Chapter 3

"Are you sure I can't get you anything, Commander Paris?" Quark leaned over the bar and waved a bottle in front of Tom's nose suggestively. "The night is young and I have a fine vintage of everything you could want."

Tom smirked, practically puffing out his chest at the mention of his new rank and replied, "Still pawning bad ale as Risa wine?"

Beside Tom, Lieutenant Harry Kim, also newly promoted and in charge of security on Voyager, shifted uncomfortably. No matter how much time he spent around Tom, Harry could never hassle anyone with confidence. It simply went against his upbringing; so he remained silent.

"I could get something from the replicators with more refinement." A Klingon bumped Tom from behind and grunted ungraciously. The crowded lounge was causing more than a few jostles.

"Me! Pass off ale as good wine! I am shocked you could think so ill of me. I'll have you know, my drinks come from reputable tradesmen who travel the quadrants looking for the most delectable flavours possible."

"I highly doubt anything you obtain comes from 'reputable' people," said Harry before he could stop himself. Another body elbowed around them.

The Ferengi bared his teeth. "Well, I have never been so offended! This…"

"Well, if you're just going to waste our time, then we'll take our business elsewhere. I know there was a Trill around here who was selling for half your price," said Tom.

Quark gave Tom a narrow stare and bit his lip. "Tal Batrax?" Usually he would have pushed a customer like Tom on this point, but someone really had been stealing a few of Quark's customers recently.

"Could be. I didn't catch his name, just how to get what I want at a fair bargain."

"I'll give you the Bajoran wine and two bottles of spirits for half price."

"Deal."

Tom paid Quark while Harry picked up the bottles. Harry had just gotten a grip on the last one when a female voice startled him from behind.

"Having fun?" Smith nodded towards Quark at the end of the bar, who had wandered down to the end to take care of customers.

Harry smiled and rolled his eyes. "Not really. I'm not much of a haggler." Unlike Tom, Harry really didn't want to spend half his night arguing with the bartender. Unlike Tom, Harry wasn't looking for something to fill the void an absent wife had left. However, with a new baby to take care of, it was not possible to have both Tom and B'Elanna on an away mission, especially one as potentially dangerous as this one, not that Tom really wanted to be on this mission, but Janeway had persuaded him. B'Elanna had raged about it, but in the end had been swayed by Tom insisting Miral deserved to have her mother nearby in the first few months of her life at least. An experienced replacement, Chief Engineer Fergus, would be taking over for her.

"Oh."

Tom grabbed two of the bottles from Harry and sidled back to the table where the rest of their group was waiting. Harry could hear Chakotay's rumbling voice teasing Tom.

"Am I going to have to drag my new second in command to sickbay before we even leave the dock?"

Tom chuckled and uncorked the bottle with a triumphant tug at the top. "Nah, just help me to my quarters after."

Harry decided to be polite and addressed the blond-haired woman. "You're welcome to join us if you want."

"Sure," she replied good-naturedly. "If you don't mind."

In reply, he led her to the table and offered her a seat. The rest of the Voyager group shuffled over to make room for her.

"I'm Harry, by the way," he said with a friendly smile.

"Rebecca Smith."

Within an hour, Julian Bashir and Jake Sisko who was admittedly quite interested in the famed voyagers, joined Tom, Harry, Chakotay and Smith.

"And you don't remember anything but the hallucination?" Jake Sisko leaned forward, all his attention focused on Chakotay. They were discussing some of the adventures Voyager had gotten into while in the Delta Quadrant.

"Not a thing. It all seemed so real that it never even entered our minds that we were being lied to."

Julian Bashir lowered his glass with interest caught. "Fascinating. Do you know how the creature created these hallucinations? Were they chemically induced or a telepathic ability?"

"We decided to leave the area before it tried to eat us again."

"Ah, of course."

"You know," said Jake, "we've had our own share of excitement here."

Across the table, Harry, Tom and Smith were huddled together to hear each other above the din of the bar.

"How did the upgrades go?" Harry asked Smith. Though she did not personally have a hand in the system upgrades to Voyager, she had mentioned that she had been briefed on the progress.

