Chapter Text
*
That scar on your face
That beautiful face of yours
In your heart there’s a trace
Of someone
Before
* * *
Lieutenant Marconi had piloted them back to the outer reaches of the Alpha Quadrant before Kathryn’s agitation became too strong to ignore.
As she sat on the bridge of the Prometheus-class USS Chimera, she could tell that the armpits and chest of her grey undershirt were soaked through with sweat. She’d been wracked with insomnia for the past three nights straight. Their mission to aid a Borg rebellion spawned from Unimatrix Zero had reached an impasse and she was bringing the vessel home for more than just ship repairs.
Something in her biological make up was very, very wrong.
“Commander Hitchens, you have the bridge.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Kathryn stepped into the turbo lift and the doors closed.
“Deck six.”
As the apparatus began to descend, she could feel her stomach drop with it. Nausea wrapped itself around her tongue, filling her mouth with a sharp, sour, metallic taste. The edges of her vision distorted –
“Computer, halt turbo lift!”
The door opened. She was on deck three. As soon as she stumbled into the corridor, her mind cleared, her heart beat returned to normal and the strangle-hold on her neck lifted.
Without thinking about the how or why, Kathryn made her way to an adjacent Jeffries tube, intending to climb down the remaining levels to sickbay. The close confines of the tunnels were no better, but at least she could keep moving. Kathryn counted each rung on the ladder to keep her focus.
She’d lived with the malady for too long.
In the beginning, it had been easy to dismiss it as homecoming stress; she was the only former crewmember of Voyager to request a deep space mission so soon after arriving back on Earth.
Kathryn had good reason to escape into her work.
* * *
Arriving home ahead of schedule saved lives, but it didn’t stop the inevitable. From the moment they’d made it through the hub and Kathryn asked Chakotay to take Tom’s place at the helm, she watched closely as Seven hovered next to him and knew with painful clarity that her time with her first officer had come and gone. The subsequent three months of debriefing had kept former drone and commander apart, but their relationship had since picked up. The last Kathryn had heard of the couple, they were living in Arizona. Together.
Now every aspect of the ship was in the process of analysis to better Starfleet. Every crewmember had flown off in various directions, scattered to the winds like so many grains of sand. Gretchen, Phoebe, her nieces and nephews – they all tried to fill the aching gaps and in return, Kathryn tried in vain to play the good daughter, sister, and aunt. But still, she thought of nothing but Chakotay. It was wrong to be so selfish, but she couldn’t help it. Her regret became a series of never-ending, circular reasoning and to counteract the debilitation it brought on, she buried herself in work after the usual month or so of reunions.
She felt nothing but loneliness in a sea of new and old faces. The only way to keep her thoughts at bay was to continue in what she did best. Kathryn accepted a commission on the Chimera several months before – complete with a new crew that was as bright-eyed and optimistic as Voyager’s had been seven years before. Her first day had been spent getting to know each ensign and lieutenant.
She found herself mentally tagging the ‘Harry,’ the ‘Tom,’ and the ‘B’Elanna’ - even as she guessed her new charges could never measure up to the expectations her old senior staff had earned over the years. She was still too embittered by Chakotay’s choices to see him in anyone, however. Kathryn went as far as distancing herself from Commander Hitchens, her first officer. She couldn’t bring herself to institute the weekly dinners of yore to discuss ship’s business, even as the reverential man could never remotely be her type. Instead of feeling at home on the new ship, each comparative nuance just made her feel…old.
It didn’t help that her joints ached and every bite she took in her quarters and in the mess hall seemed to go right to her belly. She’d had to expand the waist of her uniform by several centimeters in the last four months. No amount of exercise seemed to whittle it down.
As Kathryn arrived in front of the sickbay doors, she mustered whatever was left of her dignity, sucked in the slight pooch of her abdomen, cleared her throat to bring forth the husky, commanding tones she was known for, and strode in.
She hoped it was enough to hide the fact that she was scared shitless.
