#about tuvok and janeway and their friendship

[catgirljaneway]

Tuvok and Kathryn and the time Kathryn destroyed the timeline get Tuvok back.

/I Swear Somewhere This Works - Trista Mateer/

[bumblingbabooshka]

Tuvok is not as autistic coded in-narrative compared to what I've seen of Spock or T'Pol where they're othered heavily by those around them and have themes and arcs about struggling/striving to fit in BUT I do think he provides the vital autistic representation of not really angsting about your differences from other people because you're too busy and unaware and then even when you ARE made aware you mostly just think 'glad that's not me'. I think it's vital to have that sort of totally unbothered rep. I love that Tuvok is completely satisfied and proud of being Vulcan, doesn't long to experience emotion or struggle with a desire to express himself in a way his crewmates will understand, to be closer to them. I love that he has a long time and close friend that respects who he is and doesn't try to change him and that how close they are isn't framed as being in spite of his Vulcan nature. I love that being Vulcan isn't framed as a hindrance to him, like a roadblock to living a full and rich life. He has a wife and four kids and is a devoted husband and father. He's getting into gay horror scenarios. Tuvok was born on autism planet and he's thriving.

[istherewifiinhell]

BELOVED BELOVED. clearly character stuff writers being like. okay. HOW WOULD THEY ALL FACE A CALM BUT UNAVOIDABLE DEATH.

[little-alien-duck]

the thing that makes kathryn janeway fun as a character is that if I think about her relationship with literally any member of the voyager crew I start to lose my mind. like there's her best friend tuvok who is a vulcan and logical and rational and yet has complete and total faith in his illogical and irrational and extremely human best friend and there's harry kim who is so much like her in the best and worst ways and would blow up everything just to keep the crew safe and one day that tendency could get far too destructive but there's no way for her to discourage that behavior bc as the captain she's leading by example and there's tom paris who is a starfleet brat just like her and whose father was her captain and a terrible father to him and her father was also a captain and is now dead and she's the reason tom's no longer in prison and to cap that friendship (???) off they have the same sarcastic sense of humor and there's seven who in a very real sense she kidnapped from her home but in another sense she deprogrammed from a cult who is now essentially her rebellious teenage daughter except the stakes are unfathomably higher and seven gets a lecture about organizational structure and working as a team from b'elanna who in turn got that same lecture years earlier from janeway herself, b'elanna who dropped out of the academy and became a terrorist now giving a lecture about starfleet rules after serving under janeway for a couple years. there are so many other examples too and there's the fact that any time janeway is talking to any member of the crew she has to first and foremost be The Captain and wear that mask all the time no matter what and none of that is even getting close to her weird situationship with chakotay. truly the character of all time.

[lostyesterday]

I think most people agree that, of all the TNG major characters, Worf was the best possible one to bring into DS9. He fits the best into the DS9 cast, and it’s pretty hard to imagine fitting any other TNG character in at all as well. This made me think about the fact that, since all the 90’s Trek shows are set at approximately the same time, you could theoretically take almost any major character from any show and put them into another show. So I asked myself the question, which character from each 90’s Trek show would fit the best into each other show?

The best TNG character to be on Voyager: Easily Deanna Troi. I don’t think having a counselor onboard would genuinely fix the Voyager crew’s problems, but it would add an interesting layer, and we would get to see lots of disastrous counseling sessions. I also think Deanna could have particularly interesting interactions with B’Elanna and Seven, and I’d love to see her develop an unlikely friendship with Tuvok. The one major issue I can see is that there would be a bit of redundancy with Kes in terms of her empathic abilities, but at the same time, I think they could have an interesting dynamic.

The best DS9 character to be on TNG: Obviously Worf and O’Brien are discounted from consideration here. I’ll admit this is a hard one – the DS9 crew just would not fit very well on TNG. It also feels like cheating to choose Bashir because he had good chemistry with Data and Geordi in the crossover episode, so instead I’m going to pick Odo. I’m not sure how exactly the plot could be worked to make Odo’s presence on Enterprise make sense, but I think he would get along really well with Picard, and I think he and Data could have had interesting discussions. I also think Odo would slot interestingly into TNG’s typical moral dilemma episodes.

The best DS9 character to be on Voyager: Either Jadzia or Kira could be interesting. I think Jadzia would fit really naturally into the crew and could have filled the generally vacant main science officer spot. There would be interesting things to explore in her dynamics with basically every single main crew member, particularly Janeway and B’Elanna. Kira could be interesting in terms of how she related to the Maquis/Starfleet relationship, and I’d love to see her dynamic with Chakotay and B’Elanna. In general, I think both Jadzia and Kira would have some really interesting feelings about being stranded so far from the Alpha Quadrant.

The best Voyager character to be on TNG: Harry feels like he’d theoretically slot in the most naturally, but I think his role and personality would end up being too similar to Geordi. So, oddly enough, I think Tom might actually work the best in TNG. His backstory is based on that of a minor TNG character, and I think it would be interesting to see Tom work through (or not) his issues with Starfleet and his father in an environment that was not at all as far removed as Voyager was. He could have an interesting dynamic with Picard and Deanna, and maybe even Data and Geordi.

The best Voyager character to be on DS9: Chakotay would be interesting, since I might have liked an alternate Maquis storyline on DS9 that actually had one of them as a major character. What would happen if Sisko was actually forced to work with a Maquis leader for some reason, and what if they actually ended up finding common ground and respecting each other? I’m thinking more along the lines of Sisko’s dynamic with Cal Hudson in the Maquis two-parter rather than his dynamic with Eddington. Again, I think Chakotay and Kira could have a really interesting dynamic as well.

[stargatesimp]

Can I just talk about how much I love Star Trek friendships?

Shipping is fun and all, ship whoever you like! (Starship? I don’t know if that’s a term used in this fandom but if not it should be)

But I don’t think platonic friendships and platonic love are talked about enough. God I love adorable friendships in shows. Give me two best friends who would die for each other. Found family is where it’s AT.

Like,

VOYAGER: So. many. Good ones.

Janeway and Tuvok. Tom and Harry. Chakotay and B’lanna. The Doctor and Kes. The list goes on!

I just love them all dearly. Voyager has such a great found family dynamic. I grew up watching this show with my family every day after school and it holds such a special place in my heart. I could spend a million hours talking about it.

Not to mention DS9.

Sisko and Dax, Miles and Julian, Kira and Dax, Jake and Nog, Odo and Quark (best frenemies. Sheriff and outlaw)

DS9 is my absolute favorite of all Star Treks. The writing and development is insane. If you told me what these characters would go through after watching season one, I don’t think I’d believe you. Another one I could talk hours about but this post is long enough just listing the dang names.

Those two are the majority of what I rewatch, but man, the others have amazing ones too.

Enterprise was just Archer being a father to literally everyone on the ship. And him and Trip being another of my favorite friendship duos.

