Chapter Four Candor

Minutes after Torres boarded her hovercar, B'Elanna found herself in front of the MIDAS studio, the last stop on the Presidio main complex before heading to Crissy Field. Her driver, Chief Petty Officer Third Class Sandra Peterson, turned around to face the Starfleet Engineer who was in the back seat. "Lieutenant, the attendant called to tell us that the system has been a bit touchy this week due to sunspots so you will not log on at your scheduled time. You are about two and a half hours behind or more so if you want I can take you to the snack bar. Or I can pick you up in two hours, Ma'am."

Torres opened the door and stepped out. "Thanks. Pick me up later. I'm not very hungry. I'll just go for a walk. Tell them to page me ten minutes out."

"Yes, Ma'am." Chief Petty Officer Peterson snagged her PADD, saluted, and drove off, heading for the Pizza Shack she liked so much. For holobowling alley food, it really wasn't bad.

Torres played with her own PADD for fifteen minutes, slowly walking around the block while checking her mail and reading some escapist literature. Then she felt a hand press upon her shoulder. She spun around to see the Sickbay doctor standing there, the blonde haired and blue eyed former Borg woman with the skull implants. "Ah, there you are Lieutenant Torres. May I speak with you? I am glad I caught you before you left. Very glad."

Torres was a bit annoyed at being interrupted in her reading but she supposed she had some time. "I do. And you are…? You delivered my baby on the Orion but we have not been formally introduced."

"I was the on-call EMH then. But let's just say I am a friend. A friend of yours. And your husband."

Torres coughed a bit, nearly dropping her PADD. "Me and my husband? I don't recall us having any friends like you. So you know Max? From the Academy, I suppose." She shrugged. "Sorry, don't even know your name."

"Let's go for a walk back to the MIDAS studio...umm...Lieutenant. I can tell you were going to do that anyway."

"Okay. But I am expecting a call from my husband and daughter and we may have to cut this short."

"Fine. Yes, Miral. She is your daughter. That much is true enough. But only that much."

Torres looked at the 5'7" woman curiously as they crossed the street and headed to a small memorial park near the MIDAS facility. This area contained a monument to Starfleet personnel who had lost their lives in service. Torres was suddenly overcome with curiosity so she checked it out. No, her name was not there. She exhaled a sigh of relief.

The Doctor smiled. "No, Lieutenant, you are not dead. Just confused. I wanted to come here with you because there are so few places aboard that do not have microphones running and cameras watching everything. This place is one of them."

"Aboard? What do you mean? Aboard what?"

The Doctor rubbed her nose. "Lieutenant Torres, well, actually you are Lieutenant Commander Torres now. Where do you think you are?"

Oh no. Is everyone nuts around here? "Look, I don't know what game you are playing but I think I have had enough of this. I never want to hang around another mental facility as long as I live. Now leave me alone." She started to walk away.

Now the Doctor became more than annoyed and called after her. "This is NO game, Commander Torres. This is very serious business. And I am sane, one of the few left around here. And since you won't ask, I will tell you where you are. You are aboard the USS Voyager, 8.5 million kilometers off Nexus."

Torres turned around and walked right up to the woman, standing nearly nose-to-nose as she looked up at her. "What the hell are you talking about! You too? There is no such starship called Voyager. We are in San Francisco at the Presidio. We are standing across from the Nesbitt Center, which contains the MIDAS facility. The hospital is over there and that tall building in the background is Starfleet Headquarters. And I am standing in…Memorial Grove, right smack dab in front of this granite monument that I imagine grows in size as more names are added to it."

The blonde's left hand rubbed her left eye, carefully avoiding the implant. "Actually, no. You are in a holodeck. The entire ship is one giant holodeck. And it has been that way for nearly a year."

Now Torres' mouth opened a bit, wondering where Starfleet got people like this. But this 'Doctor,' if she really was one and not a nursing assistant, seemed harmless enough. Maybe she had escaped the facility after going crazy in space. That was why she had been reassigned. If she tried anything rough, however, B'Elanna knew she could take her. But maybe some humoring would do for now.

"Okay, I'll bite. Explain." They sat down.

