“Seven!” Janeway stumbled from between the shattered remains of two buildings, spotting the unmistakable figure of her spouse standing on top of a huge mound of rubble. Beside her, Ro and Grendel quickened their step, following the captain. It was only as Janeway was running toward Seven that she realized the rubble she was perched on was the temple where the counselor and her escort had been visiting. She stopped, staggered, looking around in horror. “Oh, my God.”

Seven descended the pile with care, as behind her, Tular continued to dig. “Kathryn!”

Then Janeway was in her arms, clinging tightly to her. “Dammit, I told you not to scare me anymore.”

“You are the one who frightened me,” Seven protested, voice muffled in Janeway’s hair. Her body was so firm against hers, the slender arms strong and warm around her. Janeway closed her eyes, indulging in a small moment of complete humanity, of being the woman and not the starship captain.

After too brief a time, she reluctantly drew back, looking into the beloved features, noting the hint of strain around the ocular implant, the red rims around the brilliant blue eyes, the random strands of hair escaping from the normally austere bun. Seven's face was smeared with dust and dirt, while her uniform was torn and begrimed, far from the squared away appearance she normally presented. Janeway suspected she looked no better. It had been a precarious and heartbreaking journey to make it here. “Lieutenant?”

“Sydney was alive when I arrived, but she has since become unresponsive,” Seven said, her tone edged with despair. “Tular and I continue to dig, but it may be for the purpose of recovery rather than rescue.”

“I talked to her,” Janeway said. “On the communicator, but I lost the signal. And I can’t seem to contact the ship.”

“It is the dust, Captain,” Seven said, her voice strengthening now that she had a scientific topic to discuss as opposed to an emotional one. “There is iridium in the soil, which was deposited into the atmosphere by the quake. It is causing blanket interference around the immediate area. You were fortunate to be able to communicate with Counselor Stone at all before the connection died.”

“We need to get her out of there,” Janeway said.

“I am aware of that, but even if she is still alive, moving her may still not be an option. She may have only initially survived the destruction because she is pinned by a support beam and her injuries are compressed.”

“Can you rig up some sort of transporter to beam her out?”

“The same iridium interfering with our communicators is also disruptive to transporter beams. In any event, she would still need to be beamed directly to a medical facility, or again, any injuries could kill her before she was treated.” Seven lowered her head, looking defeated. “It may be too late, Kathryn.”

“I don’t believe that,” Janeway said. Hands on Seven’s biceps, she squeezed firmly. “We’ll get her out, Seven. We can all help. Tell us how to proceed.”

Ro and Grendel had already ascended the rubble, moving carefully under Tular’s instruction as to which area to traverse. They began picking at the debris, choosing each piece carefully, tossing it to the side. It seemed like people gathering straw by picking up one slender strand at a time and equally as futile, but Janeway knew no one was about to give up. At least, no one in a Starfleet uniform. As for Grendel and Tular, they dug without hesitation, intent on rescuing their crewmate. Janeway was pleased to see it.

“How did you even find her?” she demanded as she contemplated the destruction. The immediate area seemed flattened, the nearest buildings also no more than indistinguishable heaps of collapsed rubble.

“I knew she and Ensign Brighton were initially headed to this particular temple,” Seven explained. “Once Tular and I entered the vicinity, I was able to configure the tricorder to read for her genetic signature and pinpoint her exact location within the rubble. Infrared imaging determined that she was alive and once we were close enough, I was able to communicate directly with her.” She faltered, though perhaps only Janeway knew her well enough to recognize the brief hesitation as such. “Then she ceased to respond to my queries. It is too soon for my scans to determine if her body is cooling.”

“She may only be unconscious, Seven,” Janeway reminded her strongly. “We can’t give up.”

“No, Kathryn, we will not,” Seven said, her shoulders squaring. “But there is a beam. It is possible our phaser may be able to cut it away, but it is also possible that we will require equipment of the sort that we simply do not have access to.”

“Tuvok will find us,” Janeway said with certainty. Not for the first time, she was grateful she had an experienced and competent commander as her first officer this year. Millennium’s previous two missions to other quadrants had her in training mode with first time execs. “And he’ll know how to coordinate with the planet’s government to provide the best assistance to the entire area. We need to concentrate on what we can accomplish in this particular spot.”

