Chapter Text
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
(Mary Oliver, from "Wild Geese")
“What does it mean to you to create something?”
It takes Seven a minute to place where the question is coming from—that it’s a continuation of the conversation they began on the ship on their way back to Earth. She stirs and rolls her head to look at Raffi laid out beside her, on her side so she’s facing Seven, head pillowed on one arm. They’d gotten back in the middle of California’s night and, after the letters and the wine, climbed up onto the roof of the trailer to stargaze and talk in an attempt to stay awake.
Time zones. They’re easier for Seven to adjust to—sleep for her is optional, and it’s another day or so before she’ll need to regenerate—but Raffi hates them.
Seven rolls her head back to look up at the sky, no longer dark, but lightening to a milky gray. “I don’t know,” she says, finally managing an answer. “I’ve never created anything before.”
“That’s not true,” Raffi says, and it’s so quick Seven wonders if it’s reflex or conviction. “You created a life with the Rangers.”
Seven scoffs. “We work together. That’s not…a life.” She trails off and can feel Raffi looking at her, wills her not to ask about Voyager and whether Seven considers those years to be life. She swallows, then turns on her hip so she’s facing Raffi. There’s a brief moment of awkwardness when she doesn’t know what to do with the arm that’s not under her head, but then she lets it fall to the space on the roof between them, just shy of touching Raffi’s hand.
“What does it mean to you? To create something?”
Raffi flutters her eyes up to Seven’s and then away, tilts her shoulder so she’s facing the sky.
“People,” she muses. “Community. Introducing each other to our families.”
Seven tenses, and Raffi glances over with raised eyebrows. “Not relatives,” she clarifies. “God knows I’ve fucked that up beyond repair. But…family, you know? People who are important to you. Like Deet, and Hyro.”
Seven laughs. “I don’t know that I’d call those two my family.”
“Well, no, but they’re important to you. And I liked meeting them. I liked watching you with them. That’s an important part of relationships—romantic or otherwise. You’ve gotta see the person in different contexts, otherwise you never know who they are.”
Seven sobers. She thinks of Jay, the insularity of their togetherness. So much of it had taken place apart from others, in the solitude of their shelters or ships. There had been no dinners around the campfire, no drinks with the team after missions because there hadn’t been any joint missions, just Jay off doing her thing and Seven growing more and more stagnant, coordinating ops out of Fenris and waiting for Jay to come home. Would she have slipped up in a group setting? Enough for Seven to notice in time to rescue Icheb?
She blinks and pulls herself away from the ledge of those thoughts. What’s done is done. And now Raffi is beside her, willing to take her time. Willing to create, not isolate. And that’s what she wants to focus on.
“So you’re saying we shouldn’t hole up in your trailer every chance we get?”
Raffi smiles. “I’m saying we should find a balance.”
“A balance.”
“Yeah.” Raffi tilts her shoulder forward, so she’s facing Seven again. “Between together and apart. In community, and on our own. Relationships are all about give and take, right? So we give each other space, but we also take the time to build community. Together. Makes things stronger in the long run.”
Seven presses the tip of her finger onto the trailer’s roof and drags. It makes a light scraping sound, metal on metal, and she stops. She looks up, and Raffi is watching her, some unreadable mix of emotions on her face.
“That is,” she says—and the sky is light enough now that Seven can see the pulse fluttering in her neck—“assuming you want there to be a long run.”
Seven looks over Raffi’s shoulder and studies the horizon. It’s the palest pink now, a pink she only dimly remembers from her time on Earth after Voyager’s return. There had been so many empty hours back then and so little to fill them. She spent her nights reading or working puzzles or combing the databases Starfleet deemed acceptable for an ex-Borg to access, but there had been so many hours and so many nights that by the time morning came she was usually sitting at her window in a haze of shot concentration. And that’s when she’d seen her first Earth sunrise. That gradual lightening from black to indigo to gray to white to this pale, pale pink blushing its way into dawn.
Seven looks back at Raffi, who is waiting for her answer. Always so steady, this woman. Always so warm and welcoming. They’ll have to go inside soon. Break the spell. Climb down off the roof before the sun gets too hot and burns them. But not just yet. For now, there’s still time.
Seven holds her hand palm up between them. Raffi takes it, and the smile that spreads across her lips is as soft as the sunrise.