"Thank you for listening, Commander. More than two years ago the USS Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant after being stranded there for seven years. I was the EMH and still am. I am temporarily housed in the body of Annika Hansen, a former Borg once known as Seven-of-Nine. She is within my holographic body, which is currently a mental patient in the hospital. I think you met."

Torres blinked. "Yes. That very strange bald man. Continue." This woman was absolutely gone.

The Borg woman impulsively touched her head. Bald? I still have some hair! "You were Chief Engineer then and remain in that position now. Your husband was the Chief Pilot. His name is Lieutenant Commander Tom Paris."

Torres jumped up. "Tom Paris! For Kahless sakes! I'm out of here." She tried to leave but the woman grabbed her arm and she was strong. "Look, hear me out. It won't take long. Please." Torres broke away. She shrugged her shoulders and supposed it could not hurt to listen. She had become a very good listener over the last few months. So she sat back down and crossed her legs. "Go."

"You two got married on that ship and now have a daughter, Miral, who is just about to turn three. Voyager was then commanded by Captain Kathryn Janeway and the First Officer was Commander Chakotay. When we got back the crew underwent the usual medical and psychological evaluations and was cleared. Then there were nearly eight months of Boards of Inquiry into Janeway's causing the ship to be stranded and dozens more inquests into whether or not we violated the Prime Directive along the way. Nothing came of it and Captain Janeway was promoted to Rear Admiral. In fact, everyone was promoted then reassigned or discharged, although some remained. You have met some of the original crew here. The Maquis, you and Commander Paris included, were court-martialed and exonerated. Then your husband underwent another trial to see if he would end up in New Zealand once more. Thankfully not. You were both happy about that, as I recall. You threw one very nice party afterwards."

Torres listened impatiently. "Go on. Oh please do." When was that MIDAS call coming?

"While that was happening, Voyager needed a major overhaul. The ship was barely holding together after seven years without one. All the normal dry-dock facilities were taken by scheduled maintenance so we went to a special one set up at Deep Space Nine. We had a skeleton crew only; just enough personnel to operate the vessel and do the work. Then it was discovered that Soran had escaped and was trying to get his hands on a weapon, a second weapon. So Starfleet ordered a quarantine operation near Nexus to prevent him from destroying a second star. You know about the first bomb, I assume."

"Yes."

"Good. Saves time, which we do not have a lot of right now. Voyager's new commanding officer, Captain Chakotay, was ordered to take the ship out of dry dock early to join the flotilla. Your husband, Tom, was acting First Officer and still is. You remain Chief Engineer, as I mentioned. But the ship's dependents, the children, did not come along. Naomi Wildman was one. Miral another. Too risky given this mission and Starfleet has rules about families and Starships in the Alpha Quadrant. So Miral remains with Naomi at the Station. Naomi lives with her father. Miral is safe. You and Commander Paris placed her with a family you know there, Emony Dax and her husband Doctor Julian Bashir. But we are not. Safe, that is."

Stunned. Absolutely stunned was the only way to describe B'Elanna Torres. Miral was certainly not under some family's care. She was with Megan Delaney. And she never heard of that couple and that was a fact. But she had to admit that this fairytale was interesting. Almost like the plot someone would write for a holonovel.

"Why are we not safe here, Doctor? I see no threat to San Francisco or the Presidio."

"Why! Must you ask me that? Because we are not in San Francisco! I told you. We were enroute to the flotilla rendezvous point when Voyager answered a distress call from a small K-class planetoid. A small survey ship apparently crashed there. The signal checked out as legitimate so a small party was sent to investigate. They came back with three survivors, two human and one Betazoid. But they were not the original surveying crew. They died months ago with these pretenders on board. Their real identities were masked by holographic emitters. Instead of being those civilian surveyors, they are in fact Soran and the Duras sisters. Soran is now Admiral Owen Paris. The Duras sisters are now Doctor Beverly Crusher and Commander Deanna Troi."

Torres just burst out laughing, placing a hand over her mouth and giving a good snort. "Right! Sure. And I'm Selena, the born-again Fire Goddess of Andros VII. You are being totally ludicrous, just like Tom." B'Elanna recrossed her legs, her right foot pumping hard. Holo-emitters she had heard of. Spies used them, as did people who just did not want to be found. But this situation? No way.

"It would take a lot of power to sustain that amount of holographic imagery for so long."

