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There’s very little about Seven that should surprise Raffi at this point.
Still, Raffi has to do a double-take when she walks into Seven’s holodeck simulation at their agreed-upon 1900 hours. She was dressed for sparring – a standard issue tank top and trousers with a belt, a sword hanging on each side. A gust of wind – part of the simulation – nibbles at her bare arms, and she folds them over her chest as the cold takes her by surprise.
Seven stands further ahead of her on a misty cliffside overlooking the ocean. The sounds of waves and wind merge into one as she flourishes her polearm in a mesmerising routine – she spins it in a criss-cross orbit around her body, her arms flexing from side to side as she moves it back and forth. The top end of it, fitted like a halberd with a spear tip overlapping an axe-like blade, catches the light as she moves. Once in a while she sweeps it over her head, and she ducks in a swooping, elegant motion before coming back up to catch the other end of it and resume her spinning. She closes her eyes as she advances her stance, bringing her left hand in front of her chest as her right steadies her grip on the pole. Then her left hand joins her right as she advances forward towards an imaginary opponent, the weapon ever fluid in her hands, striking from above and below, deftly blocking any countermovements from her adversary.
For a while, Raffi watches, transfixed, almost too afraid to step in and break the flow. So this was how Seven of Nine trained. On a cliffside in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the rocks, the heavy sky and its mournful seagulls, and the sea lumbering somewhere far below. Raffi should have known she was a romantic like that.
For herself, Raffi had always preferred a padded gymnasium with training dummies and a luxurious spread of weapons at the ready. She was pretty sure any normal Starfleet officer would have gone the same route. But then again, Seven was nothing short of extraordinary.
Maybe it's the wind rustling Raffi’s hair that changes the music of the moment, breaking the spell. Or maybe it’s something about sensing her presence – not entirely inconceivable for someone who was as zen as Seven was in her state. Seven slows her movement and steadies herself, standing her polearm onto the ground before turning to face Raffi. “Enjoying the view, Number One?” she says as Raffi approaches, a hint of a smirk on her sweat-sheened face.
“Always, Captain.” Raffi unsheathes her swords and gives them an experimental sharpening against their blades. Seven cocks her metal-plated eyebrow. “Wow.”
“Don’t worry, they’re safe.” Raffi slides a blade against her palm, and it comes out completely clean. “Holodeck safeties and all that. Unless you want to turn them off… you know, just for fun.” She shrugs, which looks a lot more menacing than it’s supposed to when she’s holding a sword in either hand.
“I’d prefer to come out of this alive, thank you very much. Besides, I’m not up for breaching protocol tonight.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.” Raffi shifts her weight on her back leg, letting the swords swing gently from her arm.
“What, not wanting to break rules?”
“Thinking you’d die to me.” Raffi takes a step up to her, softly sliding the tip of her blade down Seven’s polearm. “I thought you were good at this.” Seven’s nostrils flare and she rolls her eyes as she dislodges her polearm from the ground and brandishes it in a wide stance.
“That’s enough small talk from you.”
Raffi holds her hands up – swords still in her clutch – in surrender and takes a step back to her starting position.
“Right.”
Raffi keeps her stance loose, watching Seven watch her. Was she going to strike first? Was she going to counter?
Seven moves in a circle, turning Raffi into the round, until they were circling each other, weapons raised, watching each other for every tell they knew.
Seven, Raffi knows, grits her teeth before throwing herself into a lunge. That’s how she knows to dodge as Seven thrusts forward with her polearm. Hoping to catch her before she gathers herself, Raffi presses forward, but Seven has already retrieved her weapon and Raffi is barely able to block her two-handed strike with her left sword. She wouldn’t have been able to throw Seven back, but she backs off anyway, and both women readjust themselves, keeping their gazes trained on each other.
“Breathless already, Number One?” Seven taunts fondly as she shifts from side to side, looking for an opening.
“Only at the sight of you.”
“Nice try,” Seven grunts as she aims a broad sweep at Raffi’s legs. Raffi dances out of the way, and Seven pursues her.
It was possible, but taxing, for Raffi to block Seven’s heavy blows. She was better off trying to make a run for it while Seven struck. As Seven brings the end of her pole down sideways, Raffi ducks and makes an advance, only for Seven to stop her strike midway and stab ahead, tapping Raffi squarely on the torso.
