AN: If you haven't kept up with "Picard" the references will be a bit of a shock …
Let's assume that Seven would keep in touch with her old captain — a J/P take on the events in the "Stardust City Rag" episode.
ooo
Tom found Kate on the back deck, arms braced on the railing, as she stared at the fog rolling in from the Bay.
She'd walked out of her office, their son told him, and headed straight for the deck. "I don't know, Dad. The look on her face … I think someone died."
He slipped on a jacket and grabbed a shawl off the couch before he gently pushed the dog away and stepped outside. She said nothing, made no move as he draped the shawl across her shoulders.
"What's happened?" he asked gently.
"I got a message from Seven," she said quietly as she stared, unseeing, at the fog. "A very succinct message: 'Icheb's death has been avenged.'"
Tom couldn't stop his quick intake of breath. Nearly fourteen years now, and Icheb's death … no, murder, was still a deep wound for Kate. In all the years he'd known her, he'd seen her angry, concerned, grief-stricken. But that day, she was distraught.
"We saved him from the Borg … from his parents. And for what?" she asked then. "To die at the hands of a butch…" She shook her head; couldn't say the word.
"We saved him so he could have the chance to grow up, to love and be loved," he told her. "To choose work. To make his own decisions. That it was cut short like this is senseless and horrifying. But Kate, at least we gave him his life back."
"I can't say I'm unhappy to hear it," he said.
She looked at him then, blinking back the unshed tears. "I'm not either." She tentatively laid a hand on his chest. "But the tricky thing about revenge is that it exacts a price from the person who takes it. So what will this take from her? What will she become?"
He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her as she settled against him. "I don't know," he admitted. "I think something has been taken from all of us … Starfleet … the Federation itself. It's pushed us all down some unexpected paths. I'm not sure what any of us has become," he said.
"None of us are who we thought we'd be, are we?"
"No, we are not," he thought. Seven was a vigilante; Picard, Kate, even his father had resigned or retired, unable to serve an institution and an alliance they no longer recognized.
"I'd like to think," he finally said, "that we're essentially the same at our core. And at her core, Seven still sees things in black and white. Which I'm sure makes her very good at what she does."
He pulled her more tightly to him and rested his chin atop her head. "I don't know what will happen with her, Kate. But we've always made it clear that we care about her. That won't change."
"No, she agreed, "it won't. She'll always know where to find us."
They fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts. And when their son looked outside a few minutes later, he saw his parents holding each other in the fog ...