***
Chakotay entered the ready room silently, feeling the weight of the decision that he knew she had made bearing down on everything. He knew what he wanted to answer to be, but she was the Captain. Ultimately, the choice was her's alone.
"I've decided," Janeway stated without pretense. She knew that her first officer had been waiting silently for the result of her deliberation and felt no reason to delay any longer. Saying it aloud made her judgment seem much more solid and irrevocable.
Standing in front of her, Chakotay felt relief wash through his system unimpeded and her realized the amount of emotion he had attached to the verdict. An unhealthy amount.
"You know how I feel about him," he reminded her, lest she forget somehow.
Janeway smiled reminiscently, "I assure you that what you and the rest of the crew feel was something I had to consider."
"The rest of the crew?" Inquiringly Chakotay's eyebrows went up, and unconscious simile of what Tuvok's reaction undoubtedly would have been. "I'm curious as to hear exactly whose opinion you based the rest of the crew's on."
Being first officer, it had surprised Chakotay initially how crewmembers-both Starfleet and Maquis-had come to him with complaints, suggestions, and praise they were unwilling to tell the Captain themselves. He had never known before, on the Liberty, exactly how subjective his information was, both about the Cardassians and the ebbs and tides of his own crew. Now that he was in the position to pick up on the faster-than-light communications that sped through the ship, he had vowed that he would never let Janeway be in the same predicament that he had been. The dangerous trap of being oblivious, but thinking that he knew all.
"You and I both know that there are mixed feelings about Harry being here at all," Janeway started, staring deeply into her first officer's eyes. She couldn't help but wonder if she would have been this in tune with Cavit, had he survived their journey into the Delta Quadrant, or if they would have gotten as far as they had without Chakotay's unique brand of leadership and ingenuity.
"I agree," Chakotay answered guardedly. It was important for him to know exactly what Janeway did and didn't know before her told her what he thought of her decisions and her reasons behind it. That meant playing defense. The only problem with his tactic was that Janeway was also measuring him coolly, not attacking. Without an offense to defend from, any defense will become lax and fall.
"Let's cut to the chase," Janeway suddenly demanded, tired of their cat and mouse game. "We both know that there are people who think that Harry is no more than a piece of luggage that should be thrown off the ship because he is too cumbersome. There is an equal amount of people who see him as an unfortunate member of humanity that they feel responsible for. Thought they wouldn't give their life for him, they aren't about to throw him away like a leper either. No matter what I do I can only please half of the ship. The only real question here is this: who am I willing to upset for the sake of the other half?"
Chakotay frowned, puzzled by her admission. "So the truth of what would be the right thing to do is subjective, since it's based on the differing views of the crew, not on Harry's future?"
The disappointment in his voice stung at Janeway. "Are you saying that you think that I don't care about what happens to Harry?"
"I may have gotten that impression," was Chakotay's carefully neutral reply.
Feeling her resolve falter, as it so often did when she argued a moral point with the highly principled Native American man before her, Janeway decided not to hide her thoughts. "I truthfully can't tell you whether your impressions are right, Chakotay. I don't know what to do with Harry-I haven't from the first day I got him. I know you're going to say that I've put up with him for this long, so why back out now, but I swear to you I don't know if I'm strong enough. He's so different, I don't know what to do with him."
"Isn't that the way you felt about some of my crew when we first came on board? I distinctly remember you having reservations about B'Elanna being a civilized Starfleet officer, much less the Chief Engineer of Voyager. And Tom Paris? The man is an ex-con, you could even argue an ex-murderer if you wanted. You don't seem to have any questions about their loyalty anymore," Chakotay argued.
Janeway conceded his point with a nod. This was why she valued Chakotay's insight so much. He, of all people, helped her keep her life and her responsibilities in perspective. "That must be why I decided to let him stay."
Her first officer studied her. He had been under the impression that during their whole conversation he had been trying to convince her to change her decision from what it initially was. A question still plagued him, despite the verdict. "Are you saying that you didn't have a reason before?"
"Not exactly," Janeway smiled tiredly, but mischievously in his direction. "I ht5ink I knew the right thing to do, I just needed you to tell me why it was the right thing to do."
Chakotay returned her smile with a flashing one of his own, but his expression turned to one of concentrated thoughtfulness after Janeway leaned forward in her chair as she asked, "What do you think of him, Chakotay?"
"Personally?"
"That's the opinion I value the most."
"Personally then," Chakotay admitted, "I think that Harry is like a child. He needs guidance, protection, and someone to emulate. I don't know if he has found that here," he treaded carefully, "and I don't know if he can or can't do all of the things that the Doctor and others say. All I know is from what I've observed of him, and that tells me only that he is a reserved, submissive boy with no free will. I can't imagine how anyone could live in that state, so the idea of empathizing with him is something that I have a hard time doing. Living as long as he has without being able to have control over your own destiny is something that no one on the ship can understand. I try, but you're right-he is very different from us."
