Triggers

By Laura Schiller

Based on Star Trek: Voyager

Copyright: Paramount

(Author's Note: This story is based on the episodes "Lifesigns", "The Swarm" and "Remember", and may not make sense without them.)

"I'm sorry, Doctor." B'Elanna Torres looked up from the console screen and shook her head. "Your medical database is all here, but the greater part of your personal memories are just not accessible right now. They might come back or not; I really couldn't say."

"Are you sure you've tried everything, Lieutenant?" demanded the Doctor, pacing back and forth across Sickbay like a tiger in uniform.

"Very sure, Doctor."

The terse note of warning in her voice, as usual, barely seemed to register with him. It figures, she thought wryly. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

"You'd better be." He threw up his hands and swung around in mid-step to glare at her. "If they were all gone, I might start over from scratch, but these … these fragments … an aria from La Boheme, this room packed with patients, a woman dying of a sword wound in my arms … And Ms. Kes, the way she looks at me! As if she's waiting for me to say something, do something, and I can't remember what …"

He ran a hand across his forehead, sighed, and resumed pacing. She could just imagine the headache this would be giving him if he were made of flesh and blood.

"Do you have any idea how frustrating this is for me?"

B'Elanna's temper flared. She rubbed the back of her neck, where a dying Corinna had forced a telepathic connection on her only days ago.

"To have someone messing with my memories? Oh, no, Doctor, what could I possibly know about that?"

The Doctor's face softened. He stopped in front of her, leaned on the console with both hands, and looked at her with rueful hazel eyes.

"My apologies, Lieutenant. Of course you know."

"Honestly, I'm not sure which is worse," she admitted. "Forgetting who you were, or having to carry someone else's emotional baggage on top of your own."

As if her own baggage weren't heavy enough.

She remembered being Corinna. She could still feel Dathan Alaris's strong arms around her and his mind touching hers; hear her father's whisper in her ear (Did he tell you he's in love with you? Poisoning your mind against your own people, that's very cruel … ) and most of all, the sound of her own voice, chanting Yes! with the crowd at Dathan's execution. She would never see a certain shade of blue again without thinking of the Annaran Interstellar Exploration Program's uniform – the symbol for which Corinna had closed her eyes to genocide and betrayed the man she loved

Thinking of that particular blue gave her an idea. She seized on it gratefully, if only to send her thoughts in another direction.

"Maybe we've been looking at this the wrong way," she said. "If an engineer can't fix you, maybe something else can. Now I'm no expert on psychology, but if one of us lost our memories, you'd tell them to look for some kind of trigger, right? Images, sounds, smells … well, not smells in your case … do you think that might help?"

"Hmm." The Doctor frowned thoughtfully. "I'm not sure if my cognitive processing subroutines can be compared to a human brain in that respect, but it's worth a try … only what would I use?" He spread his hands to indicate the sterile, white-and-gray environment in which he had spent most of his existence. "I've hardly got a large collection of souvenirs to choose from. My medical supplies are all right here, and they haven't triggered anything yet."

This struck her as unexpectedly sad, for him to have no items around him of ay emotional value. She had never been much for souvenirs herself; the Maquis travelled light by necessity, and before that, her only concern had been to leave as much of her past behind as possible. But she had a dreamcatcher Chakotay had made for her, an odd collection of 20th-century rock music from Tom Paris ("You'll learn to like it, I promise!"), and even a holo-photograph of her Klingon duplicate, which she had put together from her medical records. The woman had saved her life, after all. It was the least she could do not to forget her face.

Her Klingon duplicate, created by Vidiian scientists in order to study her genetic immunity to the Phage.

B'Elanna's hands began to dance across the screen.

"Does this ring a bell, Doctor?"

In the middle of the room, a still 3-D holoimage began to form. It showed a slender, light-skinned, humanoid woman of medium height, her high, arched forehead the only feature that marked her as an alien. Her eyes were a warm chestnut brown and so was her hair, tied back in a long ponytail at the back of her neck. She wore a long-sleeved red dress and matching leggings, practical but elegant, something a hardworking professional might wear on her rare days off. Her expression was serene.

The Doctor circled the image slowly, looked her up and down. B'Elanna caught herself holding her breath as she waited for his reaction.

"Mars," he muttered, more to himself.

