AN: Here we are, another piece here.

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

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Derram had used the pad of his heavy paw to push Seven into the dim room where they were now closed. Still, the tips of his claws had touched her as his paw slid across her back, and she felt the sting that let her know that they were sharp enough that they'd sliced through her uniform without the slightest bit of resistance. She felt, too, like the cuts were already healing—the cool sting was being replaced by a dull ache.

Her nanoprobes were working overtime, and that was true for her daughter and for Seven, both.

The room was dim—almost dark. Thanks to periods of difficulty on their planet, the Nerobians could function as semi-nocturnal when necessary for survival. Thanks to her ocular implant, Seven could, too.

The room was not a library. It wasn't anything, really, except a room with a concrete floor and sconces on the wall that held heavy looking candles that burned steadily—only two, and they didn't put off nearly enough light for the room. Seven didn't know if the flames were real or some production of a technology the Nerobians had gained after they'd been assimilated—and after the Borg had last learned anything about the species, during Seven's time in the Collective, at least. Seven let her eyes wander a bit more, in search of a weapon. The room was mostly cleared, though the smell of the room was making her use most of her control not to empty the contents of her stomach right then and there. She briefly wondered if vomiting on the Nerobian would deter him. She turned her attention to the thought—because there were always so many thoughts that went through her mind as she processed any situation—that the only weapon she might find, somewhere within the shadowed part of the room, was the bones of whoever had been unlucky enough to enter this room before.

Derram was talking. What he said, really, was inconsequential. Seven knew what he was doing. He was toying with them—an animal playing with his chosen prey. He intended to kill them and eat them. There was no need to question his intention or to entertain his words. Seven was ready, but still relatively defenseless, when Derram raised a paw to her again. She heard Raffi's yell of "no," and it hurt worse, honestly, than the contact of the long claws. Seven had turned—twisted her body—so that the heavy paw and sharp claws caught her along her left arm and across a piece of her back and left side. She gritted her teeth against the wave of pain that only intensified the nausea she already felt. That arm would heal quickly—more quickly, at least, than the right—and that was why she'd practically chosen to offer it in sacrifice.

Raffi would have no benefit here. She would be half-blinded by the low light. She wouldn't have nanoprobes working overtime to protect her.

Seven had to keep Derram entertained and focused on her while she figured out what to do.

"Seven!" Raffi called out frantically.

"It's a scratch," Seven barked back at her. It wasn't a lie. Technically, the Nerobian had scratched her. The degree of damage done wasn't important, at the moment, and the wound wasn't permanent.

"I'll do more than that," Derram growled. "Fight, Borg."

Seven's stomach tightened. On the one hand, Derram wouldn't have much interest in either of them if they didn't put up much of a fight. In theory, he might even grow bored and leave them alone. That was only theory, though. The Nerobian's shared some of the instincts of other predators, but one that they didn't share was the abandonment of prey. They ate what they could—even if Seven and Raffi wouldn't fight, they could still be a worthwhile food source. If they refused to fight, Derram would simply make quick work of their deaths and move on to another member of their team.

In rapid succession, Seven's mind ran through a series thoughts. She wondered if she would die first, or if she'd be forced to watch Raffi die. She wondered if the baby was capable of feeling pain…if she would die as soon as life left Seven's body, or if she would linger for some time.

Then, just as quickly, her mind changed gears and offered her entirely different thoughts. She wasn't ready. She didn't accept this. She didn't want this. Since she'd been separated—since she'd accepted her individuality—she had ached for a life…a simple life…an ordinary life. That's what she'd told Raffi. She wanted love, a home, a family, the two-point-five children she'd heard about, and the beautiful, wonderful, mundaneness of a simple life. Raffi gave her that—she gave her that every day. She gave Seven exactly what she wanted—what she longed for—always. And Seven wasn't ready to lose it.

She wasn't ready to admit that she'd never sleep with her body warm and pressed against Raffi's again. She wasn't ready to admit that they'd made love for the last time, and that she'd never touch her again—never be touched by her again. She wasn't ready to admit that Elnor would never wrap his arms around her and hug her like he did—with all the strength of someone who abhorred lies and put so much truth into the love he transferred through an embrace. She wasn't ready to admit that she'd never hold her baby girl, and that the crickets she thought she felt were all she'd ever know of her—that the other child they dreamed of and planned would never be anything more than a dream.

Seven gritted her teeth. She reached her hand up, feeling from the less-painful-than-before movement that it was healing, and touched her combadge.

"Seven to Soñador," she said, watching Raffi move slowly away from Derram out of the corner of her eye, backing the whole way, as she should. The sound that returned was a scrambled attempt to communicate with them. Their signals were being scrambled or jammed. "We're in trouble. We need emergency beam out for the whole team. Now. Hurry." She knew they couldn't understand the message, but she hoped that Harry or Tuvok would manage to unscramble the message in time, and she hoped that she could somehow give them the time to do just that.

In the meantime…

"They're not coming for you," Derram offered.

