| Janeway: | "What do I do to leave here?" |
| Admiral Janeway: | "Just decide. The only thing that keeps you is your refusal to leave." |
| Janeway: | "You may be right in everything you said to me. But I'm not ready to accept it. I'm not ready to go." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "My poor little bird. You always made it hard for yourself. If there was a rocky path and a smooth one you chose the rocky one every time." |
| Janeway: | "If I stay, maybe it'll be easier for them. Maybe I could be comforting somehow." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "You're saying all the things I told myself when I refused to leave you. I was hoping you wouldn't have to go through that. It's a horrible existence. As time wears on you begin to see how potent, how destructive, loneliness is. You'll see the people you love going on with their lives, doing all the things you used to share with them but you won't be a part of it any more. You'll be forever shut out of their existence. It becomes agonising. I don't want that to happen to you." |
| Janeway: | "Maybe that's what'll it take for me to make this decision. I just know that now I'm not ready." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "What can I do to convince you?" |
| Janeway: | "Nothing. I can't, I won't abandon them. We're too much a part of each other. Can't you see that? We've been through so much together. I have to know what's going to happen to them. To see Kes continue to grow and learn, to know if Tom and B'Elanna will ever stop sparring with each other and develop a real friendship." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "You can only be an observer of their lives, never a participant." |
| Janeway: | "I don't care. I'd rather be here in spirit than not at all. A captain doesn't abandon ship." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "Every hour that you stay here makes it that much more difficult to leave." |
| Janeway: | "Why are you pushing me? I've made up my mind. I'm staying here!" |
| Suddenly Janeway has what seems like a vision. She is looking up and sees Chakotay, the Doctor and Tuvok bending over. The Doctor says: "The cortical stimulator is working. I'm getting a weak pulse." Chakotay: "She's coming back." The Doctor says: "I'll use cordrazine along with the stimulator." The 'vision' ends abruptly and Janeway is back in the Messhall with Admiral Janeway. |
| Janeway: | "What was that? What happened?" |
| Admiral Janeway: | "What do you mean?" |
| Janeway: | "I saw Tuvok and Chakotay and the Doctor." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "Here?" |
| Janeway: | "No, it was different, as though I were looking up at them." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "An hallucination like the others." |
| Janeway: | "It didn't feel like the others. I didn't see myself. I was looking up at them. That's the real me, isn't it? Lying on the ground on that planet, dying. And this is the hallucination - this isn't real." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "More denial. You're only making it harder on yourself." |
| Janeway: | "You're trying very hard to convince me to come with you. Why is that? If what you're saying is true why not let me come to the decision on my own." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "I'm trying to spare you unnecessary pain." |
| Janeway: | "My father would never act like this. He always believed I had to learn my own lessons, make my own mistakes. He never tried to shield me from life. Why would he try to shield me from death? You're not my father. I could be imagining you, but I don't think so. You have such a specific agenda. You're determined that I go with you somewhere. Who are you?" |
| Admiral Janeway: | "I'm trying to help you. Stop fighting me." |
| Janeway: | "Are you an alien being of some kind? Is that it?" |
| Suddenly Janeway is back on the surface of the planet, looking up at Chakotay, Tuvok and the Doctor. |
| Chakotay: | "Her eyes are open!" |
| Doctor: | "Vital signs are responding. Blood pressure is 60 over 30." |
| Tuvok: | "But the entity is still inhabiting her cerebral cortex, impeding your treatment." |
| Chakotay: | "Kathryn, hang on, we're bringing you back. Just fight a little longer. |
| Doctor: | "Direct synaptic stimulation might drive out the alien presence. |
| Her glimpse of reality ends abruptly. Janeway turns to 'Admiral Janeway': "I was right. I heard Tuvok and Chakotay and the Doctor. You're an alien. You created all these hallucinations, haven't you." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "This is what my species does. At the moment just before death one of us comes to help you understand what's happening, to make the crossing over an occasion of joy." |
| Janeway, indicating the nearby white light: "And what is that?" |
| Admiral Janeway: | "Our matrix, where your consciousness will live. I was being truthful when I said it was a place of wonder. It can be whatever you want it to be." |
| Janeway: | "Then why didn't you tell me this from the beginning? Why pretend to be my father?" |
| Admiral Janeway: | "Usually people are comforted to see their loved ones. It makes the crossing over a much less fearful occasion. I've done this many times, but I've never encountered someone so resistant." |
| Janeway gets another moment in reality. |
| Doctor: | "Something's happened. The alien presence is getting stronger again." |
| Chakotay: | "Fight it, Kathryn, fight it just a little longer." |
| Doctor: | "I'll have to try a thoron pulse." |
| Janeway slips back into the hallucination. She tells 'Admiral Janeway': "My people are telling me to fight. They're trying to save me." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "They're trying out of desperation. It's hopeless." |
| Janeway: | "You're the one who sounds desperate. I don't get the feeling you're trying to make me comfortable. You're only interested in my agreeing to come with you." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "Because it's inevitable." |
| Janeway: | "You don't strike me as any kind of good samaritan. You're more like a vulture, preying on people at the moment of their death when they're most vulnerable." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "I've waited for you. I've been patient." |
| Janeway: | "But your patience is wearing thin. What's the real reason you want me in that matrix? Somehow I don't think it has anything to do with everlasting joy." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "You must go with me." |
| Janeway: | "If you could force me to go you'd've done it already. You need me to agree, don't you. I have to go voluntarily." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "Wouldn't that be better than standing here in this endless debate?" |
| Janeway: | "Let me tell you this: we can stand here for all eternity and I will never choose to go with you." |
| Admiral Janeway: | "You're in a dangerous profession, Captain. You face death every day. There'll be another time and I'll be waiting. Eventually you'll come into my matrix, and you will nourish me for a long long time." He turns and walks back into the white light of his matrix, then he and the matrix vanishes. |
| Janeway: | "Go back to hell, coward." |
| The hallucination ends and Janeway at last wakes to reality. |
| Chakotay: | "Kathryn." |
| Doctor: | "I'm no longer detecting the alien presence. Vital signs are responding. Blood pressure 110 over 65." |
| Janeway: | "Doctor? What happened?" |
| Doctor: | "Perhaps you can explain, Commander." |
| Chakotay: | "You and I were caught in a magnetic storm and crashed here. You were badly injured. The Doctor just arrived on a shuttle with Tuvok and began treating you." |
| Tuvok: | "As he was doing so we detected an alien presence within your cerebral cortex. It appeared to be preventing our attempts to heal you." |
| Doctor: | "Eventually it was dislodged but there were a number of times I thought we'd lost you." |
| Chakotay: | "But each time you seemed to fight back." |
| Janeway: | "He kept telling me to let go but I wouldn't." |
| Tuvok: | "He?" |
| Janeway: | "My fath- the alien. He wanted to take me into another place." |
| Chakotay: | "Another place? Some kind of afterlife?" |
| Janeway: | "Maybe. But I can tell you this, from what I saw it's certainly not where I'd like to spend eternity." |
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