"So what's the deal with this, anyway?" B'Elanna asked, picking up a stray ToolTip and tossing it across the screen.
"It is quite simple, Lieutenant," Seven of Nine replied. "Our Authoress can't sleep. At this very moment she is sitting up in bed, writing our actions."
"I thought she was saner than this," Janeway observed, almost drowned out by an explosion of rasping noise.
"Normally, you would be correct." Seven examined the lines of text as they formed, nose wrinkling delicately at some bad phrasing. "However, she has been ill for quite some time." The cacophonous sound was repeated.
"What is that?" Janeway asked, looking around for the source of the noise.
"I think I know," B'Elanna called, jumping down from the title bar she'd been straddling in order to get a better view. "It's why this is happening. She's been coughing herself awake, and now she's decided to write. About us."
"Why us?" Chakotay asked, making a brief appearance to look dumb.
Janeway shrugged. "My guess is that she likes us."
"You three, maybe," Tom Paris put in. "I have a feeling she -"
He was cut off by a dangling participle, which broke from its moorings in the paragraphs above and fell directly on his head, killing him instantly.
Janeway frowned, looking up at the previous paragraphs. "But there aren't any dangling participles there."
"Not any more," Seven answered.
"Pity," B'Elanna observed, looking pointedly at Chakotay, who was smirking unprofessionally in the background. "But I guess we should just be glad we didn't end up in that Preacher crossover she was thinking about."
"Oh, I don't think there was much danger of that," Janeway reassured her. "She was probably a bit too wary of all the language warnings she'd have to put in."
"Pity," B'Elanna repeated, again looking at Chakotay. "There's just a few things I'd like to say at this point that, well..."
"Well, it's not like you need me for that," Jesse Custer told her. "Jesus, I didn't patent the fucking words."
"I was not aware you would be making an appearance." Seven looked the Preacher up and down as Rae realised how long it had been since she had a line. "Or that you would be so disturbingly attractive."
"HEY!" Janeway and Tulip yelled in unison.
"Look, let's all stay calm, and no-one will have to get thrashed, all right?" B'Elanna inserted herself between the Preacher and the glowering Janeway. "And no-one will find themselves counting all the stars in the Delta Quadrant, either," she added, glancing at Jesse. "Right, Reverend?"
"Sure." Jesse and Tulip disappeared as believably as they had arrived.
"The way I see it, the only way we're going to get out of here is if Rae starts getting bored, instead of having fun doing this," Janeway said. "Unfortunately, that doesn't seem all that likely. She likes bizarre."
B'Elanna idly lobbed a comma at Chakotay's head. "There's always the other option."
"What's that?"
"Well... have you read her other stories?"
Janeway grinned. "Sure I have." She glanced at Seven and the grin became a fond smile. "I wouldn't miss out on those kinds of stories no matter who writes them."
"Yeah, yeah, save it," B'Elanna growled. "I don't care how much she claims she likes me, she's never done all that much for me. Two stories and a narration. Woo freakin' hoo."
"Then what are you getting at?"
"There's one easy way to get out of this story."
"I believe I understand," said Seven, her eyes lighting up.
"I don't," Janeway snapped.
"Easy, captain. The PITS."
"The what?!"
B'Elanna grinned widely. "The Partners in the Sublime option."
"All we did for half of that story was have sex. And I was a bitch on wheels in the parts where we weren't."
"Right."
"I don't understand." Janeway frowned.
"Well, Rae doesn't usually write sex scenes, right?"
"Correct." Seven hadn't had a line for a while again.
"So, all we need to do is have sex - all three of us - and she'll fade to black or something and we'll be free." B'Elanna smiled brightly.
"Why all three of us?"
"She might be willing to write the sex if it was just two of us. She hasn't really done it before. But she's done all three."
"And it would be highly enjoyable," Seven offered.
"True." Janeway pondered, and realised instantly it was a mistake as the theme to "Pinky and the Brain" started playing. "Seven, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I believe so, captain. But I am unsure as to where we would obtain a functioning holocamera while trapped on a computer screen."
"B'Elanna's right. The only thing is, what do we do with Chakotay?" Janeway pointed at her first officer, who was still loitering uselessly in their lives.
"No problem, Captain." B'Elanna grinned eveelly. "We'll just turn him over to Wonko."
"That's cruel." Janeway grinned eveelly back. "I like it."
As Chakotay was dragged away screaming, the three women turned their attention back to one another and commenced smoochies as their authoress, exhausted by her labours, wriggled back under the covers and went to sleep.
THE END.