Remember Us

She ran, haunted by the things around her, terrified of what lay ahead. Behind her was the hum of the engine and the murmur of the Borg drones that watched her, uninterested as she raced past.

She heard nothing, not her footfalls on the carpeted deck, not the pounding of her heart. Only the voice reached her ears, soft, seductive, tempting.

She ran harder, tears threatening to cloud her vision as the voice tried to cloud her reason. She was almost there... almost...

She threw herself forward into the vortex, not allowing herself time to think. She felt herself lifted, pulled, turned.

She knew nothing and everything as she was tossed, helpless in the grip of the vortex. Both sides pulled at her, warring over her physical being as the voice fought for her psyche.

"Come home, my love. Come home," the voice beckoned. She felt warm breath caress her ear.

Struggling to turn, she tried to focus her eyes, held open by the forces surrounding her. She saw nothing.

The pressure increased, each side fighting harder to possess her. She would have cried out against the pain if she could have opened her mouth. Instead she whimpered in her throat and hoped it would end soon.

She was falling.

A brilliant flash of light and she felt the resistance give, hurtling her forward, down, and finally out.

The voice still whispered in her ear, even as her overloaded senses registered her surroundings. Home.

The soft voice offered her comfort and love, and she felt herself wanting it even as she felt frightened.

"Locutus," the voice whispered. "Come home." And then she was alone. Seconds later she hit the floor hard and lay still.

"Beverly."

She opened her eyes slowly, not trusting what she was seeing until Jean-Luc was there, holding her. His arms, his voice, his scent-they were all real and she pressed herself against him hard, trying to block out the memory of that voice.

She wanted this, the heat of human flesh pressed against her, warm and safe. She needed this. She needed to stop the visions of her time in the warp bubble. She needed to forget the horror of watching her friends and her son all assimilated, one by one, until even Jean-Luc was taken. She had to forget the pain and loneliness of being left behind, envying the unity her friends shared with the Borg, frightened that she missed that oneness so intensely.

She had to forget that voice.

She would not tell them, any of them, how desperately torn she had been, wanting to stay behind, willing to be seduced by that voice. They must never know how hard that choice had been, even when the ship had begun to Borgify around her.

She would tell them what had happened in that clinical detached manner she had perfected over the years. She would forgive Wesley for the mistake that had placed her in the static warp bubble in the first place. She would take the comfort Jean-Luc offered so willingly. She would accept it all and move on, guarding the reality from them. Guarding them from the reality.

She would take the secret to her dreams where her other guilty sins lay buried. Perhaps, in the darkness of her slumber, she would hear the voice again.

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