DISCLAIMER: The story and characters belong to Paramount, etc. They are so not mine and no money is being made from this and no copyright infringement is intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: An answer to the memory loss Challenge. This ends up as an AU because its Season 7. Miral is born but they are still in the Delta Quadrant say 3 years after Miral's birth. However the memory aspect of the story takes place in a flashback where Miral is 18 months old so don't get confused. And no Chuckles doesn't get anywhere near our Seven in any sort of romantic way.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

Fade
By Elizabeth Carter

Part 1

"I'm sure it must be very comfortable sleeping with a hard, rectangular thing like that under your head," Seven commented to her daughter as she slipped her hand under the tyke's pillow and withdrew an antique hardcover book.

"Mama the book whispers its stories to me at night." Her cerulean eyes watched the silver ocular implant rise. "Honest. When I can't sleep....I like to read."

Seven rubbed her fingers gently across the forehead ridges that were so much like her beloved wife's. Miral's human heritage came out in the blonde hair and blue eyes. Everything else, muscle structure, the redundant internal organs and the forehead, were all Klingon. Temper and her demeanor too were of the stronger Klingon heritage. And like Klingon children Miral was not as meek nor as small as a human three year old. Her inquisitive and superior attitude however reflected more on Seven than B'Elanna.

"It does, does it?" the blonde woman tilted her head. "I have never heard a book whisper."

"It only whispers to children." Miral pointed out. "And besides you can only see the effects of the wind in the trees but you can't actually see it, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And you can't see those .....those... partial thingies you and SoS'oy talk about with the Warp Core but they are real too."

"She's got you there BangwI." B'Elanna padded into her daughter's room. "You of course realize she gets her defiance from you." The Klingon flashed a very toothy grin. "And her argumentative side."

"I will admit to the defiance, her argumentativeness is inherited from her beautiful but impetuous SoS." the blonde flashed her own smile.

It was almost a Norman Rockwell moment of family warmth. But things were not always so. There was a day when things had changed forever. It is something that now bears remembrance. In fact it is irony now that this needs to be remembered when so much of the past could not.

Three years past

B'Elanna tottered into the common room of her quarters after her fourth eighteen hour shift. The warp core and plasma ejectors had needed a complete overhaul after Tom Paris had plunged them into an ion storm Seven insisted Voyager avoid. It would place them in a nebula boundary, despite the fact that Astrometrics had detected a wormhole, Seven insisted it was not a viable way home.

Just as they had with the Pitcher Plant creature, the crew save B'Elanna passed Seven's apprehension off as her reluctance to go to the Alpha Quadrant. They should have listened.

B'Elanna crashed on the sofa throwing her arm over her eyes to catch a few moments rest before Tom and Miral came back. Tonight Tom was supposed to take Miral to visit the Flotter and Trevo program with Naomi.

Something mewled from the bedroom, a sort of sound any mother knows. The sound of her own infant. B'Elanna leapt up from the sofa, and bounded into the room. Miral was standing up in her crib holding on to the railing rocking it back and forth. From the red puffiness of her face and the tear stains on her cheeks she had been crying for some time.

"Oh Miral!" B'Elanna bolted to her daughter, picking her up.

"Mamamamamama." the babe cried clutching her mother.

"Your SoS'oy is here wa'Hom." the mother kissed her daughter. "I've got you sweety. Where's your daddy? That PetaQ! I can't believe he just left you here." B'Elanna kissed her child's ridged forehead. "Your SoS'oy will take care of everything sweety." On her way out of the bedroom B'Elanna picked up Toby the Purple Targ giving it to her child, knowing the power of comfort the little thing had.

B'Elanna didn't know how long Miral had been alone, Tom had had the day off and he should have been with his daughter. There was no excuse as to why Miral was alone, even if Tom had ship's business to do, Miral should have been delivered to Neelix.

She was about to hit the combadge on her chest when the chime to the door rang. Thinking it might be Tom she stormed to the door and slammed her fist on the lock mechanism. The door swished open revealing Seven of Nine.

"Sev?"

"May I come in?"

"Yeah." B'Elanna stepped aside allowing the lanky blonde to enter.

"Mine Soch." Miral reached for Seven, who would have taken her in to her arms, but because of the trauma of being alone for so long the babe was reluctant to let go of her mother. Instead she offered an open mouthed kiss, as all infants are known to give, and surprisingly the former Borg accepted it.

