Chains Around My Heart
By
Kimmi
Warning: Character death! Heavy angst ahead.
Disclaimer: Not mine. No money making involved.
Dedication: To Adi, thanks for being my shoulder to cry on. Luvs ya Tator.
Everyone than Rebelgirl for beta'ing this. She is the best beta reader
ever and if you try to say different I'll hunt you down and give you an atomic
wedgy. Any mistakes that are still in there are all my fault.
Part 1
B’Elanna Torres sat in her darkened quarters with only the dim cold light
of the stars for company. She had been sitting in the same place in
the same position for so long that she wasn’t sure that she could move even
if she wanted to. The hatred and self-pity and, most of all, the intense
overwhelming grief had driven her into her quarters and kept her there.
She knew that her friends were worried about her but she just couldn’t seem
to find the energy to care. She also knew that they were monitoring
her life signs to make sure that she didn’t do what her cowardly P’taq of
a husband had done.
A week ago she and Tom had been sent in the Delta Flyer to check out an asteroid
that scans showed held a significant quantity of Dilithium. It was
several light years from Voyager’s course to a nearby uninhabited M Class
planet they were traveling to in order to restock their food supplies.
The Captain had told them to check out the readings, obtain any useable material
and then rendezvous with the ship. It was supposed to be a simple snatch
and run mission, but it had gone horribly wrong.
B’Elanna had noticed it before the pilot, Tom Paris. A surge of Gamma
radiation and then the gravitational pull of the asteroid had more than quadrupled.
She had screamed a warning at him but it had been too late, they were slamming
into the huge rock with enough force to crumple the Flyer like a piece of
tissue paper.
When she had come to lying in the very back of the shuttle, Voyager’s Chief
Engineer couldn’t believe that she had survived the crash after the way they
had been thrown around like a child’s tinker-toys in a tornado. B’Elanna
didn’t move for a moment as she tried to take stock of herself. A warp-core
breach in her head told her that she had a head injury, the impossible angle
of her arm told her it was most likely broken or at the very least horribly
dislocated. But it took a moment for her to realize that there was
something else very wrong.
At first it was just a ripple, a small convulsion of the muscles in her abdomen.
But as the seconds ticked by it became a full-fledged tsunami and despite
her other injuries B’Elanna curled herself into a ball as the cold knowledge
of what was happening hit her hard. She was having a miscarriage; she
was losing her baby. Her screams of pain that were not physical must
have woken her husband because she could hear him moaning somewhere in front
of her. Her mind was numb to almost everything except the spasms in her stomach,
but Tom’s voice calling out to Voyager managed to get her attention.
She couldn’t hear his exact words because the sound of her own voice saying
‘not my baby, please not my baby’ filled her ears.
Paris had eventually made his way back to her after finding the emergency
medical kit. As he scanned her he tried to keep her calm telling her
to hold on, that they would be here soon, that help was on the way.
She tried to take comfort in it but she ended up just tuning him out and
trying to hold the child inside of her by sheer force of will.
She must have passed out again at some point because the next thing she remembered
was waking up in sickbay, the doctor hovering over her and Captain Janeway
holding her hand. She didn’t need them to tell her that she had lost
the baby; she could read it as plain as day on their faces. The
engineer had buried her face in the captain’s shoulder and spilled her grief
onto the command red uniform, her Klingon half not once struggling with her
human half in what it considered a show of weakness. Even Klingons
could mourn the loss of a child and when the tears had slowed and the hiccups
had passed, B’Elanna raised her head and howled.
When the eerie sound had finally died away and the room was quiet B’Elanna
looked around for her husband. She couldn’t remember seeing him when
she woke up and it didn’t look as if he was here now. When her gaze
at last settled back on the captain, the auburn-haired woman wouldn’t meet
her gaze. She could feel the fury rising within her. It wasn’t
enough that he had crashed them on an asteroid and made her lose their baby
but he couldn’t even be here for her when she woke up and found out.
She wanted to rip his head off, scream at him, pummel him with her bare hands
until his body was unrecognizable as ever having been human. In other
words, she wanted to kill him.
Rationally she knew that it wasn’t his fault, it had been an accident.
And she knew that killing him wouldn’t alleviate her pain. But her
hearts and her mind were at war, and her mind was losing ground fast.
