Hey! Thanks for the reviews dear readers!

The Captain rolled on to his back, and winced at the tightness he could feel across his chest. He opened his mouth a few times trying to stretch out the tendons in his jaw – everything felt so tight. He groaned as his eyes fluttered open, his hand going straight to the side of his face and recoiling as he felt the plasts under his fingers. He pulled at his bad arm, confusion in his eyes for a moment.

He pushed himself up on one elbow and immediately regretted his decision. The room started to swim and the edges of his vision began closing in and he flopped back down against the bed.

"Jean-Luc, welcome back," smiled Beverly as she intuitively grabbed her tricorder and began scanning him. He batted her hand away irritated at the intrusion.

"No, please…"

For a moment, he was right back on the Borg cube being prodded, probed… scanned.

"Captain?"

He paused, closing his eyes before he spoke again. "I must look monstrous, Beverly," he whispered, fingers probing the edges of the plasts on his face, wincing at the contact with tender skin, "Dare I ask?" He was reaching for the familiarity of his usual sickbay recalcitrance. He just didn't quite feel like himself.

"Are you sure you want the full account?"

"How about the edited highlights?" he replied, eyes closing against the odd sensations coursing through him.

"Okay, well here goes. You really did it this time," she paused, hoping that her tender ribbing was being received as such. He really was a mess. She needed to keep it simple. "Let's start with your face and head… I removed all the implants, there was some pretty deep skin damage hence the plasts. They need another week or so I'm afraid."

He swallowed hard, eyes tightly closed, "Go on."

"I removed the rest of the implants located over your chest, stomach, hip… more plasts covering those areas too."

"Alright…" he winced again as tender muscles pulled under his skin. "But that's not all…" he whispered.

"Afraid not. The worst injury appears to be your arm. There was extensive damage, a lot of necrosis… Jean-Luc?" she asked.

Picard had lifted his head and was straining to check out his trapped arm, his face paling visibly, "Go on Doctor."

"The cast is the latest in skin and tissue regeneration. The best of Federation meditech is at work healing your arm. It's in an anti-grav field for maximum efficacy and I'd like it to stay that way for another 36 hours preferably. Jean-Luc?"

"I uh… I don't feel at all… well. In fact-" he stopped suddenly lurching over to the side of the bed over his bad arm.

Beverly recognised his nausea before he had finished speaking and pushed an anti-emetic hypospray into his neck. "Give it one second… there, that better?"

"Yes. Thank you," quiet, oh so quiet.

Beverly let him get control of himself. He was typically one of her worst patients. She knew he hated the lack of control that sickbay induced. This was the one place on board that the steady, professional Captain persona cut no mustard.

"Is it all… gone?" he asked quietly.

"Most all of them." She paused, not quite knowing how to break the news, "I'm afraid there is one I can't remove."

He sat bolt upright, his shoulder pulling at the anti-grav field. The display behind him flashing into the red once again. He raised his free hand to his face knowing in an instant exactly where the implant was.

"Here…" he said, lifting his hand to his cheek.

He very quickly felt himself becoming overwhelmed with fear. His mind flashed back to the installation of the first implant. No anaesthetic. Drilling straight into his face. The shock of it… His bones grinding, screaming, reverberating deep inside his brain. The smell of seared flesh, hot bone. The sensation of his blood on fire, every single capillary crawling with nanoprobes wending their way through his body. Helpless in the face of the invasion.

His heart rate picked up pace, he started breathing heavily, eyes hunting for the nearest escape. The sensation of metal bursting out from the nanoprobe, sending out tendrils, searing into his bone, the tissue and skin over it ripping and tearing.

"Jean-Luc, it's okay, stay with me," said Beverly urgently. She pressed a relaxant with a side-serving of sedative to his neck. He flinched at the contact.

"No, please," he strained, batting at the hypospray, voice raw, tender. "Please, no."

Fortunately, he wasn't anywhere near being healthy enough to be able to fight her off, never mind his arm being entombed helplessly beside him. His body dropped in a heap against the bed, his eyes burning with fear and desperation. He was trapped. He couldn't move, couldn't fight it off, wasn't strong enough. Not good enough.

He closed his eyes tightly, bracing himself for what was surely about to come. In his mind, he counted, one number after another trying to take his mind elsewhere.

"Jean-Luc, it's okay, you're safe here. It's okay, nobody is going to hurt you. Shh now, there…" whispered Beverly, one eye on the display taking his free hand tightly in her own. The markers started to slowly trend back to the safe zone, his breathing started to even out. He was deeply, deeply asleep, Dammit.