Demons

A/N: This is set in the aftermath of "Unimatrix Zero" and deals with additional aftereffects of Janeway's assimilation. This can be read as a standalone or as an addition to "Consolation".

This is for Singing Violin, who suggested that perhaps there was something about the Borg existence that Janeway missed and allowed me to run with the idea. I hope I did it justice.

Thanks to my fantastic beta, Uroboros75 for the beta work.

Music: Under the Wing – Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica Season 3 OST)

Disclaimer: Let's see here, do I own anything *checks list*. Nope, nope, glad Paramount owns that one, nope not even the Doctor's holographic goldfish. Looks like I still don't own anything except a precocious imagination.

She finds herself beneath a most peculiar oak tree, blinking away the intruding sunlight that's sneaked its way through the tangle of branches into her eyes. Kathryn Janeway holds a hand, palm up, into the path of the encroaching sunlight as she studies the tree. It stands tall, the highest branches well beyond her reach.

She gives it a curious look, for this same tree was struck by a ferocious bolt of lightning when she was only ten years old. It had been charred and blackened, the trunk shredded into chips.

She looks around, only to be met with the echoes of a life she knew once and has longed to see again. She's home, in the Indiana she grew up in. In the distance she sees a house, one that she remembers with equal fondness. The sky is a clear blue, dotted with a few wispy clouds over the plains that stretch over the landscape.

Am I really back on Earth?

The skeptic in her is quick to assess the various sources of trickery that could pull off such a ruse. It's disconcerting, and she doesn't like it. If she's home, then where is her family? Her mother and sister?

Hollowness eats into her gut, ripe with a dread that she's come to hate over the past six years. It's the kind of dread that fear always keeps good company to and even the strongest cup of black coffee fails to subdue. The blue in the sky shifts to pale charcoal and then to consuming black, swallowing the serenity in obsidian darkness.

Kathryn reaches for her waist, fingers itching for a phaser, but finds none. The plains ripple like oil as their rich golds and emeralds fall into shadow. The air turns sickly humid, her skin recoiling from the heat as it nibbles at her flesh. Her heart drums against her ribs, hair sticks to the hot skin of her face as she looks for some explanation.

That's when she hears the metallic clink behind her.

She turns sharply, defensively, and the shock of what she sees steals any other words that she could say.

The oak tree is no more, transformed into a chimera of metal and machinery that reflects sickly greens and blacks onto the ground around it. Skinny columns at the edges appear to bend in the pale light as Kathryn recoils.

Within the confines of this new pedestal stands the Borg Queen with a smug expression on her face, mocking Kathryn's own shock.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Janeway hisses, her teeth locked together. "Where is my family?"

A smile slithers across the Queen's face as she stretches out her arms, and when Kathryn follows her hand she sees where the house once was, now wreathed in permanent darkness.

Kathryn feels her knees wobble with instability, a sensation that rapidly spreads through her body as she thinks of the faces consumed by that dark and ominous cloud.

"No," she says, hands coiling into fists.

"They are all with the Collective now, Janeway," the Queen says as she steps down from her throne. "Gretchen, Phoebe, Mark..." She pauses only inches from Janeway. "And even… Chakotay."

This isn't real, Kathryn thinks as nausea wells inside her. The Borg are nowhere near Earth, and Chakotay is sitting on Voyager's bridge. A drop of sweat trembles along her cheekbone, shy as a forbidden tear. Pain clenches at her lungs, her ribs.

Phoebe and my mother are back on Earth, along with Mark.

The humid air fills her senses, clouding her perception.

This is not my reality.

Her knees give out beneath her. The first thing she notices is that the ground is moist, rippling with a wet, slick substance that she cannot place.

"Your family is with us, now," the Queen says as she reaches a hand out to Kathryn, who notices that it is covered with a fluid black substance that drips off her fingertips.

Nanoprobes, Kathryn thinks as a cold shiver screams through her system. Her entire body goes cold when she thinks of the obsidian liquid pooling beneath her bare hands, and when she looks down she no longer sees her hands, only a hungry force climbing over her limbs.

"Kathryn," the Borg Queen repeats, but instead of speech it comes out more like singing. "Kathryn," the Queen echoes, but this time her voice is joined by thousands in a collective lullaby that prickles what flesh isn't covered by hungry nanoprobes.

In the chaos that was once her home, Kathryn Janeway screams.

