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“Do you know Cris has scars?” Agnes said incredulously, easing herself along the mess hall bench opposite Raffi. The doctor pulled her bowl of her porridge closer, the freshly replicated ceramic juddered over the cold grate of the table. “I mean actual, honest-to-goodness, scar tissue.”
“Is that so?” Raffi said noncommittally, not looking up from her PADD. It was the end of the night shift for her and there was just a little more data to review before she could go and finally get some sleep.
“Yeah,” Agnes nodded, “it was kind of a shock actually.”
Raffi flicked her eyes up over the top of the sensor readings.
“You gotta work on your constitution a little, honey.” The irritation in her voice was hidden, just.
“Not a bad shock,” Agness backtracked, the cyberneticist’s eyes widened as she wilted under Raffi’s stare, “it’s just, well...interesting, y’know?”
Raffi lowered the PADD before fishing her horgl from her pocket.
Agnes wasn’t meaning to be rude, Raffi told herself. She was probably just trying to make friends. It was nice, sort of, the doctor seemed to be aiming for the ‘gal-pals gossiping’ approach to breakfast. However, the combination of Raffi’s dully throbbing headache from the long shift on the bridge, as well as the unacceptably ineffective snake leaf substitute was making the OPS officer grouchy. Raffi lifted the horgl to her lips, even the smell was a little off.
The dull click of a metal spoon against ceramic pulled Raffi from her thoughts as Agnes spooned too much brown sugar into her porridge. It dissolved, spreading slowly like an oil slick over the surface before the doctor stirred it through.
“Any idea what happened to his shoulder?” Agnes asked, leaning conspiratorially closer.
“Disagreement with a Bolian,” Raffi took a long, thoughtful draw from her horgl. The crackling hiss of the heating element filled the air between them. The OPS officer let the smoke flow out along with the rest of her reply, “Or with a plasma manifold, I forget.”
Agnes chuckled. “How’d you have an argument with a plasma manifold?”
“Have you met Cris?” Raffi raised her eyebrows and offered a thin, tired smile.
“Ok, fair.” Agnes laughed and ate a mouthful of her breakfast before turning the spoon over and sucking on it contemplatively.
“But why though?” The doctor looked puzzled as her pale brows knit together. “I mean, does he like how it looks or,” Agnes looked over her shoulder into sickbay, “does he just really hate the EMH that much?”
Raffi rolled the horgl slowly between her fingers. She didn’t want to point out Rios’ refusal to let the Doctor use a dermal regenerator was probably less a product of her friend's outer resentments, and more likely a product of his inner ones. His self loathing; thinking he didn’t deserve to be fixed.
Raffi could relate. But breakfast wasn’t the time for that particular conversation. She wasn't sure there would ever be a time. Seemed like something that Agnes should discuss with Cris himself.
“He’s just eccentric, I guess.” Raffi shrugged, “Maybe he likes the reminders?” She clicked the PADD off and stood up from the bench, stretching her aching back.
“Enjoy your breakfast, honey.”
Back in her quarters the quiet droning of the sonic shower pointed to Seven getting ready for the day. Raffi kicked off her shoes, nudging them under the desk, before she pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it to the chair by her desk. As her fingers moved to loosen her pants Raffi’s eyes caught for a second at the passing image of her body on the surface of the tiny desk mirror. Thumbs hooked against the catch of her waistband, Raffi took a step back as her eyes fell to the reflection of her skin in the little mirror. With a sigh she ran a rough palm across her stomach. The skin was smooth and brown and faultless. No silvered stretch marks, even though she’d always been slim and Gabe had grown so quickly. No C-Section scar even though it had been such a difficult birth.
Raffi thought back to the time when her skin was not so perfect; to the dully distant pressure of the laser scalpel through numbed tissue. The smell of iron and iodine mixing both on her skin and in the air; air that was already so saturated with acrid, antiseptic scents and the equally clinical words of frantic doctors. Raffi remembered the anaesthetic-muted pressure of clamps and hands. The confusing, indistinguishable tug of both. Her usual razor sharp mind dulled, overwrought from 36 hours of pain. Fierce contractions not allowing for rest, followed by the adrenaline filled panic as the doctor called for emergency transfer to theatre. The flood of words drained through her fingers as she tried to grasp at them.
‘Unresponsive’
‘Bleeding’
‘In distress’
Raffi remembered the relief at hearing Gabe cry. The high pitched wail and the steady accompanying buzz of the autosuture. She remembered the feel of his blood-wet face, safe against her chest. Those tiny breaths from tiny lungs cooling the sweat on her skin in gentle steady puffs as his wailing settled into sleep. She remembered kissing the dark, damp curls on the crown of his little head while the nurse worked the dermal regenerator. That familiar hum knitting her skin back together. Seamless.
