"Call me if you need anything." (Doctor & Gilmore)

Author's Note: This story takes place after "Fair Haven' with references to "Equinox".

Content warning: References to murder, torture and mind control.

/

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been fifteen years since my last confession."

The confessional booth at the back of Fair Haven's church was supposed to be anonymous, but Ensign Marla Gilmore's fragile soprano was unmistakable on the other side of the grille. Father Mulligan shifted on his bench, clasped his hands together until the knuckles turned white, and silently wished himself anywhere but here.

"And what is the nature of your sins, my child?"

"Murder," she whispered. "I killed nucleogenic life forms … people … and used their bodies to fuel our ship."

He couldn't do this. He had to get out of here.

He was no priest. He might be wearing a cassock and programmed with all the forms of Catholic liturgy, but he felt desperately unqualified for this. Tom Paris' casting him as the village priest had been a joke, nothing more. He'd thought he would enjoy preaching dramatic sermons to the crew, and he did, but he'd never dreamed of anyone taking the role seriously.

Least of all a murderer.

He could not say a word, so Gilmore kept talking: "The first time was an accident. I swear I didn't mean to hurt them, but they died in the test chamber anyway, and released so much energy that we could finally power the replicators again. We had our first full meal in weeks. Then Rudy and Max … Captain Ransom and Commander Burke … ordered me to repeat the process. That's when we … when I should've said no, but … " Her voice faltered. "I was hungry, I was scared, and I wanted to go home."

/

He was scared, and he wanted to go home. So did Seven, but she did not let it show; she carried herself with courage and dignity in front of the Equinox crew. When Burke demanded Voyager's codes, she refused. The Doctor could do no less than follow her example.

"Do it," said Burke, "Or I'll erase your program."

"Be my guest."

But Burke did worse than erase it, he altered it. One press of a button later, and the Doctor simply could not care anymore about the difference between surgery and torture.

"She'll try to resist," he said matter-of-factly. "I'll have to restrain her."

He saw fear flicker in Seven's eyes, heard her call out to him, and none of it mattered. He was already looking forward to unlocking the puzzle that was her brain.

/

"I wish I could say those were my only reasons, but that's not true," Gilmore went on. "The extraction process was a … a puzzle to me, you know? I'm an engineer. I was fascinated. And it's easy to run out of empathy for something that looks like a floating piranha and screams … you know how they scream." He could see her black-and-yellow silhouette shudder through the grille. "Especially when they started fighting back. I … oh, I hated them. That was the worst part. The more I knew it was wrong, the more I hated them."

Father Mulligan realized, with bitter irony, that he knew exactly how she felt. He'd grown very familiar with hate since his captivity. He'd never hated anyone before as he did the memory of the late Rudolph Ransom and Maxwell Burke, and this was why he could not bring himself to absolve Gilmore. If her sins could be forgiven, what about those of her commanders? What about his own?

Surely some things were unforgivable.

/

Was there any chance, the Doctor wondered, that Seven might forgive him?

"Regarding the unpleasantness aboard the Equinox … I hope you don't think less of me."

"Your program was altered," she said, her tone and features unreadable even to him. "Perhaps you should enhance it with security protocols."

"Good thinking."

"I will assist you."

"Thanks." If she designed the security protocols herself, he would trust them without question … even if that meant she would treat him like a machine that had malfunctioned, rather than a person. He couldn't blame her if she thought so. It must be easier.

"You were off-key."

"I beg your pardon?"

She had been walking away, but now she swung around and looked him in the face, her eyes fearless and sparkling with challenge. ""My Darling Clementine", third verse, second measure. Your vocal modulations deviated by point three zero decihertz. I can assist you with that as well."

It was such a small thing, but he felt every photon grow warmer and brighter at her words.

She still wanted to sing with him.

She was still his friend.

She forgave him.

/

With that memory, his medical and religious programming came into accord for the first time, like two powerful bells chiming at once.

The Hippocratic Oath said: "In whatever place I enter, I will enter to help the sick and heal the injured, and I will do no harm." The Lord's Prayer said: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."

His patient, his parishioner, his shipmate needed him. If he couldn't forgive her, he would do harm, perhaps irreparable harm, to her soul.

"I can't carry this on my own," she said, curling up with her hands over her face, as if even the grille and the curtain were not enough to hide her. "I'm not … strong enough. Please, I just need someone to take it away."

"I understand," said Father Mulligan. "Although … you do realize that the responsibility for those deaths is something you will have to live with, don't you?"

"Ye-es … " Faintly, and then stronger. "Yes, I know."

"The guilt, however, is a different matter. That's what this place is here for. Do you know the Act of Contrition?"

"I'm afraid I don't. It's been so long … I haven't been to church since I was a teenager."

"That's all right. I'm programmed with perfect recall. Repeat after me."

They got through it slowly but surely, phrase by phrase, even though it took several stops and the replication of a box of tissues on Gilmore's side of the booth. Somehow, Father Mulligan did not feel like he was instructing her, even though he spoke first. It felt like he needed to say it as much as she did.

"My God, I am truly sorry for having offended You … I detest all my sins because of Your just punishments … but most of all because they offend You, my God … who are all-good and deserving of all my love … I firmly resolve, with the help of Your grace … to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen."

Tears and all, she never gave up. She was stronger than she gave herself credit for. He remembered now that she had been instrumental in helping to stop Burke. For such a gentle woman to do such violence to her own nature as to become a murderer was horrible, but for her to hold on to her conscience through all of that was practically a miracle.

"I absolve you," said Father Mulligan, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

The flicker of black and gold on the other side of the grille was her hand making the sign of the cross. That much she still remembered.

"Go in peace … " Should he call her child or Ensign? Neither seemed to fit. "Marla."

"Thank you, Father … I mean, Doctor … anyway, thank you."

They stepped out of the booth at the same time. Anonymity was pointless, after all, since they were alone in the church. It had been morning mass, which not many people (crew members or holocharacters) attended anyway, but anyone who did had already left.

"Goodness, I lost track of time. I'd better get to breakfast … " Marla's eyes were red, but she did look at peace. Walking through a kaleidoscope of sunlight coming in through the stained glass window, she was beautiful in a way that reminded him of Seven.

"Drink plenty of fluids when you get there. You must be dehydrated."

She wiped her eyes ruefully and nodded.

"And I'd better get to Sickbay. Heaven only knows what a mess Mr. Paris has made of the instrument tray in my absence."

The Doctor clicked his mobile emitter to change from cassock to uniform, feeling as relieved as if he'd just performed a life-saving operation, and with a corresponding need to blow off steam by saying something sarcastic. Marla didn't seem to mind. She smiled as she followed him down the aisle.

"Computer, exit." The doors became visible in front of them, and he gestured for her to go through first. "By the way … "

"Yes?"

"Call me if you need anything, from myself or Father Mulligan. Absolution may not take long, but I'm afraid healing does."

"I understand," said Marla, with quiet determination. "And I will."

As she walked away, the Doctor couldn't help but look back over his shoulder along the aisle, which led all the way to the altar and the life-sized crucifix on the wall above it. It was scientifically impossible for a human to survive that, but it wouldn't be the first impossible thing the Doctor had seen in his career.

He caught himself nodding a respectful goodbye to the figure on the cross, like a nurse to the Chief Medical Officer at the end of a shift.

"Good work today, sir," he said. "Computer, end program."