Chapter Text
"...but Mother, i feel well. Do i have to see Doctor Zimmerman?" The distraught girl asked Seven of Nine. She disliked annual check ups, not that Doctor Lewis Zimmerman was a bad or scary doctor. Three disliked these `annual implant maintenance checks` as she puts it, simply because they made her feel vulnerable. Her older sisters have been supportive. They normally accompanied her to the clinic where they had fun playing with the good doctor`s medical instruments and messing things up. On one such a visit Shannon Jasmine found a tricorder on a tray near the scanner used on her sister, Three. Shannon had dismantled it and was in the process of putting it back together again while her older sister, Lauren timed her. Three, who was lying on a biobed, watched the whole mischief and giggled discreetly. She could see her mothers talking to the doctor in his office. Her `job` was to alert her `cohorts` when the `coast was clear` to proceed with their mischief. Suffice it to say that their admiral mother grounded the two who were caught red-handed when the tricorder lay on the table in the waiting room with its guts spilled all over it. Three was exempted from the punishment because she was the patient. Seven suspected foul play when Three had an `angelic smile` on her face. She sighed when she realized that the children had won this time.
"Yes, Three, you do. Your implant is being rejected by your body. The first sign is the redness of the skin around the implant. Your temperature has been unstable for the last twenty four hours, you have started hearing voices,` the Borg war chant` as you put it. Your white cell count is also raised. The Doctor said we should see him straight away if symptoms persist."
"Very well, Mother." The girl said in a resigned tone. She went to her room and took her bag with her night wear, underwear, toothbrush, hair brush, clean socks and her precious robot duck simply called "Ducky." Her admiral Mother thought Three was as unimaginative as her Borg mother when it came to names, but Janeway loved them all dearly. They were her family after all.
While Three was packing her things, her mother went to the study to contact Kathryn. Seven was barely in the room when she heard a buzzer going off in Three`s room. She had designed this mechanism to alert her of Three`s condition. When the girl was a baby she tended to have seizures which were related to the implants but there was no sign of rejection then. Lauren ran to her sister`s room and found her lying on the floor on her side. She was frothing at the mouth. Lauren placed a pillow under her head to keep her comfortable. Three knew when a seizure was approaching. She would lay on the bed on her side to minimise the chance of airway obstruction. Such a perfect child, Kathryn smiled fondly with tears in her eyes.
"Kathryn! Three has taken ill. I believe her body is rejecting her implant. She is having a seizure now, i have to take her to see the Doctor. You will join us there." The comm went dead as Seven rushed to her daughter`s room to tend to her. The stressed ex drone lifted her daughter up and placed her in the hover car. Her other children ran behind her. It took the Borg woman only twelve minutes to get to Starfleet Medical Centre. Normally it takes at least twenty to thirty minutes to get there.
Seven carried the girl straight into the Doctor`s office. "Seven, could you push the scanner over here, please?" The serious looking Doctor said. He quickly scanned the youngster and his worst fear was confirmed. The dormant nanoprobes had activated and were trying to fight against the implant. That way they will save the host `drone.` The implant was fighting back by trying to assimilate the host. Three`s white blood cells were also fighting both the nanoprobes and implant as these were recognised as foreign bodies to the host. It was only a matter of days when Three`s body would completely shut down or assimilated from within. The implant which she has had since she was a baby, sustaining her vital functions could not have been removed then because it had worked in harmony with her other systems like an extra internal organ. The girl was having increased seizure activity because the implant had extended its tendrils to her nervous system in an attempt to `save the host` by assimilating her.
"I must operate. Now!!" The Doctor barked at his staff. "Seven, i need a fresh dose of nanoprobes." He commanded the ex drone.
Three was slipping in and out of coma as the Doctor anaesthetised her. The young girl kept chanting the words: "We are Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Existence as you know it will cease. Resistance is futile." A moment later she would cry out to her mothers to save her from the Borg, even though the mothers had never discussed the Borg with her or her sisters. She seemed to have intimate knowledge of the monsters.
