Archive of Our Own

i.

It’s embossed into her mind, the first time Raffi sees Seven.

That’s not to say that Raffi is naive. For obvious reasons, Starfleet has never officially been able to get exact numbers on the number of memory wipes or time resets an officer goes through in a given period of time, but as time passes, and Seven circles back into Raffi’s orbit over and over and again, she can’t help but think about more .

Raffi tries not to earmark that first encounter as anything special. Raffi suspects that most people don’t forget the first time they meet Seven of Nine, whether they have the background and the myth for her or not.

Raffi had had the myth, remembers the buildup to Voyager’s return. A single bright spot in the middle of the wreckage in the wake of the Dominion War. But at that time, she hadn’t thought much of it, hadn’t thought much of promises . That’s what the war had done to people. And as Raffi likes to remind everyone, that’s what extended war or conflict does to people, even those they find it hard to sympathize with – Klingon, Romulan, synthetic. Whatever.

Anyone can make a promise. Most people can’t keep them.

Voyager had been a promise, and while being stuck in a quadrant away from home (well, for most of them) would have been utterly harrowing – at the time, Raffi could scarcely imagine leaving Jae and Gabe, and then, when they were gone, she could scarcely imagine reality – all the public messaging around their return had been one of hope. And hadn’t the Voyager crew still had it? Hell, they’d basically looked into the void and not only were able to look away, but they came back . The crew understood, intimately, that hope was a finite resource.

Unlike everyone stuck in the other three quadrants, theirs hadn’t run out. That was the Official Stance Starfleet had taken.

She and Jae had been going through the news on their PADDs, and the article about Voyager’s return had been too hopeful, honestly. Raffi almost took it to be advertising and missed it the first time. But then Jae had grabbed her hand, pulled her in for a hug that pushed the air out of her lungs and made her feel more present than she had in years.

His hugs had a way of doing that to people.

“They made it back,” he’d said, over and over, like he couldn’t believe it. “Dammit, they actually did it.” All Raffi could do was hold him just as hard, press her forehead to his, a rare day when a single thing had gone right.

And honestly, it had taken months for Raffi to process the information. She hadn’t known good news in a long time, and this crew, with their out-of-date uniforms (they’d worn them , through all of that, with the exception of Seven of course) and the tangible hope on their faces…

Well, she’d had a hard time relating to that. A childhood memory, maybe, that she could smell but not quite taste.

Like any good news, its effect had weathered in time, and it had taken maybe six months for the seven-year journey Voyager had been on to become just another normal-yet-phenomenal thing Starfleet had achieved. And it was not Starfleet’s only achievement. People had begun to trust in them again, and Raffi files it away as another impossible-made-possible thing her organization has managed to do and just tries to focus on her everyday work of manifesting miracles.

In the days immediately following, when she’d check in on Gabe while he was sleeping, Raffi had found herself staying longer, letting the evenness of his breathing ground her, suspecting as she always did, sometimes, that maybe bringing him into such a world was not the kindest thing she could have done.

The next day, she’d hear Mom and dismiss the thoughts altogether. But that feeling of being unsettled? It would never really go away.

She remembers the Seven from those times, vaguely. Starfleet had underplayed her presence, which was why Raffi had been interested at all. She’d heard of ex-Borg. She’d never seen any of them, but the reports she’d poured over during her young, Voyager-induced three-month hyperfixation on them had suggested a position that was ultimately unclear.

The way Starfleet had talked about Seven (or rather, not talked about her) had solidified Starfleet’s position for Raffi.

Getting to know JL had convinced Raffi that Starfleet’s position on the issue was shit.

The woman retrieved from Voyager is not the same one who beams aboard La Sirena. And Raffi’s not sure what it is: the ruggedness, the golden waves, the way she addresses JL with vague familiarity but none of the reverence she’s used to seeing from Starfleet. Whatever emergent quality that added up to is enough to seemingly slow time for a moment, send Raffi’s chest dropping like it does on one of those anti-gravity rides she used to take with Gabe when he was young enough to still like her.

Nearly all of them lunge for Seven when she falls. Never mind that none of them know exactly how to give medical care to an xB. Instinct and triage take over. This isn’t the first time she and Rios have had to do this, and then Emil is there, and they’re bringing her to consciousness together.

Seven comes to and swings. Raffi catches her arm, then her hand, mostly covered in something soft and wooly. This woman is strong, even hovering on the edge of unconsciousness, and Raffi looks around for JL, gestures him over with just an expression, in the shorthand she and he had solidified a long time ago, when they were friends, colleagues, truly in sync.

“We’re with him,” says Raffi, once JL’s in Seven’s line of sight.  “We’re going to get you better.”

Seven struggles in Raffi’s arm, less than before, and when Raffi doesn’t let go, she leans back and closes her eyes. “Portable regeneration, inner jacket pocket,” she says. She drops her arm. Raffi doesn’t let go. Neither does Seven, she realizes. “Doctor,” she says, even though she can’t see him.

That means that she’s already determined that they have one on board.

Emil appears at Raffi’s elbow. Rios rummages in Seven’s pocket and pulls out what looks like a very chunky bracelet.

“What seems to be your medical emergency?”

Raffi feels Seven relax a little in her hand and wonders if Seven’s more comfortable with a holographic physician. It would be what she was used to, for sure. Perhaps it also required less explanation. “I assume,” says Seven, “you have either file X-B-zeta-psi or file 2-7-4-8 omega in your programming.”

“I do,” he says.

“Reference material,” says Seven.

Emil kneels, takes her vital signs.

There’s a moment where she seems to take in the scene around her, where she is, who is there. She meets Raffi’s eyes, and there’s a momentary flicker. Surprise? Surely not panic. Seven’s hand squirms in Raffi’s.

“It’s fine, honey,” says Raffi, the comfort words she never gets to use as much as she’d like forever ready to go on the tip of her tongue. “You’re going to be fine.”

Seven’s eyes flicker to Raffi’s hands in bewilderment, then relents.

Raffi lets go of her soon after that, but she’ll come back to this moment over and over again, for years. How she could never really shake that first impression: the titanium-sharp edge to Seven’s ferocity and beauty in equal measure, how Raffi could tell even then that she was bearing witness to someone Raffi had forever striven to be like, even if it would take her months to know exactly what that was. The softness in Seven’s hand juxtaposed with the coolness of her metal fingertips. A touch she'd come to know nearly as well as she knows herself, a safe place she and Seven could and would come back to, over and over and over again, in times of joy, grief, ecstasy, tenuousness, wonder, fear, vulnerability. An ever-present base to come back to when words failed.

And also, how the woman who stilled her heart at first sight was nothing, nothing like the one Starfleet had presented (or rather, not presented) upon the return from the Delta Quadrant.

ii.

Raffi hates funerals as much as the next person, but she’s good at them. Great at them, actually. It’s one of the few times the peaks and lows of people’s emotions seem to vibe close to her wavelength.

She also knows that a lot of what grief requires is just sitting . Filling space. Stillness during a time when people want to feel anything but.

Raffi doesn’t really get the impression that grief is something Seven feels comfortable with, but the whole sitting in silence thing? Totally her forte. They’ve been sitting in the desert for who-knows-how-long now. JL’s loss still hangs heavy in the air, and Raffi watches Seven open durians with the fingers of her left hand, slowly sucking the fruit off of each seed.

They’ve spent the entire evening together, just talking. First, Rios was there, and they reminisced, stories that didn’t cost too much to share, finding solace in the buffer that sarcasm often provides. Then, he’d gone to bed, and La Sirena had felt too small. They’d taken snacks out to the desert, where there was more space (and less alcohol). Raffi would learn later, as she suspects early on, that Seven isn’t a talker. But that night, Seven does talk – about the Fenris Rangers, some of their more storied missions that ended in tenuous success and not outright failure.