Smith sighed, "You know how these things go when you're in a hurry; very slowly. I heard they did a complete overhaul when Voyager came home."

"Stripped her down to the bone is more like it," interrupted Tom exasperatedly, slapping the table. His glass was nearly empty and it had already been refilled twice.

Mournfully, Tom remembered returning to Earth only to spend three hours in debriefing and be told that Starfleet would be ripping apart their beautiful, more than reliable home. And Voyager had been home to them, but to Starfleet it had just been a scientific curiosity. He remembered how smoothly Voyager had run when in the Delta Quadrant. Maybe it's because B'Elanna knew every quirk, he thought. Then he tittered, thinking of all the quirks she knew about him.

Smith ignored Tom's giggles. "Well, according to Miles - our chief engineer - it looks like they didn't bother to put everything back when they were done. There were a bunch of mistakes in the communication systems. Nothing had any major problems, but I wouldn't want to be in a tight spot with those kinds of errors."

"Everything sorted out now?" asked Chakotay. He had yet to obtain a complete report on the finished upgrades, just on what had been planned.

Julian Bashir laughed. "If you knew our Miles you wouldn't ask that. He'll overhaul your ship and won't stop until it works better than when it was first made."

"Good. I hope that means you fixed the replicator in Janeway's old quarters. She always said it was the cause of her ruined roasts," said Chakotay and the group chuckled.

"Good thing she was Captain Janeway and not chef," continued Tom with a more defined slur. "I thought Neelix's meals were a force to be reckoned with. She brought a Thai salad to one of Neelix's parties and I thought I ate…"

"Like you can cook any better than she could," chided Harry, smiling.

"What 'oes that mean?"

"The only thing you've been able to make well is popcorn."

"Not true!" Tom whined.

Trying to cover his laughter, Chakotay pressed his lips together and tried to look at something other than Tom's petulant scowl. It was then that Chakotay met with an unexpected sight. The Doctor, none other than theirs from Voyager, was making his way towards them from the lounge entrance.

"Doc," Tom greeted when the hologram announced himself. "What're you doing here?"

Pulling a chair closer to the table, the Doctor sat between Chakotay and Smith and explained with a proud smile. "We were recruited for this mission. Starfleet thought it would be a good idea to have two think tank members working on this."

'"We'?" asked Tom.

Julian knit his brows together. "Why? Doesn't Voyager already have a doctor assigned?"

"No one knows what happened to one of Starfleet's most decorated crews," said the Doctor smugly. "I'd say that's a valid reason to have as many brilliant minds working on the case as possible."

While the Doctor was talking, Harry looked around the bar. He noticed Quark had taken up a new interest and was ignoring a collection of customers waiting for drinks, but he couldn't blame him. A glimpse of the blond woman's left hand and he immediately understood Quark's distracted state.

"The Enterprise disappeared without a trace in relatively well-known space."

Cheekily Harry decided to tease some of his former crewmates. "Oh Tom, I think you'll have to find some new barkeeper to con you out of your weekly rations."

"What?" Tom looked around.

Inwardly, the Doctor smiled at how the DS9 crew was hanging on his every word. "Who better to figure out what happened than an experienced --"

Harry pointed to the furthest bar stool where the woman was being hassled by the Ferengi desperate to make a sale. The woman was shaking her head. Despite the perfectly inconspicuous clothing, she was drawing attention from the bar's crowd.

"-- versatile, holographic doctor --"

Chakotay hoped he wasn't going to say what he thought the Doctor was going to say.

"-- and an --"

"Hey, look!" Tom leaned forward and pointed past the Doctor's nose, towards the bar.

The Doctor scowled, but didn't comment.

"Hey," Tom shouted across the room and began waving. Harry smiled and waved as well, albeit in rather more dignified fashion than Tom.

In the back of his mind Chakotay knew who it was even before he looked up and he cursed Janeway for not warning him. The wide, familiar blue eyes still made his pulse speed up as he stared over at the brightly lit bartender station.

