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"But I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss
I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs
The smell of smoke would hang around this long
'Cause I knew everything when I was young"
- Taylor Swift, "cardigan"
/
It was a clear autumn day in San Francisco. The trees of Archer Park were turning red, orange and gold. The black leather jacket Seven liked to wear off duty was unzipped, her hair blowing in the wind. This would have irritated her past bearing when she was younger, but she had become used to it long ago.
The Doctor still wore his uniform, of course, updated as Starfleet did every few years. His physical parameters hadn’t changed, but somehow the face of a fifty-year-old looked younger to her than it once had. It was his behavior that seemed older, in ways she was still trying to quantify. He caught her glancing at him sideways and raised his eyebrows, as if he could guess what she was thinking.
“How is your work at Starfleet Medical?” she asked.
“Do you want the short answer or the long one?”
There was a grim edge to the Doctor’s voice that suggested he badly needed someone to confide in, so she said: “The long one.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, a sign of severe stress even in someone immune to headaches. “Would you believe that some of the virus survivors still haven’t had their implants removed?”
“I am not surprised.”
“There are just so many of them, and so few surgeons with first-hand experience of the Borg - or counselors, for that matter. These young people were forced to sabotage their own ships, attack their own senior officers … My colleagues at the hospital are run ragged, and honestly, if I weren’t a hologram, I might be as well. I took today off partly to set an example regarding work-life balance, but will they listen to me?”
He vented his frustration for a while longer, waving his hands as he walked, and Seven listened. Beneath his bluster, she could hear how worried he was.
“I should be there,” she said bitterly. “It figures that as soon as I was finally assigned command of a starship, it would become the most useless place for me to be.”
“Seven, that’s not true!” His frustration swung over into an equally fierce protectiveness of her, even from herself. “Imagine what it means to some of these patients, to have a position on the Titan waiting for them, or even to be granted passage. After everything that’s happened, plenty of captains don’t even want them on board.”
“I know.” Seven, who still remembered how it felt not to be wanted on board, clenched her jaw. “Still - insufficient.”
“It does feel that way,” the Doctor echoed with a sigh. “But it’s all we can do, isn’t it? The duty set before us.”
“Agreed.”
They walked silently through a row of polished stone columns on which the names of destroyed starships were engraved. Flowers, candles, incense and stuffed animals lay piled up at their bases. Seven remembered a time when she would have scoffed at this as irrelevant and a waste of replicator rations (and part of her still thought so), but with a tiny model of Voyager in her quarters and an extensive classical music collection in her database, she had learned not to dismiss the value of mementos.
It helped, just a little bit, to see the blank spot where the name of the U.S.S. Protostar - Chakotay’s ship - had been removed. And speaking of the Protostar and its crew …
“Your trainees - are they alright?”
“Yes, thank heaven,” said the Doctor. “Zero is non-corporeal, Rok-Tahk is made of, well, rock, and they’ve all accomplished more in the field of xenobiology than some people three times their age. I’m so proud of them, I could have wept over the comm screen if I didn’t know they’d tease me mercilessly.”
“You always were an easy target.”
“I beg your pardon?!”
She smirked and bumped his shoulder. He rolled his eyes, but couldn’t resist smiling back.
“What I meant to say is … you were always a good mentor.”
“Speaking of which,” said the Doctor, “How is that sword-wielding cadet of yours?”
“Elnor is a junior-grade lieutenant now,” she said, a quiet, fierce pride warming her from the inside out. “He caught the virus, but he survived. Counselor Asha hosts support groups for all the XB’s on board. I make sure he goes - even if that means I have to go with him.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said the Doctor. “For all of you. By the way, is Commander Musiker still … ”
“ … my first officer, or my girlfriend? Neither,” said Seven, finding it easier to admit this than she had expected. “Last I heard, she was on another classified mission.”
She had needed their relationship at that particular time; maybe to remind herself that childless mothers could still love and be loved, or maybe that not all women were like Bjayzl. But Seven was tired of conspiracies and secrets, and Raffi lived for them. Her younger self would have understood that sooner.
“Do you remember,” she said, “The criteria for a partner we set up during our social lessons?”
“For pity’s sake, Seven, must you bring that up?” He laughed at himself, but turned pink in the face nonetheless. “Mr. Paris was right - please don’t tell him I said that - it really was a case of the blind leading the blind. I didn’t even realize how many of Dr. Z’s biases were still coded into me.”
“You didn’t think I might be bisexual?” Seven shrugged. “Neither did I, at that time. There was a lot we didn’t know, but I … I knew what mattered. Even then.”
