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Author's Note: Welcome to my very first "ST: Voyager" fanfic. Why have I waited so long to post it? I don't know, really. But Part One is now here, so please review! I'm not sure where the inspiration for this came from. It was just something I've always wanted to see on the show, and I decided that if TPTB were never going to write it, I might as well write it myself. Thanks in advance for the feedback! J

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Forget-Them-Not

By Gracie Kay

Part One

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"Captain. Captain, can you hear me?"

The words floated above her, but she couldn't answer. Captain? Who was he talking to? But she couldn't ask. Darkness pressed around her, and her eyelids were too heavy to open. She tried to wake up, knowing somehow that she was unconscious. But now the voice was fading, and silence surged back to reclaim her. She couldn't wake up.

"What's wrong with her?" Chakotay frowned as the Doctor hesitated. With the combined knowledge of 47 doctors, the Emergency Medical Hologram rarely hesitated over anything.

"I'm not sure I can answer that, Commander. She should be awake and alert by now, yet all my attempts to waken her have been in vain. She is in a coma that not even my expertise can revive her from."

"All this from a holodeck injury?"

"It's unusual, but not unheard of. The most innocent bumps on the head have been known to cause . . ." His holographic face puckered in the facsimile of a frown.

"To cause what?"

"Irreparable damage."

"You're saying she has brain damage?"

"I don't know, Commander. I won't know until I can awaken her. She was hit on the back of the head, and my scans show no damage to the frontal lobes of her cerebral cortex."

Chakotay looked at him blankly. "Meaning?"

"Meaning, long-term consciousness should not be affected by this injury. But for some reason, it is."

His words were disturbing, and as he retreated to studying a computer screen, Chakotay reached down to take the captain's still hand. "Come on, Kathryn," he whispered. "Please."

Chakotay knew before he exited sickbay that Tom Paris would be waiting for him. He was right, and the younger man fell into step with him as he headed for the bridge.

"Well? Is she awake yet?"

"Not yet." Chakotay knew he was being brief, but at the moment, he was too concerned to worry about courtesy.

"What did Doc have to say?"

"Nothing reassuring. He doesn't know . . ." He paused in the corridor, and Paris stopped as well. "He doesn't know what's wrong with her, Tom. He can't figure out why she's not waking up."

Tom looked away, and Chakotay saw the pain in his eyes. "It's all my fault. I designed that holodeck program. I never should have been experimenting with the safety protocols."

"You can't blame yourself for this."

"Yes, I can. And I'm deleting that program the first chance I get."

The first thing she heard was someone humming. The sound caught her off-guard, and her eyes opened quickly, then roamed around the room, and she recognized a sickbay . . . but not the sickbay on her ship. Something was very wrong here. She reached into her mind to remember . . . and came up empty-handed.

Suddenly, a voice invaded her thoughts.

"Captain!" She turned her head to see a man, dressed in a Starfleet uniform with blue shoulders. What was he doing here--or maybe the better question would be, what was she doing here?

"I'm so glad you're back. We've been quite worried about you."

With some effort, her voice and lips formed words. She was still feeling a little shaky, even if she was awake. "What . . . who are you? Where am I?"

Several emotions flitted over the man's face, but the prominent one was alarm. "Can you tell me your name?"

"Kathryn Janeway."

"Okay, good. Now, what's the last thing you remember?"

"You haven't answered my question," she pointed out, unsure if she should trust the man or not, even if he was in uniform. "Where am I?"

"Why, you're on your ship, of course. Captain, don't you know who I am?"

Captain? As she lay on the bio-bed, Janeway felt a shudder of fear pass through her. Either this man was terribly mixed up, or she was. "I--I'm sorry, I don't believe I've met you. And why are you calling me 'Captain'?"

Without another word to her, he hit his comm badge. "Sickbay to bridge."

A husky, masculine voice answered over the comm frequency. "Bridge here. What is it, Doctor?"

"The captain's awake, Commander. But I think you'd better get down here right away."

"On my way, Chakotay out."

The man turned back to her, and for the first time she noticed a strange gadget on his shoulder. What was he?

"Well, Captain, since you don't seem to remember me, perhaps you'll recognize Commander Chakotay. At any rate, I am the Emergency Medical Hologram. You may call me 'Doctor.'"

She had never felt so confused in her life, but she nodded. "Of course."

"I believe it's safe for you to sit up, if you like. We only have to figure out now exactly what you know and what you've forgotten. I'm sure it's only a short-term memory loss, Captain; don't worry."

She was not a captain, and being referred to by that title was bothering her. But she didn't see what could be done about it at the moment; why try to reason with a computer program? Thus decided, she sat up slowly and said nothing.

Then the sickbay doors slid away, and a man entered the room. He was tall, darkly handsome, and frowning; but the clouds broke from his face when he saw her perched on the edge of the bed. "Captain! It's good to see you--" He broke off and stared at her, much the way she must be staring at him.

She was certain she had never seen this man before.

"We may have a problem, Commander," came the all-too-brisk voice of that computer program. "The captain doesn't remember me, and now it looks as though she doesn't know you, either."

"Captain?"

She was trembling now. She didn't know this man and she didn't "know" this hologram, while they both acted as though they knew her.

The tall man was gazing down at her, and she quickly grabbed onto her calm, composure, and confidence before they all melted to the deck of the ship.

"I . . . there's been a mistake somehow. I'm not who you think I am, Commander. I'm not a captain."

"Then who are you?"

"I'm Commander Kathryn Janeway. I'm first officer of the U.S.S. Billings."

"What's the last thing you remember about serving aboard the Billings?" It was the Doctor speaking again.

She paused. It was difficult to remember recent details, but . . . "I was in engineering. I don't know why, but . . . I think a console exploded and . . . that's all I remember." They were staring at her like she was crazy, and now she wondered if maybe she was.

Then the comm system interrupted. "Tuvok to sickbay."

Her heart leaped in her chest at the blessedly familiar voice, the familiar name in this place where nothing was making sense. "Tuvok." She had said his name before she had thought about it.

The man called Chakotay gave her a searching look. "Do you remember him?"

"Of course I do. Let me talk to him." Tuvok would be able to straighten all this out.

"The Doctor here," the hologram piped up, almost cheerfully. "Please report to sickbay, Mr. Tuvok. Our patient is asking for you. In fact, it looks as though you're the only one she remembers."

"On my way."

And then he was there, and Janeway had never been so glad to see him. He approached her with a pensive expression, then spoke to her. "Captain, do you know me?"

Oh, no. Not him, too. "Tuvok, what's happened to me? I'm not a captain--" Then she saw the three little silver pips on his collar. He wasn't an ensign anymore.

An alternate reality. Maybe that's what this was. But how had she been transported here? "I--I don't understand," she faltered, her confidence fading fast.

"You have been injured, Captain." Tuvok's voice was as soothing as ever, even if what he was saying didn't make much sense. "It appears that you have lost quite a few of your memories of the last several years. We will have to determine exactly how many years you have forgotten."

She looked at him and saw concern in his eyes, although he tried as usual to remain impassive. "All right," she sighed, resolved to discover what she didn't remember. "So I'm a captain . . . and this is my ship and my crew. But--but where are we, and why is a hologram the only medical staff in sickbay?"

Tuvok exchanged a glance with Chakotay, and they both hesitated. "The explanation is complicated, Captain," Tuvok said at last, and if ever a Vulcan's tone was ominous, his was at that moment. Janeway felt a moment of dread. Had some disaster taken place?

(to be continued … Feedback greatly appreciated! J )