Taken Chapter 6
Holodeck
Sheldon Cooper did not like to be touched and he cringed and stepped away from Seven's touch, even though he liked it against all better judgment. He turned to face her and saw the assimilation tubules disappear into her wrist and raised an eyebrow in question.
"I – I was momentarily overcome with the need to assimilate you into my collective, Dr. Cooper. I'm – I'm sorry. It will not happen again. I can see you are repulsed and I believe it would be best to terminate this exercise."
"Seven, I do not like being touched. It is a thing from my childhood that I cannot overcome. It is not rejection or revulsion, and certainly not a rejection of you. Please, let us continue. I wish to learn more."
"Then will copulation occur? I was led to believe that is what human males want and expect according to the literature and databases I've queried. Am I in error?"
"Yes. No. I – don't know, Seven of Nine, never having experienced coitus. My experiences with the opposite sex, except for Penny's attempts at seduction while intoxicated, are virtually nonexistent. I prefer it this way, if you must know the truth. I wish to direct all my attention to my research and interpersonal relationships never seem to end well, if my observations are correct, and they undoubtedly are."
Seven's plans to assimilate Sheldon and form a new collective and hijack Voyager and return to the Borg were shattered by his simple explanation. He was more Borg at times that she was. She wouldn't assimilate him against his will because without the ability to link to the hive mind, he'd maintain his individuality and his basic humanity, and she'd lose his cooperation.
No. There would be other opportunities in the future to have him willingly desire assimilation and she was patient. His presence beside her seemed to calm her and she found this disconcerting and worthy of further study. In the meantime, Seven began the program that put the couple inside a Borg Cube Ship.
Sheldon asked questions that were intelligent, incisive and Seven rarely had to explain some facet of Borg life twice. He seemed to have an innate grasp of the intricate balance maintained in a Borg Cube ship and she found herself asking questions about his life on Old Earth and uncharacteristically smiling at his answers.
"So, Sheldon, this woman, this Penny? You were romantically involved? You must have been if she attempted to force copulation."
"Me? Romantically involved? Good heavens, no, Seven. Penny was the Big Ol' Five…a sexual aggressor. I doubt someone nearly as aesthetically pleasing as yourself would have any real interest in someone such as myself. I was just a convenient outlet for her horniness."
"Horniness? I'm unfamiliar with the term." She was also unfamiliar with flattery, even if Sheldon's was unintentional. Still, aesthetically pleasing? She filed it away for further study.
"An intense desire to have coitus. All her relationships revolved around coitus. From my observations, once her partners reached a certain level of familiarity, the lack of anything else in common between them caused the relationship to falter and terminate."
"I see. Thank you. I myself have no experience with copulation other than that which I've absorbed from the databases and literature in the ship's library."
"You've never had a boyfriend? There was never any one with whom you experienced closeness?"
"My subset of Nine, but copulation, your coitus, was never an option since there were no human males in our subset nor on the Cube Ship I was on." Seven never mentioned the attempts to copulate by species alien with her. It was irrelevant.
"You must have been very lonely, Seven of Nine. I know the feeling well. There is a phrase in our social lexicon that is probably overly used: 'alone in a crowd'. It describes how one feels when detached from people they are familiar with."
Seven had found the key to Sheldon Cooper and she used it without mercy or second thought.
"Perhaps, Sheldon, you and I, we, could be 'lonely' together?"
Sheldon spent the next few weeks acquainting himself with the various functions and soon became a familiar figure in the most unusual places. He didn't see Seven of Nine at all but that was not deliberate. His insatiable curiosity about everything was at first suspect but soon became an accepted fact. Luckily, no one seemed to mind his questions and insights, especially not Harry Kim, who wanted nothing more than to spend time with the man from the past.
Sheldon was full of questions about the 'future Earth' just as Harry was about the past. No one seemed more curious than Harry – except for Tom Paris. Tom had an on-going love affair with all things 20th century and was appalled that Sheldon didn't know quite as much as he did about the culture of the late 20th and 21st centuries.
"You mean you never listened to the Beatles? But they were iconic, Sheldon! How about Earth, Wind & Fire? Elvis Presley? Johnny Cash? The Four Tops? Martha and the Vandellas? Do any of these ring a bell with you?"
"Before my time. Now, if you like 'current popular music' of my time, you'll have to talk with Pen – "
He turned away from Tom and left the mess hall for his quarters. Every time he thought about 'home' his thoughts turned to the blonde woman across the hall who was currently swapping bodily fluids with his room mate, Leonard Hofstadter. He missed her more than he imagined he would. He missed all of them – even Leslie Winkle and Kripke.
The fact that they were long dead did nothing at all to ease his heartache. He cursed the Progenitors and their probe for taking him away from everyone he loved.
He knew what he had to do. He couldn't go back in time but he could end the heartache and alienation he felt more and more as time passed here on Voyager.
"Computer, tell me about this century's morals, attitudes and constraints regarding self-termination."
Sheldon slipped into the mess hall between the Kappa and Gamma shifts, made some tea from what he'd found on the shelves and sat beside the outer hull and watched as stars red-shifted in long continuous lines as Voyager made her way to the Inkora system where supposedly they might be able to trade for raw materials and food stuffs. Neelix had asked him to accompany him and he had been looking forward to his first 'away mission' but the captained had nixed his trip.