TNG is a classic, a lot of people’s favorites. I always loved Geordi and Data. Guinan and literally everyone. I think I need to go back and rewatch it soon to fully appreciate everyone in the crew.

And as controversial as it may be, I never really got into the original series. But obviously some great friendships there too.

But man, I love Star Trek. The feeling of hope it gives you, the despair, the moral quandary, the wonder and magic. The wonderful mix of witty and fun humor balanced with severe stakes and serious narratives. A balance I feel a lot of modern sci-fi lacks. And I just love the characters that go through it all together. The journey they take.

Tell me some of your favorite Star Trek friendship moments! Let’s talk about em.

[a-most-beloved-fool]

btw i DID manage to actually start watching voyager in preparation for threshold day and i have some thoughts on the first episode i'd like to share

-the first two minutes were very star wars. i was amused. scrolling synopsis leading STRAIGHT into space warfare?? which massive sci-fi franchise am i in again??

-i enjoyed getting introduced to crew members i knew were going to instantly die. hello first officer and doctor who i will never see again!

-noooo janeway won't get to see her puppies!!!!

-humongous fan of what appears to be an instant ride-or-die friendship between Harry Kim and Tom Paris

-i think it's fun that neelix (and the the kazon?) don't seem to have beaming technology and are very impressed by it. i hope that's a running theme.

-DON'T like how we're getting b'elanna blaming her "klingon half" for things RIGHT off the bat. GIRL YOU'RE MIXED. YOU'RE ONE UNIQUE THING. DON'T DEMONIZE HALF YOUR HERITAGE. also like frankly she's trapped in a strange place with a stranger (who was very recently and may still be an enemy) while suddenly dying of a mysterious illness so i think her reaction is perfectly understandable

-poor tuvok, it's only episode one and already you're going thru it (having to go fetch neelix out of a bath and hold up a towel for him as he emerges naked)

-i've seen clips from voy before but apparently never heard kes's voice and for some reason it wasn't what i expected. i don't quite know what i was expecting though it just didn't feel quite right.

-neelix did you like. need to shoot those water containers, or was that just an extra "fuck you" to those guys? i mean i understand if it was. they did apparently beat kes up. but.

-tom you seem a little too invested in chakotay's life being "yours" what's with that

-but also oof augh more racism TOM. TOM YOU CAN'T BE SAYING THAT. TOM.

-enjoying the vibe of everyone being like "finally! a doctor i'm ALLOWED to ignore!" with regards to the emh. just turn him off! walk out on him! what can he do? complain? not til u turn him back on!

-fascinated by how quickly chakotay went from being like "i am an enemy to starfleet" to being like "she's the captain🥰😍🥰" like man aren't you supposed to have fundamental ideological differences or some shit. are you just janeway's bestie now or are we ever gonna address that. remains to be seen!

-i would be VERY surprised if all the maquis are just Fine with suddenly being starfleet though. you just unilaterally made everyone starfleet?? you've been FIGHTING THEM! i hope someone gets angry about that, at least. i'm assuming this will come up in future episodes?

-i liked janeway's ending speech <3 hell yeah

anyways i had fun <3

i've been meaning to start voyager for Ages but in spite of having a blog dedicated to a tv show i am comically bad at actually Watching Things (so i definitely don't promise a voyager liveblog lmao. you'd be risking like. three months between episodes at times.) but i finally started it!! exciting.

[redwolf41-blog]

Ok, so this got a little out of hand so I'm putting it under a Read More. I just love this show so much and can talk about it so much and have no other outlet for it than Tumblr. So... Here you go XD I'm keeping the first paragraph above the line break to help y'all get a peek of what I'm blabbering on about under the break. I might add more to this, who knows.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I grew up watching Star Trek Voyager. I was between the ages of 3-9 while the show was airing, so most of the episodes I remember were either reruns or episodes in the last couple seasons. It was a show my father and I watched together all the time. I'm rewatching it again now, at 32 years old. I've rewatched it before, many years ago, but watching it now, and thinking about how it shaped me as a child has lent me a very interesting perspective of the show.

Captain Janeway was always my favorite character. She was someone I looked up to, and quite possibly my very first queer awakening. I watched the show mostly for her, so it was to her I looked and her actions I paid the most attention to. What little girl wouldnt adore her? She's strong, confident, self assured. She commands her own starship with grace and kindness and compassion, but also with a fierce determination that is almost unrivaled. For a little girl with no mother in her life, no other female role model? It was no wonder I turned to someone like Captain Janeway.

Watching these episodes, and watching her protect her crew so fiercely, watch her having to make all the hard decisions in an effort to do anything to get her crew home without sacrificing her own morals or principles, her trying to make as many friends with other races as she can along the way, affected my growth in ways I'll probably never understand, but will always be thankful for.

And its not just her actions that I feel this show did so well, but the relationships between the characters. On one side, you have Janeway and Tuvok, (a topic I posted about earlier), two old friends who stand by each other through anything and everything, an unfailing and fierce loyalty to each other that is a delight to behold. On another you have Janeway and Chatokay. Two people who used to be enemy captains who eventually see in each other something profoundly different. Their loyalty to each other is new, and takes time to grow at first, but, in my opinion, is no less fierce than it is between her and Tuvok. In her, Chakotay sees a future and perhaps salvation for himself. Its a beautiful relationship that never steps past the threshold of "what could have been." It feels like decades are left unsaid between them, and as a member of the audience I used to think that was tragic. I was so upset that they didnt get together when I was a child, but now? Its a relationship more media needs, in my opinion. They respect each other very much, and want the other to be happy, but they never quite take that extra step. Its a wonderful depiction of friendship between two people of the opposite sex. I dont remember if something like that was common in the 90s, but I feel like modern media has completely ignored this kind of relationship. They're too busy pairing off all the lead male and female characters. Seeing a relationship like Janeway and Chakotay is so important for people to see.

And then there's the crew. I finished watching Revelations just a bit ago. This episode, out of all the episodes Voyager ever aired, was the one episode I never forgot about growing up. The crew love Captain Janeway so immensely, they were willing to face down what could have almost been certain death (or worse) in order to get her back on the ship. Janeway's ship, previously running like a well oiled machine, was breaking apart at the seams without her. Their love, and their loyalty for their captain, and their willingness to do anything for her just like she's willing to do anything for them, is such a heartwarming relationship.

Watching this show so young, during such formative years, its no wonder I turned out so much different than my conservative father. I can only speculate on why he watched the show, but very little of it would be flattering. I doubt he saw the same things I did, or internalized them in any way similarly to me. I feel like Voyager had a powerful and profound message of friendship, loyalty, strength of character, determination, and the importance of kindness and never giving up. I'm so very glad this was one of the shows I got to grow up with, and I wish more shows were like it.

