"Are you sure?" Harry asked Chakotay in tense wonder, staring at the two mangled, unrecognisable drones.
Chakotay, kneeling on the floor with Seven's lolling head in his lap, turned sharply to face him. "Don't you think Seven would know?"
Harry looked over guiltily at Seven's unconscious body. "Yes…of course she would, but what are the odds of that?"
"I've no idea." He said quietly; distracted as he felt Seven move, her eyes blinking blearily up at him in confusion. Not caring that Harry was with them he stroked her face tenderly. "You fainted my love, lie still…"
Seven's vision was unreliable, blurry and refusing to fully focus but she could make out Chakotay's distinctive dark eyes gazing down at her anxiously, a very wobbly smile crossing his features as he saw her awaken. His voice travelled over her, suddenly unnaturally loud yet distant and what he said didn't make sense, why had she fainted and where was she? He spoke again; she frowned at the effort for her brain to decipher his words and then wished she hadn't. "It's okay…I'll deal with this…" Deal with what? Suddenly her denial evaporated as soon as it had formed and nausea combined with hysterical panic overwhelmed her.
Chakotay saw her face go from pale to ashen grey as she remembered where she was, her hands clawing at his uniform, her breath coming in gasps of hyperventilation, her voice utterly gone. Chakotay made a snap decision and tapped his comm. badge so hard it hurt his chest. "Captain, you and the Doctor need to beam over here now."
"What's wrong?" asked the Captain, bemused concern evident in her tone, "The Doctor said everything was as we expected."
Harry opened his mouth to interject but Chakotay held his hand up to stop him, there was no need to exacerbate Seven's agony by broadcasting it all through Voyager. "Well it's not anymore, just trust me and get over here." He said through gritted teeth.
There was a short pause at her end before she replied, "We'll be there imminently." Within a minute, though it seemed more like an hour to both Chakotay and Harry, the Captain and the Doctor appeared in the familiar static field of the transporter, the Captain beginning to speak before she truly taken in the scene before her. "Chakotay, what…" Her eyes finally absorbed Seven lying limply on the floor and began to come forward. "Seven! What happened to her?"
When he saw that Chakotay couldn't or wouldn't immediately answer Harry replied shakily, "Seven's…her parents are here Captain…"
The Captain stopped dead in her tracks, head spinning round impossibly quickly, saw that Harry was serious and looked back to Chakotay. "The Hansens?" She whispered in awestruck disbelief. Chakotay nodded solemnly, no words could describe what he knew they were both feeling.
The Doctor took this as his cue and ran forward to attend to Seven. Peering into her stricken face with more sympathy than he'd ever felt for her, he pulled out a syringe and injected a drug into her neck. "I've sedated her." He said softly to no one in particular before turning to Harry. "Beam back to Voyager with her and make sure Lieutenant Paris keeps her unconscious until we return."
Harry glanced at the Captain who nodded distractedly as she cautiously approached the two drones who had caused all this turmoil. "Yes Doctor." He said quickly before calling Voyager for a transport and standing next to Seven as they both disappeared.
Chakotay felt a mixture of relief and separation anxiety as they left, but as he saw the Captain approach the male drone…Seven's father he shuddered at the thought, his voice returned to him. "What are we going to do?"
The Captain stretched out a hand and touched the drone's shoulder before she looked at Chakotay with flashing eyes. "Take them in of course." She said sharply, as if it was obvious.
"Of course?" Chakotay shot back in disbelief, worry for Seven overriding his pity of her parents.
The Captain sighed, "They're just as much innocent victims as Seven is…"
"Are they?" The Doctor snapped hotly. Chakotay swallowed back his reply, the Doctor's animosity for Seven's parents was a well known fact. It was a feeling he could well understand but couldn't afford to indulge in at this moment in time.
The Captain glared at the Doctor coldly. "Doctor, go and attend to the Kamsians."
"Captain, I…" He began to protest.
"You heard me." The Doctor resentfully scooped up his med kit and angrily left for the room holding the Kamsians. As the doors shut behind him, she turned to Chakotay, who rose from where he'd remained kneeling on the floor, and ran a hand through her hair. "Part of me understands how he feels Chakotay, but there can't be any room for resentment, just like when Seven came aboard…"
"How can you compare the situations? Think of Seven…" Chakotay said thickly, struggling against his voice as it grew louder from anger and fear.
