We To I
By Laura Schiller
Based on Star Trek: Voyager
Copyright: Paramount
(Author's Note: The idea of the Delaney sisters being Maquis and Starfleet, and Megan being widowed, comes from The Cheshire Cheese, a great writer on this site whom I highly recommend, especially for stories about the minor characters. The Megan/Harry/Jenny love triangle is referred to in the episode "Thirty Days".)
Megan Delaney was sitting on her haunches in Jeffries Tube 14, replacing some burnt-out relays, when a rustling noise behind her made her jump. She strained her ears and sat perfectly still, trying not to think of the more frightening possibilities. It could just be another engineer doing maintenance. Or something she'd imagined. Or an alien intruder slithering along the narrow tube …
Another rustle, this time clearly cloth against metal. Whatever it was, at least it didn't slither. Her heartbeat slowed a little, but not much. She put the spent relay back into her tool kit, carefully so the click of the fastenings wouldn't be heard. She held it with both hands; since it was heavy enough to be a pain in the ass dragging through these tubes, it should be heavy enough to use as a weapon in an emergency.
The intruder sobbed.
Megan Delaney let out a silent, shaky breath, already hearing Jenny's laughter when she told the story. So much for bashing anyone over the head! Torres must be rubbing off on her. Whoever it was had the voice of a child. She crawled over on her hands and knees to the junction door and pressed the button to open it.
"Naomi?"
"Naomi Wildman is not here," snapped the child.
Megan recoiled.
She should have remembered that Sam's daughter was no longer the only small crewmember likely to hide in unusual places. This was one of the Borg children the Captain had rescued: a boy, she thought, judging by the short hair and blue overalls. He was sitting with his back to the curved wall, his arms wrapped around his knees like a living cannonball. He was white like her, with brown hair and blue eyes. He looked about ten. If not for the vertical ridge on his forehead and the cybernetic implant under his left eye, he could have been one of the little cousins she and Jenny used to babysit back home. Or the son she might have had with Avi, if things had been different.
"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to startle you. I'm Megan, and you are?"
"We are Borg. No, we are Wysanti. Our designations are - " He sniffed and wiped his nose. "My designation is Rebi."
Already regretting her impulse to run at the sight of that piece of metal, she reached in her pocket for a pack of tissues. The dry, recycled air aboard a starship made her sneeze; it was often inconvenient, but today it was lucky. She pulled out a tissue and held it out to Rebi, who eyed it with suspicion.
"To wipe your nose," she prompted. These kids had only been on board after all for, what, two weeks? And with no one but Seven of Nine to teach them manners. He wiped his nose as ordered, then stared at the result with evident fascination. Some things were universal to children, it seemed.
"What is the purpose of these fluids?" he asked, in a monotone voice that sounded very odd from a throat still choked with tears.
This time, Megan did laugh. "D'you know, I have no idea. Ask the Doctor."
"I will," said Rebi solemnly, crumpling the tissue and dropping it on the ground.
"Now," she settled down cross-legged opposite him, "What's wrong, Rebi, hmm? Maybe I can help. Do you want me to comm your – to comm Seven?" Her hand hovered above her badge.
"Go away!" Rebi's monotone mutter rose to a shout. He clamped his hands over his ears and screwed up his face, as if someone were screaming at him.
"Hey!" Megan was annoyed. "I can see you're upset, but that's no way to talk to someone who's - "
"We are not talking to you - " he squinted at her uniform collar " – Ensign." Fresh tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. "We – I – I was talking to … talking to my other."
Megan made a conscious decision not to think about why a former Borg drone would know how to read Starfleet insignia. She could be creeped out later; this child needed someone, and she was beginning to guess the root of the problem. Harry had told her (somewhat shaken after his time on the children's ruined cube) that two of them were identical. She knew a thing or two about that.
"You mean your twin?"
"Fourth. No, Azan," Rebi corrected, with a puzzled frown, as if even after two weeks the name was still unfamiliar. "He is gone now. The neural link is silent."
He tapped the implant under his eye twice. In spite of his demand for his brother to "go away", Megan noticed, he didn't sound too happy that Azan had done so.
"Wait, your Borg implants make you hear each other's thoughts?" she blurted out, horrified.
When the Cardassians had taken over their home colony and killed Megan's husband, causing her to join the Maquis, leaving her twin behind had been like losing an arm or a leg. Only her furious grief for Avi, for the musical thunderstorms he made on the piano, for the vines climbing up her cottage and for the hundreds like her who'd suffered the same fate, had driven her to take that step.
Since Jenny had signed on to Voyager to track her down, they had been almost inseparable. They shared their quarters, clothes, reputations, stories and – she shuddered internally over the fiasco with Harry – even lovers. Her thoughts were just about the only thing she could keep for herself alone. What must it be like, to lose even that?
"Can't the Doctor do something about that?"
"Removing the link would lead to severe neural damage," said Rebi, as clinically as the Doctor himself. "First made an error in repairing us when we were released from the maturation chamber."
"First who?"
"Our leader," he said, faintly annoyed, as if that were universal knowledge. To him, she supposed it was. "He died."
"Oh."
My God. What kind of terrible memories must be stored behind that young face? She remembered Harry's wide eyes as he'd told his story to her, Jenny, Nicoletti and Vorik over dinner in the mess hall. There were … bodies … on that cube, you guys. People they tried to assimilate and couldn't. The light was so green and dim, you could barely see. And yet, Rebi was crying because of an argument with his brother. It was such a disarmingly normal reason for a child to cry that she was tempted to put her arm around him.
"What happened?" she asked him gently. "I mean, what did you and Azan argue about?"
