A Little More Heart
By Laura Schiller
Based on Star Trek: Voyager
Copyright: Paramount
"Put a little more heart into the piece. More of yourself."
Those words replayed in Seven's mind for days, catching her off-guard at the most unlikely moments: in Astrometrics while trying to chart a course through the subspace mines, in the mess hall, in her alcove just before regeneration.
She remembered that rush of fear, frustration and delight when the holographic Chakotay had stopped the metronome. When he had told her to let her emotions, not just her technique, guide her playing. When he had smiled at her, such a beautiful warm smile, as the laboriously practiced Liszt etude had flowed from her fingertips like water.
Before that, the program had been pleasant. Missing Axum and Unimatrix Zero, she had chosen the colleague who resembled him most – tall, strong, quiet, a leader in an underground resistance movement – and it had worked out very well. She liked being kissed and complimented, and as for the awkward silences, she supposed they came with the territory.
It was not until that piano evening that she began to wonder if she was in trouble. She couldn't afford to care this much for a simulation.
A little more heart … it sounded so familiar. Where had she heard that before?
"What will you have, Seven?"
Neelix's cheerful voice shook her out of her thoughts. She eyed the steaming vats of alien food, her eyes already watering from the spices, uncomfortably conscious of the people lined up behind her.
She pointed at random, and sighed inaudibly with relief as Neelix handed out some more or less familiar-looking meatballs and noodles.
"Got any of that bean stew left?" asked the next person in line.
Commander Chakotay. The real one.
"Oh dear, I'm so sorry, Commander," said Neelix. "I'm all out. I should have remembered you don't like meat."
"That's okay," said Chakotay. "I'll just replicate something. Hello, Seven. Care to join me?"
She nodded stiffly and followed him to the replicator, still processing this new data.
"You are a vegetarian?"
"It's a personal choice," he said, a little defensive, making her realize how sharp her question had sounded. "I don't try to tell anyone else what to eat. It's just that eating meat reminds me of when my father used to take me hunting. I … didn't like it. Computer, one serving of vegetarian chili."
Remembering how much his counterpart had savored that rack of lamb was almost comical to think of.
Seven liked meat. She didn't see any reason to feel guilty if it was replicated, and she found it much more palatable than all the supplements she would have to take otherwise. Borg implants and nanoprobes drained away a lot of her body's resources.
How could she not have known this about Chakotay? It was a minor detail, of course, but still – if she was wrong about this, what else was she wrong about?
"Commander, do you enjoy classical music?" she blurted out as they settled on opposite sides of a four-person table.
"Um … not much for music in general, to be honest. I have a tin ear. The Captain likes it, though. She puts it on during our executive meetings sometimes, and it's starting to grow on me … a little."
"Do you have a favorite composer?"
"A few, although I can't recall any of their names at the moment." He smiled a little, as if at a private memory.
It couldn't be that important to him, then.
"I hear the Doctor's giving you music lessons. Do you enjoy that?" he asked, trying to guess the reason for her strange line of questioning.
The Doctor. She bit back a wave of mingled guilt and annoyance. His fussing about her health had been getting on her last nerve lately, all the more so because he was right. First he'd enlisted Icheb to relieve her of duty two hours early so she could rest, then she'd snuck away to the holodeck instead, which would only worry him more the next time he scanned her. But did he worry about her as a friend, or simply as a doctor? How much of his compassion and care was simply due to his Hippocratic Oath programming? He had been so quick to leave her, after all, to join that holographic rebel leader on the Hirogen ship. He hadn't even said goodbye.
My personal life is none of your concern!
I wasn't aware you had a personal life.
How could they have said such things, when the closest thing they both had to a personal life was their music nights? What did he consider all their duets, if not personal? Did he care about her at all, or was she nothing but a duty?
Dealing with the Chakotay simulation was so much easier.
She forced herself back to the present moment. The real Chakotay had asked whether she liked her music lessons.
"Yes."
"Are you going to play at the next talent show?"
"Perhaps."
I'd love to hear you, the holographic Chakotay had said, his deep voice hushed with awe, sitting so close on the piano bench that she could feel him breathe.
"I'd like to hear that," said the real man, with a calm politeness that melted away into joy when he spotted someone over her shoulder.
"Captain, I'd glad you could join us." Chakotay made as if to stand up. "Haven't seen you around in a while."
"As you were." Captain Janeway grinned and waved him back into his seat. "My ready room was getting stuffy."
"Seven and I were just talking about classical music. What was the name of that composer you like – you know, that piece you played the night before we tried the quantum slipstream drive?"
"Ugh, the quantum slipstream drive. Don't remind me!" The Captain rolled her eyes and laughed. "But the vegetable biryani was nice, I must admit. For once, that ornery old replicator of mine behaved itself."
"And the music?"
"Brahms, of course."
"Brahms. How could I forget?"
Not Liszt. Not Chopin.
Seven poked at her spaghetti, having suddenly lost her appetite. She could have coped with minor inaccuracies in her holoprogram, but what hurt her most was the one thing she had gotten right.
That loving smile. The one he was giving Kathryn Janeway this very moment.
How could Seven not have noticed that in the past three years?
"How are you doing, Seven?" asked the Captain, with the wary concern of a mother dealing with a troubled teenager. Evidently, the dressing-down she had given her protégée about negligence of duty had not been forgotten. "How's your … research? A new gravimetric array, I think you said?"
Seven clenched her fists under the table. The Captain knew perfectly well there was no gravimetric array. Serve her right for being so foolish, and then lying to cover it up.
"My experiment failed. I prefer not to discuss it."
The Captain reached over and patted her hand, and the compassion in that touch was almost too much to bear.
"Think of it as a learning experience."
"I will, Captain."
She shoveled down her food with machine-like efficiency, not saying another word, until it was finally time to get back to Astrometrics.