"I am thinking of Seven! Yes, it'll be difficult for her at first but she'll benefit from it in the long run…and how do you think she'd feel if we left them here? We can't erase the meeting from her mind and she's had enough guilt…"
"Yes she has." Chakotay said quietly, he was perhaps the only one who truly knew how much. "It's also not fair to subject her to their expectations; she'll never be their little six year old girl…"
"I know, but sometimes cruelty comes hand in hand with kindness and all three of them will need to work through that." The Captain sighed again. "Let's go."
Seven woke with a gasp, finding herself staring up at Sickbay's ceiling. Twisting her head to the side she caught a glimpse of two lifeless Borg drones lying on the biobeds beside her own. She leaned over the edge and gave into her churning stomach until it was all she could do was dry heave. She was barely aware of Lieutenant Paris' and Chakotay's conversation as they attended to her, but eventually she could breathe again and immediately jumped off the biobed and tried to leave but Chakotay grabbed her arm gently but firmly. "Seven…" he started but she couldn't allow him to go any further, twisting away without looking at him.
"I must regenerate." She said shortly, disturbingly robotic to Chakotay's ears but in love and pity he let her go and she fled blindly.
"Annika!" The scream pierced her ears, her soul, but before the familiar dream got any further she mercifully jerked awake only to see the Captain standing in front of her alcove.
Almost subconsciously she swallowed. "Captain?" She tried to ask as naturally as possible but failed miserably.
The Captain looked up at her with sympathetic yet determined eyes. "The Doctor's going to try to wake them for a short time before he puts them in regeneration to recover. I think you need to come and see them."
"Why?" Seven asked, her voice harsh to hide the tearfulness.
"Why? Because they're your parents and they love you and need you." Do they? Do they need a woman who's genetically related to them but is a drone in every other respect? Noting her silence the Captain sighed sadly, "Don't make me make it an order Seven." If it was an order I'd ignore as I have many others, thought Seven in a strange detached anger. "Seven like it or not you're going to have to face them and it's better not to drag it out." The Captain cajoled. True, thought Seven in that same detached manner as she stepped from her alcove and walked to Sickbay.
Chakotay gave her a relieved, supportive smile as she stepped in but it was only a split second reprieve as she saw the two drones, she couldn't refer to them as anything else, lying on the biobeds, their faces now undeniably recognisable despite being fragmented by remaining implants and bandages. Had she once looked so drastic? The Doctor cleared his throat. "I'll wake…Mrs Hansen up first."
Doctor, Dr Hansen, Seven mentally corrected, Mama didn't like that to be forgotten. The childish remembrance frightened her and she fought the urge to bolt, stepping back until her spine hit Chakotay's soothing, restraining hand. She watched in morbid fascination as the stimulant drained into her mother's veins but jolted back in panic as she heard a strangled gasp which rapidly became a cry. "Where…where am I?" The voice was like a memory from a dream and Seven froze. "Magnus! Annika!" The woman screamed, beginning to thrash around violently as the Doctor, Tom and Harry struggled to hold her down. Her head twisted round, "Mag…" Her next scream halted as she saw Seven and she suddenly looked down at the cybernetics riddling her own body and uttered a single blood curdling scream and instantly fell into a dead faint.
Seven gulped convulsively before running from the room but only getting as far as the corridor before half collapsing. The memory of her mother's expression as she looked at her pressed down on her, fear, panic, revulsion, but no recognition, not even a flicker. Part of her was burned with hurt by this knowledge but an overwhelming almost heady relief washed over her. Chakotay touched her arm as both he and the Captain gazed into her face anxiously. "I think it was shock, she doesn't recognise you yet but she's ill…" The Captain explained.
Seven stared at the wall. "It would be counterintuitive for her to recognise me." She rationalised bluntly.
"That's not true, it's just…" Chakotay almost sounded as if he was pleading with her.
"When they wake, tell them their daughter is dead. Let them grieve."
"You don't mean that…" The Captain said desperately.
Seven said nothing more, just turned her back on them and left.
Chakotay sat in almost total darkness, Seven's last words of six hours before churning round and round in his head. He couldn't just leave her thinking like that…
Suddenly the door to his quarters opened and Seven ran in before stopping before him, her breathing laboured and her eyes glazed. He didn't ask her where she'd been, in fact no words were exchanged as he rose and embraced her and she immediately collapsed into violent, uncontrollable sobs.
A/n: Please review!