The EMH nodded. "A starship has that kind of power, Commander."

True. B'Elanna looked up, just for reassurance. There were blue skies with some cirrus clouds moving eastward, the winds obviously stronger at that elevation. The sun was in the southern sky, blazing away. By its position it was about eleven in the morning. She checked her chronometer. It was. And that sunshine was warm on her skin. Birds were chirping in the trees and a few took flight when she sneezed from pollen that was bothering her. Starfleet personnel were walking about, talking or checking their PADDs. A Starfleet civilian contractor was mowing the grass while another one used a trimmer on some bushes. A hovercar passed by, the driver looking at her with a smile and offering a short wave. She had no idea who she was but waved back anyway.

"Bullshit. All of it."

"Commander, I am not lying. Lursa flooded the ship with highly-concentrated Benzedrine, which overwhelmed the crew. First it knocks you out and then it causes hallucinations. You become susceptible to impression, new realities. Programming, brain washing, call it what you will. Then you live out a new life as the gas trickles through the air recirculators and saturates the scrubbers. It took a while but those three actually gained control of the ship given our reduced crew. Then B'Etor created a massive holodeck with emitters everywhere so everyone moves about within a fake Presidio and a replicated Deep Space Nine. It could have been any vessel. It just happened to be us."

"Lucky us." Torres was checking her nails now. This was so wild a story that it was almost believable. "I'm still listening."

The woman continued, watching Torres' growing indifference. "Eight of us were initially unaffected. Lieutenant Harry Kim, Lieutenant Jenny Delaney, Sam Wildman, and Lieutenant Pablo Baytart managed to steal a shuttle, the Tecumseh, and got away to find the Starfleet flotilla. You know a shuttle has limited range with comms."

"Ah huh. They do. Okay. You said there were eight. That accounts for four. And I have seen all four and even talked with them. And why doesn't the gas affect Soran and the Duras sisters? Immunity?"

"No! Of course not. That is not logical. Think, B'Elanna! Use your engineering brain. Soran and the Duras sisters use breathing filters as part of their disguise. And the four who got away were replaced by holograms, to include Kathryn Janeway. She is Rear Admiral Janeway now and is really back on Earth. The real Earth. You must believe me."

She smirked. "Believe you when you have an answer for everything? Better talk faster since I have a pending appointment that I am not going to miss. And the other four?"

"Sure. The other four were you, me, Commander Paris, and Annika, Chakotay's wife and our Chief Science Officer. We were in the Delta Flyer when the gas was released. We just came back from a mission to do a check-out ride on some Flyer upgrades. I went along to monitor for possible cellular contamination because the flight went through an unstable nebula. I am a hologram, my male body is anyway, so I wasn't affected by Soran's gas. I gave you three a hypospray that delayed the effect for a few hours. Then Annika beamed me to Sickbay where I made up several more powerful hyposprays and beamed them to the Delta Flyer. You injected yourselves and talked for a bit about what to do. This is one of the injectors, expended of course. It was yours." She showed the expended hypospray container.

Torres looked at it. Run of the mill. Nothing special here and no way to identify it as mine. "Of course. So this is just a good old-fashioned hijack. Of a Federation Starship named Voyager."

"Yes, Commander. But this was not planned. It just happened. Soran was handed a gift. He has a ship. Now he wants your husband because he is the only one who can fly it safely into The Ribbon and enter Nexus. He is the only one aboard who has the skill to do it."

Now Torres knew this was bullshit. "Look, Doctor, I know something about that anomaly. All you have to do is get near that thing, maybe 500,000 kilometers away, and it sucks you in. It took a lot of ships that way, the Liberty and others. Going in is very easy. Getting out is something else. No one wants to leave once they get in there. As someone named Guinan described to Captain Jean-Luc Pickard years ago, it is a feeling of pure joy. Rapture in its purest form. And it is fantasy, one that Tom Paris lives in now. Maybe we all are in Nexus, as bizarre as this situation has become."

The woman groaned. "Not true anymore, about getting in there easily. And not true about us being there. But we are about to, thanks to you."

"What the hell are you talking about? Thanks to me?" Torres rubbed her arm and wondered when this person would just go away.