B’Elanna was so infuriated that she heard the hiss of a hypospray but she
never felt it as it delivered the sedative into her system.
The next time she woke up, the Doctor and the Captain were gone. In
their place was the last person she expected to see. Seven of Nine
Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One, was sitting by her bed and looking
down at her. While she looked a little uncomfortable, B’Elanna could
see a sadness and something unidentifiable shinning in the Borg’s intense
blue eyes.
The half Klingon refused to break eye contact with the ship’s Astrometrics
officer, daring her to change the sadness to pity just so she would have
someone to take her pain out on. Instead, Seven dropped her impenetrable
mask back into place, the emotions B’Elanna had seen so clearly a moment
before were gone and the tall woman once more became the unfeeling ex-drone
she usually showed everyone.
When Seven looked away, seemingly embarrassed by the intense scrutiny, B’Elanna
managed to ask her the question that had been burning in her mind since she
had first awakened in sickbay. “Where is Tom?”
The blonde refused to meet her eyes when she answered and her voice was much
softer than it usually was. “The Captain and the Doctor have gone to
search for Mr. Paris. I was here when they made the decision and volunteered
to stay in case you regained consciousness.”
B’Elanna nodded at the explanation and went on to get the answer to her next
most important question. “How long have I been here?”
Seven swallowed, she knew what the fiery little engineer was asking, ‘how
long had it been since her husband had abandoned her to deal with the loss
of their child by herself?’ “It has been eighteen hours and forty-two
minutes since you were beamed back aboard Voyager. It has been twenty-two
hours and thirty-one minutes since we first received your distress call.”
Before B’Elanna could begin to start cursing her husband the distinct sound
and swirling lights announced a new arrival in sickbay by way of the transporters.
B’Elanna sat up quickly as the captain and doctor materialized carrying Tom
Paris’ lifeless body between them. She bit her tongue hard and felt
warm copper fill her mouth when they hoisted him to the biobed and she could
see a piece of wire still around his neck and a dark ugly bruise circling
the soft tissue of his throat. The selfish bastard had committed suicide
and left her alone.
The dark engineer laid back down and turned away, holding her still distended
but now empty belly as her friends tried to save the pilot’s life.
She almost turned back to toward them when she saw Seven still standing on
the other side, watching her closely. What she saw more clearly displayed
on the ex-borg’s face than anything else she had ever seen made her stop.
The sadness she had glimpsed before was still there but it was almost completely
overshadowed by an anger so intense that her normally pale face was flushed
a dark red and her hands were balled into tight fists. Seven was incensed
to the point that B’Elanna could swear that her eyes were flashing with a
cold fire and all that emotion was directed squarely at Tom Paris.
As the blonde turned back toward her, B’Elanna almost recoiled from the savageness
of the feelings raging clearly on Seven’s face but as their eyes locked the
rage was swept away and all that was left was sorrow and even that was gone
in another second.
The cold mask was back in place but now B’Elanna could see a change in the
ex-drones eyes. Before she had thought them just as lifeless and emotionless
as the rest of Seven’s face, but now she could truly see what she had never
even tried to look for before. Every feeling Seven of Nine had showed
in her azure eyes if you knew what to look for, and now that she had seen
it, B’Elanna knew that she could never think of the blonde woman in the same
way again.
So caught up was she in watching those amazing blue orbs that it was several
moments before she realized that Captain Janeway was standing next to her
saying something. Shaking her head, B’Elanna tore her gaze away from
the amazing sight and tried to focus on what the captain was saying.
“There was nothing we could do B’Elanna, he was dead long before we got there.
If there is anything you need all you have to do is call me and I will be
there,” the Captain told her softly as she took her hand and gave it a small
squeeze.
B’Elanna closed her eyes, not wanting to see the pity that was shining in
Janeway’s eyes. “How, when and did he leave a note?” Technically
she already knew the how, but she needed to hear it said out loud.
“He hung himself from he wreckage of the Delta Flyer. I’m not one hundred
percent certain yet but it was at least six hours ago and he left a data
padd addressed to you sitting near him on one of the larger pieces of the
Flyer,” the Doctor told her as quickly as he could, as if he words were the
most foul(-) tasting things ever to be put in someone’s mouth and had to
spit out fast.
