A/N: as always, thank you for the reviews and favs!


Wake up, my Time Lord, wake up.

The Doctor slowly opened his eyes and saw his feet. His thoughts a bit foggy, it took him a moment to realize that his head hung down and he stood strapped inside a type of cage. He blinked and focused his thoughts even though he felt ill. He remembered the nanoprobes the Dalek injected into him, and knew that those tiny machines were still in his system.

Gaining strength, he raised his head and examined his surroundings. His cage, he wasn't sure he would actually call it that since the two metal bars in front of him were wide enough for him to walk through, appeared to be in the center of a circular room. Directly in front of him, a door taunted him. It was just a few quick strides away from him, but he couldn't move out of the metal straps that held him in place.

A Borg drone appeared from around behind him. The Doctor tensed, but the drone paid him no mind at all. Instead it walked up a computer panel on the wall, tapped a couple of buttons, then turned and marched away out of the Doctor's sight. He tried to move his hand, hoping to reach the pocket with the sonic, but it was no use, metal clasps held his wrists firmly in place.

"Ah, you're awake at last." A female voice purred with an edge of malice.

The Doctor looked around and did not see anyone else in the room. "Show yourself," he said.

A headless female body, that appeared to made of rubber and machine, suspended by cables that lowered it to the floor in front of the Doctor. When the body was its feet, a woman's head from the shoulders up descended from above. Her face wore a confident smirk as the cables that held her maneuvered her to the body and set her in.

The wires and hoses that hung underneath her flesh exterior like an exposed spinal cord wriggled as they slid into the body. Once her head was in place, clamps around the neck line of the body snapped into the flesh. Now that she was one with the body, she casually strolled up to the Doctor and smiled. "Here I am," she said.

The Doctor frowned at the woman. She was sultry, and yet so very dangerous because who else could she be other then the Queen. She also referred to herself using 'I', something none of the other Borg did. Behind her machine eyes definitely laid a terrifying intelligence, and she obviously wanted something from him. He had a pretty good idea what it was, too.

"Alright," he said in an even tone. "You have me. Now what?"

"Yes I do have you, and Voyager too." The Queen smiled a wolfish smile. "But you are proving difficult to assimilate. Not like the Dalek from your universe."

The Time Lord considered what the Queen said about Voyager, and didn't believe her. She was lying. Probably hoping to get some sort of response out of him. Well, that wasn't going to happen. "Yep," he said smugly. "Pretty hard to integrate machines in a Time Lord. Others have tried, and guess what? Didn't work."

"You are an organic being, Doctor." She kept her dark smile, but narrowed her eyes. "No organic being can resist the nanoprobes. Eventually, you will be mine."

"Maybe, but then I'll just be a drone," he said. "Another mindless automaton wondering these halls. I'm the only Time Lord in existence. Would you really want to destroy that?"

"As an organic being, you are imperfect," the Queen said as she leaned in close, just inches from his face, and her eyes glittered as she spoke. "Once you are part of the Collective, all that you know will be known by all Borg. You will be perfect and so shall all the universes."

"So what do you need me for? You already have what you need from the Dalek," he said nonchalantly.

This made the Queen regard him a moment and consider his words. "The Dalek was mere soldier," she said. "It knew of time and dimension travel, but not how it worked. The Dalek did know of someone who did. The Doctor. You."

A drone marched up beside the Queen and she stepped aside to allow it to reach toward the Doctor's neck.

The Doctor involuntarily moved his head away as he stared at the drone's fist. He guessed what was coming next. Two prongs shot out from the back of the Borg's hand and pierced the Doctor's neck. He crunched his eyes closed and gritted his teeth as he felt the nanoprobes flood into his veins.

"Perhaps if your body is overwhelmed with nanoprobes, it will succumb," she said with a seductive voice in his ear.

He shivered all over as his body fought the nanites, but he gave her a dark glare that all but spoke of his anger.

.

.

"Tuvok", Kathryn said with concern thick in her voice, "are you alright?" She rested a hand on her friend's shoulder.

The Vulcan turned his head away from the monitor and gazed intently into her eyes. "Yes," he said evenly, although his grimace indicated otherwise. "This ship has a vast intelligence, and she is imparting a great deal of her knowledge onto me so I can operate the controls efficiently. This, for example," he pointed to the circular patterns on the screen, "is Gallifreyian, the written language of the Time Lords and it says that we are almost to our destination."

The captain gave Tuvok a couple of pats on the shoulder. "We should get ready. Are you going to be ok?"

He nodded slowly. "As soon as my link with the TARDIS is severed, and it will be when we land, I will be fine."

"Alright." She nodded and turned to Seven. "As soon as I open the door, get a fix on the Doctor."

