by AgentStarlight
---
Notes: This short piece is unworthy of all the normal jabberish up here,
it would take up half the page! The characters are Paramount's as is
the storyline. . . all but the small twist of fate which is my own
invention. I love to torture these two!
Read on. . .
---
"Stop right there!"
An all too familiar voice shouted to Harry Kim's back, as he turned
the corridor in Voyager's lower decks. Harry turned around slowly, his
heart pounding at the sound of his friend's voice.
"Tom?" he asked nervously, regarding the old style handgun
extended from the grasp of his nearly unrecognizable friend. It raised
slowly, aimed right at him.
"Wrong guy." Tom replied, taking a step closer. "What are
you doing out of uniform? What rank are you in?"
"Um. . . I-I'm a civilian." Harry stammered, raising his
shaky hands above his head.
"In the middle of a war zone? Right! You speak English. You an
American?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah. . . Yes, an American."
Tom turned to the soldier standing behind him. "Go on ahead, I'll
catch up." After the other man nodded and left, Tom cocked his pistol
and advanced on the dumbfounded young ensign. "Look, I don't
have time for twenty questions. . . If you say you're an American,
then. . . If Betty Grable was to come through that door, what would you be
staring at?"
Harry was completely clueless. He had no idea what Tom was talking about,
and having a gun pointed at his head, a few inches from his face, made it
a bit harder to think. He did know he'd be a dead man if he didn't
answer. Shaking his head, he tried to clear out the racing thoughts.
"What would you be staring at?" Tom demanded again, his finger
tightening on the trigger. His blue eyes flashed under the brim of his
army green helmet. "Time's up!"
"Wait! Her eyes! I'd be staring at her eyes!" Harry shouted,
his stomach turning with fear, praying Tom would buy it.
"Sorry, wrong answer." Tom's eyes reflected no mercy or
recognition of his best friend as he pulled the trigger. The bullet hit
Harry square in the chest, and sent him crashing against the corridor
wall. He slumped to the floor, the breath knocked out of him, and darkness
already invading the edges of his vision.
"Tom?. . ." Harry choked out, his throat filling with fluids. He
coughed, spilling the blood down his chin, trying to pull in tiny gasps of
air so he could speak. "Why, Tom?. . . I- I thought. . . It was a
joke?. . . We were friends. . ."
Tom knelt down beside the dying young man who he really didn't know.
Something deep inside tugged at his heart, but the only thing he felt was
a small amount of regret at killing an unarmed man. Harry's dark
chocolate eyes, now glazed over and half closed, gazed unfocused at Tom.
He tipped back his helmet and studied the ensign's face, regarding him
and wrestling with thoughts that were buried just beyond his reach. Words
whispered inside him; Words Tom could never speak, because he wasn't
Tom, he was Bobbie.
"You're quite the fighter. Maybe you'll just survive. .
." Tom said softly, with a hint of compassion. Fuzziness clouded
Harry's mind, and what little focus he had left was used to draw one
more breath. All he saw was Tom, sillouetted against a black background.
He was the only thing that existed in Harry's quickly fading world.
The pain had subsided, and now there was just cold. So cold. . . He
couldn't feel his hands. Were his legs still there?
Suddenly, Tom felt a sharp stinging in his neck, and fell over beside his
lifeless friend. "Ah! What the hell?" He grabbed the side of his
neck, then slowly came to awareness, as if waking from a dream. Noticing
his friend beside him, he sat up and turned to look; And his heart nearly
stopped. "Harry? Oh my God! Harry, buddy! Hold on!" Tom cried,
holding the trembling hand and lowering the limp body to the floor.
Harry turned his eyes slowly to look at his friend. He drew a deep, ragged
breath, flinching from the pain it caused. "Tom. . . I forgive. .
." He whispered, not able to gather enough strength to continue. He
just squeezed Tom's hand in a meager attempt to make him understand,
and grinned reasuringly, a small dimple appearing at the corner of his
blue tinted lips.
"Harry. . ." Tom said, his voice turning to a small whine as
tears formed in his eyes. He leaned closer to the pale ensign, squeezing
his hand back a little harder.
"You have a dimple. . . " With that, Harry's eyes fell
closed, and he released his last breath, like a sigh of exhaustion. Tom
choked back a sob, tears flowing unchecked down his face onto the blood
stained gold uniform of his best friend, whom he had killed. . .
"Harry. . . I'm so, so sorry..." He held on to the lifeless
hand and rocked back and forth, the ruined corridor around them their only
company. Harry may have forgiven him, but there was no way in hell he
could forgive himself.
"Her eyes. . . You were right, Harry..." he whispered, pressing
his lips against the long, cold fingers. "I was wrong. . ."
---
End
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