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SUMMARY: The Doctor falls in love. Meanwhile a traitor on Voyager is working for the Kazon.
Paris arrives on the Bridge late for duty, again, and it is obvious that his excuse is made up.
The crew answers a distress call from a small alien spacecraft and beams its occupant into Sickbay. The deathly-ill and unconscious Vidiian female is suffering from the phage, a virulent disease which has ravaged her people for millennia. She has an implant in her parietal lobe which stores her synaptic patterns, processes them, and transmits neural-electrical impulses to the rest of her body's systems, like a neuro-cortical stimulator, designed to supplement the higher brain functions. The implant itself is functioning but is connected to mostly dead nerve cells which, if left untreated, will leave her brain-dead in minutes. To postpone her oncoming death, the Doctor puts her decaying body into stasis and transfers her synaptic patterns into Sickbay's holobuffer before they degrade. He uses the undamaged chromosomes in her cerebellum to re-create her original DNA code then has the computer create a holographic body that reflects the way she would look if she were healthy and not afflicted by the phage, in order to aid him when he comes to treating the real body. Finally he uses transporter records to re-create her clothing.
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| the real Vidiian woman who is deathly ill, and the computer-generated hologram of the woman if she were healthy and into which the Doctor transfers her being |
Danara sees herself in the mirror |
When she revives, she is astonished and grateful for his creativity, and at first she cannot hold back her tears as she sees herself as if she were well, even though the Doctor explains that this is just a temporary measure until he can stabilise her real body as she cannot survive long in holographic form. She introduces herself as Dr Danara Pel, a haematologist. She was helping to treat an outbreak of the phage on Fina Prime and was on her way home. Voyager is travelling to Danara's home planet, a journey that will take 22 days. |
| Remembering her harrowing experience as a prisoner of the Vidiians which occurred in the previous year (in [#14 Faces]), Torres first baulks at the Doctor's request that she donate a gramme of her brain tissue to be grafted onto Danara's brain, for the Vidiians discovered during her imprisonment that Klingon DNA is more resistant to the phage than that of other species. But after Danara interrupts Torres' tirade and shows her that not all Vidiians are like her former captors, Torres relents. |
Torres vehemently objects to the brain graft |
Because it will take several days before they know if the graft works, the Doctor and Danara begin spending time together. The Doctor introduces her to the convivial atmosphere of Chez Sandrine, in Paris' holoprogram of that name, where she gives revealing insights to the tragedy of having the phage and from so young an age. Danara greatly enjoys their outing, and the Doctor manages to make her laugh for the first time in ages. As the Doctor does not have a name, she gives him one - Shmullus, after an uncle who made her laugh. Danara sees two holocharacters dancing and is interested by this, to her, novel intimate activity but the Doctor says that he is not programmed to dance.
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| Danara and the Doctor in the Chez Sandrine holoprogram |
the Doctor asks Danara whether she returns his romantic feelings |
The Doctor is confused by his affection for Danara and is scared of not being in control of his intensive feelings for her, but Kes reassures him and urges him to tell her how he feels. But the Doctor, inexperienced in romantic matters, does so by blurting it out during a medical operation on Danara's real body and while Kes is present. Unaware of Danara's sudden embarrassment, he blunders on and asks her reply. Put on the spot, she says she would prefer to keep their relationship strictly professional. |
The disappointed Doctor visits the Chez Sandrine holoprogram to seek Paris advice, specifically regarding how to deal with rejection by women, and Paris realises the Doctor is talking about himself.
Meanwhile, Kes gets Danara to admit to her that she really does like the Doctor. Paris takes a hand and tells the Doctor he knows the perfect romantic getaway to impress Danara. Soon afterwards, borrowing one of Paris' holodeck programs, the Doctor and Danara have a delightful date on Mars in a '57 Chevy with a view of the stars, and share their first kiss.
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| above 4 pictures: Danara and the Doctor on a romantic date |
But as one relationship grows, another deteriorates. Paris' lateness and destructive attitude leads Chakotay to seek him out in the Messhall for a friendly talk about it, but Paris reacts by loudly venting his disrespect for Chakotay which everyone hears, including Michael Jonas who is secretly communicating with the Kazon-Nistrim. When Paris turns up for duty late again, he finds that Chakotay has replaced him with another helmsman. When Chakotay goes to take him by the arm in dismissal, Paris lashes out and knocks Chakotay over. Immediately Janeway sends Paris to the Brig.
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| Paris shoves Chakotay |
Jonas' demand is met that he speak personally with Seska, who is openly aiding the Kazon-Nistrim and the lover of the sect's First Maje. Seska orders him to set about sabotaging Voyager's engines as part of a Kazon-Nistrim plot to ambush Voyager on Hemikek IV and seize the ship.
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| Jonas secretly communicates with Seska |
The Doctor is shocked to discover that Danara's brain is rejecting the graft due to elevated levels of nytoxinol in her body. He does not understand what could have gone wrong and is on the verge of calling Tuvok to report sabotage, when Danara admits to injecting her (real) body with nytoxinol. She sabotaged the treatment because she does not want to return to her diseased body even though the alternative will be death within days. She is afraid the Doctor will no longer love her when she returns to her real, diseased, body.
But the Doctor convinces her that he will love her no matter what she looks like, readily admits that she has brought welcome changes to his life too, and convinces her to survive and go on caring for her sick compatriots. Even though they only have limited time together before they reach her home planet, they want to spend as much time together as they can.
As Voyager nears her home, she returns to her body and shares a tender dance alone with the Doctor, who has downloaded a dancing subroutine specially, in the Chez Sandrine holoprogram.
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| Danara and the Doctor dance together |
 | | DANARA: You have given me the most extraordinary gift that anyone has ever given me. You, you brought me to this ship where no one is sick and, and people are friendly. You've made me healthy and beautiful. I don't want to go back to the way things were!
DOCTOR: You said before you knew me that you were just a disease. Well, before you, I was just a projection of photons held together by forcefields. A computerised physician doing a job, doing it exceptionally well of course, but still it was just a profession, not a life. But now that you are here and my programming has adapted, I'm not just working any more. I'm living, learning what it means to be with someone, to love someone. I don't think I can go back to the way things were either. Danara, please. Don't die."
DANARA: I want us to be together.
DOCTOR: So do I. |
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