Summary: As Captain Janeway withdraws into depression, Seven begins to become more aware of her own feelings and those of others around her. But can Seven use her new awareness to help Captain Janeway cope with her dark emotions?
A/N: Many grateful thanks to Mrs Singing Violin for throwing down the original challenge to write this story and for making a truly Herculean effort to improve this story when betaing it. Gratitude is also owed to Aunt Kathy for her feedback and for all the support.
Chapter 1
Seven of Nine, former Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One, opened her eyes as she emerged from her regeneration cycle and stepped down from the Borg alcove. She was experiencing that odd sense of unease again. Recently, it was there each time she came out of regeneration; as if something were off or missing or indefinably not right. For the former Borg drone who prided herself on her efficient approach to life, the sensation was irritating to say the least.
She tried a cheery smile in the mirror set up on the crate opposite her alcove. Her own reflection grimaced back at her. She frowned and noted wryly to herself that she had that particular expression down perfectly. She tried a friendly expression of interest and concern but only looked pained. It seemed that her journey towards humanity was a long and sometimes disheartening one. She would like to talk to the captain about it and with that thought she remembered the present situation. She sighed and turned away, thereby missing a very convincing look of sorrow that crossed her face.
She ran a quick diagnostic on her alcove and dictated a dry summary of the tasks facing her over the coming day. She wanted to start as soon as possible in Astrometrics, working on refining and improving Voyager's course through the next sector of space. She knew from experience that even a small reduction in the journey time would probably bring a smile to the Captain's face…at least, it had done so in the past. Maybe if Seven could shave a whole month off the journey or find a source of much-needed deuterium, then the Captain would at least give some kind of expression of satisfaction, however mild or fleeting.
But even though Seven wanted to make her way straight to Astrometrics, she knew that it was important to go to the mess hall in order to have some breakfast and at least greet other members of the crew. She had learned that, as her body reverted to human processing, she also needed social contact to stay healthy and balanced, and if this contact was lacking, then she would have the Doctor droning on at her about her raised cortisol levels or drop in her levels of dopamine.
When she entered the mess hall, Neelix greeted her brightly and sincerely. She was only now starting to be aware of how much his earlier kindness to her must have cost him: when she had first known him, he had continued to show her only the utmost respect and concern, even as she had informed him of the Borg designation for his species and the evaluation of their contribution to the Collective. Once, she had thought him simple and irritating, but now, she had grown to have a greater understanding of his complexity and the depths to his character. She always felt that the more she appreciated Neelix, the more it meant that she was becoming human.
"How was your regeneration cycle today?" Neelix asked, always aware that she did not sleep as other species did.
"Satisfactory," Seven replied. "And how was your sleep cycle?"
Neelix looked momentarily taken aback, seeing as this was the first time Seven had ever returned one of his questions with an enquiry of her own. But he was never one to shy away from showing appreciation, so he beamed back at her and replied, 'Most satisfactory! I dreamt my leola root ice cream was a big hit with the night shift when they came off duty. Would you like to try some?'
Seven suddenly found herself hesitating over how she should respond. It would all have been perfectly clear to her before; she would have declined, of course, preferably with a clear expression of refusal such as, "The Borg do not eat ice cream" or "Ice cream is irrelevant" or "I do not require non-nutritional supplements at this time." And she certainly wouldn't have wasted any time wondering about it. But now it occurred to her that if she responded in such a way then Neelix would be disappointed…and not only that, but she felt a reluctance to be the cause of this feeling. It seemed that disappointing him in such a minor matter might be classified as …inefficient.
She considered the problem for a moment and said, "I do not think that ice cream is a suitable food for me at this time of day. However, I would be happy to try a portion after my duty shift." She noticed how Neelix beamed back at her, even more broadly than usual, and she saw that he had put an extra sprig of Parthian parsley on her plain omelet when he brought over her usual breakfast dish. It gave her a small sense of satisfaction and progress.
She glanced around the mess hall to see if there was anyone she could talk to. In doing so, she suddenly spotted a tearful Naomi Wildman, Voyager's youngest crew member, running in through the mess hall doorway in her blue pyjamas. Seven noted that Naomi's face was a tight red ball of distress, as tears streamed down her face, and her hair stuck out in sleep-tousled tufts. In her arm, Naomi clutched her little toy elephant tightly to her chest.
"Mummy! Mummy!" Naomi cried out, looking desperately around the mess hall. Seven of Nine looked around as well, trying to locate the child's mother. She knew Naomi was frightened of Seven herself, and she judged it best not to approach the child when she was already so distressed. Suddenly it seemed as though Seven heard the strange words, "What's up with Peek-a-Boo? Dry your eyes, Sleepy Rabbit!" as though they had been whispered across a vast and empty space. She shivered and turned slowly expecting to see behind her…what exactly? Who? Seven had the strangest feeling that her own mother was suddenly behind her, rubbing her own small six-year-old's back as she sobbed uncontrollably over a long forgotten hurt.