Maybe she’s also just trying to fill space. But the more she talks, the more Raffi feels the pull toward her: wet mark of the shoreline moving closer and closer to the cliffs behind as high tide rolls in and in and in.

On the horizon, the sun’s just starting to rise, and they’ll have to go in soon, but this evening has belonged to the both of them. Raffi needs to sleep. Seven, on the other hand, doesn’t really need to regenerate for several days, if she chooses. Raffi’s learned that much.

“Does that hurt?” asks Raffi, as Seven weaves her fingers past the fruit’s spikes and cracks further into its shell. Seven’s gone for the variety that Raffi also likes, one where the flesh inside is more orange than yellow, vibrant like a sun just beginning to set. Against Seven’s titanium-laced hand, the fruit’s creaminess looks almost molten, gold and silver even in the pale blue of first dawn, old time riches at her fingertips.

Seven sucks the seed clean, then her fingers, before she answers. “Eating?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. She looks more amused than anything else, like she seems to look when Raffi says a lot of what Raffi says. “I eat just like you, though it took me a while to get used to flavor.”

“No, I mean, opening the durian. Does it hurt your hand?”

Seven looks down at her hand, blinking. “No,” she says. “That’s a good question, though. With the heightened sensation also comes a greater tolerance for heat, cold, pain, electric currents.” There’s another pause, as she reevaluates…something. “Thank you for your concern.”

Raffi raises her eyes to the sky. She can only see one of Coppelius’ moons today, but it’s a beauty. “Where were you when I was in the Academy?”

“In the collective,” answers Seven, and Raffi swears she hears the eyebrow raise, even though she can’t see it. “Anyway, I don’t think taking your practical engineering exams for you would be the Starfleet way.”

Raffi chuckles. “No – I’m sorry. What I mean is, it’s been a while since I’ve met someone with the same taste in durians as me.”

She does look at Seven’s face then, which seems startled. Seven holds out the shell, with two seeds left. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you wanted some.”

“I did – I mean, I do. I always have room for good durians,” says Raffi, and maybe it’s the hour or the easy rapport the two of them seem to have struck up in seemingly little time, but she can’t help herself. Bad habit. “I liked watching you, though.”

Now, it’s Seven’s turn to chuckle. “You liked watching me eat,” she says, casually incredulous. And yes, the way Seven says it makes Raffi sound a little pathetic, but the response is right there . Raffi reaches for it.

“I like watching you do a lot of things, Seven.”

It’s absolutely too forward and way too soon, and Raffi expects a snarky remark back, but Seven just keeps an easy, steady gaze on Raffi, and reaches into the durian for another seed, pulling the fruit to her lips, closing her mouth over the tip.

It’s Raffi who drops her eyes. When she does, they’re both grinning. Easiest thing in the galaxy.

iii.

Their first kiss is not a mistake, but it is born out of a desperation of sorts, confusion, a need for relief. Raffi’s cheeks burn after it, long after Seven has assured her that it’s okay, a release, a bit of relief snatched between – well, they’re not really friends. Whatever they are. Trauma-forged allies. Ships in a night that has turned to dawn. Whatever one becomes when possessing a long, storied, and complex relationship with larger-than-life intergalactic personalities.

Not long after Seven assures her that it’s not something she regrets in the slightest, she unnerves Raffi with a glance so laden with possibility that Raffi still hasn’t quite recovered sensation in her stomach.

Also, JL is alive. Raffi had seen him, spoken to him.

It’s a little overwhelming.

Raffi knows sleep will be a lost cause, at least for a while. She takes her time in the sonic shower, letting the micro-vibrations merge with the unsteadiness of her insides.

Raffi will come to know plenty about Seven in the coming days, but anyone with an ounce of empathy would know after reading her file that this isn’t someone who takes lightly to any kind of touch. She’d only remembered that, though, after her hand had floated to Seven’s jaw: skin’s softness against the hard curve of bone.

Seven had leaned into it, their knees bumping together because they were sitting side-by-side, her hands coming to rest on Raffi’s waist. Firm, sliding up to her ribs, bigger than Raffi had thought they would be (which means that she had thought about it somewhere in her subconscious, held half-formed preconceptions of how this would feel).

Raffi places her own hands on her own ribs, slides down to her hips, rests her head against the wall.

What the hell is she doing?

Why does she feel so confident about following Seven through the door they’d opened (and they’d opened it together , Raffi does know that, leaning in micron by micron all night until they’d been too close to be casual, until they’d been staring at each other’s lips for too long to be polite)?

It’s not until she registers the foreign soreness in her cheeks that Raffi realizes she’s smiling and can’t stop.

iv.

Raffi’s spent a good portion of her life on spaceships, but unlike many of her Starfleet companions (or former , she thinks, with a sting), she has spent a significant enough amount of time planet-side to feel at home enough there. There’s something about the ratio of planet surface to stars that she doesn’t think everyone gets the chance to truly appreciate. For sure, there’s a romance to being on a spaceship, completely surrounded by the infinite cosmos, but there’s also something steady and lovely about the ground under her feet, an atmosphere familiar enough to one’s physiology, and then endless heavens above – available, even if one doesn’t want to be surrounded by their unbridled immensity right at this moment .

She also finds it’s a good conversational companion, especially for people like Seven who seem to need a lot of space naturally, and for people like Raffi who need a lot of space circumstantially, like right now.

She’s lost track of the number of nights they’ve done this, lost track of the days since they kissed. It’s a reset button of sorts, the second trial of an experiment, and they’ve ended up back here, backs against a different rock, stars above them, Raffi’s legs folded under her as she just watches and listens to Seven weave magic.

Seven sits on the ground, legs bent wide so her knees support her elbows. Her forearms hang over her knees, and her arms hang free. Raffi had noticed Seven’s penchant for long sleeves at first, even in the heat of the desert. She’s since abandoned that for tank tops in various grey-toned shades. Raffi gets the sense that Seven’s not used to being around people so comfortable with her implants, and Raffi tries not to stare at the notch on her upper arm. But it begs to be seen, a current and lovely echo of Coppelius’ twin moons’ light.

Seven’s favorite writer, Raffi learns, is Jake Sisko. Everyone knows Jake Sisko, of course. Raffi herself remembers pouring over his stories on nights when the war pushed sleep away from her. Sometimes she remembers his father with a start, because in her mind, they’re both such distinct personalities that she forgets they’re related.

“A lady of nonfiction,” comments Raffi. “Brave.”

Seven raises her eyebrow, and there’s another flash of the moons against her ocular implant. “I never understood that term,” says Seven. “Maybe it translates badly. I find his writing anything but impersonal.”

“As in you don’t think he’s an objective reporter?”

Seven frowns. “No, he knows his stuff. He’s accurate. It’s just the way he constructs his stories. The way he aligns certain things next to each other. It’s evocative, and–” She pauses, as if she’s trying to decide whether or not to continue, then continues. “– and it suggests this level of understanding that – I’ve just learned that it’s just hard, you know, to make people care about things if they are not there witnessing it personally. But he is able to do that.” Seven exhales and drops her arms from her knees to the gravel and sand next to her feet. “I’m sorry. You were there. You do understand. I don’t know if I’m making any sense.”

Raffi rests her palms on her knees and leans forward. “I was there but not with him. The war was huge, and I was very young. There was a lot going on. Crises are like that. They draw your attention and pull it. It’s hard to see the big picture, even at that age. I found his reporting helpful in that way. He was able to take big things and put them into perspective, without leaving out anything glaringly important.”

Raffi doesn’t think much about that war anymore, as the last decade of her life has eclipsed it with another war, one where she stands against everyone, and a civil war, within herself.

“Reading his stuff after, it helped me feel. It helped me find feelings. Is that how you felt?”

