Outlet
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Star Trek: Voyager
Copyright: Paramount
Seven of Nine sat in the mess hall, picking listlessly at her vegetable casserole. The trading mission that had spared Commander Chakotay, Ensign Kim and Mr. Neelix from the Quarrans had resulted in a generous supply of good food (except the falah nectar), but she had little appetite tonight.
Conversation flowed around her, but she had no part in it. Lieutenants Paris and Torres, who had fallen in love all over again on Quarra, were arguing happily about babysitting schedules for their unborn daughter. Kim daydreamed silently over his plate of noodles. None of her other friends were in evidence tonight; at the end of the shift, they had all scattered to their respective quarters.
Chakotay, who had stopped by Astrometrics earlier to pick up her report, had been very kind to her, complimenting the clarity of her upgraded sensors and smiling at the beauty of a nearby nebula. But they'd never been on off-duty terms, and she had no idea – in spite of all the Doctor's lessons - how to change that.
(Meeting him as a co-worker on Quarra, with no history to color her judgment, had been a shock. The man was terribly attractive. She had no idea what to do with that awareness, other than hope it went away. But in the meantime, she could use an efficiency monitor of her own, because she couldn't even think straight when Chakotay was in the room.)
Icheb, who could normally be relied upon to talk to Seven, was having dinner in Cargo Bay Two, pushing himself to catch up on his missed Starfleet Academy lessons. Seven's other protégée, Naomi Wildman, was with her mother. After their ordeal, Ensign Wildman was understandably anxious to keep her daughter close.
Seven wondered if they would ever return to the camaraderie she remembered, or if those memories had been exaggerated by wishful thinking in the first place. She felt like she was trapped behind a force field of polite indifference. There had to be some way to break it.
She ploughed through her meal and stood up at the same time everyone else did. She gathered her courage and faced the newlyweds.
"Will you be visiting the Fair Haven program tonight, Lieutenants? May I invite you to a game of ring toss?"
"Sorry, Seven." Paris tucked his arm around his wife's expanding waistline. "It's date night. In our quarters."
"And don't even think about eavesdropping," said Torres, with a half-joking punch of her right fist into her left palm.
"Rest assured, I have no such intention."
They moved off, his arm still around hers.
"Ensign?" Seven didn't normally invite Kim to anything, not caring to give him the wrong idea, but he was better than nothing.
"Oh!" Kim gave her a sheepish smile. "Normally I'd love to … but you see, I've sort of got a date too."
"With whom?"
Kim glanced over his shoulder at his retreating friends and lowered his voice. "Maggie O'Halloran. The flower seller from Fair Haven. Don't tell Tom, please. He'd never let me hear the end of it."
"Intimacy with a non-sentient hologram seems like a futile exercise, but you are entitled to spend your free time however you see fit."
Kim blushed to the tips of his ears and balled up his fists at his sides. "It was a long couple of months with the Nar Sheddan, okay? I just need some kind of outlet. Don't judge me."
"My apologies, I did not mean - " But he marched off before she could finish her sentence.
She recycled her tray and headed out. Neelix nodded to her in passing, but he had his hands full with Crewman Tal Celes, who was slumped over the galley counter and crying into a glass of Nar Sheddan fruit juice. The last thing they needed right now was for Tal's most dreaded supervisor to interrupt.
The lights in the corridor had dimmed in accordance with ship's night. The omnipresent steel gray walls reminded her more of the Central Power Facility on Quarra than she cared to admit. So did her sense of being an intruder in everyone else's lives, rather than a participant.
She considered going to see the Doctor, but that was a bad idea. Important as he was to her, lately he had been getting on her last nerve. She knew he cared about her, but did his way of showing it have to be so medical? And if he wasn't buzzing around her with a tricorder or locking her in under a diagnostic arch for more brain scans, he was brooding about how dull medicine seemed after his first taste of command. She had no patience with him. If she were him, she would turn into Father Mulligan and literally pray that nothing disastrous enough to require the ECH would happen again.
"Seven to the Captain." If anyone would understand, it was the woman who had helped her crack the Quarran conspiracy in the first place.
"Janeway here, what's the matter?" The Captain's smoky voice sounded rougher than ever with fatigue.
