Title: Live Long And Prosper
Author: nostalgia
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: Paramount own these people.
Summary: Harry Kim is dead, long live Harry Kim.
Notes: Something that always bugged me post-Deadlock.
Oddly, no one ever mentions that he's dead.
True, it was a long time ago, and true, people don't like to talk
about things like that… but sometimes he wonders if they've all
forgotten. He, on the other hand, is still very much aware of it.
Three years ago, more or less to the day, Harry Kim died.
Except that this Harry Kim, the one who lies in bed staring at the
ceiling and wondering if he'll ever feel like he belongs in this
reality, is not, and has never been, clinically dead. He's been
close a couple of times, and his heart has stopped on at least one
occasion, but he's never actually died.
The Harry Kim who left Earth on this Voyager, who replicated the
clarinet lying on the coffee table, who brought the family
photographs that lie in the drawer next to the bed, died three years
ago. Three years, more or less to the day.
But no one ever mentions that. No one seems to remember that Harry
Kim and Naomi Wildman should by all rights be dead.
Everyone tells him that the Harry Kim who died was the same person,
that all the details are correct. But sometimes he wonders, when he
can't quite remember an event, and worries that it never really
happened to him, that it's a false memory put there by everyone
assuming that he's their Harry Kim.
He makes a conscious effort not to spend much time with the
Wildmans, as if there's an in-built limit on this new existence, and
if the Universe remembers what they've done everything will snap
back to the way it was, the way it should be. So far as he knows,
Naomi has no idea that she isn't the little girl who was born on
this ship. When he visits sickbay, he can't help wondering where she
was in the room when she died that first time, that very real death
that the two of them have cheated.
He thought – or maybe hoped – that B'Elanna was going to mention it
once, when they were on shore leave and horribly drunk. Just for a
second, she stared at him, opened her mouth to say something. But
then she changed her mind, and he didn't have the guts to ask her
what she had been about to say. Maybe it was something else, maybe
she's forgotten that she saw him die once.
But they've cheated the odds so many times on this journey, why
should death be any different? Sometimes he wonders if infinity has
turned a blind eye to the lost ship, if the afterlife doesn't want
them anymore. They should all have died in Borg space, and everyone
on board knows that. When they say so out loud, they raise a glass
to Captain Janeway, who cheats the law of averages with a delicate
finesse, but maybe inside some of them wonder, the way he does.
Ensign D'Kella once suggested that Janeway had sold her soul to
Mt'Craza to keep most of them alive and get them home. B'Elanna had
laughed at the idea, and said that if Janeway sold her soul to any
demon, it had better make sure it kept a receipt. And anyway, that
was all just superstition. Harry had laughed as well, but replaced
the alien devil with one from his own mythology. Stranger things had
happened.
And maybe… Maybe…
He certainly wouldn't put it past her, and he wonders if his soul is
still his own. Not that he believes in things like that, not that
he's lapsing into paranoia on occasion.
But the one thing he knows for certain is that he should by rights
be dead. That he isn't the man everyone thinks of him as, that he
sleeps in a corpse's bed and laughs with friends who aren't quite
his own.
Three years, more or less to the day. He wonders if he'll ever
forget that fact.
Author: nostalgia
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: Paramount own these people.
Summary: Harry Kim is dead, long live Harry Kim.
Notes: Something that always bugged me post-Deadlock.
Oddly, no one ever mentions that he's dead.
True, it was a long time ago, and true, people don't like to talk
about things like that… but sometimes he wonders if they've all
forgotten. He, on the other hand, is still very much aware of it.
Three years ago, more or less to the day, Harry Kim died.
Except that this Harry Kim, the one who lies in bed staring at the
ceiling and wondering if he'll ever feel like he belongs in this
reality, is not, and has never been, clinically dead. He's been
close a couple of times, and his heart has stopped on at least one
occasion, but he's never actually died.
The Harry Kim who left Earth on this Voyager, who replicated the
clarinet lying on the coffee table, who brought the family
photographs that lie in the drawer next to the bed, died three years
ago. Three years, more or less to the day.
But no one ever mentions that. No one seems to remember that Harry
Kim and Naomi Wildman should by all rights be dead.
Everyone tells him that the Harry Kim who died was the same person,
that all the details are correct. But sometimes he wonders, when he
can't quite remember an event, and worries that it never really
happened to him, that it's a false memory put there by everyone
assuming that he's their Harry Kim.
He makes a conscious effort not to spend much time with the
Wildmans, as if there's an in-built limit on this new existence, and
if the Universe remembers what they've done everything will snap
back to the way it was, the way it should be. So far as he knows,
Naomi has no idea that she isn't the little girl who was born on
this ship. When he visits sickbay, he can't help wondering where she
was in the room when she died that first time, that very real death
that the two of them have cheated.
He thought – or maybe hoped – that B'Elanna was going to mention it
once, when they were on shore leave and horribly drunk. Just for a
second, she stared at him, opened her mouth to say something. But
then she changed her mind, and he didn't have the guts to ask her
what she had been about to say. Maybe it was something else, maybe
she's forgotten that she saw him die once.
But they've cheated the odds so many times on this journey, why
should death be any different? Sometimes he wonders if infinity has
turned a blind eye to the lost ship, if the afterlife doesn't want
them anymore. They should all have died in Borg space, and everyone
on board knows that. When they say so out loud, they raise a glass
to Captain Janeway, who cheats the law of averages with a delicate
finesse, but maybe inside some of them wonder, the way he does.
Ensign D'Kella once suggested that Janeway had sold her soul to
Mt'Craza to keep most of them alive and get them home. B'Elanna had
laughed at the idea, and said that if Janeway sold her soul to any
demon, it had better make sure it kept a receipt. And anyway, that
was all just superstition. Harry had laughed as well, but replaced
the alien devil with one from his own mythology. Stranger things had
happened.
And maybe… Maybe…
He certainly wouldn't put it past her, and he wonders if his soul is
still his own. Not that he believes in things like that, not that
he's lapsing into paranoia on occasion.
But the one thing he knows for certain is that he should by rights
be dead. That he isn't the man everyone thinks of him as, that he
sleeps in a corpse's bed and laughs with friends who aren't quite
his own.
Three years, more or less to the day. He wonders if he'll ever
forget that fact.
