Finite Space

by Lizard17

The first year after Voyager's return to Earth, former crewmember and Maquis fighter Amanda Jackson unlocks a hundred memories as she falls in love for the first time. Several Lower Decks characters, some PT and JC.

1. Chapter 1

Finite Space

by Liz

The following is a long-overdue novel. I'm glad finally to share it with you. Many of the characters here are of my own invention, although they occupy the world of Voyager, which is not. In particular, Amanda and Aaron are original characters. I hope you enjoy their journey.

chapter 1

in which our heroine meets a hero and drops a replicator down the hill, and Tom Paris doesn't mean to screw things up

Only thirty more meters to go… twenty more… ten…

Clang! The twenty-five kilo replicator slipped from Amanda's arms against the nearest public news projector, a shabby metallic affair bolted into the concrete sidewalk. An old man walking nearby jumped at the noise and glared at her, but she ignored him and the rest of the crowd bustling past her on the busy city street. Man, this thing was heavy. And she still had to get it up the rest of the hill!

She stood up to stretch her back for the final leg of her trek, perched on the infamous southern slope of San Francisco's Nob Hill. What was that old Greek myth, the one about the man trapped in Hades, forever trying to roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down at the last instant? Sisyphus, or Syphilis, or something like that. Whatever his name was, she could relate.

Checking that the replicator was not about to slip away just yet, Amanda let go with one hand so she could wipe the sweat from her face. This city might have some of the mildest weather on the planet, but the effort of lugging this damn thing a whole kilometer and a half uphill was enough to make even a Cardassian sweat. She stood to catch the breeze against her face and looked around. A modernized trolley car rattled and jingled its way up the hill past her, with people of several species hanging off the rails, and a flock of pigeons swirled and reorganized itself around the corners of buildings and sculptures.

Something caught Amanda's eye as she waited for her breath to return. There on the projector, on the current newsreel, was a picture of Voyager! Something about the dedication ceremonies for the opening of the museum—a replica of the ship, which was itself still in service.

Well. Her invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.

Not so for the senior officers. They were always in the news these days, it seemed. Amanda felt an excited if jealous rush of excitement as the faces of her former crewmates flashed across the screen. There they all were in a pleasant little panoramic shot: Captain (soon-to-be-Admiral) Janeway, Chakotay in formal civilian clothing, Tuvok, and Ensign—no, Lieutenant Kim to one side. B'Elanna stood with Tom on the other, and the Doctor was hovering nearby. Even Seven, the celebrity Borg without a rank, had been invited.

"No credit to anyone else, of course," Amanda mumbled as she watched. Upon returning, Starfleet had given her a debriefing and a few exit interviews, most of which were subsequently ignored. In return, she had the thanks of her captain, her officers, and of Starfleet high command itself. She even had her Federation citizenship reinstated, plus a full (but pending) pardon for all her past activities associated with the Maquis.

She just didn't have anything else.

"Good news is, they're not going to prosecute," Amanda thought to herself. "Bad news is I still have to carry this damn replicator up the hill."

She watched for a few more moments as the projector showed archived images from the ship's logs: the ship bursting forth from the Borg corridor, original shots of the Caretaker's Array, that sort of thing. And just think, the whole time she had been stuck in the phaser relay and torpedo compartments, with none other than Chell to keep her company as she dodged plasma bursts and relay explosions to keep the coolant system running properly as Voyager fought battle after mighty battle.

It even sounded kind of heroic. By the second year in the Delta Quadrant, she had earned a reputation as a sort of weapons berserker, willing to dodge or dash through any potential explosion to get the job done. Amanda was embarrassed to think of it now. The truth was, she had only been… well, bored. After you got singed a few times, you got to know where every relay was and which ones were liable to blow when, so the risk factor just became fun and games. Chell never really got used to it, which was probably why he just hid out with the torpedo casings while she did all the real work.

The injustice. Chell was now the head chef at the museum's diner (installed in the replica mess hall, of course), fixing such Delta Quadrant originals as pleeka rind soup and leola root soufflé for all the eager families who came to learn about the adventures of the USS Voyager. To add salt to the wound, Chell had turned out to be a wonderful cook—simply incredible. Leola had never tasted so good.

Amanda stared at her new replicator in disgust before hauling it onto her hip once more. The sharp bottom edge cut into the skin on her hip where she didn't have enough fat to offer a cushion. Amanda wrapped one arm over the top and seized the handle with her other hand, and she shoved off again through the thick midday crowds.

There! Another newsstand. Only thirty meters away. Twenty… Ten…

"Ooof!"

"Damn it!" Amanda gasped as she lost her grip on the replicator and it slid down her thigh, banged against her knee and hit the concrete at her feet, just missing her toes. The handle clanged to the ground and began bouncing down the hill. A real book—one made out of paper, not a padd—also fell to the ground with a much lighter sound.

"Shit!" she said, looking at the broken replicator then over her shoulder at the disappearing handle. It rolled and bounced away until it came to rest against the foot of a dog, who sniffed at it with a mind to mark its territory before its owner jerked it away by the leash.

"I'm so sorry," said a man's voice beside her.

"Stupid, fucking, shoddy piece of crap! Don't let this thing roll away," she ordered without so much as a glance to him as she dodged through the oncoming crowds to get the handle. A pair of Vulcan tourists were peering at it curiously by the time she got there. Whatever. She slipped between them to grab it before they could say anything to her, and she ran back up the hill where the perpetrator of the crash was desperately trying to hold onto her brand-new, now broken replicator as he tucked his book under one arm. He had a few locks of dark hair falling into his eyes, revealing the glint of a Bajoran earring dangling in the sun.

"Thanks," she mumbled before stuffing the handle into the reactor component. Amanda stooped down to pick up the replicator again.

"Are you all right?" the man asked her.

"What?"

"Would you like some help? This is a big job for you to do alone."

She stood back up quickly, letting the replicator lean against one leg. This was it, the final straw of a very, very frustrating day. "Look, maybe you're just a tourist, and maybe nobody cares, but I survived seven years traveling across this galaxy on a starship about the size of Union Square. I got shot at by Hirogen warriors. I fought the Borg. I've even carried a fucking set of transistor coils through seventy-five meters of shit-for-sticks Jeffries tubes under fire. I will lug one measly replicator up this hill if it kills me!"

"You curse like a sailor, too," he noted appreciatively.

"Get lost, will you?"

"I'm only trying to help," he protested. "Listen, your leg looks like it's cut. I feel awful. At least let me help you carry the replicator."

Amanda wondered. He didn't seem much older than she was. A fairly handsome kind of guy, he was squinting in the sunlight, but she could tell that he had light, gray eyes that stood out against his tanned face. He reached a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun and examined her in return.

He seemed to take her silence for an invitation. "My name's Aaron. Yours?"

"That's not a Bajoran name," Amanda observed.

"Nope," he agreed. "My father named me for a friend of his, an ex-Starfleet human who helped supply the black market with food and weapons."

"Wow," Amanda said, momentarily distracted from the replicator, which was cutting into her shin.

"I'll tell you about it if you hand me the replicator," Aaron said. "And tell me your name."

She frowned. The replicator was heavy; she could use the help. "My name is Amanda. Amanda Jackson. And I'll take half."

Aaron grinned at her. "You strike a hard bargain, Amanda. Let's go."

He actually came with her all the way to the door of her apartment building, and held onto the replicator while she keyed in her codes, book still tucked under one arm. Amanda knew very well how heavy the damn thing was; his chivalry was a little embarrassing after her earlier explosion.

"I suppose I should let you have this," he said once she had opened the doors.

"Oh." Amanda didn't hesitate to take it back, but her arms seemed to be having trouble holding onto the entire weight.

"Whoa," Aaron said as her grip began to slip. "Watch out there."

What was wrong with her? She had gotten the thing this far. Her arms could damn well last until she reached the top of the stairs. It's just, the sweat on her palms was ruining her grip. Not only that but once again, the doors to the lift were sporting a sign that read in the barely decipherable handwriting of the management, "Out of order."

She sighed in frustration. "I could really use your help on the stairs."

He grinned, although why she couldn't say. "It's no problem," he said. "Do you want me to go backwards up the stairs?"

"No," she scoffed. "I can do it."

What ensued was a clumsy exercise in miscommunication as the two of them struggled up two and a half flights of a narrow staircase, bumping, scraping, and leaving black marks on the walls as they went.

"Let me go backwards right here," Aaron offered when they reached the second to last landing.

"No," Amanda grunted. "Too close. I've got it."

"Too close? Here, let me--"

"No, wait!"

"I just--"

Thump!

Amanda was suddenly lying on her back, looking up at the water-stained ceiling. She felt the stairs digging into her back and heard the echoing sound of her poor, abused replicator bouncing down the steps and crashing into the wall.

Aaron gasped in remorse as she sat up. He had dodged out of the way, only to let the equipment come to rest on the landing below with a smallish dent in the plaster where it had collided with the wall.

"I think it broke again," he observed.

"You think?" Amanda sat there for a moment, looking at the upended machine, wondering what had happened to it with this collision. Aaron waited patiently for her to react. Despite herself, she cracked a smile.

"What?" he said.

"Oh, you know. Well, it's just…" From the overstock warehouse in Berkeley to the top of Nob Hill: it had seemed so very simple as of this morning. Now, hours later, she was bruised, sweaty, and chagrined at the money she'd spent on something which was likely nonfunctioning by now. Not bad for a morning, she thought as she laughed for the first time that week.

