Suddenly my laughter and my cries
Drown in a single instant, each pleasure
Aches with a hidden torment, and the night
Fades yet endures. I wither and I Bloom.
So Love leads me on forever.
And when I think I know the limits of pain
Without knowing, I find myself at peace.
When I think my joy is lasting and I see
Some future hope, some present certainty,
He returns and brings back the past again. (Louise Labe)
---
I screwed up. Big time. Forget the laurels, screw the promotion. An officer and a gentleman, my...
San Francisco, 2390. We'd been home twelve years. I hadn't laid eyes on Seven of Nine in over eleven. We talked, sure, through comm channels and padds, even talked of reunions. Chakotay met with B'Elanna at random intervals, he even came to Earth now and again. His formerly Borg wife was never with him. No explanations, no excuses. I was too embarrassed to ask if it was that last face to face conversation we'd had, she wouldn't have answered in any message, and I frankly doubt Chakotay knew. He was still dense as a wood block. Still head over heart for Janeway. I couldn't help but wonder why Seven had stuck with him as long as she had. I swore I'd find out, maybe visit her, surprise her. Force another slice of friendly realism into her off-kilter world. Of course, I never did. B'Elanna and I had been more or less skating on thin ice the entire twelve years, and I think anything that looked remotely like intimacy...platonic or otherwise...with Seven would have shattered the still water forever. For Miral's sake, I was holding the peace.
Then, San Francisco, 2390.
I had made full Commander by then, Captaincy pending. Of course, the 'pending' meant that I got the dull jobs nobody else wanted at the time, like night shift at Starfleet Command's aviation section. She visited me there, on the landing strip, slipping inside the two-seater shuttle I was checking out.
She was very beautiful. That's not something I usually take note of in women...I have my standards, sure, and do measure before I partake...but there are few women I've ever desired to examine in as minute detail as I desired to examine Seven of Nine that night. We sat in the shuttle, sharing warp theories and flight expertise and anything professional...she was nonfleet, but a pretty skilled civilian liaison...and I touched her hand, rubbing the knuckles, admiring the Doctor's fresh deBorging handiwork. Her touch was elegant, and purely human. Dawn rose, and she stopped talking, said she should leave. Chakotay was likely waiting for her at their hotel. We stood, I walked her to the door, awkwardly, uncertainly, she wrapped her arms around my neck. I returned the pressure, desperate not to shun her, for she was so sensitive, so very damned sensitive...
I walked her down to the lobby, where a secretary dozed away at her Starfleet worst, meaning I'd have to resequence the security code after Seven left, otherwise the precious secrets of the Federation would be open to all and sundry. She turned, halted in the doorway, old-fashioned, agelessly attractive woolen coat swinging to cover her knees. She angled her head to kiss my cheek, at her most innocently affectionate.
I drew her hands behind her back and kissed her lips, fully, tasting, teaching. She was inexperienced, and I wondered at her relationship with Chakotay, if he was half as seasoned a lover as she tried to bluff, as B'Elanna had implied during our more vituperative arguments. Hell, a forty year old woman, and she barely knew how to kiss.
Forty years old. It wasn't easy to remember, thanks to her former Borg nanoprobes. They hadn't exactly stopped the natural aging process, but had controlled matters enough that she could've gone well into her seventies looking a very fit forty. By the time of our meeting, minus the nanoprobes and implants, she was forty, and looked it just about on time, an elegant maturity. I felt a bit of sorrow at that...being more human was really a step down for her, in all ways.
Not that it diminished her beauty. She looked regal, draped in the classy elegance she favored. Her eyes, that I'd always likened old with the knowledge of a trillion Borg, shone that night...I had rattled her, in ways I don't think even Chakotay had managed. I'm not bragging. I kissed her, then I remembered that 'home' in Marseilles, where my wife and daughter were waiting on me. I felt like shit, or at the very least like one of those tacky holopimps in some of my less admirable programs. If the sudden realization in those eyes was any indication, Seven felt worse.
She spoke first. "This was not precisely my plan , Mr. Paris. I had intended something more impersonal and less incriminating during our initial reunion."
I forced a smile of my own, brushing the moment away. "We'll have to remember that from this point on. Tell you what, go on back to your hotel, get some rest. We can meet again tonight, or tomorrow...dine out, or you could visit us at home."
"No, I do not believe that wise." A brief smile cut across the pale face. "However, I will rest on it...and I would prefer to have an escort to the hotel."
An unusual request from Seven, at the very least. She rolled on, hands twitching absently against the coat buttons. "Chakotay and I have been arguing, as I told you. I do not believe he would deliberately seek to injure me, however, he was inebriated when I left the hotel. While he vocalized his intentions to seek shelter elsewhere for the evening, it is always a possibility that he remains."
"Chakotay never drinks."
"Precisely. It is difficult to predict the behavioral patterns of someone never prone to such an indulgence before."