If you made it this far, thank you and I'm sorry. I get rambly when I love something, so I'm both sorry for rambling, and thankful for anyone who made it this far. Feel free to share your own thoughts if you'd like. I'd love to hear them

[bumblingbabooshka]

Every time I watch the cold open of Memorial and B'Elanna tells Tom about how she ASSEMBLED a 50's television set from SCRATCH just to surprise him (there's no reason beyond that - just an incredibly sweet and thoughtful gesture) and replicated popcorn for him to eat while he watches and Tom says "They didn't have remote controls in the 50's ♥ Also where's my beer?" I contemplate murder ESPECIALLY because B'Elanna responds cheerfully to it - GIRL!!! LEAVE HIM!!!!!! IS HE SUPPOSED TO BE CHARMING IN THIS SCENE????

[emotional-fandom-soup]

Thinking about the relationship between Tuvok and Vorik, and how despite following the same set of principles, they still have wildly different personalities. And they both know this. They know they're not compatible in that way and that if not for voyager, neither of them would interact with the other at all. But they also know that they're the only two vulcans still left on this ship.

And I know Tuvok might be able to cope with that given his friendship with Janeway and how close he's gotten with Neelix and well... everyone.

But Vorik? (This is all just projection cuz sadly we don't get to know much about him BUT-) imagine that voyager was his first posting, and he's just out here with little to no experience on humans and without having been able to form proper bonds yet or to fully learn to regulate his emotions, and he's trying so very hard to integrate but he doesn't quite know how.

And how Tuvok sees him and thinks 'ah yes, a child in need of guidance' but then notices how incompatible they are and so whenever the two interact it's just this quiet understanding of biologically, culturally- we are the same, but Respectfully I Do Not Like You

[councilman-horsemeat]

The Greatest Star Trek Characters, Ranked

I was recently reading a few articles ranking the various Star Trek characters and got really infuriated. I started punching my solid wood table until my fists were blooded and filled with splinter. Kirk, Spock, Picard- who gives a shit? There was no flavor, no spice to these lists. After taking a long walk and eating some meal, I decided I oughta make my own. Here it goes; In no particular order, so they're not actually ranked at all.

Sylvia Tilly Star Trek: Discovery is full of people whose lives have sucked, in a way which reflects their outlook on life. Some are hardened, some burdened, some both. Sylvia Tilly offers a delightful contrast to these characters. I’m not through the first season of Discovery yet, but I hope she and Michael Burnham become best friends forever.

Mobar (Fake Tuvok) Part of a criminal group that travels the Delta quadrant scamming various strangers through various schemes. Mobar and his friend Dala ended up acting as Tuvok and Janeway, fooling hapless aliens into joining the “Federation”, which meant little more than handing over their starships or cargo. Mobar ended up getting WAY into character, oftentimes chastising his fellow criminals for not adhering to Starfleet protocols. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to make him not a criminal, and in the end he went down like a chump. RIP to a legend. I don’t think he died but whatever.

Dax (Jadzia, Ezri and Curzon/Odo) Jadzia Dax, our first true look into what trill really are. The fusion of Jadzia and Dax created a woman with wisdom far beyond her years, enough to make her approach life in a very confident, laid-back way. This, along with her highly analytical mind and charm, would have made her a perfect ship’s captain. Gone too soon.

On the other hand, I really liked Ezri Dax too. I’m conflicted, because seeing what it’s like for an unprepared, naive trill to be joined (despite never training to) was really interesting, and I even wish we got more than just the one season with her- but I also wish Jadzia could have been around for the finale.

When they were temporarily joined in a trill ritual, Curzon brought a certain down-in-the-dirt, slob attitude to the usually uptight Odo. I really liked him. He could have been less of a pervert.

Bearded Geordi LaForge Beautiful. Majestic. Just a touch of rogueish charm. Too bad he only had it for two episodes and like some movies or whatever.

Mirror Sarek I understand WHY he has a goatee. They needed to make him visually distinct from normal Sarek and it’s an homage to mirror Spock from way back when. The problem is that the homage only works if you didn’t already think mirror Spock’s goatee is funny as hell. They also call him the prophet for some reason. All in all a weird guy, which means I like him.

Neelix He brought a genuine heart of gold to the crew of the voyager when they needed it the most. A rock, a true friend and a shoulder to lean on. His friendship with Tuvok allowed him to occasionally bring out a different side of the indomitable vulcan. I also liked that his eye color randomly changed with no in-show explanation.

T’pring Spock’s almost-wife T’pring probably has the quickest turnaround from “WTF why is she so needlessly brutal” to “she’s a genius and she’s so logical” of any Star Trek character. She will always have my respect.

Sela It’s just really funny to me that she had all that buildup on top of already being the return of a written-off main character’s actor. And then like, nothing happened.

Kai Winn Opaka There’s something so incredibly about Louise Fletcher’s performance as Kai Winn in the later seasons that I sometimes have a hard time putting into words. She just captures the self-righteous, holier-than-thou, but also absolutely desparate character in such a captivating way- while also maintaining this underlying confidence and power.

“Klingon Chef” Deep Space Nine’s resident Klingon chef/opera singer showed a side of Klingon culture we don’t often see - the civilian side. He truly made the most of his few appearances, and I will always love him for it.

Seven of Nine (Possessed) Maybe it’s because of Seven’s usually stoic, reserved demeanour, but seeing Jeri Ryan take on the exaggerated personalities of a Klingon warrior, a Ferengi DaiMon, and the EMH of the USS Voyager amongst others, was one hell of a lot of fun. Enough fun to end up on this list! Unfortunately, not enough for that Oscar nom. Next time!

Dr. Michael Dingo Dingo’s brief stint as nurse aboard the Enterprise-D established him as little more than a grumpy old man, but he really shone after his promotion to main cast member and CMO of the USS Pioneer. His usual snarky personality being torn down upon meeting his long-believed-to-be-dead wife went down as one of my favorite moments in all of Star Trek. His refusal to poison the crew on behalf of his madly sick captain gave me goosebumps.

Lwaxana Troi She started out as no more than “Deanna Troi’s Annoying Mom” but evolved into so much more across her many appearances. Absolutely wonderfully played by Majel Barrett, the writers explore many facets of sorrow, motherhood, and what it means to grow old. I also believe that she should have ended up with Odo instead of Nerys, but whatev.

Falow The leader of the Wadi, a gamma quadrant species that value various types of games above all else. He and his entourage visit Deep Space Nine and end up throwing the main cast INTO a highly-advanced video game where they think they’ll actually die, but it’s actually just a game. What I like most is that he truly looks like the Most Advanced Gamer. If I was a highly advanced space-gamer this is what I would want to look like.

Riker Picard’s number one actually features on a lot of these lists. They usually list his loyalty or how cool he is or whatever. I’m mostly interested in his absolutely off-the-charts adventurous spirit. He was the first starfleet officer to serve aboard a klingon ship and was GLAD to eat gagh. When he learned that a trill symbiont needed a new host he practically jumped at the chance, despite the fact that no human had ever hosted a trill symbiont before. And he had absolutely no shame in wearing his slutty outfit in ‘Angel One’. There’s many similarities between Riker and Kirk, but Kirk would never have worn it so proudly.

