"This could be the astronomy find of the find of the decade and you want to name it after you?"
"Well I found it didn't I?"
"Seven of Nine already knew about it…"
Seven straightened her back in attempt to appear alert while really wishing to stay out of the argument.
"Seven knows a lot of things she doesn't bother to tell us so it changes nothing…"
Seven somehow managed to suppress her sigh of relief when the argument between Dr Abbott and Dr Hallowell, the two most argumentative scientists at the Observatory, continued on without another mention of her. Normally she liked her work, but she dreaded the Monday morning meetings and all of the clashing of egos that entailed. Couldn't she have just been allowed to retreat to her office? It was her first day back at work after all and she had better things to do than argue about the naming of an unspectacular stellar phenomenon she had seen many times with the Collective. Why couldn't they just use the Borg designation she had given them? These irritated thoughts directed at her sometimes hapless colleagues quickly gave way to thoughts of home, as had all her other attempts to distract herself from the wrench she was feeling at separation from her twins. Were they eating properly? The rational part of her brain answered for her, yes they will be, you've fully weaned them now. She winced at the memory of those two difficult weeks of tantrums, discomfort and anxiety, relieved that she wouldn't have to do it again. Still she found herself longing to return to the loving grind of her maternal duties. Inwardly she was angered by her new found fickleness, for she had missed the mental stimulation of work while she was at home and now that she was back at work she thought of nothing but family!
"Today's meeting is over, you can return to your work." Said Dr Rosenberg, almost shouting to be heard over the continuing argument. Seven gratefully gathered up her data and returned to her office, slightly neglected after her months of maternity leave, and began to run her advanced new scans. As she waited for results to study her mind wandered back to the twins, would they be distant with her when she returned home?
Seven had rarely left work so eagerly as she had that day, making the walk home shorter than usual by greatly increasing her walking speed. Upon entering the house she didn't even pause to put her bag away, only hurriedly leaving it on the hook in the hall as the familiar babbling of two six and half month olds guided her to the living room. Chakotay was sitting on the floor, letting Aylen push her toys into his hands while Michael cheerily rapped his mother's wooden spoon, more commonly used as a cooking utensil, like a drum on the floor, giggling rapturously at the racket produced. Chakotay freed his hands from Aylen's with a laugh as he looked up at his wife. "Hi, you're home early. How was work?"
"Fine." Seven said, letting herself kneel on the floor to join them, Aylen and Michael immediately flinging themselves at her. Seven hugged them close, leaning her face against their small heads and kissing them in turn. "Mama missed you so much babies…" she murmured as Aylen smiled at her and Michael excitedly babbled a string of syllables. Catching Chakotay understands gaze she realised how irrational her earlier thoughts had been, of course they were fine and of course they remembered her. "What were you doing with them today?" she asked Chakotay.
"In the morning I took them to book them into the crèche at work, they'll take them every Wednesday like we planned. It was nice, you made a lot of new friends didn't you?" he addressed the twins.
"That's good. I think our plan is going to work well." Said Seven, her misgivings falling away.
"Yeah so do I. I really enjoyed having them all to myself, even though they've been running circles around me. I had to change their clothes twice."
Seven repositioned them in front of her. "So you've been taking advantage of Papa today have you?" she questioned them. Seeing Aylen chewing the label of her top she lifted her onto her lap. "Papa's put your top on back to front again!" Aylen knew the cue and immediately lifted her arms and Seven quickly took it off, Michael began to struggle with his own clothes, tugging at his t-shirt. "Not you Michael, your clothes are fine." Seven told him but he persisted.
Chakotay laughed as he took Michael's top off too. "You've got them well trained Seven! It's almost time to get them dressed for bed anyway."
A short time later after feeding them their evening meal and putting them in their sleepers, Chakotay and Seven put the twins to bed together but Seven hovered until they were fully asleep. She was unaware of Chakotay's presence until he squeezed her shoulder and said, "You still okay with both of us working part time?"
"It's very reasonable, they have at the least one of use everyday except Wednesday when we both work, you Monday and Tuesday, me Thursday and Friday and both of us at the weekend. It will be good for them."
"And us I think, hopefully we'll all get the best of both worlds."
"Hopefully. They're growing quickly aren't they?" said Seven softly, leaning heavily into his chest.
Chakotay sighed. "Yeah, scary isn't it?"
"Partly. I like watching them develop; through it's difficult to keep up with."
Chakotay kissed her tenderly, "Don't worry; I've been led to believe they'll need us for a long time yet."
