Cascade
Summary: Fourteen months on, and Seven sat in his chair. Starfleet might have papered over the Titan's name, but it was still his ship. His fingerprints were everywhere, if one knew what to look for, and she did. Had he not given her the conn, she might have requested another ship. One that didn't carry the ghost of him. But he had, and she would not disobey his final order.
Characters: Seven of Nine, Liam Shaw, Agnes Jurati
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Temporary Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Angst with a Happy Ending
Words: 5,203
One
The Enterprise-G launched on the 251st Frontier Day with little pomp and circumstance, largely at the behest of her new captain. Seven of Nine had accepted the promotion and the ship, but she refused to be Starfleet's poster girl. Not after everything that had happened.
The Federation was stretched thin; first by the number of deaths and then by the number who'd walked away. The crew of the Enterprise was largely that of the Titan-A, traumatised by being assimilated and by its losses. Seven had placed a plaque alongside the one bearing the current manifest, naming the dead. The ensigns. The commanders. T'Veen.
Their captain.
Fourteen months on, and Seven sat in his chair. Starfleet might have papered over the Titan's name, but it was still his ship. His fingerprints were everywhere, if one knew what to look for, and she did. Had he not given her the conn, she might have requested another ship. One that didn't carry the ghost of him. But he had, and she would not disobey his final order. He had entrusted her with his ship and his crew, and she was not going to let him down. Not again.
They were two months out of space dock - it had taken twelve for the ship to be repaired and repainted - and their first mission was a simple upgrade to a relay station. A regular, run-of-the-mill mission. Words Seven could hear him say, that wry pull of his mouth letting the bridge crew know that he took nothing for granted. That he was aware how easily regular, run-of-the-mill missions could turn irregular.
Fuck, but she missed him. Life went on, relentlessly, and so had she. It had grown around her grief, filing with the busyness of running a starship and a crew, but the hard knot in her heart hadn’t diminished as she'd expected it to. Sure, it no longer dominated her every waking moment - and several non-waking ones - but there were still times when it slammed against her ribs and stole her breath.
Seven didn't know why a relay station prompted a surge. Only that there wasn't enough oxygen on the bridge and the little air that was left smelled of him.
Raffi touched her hand, bringing her to the here and now. Her XO's expression was concerned. "You okay?" she asked, modulating her voice so the entire bridge didn't hear the question.
She focused on her XO. Her best friend, but no longer her lover. They'd not got back together. She was hollowed out, her emotions as shut down as they'd ever been. She shook her head. "Not particularly."
"I could take the conn," Raffi offered. "This isn't anything I can't handle."
"No." Seven heard the echo of him and grimaced. "Okay, maybe I should. I'm... not exactly present."
"This is where I mention therapy and you shoot me down. Again."
"I don't need therapy." She didn't want to get over his loss. Didn't want to package up the memories and put them on a shelf. "I have to remember."
Raffi shook her head, then glanced around the bridge. Not the place for a conversation like this. She made a shooing motion with one hand. "Whatever, just go. Get your head on straighter than it is right now."
Seven sighed but got to her feet. She let Raffi have the conn. She needed a large glass of whiskey in an ill-lit room, because moping was something to do in the dark. Plus, even after two months, she'd not moved any of his stuff and she didn't need those reminders right now. She really ought to put them away. She still couldn't bring herself to do that.
She drained the glass and lay on the bed. Head on the pillow that smelled faintly of him. Space dock had tried to update his room. She'd guarded it like a demented dragon. Had refused to let anyone touch the last vestiges of him. She curled up in them and closed her eyes against the burn of tears. His name was ash on her tongue. Spoken but not heard. He couldn't, now.
Exhaustion pulled her under to scattered snapshots of memory: him at his desk as she'd reported for duty, working together on a recalcitrant engine component, mock fighting over the last dessert in the mess, him nudging her in what had supposed to be a serious meeting and her struggling to maintain her composure. Picard. Vadic. The Borg Queen in her head.
"Hansen."
The urgency in his voice woke Seven. She lay in his bed, confused because she was sure that she'd heard him, yet painfully aware that was impossible. She rolled onto her side... and her entire body turned to agony. It ran along the line of her eyebrow, at the side of her head. Her hand. The length of her spine. Everywhere there was an implant was blinding pain. Enough that she cried out.
She found her comm with her right hand. "Seven to Ohk. Something's wrong. Oh, fuck, very wrong."
The doctor arrived shortly after, not that time meant anything to Seven now. She was ripping apart, her implants hot to the touch. As if they were overloaded. Ohk tried to stabilise her, but it wasn't a biological problem - it was a tech one. There was no one on board with the right knowledge.
No one in Starfleet.
Ohk contacted the bridge and told Raffi to divert to the Alpha Quadrant, and the Borg vessel guarding the anomaly. To the Jurati Queen and the only person she knew for certain that could save Seven's life. She knew she was dying. She wasn't all that cut up about it. Maybe she'd finally be at peace.
"Maybe I'll haunt your afterlife."
She was definitely dying, if she could hear the voices of the already dead. Though she hadn't imagined the dead to sound so pissy. She tried to focus on what Ohk was saying. Raffi had come in and looked concerned. Sat on the bed and held her hand tightly. As if that grip would keep her in the land of the living.
"Raffi," she muttered. "Not Agnes."
