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By Root 806 0

they were concerned about the ordeal B’Elanna was undergoing in sickbay. They wanted each other’s company, but were unsure what to make of this strange undertaking, or what to say about it. They were just waiting for it to be over, for their friend and colleague to be safely restored to them-as Neelix sincerely hoped she would. He also hoped B’Elanna’s expedition to the other side would prove fruitful. When he had briefly died two years ago, before Seven’s Borg nanoprobes had revived him, he had experienced nothing but oblivion. On some level he was jealous of B’Elanna for having such a clear vision of her people’s afterlife, or tempted to dismiss it as a delusion. But that was no way for a friend to think, and for the most part he was happy for her. Or would be once she was back among the living.

The one exception to the subdued behavior of the crowd was Harry Kim. He paced up and down the mess hall, looking nervous and angry at the same time. Concerned that the ensign’s mood might infect the others, Neelix moved toward Harry, intercepting him by the windows. “You look tired, Ensign,” the Talaxian said. “Maybe you should sit down, have a bite to eat.”

“How can I eat at a time like this?” Harry shot back, then shook his head. “I can’t believe the captain agreed to this. I can’t believe the Doctor agreed to this! She could be throwing her life away for nothing!”

“I’m sure the Doctor will take good care of B’Elanna. He’s brought a lot of us back from worse.”

“And sometimes he hasn’t. Sometimes people just can’t be saved! I’m sick of it, Neelix. I’m sick of losing people I care about, and knowing there’s nothing I can do!”

Neelix looked around. “Ensign, listen to me,” he said softly. “There are a lot of people in this room who don’t need to hear someone saying things like that right now. Besides, I think you and I both know that it isn’t really B’Elanna you’re talking about, is it?”

Harry looked abashed, and let Neelix lead him to a seat. “Lieutenant Marika’s really gotten to you, hasn’t she?” the Talaxian asked.

“She’s certainly tried to,” the human replied. Harry told Neelix about Marika’s advances, and how he wished he could respond in kind but couldn’t bear to let her close. “And so I feel guilty about rejecting her, when she has so little time left-but that just reminds me of how little time she has, and that’s too painful to deal with.”

Neelix pondered for a moment. “You know something, Ensign? When I first met Kes-when I fell in love with her-she told me she’d only have seven or eight more years to live, but at the time it didn’t really bother me much. Not that I liked the idea, of course. But you see, back then I was a scavenger, living hand to mouth, getting by one day at a time. I never really thought much about the future. Eight years or eighty, it all seemed equally remote, so I didn’t worry about it.

“But once I was living on Voyager, not having to wonder where my next meal was coming from or whether I could keep the life support running another day, I started to think more about what the future held. And I started to realize that I might have to spend more of my future without Kes than with her. And the prospect just terrified me, Mr. Kim, I don’t mind telling you. It was something I spent a lot of time worrying about. That’s why I was so insanely jealous about Kes back then-because I was desperately afraid of losing her. And because I knew that eventually I would lose her and there was nothing I could do to change it.

“We finally talked about it-I suppose it was just after our encounter with Suspiria’s array and the Ocampa who lived there. I was so excited by the idea that they could maybe extend Kes’s life, so I got rather depressed when they turned out to be, well, as disagreeable as they were and we had to leave them behind. Kes confronted me about what was bothering me, and I finally put it in words for the first time.”

He paused, long enough to lead Harry to ask, “And what did she say?”

Neelix smiled. “Something very wise and very simple, like always. She pointed out that if we only had a finite