Hope You Think Of Me

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Star Trek: Voyager

Copyright: Paramount

"When you think 'Tim McGraw',
I hope you think: 'My favourite song,
The one we danced to all night long,
The moon like a spotlight on the lake.'
When you think 'happiness',
I hope you think: 'That little black dress.'
Think of my head on your chest
And my old faded blue jeans.
When you think 'Tim McGraw',
I hope you think of me."
- Taylor Swift, "Tim McGraw"

"I'm scared," says the little boy on the diagnostic bed. "Will this hurt?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it will," says Dr. Denara Pel, swabbing his bare arm with disinfectant. "The way a vaccine works, you see, is by giving the body a taste of the disease so that it learns how to fight back."

"Then I don't want it!" He yanks his arm away and screws up his face, starting to cry.

"But you don't want to catch the Phage, do you?"

"No … no, I don't want to look like you. That's gross."

She has long since grown used to comments like that, especially from the generation born after the cure, so she tries not to let it hurt too much.

"Then you need this. It's going to make you strong."

Denara's glance falls on something white and furry sitting on a shelf, looking rather out of place among her computers and instruments. She smiles, picks it up, and hands it to him.

"What's this?" He pets the toy, his small face lighting up when he feels how soft it is.

"This is Teddy, an old colleague of mine. He went through surgery too, earlier today." She points out a line of stitches she set along the teddy bear's head, reattaching a torn ear back to his head. "He's still a little upset. Give him a hug, won't you? It'll make him feel better."

While the child is preoccupied with the toy, she injects him with the hypospray. He cries out as the vaccine begins to take effect, burning through him like a forest fire, leaving behind both destruction and renewal. He squeezes Teddy as if his life depended on it – which, in a sense, it does.

Another child vaccinated. Another child saved.

She remembers the man who gave her Teddy, many years ago, sitting in an antiquated vehicle called a Chevy and looking up at alien constellations. The man who gave her twenty-two days in a healthy body, taught her to dance and kiss and love, and saved her not just from her disease, but from herself.

"You say before you met me, you were just a disease … well, before I met you, I was just a profession. I don't think I can go back to the way things were, either … Please, Denara … don't die."

If she had died then, there's no denying it would have been easier. She would have been spared many years of hard work, exhaustion and suffering. But would someone else have developed the vaccine without her being part of the research team? Would this boy, and others like him, have survived? On balance, she considers it was worth it.

You see, Shmullus, I'm still alive. Thanks to you. I only wish you could be here to see.

When you see a teddy bear or one of those Chevys, when you hear the songs we danced to or see a woman in a red dress … I hope you think of me.