Author's Note: Spoilers for and up until season 3, episode 18, "Darkling". I also threw in some foreshadowing and possible spoilers for later episodes if you look carefully. I wrote this after thinking that the ending of "Darkling" left many unresolved issues for the Doctor to, possibly, deal with. I have tried to capture the characters' voices and wrestled mightily with the 'technobabble', and I still feel those areas could use some work so feedback would be greatly welcomed. Thanks!
Disclaimer: The following is a piece of fanfiction. No money is made off this. There is no copyright infringement intended; all characters, concepts and backgrounds belong to the Star Trek franchise.
Emergency Medical Hologram, M.D.
1. Reaffirmation
"Hey, Doc," a good-humoured crewman greeted in passing, "Working late?"
Voyager's EMH rarely ventured out of sickbay during gamma shift, when the ship operated on a skeleton crew and the only sounds were the soft murmur of voices and footsteps overlaying the deeper hum of the engines.
"I hope there's no need for that," the Doctor managed to say, with only a shade less than his usual aplomb, and the crewman grinned in answer as they parted at an intersection. The Doctor continued, walking and thinking.
Something had happened today…something which was still disturbing the usual comfort of the good Doctor's mind, though he would not openly reveal his trouble to the crew. He needed some place to sort out his confused "feelings", so to speak, and the cold sterility of sickbay had, for once, not lent itself to him.
Maybe he was…overconfident in his assumptions, he mused as he walked, nodding occasionally to a passing crewmember. No wonder. He had the accumulated knowledge and experience of forty-seven excellent surgeons, but yet he couldn't treat his own malfunctions. With his understanding of psychology, he was practically the ship's counsellor in all but name, but yet he couldn't improve himself.
What was I thinking, adding new personality subroutines without regard for the consequences? Rushing into things was a practice most unbecoming a doctor. He thought he hadn't rushed. He'd done his research, but…
Who will I become next, a disillusioned medical hologram on a killing spree?
He found that faintly ironic, in a tragic operatic way. How ludicrous! But he shuddered despite himself. Trying to distance himself from the day's events, he had a go at a snippet of an aria from Mozart's The Magic Flute, but for once his infallible memory failed him. He could not lose himself in his hobbies tonight.
The Doctor was aware he was trying to reassure himself and failing. He remembered vividly the way he had gripped Kes, his tactile sensors on overload, his imaging array disintegrating as they struggled, the way her body had tensed, the conflicting mix of concern and fear in her eyes as she pleaded with him, the shock as his new personality hurled them both over the precipice.
Who will I hurt next? Aren't I supposed to "do no harm"?
After he was deemed in "full health" and after he got out of those awful clothes, he had gone to personally thank the Captain who, with her uncanny sense of timing, had transported them to Voyager as they fell from the crag. He had wanted to, but he could not find her. Well, he was sure Kes had done so already. She was the kind of person who would care about doing something like that. She was the kindest person he knew, one of the first who truly accepted him for what he was, one of the first who encouraged him to be more than he was supposed to be.
Suppose, suppose what might've happened with the transporters hadn't worked...
He tightened his lips as he remembered, with guilt, how he had treated her and her reaction after their little adventure. She had not said a hurtful word to him, just a forgiving,
"It wasn't you, Doctor."
Then she'd asked him if he was all right. There were so much he wanted to tell her, but he couldn't. And he could only say a forced, "I'm perfectly fine", watching her walk away from him to say a last goodbye to Zahir, that daring traveler who caused all this trouble in the first place. What Kes saw in him the Doctor would never know.
There I go blaming someone else again. He paused. Why can't I face my mistakes?
He squared his shoulders and summoned the strength of an operatic hero facing the serpent of his guilt head on.
Emergency Medical Holographic Program AK-1, Diagnostic and Surgical Subroutine Omega 323, bloated with the pride of being the unofficial Chief Medical Officer of the Federation Starship Voyager, had gone against his oath. He had hurt, instead of healed. He had made the misguided decision to add those personality subroutines to his program. He had so much confidence in his research that he did not stop to question his actions. He made that decision to "recreate" himself and in doing so failed devastatingly.
Finally, he had to face a dreaded question nagging at him:
What will I do next?
He found himself stepping into the mess hall with only a vague idea of getting into a turbolift and traversing the corridors. He rarely ventured into the mess hall, as the food and the company were irritating reminders of his existence as a mere hologram. The mess during gamma shift was empty and silent, with a few cold salads and congealing leola root stew left out for any peckish crewmember with an iron stomach. The annoying Talaxian was nowhere to be found. Good, he smiled cynically. This was his first stroke of luck in a hellish day.
He headed for a corner seat near the windows, determined to make full use of his sensitive mood. Maybe he could stare out at the stars flying by and ponder his existence romantically.