Aaron was watching her with an odd look on his face, like he'd just been told something he hadn't expected. There was a smile on his face, too, making a dimple in one cheek. His eyes were very hard to look away from, she noticed with a blushing face. "Well?" he said.

She rose to her feet and brushed the dust off her hands. "It's only one more flight of stairs. Come on."

"You sure? I'm wondering if that thing will sprout legs and walk back down the hill."

"You think they'd give me a refund?"

"No way. It's broken in three places."

Together, they hoisted the replicator back into the air. "I'll let you go backwards again," he said. "I think it's worth the sight of you on the floor like that. Didn't anyone ever tell you, never bring strange machinery home with you alone?"

They hobbled and bumped their way to her door. Balancing the machine against one knee, she keyed in her access code and the door slid open slowly, creaking on its runners.

She suddenly felt embarrassed again. Her tiny, tiny apartment had piles of clothes and open boxes and a desperate need of cleaning. The windows had streaks, the ceiling had cracks. There wasn't a single surface on which a guest could sit without risk of puncture wounds.

"My apartment is kind of messy," she told him. "I, um, just moved in, you know, and it's so hard to get things together in this city when you don't have access to a transporter…"

He shrugged as well as he could with a replicator in his arms. "I'm the last person to care how big your apartment is. I grew up in a refugee camp, you know."

That did make a difference. She'd seen a few of those. "That must have been a great neighborhood."

"Beautiful," he said. "The welcome mats matched the tarp on our tent."

"We can put this in the kitchen." The replicator thumped against the wall as they turned the corner.

"This place ispretty small." He sniffed. "How long ago did the previous owner move out?"

Amanda flushed. "A pair of Klingons were staying here before me. They were evicted last month. It'll get better when I have time to put some of those boxes away and do a little cleaning." Aaron appeared to politely accept this, but Amanda flushed self-consciously. "Look, I spent seven years on a Federation starship. I didn't own anything until I had to move here and start my life planetside, okay? It's a little hard to get organized."

Aaron nodded as they engineered their way through the kitchen door. "Hey, like I said, I'm not about to give you a hard time for living in a dump."

"Who says it's a dump!"

"It's nothing a bucket and a mop won't take care of," he said, grunting with the effort of hoisting the replicator onto the counter.

"I liked the 'fresher on my ship better," Amanda muttered. She was just glad that she'd already rooted out the small colony of gagh that had taken up residence in one of the kitchen walls. That was revolting, even by Klingon standards.

"Ooof!" she said as they let go of the replicator. Fortunately, it just sat there. She'd half expected it to fall apart as soon as she let go, given how much trouble it had caused her already.

Aaron brushed off his hands. "Just think," he said. "You could've gotten the jumbo size."

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks for your help. I didn't make you late for something, did I?"

"No," he said. "I was just coming back from class. And anyway, it was my fault for not looking where I was going."

"Let me get you some, uh, tea," she told him. She should be hospitable, right? Amanda was twenty-five and she'd never had a real houseguest.

"I would accept," Aaron said with a careful glance around her kitchen, "but I think your replicator's broken."

Amanda shrugged and edged the machine a few inches out from the wall. "I used to be in Starfleet. I'll have it fixed in no time. And if not…"

"If not?"

"There's a kettle in one of those boxes," she called, clambering halfway onto the counter so she could see behind the replicator. Hmm. It didn't seem too bad. The casing was cracked, sure, but she didn't order this thing to win beauty contests. The only real problem that she could see was that the power relays looked like they were out of alignment, but they weren't even severed. She could fix it in no time.

"What's the prognosis?"

Amanda started. Aaron was standing less than a foot away from her, peering over her shoulder.

"Um, not too bad. Just an outpatient job. It'll be on its feet in no time."

Aaron smiled that smile again as she squeezed around him to dig for the proper tools, trying not to think about how close he was to her. Fortunately, she had gotten lots of practice on Voyager fixing her own replicator when it went down, so she knew precisely what to do. She needed a hyperspanner, a Phillips screwdriver, and a mini-phase compressor… The tool box was around here somewhere…

What's more, she felt much calmer behind the replicator than in front of it, where she had no choice but to stand nose to nose with the stranger in her miniscule kitchen.

"So you were in Starfleet," he said casually. "Where were you stationed?"

She peeked over the top of the replicator. "I wasn't, exactly. I kind of got stuck on a ship by accident, and the captain decided to include me as part of her crew. You know, Voyager and all that?"

"You were on Voyager!" he exclaimed. "Oh, wow. This is great! I can't believe this, I'm actually standing in the kitchen of one of the Voyager people." Then he frowned, confused. "What do you mean about getting there by accident? Oh! You mean, you were one of the ones… You were in the Maquis?"

Amanda winced. The government may have pardoned her for all crimes committed while in the Maquis, but there were still a lot of people who did not forgive so easily. She had learned the hard way to be careful to whom she explained her past. Even to the son of a Bajoran resistance fighter who had carried her replicator up the hill and two flights of stairs.

Aaron didn't seem to mind, though, to her relief. He just seemed surprised. "Well, that sounds like one hell of an adventure."

"You could call it that." Amanda hid behind the replicator again.

"I'd love to hear about it sometime."

"Oh, it's nothing," she scoffed. "I mean, I was just one of the weapons maintenance people. It wasn't exactly glorious. Not for me, anyway."

"I'm sure you must have some stories about all the people you met, all the places you've seen…"

"Not really," she said, thinking of one or two spots she knew she'd never forget. The void that trapped their ship for nearly three weeks; that gorgeous, resort-like planet with three suns… or the look in the eyes of the costumed Hirogen soldier who nearly shot her dead when the hunting vessel took over Voyager and reprogrammed the crew…

"Oh, come on. Let me take you to dinner sometime. You can tell me all about it."

Amanda dropped the mini-phase compressor on her foot.

He ignored her surprised curse. "Seriously, would you like to have dinner sometime?" Aaron said. "I mean, in a restaurant. In case your Starfleet experience isn't extensive enough to fix that replicator."

Amanda felt like she was standing in front of that Hirogen soldier all over again: she was utterly disarmed. "Well… sure. But I can fix my replicator, you know."

He grinned. "I believe you."

Amanda had the distinct impression he was making fun of her. But still, she couldn't help smiling just a little in return. Dinner, huh? Well. It might be kind of fun.

She bent back behind the replicator and used the wrench to nudge the last relay back into place. There!

"Good as new!" she pronounced. B'Elanna would be proud.

"Good as new, if you don't count the crack up the side," Aaron noted.

Amanda shrugged off his high standards. "Fits the decor. Half my apartment is secondhand." She punched in the fairly complex codes for a cup of leola root tea. If this replicator could make a cup of leola tea, then it could make anything.

To her delight, the tea materialized, with the appropriate smell wafting into her kitchen. "Here," she said, handing it to Aaron proudly. "A Delta Quadrant delicacy."

He accepted and took a careful sip of the stuff. He frowned, disconcerted at the bitter taste.

Amanda recognized that look. "It just takes a little getting used to. But you don't have to drink it! I can get you something else…"

"It's fine," he said, laughing at her. "Just not something I've had before. Hey, I'll return the favor. I can take you to my favorite Bajoran restaurant. The chef there cooks a hasperat that will make your toes curl."

"Is that a good thing?" Amanda said.

"Absolutely. How's Saturday? I'll come by at six o'clock."

Oh. He was serious! Another jolt of surprise. "I guess I'm free." What was going on here? This was the man who broke her replicator. And now he was taking her out? On a date? But she was Amanda Jackson. She didn't go on dates.

Aaron didn't seem to have noticed that. He just flashed her a smile and handed her his teacup before retrieving his book from the top of one of her boxes. "I'll look forward to it."

Amanda took that as her signal to walk with him to her door. "Thanks for everything," she said. This suddenly felt almost as awkward as that horrible mistake she made with the Lieutenant, back on Voyager. Oh, please, she thought. Not again.

But Aaron had just asked her out, hadn't he? That was something.

He turned back to her, just before leaving her flat. "Are you sure I should leave you alone like this with that replicator?" Aaron said. "You don't know what that thing will try now that it knows you're by yourself."

"Don't worry, I'm armed," Amanda told him, pointing to her hyperspanner.

"See you Saturday." Aaron grinned and headed on his way. Amanda watched him go down the stairs. Her cheeks reddened when he threw her one last look on his way down. She didn't know anything about him.

---

And so Amanda's life as a Federation citizen began in earnest. The apartment was a mess, broken replicator and all, and her life was just as disorganized if not more… but it was her life, and she had little to do besides try and make it work. Even the replicator.

She had found a little work in San Francisco as a science tutor for local school kids. When a teacher or parent learned she had been on Voyager, they would practically beg for her services, as if living in the Delta Quadrant for seven years made her an expert in quantum mechanics. It didn't, actually; Amanda just happened to have a knack for complex temporal concepts. Anyway, the tutoring plus the occasional temp gig kept a roof over her head, and it gave her the time she needed to work on a project of her own.

She had just under three months until the application deadline to Starfleet Academy. She hadn't told a soul she was applying. That made securing recommendations a little difficult, but she kept telling herself she would contact B'Elanna or Chakotay when it was time. It was too bad she didn't feel safe asking any of the commissioned officers, but maybe her Voyager record would help her out in that regard. In any case, every night it seemed she had something to do, some form to fill out or some essay to write—or some equivalency test to register for. If only she'd had the chance to finish school, like everyone else.

