A/N: This is my first ever fanfic. Having fun writing it, hope someone has fun reading it.

Chapter 1

"Shit! Shit! Shit!"

It was yet another supposed 'routine' mission to an uninhabited planet to procure some dilithium and deuterium to top off Voyager's supplies. At least the shuttle didn't crash…

"Lieutenant… there is no need for foul language…"

Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres, Seven of Nine, and security officer Lieutenant Sara Myles had gone to an M-Class planet found by Seven to test and extract the needed supplies. While normally a team of engineers would be along, there were a number of standard repairs that kept Voyager's engineers busy from the most recent run-in with the local never-ending hostiles of the Delta Quadrant. With the more complicated repairs finished, Seven and B'Elanna were ordered on the away mission several light-years away from Voyager's current location by Captain Kathryn Janeway because of their ability to do what a regular team could do themselves and perhaps in small part as punishment for their most recent altercation in Engineering resulting from Seven's latest unannounced 'modifications' and the resultant maintenance headache that was put upon B'Elanna.

"Dammit you Borg bitch, shut up and help me hold your abdomen together!" B'Elanna growled as she frantically tried to patch and ease the pain of the prone ex-drone in the medical bay of the Delta Flyer. There was so much blood staining her uniform tank top and Seven's plum coloured biosuit that B'Elanna found herself more panicked than she would have thought possible and she was using anger to clamp down on it so she could save Seven's life. The half-Klingon was normally a rock under pressure with Engineering exploding all around her and she needed to find that focus now and was frustrated because she didn't know why her emotions were upsetting her concentration so vehemently. While Seven lay below her trying to clamp down on her own growing panic and remain focused despite the pain, she was somewhat confused to see something in the Lieutenant's eyes she had rarely seen before- fear and concern- for her. As B'Elanna's focus returned now being pummelled by her anger, her deep brown eyes gazed into blue eyes seeing the confusion, fear, pain, determination and attempted focus. To see such emotion slip out from the tight Borg mask that she normally wore… B'Elanna wondered when she started to see that it was just a mask and that there was a larger depth to the ex-drone that she had never given her credit for.

Listening over the comm. at the helm, Lieutenant Sara Myles had wondered at first what she did wrong to end up with the two women who were like an ethanol compound and a plasma torch. However, since being newly promoted to Alpha shift and getting the assignment she guessed none of her peers wanted, her job was to protect them, not only from each other, but from possible hostile wild life that Seven believed inhabited the planet while the two women worked. Upon initial scans, Seven detected no large predatory animals, however further scans showed corpses of large herbivores and other decayed large corpses. The logical conclusion was that there were large animals, but for whatever reason, they were not showing up on scans.

At 29 years old, the crimson-haired, green-eyed beauty born Sara Alysa Myles thought herself to be quite adept at reading people. Growing up on Earth in one of the larger of the North American cities, Sara took an interest in reading people at an early age. Not that she was in danger all the time, but rather that while going through a library database, she had found some old 20th Century vids of a show called "Lie To Me" about a consulting firm that specialized in 'deception detection'. She found then that micro-expressions, physical gestures and even voice tones and their meanings fascinated her. It was one of the things that inspired her to join Starfleet Security- that and her affinity for all things combat related. Her parents enrolled her in martial arts at a young age and Sara never looked back.

During the day-long mission, she actually found the two of them to be quite entertaining. At first she thought Seven's behaviour was just what she had been told to expect. Myles hadn't spent much time around the ex-Borg and had only rumour and second hand information on her behaviour which was that she was cold, arrogant, and emotionless and with a disregard for protocol- but watching her interactions with Lt. Torres all day, Sara Myles had begun to see something that made her grin. Seven had admonished the half-Klingon first thing in the morning for being late to the Flyer to which Torres had grumbled out a string of expletives that would have made a passing Ferengi drop his last bar of latinum. Then, during the three-hour trip to the planet, they snipped at each other over power regulation and distribution, sensor sweeps and even what was currently going on in Engineering. Sitting at the aft Tactical station, Sara was able to observe their interactions uninhibited. She noticed that Seven seemed to get the better of the verbal sparring but when they were trying to solve problems, a begrudging compromise was often reached and seemed to be better than both separate initial ideas. She also saw the sparkle in Seven's eyes and the slight upturn of Torres's mouth when she looked away from Seven, often shaking her head in frustration. This continued for most of the day and if Sara didn't know any better, she'd have thought the two of them were an old married couple.

Not that she'd ever mention it.