“This was the capital of the planet, as well as the entire sector of space,” Seven reminded her as they crawled up the rubble to where the rest were digging. She reached out a hand automatically to steady the captain when Janeway stepped on an unstable chunk of marble. “There may not be that much government left.”

“There’s always government somewhere,” Janeway told her with certainty, avoiding a protruding piece of rebar. “What I don’t understand is why the ship’s sensors didn’t detect the seismic instability of the area.”

“There is no way of knowing exactly when a fault is about to release,” Seven noted. “Geometrics can map the most seismic unstable areas of a planet, and trace most major fault lines, but there are faults deep in the planetary crust that are simply not active until they are. For example, there is a fault that runs beneath the Brown County Agricultural Park in North America that has produced significant earthquakes in history, but is otherwise completely stable. No one on Earth is concerned with it and certainly do not build to accommodate it.”

“I wasn’t criticizing your science department, Lieutenant,” Janeway reassured her in a mild tone. “It does explain the damage of the city, however. I don’t think this area is built for regular tremors. It’s like the New York quake of 2022.”

“Yes,” Seven said. “Authorities did not discover the fault until hundreds of years after the city was constructed, and even then, there were not any significant changes made to construction codes until after the 2022 quake. It measured 7.2 on the Richter scale, but the damage was far more extensive than it would have been in California with a quake of the same duration and strength. It leveled the entire city.” She looked around as they perched on the apex of the pile. “As seems to have happened here.”

Janeway followed her gaze, feeling her heart sink as she got a better view of the damage. As she, Ro and Grendel made their way through the streets, they had witnessed many isolated incidents of horror, wanting to stop and help, but knowing she needed to get back to her ship where she’d be able to offer more useful forms of assistance to the devastated city. But it wasn’t until she got to a higher elevation that she could reconcile her perception of the extent of the disaster with visual confirmation of it. Through the smoke, dust and jagged spires of buildings, she could see the waterfront and the bay, the turquoise water clearly visible.

And beginning to retreat, ships and small boats slowly drifting away from the piers, pulling free of their moorings.

“Oh, Seven,” she said weakly.

Seven, following her gaze, exhaled audibly. “I see it, Kathryn. There must have been an aftershock off shore.”

“Are we high enough?”

“I do not know,” Seven told her honestly. “Unlikely.”

“How much time do we have before we need to seek higher ground?”

“Possibly not enough.”

“We’d better hurry, then.”

“Yes,’ Seven agreed.

Neither mentioned it again as they went down into the depression where the rubble had already been removed by Seven and Tular. Impressed, Janeway knew Seven would have a clock in her head, calculating their progress and when it was time, she would tell them to leave, whether they had pulled Sydney out or not. Under Seven’s direction, she began to remove the heavy chunks of marble, and quickly uncovered an opening. She peered down and could make out a form in the gloom below.

“I see her,” she said, making the others pause their efforts. “Counselor Stone. Can you hear me?”

There was no response and without thinking, she dived into the opening, wiggling her way down. Behind her, she could hear the outraged tones of her spouse and security chief.

“Kathryn?!?”

“Captain!?! What the hell are you doing?!”

There was a small hollow here, impossibly lit by a sliver of light coming from the shattered remains of a wooden cabinet that had spilled out a treasure of gold, precious gems and platinum, all apparently religious icons of a sort. They were piled on top of Ensign Brighton. His empty stare and slack features indicated there was nothing she could do for him, but she checked the pulse in his neck just to be sure. The coolness of his flesh, bluish lips and ashen complexion confirmed that he had been dead for a while.

She turned to the ship’s counselor, pinned beneath the solid metal beam. She could barely turn around in here, but she could see most of Stone’s body. It was lightly covered in rubble but it was only her torso that was pinned by the beam. Stone’s eyes were closed and she didn’t seem to be breathing but when Janeway put her fingers on her throat, she could feel a weak flutter of pulse.

“She’s alive,” she called up. “But she’s pinned.”

“Get out of there, Captain,” Ro called down, her tone exceedingly annoyed. Her head was outlined in the opening above, cutting off the light “Let me do this.”

“I’ve got it,” Janeway said, looking over the situation. “Send down your phaser.”

“The counselor may not survive being moved, Captain,” Seven reminded.

“Maybe, but she’s definitely not going to survive down here, either. Especially with a tsunami coming.”

“A what?” Janeway heard Tular growl.

