Anamnesia, part 1
by  ragpants

Anamnesia (n.)
 1. a remembrance
 2. a medical history as related by the patient
 3. the recollection of a past life
 

Seven chin's drooped down against her breastbone. Her eyes startled open and she jerked her head up.  She couldn't fall asleep now. She'd traveled too far and too hard. She couldn't ruin it by falling asleep now.  She glanced around the vast, busy concourse, looking for a post or pillar, a support of some sort she could lean against. That held a subtle danger. If she relaxed the slightest bit, she'd fall asleep again.  She straightened her posture, arranging her feet into a wider stance to support her exhausted body.  Nineteen straight days of traveling, most of it on freighters and ferries. Nineteen days without a cot to sleep on, without a sink to wash in, without a meal that didn't come from a self-heating cup. Those nineteen days had gnawed away at her little remaining strength. Only her will and fierce determination kept her here and awake, waiting and watching.

Her thighs quivered with the effort of keeping her upright.  She moved her heels a bit closer together and locked her knees. There would be a price to pay for doing that, but she would gladly pay it later.

She pulled the dank wool of her long,  black traveling cloak tighter around her. It felt scratchy and clammy even through the durable synthetic of her shirt. And it smelled. It smelled of all kinds of unpleasant things that hard traveling brought:  sweat, greasy food, commercial cleansers, engineering lubricants. The miasma clung to her like a second skin.  There was a food stain crusted just above her left breast. Seven scratched at it with a fingernail.

Her hand, glancing upward, touched her hair. It frizzed out around her face in dry, brittle tufts like parched summer prairie grass.

***

Something was tickling the back of her neck. Seven resisted the urge to shrug it away and refocused her attention on Minister Yarren.

"...what I am saying is that initiating the weather control system now would lead to chaos in the ag futures market. It could lead to an economic disaster of unprecedented magnitude....."

 The Treyan Minister of Agriculture stabbed his bony index finger vigorously in the air as he spoke,  accusing no one and everyone at once. The bourbon glass he held in his other hand sloshed alarmingly.

Seven took an unobtrusive half step backwards. The last thing she wanted was to have to leave the Governor's Ball because some overly fervent, and probably intoxicated, government appointee slopped his drink down the front of her gown.

"...the consequences of regulating the monsoon cycle are, to put it simply...."

There was another faint touch against the back of her neck. Seven's hand had begun to rise in a reflexive motion before she caught her action and stopped it.

"...We could see a return of the recession we saw during '04 and '05...."

Another tickle. Another faint brush on her neck. This time she did raise her hand and smoothed it along her nape. Hair. It was her hair.  It was coming loose. No, not coming loose; it was being loosened. She felt a slight tug as a hairpin snagged.

Seven angled her chin and caught sight of Chakotay in her peripheral vision. Another hairpin eased out. Another clump of silken locks slipped free.

"Do you know how beautiful you look tonight, Seven?," Chakotay's voice was warm against her ear. "Too beautiful to stand here all night listening to blathering windbags. Let's get out of here."

Seven smiled a polite excuse at the minister and his admiring hangers-on.

Her pale hair hung mostly loose now, falling luxuriantly over her exposed shoulders.

Seven took four steps, then turned her head slightly so she could catch Chakotay's eye. "Don't ever humiliate me like that again." She gritted out each word with icy precision.  "If you cannot restrain your base instincts, I suggest that you leave now. I will join you later, after I have been introduced to the governor, which was my purpose in coming here tonight."   She  took a moment to glower in disapproval before she stalked off across the ballroom's marble floor, her five inch heels clacking, in search of a restroom where she could repair her coiffure.

Seven pushed her hair off her face and raised her cloak's cowl, concealing her face within its deep hooded shadows.

Overhead, in the echoing vastness of the Greater San Francisco Star Port, a boarding announcement rumbled.

Seven watched the varied crowd flow past her, all manner of humans and humanoids, leavened here and there with a few truly alien species. They flowed around her, oblivious to her, like a swarm of programmed, mechanical ants--or Borg-- each intent only on its own task, its own destination. Peering out among the swirl and jostle, Seven kept an especially keen watch for the conspicuous red and black of uniformed Starfleet personnel. She was looking for one who wore such a uniform.

A solitary individual made its way through the throng. Seven couldn't say exactly what drew her eyes to the figure. There was nothing especially memorable or noteworthy about its appearance.  A human of slightly less than average height, female, in ordinary civilian dress with satchel slung over one shoulder and padd, no, a book, tucked under the other. Still, there was something about the way the figure's confident stride cut effortlessly through the crowd. Seven narrowed her eyes and studied how the woman moved. Yes...Yes, it was her. Janeway. She had watched this woman's strong persona rule Voyager's bridge for four years. Seven would recognize her anywhere. This was the one whom she had been waiting for.

