by Amiroq
---

Disclaimer: Character theft? Me? Never!

Dedication: This is for Trekker. May you one day write the short story you seek.

oneiric: adj. pert. to dreams -rocritic, n. interpreter of dreams. -rotic, adj. devil: n. 1, the supreme evil spirit; Satan. 2, any evil spirit, a demon. 3, a cruel, fiendish person. 4, a reckless person, as a daredevil. 5, an expletive: the devil! 6, a printers errand boy.

---

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run?
.............................................
Or does it explode?
-- Langston Hughes

---

Harry leaned over his basin to splash cold water on his face. It had been a long day, and he couldn't see an end to it yet: there were reports to fill out, lightyears of them, and if by any remarkable chance he finished those there were more repairs to help with. He was only affording himself this one small break because he'd been on his feet for the past twenty-nine hours, and he didn't think he could stay awake without the shock of the water.

The splash of water soon became a dribble, however, and he pushed the basin back in. Waste not want not, Tom had joked feebly yesterday morning.

He looked up, up at the mirror standing innocently on the wall, and as he did so a flash of images leaped across its surface. Individually, they could not have lasted more than two or three split seconds - together, less than a second - but nevertheless some part of him registered them all. Recognised some, even.

- The shape of an Iskari cruiser accompanying them, as seen through the viewscreen from the OPs console at the back of the bridge - A Tylried attack vessel, this time from outside Voyager and slightly above - Phasers and torpedoes and explosions (oh my!) - Him, walking down a corridor that he didn't recognise, hair gel-free (somehow that was the first thing he noticed) and holding a child who looked about four. A child he'd never seen before. They were both bleeding; he from his hand, her from a gash on her forehead.

There were more, too. Dozens of tiny little flashes that seemed so real, like distant memories, yet most of which had never happened. The Iskari cruiser he recognised - Taera Lin, launched two years ago from the country on Taera on Ashe. The Tylried attack vessel he supposed was the same that had borne down on them about this time yesterday, firing both phaser banks at them until it had eventually been taken down by the combined fire of Voyager and Taera Lin. But from then on, nothing.

And then he was simply looking at himself again; a little pale and way too tired, face dripping, but normal and familiar. "Woah," he said quietly. "You need to sleep." His mirror images lips moved in time to the words, and even that piece of normality seemed detached and absurd. He shook his head (get a hold of yourself, Kim) and took one diagonally sideways step toward the lounge--

--he awoke in his own bed, or maybe Tom's, it was sometimes hard to tell with the lights off. Tom was beside him, anyway, and he moved sleepily near Harry, not quite touching him. Harry glanced over at him, saw he was still firmly in the land of the unconscious, and slid out of the sheets. He saw now - saw, and remembered, too - that they were in his quarters. There was his clarinet stand, there the pile of PADDs B'Elanna had dropped by the week before, there his sofa. He glanced briefly at all these things as he walked through the lounge, re-establishing his link with reality, though in the stark non-light they seemed more like props on a set of some kind than real things.

The light came on as he stepped into the bathroom, and another as he pulled the basin out, splashing water on his face in an action that seemed too familiar to him. Done it before, that's all, he told himself. He pushed it back against the wall, stopping the flow of water, and looked up at the mirror. His face was slightly pale and a little tired, and dripping water on the floor, and suddenly in a flash he remembered his dream. That in itself was odd, he didn't normally remember dreams, but then there was yet more. The mirror in his dream was set in three in the afternoon - tomorrow afternoon - and while he couldn't recall everything that had happened between waking up and that instant right before waking, the real waking, his dream-self sure thought he could. Twenty-nine hours of dream? Dream that seemed normal enough to be real?

He pushed off from the basin and padded back out into the lounge. It was six in the morning, too early for the likes of Tom, but he could easily try to forget the odd, niggling feeling somewhere above his stomach by reading one of B'Elanna's PADDs.

Tom awoke some time around eight.

He emerged groggily from Harry's bedroom with a yawn, and a request to come shower with him. "Waste not want not," he added mischieviously. Harry jumped a little, startled.

"What?" Tom asked, with a combination of half-sleep and confusion that made him sound about twelve years old.

"Just a weird dream I had." He set his PADD down and stood, following Tom to the bathroom when the pilot started moving.

"What kind of weird dream?" Tom pressed, turning the sonic shower on.

He shrugged. "Just a weird one. I don't really remember it very well." Tom dropped the subject, and he felt a surge of relief that he didn't know how to explain away any more than he knew why he'd lied.

---

The view from the Ops console at the back of the bridge was of Taera Lin, serenely strolling along beside them. That, too, brought back a flash from his dream, and he almost shivered. In front of him, Tom caressed his console (he had started caressing it instead of simply using it about the time he and Harry first slept together, and for the life of him Harry didn't know whether it was Tom's movements that had changed or his perspective of them), staring at the cruiser.

The odd, niggling feeling somewhere above his stomach had returned with a vengeance. Something was Not Right, something was definitely Not Right. And the worst part of it was, the answer was lurking somewhere just out of reach, darting out of from beneath his fingers even as they closed around it. He squinted slightly at the screen, trying to remember.

Something to do with a ship. An attacking ship. T. . . Ty? That sounded right. Ty-something. Tyrian? No. Close, but no cigar. It wasn't Tyrian, it was-- "Tylried," he said, just as he saw the ship decloaking on sensors.

Tuvok gave him a cool look, but there was no time to question him. "Captain, an unidentified ship has just decloaked off the port bow."

The Captain stood, hands on hips. "Hail them."

