12. Mortal Coil
Neelix was, to say the least, in a bad way. He lay unconscious on a biobed in Sickbay, the purple, brown and yellow markings on his face standing out luridly against his ash-pale complexion. Seven could not keep her eyes away.
"He'll be fine," said the Doctor, placing a hand on her shoulder. "He should be conscious in an hour or so. Don't worry."
Seven wished she could stop worrying. It hurt to worry, but not in any place she could pinpoint; it was as if someone had hooked her mind with a tractor beam and was dragging her thoughts continually in the same direction … What about Neelix? He would survive, of course, thanks to her nanoprobe treatment … but … !
"What have I done?" she whispered. "Was I in error, Doctor? To reactivate Neelix in this way?"
The Doctor looked from her to his patient and back again, then shook his head. "No! No, how could you be? You saved his life!"
"Neelix informed me that he did not ask to have his life saved," she replied, with a certain bitterness. "Just before he … collapsed … while I was scanning him in the mess hall, we had … an altercation. He was … angry. I have never seen Neelix angry before."
Neither had the Doctor, whose surprise and concern showed in his face.
Seven remembered that pacing, fidgeting man who did not seem like Neelix at all, who had gotten in her face and bared his teeth to shout at her. "Maybe Neelix died on that shuttlecraft, and I'm all that's left … I didn't ask to be brought back! You Borg think you can fix everything, but you didn't fix me! Just leave me alone! GET OUT!"
This, followed by his collapse as his cells reverted back to a necrotic state, leaving her to carry him to Sickbay, had left Seven more deeply shaken than she cared to admit. Rather than admit her vulnerability, however, she became angry.
"When I proposed the nanoprobe treatment, I was acting in the best interest of both our crew and Neelix himself. He is alive and functional, yet instead of being grateful for this, he shouted at me and taunted me about my Borg heritage. I do not approve of such irrational behavior!"
"Seven!" The Doctor held up both hands in a placating gesture. "I know what you mean. And yes, he was out of line. But you must understand … this has been a very traumatic experience for him. Did you know he's religious?"
"No. Religion is irrelevant." Seven remembered her discussion with Tuvok, where she had confided her bewilderment as to the elaborate myths and rituals humanoid cultures came up with to soothe their fear of death. A simple biological truth. The Borg didn't bury or cremate their dead; they simply left them, and when necessary, scavenged parts. The Borg did not believe in deities, souls or afterlives – it was a verifiable fact that each drone's memories was retained within the Collective mind, even when that drone's body was no more. If that sounded suspiciously like the existence of a soul, Seven refused to admit it.
"You would say that. Neelix's Talaxian faith is very important to him. That's why he organizes Prixin every year. And considering his past … the fact that his family was killed and his homeworld destroyed in war … it's only natural that the idea of a peaceful afterlife, where he could be reunited with his loved ones, would be a source of comfort to him."
Seven felt suddenly cold, although the environmental settings had not changed. She began to see where this was going. If she weren't Borg and above that sort of thing, she might have called on a deity herself and prayed to be forgiven for the damage she had caused.
"There have been cases on record," the Doctor continued somberly, "When, after a near-death expeience, a patient went through a psychological crisis because they had no recollection of an afterlife, or perhaps because they felt they did not belong among the living anymore. That may be what Mr. Neelix has been going through these past two days. It would explain a lot. To have one's core beliefs shaken to pieces like that … is it any wonder he doesn't feel himself anymore?"
"You are speculating," Seven pointed out. She did not want to hear that this was true.
"I know." He sighed. "I just have a hunch, as Mr. Paris would say."
For a while they stood in silence, watching their patient. There was nothing else to be done.
"What I wouldn't give for a trained counsellor on board!" said the Doctor finally. "As it is, we've got Commander Chakotay with his vision quests, Commander Tuvok with his Vulcan meditation, and of course our Captain … they might get Neelix out of this somehow, but there's no guarantee."
Hearing the names of the three wise, patient, compassionate senior officers was like a load off Seven's back. The Doctor was right. They could take care of Neelix, if anyone could … just as long as Voyager didn't run into an external crisis to distract them.
"We should inform them," she said.
"Indeed." He nodded. "But before we do, there's one thing I want to say. Don't blame yourself."
She raised her eyes from the floor and met his gaze.
"It was a good thing you did, bringing our morale officer back. His function is, as you say, diverse – he's not only our cook, he's … well, he's the sunshine-maker of the ship. Figuratively speaking."
Seven understood the metaphor. She imagined Neelix bustling through the mess hall with his yellow apron and perennial smile, taking orders, cracking jokes, sitting down with someone if they happened to be alone and doing his level best to coax a smile out of them. He had cooked her first meal, she remembered, clucking and shaking his head over the Doctor's nutrition chart. He had put a flower on the table, pulled out her chair, and showed her how to use a fork ("Like a little shuttlecraft moving into a docking bay, hmm?"). He was always so busy working to make others happy, somehow one never stopped to wonder if he was happy himself. One simply assumed that he was.
It took something like this – nineteen hours of death, nanoprobes and a breakdown in the mess hall – to remind you that Neelix was more than a bundle of sunshine. He was a man, an individual, with a heart that could be broken.
But if there was anything Seven had learned over the past months, it was that broken things could be healed. Witness herself, a Borg assimilated at the age of six, living free from the Collective and carving out a place for herself on this ship little by little.
"He must recover," was all she could bring herself to say.
"He will." The Doctor gave her another reassuring touch, this time a squeeze of her hand. "He's got us."
She raised both eyebrows, including the one covered by her ocular implant.
"The Borg-hologram surgical team. We could work miracles together, you know. Have you ever considered a career in medicine?"
She did not smile, but judging by the twinkle in her colleague's eyes, she realized he could see his encouragement was working.
