"I noticed." (Doctor & Kes)

Author's Note: This story takes place after the Season 1 episode "Heroes and Demons".

/

"Doctor?"

"Hmm?"

"I noticed that you seem … well, not quite yourself," Kes said gently. "If there's anything you need to talk about, I'm here."

Ever since his return from the Beowulf holodeck program, the Doctor had been quieter than she'd ever known him. His sarcasm was gone, but so was his smile; he kept on with her lessons, but did not seem to care either way how she was progressing. Whenever they had no patients or experiments to check on, he sat in his office, chin in hand, brooding over his console with a dark-eyed look that worried her very much.

"What does that mean, anyway?" he muttered, barely taking his eyes off the screen. "To be myself?"

"I don't understand."

"I've run every self-diagnostic I can think of and nothing seems to be broken, but my emotional subroutines are still … " He broke off with a defeated shake of the head, as if whatever he felt was beyond words. "Why do I see Freya bleeding out on the forest floor every time I close my eyes?"

Kes drew in a sharp breath of compassion. "You saw someone die in there? What happened?"

He described in a few short, bitter words how Hunford, the king's advisor had attacked them out of suspicion, how he'd hung back in fear, and how Freya had died protecting him. "And not even a first-aid kit anywhere. I've never in my life wished I could break my Hippocratic Oath before, but I wanted to skewer that man. She said it was a good death, but that's not what I would call it. A good death wouldn't be so … so … preventable."

"I'm so sorry," was all that Kes could say.

She remembered her first experiences with death. Her grandparents' Morilogia had been peaceful and dignified; the Kazon Maje beating one of his men to death for insubordination, not so much. Voyager had lost several crew members since Kes had come on board, but never without the Doctor or herself trying to help them, or at least prepare their bodies for a respectful memorial. This character's death sounded nothing like that.

"It wasn't real!" He snapped his screen shut and rubbed his hands over his eyes. "It was the holodeck, for pity's sake. And even if it were, I should be accustomed to combat triage situations. I was literally made for them. I don't understand why this one is still affecting me."

It was easy for Kes to forget sometimes that her highly knowledgeable and erudite mentor, who by Ocampa standards looked at least six or seven, was the only person on board younger than she was. Whenever a new experience knocked him sideways like this, though, she remembered. He was still a boy, really, not even a full year old. Someone should give him a hug and tell him it was okay to be sad.

Since his dignity would be offended if she did that, though, she put a hand on his shoulder instead. "Of course it's affecting you, Doctor. You have such a big heart."

"I don't have a cardiovascular system."

"I mean you care about people, even when it hurts. I know how that feels. We didn't have a holodeck in the Caretaker's city, but I've read stories that made me cry. Maybe … " As she spoke, she had an idea. "Maybe it would help if you flipped back to the beginning?"

"The beginning … of what, Beowulf?" He frowned.

"Yes. So you can see Freya alive and well again. My grandfather used to say that was the best thing about fictional characters, that you never really lose them."

His eyes flickered with something like pain or anger at the words "fictional characters", but it disappeared so quickly, she might have just imagined it. His forehead creased in contemplation.

"I suppose it's worth a try."

/

Almost from the moment they launched the first chapter of Beowulf, however, Kes began to fear that her idea was only making him feel worse. When an arrow flew past them and buried itself with a thwack in the trunk of a tree, the Doctor froze. When a tall blonde woman in heavy armor stepped out of the undergrowth and drew a sword, he turned pale in a way that had nothing to do with the sight of the weapons.

"Speak as a friend," the woman said confidently, "Or stand and be - "

"Computer, pause!" the Doctor cried out, his hands over his face, as if blinded by too much light, even though the forest canopy was so thick as to barely admit the sun. Kes loved plants, but she would have found this place deeply uncanny if she weren't so worried for her friend.

He lowered his hands and stared at the paused character, who must be Freya given his reaction. Her coloring was similar to Kes', but she was taller, her features sharper under her helmet, and her armor built to take a lot of punishment. Kes didn't like to think of how much skill or brute force could pierce through that much metal. She was strong and beautiful, and not much older than Kes or the Doctor. Certainly too young to die.

The Doctor paced around Freya in a circle, looking - as Tom or Harry would say - as if he were seeing a ghost, which from a certain point of view, he was. He reached out to brush aside a strand of her hair, but couldn't; it was as frozen in mid-step as everything else about her. When he circled back to Kes, he was paler than ever.

"I didn't mean to … " she stammered. "We can go back if you'd rather … "

"This is why the crew treats me the way they do, isn't it?" he said quietly. "They see me as … this. What did you call it? A fictional character. One who can't be killed because I'm not alive."

"You know that's not true - "

"Isn't it, though?" He knocked on the side of Freya's helmet with a closed fist, sending a metallic clang through the air. "She … she kissed me, you know. She's the love interest that was written into the story. To me it was as real as anything I've ever felt, but she was only following her programming. She must have kissed Ensign Kim and every other user of that program the same way. She's a set of algorithms, just like me. How are we any different?"

How could he not know that? To Kes, the answer was obvious. Her heart ached for her friend. A first kiss should be a joyful memory, not like this.

"You are different, Doctor," she said, taking his arm to turn him away from the motionless Freya. "Believe me. I may not be a programmer, but I know it takes a real person to even ask these kinds of questions. And since you're real, so is everything you're feeling. You lost someone who matters to you. You have every right to grieve."

Dignity aside, she pulled him into a hug and rubbed his back, just like her parents had done with her after closing her grandparents' Morilogium caskets. There were no white robes, no music, no prayers of thanks to the Caretaker (and she wouldn't have wanted that) but there was something sacred in that moment all the same.

"Computer, end program," she heard him whisper.

The Danish forest and its immortal guardian faded into the walls, leaving behind only what was real.