Kathryn Janeway had contemplated many horrific prospects while planning the mission against the Borg. To lose her individuality, to see her crew captured and assimilated, to witness the crushing of Unimatrix Zero... all had crossed her mind, yet she had conquered her fear and gone ahead.
But she had not figured on being trapped in Sickbay for over two weeks, otherwise her plans might have had a radical revision. Assimilation would have connected her to the Hive Mind, billions of voices speaking as one, but at least those voices would not be prone to demonstrate a considerable repertoire of Italian opera.
Exasperated, she put down her PADD. "Doctor?"
"La notte ti chiama... Yes, Captain?" The EMH wandered over to his patient.
"Could you please keep it down? I'm trying to work."
"Against medical advice, may I remind you." The EMH glanced at the PADD. "Could you at least do something you enjoy? I can't believe that working out the department rotations is the least bit good for you. The last thing you need now is extra stress."
"What better excuse is there for coffee?" Janeway took a gulp from her mug. "And you can't deny I enjoy that."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. He had done this so often in the past weeks that he'd asked Joe Carey to write a dedicated routine for his matrix. "No, no, there's no disputing your dedication to poisoning yourself." He picked up a dermal regenerator. "But while I'm here, it's a good time to have another look at your spine."
Janeway groaned. "Not again. Can't we just leave it to heal by itself?"
"You're no spring chicken, Captain." The Doctor rolled her over briskly, ignoring the yelp that resulted. "A woman of your age can't rely on the body's natural healing processes. You're fortunate to have a medical officer who takes his job seriously and won't let his patients harm themselves by neglecting their health."
"Yes, how lucky for me." The Doctor had not been programmed to recognise irony so happily went ahead with his inspection and regeneration of his Captain's nervous system. Meanwhile Janeway stared at the wall in front of her and worked on extending her mental list of modifications to make to the EMH once she was completely better. It helped to distract her from the feeling that an army of fire ants was attempting to set up home in her spinal cord.
The doors hissed open to admit Chakotay. He made two steps into the room before registering the amount of his Captain that was visible.
"I'll come back later." Years of poker playing allowed him to conceal the regret in that sentence.
"No, no, come on in." Chakotay couldn't see Janeway's face, which was just as well. "I'm past embarrassment. Maybe you could give the Doctor a hand."
Chakotay laughed and came around to the head of the bed to see his Captain's face. As he expected, her expression set new standards for inscrutability.
"Have a seat. It hurts to look up at you like this; my neck feels like one big crick."
Chakotay pulled up a small stool. "How are you doing?"
"Fine. Ow!" She glared over her shoulder. "Doctor, could you hold off driving roofing nails into my back?" Her attention returned to her Commander. "What's new?"
"There's some sort of fluid leak on Deck 15. No-one's quite sure what it is, but it smells horrible. Think 'incontinent skunk'. Crewman Mitchell got caught in a spray of it, and his roommate moved out that evening."
"B'Elanna's on the case though?"
"B'Elanna played the 'still recovering from being Borg' card and sent Joe Carey down there with a work party. The work party list bears an astonishing resemblance to the list of people who have crossed B'Elanna in the past month."
"B'Elanna's not one to hold a grudge," protested Kathryn, defending her friend.
"No," acknowledged Chakotay, "she lets go of it once she's used it to smack you upside of the head a few times." He appeared momentarily distracted by something happening behind Kathryn's head, but a swift glare returned his attention to her face.
"What's happening with her and Tom?"
Chakotay shrugged. "She's not saying. Something has changed, but I don't know what."
"Do you think it might be a problem?"
"For whom? You know B'Elanna. She'll do right by the ship, and by you, no matter what. But between her and Tom -- I don't know." He looked thoughtfully at Kathryn. "Did she say anything to you while she was in Sickbay?"
Kathryn hesitated. "She did, but I'm not really allowed to say."
"No problem." Chakotay understood and respected the Rules of Sisterhood, even if they did complicate his life on a regular basis. "I'll keep an eye on B'Elanna for you."