"There's no one else who can help. We don't know what the matter is."
"Cascade," Seven said, echoing the voice in her head. The one that sounded far too like him for comfort. She did not want to go to the Jurati Queen. It was her only option, though.
She gave up. Gave into the blinding pain. Blackness took everything away but in the last moment before her awareness disconnected, she heard him say her name.
Say, "Seven," in a tone that was half exasperated, half fond.
Then nothing.
o O o
Seven came to slowly, coming together bit by bit. She knew where she was by the odour - there was nothing else in the entire universe that smelled like a Borg vessel, even one where there were no drones. It was a smell that both calmed and unsettled her. A lifetime as Borg. A lifetime undoing what that Queen had turned her into.
She couldn't remember getting there. Just the overwhelming pain and, in the middle of it all like a fever dream, the sound of his voice.
Both the pain and that comfort were gone. One was a relief. The other left her hollowed out. Cascade. A full and complete failure of her augmentations. She should not have survived, but there she was. Still living. Still breathing. She touched her ocular implant gingerly. Still part Borg.
There was a flicker of disappointment. It might have been nice to go back to herself without implants. To look human again. Her recall of that was crystalline. How she hated Q for showing her. She'd been... perhaps not happy, because she'd known from the moment she was rescued that she was different, but content. She knew what she was. Had come to terms with that.
Until she'd seen what she would look like fully human.
"Seven of Nine."
Seven opened her eyes to see the Jurati Queen at her bedside. Agnes was unchanged; still that blend of Borg and human, but there was a troubled crease on her forehead. A slight frown that caused panic to grip Seven's chest
"Agnes," she murmured. "Am I... well?"
"You are now." The Queen smiled and put her hand over Seven's. "Though you had us worried for some time."
"How long?"
"Several hours. It took almost one hour for us to stabilise you."
Seven hitched up the bed. Three monitors surrounded her, though none remained attached. She couldn't help but notice they were Starfleet issue.
"It was not you that saved me?"
Agnes looked at the ground. "The failure was technical. Within our remit, but there is one who was better suited." The Borg Queen was clearly uncomfortable. "We have been asked not to speak of it. Know that you are recovered and the issue should not repeat itself."
"What was the issue?"
"Cascade failure. The Borg side of you shut down completely."
Cascade. The word she'd heard more than thought, sure of that reason even though she'd nothing to compare it to. A complete failure. She ought to be dead. She told Agnes as much, and the Queen nodded.
"It came close. It required an engineer to save you."
"They should be here, in that case. I would like to thank them personally."
"I can thank them on your behalf." Agnes's voice was the dual tone of the Queen, and her expression had a touch of arrogance to it. "I will not betray the choice made."
The Jurati Borg was made up of people who chose to join. Not all were assimilated, Seven knew, and those that chose to be included in the Collective did not look like traditional Borg. Assimilation itself was gentler. Free will was maintained. It had been something she had considered shortly after Frontier Day. A way to retreat from the horror and the guilt. From the overwhelming grief.
And because of that, she couldn't push Agnes on the subject of her saviour. The Queen would not budge if they chose to remain anonymous, and arguing with the woman who'd facilitated the saving of her life would smack of ungratefulness. Seven was grateful.
"Okay," she said, and Agnes seemed to relax. She came over to the bed and put a hand on Seven’s shoulder. "There is no rush for you to leave, all being said. Take your time." A broad, very Agnes smile curved the Queen's mouth. "You are always welcome here, Seven of Nine."
And with that, she swept from the room.
She was left alone, but Seven did not feel lonely. The Borg ship was at once familiar and strange. It was better lit than the Cube had been, but kept the soft hum of life that had been so reassuring when she'd been a drone. She could sense the Collective. Hear it, even, but at a distant. Like people talking in the next room.
She pushed the cover off. She was still in her Starfleet uniform, though her left sleeve was rolled back over the elbow, exposing the length of the augmentation to that hand and wrist. She straightened the sleeve and got up. She felt... fine. No pain, no discomfort. Not feeling like she was about to combust.
Her boots had been removed. They were under the single chair. She sat down and put them on. Brushed her fingers through her hair. She knew Agnes was hiding something and, while she appreciated her saviour's right to anonymity, she couldn't shake the idea that it involved her somehow.
She wasn't about to ask Agnes to betray a confidence, but if she were to wander about and encounter the person by accident...
The door opened on her approach. Seven stopped short, her blood turning to ice as she stared in disbelief at the man on the other side of the threshold. Older, greyer, and wearing a printed t-shirt over black jeans instead of a Starfleet uniform, but absolutely and undeniably Liam Shaw.
Seven rocked back a step in sheer shock. Her body went numb. The air in her lungs turned heavy. She couldn't tear her eyes off him. If she blinked, he might disappear again.
"I suppose that answers the question of whether you are sure," Agnes muttered.
"Yeah, it's okay."
Seven's heart clenched at his oh-so-familiar voice. The one she never thought she'd hear again. She was given a small, crooked smile.
"It's clear she wasn't gonna let it rest."
She shook her head, but not in agreement with his words. This wasn't possible. He was dead. Dead and gone for more than a year. Her mouth dried as his pale green eyes, as bright as they'd ever been, focused back on her. As that smile curved a little wider.
"Were you, Seven?"