Chapter Text
“Robert!” Kathryn Janeway ran to hug her former landlord. “I’m so sorry it took this long.”
“I see the neighbors have joined in.” He smiled and waved at several people coming and going between the house and a large container. “They haven’t been happy about the vacancy.”
“You can say it. It’s an eyesore.” The center of the long, narrow house consisted of a pile of charred wreckage, while the two ends appeared intact. Most of what the neighbors carried to the container was burned or water damaged.
A fit but elderly man, Robert Marini watched with interest as each helper passed by carrying whatever they could manage. “Nobody from the family has lived here for over a hundred years, but it means a lot that you’ll rebuild the façade.”
“You and the other neighbors have been so kind, we decided not to make dramatic changes to the front. The rest, however…” She laughed, thinking about the process she, Jean-Luc and Icheb went through to come to a consensus. And then when it was almost finished, they adopted a six-year-old ex-Borg girl.
He looked around, his eyes landing on a group of teenagers marching in lock-step. “What are those kids doing?”
“Starfleet Prep School students, friends of our son. They gave up trying to do line dances while carrying debris and decided to march.” She spotted Icheb and gestured for him to join them.
Icheb ran to the container to deposit his piece of charred wood, then trotted to greet them. “Hello, Robert.”
“I hear you were a big part of the design process.” Robert, his gray hair glistening under the California sun, gave him a condescending grin. “I wish my grandchildren were so smart.”
“Mother calls it enlightened self-interest. I’m going to live here, too,” he reminded him. “At least for a few years until I graduate from the Academy.”
“Starfleet Academy, like your parents. I admire people who want to be up there.” He waved a circle-eight over his head, pointing to the sky. “Me, I like to keep my feet on the soil that’s been in my family for five hundred years.”
“What’s the oldest vintage you still have in your wine cellar?” Icheb, who had absorbed so much automatically through Borg implants, wanted to know everything about everything. It was a craving his parents encouraged.
Marini thought for a moment. “I think we have a few bottles left from the twenty-first century.”
“The population collapse?” The history of Earth, his home of only two years, was another subject of fascination for him. “After the Great Drought?”
“It was a dark time for everybody, including vintners,” Robert confirmed.
Janeway stood to the side, watching with pride as Icheb looked up to the older man. In eighteen months since being freed from stasis, he embraced Earth more than she expected.
“Every species has its dark times,” Icheb said knowingly. “I’ve studied many of them.”
“Good preparation for the Academy.” Janeway smiled and clapped his shoulder.
Robert studied the boy’s features for a moment, then ran a finger over his own brow. “Does that thing… does it hurt?”
Instinctively, Icheb’s hand flew to the Borg implant over his eyebrow. “This? No. I forget it’s even here.”
“It can’t be removed,” Janeway explained. “He’s almost one-hundred percent organic otherwise. His sister has one, too.”
Organic. Icheb smiled at the word, then heard the voice of a classmate calling him. He apologized, then ran to the house to grab more debris.
“Sister?”
“You’ve heard of The Thirty Thousand?”
“The Borg colony. Everybody’s heard of them.”
“Ex-Borg,” she corrected. “We adopted a little girl who was one of them. She’s from Icheb’s home planet.”
“Congratulations. Around here, we would have a party to celebrate that.”
“We should have a party to thank everybody for the help,” Janeway mused, as much to herself as to Robert. “Perhaps in the back yard…”
“An excellent idea! I can help you with tents and tables. Everyone will be happy to attend.” Robert then turned wry and seemed to be sizing up Janeway. “Assuming you’ll be serving Picard wine. We’re all very curious about it.”
When Janeway and Icheb beamed to Jean-Luc’s apartment, they were immediately shushed.
Hope, who should not have been able to sleep without a regeneration chamber, was curled up on the sofa, clutching her favorite rabbit-themed throw. Janeway’s heart melted at the sight. She temporarily forgot the girl’s origins, seeing only an adorable little girl–her adorable little girl.
Jean-Luc, who had been reading in the corner, tip-toed, shoeless, to the door. He kissed Kathryn on the cheek, then turned to smile at Icheb. “How are things at the house?”
“We had an army to help us,” Kathryn whispered.
He turned to Icheb. “Your friends?”
“And a lot of neighbors. We got it all done.”
Kathryn leaned in conspiratorily. “I think they were tired of the eyesore.”
Jean-Luc winced at the thought. For him, it represented a terrible memory–an attack by Ferengi fundamentalists who wanted to kill their Ferengi foster daughter. He sighed, thinking of what it looked like. Partial brick walls framing a big, empty scar of a living room.
“We’re going to throw a party to thank them,” Icheb announced.
“Kathryn?” If there was one thing that could cause strife in their relationship, it was her habit of making decisions without him.
She kicked off her boots and padded to the replicator. “Coffee, decaf, black.” She whispered, mindful of Hope.
Jean-Luc followed her, then leaned close to her ear. “You should have asked me.”
After the coffee appeared, she inhaled the steam then turned to face him. “I know. But Robert has everything we’d need - tents, tables, chairs…” She took a sip, trying to pretend it was regular coffee. If she had trouble sleeping tonight, it wouldn’t be the fault of her coffee habit.
“What about your birthday party? You wanted it here.” He filled a glass of water from the old-fashioned sink. Running water. The only old-fashioned technology that Earth has not replaced, even though it could. As he walked to the dining table, he looked out over the ancient rooftops of San Francisco houses, stepping down a hill, determined never to be shaken from their foundations. After decades on starships, he was beginning to appreciate Earth’s heritage. It was all around him now.
She and Icheb joined him at the table. “This could be the birthday party. I’ve wanted to get to know the neighbors better. After we build…”
He looked at her, wondering why she stopped talking.
