A/n: I'm back! Back from China, back to uni, back to writing. Thank you to my beta NikkiB1973 for the feedback and reassurance.
Chakotay sighed ruefully as he tested the skin around his throbbing right eye socket with tentative fingers; tender swelling, he knew that the purplish tinge was spreading without the aid of a mirror, was already palpable. There was nothing for it but to seek the Doctor's skill with a dermal regenerator, he'd been on the wrong side of a punch often enough to realise that. What the Doctor never seemed to grasp was that he accepted the risk as part of his sport. Despite the fact that Voyager's journey was well into its sixth year, the only aspect which ever varied in these visits was how long his good grace could hold out, the Doctor considered a heavy dose of censure a vital part of the treatment for sports injuries. Tonight his tolerance was wearing thin before he'd even stepped over Sickbay's threshold.
With another pulse of pain from his eye however, he swallowed his pride just enough to force himself inside. He held his head high, refusing to skulk in like a criminal or adopt the penitent stance he knew would've mollified the Doctor. He walked in with the same confidence he projected entering the holographic ring, wearing an identical expression of grim readiness for a fight.
His mask fell away almost as soon as he entered, replaced by shock and sorrow as he took in the scene which, he realised with a throb of guilt almost as sharp as the physical pain from his eye, he should've wholly anticipated. Hadn't Kathryn retreated to her quarters already with a stack of PADDs to distract her brooding mind and a flask of coffee to defend against sleep and its haunting dreams? Hadn't he taken a different route of escape, to the holodeck, and thrown himself into his matches with a little too much ferocity? All because of the story, the life, lingering on in Sickbay, against all odds but with the last chance at victory stolen from aliens refusing to help one of their own.
The baby, ravaged by the implants that had tried to assimilate her, rejected by her race, the Eloi, as desecrated, the shreds of her identity too distorted for compassion, still lay in the incubator her would-be saviour had beamed her into. Seven stood directly over that incubator now, and a remembered image came to Chakotay's mind unbidden. During his trip to the Amazon with his father, so many years ago, Kolopak had made a pause in the journey to visit an old shrine in Manaus, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. His fifteen year old self had been perplexed, hadn't he been dragged down to what he considered a tropical prison cell so he could reconnect with his Native ancestry? His father had just lifted his eyebrow in that irritating way of his when he thought he was stating the obvious, a mannerism Seven of Nine coincidently shared, and asked him, 'Aren't the Catholic Hispanics and Native converts much our ancestors as the few who held onto the old ways?' The image at the shrine, it had been titled 'Our Lady of Sorrow'. Right now, Seven could've been a surreal, 24th Century retelling of that image. She was certainly as still as a painting, though her eyes had skimmed over him as he'd come in, it had been more of an autonomic response to stimuli than any real reaction. Apart from the watchful stance over the baby, and the tragic sense of inevitability, that was where any real, momentary resemblance ended. Where the saint's eyes had been, appropriately, turned up heavenwards, her expression serene in its grief, Seven's gaze was fixed, however vacantly, on the baby, her pale face taut and grim in its stoicism; the face of a human woman with little hope for and no belief in divine intervention.
The Doctor, his eyes as attentive on Seven as his own had been, suddenly bristled as he noticed the intrusion and the reason behind it, generating an agitated huffing sound as he stomped from Seven's side to get a tricorder. "Again Commander?" He didn't bother to disguise his dismayed distaste as he marched up to Chakotay, tricorder aloft. "What's this, the fifth injury in six months? And who knows how many you've had the discernment not to bring to me for treatment…"
Chakotay tried to bite his tongue. He didn't socialise with the Doctor generally, but he knew the hologram well enough to see that he was projecting his frustration outwards rather than inwards, he tended to get petty about little things when something serious was afoot, and there was few things that were more serious to the Doctor than being helpless as someone suffered, especially if that someone was Seven. He had thought Kathryn astute until she'd said in a throwaway comment how good it was for Seven to have a 'father-figure' in the Doctor. There was little doubt that was what she'd seen from Seven's angle, but any man could see that the Doctor saw, or wanted to see, his relationship with Seven very differently. To be fair to the Captain, she, thankfully, hadn't been the one who'd dealt with the fallout of the Doctor's pretty desperate, and cruel, way to engage Seven in dating by means of a bet with Tom Paris; nor had she heard a whisper of Harry's 'misunderstanding' with Seven that he'd had to disentangle for the oblivious young woman to comprehend, her freedom had been very young then. It wasn't now, for better and worse. "It's actually just my fourth injury of the whole year Doctor." He corrected.