"Are you available to read one of your classic novels out loud? Or … or to talk?"
"Not tonight, Seven, sorry." A sigh came over the comm signal. "I'm going to turn in early. Some other time, okay?"
"When?"
"Good night, Seven. Janeway out."
Turn in early? No one with such shadows under her eyes as the Captain's turned in early. And Seven was sure she'd heard the clink of a replicated coffee thermos.
The Captain missed Jaffen. That much was obvious. The bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked woman planning to move in with her lover had been a different creature from the one who now sat in the captain's chair. But how could she have left him? She wasn't like Seven. Kathryn Janeway was a healthy, normal woman who knew how to navigate a relationship. Throwing her chance away was utterly illogical.
Logic. That was what Seven needed. But was her usual source in any state to provide it?
"Seven to Tuvok."
No response.
Lieutenant Commander Tuvok was on leave for his mental health. Seven hadn't seen him for three days and neither had anyone else, except perhaps whoever was counseling him. (She hoped it was Chakotay.) The Quarrans' method of breaking down his emotional control to make him fit in with the other workers had backfired, leaving him prey to dangerous mood swings. But surely he would not object to a visitor as quiet and unobtrusive as she was?
She stopped by the door to his quarters. No light was coming through the cracks, even though it was much too early for someone with a Vulcan sleep cycle to be in bed already. That was a bad sign. He always dimmed the lights in his quarters when he was upset.
She pressed the button. The door chimed.
"Ponfo mirann!" A curse and a clatter sounded inside, as if some structure had tumbled down.
The door hissed open to reveal a wild-eyed, unshaven figure whose blue robe billowed around him. His commbadge was off, which explained why he hadn't answered. Vulcan kithira blocks were scattered all over the floor behind him. The thick smells of incense, candle smoke and stale sweat rolled out into the hall, making Seven's eyes water. How did the environmental systems filter all of that?
"I almost had it!" Tuvok clapped one hand over his eyes to shield them from the light and gestured at the scattered blocks with the other. "You made me knock it over. Now I have to build it all over again. It is vital that I rebuild it, don't you understand? How many times must I tell people not to interrupt me?"
"I – I only came to help you. Perhaps if we … " She knelt down to pick up one of the blocks, which had rolled all the way through the doorframe.
"NO!"
She jumped, dropping the block, and stumbled back to her feet.
"Forgive me, Seven-kam." He caught her by the shoulders and squinted at her with bloodshot, watery eyes. "I am not safe company for anyone right now, don't you see? Least of all you, after what I did."
He was speaking his native language, something he never did on Starfleet duty. The suffix -kam was what a parent or close mentor would use to address a child or student. But a Vulcan daughter might at least know what to do.
"If you are referring to your mind-meld with me on Quarra, I don't blame you. You needed help. Please, Tuvok, let me … " She would sit with him building pyramids for hours if he asked her. She would even let him mind-meld with her again, as he'd done to save her from the Borg vinculum, if only he wouldn't shut her out.
"There is nothing you can do. I must finish this alone."
He spoke gently, but pushed her backward with such force that he could retreat behind the closing doors before even her Borg reflexes could react.
She called the turbolift with a hand almost as unsteady as his. Her shoulders ached where his fingers had gripped her; there would be bruises later. She had a dermal regenerator in the cargo bay for those. If only other kinds of hurt were so simple to deal with.
When she'd first come back from Quarra and recovered her memories, she had just been grateful to discover that she belonged somewhere besides the power plant. But did she really belong on Voyager? The more she thought about it, the more she remembered how she had always been out of step with her shipmates. When they threw a party, she stood in the corner. When they got excited about a step closer to Earth, she became anxious. When she warned them of a dangerous anomaly, they dived right in. And when they went to heroic extremes against the Borg, she was usually the cause of the conflict.
They had always been there to stop her when she did wrong, to advise her when she was confused, to comfort her when she was unhappy. But clearly they didn't want her to do the same for them. They trusted her with their lives, but not their souls. She was too Borg for that.
Yes, she was Borg. Her own reflection in the metal walls of the turbolift filled her with such disgust that it nearly choked her. If she could have torn her implants out with her bare hands, she would have done it. If not for them, she would have a place here.
