Hindsight

Hindsight

Chapter 2 - Reflections

Onboard the U.S.S Cenwulf...

“Personal log, supplemental.
It’s been several hours now since Admiral Picard beamed back to his ship, taking with him my letter extending an invitation to Seven of Nine.
Seven of Nine... now there’s a name I’d come to believe I would never hear again.
I must admit that after all the heartache she caused, the despair she left Chakotay in, there’s a part of me that could happily throttle her.
But Seven was never one to act without good reason... if only she could have seen the mess she left behind.
However, just between me and this log entry, there’s a huge part of me that cherishes the opportunity to see Seven again. I’ve found myself wondering a lot about her through the years, wondering how she was, what she was doing, and who she had eventually become.
I know she lost Icheb and that must have devastated her, he was an inspirational young man, a credit to her tutelage.
Despite this, I must speak with her.
She was...is...my friend, and the small details, vague rumours uttered in passing that I’ve heard recently give me great concern for who or what she has become.
That is of course, if she even accepts my invitation”.

Kathryn Janeway looked in the tall mirror and absorbed her reflection.
With a nod she was satisfied at her appearance, shoulder length dark hair beginning to surrender itself to an emergence of silver and grey that could look back and tell a thousand stories.
She placed her hairbrush down onto the bedside table of her quarters, noting how little her hair had changed its eventual style over the years.
“Computer, what is the time?”, she asked.
“The time is 18:54” the computer answered.
Janeway adjusted her red blouse and black trousers once more in the mirror as she reluctantly acknowledged the rising level of aprehension building within her.
She had aimed to dress in a manor that was both off duty yet very much in control, as if to invoke memories of times past, of a time of being being 75,000 light years away but still being very much the one in both command and control.
It had been several hours since she had passed the hastily penned letter to Jean-Luc and requested that he be kind enough to take it back with him to its recipient onboard the La Sirena.
Seeing Jean-Luc Picard again had been an unexpected delight, and later on guiding him around the Cenwulf as her personal guest had been a joy.
It was however the bombshell he had dropped while recounting the story of his recent adventures, and how he had come to be onboard the La Sirena in the first place, that had stunned Kathryn Janeway to her core.
She recalled his words as they had enjoyed refreshments in her office, his an earl grey tea and hers a coffee.
“And in the midst of all this the fighter, the one that seemingly came from nowhere and sustained heavy damage in our defence, began to break up.
Ofcourse we beamed the pilot to safety and before we knew it there she was standing bold as brass on our bridge, one of Voyager’s finest Kathryn, Seven of Nine”.
She recalled her open mouthed shock at hearing this and her hand briskly steadying her coffee.
She moved to compose herself quickly at the realisation that Seven who had so abruptly removed herself from the lives of all who knew her nineteen years ago was right now onboard the vessel berthed next to hers, that she was mere meters away.
“Computer the time again?”, Janeway requested.
“The time is 18:58”.
Kathryn Janeway turned from the mirror and walked away towards her office, her head held high and her posture business like.
Her quarters onboard the Cenwulf were split into two main sections, the reasonably comfortable living quarters and her office which were separated by a door that slid shut behind her as she passed through.
Sat on her desk by the reasonably sized window was the bottle of wine, a decent quality Pinot Grigio (not replicated), and two glasses.
The wine was nicely chilled, an ensign having brought it up from cold storage upon her orders fifteen minutes ago.
“It’s now or never Seven”, Janeway urged as she leant with her hands on the window ledge and glanced out to the view of the freighter La Sirena.
Many times this afternoon Kathryn had considered the distinct possibility that this could be a waste of time.
After her almost two decades of silence Seven had sent no acknowledgement of the letter and Janeway considered it highly unlikely that Jean-Luc would have simply forgotten to pass it on.
“Damn you Seven”, Janeway gritted her teeth as she breathed out, her mind beginning to take Seven’s silence as a typically direct Seven-of-old way of giving an answer.
She knew the hour of 19:00 was upon her, perhaps it had now even passed?
Lowering her head in expected defeat Kathryn felt the disappointment wash over her and yet she still felt torn as she let out a forlorn sigh.
Torn because there were twenty years worth of explanations she wanted, needed, from Seven, and there were matters she herself felt an obligation to take up with her.
Yet despite the pain Seven had caused, a large part of Kathryn had been keen to see Seven again, to learn how she was, where she had been and, most importantly, who the awkward young woman she had so cautiously taken under her wing onboard Voyager had developed into without her guidance or input.
She shook her head, pushing down the instinct to judge Seven for the actions of nineteen years ago when she herself could only guess at the motive.
She knew Seven had struggled, this fact was undeniable.
Aboard Voyager, particularly towards the end of thier journey, it seemed she had finally reached the point where she seemed both comfortable and content within thier unique and often dysfunctional ship-wide family.
Kathryn cursed the timing as she thought back to those times and how it once warmed her heart to see Seven often emerging from her cold Borg nature and seeing not the former drone but the makings of a beautiful young woman who was well on her way to becoming more confident with everyday situations that others simply took for granted.
It had been enchanting to witness.
That was until everything changed and Voyager returned to Earth far sooner than anyone had foreseen.
If Kathryn had known the much desired return had been so close she would have done everything she possibly could, pulled out all the stops to help Seven prepare for her sudden ‘re-assimilation’ into human society.
The truth was, Seven had not been even close to being prepared for the complex society that was Earth.

