Chapter Text
“Bring us in nice and slow, Sidney. Nothing fancy,” Captain Seven of Nine calls out from the center chair, leaning forward as she eyes the rebuilt Space Dock - now named Archer Station - in front of them. Bright running lights welcome their glide in, but she’s not really thinking about this part. No, this part is easy - Sidney LaForge has done it a hundred times over and though the young lieutenant is prone to fits of creativity, this entry doesn’t call for much. As such, Seven allows her mind to drift to what comes next.
One week of meetings with the full Starfleet brass back at Command and then three weeks of base leave while the Enterprise gets a full computer and systems upgrade (she’d verified five different times that the upgrade will not network the ship; thankfully, Starfleet appears to have finally learned not to fall face-forward into its own arrogance on every occasion). But what that means six and a half days of staggering (likely deeply annoying) boredom and then -
Seven turns slightly to her side, “When are you heading out?”
“Hm?” Raffi answers, glancing up from her terminal, her brow furrowing in confusion. Seven notes that her first officer’s omnipresent souped-up PADD is, as usual, right at her side. God help them all if that thing ever lands in any kind of enemy hands.
“When are you heading home?” Seven queries, her tone casual and light.
“Home,” Raffi repeats, then nods her head in understanding. “Right. Oh. After our meetings.”
“You don’t have to stay; I can cover,” Seven assures her. Her voice is low, but she has no doubt the rest of the crew can hear their conversation. But it’s not like they’re talking about anything particularly sensitive or private - like the as always unsettled state of their relationship. No, no, they would most certainly never speak of that in a public setting. They barely speak of it in a private setting. A problem which neither of them acknowledges. Or at least Seven doesn’t; she has no doubt that Raffi would talk about it - and them and whatever future they could one day have - all day long if given the chance and opportunity to.
“It’s fine; I’m happy to stay,” Raffi assures her, eyes drifting back down to her terminal. That’s all it takes for Seven to guess that there’s something on her XO’s mind, but now is neither the time nor the place for it. While the crew certainly knows of their complicated and ever-changing relationship, the CO and XO have gone to great lengths to minimize all disruptions from it.
“Okay,” Seven agrees. She glances at Raffi once more and then lets out a soft sigh and stands up, walking towards the view-screen. “Lieutenant Esmar, hail Archer Station.”
“Aye, Captain,” Esmar answers, their fingers flying rapidly over their panel.
A beep sounds and then a man’s voice offers up, “Welcome back, Enterprise.”
“Glad to be home,” Seven says dutifully, though the words don’t ring as true as they might coming from someone who had been born on Earth. “Request permission to dock.”
“Granted. Archer Station out.” The line goes dead and Seven nods to Sidney to finish the entry.
She steps back and slides into the seat between Raffi and Jack Crusher. Both of whom are oddly quiet considering neither of them is exactly known for such. “You two are starting to unnerve me,” Seven notes. “Something I should know about?”
“Hm?” Raffi says once more, looking up.
Jack rolls his eyes. “She’s trying to solve a puzzle. You know how she gets.”
“A real puzzle or -“ she stops speaking when Raffi scowls at her. Which doesn’t actually answer the question, but Seven knows better than to tease her XO when the woman is hunting down an answer to some riddle or another. Especially if the answer is daring to evade her.
“A very Kobayashi Maru like puzzle. That fucking test,” Raffi growls. While never one to hold back on creative profanity, she doesn’t usually let it out on the Bridge and so her apparent frustration makes Seven’s ocular implant lift in curiosity. “Or maybe chicken and the egg.”
“Chicken and the egg,” Seven repeats.
“Something like that.” She waves her hand to dismiss the point. “LaForge, countdown?”
“Twenty seconds, Commander,” Sidney answers and true to her word, twenty seconds later, they hear the heavy metal clank of the clamps engaging and holding the Enterprise still.
“Home,” Seven murmurs and wonders why the word feels so awkward and poorly fitting.
“For a minute,” Raffi answers and then she’s standing, hands on her hips as she slides into her XO role. “Alpha Shift, consider yourselves relieved. Enjoy your well-earned vacations.”
Several hoots and hollers greet her as the crew stands up and starts filtering out, chatting with each other as they discuss upcoming plans together and apart. Jack takes a step towards Sidney and then stops and turns back to his command team “If you need me -“
“Go,” Seven urges. “Try not to get yourself killed by Sidney’s sister. Or her father.”
Jack laughs. “I’ll try. Good luck on your puzzle, Raffi.” And then he’s walking away, coming up next to Sidney, but having just enough decorum not to toss an arm around her.
Well, the kid is learning; that’s something.
“I guess it’s just us now,” Raffi notes, glancing around and taking in the emptiness.
“As usual. You know, you really don’t have to join me; I know you’re eager to see your family.”
Raffi turns, then, thankful that it’s just the two of them on the Bridge. In a few minutes, this room will be swarming with engineers and tech, but for a few seconds, it’s just them standing face-to-face in the middle of their brightly lit Bridge. “You do know you’re my family, right?”