And if life weren't complicated enough, now there was this Aaron. Aaron seemed very nice, of course, and after twenty-five years of never having had a real date with a single soul, the idea appealed to her. She just didn't know what to do about it. She would even have played it safe and cancelled their date out of sheer panic, except he hadn't given her his number before leaving.

It all fit, she supposed. The Cardassians hadn't called ahead before arriving on her family's front doorstep. The Maquis hadn't asked her permission before swooping in and saving her life. The Caretaker hadn't bothered to say "please" before ripping them seventy thousand light-years away and leaving them stranded on a Starfleet ship. So why should this Aaron have any compunction about showing up now, when the gorgeous, affluent surroundings of the Bay Area only made her life seem that much more in shambles? Timing had never been her thing.

In spite of herself, Amanda found herself preoccupied with the prospect. She even took an afternoon off to visit Union Square in search of a dress. That by itself was remarkable, she reflected as she dodged tourists and San Franciscans alike on her way through the busy streets. Shopping was one more thing on her list of things she didn't know how to do. When had she ever had the chance? A few opportunities during shore leave, maybe. So for a few hours Amanda wandered past the windows full of haute couture, baffled by the thought that some of these things actually could be hers. If she could afford any of it.

Luck eventually led her to a tiny store not far from Union Square where she spied a dress (on sale!) that she thought might just work. The knee-length hem covered up that ugly scar on her thigh from that old Maquis raid, and the deep red color set off the highlights in her long auburn hair. Plus, the neckline was cut low enough to make up for a few of those years when she had donned the comfortable but very chaste Starfleet uniform, day after day.

In the store, she felt herself turning a shade dark enough to match the smooth fabric as she turned a little on one heel to see herself in the mirror. She didn't really recognize herself. She looked, well, good.

The tailor, a short Bolian fellow, simply clucked with delight when he saw her and brought a shopping bag to her side. She couldn't say no.

That week she also received a formal letter—on paper, no less!—notifying her of her official pardon. There was an ink signature by a member of the president's cabinet and everything! All for her.

So, her Maquis days were truly over now.

Amanda had never been good at keeping still. When the letter came, it was as if she didn't know how to process it—it was so important, and yet nobody else was around to agree with her, to congratulate her. In a fit of happy desperation, she grabbed the nearest pair of shoes and walked outside to the city streets, where a sliver of afternoon sunshine poked through the tall buildings. In her excitement, she skipped and rushed all the way through the Tenderloin, where entire families of immigrants lived cheek-by-jowl in tiny apartments not much larger than hers, and to the northern end of the Inner Mission before her pulse slowed.

She took stock, and felt a little silly standing around in her fancy sandals that she'd bought to go with the lovely dress. Around her, people and more people bustled along, immersed in their city lives. Amanda still felt an anxious buzz—shouldn't she do something now? Speak to someone?

Of course not. The official pardon meant that everyone would leave her alone now.

That thought, which came to her as she stood adrift in the busy streets of the Mission, felt somehow unfair.

A deep breath. Amanda knew she had to do something. She'd left her money at home—living on a starship meant you tended to forget your clothes actually had pockets—but she had a letter in her hand, shoes on her feet. She'd exhausted the euphoria of the moment; now she'd have to trudge back home and… well… keep going.

---

The evening of the dinner with Aaron finally arrived. She supressed the urge to call Jor and ask for advice on how to wear her hair. Guiltily, she realized she hadn't spoken with her former roommate since soon Voyager came home. Jor had run off to Bajor almost right away, while Amanda had remained at Starfleet Headquarters in the safety of the temporary 'Fleet housing. She wondered what her old bunkmate was doing these days, and if Jor ever thought of her.

At 1700 that day—or 5:00 p.m., rather, in civilian terms—Amanda stared herself down in the mirror. She had an hour before Aaron was to come by. Her hair was a mess, she could smell her own armpits, and the apartment was still a mess, despite an afternoon of heavy tidying. In a fit of panic, Amanda set the shower as hot as she could stand it and leapt in to clear her mind.

The next fifty-nine minutes felt like the best workout she'd gotten in weeks as she cleaned, brushed, and spruced herself up. Twelve of those minutes were spent in front of the replicator, trying to decipher the nuances of wearing perfume on a first date. (She chose not to risk it on a cracked replicator. Who knows what she might have ended up smelling like?)

Her door chime sounded at exactly one minute to six o'clock. Amanda jumped. She felt like she should have her mother or Jor or someone there to answer the door. She hurried awkwardly into the sandals and dashed the four steps to the door. She had to punch the door code three times because she kept mis-keying it out of nerves. Finally, the door opened.

It was Ricky, her humanoid (but certainly not human) repairman. "Hallo!" he shouted.

Ricky was either a little deaf or thought that speaking louder would facilitate communication. The man had long since eschewed all use of a universal translator, for reasons that were beyond Amanda. His accent was so strong and his grammar so weak that understanding him was often a challenge, and Amanda had no clue where he was from. He just called himself Ricky and came by her apartment on occasion to help her out. Most days, Amanda just chalked it up to the general weirdness of living in San Francisco.

Ricky's eyes glinted cheerfully at her from a wrinkled yet ageless humanoid face as a set of purplish gills on his neck waved in the air. "You still have gagh?" he yelled.

It took her a moment, but then Amanda recalled mentioning the gagh infestation to him two weeks before. She smiled wanly. Ricky was very kind, but this wasn't the time. "No, Ricky," she said. "I got rid of them myself." She was never sure if she was speaking loudly enough.

Ricky's eyebrows rose in dismay. "What!" he demanded. "I take care of problem for you. All problems! Girls donno like gagh, yes?"

She frowned. "I don't eat it, but I can kill it."

"Here," Ricky said. "I come check walls again for you." He bustled past her into the apartment, his oversized repair kit banging against the wall and leaving a mark.

"Ricky, I really don't have the time right now," she said, following him.

"Is okay!" he hollered from the kitchen over several clangs and clanks. "I donno take long. So what you look pretty for tonight?"

"Excuse me?" a new voice said.

She turned around to see Aaron standing in her doorway, dressed in a dark shirt and a nice jacket. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" he said curiously.

Amanda felt her heart leap into her throat. "Come in," she said. "My repairman has just laid siege to my kitchen."

"I thought you fixed the replicator."

She ignored him and went into the kitchen, where Ricky had jerked her replicator away from the wall and was studying the tiny fissures in the wall's surface with a red laser. "They come out if they there," he explained, for once below 75 decibels. "Gagh don't like this light."

A fount of useful knowledge, that's what this man was. But at the moment, he was also in her way.

"Ricky, I have to leave," she said. "Can you let yourself out?"

Ricky turned around. He noticed Aaron standing past her shoulder. "Ohh," he breathed loudly, his gills twittering with the exhalation. Amanda thought that denoted surprise, or maybe disappointment, but she wasn't sure. "You have hot date?" he queried.

Amanda cringed. "I'm going out to dinner, yes," she said.

Ricky nodded gravely and gathered up his things with appropriate haste and apologies. But before he left, he addressed Aaron directly. "You take care!" he warned Aaron. "I watch around! You don't act bad to any girl here! You hear?"

The top of Ricky's head barely met Aaron's chin, but to his credit, Aaron nodded gravely. "I'll be very careful," he promised.

"Good," Ricky said forcefully, pushed past Aaron, and stalked out of the apartment without closing the door.

"Thank you, Ricky!" she called.

Aaron peered after him. "Who was that man? Should I be worried?"

Amanda blushed. This was not the entrance she had planned! "Maybe. I heard that Ricky once beat the shit out of a Vulcan in heat who came knocking on the wrong door. Ricky may look tiny, but he's very… assertive."

"A regular Mrs. Madrigal! Did he leave a joint on your doorknob, too?"

"Who? What?"

"Never read Tales of the City?"

"Is that a book?"

Aaron grinned. She blushed as he only sort of discreetly eyed her dress. "Let's go. We have reservations in fifteen minutes."

"Where are we going?" she said. Her heart jumped; it was time to be nervous now.

"Not far," he said. "It's just a quick walk uphill."

"Everything's a walk uphill," she said. "This is San Francisco."

"True. This your coat?" he pointed to the black garment hanging on the door hook.

Amanda nodded, and let him hand it to her. She thanked him and followed him out, hoping she could survive the night intact.

---

She more or less achieved that, as it turned out.

They dined at a Bajoran bistro, as Aaron had promised her. The establishment was tucked away in an alley not far from Chinatown, in a nondescript building designed to hide itself from the waves of interstellar tourists who flooded the city each year. Nonetheless, the two dining rooms were packed with diners, mostly Bajorans but a few other humanoids as well.

Amanda reminded herself of all the Bajoran campfire meals she'd eaten with no trouble. Aside from the horrendously spicy dishes prepared by Gerron, whose native region disdained jalapenos as too bland for consumption, Amanda liked most of what she'd tasted. So she would probably be okay, right? If only she recognized the writing on the menu…

Aaron at least seemed relaxed, although she didn't really know him well enough to tell. He had a low, pleasant voice, and she noticed the same dimple appear on one cheek whenever he laughed. He kept the conversation moving as they waited for their meal, asking her about work, mentioning Voyager but not prying, and other small talk. Amanda even liked it, kind of.