* * *
Dr. Jacqueline Pulaski was someone Kathryn had been avoiding her entire time captaining the Chimera. The young woman was fresh out of Starfleet Medical, a prodigy in her twenties and well-versed in 24th century medicine. Jacqueline was the youngest daughter of Katherine Pulaski, who had served on the Enterprise-D. The Pulaskis held together a long bloodline of doctors, but they weren’t so much known for their expertise as their brusque, by-the-book bedside manner.
Normally Kathryn would have welcomed such objectivity, but the symptoms she had been suffering from had reached its peak. She needed a kind look, words of encouragement and a comforting pat from a fellow female. If someone had told her she was avoiding Jacqueline Pulaski because her blond up do, blue eyes and voluptuous figure reminded her of Seven, well - she would have denied it.
Dr. Pulaski motioned Kathryn onto the biobed and ran her tricorder over the woman’s body.
“Tell me your symptoms, Captain.”
“I’m tired, cranky – “
“How’s your coffee consumption?”
Pulaski was too busy eyeing the readouts to catch Kathryn’s best death glare in a year.
“Fine. How’s yours?”
Jacqueline gave a condescending smile the captain wanted to shatter.
“Feeling flushed all the time? Night sweats? Trouble sleeping? Excess weight gain?”
“Yes, yes, yes and yes. You can tell from just a tricorder?”
The blonde doctor took a hyposyringe from the pan next to her and took a blood sample without warning Kathryn beforehand. Within a few seconds, the apparatus beeped its results.
“Hmm. Just what I thought. Your FSH levels have increased and your estradiol is significantly lower – “
Kathryn was moments away from taking a swing at the young woman.
“English, Jacqueline.”
“You are in the late stages of perimenopause,” the doctor said matter-of-factly.
“But that’s impossible! I’m too young to – “
“How old are you, Captain?”
Kathryn’s eyes narrowed. The Pulaskis were known for an almost photographic memory when it came to, well, just about everything.
“You should know from my medical charts – “
“I’m sorry, Captain, but you never came to see me for the preliminary physical when the Chimera was docked in Deep Space Nine.”
She gritted her teeth.
“I’m forty-two.”
Pulaski tipped her head to one side and eyed her thoughtfully.
“Well, it’s quite rare, but not unheard of,” she moved to the office in the back, calling out as she punched in a few commands in her computer, “I could give you a PADD filled with the necessary information on menopause…”
Jacqueline returned and handed her the data.
“There are several treatments suggested. I advise that you read through all of them with an unbiased viewpoint before I let you know my own personal opinion. The statistics favor a few plans of action, but I like all of my patients to have objective, fully-informed attitudes before a consult.”
Kathryn stared blankly at the doctor and wanted to throw the PADD at the woman’s head.
The Captain was sure she looked about ready to burst a blood vessel, yet Pulaski had the nerve to spread an icy smile across her face.
“Look on the bright side, Captain. I hate having my period. You should feel liberated. You won’t have menstruation or the threat of pregnancy to interfere with your command any longer.”
* * *
Kathryn eyed the chronometer for the sixth time in the last four minutes.
It was well after 0300 hours and she couldn’t get to sleep. She’d adjusted the ambient temperature of her quarters to a chilly 13 degrees centigrade and slept in the nude for good measure. Still, it wasn’t enough to keep the hot flashes from emerging periodically throughout the night. A crippling cramp had moved its way down her right calf, ending at her fourth toe, and curling the digit at an impossible angle.
She wanted to scream in both pain and humiliation. How could any of this be happening? Kathryn was willing to accept just about anything else the Delta Quadrant had thrown at her – alien scientists using her head as a pincushion or an endless loop of Mark chastising her in full hallucinogenic regalia. She could even go back and have lizard offspring with Tom Paris; at least in that galaxy, she was fertile.
But this – this was entirely, absolutely, irrevocably unfair. And there was no one onboard she could trust to talk about it with. The PADD on menopause by her bedside lay cold, unread. Kathryn didn’t need information on what she was going through; she was living it. And she had a nagging suspicion that all of it was unnatural – that something she had contracted in the Delta Quadrant had entered her system and lay dormant until an unknown variable had triggered her symptoms.
