Chapter 4

WHEN SEVEN OF NINE AND THE DOCTOR materialized in the hall, Chakotay did a double take. What was she doing here? She had said she hadn’t wanted to come. And now here she was, her long golden hair down about her shoulders, wearing the soft, flowing red dress he so admired on her. Their eyes met for an instant; then she looked away.

More than Chakotay noted her presence. Almost at once, a murmuring arose from the crowd, and conversation slowed for an instant. Seven kept her head high, her visage almost haughty, but her cheeks reddened. Chakotay knew at once what she was thinking. She was trying to be brave, to not appear intimidated, and inwardly fighting a desire to flee. No doubt, at this moment she was probably wishing she had stayed on board after all.

[41] “Is that Seven of Nine?” Sveta said. “Wow. You always did have good taste in women, Chakotay. Except for that time when you dated a Cardassian spy.”

Her warm, rich voice was full of good humor; it was gentle teasing, nothing more, but it bothered Chakotay. He forced a smile.

“Excuse me,” he said, and headed for Seven before the rest could descend on her.

He was too late. Already she had drawn a crowd. They closed in on her like a pack of hungry wolves, and Chakotay could see her blue eyes widen, her breath quicken, as she tried in vain to step backward. She drew closer to the Doctor, who was behaving like a father with a daughter.

“Yes, yes, I know you’re all fascinated by Seven,” he was saying, “but she’s already had her debriefing. If you want to talk to someone, talk to me.”

But they didn’t want the Doctor, they wanted Seven. Chakotay couldn’t believe it. These were all families of other crewmen. Good people, he was sure. Why then were they behaving like the paparazzi of old Earth, actually reaching out to touch Seven as though she were some kind of—

“Ladies and gentlemen,” came a cool, female voice he knew very well. “Seven isn’t used to all this attention. You know her story. I ask you to please give her a little time to adjust.”

Small though she was, Janeway smoothly threaded her way with ease through the press of people to stand beside Seven. She slipped an arm about the younger woman’s waist and smiled at the crowd. It was a [42] pleasant expression, but there was steel in that smile. Mama Janeway wasn’t about to let anyone hurt her cub.

The crowd drew back. Janeway’s appeal to their better natures had worked, at least for the moment. Chakotay was certain, though, that people would find some excuse or other to “drop by” Seven’s place at the table during the course of the dinner.

Politely but inexorably, Janeway steered Seven to a corner. The Doctor accompanied them, trotting beside them like an attentive dog, concern radiating from him. Janeway reached for a glass of champagne, thought better of it, and selected a glass of juice instead. She handed it to Seven. Chakotay smothered a smile. Seven would be better off if she didn’t touch a drop of alcohol tonight.

He finally managed to reach them. “Seven, I’m so sorry,” he said. “If you’d let me know that you had changed your mind about coming—”

“It’s quite all right, Commander,” she said, chilling him with the formal title. “I changed my mind at the last minute. I had no wish to intrude upon your reunion with old friends.” Her eyes lingered on the slim, beautiful form of Sveta as she spoke.

He stared at her, his heart sinking. How could she possibly think that her presence would be an intrusion? Would he ever understand this complex woman?

Chakotay decided it was time to cut to the chase on this. Firmly but gently, in a manner that brooked no argument, he clasped Seven’s elbow.

“Excuse us for a moment,” he said to Janeway and the Doctor. Before she could protest, he had steered her away. “That had to be awful,” he said before she could [43] speak. “As I said, if you’d let me know you’d changed your mind, I could have helped prevent it somewhat.”

Her eyes were like chips of blue ice. “That is not necessary, Commander. It would appear that on Earth, I will need to learn to fight my own battles. I will not cower behind my—”

She closed her mouth, not finishing the sentence. What had she been going to say? “My lover”? “My friend”? “My commanding officer”?

He released his hold on her elbow. “Seven, this is me,” he said, softly. “Please don’t shut me out. I want to be there for you.”

She glanced away. “I know.”

“But you don’t want me there.” His voice was sad, but not surprised.

She looked back up at him. “Admiral Janeway said that you and I would get married in the future.”

He smiled. “You know, somehow that stuck in my mind.”

“But that was a future on Voyager. Not here.”