At one point, Aaron leaned forward conspiratorially. "Can I ask the big question?" he said with a glance to either side.

Amanda looked around, too. The other people in the restaurant were just minding their own meals. "What?"

"How did you get to be in the Maquis?" he asked. "Or is that too personal for a first date?"

She blanched. How was she supposed to answer him? She had never said anything about that without breaking down in tears, and so for the last seven years she had opted not to talk about it at all. Amanda bit her lip, trying to think of a joke that would gracefully deflect the question.

After only a moment's awkward silence, however, Amanda was saved by the arrival of a steaming platter of… of… something orange.

Aaron smacked his lips as an equally big platter of brown and green leafy clumps was set before him. "I'm going to enjoy this," he said. "I have to congratulate you, by the way. Very few non-Bajorans are willing to try galdatar. It's a little piquant."

Amanda smelled at her meal as if she knew exactly what it was. "My roommate on Voyager was Bajoran," she said offhandedly. "I picked up a few things from her." She eyed the platter of "galdatar." It wasn't moving; that was a good thing. It smelled like it had been cooked on a wood-burning stove. That meant it was probably meat?

Nothing for it. With a brave smile, she picked up her fork, severed off a piece, and shoved it in her mouth.

And thought her tongue might explode. It was unbelievably spicy—no, more than that. It was like a photon torpedo had gone off in her mouth. Amanda closed her eyes in grim concentration as she forced herself to swallow.

"Mmm!" she said to Aaron, unwilling to admit exactly how much pain she was experiencing. He watched her with fascination, and she smiled back. "Haven't had… galdatar… this good in a long time!" she said around a gagging throat. The violent sensations in her mouth had now transferred themselves to her upper digestive track. Ohhhhh, no…

She had to get out of here. Amanda dropped her fork on her plate.

"You know what?" she said suddenly. "I am so sorry, but I forgot… um, I forgot to, um. I… Shit. I'll be back!"

She dashed out of their booth and ran to the restroom, barely making it in time to lose the mouthful she'd just swallowed into the nearest toilet. The food seared going up as much as it had going down.

Amanda quickly flushed the toilet before she had a chance to see the galdatar on its second appearance. She lurched to the sinks and gulped as much water from her hands as she could, then slowly stood up.

Okay, so the galdatar wasn't very good. Now she knew.

While she was hardly an expert, Amanda was willing to bet that throwing up in your date's favorite restaurant was probably not the way to go. Should she send the galdatar back to the kitchen? What would Aaron say? She didn't want to insult him, but there was no way she could choke down the rest of it.

She stood there in the tiny bathroom for a moment as her stomach tried to settle. Oh, no. Plasma leaks, failed electromagnetic connections, anything. Anything was better than puking on a first date.

Well, she couldn't hide in here forever. She might as well go and face her punishment like a grown woman. She took a glance in the mirror, nodded once to brace herself, plunged back through the door, and ran smack into someone's chest.

"Hey!" said the man.

She looked up, and against all odds, she knew him. Blue eyes, sandy hair, friendly grin: it was Tom Paris, the former lieutenant of Voyager. He recognized her, too. "Amanda Jackson? Is that you?"

Just when you thought it couldn't get worse… Amanda lifted a hand to make sure there wasn't any vomit left on her chin.

"Lieutenant," she said weakly.

His eyebrows twitched in surprise. "Now there's a title I haven't heard in a few months!" he joked. "Jackson! I can't believe this. And here, in a Bajoran restaurant in San Francisco, of all places. Wow! I thought this only happened in New York or on Riza or whatever." Tom clapped her on the shoulder.

She lurched against him to keep her balance.

"Whoa!" said Tom, catching her. "Are you okay, Jackson?"

She clenched her eyes shut. "My meal didn't agree with me."

Tom winced sympathetically. "It was the galdatar, wasn't it?" he said. "Never try the galdatar. I did that once on a dare, before Voyager. Wouldn't recommend it!"

Amanda took a deep breath. Dignity—she had to have some left. Even if she was standing outside the bathrooms of a restaurant with an upset stomach, against all odds talking to a former crush while her first date ever waited at the table for her to return to finish off a fairly poisonous meal.

"I'll be fine," she announced.

Tom nodded. "Good. I'd hate to have a medical emergency in Tolla's Bistro, of all places. So what are you doing here?"

"I'm eating," she said. Dumb answer. Of course she was eating. "I'm, um, here with a friend."

"Oh! Anyone I'd know?"

God, did he have to be so curious and friendly? She used to like it, but it only embarrassed her now. "No," she said. "Somebody I met since we got back."

Tom looked at her expectantly. She stared back dumbly for a moment before figuring out her next line.

"How's B'Elanna?" she asked. "And Miral?"

Tom grinned. "They're great. Thanks for asking."

My pleasure, she thought. And naturally, Tom was one of those proud daddies who could talk forever. Amanda's eyes began to glaze over after about twenty seconds.

"I gave the ladies some time together tonight," he was saying. "B'Elanna's been working so much, she doesn't always get a lot of time with the baby, so they took the night off together. You should see her, she's really doing great these days."

"Who, B'Elanna?"

Tom laughed. "Her, too. I meant Miral. She'll grab your finger and squeeze—it's adorable! Anyway, I'm meeting with a couple Starfleet types tonight. They want to hear all about the Delta Flyer design process… I'm just trying to survive the evening," he said confidentially.

"Me, too," Amanda commiserated.

"Yeah, well, you don't have two of your father's best friends grilling you on whether or not you followed protocol four years ago!" Tom pointed out.

Amanda nodded half-heartedly. No, she certainly didn't.

"I should get back to my table," she said.

"Oh! Of course," Tom said. "Say, you should drop us a line sometime. I'm sure B'Elanna would love to hear from you. Come to dinner at our place! I promise we won't serve galdatar!"

"Okay," Amanda said, faking a smile.

"Great seeing you," Tom said, patting her on the shoulder more gently this time, and disappeared into the men's room.

Amanda was almost afraid to turn the corner for fear of what else might be there, waiting to ruin the evening further.

In fact, so miserable was she by this point that she simply slunk back to her table and sat down without looking at Aaron. She reached for her fork again, wondering if she shouldn't just save herself from further embarrassment and plunge the utensil into her jugular.

Then she noticed that something was different. The food on her fork wasn't orange anymore.

She looked up at Aaron, who was shoveling a hefty forkful of galdatar into his mouth. He had switched the plates. "I'm really sorry about that," he said. "I should've warned you about the galdatar. Bajorans have a unique enzyme in our saliva that allows us to digest this stuff. Occasionally other species can build up a tolerance, but I shouldn't have assumed that… Well, you know."

Amanda felt her lower lip quiver. He even seemed embarrassed for her.

"Hey, are you okay?" he said, reaching across the table to touch her hand.

Amanda couldn't speak. She couldn't even hold her fork. For some all-too-explainable reason, she burst into heaving, slobbery tears.

---

"Then if you can believe it, she stood up and tossed my beer in my face before storming out. All because of a little slip of the tongue!"

Despite herself, Amanda laughed at Aaron's story. "You did tell her that you liked her, um, enhancement surgery. You're really not supposed to say that to a woman."

"True," he admitted. "Which makes my disastrous date story worse than yours." He smacked his hands playfully against the railing that lined the walkways along the piers of Fort Mason. Shortly after Amanda's near-hysterical outburst, they'd left the bistro, and Aaron convinced her to walk for a few more minutes so she could calm down. It had turned into a pleasant evening stroll all the way to the Marina, and Amanda had to admit she was finally having a decent time.

"I still don't see why running into your former boss was so awful. He looked like a nice enough guy," Aaron said.

Amanda sighed. Well, he'd already made her laugh at herself about the first part of the evening. Why not tell him the rest? "For starters, he wasn't exactly my boss. He was just one of the officers on Voyager. My boss is now his wife. And I never saw her much. I was just down in the belly of the ship doing repair work most of the time."

"Sounds like a lot of fun," Aaron said.

"I wouldn't call it that!" It was a sore point for Amanda that she'd never mentioned to anyone. In the Maquis, she'd believed that B'Elanna had liked her, maybe even respected her. Then as soon as they came on Voyager, Amanda was shunned into the deepest depths of the ship. With Chell.

"Then you missed a great opportunity. That far from authority? Tell me you didn't sneak a few parties in between your repair jobs."

Amanda forced a half-smile. "Maybe I should have."

"Yeah?"

"When we first… got stranded, we thought it would be seventy-five years. Most of the crew partied really hard, had a lot of sex…" Her face reddened again. "They went a little crazy for a year or two. I was just a teenager, though. They left me alone."

What else could she say? She didn't really want to tell Aaron about her disastrous relationship with Tom Paris that set off the whole thing. No, not a relationship—it was more like a one-sided fling, and she'd been doing all the flinging. The lieutenant hadn't even noticed.

Amanda was never formally introduced to Tom Paris. She heard about him in six different ways during her first week on Voyager, though. That was when the Maquis were still the Maquis, and suspicious of anything that hadn't committed at least three acts of felony against the Federation. By the time things had settled down a bit and the crew began to socialize with the "other half," people were beyond introductions.

