From: "Player" <player@widomaker.com>

"A Time To Laugh, A Time To Cry"
PG? (probably G, but I'm being safe)
Strwriter
K/7

A coda to "Drone"

* * *

A Borg alcove is designed to regenerate the user, restoring them to their
maximum energy and potential both mentally and physically.  It is a marvel
of engineering that performs it's task above reproach.

Most of the time.

Seven of Nine had stood in her alcove for over an hour, and while her body
felt markedly refreshed, there was still a strange sensation present.  Her
chest felt tight, her throat occluded, and her hands would occasionally
tremble with involuntary muscular spasms.  Not only that, but her human eye
seemed to be producing an overabundance of lubrication, which often
threatened to leak if she was not careful.

She had concluded the alcove was malfunctioning.  Normally, this would
indicate a trip to engineering, but Seven decided against it.  Lieutenant
Torres would likely not be in a helpful mood, considering the damage to the
ship caused by their recent run-in with her former "family", the Borg.

Lieutenant Torres did not like things that damaged her ship.  Lieutenant
Torres did not like Borg.  Lieutenant Torres had not liked One.  Lieutenant
Torres did not like Seven of Nine.  Lieutenant Torres did not like her
regeneration cycle disturbed.  Lately, Lieutenant Torres did not even seem
to like Lieutenant Paris.

She had come to the conclusion that Lieutenant Torres did not like much of
anything.

Therefore, in absence of assistance from Engineering, Seven simply fixed
the problem herself.  She removed herself from the malfunctioning alcove.

The sensations continued.

She was puzzling over this when the door chime sounded.  "Enter."

The doors opened, but Seven did not turn around.  She did not want social
interaction at this time.

However, a position that ensured that she would not face whomever had
entered also placed her facing the alcove that had formerly belonged to
One.  Her memory recalled the image of One regenerating in the alcove.
Then her reasoning centers informed her that she could not expect to see
that image again.

This reasoning prompted a remarkable physical reaction.

The overabundance of optical lubricant abruptly spilled out, as her
breathing patterns became harshly irregular, causing her to make choking,
sobbing sounds.  Her legs refused to support her, and she crumpled to her
knees, fists clenched by her sides as she attempted to quell these
reactions.

"Seven?  Are you all right?" She heard Ensign Kim's voice, approximately a
meter to her right.  He must not see her malfunctioning this way.  She
turned away, but he moved closer, placing a hand on her shoulder.

His vocal intonations were soft as his hand moved down to gently rub her
back in a circular motion.  "It's okay, Seven," he informed her, "it's
okay. . .you can cry."

Crying?  Is that what she was doing? Crying was a response to pain, or a
communicative device used by infants and small children.  She was not
damaged, and she was fully matured, so she should not be crying.

Yet for some reason, Ensign Kim seemed to be encouraging her to engage in
this activity.  She must correct him.  "It. . .it is not 'all right'!"  Her
voice shook, and it took all her self-control to stabilize it.  "I am
malfunctioning."

Kim's features took on an expression consistent with concern, and his
motions on her back stopped.  "In what way?"

She detailed her symptoms to him, and oddly, he smiled, though his eyes
indicated sadness.  "You're grieving, Seven."

"Grieving?"

"An emotion.  You are feeling sadness, pain over the loss of One."

Seven frowned.  "Can I make it stop?"

He seemed to consider it a moment, then shook his head.  "Not really.
Crying sometimes helps, or talking to someone about what is hurting you. .
.but in the long run, only time will heal you.  I grieved for Libby for a
long time."

She cross-referenced her data on Ensign Kim to place the name in context.
"Libby.  Your mate."

He looked away, and his voice was very quiet as he answered.  "Almost.  We
were engaged."

"Libby is not dead.  It is my understanding that this 'grief' is
customarily applied to the dead."

Kim returned his hand to her shoulder.  Surprisingly, she found she enjoyed
it, and moved so that more of his hand and arm was touching her.  It was a
warm feeling, vaguely reminiscent of a little girl's memory that tickled
the edge of her awareness.  A man, holding her after she had been crying.
Making her feel safe.  Harry made her feel safe.

"No," he explained, "Libby isn't dead.  But I still lost her when Voyager
was thrown out here to the Delta Quadrant.  I had to face the fact that I
would probably never see her again. . .and that she probably thought I was
dead."

"You are not dead.  Libby is in error."

This prompted a laugh, but Seven didn't care.  She was processing.