“I know,” Seven says quickly. “It’s just your son -“
“Is my baby boy and I love him dearly. That doesn’t change what you mean to me, Seven.”
“I know,” Seven says once again. “I -“
“Don’t want to talk about it.” Raffi rolls her eyes and steps away. “This, I know.”
Seven arches her eyebrow in confusion. “Raff -“
“We have incoming,” the XO notes as the doors to the Bridge open and techs start entering. Within the hour, engineers will join them, but Seven has no intention of being around for that part. While she understands what they’re doing, she has other things she needs to get done.
And other places she needs to be.
None of which are here.
Still, she finds herself wanting to reach for Raffi. Wanting to soothe this new wound that she appears to have opened. Yes, of course she knows Raffi wants more - she’s always known that and to be honest, she wants more as well. She just doesn’t know how they can make it work.
How they can make them work while also making their command team work.
“You’re overthinking things again,” Raffi says softly, just barely audible, and then she’s stepping towards the turbolift. She says something to one of the incoming techs, who nods in understanding (maybe something like “don’t break my ship” which is probably something the captain should say, but Raffi has always had a way of speaking for both of them that feels very organic and natural and maybe Raffi is right and she really should stop overthinking things).
“You heard her,” Seven tells the tech and then joins Raffi in the lift, waiting until the doors close before she turns to face her. “I’m not trying to overthink things. I’m just -“
“Trying to do the right thing and protect me.” She shrugs. “I may not like it, but I do get it.”
“But…you don’t want…that?” Seven frowns slightly.
“I always want you to do the right thing, but the thing is, you always do. As for protection….”, another shrug. “Well, I’m not sure you and I have a choice in that. We’re always going to try to protect each other. I’m just saying…I don’t need it. Especially from the consequences of us.”
Seven tilts her head in that way she does when she’s inquisitive. “What if the consequence of us is that we can’t be here. On this ship. What if being together means we can only see each other whenever our paths cross again? Is that worth it?”
“They’d be insane to separate us or any part of this crew,” Raffi shoots back.
“Doesn’t answer the question. If it’s us as a couple or as a team, what do you choose?”
“Haven’t I already made the choice?”
“That we’re having this conversation says you haven’t. Not entirely, anyway.”
“Hmm. I suppose that’s a bit of a puzzle, too, then,” Raffi answers just as the doors open.
“Is…are we what you’ve been fussing with? The puzzle that Jack mentioned?”
Raffi laughs at that, just the sound of it sending a flood of something warm through Seven (she doesn’t doubt her feelings for Raffi - never has - she's just always believed that the complications outweigh the advantages). “Not this time, no. I was trying to figure out a staffing headache.”
“I can help with that.”
“Mm. I’m your XO - handling the where and why of crew assignments is in my job description,” Raffi reminds her. “And anyway, that’s just a logistical puzzle. You and me, we’re a different kind of riddle, entirely. We’re more like a Gordian knot. Sometimes, we make things really hard on ourselves when the answer is actually pretty simple.” She steps out and starts down the hall, slowing only once she realizes Seven hasn’t joined her. “You coming?”
“Always,” Seven confirms and falls into step beside her.
Raffi glances over at her, but doesn’t say whatever she’s thinking. Chances are, it’s not something Seven is ready to hear, anyway. Instead, they walk side-by-side. In comfortable, perfectly synced up, awkward silence. Both of them thinking about knots, riddles and puzzles and how the best, most obvious and most efficient solution is almost always the simplest one.
Raffi thinks, as their footfalls echo down the hallway with each clipped step they take across polished marble, that Seven of all people should appreciate that.
The meetings are…annoying. As Starfleet meetings tend to be, in Seven’s opinion.
Still, these ones are more irritating than usual. Command has such an active interest in the Enterprise and its mostly young crew that even though the ship has only been out in space for about seven months or so, they want reports on every single member of the crew. Which is exhausting and pointless and both Seven and Raffi tell them so on multiple occasions. Not that any of the bloviating admirals listen to them.
Still, thankfully, the admirals seem pleased (even the usually assholish Huxley is begrudgingly complimentary, which takes them both she and Raffi by surprise) with how everything is going and though the meetings seem to drag, they actually finish up a couple days earlier than expected, freeing Seven and Raffi for their separate leaves.
Raffi off to Freecloud to see her family and Seven -
“Where are you headed?” Raffi asks, trying to sound casual. But she’s not the least bit subtle because it seems to have finally occurred to the otherwise distracted XO that she doesn’t actually know what her partner, former lover and captain will be doing for the next few weeks.
Which is…strange.
Seven shrugs in a way that doesn’t quite work as nonchalance. “Kicking around.”
“Kicking around?” Raffi repeats skeptically.
“This and that, you know? Might check in with some old friends.”
“Old friends?” Raffi pushes.
“Even I have a few,” Seven replies, attempting to lightly tease her XO and failing miserably.
