=/\=

Mezoti tried to contain her joy when she saw Seven walking up the path to the house. They had obtained visual contact once the ship had entered orbit, but it was not the same as being with her Seven, her flesh-and-blood-with-implants-Seven.

"Seven! Axum!"

Seven embraced Mezoti as soon as they were within arms' length of each other. After a prolonged period of hugging, much longer than the one they'd experienced just before Mezoti departed from Voyager, Seven stepped back and allowed Axum to take her place.

Once Axum separated from Mezoti, he asked, "Now that we're finally together, I can find out how you knew who I was even before Annika introduced me to you in the datastream. I know you recognized me. Your foster parents told us you did."

Hesitantly, as if unwilling to bring up the past, Seven asked, "Do you have memories of all the drones that were in the Collective when you were still Borg?"

Mezoti could not hide a giggle, so much like the ones she remembered hearing from Naomi that the connection filled her with even more joy. "Of course not. I . . . " And then Mezoti stopped. She'd never admitted what she'd learned from mental images when Seven had grieved over never having a chance to meet Axum in person, which at that time she thought would be impossible.

Sighing, she sent subvocally, :::When you were so upset about Axum, after Voyager helped the Unimatrix Zero drones break away from the Borg Queen, I 'overheard' your thoughts about him. So I knew what he looked like from your memories of your time with him there.:::

:::Mezoti! How could you do that?:::

Aloud, Mezoti responded, "Well, I didn't do it on purpose! I couldn't help it. Your thoughts were so loud back then! I tried to keep them out. Really, I did!"

Mezoti caught a brief flash of subvocal communication exchanged between Seven and Axum, so soft, it was more like one person murmuring to another. Obviously, when she mentally shouted at Mezoti, Axum overheard Seven - or Annika, as he always thought of her - just like Mezoti always heard her brothers.

While this was happening on the pathway in front of Arebi and Mazani's home, the twins and Mezoti's foster parents had gathered just inside the doorway. Mezoti could see the four of them looking on in befuddlement by the snatches of conversation they were able to hear. Azan and Rebi were apparently just as deaf to the subvocal part of the discussion as their grandparents were.

Rather than continue the staring/glaring match going on outside, Mezoti waved towards the doorway. "Axum, allow me to introduce my foster parents and their grandsons, who were also rescued from the cube by Sev - I mean, Annika - with Icheb and me. Mazani is the female parent, and Arebi is the male. Azan is on the left, and Rebi is on the right. They're twins. I guess you could already see that," she added, feeling terribly awkward at everything she was saying and thinking - and hearing within her cortical node, because she felt the twinge of doubt from Seven when she spoke of the Wysanti couple as "parents."

:::They have been very good to me, Seven. But I've been waiting for you to come for me for such a long time. Please, enter Their Home.::: She hoped the emphasis she'd placed on the last part of that thought would convey all she really felt about them to the person she had long recognized as her true mother.

From the sudden glistening of moisture which suddenly appeared in Seven's right eye, Mezoti decided she did understand.

=/\=

"So you were always listening to the two of us?" Rebi asked, showing more real emotion towards Mezoti than she could ever remember. Azan glowered at her from where he sat, on the other side of the living room.

"Well, if 'listening' means 'not being able to tune you out when you're shouting subvocally,' then, yes, most of the time. How can this be a surprise? Don't you remember me tattling on you when you were cheating at Kadis-kot, the first time we played it with Naomi on Voyager?" Mezoti was amazed they could be angry with her when they should have known why she almost always knew when they were doing something they shouldn't.

Arebi had his hand hiding his mouth, but his dancing eyes gave him away. "So that's why you could always let us know when they were up to some sort of mischief?" His shoulders began to shake. She knew he was about to laugh out loud. although Mazani was sitting quietly, looking stunned.

Mezoti sighed. This was the secret she'd carefully kept from her foster parents throughout her life on Wysanti. It was time to be completely honest about her abilities. "Sometimes I just heard them talking about things with my Borg-enhanced auditory capability. You've known about my hearing for a long time." Turning back to Azan and Rebi, she added, "And you two should have realized it, too! You have the same auditory abilities, don't you?"

The twins exchanged guilty glances with one another. Of course they did. She'd known that from overhearing their thoughts, too; but she wasn't going to insist they admit it. She simply said, "Icheb thought my ability to communicate subvocally had developed much more completely while we were in our maturation chambers than his did. I don't try to overhear you. I just do. You know, you don't speak out loud often enough to anyone. You're always communicating like Borg - or maybe it's because you're twins. Whatever the reason is, you should be kinder to your grandparents and let them know what you're thinking sometimes! They're wonderful people, and they love you. And you love them, too. It would be nice for them to hear that from the two of you every now and then."

Mazani arose from her seat on the squeaky lounge then. In three quick strides, she came over to Mezoti and hugged her, more fiercely than she'd ever held her in all the time Mezoti had lived there. The emotions of everyone in the room suddenly became painfully somber. Any hint of humor was banished by those three steps and the embrace that followed. Mezoti felt the twins crashing emotions as they realized the change that was coming to their family group. Up until now, they apparently hadn't thought about the ramifications of this visit from their guardian on Voyager. Now they understood.

Finally Mazani managed to choke out, "I'm going to miss you so much, my girl! You've always reminded me of my Barini, but never more than today!" Turning her tear-streaked face to Seven, who'd taken to her feet and was standing next to the pair with a stricken look on her own, Mazani spoke directly to her. "I've known Mezoti belonged with you and her brother Icheb for almost as long as she's lived with us. You will take her with you, won't you? You're not going to break her heart and leave her here again?"