Tom Paris certainly socialized a lot. Back then, Amanda was what—seventeen, eighteen years old? Practically a baby compared to most of the crew. That, and she'd missed half of her teenage years thanks to the Cardassians. No family, no formal schooling past the ninth grade, and no boys taking her out on dates. She just wasn't prepared to live in a community of adults. Part of Amanda was still hoping to go to the prom someday.

So one day when Jor took her to the holodeck to meet some people for a few rounds of pool, Amanda couldn't believe it when Tom Paris—a senior officer—took it upon himself to give her a quick tutorial in how to shoot pool. Leaning over her, his hands covering hers around the cue, his breath tickling her ear, he flashed her a relaxed grin when she looked up at him in surprise.

"You okay?" he said.

She nodded and tried to act normal, like this wasn't anything that hadn't happened to her a million times before. She told herself to try and remember what it felt like on nights when she had to cram in between her fellow Maquis for warmth—the circumstances then meant that she wasn't nervous about them, just the possibility of getting caught by a bunch of murderous Cardassians. So she stuck her chin up and convinced herself that she didn't look nervous, and that Ayala wasn't looking at Tom Paris as though he would've slugged him if they weren't both officers now. She was an adult, Amanda told herself. This was totally normal.

And if she didn't tell anyone, at least not right away, then it was okay for her to lie awake that night with a warm, tingling feel in her stomach. There was nothing wrong with letting her imagination have a little fun with this, right? It was the first time she'd ever had a boy—a man—pay any attention to her, unless she counted Davy Brinkman in the seventh grade, and she didn't.

The next few days, when Tom saw her in the corridors, he would flash her a grin, even if he was walking with someone like Commander Chakotay, who knew her very well but would only give her a formal nod nowadays. It even made being down in the relay compartment not so bad, because now she had something—someone—to daydream about.

It only got better from there. One evening in the mess, Tom Paris actually came and sat at her table! She was eating with Tabor and Meghan that night; neither of them were friends with Tom Paris, were they? And then after another day or two, he actually stopped her on her way to engineering and invited her personally to a party he and Harry were throwing on the holodeck the next night. She could have fainted.

Hindsight screamed at her that it was only friendship, but Amanda supposed that she had wanted something to happen so badly that she'd let herself get carried away.

In any case, she went to the party—some kind of beach program. When she got there, dressed in a casual tank top and shorts, Tom actually looked up from where he stood chatting with a few of his pilots and waved her over.

Heart pounding, she crossed and met him halfway, glaring in the artificial sunlight and the glare from the white sands and ocean water.

"It's a little sunny for 1900 hours, you know," she said, pointing at the high-noon sun.

"We're on a starship," he returned with a grin that lit up his eyes. "Does anybody really keep time anymore?" He gave her a sideways welcome hug.

"Um, it looks like a fun party."

"It is! So why don't you replicate yourself a swimsuit and dive in?"

"Oh," she said. "I didn't know people would be swimming." That was dumb.

If he thought so, Tom didn't let on. "Come on. Do it. I bet you'd look great in a two-piece, anyway."

Amanda blushed. "Okay."

He just laughed. "Some of us are thinking about playing volleyball in a bit. Come and join us when we set up the net."

"Sure."

"Sounds great. Now go have some fun." And he walked back to his friends.

Amanda did have fun that night. She replicated herself a swimsuit and hoped it looked okay. Everyone there played volleyball for a while, and she didn't feel bad that she couldn't play very well, because everyone around her was missing shots and laughing about it, too. She even had one of those slushy drinks—at Tom's suggestion—a "margarita." It left her with a dizzying sort of buzz, centered right in the bridge of her nose.

Jor was there, too, and saw her with the drink in her hand. "What's that?" her roommate said with a raised eyebrow.

"It's a mar-ga-rita," Amanda said, feeling exotic.

"And the suit? Looks like you're having a good time, kiddo."

"Is there something wrong with that?" Amanda asked coolly. "Anyway, I've only had one drink."

Jor shook her head. "Just be careful, okay? I don't want you getting hurt."

Amanda felt offended that Jor would even suggest that she wasn't in complete control. "Stop that. I'm having a good time, okay?" She flipped a loose strand of hair out of her face with one hand and returned to the game.

That night when she was falling asleep, well beyond her normal bedtime, an idea occurred to her. She felt that it was clear how Tom felt about her. So why not urge him on, just a little bit? This wasn't the twentieth century—she didn't have to wait for a guy to ask her out. She had hours of unused holodeck time. They could have a nice, romantic dinner, and maybe even a nighttime stroll along the same beach where they had partied together.

She wanted to be careful about asking him. Amanda waited a day or two, and she watched him carefully in the mess hall. It would be so embarrassing to ask him in front of other people—or worse, in front of one of the senior officers. She would never live that down. It had to be just right.

Finally, she had her chance. She had already designed her program, late at night in her quarters after Jor had gone to sleep. She had reserved the holodeck time: three long hours to enjoy themselves in each other's company. And that night, in the mess, Tom was sitting by himself, working on a padd. Perfect.

She took a deep breath and set one foot in front of the other until she was standing in front of him. He didn't notice her at first.

"Hi," she said timidly.

He looked up, a little startled. "Oh, hi, Jackson. How's it going?" He smiled.

"I'm good," she said. "I was wondering, um. Are you free tomorrow night?" She felt her face flush to the roots of her hair as she said it.

His eyebrows rose in surprise. "Tomorrow? I guess so. Why?"

"Would you like to have dinner? I mean, nothing big. Just a little something." She felt a cramp in one foot from clenching her toes so hard out of nervousness.

Tom blinked. "Uh, yeah. Okay."

Amanda thought her heart would leap through her throat. "Great. Is 1930 okay?"

"Yeah. Sure," he shrugged.

"Okay. I'll see you then. Holodeck two." And she skipped away before he could say no.

The next night couldn't come fast enough. She spent almost all of her remaining credits on a dress that was as low as she could stand it and not get embarrassed—which was to say, not that low at all. She even got some nice shoes, let down her hair, and sprayed it with a chemical that held it in place, even if it did stink up their quarters.

"Hey, watch it," Jor said, waving the particles out of her face. "You're spraying up the room! What's the big deal, anyway?"

"I have a date," Amanda announced.

"You do?"

Amanda felt hurt that Jor would doubt her. "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing!" Jor assured her. "With whom, exactly?"

Amanda bit her lip. "Promise you won't tell?"

Jor rolled her eyes. "Sweetie, I'm twenty-six in human years. Not thirteen. Now tell me."

"Okay." Amanda took a deep breath. "I asked Tom Paris to dinner."

Jor did a double take. "You did what?"

"I asked Tom Paris to dinner. What's the matter?"

"Tom Paris. Lieutenant. Senior officer."

"Yes," Amanda said. "It's a free ship, when we're off duty. Right?"

Jor nodded. "Sure it is. You remember that he sold out the Maquis, right?"

"Look, you don't have to approve of everything I do around her," Amanda snapped. "It's not like you're my mother, or even my sister."

"Sweetie, I'm not trying to—"

"And don't call me 'sweetie!' I'm just trying to enjoy myself for the next seventy-five years. I'm not doing anything wrong."

"Amanda," Jor said. "Think about this for a minute."

"I don't have to!" Amanda said. "I'm going now. Have a good night." And she stormed out.

---

She arrived at the holodeck fifteen minutes early and began to key in her commands. The program was in order, and it just needed a few last-minute touches. The meal: hmmm. She didn't know what Tom liked, beyond the barbecue from the beach party. But she was dressed kind of nice for that. She supposed she'd provide the menu and just let him decide. She, on the other hand, wanted a fine meal. Salmon steaks… buttered vegetables… whipped potatoes… warm bread… How long had it been since she'd had a feast like that? Years! As a last minute detail, she even requested a little wine, although she let the computer select the variety.

Amanda stepped inside. Oh, it was perfect! She had replaced the kiosk on the beach with a much larger gazebo and a dinner table for two in the middle. (She didn't know where the waiters were supposed to come from, but this was fantasy. They could come out of the bushes, for all she cared.) The waves were washing ashore at low tide, and the sun had just set. The wind was calmly blowing the grass on the dunes and the little flame of the candle that sat atop the table in the gazebo.

She walked up the wooden steps, enjoying the smell. She didn't remember programming any scents; those must be automatic with a wood structure. She'd have to remember that—for next time!

One last thought occurred to her. Well, why not? She hurried back to the control panel by the doorway and programmed the computer to produce one red rose across his waiting plate. He might laugh at her, but she was sure he wouldn't mind.

Finally, 1930 rolled around, and the holodeck doors opened. He was right on time.

He was in his uniform. That was fine—formal enough for tonight. He took a quick look around and marched up to the gazebo. "Hi, Jackson," he said.

She smiled up at him. "Hi! How was your day?"

"What? Oh, it was fine." He seemed distracted somehow. They he noticed the rose and picked it up. "Is this for me?"

She nodded. "It's kind of silly, I guess, but I thought you might like it."

"It's nice. Thanks." Then he took a deep breath. "Look, Jackson, I don't think I can do this tonight."

She waited for him to crack a joke or to say he was kidding. He didn't. "Oh," she said. "You… You're busy?"

"Kind of." He winced. "Look, I guess I've been a little too friendly lately. I don't know, it's the first time in forever that I've had any friends, and I must have gone overboard. So I can see why you might have thought that I… that I meant…"

Amanda waited for him to finish, since she didn't know what to say.