He had only been pondering poetically for few minutes when the mess hall door swished opened. Half-hidden in the shadows of his reflective nook, the Doctor watched bemusedly as a frazzled-looking Lieutenant Torres, in civvies, entered and grimly started to punch commands into the replicator. A mug appeared and Torres raised the mug to her lips hesitantly. Then—
"That p'taq! Spinach juice!" she cursed, her voice echoing stridently across the room. She tossed the mug and its contents into the recycler and tapped furiously at the replicator controls while the Doctor, shaken out of his gloom, watched her movements with increasing curiosity.
Moments later, another mug, this time steaming hot, appeared and Torres took a tentative sip. She smiled with satisfaction and made her way over to a seat by the windows. The Doctor cleared his throat noisily.
She turned and her sharp gaze swept over him with surprise. "Well, you're up late, Doctor," she said, coming over. "Mind if I join you?"
He filed away his confusing thoughts for later analysis and sniffed, almost automatically, "Would you care if I did mind?" She rolled her eyes but settled into the seat opposite from him anyway.
"So how are you? Stable?" she asked, referring to his matrix. She was scrutinizing him carefully. "You looked…upset. That's not like you."
"I'm fine," he said dismissively. He could tell her hands were itching to go poke around in his mobile emitter, and suddenly he very much wanted his program to be left alone. Changing the subject quickly, he said, "That was an impressive display of vulgar language, lieutenant," and gestured at the mug cradled in her hands. She was unruffled.
"What, this? I couldn't sleep, so I went to get a drink. Someone, though, reprogrammed the patterns for raktajino in my replicator to give 'Spinach juice, with a touch of pear, lukewarm'. So I came here, only to find someone had fooled around with these replicators as well."
"Who would be foolish enough to do that, I wonder."
"I'll bet you it was Paris. He would do something immature like that," she replied. He saw that she smiled a little at the end when she said Paris' name, a secret smile she thought no one could see. He wondered at the strength of that emotion which would trigger such a reaction from her. His own love story seemed so long ago, and he brushed the thought aside and criticized,
"Do you know how many noxious substances are in that vile drink? It's fattening, unhealthy and completely devoid of nutritional value. Why do you persist in drinking it?"
"It tastes good," Torres said. He couldn't gainsay that. He looked at the steaming liquid and wondered what taste would be like. Pain he had already experienced, but to taste, one day…
"You're not going to tell me what to drink now, are you?" she said with an edge in her voice.
"Well, whatever I told you wouldn't be any use, would it? You ate that salad," he replied. He took the opportunity to take another look at her with a physician's eye, observing the dark circles under her eyes and the faint lines of exhaustion at the corners. Unconsciously, without thinking, he switched to his doctor mode. "As your Doctor, I'm going to recommend you take some time off. And I forbid you to go anywhere near that vegetable Neelix brought onboard."
Torres shot him another warning glare. "I didn't think a small salad would do any harm," she said. "I just didn't think. Nor did you," she added pointedly. The Doctor knew she wasn't referring to his phantom diet, but he feigned ignorance all the same.
"So…what kept you up, then? Do I need to cure an insomniac now? Would a hypospray be in order?" he asked, his false cheeriness changing into real concern. Unwillingly he remembered what he had done to her: his alter ego had used neural inhibitors and chemical shots to paralyse her body. It must have been a nightmare for Torres, so used to being in control, to have her body completely fail her that way.
She was evidently thinking of the same thing. "I really don't think I need any more shots," she said wryly, and he winced. It was strange how responsible he felt.
"Lieutenant," he began, hesitant, "I'm truly sorry for what I did to you. Looking back as a doctor, I find my actions inexcusable. I—"
She took a deep breath and forced him to look at her. "This is what's troubling you, isn't it? What happened in sickbay, and with Kes and the Mokail Travelers?"
His silence gave her the answer. She was right on the mark, and he couldn't deny it. Torres set down her mug with a decisive click. "Doctor, it wasn't you; it was a new personality from those subroutines you added. You can't hold yourself responsible for what he did."
It wasn't you. That was what Kes had said. But if that Dr. Hyde-like persona wasn't him, who was he, really?
"But you could have put a bit more thought into the kind of subroutines you added to your program, Doc," she reprimanded. He couldn't help but grow defensive.
"Is it so wrong of me to try and improve myself?" he demanded.
She took another sip before answering, "No. I think improving oneself is a very commendable goal. Enough people try to decide that for me. It's just…you've got to be careful not to lose yourself in the process."
She looked embarrassed and returned to the safety of studying her raktajino.
Don't lose yourself? Then…who am I?
"Who am I, B'Elanna?" he asked abruptly. "Who am I to you?"
Taken aback, she said slowly, "Well, to me, you're the Doctor. You take care of us, save our lives, that sort of thing. And you're very good at it."
He waited for more. He would have smiled smugly at her reluctant acknowledgement of his skills, but he was thinking of more pressing matters and forehead furrowed instead.