The Doctor paused in his pointedly old-fashioned prodding of the swelling. "Well, I must be thinking of one of your protégé's then." He amended with a sigh as he finally scanned the injury with the tricorder, then cast it aside for the dermal regenerator. "Really Commander, you don't realise how much the younger members of the crew emulate you, and that includes your suspect choice of recreation. I would've thought that Seven and Lieutenant Tuvok's experience with Tsunkatse would stem the tide, but no, there's a new budding boxer in my Sickbay every other day…" He stopped himself and glanced at Seven, realising too late that his reference to her forced spell of gladiatorial combat might not go down well, but she gave no sign of having heard. Still, when he spoke again his voice was much lower, "Couldn't you take up…swimming perhaps?"
"I do swim Doctor, and I enjoy it, but I enjoy boxing too." Chakotay told him, firmly but graciously, still smiling slightly at the hologram's earlier backhanded compliment. He himself knew of no more than 15 crewmembers who boxed, a reasonable percentage of a crew who numbered less than 150 to be sure, but one that served as a blow to his illusions of particular influence. "You would too, if you tried it. It's not as if swimming isn't dangerous for someone who's unprepared for it."
The Doctor reddened, "I see your point about the swimming, although the safety system in the holodecks would prevent drowning of course…" He puffed out his chest slightly, "As a hologram, boxing poses no risk for me, but then again neither would cliff-diving. That fact doesn't make me any more likely to recommend it to my patients."
Chakotay was, as always, losing his patience with the Doctor's pompous attitude. "In that case, you don't have the right to discourage it either!" he shot back ill-temperedly.
"I am this ship's sole medical professional…" The Doctor started to retort, outraged.
"The Commander is well aware of your abilities Doctor." Seven's intervention was sharp, and unexpected, enough to silence both men at once and her nod over her shoulder at them showed her relief at this even as the ghost of a smirk managed to pass over her tightly clenched jaw for an instant, "Not everyone can rely on singing as their hobby."
Chakotay chuckled, surprised by how much the action eased the weight in his chest. "Trust me, if I took up singing, you'd be seeing me daily for strained vocal cords…and the rest of the crew for bleeding ears." As he said this, he glanced at Seven gratefully, since the tension in the room had dropped considerably as the Doctor also laughed, and saw her eyes widen in momentary surprise. Had Seven just assumed he could sing? Or was she just unused to seeing gratitude from him? He doubted she'd ever given the singing much thought, even on less fraught days than this one, but then again an old girlfriend had always expressed rampant, tiresome disbelief that he was so tone deaf, said it was at odds with his speaking voice.
"I trust then…" The Doctor began as he finally ran the dermal regenerator with painless efficiency over Chakotay's eye, "…that my personal infamy as Voyager's current maestro is safe?" He said this half-ironically, his smile wan but good-natured, and Chakotay liked him better for it. The EMH's ego had taken a major hit just three months ago at the hands of the Qomar, and for now at least was carefully self-deprecating.
"Definitely." Chakotay assured him with wry confidence. "I'm a listener, not a singer." As if the baby had heard his words, a soft wheeze, thick with fluid, left the baby, her eggshell frail body heaving as she tried to cry. Seven immediately returned to the incubator, and Chakotay found himself following on her heels, caged in by her stricken face and the Doctor's world-weary, helpless eyes. At first he thought the shuddering sigh that echoed through the room came from Seven, but then realised that it had come from his own chest as he watched the Doctor's face fall as he studied the incubator's scans. "There's nothing you can do?" he asked quietly.
The redundancy of the question was made evident by their silence. Seven had moved back from the incubator, further away than where Chakotay now stood within touching distance. All the elasticity in her long, graceful frame had gone, Chakotay suspected that if he broke the spell, dragged her closer, she'd snap like a piece of dry kindling, her emotions too oppressed to well into the release of tears. Still, she jumped as the Doctor cleared his throat. "It's too late. Relying on the medical expertise, and compassion, of her people was her last chance."
A strangled, hollow bark of a laugh that made both of the men around her wince left Seven's throat. "Unfortunately, the Eloi were severely lacking in both areas." Her eyes were smouldering now, set alight by bitter frustration and something Chakotay hoped wasn't hate. "The Captain attempted to…amend their perspective on the situation for many hours and failed."
"Yes, she told me." Chakotay replied mutedly. 'Like drawing blood from a stone' Kathryn had said despondently after several choice words muttered under her breath when the viewscreen had clicked off. The Eloi had refused, in absolute terms, to have anyone who'd been in contact with the Borg in orbit of their planet, let alone on the surface. 'A nameless runt of damned parents', to quote their verbose chancellor, wasn't deemed worthy of making an exception to the rules for. The planets medical experts had listened to the Doctor's questions about how their species reacted to assimilation in scandalised incredulity, as if the treating of ex-drones was akin to condoning cannibalism or devil's worship. Not that the Federation was on the moral high ground there, Seven knew as well as he and everyone else did that her situation, one she now partially shared with these children, was unique in Starfleet history, even when Jean-Luc Picard was included.
