Missing You

Aurora Khan (ltrotsky17@hotmail.com)

Series: Star Trek: Voyager

Codes: Neelix, Kes, B’Elanna

Rating: G

Disclaimer: Paramount is Paramount, but the work is mine.

Archiving: Please do not archive anywhere. Linking is allowed, but please let me know where.

Synopsis: A lonely Neelix wonders what he has left now that Kes is gone.

Historian’s Note: This is set much after The Gift and after Mortal Coil. This has no approximate date, but set six months after the season opener, Scorpion.

=/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\=

The being once known as Kes, drifted through space, searching, examining, learning. She saw things she never would have dreamed of, people she never could have conceived of and places more enchanting than anything she had seen on Voyager.

But still, she felt herself being drawn back to her old home.

It didn’t make any sense. Here, in her new state of being, Kes was able to do what she had wanted to since she was a small child. Learn. Learn about new and fascinating things day in and day out and never tire of it. Going back ‘home’ should never have entered her thoughts.

Yet it did.

It took some searching to find the answer, but once she had, Kes realized that there was a very good reason for her new-found case of home-sickness.

Neelix.

=/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\=

It was 03:00. The middle of the night shift. Everyone onboard Voyager was either working or asleep.

Except for Neelix.

He sat at a sparkling clean table in the mess hall, toying with a dish rag absently while staring out the view port. He stayed that way for quite some time, not a finger twitching, only the occasional fluttering of his eyelids any indication of life. He would have remained in the same position for who knows how much longer if B’Elanna Torres hadn’t suddenly entered the room.

The chief engineer strode toward him, her engineering ‘smock’ flapping around her slim form. She was grinning with an unusual amount of enthusiasm for someone working the grave yard shift. "Neelix! I didn’t expect to see you here," B’Elanna greeted as she came to a halt a foot away from Neelix’s table.

The Talaxian didn’t answer.

"Neelix?" she repeated, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

He started suddenly and rose from his chair with a jolt. "Oh, hello B’Elanna! I didn’t hear you come in. Can I get you something?"

"I was wondering if you had any more pleeka rind casserole," B’Elanna explained, wincing at the thought of actually being forced to digest the revolting dish. Her stomachs grumbled in protest at her rebellious thoughts. She’d been so engrossed with trying to finish up repairs on the warp plasma relay that she’d forgotten to stop to eat dinner. Lieutenant Carey had practically shoved her out of the Jeffreries’ tube when he’d found out. She both resented and appreciated the gesture.

"If Harry didn’t finish it, I should," Neelix mused thoughtfully, mentally reviewing the list of leftovers he had put away earlier. He made his way toward the kitchen, and B’Elanna took a seat at the table Neelix had just vacated.

"So how are repairs going?" Neelix called from the other side of the room as he rifled through the storage cabinets.

"Vorik, Nicoletti and I should be done by the time we get off duty," B’Elanna answered. "You should see me back in here in time for breakfast." Her lips twisted into a small smile. Finally, she and Tom would be able to meet and have breakfast together! He’d been busy juggling duties in Sickbay and at the helm, while she’d been down in the bowels of the ship, trying to keep in the order in the three-ringed circus known as Engineering. No one had ever said maintaining a relationship on board a starship would be easy, but no one had mentioned how difficult it would be either.

"Meeting Tom?" Neelix asked, suddenly appearing in front of her with two plates full of food. He passed the platters to B’Elanna, who took them gratefully. She dug her fork into the casserole and stuck a large helping into her mouth. Swallowing, she answered," If something doesn’t come up. He’s supposed to in Sickbay, but Samantha Wildman said she’d take over for him."

Neelix nodded. "Relationships can be hard," he commented, a strange look in his eyes. "But they are almost always worth it."

B’Elanna looked down at her plate quickly, not wanting Neelix to see the worried crease on her brow. He sounded so…sad and lost, so different from his usual bright and bubbly chatter. Well, it hadn’t been too long that he’d been resurrected from the dead and then tried to kill himself be beaming out into space. He was entitled to his quirks.

Neelix remained silent as she finished the rest of her meal He didn’t speak until her fork clattered onto her empty plate.

"Don’t forget your dessert." He pushed a tray full of something blue toward B’Elanna.

"Jiballian fudge?" B’Elanna asked in disbelief. If Neelix had made that for dessert, Torres was surprised to hear that there hadn’t been a stampede to the mess hall. The fudge, reminiscent of chocolate, was one of the few delicious things that Neelix had ever concocted. She couldn’t remember the last time Neelix had made it. "I didn’t know you had made it today," she commented, breaking off a piece of the cake and ingesting it. The fudge was even more tasty than she recalled.

"I just made it an hour ago," Neelix explained. His gaze grew distant. "I don’t know why. Out of habit, I think."

