The Dawn
(Under the Cradling Moon 4/4)
by thetilde

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Category: J/7 shipper WAFF (Warm and Fuzzy Feeling). Involves loving intimacy between two women. If you take offense at such things, stop reading.
Spoilers: None.
Disclaimers: The characters and situations of the television program "Star Trek Voyager" are the creations and property of Paramount Pictures, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. However, I retain the rights to the plot. You may download and distribute this story as long as my name stays on the by-line.
Archive: Ask and you shall receive. Contact me at omegapoint79@yahoo.com.
Rating: R
Summary: A short epilogue where the Captain and Seven talk about their future together.
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I woke to the sunbeams of her hair, cradling her face gently and falling on her pillow. I woke to a world framed by Seven’s embrace, held safe in the arms of the woman I loved. Here, lying naked in her arms, I felt a radiant peace, shining on my past and on my future. I knew I never wanted to sleep beside any other person again.

There was… a warmth… a slow, spreading warmth though my chest, though my heart. I wanted to laugh out loud, and yet weep at how hard I had fought against and desperately longed for this one bright moment.

I had seen stars being born, heard the dying gasp of countless suns, braved the cold hell of space, defeated the many forms of evil that the Universe sought to place in my way… and this one wondrous moment in her arms outshone anything I could ever encounter or experience. This consuming contentment, this sublime perfection, this happiness was the final frontier.

If anything in my life deserved departure from previously established patterns, going beyond all known limitations, this moment did.

I had thought that in this, the morning after, I would feel guilty, frightened, even horrified at how far I had allowed myself to go. Instead, I found myself feeling proud, glad to know that I dimly recognized the rare and unlooked for happiness for which my very soul had thirsted, crazy enough to relinquish control.

Control. I had always craved it, needed it, and feared to be without it. I sought to rise above this very moment, to be so strong that this would not be necessary. I had been a brilliant success at my subliminal suicides… choosing lovers who were never very interested in being loving, who were just as scared of intimacy as I was. These were tidy relationships where I could control how much emotion and time I invested in them, where I could hide behind Duty and Protocol and Propriety. They were never dangerous, never a holocaust of desire… never true. Not one moment of what I had thought of as “love”, could compare to this.

This is what the poets see in their dreams, what every priest in every religion acknowledges as sacred. This is what I had run away from, never trusting it and thinking it was too good to be true, too good to be mine. This moment is mine, and mine alone.

I spent a lifetime being dead, but in this moment I am alive forever.

Very slowly, trying hard not to make a sound, I reach out a timid hand to touch her hair with my fingertips, gently… not to awaken, not even for a caress, but just to assure myself that she’s real, that this isn’t a dream.

“Oh Seven…” I sighed, caressing the fringe of implants across her abdomen.

She stirred slightly as her eyes opened to the morning. Her smile was wide, brighter than the light of four suns. Seven snuggled closer to me, moving under the covers.

“Good morning, love.” I smiled back.

“Can you repeat that, Kathryn?”

Mystified and feeling slightly silly, I repeated my greeting, and was intensely gratified by the flood of kisses that were bestowed on my face and my neck.

“It pleases me when you call me by that designation.” Seven admitted.

“Love?” I repeated.

“My darling and my dearest are also acceptable.” Seven said happily, trying in vain to suppress a yawn. “How long have you been conscious?”

“Not very long, sweetheart.” I said, treating her to a new endearment. “I was just thinking of the first time I slept in your arms… about the moon… and how kind and loving you were to me.”

“I was concerned for you.” She admitted, stroking my cheek sleepily. “You were not completely aware of the crew’s true feelings… and my own.”

“Do you really believe what you told me?” I asked.

“Of course.” Seven said, looking me in the eye. “You are an excellent Captain. The crew and I would follow no other.”

“Oh, I remember a certain crewman who didn’t always follow me so willingly…” I teased gently.

“I did not say I would follow you willingly.” Seven clarified. “To use Ensign Paris’s expression, your ideas are often ‘off the wall’ and yet the results are impressively successful, though the method may have been inefficient.”

“Thank you,” I smirked. “I think.”

“Kathryn…” Seven said, hiding her face suddenly in my neck. “I told you last night that I was confident you would choose to do what is best about… us. What is your decision?”

Sighing, I cuddled her close. “Seven, darling… I want you to understand how I’ve felt these past few months. Will you please hear me out?”

She nodded slightly without daring to look at me, only pulling closer into the circle of my arms.

“I… Loving you… it’s everything I dreamed of and more.” I explained.

“But?” She asked quietly.

“But as Captain, I can’t date a crew member.” I continued, stroking her nape and running my hands through her hair. “There are regulations against it. And it’s difficult to maintain command over people when they’re aware that you’re courting another member of the crew. It would leave me open to accusations of favoritism, to rumors about my personal life.”

Seven said nothing, but I could feel her heart thudding against my chest like the rapid heartbeat of a doe. A small choked sound escaped her throat. I tried to soothe her with my caresses.

“Aside from regulations, I was so afraid of falling in love with you, of admitting to myself that I had fallen in love with you.” I said. “I knew how much I would love you, how much I would want you beside me, how deeply I would need to make you happy. I would lose all control.”

I brought my right hand to her chin, turning her head to face me, looking deeply into her eyes and the tears that fell from them.

“I can’t date you, Seven.” I said, softly. “I can never give you what you deserve… a normal courtship, a relationship that doesn’t change with duty shifts and a life that will never be encroached on by Starfleet… But I hope that you’ll adapt, that you’ll love me despite these hardships… because I know that what we have is worth any difficulties we might encounter, that loving you and needing you makes me stronger, freer, and happier than I ever could be alone.”

Her eyes widened with patent disbelief.

“I love you with everything I am, Seven…” I said, laying bare my very soul. “Perhaps not perfectly, but always consistently… Will you marry me?”

“Yes.” Her body was wracked with sobs, tears of a completely different character flowing from her deep blue eyes… Those beautiful eyes that knew me so much better than I knew myself, and would continue to unveil my truest self for many mornings yet to come.

I kissed her tears away, gently speaking to the life that sparkled and danced behind those eyes; as the solar shades opened automatically, ushering in the starlit dawn.