Horny/drunk-ish Picard Patrick Stewart’s performance as a pseudo-drunk and very horny Jean-Luc Picard in The Naked Now has seared itself into my mind forever. It’s like he’s screaming, but also whispering, and sort of putting on an accent? Deciding just how to portray the usually stoic captain so completely out of his element must have been quite the challenge, and Patrick Stewart ended up making some very inspired choices.

Alyssa Ogawa She may not have done much more than help out in medbay every now and then, but the conversations between her and Crusher were the first to show that the main crew actually DO have friends outside the “inner circle”. Does that truly earn her a spot on a list of the greatest Star Trek characters of all time? Probably not but I don’t really care and neither should you.

Grand Nagus Zek Every time he got more screentime I remembered how much I loved his dumbass voice. His shrill bleating is hilarious, and every time he shows up I can’t wait to find out what his latest scheme is. His behavior towards women is regrettable, but that’s true for a lot of Star Trek men and unlike most of them, Zek actually sort-of changes.

Ishka And who is Zek without Rom and Quark’s moogie Ishka? Despite the usual underestimatable Ferengi personality traits, I genuinely believe Ishka could have one of the highest power levels in all of Star Trek canon. Women not even having the right to wear clothes has been a part of Ferengi culture for centuries and she managed to turn it around COMPLETELY in a handful of years. If she put her mind to it, I genuinely believe she could have brokered peace between the Cardassians and Bajorans, and that’s on the prophets.

Jae Yeah, I got a bit of a crush on this frankly random Enterprise-D crewmember. I think she’s friends with Picard? She sat next to him at a poetry reading once. I’m not sure if she even had any speaking lines.

[clementine-kesh]

we joke about voyager’s found family being more like forced family and it’s true but i do think a part of what makes the relationships between the characters so interesting is that so many of them wouldn’t be friends under regular circumstances. like, harry with tom + b’elanna obviously their friendship is wonderful but back in the federation they’re very much people who are defined by their roles in society and those roles are fundamentally incompatible with each other. starfleet officer + an ex-con failson and a member of the maquis. same with tuvok and chakotay, who get off to a rocky start for that exact reason but are forced to work together and develop a certain level of mutual respect and (imo) admiration. and janeway + chakotay obviously, who complement each other so well but, like with harry and tom + b’elanna, never would’ve discovered that without voyager.

like, the entire premise of voyager is about who people are when removed from the framework of society and the roles by which they define themselves. which is reflected in the characters personal struggles (harry and janeway’s struggle to be “good” starfleet officers, b’elanna’s relationship to her mixed heritage and seven’s relationship to being ex-borg), as well. so for me at least that’s why the relationships that wouldn’t necessarily exist if they were back in the federation are the most interesting, because they’re a point you can use to examine those broader themes.

[maggotsandcream]

We all know how wonderful the friendships between Janeway and Tuvok, Tom and Harry, and Janeway and Chakotay are (honestly Janeway's friendships with all the main characters are pretty interesting and get talked about at least occasionally) and of course Tuvok and Neelix's odd friendship gets attention if nothing else because of that time they shared a body (RIP Tuvix). However there's a lot going on with the other characters that I think is heartwarming and interesting.

[lostyesterday]

Some really good Star Trek friendships that have a particular flavor that makes them extra special: Dax & Sisko, Jake & Nog, Data & Geordi, Janeway & Tuvok. It’s something about two characters from different species with vastly different backgrounds who connect to each other so deeply anyway, and maybe they’re a little in love with each other but most importantly they’re best friends who would literally follow each other anywhere.

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s6 ep23: Fury

Was not looking forward to this one, since I disliked it very much on first viewing. I still think it's not a good premise, but there are actually a lot good things here I'd forgotten about.

For starters, it opens with one of the cutest scenes you'll ever see, where Captain Janeway surprises Tuvok with a cake for his birthday. (We learn that he hasn't quite hit the triple digits yet.) He humors her by honoring the human custom of blowing out the candle on the cake, and Janeway beams so radiantly at him that Tuvok almost smiles too. It is the absolute cutest shit you will ever see in your life. Their friendship is everything!!!

They're then called to the bridge, where they detect a ship on a collision course- aboard it is none other than Kes. She asks Janeway for help, and permission to come aboard, which Janeway of course grants, but when she does, she starts blowing up corridors as she makes her way through the ship. They send security to try to stop her (which seems like a wasted endeavor when she has magical mind powers) but they are unable to stop her. (Duh.) Also, why don't the security gaurds freak out when they suddenly see her again after two years?! They all knew her, I'm sure they had no idea who they were supposed to be intercepting in the hallway, you'd think they'd see her and be so surprised they'd just drop their weapons and be like "ohmygod Kes! Long time no see! How've you been?!" And THEN Kes could just walk past them while they're distracted. More in character, and funnier.

But this episode doesn't have time for comedy, since it's determined to make Kes's life into a tragedy. Because of course, any woman with magical mind powers couldn't possibly handle them (gag! can you say 'misogyny'?) and now she's become bitter and out of control, and she's determined to destroy Voyager! (*eyeroll*) Why she wants to do this is anybody's guess, since there's no logical reason for it except the writers being sexist. But she's big mad at everything and everyone now, and she walks into engineering and starts drawing power from their warp core. She kills B'Elanna when she tries to stop it, and then vanishes, and we don't know where she's gone. The crew is horrified, but before they can properly take stock of what happened, the scene switches to Voyager as it looked six years ago. We see older Kes knock out her younger self, and put her in like, a storage drawer (why does the airponics bay have a drawer big enough to hold a person in?! It's a plant nursery, not a morgue!) and then she morphs her appearance to look like her younger self, then takes over her place on the ship.

Going back to season 1 Voyager is kind of great actually. We get to see characters we haven't seen for a while- Ensign Wildman! Lt. Carey! I missed them!! (Though why we have to go back in time to put them in an episode, idk- they're all still alive! You can put them in an episode that's set now! Please do actually!) We see Kes interact with the crew, who are all sweet as pie to her the whole time, and it's just like, how could she be mad at them?? Even if she had developed some resentment toward them after she left, how could she stay mad at them once she sees them all again?? Everyone is so kind and helpful to her, how could she be like 'oh wow, I hate them, I'm going to make sure they all get murdered'.

Which brings us to the dumbest part of this story- not only is Kes angry and resentful of the Voyager crew, but she actually wants to kill them all. What?? Why?? The part about her wanting to go back in time and change history so she can send her younger self back home and avoid whatever difficulties she experienced later is at least somewhat plausible, but hating Voyager so much she wants to hand them over to the Vidians to be literally murdered for their organs? What?! That's so extreme, and there's just nothing to support it. Even if her life after Voyager was so terrible, it wasn't anything to do with any of them. Not to mention, Kes trained as a medic in sickbay, so you'd think, of all things, handing anyone over to the Vidians would go against all the medical ethics she'd ever been taught, and she took her medical training seriously. I just don't believe for a second that everything she's learned, and her entire personality, and all the love she had for the Voyager crew, could just be erased like that.