His smile faded. The ache in his heart pained him, but it also had a sense of inevitability about it. He didn’t want to hear any more, but she grimly pressed on, as if now that she had started, she had to say it all.

“Voyager was my collective. I knew I was safe there. I trusted all of you; I knew all of you. I could ... I could try to learn to love. But all that’s changed. We’ve returned to Earth. I’m a—an oddity.”

“Seven, that’s not true, you’re—”

“And I have to learn to find my place again. I knew who I was on Voyager. Here, I have no idea.”

[44] He took a deep breath. The irony didn’t escape him. He had cared for three women on Voyager—Seska, Janeway, and Seven of Nine. One was a madwoman, a traitor, whose “yes” had never been real. The second had told him “no” gently and sweetly, because they were together on Voyager. And the third was telling him “no” because they weren’t together on Voyager. It was kind of funny, in a painful way.

“Can’t win for losing,” he said ruefully, chuckling despite his hurt.

She frowned slightly. “I do not understand,” she said.

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t. It’s okay, Seven. You’re right. You need to learn who you are, and you need to do that without me coming along for the ride.”

He wanted to kiss her one last time, but he felt the myriad eyes upon them. So he contented himself with gently stroking her cheek, smiled at her, and let her go.

 

B’Elanna was surprised at how small her father appeared to her. To her as a child, he had been such a large, comforting presence; and when he had gone, his absence had been even more enormous. Now he seemed to be just human-sized. Not a god, not a demon; just a man. She recalled a man with shiny black hair; now that hair, though still thick, was more gray than black. There were wrinkles around his face that did not jibe with her memories, and a stiffness to his movements that pained her to see.

Her father was growing old.

John Torres was still fit and healthy for his age, but she had not watched him grow older gradually. This was a startling change to B’Elanna, one that she had [45] glimpsed but not fully integrated when she had talked to him briefly on Voyager.

The way he was staring at her told her that she, too, had changed. Probably more than he. But children grew up, and parents grew old, and that was the way of the universe, wasn’t it? What did the universe care that one little half-Klingon woman grieved the death of her mother, and the aging of her father, and mourned even more deeply the opportunities for joy that the ill-fated triangle had missed?

Cradled in her mother’s arms, Miral made a soft, squawking noise. It broke the uncomfortable pause that had ensued after the first stiff round of greetings had been exchanged. At once, B’Elanna’s attention was diverted from father to child.

“May I hold her?” John Torres asked.

Not trusting her voice, B’Elanna nodded. As she placed Miral in her grandfather’s arms, B’Elanna’s body briefly touched her father’s. It was the first touch they had exchanged in years, and it felt like a shock passed through them.

Daddy.

And then the instant of physical warmth was gone, and John Torres was smiling down at his granddaughter. “She’s beautiful,” he said softly. “I am so sorry her namesake couldn’t be here.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tom open his mouth to speak. Before he could say anything, and before she could lose her courage, B’Elanna blurted, “How did my mother die?”

“So much for small talk,” Tom muttered.

[46] Torres’s eyes flickered from the baby to his daughter. He looked dreadfully uncomfortable. For a moment, the thought flared in B’Elanna’s mind: Good. He should be uncomfortable.

“I don’t know.”

She stared at him. All the warmth that she had been feeling for him turned to ice.

“How the hell can you not—”

“B’Elanna,” John said softly but firmly, “they never found the body. Your mother went on some sort of, I don’t know, some Klingon ritual. She never came back and was declared dead a year ago per Klingon law. I only learned about it myself quite recently. We—we weren’t in close contact.”

Shame washed over B’Elanna and she felt her cheeks grow hot. She was acutely aware of the Parises standing awkwardly by, trying to be present and yet not intervene. Tom had been right. Small talk would have been better.

There was not even a word in the Klingon language for “small talk.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that—”

“B’Elanna, dear,” said Mrs. Paris, “it’s all right. Everyone understands. You’ve had quite an adjustment to make and there’s so much that’s changed. Of course you’re going to be off-balance for a little while.”

The human woman reached as if to take her daughter-in-law’s hand, then seemed to think better of it. Before Julia could withdraw, B’Elanna reached out and clasped the other woman’s extended hand. A smile spread across Julia’s still-lovely face.

“B’Elanna received a message from someone named [47] Commander Logt,” Tom said. “It was pretty cryptic. She said she needed to talk to B’Elanna about her mother, and that it was kind of urgent.”