Kathryn continued again to stare at the La Sirena as she internally reminisced, her fingers tapping the ledge as still no update came regarding a visitor.
Janeway felt both frustration and sadness but continued to think back...

To say Seven had struggled on her return to Earth would be an understatement.
Her return had infact been an unmitigated disaster which had, with the gift of hindsight, perhaps been blindly inevitable all along.
The Federation all of Voyager’s crew returned to was not the optimistic Federation they had left. An air of change had been noticeable from the moment they returned, preempting several shifts in Federation policy and attitudes in years to come that had been planted by the destruction, mass casualties and sheer death toll wreaked by the Dominion war.
It had been a Federation beginning to change.
The more militaristic Admirals within Starfleet, particularly those who had seen first hand the unspeakable horrors committed by the Jem’Hadar, had pleaded with the top brass and demanded that Seven be held for intelligence ‘debriefing’ until such time as she divulged all vital Borg information and secrets that she knew. She was, they pushed, a possible enemy and should be thoroughly assessed to deem wether or not she should be perceived as a security threat.
Kathryn had been thankful when Federation common sense, a little of which still remained at that point, prevailed and the request had been refused.
Seven’s rights as ‘Annika Hansen’ had been upheld and her freedom granted without any further question.
The Starfleet ruling found that as a Federation citizen ‘Annika Hansen’ could not be held and interrogated for having been ‘Seven of Nine’ any more than the Captain of Starfleets very own flagship Enterprise could for having been Locutus of Borg.
Both, The Powers That Be determined, had been victims of the Borg and not willing collaborators.
To deny her rights would violate the very principals both Starfleet and the Federation still held dear at that point.
With this obstacle cleared Kathryn had been happy for Seven, proud even as she read each week a regular ‘status report’ the former drone had fallen into the habit of sending her with great punctuality every Saturday evening at 20:30.
It had begun to sound perfect, the messages spoke often of the nuances of making a home with Chakotay, meals from new recipes she had prepared by hand, and her observations regarding the quirks of human society. There was even the occasional photo image included at Chakotay’s behest.
Janeway chuckled as she recalled the last image Seven ever sent her.
It had been taken by a pond during an afternoon stroll and depicted both Seven and Chakotay observing the wildlife.
Seven had described the image in her typical manner as “delivering sustenance to species Anas Platyrhynchos”, or as Chakotay had put it in a separate message, “feeding the ducks”.
Kathryn smiled as she thought back over what Chakotay and Seven once had.
If she were honest, Seven and Chakotay were a pairing she had never seen coming and together they had kept it very much off her radar.
Her first suspicion had been entirely something else. Seven suddenly becoming tardy in her work onboard Voyager and her holodeck usage time becoming extreme.
Thinking back to those events Janeway now felt a pang of shame at her own actions.
Acting on her gut feeling that something was wrong, Captain Janeway had used her security clearances to access Seven’s personal holodeck programme.
She had expected to find something terrible, that perhaps the Borg had found a way to contact and manipulate Seven via the holodeck systems and that her lateness and errors had been caused by a hostile external force bent on using her as a pawn.
Upon seeing the truth behind Seven’s simulations Janeway had felt thoroughly sick at her own actions.
Knowing the depth to which she had violated Seven’s deep personal privacy, even if it had been out of a genuine concern for her welfare, Janeway ended the program and promised herself that she would never speak of it.