(Side note: they definitely show Neelix being nicer to her in the time-travel scenes than he actually was back then- he used to yell at her till she cried all the time, but if they showed that, it would hurt the lovable comic relief image they've given to him since she left. But even with her crappy ex, I just don't see Kes getting so angry and hateful that she's ready to start killing people for fun.)

Meanwhile, the time distortions caused by Kes's time travel cause past Tuvok to experience flashbacks, but from the future- he sees Naomi Wildman and Seven of Nine while walking through the ship, even though he's never met them yet at this point. He tells Janeway that his Vulcan telepathic abilities have detected something wrong with the timeline, and that these visions are of the future. They can't figure out what it means, but now they're on alert.

Finally, after a Vidian ship catches up with them, having obviously known their flight path, they realize Kes has been sending them instructions. Janeway goes to confront Kes, and catches old Kes dragging an unconscious young Kes away. It's at this point that Kes gives her little villainy exposition speech, and Janeway is understandably perplexed at Kes's hatred of Voyager, since no, they did absolutely nothing to deserve it. She blames Voyager for everyting that's happened to her, despite the fact that she herself asked to stay aboard in the first place. Kes, honey, that's on you, girl. But Kes refuses to back down, so Janeway has to kill her. They manage to escape the Vidians, and we flash forward to the present time, where events start over again, but this time, Janeway has memories of Kes's little time travel escapade.

Janeway evacuates engineering and goes to meet Kes there herself. There, she confronts Kes with a holo recording of her younger self telling her not to be mean to Voyager, which for some reason she's so moved by that she's like 'yeah okay'. And that's end.

Now, I don't buy the premise that Kes hates Voyager so much she wants to kill them all in the first place, but if she did, I highly doubt that a little message to herself would convince her not to. If she could be so easily reminded that 'hey, I love these people actually', I don't think she would have forgotten it such an extreme degree that she's gonna kill them all. It just doesn't make any sense, and it's wildly out of character for Kes. She was one of my favorites as a kid, so this ep really pissed me off back then, and it still does. I much preferred to imagine Kes going off and doing more good in the universe, maybe becoming a healer who helps stop plagues on whole planets or something- just something good, you know? Kes is a good person, and as a character who got short shrift on the show a lot, I wanted, and continue to want, things to get better for her, not worse. Plus the inherent misogyny of saying she can't handle her magical time/space powers, when plenty of male characters have ascended to be magical time/space controlling beings with no issue makes me roll my eyes so hard. Like c'mon, just say you hate women, it's faster than making me sit through an episode where you make Kes evil and miserable for no reason.

In the end, she decides to go back home to Ocampa, but the farewell scene was so half assed, it pisses me off even more. It's just Janeway and Neelix, and it's like, what?? Why is the whole crew not there?! No one on the ship got to say goodbye to her the first time- this was a chance to correct that, and they didn't even give it to us?! Fuck you, whoever wrote this!! Neelix got an the entire crew lined up when he left, but Kes gets nothing?! Not even the bridge crew? Not even her closest friends? Like, where are Tuvok and the Doctor? Or even Tom? They used to work together in sickbay, and they had that lovely scene showing him offering to teach her how to fly a shuttle- but nice as it was, it felt like it thematically didn't fit because it didn't pay off in any way later in the episode. She never interacted with any of the crew besides Janeway as her older self in the whole ep, except a brief exchange with Neelix as he handed her some soup or something on the transporter pad- and she had no response to him at all. Even though I get that seeing your shitty ex-boyfriend again after so many years could be weird, I just feel like having her act ambivalent toward everyone was a crappy choice. She was an important part of the show, and all the other characters cared about her, and they deserved to get a proper farewell with their friend, and the audience deserved it too.

But no. Honestly it was really mean to bring Kes back just to mess with her character and screw her over again. Like on the one hand, I get that if she'd gotten all that love, the viewers would wonder why she doesn't choose to stay on Voyager, but I honestly wonder that already, and I knew they obviously weren't going to bring her back permanently anyway. Just let us have the closure and give her character some proper respect at last. But even that was apparently too much to ask.

Tl;dr: A storyline that made no sense, since Kes was completely out of character, and the resolution was too easy considering how they portrayed her. There's some nice scenes here that keep the episode from being a total loss, but ultimately it failed Kes yet again.

[muiromem]

Just... repeatedly rotating An Idea around in my head

(and yes it's still Tom/Harry/B'Elanna OT3 because I'm obsessed with them, but I also love Janeway's and Tom's weird friendship)

Basically, something Big and Insane and Sci-Fi happens, and somehow all of the known universe in time/space is just sort of.... gone. Or dying, or being destroyed. Stars are going out, everything is vanishing out of existence. Planets, galaxies, creatures and anomalies and time/space itself - all completely gone.

Of course, Voyager is in the eye of the storm (so to speak) of this catastrophe that happened around them, and therefore one of the few things that remains for now (much like Kirk and the crew still existed after McCoy accidentally changed the timeline in "The City on the Edge of Forever"). Obviously, they're trying to stop it - to fix whatever this catastrophe was that could unmake all of existence.

With the wonders of Science-Fiction, there is a theoretical way to fix things; a jump-start essentially, to reset everything to what it was before this catastrophe and repair the wound it created. But even with this theoretical plan, there's something missing: a blueprint, of sorts. If they set off this insane spatial-temporal reaction, everything would be reset, but there's no telling what state the universe would actually be in after it was done. It would be like setting off a Genesis device on a war-destroyed Earth and hoping it would magically return everything and everyone to how they once were. There was nothing to guide this theoretical process of rebirth - and literally everything was at stake.

Even the great minds of Tuvok, Seven, B'Elanna and everyone else are at a loss for what to do. Unless they had someone like Q, omnipotent as he was, how could they feed something into this reaction of theirs to tell it what to do? How could they ever have enough information to rebuild all of existence from scratch?

It's Tom, of all people, who comes up with the answer: let him go.

At first everyone just sort of looks at him like he's insane because, what? What could he possibly be talking about? But even though he can't really remember, Tom still has a theory: the Warp 10 flight.

For a brief time, he was literally everywhere in time and space, all at once. Existing throughout all of existence simultaneously. Could his body, his unconscious mind, have somehow remembered that time? Could it have imprinted something onto him? Perhaps his very cells? He figures if there was a chance, even a small one, that his theory was correct - they had to take it. Because if he was right, then technically he was a living, breathing blue-print of all the known and unknown universe... and their only chance at saving everything.

