Warnings: None, except that there is nothing happening in here. Pretty
Bor(g)ing. Not for action freaks. No shuttle crashes, no turbolifts in
love, erh, no love in turbolifts. The mild rating is not for nothing.
Well, I guess it is...

Uh, unbetaed. I didn't want to bother with a beta before knowing if
it's worth it. So if anyone has suggestions regarding improvement of
this little piece, let me know.

What else? Oh, remember that cheesecake is no proper computer food.
Clogs up the spaces between the keys and starts smelling terribly
after three days. Goes well with coffee, though. What a dilemma.

Everything StarTrek belongs to Paramount & Co.

Fandom: ST:VOY
Pairing: Rather T,7 than T/7 (Greetings to all the darksiders out there. Oppose the lightside! T/7 rules!)


B'Elanna let out a frustrated growl. She hadn't expected it to be this
hard. She knew she should have, but in her mind, everything had seemed
a bit easier, a bit rosier, a bit more... romantic. Now, in bleak
reality, Seven was standing by the door, directing her usual open,
curious look at her, expectantly, hands clasped behind her back. She
had imagined she would prepare dinner for the two of them. But
everyone aboard was trying to force their own preferences on the young
Borg, and so she had changed plans. She wanted to use some of her
precious replicator rations and let her guest decide what they would
eat. But Seven had just denied any preference. She didn't know it
would be that hard to let the Borg have her way. If it was that hard
with food she didn't dare to think any further.

Although her starting frustration did not seem to affect the blonde,
she felt sorry for being on the edge of losing her temper already. She
sighed. Entering a few commands on the replicator's display produced
two servings of the nutritional supplement Seven once had developed
for herself. B'Elanna handed one of them to her guest before she
turned to sit down on her sofa. Seven was still standing by the door,
looking at her dinner in her hand, then looking back at B'Elanna.

"Thank you. I was not aware that anyone else had knowledge of the
composition of my nutritional supplements."

B'Elanna smiled.

"And I guess if you had suspected someone knew the secret, you'd never
expected it to be me, huh?"

"This knowledge is irrelevant for you."

"Not anymore."

"Why?"

"Well, I wanted to know what you like, what you prefer."

"Why?"

B'Elanna shifted slightly.

"Uhm, I guess I wanted to know because -, because- I don't know,"
she shrugged, "I was just curious."

Seven did not take her eyes off of her host, who downed half of her
meal at once.

"Most who have sampled these consider them offensive. You are no
different. Why did you choose to comsume something offensive?"

The half-Klingon looked at the brownish, gooey fluid in her glass.

"Figured what's good enough for you can't be that bad for me. I tried
it a few times and found it's not as bad as I first thought." She
looked up and her gaze met curious blue eyes. "It was just...
different."

B'Elanna felt herself drowning in those blue orbs, framed by such
beauty. It made her sad and she felt how it would be harder with each
moment to drag her eyes away. Nervously fidgeting with the glass in
her hands she motioned to sofa.

"Seven, please, sit down. Or do you want to leave already?"

The young blonde obeyed. But instead of following the directions of
B'Elanna's hand she chose the armchair next to B'Elanna's place on the
sofa. It was a cut to B'Elanna's heart but she knew it was a
concession of some kind, considering all the hostility she had shown
towards the ex-drone at first.

Seven still hadn't touched her food, B'Elanna noticed with a smile.

"Now it looks like you don't like it."

"I do not."

B'Elanna was surprised to hear that. Although she had the feeling she
shouldn't be too surprised.

"You don't? I thought it's your favorite since you seem to prefer it
over all the other dishes we, Neelix and the replicator have to offer."

"The preference is not expression of liking but of efficiency."

B'Elanna felt slapped. With everybody else she would be slightly
annoyed by now, a few weeks ago she even would have been annoyed with
the Borg. But now was different and she felt there was more to the
issue than she first suspected.

"So, you don't like any food, and you don't like any drink. You don't
care about sitting or standing -"

She thought of the times when Seven had been working in Engineering
and all the tasks she had assigned to the ex-drone, sometimes in anger
or frustration, sometimes out of curiosity and to test her limits.
Every single time Seven of Nine had completed her tasks with the same
perfect result, without any indication of a personal aversion or
preference.