“Shit.” It doesn’t hurt Raffi, not with the safeties on, but she clutches the area anyway, somewhere under her left ribcage. “How did you do that?”
“I could have seen you coming for me from miles away, Raff.”
“But the momentum of that thing -?” Raffi points to the polearm. “How did you -?”
“I knew where it would end up from the very first strike. You didn’t. So I made you think I was putting all of my strength downward –”
“– when in reality you’d saved your strength for the forward lunge. Nicely done, Captain.” Raffi recovers her stance. “Another round?”
“I was barely getting started.” Seven grins as she brandishes her weapon.
This time, Raffi leaps first, and Seven easily parries her strike. Raffi lunges for Seven with her other hand, but Seven sidesteps so quickly that Raffi loses her balance. “How –?”
“You struck with your non-dominant hand first. Did you really think I wouldn’t expect –” Seven brings down her polearm and Raffi blocks her just in time –“–a counterattack?”
“Maybe I wanted –” Raffi grunts as she pushes Seven off to the side with great difficulty, “–you to think that.”
“You’re an open book, Number One.” Seven sneers as she makes an advance, bringing down her pole in two crossed strikes, pushing Raffi towards the edge of the cliff.
“Is that so?” Raffi risks a glance behind her, digging her heels into the ground as stray pebbles scatter off the edge. Not that she would break any bones, but she still wouldn’t enjoy the fall. She was, effectively, trapped. She tries to make a run for it, but Seven easily blocks her with a warning stab that barely grazes her boot.
“Your face says it all. And your body.” Seven flourishes the polearm in an outward twirl that spins her momentum forward. The polearm flies forward at Raffi’s torso. But Raffi dodges, dropping her left sword, and catches the pole under her arm, lodging it in place. Seven’s face twists in confusion. Raffi twists her forearm and grips the pole. Before Seven can drop it, she gives it a sharp tug and Seven is sent stumbling forward into Raffi. Raffi catches Seven’s back with her left hand and holds the tip of the blade over her heart with her right.
“Gotcha.” Raffi grins, relishing the fact that their faces were mere inches from each other’s. Seven’s eyes search hers, her lips fluttering as she catches her breath. “I thought…”
“If you’re going to read my face, Captain… make sure you’re not looking at a mask.” She smiles and presses the sword gently downwards, just enough to make an indentation on the fabric of Seven’s shirt. “You do recall I was Starfleet Intelligence. And undercover. Practising deceit? Kind of my thing.” She removes the sword from Seven’s chest and releases her with a smirk. Seven shakes her head as she retrieves her polearm.
“Makes me wonder how much about you I really know, Number One.”
“Huh? Seven, wait.” There’s something in Seven’s tone that sends Raffi’s heart plummeting to her stomach. “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, you’re right. Putting on masks, manipulating people, being exactly what other people want you to be. That has been how you do things, no?”
“That’s not fair.” Raffi picks up her other sword and sheathes them both. “When I said that, I meant that in the context of a… a strategy. A battle strategy. Nothing more.”
“Raffi, I know you. You treat your life like work. You analyse every detail and you set plans into motion to move the chess pieces to exactly where you need them to be. So tell me.” Seven lodges her pole in the ground and crosses her arms. “How do I know that you’re not applying your… battle strategies to your life? Your personal life?”
Raffi swallows. Her gaze darts around, and suddenly, the grey, heavy clouds seem so much more interesting than looking directly into Seven’s incriminating stare. “So I guess you’re a sore loser, huh.”
“Raffi.” Seven’s voice is stern, almost impatient, and Raffi’s hand comes up to fidget with the collar of her top.
“It’s not –”
“Then tell me I’m wrong.” Seven watches her, her chin up in the air, and Raffi realises that she wasn't wrong.
At least, not completely.
“I don’t know, maybe you’re right. Maybe I do do that sometimes. Force of habit. But that’s not who I want to be. That’s not what I want to bring into my… um, personal life. And –” She clears her throat as an unexpected rush of emotion wells up in her throat, “– and I’m working on it. You know that.”
Seven sighs. “You’re right, Raffi. I do know that,” she says softly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I… why I said…”
“We were both in over our heads?” Raffi suggests with a wry snort and Seven concurs with an awkward dip of her head.
“You know what, let’s just –” Raffi unsheathes her swords, and Seven follows her lead, retrieving her polearm.
