"One bowl of coffee ice cream. No, belay that. Two bowls of coffee ice cream."

The replicator beeped obligingly and Janeway tapped an impatient foot as the food materialized before her, Starfleet-issue spoons and all. She took one bowl in each hand and eased herself down onto her couch with a groan, setting one aside and starting on the other. Kicking off her boots, she pulled the interface terminal to her with her foot and tapped two of the buttons with a toe. It beeped at her, and its familiar voice informed her that it was awaiting her command.

"Captain's personal log, stardate 50593.8," she began, and paused. How to even begin to summarize this day? Logic would dictate to begin at the beginning. She rubbed her forehead. Tuvok was wearing off on her just a little too much. "Today… has not been the best one this week." Now that was definitely taking the cake for 'Best Understatement of the Year'. "It started off pleasantly enough, I admit…"

Janeway strode onto the bridge, a slight smile on her lips. Waking up this morning in the lovely, dappled turquoise glow of the nebula outside had been enough to convince her that today would be a decidedly pleasant day. She nodded to Tuvok and Tom, gave Harry a little wave, acknowledged both ensigns at the science stations, and plunked herself into her chair. Chakotay turned to her, looking amused.

"You're in a good mood," he remarked.

She ran her hands along the armrests of her chair. "Why shouldn't I be? I woke up this morning and looked out my window and thought for one brief—" she shot a teasing look at her security officer "—illogical moment that I was underwater. Mr. Paris, can we have the nebula onscreen, please?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, hitting a few controls. The sunlight-streaked, gently swaying pockets of gas tinged the bridge vaguely blue, and Janeway smiled again, turning her attention back to Chakotay, who nodded his approval.

"It certainly is quite something," he agreed, "but I'm not sure thinking that I was underwater would be enough to put me in as good a mood as yours."

"I love swimming," she told him. "I used to scuba dive with my friends, explore old caves. It was always so inspiring when you'd come around a corner and see the sunlight streaming down in the water where before there was only darkness…"

"I can imagine," he said, resting his elbow on the console between them and leaning closer. "When I was young, my sister and I used to swim in the lake near our village. I would lie on the bottom and look up, watching the sun through the water." He chuckled, "Of course, I always got water up my nose, but until that happened I enjoyed myself."

Janeway grinned, about to reply, when the ship pitched forward, knocking her halfway out of her chair. Regaining her seat, she twisted around. "Mr. Tuvok, report!"

"It appears that our engines ignited a small, densely packed area of gas," he informed her. "Shields are holding."

"Harry," she said, "scan for more of those pockets."

"I'm picking up a few, Captain," he replied, tapping away at his consol.

"I can plot a course around them," volunteered Tom.

"Go ahead, Lieutenant," she nodded.

The 'watery' world on the viewscreen wheeled nauseatingly as Tom pulled the ship about. Janeway cringed slightly and blinked hard to settle her protesting stomach, but even once they were again on a steady, uneventful course, the bridge remained quiet, the playful atmosphere lost.

She stood. "I'll be in my ready room. Commander, you have the bridge."

"Nothing else happened until lunch," she told the small computer, gazing out the window at the nebula. Its loveliness did little to cheer her up anymore, not after everything that had happened earlier that day. "Neelix took it upon himself to bring me some soup and he was telling me about how he got the spices for it…"

"The Rairi are a very private race, Captain," he stressed, pacing agitatedly as Janeway tentatively sipped her full spoon. "They absolutely refuse to deal with outsiders! But luckily, I'd met a member of their species a couple of years before while I was doing business on an asteroid trading outpost—"

"This is good," she remarked with surprising sincerity, holding up a hand to cut off his long explanation, "Thank you, Neelix. It was very thoughtful of you to bring it up to me."

"You are very welcome, Captain," he assured her, bouncing slightly on his toes, "Remember, anytime you feel the slightest bit hungry, you just give me a call and I will be there before you could say leola root." And, with that, he was out the door and out of sight. She let her breath out with a small whoosh and smiled at his exuberance, then turned her attention back to the bowl of soup before her. It was a spiced cream of some kind, with… were those mushrooms?

Hadn't Chakotay once told her that mushroom soup was his all-time favourite food? "Janeway to Commander Chakotay."

"Chakotay here, Captain."

"Please report to the ready room."

A moment later, the door hissed open and Chakotay stepped through it.

"Captain?" he questioned, hands folded behind his back.