Despite being supremely confident in her abilities, she most certainly did not want to draw the ire of either of these two brilliant and dangerous women. Besides, she thought, nothing short of a high powered stun setting would keep them from tearing each other apart if they came to blows. Luckily they worked fairly well until the end of their scheduled time on the planet and the daylight began to fade.

They finally found out the hard way that there actually were large carnivores on the planet. One of the predatory 'lizards' that had evolved on the planet was apparently undetectable to scans or tricorders and had gotten past her position and attacked Lt. Torres. As large as an Earth tiger, the giant grey/green scaled lizard had pounced on Lt. Torres from behind and was about to bring its considerable jaws down upon the back of her head when Seven flew out of nowhere and tackled the creature. When B'Elanna had gotten back to her feet, Seven was on her back and had the creature's two front legs held at bay, but the lizard had used its hind clawed foot to tear open her abdomen. Lt. Myles first full powered kill shot to the torso only chipped its hide/armour and momentarily stunned the creature, but it was enough for B'Elanna to run up, put her phaser directly to the right eye of the creature and blow a hole through its head.

"Myles! How long till we get within transporter range of Voyager!" yelled B'Elanna as she was quickly attempting to use the emergency med kit supplies on the Delta Flyer to bandage and stem the bleeding of Seven's injuries.

"Three minutes Lt.! Hold on, I'm not a pilot and these damn knobs and levers are pissing me off!" returned Lt. Myles as her hands flew over unfamiliar controls. Even though the course back to Voyager had been set, constant monitoring and course corrections had to be done on the fly to compensate for subspace turbulence.

"Lieutenant, you are injured…" Seven breathed out noticing blood stains on B'Elanna's upper back as she turned to retrieve more supplies while she was frantically attempting to patch Seven together with bio-gel packs, bandages and tissue regenerators.

B'Elanna was having none of it. Damn this woman! She's lying here with half her stomach's contents spilled out and she's worrying about me? What the hell? She better not be dying and pulling some 'last request' bullshit. B'Elanna took a calming breath as she applied another bio-bandage.

"Seven, please, I'm fine, focus on your own health. We'll have you back on Voyager and patched up in no time and you can be back to pissing me off in Engineering on a regular basis." B'Elanna said with a deep compassion she never knew she had looking into Seven's slightly glazed blue eyes. She'sweakanddazed.Gottakeepherawake.

"Besides, I need you to help me mount the head of that beast on a plaque and make up an even more glorious story about how we defeated it." B'Elanna said with a nervous grin which caused the corners of Seven's beautiful full lips to creep up slightly. Well, I've heard rumours of her smile, but I think this is the first partial one I've ever inspired. Not gonna lie, I kinda like it… ungh, don't go there Torres, any other day, you'd be strangling the Ice Queen yourself.

Despite the pain she was in, Seven was actually enjoying this interaction with B'Elanna. Non-adversarial interactions with the volatile Engineer were few and far between, but she found that she enjoyed them almost as much as she enjoyed their fights- although she would never admit to either revelation under torture. Her internal systems were telling her how much damage was done to her abdominal implants as well as what was being done to repair it. Some kind of toxin that was introduced to her system through the creature's claws had been eradicated and her nanoprobes were working to keep her major organs properly oxygenated again. Having regenerated the previous day, her energy was high and her nanoprobes were working at peak efficiency. She realized that despite her current dizziness and weakness, if she were to get back to Voyager soon, combined with B'Elanna's current efforts, she had a 93.749% chance of survival.

Seven also noticed B'Elanna's nervous state and was curious about why she seemed to be so concerned for Seven's welfare. Seven had previously thought the Chief of Engineering would be grateful to be rid of the 'Borg Ice Princess'- at least in years past. Today was not unpleasant or emotionally painful and Seven felt that recently she and B'Elanna were beginning to come to an unspoken agreement about the nature of their… friendship? Her interactions with the Engineer constantly left Seven confused and somewhat exhilarated. She believed she was starting to understand her own feelings, as the Lieutenant seemed to be the only person aboard Voyager who could really invoke strong emotions in her but she was determined to truly understand closer contact with another individual and could only do that with experience. She found that she respected Lieutenant Torres and thought there was a lot that she could learn from her, as well as offer but would not use the Lieutenant as a social 'test subject'. Over the last year or so the two of them had seemed to reach a mutual respect, which seemed a good starting point to a friendship as far as Seven knew. B'Elanna had even kept Seven hidden in Engineering when her cortical node was failing telling the Doctor "we difficult patients need to stick together".

