Hollow

By Ensign Mika

 

 

He takes up space.

 

His body is so large, so cumbersome, and it takes enormous volumes of food to sustain it.  It strikes me as inefficient. 

 

Unlike her body, so graceful, with such an economy of motion and so little need of sustenance, she is like a shadow.  A shadow that seeps into my pores, into my being, into my essence.

 

He turns in his sleep.

 

His mouth falls open, and the sound that comes out of it is appalling, as is the scent of his breath, as if all that food has soured in his stomach, and the stench of it fills our bedroom.  He reaches for me, drags me to him possessively, wraps his arms around me as if he can force me to be the reason he awakens each day. 

 

Sometimes in the night, he moves me beneath him, and my body betrays me, betrays her, betrays everything I feel and everything I am, and I open myself to him, to the vacuousness of his spirit, wishing he could fill my soul the way he fills me physically.

 

It was the sound of her laughter that filled my soul as nothing before or since.  I thought that humor was irrelevant, laughter a frivolity, until hers was born in me like a flame, consuming and enveloping and supportive, nurturing to the root of my self.

 

I went in search of that laughter, once.  Standing on the sidewalk in a deluge, the thunder rolling and the lightning flashing around me, I was soaked to the bone, gazing up at the tiny window in her mother’s house, willing her to come to the lighted edges and peer down in the darkness.  Willing her to find me there, loving her.

 

“Seven,” she gave me an incredulous grin, “what in God’s name are you doing here?  Get inside, before you drown,” she told me.

 

I must have looked like a helpless fish, my mouth opening and closing and no sound coming out.

 

“Is everything all right?” she pressed me into the mudroom of the farmhouse, looking me up and down, disbelief coloring her features.  “Let me get some towels,” she said too kindly, running up the staircase. 

 

She looked wonderful.  Relaxed.  At home.  She wore soft, old blue jeans that clung to her in inviting ways, and a faded chamois shirt, rolled up to the elbows.  A country girl.  A farmer’s daughter.  Only the pigtails were missing.

 

“There are tornado warnings throughout the county,” she informed me as she brought an armload of terry cloth towels.  “You picked a sorry night to visit.”

 

I had still not said a single word.

 

“I’ll make us some tea,” she offered.  “You dry yourself.  Mother is at the church, at choir practice, despite the weather.  She’ll be glad to see you again,” she said softly, striding into the kitchen.

 

I could almost picture her on the bridge of Voyager, that purposeful gait she adopted when there was trouble, and it made me smile.  I obediently dried myself and joined her in the kitchen, waiting for her to tell me to sit down.

 

“Now,” she put the water on to boil, “tell me what brings you out in the worst storm of the summer,” she pulled out a chair for me and one for her, and motioned me to sit down.

 

“I—missed you,” I finally managed to say, and instantly regretted it, until she lay her hand over mine.

 

“Is everything all right at home?  How’s Chakotay?” she asked, her brows narrowing.

 

“He’s—Chakotay,” I replied.  “And I’m pregnant,” I added.

 

She hesitated a moment longer than I had expected, her gray-blue eyes registering something I could not identify, before she hugged me, the awkwardness of the table between us and our chairs making it clumsy.  “Congratulations,” she said against my shoulder, though there was no joy in her voice.

 

“I haven’t told him, and I’m not sure I want to have this child,” I admitted, unable to meet her penetrating gaze.

 

“You aren’t sure?” she said faintly.  “And you came to see your Captain for advice?” her lips curled at the corners, the most adorable expression I could imagine.

 

“No.  I came to see my friend,” I supplied. 

 

“I—don’t know what to say.  I’m the last person to consult on maternal affairs,” she smiled, though I could swear there was sadness in her eyes.

 

“Kathryn,” I began, the emotion welling in me and forcing its way to the tip of my tongue, “I need to know how you feel about me,” I blurted out the words.

 

She considered her response, her facial expression steady and stolid.  “I feel the way I’ve always felt about you,” she said enigmatically.  “And Chakotay is my friend.  Don’t ask me to divide loyalties,” she warned.  “You made your choice months ago, Seven.”

 

“I didn’t know I had a choice,” I argued, wishing for all the world I could rectify the past, choose again, understand the repercussions.  “I allowed myself to be drawn in by his attraction to me, nothing more.  It was a reaction to your indifference,” I tried not to sound accusatory, though I felt it.

 

She sighed, a gusty sound to rival the Indiana wind blowing through the trees in the yard.  “I had to be indifferent.  It’s what Captains do.”

 

“You are no longer my Captain, Kathryn, and I love you,” I asserted, grasping her hand.

 

She sent me away then, like some naughty child who needs scolding, back to him, back to my decisions, back to living with the endless questions and regrets.

 

He talks in his sleep.

 

He rests his hand on my distended stomach, hoping the baby will kick, proof of his virility, another possession for his collection, like the bones of his people, like the artifacts he brought back from the Delta Quadrant. Like me.  A Borg drone, who became a woman, who became a captive, who is now a trophy.  Whenever Kathryn comes to visit, he swells with his sense of victory, as if to say ‘she chose me, not you.’  He doesn’t realize I never knew I had a choice.

 

Kathryn sent a blanket for the baby, a card filled with warm wishes, silent on the subject of she and I, yet the gift itself says everything.  She has conceded me to him.  She has surrendered me, like the bones the Hirogen covet and hoard, and there was never any indication that it cost her anything to let me go.

 

His conquest rings hollow, in the face of her indifference, just as my confession of love did.