B’Elanna held her unoccupied hand out for the padd and opened her eyes as
soon as she had it. Sitting up she scrolled quickly through the short
message.
Lanna,
I am so sorry for so many things that I would
never be able to list them all, but killing our
child is the worst thing I’ve ever done. I
know you can never forgive me, I will
never be able to forgive myself. It hurts so
much Lanna, I just want it to stop. I think
this is best for everyone. Just look at it
this way, now you won’t have to divorce
me and your Honor will be intact. I just
can’t take this huge black pit inside me,
I have to do this. I’m sorry sweetheart.
I love you, I just hope one day you can
forgive me for killing the baby.
Tom
B’Elanna stared at the words for a few moments longer before throwing the
padd across the room to shatter into million pieces, just like her hearts.
Janeway tried to pull her into an embrace but the half Klingon pushed her
angrily away and turned to the Doctor. “I want to go back to my quarters,”
she snapped at the holographic man.
The Doctor looked from his patient to his commanding officer and back again.
The small shake of the captain’s head told him to try to keep the engineer
there, but the look on B’Elanna’s face said he was going to have one hell
of a time accomplishing it. “Ah well, I don’t think that’s a good idea
right now Lieutenant, I would really like to keep you here for another day
for observation.”
“There’s no medical reason for me to stay here, I do NOT want to stay and
if you want you can set the internal sensors to continuously scan my life
signs,” B’Elanna growled at the EMH. All she wanted to do was
go home, take a shower and curl up in a dark corner and forget everything
that had happened.
Captain Janeway tried to keep the hurt out of her face as she stepped in
front of her younger friend, even though B’Elanna’s rejection of her attempt
at comfort had wounded her. “Why don’t you stay with me tonight so
you don’t have to be alone?”
B’Elanna lowered her gaze, knowing she had hurt her friend’s feelings.
“Thank you Kathryn, but I would really rather be alone right now.”
“I could order you to stay in sickbay,” Janeway offered in a low voice.
She didn’t want it to come to that but she didn’t think that leaving the
distraught woman alone was a good idea, not with her background.
Anger rose in a red wave at her commanding officer’s words. When she
raised her head to meet the older woman’s eyes she saw her flinch slightly
at the hatred that burned in her dark eyes. “You can either let me
go back to my quarters or you can throw me in the brig because I am not staying
here.”
B’Elanna pushed her way past them without waiting for an answer. She
forced herself to walk without stumbling but it took all the remaining strength
she had. If she had let them see how weak she was, they would have
put up a forcefield around her and kept her there against her will.
She was nearly to the turbolift when she felt a strong arm wrap itself around
her waist and steady her as she wavered in her flight.
The engineer nearly twisted her head off as she whipped it around to see
who it was supporting her. Seven looked back at her with the same impassive
expression she always wore but her eyes were shining with a light of their
own, or at least that was how it seemed to B’Elanna. The ex-drone didn’t
say a word; she just helped her to the lift and delivered her to her door.
With a small squeeze, so gentle she almost missed it, Seven left her there.
B’Elanna stood there looking after the blonde borg in utter amazement for
a few moments before she entered the code for her door and stepped into the
deserted quarters. Moving automatically, she made her way into the
bathroom and took a long hard sonic shower, changed into a t-shirt and boxers
and then sat on her couch staring unseeing out the window.
She was sitting in the same place, having moved only when absolutely necessary,
four days later when she heard her door swoosh open. The chime had
rung numerous times over the past few days; her friends coming by to check
on her, but she had told them all to go away. She could hear whoever
it was that had come in moving around her quarters but she ignored them.
It wasn’t until a tall glass of water was thrust in her face that she even
looked up.
Seven of Nine had stood outside B’Elanna’s quarters for five point two minutes
internally debating with herself whether or not to break in. She knew
that the doctor was monitoring the Lieutenant’s life signs, but she had been
keeping a close eye on the woman’s replicator. She knew something of
what B’Elanna was going through and she was concerned for her health.
What she had seen in the replicator logs had alarmed her enough to go and
not only ignore her wishes to be left alone but to break into her quarters
and force her to eat and drink.
When the borg stepped through the door her vision adjusted instantly to the
darkness and she could clearly see the woman. The dark circles under
her eyes like angry bruises, said that she probably hadn’t slept (since)
she had returned. The sunken cheeks and pale paper-like quality to
her skin confirmed that she was not eating or drinking. Seven moved
immediately to the replicator and got a large glass of cold water.
