AN: Here we are, another piece to this one!

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

111

"Sit down, Elnor," Raffi offered almost as soon as Elnor had materialized in the living room. Their table in the dining nook was set, and Seven was already sitting at her place. Elnor wasn't entirely unaccustomed to the meal being on the table and ready when he arrived, so he quickly obeyed Raffi's instructions.

Seven immediately started fixing her plate when the others had joined her at the table, planning to serve herself and pass the serving dishes as they often did. As soon as she'd served herself a piece of chicken, Raffi's first warning was issued.

"Those are small pieces, Seven," Raffi said. "You should have two—for protein."

Seven gave her a warning look across the table. Raffi's gaze was steady. There was a hint of a smile on her face, but it didn't really conceal that she was giving Seven her own warning look. Seven considered the two pieces of chicken. They were small, and the information that they'd been given—much of which were suggestions peppered in with actual scientific information—had mentioned protein. Seven took two pieces, but she made sure to give Raffi the best look she could to suggest that the decision to do so had been hers alone.

Seven passed the serving dish to Elnor and reached for the next dish. Raffi offered no helpful instructions on how much she was allowed of each side, and so Seven simply chose the amount that she thought would most help with the somewhat overwhelming hunger she was feeling. Apparently, running her Borg systems down to nothing, and leaving nothing but her remaining human systems to keep her functioning, worked up a ravenous appetite. With a second thought, she added a little more to her serving of potatoes and was quietly thankful that she'd been convinced to take the second piece of chicken.

Elnor served his own plate—heaping it to the point that Seven was reminded never to ask Raffi, as she'd done earlier, if she might have overestimated the amount of food that was necessary for one meal involving three people—and he looked back and forth between Seven and Raffi with a palpable concern that furrowed his brow.

"Are you having a disagreement?" He asked.

Raffi made eye contact with Seven over the table.

"No, we're not having a disagreement," Seven offered, being the one that would offer reassurance that everything was as it should be. "Raffi was just reminding me that I was hungrier that I thought." Seven smiled quickly at Raffi, finding her wife looking rather pleased to think that she hadn't misspoken.

"I thought your medical leave ended yesterday," Elnor said. "I expected to see you at the Academy. I came to see if you wanted to get coffee between classes, and when you weren't there, I called Raffi. She said you were regenerating."

"I was regenerating," Seven verified.

"We had to extend our leave a little longer than we thought," Raffi said. "Seven had a little procedure this morning, Elnor, and then she spent the rest of the day regenerating."

Elnor immediately looked concerned. What was more than that, he seemed to have lost all interest in his food. He loved when they cooked for him and invited him over for meals. Even when Raffi made him something simple like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—a human favorite—Elnor treated it like a gourmet meal gifted to him, directly from some benevolent entity, to forever quell his hunger and meet his physical and emotional needs.

At the moment, he wasn't interested in his food at all, and Raffi came to the rescue almost immediately. She leaned and patted his arm.

"Everything's fine. It was a minor procedure," she said. "Do you want to tell him, Seven?"

Seven's stomach felt, at once, more uncomfortable than it had all day. She wasn't sure how to tell him. She wasn't sure how to tell anyone. She wasn't entirely sure that she'd even told herself, yet, the full truth. It all felt like a game they were playing—something they were just saying. That feeling was the reason that she'd called Deanna Troi earlier, even though she'd frequently dismissed Deanna's offers to simply talk in the past, and asked if they might begin to meet with whatever regularity it was that Deanna might suggest.

"I believe you are better suited to do that, at this moment," Seven offered.

Raffi accepted the role with a gentle nod of her head. She patted Elnor's arm again, drawing his attention firmly in her direction.

"Another implant?" Elnor asked.

"Something like that," Raffi said. "Do you remember when we were toying with the idea of growing our family, Elnor? And we mentioned that we might like to someday have children?" Elnor barely nodded his head. His focus was intense, and Seven was relieved that she wasn't the subject of it at the moment. "Well—our current roles left us the time and…the ability to explore that. There's a current research project underway, and they were very interested in offering us very close care if we were interested in allowing our experiences to be recorded and studied for the future of other couples who might want to do what we're doing."

"Which is…?" Elnor asked. Seven wondered if he really hadn't followed, or if he was simply feeling like he needed to hear the exact words.

"We decided to pursue having a child," Seven said.

"We've been undergoing testing and preparation to see if it would work," Raffi said. "Yesterday, two embryos were implanted and attached with the procedure that they're using for this project."

"Two embryos…were implanted…" Elnor said, clearly chewing over the words. He looked back and forth between Seven and Raffi for a moment.

Seven felt her face grow warm.

"As of this morning," she offered, "I am…pregnant."

"Pregnant…" Elnor repeated. "With two embryos?"

"The procedure is not an absolute guarantee," Raffi said. "The attachment procedure they use is supposed to increase the odds of a successful pregnancy, though, and they've had a lot of pregnancies that have come from this."

"You may not be pregnant?" Elnor asked.

"We just have to hope that everything works out so that Seven remains pregnant," Raffi offered, after making eye contact with Seven and accepting Seven's nod of the head as evidence that she should continue to explain things.

"You're well?" Elnor asked, directing his question and his clear concern toward Seven. "There are no complications?"

"I am well," Seven said. "I have recently completed a full regeneration cycle, and I'm…starving. And I'm looking forward to enjoying this meal that Raffi has prepared for us. Made with love, as she says."

Raffi smiled at the words, and Seven lifted her fork as evidence that she intended to eat and hoped that Elnor would follow suit. He continued to regard her for a moment, and then he looked back at Raffi—clearly deciding that she was the current wealth of information.

