A/n: Thank you to my beta NikkiB1973 for her feedback on this chapter that helped me form a full plan for this new story. I do not own Star Trek: Voyager.

Chakotay had to break into a full jog to catch up with Seven, an exercise that left him thinking that he needed to improve his fitness as well as wondering whether the effort was worth it. She was moving even faster than usual, beyond the demands of efficiency, as if she were trying to escape. Maybe she was. It was that sobering thought that pushed him forward, made him dismiss the doubting voice in his head proclaiming that all this effort had a foregone conclusion. After all, if Seven didn't confound expectations once and awhile, she'd be dead or re-assimilated by now. He forced himself to keep his tone light, he may not be a trained counsellor, but he knew enough to tread carefully. "Where's the fire?"

"Fire?" Seven's eyes flicked briefly to his face, her voice tight with concern and bemusement. Chakotay had to bite his lip, of course that had fallen flat. He noticed that, excepting that briefest of glances, she kept her eyes trained away from his face. She had a PADD in her hand, but he could tell she wasn't reading it. Not ignoring him then, avoiding him. Why?

He smiled at her encouragingly, hoping to draw her out. "You seem to be in a hurry." Not quite explaining what he'd just said, being patronising wouldn't help, just rephrasing.

Seven took a shaky breath in, "I have to finish my report on the subspace warheads."

Ah, the subspace warheads. The topic that had had Kathryn bouncing off the walls when he'd left her in her Ready Room, caught between being relieved and proud that Seven had saved them from the last mine, and the perplexed frustration over her protégé's earlier behaviour that was so inexplicable in her mind. Kathryn never liked a cipher, liked everything and everyone around her understandable and relatable, she didn't know when to let things lie as they fell. But wasn't he stirring things now? After piling his Captain with those dense, gushing volumes of poetry she so loved and cup after cup of coffee, all that to get her to disengage for a little while, he was trying to get Seven, the other side of the equation, to do the opposite and reengage with the crew, those who would be her friends if she consistently let them. Inconstancy, to accuse Seven of that would be as laughable as it was partially true right now. "The ship's out of danger thanks to you." He reminded her gently, studying her stubbornly tense features, "You've earned a break." He took a deep breath as he saw her flinch, it was tiny, if he hadn't been waiting for it he wouldn't have caught it. "Why don't you join me in the Mess Hall? Neelix is going to give a cooking lesson." His lips turned upward, but Seven's gaze was so downcast he doubted she noticed, "Talaxian tenderloin in ten minutes."

"I am no longer interested in cooking." Seven informed him mutedly.

Now that wasn't true. Less than two months ago she'd been lapping up culinary texts and serving up meals for the senior officers in the Mess Hall. It had been so good that Neelix had been too charmed to be threatened by her. Her voice hadn't had that icily defensive note it generally had when she dismissed some pursuit that had been forced on her. Instead she sounded…sad. That was the only description he could definitely put to her in that moment, and not for the first time in recent months. "Then come for the company." He pressed, "B'Elanna's going to be there. Tuvok even promised to show up." There, if she wasn't comfortable with him, she could at least relax discussing engineering with B'Elanna, or some finer point of logic with Tuvok. "It'll be fun."

Seven's vivid eyes shifted around the corridor like rolling blue marbles, searching helplessly for an escape route. Finally, she slowed her stride and turned to him. "I appreciate your offer." She murmured, swallowing hard as she kept her eyes on the lower part of his face, not quite able to meet his eye. "Another time perhaps."

Something, once again about her tone, maybe the real, sorrowful but firm regret in her voice, made him certain that there wouldn't be another time. What was she playing at? Other people might've just seen this a one of her usual unconcerned dismissals, but he could see that a least a part of her wanted to be included. Why was she letting the Borg side of her win again? If Voyager really was her Collective now, why was she isolating herself? They couldn't replace Unimatrix Zero, or her family for that matter, and maybe it didn't feel good enough but it could be a start. Frustration started to get the better of him and he felt his eyes narrow, "You know, you should try socialising with the crew a little more." He advised her, his eyebrow arching slightly in an unconscious mimicry of her trademark expression when she pointed out the obvious. "It might do you some good."

