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Seven of Nine turned around, looking away from the central screen in the Astrometrics Lab, as she heard the doors opening again. For the first time since she became a part of Voyager’s crew, she was disappointed to see the woman who had just entered. “Captain?”
“Seven.” The Captain nodded at her with a small smile. Seven immediately deducted that she must be off duty as she was not in uniform but was wearing the same outfit she had worn to the Pixim party in the Mess Hall.
“How is Neelix?” Seven asked before the Captain could explain why she was in the Lab. “When he came in here before… He acted very strange and then I overheard some crewmembers talking about him-”
The Captain raised her hand to stop her, shaking her head and looking down at the floor. “Don’t listen to everything you hear, Seven. But Neelix is fine. He is with Samantha and Naomi Wildman right now.”
“I see.” Seven said, even though she did not quite understand. “I wondered… He did not seem like himself. Perhaps… Perhaps I made a mistake after all, in bringing him back with my nanoprobes.”
“Don’t say that.” The Captain frowned at her and finally closed the remaining distance between them, standing rather close to Seven. “I actually came in here to thank you for it.”
“But are thanks even in order?” Seven looked away and put the instrument she had been working with down. She did it with a little too much force and she hoped she hadn’t broken it. “Neelix was very angry with me for some reason. He seemed to regret me bringing him back and if he is no longer functioning within his normal parameters…”
“He needs time.” The Captain’s hand landed softly on Seven’s shoulder and immediately the muscles there started to relax. “He has been through a lot. He was dead for eighteen hours.”
“But he is alive now! Those eighteen hours might as well not have happened. My nanoprobes brought him back to his original state.”
“They did that physically. But emotionally… he needs to process what happened to him. That will take some more time and we have to be patient with him. But that does not mean that bringing him back was a mistake. If you ask me… It was a miracle.”
Seven couldn’t control her eye roll and scoff, which thankfully only seemed to amuse the Captain as she let out a chuckle. “You do not want your achievement to be labelled as a miracle?”
“What happened to Neelix has been surrounded by too much mystique over the past few days as it is.” Seven tried to explain her frustration, looking into the Captain’s gray eyes again. “Everyone keeps talking about the afterlife, miracles, souls and dreams.”
“And you don’t believe in any of that?”
“I believe in dreams of course. They are scientific fact.” Seven answered her sarcastically, avoiding the real question. “I experience dreams.”
The Captain’s smile suddenly slipped off her face and her expression changed. The muscles in her face softened and her eyes moved slowly from Seven’s right, to the left and back. Her voice turned low and soft like a whisper. “What do you dream about, Seven?”
A rush of blood flooded into Seven’s cheeks, a sufficient amount so that she knew that the change in color of the skin must be noticeable. The Captain’s eyes certainly travelled down from Seven’s eyes to her cheeks and then to her lips… “I… I dream…”
But she couldn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t admit to the Captain that most of her dreams were about her. She still had some confusing dreams about the Borg from time to time, some of them could probably best be labelled as nightmares. But most nights, when she was regenerating for a long time, her mind took her to the Captain.
The night after the Pixim party, Seven had actually dreamed of her as she had looked then and now. In that beautiful flowing white silk blouse and the necklace that glinted around her throat.
With a shock, Seven realized that her own eyes had wandered down and with a snap she came back to herself. A feeling of fear, that she could not quite explain, moved her eyes over the Captain’s face. She tried to read what the other woman was thinking, what conclusions she was drawing based on Seven’s reaction to her question.
However, not much had changed in the Captain’s expression. The softness was still there, her eyes still sparkled. Only now there was a slight flush on her cheeks too and her lips were slightly parted…
It was too much. Too much like her dreams… Seven had to look down at the screens in front of her again before she did something she would regret later.
From the corner of her eye, she watched the Captain take a step back and then she heard her clear her throat. “I’m sorry, Seven. Maybe that was too personal a question.”
There was a note of hurt in her voice and Seven ached to make it right, but she did not know how. Her mind was flustered, racing all over the place and her eyes were desperately trying to find something to focus on as her heart beat loudly in her ears.
The silence continued for a while and she could feel the Captain pulling away from her, the distance growing between them. Finally, the other woman turned away and quietly started to walk towards the exit.
At the moment when the doors opened, to swallow the Captain up to the rest of the ship, Seven turned around in a flash. “Wait!”
The Captain turned around with a surprised look on her face. Thankfully, she took a few steps back towards Seven which allowed the doors to close, giving them back some of the closeness and privacy they had had before.
But the silence was still there. A silence that Seven knew she had to break.
“I… I dream…” She had to swallow a few times before she could continue, and she found it impossible to look at the Captain’s face. She just stared at her shoes instead. “I dream of you.”
Never had Seven experienced a silence more deafening than the one that followed her words. They still echoed through her mind and a part of her wondered if she had really said something so personal aloud.
“Oh…” The Captain’s voice caused Seven to involuntary look up at her face again. The blush had deepened on her cheeks, but she was… smiling.
Was she laughing at her? But Seven couldn’t imagine that and when the Captain walked back towards her, her smile remained. It was one of the best smiles, Seven had ever seen. It reached the Captain’s eyes, making them sparkle even more than usual.
“Seven…” The Captain stopped walking and talking at the same time. There was still some space between them, and it was charged with a strange sensation, almost like electricity.
With a short laugh the Captain broke it. She moved a hand up, running it through her auburn hair and then resting it on the back of her neck. “Thank you.”
It was almost a whisper again, but the words thrilled through Seven as if it were a charge that went through her nervous system. It left a rather pleasant sensation.
“Now… I came in here to thank you for saving Neelix’s life and I didn’t really do a good job.” The Captain laughed. “Really… Seven. For your ingenuity and determination, thank you.
“You’re welcome…” Seven said after some hesitation, not sure where the conversation was going now.
The Captain nodded again, pursed her lips and started looking around the room as if she were searching for a new topic but then suddenly her piercing gaze fell back on Seven again. “Do you want to go have dinner?”
“Dinner?”
“In the Mess Hall.” The Captain clarified. “If I understand correctly, Lieutenant Paris took it upon himself to make the pizza he has been craving for so long and with Neelix being… unwell, he said he would make enough pizza for the rest of us.”
“I don’t remember if I ever had pizza before.” Seven wondered aloud, not sure if she was up for the new experience.
“Great! Let’s go!” The Captain’s face lit up with another smile before she turned around and started walking towards the exit.
Seven was stunned for a split second but she did not want to disappoint the other woman and make the situation awkward again by refusing to go with her. Apparently, she was having pizza for dinner.