"Anything else?"
"Neelix wants to run another entertainment night."
"No."
"Understood."
Kathryn let out a grunt of pain as the Doctor did something particularly uncomfortable. "Sorry. How are you and Tuvok getting along?"
Chakotay shrugged. "We do OK. I think the Alpha shift bridge crew are missing you, though. Except for Ayala, who's enjoying having Tactical all to himself." He looked up at the EMH. "Doctor, when are you going to let the Captain out?"
The Doctor frowned. "I'm not happy with the way her spinal cord is responding to regeneration. It will be another week at least before I can allow her on her feet."
Kathryn threw up her hands as best she could under the circumstances. "Fine! Chakotay, can you put together the papers I need to retire on a Starfleet invalid's pension? I'll get B'Elanna to build me a bathchair."
Chakotay sought to soothe her raw nerves. "It's only a week. We can get you back in your ready room after that, even if you can't play Velocity. And there are no likely planets for exploration within two weeks' travel so you won't miss out."
"I guess there's no choice," she grumped. "Okay, inform the senior officers."
The Doctor came around in front of Kathryn. "I need to check your heart, lung and liver functions."
"My cue." Chakotay rose. "See you tomorrow."
"Bring ice cream."
Kathryn had survived the physical, and had accepted the extension to her confinement enough that she had loaded a 20th Century bodice-ripper onto her PADD to replace the rotation schedules. Still, she carefully kept the Doctor in ignorance of this. There was a reputation to maintain, after all.
The blaring of the Red Alert warning startled her so much that she dropped the PADD. Instinctively she slapped at the comm badge on her chest, to no effect, then remembered that the badge was on the bedside shelf and deactivated. "Doctor! What's happening?"
The Doctor came out of his office, apparently talking to thin air. "Acknowledged. Standing by." There was the blue shimmer of a site-to-site transport, and a body materialised on the critical care bed.
Kathryn strained to see who it was, but could only see a scorched teal shirt and dark hair as the Doctor started treatment. The patient's agonised moans, however, came over clearly. "Doctor?"
"I'll be with you soon, Captain." The Doctor was moving rapidly, scanning and regenerating with an urgency that scared Kathryn.
The Sickbay doors opened and Tom Paris barrelled in. "Here, Doc. Hi, Captain." He moved up beside the Doctor and started passing along hyposprays.
Kathryn had rarely felt so frustrated. She wanted to scream out, wanted to know what had happened and who was injured. Why was the Red Alert going? What was Chakotay doing? Yet she knew that she had no need to know, so would have to wait.
The Red Alert siren stopped, and shortly the work of the Doctor and Tom became less rushed. Finally Kathryn felt able to ask her question.
"Tom, what happened?"
Tom got the nod from the Doctor and stepped over to his captain. "She got badly scalded somehow -- thirty percent burns, mostly to her front. We stopped the swelling and shock; she'll be okay as long as we keep her free of infection."
Kathryn realised that she was seeing a new Tom Paris. Gone was the flyboy helmsman, the rebel, the practical joker; the Tom in front of her had become a man. His calm competence in the face of crisis made her understand that the boy from the New Zealand penal colony had been left behind in the Delta Quadrant.
He pulled up a chair and sat down by her bed. "How're you doing, Captain? I'm sorry I've not stopped by to see you."
"I'm doing okay," Kathryn lied. "But shouldn't you be...?" She waved vaguely at the crewman on the critical care bed.
"Not when she's in a sterile field," Tom pointed out. "The Doc can work inside it, but I can't." He tossed a PADD stylus towards the critical care bed; a blue shimmer accompanied a small electric "zap" as the stylus bounced back off the field.
"Who is it?"
"Tal Celes." Tom glanced back at the bed. "We've pumped her full of sedative. She'll be out for the next day or so." He shrugged. "At least you'll have someone to talk to other than the Doc. I don't know how you stick it. B'Elanna was stir-crazy by the time the Doc let her out, and that was nearly a week ago."
