Almost Home
"What will happen to us when we get there?"
Between these rigid cotton sheets I feel you clinging on my skin. Your pale long hair made paler by the lack of hard light. Your body resting over mine, heavy and warm and right. I run my palms against your ribs and press my fingers across the soft bands of flesh which frame you. I breathe your scent like lemon sunlight and oxygen. I bury my eyes into your neck, and close my mouth onto your pulse- point. I don't want to open my eyes again. If I open them, I will drown in blue.
"Kathryn...will they take me away from you?"
Oh, Seven if they took you from me I would die. Please don't let them do that. I won't let them do that. You are mine. Mine. I found you, and nobody can steal you from me. Not Starfleet, not anyone.
"Kathryn?"
Press me, Seven. I make you tighten your arms around me, I dance my tongue with yours, our kiss. I need you now, more than anything. We are almost home, but without you, I don't think I'd care. I've lost so much of my self to the journey. You tangle your body into my limbs, replenishing me. Let's not think about the future, Seven. We have here. We have now. Nobody can touch us.
We love each-other, my sweat paints moisture on your skin. Your fingers tease me, your breath is hot and panting. The air displacement moves my hair. I tongue your clavicle, your pink-hard nipple. I kiss your mouth, open, and your lashes, your starburst- cheek.
Your fingers, your hands, your mouth. They move over and inside and through me. You grind your hips against my thigh, or sandwich my palm between your legs and mine. We rock and we shout and we run away from the real world. The one which wants to tear you away from me. This is what our love is, you are precious to me. We are almost home.
In the morning, you are shiny-brown borg mesh and anxiety. You kiss me in the turbolift, plum lips sucking on my tongue and your hands on my ass. We covered up the hickeys on your throat with Starfleet magic and technology. That's what they want from you. A vivisection, technology, your nanoprobes. A weapon like an atom-bomb to fight the Dominion and the Borg.
"You never answered my question, Kathryn."
I open my mouth, the Turbolift arrives. "Bridge," Voyager says. Moment gone.
Harry stands up straight, tall and so excited I fear he really will cause himself a sprain. "Captain on the Bridge!" He exclaims.
I feel your body move around me as you join B'Elanna at her console, and I stalk like a tiger to my Captain's chair. We are almost almost home now. I must bottle up my fear.
"B'Elanna, prepare the wormhole. Tom, set a course. Be ready to engage the new tetra-phasic impulse drive on my mark."
Voyage bleeps, consoles flash. Harry sprains another muscle in his excitement.
I take a breath, I catch your eyes. You nod, once. Voyager is ready.
"Engage."
B'Elanna's artificial wormhole bursts open like a supernova on Voyager's viewscreen. The ship leaps forward and speeds into the light. It is blinding, and turbulent. We jostle in our seats and squint to shield our eyes.
Something tears, or shears, or is wrenched. Voyager bounces out of control. I see you, B'Elanna, and Tom. Your hands like hummingbird's wings, fluttering madly across your consoles.
"Seven, report?"
"We have lost tetraphasic cohesion, Captain. Attempting to compensate."
You give me a running commentary as you remodulate our shields. I wonder if you know how much I appreciate the static of your voice. You help maintain my controlled mask whilst I panic privately inside my head.
The viewscreen shows our event horizon, a clear glass garden of stars on a silent blanket of black, coaxing us from this wormhole of unnatural white. Metal squeals again, the gravimetric vibrations shake us harder.
"Status B'Elanna!"
"Clearing event horizon in four, Captain. If Voyager holds together, we'll soon be home."
Harry reports from his console, mockingbird. "Structural integrity falling Captain."
I race my mind in circles, the time it takes to find a solution feels like an age. "Decrease life support to minimum, Harry and re-route power from any systems possible. We've made it this far. I won't let my ship shake itself to pieces this close to home."
I'm sure that they say something about the nature of bad news.
B'Elanna says, "It's not going to work Captain. We should abandon ship."
I calculate the possibilities confronting us. The lives of my crew, their trust in my descision. I don't want to abandon Voyager, but I owe it to the crew to get them home, alive.
But what about us, Seven? You and I. Weapon-hungry Starfleet will 'secure' you, their perfect techno-guinea-pig. We could take a shuttle and run. Settle on a sunlit paradise somewhere, happily ever after. Starfleet will never find us.
What the hell am I thinking?
"God Damn it. Abandon ship."
Voyager shudders, the deck plating buckles. There are sparks, and shrapnel and fire.
"It's too late Captain, We've lost hull integrity. Upper deck escape pods are compromised."
Voyager squeals and screams as she tears herself to pieces. I see you cross the deck in quadruple-slow time until you reach my side. Six years. Six fucking years and all we have is this. Forbidden love and impending doom. Oh please.
Voyager disintegrates around us, the vacuum here is very, very cold. Ultimate irony, one final glimpse of Earth before we die. Welcome home indeed. You clutch my hand. This is our happily ever after.