Ironically enough, the only place she could remember feeling perfectly at home was the Borg construct of Unimatrix Zero. But she had been human there. Axum had always called her Annika, even before they became lovers.
She must not think of Axum now, of all times and places. Remembering a five-year intimate relationship over the course of a few days, while knowing he was trapped in a Borg cube on the other side of the galaxy, had wreaked havoc with her hormone levels. Even the Doctor's tricorder, to her chagrin, had picked that up. She still woke up from her regeneration cycle sometimes craving to be touched.
Worst of all, it wasn't even Axum she dreamed about. At least that would make sense. It was someone else's eyes she wanted to look into, someone else's arms she wanted to hold her, someone …
"Evening, Seven," said Chakotay, entering the turbolift with his usual polite nod. "Deck Ten."
Her pulse sped up. Thank goodness that Borg neural link between them hadn't been permanent, so he couldn't hear her thoughts. "Good evening, Commander."
Deck Ten was where she had just come from. The thought of making him take a roundabout detour to his destination via Cargo Bay Two made her even more uneasy.
"Are you okay? You seem a bit flushed."
"I … I was visiting Commander Tuvok. Attempting to, at least." That much was true. "He keeps his quarters set to Vulcan environmental standards."
"Ah." Chakotay looked down at the small leather bundle and metal box he was carrying. His medicine bundle and akoonah. "How's he holding up?"
So she had guessed correctly. He was looking after Tuvok, or planning to do it. That lifted one of her worries at least.
"His memories seem to be intact, but he is still volatile. He pushed me out the door, saying it was for my own protection. He said he is 'not safe company' while his emotions remain unchecked."
"Then he can't be very safe company for himself either." The former Maquis captain's forehead creased into deep lines of worry as if, like Seven, he understood that all too well. "He's had three days. Even for a Vulcan, that's a lot of time alone. If he won't talk to me, maybe he'll open up to another telepath. They'll have insight the rest of us don't."
"He is a mentor to Ensign Vorik, is he not?" Seven knew and respected him from working together in Engineering. He was an efficient officer, very patient in coping with Chief Torres. He could also be bluntly honest to the point of irritating his human teammates, but sometimes such honesty was needful.
"Vorik? Hmm." The frown lines smoothed a little. "He has matured a lot over the past years. And Tuvok's been training him in telepathic healing, so what better way to put that training to use?"
"You could ask him."
"I will." Chakotay shifted his hold on the ritual objects so he could pat her on the arm. "Tuvok's lucky to have you in his corner, Seven. Try not to worry more than you can help."
That boxing metaphor was so typical. She liked it. There were so many things about him she found to like: the fact that he said try instead of don't worry … the way he avoided unsubstantiated claims like everything's going to be fine … the natural, unobtrusive ways he found to touch her … Of course there was nothing personal about it. He treated all his people like this when they needed it. That was yet another reason to like him.
"I could say the same for you. Good night, Commander."
"Good night."
The turbolift stopped on the cargo deck. Chakotay gestured for her to walk out so he could go back up to Deck Ten. She looked over her shoulder for one more glimpse of his face before the doors closed. She was being ridiculous.
Cargo Bay Two resonated with a low hum. Icheb, for once, had finished studying and begun his regeneration without being prompted. His young face was serene under the green halo of his alcove. She was glad he couldn't see her as she paced up and down like a wound-up clockwork toy.
Her heart was racing. Her palms were sweaty. Her head ached. She knew it was impossible to explode from excess emotion, but that was how she felt. If she were a warp core, the engineers would have to divert all that power somewhere before she went critical …
She stopped in her tracks.
I just need some kind of outlet, Ensign Kim had said, referring to his date with the holo-character Maggie. Seven had thought it was a silly idea at the time, but if it helped him, why not her? She could write her own program and visit it during her off hours. She could even encrypt it. No one would ever have to know.
That's a lot of time alone, her cortical node replayed Chakotay's words with perfect clarity.
But she wouldn't be alone. She'd be loved. In the only way that was possible for such as her.
She pounced on the nearest computer screen, logged in under her private account and opened a file. Regardless of her headache, forgetful of time and place and a full shift tomorrow, she narrowed her tired eyes and began to type.