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?
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?
Chapter 2
When she woke up 2.34 hours later in the Brig, Seven of Nine discovered that she felt strangely refreshed and infused with a new sense of purpose. It was as though as she slept her mind had been mulling over the problem of how to help the captain, and as a result Seven found she had managed to reach a kind of conclusion. She now knew that, without delay, she needed to affect a one-woman-Borg-hybrid rescue mission.
Seven looked around the cell and tried to work out exactly how she was going to escape. She consulted her Borg database, which contained the knowledge of thousands of species. She began to compile and cross-reference information on prison break-outs, and as she mentally scrolled through the data, she evaluated and either discarded or saved each entry depending on its potential for application to her present situation. Approximately 37 minutes later, she knew that she had located the most effective method. And Seven wasted no time in putting it into effect. She fell from the bunk noisily and heavily onto the floor, clutching her head in seeming agony. She had just discovered that, without a doubt throughout the Delta quadrant, dissemblance was the most effective route to staging a prison escape.
When the security detail came to escort her to Sick Bay (Lt. Commander Tuvok had sent four of them – double the usual number, Seven noted with a small jolt of pride) it did not take much for the former Borg drone to have them all quickly and efficiently disarmed and rendered helpless in a heap. It was just a matter of a few well-aimed blows delivered on the basis of simple calculations of trajectory paths, factoring in a simple sliding friction coefficient in combination with the vector from collision point to centre of mass. Nothing Seven couldn't handle easily on the run.
Once she found herself the last one standing in the Brig entry room, Seven accessed the console and stealthily accessed the ship's systems, swiftly and efficiently providing a false reading of her biodata in Sickbay, accessing the Doctor's programme and adjusting it so that the Doctor would inform Commander Tuvok that Seven was being kept under observation by him in Sickbay, and the security detail now appeared to have gone on to take part in a training programme on one of the holodecks. Seven then set up a few power couplings to fail in engineering, nothing too catastrophic – just enough to keep everyone's attention focused on solving the problem before the toilets over-flowed. Satisfied that she now had at least a couple of hours before her deception was discovered, Seven removed the cover from the nearest Jeffries tube and set off on the long crawl to her next important destination.
As Seven arrived at the ventilation vent set in the wall of the bathroom of the captain's quarters, Seven suddenly suffered from an uncharacteristic moment of doubt. Usually once she committed to a course of action, she no longer bothered herself with further evaluation of its efficiency; she was always confident that she had been able to calculate the optimum action to take.
But now she hesitated. Seven knew that the captain had come into Seven's own cargo bay at night uninvited whilst she was regenerating, just to be there for her if Seven needed help. And now Seven believed she ought to do the same for the captain. However, Seven also found herself contemplating a repeat of the earlier scene that day in Captain Janeway's private quarters, when she had ignored a direct order from Commander Chakotay and had brought to the captain the new course for Voyager herself. She recalled just how angry Captain Janeway had been. Now Seven dreaded to think what might await her as punishment for a repeat performance of her earlier offence of breaking and entering, perhaps with extra assault charges added … maybe, and she shuddered to think of it, she would be summarily 'spaced'; sent out of an airlock to die alone in the terrifying vacuum of space just as the other drones had been when she had first come aboard Voyager. She sighed, as she saw no alternative to her present course of action except to continue. Either she would help the captain or she would be punished. She was willing to take the risk.
She eased herself down from the ventilation shaft in the ceiling and stared around at the captain's inner sanctum; at the large mirror, at the shelves and jars and bottles and brushes. Seven had never been in a woman's private bathroom on Voyager before. It suddenly seemed terribly intrusive to be there uninvited amongst the captain's most personal items. A small, intricately-carved bottle on a shelf caught Seven's eye. It was the exact colour of the captain's eyes when she was in a good mood.
Fascinated, Seven reached out to touch the bottle, and then brought it to her nose to smell it. She recognised that inside the bottle was the scent the captain wore, but without the deeper, richer notes provided by the captain's own body. It was these notes which Seven now realised made the smell so alluring to her when on Captain Janeway's own person. Seven caught sight of her own alien reflection looming out of this very human bathroom in the mirror, and she saw how out-of-place she seemed. Then she looked around one last time to add every detail to her eidetic memory before stealing silently out of the room and into Captain Janeway's bedroom.
Now Seven found herself in yet another room she had never set eyes on before, and which gave her a strange, fluttery feeling of nervousness in her belly to look upon. The only light in the room came from the stars gleaming in the darkness beyond the wide window, and in the uncanny pale starlight, Seven could make out the bed, with its crumpled sheets and the lonely figure that lay between them: Captain Janeway herself, strangely shorn to Seven's eyes of all her command regalia, curled up into herself and whimpering from time to time in her sleep. It took Seven's Borg-enhanced hearing, but she distinctly made out her own name on the captain's lips and her heart lurched painfully in her chest.
