DISCLAIMER: There are three 'beings' in this story. Two of them belong to Paramount. The other.... I guess that one could belong to everyone? Or not...? No money, etc.
NOTES: Fireside, 3am chat, converted to suit the parameters of T/7!
Belief
By alastria7
"So, you think there is a Supreme Being behind all of this?"
Seven, sitting behind her partner, on a rock overlooking a beautiful seascape, wrapped her arms more tightly around B'Elanna's upper body. "I believe there is a holodeck programme behind all of this," she answered, amusing herself with her comment.
"I don't mean."
"I know." Seven smelt B'Elanna's hair and then leaned sideways to kiss her neck. "What do you think," Seven asked, diplomatically.
"I don't know. I mean, nobody does, do they?"
"What about the Klingon belief structure?"
"That's just one of many, though, isn't it," stated B'Elanna, thoughtfully. "Believe it, don't believe it. Are they all right? Are they all wrong? Is just one of them right? If so, which?"
Seven breathed in her partner's perfume and remained silent, knowing B'Elanna was still actively considering her questions.
"Take Sto-Vo-Kor and Grethor," she said, at length. "Numerous rituals abound as to how to be accepted into one, and stay out of the other."
"The Humans I came from called it Heaven and Hell," mused Seven. "They too trod a narrow road, if they wished the prize of Heaven, although others believe that eternal life upon the planet Earth is the prize for goodness. In fact, they are only two of a wide and various number of beliefs about how to please your chosen Deity and gain favour with it."
"Yeah," answered B'Elanna, still staring out to sea and being held by Seven. "You add to that the further beliefs of, say, the Bajorans with their prophets; Chakotay and his tribal beliefs, and the many other worlds we have encountered.. It makes my head spin!"
Seven raised a brow and added an extremely sexy grin, all lost on the woman in front of her. "And why would you choose to sit here with your head spinning," she asked, "when you have me, and this view?"
"Yeah. Mad, right?" B'Elanna twisted in Seven's arms and the two officers kissed lazily and gently, taking a long time about it, before B'Elanna resumed her former position. They both gazed out at and enjoyed the computer-generated sea, it's peace and its power. B'Elanna leaned back against the warmth of Seven and tried very hard to put her current thoughts aside. She couldn't.
Quietly, B'Elanna began: "We had a crewmember called Lindsey Ballard. She used to say, `Own The Day', you know, like it was yours to do what you wanted to with it." Seven replied by stroking her beloved's hair and listening, as B'Elanna continued, "well, that implied to me that your feelings and attitudes could go a long way towards creating your circumstances."
"When she died, that should have been the end of her corporeal life. But she was brought back from the dead by the Kobali, who re- programmed her into their ways and language and, apart from her one abortive attempt to resume her life on Voyager, she was happy with them."
"Your point, Lana?" asked Seven gently.
"I was wondering what that experience did to her belief system. Can you interchange Deities at will? And if there is only one truth, can you opt out of it, in ignorance, and miss out?" B'Elanna knew she had been here before; wanting to know the answers and yet realising that each answer had ten more questions. The beautiful, dark eyed half-Klingon allowed her thoughts to cease. She settled back into Seven's arms and relaxed, at last allowing her mind to go blank.
Seven stroking her love's hair, was very aware that, with this prize she was holding in her arms, she had more than her fair share of the love that any of the varied Deities could bestow. She closed her eyes, and simply held the woman who had brought to her the meaning of her existence.
Before B'Elanna, she had struggled to just be amongst her single- minded, mainly human liberators. She had come to love her Captain, and little Naomi Wildman, but she had struggled to be a part of them, to try to integrate. Then her Lana had shown her love and Seven had responded from somewhere deep beyond the Borg in her, and she had finally understood individuality - freedom of choice of the one, and had marvelled at how readily she would give up that individuality to become a part of two. Merged, mingled, in all things.
B'Elanna's gentle and rhythmic breathing told Seven that her love was asleep. A deep smile filled Seven's entire face as she held her woman, and rocked her very slightly from side to side.
Seven gazed out over the seascape, holding B'Elanna's head protectively, feeling a deep serenity inside, and she silently considered that - whatever the Deity, from whichever world, It had heard her need and sent her B'Elanna to love.
It came to Seven, after a further twenty minutes of sitting peacefully, that although she didn't have a name for this Deity, she felt It must be, in part, the love energy that ran through all things, all beings, all star systems, everywhere. As she continued to gaze at the seascape, she knew at once that she was part of It - that she had found, without trying, what B'Elanna had searched for all these years.
And she smiled.
The End