Caro Nome
by
vanhunks
written for the pairing EMH/7,
winner in 2001 ASC Voyager Other Pairings
Author: vanhunks
Contact: vanhunks@yahoo.com ;
Series: VOY
Rating: PG
Code: EMH/7, 7/m
Part: 1/1 New
Date: 23 May 2001
DISCLAIMER: Paramount is Chief.
SUMMARY: Seven of Nine approaches the Doctor to tell him something important.
NOTE: I couldn't stop thinking about 'those awful rumours' [you know, C/7, sounds like a quadriplegic condition] and wanted to make a little contribution. I've never written EMH/7, so this is new for me. Also, it's written in the the second person narrative, quite a challenge and inspired by Seema and Raktajino's 2nd person POV pieces.
She's standing a metre away from you. You only have to reach out and you can touch her. The impulse is so strong, so instinctive and natural as if it were simply the acting out of a thought, a signal from the brain running through the network of nerve and nerve endings that demands the completion of the action, stopped only when that message is savagely intercepted by...reason. The impulse remains an impulse, a desire to touch, yet not daring to, although there is morbid pleasure to be had in the imagination of it and allowing every fantasy to be satisfied.
So you look at her and try not to focus on the swell of her breasts, forcefully pulling your attention away from her too narrow waist, the absolute flat planes of her stomach, the curve of her hip as it continues into smooth movement of thighs and long legs. A flash of Salome's Dance...Dance of the Seven Veils... Perfection as you are about to lose your head...
Yes, you pull your thoughts away from those fantasies and look at her hair. Silken hair that reminds of Valkyries and Viking goddesses, of helmets and shields, golden tresses inhibited into a severe coil that you can unpin and free and allow to cascade through your fingers into the depths of forever. You want to press your face against that hair and inhale the promise of apples, herbs, very old brandy, fresh flowers… You breathe in her perfume, not cloying, just understated enough to give a hint of it, yet so overpowering that you want to lean closer to her bosom and rest there.
You want to take a step forward and feel the vibration, the soft expelling of breath that hovers warmly in the space between you and you know that in a heart stopping second, your lips will touch hers and you'll know what men and women meant when they claimed they saw heaven. You look in her eyes and imagine those little dark specks in her pupils must be entire galaxies. They pull you in. You offer resistance, but your reluctance to be conquered is soon assimilated in those orbs and, wonder of wonders, you find the fusion, the annihilation of your control and the journey into the stars something you suddenly realise, you have always craved.
Lost?
You desire to be lost. It's a status that is as pleasurable as it is unpredictable, joyful, surprising. The search and discovery and conquest of the unknown, prospects that are daunting as you prepare to pit your wits and intellect against hers, prospects that are challenging as you anticipate the fulfilment, the completion of everything that you've so far held as abstracts. Your fantasies, your wishes play out for real in the galaxies where you are lost, yet not lost because you are on the same voyage of discovery and what's more, you're doing it together.
Her eyes are on you, unwavering, familiarly direct, yet there is something indefinable in them. It even shifts colour, one moment stark Paris blue and then - you swear you can see it happen - it changes to blue-grey to blue-green. You feel something - a fist perhaps? - thump you in the gut. You struggle for breath. Her eyes have never been so…alive. They speak a language you know very well, but one which you want to deny instinctively. They hold a message, the secret of time, the mystery of the eternal woman and you want to shake her and ask whether she has any idea, any idea at all of how she looks.
She has always been beautiful. She was beautiful when she was Borg. She was beautiful when she began to assume her more human form and nature. She was beautiful when she lifted her spoon to her mouth for the first time. You feel again that wrenching in the gut when you recall her look as she said: "I am your most loyal fan". You want to tell her that you know that look in her eyes, that they are soft, much softer and warmer than you have ever seen them before. You feel inexplicable and unreasonable jealousy, an envy and perhaps even resentment that you know what has happened to her, and that she is standing here wanting to share, seek advice, be mentored. You want to tell her that love has no rules, that it is rather indiscriminate in whom it seeks to touch and put together.
There is confusion in the caressing softness of her eyes. It must have its origin in her inability to grasp at an elusive answer, the most obvious to which she appears at this moment uncertain or oblivious. Perhaps you should tell her she's in love. She is so without guile, it's impossible for her to pretend it's not there, that she cannot hide it, that it's so open, so revealing. She feels it, she is vulnerable and she's showing it. Your jealousy becomes compassion, an understanding of that lack of guile. You see that. Right now, you're not wondering whether others are as perceptive to the changes in her.
You want to tell her something else. You admit to being rather late in making such an admission, but she's here, now.
Now is the time. But, is the time right? Does she need to know? Now, when your reason tells you it's too late?
