Rating: NC-17 (J/7)
Acknowledgments: A big thanks to Sazzy for beta-reading!
Picture Used For Inspiration: Indiv 5

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I thought I had seen things bigger than anyone had ever seen. I've seen the Borg and the inside of their mind. Billions dying and re-born. Billions undead. Perfect strings of numbers that stretch into infinity. Beautiful and impossible and only in my mind. But this is the biggest thing I have ever seen. Now I am standing on a small planet, one of many, with small inhabitants, with one of those many. But this - this is a big ditch. We slept here all night, she and I, in a 1979 replica Volkswagen she bought from Tom Paris. There are pink dice on the mirror and a dancing sunflower on the dashboard. She stretched across the back seats and I stretched across the front. The back looked more comfortable, but comfort is irrelevant. I was surprised when I heard her begin to snore, but I began to find it comforting after half an hour and stayed awake all night to listen to the strange, wet rhythm. Not that I would have slept anyway. I learnt to sleep when I moved in with her. Three nights ago, I seem to have forgotten how.

She has not brushed her hair this morning. She has not brushed it for three days. She forgot to bring her hairbrush with us. Her hair stands out like solar flares, strong ones and small ones licking around her face with the light burning behind them. Her eyes are two dark sunspots. I want to disappear into them. I want to put my hand into her hair and feel it burn. I am thinking about this when I feel heat on my hand. Perhaps my imagination is improving, I think, until I see that she has taken my hand in hers. The air is dry, the early morning wind is cool, but her hand is wet and hot. She tries to find my eyes. I think she wants to share a profound moment. But I cannot stop looking at the canyon. This is big. This is the biggest thing on Earth. And it is made of nothing. It is a big… ditch. Just space.

'I promised you you'd see it.' Her voice is soft, full of tears and totally unnecessary - she knows I know she promised. Although I did not believe her. I assumed she was demonstrating compassion again. She loved to talk about it, on Voyager. But she was relieved when I beamed 8472 onto the Hirogen ship. She would never tell me, but she was relieved. It is convenient to have someone around to carry out your cold, sensible instincts in defiance of your pretentious compassion. Perhaps this is why she likes me around. No. It is more than that. I know that she loves me.

I love her too. Of course, she told me that I loved her, but I trust her implicitly. I am certain she is correct. She told me on the second night after Voyager's return, at the homecoming party. She had consumed five glasses of Champagne and I had consumed one, but we were both equally intoxicated. We were on the balcony together in the warm wind, at midnight. I asked her if she would take a mate now we had arrived home. She said she would like to. She asked if I would take a mate. I replied that I had tried this with Chakotay and found it lacking. She said I might consider trying 'Different things'. I asked if she was suggesting promiscuity. She replied that she was suggesting lesbianism. She kissed me and lifted my dress to squeeze my thigh. I found it far hotter than anything Chakotay had ever done to me. She said that she loved me. When I did not reply, she said that I loved her, too. Perhaps I did not realise it, but she saw it. She took me home to live with her. She defended me fiercely in the debriefings. She screamed at Owen Paris. He had merely suggested I provide a sample of nanoprobes for analysis. She took care of me. She never let me out of her sight. She loves me. I love her.

The canyon is nothing like it looked in Voyager's data banks. It is… impressive. Golden and dry, baked hard in the rainless heat and so big. More awe inspiring than I could have expected. She rubs her thumb across the back of my hand.

'Thank you for bringing me here', I tell her. She smiles widely, turns her body close against me, stand on her tiptoes and brushes her lips over mine. I catch her head and kiss her harder. She groans, bites my bottom lip, pulls away and laughs. We both look out at the canyon together, standing daringly close to the edge.

They will be here soon.

They are court-martialling her. They are imprisoning me. Many of her minor infractions they have overlooked, but they could not get their small minds around her alliance with the Borg. It was more predictable that they would find fault with me. They detested me before our homecoming. They detested me from the moment they heard, through that detestable communication link, of Kathryn's alliance with the Borg. They hated her alliance, and I represented it. I spoke for the Borg. I was all of the Borg.