"I could…understand if it was me they were refusing…" Seven continued hoarsely, apparently on the same track of thought, "I was an adult drone, part of Unimatrix One, but this infant never has and never is going to assimilate anyone!" Chakotay saw a muscle in her leg spasm as she broke off panting, and knew that she would've violently kicked something to punctuate her impotent cry if she had the capacity to allow herself, he'd experienced the same urge himself before, had even felt jealous of B'Elanna in that she had the freedom to do it.
"This isn't your fault Seven." Chakotay's statement was low and certain, his voice burning with emotion almost as strong as hers.
She looked him straight in the face, eyes dark and fathomless as stormy ocean, challenging him. Then she sighed heavily, "Perhaps not as an individual." She murmured as she moved closer to the incubator, her eyes cast down and again Chakotay followed her gaze. He didn't have the Doctor or Seven's knowledge, though he'd seen more of the Borg than he'd wish on anyone, but even he could see that the baby's implants were malformed. Comparable to tumours rather than scars. He had never thought that cybernetics could rot, but that was what these implants looked like, dully grey, dead, rather than the unrepentant, gleaming silver that marred the bodies of Seven and the older children. Then his eye caught the one exception, a stunted but fresh web of silver leaking out from the girl's carotid artery. Dizziness overwhelmed him unexpectedly as his eyes unwillingly went to Seven's left hand, curled into so tight a fist that the assimilation tubes looked ready to burst through the mutilated knuckles. "Yes." Seven forced out in response to his unspoken question.
"It was my idea." The Doctor jumped in defensively as Seven finally cracked enough to start shuddering in shock and revulsion. "I think she was one of the last to be assimilated and so was infected by the pathogen that was ravaging the adults, when the other children were already safe in their maturation chambers…" He trailed off, did it really matter now? "I convinced Seven, she didn't want to do it…" He assured Chakotay urgently, needlessly, "…that maybe an injection of fully functional nanoprobes might combat the damage, provide functioning implants to support her organs…"
"Then you tried absolutely everything you could." Chakotay finally managed to answer with difficulty. He couldn't help thinking that if the child's death had been as certain as to resort to that, with so slim a chance, had it been worth the evident psychological damage to Seven in the attempt?
"How long Doctor?" Seven asked abruptly, her voice veering oddly close to her normal business-like tone. Only the constriction of her throat in a gulp before the next words referred to the tumult of emotion exploding from her just moments before. "I will need to notify the other children."
The Doctor blanched at her, then started towards the doorway. "I'll come with you to talk to them, of course…"
"No." Seven cut him off in a tone of emotive command that would have put even their Captain to shame. She braced her shoulders, even as her face wavered. "It is my responsibility." She hesitated, waiting for them to argue, then when they didn't, turned on her heel and swiftly left Sickbay.
The Doctor's resolve to respect Seven's words failed him as soon as she left and he lurched forward to rush after her, but he was stopped in his tracks with a gasp as Chakotay's arm shot out in front of him like a barrier. "Commander…" He pleaded, highly agitated.
Chakotay breathed an uneasy sigh. In truth, he was also tempted to go after Seven, but he couldn't think of what he could possibly say to her if he could catch her up, and he refused to undermine her in front of the children, nor disrupt their shared grief. "Leave her be Doctor." He murmured as he let his arm drop, "What could you say to her anyway?"
The Eloi homeworld was in darkness. 75% percent of the planet's surface at a time apparently, due to the planet's unusual alignment and orbit, or so Harry had explained to him when Chakotay had walked into Astrometrics. Though it could well be that Seven's enhanced eyesight allowed her to make out something, since she was standing at the viewport, staring down at the black vista and had been since he'd quietly joined her in Deck Six's otherwise empty Observation Lounge. He took a soundless step forward, undecided as whether to disturb her, but she made the choice for him. Once again he'd underestimated the acuity of her senses, even when lost in her own thoughts. "Commander."
Chakotay didn't bother compensating for her lack of real greeting. He didn't think he'd ever heard 'Hello' or 'Hi' leave her lips and didn't expect to, even the more formal salutations such as 'Good morning' were often spoken with a mildly sarcastic undertone, since if more than one person joined her in Astrometrics there tended to be something amiss in Voyager's journey. "The Computer said you were here."
Seven turned her head away from the viewport just enough to faintly twitch an eyebrow at him. Evidently, but why are you here? That expression said clearly, but she voiced a more defensive statement, "I apologise for my absence, but there should not have been a delay in the daily report. Ensign Kim's assessments are perfectly valid enough to be submitted."
Chakotay's lips curved up but he fought back a full smile, "I'm sure Harry would be pleased to hear you say that."
Seven didn't quite comprehend his humour at first, and guilelessly replied, "I did tell him, when I left him in charge of Astrometrics while the report was still to be filed with you."
