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Seven sat alone on the bridge of La Sirena staring toward the window. The darkness obscured her view of the outside world, reflecting only her own face back to her. She reached up to run her fingers along her ocular implant, her mind drifting to the xBs in the nearby cube. She shared so much with them. Disconnected from the collective. Disconnected from self. Without a real home. Implants and enhancements that made it impossible to ever be truly human. And yet, she had lived a life after the collective. She had friends and family, though spread thin, the connections weakening over time and space. Her fault, perhaps. She had trouble maintaining relationships. Trouble trusting, after all that had happened. Despite the deep longing within her for connection, for a collective of her own, she always seemed to push people away. Learned to ignore her yearning and rely only on herself. It was better that way. Safer.
Seven heard footsteps approaching from behind. Her hand dropped from her implant, not to reach for a weapon, as her instinct usually compelled her to do, but to shift in her seat in anticipation of company. She felt comfortable on La Sirena. More comfortable with this motley mix of people than she ever could have anticipated. She had let her guard down, which felt like a welcome change. She only hoped she wouldn’t regret it. Alongside her reflection, Seven could see Raffi standing behind her. They had barely spoken since Seven had initially landed herself on La Sirena, but Seven felt instinctually drawn to this woman. Gorgeous, strong, harboring the scars of a life that had twisted and turned, unwilling to take shit from anyone. Her equal in every way.
“Mind if I join you?”
In answer, Seven waved her hand at the empty chair.
“Can’t sleep?” Raffi slumped into the chair, eyes fixed on the reflection of the woman beside her.
“I don’t sleep.” Seven glanced at Raffi. “Rather, I can sleep, but I often choose not to. It’s unnecessary. I usually regenerate.”
“Right,” Raffi replied. “The Borg thing.”
Though Raffi’s tone of voice was light and matter-of-fact, Seven stiffened slightly. “Sleep has always seemed like an inefficient use of my time.”
“And staring at your reflection in the window for hours is a more efficient way to spend the night?” Seven’s mouth quirked up slightly at the edges as Raffi continued. “I mean, I’ll admit, it’s not a bad view.”
Seven raised an eyebrow and turned her chair to face Raffi, who looked back at her with a grin that Seven might have described as flirtatious. “And why are you not sleeping?” she asked, just barely managing to keep the amused smile from spreading across her face.
Raffi turned her head, stretching her legs out in front of her. “Nothing to ease me in, you know? I’m not used to just sleeping. I’m used to passing out.”
Seven nodded. “And now you’re…”
“Trying to clean myself up. Not much use to anyone in my usual state. Lost a lot to the drugs and alcohol. My son doesn’t want me in his life. He’s about to have a baby girl. I can’t even wrap my mind around that. But I’ll never see her. She won’t even know I exist. And I get it. I get why he’s angry. I let him down. I let a lot of people down.”
“You’re human. You made mistakes.” Seven had come to understand over the years that being human meant perfection was unattainable and mistakes were frequent and unavoidable. She had made plenty of them herself.
Raffi slouched further, leaning her head on her hand. “Yeah, and I couldn’t stop making them. Somewhere along the way, I think I lost myself, you know?”
Seven turned to face her reflection, fixated on the slightly distorted face staring back at her. “I know exactly.”
“So, what’s your poison of choice?”
Seven considered for a moment. “Never staying still long enough to feel much of anything.”
“Huh. Sounds like a lot more effort than getting high.”
Seven let out a sharp laugh, cutting through the tension in the conversation. “I don’t particularly enjoy the feeling.” She hesitated. “I’ll drink to relax, but I’ve never cared much for feeling out of control.”
“The Borg thing again?”
“Maybe.”
“Is that what you’re running from?”
Seven returned her hand up to her ocular implant. “I can’t really, can I?”
“Maybe not. But you’re trying. You tense up when I mention it.”
Seven hadn’t realized her body had betrayed her thoughts. “It’s always the first thing people notice. And I hate that.”
Raffi tilted her head, a slight smile on her lips. “It’s not the first thing that I noticed.”
For the second time that night, Seven fought to keep her facial expression neutral, though she could feel the involuntary curve at the corner of her lips. She turned her gaze back to the window. Something about Raffi disarmed her. This woman, who she barely knew, set her at ease and made her want to open up. Normally, this would set off alarm bells in her head, but Seven found herself ignoring her instinct to push Raffi away. Ignoring the alarms she had put in place for her safety. She found herself wanting to let Raffi in.