The older woman didn’t move or acknowledge her presence until she placed
the glass directly in front of her face.
B’Elanna didn’t speak as she looked lethargically from the glass to the tall
blonde holding it; she merely stared at her. She thought that she was
hallucinating until Seven spoke in a voice as cold as space and it snapped
her awake just enough to understand the last word of the command.
“Comply.”
Seven was afraid she was too late and Lt. Torres had slipped too far away
for her to reach, until at her last word, she saw a small flame leap to life
in the otherwise dull eyes. She had guessed correctly that using a
Borg term would get her attention.
“What did you say?” B’Elanna was surprised at the pain that speaking
caused in her throat, it felt as if someone had shoved a hot poker down it.
“I said,’ Seven paused slightly for effect, ‘You will consume this liquid
refreshment now.’ And when you did not reach to take it I continued with
‘comply’.” She pushed the glass even closer to the dark woman’s face
and waited for the outburst she felt certain her actions would provoke.
B’Elanna sighed and the ire she had momentarily felt at Seven’s words cooled.
She turned back to the window and dismissed the other woman. “I don’t
want anything Seven, just go away and leave me alone.” When she heard
the clink of glass on metal she thought that the blonde was obeying her wishes
and leaving until she was lifted up and jerked into a standing position.
The Klingon could only stare at furiously animated face of the ex-borg and
found it absolutely fascinating.
“You will drink this water. You will then eat a nutritional supplement
and take a shower, because your odor is very offensive at this moment, and
then you will go to bed. If you do not comply I will carry you to sickbay
over my shoulder, have you restrained and force you to eat and drink.
Is that understood Lieutenant?” Seven was angrier than she could ever
remember being before.
When her cortical node had failed and she was dying, she had subconsciously
sought out the engineer. B’Elanna Torres had never lied to her, had
never coddled her and had always treated her as an individual, even if she
was rude and combative most of the time. In other words, she trusted
the volatile engineer with her life and she respected her. She also
felt that she owed her a debt for helping her through one of the most frightening
times in her short existence as an individual.
B’Elanna blinked rapidly at the passionate tirade. She nodded meekly,
not trusting her voice to speak in anything other than a tortured whisper
and tried to reach for the glass when she felt like she was falling.
Seven lowered her back to a sitting position because she didn’t think the
woman was strong enough to stand and drink at the same time. To the
ex-drone B’Elanna’s easy submission was another sign of how badly off she
really was, and it scared her.
She settled the Klingon back on the couch and handed her the glass, making
sure that she was drinking it and returned to the replicator to order a bowl
of soup. When Seven returned with the soup, she could see that B’Elanna
had indeed begun drinking the water. When she had managed to get down
about half the glass, Seven took it from her and handed her the bowl.
She watched the dark woman as she began to spoon the contents automatically
into her mouth, not seeming to taste what she was eating. When she
was sure that B’Elanna would continue eating without her hovering over her,
Seven made her way to the bedroom.
She took one look at the rumpled bed and stripped the blankets and sheets
off, replacing them with fresh linen from the closet. After making
the bed, Seven found a clean set of clothes and laid them out on the bed.
Scooping up the soiled sheets she walked quickly back into the main room
to deposit them in the replicator. When she turned back to B’Elanna
she felt like screaming at the woman. B’Elanna had eaten only about
half of the soup before she had gone back to staring out the window.
Seven quickly suppressed that emotion and sighed quietly to herself.
She guessed that after four days, she was lucky to get the lieutenant to
eat anything at all and it was probably for the best if she started slow.
She took the bowl from the nearly catatonic woman and set it on the table
before helping B’Elanna to her feet and leading her to the bathroom.
She was about to turn and go back to the living room when she saw the engineer
slump against the wall and start to slide down it, unable to keep herself
upright. Seven realized that B’Elanna was too week to take a shower
on her own, so she lowered her gently to the floor before straightening up
and removing her bio-suit. She was growing even more concerned when
the hybrid woman didn’t even seem to notice her actions. She didn’t
get any kind of response until she began removing B’Elanna’s clothes as gently
as she could.
