B'Elanna allowed herself to slip for a moment into one of her other jobs: doctor's doctor. Only this time, her patient called for a counselor instead of a holoprogrammer. "Scan me," she said to him out of the blue.
"Excuse me?" He didn't understand..
"I've been here for over thirty minutes and you haven't once checked on the baby. Go ahead, scan me."
Feeling even more chagrinned at his oversight, the doctor picked up his tricorder and examined her. "You and your daughter seem to be just fine," he said a little dejectedly.
"Are you sure? I remember being told I had a serious concussion just a few days ago."
He couldn't understand why she was saying this. "You're fully recovered. Other than some minor constriction of your lower back and some edema in your feet, you're in perfect health."
B'Elanna kept at him, "Do I have some kind of miraculous powers of self-healing? Did I perform some ancient Klingon therapeutic ritual?"
The Doctor was surprised it took him so long to catch on to her scheme. "No. You were saved by my many years of experience treating smashed skulls--so kindly provided by your husband."
She smiled. "So, I guess you're not totally inept," she said slyly. He was fighting back a grin himself. "You're not a god, Doc. You're doing everything that can be done."
It wasn't his normal arrogance that forced him to agree with her assessment. He had searched his program repeatedly and knew it to be true--particularly where the captain and first officer were concerned. Still, he hadn't found anything physically wrong with Seven, and Icheb had ruled out a malfunction in her alcove. "I wish someone would explain that to our drone," he said a bit sarcastically.
B'Elanna wasn't finished playing diagnostician. "Did you check her neurotransmitter levels?" she asked.
"Not specifically, but the tricorder would have indicated if they were outside normal parameters."
Still, B'Elanna was convinced she recognized something in Seven's behavior. "Take another look at your readings: check her dopamine and seritonin levels."
The doctor nodded, suddenly understanding. "You know if you ever decide to give up engineering...."
B'Elanna smiled. "I just have some personal experience in this area," she said, not needing to explain what she meant. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I only have another twenty minutes on my lunch break before I need to get back to work, and my other 'patient' needs me." She indicated Chakotay, whose hand she still held.
"Fifteen minutes," he corrected her. "The last five you will spend actually eating some lunch. You're lucky enough to be in the one place on this ship with working replicators, you know. Or did I forget to mention your empty stomachs when I scanned you?"
She smiled. They took good care of each other, she realized. Then she focused her attention back to Chakotay.
~*~*~*~*~
Icheb found his commanding officer rummaging through the debris that had been the lieutenant's newly-settled, newly-decorated home. Perhaps the impact had been more severe in this part of the ship--or maybe it was just the number of objects that had been crammed into these four walls, but the cabin was a mess. Broken glassware, dishes, and electronic devices seemed to be in pieces all over the floor. Still in place among the debris, Icheb was surprised to see the huge bed that dominated a third of the cabin. There was barely room for other furniture, he thought, though he had an admitted lack of experience in the subtleties of decorating. He could see the Lieutenant's feet sticking out from a pile of--what was it--clothing? Bedding? He wasn't sure.
"Lieutenant Paris?" he called out.
The pile began to move and he heard a muffled voice from inside, "Got it!" The feet began backing out until the officer's entire body was clear. He was holding an unusual furry object meant to resemble some sort of animal. "Just rescuing a friend, Icheb. Can you put him in that crate?" The boy turned to see a small collection of the Lieutenant's personal effects in a regulation storage container. He took the 'creature' from his commander--using only two fingers to touch it--and dropped it quickly into the box. "He won't bite you, I promise," Tom said laughing.
Paris moved closer to the bed and gathered the pillows and a huge, white comforter. He could barely hold them in his arms. "You'll have to carry these, Icheb," he said as he practically buried the young man in a mountain of feathers and ticking. "I don't know how we're going to get them through the Jeffries tubes," he wondered out loud.
From under the bedding, Tom heard a muffled reply, "The main turbolift is back online."
Tom compressed the pile until he could see Icheb's face again. "Great. Let's make a quick detour to Deck 11," he said gathering a few pieces of clothing and other personal items. He threw them into the crate and headed into the corridor, his newly deputized chamber maid in tow.
~*~*~*~*~
B'Elanna made a stop on Deck 10 on her way back to her post. She had a hunch she would find what she was looking for on her upper engineering platform, but she wasn't about to use the vertical ladder to check out her theory. She'd cheat and enter through the Deck 10 corridor. Her hypothesis was confirmed as soon as the doors opened.
Normally, if she were hiding from the Doctor or Icheb, Seven would be here pouring over the console, running a diagnostic or using her skills to increase the efficiency of some key system, trying to look and stay occupied. With her suspicions about Seven's current condition, however, B'Elanna wasn't totally surprised to find that--this time--she was just sitting on the steps, leaning against the wall.
B'Elanna moved closer before she spoke. "Seven. Is there something I can do for you?" She knew she needed to act nonchalant if she were going to keep her patient from running out on her.