'Annika' stood up and placed a hand on the monument, tracing some of the names. She paused at one of them, bowed her head, and said something that Torres could not hear. She saw the unrecognized name. A lieutenant named Joe Carey. "It is a long story. Soran detonated one bomb and destroyed one star to move Nexus. But he only gave it a very good nudge. It moved, yes. But it also stretched out like warm taffee and in doing so became very unstable. So it no longer pulls in ships. You have to fly in there deliberately, which is good. But according to Federation scientists who sent probes in there, the current risk of destruction upon entry is about 95%. A skilled pilot reduces that chance significantly."

The Doctor gripped B'Elanna's hands. "Tom Paris is a very skilled pilot and you know that. When Soran and those two came aboard, we, the four of us, knew that Commander Paris was very valuable to them. So the four of us met in Engineering and locked ourselves in. We held a major discussion and came up with a plan to save the ship. Commander Paris beamed me and Annika to Sickbay. There I repeated the process Annika and I did when we encountered the Lokirrin species years ago. I downloaded my program into Annika's implants and became her. She took control of my body. We did that because Soran, who doesn't know a damned thing about starships any more than the Duras sisters, would need a doctor eventually. He's sick; physically and mentally. But he would try to turn me off if things got suspicious. Now he can't because I am not me and my program is not in the computer anymore. And he does not know that. Tom accessed the personnel files and changed them to reflect a woman EMH hologram. I am actually active through the implants of Annika Hansen and she is inside my holographic form."

"More crap. I have no memory of any of that process even being possible. It is so far reaching a concept…."

"Look, you have to trust me, just like we all did a year ago! How could I make this up? I even watched you do a lot of things to Voyager before beaming the two of us to Sickbay. You reversed Voyager's engines and put them into overload. I mean, you absolutely destroyed them before there was a warp core breach! Even Commander Paris cringed as you did it. In fact, he asked how you could do that because you loved them more than him. You said, 'Maybe, maybe not,' and then you kissed the hell out of him. But we stopped immediately. You took away Soran's propulsion and he could not get to The Ribbon to enter it. For about eleven months."

"Not anymore?"

"No. A few weeks ago you fixed impulse power. You see, you thought you were working on the Orion, a nonexistent ship by the way. Instead you were on Voyager, you and your undermanned crew repairing the damage you caused. It took a while because you encoded everything to include scrambling the diagnostic programs. But you worked around those and fixed it anyway. Now we are underway once more and heading toward Nexus. We have some time yet because you did not repair the warp drive but you are very close, at least as far as I can gather from ship's chatter. And you also encoded and disabled weapons and shields so they do not work. After you beamed me and Annika to Sickbay you deactivated the transporters so they could not use them to get to you two in Engineering. You were taken only after the crew cut through a bulkhead. And you tried to shut down comms but ran out of time and only partially succeeded. Only internal comms work. But no one has communicator badges anymore so that is useless anyway."

"I have a call placed with MIDAS. That works."

The Doctor paused. "Fake."

"Fake? So…I will not be talking to my husband and daughter. Yes?"

"Correct. They are holograms. And Commander Paris trashed the main computer. It operates ship's systems such as life support and food replicators. Lights, water, sanitation. Personnel files. But not much else to include the ship's log. There is only one place aboard you can access Voyager's actual secure computer. That is from within the Delta Flyer II and Soran does not know that either. And that ship is sealed. You need an access code to get into it. You and Commander Paris know that code."

Torres tried to recall that information and drew a blank. She shrugged. This story gets better all the time.

"And the most important thing. You put a structural integrity force field around the entire ship so no one can get in or go out. It is multiphasic. Our 'guests' cannot crack it. You are the only one who knows the code for disabling it and Soran wants it. Actually, the Duras sisters do. They have no desire to enter Nexus and they want off this ship. Badly. They think Commander Paris knows the code and they have tried to pry it out of him many times through some…umm...very inventive and persuasive means. But he doesn't know it so he can't tell them and he would never do it anyway. You do but they do not know that. And that is what we need you to remember. That specific code."

"I see. But that does not make sense."

"Why not?"

B'Elanna stretched in the warm sun. "Because, Doctor, if the Duras sisters wanted off then they would not allow Soran to approach The Ribbon. They would disable the gas emitters and the air would clear. Benzedrine is temporary and its effect diminishes with fresh air and time. The crew would come to their senses and the game would be over."