Feeling brushed off by Seven’s response, Raffi stiffens her posture to affect one that is visually more deferential - a typical CO/XO relationship, then. “Right. Well…I guess I’ll see you when you get back to Earth, Captain.” She starts to step away, stopping only when she feels a metallic hand settle lightly on her wrist. Eyebrow up, she turns back to Seven.
“Raff,” Seven says softly. Her head tilts. “Hey. Are we…are we okay?”
“Is there any reason we wouldn’t be?” Raffi shoots back as they step out into the open air of a comfortably cool, if slightly wet San Francisco afternoon.
“I feel like you’re upset with me. Because of…the Conversation.”
Raffi huffs in response. “The Conversation? Is that what we’re calling our never-ending inability to actually define what we are to each other? Interesting.”
“Are you upset?” Seven repeats, as dogged as ever. “At me?”
“What I am…is resigned,” she shrugs. “I want more, but I’ll take what I can have of you.”
Seven scowls in response to that, clearly not pleased with the answer. “Is it enough?”
“I love you,” Raffi says simply, feeling the crisp San Francisco air flip her curls around, Seven’s own blonde hair blowing in front of her eyes repeatedly. “That’s never going to change. But I understand where we are in this…journey of ours. Being with you in any way, it’s enough.”
“You deserve more,” Seven contests.
“Love isn’t really about ‘deserve’. But if it were -“ she laughs. “Well, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be anywhere close to you if we’re talking about what someone like me deserves.”
“Bullshit,” Seven says without hesitation, blue eyes blazing with intensity.
“And that’s why you’re my favorite,” Raffi tells her, her hand stretching out to lightly scratch at the back of Seven’s left hand, her fingers gently sliding across the smooth metal. And then, because she’s Raffaela Musiker and she’s never much cared for decorum or rules or anything that prevents what should be (and she will always believe she and Seven absolutely are meant to be) does what she shouldn’t and she leans up and kisses Seven. Gently. Barely.
Enough.
“I love you,” she repeats, ha soft, wistful, wanting smile on her unpainted lips. “Until the day I die, that’s just how it’s going to be. I’m okay with that. I hope you are, too.”
And then she turns and walks away.
Leaving the captain to stare thoughtfully after her XO.
Seven doesn’t have long to spend on thinking about much of anything - even Raffi. In fact, she’s probably already spent more time here than she should have; she could have left the night before, but hadn’t wanted to go before Raffi herself had departed (which she had, first thing in the morning, but not before sending Seven a subspace message reiterating how much she adores Seven and promising her that they’re okay - always) and…well, now she’s late.
Terribly, wildly (and unusually) late for a rendezvous with the Tendu and those old friends she’d mentioned. Friends she knows Raffi would have been happy to see, but she hadn’t wanted to divert her XO from going home to see her family, so she hadn’t told her or asked her to join.
Which, yeah…they should probably work on their communication.
No, that’s not fair. On ship, as CO and XO, they’ve been perfectly synced. They’ve run their crew effectively, efficiently and with compassion and support. And their own relationship has been warm, friendly and open. And yet…she knows there are walls between them right now.
How could there not be when they both want more and yet have chosen to have less?
Or well, she has. That Raffi is willing to accept it…bothers Seven more than it should. It’s what she wants, right? To serve beside her best friend and the one person in this whole goddamned universe that she absolutely trusts. She wants that and to prove everyone with doubts wrong.
She wants to prove that both she and Raffi are the absolute best of the best and this ragtag crew of theirs is the Starfleet dream - dedicated, competent, innovative, curious and bold.
She wants to prove that together, she and Raffi can and will build something incredible.
Can that happen if their typically chaotic romantic relationship is allowed to coexist?
Seven sighs and runs her hand through her blonde hair. “Think about that later,” she mutters.
Which is exactly right. She’s about to head into Ranger-style danger (something Starfleet would absolutely frown on, but as far as Seven is concerned, what she does in her private time isn’t their business as long as its not illegal and in this case, it’s not so they don’t need to know) so she needs to keep her wits about her. That means not thinking about her relationship issues.
Not that they - or Raffi, in general - is ever terribly far from her mind.
“Later,” Seven tells herself again, and then punches in the coordinates for the rendezvous. This should be a quick mission. Hard in and out, old school run-and-gun Ranger style. The job is basically to take out a slave trader ship - these child-stealing monsters hailing from the still simmering ashes of Bjayzl’s mostly broken-up and apart criminal organization - moving around just outside of Federation space. If they were just a little bit over over the line, Starfleet, itself, would get involved. But they aren’t and Starfleet can’t and that’s where the Rangers come in.
Right now, she’s not Starfleet (in the back of her mind, Seven is aware that some of the admirals might not draw the same easy line of distinction she does - what she is and isn’t whether or not she’s in uniform - but Seven finds herself unconcerned with that as always).
Right now, she’s not Captain Seven, she’s Fenris Ranger Seven and she has a job to do.
So she clears her mind and pushes all of her thoughts of Raffi and them away and focuses.
Weirdly, it’s not as easy as it used to be.
