AN: Here's another little piece. We'll have a little more (natural) emotional reaction/fallout to the Nerobian conflict, but this takes us a step further toward resolving that conflict.
I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!
111
Raffi slept hard—the sleep of the dead, or something like that. She'd been entirely unaware of her surroundings. When she woke, she woke with a start. She felt like she'd slept too well, and for far too long, and she felt like she'd somehow slipped into another reality or another dimension.
She sat up and felt the muscles in her body seizing with soreness. Her head began thumping, and she felt a quick wave of dizziness. She laid back down and massaged her temples.
"Must've been some good drugs," she mused to herself.
The Nerobian had caught her across the front of her body with his claws. All the soft, unprotected organs in her abdominal cavity had suffered in some way—fatal, at least without quick treatment. That's what the Doctor had said. The Doctor had repaired every major tear and rupture, however. The nanoprobes had handled all the minor injuries that would eventually heal on their own, but would heal much faster with the help the nanoprobes provided.
As Raffi's head stopped spinning, and settled into simply thumping, she looked around. There was, by the bed, a hypospray and a glass of water. She expected that both were for her, but she drank the water and skipped the hypospray until she knew what to expect. The dizziness had passed, now that she was sitting up again, but the thumping remained. She looked toward the regeneration chamber. Seven wasn't there. Her side of the bed looked undisturbed. She hadn't slept, despite the fact that Rafif knew she'd been ordered to sleep as well as regenerate. Raffi felt a completely irrational wave of panic rise up in her.
"Seven?" She called out, turning her body to get out of bed. "Seven…"
Yellow alert was off. There was no red alert. One way or another, the conflict had been handled. They were moving. In a ship the size of the Soñador, movement was nearly impossible to detect—nearly—but someone who had spent as much time aboard different vessels as Raffi had could tell if the ship was in motion or stopped somewhere for observation or some other such activity.
"Seven?" Raffi repeated, finding her feet and scolding herself for toddling on them a little as she stood and got back her proverbial sea legs. Without the benefit of whatever drugs she'd been given in sickbay, Raffi could feel the residual soreness that would stay with her for days as she overcame the ordeal. Surgeries and dermal regenerators made repairs, but there was still something of a bone-deep ache that accompanied any injury, no matter how impossible it was to detect with the naked eye.
It was nothing like the stories they heard about past suffering, but there was still healing that simply had to be done from the inside out.
Raffi hated feeling unwell in any way. She was a self-admitted baby about any kind of discomfort. She kept it to herself, most of the time, because there were very few people in life willing to indulge her self-pitying and whining when she wasn't well, but she still felt what she felt. It was one reason, though she didn't say so, that she was more than happy to let Seven be the one who carried and delivered their children. She would have done it if Seven's scans had come back stating it to be impossible, but she was secretly quite pleased that they came back so positive, and that Seven wanted the experience so desperately. She had been miserable when she'd been pregnant with Gabe, and Jay hadn't been entirely sympathetic or willing to pamper her the way that the whining voice inside her head had wanted. Maybe that was where she'd first learned to silence it and to keep her knee-jerk self-pity to herself, honestly. Still, she sometimes let it out around Seven. Seven didn't seem to mind caring for Raffi, even before the benefit of the hormone therapy that had given her a wider range of feelings and nurturing impulses.
By the time Raffi was almost to the door of their bedroom, her muscles were loosening up a bit and, despite her thumping head, she was feeling a little more like herself and a little less like she was driving a body that was entirely unknown to her.
"Seven!" She called out again.
"Raffi, please!" Seven called back. "I'm coming—just give me a minute."
Raffi sighed with relief and caught the door jamb. Seven appeared, then, from the little kitchen area. She was carrying a coffee pot in one hand and two mugs across the fingers of the other. She quickly put them down on the table and rushed toward Raffi.
"You should be in bed!" She said. "I was assembling a breakfast tray for you."
