Own The Day

By Laura Schiller

Based on Star Trek: Voyager

Copyright: Paramount

"There's something I always wanted to ask you," said Lyndsay. "Why me?"

"I'm sorry?"

Captain Janeway looked up quizzically, her commbadge glinting silver against her navy blue shirt. She looked so ordinary across that table; just a middle-aged woman with her golden-brown hair cut short into a serviceable bob. Like someone's mother rather than the formidable Captain of the U.S.S. Voyager.

If she were wearing her uniform, Lyndsay wondered, would I still have gone and asked her that? All the same, after simmering in the back of her mind for two years, the question had to be asked.

"Why did you send me to go on that away mission?"

The Captain shrugged and ducked her head, slightly flustered by such a direct cut to the heart of the matter – a few moments ago, after all, they'd been exchanging quips about the Captain's disastrous attempt at pot roast.

"I suppose I thought you were best suited for the job."

"No, I wasn't!" Lyndsay's temper began to bubble up under her skin, ready to explode. "Lieutenant Torres is the expert on dilithium extraction – Tuvok has so much more experience at heading away missions, so why choose me? Was it because they were closer to you?" Because you'd care more if they got killed?

The Captain's eyes softened. "I understand if you blame me," she said, in her most motherly tone. "Lyndsay – "

"No!" Lyndsay threw up her hands, struggling for something to say. "You don't understand – "

She was angry, and she hardly knew why; she wanted to slap this unflappable woman, but the Kobali part of her was telling her she shouldn't. "Never harbor anger toward those who brought you death," she quoted, grasping for the old Kobali saying in a wild attempt to vent her confusion. "For they gave you new life!"

The Captain stared at her in shock, as if she were some kind of zoo animal – bringing her bizarre alien notions to a table set with human peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Not to mention shouting at a superior officer. It was too absurd.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, jumping up. "I shouldn't have come."

"Ensign!"

Captain Janeway's hand on her shoulder, combined with her sharpest command voice, made Lyndsay stop in her tracks and turn around.

"Listen to me," said the Captain, her blue eyes boring into Lyndsay's brown ones. "I did not 'bring you death', understand? Nobody did, except for the Hirogen who shot you. I remember now – I chose you to gain some experience, and because you and Harry made a good team."

The mention of Harry calmed her down just the slightest bit. Harry, who had weathered this situation with more kindness, patience and humor than any girl deserved after coming back from the dead. Her best friend in all the worlds.

"I grieve for every crew member I've lost," said the Captain, her hand still firm on Lyndsay's shoulder even as her voice began to tremble. "Do you know how happy and relieved I am to have you back?"

Lyndsay's eyes burned and overflowed. She wiped them away and glared at the purple liquid on her hand, another Kobali trait the Doctor couldn't remove.

"But I'm not the same, Captain," she sobbed. "Nothing feels right. Look – my tears are purple! How weird is that?" with a miserable little laugh. "Neelix's berry salad tastes like iron, I think in a foreign language – I'm not the old Ensign Ballard anymore!"

The Captain's eyes were glittering as well – beautiful, transparent human tears.

"Then we'll get used to the new one … won't we, Lyndsay?"

She managed a shaky smile and covered the Captain's hand with her own for a moment, before pulling away.

"You have got to be one of the most awesome people I've ever known, Captain."

The older woman smiled crookedly back at her. "In spite of my notorious bad luck with replicators?"

"Oh, I dunno. That pot roast of yours would make an interesting bioweapon."

They both laughed, and Lyndsay wiped away the last of her purple tear tracks with her napkin. Sarcasm was her home ground, and she trusted the Captain not to tell anyone abot the scene she had just made.

=/\=

Harry sat up in bed, blinking, his black-hair sleep-tousled as Lyndsay walked into his quarters. She sat on the edge of his bed, still too rattled from her nightmare to be embarrassed about seeing him like this. She just needed human company right now, and she couldn't face going back to the sweat-soaked bed where she had just woken up with a gasp and a pounding heart.

"I had the worst day," she burst out. "I forgot to turn on my universal translator and switched into Kobali in Engineering ... Lieutenant Torres and the others were staring at me ... and then I started babbling in front of the Captain. I basically accused her of having my death on her hands. She was awfully nice about, but still ... and just now, I had ths dream - I dreamed that - " She raked her hands through her auburn hair, feeling the ridges that were still barely there on her scalp. It was reassuring, to pick up that old habit again, to feel soft, glossy hair where for two and a half years there had been only bare skin.

"I saw my own funeral," she continued hoarsely, leaning into Harry, who wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back. "The Captain said, 'You're late', and Tuvok gave me that look - you know, the one where he makes you feel like a spider on the floor? And told me it was illogical for me to return." Harry was about to interrupt, but she plunged on. "And then I saw you - and oh, Harry, you were staring at me just like them."

