Missing
Dedication: This story was written for Aunt Kathy for Christmas
The second shift was already long over when Seven performed a final check on the sensors, before shutting down her work station. Then she left her console in the Astrometrics Lab and went out into the quiet and empty corridor. Although it was late, instead of going straight to her regeneration unit in Cargo Bay 2, she went to the observation deck to stare out at the small red planet that filled the viewport.
She could see the large northern continent now lay in darkness as did the capitol city and presumably the captain too, who was down on the surface conducting a trade mission. Suddenly Seven imagined the captain was standing on a balcony instead of lying in bed sleeping and that she was looking up into the night sky at Voyager, and she was wondering if Seven was asleep or if she too might be looking down from the observation deck at the planet beneath her. The thought made Seven feel slightly dizzy. Why would she imagine such a thing and why did it make her heart squeeze in such an odd way? It was a sensation that was both poignant and at the same time strangely pleasurable. What did it mean?
Seven thought the problem over and decided the answer probably couldn't be found in any of the scientific studies in her Borg database but maybe it lay in human literature, which the Doctor always said contained a host of invaluable insight into human behavior. The problem was that she had only ever read A Christmas Carol. It was a story, recommended by the Doctor himself, which had put her off any further reading of literary works. Seven could understand why a writer might want to portray a character like Ebenezer Scrooge as he changed from lonely and cold-hearted to sociable and warm-hearted. This was a process she approved of and it mirrored her own journey. But why at the same time did Scrooge have to go from being a rational and logical person to being an absurd and cloyingly sentimental one? It made no sense: it spoilt the purity of the smooth arc of character development and muddied it up completely. And why on earth would he start making ridiculous sounds like, 'Whoop! Whoop!'?
That night whilst regenerating Seven had a strange dream that she was flying across endless wheat fields towards a white farmhouse. There she saw a young girl going out the back door and climbing a ladder to a small viewing platform on the roof where a telescope was mounted. The girl adjusted the telescope and began to look through it whilst making meticulous notes in a small exercise book. After an hour of adjustments to the telescope, observations and making notes, the girl tucked away the exercise book and simply lay back on an old deck chair and stared up at the stars in the sky in quiet contemplation. Then she climbed back down the ladder and went back into the house.
Once the child had gone inside, Seven took a closer look at the cover of the exercise book. On the front was written the name 'Captin Kathryn Janeway' and there were stars and comets and a childish version of the Starfleet logo drawn around it. Underneath, copied in careful handwriting there was the following quotation from Leonardo Da Vinci, 'Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to firm resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.' Seven bent down to look through the telescope and saw it was aimed at the large blue supergiant, Alnilam, the brightest star on Orion's belt, and destined one day to outshine even Betelgeuse. When Seven stood up, she had a fond smile on her face as she considered the determination and focus of the young Kathryn Janeway.
Then the scene faded in front of Seven's dreaming eyes and now she seemed to be in the present and in the captain's private quarters, though not on Voyager, but down on the red planet. The captain herself was seated in a chair overlooking a stone balcony with a blanket resting on her lap and she was holding in her hand an old book of poetry and prose. It was slowly slipping from her hands as the captain was beginning to fall asleep, and Seven reached out to catch the book before it clattered onto the floor and woke her captain up. As she caught the book, Seven's fingers brushed the captain's hand and at that moment the captain's eyes suddenly flew open and it seemed for a second that she actually could see Seven before her as though in a vision. Seven saw the same strange combination of yearning and happiness that Seven was experiencing mirrored on her captain's face. Then the captain began to rub her eyes and turned away. Seven watched her take a pencil tucked into the pages of the book and lightly underline a couple of lines. Seven leaned over her shoulder to see what they were and read,
'After this wild dream, I seemed to be sitting in a certain place deep in thought, when I felt a tremor begin in my heart, as if I were in the presence of my lady.'
And then Seven watched Captain Janeway stand up and close the book, and sigh as she left it on the table. When she was gone, Seven read the title of the book, La Vita Nuova. Seven turned and watched the captain leave the room and it seemed that the possibilities of a new life for the two of them rose before her eyes, and as it did so, Seven started to understand why she felt such intense sensations, both pleasurable and yearning. She tried to pick the book up to turn to the next page but discovered that she was already fading from the scene.
Now Seven found herself in a darkened and hushed Sick Bay. The captain was sitting with her head bent over a shrouded figure on the biobed and as Seven looked at the hidden figure she felt a slow sense of horror and dread come over her, and she felt a reluctance to look closer. However, when the captain finally stood up to leave, she pulled back the cover over the figure's face and Seven watched with a horrid fascination as the captain placed a final kiss on the cold forehead of Seven's own corpse.
"Goodbye, Seven," Janeway whispered. "I am sorry I never told you how much you meant to me, and now I never will." And the captain began to cry quietly as she covered the face of her lost friend and reluctantly turned away her own pale and grieving face. Seven's heart grew heavy as she saw the slow and unsteady gait of the captain as she left the room, such a far cry from her usual energetic movements and vigorous step. With Seven's own death, all hope was lost for both of them forever. Seven's vision of the room grew darker and darker until she seemed to be falling endlessly into a bottomless pit.
Seven awoke with a start. Her regeneration cycle was complete, and as she stepped down from the regeneration unit she felt a sense of grateful relief for the gift of her own existence, and all the choices and possibilities that it offered her. All these choices and actions seemed to stretch enticingly ahead of her and she saw them branching endlessly before her, affecting, amplifying and cancelling the choices of Captain Janeway as they impacted on each other, and this new-found perception of her own unique place in the network of social contacts seemed a source of boundless joy, and something that should not be forgotten or taken for granted. And suddenly Seven knew what she had to do, and she sprang down from the regeneration unit and rushed out of the Cargo Bay. If she hurried she would just be in time.
When Captain Janeway materialized in the Transporter Room, she was feeling very tired after the long rounds of trade negotiations down on the red planet. As she looked up, she was both surprised and pleased to see that Seven of Nine was waiting for her. She was even more surprised when Seven stepped forward to offer her arms held wide, and as Captain Janeway stepped into them, she felt herself taken into a tight, if slightly awkward, welcoming embrace. She then felt Seven's breath, close and warm upon her ear, and heard her whisper, "I've discovered that I have missed you during your absence, Captain."
And the captain hugged Seven even tighter if that were possible and whispered back, "I've been missing you too, Seven."
And as the two women left the Transporter Room together, Seven was experiencing a strangely giddy feeling, and inside her head she could hear an exultant, joyful cry of "Whoop! Whoop!"