She wakes from her bed with a start, her skin warm with sweat and terror. She looks to her hands in the pale starlight and breathes out when she sees the human flesh before her. She brings her hands up to her face, running them through the disheveled strands that cling to her skin. She climbs out of bed, her muscles tense with anxiety as she strolls for the bathroom.

"Computer, lights," she says, and instantly regrets it as the illumination nearly blinds her. "Computer, reduce to half illumination."

Blinking away the spots in her vision, she goes to the mirror and studies her reflection. In the wake of her assimilation, she'd been left with dark tendrils coiling beneath her skin, but the Doctor told her that he'd managed to remove the majority of the Borg technology that posed any sort of threat to her systems. The cosmetic damage had been easily reversed, and Kathryn knows with great certainty that bald is not a look that she will be experimenting with anytime soon. Checking the reflection of her face in the mirror, she sees that to still be true. She lets out a heavy sigh and reaches a hand to her neck, where the muscles still ache. Her back isn't much better thanks to those damn spinal clamps, and the dull pain continues to bother her despite the analgesic that the Doctor gave her.

She brings a hand up to her face and brushes a few rogue strands aside, letting out a heavy sigh in the process. The Doctor had told her to take it easy for a few days once she was released from Sickbay, but like always, she ignored his advice. She worked a fifteen hour shift through which Chakotay had been keeping a close eye on her, and it been just shy of the sixteenth hour when Chakotay had suggested that she get some rest.

"I'm fine," she told him swiftly, hoping to end any further discussion of her leaving the bridge.

"The Doctor did tell you to go easy for the next few days," he'd said gently over their command console, catching her attention.

"He got to you too?" she'd asked incredulously, knowing that there was no way out now. "What else did the good Doctor tell you?"

Chakotay had smiled, revealing his dimples in the bright light of the bridge. "Just to keep an eye on the good Captain," he'd answered.

She'd smiled back, touched by the care of her crew (even if it did come from the chiding advice of the Chief Medical Officer). "Well, then I guess there's no getting around that, is there?"

"Not likely," he'd answered, tapping a few keys on the console. "Unless you want the Doctor coming up here and making a show while he relieves you of duty."

"You wouldn't," she'd retorted.

He'd given her a mocking look in response. "Now what makes you think I would do something like that?"

She'd pouted in response, stifling a laugh that got out anyways. "All right, all right," she'd admitted with a slight shake of her head. "I guess the bridge is yours, then."

She'd left and taken the turbolift to her quarters, but her journey had not gone without interruption. In the corridor after she'd stepped off the lift she'd past by Ayala and Vorik, nodding at both before turning a corner, where a curious sensation brushed against her senses. It was light at first, as inconspicuous as a feather, but it grew stronger. It was a hum, innocuous at first, but rising in volume. She'd moved quickly towards her quarters, but by then she knew what the distinct hum was.

It was the voice of the Borg Collective.

She'd shut the doors to her quarters and leaned against the wall, her skin hot and breathing rapid as she tried to gather herself. She didn't understand it; she'd never been connected to the Hive Mind.

At least... not for any prolonged period of time.

It had only been a moment – perhaps even a fraction of a second – when she was on the Cube. Inundated with Borg technology, she had remained focused on the mission, but there had been a moment just before Tuvok and Torres found her that she'd heard it, the voice of the Collective.

Kathryn… it hissed, the syllables drawn out as if slipping over a snake's tongue.

Kathryn Janeway… it called to her again.

Then it was gone, but the fear of the neural suppressant wearing off remained with her for the duration of the mission, because she knew that if the Borg were to gain access to her mind and the secrets there within, there would be immeasurable consequences for both Voyager and the Federation.

She never told anyone. It was, after all, nothing but a brief hallucination in her eyes. The adrenaline and fear combined with the foreign Borg tech shoved into her body certainly did her no favors.

Now it was something completely different. When she heard the voices again last night, it was not their initial presence that disturbed her, but what it brought with it. Accompanying that miasma of voices was a sensation of constant company, a warm cloak of comfort that never departed. It was a sensation alive with a buzz akin to a beehive. To the Borg, loneliness did not exist.

As a captain, she's accepted isolation as her primary counterpart, with relationships ruled out due to her rank and position (along with a smattering of other things she cares to avoid). But within that buzzing, grumbling anarchy of voices, there is something that Janeway discovered is an absolute certainty.

Companionship.

