Work Text:
"Because the last time you saw me
Is still burned in the back of your mind
You gave me roses and I left them there to die
So this is me swallowin' my pride
Standin' in front of you sayin' I'm sorry for that night
And I go back to December all the time"
- Taylor Swift, "Back to December"
/
“It does not snow in the mess hall of a starship, Doctor,” said Seven, not even trying to hide her smile.
The wedding of Admiral Janeway and Captain Chakotay might have been small and intimate, but they still wanted their friends and families back on Earth to have a record. Since two-dimensional video used less bandwidth than holofilm, the Doctor had gladly volunteered his services as editor, and Seven had offered to assist. Fortunately so, as someone had to stop the Doctor from overusing the filters.
“Of course not. It’s symbolic, look - ” With superhuman speed, he tapped the button again before she could block him.
Their orbital shot of Kathryn and Chakotay’s kiss at the end of the ceremony - both in their dress whites, pink roses gently held between them, her hair down around her shoulders, his with all the dye washed out - was now covered by a shower of white holographic snowflakes.
“Symbolic of what, frostbite?”
“Romance! Oh, come now, editing is an art form. Anyone can hold a camera, but it takes an artist to truly capture the essence of the moment. Don’t you want the Janeways, Sekaya and Tuvok to feel everything, just as if they had been there?”
“It would be romantic to see their faces without glitter in the way.”
Seven hit Undo, removing the glitter, and let the clip play out in both 2D and 3D.
They were standing behind the holodeck console, with a screen up at their eye level. Half the room was a metallic grid, the other half was running footage from the Doctor’s holocamera.
The wedding had been short notice, but someone - most likely Paris - had still decked the mess hall out in streamers and replicated a three-tiered cake. The bride and groom cake toppers wore uniforms and stood shoulder to shoulder, wielding tiny tricorders, ready for adventure.
As Kathryn and Chakotay stepped back from the kiss that had sealed a commitment decades in the making, they smiled at each other, her blue eyes and his brown ones softening at the same time. Dimples showed in Chakotay’s cheeks. Despite the gray in their hair, they both looked younger than Seven had seen them in years,
Applause, cheers and/or tears broke out from everyone in the room. The Doctor called out his congratulations. Icheb and Bryce beamed at each other and at the couple in turn. The Paris-Torres family whooped and whistled. Kim (fresh from a break-up) wiped his eyes and put on a smile. Counselor Cambridge muttered something sarcastic to Dr. Sal, but stood up to clap anyway. Patel and Gwyn (mostly Gwyn) jumped up and down, squealing like teenagers. Lasren, who was Betazoid, closed his eyes to bask in his friends’ joy. Commander Glenn of the Galen, kind and serene as always, gave her handkerchief to an overwrought Lieutenant Barclay. No-nonsense Captain Farkas, who was officiating, had to blink hard and clear her throat before gruffly pronouncing the couple husband and wife. Even Commander O’Donnell, who was a widower and hated parties, had turned up to take back Kathryn’s bouquet so he could replant the flowers later. Seven herself remembered clapping until her hands stung.
The last she saw of the bride and groom before they disappeared into a swarm of hugs, handshakes and claps on the back, they were still glowing.
She still thought the snowflakes would be excessive, but she could almost see what the Doctor meant by them. Standard-issue lighting seemed somehow not enough for a moment like this.
The Doctor hit Pause.
Looking over at him, prepared for another round of good-natured sparring about visual effects, she was surprised to find him looking back at her with a very sober expression.
“Seven … may I ask you a personal question?”
“Proceed.”
“Are you sure you’re alright with this?” He gestured to the paused celebration in front of them. “Your first love marrying someone else, I mean?”
Of all the aspects of individuality she had learned from her crew in the past thirteen years, she was perhaps most grateful for the ability to laugh. “Chakotay - my first love?”
