Disclaimer: C'est ma histoire, mais ce n'est pas tout mon idée. Je n'ai pas d'argent.



Chapter Eighteen



It was a sound that was going to be with her for a long time, she knew. It was odd what could imprint itself on a person, but this was not. Her natural, wary aversion to outright sentiment had packed its bags and left. She didn't give a shit about courage or strength in herself when the two most courageous and strong people she knew seemed to have lost their own rigid control. Who was she to intrude on this by being Klingon?

What a sound. Chakotay could not even bring himself to go into the room, he had just collapsed on his knees right there in the hall. She had never known he could make such a terrible sound, it tore at her much more than anything she ad ever experienced before. Her friend, the tough, principled, Maquis Captain, the Starfleet Commander, fell to his knees and wept like a brokenhearted child.

The Captain's reaction had not been much better. She sat stiffly in her chair, holding her children -their children- in both arms. For a moment B'Elanna had worried that she'd drop them, but she didn't. Instead she glared at the Doctor with full eyes, forgetting that it was bad form to shoot the messenger. And then she had cried, all vestiges of captainly composure suddenly and finally gone. Captain Kathryn Janeway's formidable personal armour had suffered its final crack, and left only a crushed woman in its wake.

They had been coming down to show Seven her babies, and she had gone and died.

Wasn't that the way of it? Whenever you finally needed her, Seven was off somewhere else. At least now she hoped that Seven was somewhere else, somewhere where Chakotay could meet her again, someday. B'Elanna admitted to herself that it was not all about the others. She hadn't liked Seven much, but didn't the difficult patients have to stick together?

In the waiting area, she had given in to a fit of anguished temper, grabbing the first thing she saw and hurling it across the room. She rarely did that. B'Elanna like to think she had more control over her more violent side, but the ruin of the chair she had thrown was a testament to the fact that even grieving half-Klingons felt the need to demolish things. She was somewhat sorry that there was no one actually responsible for Seven's death. There was no one to kill, to make hurt as she saw Chakotay hurting.

Kahless . . . she wanted to go blast some good sized chunks out of the Borg for what they had done to her best friend's wife. She wanted to go blast something, anything to get this all-consuming rage out of her system. B'Elanna found that she was terribly angry at Seven for leaving them like she had. Didn't Chakotay and the Captain deserve more consideration?

But it wasn't Seven's fault. Hell, none of it was, except that she had sort of usurped the Captain's unspoken but universally understood claim on Chakotay. Damn her, what a mess she'd made of things. It could have been so perfect.

B'Elanna found herself studying the newborn twins with stinging eyes. She let out a short, rueful laugh. Those were Chakotay's progeny, without a doubt, even though they had only recently been born. Their dark-haired, almond-eyed looks stood in stark contrast to the paleness of their red-haired mother, whose face was damp and blotchy with crying. Despite the fact that the moment was far beyond agreeable, the scene was somehow correct. Somehow she'd always imagined that Kathryn Janeway would end up with such dark-haired children.

The Lieutenant was torn between crying again and lambasting anyone and anything with a long line of expletives that rose to her mind. Instead she clamped down on herself and held onto Tom and K'Athra for dear life. Her daughter didn't understand what was going on, and merely looked with wide-eyed alarm at the adults she found herself in the company of. Tom was more of a wreck than she, crying without fear of ridicule. She had always known that Tom had somewhat particular feelings for each person involved, and had never shared her antagonism for Seven in any way.

Seven had been a mother for one full minute. Oh, hell, fate was playing tricks like that all the time, wasn't it? And the ex-drone hadn't even known it. But there it was, on birth and death records, 1434 and 1435. One minute. Goddamn it all.

There, you unbelievable bitch! Are you happy?! You screwed it all up like I always knew you would, and it started with the warp core on upwards . . . until you had everyone's complete confidence, even love, and you could break us all in one fell swoop! And you did, didn't you?! Look at them! I hope you can see them, because they're dying for you. And did you deserve it? Goddamn you, yes, because you just made yourself that way! Only you could do this to them, and now you have. Damn it, why did you have to start this? I never even liked you . . . and now, now I'm crying for you?

***



B'Elanna's face was screwed up into an intense expression of pain and utter loathing for the situation. She was going to put fingerprints in his arm, she was gripping it so hard, as if she was afraid that he'd let go and leave her. Tom didn't have any inclination to do that. He didn't think he could bear to stand alone

Chakotay was alone in more ways than one, even now he was forcibly separating himself from them, even from the Captain who sobbed just as hard as he. Tom bit his tongue. This had better be just for the moment, because if Chakotay left the Captain as alone as he was making himself . . . he'd kill him. He really would, without compunction.

Tom had not grown up in the sort of environment where men had allowed themselves to cry. His father never had, and so neither had Tom when he was old enough to notice -more for fear of his father's censure than of appearing weak to anyone else. But he discarded that now. Hell with it . . . didn't Seven deserve some recognition? B'Elanna was more composed than he, at least now.

For all its trials, life on Voyager had never been like this for him. Sure, there were deaths and funerals, wakes and space burials -but throughout there had been respites. Parties on the holodeck and elsewhere, a wedding, a birth, a good old-fashioned get-together where friends merely sat and got pleasantly drunk. There was no respite here, not for them. "Home" was a mockery of a word when applied to Earth now.

Where had their home truly been? Where had he fallen in love with B'Elanna, where had he created holodeck programs for everyone, where had his life begun when his daughter was born?

Where had Seven come into her own, where had she learned to feel again, where had she learned to cherish her freedom?

And where had the Captain and her Commander done their seven-year "perfectly platonic professionalism" dance, where had they shared all those unspoken conversations right over everyone's heads? Goddamn, he knew where, and now it was a bloody museum, the old feeling gone with it into dormancy.

