I Was Wrong
By: AgentstarlightNotes: This short piece is unworthy of all the normal jabberish up here, it would take up half the page! The characters are Paramount's, and the storyline, but the small twist of fate is my invention.
Rated PG13, spoilers for Killing Game. 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 slowly was 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 dumb-
founded 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 pinted 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. "Times up!"
"Wait! Her eyes! I'd be staring at her eyes!" Harry shouted, his face flushing 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... 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 ammount 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 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, silouetted 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 cold, slightly 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, who 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 in his hand. "I was wrong..."The End