Janeway left it to her spouse to explain it to the others. She just reached up and after a second’s hesitation, felt Ro deposit a phaser in her outstretched hand. Combining it with her own, she set them both to a pinpoint cutting beam and focused on the beam just above the counselor. She could see it was supported by a large sculpture, this planet’s religious equivalent of a cross, perhaps, though it looked more like a deformed mutant cactus than anything spiritually profound. She hoped the silvery metal was hard like titanium and not soft like gold. Otherwise, the beam would shift the wrong way after it was cut and there’d be three bodies down here instead of just two.

“Be careful, Captain.” Seven’s tone was one of complete disapproval. “We do not have much time.”

“I’m not abandoning a crewmember,” she said firmly, without looking up.

The glowing red beam sliced away the metal, each chunk captured in her hand before falling to the ground and tossed to the side. Ignoring the burns she was suffering on her palm, she continued to work steadily until finally the beam was almost severed. This was the trickiest part. Janeway had aced physics all through school, and she hoped it would be enough to prove her calculations correct.

She cut through the last of the beam and with a muffled groan, it shifted and fell away, not far, supported by the silvery statue, but enough that it was no longer pinning Stone. Her chest continued to rise and fall, and with a silent apology, Janeway seized her shoulders and pulled.

Sydney regained consciousness with a scream which Janeway ignored, wrestling her up and out of the hole into the waiting hands above. She could hear the sound of rubble grinding around her, shifting and resettling, threatening to claim her. Then Seven’s strong arms gripped Janeway and pulled her up into the light and into Seven’s embrace.

“Let’s get to higher ground,” Janeway said, once she had been set back on her feet. Seven had taken the opportunity to offer a quick but heartfelt hug, which she trusted no one else had noticed.

With Grendel carrying the counselor, who had subsided back into unconsciousness, the team climbed up out of the depression to the apex of the rubble, looking seaward.

“There,” Seven said, her tricorder raised as she pointed with her other hand. “That structure remains reasonably stable. It may prove high enough. In any event, we do not have enough time to find anything else. The wave is approaching.”

Janeway could see it, a small swell on the horizon, but undoubtedly moving far more quickly than the naked eye could determine. They descended the slope of rubble in a rush, careless of injury and ran for the building. Tular hit the door in full stride, smashing it open and they entered the dark interior. Astonished, Janeway looked around. It was a parking structure, with thick pillars intended to support great amounts of weight which may have explained why it was still standing. Hovercrafts were jumbled about, glass and scraps of metal littering the pavement. There was no sign of anyone around, thought there were a few bodies, lying scattered and abandoned.

“There!” Ro shouted, pointing at doorway. There were symbols indicating that stairs and lifts to the upper levels lay beyond.

They dashed across the pavement and through the door. Inside the small windowless room, they bypassed the elevators and entered the fire door to the staircase. Then it was simply a matter of climbing as quickly as they could. They were closed in here, with no windows and no way of knowing what was going on outside. Janeway heaved for breath, gripping the banister tightly as she climbed, lungs burning, heart pounding, and her head throbbing. Around and around they went, up one set of stairs, turning the corner and up the next, ignoring the doorways to the outer levels. On the fourth floor, they heard a loud bang below and Janeway glanced over the edge, looking down to see a frothy rush of water enter the stairwell.

“Faster!” she ordered.

They were already climbing as fast as they could and there was no significant increase in speed in response to Janeway’s order, but she felt better for having issued it. Then they ran out of stairs and Tular was forcing open the door that led to the roof, eight levels high. Janeway prayed it would be enough.

They exited onto the roof, with collective relief that there was no sign of water. Grendel gently lay the counselor down on the gravely surface and backed away as Seven and Ro bent over her. Janeway leaned over, hands on her knees, heaving for breath, dismayed that she seemed to be the only one struggling for air. After she caught her breath, she went over to the low wall bordering the roof and peered over it, looking down on a vast flowing monster of water and debris that extended as far as she could see, a surging, roiling mass of dark liquid covered with what used to be buildings and trees and people.

The away team was stranded.

“How bad?” Ro asked tersely.

Seven peered at her tricorder. It wasn’t a medical unit, but it could determine injuries and vital signs. “Better than anticipated,” she said, reading the scans. “Broken ribs, sternum and left clavicle. There is internal bleeding from various organs. Three vertebrae are crushed. The spinal cord is compromised.”