"Habit?" B’Elanna tried to avoid appearing like a glutton as she polished off some more of the dessert. It grew more and more difficult as she kept eating. It really was good. And suddenly, although she had polished off the pleeka rind casserole only minutes before, she was ravenous.

"Today would be Kes’s fourth birthday." His words were spoken so softly, so drenched in melancholy, that B’Elanna nearly missed them underneath the sound of her chewing.

When it finally penetrated her thoughts, the engineer almost gagged. Devouring the remaining bits of cake in her mouth (which, in its half eaten state passed through her esophagus in a most discomforting manner), she wanted to slap herself for forgetting. "Neelix, I’m sorry…I was so distracted by repairs…" she blabbered; mentally cursing everyone she’d encountered that day for not reminding her.

Neelix waved her apologies away like they were pesky insects swarming around his face. "It’s all right. It’s not important."

"Yes, it is important," B’Elanna argued. "It’s important to you, and it should be important to everyone. Kes was a friend to all of us. She deserves to be remembered and honored with the same dignity and respect that she showed all of us when she was still with us." B’Elanna wasn’t sure if she should be referring to Kes in the past tense or not, since it had never been made very clear if she’d actually died or just gone on to a different plane of existence. However, it seemed the most proper, since Kes had left Voyager six months ago with no obvious intention of returning. The exploding shuttle craft and hurtling the ship ten thousand light years away backed up that line of thought.

"Maybe, maybe not," replied Neelix, leaning back in his chair. He continued in a seemingly blasé manner, but his eyes were dark. He’d given whatever he was about to say a serious amount of thought. "But as I was sitting here, it seemed to me, that one more person that left me was nothing new. My family died years ago. Kes was the only ‘family’ I had left. And now she’s gone too. Do you know, B’Elanna, what’s it like to have someone you love with you one day, and gone the next?"

"Yes," B’Elanna responded quietly. "When I was five," she began slowly, "my father left me. Just like that. No goodbye, no, ‘I’ll come to visit’. I woke up one morning and he was gone. I never saw him again—but I think about him a lot."

The morale officer nodded in understanding. He rose and began to circle the room, stopping at the window. "I think about Kes a lot these days. I remember the way she used to smile at me, how her eyes were that perfect shade of blue. The way her hair curled around her face, her smell, her touch. I try to remember it all, and then I realize that it’s getting harder to remember. Everyday, I feel like I lose a part of my memories with Kes."

B’Elanna remained silent. Neelix didn’t want to hear her commiserate with him, he needed someone to talk to.

He turned back around to face B’Elanna. "When Kes and I first came aboard Voyager, we toasted to the adventure. Without her, I don’t think I have an adventure. I don’t have anything."

"Yes you do," Torres protested. "You’re our cook---"

"No one likes my cooking anyway."

"You’re our morale officer---"

"How can I cheer everyone else up when I can’t cheer myself up?"

"And you’re our friend."

Neelix couldn’t find a rebuttal to that one. Before B’Elanna could expand on that line off thought, he jumped into another one. "What’s worse than losing Kes is that sometimes it seems like she never existed. I can walk into Sickbay, and Tom or Samantha will be working there as if they have been for the past several years. The garden…the plants don’t get any personal care, it’s all automated. Like Kes had never been to tend to them. And even the presence of Kes seems to have been replaced by Seven." Neelix spit out the Borg’s name with more venom than B’Elanna thought he could posses.

"As if she could ever trade places with my Kes! With her constant ‘this is irrelevant’ and detached manner, her lack of respect for the care I take in preparing her meals or helping her adjust to her new life. It seems as if the universe has played a cruel joke on me, taking dear sweet Kes, and giving us a heartless woman who looks at each and everyone of us as if we were insignificant specimens under a microscope!" Neelix was breathing fire, and although she knew it wasn’t directed at her, B’Elanna felt herself being scorched by the flames.

Who knew Neelix had such a temper? B’Elanna thought.

"Neelix, you know I’m not the biggest advocate in the ‘let’s-keep-Seven-onboard’ party. If you hadn’t stopped me, I probably would have broken her nose a couple months ago. But I don’t think—no, I KNOW Seven would never be able to replace Kes. No one on Voyager thinks that, and neither should you."

"I know." Neelix spoke again, his cadence even, any trace of his wrath toward Seven gone. "Seven didn’t even really meet Kes. It’s just that…that I miss her so much, I guess I’m lashing out at… anything I think helped take her away from me. But it’s no one’s fault." Neelix became despondent once more. "She’s gone, and she’s not coming back."

"Vorik to Torres," suddenly sounded from B’Elanna’s comm badge.

"What is it, Vorik?" she snapped.