Later (which appears to be a theme of hers as of recently, Seven thinks grimly), she’ll realize she’d made three mistakes up-front.
The first is that it’s staggeringly clear to her she’s changed too much for Ranger type jobs.
No, she isn’t slower or less capable of doing what needs to be done in the heat of battle - she’s still just as dangerous as she’s always been - but Starfleet has a way of altering your instincts from “kill and move on” to “try to do the least damage possible to accomplish the goal”.
That small bit of hesitation? The briefest moment of it? Well it’s what gets her grazed by a phaser shot that probably would have obliterated her shoulder if it’d hit her dead-on. After that, she decides to buckle down and get serious and remember that this isn’t Starfleet work here.
Here, there isn’t time to think about who can be given a second chance.
Here, it’s kill or be killed and she’d really rather not die on a slave trader ship.
Her second mistake becomes her third in short order, but it starts with having not told Raffi the truth about what she’s doing. Over time, she’s gotten too used to having her mercurial XO at her back and they’ve learned to speak the same language and think the same way in battle and so when Seven storms the slave trader ship with two Rangers with her whom she hasn’t worked with with in years (Hiro and Deet have - as they always do - stayed behind on the Tendu, never much for the bloody battles and fierce fights), the communication is decidedly less than optimal. Which is what leads to her taking the grazing phaser shot to her shoulder.
In any case, as she’s turning the corner and returning fire blindly, Seven is thinking about how she should have told Raffi the truth; they’d have had this all wrapped this up by now. She’s not thinking about the (currently) unknown new ship that Hiro is telling her is coming towards them - Seven assumes that it’s reinforcements for the bad guys and thinks they need to move faster and more forcefully and it was stupid to give these bastards time to get help.
She’s lost too many steps, Seven scolds herself as she keeps firing; Starfleet has softened her.
Ironic, then, that she might die not while serving aboard a Starfleet ship, but rather in her old job, she muses as she catches movement out of the corner of her eye and spins towards it.
Firing rapidly, instinctively, perhaps a bit recklessly (if she’s entirely honest about it).
Which is her third mistake.
Thankfully, she’d hadn’t had her phaser rifle on vaporize (which, she thinks, means she hadn’t really taken the “kill or be killed” message fully to heart and she’s never been more grateful).
She hears the person she’d hit cry out in pain before her brain registers who it is. She sees the bright phaser beam from her rifle tear through soft leather, fragile skin, tender flesh and even typically hardy muscle before her mind recognizes who she’d shot.
She hears Hiro scream out in a tone that can only be described as panicked, “Seven, no! Wait. Wait!”
But goddammit, he's too late.
It takes her mind a few moments more - maybe it’s the heavy incoming fire she’s still taking from every direction (she feels another shot dust her side, tearing off a swath of leather and skin all at once) or maybe it’s the intense static her brain is suddenly filled with - but then her eyes lock on the person she’d hit. A woman with bronze skin and sun-dusted hair and…red.
Blood, Seven realizes with a violent start.
“Raffi,” she breathes, eyes widening in horror. “No, no, no. Raffi, no!”
“Seven,” Hiro calls out. “Raffaela is there -"
“I know! She’s hit,” Seven answers and then she’s rushing towards Raffi, firing off in every direction. Which you’d think she’d learn but right now she only cares about getting to Raffi and she can’t think of anyone she cares about hitting as much as the person she’d already shot.
“How bad?”
“Bad,” Seven answers shortly just before she drops to her knees beside Raffi. “Goddammit, what are you doing here?” Without waiting for an answer, her hands start traveling in every direction as she tries to wrap her mind around what’s happened and how badly injured Raffi is. “You’re not supposed to be here.” Seven is nearly hysterical in a way she seldom is, desperate to understand how this could have happened. Frantic to know how badly Raffi is hurt.
How badly she’d hurt Raffi.
“What are…what are…what are you doing here?” Raffi responds, face streaked with pain.
“God, Raffi,” Seven says instead, tightly gripping her XO’s hand as she gently turns her so that she can see the damage. Damage that she had caused Raffi because she’d been reckless.
“Hell of a shot, Ranger,” Raffi gasps out, teeth grit as Seven’s fingers probe the wounded area.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Seven responds. She leans in, then, so she can get a better look and it takes every bit of self control she’s learned over her life not to react at the bloodied, charred area just above Raffi’s left hip where the phaser beam had viciously cut through skin and flesh.
Burnt, mangled, and agonizingly painful.
“How…how bad?” Raffi requests, echoing Hiro’s question, her body shuddering fiercely.
“Bad,” Seven repeats as she unclips her tricorder and runs it over the wound. This particular tricorder is rudimentary, not really meant for in-depth medical analysis, but it’s good enough to confirm what Seven’s own eyes are telling her and that that’s Raffi is quite seriously injured.
Perhaps even critically so.
“Oh. Not good.”
“No, not good,” Seven echoes. She taps the emblem on her chest - not a Starfleet delta but a Ranger one - and says, “Deet, tell me you’ve stocked up the med-bay on the Tendu for once.”
