[Author's Initial Note: I wrote this in 1998, and originally posted on alt . startrek . creative . It was my first fanfic (which probably shows), followed by a thirteen-year hiatus. It takes place shortly after "Timeless", in season 5. I'll have some thoughts in an author's note at the end.]
Disclaimer: Paramount/Viacom knows all, sees all, owns all, except for this story. Ave Paramount, scriturus te salutat!
The doors to the Astrometrics lab swished open, and Ensign Harry Kim strode in, trying to look confident and being largely successful at it. He saw Seven of Nine at her work station, her back turned to him, and was just about to address her when she spoke.
"Ensign Kim, what do you want?" She didn't turn around to see if it was actually Harry that she was addressing.
Harry smiled. Her words may have sounded harsh to others, but he knew her well enough to know that there was no malice intended in her blunt words. "How did you know it was me, Seven?"
"The pattern of your footfalls is distinctive, Ensign. After a year of working with you, I have naturally learned to identify them." She continued her work, still not bothering to turn around. "What do you wish to speak about?"
Harry cleared his throat. "I was hoping you'd join me for dinner tonight, but when I went to the messhall you weren't there. So I came to see what you were doing, and if you weren't too busy to join me anyway." He hoped his voice didn't betray any anxiety. He thought he had been getting better at acting calmly around her, but he just found her so beautiful that it was still a struggle at times, especially when he was asking her things she considered 'irrelevant'.
"You could have spoken to me over the comm, Ensign. It is inefficient to make an unnecessary journey." Before he could interrupt her with a response, she continued, "However, as you are here, if you assist me in taking these readings, we should be done in approximately twelve minutes. Then I will join you for dinner, as I have not eaten in several hours and require sustenance." She turned to look at him to gauge his reaction.
Harry grinned. She was becoming more comfortable in his presence, and they had been dining together semi-regularly in the messhall for several weeks now. He had yet to ask her to a private dinner in his quarters or the holodeck, but was going to soon. He wanted to take things slowly with Seven so she wouldn't be scared off, or worse, totally misinterpret him like she had that evening in the messhall a year before, something they had not discussed since, much to his eternal relief.
"Sure, Seven. Move over, and I'll give you a hand."
A hint of a smile passed over her lips when she saw him grinning. She knew that his happiness was irrelevant, or would have been in the Borg collective she used to belong to, but a part of her enjoyed seeing him grin anyway. That part of her caused her to smile, something she rarely did, and only seemed to do in response to the Ensign. It was unnecessary, but she couldn't help it. He always smiled even more when he saw her face soften. She liked his smile, despite herself.
As they worked, Harry began another of his 'irrelevant fraternizations' which his companion objected to less that she used to. Seven would deny she was becoming more 'human' when asked, but would offer the reason that she was adapting to the ways of Voyager. That was good enough for Harry.
"So, Seven, why are you working late? Did something come up, or were you just not as efficient as you expected during the day?" He grinned at her.
She gave him a hard look that would have made Harry think he offended her had he not noticed the twinkle in her eye. "Hardly. Lieutenant Torres asked me to assist her in engineering today, so that is why we are working late. I am efficient as always."
"Of course."
They finished their work in Astrometrics in the time Seven of Nine had predicted, and were just turning to head to the messhall when B'Elanna Torres burst in. Voyager's Chief Engineer marched furiously up to the former Borg and began shout at her.
"Why the hell can't you just do what you're told, Seven? I give you specific orders to adjust the power flow to Astrometrics *only*, and you go and mess with my whole damn power system!"
Seven's voice was cool calm as she responded, but just as full of venom in her own way. "I did not 'mess with' the power system, Lieutenant. I increased our power efficiency by point seven percent."
B'Elanna's Klingon temper began to take over. She went from being merely furiously angry at Seven to seething with rage at the former Borg. "Yes, and your damned 'efficiency' would have blown out the entire replicator system if hadn't noticed it before I completed the other modifications I planned! It took me two hours to undo what you did!"
Seven was not going to back down. "If you had informed me of the other modifications you were planning..."
"Ha! I am the Chief Engineer! I don't need to 'inform' you of what I'm doing! When I tell you do make a specific modification, you make it. If you want to do anything else to my ship, you ask me."
"It is not *your* ship, Lieutenant. It is the Captain's."
B'Elanna gave Seven a look of death and was about to shout something at her when Harry intervened. "Now, Seven, B'Elanna is in charge of the engineering functions of the ship, so when you want to go beyond her orders, maybe you should..."
Seven didn't let him finish. "This does not concern you, Ensign."
"It's always my concern when my friends fight." Seven softened a little at this. She knew that he and Lieutenant Torres were friends, but Harry had never actually called Seven a friend before, although she considered him her best friend on board Voyager. "And B'Elanna, you know how Seven likes to take the initiative. Maybe if you would just tell her more of what you intend, you two wouldn't have this... this friction."