Harry did so, the odd, niggling feeling telling him what he already knew: that they would not answer. He didn't have time to tell her this, though, before the ship attacked with both phaser banks on full. The ship shuddered, the Captain whirled around, gripping the armrest of her chair, and ordered Tuvok to return fire. He did so without hesitation.

For the next thirty seconds, Harry felt himself responding to the situation with a sort of detached fatality. Tom, he knew, would have no such feeling - he would be completely lost in the task of performing evasive manouvres so skilfully you hardly noticed them - and who knew what everyone else was thinking. But then, everyone else didn't have this odd, niggling feeling telling them the future. He'd thought it had gone away, after the Teiresians.

It was only when the Tylried attack vessel had been despatched with and everyone had moreorless recovered from the shock that Tom swivelled in his chair. "Tylried?" he asked.

Harry glanced down at his console, but no strange anomalies jumped out to save him. "I don't know. It just sort of. . . seemed to be right. It's the name of the race that built that ship, I'm sure of it."

"Leftovers from the Teiresians?" Chakotay asked. He sounded faintly amused, as though he thought that this was something only Harry could manage to get himself into.

"Maybe," Harry replied guardedly. Now his console beeped. "Damage reports are coming in, all departments," he added, relieved to be back out of the spotlight. Normally he liked the attention, craved it, but not over this.

"Casualties?" the Captain asked.

"Two, so far. Eleven more moderately injured. Sickbay reports being flooded."

"Tom, get down there," she ordered. "I don't think we'll need you at the conn. Harry, I want you to go and help in Engineering. And if anything else 'just seems to be right', tell me."

He had to force himself not to scowl. "Yes, ma'am." He walked to the turbolift without waiting for Tom, but his lover caught the doors and slipped in beside him.

"Okay, I bite," he said. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Tom. It's just a little déja vu."

"From the Planet of the Nymphomaniacs, right." He didn't sound convinced, and Harry knew why. They'd known each other too long to keep secrets, but that didn't make him want to share any more. "So what was this dream you had?"

"I don't know! It's just little bits and pieces. Like 'Waste not want not' and 'Tylried'. And that ship." He sighed. "I'm fine, okay? If I remember anything, you'll be the second to know."

The turbolift stopped and the doors opened, but Tom hesitated before stepping out. "See you for dinner?"

"You bet."

They didn't, though. Harry didn't know about Tom, but he ate a sandwich that Neelix brought into Engineering that evening, on his way from the main part of Main Engineering to the third level. There was just too much work to do.

---

B'Elanna finally kicked him out of Engineering just before three the next afternoon, after most of the repairs had been done, and several more sandwich runs had been run. He went back to his quarters with a pile of reports to fill out, dumped them on the sofa and walked into the bathroom.

He leaned over his basin to splash cold water on his face, only affording himself this one small break because he'd been on his feet for the past twenty-nine hours, and he didn't think he could stay awake without the shock of the water. The splash of water soon became a dribble, however, and he pushed the basin back in. The replicators were running on empty. Hardly a surprise.

He looked up, up at the mirror standing innocently on the wall, and as he did so a flash of images leaped across its surface. Individually, they could not have lasted more than two or three split seconds - together, less than a second - but nevertheless some part of him registered them all.

- Empty corridors, dark except for the light of a Starfleet-issue wrist-torch. - Him, walking down a corridor that he didn't recognise, hair gel-free (somehow that was the first thing he noticed) and holding a child who looked about four. A child he'd never seen before. They were both bleeding; he from his hand, her from a gash on her forehead. - A candle flickering, and the smell of something heavy, like musk. - Taera Lin wrapping her shields around Voyager.

There were more, too. Dozens of tiny little flashes that seemed so real, like distant memories, yet had never happened.

And then he was simply looking at himself again; a little pale and way too tired, face dripping, but normal and familiar. "Woah," he said quietly. "You need to sleep." The words brought back a memory, a real one this time

(His mirror images lips moved in time to the words, and even that piece of normality seemed detached and absurd.)

and he stepped back, actually stepped back, physically surprised. He was awake, he knew he was. He could feel the soft hum of the engines, vibrating through the floor beneath him. The soles of his feet were sore, probably red and soft from walking around for so long. His right hand ached, too, and the bottom of his back from crouching in Jeffries Tubes. This was too real to be a dream.

So how do you explain the mirror?

Well, that was the million dollar question, wasn't it?

---

Despite his intentions to finish at least some of the reports, Harry awoke to find that he'd gone to sleep. He was lying on the bed, whereas earlier he'd been on the sofa, so he knew Tom had been, if not gone. And sure enough, when he went to the doorway of the bedroom (noting that the time was now 1916), Tom was lying on the sofa playing with a piece of string or something.

"Hey," he said, wandering over and sitting next to him on the floor, head leaning against the pilot's stomach.

"Morning," Tom replied blithely, sitting up, shifting down, and somehow managing to kiss the top of Harry's head. "Sleep well?"

"Better than I should have. How are the repairs going?"

"Nearly done. We should be so lucky as to have an insomniac for Chief Engineer." He twisted round in some bizarre fashion and slid his hands down Harry's chest. "Some of the crew of the Iskari are coming over for some sort of political meeting over dinner. Want to come?"

Harry's stomach rumbled obediently, and Tom laughed. "I'll take that as a yes. It's at 7.30."

He groaned. "Tom, that's only ten minutes away! You could have woken me!"

"You look so cute when you're sleeping though. Just like a little puppy."

Harry pushed Tom's hands off him with a smile and headed back to the bedroom to get changed, laughing when Tom called out, "Wear something sexy!"

---

B'Elanna poached them as soon as they entered the messhall, where the dinner was being held. "Hey, Starfleet. I didn't think you'd be coming."