B'Elanna chuckled softly thinking Seven made a better parent than Tom ever could. Hell Miral even had the same blue eyes as Seven and could easily be mistaken for hers.

"So not that I am unhappy to see you, but why are you here?" the Klingon asked.

"I came to...." Seven faltered, which was something she rarely did. If she wasn't careful the Borg walls would be erected soon to protect her. "I witnessed Ensign Paris outside the holodeck quite inebriated, he was....."

"Let me guess lip-locked with some two timing harlot."

"He was." Seven would offer nothing more. "I wanted to ensure Miral was safe. I knew you to be working late hours. It is my duty as her Godmother to be there for her is it not?"

B'Elanna grinned. "Yeah, thanks."

Since Seven's near death during her cortical node failure she and B'Elanna had grown very close. Their professional clashing was still very evident from time to time, but B'Elanna knew if there was anyone she could trust it was 'her' Borg. They might not always get along, but B'Elanna, as all Klingons, valued an honest and honorable person. The Ice Queen had that in spades. However B'Elanna would take a bat'leth to anyone who called Seven Ice Queen, that name was the Chief Engineer's alone.

Since the birth of Miral, something that had happened on a shuttle mission with Seven was there to deliver the girl, the former drone had taken a very active role in the tot's life. She even babysat to give B'Elanna a much needed break. Seven had four other wards as well as Naomi from time to time and both Samantha Wildman and B'Elanna knew they could rely on the tall blonde to protect and even love their young.

Her daughter trusted Seven even more than her father. The girl never wanted to be near the man, she would cry or growl every time Tom came near her. Paris was convinced the child hated him. With Seven however the child often demanded attention and would beg to be lifted into the tall blonde's arms. She had even claimed Seven as her own. Of course she used the Klingon designation Soch which to an infant tongue was infinitely easier to say than Seven. To Seven the designation was the same and therefore she never endeavored to correct the child.

Klingon children had an innate sense of whom to trust and who not to. A child that didn't trust her own biological parent but adopted another in their stead was good enough for B'Elanna. And apparently her child wasn't far off, Tom had abandoned his child just as John Torres had before him. Seven had come running when she thought her god-daughter in distress.

"Sev, thank you."

The ex-Borg nodded. "Sit, I will prepare a meal for you both." Seven went to the replicator and the first thing she ordered was a sippy cup filled with tepid milk. It materialized on the black and green grid of the replicator.

Then all things went black.


It was more than odd, at first the only thing either one of them had been aware of was the pounding headache. The second was they were on the floor, apparently they had fallen where they stood, doing what ever activity they had been doing again with no clear answers as to why.

The Klingon rose groaning, rubbing her forehead and feeling the ridges. "Kah'less! What the hell?" she looked around a room, and found nothing familiar. No that wasn't true. Here were scents. Scents she knew. Scents her instincts commanded she protect. The primal urge was so strong the woman didn't question it. She did however question who the blonde was she discovered in the room with her.

"Who are you?" she demanded despite the extreme familiarly. Something that same primal urge told her this female was close to her..... a ...mate ....could she be? The scent was so strong it could not be ignored. B'Elanna knew somewhere in the recesses of her mind that love was first smelled. Love?

"I don't...know." the blonde's face flashed a myriad of emotions, fear, confusion, concern, and wonder. "I....can't remember. Who are you?"

"I don't know."

"This is not good, how can we both not know who we are?" the blonde said. She couldn't explain it but she found a profound connection to the other female. Something that stirred the fires within her and made her feel.... human.... Why should that be important? To feel human? Looking at her left hand she found a malleable warm metal mesh. That wasn't all there was a mesh of metal that banded her abdominal region. Blinking she found that her left eye now saw in shades of green!

"What am I!" she uttered, her voice betrayed her turmoil.

The Klingon female edged closer her hands trailing along the ocular implant, it was somehow familiar to her. In that touch the blonde calmed almost instantly. Her field of vision once again shifted to what one would consider normal parameters.

"Beautiful." the smaller woman said.

'She makes me feel human.... but....I'm part machine....I am alive, but was I always?' the blonde questioned herself. The only thing she didn't question was the presence of the Klingon and yes she knew the other was Klingon. They were together, for some reason in some fashion she knew they had a bond. Features were familiar, scents but there was nothing else.