“Feelings and reality are not two things that come together, in my experience,” says Seven.

Raffi raises her eyes to the sky and releases a huge exhale, one that’s nearly a song. “Wow, do I feel that.”

“Still, it pulled me in,” admits Seven. “ Good journalism bears witness in pursuit of the truth .” Raffi is familiar with the words, remembers them from the introduction of one of Jake’s memoirs, the rhythm of the syllables, the meatiness.

Raffi shrugs, feeling comfortably useless under the vastness of space. “Okay, so maybe that’s it. The truth lies somewhere between reality and feeling. And he found it, for you. Because how else do we root ourselves somewhere, in a moment, in an event, without feeling?” She looks over sideways at Seven. “Or I’m full of shit. Any of that word salad make sense?”

Seven smirks at her, and Raffi tries not to stare at her mouth too much. “It’s not word salad,” she replies, and inhales, in a moment long and vast and thick and beautiful. “You are so many things, Raffi. Full of shit is not one of them.”

Raffi has no idea when they’d gotten close enough to touch, but between them, the titanium tips of Seven’s fingers float over hers.

v.

Music therapy as a means of helping xBs recover and settle into personhood: it’s the kind of thing that would have flown right over Raffi’s head. But that’s why Hugh was such a good fit for this task, Hugh whole-seeming in the way that JL had always described him. Meanwhile, Raffi’s first task in the morning after waking up remains the attempt to press enough of her crumbly insides together to get out of bed, to operate, to do anything .

While Seven possesses the same vocal processor that her fellow xBs do, that all Borg do , apparently, Seven has admitted to Raffi that she doesn’t find song the most native way to connect with herself either. But it’s what Hugh wanted, the process to which the xBs have become accustomed, and what seems to be working for them, so in the interim, Seven steps in to help.

It’s what she does.

Maybe it’s a bit selfish, but there will never be a point in Raffi’s conscious existence when she is over Seven singing: not in this reality, not in the non-Borg reality, not in any timeline. Never, ever, ever.

It’s not the kind of thing Raffi wants to pick apart, because Seven’s ability – her gift – should stand alone, the true and glorious emergence that exceeds the sum of its parts. But Raffi can’t help herself. It’s just the way her brain works. She wonders sometimes if it’s the knowledge that it’s so hard won , not the perfect pitch but the emotion that Seven can put into a performance, the way it reaches out and takes hold of people. The way Seven has worked on reclaiming that, on shaping it into a form that others can understand her entire life. The way Seven has worked on applying meaning to it, shaping it into a form that makes sense to her.

It’s a lot of work, and Raffi can imagine how someone like Seven wouldn’t want to do that work every day. But watching the way she opens doors for others to walk down the same path if they so choose is something exceptional.

Raffi’s supposed to be working with the xBs on transforming the Artifact into a makeshift concert hall for the performance they’ve decided to put on, a bit of stage managing to pass the time, a bit of Borg tech knowledge to hold in her back pocket for a stormy day. But she finds herself watching Seven work with the xB – Jiragi, if Raffi remembers correctly. Seven requests permission to take Jiragi’s hands, slowly draws out a pleasant memory – one of Jiragi’s latent memories of a secret cave stream she loved when she was young.

“Hold the memory while you are singing,” says Seven. Between them, Jiragi’s small, rough hands rest in hers.

“Those are two discrete tasks,” replies Jiragi. She tilts her head, and her ocular implants – three dots on either side of her eyes – sparkle in the makeshift stage light they’ve created inside of the Artifact.

“Correct,” replies Seven, and it always transfixes Raffi, just a little, to watch Seven flip into an equivalent of her native language like this, to allow Raffi a small glimpse of who she is when there are less barriers to overcome for understanding. “Music performance is a multi-tasking process. As are many interactions with others.”

Jiragi thinks. “It is a strong emotion. It will affect my tone,” she says. Her hands relax in Seven’s.

“Tone affectation is precisely the point,” Seven replies. “Try, if it is something you would like to attempt.” She waits until Jiragi’s nod to let go.

Jiragi nods to the accompanist, and she begins to sing. It sounds exactly the same as before, but this time, her face shifts with it.

“Improvement?” Jiragi asks, when she is finished.

“I detected emotion in your performance,” says Seven. “Describe your sentiments about the exercise.”

“Off balance. Strange,” replies Jiragi. She meets Raffi’s eyes for a moment, and Raffi understands acutely for the moment that she is the only person in here without a connection to the collective. Then, Juragi’s eyes raise back to Seven’s. “It is not unpleasant.”

“Proceed with your work,” says Seven, with a nod. “You may come to me for further help as you require.”

“Then I have a request,” says Juragi. Seven nods. “You must demonstrate.”

Seven’s posture remains rod-straight, her face neutral, but Raffi’s gotten to know her well enough by now to know that this isn’t her favorite thing to do. This is a memorial service, after all, for Hugh. For the fallen xBs. For that which she still feels acutely. But Seven does what is necessary, as she always does.

Seven nods again, this time to the accompanist. “Congregate,” she calls to the rest of the choir, who have been on break until now. “This information is relevant.”

They comply, and as the accompanist plays the short intro to the song, Raffi considers that it is perhaps this that makes Seven’s gift so evocative, that she can, despite everything, still share it with others. That she has something left to give freely to others – and then gives it .

And then Seven’s singing, and Raffi’s mind spins off into somewhere else.

There’s a moment when Seven’s hands are raised in front of her, fingers curved out and extended, implants reflecting the light: slow, lush waves on a barren, haggard shore. She closes her eyes during a particularly long note, and it’s just a split second that Raffi sees it – what she must look like when she’s regenerating, or unburdened, or something free.

The small allowance leaves Raffi breathless. That’s when she knows: that his gravitation ever-present when Seven occupies space – in Raffi’s vicinity, in Raffi’s thoughts – has transformed into love.

vi.

If someone had told Raffi, the first time she encountered it, that the Artifact would become a place of sentimentality for her, of significance, she would have assumed she was higher than she thought (doesn’t happen much anymore, but it’s been known to happen from time to time).

If someone had told Raffi that it would become an ideal makeout spot, her mind would have gone past high and straight to very bad trip .

Yet Seven’s brought her here again, and there’s something about it that leaves Raffi stricken if she thinks about it for too long, how a place so native to Seven would also become a place that the woman also deems a compromise of sorts – private enough from their gossip-hungry motley crew and Soji’s ever curious and giant family, but also impersonal enough to maintain space from whatever she and Raffi were becoming. There had been a moment, when they’d started stealing away like this, when Raffi had thought that Seven was choosing this place because it gave her an advantage, given all of the things that she’s gone through (both known and unknown to Raffi). Now, Raffi knows that Seven’s chosen this place because Seven doesn’t like it and doesn’t feel at an advantage here, at all. It keeps her alert, on her toes, keeps her from relaxing.

Still, every time they come here, they go a little farther, like Seven’s preparing herself for it. Or maybe she’s just trying to find her boundaries.

Raffi isn’t judging. And she’s not the only one. Seven’s moaning as Raffi’s teeth sink into her lip the first time a group of xBs walks by them. They keep walking. Such interactions are irrelevant, apparently.

And in that way, the Artifact is weirdly private: enough people around to keep the pressure low, but no one’s really going to bother them.

Raffi lets Seven spin her around and is a little surprised when it’s Seven who has her back turned towards the wall. “Is this okay?” asks Seven, steady, with none of the energy Raffi feels coursing through herself, pins and needles and fluttering birds.

Seven had asked Raffi once before she’d taken her hand, soft, with none of the urgency that’s surrounding the activity in general. “Yes,” breathes Raffi, with no steady energy, quivering and soft and expectant. As if Seven’s mouth on hers is something she’s ever going to learn to expect .