Seven moved closer to look down at her captain. She spotted something wet on Captain Janeway's cheek – it was, she noted, a tear just like the one she herself had shed earlier while feeling ashamed and confused. The captain was crying in her sleep, and Seven knew her instinct was correct and that the captain needed her help. Seven knew what she had to do – she had to get into the bed beside the captain and rescue her, just as the captain had rescued Seven herself so many times from her own nightmares.
Seven then realised she couldn't climb into the bed whilst wearing her biosuit with built-in shoes and heels, so she reached up and undid the catch of the biosuit at the neck and peeled it down over her body and legs, and stepping out of it naked, left it crumpled on the floor. But although when she stepped away from it, she felt freer and happier than she had done so in a long time, as she took hold of the sheet, she suddenly remembered the often irrational and conflicted attitudes humans displayed towards nakedness. So, she looked around for something to put on herself.
There seemed to be nothing to wear, until she discovered a drawer under the bed. It contained a pile of Janeway's purple vests, one of which Seven struggled into and which, once on, was stretched dangerously tight across her somewhat larger breasts and reached barely down to her navel. She also found a pair of silk trousers that she could just about manage to wriggle into, and the seam of which pinched her oddly at her groin.
Next, Seven slowly and carefully pulled back the sheet from the bed, and slid in beside the sleeping captain. It was the first time she had ever been in a bed as an adult. It felt strange and yet somewhere in her mind, there seemed to be an echo like a distant chime – she could do this, she had done it before. She didn't want to jolt the captain out of her sleep, so she slowly shifted over to her and gently slid her arm across the captain's body so that her hand rested upon the captain's stomach. And then Seven turned towards the captain and pulled her legs up so that the captain's bottom rested lightly against Seven's lap as she curled herself around her. She rested her face lightly against Janeway's shoulder, careful not too press her Borg eye implant too hard into the captain's soft skin. Then Seven didn't quite know what to do next… so she waited.
Suddenly, she felt the captain shift against her, felt her sigh deeply and then, while still asleep, Janeway turned. Instinctively Seven shifted with her, straightening her legs so as not to entangle them with the captain's and wake her up. And, after this readjustment, the captain now had an arm thrown over Seven's side, and her face was pressed up against Seven's chest where Seven felt the warm, damp exhalation from Janeway's lungs fall in long slow puffs against her skin.
She now had access to the captain's back, and she disentangled her arm and slid it across the captain's back so that her palm rested against the material of the captain's nightdress. Then, just as she had practised in the Brig with the pillow, she began to move her hand slowly and firmly against her captain's back, feeling the slight ripple of muscle and bone beneath the soft material. She wanted to whisper something but knew the words she had said to B'Elanna earlier were not right. They represented a memory, but this was now. Instead, she searched the useless Borg database, and then decided to use her own instincts. She thought a while and then Seven leaned in to whisper against the captain's ear, "You are not alone… Kathy. You are not alone."
And as she said the captain's given name, she felt her shift against her and heard her murmur in her sleep, "Seven?" and felt her nuzzle a little more closely against her breast. And, as Seven calmly rubbed the captain's back, she felt the captain fall slowly into a deeper and healthier sleep cycle, and she felt a deep satisfaction in the knowledge that her rescue mission so far might be counted, at least in terms of some of its objectives, as a success. With a heady pleasure, Seven inhaled and enjoyed the warm scent of the captain's skin and hair, and Seven marvelled at how an activity as mundane as regeneration might be so unexpectedly satisfying in its human version.
Later
"Seven of Nine, what the hell are you doing in the captain's bed uninvited?" Captain Janeway barked roughly against the Borg drone's ear.
Startled, Seven's eyes flew open to see the captain staring down at her. Her hair was mussed and rather interesting-looking, but her eyes had that grey and stormy look they got whenever Seven had broken an irrational but terribly important Starfleet rule.
"I came here on a rescue mission," Seven announced simply. "I wanted to help you just as you helped me in the past whenever I was upset and unhappy… However, I wish to report that it has not proved to be very easy to comfort you, Captain. I believe I was the one who had to undertake this mission as there is no one else on this crew with all the necessary credentials needed to carry it out successfully. I had to disarm four security officers and a guard and break out of the brig. I also had to reprogramme the Doctor and to disrupt the ship's power supply."
When she looked at the captain, Seven noted that she had left her mouth open slightly and she was simply staring at her in amazement.
