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Raffi couldn’t sleep.
The thrum of La Sirena’s warp core reverberated through her body like her own heartbeat. Her skin crawled, itched, as though she had a layer of sand left on her from the years at Vasquez Rocks that wouldn’t wash off no matter how many sonic showers she took. The ship was, at the same time, too silent and too loud. Raffi felt that if she continued to lie in her bed staring at the ceiling of her quarters for one more nanosecond she might actually scream. She swung her legs out of bed and left her quarters, creeping through the ship’s interior with no real purpose. She thought a moment about waking Chris up, but she had seen Jurati go into his quarters with him earlier that evening, and she didn’t know if she had left. No way was Raffi going to risk walking in on that. She glanced at the helm, where the ENH was piloting. She could talk to the holos, she supposed–almost as good as the real Chris. She didn’t think she had the patience for their terrible accents tonight though, so she kept going.
What would JL recommend? Probably a cup of Earl Grey, decaf. Raff though, needed something a little stronger than decaf tea. Sighing as she realized what her fate tonight had been all along, she made her way down to the lounge in search of some booze.
When she entered the room, she saw that she wasn’t the only one who seemed to be having trouble sleeping. Seven of Nine sat at one of the tables, a bottle and glass in front of her, idly running her finger round the rim of the glass as she stared blankly into space. Raffi didn’t feel like she had a good handle on the other woman yet, couldn’t read her well enough to know if she’d like to be left alone or maybe would be up for some company. So she asked.
“Pull up a glass” Seven said, indicating the other chair at the table with the hand laced and tipped with Borg implants. Raffi grabbed a glass and sat, watching as Seven poured a healthy amount into her glass and topped off her own. “Cheers.” They both sipped, Raffi a bit more strongly than Seven–it looked like she had some catching up to do, after all.
“Can’t sleep?” asked Raffi, taking another, more normal sip of her drink.
Seven quirked an eyebrow at her. “No, I just prefer drinking alone in the middle of the night.” She smiled a bit, to let Raffi know it was a joke.
Raffi tried a small smile back at her. “Want to talk about it?”
Seven sighed. Looked into her glass. Paused a long moment. Raffi was about to apologize for overstepping when Seven took another drink and then looked at her. “This is the first time in a long while that I’ve had any…downtime I guess. With the Rangers it’s easy to keep moving, keep fighting–there’s always another mission, another person trying to kill you. You run all day and by the time you get a break your body is so grateful for even a moment of rest that you just blank out and sleep. But now that we’re just going, with nobody chasing us, I guess some of what I’ve been blanking out is catching up.” She glanced back at Raffi. “You know?”
Oh, did Raffi know. “For me it’s the opposite. I was stuck still for so long that now that I’m moving again I have to deal with everything I was hiding from.” She took another drink. “What demons are catching you tonight?”
Seven looked as though she were weighing whether or not to speak, or how much of herself to share. Raffi stayed silent, trying to communicate through her soft gaze that she would listen, would try to understand, wouldn’t judge.
“Ever since I was disconnected from the Collective, I’ve struggled to find connections–family. I had that on Voyager, but once we got back to the Alpha Quadrant everyone got debriefed and reassigned. I’m still in touch with some of my crewmates but…” she trailed off. “You’re Starfleet, you know how it is.” Raffi nodded. Seven continued. “The Rangers are different than that, more independent but…that’s where I met Bjayzl.” She took a long drink, swallowed hard. “I trusted her. Let her in. And she used me to find my s-son–” Icheb. Would she ever forget the sight of him lying on that slab, still alive even after they carved his implants out of them. What had him clinging to life? Did he know that Seven was coming for him? Was he holding on just to say goodbye? Seven wasn’t sure which would have been worse–finding his dead body and never being able to tell him she was sorry, or having to pull the trigger herself to kill him.
Raffi reached out a hand and laid it over Seven’s. The other woman turned hers so that she could wrap her fingers around Raffi’s, holding tightly. “You don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to” she assured Seven. “But if you do, I’m right here. I’m listening. You’re not alone.”
Seven had been alone for over twenty years. Ever since she was disconnected from the hive mind. Until–
“When I was on the Artifact, to get control of the cube I connected myself in the queencell. For a moment I was connected to every one of the drones in stasis on that cube. And…when the Romulans blew them all into space…I felt it. Each and every one of them. My family…Hugh…Icheb…all dead.” She spun her now empty glass around, staring through it intently to stop the tears from rising, even as she felt her throat squeeze as hard as she was still squeezing Raffi’s hand.
“Oh, honey,” said Raffi. She could feel the pain radiating from Seven, loneliness and despair rolling off her in waves. For a moment those waves threatened to pull Raffi under as well, to remind her of her own son, not dead but still lost to her in a way she may never overcome. To bring back the image that had been haunting her for days, of JL lying on the ground, dead. Of holding Elnor in her arms as he wept, his young and honest sobs putting voice to the anguish her own heart couldn’t. She closed her eyes for a second, trying to center herself. She focused on the warmth of Seven’s hand in hers. She could feel the pain with Seven without allowing it to swallow her. She could share this moment with her and they could carry their grief together.
There were no words that she could say, nothing that could make the situation better. But she knew, from all the time she had spent alone, that sometimes you don’t need words. You just need someone to be there. So she just was. She continued to hold Seven’s hand, to anchor her to another person and remind her that, at least in this moment, she was not alone. Raffi couldn’t be a collective, she couldn’t be JL, she could just be her. And maybe that could be enough for them both tonight. Just to be Raffi and Seven, feeling alone in the cold vastness of space. But at least for tonight, they could be alone together.