AN: Here we are, another piece here.
I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!
111
Seven was almost always content to lie with Raffi spooning her from behind, their bodies fitted tightly together. Raffi never minded being the big spoon and, in fact, she enjoyed the feeling of cuddling against Seven all night when her regeneration schedule allowed them such a privilege. Seven usually slept well, too. She tended to sleep solidly, the human parts of her body exhausted and in need of the rest that regeneration didn't provide for them. Therefore, when Seven's sleep was disturbed and uneasy, Raffi's body seemed naturally programmed to notice and respond.
Raffi woke even as Seven was pulling away from her and scrambling into an upright position in the bed. Somewhat dazed, Raffi ran her hand over the sheet where Seven had been lying seconds before, and she felt the dampness of the sheet. She sat up, too, feeling disoriented. Her own nightgown was damp from the sweat that she seemed to have absorbed from Seven's body.
"Computer, time," Raffi said, reaching for Seven.
"The time is 0300 hours," the computer's voice informed her.
"Seven? Are you alright?" Raffi asked. "Computer—lights, low."
The computer complied, raising the lights to a dimness that wouldn't shock eyes that were used to darkness, but would allow Raffi and Seven to see each other. Immediately, Raffi could see that Seven wasn't alright. She was wide-eyed, and Raffi could practically smell her fear—along with the sweat that had coated her body.
"Seven? Talk to me, Baby," Raffi said. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," Seven said. "I feel afraid."
"Nanoprobes messing with the emotion node or something else?" Raffi asked. She decided to leave Seven only briefly. As she crawled out of the bed, she noticed that Seven somewhat scrambled around the mattress with slightly jerky movements. She tracked Raffi the whole time she moved. Raffi went straight to the bedroom replicator and entered her pin, requesting a hypospray and then asking for a glass of water. She took both back and sat on the edge of the bed near Seven. She put the glass on the nightstand and reached a hand out. Touching Seven's neck, she pulled her to her and pressed the hypospray against her artery. "Shh…" Raffi offered. "It's OK. Is it just the hormones? Do you just feel afraid or—are you actually afraid? Here—drink some of this." Raffi held the glass of water up for Seven, and she didn't let go of it even after Seven wrapped her hand around it. Raffi pressed her to swallow down half the glass, and then she put it back on the nightstand and smoothed Seven's hair back—it was damp, too, and Raffi shushed Seven again out of instinct more than necessity. "Tell me what's wrong."
"You have to sleep," Seven said. "You have—work in a few hours."
"So do you," Raffi said. "But this matters more to me than being a little sleepy, Seven. Your breathing is going back to normal, but something's wrong."
"I was—hurting the baby," Seven said. "I—was hurting it. Badly."
Raffi ran her hands over Seven, touching her with her palms, assuring herself that everything seemed fine. She'd touched her hand to Seven's abdomen where, presumably, their little one was just as well as it had been the previous morning.
"What do you mean, Seven, that you were hurting the baby?" Raffi asked. She touched Seven's face and tipped it so that she'd maintain eye contact with her.
"It was screaming," Seven said. "It was hurting. And I was doing it. I was hurting it. I could hear it, inside my head. We were one. We were connected."
Raffi sucked in a breath and took in what Seven said. She squeezed Seven's shoulders. She offered her a reassuring smile.
"You had a nightmare," Raffi said.
"I have had nightmares before," Seven said. "This was—real."
"It was probably vivid," Raffi said. "It probably felt real. But—it was a nightmare."
Seven grabbed Raffi's arm with her left hand and Raffi gritted her teeth, not wanting to remind Seven that her grip, at times, could be practically bone-crushing. At this particular moment, Raffi would rather get Seven back to sleep and sneak down to sickbay to have the bones in her arm repaired than to add to Seven's distress.
"What if I'm hurting our baby right now, Raf?" Seven asked. "We need to—to do something!"
"Shhhh…" Raffi soothed. "Hey—it's OK. What do you think we need to do?"
"We need to contact sickbay," Seven said. "We need—we need to tell them that the baby is in distress. We need to discuss a fetal transplant. You would be better suited to the care of the baby…"
"Seven!" Raffi said, loudly, to catch Seven's attention. "Seven!" She yelled again, shaking Seven gently, rather than slapping her like she briefly considered doing. It shocked Seven, and she caught Raffi's eyes. Raffi thought she saw her coming into herself a bit more. Raffi smiled at her. "Hello, beautiful," she offered. She stroked Seven's cheek.
Seven's face drew up with the warning of tears, but she fought them.
