Wednesday In A Cafe
By Laura Schiller
Based on Star Trek: Voyager
Copyright: Paramount
"I've been spending the last eight months
thinking all love ever does
is break and burn and end,
but on a Wednesday, in a café,
I watched it begin again."
- Taylor Swift, "Begin Again"
She had known he would be punctual; it was something they had always had in common. What she hadn't expected was for him to already be there, sitting in a booth at the very front of the café, nursing – of all things – a half-full glass of green kiwi smoothie. Waiting for her.
As soon as he saw her walking through the door, he stood up, beaming all over his face, and waved to her in a sweeping, theatrical gesture that turned several patrons' heads. She smiled. She had forgotten how demonstrative the Doctor could be. After months of struggling to guess the thoughts behind Chakotay's stoic features, it was refreshing to know at a glance that someone was happy to see her.
"Since when are you capable of ingesting nutrients?" she asked, curiosity overriding the manners the Doctor had taught her.
"Since about a month ago. Reg and Dr. Z made an addition to my program." He took a sip, closed his eyes, and hummed in delight. "Quite ingenious. It's good to see you."
"Likewise, Doctor," she replied as she sat down opposite him, with a warmth that surprised them both.
"So how are you, Professor Seven?" he asked, using the latest nickname he had come up with ever since she had told him about her new teaching post at Starfleet Academy.
"Busy."
"I can see that," eyeing the full messenger bag she had brought in with her, which now sat in the seat next to her, almost overflowing with padds. "But how are you?" he added, with a certain softness in his hazel eyes that had nothing to do with catching up to an old friend. Just like that, her contentment began to evaporate. She looked down at her cybernetic left hand, which had involuntarily curled into a fist in her lap.
"I take it you have been well informed," she told him wryly.
"Of Commander Chakotay's side of it, certainly," he said. "But not yours."
The only sounds between them were the generic piano music from the café's speakers, the low voices of their fellow customers, and the ice chips in the Doctor's glass as he stirred them with his straw. Seven found it difficult to begin. A plump Bolian waitress bought her some time by asking for her order – "a glass of mineral water will suffice, thank you" – but by the time the other woman had finished stealing glances at her Borg implants, not to mention her bodysuit, telling the story seemed at least possible, if not pleasant.
"As you can see," Seven began, "I have reverted to my former appearance."
"Yes." The Doctor frowned into his smoothie. "I've been wondering about that. No offense, but the open hair and human clothes … they suited you."
"They were too loose," she replied. "After a lifetime of cybernetic armor, they made me feel … unsupported."
"Ah."
"I only wore them to please the Commander."
The Doctor's expressive eyebrows rose to an extraordinary height of disbelief. "He didn't - "
"He did not attempt to control my fashion choices," she assured him, with a touch of amusement at the thought of gallant, respectful Chakotay ever doing that to a woman. "However, I could clearly perceive that he preferred to see me … human."
She thought of the pained look in Chakotay's eyes sometimes when she used the word 'irrelevant', made a mention of the Collective, made a joke he could not understand, or said something unintentionally offensive. He'd had a way of touching her left hand with intense caution, as if her assimilation tubules might erupt at any second. She might have known that the man who had tried to throw her out an airlock when she was a drone, helped to sever her from the Collective, and kept a polite distance from her for four years, would react this way. She hadn't expected it to hurt so much.
Something inside her ached; her mind, no doubt, assigning physical properties to an emotional injury. She refused to think of it as a broken heart.
"Wasn't that," the Doctor asked, watching her with deep compassion, "Why you chose to date him in the first place? As your final step to becoming an individual?"
"Yes." She blushed with the absurdity of the idea, which had seemed to logical at the time. "I believed … that if I could convince the Commander to accept me, even feel attracted to me, despite his obvious aversion to the Borg … my social development would be complete."
"An interesting theory." A strange, crooked smile came across the Doctor's face. "Am I to infer that his boxer's physique and mysterious tattoo had nothing to do with your choice?"
Seven had to smile back; if not for long years of habitual suppression, she would have laughed out loud.
"He is certainly attractive," she admitted ruefully, "However, I have learned that there are better qualities to search for in a prospective mate."
"Such as?" the Doctor inquired, tilting his head.
Seven hesitated. Something about the way he looked at her – hopefully? cautiously? – reminded her of that day, almost a year ago now, when he had declared his love for her in front of the entire senior staff in fear of decompilation. The memory flustered her, scattering her thoughts like fireworks across the sky. Was he expecting her to name his own qualities? And how would it be relevant if he did?
"Here you are, ma'am," said the waitress, briskly setting down a tall glass of iced, sparkling water. Seven's cheeks were so hot that she was tempted to hold the glass against her face; instead she drank deeply, letting her companion thank the waitress, who bustled away with more than professional speed.
"Well, that looks refreshing," the Doctor commented. "Care to try mine?"
He pushed his smoothie across the table and gestured invitingly. Seven dipped her own straw into the thick green mixture and sipped. Sour sweetness exploded on her tongue.
"Delicious, isn't it?" said the Doctor, grinning at the astonishment on her face.
Her expression, however, was not due to the taste of the drink.
A quiet café in an out-of-the-way corner of San Francisco, chosen especially to avoid the gossip columnists, with faded red cushions on the booths and yellowed white plastic on the tables, with a nervous waitress eyeing you from across the room, was hardly the expected place to have an epiphany. And yet, inspired by a taste, a word, a gesture, she hardly knew what, Seven of Nine was experiencing just that.