"And you expect me to believe you're actually afraid of poor drunk Chakotay?"
"No." A smile lifted the corners of her lips. "It is merely what you call 'a convenient excuse'."
And that, dear diary, is the sum of Seven's experience with seduction. It almost worked, too.
People always claim there's always a 'no' point. You know, the time between the desktop and the door. The door and the turbolift. The turbolift and bed. Or, in this case, the door and the hotel room. People who never crash land to my level like to think there are always moments to push back temptation, bite back the devils intent. I'd never accepted that before, and very nearly didn't then. Her hands were on my shoulders, her hips against mine, and had she tried the trick just a decade or so earlier, not even a full-scale alert could have stopped me by then.
Of course, the ever punctual Seven of Nine was a little late. Over a decade late. And my responsibilities actually rose to the forefront then. I pushed her away. Couldn't blame her exactly, she held all the naiveté and frustration of a child throwing herself out into the rain, just to rebel, just to feel a little burst of power in an ocean of indifference. Maybe she did want me. Maybe she just wanted the pleasure. Maybe she just wanted a trophy catch. Her dammed laughter broke forth as she spun away, out the door, pausing on the stoop.
"Go get some rest, Seven."
"I despise him."
"Hmm. Sounds like I told you so."
Her gaze was sharp, amused. "I believe that he is seeking shelter in your wife's bed."
Tilt-a-world. I know I gaped. "Well, that's one hell of an accusation."
"I never make them lightly. Have you completely failed to notice that Chakotay's visits always coincide with your work shifts and your daughter's absences?"
"Seven...Lanna and Chakotay were friends long before Voyager. So he visits. YOU certainly aren't known for the honor. Try giving a little human leeway."
"I find myself not entirely certain I was ever meant to be human, Mr. Paris." Her voice caught. "But I am learning. I am learning."
"Reckless accusations aside, you're doing fine." Not by the most discerning standards, to be sure, but the way I've always figured it, humans are meant to screw themselves over thoroughly at least once in their lives, some of us more than once. Me as a prime example. To do anything else would be to remove the essence of us all. Make us Vulcan, or something...and much as I liked Tuvok, I couldn't have stood being him, anymore than Seven could have stood being Borg any longer. "And sorry, Sev, but I guess I'm just a little less hot-headed than you."
She turned to go, catching my eyes one last time, smiling faintly. "Or perhaps you are simply a fool."
We haven't spoken since, and things are better between Lanna and I. As far as I know, Seven went home to Chakotay and they're finally figuring out the minor nuances of the relationship. Starfleet tells me I'm anything but a fool, I have my command now, and Marseilles and B'Elanna and Miral on holidays. As long as Chakotay no longer visits my wife when I'm out here in this cold hell called space and my daughter is absent, I guess I'm alright.
Or perhaps I'm simply a fool.
Yeah, I screwed up. Big time. Well, its just fine, because I'm not the only one.
PART 2
Summary: B'Elanna's story.
---
Today, I sat my last counseling session with Troi. My choice. Her fault.
Nice woman, just too nice and nosy. She pries, her duty, but I'm not so Starfleet even now that I'm willing to accept it blindly. I'm not so Starfleet that I appreciate the intrusion. Janeway suggested that she talk to me, just like she suggested Chakotay see the counselor about Seven. Ironic. If only she knew.
Troi did. I have no idea what Chakotay told her, but when I sat down this morning she asked me if I loved my husband. If my husband loved me. If I wondered.
Of course I do, daily. Tom is my best friend, almost, and the man I look up to most in the world, almost.
Almost.
I don't doubt that Tom Paris cares for me, we have Miral as a connection. I've never doubted that he'd lay down his life to spare mine, and I hope he knows I'd do the same. Is that love? The kind of love that led us to a crazy Delta Quad elopement, to create Miral? Or has it changed , already, into that 'married' love you hear so awfully much about? I'm young. I'd hoped to hold off on the old shoe business. No hope of that, and along came Seven.
I watched them. Oh, not that I saw anything worth repeating...I probably wanted to, just to validate my own insecurities. It was Earth, Marseilles, some nine months after Voyager's return. This, again, didn't strike me oddly at first. Seven has never been known for the minor nuances of human interaction...frequent contact for one. We knew she was alive, and well, and that was her idea of suitable touch. She gave no warning with her letters or conversations, no reason to assume she would ever bother the trip back to see us in person. Seven was a free bird, and thoroughly immersed in it.
Chakotay told more, in his longer letters and conversations and the few visits he made to Earth. I can still remember him, the crinkles in his tanned skin, the wan bemusement of his smile. He mentioned her harrowing silences, the nights she would stand out on their porch from dusk to dawn, unmoving. Sleep? Why, no, she didn't want any part of it. Regeneration was fine. But he hated it...hated the whirring machine and the emptiness in her gaze as she stood within it, hated the way it was out of place in his archaeological wilderness. More than that, he said, he hated the fear...the fear that someday it would all break down and they'd have no way of help, and he'd be left holding her dead in his arms. He said he thought she was dying in his world, a little piece at a time, and that he wanted her out of it. For both of them.