"That would be true if the sisters knew. Soran has never changed their filters. They are living in the same dream world as the crew except they think they are helping Paris so he will fly them through the Bajoran worm hole and into the Gamma Quadrant to escape the Romulan authorities. That worm hole also requires a skilled pilot and it is not easy to navigate."

Torres grunted as her brain churned. "So let me get this straight, Doctor. Soran and the Duras sisters never got a second bomb. They were stranded instead after joining a survey party, probably to take their ship, and that one later crashed. By pure chance Voyager answered the distress call and these three came aboard in disguise. The three of them took over the ship using Benzedrine gas and turned it onto a giant holodeck. Soran knows the Duras sisters are not happy with his idea so he just let them succumb to their own gas. Now he is running the entire show as Admiral Paris with a phony Troi and Crusher. And Soran brought me here, well, from another holodeck, to convince Tom, my husband, to let go of me and Miral so he will crack and agree to fly into the Ribbon. But we, and especially me, are his lifeline to reality so Tom is able to hang in there and resist flying. But if I cut his lifeline by convincing him to reject me so as to fly once more, he will go nuts and fly a shuttle that is in reality Voyager. And he will take it and all of us into Nexus where we will never get out until we are crushed."

"Could not have said it any better myself."

Torres nearly busted a blood vessel, she was laughing so hard. She pointed at the EMH. "YOU are crazy. But please continue this magical mystery tour. I am rather enjoying it now."

The EMH smirked. "The second code is crucial. It will lower the force field so we can get out. Or maybe so Starfleet can get in. There is a large starship off our stern, Commander. I heard Admiral Paris, Soran that is; say it is the USS Meridian, which is a Federation Marine Corps assault vessel. We are talking about a battalion of Marines waiting out there! And it has been there about a month. Lieutenant Kim must have got through but they can't get in unless you lower the force field. And the code has something to do with a song Tom used to sing to you. I often heard it in Sickbay when you had a fever or even just morning sickness. You said it always made you feel better."

"I'm sorry…you really are hallucinating." This is all so fabricated. When are they going to call with my MIDAS connection?

"You are hallucinating, Commander, not me! Not Tom either, at least periodically. We all were concerned that the gas would get to you three. It has. But in Tom's case he fights it off more because I treat him specifically. I gave him four times the normal dose of antidote and he has developed some resistance. He occasionally allows himself to be beaten to a pulp, which gets him into Sickbay and then I fix him. I also take the liberty of using a hypospray booster to overcome the gas for a while. At times he is lucid. I'm running out of that compound fast but it won't matter anyway once we enter The Ribbon."

The EMH walked around and looked exasperated. "Look, Commander. Tom acts weird. But most of what he is doing now is fake. He is acting and he is very good at it. He once fooled the entire crew less Captain Janeway, Lieutenant Tuvok, and Neelix when we had a spy on board who was cooperating with a Cardassian woman named Seska. And these three have swallowed it, for now."

Sure. Seska. Never heard of her either. "So, this Annika. Are you helping her?"

"Not really. I can help her mentally as a hologram but I can't treat her because there aren't enough boosters left for anyone but Commander Paris. But she has a strong will. I admire her…a lot. She is married, I told you that. To Captain Chakotay."

"And what about me? I thought I was helping Tom Paris to get well. How can I do that if I am under the influence?"

"You can't really. You are here for only one reason. To convince your husband to let you go so he will lose hope. But you and Miral mean a lot more to him than you can imagine. He…lives for you two. Soran and his cohorts know he is weakening and without you specifically he will break. And they are running out of time. Soran especially. They need him to fly the ship."

"But I am going home to Deep Space Nine. They even bought a ticket for me."

"Commander Torres, you are not going anywhere but back to your holodeck. Were you even awake when you arrived? I doubt it. And since you failed to break your husband, they will try something else eventually. But you are really their last hope. I imagine they will just pump him full of more drugs and try to turn him that way. And you do not have to just believe me. You and Commander Paris agreed to provide each other with reminders to try to remember the truth."

"Reminders?"

"Yes. Memory joggers. Of whom you actually are."

