Chakotay got up as fast as he could, rushing Fran and his managed to knock her off balance with his frantic momentum, long enough for Tuvok who had also recovered quickly to pull her away from the captain.

"Kathryn? Kathryn!?" Chakotay shouted as he stood over her unconscious body, remembering his comm-badge and he tapped it. "Chakotay to the bridge, beam me and the captain directly to sickbay!" They quickly became engulfed in the transporter beam and disappeared.

While this was happening, Tuvok attempted to subdue Fran with the vulcan nerve pinch, which proved woefully ineffective. Fran was on the floor sitting awkwardly near the bulkhead as she watched Chakotay and Captain Janeway become engulfed in blue lights and disappear in a fading sparkle. She reached out, letting her hand drop as she shook. It was all so strange. Before she arrived in this alternate space-time reality, she had been poised, certain of her role, accepting. Now she was emotional, survivalistic, maybe animalistic and she found she didn't like it and yet...part of her did.

She felt a strong (by human standards anyway) pinch on her left shoulder-neck junction and she turned and looked up to see the dark skinned man who had escorted her here. "I'm very sorry...I...please, let go, that hurts." Tuvok let go and Fran stood, resting a hand on the railing which divided the office space from the couch/rest area. Tuvok intoned "I must return you to the brig, Fran." She nodded, her eyes downcast. She felt shame, so this is what that felt like too. She was still very naive when it came to being around humans.

Still, she thought to herself as her thought brought a small smile to her face….I was born yesterday.

As Tuvok and the Replicator exited through the side exit, the vulcan heard ensign Kim's voice over the comm. "Tuvok, what happened, is the captain all right?" "Yes, ensign Kim, I am escorting Fran back to the brig and she is cooperating. Lieutenant Paris has the bridge, once I report to the Commander in sickbay, I will inform the rest of the crew." He paused as the door to the turbolift opened and Fran walked in. "Do not worry, Tuvok out," said the chief of security with a tap of his comm-badge, closing the connection.

"Easy for you to say…" muttered Harry to himself as he traded looks with his best friend who had swivelled from his post at the conn on his chair. As Tom Paris stood to walk to the captain's chair, he pressed his lips together, sitting down as a young junior officer took up Tom's usual post. They were all worried.

Some time later in sickbay

Chakotay paced at the foot of the main biobed in the surgical bay, his hands fidgeting listlessly.

The Doctor was too busy scanning the captain to make his report on his readings of Fran, hovering over his commanding officer with concern. "Commander Chakotay, will you please stand still, your pacing is distracting me from my diagnosis." Chakotay stopped, crossing his arms. "Sorry Doctor...how is Kathryn?" The Doctor arched an eyebrow slightly in a very Tuvok way. "She's unconscious...Fran stopped the blood flow to her brain for several seconds. I've had to induce a coma to protect her higher brain functions...again."

The commander rested his hands on the foot of the biobed on the bed's auxiliary controls. "I hope we can handle this mission without her...I think she'd want us to proceed. Even when she's out cold she always wants to do what is right to get this crew home, it's her driving force these last five years."

The Doctor nodded as Seven came in, carrying the same PADD that Tuvok had had earlier. She came to stand by Chakotay, handing it to him. "Tuvok said he would be best served standing guard and manning the brig. He requested I retrieve the report on the Replicator." She looked at the Doctor and at Captain Janeway, her lips turned down in a frown, briefly.

"Seven, will you assist me please," said the Doctor as he proceeded to attach a cortical monitor to Janeway's right temple. She nodded curtly as she went to get the appropriate equipment in the workspace beyond the hologram's office. Chakotay stood, reading the report on Fran, becoming more and more concerned. According to them, they hypothesized that Fran's nanites could bypass the bonds of conventional matter, allowing her to pass through it, although from what they saw she couldn't move through force fields.

They also reported that she had superior strength, beyond even Seven's Borg augmented strength or that of the other vulcan or Lieutenant Torres. Her passing through his quarters' locked door must explain the metallic reading. As Seven and the Doctor worked to save the captain, Chakotay set the report down, a new look of determination in his brown eyes.

"Doctor, stay here and keep a close eye on Kathryn. Seven, when you're done go to Astrometrics and begin to reconfigure the sensors for detailed internal scans. They should be able to track and scan Fran much better than our ship's sensors can." The Borg nodded as the commander left, having told them he was going to the brig to get some answers from the Replicator.

"Did you hear Chakotay...you know that's twice now that I've heard him call Captain Janeway Kathryn…" The Doctor said, activating his delta-wave inducer, the same machine he had used before during the ordeal between the Borg and Species 8472,

Seven nodded as she checked the sickbay's main console. "He expresses a familiarity with the captain no one else has, I have observed since coming aboard Voyager. I believe you recently told me this may indicate romantic interest." The hologram smiled at his pupil. "Yes, Seven. It's obvious that they have an easy connection, much like you and I. You see, I feel as though we've...grown closer." "Closer?" "We've become more than colleagues...we're….friends!"