That's when the riot starts, a great uproar of arguments. Facts and theoretical probabilities from Seven and Tuvok, horror and concern from Harry, even more from B'Elanna and the Doctor. They're startled, angry, because even if that were true the process would almost certainly kill him. And then there's Janeway, putting a stop to all the noise with a hand and saying that if there was a chance this theory would work, if the Doctor or someone could find even a speck of evidence to support it, then she would do it. Because even if everyone else forgot, she'd passed the transwarp threshold too.

Tom tries to argue, Chakotay and the Doctor too, but Janeway insists. She sends Tom to be looked over by everyone for proof of his concept, but says that if the time comes, she'll be the one to do it. As Captain, it's her job to keep everyone safe, no matter what. No one can argue, but no one is happy. Even this one chance at survival feels like it will come at too great a cost.

Time passes, with everyone rushing to do what they can before Voyager is also consumed by the nothingness. But eventually the verdict comes - Tom's idea has merit. His very atoms are somehow encoded with cross-temporal chronotrons and other signs that the theory may work. Once he knows what to look for, the Doctor scans Janeway and sees that she has these markers too, though hers are... fainter, for lack of a better term. She theorizes that it's because she only went through the Warp 10 process once, while Tom did it twice. The Doctor admits that there is a possibility Tom's the better candidate for this mission, only because he has a stronger "imprint" so to speak. Janeway still insists, refusing to send one of her officers to die in her place.

When everyone finally gets this complex and theoretical "reset" device figured out and constructed in one of the cargo bays, Tom begs to come with Janeway. He says that after everything she's done for him, he wants to see her off one last time. She relents, and once B'Elanna has started the reaction up from the safety of Engineering, shining beyond the doors like an imploding star, the two make their way there.

The entire deck has been cordoned off to keep chroniton and other radiations from killing the crew before they can set this whole thing in motion. It's just the two of them there. Tom takes a moment - as the doors open and they're both hit with a wave of heat, energy, and the unknown - and he thanks Janeway properly. For giving him a second chance, for believing in him, and for everything that followed after; like meeting Harry and B'Elanna, and finding a home aboard Voyager. Then he says "get them home" and before Janeway can realize what's happening, briefly thrown by his intense sincerity, he's shoving her aside - hitting the mechanism to shut the cargo bay doors. Inside, Tom grabs some tool and smashes the console so the door won't open without a manual override. That would probably buy him enough time.

Inside the cargo bay, it's like being trapped with the birth of a star; plasma, light, and colors all swirling in strings and shapes and a great sphere of something. There's no special switch for Tom to flip, no complicated sequence he has to follow. The best Voyager's brightest minds could figure out was for him to simply... walk into the singularity and hope for the best. He thinks of his family on Voyager, he thinks of his father and so many things unsaid, he thinks of B'Elanna and Harry and hopes that they'll still take care of each other when he's gone. And to keep them safe, to preserve everything that ever was or ever would be.... he walks into the fires of rebirth.

Outside the cargo bay, Janeway is screaming - trying to get in, to override the doors. She gets them open, only in time to see a tall silhouette disappearing - almost disassembled before her eyes, like dust being scattered away on the wind. Then there's just light - so bright it feels like it somehow pierces through her skin and bones and the very atoms of her being. Then.......

She wakes up. There's no telling how long it's been; all Janeway knows is that she's on the cargo bay floor, ears still faintly ringing, and Chakotay is gently helping her sit up. All around her it's... quiet. The cargo bay looks untouched - no crumpled bulkheads, no scorch marks, nothing. Even the vast, cobbled together machinery for the reset is simple gone. Once her head finally clears, Chakotay asks if she's alright, if her plan worked - but Harry's comm. from the bridge interrupts the question. Excitedly, Harry announces with great relief that the nothingness, the catastrophe, seems to be gone. His scans, Voyager's databanks - everything seems to be showing up normal. As far as they can tell, the universe was back to how it should be.

Back, except for one thing: Tom Paris.

As far as Janeway can see, Tom isn't in the cargo bay. She asks the computer to locate him; the reply is that Lieutenant Paris is no longer aboard. This is announced just as B'Elanna is running in through the cargo bay door, no doubt to see the result of all her hard work. She comes to a halt, looking at Janeway - staring because she wasn't supposed to be here, she was supposed to... After only a fraction of a moment, the computer's announcement finally registers and suddenly B'Elanna is running at Janeway with fists flying, screaming about how could she let him do this? Where is he, dammit, where the hell is Tom?!

She gets a few good hits to Janeway's chest and shoulders before Chakotay holds her back, and Janeway just lets her do it. Because this is her fault - she should have known Tom would try to pull that stunt with the doors, should never have let him come to see her off. She barely registers that B'Elanna's fury soon devolves into angry, choked back tears which Chakotay tries to soothe. When Harry arrives soon after and sees her expression, probably sees Janeway's too, it's all too easy for him to put two and two together. He and B'Elanna end up clinging to each other in their grief. Though Chakotay comes to Janeway to try and comfort her too, to reassure her that she's not responsible, all she can do is look at the cargo bay and see the silhouette where Tom last was - lost now to the ether of the universe.

The next few days are... hard. Harry might as well have aged a decade, and instead of the righteous fury that Janeway had expected, B'Elanna's just gone quiet. When Janeway stops by Sickbay, even the Doctor has become subdued, staring wistfully into the distance at nothing when he'd normally be working on some experiment or other. She still asks him, and Seven, and anyone who might be of use, if there was anything that could be done. But as far as anyone can tell, Tom Paris is gone - he'd sacrificed himself to save everyone else.

But Janeway feels like something is still wrong, like Tom's ghost is... haunting her somehow. It's a figure of speech when she admits it to a concerned Chakotay, but one night, she startles awake from a dreamless sleep, and there he is - standing in her quarters. Tom looks confused, exhausted, and he's... well she can see right through him. He looks at her, seemingly just as startled as she is, and she swears she hears him whisper "Captain?" But then suddenly he's convulsing, curling in on himself with a cry of pain and Janeway is horrified as she watches him.... unmade. It's like he's nowhere and everywhere, born and dying, unraveled but stitched together all at the same time until he's once again vanished into nothingness.

Janeway's heart is racing and she doesn't understand what she just witnessed. A dream? Hallucination? Some alien interference? She goes to the Doctor at 0400 and demands he scan her for a virus, temporal misalignment, anything. She's terrified that this was nothing more than the aftermath of radiation from being so near their "universal reset" as it went off. But there's also a tiny sliver of the smallest, most fragile hope, that this is something else - that there's a chance Tom isn't really gone.

The Doctor does find something, a strange resonance of sorts, connected - or perhaps coming from - Janeway. He theorizes that it's an effect of being so close to the singularity during the reset. As far as he can tell, she's not suffering from radiation damage, but believes that her guilt over Tom must have caused the hallucination. He offers to devise a treatment, and Janeway begrudgingly agrees. For him to say that what she'd seen was a hallucination though... it felt wrong somehow.

