Sunset ^beta

When B’Elanna wakes, her first coherent thought is that she’s being ferried to Gre'thor. She’s floating in a vast nothingness, blanketed in thick, black silence in all directions. She reaches out blindly, but her hands find only empty space in the darkness. It’s suffocating, feels like she’s drowning in a void, and when she cries out, no one answers her. She drifts helplessly, her mind warring between Human fear and equally useless Klingon frustration, until gradually her eyes adjust to the lack of light and the faint pinpricks of distant stars twinkle in through a viewport. It’s enough to orient her, because if she’s seeing stars and still breathing, her heart still pumping furiously as it rages against her predicament, then she’s still alive.

Felk’lhr will have to wait a little longer to greet her at his infernal gates.

Reality and gravity kick in a split second later, and B’Elanna’s slammed into a hard surface as the structure she is cocooned in accelerates in a sudden rush, a rippling white-hot glow streaming through the viewport and revealing the familiar layout of Voyager’s last remaining shuttle. It’s not a comfort, not when the craft is shuddering and straining against the forces of atmospheric entry that could tear it apart at any moment. She closes her eyes tight shut and holds on to the rear hatch for dear life as the shuttle starts spinning out of control, the hull shrieking and screaming as loud as a— 

The lighting is dim, but B’Elanna’s eyes hurt from straining to make out the shapes that blur her vision. She moves to sit up the moment she realises that she's lying down, but she's floored by a wall of pain that would have knocked her off her feet had she been standing. She braces herself and tries to wait it out, almost jumps out of her skin when a cold hand touches her forehead. When she looks up, the pale, floating moon hovering above her clears into the equally cold face of Seven of Nine. Her mouth is moving, but all B'Elanna can hear is a high-pitched ringing, all she can feel is wave after wave of agony that starts ripping through her abdomen. She screams in pain and the last thing she sees before she loses consciousness is Seven's expressionless face turning away.

Seven is at the other end of the shuttle when B’Elanna comes round again. She’s lying on her back under the pilot’s console, her tritanium-laced hand reaching over debris for a tool with pinpoint precision. B’Elanna watches her methodically remove damaged components and pile them up in a familiar haze of pharmaceutical comfort, the agony she remembers feeling right down to her bones too distant a memory to cause her any distress. 

It should be B'Elanna who takes the lead in their repair attempts, but even the slightest movement jostles something in her gut that has her reeling again from the pain. She lies back, figuring that since Seven has access to the collective knowledge of thousands of species in the galaxy, she can probably handle the situation until Voyager’s chief engineer pulls herself together.

But when she looks over to the cockpit, Seven is looking at her rather than the console, no doubt judging B’Elanna’s current inability to sit up, nevermind diagnose a malfunction. B’Elanna waves her off with an uncoordinated hand, and Seven ducks her head down and slides back under the console, resuming whatever she was doing before. B’Elanna closes her eyes and rides out the threat of another wave of pain until her stillness is finally awarded with a moment of relief. It’s enough respite for her exhaustion to overcome her discomfort, and she drifts in and out of wakefulness for a time, occasionally concerned about their situation but lacking the energy for any kind of urgency. 

“Lieutenant Torres.” 

B’Elanna shrugs her shoulder out of the hand that’s shaking her awake. She’s tired, drained, all she wants to do is go back to sleep. But though the hand has vanished, the insistent voice has not. 

“You must wake up,” it says, and when B’Elanna ignores it the hand returns, this time cupping her cheek. “Lieutenant Torres, please wake up.” 

B’Elanna has never heard the word ‘please’ from Seven of Nine’s mouth before, she assumed it wasn’t a part of her vocabulary. Her curiosity grows greater than her exhaustion, and she opens her eyes to see Seven hovering over her again, her face pinched in a way that could be concern, but could also be constipation. Seven's exhale is marked with relief, and B’Elanna feels like the biggest jerk in the Delta Quadrant for making her worry for no good reason.

The feeling is fleeting, and it vanishes into thin air when Seven forces her to roll over so she can prop her up with something she’s fashioned into a floor cushion. Suddenly B'Elanna has all the reason to resent Seven again. She protests against the agony shooting through her body, a few choice words firing from her tongue that Seven ignores with her usual indifference. When Seven finally rolls her back, B’Elanna has a better view of the inside of the shuttle. It’s in bad shape, she’s surprised they haven't decompressed.

“What happened?” she asks. 

Seven’s reply is succinct. “We crashed,” she says as she fiddles with a metallic pouch in her hands. 

“I can see that,” sneers B’Elanna, but before she can say anything else, Seven unceremoniously shoves something into her mouth. B’Elanna swats Seven’s hand away in a panic and something lands painfully onto her stomach. 

“What the hell!” she yells as Seven picks up the pouch without apology.

“You must eat,” she says, she lifts the pouch in the space between their faces and holds it there with the straw pointed at B’Elanna’s mouth. 

B’Elanna looks from Seven to the pouch and back again, and suddenly understands what’s going on here.

“You’re trying to feed me?!” 