She held up the bowl. "Neelix's equivalent of cream of mushroom soup. Want some?"

"Sure," he said, crossing the room in a few long strides to where she sat on her couch. She patted the seat beside her and he sat, peering with curiosity at the bowl she held.

"Here," she said, handing it to him and standing, "I'll replicate you another spoon." She told the computer what she wanted and it materialized with a soft whir, and then, carrying the new spoon, she returned to the sofa and handed it to Chakotay.

"It's actually pretty good," she commented, taking a spoonful for herself.

He tried a bit, looking slightly dubious, but his face quickly changed to surprise. "It is," he agreed, taking a second scoop, then looked up at her guiltily, "Am I eating your lunch, Kathryn?"

She laughed, "Yes, but really, I've never been much of a fan of mushr—"

The ship lurched suddenly, cutting her off and knocking the bowl of soup out of her hands. She gave a small cry of surprise and pain as the hot liquid sloshed across her lap, stinging at her legs as it soaked through the fabric of her pants, but was on her feet and out the ready room door nonetheless, Chakotay trailing half a step behind.

"Report!" she barked to Tuvok, wiping her hands uselessly on her uniform to get the soup off them. "I thought you told me you were plotting a course around those pockets of gas, Mr. Paris."

"He was," replied Tuvok calmly, "It appears that a conduit ruptured near the starboard nacelle. Minor damage. Repair teams on the way."

"Any sign of the cause?" Janeway asked, frowning. Conduits didn't just rupture by themselves.

"Negative," said Harry, "It may have just overloaded. I don't think Engineering's had time yet to finish the repairs to the conduits after that accident last week. The undamaged ones have had to bear extra loads for a while now. It may have been too much."

She nodded and glanced around the bridge. Harry looked slightly ruffled, Tuvok looked Vulcan, and Tom was looking right back at her. "Captain," he began questioningly, gesturing at the large greyish patch covering her thighs and midriff, "if you don't mind me asking, what is that?"

"That," she replied crisply, heading back to the ready room, "was my lunch. Chakotay, I owe you another bowl. Care to join me?"

They settled back onto the couch, Chakotay holding a new bowl of soup and Janeway a damp cloth, sponging herself off. Once she'd finished, she recycled the cloth and ordered a cup of coffee, then joined her first officer under the wide view port. He was already halfway through his meal, she noted out of the corner of her eye as she looked up at the nebula outside.

His spoon slowed as he caught her watching him, and he set it down, holding it carefully in his lap. She turned her gaze more directly on him, watching his down turned face and wondering what was wrong. "Not hot enough?" she asked.

"No, it's fine," he said slowly, poking at a floating fungus absently with his spoon. A long moment later, he looked up at her and smiled wryly. "It's just… the last time I had mushroom soup, Seska made it for me."

Janeway felt her brows pull together in an emotion she couldn't quite put her finger on. Jealousy that he was still so deeply affected by Seska after so long? Guilt for prompting bad memories?

The moment passed quickly though and he looked up at her, smiling and saying, "She used stolen ingredients, of course. I had to punish her and everyone involved, myself included."

"I'm sorry to bring this up, Chakotay," Janeway offered, putting a hand over his.

"No," he said, still smiling, "Don't apologize. It's just soup."

Janeway paused in her recording, glancing down at the faint outline of the soup spill on her uniform. Shaking her head, she continued, "About ten minutes later, another conduit blew…"

Chakotay and Janeway rushed again onto the bridge, again demanding a report.

"Another conduit just overloaded," Harry told them.

"I've lost control of the starboard nacelle," Tom reported.

"All stop," Janeway ordered, sinking into her chair. "Harry, get double staff on those conduits. Tom, let's stay here until we can get both nacelles operating smoothly. We should—"

The ship rocked yet again, tossing Ensign Wildman at the science station clear out of her seat.

"Another conduit?" Janeway demanded, twisting around.

Harry shook his head. "That was one of those dense pockets. We appear to have entered a region where they're more common."

Janeway sighed. "Are they drifting?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Harry glumly, "And there's another headed straight for us. Impact in three… two… one…"

Janeway hit the deck hard, her cheek meeting carpet and arms splayed out above her head. She pushed herself back up and climbed back into her seat to the sound of Tuvok's damage report.

"There is a minor rupture in the hull plating on Deck 7," he told her, "Emergency forcefields active. Repair teams at the nacelle are reporting casualties. Artificial gravity has been lost in the outer section of Deck 7."

