Work Text:
In retrospect, had she known it was their last night, she would have spent it better. Or perhaps “better” is too strong a word. Perhaps it’s enough to say she would have spent it differently—given the night shift to someone else, or used the quiet to walk around Engineering one last time, taking long minutes to memorize its sight and shape and sound and smell.
Or maybe she would have lingered on the upper level just long enough to remember what her engine room looked like before the SCE tore it apart, and then she would have given the night shift to someone else and gone home, stopping by Harry’s on her way there, not taking no for an answer when she invited him over for dinner and a movie.
And because it was their last night, they wouldn’t have cared about the mess. They would have dragged the mattress off the bedframe and into the living room, pillows and all, and used the replicators they no longer had to ration to create a feast of all the foods they’d spent the past seven years imagining: popcorn with thick, salty butter; fried plantains; twelve kinds of chips; berries in cream; grilled cheese and spicy noodles and those dumplings Harry brought over right after she and Tom started dating that she’s thought about once a week for four years; the good synthehol.
They would have stayed up until 0300 watching movies Tom picked out, and she and Harry would have alternately grumbled and teased, and she would have fallen asleep tangled around the arms and legs of the people she loved most in the galaxy—people (she’d find out later) she would spend the next three weeks wondering if she would ever see again.
But B’Elanna doesn’t know it’s their last night on Voyager. And because she doesn’t know, she gives Nicoletti the night off and spends hers scrubbing plasma manifolds, a task so bodily exhausting that when the chronometer signals the end of her shift, she washes her hands and leaves without a backwards glance.
When she gets to the mess hall, Tom and Harry are already there—Tom looking bleary, Harry too chipper and well-groomed for 0700. She replicates a bowl of cereal because it’s a low-ration food, and after seven years, it’s hard to break the habit of bargaining today’s desires against tomorrow’s needs.
She collects her bowl and sits down at the table with a groan.
“Uh oh,” Tom says around a bite of scrambled egg. “That’s your plasma manifold groan.”
“Why are you scrubbing plasma manifolds right before we take the ship apart?”
“Because, Harry, not all of us are upstanding Starfleet officers. Some of us have to beg for our freedom with extra shiny ships.”
“C’mon. You really think after all we’ve been through, they’re gonna throw the Maquis in prison?”
B’Elanna takes a bite of cereal and gives an exaggerated shrug.
“Don’t you think if they were going to do that they would have done it days ago? We’ve been orbiting Earth for a week.”
“Don’t remind me,” Tom groans.
“You’re right,” B’Elanna says, “we have been orbiting for a week. And we haven’t been allowed a single subspace transmission since Janeway contacted Command and said oh hey hi, we’re home.”
Harry shakes his head. “That’s not just you guys. I’m not allowed calls either. Not even to my mom and dad to tell them I’m within transporter range.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know. They’re probably just trying to prepare, is all. It’s not like we arrived with much warning.”
“Exactly. We showed up sixty years ahead of schedule. They don’t know what to do with us.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Tom says.
“It’s not necessarily a good thing, either,” B’Elanna snaps, not caring that she’s getting loud. “I mean think about it: a lot’s happened since we’ve been gone. An entire war began and ended in the time it took us to get home, and suddenly we burst out of a transwarp conduit sporting a crew of ex-terrorists, holograms, and former drones in a ship augmented with Borg technology.” B’Elanna raises her hands and leans back in her chair, abandoning her soggy cereal. “All I’m saying is, I’d be hella suspicious of us too. Especially after a bunch of shapeshifters infiltrated Starfleet Command. They’re going to lock us up for weeks.”
Across the table, Tom and Harry sport wide-eyed stares.
“What, too early in the morning to be spitting truths?”
Tom clears his throat and jerks his chin to the side before returning his gaze to his food. “Maybe just keep your voice down if you’re gonna be doom and glooming.”
B’Elanna turns and sees Seven and Naomi a few feet away. There’s a mix of plates and bowls spread out before them, indicating something elaborate, involved, but Naomi is frozen, eyes wide, stylus hovering over her PADD. Seven looks between Naomi and B’Elanna, as if uncertain how to proceed. “Shit,” B’Elanna mumbles, planting her elbows on the table and hiding her face in her hands. “Godfuckingdammit. Just great.”
“Hey,” Tom soothes, reaching across the table, “don’t worry about it. You’re stressed. We all are. This is a weird situation.”
“And I’m sure Sam’s been preparing Naomi for what to expect,” Harry adds.
“With what information?” B’Elanna asks, leaning forward and lowering her voice to a hiss. “Last time I checked, none of us knew what the hell was going on.”
Harry presses his lips together and gives a single, frustrated shake of his head. “Look,” he says, holding his hands in front of him. “Let’s play this out. You’re the chief engineer. Tom’s your husband, and he’s the son of an admiral. Yeah, he has a record, but he was working for Starfleet when we got lost. You both have years of exemplary behavior on record with only a handful of bad marks. All of that combined has got to count for something.”