"I was…I should go," Seven wanted to stand up, but couldn't seem to find the energy.
There was an eerie quality about this, B'Elanna thought, like looking in an old, broken mirror. She recognized the dull expression on Seven's face, the vacant look in her eyes, her lack of energy for the things she normally enjoyed. B'Elanna took a moment to think that, if she herself hadn't done such a good job of pushing everyone away when she was at this stage, she might have been treated before she tried some of the dangerous stunts that had almost killed her. B'Elanna had become so desperate, she knew, just to feel something again. Hopefully, she could reach Seven before it came to that.
"You can stay. You're not in my way. And I could use the company while I work." B'Elanna went to the main panel and pretended to occupy herself with its readouts.
"I'm not sure I will be very good 'company'," Seven said softly. "I don't seem to be good at much of anything lately." Self-pity. Another marker. B'Elanna was now pretty sure of her diagnosis.
"Then you can just sit here while I work," she said, refusing to feed the illness. After a minute, she decided on a more direct approach.
"Seven, are you familiar with the term 'clinical depression'?" B'Elanna asked softly. "It's a kind of chemical imbalance in your brain. Some people are prone to it because of their physiology. For others, it can be triggered by a traumatic event." Seven was quiet--didn't even seem to hear what B'Elanna was saying. She was getting nowhere. Torres stopped pretending to work and joined Seven on the steps. This would be easier to say if B'Elanna didn't have to look at her.
"A little over three years ago, I found out that most of my friends from the Maquis--all except those here on Voyager or in Federation prisons--were dead. They'd been butchered, murdered. I felt so furious. And helpless--that I wasn't there for them when they needed me. That maybe I could have done something to save them. I think I even felt a little guilty that I was still alive." B'Elanna couldn't help but relive some of those memories as she spoke.
"I had trouble coping with those feelings. I started to withdraw from the things and people I cared about. I felt tired all the time. And numb inside. I started avoiding Tom, starting fights so he'd leave me alone. I stopped caring about him, my job--anything." She couldn't help but remember how she had treated everyone--especially Tom--during that time. Th
e memories were painful. "I didn't get help, then, Seven. I thought I would just get over it. But I didn't. Then one day I found myself doing dangerous things just to try and make myself feel something, anything. I almost died."
"I wasn't aware it was that severe," Seven said softly.
"Well, you and I weren't on the best of terms in those days, if you remember." B'Elanna tried to close some of that distance now. She really did want to help Seven through this.
"How did you recover?" her 'patient' asked.
"Someone who cared about me forced me to look at what I was doing to myself. Forced me to face my grief head on."
Seven nodded as if she understood. "Lieutenant Paris," she assumed.
B'Elanna smiled. "No, actually, it was Chakotay. Tom was too close, too worried about what he might have done to make me so distant, too wrapped up in how my pain affected him. Sometimes, the people who love you the most can’t be the ones to help."
Seven started thinking about her conversation with the Doctor, and about the ways she had shut him out of her life in the past few days. About how quickly she had changed from wanting his company to wanting him to leave her alone. Was this her way of avoiding her pain?
"I am having trouble coping with what happened," she confessed softly. "I keep wondering if there was something I did...something I could have done to prevent it."
B'Elanna nodded as Seven spoke. Of course she had thought the same things. They were both accustomed to pulling off last-minute miracles of engineering. This time, they'd been powerless. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't our fault. Sometimes things just happen."
"Yet Commander Tuvok, Ensign Kim, and the others...they're all dead. And I'm alive. I'll live to see Earth. Getting home was all they dreamed of for seven years. But it's meaningless to me. How is that fair?"
"You're right. It isn't fair," B'Elanna agreed, thinking now about her latest loss. "But it isn't your fault. You have to forgive yourself for living through it."
B'Elanna put her hand on Seven's arm. It was an unusually personal gesture between two women who had once been bitter rivals. "Go see the Doctor. There are medications you can take to get you through the worst of it. They'll help fix the chemical imbalance, and make it easier for you to adjust. And you should find someone to help you talk this through. Don't keep it inside." B'Elanna felt truly sorry for her friend. If Tuvok or Chakotay were here, they'd know what to say to help Seven. Just as they had helped her. Even the captain...
"I could.... Lieutenant, would you be willing to 'talk' with me after my treatment?"
Wow. B'Elanna didn't know what to say. Except, "Of course. Anytime."
~*~*~*~*~
The grizzled old man was sitting in the middle of the farmyard, picking out a sad tune on the banjo. He barely seemed to notice her approach until she was standing in front of him. Clearly, seeing her annoyed him. "Why have you come back? You don't have what I need."
She didn’t have time for these games. Her reply was curt, but she didn't give a damn. "I don't know what you need. And, frankly, I don't care. I just want our people back and I want us all to be sent home."
"Well, aren't you contentious for a minor bipedal species…?"
She'd had just about enough of this. "Where are our people? What have you done with them?"
