"Sweet tea in the summer

Cross your heart, won't tell no other

And though I can't recall your face

I still got love for you

Your braids like a pattern

Love you to the moon and to Saturn

Passed down like folk songs

The love lasts so long"

- Taylor Swift, "seven"

/

"Lanni?" said the Borg woman, in a surprisingly small voice.

Only one person had ever called her by that nickname. Make that sharp face rounder and softer with freckles across the nose, make her hair fall in two fuzzy sun-bleached braids instead of pinned into submission, put her in a dress instead of that ridiculous suit, take away those implants on her face and hands, and it couldn't be anyone else.

B'Elanna's stomachs cramped as if she might be sick.

"I didn't realize you two knew each other," said Chakotay, glancing from one to the other.

"We don't," B'Elanna snapped. "I knew Annika Hansen, and she got assimilated eighteen years ago. That might be her body walking around, but it's not her."

"Correct," came the mechanical reply. "My designation is Seven of Nine."

"And mine's Lieutenant Torres to you." B'Elanna avoided meeting anyone's eyes as she shoved a tool kit in Seven's direction. "Now c'mon, we've got a warp core to fix."

/

"C'mon!" Lanni called, one arm wrapped around the sun-warmed trunk of the tree whose branch she sat on. "You can do it!"

"We're up so high," Anni called back, digging her fingers and toes into the bark. "You sure this is a good idea?"

"There's a hold right there, look. And there." Lanni pointed. "Just a little bit higher and I can pull you up."

She reached down, and after an awkward scramble, Anni was sitting next to her, dirt on their clothes, leaves in their hair and gap-toothed grins on their faces. Beneath their dangling feet, the forest spread downhill like a prickly green wool blanket. Beyond it, the geometrically ordered houses of Kessik IV looked like little gray anthills. The higher Lanni could look down on her home, the freer she felt.

Just because she wanted to, she tipped her head up, closed her eyes so that the lids turned red from the sunshine, and let out an ear-piercing scream.

Anni squeaked. "What was that for?"

"It's fun. Try it."

"Seriously?"

"Bet you can't get as loud as me. You've only got two lungs."

That was all Anni needed to let out a scream of her own, which sent birds flying up in all directions and a bushy-tailed rodent running off in panicky zigzags. The girls caught each other's eyes and laughed until the branch shook.

Lanni couldn't keep laughing for long, though, when she thought of what was waiting for her on the ground.

"Papá doesn't like it when I yell," she muttered. They were too young to carry universal translators (although Lanni disagreed about that), so their Federation Standard was peppered with Spanish, Swedish and Klingon words. "But then him and SoSoy yell at each other all the time."

"But that's not fair!" Anni exclaimed.

"No, it's not."

"My Mama and Papa aren't like that."

"I know." Lanni kicked her feet restlessly, trying to swallow her jealousy. The Hansens were so nice, finishing each other's equations on the whiteboard and kissing each other good night. It wasn't fair, but it wasn't Anni's fault she was so lucky.

"I have an idea!" Anni grinned. "When we go out to the Delta Quadrant, you can come with us. We can be sisters. You can sleep in my cabin, and play with Papa's ship models, and … "

"I can't!" Lanni cut her off, fighting back tears, because to her it sounded like the perfect way to live. "I wish I could, you have to believe that. But you know they wouldn't let us. I'd only have to go back home again, and I can't get in any more trouble, or SoSoy will send me to boarding school on Q'onos … I'm sorry."

Anni's lip quivered. Her blue eyes got very round. Lanni wondered if even boarding school on Q'onos could be worse than disappointing her best friend on one of the last days they had left together.

"We just have to message each other then." Anni gulped down her tears and narrowed her round eyes to a determined glare. "Every day. Promise."

"Promise." They linked pinky fingers and shook.

/

B'Elanna and Seven got through the repairs in silence, broken only by terse reminders from B'Elanna when something went against Starfleet regulations. (Her Maquis self would never have believed that she'd defend those regulations someday.) She had to admit that Seven was smart; you never had to tell her anything twice, and sometimes she'd hand over a tool or open a hatch when B'Elanna was just about to ask her. She refused to think about climbing trees.

"What happened to your parents?"

B'Elanna bumped her head on the ceiling of the Jefferies tube they were crawling through, hissed in pain, and glared at Seven over her shoulder. "Divorced. Not that it's any of your business." When no answer came from behind her, she reluctantly added: "I'm, uh … sorry about what happened to yours."

"Their biological and technological distinctiveness was added to the Collective," said Seven robotically. "There is no need to apologize."

B'Elanna swallowed bile along with three languages' worth of curses as she yanked open the panel they needed to work on. The light fixture turned Seven's skin blue, which made her look more Borg than ever. Her face was expressionless.

Until she turned to face B'Elanna, and it suddenly was not.

"Lieutenant."

"Yeah?"

"This drone … we … I … " She struggled with what she was about to say for so long that B'Elanna wanted to swat her upside the head to see if the words would fall out.

"What?"

"Annika Hansen did not mean to break her promise," Seven blurted out. "She would have continued sending messages if she could."

It was no less horrible, and no less unfair, what the Hansen family had suffered. Nothing could ever make it right. As an adult, B'Elanna knew that. But the six-year-old girl inside her, who had cried herself to sleep when Anni's letters suddenly cut off because it must mean her best friend didn't like her anymore. unexpectedly crawled out from hiding and raised her head.

"I know," she said. "I mean … it was a pinky promise, after all."

Seven looked down at her Borg and human hands and shook her head, as if the very concept baffled her - but at the same time, a tiny smile tugged on the corers of her mouth.