With the fly of her pants open, Raffi hooked a thumb over the elastic of her underwear and tugged the black fabric down a little.
There should be a scar, she thought.
She wished there was a scar.
What she wouldn’t give to have a reminder of him. Even if it was just damage, it would be something. Proof of the pain and fear and panic of Gabe’s arrival would be better than no proof of him at all. Raffi tried to think if she had anything to remember Gabe by. Her eyes scanned the room and her body and found nothing. The few scattered personal belongings in the spartan quarters; her books and clothes and PADDs were all replicated long after Gabe was no longer part of her life.
Raffi’s mind wandered back to their apartment in Hellas Planitia, and to the little notches in the door frame that had tracked Gabe’s growth over the years. His slight shoulders squared against the wall, chin jutting up as he tried to stand his tallest. He’d always been so excited the closer he got to his goal of Raffi’s height.
“Mom!” Gabe protested every time, “You can’t count your hair too! That’s cheating!”
Gabe and his Dad had packed up and left before there was a mark taller than Raffi on the door.
Even the apartment would be gone now, Raffi thought sadly.
The Synth attack had shunted Gabe from Raffi’s life in more ways than one; the conspiracy that drove a wedge through their family and the roaring blaze that tore through shipyards and apartment blocks with equal ferocity. The paint of that old, lovingly marked door frame blistered and curled at the edges as the Martian stratosphere boiled violently above. Until there was nothing left. Like nothing ever happened.
It was like they’d never even lived there.
Gabe probably prefers it that way, Raffi sighed, as her gut twisted painfully in shame. She turned her back on her reflection and moved to sit heavily on the edge of the bed. La Sirena’s recycled air was cool against her bare shoulders as she leaned her forearms heavily against her knees.
At least a scar would be something, Raffi thought, curling an arm around her stomach, at least I’d have something.
There was a hiss as the door to the bathroom slid open. The familiar click of the tritanium in Seven’s sole as the xB made her way, barefoot, into the room. Seven tugged on a long sleeve shirt and idly combed her fingers through her hair before spotting the other woman hunched on the edge of the bed, her head hung low between her shoulders. The low light wrapped across the curve of Raffi’s back, broken only by the dark band of her bra and the rising goose flesh that ran along her arms in the cool of the room.
“Raffi?” The xB asked, concern hovering at the edges of her normally even tone.
Seven circled the bed to Raffi’s side and sat beside her, the bare skin of the xB’s thigh was warm though the material of Raffi’s pants. The OPS officer smiled weakly at the feeling of Seven’s hand finding her shoulder, the xB’s tritanium fingertips cool against her already cold skin and Raffi shivered.
“What happened?” Seven’s voice was low as she slid her hand from Raffi’s shoulder and rubbed her palm against her lover's arm, trying to soothe cold-pricked flesh smooth again. The OPS officer inhaled deeply through her nose and tried to level her breathing as she spoke. Willing her intelligence training to drag her reply into order by the collar.
“Agnes was talking about Cris’ scars and-” Raffi stopped before the lump she could feel forming in her throat could trip her words.
“Yes?” Seven prompted cautiously as her gaze dropped to Raffi’s arm held close against her stomach.
“I was thinking about Gabe and I just-” Saying his name aloud was the final straw and Raffi felt hot tears well at the corners of her eyes. The blue-grey bulkheads rippled into a blur as she blinked. Her breath caught in her throat and her chest ached as the loss felt suddenly overwhelming.
Raffi wished she could go back and tell the Starfleet medic to stop. To put down the dermal regenerator. To please just leave her with a scar since one day that’s all she would have left of her little boy. The tight weight in her chest muddled with the memory of his tiny body against hers, his impossibly perfect little hand wrapped tight around a sweat drenched curl of her hair. Raffi drew her knees up close to her chest as her heels rumpled the bedsheets.
“When he was born, I thought I was gonna lose him,” the OPS officer mumbled as the Ranger pulled her closer, “I thought I was gonna lose him and then-“
Raffi’s face crumpled into a soundless sob. She lifted her fingers to her temple, the faint tremor in her hands matching the one in her voice.
“And then I, I lost him anyway.”
Seven knew there weren’t any words that could numb that sort of pain, and chose instead to wrap her arms around Raffi and pull her closer as she wept. Tears darkened the grey of Seven’s shirt as she held Raffi, her hand moving in slow and soothing circles over the bare skin of her lover’s back. Seven kissed the cool skin of Raffi’s shoulder, and listened as her breathing began to level.
“I used to hate thinking about him.” With her head still bowed the OPS officer murmured the confession into the warm air between their bodies. “The snakeleaf helped for a while. It took the edge off all the memories of him.”