She was reaching full-blown desperation, yet the old man continued to ignore her pleas. "You don't have what I need. They might. You'll have to leave them." How could she make him understand: she would never abandon her crew.
"I am their commanding officer. I am entrusted with their safety. They are my responsibility." Without taking a step, she suddenly found herself in an old barn, looking through what had just been a solid wall into a strange, sterile laboratory. 'Tuvok!' she screamed to no one as she saw her friend lying there, unconscious, as a long metallic probe was lowered into his chest. She was powerless to stop it. "Tuvok!"
After having had no dreams for almost twenty-four hours, Kathryn Janeway was now trapped in a rolling nightmare that she couldn't seem to escape.
Suddenly, she could hear the sound of a tinny piano. Someone was singing. Seven? She'd had this dream before. She was both an observer and participant in this strange scene. "Welcome to La Coeur de Lyon. I am Katrine. The first round is with my compliments on one condition: you leave the war outside." Was this a movie she had seen? No, these were her people. Her crew. They were in a tavern, or was it a nightclub? She and Seven were standing at the bar counting some kind of currency.
"How did we do?" she heard herself say.
She had never seen Seven dressed like this. Her hair was long, curled, and down around her shoulders. "Insufficient for a Saturday night." They were going to have one of their arguments, she could tell from the tone in their voices.
She heard herself speak, "Well, it should be enough to buy us safe passage to Earth."
Seven was now angry--again. Why did she always question Katrine's decisions? "We have more pressing needs."
Why did she always think she knew better? "Such as?"
"Food. Energy. Safety." How typical. Seven was totally missing the whole point of their mission. "We're not trying to build a colony here."
Her 'singer' clearly disagreed, "Maybe it's time we did. I'm tired of living on rations and risking our lives. We should be settling on the nearest habitable planet."
Enough of this. She knew Seven would never understand. This debate was getting them nowhere. It was time to lay down the law. "I am the captain of this ship, so right now my opinion is the only one that counts." They were going home. She didn't care what it took. She was sorry if this drone couldn't understand that. But she had battled the Borg before and won...
The cube came up on them quickly, but she was prepared. "We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." The bridge was bathed in the crimson glow of a red alert, yet she knew she had taken them into this situation on purpose. She had sought out this encounter.
"Borg vessel. This is Captain Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. I have tactical information about Species 8472. I want to negotiate." She had honed her powers of persuasion to the point that she was now confident in her ability to talk almost anyone into almost anything.
The Borg seemed prepared to listen. "State your proposal."
"I am prepared to trade you the lives of fifty of my crew for safe passage to the Alpha Quadrant."
And it continued.
~*~*~*~*~
Tom had finished his little detour to Deck 11, and was pretty proud of his handiwork. B'Elanna deserved some small taste of a normal life, and he was determined to give it to her. He had transformed their temporary quarters into a home-away-from-home courtesy of one over-stuffed down comforter, four of the fluffiest pillows a Starfleet replicator had ever made, and one tiny, dog-eared stuffed targ. He had also rescued several pictures, a few of his favorite t-shirts, and their half-read PADDs on childrearing. He'd salvage the crib and the rest of their belongings later. The toaster, unfortunately, was toast.
He was happy, too, that he'd been able to fashion a single bed for them to share. He and B'Elanna had spent only one night in their quarters on the Resnick before beaming back to Voyager, and she had been unconscious for most of it. The past two nights, they'd slept side by side in separate dormitory bunks in their makeshift cabin. He needed her closer to him, though, to feel her body against his as he slept. Not that he had sex on his mind--B'Elanna's pregnancy had passed the safe point for their usual, strenuous physical activity, and the conditions they were facing hardly inspired romance--but he had been restless, having trouble sleeping. He just missed her. There was a kind of comfort and peace he knew he could only find lying in her arms.
As he headed back to work, Tom was grateful that the turbolift was back online. Maybe he was getting soft in his old age, but the eleven decks he had climbed this morning had worn him out. He was pushing himself to continue on, though. If he could complete the survey through Deck 7 today, he and Icheb could p
robably finish checking out the rest of the compromised decks tomorrow.
He found his assistant cataloguing the damage to Holodeck 2. Looking around, Tom figured this room had probably seen its last party. Still, Icheb was right to include it in his checklist. Their mission to document Voyager's systems needed to be thorough, and a little Borg meticulousness was just what was called for.
"I guess you won't get to try out my racecar program after all," Tom teased. Not that Icheb ever would have taken him up on the offer. "Looks like you've got this under control. I'm gonna start at the other end of the corridor."
When Tom realized what room was next on his survey, however, he almost changed his mind. He stopped at the door, and put his hand on it softly.
He had spent the whole day pushing aside one emotion after the next. Tom Paris was an expert at the game of denial, with a lifetime of experience in pretending the pain didn't get to him. Yet, standing at this door, he couldn't help but remember who it was who had first broken through that wall of defenses.
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