There was Samantha Wildman behind her calling, "Naomi! What are you doing out of bed? Come here. It's all right. Mummy's here now." Seven watched as Samantha scooped the little girl up into her arms and Naomi buried her teary face into her mother's shoulder.
"I had a bad dream," the little girl wailed, and her mother carried her out of the mess hall whilst whispering into her ear to quieten her distress.
What's up with Peek-a-Boo? Dry your eyes, Sleepy Rabbit. Seven looked down at her congealing yellow omelet and realised she didn't feel hungry any more. In fact, she had a strange queasy feeling… as though her cortical implant had slightly lost its alignment with reality. Neelix saw her push back her plate and came bustling over.
"Not hungry, Seven? Can I get you something else? Maybe a cup of cocoa or a boiled Eskarian egg?"
Seven glared at him. "I do not require nutritional supplements at this time," she said and stalked out. She missed Neelix's slightly hurt expression as he watched her go.
When Seven arrived in Astrometrics, she pulled up the star chart of the upcoming sector onto the big display screen that took up the whole of the anterior wall. When she looked at it, instead of starting the analytics programme as she had intended, she found herself staring at the vast, gaping expanses of empty space that lay ahead of them and the tiny celestial bodies that lay scattered across them; lonely stars, circling planets, and their small accompanying moons.
Seven heard the swish of the door opening behind her. She straightened slightly, thinking it was the captain come to visit her, and as usual she did not turn around. She kept her eyes fixed on the screen in front of her and waited to feel the strange warmth of the captain as she brought her body up close beside Seven's, slipping effortlessly into her personal space while perhaps placing her hand on Seven's shoulder or upper arm - provoking feelings that were both welcome and slightly disturbing.
However, instead of the captain, it was Commander Chakotay who spoke from behind her. "How are things coming along, Seven?" he asked. "The captain would like to know when you will be able to deliver the course for the next sector."
"Where is the captain? Why didn't she come here herself as she usually does?" Seven asked as she turned to fix the Commander with a disapproving stare.
"The captain doesn't need to explain her decisions to you, Seven… nor to me either," Chakotay said, softening the sharpness of his retort with his admission. "Now what should I tell her? Is she going to have this new course by the end of the day, or is there a problem?"
"Please inform the captain that the results will be available by the end of the present duty shift. I anticipate no problems with this matter," Seven reported matter-of-factly, turning back to the safety of her screen.
Chakotay hardly noticed Seven's attitude as he turned away. Instead, his thoughts returned to worrying about the captain herself. It was three weeks now since the captain had stepped out of her quarters, and she would speak to no one except Chakotay himself under the strictest orders. Chakotay had seen Captain Janeway withdrawn before, but this was the worst bout of depression she had gone through so far. Each time, the symptoms seemed to get more acute, to last longer, to take a greater toll on the captain and her crew.
As Chakotay left the lab, he would have been most surprised, if only he had turned back, to see Seven slightly hunched over the console, leaning on it as though for support and staring avidly at the star charts in front of her as though somehow they might contain the answer to a particularly important and burning question.
Dry your eyes, Sleepy Rabbit. What's up with Peek-a-Boo? Seven no longer saw the star charts, she saw instead in her mind's eye the distress in Naomi's red and tearful features, rigid with misery, incapable of taking in anything around her except her mother. She felt she knew how the little girl must have felt – lost and frightened and desperate for comfort, searching and searching through Voyager's endless corridors and moving restlessly among strangers, desperately searching for that one face in the whole wide universe that represented home to her. Again she seemed to feel her own mother's hand upon her back and something inside her broke and wrenched away.
Then Seven felt something wet fall onto the soft mesh of her Borg hand before rolling onto the console. She glanced up at the ceiling. Where had the water come from? Was there a leaking conduit somewhere? Then she felt something odd and she brushed her hand across a damp track on her own face and discovered the water had leaked out of her very own Borg eye.
She frowned. This was absurd: crying over a little girl's hurt, surely already forgotten by now by the little girl herself. I am Borg, she reminded herself. Borg do not empathise. Seven commanded herself to pay attention to the important work she had to do and to the captain waiting for the results of that work and her fingers began to fly over the console, inputting and cross-checking and analyzing the data stream coming in from the sensors. She was a solitary figure at her console, the very picture of Borg efficiency.
Later
"Seven of Nine, this is Torres in Engineering. Have you been messing about with the damn power couplings again?"