We are not here for a vacation; we are running. They are following us.

Three days ago she gathered up all her vital belongings and me, packed us into the Volkswagen and drove until we reached the enormous, infinite roads that pour out into the open space of Southern America. She told me constantly that everything would be all right. This unnerved me. The day before yesterday, the day for her court martial came and went. At the time she was due before the Admirals, we were making love in an empty intersection on a dusty blanket, with my tongue deep inside her and her fingernails hurting my head. Yesterday, the car radio told us they were coming for us.

I do not believe she has a plan. Had she a plan, she would have thought more sensibly than an antiquated vehicle, two phasers and a picnic basket full of ration bars. I believe she planned to show me this canyon. She planned to keep her promise. I do not believe, however, that she knows where to go from here.

For the moment, though, she pulls me back to the car. She drags me there with both hands, only letting go of my right hand to open the car door. Then her hand is back in mine, and she pushes me down, lies me down flat on my back, in the back seat. My chest is moving up and down in big breaths. She looks at it ravenously. I'm wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday, the day before and the day before that - a pair of dark denim jeans, Calvin Klein, a cheap checked shirt we bought at a K Mart on the way, after I spilled coffee - my first coffee - on my good blue top in a diner on the first day, and the necklace she gave me when she couldn't stop giving me gifts. It does not take long for her to remove them all, apart from the necklace. I look up at her, my chest still heaving, as she straddles me and grinds herself into me. She does not undress, she just wants to take me. She puts two fingers inside me, too soon, and bites her bottom lip. I am not very wet, but I get wetter as I watch her bite her lip. I want her to kiss me, bite my lip. I want her to touch my clitoris. I moan. She lies herself on top of me and moves her fingers in and out of me in long strokes. She humps me noisily. It sets the pink dice shaking and starts the sunflower dancing. I bring my hands awkwardly between us and squeeze her breasts, harder than I've ever dared to before, not caring if I hurt her. She groans into my mouth and breathes hot on my face.

Afterwards, she holds me tight, curling around and on top of me heavily.

I have fallen asleep when I hear the sirens. I jerk her awake as well and we watch the fast sleek cars approach, in clouds of dust glowing angrily with the red lights on their roofs, still part of our dreams. We look at each other, asking each other what is next. Escorted back to Starfleet Headquarters. Questioned. Why did we break parole? What do we have to say for ourselves? Why did she think this would make things any better? Why did she liberate me in the first place? Why did I assimilate thousands of innocent people? Why did she run away with someone who assimilated thousands of innocent people? Why are we in a vintage car beside the Grand Canyon dishevelled and smelling of sex? I do not want to answer these questions, and neither does she. I can see it in her eyes before she asks me. Tells me.

'Let's keep going.' I am puzzled for two-point-three seconds. Where is there left to go? Oh.

We both look out into the beautiful big space before us. I remember looking at it on the screen in Astrometrics, thinking I was going to die. Knowing I was going to die. It is so much more beautiful here.

I give a tiny nod. We scramble into the front seats. I can hear Owen Paris giving gentle, alarmed orders over a loudspeaker. We both ignore him. She looks deep into my eyes, with the same look, wide with tears, which she gave me when she told me she did not want to lose a friend. After she showed me the Grand Canyon. Now we are really here. We are really here. We saw it. She takes my hand and squeezes it so hard I imagine I can hear the bones break. I think I am crying too. Perhaps my ocular implant is malfunctioning again.

She pulls me in for a quick, fierce kiss and I feel our teeth hit together, her mouth is hot and wet like her hand.

I tell her, 'Do it.'

The engine roars and she looks like she is leading Voyager home. We drive out into space. For a moment, we are flying again. Her and I, alone, suspended, holding hands tight and looking at each other with love and passion and defiance, just setting off on the journey.

The End