"One is dead.  That is not an error."

His laughter abruptly stopped, and he squeezed her shoulders lightly.
"That's right."

"I did not want him to die.  I. . .I felt an unusual bond with him. . .I
would have done anything to prevent his death." She looked squarely into
Kim's eyes as she admitted a secret shame that had burdened her since she
had first realized it in Sickbay.  "I would have given us all to the Borg
to save One."

For a moment, he looked shocked by this revelation, and she steeled herself
for what was to come.  He would call the Captain and expose her betrayal,
and she would lose her privileges again. . .or worse.

But he did not do as she had expected.  Instead, he just nodded, and made a
rather surprising pronouncement of his own.  "You loved One."

"No.  I have seen love.  I did not love One."   She knew what love was.
Prior to the recent, wholly unpleasant behavior patterns that had emerged
since entering the void, Lieutenants Torres and Paris had appeared to love
one another.

Love was praising someone to a disproportionate degree.  Love was spending
all off-duty hours with someone.  Love was wanting to press your faces to
one another, and engage in extraneous physical contact, as she had often
noted between the Lieutenants.  Love was strange facial expressions when
the object of your affection entered the room, and elevated vital signs
when they came close to you.  Love was a deep emotional bond.

Love was not what she had felt for One.

She explained the symptoms of love to Ensign Kim, and was surprised by the
remarkable facial contortions some of her definitions elicited.  What
surprised her even more was when he contradicted her carefully thought out
diagnosis.

"You're right, Seven, that is love. . .romantic love, like the kind between
a man and a woman.  It isn't what you felt for One. . .but you did love
him."

"One was male.  I am female.  If I loved him, should I not have expected it
to be romantic love. . .you did define it as 'between a man and a woman.'"

He exhaled sharply.  "Bad example.  Now that I think about it, that kind of
love sometimes occurs between two men or two women as well."

"Homosexuality."

"Right.  But that isn't the issue here.  What you felt for One. . .it was.
. .well, it was really like maternal love.  You were his mother, in a
manner of speaking, and you loved him like a mother loves her child, not as
two lovers."

She processed this for a moment, then asked a question that produced a most
remarkable reaction in Ensign Kim.  It made him jump back from her, and
increased his pulse rate and the hue of his dermal layer.  "Do you love
anyone, Harry Kim?"

For a while, he just looked at her, mouth slightly open, then he seemed to
collect himself enough to answer her question.  "Yes.  I love a lot of
people. . .in different ways. I love my parents. I still love Libby a
little bit. . .and probably always will, though not like I used to.  I love
Tom and B'Elanna like a brother and sister.  I love Captain Janeway as a
mentor, and a little bit of a mother figure. . . .and. . ."  He paused,
then his eyes met hers, and what she saw in those inky pools nearly
interrupted her respiration.  ". . .I love you, Seven of Nine."

She was uncertain as to the veracity of her audio receptors.  "You. . .love
me?"

He  nodded slowly. "Yes, Seven.  I love you."

Seven felt her cardiac rate increase.  This was not good, not good at all.
She knew what happened to individuals who expressed that sentiment towards
her.  While she did not believe that she loved Ensign Kim in the romantic
sense, he did instigate several sensations in her.  She enjoyed being in his
presence, and despite his inefficiency, she found his extraneous verbal
communication strangely comforting.  He had always accepted her, never shown
any animosity towards her as a former Borg, and she appreciated that.  He
was also pleasing to observe, with physical composition quite near what she
had determined the ideal for a male of his age and race.  It would be most
undesirable for any harm to come to him.

Meeting his eyes, she shook her head vigorously, fighting the increase of
optical lubricant that she felt beginning to resurge.  "You must not."

Ensign Kim frowned in confusion.  "Not what?"

"Love me!"  It was so clear to her!  Why could he not comprehend the danger
that sentiment had placed him in?  Why couldn't he understand.  She took his
hands in hers, squeezing as she had often seen humans do for emphasis.  The
volume of her voice dropped, "I do not want you to lose your individuality,
Ensign.  I do not want you to become Borg."

His expression was consistent with furthered confusion, so she continued to
explain, though the symptoms of impending 'crying' were beginning to return.
"Everyone who loves me becomes Borg.  Papa and Mama expressed that
sentiment. . .they were assimilated.  As was One."

"One said he loved you?" His voice was soft, gentle.