"Harry, you can't reason with this drone!"
Harry and Seven responded simultaneously.
"I am not a drone."
"She's not a drone, B'Elanna. You know that."
B'Elanna gave Harry a fierce look. "Sure, Harry. Defend that Borg bimbo over one of your oldest friends."
Seven raised an eyebrow. "'Bimbo'?" She didn't recognize the term.
Harry did, however. He learned it from the same place B'Elanna had - his best friend, and her lover, Tom Paris, the pilot of Voyager and a historian of the twentieth-century. It referred to Seven being blonde, buxom, and beautiful, and implied a vacuous quality that both Harry and B'Elanna knew was completely wrong. It had been said to hurt, although it did not hurt Seven, who was oblivious to its pejorative use, even if she understood the tone of voice that the half-Klingon woman used. It hurt Harry, as B'Elanna intended. He hated it when anyone attacked Seven, for whom Harry had some very strong feelings. Strong feelings that were obvious to those around him, and that B'Elanna was totally opposed to. She didn't want to she her friend get hurt by someone she saw as an unfeeling automaton.
"Don't call Seven a 'bimbo', B'Elanna," he said in a low, even voice.
B'Elanna's anger was piqued. She let out a sharp laugh at her friend. "Harry, it's so *sweet*", she said venomously, "the way you defend Seven, and your little crush on her would be even more nauseating if there was any chance she'd even return it. When are you going to see she's an drone through and through, who's never going to think you're anything other than an irrelevant inefficient annoyance, or a lab rat for her little experiments in 'human interaction'? You're in love with a machine!"
Harry's face turned to a mixture of hurt and anger, and B'Elanna immediately regretted her harsh words, something she rarely did when she got angry.
"I can't believe you." Harry said quietly.
Seven saw how he was hurting and decided she had to defend him the way he defended her earlier. "I would never use Harry as a 'lab rat'." She noticed how his first name had slipped out, but barrelled on anyway. Her face took an a cloudy expression as she continued, and her voice was far more uneasy than it usually was. "And Ensign Kim does not have a 'crush' on me, Lieutenant. He specifically denied to me that he was in love with me the night I asked him to copulate in the mess hall."
B'Elanna laughed inadvertently at this, and Harry's eyes went wide as he spun to face Seven. "How could you tell her about that?" he shouted. He then turned and marched out of Astrometrics, shouting, "I cannot believe you two!"
"Ensign Kim!" Seven shouted after him, but he continued walking away. She turned to B'Elanna, forgetting their argument, and asked evenly, "Why did Ensign Kim leave so abruptly, Lieutenant? We were going to go to the messhall for dinner."
B'Elanna just stared in horrified amazement at the ex-Borg. "You really don't get it, do you?" She then turned and stomped off as well.
Seven of Nine was left standing alone in Astrometrics, trying to understand what had just gone on. She seemed to have a knack for annoying Lieutenant Torres, but up until this point, had never had a similar effect on Ensign Kim. She found she didn't like the way he looked when he left her. She decided to contemplate this as she went to dine in the messhall, although she did not expect to find Ensign Kim there waiting for her.
If there were anyone else in Astrometrics at the time, they would have been surprised to hear the ex-Borg, Seven of Nine, let out a small sigh.
Harry Kim was still fuming when he entered his quarters and collapsed on his couch. He found he was unable to stay motionless for long, however. He was so angry at the both of them that he could taste it, and to work off some of that anger he got up and began slowly pacing across the room, and back again. His pacing did little to abate his anger, however.
Things were just starting to go well with Seven, too. That was the ironic thing. Just when he thought there was some hope in sight for him and Seven, that stupid fight between her and B'Elanna had to happen.
He never enjoyed it when B'Elanna and Seven fought, as he always felt stuck in the middle. Normally, though, he could handle it. Tonight, he actually put himself in the middle of it, and paid the price. B'Elanna, his dearest friend on the ship other than Tom, had taken her temper out on him when he tried to help her and Seven coming to some kind of working agreement. And she belittled him in front of Seven, and told her he loved her.
It was true, he knew, although he hadn't really thought of it that way before. He knew he liked Seven, and wanted to romance her, but he hadn't thought of it as love. Love, real romantic love was something he had only felt for Libby. He didn't any more, and though he was saddened somewhat when the message from his parents via the array had mentioned Libby's new engagement, he wasn't crushed. He was actually relieved, glad that Libby had moved on with her life. He didn't want the woman he once loved, was once his fiancee, to live her life waiting for him to come back to her, when there was not much chance that would happen before he was an old man. He didn't want her to use him as a reason not to try and be happy.
