Seven was in a bad mood, as soon as Jean-Luc Picard stepped out of her quarters. He was right. It was impossible to bring Elle to the Delta quadrant, but Seven wanted to stay with her daughter. Not with her father – whoever it was or will be. A Borg was forbidden to live near to Earth. Thanks to the Humanity's humanity. In the last 20 years Seven learned a lot about her "kind", and came to the conclusion that this galaxy had not bred a race far more abominable than humanity.
Still, she wanted to save them, along with the world. Or really would? The price suddenly seemed too high. The price was sitting on her stomach, and happily chasing the yellow ducklings. In the last few days Elle slowly became the whole world to Seven.
"Mommy sad?" Elle asked, and moved to kiss Seven, but she slipped and disappeared upside down in the bathwater.
It is not known who was more terrified: the child or the mother. Seven pulled her out of the water in a second, but Elle started to cry. Seven hugged her, and rocked her, as she had seen from Zimt. Elle calmed down, but she wasn't interested in the ducklings anymore. Seven stood up in the bathtub with the girl, and realized that she had forgotten to prepare a towel there. The closest one was far out of her reach. Of her hand. But not of her tubules. She let them out, and pulled closer the towel. Elle really liked the stunt, she laughed, and even applauded.
„Do you like it?" Seven asked the girl, who nodded and smiled. „Be glad, that you are not able to do this" she said, and kissed her daughter.
Seven grabbed another towel and brought the girl back to the living room. Unfortunately, she forgot to ask Zimt how to effectively dry a little girl, so she had to improvise. First, she wrapped the towel around her and then soaked the water from her with her hands. Elle liked that, and she became dry, so Seven found the procedure efficient. Although when Seven took off the towel from her, she immediately slid down from the sofa, and ran to the table, where they left her big yellow duck.
Elle was small, to reach the plush on the table, and she reached for it in vain. Seven went to help her, when she noticed, that a black spot appeared on the left hand of the girl. The spot hardened, opened, and two tubules emerged from there. With those tubules Elle reached her buddy, hugged the toy, and looked at her mother with a triumphant smile.
Seven froze for a few minutes. She watched helplessly as the tubules retracted into her daughter's arm. She had to face his greatest fear: her daughter was also a Borg. This fact alone meant, that she was in danger, just like Icheb. But will she die the same way? She didn't have a choice here: damn the universe, she had to protect this little girl. She picked up her daughter and hugged her tightly.
"I'll protect you, I promise! Love you so much!"
At that moment she understood, why she was sent her from the future. Her father probably knew, that she could save the life of their daughter. He was right. Seven was Elle's only hope.
Elle didn't feel any of her anxieties, and fell asleep in her arms. The black spot where those tubules came from, vanished again. Seven examined her with her tricorder, but fortunately there was no trace either the implant, or the tubules. She seemed to be like a normal human kid. But Seven had to prevent another similar scenes. With heavy heart, she merged her tubules to her daughter's neck, and examined her thoroughly. She didn't found too much. Some implantation initiative. Those were working on only 2 percent. The implantation correspondent to her age. Elle didn't have her own nanoprobes yet. All of them were received from Seven, which were slowly growing the child's implants.
Elle was a special drone, more special, than One. But her circumstances were also special. And dangerous. If anybody discovers her implants, she will be the victim of a series of experiment. Seven remembered, as the Doctor removed her implants one after the other. He was polite. Gentle. Careful. She had nothing to complain about him, or his treatment. But Seven didn't like that at all. She wanted to keep all the implants, to remind her to her previous life with the Borg. She greatly missed the peace, and the security, which was given by the collective.
She basically really loved to be an individual, on board of Voyager, but in the Alpha quadrant it was a constant fight. Nobody accepted her, nobody helped her. Her intincts were right, and even Janeway left her alone. She quickly learned that people make promises easily when they want to achieve something, but they almost never keep their word. Seven was alone, that's why she was worried about her daughter.
Now, she has a companion. Her daughter. She had an urgent feeling to build her a collective. A small one. Just to introduce her the good side of being connected to a hive mind. Maybe, Zimt was right: she should give life to a dozen children. Or somehow she could bring Elle to the Delta quadrant, because there would be better chances to escape from the Federation there.
The details of her plan quickly took shape in her mind.
But at first, she had to prevent Elle, to use her tubules again. Due to the underdevelopment of the implants, she was forced to insert her own tubules into the child's arm. Disabling the function was easy. Seven pulled out the tubules from the child's arms and dressed her sleeping daughter. She looked at her for a long time before she too fell asleep.