Acknowledgements: The story of Sorik and the Vulcan prince is not mine. I reworded it and added a few details, but it was originally thought up by zarabithia in her Star Trek: Enterprise fan fiction "Consequences" and is used with her permission. "Consequences" can be found in the Enterprise section at fanfiction net/s/1248087/1/.

Also: Special thanks to Terina00 for being kind enough to suffer through all my antics while still managing to be a good, thoughtful beta.

"The hologram was adequate, but no substitute for my wife."

"Of course." Tom smiled gently, thinking the old Vulcan came close to returning the expression.

Almost.

The encounter remained in his mind hours later when he headed for his evening sickbay shift. He normally didn't enjoy being a medic, but it was moments like this that made him think he could somehow run sickbay.

Although, usually when he got on the 'medic kick' something always happened to make him think twice about it. But why ruin the moment right before sickbay duty? He figured he might as well live out the life-saving high before it wore off.

When he entered sickbay, sure enough, Tom beheld a sight that snapped him out of his fantasy: there, in the middle of the surgical bay, was half the Doctor.

Tom wasn't sure where the other half was, but it was as though someone had split him vertically right down the middle. He wondered who did it, Doctor Frankenstein or Daffy Duck.

"Doc?" He moved quickly to the main console to diagnose what happened to the Doctor.

"Stand aside, Lieutenant," came Seven's voice. She bumped Tom out of the way and pressed in a few commands, seeming out of breath.

"Seven, what are you doing?"

"I am attempting, hic, to provide the Doctor with a digestive system."

Tom watched, dumbfounded, as the Doctor seemed to grow a holographic intestinal tract. "Are you drunk?"

"I have consssumed an acceptable level of ssynthehol. My judgment isssnot impaired."

"Then why are you slurring?"

"Ssslurrring?"

Tom grabbed a nearby tricorder and scanned her. "Your implants aren't processing whatever you drank. I think we better put the Doctor back together so we can figure out if there's a way to…"

Burp.

"...counteract your reaction."

Seven looked at Tom, then at the Doctor, then at Tom again. She leaned sloppily against the console and looked as though she would topple over at any second. "My body had a similar reaction while on the Lokirrim shhhip. Perhaps, I should have had the Doctor scan…"

He reached for her shoulders and steadily guided her onto the nearest biobed, then went back to the console Seven was using to modify the Doctor.

He didn't want to have to call B'Elanna about this. She was in a good mood earlier and he knew this would spoil it, but...

His hope was in vain. He couldn't make any sense of what Seven did to the Doctor's program. All he knew is that the Doc couldn't even speak and he currently looked like Klingon Gagh.

He slapped his comm badge. "Paris to Torres."

::Yes, Tom?::

"Did I ever tell you how much I love hearing you say those words?"

There was a pause. And then…

::Pig.::

"Ah, you're still in a good mood. Would you mind coming to sickbay? The Doctor is having a slight problem with his program."

::How slight?::

"Not big enough to alert the Captain. Yet."

::I see. Is it big enough where I'll have to have someone take over what I'm doing now?::

"I would say that's a definite possibility."

There was another pause and something that sounded like a deep sigh.

::I'm on my way. Torres out.::

xxx

Seven of Nine Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One was tanked. And Tom had no explanation for it since, according to her, she only drank four ounces of syntheholic beverage. What confused him was the fact that the Doctor didn't notice, but let her go ahead with the altercations to his program anyway.

It had to do with her implants. It had to.

"Well she did a good job on the Doctor." B'Elanna pressed in a few commands on the console and the Doctor disappeared then reappeared whole. "I can't undo the unfinished digestive tract she gave him, but I can reactivate the speech and action centers of his program. So don't be too surprised if he suddenly breaks wind or does something really gross while you're trying to figure out what's wrong with Seven."

Tom watched Seven groan uncomfortably. She looked pretty green so he grabbed a basin just in time for her to empty the contents of her stomach.

B'Elanna made a disgusted face and keyed in a few more commands.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," came the Doctor's voice. He casually moved to where Tom tried to get Seven to lie down again.