You want to tell her how you feel about her, but there is a knowledge, a truth that inhibits confessions such as you're bound to make in the next second and the feeling - a fleeting, urgent need to tell her you've loved her when she called herself your most loyal fan, you've loved her when you were both trapped on the Equinox, you've loved her when - hell, whenever she said with an imperious air: 'irrelevant'. You want to reveal yourself now, and tell her that you remember days of Rigoletto when she was Gilda and you, her passionate Duke. She was your Violetta when you were Alfredo, she was Brunnhilde when you were Siegfried. You want her to call your name, but you have no name. Tell her to say 'caro nome' and feel the movement in the caress of the words. You want her to touch you and tell you she is here in sick bay because she needs you. At this point you don't care whether it’s to join her in a duet, or to mentor her about emotions and human behaviour, or simple advice about how long she needs to regenerate these days, although you know on that score you'll be engaged in a heated difference of opinion. She'll tell you: "I know what my needs are, Doctor…"
You know. So you want to know and understand your own need yet refuse stubbornly to accept the truth.
You can't have her. You've seen them together, and you wish to damn every deity in the universe for laying bare such an unsparing truth before you.
"Doctor, I wish to speak with you."
Her voice has never sounded so…human. But her wish evokes in you a certain fear. There is an unwillingness to hear what she wishes to impart. Not for her now any discourse on eating lifestyle, or singing of duets or listening to her discovering new techniques for any kind of efficiency.
Or human mating behaviour.
Her voice is toned to a gentler register, the sounds modulated into units that disclose a side of her that you may very well be the privileged first person to hear. You feel the disquiet creeping, edging away the jealousy and the compassion, and you steel your own voice to sound normal.
"Yes, Seven, what can I do for you?"
You couch your fear in a most professional-like response. Be the good doctor that you are and be ready to give advice, polish your bedside manner where you can see your patient's reflection.
Harden your heart, for the truth is coming. You've seen it, you've sensed it when she was still confused about it. Imagine every fantasy and let them remain abstract. Let her be your distant diva and may she never know.
You can only be a doctor, a friend, a mentor, an advisor. You are a collection of photonic particles, a trick of light, a holographic interface that dared to have a life. You can have a family which, within the expectational parameters of someone of your own standing - an Emergency Medical Holograph - is a perfect family. You have the ability to change them to your own particular preferences whenever the inclination, or the dissatisfaction with them strikes you.
You are not real. If you want to punish yourself more intensely, questioning your spurious existence, talk to Henri Toulouse-Lautrec about that. Talk to him about love. You've been around him often enough in the Moulin Rouge - that Paris holodeck brainchild - to hate the sneering artist. There's a man, an artist, an intellectual, embittered, cynical, morose, drunk, brilliant, who'll tell anyone willing to listen to him or sit at his table to watch him draw:
"They always leave in the end."
You could take Lautrec by the scruff and demand an explanation and he'll look you in the eye and repeat his words with that sneer, accompanied by a shrug of impatience that you didn't understand him in the first place. In reality you want to kill him because you want to deny his truth.
You want what is real, but you know you are merely representational. An interface with a user-friendly image.
You can feel, be hurt, be outraged, angry, bitter, have compassion, even love. Programmed to adapt and grow, you've shown that you have. You have ethical subroutines and have never hesitated to impress them when matters of ethics or moral issues have been brought before you by members of this crew..
But they are machinations of a highly sophisticated computerised mind. When you go wrong, it's called a malfunction. When they go wrong, it's called a mistake. There's something very human about that, something you'd consider appealing, highly desirable since it evokes such a wide spectrum of responses. A machine is a machine. A malfunction would elicit one response: oh, well, it is after all a machine. They are not real. You are not real. You don't have to tell yourself that. Seven of Nine - Annika, you've heard him call her - reminds you in the most basic manner possible, reminds you of what you are.
Just her presence here, and the reason for it. You may be sentient, the measure of being man tested again and again. But when Seven stands here before you, looking like a million stars exploded in her eyes, then the truth finally hits you: your counterfeit family is not enough. It will never be enough.
"Doctor, I find I cannot eat properly, nor do I feel rested after regeneration."
"You are preoccupied, Seven."
You don't want to tell her that you've seen them together, nor think again about the way he murmured 'Annika', or the way he cupped her cheek with his great palms. For such a warrior you noted how surprisingly gentle that touch was. No, you don't tell her that.
"It is quite normal, you know…"
"There is nothing, Doctor - "
She looks touchingly vulnerable in her denial.
"Nothing?"
