by anneinchicago
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Paramount owns everything Star Trek; I own this story and ten ferrets.

A missing scene from the episode "The Killing Game".

Set in my usual universe where Tom and Harry have been together since the episode "Caretaker".

Feedback is always welcome; flames not so much.

And boy, does this need a better title.

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"How is he?" Harry Kim smoothed back the hair from Tom Paris' forehead.

"He's dead, Ensign," The EMH snapped, turning from the sheet-shrouded body on the biobed before him, and toward Harry. "How else would he be?" The EMH studied the young Ensign standing opposite him and his holographic expression softened. "You look terrible, Ensign." And it was true.

Harry Kim had, before, always been the very model of Starfleet required neatness, but now? Now his uniform was stained and torn, his skin, normally a warm gold, was instead sallow and pale, his eyes ringed by smudges so dark as to appear to be bruises and his hair, normally gelled back into an rigid approximation of perfection, hung now instead in lank, greasy locks.

"Gee," Harry tried, and failed, for a smile, "thanks, Doc. Been working on that bedside manner of yours, I see."

"There hasn't been much call for that lately, I' afraid." The EMH glanced around the crowded Sickbay. "There's no one left to care but you." He shook his head. "When was the last time you ate or slept, Ensign?"

Harry shrugged, wincing at the pain it caused in his dislocated shoulder. "Beats me, Doc. It's not as if they're letting me keep regular hours."

"Then I guess I'll have to try and remind them then." The EMH picked up a mediscanner. "Tell them that, if they want you to keep running Voyager for them, they'll have to start being more understanding of your all-too human frailities."

Harry leaned back against Tom's biobed. stocially enduring the mediscanner's inquisitive hum. "Somehow, Doc, I don't think they're going to care." Reaching behind him, he took Tom's cold, limp hand in his. "Do you know what happened. . ?"

"He fell on his sword, Ensign, rather than be captured." The EMH snapped the scanner closed. "It seems our friends have discovered the delights of old Earth's Roman-style circuses." He nodded grimly toward two occupied biobeds in the far corner. "Neelix appears to have been first cruxified, then burnt; Chell to have been mauled apart by what I am assuming were bears."

Harry closed his eyes and blew out a short, unhappy puff of air. "And here I thought the Klingon inter-tribal wars were bad."

"I'm sure the Hirogen will continue to surprise us, Ensign. They seem to be quite. . . inventive." The EMH set the medscanner aside. "And with all of the Federation's historical databases to chose from, not to mention the ones we've picked up here in the Delta Quadrant. . ." His lips thinned.

"I wish we had had the time to do more of a purge," Harry sighed.

"Hindsight is always 20-20," The EMH said tartly, picking up another tool, a regenerator this time. "You have three broken ribs- which is why you're having trouble breathing- a broken cheekbone. . ." He touched the raised, purple swelling beneath Harry's left eye. "And a dislocated shoulder. Which would you prefer I fix first?"

"You're the Doc, Doc." Harry shook his head. "I'll leave it up to you."

The EMH flicked on the regenerator and began working on Harry's ribs. "Have you had any luck. . ?" He spoke now in pig-Latin rather than Standard, the Hirogen translators seemingly unable to make neither head nor tail of the ancient made-up Earth language.

"Not yet." Harry said, replying in kind. "But the back-up plan is in place." His brown eyes met those of the EMH. "I've begun downloading the self-destruct codes to your central core."

"No." The EMH stopped what he was doing. "I can't do that. I won't do that!"

"You might have to, Doc," Harry said. "If there's no other choice."

The EMH stiffened. "There has to be another way. There has to be."

"And if there isn't?" Harry took a deep breath. "Remember your Oath, Doc? To first do no harm? Well. . ." He indicated all of Sickbay with one wave of his uninjured hand. "I'd say that you haven't exactly been living up to that part of your programming, now have you?"

"That was unneccesary, Ensign," The EMH said. "You know I haven't exactly been given the choice. . ."

"And you might not be given the choice in this matter either, Doc." Harry's fingers tightened around Tom's unresponsive ones. "Do you really want the crew to live out the rest of their lives as prey, Doc? To spend the rest of eternity being nothing more than toys for the Hirogen to torment and kill?"

"No. Of course not." The Doctor looked affronted.

"You said it yourself, Doc. Their neural pathways are starting to degrade. Soon they will be nothing more than what the Hirogen program them to be. Nothing more than. . ."

"There has to be another solution."

"And if there isn't?"

"Then I will do what I have to do," The EMH said, "to ensure the health and safety of this crew. My programming requires I do nothing less."

"That's all I'm asking you to do, Doc."

The two were quiet now, the silence broken only by the sound of Harry's ragged breathing and the overtaxed hum of the regenerator.

"There," the EMH said, speaking once again in Standard. "All done."

"For now," said Harry, rolling his shoulder experimentally. "Thanks, Doc. It feels much better."

"I would certainly hope so," said the EMH with only a half-hearted trace of his former, irritating smugness. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Ensign, there are other. . . Well, I guess I can't exactly call them patients, now can I?"

"But that's exactly what they are, Doc. Patients. Under your care." Harry's eyes once again met those of the Doctor.

"I understand, Ensign. And you're right. As much as I hate to admit it. . ." The EMH set the regenerator down on a nearby tray. "By the way, Ensign, Lieutenant Paris isn't due to be reprogrammed for another ten minutes or so. Would you'd like to stay. . ?"

Harry smiled. "Thanks, Doc." The EMH turned to go and Harry bent to brush a light kiss on Tom's cheek. "Hey, baby," he said, no longer caring if the EMH were listening or not. "I'm sorry I haven't been by the last few times you were here, but our guests have been keeping me pretty busy."

Harry lifted Tom's hand and began to kiss each loosely curled finger in turn. "The Doc and I have come up with a plan- to retake the ship if possible, but if not. . ."

Harry placed a last kiss in the middle of Tom's palm. "Either way we'll be together again, baby, I promise you. Until then, here's a kiss for you to keep." He curved Tom's fingers back protectively over the spot. "Remember me, baby. . . Remember us, if you can."

He tucked Tom's arm back down under the sheet that covered the rest of his lover's body. "I love you," he said quietly, then turned and walked out of Sickbay and back into the nightmare that had so recently become his life.

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End