Once a Day
                                                                                    S. Y. Thompson

"What the hell happened?" Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Starship Voyager demanded roughly upon entrance into the medical bay, fighting the tears that welled in her stone gray eyes. Years of command training prevented the tears from falling, but nothing could stop her heart from hammering in her chest.

It had taken her over twenty minutes to reach sickbay from the bridge due to the extensive damage her ship had taken from the unprovoked Hirogen attack. Main power and engines were off-line, emergency forcefields were up in a multitude of places throughout the ship, and Lt. Torres had barely managed to prevent a full warp core breach. The intrepid crew had managed to repel the invaders, but not without suffering their own share of casualties. Twenty-two crewmen had been wounded, three critically, and it was one of those three that the Captain was on her way to check on.

Under normal circumstances, Captain Janeway couldn’t be pried away from her bridge with a crowbar while the vessel was being repaired and the danger of another attack imminent. But these were not normal circumstances because the crewmember she was on her way to see was Seven of Nine.

Kathryn had spent the last two years nurturing and encouraging the younger woman along her path to regaining her humanity. Somewhere along that journey she had lost her heart to the other woman, but circumstances prevented her from ever declaring her feelings to the former Borg drone. Now it looked as though she would never be able to do so.

The emergency medical hologram had contacted the captain to inform her that Seven of Nine was very near death, and that if she wished to speak with her one last time, she’d better hurry. That had been twenty minutes ago, and Kathryn had desperately been trying to reach sickbay ever since. Turbolifts were down, and she had crawled through countless Jeffrey’s tubes to reach the other woman’s side. Cursing every second that passed, she only prayed that it wasn’t too late. One look at the doctor’s face when she entered the room told her otherwise.

"Oh, no," she muttered shaking her head in agony. "Please, tell me she’s not…" she stopped unable to say the words.

With as much sympathy as the hologram was capable of, he gently said, "I’m sorry, Captain. I couldn’t save her."

Kathryn didn’t know how she made it to the young woman’s side, didn’t remember moving, but suddenly she was standing next to the blonde and gazing down into the placid features. Dirt and blood smudged the beloved face, the right shoulder of the bio-suit was torn and Kathryn could see the implant imbedded in the upper arm through the rent. Smoke still rose lazily from the plasma burns the young woman had sustained in various places on her form, and a medical gel pack had been placed over her abdomen to help retain her internal organs where they had threatened to spill out onto the deck.

Raising one hand, the heartbroken woman gently stroked a soft cheek with the back of her hand. "Seven," she muttered softly, her voice breaking on a sob with the emotions surging in her chest. This can’t be, she thought stunned. Seven can’t be dead.

Then a thought occurred to her and she swung her head toward the doctor with sudden hope lighting her eyes. "It’s not too late." She declared, surprising the photonic doc. "Seven still has enough Borg implants in her system that she can be reanimated for up to 72 hours, right?"

Immediately, the Doctor knew where she was headed and knew it wouldn’t work. He had wished the same thing himself and fought against the futility of losing her until reality had washed over his matrix. Shaking his head, he told her the bitter truth. "The injuries were too severe. I’m sorry, but it won’t work."

The captain seemed to crumple in on herself right in front of his eyes. Her shoulders slumped, and the breath went out of her while her eyes flooded with tears. He had seen the captain’s response to the death of a crewman many times, and she was always devastated, but somehow he knew this was different. This was a more intimate response, not to the death of a subordinate, but to the death of a loved one. Witnessing her pain, he did the only thing he could do under the circumstances, he moved away to treat one of the few remaining patients in order to give the proud woman a moment of privacy.

Kathryn forgot all about the others present in the medical bay, thoughts of Voyager and the Hirogen attack receded in her mind as she concentrated on the beautiful woman lying in front of her. Reaching out a trembling hand, she brushed back a lock of golden hair that had fallen over Seven’s face.

"I’m so sorry," she whispered to the younger woman, hoping that somehow in death, Seven would hear her words. "I should have told you so long ago, but at first duty got in the way, and then my own fear did. After all, how could you possibly return the love of a middle-aged, duty minded captain? But now, there’s no reason not to say it. I love you. I love you so much my darling Seven."