This was too much! She grabbed the woman EMH by the arms and shook her. "Look, Doctor. Now I know you are the one who is delusional. I don't need to be reminded because I know who I am. Listen to me. I am Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres, daughter of John Torres and Miral, daughter of L'Naan. I was born on Kessik IV, August 1, 2349. After my father abandoned me and my mother we moved to Q'onoS. I spent time in a Klingon monastery learning to be a good little warrior. I am a graduate of Starfleet class of 2371. And I am the Chief Engineer on the USS Orion. I have a daughter whose name is Miral. And my husband is Commander Max Burke who had once disappeared along with his ship…."

"…the Equinox." The EMH finished the sentence for Torres. "I know all of that and some of it is true. But you never graduated; you dropped out after two years. The Orion is a fictional vessel, I told you. And Burke did not disappear, Commander. The Equinox was destroyed by Captain Janeway and Voyager in 2376. He is dead. He has been that way for years. And Tom told me that you and Max were…intimate…at the Academy. But you never married him. You are married to Tom Paris. And I can prove that."

B'Elanna's PADD suddenly activated. 'Lieutenant Torres, this is Ensign George Rosa at the MIDAS studio. Our tech is working on your connection now. I think fifteen more minutes to go, if you can come over here and get miked up. Your husband and daughter are waiting on the other end. We pinged them.'

'On my way. Thanks.' "Doctor, I thought you said the ship's comms were out?"

"PADD's are a closed circuit. You know that."

"An answer for everything." Max dead years ago! Ridiculous! "Okay, Doctor or whoever you are, you win. Prove it. You don't have much time anyway. I have to go so follow me across the street."

Finally. They started walking once more. "So where is your wedding ring, Commander Torres? Do you care so little about being married to Max that you would lose it?"

Torres was angry now. "It's Lieutenant Torres. And I didn't lose it! I left it on the Orion by mistake. I put it inside a…"

"…grease pot on top of a console. I know. We watched you hide it there. And that ring is not yours. It belongs to Commander Paris. You put it there in case he was so crazed that you would have to give it to him so he would remember. So per Tom's orders I am now to give you yours once more. I was holding it because I was not searched. I'm just a hologram, as far as they are concerned."

The Doctor reached into her pocket. "So how do you explain this? Take a good look at it." Torres accepted a small tote bag that contained a ring, a gold wedding band. Inside was inscribed 'maj dok. TEP-BT 1-4-2378.' "That inscription is your wedding day. I was there you know. And 'TEP' is not 'MB.' Try it on. It's a perfect fit. Size seven. And by the way, Commander Paris said to tell you that you wear size seven boots. He also said to tell you that he…umm…loves massaging your feet. You both get…very excited."

Max had a thing for her feet and it was true that his rubbing them made her horny. Especially when he worked his way up her calves to her thighs. Torres licked her lips and blushed but ignored the comment and took the ring. Hers did look like this but it was engraved with their initials, Max and hers. She put this one on and it fit perfectly, as she suspected it would. "Replicated. He replicated it from my personnel files. They said Tom accessed them."

The EMH threw up her hands in frustration. "He did not replicate this! How could he? When? Where? You lacked time for that with all your other priorities. You both agreed to use your rings as a memory jogger! I held on to this because you both knew no one would check me. And yes, he did access the personnel records but not for that. He changed them to give people the wrong rank. There are other errors that you should have picked up on. Chakotay's tattoo is on the wrong side of his face in his 'official' Starfleet photo, for example. Janeway's hologram hates coffee. Max Burke has blue eyes. He's just a hologram in the MIDAS studio."

Max Burke a hologram! Now Torres' brain was beginning to hurt. "You are off the deep end! A lunatic! There is no way any of this is true." She bit her lower lip. "But the ring, I mean, how?" She kept staring at it, as if wanting that gold band to explain to her what was going on. "No. This isn't real."

The Doctor saw that B'Elanna's ring did not work to jar her mind back to reality. They were screwed if she could not remember the codes and that should have jolted her enough to do that. But it hadn't. "I am not crazy, Commander. You are drugged and you are living in a fantasy world. But unless you remember the codes we are doomed. I won't keep you any longer. They will come looking for you if there is too much delay."