“And what about the rest of the Maquis?” B’Elanna asks. “The ones who aren’t chief engineer and don’t have friends in high places. You really think Starfleet’s gonna offer them all pardons?”
“I think,” Tom says slowly, “that we should shelve this conversation until after you’ve had some sleep. And Harry and I have woken up a little more.”
B’Elanna sighs and massages the bridge of her nose. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Harry.” It’s just that my home is falling apart, except it’s not because we’re stuck in this holding pattern, and anything would be better than sitting around waiting for Starfleet to decide my fate.
“I’m sorry too,” Harry replies, pushing aside his tray.
They have, as a group, avoided talking about what’s next for this exact reason. Not for the first time, B’Elanna wishes she had Harry’s optimism, Harry’s background, Harry’s belief in the inherent good of Starfleet, the compassion and care it so ardently claims to profess. Things would be a hell of a lot easier if she could muster that same conviction.
She catches Tom’s eyes across the table and knows what he’s thinking: Just let it go. Savor these moments. We don’t know what tomorrow holds.
Which is, of course, the goddamn problem.
Behind her, she hears Seven and Naomi talking, something about the futility of ranking foods and Naomi’s insistence that it’s a worthwhile pursuit. Good, she thinks, they’ve moved on from my blunder. The last thing she wants is to worry the kid. She’s been in her position—scared, uncertain, at the mercy of adults who look nothing like her—too many times before.
She thinks of her father’s letter, the one that she’s left unanswered for weeks. Thinks of the long, late-night conversations she and Tom have had about children and parents and familial obligations, of the host of hypotheticals they’ve hashed and re-hashed out.
Bodily, B’Elanna is grateful to be back in the Alpha Quadrant. She hadn’t realized it till they burst through that transwarp conduit, but if she has to perform a single task more complex than replacing a blown-out power cell, she’ll fall to pieces. She wants to lie down and sleep for a week.
Emotionally, though, she’s not ready to deal with being within transporter range of her father. Her father who wants to reconnect after twenty fucking years.
“Maybe he’s changed,” Tom said that first night, after the adrenaline wore off and they returned to their quarters and came face to face with the reality that all the things they’d put off with the excuse of being 30,000 light years away from Earth were suddenly very real decisions that needed to be made. “Maybe he wants to apologize.”
“Then why didn’t he do it in the letter?”
“Maybe he wants to tell you face to face.”
“I don’t want to see him,” she said, curling in on herself.
“Then you don’t have to.” He sat down on the bed beside her and slid a hand across her shoulders, letting her decide if she wanted to move closer. (She always wanted to move closer. This, in the end, was why she stayed with Tom. He touched her, and she felt at home.) He kissed her temple. “Just because I’m giving my dirtbag dad a second chance doesn’t mean you have to do the same. You have a new family now. Me and Chakotay and the captain and Harry. Hell, you’ve even got Seven when you’re spoiling for a fight.”
B’Elanna laughed and pressed her face into Tom’s chest. “We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?” She’s not just talking about Seven, though she realizes (again) how much they have in common.
Tom chuckled, a warm rumble deep in his chest. “We have.”
She leaned into him. “I don’t want it to go away.”
“It won’t,” Tom said, arms tightening around her as if to emphasize his point. “It will change, but it won’t go away. We’ve been through too much to let it fall apart.”
B’Elanna closed her eyes. She wanted to believe him. Maybe just this once, wanting was enough.
“For what it’s worth,” Harry says now, his voice as gentle as the hand he places on her wrist, “my parents would be thrilled to meet you. Both of you,” he adds, looking at Tom. “They’ve pretty much adopted you, judging by their letters.”
“Great,” Tom drawls, “just what I need, another set of parents.”
Sarcastic, but he’s smiling underneath it, and the levity melts the tension icing the air between them. Harry says something about putting Tom on kitchen duty for Lunar New Year (something Harry always tried to avoid growing up) and B’Elanna is just beginning to relax into the banter when Tom’s eyes lock onto something behind her. She senses his unease before she sees it.
“What’s wrong?” she starts to ask, but both he and Harry are already on their feet. B’Elanna turns and sees the phasers first. Unholstered, safeties off, pointed not at her but at Seven.
B’Elanna’s eyes snap away from the officers (security, Starfleet, grim-lipped, unfamiliar) and down to Naomi, who stood up so quickly she knocked over her chair. Seven is still seated, calmly assessing the situation, though there’s a set to her shoulders that tells B’Elanna she’s not as serene as she seems.
B’Elanna takes two steps forward and then stops with her hands raised when the second security officer trains his weapon on her.
“I’m just trying to get to the kid, okay? You’re scaring her.” She gestures to Naomi, whose fists are clenched in what B’Elanna would bet a week’s worth of replicator rations is an attempt not to cry.
“What’s going on?” Tom asks, also taking a step forward.
