A Note from the Author:  Sorry this took so long.  The basic premise for this particular story inspired me to write this collection, but the actual execution was more difficult than I thought.  I had to restart it three times before I could get it right, and I'm still not sure I managed to say everything I wanted to say, but on the whole it turned out all right.

And yes, I think Chakotay should have ended up with Janeway and Seven with the Doctor.  My biggest problem with the series is that the creators made such a good pair with Tom and B'Elanna but just totally screwed up the other possible romantic relationships.  But I'm not going to split them up, because they actually do make a good couple, even if most of the series had us expecting something totally different and…ahem.  Okay, I'll stop ranting now.  Just enjoy the story.

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Chakotay and Seven of Nine – Skin Deep

            Chakotay sighed and shifted his position in the chair.  He had expected to wait only a quarter of an hour, but he'd been sitting here for twice that long.  Even a thorough medical scan shouldn't take more than ten minutes…

            He stood up and started pacing.  Somehow the waiting wasn't so bad when he was in motion.  He had just completed one circuit of the waiting room when he was startled by the opening of the medical lab door.

            Seven of Nine stopped in the doorway and blinked at him once, then smiled.  "Chakotay.  I did not expect to see you."  She took a step toward him.  "But I'm glad you came."

            "I just thought I'd surprise you.  How did it go?"  The two of them fell into step beside each other and walked out of the waiting room into the corridor beyond.

            Seven's neutral expression became one of slight frustration.  "Doctor Mangian felt the need to perform several types of scans.  She said that it will take her a few days to prepare for the procedure."  She and Chakotay moved closer to the wall to allow a lab technician pushing an antigrav cart full of tissue samples room to pass by.  Then they resumed their course for the building's exit.

            "I think she's just being careful," Chakotay surmised.  "It'll be the first time anyone's ever tried it.  She doesn't want to make a mistake."

            "I understand the need for caution," Seven said, lowering her eyes.  "But it is still…difficult."  After a thoughtful moment, she raised her eyes again to look at the corridor ahead, as if she had never made the admission at all.

            They came to a turbolift door, which opened smoothly as they approached closer to it.  "Ground floor," Chakotay said as they stepped into the lift.  The door closed behind them and the lift began its smooth descent.

            Seven stood with her feet slightly apart, her hands linked behind her back and her eyes fixed on the wall before her, as she always did when riding in a turbolift.  But somehow Chakotay could sense that she was feeling uneasy – maybe even anxious.

            "Having second thoughts?" he asked.  The question seemed to startle her out of a reverie – which was strange, because she almost never indulged in reverie or idle speculation.  She'd said as much, on many occasions.

            "No," she answered firmly.  "I am sure."  The turbolift halted, the doors slid open, and the two of them walked out into the lobby of Starfleet Medical Center, headed for the exit doors.

            "It's just that you seem a little nervous," Chakotay explained.

            The reply was just a little too late in coming.  "I am not nervous.  Doctor Mangian is one of the best doctors in Starfleet.  The procedure involves very little risk."  She didn't sound as if she were trying to reassure herself by saying the words.  Something else was bothering her.

            They went through the double set of outer doors and into the warm spring day outside.  At the bottom of the entrance ramp they turned left, following the walk to the nearest Trans Francisco station.  "I can tell something's bothering you," Chakotay said quietly.  "It might help you to talk about it."

            He wasn't sure how to interpret the look she gave him, or the thoughtful silence that followed.  The sound of their shoes on the footpath suddenly seemed much too loud.

            "I…the doctor informed me that there is a twenty percent chance that the nanosurgical procedure will be unsuccessful," Seven said finally, just a touch of her anxiety coming out in her voice.  "She may not be able to reconfigure my implants."  No wonder she was uneasy.  Her anxiety about this procedure was an extension of, and addition to, a greater anxiety that she had been living with for the past month.

Seven was having a difficult time adjusting to life on Earth, where most people were not as accepting of her as the Voyager crew had been.  Even on board the ship, Seven's status as a former Borg had often put her at an uncomfortable distance from the people she worked with.  In the greater world of the Delta Quadrant, she had encountered discrimination, fear, disgust, and sometimes even open hostility.  But because she spent most of her time among the people of Voyager, where she did not encounter such harsh attitudes, she had not been extremely troubled by her ambiguous nature, no longer Borg but not quite human either.  Or, if she had been troubled, she had mostly kept it to herself in her particular way.