Ro shrugged out of her tunic and lay it over Stone. “How is that better than expected?”

“She is still alive,” Seven said. “But she may not be for long.”

“We’ll have to do what we can,” Ro said. “What have you got?”

Seven began to pull out supplies from various pockets, as did Ro. The security chief’s little pile of concealed items was made up primarily of weapons, but there were some thin scalpel-like blades and some extra medical supplies. Added to Seven’s stash, along with the new mission pack that was being issued to them, they had enough for a field medical kit. Seven remembered her days on Voyager when the only things away team members were issued were phasers and tricorders, which frequently proved ineffective in many situations. Both Ro and Seven had basic medical training and they used everything they knew to stabilize the counselor and make her as comfortable as possible. Seven contributed her tunic to use as a pillow, and Grendel offered his vest to cover Stone’s legs, leaving him bare-chested, if having solid slabs of muscle completely covered with thick dark hair could be considered bare. He kept shaking off the dust like a dog shaking off water, little clouds puffing around him as he walked.

“How is she?” Janeway said, coming over to them.

“She’s still alive,” Ro said, straightening from her crouch. “Seven’s not bad at doctoring.”

“Seven’s not bad at a lot of things,” Janeway said, favoring her spouse with a smile.

Seven ignored the compliments as she studied the readings on the tricorder. She had done all she could, she realized dully. They all had. It was up to Sydney from this point, and if she had the will to hang on long enough for help to arrive. Wearily, Seven rose to her feet. She had that hollow, odd feeling inside that occurred whenever her nanoprobes had been pushed to their limits.

“Situation?” she asked her captain.

“We’re surrounded by water,” Janeway told her, eyeing her with a worried expression in her eyes that had shaded to grey. “It’s starting to go out, but I’ve heard in these situations that subsequent waves could come in, possibly even larger than the initial one.”

“Or this might be it and we’ll be able to come down from the roof,” Ro said.

“If that is the wisest course,” Seven noted in a warning tone. “Up here, we’re easy to spot from the air, we are well away from anyone else and this structure scans as solid.”

“For the time being,” Janeway reminded. “There’s bound to be aftershocks, possibly of significant magnitude. These types of buildings like to pancake.” She glanced around. “We’ll just have to worry about that once the water recedes. In the meantime, we need to assess our immediate situation. Ro, you and the others check out what you can of the structure. Seven and I will remain here with the counselor.”

“On it,” Ro said, and motioned at Tular and Grendel who obediently moved in her direction.

After they disappeared back through the roof access, Janeway turned to Seven. “How are you, darling? Really?” She reached out and touched Seven’s side, fingering the blue shirt that was gashed and dark with dried blood.

“My nanoprobes have repaired my injuries,” Seven said. She paused, assessing. “I am hungry.”

“Good thing our mission packs come with some ration bars,” Janeway said, slipping one from inside her tunic. “Here, take mine. You need to restore your energy.” She lowered her voice so that only Seven could hear, even though, aside from the unconscious counselor, no one else was on the building. “I wish you wouldn’t push yourself so hard.”

Seven wanted to disagree with her assessment, but knew it would be futile, so she didn’t waste her time or the captain’s. As she accepted the bar, she added it to one she already had, and consumed both, requiring the nutrients. After all, if she wasn’t at optimum strength, she couldn’t protect her partner to the best of her abilities. The dry, crumbling wafers were tasteless, with the consistency of cardboard, but they were sufficient to renew her strength, allowing a fresh new set of nanoprobes flood her system, though the numbers were a little sparse, hundreds of thousands rather than millions. There was an ache throbbing around her cortical node, and the hollow feeling was lessened only slightly.

“And you?” she said, after she had finished, wishing she had water to wash down the wafers. The water all around them was undrinkable, of course. Wasn’t there a human saying about water, water everywhere?

“I have my second bar,” Janeway told her reassuringly. “I’ll wait until the rest are here and eat it with them.”

“Ration bars may prove insufficient for Grendel,” Seven pointed out.

“They’ll have to do,” Janeway said shortly. “He’s not eating us.”

Seven, who hadn’t even considered that option, eyed her spouse speculatively. Was she truly worried about that? After a few seconds consideration, she decided that Janeway had been joking. Mostly.

A small whimper nearby drew their attention to the counselor who was stirring. Immediately, Seven knelt beside her and placed a hand on Stone’s unbroken shoulder. “Remain still,” she said. “You are injured.”