Who really needs to talk when you can let off steam by sparring, anyway?
With a cry, Raffi charges forward in a low lunge, aiming for Seven’s leg. Seven parries with the blunt end of her pole and uses the momentum to spin herself away from Raffi. Raffi brings down strike after strike with alternating swords, and even as Seven blocks every one as they come, her eyes scramble, forming a plan to regain the upper hand. When Raffi makes an undercut, she catches the sharp end of her pole on Raffi’s blade and twists, disarming her. A brief look of panic flashes in Raffi’s eyes as Seven aims her pole towards her neck, but her body is faster, and a sharp circular kick knocks the pole away from her, throwing Seven off balance.
Taking her chance, Raffi ducks under into a front roll and is about to tackle Seven from the front, but Seven knocks her back with her polearm just in time.
“Not so easy,” Seven pants, her eyes lit in a blazing blue fire, so white-hot that it was cold.
“No,” Raffi agrees as she – with Seven’s permission – retrieves her other sword.
As soon as Raffi repositions herself, Seven comes in hot with the heavy strikes that send Raffi scrambling backwards with each one. They’re too strong for Raffi to block outright, too swift for Raffi to parry, and in a last-ditch attempt to salvage the situation, she plants her feet into the ground and holds up her swords in a cross as Seven brings her polearm down, catching it in between her blades.
Now, it was a game of strength between the two.
“Really, Raffi? This was your plan?” Seven presses downwards, leveraging gravity to slowly take Raffi down, and already, she knows that this was a fight she wasn’t going to win. Raffi’s back knee sinks to the ground, and then her front, until she was kneeling before Seven, arms raised above her head, the pole still wedged between her swords.
“You do realise you won’t win this.” Seven continues as she closes the distance between her and Raffi. With an easy kick, she knocks Raffi onto her butt, and she rebrandishes her polearm as her swords scatter for a fraction of a moment. Raffi regains her grip and pushes back once more, very much aware of how close the polearm’s blade was to her face. Better her face than her chest, though.
“Yield.” Seven climbs over Raffi until she was basically straddling her.
“No.” Raffi juts her chin out at Seven, a defiant gleam in her eye.
With a grunt, Seven dislodges her pole from between Raffi’s swords and points it at Raffi’s neck, but Raffi is equally fast, and one hand reaches up and presses the edge of her blade under Seven’s jaw.
“Damn,” Seven mutters under her breath, though her gaze – and the point of her pole – was still intently trained on Raffi.
“Damn indeed.” Something in Raffi’s expression relaxes, and she lets herself fall onto the grass with a long exhale. She removes the blade from Seven’s neck and lets it drop to her side.
“What –” Seven’s eyes follows the movement of her hand. “What are you doing, Raffi?”
“Nothing,” Raffi chuckles softly. “You just look pretty from down here.”
“Deceit?” Seven checks feebly, although she knows the answer before Raffi says it.
“No. No masks here. Just me.”
“Just you,” Seven echoes, her voice coming out softer than a murmur.
She dips down, and Raffi cranes her neck just enough to meet her as their lips lock together. Soon after, the pole falls to the side with a soft thud. Her hands now free, Seven supports behind Raffi’s neck with a hand, the other roaming over her bare arm. Raffi’s hands travel up the length of Seven’s legs and her waist, climbing its way under her shirt, nudging Seven closer to herself.
“This… this is not part of our sparring,” Seven finds the need to clarify into Raffi’s lips as she resurfaces for air.
“Oh, I know.” Raffi brings her hand up to Seven’s face, tracing down the length of her jaw with a featherlight touch of her finger.
“Will you kiss me anyway?”
Seven takes a deep breath and dives into Raffi’s lips.
-
They spend a long while lying on the grass after, their clothes haphazardly slung back on, watching the wailing gulls as they circle the mountains.
“So, what’s all this?” Raffi says finally, gesturing to around them.
“What, the simulation?” As Raffi nods, Seven sighs and pushes herself up onto her elbows.
“Nothing to it, really. Just a page from an older era. I found it in a fantasy archive.”
“Tell me about it,” Raffi says anyway, watching Seven from where she lay.