“What do you know about me, Raffi?”
Raffi shrugged. “Not much. I mean, you’ve got a bit of a reputation. The former-Borg Fenris Ranger who came from the Delta Quadrant on Voyager, the miracle ship. So, I guess there’s a bit of mythology around you. Larger than life. Doesn’t really fit with who I’m looking at right now.”
Seven turned to face Raffi again. “What? I don’t look like an intimidating and fearsome Borg Ranger to you?”
“Nope. You look like a woman who’s seen a lot in her life. A woman who’s exhausted, but can’t sleep. Damned relatable, honestly.”
This time, Seven allowed herself a smile. They sat in silence for a moment before Seven spoke again. “My name was Annika, before this.” She lifted her left hand and flexed the implants in her fingers. “I was a child when I was assimilated. I can remember her. Annika. But I’m not her. I tried to be. After Voyager. After the questioning, the tests, the fear I saw in the eyes of strangers, I tried to be more like Annika. I tried to imagine what she would have been like, if she had never been assimilated. Seven was too much for most people. Intimidating. Too strong, too serious, too different. Even my friends. Even Janeway. They thought they were doing what was best for me, but in some ways, I think they were burying me under the weight of their expectations. I wanted to fit in the world, so I made myself smaller. Hid my strength. Hid my abilities. Tried to soften my rough edges. Didn’t work, though. Could never really work. But, it turned out the Rangers needed someone who was maybe a little too much.”
“And you’ve been happy, living that life?”
“Happiness is hard to define. I might have been happy, for a while. But there were losses. So many losses. Some have been harder to get past than others.”
“Bjayzl was responsible for one of those losses? Someone that you loved?”
Seven gave a slight nod. “I killed her.”
“JL guessed as much. We all do things that we regret.”
“I dont. Regret it. I wish I did, but I don’t.”
“I doubt I would either,” Raffi replied. “If anyone ever hurt Gabe, I think I’d go the edge of the galaxy to find them. It wouldn’t feel right for them to just go on living.” Raffi shifted in her seat, her voice becoming more tentative. “JL said…I mean, he thought you two might have been…”
“Lovers? We were. For a while, I thought I had found my new collective. With the Rangers. With her. I wanted so badly to believe that I could belong, that I could be loved. I was blinded by it. She exploited that. And I lost myself. I don’t think I was ever truly Annika, but any part of me that held on to her died with Icheb. I put up the walls and I just kept running.”
“You project an awful lot of confidence for someone who carries all of that around with her every day.”
“It’s a Borg thing.” Seven gave Raffi a pointed smile, though Raffi thought she saw a hint of sadness beneath.
“Sounds lonely, though. Always running.”
“At one point I might have told you that loneliness is irrelevant. But now I’d say that loneliness is complicated. Especially for me.”
Raffi laughed. “I live in a trailer in the middle of the desert. There’s not a living soul for miles. I know a thing or two about loneliness.”
“When I was part of the collective, I was never alone. The voices of the others were a constant, always in my head. Loneliness was impossible. After I was released from the collective, I found the silence difficult. The emptiness overwhelming. I didn’t know how to be a part of a group, yet wholly individual, so I spent a lot of my time on Voyager alone. Especially at the beginning. I didn’t like it, but I got very used to the silence. I got used to my own company. So, while I may crave connection, I can find it very difficult to open myself to others. One voice can be so much more intense than a collective of unified voices in your head.
“You seem to be doing ok right now.”
Seven smiled. “You seem to have broken my wall.”
“I find walls are thinner in the dead of night,” Raffi replied. She caught Seven’s eyes. They seemed to sparkle with their own luminescence even in the dim light.
“And you?” Seven questioned. “Why did you hide yourself away in the desert?”
“There wasn’t anyone left to stick around for.”
“And now?”
“Now? I guess now I’d maybe like to try finding myself again. It felt good, doing something that mattered. Being part of a team. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it.”
“Enough to stay sober?”
“Enough to try.” Raffi’s words came out slowly, her senses dulled by her exhaustion. “But I’m not sure I even know who I am anymore, without…” She stifled a yawn.
“Raffi, do not fall asleep in that chair. Your back will not thank you. Trust me.”
“It’s fine. I’m comfortable. And it’s better than nothing.” Raffi let her eyes flutter closed.
“When was the last time you actually slept?”