It did do me some good, but that good wasn't real. It almost killed me. Seven silently answered, staring at him. In the split second before he turned away from her, frustrated pity mingling with saddened disdain in his handsome face, her brain transferred Axum's face onto his. That pained, irritated glance of disappointment he'd shoot her when she acted like the drone he didn't want to know. The lump in her throat began to choke her, her human eye burned. The tightness in her chest began to spread as the corridor seemed to warp in front of her. She was going to die like this. Without fulfilling expectations. If she pushed on with her humanity, not only would it…endanger her, it would destroy the only purpose she could serve fully, protecting the crew with every fragment of Borg knowledge she still had. Her breath began to roar through her ears, almost drowning out the incessant ticking of the metronome that also boomed just like the warheads. This wasn't right… Her lungs were straining, grasping up her strangled chest for air. Even…even if she preserved with socialising, the limit was there. What was left of her humanity would wither up and die. She was a disconnected drone, not a human, couldn't be a human. A futile experiment. Abandoned.

Chakotay would never be certain what made him turn to look back at Seven, but he did. At first he saw a single shudder pass over her strong, straight back, but seeing that was enough to stop him in his tracks. Then he saw her fine shoulder blades arch, as if trying to contain her frame, which in one blink of his eye, had begun to shake violently. Agonised, rasping sounds that he first thought were sobs and then realised were frantic, shallow and unrelenting gasps for air. He sprinted back to Seven's side, the blood draining away from his own face as he saw the single tear that had trickled down Seven's cheek. "Seven? What's wrong?" he demanded fearfully, sickness rising in his throat as watched her start to sway. He unthinkingly grabbed her shoulders. "Seven?!"

Seven lurched wildly, almost falling back, a breathless cry of terror ripped from her convulsing chest. The man before her was a drone! Dragging her out from under the console… She squeezed her eyes shut as those hands grasped at her. When she opened them again, the green tinged clarity of her enhanced eye revealed Commander Chakotay's frightened face in front of her instead. What…What was going on? The failsafe shrieked a warning, drowning out all else. "Let me go!" she cried out frantically. She felt her legs move, they were paradoxically as heavy as lead yet weak and wobbly. She dropped the PADD as she stumbled, pins and needles in her hands and feet spreading up her arms and legs, even infecting her jaw and lips as she tried to speak. The edges of her human vision were going black, the centre filled with dancing spots of distorted colour as Chakotay caught her and held her up. "Please…please just…let me go…"

"I can't do that." Chakotay told her hoarsely, to hear such wrenching pleading for her, in the state she was in, was heart-breaking. He crouched down to gather up the PADD. Seven almost collapsed against his shoulder, but her body, frozen erect by panic, somehow stayed upright. "Please Seven, I can't do that, I won't." He gripped her hands in his but like the rest of her body, they continued to shake uncontrollably. "I'm not going to leave you like this." He squeezed her Borg hand, the metal felt unusually hot as the rest of her skin was coated in a sheen of cold sweat. "Come on, come on now…" He coaxed, a chill of relief filling him as she obey his tugs, almost rough with desperation, towards the nearest door and together they staggered inside.

He'd blindly found the deck's tiny break room. Basically a windowless internal room that led to a staff toilet, there was hardly room for a small couch and a replicator. Thankfully, a new shift had just started and no one had had time to retreat here for a couple of minutes of gossip over a hot drink, it was darkened and empty. He forced himself to turn back to Seven, "Try…Try to take deep breaths Seven." He murmured, but one look at her told him it was hopeless. She'd been hyperventilating before, but now she seemed unable to catch even the smallest breath. Her lips were turning blue, and blood bloomed from the bottom one where her chattering teeth had caught them. He could see she'd probably bitten her tongue too. Her eyes were black, bottomless pools of fear, glazed with tears that had frozen there unshed. Even her Borg self-control couldn't pull her back from this full ledged panic attack, it was probably even intensifying her anxiety as she fought her body's last ditch reactions. Whatever emotional knife-edge she'd been teetering on these past few days, she had fallen from the brink into this. He'd seen it, experienced it, too often to think otherwise.

"Come on…" He repeated, now looping his arm around her waist to lead her in baby steps towards the bathroom. His touch didn't elicit any reaction in her this time, when he'd touched her in the hallway she'd shied and fought blindly. That worried him, she wasn't really aware of him anymore, but it did make her easier to handle.