She also remembers the stark coldness that filled her after the hum of the Collective dissipated, how it pervaded her body and left her feeling inferior and afraid. It's a twisted perception of things, but she knows that there is some truth to it; there must be.

She thinks back for a moment to Ayala and Vorik in the corridor the previous day, wondering if they were going somewhere on ship's business or their own. On a Borg vessel, everything was dictated by efficiency, routes determined to take the least time possible.

She wonders for a moment if such efficiency could be put to use on Voyager, if it could save the lives of the people she's promised to protect.

What if things had been more efficient from the start? She wonders, eyes dancing over the freckles that now pepper her complexion. Would those people still be alive?

She exits the bathroom into her main living area, letting her eyes wander over the stars that are scattered beyond her window.

"Computer, what is the time?" she inquires.

"0420 hours," it responds curtly.

So much for rest, she thinks as she heads for the replicator. "Coffee, black," she says swiftly as the beverage materializes before her. She has about an hour before her shift begins, and she'd rather not venture onto the bridge with these demons lurking over her shoulders. The echoes of her nightmare still rumble in the dark corners of her quarters, using shadows to cover their unsightly deeds, the same shadows that she spies between the stars outside her window.

She takes a sip of the coffee, letting its warmth fill her body. "Janeway to bridge," she says into the air, wanting to dissolve a suspicion that's been crawling through her mind since she woke so abruptly.

"Chakotay here."

She tries to keep her voice steady, because any sort of trepidation will only result in inquiries and headaches. "Are there any signs of Borg activity nearby?"

"No," Chakotay replies, a knowing curiosity in his voice. "Why do you ask?"

"Just want to be sure that we don't have any unwanted followers," she replies quickly."That'll be all, Commander, thank you. Janeway out."

She made her reply brief to limit the opportunity to satisfy any curiosity. The other officers may not question it, but she knows better than to count out Chakotay.

I'm sorry, Chakotay, she thinks to the distant stars, but I need time right now. Just give me time.

Her eyes move from the stars to her cup of coffee, but when she looks into the cup, all she sees is a dark mirror of the vista just beyond her window. She imagines that this is what the galaxy would look like if the Borg were given free reign of every quadrant. The skies would grow dark, the light of even the nearest stars blotted out by the mass of Borg technology developing in their path.

Planets fall into shadow in nearby systems, their surfaces mottled with black lakes of nanoprobes and across the surface run pale green rivers that poison all that draw near.

She swallows as her hand begins shaking against the coffee cup, her imagination turning the sky black as if touched by the hands of the Borg. She sets the cup down harshly on the window ledge and crosses her arms, pushing her hands against her skin to stop the shaking.

This is not going to end like this, she decided. My own memories be damned, the Borg will not weasel their way into power if I have anything to say about it.

She lets out a sigh, the shaking in her hands mostly subsided, and heads back to her bathroom to shower. Neelix was usually in the mess hall by 0500 on busy days for extra preparation, and Kathryn knows that if she's early she'll be able to have a quick meal before heading to the bridge. Although, she hopes that whatever Neelix has prepared doesn't wriggle on her plate or is pink in all the wrong places this time.

After showering, she plucks a uniform out of her closet and dresses, smoothing the material over her shoulders. She pauses when she notices the darker hue of the red of her uniform in the starlight, crinkled with shadows that turn the crimson a hue that she's less than fond of. She brushes it aside and gets the rest of her act together, leaving her quarters briskly at 0455.

She enters the turbolift, and her thoughts drift back to the dark corners of her mind that she tries to leave untouched. She's reminded of the faces that have already fallen into darkness, the irretrievable, the deceased; she still wonders if efficiency could have saved them. Efficiency in medical routines, engineering procedures; could it all be fashioned in such a manner that the lives of crew would not be at such high risk?

She brushes the thought away instantly; they were lost in the Delta Quadrant, there were risks at every turn. Risk is basically written into the Starfleet manual. Yet she wonders if there was a way to manipulate risk into something less life-threatening than the beast it presently is. She knows that everything had its place on the Borg ship, everything had its purpose, but drones still died.

She realizes with a small degree of defeat that perhaps… things are best as they are.

The turbolift whisks her through the ship, silently flying through Voyager as if a ghost. Her ship continues its stately journey home with stars dotted across the sky, and their light tumbling over Voyager's hull.

Beyond the stars, and even the darkness itself, a voice whispers.

...Kathryn…

Fin