"Mr. Paris," Janeway said, pushing stray strands of hair back away from her face and hoping her voice wasn't as strained as it sounded to her, "Can you get us out of the nebula on one nacelle without causing further damage?"

"Shouldn't be a problem—"

The ship pitched yet again, knocking Tom against his consol and effectively ending his sentence. Even before he'd entirely regained his seat, his hands were flying on the controls. "Well," he said, sounding positively gloomy, "it wouldn't have been a problem, had that last pocket not taken out my access to the port nacelle."

"Harry," barked Janeway, "Are there anymore of those pockets in the vicinity?"

"Just one, Captain," he replied, "and it's headed away from us."

"Good," she said and tapped her combadge. "Bridge to Engineering."

B'Elanna's hassled-sounding voice came through over the ominous hissing of an unknown problem, "Torres here, Captain."

"Get as many people as you can spare on fixing the nacelles. What's your estimated timeframe for basic repairs?"

"Two hours," came the reply, "Maybe more, but no less."

"Noted," Janeway said, "Bridge out."

"Those last two pockets completely nullified all the progress B'Elanna managed to make on the neural gelpacks from the incident last week," Janeway said tiredly, pressing a hand to her forehead. "Total damage recount: two overloaded conduits, both nacelles out of commission, one ruptured EPS conduit, artificial gravity lost on sections of Decks 7 through 9, and three hull fractures."

The morning dawned just like every other morning dawned in the captain's quarters: to the sound of the computer's flat voice reporting the time. The lights, just as they always did, slowly began to brighten. The only thing out of place this morning was the as yet-unmoving lump in the bed and the fact that there was still auburn hair splayed out over the pillow. The computer had to repeat itself twice at first, also before the lump pushed itself up with a groan and tucked several strands of hair behind its ear.

"Computer," Janeway said, wiping at her eyes blearily, "Time."

"Time is 0604," replied the computer.

Janeway sighed, slowly climbing the rest of the way out of bed. As she stumbled toward the washroom, she tried half-heartedly to perk herself up with a reminder that she was never so lazy in getting up in the morning. Needless to say as she fell against the cold tile wall of the sonic shower, eyes already half-closed, her efforts had little effect.

Only when the computer pleasantly informed her that she was now ten minutes late for her duty shift did she realize that she was slumped on the floor, back against the wall, the shower still humming away.

With an irritated, well-selected word of expression, she clambered to her feet and hurried off, dashing back to turn off the shower, and scrambled into her uniform, wondering why in all the worlds she'd visited she was so sleepy this morning.

Chakotay regarded her with a somewhat amused expression as she stepped onto the bridge and sat beside him. "Rough night?" he questioned, one eyebrow quirked.

She ran a hand over her dishevelled hair, smoothing down the pieces she'd hadn't quite managed to get to lie flat and stay in her ponytail. "Rough day," she corrected, having had sufficient time in the turbolift to deduce the reason for her tiredness. "Harry, do you have that repair report I asked for?"

"Yes ma'am," he said, bringing over a padd and handing it to her.

"Thanks," she said, trying to smile without looking like a hung-over Klingon. She thumbed through the report, reading several passages multiple times to absorb them, and then did a quadruple take. "Harry, would you come here for a moment?"

He came over, looking somewhat timid. "Is there a problem, Captain?" he asked, looking down at her over the railing.

"This, here," she said, holding it up so he could see and pointing at the offending passage. "It's a mistake. There were only two hull fractures yesterday."

"Er," said Harry, peering more closely at the report, "No, I don't think so, ma'am. I can check the sensors again if you'd like, but I'm pretty sure there were three."

Janeway stood and followed the ensign to the Ops station, where he hit a few keys and called up the structural damage report from the previous day.

"Here," he said, trailing a finger along a line. "Three hull fractures."

She frowned, gazing at the information. Had she been mistaken? It seemed likely. Shaking her head and giving an apologetic smile, she said, "Sorry, Harry. I guess I must've had a worse day than I thought." Returning to her chair, she looked down at it for a brief moment and changed her mind. "The bridge is yours, Chakotay. I'll be in my ready room."