She shuddered all over, unable to express the fearsome loneliness of that moment - of even Harry, her dearest friend, looking at her with blank disapproval. The girl who didn't belong. The living dead.

"You said, 'Lyndsay Ballard, beloved friend and crewman' - like a eulogy-type thing. You said the same thing at my real funeral, didn't you?"

She looked into his shadowed face, saw the pained sympathy and concern there, and lost it. The unconquerable Lyndsay Ballard burst into tears.

"Shh, shh," he whispered, as she buried her face in his shoulder. "You're right ... I did call you that, because it's true. And of course people are staring at you ... but that doesn't mean you're not welcome, on the contrary! But listen - you know you're not the only one on this crew who died and came back to life. Remember the other me?"

Of course. She remembered the incident with the alternate-universe Voyager, when Harry had died and been replaced with his counterpart - identical down to the last details of their lives, but never really the same. It was something she'd tried not to dwell on too hard, simply happy to have her friend back. She wondered if that was how Harry felt about her own return.

"Neelix was injured in a shuttle accident once, after you were gone," Harry persisted. "He was declared dead by the Doctor himself, but Seven came and revived him with her Borg nanoprobes. He had a worse time than you did, Lynds - he's religious, you know, and when he came back, he couldn't remember the Talaxian paradise at all. He tried to beam himself into a nebula because of losing his faith. Chakotay had to talk him off the ledge - I mean the transporter platform - and he's never been the same since. Neelix, I mean. Maybe you could talk to him sometime."

The revelation took Lyndsay's breath away, momentarily distracting her from her own troubles. Not only was the new Borg crewmember (whom Lyndsay hadn't seen yet) decent enough to save lives, but how could Neelix, of all people, become suicidal? Neelix of the outrageous silk suits and even more outrageous cooking, who puttered around the mess hall with his hands outstretched in welcome and a perennial smile on his whiskery face. Head chef, morale officer, and thorn in Tuvok's side. The liveliest being Lyndsay had ever known.

"It's still not the same," she murmured, looking past Harry's face into stars flashing by the viewport. "I was gone for three years ... I'm completely rewired down to my DNA. I'm not even sure who I am anymore - Lyndsay or Jet'laia."

"Jet'laia?"

"That's what they called me. My - my foster family. A married couple with a little girl. Nice people, actually, very patient. And what do I do? I steal their shuttle and run away."

Harry placed both hands on her shoulders and looked her steadily in the eye. He had grown since she'd last seen him - grown in spirit, if not in body.

"That was two years," he said. "You're twenty-seven. The Kobali may have saved your life, but that doesn't mean they own it. Coming back was your choice. Ask yourself why."

She closed her eyes. Why? She could think of dozens of reasons. To dazzle Torres by showing up early for duty just once. To sit in the mess hall and dig into Neelix's Jibalian berry salad. To put a crack in Tuvok's Vulcan control, preferably by making him laugh. Just to walk down the corridors and exchange nods and smiles with her crewmates. To speak English again - such a soft, cozy, straightforward language compared to the harsh complexities of Kobali. To listen to Harry play his clarinet, go skating with him on the holodeck, poke fun at him and watch him blush. Just to see him again. In her list of things to do once she got back, compiled across six endless months flying on 'a wing and a prayer', number one was just to see his beautiful face.

"Because I love this place," she said. "It's my home ... I think."

"You ... think?" His voice had that ironic tone he had picked up from her since the Academy.

"What if I can't fit in here anymore? I may look human, but ... "

"It'll be okay, Lyndsay," said Harry, glowing with sincerity even in the dark. "We've got the best EMH in the quadrant, after all - he changed Tom and the Captain back from turning into lizards, remember? He even unscrambled Tuvok and Neelix from when that transporter accident merged them together. He'll think of something. And even if he doesn't, none of us cares how many hearts you have or what other languages you can speak. That's the thing about Voyager - we're a family. We accept each other the way we are."

Lyndsay felt like crying again, this time with love and gratitude. How in the universe had she come to have a friend like this?

"You," she said, "Have always been far too nice to me ... why is that?"

There was a pause, in which Harry began to slowly shake his head from side to side.

"You really don't have any idea, do you?"

A tiny inkling awoke at the back of her mind. Was it possible that he ... ?

"I rearranged my entire schedule at the Academy," he said ruefully, "Just so we'd be in the same classes. I let you teach me how to skate, even though I hate the cold ... I'm crazy about you," he concluded, with one of his sweet, self-deprecating smiles. "I have been since the day we met."