“Yes.” 

B’Elanna swings from affronted at Seven’s insensitive assault on her person to warmed by her well-meaning but clumsy attempt to feed her. She collapses back into the makeshift pillow and bites her tongue. She’s so tired it’s a struggle to even keep her eyes open. She feels like she’s exhausted all her energy reserves on this single interaction, and it takes her a moment to regroup. 

“You’ve never helped anyone eat before, have you?” says B'Elanna when she’s regained enough energy to form words. 

“No.” 

When B’Elanna opens her eyes, the pouch is still precisely halfway between their faces, Seven’s hand rock steady and insistent. B’Elanna figures she won’t give up until she tries to eat something. 

“Give it here,” she says. “I’m not incapacitated. I can feed myself.” 

Seven hands her the supplement, but there’s a scepticism in the way she watches B’Elanna peer at the label. The words seem to merge into each other, an indecipherable pile of random letters.

“Nutritional supplement fourteen beta,” Seven helpfully informs her. 

B’Elanna contemplates the contents of the pouch and ends up with less of an appetite than she had before. “You know, I’m not actually hungry.” 

“This pack also has nutritional supplement thirteen alpha if you prefer,” says Seven, as though one bland protein smoothie could be any more palatable than another. When B’Elanna’s too slow to come up with a witty response she adds, “The Doctor formulated these supplements for my nutritional requirements, but they should adequately meet the needs of your unique physiology.”  

“That’s not quite what I meant,” says B’Elanna, but Seven waits her out and B’Elanna relents and drinks as much of the shake as she can before she lets Seven take it from her and twist the cap back on. It’s not until Seven tucks a blanket around her shoulders and crawls back to the cockpit that she remembers she forgot to ask what’s going on. 

Seven has never hidden her preference for peace and quiet, and B'Elanna finds herself wishing for some kind of noise to cut through the silence. Something to distract her from the throbbing in her gut and the lingering sense of claustrophobia she remembers feeling before the shuttle got pulled into the orbit of whatever planet they're on. What she wouldn't give to be surrounded by the rhythmic hum of Voyager's warp core; the hustle and bustle of her engineering team; Vorik’s ceaseless reminders of Starfleet protocol. Hell, she'd even sit through one of the Doctor's recitals, would jump at the chance to hear him wax lyrical about whatever exceedingly specific and pontifical topic had stirred his muse for the month.

If only the warp core was still online, if only the Doctor wasn't inundated with casualties every waking minute, if only Vorik was still—

B'Elanna feels a tear roll down her cheek and slide into her ear, cold and wet. She lifts a hand to swipe it away, only to find it caught mid-air. Seven is kneeling next to her, holding onto B'Elanna's wrist with one hand and rummaging through a medkit with the other. B’Elanna didn’t even notice her return.

“One moment, Lieutenant, I will find something to alleviate your discomfort.”

Seven keeps a hold of B'Elanna's wrist as she presses a hypospray to her neck, mistaking emotional anguish for physical.

B'Elanna feels her habitual hostility return as the anaesthesia makes her feel light-headed and vulnerable, despite the almost instant relief it affords. She doesn't understand Seven one bit, even after all these months of working endless hours together in Krenim space. She can’t relate to a woman who never sleeps, never smiles, never eats; never swears or cries or even rages; doesn’t know how to—

"I am already aware of your feelings towards me," says Seven coolly, and it takes a moment for B'Elanna to realise she was speaking out loud. Seven’s eyes trace over B’Elanna’s face impassively, and she raises a brow. "A side effect of the neural blocker," she says, but it is not reassuring in the least. B'Elanna tries to feel for the medical device on her temple, but Seven still has a hold of one of her hands; she catches the other one and places it firmly on the blanket covering her body.

 “The device must remain in place for your continued comfort.”

“Is Voyager safe?” asks B’Elanna, the relief bringing a clear head, and with it an inkling of the severity of their situation. She can’t remember what happened and she can’t imagine why she and Seven would be off gallivanting in a shuttle together when what’s left of their ship and their crew needs them both so desperately. Unless it was their escape pod...Voyager's last shuttle would be a fitting coffin for B’Elanna to have to suffer her last days, especially with Seven, of all people.

“When we left it was not in mortal peril,” Seven tells her with her usual lack of tact. She doesn’t elaborate, and B’Elanna feels her irritation growing exponentially. The two of them have always butted heads, but since they entered Krenim space—since the crew started dying one by one until they are barely a fraction of what they were; since their hopes of survival have fallen as low as their odds—the two of them have made a point of avoiding each other whenever they weren't working on something urgent and essential.

“Where are we?”

“On the surface of a class D planet, the seventh orbiting body in a minor binary syst—"

“What, no Borg designation?” asks B’Elanna sarcastically. Trust Seven not to find anything special in a pair of gravitationally locked stars.

Seven blinks slowly and looks away briefly as she contemplates B'Elanna's hostile question with more seriousness than it deserves. 