"It's not that I don't think you're a great girl, Jackson," he said. "But I don't want you to spend your credits on me, thinking that I'm going to be able to let this become something. I mean, if that's not what you're thinking, then…"

She shook her head, not sure what that meant.

Tom winced again. "Okay. Well, I'm glad you understand."

She didn't. "Is it the officer thing?" she asked, trying to keep her voice normal.

"Partly. And also, well, I'm a lot older than you, Jackson. Maybe it doesn't seem like it, but I've been around the block a few times."

"What do you call the Maquis?"

He nodded. "You're right. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to talk down to you. But I just don't think… Hell. I just don't want to lead you on. I'm sorry if I was doing that."

Amanda looked down at her hands and didn't say anything. She didn't trust herself to speak.

"Thanks," Tom said uselessly. "This was a great idea… So, thanks." In her peripheral vision, she saw him leave the holodeck.

He hadn't even sat down.

---

Amanda actually stayed in the holodeck for two more hours, just so she wouldn't have to return home and tell Jor how it went. Anything so she didn't have to hear her roommate say, "I told you so." She didn't eat the meal she had planned—she didn't want to spend the credits. Crewmen got so few as it was… So she just sat there for part of the time. And she went down to the beach and sat in the sand and cried for a little bit, listening to the ocean waves wash against the beach.

Eventually, she heard the computer signal her fifteen-minute warning and decided it was safe to return. Before leaving the holodeck, though, she replicated herself a uniform and discarded her dress. That way, no one would see her in the corridors looking nice.

Amanda snuck into her quarters, hoping Jor would be asleep. No such luck. Jor looked up from the padd and eyed Amanda's uniform. "How did it go?" she asked, her mouth in a tight frown.

"Fine," Amanda said brightly. "I had to run by my post for a minute after we were done. But it was fine."

She quickly changed into her only set of nightclothes and scrambled into bed before Jor could ask her anything else. As silently as possible, she cried herself to sleep.

---

Amanda had never been glad to be all but alone in the belly of the ship until now. She didn't want to face anyone, least of all any of the officers. She didn't want to admit to anyone how wrong she had been, or for them to know how stupid she had been to assume that Tom Paris might actually… have cared about her…

During the days she hid at her post and tried not to think about it. When she wasn't working, she would hurry to the mess hall, grab some food, and hurry back to their quarters. She told Jor she just wanted to read, and silently hoped the woman wouldn't ask her any more questions. And aside from her roommate, there really wasn't anyone else who might care to ask. For now, she was safe.

It even got to be a sort of comforting, if lonely, ritual. At least if she was alone, then nobody would look at her and think how young she was or feel sorry for her. Amanda kept this up for almost ten whole days.

On the tenth day, she was minding her post, idly fiddling with the plasma levels in the nearby flux capacitor, when the klaxons began blaring. They scared her so badly she dropped the hyperspanner she'd been twirling between her fingers, but she quickly found her nerve again. She knew what to do.

Without hesitation, she made her way into the primary access chamber, where Chell had already stationed himself. He looked at her with wide eyes. "It's a red alert!" he informed her anxiously.

What else would it be? She ignored him and went to her station. She checked the primary coolant and plasma levels, and waited for something to change, as it invariably did during a red alert.

She didn't have to wait long. Below them, a plasma conduit busted apart, sending pulses of horrendously hot fumes into the chamber below. The environmental controls quickly compensated for the radical change in temperature, though, so they weren't at immediate risk.

"We're safe!" Chell shouted over the sharp hissing. "It's below us."

"I know, I can see that," she snapped. Red alert notwithstanding, he looked at her in surprise. She had never been anything less than polite to him before, no matter how much he annoyed her.

But after a minute, it became clear that they were not fine after all. "Bridge to maintenance hold 14-beta," came Tuvok's even voice over the comm system.

"Here, sir!" Chell answered.

"Our torpedo launchers have been disabled. Are you in a position to reestablish control to the weapons system?"

"No, sir! There's a plasma leak just below us. We can't get there unless you beam someone in, and not without an environmental suit would you—"

"Please ascertain the situation more specifically, Crewman," Tuvok requested.

Chell answered, but Amanda wasn't listening. She was staring down the access tube to where the plasma was shooting out. It was coming at very regular intervals; the weapons systems required only a limited amount of energy, and so the injectors shot plasma into the launchers only once every two seconds. The injectors were still working perfectly, and two seconds was enough time…

It seemed amazingly simple. She had done this kind of thing a hundred times before in normal conditions. In this instance, she only had to shut off the plasma flow, realign the correct power couplings to the launchers, and get the injectors back on line with the conduit in the proper channel. In other words, about twenty seconds if she broke it up so as to avoid being scorched alive in the plasma stream below her.

The thing was, she could do it.

Wait. She was crazy. She could get killed.

But then, if they didn't have those torpedoes, then they would all be killed. And as Tuvok had told her before, the needs of the many…

Outweighed the needs of the few, or the one. She was the one. The girl on board that no one noticed. And just past that bursting relay was the solution that they all needed. If she got hurt, then someone would save her. If she died, it would be fast.

It seemed crazy that she could even think about it like this. Self-pity was one thing. Was this what it felt like to be suicidal? She didn't think so. She just saw what had to be done and how she needed to do it, right there—and somehow, the plasma didn't look very frightening at this moment. She also had so very little to lose.

She seized Chell's arm. "I'm going in. Tell Tuvok to fire on my signal."

"What!" the Bolian man cried. But it was too late—she was gone. She jumped down the access tube and flattened herself on the deck as the plasma burst above her.

Okay. Step one, safe. Step two, disconnect that damn plasma. She reached up and with all her strength, yanked the manual lever down so that the relay was closed. It worked—step two and she was safe.

She ripped off the paneling and began digging through the circuitry. There it was: the single blown coupling. The spares were right where they needed to be, so she tore out the bad coupling and attached the new one, ignoring the singe on her fingertips as she did so. She grabbed a wire from the deck, flung there after the initial explosion, and tested the coupling. The spark in her face told her it worked. Step three, safe.

Amanda scrambled to where the injector had come loose from the casing. With various spare parts, she smacked at it until it went back into place. The ship lurched to the side as she did so, sending her against the opposite bulkhead. "Shit!" she gasped. That could have been bad if it had gone the other way. But it meant she had to hurry; there was no time to fuse the injector back into place. She checked the conduit, saw that it was as good as she was going to get it, and looked up to Chell. Step four, safe.

"Chell!" she shouted. "Now!" And she hurried away from the plasma stream that might still blow up in her face. Strangely enough, a gleeful laugh even escaped her mouth as she dodged into the far corner.

Tuvok had received her signal. She saw the torpedo launcher grow red, then blue, then white in the two seconds it took for the plasma to refill the chamber. Then there was a loud bang, and the torpedo launched into space.

The recoil from the launcher, not usually something that happened when the casing was secure, was almost as dramatic as the launch itself. Unfortunately, Amanda had chosen the wrong direction to flee from the plasma jet; part of the launching mechanism came around and smacked her full in the torso, flinging her against the aft bulkhead.

Step five: not so safe, Amanda thought as she blacked out.

---

When Amanda opened her eyes, she had no idea how much time had passed. She was in sickbay, she guessed—bright light shone from the foot of the bed on which she was lying, covered by a standard gray blanket. She could hear a quiet conversation not far away, although she couldn't make out the words. Her head was resting on a small pillow, and there were a few blinking lights just above the head of her bed. It smelled clean, too. Much cleaner than her workstation.

She tried to breathe in deeply to smell that again, but it backfired. Something was wrong with her chest, and she began coughing from the sudden pain. Naturally, the coughing only made it worse.

The face of the EMH appeared above her, tricorder in hand. "Try to breathe normally, Crewman," he advised.

What does it look like I'm doing? she thought as she struggled to stop coughing. It took a few moments, but she did it.

"What happened?" she said weakly.

"Why don't you tell us?" the EMH suggested.

Amanda looked around her. Kes was approaching from the other side, a concerned look on her face. She made out two other people in the room, but they were sitting up on biobeds, still in their uniforms. They weren't badly hurt.

She, on the other hand, now knew exactly what it was like to have a torpedo launcher go backwards on her. It didn't feel good. She told the EMH as much.

"I would assume so," he replied blandly.

"You're going to be all right, though," Kes supplied with a reassuring smile. "The impact broke some bones and gave you a few burns here and there, but you'll heal in a day or two."

"Oh," Amanda said. She thought she should seem more relieved, but all she could do was try to figure out what had gone wrong. What had she done wrong?

"Chell said that you took a very big risk," Kes said. "We had to beam you from the weapons chamber."

"Is the ship okay?" Amanda asked.

"The ship will be fine," said the Doctor. "So will you, if you stay in sickbay for another twenty-four hours."

"A whole day?" Amanda said.

He nodded. "Kes, give her 10 ccs of oxylprovoline every four hours. We've completely repaired the bone structure, so aside from some mild discomfort, the patient should recover."

Kes smiled down at Amanda. "He means that you might feel a little uncomfortable for a day or two, but you'll be good as new before long."

Amanda nodded as much as she could. "Do I just lie here?" she asked.

Kes nodded. "I can ask your roommate to bring a few things so you won't be bored. We'd like for you to sleep as much as you can, however."

"Okay," Amanda said. She did feel pretty exhausted.