They shuffled into the bathroom and he let go of her briefly to turn on the tap at the sink. The stupid decorative pebble effect flashed deep blue to indicate he'd set the water to the coldest possible setting. "Hold your hands under this…" When he grasped her wrists he could feel her pulse thrumming against the skin of his palms, too rapid too even try to count. Gently turning her quaking hands palm up, he thrust them under the icy water. As he'd known it would, the shock of the cold made her finally inhale sharply and deeply, though her breathing soon became irregular again as she bowed over the sink, letting him hold her fast under the stream of water. His eyes fixated on her veins in her throat, bulging out through her grey, paper thin skin as her heart and mind refused to slow down. He shook the droplets of water from one hand and used its heel to rub soothing circles into her taut, quivering back. "Cálmate cariña, cálmate." He murmured over and over, "¿Qué pasa?" God, he sounded like his father! Muttering to himself in the colonial Spanish that had been one of the many lingua francas on his homeworld. Well, hadn't he seen his father enact this exact scene repeatedly over the years with his sister? Seized by panic, screaming for their dead mother… He hadn't been so afflicted then, it had hit him years later, after their very home itself had burned… No, he wouldn't think of that now, it wouldn't help who was suffering right now…

He didn't know if Seven had understood or even really heard his words, or if she was attuned to his line of thought, but one of painfully ragged breaths morphed abruptly into a broken sob, then another and another. He gulped thickly as he watched her wide eyes drift closed. "Good, that's good."

Gradually Chakotay's voice pierced the constant gush of the water unnaturally magnified in Seven's ringing ears and an all-encompassing sick exhaustion rolled into to replace the ebbing panic. She yanked her hands out of the sink, but still sagged against it, forced to grip the rim for support. She gagged, but despite the nausea burrowing its way into her gut, she only coughed up a single gob of bile and a little blood from her bitten tongue. It was the metallic taste of that blood that brought her back to herself.

Chakotay sensed the change instantly, felt her back stiffen as the Borg steel in her spine reasserted itself. She was still shaking horribly but had fallen silent, her breathing hard but steady. He dropped his hand from her and stepped back. "Will you be able to walk back to the couch yourself?" he asked quietly.

The cold water Seven had cupped in one of her shaking hands quivered before she splashed it brutally onto her face and nodded wordlessly. Chakotay knew it wouldn't help to hover over her now, and walked backwards into the adjoining room. He spotted the replicator and stood in front of it, careful not to turn back towards the bathroom when he heard Seven a minute or so later tentatively leaving its shelter. Only when he heard the couch creak upon taking her weight did he address the replicator, "Two black coffees with two, no, three sugars."

He could feel Seven's eyes on his back as the two mugs materialised and he gathered them up. "I do not like coffee Commander." She finally told him quietly.

Chakotay smiled at her wanly as he headed over to her. She was still shaking like a leaf, though held one hand over the other in an attempt to hide it. As well as a lingering effect of the panic attack, she probably had low blood pressure…or low blood sugar, he couldn't remember which. Knowing Seven's tendency to renege on regenerating and eating at times of high pressure, it was likely a combination of all three. "Don't tell the Captain but I don't like it much either." He admitted softly, "But it does help at times like this." He knelt beside her and pressed one of the mugs into her hands, holding it steady until he was sure she had a firm grip before starting to nurse his own. "Drink up."

On auto pilot Seven obediently lifted the drink to her lips and took several gulps. It was so strong that the taste itself seemed to burn, and sweet enough to make her teeth ache, but her dizziness faded away as she drank.

Chakotay took a few fortifying gulps himself before risking lifting his eyes to her clouded ones. "Seven…" He began, "Has what happened to you just then…has it happened before?" The thought that the absences the Captain had been disciplining Seven for may well be rooted in recurrent panic attacks, that she might've left her post to curl up in a corner and go through such an ordeal alone and unnoticed, horrified him.

"No!" Seven choked out desperately, then inhaled sharply, reining herself in. "No Commander. I have...never experienced anything like that in my life." She confided thickly but calmly, "A multitude of emotions, irrational, unconnected thoughts, they…overwhelmed me and I could not…" Her voice cracked as she gazed at him, her face full of shame and guilt, "I apologise that you had to witness and contain such a lapse in my self-control…"

"Seven, this wasn't anything to do with self-control." Chakotay told her seriously, taking her Borg hand. He felt her flinch and try to draw back but he held fast. "You had a panic attack, they're uncontrollable by nature…" He sighed, "Believe me, I and anyone on this crew would rather help you through it than have you suffer alone…"

Seven shook her head, "Panic attack?" she echoed, her face closing down even further. "I…I have not experienced anything that merits panic Commander." She told him shakily, evasively. "We have passed through the field of warheads safely…"