“I got a few hours a couple of days ago.”
“Get up, Raffi.”
Raffi opened her eyes. Seven towered over her, holding out a hand. Without a word, she took it, following Seven through the ship to her quarters. Seven pulled back the cover on the bed, giving Raffi a commanding look.
“You need to sleep.”
“Fine.” Raffi removed her shoes and climbed in. Satisfied, Seven turned to leave. Raffi screwed up her face, trying to muster the courage to speak.
“Wait.” The word barely came out as a whisper, but Seven heard it clearly as her foot hit the threshold of the door. “Would you stay?” Seven turned around to see Raffi’s face filled with concern and so incredibly vulnerable. “I don’t know if I can do it. Sleep, I mean. I don’t really want to be alone.” Seven remained motionless. Raffi’s words triggered memories. Times when being alone had felt almost too difficult to bear. Times when she thought she might go crazy if she didn’t hear a voice or feel the simple presence of another living soul. Raffi mistook Seven’s silence for discomfort. “I know you don’t really know me and you probably think I’m crazy, I just…”
“I’ll stay.” Seven took a step back into the room.
“You will?”
“Sure.”
“You don’t think it’s weird? Me asking?”
“I understand not wanting to be alone. Sometimes we just need to know someone is there.”
Raffi visibly relaxed. She gave Seven the barest hint of a smile as she closed her eyes. “Thanks.”
Seven slid her body along the bed to sit next to Raffi. Though she spent most of her time alone, she felt a comfort in Raffi’s presence. Some of the tension in her shoulders released as she leaned back. She listened to Raffi’s breathing as it slowed, staring down at her fingertips, imagining her hand free of the implants. So often, she had wondered what it would be like to be normal. To be seen first as Seven and not as Borg.
“I don’t know who I am anymore either,” she whispered. “I’m not sure that I ever did. Which parts are truly me?”
Seven started as Raffi, half asleep, shifted her body and looked up. She reached a hand out to the starburst on Seven’s cheek.
“The Seven I’m looking at right now is pretty amazing. Not just parts of you. But all of you.”
“You’re delirious. Go to sleep,” Seven replied, grabbing Raffi’s hand and tucking it at her side. She leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes as the ghost of a smile tugged at her lips.
******
Raffi extended her legs toward the end of the bed, stretching her worn muscles. She ran her hand down the side of her face, wondering how long she had been asleep.
“Computer,” she mumbled, but she got no further in her inquiry.
“You’ve been asleep for just over five hours.”
Seven’s voice cut through the silence, causing Raffi’s heart to jump into her throat as she pushed herself up on her elbows. She shook her head, the memories from the night before racing back. Though she hadn’t been wasted, her fatigue had caused a familiar fog in her brain. She took a few deep breaths to process before turning to face Seven, barely visible in the dimly lit room.
“You stayed.”
“You asked me to.” Even in the low light, Raffi could see Seven’s ocular implant rise slightly, giving an air of perplexity or amusement. It was impossible to tell which.
“Yeah, but I didn’t actually think you would. Not the whole night. Figured you’d slip away. You’d have something more important to do. More efficient.” Raffi emphasized that last word, let it hang in the air.
“I had nothing more pressing to do. I actually slept for a couple of hours. I lost my regeneration unit when I lost my ship, so I might have to get used to sleeping for a while. ”
“I’ve been told that I snore.”
“Oh, you do.” Seven smirked. “But you’re still quieter asleep than awake.”
Raffi shot her elbow out to Seven’s side. With a sharp intake of breath, she pulled her arm back, cradling it as pain ran down to her fingertips. Unnerved, Seven slid down to the edge of the bed and dropped her feet to the floor.
“What the hell was that?” Raffi asked, tilting her head as she stared at Seven’s back.
“I’ve got more implants than you can see,” Seven replied, standing to face Raffi.
“Oh,” Raffi stammered, “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”
Seven furrowed her brow and shook her head. “No. You’re the one that got hurt. I’m…I should go.”
Raffi swung her legs over the side of the bed, shaking out her arm. “Seven, wait. Do you remember what you said last night? About being too different? Too much?”
Seven nodded.
“I’ve always felt that way. Like I’m too much. Like I’m not worth the trouble.”
“Raffi, you’re not…”
“I know,” Raffi said with a smile. “And neither are you.“
Seven paused. She gave a nod of her head and a subtle smile before disappearing through the door.