"Report to the bridge at 1900 hours, Mr. Kim. Dismissed."

Captain Janeway waved her hand at the young Ensign tiredly. She had been up half the night worrying, as she often did, about how to get home. Harry Kim noticed the expression on her face, but he himself was too tired to care much about it. A few panels at his work station had been malfunctioning the day before, and he had worked at it for five hours without rest. I need my down time, he thought, I can't worry about the Captain now. He was slightly ashamed at his selfish thoughts, but he couldn't help it.

Harry stumbled past the others on the ship, trying to stay on his feet. The door to his room slid open and he fell into his room. The refresher beckoned to the left, but Harry was too exhausted to shower. His comfortable sleeping clothes called him from the closet, but the effort of even stripping off his shirt seemed too strenuous. He simply fell into bed, pulling the covers up and over his head, letting himself drift into darkness.

About three hours later, a banging on the door interrupted Harry's sleep. He groaned and tugged his blanket higher, trying to ignore the annoying sound. The banging ceased for a moment, but resumed again before long. Harry kept ignoring it, hoping whoever it was would give up and go away. They didn't.

Harry heard his friend Tom Paris uttering the override code to unlock the door. Tom burst into the room with a grin, "Harry, I'm not disturbing anything, am I?"

"No, no, nothing at all," Harry grumbled, pushing the blanket away. "What do you want, Tom?"

"I'm off for just three hours, but let's go do something," Tom said. "I'm not a bit tired, are you?"

"Nope," Harry replied with a glare.

"Great! Let's go, as soon as you get out of your uniform." Tom's eyes glanced skeptically at Harry's rumpled attire.

Harry sighed and reached for a new pair of clothes.

"Mr. Vulcan, nice to meet you!" -- Neelix

"So then there was this one time when she-" Tom broke off in the middle of his story, noticing that Harry was staring off into space, obviously not listening. "Harry!" He snapped in front of Harry, trying to get his attention. Harry jumped and looked back at Tom.

"Oh, sorry," he apologized, "I guess I wasn't listening."

"I guess," Tom rolled his eyes, but Harry didn't notice. He was looking over at something across the room. Tom followed his gaze, noticing the petite figure of a young ensign. He grinned, "Wix? Is that what's so intriguing?"

"You know her?" Harry frowned, trying to decide whether this new piece of information should make him happy, or upset.

"Eh, I know of her," Tom said, sipping his drink. "Five feet tall, blonde, freckles. Her full name is Danielle Olivia Wix, but people call her Danni. She loves the holodeck, especially the historical places you can visit there. She loves to swim and horseback ride. She's usually in Engineering, so B'Elanna would know her better than me," he finished with a grin.

Harry, who's eyes had been growing bigger and bigger with each piece of information, glanced at Paris, one eyebrow raised above the other. "It sounds like you know her pretty well."

"I read her profile."

"What?" Harry choked back a laugh.

"Hey, I was off duty when nobody else was," Tom defended himself, "and I was interested in blonde girls at the time."

"And what did you decide?"

"About Wix?" Tom's eyes twinkled. "She's cute, but she's not my type. Definitely not."

"I was under the impression that any pretty girl under the age of 30 was your type."

"Well, she's not."

"Why?"

Paris sighed, "Look, Harry, Wix is..." He trailed off, staring into the distance for a minute. "Wix is a little weird, or so I've heard. See, she's, well she's..."

"She's what?" Harry asked, beginning to be a little exasperated with his friend.

"Well, she's a fairie."

Harry stared blankly, as if he had no idea what in the world Paris could be talking about. "What?" he asked slowly, groping for more words.

Paris leaned forward, "you know your old earth mythology, right?" At Harry's nod, he continued, "well, it seems that a group of aliens who were able to fly, cast 'spells', and change their size at will somehow ended up on earth. Even though they had rules-much like the prime directive- forbidding them to interfere, they sometimes forgot to hide from us humans, and from there came the stories of fairies, dryads and pixies. Well, when their planet was discovered, the species wanted to be called "Fairies" after their old earth name."

Harry cast a glance at Ensign Wix, "and she's supposed to be one of these... fairies?"

"She most definitely is one of 'those fairies'." Paris leaned back in his chair. "And there's a lot of prejudice against them right now. They refuse to be admitted into the federation, and yet they trade with us and let us use their planet freely. Plus, a lot of the Fairies are just commonplace, the trash of the galaxy, you might say. No one has to work hard on their planet anymore, because everyone is rich there, and as a result they've gotten a reputation for being quite lazy."

"Is Wix?" Harry asked, trying to be subtle.

"We-ell, not that I know of. Most of that is probably just jealousy talking. B'Elanna talks about Wix sometimes. She says she's a good worker, but still, you never know." Tom downed the last of his drink. "I just don't know how much more my own rep can take. I'm already on a lot of people's bad side, especially the Marquis. I don't think it's a good idea for me to hang around a Fairie."

"Maybe not," Harry agreed, trying not to grin. He glanced across the room again at the slender ensign. "Too bad for you."