Tom snickered and muttered something about Harry always coming, so he simply shrugged. "Yeah, well, Tom couldn't get it up and there were no good books around, so it wasn't like I had anything better to do."

"That's not true!" Tom squawked.

"Oh, right!" Harry added. "I forgot. There was that novel you lent me last week."

"You guys can be such children," B'Elanna told him, though if she was trying to hide her amusement she wasn't doing a very good job of it.

Harry grinned at her. "That's why you love us so much. What are you doing here? I would have thought you'd lock yourself in Engineering until the repairs were finished."

"They are. Almost. There's just a few things to do, and none of them need my attention, so I left."

"Good evening."

The low, gravelly voice came from behind Harry, and he turned, surprised. "Captain," he exclaimed. "I didn't hear you coming."

She chuckled. "I'm sorry, I'll try to be louder next time. I've been talking to the Iskari captain, and it seems you were right - that was a Tylried attack vessel. They come through occasionally with kamikaze missions like that, and sometimes do quite a lot of damage before they're disabled."

"So the rumours are true?" B'Elanna asked.

Harry glanced back at her. "What rumours?"

"That you're still the resident clairvoyant. A couple of my staff were talking about it."

"Yes, it's true," the Captain said, "Though I'd prefer you didn't spread the rumour any further. And Harry, I'd like you to report to Sickbay first thing in the morning. Have the Doctor look you over, make sure nothing's wrong. We may even find out what's causing this."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied unhappily.

"Good. Enjoy yourselves. I heard the zasip is quite delicious."

Harry scowled as soon as she was out of hearing range. "It's not fair. Why is it always me in these situations?"

"What situations?" Tom asked.

"Falling through portals into other dimensions, visiting alternate realities, living in alternate realities, getting trapped in holographic worlds and being hit on by clowns, getting turned into aliens. Just little things like that."

"Hey, you're talking to the guy who turned into a lizard and slept with the Captain, here. Besides, I think it's kind of cool."

Harry's scowl worsened. "You aren't the one having freaky dreams and seeing things in mirrors."

"Look, just relax. You can angst about it in the morning when there isn't a Fic going on, okay?"

He sighed. "I guess."

"Great! Come on, then, let's go eat. I'm starving." He grabbed Harry's arm and practically dragged him to the nearest table, glancing over his shoulder just long enough to wink at B'Elanna - or so it seemed to Harry, watching him out of the corner of his eye. Arrogant prick, he thought with a slight smile. Tom always seemed to be able to cheer him up.

---

The Captain was right, the food was all delicious, especially the homemade noodles she'd mentioned. They had a wonderful green under-taste that was just subtle enough to work - and, as Tom so cheerfully pointed out, their long slippery lengths just made them fun to eat.

All in all, his temporarily enforced amnesia of the whole incident seemed to be working quite well - that was, until just past nine. He'd just gone to get himself a drink, and almost as soon as he broke away from the group he'd been talking to one of their visitors approached him. "You've got it, don't you?" she asked.

He turned to look at her, bemused. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"The Oneiric. You have it."

He glanced around, looking for a way out of the conversation. He was both disappointed and slightly relieved when he didn't see one. "What-- What's the Oneiric?"

"Your visions." She lowered her voice. "I overheard Uncle Mikaz say that he saw it in you. You're so lucky! I hoped to get it when I was younger, but it passed over me."

Now he forgot completely about his drink. "I guess so. But now that I have it, how do I get rid of it?"

She stared at him. "Get rid of it? Why would you want to do that?"

"Because I don't want it! I never asked for this, okay? If I could give it to you, I would."

"You can't get rid of it. It's a gift, don't you see? It stays until it has served its purpose. Only then does it leave."

"What purpose?"

She shrugged delicately, light green-brown hair bouncing slightly. "I wouldn't presume to know. All I know is that the linsha chose you, and now you have it."

"Kisa!"

She turned at the voice, and smiled at him as if to say, 'Well, whatcha gonna do?' "I have to go. Good luck!"

Good luck indeed, he thought, staring after her.

---

Harry sighed, kicking his feet and staring at the floor of Sickbay. The Doc was in his office, going over the results of a couple of the tests - the rest would take longer to analyse, apparently - and he was stuck sitting there, counting the minutes until he could leave. He'd had another dream last night, too; not one that he could remember much of, just flashes. The little girl he'd seen earlier, a Flotter doll, the smell of burned flesh. It was little wonder he'd woken this morning feeling like he'd had no sleep at all. And Tom hadn't been much help, though he'd tried.

"It's scary, isn't it?" a soft voice asked.

He looked up, and smiled when he saw it was Kes. "Yeah, it is. Do you think the Doctor will be able to fix it? Whatever it is?"

She sat down next to him, thinking about it. "It depends what it is. If it's something medical, like some Teiresian DNA that didn't quite get destroyed, then yes, I think so. But it might be something else. A part of you. If that's true, then it's much less likely."

"Were you very scared when you had your first vision?"

"I was terrified. It was a horrible one, too. It was of a planet that we passed, very early on. In my dream, it had been completely destroyed by some sort of explosion. The entire planet was exterminated, just like that. Neelix had to take me to the bridge to show me that it was alright."

He nodded. "I remember. I guess I sort of had some lead-up to it, didn't I? The whole Teiresian experience was nothing compared to this. I just keep thinking, next time I might see something really terrible, like Voyager crashing, or the warp core blowing, or something happening to Tom. And it's getting worse - last night I'm sure I smelled burned flesh."

"It must have been horrible."

"Yeah."

"How's Tom been taking it? It must be hard for him."