The holo-Chakotay bringing flowers, Seven’s simple attempt at creating her own living space, and a bed that had clearly been slept in, possibly the first sleep Seven had ever experienced... Janeway had found these revelations endearing, perhaps even sweet, but with a tinge of sorrow upon considering that Seven must have felt it necessary to explore these perfectly normal desires in secrecy.
It was only a short while later that Janeway began to notice that a real relationship had evolved when Tuvok’s weekly security report had raised concerns regarding the use of several unauthorised site to site transports within Voyager.
The users had masked thier trails well but hadn’t taken into account Tuvok’s tenacity for investigation.
Only when the sources and destinations of the transports, and who the patterns matched, was revealed did Kathryn call upon their years of friendship and appealed for Tuvok to let the matter be.
She had been pleased when the security chief had agreed, believing also that her large slow wink when referring to who was involved and the need for discretion had been silently understood.
Tuvok never raised the matter again.
She fully understood why both chose to keep the relationship discreet.
Years earlier Chakotay had been publicly humiliated before the entire crew, used and ridiculed by his last love Seska.
Chakotay was a very private man and it made sense that he would not, given the past, broadcast his personal life to those it did not concern.
As for Seven Kathryn thought, externally she would have appeared calm and collected, yet internally she would have been highly apprehensive, afraid even, of not knowing or fully understanding what to do. She would have deemed discretion essential.
Only a very short time later did everyone’s world suddenly change and Voyager was home.
With Seven confirmed as a free citizen everything should have been so simple.
The home she and Chakotay had made was pleasant.
Chakotay found himself teaching cadets survival skills at the academy and all that remained was for Seven to find her much promised path in life.
It did not happen.
From then on Seven had begun to increasingly withdraw as it became clear that nobody within the careers of various sciences, research, warp mechanics, shield development, simple star charting or her favoured astrometrics would offer her a position.
The career path Kathryn had always felt such genuine belief that Seven would naturally fall into with her skills and flourish within had slammed every door of opportunity shut.
For this Kathryn had always felt a deep sense of guilt, remorse and perhaps even shame.
She had spent years aboard Voyager extolling the virtues of the Alpha quadrant to Seven from her ready room, ennobling the greatness of Starfleet and the Federation, promising Seven that the opportunities each of these entities held were boundless.
For years Kathryn had wondered if Seven had held any of this against her, wondered if Seven now considered her promises to be errors or downright lies.
On several occasions Kathryn had wanted to broach the subject and apologise for the many disappointments, express her own surprise and personal disgust at the sheer prejudice she had never foreseen Seven being faced with for having been Borg.
And then that had been it... Seven one day disappeared, leaving behind her many unanswered questions, many deeply concerned friends, and Chakotay utterly distraught with worry, hurting to his very soul and betrayed yet again by a woman he loved.

The comm system chirped, startling Kathryn from her thoughts.
“Admiral Janeway, your guest is now onboard in transporter room one”.
Kathryn’s heart rhythm jumped as the impact of this simple statement struck her like a rock.
“Thank you, please have someone escort her to my office”, Janeway replied.
She stood up straight, taking in a breath and steeling herself for the reunion to come as she acknowledged that the unthinkable had occurred...
Seven of Nine had accepted the invitation.
She was here.