“Wasn’t he?” The Doctor frowned. “Forgive me. My memory … ”
He made that self-deprecating swirling gesture beside his head that he had taken to using lately as a shorthand for the aftereffects of alien possession. He seemed to be trying to make light of it, but she knew it still troubled him. He was more human these days. (Who would have thought that someone’s imperfections would draw her closer to them?)
“Chakotay and I went on three dates six years ago,” she clarified firmly, “It was like playing a role in a holonovel - enjoyable for a few hours, but exhausting in the long term. He has become a better friend to me than he ever was a partner. He was not my first love, and neither was Axum. Certainly not Cambridge.”
The unspoken question lingered in the air for a long time before the Doctor finally asked it: “So … who was?”
Time slowed down.
Not literally, of course; that would have been a cause for red alert. But when scanning asteroids, minefields and the like in Astrometrics and sending data to Voyager’s helm console, Seven could sometimes access a clear-headed, perfectly focused state in which she could spot every scrap of debris before it even came near the shields. Her hands were steady and her eyes sharp even as her pulse pounded in her ears. She was in that state now as her mind raced to navigate this conversation, which she knew might change the course of her life.
She could still turn back. She could still say there had never been anyone. But when the Galen had gone missing, this was what she’d sworn to tell him. Even if no one else knew, she would never forgive herself for backing out now.
“Stardate 52648.0. You left twelve red roses in my regeneration alcove, with a card saying “You are my sunshine” - the title of our first duet. I … I returned them.”
She would never forget the heartbroken look in the Doctor’s eyes that day, even though he’d covered it up instantly with a smile and an injunction not to worry about it.
She did not take her eyes off the paused wedding recording, not certain what would be worse: if she saw that look from him all over again, or if she didn’t. For all she knew, he might be embarrassed right now that his colleague with the decent mezzo soprano and interesting medical file was telling him all this, and wishing he’d never asked such a nosy question.
“I was young. Confused. I told you then that I was not ready for a relationship, and that was true. It was also true that I have often regretted my answer … and sometimes I still do.”
Even without seeing his face, she thought she could hear a tentative hope in his voice as he asked: “Still?”
She nodded, blood rushing to her face.
“Seven … ” No one else ever gave such weight to her name when they said it. No one else she knew understood what it meant to take a machine’s designation and turn it into a name of one’s own. “Seven, I’ve always loved you. Even when I couldn’t remember who you were. I still knew you by the negative space left behind. You are written so deeply into the heart of my code that nothing in the multiverse could erase you. But I’ve made presumptions about what’s best for you before, and the last thing I want is to do that again.”
“Then the solution is logical.” She looked up into his bright hazel eyes. “It is not presumption if you ask me what I want.”
“What do you want?” They had both moved closer as they spoke; their faces were only centimetres apart.
“This.” She took a fistful of his jacket collar and kissed him.
Whatever the mistakes in her past relationships, they had at least taught her how to speak this wordless language. Photons and force fields aside, nothing could be more real than the heat of his mouth and the strength of his arms around her. She didn’t have to hold back with him. She couldn’t hurt him (at least not physically) if she tried.
She did not notice that they had bumped into the console until the recording started up again. The sounds of applause, cheers, friendly voices, and the opening notes of Kathryn and Chakotay’s first dance chimed in with such serendipity that Seven and the Doctor broke apart with shared, blushing laughter.
“Imagine if we’d done this at the actual event,” the Doctor joked. “We’d have completely stolen their thunder.”
“Unnecessary.”
“True.” He rewound the footage to the last point where they had stopped. “We really do need to finish this, though. But you’re right - too many visual effects are kitschy.”
“You are correct as well. Sometimes they do enhance the quality of the film.”
She opened the color menu and turned up the saturation; only by a few points, but enough to brighten the room. The gold highlights in the Admiral’s hair and the silver ones in the Captain’s suddenly shimmered. Their dress uniforms became whiter. The roses in their bouquet deepened in color as if fresh from a sunlit garden.
“Beautiful,” breathed the Doctor, looking at the screen and her face in turn.
It might take a little longer to finish editing this video than she had planned.
Thank heaven and their command team, they were both off duty tonight.