Lyndsay's hearts were beating very fast. She felt silly, and slow on the uptake, and irritated ... and something else beneath all that. She found herself looking at Harry Kim as if seeing him for the very first time - his golden face and slanted black eyes, the quiet strength in his tall, slim, wiry body. The goofy cadet she'd sat with in the cafeteria had become a man while she wasn't looking.

She thought of the other women he'd encountered - Marayna, the hologram who had passed him over for Tuvok; the planet full of murderous modern-day Sirens; and Libby, his beautiful fiançée left behind on Earth, whom Lyndsay had never liked despite her obvious good nature. If Harry loved Lyndsay, how could he have been friends with her all these years while he pursued these other women?

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" she whispered.

"I was never really good at public speaking, remember?" he said, quoting one of her own quips back at her. "Which is why I'd really like to kiss you right now."

Of course. She'd been doing this all her life, keeping people at a distance with her acerbic wit. Harry was the only one who saw through this as a defense mechanism, but that didn't mean he enjoyed her making quips at his expense. So, when he ran into pretty, well-mannered Libby at the Ktarian music festival, and she actually said yes to his coffee invitation, nature and circumstances had run their course, and any latent attraction to his tough, sarcastic fellow cadet had faded into the background.

Except that now it was back in full force, trembling in his voice, shining in his eyes. She knew that look. She had seen it on his face when he talked about Libby and Marayna, laughed at him mercilessly - but she didn't feel like laughing now.

"Own the day," she quoted, kissing him softly on the lips. Too many years had been wasted between them; she was not about to waste another minute.

=/\=

The next ship's morning, Lyndsay locked eyes across the Captain's ready-room with Krett, the man who called himself her father, as he pleaded with her to come back. She prayed silently (to Jesus and the Kobali god of families) that it wouldn't come to hostilities between them. She liked the old man – if he could only get it into his thick, bald, purple-streaked head that she wasn't coming back!

"Ensign Ballard has made it clear she won't be coming back," said the Captain.

"She is confused," said Krett, with another pleading look at Lyndsay.

Harry's black eyes blazed with indignation. "Only because of what you did to her," he said through gritted teeth.

The Captain held up a hand to stop him. Lyndsay's hearts (she actually had two, now) warmed secretly at the sight of his defense; she had rarely seen him get angry, but when he did, it was always on behalf of those he loved.

And after their last night together, she knew in every part of her body that she and Harry loved each other. And she was damned if she'd let anything, including death, come between them again.

"Krett, listen," she said – calmly, but firmly. "I am not confused. I may have changed a little – okay, a lot – but I've never stopped seeing Voyager as my home, and the human race as my own people. I made a two-year journey in six months in a tiny shuttlecraft just to get back here. Doesn't that prove to you that I won't be moved?"

"Please, Jet'laia," he said, holding out his hand. "We all miss you. Your sister misses you – she keeps asking when you're coming home. What should I tell her?"

He had obviously saved his best ammunition for last. Lyndsay felt a tug at her heartstrings; the mischievous little girl who had played hide-and-seek with her (a universal children's favorite, seemingly) was the person she'd miss most.

"Tell her … that her sister never existed," she said, with a heavy sigh. "There is no Jet'laia, Krett, and there never has been. You can change my face, teach me a new language, give me two hearts and a six-lobed brain – but you can never change who I am inside, and that is Lyndsay Ballard."

Krett grimaced at hearing the name, shaking his head over and over again.

"If you really care for me," she continued, "Wouldn't you want me to be happy? I love this crew – and I love this sweet guy right here," gesturing to an embarrassed Harry, whom Krett favored with a paint-stripping glare.

"There's a saying I live by – 'own the day'. I always knew it wouldn't be easy to re-integrate, but I'm doing it. I'm the most stubborn being you'll ever meet, and that's why you'll never take me away from Harry. You'd have to kill me a second time."

She lifted her chin and flashed her best imitation of the Janeway glare.

"Very well, Jet – Lyndsay Ballard," said Krett, looking crestfallen. "If this is what you truly want, I will leave. You," turning to Harry Kim, "Take care of her."

And the shy man whom Lyndsay had always enjoyed teasing about his stutter straightened up and looked Krett squarely in the eye. "You bet I will."

"Just let me give you a hug, my daughter."

Lyndsay complied with grace; it was the least she could do. Her eyes met Harry's across Krett's broad shoulder, and she gave him a reassuring smile.

"My father is James Ballard," she said. "He's a teacher on my homeworld. But I'll always be grateful to you, Krett, for taking care of me those two years."

As Krett walked slowly out of the ready-room, Lyndsay put an arm around Harry and leaned against his shoulder. He dropped a kiss on her short auburn hair.

"You were number one on my list," she whispered.

"I know."