"He's trying. Very trying," he added with a wry smile before becoming serious again. "He just doesn't understand it. I mean, we're both people who are much better at fighting the kind of demons you can see." He glanced over at the Doc's office at the sound of movement. "Did you find the problem?" he asked as the EMH approached.

"Apparently, there is no problem," the Doctor answered. "I've been through these test results four times, and there's simply no abnormalities to explain the phenomenon you described."

Harry was silent a moment, then swore vehemently. "I hate this! Why can't the damn thing just go away?"

"I'm sure it will, in time. If not, you may consider learning to control it, as Kes has. You never know, Ensign, it might become a great strength instead of a great weakness."

He sighed, then shook his head slowly. "Maybe. I'll see you later."

He ran into Tom a few metres down, and forced himself to cheer up a little. But he still must have looked pretty down, because the first thing Tom said was, "Bad news?"

"The Doc can't find any abnormalities to explain it."

"Damn." Now Tom sounded a bit unhappy as well. "Not Teiresian then?"

"Not Teiresian. Thank God. I'm glad that's behind me, at least."

"Yeah, I can see how you'd want to forget a planet full of beautiful women who'd kill to have your love-children."

He gave his lover a sharp look. "That's not funny, Tom."

Tom instantly formed a recalcitrant expression, which lasted all of two seconds, before he broke out in a grin. "I'm sorry, Har. I just don't like seeing you so miserable and knowing there's nothing I can do to help. I like the kind of demons I can see. I'm useless when it comes to things like this, and it scares the crap out of me."

"Believe me, I know what you mean. Look, I'm going to grab some breakfast before work. You coming with me?"

"Of course I am."

"Great." Harry started to walk towards the turbolift, but Tom stopped him again.

"Harry, please don't hide from me over this, okay? I don't want to lose you because one of us is to scared to talk to the other - about anything. I'm here, remember that."

Harry nodded slowly, and reached up to kiss him. "I know. I'm glad."

"Me, too." Tom grinned weakly. "Let's eat!"

---

"We're receiving a distress call with an Iskari signature. One point two lightyears, bearing thirty-two mark one seventy-eight nine." Harry rattled off the coordinates almost without thinking about it; after nearly three years aboard Voyager it was almost second-nature. What wasn't second-nature was checking to see what Taera Lin was up to. "Taera Lin has it too. They're ready to change course."

"Lay in a course, Mr Paris. Warp eight."

"Course laid in. ETA is ten hours." Tom spun around in his chair, confident in the autopilot. "So, Har, any ideas?"

Harry scowled at him. "Just what's showing up on sensors."

"Well, tell us if anything does come up," Chakotay said. "And I'm still waiting for you to pull that shuttlecraft out of a hat."

"Don't hold your breath, sir." His console beeped, and he glanced down to see a message had come in. He opened it, glancing at Tom, but his lover was looking only at the conn.

'Hey, sorry,' the message said. 'Kiss and make up? You know who.'

He held back a grin as he typed a reply ('Kiss where?'), then watched Tom for a reaction. A moment later there was a choking sound from the conn, and now he really did grin.

"Is there a problem, Lieutenant?" the Captain asked.

"Uh, no-- no, sir. Captain. Ma'am." Tom sounded like he was trying to decide whether to laugh hysterically or die of embarrassment. He didn't start laughing, so he must have chosen the latter.

As they left the bridge half an hour later, Tom whispered in Harry's ear, "I'm going to get you for that, Kim."

Harry simply responded, "Sounds like fun."

---

He awoke some time later to a stunning view of the Sickbay ceiling, a sight he was now way too familiar with for his own liking. He tried to sit up, then felt his brain slide around like a melting ice cube on a hot plate and decided it wasn't such a great idea. He fell back onto the inch-thick mattress with an 'oof!'

"Ah, Mister Kim, you're awake," the Doctor observed from his office, picking up some sort of small metal medicine equipment and walking over. Tom followed closely.

"What happened?" he asked. He sure didn't remember doing anything that would put him here. "I was coming off the bridge. . . and then. . ." He frowned. And then-- what?

A flash of memory hit him like a slap in the face. "B'Elanna! Where's B'Elanna? Is she okay?"

The Doctor appeared surprised. "Well, if she isn't, somebody's neglected to tell me about it. Stay still," he admonished as Harry tried to sit up again. Tom scooted round the other side of the biobed and took his hand, and he squeezed gratefully.

"What's wrong with B'Elanna?" he asked quietly.

"Uh, she. . . she was in a corridor. . . there was an explosion," he explained, no longer sure himself. "Wasn't there?"

"Shh, shh. What happened, do you remember? Which corridor?"

He realised suddenly what Tom was getting at, and tried all the harder to remember. His goddamn fucking visions. "It wasn't Voyager, it was. . . blue, and brown. Like the one I saw before. Uh, I think it's an Iskari ship. There was a panel, and a door with this symbol on it. . . I don't know how to describe it. The explosion came from behind the door."

Tom looked up, glancing round Sickbay, and told one of the minor medics to get the Captain. Then he looked back at the Doc. "Why can't he remember anything after we got off shift?"

"It seems these visions he's been having are a little too much for his brain to handle. Rather like when Lieutenant Torres was having her dreams, they're increasing exerting their dominance over his brain. I can give you some suppressants, but I'd like to see what the Captain says first. Given the nature of this latest one, it may be a danger to the crew if we were to stop them now."

"What, and it won't be a danger to me?"

"He blacked out in the middle of a corridor, Doc! You can't be suggesting we just let this happen!"

"That's just what I'm suggesting. He would, of course, remain in Sickbay under close supervision. There would be no physical danger."

"No physical DANGER?" Tom stared at him like his circuitry had caused havoc with his mental health subroutines. "He might black out again! This could kill him!"