"I'll contact Crewman Jor," Kes said soothingly. "Why don't you rest now?"

Amanda agreed, and the Doctor nodded once, satisfied, before leaving her field of vision. With one more reassuring pat on the shoulder, Kes also left her side.

Amanda stared up at the dull ceiling. Wow. She'd never been hurt like this before; it felt unreal. She wasn't in very much pain right now—she just didn't quite believe it had happened. The launcher had struck her as soon as it fired, so there had been no time to react. Now here she was with a little vacation and free food for a day.

That didn't quite add up, but Amanda wasn't about to complain. She supposed she had been lucky.

Still, there was a tiny thrill when she remembered what it had been like to jump between the pulses of the plasma leak. Was she supposed to feel like that? She probably shouldn't tell anyone. It's just that it had been, well, almost… fun? The shock of adrenaline had given her the ability to do something she had never imagined she could. In the Maquis, all she had done was try to follow Chakotay's orders, to fire her phaser where he told her and finish the mission in one piece. This little adventure had completely been her idea, and it had worked.

It didn't make sense to Amanda, but she decided she shouldn't worry about it for now and closed her eyes.

The doors to sickbay whooshed apart. Amanda wished that sickbay was a little more private than one big room where anyone could see her lying there if they cared to look around. She opened one eye to see who it was.

She then shut it immediately. Why now? The first time in days that she had been given something more important to think about than Tom Paris, and he had to walk in and see her lying on a biobed, not even able to sit up. Why the hell was he here?

"Harry!" she heard him say. Footsteps that sounded like his walked over to one of the far biobeds. "What did you do to yourself?"

"Captain send you to check up on me?" Ensign Kim groused.

"No, I got off duty and wondered where you were. How's the hand?"

"I told everyone before, it's barely even burned."

"I guess this means that volleyball rematch is off now?"

"I didn't know it was on," Harry retorted. "Look, it's nothing. The Doc's getting the regenerator now. He had to take care of Crewman, um. What's her name, Crewman Jackson."

"Jackson?" Amanda thought Tom sounded concerned as well as surprised. But she must be imagining it. "What happened to her?"

"Kes said that she got the torpedoes back online, but she got knocked out while she was doing it."

"Is she okay?"

"Yeah, she's just sleeping. She's right over there."

"Wow. She looks pretty bad." Oh, that was exactly what she wanted to hear him say.

"Excuse me, Mr. Paris," the EMH said, breaking into their conversation. "If you're done disturbing my patients, then I'd like to attend to Mr. Kim."

"I'm done here, thanks," Tom said cheerfully. "See you later, Harry."

Amanda waited to hear the sound of doors opening and closing, but it didn't come. Instead, she sensed someone standing near her bed. She didn't move.

"Be more careful next time, Jackson," Tom said quietly. He was standing close to her. "You're too young to get hurt like this, kid."

Then she felt a pair of small, delicate hands adjust her covers. "She'll be all right, Tom," Kes said. "Amanda's sleeping."

"What? Oh, I know. I just felt sorry for her, getting so banged up. Some gig, huh? Only a teenager, and she's stuck out here in the Delta Quadrant. It's a pretty sorry life to look forward to." Sorry life? Only a teenager!

"I didn't know you were friends," Kes said softly.

"Not really," Tom said. "I just try to be nice. She seems pretty lonely, like she hasn't had many friends." Amanda might be keeping perfectly still, but she felt her heart sink even further than it had in the last week.

"What makes you say that?" Kes said curiously. Oh, shut up, Tom, Amanda wished silently.

"Well, you know how girls can be with an older guy." Amanda couldn't believe he said that. What did he think she was? She had just saved the fucking ship, and here he was treating her like a lovesick child who ought to be in someone's custody.

"Of course," the youthful Ocampan said wryly to Tom.

"Oh, I didn't mean you, Kes. I just meant that…"

"It's okay, Tom. You don't have to explain." Kes laughed quietly.

"Sure. Well, see you later." And mercifully, he left. Amanda wanted to run after him and strangle him to death, but she didn't have the strength.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that," Kes told her quietly. Amanda refused to budge, though, and she kept her eyes shut tight until the shadow of the Ocampan moved away.

---

More than five years later: Amanda was twenty-four now. She had her duties down to a science, and she knew exactly what to do and when to do it whenever anything in her area went wrong. Torpedoes off-line? Realign the power couplings or check the plasma flow. Targeting sensors malfunctioning? Repair the circuitry or maybe a gel-pack. Just try not to get fried in the process.

At that last task, she was mostly successful. She still got hurt sometimes, but she knew that it was because of her that Voyager could fire anything at all. Chell, on the other hand, still did a useless tap dance whenever crisis occurred.

It didn't matter. Amanda counted herself lucky if a month passed when she didn't end up in sickbay. The Doctor made a few remarks about reporting her to Commander Chakotay if she didn't learn to be more careful, but she knew the officers had more to worry about than her welfare. So Amanda barely even blinked when she learned what new injury she had scored as Tom, now the ship's medic, tended to her latest wounds. After this long, she didn't really even notice him there. She just wanted to get back to work.

One day, she was feeling particularly bored at her station. It was Chell's day off, so she didn't even have his chatter to distract her. She was eyeing the torpedo chamber and thinking about the last disaster the ship had faced. That was when they had been stuck in the void for what felt like weeks and they had been fighting off aggressors every chance they got. Something from her department had gone amiss when one of the hostile ships transported goods from Voyager to use for their own survival. The safety valve was so small that it escaped their preliminary review, but that missing link caused a slow reaction in the chamber that caused the firing mechanism to go off without warning, wasting one of Voyager's precious torpedoes.

What a surprise that was, Amanda thought with a smile. One minute, everything was calm. The next minute, all hell broke loose in the lower compartment because, of course, the temperature safety valve was not there. Amanda hadn't ever seen the phasers do that inside the compartment. At least the aliens hadn't transported away the protective force fields!

As it was, Chell had begun talking about a transfer to airponics, where he could take care of the remaining vegetables. Amanda just replaced the safety valve and double-checked the force fields.

But today, she was alone in the compartment. They had been out of the void for a week, and everything was back to normal. There was, plain and simple, nothing to do.

Typically when her duties hit a slump, she would bring a padd with her and do a little reading. Voyager had a few high school-level texts, so she downloaded the teacher's manuals and worked through them herself. The Cardassians had attacked her colony when she was barely sixteen, and among other things, that meant a lot of missed classes. Organic chemistry was completely beyond her, so she'd given that up after a month, but the physics and calculus were fascinating. It took her about two years to get through differential equations on her own, but it felt wonderful when she figured out something new. What a nerd, she sometimes thought. If I had been like this is school, the other kids would've made so much fun of me!

Well, no chance of that happening.

But today she'd forgotten the padd, and Chell wasn't there to cover for her. So Amanda sat and fiddled here and there, running a couple unnecessary low-level diagnostics.

Then something occurred to her. What if a safety valve went missing again? Of course it wouldn't, but… what if it did? She should be prepared. That way they could avoid a week of repairs to the phase compartments.

A little simulation wouldn't hurt, Amanda thought with a tiny grin. She knew these systems well enough to duplicate the same sort of incident. It was simply a matter of fooling the computer into ignoring any rise in temperature and then draining just enough coolant to trigger an overload.

That was stupid. Chell hated her "self-motivated diagnostics" even more than he hated real action. Never mind that their department was continually commended for high performance levels during maintenance checks, thanks to her test runs. So far, she hadn't even been seriously hurt when she tried it out.

Partly because Chell always watched her with one hand suspended above his combadge so someone else could save her if necessary. His beady eyes almost gave her stage fright.

Not today! She was tired of sitting around, and this was even better than a workout on the holodeck. Amanda bounced to her feet and moved to the controls with a furtive glace at the doors to make extra sure that no one was around. She keyed in the sequence to deactivate the valve.

The computer buzzed. "That procedure is not allowed."

Amanda frowned. "Since when?"

"Please restate request."

"Never mind." It must have been when the repair crews were in here; just to be safe, someone probably installed an extra lockout to prevent another accident. It was good thinking, Amanda had to admit. But at the moment, it was unnecessary.

If at first you don't succeed… Amanda simply went to the correct bulkhead, unhooked the access panel, and yanked the valve loose herself. Who needed computers, anyway?

She returned to the controls and initiated the coolant leak, just a tiny one. She waited to hear an alarm, but none sounded. Great!

The next step was simple. She moved to the temperature control station to watch the levels rise, her pulse rushing a little with anticipation. They inched up slowly, slowly… This was better than those suspense holovids the crew liked to watch on Saturday nights.

Finally, the levels hit the red line, and Amanda sprinted into action. Easy: bulkhead three, manual override, force field up, drain the heat into the vacuum of space, and restore everything as new. She had fifteen seconds.

Fourteen. At the bulkhead.

Twelve. Manual override. Something blipped at her as she did it, but she ignored it and knocked the lever into place with an extra shove.

Nine seconds to death. Like hell. She sprinted back to the ladder and leapt up, the rungs singeing her hands. The extra second at the override had cost her.

Six seconds. Force field up. Perfect. Hurry to the torpedo airlock controls…

Four seconds… Something was going wrong. The control wasn't functioning. Why? She had pressed the wrong sequence. Damn it!