Chakotay restrained himself to a small shake of the head, the chuckle that otherwise might've been tempted to the surface by that reply dampened to nothing as the sombre nature of the day reasserted its hold on him. "I'm not here about the report."
Seven slowly exhaled a sigh. Of course she'd realised that, but she'd also realised long ago that simple conversational delaying tactics were generally effective in getting her crewmates to abandon their prying, with the Captain and Lieutenant Commander Tuvok being notable exceptions and now Commander Chakotay. It wasn't as if many people wanted to have in-depth conversations with her anyway. Her eyes refocused on the dim glint of the planet's polar ice cap as she warily considered her reply, "The Captain advised you of the developments with the Eloi?"
She heard Chakotay swallow as he approached her from behind, stopping at an arm's length from her shoulder. "I was there when we completed the…transfer."
"I am…glad they agreed to hold the funeral." Seven said slowly.
Chakotay gave a start of surprise. In all honesty, his undiplomatic first response to the Captain telling him that she'd come to an agreement with the Eloi about the baby's funeral had been to advise her to verbally give them the proverbial finger. It was a bit too late for them to be magnanimous after all. "I suppose…" He reluctantly began, in a more charitable tone than he really felt, "…it's better that she got to go home in some fashion, even if they didn't make much effort to find her family or even her name."
He wanted to take back his words as pain streaked across Seven's face, as raw as a real open wound, and she turned around fully to glance at him sharply, "Better than being abandoned alone in space." She retorted hotly before her voice faded to a whisper, more to herself than to him, "And she has…had a name."
Chakotay regarded her gently, "That's good." He murmured sincerely before sinking tiredly into the nearest couch with a strong, leonine grace she found oddly reassuring. Still, she studied him uncertainly, sensing that he was waiting for something from her. Chakotay held her gaze for a moment before evidently deciding she needed him to be more obvious in what he was offering. "You remember what I said about listening?"
"That you prefer it to singing." Seven answered dryly for lack of anything else to say, and was rewarded with a rueful smile. Hesitating for several moments, she cautiously moved to join him, perching awkwardly on the couch, a manoeuvre that made her stupidly self-conscious of her still mechanical gait and posture compared to his human ease. She shivered, though it was more of a yearning response to his body heat than anything, she'd felt cold all day. Ever since Mezoti had climbed out of her lap and the twins had stopped cuddling into her sides the night before, with Icheb close by. She'd been tentative in accepting the physical contact, it was new to her and them, but it had allowed the younger three the permission to cry a little, for the baby and for First. Selfishly, she wasn't entirely glad when they'd recovered their composure this morning, she was missing the comfort of their closeness, the reassurance they were safe and well. She glanced out the viewport and then down at her clenched fists, hurriedly unclenching the left and laying it palm up as she thought of the ever-present assimilation tubes. "Does it help?" she asked suddenly.
Chakotay smiled at her encouragingly, "Does talking help? I personally believe it does."
"No, does the boxing help?" she clarified, "With eliminating negative feelings?" She gained a strange satisfaction at surprising him so utterly, his dark eyes were blinking at her like an owl, but the feeling was quickly succeeded by embarrassment, "I should clarify that I do not agree with the Doctor's full assessment of the sport, I realise that the athleticism outstrips many sports, but he is very adamant that you expel your frustrations that way."
"And what exactly does he think my frustrations are?" Chakotay queried archly.
Seven shot him an unreadable look before sighing, "I know that when I was forced to participate in Tsunkatse, the…strength and multitude of emotions I was experiencing fuelled my capacity for violence somewhat." She paused, "I was concerned this was a serious flaw in my personality, but Tuvok assured me it was natural to some degree."
Chakotay strained to recover himself, "He's right Seven, and he would know better than most. Still, Tsunkatse was undoubtedly a unique and horrific experience. You might've learned some useful techniques, but that's where the similarity with boxing ends. In my experience, casual boxers can be as mellow as any other hobbyists, though I'd avoid the opera divas." He was pleased when Seven smirked slightly in response to the quip. "What I gain from boxing is mostly fitness…" He paused for a split second as he caught Seven's eyes skimming approvingly over his frame, "…but I'll admit that occasionally…" He looked at her frankly, "…anyone can get carried away, and that's what causes injuries."
"I understand." Seven assured him softly, her face relaxing into empathy of her own as she connected his black eye to the dark atmosphere of the past few days, which had been oppressing her to the very limits of her endurance. Discomfort and self-awareness made her voice shaky as she tried to push those thoughts back, "Mr Neelix advised me, since he is fond of nurturing my culinary skills, that tenderising meat can also be somewhat cathartic."