"I assure you, Lieutenant, nothing like that is going to happen. You're completely overreacting."

Harry glanced between the two of them with an almost-amused look. "Hey! Can you two calm down a little? I've got enough to worry about without you squabbling over me."

At least Tom had the decency to look ashamed.

The doors murmured open to admit the Captain, and the Doctor moved over to give her an update, leaving Harry and Tom alone. "Tom-- how long has it been since we left the bridge?" Harry asked.

He visibly hesitated, unsure what to say. "About, well, nearly eight and a half hours."

Harry tried to comprehend that, and failed. "I just forgot eight and a half hours?"

"Not exactly. You only forgot about one and a half hours. You were just asleep the rest of the time." The grip on his hand tightened. "You'd better not do that again, okay? You really scared me there, buddy."

He nodded. "I'll try not to. Are you sure B'Elanna's going to be okay?"

"She'll be fine, thanks to you."

"Thanks. I love you."

"Love you too." He leaned over and kissed him gently.

The Captain cleared her throat, standing a few metres away. "Gentlemen."

Tom looked up guiltily, and Harry grinned at him before shifting his attention to the Captain.

"I've asked the Doctor to give you a neural suppressant before we board the Shilan. That's in forty minutes - do you think you'll be up to it?"

Harry nodded. There was no way he was staying here while they went onto that ship and risked doing something stupid. It should be okay, if he was getting a suppressant. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Report to Transporter Room One at 2215. Both of you; we may need your medical training, Tom."

"Aye, aye, Cap'n," Tom replied with a little smirk.

---

The air aboard the Shilan was still and heavy, and tasted stale. The ceilings in the corridors were lower than those the Voyager crew were used to, and the writing on the wall panels they passed was indecipherable. The two crewmen from Taera Lin made a comment every so often in their native language, but otherwise the walk through the halls was silent, but for footfalls and breathing. Occasionally Harry cast a tense glance at B'Elanna on his right; once Tom, on his left, caught him at it, and he shot him an equally tense smile. Tom returned it with gusto.

They reached another intersection, turned left, and continued a few metres before Harry stopped suddenly, looking round. He placed a hand on the wall, more. . . feeling it, that leaning on it.

"Harry?"

"This is where it happened," he said quietly, his voice a mere breath of awe. It was one thing to see it happen, but to be there, to actually see the place. . . it made it more real, somehow, and he suddenly felt torn between staying and working out what the wrong-vibe here was being caused by, and getting the hell outta there as quick as he damn well could.

"Where. . . what?" B'Elanna asked.

He shuddered involuntarily, pulling his hand away from the bulkhead suddenly. "Nothing. We should check out this room, I think something's calibrated wrong." He walked through the door confidently, at the same time knowing that it would open, that nothing frightening would leap out at him, as well as shying away from wondering how and why he knew. He'd been given a suppressant, it would be okay. It had to be okay, or what then?

It took only minor tinkering to prevent the explosion he'd seen. He'd been right, a relay had been calibrated too highly and a strong pulse of power could have broken through at any time. No one commented on it, though, and for that he was grateful.

"If everything's safe again, we should search for survivors," the Captain said; it was more of a question, though, Harry thought when he saw her glance at him. He nodded, and she nodded, and they quickly and efficiently organised into pairs.

He and Tom headed toward what he thought might be some sort of recreation centre - Ria and Mirran confirmed this, saying it was a sports exchange - and at some point they decided to split up briefly. Tom hesitated before parting, and asked, "You won't need me, will you?"

Everyone seemed to take it for granted that Harry would know. He did this time, but that wasn't the point. He shook his head, 'no', gave Tom a slightly-less-tense smile, and headed in a direct bee-line for nowhere in particular.

The recreation centre seemed to have been relatively empty when the propulsion had blown: there weren't the usual litter of bodies and limbs on the ground. It was big, with gymnasium equipment on one side, various sports fields, things like that. Even a garden, and a huge mirror on one wall at the end of a corridor, down which was a beam attached to the wall. There was also a limp pile of something that looked like rags next to what used to be a fountain, and he almost walked right past before his gut clenched and he realised it was a child.

Without looking, he knew what she looked like.

"Kaela?" he asked, and the bundle of rags shifted slightly. One of her legs was trapped under something, he realised, and he moved over to kneel by her. She looked up at him with big, wide, unfearing eyes.

"Hello," she said. "Did Kala send you to rescue me?"

He nodded, bringing himself to smile even as he felt like wincing. How he wished he'd never heard that name. "Do you hurt anywhere?"

"My leg. And my head. And everywhere else."

He gazed down at her, keeping her talking all the while. She was five (good speaker for her age, too), and couldn't weigh too much, although more than the metal over her leg. He knew he could move it, but he wasn't sure what would happen if he did. He'd heard cases of people being stuck under things for positively ages, and then when they were freed the blood rushed back in, gave them gangrene and killed them almost on the spot. Then he recalled how positive he'd been that he wouldn't need Tom, and decided it would be alright.

"Is that better?" he asked when he was done.

Kaela looked up at him gravely, sitting up a little to rub her leg. "It hurts more, Uncle."

He almost laughed. Someone really needed to teach the kid about Stranger Danger - although she was damn cute, really. "I'm your uncle, now, am I?"

"Of course. Every man that Kala chooses to give gifts to is an Uncle."

"What about women?"

"They're Aunts. Can we go and find my mummy now?"

"Sure, honey." He reached down and picked her up carefully, sure that even if she could walk, it would be slow and painful, and was surprised at how light she was. "But first we're going to go and see a doctor, okay?"

"Will the doctor make it stop hurting?"

"Yeah, he will. He can fix almost anything."