"Uh … excuse me?"

"I've seen this woman before," he said, in the same absent-minded voice. "We were on Mars, sitting in an antiquated land-based vehicle called a … Chevy? I was showing her the stars, and suddenly … oh my … "

His eyes widened; his hand went to his lips, a gesture she recognized from the aftermath of her own romantic "dreams" of Dathan. She had the feeling that, if the Doctor were organic, his face would be as red right now as the holographic woman's dress. If Paris were here, he would be smirking like a schoolboy; he was, after all, the one who'd designed the Chevrolet-on-Mars program for the Doctor in the first place.

"I believe, Lieutenant," said the Doctor, his embarrassment fading into a sober look she could not read, "That this image needs a few corrections. Step aside, please."

He took her place at the computer console, and as he typed, the woman in red began to change. Her hair fell out except for a few brittle strands at the back, her skin took on a mottled shade of green, her body went from slenderness to emaciation, and her red dress hung on her shoulders like a potato sack. B'Elanna felt sick to her stomach just looking at her. Even though this particular Vidiian had shown them nothing but kindness, she could never think of Vidiians in general with anything but horror and disgust.

The Doctor's reaction, however, was very different.

"Denara," he breathed, reaching out to touch her cheek.

His hand passed right through the computerized display, and he caught his breath in a tearless holographic sob. To him, Phage and all, she might have been the most beautiful woman in the universe.

B'Elanna wiped a strand of hair off her forehead ridges and suppressed a sigh.

"Computer," he demanded, "Locate Dr. Pel!"

"Doctor Denara Pel is not on board."

The Doctor turned his back on the image to face B'Elanna, with such a look on his face that her own eyes began to sting. She blinked them hard, fighting for control. This was the same look Dathan had turned on Corinna as her father dragged him out from behind the bedroom curtain.

"But why … ?"

"She's a physician," said B'Elanna. "Her people are suffering. She had to stay."

"I remember," said the Doctor. "That's not what I was asking."

"I know what you mean."

Why fall in love? Why did the universe give me this, only to take it away? Why remember, if your memories only hurt you? Corinna had asked herself those questions every day for over forty years.

The Doctor pressed a button, and Denara Pel vanished into the air.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. I didn't … I should have warned you it would be upsetting."

She was surprised by the depth of her own compassion for this hologram, whom she had never thought of as more than a necessary annoyance. She supposed it must have started with his cascade failure during their encounter with the Swarm. As an engineer, she'd always felt a certain protectiveness for her machines – but this had been the first time that, in the course of a repair, one of them touched her shoulder like a frightened child and said: I wish you didn't have to go.

She touched the Doctor's shoulder now, a brisk up-and-down motion, as Captain Janeway would have done. He eyed the gesture with bemusement, but did not move away.

"They're not all like this," she assured him. "Your memories. There have got to be some better ones in your database - "

Her hand went to her commbadge to call Kes, who knew more than anyone about the Doctor's life, but his next words stopped her.

"It's all right, Lieutenant." He smiled at her; a very faint smile, but genuine nonetheless. "When Kes tried to tell me about Denara, I couldn't believe it. Why would anyone fall in love with a hologram, even," his smile widened, "One as charming and sophsticated as myself?"

She rolled her eyes, but smiled back; after seeing him with all his defenses down like this, a touch of Zimmerman bravado was almost reassuring.

"At least … at least there was someone," he said, looking back at the spot where the Denara hologram had been. "Someone who made me very happy while it lasted, and when she left me, did so for the noblest of reasons. I'm not sorry to remember her, I'm grateful. Thank you … B'Elanna."

It was the first time he had ever called her by her given name.

"I only wish I could do something similar for you," he said. "Unfortunately, memory extraction isn't my forte, at least not with the use of Starfleet technology. If Jora Morel's story is too much for you to bear, you might consult Lieutenant Tuvok – although I must warn you, Vulcan telepathy can be very - "

"No." She held up her hand to stop him. "No, thanks. I'm keeping them."

"Are you sure?" He quirked a dubious eyebrow at her, probably guessing more than she wanted to know about how Corinna's gift had made her feel.

"If Jessen doesn't succeed in finding the truth," she said, "I may be one of the last people left to bear witness to the massacre of an entire culture. The Annaran government has been trying to erase the truth for forty years, but I won't do it."

