The BLTS Archive - Moving On
Ninth in the Parallel Voyage series
by Jeffrey Harlan (lead_ink@yahoo.com)

---

I piloted the shuttlecraft away from Voyager. For the last time, part
of me said. I could feel the energy of my powers building within me,
threatening to explode. It felt incredible, even exhilarating. But I
was still somewhat scared, nonetheless. If I was still too close to
Voyager when whatever it was that was happening to me happened, I
could kill all of my friends, all of my loved ones, in the process.

Voyager was still in Borg space. Still in danger. I had to help them.
Had to move them -- get them away, out of danger. I had to help them
get home, get them back to the Federation.

I concentrated, putting all of my energy into moving them, and said,
"My gift to you." A thought, a heartbeat later, they were gone. And so
was I, in a flash of white light.

I was everywhere. I was nowhere. Was this what Tom felt when he
crossed the transwarp threshold? But my body was gone, vanished, as
was the shuttlecraft in which I'd been mere moments ago. Or was it
moments ago? I was alone. Or was I? I could sense something else, a
presence -- something _other_ -- with me. Around me. In me. Wherever
it was that I was.

Time passed. Or did it? Things were so confusing in this place that
was no place. I grew to be afraid of the other, not knowing,
understanding, or comprehending what it was. I tried communicating
with it, but got no response. Could it not understand me? Was it
ignoring me? Or was it plotting against me, planning to destroy me?

I had to get back to Voyager -- where was it? How much time had
passed? Would they take me back in? Or would they push me away again?

Again? _Did_ they push me away before, or was that just my
imagination? Neelix always said that I had a vivid imagination.

How did I move Voyager? I just thought about it, and it happened.
Think about Voyager. That's all there is to this place -- thought.

I had to concentrate. _Voyager_.

Suddenly, there was another flash of light, like before. I looked
around. I was home. Or was I? Something didn't feel right -- a nagging
sensation at the back of my consciousness, whispering for attention.
The others, recovering from the shock of my sudden appearance, greeted
me. But there was something odd. Something didn't feel right. I had a
body again, somehow. But that wasn't it.

Time passed. So much was different here. This couldn't be Voyager. It
must be in my head.

I tried again, concentrating on Voyager. In another flash of light, I
was there, on the bridge. The others were smiling, their shock having
turned to astonishment, then into joy, just as before. But those
uniforms -- the uniforms were _wrong_. This _couldn't_ be Voyager. I
tried again.

Yet another flash. Yet another Voyager that wasn't quite Voyager. The
strain of constantly trying to reach Voyager and always ending up
somewhere not _quite_ Voyager was beginning to take its toll. This
wasn't Voyager, either. Keep trying.

A flash. The bridge. The strain was too much. Even before the flash
had disappeared, I collapsed to the deck, unconscious, behind Tom's
chair.

When I awoke, the Doctor was standing over me. I was in sickbay. The
others were there, eager to greet me. But where was the captain? Where
did this medical staff -- with obvious years of experience in their
minds and movements -- come from?

Someone was pregnant -- I could feel it in the mind of the mother. It
was Seven of Nine, the Borg drone Voyager had rescued from her
enslavement in the Collective before I'd left. She was going to marry
the father. Harry Kim. _Harry_. And something had happened to the
captain.

No. Not again. But I was too weak to leave like before.

Time passed, like it usually does. I met Janeway -- in the brig for
leading a ring of saboteurs aboard her own ship. I had respected and
admired this woman -- or, at least, her counterpart in reality -- for
so much of my life. Even if this wasn't real, though, it still hurt.
Did that mean something?

I caught up on old times with old friends. Even if this wasn't real, I
still needed companionship and interaction with other people to stay
sane. Assuming I _was_ still sane, of course. Still, if I could ask
that question, didn't _that_ mean something?

I met people who had joined the crew after I'd left for wherever it
was that I had been. As I spent more time aboard, things began to feel
more right. More real. Soon, the day of Harry and Seven's wedding came
and went.

At Tuvok's suggestion, I began using Vulcan meditation techniques to
get to the heart of whatever it was that was going on. I took my mind
back to the day I left Voyager, the first time. My perceptions were so
cloudy; I had to find out where I'd been if I wanted to know where I
was at.

Suddenly, days later, everything became clear. I saw Voyager. When I
moved it, it split into several other Voyagers -- some moved further
than others, some not at all. All of those Voyagers constantly split
again. Some of those still in Borg space were assimilated. Some
weren't.