Raffi reached out to her and Seven accepted the silently requested embrace.
"You should be in bed," Raffi said. "You haven't slept."
"I completed a full regeneration cycle," Seven said. "I am functioning well enough to make breakfast. The Doctor said you should receive your medication, but it would be best if you've eaten something to help absorb it. You must return to bed. You must have breakfast."
"You must come with me," Raffi responded, catching Seven's face and kissing her softly. Seven smiled.
"I will join you for breakfast," Seven said. "But—I cannot do so if I must also be worried about you wandering around on your own. The Doctor said you are on medical leave for the next five days to ensure that you are fully healed and your strength has been completely restored."
"And you?" Raffi asked.
"I am Borg," Seven said, this time with a poorly concealed smile on her face. "I do not require medical leave."
"I know that's not true," Raffi said, "and I'll call sickbay, if I have to."
"Raffi—tell me the truth," Seven said, clearly trying to shift the focus away from herself. "Do you feel well?"
"I could use a little spoiling," Raffi teased, "if my wife is offering it."
"Return to bed," Seven said.
"I was serious, Seven, about wanting you to join me. I know you've got the whole Borg enhancement thing going on, but you've got to build yourself back up, too. You don't want to get too run down. It's not good for you or Baby M."
"The sooner you go to bed," Seven said, "the sooner I can bring breakfast and we can join you."
"Fine," Raffi agreed, laughing to herself. "But that's the only reason you win this one."
Before she could make it back to the bed, though, with Seven heading back to get their breakfast, her combadge chirped from the dresser. She jokingly told the badge that she was coming, and reached it after the second time that Chakotay called for her.
"Musiker here," Raffi said. "I'm sorry—nobody here is moving as fast as they used to." She laughed to herself at the truth of her words.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your recovery," Chakotay said. "We'll be brief, but you're needed in Admiral Janeway's office. Is Seven with you?"
"You know she is," Raffi said.
"She's needed, as well."
"Do we have time for breakfast and medication?" Raffi asked.
"Half an hour," Chakotay said. "It won't take long."
"Aye, Captain," Raffi said, dropping her combadge back on the dresser and sitting on the edge of the bed to wait for Seven so that she could tell her that their leisurely breakfast in bed would need to be a bit more rushed than they had originally anticipated.
111
They had barely entered Janeway's office before she'd told both Raffi and Seven to sit. Raffi was grateful to sink into the chair. Seven, for the most part, was playing well the part she'd chosen for herself—that of someone who was entirely recovered and didn't need to rest—but Raffi could see some of the signs that she at least needed a nap soon.
"Starfleet requested that the Soñador pull away from the planet," Janeway said. "They are handling the interactions with the Nerobians themselves, via long-range communications. They felt that the conflict between our people and the Nerobians would make it difficult to reach any sort of compromise without the help of more neutral voices."
"Well—they tried to eat our people," Raffi said, shrugging her shoulders, "so that does make compromise difficult."
"Starfleet would like to find peace with the Nerobians," Chakotay said. "However, that may be a challenge."
"It's unlikely the Nerobians will change their nature entirely," Seven pointed out.
"At any rate," Janeway said, "we've been ordered to continue along our route. We made contact, we witnessed a serious conflict, and we've left the negotiation in the hands of those who are better equipped to handle such things. Starfleet did ask me to speak with you directly, however, Commander Musiker."
"With me?" Raffi asked.
"The Nerobians complained about the damage that you did to…was Derram his name?"
"The damage I did to Derram?!" Raffi responded, feeling herself grow warm. Janeway's expression said that she was at least a little amused.
"Apparently, he was one of the top providers for his group. He was one of the Alpha's main security guards. Now, he's been permanently maimed," Janeway said. "It was reported that you removed over half of his dominant paw, which means that he will likely always require the assistance of his people to hunt and live."
"Am I supposed to be apologetic?" Raffi asked.