“I’m alive,” Stone said with considerable surprise. Her face twisted. “Oh, this hurts. It didn’t hurt before.”

Seven removed some vials from her waistband, colored liquids contained within. “Drink these,” she instructed firmly. “Slowly.”

Stone choked them down obediently, and then seemed to relax, the painkillers working immediately. She stared upward. “It’s good to see the sky. I’m so glad I could before…” She trailed off.

“Don’t go all philosophical on us, Counselor,” Janeway said sternly.” You’re not going anywhere.”

“Aye, Captain,” Stone murmured.

Ro, Grendel and Tular appeared out of the roof access, carrying various items. Janeway regarded them in surprise as Ro handed her a bottle of water. “Where?”

“There were vending machines by the lifts on two of the other levels, Captain,” Ro explained. “It’s not great food, but there’s water along with other fluids and non-nutritional snack food. Except for the nuts. Those might still have some protein. Better than ration bars, anyway.”

“Indeed,” Seven said, a bit disgruntled at the fact that she’d filled up on the bars. But the water was cool and sweet and tasted like nectar in her dry mouth.

They settled into a semi-circle near the counselor, with Grendel and Tular consuming much of the snack food, cellophane bags littering the roof. The various colored liquids were carbonated, and Seven sipped one slowly, appreciating the sugar it provided. It tasted vaguely like the root beer she had once consumed at the Brown County Fair. On the horizon, the sun was setting, the last rays reflecting off the dust motes in the atmosphere, providing a spectacular range of oranges, and reds, and golds. If one ignored the entirety of their situation and the unfortunate injuries of their companion, it would almost be a pleasant picnic, Seven thought.

“Once the water recedes entirely, we’ll look for a way back to the ship,” Janeway said. “A couple of us will have to stay here with Counselor Stone. I don’t think she should be moved any more than she already has.”

“We can handle it, Captain,” Ro said. She lifted her head, looking at something over the captain and Seven’s heads. “Though I don’t think we’ll have to.”

Seven turned to follow her gaze, feeling relief flood her as she spotted the dark speck in the sky growing larger as it moved closer, revealing the smooth, flowing lines of a delta flyer.

“Wonderful,” Janeway enthused in her throaty voice as they rose to their feet.

The small shuttle circled their building once and then came to a landing, half on and half off the side of the building, clearly not wanting to put any more weight on the structure. It indicated the pilot knew more about the tensile strength of its supports than they did. The side door slid open and the sparse frame of the Doctor jumped down onto the roof, carrying a collapsible stretcher under his right arm and a medical bag in the other. His bald head gleamed in the setting sun, and his lively eyes seemed to take everything in at a glance.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” Janeway said as she strode toward him.

“The feeling is mutual, Captain,” he said as he swept past her to the obvious patient, kneeling to run a small, cylindrical probe over the counselor’s body. “We need to get her back to the ship.”

“B’Elanna!”

Seven turned her head to see the ship’s engineer jump out of the delta flyer. Clearly, some rank had been pulled to warrant her being on this rescue mission. B’Elanna rushed across the roof and seized Ro in a powerful embrace, much to the security chief’s apparent discomfort that quickly softened into a smile as she hugged her back.

Seven opened her mouth to greet her friend when the roof began to shiver beneath her feet.

“Aftershock!” Janeway cried.

Moving as quickly and carefully as possible, the Doctor and Seven got Stone strapped to the board, an action made infinitely more difficult as the roof beneath them jittered and shivered as if alive. Cracks appeared in the surface and from the stability of the delta flyer, where she had taken refuge, Janeway gestured at them.

“Hurry!” she demanded. As if they were taking their time about it, Seven noted with a touch of annoyance.

They staggered across the rippling roof and bundled the stretcher into the flyer. Seven did her best to ignore what was happening beneath her, though she could tell the structure was beginning to fail. She was the last to step off and as she did, she felt it fall away from beneath her heel, hearing Janeway’s gasp of horror and Ro’s yell of warning. Neither were necessary as she pulled her leg inside. A glance behind allowed her to witness their temporary sanctuary crumbling into the water, washed away in a cloud of dust and shaking earth.

Sliding the door shut, Ro shot her a look. “Close enough for you?”

A sarcastic comment to lessen the fear of the moment, Seven determined.