And they were not alone. There was a small girl with them. She was adorable with dusky blonde hair, blue eyes with forehead ridges. She had been holding a purple stuffed targ probably playing before what ever it was that made them black out. Why it was either lady knew what a targ was and not their own names was beyond them. The tot was terrified but instinctively she sought out the woman who was the smaller of the two and like herself bore forehead ridges. She could not have been more than eighteen months old.

She whimpered clutching tightly at the woman holding her "SoS'oy" she cried over and over. "SoS'oy."

The Klingon rocked the girl in her arms, trying to calm her. "Sshh....shhh. It's okay...I'm here." she said automatically as if the words were familiar. Her hand rubbed the babe's back "I'm here wa'Hom."

"wa'Hom?" the blonde uttered. "You know her name?"

The Klingon shrugged. "It just came out." She glanced about the room there was a horde of toys scattered about the room - lego, tinker-toys, little plastic shuttles and action figures. On an end-table were framed holo pictures of the child and herself. Several in fact. One even of the child at birth. There was even a few with the tall lanky blonde holding the infant and another with the two them playing Kadis-Kot. All the holo-photos with the blonde looked candid not posed save one where the blonde had picked up the girl and both were smiling warmly. "We're a family." The Klingon said. "The three of us."

The blonde looked at what it was she had been holding in her hand, to find a sippy cup filled with milk. "Apparently." She glanced at the cup once more before handing it to the child. Who gladly took it and immediately brought it to her mouth. "It would however be beneficial to know who we are beyond mothers."

"We're on a ship I know that much. I can feel the warpcore, in fact it seems misaligned."

The blonde closed her eyes for a moment and nodded. "You're right. Though I don't know how it is we can detect such things. It seems improbable we are that attuned to this vessel."

"Not if we're engineers. Come on how else could we know?" The Klingon asked.

"A valid question." the blonde nodded. "And if we are on a ship there must be a computer. If there is a computer there is a data base that will hold the information we need to identify who it is we are."

"Good thinking, Blondie."

"Blondie? I doubt that is my name," there was a slight smile.

"Well how do you know it's not a pet name?"

The blonde remained mute for a moment. "Unlikely."

"Until we find your name, that's it."

Blondie had another idea, she moved to take the girl now content in her mother's arms into her own. "wa'Hom. Who am I?"

"Mine." she answered.

"That answers that." The Brunette chuckled.

"Your what?" Blondie asked the girl.

"Soch."

"Soch?" Blondie rose an ocular implant. "I know that word...it's Klingonese. It means ....Seven."

"Mine Soch." wa'Hom patted Soch's face.

"Perhaps your parents were bohemian," the smaller woman offered. "To give you such an odd name. Or wa'Hom just calls you that."

"I can not tell you what I do not remember." the woman who was now Soch remarked. She focused her blue eyes on the light caramel skin of the gorgeous Klingon before her. It seemed the only one to remember anything was a baby. "Who is that?"

"SoS'oy," the baby clapped her little hands.

"I know that one," SoS'oy answered. "It Klingonese equivalent to the Standard mommy or mama."

"SoS'oy, good girl." Soch praised. "But what does your Soch call her?"

The child seemed to think for a moment. "Home..... B'Elanna."

"Home?" B'Elanna and Soch chorused.

"I have a different name then." B'Elanna surmised,

"Lie-l...lie...loo-ten-ant." the child carefully pronounced the word.

"Lieutenant? So we're in some sort of military." B'Elanna scrunched her face. "If you call me by rank outside our home, then I must call you something."

"It would appear so." Soch said in a monotone voice. "However I don't know what rank I would have Lieutenant"

That phrase sent a chill through both women of complete familiarity.

"How can we be so certain as to who we are by this child's words? I think it is highly speculative that we each lost our memories." Soch said.

"Perhaps we were under attack." B'Elanna offered. "But I know this scent, I know Wa'Hom is my daughter. And you... Soch.... you too are familiar to me somehow. Look at the holo-photos. You're with our girl."

"But could I not be an aunt? The child appears to be part human, perhaps I am her aunty as we do share similar traits."

B'Elanna felt her hearts sink for some reason she wanted this blonde beauty to be her mate. She knew inside the truth that love was first smelled, and this woman, smelled as close to perfection as one could get. She must be her mate, B'Elanna didn't want to entertain any other answer, though she knew she must, if only to find the truth.

