Kes, who has discovered a latent talent for medicine, is concerned about the crew's treatment of the Doctor and discusses it with the Captain. When Janeway asks him what she can do to help, so the Doctor asks for the power to turn off his program since the crew can't remember to do so. She agrees to make it possible for him to deactivate himself.

The probe sent into the wormhole doesn't get through, but it's scanned by a vessel on the other side in the Alpha Quadrant. Even though the ship is Romulan, Captain Janeway convinces the skeptical captain, Telek, to test a jury-rigged transporter signal to Voyager. When it is realized that Telek came from 20 years in the past, he agrees to relay messages to the crew's loved ones at the appropriate time. Tuvok, after checking computer records, discovers that Telek died four years before he was to send the messages. The crew only hopes that the Romulan government forwarded the messages.