“What are you doing Seven?” B’Elanna protested weakly trying to swat
the borg’s hands away and cover herself at the same time.
“Modesty is irrelevant lieutenant. You are not capable of cleansing
yourself, so I will assist you.” Seven informed her easily overpowering
the feeble attempts to fight her off.
Seven set the sonic shower for as low a frequency as she thought the smaller
woman could stand and then picked her up and stepped into the cubical.
As the waves of sound stripped the dirt and odor from their bodies, the ex-drone
tried to focus on merely getting the other woman clean and not the way she
felt in her arms.
Seven had known for some time that she was attracted to the fiery engineer,
but she was already married. She knew that B’Elanna’s sense of honor
would never allow her to consider a relationship with Seven while she was
still married to Tom Paris. And that same sense of honor would keep
her married to the man unless he did something so terrible that it dishonored
her more than asking for a divorce. So Seven had kept quietly in the
background and kept her feelings to herself.
Now there in the shower it was threatening to all come out. Seven bit
down hard enough to draw blood on the inside of her cheek to keep herself
from moaning as B’Elanna’s struggles caused a delicious friction between
their bodies. Giving herself a hard mental kick, Seven stamped down
her feelings. B’Elanna needed a friend, not a lovesick ex-Borg taking
advantage of the situation.
When Seven felt that enough of the grime had been removed, she reached around
the smaller woman and turned the shower off. Not waiting to see if
she was going to be able to walk on her own, she lifted B’Elanna into her
arms and carried her the short distance to the bed. Sitting her down
on the edge of the bed, Seven dressed the Klingon as quickly as she could
trying to ignore the feel of the caramel colored skin beneath her finger
tips.
Just as soon as she had B’Elanna clothed once more, Seven pulled the blanket
and sheet back and motioned for her to climb in. Once she had her settled,
the ex-drone nearly ran back to the living room for the half empty glass
of water, needing to put a little distance between them. By the time
she had refilled the glass and brought it to the bedroom, she was in complete
control of herself. Placing the glass on the bedside table, she turned
to study B’Elanna for a moment. She was staring up at the ceiling,
much as she had stared out the window, without actually seeing anything.
But at least she was lying down.
“I must leave for my duty shift now. I will return in four hours to
make sure you eat again. You will stay in bed and rest until I get
back,” Seven ordered in her best imitation of Captain Janeway’s command voice.
Without waiting for an answer she turned and fled the quarters, the image
of a completely broken B’Elanna Torres chasing her all the way to Astrometrics.
Seven returned exactly when she said she would. Once again she broke
into B’Elanna’s quarters and as soon as the door was open her gaze went to
the couch where she had first found the engineer. The tall blonde breathed
a silent sigh of relief when she saw that the Klingon woman had obeyed her
and stayed in bed. She went directly to the replicator and ordered
another bowl of soup and a glass of cold water. She didn’t think that
she would be able to get the woman to eat anything else just yet, no matter
how much she threatened her.
Carefully carrying the food into the bedroom, Seven stopped just inside the
door. B’Elanna was in the same position she had left her in, lying
in the bed and staring at the ceiling. She hadn’t even touched the
water Seven noted with alarm. She was beginning to doubt her decision
to try to help the woman herself and not notify the doctor. When B’Elanna
once again didn’t register the fact that she was there, Seven strode to the
bed and put the food and water on the nightstand.
Pulling the engineer into a sitting position, she tried to control her fear
when she spoke, afraid it would be transmitted to the smaller woman.
“You were supposed to be resting Lt. Torres.”
B’Elanna took the soup bowl from the ex-borg when she handed it to her and
stared indifferently at it. She had heard Seven come in, but like everything
else she just didn’t care. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Seven waited for her to continue with her explanation, but instead the engineer
began eating the soup. While B’Elanna ate, Seven studied her.
The food she had made her eat that morning had done some good, she wasn’t
as pale as she had been although her skin was still disturbingly wan.
Her eyes still had the vacant look to them and they were even more bloodshot
then when she had left earlier.
When she had consumed only half the bowl, B’Elanna handed it back to her
and dropped her hands bonelessly into her lap and returned to staring at
nothing. Seven put the bowl down and fought to keep from yelling at her or
shaking her. At least she had had the replicator triple the nutrients
and calories of the soup, so it didn’t make too much difference that she
had eaten only half. To see the normally animated engineer is such
a state of mute depression was not only disheartening but disturbing.