"- you don't care about the tasks that are given to you, the projects
you are assigned to, whenever you spend time with the crew you do what
they like and want to do."

Her voice had become louder while she spoke and she had started to
gesture in front of her. She noticed the white knuckles on Seven's
human hand, in which she also held her drink. B'Elanna knew she had to
calm down. She didn't want to scare the young woman and willed herself
to calm down and lower her voice.

"But, Seven, isn't there anything you like? Something you really want?"

"I am not sure what you mean, B'Elanna."

Seven sipped on her drink, and with some amusement B'Elanna noticed
this all too human behavior. It did not distract her from making her
point, though.

"A goal, Seven, or a preference, something you strive for? - Besides
perfection. Something you would fight for to get it."

"I do not seek perfection. I do what is necessary to survive. I fight
for my own survival and that of this crew."

"But Seven, this is no life. This is mere existence. Floating along."
She paused and looked up at her guest. "Why did you come here tonight?"

"Because you asked me to."

"Is that all?"

"I had no other obligations."

The young Klingon couldn't help but snort.

"Why, thank you, you certainly know how to make a girl feel special."

"I apologize." Tentatively seeking B'Elanna's eyes she added: "I'm
sorry, B'Elanna."

B'Elanna found herself drowning again and suddenly all klingon
strength seemed to vanish and she felt very weak and vulnerable.

"Are you?"

When Seven didn't answer she broke the eye contact, and all of a
sudden their drinks seemed to be very fascinating.

"But really Seven, why don't you want anything? There is no food you
prefer, no drink, no game, no sport, no anything you favor, if asked.
Why?"

"I - I do not know."

"Ah."

"I do not know how to want. I do not know how to decide, what
indicates preference of one nutrient over another."

"Uhm. I'd say taste is the ultimate criterion. You must know if you
like something or not? How you feel about something?"

"That is, I believe, what is sometimes referred to as catch-22."

"I guess you're right."

"How do I know what I like, if I do not know how I feel."

B'Elanna could almost sense how the Borg's aloofness dissolved, how
the shields started to crumble. Suddenly she felt like an intruder,
like she had no right to be here with the Borg, asking these
questions, urging her to expose her own vulnerability. The way the
blonde emptied her glass at once betrayed her insecurity.
But B'Elanna wanted to know, she wanted to understand, she wanted to
find a way. A way in. A way that would lead her beyond the cool
superior exterior of an ex-drone. But right now she seemed to be
stuck. With an open wound and no way to let the one next to her know
how much she cared and that she would never hurt her, never use this
knowledge against her.

"I don't know Seven, I never thought about that. I'm sorry."

"There is no reason for you to apologize, Lieutenant. No one else has
ever thought about that. It is of no relevance for you. Maybe it is
beyond human comprehension."

The Borg's words stung, especially that she had used B'Elanna's rank
instead of her name. B'Elanna knew Seven was retreating, trying to
regain the distance between them that offered safety but was also
reason for her loneliness. In a symbolic gesture to keep her from
slipping back into drone-mode B'Elanna reached for Sevens hand.

"It's relevant to me, Seven. It matters to me."

Their joined hands tensed: Seven's in an attempt to pull away,
B'Elanna's fully determined to keep the physical contact.

"Why? Why now B'Elanna?"

They looked at their hands and then slowly raised their eyes. B'Elanna
did not know what she looked like, what her eyes were telling, but she
knew she felt what Seven's eyes showed. She felt insecure and
vulnerable and curious like a child. Suddenly she felt something like
purity and innocence mixing with her warrior blood. There was a
sensation of ease and warmth around her heart.

"I don't know Seven. Tell me why you are here tonight. Don't tell me
again it's because I asked you. I'm certainly not the Captain's or the
Doctor's first choice for socialization experiments, so if your
decisions are always based on efficiency and not preference, then why
are you here instead of doing something more efficient? Why did you
choose me over all the other things you could have done tonight?"