A/n: As it says in this description, this story is set during "One Small Step". I hope you enjoy it and thanks to Sweetdeath04 and lisac1965 for supporting this idea.

Chakotay's head jolted drowsily up from the book he was reading, a twentieth century novel called "Catch 22", as his doorbell rang out through the semi-darkness. "Come in." He called in the door's general direction, although he was both intrigued and worried by who would possibly come to his quarters at two in the morning while he was trying to read himself to sleep. A few silent moments passed before the doorbell rang again, exactly as before. "Come in!" He now practically shouted, becoming even more irritated as it rang again. With a growl of tired frustration he stood up, headed for the door and stuck his head out into the corridor as the doors obligingly opened at his approach, but as was to be expected at 0200 hours, it was empty. He was alone. Groaning in dread he tapped his comm. badge, hopefully whatever was causing the ship to malfunction this time wasn't too weird and wonderful… "Chakotay to the Bridge."

There was a confused pause on the other end of the line, "This is Transporter Room 2 Commander."

"What?" Chakotay sighed in agitation, "Well, can you patch me through to the Bridge?"

The line crackled with interference. "Patch…Patch you through where?" A bemused new voice asked through the static.

Chakotay frowned in disbelief as he recognised the voice, "Neelix?"

"Commander?" Neelix began to reply before his was completely drowned out by tens of others, all speaking together as an indecipherable crowd. Biting back another sigh anticipating trouble ahead, Chakotay turned off his comm. badge and snatched up his uniform jacket before heading out to investigate.

"I see you're making some modifications to the Computer core." Chakotay said tersely as he entered Astrometrics and saw Seven just had he had envisioned her, bent over the console and absorbed in methodically altering each one of the computer core's files as they made their way onto her console.

"The Computer core was inefficient and in need of improvement. I am upgrading the command controls by integrating Borg algorithms" Seven coolly explained without turning away from her work to face him.

Chakotay took a deep breath, remembering his resolution to cut Seven a little slack after that sad incident with her old Unimatrix, he realised her Borg habits were difficult ones to break. "I appreciate your initiative but your modifications are wrecking havoc with the secondary systems." He informed her carefully.

If he'd been expecting some sort of apology from her he was sadly mistaken. She gave the smallest of shrugs and replied, "Some insignificant malfunctions, I will correct them."

Chakotay's hackles rose, if there was one thing he didn't like it was being completely ignored! "I don't remember authorising any modifications." He responded sharply.

Seven heard the warning in his tone and breathed an irritated sigh, why did everyone always seem to suspect her motives whenever she started a project? The malfunctions were minor and she had believed that she was limiting disruption by doing the work after peak working hours. Clenching her fists to release some of this pointless frustration, she replied tightly, "I did suggest these modifications to Lieutenant Torres on a number of occasions but she ignored me." She straightened her shoulders defiantly as she felt his eyes on her, "I though a demonstration would alter her lie of thinking."

Chakotay nearly snorted, didn't she realise that playing around with the ship's systems behind the hot headed Chief Engineer's back would only make B'Elanna even less inclined to listen to her than she was now? "I doubt this will change her mind." He told her bluntly, his frown deepening as Astrometrics' doors began to open and close on their own and lights began to flicker.

Seven remained silent for a moment or two as she mentally catalogued the malfunctions, perhaps her plan had been flawed, but the waves of agitation rolling off Chakotay made her disinclined to admit it. Instead she let him see that she was starting the corrections before saying, "It seems that Voyager is not yet ready for assimilation." When she didn't get the laugh she'd been told by the Doctor to anticipate she glanced at his face to read a mixture of disbelief and repulsion in his openly staring dark eyes. She felt a slight blush creep up her neck as she realised that her first attempt at humour had backfired and quickly clarified, "A joke Commander. The Doctor advised me to defuse tense situations with humour."

Chakotay breathed a jerky laugh as he caught her raised eyebrow, not wanting her to realise how seriously he taken her, and said as he stepped away, "Good idea!" He couldn't keep a note of sarcasm from his voice, "Now maybe you could get the Computer back up and running so that I can go back to reading my book…" He was cut off as the ship gave a shudder and the room went almost pitch black.

Seven answered his unspoken question almost immediately, "We are experiencing a ship wide power drain…" She shot him a pointedly defensive look as she caught him frowning questioningly at her, "It is unrelated to my modifications." To prove her point she activated Astrometrics' viewscreen, which showed a larger and more threatening anomaly than even she had expected.