Harry and Tom waved again to Seven, oblivious to how their commandeered captain was staring at the former Borg. Her eyes met his briefly. They widened in recognition and she quickly looked at Tom and Harry instead. Even from halfway across the bar, Chakotay could see a faint blush tinting her cheeks. He wondered if Janeway had made herself matchmaker as well as an admiral.

"Hey, Seven!" Tom shouted above the din and stood. A passing Bajoran rolled his eyes when Tom's waving hand barely missed his ear.

Harry took advantage of Tom's distraction to move the remaining bottles of alcohol out of reach.

"Come on. There's plenty of room," said Harry, also trying to draw Seven over, but with a smile instead of the more exuberant display of waving appendages Tom was engaged in. Harry shared a smile with several of the table's other occupants. Tom was clearly a few drinks over his limit.

Finally, Seven abandoned the stool at the bar she had been sitting on in favour of the round table that the group of Starfleet officers was occupying. Despite the sudden nerves that shot through her at the sight of Chakotay, she would enjoy talking with her friends again.

Quark sighed, disappointed when he was left with an unsold bottle of something in his grasp. Watching her retreating form, he stared at her hands. "Pity," he said with a sigh.

Chakotay mused that she was probably joining them more to calm Tom down than out of pleasure. That hurt and it didn't help that she looked relieved when she realized the only place with room for another seat was between Harry and Julian Bashir, practically opposite Chakotay.

Seven felt Chakotay watching her as she sat down. Her eyes flickered around the bar and over the people at the table. It seemed as though everyone in the bar was staring openly at the silver metal above her eye, covering her hand, or the little spidery implant at her neck. Seven lifted her chin just a bit higher and ignored them as best she could.

Chakotay smiled at her, but it gave her only minimal encouragement. The endearment in his expression only reminded her of their relationship and the trouble he had been forced to deal with because of it.

Harry began questioning her about the Think Tank, but it was no use. She was getting curious looks from everywhere. The only people not staring at her were those at their table.

It quickly became apparent to Chakotay that one man sitting behind their table seemed more than a bit ruffled by her appearance. He could not make a guess as to which species the man was as he seemed to have characteristics from several. Deep brow ridges, a few scales and colorful patches of skin around the neck, which grew darker and darker the longer Seven sat with them, made him more than a little unusual. The man kept glancing at Seven, taking in each implant with a frown. Chakotay turned his attention back to his conversation with Smith and the Doctor, trying to ignore the man.

The Doctor noticed that Chakotay was watching Seven across the table. He leaned over and whispered to him, "I don't think too many people are used to seeing former Borg on Deep Space Nine and they've taken to staring."

Chakotay, sitting too far away from Seven, could only smile and whisper a reply to the Doctor.

Julian, was unsure of what to make of the ex-Borg. Still, he decided she couldn't be all that bad if the Voyager crew trusted her. "What will you be doing on this mission, Miss…"

"Seven," she said, giving him her full attention. "I will be assigned to astrometrics." She paused, thinking over her words. "Admiral Janeway explained that my presence was requested because the Enterprise's disappearance might have been caused by unknown astronomical anomalies. There has been evidence of subspace rifts, which may have been the cause of the disappearance. However, without more thorough information, we cannot say for sure. Besides, Voyager has some of the most sensitive sensor technology installed-"

"Meaning, it needs more skilled people to work it," slurred Tom.

An indulgent smile crept up Seven's lips. "Yes, as well as to interpret the data."

"And you have a lot of expertise in this sort of thing?" Smith asked.

"Yes, I --"

"Of course she would!" The man behind them had stood and was now a deep shade of red. Obviously he had been listening as well as watching their table. "She probably knows all about it. She's Borg!" He slammed his drink down on their table, spilling it's contents. He was practically breathing in Seven's face.

Bashir moved out of the way and glared up at the man, wiping the alcohol off his uniform. He and the others from DS9 watched the exchange, uncertain what to do. After all, they didn't know Seven and how she would handle such a confrontation, but they were willing to intervene if things got nasty.

At the bar, Quark stood with a rag in one hand and a glass in the other, wide eyed. Many others had noticed what was going on and were watching.