"Will there be future complications?" Elnor asked.

"Nobody can answer that question," Raffi said. Seven saw it on her features—an internal struggle. She wanted to soothe things over for Elnor. He was just learning to relax and enjoy a life that was like he'd only imagined knowing before. She also wanted to be honest with him, though, because he valued honesty above most everything else, having been raised by the Qowat Milat. Raffi struggled a moment with her decision and then clearly made it. "There were some complications this morning. But—we're not going to let those happen again."

"What kind of complications?" Elnor asked.

"I was negligent in regenerating like I should," Seven said, owning her role in everything. "My energy was low when we left for the appointment. I did not realize how much energy would be required to regulate my new chip and—the new embryos."

"Nobody knew how much energy it would take," Raffi said, doing her best to relieve Seven of any blame that she might be feeling. "We had no way of knowing. We still don't. It's not an exact science—at least not until we've had a chance to study regeneration cycles and…everything. It's trial and error for a while. But—everything is, right? This morning was scary, but it's over now. And it wasn't a big deal. We thought it might be a big deal at the time, but…there's no harm done."

"I was not informed of anything that was taking place," Elnor said, clearly hurt.

"We didn't want to tell you what we were doing until the embryos were implanted and attached," Raffi said. "Really, Elnor, until this morning, we weren't sure that there wouldn't be some reason that things needed to change or—got cancelled. We weren't sure that things wouldn't fall through. We didn't want to get your hopes up or excite you, only to have to say that we weren't going through with the whole thing."

"And this morning?"

"In my defense," Seven offered, "I was in no condition to contact anyone." Raffi gave her a look that said that she wasn't ready for joking about this morning—not just yet. "I'm sorry. My attempts at humor are ill-timed."

"Sweetie—at the time? I couldn't contact you. I wasn't in an emotional place to be able to do that. And by the time I could? You were in class, and I wasn't going to disturb you to tell you that everything was fine. You called me right after that."

Elnor seemed to need to consider things, and Raffi left him alone. She turned back to her food, and Seven turned to hers. There was nothing to do, for a moment, except to let Elnor work through things. It was a lot of information, and he hadn't had the same amount of time that they'd had to process it—and both of them, arguably, still needed time to finish processing all the details.

Finally, Elnor started simply eating his food with quiet satisfaction, though the furrow between his brows remained.

"There are two embryos?" He asked finally.

"Two embryos," Seven echoed.

"Two babies," Raffi said. "And we hope to keep both of them. If we're going to do that, though, we're going to have to take good care of Seven." Raffi winked at Seven when Seven gave her something of an exasperated look. Elnor could be quite literal, sometimes, and she was certain that he would take that absolutely to heart.

"What kind of care do you need?" Elnor asked.

"I do not require specific or special care," Seven said.

"Good food," Raffi said. "A balanced diet. Rest and regular regeneration. Relaxation. A little spoiling wouldn't hurt."

"It does not say that in the literature," Seven said. "I read a fair portion of it while you were preparing dinner and, though it does mention some instructions for avoiding certain foods and activities, it doesn't mention anything about spoiling."

"You must not have read the same thing I read," Raffi said, shrugging her shoulders. "I know that's on one of the PADDs around here. Elnor can help me."

"You'll need to stop teaching the combat course that you're currently instructing," Elnor said. "It requires that all cadets enrolled in the course undergo a regular physical examination to ensure that they are not in gestation. Surely, that requirement would extend to you as their instructor."

Seven rolled her eyes. Raffi smirked—too proud of Elnor at the moment. If Seven wasn't confident that this was the first that Elnor was hearing of things, she might have accused Raffi of prompting him on what to say.

"I will tell the Dean on Tuesday that I am resigning the class," Seven said. "I hope that B'Elanna might take it."

"If you've got an open slot, and if they don't give you B'Elanna's class, Picard could use someone else part-time, I'm sure," Raffi offered.

"What is it that you say? I'll burn that bridge when I come to it?" Seven asked.

Raffi laughed sincerely before she finally responded.

"I'll cross that bridge," Raffi said. "You burn the bridge only when you're done with it."

"Picard will be happy to know about the embryos," Elnor offered.

"Babies, please," Raffi said. "I just—prefer babies. If we're doing things to make people comfortable, let's do that one for ole Raffi, OK? From this point forward, for all members of…of the Musiker Collective, the babies are just babies. I hereby ban the word embryo outside of scientific and clinical discussions."

Seven laughed, but her whole body warmed, too, at Raffi's words.

"Collective Musiker?" Elnor asked.

"It's our family," Raffi said.

"Raffi has decided we are our own Collective," Seven added. "You are, of course, an absolutely integral part of the Musiker Collective."

Elnor's face changed, and Seven recognized that, for one brief moment, he'd doubted his place in the pretend Collective.

"The babies of the Musiker Collective are not embryos," Elnor agreed.

"And they're a secret, too," Raffi said.

"A secret?" Elnor asked.

"Just for a while," Raffi said. "Just until we're sure that they're going to stay with us—that they're happy, and healthy, and ready for everyone to know about them. Until then, they're a Musiker Collective secret. Just between us."

Elnor looked extremely pleased with that explanation.

"Are you happy, Elnor?" Seven asked.

"I couldn't be happier," he said.

And Seven had to believe him, because Elnor simply didn't lie. She smiled at him, and let the smile trial over to Raffi. Raffi was practically beaming, and Seven could almost feel the happiness radiating out from her.

"Then—the entire Musiker Collective is aligned with our feelings," Seven offered. She winked at Raffi, her face warming as she prepared to continue with her teasing. "On that, we are one."