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As the Doctor takes holo-images of
the crew, he finds evidence of neurosurgery he performed 18
months ago on Kim. However, he doesn't remember it. The Doctor
asks Seven of Nine to help him run a self-diagnostic, but later
he doesn't recall their conversation. Someone has ordered a
deletion in his short-term memory buffer, and holo-images he
took around the time of the surgery have been deleted. When
Seven restores them, a female ensign they don't recognize is
pictured with others in the crew, and one picture is of an alien
on their shuttle. Once
Seven restores some of his memories, the Doctor recalls pieces
of events from the pictures. When he remembers the alien boarded
their shuttle and shot Kim and Ensign Jetal, he immediately
tells Janeway. She agrees to investigate but tells the Doctor to
deactivate his program for the time being. Before he does, he
orders the computer to take holo-images of anyone who accesses
his files while he is off-line and then reactivate him. Shortly,
someone comes into sickbay to delete more files. When the Doctor
develops the holo-images taken, it is Janeway.
The Doctor confronts Janeway, who tells him that he was damaged
during the incident with the alien. It caused a conflict in his
program, so she was forced to restrict his access to memories of
that period. The Captain refuses to tell him what happened, and
now that he is starting to remember, she plans to rewrite his
program. After Seven challenges her decision and she has had
some time to think about it, Janeway agrees to restore his
memories.
Scenes from the pictures come to life. The Doctor, Kim and Jetal
were on a shuttle mission when an alien ship attacked. Their
shuttle was boarded, and the alien shot Kim and Jetal. Once
Voyager beamed them to sickbay, the Doctor discovered the
alien's energy pulse had remained in their neural membranes, and
the only way to save them was to isolate the spinal cord from
the brain. There was only time to perform one procedure, and the
Doctor chose Kim.
After Jetal's funeral, the Doctor began having a breakdown. Now
that he has remembered everything, he begins agonizing over the
same question of how he could choose one life over another.
There is a battle going on between his original programming and
what he has become. The crew keeps vigil with him, hoping that
eventually he will forgive himself and learn to accept his
decision.
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