Prologue: The Place Where He Stood
The stars outside the viewport never changed.
Harry Kim had come to rely on that.
No matter what Voyager went through—damage, loss, impossible situations that should have ended them all—the stars remained exactly where they were. Silent. Distant. Unmoved.
They didn’t remember anything.
They didn’t care what had been lost.
Astrometrics was nearly empty.
A soft rotation of stellar data moved across the central display, casting slow, shifting light across the room. The hum of Voyager’s systems filled the quiet—steady, familiar, grounding.
Harry stood at the main console.
Hands resting lightly against the surface.
Still.
He wasn’t working.
He hadn’t been for a while.
He didn’t need to check the time.
He already knew.
One year.
The thought didn’t come with emotion at first.
Just a fact.
A marker his mind had held onto, even when he tried not to.
Harry let out a slow breath, eyes fixed on the stars ahead.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said quietly.
It sounded convincing.
It wasn’t.
He reached forward, adjusting a minor variance in the scan data. The correction was precise. Automatic. The kind of thing he could do without thinking.
That was most of his life now.
Routine.
Structure.
Control.
Because if he stopped—
If he let himself think about it—
Harry’s hand stilled against the console.
Two Voyagers.
Identical in every way that mattered.
Crew.
Systems.
Memories.
Two ships that had lived the same life…
Right up until they didn’t.
One survived.
Harry’s gaze dropped slightly.
This one.
The other—
Didn’t.
He closed his eyes briefly.
Not to remember.
Just to steady himself.
On this ship…
Harry Kim had died.
Not metaphorically.
Not as a possibility.
Not as a theory.
There had been another him.
Same thoughts.
Same memories.
Same life—right up until the moment everything went wrong.
And that Harry—
Had been pulled into space.
Harry’s jaw tightened.
He didn’t remember it.
Couldn’t.
Because that wasn’t him.
He had come from the other ship.
The one that had been breaking apart.
The one that had seconds left.
He remembered that.
The failing systems.
The damage spreading faster than it could be contained.
The certainty that they weren’t going to make it.
He remembered the decision.
Not heroic.
Not calculated.
Just…
Necessary.
Get the child to the other ship.
Make sure something survived.
And then—
He had stepped into a place that had already lost him.
Harry opened his eyes.
The stars were still there.
Unchanged.
His reflection stared back faintly from the edge of the viewport.
Same uniform.
Same face.
Same—
He looked away.
There had been others.
That was the part no one talked about.
Other crew members.
Other names.
People who had stood beside him on duty shifts, shared conversations, lived entire days he could still picture if he let himself.
Gone.
No one had crossed over for them.
No one had made it through at the last second.
Just him.
Him…
And a newborn child who had never taken a breath on the ship that was lost.
Harry let out a quiet breath, almost a laugh—but not quite.
“Two,” he murmured.
Out of an entire crew.
Out of an entire ship.
Two.
His hand tightened slightly against the console.
Why me?
The question surfaced before he could stop it.
It always did.
Not because he thought he deserved it.
Because he didn’t understand it.
He hadn’t been chosen.
There hadn’t been time for that.
No debate.
No decision.
He had just been there.
Alive.
Able.
Close enough to act.
And now—
He was standing in a life that belonged to someone else.
No one treated him differently.
Not Captain Janeway.
Not Tom.
Not B’Elanna.
Not even Samantha Wildman.
There had been looks, at first.
Careful ones.
Measured.
Like people weren’t sure what they were supposed to say.
But Voyager didn’t stop.
It never did.
Repairs were made.
Courses were plotted.
Shifts were assigned.
And Harry Kim reported for duty.
Because as far as everyone else was concerned…
He was still Harry Kim.
Harry stared at the console, but he wasn’t seeing it anymore.
One year.
And he hadn’t said a word.
Not about the other Harry.
Not about the ones who didn’t make it.
Not about the fact that somewhere—on this very ship—
His life had already ended.
“I know,” he whispered.
The words felt heavier than they should have.
Not a memory.
Not a wound.
Just knowledge.
Cold.
Certain.
Unavoidable.
The stars outside burned silently in the distance.
Unchanged.
Indifferent.
And inside Astrometrics…
Harry Kim stood in the place where someone else had died—
And for the first time in a year—
He couldn’t ignore it anymore.
