A Few Facts
Those who dispute
the c/7 pairing claim that it "came out of nowhere" or was a
last-minute decision. Here are a few facts to dispute those claims:
- The
only time Chakotay was ever hostile towards Seven was when she was a
drone and only because he was trying to protect the Voyager crew.
- Chakotay stood up for Seven when other members of the crew expressed discomfort over working with her, including Lt. Torres (Day of Honor; Message in a Bottle) and Ensign Kim (Revulsion; The Omega Directive).
- Chakotay and Seven accompanied each other on away missions (Demon; Once Upon a Time; One Small Step; Flesh and Blood).
- Chakotay admitted how wrong he was to doubt that Seven would last as an individual and crew member (Infinite Regress).
- Seven
appealed to Chakotay's spiritual beliefs concerning her desire to study
the Omega molecule, indicating that she was in tune with him as a human
being and later even studied his culture (The Omega Directive; Human Error).
- To our knowledge, Chakotay is the only crew member she told her childhood dream to-- to be a ballerina (One Small Step).
- While
exploring a Y class planet in search of two missing crew members, Seven
saved Chakotay's life-- with a little help from the Tom Paris clone (Demon).
- Among
his many duties, Chakotay was liaison between Capt. Janeway and
Astrometrics, indicating that he and Seven worked together on a regular
basis.
- After Seven remembers something she had done to three of her companions from Unimatrix 01, Chakotay was there to console her (Survival Instinct).
- Chakotay
had a major role in freeing Seven from the Collective by establishing a
Borg mind-link to distract her while Torres initiated a power surge
that severed the link. During the link, Chakotay saw Seven's childhood
memories, giving him more intimate knowledge of Seven's life than any
other crew member (Scorpion II).
- While
trapped beneath an energy barrier that protected the primitive Ventu
people, Seven had left the encampment in search of shuttle debris. The
following morning when Chakotay discovers that she hasn't returned, he
emphatically demands they help him find her, referring to her as "my
friend" more than once (Natural Law).
- Both were once enemies of the Federation.
- Both had lost their families to tragic circumstances.
- Each of them experienced hallucinations and heard voices that nearly drove them to the brink of insanity (One, Infinite Regress, The Fight)
- Each of them fell in love for the second time with someone they had previously forgotten. Now, that's what I call a conversation starter (Unforgettable; Unimatrix Zero)!
I'm sure I could list more, but I think we can see here that Chakotay
and Seven did in fact have a foundation of friendship that could have
blossomed into romance.