“None that I am aware of,” she says, after a beat. “But I do not doubt that when we escape this region of space we will find the time to assign it a standard federation alphanumeric designation.”

“I’m putting forward B7,” jokes B’Elanna.

Seven’s raised brow lifts her ocular implant. “B7?” she asks, and suddenly B’Elanna feels a little awkward. She looks away from Seven and fixes her gaze on the seams in the ceiling above her instead. 

“Well, we’re probably the first people to land on this planet,” she says uncertainly. She can feel Seven’s eyes still on her.

Seven’s quiet for a moment that drags out uncomfortably. “That does seem likely,” she eventually responds, and she starts to move away, but B’Elanna reaches out and grabs her sleeve.

"Why are we here?" she asks because she can't put it off any longer.

Seven doesn't pull away from B'Elanna's grip. She's uncharacteristically hesitant, which should set off B'Elanna's alarm bells, or at least her bullshit meter, but Seven has never lied to her. So when she says "Voyager is in need of repairs." B'Elanna believes her, and knows that not all is lost. Not yet, anyway. 

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“The Captain asked us to take a shuttle and search this system for minerals and ore.”

B’Elanna tries to remember the order but comes up completely blank. The last thing she remembers clearly is delivering a report to Tuvok on the structural integrity of the parts of the ship that could still support life. She’d forgotten to turn on the tactile interface, had felt like the biggest petaQ this side of the galactic core when he discreetly activated it himself. After that? Nothing.

“Your difficulties with your memory may be caused by the neural blocker,” Seven tells her, correctly guessing the source of B’Elanna’s reticence. “Or they could be due to a concussion. You were not secured in your seat when we collided with the surface of this planet. The impact was...significant.”

B’Elanna had already figured that out, but it’s hard to hear it confirmed. She closes her eyes and swallows the sob that threatens to breach containment.

“Do not despair, Lieutenant,” says Seven, quietly. “The shuttle is intact, and we have enough supplies to last several weeks.”

“Right”

“Captain Janeway will not leave us behind.”

B’Elanna huffs and lets go of Seven. She can’t help thinking that if the Captain was in any position to rescue them, she would have done so already.

Seven’s prodding is painful and more extensive than B’Elanna thinks is strictly necessary.

“Where’s the damn hypospray?” she hisses.

“We have limited analgesia on board, Lieutenant,” says Seven without even the barest hint of sympathy. “I believe it would be a mistake to keep your discomfort below what you can tolerate now if it means we will have no way to alleviate it later on.”

“Who the hell are you to decide what’s tolerable?!” yells B’Elanna, and the effort of doing so makes her pain spike so hard she starts to hyperventilate. “You’re not...the one impaled by a...what is this anyway? I don’t...I don’t recognise it.”

“A temporary internal strut of the mid-bulkhead.” Seven lifts B’Elanna’s vest higher and does something that makes B’Elanna want to punch her lights out. “I believe it was, as Lieutenant Carey terms it, a patch job.”

B’Elanna is forced to come face to face with years of defying the odds, making the impossible possible, holding the whole damn ship together with a hypospanner and a prayer to anyone who’ll listen, which turned out to be no one at all.

“Goddamn delta quadrant make do and mend,” she hisses between Seven’s prods. “I would rather have been sent to a Cardassian prison camp than here.”

Seven turns away from B’Elanna and starts sorting through the medkit. “What would you be willing to sacrifice to be back in the Alpha Quadrant?” she asks. “Neelix? The Doctor’s individuality? Mine?”

B’Elanna feels like she’s been slapped in the face. Seven’s tone is as unflinching as it always is, but it’s so unlike her to look away first. Has B’Elanna hit a nerve? Do Borg even have nerves?

"No," she says quietly, surprising herself with her tone. "I would no more sacrifice you or the Doctor or Neelix than I would my own right hand.” 

It occurs to B'Elanna that actually, she would sacrifice her right hand if Seven's survival or that of any other crewmember was on the line, would cut it off herself if necessary, but she hopes she's made her point without having to hammer it home. 

“A week,” she continues when Seven remains stubbornly silent. “All I need to stop me losing my mind out here is a week where we don’t have to choose between replicating food or medicine, assigning power to the shields or to another phaser blast. A single week in drydock at the UP, a whole team of engineers, access to hull plating that I haven’t pulled out of my ass and a crate of replacement gel packs.”

And then it hits her. Seven’s faced with the exact same situation; the known needs today vs the potential needs of tomorrow.

Seven has a tub of ointment in her hand when she turns back to face B’Elanna. “It is up to you,” she says. 

“What is?”

“Only you can decide what level of discomfort is tolerable. I will leave it to you to tell me when you are in need of analgesia, or an antiemetic, or when you need your pillow adjusted.”

Seven isn’t smiling, but B’Elanna has had months to observe her, the subtle shifts in her mouth, the tension—or lack of—in her jaw. It’s not quite a joke, but it’s more amenable than B’Elanna had realised Seven was capable of. More friendly than they have been in weeks. There was a time she thought they were heading to some kind of accord. She didn’t know how much she missed that until now.