As she mentally troubleshot her physical ailments, Kathryn’s thoughts naturally turned to the Doctor. Besides sharing seven years on one ship together, he was the unequivocal expert on Delta Quadrant medicine. If Kathryn had been on Voyager and he remained her Chief Medical Officer, the trip to sickbay that evening would have gone differently. Sure, in the beginning he’d been equally blunt as Dr. Pulaski had been, but his efforts since then to experience humanity in all its good and bad trappings had evolved him into a practitioner she trusted more than anyone else.
Kathryn knew that the EMH would have stayed silent, his face a soft mixture of concern and patience as she recited her symptoms. He would have consulted any vast number of different databases in his program and run several tests to rule out an alien involvement or imprint. The Doctor had become a gentle skeptic, someone who cogitated fiercely as though he had been suffering the same malady as his patient.
Sleep was no longer an option. Kathryn needed to move around. The walls of her quarters were closing in and the claustrophobia was coming back. She pulled on her nightclothes and wrapped a robe around her form in an attempt to hide what she had grown to think of as her ‘chunkiness.’
She stepped out into the corridor, but the turbo lift seemed to taunt her from the end of the hallway.
“Computer, site to site transport to sickbay.”
* * *
As Kathryn shimmered into the room, she knew she’d be alone. Pulaski had long ago retired to her quarters. The bay was bathed in ten percent illumination, but she wasn’t there to run any of her own tests or study the doctor’s database.
“Computer, activate the EMH.”
The blond Mark II shimmered into existence. What was it with sandy-haired physicians?
“Please state the nature of the medical emergency.”
Kathryn eyed him with a fraction of hope.
“Oh, Captain Janeway! I’m honored to meet you! T-There’s so much I’ve heard about the Mark I’s achievements and what you accomplished in the Delta Quadrant – “
This was nothing like she expected. An EMH fan? The experience was too surreal.
“ – I’m sorry, Captain. I’m forgetting myself. Are you in need of medical attention?”
“Actually, I was wondering if your database contained any information on Delta Quadrant medicine.”
“Unfortunately, no. My programming isn’t cleared for that kind of information. The Chimera is only outfitted for Alpha and Beta Quadrant exploration – “
“I see. So if this ship were to get stranded in the Delta Quadrant again, we wouldn’t be prepared?”
The EMH was at a loss for words. He could count on one holographic hand how many times he’d been activated during the course of the Chimera’s virginal mission and hadn’t expected such an intense interrogation on the part of the captain. His subroutine didn’t factor in a defensive posture, so he merely began to stammer again.
“Never mind. It’s not your fault. I’ll bring it up with Starfleet Command when we get home.”
A hot flash hit Kathryn once more and she flung her robe off in one swift movement. She grasped the hem of her nightshirt and began flapping it up and down in a fan-like motion.
The EMH averted his eyes as he caught a glimpse of breast.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Captain?”
“Actually, you could tell me what you know about menopause.”
His face lit up at the promise of being of use.
“Menopause! From the Greek root meno, meaning ‘month’ and pausis, meaning ‘halt’! A permanent cessation of menstruation – “
Kathryn dropped her head into her hands before craning it back to look at the ceiling.
“Can we skip ahead? I think I’m familiar with the biology and while I appreciate the etymology – “
“Actually, there’s something very interesting in my database. Did you know that the Grandmother Hypothesis suggests that menopause evolved in humans because it promotes the survival of grandchildren? Post-reproductive women … Foraging grandmothers… “
As his words began to slur into themselves, Kathryn was on the verge of decompiling his program. Her misguided goal had been to remind herself of the wonder that was the Doctor, but this upgrade had ended up being a piss-poor facsimile of what she remembered –
“ - In the ancient past, menarche and menopause were considered to mark the transitions from ‘maiden’ to ‘matron’, and from ‘matron’ to ‘crone’ –“
Crone?
“Pausis!” she cried.
“Captain?” The EMH nearly jumped out of his holomatrix, but as the flapping of her garments continued, his humor subroutine kicked in and he offered up a good-natured chuckle, “Oh, I get it! ‘Halt’! Very clever, Captain!”
