Part 6 added on 31 May 2001
Disclaimers are in part 1.
Rating: PG
"I was able to once again remove almost all of her Borg systems. Unfortunately..."
"Why does there always have to be a but?" Kathryn interrupted. "Why can't they both just start over?"
"They have," the doctor protested. "Except for the assimilation tubules in her left arm and the ocular implant, she has no Borg systems this time."
"How can those systems function without her cortical array?"
"Well... she does have some remaining cortical implants. But the emotional inhibitor is gone, as well as the core, and most of the systems. It's now just like Icheb's. She has nanoprobes, but her own brain is controlling their function, for the most part."
"Just like in Icheb. So she still won't have to regenerate?"
"No, and she'll have the benefits of the eidetic memory storage, although it is slightly damaged from the growth spurt; enhanced hearing and visual acuity, without loss of normal eyesight, as she had before; and superior strength and immunity to infection. If she hadn't undergone the developmental increase, I could have removed every Borg system from her body, but as it was, she basically aged herself into them. Except... the Borg technology couldn't adapt fast enough and I was able to remove more than before."
"Will she be able to have children?" Kathryn asked quietly.
"Yes. Nothing else about her will be effected beyond the obvious cosmetic changes to her arm, which has been repaired to its original state before the accident when she was younger and the ocular implant, which I can remove, but she asked me not to."
"Why?" Kathryn asked incredulously.
"She said that she likes it, that it's... pretty. It can be removed when she's older if she so wishes, but for now, she sees it only as an adornment, like jewelry." Janeway shook her head.
"Teenagers," she mumbled. "I suppose I can expect this from B'Elanna as well."
"Acts meant to distinguish themselves as individuals often occur during this period of life, yes."
"I thought that teenagers usually just tried to fit in with each other. I know that I did," Janeway said, surprised.
"Well, there are always trend setters. And even when you were trying to fit in, I'll bet you still did things to distinguish yourself from your peers."
"You know what? You're right. But I'm not telling you what it was," Kathryn added when she saw the doctor's curious look. She smiled at him.
"Can we go now?" B'Elanna asked with a growl. She walked into the doctor's office from the recovery area with a scowl plastered on her face. Kathryn felt her headache resurfacing.
"You may go ahead to our quarters, I'll be along shortly." B'Elanna nodded and ran her fingers through her wild hair, tugging at a tangle as she left. "No parent should have to experience the terrible twos and a teenager in the same year. It's inhumane," Kathryn n joked, earning a chuckle from the doctor. "Have you made any progress on that tachyon array yet?"
"No. I've been testing it on Mr. Neelix's supply of beetles, but he's been protesting that he won't have enough to pollinate, so I will have to stop soon. My holodeck tests were just as unsuccessful, unfortunately.
"The tachyons travel so quickly that I must find a way to phase them out of normal space long enough for them to pass through the girls, or else, they do quite a bit of damage. So far, I've only been able to perform the phase transition for point-oh-three seconds at a time. The phased tachyons pass safely through the subject, but if they rematerialize during the process..."
"I can see why this is dangerous. You keep working on it, Doctor. Lt. Carey and Ensign Vorik are your Engineers on this project, are they not?"
"Yes. It's times like these that I wish B'Elanna were an adult again. She'd have already solved the problem, I'm certain." The doctor said, sitting down at his desk, sighing in frustration. Kathryn smiled at him and put a hand on his shoulder, reassuringly.
"I'm certain that you'll solve the problem in time." He nodded and she turned and left Sickbay, to go back to her quarters.
Or what was left of them. B'Elanna had been busy while Kathryn was gone. All the decorations from her room had been torn down and replaced, the children's clothing discarded for Janeway to clean up. Kathryn immediately squelched the anger rising inside and reminded herself that B'Elanna was still a child, and teenagers were prone to acting out.
Especially fifteen year-old girls.
Kathryn calmly picked up the pile of trash and clothing and walked into B'Elanna's room, where she was immediately yelled at.
"Hey! Can't you ask permission to enter my room?" B'Elanna growled. Kathryn raised her eyebrows and dumped the junk on the floor. "Hey!" B'Elanna yelled again.
"It is your mess and you are old enough to clean up after yourself. If you put it back in the living section, I shall return it to you again. But if I have to do this again, then you will not leave our quarters until every inch is spotless and I feel that you can behave yourself. Is that understood?"