"He wants to play kadis kot with Naomi Wildman instead of me. It's illogical." For a moment, he looked and sounded exactly like a miniature Tuvok, down to the frown wrinkling his forehead ridge. Then his lower lip pushed out in a pout. "We are better than Icheb when we play together. Better than Seven. Naomi Wildman is an inferior player. Why?"
Megan began to have an inkling of how her parents must have felt, playing referees to dozens of fights between her and Jenny. It had always started over something just as trivial as kadis kot: a doll borrowed without permission, spilled juice on someone's school padd, and later, used-up makeup and the more serious matter of which boy was taking whom out on a date.
Marriage to Avi had settled that, for the time being. Her husband had been one of the few people who could tell her apart from Jenny with one glance. It was her hands, he'd said. A painter's hands, precise and careful and almost always stained with color. Jenny had been the scientist of the two.
His death, unjust and horrible as it was, had sent Megan tearing across space on the Valjean in pursuit of revenge. Her clever hands had been put to use fixing the engines instead of making art, and now their uniforms – Megan's gold, Jenny's green – were most people's only way of telling them apart.
Not that everybody bothered. It's the Delaney sisters, Harry, Tom had told his friend once, thinking said sisters were already out of earshot. Does it really matter which one?
Worse yet, to Harry it did matter which one. It had been a game for the three of them at first, Malicia and Demonica swishing around in black gowns and tormenting Buster Kincaid on the holodeck, but eventually, it had stopped being funny. When it was Megan, and only Megan, Harry couldn't take his eyes off in her costume and chose to laugh and chat with over drinks afterward, Jenny – loud, laughing, confident Jenny, always the stronger of the two – had suddenly crumpled like a leaf.
She still regretted that.
"Well, kiddo," said Megan, shaking her curly head, "It's not easy sometimes, being a twin and still being yourself. That can't be helped."
"We are not ourselves," said Rebi. "We are Borg."
"You're individuals now."
Rebi stared down absently at the crumpled tissue he still held. "That is what Seven told us. We – I do not understand. Icheb and Mezoti are individuals, but we are still a collective. We are in harmony… were in harmony. Until … until today."
Megan's heart squeezed with pity. Fighting with Jen always hurt her, but at least she was used to it.
"I know," she said. "I have a twin too."
"You do?" Rebi's voice rose up in surprise, a reflex that the maturation chamber hadn't sucked out of him, making him sound much more like a real child.
"Mm-hmm. Identical, like you and Azan. We're not always in harmony, as you put it, either. The opposite sometimes."
Their last fight, almost a year ago, still echoed painfully in the back of her mind.
You're moving on awfully fast, eh? I didn't expect that.
You think I don't have the right to be happy again?
That's unfair, I never said that. But why Harry, Meg? You knew he wasn't like the others. You knew I really cared this time.
That's just typical, Jen! You've always had first pick of everything and you know it. People always look at you first, I'm just the shadow, and the moment anyone looks at me for a change, you can't handle it! But guess what, he doesn't want you, and that's not gonna change!
You selfish bitch - first you leave me behind to join a terrorist group, then make me chase you halfway across the galaxy to make sure you're safe, and now this!
Insults, curse words and the swish of closing doors had followed, so much less satisfying than a good old-fashioned slam, as Jen stormed out. But only hours later, they'd found each other again at Sandrine's, having had the same idea to drown their sorrows in holographic whiskey and a game of pool.
"How do you adapt?" asked Rebi, wide-eyed.
Megan smiled.
Jen, I'm so –
No, I'm sorry! I should never have said those horrible things –
Well, I should never have begrudged you finding someone new, even if it is Harry.
You liked him first, I know.
I did. But is it your fault he goes for the artist-slash-engineer instead of the stellar cartographer? It's not like you programmed him.
Thank God, because how boring would that be?
Meg, about the Maquis, I'm sorry I called them terrorists. You had a good cause. Your friends died for it. You were fighting to win back people's homes, their livelihoods …
I was fighting for myself, Jen, because I was angry. I've got better things to fight for now.
Voyager?
You, silly.
Same here.
The four of them – Megan, Jenny, Harry and Tom – were mostly friends gain, but it had taken some serious willpower. Not to mention brilliant diplomacy on the part of Tom. And a cute holographic flower girl in that new Irish program.
But it would be a while before she could meet Harry's sweet brown eyes, step into the Captain Proton program or hear a clarinet without a pang.
"Talk to him," she said. "Let him explain to you why he wants to play with Naomi. I'm sure he can't have been trying to hurt you on purpose. Maybe he just wants a little more space. It doesn't mean he'll abandon you. He's your brother, Rebi. He loves you."
"Love is irrelevant," said Rebi mechanically.
"You're still a collective, I mean," she clarified, proud to see his blue eyes finally brighten as he realized what she meant. "After everything you've been through together, that won't change after a single game."
He closed his eyes, probably to help him concentrate as he spoke through that neural link. The communication took only seconds, but whatever the twins said to each other, it must have been something good.
Rebi smiled. It utterly transformed him.
Megan moved her legs out of his way as he uncurled stiffly from his knotted-up position and got to all fours. He moved to crawl away toward the nearest opening of the tube.
"Pick that up first, hon," she called after him, pointing at the tissue. Geez, I'm channeling Mom. Wait 'til I tell Jenny. "We don't leave our mess lying around. Take it with you and put it in the recycler."
"Acknowledged," said Rebi.
He stuffed it into the pocket of his overalls and crawled off with childlike ease.
Before disappearing down the nearby ladder, he paused and craned his neck to look back at her. "Ensign?"
"'Megan' is fine," she called back. "What's up?"
"Megan. Thank you."
And he was gone.
Megan, amused and touched, went back to the tool kit she had left at the other junction to finish her repairs. It looked like Seven was managing to teach those children something after all.