Not looks or powers or charisma, all the dazzling qualities that would later draw her to Chakotay, Bjayzl and Raffi, then blind her to all the clues that they wouldn’t stay. What she had wanted at twenty-six (and still did at fifty-two) was both more simple and less definable than that.
“Shared values and shared interests … Yes, that’s right,” said the Doctor. “I remember firing all these questions at you, and you answering without batting an eye. You said you liked music for its mathematical properties, and your goal in life - ” His eyes twinkled. “Was perfection.”
The wind had been picking up while they spoke, and just then, a breeze tossed her long hair into her face. She pushed it away and back it fell, right over her non-augmented eye. Pretty or not, this was getting ridiculous. Her leather jacket, several sizes too big, flapped clumsily around her as she fished in all her pockets for an elastic band. She must look a mess, and that was only on the outside.
“Safe to say,” she said with a self-deprecating smirk, “My goals have evolved.”
“What are they now? … If you don’t mind my asking.”
Seven didn’t answer without batting an eye this time, but took a moment to think as she gathered up her hair. For so long, her goal had been just to live another day, to get through one more mission, to make it back to Fenrys in one piece, and later, to make Bjayzl pay for her betrayal. What did she, Seven, want out of life now that none of these were relevant?
A group of cadets walked by, their heads covered in stubble, their faces still raw from the eruption and removal of ocular implants. One of them nodded as if in respect or recognition, but another glared. They all edged as far away as the path would allow, whispering among themselves, fists clenched. They had a jaded air about them that reminded her of Jack Crusher. Like him, they were in their twenties, which was disturbingly young to look like that. Had Janeway ever thought that about her?
“I want,” she said quietly, making sure they were out of hearing range, “To help survivors like these as I was helped. I want my life to be mine, but in the service of something greater. And I want someone with me who could share it, complement the steps, like a … ”
“Like a dance partner?”
“Precisely.”
She had forgotten just how bright and soft the Doctor’s hazel eyes could be in that funny face of his. They were unfocused and his head tilted, as if he were listening to a far-off sound. With her Borg-enhanced hearing, she picked it up almost as soon as he did, coming from somewhere west of them, the opposite way from where the xB cadets had been headed.
It was the sound of a guitar, a keyboard, and a drum.
“Did you know there was going to be a concert here today?”
“Negative. Did you?”
“No, but since it’s our day off … ” He tipped his head in the direction of the melody. “Shall we?”
“Alright.”
A few bends in the path led to a clearing among the trees, in which rows of chairs were set up to face a small white gazebo that looked to be at least three hundred years old. A band was playing there beneath the delicately carved ceiling and bird-shaped weather vane. A clear space had been left in front of the seats for dancing, but only a few older couples were using it. The music was as old-fashioned as the gazebo itself. Some of Jack’s generation would probably make fun of it.
The Doctor’s eyes were shining.
“You, er … you wouldn’t happen to still remember Lesson Thirty-Five, would you?”
“I was programmed with perfect recall.”
“So was I.” He lifted his hand … hesitated … held it out to her. “May I have the honor?”
It was his hesitation, and his formality, that lent a meaning to the gesture she might not have recognized when she was younger. It was subtle enough that she could pretend not to notice, even though after the way they’d been talking about dancing, she could hardly fail to notice. She could say no, or carry it off as a platonic gesture, allow them both to save face and stay friends. He had come a long way from the man who had fallen to his knees unprovoked in front of the entire senior crew. She was not the only one of them who had evolved.
She did not want to say no.
She took his hand.
Back, left, together. Forward, right, together. Her cortical node might have the box step memorized, but her feet (especially in running shoes) took a few moments to catch up. He led her patiently, feather-light strength between their clasped hands, until she relaxed. Leaves crunched under their steps. The light that shone through the treetops was slowly turning golden.
“I always believed you’d come back,” he whispered. “I always hoped.”
“You mean back to Earth, or … ?”
“Earth would have been enough. Just to know you were safe.” He spun her around, making her beat-up jacket flare like a gown. “Today has been … ”
“Unprecedented?”
“Precisely.”
They performed a “chase”, letting go of each other just long enough for her to take three small steps away, only to turn right back around. How long had it been since her last moment like this - since she believed herself deserving of one? At twenty-six, she had fought to believe it. She had been wiser than she knew.
“I was gone for so long,” she said, taking those three steps back toward him. “I’m sorry.”
“All that matters,” he gathered her back into his arms, “Is that you’re here.”