"Raf…"
It was all she managed to say. Raffi smiled at her reassuringly.
"It was a nightmare," Raffi assured her.
"I am Borg," Seven said. "And—I damaged the baby. I assimilated the baby. I forced it to join the Collective. We were connected, and it was screaming in pain, Raffi. I could hear it, in my mind, and it was screaming."
"That sounds terrifying," Raffi agreed. She brought the glass of water over again. This time, Seven seemed in control of herself enough to drink it on her own. Raffi picked up Seven's personal device from the nightstand and moved it over to the bed beside her. She kept one hand on Seven's abdomen, grounding her, and she used the other to access the file she was searching for on Seven's device. "Listen to this—this doesn't sound terrifying at all." She smiled when Seven visibly relaxed at the sound of the baby's heartbeat.
"That was this morning," Seven said. "Prior to my…premonition."
Raffi held her finger up to Seven. She got up, slipped over to her dresser, and picked up her tricorder. She brought it back to where she'd been sitting before.
"Nightmare. Not premonition. One Starfleet issued, professional-grade tricorder," Raffi announced. She used it to scan Seven. She smiled and turned it to show Seven. "One Seven Musiker—whose life signs have already been entered and identified for the ship's personnel log—and one additional lifeform." Seven held Raffi's hand, looking at the information on the screen. Raffi leaned forward and kissed Seven's face. Seven leaned into her, and Raffi closed her eyes and nuzzled against her. "It was a nightmare. It was a terrifying, horrible, nightmare—but it was a nightmare. If you were one, there would be one lifeform, only. Seven Musiker and nothing else—only an extension of Seven Musiker. The only connection that you two have is a completely normal connection between any mother and the baby she's carrying."
Seven pulled away. She looked at Raffi with a flood of affection in her eyes. It made Raffi's chest squeeze. The heartbeat played on loop, a sweet background to their conversation.
"I am afraid of hurting our baby," Seven admitted.
"You're not hurting our baby," Raffi said. "In fact, you're taking incredible care of our baby. You—got our baby a strong, healthy heartbeat in record time. I couldn't do for our baby what you've done, and that's just fact." Tears leaked from Seven's eyes and Raffi wiped them away.
"I have never wanted to be successful at anything the way that I want to be successful at this," Seven admitted.
"It was a long day," Raffi said. "It was a long, hard day. And there were a lot of uncomfortable things to talk about at your intake examination. Your mind held on to all of that, Seven. That kind of stress? It comes out in dreams. Nightmares. For humans. It's only natural you had a nightmare, but that's all it was."
Seven had calmed. Her nightgown was twisted. Her hair was disheveled, thanks to the sweat, but she was finally looking sincerely calm. Raffi lifted the tricorder and scanned her again.
"Your vitals are returning to normal ranges," Raffi offered. "And the additional lifeform is not registering any distress. Do you think you could lie down now?"
Raffi returned everything except Seven's personal device to the nightstand. She moved back to her side of the bed, but she kept the device between their pillows, at the head of the bed, so that the heartbeat continued to play. Seven laid down, and Raffi moved close to her, facing her. She stroked Seven's cheek, sometimes letting her fingers trail out to brush Seven's hair with her fingertips. Seven closed her eyes, every now and again, with comfort, but then she opened her eyes again.
"I am afraid to return to sleep," Seven said. "I don't want to dream the same thing again. I cannot stand to hear that screaming."
"It wasn't real," Raffi said. "It felt real, but it wasn't real. Close your eyes, Seven. Listen to the heartbeat. You did that. You made that happen. That's what's real. Hear that—nothing else, OK?" Raffi closed her eyes, but she kept rubbing Seven rhythmically for as long as she could—until she forgot what she was doing, forgot to tell the computer to bring down the lights, and forgot to turn off the personal device that rested at the head of the mattress, playing a lullaby for the both of them.
111
"What is that?" Elnor asked. He was seated with his current favorite breakfast—four eggs, two pieces of toast with jam, and six sausages. The replicator, thankfully, didn't ask any questions about their growing Romulan son who could easily tuck away multiple plates of food at nearly any meal.
"It is a nutritionally balanced breakfast," Seven said. "All the individual necessary ingredients are encapsulated perfectly in a wrapping that makes the food both palatable and portable."
"It's a breakfast burrito," Raffi said. "Do you want one?"
