AN: Here we are, another piece to the story!

I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

On the way to the bedroom, Raffi and Seven maintained step so that they didn't have to be apart from each other even for the short walk through the house. Seven's kisses were aggressive—and delicious. Her hands grappled and grabbed; her fingertips dug into Raffi where they made purchase. There was an aggression behind her touches of which Raffi was almost certain that Seven had no active awareness. She was hungry—she was starving—and Raffi seemed to be the only thing she wanted, and the only thing that could quell that hunger.

And that realization made Raffi feel like she could nearly burst with happiness. It was more than happiness, even in a moment where her face stung from the slightly aggressive kisses of her wife, and even though she thought there might be a few bruises in the coming day from where Seven didn't realize that her strength was beyond that of most people, Raffi felt absolutely satisfied and at peace. She was very much wanted and loved, by someone she very much wanted and loved, and the rest was only details.

"Why are you still wearing so many clothes?" Seven asked when they reached the bedroom. Raffi didn't point out that Seven hadn't shed any clothes, either, on the trip from the living room. There was no need, and Seven was already coming out of her clothes with the desperate movement of someone who doesn't care if they ever re-wear that article again.

Raffi made quick work of her own clothes. There was, as far as she could see, no reason to play coy here.

Still, Raffi couldn't help engaging in a little teasing.

"What do you want, Seven?" She asked. She smirked at Seven's expression once she was a free from her clothing as Raffi was.

"I require you," Seven said, coming toward Raffi. She shoved her backward, and Raffi felt a second of panic just before she realized the bed would break her fall. She hardly had time to adjust her position on the bed before Seven had taken a position over her. The hungry kiss that Seven introduced the moment she was over Raffi ended quickly, and Raffi sat up to try to prolong it and follow her, but Seven had already moved on. She kissed down Raffi's body, stopping to tease here and there, where she wished, and Raffi simply dropped back.

There were times, she realized, when she didn't need to have control, and this time it really seemed as though Seven needed what she was seeking, and that she knew exactly what it was that she needed.

"OK," Raffi breathed out. "OK—Baby—you…that's good…you just…oh damn…whatever you want is fine by me."

If Seven needed the encouragement, she didn't acknowledge it. She latched onto Raffi, immediately sucking her as an introduction to the time that she meant to spend between her legs, and Raffi shot up, changing her position with the jolt of feeling.

Seven stopped long enough to smile at her from between her legs, settling into a position that made it clear that she might have some intention of being there for a while and thought she should be at least relatively comfortable. The smile—the sincere, happy smile, was almost as arousing as anything else had been so far. This wasn't some fevered fit induced by some drug. Seven might have the benefit of a surge of hormones, but it was clear that she felt in control of herself, and she was happy with what they were doing.

Raffi smiled back at her.

"You take whatever you want," Raffi said. Seven's smile only grew for a second.

"Resistance is futile," she teased, winking her eye at Raffi. And, for a moment, instead of being something that brought up negative feelings, it had become nothing more than a joke. Raffi relaxed as Seven settled into her work. The same hunger from before transferred over to what she was doing now, and Raffi didn't object to any of her experimentation. After several minutes of simply torturing Raffi with feelings that just kept building in a slow and steady growth toward something she knew would be incredible—Seven stopped what she was doing again. "Talk to me," she said, panting. She was forgetting to breathe, but Raffi wasn't offering constructive criticism—not tonight. She could do exactly as she pleased.

"What do you want me to say?" Raffi asked. Seven latched back onto her clit for a second, now she was teasing her, too, with her fingers. "Shit—shit…I'll say whatever you want."

"Talk to me—about the baby," Seven said, breaking for air and to guide Raffi in the right direction. "Please."

For a moment, the request sounded strange, but then it settled over Raffi like a warm bath. Their baby—the growth of their family—everything they'd been talking about and dreaming about for the last longest was coming to be, and that, arguably along with a very large dose of synthesized hormones, had Seven's motor running at never-before-experienced speeds.

And she enjoyed it when Raffi stoked that fire verbally. Raffi groaned, uncontrollably, at Seven's admirable efforts, and she reached, gently pulling at Seven's hair as she tangled her fingers there. When she spoke, her own voice had a panting, desperate quality, but she decided that Seven wouldn't care—much of what she heard would be muffled by Raffi's thighs, at any rate.

"You are—shit—no—shit—I didn't mean that—not like that—you are—incredible. Amazing. You are going to be—shit—no—shit—shit—that's perfect…Oh, I'm sorry…that's perfect. Right there. You are going to be an—incredible mother. Please don't stop, Seven. We're going—shit, shit, oh—we're going tomorrow. I'll wake up before you. As soon as you wake up—we'll go get our baby. And we'll bring it home. Oh—yes…Seven…"

Raffi meant to keep going for Seven's benefit, noticing that hitting on the right words, like figuring out a code, seemed to bring about a second wind for Seven. She couldn't keep going, though, because all that had begun to build eventually reached its peak, and it rolled through Raffi with a painfully pleasant jolt that blanked her mind almost entirely for what felt like a very long moment. She couldn't say anything, she could only enjoy the feeling.

And that, in itself, must have done something for Seven, because when Raffi opened her eyes, feeling like she was floating in the glorious aftermath of her orgasm, Seven was stroking herself with her fingers, biting her lip, going after exactly what she needed. Her left hand stretched out to stroke Raffi and, as soon as the cool metal of the implant touched Raffi, Seven seemed to realize and started to draw back.

"Don't," Raffi demanded. "Please—I want you to touch me, Seven. Keep touching me, Baby."