She took a deep breath and got her emotions under control before she tried
to pry an answer from her. “Why could you not sleep? You have
deprived yourself of rest for more than four days, you should have had no
trouble.”
“I can’t sleep because every time I close my eyes I hear her,” B’Elanna began,
tears springing to her eyes. “I close my eyes and she starts crying.
I know she’s gone but that doesn’t stop her from haunting me.”
Something broke inside Seven and she sat down on the bed and pulled the sobbing
woman into a fierce embrace. She rocked B’Elanna and stroked her hair
and back, trying to offer what comfort she could. The ex-drone hummed
a tune she thought her mother might have once sung to her, as the engineer
finally began to release some of the pain.
B’Elanna was still clinging to her almost an hour later when Seven noticed
that the shaking had stopped and the diminutive Klingon was asleep.
She listened to the deep, even breaths and watched her side rise and fall
for another quarter of an hour, enraptured by the sight.
Seven knew that she was taking advantage of the situation, watching B’Elanna
in her most unguarded and vulnerable state. She ignored the annoying
little voice in her head, telling her that this might be the only chance
she ever had to be so close to this woman and tried to move out from under
the engineer. However as soon as she began to shift away from her,
B’Elanna whimpered and clutched her waist tighter, nearly making the ex-drone
cry out at the sudden flare of pain.
While B’Elanna was small in stature, she was half Klingon and her bone and
muscle mass was greater than full-blooded humans. Her resulting grip
would have broken a normal person’s ribs, but Seven was really only half
human and her borg enhancements saved her from all but a momentary discomfort.
Seven moved back toward the unconscious woman, and tried to get comfortable
on the bed without waking her. She tapped her comm badge and asked
Icheb as quietly as possible to take over the rest of her shift in Astrometrics.
She knew she would have to explain her actions later but for now her only
concern was for the woman holding on to her like she was her last lifeline.
B’Elanna was drifting in a warm sea. Its embrace made her feel more
secure and safe than she had felt in a long time. The steady rise and
fall of the waves rocked her and held her, the motion calling her back to
dark oblivion of sleep. But something in the back of her mind, just
a slight tickling of awareness was dragging her back to the harsh reality
of the waking world.
The sea disappeared like wisps of smoke in the wind but the warmth and the
embrace remained. B’Elanna snuggled back into the body that spooned
her from behind and wrapped around her like a second skin. Her sleep-fogged
brain was trying to tell her that something was wrong but she was too comfortable
to pay much attention. Somewhere deep in her mind she knew that the
body she rested against was too long, too soft, that the arms that held her
were too thin, but it wasn’t until she took a deep breath that her mind made
the connection.
The sweet smell of lilac mixed with metal brought her completely awake and
reality crashed down around her. It wasn’t her husband that held her,
he was dead. Her child was dead. She had lost everything.
It took a moment after the pain had reclaimed her once again for her to realize
who exactly it was that was holding her. Seven. Seven; the woman that
had seen her at her weakest moment when she wanted nothing but to be left
alone. Seven; the woman that had broken into her quarters and made
her eat and drink when she wanted to just fade away. Seven; the woman
that had persisted until she had broken down and let her in and then held
her as she cried like a little child.
If she hadn’t been so weak, B’Elanna would have bolted from the bed.
But as it was, all she could do was turn over to face the other woman.
She wasn’t angry with Seven, she was mortified that the ex-drone had seen
her cry. She needed to know why the tall blonde had been trying so
hard to help her. While things between them had been a little less
volatile lately, they weren’t exactly friends.
As she struggled to make her body obey her and turn over, B’Elanna felt the
arms around her let go and pull away. When she managed to roll over,
her eyes were drawn immediately to the bluest eyes she had ever seen and
it surprised her. She had looked at Seven a thousand times but she
had never noticed how striking her eyes were. They were the color of
the sky just before sunset, the time that Mother Nature picks to show off
just how brilliant she can be, so blue that they rivaled the azure waters
of the most beautiful tropical beaches Earth had to offer.
