"Hi." She said weakly.

"Hi there." He sobbed.

Kathryn Janeway tried to wordlessly slip away, but Seven caught her hand and held it. "Captain, please stay."

Janeway paused, looking from the bleeding Seven of Nine to the crying Chakotay. "I'd be honoured," she said quietly and held an unresponsive hand of Seven's. "I can't feel my fingers..." Seven commented, "but I feel less cold. How... peculiar." She breathed a one-syllable laugh and then arched her back, wrenched her limbs and moaned. "It's... hurting me!"

Chakotay sobbed loudly, and Kathryn, not Captain Janeway, the captain of the star ship Voyager, felt hot, salty tears well, but she stared at the ceiling until she felt that she wasn't in danger of crying again. She looked back down at Seven, at the gaping hole in her abdomen, the blood pooling around her hips on the floor, the torn, shredded pieces of pink, fleshy intestines that she could see all the way through to the cold, metallic ground. Her tears came rushing back, but Kathryn held her breath until she stopped.

"Please, don't stop... talking. I wish to hear... you both... talking... here..."

"Seven, save your strength," Chakotay begged, but Seven shook her head. "Talk, please."

"The doctor is on the way," Kathryn said but she barely heard herself.

"Good... I wish... to hear the... the... him speak."

"Shh," Chakotay whispered. "Please, be alright, Seven." He brushed blood spattered blonde hair out of her face.
"Let my... down... it." Seven breathed, and Chakotay stared at her. "What?" he asked, the word getting stuck on the oesophagus, the tongue, the teeth and it came out mangled, desperate and high pitched. When he got no answer, he was so desperate to please her, so afraid she was dying that he grabbed her shoulders tighter, bent down closer and screamed; "What? What, what, what?"

"Chakotay," Kathryn whispered and took the clasps out of Seven's hair so that it hung loose. Seven smiled her gratitude, as she was too weak to do anything else.

"Today I listened to a letter that came with the Starfleet transmission," Kathryn said quietly. "They gave Icheb the rank of Junior Ensign. He's an ensign, Seven." She whispered and Seven let her eyes divert to Kathryn's pallid, cold, terrified face. "Icheb...?"

"Yes. We were going to have his party in two days' time. I was going to tell you on the planet before we were attacked. You'll come to the party, right?" Her voice broke at the end, but she used every inch of her captain's resolve to not cry.

"Yes..." Seven whispered. "I will at... attend."

"And let's not forget that I promised to show you how to use makeup. That'll be fun, huh?"
"I know how to... apply make up. I... just want to... do it with... my friend..." Seven breathed heavily between words, heaved her chest high, desperate for breath, but found none. "Chakot... Chakotay."

"Yes?" He asked and wiped splatters of a scarlet red blood off of her face and smiled.

"I lo... love... iloveyou. You." She said and stared hazily at him and he kissed her softly. "I love you too, Seven. Please, please," he lowered his forehead to her lips. "Don't go." He raised his head again, and looked to Kathryn.

"I love you too... captain... loo... look after Icheb... and Chakotay... and the Doctor... and, and, and..."

She lolled her head to look at Kathryn and smiled a smile that pierced Kathryn as much as any phaser, phaser rifle or torpedo. It shattered her with its purity, drew her breath with its perfection and choked her with its deadness.

Chakotay stared at Seven and shook his head. "No, no, no, nononononono!" he repeated over and over as her patted her cheek and shook her shoulders, even tried kissing her as hard as he could. Kathryn just felt this terrible ball of nothingness in her lungs, and stared at the dead thing. That surely couldn't be Seven. Not her Seven. Not the little Annika Hansen who was assimilated. Not the Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Uni-Matrix Zero One. Not the young woman who got married just six months ago, who wanted four children, who wanted to explore her creativity in clothes designing, as of late, and wanted to learn to use make-up.

But she didn't.

And then the nothingness turned to terror and anger.

She was kneeling in an inch of Seven's blood. Her hands were stained scarlet, she survived, her face was stained with tears, but she survived.

Seven wanted to learn how to be a balanced individual, but Kathryn survived. Seven never got a chance, but Kathryn survived.

Why did you survive? She asked herself.

Why didn't you die?

Why didn't you stop this from happening?

Why?

Why?

Why?
Why?

WHY?!

"Why." Kathryn said quietly, but it wasn't a question. She could hear her own pulse, each one asking why. She could feel her uniform on over her, but even her uniform seemed distant.

Then Chakotay howled a loud, long cry and buried his face in Seven's neck.

The Doctor came in, and cried out, before rushing to Seven's side, but it didn't matter but Kathryn couldn't hear a sound. She barely registered the Doctor. Seven was dead.

But surely this woman was an impostor, and the real Seven of Nine was in astrometrics, making star charts, she thought in between the Doctors screams.

Seven would raise her eyebrows at them and call them impulsive and naive for crying over this impostor's body. Yes. That's what's going on.

That was much easier to believe.

But if that was the case, and Seven was fine, why couldn't she leave this body's side? She tried to stand, but she couldn't. She couldn't even take her eyes off of the Doctor or Chakotay as they both tried to revive the impostor. Someone should inform them that it wasn't really Seven. But it wasn't going to be her. Her heart and her brain and her lungs were too far away from her mouth. She couldn't breathe, let alone articulate a sentence.

"Seven," the Doctor moaned softly and hugged his best friend.

Kathryn looked down at the blood and sighed.

Why?

Seven was dead.
Why?

Seven wasn't dead.

Why?

That's not Seven.

Why?

Breathe in.

Why?

Breathe out.

Why?

I don't want to be here.

Why?

I don't want this.

Why?

I want to be dead.

Kathryn Janeway stood up and looked around the transporter room. The blood would easily come off of the floor and be washed away, but she thought with numbness, it would never come off of her hands. Seven's blood would be on her hands until the day she died.

She walked outside and to the bridge. People gasped when they saw her, but she could barely see them. None of them mattered. Seven was dead.

"Captain." Tuvok said. Kathryn looked behind her, and saw that her blood-covered uniform had dripped and splashed a trail of blood behind her wherever she went.

"Are you alright, Captain?" He asked.

"No." She said in her head. Outside she looked at him stoically and said; "Of course. Now lock in a course for the Alpha Quadrant." She sat in her seat and stared at the screen numbly.

Tom Paris looked back at her and did it, but he didn't even say 'yes ma'am'.

They knew what had happened.

They knew Seven was dead.