"What the hell…" Chakotay began to ask under his breath, but before she could try to satisfy him with an answer their comm. badges jumped into life.

"Senior officers report to the Bridge." Harry Kim ordered, taking advantage of his night shift on the Bridge. Without a word both Seven and Chakotay forgot their little conflict and headed together up to the Bridge.

"Computer, locate Commander Chakotay." Seven asked the Computer as she did a final once over of her shield modifications to the Delta Flyer and picked up the PADD of specifications she was to give the Commander to assess.

"Commander Chakotay is in Astrometrics." The Computer responded. With a short sigh, Seven began the short journey to Astrometrics in an agitated stride, recalling all the Cubes and Spheres the Collective had lost to Spacial Anomaly 521, or as Starfleet designated it, a "graviton ellipse". She understood that the crew's mission was to explore as much as possible, but why take such risks for an ancient human spacecraft they already knew was lost within? The Captain had explained her reasoning for ordering her on this mission was that she needed to gain an appreciation of history in order to fully regain her humanity, which seemed illogical to Seven, if she couldn't learn what was required of her from living humans what could she possibly gain from dead ones? She sighed as she reached Astrometrics' doors, there seemed to be no point in resisting this mission any more, the generally astute Chakotay seemed to have a level of determined sentimentality about this mission, and even Tuvok had voiced his approval, there was no denying the mission would certainly be more achievable if she put her misgivings aside and made the best of her "voluntary" away mission.

She walked in to find Chakotay and Tom talking animatedly, Chakotay saying, "…Kelly, Kakogawa, Armstrong and Glenn, they were the real pioneers."

"Am I interrupting?" she asked politely as she made her presence known to them.

Tom shook his head and indicated the frozen image on the viewsceen of the Aries 4's commander. "No, just admiring those who went before."

Seven raised an eyebrow at both men, "Hero worship, the glorification of an individual's achievements." She stated matter-of-factly, reeling off a dictionary's definition with robotic ease.

Chakotay gave her a small smile, "I guess you didn't have many role models growing up." He said softly.

Seven's brow furrowed, she'd never liked the human penchant for stating the obvious, but the sadness and pity in his tone unnerved her, pushing her to stoically reply, "The Collective consider personal achievements irrelevant." Seeing the familiar uneasy expression settle on the two men's faces that always followed any comment about the Collective, she quickly pressed the PADD into Chakotay's hands. "The shield modifications to the Delta Flyer are complete. We are ready for launch."

This time it was Chakotay's turn to raise his eyebrows, "We?" he echoed, trying to keep the incredulity out of his voice for the sake of politeness and failing miserably.

Seven nodded brusquely, "You will require someone familiar with Borg technology to monitor the shielding so I am…volunteering." Her voice caught slightly on the word as she remembered the Captain's rather patronising way of ordering her to join this mission, by "encouraging her to volunteer", a phrase which still struck Seven as a juxtaposition of terms.

Tom gave an awkward chuckle. "You don't sound too happy about it!"

"I'm not." Seven replied with guiltless honesty, after all the Captain hadn't bothered to "encourage" her to be happy about going. When she saw their confused looks she explained, "My inclusion will improve this mission's chances of success."

"If that's the case…" Chakotay said quietly, giving her arm a supportive squeeze after picking up on the barely perceptible nerves in her tone, "Welcome aboard."

"It's amazing! I wish you could all see it." Chakotay enthused through the comm. line to Voyager several hours later as the three of them sat in the Delta Flyer watching the contents of the ellipse's core float aimlessly around them.

"We all wish that too Commander, but for now we'll need to make do with your descriptions." Janeway replied from Voyager's Bridge.

Chakotay laughed light-heartedly, "Well, if I ever lose something this is the first place I'd look, we should rename it the "Kitchen Sink Anomaly" with the amount of stuff that's in here, and the plasma inside gives off a certain sheen, almost like moonlight…"

"It's the newest romantic hotspot B'Elanna!" Tom joked to his wife.

"I'll keep it in mind for our next vacation." B'Elanna replied in the same tone.

When the laughter had died down the Captain's voice came through, "And what do you think of it Seven?"