B’Elanna thought about the old saying that the eyes were the windows of the
soul. Well if that was true then she had made a huge mistake in not
making this woman her friend a long time ago. She felt her face grow
hot at her contemplation and shook her head to clear out the thoughts to
focus on the matter at hand. Why Seven had done what she did and why
she was still here.
Seven could see the emotions flitting so quickly across B’Elanna’s face that
as soon as she identified one it was replaced by another. She could
see the question in the deep brown depths, but she waited patiently for her
to voice it not wanting to push her before she was ready.
B’Elanna swallowed against the lump in her throat and took a deep breath
before she could speak. “Why Seven? Why are you trying to help
me? I’ve never been nice to you and yet here you are. Please
tell me why you care?”
Seven took a moment to organize her thoughts before she answered the engineer.
She would tell her the truth but just the part of the truth she needed to
know. “When my cortical node failed and I was dying, I ran to Engineering.
At the time I was not certain why I chose to seek you out instead of the
captain or Neelix or even Tuvok. They are my friends and I …
care for them. However I sought out your domain. After I recovered
I thought about that for a long time before I came to a conclusion.
You have never been polite to me, nor have you ever given me a chance, but
you have treated me as an individual. You would not allow me to use
ignorance as an excuse. You demanded that I learn from my mistakes
and improve, just as you do with everyone else on this ship. But above
all, you have never lied to me or tried to ‘sugar-coat’ the truth in order
to spare my feelings as others have. When you told me that I would
be remembered, I believed you.” Seven took a deep breath before she
continued, what she had to say would be as painful for her as it would B’Elanna.
“I considered One to be my child, and when he gave his life to protect this
ship I thought I too would cease to function. I did not think at the
time that I would ever be able to function within normal parameters, but
I was wrong. Then Mizoti, Rebi and Azan chose to leave me and once again
I felt I had lost not one child, but three. While I know our situations
are not the same, they are similar.”
Seven stopped there hoping that the explanation would suffice. She
did not want to tell B’Elanna that after the incident in engineering she
had also begun to realize that her feelings for her were slanted in the romantic
direction. She also could not bear to tell her that she had been on
the bridge when the distress call had come in and she could clearly hear
her in the background. The way she had been desperately begging any
and all deities to not take her child from her, had torn at Seven’s heart.
Seven watched as what she had just said sank in. At first she had seen
anger and then pain fly across B’Elanna’s face. Then came understanding,
sorrow and embarrassment. Seven hoped that what she had told the Klingon
would help her to begin to heal.
In the minute it took Seven to explain to her why she was helping her, B’Elanna
had begun to understand just exactly how wrong she had been about the ex-drone.
She had treated her as if she was the enemy when she should have treated
her as a friend. “Seven I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to
say. Except thank you.”
“You are welcome lieutenant.” Seven accepted the apology with a nod and let
it go. She knew her behavior had been a factor in their animosity toward
each other. “Now I will prepare you a meal and then I must go.
I am late for the beginning of my duty shift,” The blonde informed
B’Elanna as she rose from her prone position.
“Wait Seven! What do mean the beginning of your shift? You were on
your lunch break when you got here. How long have I been asleep?”
B’Elanna couldn’t believe what she thought she was hearing; it felt like
she had just closed her eyes for a second.
“Sixteen hours twelve minutes,” Seven replied simply as she exited
the room. When she returned a minute later with another bowl of enriched
soup, B’Elanna was sitting up in the bed, open-mouthed. She handed
her the bowl and stepped back from the bed, body ramrod straight and hands
clasped behind her back. “Can I trust that you will consume this food
on your own, or should I stay and watch you eat?”
B’Elanna frowned. True she wasn’t at all hungry but she also understood
why. “No, I’ll eat. I promise, word of honor.” She added the
last when she saw more than a little disbelief in the blonde’s eyes.
Seven simply nodded. If the Klingon gave her word, she would do it.
“I will most likely not be able to return before the end of the Alpha shift.
You will eat again in four hours, I will call to check on you.” She turned
and would have started for the door but the engineer’s emotion-choked voice
stopped her.
“Seven. Thank you.”
The ex-drone nodded without turning and quickly left. She didn’t want
B’Elanna to see how much that extremely short sentence affected her.
Instead of going directly to Astrometerics, Seven headed for the Captain’s
ready room. She knew she was going to have to explain her absence during
her assigned duty shift and she thought she would get it over with as soon
as possible. Riding the turbolift to the bridge gave her enough time
to contact Icheb and let him know that she would be returning to her post
soon and to decide exactly how much she was going to tell the captain.