Seven listened. Her touches weren't enough to draw another orgasm out of Raffi's body, but that wasn't what concerned Raffi at the moment. Raffi sat forward, reaching for Seven, hoping to help her find her release—to be allowed to do so—but Seven found it before she could help her, and Raffi settled for kissing her deeply after she came and pulling her down on top of her on the bed.

Together, they moved toward the pillows and under the blankets, curling together before the afterglow had too much opportunity to fade.

Warm, body-to-body with Seven, and stroking Seven's face, Raffi felt like she was in the right place—the perfect place.

Some of the frantic nature seemed to have left Seven with her orgasm. She seemed, now, sleepy. Raffi wasn't surprised. There was no telling how much energy she'd burned throughout the evening just maintaining a constant state of arousal, which, for Seven, was something new—though Raffi secretly hoped it wasn't something that would never happen again.

"That was incredible," Raffi said softly, keeping her voice quiet to go with the exhausted look on Seven's features.

"Did I bring you sufficient pleasure?" Seven asked. She already sounded like she'd been sleeping for an hour.

"You brought me more pleasure than I've ever known before," Raffi said. "I didn't know you had that in you."

Seven's face changed suddenly—instantly—like storm flowing over and darkening the sky. She screwed up her face, and a few tears ran awkwardly away from her eyes. Raffi immediately swiped at them and swallowed back the smile that almost came to her lips as her mind reminded her that hormones came in all shapes and sizes.

"Why are you crying? It's OK…"

"I didn't do it correctly," Seven said.

Raffi couldn't keep her laughter back, then.

"What do you think you didn't do correctly, exactly? Seven, Baby? You just—rocked my world and blew my mind." She winked at Seven and laughed when Seven responded with laughter that was slightly choked by the tears she didn't have under control entirely. Raffi continued to mop at the tears with her hand—not that it offered the maximum absorbency she would have hoped for. "That's good. That's enough. Stop crying. You were incredible. And that was incredible. And this—just holding you like this? It's incredible, too. So—there is no room for tears."

"I made you—talk about our baby," Seven said. "I don't think…I should have asked that."

"Why not? I love talking about our baby," Raffi said. "And you love talking about our baby. And—what better place to talk about making our baby than right here in the bed where the hope for that child was conceived, even if we need a little help from science to make it a reality?"

"It wasn't sexy to ask," Seven said, but she was clearly calming and the tears had almost dissipated.

Raffi smiled tenderly at her and returned to stroking her face, pushing her hair back. Her fingers ghosted over the metallic implant near Seven's right ear. Seven didn't shudder, or blink, or flinch in any way. Raffi was happy to see that.

"It was very sexy. Everything about you is sexy," Raffi said. "Even when you think you're not being very sexy, that's when you're sometimes being the sexiest than you ever can be. And you carrying our baby? You can tell me that your appearance is irrelevant when it comes to this pregnancy, but I assure you it's not. Not from my perspective. And you carrying our baby is very sexy to me."

Seven smiled.

"I feel…" She sighed. "I don't know what I feel, Raf."

Raffi laughed quietly.

"You feel like you're drowning in emotions," Raffi said. Seven nodded her head gently against the pillow. Raffi continued drawing her fingers gently through Seven's hair. Her choice to do so had a purpose. She'd long since learned that doing that, slowly and methodically, was one of the things that Seven found most soothing in the world. That touch could calm her fairly quickly, if such a thing was necessary, and it did wonders for helping her sleep. Her visibly heavy eyelids and the fact that her breathing had taken on a different sound entirely told Raffi that hadn't changed.

There was no doubt in Raffi's mind that, after such an expenditure of energy, Seven probably needed to regenerate badly. Her newest chamber—tucked into the corner of their bedroom like a personal oasis—had been upgraded to lessen the amount of time that she had to spend regenerating, which had required Seven to learn to sleep, again, like a human. Learning to sleep had come with its own bumps, and Seven still had some problems and nightmares, but Raffi thought she slept better than she had when they'd first started sleeping together. Still, there were times when Seven absolutely had to regenerate and, if she put it off too long, Raffi could tell that her proverbial batteries had run all the way down. She would become clumsier, her speech and thinking would be very clearly fogged, and she would require assistance to do a great number of basic things.

Still, it would be fine if she didn't regenerate tonight. She could sleep tonight, and let the human side of herself regenerate. Raffi could help her tomorrow, and it wouldn't matter if she was a little foggy for the procedure—they were going to sedate her anyway, though Raffi hadn't told her that, yet, and figured she'd save it for a final argument as they headed toward their appointment. Raffi would keep her safe and help her with anything she needed until then, and Seven could regenerate when they got home. For now, she could get all the benefit possible from a sound sleep.

"That's the hormones. And it's the excitement for tomorrow. And it's knowing that, in the morning, I'm going to wake you up, and tell you we're going, and we'll go get our baby before breakfast." Seven smiled, a softer smile this time.

"I love you," she said, the quality of her words making it clear that she would soon be asleep.

"I love you," Raffi said. "And what I meant to say, before you blew my mind and made me unable to say anything at all, was that tomorrow we'll bring our baby home, and we'll love it forever, and we'll just be happy, OK? And there's nothing anyone can do to stop us."

Raffi continued the stroking of Seven's hair. She ran her fingertips, again, briefly over the metal embedded in Seven's skin. Seven didn't stir. Raffi wasn't even sure she'd heard the last of what she'd said. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was slow and steady. Raffi's heart swelled with love for the woman.

"And—I love the way you make me feel," Raffi whispered. "Like I may have been a fuck-up before, but I'm doing everything right now. Right enough that—you'll just fall asleep in my arms. Sweet dreams."