The corners of Chakotay's crinkled, but his intelligent gaze left her in no doubt that he'd seen through her weak ploy. "Unfortunately, even if I wasn't a vegetarian, my cooking skills would make my singing seem professional."
"In that case, I suggest you persevere with boxing." Seven advised him without missing a beat.
"Maybe you should join me in the ring one day." Chakotay told her impulsively, only half-serious.
Seven's metallic eyebrow rose as reliably as ever. "I have it on good authority that, while I'm a fast learner, I can be a difficult student."
"I'm up for a challenge." Chakotay answered gamely, "And I can be pretty difficult myself."
"That would remain to be seen." Seven murmured and before Chakotay could process the many ways that remark could be taken, she'd stood abruptly to her feet in one supple movement.
Chakotay started to reach out to take her arm, but thought better of it. Instead, he said, in a voice low with meaning, "When you feel…better." He hunched his shoulders, unconsciously shutting out his own memories, "Time doesn't cure, that's never been true, but it does help make things easier."
"I know." Seven replied, though she sounded doubtful as the statement which was punctuated with one final shiver before she braced her shoulders and put the steel back into her spine. "Thank you for indulging my foolishness Commander."
"It's not…"
"But it is." Seven countered firmly as she spun towards the door but just as suddenly as she seemed to have hardened herself, her voice cracked. "I…I was the one who gave her a name, I do not care if they use it. Erin. That was her name."
This time Chakotay didn't think twice about resting his hand on her shoulder. "That's definitely not foolishness." He whispered thickly.
The flickering light of his personal console seemed to taunt him as he half staggered into his, their, quarters. Remind him of the log entry he'd abandoned, how many days before? Two? Three? He should feel better than he had then, more hopeful as Seven's body heat still lingered on his clothes and skin, but traitorously, the opposite was true. Clutching at her while she cried herself into unconsciousness had not been how he'd imagined holding his wife in his arms again. He shuddered, pinning his arms to his sides at the memory of it. Of course she had a right to be frightened, terrified, as much a right as he did, just as they'd shared their crying. He'd be fooling himself if he thought he could cope with it though. It wasn't that he hadn't seen her at every inch of the spectrum of emotion, or at least what he'd thought was the extent of it before in her and experienced himself, but that had been naïve. He and Seven shared at least one definable personality trait that gave them a good deal of mutual understanding. While most people, in controlling their emotions, could keep a relatively loose rein, he and Seven rode the equivalent of horses rendered feral by trauma, if they slackened their control too much then their minds were trampled in the chaos. The horses had bolted, the volcanoes had erupted, whatever metaphor anyone cared to use. The capacity had enflamed their passions too, they could give everything as completely as they could restrain themselves, and there had been many times in the past months where guilt and shame mingled with but didn't temper longing.
He made their way to their bedroom. Though they valued their privacy in the entirety of their quarters, and the crew knew and respected this, it was still their bedroom that was a sanctuary, only their own. Chakotay hadn't done too much over the years to replace the, already sparse, collection of personal belongings he'd lost with the Valjean, but even he'd been shocked by how little Seven possessed. They'd built up gradually though, he should've felt comfortable in this room, the poignant and careful scattering of family photographs, their two medicine bundles, the Ventu's blanket on the bed, a dreamcatcher hooked over Seven's side of the headboard, clashing in style with a highly scientific rendering of several constellations. Then there was the bust, Mezotti's one piece of art, which Seven had quietly kept, shy of displaying a bust of her own head, no matter how childish, in any public place while also wryly aware that the whole exercise had been firmly toungue in cheek on Mezotti's part, sitting humorously by the mirror. The mural he'd had in every bedroom he'd ever had hung proudly. It was a replica of course, by Seven in fact. Though she didn't have the creative flair in painting that she did in cooking or music, her photographic memory had come in useful for presenting him with a perfect reproduction of his mother's mural, lost on the Valjean. He tried to stare at that, draw his usual comfort from it, but all he could think of was how bereft this room was of anything for the baby, who surely belonged in this room. No clothes, no toys, no Moses basket, nothing. Seven would've been devastated and guilt ridden about the implants even if the pregnancy had gone smoothly, but right now their ability to get through it was weakened by insecurity and separation. Did Seven even know he'd considered dismissing their baby from the equation of saving her? No. He hadn't, but was that a heavier guilt that the implants?
With these questions spinning around his head, Chakotay curled up on Seven's side of the bed and longed for sleep he knew wouldn't come easily.