A despondent wail sent a chill up Seven's back even in her regenerative state and her eyes shot open. She knew it was Aylen, but she had been sleeping through the night for weeks what could be wrong? She had such a bad feeling that she almost ran from the bedroom into the nursery, finding Aylen sitting up in her coat, her little face red and tear stained. As Seven rushed to her she glanced at Michael but saw that his only problem was being disturbed by his sister. "Baby, what's wrong?" she murmured, stroking Aylen's face but the baby continued to sob. Lifting her into her arms Seven was disturbed by how stiff she was, as if tense with pain. Worry became to eat at Seven's stomach as she rocked her back and forth and without further consideration carried her through to the bedroom.
Aylen's cries made Chakotay stir. "What's wrong?" he muttered into the pillow.
"I think Aylen is ill." Seven was upset by how weak and helpless her own voice sounded.
Chakotay instantly bolted upright and ordered the lights switched on before getting out of bed to look at the baby. "She looks flushed…"
"I believe she's in pain."
Chakotay's eyes darkened when he saw that Seven believed the statement and he took control while keeping his anxious eyes on the baby. "I'll go downstairs and call the Doctor; you get the medical tricorder and come down with her." Seven nodded and began searching through drawers still carrying Aylen while Chakotay checked on Michael and then ran downstairs.
Chakotay began to dial for the Doctor's office and then remembered that it was 2am on a Saturday and he would be at home with his girlfriend. After waiting an irritatingly long time as the phone rang out, a confused looking Doctor appeared just as Seven was coming downstairs with Aylen and the tricorder. "What's happened to make you call this early in the morning?" asked the Doctor somewhat grumpily.
"Aylen is unwell. You are a hologram, you can't sleep anyway!" snapped Seven, worry making her easily riled.
The Doctor looked at mother and baby, concern softening his features. "Try your best to stay calm and read out what the tricorder says." Chakotay did so and the Doctor thought for a moment. "Check her mouth."
"Her mouth? It's not the nanoprobes?" asked Seven. At the mention of the nanoprobes understanding flickered across the Doctor's face and Chakotay took hold of Seven's hand as he tried to prise Aylen's mouth open with the other.
"Come on angel open your mouth for Papa…" Chakotay encouraged gently, but she shrank back her face scrunching up even further as more tears leaked from her eyes. An idea suddenly hit Chakotay and he opened his own mouth wide. Aylen seemed to think about it for a minute before she opened her mouth a little way and her father peered in. "A bit of her gum is all red and swollen…"
"She's teething. This is normal, her scans are fine." Said the Doctor with confidence and satisfaction.
Seven glanced down at her daughter, who was snuffling against her, clinging for dear life. "She seems to be in pain…"
"Oh she will be. It's normal but it's painful and a baby doesn't understand that it's going to get better."
"Can you give her anything?" asked Chakotay, not willing to accept that they could do nothing.
"There's no treatment for it. All I can suggest is going to the pharmacy for some children's painkiller and preparing yourselves for some sleepless nights ahead."
Chakotay couldn't help but sigh. "Thanks Doctor." He said before ending the phone call and rubbing Aylen's face in sympathy. "Sorry poor baby…" He turned to Seven. "I'll get dressed and go to the 24 hour pharmacy in town okay?"
"Be careful."
"I will." He reassured her as he gave both her and Aylen a quick kiss.
Seven heard him leave as she sat cuddling Aylen on the couch, murmuring the most soothing things she could think of into the small ear. She was deeply relieved that it had nothing to do with the nanoprobes but that didn't reduce the emotional toll of helpless when her child was distressed.
The medicine did help soothe Aylen eventually but it was sunrise before she fell asleep and by the time Michael was waking. The strain was piled on further the next night when Michael decided to join his sister in the teething process, meaning that Seven and Chakotay had to split their attention between two upset sleep deprived babies. Chakotay tried reading to them, playing with them and feeding them. Seven just hugged them one at a time through the crying and while their parents fought to stay awake on the couch the twins tenaciously resisted sleep. "So…" Chakotay piped up about three hours in, "…is this worse than when we first go them home or am I just forgetting how bad that was?"
"That question is defunct, this is an entirely different situation which is occurring at the moment and past events are irrelevant." Seven replied irritably.
"Thank God it's Sunday tomorrow and we don't have to go to work." Muttered Chakotay.
"Agreed."
They endured three more nights of this before Seven noticed they were quite calm on Wednesday morning and checked their mouths, hardly daring to hope. "They each have a tooth through." She informed Chakotay happily.
"Great!" he exclaimed, giving each child a warm hug. "One down…"
"Nineteen to go." Said Seven grimly, bringing him back down to Earth with a hard thud. "They don't all come in at once." She assured him when she saw his face.
A/n: Please review, I'm not sure about this chapter but I hope you like it.
I'll try to update "Disunity" tomorrow.