She takes Seven’s face between her hands and leans in.

She doesn’t expect it.

They come together with force. It’s not quiet, a positive feedback loop that pushes all of the memories of the last time they were together like this to the very very forefront of Raffi’s mind, pushes her to crave more. Raffi feels Seven’s moan into her mouth before she hears it, and that’s when she registers everything else: their hands pushing each other’s jackets from their shoulders, one of Seven’s layered tops dropping to expose one of her shoulders. Seven pulls Raffi into the wall with her, but Raffi’s pushing, Seven’s hands hot and heavy as they drop from Raffi’s now-bare shoulders, down her back, to her sides, tease under the hem of her tank top.

Warning bells are going off in Raffi’s mind even before Seven’s hands pull Raffi’s hips into place and Raffi slides her leg between Seven’s, heat rushing into every single border of Raffi’s body. She tries to pull away from Seven’s mouth, but her lips catch Seven’s jaw, and when Seven rocks into Raffi, Raffi moans into Seven’s neck, her thumbs rubbing circles into Seven’s upper arms.

They pull apart at the same time.

“Shit,” breathes Raffi. She tries to pull away from Seven and really only manages to look into Seven’s eyes. They’re still pressed against each other, hot, every breath the other takes vibrating through both of them.

It’s then that Raffi realizes Seven’s fingers are all the way under her shirt, resting on the bare skin of her stomach.

“I didn’t know that was going to happen,” Seven replies, her eyes a darkened, stirring shade of blue. She withdraws her fingers, but Raffi can still feel the imprints on her.

She wants them back.

Raffi lets go of Seven’s arms, reluctance pinging in her chest, but Seven takes Raffi’s hands in hers. “We can stop,” Raffi tells her.

Seven stares at their clasped hands, considers. Raffi still can’t seem to catch her breath, just watches the way Seven’s thumbs seem to circle the backs of her hands to a rhythm that runs parallel to the way she can hear her blood in her ears. “What do you want?” asks Seven, and Raffi registers that Seven can’t seem to catch her breath either , and something inside of her opens up and soars.

“Right now?” asks Raffi. Seven settles their hands back onto her upper arms. If Raffi moves her finger even a little, she’ll be touching that one implant, gone dark in the low lighting of the Artifact.

Raffi doesn’t dare move.

“Right now,” repeats Seven.

Even this much feels like a risk: Raffi taking Seven in, hair loose, top askew, chest moving with each breath, collarbones wide as she holds Raffi’s hands to her arms.

“This,” Raffi answers truthfully. “Just this.”

Raffi leans back and tries to take comfort in the fact that breathing is both a conscious and an unconscious activity. If she forgets to breathe, her body is designed to remember to do it for her.

I don’t want to stop , Seven had said. But I want you to know how to touch me .

But it’s not fair, how it’s always Seven who has to explain herself to people, so Raffi had volunteered to go first.

The Artifact is rough against her back, a kind of sensation Raffi had come to know as forbidden, but Seven had promised nothing would happen to Raffi, not while she was there.

Well, nothing assimilation-y would happen to her. There’s plenty going on.

Seven’s fingertips graze the curve of Raffi’s forehead, slide down to touch her ears, and Raffi leans back into it, heat flooding between her legs just from the friction between her and the seam of her trousers.

Seven hums. “Neck, good,” she says, her voice sounding somehow far away when she’s so near .

“Neck, very good,” says Raffi. She opens her eyes, despite herself, smiles at Seven, who smiles back. And then she closes them again, because looking into Seven’s eyes right now is a lot like looking into a star that’s very, very close. She can’t take that and Seven’s hands right now.

Clothes on, Raffi had suggested. Low stakes . Seven had bent down at that point to reach for her jacket. But maybe not that low? Raffi had suggested. Seven had grinned, dropped her jacket, and kissed her.

(By the time they’ve pulled apart that time, Seven’s outermost shirt joins her jacket on the floor, and she decides that can stay off too. Something about appropriate stakes.)

This is an exercise as much for Seven as it is for her, Raffi reminds herself, the Artifact rough against her back, a good and present reminder of why this is a good idea. Eyes closed, she concentrates on Seven’s hands, tries to “see” where they are on her arms. 

The palms are easy – the largest amount of surface area, sliding down her arms.

Fingers are harder, because there are five of them, but it’s so much , feels like a single flat surface across Raffi’s skin. Seven’s hands always strike Raffi as a little bit cool, and she’s grateful for that now, because she still feels the song of her blood in her veins, would swear that Seven could watch her vibrate with the pulse of it if she hadn’t been around this particular block so many times before.

Just, you know, never with Seven.

Seven’s fingers brush over the insides of Raffi’s elbows, and she gasps. Seven stops.

“It’s good there,” says Raffi. “Just please keep going?”

God, she can feel Seven’s closeness without actually having to see it. It’s just so warm . And then Seven’s cool nose is touching the outside of Raffi’s ear, lips smiling against her neck (Raffi assumes, okay, she can’t actually see it) as she kisses there. “Whatever you want,” she says, and Raffi bites her lip to keep from embarrassing herself.

Forearms, good.

Wrists, very good.

Hands, very good.

Ass, eh.

Hips, good.

Stomach, good.

Ribs, very, very good.

Seven’s hands still, cupping around Raffi’s lower ribs, and Raffi opens her eyes and breathes a laugh. “Problem?”

It’s a mistake, of course, opening her eyes. Seven’s gaze dazzles into her, renders her a little light in the head.

And then Seven licks her lips.

(Raffi’s usually right about these things.)

“Oh my god,” laughs Raffi, leaning her head back. She sounds a little unhinged. Maybe she is. “You’re killing me.”

She reaches for Seven’s hands, thumbs curling around Seven’s soft wrists. She rubs a single circle there, then stacks her fingers on top of Seven’s, skin and metal and bone already warming beneath hers. She curls her fingers around Seven’s, pulls them up, feels them curl, watches Seven’s lips open, inhale.

Collarbones, very, very good.

Raffi closes her eyes, leads their joined hands down and around.

Chest, very, very, very–

“Fuck,” moans Raffi, rocking into it.

She opens her eyes to find Seven, eyes wide and lips parted, all soft hunger and tension.

“Turn around,” she says in a tight, urgent whisper.

Raffi’s not sure she trusts herself to move. She can feel the textured wall of the Artifact making little indentations in her back, the blood rushing there, everywhere.

Seven pulls her forward, and Raffi turns, snaps her arms into place on either side of her head as they come into contact with the Artifact’s wall, and Seven’s lips are on the back of neck, hands roaming up her back, peeling the cloth off and up.

Raffi wants to lean back into Seven – her angles and curves – but she grits her teeth, pulls her hands in, presses her forehead to them to keep her off the rough Artifact wall.

And Seven’s mouth works against her hairline, thumbs stroking the spaces between her ribs, her shoulder blades.

“Back, good?” asks Seven, nipping Raffi’s ear.

Raffi just lets out a sound that’s half-moan, half-laugh. It doesn’t sound reassuring, but Seven can’t see her face, so maybe it’s okay. “Yes,” Raffi breathes. “Little unfair, but yes.” Seven’s lips pause, Raffi assumes to hover in the air, and her hand snaps back to grab Seven’s wrist. “Also, not really complaining.”

Seven stills her hands, wraps her arms around Raffi from the back, as if she can still what she’s started with pressure alone. “It’s not unfair,” murmurs Seven, her mouth somewhere at the back of Raffi’s neck. “You’ll see.”

Head still light and electric, Raffi pulls her twisted shirt into place and watches Seven back into the wall. The shirt Seven wears closest to her skin dips just a little over the tops of her breasts. Raffi’s favorite liminal space of today, maybe.