"It was a bit like sharing quarters with a claustrophobic tiger," admitted Kathryn. "How's she handling being back in Engineering?"
"She must like it; it's hard to persuade her to come out after the end of her shift. Anyone would think she was hiding in there."
Kathryn considered the gambit, but left it alone. "Give her my love."
"I'll do that."
Tom rose from his seat, spotted the PADD on Kathryn's bedside table and had read several lines before she realised what he was doing. Clutching the PADD to her chest, she levelled her sternest glare at his smirk.
"Our secret, ma'am," he promised. Something in his voice told her that she'd be hearing about this again later.
He stopped by the Doctor for some brief words, then disappeared into the rest of the ship.
Kathryn returned to her novel, but couldn't help looking over at Celes now and again. Her head was turned to the wall, but the burn scars were clear on what Kathryn could see of her face. Involuntarily Kathryn ran her hand down her own face, and shivered.
Chakotay understood that a Commander's work was never done, and so cherished the too-few moments of peace in his quarters. He was sprawled across his sofa, feet up on the arm, head pillowed on cushions with his nose deep into Musashi's "Book of Five Rings" when his door chime rescued him from drowning in the sea of tranquility.
"Come in."
The furry face of his Morale Officer peeked around the door. "Hello, Commander. Sorry to disturb you."
He sighed. "That's okay, Neelix. What can I do for you? Is this about Entertainment Night?"
"Not really." The little Talaxian was bobbing up and down on his heels in a manner that reminded Chakotay irresistibly of a pet hamster he'd once had. He recognised the signs of a nervous Morale Officer.
"Have a seat. Coffee?" Chakotay crossed to his replicator. "Now that Kath -- the Captain isn't visiting, I find myself with more rations than I know what to do with."
"Thank you, Commander." Neelix took an appreciative sip of the replicated brew. It was technically neurotoxic to the Talaxian, but he figured that anything good enough for the Captain was good enough for him. "How is she doing? I went to see her yesterday, but she was more keen to ask me things than answer any questions about herself."
"She'll be glad to leave Sickbay, I think." Chakotay was careful to avoid specifics. He had always been unsure of Neelix's relationship with the Captain. While it was clear to a blind man that Neelix would sooner eat his own cooking than disappoint the Captain, Chakotay didn't know how this was reciprocated. He decided to get to the point, whatever it was. "What's on your mind, Neelix?"
"The crew are missing the Captain," Neelix said carefully. "It's not the same without her on duty."
"I know," said Chakotay with slight exasperation, "but there's not a lot we can do about it. All of us want her back, but the Doctor won't allow it yet. That's that."
"I'm not suggesting that you override the Doctor's medical opinion," said Neelix, in the manner of a man tiptoeing through a minefield in clown shoes. "But maybe you could make it seem more like she is in charge again."
Chakotay narrowed his eyes. "Spit it out, Neelix."
Neelix havered for a moment, then plunged on lemming-like. "Alpha Shift isn't happy. I think that there is a real problem."
"Alpha Shift? Tuvok?" Chakotay wasn't slow on the update. "What do you think is the problem?"
Neelix wasn't used to talking so openly with the Commander, but felt that he was on a roll. "Mr. Tuvok's very efficient, I'm sure, and that's good for keeping Voyager in tip-top shape. But he's not the best-liked of the officers, I'm sure you know. People have been telling me that he's been making them very unhappy." Chakotay was nodding understanding, which emboldened the Talaxian. "Perhaps he needs to take a leaf out of the Captain's book --"
Chakotay cut Neelix right off. "Thank you for telling me about this, Neelix. I'll certainly take it on board and see what can be done." He rose from the sofa; Neelix realised that the meeting was over and drained his coffee in one gulp.
"Thank you, Commander." He managed to make it out of the door and out of earshot before he started to cough and splutter from the acute coffee poisoning.
Back in his cabin, Chakotay ensured that the door was locked before groaning loudly and cradling his head in his arms.
Only one feat is possible -- not to have run away.
Dag Hammarskjold