Annika turned. "Maybe something else will shake your brain. If it does, try to see Commander Paris once again and maybe he can explain things better than I can. And don't worry. They won't do it, Commander. Operate on him, that is. They don't know how. It's a ruse. Just a game they are playing because they need him. And you can't reason with them. Soran wants Tom to pilot Voyager to get into Nexus. The Duras sisters just want off and to avoid the Romulan police who are after them. They will all continue to try to break him to get the deactivation code but he can't give it to them. He wouldn't anyway. I know Lieutenant Commander Tom Paris very well. He's family, just like you both are to me."

Torres blinked. "You are related to us?" So that was it! This was another sister of Tom's or maybe a cousin with an agenda hoping to keep her here to try and make Tom well once more.

Hansen's mouth smiled as the EMH spoke, words of pride in her voice. "No, Commander. I am family. I am Miral's godfather. My name is Joe. I took that name after we returned from the Delta Quadrant. When this is over, I will sing you an aria. I like opera." Then Joe pleaded, walking backwards before running back to the hospital. "Please, Commander. Try very hard to remember. Only you can save us now."

B'Elanna watched the Doctor turn the corner. Her head was pounding with a number ten migraine. After thinking a bit she decided to dismiss all of this as pure conjecture, the runaway imagination of someone who should be in treatment herself. But when walking up the steps into the building she heard those words once more. So you can doubt. And you can hate. But I know no matter what it takes. I'm coming home, I'm coming home, tell the world I'm coming home. Let the rain wash away, all the pain of yesterday.

/

Doctor Hansen repaired Paris' dislocated right arm, the result of Tom having acted out once more. Tom gingerly rotated his shoulder, the pain still obvious but he was also glad to have use of that arm once more.

"Did you speak with her? With B'Elanna?" He moved his arm up and down like a chicken wing, making sure that the bone had been set properly.

"Yes. For over half an hour, Commander."

"Is she okay?"

"Under the circumstances, yes. But I know she remains unconvinced. You have lost."

Tom Paris felt some loosened teeth as Doctor Joe/Annika Hansen reached for a dermal regenerator with the dental fixative attachment. "Not yet, Doc. There is one more that can persuade her. One she trusts implicitly and will convince her. Hopefully, she will come to me first and I can convince her to do what she needs to do. "

"You are talking about Miral. Open up." The metallic probe entered Tom's face. "Bite down gently. It will take about a minute." The tool began to hum as it reset Tom's loose teeth.

"Aaahhht wadddd eeee taahhhhhh ovvveeeeusss."

Annika's face broke out into a large smile. "Sssssh. Commander! Didn't your mother ever tell you to never talk with your mouth full? There. Done."

He worked his jaw and bit down. Everything was solid once more. "Yeah, she did. I said that would be too obvious if it was Miral. Our daughter's avatar will help in this situation but it needs to come from elsewhere. Not so obvious except to us and one that she absolutely trusts. What else needs fixing this time? I can't grab that water glass."

"Look at the bruising on your right hand. That's why. You have a dislocated finger and you cracked your wrist when they slammed you against the deck. First that, then your right ankle. That is also broken and swollen like a grapefruit. I need to use the bone knitter with the ice emitter." The doctor went to the cabinet for sterile instruments and paused. "But the MIDAS connection to Deep Space Nine is phony. She will be talking with two holograms…wait a minute!" Hansen rubbed her forehead. Then she raised a finger in front of her face and wiggled it. "When you accessed the computer you also altered the Starfleet retired personnel files. You know Max very well from the Academy and our encounter in the Delta Quadrant. Commander Paris, you are one sly man! But I said Max had blue eyes because you changed them that way. That's not really true, is it?"

Tom just smiled and it was a very painful one. He twisted his aching neck as he rubbed his sore jaw. "No, his are brown. But the eye color won't matter now. I didn't change them. No time. And she had to have a holopicture of him anyway because she thinks she is married to him. Damnit, Doc, be careful with that ankle!"

"Sorry. I should use a woman's touch."

Tom laughed. "And Annika is quite a woman." He winced in pain. "It's what I do best. Screw things up. Before I met B'Elanna once again I spent a lifetime fucking things up. Now it's time to set the record straight. It's time to make it rain."