“Not with supplies to deal with this,” Deet answers somberly. “She needs -“
“I know what she needs,” Seven snaps. “Raff, did you come in La Sirena?”
“Ye…yeah.”
“Okay, then that’s where we’re -“ she’s not able to get the words out before a phaser blast cracks the bulkhead right over her. Wincing, she slips an arm around Raffi.
“The job,” Raffi reminds her. “We have to finish the job.”
“No longer a possibility. Retreat is our only option.”
“Sev -"
“Not negotiable,” Seven answers, trying to forget about those she can’t save for just once. Later, she knows she will struggle with - later, she will feel the guilt of those she couldn't do more for. But not right now. Raffi is everything right now. She taps her badge again. “Deet, transport Raffi and myself to La Sirena on my mark.”
“Copy that. Will you and Miss Raffaela be heading back towards Federation space?”
“As fast as we can,” Seven replies, her fingers flying across one of the panels as she sends out a medical distress signal requesting immediate assistance right across the boundary line. Hopefully, someone is close by. If not…
Hiro, mostly quiet, says then, his tone just as somber, “The Tendu will ensure you get there.”
Seven thinks to warn him - they’re likely to have the enemy following after them - but her mind is in chaos, the blood on her hands and Raffi’s ferocious shaking removing all of the xBs ability to think beyond this moment. So she says, her own tone shaky, “Understood. Energize.”
The beams cut through she and Raffi even as she hears footsteps coming closer. Even as blasts of phaser fire fill the air. Their escape is narrow, and yet…escape they do.
For now.
One of the first things Seven had done after La Sirena had been gifted to her was consolidate all of the holos into one. Which had worked great for her, but not so much for Raffi. Thus, one of the first things Raffi had done when she’d taken ownership of the ship just before departing to M’Talas had been to delete the holos entirely - incapable of seeing her oldest friend as little more than fragments of himself (Seven imagines there’s a back-up somewhere because Raffi is far too sentimental to do a full delete, but she hasn’t a clue where). Raffi, herself, had told Seven that during the XO’s time on M’Talas, she’d tended to her own injuries without an EMH.
Which…fine - Seven has been doing that for most of her life and she’s made it through.
More or less.
Right now, though, they desperately need someone with more medical experience than she has because Raffi’s injury isn’t just a graze or a broken bone - it’s a full-on obliteration of once-healthy flesh with potentially severe underlying organ damage. At least that’s what the scanning equipment in the unmanned med-bay of La Sirena is telling her and Seven - unfortunately - has no reason to doubt it considering how pale, sweaty and clearly pained Raffi currently is.
“You’re going to be okay,” Seven assures her as she rushes to treat the wound with whatever supplies there is on-hand. Which isn’t much; La Sirena has largely been parked in the cargo bay of the Enterprise, there to act as a de facto captains yacht of sorts (the only reason Starfleet has allowed this is because there’s a rather extreme lack of ships these days and hardly enough for one to just be parked mostly unused). Unfortunately, it’s sparse usage means that its med-kits are not entirely up-to-date. And really, there’d been limited need for them to be prepared for an injury of this degree. Last she’d known, Raffi had been on her way to Freecloud (a place Seven never wants to set foot on ever again) to spend time with her family.
She’s supposed to be there not here.
And yet.
“Sev, it hurts,” Raffi grits out, her neck angled backwards as she reacts to the shocks of pain wining their way up through her wounded body. Her muscles are arched, tense, ready to snap.
“I know, I know,” Seven mutters as she fumbles for a hypospray. She’s about to bring one to Raffi’s neck when she feels a grip - harder than expected - settle on her wrist, squeezing.
“No…no…no op…op…” a cry breaks free from Raffi’s mouth, cutting off the rest of the word, but Seven’s heard it, anyway: no opiates. Looking down at the hypo in her hand, she curses.
Reckless, stupid, careless, arrogant…
“Seven…”
The xBs gaze snaps back to the woman shuddering on the bio-bed. There are a hundred different ugly sounding readings coming from the sensors, but in a situation like this one, Seven chooses to do what has always worked best for her: she uses her own damn eyes.
What her eyes tell her is simple and horrifying: Raffi is dying.
That realization - cold and slithering - is enough to push Seven into action. She tosses the hypo aside and starts looking for supplies to staunch the blood flow and keep Raffi’s rapidly rising fever at a manageable level until they can get into Federation space. If she remembers her charts correctly, Deep Space Nine is not too far from the border they’re heading towards.
Which reminds her - “Computer, set a course for Federation space, maximum warp,” Seven calls out. Per Hiro, the Tendu will follow La Sirena to the boundary (and over it) between Federation space and everything else to give her cover from the slave traders chasing after them. Distantly, Seven hears the sound of phasers firing, and accordingly, La Sirena rocks.
“Seven,” Deet calls out. “They’re coming in hard on you. You need to move!”