“I can cope,” says B’Elanna, nodding when Seven gestures to her abdomen, “but I would appreciate a distraction.”

Seven removes the soaked dressing with gentle efficiency. “Do you have a topic in mind?” she asks.

"We haven't, uh, talked...in a long time." B'Elanna winces as Seven's fingers brush the edge of her wound. "How are your attempts to reconnect with your humanity going."

Seven frowns at B’Elanna’s exposed stomach. “It has not been a priority since we entered Krenim space.”

“Of course not, but before that? You’ve had months of relative stability to acclimatise to life on the ship. You must feel like you’ve made some progress.”

“Some.”

B’Elanna grinds her teeth as Seven applies the ointment. It’s an old Talaxian recipe that the Captain insisted Neelix teach the whole crew. Supplies have been dwindling since they set off for home, but they’ve plummeted to uncomfortable lows since Voyager found itself at war with a fanatical and unpredictable temporal enemy. With no access to even the most basic of Alpha Quadrant resupply posts, native flora and fauna have become a significant part of their lives rather than an occasional oddity inflicted on the crew by Neelix’s enthusiasm.

The ointment is effective, but it stinks like a rotting targ and stings like a Cardassian pain stick. When B’Elanna whimpers, Seven pauses in her treatment. 

“I could administer another dose of—”

“No!” snaps B’Elanna. “No. You were right about the supplies. But this distraction thing? It only works if you keep talking.”

Seven nods. “Very well. Captain Janeway insists that I keep a log of my social interactions with the crew. Shall I recite some of those entries?”

"You keep a diary?".

“The Captain called it a journal. She said it would be useful in the future to be able to ‘look back and measure my social progress’. I am not certain how I will be able to analyse it in an objective way.”

“You’ve already made progress, Seven. Even Tuvok has noticed that you’ve become...”

“Become?” prompts Seven when B’Elanna struggles to find a diplomatic way to say 'less of a machine' to the woman who holds her wellbeing in her perfectly reconstructed hands. 

“Less distant, less...Borg.” B’Elanna winces as Seven’s fingers lift from her skin, the sudden loss of pressure as painful as the presence of it. “Neelix, he...uh...he tells anyone who will listen that you found his second attempt at plomeek soup...what was it he said? Palatable and inoffensive.”

Seven grabs a dressing pack from the kit. “It was an interesting gastronomical experience,” she admits as she unwraps a fabric pad and lines it up with B’Elanna’s wound.

“After months of nutritional supplements? I’ll bet. It’s hardly banana pancakes, but compared to some of the things we’ve eaten lately?”

“I admit I am struggling somewhat with Neelix’s perpetual mushroom stew.”

“And mushroom soup,” agrees B’Elanna. “Mushroom casserole. Cassoulet. Hot pot.”

Seven looks a little green at the reminder. “Indeed.”

“I suppose even I might be nostalgic for a nutritionally balanced suppliment shake after all that fungus.” 

When Seven finishes the dressing, she wraps B'Elanna back up in the emergency blanket so thoroughly that it brings back a memory of her father tucking her in at night as a child. It makes B'Elanna feel warm and sleepy, and she closes her eyes until Seven’s hand presses against her forehead and then her neck for the hundredth time.

“Why do you keep doing that?” she asks softly.

“I must check your temperature regularly,” replies Seven, equally quiet.

B'Elanna peels her heavy eyelids open to peer at Seven. “Don’t we have a tricorder for that?”

“We do not. The medkit was incomplete. I suspect the tricorder was needed to treat someone on Voyager and had not been returned to the shuttle before we departed.”

B'Elanna is familiar with old-school emergency care. Life in the Maquis was distinctly lacking in Starfleet standard equipment. She blames her injuries for not realising earlier that Seven is relying on unfamiliar and archaic techniques that sustained people all across the Federation for centuries. 

She’s somewhat touched that Seven of Nine, a biologically repulsed ex-drone, is willing to get her hands dirty, so to speak. B’Elanna has no doubts that her hands are cleaner than a brand new gel pack whenever she touches her, but for a woman who eschews the basic biological functions and urges of most sentient life in the galaxy, skin on skin must be uncomfortable.

B’Elanna would thank her, but Seven’s already gone back to her repairs.

B’Elanna wakes to Seven hovering over her, one hand close to her face but not quite touching.

“What are you doing?”

“I am checking your temperature.”

“From three inches away?”

“You indicated your discomfort with physical contact the last time I did so. I am attempting a less intrusive method.”

“Can your palm sensors even do that?”

Seven pulls back and exhales sharply out of her nose. “Apparently not,” she says. 

B'Elanna rolls her eyes and grabs Seven's hand. It only occurs to her that appropriate touch goes both ways when she places Seven's hand on her forehead, but Seven seems relieved so she doesn't bring it up in case she causes her more confusion. Seven has been navigating their tentative truce with an impressive amount of insight. B'Elanna doesn't want to think what will happen if she starts second-guessing everything she's doing and saying. They really can’t afford to butt heads until they get back to the ship. Maybe not even then.

