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2025-04-18
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Borg Prince

Summary:

“Hey, take it easy,” Jurati said, gently placing her hands on his shoulders. “You've just come back from the dead.”

“Dead?” Elnor echoed. “How… for how long?”

“Approximately seventy-two hours.”

“Seventy-two…” Elnor trailed off, letting his hand drop to his side. Seventy-two hours… three days of being dead. So much could happen in three days.

Elnor’s thoughts were interrupted as he noticed the new metallic structural supports that ran parallel with the bones of his hand. Just like Seven of Nine’s, he thought, before realizing what that meant. When he tried to touch his face to confirm his suspicions, he felt an ocular implant embedded over his eyebrow.

“You assimilated me,” Elnor said, horrified.

Notes:

as seen in the Voyager episode "Mortal Coil," Borg nanoprobes can bring someone back from the dead as long as they've been dead less than 72 hours. in Season 2 of Picard, Elnor died on April 12th and Borg-Jurati stole La Sirena (with Elnor's body likely still aboard) on April 15th. that's a three day gap, or 72 hours. THEREFORE--

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

“Elnor?”

At first Elnor thought the voice was a figment of his imagination. It sounded foggy, far away. Half of him thought that he was asleep, that the voice calling his name was merely a dream.

“Elnor, can you hear us?”

This time the voice was louder and Elnor could almost place who it belonged to. Slowly he began to stir, then opened his eyes. His vision was blurry at first, but slowly it cleared to reveal a familiar face leaning over him. Her skin was a sickly pale color and he could see her blood vessels through it, but it was her.

“Jurati?” Elnor said weakly. There was a strong metallic taste in the back of his mouth and his body felt cold, far too cold to even shiver.

“No. Not exactly,” she said. “We're something different now.”

We. There was only one person standing over him, yet she used the pronoun “we.”

And her skin was pallid and her blood vessels were black and her body was covered by a sort of dark metallic armor and Elnor recognized all of those traits.

Borg.

Elnor braced himself for whatever Jurati was planning to do to him, but Jurati didn't move to attack or assimilate or take advantage of Elnor’s weakened state in any way. She just continued to stand over him, watching. That look in her eyes… was it… concern?

Elnor sat up with a groan to find himself sitting in one of La Sirena's morgue cabinets. That explained why he felt so cold. Those cabinets could reach well below freezing.

“Hey, take it easy,” Jurati said, gently placing her hands on his shoulders. “You've just come back from the dead.”

“Dead?” Elnor echoed. It was all coming back to him now: being shot by the Magistrate, being taken to sickbay in a desperate yet doomed attempt to save him, being alone with Raffi in his final moments… but now he was here. Someone must have carried him from sickbay to the morgue after he…

Elnor raised his hand to the spot on his chest where the phaser bolt had struck him, but his fingers only brushed pale green scar tissue. “How… for how long?” he asked.

“Approximately seventy-two hours.”

“Seventy-two…” Elnor trailed off, letting his hand drop to his side. Seventy-two hours… three days of being dead. So much could happen in three days. Was Raffi okay? Was Picard, was Seven, was Rios okay? Did they manage to fix the timeline? Did they manage to get home safely? Did they manage to–

Elnor’s thoughts were interrupted as he noticed the new metallic structural supports that ran parallel with the bones of his hand. Just like Seven of Nine’s, he thought, before realizing what that meant. When he tried to touch his face to confirm his suspicions, he felt an ocular implant embedded over his eyebrow.

“You assimilated me,” Elnor said, horrified.

“Don't worry, you're still you. We haven't taken away any of your individuality.”

“You assimilated me!”

“To save your life. You were dead, Elnor.”

Elnor's first thought was to be angry, to be furious at Jurati for taking life as he knew it away from him. Then he realized that she was telling the truth when she claimed she hadn't taken away his individuality. After all, if he had been truly assimilated, as in integrated into the Collective with nobody left to call by his old name, then he wouldn't have even had the ability to be angry at her in the first place.

“We're going to make a new Collective. A better Collective,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. (She might have actually been reading his thoughts. After all, the two of them were connected now.) “One that embraces individuality and doesn't destroy it. One that offers second chances to people who need it. One that's built on trust and cooperation and love.”

“But… why? Why not just make me a mindless drone?” he said. Elnor was grateful that he was still himself, sure, but it didn't make any sense to him. Didn't Borg Queens want drones that could never rebel, never disobey?

“Because in every timeline where the Collective is made up of ‘mindless drones,’ it’s eventually hunted to extinction. Maybe this way, we can create a better ending for all of us.”

When Elnor didn't respond, Jurati extended a hand towards him. “Here,” she said.

For a brief moment Elnor hesitated, then took her hand. Jurati strengthened her hold on him, then steadily pulled him out of the morgue cabinet. When Elnor’s feet touched the floor, his legs buckled beneath his own weight, but Jurati caught him and kept him from hitting the ground.

There was something familiar in her touch, something that had also been present in the hug the two had shared three days ago. The Borg Queen that Elnor had heard about would have let him collapse, but Jurati… even if she wasn't exactly Jurati anymore, there was still a tiny part of her that was, a tiny part of her still filled with kindness and love.

Jurati half-carried Elnor over to the Captain’s chair, where she sat him down to allow him to rest and regain his strength. Slowly his body was beginning to warm up again, but not yet warm enough to stop him from shivering uncontrollably.

Jurati reached for a blanket that had been carelessly tossed to the floor, then draped it over Elnor's shoulders. Elnor murmured a quiet thanks, pulling the blanket closer around himself. It helped a little bit, but not much.

Now that the ship was mostly quiet, Elnor noticed the familiar gentle rumbling he had heard a thousand times before. Normally he wouldn't have paid it any mind, but hearing that sound in the 21st century was cause for concern.

“Are we at warp?” Elnor asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes. We've set a course for the Delta Quadrant,” Jurati said, “There we can start our Collective and hide from the rest of the galaxy until the time comes.”

“The Delta Quadrant? But it'll take us decades to get there.”

“It's a good thing we have centuries to spare, then,” she said. “We've got four hundred years to ourselves, Elnor. Let's make them count.”

Notes:

honestly the idea of Elnor being assimilated is just SO DAMN ENTICING to me. (he probably WAS assimilated off-screen in season 3 by the Borg gene in the transporters considering how young he was at the time but I digress)

anyways if Elnor wasn't revived by Q but instead by Jurati it would have explained his absence in season 3 because he's busy guarding the transwarp conduit with his bestie the Borg Queen and also I just think it's a really interesting story to explore for him. he knows from Picard and Hugh and Seven that being assimilated is VERY BAD but now he's been assimilated and it's nothing like what they described. but still he's fundamentally different now and he can never go back to the way he was before this. I would eat that shit up