"Her implants are having a bad reaction to the synthehol she drank," Tom explained.

The Doctor frowned and picked up the nearest tricorder he could find. He scanned Seven and grunted in the usual way he did when something was amiss with her implants. "It looks like her implants have reprogrammed her nanoprobes to behave like synthehol. At this level of intoxication, she should be out cold."

"You mean she programmed herself to be drunk?" If the situation were not so serious, Tom would have laughed.

"I believe I just said that, Mr. Paris. Although, I don't think it was intentional."

"Well, if I'm no longer needed here," B'Elanna said, "I'm going back to engineering."

"Wait." Tom blocked her from leaving. "You'll be awake when I get home, right?"

B'Elanna smiled. "Why? You have plans for us?"

Tom looked down at her with his most charming bedroom eyes. "I thought we could spend some time working on my Klingon. SoH ghaj tln ngech!"

"You have no idea what you just said..." B'Elanna just looked at him as though he were a caveman.

"Not a clue," he confessed.

She shook her head in a graceful attempt to hide her smirk, and left sickbay without another word.

Tom turned back to the Doctor just in time to catch him rolling his eyes. "What?"

"Hold this while I extract some of her nanoprobes for reprogramming."

Seven moaned.

"I hear you." Tom swiped the tricorder from the Doctor and took another reading of her vitals.

"Mr. Paris, I read your report of Commander Tuvok's condition after I returned from the Lokirrim vessel." The Doctor harvested a tube of Seven's nanoprobes.

Tom couldn't help but smile. "I just passed him in the hallway a few hours ago. He's feeling much better now."

"Did you give him a follow up cortical scan?"

He chuckled. "I didn't think I had to. He told me holo-T'Pel was adequate. He even almost cracked a smile."

"I see..." The Doctor placed Seven's nanoprobes under the microscope. "Did you even read my file on Ensign Vorik's reaction to the holo-therapy I prescribed to him during his Pon Farr?"

Tom felt his grin involuntarily fade. He closed his eyes for a moment and recalled Vorik's raging expression as he stood over him and B'Elanna on the Sikarri planet while interrupting their foreplay. "I take it it didn't work...?"

The Doctor absently pressed in a series of commands on the console. "You are correct, Lieutenant. Of course, the therapy appeared to work and I cleared him for duty..."

"...right before he disabled the transporters and made off with a shuttle," Tom finished for him. "Could you excuse me for a minute…?" He inched his way toward the door, ready to break into a run as soon as he cleared the threshold.

"Lieutenant," the Doctor called after him.

Tom turned back around to find the Doctor holding out a tricorder to him.

"You'll probably need this."

"Right." Tom flashed the Doctor a smile, took the tricorder, and headed straight for Tuvok's quarters.

xxx

To say holo-T'Pel didn't work was an understatement.

Tuvok wasn't sure if it was logic telling him to go to sickbay or if were fear. He wondered if it was even logical to be wondering such things.

He grimaced in pain. His blood boiled.

The blood fever hit him only an hour ago. He felt as torrid as the flame he gazed upon to center his meditation. He needed T'Pel. He burned for T'Pel. Tuvok wished he would lose consciousness if only to make it stop.

The sound of the door chime reverberated through his skull.

"Go away." He didn't even know if he whispered or shouted. He fumbled to his feet to face the intruder who had the audacity to ignore his request to be left alone. He didn't say anything. He just looked at Tom Paris through narrow eyes.

"I take it the holodeck didn't work." Surprisingly, there was not a hint of the usual caustic flavoring in his voice. Tom held out his tricorder like a peace offering. He stepped towards him, glanced at the readings, then looked him in the face.

"I am so sorry." He emphasized each word and snapped off the tricorder. "I thought you were going to be alright. I..."

Tuvok bit his lower lip and tried to keep his trembling under control.

"I have to transport you to sickbay."

Tuvok whimpered an ascent. He was going to die if something wasn't done. He didn't want to face that possibility before. Tom even made jokes about a man his age still being driven by the mating instinct.

Tom put a supportive hand on his shoulder. "You're going to be alright. I promise."