As she sank into the soft chair behind her desk, she sighed and called up the sensor readings from yesterday, scanning through them to confirm what she'd already seen at Ops. Yes, there is was, three hull fractures, one on Deck 7, one on Deck 6, and one on Deck 8. What had she said in her log? She called it up as well. Yes, it was there, too: 3 hull fractures. But she only remembered two! So, she mused, she was either simply confused and still half asleep, or she was going crazy.

Pensively, she leaned an elbow on the table and then perked up as a bizarre idea occurred to her.

"Computer," she said slowly, "was there anything abnormal recorded on sensors yesterday?"

"Affirmative," replied the computer, "Artificial gravity was lost on Decks 7 through—"

"Belay that," she said, raising a hand slightly. "Was there anything abnormal recorded on sensors in my quarters yesterday?"

"Affirmative," the computer said again and Janeway's curiosity leapt up eagerly. "Two bowls of coffee ice cream were replicated and recycled." Janeway's curiosity fell down hard.

"Nothing abnormal about my log?" she questioned.

"Negative," said the computer.

"Then what could make that possible?" she mused under her breath. "Computer, open Janeway's personal log." There was no harm in trying, right? If she was crazy, testing her idea wasn't going to change it, one way or the other.

"Log open," the computer told her.

She paused, thinking of what she could say. If she was right, she would want to pick something that would be obviously spotted but not harmful in any way. Her eyes fell on the vase of orchids by the couch. "The Vulcan orchids in my ready room that Tuvok gave me ago are blue."

There was a long pause.

"End recording."

The orchids turned blue and Janeway's heart leapt. How was that possible? "Lieutenant Tuvok," she said, hitting her combadge, "please come to the ready room."

The doors slid open and the Vulcan stepped through. "Yes, Captain?" he asked.

"Look," she said, rising and walking over to the orchids, fingering one of the blue petals. "You gave these to me, you remember?"

"Of course, Captain," he replied, seeming unsure of where she was going with this.

"And you remember that they were white?"

He continued to look at her, as if still waiting for her to speak.

"Tuvok?" she questioned.

"Yes, Captain?"

"I said, do you remember that they were white?"

Again, he had no reaction, but continued to wait expectantly. Her brow furrowed in confusion. Why was he not hearing her?

"Captain, is there something wrong?" he inquired.

Taking a different approach, she picked up the orchids and held it out. "I will dispose of them for you if you want," Tuvok offered uncertainly, taking the pot from her.

"No!" she exclaimed. "No, I like them. But can't you see that they're not the same as the ones you gave me?"

This time, he appeared to have heard her. "Captain, they are the same orchids I gave you six months ago."

She persisted, undeterred, "Tuvok, those were white, not blue."

Was that a sigh she detected from her immovable chief of security? "It is possible that my memory is, in this case, faulty. However, I spent considerable time growing these flowers. I think it highly unlikely that I would remember their colour incorrectly." He handed the orchids back to her. "If there's anything else, Captain?"

"No," she said slowly, looking from him to the orchids and back. "there's nothing else. Return to your post."

As the day moved along, Janeway found herself without another moment to herself, much less enough time to give any serious thought to the Orchid Incident. She was back and forth between the bridge and Engineering to oversee the repairs, and then, just before the end of her shift, had to stop by a crewman's quarters for a scheduled interview. After eating and reviewing B'Elanna's report on the nacelle repairs, she changed into her nightgown and slipped into bed, lying on her back and looking up at the nebula outside.

The shields lit up momentarily, sparkling, and the ship rocked almost imperceptibly as another dense pocket hit it.

She settled down a little further under the covers, glad that Harry and Tuvok had managed to successfully reconfigure the shields to absorb the volatile gas's discharges.

Tuvok.

The orchids.

Her log.

She sat bolt upright and swung her legs off the bed, walking briskly into the living room and swivelling her laptop toward her. "Computer," she said, getting a bee-eep for a response, "Access my personal log, same entry as earlier today."

"Log open," said the computer.

Janeway sat slowly on the couch, thinking. Tuvok hadn't seen anything different about the orchids, and when she'd tried to tell him about her log and how the flowers had turned blue, he hadn't seemed to hear her. If she could do something, change something big, the crew would have to notice. But it would have to be something harmless, nothing that would jeopardize the ship in anyway.

As inspiration struck her, her face lit up. It might not have been logical, but it was certain to attract attention and it definitely would not be harmful. "I am the first officer of Voyager, and Chakotay is the captain." She paused, smiling and wondering whether anything would happen. "Computer, end recording."

And the world went dark.