"Furthermore, I also had to practise being comforting using B'Elanna Torres and a prison pillow," Seven continued, adding, "The latter being somewhat more amenable. I also had to get into some of your clothes so as not to disturb you with my nakedness. None of this has proved to be easy...but I managed it. When I arrived here, you were crying and whimpering in your sleep. Since administering my comfort, you have been sleeping like a baby and even dribbling a little onto my chest."
At this point Seven indicated towards a damp patch on the tank top.
"If as a punishment, you wish…" Here Seven trembled a little at the thought, "..wish to 'space' me, I will comply…only…please, I request that you carry out the punishment quickly."
Seven watched as the captain's expression seemed to melt a little in front of her eyes as she tried to understand what her Borg friend had just done and what it all meant. The captain seemed to be getting that rather soft and gentle look that Seven appreciated so much whenever she caught sight of it aimed in her direction. She took the opportunity to close the space that had opened between them and pulled the captain into a warm embrace.
"You are a superior being, Captain Janeway," the former Borg drone told her. "You possess greatness but right now you are conflicted and lacking in harmony. You feel you are alone, but you are not. I have come to find you...and bring you home."
Seven felt the captain's arms come around her torso and envelop her a kind of grateful squeeze. She felt Janeway's head rest against her shoulder, and a strange keening sound and a strange vibration began to come from the captain, and Seven knew she was sobbing against her. But now what should she say?
"It's OK, Captain, I've got you," she murmured over and over again against the captain's hair, rubbing her captain's back in her unhurried and untiring way, until she became aware that the sobbing was slowly subsiding.
And then Janeway pulled away and was a little too embarrassed to look right then directly into Seven's face, so instead she picked up Seven's Borg hand for a closer inspection. She ran her fingers over the sensor-enhanced fingertips and the powerful exterior tendons made of dark Borg webbing, and then she turned the hand over and ran her fingers over the softer, warmer mesh of the palm. And then Janeway lifted that strange and alien hand and placed it against her own cheek as she finally looked directly into Seven's eyes and said, "I am sorry I have been gone. I know you have been worried."
"We all are. Even little Naomi is upset. We don't know what is happening or why you can't be with us or talk to us," Seven told her honestly. "And the worst thing is that we don't know how to help you."
Captain Janeway gave a wry and amused smile, "Well, you don't seem to have done a bad job, Seven."
"Not all the mission objectives have been completed yet," said Seven gravely. "You will tell me what the matter is so that I can ascertain the optimal method to help and support you."
The Captain's eyes slid away. "It's not easy to talk about, Seven. As your captain, you know that I should be guiding you, not confiding in you. I can't talk about these things with you. It doesn't feel right."
"I am Borg," Seven said. "Or I was Borg, and as a Borg drone I carried out innumerable monstrous and unforgivable acts of assimilation. You have never once in all the time I have known you judged me for that. You have only ever tried to understand me, help and support me. I will never judge you, Captain, because you have not taught me to do so. But you must know that you cannot fulfil your role as captain that is so essential to you and to this crew unless you have someone you can confide in, someone you can lean on, who will pick you up and keep you close when you feel you are floating away from the rest of us.
It is clear to me that I am the one most suited for that role aboard this ship. I recognise your symptoms as those of depression, because I have experienced them myself. I know what it is to lose one's way, to have to battle to carry out even the simplest of tasks and all the time to remain acutely aware of how much has been lost. You once trusted your life and the lives of all your crew to me because I told you that I could carry out the necessary task…and now I am telling you that I can take care of you, Captain, if only you will let me."
Captain Janeway stared at Seven, and then her face wobbled slightly, though she refused to let it crumple up like Naomi Wildman's had. She grabbed onto Seven as though she were the only thing that could save her in the huge, cold, inert, impersonal universe, and then, wrapped in the arms of her own rescued Borg drone, Janeway finally spoke of the burden she carried: of her terrible guilt, of the life-sapping loneliness, of her loss of confidence in herself and her decision-making abilities, of her constant tearfulness, of her panic attacks, of her lack of appetite, of her irrational fears and inability to meet the crew. And through it all, Seven listened and did not judge, but took onto her own broad shoulders the burden of care for her captain, and as she did so she felt that earlier sense of unease and disjointedness that had been bothering her for so long lifting itself away.
And that was how Commander Chakotay and Commander Tuvok and a squad of security officers armed to the teeth with phaser rifles and pistols and grenades found the two of them when they finally crow-barred their way past all the infuriating Borg algorithms cast over the doors and burst into the captain's quarters. There were the two women, tightly clasped in each others arms, smiling and solemn and tearful, and for some reason the Borg was wearing a teeny tiny purple tank top.