Seven extends her hands, which Raffi takes in both of hers. “Touch anything you want,” says Seven. “Just not my back. Not today, not in the future. If that changes, I’ll let you know.”

Raffi nods. “Okay, so your back back?  What about the backs of your legs, arms–”

“My back back,” says Seven, her eyebrow raising at the repeated word. “Everything else is fine.”

Raffi burns with the memory of Seven’s hands on her bare back, her bare stomach. She flicks her tongue on the inside of her mouth, just inside of her lips, and watches Seven watch her. She lowers her lips to Seven’s hands, and Seven pulls the one without the implant up.

“This one first. Just – trust me.”

Raffi closes her eyes, for a moment thinking of old time holodeck programs. The Artifact kind of shatters that image with its metal-and-nanoprobe decor, but she likes this. She bows a little even though she doesn’t have to, kisses the back of Seven’s hand. Seven chuckles, and Raffi wonders if she’s aware of those programs too, remembers them from a lifetime ago.

Raffi moves across the back and front of Seven’s hand – lips, thumbs. There’s a little tension in her palm, so Raffi straightens, rubs it out, and when she looks up at Seven again, Seven’s just got this amused little smile on her face that seems so silly when just minutes ago Raffi was moaning into the wall under Seven’s mouth.

God, she’s so cute.

“Having fun?” asks Seven wryly, perhaps the most relaxed Raffi’s ever seen her.

Raffi finishes her exploration of Seven’s hand with another kiss on her knuckles. “It’s what you deserve,” she replies. She takes the other hand and presses the palm to her face, then runs her lips over the back.

Seven’s breath hitches very audibly.

“Hand, good?” smiles Raffi. Seven nods, wordless, lips parted, and Raffi soon sees why Seven’s only let Raffi kiss her on the mouth.

Arms, good.

Neck, good.

Cheek, good.

Star cheek and star ear, very, very good .

By the time Raffi’s lips brush her ocular implant, Seven’s eyes are closed, neck tilted, hand gripping Raffi’s hip hard. She lets out a high-pitched whining noise. Then another. Then another.

Raffi stops, brushes a thumb along Seven’s cheek in a combination of wonder at what she’s being allowed to witness – and a little concern for the implications. Seven leans into her hand, and her hair cascades to one side, beautiful. “It’s your implants, isn’t it?” asks Raffi softly.

Seven’s head rolls back, just a little, just a fraction, and Raffi’s eyes flicker to the newly exposed skin between jaw and neck. Seven nods.

Raffi considers her next words carefully, thinks about how when she parted from Seven the first time, the woman was willingly going into an xB slaughterhouse as bait.

But Seven’s opened this door. Raffi will learn later that, in things like this, she only has to meet Seven halfway; halfway is good enough. Anything else Raffi accomplishes is extra. “Only when I’m in the mood,” says Seven. “It’s not like I walk around touching things and uh…”

“And only on your implants?” asks Raffi.

Seven leans into the wall behind her, her hair a contained extraordinary illumination, and takes Raffi’s hands, pulls them down the front of her torso, soft curves, peached fabric. Beneath their hands, Seven’s ribcage expands, heaves, sighs. And Raffi understands.

Raffi venerates her hands around Seven’s hips, dips her thumbs into the hollows present even over Seven’s work trousers, and Seven shudders a moan, head still tilted up toward the ceiling. Raffi pushes there just a little harder, circles her thumbs as Seven presses into her hands. “Everywhere?” Raffi ventures quietly.

Seven’s hands wrap around Raffi’s wrists. A small tug. A question that Seven doesn’t really need to ask, because Raffi’s already in her orbit, fitting herself flush against Seven’s thighs, her hips, her stomach, her chest. Seven’s arms come up to cradle around Raffi’s shoulders, pads of her fingers resting lightly against Raffi’s neck.

“Everywhere,” Seven answers, small smile, and pulls Raffi’s mouth to hers.

vii.

Stay here, with me, under the stars .

Raffi doesn’t notice it until later, but the junkyard planet is ironically astonishing in its beauty. She’s distracted at first, by the mission, the ship parts strewn everywhere, the whole Seven-mad-at-her thing. Also, palace rooms filled with clutter simply look like cluttered rooms. Raffi really can’t emphasize enough how disorganized everything looks and feels.

But Seven’s here now, and for the moment, they’re still. Raffi takes the scene in for the first time. The sky above them is riddled with stars, so many stars, and the planet’s ionosphere is doing something fantastic, an aurora feathering royal blue and green and orange above them. The gravel under her feet shimmers, weathered rock that reflects the light, and when she looks out, beyond the junk, she can just barely make it out: flat rocks like the indigo one she and Seven sit on now, in as many colors as she can imagine, and then some. All of them shimmer in the multi-colored wash of the night sky.

Somehow, while they were talking, they had come to sit shoulder-to-shoulder, inclining infinitesimally toward each other throughout as they spoke (it hasn’t escaped Raffi’s notice). Raffi takes Seven in, sky colors playing against her pale hair, and just lets what is natural take its course. Seven’s lips brush hers, on a familiar trajectory toward a destination that is becoming as native to Raffi as she is to herself.

That is not to say Raffi takes it for granted. The relief eclipses her chest, fueled by the full weight of the courage behind the desire she’s just expressed to Seven, scooped out of a place Raffi is surprised she’s able to access at all. It rivets her, how Seven sat there and listened , despite her anger and through Raffi’s naivety with this piece of her, only to lean back into Raffi the way she is now.

The answer to Raffi’s imperfection, it seems, is Seven’s full-bodied acceptance.

First fights are a thing in all relationships. Raffi knows this. Still, this kiss of near-forgiveness, near-understanding washes over her, clear and cleansing. She wants to lose herself in it.

She supposes she kind of is doing that.

Even after a day of roughing it in the middle of nowhere, Seven’s lips are so wet and lush, and they part under Raffi’s, tongue sweeping into her mouth as Seven sighs, the familiar weight of her palms coming up to rest on Raffi’s shoulder, her cheek. As far as Raffi’s concerned, they haven’t kissed enough (and probably never will), but this is familiar enough to where Raffi picks up on habits: Seven’s thumb tracing the angle of her cheekbone, pulling away enough to pull in air and feed their fire, then capturing her lips again. And again. And again.

(It’s always her right hand, never the left. Raffi hopes one day that it’ll be both.)

It soothes a dull ache that Raffi didn’t even know she had. She’s missed her , and it’s only been a few days. Hell, they’ve been on the same ship, and Raffi feels the absence.

The cool night air flutters around Raffi’s arms as Seven slides her jacket from her shoulders, one of the glimmering rocks gritting under her shoulders as Seven lays her down. Seven shrugs out of her own jacket, and Raffi’s hands are halfway under one of Seven’s many sweaters when she looks up at Seven, dark-eyed, focus tinged with determination, haloed against the rippling bands of sky.

She reaches up for her face.

At her touch, Seven closes her eyes and leans sideways into her hand. Raffi smoothes her hair with the other. “You know we’re about to have make up sex outside, right?”

Seven opens her eyes and leans forward on her hands framing Raffi’s chest.

“This isn’t make up sex.”

“Okay.” Raffi makes a tiny show of looking around at the scene in front of her, then meets Seven’s eyes again. “Then what exactly is happening?” She watches Seven let out a little exhale and holds up her free hand. “I know, I know, killing the moment.”

Seven shakes her head, and Raffi lets her arms fall, stretch onto the rock above her. “No, it’s not – I mean, you should ask if you want – it’s not make up sex because I’m still mad at you.”

Raffi nods slowly, remembering. “Right, that makes sense.” She pauses. “So this is angry sex?” Seven’s face contorts in confusion. “Routine Ranger outdoor sex initiation?”

