Prompt 3: "It reminded me of you." (J&D)

Episode: "Latent Image"

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"You knew what you were doing, didn't you? With this book, I mean."

The Doctor held up La Vita Nuova, keeping one finger between the pages as a bookmark. The armchair in which he sat and the chaise lounge on which Kathryn lay, diagonal from him so that they only had to make eye contact if they needed it, were the only items in the otherwise blank holoprogram. Rather like a counselor's office, she thought wryly, if the counselor had very bad taste in interior decoration. But then, the last thing the Doctor needed was anything to distract him from the vital work of healing his newfound soul.

"It reminded me of you," she said, nodding at the book. "Dante was a man who wasn't afraid to feel things deeply. I've always admired that."

"A self-absorbed idiot, you mean." He rolled his big brown eyes with a vehemence that only served to prove her point. She wouldn't be surprised if there was Italian blood in the Zimmerman family somewhere, despite the name. "First he doesn't have the courage to tell this Beatrice how he feels about her - "

"They were both married to other people, so that's understandable."

"Then he pretends to be infatuated with a friend of theirs to cover it up, and then that friend dies, and he writes a sonnet addressed to Death?"

He cracked the book open and began reading out loud in a sarcastic tone that grated on her tired nerves; only the pain she could hear underneath it kept her from walking right out of the room.

"Out of this world you've taken what is gracious

and everything we prize as woman's best.

You've crushed a lover's zest

in happy youth while it was most vivacious.

I'll not say who she is … "

His voice had grown softer and softer as he read the second stanza, but at this, he shut the book with an indignant snap. "What, she doesn't get a name? Second-best even after her death? Don't you think that's a little too on the nose, Captain?"

"It was fourteenth-century Europe," Kathryn retorted. "The bubonic plague was going around, and medical knowledge was limited. There was no knowing where death would strike next, so confronting it head-on was the way people coped."

"Ah, yes. The Black Death. Symptoms include fever, headaches, vomiting, and swollen lymph nodes. Estimated to have killed between thirty and sixty per cent of the European population … and here I am, breaking down over the loss of a single patient. Is that what you're trying to tell me, Captain?"

"No, Doctor." She pinched the bridge of her nose, hoping to ward off the headache she knew was coming. "As a matter of fact, I was hoping you'd finish the book before verbally tearing it to pieces. At least try to get as far as Chapter 24."

"Why, what's in Chapter 24?"

"No spoilers." She smirked. "Go on."

He went on, huddled up in his armchair, flicking from page to page with superhuman speed. More than once, she saw those Mediterranean eyes of his fill with emotion; when he shut them up tight and sat in total silence for a moment, she guessed he had reached the chapter where Beatrice died.

Kathryn fell half asleep in her chaise lounge, but even a whisper from the Doctor in the echoing holodeck was enough to wake her.

"Ah," he said. "I see.

My eyes saw mercy that was fathomless

appearing on your face when you had seen

the old gesticulations and the mien

I take on frequently in my distress …

Is that what you're trying to do here? Show me mercy?"

"Not just me, Doctor, all of the crew. Dante wasn't alone, he had friends looking out for him, and so do you."

"Captain, it's not that I don't appreciate your efforts … " He bounced up out of his chair, book in hand, and began pacing back and forth. "But that doesn't alter the fact that you and the crew conspired to have my memories erased! Can I really trust that you've come to see me as a person, when I have such obvious evidence of your treating me like a machine?"

What does it look like I'm doing here? Kathryn wanted to snarl. She was taking an enormous risk putting the ship's only doctor on psychiatric leave. If the Delta Quadrant were to throw another crisis at them and he couldn't be there, if anyone else were to die because of this, she'd never forgive herself …

Good Lord, I sound like him.

For a moment, the smell of stale coffee and the starless night of the Void seemed to be closing over her head. She reminded herself to breathe. She wasn't back there anymore. She'd been ready to give up, but her crew had saved her, even against her direct orders. Now it was her turn.

"That's not the only reason I did it," she whispered. "I'm biased, yes, and I'm trying to work on that. But, Doctor … when I was young, I watched my father and my fiancé die and I couldn't save them. Later, I stranded Voyager seventy thousand light years from home. There have been times when, if someone wanted to erase those memories from my mind, I might even have consented."

"Captain … " This time, it was the Doctor's eyes that showed fathomless mercy.

"It never occurred to me to think of sadness as a human right, but it can be," she said. "I shouldn't have tried to take yours away, Doctor. It wasn't fair to you or anyone else, least of all Ensign Jetal. Her life deserves to be remembered. I'm sorry."

It wasn't fair that the young engineer who'd been so well liked that her birthday party filled the entire mess hall, who'd joked with Neelix and admired Mr. Paris, whose smile could light up a room, had nearly been erased from history. At least now they could talk about her again. They didn't have to pretend she'd never existed.

"I'm sorry too," said the Doctor, coming to stand next to her chaise lounge and taking a knee so that he had to look up at her. "I never even considered how my condition might affect yours. I'm the one with the psychiatric subroutines, I should have realized."

"You're also the one who needs help right now." She squeezed his shoulder in reassurance. "I'm fine … for the most part."

"Are you?"

He opened La Vita Nuova at the flyleaf and held it out to her. There was Mark's note, the handwritten marriage proposal, as clear as the day it was written … except for the watermark in the corner, where she had shed tears after learning he'd moved on with someone else.

She was saved from having to answer by Commander Tuvok, who entered the holodeck at 2000 hours precisely to relieve her.

"Don't think you can stay here for sixteen hours straight like you did yesterday," the Doctor admonished her. "I may be a sorry excuse for an EMH right now, but I can still tell when you're sleep-deprived."

"Good night, Doctor." She closed the book and handed it back to him.

"Good night, my lady."

He said it in Italian – Madonna - and swept her an exaggerated Renaissance bow (Tuvok raised an eyebrow, but said nothing). Underneath the gesture, however, was something very real, something she'd been afraid was lost forever: his loyalty.

She couldn't lose that again.