Seven flushed slightly as her two colleagues in the Flyer looked at her expectantly, "I suppose it's an…intriguing environment." She conceded reluctantly, "I have found evidence of extra-dimensional material."

"Interesting…" The Captain began to reply but was interrupted by Tuvok.

"The anomaly has changed direction by 0.002 of a degree. I approximate that it will return to subspace in 5 hours and 16 minutes."

"You heard him Chakotay." The Captain said firmly, "It's time to find the module and get out of there."

"Understood Captain." Chakotay said quickly, "Delta Flyer out." He sat back in his chair as the comm. line clicked off, "That should give Seven and I enough time to run some more scans while you find the module Tom."

"Aye sir." Tom agreed with a smile, but Seven appeared shaken and avoided Chakotay's eye.

"I believe our time would be better spent completing our mission and returning to Voyager." She stated tersely.

Chakotay was in too good a mood to argue with her and instead just pulled her to her feet with a gentle tug. "Come on, this isn't just about the module, it's about widening our horizons!" He headed off towards the small lab in the back of the ship, turning around when he knew she wasn't following him, "Come on, it's an order." With an impatient, long suffering sigh, Seven bowed her head and followed him.

"This ore shows signs of containing some sort of metal infused organism." Seven intoned as she scanned the piece of rock on the table in front of her. She almost jumped out of her skin when Chakotay appeared at her shoulder, beaming his enthusiasm as he picked up the chunk of rock and handled it.

"Really? We always speculated about the existence of metallic based life forms but…" He realised she was staring at him blankly, obviously bemused by his irrepressible excitement. "Here, take it." He told her firmly, pressing the rock into her metal encased left hand, "You're holding a piece of the universe's history in your hand, this was here 3 billion years before the Earth was even formed!"

Seven studied the rock sceptically for a moment, "Unlikely." She murmured dismissively before placing the rock back on the table.

"It's not as unlikely as you'd think. This anomaly is one of the oldest things we've ever come across, I'd happily spend my whole life studying what's in here."

Seven frowned at him uneasily, unsure whether he was serious. "And leave Voyager without a First Officer?"

His lips twisted in a wry smile, though Seven saw some pain in it, "They'd manage." He sighed heavily, "Palaeontology was always my first love, it's why I joined Starfleet."

Seven carefully observed his wistful face, intrigued. "Why didn't you pursue it?" she asked quietly.

He gave a soft self-deprecating laugh, "My sense of responsibility got in the way, first the Maquis, then Voyager…" He felt colour rush to his face as he saw how intently Seven's crystalline blue eyes were focused on his face, why in the world was he pouring his life's doubts out to Seven of all people?

Seven saw his discomfort and obligingly averted her eyes, still considering what he had told her. To push aside such a passionate dream for his responsibility for others was admirable, it wasn't the intense individualism of humanity she was used to the crew giving her, and yet he seemed ashamed of his selflessness, as if he had failed in some way… Chakotay clearing his throat pulled her attention back towards the man himself, rather than his characteristics. "What did you want to be, before you were assimilated?" he asked abruptly.

Seven stiffened, why was that relevant? "I was assimilated as a child, I did not dream of becoming anything."

Chakotay knew he'd hit a nerve and changed tact by offering something himself, "I knew I wanted to be a palaeontologist when I was six."

Seven sighed, he'd somehow obligated her to respond. "A…A bal…ballerina." She admitted, surprised by the regret that flooded her and the tears that burned behind her eyes as she was confronted by the childhood memory.

Chakotay found himself gulping as he saw her back shudder painfully. It was such a typical thing for a little girl to dream of that he knew it was true, brutally so, and now here she was, even further from being a ballerina than he was a palaeontologist, life could play cruel tricks… Realising that an awkward silence had fallen, he said, as lightly as he could, "There's still time…"

Thinking he was laughing at her, Seven muttered in self-frustration, "It was a juvenile fantasy…"

He brushed her shoulder with warm fingers, forcing her to look at him, "Those are the ones that stick with you." He said with gently with genuine sincerity. Seven didn't have time to reply before the ship gave a shudder and Tom's voice echoed through to them.

"We're hitting a lot of turbulence, I don't think we'll be able to stay much longer, but I don't think we'll need to, I just located the module." Tom told them.

A/n: This was going to be a one-shot, but there are too many good scenes in this episode to squish into one chapter! PLEASE REVIEW! :D