DISCLAIMER: Alexa is mine; born right from my head as for the others; I don’t own ‘em, I just like ‘em… A LOT. And as someone (don’t remember who) said before… they have more fun in my world than they ever had in Paramount’s world!
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

Split Seconds
By The Other Liz

Part Four

B'Elanna knew that Seven had heard what Alexa said. But Seven didn't look as though it had affected her, aside from the slight tear streaks on her cheeks.

"Where is everyone else?" B'Elanna asked wisely avoiding the painful subjects.

"Icheb, Azan and Rebi have returned to their quarters." Seven began. "Mizoti is staying with Naomi for the night."

"Has it really been 11 years since I… disappeared?" Alexa asked quietly after a moment.

"No." Seven answered. "It has only been one."

Alexa whipped her head around in Seven's direction.

"Then… how…" Alexa could not find the words.

B'Elanna and Seven exchanged a look. Seven sat on the other side of Alexa so that Alexa was between her parents. Alexa unconsciously leaned against her Mama's shoulder.

"Are you sure you wanna hear all of this?" B'Elanna asked Alexa, tucking a stray hair behind her ear and then taking her hand.

"Of course I wanna hear it." Alexa said. "I feel… so lost. I recognize things but I don't remember them, I know things and I don't know why, I don't even remember who I am or maybe who I... was."

"It's okay." B'Elanna soothed. "We're going to help you, I'm sure you're no different than what you were, you're just a little out of your element right now."

B'Elanna hoped she was right about the part where she had said Alexa was no different. She was reserved and quiet now but before she was the exact opposite. Something had to have happened to her wa'Hom to change her. But then, maybe she was just scared and nervous.

"I have found that these emotions are acceptable in these situations." Seven said. "We are your parents, we will love you no matter what and we will always be here for you."

Alexa smiled through the small tears. She trusted them and she knew that while her Mama sounded so technical, her words were filled with love and honesty.

"Okay." Alexa said. "So what happened to me?"

"Well… it happened about a year ago…" B'Elanna began.


The ship rocked as the engines pulsated under pressure.

'That mindless P'taq!' B'Elanna thought. 'How do you fly into a solar flare?!'

Voyager's brilliant pilot had just flown them into a Class 3 solar flare. The radiating energy off the flare had sent B'Elanna's precious warp core into hyper overdrive.

"OHHHH! Fuck me!" B'Elanna cursed as klaxons wailed a breach in the core's main drive. Seven was on the other side of Engineering trying contain the breach before it over took Voyager in a quantum explosion.

"Mama! Sos'Oy!" Came the small shout from B'Elanna's office.

Alexa had been taking a nap when all the chaos had begun. Now she ran to her Mama and clung to her leg crying. Seven finished containing the breach then reached down and gathered Alexa into her arms, settling the child onto her front, so that the child was clinging to her with all four limbs. She then stood and held Alexa tighter.

"Shhh." Seven said. "It is going to be okay, just a little… hiccup in space."

Seven hugged her baby close, rocking her slightly while stroking her back. Alexa wrapped her tiny but already muscular legs tighter around Seven's middle.

"Mama, I'm scared." The child whimpered.

"I know wa'Hom." Seven soothed. "It's going to be okay."

Seven glanced up at B'Elanna.

"Son of a…" B'Elanna growled throwing a wrench at a console.

Seven smiled at the familiar sight and then placed a kiss on Alexa's light ridges.

"Let's go help your Sos'Oy." Seven said smiling more.

The tiny hybrid smiled and nodded. Alexa released her death grip on Seven and slid down her Mama's front. Alexa slipped her hand inside Seven's enhanced one and began to tug her Mama in her Sos'Oy's direction.

"Let's go." Alexa insisted.

Seven looked over at her wife for a moment smiling then back down to Alexa. But just as Alexa had been there, a split second later she was not. It was as if Seven had been trying to grasp at water when she tried to hold onto Alexa. Her blue eyes wide as she stared into the void that was once her daughter. Echoing voices all around her, words over playing one on to the other, this was not the order of the Hive Mind, Seven had known so long ago; this was pure chaos. Alexa was gone! One moment her precious, precious child was there, the next there was nothing. Seven fell to her knees clutching after the vacant space that was once Alexa.

"NO! NO! NO!" Hot tears burned her eyes, streaming down her face. "B'Elanna!" a scream scorched the ex-drone's throat. "B'Elanna!"

The Klingon heard the terror in her wife's voice, she heard the anguish. Nothing in the engineer's experience had ever petrified her as much as hearing Seven's voice cry out as it had. She didn't think, she reacted. Racing from one side of the ship's engine room to her wife's side, never seemed to take so long, but never had the Klingon moved faster.

"Seven!" B'Elanna said pulling her wife to her feet.

"Alexa…" Seven began.

"She's sleeping." B'Elanna said smoothing Seven's hair.

"No…" she began. "She… woke up and was crying, I comforted her, she… she…"

What happened next scared B'Elanna almost all the way to Grethor. Seven began to cry nearly hysterically, crumbling into B'Elanna's arms.

"Baby, she what?"

"She's GONE."

"What do you mean she's gone."

"She disappeared, right from my arms, she's gone… she's gone, my baby is gone."

"That's not possible." B'Elanna said beginning to shake a little.

B'Elanna took Seven's hand and led her to her office.

"Look, she's right th…" B'Elanna began, pointing at the pile of blankets on her couch but the reassurance died on her lips as she took in the emptiness of the blankets and her empty couch.

Her eyes grew wide. Now she was scared and a little pissed off.

"Computer, locate Alexandra Hansen-Torres."

*Alexandra Hansen-Torres is not on board.*

"FIND HER!" B'Elanna roared in a way that would make Kah'less himself shake in his space boots.

*Unable to comply.*

Seven pulled B'Elanna into her arms before she could attack the bulkhead of Voyager inevitably doing more damage to herself than she would do so to the ship.

"No, no, no…" B'Elanna mumbled. "Where is my baby?"

Seven felt a sinking feeling in her abdominal implant.

"I do not know, Be'nal."

After a few seconds of silence, with the exception of muffled sobs, B'Elanna pulled away from Seven a few inches. Still keeping a firm hold on her, she smacked the hell out of her comm. badge.

"B'Elanna to the Captain."

*Captain here.*

"We have a… situation." B'Elanna choked out. "We need to meet in your ready room."

Janeway heard the emotion in the young hybrid's voice and was immediately concerned.

*I'll see you in five minutes.*

B'Elanna ended the transmission without another word. She looked up into Seven's eyes and saw the deepest kind of sadness she'd ever seen in her life. Seven gazed back into B'Elanna's eyes and saw the same sadness. A Mama who'd lost a child.

Part 5

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