“No,” Seven says, tinged with the frustration that Raffi’s learned is nearly never directed at her but inward, to the place inside Seven that is forever telling her that she needs to get better at communicating with other people. Raffi, arms above her head, chest open, waits. “It’s – dammit, Raffi – you just say things to me sometimes that just–”

Raffi swings her arms from over her head, finds Seven’s hands next to her and holds on. “Hey, okay, okay, it’s fine. We don’t have to define it exactly.” In a smaller voice, she adds sheepishly, “It was more of the ‘outdoor’ part of it that I was getting at.”

“Oh,” says Seven. She leans back on her heels a little, looks around them, like she’s taking in where they are for the first time. “ Oh , right. Sorry. Is it uncomfortable?”

Raffi works her fingers under Seven’s on the rock until she moves and Raffi can lace their fingers together. “Not as much as it should be.” She grins a little. “You know, if it was just you and me, on any planet…”

Seven raises an eyebrow – high . “Any.”

“Within reason.” She watches the phantom of a smirk play across Seven’s face and tempers her own smile. “But no, my point was more like, your colleagues. In the ship. Behind you. When we’re about to get–”

Seven blinks in Raffi’s sudden silence. “Passionate,” she finishes. Raffi smiles and turns her head. “Undressed. Loud. Is that not what you were going to say?”

Raffi shakes her head and and flattens one of her palms against Seven’s. “With full acknowledgment that you’re still mad at me and that that’s okay, I’d like to say for the record that you’re just really hot.”

Seven fights a smirk, then nods down at Raffi. “The rock weathers easy, you know,” she says. “Your hair is glittering. It’s…distracting.”

They don’t say anything for a while after that. The moment’s just too good.

Then Seven lets go of Raffi’s hands, leans down, and kisses her excruciatingly slowly, thumb tracing her cheek again, her neck, her collarbone. Raffi shivers. “We’re all pretty good at leaving each other alone,” says Seven. “No one’s coming out tonight. Also, that alcohol they have on board is crap, but it’s got a delayed reaction. You can drink it and stay alert all shift and sleep like a baby hours later, which is very likely what they’re doing right now.”

Raffi feels the entire atmosphere shift, and that doesn’t have anything to do with how the sky above them’s gone red now, streaking in spiral rays, a light show for the stars. “Oh,” she says. Then she gasps, because Seven’s hands are under her tank top, on her ribcage, sliding up, pulling the fabric with it. “So.” Gasp. “Then.” Gasp.

“For all intents and purposes,” says Seven, that dark-eyed focus finding its way back home on her face, “it is just you and me on this planet.”

The rock beneath Raffi scrapes when she stretches her arms up. Seven’s mouth comes back down to hers, and Raffi imagines her body glimmering, covered in little pieces of stars.

It’s not like they’re naked in the desert – that’s always a terrible idea – but they’re pretty damn close.

Raffi’s tank top and jacket lie somewhere under her neck, her chest undergarment lying open on either side of her. Seven’s undershirt has ridden up somewhere around the middle of her ribcage, and her pants are undone.

Seven leans up to unfasten Raffi’s pants, and Raffi reaches down to help, tilts her head up, takes the bottom curve of Seven’s breast in her mouth.

Seven yelps and leans down on her forearm, and Raffi laves her tongue against the sudden mouthful of flesh, pulls her hand up to frame it, to just brush over her nipple with a thumb, and when she pulls away, Seven’s hand is cupping her face, Seven’s expression full of…something.

Raffi covers Seven’s hand with hers, slips her thumb into the space between Seven’s thumb and forefinger. “What is it?”

“Earlier. You meant what you said?”

Raffi smiles, tenderness nesting into her chest. “You’re hot?”

“Before that.”

Behind Seven, vermillion flares, pulses among the emerald and gold aurora haze that’s tinted the heavens. “I want to be the last,” says Raffi quietly. Seven nods, and it strikes Raffi as almost somber but not enough to warrant a discussion. “All of it.”

Something dark and deep stutters over Seven’s face, and Raffi reaches up for her shoulders.

“Come here, honey.”

Seven presses her lips to Raffi’s, Raffi’s shoulders to the planet’s glinting earth, and kisses her until she can’t think, can’t feel anything except for this.

Seven kisses a long, wet line down Raffi’s jaw, down her neck, down the middle of her breasts. She sets herself over one of Raffi’s thighs and drags her tongue over one nipple, her thumb over the other.

“Seven,” hisses Raffi, partially for the release, partially because she wants to mark this moment somehow. It doesn’t feel like makeup sex or angry sex – it’s something else, a confirmation, something that begs to be marked with significance.

Seven just looks up at her, tongue out, eyes steady and unashamed. Her eyes flicker back down to her work, and she continues.

Raffi lets out a breath that sounds more like a pitchy sigh and raises her hand to the back of Seven’s head, pulling her hair away from her face. Her other hand, covered in the planet’s shimmer, rests just in front of Seven’s elbow, then moves to her wrist.

She can still see the imprints of her fingers shining on Seven’s arm.

Raffi tilts her head back to the cosmos, the new colors emerging, and moans.

The cloth under Raffi’s hips sticks to her lower back. Sweat, probably. The inner lining of Seven’s jacket.

Raffi hasn’t let go of Seven’s head, just fists her hair gently in her palm as Seven’s hands grip her hips, tongue defining and redefining Raffi’s bones.

Overhead, the cherry- and violet-streaked sky throbs, lightning storm-like in its circular patterns, over and over and over again. It’s hypnotic, seems to warp time. Raffi’s not sure if she’s making any noise, just that she’s staring into it open-mouthed, Seven’s hair growing hot and wet in her hand.

For a moment, she takes the tactical position on the situation, maps out what they probably look like – her spread out on a bed of rough and lustrous indigo, rocking in time to Seven’s mouth. Seven, kneeling, diving, mapping an agonizingly slow and deliberate path to her cunt.

She’s not sure what happens first: the tautness around her thighs meaning her underwear’s down, or Seven’s tongue on the inner crease of her thigh. Raffi jolts, gasps, pulls her knees up and to the sides – and a wall of pressure crashes into her hips as Seven holds her down.

Here’s what Raffi confided in her first-year Academy roommate – a kinda hot, kinda angry Klingon spitfire – on one of those odd and coincidental nights that sparks moments of friend intimacy in the safety of darkness: the art of ravishing someone with your mouth isn’t actually just about your mouth. It’s about any surface area available: your nose, your lips, your chin. Anything that can be warm and wet is fair game, because at some point, warm and wet are all that’s going to matter.

It’s not about optics. It’s about how they feel.

They’ve never talked about it explicitly – and Raffi’s sure they will, someday – but that’s maybe why this isn’t Seven’s favorite thing to do, because it disconnects her, takes a sense away, separates her from another indicator – or assurance – of a job well done. Normally, when they do this (and they have reached the point where this is normal, despite it shooting Raffi halfway into space every time), it’s an extension of cuddling, Seven’s arm curved around Raffi’s bare back – mouth dipped to one breast, one hand on the other breast, one hand between her legs. When Raffi comes, Seven feels every tremor her body makes. They like it that way.

But there’s another layer to what’s happening now, something about Raffi’s words. Something about Seven picking up where language leaves off, language that Seven’s always found a difficult default means of communication, and giving something back to her in a way she understands better. Connection. Cooperation.

And, like a lot of things Seven does, Seven has no idea that she’s really fucking good at it .

Raffi watches the sky above grow in vibrance, in saturation, until she has to close her eyes against it, focus only on sloping her hips in rhythm, one centimeter forward, one centimeter back into warm, flat, wet velvet. The heat between her legs grows imperative. She tugs at Seven’s hair, receives more, tugs again and again until Seven digs her nails into Raffi’s sides – a friendly warning – until Raffi feels the vibration of Seven’s groan on her clit.