Everything that could possibly affect Voyager -- events, phenomena,
decisions, _everything_ -- split the various Voyagers still further.
This Voyager, all the Voyagers I'd been on, and countless others
still, were real. They were _all_ real. I was crossing the boundaries
of time as well as space, moving between parallel timelines. I
_wasn't_ insane. And this new body -- somehow I'd created it with my
mind.

But this wasn't the home I wanted. Even after Tieran no longer
controlled my body, I hadn't resumed my old relationship with Neelix
because I realized that I wasn't in love with him anymore. It wasn't
until after I experienced a possible future in which I'd married Tom
that I discovered that the person I really loved was Harry. But I
didn't move fast enough, and the next thing I knew, I was noncorporeal
and no longer aboard Voyager. And now, on this Voyager, he was married
to someone else. I had to find another timeline -- one in which I
could be with him.

---
Stardate 53860.6
---

Yet another flash of light. I was growing used to the routine. At
least I'd managed to reduce the level of the sound caused by my
appearances through practice. The crew of the last Voyager I met said
I almost sounded like a Q when I popped in. I still don't know how I
should take that.

I looked around. I was in the briefing room, alone. I stepped toward
the doors leading to the ship's equivalent of a central nervous system
-- the bridge -- where I could feel the minds of nearly all of my old
friends. The doors parted, to reveal Tuvok and two other security
guards, their phasers drawn.

"Kes," Tuvok said, an eyebrow raised in astonishment. "I did not
expect to see you again."

"Hello, Tuvok," I said, smiling. The three guards moved away from the
door, allowing me to step onto the bridge. All eyes turned to me,
shocked. Everyone was at their regular posts, save Tuvok, of course...
and Harry. Where was he?

"Kes," Janeway said, rising slowly and deliberately from her chair.
"Welcome back."

Every time, it was like this. The others would gape at me in shock --
and why shouldn't they? As far as they were concerned, I'd been as
good as dead for nearly three years. For me, though -- I'd been on one
Voyager or another for nearly six months since I first realized that
I'd been traveling across timelines like my friends did space.

They all took turns greeting me again. Well, again for me, not them.
It was almost becoming routine, although they never did say quite the
same thing twice. I tried to suppress a laugh, and it came out as
something of a cross between a grunt and a snort. If anyone noticed,
they said nothing of it.

"Excuse me," I said, finally asking the question that had been at the
forefront of my thoughts almost from the moment I stepped onto the
bridge. "Where's Harry?"

"That's," Janeway began, uncomfortably, "that's a long story. I think
it would be better if we discussed it privately. But not right now."
She turned to the ensign at the Ops station. "Ensign, arrange quarters
for Kes. I believe her old quarters should still be available."

"Aye, captain," said the ensign -- I didn't recognize her, nor did I
know her name.

---

That evening, I sat in my old quarters -- or, at least, the old
quarters of my counterpart from this Voyager. There were differences
from the history I remembered; I wasn't from this Voyager's root
timeline. There were people who had been aboard this Voyager since
prior to her entry into the Delta Quadrant, but not on the Voyager
from the timeline I had known -- the ensign at Ops being one of
several.

I'd explained where I came from not long after my quarters had been
"reassigned" to me. Some took the news in stride, like Tuvok. Others,
like Neelix, were a bit confused. Janeway said something about a
headache, but I could tell she was putting on a show -- she understood
more than she let on about temporal mechanics; she just didn't like
paradoxes.

The door to my quarters chimed, startling me. I'd been so lost in
thought, I hadn't sensed anyone approach my door.

"Come in, Neelix," I said. The doors parted, and he stepped into the
main room, a box in his arms.

"How did you know it was me at the door?" he asked.

"I'm telepathic," I replied. "I could sense your mind outside the
door."

"Oh, I see," he said, looking away with a twinge of apprehension. Was
he _scared_ of me? No, I think he was just uncomfortable with my
abilities -- I'm not the same Kes he remembers. He set the box on a
table near the windows. "I saved all of your things after you... after
you left. I'd always hoped you'd come back someday."

"Thank you, Neelix," I said. He opened the box, and we began to
redecorate my quarters, sharing stories about our time together before
my counterpart left.

I guess this Voyager wasn't _that_ different, after all.

---

Not long after I came aboard this Voyager, we encountered the
homeworld of a once-flourishing people. Tragically, it was also
located near a Borg transwarp conduit. The planet had been ransacked
by passing Borg ships countless times over the past few centuries.

Somehow, though, the inhabitants survived, and were able to keep the
Borg at bay, but the price was high. These people had reverted to a
near-pre-industrial existence, with virtually no interaction with the
interstellar community.