Seven nodded as her voice took on happier tone. "Friends, agreed!" The Doctor smiled again, nodding as she bid him farewell and left to undertake the task which she had been assigned.

The Doctor completed his calibrations, a frown returning to his face. He knew Captain Janeway would be okay, she was a strong willed woman and a good friend. He was no counsellor, but he was programmed with more than a few psychological subroutines. He knew how close this crew had become, and he himself had felt what it was like to care deeply. To love. As he induced the coma on the captain, he looked up at the door where Seven had just exited. He imagined it was her here now, injured. He couldn't accept that. He was her mentor, as she herself had said yesterday during their celebration in engineering….

Yesterday, Sickbay.

Seven laughed as she stumbled against the biobed, swaying a little. "Resistance is no use!"

The Doctor did his best to smile, easing her to sit up on the diagnostic bed in the surgical bay.

"I'm sorry Doctor...if I had known synthehol would do this to me, I wouldn't have had it! It would seem my motor skills and inhibitions are...offline *ha ha ha ha ha!*" Seven burst into laughter, jovally slapping the Doctor's shoulder.

He nodded and chuckled along with her. "Yes, Seven, now hold on, I'm going to give you this injection to counteract the effects…" As he moved to press the hypospray to her neck, she grabbed his arm in her right hand. "No, please, not yet Doctor...there is s-something I want to say to you." She stared into his eyes, leaning closer. "Since I came to Voyager, many of the crew see me as Borg and I know it must not be easy to...see an enemy." The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but she brought her left hand to his lips to silence him with a touch. Seven of Nine looked at her hand, eyeing the silvery metallic covering over her fingers.

"Once...B'Lanna Torres asked me if I felt anything for all the lives I helped to destroy and the truth is...I do...part of me...the little girl, trapped in the body forced to grow up before I should have. I remember every life I assimilated. I watched them cry out for their families. They looked horrified as I...as I…." Seven wiped at her eyes with her right hand. "Oh...Seven…" the Doctor said softly, setting down his hypospray and he wrapped his arms around her, trying to be a comfort.

She held him, tearing up more. He felt to warm, so real, so human. He was one of the first individuals, apart from the Captain, Tuvok and Chakotay to treat her not as an ex-borg, but as a person, as a human being. "Thank you, Doctor…" she whispered, feeling a great gratitude and fondness for him. As they slowly pulled away, she turned her head and pressed her lips to his...

The Doctor smiled, his fingers pressing to his lips as he remembered that. Not long after that, he had eased her back onto the biobed, pressing the hypospray to her neck and rendering her unconscious so his treatment could run its course. It was some hours after that she had awoken and remembered very little of her experience. To his credit, the Doctor had hidden his disappointment behind his honest relief that she had come out of it none the worse for wear.

Seven, meanwhile, had entered the Astrometrics Lab and had begun her recalibrations to switch the ships sensors. She worked swiftly to reconfigure the external advanced sensor array to work via the internal network. As she worked, her own memories of the night before were clear to her, fuzzy perhaps, but she did possess a recollection second-to-none for a human, further enhanced by her borg implants.

She brought her right hand to her lips, a blush coloring her cheeks as she smiled….

The Brig

Chakotay stood beyond the force field, his hands clasped behind his back as he watched Fran, having sent Tuvok to take command on the bridge and get Harry to finalize his preparations. It would have to be Harry and Tom manning the Delta Flyer today when the slipstream flight took place in 9 hours. It was late in the night already and he needed sleep, he would need to be clear headed in the morning, especially since by now the crew would have been informed.

"Say something...please…?" Fran asked, sitting on the bench, her hands folded on her lap.

Chakotay sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "You probably don't need to sleep...but listen, I know in some twisted way, you like me. We only just met and no one develops feelings this fast."

Fran nodded, her reply careful as she tried to hide her remorse in her voice. "I can work very quickly though, I can think and move and feel faster. You know, my kind...the Replicators...some of them had believed that they could move beyond our machine existence. That's another story though, but my point is, we can change, they wanted to...some of them. I want to. I'm so very sorry for what I did, please. Chakotay?"

The commander neared the force field. "Just because you can change and adapt quickly, doesn't mean we can move that fast. I'm sorry, but if you want to earn our trust, it's going to have to be in the morning. You have a lot of things we can learn, and if you want us to trust you, you're going to have to wait."

With that, Chakotay turned and left. Fran remained silent, a slight trembling of her hands the only indication she was troubled. Damn it, she thought. Why was she like this? So emotional, so human feeling? It was very strange, her Replicator abilities were all activated when she arrived her, yet she still felt human sensations and emotions. She stood, her form rippled and became silvery and as she reappeared, she was shorter, smiling as she stood there, as Kathryn Janeway. "Trust you say, Commander. Dear Chakotay...your trust is about to change faces."