Red

By Laura Schiller

Based on Star Trek: Voyager

Copyright: Paramount

"Losing him was blue like I'd never known.
Missing him was dark gray, all alone.
Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody I'd never met …
but loving him was red."
- "Red", by Taylor Swift

Seven of Nine remembers Axum at the oddest times and places.

Her Chakotay program is ready: candlelight, food ready to be cooked, the hologram waiting outside the door. A glance in the mirror, just to make sure her unbound hair is neat and her dress fits perfectly, and she falters. It's as if she had stepped four years back in time, back to Unimatrix Zero – a different room, a different man, but the same shade of red.

"You look sweet in red," she could hear Axum whisper, his arms around her waist, his breath against the back of her neck. "Like those strawberries you showed me."

She had made a handful of strawberries appear in the palm of her hand and watched him eat them, smiling at his expression of bliss. Things had been so easy in Unimatrix Zero; all you had to do was wish, and the wish came true.

If the real world worked that way, she wouldn't be in this holodeck right now.

Falling in love with Axum was like flying a shuttle too fast: the rush, the exhilaration, and then the heart-stopping crash when it was all over. Seven could not understand why the true story of their relationship had not come back until after she'd lost all her chances of seeing him again.

Their private list comes back to her when she stands at her station in Astrometrics, plotting Voyager's course to places they will never see together. The Rokan Gorge on his homeworld, with its sparkling waterfalls and dazzling view. The fjords of Norway. The Reykjavik opera house. The double sunrise of Norcadia Prime. The Earth locations had been his idea, in spite of her protests. "Your birthplace is a part of you, even if you deny it. The Borg can't take that away from you as long as you don't let them."

They have, however, taken him. All she has left is her memories, which feel like far too much and not enough at the same time.

She remembers his strength, his authority among his fellow drones, putting Korok in his place and welcoming the frightened little boy. His wry smile as he freed her from the net, seeing right through her pretense that she had come looking for him due to the Klingon's concern instead of hers. Their last kiss, their last embrace as Unimatrix Zero fell in flames around them.

He had promised to find her. He should have known better than to make a promise he couldn't keep.