Eye of the Beholder
By Laura Schiller
Based on Star Trek: Voyager
Copyright: Paramount
"Doctor, I have a question."
Seven swivelled her piano stool around and scanned her friend's face with sharp blue eyes. They were at Chez Sandrine, the one teaching, the other learning, the art of coaxing beautiful melodies out of Tom Paris's expertly programmed grand piano.
"Go ahead, Seven."
"You often refer to yourself as physically attractive – 'compassionate eyes', a 'strong chin', and so forth. Yet, as an intelligent and perceptive individual, surely you are aware that your appearance does not comform to human ideals of beauty. Since you are capable of transforming at will, why do you persist in wearing the face and body of a balding fifty-year-old?"
The Doctor winced and looked away, feeling as if someone had slapped him. Nobody had ever told him that to his face before. Trust Seven to put her finger on his weakest spots with all the ruthless precision of a Borg.
He turned back to flash her his most disapproving glare. "Good Lord, Seven! What's the use of that superior memory of yours if you don't put it to use? How often must I tell you that you are not on a Borg cube anymore, and in a human society we have such a thing as manners and tact?"
"I recall perfectly," she retorted, with an icy glare of her own. "However, I do not see why you are offended. I am asking merely in the interest of curiosity."
"No living being likes to be called ugly, Seven," he said tightly. Especially not by the most beautiful woman on this ship.
"You are overly sensitive in regard to your exterior," said Seven, the slightest quirtk appearing at the corners of her full pink lips. "Such concerns are irrelevant."
"Easy for you to say," he muttered, more to himself than to her. She gave him a look – a sudden upsweep of her golden eyelashes, perhaps surprised that he had implied (in a roundabout way, but still) that he found her exterior pleasing.
"I said you are not conventionally attractive," she said. Was her voice slightly lower? "I did not say you are ugly."
His emotional subroutines warmed slightly as a smile crept onto his face. "Ah. Well, that's a different matter entirely. I'm sorry if I overreacted."
She nodded regally to show her silent acceptance. "You have not answered my question, Doctor."
The Doctor glanced at his blurred reflection in the shining black wood of the piano. He was bald, yes, with a square jaw, wide mouth and rather too many wrinkles, but he liked his face just the way it was, thank you very much.
"My physical parameters are an inheritance, so to speak," he said, with quiet pride and affection. "From Dr. Zimmerman."
He remembered his risky transport to cure his programmer of a terminal illness, and the resulting fireworks as the elderly scientist refused to be operated on by his most out-of-date creation. It had taken some very unorthodox measures by Counsellor Troi, but in the end, the EMH had succeeded, and somehow won Dr. Zimmerman's respect along the way. He still had a holoimage of them standing with their arms around each other's shoulders, wearing identical, lopsided grins.
"Obnoxious, pig-headed, brilliant man – his witticisms alone could slice tritanium. I owe him my existence, and I'm proud to be reminded of him whenever I look in a mirror or hear myself speak."
Seven's face had taken on a thoughtful look. "I understand," she said softly. "I apologize for my inappropriate remarks."
He placed his hand on her slender shoulder, ever so lightly. "That's all right, Seven. You'll find that among … close friends, an inappropriate remark or two is easy to forgive."
She did not contradict the phrase 'close friends'. Instead she gave him that tiny smile only he could detect, which always set his photons tingling from the crown of his head to the tips of his boots.
"It is nearly 1400 hours," she said, rising smoothly from the piano stool. "We must return to our duty shifts. It has been an agreeable lesson, Doctor."
"Yes, of course. Don't let me keep you." He stood up as well, closing the keyboard, and watched as the holodeck exit shimmered into existence in front of them.
Just in front of the door, Seven glanced at him over her shoulder. She had a way of doing that, he noticed; did she know how elegant it looked? The lines of her face, her neck, her shoulders … she was like a Greek sculpture. His hands itched for his holoimager.
Then she said the most surprising thing.
"I am unable to determine the relation between character traits and facial features," she said. "Therefore I cannot tell whether your eyes are compassionate. However, they do look rather pleasant when you smile."
Before the Doctor could think of a single word to say, she had marched out the doors and down the corridor.