Her death glare couldn’t penetrate photons and force fields.
“Computer, deactivate the EMH.”
With that, Kathryn exited sickbay and made her way to the nearest Jeffries tube to climb back up to deck three.
If she was going to be sweating all night, at least she could get some exercise out of it.
* * *
As soon as the Chimera docked at McKinley Station, Kathryn took a copy of her medical report and beamed down to Starfleet Medical.
Several months after arriving home, the Doctor’s database had been analyzed and incorporated into Federation research. He’d accepted a position working at the main facility in San Francisco, helping any former denizens of Voyager or future Delta Quadrant travelers with his unique brand of medicine. Kathryn hadn’t seen him since Voyager had first docked and she was looking forward to catching up. After what she’d been through with Pulaski and the Mark II, the captain knew she needed to speak with someone she trusted.
The section where the Doctor worked was like any hospital. He had his own office – a room lined with books Kathryn had assumed was for decoration, and a golf bag and clubs in one corner. On the wall hung plaques commending him for his work in the Delta Quadrant, as well as an honorary doctorate degree from a distinguished music academy in Florence.
She paced the room in his absence, worrying about what he would tell her. Kathryn had given his nurse the PADD and was assured that he would be going over her data before their meeting.
The door cracked open. A familiar smile and pate peeked from behind.
“Hello, Captain – or should I say, ‘stranger’?”
For the first time in a long while, Kathryn smiled. She underestimated how much his tone put her at ease and she stopped pacing.
“Hello, Doctor.”
He gestured to a patch of floor in front of the bookshelf.
“That threadbare area over there is usually where my patients give the carpet a good once-over,” he came up behind a chair, “Or you could do something completely out of character and sit.”
He was jovial, relaxed. Kathryn thought the slight change in him was due to a positive transition from ship to Earth, but she couldn’t help but feel a bit unnerved. For a split second, her instincts told her something was off. In the end, she chalked up the feeling to the paranoia that came with her symptoms.
The Doctor walked around his desk and placed the PADD in front of him.
As he was about to launch into his diagnosis, Kathryn decided to interrupt.
“Before we get into that, I thought I’d apologize for not coming to see you sooner.”
He laughed a little. Kathryn felt self-conscious, bracing herself for the usual quip –
“We’re both busy, Captain. It’s all a part of moving on, I suppose.”
For a moment, Kathryn read the subtext under the light-hearted tone and wondered if they were kindred spirits.
“How’s Seven?”
His smile didn’t break. It didn’t even twitch.
“Doing splendidly the last time she came by for a check up. I’ve done physicals for almost the entire crew at this point. I’m flattered that they consider me the ‘family doctor.’ And that Miral – she is going to be a beauty.”
“Have you visited Tom and B’Elanna?”
“I can’t without assistance.”
Kathryn shook her head.
“I’m sorry?”
His grin was unsettling.
“Oh, that’s all right. It’s a bit difficult for me to get used to as well – not having my mobile emitter anymore.”
How could he be so cavalier about something so serious? Suddenly Kathryn forgot about her own medical problems. Had she become so cynical that she found the Doctor’s sunny demeanor jarring? Even so, instinct told her to keep her concern hidden.
“I see. Where is it now?”
“At the Daystrom Institute. But don’t worry, I’m fine. I enjoy my position here – “
“What about your hobbies? Your golfing – “
“They have a holodeck for surgical simulations on the third floor. They let me use a program that’s quite enjoyable. When Dr. Bashir is on leave, he sometimes accompanies me.”
They let me. To a stranger, his phrasing would be right in line with a hologram’s placement in organic society. But to anyone intimately involved in his progress, this was tantamount to devolution. Starfleet Medical was beginning to look like the Doctor’s personal prison.
Her concern for his welfare overrode any neuroses she had about her own ailments. The second opinion she needed was no longer for herself.
“I’m going to Tom and B’Elanna’s for dinner tonight. We should go together.”
“I’d enjoy that.”
His answer both relieved and terrified her.