Care to try mine? he had asked her. He had been asking her that from the moment she first woke up in Sickbay, and it had taken her this long to understand.
Would you care to try my life, my ethics, my society? Would you like to wear clothes and hair instead of cybernetic armor, learn to think your own thoughts as well as the Collective's, learn to adapt to a community of individuals? Would you care to read Charles Dickens, sing a duet, go to a party? Would you consider taking the chance to love someone, even if that someone isn't me? You don't have to if you don't want to, but who knows? It might make you happy.
Captain (now Admiral) Janeway, even with the best of intentions, had forced her to change; assimilated her as surely, if not as swiftly, as the Borg had done to six-year-old Annika Hansen. It was a change for the better, and Seven was grateful. However, she knew better than anyone that Janeway's quest to undo what the Collective had done was futile. She could never be completely human, anymore than she could endure the prospect of returning to the Borg. She was both, and the Doctor understood this. If anyone knew what it meant to expand one's boundaries while still remaining true to one's original self, it was the hologram sitting opposite her.
"Are you all right, Seven?" he asked, feeling in his civilian shirt pocket for a medical tricorder that was not there. "You look … absent."
She could only imagine how blank her face must have appeared. She took another cold drink of water, but it failed to cool her down; she could hear her own heart pounding in her ears.
"I have been reflecting," she said. "On the qualities I would wish for in a romantic relationship."
"And they are … ?"
He was giving her that look again. She glanced down at the shiny yellowed table, tracing a hairline crack running through it, then at the beads of condensation on her glass.
"Compatible interests," she said quietly. "Common goals … mutual acceptance. My liaison with Commander Chakotay failed on all counts."
His spirituality confused her; she had not, and still could not, perceive any connection between the perfection of Omega and his practice of holding conversations with imaginary animals. His woodcarving hobby struck her as inefficient, not to mention untidy, leaving chips all over the floor. He did not care for music except as pleasant background noise, a particularly awkward revelation, given that his holographic counterpart had been so fascinated by her playing. His goal was to help rebuild his homeworld, a technologically regressive society in which a former Borg drone could not function even if she wanted to. And, worst of all, he was afraid of her. He hid it well, out of kindness and affection for her human side, but he was.
The Doctor had never been afraid of any part of her. Her anger, pride and stubbornness were equal to his; her body, after so many surgeries, was as familiar to him as his own program. Her nanoprobes had helped him to save lives.
"Seven," he told her now, "I've told you before … just because you didn't achieve perfection your first time out, that doesn't mean you can't try again."
She swallowed hard. Despite the mineral water, her mouth was dry as the Vulcan Forge.
"That," she said, "Is why I am here."
The Doctor's eyes widened. With her ocular implant, she could pick out the traces of green and gold among the brown from across the table. Then he lowered his eyelids, frowned, and pressed his lips into a tight line. It was as if a star had collapsed.
"If you're about to seek my guidance as a mentor, I'm afraid I must refuse," he said.
"State your reasons." She gripped her glass tightly, afraid it would fall from her hands. Had his feelings changed? Didn't he care for her anymore, except as a patient and former colleague?
Every line of his face, when he finally looked up at her, was carved with pain. "You know perfectly well what my reason is," he said, his melodious voice gone flat as the bubbles in her water. "Don't … don't play with me, Seven. Don't be manipulative. You're better than that."
"I am not playing with you, Doctor," she snapped, the tension in the air exploding at last. This situation was intolerable. Was this how he had felt, during all these years when she was oblivious to his true feelings? "I am asking you out on a date!"
Her raised voice fell directly into a pause between songs in the café's sound system. The Bolian waitress let out a shrill giggle behind her hand, then blushed indigo when Seven shot her a silencing glare.
The look spreading across the Doctor's face was to an ordinary smile what Sol was to a candle. He glowed. If ever she had wanted proof that he was made of light, she saw it now.
"I apologize," she continued, slightly breathless, "For not understanding your feelings earlier, let alone my own. The first time we sang together, the night you taught me how to dance – I should have known it then, but I was blinded by my own preconceptions. I believed that … love," she faltered at the word, which she had never said out loud even to Chakotay, "and friendship were mutually exclusive. I was wrong."
"So was I," admitted the Doctor, still glowing, more pleased to admit he was wrong than she had ever seen him before. "I should have had the nerve to confess earlier. All that confidence Dr. Z installed in me, and one look at you makes it fly out the airlock."
"That is not my intention."
"I know." He laughed. "Still. And seeing those humiliating daydreams of mine on the holodeck probably didn't help my case."
"I would not be averse to posing for you anymore," she said, not even realizing how suggestive that sounded, until the Doctor's face flushed to a very realistic shade of rose.
"I – ahem. I'm looking forward to it. Whenever you're ready."
"My last class at the Academy ends at nineteen hundred hours."
"It's a date."
Feeling very brave, very shy, and immeasurably happy, she placed her cybernetic hand palm-up on the table. Without hesitation, he entwined his warm photonic hand with hers.
Several patrons were smiling; at least one couple followed their example. Even the Bolian had to wipe her eyes on a corner of her apron. Seven did not notice, and would not have cared if she had.
After eight months of watching her first love slowly diminish into awkward, guilty friendship; of needing to be drawn out of her empty apartment by Admiral Janeway's motherly advice, Tuvok's logic and Icheb's wide-eyed anxiety; of missing Voyager, being scanned and interrogated by Starfleet Headquarters, and feeling out of place wherever she went … after eight months of endings, she was finally ready to begin again.