"Probably not," Seven agreed. She rushed the Nerobian, then. Her movement caught him as off-guard as he'd originally caught her. She kicked him, hard, in the soft underbelly that was vulnerable in many species. Conscious of his return attack, Seven protected her own soft underbelly—the only part of herself that she was really concerned with protecting at the moment—by quickly turning to the side to avoid the paw that came toward her even as Derram doubled over.

Raffi screamed at Seven. Maybe she screamed at Derram. Seven purposefully forbade her own ears to listen to anything Raffi was saying at the moment. She couldn't put her focus there. She couldn't run the risk of losing her concentration. She had to control when she looked at Raffi and interacted with her. She had to put it out of her mind as much as possible, because Raffi's pain—whether physical or simply emotional— could unarm her entirely, and she couldn't afford that at the moment.

Seven turned back and managed another hit against Derram's warm fur-covered body. He landed another hit against her, weaker than before, thanks to his need to recover from the shock of her hit to his underbelly. She gritted her teeth against the searing burns of his slashes, but she tried not to pay attention to where he hit her or how badly his claws damaged her. There would be time to crawl off and lick wounds in the future—if only someone could get a lock on them.

Seven was aware when Raffi jumped into the fight. Raffi tried to push Seven back. She tried to fight against Derram. It was, honestly, almost a futile effort. Seven was naturally a good deal stronger than Raffi thanks to her Borg enhancements. She didn't usually point this out to Raffi, but it was simply a physical truth. Raffi was strong for her size, but she was no match for the Nerobian that dwarfed her in height, weight, and muscle mass.

"Raffi…" Seven called out, trying to convince her to get back. She realized, though, that Raffi couldn't listen to her anymore than she could listen to Raffi.

This fight wasn't a fair fight, and it wasn't a fight that they could likely win.

Seven went quickly for one of the torches on the wall. Reaching for it, she noticed the blood on her arm and hand for the first time—her own blood. She was almost sure that they had drawn very little of Derram's blood, if any at all. She ignored the blood and jumped for the sconce, pulling the candle down and just barely dodging the hot wax that came spilling down with it. She slung the burning candle in Derram's direction, sending the last of the hot wax in his direction—toward his face. He howled when it made contact and pawed at his face where the wax burned his eyes and stuck in his fur. The hot wax ran down over Seven's hand, but she absorbed that pain along with the rest and pushed it to the side of her mind. She brought the burning candle with her, determined to light the Nerobian on fire if she could.

Seeing him momentarily incapacitated, Raffi had rushed the bear. From somewhere, though Seven had no idea where, Raffi had found a knife—a knife that looked suspiciously like an Earth blade that she'd picked up, once, in what seemed almost like another life. Seven hadn't seen it much since then, so it was strange to see it appear now. Raffi must have been wearing it, and now Seven wondered how often she was wearing the weapon when nobody—not even Seven—knew about it.

There wasn't time for questions, though.

Raffi stabbed at Derram, but the Nerobian fur was thick and well-insulated. Her blade made contact with the skin of his belly, Seven could tell that from his howls of anger and pain, but it didn't go as deep as they would have liked.

The alarm on Seven's personal device—left with her because it had no use as a weapon—and the alarm on Raffi's went off simultaneously. In the small room, the sounds echoed with an almost deafening shrillness. The howling alarms suggested that Seven was very low on the synthetic hormones that, essentially, brought her more in touch with her human side. Soon, the depth of her feelings and emotions would diminish greatly. She would become numb soon. That's how it felt to her now that she was more familiar with the full range of emotions.

She would become more Borg, perhaps.

It didn't matter—full gamut of emotions or not, she would know what was important in this moment. She would remember what mattered most to her. They had to get out of here—all three of them.

Seven stepped forward with the candle. She brandished it as the only weapon she had. Derram swatted wildly, now, at the two of them and growled out something about irritation with the noise that wouldn't cease. He made contact with Raffi, but she didn't visibly or audibly respond to the injury. Instead, when they'd backed him against a wall, she grabbed one of those big paws and did her best to pin it—trying to keep it from slapping either of them again. Seven burned every part of the Nerobian that came near her, doing her best to keep him from making contact with the candle and destroying it, an act that would leave her without a weapon again.

The horrible sound that Derram made, suddenly, echoed in the room loudly enough that it drowned out the screeching alarms for a moment. His anger was palpable. He slapped Seven and her candle, taking half the light in the already-dim room away and knocking her to the ground. She felt relatively undamaged, though slightly stunned by the impact. She looked toward Raffi to see that what she'd done was use the knife to remove what appeared to be two or three of the Nerobian's claws. She brandished them as something of a second weapon against the irate bear-like alien.

Derram floundered wildly—first on four and then on two feet—and tried to make sense of his injured paw. He reached out and slapped Raffi hard—too hard, Seven thought, for a human to tolerate. Raffi flew backward like a ragdoll.

Seven heard her own voice cry out, and she scrambled forward to try to reach Raffi.

Before she could reach her, she felt the familiar tingling feeling as the transporter beam caught her—and she hoped that it caught Raffi, too.

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AN: OK, I admit, I'm terrible at action chapters, but I do like to try to give you a little action every now and again. Please forgive me.

I hope you enjoyed for what it's worth. Please don't forget to let me know what you think!