* * *
The Doctor was lucky that the Paris abode was the one place certain to have holoemitters in every room. Post-partum, B’Elanna had developed an allergic reaction to animal dander – as had Miral. The only way they could have a pet was through Tom’s “Toby” program, a Golden retriever puppy that was his pride and joy.
Dinner was over. Paris pulled his former captain into the kitchen as B’Elanna showed her holographic guest the recent renovations to their home.
“Something’s wrong with Doc,” he began, his brow furrowed.
Kathryn kept quiet. The only way she’d be sure it wasn’t her own paranoia was if Tom could echo her thoughts without a hint or a prompt.
“I can actually…tolerate him. It’s like he’s been – “
The pilot shook his head before finishing his thought.
“You know, there’s this classic 20th century holovid B’E and I were watching the other night called ‘The Stepford Wives.’ It’s about a town full of lobotomized women designed to serve their men. It’s dated and chauvinist. And I’m glad it’s not real. But the Doc – he’s become…I mean, where’s the sarcasm, the elitist opinions? He’s just completely and utterly…”
“Lobotomized. So I’m not the only one. Good. Now we’re getting somewhere –“
A hot flash hit her in that moment and Kathryn rushed over to the window and opened it. A heavy downpour raged on outside, leaving the air windswept and chilly.
Tom hugged his arms for warmth.
“Captain? Are you all right?”
Kathryn quickly regained control of her internal temperature and closed the pane, locking it.
“I’m fine,” she covered, “It’s the Doctor I’m worried about. Did you know they took away his mobile emitter?”
“I was told it was being repaired and that he’d get it back.”
“It doesn’t appear that way.”
An unusually dazed and pale B’Elanna walked zombie-like into the kitchen.
“B’E? Is Miral - ?”
He’d never seen her so pensive.
“Miral’s fine. Never better. The Doctor’s singing her a Klingon lullaby. A lullaby. And not Verdi or Puccini. Klingon. For my benefit.”
B’Elanna’s hushed tones gave way to a confused anger.
“Since when does he do anything for my benefit?! Captain, I want to do a maintenance check on the Doctor’s program. What do you think?”
It was Tchaikovsky to Kathryn’s ears. Finally, she was home.
“Do it.”
* * *
“It’s not noticeable to the untrained eye, but the Doctor’s definitely been tampered with.”
They were gathered in B’Elanna’s home office. She had uploaded the EMH’s program into her computer, his form standing stock-still as she made her assessment.
“Certain subroutines have been shaved off so that the differences seem miniscule. His ethical subroutines are intact; cognitive ones are up-to-date, and the creative subroutines are still there. But the codes have been reorganized in order of priority. Singing, dancing, and artistic self-improvement – all of those hobbies – have been pushed down the list. And his personality has been cleaned up. Over the years, I’d noticed a few erroneous linkages, but I left them knowing that it might tamper with the Doctor’s development. Those linkages are now gone.”
Tom leaned over her shoulder to get a better look at the console.
“So that explains his lack of sarcasm tonight. But why would anyone go to such lengths to…sanitize him?”
B’Elanna looked up at her mate with a grave expression and tapped the screen to open up a new scan.
“It might have something to do with this,” she continued, “Whole blocks of data having to do with medical advancements he made in the Delta Quadrant have been excised.”
She pointed out a data patch.
“If your work was being suppressed, wouldn’t you object? And we all know what the Doctor’s like – “
“Maybe Starfleet doesn’t want him accidentally spilling trade secrets to the Dominion. They could just program a stop-gap measure – “
“That’s too much work for them, Tom.”
Kathryn’s soft husky voice finally introduced itself into the conversation. She was sitting on the couch in the back, cradling a sleeping Miral, unable to take her eyes off the little girl.
In the middle of the maintenance check, Tom had left the room to retrieve both a data PADD and deal with a crying baby. When he came back, Kathryn had offered to help with either issue and without thinking, Tom handed over Miral.
It startled her, but it made sense. Miral was Kathryn’s goddaughter. But since menopause hit, she’d been unable to focus on the big picture due to increasingly uncomfortable symptoms. She hadn’t thought about having children in a long while; she wasn’t even sure if she’d make a good godmother. But holding Miral unearthed long buried wishes and hopes she’d had with Mark – before the Delta Quadrant had punched a hole in her life and in who she was as a human being. If she could no longer conceive, did it make her less than any other person who could? If she stopped producing the hormone that made her female, did she stop being female?