“We’re here to take Seven of Nine to Starfleet Headquarters.”
B’Elanna lowers her arms. “No one told us we were leaving the ship today.”
“You’re not.”
“Then why is Seven leaving?”
“We have our orders.”
“And who gave you those orders?” Harry asks. B’Elanna takes one final step forward and sinks to one knee beside Naomi. She holds out her hand and Naomi takes it, squeezing fiercely. Her eyes never waver from Seven, who still hasn’t risen from her chair.
“Talk to Captain Janeway if you have concerns. For now, the Borg comes with us.”
“Her name is Seven,” Naomi says, emphasizing the name with a stomp. “She’s not Borg anymore. She’s my friend.”
Years from now, after the fear of this moment has faded from memory, B’Elanna will remember the look on Seven’s face as Naomi says those words. It’s a look that communicates surprise and gratitude and hope and affection, as well as fear and uncertainty and a deep, welling grief. All these emotions and more roll across Seven’s face, and the remarkable thing is, they’re contained in a single flicker. There and then gone, tucked away behind her mask of calm.
“Thank you for your concern, lieutenants, ensign,” she says, placing her palms flat on the table and rising slowly so the security officers know she’s not a threat, “but I will be fine. Please make sure Naomi gets home safely. I don’t want Ensign Wildman to worry.”
With that, she surrenders herself to the officers, who march her briskly from the mess hall, oblivious to the dropped jaws and wide eyes they’ve left in their wake.
Tom and Harry move shoulder to shoulder, forming a wall between Naomi and the rest of the officers in the mess hall. B’Elanna, still kneeling, looks at the girl, whose body shakes with a single, violent shudder. Two fat tears drop onto her cheeks. “Why did they take her away?”
B’Elanna looks at Tom, who widens his eyes and gives the smallest shake of his head. There’s a moment where they can’t stop staring at each other, Tom standing, B’Elanna kneeling with her hand slowly going numb in Naomi’s grip, and even though she knows she’s on a starship with functional gravity, it feels like she’s standing on the edge of a wind-whipped cliff. And then Harry, blessed Harry with his unwavering faith in Starfleet, steps forward.
He picks up Naomi’s chair and sits down. “Seven’s told you about debriefings, right?”
Naomi nods. “It’s when your commanding officer asks you a bunch of questions about a mission.”
“That’s right!” Harry beams like a proud professor. “We’ve been on a lot of missions, so we’re going to have to sit through a lot of debriefings these next few weeks. In fact, that’s all Captain Janeway’s been doing for the past three days.”
Naomi sniffs and scrubs a hand across her cheek. “But why do they want Seven? And why did they have phasers?”
Harry falters. He looks at B’Elanna, who shakes her head. Don’t ask me, Harry. I can’t give her the answer she needs.
Gently, Tom nudges B’Elanna aside. “Sometimes,” he says, hunkering down to Naomi’s level, “people see something they don’t understand and it scares them. But once they understand it, the fear goes away.”
“Like the way I was afraid of Seven, but now I’m not.”
“Exactly. But until that fear goes away, they’re going to act a certain way. It’s called a survival instinct. Starfleet has had some bad stuff happen while we were in the Delta Quadrant, so they get scared a lot more easily right now. You know Seven isn’t dangerous, and I know Seven isn’t dangerous, but Starfleet doesn’t. At least not yet.”
Naomi isn’t crying anymore, and Harry takes the opportunity to move into a corner and call Samantha and the Captain to the mess hall.
“Are they going to lock her up?”
B’Elanna feels a wave of nausea sweep through her as Naomi asks the question. A question they can’t brush off, thanks to B’Elanna’s rant.
“I don’t know,” she says, giving Naomi the honesty she wished the adults in her life had given her as a kid. “I hope not, but like Tom said, the Alpha Quadrant’s had a pretty nasty time of it these last few years.” Naomi’s lip trembles, and B’Elanna grasps for something, anything, to give. “But you know what I do know?”
“What?”
“I know that Seven has a lot of friends and that we’re going to do everything we can to help Starfleet understand that she’s not a threat.”
Naomi searches her eyes for a long time, and B’Elanna doesn’t look away. Finally, the girl gives a tentative nod. “Okay. I’m gonna go find my mom now, so she can help me think of what to do.”
As if on cue, the mess hall doors open and Samantha Wildman charges in, followed by Captain Janeway. Naomi runs to her mother, and Harry intercepts the Captain, explaining in a low voice what just took place. B’Elanna turns to Tom.
“You handled that nicely,” he says, cradling her elbows and kissing her forehead. B’Elanna sighs heavily through her nose.
“Bullshit. But thank you. For what you said to her. I wouldn’t have…” she shakes her head. “I just can’t get there right now.”
Tom pulls her closer and squeezes tight. “You should get some sleep.” His voice is thick with emotion, words he can’t or won’t speak, but B’Elanna hears them anyway: First Seven, then Icheb, then the Maquis.
They’re coming for her next.