"Of course I want to take her home, but only if Mezoti wishes to come with us. It must be her choice, as it was when she . . . decided to live with you." After this halting speech from Annika, Axum put his arm around her. Arebi stepped up to envelop Mazani and Mezoti within the circle of his own strong arms.

For a long moment, Mezoti looked around her, aware of her foster parents' hold upon her, but reading again the wash of thoughts from Seven and Axum as well. They all truly loved her. Such a gift this was for the girl orphaned by the Borg, rejected by her own people because she reminded them of the fearsome Collective!

Through eyes clouded with tears, like those she'd always tried to hold inside her whenever she was alone and lonely during the dark reaches of the night, regenerating in her cubicle, she glanced around the familiar living room. There was the lounge chair that squeaked just a little whenever someone sat down or stood up from it, so softly that only those with Borg-enhanced hearing were probably aware of it. Over there was the communications console where she had first seen the images of Neelix and his new family, and of their mutual friend Masseni, who'd helped them stay in touch until the Federation shared the Pathfinder and Project Watson technology which allowed them to see and speak with each other in real time. Through the window, she could see the trees tossed by the full summer's breezes. Beneath their waving branches lay her beloved ant colony, with its embedded sensors that permitted her to view their industrious, if brief, lives. It had all become so dear to her, just as these people had.

But she knew her own mind now, better than she'd known it over two Federation years before. She'd let her fears overwhelm her attachment to her true family. "Oh, yes, I want to go with you, Seven. I'm going to miss everyone and everything here. I'm glad I was here to help the Borg who came to Wysanti when they needed medical help, after the Hive was destroyed. Maybe I was meant to be here to do that for them. I don't know. I love you, Mazani and Arebi. And you, too, Azan and Rebi - but I belong with Seven and Icheb. And with you, too, Axum?"

"If you come with Seven, then you will also have a home with me, Mezoti," Axum agreed. His smile was very warm, Mezoti thought. He would be her father, just as Seven - or Annika - had always been her mother, even though Mezoti had once been too blind to see it. Mezoti allowed him to catch this thought, accepting him for what he would be to her.

And then an array of visions burst rapidly into her mind, one after the other, images that could only have come from two in this room. Misty green, metallic constructs surrounding them as they tumbled out of maturation chambers and onto a wet floor, where Second and First came to help them stand and receive their first designations. Seven of Nine holding the smallest of them, little Six of Six, who had been forced out of her own chamber too soon to live outside without assistance, who disappeared into thin air at Seven's request. And then their own rescue, after they all sensed First's mental and physical termination, as their cube began to fall apart all around them. The holographic Doctor. Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay. Tuvok. Tom Paris, the medic who had been among the first to treat them as individuals worthy of respect, and B'Elanna, his love. Naomi. Harry Kim. Marla Gilmore, caring for little Six of Six, who now was called Aimee Gilmore. Neelix, telling them a story about a spirit 'haunting' Voyager's twelfth deck, who turned out to be a mysterious "gaseous anomaly" type of being, dwelling there while Voyager's crew searched for a new home nebula. Scenes from a play the children had presented to Voyager's crew about the incident, to help them overcome their fears after another brush with the Borg threatened their new-found individuality. A race, and a wedding, and then the discovery that the twin brothers had living relatives who wanted their grandsons to live with them. They'd offered to provide a home for the little Norcadi girl, too - one she'd accepted, but later, bitterly regretted.

As those visions flashed between the three former "Borglets," Mezoti felt a connection with Azan and Rebi that had always been lacking, for as long as she'd known them. To their credit, they wordlessly acknowledged the fault had been theirs. They'd excluded her from their sibling group, not from malice, but simply because they had once, for a very few, prenatal days, been one person. They'd never fully realized they could let anyone else inside their personal family group. Although individuals, their minds still touched one another's as easily as the one which they called their own. They'd never sensed that other mind they'd shut out of their awareness, even though she was completely aware of their subvocal interactions. Now they could "hear" her, just as they were about to lose her.

The images ceased when a deep voice reverberated in their enhanced auditory abilities: "You don't have to say good-bye to each other yet, you know," Axum said. "We aren't leaving today. Annika and I will be spending several days here. We want to get to know all of you."

The spell was broken. Sorrowful feelings might still break out, but now, the comforting communication between the former Borg lifted the spirits of everyone in the room. Mazani even smiled through her tears and let go of Mezoti, who walked over to Azan and Rebi to be grasped by them in a brotherly group hug.

In a soft voice, Seven told the three young ones, "The last time we spoke with Mezoti over subspace, when we left her here with you, she said she wished she could live here on Wysanti and remain on Voyager, too. Since she was only one person, she had to make a choice. Then, we didn't think we'd ever see each other again. Now, only two years after that parting, here we are. I'm sure we will all see each other again. We'll speak to each other often over Project Watson. This will not be a permanent good-bye."

"It won't be the same though, will it?" Azan responded, a tinge of misery still in his voice.

"No, of course it won't," his grandfather replied. "But life is never the same from day to day. Change is part of life. We'll just have to find a way to remain part of each other, even when it happens."

"We're all be one family from now on, even when we're far apart," Mezoti added. As everyone around her murmured their agreement, the girl who had been cast adrift by the people of her birth realized she really did have a family now, with parents and grandparents and brothers who cared for her. Of course, one brother was currently far away from the rest of them; but she'd see Icheb in the flesh once again, and very soon.

Mezoti felt her whole being suffuse with a happiness she'd never felt before. Her smile was radiant, despite the tears that flowed down her cheeks. As Seven told her later, while helping Mezoti pack for the journey back to the Alpha Quadrant on the Fluidian bioship, "I'd never seen you look like that before, Mezoti. I'm glad we're finally going home."

=/\=