Grasping Seven’s fully human hand between her own, Kathryn brought it up to her face and gently placed kisses on each of the knuckles, unmindful of the moisture dripping onto the scorched bio-suit. She had always wanted to do that when Seven was alive, always been fascinated with the strong, long-fingered hands. Now she was fulfilling that fantasy, but it was a hollow victory.

She stood there for what felt like hours, before Chakotay’s pleading voice reminded her that she had a ship to run, and 142 other individuals relying on her. For a moment she was tempted to tell him to take care of the problems himself, but twenty years in Starfleet had ingrained her duty into her, no matter what personal pain was involved. Feeling like she had left a piece of her heart in sickbay, Kathryn dutifully made her way back to the bridge. It was with a sense of irony that during the time she had spent in the medical bay, the turbolifts had been restored.

Why couldn’t they have been working earlier, she wondered sadly. At least I might have had the chance to say goodbye to her.

The Hirogen were finally defeated, running from the current sector of space as rapidly as their damaged vessels could carry them. The entire bridge crew knew of Seven’s demise, and Chakotay was greatly worried for Kathryn. The devastation in her eyes, and the mechanical way she carried out her responsibilities broke his heart. He had known of her feelings for the other woman and wondered if she would ever come to terms with having lost Seven.

"Why don’t you go to your quarters and get some rest, Kathryn?" he asked leaning over his console in a low voice that only the two of them could hear.

For a moment she just looked through him before focusing, and realizing he had spoken to her. "Quarters?" she asked numbly.

"Please, Kathryn," he asked tenderly, and the softness of his voice almost broke the ice in her heart…almost. "Go rest, I can take care of things for a while." If she hadn’t been feeling so numb, she might have refused.

Kathryn slowly left the bridge and made her way to her quarters on deck three. In her mind she kept seeing Seven’s broken body lying on the biobed, and reached her private rooms feeling like she was lost in a fog. The doors to her quarters swished open and she walked in without illuminating the cabin.

Navigating in the starlight, Kathryn walked over to her sofa and sank wearily onto the cushions.

Seven is dead, she thought miserably as she gazed out into the star field. No more fights, no more velocity, no more watching her regenerate. She’s dead, and I never even told her how I feel.

The tears finally came, refusing to be denied any longer. Burying her face in her hands, Kathryn Janeway cried in long, wrenching sobs that threatened to tear her apart. She cried for the future denied the younger woman, and for her own terrible loss. She cried until she fell into a fitful sleep on the sofa cushions, too emotionally exhausted to stay awake anymore.

Her dreams were filled with Seven of Nine screaming to her for help, holding out her hands in supplication while her body was scorched with plasma burns. In her nightmares, she never moved or lifted a hand to help the younger woman.

********

In the darkened room of Voyager’s medical bay, Seven of Nine’s lifeless form lay on the bio-bed. Someone had respectfully covered her body with a sheet that extended up over her face. Her right arm dangled off the side of the bed, silent testament to the life that no longer surged through the slim form. The gel-pack had been removed since it was no longer needed.

Suddenly, the fingers of the right hand twitched. It was only a miniscule movement, not even detectable to the casual observer. Several minutes later, they moved again. This time the motion was stronger. Then the entire appendage surged as the arm came up to tear the sheet away from the Nordic features.

Sitting up in fear, Seven of Nine looked quickly around the room identifying it as Voyager’s morgue. Frowning in confusion, she attempted to access her eidetic memory to find out what had happened. She remembered being in engineering helping Lt. Torres during the Hirogen attack. The warp plasma tank had ruptured and she had been in the direct path of the plasma flow. From there events were sketchy, but she remembered being transported to sickbay, and a very worried EMH working on her.

She must have blacked out at that point since the next thing she remembered was the captain and the Doctor standing beside her. The Doctor had told the captain that she was dead. Seven had wanted to tell him that he was wrong, but she had been unable to move. Then she lips curled into a faint smile when she remembered the words the captain had spoken to her, not realizing that the Borg had heard every word.

The smile left her face quickly when she remembered the captain thought she was dead. She had to tell her that was not the case! Reaching up, she slapped at the place where her combadge normally resided, and discovered that the communications device had been removed. Of course! They thought she was deceased and would no longer need it.

