Chemistry's Bitch

B'ELANNA: He's looking for you. The Doctor, I ran into him in the corridor. He's about thirty seconds away from calling a ship-wide alert. SEVEN: Are you going to tell him where I am? B'ELANNA: No. I know what it's like to be stuck in Sickbay. I've escaped the Doctor myself once or twice. SEVEN: Thank you. B'ELANNA: Any time. SEVEN: Lieutenant. When you die, do you believe your spirit will go to Sto-Vo-Kor? B'ELANNA: You shouldn't be thinking about dying. SEVEN: According to the Doctor's simulations, any attempt to adapt the salvaged node will fail. Sto-Vo-Kor, Lieutenant. Do you believe you'll go there? B'ELANNA: I guess it all depends on how honorable my death is. SEVEN: But you do believe there's something after death? B'ELANNA: I hope so. What about you? SEVEN: The Borg have no concept of an afterlife. However, when a drone is deactivated, its memories continue to reside in the Collective's consciousness. As long as the hive exists, so will a part of that drone. B'ELANNA: You don't seem to take much comfort in that. SEVEN: My link to the Collective has been severed for nearly four years. If I die, everything that I have accomplished in that time, everything I achieved as an individual, will be lost. My memories, my experiences. It will be as if they, as if I never existed. B'ELANNA: I think you're a little more memorable than you're giving yourself credit for. You don't need the Collective to validate your existence. You've made an impact on every member of this crew. That's your legacy. (The EMH enters main Engineering and looks up.) EMH: There you are. I should have known she'd be the one to harbor a fugitive. B'ELANNA: We difficult patients need to stick together. EMH: I want you to return to Sickbay immediately. SEVEN: Have you devised a new treatment? EMH: Not yet. SEVEN: Then it's best that I don't distract you from finding one. EMH: Seven, if you continue to exert yourself, your condition will only deteriorate more rapidly. Is that what you want? SEVEN: What I want is to be useful. B'ELANNA: I really could use her help. I promise not to let her overdo it. EMH: You can stay, provided you wear this cortical monitor. (He throws it up to Seven, who catches it. The EMH leaves.) SEVEN: Thank you. (Seven puts on the monitor and returns to her work.)