The green light penetrated her eyelids, branded itself on her irises, then she could see. It was Sickbay, and wasn't. The structure was the same, the layout of the biobeds, one of which, she now realised, she was lying on; the glass shell that formed the Doctor's office, that was all intact. Yet it was dark, long looming shadows stretched out from every object, forming a nightmarish forest that surrounded her, was consuming her. The blood red glow of Voyager's emergency lighting, never exactly reassuring itself, had been replaced with that piercing green. It seeped under the closed door, glowered out from the consoles and machines hunkered around her. The omnivorous scourge that was Borg nanotechnology was crawling up every wall, eating into the circuitry. She'd seen it too often before. This room, Voyager, was being assimilated and she'd slept through it? She lifted her head, her mouth suddenly dry, and saw that tools for assimilation, her assimilation, lay everywhere. The sonic saw that had taken off one arm and one leg as a child, the efficient device that held her head still as it removed her eye… She struggled wildly, just as she had done then, but she heard the soft swish as the clamps fastened around her flailing frame. Only her neck was free to move, and as she twisted it around her first scream of the ordeal was ripped from her chest. The incubator, with her baby apparently abandoned inside, was being transformed into a maturation chamber by a solitary, single-minded drone. She gaped at it's intently bent, bald head for a moment before screaming in rage, terror and desperation, "No! No! NO!"
As if summoned by her cries, Chakotay burst powerfully through the door, the green light that streamed in after him forming a hellish halo around his tortured faces. However, he wasn't destined to be a knight in shining armour, not here. In one practised movement, the drone was behind him. "Chakotay!" She shrieked in warning, hardly able to meet his wide eyes before she also recognised the drone. Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero. "CHAKOTAY!" She screamed once more, but Seven of Nine already had him on his knees, her assimilation tubes gouging into his neck…
"Seven! Seven! Wake up!" The Doctor's frightened voice boomed above her, wrenching her free into reality. A sob bubbled up out of her mouth after a final scream as she stared up into his huge, tremulous eyes, then a gasp for air, and another. The Doctor gave the shoulders he was gripping a gentle squeeze. "You were having a nightmare." He told her shakily.
"Ja…" Seven croaked out hoarsely as she gradually became aware of her painfully rapid heartbeat, the cold sweat soaking her back. The Sickbay around her was familiar, brightly lit, warm and free of the Collective's grasp. "En mardröm." She agreed with a grimace.
The Doctor eyed her tear stained face unhappily, badly unnerved by the frantic minute or so before of Seven's screams filling Sickbay. "I'll call Chakotay."
If it were possible, Seven's face lost more colour. "Nej!" she whispered frantically, "Jag behöver honom inte…"
"You don't need him?" The Doctor echoed, "You were crying out for him."
Seven swallowed hard, "I know." She murmured, switching to English as she tried to calm down. "But as you said, it was a…nightmare." She took a deep breath, though she could still hear tears catching in her chest, and attempted to sit up. "It is not a reason to disturb him."
"He would see it as a good reason." The Doctor countered, perfectly aware that however uncomfortable Seven might feel around Chakotay right now, he would still be able to soothe her. That, and Chakotay would decompile him slowly if he knew that he had even hesitated calling him if Seven was distraught. "I was the one who had to order him out of here a few hours ago…"
"Doctor." Seven interrupted, with effort lifting one hand to grip his wrist as his own hand still hovered over his comm. badge. "Please."
The Doctor sighed, knowing better than to argue with her but still aware that he probably should. Just because she was fragile didn't mean he should let her walk all over him. Before he could really consider however, she dropped his arm abruptly, staring past him at the incubator, the muscles in her throat visibly tightening. "She's fine, try not to worry…" He began comfortingly, casting a glance back towards Anni.
"What is she doing in there?" Seven asked, her one functional eye big and unblinking as if she expected the incubator to come to life and eat her.
"Do you remember what we assured you of this morning?" The Doctor questioned calmly, "She's healthy, the incubator was always a precaution, an aid…"
"Then get her out!" Seven demanded, face reddening as fresh tears clung to her lashes.
The Doctor was perplexed by the intensity of her reaction, he had been expecting that Seven would insist that her daughter stay in the safety of the incubator. "Tell me what's wrong Seven, I'm afraid I don't understand…"
"Nej, du förstår inte!" Seven shot back irately, then took another deep breath as she steadied her shaking body, her eye momentarily closing. "The other infant, she died in there…"
The Doctor inhaled sharply in final understanding. "I remember." He said quietly, "But this isn't the same situation at all. I know the return of your memory is as patchy as it is overwhelming, but try not to fixate…"
"I don't believe I can control what I can remember any more than I have some say over what is forgotten." Seven reminded him resentfully, then bit down on her lip, the faint taste of blood suppressing the powerful urge to weep. She was unnerved that she could still be crying after prostrating herself on Chakotay as she had. "I realise that I am being…irrational Doctor, hysterical even…" She admitted heavily, "…but I want her out of there."
The Doctor tried to smile at her, but his own confused emotions were apparent on his face. "Whatever you want."
"I do not believe you are especially irrational or hysterical given your situation." A new voice intoned smoothly from the back of the Sickbay.