For the next few days, she hardly sleeps, too busy pouring over anything she can find - old Federation logs, complex theories, and all the research and schematics for the device they'd created. All in the slim hope to understand what had actually happened to Tom. Was he simply dead? He couldn't have been wiped from existence or surely, no one would have even known he'd existed. But had he been scattered throughout existence itself, a fundamental building block of the universe now? Seven helps her eventually, though it takes a good deal of persuasion. Chakotay and even Tuvok (though he'd never admit it) become increasingly concerned that she's grasping at straws, just trying to absolve herself of the guilt she feels because Tom took her place - but she knows it's more than that.

And eventually, she's proven right. The so-called hallucination happens again - but this time she's not the only one there. Seven and the Doctor were working with her on some experimental simulations on the holodeck when there's suddenly a terrible noise; something between electro-static and the wails of a dying creature. The holo-grid starts sparking, a console blowing out completely, until suddenly they all watch Tom Paris form out of nothingness before them. Whatever process was involved in his... reassembly, is obviously painful. Just watching the strange tangle of unidentifiable mass contort itself until it could become Tom was sickening. And when he finally takes form, still only semi-opaque, he collapses to his knees, shaking.

Janeway runs to him immediately, unsure what to do but calling his name. Here's there, he's there - it wasn't just in her head. The Doctor and Seven follow shortly, taking tricorder scans in shocked fascination. They ask questions, trying to understand what happened, but Tom doesn't know any more than they do. He says it's like he's everywhere but nowhere - and yet something keeps pulling him back into reality, back onto Voyager. He thought he would die, had come to terms with it, and yet he's still coming back. Even if he'd been completely tangible he looks awful, like he's dying every minute he's there. Janeway tries to reassure him that they'll find him, that they won't just give up, and that manages to make Tom smile. He says he knows she wouldn't give up on him - but as he starts to shift out of phase again, face clenched with pain, he asks her to promise him something. Janeway doesn't want to, knows she won't like what he has to say, but she nods anyways. "If you have to - let me go," is what he pleads. "Don't risk Voyager or anyone else for me. Just promise me that."

Janeway can't even form a reply, doesn't know how to let go, how to admit defeat. She's never given up on a crewman before, how could she possibly now? Out of habit she reaches out to touch Tom's shoulder - and even as he's fritzing, starting to disintegrate before her very eyes, she is surprised to make contact. The sounds of tricorders going haywire are behind her, but all Janeway can focus on is the fact that despite Tom literally unraveling in her hands, for a moment, just one moment, she could feel him. Then he's gone.

Everything is different this time - there was proof now, witnesses. B'Elanna and Harry are no longer withdrawn, instead racing full-steam ahead to do anything they can to help. They ask her about Tom of course, about how he's looking, and whether or not she thinks that they can save him. Janeway doesn't know what to say, how to tell them that Tom's clearly in pain and that she has no idea what even happened, let alone how to fix it....

Unfortunately, she doesn't have to. During some experimentation, Tom reappears again - much more violently this time, just when Harry and B'Elanna are present. The very air around them seems to crackle with energy, the temperature changing from too hot, then too cold, and back again. The atmospheric readings are going haywire and when Tom reappears, somehow less corporeal than before, he crumples to the ground in a heap. Harry is openly crying as they run to him, begging him to open his eyes - but when he and B'Elanna try to touch Tom, somehow their hands go right through.

Janeway is completely flummoxed. She'd touched Tom before, she knows she did. But it seemed he was becoming less and less stable each time he returned to a corporeal form - perhaps that explained the change? As the Doctor and Seven are once again running complex scans, Janeway goes to Tom's side and slowly reaches out a hand. As it lands on his shoulder, as Tom tries to sit up, she does make contact. The tricorders instantly go haywire, and Harry and B'Elanna wonder in despair - Why now? Why her? Why can't they touch him? But all Janeway can think is that this is progress. It must mean something, especially since Tom seems to regain consciousness as she maintains contact, becoming a bit less transparent - a bit more real. When Tom sees Harry and B'Elanna this time, his eyes begin to water too - and Janeway wonders how tears could form in whatever state of flux Tom has become entwined with. But when she removes her hand to give them some space, to ask Tom if he's alright, he starts to fade once more.

This time Tom tries to reach out, to touch Harry and B'Elanna - but is just as unable to make real contact. Instead he tells them he loves them, begs them to take care of each other, to let him go - and it's painful to watch as he's once again gripped by whatever agony has been tearing him into reality and back. Hoping it might do something, Janeway grabs Tom's hand and this time she makes a promise she's going to keep: to bring him home dammit, no matter how long it takes. Just her hold on him seems to stabilize him a bit, taking the floating sands of his dissolving form and pulling them together for just a moment longer... but then the temperature goes haywire, energy crackles around them and Tom is gone once more. With him goes every sound as even the beeping of tricorder scans finally cease. In the silence, Janeway can barely seem to breathe and knows that Harry and B'Elanna must feel infinitely worse. Even more terrifying, each time Tom appears, he seems to be getting weaker, losing whatever cohesion he's managed to retain. She has no real basis to understand anything that's been happening, but Janeway has the sinking feeling that if they don't do something soon, Tom will be lost to them for good.

But then the Doctor clears his throat and holds up his tricorder, and suddenly hope floods back. "I believe I know what's happening to Mister Paris," he says, with not an ounce of boastfulness for once. Instead, the Doctor is as grim-faced as the rest of them, but holographic eyes no longer seem so empty. "And I think there's a chance we can fix it."

The process is... complex. Even for a mind as scientifically adept as Janeway's. The only important part is that Janeway wasn't just imagining that there was something connecting her to Tom. In reality, it was the other way around. Tom wasn't just being pulled back to Voyager - he was specifically being pulled back to her. It was all down to the the second transwarp flight, which they'd taken together. Crossing the barrier had created a sort of tether between them - a connection point across the vastness of reality. When Tom had entered the singularity to "reset" all of existence, in a manner of speaking his very existence was used to rebuild what had been lost. The price for this was Tom himself - every atom and molecule destroyed like the fuel necessary to keep a fire burning. But Tom and Janeway had gone to Warp 10 once together - existing everywhere in time and space at the same time. Because of that, a part of Tom still existed in Janeway, safe from the "reset" aboard Voyager within the eye of the storm. Janeway had unknowingly become a sort of temporal anchor, pulling Tom back into existence where he belonged.

At the moment though, he was trapped - pulled between reality and the strange purgatory of nonexistence. But with the magic of incredibly complex Science-Fiction and Technobabble, the crew essentially find a way to use Janeway's own Warp 10 resonance as both a magnet and a waypoint - to pull Tom back, and then reintegrate him into their time and space with the help of B'Elanna's ingenuity and a lot of Borg-enhanced technology. Harry describes is as being "like a temporal transporter" and that's already enough to give Janeway a headache, so she doesn't try to ask for details. The main idea boils down to grabbing onto what's left of Tom's "pattern" of existence, which has been imprinted onto Janeway, and using their newly constructed technology to "rematerialize" him back into reality.