"Kathryn Janeway."

The name launched out over the murmurous concourse, but the woman's stride didn't falter or slow. Seven wondered if Janeway had even heard her over the constant buzz and throb of the crowd and the distant whine and roar of shuttle engines.

"Kathryn Janeway."

 Seven's voice was louder this time, determined, intent on attracting Janeway's attention.

This time the other woman's steps faltered slightly as she hastily looked to the left and right. She didn't notice Seven approaching from the pillar that had sheltered her wait in the concourse. Immediately, Janeway resumed her quick-paced gait as if she were on a tight schedule to meet her destiny somewhere just up ahead.

Seven tried a third time. This time her urgency lent her voice volume and shrillness, carrying her words above the noise.

"Kathryn Janeway."

Janeway halted and turned in circle, scanning the crowd for whoever had called to her.  Seven moved toward her.  As Seven closed in, Janeway  startled backwards, her hand instinctively  scrabbling  to her waist where her phaser would hang if she were in uniform.  The motion caused Seven to stop short. She hadn't realized she looked quite that threatening. She closed the remaining distance more slowly, halfway expecting six burly security guards to show up and restrain her before she could discommode a hero of the Federation.

Janeway's assessing gaze flicked over her without any sign of recognition, then returned to try to peer into the shadowed recesses of her hood.

"Seven?" Janeway sounded surprised and incredulous, but there was an underlying welcome in her tone.  It had been six years since they had last spoken, since shortly after Voyager returned to earth and Seven had left to seek her fortune elsewhere.

"Captain," Seven returned with relief.

 Janeway smiled easily. "Actually, it's Admiral now, but we're not aboard Voyager and you're not in Starfleet. Kathryn will do."

A departure announcement reverberated overhead. Janeway's eyes flicked anxiously toward the departure boards. Seven wondered if she had seriously miscalculated and her opportunity to speak with her former captain was going to evaporate in a haze of timetables and departure schedules. Seven's stomach constricted with anxiety. She had to speak with Janeway now, share her news and get her counsel. It was the reason she had come to Earth.  If she failed now,  how could she find the courage to try again?

"Admiral, please, it is important that I speak with you," Seven stated crisply, silently willing Janeway to hear the plea she could not say aloud.

Janeway's gaze slid sideways as she considered. "All right, Seven. I'll make the time. But let's not hold this conversation out here in public. We're drawing a crowd."

Janeway cupped Seven's elbow and directed her towards a small Altarian restaurant whose tables and chairs spilled out onto the plascrete walkway.  The cafe  was mostly empty during this lull hour between breakfast and lunch, but Janeway asked for 'something private' anyway and slipped several glittering strips in the waiting palm of the exotically veiled host. He led them to a high backed booth in the recesses of the cafe itself where he left them, nonchalant as if he escorted disreputable looking characters to clandestine meetings in the restaurant everyday.

Janeway laid her book on the tabletop, then shoved her carryall across the synthetic leather bench and slid  in beside it..

Seven stood frozen, staring at the book that lay on the table: Vanity Fair.

Her hand groped blindly for the datapadd that should have been on the front right corner of her desk. Seven looked up from her computer screen. The datapadd wasn't there. She arched an eyebrow in irritation. While living with another individual permitted the economies of scale to increase household efficiency, it also meant one had to put up with the petty idiosyncrasies of another person. In her case, it meant she had to deal with Chakotay's penchant for walking off with things.  Specifically, her things.  It was habit she had tried to break him of and failed. She had been sure that once she drew his attention to the fact he was unconsciously prone to move things from their accustomed place that the behavior would stop.  Annoyingly, it hadn't.

 Seven rose from her desk, prickling with mild exasperation, to look for her padd. She searched the lower story of the house. It wasn't there. She could only assume that Chakotay must have taken it upstairs.

Seven seldom entered her husband's bedroom. She supposed it could be technically considered their bedroom, but she only rarely actually slept there. Over the past four years, Chakotay's presence had become the dominant one in the room. He'd moved his desk upstairs three years ago and the furnishings in the room--and clutter--clearly reflected his tastes.

 Seven wrinkled her nose in distaste as she leaned down to pick up several dirty shirts off the floor. Chakotay's idea of cleanliness and hers had never quite reached unanimity. She tossed them toward the laundry recycler. A book lay under the last shirt. Seven picked it and held it in her hand, wondering.