The members of Voyager, however, glared at the stranger and defended their shipmate.

"In case you hadn't noticed, she isn't part of the Borg anymore," the Doctor said.

"Right, and that's just fashionable jewelry." The stranger pointed at the metallic implant above Seven's eye, his finger an inch away from her face. "She's a murderer, a Borg drone."

"I was Borg," said Seven, eyes narrowed slightly.

"Are Borg," he said, leaning forward.

Chakotay stood, almost needing to bite his tongue to remain civil. "That's enough. I think you --"

"Tell me," the man interrupted, "were you there when they attacked 359? Did you watch them assimilate the children?"

Tom and Harry pushed back their chairs, Tom only slightly unsteady now.

Seven's back went even straighter than it usually was. "I was not a part --"

"No, but I bet you attacked others." The man was in Seven's face now and though she recoiled from him, she made no move to escape. "I bet you took more than your fair share of others, more families, more parents and children," he said, waving his hands dangerously close to Seven's face.

"Hey--" Tom and Harry moved to intervene, but Chakotay cut them all off.

"That's enough." He came around the table and using the threat of his larger build, Chakotay forced the man to take a step away. "I suggest you take your problems somewhere else."

The man blinked in surprise, but backed away from their table and it was no difficult task to understand why. Chakotay's fists were clenched, eyes almost black with anger. Rarely had he felt so much fury and never had it been over something a stranger said about an ex-girlfriend. The depth of his own emotions surprised Chakotay. It was an effort to restrain himself.

When the man was gone, storming out of the bar with as much dignity as he could muster, Chakotay forced himself to sit and maintain a neutral expression. That was made all the more challenging by Seven's reaction to his confrontation, so similar to the one that lead to their estrangement. Instead of looking relieved or happy, she lowered her eyes, looking as discouraged as he had ever seen her. He didn't regret standing up for her, but he still felt miserable for causing Seven pain.

There was an awkward pause as the table's occupants regained their former seats and tried to think of something to say. Harry put a hand on Seven's wrist and she leaned forward as he whispered something to her. Whatever it was, it made her smile shyly and Chakotay was at once glad for Harry's attention and jealous. He didn't know which made him more nervous, the unexpected situation or his unexpected anger over it.

---------

"You know," said Tom, "I missed this."

Harry and Chakotay smiled at each other around Tom. They were walking on either side of new commander, just in case he proved more intoxicated than they assumed.

"What did you miss?" said Harry. There was a sparkle to his eye and a boyish smile on his face as his friend wobbled slightly.

Tom quickly grabbed the arm Harry offered to steady himself. "Spending time with the gang." He smiled, knowing he must look a fool. "Remember Sandrine's?"

"Yeah, those were some good times," said Harry.

Chakotay chuckled, unable to keep it down. "You miss getting hustled by your captain and attacked by every alien in the Delta Quadrant?"

They were at Tom's door, which opened for him. "Yeah, I do," he said and stumbled in.

Harry shook his head. "I hope he has an analgesic in there."

Chakotay grinned. "Water and some sleep and he'll be fine," he said and turned to go, but was halted by Harry's sudden grip on his arm. He looked into the unusually stone-like face. "What is it, Lieutenant?"

"What happened between you and Seven?"

"I beg your pardon?" Chakotay felt the scowl come onto his face faster even than he realized what the question was.

"Come on, Chakotay. I would have to be blind or drunk not to notice. The way you were looking at her reminded me of how Tom used to look at B'Elanna and Seven was avoiding you like the plague. What was all that about? We all know you two dated for awhile. What happened?"

"I'd rather not talk about it, if that's all right with you, Harry." Chakotay began to leave, but was halted by Harry's next sentence.

"Fine, but you realize the rumours will be ten times worse and spread like fire."

Pausing, Chakotay wished Harry did not have such a valid point, and that he had shown more restraint in Seven's presence. Why couldn't it be easier to give up on a lost cause? "Fine. You're right. I might as well tell you before you start hearing ridiculous stories." Besides, getting things off his chest could help him control his emotions.