B'Elanna glared at Janeway from behind her padd. "You're not my mother." Kathryn felt as though she had been slapped, but didn't reveal it.
"No, I'm not. But I am your legal guardian and the adult who is responsible for you. And no, you are not old enough for your own quarters so don't even think of asking." 'How did she know I was gonna ask?' B'Elanna thought, continuing to glare. She didn't know why, but Kathryn just annoyed her immensely at that moment.
"Whatever," she growled, hating that she didn't have a better retort. Kathryn walked over to sit on the bed next to B'Elanna, much to the girl's irritation.
"B'Elanna, I don't want to be adversaries."
"Then you shouldn't have lied, should you?"
"I didn't lie. I just didn't believe that you were old enough to--"
"To know who I am? Don't you think I felt weird, growing up so fast and obviously different? Didn't I have the right to know that I had once had another life, another childhood? Just leave me the hell alone, I hate you right now." B'Elanna spun away, hiding the tears in her eyes.
"You do have the right to know, B'Elanna. I just--"
"I said LEAVE ME ALONE!" B'Elanna shrieked in fury and Kathryn stood and walked to the doorway, where she turned around to face her ward.
"You were a daughter to me, even before. I loved you almost the same as I do now. If you ever want me to tell you anything about the woman you were, just ask me." B'Elanna turned around.
"You don't get it do you? I don't CARE! I can find out what I want on my own, I don't need you're help so--" The words that came out of the girl's mouth at that moment, Kathryn knew that B'Elanna hadn't ever heard come from her mouth.
"Where did you learn that kind of language??!" Kathryn demanded. B'Elanna smirked.
"Just because I was young doesn't mean I was deaf."
"I never said anything like that!"
"Doesn't mean that your precious crew was as virtuous as you, Captain." B'Elanna said, spitting out the last word.
"Yes, but they didn't use that language to my face. And you won't be seeing my face until tomorrow, when you will apologize if you want to leave your room. Good-night." And with that, Kathryn stepped back and let the doors slide closed, entering a locking protocol on the door. B'Elanna could access the bathroom, so Kathryn locked the outside door to that room as well, leaving B'Elanna with quite a bit of time to cogitate.
"Annika isn't hear, B'Elanna, I'm sorry. She's with Icheb." Sam said. B'Elanna glared at the deck plating.
"She's been spending a lot of time with him," B'Elanna complained softly. Samantha smiled comfortingly.
"I'm sure that she's not deliberately ignoring you, B'Elanna. But girls your age start noticing boys..." B'Elanna's head shot up.
"You mean they're dating?" B'Elanna felt a surge of unreasonable jealousy speed through her body.
"I'm sure it's not that serious. It'll be over before you know it. Icheb is almost eighteen years old. You two are the only girls young enough for him, but you're still a little too young."
"Not for long," B'Elanna muttered.
"Maybe not, and maybe you'll be too old for him before you know it." B'Elanna looked up and shrugged.
"Thanks. Would you tell her I stopped by, please?" Sam nodded. B'Elanna turned and left. She growled to herself about dating and boys and how she didn't need any of it. She wondered if she had gotten to Icheb first, if Annika would be jealous of her. Maybe she could get her back that way, if they had something in common again.
The last thing that they had talked about had been Annika's assimilation. She kept insisting that she wanted to be called Seven, now, since that had been her name before. B'Elanna had been hurt and felt so left out that she asked Annika to assimilate her. 'Seven' had laughed and told her not to be stupid. That she didn't know anything.
"Ow!" B'Elanna exclaimed as her fist made contact with the wall. She began rubbing it and then moved her had to her hairline, where she had a gorch growing. She scratched at it irritably and it shrunk a little. She played with her hair as she walked, hiding the blemish from sight. Her hair had been growing almost an inch a day and becoming increasingly wilder.
She had looked up Jak'tahla when Kathryn had muttered something about it and didn't like what it said. She was not moody or overly aggressive, she didn't care what any textbooks or people said. She was perfectly normal and the same as ever.
Everyone else was just being condescending and irritating.
She knew from breaking into her records that she had been married before the 'accident' had made her a kid again. That fascinated her. She had been expecting a baby, which had been lost in the age regression. This made her a little sad, but didn't really effect her, as it seemed as though it had happened to someone else.