"Yes.  I told him it was irrelevant."  Her chest heaved as she fought back
tears, but the sobs still escaped in her voice.  "It was not.  It was very
relevant.  But I didn't want him to tell me that, because I didn't want the
Borg to take him!  But he did tell me, and they did take him, and now
they're going to take you, Harry!  They're going to take you!"  She was
screaming now, pounding on his chest as she attempted to impress upon him
the dire nature of his situation.

But he did not leave, and he did not rescind his statement.  Instead, he
wrapped his arms around her, increasing their physical proximity until her
head rested on her shoulder.  For some reason, she did not find a need to
fight it, instead, she returned the action, her fingers digging into the
fabric of his uniform as she allowed the excess lubricant to spill onto his
shoulder.  Her erratic breathing patterns became louder and louder,
interspersed with occasional legible verbalizations.  "Please, Harry!
Please. . . don't. . . they'll take you. . . .the Borg. . . ."  She knew her
behavior was inappropriate, and that the use of his personal designation was
overly familiar, but she didn't care.

For five-point-three-two minutes, Ensign Kim said nothing.  He merely held
her, allowing her crying to subside until she was reasonably calm and had
released the back of his uniform.  Then he slowly moved away from her until
he was able to observe her face.  One finger reached up, brushing a bead of
lubricant from her cheek.  "Oh, Seven," he whispered, "I'm so sorry."


She felt a slight optimism, "Then you do not love me?"

"I do.  But I'm sorry that you felt this way about love.  That you thought.
. . ."  Apparently unable to verbalize further, he shook his head slowly,
his eyes sad.  "Seven. . .Seven. . . Seven. . . ."

"Why are you repeating my designation?"

A slight smile affected the edge of his mouth.  "Because I'm not sure what
else to say.  That you thought that loving you would cause someone to be
assimilated. . . ."

"There has been no contrasting evidence.  It is an accurate hypothesis."

"It's not a matter of evidence.  You've had terrible luck, Seven, but that
doesn't mean it will happen every time.  But if you don't repeat the
experiment, you'll never get that contrasting evidence."  He paused a
moment, seeming to collect his thoughts.  "How many times have you run the
'experiment', anyway?  Three?  Your parents and One?"

Seven nodded an affirmation, beginning to see the reasoning behind Ensign
Kim's line of thought.  "Correct".

"Is three tests sufficient data to base a theory off?"

"No."

She noted that his pupils had dilated slightly, and Seven herself began to
experience a strange sensation from the Ensign's close proximity.  Her
stomach felt uneasy, her dermal layer flushed, her cardiac rate elevated.
"Then perhaps," he offered, "you should run further experiments."

This suddenly seemed a very good proposition.  "Perhaps." Her next action
seemed strange indeed, but there was an impulsive logic to it.  She
increased the proximity of their bodies, following the Ensign's unspoken
directive in allowing their lips to interact.  The pressure increased
slowly, and their arms laced again, only this time there was no excess
optical lubricant involved.  The unpleasant sensations of earlier were
replaced by something unfamiliar, but quite pleasant.

A nearly thermal warmth in her chest cavity, and an overwhelming sense of
*belonging*,  something she hadn't felt since before she was assimilated.
She felt. . .she felt. . .her memory and vocabulary was searched for an
adequate adjective, and she finally found one.  She felt loved.

As they separated, she rested her nose against his, her blue eyes looking
deeply into his dark ones.  The emotion conveyed there was soon blurred by a
resurgence of the optical lubricant, and she pulled away from him, curious
over these odd new reactions.

She seemed to be crying again, but the unpleasant feelings had left her.
Instead, her face seemed to be smiling--an expression she had only been able
to force before and was now coming naturally--and the sounds were different.
"Harry," she managed, "am I malfunctioning?"

He smiled at her, sliding closer on the deck.  She took advantage of his
proximity to use him as support, her own body suddenly feeling inadequate to
the task.  Seven sat next to him on the deck, her legs tucked beneath her as
she rested her head on his already-damp shoulder, allowing his arm to reach
out and circle her waist.  His other hand brushed back a lock of her blonde
hair that had become detached from it's restraint, and she felt his breath
on the side of her face as he spoke.  "No, Seven. . .you're just crying
again."

"But I am not grieving this time."

"No," he explained, "you're laughing. Sometimes people cry when they are
happy, too."

Quiet now, but still with that sense of warmth permeating her chest cavity,
Seven sighed.  This was going to be a difficult and complex experiment.
But, she concluded, it was one she was quite willing to try.

Finis

Strwriter