"Computer, state the time," she rasped thickly, her throat dry and acrid.

There was no response to her inquiry, and the impatient woman heaved a sigh as she came to terms with her predicament. The computer had been instructed that she was dead. That information had been entered into ship’s logs and was irrefutable until someone updated the information. Because that was the case, the computer would ignore all of her voice commands and inquiries.

Forcing back her impatience, Seven decided that the only way to let the captain know she was alive was to tell her in person. She tried to sit up and gasped at the pain in her midsection. Ignoring the discomfort, she finally managed to sit, and took in her appearance. The bio-suit was scorched and torn, missing completely from her waist, the abdominal implant gleaming mutely in the lowered illumination.

The doctor had closed most of the wounds simply out of respect for his friend, and her nanoprobes had done the rest. But what she could see of the recent injuries brought to mind the anguish she had heard in the captain’s whispered words of love.

The captain loves me, she thought in awe. No, she corrected herself mentally, Kathryn loves me, and she is in pain.

She had never considered that the other woman could have romantic feelings toward her. While she acknowledged that many of the crew considered her aesthetically pleasing, she had never considered that the captain could be counted among them. For her own part, she had never considered a relationship with a member of the same sex. The doctor had been tutoring her in the ways of romance and the social graces, and she had understood from him that romantic partnerships among humans required a male and female pairing. Hearing the captain’s declaration had opened a whole new vista for the young woman and feelings that she had never considered before flooded her awareness.

Now she understood why the experiment in the holodeck with the Chakotay hologram had been such a disaster. She had programmed a romantic experiment based on logical assumptions of who the best male counterpart on the ship would be. Taking into account that she should choose someone intelligent, compassionate, and successful in their chosen field, she had settled on Commander Chakotay, but the results had been somewhat disappointing. The hologram had been too complacent for her tastes and after running the program a few times she had deleted it. But she had not taken love into account, and realized that was why she had failed in her previous attempt. With the knowledge that same gender pairings were not prohibited, she knew there could be only one choice for her.

And right now that person was in pain believing her dead.

Pushing the sheet off of her, she struggled to her feet and fought off a moment of dizziness, leaning against the wall to get her bearings before stumbling weakly out of the room. The lights were lowered in the corridors to indicate night watch, and Seven knew the captain should be in her quarters. Since she couldn’t inquire directly from the computer, she had no choice but to attempt to find her there before proceeding to any other logical location to find the diminutive redhead.

She didn’t quite know what she planned to say to her, but somehow she would let the captain know that she returned her feelings of affection and that they would be together.

*********

Kathryn tossed restlessly in fitful nightmares before starting awake on the sofa in her quarters. Her uniform turtleneck and jacket were soaked through from the product of her nocturnal demons, and for a moment she didn’t know where she was. Then the horrendous events of the previous day came to her, and her eyes flooded in tears again. She had thought she had cried as much as she possibly could, but apparently not. Not bothering to fight the pain in her breast, Kathryn stood up and wandered into the ensuite with tears coursing down her face.

"Computer lights," she ordered and squinted into the sudden glare. But she didn’t order the computer to reduce the illumination, accepting the harsh glare as some sort of punishment for having failed to save the one person in the universe that she would gladly give up her own existence for.

She walked over to the sink and thrust her hands under the faucet, automatically engaging a stream of water that she cupped in both hands to bath her heated face. Her thoughts turned again to Seven and she gripped the edge of the sink, leaning her body weight on her hands and closing her eyes to remember the younger woman. She thought of playing velocity with the ex-drone, and her lips curled in a bittersweet smile as she thought of the frustration the blonde displayed each time Kathryn beat her at the demandingly physical sport.

The game between them had become a regular event, taking place at least three times a week, unless they were under attack from one of the various Delta Quadrant species. At first Kathryn had encouraged the game as a means of keeping in shape, and to help Seven embrace her humanity. After a while those reasons still existed, but a new one had developed; Kathryn took advantage of the time to watch the deadly grace of the other woman’s movements and fantasize that her disheveled appearance was caused by less innocuous activities. Those velocity games had become the source of many erotic dreams, and some of the most explosive orgasms Kathryn had ever experienced…self-induced or otherwise.