Chakotay sighed heavily, squeezing her hands again when her eyes shot warily to his face. "Nothing needs to merit it Seven, that's part of what makes it so scary." He moved from a crouch to sit properly on the floor, staring down at the coffee swirling in his mug. "You can be as cool as a cucumber in the heat of battle, handle everything that's thrown at you, and then when things are calm, when all your worries should be gone, something insignificant pushes you over the edge…"

His voice was so low that Seven wondered if she would've heard him without the help of her auditory implants, his gaze was directed not at her but inward. He was speaking from personal experience, she realised. "Why?" she murmured painfully, forgetting what he'd just confided to her, albeit indirectly, as fearful, self-hating anger began to surge through her. "It is a malfunction, an emotional defect that derails self-regulation…"

"No." Chakotay countered, "I don't think it's a defect in our emotions…more like a failsafe." Seven's eyes went huge with shock once more and she shuddered, any colour that had returned to her face abruptly bleached away by his words. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked in concern, worried he'd started this probing conversation too soon, he should've given her longer to calm down. "Take it easy…" He rubbed his thumb over her metal mottled knuckles soothingly.

Seven snatched her hand back. "Explain!" she snapped sharply, coiling both arms protectively around her quivering sides before gradually regaining control of herself again. She was betraying too much with her own actions. "Explain what you mean by that." She eventually managed to force out.

"I think a person can only bottle up so much, cut themselves off from so much. Sometimes we get so good at turning feelings off your body has to do something…drastic to force you to acknowledge things before you self-destruct." Chakotay murmured thoughtfully.

Seven swallowed. She was certain the Doctor, if he were here, would categorise her decision to leave the emotional failsafe in her cortical node as the ultimate in self-destructive behaviour. But he didn't understand, and neither would Chakotay, that she might destroy the only fully functional, useful part of herself, her Borg rationale, if she removed it. What if, without it, she'd lose all sense of perspective, have nothing but an illusionary personal life interspersed with these…panic attacks? Perhaps her failsafe was the only thing that had held these traumatised, irrational behaviours at bay until now? Still, the thought that Chakotay might think she had such a personality flaw was distressing, unendurable. "And you view me as self-destructive?" she whispered shakily.

Chakotay looked her full in the face, seeing the doubt and fear eclipsing her beauty hurt almost physically. "I think we all have the capacity to be self-destructive." He replied, regarding her gently, "You've led an unbelievably traumatic life in most respects Seven, it would be normal, expected for you to react to that. And this year has been particularly tough, you had the Doctor take over control of your body, for God's sake…" This remark provoked the smile he'd hoped for, but strained, only an acknowledgement of his humour really. He relapsed into seriousness, "There was all that happened with Unimatrix Zero, and just after that, your cortical node failed and you almost died…"

Seven stiffened despite herself at the reference to her cortical node, but hoped she managed to hide it with a sigh. When he connected events so starkly like that, his point was hard to deny. "I will concede that the past few months have been…difficult."

"Right." Chakotay agreed, "So you shouldn't blame yourself if those big things got on top of you, or for that matter, if it was a lot of little things added together that got to you." He winced slightly as he thought of his piece of 'friendly' advice he'd given her in the hallway, had that jibe, and it been a jibe he guiltily realised now, served as the last straw. "We've all noticed that you haven't been acting like yourself the past few days…"

Seven stared at him, unblinking. "And how do you know when I'm truly 'acting like myself?'" she questioned harshly.

Chakotay refused to rise to the bait. "I think I've gotten to know you over the past four years, and I'd like to think I'm your friend by now, but I guess you're right, only you would really know yourself and judge your own actions."

Seven bowed her head as his words, honestly said, hit home. If she were to judge her own actions, and she had, they were inexcusable. Incompatible with what others expected of her and what she demanded of herself. It was the failsafe that had saved her from those actions. How could she be angry with Chakotay for observing her errant behaviour? "I made an error." She admitted thickly, "When I decided to correct it, the situation was more…complex that I had suspected at first and I malfunctioned."

"We all make errors." Chakotay told her firmly, "As for malfunctions…" Something that had been bugging him finally clicked into place, "The emergency transport the Doctor activated, that was for you?"

Seven blanched, "You have been monitoring me?"

"No." Chakotay answered defensively, "That system always flags up to me on the Bridge that's all." His tone softened, "I don't need to know what it was for, but if the Doctor can do anything to help, let him."

"The Doctor has done all he can for me."