Seven couldn't stop herself from staring at her. The middle-aged but unlined and aristocratic face had one striking similarity to her own, a few implants, immune to removal, peppered her skin. "You are Borg."
"I was Borg." T'Nara corrected simply, "I am a Vulcan and a doctor."
Seven blushed, since she'd made the same correction herself to practically everyone she'd met. Something about the older woman was familiar, but the image was so vague that even given her memory problems she doubted the association was strong or recent. "I apologise." T'Nara replied with only a graceful and unconcerned nod.
"Doctor T'Nara has been assisting me, no, partnering me, in your treatment Seven." The Doctor explained hurriedly.
"You provided my replacement cortical array." Seven surmised.
"Correct." T'Nara confirmed, pleased to see that her patient's reasoning skills were intact. "I am part of the Unimatrix Zero detachment sent to come to your aid." She came closer to the biobed, watching Seven expectantly.
"There is no such…" Seven started to say then stopped as the name echoed strongly through her mind. There was such a Unimatrix, and she had been involved in it, how or why she didn't quite know, but she found that she couldn't summon up enough energy or courage to care about the answers.
"It is irrelevant for now." T'Nara assured her astutely. "You wish to have your daughter out of the incubator?"
"Yes." Seven murmured in relief.
"Fine." The Vulcan agreed, approaching the incubator but again shrewd enough to address the mother again before she lifted the baby. "You are comfortable with me holding the child?"
Seven relaxed, letting go of a breath she hadn't been aware of holding as the last vestiges of distrust of her fellow ex-drone faded and she nodded. "What is her prognosis? Does she have a cortical array? What about…" Questions rushed out of her in an anxious flood.
"She does not have a cortical array, nor any cybernetic systems in her brain or internal organs whatsoever." T'Nara answered firmly, "I had the best medical minds in the Unimatrix consult with me in her assessment. The nanoprobes she was exposed to progressed no further than the most superficial and…cosmetic of alterations, and those do not pain her or cause any problems, though I would not recommend an attempt to remove them."
The relief was such that Seven felt herself start to shake again, on the verge of swooning even as she clearly saw what T'Nara was downplaying. Superficial and cosmetic alterations? Just because it wasn't as extreme as her own disfigurement or that of anyone who'd been fully assimilated, that didn't mean she could dismiss it! As if in response to her guilty, dispiriting thoughts, the baby gave an insistent cry, demanding acknowledgement.
T'Nara glanced down at the flushed, frustrated little face as she felt the tiny fists fight the restriction of the swaddling. A hot spike of grief stabbed her, a feeling she couldn't suppress entirely because it was logical; she hadn't seen her own children, or their father, for over ten years now. "She's hungry." She proclaimed, "You should feed her if you can, it helps attachment immeasurably."
Seven swallowed, unsure what to do when faced with an approach as bluntly matter-of-fact as her own. "It wouldn't be safe…" She mumbled, drawing her sluggish arms around herself, even as that very action made her flinch in pain as her overfull breasts protested. She could've damned mammary evolution in that moment.
The Doctor was in two minds. He doubted the wisdom of giving Seven a baby she'd practically recoiled from in disbelief just hours before, though he believed Seven's maternal instincts, a powerful aspect of her personality before she'd had a child of her own, would dominate fear within minutes. His need to correct her miscomprehension won out over both threads of thought, "Of course it's safe, you only have nanoprobes in your bloodstream. In fact, scans indicate that your breast milk would be even richer in antibodies than usual after 18 years of exposure to the Collective's multitude of species…" He started to explain verbosely to cover his own awkwardness.
Seven shuddered, repulsed by the mention of the Collective and violated by the thought of him investigating such an intimacy in any case. Was her daughter also doomed to share her fate as a subject of endless medical papers?
T'Nara was equally unimpressed. "The Collective is irrelevant to this conversation." She remarked coolly, seating herself in the closest chair to Seven's biobed before wordlessly commanding the Doctor to retreat to his office with an imperious Vulcan glare.
Seven did not gain an epiphany, nor a feeling of miraculous connection, from her fumbling first experience of breastfeeding. At best by the end of it she had a quiet baby and a not inconsiderable physical relief, but little else. She would certainly not have persevered with it if her instructor had been one of the mothers she knew, namely Ensign Wildman or Lieutenant Torres, or, God forbid, the Doctor. Her embarrassment would've been enough without an even greater sense of the inadequacy and guilt than she was already struggling with. T'Nara, who had both Vulcan detachment and Borg pragmatism in spades, as well as six children and almost 100 years on her, had been a godsend; she'd also left her alone as soon as she thought her two patients could cope together, which was both scary and a relief.