"Assuming he's still wearing the combadge," she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Let's hope that he is." The captain gave Seven a grim look and readied both the modified and standard phasers in her hands.

Tuvok stood in front the monitor at the TARDIS console and watched the circular patterns dance across the screen. When the patterns settled on one, the screen flickered and revealed the scene right outside the door. He looked at Kathryn. "We are inside adjunct one." He reported evenly."And the Doctor is right outside."

The captain's eyes snapped to the monitor and didn't hide her astonishment. "I recognize that chamber. It's the Queen's." She gritted her teeth and headed for the door.

Tuvok joined her, rubbing the temples of his head, but readied himself with a modified phaser.

Seven wrapped her fingers around the door handle, gave Janeway a nod, and opened the door.

.

.

The Doctor was barely conscious. His teeth chattered and he could feel those nanoprobes slowly over power his body. He was losing this battle and he was scared. Suddenly, a metallic spike burst through his right cheek, split into six strands and flattened across his skin forming a star shape.

No! His voice rang out in his mind and he struggled to fight the nanites. He knew he could expel the tiny machines; he had too, all that he is depended on it.

The Queen stepped in front of him and ran her fingers through his brown spiky hair. She clenched her fist, intertwining his hair between her fingers, and yanked his head up. He was pale and shivered due to the drop in his body temperature, but she admired the Borg metal on his cheek. "Stop fighting so hard, Doctor," she whispered. "You won't win."

His eyes rolled open and she saw a powerful determination in those eyes that angered her. She'd come across stubborn species in the past, but in the end, they always succumbed to her. This Time Lord wasn't going to be any different. That thought set her at ease and she smirked at the Doctor.

"Very well." She frowned and beckoned for another drone.

A whooshing grinding pulse echoed in the chamber and steadily grew louder.

The Queen whipped her around and snarled as she watched the blue police box materialize, conveniently blocking the chamber entrance, before her eyes. She continued to hold the Doctor's head up and waited.

The Doctor recognized the sound of his beloved ship. It was like music to his ears and he forced his eyes open so he could see her appear. A thing of beauty. He smiled with relief.

The TARDIS door flew open and sonic phaser blasts streamed out, striking the two drones in the room and knocking them to the floor. One beam hit the Queen on the shoulder that caused her to release her grip from the Doctor's hair.

The Time Lord's head dropped abruptly. In his weakened state, he couldn't hold his head up on his own.

Kathryn stepped out of the TARDIS first, and Tuvok and Seven flanked either side of him.

The Borg Queen held her shoulder in pain and turned to face her old enemy. "Janeway." She hissed her enemy's name well aware of the three sonic phasers aimed at her.

"Step away from the Doctor." Kathryn ordered with a stern tone.

"You're too late," the Queen said with a smile and gathered her confident composure. "Look for yourself. He's already becoming Borg." She took a step to the side.

Kathryn looked at the Doctor and her expression turned grim. She retuned her focus to the Queen. "Obviously," she said smugly and motioned toward Seven, "we have ways of dealing with that. Now step away."

The Queen frowned, then twitched her head and smiled. "Very well, Janeway," she stepped back from the Doctor and away from Kathryn, "I win."

Cables shot down from the ceiling, grabbed the flesh around the Queen's shoulders and lifted her out of the machine body. Tuvok fired a shot, but missed as the Queen disappeared into the nest of cables hanging from the ceiling.

Kathryn rushed to the Doctor and cupped her hands around his jaw to lift his head. His eyes fluttered and he wasn't cognizant. "Doctor. Doctor?" She tried to get him to focus on her but it was no use, while Tuvok and Seven worked to free him. Another metallic piece appeared on his brow above the left eye and Kathryn knew he was losing.

Finally, the Doctor was free and his body fell out of the alcove into Kathryn's arms. Tuvok and Seven helped her stop him from falling to the floor. Wordlessly, the three carried him into the TARDIS, Seven kicked the door closed once they were in, and gently laid him on grating at the base of the console. Kathryn lowered herself to her knees and sat on her heels to rest the Doctor's head in her lap.

"Get us back to Voyager, Tuvok," she said and the Vulcan touched the console to reestablish the meld with the TARDIS.

"No," the Doctor said quietly between chattering teeth.

She looked down to his pale face into his eyes that looked back at her. "Doctor, we have to get the nanoprobes out-"

"N-not before you…disable t-that link node," he barely managed to say.

"But Doct-" she said in protest.

He grabbed her hand and squeezed. "Please." He pleaded.

"Tuvok, take us to that node," she said to the TARDIS' temporary pilot. With her words, the Doctor relaxed and slumped into unconsciousness.


A/N: getting close to the end of this section, probably one or two more chapters to go! Stay tuned!