“I don’t mind,” B’Elanna reassures her, and Seven’s hand lingers longer than it ever has, her fingers resting in the hollows of her ridges more comfortably than those of most of the people B'Elanna has let get this close to her.

“I do not know the correct course of action if you get a fever,” says Seven quietly. “Without the Doctor...”

“Don’t the Borg get sick?”

“Never. When a drone malfunctions, they are disposed of and their parts recycled.” 

That might be true, but Seven isn't Borg any more. More importantly, it's taken B'Elanna a surprisingly long time to realise that she isn't the only injured crew member on board the shuttle. Seven hides it well, but she's been reluctant to stand for more than a few minutes where normally she would be reluctant to sit. B'Elanna could blame it on the analgesia, but she's been avoiding colliding with Seven for so long it's become a habit not to take much notice of her. It's much harder not to take notice of her when they're stuck together in a claustrophobic space, when Seven's hands are so routinely on her body, she no longer feels awkward.

“You’re hurt.”

Seven pulls her hand back from B'Elanna's forehead, and her expression of contemplation is replaced by her usual indifference. 

“I am well,” she says.

“No, you’re not,” insists B’Elanna. “You’re hurt and you’ve been rationing all the analgesia for me. What else are you going without?”

She makes the mistake of trying to push up from the ground with her arms, gets only a painful protest from her entire body for her effort.

Seven slips one hand behind B’Elanna’s neck and gently but forcefully directs her back down with the other hand on her sternum. “My nanoprobes have already repaired most of the damage.”

“I didn’t even know there was damage to repair,” says B’Elanna through gritted teeth. “When was the last time you ate?”

“I do not require sustenance as frequently as most of the crew.”

“Under normal circumstances, when you can—” B’Elanna’s struck with a mental list of all the things she and the Doctor had to do to allow Seven to survive on a Federation ship after decades as a Borg drone. “Seven, how long can you go without regenerating?”

"I have not tested the limit to its fullest extent, but I have been functional for longer than it will take for a rescue to arrive."

“What if it doesn’t?”

Seven has never expressed anything as raw and real as frustration, but for a moment she looks like she’s taken a bite of an orange and found it to be a lemon.

“Then we will have more pressing problems,” she admits. “Your wound for instance.” 

B'Elanna doesn't want to imagine what will happen when both her Human and her Klingon resilience give up on her, and she doesn't want to imagine what will happen if Seven succumbs to an injury either. Seven might believe she's alright, but B'Elanna has never seen her in such a state of disorder before. Even as their crewmen have been dying around them, as parts of Voyager have been sacrificed to protect its most important functions, Seven has found the time and the discipline to pin her hair back, straighten out her bio-suit, wash her face...it's unsettling to watch her tuck escaped strands behind her ears and roll up her sleeves as they get frayed from her attempts to maintain life support and restore comms, more so than the state of the shuttle as she cannibalises parts until it looks more like a junkshop than a spacecraft. 

Some days are harder than others. At least, B’Elanna hopes it’s days and not weeks. It’s hard to keep track of time when she has nothing but her own thoughts and Seven’s brusque conversation to keep her occupied between doses of analgesia. She tries a few times to start a simple game of I Spy, a childhood comfort, but Seven struggles with the idea of whittling down guesses to the right answer, gets frustrated when she can't find some kind of algorithm to do it for her, and there are so few things of interest in B'Elanna's field of view other than bulkhead, hull, emergency hatch, another bulkhead.

To says she’s surprised when Seven starts a conversation off her own back would be an understatement, so hard it’s been since they met to pull even the most basic exposition from her lips.

“Golana melon,” Seven says out of the blue, head buried in an access panel in the wall of the shuttle.

“I’m sorry?”

“You asked me earlier if there was anything I had ever considered eating before our diet became primarily deep-space fungus.” Seven sits back on her heels and wipes her brow with the edge of her sleeve. It leaves a dark smudge in its wake. “Ensign Kim once replicated a Golana melon when we were designing the astrometrics lab. It was...succulent. Lightly fragranced. Inoffensive. It was the first food I have wanted to taste since I was liberated from the collective.”

“What stopped you?”

“My digestive system had not long been active. When he offered it to me I was unsure how my body would react.”

B’Elanna laughs. “Trust Harry to crave a children’s snack at 2 am.”

“I think I might have eaten it before. I cannot recall when.”

B’Elanna is intrigued by this piece of information, seemingly so casually shared, but she wonders if Seven is trying to build a bridge between them. It warms her more than it should, and it takes her a moment to remember that she should offer something personal in return. Most of the people on Voyager that she chooses to get close to are former Maquis and most of those already know everything she's willing to share with others. She's never done this with Seven.

“My favourite fruit as a child was Pineapple,” she says. “On pizza.”

Seven nods as she reaches for a water ration. “Many of the crew state a preference for pizza whenever food is the topic of conversation,” she says, twisting the top off.

“Lieutenant Carey’s favourite topping is cheese, cheese, and more cheese.”

