myself come back into my body, lit up with jolts of desire.
I ordered the turbolift to bypass sickbay and take us directly to deck 3. Kathryn tried to object, “Seven, you need these tended to.” “Are you telling me that the Captain of Voyager does not have her own dermal regenerator?” She blessed me with her lopsided grin, “Don’t tell the doctor.”
I was not prepared for the experience of making love. As her lips clasped onto my sex, I was flooded with myriad sensations. Thousands at once. Desire, love, joy… grief. Deep, abiding grief for the eighteen years that had been stolen from me. And joy, at being loved by the woman I loved. The Captain who could not always be my friend. I wept as my Captain held me, whispering tender, loving things about me. About her love for my human-ness, her admiration for all that I had weathered in my time on Voyager. She promised that she would make up for all I had lost. I believed her promise. A foolish thing for a borg. But, she is Captain Janeway. She had never lied to me, never abandoned me.
After she fell asleep, I lay in her bed and calculated the odds of us. Astronomical.
As our relationship progressed, I was seized by a need to explore every means of knowing her more intimately. The first time I made love to her, I witnessed my iron-willed Captain become someone completely unknown to me. She was small, vulnerable, soft, unsure, splayed before me, in complete trust. Is this what humans get to see during intimacy? The tender, yielding, person that lives inside each of us? I needed to see what other achingly fragile things the Captain could reveal to me about Kathryn Janeway. She called my explorations “inventiveness,” but it was driven by a desire to make this exquisite human as deeply aware of my love for her as I could. She seemed pleased that I had no shame around copulation. Another human emotion I don’t understand. It seems that, for every positive feeling, humans regulate it with a negative counter-feeling. Much like my inhibitor. Humans can only enjoy so much pleasure without guilt and shame.
My drive to know every part of her as intimately as possible was welcomed by my Captain. She was coy when teasing me, shy when she felt unsure, lustful when she wanted me. She was petulant when ignored, irate when embarrassed, and unendingly tender and patient and loving. Each glimpse of a new part of her took my breath away. She was not made of iron. She was fragile and scared and needy. And it took my breath away. Seeing the array of emotions that one human could contain made me dizzy with joy. A feeling I had not experienced until my inhibitor was deactivated.
Because of my love for her, I am the recipient of thousands of new sensations. When I look at her, electricity shoots from my breasts to my abdomen and down to my sex. When I am standing at the computer in Astrometrics and a stray thought of her auburn hair brushing against my breasts comes into my mind, it makes my legs weak. When I walk into the mess hall and smell her scent, I experience a sensation not unlike being pushed off a precipice. I look across the room and see her, making small talk, sipping champagne. We have agreed not to acknowledge our relationship in public but, she catches my eye and we smile. I am suddenly aware that I am crossing the room to be with her. My beautiful Captain. I greet her formally, “Captain,” and nod. Suddenly, she is pulling me into a profoundly deep and moving kiss. I start to pull away, then realize I cannot let such an immense feeling go unacknowledged. I drop my hands and pull her into me, returning her kiss with all the love I feel. I am lost in her. If anyone is objecting, I cannot tell, all my senses are buried in her lips. There are no Borg algorithms being contemplated, no data being collected. I am merely in the moment, kissing my exquisite Kathryn. I am Seven of Nine. I am human.