“Computer, engage!” Seven yells, her hand still on Raffi’s chest, pressing a gel pack against the tender wound. Her own fingers are already soaked red, merging with the silver of her implants and creating a rather macabre visual that she doesn’t really want to think about right now.
She feels La Sirena suddenly jerk forward - minute, small, but she’s been on ships for most of her life and there’s not a movement they could basically make that her body couldn’t translate. A second later, the little ship is at warp, closely followed by the Tendu and probably the slave traders as well. Which is silly being that they hadn’t actually taken anything from the traders.
No…no, they hadn’t. But they had seen enough of their operation to report it back to the Federation and ensure that their “business” will likely get shut down rather forcefully. So yeah, it’s not terribly surprising that the nasty little bastards would far prefer to kill Seven and Co.
“We’re not dying out here,” Seven promises Raffi, a hand on her sweaty, pale face. She really should be up at the front, manning the weapons. Instead, she’s here trying to keep Raffi alive while the ship is flying herself and honestly, if this is how it all ends, then fine.
Fine.
“Okay, I think we’ve slowed the bleeding,” Seven tells her after a few seconds.
“I’m…co…cold,” Raffi mumbles, slender fingers gripping at the leather of Seven’s sleeve.
Cold is alarming. Really fucking alarming. Because if anything, it’s too goddamn hot in here right now. But then, Seven isn’t badly burnt and losing blood (well, her own wounds from getting shot in the shoulder and side don’t feel great, particularly) and near death and -
Seven jerks backwards and grabs a blanket piled atop the boxes. La Sirena has been through a lot over the last few years, but what she hasn’t been through is a full cataloguing of what she does and doesn’t have in her stores. There are boxes everywhere - add ons and supplies from whomever has been captaining her at the moment. Raffi had been the last one and what she’d had on-board had been sparse, specifically chosen not to give her identity away should La Sirena be found by the bad guys. Unfortunately, what that means is it’s rather understocked.
On the other hand, what it does have are the special recipes Raffi had survived on. Namely, the painkillers she’d allowed herself to take during her time on M’Talas. A quick glance through the chemical composition of it and Seven sees that Raffi has taken a curious path to knock out the signals coming from her nerves - not opiates or other binding drugs and it won’t work for long, but it will do what it needs to in the immediate. Which she guesses is all Raffi had focused on.
“I've got you,” Seven tells her and with one arm, slides gently behind Raffi and with the other, presses the hypo to her neck. Just as it hisses its release, she pulls the blanket around Raffi and then wraps her arms around Raffi as well. Her own core temperature is too cold for someone shivering as much as she is (it’s funny how the human body works - Raffi is running a fever and yet she’s freezing; illogical) but she has the need to keep her partner close right now.
To feel her breathing and her heart beat.
Both which are disturbingly erratic.
“I like…I like when…when you hold me.”
“I like holding you,” Seven tells her, too emotional and afraid to bother hiding her feelings.
She feels more than hears Raffi inhale sharply, each breath a struggle. “Don’t…don’t le…leave me,” she pleads, her words accented by the fierce chattering of her teeth.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Pro…promise me you’ll…you’ll stay ’til -“
Seven shakes her hear urgently, tears building as the reality of what’s likely to happen (and the xB has always insisted on living in reality, no matter how dark and bitter) hits her. “Raff, no -“
“Until…the…the end,” Raffi manages to force out, blinking fiercely.
Suddenly needing to be as close to Raffi as possible, Seven dips her head, placing her forehead lightly against Raffi’s shoulder as the ship shakes beneath them both. Absently, Seven wonders if they’re in a race to figure out if they’ll be blown apart first or Raffi will….no.
No.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Seven repeats, speaking softly, her voice slightly muffled. “And neither are you. We have too much to talk about. Too many puzzles to solve together -“ she swallows hard, the tears finally falling as she hears Raffi gasp for air. “I can’t do this without you.” A pause and a very light kiss against Raffi’s shoulder. “I don’t want to do it without you.”
“I’m sorry,” Raffi murmurs.
Seven circles around so that she can look directly at Raffi, then, keeping the blanket between them if only to ensure that her own low body temp doesn’t further chill her XO, who continues to shiver, her teeth chattering. Once she’s turned fully and can see Raffi’s pale (still beautiful) face, Seven reaches out with a hand and lightly lifts Raffi’s chin. “Hey, Raff, look at me, okay? You don’t owe me an apology - hell, I owe you…a hundred of them. I should have been there for you and I haven’t been. I shouldn’t have let our jobs come between us, but I have.” Seven leans in, then, and lightly presses a kiss to Raffi’s sweaty forehead, her lips lingering as she finds herself incapable of pulling away. She whispers, “I should have always chosen us.”
Raffi is weak, probably mere minutes from death, but somehow, she finds the strength to curl closer to Seven. “I don’t want to go, either,” she forces out. “I don’t want to die.”
“Then don’t,” Seven pleads. “Fight, okay? Fight.”