“Lieutenant Paris has talked about pepperoni pizza many times.” Seven drinks deep from the water pouch, then wipes the escaping drips with the back of her hand. “Perhaps I should add it to my list.”

“List?” asks B'Elanna. 

Seven catches her eying the water pouch. She brings it over to her and helps her raise her head to drink. 

“The Doctor encouraged me to make a list of foods that members of the crew enjoy,” Seven tells her as she squeezes the pouch gently, encouraging the water to flow into B'Elanna's mouth with far more expertise than the first time she tried. They discovered the hard way that sucking through a straw sends B'Elanna’s abdomen into spasms. “He intended to use it to expand my ‘palate'.”

B'Elanna swallows the tepid water and relaxes back into the new pillow Seven fashioned for her out of a damaged EVA suit. “What other lists do you have?” she asks. 

“I have compiled several lists. The crew have varied habits and interests. Some are intriguing, others I find difficult to understand.” Seven fusses with B'Elanna's pillow, careful not to jostle her head. “I have found that there are some topics the crew have been more willing to discuss than others.”

“Like what?”

“Romance and sexuality is a topic that very few are willing to expand on.”

B'Elanna's glad she isn't still drinking because she would have spat the water out all over Seven's jumpsuit. 

“You've asked people?” she exclaims. “About their sex lives?”

“Some,” answers Seven, in the same tone she uses when they discuss routine maintenance of the warp drive. 

B’Elanna’s absolutely stunned. “Who did you ask?”

“Lieutenant Paris, Ensign Vorik, Ensign Wildman, Neelix, Ensign Kim—"

“Wait,” interrupts B'Elanna. “You asked Harry about human sexuality?”

“He invited me to watch the Ktarian Moonrise on the holodeck. I assumed he was sexually attracted to me. I propositioned him. He turned me down. I believe I was mistaken. The biological and behavioural signs of romantic interest seem to overlap with those of disinterest.”

B'Elanna just about chokes on her own tongue as she imagines a flustered Harry turning down an interested Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One, the woman of his dreams.

“Oh, he's interested alright,” she tells Seven, trying not to laugh in deference to both her injury and Seven's injured pride. “He's just...he's not great at direct, you know? He gets a little flustered. If you are interested, you could ask again, just...go slow, okay?”

Seven blinks at her, and B'Elanna wonders if she's having some kind of a system crash, but she resumes her pillow fluffing and remarks: “I believe the moment has passed, as Lieutenant Paris would phrase it.”

And B'Elanna finds herself feeling oddly relieved by Seven's response. She tells herself it's because Harry and Seven are two pieces from different puzzles, not because she'd prefer to have more of Seven's time to herself when they get back to the ship.

If they get back to the ship.

“What I wouldn’t give for a bath.”

Seven looks over from the pile of parts she’s tinkering with; a waste of time, B’Elanna thinks, because to get any of the components from the tractor beam system to be compatible with the comms system, she’s going to need parts that the shuttle replicator doesn’t have the specs for, or...huh, Borg tech maybe?

“A bath?”

“Yeah, a bath. I am starting to smell as bad as Neelix’s ointment.”

B’Elanna hasn’t had a real bath or even a hot shower for a long time. She couldn’t have one now even if she tried, but the thought...hot water. Andorian salt scrub. A Bajoran mud mask. Vulcan hypoallergenic soap. It's been a fantasy for weeks now, particularly pressing since powering the sonic shower has been rationed to the bare minimum, so when Seven appears at her side with a pack of the damp cleansing cloths that the Doctor's been forced to use on bed-bound patients, she could cry.

Seven sets the pack next to B’Elanna’s arm and pulls the blanket down, folding it neatly over her legs. She grabs the hem of B’Elanna’s vest and pauses.

“I will have to remove your clothing. Please do not mistake this for a romantic overture.”

B'Elanna manages to keep from laughing, but she can't do a damn thing about the smile on her face as Seven lifts her sweat-stained vest up over her head. Seven starts at the top, methodically washing away all of the sweat and dirt coating B'Elanna's skin. She's so conscientious, no part of her is missed by the cool, even pressure of Seven's hands. Her forehead ridges and ears and the creases of her nose and mouth are all thoroughly cleaned with equal attention. B'Elanna has had a helping hand bathing a few times in her adult life but never has anyone had so much focus on such a perfunctory task. Seven circles the cloth down her neck and shoulders and it's such a relief to have some friction on her skin, which has started to feel hot and itchy like the time B'Elanna fell into a thicket of poison ivy as a kid, the very last time she went camping with her father.

It’s so easy for B’Elanna to close her eyes and drift away as Seven’s hands unabashedly cleanse all of her body. It should be awkward when Seven washes her breasts, gently cupping them to get underneath, but Seven’s gaze is no more embarrassed or uncomfortable here than it is on any other part of her. If she’s curious about the body of another woman, it doesn’t show. Her hands are efficient but not unkind, and B’Elanna finds herself enjoying the moment and the lingering feel of Seven’s skin on hers, more thorough than any of the times she has attended to her wound. A brief respite from the pain in her body, the hopelessness of the situation, her frustration at being unable to assist in Seven’s continued attempts to contact Voyager...even the horrors they have endured these past few months as their crew and ship are slowly whittled down to a skeleton by the Krenim. 