She sat down on the bed. She turned book over in her hands. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray was embossed in faded gold lettering along the spine. Seven let her fingers trail over the worn buckram binding.  Odd, she thought. Chakotay was not much of a reader. Oh, he read all the necessary technical material required for his job and any maintenance manuals essential for chores around the house. But fiction? He was not a fiction reader in so far as she could recall. Yes, Chakotay was fond of historical analysis and archaeological journals in his spare time, but he always read from a padd.  He was no bibliophile who loved the crisp touch of paper under his fingers.  This purchase seemed so uncharacteristic of him.

Seven was about to set the book aside and resume her search for her datapadd when a sheet of paper fell from between the leaves. The paper was thick and handmade. Seven allowed her fingertips to caress its elegant texture before she unfolded it. Chakotay's large scrawl covered the page:

        Dear Kathryn,

        I saw this book in an antique store yesterday and I immediately thought of you.
        I have many warm memories of all those long, late night, literary discussions we
        used have aboard Voyager. I miss them. I never thought I'd say that--that I miss
        being  lectured about the superior qualities of Jane Austen's prose, but I do.

         And I miss you.

        Not long after the I settled here on Denobius Trey, the rumor mill brought me
        a bit of scuttlebutt. I heard that you had been offered a Seat at the Big Table.
        I hope the rumor was true, Kathryn, and I hope you took the promotion. I can't
        think of anyone who has worked harder or made more sacrifices for her ship
        than you did. You deserve an Admiralship and much, much more.. Without  your
        strength, your determination, I'm not sure that any of us would have ever made it home.

        In case you are wondering about me, Kathryn, know that I am well. And if my
        life is not exactly turning out how I'd envisioned it when I left Earth, I have no
        one to blame but myself. You did try to warn me.
 

Seven's eyes refused to read any further. She refolded the sheet and slipped it between two random pages.  She carefully centered the book on top of Chakotay's sloppy bed. Her missing padd lay on his desk. She took it and went downstairs.

The book on the table's binding was a rich green calfskin. Chakotay's had been gray fabric.

"Seven? Seven? Are you all right?"

Janeway's voice brought Seven back to the present. She shook her head, clearing away the memories.
"I am fine, Admiral." She slid into the other side of the booth.

There was an awkward silence. Now that she had tracked down Kathryn Janeway, Seven had no idea  what to say, how to begin to tell her what she had traveled so far to say.

Janeway tapped the button that activated the holographic menu which rose silently from the tabletop. "Coffee? Perhaps something else? A meal? Are you hungry, Seven?"

The reek of hot grease hung heavy in the air. It was an unfamiliar odor and it took Seven several moments' processing to identify it.

Chakotay surged forward, grabbing her hand and tugging her into the compact, efficient kitchen on the lower floor of their house.

"I'm making you something special for breakfast," he announced, pulling out her chair for her at the table. His seldom seen dimple tweaked madly  as he tried and failed to suppress a grin of triumph. "You have to be tired of that gruel you eat every morning."

He busied himself at the stove, pulling of large flat round  of frybread out of the skillet. Its golden brown surface glistened with oil that dripped slowly back into the pan.

Seven felt her stomach lurch.  She couldn't do this. She couldn't eat that. It was too strange, too different from what she was used to. Chakotay was always urging her to try new tastes, to broaden her experiences and outlooks, but change was hard and she wasn't willing.

Chakotay placed the bread on a plate and pushed it toward her. "Best to eat it while it's hot," he explained.  "Here, let me show you." He opened a jar of honey, real honey, Seven realized with a squeamish shock, not replicated honey--he must have traded for it in the village-- and began slathering it thickly over the oily flatbread.

"Delicious," he pronounced, picking up his own frybread, folding it in half and taking a huge bite.
He looked encouragingly at her.

Seven cautiously picked up the bread, trying to avoid the stickiness of the oozing honey. She took a bite and nearly gagged. The residual oil scummed the inside of her mouth while the overwhelming sweetness of the honey smothered her ability to taste or smell anything. She chewed gamely as the bread wadded into a heavy, doughy ball inside her cheek. All of her saliva seemed to have suddenly dried up.

Chakotay took another huge bite from his bread, chewing enthusiastically and letting his eyes fall closed with the pleasure of it.

Seven tried to swallow, but her throat seemed to have swelled closed. She chewed some more and finally succeeded in forcing the gummy mass down her throat. Her stomach received the offering reluctantly. Bile rose harsh and acrid. She covered her mouth and ran.
 