Now the small world of Voyager had more or less ceased to exist.  The members of the crew were finding that the process of readjusting to the Alpha Quadrant was not as easy as they had thought.  It was much harder on Seven, who had been something of a misfit on Voyager and found herself dangerously close to being a pariah here.  Though Seven tried very hard to act as if she wasn't bothered by it, Chakotay knew her well enough to see how much it grated on her.  It hurt her – and him, when he saw it happen – every time someone looked at her strangely, or shied away from her, or studiously ignored her, because of what she was.  And all those things happened with alarming frequency.  Icheb, who was planning to attend Starfleet Academy at the beginning of the next academic term, was having similar problems.

Even as he was thinking these thoughts, a pair of passing cadets gave Seven a suspicious glance.  One of them whispered something to the other, and they quickened their pace a little so as to get away from her.  She didn't give them a second look, but she tensed a little.  Chakotay took her hand, which seemed to give her some comfort.

Although the doctor on Voyager had been able to remove most of Seven's Borg implants and modify some of the remaining ones so that they were completely integrated into her living tissue and invisible to the naked eye, he had not been able to make her look completely human: he could not have done so without crippling her or perhaps even putting her life in jeopardy.  She'd just had to live with them.  But now she had another option.  While Voyager had been in the Delta Quadrant, a team of researchers at Starfleet Medical had developed an advanced type of medical nanite, and new algorithms for coordinating teams of them to perform especially delicate reconstructive surgeries.  The doctor – Voyager's doctor, who was now a professor on the Starfleet Medical staff – had told her about the new technology.  With the help of careful research and a little luck, a pioneering team of Starfleet's best surgeons would design a nanosurgery program that would modify Seven's systems in a way that conventional medical technology could not.  Over the course of several treatments, the nanites would redistribute her implants throughout her bone and tissue, integrating them seamlessly with her body and eliminating any visible sign that she had once been a Borg.  The same technique could be used to modify Icheb's implants - that is, if it worked.

They walked the rest of the way to the Starfleet HQ Trans Francisco station in silence.  There was a train at the platform, but it departed just as they reached the bottom of the stairs, leaving the station empty of people other than themselves.  Chakotay sighed.  "Looks like we'll have to wait for the next one," he said resignedly.  The two of them walked to the nearest bench and sat down.

After a few seconds spent staring at the platform on the opposite side of the tracks, Seven looked at Chakotay and asked, "If it does not work…what will I do?"

Chakotay could not understand exactly what it was that made her question so unsettling.  Maybe it was the way she said it.  He looked down at his feet and tried to think of an answer, but he could not come up with one.  "I don't know," he admitted.

He looked up again and met Seven's eyes.  The two of them exchanged a brief glance before she returned to her contemplation of the opposite platform and he to looking at his feet.  Then he looked at her again.  "But whatever happens," he assured her, putting his hand over hers, "I'll help you.  I'm not going anywhere."

When she turned to him again, he could see the shine of tears in her eyes.  "Then I am confident that I will adapt," she declared in a perfectly steady voice.  Then, a few moments later: "Thank you."  She didn't quite manage to keep the quaver out of her words this time.

Chakotay was about to reply when they were both startled by the soft whine of an approaching train coming from the tunnel to the left.  They both stood up, and Seven quickly and discreetly wiped away her half-formed tears as the train slowed to a stop at the platform.  The doors opened into a car that was practically bursting of people.  For most of them this was their final stop, so Seven and Chakotay had to push against the flow of human (and Bolian, and Vulcan, and Bajoran) traffic to get into the car.  Luckily the mass migration out onto the platform meant that there were plenty of empty seats, and they took a pair near the back of the car.

Perhaps, Chakotay thought, this would be a good time to change the subject of conversation to something more trivial.  "Maybe we should get off at the Haight Street station," he suggested.  "There's a little café near there that I used to like when I was a cadet."

Seven blinked at him, her expression displaying a mix of surprise and curiosity.  "I have never been to a café before," she said thoughtfully.

Chakotay smiled.  "Well, I'll be glad to treat you to your first lunch at one."

The speakers in the car chimed, warning that the train was about to depart.  Then the doors slid closed, and the train pulled out of the station and went on its way.