Stepping out of the turbolift, Seven went directly to the door of Janeway’s
ready room. She knew that at this time of the alpha shift she would
be there, drinking cup after cup of coffee and going over the previous day’s
reports. She went right in without asking as was her habit. She
didn’t know why the captain still allowed her to do this, no one else on
the ship was so bold as to invade her sanctuary without permission.
Captain Janeway didn’t look up when her door opened and someone entered.
She knew who it was. She had expected Seven to be there sooner but
wasn’t really surprised. She had gotten a call from Icheb telling her that
he had finished the scans of the immediate area and did she have any further
assignments for Astrometerics? She had, of course, asked him where
Seven was. As soon as the boy had told her that she had gone to see
B’Elanna, Kathryn had breathed a sigh of relief.
She knew that Seven would somehow get in to see the young engineer where
no one else could. They had set up the ship’s internal sensors to monitor
B’Elanna’s vital signs, but the sensors couldn’t tell them how she was doing
mentally and Janeway was concerned about her friend. B’Elanna had turned
away everyone that tried to see her, including the captain. But Kathryn
knew that Seven wouldn’t take no for an answer, she would do whatever she
had to do to get in, whether the Klingon liked it or not. She had kept
tabs on Seven’s whereabouts off and on all night and first thing that morning,
it hadn’t escaped her that she had stayed in B’Elanna’s quarters all night.
“Have a seat Seven,” Janeway told the ex-drone without looking up, even though
she knew what the answer would be.
“I prefer to stand Captain. I wish to apologize. Yesterday I
abandoned my work-station for personal reasons. I am ready to accept
whatever punishment you see fitting,” Seven told the older woman dryly.
She could only wonder why the captain continued to ask her to sit when she
already knew what the answer would be.
Janeway looked up sharply. Seven asking for punishment was the last thing
she expected, she had thought that she was going to get a report on how B’Elanna
was doing. “Dereliction of duty is a serious charge Seven. However
I don’t think that it applies in this situation, rather I think that a more
important duty came to your attention and you chose to attend to it.
Now if this sort of behavior becomes a habit then some sort of disciplinary
action will have to be taken. So how is B’Elanna holding up?”
Seven’s eyebrow raised slightly at the nonchalant way the captain asked about
her Chief Engineer. She knew better than anyone that the captain held
herself solely responsible for the death of B’Elanna’s child and husband.
She had sent them on the away mission, she hadn’t been able to get back to
them quickly enough to prevent the Klingon from losing her baby and she hadn’t
foreseen that Tom Paris would take his own life and abandon his wife when
she needed him most.
“I believe that Lt. Torres will recover. However she is at the moment
very distressed.” Seven kept her response as short as possible.
She knew how proud the fiery Klingon was and that she would not want her
current state to be made public knowledge, not even to the captain.
Janeway frowned at the clipped answer, she needed to know how B’Elanna was
and Seven’s statement didn’t give her any useful information. The thing
that confused her most and hurt her was that the engineer had let the ex-borg
in and not her. “Seven, you are the only one that has been able to
see her. Please, please I must know how she’s doing.”
The captain’s soft plea almost made the ex-drone’s resolve waiver, but her
sense of responsibility to B’Elanna quickly tempered that feeling.
“I am sorry Captain but I can not betray the lieutenant’s confidence, not
even for you.” She hoped that her mentor would accept her refusal and
not try to push the issue.
Kathryn sighed in resignation, she knew better than anyone that trying to
make Seven do something she was dead-set against was like trying to breach
the hull with a spoon; futile. “Please let her know that we are all here
for her and if she needs anything all she has to do is ask and it’s hers.
And Seven,” Janeway called as the blonde woman turned for the door, “please
tell her I’m sorry.”
Seven nodded, indicating she would relay the message and moved swiftly out
of the room. She needed to get some work done before her lunch break
just in case there was a repeat of yesterday’s activities. She hoped
that what she had told the captain was true. Not that she felt she
had lied to her, she really did believe that B’Elanna would recover.
She would make sure of that personally. But she also knew that where
human emotions were involved, predictions were most often futile.
TBC in part 2