“Starfleet doesn’t see the Doctor as a person,” she continued, “So they don’t have to treat him with the same courtesy as they would you, B’Elanna or myself. To them, he’s just property. And everything he’s done, all the hard work and advancements he’s made - to both himself and the field of medicine – belongs to Starfleet.”
B’Elanna nodded in agreement.
“Including his mobile emitter.”
“Especially his mobile emitter.”
Tom began to pace.
“So what do we do?”
“First, we need a backup of his program.”
“I don’t have one,” B’Elanna sighed, “And I doubt anyone at Starfleet is just going to hand it over.”
Kathryn stared at Miral’s long, feathery lashes and savored the whispers her breath made, curling up from her Cupid’s bow lips.
“It’s a long shot, Tom, but I’m going to talk to your father about this. It will mean revealing that we know what they’ve been doing – “
“Dad won’t tell anyone.”
“No. Not if we keep this amongst ourselves,” Kathryn handed the little girl back to her father.
“For now.”
* * *
Back in her apartment, Kathryn’s conversation with Owen had been frustrating.
Although Admiral Paris hadn’t known anything specific about the handling of the Doctor’s program, he fell firmly in line with other bureaucrats who believed that holograms didn’t have equal rights to humanoid life forms. Once she realized Owen’s position could never be changed, Kathryn focused on getting enough information to formulate some kind of plan. She had nothing specific in mind, but she was sure of one thing: the Doctor needed a champion, someone to fight for him. He had saved countless lives in the Delta Quadrant and he deserved no less.
Her insomnia, the stomach cramps, the layers of clothing she wore – they all weighed down on her daily. She wasn’t eating well. Exercise was an exercise in futility. And the depression of losing so much of her Voyager family to their new lives was a strain she hadn’t been prepared for. Kathryn knew that if the Doctor had been himself at Starfleet Medical, she wouldn’t have had to endure so much of this physician-patient song and dance she regularly avoided. Kathryn never stopped to think that she preferred a hologram to a flesh and blood doctor. Because in her reality, the Doctor was often more flesh and blood than the real thing.
After replicating her usual cup of morning coffee, Kathryn sat by the window and looked out into the street, thinking about the last time she’d talked to him.
Safely ensconced in the Alpha Quadrant and readying itself to come back to Earth, Voyager buzzed with activity. Each member of the senior staff spear-headed a different set of protocols before docking at McKinley Station.
Kathryn remembered being in her quarters, reluctantly packing up her things, when the Doctor had paid her his last visit.
* * *
The job was taking far longer than she anticipated. Various mementos were strewn across the floor and each time she picked up something new, it brought her back to the moment she’d acquired it. Ten or more minutes would pass before she could bring herself to wrap it loosely in a piece of cloth or paper and place it in the cargo container.
A soft door chime issued a welcome interruption to what had become a maudlin activity.
“Come in.”
The Doctor entered. He had a book in one hand and a tricorder in the other.
“Good evening, Captain. Normally, I frown at having to do a ‘house call,’ but it appears you are the last person on Voyager due for a pre-dock scan.”
“I’m sorry for putting it off. Thank you for remembering.”
He set down the book and began taking her readings.
“Captain, I’ve been meaning to ask you for a letter –“
“It’s already been done. I’ve suggested that you be offered a position at Starfleet Medical, although it’s my personal opinion that you could work just about anywhere.”
“Thank you. It means – “
For a moment, Kathryn could see a glimmer of sadness in the EMH’s eyes.
The Doctor cleared his throat.
“Suffice it to say, I’m glad we agree, considering how often we haven’t.”
He finished the readings and reattached the tricorder to his belt loop. The Doctor then picked up the book he had left on the table.
“I’ve been meaning to return this to you.”
It was La Vita Nuova. Following his ethical dilemma regarding Ensign Jetal’s death, the Doctor asked to borrow the tome Kathryn had been reading during the nights she stayed up with him on the holodeck. She’d forgotten it had been missing from her collection.