“I’m so cold,” Raffi answers and it’d be a non-sequitar except the XO’s shaking continues to worsen, and her pallor is growing paler and paler as her life leaks out along with her blood.
“I know, I know,” Seven tells her and dips even closer. Absently, she can hear the sounds of the engines pushing themselves and every now and again, the ship rocks as she gets grazed by fire from the traffickers, but Seven finds it hard to focus on her own survival right now.
Almost even impossible.
She’s lost so goddamned much in her life, but Raffi is too much.
“Everything is going to be okay; we’re close and help is on the other side waiting on us,” Seven tells her and thinks about how she’s never lied to Raffi more. Not deliberately, anyway. But here, the words spill out so easily and she thinks that she’s lying to herself as much as Raffi. Remarkably, even in the terrible condition Raffi is currently in, she sees right through Seven. Smiling awkwardly, she gasps out, “Liar.” And then promptly proceeds to cough up blood.
A lot of it.
“Computer, how long until we are across the border and into Federation space?” Seven demands. “And have there been any responses to our emergency beacon?”
“Three minutes, six seconds until Federation space. There have been no responses.”
Which might mean that this frantic run for help is pointless, Seven thinks bitterly.
And if it is, that means that she will have killed -
“Sev,” Raffi whispers. “Seven. Seven. Seven.” Like a mantra. Like a lifeline.
Seven’s eyes flicker to hers, focusing on the glistening hazel instead of the bright, sticky red that is splattered everywhere. “I’m here,” she assures her partner. “And I’d never lie to you. Help is on the other side, just waiting for us. Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”
She has no idea why she says it - why she’d double-downed on what is, in fact, a lie and why she’d make a promise she frankly doubts that she can keep - but the words flow easily and quickly and she finds that she has no real desire to pull them back. She finds herself desperately reaching and grasping for anything like hope, not matter how seldom she has allowed herself to believe in even the concept of such a thing. But Raffi believes in it.
Raffi is bold, bright, beautiful hope in organic form and as dramatic as it might seem to anyone else, Seven struggles to figure out how hope could possibly survive Raffi ceasing to exist.
So she can’t die. She can’t…
Raffi’s hand slides into hers. “Seven,” she says again and then coughs, blood on her lips.
Seven inhales, and then lifts both of their hands to her own lips. Her eyes find Raffi’s once more and lock on. Exhaling, she says softly, “I should have made sure you knew this a long time ago, but I was afraid and I let my fear get between us. I should have made sure you always knew what I felt for you - what I feel for you. I should have made sure you always knew you’re the most important person in my life. You’re my rock, my partner. Raffi, I can’t -"
A loud beep sounds. Comms, Seven realizes, eyes widening.
“Incoming message from the U.S.S. Jack London.”
“That’s a shuttlecraft,” Seven says to herself. Then louder, “Put them through.”
The comm line chirps and whistles (absently, Seven thinks about how she should spend some time with it; it clearly needed to be tuned up) and then she hears a voice she never believed she’d be so happy to hear. “La Sirena, this is Jack Crusher. We received your distress signal.”
“Jack!” Seven calls out, her eyes flickering over to one of the screens on the side of the room; to her relief, she sees they’ve crossed into Federation space. “We took fire from slave traders; we need urgent medical assistance; Raffi is seriously injured. Please tell me you’re equipped.”
“We have adequate supplies. Drop your shields, Captain,” Sidney LaForge calls out.
“I’ll come over,” Jack finishes. Silently, Seven thanks them both for their lack of questions. There will be time enough (hopefully) for that later, but not right now. Not now.
“Right. Computer, shields down until Jack Crusher is on-board. Jack, bring a trauma kit if you have one. It’s…” Seven swallows hard as she looks down at Raffi and sees that her eyes have closed. Her chest is still rising and falling, but her breathing has gotten noticeably more labored and shallow as she’s continued to lose blood. Time is absolutely not on their sides, right now.
“In-hand and on my way,” Jack assures her.
Seven nods, more to herself than anyone else. She calls out, “Deet, if you’re listening: I think we’ve got it from here. I owe you one.” She assumes he and Hiro and the Tendu are hovering just on the other side of the boundary line, careful as always not to draw too much attention. Perhaps having a notorious xB with a penchant for playing hero as a former member of your org isn’t the best way to go about that whole “don’t draw too much attention” thing.
“We hear you, Seven. Keep us updated, and as always, we’ve got your back.”
“I know you do and…she’s going to be fine,” Seven assures them and herself.
“Of course, she will,” Hiro chimes in and then right as the line clicks off, she sees the sparkle of the transporter as Jack beams in. Wearing clothes more suitable for the beach (though the massive trauma kit in his hand stands out), his expression is nonetheless deathly serious.
“What happened?” Jack demands, his usual shit-eating grin replaced by grim focus and a furrowed brow as he moves forward, his eyes clocking the commanders condition.
“I shot her,” Seven says flatly, hand still holding Raffi’s, fingers pressing for the pulse (and thankfully still finding it, though she notes that it’s becoming weaker by the minute).