She was looking at Hope. “How long has she been sleeping?” There was something wrong. Or was there? Did Brunali breathe differently? She’s ex-Borg. She shouldn’t sleep at all.
Before he could respond, she rushed to the kitchen and pulled a tricorder from a drawer. Icheb got to Hope’s side first, and turned to Kathryn, a worried expression on his face. “She shut down.” He said it as blandly as he said anything, but his eyes spoke volumes.
Kathryn deftly navigated the controls of the device, then waved it over her head for a long moment, then over the rest of her body. “I don’t know what this means.”
Icheb looked at the tiny display and shrugged.
“What’s wrong?” Jean-Luc looked over Icheb’s shoulder, then leaned over Hope. He shook her shoulder. “Hope?” He smoothed her short, brushy hair then rubbed her cheek. “Hope? It’s time to wake up.”
Icheb and Kathryn looked at each other knowingly.
Icheb recognized the syndrome. “Shut-down. Emotions in Borgs can be fatal.”
Kathryn pulled her comm badge from her pocket and tapped it. “Janeway to Doctor Voyager. Are you available for a house call?”
He replied quickly. “What’s wrong?”
“Hope fell asleep on the sofa and we can’t wake her up.” Unlike Hope’s worrisome heartrate, Kathryn’s heart was racing. This should not have happened. “Icheb thinks her cortical node shut her down.”
“Beam her to Headquarters. I’ll meet you at the transport pad.”
She scooped the girl into her arms, but struggled with her weight. Jean-Luc stepped in, grabbing her in his strong arms, letting her head lay on his shoulder.
“Computer, four to beam to Starfleet Headquarters,” he shouted.
As they shimmered into existence, the doctor waved them in his direction. “This way.”
Picard raced ahead, holding Hope, a six-year-old, with as much tenderness as he’d hold a newborn. Following the doctor relieved him of the burden of having to know where he was going. All he could think was, something bad happened to my new, precious daughter, and I didn’t realize it.
After just a few steps, Janeway realized she was running in socks. She had to hold onto Icheb’s arm to keep up with Jean-Luc. How is he able to run in socks? she wondered as she slid on the slick floor.
They reached an exam room ringed with cabinets, with apparatus seemingly everywhere–hanging from the ceiling, extending from the walls, and rising from the padded table where Jean-Luc carefully laid Hope’s limp body.
The doctor immediately pulled up Hope’s eyelids, and looked into Hope’s eyes. He turned then swa the worried eyes of the little family. “Icheb was right. Borg shut-down,” he said, as if they would all understand.
“Meaning what?” Jean-Luc stood nearby, arms over his chest. “I thought all her Borg implants were gone.”
“Not all.” The doctor pulled a hypospray from his pocket, then scanned her again.
“No change?” Icheb had only seen this happen once, to Seven of Nine when Voyager returned to Earth.
Janeway was thinking the same thing. “Is this what caused Seven’s collapse?”
“Yes.” It was blunt, but true. “But that was after I removed Seven’s emotion-blunting chip. Hope still has hers. It must have malfunctioned.”
Picard looked to Icheb for an explanation.
“It’s the chip that I want to have removed. When Borgs experience strong emotion, they have a fail-safe and shut down. The chip prevents that.”
The doctor nodded. “I didn’t remove the chips from any of the refugees because it could be too traumatic, even the children.”
“Take mine,” Icheb volunteered. “I planned to have it removed anyway.”
“No!” Picard surprised himself. “It’s too soon!”
Janeway and the doctor exchanged glances. She had some misgivings as well. “What if we remove Hope’s cortical node?”
Sighing, the doctor shook his head. “Cortical nodes are what keep Borg drones alive. I need to do research before…”
“I donated mine to Seven of Nine.” Icheb had indeed donated his, against the doctor’s wishes.
“It worked for you because you’d recently been assimilated.” The doctor, though arguing against Icheb’s idea, seemed intrigued. “But… if she was assimilated less than a year ago. It could work for her.”
“Doctor.” Picard tugged on his civilian shirt the way he did with his Starfleet uniform. “Kathryn. What is the least risky solution?”
The doctor took up the challenge, his characteristic brusqueness coloring his response. “Least risky: do nothing and wait to see if she improves on her own. Next: try stronger stimulant injections. After that, remove the defective chip and replace it with Icheb’s, but it would affect Icheb.”
Janeway stroked the girl’s hair, noting how short it was. “She was only liberated a few months ago. She hasn’t even had a chance to put her hair in a ponytail.”
Ponytail? Picard was incredulous. “Time. If all she needs is time…”
“What was she doing before this happened?” The doctor’s demeanor became more thoughtful, to everyone’s relief. “Anything traumatic?”
“Reading a book.” Picard reviewed the events of the day. “She seemed worried about Kathryn and Icheb being away, but I distracted her with a game of checkers, then read to her. She said she wanted to read the book herself, then she fell asleep.”
“What was the book?”
The doctor’s question should have been easy to answer, but Picard wasn’t sure. “I read several books to her, the ones we kept in the basket.”
Janeway hadn’t yet read to her. The books came in a bundle from the Starfleet Day School Library. She couldn’t remember them, either. “I can’t believe a book could have done this to her.”
“Are you my mother?” Icheb answered. “It’s about a baby bird trying to find its mother.”
The adults stared at him for a puzzled moment.
“They’re supposed to be classic books. I wanted to know them, too,” he admitted. “I thought it would be okay.”
“Of course it was okay.” Janeway hugged his shoulders, pulling him toward her. “I should have invited you to look at them.”
The doctor brought up the book on a monitor, and they read it together. Then they came to a page showing a large, ancient machine, with the baby bird looking up.
And suddenly they all understood.