Raffi never remembers that her voice is capable of this particular cadence, this pitch that she’s repeating Seven’s name into over and over again as she calls out to the landscape. It reaches a peak, frays, remodulates, sings again. Under Seven’s hands, into Seven’s hands, she writhes and contracts.

Seven knows Raffi and her body intimately, hovers her over the edge of a cliff. Everything in Raffi floods with the knowledge that if she wants to fall, Seven will let her. Everything in her floods with the knowledge that Seven is willing to do whatever Raffi wants.

But tonight, with her chest open, arms open, entire visible subsection of the universe above them doing its lightshow damndest to hammer home that she’s so small, so insignificant and yet found Seven anyway , here in this fallow and inconsequential corner of space where she’s in-between Seven’s hands anyway , under her mouth anyway , admitted into her life anyway , Raffi wants to beg.

She releases Seven’s hair, threads their connection back together through their fingers once again, the way they started. The way she wants them to end – not just this, but everything . The way she doesn’t really care if Seven knows how deep that want goes. Because Seven has glimpsed it, and Seven has stayed.

Raffi’s voice works. She wasn’t sure if it would. “Seven, please.”

Seven knows, draws back, contracts just a little, smaller surface area.

“Seven, please .”

And then she says a lot of things. Like please and I want this and I want you here with me right now and give me and I want all of this, all of you interspersed with Seven , just Seven, just her name, repeated between and often amongst the field of confessions, until she’s just short of sobbing, flittering at the edge of release.

And Seven firms her tongue right there and grants it to her.

Raffi’s never believed in seeing stars for this kind of thing, but she’s still shuddering when she opens her eyes. The aurora waltzes above her, a dream accented by glittering pieces of the universe.

Seven joins her, pulls her into her chest, and just holds her. The breeze is cool between Raffi’s legs where she’s been wet. It’s cool on the side of her thigh too. Raffi doesn’t think about that too much, just considers it part of her own mess.

Seven’s so huggable. That’s her secret – that she’s so soft in spite of all that muscle, all that titanium inside of her. Raffi closes her eyes into Seven’s chest, breathes her in: fresh foliage and earth and metal ions. She doesn’t open her eyes for a long time after that, so she doesn’t see how in Seven’s eyes, streaks of guard and caution have begun to crack, giving way to fear.

Raffi doesn’t think she’ll be able to do anything useful ever again.

A few minutes later, her tongue is back in Seven’s mouth, Seven’s pelvic bone hard against her leg as they grind into each other, Raffi’s nearly bare body sliding over Seven’s on this rock. Raffi realizes she’s miscalculated.

Well, she’s been known to be wrong now and then. Hardly ever, but it happens.

This whole thing feels like a ceasefire of sorts, one of those planets from one of the more storied ship reports where time moves differently on a planet’s surface, that a whole day can be spent in the blink of a ship’s eye. Somewhere in the back of her mind knows that there’s work to do, that her day tomorrow is going to be exhausting, but there’s this and Seven and Raffi’s own chasm of need, validated, and she leans into the moment. She swings her leg over Seven’s hips, slides a hand between Seven’s legs and finds her damp even through her trousers, starts to pull her pants off when Seven grabs her wrist.

Raffi lets go. “We can go back inside, if you want. Or we can just make out,” she says. Then, she gazes up at the sky. “Or, we can just chill here. I don’t mind this.”

Seven’s blinking, like she’s in and out of phase, and Raffi pulls back even more, so they’re not touching anymore.

“Overstimulated?” ventures Raffi.

Blink. Blink. Head shake. A decision made?

Then, Seven’s focus centers back onto Raffi’s face. “No,” she says. Then she leans in to kiss her, softly, with all of the urgency before but none of the heat, and takes her hand. “Come with me.”

It’s a little bit of a throwback to some less-than-wise moments from her teenage years, Raffi admits – her, half-dressed, pants unbuttoned, scooped up clothes held to her chest, dashing behind someone, hand-in-hand – but it’s only a few steps to one of the vehicles Seven had gutted for parts earlier. It looks like a small shuttle, one that would sit four, maybe six people at most. It’s been here a while too, the same glittering dust that covers the planet outside adding a layer of sparkle to the entire interior.

It would maybe be beautiful if Raffi had a clue what was going on.

Seven steps inside, tosses her clothes aside, kicks off her boots, and pulls off her pants.

When Seven meets Raffi’s gaze, Raffi’s staring at her with new eyes. “Seriously?”

Seven points, not to a seat but to a broken, flat console that’s about the height of her hips. “You can sit there. When it’s time.”

But there’s too much mystery left. Raffi’s eyes roam the shuttle. The wind flow isn’t as good here. There also isn’t as much going on overhead. But Seven had said she wasn’t overstimulated. “Because it’s a smaller space.” Seven nods decisively. “With less variables.”

Again, Raffi hasn’t learned it yet, but she only has to meet Seven halfway. She usually meets her a little more.

“When it’s time. Time for what?” asks Raffi.

The instinct to not do this is actually so ingrained in Raffi, that when Seven closes the distance between them and places Raffi’s hands on either side of her spine, Raffi flinches away. “Touch my back.”

“You’re in pain there. I asked how you fly a Borg cube, and you said that. That that was how you did it. With your spine .”

Raffi’s always kind of liked this, how, even though so much of the world makes Seven uncomfortable, she’s never uncomfortable with her nakedness, in and of itself. This defunct shuttle is covered in a sheen made up of who-knows-how-many layers of planetary rainbow dust, and Seven’s just standing there, and it’s oddly domestic: Seven in thin shoe-liners, ready to broach this conversation while wearing some really worn-looking briefs and basically nothing else.

It’s never been the sharp things that hurt her – always the soft: emotions, expectations, manipulation.

Raffi reminds herself to get new underwear for Seven somehow. New replicator patterns, maybe, if the Rangers even have access to those. Something nice, soft, breathable, stretchy. Something she can look at and link with Raffi, maybe.

“Central nervous system,” corrects Seven. “Well, in humans. For other species it’s…you know. A little different.”

That’s not any better, but Seven’s right, accuracy is important. Raffi nods, thinking of Seven the way she must have been on the Artifact, impaled, alone and responsible in a situation she’d never asked for.

“I was in pain there,” says Seven. “Now it’s…manageable. And I just didn’t want anyone’s hands there for a while.” Raffi nods, slowly. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

Something pings on the outer edges of Raffi’s mind, whenever she’s nearly solved something but isn’t quite there yet, when she’s missing a piece. But for the moment, it’s not as important as what she’s being allowed to do.

“I want, ” says Seven, her voice graveling with friction around the verb. “I want you to touch me.”

She takes Seven into her arms, kisses her slowly, takes her hands and settles them onto her waist, walks them back together toward the console.

“I'll go slow.”

Raffi decides to build up it, because what is good sex without buildup?

Seven sits on the edge of the console, between Raffi’s legs, and Raffi holds Seven’s hands, circling the backs of them with her thumbs. She tongues the side of Seven’s neck, then the nape, and slides down her cervical spine. Seven inhales sharply. Her head falls to the side.

“Okay?” murmurs Raffi, kissing a line along the tops of her shoulders. Seven nods, flexes her hands in Raffi’s. “Stop?”

Seven lets out a shaky breath. “Go.”

Raffi continues down one shoulder blade, then the other. Seven leans back in a cascade of gold and exhales, high pitched. “Good?”

“Very good,” breathes Seven.

Gently, Raffi runs her thumb along one of the titanium ribs on the back of Seven’s hand, pulls her hand back so it’s resting on Raffi’s waist. Seven grips, and Raffi runs her fingertips lightly down the length of Seven’s back. When that seems okay, she rests her hand on a shoulder, touches her lips to Seven’s spine, moves down.

