Seven of Nine was in the cargo bay with Jennifer Delaney preparing for an away mission to study a minor nebula a few parsecs from Voyager. Seven considered the mission a waste of time but Captain Janeway had assured her that the excursion was just the thing to keep the crewmen in Stellar Cartography happy. Since it was the captain that asked, Seven had agreed.

Since the kiss that almost happened in the captain’s quarters Janeway had been avoiding her and Seven thought going on the away mission would give them both some time to think. Not that she really needed it. Seven clearly remembered how Kathryn had reached for her, how their warm breath had mingled and how yielding the soft body had been on the bed beneath her. Her eidetic memory insisted on replaying the events again and again in excruciating detail. She replayed every look, every sensation and each time it happened her stomach clenched in the most pleasantly distracting way.

If those pirates had not attacked the encounter would have ended very differently. Instead Captain Janeway was rarely spotted outside her ready room and issued commands through impersonal computer messages and passed-down pads. Seven found it all very frustrating, but didn’t know how to go about changing the situation.

Jennifer Delaney currently had her head and shoulders buried deep in a large packing crate near the rear of the cargo bay. She was looking for equipment to take with them, but that didn’t keep her from prattling on endlessly about how wonderful the nebula was. Seven found it tiresome and wasn’t really listening. In truth she found Delaney’s tendency to speak at great lengths without imparting any worthy information slightly more irritating than Harry Kim’s digressions.

Kathryn’s face flashed before Seven again and she sighed a little as she lifted the lid off a cargo bin. Near the bottom was the tool she was looking for and she bent over to retrieve it. Just as her hand closed around the hyper-spanner she had the strange sensation that someone was staring at her. It couldn’t be Ensign Delaney. The young woman was still speaking endlessly from the crate. Seven had the feeling someone was standing behind her.

Frowning slightly, she straightened and turned around. Kathryn was standing only a few feet away and her eyes were fixed on Seven’s posterior. Instead of starting in guilt Kathryn continued to appraise Seven’s body. Smoldering blue eyes traveled leisurely up the lean form until the two women were staring into each other’s eyes. What Seven discovered threatened to set her blood on fire.

Kathryn was slightly flushed and her pupils were dilated with what could only be desire. For long moments they continued to stare with Jennifer prattling on in the background completely unaware that the captain was in the cargo bay. Then Kathryn’s tongue slipped out to lick her bottom lip and the naked eroticism of the act caused Seven to gasp sharply.

With the sound Kathryn seemed to become aware of exactly where she was and that they weren’t alone. Her eyes slid away to glance at Delaney before she looked at Seven again and then turned to walk silently away.

Seven slumped boneless against a crate. For several moments her brain refused to function at all. She could only see the intensity of Kathryn’s gaze over and over and had difficulty drawing a proper breath. Eventually it occurred to her to wonder why Janeway had been in the cargo bay in the first place. Had she come down to admit her true feelings to Seven or to let her know that any kind of intimate relationship was out of the question only to discover that Seven wasn’t alone?

Whatever the reason, Seven was left with another moment of shared intimacy to replay in her memories.

"Seven," Jennifer said, backing out of the crate and turning to face the stunned woman. "Have you even been listening to me?"

"No. I most decidedly have not."