B’Elanna hasn’t touched another person like this in a long time, just simple physical contact never mind anything else, and she didn’t realise how much she missed it. It makes her wonder how Seven feels about it; B’Elanna can’t imagine a time when Seven has either touched or been touched in a non-clinical way. The Doctor, perhaps. Certainly not as a Borg drone. Possibly not since before her assimilation. She has a mind to offer to reciprocate when they get back to Voyager. But when she looks at Seven's face as she lifts one of B'Elanna's knees, Seven's seems...off.

“What’s wrong?” asks B'Elanna. 

She expects Seven to brush her off, but she answers honestly.

“I am preoccupied with thoughts of Lieutenant Tuvok. I told him we would be back as soon as we were able. It has been over a week since he had my assistance.”

“I’m sure he's doing just fine.”

“He was much more reluctant to accept my help than you have been. He refused to let me assist with personal care. He might be putting himself at unnecessary risk for the sake of his pride.”

Even for a Vulcan, Tuvok takes his independence to the furthest reaches of his ability. B’Elanna understands Seven’s concerns, but she also knows that Tuvok, much like B’Elanna, isn’t so stubborn he’d fail to recognise his needs or allow them to be met. It wouldn’t be logical. Seven’s motivations aren’t as easy to understand.

“Why do you help him?” asks B’Elanna.

Seven straightens the leg she was bathing and bends B'Elanna's other knee. "He saved my life," she says as she grabs another washcloth from the pack. “It is my fault he was injured.”

“Sure, that’s the reason,” allows B’Elanna, because Seven’s answer is predictably concise, “but not the motivation. You could have backed off at his first refusal. You didn’t.”

“It would be illogical to let a refusal stand.”

“Would it? I don’t think so. If we’re going to be ‘logical’ then it would make sense to let someone from, oh I don’t know, xenobiology take care of him. Ensign Wildman maybe. Want to know what I think?”

Seven’ probably doesn’t, but she doesn't object, so B’Elanna tells her.

"I think you help him because his well-being means something to you. I think he accepts it because yours means something to him. Being a part of a crew is a two-way street Seven, it's reciprocal. Even in Starfleet. Not everything is a zero-sum."

Seven pauses her ministrations. “Perhaps,” she says, and B’Elanna figures she doesn’t understand.

“Okay, let me put it a different way. Why are you helping me?”

Seven resumes her meticulous pressure with the cloth between B’Elanna’s toes. “Because you are wounded.”

B’Elanna keeps the snippy comment in her mouth and says “Again, reason, not motivation” the way she does to her Engineering team, the way both the Captain and Chakotay have encouraged her.

Seven thinks about it again, then says. “Because you are integral to the crew’s continued function.”

“Mmmm, sure, but what if we find out that the ship was destroyed, or...or left when we didn't come back, or—”

If ever there was a moment since they crashed when Seven looked like she was going to panic, this is it. “The Captain wouldn’t—"

“No,” B’Elanna assures her, “of course not. If she doesn’t come, it’s because she can’t, not because she chooses not to. This is a thought experiment, it doesn’t have to be logical. Just go with it, okay?”

Seven nods, but she still looks a little unsettled.

“Picture this. Voyager isn’t coming because it can’t, we have enough supplies for a while, but the further those can be stretched, the more likely one of us will survive until they find a way off this planet. Would you stop helping me? Would you let me die? Leave me behind?”

“No.”

“Why not? I’m wounded, weak. You’d survive much longer without me. Between your nanoprobes and the supplies, you could maybe make it a year, year and a half? Compare that with the few months you'd have keeping me alive. Didn't you say the Borg disassemble damaged drones?"

“I did.”

“So what’s logical about keeping me alive?”

“I...” Seven pauses and looks away. “I cannot answer that question.”

It’s obviously a difficult admission for a woman who relies on logic to get through whatever the Delta Quadrant throws their way. She’s so often correct, at least when it comes to the cold, hard math. It’s clear that whatever parts of her are still Borg, she’s become dependent on Captain Janeway to guide her through the things she doesn’t yet feel confident in. B'Elanna would have scoffed at that realisation a few weeks ago, but doesn't she do the same thing? Doesn't the entire crew look to the Captain, the bridge crew, the department heads? 

B’Elanna suddenly feels such affinity with Seven, and it should surprise her, but something has changed between them since they started talking, started opening up and relating to each other. They are far more alike than they are different.

“That doesn’t matter, Seven,” B’Elanna says as gently as she can. “Do you know why? Because you don’t need to have the answer yet. Maybe you never will. Most people don’t know why they do what they do. My point is, you’re helping me the same way you’ve been helping Tuvok, and it’s more complicated than a statistical analysis. In your own way, you’ve been helping everyone since the day you decided to be a part of the crew.”