"This is fine," Elnor said, still eyeing Seven's breakfast while she ate it. Raffi put down the large bowl of fruit she'd brought with her from the replicator, along with her own breakfast, leaving the fruit in the center for anyone who wanted any. As soon as she put it down, Elnor reached for it. She thought he might serve himself, but instead she noticed that he nudged the bowl toward Seven. "There are vitamins in plant-life that will enhance the nutritional value of your…"
"Breakfast burrito," Raffi offered.
"Breakfast burrito," Elnor said.
"I do not require additional nutrients, Elnor."
"But Baby M does," Raffi said, filling in for Elnor what she could see he was about to say, but wasn't certain he should say. "In fact—for all we know, Baby M may require a great deal of nutrients. Do you want to tell Elnor what we learned yesterday or…?"
"You may share our news," Seven said, smiling a moment before she returned to her breakfast.
Elnor looked worried, but he also looked like he was doing his best not to look that way.
"Everything is fine?" Elnor asked.
"Everything is better than fine," Raffi said. "Baby M is growing—like a Tarjarian Flowering Vine." Raffi laughed at her own joke. The vines were well known for their sometimes-problematic rapid growth. If they weren't carefully cultivated, they would take over wherever they grew, sometimes swallowing entire structures in less than a day. "The baby seems to be growing a little faster, really, than we originally imagined it might, but that's OK. It just means that we'll keep an eye on its progress. For right now, it looks good and it has a beautiful, strong little heartbeat."
"The speed of growth isn't problematic?" Elnor asked.
"Not for Seven's body," Raffi said, reaching a hand over and rubbing her thumb over the top of Seven's arm. "She's doing very well. She's handling the pregnancy like a pro. For me, it would have been a problem, but it's…almost like Seven was made for motherhood."
Seven's face flushed and then ran red, but she smiled. She'd slept, after her nightmare, and she'd woken with a bit more confidence than she'd revealed to Raffi at three in the morning. Raffi was sure, of course, they hadn't seen the end of her insecurities, but she was grateful to at least find that they had settled some during the night.
"Is there anything I can do?" Elnor asked.
"You should focus on your duties and your studies," Seven said. "We'll be leaving this morning, and there's an entire quadrant of knowledge for you to absorb. Your focus should be on that. Everything else is irrelevant."
Raffi squeezed Seven's arm and shook her head gently when Seven looked at her.
"Your help is going to be invaluable to us, Elnor," Raffi offered. "Right now, however, it's really Seven that's doing all the work of growing the baby. So—that means for you and me? Our job is just to make sure that Seven has all that she needs to be comfortable."
"I hardly need Elnor to distract himself from his work on my account," Seven said.
Raffi winked at Elnor, and he relaxed a little.
"Absolutely not," Raffi said. "And that's why we'll limit how much we ask him to do."
"I feel as though you're placating me," Seven said.
Raffi smiled at her.
"That new node is really working overtime with the feelings for you," Raffi teased. "And it's getting so accurate. Finish your breakfast. The baby's hungry."
"How would you know what the baby is feeling?" Seven asked.
"I've got a hunch. Subliminal messaging," Raffi teased tapping the side of her head. She burrowed around in the fruit bowl and placed a few pieces on Seven's plate. "You like strawberries and pineapple. Here—this is…kiwi. I think. Yes. Try that."
"I do not enjoy the sensation of kiwi," Seven said. "I've tried it before, at your request."
"Try it again," Raffi offered. She winked at Elnor again. He was amused by any such exchange like the one he was watching. Raffi often thought he'd rather watch her fuss over Seven than any holo-film he could possibly choose from the film databases. "See if Baby M likes it."
"Whether or not the baby enjoys it is irrelevant if I can't bear to swallow it," Seven said.
"Just one piece," Raffi said. "And—the blueberry and one raspberry."
"I do not care for any of those berries," Seven said.
"Fine," Raffi said. "But—they're good for the baby, Seven, and I just thought you'd want to do whatever was good for the baby…even if it means trying foods that have textures you don't normally enjoy."
Seven frowned, but she picked up the raspberry and put it in her mouth. Like a small child, she made a very clear expression of disgust as she chewed it.
"I will consume this for the good of the baby," she said. "However—I would like to note that…it is an unpleasant sensation, as well as an unpleasant flavor."
Raffi laughed and pulled Seven against her, kissing the side of her head. She didn't care that they were in the mess hall. She didn't care that, simply by arriving, they'd drawn the attention of several people sitting there. She didn't care if all of them thought that a public display of affection by their first officer was uncalled for or in bad taste. She was too happy to care about any of it.
"You're already the best mama," Raffi assured Seven. "We'll try different fruit later."