The absolute finality in her tone set chills running up and down Chakotay's spine. "Seven, if your implants are causing problems, then…"

"My cybernetic systems are functioning exactly as the Collective designed them to." Seven informed him, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice entirely.

Another shiver ran up Chakotay's spine and he found he couldn't respond immediately. What could he say? The sinister presence of the Collective still stalked Seven, and his platitudes would do little to keep it away. Finally, he just sighed, and risked reaching for her hand again. The silver streaked fingers of her Borg hand curled up into a webbed fist, denying him, but she didn't withdraw when, on a sudden hunch, he touched her human hand. Physical self-consciousness was not something that he would've attributed to Seven, she never hesitated to explain how her implants assisted her in one way or another, but then, how else was she supposed to accept these permanent scars, acknowledge them without admitting weakness? If, in private, she hated her implants, he couldn't blame her. But like she implied, what could she, he or anyone do about it? "I know…" He said softly, "…and I'm sorry about that."

Seven swallowed as she numbly nodded her head. The pity that always riled her couldn't be seen in his soulful gaze, if it was there at all in him it was overwhelmed by genuine, understanding sorrow. Looking at the flesh and blood man before her, whose empathy welled from a real, damaged soul whose darker memories still occasionally lunged into her consciousness, the thought that she'd believed in her holographic facsimile for a nanosecond struck her as ludicrous. Shameful. Still, she was reminded of the conversation about the metronome, the metaphor for her limitations that had been told by her dream of this man. Limitations he'd tried to free her from… She heard the failsafe again, but it had dulled to a toneless whistle. She had subdued that at least, if not her independent human thoughts.

Chakotay gave a start as he felt her give his hand a grateful, lingering squeeze before standing up abruptly. Her posture like that of the soldier she was in so many ways. "Are you okay?" he asked tentatively.

Seven brushed at invisible dirt on her biosuit, taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly. "I have fully recovered now Commander."

Chakotay couldn't help but eye her doubtfully. "You're still shaking…"

Seven glanced down at her traitorous hands, eyelashes fluttering rapidly before she half turned her face to him. He couldn't quite judge if her lips formed a dry smile or a weary grimace in the instant before she said, "It can likely be blamed on the coffee. I metabolise caffeine as quickly as synthehol."

Chakotay rose stiffly to his feet. Standing level with her, his will to persevere began to drain away. He told himself he shouldn't push too hard, that haplessly trying to drag down her defences would do more harm than good. "It was pretty strong." He conceded.

"Perhaps I required it." Seven murmured, "But I am calm now." Her gaze flicked between his face and the floor. Chakotay got the distinct impression she was trying to force herself to meet his gaze steadily, calmly. He didn't call her out on it. "Thank you for your…care and concern Commander."

Chakotay looked directly into her eyes then, and she couldn't look away. "No thanks are necessary Seven."

She nodded again, starting to feel like she was a puppet on a string around him in that respect.

"What will you do now?" Chakotay questioned, "Not work I hope?"

"No." Seven assured him, "I am…tired. I will regenerate."

"That seems like a good idea." Chakotay replied, relieved. He'd never seen regeneration in a positive light before, ever. But then, Seven had him mulling over other things he'd never delved into before now. "I'll take you down there…"

"Are you really so desperate to avoid being…corralled into Neelix's cooking lesson?" Seven cut in, smirking at him weakly.

"I'll admit that I wanted to rely on your expertise." Chakotay admitted with a gentle smile, "But I guess a vegetarian shouldn't be learning how to cook 'tenderloin' of anything, Talaxian recipe or no Talaxian recipe, so I can skip this one."

"But not on my account." Seven replied quietly, "You should merely suggest a vegetarian repertoire. Neelix would be horrified that he did not cater to your needs."

Chakotay laughed weakly, his throat tightening as he looked at her pale face. "Maybe you could help me come up with a list of suggestions…"

"No." Seven said shortly, then caught herself, pressing her lips together. "I have an appropriate file you can study, Seven of Nine Alpha Gamma 47." The breath she had been holding left her all in a rush, "Good night Chakotay."

Chakotay blinked, he didn't think he'd heard ever drop his rank, of course he didn't mind, but… "Seven, just give yourself a few more minutes to…" He began hurriedly, only to realise that she'd already left, the door hissing closed behind her.

A/n: The translation of what Chakotay says in Spanish is, 'Calm down honey, calm down. What's wrong?'

Please review. Do check out the latest chapter of cojack's story 'Legacy' too.