“Indeed,” she said as she took a seat in one of the cushioned chair.

“Get us back to the ship, Lieutenant,” Janeway ordered, and Seven looked forward to see the ship’s navigator, T’Shanik, piloting the vessel. Seven recognized her from the back of her head, the short shock of dark hair and the delicate pointed ears. Yes, she thought, rank had been wielded in order to staff this rescue mission.

As she relaxed into the chair, she felt the various aches and pains of a body stressed to its limit begin to impose themselves, the nanoprobes retreating to allow her own natural senses resume control over her systems. Seven much preferred the nanoprobes. Her wrist hurt and her side itched. She was covered from head to toe with dust and grime and both eyes and mouth felt gritty from the dust particles. She couldn’t wait to shower in the hydro-unit, letting the clean, warm water rush over her body. Maybe Janeway would even scrub her back. That thought was greatly restoring.

On the other side of the cabin, B’Elanna was sitting with Ro, talking in a low voice with her, her hand resting on her knee. Janeway had taken the co-pilot’s chair and was speaking intently to T’Shanik, undoubtedly getting an update on the status of the ship. As the shuttle flew steadily upward, the defuse glow of clouds, then the blue refraction of sky, eventually darkened to the deep black of space. Seven turned her head, looking out the small viewport, watching the stars appear, bright pinpricks against the black velvet, feeling as if she was being cleansed of the suffocating planet that had tried to kill her.

Exhaling slowly, she turned her chair back toward the interior of the delta flyer, away from the cockpit. Grendel and Tular were seated together in companionable silence, much like warriors after a battle, leaning back against the bulkhead and staring blankly across the cabin at the opposing bulkhead, weary, but with an air of satisfaction. It was a decided contrast to how they had behaved around each other prior to the away mission.

Farther back, the Doctor continued to monitor Stone who had been placed in a stasis chamber. Her condition would grow no worse, Seven thought, though it remained to be seen if it would become any better. She hadn’t really liked the look in Stone’s eyes as she lay on the roof, staring up at the sky. It was as if the counselor had already said good-bye and remained tethered to her physical form with only the most fragile of bonds.

Seven hoped she was wrong. She liked Sydney and would miss her. Lenara would be deeply wounded emotionally. And the crew would have lost a valuable contributing member, someone who was responsible for a significant portion of their well-being.

Seven closed her eyes and allowed herself to slip into sleep.

B’Elanna could hear Ro in the shower, the steady beat of water drumming against the walls. She lingered in the doorway, unwilling to move out of earshot. It had been terrifying, all those hours of waiting, seeing the destruction of the planet’s capital city on the cold impersonality of the fore bridge viewscreen, communications completely disrupted with the away team, and no way of knowing who, if anyone, had survived the devastating earthquake. She had wanted to launch an immediate rescue mission and it had required a lot of serious discussion with Tuvok as to how she would do it and why it should be her. It had been worse knowing her last words to Ro before leaving for the planet had been born of anger.

“Mama.” B’Elanna turned to see their daughter, Miral, tottering unsteadily across their quarters toward her. Somehow, she had escaped her playpen again. It was like living with a cat, always showing up unexpectedly, and into everything she wasn’t supposed to be. B’Elanna swept her up in her arms, cuddling her close.

“Where are you off to?” she muttered. “Do you need to see Mommy, too?”

Miral gurgled and hugged her back with astonishing strength for someone so young, which nearly brought the rough, tough Klingon to tears. Or perhaps it was a darker emotion making her eyes sting.

“Hey,” Ro said, spotting her spouse as she exited the shower. Unselfconsciously naked, she toweled off, a quizzical expression in her dark eyes as she regarded her little family. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” B’Elanna said, looking Ro over covertly as she pretended to focus on Miral. There were several fresh scrapes and bruises on the security chief, including a significant dark splotch on her thigh that looked painful, though Ro’s graceful motion gave no indication of being hindered by it.

Ro wrapped a towel around her body, and then came over to B’Elanna, wrapping her arms around both her and their daughter. “I know it was a bad time,” she said as she kissed the proud ridges on B’Elanna’s forehead. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s the job,” B’Elanna said, trying for a casualness she didn’t feel.

“I know, but that doesn’t make it any easier.” Ro rested her forehead against B’Elanna’s temple. “I’m all right. I’m back now. No harm done.”