She now knew that that was why Lt. Paris had avoided her and refused to let her attend the piloting lessons with Icheb. He had been her husband. Which was weirder to her than anything else she had been through. It just didn't seem real that she had been married.
An idea suddenly came to her, regarding who she could date to make Annika-Seven jealous. It seemed fated when Tom Paris rounded the corner of the hall. He looked very carefully away from her and she confronted him.
"Hi, Tom," she said, lowering her voice a little, trying to make it sound like it had in her older self's logs. Tom froze and he slowly looked at her.
"Hello, B'Elanna." His voice was formal and a little cold. She narrowed her eyes and walked up to him.
"You avoid me." She stated with calculating candor. He backed up as she advanced towards him. He ended up with his back against the wall and she stopped. "Because I was your wife." Tom narrowed his eyes.
"So the captain told you," he said, quietly. B'Elanna snorted derisively.
"Her? She's done nothing but lie to me my entire life...well, since the accident, anyway. No, I accessed my old personal files, they were mine, after all, I had every right. Do you hate me?" Tom looked surprised.
"No, why would you ask that?"
"Because I lost our daughter. And your wife. I would hate me," she said softly.
"I could never hate you, B'Elanna. I... the topic's just a little sore for me."
"Do you still want me?" B'Elanna purred. Tom looked at the fifteen-year-old in shock.
"What?! You're a little girl!"
"Not so little any more, Tom. And there's no telling when I might have my next growth spurt." B'Elanna stepped toward him, trying to move seductively. "Besides, I hear that you're not so discriminating, that you'll--" Tom's jaw dropped. Even B'Elanna, as he knew her, would never talk like that. Those words were so obscene that he couldn't imagine where she had picked them up.
"And I thought I had a dirty mouth," he said. "I don't know where you get your information, but that's just not true. And I definitely draw the line at little girls."
"I'm not a little girl, I'm a young Klingon woman," B'Elanna growled, slamming Tom against the wall, pinning him with all her adolescent strength.
"Yeah, it doesn't matter. I don't know why you're behaving this way, but even I'm not so lecherous as to fuck a child," he growled back, shoving her away. She was so confused and shocked at his cursing her back that he almost walked away unscathed.
Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, not with enraged Klingon girls.
"I don't even want the details, Mr. Paris," the EMH said. "But as soon as your voice resumes its normal pitch, you can tell me who assaulted you.
"That's okay," Tom wheezed. "Just... tell me everything's still working?"
"Well, in a week it will, but I wouldn't press my luck before that. Now, I hate to ask this, considering, but could you hop up onto the biobed so I can... well, I think you know." Tom looked at the bed like it was death.
"Can't I keep standing?"
"...assaulting an officer, sexual harassment--"
"So throw me in the brig, what do I care?" B'Elanna growled. Kathryn stopped her retort and just turned and walked away. She couldn't control herself if she kept talking to the obstinate child, she was certain of it. It didn't comfort her to remember the quiet, studious child B'Elanna had been just two months earlier.
She started to leave their quarters when she heard the soft sobbing. Immediately, she was sitting by B'Elanna's bed, hugging the weeping girl. B'Elanna threw her arms around her surrogate parent and clutched her like a security blanket.
"Nika doesn't talk to me any more she's with Icheb and they're dating and never invite me along and I got jealous and I didn't mean to hurt him I just figured that he'd be a good choice since we had been married and I don't hate you but I'm losing my best friend," B'Elanna sobbed out in one breath.
"Shh.. Breathe, B'Elanna. I know that you don't hate me and I'm sorry that I kept things from you. I was just trying to be a good parent. And I'm sure that if you talk to Annika--"
"No, she doesn't wanna talk, she thinks I'm stupid and wants me to call her Seven and she used to be my Nika!" Kathryn rocked B'Elanna, making soothing sounds and stroking the long, wild hair. "I love her but now she loves Icheb and it's not fair because she was my friend first and now she has no time for me because I'm not Borg."
"Hey, Lanna. Don't be so afraid, Icheb could never replace you in Annika or Seven's heart. I promise. She's just going through a phase."
"Well, it's a stupid phase and she's stupid and Icheb is a PetaQ!" Kathryn repressed a laugh at the petulant tone, knowing that B'Elanna would not appreciate being laughed at. She felt lucky just to have B'Elanna confiding in her again. She knew it wouldn't last...
To be continued....