We were drawn to this world because of a child. Some time before I
arrived, Voyager encountered a disabled Borg cube -- the only
survivors were six partially-assimilated children, one of them only an
infant. The oldest, Icheb, was from this world. Joe Carey had taken
the boy in. Over the past several weeks, Joe had become Icheb's
surrogate father, the two growing to be dependent upon one another.
From the start, Joe had made a connection with Icheb, saying the boy
reminded him of his oldest son, Tyler, back on Earth. Icheb's natural
abilities in astrophysics were praised and nurtured by Voyager's
assistant chief of engineering.

And now, Janeway wanted to break them up.

I could hear Joe's argument with Janeway in her ready room. Not with
my ears, as I was several decks below in my quarters, but in my mind.

I wasn't trying to listen in on their conversation, but when you have
something projected as strongly as Joe was projecting, it's nearly
impossible to block out, unless you have the mental discipline of a
Vulcan or the training of a Betazoid. I had neither, so I heard
everything.

"Captain," Joe exclaimed, "we can't just leave him there!"

"Lieutenant," I heard her reply through his mind, "you knew from the
beginning that, ultimately, we would be returning these children to
their families and cultures."

"But I don't _trust_ them," he said. "Something about Icheb's father's
story about how he was assimilated doesn't add up. And you saw the
looks on their faces when they found out he was still alive and no
longer Borg."

"They were in shock," Janeway said. "They didn't expect to ever see
their child again."

"I don't think that was it," Joe said. "It looked to me like they had
just been caught doing something they shouldn't have been doing. I
can't tell you how _many_ times I saw that look on my kids' faces back
home. His mother even looked _disappointed_ to see him. How can you
_explain_ something like that?"

Janeway paused for a very long moment. Joe was terrified for the boy,
and only _wished_ that she could feel it, too. Because of my
telepathic abilities, _I_ knew what he felt. It was only fair that
Janeway did, too. It probably wasn't very ethical, but I decided to
give events a little nudge. I created a very subtle empathic bridge
between them.

"L-lieutenant," she said a moment later, "go meet with B'Elanna. Maybe
there's something in the data she downloaded from the cube's memory
that can help us."

---

We found Icheb's parents as they were about to launch a small ship
with a false warp signature toward the transwarp conduit. Icheb was
aboard, unconscious. As it turned out, his parents had
genetically-engineered him from conception to be a living weapon to
use against the Borg.

It took three security guards to restrain Joe when we saw Icheb's
parents again. In the end, they didn't put up much of a fight when Joe
said that he was taking the boy back, permanently. Joe didn't voice
his suspicions, but I could tell that he was certain that, sooner or
later -- and probably sooner -- they'd try it again with another
genetically-engineered infant.

All in all, a fairly eventful first three days in this timeline. But I
still hadn't seen Harry. Part of me was almost afraid to, after what
Janeway had told me shortly before the incident with Icheb's parents
began.

A year ago, he, Seven of Nine, and Jill Hendersen had been abducted by
a reptilian species and forced to engage in sexual relations. When
Voyager was finally able to rescue them, both women were pregnant.

Neither woman had chosen to abort her pregnancy. Jill had felt that it
was akin to murdering a child and refused. Seven never revealed her
reasoning. Two months ago, the children were born, mere days apart.

Neither Jill, Seven, nor Harry were fit for duty any longer, since the
emotional damage had been so severe. Jill was doing better than either
Seven or Harry, though. Her boyfriend since two months before their
abduction, Ensign Daniel McKenzie, remained at her side, supporting
her. He even took in the child as his own, without reservation.

Harry had felt guilty ever since, about both their capture and its
consequences. He had tried to reconcile with Seven -- apparently, even
proposing marriage -- but she remained aloof, continually rebuffing
him -- going so far as to attempt to be even more emotionless than a
Vulcan.

I pressed the door chime panel. Soon thereafter, Harry stood across
from me in the doorway. He looked terrible, and his mind was in chaos.

---
Stardate 53942.8
---

Over a month's course, I became the ship's de facto counselor, and
turned some unused quarters into my office. I had regular sessions
with Harry, Seven, Jill, and Icheb. Other crewmembers would frequently
stop by, seeking advice, usually on their relationships.

I'd made great progress with my four regular patients, but Seven was
giving me the most trouble. I felt a young mind stirring to
wakefulness, and walked across the sickbay nursery to the occupied
crib. I lifted the auburn-haired infant into my arms, then made a
funny noise and face at the child. She laughed, then reached out,
grabbing at my hair.