"Diplomacy would dictate that you should be," Janeway said. "However, I think that anyone can understand why you did what you did."
"Then, this conversation is irrelevant," Seven offered. "Raffi maimed Derram in self-defense."
Janeway held up a finger to stop either of them from speaking.
"The conversation is relevant because Starfleet would like me to address the situation," Janeway said. "Their concern is not that you maimed Derram in the course of a fair fight…"
"It was hardly fair," Raffi said.
Janeway raised her eyebrows at Raffi like a parent scolding a child for speaking out of turn.
"The concern is that the Alpha is complaining about the fact that Starfleet officers carry concealed weapons when they were asked to enter a space unarmed and in peace."
"And after entering said space unarmed and in peace," Seven said, her voice giving away the fact that she was clearly feeling some anger, "our people were attacked."
"Not to mention that the Nerobians have more natural defenses and weapons than we do," Raffi offered.
"You'll hear nothing to the contrary from me," Janeway said. "However, the fact remains that we have to discuss your possession of a concealed weapon."
"It would have remained concealed if there hadn't been any need for it," Raffi said. "Captain—and Admiral—the clothes that were cut off of me in sickbay had blood splatter from my wife on them. At one point, I realized I was standing in some of her blood. The only thing that kept her going for as long as she did was probably the fact that her Borg systems can keep going for a while after her human systems have started to fail—even fatally. I was fighting for my life. For the life of my wife, and that of my unborn child. I didn't even know about the young cadet that was killed, but I would have fought for him, too, if I had."
Janeway smiled softly at her.
"And that's why you're the best person for the role that you're in," Janeway said. "You're fierce when you need to be, but not unnecessarily so, and you're unwavering in your beliefs."
Raffi felt surprised. She glanced at Seven. Seven's features didn't register surprise, exactly, but there was at least something like curiosity there.
"With all due respect," Raffi said, "I thought I was being reprimanded."
"You are, officially," Janeway said. "You shouldn't carry concealed weapons, Commander. It establishes a distrust, and we don't need that when we're attempting to form diplomatic alliances with the races we encounter. However—on a personal level, I recognize that, without that weapon, we may have lost some of our most valuable people. We may have lost more of our family. Let it stand for the record that you've been told not to employ concealed weapons on contact missions."
"Understood," Raffi said, not bothering to say that she understood, but she wasn't going to comply, as Seven would put it. She had already replicated a replacement for the knife and body sheath that she'd lost.
"You are both temporarily relieved from duty for rest and recuperation," Chakotay said. "You've been ordered to remain on leave for five days. You will be fully reinstated to your respective positions following clearance from the medical team. A statement from Counselor Troi-Riker will be required, as well, to resume your duties."
"Understood, Captain," Raffi offered, getting to her feet. Seven followed suit. She made no verbal affirmation of understanding, but she inclined her head so as to make it clear that she had heard and understood what was expected.
"In the meantime," Janeway said, "I recommend that you focus on the important things—your health and your family. We're glad you're OK and still with us. We're thankful, too, that Seven provided a way for the ship to connect to the away team."
"You're only upset that we maimed one of the Nerobians," Raffi said, leaving the statement half hanging like a question.
"Officially, and on the record," Janeway said, her amusement clear. "You understand about the weapons, don't you?"
"Officially, and on the record," Raffi offered, "I won't be carrying anymore weapons." Off the record, she figured, was a different story entirely. She thought, too, that both Janeway and Chakotay knew that and, if she wasn't mistaken, supported it. "Permission to return to our quarters for recuperation?"
"Permission granted," Chakotay said. Janeway echoed the sentiment.
Raffi reached a hand out for Seven as they left the office. She didn't really require Seven's physical support—she was feeling much better after breakfast and a dose of medication—but Seven seemed to want to help her, so she allowed her to wrap an arm around her, and she hoped that Seven didn't notice that Raffi wasn't really putting much weight on her at all as they walked, arm in arm, back to their quarters.