“Except maybe to the counselor,” B’Elanna responded, but she leaned deeper into the embrace, inhaling the fresh, clean scent of her beloved, feeling a few of the ragged edges heal a bit. “Any word on her?”

“I was in the shower, remember,” Ro reminded, a bit dryly. “But as far as I know, she’s still stable. They’ll know more in the next twenty-four hours.” She nibbled on B’Elanna’s earlobe. “I’m sure she’ll be all right.” She reached in and lifted Miral from B’Elanna’s arms. “And you, little monster? Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”

Miral muttered something incomprehensible and seized Ro in a headlock with one arm as she raked her hands through Ro’s still damp hair, apparently pleased by the potential messiness of it.

“She wanted to say goodnight,” B’Elanna said, feeling ridiculously soppy as she regarded Ro and Miral interact. Even after all this time the very sight was enough to engender the most mawkish of sentimentality. She didn’t know where it came from. It was embarrassing.

“I’ll put her to bed,” Ro said. She glanced at B’Elanna. “And then, maybe I’ll put you to bed?”

B’Elanna perked up. “You’d better.”

Pleased, and aware that her spouse was always a bit more amorous after a tough away mission, perhaps because death had been so close and the taste of life was needed so much more, or maybe it was just because a good fight stirred her blood. Either way, B’Elanna found it to be the one silver lining in a cloud of being left behind, helpless to do anything but stay close to a communicator and wait for word. While Ro contented herself with putting their daughter to bed, B’Elanna took a shower, utilized what additional ablutions her feminine side required to make the upcoming and much anticipated experience special, and stripped the bed, making it up with fresh linens.

Slipping between the cool sheets, she stacked the pillows and lounged back against them, regarding the bedroom door with keen eagerness. Ro smiled as she entered the bedroom, raking her fingers through her fine dark hair to straighten it after Miral’s enthusiastic mussing of it. B’Elanna felt her breath catch as she watched Ro drape the towel casually over a nearby chair, her lithe, deadly graceful form provoking the most intense sensation in B’Elanna’s midsection and lower.

B’Elanna lifted her arms. “Come here,” she demanded.

Ro’s smile deepened, her eyes growing darker, almost seeming to glow as she climbed into bed next to B’Elanna and readily surrendered to her embrace. B’Elanna rolled them over, pinning Ro down with her hands on her wrists over her head, kissing her deeply. Ro didn’t like this, B’Elanna knew, not the sensation of being held down, but she tolerated it for the moment as B’Elanna nibbled down her throat. At the first sign of resisting, of Ro pushing back against B’Elanna’s grip, she released it, but she remained on top of her, body weighing her down as she forcefully caressed her breasts. It wasn’t quite what Ro needed after a strenuous away mission, perhaps, but after so many hours of being terrified for her, it was what B’Elanna wanted. A sense of having her, of possessing her, as if that could somehow keep her controlled, safe both from her job and her instincts to plunge into danger that made her so good at it.

Ro seemed to understand why her spouse was being so aggressive this night, and allowed it, staying with her right up until B’Elanna could maintain it no longer, collapsing in tears into her arms.

“It’s all right,” Ro murmured, holding her close. “I’ve got you.”

“It was a nga’chuq earthquake,” B’Elanna swore through her sobs. “How do you fight that!?”

“You don’t,” Ro said softly. “You just ride it out. That’s what I did.”

“It could have been you under that temple.”

“It could’ve,” Ro admitted. “It wasn’t. I was with the captain. We were in the open.” She paused, hand stroking B’Elanna’s back soothingly, fingers digging into her spine with tender force. “We were on the stairs to the government building, actually. The pillars collapsed and began to roll toward us. Grendel picked up both me and the captain and carried us over to the lawn where we rode out the last of it.”

“The werewolf?” B’Elanna lifted her head, peering at her through blurry eyes. “He saved you?”

“Saved us both,” Ro admitted. “Strong enough to carry our combined weight and agile enough to stay on his feet while he did.” She exhaled slowly. “Anyone else would have had to choose which one of us to save, and it would have been the captain.”

B’Elanna considered that, suddenly having warm feelings for the big, dumb caninoid, and not the slightest bit pleased by them. “Then it was good you took him along,” she said, grudgingly.

Ro managed not to look overly smug. “It was,” she said evenly, just as if she and B’Elanna had not argued bitterly about it prior to the mission.