"Is anything wrong, Lieutenant?" Vorik asked in his precisely modulated voice, the epitome of Vulcan control, a severe contrast to Neelix’s recent display of indignation. "You were supposed to be back in Engineering fifteen minutes ago."

"I was delayed. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Torres out." She tapped her comm badge, stood and crossed the room to where Neelix was standing in two seconds flat. "I have to get back to duty. Will you be all right?"

"I’ll be fine, B’Elanna. I apologize for keeping you this long."

She headed for the doors, but stopped before crossing the threshold into the corridor. "Neelix?"

"Yes?" Neelix looked at her.

"If you ever need to blow off some steam again…come see me. Call me names, insult my parentage. I won’t take it personally." With a reassuring smile, B’Elanna hurried out of the room, her engineering smock fluttering behind her, trying to keep up with her quick pace.

Neelix smiled faintly as he realized B’Elanna had just rehashed what he had told her on the Day of Honor. "She’s a good woman," Neelix said aloud. "Tom’s lucky to have found her."

Just as he had been fortunate enough to have found Kes.

But he had lost her.

The beginnings of an all out smile vanished from his face.

=/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\=

Neelix finished sanitizing the plates he had served B’Elanna with and put them away in the cabinet. He ran a dish rag over the already spotless counter and tucked it away. He headed for the exit, pausing to make sure the mess hall was in an impeccable state. His gaze fell on the middle table. That was where he had last spoken to Kes, just before her transformation had started to become irreversible.

I couldn't have come this far without you. And I love you. I always will.

Tears pricked his eyes as he recalled Kes’s words.

"Why did you have to leave me, Kes?" he lamented. "Why?"

I would never leave you, Neelix.

She had never said that to him.

Neelix’s head immediately snapped around as he heard the mysterious words. "Who’s there?"

I would never leave you, Neelix, the voice repeated.

Kes’s voice repeated.

"Kes?" gasped Neelix, eyes darting around the room, looking for the petite Ocampan’s form to emerge from the shadows of the cabin. "How can this be? Your shuttle craft exploded…"

I don’t exist in your world any longer. Where I am, time and space have no meaning. Physical bodies aren’t needed. It just took me some…time…Kes’s voice used to word like it was something foreign and unfamiliar. …To figure out how to communicate with you.

"Can…can I see you?"

Close your eyes and picture me, Kes instructed.

Neelix did as told. He brought an image of the Ocampan to his mind, one of her dressed in a red outfit, her curly hair cascading about her shoulders. The image seemed to walk toward him, extending her hands.

We’re both too much a part of each other to let anything keep up apart. I’ll forever be with you, in spirit. Don’t mourn for me. I didn’t die, Neelix. I moved on. Someday, maybe you’ll be able to join me. Until then, don’t give up. You’re a fighter.

"You’ll be with me?"

I promise. And you know I never break a promise. Just remember, don’t ever give up. Not ever. Her voice was becoming difficult to hear. Neelix could sense her leaving, getting farther and farther away from him for the second time.

"Please, stay a little longer, Kes! Please!" he pleaded.

I can’t stay here. I don’t belong. Remember, I’ll always be with you. You’ll always be with me. To the adventure, Neelix. To the adventure.

And just like that, she was gone again.

"Kes?" Neelix called. There was no answer.

He slumped into a chair, dejected. She had been so close, but so far. Close enough to touch, but Kes was intangible now. Lost to the mists of the universe. He wasn’t even sure that she had been here. Maybe she’d just been a figment of his imagination.

Closing his eyes, he remembered the Kes the way he’d seen her when they’d met on the surface of the Ocampan Homeworld. He could see her when she’d been going through premature Elogium, and when her body had been inhabited by the warlord Tieran’s consciousness. At her second birthday party, laughing, her blue eyes twinkling with good humor.

Then he heard Kes’s words reverberate through his head. Don’t mourn for me. You’re a fighter.

For Kes, Neelix decided, he wouldn’t wallow in his grief. Kes was right, as she always was. She hadn’t died, she had moved on.

He retraced his steps back to the counter, and pulled a bottle from underneath. Pouring a tiny amount of the Talaxian moon ripened champagne into a flute, he raised the flute toward the view port. "To the adventure," he said.

He looked back at the table he’d last spoken to the physical Kes at. He could picture her, sitting, smiling. Proud of him. Don’t mourn for me, she repeated, an angelic smile on her face.

And for the first time in days, a genuine smile appeared on his round face.

Because he would no longer have to mourn for his Kes.

She would always be with him.

=/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\==/\=

This story was inspired by Everything But the Girl’s song, Missing, from their album, Amplified Heart.

Ó March 4, 1998 to Aurora Khan (ltrotsky17@hotmail.com)

Last updated July 19, 2001

http://www.oocities.org/auspicious17/