“The premise is, I’m a lone guardsman watching over a beacon. I’m a… chain in the link, so to speak. When that beacon over there –” She points to a far off mountainside – “lights up, then it’s my duty to get up there and light this one. And that carries the message across to over there.” She points to the other end of the scenery, so far away that Raffi can barely see. “And so on and so forth, until the signal gets to where it needs to be. While I’m on shift and waiting, I train.”
“I’m assuming this is from an era where long-range communications weren’t a thing.”
“These are long range communications, Raff.”
Raffi pushes herself to sit up and turns to Seven.
“So… you? A lone, stalwart watcher in the middle of nowhere?” It’s a question that reaches deeper than the simulation itself, and Seven shrugs.
“I like the solitude. And honestly, the sense of duty. Someone’s going to have to do the job.”
“Because no one else would do it?”
“Exactly. It gets hard out here, being alone.” She stares into the distance, foggy skies and a never-ending bluster that blows her sweat-damp strands of hair back, even now. “Facing nothing but grey skies and sea, all day, every day. It gets cold.”
“But you would bring that upon yourself, huh. Rather you than other people, that’s your whole thing.”
Seven shrugs again. “I… suppose. It’s what I know. It’s almost muscle memory at this point.”
“Well, I only have one question for this.” Raffi leans closer to Seven and tilts her head.
“Who’s watching the watcher, Seven?” she asks gently, searching for Seven’s gaze. “Who’s taking care of you?”
“I mean, this is just a holodeck simulation –”
“You know what I mean,” Raffi insists, with the very same gentleness that makes Seven want to crawl into her arms and stay there forever.
“Well, we all look after each other on this ship, I suppose.” Seven averts Raffi’s gaze and takes to her feet. Raffi purses her lips and follows her. It was one of the frustrating non-answers that Seven always loved to give. So broad and vague that there was no way to discern her meaning except to needle her for it, which was an excruciating process for either of them. So often, Raffi was left here, with half-truths she knew was more than what Seven let on, wondering why she would never say what she and Raffi both knew.
“Sure.” Raffi begins to walk away. If that’s what she wanted to call it, Raffi would respect that. She was the captain, after all.
Seven balls her hands into fists, relents, and calls after her.
“Wait, Raffi.”
Raffi turns on her heel, hands folded over her chest.
“I… I suppose…” Seven’s hand bounces at her side – a sign that she was nervous.
“I suppose… you could take care of me. Once in a while.” It comes out in a gravelly, breathless rush. Raffi’s eyes widen, laden with sarcasm. “Wow. That’s big of you, Captain.”
“No, I mean it,” Seven insists, taking a step closer. “I’m sorry. It’s just… it’s a lot, it’s been a lot, being here on the Enterprise. Being here with you. But you’re right. I don’t give you enough credit for what you do half the time. It’s my job to trust you, after all.”
Raffi raises her eyebrows, but her look softens into something more sympathetic. “Go on,” she urges Seven softly.
“I’m trying. Every day of my life, I’m trying to figure this out, and with my luck it’s going to take until the end of time. But I’m working on it anyway.” Her head dips. “As you know.”
“I do.” Raffi comes up to her and wraps her in her embrace. Seven throws her arms over Raffi’s shoulder, squeezing her tightly. For a while, they do nothing but rock each other gently, until their heartbeats settle into something slow and synchronised.
“Do you think we’ll always be like this?” Seven murmurs into Raffi’s ear. There’s a hint of fear and regret in her voice, something vulnerable, like a small child cupping her heart in her hands.
“No.” Raffi holds her a little closer anyway.
“But hey.” Raffi breaks off from the embrace to meet Seven’s gaze. Her hand finds her face again, travelling down her cheek with the back of her fingers, and Seven leans into her touch almost automatically. “Every time we fight, we learn something new. About ourselves, about each other. That’s how it works sometimes. You sharpen the blade by grinding it against a rock. It’s going to hurt. But we have to believe we’ll we’ll be better for it. In fact, I know we will.”
“Even if it hurts?” Seven asks as a hand travels up to curl around Raffi’s wrist.
Even if I hurt you and you hurt me back? Even if we’re headed for days of grief, days of sleeping in our separate quarters, and days of despair and regret and all the things we’ve vowed to avoid from the very beginning?
Raffi’s answer is so full of conviction that when it comes, it surprises the both of them. But they ease into it almost as quickly, knowing that there would have been no other answer in their hearts.
“Especially if it hurts.”