"I'm sorry, Seven. I'm sorry." Chakotay's apologetic voice echoed hollowly inside the refresher chamber. "I didn't mean... I didn't want....If I had known it was going to make you sick, I never would have...."

"It is of little import, " Seven said brusquely as she pushed passed him upon exiting the bathroom. "However, know that in the future I will not be the subject of an more of your 'experiments,' culinary or otherwise. I will not participate. If I should desire an alteration to my current circumstances, I will let you know."

Seven shook her head, then realized Janeway couldn't see it. Despite her hunger, the memory made her stomach roil. "Tea will be sufficient. Thank you."

Janeway ordered for both of them, then folded her hands on the table, waiting for Seven to break the silence.

Seven decided to start with the obvious. She pushed back the cowl of her cloak, letting the hood fall back onto her shoulders. "I have been ill."

Janeway's  sudden intake of breathe was barely audible. Seven's hand reflexively rose to touch her face, to smooth the flaking, sallow skin in the bruised hollows under eyes and cheekbones. She closed her eyes. She didn't need or want to see the pity and horror she knew she would find reflected in Janeway's expression

"Seven, I'm sorry."  Janeway's fingers crossed the table to lightly touch the blotched, ragged skin on the back of her hand. "Is there anything....?"

Seven made a small negative headshake. There was nothing Janeway could do now. It was weeks too late, perhaps years. All she wanted from her now was her understanding and her forgiveness, if that were even possible.  Seven wasn't sure it was.

"What happened?"  Janeway's voice was gentle with compassion.

"It is a complicated story. Let it suffice to say that I contracted Vegan coreomeningitis ."

"But that's treatable. Preventable!" Janeway exclaimed, bristling with indignation.

 Seven watched how Janeway had tensed behind her side of the table, clearly ready to leap up and seek retribution on whosoever had been incompetent enough to allow this to happen.  Janeway was in full protective mode, ready to defend all who had placed themselves under her protection. That facet of her personality, so evident on Voyager, had remained constant despite the passage of years. The fact both reassured and terrified Seven.

"It is. Under normal circumstances." Seven acknowledged, unable to quite meet Janeway's eyes.

"Incredible.  Simply incredible," the holographic doctor burbled. "If I hadn't seen it myself...."

He gestured for Seven to join him at the diagnostic display. She sat up and slid off Sickbay's biobed.

"Look at this!"  The Doctor reinforced his command with a rap of his knuckles against the display. "Your immune response is almost 15 times stronger than that of a normal human."

"Twelve point nine-seven," Seven corrected. She briskly entered a command into the medical computer and a set of color coded line graphs appeared.   "Much of my superior immunity is due to the presence of Borg nanocytes in my bloodstream." Seven traced one line with a fingertip. "This represent my naturally occurring immune response. Observe how limited and inefficient it is." She traced another. "This is my enhanced response. Note how quickly and effectively any foreign infectious agents are detected and destroyed. In the past, many  species tried to resist the Borg by genetailoring viruses to attack our biologic systems. They were unsuccessful."

Seven turned and walked toward the exit.

"Wait...wait..." the doctor sputtered, "You haven't had your inoculations yet."

Seven turned and eyed the Doctor coolly. "Your inoculations are ineffective and unnecessary. I have duties to attend to."

The holodoctor gaped, his mouth opening and shutting like a carp out of water. "Well," Doctor huffed, "see if I treat you when you come down with Denerthen measles."

"But do not fault the doctors, Admiral. They did their best. There were....unexpected complications."

Seven lay like a marble effigy on the examination table.  Her eyes were closed and her hands folded passively between her breasts. The medical imaging sensor chirped as it passed over the lower half of her torso.  She breathed slowly and waited.

The  whirring stopped and the doctor leaned across her feet. The imaging panel bleated in not quite mute obedience as Dr. Taedon toggled the controls.

"I'm going to do another scan, Annika, " the doctor said in calming tones as if Seven were a high strung racehorse who might bolt at any second. "It'll just take a minute."

Seven's hands knotted together tighter. She didn't open her eyes.
 

It was over.  Dr. Taedon patted Seven's arm with the kindly reassurance that doctors reserve for the dying or the damaged. Seven immediately knew whatever the doctor might have to tell her was not good news. "Why don't you get dressed and we'll talk in my office."
 

Seven perched stiffly upright  on the edge of one of the 'patient' chairs in Dr. Taedon's office. She could not force her ramrod posture to relax against the chair's back. She glance to the empty second chair beside her and was glad that Chakotay was not here with her.