B’Elanna dipped her head. “I was wrong,” she admitted, forcing a graciousness that was totally alien to her personality. “You were right. You are right. They might make good crewmates.”

“The jury’s still out, bang,” Ro said. “But yeah, I think once they commit, they commit all the way.” She paused, hands drifting down to the small of B’Elanna’s back where she fondled the erogenous zones located just above her buttocks. “That could prove problematic when we return to the Alpha Quadrant. I don’t know how the Breen Realm will react to them. They might be sentenced to death for treason.”

B’Elanna shivered from the enticing sensation radiating from her back, even as she tried to focus on the conversation. “That’s a little out of your purview, lover,” she reminded. “But they could join Starfleet. Every former enemy always has a pioneer. Grendel might be the Breen’s.”

“He might be,” Ro admitted. She lifted her head, covering B’Elanna’s mouth in a long, slow kiss. “Are we okay, bangwI?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry I got all stupid,” B’Elanna murmured against her lips. “I’m sorry I argued with you before the mission. I’ll never do that again.”

“It’s not stupid, it’s…normal,” Ro assured her. “I’m always a mess when you’re the one on the away mission and I have to stay on the ship.”

“That almost never happens,” B’Elanna protested. She paused, stilling Ro’s wandering hands briefly by seizing her wrists. “That’s not fair.”

Ro blinked and stilled, considering it. “You’re right, but again, it’s the job,” she pointed out. “I’m chief of security. I go where the trouble is, and that’s usually on away missions. You’re chief engineer. You look after the ship. Emphases on the ‘ship’ part.”

“I know,” B’Elanna said, dissatisfied. “And I know one of us always has to stay behind. Because of Miral. But it seems like it’s always going to be me staying and you going.”

Ro kissed her again, nibbling a bit on B’Elanna’s bottom lip. “What do you suggest? Do you want this to be our last mission out here? We can always settle down on Mars.”

“I know,” B’Elanna said. She eased off Ro, wondering how she had managed to turn what was supposed to be an energetic romp into a serious discussion about their future. Couldn’t I have waited until afterward to break down in a blubbering mess? she mused, disgusted with herself. “I know there’s nothing we can do about it. I guess it just hit home, tonight.”

Ro cupped B’Elanna’s cheek in her palm, regarding her gravely. “You and Miral are the most important things in universe to me. Absolutely nothing, not my job, not this ship, not anyone else, means more to me. You have to know that.”

“I do,’ B’Elanna said. She exhaled loudly, a sigh of resignation. “It was a nga’chuq earthquake, Laren.”

Ro laughed a little. “I know.” She kissed B’Elanna again, deeply, as if she could pour her entire heart and soul into it. “I love you.”

“Oh, baby, I love you, too. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

B’Elanna drew her close. “Make love to me?”

“Oh, yes,” Ro promised, voice dipping into a throaty growl. “Long and slow.”

“No biting?” B’Elanna said.

“No biting,” Ro agreed.

“Lots of tongue, though?” B’Elanna said hopefully.

“Oh, absolutely,” Ro promised.

The rest of the night was as perfect as B’Elanna could have wanted, and by the end of it, she did feel as if she possessed Ro entirely, as she was possessed, taking, and taken, completely satisfied. In the morning, she woke to discover Miral bouncing energetically up and down on the bed while Ro brought in a tray full of food.

Growling loudly, B’Elanna grabbed her little girl, tickling her enthusiastically and decided that things might turn out all right after all. After having breakfast in bed with her family, which resulted in a great many crumbs and more than a few smears of jelly on the bulkhead over the pillows, Ro finally bore Miral off for her bath and get her ready for the day. B’Elanna didn’t offer to help, aware that after she’d been away from the ship for a while, Ro liked to spend time with her daughter, doing all the little things that B’Elanna normally did. B’Elanna just enjoyed the time for herself, taking a bath rather than a shower, just for the sake of immersing herself in the hot water, silky from the bath salts Ro had given to her on her last birthday.

After a long soak, she dressed in her uniform and checked her padd, unsurprised to find a note on her padd from Seven, with more detailed instructions about her role in the upcoming event. B’Elanna wondered if the captain was as oblivious as she seemed about all this, or if Seven was really as subtle in her planning as she believed. Either way, it was going to be a hell of a party and after this past away mission, the ship needed it.

Whether the captain did or not remained to be seen.