The Play's the Thing
by Fewthistle

Author's Note: Unbeta'd, so all mistakes mine.

What fragile creatures they were, able to exist only within narrow confines of temperature and time, each moment measured, each breath one of a numbered few; limited, finite. How they ever managed to leave the boundaries of their own small planet and travel among the stars must be a source of some amazement to God or Fate or whoever the hell was sitting in the audience for this last performance of a very minor work, by a very obscure author. She just wasn't certain if this one was a comedy or a tragedy.

Sad for the lead actor to be so muddled, but then, she had never been too clear on her part. Most of the time she knew she forgot her lines, flubbed her entrances; not that the piece had much style to it anyway. She had a sneaking suspicion that her exit would be just as badly written.

Even her dreams had become stilted, clichéd. So much for the classics. Last night, she had dreamt of Seven. Again. Her dreams had taken on a pattern, an intricate, monotonous black and white weave of loss and despair, colored here and there with a pale splash of reddish desire.

Now, in the empty minutes before morning watch sounded, Kathryn closed her eyes and pulled at the unraveled threads of her dream, willing them to cover her for just a moment longer.

Kathryn could taste the snow on the lips that met hers. Chilled and sweet, the finest of ice wines. The hair that caressed her cheek smelled of winter, of wood-smoke and balsam, of the spray that blows in off the North Atlantic , carrying with it salt and brine and the vast emptiness of the ocean. She turned her face into it, inhaling deeply, the mingled scents transporting her to some rocky coast line, gray and luminescent in the early morning light.

If she kept her eyes closed, perhaps she could convince her mind that this kiss wasn't an end, but a beginning, but the gentle pulling away of the body in her arms banished that dream.

“I have to go,” Seven murmured gently, just the hint of guilt in her eyes betraying her resolve.

“You said that the first time you kissed me,” Kathryn smiled sadly, “but you came back.”

Outside the viewports of her ship, there was nothing. No light. No color. No sound. Only cold, emptiness. She struggled out of bed, the muscles in her back and legs uttering a small protest that she chose to ignore, slipping off her nightgown to stand under the stinging spray of hot water, the need for warmth outweighing for the moment the need to conserve precious resources.

The heat of the water slid through the thickness of brownish-auburn hair, down her shoulders and back, along the tendons of her legs, the liquid caress the only touch she had received in what seemed like decades. She could have sworn that she saw the remaining fragments of her dreams wash away with the water which silently flowed down the drain to be reclaimed by the ship. In those calm moments of solitude, she wondered at times if her dreams were recycled as well; if others awoke confused by silken images not their own or if she was captivated by gauzy visions meant for someone else's slumber.

There were no normal days out in the Delta Quadrant, and yet her days had begun to run together, moments of quiet and moments of chaos melding together into an illusion of normalcy that, in those rare, brief seconds of stark reality, shook her to the core. She had become so inured to the surrealism of their existence that she was seldom fazed by anything. That inability to be shocked or frightened or even surprised disturbed her more than she wanted to admit. The only constant in her life was inconstancy.

And her dreams of Seven. Her clichéd, rhythmic dreams of Seven.

Dreams of calibrating sensors in Astrometrics with Seven, the almost undetectable scent of bergamot from the shampoo that Neelix had given the former Borg on Ancestor's Day weaving itself into Kathryn's senses so that she awoke with her face pressed like a child into the pillow, searching for the faint fragrance that only existed in her fleeting fantasy.

Dreams of standing in the Cargo Bay , an offense she often, in reality, committed, watching the young blonde regenerate, her features softened, those sharp blue eyes sheathed like two rapier pointed swords. Yet in her dream, Seven would always awaken, those same eyes tender with affection, a mesh encased hand coming up to gently caress Kathryn's cheek, the metal warm and soft against her skin.

And always, nightly, dreams of a windswept kiss, the feel of salty spray whipping her hair around her face, the sound of the waves against stone, the taste of Seven's lips on her own.

She began to find some comfort in her slumbering visions; a warming mantle across her shoulders, protection against the encroaching chill of the black void of space and the emptiness of her quarters. There was a safety in them; her mind discarding decorum, discarding the rules and regulations with which Captain Janeway controlled the uncontrollable; allowing her for seconds, for minutes to simply be Kathryn, an increasing rare occurrence.

There was some solace in the idea that though she might continue to misspeak her lines, might continue to miss her cues, a poorly prepared player in the badly written play in which she found herself cast, in her dreams, at least, she knew her part and she played it well. It was only when the chime of morning watch had sounded and her grey-blue eyes struggled open that she once again found herself on stage alone, the spotlight dim and the curtain falling.

Sometimes, lying as still as possible under silken covers, the steady hum of the warp core like a heartbeat matching her own, she prayed that, when she reached the final act in this comedy of the absurd, the visions of her dreams would be made real and whole; that she would find the comfort of a warm, mesh covered hand in hers as she took that last bow.

She doubted it would be so.