 Dr. Taedon closed the door behind her when she entered and come around to sit on her front of her desk opposite Seven.

"I'm sorry, Annika...."

Seven didn't need to hear another word. She already knew. Her intense Borg awareness of her own body's functioning had told her days ago that the embryo she had conceived was gone, reabsorbed into her body, consumed and destroyed.

Seven closed her eyes to hide the shame she felt creeping into them. She had failed. Worse, she had failed *again*. Three times now her body had failed to carry Chakotay's child. There would be no son for him to teach his tribe's manhood skills, no daughter to listen to him recount ancient stories of his people. There would be nothing to bind him to her. And he was drifting. Drifting away from her. She could feel the distance between them growing a little wider each day, like cracks in a reactor core wall. They were becoming strangers, passing acquaintances who happened to share a house. Soon, she feared, even that small commonality would be gone. And he would leave her.

She opened her eyes.

The doctor's smooth brown face wrinkled in frustrated puzzlement. "I don't understand why you keep miscarrying, Annika. Physically there are no reasons for it. Genetic scans were normal. Hormonal functioning was normal. No developmental fetal abnormalities were noted."  Taedon looked up to make sure she held Seven's eye. "About the only possibility I can see is that your residual Borg adaptations are somehow involved." The doctor stood and retreated behind her desk. "Frankly, this is outside my field of expertise. If you like, I could refer you to someone. I understand that there is a corps of physicians and  biocybernetic engineers at Starfleet Medical who have experience in dealing with the formerly assimilated."

Seven stood abruptly. "No.  Thank you. That will not be necessary."  She had lived most of her life with 'Borg adaptations'; she knew how to manage them. She did not need anyone, especially not Starfleet, telling her how to deal with them. And now that she knew the problem probably lay within her Borg systems, she should have no difficulty resolving it.

 As she walked out of the doctor's office, Seven was already planning how to modify her nanocytes.

 Seven watched Janeway's forehead wrinkle with reluctant acceptance of her evasions and was relieved --and disappointed--she didn't press her further. One more question, the one obvious question, would have given Seven the opening she needed to broach the reason she had come here. But Janeway didn't ask and she could say. The uncomfortable silence returned.

Seven had little patience for 'small talk' and had never cultivated the skill. Now she felt acutely that lack.
She cast about for an opening, but none came immediately to mind.

Janeway surreptitiously checked the table's holopadd and tilted her head slightly as if she were doing mental calculations. Seven felt a flush of guilt as realized she was keeping Janeway from whatever appointment or deadline she had been enroute to.  She should excuse herself and leave, let Janeway get back to her life. She could always comm her later and explain. Perhaps by then, the news she carried would be less fresh, less painful. Perhaps by then, someone else would have already broken the bad news to Janeway. Perhaps by then, Seven would have the excuses, the rationales which would allow her to distance herself from her role in the events which weighed so heavily on her conscience now.  Time had a way of allowing one distance and emotional dissociation. At least that was what Seven had always heard. She prayed it was true.

Seven levered her hand against the edge of the table and let the words of pretext form in her mind. But at that moment, the server arrived bearing their drinks. She'd waited too long.

Janeway took charge, passing the teapot and cup to Seven, keeping the coffee carafe and mug for herself. Janeway filled the mug, but didn't drink from it. Instead, she curled her hands around the thick porcelain, turning it around and around, making a faint skreeking sound against the table

The noise sawed at Seven's exhaustion and guilt like a neural agonizer. Her confession trembled in her chest. She wanted to spill it out, to lay out her reasons, her fears, her actions and let Janeway judge her. During her tenure on Voyager, Janeway had proven herself wise, compassionate and fair. If Janeway could absolve her, maybe then....

Seven opened her mouth to speak.

"He's..."

But Janeway was already speaking.

Seven stopped, pressing her lips together and swallowing the bitter words that hovered on her tongue.  "Please continue, Admiral,"  she encouraged with a small dip of her head.

A faint blush touched Janeway's cheeks. Her eyes dropped toward her coffee cup then came back to meet Seven's.

" I asked, 'How is Chakotay?'"

There was an open vulnerability in Janeway's face and a courage that Seven envied. She was surprised at how much her former Captain's face revealed.  Her old affection for Chakotay was there, circumscribed and constrained, but still gleaming in the back of her eyes. If Seven had harbored any doubts, she no longer did. Kathryn still loved him.

Seven didn't answer. Instead she stirred her tea.  What should she say? This was the opening she had been waiting for; this was her chance.

Kathryn deserved the truth.

Only Seven couldn't tell her.

 Instead, Seven reached for the teapot.