Sitting here wasted and wounded
at this old piano
Trying hard to capture
the moment this morning I don't know

'Cause a bottle of vodka
is still lodged in my head
And some blond gave me nightmares
I think she's still in my bed

As I dream about movies
they won't make of me when I'm dead

The days of Kathryn, I mean Kathryn Janeway, and her days on Voyager...they're gone. The days are no longer filled with the love and desire I once felt. My days with Seven are over. I thought it would last a lifetime, our love, our lust, our commitment. I loved her, and I tried to love her in the same way that I had once, and still to this day love Kathryn Janeway.

I try to make myself believe that one day it will happen, but I know its nothing but a pipe dream. The problem is today I live without Annika. Katie isn't taking it very well, she misses her mother dearly. It’s hard to< explain to a seven year old why her mother is never coming back. How do you tell her? How do you explain that her mother's body just stopped working? How do you tell her that all those years ago, when she had been assimiliated, and she had been transformed...how do you explain?

She was human, then she was Borg, then she was human again...now she's dead. It was rather sudden really, even doc couldn't find a way to stop the breakdown, the psychological and the physical breakdown.

Seven of Nine tertiary adjunct of unimatrix 01, Annika Hansen, just plain Seven to most of the Voyager crew, the ones that were left...Annika to me, my wife, my savior, mother of my child...was gone.

With an ironclad fist I wake up and
French kiss the morning
While some marching band keeps
its own beat in my head
While we're talking

About all of the things that I long to believe
About love and the truth and
what you mean to me
And the truth is baby you're all that I need

I want to lay you on a bed of roses
For tonite I sleep on a bed on nails
I want to be just as close as the Holy Ghost is
And lay you down on bed of roses

It has been nearly a year since the day my wife died. After the doctor looked the file over, after he did an autopsy, he explained, no he told me that there had been nothing I could have done. That it was only a matter of time.

Apparently, the child she had given me, not ten years before...that had hastened her decline. Its sad, the two things I wanted most in life, and I could not have one without the other. I could not decline the love of my life, the child she so dearly wanted, nor could I tell her that this child meant nothing to me.

No, this child was a blessing and it was an end. An end to us, an end to our love and an end to the perfection we had found in this relationship that was no more than a compromise.

Well I'm so far away
That each step that I take is on my way home
A king's ransom in dimes I'd given each night
Just to see through this payphone
Still I run out of time
Or it's hard to get through
Till the bird on the wire flies me back to you
I'll just close my eyes and whisper,
baby blind love is true

Today I sent something to Kathryn, I heard that her husband, also a Starfleet brat, also a Starfleet Captain, had been killed in an accident. In a fight he was commanding against the Borg.

Funny how life throws us little curve balls like that. One day...the Borg we can react to, we can manage to conquer. The next...well the next they're our friends. A tear slips down my cheek as I remember my wife, my love...the mother of my young daughter.

I remember...

I want to lay you down on a bed of roses
For tonite I sleep on a bed on nails
I want to be just as close as the Holy Ghost is
And lay you down on bed of roses

The hotel bar hangover whiskey's gone dry
The barkeeper's wig's crooked
And she's giving me the eye
I might have said yeah

But I laughed so hard I think I died
When you close your eyes
Know I'll be thinking about you
While my mistress she calls me

To stand in her spotlight again
Tonite I won't be alone
But you know that don't
Mean I'm not lonely I've got nothing to prove

For it's you that I'd die to defend
I want to lay you down on a bed of roses
For tonite I sleep on a bed on nails
I want to be just as close as the Holy Ghost is
And lay you down on bed of roses

The message I sent, the love I had, the love I will some day have again I hope.

Kathryn, the roses have bloomed and died, and as most flowers, they will one day bloom and flower again to produce something beautiful.

*~*~*~*

The song was 'Bed of Roses' by Bon Jovi.

*~*~*~*
END PART IV
TCB in Part V: Scar Tissue
*~*~*~*