“On purpose?” Jack queries as he kneels down next to them and flips over his tricorder.
“Of course not,” Seven snaps, but supplies nothing else. Right now, all that matters is Raffi.
Raffi has to make it or nothing matters.
Realizing that’s the only answer he’s going to get right now, Jack leans in. “Commander, it’s Jack Crusher. Your favorite person. Can you hear me? If so, can you open your eyes for me?”
Slowly, wearily, Raffi’s eyes open and she looks up at Jack. “You’re not my favorite person.”
“No,” he concurs with a small smile. “I’m pretty sure our captain has that job all wrapped up.”
“Jack,” Seven says and she’s not sure if she’s urging him to stop and begging him to continue.
Stop talking about them, but keep Raffi talking.
Whatever it takes.
Even if what it takes is talking about them.
“I love Seven,” Raffi babbles out, delirium sweeping over her as her fever simmers.
“Oh, I know you do, but I think you’re warming up to me, too,” Jack soothes.
Raffi coughs. “I’m really…really…”
Seeing the panic on his captains face, Jack’s own expression grows deadly serious again. Leaning back in, he says, “Raffi, listen to me, all right? I’m going to need you to take shallow, steady, controlled breaths in. The wound is pretty bad: the blast you took burnt away the top layer of skin, but it also cut through muscle and tissue, which is why you’re bleeding so heavily. I’m going to cauterize the wound, and it’s going to hurt. The painkillers I have aren’t much -“
“No. Just…do…do it,” Raffi grits out.
Jack turns his head slightly, looking at Seven for sign-off. Her only response is to clutch Raffi’s hand tighter, knowing that the next few minutes are going to be horrific for both of them.
“Do it,” she echoes, finding Raffi’s eyes and holding the gaze between them. Tight like a wire.
“Hold her tight,” Jack orders.
Seven doesn’t reply verbally, just pulls Raffi closer, holding and anchoring her.
Jack doesn’t hesitate after that, just lowers the device down to Raffi’s hip and ignites it. The response from the former Intelligence Officer is immediate; her body shudders and shakes as pain tears through her already noisy nerves. Her mouth opens and a scream rips loose from it even as tears streak down her ashen cheeks. And her hand - well, the moment the cauterizing tool connects with the wound, Raffi’s hands violently clench almost like she’s seizing. She isn’t, though, but what she is doing is crushing Seven’s hand. Or at least she would be if she was holding the right hand that is flesh and blood instead of the metal infused one.
“Jack,” Seven practically begs, thankful that her adrenaline is keeping away her own pain.
“All done,” he says and then repeats the words to Raffi. “All done. Wound is closed up.”
Raffi doesn’t answer, just sags back into Seven’s arms, eyes on the ceiling above.
“What about blood?” Seven stammers out, fingers tracing the tears on Raffi’s cheek, the wake of it trailing all the way down her XO’s pale face. “She’s lost a lot of it.”
“We have some available on the shuttle,” Jack assures her. “Hopefully enough to get to DS9.”
Seven does the math in her head; if they can stabilize Raffi, DS9 is well under a half day away from their current position. Theoretically, they should make it. “Can we move her over there?” Raffi’s only response (presumably both to Jack's words as well as Seven's) is a soft whimper and then burrowing her head into Seven, her forehead resting hard against Seven’s shoulder, as if she’s trying to ground herself. She likely is.
“We have to,” Jack agrees. He glances down at his tricorder, his expression grim.
“Okay, okay,” Seven agrees and then she’s moving her body and shifting Raffi more fully into her lap, her arms protective even as they’re careful not to press against her wounds. “Let’s go.”
“Sid,” Jack calls out. “Three to beam over.”
“On it. Stand by.”
“Is there a problem?” Jack presses.
“Just our slave trader friends on the other side of the line trying to throw up some static. Don’t worry; nothing I can’t handle,” Sidney replies tersely. “Stand by.”
“Raff,” Seven says as she lowers her head, her blonde hair creating a protective curtain around them as she folds inwards towards Raffi. “I love you,” she tells her, her voice low and tender and shaking just a little beneath the emotional effort of it all. “You’re going to be okay.”
“You love me and I’m going to be okay?” Raffi teases even as she coughs up more blood. It’s not a lot, but even this is too much considering how much she’s already lost.
“I love you,” Seven says, her tone serious and intense. “And yes, we are going to be okay.”
The smallest edge of a smile appears on the exhausted, wounded officer’s face. “Okay,” she agrees. “We’re going to be okay.” And then her eyes roll back and she sags into Seven’s arms.
“Sid,” Jack urges, eyes again on his tricorder all while Seven’s eyes are on Raffi’s chest.
Up. Down. Up…down. Up…
“Hang on! Now!” the pilot calls back and then all there are golden sparkles of light. Somewhere, just outside of the port windows, Seven sees flashes of the end of a battle between the Tendu and the slave trader ship, the latter limping its way back off into space.
Thankfully, it looks like the good guys won.
This battle, at least.
TBC ;D