The door to the makeshift nursery in sickbay slid open and Seven
entered the room. "Thank you for watching Katie," she said as she took
her three-month-old daughter from my arms, cradling the infant in her
own.

"I'm happy to help," I said. "How's Harry?"

"He is... better," she said. I could sense that she hadn't actually
spoken to him at all in nearly a week. "The Doctor believes he is fit
to resume his bridge duties."

"I'm glad to hear that," I said. "And how are _you_ doing?"

"I am well," she said, "although adjusting to life as a parent is...
difficult."

"That's not surprising," I said. "I'm sure Harry feels the same."

"He doesn't have to share quarters," she said bitterly, "with a child
that wakes up crying every night."

"He wants to," I said softly. "He loves you, and he loves your
daughter. I understand he's asked you to marry him _three_ _times_,
yet you keep rejecting him. Why?"

"The child is _my_ responsibility," she said, avoiding the question.
"He is merely the father, as he is also the father of Crewman
Hendersen's son."

"She isn't isolating herself from the crew any longer, though," I
countered. "She's agreed to marry Ensign McKenzie, and she's going to
go back on duty soon. She and Harry are both recovering. You're not."

"Hardly," she said imperiously. "Emotions are irrelevant. They impede
efficiency and interfere--"

"You're scared," I said, startling her with my blunt interruption.
"You can't lie to me. I'm a telepath, remember? You told him once that
you love him. He never forgot that. But when he tried to get close to
you, you shut yourself off from him and everyone else that cared about
you."

"They are irrelev--"

"Stop that," I snapped, my own anger beginning to burn inside of me.
Why was I _helping_ her form a relationship with Harry? She didn't
_deserve_ someone like him! I paused, trying to regain my composure.
Because this Harry loves _her_, I told myself. "I've tried talking to
you. I've tried helping you. But I can only do so much. You've got to
help yourself, too, and lately you haven't been helping much of
anything. In fact, you've only been making things worse for yourself
and everyone around you."

Seven stared at me, furious. But she couldn't come up with a retort to
my argument. She turned on her heel and stormed out of sickbay with
Katie, fuming.

---

Two days later, Harry returned to duty as Voyager's chief of
Operations, albeit part-time. At the moment, however, we were eating
lunch in the mess hall. "Have you spoken with Seven at all, lately?" I
asked.

"Not since last week," he said, stabbing something purple on his plate
with a fork. He stuffed it into his mouth, chewed for a while, then
added with a wry grin, "I'm starting to think she's avoiding me."

A moment later, Seven entered the mess hall, Katie resting lazily in
her arm. At least I'd gotten her to stop carrying the baby around like
a sack of grain. She noticed us and stopped a few paces from the
doors, but before she could make a hasty retreat, Neelix was ushering
her into the room, approaching our table. Soon, he had seated Seven
between Harry and myself, then rushed back into the kitchen to get
some food for Seven and a bottle for Katie. I'd have to thank him
later; I'd been trying to get the two of them together for three days.

"Hello, Seven," I said after Neelix left. "We were just talking about
you."

"Indeed," she said dismissively. Harry was looking at his infant
daughter, not sure what to do, what to say, or where things would go.

"Seven," I continued, "why don't you let Harry hold Katie? I can tell
just by looking at him that he wants to."

"I am responsible for the child's welfare," Seven said, tightening her
grip on Katie, almost imperceptibly so. "I will not allow--"

"He's her father," I said. "And she's going to need him just as much
as he needs her." Our eyes locked. I refused to let this pass, and
finally, she relented. Harry stood, then gently scooped his daughter
from Seven's arms.

"Hey, beautiful," he said to the infant. "It's been too long since we
did this." As Harry continued to play with his daughter, Neelix
returned with a plateful of food like what Harry had been eating
earlier, then set it before Seven.

"What is that?" she asked.

"Stewed Arveborderain sea beast," Neelix replied. "It's quite the
delicacy among the Arveborderain people."

"Try it, Seven," Harry said, the first words they'd shared in ten
days. "You'll like it; it's really not that bad."

---
Stardate 53962.0
---

A week passed. Something happened when Seven and Harry started talking
again that day in the mess hall. In a week's time, she turned
completely around. She and Harry spent nearly all of their free time
together, and yesterday, something significant happened.

I still didn't know what that was, though. The two could shield their
thoughts quite well, when they wanted to. Not that I'd deliberately
pry into their minds without permission. I could still feel their
presence, but I couldn't "hear" their thoughts.