'You don't have any training or experience, Dr. Cooper, and until you get the training, you're ship-bound. Maybe next time.'
He'd spoken with Tom and even Tuvok about 'training' and each had said that their duties left little time for training. He finally talked to Harry Kim who recommended a series of holodeck programs and that's why Sheldon was sitting in the mess hall at this time of 'night'. It was the only time he could get holodeck time to run the training programs and he always drank tea afterwards.
Sheldon had just run the final program and he was aching and his face burned where a phaser had struck a tree trunk he was hiding behind. He had passed the simulations and was now prepared to run thru the final exam and then present his scores to Tuvok for evaluation.
"Good evening, Sheldon. Why aren't you sleeping? I thought you required 8 hours of REM sleep to properly function?" Seven of Nine walked up behind him, suppressing the need to touch him, to feel him, to assimilate him. Lately these feelings had begun to impact her efficiency and she was uncertain what course of action to take. He'd been on her mind constantly, mostly in background, but still there.
He turned and looked at her and she gasped in shock and surprise and tapped her com badge.
"Seven of Nine to EMH, prepare a medical transporter lock on my location. Two to beam to sick bay."
"Wait! It's not as bad as it looks, Seven. I just twigged the safety protocols a bit to maximize…" He and Seven disappeared from the mess hall and reappeared in sick bay. "...the realism of the training exercise and motivate myself to achieve maximum performance."
"Now, Seven, what is the nature of the medical emergency?" Seven was wearing the new 'cat suit' that the Doctor had fashioned for her to take the place of the intimidating Borg garment she wore as a drone. It was the only thing the Doctor could see – Seven in her form-fitting and enhancing suit.
"Look at him, Doctor! Those are 3rd degree phaser burns. The idiot turned off the safety protocols in the holodeck suite and ran training programs."
"Oh, my, yes! Tsk tsk, Sheldon. Are you aware that the safety protocols are in place to prevent your injury or death? Why would you do such a thing?" He busied himself preparing to treat the severe burn on Sheldon's cheek and neck.
"To increase realism and push myself to perform as required to pass the training module. You would be surprised, Leonard, at just how 'motivated' you can become when death is a real possibility. I needed to know that I could face these situations and not fail to support my team."
Seven blinked, not believing what she heard. He risked death to ensure he maximized his performance and training. That was a trait she hadn't factored into her plan to suborn Sheldon to her will. He lacked a fear of death. What did he fear?"
The doctor ran a dermal regenerator over Sheldon's neck and cheek all the while lecturing him on the reasons Starfleet had those safety protocols. The nerves had been destroyed and that was probably the only reason he was not in severe pain. The treatment would repair those nerves and a quick application of a topical anesthesia would prevent the pain the Doctor felt he deserved for pulling such a foolish stunt.
"Seven of Nine, would you give us a few moments alone?" The Doctor was going to peel the skin off Sheldon's hide and then report his actions to the Captain who would finish peeling the skin off his entire body!
Seven activated the door mechanism but stepped to the side in the shadows. She intended to listen to anything said to ensure it didn't interfere with her plans.
"Sheldon, I know that the need to excel and to achieve is strong in you but – "
"Leonard, I need a capsule of potassium cyanide, approximately 400mg, and your discretion as a physician. I tried to get the Replicator to produce one but it refused and cited regulations that prohibited crewmembers from obtaining the compound."
"Well, of course it refused. Potassium cyanide, in the quantity you request, is deadly to humans. The amount you request is lethal, Sheldon, lethal! Do you want to die? What possible use – oh, no, Sheldon…I should have realized…"
"You must respect Doctor/Patient confidentiality, Leonard. I checked. It's part of your basic module and cannot be overridden even by command authority."
"Sheldon, talk with me or talk with Seven. We don't have a ship's counselor or I'd recommend a session or two with him but – suicide is not the answer."
"What is, then? I'm 66 years from a home that no longer exists! I do not fit in here. I have no function or purpose. Hell, Seven of Nine is accepted more readily than I am because of her unique abilities. I have none of those to offer. I'm useless, a curiosity, a damned anachronism. You should have left me in that transporter buffer. It would have been a mercy." He wiped tears from his cheeks with the backs of his hands ignoring the stinging of his burn.
A soft voice behind him said, "No, Sheldon Cooper, you are not useless. You are not a curiosity or an anachronism. You and I, we are a collective as you once said, one and two of two. You are my new collective and I will not allow you to terminate your existence. Now, come along. You haven't eaten yet and I want to review your test results. Our collective is strong, but with synergism, it will be even stronger."
She took his hand and led him from the sick bay out into the corridor and back to her cargo hold. Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One now had a new and higher purpose than rejoining the Borg collective. She had a new collective and a new purpose.
The doctor just shook his head in wonder. Seven of Nine had smiled and it was a genuine smile that reached her eyes and had been directed at the oldest man of the crew. How odd that it took someone from 5 centuries ago to reach the young woman liberated from the Borg less than a few months ago.