Seven looked up from her console. It appeared that B'Elanna Torres had finally spotted her little power reroute to the sensors. She thought that she had cleverly managed to disguise her unapproved activities as a niggling little energy drain originating on one of the holodecks. But the Chief Engineer seemed to have a special knack when it came to sniffing out Borg 'enhancements' to her precious systems. Seven sighed. For someone who didn't even particularly care whether they ever made it back to that little dustball they called Earth, she found the crew of Voyager annoyingly resistant to too many of her proposed efficiencies, despite their obvious superiority.
"Explain." Seven responded. It was best find out how much Torres knew.
"No, I am not explaining anything to you. Get immediately down to the Jefferies Tube on section 13. I need your help putting the power couplings back as they were. Over and Out…" and Seven heard an eerie string of Klingon curse words floating out over the COM system as B'Elanna signed off.
Seven set her program to compile the data in her absence and left the Astrometrics lab in search of B'Elanna Torres and her latest irrational emotional outburst. Seven had long spotted that the calmer she remained, the more it drove Torres incandescent with rage, so she set her features to their most supercilious and icy as she entered the Jefferies tube. After much practice, she also knew that even the way she crawled along the Jefferies tube in her skin-tight biosuit set Torres' teeth right on edge. She looked up and watched Torres' face flush in irritation.
"This is your work, isn't it?" spat the Engineer whilst indicating with her sonic spanner towards an elegant and masterful adjustment to one of the couplings. "It's got Borg written all over it."
"I do not believe there is anything written there at all," Seven replied calmly leaning forward to inspect the offending area more closely with an air of injured innocence. "Are you sure it is not one of Mr. Paris' adjustments to enhance one of his juvenile holodeck programmes?"
"No, Seven of Nine, that is what you'd like me to think," said Torres sharply. "But we have just spent all morning trying to run tests on the latest Warp drive enhancements and each time we got to the results stage, the holodeck programme would go into a glitch and send us back to the start again. Six wasted hours running the programme and hunting round the hologram emitters trying to spot the problem."
Torres turned her head to cast a baleful eye on the former Borg drone. "I really don't understand you at all. For eighteen years, you do nothing in your Borg Cube but follow every single Borg instruction like a good little drone, and now that you are out of the Collective, it seems you can't follow even the simplest protocol. I-just-don't-get-it!"
As B'Elanna Torres finished her last comment, she jerked back her head to give her words a powerful emphasis, but in doing so, delivered a sharp, eye-watering crack to her skull on the bulkhead. She gave a yelp of pain and, dropping the spanner, curled into a tight ball of agony in front of Seven's horrified eyes. Whimpering and hissing through her teeth, B'Elanna rocked herself back and forth against the pain, her face was drawn up into a tight mask of rigid distress, and without thinking about it and in the panic of the moment, Seven of Nine reached out and began to rub her hand up and down Torres' back in order to try and soothe her pain. What had Seven's mother said to her when she was hurt? She'd said those strange but familiar words, "What's up with Peek-a-Boo?"
"Kahless!" cried Torres when she had got enough of her senses back to become aware of what Seven was doing. "What the hell are you doing? Stop it at once! Get me to Sickbay!"
The sharpness of her tone brought Seven back to herself, and she quickly ordered a site to site emergency transport for Torres to Sickbay. She did not go herself. She suddenly felt quite confused about what had just happened. The Doctor would know how to take care of Torres. He would know what to do and how to help her. Seven felt a strange urge to stay hidden alone in the Jefferies Tube for a bit longer.
Seven bowed her head in confusion. What had she been doing? Why had she decided to touch Torres, of all people, like that? The earlier sense of queasiness had returned, only now it was even stronger. She realized that perhaps she should get herself to Sickbay, but the thought of being confronted by an angry Chief Engineer in front of the Doctor made the heart of even the former Borg drone quail. She picked up the scattered tools and placed them neatly in the Engineer's toolbox. Then she turned and crawled back out of the Jeffries Tube with a lot less aplomb than she had shown when she arrived.
Later
"Get her out of here and take her to the Brig!" ordered a furious Janeway in her hardest, most uncompromising command tones. "I don't know who let her into my private quarters against my express orders, but when I find out, they can expect to be punished."
Seven realized, at that point, that her plan to deliver the new course that she had been plotting, directly into the captain's hands was a complete failure. She also realized that breaking into the captain's quarters, in order to make the delivery, had not been such a great idea either. It was clear that the captain had not, in fact, been waiting for an opportunity to talk with Seven face to face. The captain did not want to discuss Seven's new feelings with her. She had no words of wisdom or comfort to offer Seven at this time, and Seven felt utterly bereft. She had had reason to believe that she and the captain had, slowly but surely, been growing closer and now it seemed that all had been cast away.