Once they've found the method and jurry-rigged some machinery, the Doctor is standing by, both for Tom and for Janeway should anything happen. The others are farther off, manning the various machines while Chakotay and Tuvok have evacuated various decks in case of any explosions. The risks are immense, and this time Janeway had actually assembled the crew - asking them if they thought it was worth it. They'd potentially be putting the ship and everyone onboard it in danger, in a last-ditch attempt to bring one lost crewman home. It had warmed her heart when not a single person balked at the danger; Tom Paris saved them, their homes, their families and futures. Why shouldn't they try to save him too?

When the process happens, Janeway feels a sense of déjà vu; the light, the swirling mass of indecipherable colors and shapes and feelings, all cascading before her. This time she's strapped up with various bits of technology, hoping against hope to become the lighthouse that guide's Tom's way. In the very same cargo bay, bulkheads rattle and crumple this time, machines start screaming their warnings, and Janeway can feel the heat and pain and dizziness as radiation tries to eat away at her. But she can't stop yet, she won't stop. Even as the Doctor is yelling that the radiation levels are reaching critical, even as she hears Harry calling out that there's a new singularity opening and it's becoming completely unstable, Janeway sees it - a silhouette. It's only just forming, scattering in and out like a dance of lightning and sand, but it's there.

This time she won't be thrown through a cargo bay door and left to rebuild in the aftermath. This time she listens to her gut, and runs forward. She'd been the only one able to hold onto to Tom before because of whatever this bio-temporal tether was that had connected them - she sure as hell wasn't going to let him go now.

So she runs and sees an outstretched hand, breaking and reforming and scattering like light through a prism, everywhere and nowhere all at once. She ignores the pain and the feeling like she herself might be consumed by the fires of the unknown.

Kathryn Janeway takes a leap of faith, she grabs that outstretched hand, and for the sake of every person on her ship, she pulls.

Watching from afar, all the others see is a gigantic explosion of light and colors and sound. The cargo bay had been nearly cleared out before this process, but every piece of newly-made machinery has been completely destroyed. Bits and pieces scatter the floor, bulkheads have been wrenched open, sparks are flying, and Harry and B'Elanna find their ears ringing as they choke on smoke. They'd erected a level 10 forcefield for protection before starting the procedure, but in the aftermath it's been completely torn away. Even as the environmental controls kick in and start clearing out the haze, they look up from where they'd been thrown to see a massive scorch mark, spread out like a starburst across the cargo bay deck.

At it's center, they see.... something. Dizzy, confused, and still trying to see through ash and debris, initially they can't make it out. Even the Doctor is nowhere to be found, his emitter lying on the floor. It's fritzing but, after a brief inspection, seems repairable. Whatever happened must have shorted out many different systems, as Harry's attempt to use his combadge goes unanswered. He and B'Elanna make their way instead towards the center of the scorched cargo bay floor and behold... Captain Janeway.

She's covered in ash, with burns on her skin and uniform, and as they watch she kneels to the floor. There's something in her hands and after a moment it becomes clear; she's draping an emergency blanket over a long, familiar form. One with a head of messy, tawny blonde hair.

Harry and B'Elanna are running then, falling to their knees as they reach Janeway's side and behold Tom Paris - naked save for the blanket Janeway has brought to preserve his modesty. He's overly pale and clearly unconscious, but he's there, he's alive.

Harry cradles Tom to his chest, rocking him gently and bawling like a baby. B'Elanna runs her hand over Tom's hair, his face, his bare shoulders - anything she can seem to reach. They don't even know if he's fine really, but at least he's breathing. They didn't blow up the ship and they didn't have to lose him. Janeway looks exhausted and it's obvious her burns are painful, but she just stares at her three crewman, clutching onto each other with such love, and she smiles.

It feels like she sits there for an eternity, just watching them, basking in their reunion and the knowledge that they did it. In reality, it must only be a few minutes before the cargo bay doors are being forced open and Chakotay, Tuvok, and Neelix come through, bringing medical supplies and asking if everyone is alright.

By then, Harry is finally wiping his eyes and asking B'Elanna if she can get the Doctor back online because they're probably going to need him. For once, she looks reluctant to work, clearly wanting to stay there with him and Tom. In the end she agrees, but not before pressing a kiss to Harry's knuckles and Tom's forehead before taking the holo-emitter and leaving.

Afterwards it's all a long process of scanning, repairing, and treating everyone's wounds. Janeway tries to shoo Chakotay away once they bring her to sickbay, far too worried about Tom's condition, but he pulls out the big guns. Chakotay knows that she can't say no to Neelix when he gives her those big concerned eyes and tells her that "the crew needs their Captain to be taken care of too". So she ends up lying on a bio-bed for half an hour while the Talaxian carefully treats her burns and radiation poisoning as best he can. Unsurprisingly, B'Elanna gets the Doctor's program and holo-emitter working in record-breaking time, and they're all relieved when he checks over Tom and the prognosis is good; Tom's exhausted, dehydrated, and a bit worse for wear, but he'll be fully recovered in no time. Whatever madness they'd pulled off had worked.

Eventually, he wakes up, still very weak but every bit the Tom Paris they know and love. When he sees how distressed both Harry and B'Elanna are, he even jokes that they put an awful lot of effort in "just for him". B'Elanna looks like she wants to punch him for it, but instead throws her arms around him in a hug, and the three of them share a teary, heartfelt reunion. When the lovebirds have to split off so everyone can get some rest, and once the Doctor has given her a clean bill of health, Janeway goes over to Tom's biobed to see how he's doing.

He's obviously tired but he smiles up at her. However, the first thing she tells him is that she should court-martial him and throw him in the brig for the stunt he pulled in the cargo bay by taking her place. For a moment, Tom nearly believes her. But then Janeway smiles back and pats his hand with hers and says that he may be a reckless idiot, but she's proud to say he's one of her bravest officers. She also sincerely thanks him for what he did, to which Tom replies that she risked everything to get him back, so that probably makes them even. Janeway doesn't bother trying to make him promise never to do something that risky again, since she knows he'd only break the promise anyways if the circumstances required it. Instead, she says that if he's going to continue doing insane, reckless stunts for the good of her ship, then she'll just have to keep doing insane reckless things to keep his sorry ass alive. She receives the patented "yes ma'am" for her troubles, and Tom says that after all, he learned from the best.

The last thing she does before telling him to get some rest though, is tease him - threatening that, even if she understands why he did it, if he ever tries that switcheroo he pulled with her again, she'll have to tell the gossip mill about all the places she hadn't realized he has freckles.

Janeway can see by his slowly-dawning expression that Tom does recall something about emerging from the nothingness, naked on the cargo bay floor. The last thing she hears as she walks, grinning, away from Sickbay is a sputtered yell of "You wouldn't actually... Captain? CAPTAIN!" before the automatic doors swish shut.