Disclaimer: Se preceding chapters. I don't own anything.
Note: No reviews yet? Come on. First series I manage to post continuously and keep relatively together and not a review YET?
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She awoke as dawn sent its first rays through the slatted wooden blinds of the bay windows, shivering further into the tangle of sweat ridden cover as a cold wind blew off the shore. The natural process of human temperature adaptation was more inadequate than she had ever suspected before the removal of her implants. She often resented the lack of a warm body to cling to in early morning hours.
Brushing the thoughts away and sitting straight up, Annika sniffed lightly, eyes opening to contemplate the sticky disaster that had somehow, in a night filled with less than pleasant dreams and tossing, become her hair. Faint giggles erupted from near the doorway. Standing, she pulled on a robe, staring at her guests. "Good morning."
"I told you she'd be cranky." Miral Paris informed her cohort, stepping further into the room and smiling rather too angelically up at the adult instead. Stella only sighed, angling her face up for a good morning kiss before dancing away.
"We were supposed to come and wake you for breakfast." Miral explained after a moment, holding up her tanned, thoroughly coated palms. "Dad is fixing strawberry pancakes."
"I trust your samples revealed them to be delicious, as usual?" Ignoring the older girl's less than charming nickname for her companion and gripping the proffered hands, Annika stared at them critically, and then returned her gaze to her daughter. "Stella created this mess completely by herself, I presume?"
"Sure." Miral tried to move away.
"Miral Paris, I know you better. I trust that you will find a better story by this evening?"
The quarter Klingon huffed, shaking her hands free and glaring up.
"I also trust you will not mind joining your sibling in a bath now that you have both clearly overindulged before breakfast has even begun?"
"Seven." The quarter Klingon pleaded. "We'll miss Dad's new holovid airing in the colony hall if we don't hurry."
"If you are efficient you will freshen and transit to the hall with generous time to spare." Pursing her lips, the former Borg hid a tired smile. "Am I right?"
"Yes, ma'am!" Miral grabbed her fully human sibling by the arm.
A chuckle rose from the doorway. "I never got off that easy when I was a kid."
"Dad!" Miral's hiss heralded terrible things to come if he ruined matters.
"You can relax, ghubDaQ." Paris scolded lazily, brows lifting. "You're going, unless you waste your time standing there and arguing." Ignoring her heaving sigh of frustrated relief, the pilot lifted the smaller child into his arms, grinning. "You, on the other hand, Stella, get us all to yourself this morning." Meeting her mother's eyes, he managed a strained smile. "Doc has agreed that it's time for a checkup. He'll be here in a few hours."
Annika moved forward, sympathy in her tones as her fragile daughter groaned, burying her face in his shoulder. "The Doctor is your friend, Stella. You always enjoy his company. All will be fine." Rubbing circles into the small back, she forced levity into her tones, smiling more brightly at her family. "I suggest we proceed with our morning routine until his arrival. Miral, you will clean yourself and the…whatever trails you may have left in your wake. Stella, join your sister in her bath and clean your own quarters. You will both then reconvene in the dining room. Strawberry pancakes, Tom?"
"He makes the best!" Stella became happier immediately, squirming from the protective arms that held her and rushing out the door, Miral at her heels.
"I owe you." Paris muttered, running a hand through tousled hair.
"You owe me nothing." Brushing past her companion, the former Borg headed for the armoire, briskly pulling out her preferred attire of the day, a pants suit both casual and comfortable. Reinforced clogs joined the suit on the floor, and she allowed her fingers to part the folds of the remaining attire hanging within the closet, drawing it all aside to touch the satiny, dusty, and somewhat faded material far towards the back. The exoskeletal costume and heeled boots no longer proved necessary or feasible, yet she...missed them.
Crutches.
Snapping the armoire door shut with a clatter, she turned, crossing her arms. "Do not dismantle my alcove. Without it, my doubts would kill me."
Tom closed the distance between them in an instant. She did not fight his embrace.
"Doc's here early!" Miral's strident tones echoed through the house, and Paris stepped away swiftly, smiling curtly.
"Everything will work out, Seven, just give it time."
"I suppose we will see." Straightening, the former drone nodded. "Proceed ahead and begin the examination. I'll be dressing and seeing Miral off."
"If you want me to stay, I will." Miral slid in as her father slid out, miraculously scrubbed and dressed, ridges furrowed lightly.
"No…" Slipping into her clothing and running a comb through her hair, Annika offered a tight smile to her adopted daughter. "Your father put a great deal of effort into the holofilm and you have been anticipating it. Stella will be here when you return."
"I guess so." Heading for the veranda door, Miral smiled. "I'm just glad it's not me being scanned."
"I'm certain that an early pubescent physical can still be arranged." Pushing the child through the door with one hand, the former done offered a slightly more sincere smile, shutting the door and watching the dark-headed figure disappear behind foliage.
Sighing, she headed down the hallway and paused just inside the doorway to the family room, watching the scene quietly. Seated on a nearby table, Stella was alternately kicking directly through the Doctor's holographic field and casting her father forlorn looks.