"It's nice to know that I'm not alone," Janeway confessed.
"You're never alone, Captain."
Turning to leave, Chakotay smiled at the kindness that Janeway was showing. No matter what, or where, or why, he knew he could trust her decisions.
***
"Lt. Torres, ma'am?" With all of the clattering echoing off the contours of main engineering, B'Elanna Torres almost missed the small voice that hailed her. Sliding out from under the charred remains of the main console, she bit back a sigh as she lay on the floor after realizing it was only Harry.
"Hey there," she greeted him much as she would a child. "I'm kind of busy right now, Harry, so whatever you need can wait, okay?" Awkwardly, the boy thrust out a padd he had kept previously hidden behind his back. "It is from the Captain."
Eagerly, Torres jumped up and snatched the padd from Harry's hands. The specs on the padd were exactly what she needed to repair the most extensive damage after the Arthiorian attack. Behind her gaggles of crewmen worked in teams trying to repair the worst of the damage, but the main chamber still looked like a battle zone. The ominously dark warp core framed with broken conduits and wiring like a mechanical halo around it only accentuated the sense of urgency that spurred everyone on. Harry hung back as she devoured the information, waiting to see if she wanted him to do anything, or if she would just tell him to leave her in peace. His eyes widened when they fell upon the half-functioning main console, and from a distance he studied the vague readouts.
"Harry, tell the Captain that I need to reroute the phaser power through the auxiliary manifolds if she wants them to stay online at all. Can you remember that? The phaser power through the auxiliary manifolds. Harry? Harry? Are you even listening to me?" Waving an exasperated hand through the boy's line of sight, B'Elanna tried to regain the Asian's flighty attention. That was the last thing she needed, a stupid kid getting in her way.
"This is wrong," he startled her by saying. Then, refocusing his gaze to look at her with a childlike comprehension in his eyes, he cocked his head in her direction. "Am I right?"
Puzzled, Torres came over to see exactly what he was referring to. "What's wrong?"
"This wave isn't the same as before." The young man pointed bashfully at one of the now-lit indicators. The steady rise and fall of the graph looked the same as usual, but when Torres bent over for a closer inspection it revealed that the amplitude was actually almost half of what was normal.
Staring in awe at Harry, Torres questioned, "No it's not. How did you know?"
Harry simply shrugged. "I noticed it." He turned his eyes away from her's, as if afraid that she would become angry at his discovery.
"Harry, that's amazing. I didn't even notice that myself." Careful not to praise him too much, Torres gave him a searching look. One thing that she hadn't seen up to now, nor ever planned on seeing period, was an Asian who could out-think her. "Is there anything else wrong?"
"No, but maybe…if you fix the…." His voice was halting, as if trying to find the correct English words, but just as her started to get passionate about what he said, he trailed off. Reconsidering, he settled with, "I am sorry. I do not know."
Torres had no platitudes on showing her obvious disbelief with his shoddy excuse. "Uhuh. Right." Still, Torres had a hard time believing that this poor, Asian kid could have really diagnosed the problem with any amount of accuracy. She was a firm believer in dumb luck, which undoubtedly attributed to the kid's miraculous observation. "Well," she decided to simply dismiss the traitorous ideas floating around in her head. "Just get those reports to the Captain, okay?"
"Yes, ma'am."
That was more like the kid she was used to. She had to admit, she liked him better that way. Young and impressionable, ignorant of everything except for the jobs that he was given by people who knew more then he did. He didn't have to worry about anything other than his own well-being. What a life, Torres thought, when you have hostile aliens hiding behind every planet and nebula waiting for your demise. With a sigh, the Chief Engineer resumed her hurried repairs before their attackers caught them unaware again.
***
Tom Paris was as exhausted as the rest of the crew. Not only had he pulled double shifts in sickbay, but after that B'Elanna had somehow managed to cajole him into helping her realign the controls from the helm. She had argued, quite forcefully, that since he prided himself in his position as Chief Helmsman the least he could do was help repair the system. Knowing better than to dispute the Klingon that peaked out from behind her emotional walls, Paris had readily agreed.
Now, though, after all was said and done, he wanted nothing more than to sit down with a bowl of soup and relax. He really couldn't imagine himself doing that, knowing what precarious shape the ship was in, but he thought he could at the very least pretend. He was desperate for a break in the stress, confusion, and fear that soaked into every corner of the ship, feeding off the energy of every crewman.