John Torres frowned. “That name rings a bell,” he said. “Though I can’t imagine why she’d want to talk about Miral as if it was urgent.”

B’Elanna dropped Julia’s hand. “I have to talk to her,” said B’Elanna. She surged forward to leave, but Tom’s hand closed about her upper arm.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “the banquet is only going to be a couple of hours. I promise, we’ll send a message to this Logt the minute it’s over.”

She turned angrily, a sharp retort on her lips, but it died when she saw the pleading in his blue eyes. It’s my mother we’re talking about! she wanted to scream.

But it was also her father they were talking about, and he was right here, warm and alive. And it was Tom’s mother, and Tom’s father. The strange experience—she couldn’t call it a dream—about encountering her mother on the Barge of the Dead was always in her mind. But she was not the child John Torres remembered, willful and headstrong and rash. B’Elanna Torres still had her Klingon passion and pride embedded in her genes, but she had learned patience.

Well, she amended with a rueful smile, she was at least learning patience.

She nodded at Tom. She would stay for the banquet. Stay, and learn about who this father was now.

 

Libby Webber was even more beautiful than Harry Kim remembered. He was of course delighted to be [48] reunited with his mom and dad; Harry was an only child, born late to these elderly parents and therefore all the more precious to them. He loved them fiercely, but he was a man now, not a little boy, and although he tried to be the dutiful son and pay those who bore him the attention and deference they deserved, damned if his head didn’t keep swinging around as if pulled to the woman standing across from him.

Had her eyes sparkled so brightly seven years ago? Was her hair that curly and thick, her smile that wide? He desperately wished he could talk with her alone, ask her how she had been, really been. Was there anyone else? There was no ring on her finger, but that didn’t rule out a serious boyfriend. Or girlfriend, for that matter—Harry wasn’t narrow-minded in his distressing scenarios of imagining Libby attached. They laughed and talked, but it was all shallow, all surface. If only they could speak deeply, as they used to, speak to and from the heart.

His feelings for her surprised him. There had certainly been other women in the intervening seven years. And they hadn’t been flings, either. Unlike some men he’d known, Harry knew that where his body went, his heart followed. Recollecting some of the things he had done, had felt, even now Harry felt a pang of loss. Once, he had believed in the very romantic concept that there was only one Someone for everyone, one true soul mate. He knew better now. Love—real love, not infatuation or passion—could be shared with more than one person in a lifetime.

She was watching him keenly, and as the shadows settled on his heart, she cocked her head in a gesture [49] that was deeply familiar to him. Libby smiled, slowly, that wide, all-encompassing smile that had always made him feel like he was dancing on air.

“You’ve changed a lot, Harry,” she said softly. “I can see it in your eyes. You’ve really grown up.”

“Don’t I know it,” his mother sighed, seemingly unaware of the electric connection between her son and his former fiancée. “Just yesterday he was little Harry, singing in the sunshine with me. My baby boy.” She reached up and tousled his hair. Harry knew from experience that it was now standing straight up and he blushed, embarrassed.

“Ma,” he said, drawing the word out in exasperation as he tried to smooth his ruffled hair.

Libby laughed. “It is good to see you again,” she said.

Throwing caution to the wind, knowing he’d hear about it all through dinner and probably beyond, Harry turned to address his parents. “Excuse us for a moment,” he said, grabbed Libby’s hand, and pulled the startled woman toward a corner of the hall where they could talk.

“Harry,” she protested. “Your parents are going to be furious!”

“Let them be. They’ve got me for the rest of tonight and probably for a long time after that. I don’t—I don’t know how much time we’re going to have.”

He realized that he was still clutching her hand and released her. Libby clasped both hands behind her back. Not a good sign, Harry thought.

“Well, what do you want to talk about?”

He stared into her eyes. What did he want to talk [50] about? What could they, separated for seven years, even have to talk about?

He knew what he wanted to say and do. He wanted to reach out to her, grasp her hands, and say, Libby, there have been other women. I’m sure that you’ve been with other men. We didn’t know if we’d ever see each other again. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done, but now I’ve come home. And I see you again, and it’s as if I’ve never been away, and as if I’ve been gone for a thousand years. Is there someone else now? Could you learn to care for me ... love me again? Is there anything left of love for me in you?

