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Seven learns about Marks the way she consciously learns about, well, everything: on Voyager.
At first, she thinks it’s something specific to Tom and Harry because those two are always talking, about everyone and everything, in a way that seems to push Seven’s processing capabilities in a way that she can’t quite quantify.
Such is being human, apparently.
That’s exactly why she doesn’t think about it: it’s just another thing to understand in a sea of the things about being human that Seven just…endures.
But Voyager’s situation, by design, doesn’t allow a lot of space, so Seven can’t help but overhear people talking about it. There’s almost a prophetic weight given to Marks, as if the more people who have them find each other on Voyager, the more likely they will never return to Earth. It’s a conversation that has always existed but picks up when Seven comes on board, from her understanding – not something that relates to the fact that Seven is an ex-Borg but more about how, when Seven comes on board, everyone’s been at this for four or five Sol cycles, and their patience would be wearing thin if there weren’t something new to contend with every single week (thereabouts).
And this is how Seven learns the rules of Marks. She catalogues them like she does the rest of the knowledge she accumulates about being a humanoid, being a human who passes for human, and how that maybe pertains to her (as well as the Borg).
- Marks help indicate who one’s soulmate is
- Marks exist from birth
- One may have more than one soulmate
- A soulmate may or may not be romantic; parents and children can be soulmates, as well as people who meet very briefly or in rare cases, not at all
- Marks indicate where soulmates first touch you, or a place that is significant to them
- While #2 can be used to discern where #5 might take place, it’s a little difficult because…
- …soulmates can only identify each other after they’ve touched (and yes, there are plenty of other meanings of “touch”, depending on the species; it is however something that all humanoids seem to have in common
- Soulmates are, for the entirety of their relationship, unable to lie to each other, consciously or unconsciously
- Seven doesn’t know if she qualifies as humanoid, so she doesn’t know if any of this applies to her
Obviously it’s Harry who first brings it up, after a very public (is there any other way Tom and B’Elanna know how to conduct their relationship?) display of Tom and B’Elanna trying to figure out if their Marks are in fact, Marks of the other.
“You’ll find yours,” Harry tells Seven encouragingly, after the two of them are left awkwardly lingering in the halls of Voyager after Tom and B’Elanna’s display.
“I do not know if that is accurate,” Seven replies, because it is the only response that makes sense. The circumstances of Seven’s life barely point to her being humanoid, let alone her having a soulmate. Seven’s Mark partner probably remains in the collective, and Seven is not sure whether she wants or doesn’t want to know if they exist. It says something about her future that she’s not sure she wants to be privy to.
Harry shoots her a look that Seven finds herself mentally pushing away: it’s one of pity, and Seven doesn’t really want that either. What’s the point of having a soulmate anyway? Is regular company not enough? Is a life without one not worth it? Why is everyone so fixated upon it?
But there are many mysteries about being human and humanoid that Seven doesn’t know the answer to. In theory, the answer should come in time. In reality, the statistics that Seven has calculated in her head point to it never becoming a reality. And Seven’s okay with that, because honestly, what’s the alternative? She can only take life day by day.
Sometimes, Seven looks at the scar on B’Elanna’s eyebrow and wonders if it’s her. There’s nothing to say that Marks have to be mirror images of each other, but Seven finds herself wondering if she has a matching one. It would be under Seven’s ocular implant, so Seven wouldn’t be able to see it.
It’s not to say that Seven feels or wants to feel a particular way about B’Elanna at all. She just finds her thoughts lingering on this specific one, time and time again.
She doesn’t know if she likes it.
Raffi’s time in Ordeve remains a muddled cloud in her head for years, for many reasons: lack of understanding, lack of processing, years and years of addiction that scramble her thoughts and her memories.
She’s not looking for pity. It just is what it is.
Here’s what she knows: that she touches Seven on her left hand for the first time, her implant hand. But before then, she already knows. She knows on sight, from the moment that ferociously beautiful woman beams on to La Sirena, a move that Raffi had meant to save her life.
Muddy waters clear. Raffi knows that this is the woman the Prophets had chosen to speak to her with, that they saw her significance before Raffi ever could.
But Raffi is far from a believer at this point, and what does it matter if she believes? She always loses. Her beliefs are damning, and maybe it’s best that she stay away from this woman too, because Raffi really just seems to burn everything she touches.
But Raffi does little about it, even as Seven seeps into her life like water through the cracks in sea rock. Because for anything to happen between them, she also needs Seven to come to a similar understanding, but Seven’s on a completely different plane of existence. She has a destiny. She’s one of those people, the kind of heroes that Raffi’s grandmother warned her about. Raffi knows it. Everyone knows it, even if it’s going to take Seven some time to come around to it.
Raffi lets it go, gives it up into the cold and unbuilt arms of the universe. She’s done trying to move pieces into her favor, not when it costs her this much.
2024 is the key.
(it’s the key to many things, but it’s also a key to them.)
Raffi tries to tell herself that it’s a different timeline and a different reality, but the evidence stands for whatever it’s worth: Seven, as a human, has a barely noticeable scar-like Mark on her eyebrow and next to her ear, where her implants would be. She has another one near the nail beds of her implant hand.
The hand that Raffi touched.
Raffi doesn’t even begin to think about the Mark she carries hidden in her hairline, one that seems to match Seven’s.
This is part of her recovery, right? Stopping this impulse she has to be important to this other woman, to be irreplaceable.
You’ve never lied to me, Seven told her once, but you managed to manipulate me all the same. And it hurts, Raffi. Please stop.
Everyone is replaceable, and Raffi is no one special.
Of course Seven knows. Seven knew the moment Raffi touched her, nearly unconscious from trauma and blood loss.
Seven who barely possessed the language, the feelings, the references to understand knew what Raffi was.
Essential.
Seven has lost many things others deem essential: her parents, her community, her childhood, her collective, her family of rebirth. One more doesn’t seem to tip the balance much.
She knows exactly who Raffi is to her but does not pursue it. That’s how she keeps from breaking things she wasn’t meant to have in the first place.
Over time, they both forget about it — not because it’s not important but because there are so many other important things to do. It doesn’t come up again until — well, until the next emotionally changed moment in the History of Them.
(Time and time again they find themselves in each other’s paths — across time and space and conspiracies and quadrants and odds.)
“There’s not a single person better qualified to serve as my first officer,” says Seven, now captain in mannerism and title.
“That can’t be right,” replies Raffi easily, because this is about Seven and her crew being safe out in the unknown, in body and in spirit, and Raffi will be damned if she lets her go out with no one but the best. If Raffi has anything to say about it, anyway.
“You know I can’t lie to you, Raff. Have I ever? Have you ever? Why would I start now?”
The admittance leaves Raffi breathless with the weight of it, the wind knocked out of her chest. The simplicity of the remark, as well as the artless way Seven says it.
It is the truth, but it is also a truth Seven is entirely ready for.
And it doesn’t upend Raffi’s world, not the way she wanted it to so long ago. She doesn’t feel saved or absolved or anything. She just feels ready.
For once, they’re both ready, in the same place and at the same time.
There is so much more story to tell about this, the way they clarify timelines, the way they take time and care to relearn each and every inch of each other’s bodies and souls trying to cement this clarity into a form that will transport both of them into a new age, a new partnership of equal footing that is unapologetically them .
The point is simply a single realization, though: this is who they are, for themselves and each other. For the galaxy, indescribably vast and profound.