DISCLAIMER: Star Trek is the property of Paramount. No money is being made from this and if it were I'd probably die of shock.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
English 101
By ralst
Miral looked at her mother with a weary expression. "Why do I have to learn this?" the child asked for the umpteenth time.
"Because it's important," B'Elanna told her, "and if you want to be a Starfleet officer you will need to know all this... this..." She waved her hands in the air as if performing an ancient Klingon form of sign language.
"Poppycock?"
Both B'Elanna and Miral looked towards the door to see Seven saunter into the room. The former borg's parade style gait having mellowed over the years until she was left with a feline grace that turned even more heads than her old biosuits.
"It is not poppycock," B'Elanna scowled, "besides, what kind of word is that?"
"It is a noun, derived from the Dutch in the mid-nineteenth century, and means nonsense," Seven informed her, before winking at Miral. "I thought everyone knew that."
Miral laughed. "I think Seven should be teaching me English, mum, not you. I mean, she does have all that stored borg knowledge, and it's not much good for anything else."
"Excuse me?" Seven was positive she'd just been insulted, but the smile on Miral's face made her question her assumption. "Did you just call my wealth of knowledge useless?"
"Pretty much," the teenager smiled at her second mother, always delighted to see a look of consternation cross Seven's serene features. "But I'll say this for the Borg, they know how to diagram a sentence."
B'Elanna laughed, even though she was unsure why her daughter had chosen to antagonise her only ally in the fight against 'English 101'. Patting the seat beside her, B'Elanna beckoned Seven to join them. "Come on, Seven, you can help me torture her with apostrophes and split infinitives."
As Seven squeezed into the seat beside B'Elanna, managing to brush up against her wife's body in a manner her daughter thought too intentional to be due to the confined space, Miral shook her head and wondered what on Earth she'd gotten herself into. "I'm sure Seven's too busy to waste time on this, right, Seven?"
"Too busy to spend time with my family?" Seven gave an exaggerated look of dismay. "Perish the thought."
"And I thought you wanted Seven to teach you?" B'Elanna niggled.
Miral looked towards the door, calculating her chances of escape. "You're ganging up on me." She accused, her thirteen year old petulance but a microsecond away.
"What a terrible thing to say." B'Elanna made sure not to deny the accusation, while at the same time appearing to. Seven merely nodded in agreement, her attention caught by the smile on her wife's face.
Miral was about to utter a spectacular comeback, or at least that's what she told herself, when she realised her parents were too busy gazing at one another to impede an escape. So with a swiftness born of youth, she jumped from her chair and raced towards the door, a 'see you later' trailing in her wake.
"I think you scared her off," B'Elanna playfully accused.
"I think I did." Seven smiled. "She's probably halfway to the Delta quadrant by now."
"Very possibly."
"Which means we're all alone in the house." Seven paused for a moment, as if weighing their options. "Without anything to occupy our time."
"Whatever shall we do?"
Both women smiled, before leaning towards one another for the first of many kisses they would share that afternoon.
The End