“I’ve bookmarked a favorite passage with a written note of thanks. I want you to know how much I appreciate the times you’ve stood by me, when I’m sure decompiling me would have been easier.”
“You’re most welcome, Doctor. As far as I’m concerned, you’re an integral part of this crew. I’m sure I’ve never served or will ever serve with a better Chief Medical Officer.”
The EMH looked pleased then, his supercilious grin re-emerging.
“Naturally.”
He turned to leave and Kathryn sunk to the floor, back to the task at hand.
“Captain?”
She looked up to see him half-turned in the threshold of her open doorway, his figure rigid and shrouded in silhouette.
“If I don’t see you for a long, long time, I want you to know that out of all the organic life forms I have ever met, yours is the friendship I have regarded as the turning point of my…well…life.”
She had seen him go from arrogant to melodramatic once before. Kathryn smiled warmly, knowing what he would need to quell his holographic jitters. Truth be told, she was just as nervous as he. Both of them regarded Voyager as home. This was no time to take anything too seriously. If they did, they might both fall apart.
Kathryn leapt up, covered the remaining steps between them, and gave him the warmest hug she could offer.
She turned her neck slightly so she could whisper in his ear.
“Break a leg, Doctor.”
* * *
…If I don’t see you…
In silhouette, she couldn’t remember what his face had looked like, but she was sure a twinge of something more than nervousness had laced his words.
It was foreboding.
Kathryn went to the guest room where all her unopened cargo containers were. She found the one labeled “books” and brought it down to her level. Sure enough, Dante’s tome of courtly love poems lay on top of the pile.
She fanned open La Vita Nuova and a single envelope in rough card stock fell out. Kathryn tore it open to find both a letter and a small data chip. She began to read:
Dear Captain,
I’m guessing that in the hectic coming days, this letter might be forgotten or put aside. Still, I meant every word, every bit of gratitude I’m certain I expressed at our parting. And if you see me a week, a month, a year hence – and I am exactly as I was when I left Voyager – then this bit of correspondence will be moot.
But if I seem altered and less than the robust, inquisitive, engaging and otherwise erudite physician-singer-dancer-golfer-pianist (insert additional hyphenates here), then hold this data chip closely to your breast and protect it with your life.
What you have in your hands is a backup copy of my program. After our bit of litigation with Mr. Broht and his publishing empire, I am no longer optimistic about how I’ll be received on Earth. In fact, I daresay I have a sixth sense - that goes beyond what argument grouchy Lieutenant Torres might give - about what will happen to me.
If I am wrong – which scarcely happens – then I am willing to set aside my prejudices against organics. If however, I am correct, it is my ardent wish that you find someone who can ensure that I exist. I don’t expect you to risk your career and reputation. I only hope that you find someone who believes passionately about the sanctity of holographic life the way I do.
Your friend,
The Doctor
It must have been the hormonal fluctuations. Kathryn stared at the last paragraph for a full minute before realizing that tears were streaming down her face.
Holding the chip in her hand, she picked up the book with the other and studied the page where the Doctor’s favorite passage lay:
My eyes saw how much pity
Was apparent in your face,
When you gazed at the attitude and form
That I often appear in through grief.
Then I understood that you would know
The nature of my hidden life,
To that I felt fear in my heart
Of showing my misery in my eyes.
And taking myself away from you, I felt
That the tears rose from my heart,
Which were summoned by your look.
Then I said to my sad spirit:
‘It must be that Love lives within this lady
Who makes me go weeping so.’
She closed the book and collapsed in the wing chair by the window overlooking the Bay.
Kathryn decided immediately that only one person could fight for the Doctor. One person alone.
She.
He had picked her favorite passage by happenstance. It had been years since she’d revisited the pages, but new circumstances had given them more personal and profound meaning. It had been no secret on Voyager that the Doctor loved Seven. And it didn’t matter whether or not the crew knew Kathryn had been in love with Chakotay. She shared a kinship with the Doctor that went beyond their love of science and their indomitable spirits.
They had loved and lost.