“I just wanted to forget, y’know? For it to stop hurting.” Raffi sighed, exhausted from crying. Feeling thin and drawn out and weak. “I always figured I’d get clean someday and he’d take me back.”
“Some pipedream that was.” Raffi laughed coldly and her own turn of phrase. “But after Freecloud,” She trailed off, “Oh god, Seven. I don’t think he ever wants me back and now I have nothing to remember him by and sometimes I think the memories I do have of him might fade , if I haven’t already fucked them up with snakeleaf and-” Raffi met Seven’s gaze and felt a sudden pang of guilt thinking of Seven’s son.
At least Gabe wasn’t dead, Raffi thought. Though being dead to him seemed nearly as painful, and at that thought the guilt swelled again.
“I’m sorry babe, this must seem so ridiculous to you.”
“No. Not ridiculous.” Seven reassured, gently cupped Raffi’s face, her eyes were kind as she took in the hurt in Raffi’s gaze.
“I admit I take for granted that my memories are immutable.” The xB pressed her lips into a line. “I can see why fear of forgetting would be...disturbing.”
“I just,” the OPS officer kneaded the muscle of her neck nervously, “I wish I’d done what Cris does, and let things heal on their own. Maybe if I had that reminder it might still seem real.”
Seven brushed the hair from Raffi’s eyes and let her hand linger at her cheek, the xB’s heart breaking at the pain that swam so close to the surface in her lover's eyes. She pressed her lips gently to Raffi’s before quietly offering an answer.
“Perhaps you could tell me?” Seven shifted further onto the bed, gently tugging Raffi with her.
“Tell you what?” Raffi looked confused.
“About the scars you wish you had.” Seven smiled softly. “And, if you like, I can be your reminder.”
“Weren’t you just getting ready for a shift on the bridge?” Raffi sniffed and watched her half dressed girlfriend shift back against the pillows.
Seven cocked her head before flatly addressing the ship, “Computer; activate Emergency Navigational Hologram on the bridge.”
The OPS officer huffed and shook her head, “Cris won’t be happy about that.” she said, drying her eyes with the back of her wrist. “It’s not a real emergency.”
Seven covered Raffi’s hand with her own. “I beg to differ.”
The grateful look on Raffi’s face filled the xB’s chest with warmth as she pulled back the cover for the other woman. Raffi climbed into bed, the sheets were cold against her back as she slid next to the Ranger. Seven raised an arm in invitation and Raffi curled gratefully against the xB’s side, resting her head on the other woman’s chest. Seven pressed a kiss into the OPS officer’s hair and let herself use Raffi’s curls as a pillow.
“So,” Seven squeezed Raffi to her side and settled in to listen, “what would you like me to remember?”
Seven listened as Raffi described Gabe’s birth. The fear, the pain, the elation. The xB memorised the story, from the banal details of the colour of the hospital room and the pattern of the sheets, to the deep emotion in her Raffi's voice when she described Gabe’s still puffy eyes meeting her own for the first time. As Raffi spoke Seven ran a thumb gently along where her lover described the incision, committing that to memory too. Raffi smiled into Seven’s chest at the touch, at the softness of it, at the reverence with which the xB traced her fingers across her skin.
As Raffi spoke Seven listened carefully, attentively storing the other woman’s memories safely. Tucking them away like old photographs carefully next to her own memories of lost family.
Raffi shared stories of the other times in Gabe’s life that might have left a mark were it not for a dermal regenerator. The would-be nick out of Raffi’s thumb from when a shuttle door had nearly closed on her hand as she’d grabbed Gabe’s little arm out of the way. What might have been a burn scar on her wrist from an awkwardly sliding baking tray filled with cookies before one of Gabe’s childhood birthdays. The winding path of what could have been a scar from a fall while camping with Gabe and his Dad. Each story, each missing mark, a part of the patchwork of the past that Raffi was so scared to lose. That Seven was determined to protect.
With each memory unburdened Raffi could feel her emotional exhaustion drain into simple tiredness as her limbs began to feel heavy. Seven’s arms around her felt safe. She enjoyed the soft, comfortable way their bodies fit together, the warmth of the cover over her bare shoulders and the familiar scent of her lover’s hair coaxing her to sleep.
Like a somatic lullaby, Seven's hand traced gentle patterns; sweet and slow and familiar across Raffi’s body. An invisible map of missing scars. Each one a story. Each one a link to Gabe, however distant, drawn upon Raffi’s soft, dark skin.
As sleep pressed closer Raffi turned to ease her back against Seven’s warm body, the Ranger’s arm curled around her waist. Seven’s hand rested low on Raffi’s stomach, her metal capped thumb meditatively tracing across an imagined scar.
Raffi smiled sleepily at the feeling of the gentle caress and at the warm trust felt between them.
Her skin; smooth. Her memories; safe with Seven.