A sharp twinge of pain caused her thoughts to refocus on B'Elanna's current efforts. Understanding that B'Elanna was trying to keep her cognisant and having an appreciation for the Klingon culture and exaggeration in storytelling, Seven tried to put some of her meagre social skills (that she normally kept hidden from most of Voyager's crew) to use.

"I think Lieutenant that I shall keep my part of the story mostly unchanged. I will however, have to insist on there having been two more of the creatures attacking me at once in order for me to have sustained this damage." Seven deadpanned while never looking away from B'Elanna's dark brown eyes.

Momentarily stunned by the brilliantly dry humour, B'Elanna let out a snort and suppressed a laugh so she could keep working. She was already dealing with enough emotion at the moment as Seven's blood was causing her senses to go into overdrive. Today hadn't been the horrible nightmare she originally thought it would be. She was finding it rather exhilarating around the Borg these days. The fights weren't hateful like they were when Seven had first come aboard Voyager- at least on B'Elanna's end and she certainly didn't really want to see the woman hurt. She wasn't even sure anymore if Seven ever hated her like she originally thought and she was starting to see a sparkle of amusement in the ex-drone's eyes during some of their verbal sparring matches. Perhaps Seven was opening up a bit more as a result of dating Chakotay and despite what B'Elanna might have thought about the pairing, she certainly didn't mind being the focus of the beautiful woman's attentions… since when did I WANT her attentions? Refocusing to rid herself of these odd confusions, there was one thing she knew for sure and that was she didn't want to see this amazing woman suffer, especially for her. The Klingon in B'Elanna didn't want to lose the constant personal challenge Seven represented and the Human in her simply didn't want to owe her.

Another snort was heard over the comm. "Did I just hear my first Borg joke?" asked Lt. Myles.

"Don't worry Myles, I'm checking for cranial damage as we speak." Before she could prevent it, B'Elanna winked at Seven and continued to work as she was beginning to feel better about Seven's chances. Blood loss was slowing, and tricorder readings indicated that her heart rate was stabilizing. First she tackles a giant lizard for me, then is worried about my injuries and is now cracking jokes. I've never quite seen this side of Seven before, maybe this is what Chakotay sees… and the Captain… the Doctor… Harry…

Before B'Elanna could continue her thoughts Voyager's Captain came in over the comm. and moments later B'Elanna and Seven found themselves in Sickbay.

As the blue glow of the transporter disappeared, the Doctor moved from his preparations to do a preliminary exam of the wounded. His opening sarcastic remark about the two of them being unable to play well together died on his lips as he took in the sight before him. He hurried over to the two women on the floor of the Sickbay and opened his medical tricorder to scan Seven. Seeing that she was at the very least stabilized due to B'Elanna's efforts, the Doctor decided it was safe to move her and start surgery.

"Quickly, and carefully, get her onto the biobed and I'll need you B'Elanna to monitor her implants and help me with the repairs to her abdominal implant. Seven, I'm going to give you something for the pain but I'll need you to stay awake so you can let us know how your cortical node is interpreting the repairs." Seven weakly nodded and looked to B'Elanna who had gently picked her up and was moving her to the biobed in the surgery bay. She felt a calming feeling at the care in the Chief's eyes and actions that she never felt before and resolved to properly thank the Chief sometime in the future. It never occurred to her that B'Elanna might have felt in debt to Seven for saving her from the giant lizard; Seven simply didn't think that way- a crew-member, a member of her Collective, a brilliant Engineer was in danger and she had responded accordingly.

"Won't we need Tom?" B'Elanna quickly asked as her worry fought to the forefront once again.

"My superior medical skills combined with your adequate knowledge of Borg systems will be enough Lieutenant. Don't worry, you'll get your Klingon-anger sounding board back soon enough. Besides, Captain Proton is otherwise indisposed at the moment from what I understand…" B'Elanna levelled a glare at the photonic man but said nothing as she approached the surgical bay with Seven in her arms.

The Doctor pushed a hypo spray to Seven's neck as B'Elanna laid Seven down carefully, gave her Borg-enhanced hand a quick squeeze and whispered: "DaHjaj 'oH ghobe' QaQ jaj Daq Hegh" *Today is not a good day to die* before retreating to the sterilization room as the Doctor got to work. A moment later, B'Elanna returned in sterile OR scrubs and started helping the Doctor with the repairs to Seven's implants while he worked on the physical damage.

End Chapter 1