Seven moans, rocks back and forth, and Raffi squeezes her thighs on either side of Seven’s hips. “Too much?”

“More,” whispers Seven, and Raffi pulls back, moves down, then draws her tongue up that section of spine. “More,” she repeats, louder.

Raffi turns her head, leans down, kisses up another section of spine, trails her free hand up Seven’s side.

“Raffi,” whispers Seven. Then, more insistently: “Raffi.”

Raffi’s head is somewhere around the curve of Seven’s waist now, and she kisses that curve. “Stop?”

“Go,” says Seven, half-moan. Where Raffi’s hand still rests on Seven’s, she can feel the dip as Seven grips the outside of her own thigh.

The last part’s going to involve a little bit of flexibility work on Raffi’s part, but it’s not like she’s necessarily out of shape. She drags her tongue back to the middle, down Seven’s spine.

She doesn’t quite catch where the spot is, which is a shame – it’s somewhere between Seven’s hips, just above them – but her lips brush over it, still gentle, even now, and Seven lets out this sound of pure expression. She rocks back against Raffi, who straightens quickly, steadies her. “ Go ,” says Seven again, dragging Raffi’s hand between her legs. “Now, now. Now.”

Raffi winds one arm around Seven’s waist to steady her, slips the other into her underwear. Seven leans back, spreads her legs, and rocks into Raffi’s fingers. Hard, desperate. Then again. Then again and again and again.

She moans, and Raffi presses her lips to that spot between Seven’s shoulders.

“There’s my girl,” she murmurs, somewhere into Seven’s hair. “I’ve got you.”

Seven just whimpers in response, gropes for Raffi’s free hand so they’re clasped on top of her chest, hard. Raffi circles that bit of Seven’s back again with her tongue. Once. Twice. Three times.

Seven turns her head so quickly that Raffi almost gets a face full of hair. She turns, strains, gets her hand on Seven’s jaw and captures her lips, presses the heel of her hand in just a little more.

That’s how Seven comes, open-mouthed, teeth grazing Raffi’s upper lip.

When she’s ready and has her legs back, she slides off the console, turns around in Raffi’s arms, wraps her arms around her neck. Raffi strokes Seven’s hips with her thumbs, but Seven moves her hands, wraps them around her lower waist.

“Back, good,” says Seven, voice a little shaky.

If Raffi was standing, they weren’t half-naked, and they weren’t in the oddly iridescent and broken shuttle interior, they could be dancing. “You know you’re fantastic, right?” Seven deflects that with a tiny smile and a little head shake. “I’ll tell you every day, if you want.”

Seven splays her fingers between Raffi’s shoulder blades. “I’ve got your back, you’ve got mine, right?”

Raffi nods, too swept away for words.

Seven kisses her, then looks around for their clothes.

They come back to the indigo rock from earlier and lie side by side, hand in hand. Seven’s right about the delayed effect of the alcohol, and when Raffi starts to feel it, she watches the aurora spin above her, lets the night air cool her under the stars.

She can’t really remember what they talk about, just how euphoric it all feels, sex-induced oxytocin-endorphin cocktail and Seven’s comforting hand in hers. She’s tracing every finger, like the outlines Gabe used to make when he was young in school, forward and back, forward and back.

Why did you say that? Seven’s asking her. Why did you say what you said?

Raffi closes her eyes against the heaviness of the drink, curls her thumb into Seven’s palm. Say what?

When she wakes up, hungover and disoriented, Seven is gone, and Raffi doesn’t remember that last part.

viii.

“Raffi!”

Raffi expects delight when she shares the news with Seven. She doesn’t expect an armful of her, to have Seven kneeling on her lap, leaning into her, engulfing her. They kiss, deep like before but joyous. Raffi pulls off Seven’s open flannel and capes it around her shoulders, covering them while Seven’s cool fingers trace Raffi’s neck, her arms, down her sides.

They’d been sitting attached before this too, Seven’s legs slung in her lap, Raffi absentmindedly tracking the uneven hills made by Seven’s knuckles, forward and backward, forward and backward, a rhythm even in its unevenness.

Raffi never knows when it happens, when a lover’s body becomes nearly as native to her as her own. It’s something that happens gradually, then is indistinguishable. She reminds herself that just months ago, she and this woman were strangers. Seven was a legend, and Raffi was a shell. Now, Seven’s hands are working their way under the hem of Raffi’s top, and it’s not even necessarily erotic, just comfortable for Seven to warm her fingers this way. It all just feels so full , so colored-in, so verdant that Raffi doesn’t even have room to think about what she normally does when things are like this: how they tend to precede some kind of great disaster.

That said, it is, of course, meant to be sexy. Seven’s fingers creep along the edges of Raffi’s undershirt, tease the border her undershirt forms below her breasts.

Raffi’s lips twist into a good-humored grin. “Oh, Seven, you know, as much as I cherish our last time together…”

Seven’s lips work their way lightly across Raffi’s jaw, creep up to her ear. “I got it. Bedroom, not the desert.” Seven pulls her up by the hand and leads her in.

Raffi watches Seven’s swagger, present even in moments like this, and feels a little bolder herself. “Though I have to say, I’m impressed by how freaky you Rangers get. Work hard, play hard taken to new heights. I’ve learned something. Really.”

Seven stops, rolls her eyes, pushes Raffi gently into the wall, and not-so-gently tickles her sides until she screams.

When she finally relents, Raffi pushes her backward, back, all the way back into the room, until Seven tips over onto her bed, kicking off her pants. 

Raffi undresses as Seven watches her from the bed, reclining on both of her elbows, legs spread wide.

“That was a disproportionate response,” Raffi comments, pulling off her shirt. She peels off the layers underneath and watches Seven watch her.

“Worth it,” says Seven, eyebrow cocked in a way Raffi finds deliciously dangerous. “I’ll accept my punishment.”

Raffi pulls off her pants. “Steep price. High interest rates. And you know, the market’s a little fucked right now, thanks to all the intergalactic conflict.” She straddles Seven’s hips, pulls the final top layer of Seven’s clothes off, and wonders vaguely if she’ll ever get out of her bed again if Seven's in it.

Seven encircles her arms around Raffi’s neck, pulls her head down to hers. “I have time to pay.”

Their lips touch, too lightly, too briefly. “How much time?”

Another kiss, longer, deeper, knocking on the door of satisfaction. “A long ass time, Raffi.”

Raffi lets herself sink into the next kiss, body and spirit, Seven’s arms reacquainting themselves with the expanse of Raffi’s bare back. She squeezes her thighs around Seven’s hips, and Seven lets out an appreciative moan when (Raffi assumes) the wet spot in her underwear touches Seven’s stomach.

Raffi reaches around and down for the waistband of Seven’s underwear, grips it and pulls. Seven smiles against her mouth and exhales, loud, but doesn’t stop.

Raffi pulls away and up, slips her hand beneath the waistband, curves her fingers around, lets them slide. Seven closes her eyes, tilts her head back, hums a moan, rocks her hips. She reaches, traces the border of Raffi’s underwear, pushes the crotch aside, drags a finger there, brings it back to her mouth, sucks it, pulls it back just a centimeter so it hovers on her lower lip.

“Raffi?”

“Hm?” Raffi answers, somewhere beneath the thick, clear, golden waves of elation singing in her blood.

“ This is make up sex.”

Raffi grins. “Noted.”

“For me.”

“Okay. And we’re making the distinction because…”

“I want to know if it is for you too?”

Seven’s finger still sits there on her lip, damn distracting. Raffi braces herself on the bed beside Seven’s head, pulls the finger to her lips, kisses it. “You and I are fine, Seven. I’ve got your back, you’ve got mine. Right?”

Seven nods. With the smallest smile, she curls her finger, then more of them, under Raffi’s chin, and pulls them back together.