With Voyager went the last remnants of what had been the greatest years of his life. He knew B'Elanna felt the same, saw the lost look in Chakotay's eyes, saw the Doctor pining away in his little Starfleet office. Saw the Captain, craning her neck skyward as if to see her beloved ship.

With Voyager had parted Seven, it seemed.

He had heard the Captain once, repeating sometime the Admiral had said. "Never the same." That was of course pertaining to Chakotay, but what of the deeper part? Nothing was the same. Earth was not as they had left it, and Earth was not what they'd had on Voyager. He knew that. They knew that. They had to.

He cried for all of it, for Seven and her sorry end, for those oblivious babies who would never see the mother who had wanted them so badly, for Voyager and all the dead things that had gone into memory with it. A goddamn museum, a static display. What did anyone know, those people who hailed them as long-lost heros and welcomed them home?

This was not home, it couldn't be. Things like this didn't happen when you were where you belonged. Surely they did not belong at Starfleet Medical, where they had spend the better part of two years. Two years! Two years home, and so much gone.

Seven dead! How was that? She was almost as indestructible as the Captain, cold as ice -a quiet planner, the brains of their little outfit. She was the one who stood over the surgical bed and rattled off Borg techniques for this and that, discovering yet another beneficial use for her own nanoprobes. She was not the one who lay there and died. Not Seven. She wouldn't take that sort of shit from the world. How could she have died?

The first thing he had wondered about Seven was where had she got that personal resolve of hers. Borg drones didn't have a personal anything, yet immediately he had recognized that she would never take any bullshit off of anyone for any reason. But there, at 1435, fate or destiny or God even, had bullshitted her royally, and she had succumbed. Unthinkable.

If there was a God, he now had a mortal enemy in the form of Thomas Eugene Paris.

Now, did you know Seven, that you could do this? You seemed to think in some weird way that even you were irrelevant . . . that no one would really notice if you were there or gone. I'll admit that sometimes I didn't notice that you were there, but it's damn hard not to notice that you're not around to tell us that our tears are pointless and dehydrating to boot, and that we should get on with it and adapt . . . but not in so many words. What's left of us now, the senior crew? Hell, you weren't official, but you've broken us up now. Oh, God, I have to tell Harry. Someone does. Harry's going to fall to pieces, did you know that? Ha, you had half the unmarried quadrant trailing after you, even if you didn't care, and probably some of the married group. And you never cared. Did you care in the end? We do and did. You left a hell of a mess Seven, I only hope we're up to it. Here I am, convincing myself that I can adapt. Irony.

***



Where had he been? What was he doing while she died there alone but for the Doctor's presence and a plethora of nameless hospital staff? He didn't care what the Doctor had said, he knew Seven had died in pain, awake and alert to everything. How had she felt that he was not there with her, instead of mentally betraying her as he stood next to Kathryn's bedside? How could Kathryn do that to him? For a second, she had driven Seven from his mind, and it was his fault.

It was his fault! Every family he'd ever had died in one way or another, or met some terrible fate. Why couldn't he keep anyone? Why did they die or push him away at the last moment? He did not deserve these people, any of them, not Seven or B'Elanna and certainly not Kathryn -who at the drop of a hat was ready to pick up all the pieces he left in his wake. She looked at him now with dead eyes, eyes he was sure she had seen on him long ago. Her spirit was gone, Kathryn, as she had said, had somehow died along with Seven just as he did.

Seven, the eternal schism. Hadn't they always fought about her? It had usually been Kathryn trying to swing him into her corner, to tolerate, to allow. And he had, for love of the arguer rather than the subject. Then it had turned, and he'd found that Kathryn had done her work well, that he was fully behind Seven in anything she did or wanted. Strange allies, he and Kathryn -all at once she was pushing him away and drawing him closer with every stray glance.

And hadn't that always been it?

Even in death, Seven somehow stood with them, between them, on the sidelines. Seven, his wife and his love, Kathryn's protégée and somehow a daughter figure to her. Always there, watching, observing and knowing goddamn everything. He hadn't had to be physically or even verbally unfaithful, yet hadn't Seven known?

Even yet he could not abide Kathryn's pain as she stared at him where he sat brokenly on the floor. And she had told him she loved him. She loved him? She loved him. That was so impossible. How could she, after seeing what he did to people? Knowing that Seven would always be there? He had to shake his head. What had ever happened to the Captain, the one who defined parameters?

He had children. Seven's children, the ones she had ultimately died for. She was supposed to name the girl, and she had died before she could. One minute! One godforsaken minute, and she had never known. He hoped she did now. But now, for that, they were Kathryn's children, because of course, she was quite ready to do anything that she saw as beneficial for her crew.

Goddamn Kathryn Janeway! You couldn't love her without hating her all at once, she didn't let you.

I'm so sorry, Seven. I should never have dragged you into this with me. I should never have let Kathryn drag you in. You didn't deserve to have to put up with us, and yet you did without question. What was wrong with you? How could you marry someone you knew was always thinking of someone else? How could I have let you, knowing that I would? But I did, and you called yourself happy. Did you ever know any better? I hope you did, because I was the last person who deserved you. To the end, the last word you spoke even, you were telling me to go. Talk to the Captain, stay with the Captain, the Captain needs you. Were you insane? You not only knew, you encouraged! You never knew what it was like to see that you were first and foremost in someone's mind, and Spirits, but you deserved it. I could never do that, because of the sorry man I am, and yet you decided that you loved me? And now you're dead, and probably still wondering why I'm not comforting the Captain like some part of me wants to. I left you so alone, why did you stay? Why did you go? Why did you die, now of all times? Spirits Seven, I love you. You never knew selfishness, and you had every right to it. Who but you, can claim that?



To be continued

***