Tom knew something too, but he wasn't talking. Still, that impish grin
plastered on his face whenever Harry or Seven were in the same room
with him spoke volumes. _Something_ was going on.

My attention turned back to where I was when the music started. Organ
music, traditional to Earth. The wedding march began to fill the mess
hall cum wedding chapel. The doors parted and Jill Hendersen --
looking like she was glowing in her elegant white gown -- entered the
room. This reminded me of Harry's wedding with Seven on another one of
the timelines I'd visited.

The ceremony went beautifully, but my attention kept drifting. I
couldn't stay here any longer. I'd helped the others recover, like I
said I would. Now that job was done, and Harry and Seven were even
more closely together than before.

Of course, I'd seen the two together on so many other timelines, as if
they were fated for one another. But it wasn't always that way. I'd
also seen timelines in which Harry was with B'Elanna or the captain --
even Tom. I even remember seeing a possible future before I left
Voyager the first time, where I was married to Tom and our daughter
was married to Harry. But those timelines seemed to be few and far
between, and, so far, never one where Harry loved _me_. I tried not to
think about it.

---

After the ceremony was over and the party following it well underway,
Harry and Seven -- hand-in-hand, I noted -- made their way through the
crowded room to the table where I was sitting, alone.

"Kes," Harry said, "We wanted to thank you. For everything."

"I'm just glad to help you, Harry," I said.

"We wanted you to be the first to know," he said, apparently taking
the "you" as plural, not singular, "that Seven and I are getting
married. Unfortunately, Tom walked around the corner right after I
proposed, so _he_ was the first to know." That explained Tom's
behavior today. Harry stopped, looking at me with a concerned
expression on his face. "Kes? Is something wrong?"

"No," I lied. "I'm fine. I'm happy for you both."

He wasn't convinced. "Seven," he said, "why don't you check on Katie.
Naomi may need your help with her." She looked at him dubiously, then
turned and made her way back to the other side of the room. "Okay,
Kes," he continued, "what is it?"

"It's not important," I said. He didn't believe that, either. I know
I'm a terrible liar, but it's even worse with Harry. He can see right
through me, and he's not even telepathic.

"Kes," he said, half-sternly. He reminded me of my father when he did
that. I couldn't lie to him either, but at least that was because my
father was a telepath.

"I'm leaving this timeline," I said after a moment's hesitation.

"Why?" he asked.

"What I'm looking for isn't here," I said.

"What _are_ you looking for?" he asked.

"I," I began, "I love you, Harry. That's why I'm jumping from timeline
to timeline. I'm looking for one where we can be together."

His jaw dropped. After a moment, he regained his composure, then said,
"You -- you love me? And you _still_ helped me get together with
Seven?"

"She makes you happy," I said. "That's more important."

"I don't think I could have done that," he said. His eyes belied the
sudden surge of emotions going through his mind -- surprise,
amazement... even guilt. He looked down at his hands, folded and
resting on the table between us. I knew he could have; he was just
that kind of a man -- he just couldn't see himself like I saw him. A
long and tense moment later, he looked up at me again.

"Besides," I said, looking into his eyes, "if I tried to take her
place, it wouldn't be fair to any of us. Not to you, not to her, not
to me, and not to the Harry Kim in a timeline where you love me as
much as I do you. There's a big multiverse out there -- and,
theoretically, there's a timeline for anything you can imagine. I can
imagine myself with you quite easily, so I have faith that I'll find
what I'm looking for soon enough."

"I hope you find it, too," he said.

---

I waited two more weeks before I left this Voyager -- long enough to
attend another wedding of Harry Kim and Seven of Nine. He said I
didn't have to be there, in light of my feelings for him. But I knew
that it would be one of his happiest days, that it would mean very
much to him. I wanted to be there to see and feel his joy before I
left. I assured him that it was all right for him to continue with his
life and, in fact, I encouraged him to do so. After a while, he became
more comfortable with the situation and was able to concentrate on his
life with Seven.

The wedding was a blend of the standard Starfleet and traditional
human ceremonies. Seven, escorted down the mess hall's makeshift aisle
by the Doctor, wore an elegant white dress. B'Elanna held Katie, while
Tom served as Harry's best man, and Janeway conducted the ceremonies.

After the ceremony ended, after the partying died down, I waited
still. When the mess hall had emptied and the others all had said
their goodbyes to me with a mix of sadness and curiosity, still I was
there.

And in a flash of light, I was gone, searching for a universe that I
could call home.

---

The End