Prompt 4: "Come here, let me fix it." (Tuvok, Seven & Doctor)

Episode: "Unimatrix Zero"

Author's Note: This story is a sequel to "Stay there, I'm coming to get you."

/

"Let me assure you, Doctor, I am quite well," said Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, sitting up stiffly and clumsily in his biobed and watching the tricorder with narrow eyes.

"You most certainly are not." The Doctor frowned at the results of his scan, which were far from what he would have liked to see. "Your heart rate and hormone levels are consistent with high levels of anxiety - "

"Nightmares are only to be expected under the circumstances. Given the correct meditation techniques, they will subside in time."

Trust Tuvok to lecture about Vulcan resilience even when he had bloodshot eyes and a sheen of sweat on his face.

"Well, if I recall correctly, and I usually do," the Doctor retorted, "Nightmares do not produce heightened activity in your Borg transceiver. How long has this been going on?"

"Eight nights."

Since the battle of Unimatrix Zero, then. Long enough for Captain Janeway and Lieutenant Torres to have already moved back to their quarters, even if they were officially on light duty (not that either of them would respect that, workaholics that they were; the Doctor would need to keep an eye on them both).

"Eight nights, and you didn't think to inform me?"

"I assumed they were ordinary nightmares. I experience them often. They are … personal."

The Doctor snapped his tricorder with the alarming results shut. Good heavens, what must Vulcan nightmares be like if they made Tuvok's lifesigns look like this? And he'd never said a word. It would be noble if it weren't so utterly illogical.

Personal, my eye, he wanted to say, but Paris' jokes notwithstanding, he had learned a few things about bedside manner over the years.

"I respect that, Commander," he said instead. "Normally the last thing I'd want is to invade your privacy, but if there's even a remote chance that these nightmares indicate an ongoing Borg threat, then as Chief of Security … "

"I am well aware of my duties as Chief of Security, Doctor." Tuvok's tightly controlled voice came dangerously close to a snarl. His hands fisted the bedclothes.

He really did need help if he was behaving like this, but what was there to be done?

The doors to Sickbay slid open, startling them both. Seven of Nine marched in like a woman on a mission, heading straight for Tuvok's bed, not batting an eye at the fact that he was still awake at this hour. She looked almost as wild-eyed as he did.

"Commander," she said, "Were you having a nightmare approximately five minutes ago?"

"Yes. Why?"

Tuvok's whole frame had tensed up the moment he saw her. She'd been coming to stand next to his pillow, but backed away, until she was standing a safe distance away at the foot of the bed.

"Was I in it?"

"Yes."

"How many drones did we fight?"

"I fail to see the relevance - "

"How many?"

"Three."

He must have seen the relevance of Seven's questions as well as she did, and as well as the Doctor himself. Circling Seven with his tricorder, the EMH could see it as clear as day: their transceivers were transmitting with the same frequency. They'd been sharing the same nightmare.

Moreover, this also explained why the telepathic centers of Tuvok's brain had been active as well. Tuvok was – though he'd never admit it – lonely. The reason he'd been more vulnerable to the Borg than Janeway or Torres was that he'd been starved of telepathic contact with his family for seven years. His unconscious mind had reached out to the closest possible substitute like a shipwrecked man diving into an escape pod.

"I told you we needed to escape, but you refused," said Seven. "Explain."

"I am Chief of Security." Tuvok's voice was barely above a whisper. "I joined the mission to protect the Captain and Lieutenant Torres, but instead I became a danger. I surrendered to the Collective. I ... failed."

He seemed to have lost track between the nightmare and real life. He actually had attacked Torres and the Captain on that Borg cube as the neural suppressant wore off and assimilation took hold. Their injuries had given it away. Was that why he had snapped at the Doctor about being aware of his duties? Because he felt he had failed them?

"Is that why, during the nightmare, you attempted to sacrifice yourself for me?" asked Seven.

"I could not fail you as well."

"Commander … " Seven's voice wavered. "The way to not fail me would have been to accept assistance. Chief of Security or not, I have been told that protection is mutual on this ship."

The two most stubborn, stoic, inscrutable people the Doctor had ever met locked eyes. He had the feeling that if they were anyone else, there would have been a hug.

Tuvok looked away first. "Your logic … is sound."

"I have a theory as to how this might have happened," the Doctor chimed in, clearing his throat and flourishing his tricorder. "Both of your brain scans are nearly identical to the time you mind-melded in order to restore Seven's consciousness from the effects of the Borg Vinculum. The two of you may have established a telepathic channel at that time, too faint for Seven's human brain to register, but since you became equipped with a transceiver, Commander, the connection could have been amplified."

Seven nodded. "That would explain why the children have not been affected. Their alcoves report normal regeneration cycles and they have not told me of anything unusual."

"How do we prevent this from happening again?" asked Tuvok. "Can you extract my transceiver?" He put a hand to the back of his neck, where the implant was lodged, as if he felt like digging it out.

"Not if you want to keep your spinal column," said the Doctor.

The transceivers were some of the nastiest, most insidious pieces of technology the Borg had ever created. None who had ever gone through assimilation – or even a partial version of it, like Chakotay – had ever been able to get rid of that thing as far as he knew, and once it was installed, the Collective could reach you whenever you were in range.

"I can disable it," said Seven.

"How?" Both men asked in unison.

"Before he left, General Korok gave me all the data Unimatrix Zero had collected to use against the Borg. I have been decrypting it, and find it very useful. It includes the most recent upgrades of the assimilation process, including a schematic of the new transceivers. If I neutralize its power cell, it will no longer transmit."

"Well, Commander?" said the Doctor. "Since you're already awake, we might as well proceed now. Unless you want to continue sharing nightmares with Seven."

"Very well," said Tuvok, frowning. "What must I do?"

"Hold still," was Seven's only reply.

She picked up a laser scalpel from the instrument tray and ran it and her hands through the blue-lit sterilizer. The laser activated with a quiet buzz.

Tuvok flinched away.

For a human, that would have been a perfectly normal reaction, but for him, it was yet more evidence of how deeply the Collective had hurt him. He trusted Seven enough that his dreaming mind had called to her for help, and yet part of him was still afraid of the Borg in her.

Seven's eyes flickered with hurt, but as she was standing behind him, Tuvok never saw it. Her hand was very gentle as it landed on his back, and her voice very low. For a moment, one could almost hear the woman she might have been, if the Borg hadn't stolen her childhood.

"Come here," she said. "Let me fix it."

This time, Tuvok obeyed.

It took less than a minute. Circling around to watch over Seven's shoulder, the Doctor saw a green light at the back of Tuvok's neck flicker out like a firefly. The patient relaxed visibly when it was gone. The tricorder revealed that it was, indeed, inactive.

"How does that feel, Commander?" asked the Doctor.

"After my next sleep, I will let you know."

"Fair enough. Excellent work, Seven, by the way. Are you sure you wouldn't like to switch assignments with Lieutenant Paris?"

"Since I doubt he would enjoy Astrometrics, no." She smiled at them both.

"All right, then. Not a bad night's work. Isn't it about time you both got some rest?"

"Yes, Doctor." The politely restrained irritation in their looks and voices was so similar, it was almost funny.

"Good night, then, Seven, Commander. I'll see you in the morning."

"Good night."

Tuvok pulled the blanket high over his shoulders and curled up on the biobed. Seven left the room. The Doctor ordered the lights to dim and retreated into his office, where he could listen to music with headphones on and keep an eye on his patient through the glass wall.

Tuvok wasn't out of the woods yet, he knew that, but he'd definitely reached a clearing, and it was all thanks to Seven.