Seven felt the hands of the security officers on her arms. She knew she could probably take them both down with her superior Borg strength, but then what was the point? The captain's face was already turned away from her back into the shadows, staring out of the window into the depths of space, and she no longer displayed any interest in the drama going on behind her.
But before her captain had turned away from her, Seven had seen the furious expression of outrage in her face – the tightness and the stony rigidity and something else that had frightened Seven even more than the anger. It had been a face completely lacking in the warmth and energy that had greeted Seven of Nine ever since she had first been taken aboard Voyager as a dazed and disoriented and dangerous Borg drone. Then the captain's sparkling and vivid expressions of care, concern, enthusiasm and joy and admiration had worked upon Seven with a kind of sympathetic magic, calling her back to humanity from the dark spaces where she had been hiding, calling her out of herself and out of the nightmare she had been lost in. Now that was all gone, and Seven had no fight left in her to go on with.
As they jostled her out of the captain's private quarters, the data padd that Seven had been trying to deliver slipped from her fingers and fell onto the carpet. That was no longer relevant either, and Seven made no attempt to draw attention to it or to retrieve it.
Once in the brig and with the force field up to keep her in the cell, Seven started to feel very alone. It was her greatest fear. Since the guard had retired somewhere into the shadows of the entry room, she sat on the bunk in the darkened space and tried to distract herself from the loneliness by contemplating the strange beauty of Borg algorithms. Unfortunately, it seemed that just when she needed their consolation the most, they failed her, and Seven found herself remembering instead the first time she had been put in the brig nearly two years ago.
How small and puny the captain had seemed to her then, and how deluded her pathetic faith in individuality and humanity…until the moment that brought them crashing into physical contact. And Seven thought back over that first electric feeling of bonding between them. It had started as an expression of anger and hurt when Seven had suddenly lashed out at captain Janeway, pushing her away with a cry of pain and rage… and then suddenly she had found herself in the Captain's arms, crouched over the bunk and cradled from behind by the captain who had held on tightly to her and would not let her go. Seven shivered even now as she remembered it – how powerful the sensation was of the captain's body pressed against her back with those strong hands gripping Seven and keeping her in place, maintaining the contact between them until she eventually got through to Seven.
It had been the first physical contact with another human being in eighteen years, and it had powerfully and unexpectedly cut through all the discussion and words. Instead it had opened up a whole new world of dizzying sensations; until then entirely undreamt of by Seven and utterly beyond the comprehension of the Borg.
But in those first weeks that encounter in the Brig had not been the only moment of powerful physical contact between the Starfleet captain and the former Borg drone. Seven knew that she would never have made her first stumbling steps towards humanity if the captain had not been there to pull her out of the terrifying abyss of her new-found solitude. She remembered all the nights when the captain had brought her out of her regeneration cycle and she'd realized that she'd been screaming. Seven remembered how, each time, the captain had been there for her, stumbling but always holding tight to the terrified and traumatised drone. And as Seven, waking from the darkness, had felt herself clutched in that close and supportive embrace, so Seven had been allowed to experience the enticing human warmth emanating from the captain's body and feel the way it penetrated her own shivering skin, working its magic and soothing the anguish away.
Suddenly, Seven remembered the tight, rigid, angry expression she had observed on the captain's face, when she had seen Seven standing there, unexpectedly, in her quarters. How fast the captain's face had changed, from its private pinched and drawn expression, to outrage at being seen by another crew member, at being seen by Seven of Nine.
At the time, Seven had only read fury in that look, but now she saw that perhaps it was masking something else: a terrible misery and fear like that which she had seen on Naomi's crumpled face or an angry pain like that which B'Elanna had shown her. With this thought, something shifted in Seven's outlook and she stopped noticing her own sense of loss and instead registered a frightening need in the captain, something gnawing away at her and keeping her from herself. The more she thought about it, the more Seven saw that she should try to do something to alleviate that pain, just as the captain had many times done something for her. But what to do? What comfort could she offer that would be acceptable to the captain? Was this a problem that could be solved by Borg ingenuity?
Then Seven looked down at her hands, which had, seemingly of their own accord, picked up the pillow on the prison bunk, and she saw that she was holding it gently like a child to her chest. What's up with Peek-a-Boo? Dry your eyes, Sleepy Rabbit. She stroked the pillow over and over and found it felt strangely comforting, like a calming voice heard in her sleep emanating from her distant past, something returning to her from across a vast expanse of time.
The security guard looked up from his post at the console and got quite a shock when he saw the cold and unemotional Borg drone slowly comforting her prison pillow as she clutched it tightly to her chest. Later he watched as she slowly toppled over onto the bunk, and realised she had fallen asleep. He thought it over for a moment, then lifted the force field and went in to cover Seven of Nine gently with a blanket.