The girl asks the woman what species she's from and is told that's a "complicated question." Unfortunately, Seven comes in, other ex-Borg kids in tow, and begins berating the girl before realizing that a potentially important communication is underway.

Now securely imprisoned behind a force shield, she recalls a tragic away team mission with Harry. The encounter with the hunting Hirogen. The deadly hit from a neural disrupter. Burial in space -- and awakening on a ship of the Kobali, aliens who look like she does now.

They altered her DNA, made her one of them. That's how they procreate.

She was essentially a prisoner of the aliens, but gained their trust by pretending to comply. Then she made a break for it, stealing a shuttle. She had been chased for the past six months. It was tough.

The Doctor's tests confirm she still bears remnants of her old human DNA. Meanwhile, pending any evidence to the contrary, Janeway accepts her story. "Welcome home," says the captain, deactivating the force field.

Harry asks Janeway and the Doctor to excuse him and the prodigal ensign. Once he and Lyndsay are alone, they hug.

An officers' meeting. Lyndsay is present; she and Harry exchange glances while Janeway welcomes her back to the crew, singling out the courage and determination it takes to return to Voyager after coming back from the dead.

Meeting adjourned, Janeway and Lyndsay are left alone.

"Thank you for saying those nice things about me," says the returned ensign. "You seem surprised," says Janeway.

"To be honest, I never thought you noticed me," says Lyndsay, apparently recalling successful projects for which she'd received grossly inadequate recognition.

"My mistake," says Janeway. They smile.

Later, Harry and Lyndsay chat. Hearing him play music was number 26 on the list she compiled of things she wanted to do upon getting back to Voyager.

Seven, meanwhile, supervises a tightly controlled "recreation" session for the ex-Borg kids. When she moves to punish the twins for telepathic cheating, the angry teen stalks out.

She tells him there's a reason she didn't give up during the past six months. She wanted to see him.

Sick bay. After doing more tests, the Doctor has identified a genetic pathogen in Lyndsay's bloodstream, one that's converted most of her DNA into a Kobali protein structure. He can't make her human again -- she'll always have the "multi-spheric brain and binary cardiovascular system" of a Kobali.

But he can make cosmetic changes, make her look human again.

"I've lived with this face long enough," she says. "Let's do it." She takes a seat, and the Doctor says she may experience some dizziness. Harry, however, provides emotional support, resting his hand on her thigh.

The Doctor gives her an injection, and she is rapidly transformed. She looks in the mirror. She is attractive and human-looking (albeit still bald).

There's an engineering problem to be solved, an alignment matrix error due to a wave phenomenon that's known to the Kobali as a "crumpled dance." Lyndsay solves it quite quickly -- but is embarrassed to realize she spoke Kobali while doing so. Although the incident provokes general discomfort, B'Elanna is surprisingly tactful.

Lyndsay has a private dinner with Janeway, who burns a roast. Over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, the ensign asks why she was selected for that dangerous away team mission that got her killed. Didn’t others have more relevant qualifications? Could it be Janeway favors people she's close to (or at least those who appear regularly on the show)?

Lapsing into Kobali philosophy, Lyndsay gets upset, but also apologetic. She runs out.

And things get strange, surreal, eerie. It is her farewell party, nay, her funeral, and the crew stands around, seemingly wanting her to be dead. A Kobali man is there. He gesticulates, speaks Kobali….

She wakes up. She rings Harry. They sit on the bed together. He is gently reassuring.

"You've always been far too nice to me," she says. "Why is that?"

He tells her he rearranged his classes at the academy to be near her, and let her teach him to ice-skate even though he hated the cold. "I'm crazy about you," he says. "I have been ever since the day we met."

He asks if he may kiss her, and she murmurs her assent, again unwittingly in the Kobali language.

Tuvok has put his offscreen time to good use, devising some 27 or 37 ways to fend off any possible attack from the Kobali.

Meanwhile, oblivious to the Vulcan's labors, the ex-Borg kids try their hand at sculpture. They have been told to do a geometric shape, but the Narkadian girl molds an interesting likeness of Seven instead. To everyone's surprise, Seven does not discipline her young charge.

Harry awakens in the night. Lyndsay is there. "They're coming," she says.

A Kobali man is on screen in the bridge. He has come for his "daughter." He asks for a meeting.

The Voyager crew allows the alien, Kret, on board to see Lyndsay, but Tuvok and others remain on guard. Lyndsay is scornful, doesn’t like being called by her Kobali name.

Kret counters that Lyndsay was dead, her body abandoned and thus suitable for resurrection, a process that usually results in extensive memory loss.

He tells her she's no longer one of "these people" -- humans -- and moreover her Kobali sister misses her. Lyndsay says tell her that her sister's dead. The significant irony is lost on all, and she quickly storms out.

But Kret says he won’t give up so easily -- and next time he won’t come alone.

The mess hall. Harry and Lyndsay talk as she eats Kobali cuisine. He's angry that Kret had the nerve to call her his daughter. As Harry points out, her real father, Prof. Ballard, would have been outraged.

Unfortunately, Lyndsay has no recollection of Prof. Ballard.

They're about to go tamper with Tuvok's holodeck program, just as a joke -- when suddenly she freezes in agony.

Sick bay. The Doctor explains the pathogen is making her look Kobali again. She'll need twice-a-day treatments to prevent such relapses. She's upset, yells in Kobali, then apologizes. She goes to her shuttle to think. Harry follows her, asks her to stop the treatments, says "I thought you were cute bald."

But she knows the problems are much deeper. She'd never felt quite right back on Voyager and now she knows why. She has changed. "The girl you were in love with died three years ago," she says.

Several Kobali ships attack. They are small, fast. "Surrender me," says Lyndsay, to Janeway. The Captain says she appreciates the gesture but no. Lyndsay says it's no gesture, but her true desire.

Harry wants to have the Voyager fire a polaron burst to annihilate the Kobari ships. He doesn't want to lose Lyndsay, he says with desperation. But she tells him he already has. At least this time they can say goodbye.

The battle stops. The Doctor's treatments stop. Bald and bluish, she is ready to depart. She meets Harry in the transporter room. He has learned a few Kobali words so he can express his feelings. She gently translates his words, "The comets are tiresome."

He says he's sorry she didn't get to do everything on her list. She says she did what really matters. There is a caress, a kiss.

Harry, at the console, beams her to a waiting Kobali ship. He gazes downward.