Besides, strange as it sounded even to her, someone had to honor Dathan Alaris. Someone had to think of him, and the rest of the Regressives, as more than names on a list or a faceless threat to Annaran society. Someone had to remember his laughter, the way his skin shone bronze in the sunlight, his reckless courage in loving someone so different to him in every way. And yes, despite her weakness, despite her heartbreaking betrayal, someone had to honor Corinna as well, for telling the truth before it was too late.

"Very well, Lieutenant." The Doctor nodded respectfully. "If there is anything else I can do for you … "

"I'll ask," she said, with a firm nod in response.

"No, you won't," he retorted lightly. "If I know you, you'll keep insisting that you're perfectly fine, until one day some unfortunate engineer comes to me with a broken nose. All the same, I hope I'm wrong this time."

This was the kind of attitude that would normally set her teeth on edge. Today, however, she could hear real concern behind his flippancy, and responded with only a mild snort.

"C'mon, I punched Carey once! When is this crew gonna let me live it down?"

"Never, Ms. Torres." He smirked. "The health and well-being of all my shipmates is of vital concern to me."

His eyes were kind in spite of his mocking tone, and she knew that he was talking about her as well as her unfortunate engineers. If she were a different woman, she might have hugged him. As it was, she knew exactly whom to call.

Once she'd said her goodbyes and was heading down the corridor toward the mess hall, she gave a sharp tap to her commbadge and said, "Torres to Kes."

"Kes here," came a gentle alto voice across the channel.

"I had a breakthrough with the Doc today, and I think you need to hear this … " She explained about the trigger effect, about Denara Pel, and wound up with: "Can you remember how the two of you first met?"

"Oh, yes … I came to ask him for a soil sample for Aeroponics. He gave me four in those little glass spheres, I think we're still using them. I was wearing my blue sweater …" Kes sighed happily. "It's a beautiful idea, B'Elanna, thank you! As soon as I'm done with my vegetables here, I'll try it right away."

"You're welcome," said B'Elanna. "Torres out."

Kes, by quick thinking and sheer force of will, had been the one to convince the EMH Diagnostic Program to sacrifice himself for the Doctor when no one else, including B'Elanna herself, could even spare the time for a solution amidst the Swarm's attacks. If anyone deserved to be remembered, it was her.

Still, it was in a melancholy mood that B'Elanna made her way to the mess hall. There was only so much of other people's happiness she could bear to watch without feeling left out in the cold. She collected a plateful of stale algae puffs left over from Neelix's Annaran-themed goodbye party, cut off Neelix's cheerful attempts at conversation, and looked around disconsolately for a place to sit.

"Hey, Maquis!"

"Hey, B'Elanna, over here!"

Harry Kim and Tom Paris were flagging her down from a table across the room. Something about Harry's use of the nickname, Tom's sunny smile and his wide, sweeping, unashamed wave, made her feel lighter and warmer than she had in days. She crossed the room and plopped down next to them, laughing when she saw the untouched green lumps on their plates.

"Out of rations too, eh?" she teased.

"You'll just have to suffer with us." Tom bit into an algae puff, swallowed it with a show of comical disgust, and downed a healthy slug of taran juice which the Annarans had brought to trade.

Drink your taran juice, it's good for you, she remembered Corinna's father saying, and gritted her teeth. I am not Corinna, she thought fiercely. And I'll prove it.

"Say, Paris," she said casually. "About that program you mentioned … sailing on Lake Como, was it?"

Paris' eyes, bluer than the lake water itself, lit up. "My invitation stands, if that's what you're asking."

Her heart flipped, and the hands holding her juice glass began to sweat – whether with nerves or anticipation, she couldn't tell.

"Just don't … don't go reading too much into this, okay? I'm not one of your Sandrines or your Delaneys. I happen to be interested in the mechanics of steering a sailboat."

"Why, Lieutenant," he exclaimed, hand on his heart, "I wouldn't dream of taking you on board for any less than honorable motive."

I would, thought B'Elanna, and despite herself, an impish smile crossed her features at the idea. He was trouble and she knew it, but how exciting the trouble might be!

Harry glanced from one companion to the other, shook his head, and sighed into his tray. It was going to be a long lunch break indeed.