But what of the baby? Somehow B'Elanna knew that Klingons didn't have blonde hair and once more blue eyes were an extreme rarity. Though it did happen. This girl had light brown hair, not black as B'Elanna's own and blue eyes. She could only be this woman's child . Surely cross-ovum fertilization was possible.

"My mate or only her aunty we are family, this I know, I sense its truth." After handing the tot over to Soch B'Elanna went over to the photos, one of the candid shots with the three of them in what looked like Sickbay. It had to have been taken just after the baby's birth. She flipped it so she could read the back. "B'Elanna Baby Miral, and Seven." B'Elanna looked up. "So she has a name. Miral. And yours is Seven."

"Soch sounds better. It might still be a numeral in another language but at least it sounds less like a designation than a name. My parents must be bohemian indeed to name their child Seven." she smiled softly. "Perhaps behind closed doors it is a name I use, if Miral calls me so."

Despite what logic told this woman, Soch wanted to believe she and B'Elanna were mates. Something down to the most basic of elements, the most primal of urges decreed it so. It was at that moment Seven had a flash of memory. She saw herself claiming B'Elanna in Engineering, boasting she was a suitable mate that she was brave, intelligent and that she would catch B'Elanna, who was most beautiful and intelligent and talented, she recalled telling B'Elanna she was a suitable mate just before she bit her.

'A mate then.' Seven uttered to only herself. "B'Elanna I think it's prudent we report to the sickbay, perhaps we can find the answers we need there. And discover if anyone else is afflicted. It is logical to assume that we are not the only ones to be stricken with amnesia. There must be sensor logs of the recent space we traveled through, it could add to this anomaly. I'd like to investigate the Science areas of the ship. Even if this is a commercial ship or cargo freight there must be a science section that monitors the space it sails through."

"Good point. Okay sickbay first, than Science. I want to hit Engineering as well, like I said if we are aware of the warpcore misalignment then we must be engineers. I have all these numbers, schematics, and data in my head. Strange I can recall all that but not the fundamentals of who I am....who we are." B'Elanna argued.

Seven took the girl into her arms holding her easily as both made for the pneumatic door and the corridor beyond. Their conversation continued as they walked to the turbo lift.

"I concur. I can access several languages...to count fifty of them. I think a part of my cybernetic self has an artificial cortical lobe. I know teraquads of data, I find myself being able to recall schematics, algorithms, several facts about species and their...... adaptability into a cohesive collective." Seven frowned. "Why can I recall such things easily but not the familiar?"

"Sickbay." she ordered the lift as soon as they were all in. "Sabotage, someone or something eroded our memories." B'Elanna said softly. The lift rose softly and opened. Both looked at each other having no idea where Sick bay was.

Seven went to one of the companels on the wall of the bulkhead. "Computer show the way to sickbay."

A moment later a blueprint of Voyager appeared, a cross section and then a floor lay out for the current deck they were on. Her mind flashed over it quickly and she was shocked to find the information had easily integrated into her mind. Without saying a word she became the guide.

"I guess what ever this is couldn't take everything away. I know you, Soch, I might not remember you or myself. But I know this little girl is ours, and I know we ...." B'Elanna stopped mid-sentence as they passed a blonde haired man with an utterly confused look upon his face. For some reason his scent sent B'Elanna's hackles up. He smelled wrong.

"Hey can you help me?" He said, "I ...er...ah....."

"You don't know who you are?" Seven stated.

"Yeah can you help?" the man asked. "Do you know who I am?."

Miral pointed to him "PetaQ." She smiled a slightly toothy grin.

"What?" the man asked thinking it was some baby gibberish. However the look on both of the ladies was shock. More for the fact a toddler had just cursed than the fact she recognized him.

Seven looked to the woman beside her. "Perhaps he too has a pet name?" she offered in off-colored humor. "Miral is Klingon, she is learning the national past time at an early age."

B'Elanna grinned.

"Wh...what?" the man now named PetaQ asked still quite befuddled. "You know who I am?"

"Now no, but we must have, we're on the same ship. We only recently figured out who we are from a holophoto in our quarters. I'm B'Elanna, this wa'Hom is Miral and my companion is..." she turned and smiled. "Well the crew calls her Seven."

"Seven?" PetaQ frowned. "What sort of name is that?"

"What kind of name is PetaQ?" Seven countered. "Apparently the only one not affected by the amnesia is an eighteen month old toddler. She knew who we were, she must know you enough to give you the name PetaQ."

Part 2

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