Anything, of course, barring death and psychic gifts from alien gods.

Harry walked back across the rec area to where he'd last seen Tom, Kaela lying trusting in his arms. About half way, he passed the corridor he'd seen earlier; impulsively, he looked down it, and froze. The mirror at the end showed him, walking down a corridor, hair gel-free and holding a child who looked about four. They were both bleeding; he from his hand, her from a gash on her forehead.

He hadn't noticed he was hurt.

God, God, oh God.

He was just about to tear himself away and continue walking, back to Tom and back to the others, anywhere but here, when something past his reflection moved. He couldn't see what it was, but somehow he knew it was bad. Something black, something shadow-like. He turned, sure it was going to jump around a corner and lurch at him, and had to wait a moment for his vision to catch up to him before he saw--

--nothing. The room was exactly as it had been before, and though it was hardly inviting, it sure wasn't housing shadowy devils. He shook his head, continuing on his way back to Tom. He was a little jumpy, that was all.

---

"Cute kid."

Harry glanced up as Tom sat beside him on the floor, reaching out to grasp his hand gently. "Hmm. I know."

"You okay? You seem a little jumpy."

"It's nothing." He sighed. "No, it's not-- It's not nothing. There's something out there, Tom. Something scary. I saw it in the rec area, I can feel it now, and, Tom, I know what it is."

"What?"

"The ziru. And don't ask me what the hell that means, because I don't know. All I know is that something woke it up, and if we can't get it to go back to sleep, we're screwed."

Tom nodded slowly. "Think it caused this?" he asked, waving at the damage around them in the Medical Unit on the Shilan.

"Maybe," Harry replied guardedly. "Or maybe whatever did this woke it. I don't know."

"Hey-- hey, love, it's okay. You got this for a reason, and you've got to know I believe in you. I'd feel a lot more worried if someone else had it. Like Chakotay."

Harry cracked a smile at that, but he still wasn't entirely convinced. "I know. It's just. . . I think I'm just working out that sometimes there's a bad side to being different."

"Yeah. Tell me about it."

---

Eventually he and Tom got sent back to Voyager to get some sleep, and after only token resistance he went quite happily. Without discussing it, they both went to Harry's quarters on Deck 6. It was one of the most central locations on the ship, so they'd be near Sickbay, the messhall, Holodeck 1, and half-way between the bridge and Engineering, should the need arise to go anywhere in a hurry.

Curled up in Tom's arms, Harry went to sleep quickly. His dreams were a mixture of the prophetic and the regular - in one (later, he couldn't tell which kind it was but for a feeling deep within his gut) Ensign Murphy held everyone in the messhall hostage and beat Ayala to death with a hot frying pan.

He awoke in a cold sweat.

Tom was shaking in his sleep.

He got his bearings back quickly, though couldn't quite shake the aftertaste of dread, dry in his mouth. After confirming his location with his internal compass, he reached over and ran a hand down Tom's face, something he knew would always wake him. Again, it worked, his eyes opening startingly sudden. "Oh, God," he said. "Oh god oh god oh god."

"Nightmares?" Harry asked softly. He knew it was, but he wanted to get Tom talking - about anything, really, except maybe his own dreams. Probably selfish, but he was fun like that.

Tom nodded. "Akriteria," he said simply. "I don't want to talk about it. Computer, what's the time?"

"The time is 0437 hours," the computer monotoned. Tom slumped down even further in bed and groaned.

"God, I'll never get back to sleep. You up for an early morning stroll?"

Harry rolled out of bed, accidentally pulling the sheets with him, and smiled as Tom yanked them back irritably. "I'm going to have a shower first. Get us some breakfast, I'll be quick."

"Okay. Chocolate fudge ripple pudding, right?"

He grinned, and shook his head. "For breakfast? I suppose, but I dread to think what my mother would say."

He came out of the shower feeling a lot better, and the chocolate fudge ripple pudding only added to that. Since they'd returned from Akriteria it had been a comfort food, pure and simple, and he couldn't help but associate it with feelings of safety and well-being.

They left his quarters just before five, and immediately he lead the way to the messhall, despite Tom's point that they'd just eaten. Just as he'd hoped, Neelix was in the kitchen. "Hey, Neelix," he said, leaning over the counter.

"Oh, hello Ensign. I was just mixing some, uh, some absolute scrumptious Devarian cookies. I didn't think anyone else would be up this early."

"We weren't sleeping all that well," Harry explained.

"There seems to be an epidemic of that tonight, doesn't there?" He put down his bowl and came over to speak in a conspiratorial whisper. "I think something's going on, Ensign. Almost everyone I've talked to so far had nightmares last night. If you ask me, that just isn't normal."

"I know. I'm on it, okay? Listen, are you going to be frying anything over the next couple of days?"

Neelix frowned, deep in thought. "Frying. . . no, I don't think so. . ."

"Great! Can I borrow your frypan? I'll bring it back tomorrow."

"Well, alright, I don't see why not." He fetched it, and Harry waved goodbye. When they were safely back in the corridor, Tom turned to him.

"So? What's going on? Why the frying pan?"

Harry merely shrugged. "I'll tell you when this is all over." They stepped into a turbolift. "Deck 11," Harry ordered.

"Engineering? What now, you're going to steal all B'Elanna's spare plasma coils?"

"Nope. I need to ask her a couple of things, and then I'm going to stash this somewhere." He raised the frypan up and then let it drop again. The doors opened, and they stepped out just outside Main Engineering.

"Har, why in God's name would B'Elanna be in Engineering at five in the morning?"

"Nightmares," he explained simply. "Work helps clear her mind, just like cooking does for Neelix." He made a beeline for her office, and Tom followed helplessly.