"That's it?" he exclaimed.
She sighed with some exasperation. "What more do you want?"
He stood up and began to pace. "That's exactly it. What more do I want? I'm only a projection, a bunch of holomatter, photons and force fields. That's all I am to you. My existence, as I know it, has been programmed for me. But when I made choices, like today, I turned into…him. If I'm not that monster I created…then what am I?"
Torres was silent. He did not expect an answer. His voice shook as he continued, but he had no thought of stopping. He had to literally get this out of his system.
"I diagnosed myself. I thought my 'lack' of a bedside manner was a concern, so I treated the problem, just like any other case. I thought I was above it all…I, a sentient, self-aware hologram! I thought I knew it all, but in the end I'm only a hologram who just happened to be a doctor. And I failed even at that. I intentionally harmed people, B'Elanna. I might as well be deactivated."
Defeated, he turned away. There: his deepest fears were out in the open, and confessed to the volatile lieutenant, of all people. She would never realize how much it cost him to admit his doubts. A hologram was all he would ever be. Why did he ever try to exceed his limitations? He was not programmed that way. He was only the EMH, temporary, expendable.
The only sound that greeted those heartbreaking words could only be described as an audible snort.
He whirled away from the window, indignant. "Excuse me?" He saw the corners of her mouth twitching upwards. Was she laughing at him?
She sobered and returned his glare with one of her own. "I'm just surprised. It's not everyday the Doc struggles with something as mundane as an identity crisis. It's not everyday the great Doctor feels worthless."
"I'm...I'm not worthless!" he immediately bristled, then realized he'd fallen into a trap.
"Say it again, Doc," she said.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Is this supposed to be a reaffirmation of my self-worth?"
"Yes, it is," she said agreeably but firmly. "Sit down."
He sat, drawing back into himself.
"Since when did you become the ship's counsellor? I thought that was part of my extended duties. But of course no one recognizes what I do anymore, not a word of appreciation..."
"Least of all yourself," she pointed out. "Why are you so hard on yourself? Yes, you were obsolete, but you're more than that now. You're our Doctor and councillor. You take care of the crew so we can take care of Voyager. You save my life and I sort out your program, even though you're a royal pain in the ass. Don't you see? You may be a hologram— I can't refute that— but you're a damn important part of our crew. And you shouldn't be thinking otherwise."
He gestured helplessly. "But…I almost killed today. When I wanted to protect Kes, I hurt her instead. That's not what doctors are for! Today—"
"— Is over, don't you get it? That was a new personality. It wasn't you, our Doctor. Try using that superior shiny head of yours." She leaned back in her seat and watched him with satisfaction, adding sarcastically, "Besides, this is the Delta Quadrant. We seem to be under murderous alien influences and chemical imbalances most of the time. Today was just your turn."
He wasn't sure what to think. He thought maybe his adaptive subroutine was working overtime processing all the conflicting data this unexpected conversation was feeding him.
"As for your question of 'who am I'," Torres said thoughtfully, "I don't think anyone else can answer that for you. You asked me what I thought about you, and I told you the truth." After a hesitation, she continued softly, "I'm still trying to sort out who I am."
He stared at her, seeing clearly her sudden vulnerability, remembering whom he was having this discussion with. If there were anyone else who would question his or her identity, it was she. The brash lieutenant was surprisingly perceptive. He managed a shadow of his old smile.
"I think that maybe I need to do some more exploring. About myself," he said. She blanched and said warningly,
"Then, as your doctor, I'm going to recommend that you don't mess around with your behavioural subroutines again without thinking. Though I guess you would do that anyway, for the sake of "exploring your program", if that's what you have to do to find out who or what you are. I'll probably lose more sleep in fixing you up," she predicted with an exaggerated sigh.
"You'll lose more than time for sleeping, if all goes well between you and Mr. Paris," he retorted insinuatingly as she gaped with outrage. He had been observing their obvious attraction for each for quite a long time, and after her lecture he felt obligated in shooting a barb back. He may be oblivious to some things, but then he was a part of the ship's rumour mill.
What will I do next? He thought happily.
Feeling strangely elated, even though he had been given even more philosophy to think about, he sprang from his chair with his old enthusiasm. Torres levelled him with a glare reminiscent of the Captain's.
"Repeat that and I'll have your program relegated to the brig!"
"Ah, but you can't!" he said triumphantly. "You need me, since you can't be bothered to learn how to wield a simple dermal regenerator. Soon I'll need to take time away from my experiments to heal the hurts you attain as a result of participating in some violent and reckless activity on the holodeck without the safeties on."
She swatted at him as they both left the mess hall smiling. Back in sickbay he gazed around with renewed determination and reaffirmed an old, wise oath.
"I swear this oath by Apollo physician, by Asclepius, by health and by all the gods and goddesses: In whatsoever place that I enter I will enter to help the sick and heal the injured, and I will do no harm."