“The crew have been equally helpful to me.”

B’Elanna smiles at the image of Seven earnestly propositioning crew member after crew member. “So you have said. This is one of the things it means to be Human, or Klingon, or even Vulcan. One of the things it means to be an individual in a group of other individuals. When I found myself on Voyager, I was certain I’d always be an outcast. A Maquis? On a Starfleet ship? But the Captain, she took a chance on me. She wasn’t the only one. She took a chance on you too.”

“I am grateful.”

"At some point, you're going to have to trust your feelings. Embrace them."

Seven seems to take B'Elanna's words on board. B'Elanna is left wondering if she's not the only one who needs to listen to their feelings.

“Why didn't you ask me?” B'Elanna asks Seven. She doesn't mean to, but it slips out between hypospray doses, when the discomfort is starting to kick in and her guard is down. “You asked Harry, Tom, Samantha, Vorik, hell, you asked Neelix, and he might have been on Voyager for three years, but I doubt he has much experience of the mating habits of humans.

“I did not think you would be amenable,” answers Seven, and damn her for being so unruffled.

B'Elanna has spent the past few days being driven mad. It's such an obvious answer, because of course Seven wouldn't have propositioned someone who made it clear her presence was a burden to bear. But B'Elanna has imagined a thousand other reasons, none of them flattering and all of them increasingly hurtful. It feels like a rejection when it shouldn't. It feels an awful lot like all those times as a kid when she wasn't picked for the sports team, all those times in school when no one asked her to the dance, all those times in the academy when people made it clear they'd rather be partnered with a tribble than with B'Elanna Torres, human-klingon hybrid with the personality of a Gorn.

“Of course not,” hisses B'Elanna, and she knows her tone reveals far too much, but she's banking on Seven to miss the verbal cues.

Seven’s expression is unreadable as she ducks under a fallen support strut and kneels next to B'Elanna. She presses the back of her hand to B'Elanna's neck, but B'Elanna's sick of meaningless touches so she grabs her wrist and pushes her away. She's struck with guilt as the moment passes, ashamed of her response. 

“I—”

“You are flushed, Lieutenant,” says Seven, her eyes tracking over B'Elanna from head to toe. “I believe you have developed an infection.”

“Yeah, I know,” says B'Elanna. “I’m running hot and cold and...my wound has been itching for a while.”

“You should have—"

“Yes—” B'Elanna waves a hand “—I know I should have said something. I just didn't want you to worry. It's not like we can do anything about it.”

Seven’s mouth is a thin, straight line. B'Elanna braces for some Borg wisdom. It doesn't come. “An error in judgement,” is all Seven says about it.

"Yeah, maybe.” B'Elanna bites her lip. “I'm sorry for snapping. I guess I'm just feeling a little...”

B'Elanna can't bring herself to say ‘scared'. Seven seems to understand.

“No apology is necessary, Lieutenant,” she says, and B'Elanna believes her with all her soul.

B'Elanna fights the infection with all her strength, but she’s starting with a disadvantage and it certainly feels like she's losing. She's drenched in sweat, can't keep fluids down, can't even lift her damn head. Every time she moves the room spins around like a whirlpool. She's never felt so helpless.

“I'm going to die,” she whispers as Seven wipes her brow. “We're all going to die.” 

Seven is by her side, where she has remained since she sent one final, power-draining emergency hail to Voyager. 

“Rest, Lieutenant Torres,” she says, picking up one of B’Elanna’s hands and rubbing her knuckles with her thumb. “Do not waste your strength.”

The kindness and affection makes B'Elanna cry.

“Even if we get back to Voyager, I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this," she says. "We can’t even find an ore deposit without crashing our very last shuttle.” 

Seven wipes away her tears. “Captain Janeway will come for us.” 

B'Elanna grabs Seven's collar and tugs. Seven leans in so easily. There was a time B'Elanna could have made her. 

“I want to tell you something,” B'Elanna wheezes, choking a little on the wetness of her own breath. “I want you to know how...how grateful I am for your help. And I want you to know I would have done the same for you.”

Seven squeezes B'Elanna's wrist and nods. “I know.”

“I wish you'd asked me.”

Seven's eyes flicker across B'Elanna's face, then meet B'Elanna's gaze. “As do I.”

“Seven?”

“I am here.”

“You should...you should... go. You should...try to—"

“I will not abandon you.”

“I...can't...breathe..."

“You are gravely ill, B'Elanna. It is only natural that you are feeling considerable fear. If you...if you cannot hold onto hope, I will do it for both of us. Do you understand?”

“Seven?”

“Yes?”

“Ask me.”

Pain. So much pain. Everything hurts, everything is spinning. B'Elanna feels adrift, like she's spiralling in a turbulent sea, lost to the currents, unable to swim to shore. 

Until she's caught in someone's arms, raised, cradled, carried, safe. A strong, steady heartbeat in one ear and a warm, familiar voice in the other.

“Voyager, this is Seven of Nine. Two to beam up.”