So now she had a baby in her arms, though to supplement her weakened limbs she also had the support of two pillows, who had been left almost as drained by the awkward feeding as her mother but full and content with it. Seven, not blessed with the child's gift of comfortable ignorance, suffered her mind struggling against exhaustion to analyse her situation. The little girl was hers, there was no point denying that, but the memory of her earlier rejection haunted her, she felt like a hypocrite to fret over and cuddle her now. Then there was the fact that she was a full eight days old, eight days were her own mother had been unaware of her existence. She'd had to ask the date of her own child's birthday. Every time she reminded herself that it wasn't her fault, she recalled the dream. But the child, her uneasy namesake, wasn't aware of that dream and had curled her small body into the curve of the Borg arm, soothed by the beat of the heart that had pumped deadly nanoprobes into her. And Seven was soothed too, almost to sleep, despite herself. It was hormones, overwhelming hormones and the pull of survival instinct that bound them now, she knew that, but when this child grew out of needing her, wouldn't she hate her?
She trailed one finger over the nub of an implant in the corner of the baby's right eye, a miniature reflection of her own, as the question echoed through her mind. She hadn't had the strength to check the rest of her for more implants. Responding to the tentative touch, the baby tilted her cheek, warmth diffusing her dusky skin with a rosy glow, and Seven's fingertip brushed against her silky eyelashes instead. They were the longest she'd ever seen, and were a rich mahogany. She'd didn't have much hair to speak of, but her eyebrows, definite, inky scores on her forehead, foretold that she'd grow into a proud brunette. She blinked up at her mother drowsily, holding her gaze intelligently for a moment as if asking, 'Mama, why are you looking at me like that?' before she wriggled down and decided to commit to sleep despite her mother's staring. Seven felt compelled to whisper an answer to the imagined question, ludicrous though the idea was. "Du är din Papa's dotter." She was indeed overwhelmed with relief and pleasure at the resemblance she saw to Chakotay, though she didn't want to think too deeply about the reasons for either emotion, nor why she was especially glad that her eyes were darkening and abandoning baby blue, perhaps for the shade of brown she semi-consciously associated with warmth, humour and love.
The Doctor smiled to himself as he passed and heard the statement, since Chakotay had said almost exactly the same thing in reverse, that little Annika was her mother's daughter; he wouldn't comfortably hear of any resemblance to himself without countering it with that affirmation. The wider crew had come to the general conclusive opinion, without of course any knowledge of what either parent had looked like as babies, that asleep Annika was Seven's double, her nose, chin and general bone structure seemed to come from her. When awake though, moving and with deep set and darkening eyes open, the same people saw an equally strong resemblance to Chakotay. The Doctor had wryly reminded them that the provision of DNA for the child was equally divided, but the speculating and opinion making went on.
He was loathe to interrupt, but Anni would need another feed soon enough and he wanted to make sure Seven regenerated a little beforehand, "Seven, I think you should have a rest and Anni probably needs to be changed."
Seven flinched at the use of her daughter's default name but only said, "She's sleeping, try not wake her."
"I'll be careful." The Doctor assured her as he tenderly lifted the baby from Seven's arms and onto the nearby table they'd been using to change her. He'd hardly opened the little pink sleep suit before he heard Seven's strangled cry. He looked over at her in confusion, then down at the baby, belatedly remembering that Seven hadn't seen the extent of Anni's implants. He was so used to them now, and able to see them for the harmless blemishes that they were in comparison to what could've been, that he'd forgotten about them. "Seven…"
"Give her back to me." Seven ordered him huskily, "I…I need to see…"
The Doctor merely passed her back wordlessly, the full realisation had to come before acceptance. Adrenaline gave extra strength to Seven's arms, and this time she held her daughter upright so they were chest to chest. Her human hand, almost shaking out of the wrist joint, found and checked each implant, not only the ones on her face but the aborted webbing on her shoulder and her hip. Seven's heart broke in two, stealing her breath, as the baby cuddled unconcernedly into the crook of her neck, but she'd actually been quaking with silent sobs since before she'd started the examination. "Jag förtjänar dig inte." She choked out, "Jag är ledsen, snälla förlåt mig. Förlåt mig älskling..." She cried softly now, that being just as much a release as her plea for forgiveness.
A/n: Please review. What Seven says to Anni at the end is intended to translate as 'I don't deserve you. I'm sorry, please forgive me. Forgive me darling...'. I apologise ahead of time for any errors in my amateur Swedish, let me know what they are and I'll correct them.
There's been some more C/7 stories and chapters written since I last posted! :) Two new chapters of The Cheshire Cheese's 'Sleepwalking' and cojack's new story 'The Folly of the Stewards'. Read the one-shot prequel 'The River of Time' first, both are so original and brilliantly written, following C/7's experience of crashing alternate universes. Cojack's Chakotay ends up in 'The Girl Next Door' universe at one point, and the 'Sleepwalking' universe. Read the stories and you'll see why I'm flattered. :)