"Starfleet, why in God's name are you in Engineering at five in the morning?" B'Elanna asked, without looking up.

"I need to ask you a few things. And I need some #8 wire, too."

She looked up at that, and saw the frypan he was holding. "What, for the frying pan? Well, okay. What do you want to know?"

"Warp core overload. What authorisation does it need?"

"Two of Carey, myself and the Captain. But I don't see--"

"I'm not done. How about deactivation?"

"Uh, there's a seperate deactivation sequence which only the Captain and I know."

"I need a copy. Can the Captain authorise that?"

"Yeah, I suppose so. Why do you need to know this? Is something going to happen?"

"I don't know. But this is important. Okay, last question. What are you doing tonight?"

"Working, I've got the night shift."

"Not anymore. Chakotay's my next stop, I'm getting you an evening off. Come to my quarters at 2200. I'll explain then, if I can."

She gaped at him. "I have to say, Starfleet, I have no idea what you're on, but if you can get me the evening off I'll be there with bells on. #8 wire's in store room 2."

"Thanks, B. I'll be back in a few minutes." He headed for the storage lockers, still holding the frypan, and as he went he distinctly heard Tom ask,

"You got any idea what he's going on about?"

---

Later, with Tom safely at work (if 'safe' was the word to use when he was flying something that weighed 700,000 tonnes), Harry sat down at his desk and made a call to a certain location on the Taera Lin. He spoke briefly to the person who answered, then shut his console down.

Now all he had to do was wait.

Harry found himself looking over his shoulders a lot that day. Kisa had told him that the ziru's shadow would stay with him, and he was sure that several times he saw its blackened form flitting out of sight behind him. For the time being, though, it didn't seem to be doing any harm.

B'Elanna arrived on the dot of 2200, and he let her in. Tom was lying spread-eagled on his couch, but he half-sat when B'Elanna came in. "Do we get to find out what the hell's going on, now?" he asked.

Harry glanced at his watch, and set an alarm. "Some of it," he replied, sitting down at his desk and swinging the chair around to face them. "Tom, you remember how I told you that that thing that was following me was called a ziru?"

Tom nodded.

"I talked to Kisa, one of the Iskari from the Taera Lin, today. She said that the ziru is the name of one of the malicious spirits in Iskari religion. It's realm is nightmares and terror."

"That would explain why what seems like the entire ship had nightmares last night," B'Elanna observed.

"Exactly. Now, what I think happened is this. The crew of the Shilan somehow, whether it was accidental or on purpose, woke this thing up. It got inside one of them, and that person did something that caused the damage we saw. B'Elanna, how many of your staff have been on that ship in the past two days?"

"Just me and Carey."

"Have you seen him at all today?"

She shook her head. "He was working the afternoon shift. Normally I'd see him when I went in, but you got me tonight off, so I don't know where he is. I think he might be pulling an extra shift, I heard someone say something like that."

"That's what I thought." He glanced at his watch again. "Okay, we've still got some time. The ziru. Kisa said you can drive it out by heat. Tom, were any of the bodies from the Shilan burned?"

"Just one, a guy Carey found. He died just after they got him to the Medical Unit."

"The warp core overload," B'Elanna said. "That's why you wanted to know. But, wait. That won't work - there's buffers in the system to avoid the ship overheating. The temperature might go up a few degrees, but nothing near enough to do any damage, not unless you ran some kind of conductor through the system. Even then, you'd have to be touching it to be affected."

"It doesn't matter. Computer, what's the location of the Captain?"

"The Captain is in Main Engineering."

B'Elanna's eyes widened. "She was going to do an inspection. I forgot to cancel!"

"Good. We need her down there anyway." His alarm beeped, and he turned it off. "Okay, we're ready. Tom, you're going to need to grab an emergency medkit as we go in, there's one right by the door."

He was silent as he led them down to Deck 11, and they seemed to pick up on his mood, for neither of them asked him anything futher. That suited him: it gave him time to think over the situation. However, no matter what direction his thoughts led him they always returned to one unanswerable question.

=Shit, can I really do this?=

Outside the turbolift, he almost couldn't force himself to go any further, scared of what he might see. What if he was too late? There might be nothing he could do, he might just be leading his best friend and his lover into a death-trap. But he knew that he'd never be able to stop them now - if he told them to wait outside, they'd just follow him in. "B'Elanna?" he asked impulsively. "Aside from Carey and the Captain, how many people should be in there right now?"

She frowned. "Three or four, probably."

Not too many deaths, then. That was a small relief. "Okay. Tom, be on the lookout for them. Beam them to Sickbay if you need to." He didn't add that he thought it wouldn't help.

He managed to summon up the final shreds of his courage, and moved forward into the range of the doors. They slid open upon a scene of utter carnage.

He was vaguely aware of Tom hurrying past him to find the medkit. He was aware, also, that B'Elanna was staring round the main entrance of Engineering at the remains of her night staff. But he forced himself not to notice it himself. Instead, he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward a lift. "When we get to the Captain, initiate the overload," he ordered, pausing only for her stunned nod. "And then get the hell outta here."

He saw Carey before Carey saw them. The man was standing over a console, the Captain tied up at his feet with - ironically - #8 wire. She'd been struggling; her wrists were bleeding. Her eyes flicked to them, and Harry thought he saw a flash of hope.

They managed to get about halfway towards them before Carey looked up and spotted them. Immediately, he and B'Elanna both had phasers out and aimed. There was a moment, just one moment, where no one moved. Later, Harry thought that no one had even breathed.

Then Carey fired.