"I - yes. He - "
You see the flash again, the way her eyes appear to change colour. Then you notice the way a blush creeps into her cheeks. You subdue the impulse to laugh. It's not remotely amusing. Not at all. You see your own expectations with this woman drift away from you like a derelict inside a nebula, or sucked into a black hole only to become dust, john doe of the cosmos. But Seven… This is Seven of Nine. Blushing. Looking discomposed.
Looking beautiful.
You have to help her, guide her over her first stumbling innocent expressions of love.
"It's simply that you have a wish for fulfilment and that the attraction to him is very strong, so strong that you feel incomplete, Seven."
"In spite of his shortcomings?"
"Precisely."
"I think of him all the time."
You could kill him. Or her… Control…
"So I noticed, Seven." You realise reverting to your acerbic brand of humour has no effect on her.
Then you notice for the very first time how her lips give birth to a smile that radiates, enchants, lights her up and…lightens her, destroying your equilibrium you've carefully maintained till this moment.
"I - "
The secret dance of a thousand veils lurks in her eyes… You wish to heaven you could be the one covered by those veils, the one who will watch her dance towards you, who will roam uncharted space with her… Your mouth is dry, or, at least, your programme is designed that you experience the dryness, the way your throat works in an attempt at control, to prevent you from giving in to the urge to cry. Yes, there is that urge. So you hope that the word that issues from your mouth sounds at least interested, not overly eager as if you're waiting to hear that you are the recipient of her grand confession. Good, proper doctor-patient interest.
"Yes?"
"I didn't know, Doctor…"
You are a glutton for punishment. You suddenly find enjoyment in self-inflicted pain and prolong your own agony.
"Know what, Seven?"
"It would be like this…"
"I understand. It's wonderful, isn't it?"
"I want to be with him all the time."
"If you feel it, why are you here, Seven?"
"I wanted to tell you first, Doctor."
You take a dive into those lost galaxies and see her with him in a future that's yet to be. You see them touch, often. You watch them smile as they bend over a crib looking at their infant. You see him look at her, hugging her close. You close your own eyes imaging the kiss that would follow that look and gentle hug. For one moment, one crazy moment, you wished you had a tattoo.
You see all the things that are an integral part of your own fantasies and you realise:
they will always be fantasies. Someone will probably offer you advice, like how you could have all those things, have children, have a life, a wife. You would tell that someone: yes, those things are possible, for a hologram.
Those are things. They may be children, a wife, a mother and partner, but you could not form any real attachment. There is always the risk that your knowledge that they are photonic beings like you, dependant on your whims, to change them any time you wish to, will impede on complete inner peace and happiness.
For the joy in love lies in its very nature: that you have no idea what the next moment will bring, that you share and accept the joy with the pain, the laughter with the tears, that you would rather have the raging torrents that will ease later to gentle streams, than have something you have total control over and therefore, no pleasure.
He is flesh and blood. You're not.
In the final analysis, that outweighs everything.
"We are cripples," Toulouse Lautrec said.
When you're in the Moulin Rouge, drinking with the dregs of Paris while the dancers cavort to the lively cancan, with Toulouse-Lautrec condescending to show you his latest sketch by throwing it at you across the table, it's difficult to distinguish what is the norm, who are the cripples and who are not. Your impulse is to deny his terse remarks, wave it away with equally careless hand gestures as you realise: he may be right.
You look at the woman standing before you. She has no idea what she is doing to you. You have loved her a long time, but you have to admit: that look, that smile, that wondrous way in which her mouth caress her words as she speaks of him - soft, velvet, smoothly rolling from her lips. Then you know you could never, not in her lifetime, have elicited that from her.
Another man did it.
He was the first man to call her Annika.
Sweetest name...caro nome...
And the only reward, the only comfort you find in her presence here, the only and completely illogical as it may appear, privilege, you find in her words is that she chose to share with you first.
"Then I am privileged that you told me, Seven - "
"I needed your blessing, Doctor."
Could you deny the woman you love such a desire? Above all, photonic being that you are, sentient man, doctor, friend, confidant , what do you desire most for this incredible, remarkable woman?
You desire her happiness, more than anything in the universe.
"You have my blessing…"
"Thank you, Doctor."
She turns, humming the tune of 'Caro Nome' as she moves away from you. Her step is light, her shoulders relaxed. A weight has lifted from her. You watch her leave the sick bay. There is a strange feeling growing in you. Pride, perhaps, or the knowledge that maybe, just maybe, you will get to kiss the bride.
Remember, you don't have a name.
Caro nome che il mio cor
festi primo palpitar,
le delizie dell' amor
mi dêi sempre rammentar!
***
THE END
***********************************
Sweet name, you who made my heart
throb for the first time,
you must always remind me of
the pleasures of love!