He said, “How’ve you been?” and hated himself.

She fixed him with a skeptical gaze. “I can’t believe you dragged me over here and annoyed your parents just to ask me how I’ve been,” she said, challenging him.

He said, “No, really, how’ve you been?” and hated himself even more.

Libby regarded him appraisingly for a moment longer, and then said, “Good. I’ve been good, Harry. My career’s really taken off and I perform at concerts all over the quadrant now. I’ve become a vegetarian and I’ve never felt healthier. I’ve dated several men, slept with a few, and fallen in love with one. It didn’t last. I live in a cabin by the sea where I have to balance my love for the ocean with the mess the humidity makes of my Ktarian lal-shak. I have two cats and a rabbit named Binky. That answer your question?”

Harry’s face felt as hot as if he were standing next to a bonfire. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I guess you shouldn’t have come.”

[51] “Silly me,” she said, heat entering her voice, “I thought you might want to see me, for old times’ sake. Guess you’re all grown up now and don’t have time for women you once said you loved. So, Harry, how’ve you been?”

“Now you’re angry,” he said. “I’m so stupid. I thought—hell, I don’t know what I thought.” As furious with himself now as she was, he made to move past her. She blocked him, placing her hand on his chest. It was warm and strong and stopped him as surely as if he had run into a forcefield.

“I cried my eyes out when they said your ship was lost,” she said softly. They didn’t look at one another. Her gaze was on the floor, his straight ahead. Her hand was still on his chest, fingers spread wide, and he wondered if she could feel how fast his heart was racing. He was certain she could.

“I waited for news. Any news. Good or bad. Anything that would let me move on, one way or another. And when it finally came, I cried again. Then I dried my eyes and got on with my life. I put all my pain and passion into my music, and it took my talent to a place it had never been before. Every time I played, you were in my thoughts, Harry Kim. I hoped that you had died quickly, without pain. I started seeing people, opening my heart up again. And then I heard from your parents that they were getting messages from you. Messages, Harry. Voyager was making it home as best it could, and you were alive, and you were sending your parents messages, but there weren’t any for me.”

His heart breaking, Harry risked a look down at her. Tears glittered like diamonds in her long, thick lashes. [52] She still stared at the floor. He wanted to speak, but didn’t dare.

“So I figured you’d forgotten. Didn’t want to see me. Your parents insisted I come here, and you know what, you were right. I shouldn’t have.”

“Libby,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Oh, God. I was afraid to contact you. I was afraid to find out that you were married, or hated me, or, I don’t know. I was just scared. There have been other people for me too. I’ll be honest, there have been some women I’ve really loved. But there was never anyone who ... who fit with me the way you did. There’s no one now.”

In a small voice, she said, “There’s no one now for me either.”

Swallowing hard, aware that they were in a crowd of people, Harry stepped in front of her and turned her face up to his. Her eyes were brimming with tears. How many times had he gazed into those eyes before bending to kiss those full, soft lips?

“I don’t know about you, but I think there’s still something here between us,” he said, risking all.

She nodded. “There is,” she admitted.

“What do you want to do about it?” She smiled, and to Harry it was as if the sun had broken out from behind a cloud bank. “I want to watch your parents revel in having their only son home safe and sound. I want to eat every bite of what is no doubt going to be a scrumptious feast. I want to split dessert with you like we always did. I want to take a walk in the moonlight and hold your hand and see how that feels.”

[53] He felt his own lips stretch in a grin and knew he looked like an idiot. A very happy idiot.

“Sounds like a plan.”

A clinking sound interrupted his thoughts. Someone was tapping on a glass with a fork. The crowd quieted and turned their attention toward their host, Admiral Paris. Although he presented quite a formal appearance, clad as he was in his dress uniform, the admiral’s face was alight with pleasure.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “this banquet is going to serve a double purpose. Not only are we able to finally welcome back our husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters once thought lost, we have an opportunity to recognize some of those for special achievement during that incredible seven-year journey. Will the following people step forward: Ensign Lyssa Campbell. Ensign Vorik. Ensign Harry Kim.”

Surprised, Harry glanced down at Libby. She pushed him forward. “Well, go on!” she said, grinning impishly.