The phaser was set on a wide beam, Tuvok reported later, so if it had been operating perfectly Harry and B'Elanna would both have been killed instantly. However, Harry had had the presence of mind to earlier approach Tuvok and ask him to set up a dampening field to prevent hand weapons from firing. It had taken some talking, but it had paid off.

Now, he took advantage of Carey's momentary confusion to lunge at him, knocking him over to the floor. Out of the corner of his eye he saw B'Elanna untying the Captain, and he just had time to hope they'd get out of the way after they initiated the overload before Carey started fighting back.

Good. Now all he had to do was get Carey over to where he wanted him to be, when he wanted him to be there. And all he had to do to do that was to make sure Carey didn't overwhelm him.

Carey managed to roll over, get on top of him, and he instinctively did something he hadn't done in years. He used an old judo trick to get the bigger man off him. Then he leaped to his feet, vaguely aware of an ache in his back, and circled round until he was on the other side of his opponent.

From then on, the fight became a bizarre kind of tournament, with the ship as the prize. Engineering was the hall where he'd learned judo as a teenager; Carey morphed into his old rival, Hang Ju. Hang lunged at him, and Harry flipped him over his arm in a move that wasn't technically a legal throw, but which no judge had done him for yet. Then he fell on top of him, sliding an arm around his neck to grab his own thigh, and pinning Hang's arm across his chest. "Makura-kesagatame," he whispered. "Scarf-hold with a twist."

Hang stared up at him, then finally replied, "No one has ever crossed me and lived to dance about it, outsider." The words were spoken in what sounded like Iskari, but Harry heard them, in his head, in plain English. He knew it had nothing to do with the universal translators.

"I could say the same thing," Harry told him. Hang snarled, and fought to push him off, but Harry simply leaned back to gradually force the air out of his opponent's lungs.

"The warp core will overload in four minutes," Hang rasped. "Your ship will be destroyed."

Harry eased off on the man's lungs, leaned closer to his face until he was within kissing distance. "We have time," he murmured.

Suddenly, Hang pushed him off, and he only just managed to jump back out of reach again. His opponent had just tried to punch him, and when his fist connected only with empty air he stumbled a little. "Ah, ah," Harry scolded him. "That's against the rules." He was extremely aware now of the edge of the mat behind him, maybe five metres away. He had to get Hang over there in the next two minutes.

Hang lunged again, and he dropped to his knees and used a foot to propel him over his head. The man hadn't been practicing; instead of folding neatly into a roll, he landed near the railings with a thud, and nearly fell over the edge. Harry sidled closer, breathing harder now, and mentally measured the distance between Carey and the frypan. Three metres. Soon he'd see it, and he wouldn't be able to resist having an extra weapon in this fight.

Hang stared up at him from the pale green mats. "You think you're smart, fadisha. But even you cannot beat me." He pulled himself up on the railings and surveyed him coolly. "Fight me and die. But if you join me, we could rule forever. That is a long time, outsider."

Harry started edging round, forcing Hang to turn to keep an eye on him. Soon. . . "If I joined you, there'd be no one to protect my ship. You'd destroy it."

"Yes," Hang said. "I would. And that is the magic of it." He lunged again, and Harry pulled back quickly. They were one metre away, and it was only a matter of seconds--

--there! He caught a look of triumph in his opponent's eyes, and knew he'd seen the weapon, just sitting there, waiting to be taken. He took a few steps backward to allow Carey better access to it.

The man grabbed it, and was about to bring it down on Harry's head with a loud warcry when suddenly his yell of victory became a scream of pain. Harry tried not to watch as a man he'd worked with for three years fell to his knees, crying out in agony as his insides simmered and burned, but found himself unable to look away. Even that would not have kept out the smell of sizzling flesh, putrid and toxic.

He remained, half-crouching, for a full minute, until long after Carey had stopped screaming, stopped moving; until the computer beeped. "Warp core overload in two minutes," it warned him. He hadn't heard the other warnings, but was grateful for this one. He tore himself away, ran to the nearest console, entered the override code.

When everything was safe, he quietly collapsed to the ground and vomited.

---

"It was like you said," he told B'Elanna later, after everything had calmed down and he'd recovered from the shock. He was wrapped in a blanket on his couch, drinking hot chocolate in Tom's arms. None of the engineering staff had survived the incident, Carey had literally torn them to pieces, but it could have been worse. If B'Elanna had gone in at the beginning of her shift he would have done it all then, when there were twenty odd people there, rather than when the Captain came in three hours later, when there were only four. "I used the frying pan as a heat conductor, it was wired into the system with the #8. Actually, I wouldn't have thought of it, except that one of the ziru's dreams - the regular ones, not the prophetic kind - had Murphy beating Ayala up with a hot frying pan. So I borrowed one from Neelix and hooked it in. The overload caused it to heat up, and when Carey grabbed it all the excess heat flowed right through it into him."

"I don't get it," Tom said. "How could you be sure he'd be up there? Or that he wouldn't just comm the Captain and ask her to go down there? He didn't have to wait three hours."

"He wanted everything to look normal. It was part of a rigid technique that the ziru uses. I just used it against him. I think I always knew, but I called Kisa and she just confirmed it all for me. As to why he was up there. . ." He shrugged. "I just knew, I guess." He laughed, a little bitterly. "I swear, I'm never going to sleep again. Or at least, not until after the memorial."

"I'll drink to that," Tom answered cheerfully, then became serious again. "I don't think things are ever going to be the same around her again. I mean, shit's happened before, but this just tops it all."

Harry nodded. "I know I'm never going to forget it." He snuggled in closer to Tom, and asked sleepily, "You know what would be great right now?"

Tom grinned, and they both said in unison: "Chocolate fudge ripple pudding!"

---

End