Three seconds. The heat was rising fast. And something had happened to the oxygen levels. No time to think…

Two… What was the sequence? No… No again…

One… She hit her commbadge. "Jackson to sss…."

That was the last thing she knew.

---

When Amanda woke up, the scene was familiar enough. Tom was on duty in sickbay, and he was standing near her when she opened her eyes. He came along with his tricorder and checked her out. It was so familiar, it was almost eerie.

Except this time, he didn't have a joke ready. Neither of them said anything at first.

"You almost suffocated," he informed her at last, without really meeting her eyes. "The heat was easy to contain, but you'd shut yourself in with the force fields, along with the monoxide jets. We got you out just in time. The Doctor even had to initiate some low-level neural regeneration. The burns weren't too bad, though. You were only out for a couple hours."

"Will I live?" Amanda asked facetiously. She felt dizzy but not too bad, considering.

He nodded. "This time."

Amanda blinked. He sounded serious. "Hey," she said. "I'm okay, right?"

Tom looked like he was about to answer, then thought better of it. "Wait here," he said, then turned and went into the Doctor's office. B'Elanna was sitting at the Doctor's desk, fidgeting aimlessly with a golf ball. Amanda wondered why B'Elanna was there. Well, she was a few months pregnant. She was probably just there for a checkup or something. But why did they both look so serious? Amanda sat up to watch them.

B'Elanna stood up to talk to Tom. Amanda couldn't hear what they were saying, but B'Elanna didn't look happy. Maybe he'd asked her to leave? No, it looked like something else. B'Elanna nodded firmly.

To Amanda's surprise, Tom put a reassuring hand on his wife's arm and then left sickbay. Amanda watched carefully as B'Elanna approached her. The half-Klingon was staring her down like a cobra about to strike.

"Crewman," B'Elanna started off, her voice flat. "Would you like to explain what happened today?"

Amanda had the feeling she was in trouble for something. "Lieutenant?"

"You heard me," B'Elanna said. "Tell me what happened in the weapons chamber."

Amanda felt B'Elanna's eyes boring into her. "I was running a maintenance diagnostic," she said, trying to keep her voice normal. "I think something went wrong." Yes, it certainly did go wrong—she could remember everything.

"I didn't schedule a diagnostic for today," B'Elanna said. "You know that you never perform more than a level two diagnostic on a weapons system when you're alone."

"I'm sorry," Amanda said. "I guess I forgot about that regulation." Why was B'Elanna being so uptight about this? Hell—this was the first time they'd spoken in months, and this was how she was treating her?

B'Elanna shook her head slowly. "No, you didn't just forget. I sent Nicoletti down there to see what happened. She said that one of the safety valves had been knocked out of place."

"Maybe the repair crews didn't put it back right," Amanda suggested.

"Or maybe someone intentionally moved it."

"What are you saying?" Amanda said. She felt the blood rushing to her face.

"I'm saying you caused the accident down there, Crewman," B'Elanna stated. "I want to know why."

"I'm not trying to harm the ship!"

"I didn't say you were."

"Does it matter?" Amanda said with a nervous laugh. "I'm okay. Lieutenant Paris said I'm just fine."

B'Elanna came closer and leaned against the biobed with one hand. "No, he didn't. He asked me to talk to you because he thinks something is wrong."

Amanda's hands grasped the bed sheet tighter. "What are you talking about?"

"Amanda," B'Elanna said, more gently, "Lieutenant Paris told me what happened today. I just spent the last two hours talking to everyone who works with you. This has to stop."

"What do you mean? Who did you talk to?"

"Chell, for one," B'Elanna answered. "He seems to be the only one who had any idea what was happening. I've already issued him a reprimand for not having come to me with this years ago."

Amanda laughed bitterly. "Chell? That stupid little man doesn't know anything."

"Watch it," B'Elanna warned. "He knows that you have repeatedly placed yourself in unnecessary danger over his protests."

"It was necessary. If I hadn't taken those risks, the ship could've been destroyed!"

"That's not true. There's a reason why these computer consoles have as many safety mechanisms as the Starfleet technicians could think up. It's so you don't have to get hurt, or worse, killed."

"The computers don't always work."

"No, you just want to do it yourself," B'Elanna said calmly. "And if you're thinking of scaring me off by raising your voice, it won't work."

"Lieutenant, am I being accused of something?"

B'Elanna backed off just a little. "No. But I am concerned about you."

"I'm fine!" Amanda said forcefully. "There's nothing wrong with me!"

"Then why has your name shown up on more casualty reports than any other member of this crew?" B'Elanna pointed out. "I should have noticed it before now. Your roommate had no idea; you've been making up excuses to hide all the times you were kept in sickbay. Right now, Tom's beating himself up because he thinks he should've known about this, too."

"Known about what?" Amanda demanded.

"That's what I'm trying to find out, Crewman. I want to know why you're trying hurt yourself."

Amanda clenched her jaw shut. "I'm not trying to hurt myself."

Obviously frustrated, B'Elanna stepped away from the bed and took a deep breath. "I can't believe this," she said to herself out loud. "Here I am, about to be a mother in a few months and I can't even take care of the people working under me."

"I don't need to be taken care of!" Amanda shouted. B'Elanna looked at her, surprised. "I'm not the same little teenager the Maquis dragged around the Badlands. I'm not useless, and I don't need people watching out for me like I can't take care of myself!"

It took B'Elanna a few moments to respond. "Amanda," she said, "I don't think of you like that."

"Then why are you interrogating me like this?" she demanded. "So I fucked up today. Who cares? Does it matter?"

"Yes, it does," B'Elanna said. "Listen to me, Crewman. I don't know what it is that's made you do this to yourself. But you can't run away from it and pretend like getting injured is going to take the place of actual feeling."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Amanda said sullenly.

"Maybe not now, but I hope you'll figure it out before you kill yourself. Trust me, it could happen with the risks you're taking."

This was the first time anyone had said that to Amanda. It didn't make sense. Kill herself? That was impossible. She was just a crewman on a lost ship who spent every day in the weapons chamber. It was like that today, and it would be like tomorrow, and it would be like that for the next thirty years. She might feel dead, but that wasn't the same thing as… Her head started to hurt at the temples.

B'Elanna wasn't done yet. "Like it or not, I'm reassigning you to main engineering where I can keep an eye on you myself. I'm also alerting Commander Chakotay to the situation."

Amanda started to protest again, but B'Elanna cut her off. "We don't have a counselor on this ship; Chakotay's the closest thing we've got." She paused. "Crewman, a few years ago, I was caught in a place that's not too different from where you are. He scared me out of it. I know how much you want to be left alone, but I'm sorry. I won't let you do this to yourself."

"Is this about me or you?" Amanda seethed.

B'Elanna didn't answer her. "You're off duty for the next two days. After that, report to engineering for beta shift. I want to see a change in your attitude, Crewman. You can start with showing your officers a little more respect."

Amanda watched B'Elanna turn and leave. She sat alone in sickbay in silence for the rest of the day.

---

Nearly a year later, neither the sting of B'Elanna's words nor the humiliation of the subsequent disciplinary action had faded as she walked silently along the piers of San Francisco Bay, next to a stranger who, against all odds, didn't seem to mind.

Finally, Aaron poked her gently in the ribs. "A tuppa for your thoughts," he said.

"A what?" she asked.

"A tuppa. Sort of like a penny," he said. "I mean, what are you thinking about?"

"I'm not sure," Amanda said. "I was thinking of something somebody told me a while ago. Wondering if she was right." Amanda shrugged. "I wasn't very happy on Voyager. I probably did some stupid things… I just was wondering about, you know. Everything."

Aaron smiled and nodded. "Gotcha."

Amanda was too shaken to smile back. Aaron was being so nice to her, but he didn't know her. He didn't know what she was like, what it might mean to get close to her. He would only wind up feeling sorry for her.

Amanda felt a shiver from the wind that blew through her coat. She had been badly spoiled by the constantly controlled climate of a working ship.

Aaron noticed. "You're cold," he said. "We should go inside somewhere."

Amanda looked out across the Bay. "It's okay. I'm just not a landlubber yet." She took a deep breath, trying to stifle her fears. "Listen, I'm sorry about tonight. I didn't mean—"

He cut her off. "Stop apologizing. It's not your fault." He cleared his throat. "It's a beautiful night, isn't it? I've never lived by the water before, it's really something."

"Me neither." Amanda looked again at the lapping saltwater, at the reflection of the city lights off the surface of the Bay, and at the wind as it blew Aaron's dark hair back from his face. She wondered for a moment what his story was, and what secrets he might be holding onto. Could they match her own? Perhaps it would have been nice to find out. "Thanks for taking me to dinner," she said.

"Would you like to try it again sometime? I'd like to give it another chance."

Amanda was taken aback. She'd thought he was only walking around with her to be nice!

"Yes!" she said quickly. "Of course! I mean, I hate the idea of leaving you with this impression of me."

Aaron smiled at her. "Okay. Great. But… you're not leaving me with a bad impression," he said.

She blushed. Shielded by the dim light of the evening, Amanda took a moment to really observe him. He was only a few centimeters taller than she was, but he stood tall, in the way of someone who had carried a heavy load many times before. When he wasn't watching her, she could see a plain thoughtfulness assume its place as his default mood. His gray eyes looked out over the water again, and she realized, to her surprise, that he saw her only as another person.

How wonderful, and how sad, to be just like everyone else.