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She loses her communicator. It slips down some crack in the cave they are staying in, and she is lost. Janeway knows the minerals in this planet’s surface render her implanted translators useless, which doesn’t help her mood. The senior staff has been chasing her. She has been unable to locate Seven, who previously indicated wanting a word with her. In the main tunnel, as crew members pass her, some make strange noises. Clipped phrases from dialects she hasn’t studied in twenty years. She knows that they are greeting her exactly as they always do. Because she is the captain. Because she brings many together and makes them one.
It’s strange, hearing her voice greet them against unknown clackings, syllables she trusts even as they swirl around her, indecipherable. There is Neelix, who talks excitedly in a broken jumble of words. He touches her hand; this must be addressed later, she gathers.
“Neelix, I’m in a hurry. Another time? We’ll talk it over.” She smiles so as to reassure him, and it seems to work. He walks away grinning.
She discovers that there are different speeds, different tones with which they speak to her. But her reply seems the same to them. Nobody notices that she cannot understand them. It unnerves her that the watch at the mouth of the cave could detect a threat, and it could be many seconds before she understood the exact nature of the sighting, depending on the crewman on duty.
Does she know the crew so well as to not need words, or is this a mark of how little they are actually listened to?
Janeway walks to the room in the cave where Seven has been staying, and waits. When Seven enters the area, it’s with a pleased sway. Her eyebrows seem to go up on noticing that the captain is wearing no commbadge, and maybe there’s a slight smirk. Janeway can’t tell. Maybe it’s the low light. Seven stands in front of her, and says nothing.
“What?” Janeway spits. “You know every language in the galaxy. Care to enlighten me?”
When Seven extends her arm, Janeway does not think any words. Nor when Seven rests it on her shoulder, nor when she notices that Seven is trembling slightly, and that her eyes are wide. As Janeway closes the space between them, she feels only the press of their foreheads, the slow clinging of their lips, the weight of years relieved.
“Do you understand?” Seven asks, in a language they have both longed to hear.