He moved forward to step beside Lyssa and Vorik. Lyssa was almost bouncing up and down, her blue eyes bright. Vorik, of course, was as composed as a good son of Vulcan ought to be.

“You know what this is about?” Lyssa whispered.

“Nope,” Harry shot back.

Paris was continuing to recite names. Harry saw Tom and B’Elanna step forward, along with their captain.

They formed a line and stood at attention before Admiral Paris. An aide appeared beside him, carrying a small box.

“At ease,” Paris said. “This is a bit impromptu, but it’s the best we could do on such short notice, and we [54] certainly didn’t want to wait. Captain Janeway, please step forward.”

She did so. The aide opened the small wooden box. Nestled against the lush purple of velvet were several pips. Harry took a quick, sharp breath as he realized what was coming.

“For your determination in getting your crew home despite almost impossible odds—and for beating the Borg at their own game—you are hereby promoted to admiral.”

Something flickered in Janeway’s eyes and then was gone. Harry thought he knew what it was. Admiral. No more ship. Just a desk job. It might have been an advancement in rank, but for Janeway, Kim knew it was a demotion to the soul.

He also thought she might be thinking of the Admiral Janeway who had crossed the barrier of time itself to help them return home at the cost of her life. That had to be a bittersweet association. Nonetheless, the new admiral smiled as if it pleased her no end.

Paris went down the row. Both Lieutenants Paris and Torres became lieutenant commanders. And Kim, Vorik, and Campbell turned to face the applause of the crowd as lieutenants. He couldn’t help but glance in Libby’s direction. She was clapping wildly.

“And now,” said Paris, “it’s my understanding that the chefs have been waiting seven years to prepare this particular welcome-home banquet. Let’s not keep them waiting any longer.”

 

To Libby, the banquet seemed to drag on forever. When, finally, it wound down and the Kims asked [55] Libby to join them for tea at their home, she declined as politely as possible. She made certain that there was not a chance for her to be truly alone with the young lieutenant. She wasn’t ready for that yet. So she hugged his parents good-bye, smiled with what she hoped was shy sincerity at Harry, and agreed to meet him for lunch tomorrow.

When she materialized in her own small seaside cabin, she breathed an enormous sigh of relief. Her cats, Indigo and Rowena, meowed with annoyance. It was well past their dinnertime and they weren’t going to let her forget it. She stooped to pet Indigo and picked up Rowena. Going to the window, she looked out on the seascape.

It was almost a full moon tonight, and the waves were exquisite shades of dark blues and grays. The incessant, steady rhythm of the waves being called by the moon to come ashore, then retreat, soothed her after the rough night. She cuddled Rowena close and rested her cheek against the white cat’s fur. She heard the lop-eared Binky shuffling about in his pen.

Libby liked it here, far from anyone, alone with her animals and her music in this small cabin. She had enough interaction with people in the course of her performances. Funny, she mused. They had always assumed Harry was going to be the famous musician of the two of them. Libby’s interest in the Ktarian version of the harp, the lal-shak, was regarded by everyone, including herself, as nothing more than a pleasant hobby.

But when Harry had gone, vanished as if swallowed, she had turned to the instrument for comfort in assuaging her grief. She had played for hours on end, played [56] until her fingers bled, stained the fine rose-colored wood with her tears. An immense talent had come to the surface with the force of a volcano, a talent that no one, not even she, had guessed she possessed. Now she was widely regarded as the finest non-Ktarian player of the instrument in existence, and she was sought after hungrily for her musical gifts.

She was appreciated for talents other than musical as well.

Absently, she put some food into a dish for the cats, dropped some veggies and special pellets into the pen for Binky, and went into the bedroom of the small cabin.

She stood beside the bed, pressed the wall in just the right spot, and the holographic illusion of a driftwood-gray wall disappeared. In its place were a racing series of blinking lights and a control panel that put that of most starships to shame.

Libby was tired. She wanted nothing more than to fall into bed and let the ceaseless song of the ocean lull her into dreamless sleep. But she was a professional, and professionals didn’t shirk their duty, no matter how tired and heartsore they might be.

She stepped forward and submitted to the retinal scan and the DNA check. The face of an attractive, pale woman with blond hair appeared on the screen.

“Agent Webber,” said Brenna Covington, director of Starfleet Intelligence’s Covert Operations. “I’ve been waiting for your report.”