"I want you to have this." (Neelix & Sam Wildman)

Author's Note: This story takes place during the episode "Mortal Coil" and contains references to "Deadlock". Scripture quotes are from the New International Version of the Bible.

Content warning: attempted suicide, depression, death of a child.

/

"She's asleep," Neelix said softly as he closed Naomi's bedroom door.

"Good," said Sam, looking up from her corner of the sofa.

"Sorry again for … for all the trouble I've caused." He made his way through the living room toward the door, moving slowly and stiffly, as if in pain or exhaustion. His skin was pale underneath his spots. "I, uh … I'd better be going now. Good night, Ensign."

"Wait."

He stopped.

"Neelix, what's going on? Please talk to me." She kept her voice low so as not to wake Naomi, but also because fear and concern had brought a lump to her throat. "What were you doing on that transporter platform earlier?"

She'd known something was wrong the moment he didn't answer her hail. When she'd found him on that transporter platform, he'd been holding a remote control to beam himself somewhere, with an empty look in his eyes she'd never seen on him before. Chakotay had been in the room, talking to him with uncharacteristic intensity; pleading with him, almost. That little girl needs you, she'd heard the Commander say. Of course Naomi needed her godfather, but why say it in that tone? As if Neelix had been about to disappear.

"I think you already guessed," he said, with a smile sadder than tears.

"You didn't … "

"I almost did. If you and Chakotay hadn't been there, I'd be decomposing in that nebula by now."

He smoothed the front of his jacket and looked down at his hands with an air of detachment, as if he'd already made up his mind to get out of his body and was vaguely surprised - grateful? disappointed? - to still be inside it. The idea made Sam's stomach turn over.

"For God's sake, why?" she whispered. "If it was that bad after the accident, you could have said something. You didn't have to go this far."

"I see that now." He sat down with a weary sigh on the sofa next to her, reached for her hand, and looked at her with eyes full of contrition. "I'm so sorry, my friend. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you or Naomi. Please believe that."

"So why?" She took his hand between both of hers, just to remind herself that he was still there. His skin was cold and damp with perspiration, but warmed quickly as she held on. "Why would you try to leave us like that?"

"Because … ach, I don't know … sometimes it feels as if I'm gone already. As if Neelix died in that accident, and I'm all that's left."

Slowly and with difficulty, he told her what she was already beginning to guess: about the blank space in his memories when he had died, the loss of the faith that had sustained him after the deaths of his family and the loss of Kes, and the vision quest that had reflected his worst fears, with the ghost of his sister urging him to end his life. Sam's impulse was to protest at every sentence, but she heard him out, stroking his hand the same way she did with Naomi when the little girl told her about her nightmares.

He couldn't be more wrong, she thought with fierce compassion. He was as much Neelix tonight as ever, maybe even more so. The rest of the crew might take their cheerful, boastful, larger-than-life morale officer for granted, but he was a man with doubts and fears like anyone else, and he was still her friend. He had been there for her during the darkest time of her life; the least she could do was be there for him now.

"Do you remember," she said once he had talked himself out, "The story of where Naomi's name comes from?"

"It's from the Bible, isn't it? "The Almighty has made my life very bitter … ""

"I went away full, but came back empty," Sam finished alongside Neelix. It surprised her a little that he would remember that quote, but then he always had gone above and beyond in researching Alpha Quadrant culture, especially where his goddaughter was concerned.

"Yes, that's the one. Ruth and Naomi's story was always one of my favourites. I love that even though they came from different places, they still stayed together and helped each other when everyone else they loved was gone. I named my first baby Ruth, you see. I felt that way too when she died. Empty."

Neelix bowed his head. "I remember."

As well he might. One of the reasons Sam had named him Naomi's godfather was that, in those first few weeks after her child's death and the arrival of her duplicate from the other Voyager, Neelix had looked after them both when Sam could barely get out of bed. She loved her daughter now and wouldn't give her up for anything, but there had been a time when the idea of raising a copy when her first child was gone - raising her alone, without Greskrendtregh, 70,000 lightyears from home - had seemed unbearable. It was thanks to Neelix that she could bear it now.

"It was faith that kept me going then, but it was faith in people," she said. "If there is a God, He worked through you. You were with me the whole time, and so were the Captain and the Doctor and … "

"Kes." Neelix said her name very gently, careful of a wound that was still fresh. "You can say it."

"Kes was there … and even though my husband isn't, I know he'd be there if he could. Don't you think Alixia would be there for you too? Would she ever have talked to you like the one in your vision quest did?"

"Never." For the first time tonight, the gray eyes that had been so vacant filled with tears, and crinkled with a smile at the same time. "She'd never have let anybody hurt her little brother, including himself. She'd have pulled me off that platform and grabbed the remote out of my hand."

Sam smiled back, blinking away her own tears. "How do you know she didn't?"

"Oh, Samantha." He leaned his head against her shoulder, the way she imagined he might have done with his big sister when he was small. "She'd have liked you. I wish … "

He never finished the sentence, but he didn't have to. There must be so many things he wished right now, many of which would never come true. She understood. She'd felt the same way once, but she hadn't been alone with it then, and he wasn't alone now. If she couldn't convince him of that with words, maybe there was some way she could show him.

"Neelix?"

"Hmm?"

"I want you to have this." She pulled out the necklace she wore from under her teal turtleneck, unfastened it. It was a small wooden cross on a silver chain. "It's my Guiding Tree."

"Oh! Oh no, I couldn't."

"Don't worry, I'm not trying to push you to convert. We outgrew that mindset centuries ago."

"It's not that, it's just … if it means that much to you … "

"I don't need the symbol. I have the stories. It's okay."

She held the pendant out to him. He took it and held it in both hands, with the kind of reverence that no one who had truly lost their faith would show.

"Of course. That's what was missing," he said, folding his hands with the cross between them before fastening the necklace around his own neck. "From my medicine bundle, I mean. I had gifts from everyone I've lost, but nothing from someone who's still here. Thank you."

"You're going on with the vision quests, then?"

"Yes." He tucked the necklace under his jacket, patted it and rose to his feet. "The Commander is right. I need to stick with it now I've started. I shouldn't run away from my fears."

Sam could respect that, even if it wasn't the method she would choose. She stood up too so they were eye to eye, buttoned his collar for him and straightened it until it sat neatly.

"Praise be to the Lord," she quoted from the Book of Ruth, "Who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer." Then, because she was not in the habit of quoting Bible verses, she laughed self-consciously and rubbed her hands over her face.

"Several, I'd say," was Neelix's quiet answer. "For both of us."