Disclaimer: They don't belong to me, they belong to Paramount.
Notes: A short, fluffy piece that pounced on my during a car journey and 
wouldn't let go.
      

Imagination    
By Jewels

"Come on, Seven, doesn't it even look a /bit/ like a hedgehog?"

Seven of Nine stared at Harry Kim as if he'd gone mind, and, at least to 
her mind, he probably had. "Ensign, we are staring at a class seven nebula, 
there are no hedgehogs to be seen floating in space. Even if there were, 
they would be dead, and too small to be seen."

Harry sighed. "That's not the point. Use your imagination." He raised his 
hand to gesture at one of the swirls of gas. "That looks like a warp 
nacelle, if you use your imagination."

"What would a warp nacelle be doing unattached to a ship?"

Harry dropped his head to his chest and leaned back onto one of the tables 
in the mess hall, where the two of them had been standing for the last 
twenty minutes, Harry trying to get the former-Borg to understand how to 
imagine shapes in the clouds.

"Seven, didn't you ever stare at the clouds when you were little?" At 
Seven's sharp look, he added, "Before you were assimilated, I mean."

Seven turned her attention back to the nebula once more. It was mainly 
blue, with streaks of gold, dusky pink, and green running through it. She 
supposed there was /some/ aesthetic value to the cloud. "I hardly ever 
spent time on a planet," she said after a long moment. "Most of my life 
before my assimilation was spent on board my parents' ship."

She heard Harry shift beside her, as if to speak. "Sev-"

"Although," she said, interrupting him. "When I was very little, I would 
visit my Grandpa, on one of the colony worlds. Every time I went it was 
snowing." She looked at her companion, who was utterly silent, staring at 
her rather than the nebula. She was unaccountably pleased at that. "No 
clouds." she told him, before peering at the gold swirls again. "Although 
Grandpa and I made snowmen..."

There was silence for a long few minutes as they stared at the clouds.

"I used to stare at the clouds with my dad," Harry started, "It would be a 
sort of game: who could see the most shapes. Dad always used to win." Harry 
paused for a moment, and Seven, even though she wasn't looking at him, 
could hear the smile in his voice. "Looking back, though, I think it was 
because he cheated."

Seven glanced at him in surprise. "Cheated?"

"Yes," Harry grinned. "He kept being able to see creatures such as weebles, 
mavs, and occlys."

Seven had a slightly bemused expression on her face. "But there are no such 
creatures."

Harry spread his hands. "At seven years old, how was I to know that?"

Seven felt a smile tugging at her lips in spite of herself, and carefully 
schooled her features into blandness. "You could have researched it." she 
said.

"I did. How do you think I found out he cheated?" Harry chuckled, and Seven 
permitted a small smile to show, which obviously pleased Harry that he had 
managed to get such a reaction out of her. There was a companionable 
silence for a moment as they looked at each other.

Unfortunately, it was a very brief moment.

//Paris to Kim.//

Harry, annoyed at the interruption, sighed. "What is it, Tom?"

//You were supposed to be in Engineering ten minutes ago.//

"What time is it?" Harry demanded.

//Ten minutes after you were supposed to be down here.// came B'Elanna's 
voice.

"Sorry, I'll be right there. Kim out." Harry glanced at Seven 
apologetically, clearing his throat self-consciously. "We'll have to 
continue this another time," he said, straightening and heading for the 
door.

"Ensign," Seven called after him. "You are incorrect."

"What?" Harry's tone was filled with puzzlement.

"I do not believe it is a hedgehog. It is a bunny rabbit."

-Fini