"It brings out your eyes." (D&7)

Author's Note: This story takes place in late Season 6/early Season 7.

/

"This activity is pointless," Seven muttered.

"I disagree," said the Doctor cheerfully. "Now tell me honestly, which colour do you think suits me better?"

Judging her holographic shipmate's fashion choices was the last thing she'd expected to be doing in her off-duty hours, but here they were. He had replicated a full-length mirror in Sickbay, attached it to the wall, and was twisting and turning in front of it, cycling through various outfits using his mobile emitter. As she watched, he turned a tweed blazer he was wearing with chinos and Oxford shoes from mustard yellow to dark green. He looked so pleased with himself, her own face twitched with the effort of hiding a smile.

"You are programmed with a uniform that never wears out or gets dirty," she pointed out. "You have the most efficient daily routine of anyone on board. Why complicate it?"

"Complicate it?" he huffed. "You might as well ask why Mozart complicated his symphonies by using more than one note. Not that I'm comparing myself to Mozart, of course. I'm only saying fashion can be an art form all its own. Ever since Lieutenant Torres helped me program those costumes for my concert on Qomar … "

"You looked ridiculous in that pointed hat," said Seven, even as she kept a careful eye on him for any signs of distress. His rejection by the Qomar, especially Tincoo, had hurt him a great deal at the time. She hoped his sudden preoccupation with his appearance had nothing to do with that.

"Of course. I was Rigoletto." The Doctor brushed off her remark quite calmly, to her relief. "Anyway, that was when I realized how enjoyable it could be to use one's own appearance as an artist's canvas. Here, look."

He clicked his mobile emitter a few more times, grinning from ear to ear. Click: the sleek black tuxedo he had worn for his final performance. Click: boating shoes, white linen trousers, and a shirt patterned with red and green tropical plants. Click: the Rigoletto costume, pointed hat and all.

Seven had a childish impulse to squeeze one of the fluffy pom-poms on his shirtfront. She locked her hands behind her back. "You certainly have eclectic tastes."

The Doctor clicked back to his tweed blazer, this time in an eye-watering purple and yellow plaid that even Neelix might have hesitated to wear. He adjusted his lapels and smirked at her, as if he knew just how silly he looked and was daring her to comment.

"Come now, Seven, I know you have a sense of aesthetics somewhere in that brilliant mind of yours. I've known it since you came on board."

How? she meant to ask, but her eidetic memory already had the answer.

/

"Goodness! Seven, you look … "

"Is my attire sufficient?" she asked, stepping out from behind the folding screen in her silver biosuit for the first time. Why the Emergency Medical Hologram reacted with a cough, a blush, and a rapid glance at the data padd he carried, was none of her concern.

"Oh, certainly. It's just … Are you sure you wouldn't prefer an extra layer?"

"Yes. It is an adequate substitute for my Borg armour and keeps my body temperature regulated. That is all I require."

"If you say so … but people will stare at you, you know. You are - excuse my frankness - a very beautiful woman, and that suit does nothing to hide it."

"Irrelevant," said Seven, who was used to thinking of her body as a small cog in the gears of the Collective, and had no idea what beauty even meant.

"Well," said the Doctor, turning away to focus on his computer. "In any case, you're going to need more than one. Which colours would you like?"

He called up a life-sized holographic version of her standing in his office, the suit cycling through what must have been every colour in the database. What happened next surprised Seven as much as anything else had, in the bizarre and sometimes terrifying days since the Captain had severed her from the Collective.

The colours began to matter.

Some attracted her. Some repulsed her. Some called up long-buried memories of Annika Hansen.

"Brown," she ordered, thinking of seven candles on a chocolate cake.

"Magenta," a blouse her mother used to wear.

"Blue," the sky over Tendara Colony, and again, a darker shade: her father's eyes as he leaned down to kiss her on the forehead.

The Doctor's hands paused on the keyboard. He glanced from the real Seven in silver to the holographic Seven in blue. There was a look in his eyes she could not read. He looked almost dazzled, as if the light in the room were too much for him, but that was absurd.

"It brings out your eyes," he murmured.

/

Seven glanced down at her sleeves. She was wearing blue again. It was one of her favourites, although lately she had been wondering if she still needed a support suit after all. Dressing like other women was beginning to have its appeal. She thought of the lavender-grey silk she had worn on the night the Doctor had taught her to dance. He had, in fact, been wearing a tweed blazer that night as well.

"Green," she said, with a decided nod.

"Excuse me?"

She walked over to him and clicked his mobile emitter, changing his blazer back to green. "It brings out your eyes."

"My eyes?" He blinked at her in bewilderment. "They're only brown."

"They are hazel. It emphasizes the green. It suits you." She smoothed his lapels. The material was thick and soft, the colour restful to the eye. "As often as you look into that mirror, I am surprised you never noticed."

"Trust you to correct me even when you're giving me a compliment." He smiled at her, hazel eyes perfectly level with hers. "Thank you anyway."