Seven stood outside the operating room. She had tears in her eyes. She felt familiar, warm arms around her waist. Kathryn had arrived and briefly went to whisper something in her incapacitated daughter. "Three, you must resist assimilation. That`s an order!" She knew her little girl will understand this to mean "Stay strong for your mother, me and your sisters." Janeway felt tears pool in her eyes and she fought them hard when she saw her daughter`s greyish mottled skin and unseeing eyes. It seemed that the girl did not recognise her own mother. Three had grown at least six more implants on various parts of her body and her beautiful strawberry blonde hair had fallen out in clumps. One of the nurses had put a sterile, pink hat on the girl`s head. The admiral sighed and followed her wife out of the operating room.
Phoebe and Gretchen took the girls back home when they learned that the operation was going to take at least three hours. The parents were allowed in only because the doctor knew them as personal friends and because they both had intimate knowledge of Borg physiology. Doctor Lewis was able to slow the assimilation process. He had removed the new implants but left the original starburst one behind Three`s left ear. She still had mottled skin and even though she was conscious, she barely recognised her parents. She was moved to a high dependency unit where she had lots of monitoring leads placed all over her body. The Doctor had warned the parents that the girl may be lost to them as he had exhausted all the options. Seven had broken down then. She leaned her head against Janeway`s shoulder and cried until there was no more tears left. The Voyager family were informed of the situation. B`Ellana had taken the admiral aside to discuss building a makeshift regeneration unit for the girl. She brought the unit an hour later and with the Doctor and Kathryn`s help they had worked out details from the energy output of the unit to the padding which made it comfortable to lie on.
At 02:30 hours the machines bleeped and all the monitors showed a continuous flatline. Janeway, who was holding her daughter`s hand on one side and Seven on the other side of the bed jumped up from their seats.
"Doctor! Doctor! Three is gone!!" Cried Seven. Kathryn silently left the room for the bathroom. While there she put the seat cover down and sat on the reclamation unit. She let the tears she had been fighting all day and night fall freely. Suddenly there was a bright light then POUF!! Q appeared.
"Oh Kathy. Please don`t cry?" Said the arrogant being. "Why didn`t you call me sooner? You could have saved yourself all this crying ritual of yours. Now what is the matter? Oh, don`t tell me. Three is gone?"
"Correct, Q." Seven said. She had followed her wife and wanted to make sure she was ok. She found the toilet door half open and a man was in there with her wife. Somehow she knew it was Q but she was in o mood of fighting with the omnipotent being.
"Come on you two. Show me where my favourite Human is. You know she asked me if she could visit the continuum once. Will you let her and her sisters come with me sometime. Oh and their little friend Torres` daughter, Miral. Yes, those kids are so brilliant they could save the world....No offence Kathy, Seven." He bowed his head at the women. Janeway and Seven looked at each other. Janeway managed a lop sided smile. Seven thought her wife was losing her mind. How can Kathryn smile at a time like this? She wondered. She was unaware of Q`s promise to help `Kathy` in whatever she needed to be done.
At the bedside Q ordered the nurses around in his usual bossy attitude. "Nurse! Take off these pipes and tubes off my friend. How is she supposed to breathe with a tube stuck in her nose and mouth? Sheesh, you humans like to stuff yourselves with tubes when you`re ill. I don`t even know what `ill` is!" He scoffed at the nurses. POUF!! Another Q appeared. This time a female, Q. "Kathryn, Seven, glad to see you. Now Q, that`s not the way humans do things. This is supposed to be a sad moment. Give our friends their child back and let`s go home. Oh Seven, i love your outfit. You should show me how you made it." POUF!! They were gone again. The whole dialogue with Q only took three minutes.
"Thanks, Q." Kathryn said to the still air around the room. She saw Three sitting up in bed. Her skin was back to normal. Her blue eyes were lively again.
"Mom, Mother. What am i doing here? I want to go home to finish my homework. Oh i am starving. Can i have beans on toast please? And mango juice?" The girl said. Janeway and Seven looked at each other while the Doctor scanned the youngster. Everything checked out as normal but she had a small device embedded in the brain.
Thanks again, Q.