"Be good, will you?" Paris coaxed, employing his own medical tricorder with one hand to verify the data the EMH was picking up, trying to still the small feet with the other. "It isn't like he's hurting you. You know, in the 20th century, they used these cold metal instruments to check heart rate and wood sticks to check your tongue…"
"Enough torture stories, Mr. Paris." Punching a final button, the Doctor frowned at his patient and turned to smile at his former protégé. "Seven! You'll be pleased to know that she has your beauty as well as her father's irrationality, and a burgeoning intellect that may erase the latter with time."
"Thank you, Doctor." Suppressing a smile, Annika moved to her daughter's side, letting the slender arms and legs to wrap around her neck and waist. "How is she?"
His expression sobered, as did that of his former medical assistant. "I'd like to modify some of your remaining Borg technology and nanoprobes to suit Stella's system." The EMH offered a smile to the small child at last, snapping his medical kit shut. Stella grinned in turn, climbing down from her mother's grip. Annika frowned slightly up at her mentor and friend, finally releasing her charge, who headed promptly for the door.
"Doc…" His former medical assistant began, standing and pacing as the door shut behind the youngster.
"I can put it no more plainly than this." The Doctor preempted any diatribe forcefully. "The child is outgrowing the parameters of what nature…and the Borg affinities she inherited…intended. She possesses an addiction to a certain degree of mechanical operation, depends upon it for her body to function as it should. As you are aware, earlier procedures have failed to destroy that addiction. At best, we may feed it and sooth it. I have no intention of assimilating the child, Mr. Paris. Nanotechnology is merely an advanced option…"
"Yes, an illegal option, for a reason. Stella can't very well help what she was born with, but injecting more of them into her…there are people willing to kill for the stuff."
"As I recall, people have also been willing to kill Seven for many years. You've shown no hesitation in protecting her. Are you suddenly tired of the responsibility, or have the last few years created a man too frightened to care again?" The formerly static tones lowered to faintly malicious levels.
"That will be enough, Doctor." Annika stood, shaking her head warningly.
"That's all right." Tom's own words reflected icy disregard, his face drawn and white. "We've been through this respect and lack thereof song before, haven't we, Doc?"
The hologram didn't blink, taking his belongings in hand and preparing to activate the transport technology that would have him wherever he desired to go in seconds. "I suggest that you consider the other option in more depth, Mr. Paris…attempting to completely strip Stella of the nanoprobes as you have suggested before could very well kill her."
"And removing them from Seven to give them to Stella is any better an idea? Seven barely survived her earlier operation to do so, and we didn't even get everything out. And she hasn't been the same since." Paris spoke tightly, hands clenching.
The holograms last words and look were acidic. "I'll expect a decision in a few weeks. Contact me if you need me, Seven." With a tap of his com badge, the Doctor dematerialized.
Standing, the former drone lifted a glass from the nearby table, turning to face her companion and instead finding her gaze trapped by the grip she held on the thin crystal. It was a pale hand, limber and elegant, but naked, as the other had been recreated aboard Voyager. Stripped of any and all ties to the technology that had been survival and strength for the majority of her life, it seemed alien. It was a hand that he feared, greatly. Wheeling, Annika captured her mate's arm as he passed in his own frenetic pacing, forcing the wan blue gaze.
"I want her to be happy." Tom offered, jaw clenched, eyes blazing. "But I want you to be safe."
"I do not believe that my safety is the issue. The thought of inserting my nanoprobes in our daughter frightens you, and offends you. You want her to be merely human!" Involuntarily her tones rose, breaking off. Stiffening her shoulders, the former drone fought for control, lowering her voice. "My safety is irrelevant. I want her to be whole."
"And you would be without your lethal weapons, supposing you survived?" Tones bitter, Paris sat on the sofa, rubbing at his face, expression bleak. "Forget it, Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero. My daughter was never assimilated, and she never will be…no more than you'll ever be completely dissimilated."
"My daughter was born with assimilation technology dormant in her bloodstream, and unless those imperfect deposits are compensated with more nanites, she will die. There is no fate I consider worse. But perhaps you have forgotten precisely what death took from us, Mr. Paris. Or perhaps you do not care."
The blow came swiftly, unexpectedly, and her own hand flew up to cradle her jaw in surprised pain, even as he backed away, fists clenching behind his back. After a long moment, Voyager's former helmsman spoke, eyes seizing, tones clipped and controlled. "We'll talk about it later, rationally. I'll join Miral at the colony hall." Slinging a forgotten medical tricorder off the table, he left, ignoring the small child standing by the doorway, brows knitted.
"Mama?" Stella queried cautiously, poking a toe into the doorway and frowning.
"All is well." Carefully turning to hide an undoubtedly red cheek, the former drone leveled her tones. "Why don't you go change into your swim wear? We can visit the shore…" Voice trailing, she winced, leaning forward to peer into a nearby mirror.
"All right, if you say." The child hung hesitantly near the door for a moment before finally moving off upstairs.
Annika sighed.