Now, however, Harry thought about it. 'Of course I'm in love with Seven', he realized. He loved spending time with her, and was always finding new excuses to do so, although he had to do considerably less work to enjoy her company now that they were regular dinner companions in the mess hall. He wanted to protect her, to keep her out of harm's way. That was impossible on Voyager, and it ate away at his insides like acid sometimes, but he still wanted to keep her safe. He knew he would die to protect her. He also thought one of the ways he had to protect her was to not let her know his feelings for her. She was too new to humanity, too new to her emotions, for any kind of revelation on his part to be easy for her. She needed time to adjust to her new life, and she needed a helping hand along the way. She
needed a friend, the kind of friend Harry knew he could be. He hoped one day that she would let him be the lover, the companion, and the soulmate that Harry also knew he could be, but not yet. He loved her, and for her sake, she couldn't know that. Not yet.
The Voyager rumour mill, however, had loudly claimed for a year that he was madly in love with Seven. Harry was quite aware of this, and the looks he got from his crewmates whenever he was with Seven made him completely uncomfortable. He had hoped that Seven was too unfamiliar with human interactions to pick up on that, but the rational side of Harry's mind told him, 'yeah, right, Harry. Her Borg-enhanced senses can detect your pupils dilating. They'd be able to notice the snickers of your crewmates'. But he could comfort himself with the belief that the rumour mill probably didn't reach Seven, and she might be unaware.
But B'Elanna changed all that.
Of course, Harry realized, she was right. The chances of Seven having any affection at all for him, other than as a comforting 'predictable' crewmate, were infinitesimally small. 'Of course, if I ask, Seven could tell me just how small those chance are, and to what astronomical degree it was irrelevant' he thought bitterly. At least they had been friends, even if he never actually told her he considered her a friend. And now...
Now she knew how he felt. Now she would consider him a burden. Now she would never let him close to her.
As Harry's mind raced through his deepest fears, another part of him, the part that lived in hope he would return home sooner than later, the part that smiled at everyone he met, the part that befriended the outcasts, told him a different story. 'She cares about you, Harry. She tried to defend you to B'Elanna. You are the only one she's ever smiled at.'
Harry's hope, however, was drowned in his mind by the ongoing torrent of his fear. The woman he loved was going to hate him. She told B'Elanna about the night in the mess hall. It would be all over the ship in the morning, and then -
** Torres to Kim ** B'Elanna the intercom, interrupting his stream of consciousness. Harry ignored it. He didn't want to deal with B'Elanna at the moment. Not after what she had done.
** Torres to Kim ** she repeated after a few minutes.
Continuing to ignore her, Harry went to his dresser, took his clarinet and began to play, continuing to pace all the while, as therapy for his troubled soul. Making music had always calmed him down, and he felt like he needed calm more than eve before at this moment.
B'Elanna, however, was persistent. Her voice came over the intercom again. ** Harry, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to blurt out... what I said to Seven. I was just so angry I couldn't control it. I know you probably need to cool off, but please talk to me. Torres out. **
Harry was taken slightly aback. B'Elanna was rarely apologetic, and this was one of those moments. He was considering hailing her, but then he remembered what she said. What she told Seven. He went back to his music.
About half an hour later, he was hailed again. ** Seven of Nine to Ensign Kim **. He couldn't talk to Seven. He just couldn't. She hailed him again, but he ignored her just like he ignored B'Elanna.
Five minutes after that, his doorbell rang. The voice he longed to and dreaded hearing spoke to him through the door. "Ensign Kim, please open the door. You did not meet me in the mess hall like you said you would."
Realizing Seven could easily override the privacy lock on his door and march in, he walked over to it and shouted, "Leave me alone, Seven."
Her Borg focus carried her on. Her voice, however, was sounded less confident than it usually did. "You are behaving irrationally, Ensign. Perhaps-"
Harry cut her off. "I don't want to talk, Seven. Please go away." He expected to her to march right inside anyway, but he heard boots walking away from his door, instead.
He hated himself for treating her this way, but he knew he couldn't deal with her at the moment. He couldn't let her in and hear her destroy his hopes and dreams by telling him she didn't feel anything for him. He knew those hopes were ruined, but he didn't want to hear it. Not yet.
He stayed up playing his clarinet for a long time trying to work out his pain. Ensign Baytart's occasional poundings on the wall were studiously ignored.
Seven of Nine contemplated many things facets of her existence in Cargo Bay two that evening. She contemplated her friction with Lieutenant Torres. She contemplated how to further improve the efficiency of the Astrometrics sensors. She contemplated the collapsed Hirogen communications array and what it meant for Voyager. She looked at the alcove One had regenerated in and contemplated her lost 'son'. She contemplated the Doctor's latest efforts to improve her social skills.
Most of all, she contemplated Ensign Kim. She contemplated his refusal to speak with her, and the events that caused it. She contemplated Lieutenant Torres' claim that he loved her. She contemplated how he was the only crewmember who made her smile. She contemplated the possibility that he would avoid her in the future.
As she regenerated in her alcove, her face did not bear the expression of an efficient Borg drone, confident that all problems could be overcome with efficiency and that order could be brought to the universe. It bore the expression of a troubled young woman, wracked with fear at what she might lose.