Trampling wearily into the mess hall, Paris nodded a tired hello to the scraggly group of shipmates that returned the gesture. As he trudged to the counter where Neelix was serving a thick stew of some sort, Tom couldn't help but notice that the mess hall was more crowded than usual. Paris decided that this was because of the recharging warp-drive, and the fact that it required very little monitoring. This was the first opportunity many had to get a bit to eat, and like Tom they savored it. If the power up was completed they would at least have partial warp power, maybe up to Warp 3 B'Elanna had said. Good, they might need it.
Not exactly in the mood for conversation, but neither in the mood for solitude, Tom
stepped away from Neelix before the Talaxian could engage him in idle conversation and pondered where to sit. Practically lost in a corner, Paris caught sight of Harry, using a table for two. Throwing caution to the wind, and deciding he could always leave should he be to uncomfortable, Tom made his way over to the younger man.
"Well hey there Harry, you seem to be doin' pretty good, all things considered. Mind if I sit down?"
The young man looked up from his plate on the table, which he had been studying rather than eating, and simply stared, wide-eyed, at Tom. Inwardly, Tom groaned. He had tried to have conversations once in a while with Harry, but he never seemed to understand a word Tom said. Perhaps it was because of Paris's bad habit of chewing up the end of his words, and profuse use of contemporary and 20th century slang. It was a wonder he was able to communicate with people who spoke Standard fluently.
Despite this minor setback, Tom decided to sit down, mulling over a plan of action. As much as he hated to admit it, Harry was somewhat like he, when he first came aboard anyway. Now people respected him, or at the very least tolerated him, and that was good enough for Paris. When someone has spent their life being looked down upon by others, suddenly being eye-to-eye with people can be startling. Harry would always be looked down upon though, and Tom pitied him for that fact.
It had never really bothered Paris before, because he knew that Harry would never mind. Harry would never be able to even realize that some people frowned upon him as the scum of society. He also wouldn't know that some people could sympathize with him, like Tom. In the instant that their eyes had met, though, Tom could have sworn he saw some deep emotion stirring the depths of the young Asian's soul. Or maybe he had just been imagining it. He was very tired.
"Yeah, well, you know, things really are lookin' up," Tom commented, his fatigue adding to his garbled words. "I wish you could understand all the work we've been puttin' in."
At the last comment, Paris noticed Harry's shoulders droop. He seemed so sad all of a sudden. Worriedly, the pilot asked, "Harry, are you okay?"
Turning his eyes once again in Paris's direction, Harry didn't answer. Instead, he attempted to clear his expressive face of any emotion there, but his animated eyes couldn't be shielded. Frustrated, Tom tried to think of something to say that Harry might understand. He didn't know why he was so anxious to know what was wrong, but he simply knew he had to help. This Asian was still a fellow human being after all.
Groping for a memory, Tom remembered when his father had temporarily bought some help for around the house. The help came in the form of two middle-aged women, one Chinese and the other Korean. He remembered them playing with him as a child, and the Korean woman trying to teach him a foreign language until his father found out and banished her.
"Um… Otoke chi-ne-go-ke-shim-ni-ka? *How are you? *" Paris attempted to ask, in what little Korean he knew, if Harry was all right. Harry's incredulous look of surprise was shown as he replied,
"Han-gul-rul-ha-shim-ni-kka? *Do you speak Korean? *"
Tom laughed at the absolute wonder in Harry's voice, and was forced to admit negatively, "Ah-ni-o." Knowing that the young man's question might have been a feeble attempt to steer Tom off his course of finding out what was wrong. Tom would have thought that the Asian would have realized by now that there was a reason that Tom was the best pilot in both the Alpha and Delta Quadrant. "Otoke chi-ne-go-ke-shim-ni-ka?" he repeated.
Harry hesitated, trying to find a simple way to answer that the Lieutenant would understand. He settled on an easy "Cho-sum-ni-da *good *."
Tom wasn't stupid though. Something was wrong, and he knew it. It didn't matter to him that this kid was an Asian, Romulan, or Denebian, he still felt the need to find out what was troubling him. If anything it was because people for so long had never bothered to ask him when he really needed it. Maybe that would have stopped him a long time ago from traveling the self-destructive path that he had.
Shaking his head, he started in Standard, "Don't lie to me." Cursing his ineptitude with the young man's native language he simply repeated his question.
Harry looked morosely at the food still piled on his plate, not touched, and whispered, "I would not lie."
Tom's look of shock mirrored Harry's earlier one, and it only deepened when Harry stood to leave. "An-nyong-hi ka-ship-sio *Goodbye *."
"But Harry, I didn't mean to insult you. Hey, kid," Tom tried to apologize, but Harry simply ignored him. Knowing the classic behavior of someone unwilling to or not used to having someone care about him, Tom let Harry go. He had been that way himself before, and could sympathize. It was understandable, especially if you were going to be treated like dirt for the rest of your life like Harry.
"An-nyong-hi ka-ship-sio, kid"