When it's just Annika

Rated: G

Spoilers: None

Summary: Title says it all! Inspired by the song: Fragile, by Delta Goodrem.

Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek and its characters. Story is all mine! BDC 2010

Seven opened her eyes and felt disoriented. She stumbled off of her regeneration unit and had to hold onto the console in front of her.

"Seven of Nine to Sickbay, medical emergency." she managed to say before collapsing to the floor.

"Can you tell me what's wrong with her?" Janeway asked the Doctor.

"That's just it Captain, there's nothing wrong with her. She's in perfect health. Her cortical node is functioning as it should. I don't understand why she has collapsed." The Doctor explained.

Janeway looked at him with confusion. She turned to look at Seven again. She studied the young woman's face for a moment and thought she saw a hint of discomfort on her face.

"Can you wake her?"

"Sure." He injected her with a hypo spray. Seven's eyes fluttered open, and focused on the Captains face.

"Captain."

"How are you feeling?"

Seven sat up, feeling very uncomfortable with the situation. She took a deep breath, mentally checked the state she was in, but couldn't find anything wrong.

"I feel fine." She swung her legs over the side of the bio-bed and sat up straight. Janeway put a hand on her shoulder and looked her straight in the eye, searching them.

"You collapsed in the cargo bay. What happened?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. I was regenerating."

"Was there a malfunction in your unit?"

"That is what I intend to find out. I'll run a diagnostic immediately." She jumped down and headed for the doors.

"Ah ah, Seven..." The Doctor interrupted her. "I want you to wear this monitor, so I can monitor you at all times." He attached it to her neck and activated it. She nodded and left Sickbay.

As soon as Seven got back to the Cargo Bay, she started running a diagnostic of her regeneration unit. There had been no malfunction; it was working as it should. And still, she was certain there had to be something wrong.

She accessed the unit's console and searched for a problem there, but couldn't detect one. She decided to start a cycle, maybe there was something else. Something...

Voices... all at once...

Thoughts... not hers... or were they?

She couldn't focus. It overwhelmed her and she felt something she had never experienced before.

She felt... afraid.

She struggled to get out of this... dream. How could this be a dream? Regeneration was nothing like sleeping; dreaming was not something that happened during regeneration.

Seven felt confused. Again she ran a diagnostic of the last hour, but with no conclusive result that there was a problem.

She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath.

"Annika..." A voice in the distance. Everything was dark.

"Annika." Closer now.

"Who's there?" she yelled.

Suddenly she was blinded by light. She covered her eyes with her hand and fell down on her knees.

"Annika." A small hand pulled at hers. She carefully opened her eyes and saw a beautiful little girl standing in front of her. She had eyes as blue as the sky and golden hair.

"Identify yourself." she ordered the little girl.

The little girl's smile faded.

"Don't you remember me?"

Seven looked at her and shook her head. The girl placed both of her tiny hands on Seven's cheeks and came a little closer.

"Try harder." The girl whispered.

Seven looked in her eyes, searching for an answer, when it hit her. She was looking at herself.

A bright smile reappeared on the girls face.

"Nice to meet you." she giggled.

Seven felt a little light-headed and had to steady herself. She didn't understand.

The girl took a step back and reached her hand up. Another hand enveloped it. Seven looked up at the grown up standing next to her past self.

A familiar smile greeted her.

"Captain?"

"Don't be afraid." she whispered. "Your life has just begun." She gently places a hand on Seven's shoulder and squeezes it.

Seven was thrown back into reality. The little girl and the Captain were gone. She only felt a tingle on her shoulder where the Captain had touched her.

She felt overcome with emotion and it frightened her. She had never experienced something like that before. Not even when her link to the Hive Mind was severed.

The thought of becoming fully human again, it was daunting. She realized that she couldn't do this by herself, like her younger self had shown her. She needed assistance. She needed Captain Janeway...

It was already late when Seven arrived at Captain Janeway's door. She hesitated for a moment, not sure how to proceed on the matter.

She rang the door chime.

"Come in."

"Captain, is this a bad time?"

"Not at all." Janeway walked over to her and softly touched her shoulder, the same place as the Captain in her dreams had done. A shiver went through her and Janeway sensed it.

"Seven, what's wrong?" she lowered her voice a little. She could see that Seven was feeling very uncomfortable, very unlike her.

"To be completely honest, I don't know." She didn't even sound like herself. Janeway directed her to the sofa and they both sat down. She didn't push; she was just going to listen.

Seven stayed quiet for a moment, looking for the right words, but they didn't seem to come easy.

"If people could see right through my eyes." she started. Her chest tightened. She felt a stinging sensation in her eyes and her vision began to blur. A single tear escaped from the corner of her eye.

Janeway placed her hand over hers and gently caressed it with her thumb. She couldn't believe what she saw. After all these years, the solid walls around Seven began to crumble. This was the first glimpse of the woman inside her.

Seven wiped the tear away, but another soon took its place.

"Don't be afraid of those tears. Don't run from them, don't hide. Tell me what you are feeling." Janeway said as she tried to look in Seven's eyes. With her free hand she covered her face. She brushed her ocular implant with the tips of her fingers.

"This tells me who I was. Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01." She then places her hand over her heart. "But this is trying to tell me who I am and it confuses me."

"I have never know anything else than the Borg, I was 'raised' by them. When my link was severed and all the voices were gone, I felt alone. But I also felt capable of adapting."

"Which you have done well." Janeway assured her. Seven nodded.

"The last couple of days I have experienced feelings I have never felt before. At least not as apparent as now, and it frightens me."

"What feelings?"

"Sometimes I feel like I'm alone. Sometimes I feel like I'm not that strong."

"Do you feel like you have to be strong?" Seven looked up, confused by Janeway's question. She had never thought about that.

A Borg drone didn't have feelings, but she wasn't a drone anymore.

"Seven, what you are experiencing... what you are feeling, is normal. Humans have a lifetime to get to know their feelings, process them and use them to their advantage, put them in perspective. But you have been thrown into this life again, after all these years. You life has just begun." Janeway's words sounded so familiar.

"It makes me feel fragile." Seven looked down at her hands.

"You feel human. Just Annika." Janeway put her finger under Seven's chin and made her look at her again. She smiled warmly and pressed her hand against her cheek.

"Just Annika." Seven repeated. She suddenly felt an urge she couldn't resist. She wrapped her arms around Janeway and gave her a hug. Instinctively Janeway did the same and hugged her back.

"Thank you." Seven whispered.

Kathryn felt overwhelmed by it all and had to fight back her own tears.

"Thank you, for letting me get to know the real Seven. The real Annika."

The End

BDC 2010