I got her the Academy offer. To tell you the truth, I thought she'd leap at it...a good offer, rank of Lieutenant Commander, she could have control of any science department she desired, and probably most engineering sections as well.
She came to Tom. I've always seen the bond, of course, he was the only one of us that cared enough to approach her at first, take her hand...the Borg one...in friendship. Even the captain had her reasons for doting on Seven, and they usually weren't maternal or platonic. She had her ways of business, and Seven was a piece of that business to be skillfully tweaked to maximum efficiency. Thank Kahless Seven never figured it out, she probably would've assimilated us all.
After she left that day, without so much as a by your leave and only a present left on the stoop for Miral, Tom seemed different. More edgy. He began doubting himself again, the choices. Return to Starfleet? He became convinced that it wasn't such a good idea. Unfortunately, neither of us was prime work material for anywhere else, or on a civilian scale, so he stuck with it. I mentioned inviting Janeway and Chakotay over for dinner sometime. A sort of mentor-mentoree pair thing. He exploded, demanded to know 'Why the hell can't you leave Seven alone for one god-damned minute?'. Afterward, there was chill. I'd be a fool to pretend his accusation wasn't validated. We all tried to get the command duo on track as a romantic duo. Unfortunately, Seven lay solidly in the way and I suppose we often found it hard to care. Tom did despite her distance and her lack of bonding and her coldness. He cared, too much, and I eventually got sick of it, and angry, and stopped giving a damn.
Does that make me sound heartless?
Well, I felt it. To put forth an old Klingon metaphor, my heart felt like peppered gagh. Burning, raw, and eaten alive. Somewhere along the line, what Seven felt for Tom and not Chakotay, and what I didn't feel for Tom anymore but had always felt for Chakotay collided in a frenzy of confusion and heartache and general frustration.
Tom and I began to argue. Hardly the knock down drag out fights I recall from my parents and he's hinted at from his own, we both learned very well from our childhoods. Miral, if anything, will see only the most dignified of disagreement from her parents. But it got harder to hide the potent frustration and anger and annoyances, we both have short fuses. As she got older, began to understand the silences and separate beds better, we made a habit of not staying together. He worked nights. I worked days. He took Miral off for Christmas. I took her for the Klingon days. We did everything a normal family does, in the most carefully divided of ways. Once and awhile, we actually managed a family dinner. No gagh thrown in.
Problem is, we eventually got to a point where we never got together. Notes on the foyer table, ships passing in the night, or morning, that sort of thing. That does a great deal to prevent arguing, but not a whole hell of a lot for preventing loneliness. I know he had his holoprograms, probably didn't consider them sentient, despite the lessons we all should have learned from the Doctor. Miral spent so much time with them on their days together I'm still surprised she halted herself from calling them 'Mama' instead of 'Daddy's friends'. It amused me, in a dark, perverse little way. It seemed that Tom would never learn how to live among the real folk.
He spent time with his holocreations. I spent time with Chakotay. Would I ever wave him before Tom's eyes? Let Miral believe he was intended to replace her father in any way? No, of course not. He isn't a replacement. I don't love him. I care for him, yes, and the intimate encounters are good, but not nearly as frequent as Seven would probably give credence to. Oh, I know she spoke to Tom. He came home early that night, woke me up, and we sat down to discuss it. He didn't deny the holograms. I didn't deny the Indian. I wouldn't say that we reached a revelation of love and peace and faithfulness. We just figured it was time to put our toils towards more solid ground.
Seven went back to Chakotay and hasn't bothered either of us again. She seems to be providing distraction enough, though, that Chakotay doesn't seek out my company for quite the same reasons anymore. Friends? Yes, maybe not to the same degree as before, there's always a thin line of discomfort whenever he, Tom, and I come together anywhere. Chakotay probably doesn't notice it, he's very good at having his fun and moving along to the next amusement, Janeway being the possible exception, though I think they've grown pretty far apart these days. He certainly isn't about to drop Seven for her. Always the thin line of discomfort.
I used to try and place myself in my parents shoes, try to understand just how it was they could have so much and destroy it so wantonly. I think, as Tom says, it isn't so much the destruction that amazes...we all destroy...but the fact that they were never able to put it back together. They didn't try, and I confess that sometimes looking over a cafe table at the man I still find it hard to call 'Daddy', I'm at a loss to understand it. Miral is my life, and Tom's, and I think she's reason enough for us to put the past away and give things another go. I wasn't given the same consideration, and I don't know if I can ever forget that. Maybe it led me this far into chaos in the first place. I don't know.
But Tom and I have tried, and we are succeeding in putting this marriage back together, Chakotay and Seven of Nine be damned. We have our own bonds to reknit.
FIN
